Android, the open-source mobile platform from Google, has received substantial attention at that week’s World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, where some prototype handsets were shown. And on Wednesday, developers focused on the release of an updated Software Development Kit (SDK) for Android.

In a posting on the Android Developers Blog, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen wrote that the newest SDK, called M5-rc14, provides updates to the application programming interfaces (APIs) and developer tools.

New User Interface, Geo-Coding

The update has a new user interface and Geo-coding enables an address to be translated into a coordinate — or vice versa. New media codecs have been added, including support for OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats, and there is an updated Eclipse plug-in.

Comments in the Android Developers newsgroup were generally positive, although there were some complaints. A user called londont, for instance, called the new SDK “very disappointing” considering there were no

changes in the telephony package, and another cited problems with the emulator loading instance.

The original SDK was released shortly after Android was announced in November by the newly formed Open Handset Alliance (OHA). The first version received some criticism for its stability and documentation, highlighted in an scoop in The Wall Street Journal, although other developers noted at the duration that it was no buggier than most early-stage software tools.

The OHA, spearheaded by Google, is backed by 34 companies and has launched a $10 million competition for the best Android mobile applications. Texas Instruments, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm, NEC, Marvell and ST Microelectronics and others are showing or have announced Android prototypes at the Barcelona show. Deutsche Telecom’s T-Mobile, HTC and others have said they expect to sell Android-based phones that year.

‘Pent-Up Demand’

Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester, said there was a “lot of…

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