For those who are curious about whether or not the new sapphire release will be based off of the "latest leak", FRG22 or not, I wanted to settle those questions now.
I have gone on about this in the past, but build numbers are generally rattled off by websites to try to create more buzz than they're worth. The fact of the matter is, to source developers the only real leaks that are of crucial importance are the initial drops for a new android version (i.e. the first eclair leak, the first froyo leak). This is because 90% of what's going into a source distro is already up-to-date as it was built from source.
The upcoming version of sapphire (1.0) will be based off of FRG01B, as that was the official release sent out by verizon. I am extremely skeptical of the FRG22 release at this time for a few reasons.
1.) Big red has discontinued sale of the Droid1, so it makes little to no sense as to why they would continue to work on build releases beyond their froyo drop. If there were some glaring bug or problem with the FRG01B build that FRG22 fixes, then why would they bother sending out the FRG01B build yesterday when they obviously had FRG22 built already anyway?
2.) I personally checked FRF84B vs FRG01B and there were a grand total of ~3-4 files actually different between the two when it comes to the ones source distros use. These were the wifi firmware files and a few google apps. Needless to say, the files that actually interface with the hardware did not change and are not likely to, so it's doubtful that FRG01B was truly "faster" than the source roms that were based on FRF84B.
3.) It is important to understand that just because FRG22 was leaked yesterday, the build was likely done several days before that. Sapphire 1.0 synced all of its source with AOSP last night before beginning its release build, so technically its AOSP source would have been more up-to-date than the FRG22 stuff anyway.
Anyway, that being said, people tend to drop build numbers to get attention and try to stir up the hive mind that is the android community. I try not to buy into that, so I'm not going to halt the release of 1.0 simply because one site says there's some super secret leak that so far as I can tell doesn't seem to make sense why it would even exist.
Regardless, once 1.0 is released I'll look into it and see what the differences are for sapphire between FRG01B and FRG22, but i would guess they are negligible. If not then I'll look into pushing out a minor update to include the new files, but not until I know it's worth it.
After all, one of sapphire's core goals is to be sleek and stable
EDIT (2010-08-05 03:03:11):
So after things cooled down with the release of 1.0 (well, as far as getting everything in place, the release is still hopping), I had some time to take a look at the actual FRG22 build.
Essentially it is exactly as I had expected. Of the files that Sapphire actually uses, I can say the following:
Non-apk/jar files: NO CHANGE
APK files (apps): Appeared not to have changed with the exception of LatinImeGoogle.apk (the keyboard provider), based on APK badging information. Note it is difficult to ascertain whether anything was truly changed as you can't do a strict data compare due to things done during the deodexing process, but it is unlikely that a version number or something wouldn't have been updated in the badging info if something had been altered.
JAR files (libs): The only jar file we use is the google maps one, and although I didn't disassemble (smali) it to check (as that's really the only way to do it), I would wager it hasn't changed.
So what does this mean? It means that sapphire will NOT be upgrading to FRG22. It is pointless to go through the rigmarole of upgrading simply for a keyboard app unless it is proven to be something worth doing, which at present I don't believe it is.
Now i want to make something clear however. I am not attempting to state that the FRG22 leak is pointless or that NOTHING was changed from FRG01B to FRG22. What i'm saying is that nothing changed so far as source builds are concerned. There have likely been AOSP changes that were added between FRG01B and FRG22, and for ROMs not building from source, this leak is great. However, for source builds such as sapphire it is unnecessary.
Oh well, I hope my rambling has made my point with no confusion.
EDIT (2010-08-05 13:46:00):
I have removed my comment about Droid1 not getting Gingerbread (Android 3.0) as I have been corrected that it was unsubstantiated. Sorry about that mistake everyone.
I have gone on about this in the past, but build numbers are generally rattled off by websites to try to create more buzz than they're worth. The fact of the matter is, to source developers the only real leaks that are of crucial importance are the initial drops for a new android version (i.e. the first eclair leak, the first froyo leak). This is because 90% of what's going into a source distro is already up-to-date as it was built from source.
The upcoming version of sapphire (1.0) will be based off of FRG01B, as that was the official release sent out by verizon. I am extremely skeptical of the FRG22 release at this time for a few reasons.
1.) Big red has discontinued sale of the Droid1, so it makes little to no sense as to why they would continue to work on build releases beyond their froyo drop. If there were some glaring bug or problem with the FRG01B build that FRG22 fixes, then why would they bother sending out the FRG01B build yesterday when they obviously had FRG22 built already anyway?
2.) I personally checked FRF84B vs FRG01B and there were a grand total of ~3-4 files actually different between the two when it comes to the ones source distros use. These were the wifi firmware files and a few google apps. Needless to say, the files that actually interface with the hardware did not change and are not likely to, so it's doubtful that FRG01B was truly "faster" than the source roms that were based on FRF84B.
3.) It is important to understand that just because FRG22 was leaked yesterday, the build was likely done several days before that. Sapphire 1.0 synced all of its source with AOSP last night before beginning its release build, so technically its AOSP source would have been more up-to-date than the FRG22 stuff anyway.
Anyway, that being said, people tend to drop build numbers to get attention and try to stir up the hive mind that is the android community. I try not to buy into that, so I'm not going to halt the release of 1.0 simply because one site says there's some super secret leak that so far as I can tell doesn't seem to make sense why it would even exist.
Regardless, once 1.0 is released I'll look into it and see what the differences are for sapphire between FRG01B and FRG22, but i would guess they are negligible. If not then I'll look into pushing out a minor update to include the new files, but not until I know it's worth it.
After all, one of sapphire's core goals is to be sleek and stable
EDIT (2010-08-05 03:03:11):
So after things cooled down with the release of 1.0 (well, as far as getting everything in place, the release is still hopping
), I had some time to take a look at the actual FRG22 build.Essentially it is exactly as I had expected. Of the files that Sapphire actually uses, I can say the following:
Non-apk/jar files: NO CHANGE
APK files (apps): Appeared not to have changed with the exception of LatinImeGoogle.apk (the keyboard provider), based on APK badging information. Note it is difficult to ascertain whether anything was truly changed as you can't do a strict data compare due to things done during the deodexing process, but it is unlikely that a version number or something wouldn't have been updated in the badging info if something had been altered.
JAR files (libs): The only jar file we use is the google maps one, and although I didn't disassemble (smali) it to check (as that's really the only way to do it), I would wager it hasn't changed.
So what does this mean? It means that sapphire will NOT be upgrading to FRG22. It is pointless to go through the rigmarole of upgrading simply for a keyboard app unless it is proven to be something worth doing, which at present I don't believe it is.
Now i want to make something clear however. I am not attempting to state that the FRG22 leak is pointless or that NOTHING was changed from FRG01B to FRG22. What i'm saying is that nothing changed so far as source builds are concerned. There have likely been AOSP changes that were added between FRG01B and FRG22, and for ROMs not building from source, this leak is great. However, for source builds such as sapphire it is unnecessary.
Oh well, I hope my rambling has made my point with no confusion.
EDIT (2010-08-05 13:46:00):
I have removed my comment about Droid1 not getting Gingerbread (Android 3.0) as I have been corrected that it was unsubstantiated. Sorry about that mistake everyone.
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