Yesterday, Verizon made it clear that while the original Droid would be getting Android 2.2 and it would not be getting one of Android 2.2′s most coveted features: WiFi HotSpot. In other words, you wouldn't be able to flip a switch and turn your Droid into a little 3G-powered router for all of your friends to leach off on the commute home.

The reason for this feature’s absence, said Verizon, was that “the Droid.. doesn’t have [the] hardware to support a Mobile Hotspot”. That’s fair, right? Missing hardware is missing hardware; as I put it in the first post, you just can’t make chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips.

Then I thought about it. What hardware, exactly, was it missing? WiFi receiver? Check. WiFi transmitter? Check. A 3G chipset, a fairly powerful CPU to handle the routing, and a reasonably sized battery? Checks across the board. That’s when it struck me: not only could the Droid totally handle Mobile Hotspot, but I’d seen it handling Mobile Hotspot before.

Flash backwards about a month. I was at an iPhone developer meet-up in San Francisco, debating the merits of various smartphone platforms with people who knew them best.

One developer pulled a handset out of his bag. “You know the only reason I keep this around? WiFi tethering for my laptop and iPad. I had to flash the firmware to a custom build, but it works like a charm.” The handset, as you might have guessed it, was a Motorola Droid.

Doubting my memory, I popped on YouTube to look for a less anecdotal example. Sure enough, there are dozens of videos showing the same thing: the Motorola Droid’s hardware is more than capable of WiFi tethering. Multiple devices, encryption support, all that jazz — it all seems to work. It requires the user to modify their handset’s software and is thus not an official solution by any means, but it works well enough that it might as well be.

So what’s going on here? Is Verizon nixing a feature on the original Droid to have a bigger selling point for the upcoming Droid 2? Perhaps — but remember, Verizon makes their money oncontracts, not hardware. As long as they’ve got your soul for the next however-many months, they don’t care which of their smartphones is in your pocket. Then again, offering a feature on the Droid 2 not found on its predecessor gives Droid 1 owners a reason to re-up their contract mid-year, thereby satisfying their overarching goal of keeping you locked down.

I reached out to the same Verizon rep who made the initial statement about the Droid’s hardware, and got a response. I didn’t get permission to publish the statement before publishing this post, so, in good practice, I won’t quote it verbatim — but to paraphrase, they essentially said that the information they passed on was the same information that was shared with them, but they were looking into it now that doubts have been raised.

Finally, a clear answer. while the hardware in question (the Texas Instruments WL1271 WiFi chipset) is technically up to the task, the firmware that runs on said hardware isn’t. Whereas the unofficial hotspot solutions utilizes Adhoc mode, Google’s official Android 2.2 hotspot requires “Access Point” mode — something which TI hasn’t gotten around to adding in any firmware updates. Verizon wasn’t exactly correct in saying that missing hardware was the culprit, but it doesn’t seem like their intentions were nefarious.

It may not be the EX112 / EX115 they seem to be getting down in Brazil, but the Motorola Grasp isn't far off, proving that Motorola's still committed to delivering non-Android phones in market segments where... well, Android might kinda be overkill. The CDMA / EV-DO phone is capable of operating both on 800 / 1900MHz and on AWS bands, meaning we wouldn't be surprised to see it land on regionals likeMetroPCS where AWS has started to play a prominent role. It's got a 1.3 megapixel cam, 3.5mm headphone jack, AGPS, stereo Bluetooth, microSD expansion to 8GB, and -- something Moto has been playing up since the Renew -- an eco-friendly design with a completely recyclable shell when you've finished texting on that QWERTY keypad for the last time. Look for it to launch this quarter.

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The Motorola MILESTONE will get to taste the Froyo a.k.a. Android 2.2 after all. And we don't mean any custom hacked ROMs but an official update that, according to O2 Germany, is on its way and should to arrive sometime in the middle or at the end of September.

The Motorola MILESTONE first packed the Android 2.0 and the Android 2.1 came several months later. A handful bugs left after the update were only fixed a couple of weeks ago.

And then, at the end of July, the company announced that it isn't clear yet whether there will be anAndroid 2.2 update at all which not only disappointed all MILESTONE owners but all the Moto fans out there.

After all, since its release (less than a year ago) the device has always been falsely advertised as featuring a Flash-capable web browser. The Adobe Flash Player 10.1, however, only works on devices running Android 2.2.

Anyway, what really counts is that we finally have the promise for a Froyo treatment. And according to O2 Germany this should become available by the middle-slash-end of September 2010. We're only sorry that the good news doesn't come from Motorola itself.

Verizon Wireless announced on July 30 that the Motorola Droid would receive the Android 2.2 update starting the week of August 2. Android 2.2 natively supports tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot creation. The Motorola Droid, however, will not offer these features. Verizon Wireless spokesperson Brenda Raney said to Phone Scoop in an email, "The Droid by Motorola doesn't have [the] hardware to support a Mobile Hotspot. With tethering there is no Connection on the PC side that will allow you to tether the device so the answer is that option isn't part of this update." Raney also said the over-the-air update will be pushed to a small set of users first to make sure it works properly. Once that is confirmed to work, Verizon will begin the general roll-out in phases. Android 2.2 offers a wide range of other improvements, including better security, Flash Player Mobile 10.1, voice dialing via Bluetooth, and improved camera performance.

While the Motorola DROID 2 is not expected to be released to the public until mid to late August, the User Guide for the phone has been leaked. So what have we learned from looking through it? Well, we can now raise our confidence level to Fire Truck Red that the sequel to Time Magazine's 2009 Gadget of the Year will be shipped out with Android 2.2 in the box as the Froyo version of Google search is written up in the guide.The booklet also delves into the Motoblur UI that appears on the unit-it's the same "lite" version that is on the DROID X. The virtual QWERTY keyboard will be multi-touch as the one on the DROID X is and the DROID 2 will offer the swipe to type Swype keyboard.

With the DROID X shoving its massive screen right into your face, the DROID 2 could be a hard sell for Verizon-especially if it is priced at the same gold standard of $199.99 after a 2 year contract that most high-end models have been priced at lately. For the same price, you could have the 4.3 inch display of the "X" staring right back at you. Sure, it will appeal to those who want a DROID and need a physical QWERTY (upgraded from the first-gen model, by the way), but there still is the Samsung Fascinate to consider. Big Red's variant of the Galaxy S will probably be the carrier's next big launch after the DROID 2. We obviously are looking too far ahead. After all, Verizon has not even introduced the DROID 2 yet.

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