Google Unveils Its Own iPad

Google Mobile Platform vice president Andy Rubin literally arrived with a bag full of tricks at the D: Get Into Mobile Conference, showing publicly for the very first time an Android "Honeycomb" tablet.

The roughly 10-inch Motorola device was sleek, black, thin, and sported an Android interface unlike any we've seen before. There was a very clean homepage, but the app page looked almost Apple iPad-like. Plus, when Rubin brought up the Gmail app, it looked almost exactly like Gmail on the iPad.

Rubin didn't offer my many spec details on the tablet, which he joked would cost $10,000, but he did say it was running an Nvidia dual core CPU (presumably a Tegra).

Mostly, Rubin showed off an upcoming version of Google Maps for Android (which should release "within days"). It adds a new vector-based map drawing system, which appeared to improve speed and map flexibility. As Rubin manipulated the map with his fingers, it changed from a flat map to a three-dimensional outline of the roads and buildings.

In general, Rubin said he believes tablets "represent a fundamental change in the way computing works." By allowing users to interact with them physically, tablets have, Rubin explained, "removed a degree of abstraction."

Honeycomb should release sometime next year and most major OEMs planning on building Android tablets have expressed interest in using this version of the Android platform—which Rubin said is built for tablets. He did, however, say that Honeycomb adds APIs called fragments that allow one app to hold multiple views for different platforms (phones and tablets).

Rubin also showed off the recently unveiled Google Nexus S. Like the Nexus One, the S is a "pure Android, pure Google phone." It's available at Best Buy for $199 with a T-Mobile contract and $529 unlocked. Google is not trying to sell the Nexus S on its own. Rubin admitted that with the Nexus One and Google online retail store, the company "bit off more than it could chew," and realized that instead of trying to negotiate deals with every carrier in every language, their resources could be better used elsewhere.

Rubin literally waved around the small black phone to show off its new gyroscope. He also demonstrated the Nexus S's new Near Field Communication capabilities. Built on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), this is the first Android phone to natively support NFC. Since NFC support is actually part of Gingerbread, Rubin expects to see many more phones offering the technology. To demonstrate how it works, Rubin held the back of the phone (which has an NFC antenna embedded in the back of its case) against a special card. It read the code in the card, which led the phone to a URL and a video, which then played on the phone's large screen.

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