Sprint, Kyocera play with Android and raise an interesting question
You've already heard all about the new Kyocera Echo and its dual-screen goodness. It looks to be an incredibly interesting device, but what might be more interesting than its own two screens are the two screens that Kyocera's rivals are bound to push out.
If the Echo sells well enough, many manufacturers will have to look into how this concept could pave the way for a variety of new form factors and ways to interact with content. And so will Google. Let's take a look at how manufacturers could use this in the future, and what Google will have to do to keep up.
Kyocera obviously had to do some major modifications to Android to have a usable dual-screen interface. However, this means that the device is only running Froyo. Hackers will be able to do plenty of wild and exciting things to this device, but what if Google decided to support this form factor in a special version of Android? I'm not going to speculate on anything that they could put into it, but for consumers who are looking for a new device with an incredible UI, Google's innovation could bring some great things to them.
Tablet-specific Android versions would be incredible with this approach as well. The widgets could occupy both screens, and you'd have a large amount of screen real estate to play around with, which would propel the tablet revolution to go even faster. Better yet, that large amount of screen real estate would be portable because the device would fold in half. For instance, you could have a 10" tablet and be able to lug it around in your pocket like an original Dell Streak, which comes in at 5".
Even though dual-screen devices aren't new, the Echo will still obviously give more manufacturers something different to htink about. It's going to be a fantastic year if new concept devices like this can make it to production.
What do you think about dual-screen devices?
