Since the whole Droid 2.1 debacle became apparent, I've been working very hard on trying to bring back some functionality to CDMA devices. Having no access to any such device, I set up a private betatesting group where I released a (long) series of experimental builds.

In the meanwhile the "public" (i.e. Market) release branch inevitably got much less attention - to the point that I eventually decided to just shift all new development to the experimental branch (there's been only one bugfix release on the Market since).


So, what's the situation like now?

Good news first, as we all are (or should be) impatient optimists: I eventually found a way of controlling the data connection on the Droid - it can actually be used on some GSM devices too, with the benefit of being more reliable than old-skool APN mangling (it also allows for automatic 3G/2G-only toggling).

Moreover in the course of the last couple of months JuiceDefender grew quite a lot:

• refreshed UI
• many bug fixes
• improved performance
• several new, interesting features

JuiceDefender should also work reliably on all devices out there - it now sports a neat Setup screen that autodetects your handset's capabilities and configures JuiceDefender accordingly.


Now, the catch: some of these new features don't work on all devices. More specifically, some require root access, and the new data control mechanism additionally requires using an AOSP-derived ROM (to date, stock Nexus One, CyanogenMod and at least some flavours of MoDaCo are confirmed to work). If a particular feature isn't supported, Setup will disable it (and you won't even see it in the UI).

Anyway, the latest builds work reasonably well on most devices, so I've decided to open up the "experimental" branch for everyone to try - and, hopefully, provide precious feedback on the kinks that still need to be ironed out (there are some).
So if you like experimenting, want to see the new features, or just feel like lending a helping hand (yay!), please give it a try! Just download the most recent build from this page and install it on your phone (you'll have to "Allow unknown sources" in your system preferences first). If you want to provide feedback, please do so via the Group (I'm desperately trying to at least keep some unadulterated memories of long gone inbox sanity).

I also updated the official changelog with all the experimental builds released so far, so you can get an idea of what's new.

If everything goes well, the new JuiceDefender will be ready for release on the Market soon, and I'll finally have time for some awesome updates on JuicePlotter, SeePU and Paperdroid - fingers crossed!