Motorola releases Android 2.1 for UK Milestones

Motorola has announced the release of the Android 2.1 upgrade for UK Milestone owners. This brings Milestone devices up to date with Google's latest version of the Android mobile operating system and includes support for Speech to Text, live wallpapers and up to nine home screens. Security for exchange servers has also been improved. In the US, the Droid, as the Milestone is known on CDMA carrier Verizon, received its 2.1 update at the end of March.

A number of other mobile handset manufacturers have yet to release an Android update for their phones. HTC, for example, has delayed the release of an update for its former flagship device, the HTC Hero, several times. The company's latest handsets, the HTC Desire and HTC Legend, already ship with Android 2.1 and its custom Sense interface. Sony Ericsson's recently released top-of-the-line Xperia X10 only ships with Android 1.6. The company says that it will release an update that will include Android 2.1 in the fourth quarter of 2010, at which point a newer version – Android 2.2 "Froyo" perhaps – will likely already be available.

Acer has previously said that it has no plans to release an update for it's Liquid phones and the T-Mobile G1, the first smartphone to use Android, will not officially run versions later than 1.6 for technical reasons. Although Google says that it simply doesn't have enough internal memory, unofficial releases of Android 2.1 that will apparently run on the G1 are now available online.

UK Milestone owners with unlocked devices can download the upgrade to Android 2.1 using Motorola's Software Update application – Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2, Vista SP1 and Windows 7 are supported. Alternatively, an over-the-air update is expected to be available within the next few days.

See also:

• Google: Android 2.1 is catching up, a report from The H.
• A fragmented Android universe, a report from The H.
• Of Android and the Fear of Fragmentation, a feature from The H.

(crve)