It’s been known for a while now that the Froyo update for the Samsung Galaxy S would be arriving in September, to the delight of all Galaxy S owners who have been casting envious glances over their shoulders at all the lucky HTC Desire owners who are already running it.
Now a video has leaked detailing some of the new features for the phone, which, along with the great range of Samsung Galaxy S accessories available, make the Galaxy S one of the best high-end smartphones out there.
Amongst these are an update to Android 2.2, an increase in speed, support for Flash 10.1, improvements in keyboard action (making one of the greatest on-screen QWERTY keyboards even better) and pinch-to-zoom control of the homescreen, making it easier to access and move between widgets and apps.
Samsung initially announced the news on their Twitter account:
"We’ve seen a lot of Q’s about the Froyo update; it’s currently in development & will be released for all networks at the end of September…"
That means that unlike with the Desire, where people with the SIM-free HTC Desire could get their hands on the update first, it will be rolled out to everyone at the same time.
It’s also a number of new features including.
Auto rotate screen lock
If iOS can have a screen lock built right into the multitasking bar, well, Samsung can stick one in the notification tray. We loved Samsung’s tweaks to the pull down tray in Android 2.1 on the Samsung Galaxy S (Wi-Fi toggles, music controls), but the option to lock your screen in portrait or landscape straight from it as well makes it even more helpful, particularly if you prefer to browse the web in a certain orientation (No, not like that).
Keyboard
The Samsung Galaxy S keyboard on Eclair/Android 2.1 is already one of the best Android onscreen QWERTYs out there, but the Samsung Galaxy S Froyo update appears to better it, by throwing in the option to pull up numbers and accented characters with a long press of a key, instead of having to toggle the numeric keypad. There’s no sign in this Samsung Galaxy S Froyo walkthrough of Swype in action, but we’d be surprised if Sammy chose to remove it entirely.
Contacts
A small but useful addition for Gmail power users: Gmail Groups now pop up in your contacts. Hooray!
Speed
This one’s difficult to call objectively, but the host for the Samsung Galaxy S Froyo update video says the build is noticeably faster than before, and “much improved”. We knew that Google’s back end changes meant Android 2.2 is much nippier, and it appears some of that speed has made it through to Samsung’s skin. Double hooray!
Posted via email from scottherbert’s posterous
