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Google Outlines Feature Set For Android 2.2
evdotorrey writes "Google announced new features and improvements for Android 2.2. New features include Flash and HTML 5 support, faster browser performance using the V8 engine, Microsoft Exchange support, a Portable Hotspot feature that makes your phone a Wi-Fi hotspot, and many more exciting features." An anonymous reader adds some more on the new release, codenamed Froyo: "Google claims the operating system will be from two to five times faster thanks to advances made in the compilers and the Dalvik virtual machine it uses, and how it is ported to new processors and platforms. On the enterprise front the new operating system comes with full support for Microsoft Exchange, including access to the global address book and the ability to translate native security features to mobile handsets. APIs have also been added to allow controls such as the automatic wiping of missing handsets and other remote management features. Google is also making its voice translation and search APIs open to developers, and showed off an application developed for the handset that allowed real time translation from English to French."
Even though I've seen these features a hundred times, I can't help but take another peek at what the future without apple in my pocket may hold.
No DRM. Not having root access in stock Android carrier/HTC will sufficiently prevent casual copying of paid apps to another device. After market ROMs or a ROOT access package will most certainly have this restriction lifted. You are not DRM-locked into not being able to copy/backup your paid apps, but you will void your warranty to do so.
If there is, it will be rather easily removed with superuser permissions.
By far the best feature of Android is the thriving community of after-market OS builds. It's like upgrading your phone for free. I'm not affiliated, but right now feel obliged to shameless endorse CyanogenMod's G1/G2/Nexus One custom ROMs http://www.cyanogenmod.com./
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
You can, if you install a generic Android.
Vendor or carrier specific firmware isn't anything new.
Symbian has done it for YEARS.
The carriers custom fit the firmware, either removing certain things or add carrier specific applications.
It's no different with Android phones.
Which mean what when a new Android is released, the vendors and/or carriers have to custom fit the new version to their own and then release it to their customers. As you can probably imagine, this can take quite a while.
Ever since I started with Symbian many years ago, I've reinstalled with generic firmware as fast as possible.
If HTC is as slow as I've heard, I'm gonna do the same when I get my HTC Desire next month.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
The OS is a little different. If you buy a Google handset (G1, G2, Nexus One) then you get the update pushed OTA as it's released. If you buy another vendor's version, you have to wait whilst they customise the latest OS for their handset. Specifically, HTC sell Android handsets with their "Sense" UI. Historically they've been somewhat slow to release updates - HTC need to compile a new build, and they take their sweet time to do this. Whilst you can flash alternate ROMs (waves to XDA-Developers.com) to devices - e.g. Cyanogen - you need to be reasonably tech-savvy to do so, and if anything goes wrong you've lost your warranty. Couple this with some vendors taking extra steps to make it deliberately difficult to install third-party ROMs (I'm looking at you, HTC Desire!) and the upshot is that to upgrade safely/easily - wait for the vendor to release an update. To be on the bleeding edge you can take a (small) risk and install third party ROMs.
My HTC desire fits in my iPhone silicone skin. It's almost exactly the same size down to the last mm. YMMV.
Some phones are designated Google Experience devices. They carry the logo. The Nexus One is an example. In the UK I can walk into a Vodafone retail store and buy one now. It's being sold thru a phone company, but it's still a Google device.
This is differentiated from an Android handset which runs a non-Google vendor-modified OS such as HTC Sense.
FYI, Flash support won't be built into Froyo. You download the Flash plug-in from the Marketplace as you would any other app.
There's just not enough room in the flash rom. Sorry.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The official Android developers blog post is probably more interesting than blogspam
You can, if you install a generic Android.
Not on Motorola Milestone (the european version of Droid). Motorola has locked its bootloader so you can't install a generic Android image, unless you sign it with Motorola's keys.
There's an online petition about that issue:
http://www.petitiononline.com/freeblms/petition.html
But the real question is how long until carriers start treating Android phones like any phone before it only authorizing their firmware to operate on their network and going to their "Market place"? I see that day coming soon rather than later as most carriers in the US don't want to be turned into dumb pipes. Talking with friends in Australia, it appears this has already happened down there with Android phones. They have to purchase apps through the carrier store, it blocks the Google Market Place.
The carriers great metric is "Revenue per customer". That is what they want to maximize. They saw how AT&T got pretty much blind sided by the success Apple has had with the iTunes App Store. They would rather see that 30% commission on each app sold than Google or independent developers.
I've already heard some complaints from friends with different Droid phones not being able to run the same apps. One person downloads an App that works great on a HTC, but a person with a Motorola can't down download the same app due to incompatible hardware.
As a developer, we're already charging 4x's the amount to develop for Android vs iPhone. Why? Because with Android we have test against 4 software versions and a number of different handsets and that adds a lot of time/cost in the QA phase. Not to mention keeping up with all the hardware is getting to be expensive for a small shop.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
And this is different from any other Phone, or indeed software of any kind because..?
I don;t think you're far off. Android has the benefit of being available on multiple platforms and manufacturers - that is going to increase the installed base. It is also its weakness (although not a crippling one) in that you have a varied handset base that you need to manage. The benefit of the iPhone is the very small set of hardware that iPhone OS runs on. Advantages and disadvantages to both systems, but that's just how it is.
Android is clearly doing extremely well, and good for it - if there is one thing that is going to drive iPhone development, it's a serious competitor (and vice versa). Everyone is going to be better off.
Apple's iPhone base is something like 100 million phones - I think it has well and truly "arrived" enough to always be a big player now, the same as Android - neither one is going to kill the other, they'll just both keep improving.
2.1 for the hero came out yesterday. Its on HTC website...now the eternal wait for 2.2 begins.
Umh yeah
There are other options. You can run Android just fine without any of the Google-branded proprietary apps (Google Maps, Google Earth, Gmail, etc.). They are kind of cool, whiz-bang things but you don't need em.
Their mail client is Open Source, and there's a fantastic fork called K9mail that is the most used app on my iPhone. The browser is based on Webkit and there's nothing that forces you to download/use/enable the Flash plugin. You can even download Mozilla Fennec (the alpha build at this point, but hey) if you prefer. There are customized versions of the Contacts and Phone apps out there.
As a matter of fact, there are community-built ROMs out there that don't have the Google stuff built in. Or you can easily enough remove them from your phone if they bother you.
If you want complete freedom and choice, buy the Nexus One, there are ton of custom ROMs for it. Don't buy the carrier-subsidized locked-down phones. Despite the fact that Google is shifting to a retail distribution model, the Google branded phones aren't going away. The Nexus One is currently the best GSM smartphone on the market in the US (Desire isn't available here, EVO 4G isn't GSM). Get it now, build your own ROMs or use other people's ROMs, hack-away, be happy.
No, Google announced they would stop selling N1's through their web site once they had retail channels in line.
You can still order an N1 through the site: http://www.google.com/phone
(Looking for ways to scare up the cash for an N1.)