Official Android 3.0 Gingerbread QA

[trinityEon]

LOL, The 2.2 Froyo hasn't even been released formally yet by manufacturers, (@ time of writing) I just wanted to be the first to put up a thread relating to this, in case any of you, are interested like me want to root your fone to this ROM, any tips tricks, known bug postings, questions can be put up here

Android 3.0 aka Gingerbread Details
Are you waiting for Android 3.0 handsets? Then, it is going to be out in the market in glamour of Ginger Bread Man to commemorate the event of launching these handsets for first time sales in time for Christmas.

You may not get to know about the ingredients of the delicious chapter to happen in Android. However, for sure, owing our gratitude to the mobile guru Eldar Murtazin, we are sure to know what is going to be in store with this delicious treat to wait.

Android 3.0 is going to be a high-end device, and has a stringent hardware requirement to be met. What is being expected are 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 3.5” WVGA display, 1280 × 760 resolution, with expanded 3.0 UI on Nexus one. Google is being on constant alert to update on any advancement in UI.

That does not brings down the excitement of waiting for Gingerbread Android 3.0!

We’ve been hearing about the upcoming Android Gingerbread release in Q4 for a while now. And also how the new Android user interface will blow our socks off.

Still, everyone’s been pretty sketchy about exact details of what’s actually coming to Android Gingerbread. Until now.

Mobile-review.com’s Eldar Murtazin just went and spilled a boatload of interesting details about the upcoming Android Gingerbread release. Don’t run searching for these details to his blog or his main site, you won’t find anything there yet.

Eldar did all the spilling in his Russian podcast “Digestiv”. It’s audio only, so Google Translate won’t help you much. If you do not speak Russian, you’ll have to trust me on this

Her we go:

Android 3.0 Gingerbread will be released in mid- October (around 15 -16th), 2010. First handsets shipping in November/December – for the Holiday Season.
Minimum hardware requirements for Android 3.0 devices are: 1GHZ CPU, 512MB or RAM, displays from 3.5” and higher. (We all, of course, heard that Android handsets with 2GHz CPU’s are coming)
New 1280×760 resolution available for the devices with displays of 4” and higher. (Anyone thinking about Android tablets now? )
Completely revamped user interface. If you want to get a feeling of what Android 3.0 Gingerbread UX is like, check out the Gallery App on Nexus One. The same overall feel, light animated transitions,etc. Natively, through all the UI.
Android’s split into 2 branches becomes official. 3.0 for top of the line/high end devices. Cheap, low-end mass market handsets will keep Android 2.1/2.2
Eldar also confirmed my musings about the death of third party User Interface shells like HTC Sense, MotoBlur, etc;. Android 3.0 basically kills the need for them.

Still, there’s some hope for third party vendors here – while Google takes over the UI on the high end, vendors get to keep their UI shells/improvements on mass market Android smartphones, running Eclair or Froyo.

Pity about sense, though i kinda fell in love with it :)

:D Me wonders if the apple I phone will be eating our dust with 2GHz processors, they got alot of catch up to play if they cant even design an aerial properly :D

[trinityEon]

oops, i posted in the wrong section i think, My apologies, please can admin move this to Android department :)

[Mr Feesh]

You rate the desire will get android 3.0??

[alt146]

You rate the desire will get android 3.0??

I think so - the Desire is probably HTC's biggest selling phone, they'd piss off a significant amount of people if they didn't. That and the specs of the phone are good enought that it will still be in the market when gingerbread comes out. Even if HTC doesn't, the internals are identical to the Nexus 1, which will definitely get gingerbread; so there will definitely be ROMs.

[kingrob]

So none of the SE Xperia X10s will get Gingerbread, cos they only have 384MB RAM.

Why must SE always try to save money at the wrong places? Mind you, as a P990i owner I should know by now.

[Tsepz_011]

Nobody knows. The above ARE NOT REQUIREMENTS BUT RECOMMENDATIONS, note that even the majority of MOTOROLAS have even less RAM at 256mb, with only Droid X being at 512mb. I read that more ROM maybe needed, 1GB to be exact so even Desire could fall short in some points. I must say the Gingerbread thing realy did piss me off a bit, why cant Google slow down a bit and just do improvements to Froyo? and then release Gingerbread like Q2 next year? Its not like they have much competition in the high end,and the current Android 1GHz monsters have a HUGE amount of potential still,utilize it,they are far ahead at the moment and improving current devices/OS version will increase customer confiedence and guarantee them even more success with the Gingerbread devices. Nothing worse than an OS developing too slowly (symbian) or too quickly (android) ,you need consistency like Apple have, this will make both developers and customers alot more comfortable,as they will be aware of the life cycle of the OS and devices and not be hit with unexpected suprises that may leave a large amount "obsolete" within a year of release.

[alt146]

Nobody knows. The above ARE NOT REQUIREMENTS BUT RECOMMENDATIONS, note that even the majority of MOTOROLAS have even less RAM at 256mb, with only Droid X being at 512mb. I read that more ROM maybe needed, 1GB to be exact so even Desire could fall short in some points. I must say the Gingerbread thing realy did piss me off a bit, why cant Google slow down a bit and just do improvements to Froyo? and then release Gingerbread like Q2 next year? Its not like they have much competition in the high end,and the current Android 1GHz monsters have a HUGE amount of potential still,utilize it,they are far ahead at the moment and improving current devices/OS version will increase customer confiedence and guarantee them even more success with the Gingerbread devices. Nothing worse than an OS developing too slowly (symbian) or too quickly (android) ,you need consistency like Apple have, this will make both developers and customers alot more comfortable,as they will be aware of the life cycle of the OS and devices and not be hit with unexpected suprises that may leave a large amount "obsolete" within a year of release.

I think what Google is doing is trying to get Android to the point that it does everything they believe it can do. The difference between them and Apple is that they are doing it on a feature-by-feature basis. They work on something until they are happy with it, then get what they have finished out to market at short intervals so that their users stay on the cutting edge. For all the quick release times, the releases are pretty bug free. Apple on the other hand is under pressure to release a world changing phone every year, so when deadline comes they put out whatever is good enough to demo and look impressive, then spend the next few months quietly releasing updates to fix all the stuff they hadn't gotten working properly. Not that iOS is particularly buggy, but I think it is a bad sign when you have to patch four or five times after each major release. Personally I would rather get two big updates in a year and have that be that, then get one huge update and then three more updates to make that work... The weakness in Google's system is they have left hardware research to other companies in order to concentrate solely on the software - Companies which make their own choices to maximise their profit margins, and may choose to deviate from google's guides on where hardware should be specced to last the next two years worth of updates in favour of cutting costs and maximising profits now. Which is where the obsolescence and fragmentation start to come into the picture. A couple of manufacturers are doing it right though, HTC especially - they've rolled the new updates out quickly and with little fuss, and specced their phones well enough (from the looks of things, I seriously doubt ROM size will triple between releases) to last until the end of a contract cycle at least.

[oronte]

I'm confused by the screen res point - is 1280x760 the minimum needed to upgrade to 3.0 or is it the maximum that can now be supported?

[Maddmatt]

I'm confused by the screen res point - is 1280x760 the minimum needed to upgrade to 3.0 or is it the maximum that can now be supported?

It's a new supported resolution, not a requirement. That resolution would be pointless on any cellphone that can fit in your pocket.

[kingrob]

I'm confused by the screen res point - is 1280x760 the minimum needed to upgrade to 3.0 or is it the maximum that can now be supported?

Isn't that to support tablets running Android?

[DJNgoma]

Isn't that to support tablets running Android?

Yeah, it's for tablets. Compal NAZ-10 and the MSI Harmony are two tablets that I know of. Would make sense for HD content.