0 Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Review

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Being unveiled at Google I/O 2012, Android 4.1(Jelly Bean) brings along a whole host of features to build upon the work started by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be available in a few weeks. Besides the brand new Nexus 7 tablet, the first devices to receive the latest Android update from Google will be the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, and the XOOM. Following Google’s mind boggling Keynote announcement at Google I/O today, the Android team posted the platform highlights, recapping all of Jelly Bean’s new features. Here are a few we are particularly excited about. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release date OTA updates are scheduled to be pushed out mid-July, however this is initially to Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S devices. Google has announced the Android Platform Development Kit, which means manufacturers and chipset vendors will be working with the search giant up to three months before each release of Android in the future – so waiting for each new iteration could be a thing of the past. Faster, Smoother, More Responsive Due to the success of Google’s “Project Butter”, the latest version of Android is just like the saying goes “as smooth as butter”. Jelly Bean is the most responsive and impressive version of Android to date coming with triple buffered graphics, extended vsync timing and intuitive touch that boosts your CPU at the next touch event to make sure lag is minimal. Enhanced Accessibility Jelly Bean includes new API’s for accessibility features such as services that let you handle gestures and manage accessibility focus with on-screen navigation buttons. These can be handled by accessibility gestures, accessories, or other input methods. Applications that use the standard View components inherit support for these new features automatically without the need for developers to alter their code. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean camera Another update in the new iteration of Android is to the camera app. Whilst Android 4.0 brought fast image capturing, 4.1 takes this further. Image capture is smoother, but it is in the photo review where the major changes lie. Pinching brings a photo strip of all taken photos, with the swipe to delete making it easier to quickly remove unwanted images. Don’t worry though, there is an undo button making its way to the interface as well, so even if you accidentally scrub out that picture of a cat you once saw, it’s not gone for good. Support For International Users Android 4.1 helps developers reach more users through support for bi-directional text. Apps can handle text editing in left to right or right to left scripts. Apps can also make sure of new included Arabic and Hebrew locales and fonts. If that isn’t enough, the platform now supports user-installable keymaps. Expandable Notifications Android 4.1 brings a major update to Android notifications. Apps can now display larger, richer notifications to users that can be expanded and collapsed with a pinch. Notifications support new types of content, including photos, have configurable priority, and can even include multiple actions assigned to them. Resizable App Widgets Android 4.1 introduces improved App Widget functionality that can automatically resize, based on where the user drops them on the home screen, depending on the size, and the amount home screen real estate available. You can also supply separate landscape and portrait layouts for your widgets, which the system activates depending on your current screen rotation. High Resolution Contact Photos With Android 4.1, we cab finally store our contact photos at a whopping 720 x 720, allowing contact pictures to be truly beautiful. Apps can store and retrieve contact photos at that size or use any other size as needed. Android Beam Android Beam was introduced with ICS, but we haven’t seen a lot of uses for it. In Android 4.1, Android Beam makes it easier to share images, videos, or other payloads by leveraging Bluetooth for the data transfer. When the user triggers a transfer, Android Beam hands over from NFC to Bluetooth, making it easier to transfer and manage files between devices. Smart App Updates The latest feature of Google Play introduces a better way to receive application updates on your devices. When a developer publishes an app update, Google Play now only delivers the changes bits of the application rather then the entire APK.  This makes app updates much lighter and easier on your network data. On average, a smart app update is about 1/3 the size of the full APK update. Google Voice Search and Google Now Google has drastically improved the default Voice Search functionality with Android 4.1. Dubbed Google Now, the new search functionality makes search much more visual such as displaying your results as cards for weather, navigation routes, sports scores, and more. This is much more than a virtual assistant. Better Battery Life Using Touch Input Boost, Android 4.1 boosts the CPU so that loading times are faster, and therefore uses less battery power. Updates to Google Play also mean that now app updates are smarter. Rather than downloading and installing the whole installation file, apps only install changed elements, making them on average 66% smaller.

Being unveiled at Google I/O 2012, Android 4.1(Jelly Bean) brings along a whole host of features to build upon the work started by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be available in a few weeks. Besides the brand new Nexus 7 tablet, the first devices to receive the latest Android update from Google will be the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, and the XOOM. Following Google’s mind boggling Keynote announcement at Google I/O today, the Android team posted the platform highlights, recapping all of Jelly Bean’s new features. Here are a few we are particularly excited about.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release date

OTA updates are scheduled to be pushed out mid-July, however this is initially to Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S devices. Google has announced the Android Platform Development Kit, which means manufacturers and chipset vendors will be working with the search giant up to three months before each release of Android in the future – so waiting for each new iteration could be a thing of the past.

Faster, Smoother, More Responsive

Due to the success of Google’s “Project Butter”, the latest version of Android is just like the saying goes “as smooth as butter”. Jelly Bean is the most responsive and impressive version of Android to date coming with triple buffered graphics, extended vsync timing and intuitive touch that boosts your CPU at the next touch event to make sure lag is minimal.

Enhanced Accessibility

Jelly Bean includes new API’s for accessibility features such as services that let you handle gestures and manage accessibility focus with on-screen navigation buttons. These can be handled by accessibility gestures, accessories, or other input methods. Applications that use the standard View components inherit support for these new features automatically without the need for developers to alter their code.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean camera

Another update in the new iteration of Android is to the camera app. Whilst Android 4.0 brought fast image capturing, 4.1 takes this further. Image capture is smoother, but it is in the photo review where the major changes lie. Pinching brings a photo strip of all taken photos, with the swipe to delete making it easier to quickly remove unwanted images. Don’t worry though, there is an undo button making its way to the interface as well, so even if you accidentally scrub out that picture of a cat you once saw, it’s not gone for good.

Support For International Users

Android 4.1 helps developers reach more users through support for bi-directional text. Apps can handle text editing in left to right or right to left scripts. Apps can also make sure of new included Arabic and Hebrew locales and fonts. If that isn’t enough, the platform now supports user-installable keymaps.

Expandable Notifications

Android 4.1 brings a major update to Android notifications. Apps can now display larger, richer notifications to users that can be expanded and collapsed with a pinch. Notifications support new types of content, including photos, have configurable priority, and can even include multiple actions assigned to them.

Resizable App Widgets

Android 4.1 introduces improved App Widget functionality that can automatically resize, based on where the user drops them on the home screen, depending on the size, and the amount home screen real estate available. You can also supply separate landscape and portrait layouts for your widgets, which the system activates depending on your current screen rotation.

High Resolution Contact Photos

With Android 4.1, we cab finally store our contact photos at a whopping 720 x 720, allowing contact pictures to be truly beautiful. Apps can store and retrieve contact photos at that size or use any other size as needed.

Android Beam

Android Beam was introduced with ICS, but we haven’t seen a lot of uses for it. In Android 4.1, Android Beam makes it easier to share images, videos, or other payloads by leveraging Bluetooth for the data transfer. When the user triggers a transfer, Android Beam hands over from NFC to Bluetooth, making it easier to transfer and manage files between devices.

Smart App Updates

The latest feature of Google Play introduces a better way to receive application updates on your devices. When a developer publishes an app update, Google Play now only delivers the changes bits of the application rather then the entire APK.  This makes app updates much lighter and easier on your network data. On average, a smart app update is about 1/3 the size of the full APK update.

Google Voice Search and Google Now

Google has drastically improved the default Voice Search functionality with Android 4.1. Dubbed Google Now, the new search functionality makes search much more visual such as displaying your results as cards for weather, navigation routes, sports scores, and more. This is much more than a virtual assistant.

Better Battery Life

Using Touch Input Boost, Android 4.1 boosts the CPU so that loading times are faster, and therefore uses less battery power. Updates to Google Play also mean that now app updates are smarter. Rather than downloading and installing the whole installation file, apps only install changed elements, making them on average 66% smaller.