Cupcake is now available for Android Dev Phones

AndroidArena — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:07:20 +0000

After the good news about the notorious Cupcake update coming to the T-Mobile G1 owners in the beginning of May, Android Dev Phone owners are already able to download an official version of the update. So, we can only hope now that Deutsche Telekom (parent company of T-Mobile USA) is to keep its word and will not delay the T-Mobile G1 update any longer, bringing important features like an on-screen QWERTY, video recording and A2DP to the users.

Now that we know Cupcake is finally ready, we guess that the development of the next set of new features for the Android OS is already underway.We hope that we would not have to wait for it as long as we had with Cupcake (since last December).

source: HTC via EngadgetMobile

Cupcake upgrade coming in May for T-Mobile Germany’s customers

AndroidArena — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:37:33 +0000

T-Mobile Germany has posted on its G1 web page that a software upgrade will be coming in May for users of the device on its network. Among the features that will be added to the handset is a virtual keyboard, video capture and playback, stereo Bluetooth support and what appears to be an accelerometer (translated copy from German to English reads “Automatic Adjustment of the touchscreen when the G1 is horizontal or vertical hold”).

As far as a similar offering for all of those hungry U.S. G1 owners waiting for a cupcake of their own, we still have no idea of a date when it will happen, but with the apparent May release in Germany, the U.S. upgrade shouldn’t be too far away.

source

Developers now allowed early peek at SDK for Android 1.5

AndroidArena — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:11:49 +0000

As of yesterday, developers are now allowed to get the SDK for the next platform of Google’s open source OS, Android 1.5. This new build is based on the cupcake branch from the Android Open Source Project and includes APIs for features like a virtual QWERTY keyboard, widgets for the home screen, live folders and speech recognition. At the developer’s site you can download the early-view version of Android 1.5, learn about upgrading your Eclipse plug-in and learn what changes you will find in version 1.5. The SDK itself has been changed with improvements to the developer’s tools and will also include multiple versions of the Android software. For example, the early look SDK now offered not only includes version 1.5 of Android, but also includes version 1.1 so that multiple builds can be targeted with just one SDK installation. Google is telling developers not to release apps based on this version of Android 1.5 because there still could be some changes before the official release, which should be available at the end of the month. In the meanwhile, developers can download the Android 1.5 early look SDK by clicking on this link.

source

And here is the full list of the new features:

User interface refinements

System-wide:
- Refinement of all core UI elements
- Animated window transitions (off by default)
- Accelerometer-based application rotations
UI polish for:
- In-call experience
- Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
- SMS & MMS
- Browser
- Gmail
- Calendar
- Email
- Camera & Gallery
- 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
- Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
- Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
- User dictionary for custom words
Home screen
- Widgets
  - Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
- Live folders
Camera & Gallery
- Video recording
- Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
Bluetooth
- Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
- Auto-pairing
- Improved handsfree experience
Browser
- Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
- Copy ‘n paste in browser
- Search within a page
- User-selectable text-encoding
- UI changes include:
  - Unified Go and Search box
  - Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen
Contacts
- Shows user picture for Favorites
- Specific date/time stamp for events in call log
- One-touch access to a contact card from call log event
System
- New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
- SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
- SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
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

New APIs and developer tools

UI framework
- Framework for easier background/UI thread interaction
- New SlidingDrawer widget
- Horizontal ScrollView widget
Home Screen framework
- APIs for creating secure home screen widgets
- APIs for populating live folders with custom content
Media framework
- Raw audio recording and playback APIs
- Interactive MIDI playback engine
- Video recording APIs for developers (3GP format)
- Video and photo sharing Intents
- Media search Intent
Input Method framework
- Text prediction engine
- Ability to provide downloadable IMEs to users
Speech recognition framework
- Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent
Misc API additions
- LocationManager – Applications can get location change updates via Intent
- WebView – Touch start/end/move/cancel DOM event support
- SensorManager – redesigned sensor APIs
- GLSurfaceView – convenience framework for creating OpenGL applications
- Broadcast Intent for app update install succeeded – for smoother app upgrade experience
Developer tools
- Support for multiple versions of Android in a single SDK installation
- Improved JUnit support in ADT
- Easier application performance profiling