SDK for Android 3.0 is now ready

On the Android developers' blog, Google has announced the availability of the full SDK for Android 3.0, "Honeycomb". The APIs are said to be final, and so developers can now create applications for the new tablet computer platform and make them available through the Android Market. Together with this, Google is also releasing new versions of its SDK tools and the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin for Eclipse.

The ADT plugin extends the Eclipse development environment for the development of Android applications. This latest version (10.0.0) brings several improvements to the UI Builder, including more accurate rendering of layouts so that developers get a more precise view of how an application will appear on a device and the screen space available to the app. Other enhancements include rendering previews and the optional arranging of widgets in categories in the palette; also several zoom improvements in the layout editor.

Profiling is now made easier in ADT using Traceview and the tools for the Renderscript graphics engine have been improved. An overview of these new developments is available on the Android developer site; the same page also provides links for downloading the SDK and other components. Android is, in general, licensed under the Apache licence.

See also:

• Android 3.0 Platform Preview and SDK released, a report from The H
• Google previews Android 3.0 "Honeycomb", a report from The H

(ehe)