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Installing Android 2.2 "Froyo" On the Nexus One

gjt writes "I awoke this morning to see TechCrunch's MG Siegler post what appeared to be the first news of Froyo's availability. I frantically went to my phone's settings and tried to check for an update -oe but no luck. Then I went to xda-developers.com and sure enough there was a very long thread (now over 132 pages) of fellow eager beavers waiting for release (and trying to figure out how to get it). Several hours went by waiting for a semi-technical user to get the update and check the Android logs for the download location. It turns out you can get it straight from Google. With the information scattered around in different places I decided to consolidate the How-To into a single post." Note: According to attached comments, and to the TechCrunch story, it seems this is a staggered rollout, so not every Android owner may be able to try it out yet.

16 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Actually, you can grab it now by gjt · · Score: 4, Informative

    And no point trying to get it before you get it pushed to you?

    The Over-The-Air update is a staggered rollout. But, the manual method that I wrote about here let's you avoid the wait. That said, it also seems to only be for the Nexus One now. Can't find a Droid update yet.

    1. Re:Actually, you can grab it now by nahdude812 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Replying to myself, it seems like there are different builds for different submodels of the phone. For example the AT&T compatible phone (like I have) doesn't use the same update file as the T-Mobile compatible phone. Haven't had luck finding the EPE54B download yet.

  2. Re:So, you get it when you get it? by davester666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You will get it approximately whenever HTC feels like porting it to the HTC Desire AND then whenever your carrier feels like letting you have it. With a subset of the overall Android 2.2 features that they feel are appropriate for you.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  3. Running it now.. by Mark19960 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And posting over my tethered N1 :)
    Flash has to be downloaded from the market.. and I can tell you that it is not as smooth as they make out in the youtube videos of it.
    It does work and it's tolerable, let's put it that way.

    That being said, the whole phone is much faster... I went from stock to Cyanogen and that was a speed boost.
    This however, is a substantial boost.

    I am looking forward to a Cyanogen release based on 2.2 - I think his roms are more polished than stock.

  4. Re:So, you get it when you get it? by spikeb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    like any other carrier locked phone

  5. Re:Too easy! by hedwards · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hoops? That's just for people that aren't willing to wait for the OTA update notification. The hoops we're jumping through is so that we don't have to wait for that. Updates like this are always staggered when done OTA to avoid unnecessarily straining the network.

  6. I'll wait until Cyanogen adds it into his by gearloos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Remember if your rooted and update to this, you'll probably have to re root it and install a new rom all over again to get all your rooted programs working. Unless you know how to use adb and the other utils to picjk apart features very well, You probably should just wait till your prefered flavor rom has the new features integrated. It shouldn't take long.

    --
    "Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
  7. What about all of Steve Job's issues with flash ? by parallel_prankster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So I remember Steve jobs rambling about why flash was bad for phones? - bad performance - poor battery life - security ? Anybody notice poor battery performance with flash? Is it easy to kill bad flash apps or does it reboot your device like my laptop ? How good is the touch interface with flash ?

  8. Re:some battery life info on here by sessamoid · · Score: 5, Informative
    For those too lazy to read your link, here is the relevant excerpt:

    As for the battery life, Greer said it's not as horrible as Steve Jobs might have made it out to be in his open letter earlier this month. "It's not too bad," he said. "Android has a little bit of an issue with battery life anyway. I just plug it in to my laptop, so I'm not super sensitive to it. I'd definitely say it depends on the game too."

    So he's saying it's "not too bad", but he keeps his phone plugged into a charger/laptop. Okay.

    --
    "No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
  9. Re:Wow! by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That has nothing to do with Google. That's how major updates are always rolled out. The problem is that too many users in one cell trying to update at the same time can cause network outages. So major updates like this are staggered to reduce the likelihood of network breakage. And secondly, this is hardly a simple update, it brings quite a few changes on board as well as a substantial performance improvement.. On top of that anybody who buys a phone with a custom UI, whether it be blur or sense, is going to have to wait while the patches are applied and tested before it's rolled out. That's one of the reasons why the iPhone and Nexus One are in the positions they are. Since the people writing the OS and making the changes are working directly with the engineers creating the hardware they only have to test once. Whereas people who have a custom UI on top of that have to wait several months for it to be finished and tested before getting it.

    And likewise, just because a phone was released last week doesn't mean that it's been tested for the update, they used a version for development because it was the latest at that time and then they released it when it was finished. They'll now have to do testing on the new version before they release it. Doing anything else would be horribly irresponsible.

  10. Re:It seems you have to install Flash from the Mar by beakerMeep · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can also just go to Adobe's website and click "get flash" the link will take you to the market to download it.

    One suggestion for those that install it, go into your settings and enable plugins 'on-demand' That way you will only get the Flash you want. It shows a little down arrow in place of the Flash that you click to enable. It's like a built in Flashblock/Adblock extension.

    Also IMO, considering the platform, I think the Flash is working rather well. I quite enjoyed watching some Zero Punctuation videos on Escapist.com already.

    --
    meep
  11. Re:So, you get it when you get it? by nahdude812 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, exactly like the iPhone. For example, iPhone has supported tethering since the 3G model (version 3.0), but was disabled by AT&T. There was a short while where you could update the carrier info on the phone and it would enable tethering as a built-in function via either USB or Bluetooth.

    The 3.1 update not only disabled this simple work-around, it also locked the phone so you could not downgrade to 3.0. I had an iPhone at the time, and refused to ever install the 3.1 update so I could stick with tethering. I now have a Nexus One, and have never regretted the upgrade. I also bought the N1 directly from Google, and not only did I avoid a new contract, but I'm no longer subject to having my handset intentionally crippled by my carrier.

  12. Re:Too easy! by beakerMeep · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bitter and trolling is no way to go through life, son.

    --
    meep
  13. Re:So, you get it when you get it? by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you want work done or actually use your device for something more than a toy, you buy an iPhone.

    Wrong.

    If you want work done or actually use your device for something more than a toy, you buy a Blackberry. But Android is catching up.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  14. Re:Anybody wanna bet || I'll take that bet! by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Informative

    that Sprint will block the new HTC Evo 4G's hotspot capability, since they sell their Overdrive 3G/4G mobile hotspot (a separate box) for $99.99?

    Way to keep up on the official announcements. Sprint has already released their pricing for the EVO 4G hotspot - $30/mo; they're not blocking it, they're actively advertising it EVERYWHERE ON THE WEB FOR THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS. The only unknown about it was the pricing, which they announced on the 12th. Yeesh.

  15. Re:I guess soon we'll see about Flash by LauraW · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think the better test will really be for when Froyo gets ported to the G1 and seeing how Flash performs then

    Have you heard definitively that Froyo will be ported to the G1? I was under the impression that Froyo and even Eclair are too big to fit on the G1. I'd love to be proven wrong -- I have two old G1s sitting in a drawer and would love to put Froyo on them. Froyo arrived on my N1 last night, and I'm very happy with it so far; there are lots of nice incremental improvements. But as far as I know, nobody is working on shrinking Froyo down enough to fit the G1.

    -- Laura

    Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at Google, but I have no inside knowledge of what the Android folks are doing. I didn't even know Froyo had been released until I saw the giant styrofoam frozen yogurt in front of building 44.