Android 1.5 SDK Is Released

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."

Comments

but where's my motivation?

[sverdrup]

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?

[AuMatar]

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.

Re:but where's my motivation?

[mjwx]

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 they develop in house. They also have a somewhat ulterior motive for targeting tech and phone enthusiasts first, these are the people that average people will ask for advice and help. By having a large supply of ready trained techs who can help the mundanes out with their android phone google is positioning Android so that it can have relatively few problems whist providing a lagre feature set.

OMG!!! Teh iPhone!!!

[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 and pathetic little life fulfilled like your precious little iPhone does?

No one gives a shit retard.

Re:Anyone seen any android phones ?

[KBlommel]

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.

Re:I'm curious

[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). I'm definitely sticking with it for now. They have a decent developer site that (IMHO) does a good job of explaining Android development and application architecture as well as providing an API reference:

http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html

Re:The big question is:

[Hurricane78]

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...

Basic functionality

[blincoln]

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.

Re:I'm curious

[IamTheRealMike]

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

[caluml]

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:Asking for a title on a comment is idiotic /.

[Cyberax]

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.

Bluetooth API's

[Qwavel]

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.

Re:Asking for a title on a comment is idiotic /.

[pimpimpim]

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.

Re:C API yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

For one thing, the mobile world doesn't run exclusively on the ARM instruction set. Lower end chips tend to be Qualcomm. Allowing native code reduces portability, so they probably want to discourage it.