The HTC Hero recently received a software (ROM) update, improving the performance of the handset. However, the firmware version of Android remained at v1.5 (Cupcake). The next firmware update (v1.6 – codenamed Donut) will not be released until October. Sprint users will be happy to know that its HTC Hero handset will have v1.6 installed out of the box, according to Pocket-Lint.
The Donut release of Android contains a number of improvements including the following:
- Quick search box: Enables you to search internet history and emails. It’s a self-learning system.
- Battery indicator: Allows you to see which apps are draining the battery the most.
- Better display support: Applications can be rendered properly on different display resolutions.
- Camera improvements: Launching the camera will be 38% faster and the “gap” between shots will be 28% shorter.
- The gallery, camera and video camera UI is now integrated.
- Pico: Multi-lingual speech synthesis engine that allows any Android application to “speak” a string of text with an accent that matches the language.
Check out a demo video of Android v1.6’s main features after the break.
Via 3G.co.uk.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hm, I want this update for my current Hero.
Hello can somebody let me know wheter all SIM FREE HTC HERO will be forward compatible to Android’s upcoming future versions (like 1.6, 2.0).
If yes Will it be through HTC firmware update or an andriod independent update.
Thanks in for anticipation.
Nothing about the web browser? It’s merely usable compared to iphone’s safari, which is a bad bad thing considering how great Chrome is.
this says its arriving with 1.6 – now there’s word that it will ship with 1.5
!!
what’s the truth??
i just bought the hero from best buy today (you can get it early if you have a reward zone membership) and it indeed only has 1.5
I also got the HTC hero from bestbuy today and it had 1.5 but I don’t see any lag at all. Very nice phone best I’ve seen from Sprint yet. Actually get better signal than my treo pro and instinct.
Picked it up today, here’s what is installed (Oct 10):
Firmware version: 1.5
Baseband version: 1.04.01.09.21
Kernel version: 2.6.27
Build number: 1.29.651.1
Software version: 1.29.651.1
Attempts to update are failing.
I can confirm, no donuts on the Sprint HTC Hero.
This sucks.. i also bought the hero friday and it didnt come with firmware 1.6… it has 1.5… thats not fair that we havent gotten the 1.6 update and the mytouch 3g from tmobile got it.