That’s Froyo… not Frodo!
May 21, 2010
I’ve been on a bit of an Android bender for the last couple of days. It started a while ago when I received my Milestone in the middle of February but the Google IO conference really has my blood up. I can’t wait for the Android update to version 2.2 to hit my phone… code named Froyo (short for Frozen Yogurt… Google seems to have a penchant for naming things after deserts).
When my Milestone arrived it had shipped with Android version 2.0.1 and I liked it a lot. Then in the middle of April Motorola made version 2.1 available. As much as I loved my phone when it shipped there were small things that bugged me about it and 2.1 solved a lot of those problems. I jumped at installing it mostly compelled by the promise of much better battery life and an option to add more screens to load all those app shortcuts onto. I was very happy with the 2.1 upgrade and to be honest wasn’t even yearning for the next update… until I saw the stream of Day 2 at the Google IO conference where Android 2.2 was unveiled!
The least compelling of all the updates is probably to the GUI… the notification bar has been tweaked and is a little more customizable. Nice but not a reason to be updating…
Getting better is the announcement of tethering and wifi hotspotting built into the OS! Now this is big. I’ve loved being able to tether my phone to my laptop on the go when I needed a connection on a bigger screen but it involved a third party app and if I wanted to connect to a secure site I had to have a paid version of that app. With this built into the OS it saves the cost of the third party app and the wifi hotspotting will be unbelievably handy travelling with the family when my daughter wants to connect her iPod Touch to check in with her friends when we are on vacation. I want this NOW!
External storage for applications is added and I can’t believe this wasn’t in the original. I actually got the message the other day that I was low on storage and I thought there was no way with a 16gig memory card that I was out of room already. That’s when I found out that apps can only install to the phone’s internal memory! I need this feature as soon as possible…
Flash! I know Steve Jobs and Apple seem to be trying very hard to convince every one of their customers that flash is unimportant but I don’t care if it is or isn’t… if I come across a web site that has flash I’d like the option to view it please… and thanks to Android 2.2 I’ll be able to.
Finally and probably most importantly… performance. Who doesn’t want a free performance upgrade. Granted, no one has seen a finished version of this upgrade yet but if Google is to be believed then we should get a fast phone once the update ships. Heck, even if it feels the same but delivers on the other features I’ll be happy.
