Early last week, I received a notice on my Nexus One that Android 2.2.1 was available for download. I was surprised but excited none the less. So I quickly searched the web looking for any and all information about what was new. It turns out that a number of people had posted that the new version of Android was available but no one had any kind of change log.

Well now that I have had the update install on my Nexus One for a week I think I may have found the extent of the new features:

WiFi finally works correctly. A number of Nexus One users have had a hard time getting their phone to auto connect to known WiFi networks. I believe it had something to do with it would stop after one failed attempt to connect at the fringe of the network. Well now this is fixed, in fact my battery life nearly cut in half the day after the update. I had my WiFi sleep options set to "never turn off." Before the update, this was not actually an issue due to the fact my WiFi was never actually connected. However after the update my phone is almost always connect to the campus WiFi as would be expected. So I turned back the sleep options to turn off when my screen was off and my battery life went back to normal.

Different color status lights. I was told, when I purchased the Nexus One, that the track ball would glow different colors depending on the type of notification you have. I was sad to see that not to be the case when I got the phone. With Android 2.2.1 my track ball now sometimes glows green instead of the white. Email, text message, and missed calls all seem to glow white. While things from Google voice, like texts or missed calls, make it glow green. I can't seem to find any options on how to switch this or try to get it to glow any other color. It seems silly to make a device that can glow either green or white, perhaps it does more but the feature to set it has not been fully integrated in the phone. Hopefully the next update will complete this feature.

I am sure there are a number of other updates, most likely security updates. I hope that in the future Google makes it a point to release some sort of official change log so that people are not just guessing. Let me know if you have found anything else new with Android 2.2.1.

Sadly it seems Google Wave days are limited. Google is pulling the plug on their Wave service sometime after the end of this year. I was surprised to hear that Wave was not doing too well, I have used it nearly every day since I got private beta access to the service. There has never been a tool created on the web that could allow true real time collaboration and also auto documents the collaboration. Video conferencing can not hold a stick to Wave, video does not provide any useful record of the conversation or a way to pick it back up immediately from where you left off.

There are probably several reasons why Wave failed, however I believe the biggest is that Wave never hit its tipping point. The saddest moment with Wave is right after you first launch it, when you realize none of your friends are their. Wave is nearly completely useless without others to use it with. I got lucky because I work closely with several people across the United States, we saw Wave as the perfect tool to help us work together. I can imagine a lot of users are not so lucky and just couldn't find a use for Wave in their personal life. To combat this, Google should have integrated Wave directly into GMail. A user should have not been able to tell the difference between a Wave and an Email, except that in a Wave the other user could see you typing your message.

Wave really could replace about 80% of my emails, mainly the ones that are for debugging or brain storming. Their will always be emails that a Wave could not replace, like receipt from Amazon purchases.  Wave would revolutionize digital conversations within businesses. In order for that to happen however, Google would need to make a push for other services to be able to host their own Waves, like the current state of Email. Where I can send an email to anyone, even people outside of Google. Wave should have been explained as Email v2, and Google should have pushed it that way.

I'll be sad to see Wave disappear, hopefully Google has a good plan to bring the benefits of Wave back.