Google Bakes A 'Cupcake' For Android

If you're wondering when Android is going to make the next leap in functionality, wonder no longer. A new update to the Android platform, called "cupcake," brings with it more than some simple bug fixes. New features galore will be baked into the OS, as well. Guess what, Apple? Android is getting cut-and-paste and video recording before the iPhone!The list of new features is astounding. The changes being made are currently not ready for release. The "cupcake" branch of Android is for developers only. But peeking at what will be included in a hopefully-not-too-distance version of Android is exciting nonetheless.

Here's the rundown:

• MMS sees bug fixes as well as the new ability to save attachments.

• E-mail gets a large list of significant bug fixes including: new-mail notifications for POP3 accounts; new accounts are now set to check every 15 minutes (instead of defaulting to "never"); and there's also a fix to IMAP manually-created accounts so deleting messages works properly.

• The music player will now fade playback back in after suspending for a phone call. It also has a new media search function that allows for third-party apps to launch or respond to media searches based on artist, album, or title.

• The browser is seeing some significant updates, as well. Some of the new capabilities include: updated WebKit browser core; support for new, optimized JavaScript engine (SquirrelFish); copy / paste is enabled in the browser; find is enabled in the browser; and drawing has been sped up substantially. Pages with animations will load five times faster.

• With cupcake, Android will now support stereo Bluetooth.

• With respect to the camera software, Android will now support video recorder mode, allow for the sharing of videos, offer a list of video thumbnails, and permit local file playback.

Those are the big new features. There also are dozens of other new features and under-the-hood fixes. You can read all about them here.