| page.title=Android 1.6 Version Notes |
| |
| @jd:body |
| |
| <p> |
| <em>Date:</em> September 2009<br /> |
| <em>API Level:</em> <strong>4</strong></p> |
| |
| |
| <p>This document provides version notes for the Android 1.6 system image included in the SDK. </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a> |
| <li><a href="#features">Release Highlights</a> |
| <li><a href="#apps">Built-in Applications</a> |
| <li><a href="#locs">Locales</a> |
| <li><a href="#api-changes">API Changes</a> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> |
| |
| <p>The Android 1.6 system delivered in the SDK (as library and system image) is |
| the development counterpart to the Android 1.6 production system image, which is |
| deployable to Android-powered handsets starting October 2009. The system is |
| fully compliant and includes no external libraries. </p> |
| |
| <p>The Android 1.6 system delivers an updated version of the framework |
| API. As with previous versions, the Android 1.6 API |
| is assigned an integer identifier — <strong>4</strong> — that is |
| stored in the system itself. This identifier, called the "API Level", allows the |
| system to correctly determine whether an application is compatible with |
| the system, prior to installing the application. </p> |
| |
| <p>For more information about how to use API Level, see the <a |
| href="{@docRoot}guide/appendix/api-levels.html">API Levels</a> document. </p> |
| |
| <h2 id="features">Highlights</h2> |
| |
| <p>For a list of new user features and platform highlights, see the <a |
| href="http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.6-highlights.html">Android 1.6 Platform |
| Highlights</a> document.</p> |
| |
| <h2 id="apps">Built-in Applications</h2> |
| |
| <p>The system image includes these built-in applications:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Alarm Clock</li> |
| <li>Browser</li> |
| <li>Calculator</li> |
| <li>Camcorder</li> |
| <li>Camera</li> |
| <li>Contacts</li> |
| <li>Custom Locale (developer app)</li> |
| <li>Dev Tools (developer app)</li> |
| <li>Dialer</li> |
| <li>Email</li> |
| <li>Gallery</li> |
| <li>Gestures Builder</li> |
| <li>IME for Japanese text input</li> |
| <li>Messaging</li> |
| <li>Music</li> |
| <li>Settings</li> |
| <li>Spare Parts (developer app)</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h2 id="locs">Locales</h2> |
| |
| <p>The system image provides a variety of built-in locales. In some cases, |
| region-specific strings are available for the locales. In other cases, |
| a default version of the language is used. The languages that will be |
| available in the Android 1.6 system image are listed below (with |
| <em>language</em>_<em>country/region</em> locale descriptor).</p> |
| |
| <table style="border:0;"> |
| <tr> |
| <td style="border:0"> |
| <ul style="margin-bottom:0;"> |
| <li>Arabic, Egypt (ar_EG)</li> |
| <li>Arabic, Israel (ar_IL)</li> |
| <li>Bulgarian, Bulgaria (bg_BG)</li> |
| <li>Chinese, PRC (zh_CN)</li> |
| <li>Chinese, Taiwan (zh_TW)</li> |
| <li>Croatian, Croatia (hr_HR)</li> |
| <li>Czech, Czech Republic (cs_CZ)</li> |
| <li>Danish, Denmark (da_DK)</li> |
| <li>Dutch, Netherlands (nl_NL)</li> |
| <li>Dutch, Belgium (nl_BE)</li> |
| <li>English, US (en_US)</li> |
| <li>English, Britain (en_GB)</li> |
| <li>English, Canada (en_CA)</li> |
| <li>English, Australia (en_AU)</li> |
| <li>English, India (en_IN)</li> |
| <li>English, Ireland (en_IE)</li> |
| <li>English, New Zealand (en_NZ)</li> |
| <li>English, Singapore (en_SG)</li> |
| <li>English, South Africa (en_ZA)</li> |
| <li>Finnish, Finland (fi_FI)</li> |
| <li>French, France (fr_FR)</li> |
| <li>French, Belgium (fr_BE)</li> |
| <li>French, Canada (fr_CA)</li> |
| <li>French, Switzerland (fr_CH)</li> |
| <li>German, Germany (de_DE)</li> |
| <li>German, Austria (de_AT)</li> |
| <li>German, Switzerland (de_CH)</li> |
| <li>German, Liechtenstein (de_LI)</li> |
| </ul> |
| </td> |
| <td style="border:0;padding-left:5em;"> |
| <ul style="margin-bottom:0;"> |
| <li>Greek, Greece (el_GR)</li> |
| <li>Hindi, India (hi_IN)</li> |
| <li>Hungarian, Hungary (hu_HU)</li> |
| <li>Indonesian, Indonesia (id_ID)</li> |
| <li>Italian, Italy (it_IT)</li> |
| <li>Italian, Switzerland (it_CH)</li> |
| <li>Japanese, Japan (ja_JP)</li> |
| <li>Korean, Korea (ko_KR)</li> |
| <li>Latvian, Latvia (lv_LV)</li> |
| <li>Lithuanian, Lithuania (lt_LT)</li> |
| <li>Norwegian Bokmål, Norway (nb_NO)</li> |
| <li>Polish, Poland (pl_PL)</li> |
| <li>Portuguese, Brazil (pt_BR)</li> |
| <li>Portuguese, Portugal (pt_PT)</li> |
| <li>Romanian, Romania (ro_RO)</li> |
| <li>Russian, Russia (ru_RU)</li> |
| <li>Serbian, Serbia (sr_RS)</li> |
| <li>Slovak, Slovakia (sk_SK)</li> |
| <li>Slovenian, Slovenia (sl_SI)</li> |
| <li>Spanish, Spain (es_ES)</li> |
| <li>Spanish, US (es_US)</li> |
| <li>Swedish, Sweden (sv_SE)</li> |
| <li>Thai, Thailand (th_TH)</li> |
| <li>Tagalog, Philippines (tl_PH)</li> |
| <li>Turkish, Turkey (tr_TR)</li> |
| <li>Ukranian, Ukrania (uk_UA)</li> |
| <li>Vietnamese, Vietnam (vi_VN)</li> |
| </ul> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>Localized UI strings match the locales that are accessible |
| through Settings.</p> |
| |
| <h2 id="api-changes">API Changes</h2> |
| |
| <h4 id="UIFramework">UI framework</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New classes in {@link android.view.animation} |
| to control the behavior of animations: |
| <ul> |
| <li><code>AnticipateInterpolator</code></li> |
| <li><code>AnticipateOvershootInterpolator</code></li> |
| <li><code>BounceInterpolator</code></li> |
| <li><code>OvershootInterpolator</code></li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li>New XML attribute <code>android:onClick</code> to specify a View's |
| <a href="/reference/android/view/View.OnClickListener.html">View.OnClickListener</a> |
| from a layout file. |
| </li> |
| <li>New support for dealing with varying screen densities. Density |
| information is associated with Bitmap and Canvas for performing the |
| correct scaling. The framework will automatically scale bitmaps and |
| nine-patches based on the density the resource was found under and the |
| density of the screen, etc. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Search framework</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Applications can now expose relevant content to users as search |
| suggestions in the Quick Search Box, a new device-wide search capability that is |
| accessible from the home screen. To support this, the search framework adds new |
| attributes to the searchable metadata file. For complete information, see the |
| {@link android.app.SearchManager SearchManager} documentation. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Accessibility framework</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New {@link android.view.accessibility android.accessibility} package |
| that includes classes for capturing accessibility events and forwarding them to |
| an {@link android.accessibilityservice AccessibilityService} handler. </li> |
| <li>New {@link android.accessibilityservice AccessibilityService} package |
| that lets your application track user events and provide visual, audible, or |
| haptic feedback to the user. </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Gesture Input</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New {@link android.gesture gesture} API for creating, recognizing, |
| loading, and saving gestures.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Text-to-speech</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New {@link android.speech.tts android.speech.tts} package provides |
| classes for synthesizing speech from text, for immediate playback or to create a |
| sound file.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Graphics</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Classes in {@link android.graphics android.graphics} now support scaling |
| for different screen densities.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Telephony</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New {@link android.telephony.SmsManager SmsManager} and other classes |
| for sending and receiving SMS messages.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>Utilities</h4> |
| <ul> |
| <li>New {@link android.util.DisplayMetrics DisplayMetrics} fields for |
| determining the density of the current device screen.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4 id="AndroidManifest">Android Manifest elements</h4> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>New <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/supports-screens-element.html">{@code |
| <supports-screens>}</a> element lets you specify the device screen sizes that your |
| application is designed and tested to support, where "size" is a combination |
| of resolution and density. If your application is run on a device whose screen |
| size is not specified in the <code><supports-screen></code> element, the system |
| displays the application in <em>compatibility mode</em>, which performs best-effort scaling |
| of the application UI to match the resolution and density of the screen. |
| |
| <p>The attributes available for defining an application's screen support are: |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li><code>smallScreen</code>: Boolean value that indicates whether the |
| application is designed to run on devices with small screens. |
| Examples: QVGA low density; VGA high density. |
| </li> |
| <li><code>normalScreens</code>: Boolean value that indicates whether |
| the application is designed to run on devices with normal screens. |
| Examples: WQVGA low density; HVGA medium density; WVGA high density. |
| </li> |
| <li><code>largeScreens</code>: Boolean value that indicates whether |
| the application is designed to run on devices with significantly |
| larger screens, such that special care may be required on |
| the application's part to make proper use of the screen area. |
| Examples: VGA medium density; WVGA medium density. |
| </li> |
| <li><code>anyDensity</code>: Boolean value that indicates whether |
| the application can accommodate any screen density. |
| </li> |
| <li><code>resizable</code>: Boolean value that indicates whether |
| the application can expand its layout to fit slightly larger screens. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| </p> |
| </li> |
| |
| <li>New <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/uses-feature-element.html">{@code <uses-feature>}</a> |
| element lets an application specify hardware (or other) |
| features that it requires to function normally. When an application |
| specifies such features, the system allows the application to be installed only |
| on devices that offer the required features. The element supports these |
| attributes: |
| <ul> |
| <li><code>name</code>: The name of the feature required by the application. Currently accepts |
| "android.hardware.camera" and "android.hardware.camera.autofocus" values, which specify that a |
| camera and camera autofocus are required, respectively.</li> |
| <li><code>glEsVersion</code>: Indicates the minimum version of OpenGL ES required.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| <li>New attributes for the |
| <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html">{@code <uses-sdk>}</a> element: |
| <ul> |
| <li><code>maxSdkVersion</code>: This indicates the maximum API Level on which an application is |
| designed to run. If an application declares this attribute, the Android system prevents the user |
| from installing the application if the system's API Level is higher than the value specified in |
| this attribute. </li> |
| <li><code>targetSdkVersion</code>: This indicates the API Level that the application is targeting. |
| It is able to run on older versions (down to minSdkVersion), but was explicitly tested to |
| work with the version specified here. Specifying this version allows the platform to |
| disable compatibility code that is not required or enable newer features that are not |
| available to older applications. </li> |
| </ul> |
| </li> |
| |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h4>New Permissions</h4> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#CHANGE_WIFI_MULTICAST_STATE |
| CHANGE_WIFI_MULTICAST_STATE}: Allows applications to enter Wi-Fi |
| Multicast mode. |
| </li> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#GLOBAL_SEARCH}: Allows the |
| global search system to access the data of a specified content provider. |
| </li> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#INSTALL_LOCATION_PROVIDER INSTALL_LOCATION_PROVIDER}: |
| Allows an application to install a location provider into the Location Manager. |
| </li> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS}: |
| Allows an application to read (but not write) the user's browsing history |
| and bookmarks. |
| </li> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#WRITE_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS WRITE_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS}: |
| Allows an application to write (but not read) the user's browsing history |
| and bookmarks. |
| </li> |
| <li>{@link android.Manifest.permission#WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE}: |
| Allows an application to write to external storage. Applications using API Level 3 |
| and lower will be implicitly granted this permission (and this will be visible to |
| the user); Applications using API Level 4 or higher must explicitly request this |
| permission. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h3 id="api-diff">API Change Details</h3> |
| |
| <p>For a detailed view of API changes in Android 1.6 (API Level 4), see the <a |
| href="{@docRoot}sdk/api_diff/4/changes.html">API Differences Report</a>.</p> |