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:
- 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 (not available in the Android 1.5 System Image that is
included in the Android SDK)
- 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 Manifest Elements
-
UI framework
- Framework for easier background/UI thread interaction
-
New
SlidingDrawer
widget -
New
HorizontalScrollview
widget
-
AppWidget framework
-
APIs for creating secure home screen
AppWidgets
. For information about how to use AppWidgets, see the Developer's Guide AppWidgets documentation. Also see Introducing home screen widgets and the AppWidget framework on the Android Developer's Blog. -
APIs for populating
Live Folders
with custom content.
-
APIs for creating secure home screen
-
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
-
Input Method Service
framework - Text-prediction engine
- Ability to provide downloadable IMEs to users
-
-
Application-defined hardware requirements
Applications can now use a new element in their manifest files, <uses- configuration> to indicate to the Android system what hardware features they require in order to function properly. For example, an application might use the element to specify that it requires a physical keyboard or a particular navigation device, such as a trackball. Prior to installing the application, the Android system checks the attributes defined for the
<uses-configuration>
element and allows the installation to continue only if the required hardware is present. -
Speech recognition framework
-
Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent. See
RecognizerIntent
.
-
Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent. See
-
Miscellaneous API additions
- LocationManager - Applications can get location change updates via Intent
- WebView - Touch start/end/move/cancel DOM event support
-
Redesigned
Sensor Manager APIs
- GLSurfaceView - convenience framework for creating OpenGL applications
- Broadcast Intent for app update install succeeded - for smoother app upgrade experience