Cupcake finally arrives
I was pleasantly pleased to find a “System Update” message on the front screen of my T-Mobile G-1 smartphone. I knew exactly what that meant: It may have been a few days late but my Cupcake had finally arrived.
Over the next week or so, G-1 owners will see the same message advising them that version 1.5 of the Android OS is available for “push” downloading. They’re staggering the release so that the upgrade process goes smoothly for eveyone.
It took less than 7 minutes from the time I pressed the “Upgrade” button to my G-1 being back up to speed. Speed is the keyword here. The overriding new feature you notice immediately is that your G-1 is faster. It opens programs a little faster – draws screens a faster – loads Web pages faster. Overall, everything is a little faster. That means they optimized the software to improve speed. I’m hoping they also improved battery life.
There’s also the new on-screen, software keyboard. It pops-up automatically when you open a program that uses a keyboard (like Gmail). It’s similar to the iPhone’s keyboard which, once you get used to it and it gets used to you typing is very usable. I’m at the beginning of the “getting-to-know-you” phase so the new on-screen keyboard software needs to get used to my big fingers.
The hardware keyboard works, as it always did, when you slide open the keyboard cover.
Other new features include video recording, stereo Bluetooth and an improved Web browser. (It’s faster. See above).
I’ll tell you more after “consuming” my Cupcake for a few days.
