Author: Mehdi Rais, M.D.
I previously highlighted the upcoming Android release of the Honeycomb platform (version 3.0). Android's latest rendition is primarily aimed to work on larger screens such as tablets. Google has promised big changes to the UI design, a more robust multitasking engine, more widgets, and greater capabilities in customization. Yesterday, the Android developer team released some early screen shots of things to come. Here are a few of my favorite updates to the platform.
UI Overhaul
The Android Developer team has long sought to make the user experience more intuitive with less effort. To do this, they have drastically made changes to the core UI design. In all applications at the bottom of the screen, the user will have quick access to system status notifications and a soft navigation button in the system bar. At the top of the screen in every application, an action bar will have contextual options, navigation, widgets, and alternate content in an action bar.
Home is where the hearts are
One of the complaints of Android’s current platform (version 2.2) is a single home screen, which leaves the user with a very restrictive experience due to the limited number of readily available functions; the user is required to navigate through multiple menus and screens to reach a desired function. While this seems to work fine on a smaller device such as a cellular phone, the tablet does not seem to not take full advantage of the additional screen space and hardware capabilities.
To remedy this, the user will have five customizable home screens in Honeycomb. Furthermore, the user can spatially arrange widgets, app shortcuts, web pages, search boxes, and wallpaper to their own desire. These home screens will dynamically change according to the orientation of the device.
Multitasking Wiz
The system bar has a nice added feature coined the Recent App List. The user can access recently opened or closed apps and jump to them quickly and painlessly.
Redesigned keyboard and text function
- Keys were redesigned and positioned to make for a more intuitive and accurate experience.
- New keys were added to increase efficiency of input (i.e. Tab key.)
- Users can toggle between a text and voice input mode. Not much more information was given by the Android developer team, but I am highly interested in seeing this demonstrated.
- Android promises a better copy and paste experience. Users can press and hold a word then adjust the selection by dragging floating arrow boundaries around the desired text; the selected text can then be copy and pasted within the text box, sent to the clip board, or pasted to a web or local search.
These early previews are very compelling. I can’t say for certain if this experience will be as fluid and dynamic as the iPad experience, but I can say the folks at Android are definitely pointed in the right direction.
About the author:
Mehdi Rais is a physician, medical lecturer, medical writer, and self-proclaimed “tech nerd.” When Dr. Rais isn’t honing in on his trades, he spends his time scouring publications and the web for the latest trends in technology in the medical field, new applications in Health Information Technology, and emerging legislative & regulatory changes in medicine.
Dr. Rais' interests are greatly focused in the realm of mobile computing and the use of cell phone technologies in the clinical setting. He received his Medical Doctorate from St. Christopher’s College of Medicine after spending his undergraduate years at the University of Texas at Dallas.
