The Android developers have released into the wild a new version of the Android 1.5 SDK, which has reached now Release 3. The Android SDK, as many of you might already know, includes a full set of tools for developing application code, debugging it and building the application user interface. The new SDK comes with improved tools, compared with the previous iterations, as well as with multiple Android platform versions that can be used in the software development process.

According to the release notes of the Android 1.5 SDK, Release 3, developers will find that the new version of the Software Development Kit comes with an updated Android 1.5 system image. Among the improvements that are available, we can count permission fixes, as well as a new application, an IME for Japanese text input. Moreover, the set of developer tools that has been included in previous iterations is also there, now with bug fixes and some new features.

The changes to permissions that have been included in the Android 1.5 SDK, R3, are as follows:
- When an application requests access to device camera (through android.hardware.camera), the CAMERA permission check is now properly enforced.
- When an application requests access to device audio capture (through android.media.MediaRecorder), the RECORD_AUDIO permission check is now properly enforced.

A new version of the Google APIs add-on has been included in the SDK and comes with an updated com.google.android.maps external library, which is meant to fix compile errors. The Google APIs add-on, as you might already know, is an extension to the Android SDK development environment and offers easy access to Google services and data, and the Maps external library is the central feature of the extension.

Other changes and resolved issues are also available in the new release, including the fact that the device manufacturers are now enabled to specify a USB Vendor ID in their add-ons, the telephony, sensor, and geo fix issues that surfaced in the emulator have been resolved, as well as the fact that the Android system is capable of restoring any permissions that previous versions of an application had, in case adb is used to uninstall an upgraded application.

The release notes also show the Android tool, which provides a new command that scans SDK add-ons for their USB Vendor IDs and makes them available to adb (OS X and Linux versions of the SDK only). The command is android update adb. On Windows versions of the SDK, a custom USB driver is included that supports the “Google” and “HTC” Vendor IDs, which allow adb to recognize G1 and HTC Magic devices. For other devices, contact the device manufacturer to obtain a USB driver, especially if you have an SDK add-on that defines a new USB Vendor ID.

Download Android 1.5 SDK, R3, for Windows

Download Android 1.5 SDK, R3, for Mac OS X (Intel)

Download Android 1.5 SDK, R3, for Linux (i386)