Today, Google has released the software development kit for Android 2.0, the company’s mobile operating system. The SDK gives away all the new features, and there’s indeed quite a lot in this one. The biggest new feature is multitouch support, but there’s a whole lot more.
The browser has seen some love, and it nowsupportsdouble-tap to zoom, and support for various HTML5 features,including full screen support for the HTML5 video tag. It also brings database API support (for client-side databases using SQL), Application cache support (for offline applications), and geolocation API support. The browser UI has been refreshed too.
The virtual keyboard has been improved too. It has a new keyboard layout and takes advantage of multitouch to prevent missing presses while typing really fast. Android 2.0 also brings Exchange support, as well as a unified single inbox for all your accounts (as Palm’s webOS does).
Another new feature is Quick Contact. With this new feature, you can tap on a contact, and it will bring up pop-up containing shortcuts to various ways you can communicate with said contact. It works from within other applications too. Support for BlueTooth 2.1 with Object Push Profile and Phone Book Access Profile has been added too.
Verizon will unveil its Droid phone tomorrow, which will carry this new Android release. It is currently unknown when other Android devices will be able to install the update.
Nice, let us see if Android gets more popular and less buggy.
By the way, am I the only one concerned about this “quick contact list” which comes from nowhere in the GUI ? Google’s not Apple but the user do not have to guess the function of active parts on the GUI…
Which bugs are you speaking of?
Because on my G1 Android runs (mostly) smoothy and bug free.
I say mostly, because some 3rd party apps can kill performance if not properly coded. But i can just uninstall them for another app that performs the same functions.
Bug wise though – i’m struggling to think of a single Android bug.
That said, rooted devices might have more, but then their not standard issue builds.
You actually think that Android shipped without any bugs?
There’s no such thing as a “bug free OS”.
But that doesn’t mean that every OS is “buggy” either.
Android doesn’t feel like a buggy OS. For me, it feels solid and stable.
People disagree with you.
http://androidforums.com/support/5821-buggy-outgoing-calls.html
http://www.androidforums.com/t-mobile-g1/1486-android-g1-laggy-bugg…
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35370/122/
Given the infinite numbers of people connected to the Internet and the huge numbers of handsets that have Android these days – it’s hardly surprising that you’re going to find people that are dissatisfied.
Now compare those thread (which were pretty barren aside the opening poster) to the hundreds of threads singing Androids praises, and I think you’ll see that the picture isn’t nearly as bleak as you’re post would suggest.
In fact, to illustrate my point further, I could just as easily list off a dozen threads with people moaning about their iPhone yet the iPhone is arguably the most usable smart phone to date.
There are major difference in stability between 1.0, 1.1, 1.5 and 1.6. Most of your links predates even version 1.0. Having bugs in alpha and beta stages of a project is quite normal and doesn’t necessarily mean that the final application will be of poor quality
Today Android is quite stable, and calling it buggy is very far from the truth. I’m not saying there are no bugs, but that’s very different from being buggy. Every software project this size have bugs regardless if its made by Google, Apple, Symbian…
I’ll cross my fingers to see Android Eclair on my HTC Dream -if It fits …-.
really can’t wait to see this on my galaxy i7500… this update is going to bring much needed tweaks to android. I find the phone quite usable as is, but bluetooth file transfer and multiple accounts are quite important for me, and I think exchange support is quite high on some other people’s lists.
also, I’m quite thrilled that they’ve improved the keyboard. Maybe that’s something which could be backported to 1.5 phones already… (hope)
If there’s little or no increase in overhead, then i really can’t see why v2.0 wont be backported
I’m not really talking about whether ‘older’ phones will get the 2.0 update (I would be very angry if they wouldn’t, to say the truth). However, I hope someone will soon find out how to get the new keyboard .apk to work on our current 1.5 phones… preferably a long time before 2.0 firmwares are released (which probably won’t be until next spring)
I wonder at what point we’ll start to see possibly Android appearing on netbooks? are phones going to get powerful enough that the operating system will be so close to being feature complete that it’ll be possible for it to span the phone and netbook? hopefully we’ll see more work by Google on the next generation graphics framework in Linux which will improve the over all experience for end users.
It sounds like the new version of Android addresses one of my main software-related gripes (had an HTC Dream for testing a few months ago): interfaces that didn’t fit the screen. I expect to scroll in webpages and documents, but not within preference panels and the UI of the applications themselves. And many times, there was only one or two lines “beneath the scroll” – a small detail, but it contributed to an overall feeling that the UI was un-polished.
I realize that’s inevitable with a handheld OS designed to run on different screen sizes – it looks like they’ve found a fairly clever solution.
Couple of things:
– Do they have any kind of API to suuport Live video delivery to the phone like Apple does with their Segmented TS. They have 3GPP based delivery but it is not well suited for Live Broadcasting.
– Now that Google is getting into the Navigation business and giving it away for free, I guess thats Goodbye to the Dutch company TomTom. Or maybe TomTom will pull a Garmin and build a phone. Now Google can track me and provide me with Ads based on the analysis of my emails, phone calls, voice messages, and Internet surfing habits – Theres that donut place you emailed your friend about Stop bye!!!!
3GPP is perfectly well suited for live streaming, not .3gp over HTTP, but 3GPP RTSP streaming. We have been doing that for nearly 5 years at MobiTV and do it on Android as well (e.g. SprintTV).