| An In-Depth Video Tour of Google Android 0.9 SDK r1 Beta, an Great Mobile OS Download it: code.google.com Release Notes: code.google.com Google released the Android 0.9 SDK r1 Beta, boasting of a pile of API updates and a visual refresh that moves it one solid step closer to actually, you know, showing up on a phone. A long changelog and a few screenshots are great, but we've fired up the SDK's emulator for a guided tour of Android's salient features. 0:02: Main menu is contained in a drawer that slides from the bottom of the screen 0:08: Multiple home screens can be flipped with touch gestures, a la the iPhone 0:20: Icons can be dragged from the main menu to build customized home screens. Dragging to the menu drawer trashes the home screen shortcut 0:38: Dialer screen, followed by the call behavior. Calls can continue in the background, and all functions that don't require data transfer can work concurrently (This is currently a software regulation, as 3g networks should theoretically allow for simultaneous voice and data usage). 0:53: Ongoing calls and other notifications can be accessed by dragging the taskbar down. 1:20: Browser displays Gizmodo. Rendering is quite good, page navigation is a fairly intuitive rehash of current touch-control schemes. It's not terrible good at guessing column widths during double-tap zooming, but seems very usable. Preview magnification feature is useful for smaller screens or text-heavy pages. 2:22: "Tabbed" browsing feature lays out a ... |
