Google kept us busy with announcements at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco, like news of a Chrome Web Store, Google TV, and a forthcoming update to the Android operating system that includes the first full-fledged Flash Player for a mobile phone, changes to the camera app, and support for tethering and portable hotspots, among a list of other additions.

We happen to have a version of Android 2.2 (albeit a pre-final one) loaded on a Nexus One, and dove inside to survey the new features for ourselves.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

I was never a fan of the original Dolphin browser for Android, but when DolphinHD was released for Android 2.0 and above I figured I'd check it out for the feature set alone. Little did I know that within a day I'd make it the default browser on my Motorola Droid.

Much like the Skyfire browser, which boasts unique in-house Flash video playback, DolphinHD's feature set gives users significant feature enhancements over the default browser. There's tabbed browsing, link sharing via your installed social networking apps, add-ons, themes, smoother in-browser multitouch, a generally high level of customization, the ability to save your cache and history to the SD card, and one of the most logical features for a touch-screen phone browser, customizable gesture support.

There used to be one other awesome feature: YouTube video downloading. But lest you think that only Apple played hardball with its application developers, Google forced Dolphin's publishers to remove the feature for a Google and YouTube Terms of Service violation within a week of the browser's release.

For me, the gesture support is Dolphin's killer feature. It comes with several default actions, including jumping to your bookmarks, moving forward and backward in site navigation, jumping to the top or bottom of the page you're on, reloading the page you're looking at, and sharing the page you're on. You can also set gestures to load specific sites, open new tabs, or add a bookmark. In all, Dolphin comes with 20 gesture options. A few have been wedded by default to predetermined gestures, but you can overwrite them easily with motions more to your liking, or move the gesture hot corner around.

Pulling up bookmarks is an easy win for gestures on a touch screen, but the two gestures I've been most surprised and impressed by have been for highlighting text and sharing pages. Suddenly, I no longer have to worry about remembering to clip a bit of text at home, where the desktop makes it a no-brainer. I can select text with my thumb, and as soon as I lift my thumb off the screen, the selection gets copied to the clipboard. Likewise, the share gesture means I can paste a link to the site I'm looking at into an e-mail, an SMS, a note in Evernote, a tweet, or a Facebook status update without complicated fiddling around on the phone.

Tabbed browsing is another feature I can't imagine not having in a mobile browser, now that I've been using it for a few weeks. The tab bar can be set to disappear when there's only one tab, and it will also hide, to maximize your screen real estate, as you scroll down a page. Being able to open tabs I want to read soon but don't need to bookmark or add to ReadItLater, and yet not jump away from my current tab, is a feature that seems to mesh well with how I prefer to browse Web sites. DolphinHD does have a ReadItLater add-on available, along with one for Delicious and seven others. One of those seven lets you buy a license to remove the ad bar from the bookmarks, history, add-ons, and themes window.

Personally, I don't use the add-ons, but the ones I toyed with worked well and added some slick, powerful tools to the browser. One add-on can back up your bookmarks to an SD card, another provides deep hooks into multiple Google services, and a third arranges your bookmarks in a 3x3 display similar to Opera Mini's Speed Dial. The default list of bookmarks is not static but can be re-arranged by holding and dragging a bookmark.

One problem with the WebKit-based DolphinHD is that it felt slightly slower at times than the default browser, but because I'd played with a lot of Android browsers recently I decided to benchmark it against the default browser, also WebKit, and Opera Mini to see what shook out. I didn't test Skyfire, despite the sweet Flash video support, because I've found it to generally be a buggy, crashy browser. So, I defined three tests for the three browsers and ran each three times.

The first was a cold start of the browser, with each application launched from the main home screen immediately after booting finished and clocked till Google.com finished loading. The second test checked load times for CNET.com, a site that represents a heavy content load of pictures, text, and video. The third ran the browser against the SunSpider JavaScript testing engine. This turned out to be slightly flawed in that Opera Mini was unable to complete the test in all three of its runs, freezing the test after a few seconds.

On a Motorola Droid running Android 2.1 and using Verizon's 3G for network access, DolphinHD's cold start placed it in the middle of the pack, with an average start time of 10.33 seconds. The default browser blasted through this test, going from zero to ready in 6.33 seconds on average. Opera Mini got to its Speed Dial page quickly, at 8.67 seconds, but even when the Google search Speed Dial button was tapped as soon as it was available, the browser crept to Google.com in an average of 13.67 seconds.

Loading CNET.com once they were warmed up, the browsers reacted much faster. DolphinHD and Opera Mini both finished rendering the page in 5 seconds on average; the default browser took 6.33 seconds. The SunSpider test saw Dolphin hit an average of 35,046.3 milliseconds, with the default browser a touch faster at 34,089ms. Opera Mini generally feels faster than the default browser when downloading sites, but not significantly so. Clearly, there's room for speed improvements on the part of all three browsers.

It's notable that all the extras Dolphin offers compared with the default browser aren't dramatically slowing it down, even though there's no doubt it could be faster. Throw in the gestures, tabs, add-ons, and bookmark management that I find preferable to those of the default browser, and Dolphin can count me as part of its pod--at least until the next better browser comes along.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Last October I conducted a simple poll: What's your favorite iPhone Twitter app? The winner, with around 28 percent of the votes, was Tweetie 2, then a $2.99 app.

Last month, Twitter acquired Tweetie, rebranded it, and dropped the price tag. The result: the official Twitter for iPhone, aka Tweetie 3.0. It just landed in the App Store with a hodge-podge of new/improved features and the sure-to-be-popular price of "free."

The app now lets you view trends, search, and browse without actually having a Twitter account. You can also sign up for one right inside the app.

The search feature has been reorganized and enhanced (results now include Top Tweets, for instance), and Retweet is now part of the main toolbar.

Some nice tweaks, sure, but how does Twitter's app stack up against other favorites such as Echofon, TweetDeck, and Twitterific?

Personally, I can't say I'm a fan of the rebranded Tweetie. The interface looks bland and colorless compared with TweetDeck and Twitterific, and the lack of toolbar labels and built-in help are sure to confuse newcomers to Twitter and/or Twitter apps. (Actually, that's true of many of the apps.)

On the other hand, it's free--and ad-free, unlike the freebie versions of some of the others--so it's hard to complain too much.

What do you think of Twitter 3.0? Are you, like some App Store reviewers, bugged by the new icon? Are you happy to get a formerly paid app free of charge? Tweet--or just type--your thoughts in the comments.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

One of the most exciting prospects of Flash coming to Android devices has been games. While the iPhone platform has become a developmental heavyweight for indie gaming in just a few short years, it remains unable to take advantage of the rich library of titles developed to work on Adobe's Flash player.

With this week's inclusion of Flash player 10.1 on Android phones as part of the 2.2 software update, however, gamers on the go now have access to these titles. The only problem, it seems, is that not all of them are mobile phone-friendly.

Kongregate, a popular Flash gaming host and community, has gone through the effort to weed through its library and pick out titles that work well on smaller screens. Of the site's more than 28,300 titles, its staff has pulled together around 120 that they think work quite well.

CNET on Monday spoke with Kongregate CEO Jim Greer about the collection, as well as the site's efforts to get some of its top games' developers to make small adjustments, a process he says is going quite well. "There were a few games where developers had to make some buttons bigger, or put some buttons on-screen to replace the need for a keyboard," Greer said. "But they're psyched about it."

Greer said Flash developers who were aiming to port over their games to the iPhone had gotten "the wind taken out of their sails" after Apple's change to the developer agreement back in April. "There were a number of developers who had Flash games that they were working on using Adobe's Flash compiler," Greer explained. After the change in the rules, Greer said many began focusing on Android instead.

As for the battery life, Greer said it's not as horrible as Steve Jobs might have made it out to be in his open letter earlier this month. "It's not too bad," he said. "Android has a little bit of an issue with battery life anyway. I just plug it in to my laptop, so I'm not super sensitive to it. I'd definitely say it depends on the game too."

Another issue Jobs had picked at that Greer says is not a problem on Android phones is hovering. On a regular computer, this would require mousing over a button without actually clicking it, which on something like the iPhone (which doesn't have a mouse per se) would prove difficult.

"For games that need hover, you'd just use the trackball," Greer said. "There are a lot of Flash games that don't use it, that are just using your mouse to just drag stuff around, or to just click on stuff." A bigger problem, Greer explained, was the number of games that make use of a physical keyboard, which as mentioned earlier, developers are going back to reprogram on-screen controls to solve for those on touch-screen-only devices.

Besides the mobile-ready directory of games, Greer said the company is working on a native application. This will include Kongregate's achievements system, as well as a way for players to play some games offline, two things that cannot be done through the mobile site just yet.

Kongregate is not the only Flash gaming site to prep its presentation for Android users. Armor Games and Nickelodeon have readied mobile-friendly versions of their sites as well.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs sparked a firestorm with Adobe over the relevance of Adobe's Flash technology for interactive mobile media, a stepped-up PR campaign looked like Adobe's only ammunition.

On Thursday, Adobe got its first chance to fling back a tangible response with the beta release of its Flash Player for select Android phones.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta (which is already out in final form for PCs) makes a mobile debut on Android phones running version 2.2 of the Android operating system (code-named "froyo") or higher.

What does Flash on a smartphone get you? The long-awaited chance to play online Flash-based games (hands-on) and stream video directly from the browser. For wannabe-foodies like us, Adobe's player also finally makes it possible to view restaurant menus from sites written for Flash. While nobody likes online ads, the fact that you can soon view them in all their shifting, eye-catching glory is a big tip-off that the desktop and mobile experiences of the Web have just scooted even closer together.

Hands-on
We tested out an early version of Flash Player 10.1 beta on an Android phone running a pre-release version of the latest 2.2 OS. These compounded caveats mean that we might just have stumbled upon more bugs than you will. We checked out Flash games, streaming video, news sites, and other favorite Web sites that we know take advantage of Flash, and a few of our favorite Flash sites that haven't been modified for Flash mobile.

Unsurprisingly, the best performance came from Web sites that have already been optimized for mobile phones; that is, they'll render the page with hardware accelerometers and trackballs in mind. When we off-roaded from Adobe-suggested sites, we found that Flash Player worked as it would in a desktop environment, but wouldn't smoothly zoom in or pan around in the mobile set-up. Likewise, videos from sites like Funny Or Die triggered the on-board media player (watch our video for examples of these last two.) As for the popular video-streaming site Hulu? Don't even bother. It continues to block access from mobile phones.

Flash Player 10.1 beta will be able to handle the high-definition H.264 video codec using the phone's hardware accelerator (if present in your handset), though it wasn't enabled in the pre-release version of the app we had for testing.

In addition to the visual experience, there are a few behind-the-scenes features. First, Flash Player 10.1 beta will only render the portion of the Web page that you see on the screen, which means that if you're zoomed in, the browser won't bother trying to load the entirety of the Web page. This will help pages load faster and save on resources. Adobe also promises that its player slows down when your phone goes into sleep mode, and pauses when you receive a call.

If you visit a Web site that requires Flash or an updated version of Flash, the player should prompt you to download the right build for your phone.

Specs and availability
Now for some of the more nitty-gritty details. Adobe has only integrated Flash Player 10.1 beta with Google's native browser so far, not with third-party apps like the Dolphin Browser. An Adobe spokesperson told CNET that the Flash Player will immediately work for Nexus One and Droid phones running Android 2.2, and possibly other devices. It will also be compatible with many other Android models that upgrade to the new operating system over the air. When exactly those updates happen depends on the mobile carrier, so update times may vary by who provides your cellular service and where you are on the globe.

Adobe also claims these specs:

• Video playback--More than three hours of H.264 playback on the Nexus One when streamed over 3G network, with hardware acceleration turned off (software decoding)
• Casual games--Four hours of continuous playback
• Automatically decreases RAM use by up to 50 percent

If you're upgrading from an earlier operating system, you'll need to download the Flash Player beta, either from the Android Market or from labs.adobe.com. If you're planning to buy a brand-new Google phone running version 2.2 or higher of the operating system, Flash Player 10.1 will come pre-installed.

Adobe expects to issue a full release on June 17, and is planning versions of Flash Player for Symbian, Windows Mobile, WebOS, and BlackBerry. If you try Flash Player out on your updated Android phone, tell us in the comments what you think.

Originally posted at Android Atlas