Today on Google’s Nexus One blog an OTA update was announced and is reportedly being rolled out as your read this. The update adds new features to Google Maps, adds pinch zoom to the browser, maps, and gallery, adds Google Goggles to the device, and fixes the previously reported 3G issue.
From the Google page:
Starting today, Nexus One users will begin to receive an over-the-air software update on their phones. This update provides some great new features, and fixes a few problems that some users might have experienced, including:
Google Goggles: this mobile application will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web
Google Maps: the Maps application with be updated to a new version, Google Maps 3.4, which will include:
- Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer
- Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before
- Night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving
Pinch-to-zoom functionality: devices will now include a new pinch-to-zoom mechanism in the phone’s Browser, Gallery and Maps applications
3G connectivity: we will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones
In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone’s notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones – and most users might not receive the notification until the end of the week. We hope you enjoy these new features and look forward to your feedback.Nexus One blog
Have any of our users started to receive the update? We own two Nexus devices but neither has received the update. Once one of our phones gets the update we’ll post a video demo of our shiny, new, pinch-to-zoom goodness…
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Clark Wimberly
Clark is a web designer and developer living in Austin, Texas. He runs ClarkLab, a small web firm with an ever-increasing Android focus. He's a big fan of usability, standards, and clean design.
31 Comments
Consumers 1, Google 0. But… speed up whatever you may be doing to get pinch zoom on the other devices.
Please post a video showing the night mode in maps. thanks!
Aren’t both your Nexus Ones rooted though?
Doh! Didn’t even think about that after my late night pushing the mobile site live. Just pushed out the article that landed in my lap, haha.
Great!
Please update us on the pending doom for the G1. Also agree with the above comments, thanks.
When is this coming for the Droid? D:
Get the NEXUS ONE ON VERIZON ASAP!!!
Can you ellaborate on how this OTA update works? Is there some kind of update service in the phone that connects to Google, or is it via T-Mobile?
The reason I am asking is that I am a N1 user in Singapore and, if it’s the former, I am in business; if it’s tha latter, I am screwed.
I’m not really sure how it works but I have read in other places that some people using the N1 on AT&T have gotten the update already. That might be good news if that means they can send out the update on any network. Hopefully that’s not limited to US networks though.
I’ve been searching around and found this link to manually force update your N1. This gets a little techy though
http://googlephoneblog.net/2010/02/03/force-update-your-nexus-ones-software-to-enable-multitouch/
As for the OTA update, i think N1 does it automatically once you connect your phone to a stable internet connection, or you can force it to update by going to:
Settings -> About Phone -> System Updates.
Hope that helps!
Easy to do without the OTA update – thanks for the link!
http://googlephoneblog.net/2010/02/03/force-update-your-nexus-ones-software-to-enable-multitouch/
I don’t really care about the multi-touch, but I love the fact that this comes out days after Steve Jobs goes on the attack against Google. Payback is a bitch, huh Steve?
All good news for N1 users. On the issue of pinch to zoom though, I dont see what the big deal is. I have it on my rooted mt3g and I rarely use it. I pretty much stick with my double tap zoom or just use the the little zoom toggle on the bottom right. I guess it all comes down to personal preference though.
P.S. The new mobile site looks great.
As the owner of a Droid I am sorta pissed. Where is my 2.1? Where is my multi-touch? Come on people.
i am also mad. ive been waiting for the 2.1 update to my Behold II (go ahead and laugh but i won it in the giveaway) forever and the Nexus One gets an update in a matter of weeks!
My friend in Seattle, on T-Mobile, got the update this morning. I’m in Los Angeles, also T-Mo, no sign of it. I have an AT&T SIM, maybe I’ll stick it in and see if there’s any joy there.
I’m desperate for the “3G fix” since this Nexus One is almost unusable inside my home, and several offices I frequent. First I lose 3G, then I lose EDGE, then I lose service on voice…eventually EDGE comes back, then voice. The only way to get 3G back is to go into settings and open the networks item…it generally acquires 3G after that until the cycle starts over again.
I’ll post back if switching to an AT&T SIM gets me the update any faster.
AT&T SIM didn’t help. I just did it manually with the instructions here: http://androidcommunity.com/guide-to-manually-updating-the-nexus-one-20100202/
Seems to have improved my T-Mobile service inside the house. I’m getting 3 bars in rooms I used to get 0-1 bar. Hope that’s not just my imagination or a fluke.
The update is AWESOME! Thanks a million Google!
yeah, i manually uploaded too and i am definitely seeing improved 3g (back to my g1 levels).
i’m also in the camp that thinks pinchzoom is overrated. i was worried for a minute that double tap would be gone, but that isn’t the case, they both work, which is nice i can show an iphone user my phone and they can’t use that stupid excuse as a negative anymore.
I installed the update manually on my N1, it’s great. Phone seems a bit snappier. Pinch and zoom is nice (but overrated). And best of all, my 3G performance is on par with my G1 now. This phone is amazing !!!
I forced the update via my bootloader, and I can certainly say it’s an update.
The phone feels a lot faster, and I can finally get a decent, consistent 3G signal in my house. Multi-touch is nice, but more a novelty than anything, imho. We’re still stuck with 212MB of RAM though. 
This update sounds great, but I can’t wait til they give us the update where we can customize the notification colors for the TRI COLORED track ball!
I got the update this morning, Pinch and zoom is great. Signal not much of a change, I live in New York. Where, i always had the 3G signal.
I got the update today. Google Goggles is a blast. I haven’t tried the other features yet. I haven’t noticed a difference with 3G. It wasn’t a problem to begin with though.
I have a Droid and Nexus One and have tested out the multitouch functionality on both. It’s actually not very good. The Droid handles it better than the HTC devices but neither has enough accuracy when two fingers are touched down along the same axis (like in games with a control for each thumb on the bottom of the screen). I think consumers are going to be rather disappointed as they will not see any games have dual-touch-joystick support because it simply won’t work right.
I wrote a little utility that lets devs see the problems with it – “Multitouch Visible Test” in the Android market. Go ahead – download it, check it out, pretend you’ve got a joystick on each thumb and you’ll see pretty quickly why it’s not going to work that way.