Android version 2.0 / 2.1 "Eclair"

2.0 / 2.1 "Eclair"

n early November of 2009 — about a year after the G1's premiere — Android 2.0 launched right on Donut's heels. "Big" would be an accurate description all around: it was a big deal, made big promises, and was deployed on big phones offered by big carriers. Eclair, as it was known, was initially offered exclusively on Verizon on none other than the Motorola Droid — the phone that kicked off one of the most successful mobile franchises in history.

What made Eclair so important? It represented the most fundamental refresh that Android had seen since its debut, both visually and architecturally. Of course, with an unheard-of 854 x 480 display, it didn't hurt that the Droid was by far the most powerful Android handset the world had seen at that point — but the significantly improved nuts and bolts of the platform played a big role in the device's retail success, too:

Multiple account support. For the first time, multiple Google accounts could be added to the same device — separate work and personal accounts, for instance — with access to email and contacts from each. Support for Exchange accounts was added, too.

Eclair also gave third parties the tools they needed to plug their own services into this account framework, which would then permit them to be automatically synchronized on an ongoing basis. One key advantage is that shared information between your account types can be automatically synchronized into a single contact on the phone, a one-stop shop for all the information about the individuals in your address book. Facebook was an early adopter of this functionality — in fact, it shipped on the Droid — but a spat with Google over where Facebook's synchronized contact information was ultimately stored ended with its account sync privileges being revoked.

Google Maps Navigation. This was a big one that continues to have an impact on the market even today. Released in conjunction with Android 2.0, Google Maps Navigation was a totally free turn-by-turn automotive navigation product using Google's own mapping data for guidance, and it included many of the features you'd expect to find on a typical in-car navigation system: a forward-looking 3D view, voice guidance (including street names), and traffic information. Considering that drivers had previously needed to choose between paying a significant amount of money for a turn-by-turn app, a monthly fee, or a dedicated navigation unit, Google's move was disruptive, to say the least. Early versions had some flaws that still made alternatives quite appealing - they required continuous internet access, for instance, and couldn't cache - but the system has been closing the gap ever since.

Quick Contact. Just as Cupcake had added contacts' Google Talk statuses throughout the platform, Eclair added the Quick Contact bar, which amounted to a pop-up toolbar that you could use to interact with contacts in a variety of ways — email, text, call, and so on. Wherever in the platform a contact's picture appeared, you could press and hold it to pull up the bar, which would spring into place with a neatly-designed row of icons. The bar was designed from the outset to be extensible, too, so as different types of information got synchronized to your contacts — Twitter handles, for instance - they could be added to the bar.

Soft keyboard improvements. Like the G1, the Droid launched with a full physical QWERTY arrangement, but Google still saw fit to use it as an opportunity to showcase a revised virtual keyboard. Although multitouch still wasn't fully supported throughout the platform — the Browser and Maps apps both lacked pinch-to-zoom, for instance — Eclair used multitouch data on the keyboard to detect secondary presses while typing rapidly, which can make a big difference in accuracy for fast typists.

Revamped browser. As mentioned earlier, Eclair's browser still didn't feature support for multitouch zooming, but it advanced in a number of other critical ways. Considering that Android 2.0 launched on a device with a capacious (for the time) WVGA display, it was critical that the Browser app be up to the task of displaying complex, desktop-optimized sites. To that end, Google added HTML5 support, including video (albeit only in full-screen mode). This was also the first time that Android's browser had a proper address bar, which Google had designed to mimic Chrome by doubling as a search bar. And to help alleviate the lack of multitouch, the new version added double-tap zooming — a convenient alternative to the zoom-in / zoom-out buttons.

There were countless other changes that touched nearly every screen in Eclair, too. Google continued its trend of warming over the UI in the latest version, but the changes generally felt more cohesive in 2.0 with cleaner, simpler icons and widgets designed to work well at the Droid's crisper resolution. Android 2.0 was essentially a lone wolf — outside of the Droid and its European equivalent, the Milestone, virtually every phone to launch after Eclair's release came with Android 2.1 instead, which did little more than fix a few bugs and add a small number of API capabilities. The telltale sign that it wasn't a big release? Google didn't grant it a new name - both 2.0 and 2.1 were known as Eclair. There were, however, a couple additions in 2.1 worth noting:

Live wallpapers. One of Android's quirkier features, live wallpapers first made an appearance in Android 2.1. The concept is simple enough: instead of a static image, the home screen's background is an actual application that can be animated and have some limited interaction with the user. Google itself demonstrated the power of the feature when it added a live wallpaper to a Google Maps update, which turned the home screen into an overhead map of the phone's current location - not particularly easy on battery drain, but a great conversation piece.

Speech-to-text. Google had been pushing the power of text-to-speech (TTS) since it added a developer framework for TTS engines in Donut, and now it was going the other direction - users could talk into their phones as a replacement for traditional keyboard input. To facilitate that, Android 2.1 replaced the comma key on the soft keyboard with a microphone; tap it, talk, and whichever text box you had highlighted would receive the dictation. And by all appearances, the capability isn't going anywhere - Apple added a similar feature to the keyboard in iOS 5.

A new lock screen. Android 2.0 had actually included a new lock screen of its own that featured the ability to swipe the screen to unlock and change the phone's mute mode, but it was tweaked a second time in 2.1. The functionality remained largely the same this time, but Google changed the clock typeface from a standard sans serif to a distinctly more Android-esque, high-tech font and modified the unlock and mute functions to require a straight swipe rather than a curved one.

Though it wasn't a huge update, Android 2.1 marked a strategic shift for Google. Possibly concerned about its hardware partners' trend toward skinning and significantly altering the "stock" Android experience, Google chose to work directly with HTC to make its own flagship device — a phone that would showcase pure Android 2.1 without any modifications. Android the way Google intended, as it were. That's how the Nexus Onewas born, a slim, keyboardless device with one of the first 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processors on the market and an advanced AMOLED display at WVGA resolution. It was well ahead of its time, and it has since gone down as one of the most well-regarded Android phones ever produced.

Google had actually started down this path in Android 2.0 with the Motorola Droid. Google and Moto had worked very closely together in the development of the phone, and the Droid received Eclair well before anyone else did, but it wasn't quite "pure" — the Droid made some user interface tweaks that don't appear in the stock builds of the platform — and Google never sold the Droid to users directly. That changed with the Nexus One.