Android 2.0 Features Combined Inbox, "Car Home"

The Boy Genius Report got its hands on the upcoming Android Verizon phone, "Droid," and toured its early-release 2.0 firmware. The blog finds a few keen features to be released, including a unified inbox and voice-controlled car accessibility.

The screens come from Motorola's phone, now heavily advertised over the weekend as a direct competitor to the iPhone, but the Android 2.0 features will presumably make their way to Android phones of all stripes (eventually). The neatest stuff inside, from a usability standpoint, includes a "Car Home" that presents big buttons and voice-controlled instructions, like saying "map of wendys" and getting a Google Map filled with the popular square-burger-patty chain. A "combined inbox" loads your work email messages, SMS, Facebook pings, important blog updates, and other messages into one screen (though Gmail remains separate), and settings offerings like haptic feedback (subtle vibration) for virtual keys, selective account syncing, and other offerings.

What's still missing from Android 2.0 from a software standpoint? Tell us your take on the presumed future of Google's open source phone system in the comments. -Kevin Purdy - Lifehacker.com