Slug: android-22-froyo-debuts-looking-cool Date: 2010-05-20 Title: Android 2.2 "Froyo" Debuts - Looking Cool layout: post

Google announced the new release of its mobile/embedded OS, Android, at its I/O developer conference. The new features look pretty good - I’m looking forward to seeing them in the wild, and I think that it’s great for us Apple users to see someone else pushing the envelope in the mobile handset space.

Of note:

The Phone, applications Launcher, and Browser now have dedicated shortcuts on the Home screen, making it easy to access them from any of the 5 home screen panels.

Sounds vaguely familiar… :-)

Remote wipe: Exchange administrators can remotely reset the device to factory defaults to secure data in case device is lost or stolen.

I note that Apple also offers Remote Wipe via Exchange, but in addition they offer MobileMe-based Remote wipe for non-business users. Anyone know if Android has a similar service?

Gallery allows you to peek into picture stacks using a zoom gesture.

Uh huh.

Certain devices like the Nexus One can be turned into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared with up to 8 devices.

Mmmmmmmmm. Apple, start your photocopiers. Please.

A few more features mentioned in this TFTS post:

Froyo takes the cloud a little more seriously as it will be able now to let you push various information straight from other devices to the Android devices while also triggering a specific action on the phone.

Google definitely takes this “cloud” stuff seriously; many of us iPhone users wish Apple would do the same.

One more useful feature of the new Android Market is the automatic apps update.

Um, new? I’m honestly shocked that this was not part of the day 1 release of the Market.

Most importantly, the ads shown at Google I/O are actual ads unlike the concept ads shown at the iPhone OS 4.0 event.

So, really annoying as opposed to “clever and tasteful and wouldn’t it be nice if all ads were like this”? :-)

Since were talking about surfing the web well tell you that Froyo will offer you a 2x-3x Javascript performance boost. Google showed us Froyo against clair against iPhone OS and guess what OS performed better in browser testing speeds? Thats right, its Froyo.

Good for them - I know Apple and Google both use WebKit… wonder what the difference is in Google’s case? Google says:

Performance of the browser has been enhanced using the V8 engine, which enables faster loading of JavaScript-heavy pages.

Yeah, ok, I’m sure someone with better understanding of these things will explain it.

Flash 10.1, as expected, is going to be available in Froyo

Oh, well, they can’t all be winners.