Here's Why Google Is Holding Honeycomb Back
Google's Honeycomb version of Android may have left the hive for a few tablets, but don't expect to see any new ones announced in the near future: the company has decided not to release the platform's source code to the community just yet.
Context & Ripple Effects
Honeycomb has been rolling out all year: Google previewed Android 3.0 in early January, then design chief Matias Duarte spent February explaining the tablet-first vision in interviews, and TechRadar reported speculation that Honeycomb may never come to mobiles at all. What changed this week is the distribution model: Honeycomb is shipping on a few tablets, but Google will not publish the source code to the open-source community yet.
That makes Honeycomb the first Android release users can buy but outside developers and OEMs cannot touch, and Business Week's pickup of the story shows how widely the departure from Android's usual open-source cadence is being read.
First-order effects
- Tablet makers beyond the handful of launched devices cannot port or ship Honeycomb at all — every new Android tablet announcement now waits on Google's go-ahead rather than a source drop.
- Custom-ROM developers and the modding community that built Android's enthusiast base are locked out of the tablet codebase for the first time since the platform launched.
Second-order effects
- With the article framing Android momentum as a freight train bearing down on Research In Motion, RIM gets a rare opening window: rivals can court carriers and buyers during the period when only Google-blessed tablets exist.
- Hardware partners' leverage shifts from engineering capability to relationships inside Google, since selection into the closed program becomes the gate to the tablet market.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Android bifurcates into a curated tier for new form factors and an open tier for phones, trading some of the openness that fueled its spread for the coherence Google needs against Apple in tablets.
- A closed-source tablet Android also tests whether the carrier-and-OEM coalition built on free, forkable code will accept Google acting more like a traditional platform owner.
The trend: Android is entering its tablet era with a tighter, Google-controlled release process, trading the open-source model that built its phone dominance for quality control against Apple and RIM.