As promised I have just uploaded a new version of Reader Widgets Pro and Free to the Market. As I mentioned yesterday there were the changes in Android 2.2 that prevented the automatic login option from working. For now the manual option is the only one for Froyo devices. All phones on Android 2.1 and below can still use both options.
I also fixed a small bug where the widget would revert to showing “Tap to setup” when reconfiguration was cancelled.
The internet almost exploded at the weekend with the arrival of Android 2.2 aka FroYo. I was one of the people over at xda-developers hammering my F5 key into the desk waiting for the URL to appear. Finally it did and soon after a version for root users appeared too. Now that I have been running it for 48 hours I can provide some impressions of it.
It’s feels a bit quicker, especially the browser. JavaScript heavy sites like Google Reader fly. The wireless tethering works well enough. One of the biggest features is Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta. This is an early version so it’s a bit hit and miss. Some things work well like the short video clips on the BBC News site but some things don’t. If you hit the full BBC iPlayer site then the video stutters and the sound crackles. Hopefully future versions will work better. It’s a good feeling to be able to open any link or Google Reader item and know the content is going to load (even if its a little clunky at the moment).
There are lots of little tweaks to the applications and UI:
The nifty Chrome to Phone plugin and companion app that they showed off at Google I/O is already available and it works as expected. Normal website links open the browser, Google Maps links open the maps application and Youtube links give you a choice of the browser or Youtube app.
There are some bad points the biggest of which is that the automatic login option for my Reader Widgets no longer works. I used an undocumented API for this so its my own fault really. If the widget is already on the home screen it should continue to work but if the app is installed fresh then it won’t load authorise with the Google Reader API. The manual login option still works so I will issue an update disabling the automatic option just for Android 2.2. I have done some tests and I might not be able to provide the automatic option again.
Other downsides are that the custom HTC IME keyboard does not work fully yet. I’m sure that will get fixed soon enough. Some applications are no longer showing up in the Market e.g. ExZeus.
SMS Bot Widget still works and so does PubCrawler.
Moving apps to the SD card is down to developers to add support for it. Google don’t recommend that widget apps use it in case the SD card is removed from the phone (and the widget is still active).
Overall it’s a great step forward for Android. Some features have been added that fix obvious issues with the platform and others put it ahead of the competition. I can’t wait for the apps and services that will utilise Froyo fully.
Yesterday I received a free Nexus One from Google as part of their Android Developer Seeding Program. Reader Widget Free qualified for this so I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who downloaded, rated and provided feedback on it. It has been downloaded over 22000 times. Also thanks to those who bought the Pro version too and my other app, SMS Bot Widget. Of course a massive thank you must go out to Google for supporting Android developers like myself.
I first registered this domain on 9th April 2009 so this blog is just over a year old. I have enjoyed running it and developing it’s associated applications immensely. They are some things I have lined up which should make ubikapps.net’s second year even better than the first!
I have just uploaded the latest version of Reader Widgets Free and Pro to the Android Market. Here’s the full changelog:
ubikapps 