Android update update

Just at Orlando airport on the way back to Blighty, after the very interesting Orange Partner Camp in Cape Canaveral. Lots of notes to turn into some form of cogent analysis, including some headscratching over what Orange's mobile Linux policy is, exactly – 'wait and see', which is what I was told, seems a bit odd. As was the distinct lack of any Android stuff, which again seems a bit out of place given the number of Orange partners having it large on the Andy.

But that's for later. For now, I note from Android Communitythat there's a reasonably significant set of updates to Android coming down the line. Codenamed 'Cupcake' by Google, this is a bunch of work that's been going on behind the scenes and is now going public: significant improvements include video recording, better MMS support, cut-and-paste in the browser (you taking notes, Steve?), stereo Bluetooth, latest Webkit for faster browsing, and tons of other more minor bug fixes and feature tweaks.

Which is good. I've been using my G1 for a week now, and I'm becoming infatuated. The worst feature is the battery life, which is well under a day if you're using it a lot: this week, though, I've had 3G turned off and wi-fi turned on, because I've been in places with wireless networking and can't afford the data roaming charges. Two observations: the G1's wi-fi handling is exceptional – it connects quickly and without fuss, and seems entirely unfazed by flitting between hotspots. And with 3G turned off, battery life seems to be more than double, quite possibly significantly more.

But there's more to Android than the G1 – as the addition of 'basic x86 support' in Cupcake underlines. 2009 is going to be a good year for the Droidheads.