7 ms·

A Late Night Froyo Treat Android 2.2 Goes Live On The Nexus One

26 points by Concours 16y ago

Tichy 16y ago
Why do they "roll out" in such a weird way - why not make it available to everybody at the same time? Surely Google doesn't have bandwidth problems? No update available on my N1 yet :-(
- kelnos 16y ago
  Yeah, same here (US west coast). I wonder if there's a difference between N1s bought outright, and N1s bought under T-Mo contract.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Probably to limit the damage if somehow the rollout is destructive, as sometimes they are.
  - studer 16y ago
    And to avoid having millions of phones hit the update servers and all other parts of the serving infrastructure at the same instant. Internet-scale engineering involves more than just the size of your widest pipes...
- brown9-2 16y ago
  What sounds more frustrating is that the availability of the new OS depends on your phone manufacturer
  - gvb 16y ago
    Well, the phone manufacturers have to port Android to their phones, so updates won't be available until the manufacturers apply their porting mods to the update and then push it out. That is the down side of not buying a Nexus One (G1). That is also the reason I was disappointed when I read Google is shutting down their phone hardware sales. Unfortunately, manufacturers tend to lose interest in supporting their hardware after the initial sale is made. The classic example is all the printers that worked fine under XP, but the manufacturers never bothered to create Vista/Win7 drivers, so they became paperweights). The Google reference phones have the advantage for updates since, by definition, Google has already done the porting for those phones. In theory, Open Source has an advantage since the community can do updates. That theory is tempered by the reality that the community needs to include people that are capable of doing the porting and enough hardware information needs to be available for people other than the manufacturer do do porting.
    - Tichy 16y ago
      You can still buy N1s, just not through Google. I think/hope they'll keep making reference phones, too.
  - arantius 16y ago
    It is not (directly) dependent on the manufacturer. It's dependent on how many barriers your manufacturer and/or carrier put between the original Android source, and your phone. In the case of HTC phones with Sense, they have to add a lot of engineering work between "Android version is available" and "that version has Sense added". They need to make sure all the hardware drivers still work, update them for updated kernels, etc. If the phone is a "Google Experience Device" then it's very close to the original source, and should get updates sooner than the rest.
- bobbyi 16y ago
  Why pay for QA when you can use unwitting customers as guinea pigs?
bwr 16y ago
I thought Google usually publishes an update image that you can flash yourself if you don't want to wait for your turn in the roll out?
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  They did for the Android Dev Phones, but haven't for the Nexus One. (This is the first Nexus One update.)
  - nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
    Correction: there was an OTA update for the Nexus One a few months ago to try and resolve some issues regarding EDGE/3G transitions, and a few other htings.
ergo98 16y ago
This guy got an Evo 4G at the Google I/O -- are we sure he didn't also get a N1? Google did mail out N1s and Droids in advance. If it was an N1 handed out at IO, not really surprising if it got the update early. I'd like to hear reports of non-tech-reporters-who-went-to-IO getting it. For the record my N1 is still telling me no updates are available.
- axod 16y ago
  I was at I/O. They first gave out N1/Droids in advance, then announced we could all have Evo's as well. My N1 says "Your system is currently up to date" :/
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  It's very possible that he has a pre-release N1. I think Arrington got one. And I know Google is pushing out updates to those phones now.
keltex 16y ago
I'm beginning to think this whole Android 2.2 thing was planned from the get go to take as much wind out of Apple's sails as possible. Google knew when Apple's big announcement was going to be and most likely they had a good idea what it was going to be about (iPad / iPhone 4.0). So they let Apple do their thing and then after the media frenzy had died down a bit, made their big announcement. Of course Google I/O was already planned so that made the perfect forum to make their announcement. Now to add insult to injury, the week after they talk about all the new features, they actually release them. Apple's iPhone 4.0 OS is not due until this summer and now when it comes out it will already be behind Android 2.2. I'm not taking sides here, but certainly see it as a PR victory for Google. What I'm seeing out there is more Android news than iPad news.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  So, waiting until a lull in the press cycle and then making a big announcement is a hostile PR move? What would a polite PR move look like? Google staged a major Android conference and made a major release. Of course there is more Android news this week than iPad news. Google timed their conference and their release to avoid Apple's big April and May releases, and to avoid WWDC and Apple's (presumably forthcoming) big June release. This isn't particularly hostile or non-hostile; it's a basic law of PR physics. The influential tech reporters are human beings that can only be in one place at one time. (It may be an even more fundamental law of physics: There is only one Moscone Center.) Finally, since I'm not trying to sell page views I'm free to point out, once again, that selling smartphones is not a zero-sum game. I doubt that Google's efforts to mention Apple and Apple's products in every other sentence is particularly bad for Apple. By elevating Apple to the level of "the industry standard which we all must compare ourselves to", Google buys attention for themselves, but they also ensure that even more people will pay attention to Apple's next move. It's really kind of a win-win. The ones who aren't winning here are Microsoft, RIM, and HP/Palm: The unmentioned ones.
  - keltex 16y ago
    You keep repeating "hostile" like I used that word in my comment. I didn't.
kaiser 16y ago
I also wondered ... is there no firmware to download and flash on your device? We have a nexus in the lab and I would love to try froyo out. With Apple, you always get the new versions/betas the same day they are announced and can play around with them. Could also smb. help me, I'm new to Android and I'm just wondering how easy is it to flash my custom firmware on a google nexus (bought over the web store)??
- kaiser 16y ago
  found the link for the firmware: http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-pa...
rufo 16y ago
Froyo looks like a great update, but I'm not clear on why it's the game-changer/straw that breaks the iPhone's back that everybody seems to think it is. Is there something I'm missing here?
- elblanco 16y ago
  Simple, look at the feature list for Froyo. All things the iPhone most clearly does not do. Even discounting flash, these things are among the most requested things that people want their iPhones to do: like tethering, wi-fi hotspots, jit, media sync OTA, media streaming OTA, flash 10.1, web app access to the compass and camera, voice to voice language translation, etc. It's not necessarily that it's "better" than the iPhone. It's that it squarely does all of the things that Jobs artificially prevents the iPhone from doing that consumers actually want.
  - kaiser 16y ago
    sorry, my iphone tethers since 3.0 (depends on the carrier :) the media sync and streaming sound lie an awesome feature. Considering flash ... I find it sad, that google is actually supporting it. Where is the open standards idea there?? Other than that, I'm happy about the competition. Hopefully makes Apple to include some of this features. Yet, I don't see the UI on Android getting any notable improvements in Froyo :( Maybe I need to play with it, as soon as it's available.
    - detst 16y ago
      > Considering flash ... I find it sad, that google is actually supporting it. Where is the open standards idea there?? That should be my choice as a user. I love open standards but why is it sad that they would support it if users want it? Why should it be up to Google (or Apple)? Shouldn't it ultimately be up to Adobe and me?
      - kaiser 16y ago
        You are right. It's just Google advocates so strongly open standards (check the first 10 min of google i/o keynote)and now they are directly supporting flash in Chrome and Android. imho it's just very inconsistent. I'm still trying to figure out, if I can just compile froyo and put it on our labs google nexus (I would expect that from an open source mobile phone operating system, ... seems not possible from what I see).
bobbyi 16y ago
Does it come with Flash?
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  Yes.
  - gvb 16y ago
    Can it be disabled?
    - pkulak 16y ago
      Yes
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Anyone know what the story is on a UK Vodafone Nexus One? My wife might be buying one and I hear the upgrades on Android can be disruptive so I'd rather get it done sooner rather than later.

26 points by Concours 16y ago

Tichy 16y ago

Why do they "roll out" in such a weird way - why not make it available to everybody at the same time? Surely Google doesn't have bandwidth problems? No update available on my N1 yet :-(

kelnos 16y ago
Yeah, same here (US west coast). I wonder if there's a difference between N1s bought outright, and N1s bought under T-Mo contract.
ergo98 16y ago
Probably to limit the damage if somehow the rollout is destructive, as sometimes they are.
- studer 16y ago
  And to avoid having millions of phones hit the update servers and all other parts of the serving infrastructure at the same instant. Internet-scale engineering involves more than just the size of your widest pipes...
brown9-2 16y ago
What sounds more frustrating is that the availability of the new OS depends on your phone manufacturer
- gvb 16y ago
  Well, the phone manufacturers have to port Android to their phones, so updates won't be available until the manufacturers apply their porting mods to the update and then push it out. That is the down side of not buying a Nexus One (G1). That is also the reason I was disappointed when I read Google is shutting down their phone hardware sales. Unfortunately, manufacturers tend to lose interest in supporting their hardware after the initial sale is made. The classic example is all the printers that worked fine under XP, but the manufacturers never bothered to create Vista/Win7 drivers, so they became paperweights). The Google reference phones have the advantage for updates since, by definition, Google has already done the porting for those phones. In theory, Open Source has an advantage since the community can do updates. That theory is tempered by the reality that the community needs to include people that are capable of doing the porting and enough hardware information needs to be available for people other than the manufacturer do do porting.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    You can still buy N1s, just not through Google. I think/hope they'll keep making reference phones, too.
- arantius 16y ago
  It is not (directly) dependent on the manufacturer. It's dependent on how many barriers your manufacturer and/or carrier put between the original Android source, and your phone. In the case of HTC phones with Sense, they have to add a lot of engineering work between "Android version is available" and "that version has Sense added". They need to make sure all the hardware drivers still work, update them for updated kernels, etc. If the phone is a "Google Experience Device" then it's very close to the original source, and should get updates sooner than the rest.
bobbyi 16y ago
Why pay for QA when you can use unwitting customers as guinea pigs?

bwr 16y ago

I thought Google usually publishes an update image that you can flash yourself if you don't want to wait for your turn in the roll out?

mbrubeck 16y ago
They did for the Android Dev Phones, but haven't for the Nexus One. (This is the first Nexus One update.)
- nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
  Correction: there was an OTA update for the Nexus One a few months ago to try and resolve some issues regarding EDGE/3G transitions, and a few other htings.

ergo98 16y ago

This guy got an Evo 4G at the Google I/O -- are we sure he didn't also get a N1? Google did mail out N1s and Droids in advance. If it was an N1 handed out at IO, not really surprising if it got the update early. I'd like to hear reports of non-tech-reporters-who-went-to-IO getting it. For the record my N1 is still telling me no updates are available.

axod 16y ago
I was at I/O. They first gave out N1/Droids in advance, then announced we could all have Evo's as well. My N1 says "Your system is currently up to date" :/
stanleydrew 16y ago
It's very possible that he has a pre-release N1. I think Arrington got one. And I know Google is pushing out updates to those phones now.

keltex 16y ago

I'm beginning to think this whole Android 2.2 thing was planned from the get go to take as much wind out of Apple's sails as possible. Google knew when Apple's big announcement was going to be and most likely they had a good idea what it was going to be about (iPad / iPhone 4.0). So they let Apple do their thing and then after the media frenzy had died down a bit, made their big announcement. Of course Google I/O was already planned so that made the perfect forum to make their announcement. Now to add insult to injury, the week after they talk about all the new features, they actually release them. Apple's iPhone 4.0 OS is not due until this summer and now when it comes out it will already be behind Android 2.2. I'm not taking sides here, but certainly see it as a PR victory for Google. What I'm seeing out there is more Android news than iPad news.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
So, waiting until a lull in the press cycle and then making a big announcement is a hostile PR move? What would a polite PR move look like? Google staged a major Android conference and made a major release. Of course there is more Android news this week than iPad news. Google timed their conference and their release to avoid Apple's big April and May releases, and to avoid WWDC and Apple's (presumably forthcoming) big June release. This isn't particularly hostile or non-hostile; it's a basic law of PR physics. The influential tech reporters are human beings that can only be in one place at one time. (It may be an even more fundamental law of physics: There is only one Moscone Center.) Finally, since I'm not trying to sell page views I'm free to point out, once again, that selling smartphones is not a zero-sum game. I doubt that Google's efforts to mention Apple and Apple's products in every other sentence is particularly bad for Apple. By elevating Apple to the level of "the industry standard which we all must compare ourselves to", Google buys attention for themselves, but they also ensure that even more people will pay attention to Apple's next move. It's really kind of a win-win. The ones who aren't winning here are Microsoft, RIM, and HP/Palm: The unmentioned ones.
- keltex 16y ago
  You keep repeating "hostile" like I used that word in my comment. I didn't.

kaiser 16y ago

I also wondered ... is there no firmware to download and flash on your device? We have a nexus in the lab and I would love to try froyo out. With Apple, you always get the new versions/betas the same day they are announced and can play around with them. Could also smb. help me, I'm new to Android and I'm just wondering how easy is it to flash my custom firmware on a google nexus (bought over the web store)??

kaiser 16y ago
found the link for the firmware: http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-pa...

rufo 16y ago

Froyo looks like a great update, but I'm not clear on why it's the game-changer/straw that breaks the iPhone's back that everybody seems to think it is. Is there something I'm missing here?

elblanco 16y ago
Simple, look at the feature list for Froyo. All things the iPhone most clearly does not do. Even discounting flash, these things are among the most requested things that people want their iPhones to do: like tethering, wi-fi hotspots, jit, media sync OTA, media streaming OTA, flash 10.1, web app access to the compass and camera, voice to voice language translation, etc. It's not necessarily that it's "better" than the iPhone. It's that it squarely does all of the things that Jobs artificially prevents the iPhone from doing that consumers actually want.
- kaiser 16y ago
  sorry, my iphone tethers since 3.0 (depends on the carrier :) the media sync and streaming sound lie an awesome feature. Considering flash ... I find it sad, that google is actually supporting it. Where is the open standards idea there?? Other than that, I'm happy about the competition. Hopefully makes Apple to include some of this features. Yet, I don't see the UI on Android getting any notable improvements in Froyo :( Maybe I need to play with it, as soon as it's available.
  - detst 16y ago
    > Considering flash ... I find it sad, that google is actually supporting it. Where is the open standards idea there?? That should be my choice as a user. I love open standards but why is it sad that they would support it if users want it? Why should it be up to Google (or Apple)? Shouldn't it ultimately be up to Adobe and me?
    - kaiser 16y ago
      You are right. It's just Google advocates so strongly open standards (check the first 10 min of google i/o keynote)and now they are directly supporting flash in Chrome and Android. imho it's just very inconsistent. I'm still trying to figure out, if I can just compile froyo and put it on our labs google nexus (I would expect that from an open source mobile phone operating system, ... seems not possible from what I see).

bobbyi 16y ago

Does it come with Flash?

stanleydrew 16y ago
Yes.
- gvb 16y ago
  Can it be disabled?
  - pkulak 16y ago
    Yes

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Anyone know what the story is on a UK Vodafone Nexus One? My wife might be buying one and I hear the upgrades on Android can be disruptive so I'd rather get it done sooner rather than later.