Froyo

The OS comes before Apple’s new iPhone 4.0, which will boast multitasking and other features. Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for Google, went on the war path versus Apple.

Google adds a JIT compiler to Android 2.2 to make applications run two to five times faster than previous flavors of Android. In this demo, the older ??½clair OS-Android 2.1-bogs down with added complexity. Froyo keeps up, thanks to the compiler.

Froyo has more than 20 new enterprise features, including Microsoft Exchange support.

The application data backup API will back up data associated with applications, a major request from programmers.

This programming interface will let developers send messages to Google servers, triggering an Android intent, Gundotra said. For users, this means faster synchronization between desktops and Android 2.2 smartphones via Google’s cloud.

Great for people with multiple computing devices. Gundotra tested out his Nexus One enabling Web connectivity on an Apple iPad.

Froyo leverages the V8 JavaScript engine from Google Chrome, making it faster than Android 2.1 and the iPad in this test.

Google is also dabbling in AI with its voice recognition capabilities, working on human intentions. A voice search to call a fifth floor restaurant triggered an automatic dialing.

“It turns out that on the Internet, people use Flash,” Gundotra said, a stab at Apple’s refusal to support the technology for its iPhone and iPad. eWEEK has a review of Flash running on an Android 2.2-based Nexus One here.

Users can now search the redesigned Android Market faster for apps.

Rather than updating each app manually for the latest version, Froyo sports an “Update All” button for on-the-fly app refreshment.

Here, Gundotra shows how the OpenTable app was pushed from the Android Market on his desktop to his smartphone.