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!
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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.
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The0ne - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
This is why I hate apps in general. For some of the most basic and common sense stuff, it requires apps to do them. Why? Is it so hard to type a number and have a list come up? Seriously?I need to apply to better design the UI. Personally, it's horrible and outdated.
bla5t3d - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Ummm my 1.5 Magic Sense UI has that? Or am I mixing this up with something else.dmjazzijeff - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
While I'm not keen on Android (disclaimer: I've only had light hands-on time with a Droid while I configured it to work with a client's Exchange 2007 server), I have to admit that the Android WiFi hotspot feature makes me envious.Do the various and sundry carriers ding you with a tethering fee to cover this (AT&T, I'm specifically looking at you)?
How does battery life fare when you're using your phone as a hotspot?
keyibua - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Hello, summer, good place for shopping, fashion, sexy, personality, maturity, from here to begin. Are you ready?ScruffyNerfherder - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Please add performance comparison to iPhone3GS, iPhone4 and iPad.strikeback03 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
right, I'm sure they are going to get right on comparing a pre-release OS to unreleased hardware.quasi51 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
I'm in the market for a new smartphone but I need to be able to encrypt email on the device. I'd much rather buy an Android phone than an iPhone but I can't find any information on how to do this. This is available on the iPhone 3GS/4 with iOS4. Any suggestions for something similar on Android? As far as I know there aren't any Android devices with hardware encryption but I'd be content to try a software solution.Veroxious - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
I was hoping that the official Froyo release would have a native media player that could play divx etc......as this has been one of the big thing lacking imho.....that is the only thing I am soooo missing on this otherwise brilliant HTC Desire.Also a more simplistic manner of controlling data/updates etc via 3G. There have been many times where I just needed to do some 5 minute browsing using 3G only to have all the programs that access the internet starting up in the background and scoffing down megabytes that makes my head spin at the cost.
Lastly, no navigation in Google maps yet?
B3an - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
"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."You make it sound as if Flash is the only thing thats going to get the phone this warm. Playing Flash vids on Froyo does not drain the batter any faster than playing vids in a media player app, nor does it get the phone any hotter. The same goes for games.... but i dont see Apple not allowing video or games on there devices.
Flash on Android 2.2 proves very well how well Flash can run on a phone (with a touch interface too), and that Apple, as usual, are talking BS.
And i would have liked to of seen more on Flash performance in the article, not just a quick video mention on one site.
ScruffyNerfherder - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
"right, I'm sure they are going to get right on comparing a pre-release OS to unreleased hardware."Uh, that's what this article is all about (a pre-release OS, duh) which as of today is officially released to open source.
iPhone 3GS and iPad are already out (duh) and iOS4 for iPhone was released to the public earlier this week and has been available by other means for a while.
Many if not most of Anandtech reviews are done on hardware that has yet to be released to the public (duh). And we are talking a few days from release to the public (double duh). If iPhone 4 is still not available to Anandtech or they aren't allowed to publish numbers yet, that's fine, just compare to iPhone 3GS and iPad.
It seems like old news (go watch the Day 2 keynotes of this years Google I/O conference on youtube and Froyo 2.2 on Google Nexus performance is already compared to iPad) and Anandtech is usually on top of these type of comparisons. Maybe because its Apple, they are being extra super careful to get everything exactly straight before releasing comparison numbers and incurring the wrath of Jobs.
After tasting this Froyo article, I'm ready for the main course. Bring it!!!