Android 3.0 Gingerbread, A Few Crumbs of Info Show Up in a Podcast

Android 3.0, aka Gingerbread, has been mentioned here and there ever since Android 2.2 (Froyo) was announced, but not too much is known about what it brings to the table. Well, according to a Russian writer for the Unwired Review, a podcast in Russian with Eldar Murtazin, from Mobile-Review.com, on Digestiv reveals a few details about the upcoming OS update. (If you speak Russian, feel free to listen to the podcast here).

So here’s what he mentioned:

Android 3.0 will be released Mid-October this year

Minimum hardware requirements for Android 3.0 will be: 1ghz processor, 512mbs of RAM, and a 3.5″ or larger touchscreen (lower end devices will be forced to stay on Android 2.1 or 2.2)

1280×760 pixel resolution will be supported on screens 4″ or larger

The UI is the main focus here. With a revamp that is supposed to make the entire UI more like the Gallery App for the Nexus One. Check that out here if you don’t have it.

The idea is to get rid of the need for 3rd party skins like HTC Sense, Moto Blur, Timescape, etc. They want those manufacturers to create those skins for the low end Android 2.1/2.2 devices if they must, but leave 3.0 alone.

So we can see from the list why the new minimum hardware requirements. If they plan to have the entire UI mimic the Nexus One Gallery app AND have a higher resolution of 1280×760, it would require some serious hardware and they want to guarantee that that experience is as smooth as possible etc.

As for Google trying to eliminate the need for 3rd party skins like HTC Sense, I’m all for this.
This started to get popular when HTC did it with great success on Windows Mobile, but that was because Windows Mobile REALLY needed it. It hadn’t gotten a UI update in a long time, and people were getting sick of having to use a stylus to select the tiny icons etc. HTC Sense saved Windows Mobile for your average consumer, giving them a more intuitive and user friendly way to interact with the underlying OS.
Now, Android though is a different story. It came out of the box with intuitive controls etc., so the skins became more of an aesthetic feature than a functional solution like with Windows Mobile. With all the new Android updates (at least to me) the skins are becoming more of a hassle than they are worth. You can tell what chaos they have caused when you see all the different Android versions that are out in the market. The majority of the ones that are on lower versions of Android are that way because they have a custom UI’s on them. The manufacturers of these devices don’t want to re-program and release a new version of their custom UI everytime Google releases a new Android version (which has been very close together ever since Android’s initial launch) and who could blame them.
I say let the manufacturers make their own custom Widgets, Apps, etc. for Android, but instead of loading them into the ROM of the device, just put them on the Market like any other developer. Heck, even charge a little for them ($1 for a pack of HTC Sense widgets that work on any Android device, might be something people would actually buy).  This way we can help stem the Android OS division and give people the choice to have the manufacturers’ extra features.

Now of course, we have yet to see what the Gingerbread UI will look like? I mean it is possible it would suck and we’ll be begging for HTC Sense back, right? I guess we’ll see within the next 4 months…

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