Preview into Android 3.0 SDK

Google which gave a sneak peek into the tablet-friendly Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” earlier this month in CES 2011, has now laid out some of the main highlights of the forthcoming Android 3.0 SDK along with a short preview for developers to start testing their existing applications on bigger screens.

Some of the highlights are:

• UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Android 3.0 comes with a new holographic UI Theme. Therefore developers can use the new UI components, themes, richer widgets and notifications etc. It also features drag and drop, and other new features which app developers can make use of, to create rich and engaging apps for users on the tablet form factor.
• High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework allows app developers to add amazing visual effects to their applications. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. Developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript for adding rich 3D scenes.
• Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 has been optimized to run on either single or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.
• Rich multimedia: Android 3.0 comes with new multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, giving developers a new way to bring rich content to users.
• New types of connectivity: Android 3.0 offers new APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP allowing applications to offer audio streaming and headset control. Applications can also connect to UI less devices thanks to the added support for Bluetooth insecure socket connections.
• Enhancements for enterprise: The new administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration integrated in Android 3.0, helps enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.

For a complete list of the new and improved features of Android 3.0, do check out Android 3.0 feature highlights. To get started with developing/testing applications in this SDK, developers can head over to Preview SDK Introduction and additional details about the changes in the latest versions of the tools can be found using SDK Tools, ADT Plugin, and NDK pages on Google Android Developer website.

The final SDK will be released in couple of weeks after which developers can build and publish Android 3.0 applications to Android Market.