Android 1.5 Early Look SDK

The next release of the Android platform will be Android 1.5 and Google have announced the availability of an early look SDK to give developers a head-start on developing applications for it. There are a lot of new features being introduced and we have the full details after the break. Some highlights will be a more polished user interface throughout, faster camera, smooth animations and scrolling, soft keyboard in portrait and landscape modes, A2DP Bluetooth, video recording and lots more. Read on for all the details.

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