Google released an updated version of its Android SDK, dubbed m5-rc14. On its Android Developers Blog, the web services giant highlights a series of changes and updates, chief among them:
- New user interface--m5-rc14 replaces the previous placeholder with a new UI, although it remains a work in progress.
- Layout animations--Developers may now create layout animations for their applications via the android.view.animation package.
- Geo-coding--android.location.Geocoder enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code (i.e., translate an address into coordinates and vice-versa) as well as search for businesses.
- New media codecs--The MediaPlayer class adds support for OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.
- Updated Eclipse plug-in--A new version of ADT promises improvements to the Android developer experience, particularly the new Android Manifest editor.
Google has also released several new documents exploring the Android updates in more granular detail--API Changes Overview [1] is self-explanatory, while Upgrading the SDK [2] provides release notes as well as instructions on upgrading your development environment.
For more on the Android upgrade:
-read this Android Developers Blog entry [3]
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