I have long been anticipating Android 1.6 ( nicknamed Donut ) for the HTC Hero, but HTC have been unusually quiet as to how far along they have gotten. This has been quite annoying as my new piece of software for the Android requires Android >= 1.6 to work.

Today, however, HTC admitted that they will be skipping 1.6, and go straight for Android 2.0. 2.0 sports plenty of new upgrades and features, and already had its SDK released earlier this week. HTC has not made any official statement as to when we can expect this update to come, but the rumors are saying mid-November. Probably after the release of Motorola Droid - November 6th - which will be the first phone officially featuring Android 2.0.

The reason why we won’t get 2.0 straight away is that HTC’s proprietary Sense UI has to be adjusted to Éclair ( 2.0’s nickname ). Hopefully though, work started immediately after the SDK was released, and allegedly, HTC has had access to it before it was released to the public.

For updates to this, I suggest following HTC on twitter: http://twitter.com/htc

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