While we are all waiting this month for the HTC Magic phone, developers can already get the Android SDK 1.5, commonly known as Cupcake in the development branch. The 1.5 include lots of new features, APIs, and UI enhancements, especially the soft keyboard which will be used for the first on HTC Magic.

Keep your eyes on the Android developers blog in the next days since there will be a series of articles to highlight new APIs and other changes. HTC Magic should be available this month in many countries, we will post more details about availability and features.

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
  • Email
  • 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
• 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
  • 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 developer tools

• UI framework
  • Framework for easier background/UI thread interaction
  • New SlidingDrawer widget
  • Horizontal ScrollView widget
• Home Screen framework
  • APIs for creating secure home screen widgets
  • APIs for populating live folders with custom content
• 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
  • Text prediction engine
  • Ability to provide downloadable IMEs to users
• Speech recognition framework
  • Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent
• Misc API additions
  • LocationManager – Applications can get location change updates via Intent
  • WebView – Touch start/end/move/cancel DOM event support
  • SensorManager – redesigned sensor APIs
  • GLSurfaceView – convenience framework for creating OpenGL applications
  • Broadcast Intent for app update install succeeded – for smoother app upgrade experience
• Developer tools
  • Support for multiple versions of Android in a single SDK installation
  • Improved JUnit support in ADT
  • Easier application performance profiling

Download Android SDK 1.5

T-mobile G1 and Vodafone HTC Magic customers can now view, edit and create Microsoft Word and Excel files plus sync Exchange Server e-mail, contacts and attachments

Milford, CT, April 1, 2009 – DataViz®, Inc., a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner and leading provider of Microsoft Office compatibility solutions is now shipping Documents To Go® Standard Edition version 1.0 for Android™. The highly anticipated office suite leverages DataViz’s experience developing mobile solutions and brings a feature rich, enterprise-grade productivity tool to devices based on the Android platform.

View, Edit & Create
For nearly a decade Documents To Go has been providing mobile professionals with the ability to view, edit and create native Microsoft Word and Excel® files instantly on their mobile device. Files can be transferred via Bluetooth, USB, memory cards as well as e-mail attachments which means that unlike online or “cloud based” solutions, they are always available for “anytime, anywhere” access. In addition, users can edit their Office documents with confidence thanks to DataViz’s acclaimed InTact Technology™ which ensures that all original file formatting is retained once a file has been edited on their Android handset and forwarded on.

Send & Receive Attachments
With Gmail and other mobile e-mail solutions being at the heart of Android-based devices, having full access to attachments is more important than ever. Now customers can download, view, edit and send Word & Excel files when on the go. In addition, a free beta version of DataViz’s award-winning RoadSync application is also now available in Android Market. RoadSync uses the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® protocol to provide secure, wireless and direct push synchronization with Exchange Server 2003 and 2007 and the beta supports push e-mail, attachments and contacts.

“By utilizing the development tools provided by Google and Open Handset Alliance, we were able to bring our solutions to Android Market much faster than we anticipated,” said Ilya Eliashevsky, Product Manager, DataViz, Inc. “Whether you are a corporate customer or a student, you can instantly extend the capability of your Android-powered handset to get more done with Documents To Go and RoadSync.”

Feature Rich
Although new to the Android platform, Documents To Go supports many advanced viewing and editing features. These include but are not limited to touch, keypad and scroll ball navigation, multiple zoom levels, bold, italics, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, embedded pictures, bookmarks, comments, track-changes, word count, password-protected files, spreadsheet functions, sort, freeze pains, insert and delete rows and columns, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, save and save as.

Supports Office 97-2008
Documents To Go is the first mobile Office suite for Android that supports editing of native Microsoft Word and Excel files as well as the only solution to support all of the latest Microsoft Office file formats including 97, 2000, X, XP, 2003 and 2007 for Windows as well as 98, 2001, 2004, 2008 for Macintosh.

Pricing & Availability
Documents To Go is now available exclusively through Android Market for a limited-time introductory price of $19.99 (regularly $29.99.) The RoadSync beta is free through May 31, 2009 and also immediately available though Android Market. Supported devices include the T-mobile G1, HTC Dream, Vodafone HTC Magic and other devices running Android OS. For more information: http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/android/index.html

About DataViz
Founded in 1984, DataViz is an industry leader in developing and marketing Office compatibility and productivity solutions across a variety of platforms including Android™, BlackBerry, Java®, Linux, Palm OS®, Symbian OS™, Windows Mobile®, Windows® and Macintosh®. DataViz partners include Microsoft®, Motorola®, Palm®, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson® and other industry leaders. For more information: www.dataviz.com