Google announces new features in Android 1.5

Google Android

Earlier this week, Google announced new details about the next version of the Android platform. Based on the Cupcake development branch, Android 1.5 will come with a number of new features.

Among the new features, you will find:

  • Soft keyboard support, including both portrait and landscape orientation modes and a dictionary for custom words
  • New home screen widgets, including an analog clock, a calendar, a music player, a picture frame, and search
  • Support for video recording and playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
  • Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
  • An improved browser with the latest Webkit and Squirrelfish Javascript engines, a unified Go and Search box, and copy-and-paste in the browser
  • A new Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
  • New features in a number of Google applications

The release will also offer a number of bug fixes and refinements, including performance (including faster camera start-up and image capture, faster GPS location acquisition and smoother browser page scrolling) and user interface improvements (including refinements to all core UI elements, accelerometer-based application rotations, Gmail, Calendar, and Email).

Google has not announced exactly when Android 1.5 will be released but the SDK is expected at the end of the month. I expect that the OS release would not follow much later.

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