Final Android 3.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

We are pleased to announce that the full SDK for Android 3.0 is now available to developers. The APIs are final, and you can now develop apps targeting this new platform and publish them to Android Market. The new API level is 11.


For an overview of the new user and developer features, see the Android 3.0 Platform Highlights.


Together with the new platform, we are releasing updates to our SDK Tools (r10) and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (10.0.0). Key features include:


UI Builder improvements in the ADT Plugin:
New Palette with categories and rendering previews. (details)
More accurate rendering of layouts to more faithfully reflect how the layout will look on devices, including rendering status and title bars to more accurately reflect screen space actually available to applications.
Selection-sensitive action bars to manipulate View properties.
Zoom improvements (fit to view, persistent scale, keyboard access) (details).
Improved support for <merge> layouts, as well as layouts with gesture overlays.
Traceview integration for easier profiling from ADT. (details)
Tools for using the Renderscript graphics engine: the SDK tools now compiles .rs files into Java Programming Language files and native bytecode.

via : Android Developer

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Aplication Stats on Android Market

On the Android Market team, it’s been our goal to bring you improved ways of seeing and understanding the installation performance of your published applications. We know that this information is critical in helping you tune your development and marketing efforts. Today I’m pleased to let you know about an important new feature that we’ve added to Android Market called Application Statistics.

Application Statistics is a new type of dashboard in the Market Developer Console that gives you an overview of the installation performance of your apps. It provides charts and tables that summarize each app’s active installation trend over time, as well as its distribution across key dimensions such as Android platform versions, devices, user countries, and user languages. For additional context, the dashboard also shows the comparable aggregate distribution for all app installs from Android Market (numbering in the billions). You could use this data to observe how your app performs relative to the rest of Market or decide what to develop next                                                .

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Android 2.4 "Ice Cream" Rumored to be Coming This Summer

The Android rumor mills never do stop churning. Mere moments after the confirmation of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and the showcasing of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb, a new fork of the OS for tablets), we’ve learned that Android 2.4 might be coming as soon as this summer.

The newest iteration of Google’s blockbuster mobile OS is supposedly called “Ice Cream,” according to Android’s flavorful and alphabetical naming convention.

The Ice Cream name has been floating around for a few months now; however, there’s been confusion as to the version number.

However, Pocket Lint reports that it saw a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc running the new OS on the CES show floor in Las Vegas last week. Although none of the blog’s sources would go on the record, the summer release date lines up nicely with what we already know and expect of Google’s Android timeline.

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Android 3.0 SDK Now Available to All Developers

The full software development kit for Android 3.0 a.k.a Honeycomb, the branch of Android tailored for tablets and other large-screen devices, is now available to developers.

The APIs are final, and the developers are free to create apps targeting Honeycomb and publish them on the Android Market.

The SDK comes just in time as one of the first Android 3.0-sporting tablets, the Motorola Xoom, hits stores tomorrow. It may not have Flash just yet, but at least users will be able to enjoy some new, Android 3.0-specific apps on their shiny new tablet.

You can learn about the new features in Honeycomb here.

[via Android Developers]

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Is Android 3.0 The Answer to Google TV's Problems, or Is It Already Too Late ?

It was clear from the day Google TV was revealed that the search giant had huge ambitions to bring the web to living room screens across the world. Google stood to make billions of dollars through both its partners and through TV advertising (a fulfillment of the Google Revenue Equation). You can’t say Google doesn’t dream big with its products.

At the time of its launch, we praised Google for its attempt to reshape the future of TV, but warned that it had to get things right the first time to succeed.

Here’s what we said in May:

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Facebook 1.5 For Android Bring chat and Push Notifications

Facebook has updated its Android app to version 1.5, with two very important new features: chat, which also has a background mode, meaning you can receive messages while using other apps, and push notifications, which are only supported for devices running Android 2.2 or greater.

Although this makes the app far more complete and (finally) up to par with Facebook for iPhone, Android users still have a lot to be grumpy about, as the push notifications only refer to chat, not other events such as comments and likes.

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Froyo is The Most Popular Android Variant

Android 2.2 is now the dominat version of Google's operating system on mobile devices, towering over older and newer variants of the OS with a 61.3% market share, according to latest data released by Android Developers.

Although the pie chart shows more Android versions than ever before (due to the arrival of tablet-specific Android 3.0 or Honeycomb), Android as an OS has rarely been less fragmented than now.

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