SlashGear

Has the HTC Hero’s moment in the spotlight been short-lived?  Google have released an early development build for Android OS 2.0 Donut, the follow-up to OS 1.5 Cupcake which debuted alongside the HTC Magic, and with it delivered the promise of multitouch support, CMDA and similar homescreen control widgets to those found in HTC Sense.

Among the key changes in OS 2.0 Donut are much improved speed and performance, automated backups and gesture support.  There’s also full universal search across all applications, together with WPA Enterprise encryption and VPN support.

While we’re far from an official release for commercial devices, this hasn’t stopped the frontline developer community from playing with Donut and getting it to run on existing handsets.  One project has already seen a release, with a build of the new version for the original G1; however this is very unstable and early, with core functionality such as network support missing.  Of more interest to general users is the news that developers are working on bringing some of Donut’s more interesting aspects to new builds of Android OS 1.5 Cupcake, adding elements such as mutlitouch and universal search to current smartphones in a more stable form.

[via Android Community]