April 2009
The sections below provide an overview of the SDK package.
For more information on this SDK release, read the Release Notes.
The SDK includes a full set of tools for developing and debugging application code and designing an application UI. You can read about the tools in the
Dev Guide and access them in the <sdk>/tools/ directory.
The tools package in this SDK includes updates from those provided in the previous SDK. The tools also require a different project structure. To use the new tools, you need to migrate your applications to the new development environment. For more information about how to migrate, see Upgrading the SDK.
For more information about the new tools features, see the SDK Release Notes.
This SDK includes multiple Android platform versions that you use to develop applications. For each version, both a fully compliant Android library and system image are provided. The table below lists the platform versions included in this SDK. For more information about a platform version — features, applications included, localizations, API changes, and so on — see its Version Notes.
| Notes | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Includes a standard Android 1.5 library and system image with a set of development applications. Does not include any external libraries (such as the Maps external library). | ||
| 2 | Includes a compliant Android 1.1 library and system image with a set of development applications. Also includes the Maps external library (due to legacy build system issues). |
An SDK add-on provides a development environment for an Android external library or a customized (but fully compliant) Android system image. This SDK includes the SDK add-on listed below. The Android system API Level required by the add-on is noted.
| Notes | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Includes the com.google.android.maps external library, a compliant system image, a Geocoder backend service implementation, documentation, and sample code. |
You can look at a variety of tutorials and samples in the Dev Guide and access the sample code itself
in the <sdk>/platforms/android-1.5/samples/ directory of the SDK package. Note the new location — the SDK now includes multiple platform versions that you can develop against and each has its own sample code directory.
The SDK package includes a full set of local documentation. To view it, open the <sdk>/documentation.html file in a web browser. If you are developing in an IDE such as Eclipse, you can also view the reference documentation directly in the IDE.
The most current documentation is always available on the Android Developers site:
