Google: Honeycomb will be last tablet OS

Google confirms Honeycomb will be last tablet OS
Ice Cream Sandwich - developers, start your coding

Google has spilled more details over the forthcoming Ice Cream Sandwich OS as it prepares for to unify all its devices.

We knew that the next generation of the Android operating system was going to be the platform that came to both phones and tablets, and now Google is telling developers the steps they'll need to take in order to keep their apps running in the future.

The blog also confirms that Honeycomb is the last OS to be tablet-only, with all future versions of Android running on both phones and tablets as Google looks to end the fragmentation issue of multiple versions of its operating system existing in the wild.

Bigger, smaller and in-between

Obviously a big issue for current applications is that those developed for Honeycomb are meant to be viewed on a big screen, and therefore won't work too well on phones with a lower resolution.

As Scott Main, lead tech writer for Google's Android Developers Blog, says: "If you've developed a tablet app on Honeycomb, it's important that your app do one of two things: prevent installation on smaller screens or (preferably) support smaller screens with the same APK."

Ice Cream Sandwich is set to launch in the next month or so, with phones powered by the new OS landing not too long after that - exciting times for all you mobile operating system fans.

From Android Developer Blog

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.