The Android Operating System was launched as an open source system on 21 October 2008. Google opened the full source code including network and telephony stacks under an Apache License. With an Apache License, vendors can add propriety extensions without presenting those back to the open source community. There have been many updates to the Android OS since.
After Apr 2009 there were several new characteristics and UI updates that came with in the 1.5 update. It has the power to record and watch video recordings through camcorder mode. Videos can be uploaded to YouTube and images to Picasa directly from the phone. A new soft-keyboard with text-prediction is a very useful application to have. It had the support for Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP, ability to link up to a Bluetooth headset automatically within a certain distance, new applications and folders that can populate the Home screens and animated screen transitions. All these were available 1.5 Cupcake based on Linux Kernel 2.6.27.
The 1.6 Donut based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29 got launched on Sep 2009 and had several new features . It had an improved Android Market Experience and an integrated camera, camcorder and gallery interface . The gallery enabled the users to select multiple photographs for deletion. It also had an updated Voice Search, with faster reaction time and deeper integration with native applications programmes that included the ability to dial contacts, updated search experience that allowed for looking up of bookmarks, history, contacts and accessing the internet from the home screen. Updated technology support for CDMA EVDO, 802.1 xVPNs and a text-to-speech engine took the characteristics of this phone to a different level. It had WVGA screen resolutions support, speed advancements in searching, camera applications programmes and also had a Gesture framework and GestureBuilder development tool.
October 2009 saw the launch of the 2.0 Éclair SDK. It optimised hardware speed, supported more screen sizes and resolutions, revamped UI, had new browser and HTML5 support, new contact lists , better white-black ratio for backgrounds, improved Google Maps 3.1.2, support for Microsoft Exchange, built in flash for camera, digital zoom, and MotionEvent class exchange to track multi-touch events. Improved virtual keyboard, Bluetooth 2.1 and live wallpapers are more of its list of improved features. This release was eventually followed with the launch of 2.0.1 SDK on Dec 2009 and 2.1 SDK on January 2010.
The release of 2.2 Froyo SDK on May 2010 made great improvements for all existing and new features. Optimizations were made in the general Android OS speed, memory and performance. There were also additional application speed improvements, Chrome’s V8 engine was integrated into the Browser application, Microsoft Exchange support (like security policies, auto discovery, GAL look up, calendar synchronization , remote wipe) was increased. Application launcher with shortcuts to the Android Phone and Web browser applications was also improved and it also supported the functionality of USB tethering and WiFi hot spot. It has an added option to disable data access over mobile network, updated market application with batch and automatic update characteristics. It has a quick switch between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries and also supports voice dialing and contact sharing over Bluetooth.
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