Well Android users, Android 1.5 aka Cupcake is finally here… Actually its been out for a couple months. The genius developers over at XDA have been hard at work for some time now getting stable versions of 1.5 to us long before T-Mobile. Read on for a brief summary of the Haykuro versions and a little about them, their growth, and where to get it.      

Haykuro was the first to build a stable version of 1.5 using the HTC Sapphire’s leaked system folder supplied by xmoo and his “source”. During early stages of these “H” builds, there wasn’t a homescreen and menus had to be navigated though the shortcut system. Later, and idea from the user barakinflorida to use Open Home as the default home finally gave us menus and a GUI. This was the first usable build released March 26th.

One of the first builds using Open Home

 

While playing around with this build, Haykuro was sent an OTA update and was able to track down the source and compile a more complete version. These builds included an alternate white virtual keyboard that features multiple input methods. Handwriting, compact qwerty, full qwerty and 123. There is also an alternate dialer that’s very similar to the smart dialer on the Shadow. Fancy auto rotate, PDF viewer, new widgets, and an improved camera and video camera are also included. 

Haykuro later introduced a “G” build that was based off the Google code. These builds had a black Virtual Keyboard (VK) that only shows in qwerty. The auto rotation animation was different and used the default dialer. These builds also let you log into and upload videos to YouTube! Down the road these builds ran into a major problem that kept users from being able to access the Android Market properly, which prevented users from downloading and installing apps. The rumor was that Google was blocking access from 1.5 builds while they were preparing for the official release of 1.5. I’m not entirely sure of this because the H builds were able to access the market with no problem. After a few days of this going on, people began to abandon the G builds. 

Shortly after TheDudeOfLife showed up with his own G build. Complete with working market, 72 locales and a few other tweaks from the H build. It was agreed between Haykuro and TheDude that they’ll each work on a separate build, giving each developer more time on one build rather than Haykuro releasing both.

Today there’s very little difference between the 5 or so builds out there. When HTC released the 1.5 update to the Android Dev Phones, most of the developers started using that as their base. The only differences are which apps are preinstalled. All builds include the black VK, (you are able to install the white keyboard on any of the builds), same camera, and auto rotate animation, they all even have a multitouch web browser. 

All of the builds by Haykuro will require root and most can be found on his Google Code  page, including his newly released 6.0 firmware that will require you to flash a new SPL.

Unfortunately most of the hype of these builds has died down a bit since everyone was waiting on the JesusFrekes version of the offical OTA, so most development has shifted to newer and better things…and themes. The next thing we’re waiting for is to see what Haykuro will do to become our “HERO”

To continue discussion on Haykuros work head on over to our forum where Mast3rMatt has already started a lengthy thread.




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