Did I forget to mention I planned on talking tech in this blog? It's true. This is proof. Luckily for you I'll be tagging each of these blogs appropriately. The tag 'daddyhood' will refer to just that, while 'techtronics' will be anything tech related I care to share. I'm sure I'll add more tags later on for fun.
Onward to the topic of discussion!
I manually installed the official Android 2.2 update on my Motorola Droid today because I couldn't bear to wait for them to push it out to me automatically. I used this site:
http://www.droid-life.com/2010/08/03/manual-android-2-2-update-for-motorola-droid/
I've only been using the new version for about 6 hours now, and I have to say, I'm impressed. I've been feeling a bit tired of my Droid as of late, and have seriously contemplated upgrading to the X or the Droid 2. (Of course, I was delayed in action by yet another set of rumors that the iPhone is coming to Verizon in January...who knows if it'll actually happen.) ANYWAYS, this upgrade makes my phone feel brand new again. Here are some of the reasons why:
1) My phone is WAY more responsive. No laggy screen scrolls, and much less hesitation when I open an application. The phone feels twice as fast.
2) The Gmail app has forward and back buttons for scrolling through emails now! I know..this should have been added in version 1.0, but somehow it was missed. Anyone who uses Gmail on their Droid has to have shared my pain in this. Also, there's a button on the inbox screen that allows you to switch to a different email account if you have more than one configured. As far as I'm concerned, the Gmail app is now complete.
3) The update installed a new and up to date version of the official Facebook application. This version provides an icon to access your inbox on Facebook, as well as forward and backward arrows to cycle through messages and pictures. Why the inbox was left out previously, I still don't know.
4) The camera has been noticeably enhanced from 10 fps to 20 fps in the viewfinder window. What this means is that the camera "feels" less sluggish. I haven't taken many pics with it yet, so more on that later.
5) Manually typing in "smileys" in any sort of text is less of a pain now! I know..small gripe, but for some reason someone decided that all colons (:) were meant to rest right up against the letter previous to them. This was an auto-correct feature that I never quite figured out how to disable on my phone (I actually didn't try *that* hard, but still). This behavior is gone now it seems.
6) Tethering! I have the option..haven't tried to use it, but hey, I have the option!
7) Weird sound problems fixed. I think this was a specific problem with my phone, but my phone started to develop really strange audio problems. Music stored on my device (including ringtones and sound effects) started sounding very distorted at times, and almost seemed like things were moving in slow motion. (Now that I think of it...a reboot could have fixed the problem...)
Those are the pros I've found so far that directly affect me. Here are some of the cons:
1) My Microsoft VPN still doesn't work reliably. We use 128 bit encryption at work, and have discovered that for some reason, the higher the encryption, the less likely the vpn is to work. Even at lower encryption levels the vpn is intermittent. So I say boo to this. One more reason to root the phone and install openvpn...
2) Flash is s-l-o-w. I installed the flash app, and attempted to watch a clip on abc.com. It wasn't very watchable. Not a big deal...I don't *need* flash, but still.
3) Home screen still doesn't auto-rotate when the phone is flipped sideways. I realize I can slide the keyboard out and get that behavior, but that's not what I want. I mainly use the on-screen keyboard when I'm using the phone. I'd like to be able to turn the phone sideways and just use the touch screen to interact with the home screen. The "auto-rotate" flag isn't doing it's job properly in my opinion.
4) No hotspot. :( I know this was announced, but I'm still sad to see it's not present on my Droid. I may root my phone yet.
That's all I have so far. I may find other goodies soon, but my first impression is that it's a great move in the right direction for the Android operating system on these phones.
Waverly
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