Google Android 2.2 "Froyo" - first impressions and review

iPhone really needs to catch up with Google's Android
 

Well, Google begun pushing the Android 2.2 "Froyo" to Nexus One users very soon after the Google I/O event ended. People were expecting it weeks after the announcement, but Google released it much sooner. I have manually installed the update on my Nexus One, and I must say I am impressed ! First, the bad: Google claims Froyo is 2 to 5 times faster than Android 2.1, but unfortunately this is not the case, at least with normal usage. The Nexus One does indeed seem speedier but the speed increase is not uniform. It varies from 20% to 200% in my usage scenarios. Browser zooming is still not as smooth as the iPhone, but the Nexus One does render more of the page compared to the iPhone's rendering in "tiles". The pages load much faster with Android, but the iPhone manages to give the impression of more smoothness (until you scroll down when you realize that there are unrendered portions of the page and you wait for the rendering). Now on to the Flash support: it's pretty much seamless, it works as good as on any desktop computer. Video streaming is very fluid. But the lack of a mouse does limit the functionality somewhat. I tried the Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot feature and it works perfecty. Now I can uninstall the trial version of the PdaNet I was using for tethering (sorry, guys !). You can even tether your iPad through it, which I find funny given the fact that the iPhone cannot do this obvious job. Other features I noticed: the Android Market now allows user comments, a nice addition. The home screen is pretty much unchanged from the Eclair (2.1) Android, but there are some minor additions like persistent phone and browser buttons regardless of which screen you are at. Conclusion There are many new features in Android 2.2, I didn't try them all but the speed increase, Flash support and Portable Wi-Fi hotspot are the one I like the most. This is a very important upgrade from Google and I feel that this is the update that manages to surpass the iPhone OS (yes, even the new iPhone 4.0). Combined with the openness of the Android Platform and it's availability on a myriad of smartphones, I feel that Apple really needs to rethink it's strategy on the iPhone.