September 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 use the same project structure as in the previous SDK (Android 1.5). If you have application projects developed in the Android 1.5 SDK, you can migrate them to the latest SDK without modification. For more information about how to migrate, see Upgrading the SDK.
This SDK includes multiple Android platform versions that you can 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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Includes a standard Android 1.6 library and system image with a set of development applications. Does not include any external libraries (such as the Maps external library). | ||
| 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). |
Note that you can use the Android SDK and AVD Manager to download other platform versions into your development environment..
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-ons listed below. The Android system API Level required by the add-ons are noted.
| Notes | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Includes the com.google.android.maps external library, a compliant Android 1.6 system image, a Geocoder backend service implementation, documentation, and sample code. | ||
| 3 | Includes the com.google.android.maps external library, a compliant Android 1.5 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/<platform>/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.
For example, to view or build the samples available for the Android
1.6 platform (AVD target "Android 1.6"), you will find the samples in the
<sdk>/platforms/android-1.6/samples/ directory of the SDK
package.
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: