For what I understand it's all about an update to Cyanogen's Android 2.2 ROM.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the devices listed are already supporting Android Froyo officially or unofficially by some time. I've been using my HTC Desire with the HTC update to Froyo for a month now, it's not like it couldn't run it before today.
Actually, Cyanogen brings Froyo to several devices that would otherwise have never seen an official update. The MyTouch, G1, and Hero were never slated to receive an update. Also, Cyanogen is a modified but mostly vanilla AOSP ROM, where most of these HTC phones would receive some variant of either the Sense UI or the MT3G UI.
The Cyanogen devs have accomplished a major feat by moding AOSP 2.2 to run on phones with no documentation or other support from the hardware vendors.
That's correct, however the Droid Incredible only just starting rolling out the Verizon-branded update now, and the Droid 1's release was starting to hit a lot of phones last week.
This is the first I've heard of actually being able to get a 2.x series OS on my MyTouch 3G. T-Mobile has promised it, but we've been waiting for months.
I updated my Incredible to Cyanogen 6 and am fairly impressed. I'm not a Sense-hater, but there were a couple annoyances that got to me, and the mostly-vanilla UI feels like how the phone was meant to be. The performance is hard to beat, too.
You probably can add it. I know people removed the default lock screen from Sense via package and file removals. Incidentally, the Sense lock screen was one of the reasons I wanted to get away from it, the down-up motion kept unlocking my phone in its sleeve (not an issue with left-right on the default). The ability to silence the phone from the lock screen is another feature I like about the default lock.
I don't know, I turned it on and it said an update was ready (it gives you the option to install it later though). You can check by going to Settings > About phone > System Updates. Only noticed a few new things so far, including some new retroactively pre-installed apps like Amazon MP3 and other stuff.
Hmm, I just tried starting a mobile hotspot and it seemed to work, despite several warnings that I needed the feature enabled via Verizon. I hope it didn't somehow automatically enable something to be billed to Verizon because that would be sketchy!
My droid is saying it wants to update, even though I updated to Froyo manually a couple of weeks ago. Is there a way to shut it up, or should I just let it go ahead and do it?
No, Android knows when it needs to update and when it doesn't. Verizon had two OTAs. The first contained Froyo. The second contains the Flash "accelerator" and enables you to actually download it from the Market. Do the update, you really do need it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the devices listed are already supporting Android Froyo officially or unofficially by some time. I've been using my HTC Desire with the HTC update to Froyo for a month now, it's not like it couldn't run it before today.