Android 2.2 (Froyo) is fast and includes some great features

The other day, I had the chance to play around with an Android smartphone loaded with Android 2.2 (Froyo). As reported by other bloggers, Android 2.2 is faster, it includes some nice new features (like support for Adobe Flash 10.1) and:

• New Home screen tips widget
• Exchange support
• Portable Wi-Fi hotspot
• Multiple keyboard languages
• Improved browser performance
• faster app switching
• smoother performance on memory-constrained devices
• Voice dialing over Bluetooth
• and more.

So, are you an early adopter? You can search the XDA-Developers forums to see if someone is cooking up an Android 2.2 ROM for your smartphone. Most of the newer Android devices will probably receive the update to Froyo, but if your phone isn't on the list, then maybe it's time to load a custom ROM so that you're not left behind.

Worse battery life after upgrading to Windows Mobile 6.5 on Touch Pro2

I'm experiencing terrible battery life on my Verizon HTC Touch Pro2 after upgrading to Windows Mobile 6.5. I've performed a hard reset to make sure that it's not an app draining my battery. Anyone else having similar issues? I should have stayed with Windows Mobile 6.1 since there are few benefits to upgrading to 6.5 if you're already using HTC TouchFlo 3D (HTC Sense).

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this yet, but perhaps it's time to load a custom ROM on my Touch Pro2. When I was using the HTC Titan (Verizon XV6800, Sprint Mogul), I was mainly using custom ROMs built by DCD and others on the XDA-Developers and PPCGeeks forums.

Haptic feedback on a smartphone touch screen

Over the last few weeks, I've had the chance to test a few devices that utilize various forms of haptic feedback when you're touching the screen to input data.

• The BlackBerry Storm uses a "clickable" screen that acts like a button (SurePress technology). You have to press down on the screen like a large button to enter most of your data. This way, you're "sure" when you're entering data.
  
• Several Windows Mobile devices use a tiny buzz/vibration each time you tap on the screen. This is something that is controlled via software, so you can customize it quite a bit. This feature is currently available on the Samsung Omnia and also on several HTC phones (through custom ROMs and TouchResponse over at XDA developers).
  

The Apple iPhone does not come with any haptic feedback. This feedback is probably most useful when you're typing on the screen. My guess is that future touch-screen devices will all incorporate some type of haptic feedback so that users can achieve a higher level of precision and efficiency when they type on the screen. I think it would be very fascinating to perform a study to evaluate the effects of haptic feedback on a touch screen. Would it improve accuracy and efficiency by 5%? 10%?