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2.1 Hero upgrades ... what does it include?

Nothing official has been announced with regards to an update date. To answer your original question, the update will include:

  • Android 2.1 OS (Main enhancements: Bluetooth File transfer, New Market App, Native support for multiple GMail accounts)
  • Updated HTC Sense (New Graphics)
  • New FriendStream Widget (Like Peep, but with Facebook status updates as well)
  • Newer version of people widget
  • Update browser with advanced search, copy & paste and translate functions, along with and update version of Flash Lite
  • Full Screen Weather animations
  • Many apps are for Android 1.6 or later (Google Goggles, Google Maps with Buzz e.t.c), these will become available to the Hero.
  • Speed and performance increase across the system
  • OpenGL ES 2.0
  • Improved colour depth of the screen (65k vs. 262k)
As far as I know the keyboard won't change from what you already have (although performance should be improved).
 
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Nothing official has been announced with regards to an update date. To answer your original question, the update will include:

  • Android 2.1 OS (Main enhancements: Bluetooth File transfer, New Market App, Native support for multiple GMail accounts)
  • Updated HTC Sense (New Graphics)
  • New FriendStream Widget (Like Peep, but with Facebook status updates as well)
  • Newer version of people widget
  • Update browser with advanced search, copy & paste and translate functions, along with and update version of Flash Lite
  • Full Screen Weather animations
  • Many apps are for Android 1.6 or later (Google Goggles, Google Maps with Buzz e.t.c), these will become available to the Hero.
  • Speed and performance increase across the system
  • OpenGL ES 2.0
  • Improved colour depth of the screen (65k vs. 262k)
As far as I know the keyboard won't change from what you already have (although performance should be improved).

It includes improved colour depth? This can be updated through a firmware update? I thought this was a handicap of the screen
 
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It includes improved colour depth? This can be updated through a firmware update? I thought this was a handicap of the screen

+1... is it not a hardware thing?

Anyways... i am really hoping that HTC will leave a little room for additional language support... All I wanna say is I love the HTC keyboard but my native lang is cyrillic and I need to refer to 3d party keyboards :(
 
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I thought we already had this?

When i click on the weather widget and it goes into full screen i get animations of rain, clouds etc...

it is slightly different in 2.1 Sense, when you unlock the phone without pressing anything weather animations play over your home screen.

This is a video of a winmo phone (I can't find an Android version) but the effect is exactly the same.

YouTube - manila 2.1 weather animations

As for the screen colour depth, Quazar is correct in that the Hero has 262k screen, but Android 1.5 limits colours to 65k so you should see some improvement (although it may not be immediately obvious to everyone)
 
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wouldn't this constant animation kill the battery?

It only plays for a few seconds (5 - 10) after you first unlock the phone, then it stops so it won't be constantly running

Thanks for that!

so its kinda like the live backgrounds but actually useful ;)

oh do we get the cool clock rotating the numbers too? at the moment the clock we have just changes the numbers, no animation at all like the one shown on the vid.

The flip-clock animation was something that was present in the very first Hero ROM's, but for some reason when the update came out, they had been removed. Some believe this was for performance issues, but devs have put it back in with no problem over XDA. I haven't seen any confirmation that it will be coming back to the android sense with 2.1 though.
 
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Nothing official has been announced with regards to an update date. To answer your original question, the update will include:

  • Android 2.1 OS (Main enhancements: Bluetooth File transfer, New Market App, Native support for multiple GMail accounts)
  • Updated HTC Sense (New Graphics)
  • New FriendStream Widget (Like Peep, but with Facebook status updates as well)
  • Newer version of people widget
  • Update browser with advanced search, copy & paste and translate functions, along with and update version of Flash Lite
  • Full Screen Weather animations
  • Many apps are for Android 1.6 or later (Google Goggles, Google Maps with Buzz e.t.c), these will become available to the Hero.
  • Speed and performance increase across the system
  • OpenGL ES 2.0
  • Improved colour depth of the screen (65k vs. 262k)
As far as I know the keyboard won't change from what you already have (although performance should be improved).

Is this an official list for 2.1 on the Hero, or just 2.1 in general?

Where did this list come from?
 
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Is this an official list for 2.1 on the Hero, or just 2.1 in general?

Where did this list come from?

The list is mainly a compilation of the main features of the Android 2.1 operating system (or to be more precise, the improvements made since 1.5 as some were in 1.6 and some were in 2.0).

The other additons to the Sense UI have been drawn from the HTC conference at MWC 2010 during the release of the HTC Desire & Legend, and the confirmation of the update for older phones, as well as features included on the leaked version of the update for the Droid Eris (a variation of the Hero for Verizon USA)
 
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I would love to see the video playback fixed, 320x240 videos aren't bad but I would LOVE to play video's at the screen's native resolution! that being said I'm just happy that HTC is providing an update =D



320x480 works well for me... You sure your converting it properly?


also windows mobile 6 = 65k limit but phones such as the Omnia have a 16million screen ... Windows 7 now dos not have a limit.. so fotware (firmware) can sort this issue out as many hardware providers have bigger, better quality screens on there devices even if the OS does not allow it.

To think my N95 8GB 4 years back had 16mill screen and a 5MP camera.. wow.
 
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I would just like decent video playback that supports more than just mp4. I don't want to re-encode everything just so that the Hero can play it. My 5 year old Dell Axim and Touch Diamond can play almost anything (except HD content) that I throw at them.

I would love to see the video playback fixed, 320x240 videos aren't bad but I would LOVE to play video's at the screen's native resolution! that being said I'm just happy that HTC is providing an update =D
 
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