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."

Comments

Vendor / carrier upgrades

[Kethinov]

I love everything about Android except one thing: Vendor/carrier OS upgrades.

As someone who wants to switch from iPhone to the HTC Evo 4G in June, I have one message to Sprint/HTC/whoever is responsible: Please make Android 2.2 available as soon as a stable build is out. If it takes months after stable 2.2 is released, I'm gonna be a very vocally dissatisfied customer.

So please vendors / carriers, do us this courtesy and we'll all love you and happily part with obscene quantities of money for quality service.

Re:Vendor / carrier upgrades

[L4t3r4lu5]

The first thing I did with my Touch Diamond 2 was install a custom ROM. Stock / Vendor ROMs are almost always out of date before shipping, and updates from the vendor are few and far between. I don't expect this to be any different on Android phones.

There's a good community at xda-developers for Android phones. Check them out.

Wifi tethering

[Thanshin]

I wonder what will be the effects of millions of people carrying wifi hotspots.

If I put my happy optimistic hat, I can imagine a next generation that forgets about ownership of connection and creates a giant web of constant wifi access to the web.

A world where every little gadget can access the web as you approach, by using your phone.

Re:Wifi tethering

[LingNoi]

It's already happening, check out OLSR being ported to the android. With this your android can connect to an OLSR mesh network.

Put your tinfoil hat on

[oldhack]

Have we audited the Android code enough to know that it's not phoning the mothership sending god-knows-what? Do we know there is no other "oops we didn't mean to"? It's one thing to have gov't spooks snooping on you, wholly another to have a private corporation piling dossier on you.

Paranoid? Pretty damn well justified when we are talking about Google, I say. Ask them about their data collection policy.

Re:No Wonder Why Apple Got Dumped Into 3rd Place

[RMH101]

I've just switched from iPhone to Android. I'd jailbroken my phone to add the features Apple didn't seem to want to give me, I'd call myself a power user of the iPHone (if there is such a thing) and I just got tired of fighting Apple. Every update they push, arbitrary app restrictions (google voice?) - in the end it was an Engadget podcast that persuaded me to switch. Do I want a future of everything coming thru Apple and iTunes (with Apple nickle-and-diming me to death on each transaction), or do I want a connected handset produced by a vendor who has a vested interest in it integrating nicely with as many third-party services (twitter/facebook/flickr etc) as possible? When Apple bought the mobile advertising network it was the last straw.
I now have 2.1 on an HTC Desire and couldn't be happier. All of a sudden you're not treated like an evil hacker for wanting apps that "think different" - it's encouraged.
Case in point: forgot to copy a new album over to my phone. I realised I could wirelessly connect to my LAN, browse the content, copy an album over to my handset. Job done.

Re:Anonymous Cow

[beav007]

I just bought an HTC Desire, which is running Android 2.1. It's absolutely fantastic to use.

I have but one complaint. The RSS reader is a PITA to put a feed into unless it's a predefined/preapproved feed.

Dear Google;

Please, can we have an icon/button somewhere on the browser that shows that there are RSS feeds associated with that web page, and an integrated way to subscribe to them?

Thanks

-beav007

Isn't Android supposed to be "open source" ?

[Qubit]

Okay, sure, Google cuts some deal with Adobe to suck up the Adobe Flash Player code and bake it into builds of Chrome. Or Chromium (whichever one is their proprietary version of the browser).

But why would they describe that support as existing in Android? I thought that Android was Google's FOSS-licensed, linux-kernel-based OS.

When Google, HTC, and other people release a phone running Android, they invariably pile all kinds of proprietary stuff on top. Other options would be nice, but they don't seem too interested in that.

Maybe it's just this particular news site being imprecise, but I'm concerned that Google is trying to peg Flash support via this browser to all Android phones. I mean, it's great for people who want to run the software, but it's shifting Android away from a FOSS project to Yet Another Proprietary Stack.

C'mon Google, you're chock full of smart engineers who want an open web, so please make sure that Android stays an open stack.

Re:Something doesn't sit right with me.

[Tukz]

That's not Androids fault, that's the vendors.

Android is the OS, which is quite open indeed.
What vendors do with the firmware on their own phones, is entirely up to them.