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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."
# Camera & Gallery
* Video recording
* Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
# Bluetooth
* Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
* Auto-pairing
* Improved handsfree experience
Anyone here written code for Android? How do you like it?
/...
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.
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.
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.
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.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
...now how about getting some more phones that can actually use it?
I keep hearing a lot of people ask this, especially from Symbian devs who can't see how their image processing code would even work on java.
Seeing as the underlying OS is all C/C++ it really beats me why they don't expose the 'environment' to C coders too. Then we'd see some fancy fast applications on Android that might make other phone manufacturers look on with envy.
There again, if they released a C API, you'd be able to run ruby/python and perl code on it too!
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...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Seems someone at Google didn't fully realize that their low fanfare and subtle product roll out system wouldn't translate well to consumer electronics. I was very excited to hear about Android in a Wired article last year and I was pleased to see it's just around the corner. But in my opinion the launch was terrible. There was little coverage in mainstream media, I didn't see any commercials or marketing of any kind. They should have waited till they had more carriers on board, more cell phone / electronics manufacturers on board and launched with a huge marketing campaign. I would argue that Google has a more marketable IP than Apple does (almost everyone uses something Google related and most people have a generally positive view on Google), and if Android was launched properly it would have easily gone head to head with the iPhone (particularily if it wasn't rushed out and maintained all initially stated functionality).
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.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
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
The problem is that mobile phone apps pretty much have to be sandboxed, and that's a lot harder to do with C/C++ than it is with something like Java. The tools available on modern PC's for sandboxing applications don't even work all that well most of the time (see Vista). Now imagine that instead of a full-powered PC with all sorts of extensions and opcodes and so on, you're running on a much more limited platform. (sidenote: technically Android isn't pure Java, they've created their own bytecode, so they aren't beholden to Sun's iron grasp)
sig? uhh, umm, ok
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 other phones you fear people perceive as "better". I myself like the Android platform a lot, I just see it's not as mature yet.
Carried in the most visible way everywhere in public places hoping everyone will notice just how 'special' they are for what phone they own
Honestly, who does that? I have never seen a person just carrying one around to display. They are usually tucked away in purses or pockets - just like other phone.
Used in the most annoyingly over manner in public places with a desperate and sad hope that people will ask them about their phone
So because iPhone owners actually USE the phones they carry they are arrogant? Seems like you are the one proclaiming how much better a person you are because of the brand of phone you own. I personally don't care what phone other people have, or if they know what I have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
cool. But Android doesn't use JVM bytecode, they developed their own, called Dalvik, to get round Sun's licencing.
If by "getting close to" you mean "better than", then yes ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun