Android Announcement Coincides with Developer Treats

With Google’s announcement comes a little basket of treats for Google’s engineering base: the first full release of the Software Development Kit (SDK), featuring all the new features and associated Application Programming Interfaces (API) of the Android operating system. SDKs and APIs, FYI (oh my). Okay, okay. I can hear your groans from here. Moving […]

With Google's announcement comes a little basket of treats for Google's engineering base: the first full release of the Software Development Kit (SDK), featuring all the new features and associated Application Programming Interfaces (API) of the Android operating system.

SDKs and APIs, FYI (oh my). Okay, okay. I can hear your groans from here. Moving on...

What's new?

  • Apps on Android can access core mobile device functionality through standard APIs. Through intents, apps can announce their capabilities for other apps to use
  • Any app on the mobile device can be replaced or extended -- even core components such as the dialer or home
  • Apps can easily embed HTML, Javascript, and style sheets. An app can render web content through a WebView
  • Android is a complete multitasking environment where apps can run in parallel. While running in the background, an app can produce notifications to get attention

The API's and SDK are refined enough that Google feels it is okay to claim it won't change before the open source operating system is available "later this year." If there are any developers on the fence for fear of changing platform issues, I guess now is the time to download the latest version.

Details on the eventual open source release of the Android operating system is available on Google's code site.