A few weeks ago, Froyo started to find its way onto the phones of a few lucky journalists and random twitter users, and then eventually into the hands of the hackers over at XDA-Developers.

At the time, speculation abounded as to whether or not this was the official OTA. It wasn’t until a few days later when we received word that this was actually a release candidate, intended for a small group of testers and not consumption by the general public.

Since that revelation, users have been anxiously awaiting an announcement from Google regarding the official, final OTA. When we quoted our inside source at Google who revealed to us that the leaked build was indeed a release candidate, they made sure to emphasize that a release candidate is usually close to the final version and that unless bugs are found, it may very well end up being the final release.

Information has been sparse since then, but our own Ian Douglas found the following quote from Google employee ‘ben1010’ on the Android support forums:

Hi everyone,

I feel your anxiety, and though I'd love to give you all a definitive date, that's not possible, because there is no date. What I mean is, it's not that there's a Froyo release ready to go, and we're holding it back, or waiting for the right time to release it. That's not how it works. Software development is an iterative process, and each release candidate goes through extensive testing.

Sometimes, the testing exposes issues introduced in the new version, and the release gets delayed as a result. And so, although we know that we are pretty close to having a final build, we won't be sure of the release date until it arrives, and at that point the release goes out to the public without any further delay.

It's a bit like a baby -- the delivery date is a best guess, but if the baby has other ideas, we all have to wait ...

Ben

After reading that, I had an initial feeling of disappointment (I want my Froyo now!), that quickly gave way to that of hope. Why? Well, like many, I chose to flash Froyo onto my phone, and while it did run well, it still had its fair share of small kinks – enough that I chose to scrap Froyo for the time being and go back to the latest Cyanogen mod.

The fact that the Froyo is being delayed for further development means that they’re taking the time to properly iron out these kinks so that by the time Froyo hits your handset, it should be a smooth and delicious experience, rather than melted and sticky mess. I know we all want Froyo, but let’s give Google some time to throw a cherry on top.

Source: Android Support Forums