HTC EVO 4G owners might start getting excited at this bit of news – Android 2.2, or Froyo, may start hitting your Sprint 4G handsets as early as next week! Sprint wasn’t kidding when it said the update would be coming soon. According to a memo obtained by Engadget, Sprint may begin discussing the roll out tomorrow, July 30, with plans to start pushing the update to its fleet of EVO 4G smartphones on August 2, which is this coming Sunday. While it’s easy to be thrilled about this news, it’s not certain whether these will start hitting devices en masse, or if it will very slowly trickle out as other updates have in the past.
While we’re pretty familiar with the upgrades that Froyo will bring, it looks like the Android 2.2 build for the HTC EVO 4G will bring a host of extra features, courtesy of HTC’s Sense UI. New widgets, a flashlight mode that takes advantage of the LED flash and improved 720p capture with light assistance seems to be all part of the package. Also included is a new FM Radio interface, built-in Flash 10.1 support, an Android Market widget and installing apps to the SD card. That last one is huge, as it allows you to exponentially increase your storage space for apps.
According to the memo, a PR announcement will be made tomorrow morning denoting the plans to start the Android 2.2 roll out on the week of August 1, with plans to really start “proactively pushing the notification software available on Tuesday 8/2.” We’re sure they meant to say Monday 8/2, but that’s just a minor detail that big corporations like Sprint apparently don’t have time to be bothered with. Before the big Froyo push, however, a very small and select group of lucky EVO 4G owners will be getting the update as a test for Sprint.
During the update, we’ll be able to use our handsets like we normally would, but unlike the download and installation process of apps, we won’t be able to use the phone during the installation part. Not a big deal, unless you happen to come upon an emergency during that process. Otherwise, we can sit and wait patiently as we ready ourselves to get hit with a barrage of new features and goodies on the Froyo version of Android.
[Update]
So, it seems that the official press release has made its way into the wild, confirming that Sprint will start rolling out the Android 2.2 Froyo update to HTC EVO 4G handsets on August 3rd. Starting next Tuesday, Sprint says that EVO 4G owners can upgrade to Android 2.2 to take advantage of built-in Flash support, Bluetooth voice dialing, and the ability to store apps on the SD card, as well as all those other Froyo features that EVO owners have been drooling over for too long.
The icing on the cake here is that Sprint is offering early adopters a chance to download the update themselves and apply it to the EVO 4G at their leisure. Rather than wait for the OTA update to roll out to your handset, you can simply drill down to the HTC Software Update utility by navigating to Menu > Settings > System Updates > HTC Software Update
Read more here.
[Via: Engadget]