0xfeedface Tech musings and rants

I updated my Nexus One to the official Froyo FRF85B release a few days ago. I love the improvements Google and others have made to Android. One of my favorite features is WiFi tether. I have a mobile WiFi hotspot where ever I go. Everything is very noticeably faster on Froyo. I'm really impressed at how everything comes together in a unified manner.

I frequently bike to work. On my way, I listen to Pandora to make the twenty-mile journey bearable. I noticed that when I bike parallel and nearly underneath power lines, all data services die. My phone still shows full 3G bars, but all data synchronization stops. Pandora stops playing, email stops syncing, etc. I bike underneath power lines for around six of the twenty miles, a pretty significant portion to be without data services.

This problem didn't occur on Eclair. I tested on both Eclair and Froyo using both a bluetooth headset and regular 3.5mm headphones. No issue on Eclair with either headset, but it was an issue on Froyo with both headsets. My guess is that the Froyo radio is much more sensitive to interference than Eclair.

I contacted Google's Nexus One tech support. They've escalated the issue to the engineering department. I'll let you guys know what happens. Here is a thread I created on the Nexus One support forums about the issue.