LAS VEGAS—Google's Android Open Source lead Dan Morrill Tweeted today that there is no "hard minimum processor requirement" to run Android Honeycomb, the new tablet-centric Google OS.
That initially appears to contradict what Korean consumer electronics maker Enspert told us some days ago. But if you look at the details, there's still a lot of wiggle room for Google.
Enspert director Bobby Cha didn't say Google would stop electronics makers from building slow Honeycomb tablets; he said it would require a dual-core processor to run "properly." Google doesn't like to enforce strict hardware specs, as Android head Andy Rubin told us in October.
But we've been seeing a lot of supposedly Honeycomb-bearing tablets here at the CES trade show, and every single one of them that has detailed its processor has a dual-core, NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor.
Furthermore, Google said in an official blog post today that Honeycomb is "designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets," which continues to throw into question whether it will be applicable to mobile phones at al.
In other words, I wouldn't sit around waiting for Honeycomb upgrades for the Samsung Galaxy Tab or for other lower-end tablets, and I still don't think Honeycomb is targeted at phones. Rather, I think Honeycomb's "fragments" API will come into play in the next Android release, Ice Cream, which will have tablet and phone versions. I could still be proven wrong; we'll see.