Motorola Droid 2.1

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Parafly9

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sweet. what are the bullet points of what it does again?

Voice controls - Being able to control your phone via voice may not be at the top of everyone's list of features, but as the demo on the Nexus One showed, its implementation in Android 2.1 is immense. Not only can you demand it takes you somewhere and be presented with turn-by-turn voice directions, but you can also send Tweets, SMS messages and emails just by telling your phone what you want to say. Smart, huh?

Google Earth - The Google Earth app for Android will launch hand in hand with 2.1, and it does look mighty impressive from over here. It's pretty similar, well, to Google Earth on iPhone, but there's a new mode where you can apparently fly through the air like a bird. Nice.
Phonebook - The phonebook on Android 2.1 devices will automatically pull in contacts from multiple sources including Facebook, and although it was a feature found on many customised UIs such as Motorola's MotoBLUR, having it natively installed makes it much smoother.

Email - Android 2.1 will bring with it the ability to have more than one Gmail account working from the same inbox. This means if you have two Gmail accounts, you can get them both feeding one inbox, rather than having to set up separate accounts.

Weather App - The new weather app as featured on Android 2.1 will include dynamic weather updates that use GPS to give minute-by-minute accounts of the temperature, humidity and weather conditions in your current location.
Interactive wallpapers - OK, so this doesn't really improve the functionality of Android, but it will make Android devices look prettier. Animated wallpapers are onboard, and if you fancy it, you can interact with them too. For example, if you have an animated wallpaper featuring water, you can press the screen and ripples will appear.

Homescreens - The vanilla version of 2.1 will now ship with five homescreens rather than the measly three on 2.0 devices. It means you can cram in more apps from the rapidly increasing selection on the Android Market, and of course shortcuts and Widgets. Although customised OS Android devices (such as the Milestone, T-Mobile Pulse, HTC Magic) did previously have more than three homescreens, they're now there from the off!

Photo gallery - A new photo gallery feature brings a new way of viewing your pics to Android. Google took some of the functionality from COOLIRIS, allowing you to seamlessly browse your photos on a 3D wall. Albums are clustered by time, date and location too, so your gallery will be perfectly ordered.
App Launcher - Android's App Launcher has been revamped so you no longer have to drag and pull to get to the app menu. Simply tap a button and everything smoothly zooms into place.

Firmware upgrade - Although not directly related to the new firmware features, news is spreading that some lucky Android users will be able to upgrade existing devices to 2.1. The list so far includes the HTC Magic, Samsung Galaxy and Motorola Milestone, although we're sure most newer Android devices will benefit from the upgrade too.

pretty awesome.
 

gentlefury

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seems liike google earth and the voice keyboard are the only things that haven't been ported to 2.0.1...lol
 

windstrings

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seems liike google earth and the voice keyboard are the only things that haven't been ported to 2.0.1...lol


Well if its anything like the last update... its much more than apps... the whole OS is faster so even the apps you already ported are likely to work faster, smoother and better..... hopefully! :)
 

swickdick

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Increased speed and sleekness will definitely be a plus. I'm thinking of just waiting for the OTA update instead of trying the ROM out...from there though I'm wondering about the rooting issue and if it will be the same process
 

drminnsx

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Android 2.1

Does anyone know exactly when they will begin rolling out 2.1? Also, does anyone know what enhancements it will truly have?
 

zenman77

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Ok........... Let me rephrase that............ Does anyone know where to access apps from 2.1 that people are using our droids now?
 

KZIWarrior

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WHEN, DAMMIT?!?!?!?

Why no date, just wild speculation.

Because they don't know how long it will take to port and debug for starters (see the part on the OP about it will kill your Droid if you just load it straight). They have a LOT of things to do to get it working on and optimized for the Moto Droid. Then they have to package it so they can release it OTA w/o to much undo stress on the users (i.e. NONE of their apps working, lost data ect.). This all takes time. If you are that impatient load a cooked ROM until then (if there are even 2.1s that are working well on the Droid).

And if anyone it tempted to say 'it can't be that hard' or some other useless response there are 2.1 kernels available, go pull one and build your own ROM (or try to, anyone capable is likely already doing so or will be understanding of the time Moto and Verizon takes to get things right).
 

Technoman

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WHEN, DAMMIT?!?!?!?

Why no date, just wild speculation.

Because they don't know how long it will take to port and debug for starters (see the part on the OP about it will kill your Droid if you just load it straight). They have a LOT of things to do to get it working on and optimized for the Moto Droid. Then they have to package it so they can release it OTA w/o to much undo stress on the users (i.e. NONE of their apps working, lost data ect.). This all takes time. If you are that impatient load a cooked ROM until then (if there are even 2.1s that are working well on the Droid).

And if anyone it tempted to say 'it can't be that hard' or some other useless response there are 2.1 kernels available, go pull one and build your own ROM (or try to, anyone capable is likely already doing so or will be understanding of the time Moto and Verizon takes to get things right).

Not sure how much work Verizon is really doing on this. I imagine the porting is all in Motorola's hands to complete. Verizon will just push it to the users. My speculation anyway.
 
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