Linked by chandler on Sun 16th May 2010 19:28 UTC
Google is set to announce Android 2.2 at the Google I/O event this week and one of the highly anticipated features will provide a big boost for performance and battery life. Originally the Dalvik virtual machine was implemented as an interpreter, but now a JIT compiler will be used. Already benchmarks show a roughly 6x improvement in numeric performance with the new JIT. While this will make Snapdragon-powered phones like the Nexus One seem even more responsive it will have the biggest impact on lower end phones using ARM11-based chipsets. It remains to be seen how many existing models will receive upgrades to 2.2.
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RE[2]: Updates for Android Phones are rare
by Bill Shooter of Bul on Mon 17th May 2010 13:48
in reply to "RE: Updates for Android Phones are rare"
Member since:2006-07-14
Yeah, uhm, there are already apps that require 2.0 (yes there was a 2.0 its what the moto droid shipped with).
2.2 is not officially released yet.
The upgrade depends on the phone. Some manufacturers have provided a simple update. Others have third party roms that provide the upgrade. And still others do not have an upgrade.
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2010-03-30
Yes, the makers are probably doing that because they want a slice of the cake now. And because there are some users ready to buy phones with Android 1.5
I hope that once they get a backlash, they'll start putting their game together. The Android market is fresh, and the smartphone market may be boiling like hot water now, but there will come a time soon when the number of items sold per period starts to drop.
We need a change in how manufacturers support older releases (for instance, none of the Acer Aspire 1350 drivers -touchpad, GC, wireless card, etc.- has been updated on Acer's website since 2004; most are still the same version that shipped with the product in September 2003!).
Maybe that if new programs require quite recent features that became available with Android 2.0 for instance (was there a 2.0 ?), it would force the makers to do something more "support-oriented" and less "new-sales-only-oriented"?
By the way, is it possible to update those Android 1.5 phones to the current versions (2.1, 2.2) ?