Following a report from BusinessWeek, Engadget has confirmed that Google will temporarily limit access to the newest version of it’s Android software, Honeycomb source code for a while as it’s not yet ready for people to hack it into pieces and start porting onto devices other than OEM tablets.
Google said that;
“Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favourites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization. While we’re excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we’ve decided not to release Honeycomb to open source. We’re committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it’s ready”.
Current hardware partners will not be affected by the decision; Motorola just launched the first Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom, and Samsung, Dell, HTC, and Acer are expected to follow suit.
So that’s it, You will have to wait a little to get hands on Honeycomb. Android’s open source has hardened Google a bit, when Android 3.0 was released originally for tablet use, when manufacturers continued and still continue to put Android 2.3 or earlier versions on their tablet offerings.
Google is not doubtful about the release of Honeycomb source code, but it looks that they just need to work out a few bugs and refinements yet.
A Google representative said “source code for newest version of Android, which is dubbed Honeycomb and built specifically for tablets, won’t be shared because the software isn’t yet ready to be altered and customized for a variety of devices”.
