A Taste of Froyo: Google Android 2.2 Explored
by Saumitra Bhagwat on June 23, 2010 1:03 AM ESTApplication Specific Updates
Gallery
The Gallery app now supports pinch-to-zoom gestures. When you pinch and zoom on an album, the pictures scroll across the screen giving you a preview of its contents. The order of the scrolling can be manipulated depending on how you pinch the screen. Google seems to have taken a page directly from Apple as the iPad has a similar feature in its Photos app. Although it’s a nice addition to an already well-made app, its implementation is rather awkward and leaves much to be desired.
Camera
The Camera app now has on-screen controls for focus, exposure, geo-location, white balance, flash and zoom. All the controls are orientation aware (regardless of whether automatic orientation is enabled) and change smoothly when you switch modes. Compulsive photographers who’d like to have greater control while taking pictures will find this extremely handy. I found the new controls quite useful at times, especially for those quick shots where time is of the essence.
Gmail
The Gmail app now supports fast account switching, thanks to a little button on the top right corner of the app. Google’s also (finally!) added previous and next buttons to quickly scroll through threads. The app also adds support for colored labels and allows users to cut, copy and paste text from emails. Another handy addition is the ability to install .apk files directly from emails. Thanks to these new features, the Gmail app is vastly more usable in Froyo.
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Android Market
The Market app at long last added the ability to update all installed apps simultaneously. The interface has now been tweaked to have two tabs, one for the description and the other for comments.
You can also set rules to automatically update apps whenever an update is made available. It’s a great feature if you have a lot of apps installed on your phone and something that is still lacking from iOS.
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YouTube
The YouTube app remains largely unchanged, except for that little HQ button that lets you toggle the video quality. While some have found the default video quality on v2.1 and v2.2 to be almost the same, but non-HQ clips seem to appear worse on Froyo.
Browser
Froyo’s browser adds the new V8 Javascript rendering engine that promises a 2x performance boost from Éclair (v2.1). I’m happy to confirm that these claims are largely true and the browser performance is absolutely stellar! The new broswer managed an amazing score of 36079 in the BrowserMark test with its closest competitor, the iPhone 3GS scoring a far 26897.
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gayannr - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
'Since I’m not important enough to have an exchange account, "is that sarcasm . lol
Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
No no, no sarcasm intended. I had an Exchange account briefly while I was in school, but that was a year ago. I'm really not important enough to have one ... ;)glynor - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
You could test most of the Exchange features using a Gmail account and Google Sync.EricC - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
" I'm really not important enough to have one ... ;) "Since I know the author, I can vouch for him on this one :D
Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Hehe, Tim just sent me an email about this! :P5150Joker - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
iPhone 4G or Sprint Evo 4G with Froyo on it?add119 - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
You apple fan boy one android 2.1 came out in january 5th.. google release it with nexus one. Two android 2.0 came out in november with update 2.0.1 in december.Android 1.5 came out in may 2009 plz don't come mentioning phones without researching because all verizon phones has 2.1 os with sprint as well even htc hero and sammy moment has 2.1 os. T-mobile has mytouch3g slide with 2.1 os and cliq and cliq qt with be both getting 2.1 os next week. The only phone left behind is google g1 with 1.6 os and behold 2 with 1.6 os just released this week with that os changing from 1.5 os to 1.6 to behold 2. People if you going to buy any phoone don't go a&tt they suck like changing google option and take features away go with t-mobile or verizon. And, sprint sucks because they don't do ota they like giving update online with manuel. Personally that like rooting the phone it can mess your phone up.
whatthehey - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
If you're going to be a tool and criticize an article, try learning how to speak and write intelligently first. Your rant is full of a list of phones and supposed release dates, but it has nothing to back it up other than the mindless diarrhea of the mouth that you spewed out. I don't care if the various releases of Android came out a month or two earlier than what was listed; what matters is whether the current 2.2 release is better, and that's what this article tries to cover.Saumitra - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Thanks for pointing that out. But, Eclair released on October 26th 2009, which is why I said November 2009 as a more general estimate. And yes, add119 learn to put down your thoughts a little more cogently.jasperjones - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
Nice write-up, I've been running FRF50 on my Nexus One for the last few weeks and my experience has been similar.However, I feel the articles in the smartphone section could be more rigorous. I realize that we're dealing with different OSes as well as different devices at the same time. This makes comparisons and benchmarking harder. You cannot just throw out an NVIDIA card and put in an ATI card. But just because it's harder to line up various devices/software against each other doesn't mean you shouldn't try.