Kshitij Sobti

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Posted on 17-09-2009

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With the recent revelation of information about the new Android Market, coming with Android 1.6, now we have the release of Android 1.6 itself.

Code named "Donut" this is the one which was almost 2.0, but that fact that it is a mere 0.1 increment doesn't mean it doesn't come with some awesome stuff... Google showing once again how little version numbers mean to them.

Android 1.6 is expected to start appearing in mobile phones this coming October. So here's what so we have to look out for:

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• CDMA support: A big update, but it was only a matter of time.
   
• Camera and gallery: According to the Android Developer's Blog: "Compared to the previous release, launching the camera is now 39% faster, and there is a 28% improvement in the time from completing one shot to the next."
  The interface for the camera, camcorder and gallery is now much more integrated.
   
• Quick Search Box: the the quick search box is not much more powerful and better still programmable! That eBook application can now provide search suggestion of books direct to your quick search box. You can also individually turn off search suggestions from different applications.
   
• Battery Usage: One of the most awesome updates is that you can now see which applications are using up the most battery!
   
• Accessibility: A new accessibility framework allows the user to download and install new accessibility services.
   
• Android Market: The Android Market upgrades come after the pretty poor performance of the Android Market. More details here. 
   
• Text-to-Speech: A new text to speech engine allows for multilingual text to speech generation. Voices can be downloaded from the market.
   
• Gestures: A new framework for gesture recognition allows for application to create, store, load and recognize user gestures. 
   
• Screen resolutions and densities: better support for multiple screen resolutions and densities. Allows for application developers to specify what resolutions their application will work best on.

There are a lot more changes in the new Android 1.6, such a Linux kernel update, but some of the most noticeable changes have been listed above. Find out more from the Android 1.6 page or watch the following video: