According to the Android and Me tech blog, Google will be releasing version 3.2 of its Android mobile operating system (OS) soon. This update will deliver improved hardware acceleration, bug fixes, as well as a number of new features.

The publication stated that Android 3.2 will not be a major upgrade in terms of features from version 3.1. So as is the case with Android 2.0 and 2.1, which are both referred to as Android Eclair, version 3.2 will also still be known by the code-name of Honeycomb.

A couple of the new features in Android 3.2 are support for 7” tablet PCs as well as support for Qualcomm processors. This will likely result in the expansion of the Android ecosystem, at least in terms of Honeycomb-operating tablets, as the range currently consists mostly of tablets boasting a larger screen size that are powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor. The latter includes the Acer Iconia Tab A500 and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

There are also tablet PCs running a pre-Honeycomb version of Android, for which the added support will pave the way to an Android 3.2 update, for example HTC’s Flyer tablet, a 7” tablet running on Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) and powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

 

Google also recently released Google Maps 5.7 for Android, adding Transit Navigation (beta), updated access to directions, better suggested search results, as well as a photo viewer to Place pages.