A number of high-level Android supporters have united behind guidelines which detail how quickly devices are updated after a new platform release, and for how long they are updated after launch. According to an announcement made at Google’s I/O developer event, Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T are all backing the effort, the initial result of which is that “new devices from participating partners will receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows.” The company also announced an update to its Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform for tablets, which will introduce a host of new features.

Previously, Google and its partners in the Android ecosystem have been widely criticised for taking a fragmented approach to platform updates, with some taking a leisurely approach, and some not releasing updates at all. The growing momentum of the platform means that penetration of later versions is increasing sharply, as customers activating new Android devices shift the balance away from legacy users. According to Google, just 5.3 percent of Android devices accessing the Android Market in the two weeks to 2 May 2011 ran a version of the platform before Android 2.1, with the bulk of devices running Android 2.2. Penetration of Android 2.3, 2.3.3, and Android 3.0, the latest versions for smartphones and tablets respectively, together stand at 4.3 percent, with relatively few devices using this platform yet to reach consumers.

The new Android Honeycomb variant, Android 3.1, is described as an “incremental release” which builds on the tablet-optimised UI and features announced in the already available version. Enhancements include: an Open Accessory API, which enables Android applications to integrate and interact with accessories such as musical equipment, exercise equipment, robotics systems, and others; a USB host API, which allows applications to manage connected USB peripherals such as audio devices. input devices, communications devices, and more; support for input from mice, joysticks and gamepads; support for resizable Home screen widgets; and Media Transfer Protocol and Real-time Transport Protocol integration, to enable apps to receive notifications and manage files and storage when external devices are connected, and to manage on-demand or interactive data streaming to enable VOIP, push-to-talk, conferencing, and audio streaming.

The Open Accessory API has also been backported to Android 2.3.4 as an optional library, to enable similar capabilities to be offered to smartphone users. The platform updates are supported by a new release of the Android SDK Tools (r11).

Google also used I/O to reiterate its plans to unify its smartphone and tablet platforms (currently Gingerbread and Honeycomb, respectively), into a single release, called Ice Cream Sandwich. The release of Ice Cream Sandwich will also see the company resuming its practice of releasing the Android source code to the community, which it abandoned with the release of Honeycomb. In an exclusive Mobile World Live video interview, Dave Burke, Google’s director of engineering (pictured), described this as “purely a logistical issue.”

Burke also discussed the allegations of fragmentation among the Android ecosystem, and claims that Google is looking to tighten the reins on its partners in order to protect compatibility. “If you want to create a phone and you want to brand it ‘Android,’ if you want to carry the Google applications, if you want to carry the Android Market, there’s a basic level of compatibility that you must adhere to. And we have something we call a Compatibility Definition Document, which is backed by a set of tasks called the Compatibility Task Suite, and you must pass all these tests. What that allows us to do is to give assurances to developers that when they write applications that’ll run across it, and also to users that when they go to the market and download an app, they know it will work.”

The company also provided some new metrics for Android Market: there are now 200,000 free and paid applications available, with 4.5  billion installations to date.