Major Differences between Android 2.1 and 2.2

[pbrauer]

I have seen a lot of questions relating to specifically what the differences are between 2.1 (also known as Eclair) and 2.2 (also known as Froyo), and have compiled a list of the improvements that directly impact the consumer. This is compiled from the Android Developer toolkit, as well as derived from benchmark reviews from platform providers. This is intended to be understood in the context of the following scenario: You have two identical devices, one running 2.1 and the other 2.2, what are the differences you would see.

I am not going to go into deep detail here as to why there are improvements, as these discussions can get pretty geeky and technical. I am just going for the highlights. It is not intended to specifically detail the differences in processors, platforms, etc. It is only intended to highlight the differences in actual OS capability. The most commonly talked about features of 2.2 are:

• Support for Flash 10.1
• 450% faster according to benchmark testing

But there a lot of other new features and capabilities that might get missed, or you see on another device and don't know why they aren't on yours.

User Features

Home
• Addition of the Phone, Launcher and Browser shortcuts to Home Screen
• Tips Widget for setting up Home Screens

Exchange Integration
• Pin Security instead of using the older pattern “wipe”
• Remote wipe and reset capability for enterprise users
• Exchange Calendar Support and Integration
• Auto discovery for setup
• Global Address lookup Support

Camera and Gallery
• Zoom and picture “stacking”
• On-screen feature access in camera (zoom, flash, etc)
• Integration direct from camera to social media site
• LED Flash enabled for video

Portable Hotspot support
• Tethering and Wifi hotspot capable depending on device

Input
• Swiping the keyboard now changes keyboard types and auto-correct for multiple language support

Performance (against 2.1 benchmarks, values approximate)
• Browser is 4.5 times faster on Java heavy apps and pages
• 2x-5x performance for CPU Intensive apps from JIT
• 20x better memory performance and reclaimation

Platform Features

Media
• Stagefright – local file playback and HTTP streaming
• OpenCore – improved in 2.2

Bluetooth
• Voice Dial over BT
• Contact (vcard) sharing
• BT car and desk dock support

Kernel Improvements
• Highmem support greater than 256Mb

 

[jjnagy]

Thanks for the excellent list. The only other important one to me would be the APPS2SD, since we have the limited amout of memory for apps.

I have seen a lot of questions relating to specifically what the differences are between 2.1 (also known as Eclair) and 2.2 (also known as Froyo), and have compiled a list of the improvements that directly impact the consumer. This is compiled from the Android Developer toolkit, as well as derived from benchmark reviews from platform providers. This is intended to be understood in the context of the following scenario: You have two identical devices, one running 2.1 and the other 2.2, what are the differences you would see.

I am not going to go into deep detail here as to why there are improvements, as these discussions can get pretty geeky and technical. I am just going for the highlights. It is not intended to specifically detail the differences in processors, platforms, etc. It is only intended to highlight the differences in actual OS capability. The most commonly talked about features of 2.2 are:

• Support for Flash 10.1
• 450% faster according to benchmark testing

But there a lot of other new features and capabilities that might get missed, or you see on another device and don't know why they aren't on yours.

User Features

Home
• Addition of the Phone, Launcher and Browser shortcuts to Home Screen
• Tips Widget for setting up Home Screens

Exchange Integration
• Pin Security instead of using the older pattern “wipe”
• Remote wipe and reset capability for enterprise users
• Exchange Calendar Support and Integration
• Auto discovery for setup
• Global Address lookup Support

Camera and Gallery
• Zoom and picture “stacking”
• On-screen feature access in camera (zoom, flash, etc)
• Integration direct from camera to social media site
• LED Flash enabled for video

Portable Hotspot support
• Tethering and Wifi hotspot capable depending on device

Input
• Swiping the keyboard now changes keyboard types and auto-correct for multiple language support

Performance (against 2.1 benchmarks, values approximate)
• Browser is 4.5 times faster on Java heavy apps and pages
• 2x-5x performance for CPU Intensive apps from JIT
• 20x better memory performance and reclaimation

Platform Features

Media
• Stagefright – local file playback and HTTP streaming
• OpenCore – improved in 2.2

Bluetooth
• Voice Dial over BT
• Contact (vcard) sharing
• BT car and desk dock support

Kernel Improvements
• Highmem support greater than 256Mb

 

[pbrauer]

Thanks for the response. There actually are some workarounds for making App2SD work on 2.1. Since it basically is a hack, it is not universally supported, nor has it been proven to run on all platforms so i am not going to include the threads for this here. You can however search both this forum, and Google "Apps2SD on 2.1 " and see several different solutions and approaches.

cheers,
p

 

[Lien]

Hi, can you maybe tell me how to unlock my touch screen (android 2.2) (haipad m701). Must be something something stupid but I can't find it.
I did a touch screen calibration but couldn't finish (had to go in meeting) so I rebooted the system. And now everything seems to work, except the touch screen.
this is my first android and in the manual I can't find a thing about this....

 

[probbiethe1]

This is a great write up and shows all the major differences and i think what jjnagy was saying another major difference between 2.1 and 2.2 is that apps2sd is built into 2.2 but if your saying that apps2sd could have been made to work on 2.1 devices with partitioning the sd card and doing some work arounds and thats why you didnt add it to your list, then i think your list should have been a lot shorter. Because some of the things that are now built into 2.2 were hacks or apps that people built into custom roms. Which i think is awesome of google to see what people like and then make it stock.

 

[justinepeter]

Android 2.2, codenamed “frozen yogurt” or Froyo for short, is the latest version of Google’s Android operating system for smartphones. It replaces the older version 2.1, labeled Éclair. In general, speed and performance has been improved in version 2.2. So let’s discuss the more specific differences between 2.1 and 2.2.