Looks like HTC Droid, Motorola Droid and Droid X are all set to get some sweet TLC from Froyo aka Android 2.2. This may happen as soon as next week. But don’t hold it against me, as no official announcement has been made yet. But let’s dig a bit deeper and see if any other handset is going to trump all of these. One of the directors at HTC Europe, Mark Moons, has apparently tweeted about the possible upgrade for HTC Desire. Although Froyo has already been leaked for many handsets, but it still makes sense for the official rollout. After all, you wouldn’t want to give a kiss of death to your phone.
So, what exactly is the big deal about this dessert named upgrade. For the starters, it will let you use Adobe Flash while web browsing. In my case, it means the freedom to watch useful videos like piano playing cat on YouTube. According to an official release, Android 2.2 also provides extra security via numeric or alphanumeric pins. It also provides the facility of remote wipe, wherein you can remotely reset the device to factory defaults. This utility is certainly handy if you happen to lose your phone.
For certain devices such as Nexus One, Froyo will give them the superpower of being used as Wi-Fi hotspot. Otherwise, you can connect your phone to your computer for sharing 3G connection. The new android version is also designed to handle JavaScript-heavy pages. So let’s see if this update turns out to be as yummy as its name.
Hopefully this is true, google still needs to fix all the android problems though. All they do is leave a comment saying blah blah blah and never reply!!!
Seeing is believing….
You can already watch piano playing cats on Youtube with either the newly improved mobile Youtube site, or the Youtube app that comes with Android phones. You don’t need Flash for that. Just saying.
(FYI: Android phones can also play mp4′s. Check out archive.org for lots of free streaming video to your phone. Just choose the 512kb MPEG4 option)
That said, I’ve been waiting for Froyo and Flash on my Moto Droid since I got it six months ago. I guess I can wait another week, even if I really don’t want to.
The other froyo biggie for me is true voice dialing – the kind I’ve had with my last few phones until now. Press Bluetooth headset button, say “Call John Smith,” and it calls John Smith.
In spite of the voice recognition awesomeness in Android, strangely it did not do this until now but I understand froyo will. Minor point for some perhaps, but it’s a big deal to me. Can’t wait!