Gingerbread?

[mutts]

I've had my Thunderbolt for about a month now (my first Droid) and am starting to see talk about VZW/HTC/whomever releasing Gingerbread for my phone sometime in the future.

I understand that Gingerbread is a OS....but other than that, what is it?

What would this give me over the stock OS that is on the phone now (Froyo?)

Is this something I should be eagerly anticipating? Why?

Thanks

 

[sitlet]

Android is you OS. THe verison you have right now is 2.2, otherwise known as Froyo. Gingerbread is the next update 2.3. It just adds a few features and makes it faster. Yes, you should anticipate it, it only adds new things to your phone.

 

[lunatic59]

Gingerbread is Android version 2.3, FroYo is 2.2

The cosmetic changes are minor ... dark menus, improved stock keyboard and a few others that you can read about here. Most of the changes are under the hood.

It is a worthwhile upgrade, but nothing that will knock your socks off from a feature standpoint.

 

[srkmagnus]

There are a few visual enhancements to the OS that you'll see most different. But more importantly, there are code improvements to speed up the phone and a security patch that was released in 2.3.3.

Don't be surprised if you don't see speed improvements. It won't be anything that is going to blow you away - but it's there

 

[mutts]

Thanks for the info.

As I've never gone through an upgrade before, what impact does this have on any downloaded apps?

 

[lunatic59]

I didn't notice any apps breaking when going from 2.2 to 2.3

If you sync facebook contacts, you might want to hold off. Some builds of Gingerbread disable Facebook sync'ing deliberately. So far I think it applies only to the Nexus S, but who knows what a carrier will weave into an update.

 

[srkmagnus]

There shouldn't be any breaks in your current applications unless the apps do not support 2.3. You can check with the developers or Market to see if the apps are supported.

 

[mutts]

Thanks all

 

[AndroidSPCS]

I love Gingerbread. It has one feature that I really wanted, lock / unlock desktop.

On my older, slower phone (Moment) I'd accidentally delete app shorts cuts, widgets, because the phone lagged and when it registered my touch, it moved shorts to the trash bin. Even on newer phones I can accidentally hold the screen too long and get a pop up menu to add something. Lock / Unlock desktop solves this problem elegantly. I always thought Google should add a lock solution, and am very pleasantly pleased that they did in 2.3