Hello Cupcake: Android 1.5 OTA Updates Are Official

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 07 May 2009

Following much heated debate over the OTA update of Android 1.5, which only a select few G1 users received, we are glad to report that the update has been confirmed by T-Mobile. “T-Mobile is delighted to announce the upcoming release of Android 1.5 with "Cupcake" coming soon to the T-Mobile G1! We plan to begin sending out the update starting the end of next week. As with previous software maintenance releases, the update will be randomly sent "over the air" to T-Mobile G1 customers. We expect everyone will have their update by the end of May,” says the official announcement.

So I guess that settles it. Android 1.5, which reportedly weighs in at 44MB, is ready for deployment and will be delivered OTA (over the air). It doesn’t matter who already has it and who doesn’t; soon everyone will have it! I should mention that the T-Mobile statement above refers to US users; T-Mobile UK has already started to roll out the update.

Android 1.5, codename Cupcake comes with a sleuth of enhancements and new features. Out of the complete feature list that you can view here, we’ve highlighted the following:
- On-screen soft keyboard with: portrait and landscape support, 3rd party keyboards support, user dictionary (for custom words).
- Home screen with: Widgets (analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search) and Live folders.
- Camera & Gallery to include video recording and video playback for supported formats.
- Bluetooth to support for stereo Bluetooth, auto-pairing, and an enhanced handsfree experience.
- Browser will feature: copy and paste, search, user-selectable text-encoding, UI changes (tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen and unified Go and Search box).
- Contacts with: user picture for Favorites, events in call log display specific date and time stamp, access contacts from a call event log with a single touch.
- Linux kernel 2.6.27
- SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
- Google apps with: upload support for YouTube and Picasa, batch actions for Gmail messages (archive, delete, and label), and the option to view Google Talk friends' status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, Gmail, and Email applications.
- Accelerometer-based application rotations.


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