The next major release of the Android operating system is arriving soon, and it will be compatible with both handsets and tablets.

A new blog post by Scott Main, lead tech writer at Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) official Android developer site, sought to prepare developers by giving advice on dealing with the disparate screen size of a handset as opposed to that of a larger tablet.

The arrival of Ice Cream Sandwich will be eagerly watched by all. Apps that were written for the Android 3.0 platform, codenamed Honeycomb, could only run on tablets prior to ICS. This will change with ICS, which is designed to run on tablets and smartphones.

And given the forward-compatible nature of Android apps, an app developed for Honeycomb is also compatible with a device running ICS, observed Main. It is hence important that existing Honeycomb apps not assume the presence of a large screen.

Developers will undoubtedly be happy too, given that ICS opens the door to maintaining one Android app for both handsets and tablets--though they still have to incorporate the appropriate logic to cater to different screen sizes. For now, the exact release date of ICS is not known, though earlier comments by Chairman Eric Schmidt hint at an October or November timeframe.

For more:
- check out this article at IBT
- check out this article at OSNews
- check out this article at CNET News

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