Article by George Norman

On 25 May 2009

If you live in the US of A and you want to get your hands on the Cupcake (the codename of Android 1.5), then there is just one option available for you, for the time being: download and install it yourself. The thing to keep in mind is that T-Mobile announced the official availability of Android 1.5, only to announce a couple of weeks later that OTA (over the air) updates will be postponed.

The official statement provide by T-Mobile at the time: "We’d like to provide an update on the rollout of Android 1.5 for T-Mobile G1 customers. We are working diligently to get Android 1.5 out as soon as possible, while aiming to ensure a consistent, positive experience for our customers. We’re finalizing the build this week to ensure optimal functionality and smooth delivery. Therefore, the rollout schedule has been reset by approximately a week, and we expect all G1 customers will have the update by early June. Your device will notify you when the update is available. Thank you for your patience and understanding."


There is no need to wait until June to get your hands on Android 1.5 and the functionality it comes with. Speaking of Android 1.5 functionality, here are the bits and pieces you can expect to get from the software:
- 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.

Know that you know what Android 1.5 features, here is what you need to know about manually installing it on your G1. Just follow this simple step by step tutorial and you should now have any problems:
Step 1. Get Android 1.5 from the Android Code Web page – download link .
Step 2. Rename the .zip file as update.zip than copy it to root, on a formatted microSD.
Step 3. Reboot and flash your G1 with the Android 1.5 firmware.

That should be it! All you have to do now is enjoy Android 1.5. For the less technically oriented users out there, the ones that do not know how to reboot and flash the G1 with the updated firmware, a detailed guide on how to do so is available here.



Tags: Google, Android 1.5, T-Mobile, G1, Update, OTA

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