Google has FINALLY released a new public SDK. Google's Dan Morrill writes:

I'm pretty happy today, for two reasons. First, I'm happy because I get to let everyone know that we're releasing a beta SDK. You can read about the new Android 0.9 SDK beta at the Android Developers' Site, or if you want to get straight to the bits, you can visit the download page. Once you've got it, be sure to visit our Developer Forum if you have any questions.

[...]

you're probably wondering what's actually new in the SDK. Well, you should read the Release Notes, the Change Overview and the API Delta Report for all the details, but here are a few highlights:

• First and most obviously, the new Home screen is included, along with a ton of UI changes for 1.0.
• Some new applications are included: an Alarm Clock, Calculator, Camera, Music player, Picture viewer, and Messaging (for SMS/MMS conversations.)
• Several new development tools were added, such as a graphical preview for XML layouts for users of Eclipse, and a tool for constructing 9-patch images.
• Since we've got a new Home screen application now, we thought the now-obsolete version from the M5 early-look SDK might be helpful to developers, so its source is included as a sample.
• A number of new APIs are fleshed out and improved, and others are now close to their final forms for 1.0.
• Tons of bugs were fixed, of course. (If you had problems with the MediaPlayer, try it now!)

Android developers have been (not so) patiently awaiting for this release! Get porting!

Update: I have added some screenshots after the break...it's looking very nice!

There is a mysterious YouTube video of an HTC device with a slidout keyboard running Android. The poster of the video, TheIncarcerator, claims "A tipster sent this video to me. He said that the person that sent the video works for a company that makes a part for the phone."

Is this why we haven't seen any on-screen keyboards in the emulator? Even with a slide out keyboard we'll still need an on-screen keyboard for when we don't want to slide the keyboard out or want to keep the device in landscape mode.

Video after the break.

Round 2 of the first Android Developers Challenge is finally over! I've gotten a few emails asking if this site is dead, or if I've given up on Android, but actually I've been working around the clock the last few months on TuneWiki's Android effort. We made quite a bit of progress during round 2 of the ADC. We added mapping, language translation, YouTube player, dynamic playlists, and more. Tunewiki has turned into a pretty cool little media player! One of my favorite features of the player is the ability to add a YouTube music video into your library with one click. For example, you can search for an artist you like in the YouTube search and then do a long click on each result to have the video permanently added to your music library.

Techcrunch was given a demonstration of the app running on the emulator, and they have posted a small article about TuneWiki on the iPhone and Android.

Video of that demo after the break.

The Google IO Sessions are now available online for everyone who couldn't be there in person. I attended some of the Android sessions and the one I found to be pretty interesting was the "Dalvik Internals" session. Many of the Android sessions were introductory level sessions so if you've been developing in Android since the get-go you may not find any value in those. As for the non-mobile sessions I heard that the "Underneath the Covers at Google: Current Systems and Future Directions" was pretty cool as well.

Here's a list of the mobile sessions:

• Google Gears for Mobile: Power Up your Mobile Web App
• An Introduction to Android
• Inside the Android Application Framework
• Mobile Mashups
• Dalvik VM Internals
• Building an Android Application 101
• Anatomy & Physiology of an Android

You can also check out tons of photos from Google IO.

Vision Mobile is running a mobile developer survey from now until July 4th. They have been nice enough to advertise on the side of the site and also give out $1,000 to a lucky survey participant. So this is your chance to tell the industry that Android rocks, and also pick up $1,000 while doing so.

I never claimed to be a good "blogger" and I guess this is proof. I've been back from Google IO for a couple days and have not covered any of the exciting Android related news that was released during the conference. Before I begin though, San Fransisco was awesome. It was my first trip to California and I really enjoyed the scenery and the weather. It was also awesome to finally meet all the TuneWiki team, muthu from HelloAndroid, and so many great people from the Android community: Muthu Ramadoss and Mary Ann Cotter (Cooking Capsules), Michael DeJadon (Safety Net), Jeffrey Sharkey (AndroidScan), Rob Mickle (Fingerprint), Amir (PedNav), Josh Guilfoyle (Five), Jason Hudgins (GeoMata), Weathertop Consulting Guy (HandWx), Finn Kenedy (TeeDroid), and many more.

Videos and commentary after the break...

Google has sent out emails to the top 50 applications from the Android Developers Challenge explaining some of the details of Phase II of the ADC. It appears that Google is going to be using these top 50 teams as a testers for new SDK snapshots. The only catch is that the developers must agree to a 'NDA' type of agreement forbidding screenshots or descriptions of new features:

As a Round 2 participant, we'll be providing you with the most up-to-date Android SDK so that you can take advantage of the latest tools & platform capabilities that will be shipping in devices later this year. These early access SDKs have many enhancements, additional features, and bug fixes. However, these SDKs have not had the same level of testing as public SDKs, so there are bugs; these releases are definitely "bleeding edge." As we continue to update the platform, you'll receive periodic drops of updated early access SDKs. We'll do our best to give you a rough timeline on when these early access SDKs will be available so that you can better plan your development schedule. Approximately 3 weeks before the submission deadline, we will provide a final early access SDK. You will need to submit your entry using this version of the SDK.

Since these early access SDKs are not ready for the public, you need to execute a special SDK license. This is the same SDK license that governs the public SDK with the addition of a confidentiality clause. We've attached the SDK license document to this email.

A source inside Google reiterates that these snapshots are not being made public only because of the instability and bugs. He also revealed that there will be a public SDK release in the "next several months". Also, because the teams will be dedicating so much time working with the new SDKs Google has decided to postpone the deadline until July 28th.

The Android Developers Blog was updated with a PDF file containing screenshots and descriptions of the 46 ADC winners who chose to disclose their entry. They have also released the list of the judges who spent hours sifting through all the entries.

Google's David McLaughlin writes:

The prize recipients' entries were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of great applications submitted, and we'd like to thank and congratulate everyone who entered the challenge. We look forward to seeing all of the application in the hands of consumers with Android devices.

I'll be adding all these entries to the application database as soon as I get a chance.

Even though our application database is growing on HelloAndroid.com, many developers are still keeping their applications under wrap. However some of the top 50 winners announced yesterday are public and listed on our site! Congratulations to the developers of the following applications:

• AndroidScan - Jeffrey Sharkey
• Beetaun - Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri Shipilov
• Commandro - Alex Pisarev, Andrey Tapekha
• GolfPlay - Inizziativa Networks
• PedNav - RouteMe2 Technologies Inc.
• Pocket Journey - Anthony Stevens and Rosie Pongracz
• TuneWiki - TuneWiki Inc.

Good luck in the next round, we'll be rooting for all the members of HelloAndroid.com! And to the other winners (and non winners), feel free to add your applications to our listings!

Update: Phandroid has done their research and has included a lot of links and info about all the apps. I'll try to add some of them to the application DB asap.

Google ADC Phase 1 - The Top 50 Applications (only 46 public)

Here's the official annoucement from the android developers blog:

The Top 50 Applications
Posted by Jason Chen, Developer Advocate on 12 May 2008 at 9:51 PM

As you may have heard, the results from Android Developer Challenge Part 1, Round 1 were announced to all the participants late last week. We're still working on pulling together a more extensive listing for each application that made it into the top 50, but in the spirit of releasing early and often, here's a list containing the name of the application and its author(s):

Check out the top 50 here:

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/05/top-50-applications.html

Congratulations to the top 50 winners and Good luck to all of the 1788 participants. Google ADC Phase II is calling for the 50 winners, while there's always Google ADC Challenge II waiting for the rest of us.

Rock on, Droids!