Commas for Everyone! The Android 2.2 (Froyo) Features No One’s Talking About

When I woke up this morning and checked my Nexus One, I saw that it (finally) was ready to update to Android 2.2, or Froyo. It’s got the big feature that everyone’s been talking about—it can now act as a Wi-Fi hotspot. For me, though, my phone is the only device that I regularly connect to Wi-Fi, so it’s not really something I’m interested in.

The best new feature for me is one I haven’t heard anyone mention, probably because it’s the kind of thing very few people care about. When you’re using the phone’s software keyboard, it now suggests punctuation (exclamation mark, question mark, comma, @ symbol, and underscore) instead of just waiting for you to get on with your next word. If, like me, you’re crazy enough to want to use commas properly in your text messages, this is a huge improvement, because I used to have to switch to a sub-screen to get to the comma.

The other two new features that I’ve noticed are more Nexus One-specific. The Nexus One (and a few other Android phones, I believe) has a light-up trackball that, until today, has only lit up white. With the update, it can now display different colors—sort of. Apparently only third-party apps can access the colors so far. The app LED Tester, available on the Android Market, will let you see the colors and works well. Reviews for an app that will let you set regular system alerts to display in colors are mixed, with some users reporting it doesn’t work at all.

Finally, of interest only to the few people who both own the Nexus One and use its dock, you can set the phone to make a funny little trombone sound when it is placed in or removed from its dock. I don’t think I could do this before, but such a huge feature might’ve escaped my notice.