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Android 1.5 SDK Is Released 135

Posted by CmdrTaco from the get-your-hack-on dept.
RadiusK writes "Starting today, developers can get an early look at the SDK for the next version of the Android platform. Version 1.5 introduces APIs for features such as soft keyboards, home screen widgets, live folders, and speech recognition. At the developer site, you can download the early-look Android 1.5 SDK, read important information about upgrading your Eclipse plugin and existing projects, and learn about what's new and improved in Android 1.5."
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Android 1.5 SDK Is Released More

Android 1.5 SDK Is Released

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  • The big question is: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by d3vi1 ( 710592 )

    Feature and usability-wise is it getting close to the iPhone?
    I have a lot of "toys" at home, including a GTA01 and a Nokia N800. While a lot better in some technical aspects, and in most philosophical ones, they all fade in comparison to the iPhone. No SyncML, no PIM suite (GPE doesn't count as it's not really integrated to the platform).

    • OMG!!! Teh iPhone!!! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "Feature and usability-wise is it getting close to the iPhone?"

      What a fucking moron!

      Android is being put on cellphones from every single major company this year: Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Asus, etc. Android is being readied for netbooks from the major PC OEMs like HP and Dell.

      Android has quickly become the standard and default platform for a vast array of hardware devices. The number of Android based devices is soon going to be gigantic.

      But will you wub it will all your heart and make your sad a

      • So to sum up, you talked adnauseum about hardware platforms that might end up using Android when the question was about usability of the software UI of Android versus the iPhone and the related software ecosystem. Watch who you call a moron Einstein.

    • Re:The big question is: (Score:5, Informative)

      by iserlohn ( 49556 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:04PM (#27577173) Homepage

      In a word, yes.

      I have a G1. It works well considering it is 1st generation hardware/software. No A2DP, but same situation as iPhone (3.0/Cupcake). Other than that, software-wise the widgets are smooth, and you can actually run services in the background. Some of the applications need improving, like the mail client needs IMAP IDLE support, etc.. but it's getting there. You can get a custom cupcake build for the G1 now which fixes a lot of those problems.

      Hardware-wise, the G1 is not as pretty, but the upcoming devices should give the iPhone a run for its money. The really good thing about it though is that it's got the right number of real buttons, which make navigation a lot more manageable.

      Talking about the N800, OS2008 is great. Nokia has been doing a lot for mobile Linux and I plan on upgrading my trusty ole 770 running OS2008 to whatever device they have for Maemo 5.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        If the iPhone's hardware is so great, why does Jobs say that Flash Lite 'isn't right' for the iPhone? Way to cripple much website functionality.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kTag ( 24819 )

          Agree with you, but Flash Lite support is not going to help with your crippled web site. I can take a Nokia with Flash Lite and my video on YouTube still doesn't work. You need full Flash support + plugin to get no crippled web site

          • My current and previous two Nokia handsets use RealPlayer to watch the embedded flash videos of Youtube. In fact N96 is touted to be able to run Youtube and BBC IPlayer videos.

            • My current and previous two Nokia handsets use RealPlayer to watch the embedded flash videos of Youtube.

              Or the iPhone can just play them directly with the Youtube app.

              Basically any site that can feed you flash video can also put together an MPEG4 stream you can download and play. That's what most previously all Flash sites have done.

              If all you need Flash for is watching video, you don't really need flash.

    • Re:The big question is: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hurricane78 ( 562437 ) <deleted@slash[ ].org ['dot' in gap]> on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:13PM (#27577321)

      No PIM suite on the Nokia one? All Nokia phones here an germany have PIM, SyncML, and tons of features that no iPhone ever had. The series 60 and series 80 phones from Nokia are pretty much a real OS. With everything that you would expect from a computer with such a limited physical interface.

      I guess I will never get, why people like a phone that is already technologically outdated and still overpriced, and adds even more annoyances to the package (like not being able to even input some important characters, being locked-down, and having the display turn into a smudgy piece of shit after 5 seconds of usage)...
      Are looks and the name Apple really that important to you? Or is it, that the other phones that they offer in the USA are even worse?

      I mean, I'd love to make a business out of importing European and Japanese phones into the US market. There's no reason you should be that limited, that you think, the iPhone is great...

      • Are looks and the name Apple really that important to you? Or is it, that the other phones that they offer in the USA are even worse?

        The other phones are significantly worse for the average user.

        I mean, I'd love to make a business out of importing European and Japanese phones into the US market. There's no reason you should be that limited, that you think, the iPhone is great...

        Yeah, good luck with that. The telephone companies in the US have higher rates and use those rates to subsidize phones. That means you're trying to sell unsubsidized phones to people in competition with subsidized ones. Add onto that the fact that there is no guarantee any of the cool features or services of the phones will work on a particular network, and your market is going to be pretty small.

      • So how far back does your memory extend? Back in the mid to late 80's the Mac was derided as a toy and ridiculous compared to "real" computers. Fast forward to today and there are absolutely no computers in use that are not based on the concepts first shown commercially in the Mac. DOS and the other "advanced" systems have no presence. They have vanished despite how superior they allegedly were. (Yes, I know shell scripting is available through the Terminal application in OSX and I use it but that is becaus

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zero__Kelvin ( 151819 )

      "Feature and usability-wise is it getting close to the iPhone?"

      If by "getting close to" you mean "better than", then yes ;-)

  • a2dp !!!! Yay!!! Video Recording!!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by 8282now ( 583198 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:34PM (#27576599) Journal

    # Camera & Gallery

            * Video recording
            * Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)

    # Bluetooth

            * Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
            * Auto-pairing
            * Improved handsfree experience

    • # Google applications

              * View Google Talk friends' status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, GMail, and Email applications
              * Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages
              * Upload videos to Youtube
              * Upload photos on Picasa

  • but I just what T-Mobil to roll out stereo Blue tooth..now!

  • I'm curious (Score:3)

    by SlashDotDotDot ( 1356809 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:36PM (#27576645) Journal
    Anyone here written code for Android? How do you like it?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by john_anderson_ii ( 786633 )
      I've done some doodling, nothing serious. The Eclipse plugin with emulator integration is very nice to work with.

    • Absolutely Love It (Score:5, Informative)

      by MediaStreams ( 1461187 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:52PM (#27576949)

      Picking up Android development was as easy as it could be.

      Just downloaded Eclipse and installed the Android plugin. Everything is just standard Java that everyone already is familiar with. Standard OpenGL for the graphics stuff.

      Tons of well documented example code and documentation.

      The best part has been the people from Google so far. They are the most helpful and bright employees I've ever encountered or dealt with doing development support.

      The only thing that has been an occasional pain has been there were some major changes from the pre-1.0 Android SDK that lost of old code was written for. Sometimes when looking for an example of a certain API feature you will get tripped up looking at old code. This is getting less and less of a problem as time moves forward, but there are still Android dev books that come from ancient versions of the Android APIs.

       

      • Picking up Android development was as easy as it could be. Just downloaded Eclipse and installed the Android plugin.

        So, doesn't work with vi or emacs, eh?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kTag ( 24819 )

          Don't know if it's a serious question or not, but the answer is yes, it works with both. All command line stuff is there. You compile your Java with Android compiler, deploy the result to the emulator using command line if you want. If I remember correctly it's even based on Ant.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mkcmkc ( 197982 )

            Yeah, I was joking--I know Google has better taste than to distribute something that won't work well in a straight Linux environment (unlike some other wannabe companies that shall remain nameless).

            If I remember correctly it's even based on Ant.

            You say that as if it's a good thing. ;-)

            I haven't done heavy Java development since before Ant had really caught on, but as far as I can tell, it was written to pave over Windows' entirely incompetent set of command-line tools. And maybe to catch the XML train, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by ickpoo ( 454860 )

          It works just fine with Emacs (and probably VI). There are command line applications for project generation, compilation (ant), moving stuff to the phone, or the emulator, for watching logs on the phone / emulator. The only thing I haven't done is use the debugger, which I understand that Eclipse has nicely integrated.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by EvanED ( 569694 )

        How tied to Java is Android development? Is that the only option, or could I write in some other language if I wanted? (I don't care about C; I'm more interested in something like Python, Lisp/Scheme, and O'Caml.)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by GNUbuntu ( 1528599 )
          All the APIs are based off of a stripped down version of Java so if you use their APIs you are constricted to that. With root access you can write programs in a language like C/C++, or any language you can compile to native code, and compile for ARM and run it, but that's not supported obviously.

        • I'm impressed with my G1 out-of-the-box (coming from a T-Mo Dash). And as long as there are significant improvements I will be delighted with it.

          I use Eclipse for Java development on my job but I didn't want my leisure coding activity to feel like work so I went poking around. I stumbled across http://phonegap.com/ [phonegap.com] which is an add-on to the Eclipse/Android SDK that allows developers to create apps using html and javascript.

          I downloaded, installed it, and manage to compile the sample code pretty easily. R

      • it's an easy pickup, even, if like me, you'd put off learning java until you really needed it

        the integrated debugger in eclipse is excellent too - download the SDK now (not 1.5) you can do development onto the emultaor until you get a phone

      • I don't have the phone yet, but installed eclipse and started playing around with developing. The accompanying DDMS as standalone or plugin for eclipse is fantastic too, you can simulate external phone and data connections, different connection qualities, read in gps trajectories to be communicated as a gps signal to your emulator.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Android is fine. Its API is quite good and easy to use, it allows to write background processes and features like call handling.

      The main problem: it's _still_ interpreted.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've been messing with it off and on for a few weeks now. Overall I'm impressed, the Eclipse/emulator integration is very good. The API itself is decent, business logic is easily separated from display logic via the Activity/View pattern it implements. There are a lot of utility classes to do things like animation, bitmap manipulation, maintaining collections of sounds, etc. It has a nice XML-based layout system that takes a lot of tedium out of designing the UI/layout (compared to Swing or something).

    • Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Informative)

      by kTag ( 24819 ) <pierren@NOsPAM.mac.com> on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:07PM (#27577217)

      I did a project for the Android Challenge.
      I'm working with a Mac and Eclipse is not the most user friendly IDE on this platform.
      The process is smooth enough, forget about Linux, it's all Java based. I do Java stuff 10h a day so I felt right at home. It takes a couple of days to feel right about the suggested class design. Appart from that, I felt it was all very standard stuff, nothing really amazing, persistence is nice enough with sqlite but that's about it. You won't find any major revolution in there, it's very close to a simple standard Java application. So I didn't do more code since (it was based on SDK 1.1 if I remember correctly) and since I didn't even win the right to carry on with the Challenge, I left everything as it was (I got good technical marks, but the profitability of the idea wasn't there...). You see, if you didn't win somehow you didn't have access to the new SDK, unlike all the other lucky bastards. So why bother...
      Now I've got to get back to the Web SDK of the iPhone and the CSS transformations, these are rocking my days (actually more my nights).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by edivad ( 1186799 )
      It's wonderful! You will especially love their Parcelable interface, that you are FORCED to implement for every class (and contained/inherited class) that you plan to pass among views.
      And this is not like the Java standard Serializable, that the JVM gives you for free. This is something that you are forced to implement.
      Cheap poor interfaces design.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EboMike ( 236714 )

        You're not doing it right. There is barely ever a need to implement Parcelable if you're trying to pass data across your own app.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by edivad ( 1186799 )

          You're not doing it right. There is barely ever a need to implement Parcelable if you're trying to pass data across your own app.

          Sure, if your app is trivial enough to have a single Activity.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by EboMike ( 236714 )

            Like I said, you're not doing it right. My app has 15 activities and one service that runs at boot-time as well as on demand.

            Parcelable is rarely necessary to transfer data within an app. In fact, it'd be a performance hog to do that.

    • Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:52PM (#27578065)

      I wrote an app which is now on the market. The good:

      • Java. OK, actually I hate Java. But I'd hate Objective-C a lot more. Implementing a simple crash reporter around my core logic was about 10 lines of Java code, and it works every time. Implementing the same thing in C++ or Objective-C would be .... non-trivial. No bother with heap corruptions, etc.

      • The whole design of activities and intents is quite well thought out. It seemed overly complicated at first but now I appreciate it a lot more. It's also very flexible, you aren't forced to use the infrastructure if you don't want to.

      • Really rich APIs. Background services, maps, multimedia, power management, package management, notifications .... even a face recognizer!

      • The market. I see a lot of people rag on the market and the comments system. Maybe I'm biased because my app has almost universally good reviews, but it's really nice to get that instant feedback about how you're doing. It's my experience that G1 owners (and there are apparently quite a lot) are ridiculously lenient. My app is extremely simple and could use a lot of extra features, yet I consistently get really flattering comments about it. It's actually been a long time since I wrote and launched an app directly to Normal People, and it's been a refreshing experience. Publishing my app to the market was a breeze - it's instant gratification. No approval process.

      ... and the bad ...

      • Java.
      • Documentation is rather rough in places. Precious few example apps. Non-existent HIG.
      • The SDK GUI editor is very basic (I believe it's much improved in 1.5, need to check it out).

      ... and the ugly ...

      • Bugs. The 1.1 release improved things a lot, but as a user I still the contact list system in particular to be distressingly buggy. It's by no means unusably buggy, but I expect a much more robust experience from my phone than I would a desktop OS.
      • HTTP APIs. There's two, the standard Java API and then apache httpclient. Unfortunately httpclient is version 4.x, not the more mature and well known 3.x. HttpClient 4.x has almost no useful documentation and doesn't support some features that 3.x did. PAIN.

      All that said, I like writing apps for Android. Eclipse is decent. Java is decent. The distribution process is decent. And it's apparently improving pretty fast.

      • Re:I'm curious (Score:4, Interesting)

        by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMspamgoeshere.calum.org> on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @05:16PM (#27578505) Homepage

        Java. OK, actually I hate Java.

        So you hate Java despite it allowing you to do precisely, easily, and compactly what you wanted to do? *

        People are weird.

        * I'm guessing you had a traumatic experience with an applet in 1998 that took 20 seconds to start up, and hung your browser. Get over it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by goose-incarnated ( 1145029 )

          Java. OK, actually I hate Java.

          So you hate Java despite it allowing you to do precisely, easily, and compactly what you wanted to do? * People are weird. * I'm guessing you had a traumatic experience with an applet in 1998 that took 20 seconds to start up, and hung your browser. Get over it.

          Hey I agree with you - just because it will do exactly what I want it to do if I twist my head like *this* and dislocate my shoulder like *that* and leap through flaming hoops, isn't a reason to hate it. FWIW, I expect x86 assembly to do exactly what I want it to as well ;-)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        It's possible to use Scala for Android development: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/160 [scala-lang.org]

        Try it, you'll like it!

    • Yeah-- I've developed several games for it. http://www.evilmushroomempire.com/ [evilmushroomempire.com] the last one Google featured on their Android site: http://www.android.com/market/paid.html#app=thesplatting [android.com] I love developing on it. I look forward to the platform gaining more momentum as it gains more users, and more hardware.

  • the emulator's great, but I would like the DEV phone and utilize my AT&T connection. Thanks for the post.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ascari ( 1400977 )
      Send me your account information. Sincerely, Nigerian business man

    • and utilize my AT&T connection

      Good luck with that since they use different frequency bands for their 3g service.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ptrace ( 1078855 )
        Yes, that's true, but from what I understand the HTC units can change the 3g frequency in firmware. Have not yet seen any hacks to enable 3g on AT&T though.
        • I think if it were a simple firmware feature then far more full HSDPA phones would be available for T-Mobile USA. As of now, I can only find two: G1 and Sony TM506. Currently all the other T-Mobile USA 3G phones are UMTS.

  • but where's my motivation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sverdrup ( 1532519 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:38PM (#27576683)
    I'm hoping the API will eventually include some kind of anti-piracy options. I wish this version took some steps in that direction, but doesn't look it's going to happen anytime soon. I think the Android market is going to be huge, but until there's some kind of download protection for Android apps, I've got to stick to developing for the iPhone.

    • Re:but where's my motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:41PM (#27576747)

      Then I am sure the people who own Android phones thank you. DRM is not something they want, you can keep that stuff for the mac fans.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sverdrup ( 1532519 )
        That might be the case for now, with bleeding-edge early adopters making up a big portion of Android's userbase. But the huge selection of apps for the iPhone came when developers realized it was the next gold rush. I think what you'll see on Android is a ton of apps with the DRM built into them, free apps that you have to pay to unlock.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by AuMatar ( 183847 )

          And then you'll see the open sourcers step in and clone each and every one of those apps. People don't want DRM, and the idea will ultimately fail on any open phone.

        • I have to agree with the other poster who responded to this. iPhone users are non-technical users, Android users are technical users. DRM your app? Watch the open source clone replace it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tpgp ( 48001 ) *

            iPhone users are non-technical users, Android users are technical users.

            What a load of bullshit. The userbase of both phones are a majority non technical, with a small minority of technical users.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by mjwx ( 966435 )

              What a load of bullshit. The userbase of both phones are a majority non technical, with a small minority of technical users.

              Android will end up like this. But for the moment the GP is correct.

              iPhone users are non-technical users, Android users are technical users.

              Google is deliberately targeting technical users first so that they can learn the about the OS and find bugs without the customer becoming frustrated with the bugs thus causing negative press, this is their MO which google use will most stuff t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          But the huge selection of apps for the iPhone came when developers realized it was the next gold rush.

          That really is an apt analogy, like other gold rushes, most iphone developers will come out with less money then when they went in. Iphones are going to be a limited market much like Macintoshes due to the fact that Apple will refuse to license the OS, this limits both the number (and type) of devices that can be produced and the number people willing to purchase the device (mainly due to the lack of opti

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by prxi ( 1286702 )
      Currently paid for apps can't be accessed unless you have root access (majority of users don't). That said, you could tie an application you write to an account that you validate with also. Other than that, what can they really do to stop people with root access?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sverdrup ( 1532519 )
        I suppose that's the tradeoff. Android's openness lets you program cooler stuff, but shifts the burden of protecting your work to the developer.
    • What? iPhone apps are being pirated left and right. There are even app stores dedicated to pirated apps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      If an app provides actual value at a price the market can actually bear (remember that "pirates" are part of the market too), then your app would do fine. But in my opinion, the market only has room for so many of these small, on-off apps that seem be cluttering the Apple app store, which are not worth the dollar that most people ask for. If you're so worried about your little app being pirated to the point that you can't make money on it, then you probably need to invest your efforts elsewhere on somethi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jipn4 ( 1367823 )

      Don't let the door hit you in the behind on your way out.

  • The only ones I know are either horridly expensive (the German phone), provider locked AND not available here, the other one (openmoko) ... well coughing is to dieing from a HIV infection like buggy is to ... Oh and that one's bankrupt too.

    I'd love to get unbelievably exited about this phone operating system. Except ... it's got a bit of an emacs problem ... this phone operating system does sooooo many things sooooo great ... except it doesn't seem to operate any actual phones ...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by KBlommel ( 1165263 )

      Currently in the US there's only the G1 from T-Mobile. I'm currently on Sprint and I got very excited when Sprint said they were going to be coming out with an Android based phone this year, only later to read that they feel the Android platform isn't ready yet.

      Sprint will be the first provider with the Palm Pre though, which I think looks amazing. I'm hoping it gets a strong developer base for applications, because that's what is going to decide whether the phone is great or a flop.

    • HTC isn't German. HTC made the first Android phone, which is sold as HTC Dream, T-Mobile G1, and Android Dev Phone 1. HTC isn't German. The HTC Dream and Androidn Dev Phone are not locked at all. And I'm note completely sure the T-Mobile G1 is even provider locked. More Android phones, from multiple vendors, are on its way.

    • Android Owners Aren't Losers Like iPhone Owners (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      People with Android phones, shockingly, buy them because they work well and get on with their lives. They aren't lifestyle choices. They aren't something that fills a hole in their sad and empty lives.

      So, no, Android phones aren't:

      * Carried in the most visible way everywhere in public places hoping everyone will notice just how 'special' they are for what phone they own

      * Brought up in every single conversation with every single person they meet in public

      * Used in the most annoyingly over manner in public pl

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        someone has iPhone envy and/or a small cock

        lighten up, Francis

      • People with Android phones, shockingly, buy them because they work well and get on with their lives.

        That's why I bought my iPhone. That's why everyone I know bought an iPhone. Because we wanted something that Just Works and so many phones before, had Just Not Worked Worth a Damn.

        They aren't lifestyle choices. They aren't something that fills a hole in their sad and empty lives.

        Well I don't know how empty your life is, but it's certainly sad that instead of enjoying your phone you see fit to bring down oth

    • I believe you can get the G1 unlocked directly from google [android.com].

    • I'd love to get unbelievably exited about this phone operating system.

      You'd need several doors constantly revolving around said phone for this to happen. I do think that it would be fun indeed, especially if done properly — à la Jazz, that is.

  • That's nice... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pdragon04 ( 801577 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:04PM (#27577175)
    ...now how about getting some more phones that can actually use it?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:13PM (#27577327)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Arguably, Android G1 was not really ready for widespread use. It has a lot of rough edges and device itself (I own it) is not very well polished.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pimpimpim ( 811140 )
        Also many of the applications are still close but no cigar. I don't care too much, though, this thing has way more potential than any of the other platforms, and there is still a lot of room for sales next to the iphone.

  • Basic functionality (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:17PM (#27577405) Homepage Journal

    Hey Google - have you fixed the mail reader so I can view messages composed by someone using Pine (or one of its derivatives) instead of just seeing "null" where the body should be?

    All of the flash is nice, but getting the basics working would be better. This issue is supposedly fixed in the codebase, but I don't see anything in the 1.5 release notes indicating that it's included.

  • Android 1.5 Highlights (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:57PM (#27578143)

    Android 1.5 Highlights

    April 2009

    The Android 1.5 platform introduces many new features for users and developers. The list below provides an overview of the changes.
    User interface refinements

    * System-wide:
    o Refinement of all core UI elements
    o Animated window transitions (off by default)
    o Accelerometer-based application rotations
    * UI polish for:
    o In-call experience
    o Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
    o SMS & MMS
    o Browser
    o Gmail
    o Calendar
    o Email
    o Camera & Gallery
    o Application management

    Performance improvements

    * Faster Camera start-up and image capture
    * Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
    * Smoother page scrolling in Browser
    * Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling

    New features

    * On-screen soft keyboard
    o Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
    o Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
    o User dictionary for custom words
    * Home screen
    o Widgets
    + Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
    o Live folders
    * Camera & Gallery
    o Video recording
    o Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
    * Bluetooth
    o Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
    o Auto-pairing
    o Improved handsfree experience
    * Browser
    o Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
    o Copy 'n paste in browser
    o Search within a page
    o User-selectable text-encoding
    o UI changes include:
    + Unified Go and Search box

  • I like google, but latest Android versions that had two distinct public and wasnt so open, some points into product certificates and Chrome that sent everything that we write to google... makes me have one step behind in all products that they have released and will release one day. Because this I don't use google produts anymore, even restricting gmail use either. Yes Google is a very good company with good products, but your policy isn't so clear.

  • Oh shit, no! Randomly rotating apps everytime you move your phone. Why did they have to copy the iPhone? The accelerometer is the most worthless gimmic ever put into a gadget.

  • Bluetooth API's (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Qwavel ( 733416 ) on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @08:53PM (#27581293)

    From the changelog it would appear that there are still no bluetooth API's. This makes it pretty much the only phone available that doesn't have this. Too bad.

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