What is honeycomb and how does it effect android phones of the future?

[knighthonor]

What is honeycomb and how does it effect android phones of the future?
Can somebody explain how this os works? Is it a tablet only thing temporary? Or will future phones have it as well? What's that newest format update of android os called? Was it gingerbread or something, or is that the current os codename? Would somebody explain to me how the new updates change the way my phone works please? I am still trying to comprehend the tech terms of blur and shift(whatever it called). What does the updates change and do?
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[Rento]

Gingerbread 2.3 is what the latest phones are running on today.

 

[knighthonor]

What do they do that is different from the last update? What's changed?

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[freezyfreaky]

Honeycomb is Android designed specifically for tablets. Google has a project rumored to be codenamed Ice Cream that is Android 2.4 that will combine both Honeycomb and Gingerbread for mobile phones.

 

[knighthonor]

But I still don't understand what each of these flavors bring to the table. What gets changed with each update?

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[kodiak799]

Honeycomb is Android designed specifically for tablets. Google has a project rumored to be codenamed Ice Cream that is Android 2.4 that will combine both Honeycomb and Gingerbread for mobile phones.

Yes, I cannot wait for Ice Cream. Love what I see with Honeycomb, even if still a bit raw. I realize Launcher Pro and some others already have scrollable widgets, but that should be a stock Android feature (and I think it is in Honeycomb).

I think Ice Cream will pretty much be a finished/polished product. After that, I'm not sure I'll care about upgrades beyond when I get a new phone (sort of like I only get the new Windows when I buy a new PC).

Although, correct me if I'm wrong, but the one major thing still lacking in Android is hardware acceleration (which I believe is included in Honeycomb).

 

[Beardface]

Honeycomb is the Android version you will see running on the Xoom. It is unlike anything you will see on another Android device. The look of it is... well, its out there.

Personally, I hope they keep that look to tablets only (and to that effect, I really hope they clean it up in the future). I think Honeycomb is ugly, outdated, and looks like something from Tron. Keep it away from my phone.

Gingerbread is the one that is out right now for phones. Later this year (or possibly early next year) you'll see Android 2.4 come out, which is Ice Cream. Nobody knows what that will look like. It could help optimize for dual cores, but who really knows at this point.

 

[rkeller62]

Think of it as a 'branch' of the Android Operating System. After Froyo, Android source 'forked' into two branches - Gingerbread for phones and Honeycomb for Tablets only. As stated, Honeycomb will not be ported to phones by Google/manufacturers. However, according to Google, the two 'branches' of Android will be merged back into a single source that can run on either tablets or phones. The speculation is that this happens in Ice Cream (Sundae or Sandwich??) and that it will have version number 2.4, but I don't think that has actually been confirmed - and probably won't be until Google I/O.

EDIT: The main point of Honeycomb was to provide an OS specifically optimized for the form factor of a table rather than a phone. As for what gets changed with each OS release - mainly we are looking at OS optimizations and enhanced/new feature sets. What these features are varies from release to release based on what Google considers important at the time. I think most people would agree that the next big thing for phones is using the GPU for display of the launcher and other main OS components. I believe this is handled by the inclusion of renderscript, but am not sure.