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>