There seems to be rumors surfacing that point to Android 2.3 being the upcoming Gingerbread release.
http://www.androidcentral.com/will-g...-be-android-23

This may have quite a bit of significance for the Tab. But I'll spare you my wandering speculations as there is simply not enough information.

I will say this, though: I just *hope* that there isn't a minimum hardware requirement (ie. resolution) for Android v3 that alienates the Tab and other devices. I hope that the Android OS continues to be device independent; a strategy that works very well for traditional computers.

Other than that, I'm very excited to see what A3 brings. Something tells me that the bulk of the UI changes will be released with A3. But from a developer perspective, I wish Google would modularize the UI already, as there's zero need for an OS revision for UI upgrades!

I also hope that A3 brings with it Chrome so that it can double as a 'ChromeOS' terminal. I believe -- deep, deep in my pants -- that web apps that perform as well as native apps is a killer feature and a game changer. Chrome OS offers this, but Android can transition to this as well, but offering Chrome.

I would say the major reason that I'm against minimum resolution dependencies is this: If developers are tailoring apps to fit, say, 1024x600, then multi-pane displays become virtually impossible to do well. While Android devices typically only display one app at a time, there is an advantage to dividing the screen among apps for certain tasks.

Examples:
- IM chat/Video chat and browse
- Whiteboard and Document edit
- SSH and surf
- etc

As mobile SoCs become faster and faster, concurrent tasks become increasingly probable. It would be a shame to be forced to use one-app-at-a-time for smartbooks or other high-resolution displays.

A smart UI framework that still provides resolution independence and supports arbitrary windowing sizes allows for this case *and* provides Android 3 backward compatibility for existing phones and low-resolution tablets.

A minimum resolution requirement that's mirrored in the UI toolkit effectively paints Android into a corner of supporting only one foreground app at a time and alienating older devices.

Nevermind I was wrong. I was reading up on the Tab and found one article that mentioned it only had AGPS so I did a Google search to see if that was true and found some articles that say it only used AGPS but now that I look again there are others that say it does have a built-in GPS.

The Canadian Tab has arrived!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfemo7wkTsQ

The darker, carbon-ish device back is ultra-sexy. I can't wait until it's official!

Ironically, LauncherPro is actually writing their next major version from scratch using all kinds of new tricks and techniques that they've learned along the way while working on these previous versions. Up until now, they've basically taken the Google Launcher source code and then forked it off and tweaked it up and down to make a whole new Launcher replacement that, I think anyway, it far better and far more configurable. They seem to promise an incredibly far better Launcher replacement for their next major release--all while continuing to parallel develop in the current version to keep supporting it.

...AND THEY MAKE MONEY FROM IT! Open.. AND profitable.

<3

PS - I forgot to mention one of my favorite features--RESIZABLE WIDGETS! Yep! You can take any desktop widget and resize it as you see fit. ANY widget. If it's a resizing-aware widget, even better.. but for those widgets that don't know anything about being resized, in my experience, it seems to work pretty reasonably well and I've almost never seen a widget get mangled by it. This bodes VERY well for something huge like the Tab--where I might just want to be able to resize widgets to make them just plain look "right" on such a larger screen. I reeeeally like LauncherPro.

That's awesome! I had forgotten about resizable widgets, but it makes a LOT of sense. This is a huge feature that would be tremendously useful for customization.

It seems like the gentleman coding Launcher Pro has a unique eye for interface dynamics and code execution. So many projects have 'cool' features that are executed terribly, but Launcher Pro is a perfect example of extremely well executed ideas. He also has an artistic flare as the designs are very well balanced.

If apple fans had the equivalent of Launcher Pro on their devices, they would measure all other interfaces against it (and likely find them lacking ).

I'm very excited to see the re-write of LP! Not only has the developer proven himself to be skilled, but a re-write implies that he has a vision of what a launcher can be. I'm very excited to see the fruits of his keystrokes.

Tell me something... I notice that the 'header' bar (the bar with the time, notifications, battery rating, connection, etc), is grey on some devices and black on others. Is there a way to customize it, theme it, or 'replace' it?

I really like the dark one featured on the Galaxy Tab interface:


... and would like something similar if I were to replace the ROM.

Gingerbread is right around the corner!
http://www.androidcentral.com/ginger...ogle-unveiling

I'm hoping for *big* things.

That's a good question. I have no real idea but I IMMEDIATELY noticed that when I first flashed the Ultimate Droid ROM onto my Droid, it darkened a LOT of things up (as per the theme of the ROM, it's made by a guy that calls himself BlackDroid after all) and that bar up top looks the way it does on my Droid now. And I like it. A lot.

Edit: Pthth... all I had to do was Google it. I'm a fool. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=536271

This is a great find, and it's quite wonderful to know that Android's UI is quite themable. Becuase the background is a PNG, you can make it look like pretty much anything! I recall a theme that looked like it was pencil drawn that was quite cool.