[HONEYCOMB] Spacemoose needs your help!

Spacemoose sadly bricked his Galaxy Tab today while he was working on our beloved Honeycomb port... he was making quite some progress -> Check out his work here on XDA
Please donate a little to cover potential repair costs, or.. simply to cheer him up a little by buying him a beer :) Push the donation button right under his nickname on XDA... That would be awesome! Even if it's just 5$
Every cent counts :) Show him, that his work is appreciated!

Spacemoose sadly bricked his Galaxy Tab today while he was working on our beloved Honeycomb port... he was making quite some progress -> Check out his work here on XDA
Please donate a little to cover potential repair costs, or.. simply to cheer him up a little by buying him a beer :) Push the donation button right under his nickname on XDA... That would be awesome! Even if it's just 5$
Every cent counts :) Show him, that his work is appreciated!

[HONEYCOMB] Spacemoose needs your help!

[PREDICTIONS] What will come up next in the Google System? Part 1

You all know the drill... I have no special insider information about what's happening at Google, I just try to put all puzzle-pieces together and that's why my assumptions can be right or... complete bullpoo.

My predictions for the Google IO were quite... satisfying. There are still some open points that were not covered at the IO but are highly likely to happen.

First of all..
Chrome Store for GoogleTV

Hey, this beast is running chrome? What would you expect? I bet my ass they will introduce the web-store as soon as they update Google TV to Honeycomb in Summer 2011. Sadly, I'm almost sure, that they will just announce the Store instead of launching it. They need more Web-App devs who have their Web-Apps ready/optimized for the TV-Screen. The Web-Apps and extensions have to deal with a few things that you won't encounter in regular Chrome... For example the "overscan" etc... The other thing is, that they might want to ensure, that developers can test their Webapps/extensions right on the hardware, that's the reason why they wait for the update to Honeycomb in summer.

Chrome Store will get a separate Market or Category for GoogleTV Webapps

That's a no-brainer... otherwise people will just complain about the fact that the Apps are unusable (too small font-sizes, layout problems, navigation issues) or broken if they are not marked as "GoogleTV compatible"

The WebApps will have to ensure that they follow the standard-Guidelines for GoogleTV optimization
-> http://code.google.com/tv/web/docs/design_for_tv.html

Andrew Rabon also pointed out that there was a screenshot out in the wild, showing a new icon, presumably the web-store, on GoogleTV, so I'd say that it is fact that this will happen...

Blogger will get it's redesign

Yeah we all noticed the outage of the Blogger service lately... I guess that was the first attempt to roll out the new design, but who knows.. I guess they postponed the release until the next scheduled update... Might take days or weeks... Who knows. It will happen soon :)

+1 button and Chrome-extension rollout

As mentioned during the Google I/O it will happen soon. I guess it will be End of this month or mid-june.

Google Docs, GMail, Google Calendar offline versions

Will happen in the next few weeks, not much information about that yet...

Google Music invites

Will probably start to roll out end of this month.

You all know the drill... I have no special insider information about what's happening at Google, I just try to put all puzzle-pieces together and that's why my assumptions can be right or... complete bullpoo.

My predictions for the Google IO were quite... satisfying. There are still some open points that were not covered at the IO but are highly likely to happen.

First of all..
Chrome Store for GoogleTV

Hey, this beast is running chrome? What would you expect? I bet my ass they will introduce the web-store as soon as they update Google TV to Honeycomb in Summer 2011. Sadly, I'm almost sure, that they will just announce the Store instead of launching it. They need more Web-App devs who have their Web-Apps ready/optimized for the TV-Screen. The Web-Apps and extensions have to deal with a few things that you won't encounter in regular Chrome... For example the "overscan" etc... The other thing is, that they might want to ensure, that developers can test their Webapps/extensions right on the hardware, that's the reason why they wait for the update to Honeycomb in summer.

Chrome Store will get a separate Market or Category for GoogleTV Webapps

That's a no-brainer... otherwise people will just complain about the fact that the Apps are unusable (too small font-sizes, layout problems, navigation issues) or broken if they are not marked as "GoogleTV compatible"

The WebApps will have to ensure that they follow the standard-Guidelines for GoogleTV optimization
-> http://code.google.com/tv/web/docs/design_for_tv.html

Andrew Rabon also pointed out that there was a screenshot out in the wild, showing a new icon, presumably the web-store, on GoogleTV, so I'd say that it is fact that this will happen...

Blogger will get it's redesign

Yeah we all noticed the outage of the Blogger service lately... I guess that was the first attempt to roll out the new design, but who knows.. I guess they postponed the release until the next scheduled update... Might take days or weeks... Who knows. It will happen soon :)

+1 button and Chrome-extension rollout

As mentioned during the Google I/O it will happen soon. I guess it will be End of this month or mid-june.

Google Docs, GMail, Google Calendar offline versions

Will happen in the next few weeks, not much information about that yet...

Google Music invites

Will probably start to roll out end of this month.

[PREDICTIONS] What will come up next in the Google System? Part 1

Thoughts about Honeycomb and the new course of Google

We all are pissed. Yeah, we are. No Honeycomb source in the foreseeable future.
This is hard to swallow. It is even harder because it was confirmed by Andy Rubin himself (and later by Jean-Baptiste Queru on Twitter, one of the leading Android devs at Google, responsible for AOSP)

Google doesn't make honeycomb open source for one simple reason:
So china-tablets can't ruin the reputation of Android tablets in general.

Just remember what happened last year: A sheer overwhelming amount of easily affordable but cheaply built and low performing Android tablets flooded the market. While the tech-blogger community posted one hands-on video after another, looking for an "iPad-killer", the tech world was almost certain that Android would never succeed as a tablet-OS. But this wasn't Google's fault. Android's full code is and was back then freely available for everyone, so if you built a bad product, everyone just saw "the Android OS" as a failure, not that you built a bad product.
Android's reputation took severe damage during this time and Google had to react.

They had to find a way to keep Android open but also repair the damage that has been done to the Android Ecosystem. So they came up with Honeycomb, specifically designed for tablets, but only made open to a small circle of companies that had to apply for access to the Honeycomb code.

It is like Google would say: "Only tablets running honeycomb are original Android experience tablets." It is a quality seal.

Google chose that path to get better reputation on the tablet market and to gain share against the Apple iPad and BlackBerry's playbook. They knew they would piss a lot of people off by doing so and that they would be criticized for their (temporary) course.

The official reasons for the closed Source are quite stupid, but most people swallowed them (also some certain tech-bloggers I don't want to name here)

It sucks for the development community. It really does. But what would be the alternative?

If you are a software engineer and want to build an application specifically designed for tablets, you have to evaluate if the effort/revenue ratio pays off. Building for tablets means additional effort, so you are looking for a stable, well maintained platform that shows continuous growth. The platform has to be "mainstream compatible" to show significant revenue, what means especially, that it is (relatively) frustration-free.

A big point is the hardware that the platform will be running on. So Google had to gain trust of the hardware manufacturers first. They did that by making an exclusive deal with Motorola for building the XOOM. It should be the flagship... a good visible invitation for other major companies to hop on board. And this strategy was a success. We're seeing a lot of high quality, powerful Honeycomb tablets surfacing on the market and this is just the beginning.

The new course, as controversial as it might be, doesn't change much for the Open source spirit of Android if you take a closer look. They fulfill the GPL by open-sourcing all the GPL bits (you can find them in AOSP right now) but this is less than 10% of the original Honeycomb code.
It is kind of disappointing for us, the dev. community, that some devices which should in fact deserve a working Honeycomb port like: The nook color, The Adam Ink our belover Galaxy Tab, the GTab and others, won't get a clean build so soon.

Honeycomb might or might not ever be fully released into AOSP, but they  will definitely (that IS confirmed) fully publish every single bit of Ice Cream Sandwich in Q4 this year (which also contains all of Honeycomb merged into this release)

Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0 is a merge of all platforms and releases that are now in separate branches:

• Google TV (Android 2.x with full Chrome Browser)
• Honeycomb (Android 3.x especially built for tablets but lacks some smartphone functionality/optimization)
• Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x including NFC capability and ADK thingy-stuff)

And I dare to speculate that Ice-Cream Sandwich will be also containing the infamous new big thing called "Android@home"/Project Tungsten. A platform making it possible for Android to function as a hub for all kind of appliances and also as home-automation system.

Merging the platforms has some practical reasons. 3 different source-trees are hard to maintain. Every major change has to be merged into each branch and maintaining intercompatibility becomes more and more difficult over time. This might be what you can refer to as fragmentation.

[And dear Captain Crunch: Different user interfaces do not mean fragmentation, it means freedom of choice, that is something GOOD. Like if I want to have several ways of commenting on a blogpost, instead of being forced to use facebook for authentication.]

I know it is a terribly long wait, but it will be worth it. 
In the end it will pay off for us, because if the manufacturers and customers all over the world gain trust in the Android Platform as a good, solid, well supported (and most important an open) OS for Tablets and other devices, the dev. community gains strength and support too.

Furthermore the open spirit of the Android platform gains more momentum by better acceptance among the users and major hardware developers worldwide.

So, even if it might seem like a punch in the balls for us Galaxy Tab owners, we will profit from it later on.
I know this is hard to understand and you can be damn sure that I was raging when I heard that Andy Rubin himself said that Honeycomb will remain (to large amounts) closed source until further notice, but... what the hell. I'll donate all the money I can give to developers like XDA's Spacemoose [link] that work on inofficial Honeycomb ports, based on the SDK's Google has published and enjoy a great, unofficial Honeycomb SDK port until those Mountain View people release the next big thing. And it will be all open and awesome.

If you haven't seen the keynote yet, head over to youtube and watch it today.

As a little apology for their unfriendly decision to let us wait for so long, Google is working on an agreement with the hardware-manufacturers to guarantee 18 months of updates to the latest version of Android (if the hardware supports it, of course). And stop hyperventilating, because every single time some stupid techblog vomited something about minimum hardware-requirements, it was just made-up bullpoo.

So support spacemoose [link] and Dip7 [link] with all the spare change you can give.. We can build something awesome too, with or without the support of Google.
They have their reasons to temporarily close the development.

But WE are the community and WE will get our Honeycomb, it is just a matter of hard work, time and brainpower.

We will succeed. :D

spacemoose's Honeycomb CDMA port for Samsung Galaxy Tab -> here
Dip7's Honeycomb GSM port for Samsung Galaxy Tab -> here

We all are pissed. Yeah, we are. No Honeycomb source in the foreseeable future.
This is hard to swallow. It is even harder because it was confirmed by Andy Rubin himself (and later by Jean-Baptiste Queru on Twitter, one of the leading Android devs at Google, responsible for AOSP)

Google doesn't make honeycomb open source for one simple reason:
So china-tablets can't ruin the reputation of Android tablets in general.

Just remember what happened last year: A sheer overwhelming amount of easily affordable but cheaply built and low performing Android tablets flooded the market. While the tech-blogger community posted one hands-on video after another, looking for an "iPad-killer", the tech world was almost certain that Android would never succeed as a tablet-OS. But this wasn't Google's fault. Android's full code is and was back then freely available for everyone, so if you built a bad product, everyone just saw "the Android OS" as a failure, not that you built a bad product.
Android's reputation took severe damage during this time and Google had to react.

They had to find a way to keep Android open but also repair the damage that has been done to the Android Ecosystem. So they came up with Honeycomb, specifically designed for tablets, but only made open to a small circle of companies that had to apply for access to the Honeycomb code.

It is like Google would say: "Only tablets running honeycomb are original Android experience tablets." It is a quality seal.

Google chose that path to get better reputation on the tablet market and to gain share against the Apple iPad and BlackBerry's playbook. They knew they would piss a lot of people off by doing so and that they would be criticized for their (temporary) course.

The official reasons for the closed Source are quite stupid, but most people swallowed them (also some certain tech-bloggers I don't want to name here)

It sucks for the development community. It really does. But what would be the alternative?

If you are a software engineer and want to build an application specifically designed for tablets, you have to evaluate if the effort/revenue ratio pays off. Building for tablets means additional effort, so you are looking for a stable, well maintained platform that shows continuous growth. The platform has to be "mainstream compatible" to show significant revenue, what means especially, that it is (relatively) frustration-free.

A big point is the hardware that the platform will be running on. So Google had to gain trust of the hardware manufacturers first. They did that by making an exclusive deal with Motorola for building the XOOM. It should be the flagship... a good visible invitation for other major companies to hop on board. And this strategy was a success. We're seeing a lot of high quality, powerful Honeycomb tablets surfacing on the market and this is just the beginning.

The new course, as controversial as it might be, doesn't change much for the Open source spirit of Android if you take a closer look. They fulfill the GPL by open-sourcing all the GPL bits (you can find them in AOSP right now) but this is less than 10% of the original Honeycomb code.
It is kind of disappointing for us, the dev. community, that some devices which should in fact deserve a working Honeycomb port like: The nook color, The Adam Ink our belover Galaxy Tab, the GTab and others, won't get a clean build so soon.

Honeycomb might or might not ever be fully released into AOSP, but they  will definitely (that IS confirmed) fully publish every single bit of Ice Cream Sandwich in Q4 this year (which also contains all of Honeycomb merged into this release)

Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0 is a merge of all platforms and releases that are now in separate branches:

• Google TV (Android 2.x with full Chrome Browser)
• Honeycomb (Android 3.x especially built for tablets but lacks some smartphone functionality/optimization)
• Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x including NFC capability and ADK thingy-stuff)

And I dare to speculate that Ice-Cream Sandwich will be also containing the infamous new big thing called "Android@home"/Project Tungsten. A platform making it possible for Android to function as a hub for all kind of appliances and also as home-automation system.

Merging the platforms has some practical reasons. 3 different source-trees are hard to maintain. Every major change has to be merged into each branch and maintaining intercompatibility becomes more and more difficult over time. This might be what you can refer to as fragmentation.

[And dear Captain Crunch: Different user interfaces do not mean fragmentation, it means freedom of choice, that is something GOOD. Like if I want to have several ways of commenting on a blogpost, instead of being forced to use facebook for authentication.]

I know it is a terribly long wait, but it will be worth it. 
In the end it will pay off for us, because if the manufacturers and customers all over the world gain trust in the Android Platform as a good, solid, well supported (and most important an open) OS for Tablets and other devices, the dev. community gains strength and support too.

Furthermore the open spirit of the Android platform gains more momentum by better acceptance among the users and major hardware developers worldwide.

So, even if it might seem like a punch in the balls for us Galaxy Tab owners, we will profit from it later on.
I know this is hard to understand and you can be damn sure that I was raging when I heard that Andy Rubin himself said that Honeycomb will remain (to large amounts) closed source until further notice, but... what the hell. I'll donate all the money I can give to developers like XDA's Spacemoose [link] that work on inofficial Honeycomb ports, based on the SDK's Google has published and enjoy a great, unofficial Honeycomb SDK port until those Mountain View people release the next big thing. And it will be all open and awesome.

If you haven't seen the keynote yet, head over to youtube and watch it today.

As a little apology for their unfriendly decision to let us wait for so long, Google is working on an agreement with the hardware-manufacturers to guarantee 18 months of updates to the latest version of Android (if the hardware supports it, of course). And stop hyperventilating, because every single time some stupid techblog vomited something about minimum hardware-requirements, it was just made-up bullpoo.

So support spacemoose [link] and Dip7 [link] with all the spare change you can give.. We can build something awesome too, with or without the support of Google.
They have their reasons to temporarily close the development.

But WE are the community and WE will get our Honeycomb, it is just a matter of hard work, time and brainpower.

We will succeed. :D

spacemoose's Honeycomb CDMA port for Samsung Galaxy Tab -> here
Dip7's Honeycomb GSM port for Samsung Galaxy Tab -> here

Thoughts about Honeycomb and the new course of Google

What might or might not happen at Google IO 2011.

This won't be a very exciting post.. I'll just point out what might happen on the 10th/11th of May 2011 based on rumors, sorcery, voodoo, chicken bones and the official available information.

It might be vague but it is for sure better than Siegler's techcrunch troll-diarrhea.

Android:

Yeah there will happen a ton of stuff on the IO. First of all, they will push the Honeycomb source into AOSP. It will happen, because it is simply overdue! They already pushed quite a bit of the GPL parts to the source-tree, but vital things are still missing... Like the launcher, the browser etc.
Probably they will also announce/preview Honeycomb 3.1, which contains tons of bugfixes and a few new features, but it is also possible, that they'll drop the 3.1 Source directly on github, because they want to comfort the raging open source community (including me).

The Google TV code might or might not be released. At least they will introduce the SDK for Google TV. That will happen for sure. Why? because in Room 11, there will be a Session called "Building Android Apps for Google TV" at the IO. This also means, that all Google TV devices will gain Market access pretty soon (I guess they will start a rollout for updates at the IO).

Maybe they give also an early taste of the next Android generation "I", maybe Ice-Cream Sandwich. If I'd speculate very wildly, Google could already release a limited preview SDK of the new Android OS, but probably they'll just pre-announce it. The "I" generation will merge GoogleTV, Honeycomb and Gingerbread into one version, probably because they fear source fragmentation and the three repositories have always to be synced so the versions drift not too far apart. So that's why it's simply more economic to merge all three Source-Trees.

Furthermore, Google will force the device manufacturers to provide open interfaces to their custom UIs they built on top of Android. (Session: Designing and Implementing Android UIs for Phones and Tablets) But this is wild speculation. [WARNING: this is unlikely to happen and just wishful thinking :) THX @Sam for reminding me that this needs a clarification]

GoogleTV and Honeycomb (and other Android versions?):

They will get a webapp-store for mobile/tablet/GoogleTV apps integrated in the system-browser or as a frontpage-link on Google mobile-search (see session "Building WebApps for Google TV") (wild speculation)

Blogger:

They will start the rollout for the new Blogger views (you know them already, don't you?), which will be partially optimized to be somewhat like a pendant to Facebook Pages for companies (see session "Building a Business Web Presence using Blogger API's"). This could also hint to an integration of Blogger into Google's mysterious social network.. They will also present a "+1" plugin for blogger the same time... clever huh? :)
BTW: Have you ever noticed the similarities of the new Blogger-Views design and the new Google profiles design? Coincidence? I don't think so. It might be the start to integrate all those social services (including picasa & Places/ex-Hotpot) into one social net, which parts are all opt-in. (way better solution than facebook's "we shove it into your face and if you are lucky enough to find the correct button, you can opt-out" mentality)

+1:

+1 will be officially introduced, what means that the +1 button for content-sites will also be introduced. (yay!) See session "An introduction to the +1 button" (for sure)
The Chrome-Extension (or even browser-built-in functionality?) for +1 will be presented. (for sure)


+1 Extension CONFIRMED: Watch the video (Dear Sophie) closely:

or jump to 0:51

Google Places:

Will be integrated with Google's other social Services like +1. I already confirmed that because I discovered the following fact:

If you rate a place "best time ever" and save the place for later/star it, it gets automatically +1'd in the places search on Google.

I also think that places will get a tab in Google Profiles or at least gets somehow integrated into the +1's.
Places will also possibly get somehow linked to Public Profiles or Blogger accounts of companies (wild speculation).
Overall Google starts an attack on Facebook, providing functionality for advertising, offers etc, that will be integrated in the Google search as a part of social search.

Google Social Search:

Will be extended... Nothing more on that.

Google Circles:

Will be announced, but maybe not directly on the IO but soon. It isn't a real social network... it will just incorporate existing social functionality on Google and make it possible to share information actively and passively with contacts and the world wide web. (The contacts will influence prioritization or highlighting of search results etc, maybe there will be also a commenting/sharing function, who knows)

Google Maps:

will get more social.
It will be tighter integrated with hotpot/places (maybe latitude too).

Google Shopping:

Will be integrated in the social experience. (probably) At least they will lay the foundation for integrating it into social search.

Games:

A shitload of stuff about games using GWT, HTML5 and Android.
Maybe they introduce a new Platform for game-devs.

Geolocation:

Shitloads about geolocation, maybe unification of API's. They push geolocation use for making the social search and personalized search more effective.

Google Analytics:

Gets in-Android-App-Performance and usage logging thanks to the new GA API for Android.

Google Docs:

Might get an addon.

Google Voice:
Might gain VOIP support.

This won't be a very exciting post.. I'll just point out what might happen on the 10th/11th of May 2011 based on rumors, sorcery, voodoo, chicken bones and the official available information.

It might be vague but it is for sure better than Siegler's techcrunch troll-diarrhea.

Android:

Yeah there will happen a ton of stuff on the IO. First of all, they will push the Honeycomb source into AOSP. It will happen, because it is simply overdue! They already pushed quite a bit of the GPL parts to the source-tree, but vital things are still missing... Like the launcher, the browser etc.
Probably they will also announce/preview Honeycomb 3.1, which contains tons of bugfixes and a few new features, but it is also possible, that they'll drop the 3.1 Source directly on github, because they want to comfort the raging open source community (including me).

The Google TV code might or might not be released. At least they will introduce the SDK for Google TV. That will happen for sure. Why? because in Room 11, there will be a Session called "Building Android Apps for Google TV" at the IO. This also means, that all Google TV devices will gain Market access pretty soon (I guess they will start a rollout for updates at the IO).

Maybe they give also an early taste of the next Android generation "I", maybe Ice-Cream Sandwich. If I'd speculate very wildly, Google could already release a limited preview SDK of the new Android OS, but probably they'll just pre-announce it. The "I" generation will merge GoogleTV, Honeycomb and Gingerbread into one version, probably because they fear source fragmentation and the three repositories have always to be synced so the versions drift not too far apart. So that's why it's simply more economic to merge all three Source-Trees.

Furthermore, Google will force the device manufacturers to provide open interfaces to their custom UIs they built on top of Android. (Session: Designing and Implementing Android UIs for Phones and Tablets) But this is wild speculation. [WARNING: this is unlikely to happen and just wishful thinking :) THX @Sam for reminding me that this needs a clarification]

GoogleTV and Honeycomb (and other Android versions?):

They will get a webapp-store for mobile/tablet/GoogleTV apps integrated in the system-browser or as a frontpage-link on Google mobile-search (see session "Building WebApps for Google TV") (wild speculation)

Blogger:

They will start the rollout for the new Blogger views (you know them already, don't you?), which will be partially optimized to be somewhat like a pendant to Facebook Pages for companies (see session "Building a Business Web Presence using Blogger API's"). This could also hint to an integration of Blogger into Google's mysterious social network.. They will also present a "+1" plugin for blogger the same time... clever huh? :)
BTW: Have you ever noticed the similarities of the new Blogger-Views design and the new Google profiles design? Coincidence? I don't think so. It might be the start to integrate all those social services (including picasa & Places/ex-Hotpot) into one social net, which parts are all opt-in. (way better solution than facebook's "we shove it into your face and if you are lucky enough to find the correct button, you can opt-out" mentality)

+1:

+1 will be officially introduced, what means that the +1 button for content-sites will also be introduced. (yay!) See session "An introduction to the +1 button" (for sure)
The Chrome-Extension (or even browser-built-in functionality?) for +1 will be presented. (for sure)


+1 Extension CONFIRMED: Watch the video (Dear Sophie) closely:

or jump to 0:51

Google Places:

Will be integrated with Google's other social Services like +1. I already confirmed that because I discovered the following fact:

If you rate a place "best time ever" and save the place for later/star it, it gets automatically +1'd in the places search on Google.

I also think that places will get a tab in Google Profiles or at least gets somehow integrated into the +1's.
Places will also possibly get somehow linked to Public Profiles or Blogger accounts of companies (wild speculation).
Overall Google starts an attack on Facebook, providing functionality for advertising, offers etc, that will be integrated in the Google search as a part of social search.

Google Social Search:

Will be extended... Nothing more on that.

Google Circles:

Will be announced, but maybe not directly on the IO but soon. It isn't a real social network... it will just incorporate existing social functionality on Google and make it possible to share information actively and passively with contacts and the world wide web. (The contacts will influence prioritization or highlighting of search results etc, maybe there will be also a commenting/sharing function, who knows)

Google Maps:

will get more social.
It will be tighter integrated with hotpot/places (maybe latitude too).

Google Shopping:

Will be integrated in the social experience. (probably) At least they will lay the foundation for integrating it into social search.

Games:

A shitload of stuff about games using GWT, HTML5 and Android.
Maybe they introduce a new Platform for game-devs.

Geolocation:

Shitloads about geolocation, maybe unification of API's. They push geolocation use for making the social search and personalized search more effective.

Google Analytics:

Gets in-Android-App-Performance and usage logging thanks to the new GA API for Android.

Google Docs:

Might get an addon.

Google Voice:
Might gain VOIP support.

What might or might not happen at Google IO 2011.