Major Android "Cupcake" update on the way

Although Android is now open source, turns out there has been a little private development going on behind the scenes that's now ready to be dumped into the public sphere. The "Cupcake" update has a bundle of things we've been waiting to see added to the Google OS, and a good few bug fixes besides.

Once released, the Cupcake update will add support for music listening via Stereo Bluetooth, better support for car kits, the ability to save MMS attachments and enable copy and paste in the browser, which, given that Apple is still struggling with the whole MMS and copy and paste thing, isn't bad. Read on for the rest of the improvements.

We're intrigued by, "Input method framework, for soft keyboards and other on-screen input methods", which sounds as though it should make it easier for someone to develop an on-screen QWERTY keyboard that's sorely missing from the pull-out QWERTY reliant T-Mobile G1 .

The team points out that, "Cupcake is still very much a work in progress.  It is a development branch, not a release," so don't expect these changes to happen immediately. By making them public, though, the rest of the open source community can at least see what's being worked on and hopefully it shouldn't be too long till they're released as an Android update.

Here's a condensed list of some of the main improvements and fixes in Cupcake. Head to the Android Open Source Project for the full list.

MMS
+Save attachments from MMS.

Email
+ cc: displayed in message view.
+ New-mail notifications for POP3 accounts.

Music
+ Music playback fades in after suspending for phone call.
+ New media search intent allows for 3rd party apps to launch or respond to media searches based on artist, album, or title.

Browser
+ Copy / paste is enabled in the browser.
+ Find is enabled in the browser.

VoiceDialer
+ VoiceDialer supports 'open app' command

Camera/Gallery
+ Video recorder mode
+ Video thumbnails
+ Local file playback

Download manager 
+ Downloads that were cleanly interrupted are now resumed instead of failing.
+ Applications can now pause their downloads.

Framework
+ Input method framework, for soft keyboards and other on-screen input methods.  Includes new APIs for applications to interact with input methods, and the ability for third party developers to write their own input methods.

Bluetooth
+ Support for A2DP & AVRCP profiles.
+ First connection after pairing always fails on many carkits. Fixed.
+ Mini Cooper and some late model BMW cars fail to use Bluetooth or take 2 minutes for Phone Book transfer. Fixed.

Radio & Telephony
+ Green CALL button is no longer a shortcut for "add a new call". This has been a rarely used feature and confusing if triggered accidentally.
+ "Show dialpad" / "Hide dialpad" item added to the in-call menu, to make it easier to discover the DTMF dialpad.
+ Don't allow a single tap to open the in-call dialpad. It is now required to touch and drag it.  This makes it much harder to accidentally open the dialpad by touching the screen with your face.