android-15-ui
Google Android 1.5 is getting some nice user interface changes as well as other features. I have not seen a release date yet for version 1.5 but I have a feeling it will help Android to stay competitive and coincide with the releases of both the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3.0.
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
- 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
- Widgets
- 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
- Support for multiple versions of Android in a single SDK installation
- Improved JUnit support in ADT
- Easier application performance profiling
Check It Out> Android Developers via Talk Android, Download the SDK Preview
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