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: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I guess I will never get, why people like a phone that is already technologically outdated and still overpriced, and adds even more annoyances to the package (like not being able to even input some important characters, being locked-down, and having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...

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.

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.