It looks like Motorola’s Droid device will finally get a long-awaited upgrade to Android 2.1, starting today. Android 2.1 first debuted with the launch of Google’s Nexus One, which as we noted earlier this week is significantly lagging the Droid specifically and the overall Android market in general in terms of sales. Android 2.1 includes some key new features, including adding multi-touch capabilities across the device, bringing it up to par with the iPhone, as well as the ability to enter text via speech recognition across the advice, something the iPhone lacks. That makes the 2.1 release an important one for the future of Android.
eWeek details the expected launch this week, as well as the delays:
The update includes pinch-to-zoom multitouch for the browser, Apps Gallery and Google Maps, as well as the special weather and news widgets Nexus One users currently enjoy. Google Maps will also have personalized suggestions and starring synchronized with Google’s desktop version of Google Maps. In addition, the Droid will support voice-to-text entry, allowing users to tap the microphone icon on the virtual keyboard to enter text, such as e-mail, by speaking into the phone.
The Connected Planet take, Rich Karpinski:
The fact that it took so long to make Android’s most compelling new features in some time available to one of its most popular device shows some of the cracks in Google’s Android strategy. One, keeping those features exclusive to the Nexus One for a few months – whether planned or not – didn’t help sell more of those admittedly slick devices. The online-only distribution and lack of real support from Google trumps a few extra features. The lag also put into highlight concerns about fragmentation in Android distributions, which tends to be more of a geek/developer concern than something consumers really care about (after all, few will know they are missing anything at all). But if the Android 2.1-Droid-lag/Nexus-One-slow-uptake reveals anything it’s that for the health of the Android market in general – and mobile operators have a lot invested in this platform as well – Google would do well to focus on getting its most updated releases and best features to the largest swathe of its user base as quickly and simply as possible.
That’s our take on this, let us know what you think in the comments below:
Seems harder to pull of than a moon shot in 1969.