The folks from Google’s Android team have posted details of Android OS 1.5 aka Cupvcake. Along with the SDK, we have details of all things new in the latest version of Google’s operating system for smartphones. 

Finally, Google has enabled video recording and uploading videos on YouTube directly from the phone. Like the iPhone OS 3.0, this one also activates Bluetooth completely, including A2DP and AVRCP profiles. Users will also be able to see status of their friends from within Contacts, Gmail, e-mail and SMS applications! 

Key improvements include:

User interface refinements

• System-wide:
• Refinement of all core UI elements
• Animated window transitions (off by default)
• Accelerometer-based application rotations
• UI polish for:
• In-call experience
• Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
• SMS & MMS
• Browser
• Gmail
• Calendar
• Email
• Camera & Gallery
• Application management

Performance improvements

• Faster Camera start-up and image capture
• Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
• Smoother page scrolling in Browser
• Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling

New features

• On-screen soft keyboard
• Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
• Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
• User dictionary for custom words
• Home screen
• Widgets
• Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
• Live folders
• Camera & Gallery
• Video recording
• Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
• Bluetooth 
• Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
• Auto-pairing
• Improved handsfree experience
• Browser
• Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
• Copy ‘n paste in browser
• Search within a page
• User-selectable text-encoding
• UI changes include:
• Unified Go and Search box
• Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen
• Contacts
• Shows user picture for Favorites
• Specific date/time stamp for events in call log
• One-touch access to a contact card from call log event
• System
• New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
• SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
• SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
• Google applications
• View Google Talk friends’ status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, GMail, and Email applications
• Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages
• Upload videos to Youtube
• Upload photos on Picasa