Cupcakes and Eclairs.

Wow, what a gap. Its got to the stage where its almost embarrassing to come back and post after this long away. Like when you don’t send a thank you card to a relative that’s sent you a birthday present. Luckily the internet has no such grievances, and, given the lack of readership, legions of fans won’t exactly be baying for my blood.

Casual surfers, who have tripped upon the site on the way to somewhere else, may be excused for thinking that maybe nothing has happened over the past 2 months. Well, of course, that is simply not true. However, from an personal standpoint, the biggest change has been the upgrade of my HTC Hero from Android v1.5 (aka ‘Cupcake’) to v2.1 (aka Éclair).

The change itself was a bit of a mixed bag. It bought along hardware optimisations, in the form of improved responsiveness of the OS, better support for HTML5, a better keyboard and a few other things, which you either know about already or have no interest in knowing. But just like your mums packed lunch, its not all chocolate and crisps. The homemade bread of the bunch is that some of my apps have just stopped updating. The HTC weather app being the worst offender. Luckily the app stores ‘Weatherbug’ provided me with a simple and free solution to that. Additionally, it seems to now refuse to tell me I have received texts in the notification bar, though email notifications are admittedly, much improved.

Discussions about Éclair aside, it is the app store that seems to have undergone some of the most radical changes for casual and power users alike. First of all, it’s prettier. The hot girl with the funny nose, has finally had that rhinoplasty. A new white background and black text makes it easier to read, and somehow, for a less cluttered interface. Additionally, the number of top level categories has been extended, so if you have something in mind, it is easier to at least begin the search in a more specific section. Even better, upon entering said categories, you get three easily selectable sections with which to browse in, Top Paid, Top Free, and Just In – all are pretty explicable. There maybe many more changes that I am yet to observe, but the aforementioned make massive inroads into the Android app market mess, that I had previously heavily criticised.

It is this kind of progress that is going to really attract developers, and advertisers to the platform. With Androids market share now outperforming Apple, at 17%, progress does need to be made on this front, and it appears Google are both aware of the fact, and committed to doing so.