More and more developers are getting their hands on Cupcake, the non-official next-gen build of Android, as Google seemingly relax their grip on the software. After we saw screenshots late last week, now it’s time for some video: a walkthrough of firmware 1.5.
In it, the new portrait-orientation keyboard is demonstrated – meaning that owners of devices like the T-Mobile G1 wouldn’t have to slide out the hardware QWERTY in order to type a message – together with the new notepad application. There’s also some screentime for the two new apps, both presumed to be demo rather than full-release candidates, and the Global Time app which shows which parts of the earth are currently in sunlight.
Less eye-catching, but arguably more useful, are the Live Folders – which can be set to auto-refresh on your desktop, with “All Contacts”, “Contacts with phone number”, and “Starred Contacts” currently supported – and the new emoticon support for both SMS messages and IM chats. Google have also thrown in a lot of multi-region language support.
Nothing, for the most part, that we haven’t seen before, but if you’ve been desperately watching the still images to see if they start moving, the clip below is for you. If, more excitingly, you’d like to try Cupcake out for yourself, check out this tutorial.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfsvXJUVlY0[/youtube]
