Much Anticipated Android SDK Update Released

The new Android SDK was released today. Build m5-rc14 brings a host of improvements to SDK. Updates were made to the user interface which received a lot of criticism due to the clunkiness and linear approach to menus and navigation.

They also added the option for developers to create Layout animations which will add some life to the rather stale implementations in the current demos. Some of the more interesting additions are “Geo-Coding”. This lets you translate an address into coordinates and vice-versa. The media player also recieved some new file support like OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA.

I can surely see the lure for developers to jump on the Android platform and create tons of applications, I just hope it’s not at the expense of the user interface. Only time will tell how much they invest in the “User Interface” versus the “Feature List”.