Android 1.6 'Donut' Is Officially Being Pushed To T-Mobile CustomersAndroid 1.6 'Donut' Is Officially Being Pushed To T-Mobile Customers

Users of the HTC G1 and HTC myTouch 3G, listen up. T-Mobile is offering you a taste of the Donut this week. Owners of T-Mobile's Android phones can expect to see an over-the-air update bump their version of Google's mobile platform from 1.5 to 1.6 -- also known as "Donut".Scattered Android users across the Internet began noticing the updates early today. I was able to confirm the news with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile spokesperson Amanda Ginther said in an email, "The rollout of Android 1.6 (Donut) to T-Mobile's G1 and myTouch 3G customers is now underway. The over-the-air update will be delivered to all T-Mobile G1 and T-Mobile myTouch 3G customers in the coming days."

Tons of new features are included in the software:

Quick Search Box for Android

Android 1.6 includes a redesigned search framework that provides a quick, effective, and consistent way for users to search across multiple sources-such as browser bookmarks & history, contacts, and the web-directly from the home screen.

The system constantly learns which search results are more relevant based on what is clicked. So popular contacts or apps that have previously been picked will bubble up to the top when a user types the first few letters of a relevant query.

The search framework also provides developers a way to easily expose relevant content from their applications in Quick Search Box.

Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery

An updated user interface provides an integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery experience. Users can quickly toggle between still and video capture modes. Additionally, the gallery enables users to select multiple photos for deletion.

Android 1.6 also provides a much faster camera experience. Compared to the previous release, launching the camera is now 39% faster, and there is a 28% improvement in the time from completing one shot to the next.

VPN, 802.1x

A new Virtual Private Network (VPN) control panel in Settings allows users to configure and connect to the following types of VPNs:

L2TP/IPSEC pre-shared key based VPN L2TP/IPsec certificate based VPN L2TP only VPN PPTP only VPN

Battery usage indicator

A new battery usage screen lets users see which apps and services are consuming battery power. If the user determines that a particular service or application is using too much power, they can take action to save the battery by adjusting settings, stopping the application, or uninstalling the application.

Accessibility

Users will be able to download new accessibility services built on the new accessibility framework and enable them in Settings.