Honeycomb event scheduled for Wednesday

Just yesterday, Google sent out invitations to a special event scheduled for February 2, which is just a few days away. The invitation was sent to major tech blogs (read: not us), and promises to provide, "an in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news, and hands-on demos.

The exact nature of what they plan to announce/show is still a mystery, but everyone has their theories. Since the Honeycomb SDK was just released, this event will likely offer reporters and bloggers a look at actual tablet hardware where they can give Honeycomb a true test, as opposed to using it in an emulator on the desktop.



But the invitation also promises to provide some Android ecosystem news. Many people are hoping this involves finally bringing the promised improvements to the Market. The web-based, instant-install version of the Market was shown off early last year and still hasn't materialized yet, so this could very well be the event where that happens.

The event begins at 10am Pacific time, 1pm Eastern time on Wednesday. For all those of us who can't (or weren't invited to) attend in person, Google will also be live-streaming the event at youtube.com/android. [via Engadget]

I, for one, am seriously hoping for some news about the web-based Market. The thought of browsing and installing apps as easily as Chrome-to-Phone shares links just sounds amazing. They teased us with the news that it was coming so long ago that it almost feels like old news now, but it will go a very long way to improving the Android Market which, admittedly, needs some work. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to see some real video of Honeycomb in action, but I'm honestly more excited about the possibility of the new Market.

---

I'm curious to see what Honeycomb can do and what will make it different from the other million tablets out there (and the already existing Android tablets). It'll be interesting to see how different it is from existing versions.