I have my Nexus_oneW for two weeks now, and although it crashed a few times (including a power reset) while extensively testing it, I must admit that I love it.
The speed of this phone is just amazing. I cannot catch it delaying any of my actions. No matter how hard you try, it just keeps working very smoothly.
This kind of hardware certainly opens up interesting perspectives when HTML5 will be fully supported on these powerful devices (Think of web-sockets, notifications, etc…).
I am running Android 2.2 (Froyo) which also offers a few new toys for us web developers. Some of them are:
- Integration of Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine into the Browser application
- Support for file upload fields in the Browser application
- Adobe Flash 10.1 support
The JavaScript engine is remarkably fast, just like in Chrome, which is very important for development of attractive mobile applications.
I also notice that slowly but with certainty, the mobile browser is more and more integrated into the phones operating system (not just Android), which allows it to use certain features, much like native applications do.
For example: start navigation by pushing a button in a browser app, or take a photo with the built-in camera and upload it to the web-app.
These examples were demonstrated by Google on their Google IO 2010 event this year. If you’re interested, you can watch the video on YouTube.
The Android SDK also allows us to make these integrations ourselves. It is possible to send data from the operating system to a custom browser (using webkit) and back. Although it should be handled with care, it opens up some doors. Most of the API available to native applications, can be connected to a browser.
I am sure there is much more for me to discover, but the first experiences with Android and the Nexus One are very positive.
