Android took off more than one year ago now, and what has been a very young and under-development project is now one of the best mobile OS. I remember more than one year ago when the first Android devices arrived on the market (G1 but also here in France the HTC Magic), We were wondering where this project would go and if it was a good idea to get one of those products at that time. Now We know: first customers have been beta testers like and first devices suffered of a lack of performance. Of course, Android was already pretty interesting, even with 1.6 . But I really think the platform reached its maturity only with 2.1. Even with 2.1, Android was like a young boy who needed instruction and some exercise. I got a Nexus One few months ago – to replace my Iphone 3GS – with Eclair. Even if the device and its platform were amazing, especially when You’re coming from IOS, Android was lacking some functionalities and didn’t fully exploit the N1′s (and the other devices of that kind) potential, even if the platform was gathering some brilliant elements (its multitask system and its notifications system for instance).

Froyo is the Android version which is perfectly adapted to modern hardwares. 1Ghz processors, 500+ Ram are now perfectly handled by Android. It was a shame to have a phone only using half of its Ram with Eclair… 2.2 devices are way faster and efficient. 2.2 also brought some polished graphics. Android is now as smooth and pretty as IOS. Froyo came with a few new major functionalities: tethering (even if careers used that new pearl to make money), Flash (not for every device though), and a bench of new Google’s applications (chrome to phone being my cherished one!). I can’t say that Froyo is perfect, but it is now definitely better than IOS or its other competitors. Like everyone (every geek using Android?), I am now looking forward for Gingerbread. The copy and paste Android system is painful to me, the background applications management too, some very annoying bugs have to be fixed too (I’m thinking about the MMS problems for instance) and Google definitely needs to bring a more attractive and polished appearance to its OS to reach the mass market.

Anyway, Froyo has been a game changer to me, for Android but also for the mobile’s market and sphere. This success is also linked to the numerous gorgeous new Android phones that have been launched since this winter (Evo, Desire, N1, Galaxy S, etc.). I really think that Google should thank HTC!

See You soon Gingerbread!