After seeing what Android 2.3 brought to the table, even the very impressed likely began looking to future releases to satisfy their hunger for new features and refreshed UIs. According to a rumor, the next version of the Android OS, which was expected to be version 3.0 (codename “Honeycomb”), may actually be version 2.4. Who cares, right? Well, whatever Honeycomb ends up being called, the real story here is that it may debut at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February.
After getting a glimpse of the new OS on the Motorola tablet a short time ago, the blogosphere is abuzz with speculation about Honeycomb. While we know that the next version will eventually hit smartphones, the newest version of Android will be optimized for tablets, and likely will debut on one as well. The very little we did see from Honeycomb definitely looks like a big departure than what we’re used to seeing from Android. We know that it won’t require physical buttons, and what we’re really interested in is the new UI, something we were expecting in Gingerbread.
If the next version of Android won’t debut until February, then we likely won’t see too many Honeycomb tablets until at least March 2011 next year. Most of these tablets will be shipping with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 to ensure a great experience that no single core CPU could take on gracefully, which makes us think that the whole UI overhaul that was expected in Gingerbread may have been bumped to Honeycomb for timing purposes. But, really that’s all speculation.
So, will we be seeing Honeycomb this February, and will it be coming with the “2.4” tag at the end of it? We’re really going to have to wait on that one, but I can’t really imagine Honeycomb breaking cover with anything less than a “3.0” version number. With such a big departure from what we’ve seen before, Ice Cream better blow our minds in ways we never would have thought.
The question is, if Honeycomb is Android 2.4, will you care? Or will the new features and UI overhaul be enough to satisfy your hunger for all things Android?
[Via: AndroidAndMe]