Google Updates Android Development Kit
"We're continuing the early look at the Android SDK that we started back in November by providing updates to the Android APIs and the developer tools based, in part, on the great feedback and suggestions developers have been giving us," wrote Jason Chen, developer advocate for Google, on the company's Android developers' blog. "We're excited about the progress that we've made and look forward to making additional updates in the future as the platform evolves towards production-readiness."
Updated features include a new user interface, layout animations, Geo-coding, new media codecs and an updated Ecliplse plug-in, according to Chen.
The new user interface has been refined but it's "still in progress," Chen wrote on the blog.
Regarding animation, developers can now create layout animations for their applications using the capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. On its Web site, Google has provided examples of LayoutAnimation*.java files in the APIDemos sample code.
Google's android.location.Geocoder enables developers to translate an address into a coordinate, and also to search for businesses, Chen said.
Android's MediaPlayer now supports OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.
Earlier this week, several companies showcased prototype devices using the Android platform at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain. The first Android-enabled phones are expected to be available by the end of the year.