News on the release of 2.1

[RW-1]

In unrelated news/rumors, ATT has announced that the backflip will be upgraded to 2.1 by May 1st..

 

[balaams_ass]

It's very likely that a vast majority of users do not visit this site or know/care about 2.1. ............

Indeed of the 7 people I know who have Droids 2 have any interest in modding or serious concerns about updates. That number includes me.

If Verizon was willing to respond to the like of the people in this thread they'd have to roll an update every three days.

 

[LordKastle]

the fact is that no one really cares about 2.1. verizon and motorola are in no rush to push it out. i don't know if they are trying to make sure all the bugs and kinks are out for mass scale consumption [almost sounds like the boy who cried wolf].

if the nexus one sales actually were decent/average then all droid users would have it. the problem is the 2.1 on nexus was buggy and glitchy and the phone only sold under 130,000 units up until a week ago.

 

[dagrainger]

Interestingly enough, this is a phone. I love it as a phone. I only found out about the impending - then delayed - 2.1 update by coming to this forum looking for a way to get wifi tethering. I would suspect the majority (>90%) of the Droid owning community is not even aware of the impending - delayed - update.

I am interested in the 2.1 upgrade for the radio update it is suppose to have, and the possible battery improvements, because that should improve the Droid as a phone. The only thing I wish Motorola would add to the update is Tethering and Bluetooth Voice Dialing. As a phone, the bluetooth issue is a huge oversight. With all the movement towards laws against anything but bluetooth use in an automobile, I cannot believe this phone does not have bluetooth voice dialing. My RAZOR had that feature. I believe this should be addressed by Motorola before anything else in the phone, including Flash.

In my opinion, flash and other bells and whistles do not add to the usefulness of the Droid as a phone. I will admit they do add to the "cool factor" of the phone though.

And man is the Droid cool...

I have a need to use my phone as a tether for my laptop, so instead of waiting to see if the 2.1 update is rootable, I rooted so I would not loose the ability to tether.
I do not say this to brag, or whatever… I merely stated this so there is no mistake as to why I am saying I rooted as it relates to the 2.1 upgrade. Once I find out if the 2.1 update is rootable, I will look for the most stock modded ROM update with tethering capability, and move to it. If someone would make a mod ROM with only tethering and bluetooth voice dialing, I believe that would be my panacea. Motorola could even do it in the official 2.1...

I would like to see Motorola add tethering and bluetooth voice dialing to their 2.XX update so we would not need to mod.

 

[hookbill]

the fact is that no one really cares about 2.1. verizon and motorola are in no rush to push it out. i don't know if they are trying to make sure all the bugs and kinks are out for mass scale consumption [almost sounds like the boy who cried wolf].

if the nexus one sales actually were decent/average then all droid users would have it. the problem is the 2.1 on nexus was buggy and glitchy and the phone only sold under 130,000 units up until a week ago.

I guarantee you that there are plenty Droid owners who care about this update.

 

[joshuaclee]

Will pdaNet not work on 2.1? Isn't that tethering?

 

[pudah]

Interestingly enough, this is a phone. I love it as a phone. I only found out about the impending - then delayed - 2.1 update by coming to this forum looking for a way to get wifi tethering. I would suspect the majority (>90%) of the Droid owning community is not even aware of the impending - delayed - update.

I am interested in the 2.1 upgrade for the radio update it is suppose to have, and the possible battery improvements, because that should improve the Droid as a phone. The only thing I wish Motorola would add to the update is Tethering and Bluetooth Voice Dialing. As a phone, the bluetooth issue is a huge oversight. With all the movement towards laws against anything but bluetooth use in an automobile, I cannot believe this phone does not have bluetooth voice dialing. My RAZOR had that feature. I believe this should be addressed by Motorola before anything else in the phone, including Flash.

In my opinion, flash and other bells and whistles do not add to the usefulness of the Droid as a phone. I will admit they do add to the "cool factor" of the phone though.

And man is the Droid cool...

I have a need to use my phone as a tether for my laptop, so instead of waiting to see if the 2.1 update is rootable, I rooted so I would not loose the ability to tether.
I do not say this to brag, or whatever… I merely stated this so there is no mistake as to why I am saying I rooted as it relates to the 2.1 upgrade. Once I find out if the 2.1 update is rootable, I will look for the most stock modded ROM update with tethering capability, and move to it. If someone would make a mod ROM with only tethering and bluetooth voice dialing, I believe that would be my panacea. Motorola could even do it in the official 2.1...

I would like to see Motorola add tethering and bluetooth voice dialing to their 2.XX update so we would not need to mod.

Im in the same boat, though I use my Droid less as a phone. I only need the BT dialing while driving, and my car's BT corrects that. It's a non-issue for me, but I get where it is a problem for a lot of people and really is quite an oversight.

 

[TimChgo9]

I told my girlfriend (She has a Backflip) that she is getting 2.1 sometime soon (Last I checked, Motorola's website says the 2.1 update is under evaluation) and she asked "What's 2.1?"

Anyway, I searched high and low on the Internet today, looking for information on what may, or may not have happened with Bitfone last week in relation to the update rollout. I was unable to find anything. Not that that means anything, it just means no one has released any information. I have yet to see the story regarding their capacity issues regarding the 2.1 roll out refuted anywhere.

I wonder if Moto's constant "It's coming soon" has to do with the fact that Bitfone hasn't given them a concrete date as to when they will be ready....

 

[IllooSIV]

Just noticed a note from bill23 over at howardforums. (Can I quote them here? )

"so, "I have heard" that the yet another delay in the OTA 2.1 is due to google themselves. no longer moto or vzw.seems they have found a few things that must be corrected like a small % in black screens and security measures.
so yet again ese53 was not signed off on and now will be built over again.or should i say it has been built over again."

So apparently we might end up getting something newer than ese53...

I guess take it for what it is. At lease we aren't getting pushed something buggy.

 

[TimChgo9]

Just noticed a note from bill23 over at howardforums. (Can I quote them here? )

"so, "I have heard" that the yet another delay in the OTA 2.1 is due to google themselves. no longer moto or vzw.seems they have found a few things that must be corrected like a small % in black screens and security measures.
so yet again ese53 was not signed off on and now will be built over again.or should i say it has been built over again."

So apparently we might end up getting something newer than ese53...

I guess take it for what it is. At lease we aren't getting pushed something buggy.

Doesn't make any sense. 2.1 went out for the Milestone, and as far as I know, it's ESE53. Aren't the Droid and Milestone that same device hardware-wise? The above quoted source (I tracked down the thread at HowardForums) has no official links, or proof... It appears to be more speculation.

Face it, no one knows anything right now. Moto posted an "It's coming soon" status on their Facebook page. I have searched and haven't found any confirmation that Google has taken over the update process, or that there are security issues, or anything like that. Verizon hasn't said "boo" about the upgrade at all, the only thing that has happened is the support page for the Droid update has been slightly changed, but beyond that nothing official from anyone.

I would take the above quote from the forum with a huge grain of salt since it's unconfirmed, unsourced, unreferenced and what have you.

 

[IllooSIV]

Bill seems to be pretty "in the know" from previous posts, which is why I posted it. I'm not sure exactly what he does, so I completely understand your trepidation.

I agree though, the only way I can make sense of this is that for the Droid, Goog might have a little more say in what is getting pushed out to us. Either that or Moto is allowing them to have a little more say since this is their flagship device.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding. It was just interesting to me and wanted to share.

 

[MiXoLoGiSt]

Just noticed a note from bill23 over at howardforums. (Can I quote them here? )

"so, "I have heard" that the yet another delay in the OTA 2.1 is due to google themselves. no longer moto or vzw.seems they have found a few things that must be corrected like a small % in black screens and security measures.
so yet again ese53 was not signed off on and now will be built over again.or should i say it has been built over again."

So apparently we might end up getting something newer than ese53...

I guess take it for what it is. At lease we aren't getting pushed something buggy.

Doesn't make any sense. 2.1 went out for the Milestone, and as far as I know, it's ESE53. Aren't the Droid and Milestone that same device hardware-wise? The above quoted source (I tracked down the thread at HowardForums) has no official links, or proof... It appears to be more speculation.

Face it, no one knows anything right now. Moto posted an "It's coming soon" status on their Facebook page. I have searched and haven't found any confirmation that Google has taken over the update process, or that there are security issues, or anything like that. Verizon hasn't said "boo" about the upgrade at all, the only thing that has happened is the support page for the Droid update has been slightly changed, but beyond that nothing official from anyone.

I would take the above quote from the forum with a huge grain of salt since it's unconfirmed, unsourced, unreferenced and what have you.

Yes the droid and milestone are the same phones however the Droid is a CDMA phone and the Milestone is a GSM phone. The software and hardware may be different because of this.

 

[dwoid]

Maybe a little counterpoint here... To me personally bluetooth voice dialing is a huge failure. With my other phones that did do voice dialing, I was *ALWAYS* getting the wrong person because the voice interpretation didn't work well. And I know a lot of other people were similarly disappointed.

I like Google's voice lookup much better, and I use it with much more confidence than I ever could bluetooth voice dialing. It wouldn't surprise me if this feature was intentionally omitted because Google knew they could do better, and they did do it better.

Related to the free wireless tethering that we get with custom ROMs, this is a product us dweebs love, but it probably won't ever be included with an official OTA build, because it directly conflicts with Verizon's own proprietary product that they use for income. You can add the Verizon equivalent of tethering to your contract with Verizon for a nominal fee and receive their software and configuration to make it work. But you can bet Verizon would *not allow* free wireless tethering as we know it to be included in an official build that they distribute.

That said, I'm constantly reminded how good service is from Verizon. I just got a Droid for my son, ordered online from Verizon directly. The guy I spoke with for the order went through my whole account on his own for me and found I qualified for a corporate discount and a couple other percs, so basically I added my son's Droid, doubled our minutes and got unlimited messaging for only $10 a month more.

The *only* Droid related complaint I have is about the official 2.1 delay, and at this point for me it's a non-issue because (1) I've decided I'm staying with DroidMod, and (2) the delay is probably not Verizon's fault anyway.

Btw, yes, my son's a dweeb too, he's going to DroidMod the minute he turns his Droid on. He's been modding since he got his G1.

I was very much planning to stay vanilla official OTA with my Droid when I first got it. Then I sort of got frustrated with the 2.1 delay (about 3 months ago) and at the same time the Sholes/DroidMod folks came up with their installer. It was an easy decision. I love that there are still custom ROM options available for the Droid, and most likely will never go back to official OTAs.

...
I am interested in the 2.1 upgrade for the radio update it is suppose to have, and the possible battery improvements, because that should improve the Droid as a phone. The only thing I wish Motorola would add to the update is Tethering and Bluetooth Voice Dialing. As a phone, the bluetooth issue is a huge oversight...
...
I would like to see Motorola add tethering and bluetooth voice dialing to their 2.XX update so we would not need to mod.

 

[hookbill]

Simple fact: No Android phone is blue tooth voice dialing capable. Unless something has happened since November and I highly doubt it.

However I'd be remiss if I didn't point out you can use voice commands for handsfree calling with the Blue Ant Q1.

 

[MiXoLoGiSt]

Simple fact: No Android phone is blue tooth capable. Unless something has happened since November and I highly doubt it.

However I'd be remiss if I didn't point out you can use voice commands for handsfree calling with the Blue Ant Q1.

Hmm i tried that and it didn't work. I have a Q1 and it just asks me for speed dial numbers and doesn't access my phones contacts.