May 11, 2009 by Tap
So my G1 finally got the OTA update last Friday and while it kept me entertained for a while this weekend I have to say that overall I was a little underwhelmed. True, I knew what to expect and so probably set myself up for disappointment but treating the update as an average phone user might, I can't say that any of the changes provided any major real-world improvement, not for me at least.
Yes the onscreen keyboard is handy but I've always preferred physical keyboards and after a few attempts at touch screen typing (more like mistyping) I soon gave that up. The camera is certainly a lot more responsive which is nice, but a 3.2 Meg camera with no optical zoom was never going to excite anyway. The various tweaks to Google Mail, SMS, contacts etc. are nice but I still find myself using Google Mail via the browser so no real benefit there.
Most probably my biggest disappointment was the new calendar widget. I've long wanted a decent calendar widget on my G1 and was hoping this was it but sadly no. But it's not all bad news. Personally I think that the introduction of secure widgets is the most important aspect of Android 1.5. Over the coming months we’ll see a lot more focus on Android widget development and I wouldn't be surprised to see a dedicated widget section appearing in the marketplace. Come on Android developers – impress us with your widget skills!