Google Android Releases New SDK for Mobile Development Platform

Highlights for new SDK from Android blog:
Link to Android highlights

* New user interface - As I mentioned when we introduced the m3 version of the Android SDK, we're continuing to refine the UI that's available for Android. m5-rc14 replaces the previous placeholder with a new UI, but as before, work on it is still in-progress.

* Layout animations - Developers can now create layout animations for their applications using the capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. Check out the LayoutAnimation*.java files in the APIDemos sample code for examples of how this works.

* Geo-coding - android.location.Geocoder enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code (i.e. translate an address into a coordinate and vice-versa), and also search for businesses.

* New media codecs - The MediaPlayer class has added support for the OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.

* Updated Eclipse plug-in - A new version of ADT is available and provides improvements to the Android developer experience. In particular, check out the new Android Manifest editor

Android as with many Google-ized acquisitions is destined to make an impressive splash but its initial impact may be blunted by lack of carrier adoption. Neither dominant players AT&T or Verizon have announced plans to support Android which will leave T-Mobile and Sprint and a host of secondary carriers who have greenlighted the mobile development platform.

At last count, there are more 3.3 billion mobile accounts worldwide (source: Network World); the prospect of having a Google-powered open source toolset for mobile development is intriguing at the very least.

More:

Open Handset Alliance

Watch the Android intro video: