( Edit: 15/10/09- looks like we have been stood up for our date with Donut.  I had two independent confirmations that it was going through, so I will investigate more and come back to you! Sorry about the boo- boo!)

UK Android owners have been jealously following the rollout of Android 1.6 (Codename: Donut ) for the last few weeks in the USA and I  am happy to say that UK droiders are set to have the latest version of Android rolled out from Monday 12 October 2009.  It appears that T-mobile engineers are reporting that they are gearing up for the rollout that is due to come sometime this week.

(I hope that the recent report of Android’s security vulnerabilities in 1.5 will hasten and not delay this update. )

For those not in the know the latest update to Android brings some much needed and cool features such as:

1. Quick Search Box- Finally! Despite Google being a search company, the support for searching within your Android phone had been poor at best.  Now finally we have a way to search Apps, Music and contacts as well as maps and the internet in a streamlined fast way.  The search box is so customisable, that app developers can even include the data generated from their app into the quick search box
2. Voice Control- This has yet to be confirmed for UK phones, however if its rolled it, it would allow android users to be able to “call Dave’s Mobile”. This is a major feature that is available on Windows mobile , Blackberry and Apple Iphone, so I am glad that Android has caught up on this front.
3. Text to Speech- Now that you can talk to your phone with voice control, its great that it can talk back to you. Google showed off a basic translation application, however having the ability to translate text to voice is going to open up all sorts of new options for developers.  Look out for future apps where your sms, your email and your twitter feeds are all ready out at your request.
4. NEW Android Market!- Finally the Android market, has been given a great visual facelilft and  even now includes screenshots.  There is still a lot of other things I would like to see here, such as the ability to see what’s new with each version of the software but this is a clear step in the right direction.  The new visual look is impressive ( see picture to the right) and I am sure that it is acting as a sort of touchstone and could be a sign of new UI changes to come.
5. Miscellaneous tweaks- There are reports of quite a few new additions such as the addition of a confirmation screen when you discard a draft email ( A SERIOUS must have for me), new power monitors and the addition of VPN ( for business types) to the connections. There is also a few performance tweaks and an update to the user interface for the Camera/Camcorder.

Overall Donut is a good step on the road, however I hope that Google will up their game and give us some much needed improvements like multitouch, and focus on improving the built in Gmail and Gallery application.

Here is a video of some of the new Android goodness that you can expect this week in Android 1.6.  Onwards to the next version of Android 2.0  (release rumoured due in December!)  called Eclair.

Related posts:

1. Android goes instant- (At least for web browsing)