The next step upgrade for the T-Mobile G1 Android OS is codenamed Cupcake by Google, and people are hoping for a release soon.  

The entire list is below, so scroll through if you’re interested.  Some highlights: New menu option to list running processes in Settings->ManageApplications, Music playback fades in after suspending for phone call, Copy/ paste is enabled in the browser, Video recorder mode, Input method framework, for soft keyboards and other on-screen inputmethods, Support for Bluetooth A2DP & AVRCP profiles.  These are all things I’ve been waiting for.

According to Google, the following upgrade and fixes are currently in the patch, but may not make it to a release candidate:

Applications

• MMS
  • New features
    • Save attachments from MMS.
  • Significant bug fixes
    • Faster conversation list scrolling

• Email
  • Significant bug fixes
    • Accounts that were marked “never check” are not auto-checked.
    • Date & time displayed using user preference (e.g. 24 hr vs. AM/PM).
    • cc: displayed in message view.
    • Relaxed POP3 parser rules so it works with non-compliant email servers.

• • • Password quoting bugs in IMAP. Makes it work for users with funny chars in their password (e.g. spaces).

• • • Various sources of errors in auto & manual account setup.

• • • Improvements on how we report various connection errors. Makes it much easier for user to diagnose failed account setups.

• • • New-mail notifications for POP3 accounts.
    • Properly recover from POP3 connection failures, so that the next connection has a chance of working properly.
    • Remove automatic accounts setup entries that were broken or nottestable. Minor fixes to a few of the remaining entries. Improvementsto warning dialogs used for a few special cases.

• • • New accounts are now set to check every 15 minutes (instead of defaulting to “never”).

• • • Fixed a bug causing approximately 1 in 25 outbound messages to freezeup the IMAP connection (to a Gmail based server) when transferred tothe Sent folder. This broke the entire connection so new messagescould not be downloaded either.
    • Unit test framework so Email can be extended & tested more reliably.
    • Fix IMAP manually-created accounts so message delete works properly.

• Alarm Clock
  • Significant bug fixes
    • Alert now plays audio/vibe directly, rather than through AlarmManager.AlarmClock alert starts playing audio/vibe in its IntentReceiver,rather than on activity start. These changes should prevent alarms frombeing blocked by modal dialogs.

  Package Installer

  • Significant bug fixes
    • Bugs related to replacing existing applications.

  Settings

  • New features
    • New menu option to list running processes in Settings->ManageApplications.

  Music

  • New features
    • Music playback fades in after suspending for phone call.New media search intent allows for 3rd party apps to launch or respondto media searches based on artist, album, or title.
      Affects: MusicPlayer, YouTube, Browser applications.
• Browser
  • New features
    • Updated WebKit browser core, synced with Nov 2008 WebKit version.
    • Support for new, optimized JavaScript engine (SquirrelFish).
    • Copy/ paste is enabled in the browser. To copy with touch, press and holdthe shift key and select the text. Releasing the shift key or endingthe touch drag copies the text. To copy with the trackball, press andhold the shift key, move the cursor to the selection start, click thetrackball, and move the trackball to the extend the selection.Releasing the shift key, or clicking the trackball a second time,copies the text.
    • Find is enabled in the browser. To find text, choose it from the menu and type the text to find.
    • Drawinghas been sped up substantially by supporting partial contentinvalidates and partial screen invalidates. Pages with animations are5x faster.
• VoiceDialer
  • New features
    • VoiceDialer supports ‘open app’ command
• Camera/Gallery
  • New features
    • Video recorder mode
    • Share intent for videos
    • Video thumbnailsLocal file playback

Download manager

• New features
  • Support for HTTP codes 301, 302, 303 and 307 (redirects).
  • HTTP code 503 is now handled, with support for retry-after in delay-seconds.
  • Downloads that were cleanly interrupted are now resumed instead of failing.
  • Applications can now pause their downloads.
  • Retry delays are now randomized.
  • Connectivity is now checked on all interfaces.
  • Downloads with invalid characters in file name can now be saved.

Framework

• New features
  • Support of touch events in WebView.New JavaScript engine (SquirrelFish) in WebView.

• • Input method framework, for soft keyboards and other on-screen inputmethods. Includes new APIs for applications to interact with inputmethods, and the ability for third party developers to write their owninput methods.

• • Access to the raw audio data for playback and recording from application code.

• • New PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT option.
  • Support for top-level boolean resources.
  • Tactile feedback to the LockPatternView. Tactile feedback can beenabled/disabled by going to Settings > Security & location andthen checking/unchecking “Use tactile feedback”. Note that this can beused independently of the visual feedback of the lines (“Use visiblepattern”). Thus it gives users a middle ground between showing thelines on the screen and having no feedback at all.
  • PackageManager changes to support un-installation ofpartially installed applications. Added new flagPackageManager.GET_UNINSTALLED_PACKAGES to include partially installedapps in all relevant PackageManager api’s. ManageApplications screennow lists such partially installed apps and the user can uninstallthese applications completely.
  • Support third party updates of system applications. Newmenu options in Settings->ManageApplications to list updated systemapplications.
  • Framework support to list current running processes. New API in ActivityManager.
  • Framework feature to declare required configurations by applications.New manifest attribute uses-configuration in android manifest.
  • Hardware accelerated video encode (video recorder) in opencore.
  • Simplified SREC speech recognition API available.
  • Streaming audio I/O for applications.

• Significant bug fixes
  • Fixed issues with saving state in the view hierarchy, so that you canproperly subclass from something like TextView and create your ownstate that inherits from that provided by TextView.

• • TextView now implements onKeyMultiple(), so that flinging the trackballwill result in accelerated scrolling. This required some changes tomovement methods, and included some improvements to the accelerationcomputed when flinging.
  • Framework bug fixes in PackageManager to share/un-share permissions for applications with shared uid’s.Significant rework of Settings->ManageApplications Performance and UI enhancements.
  • Anumber of settings in android.provider.Settings.System were moved toandroid.provider.Settings.Secure. Only system software can modify thesesettings. Additionally, a new permission, WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS, isrequired to access these settings. The old constants in Settings.Systemhave been deprecated. It is possible to read settings values viaSettings.System using the deprecated constants. However, attempts tomodify these settings via Settings.System will result in a log messageand the setting value will be left unchanged.Many bug fixes in the media framework

Bluetooth

• New features
  • Support for A2DP & AVRCP profiles.

• Significant bug fixes

• First connection after pairing always fails on many carkits.

• Mini Cooper and some late model BMW cars fail to use Bluetooth or take 2 minutes for Phone Book transfer.

System software

• New features

• • New kernel based on Linux 2.6.27.
  • Improvements to the wakelock API.
  • Work to transition to the USB Gadget Framework underway.
  • Basic x86 support.

Radio & Telephony

• New features

• • SIM Application Toolkit 1.0.
  • Green CALL button is no longer a shortcut for “add a new call”. Thishas been a rarely used feature and confusing if triggered accidentally.
  • Longer in-call screen timeout when using the speakerphone.
  • “Show dialpad” / “Hide dialpad” item added to the in-call menu, to make it easier to discover the DTMF dialpad.
• Significant bug fixes
  • An obscure case where the Phone UI could cause the device to not go tosleep on its own. This would happen if user bails out of the in-callscreen by hitting HOME, followed by the call disconnecting remotely. Don’t allow a single tap to open the in-call dialpad. Itis now required to touch and drag it. This makes it much harder toaccidentally open the dialpad by touching the screen with your face.

Developer Tools

• New features
  • Enable handset manufacturers to extend the Android SDK with add-ons. SDK add-ons will include:
    • systemlibraries to let developers use additional APIs provided by handsetmanufacturers or from other 3rd party vendors that handsetmanufacturers chose to include
      emulator system images,skins, and hardware configuration to let developers test theirapplications on their Android implementation

This is work-in-progress. Please note that the latest Android SDK (Android 1.0 SDK, Release 2) is not compatible with the SDKplugin in the new branch, please use ADT 0.8.0. SDK add-on support is planned for future SDK release. 

Build System

• New features
  • The functions in build/envsetup.sh should be much more useful

 

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