Google has officially announced Froyo, the newest version of the Android family, at Google I/O in this May 2010. This was one of move of Google that did not come as a bolt from the blue to anyone. Known as Froyo (or Frozen Yogurt) or more properly Android 2.2, it offers a number of enhancements and fixes to the Android platform. Android releases are all named after desserts. Froyo has been tested on a Nexus One which currently is the only device supported by Android 2.2.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights:

Speed/Performance

This was the first point observed all the way through the declaration and it is a big one. Officially Google is referring a 2-5x boost on all devices running 2.2 in context of the Dalvik JIT (just-in-time) compiler. The browser exploits the V8 engine used in Google Chrome. Hence the browser will reportedly see a 2-3x performance increase making it “the world’s fastest mobile browser.” Overall the whole OS seems much marked with up-to-datedness than Android 2.1. Everything on the OS in general happens much faster with better performance.

Integrated Flash Support

Froyo supports Flash on your mobile device. The experience on interactive elements and video that isn’t optimized for mobile may get a little choppy as reported earlier. However, you may expect that to get refined over time and at least you are actually seeing the whole web as opposed to just the parts that someone else wants you to see.

Enterprise Exchange (email) support.

The lack of Exchange support has been a huge shortcoming of the platform to date and has been holding Android back from Enterprise adoption. Now, the latest Android can finally sync Exchange calendars in addition to email and contacts. It also supports the PIN requirements along with remote wipe features.

The overall security however, still isn’t at the required standard or of good enough quality. E.g. the content stored on the MicroSD cards still cannot be encrypted. However, the Google is committed to and in fact is getting very close to good enough for business use of Android for the enterprise customers. This is therefore, definitely a significant step for Android as a platform. Some of the highlights for the enterprise users are as under.

· Use of numeric and alpha-numeric passwords or password phrases ameliorates the security

· Support for the Remote Wipe feature allowing Exchange administrators to remotely reset the device to factory defaults. The feature come handy especially to secure data in case device is lost or stolen

· Support for the Exchange Calendar feature

· The auto-discovery feature make Exchange Integration setup a breeze. However, it works well only with Exchange 2007 or greater.

· Auto-completion feature is enabled by the Global address books look-up feature in the emails.

Tethering and Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot

This new feature of the Adroit 2.2 enables you to share your 3G or 4G connection with other devices. This is done through either by use of a USB cable. Alternatively you turn your phone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot to share the 3G or 4G connection. This is also termed as a MiFi. The Wi-Fi hotspot can be shared with up to 8 different devices.

However, experts are not sure if these features of Froyo would be retained or kept intact when the Froyo gets rolled out to carrier handsets and if at all they do, would they be charging extra for the same?

App Storage on SD

This feature allows the user to install and run applications directly from your SD card. Thus it will remove the 256 or 512 MB memory limitations, found on most Android phones, for both the users and developers. While the system can decide, upon the location for installation, based on the type of application, the user has the option to choose the installation location.

The Auto-update and Update All

Earlier the Android users had to undergo the pain click 3 times to update each application individually. However, with introduction of these two new features would make updating the applications a breeze. What users would have to do now is just to tap on an “update all” button at the bottom of the ‘Downloads’ screen. If this is also what you find cumbersome you have the option to just set your Android 2.2 to automatically update any app that has an update available.

While Google continues to refine the Android experiences, making it more usable and more useful in Enterprise, if you own Nexus One or other 2010 stock Android device a no-brainer upgrade is available to you. Google’s rate and pace of OS updates has been impressive and there’s no sign it’s slowing down.