A Taste of Froyo: Google Android 2.2 Explored
by Saumitra Bhagwat on June 23, 2010 1:03 AM ESTFlash 10.1, Tethering & Hotspot Support
Adobe has taken much trashing from Apple lately due to inability of Flash to deliver a smooth user experience on mobile devices without sacrificing battery life. With Froyo, Adobe has teamed up with Google to prove them wrong. While Adobe’s claim that 250 million mobile devices will be Flash-enabled by the end of 2012 seems a little far-fetched, the Nexus One and Froyo seemed to handle flash quite well. However, things did get a little choppy on some of the more intensive websites like South Park Studios, which then, invariably took a toll on the battery life too. I’ll be honest, a warm Nexus One is not fun to hold in your hands...at all.
USB Tethering & Wi-Fi Hotspot
I believe this is one of the greatest additions to Froyo and an incredibly useful one at that. It allows you to share your phone’s GPRS or 3G connections via Wi-Fi to other devices by turning the phone into a wireless access point. Although it only supports WPA2 at this point, the feature itself is a lifesaver when your internet service goes out (like right now, as I write this article). Thumbs up to Google for including this!
 |
 |
Enterprise Features
Since I’m not important enough to have an exchange account, I haven’t been able to test the new features like support for Exchange calendars and remote wipe.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
55 Comments
View All Comments
Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Good point, but the AMOLED or the more recent Super AMOLED screens are only present on the high-end devices from HTC or Samsung. Since majority of the devices are still on TFT screens, I guess black text on white is a step in the right direction. ;)mpschan - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
I thought 2.2 was supposed to include bluetooth dialing.http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highl...
So my question is: Does Froyo include bluetooth dialing or not? If it is included like , how in the world could the author not mention it. That is a deal breaker for so many of us as many states ban hand-held phone use in cars.
Hell, I'd love to see the feature just so my iPhone loving friends lose another talking point as to why iPhones are superior.
Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Well, I was aware of the Bluetooth dialing feature, but I didn't have a Bluetooth headset to test it out. Sorry for the confusion!mpschan - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Understood.But let me stress how important a feature this is. I will not buy a new Android device until this feature is implemented. The risk of getting a ticket or having to pull over to the side of the road to make a call is ridiculous.
Since you put in something about how you couldn't test exchange, I'd recommend doing something similar for bluetooth dialing.
homebredcorgi - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Do you mean the ability to just speak the contacts name in the headset and have it dial? If so, it is there...I did it yesterday on my N1.CombatChuk - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
HTC actually pays Microsoft to put an actual Activesync license on devices that have Sense UI. Having the license on there enables Remote Wipe, Pattern Recognition all the features that Server admins like to run. Google with their Nexus One DID NOT pay for this licensing, so if the Server admin doesn't enable those security features (which he should if he's worth anything) then the stock Android 2.2 OS does not have full exchange support...Red Storm - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
When oh when will we get some sort options in the market? I'd love to be able to sort apps by their rating, download count, release date, name, etc.homebredcorgi - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Seriously. The market is a mess without sorting abilities. I was very sad to see that Froyo did nothing to address this issue.Jingato - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
I guess it doesn't have the one feature I was hoping for and really think it is lacking. That's the ability to begin entering a phone umber and have it populate a drop down of all the matching contacts and recent calls that match. :-(Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Although the dialer does not have that feature natively, there's an app called aContacts or Dialer One that gives you that feature so give one of them a shot, they're free. ;)