HISTORY OF ANDROID 9: ANDROID 2.2 FROYO

Last updated on 13 February 2023

Hello to all followers of our website from the new episode of our History of Android article series!

Today, we will continue to talk about the History of Android. So far, we have tried to narrate the story up to Android 2.0 Eclair and its accessibility features that started and continued in this period. Today we will talk about Android 2.2 Froyo and its features.

Android, which entered our lives at the end of 2008, has become one of the most popular operating systems in the world today. Thanks to its open source code, being easily distributable and allowing countless customization options, its usage area has expanded from phones and tablets to be adapted to white goods, small household appliances and many other tools and devices. Those who follow our previous articles will remember that we mentioned that Android was frequently updated in the early days to fix bugs and add requested functions. Android 2.2 Froyo, which is short for the words Frozen and Yogurt, whose brand name was inspired by a type of dessert made from frozen yogurt, is also known as Frogurt in America, alike the ice cream but has a slightly more sourish taste, released in May 2010.

The most prominent features of the Android 2.2 Froyo version were USB Tethering (transferring an internet connection to a device via USB) and portable Wi-fi. In addition, the ability to set the pin code for the device lock and the flash support of internet browsers can be counted among other important features.

Google has released 3 more updates on Android 2.2 Froyo version, Android 2.2.1, Android 2.2.2 and Android 2.2.3. Various bug fixes and improvements were brought with these updates. You can find the changes for these versions in the list of features below.

Android 2.2 Froyo did not change much in terms of accessibility. Nevertheless, virtual keyboard applications developed by developers such as Google, CodeFactory and Nolan Derilek were partially usable. However, A physical keyboard was still needed to perform many other functions. It was not possible to use devices with double clicking, as the explore by touch feature had not yet been integrated. Instead of implementing the double-tap feature to ensure the accessibility of the system, Google advised developers to develop their applications so that they can be used with DPad, trackball or keyboard. In this way, applications would also have been available to screen reader users. In fact, there was no doubt that the system supported double-tap and swipe navigation. Because applications such as Mobile Accessibility Suite, developed by companies such as Codefactory, offered functions such as single and double tapping. Although Google’s not implementing a systemwide accessibility may be seen as a good thing to encourage 3rd party developers, but Google has always been slow to bring accessibility functions. In this way, it sought ways to lighten the burden on itself. Realizing that this burden could not be lightened so easily, it had to integrate Enhanced Web Access with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Explore by Touch with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch and an option allowing user start and stop accessibility services with a gesture. We will talk about these features in corresponding topics.

Now that there is nothing significant to talk about Android 2.2 Froyo, we can take a look at the features that came with Froyo.

Below is a list of features that were released with Android 2.2 Froyo.

Froyo 2.2

• Speed, memory, and performance optimizations.^[7]
• Additional application speed improvements, implemented through JIT compilation.^[6]
• Integration of Chrome‘s V8 JavaScriptengine into the Browser application.
• Support for the Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) service, enabling push notifications.
• Improved Microsoft Exchangesupport, including security policies, auto-discovery, GAL look-up, calendar synchronization and remote wipe.
• Improved application launcher with shortcuts to Phone and Browser applications.
• USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality.^[5]
• Option to disable data access over a mobile network.
• Updated Marketapplication with batch and automatic update features.
• Quick switching between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries.
• Support for Bluetooth-enabled car and desk docks.
• Support for numeric and alphanumeric passwords.
• Support for file upload fields in the Browser application.^[8]
• The browser now shows all frames of animated GIFs instead of just the first frame.
• Support for installing applications to the expandable memory.
• Adobe Flash^[9]
• Support for high-PPI displays (up to 320 ppi), such as four-inch 720p screens.^[10]
• Introduced .asecfile extension.
• Gallery allows users to view picture stacks using a zoom gesture.

Froyo 2.2.1

• some bug fixes including security updates and performance

Froyo 2.2.2

• Fixed minor bugs on Nexus One, including an issue with SMS

Froyo 2.2.3

• Two security updates

Conclusion and Evaluation

Although there is a slow progress in accessibility, the steps taken with these old versions played a big role in the improvement and development of Android. Android’s being open to 3rd party developers has allowed the development of accessibility applications such as screen readers, apps that describe objects, photos and scenes and Braille keyboards. In our previous article, we talked about the Spiel screen reader, whose development process started with Android 2.0. The development of such applications continued in the following periods.

Here we end this article, in which we tried to review the Android 2.2 Froyo. In our next article, we will discuss the Mobile Accessibility Suite application developed by Codefactory, the screen reader, accessible functions and applications it offered.