Just when you thought that you had your feel of Android firmware-related bakery, a new term seems to be on the horizon. Days before most people even receive the “Cupcake” Android update, another branch of development codenamed “Donut” has emerged.
In an online developer discussion group, Google Android team member Mike Lockwood revealed that the Android team is developing a new kernel (central management tool for computers) codenamed “Donut.” The finished product would be Android 2.0, so we’d expect it to either: a) bring major updates to the Android platform; b) provide noticeable tweaks that bridge it from Cupcake; c) both a and b.
There has been no word on what is in Donut, and Lockwood would say only that it would improve on some of the limited support Cupcake currently provides for a chipset used in the G1.
Android Framework Engineer Dianne Hackborn added that a detailed roadmap and feature list on Donut is not yet available due to concerns about “implied commitments that people are then going to base device schedules around when we are not confident enough about them.”
After the long-winded Cupcake drama, I don’t blame them. File this away in your memory banks and hope there will be some clarity provided at some point.
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May 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“improve on some of the limited support Cupcake currently provides for a chipset used in the G1″
Video output via USB maybe? Or perhaps support for more video codecs.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
He specifically named the "AGPS (using the SUPL support in the Qualcomm
chipset in the G1" so it's a location thing. That was just one example he threw out, so there's no telling what else they may be working on.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Multi-touch
May 12th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
google "off line" feature with google docs, reader and all other google products……
so we won't worry about having a network connection when editing documents or reading articles just like the features released with the desktop versions of the google products
May 12th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Note that the current development branch is called Donut (which isn't really news — this branch was created a little while ago, when Cupcake development was wrapping up), but there is no version number associated with the branch at all. Version numbers are best kept out of development until you get to the end, because you can never predict what will actually happen. I don't know where "2.0" came from, but somebody made it up.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:46 am
blutooth!
May 25th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Yes, Bluetooth!!!!
It would be the best I think.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I hope Donut addresses the small fonts issue in messaging & email – larger font support or at least zoom should really be considered. Saving apps to the SD card would be a real winner also.