14 DAY TRIAL // Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the OS version that Google released for tablet PCs, has got a full SDK available for download for developers interested in coming up with applications for it. Google announced via a post on the Android Developers blog that the APIs in this SDK are final, now brought up to level 11.
“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,” Google notes.
The Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system was built from the ground up to fit the needs of devices with larger screens, such as tablet PCs would be.
Thus, it comes with a new UI when compared to the Android flavors aimed at smartphones, with elements like System Bar, for global status and notifications, Action Bar, for application control, Customizable Home screens, Redesigned keyboard, and more.
The standard applications included with the platform were updated as well, including the browser, camera and gallery, contacts, or email.
The final flavor of the Android 3.0 SDK does not come alone, as other tools related to it were updated too, namely the SDK Tools (r10) and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (10.0.0).
Some of the main changes would 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.
More info on the Android 3.0 Honeycomb platform, as well as on the new SDK, or on the aforementioned SDK Tools, and the ADT Plugin, are available on the Android Developers website.
Download the Android SDK for Windows. Download the Android SDK for Mac. Download the Android SDK for Linux.