Google's first Honeycomb Android tablet, SDK debut

Google's much anticipated Android 3.0 software development kit was made available yesterday and the first tablet based upon it is is due to ship on Thursday Feb 24, the company announced.

Android 3.0, also dubbed Honeycomb and previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, is targeted at tablets.

Google super developer Tim Bray posted an update on the Honeycomb release today, noting that this version of Android differs from the phone version in two ways.

"The new environment is different from what we’re used to in two respects. First, you can hold the devices with any of the four sides up and Honeycomb manages the rotation properly. In previous versions, often only two of the four orientations were supported, and there are apps out there that relied on this in ways that will break them on Honeycomb. If you want to stay out of rotation trouble, One Screen Turn Deserves Another covers the issues," Bray wrote.

"The second big difference doesn’t have anything to do with software; it’s that a lot of people are going to hold these things horizontal (in “landscape mode”) nearly all the time. We’ve seen a few apps that have a buggy assumption that they’re starting out in portrait mode, and others that lock certain screens into portrait or landscape but really shouldn’t."