The Android 2.1 OTA (Over The Air) update was released on March 30th. Knowing that the 2.0.1 update took nearly a week to get to my phone, I didn’t bother holding my breath that I’d see it soon.
I have been following a string of articles and blogs describing the experiences after the update has been applied. As always, there seem to be a lot of “problem” posts. This morning, I woke up to a little box on my Droid telling me that I was now part of the chosen few.
Like any good IT Guy, I hit Install Now…
For what seemed line an eternity, my Droid’s screen turned into an update icon and then a reboot that took much longer than I thought it should (that could have been anticipation though).
I have a short checklist of things that I look for, which also included some of the problems I had read about. So here goes the test.
| Feature | Result |
| Did it boot up | Yes |
| Icons Still There | Yes |
| Can I make a phone call | Yes |
| Gmail Working | Yes |
| Work E-Mail (Activesync) | Yes |
| Calendars Working | Yes |
| Contacts Still There | Yes |
| Camera Working | Yes |
| Google Talk Working | Yes |
I’ve now gone through the steps of testing the basics, I know I can still keep in touch with my friends and co-workers. Now for the “fluff”
Gallery Icon – When I touch it, it gives me an error. No worries, trash it and pull a new one onto the screen. Now it works. And it is very different. It looks like it’s pulling pictures from my Picasa account now as well. I’ll have to explore that a little more later.
Music – Does not appear to have changed in any noticeable way.
Mail - Well, the big disappointment and I was already prepared for this. I still cannot search the Global Address List for my corporate email account. This has to be one of the most frustrating things about the Droid. I ended up purchasing a secondary email client called Touchdown (nitrodesk.com) that has this capability. My iPhone had it, my BlackBerry had it – this REALLY should have been a core feature when the Droid was released.
VPN - Another one, that I was hoping would find its way into this update was the ability to connect to Cisco VPN style remote access points.
Most of the other applications appear to be the same, or have no major visible changes.
Overall, I am not seeing the performance issues that I have read about – but it’s only been a couple hours.
So the summary from this update: I still like my Droid, it’s a good phone, it’s a great personal email/calendar/contacts. I still cannot recommend that the Droid be a supported phone for non-technical corporate users. Maybe next update Google.