Featured: Okay, so Google I/O may technically be over, but we’re still pouring over analysis and impressions of the event. We’re going to start with this piece that you’ve all been waiting for – it’s our official Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review. And another review for something that came to light this week – Chrome for iOS review.
Google’s newest version of its mobile operating system Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is what essentially equates to a fine tuning of the version that came immediately before it. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich pushed the Google mobile OS world together, with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Android 2.3 Gingerbread, made for tablets and smartphones respectively, making a single system that’s made for all devices, regardless of their screen size. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean takes what Ice Cream Sandwich has and bumps it up a notch in a handful of ways.
Notifications
The first thing you’ll notice when you get into your Nexus 7, your brand new Galaxy Nexus, or whatever device you’ve got at home that’s been updated to this newest bit of software, you’ll see that your notifications pull-down menu is updated significantly. One new feature here is a set of shortcuts connected to apps such as your calendar – when a new event comes up in reminder form, you’ve got the option to email the other people included in the event or call them.
Several apps either are or are about to be updated to work with this new notifications pull-down menu – you’ll notice right away that each new screenshot you take will be previewed in part with a bit of a chopped-off segment of its full self, for example. Each update is also expandable based on its content, with your Gmail updates showing snippets of your messages instead of just showing that you’ve a certain number of messages in your inbox.
Camera / Gallery
While the camera remains essentially the same as it was with the basic version of Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean tunes your ability to go back and view photos and quickly erase them if you’re not thrilled with your results. This feature is extremely similar to what both the iOS and Windows Phone cameras use with a swipe across the camera to see photos just taken. This feature is called “filmstrip view” and it is pretty slick.
Keyboard
This update is a direct strike at keyboard titans like SwiftKey and Swype, with a “more accurate, more relevant” language model for some new and improved instant guessing for the words you’re about to type. This version of the keyboard “adapts over time” which means it’s learning based on your keying of characters at all times – it’s relatively impressive, though we’ll likely be sticking with SwiftKey until they’ve got a more diverse range of learning skills – or more options for keyboard colors, of course.
The Keyboard here in Jelly Bean is also connected to text-to-speech – or speech-to-text if you want to make a bit more sense of the term. You’ll now no longer need to be online to use voice dictation, so you’ll be able to type by talking to your device wherever you’re at, mobile data or not.
Widgets
Your home screens have had widgets for quite a while now, and with the newest updates to Android you’ve got the ability to resize – this time you’ve got automatic resizing and pushing icons out of the way to make room when you’re moving widgets. Say you’ve got four icons in the middle of your screen and you pull over your Gmail widget – they’ll automatically be pushed up to the top or the bottom of your screen to make way. If you’ve got icons running up the side and the top of your screen and want to put a widget that’s too big int he center, it’ll be resized down and to the right to fit.
Android Beam
Just as it was with Android 4.0, here in Android 4.1 you’re able to beam photos, items in certain apps, and contacts with a touch. This update ads a collection of sharing abilities such as Simple Secure Paring for connecting to Bluetooth devices as well as the sharing of YouTube videos, directions, and videos.
Google Now
We’ve got a full hands-on sort of review of Google Now separate from this post, if you’d like to take a peek, otherwise you can have a look at this video review we’ve got instead of the whole shebang!
See the full Google Now hands-on for more information. Voice Search is also included in Google Now, both of them tying together to bring you a next-level guided experience for Android.
Project Butter
Without a doubt, one of the most impressive items on this list is what Google is calling Project Butter. This implementation of several next-generation elements has made the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy 7 both look and feel as smooth or smoother than any Android device we’ve worked with before, without a doubt. Google’s next generation Android system is able to work with a framerate of 60 frames per second (FPS). Google has implemented Vsync to make this 60FPS possible, with a 16 millisecond Vsync “heartbeat” not allowing you to see the time between one task and the next.
Jelly Bean also implements Triple Buffering, this element making sure that each of the main three hardware components are working in sync and to their maximum potential. The three main hardware components in this case are CPU, GPU, and display, and everything from scrolling through pages to watching videos online to flipping through a game have been improved either just a tiny bit or one whole heck of a lot.
Touch Responsiveness is also part of Project Butter and has been improved as well, with a new algorithm that anticipates your next finger touch. This algorithm will get rid of the sluggishness you might be familiar with that occurs after you bring your device out of sleep mode. Jelly Bean will give your CPU a boost in these cases so that there’s no latency whatsoever.
Wrap-Up
This update, once again, is more like an in-between sort of tweak festival for the most part, but it does have its big advances as well. I’ve found myself quite a few times already in the short time we’ve had my hands on Jelly Bean utilizing Google Now and working with Voice Search as if I’d always had it (and them) on hand. Users with Nexus devices will hopefully be getting this update relatively quickly, while the rest of the Android world will probably be waiting several months (or weeks, if there’s a miracle in the wind) before they get to use it. Unless you’re a fan of hacking, of course, as there are already ROMs out there with Jelly Bean and its feature up and running now!
It took only one day for devs to unleash Jelly Bean 4.1 from its server confines and out into the eager underbelly of Android’s community. And those enterprising hackers haven’t wasted any time getting that buttered up OSrunning on Galaxy Nexus handsets (yes, even for Verizon subs). Now, good news is also on the way for any consumers who forsook the pure Google path in favor of Samsung’s TouchWizzed way. That’s right, a (mostly) working port has been made available to Galaxy S III (I9300) users that should see some of that point upgrade’s features successfully implemented. Feel free to take it for a test run if you’re skilled in the ways of flashing, but bear in mind you’ll lose access to the camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, storage and audio. It goes without saying that this build is far from the perfect ROM for a daily driver, but if you’re curious to check it out first-hand, there’s no harm in trying. Hit up the source below for the step-by-step how-to.
Google has improved the security of its Face Unlock feature for the upcoming Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release. The feature was first introduced with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as a way to unlock your phone through face recognition. However, it was quickly discovered that it could be tricked by a using a photo of the person.
With Jelly Bean, Google is adding a new option called Liveness Check for the Face Unlock feature that will require you to blink in order to unlock your device. The face recognition portion of it is faster than before and a message is then displayed asking you to “Blink now.” Your device then unlocks once you blink.
To add this feature, you will need to check the box in the security section of the settings on your device. Although the Liveness Check does improve the security issue with Face Unlock, there’s still the possibility that those determined to get into your device could doctor a video or animated GIF of your face, played back using another smartphone screen.
Don’t you think it makes sense for the latest, most powerful Android-powered smartphone from Samsung to feature the latest operating system version from Google? Many people think so, too, and after having an unofficial ROM ported over the Galaxy Nexus, here we are with an unofficial port of the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean port for the Samsung Galaxy S3. This applies for the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S3, although there are a fair number of features that do not work – such as Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth and NFC support, the audio system, a camera tha fails to snap photos, and inability to detect the internal storage space. Would you be willing to sacrifice all of that for a premature taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean before the official version arrives? There really isn’t any point in installing it though for all practical intents and purposes, but if you are curious enough, then go ahead.
Matias Duarte is the Director of Android User Experience at Google, which means he’s the artist who pretties up the green robot’s gears. We got some one-on-one time with him at Google I/O, and he opened up about the Nexus 7, Jelly Bean, and why we shouldn’t be so huffy about Android fragmentation. More »
Google is reportedly planning a 10-inch version of the Nexus 7, presumably to be dubbed the Nexus 10, as the Android company readies for a huge push into the tablet segment. Announced on Wednesday at Google IO, the Nexus 7 will apparently gain a bigger brother according to DigiTimes‘ sources at touch panel manufacturers.
Those insiders claim that Google expects to use 10-inch touch panels from AU Optronics and Wintek for the new Nexus 10. Wintek is believed to be a supplier for the Nexus 7, too, and in fact is tipped to have already shipped 500,000 touch panels for the 7-inch Jelly Bean slate in June.
In fact, Wintek is believed to be supplying Google’s Nexus 7 hardware partner ASUS with over one million touch panel units during May through July, indicating the scale of Google’s tablet plans. Wintek isn’t the only supplier of the component, either, with TPK Holding said to also be contributing an unspecified number of touch panels itself.
Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet has begun to spring up for pre-order at UK retailers, with Ebuyer offering the 16GB version of the Jelly Bean slate. Priced at £199.99, though – unlike through Google’s own Play store – with free shipping to save you a tenner, only the larger Nexus 7 is available, as will be the case with other retailers. Google is keeping the entry-level 8GB version for itself.
Your money gets you a 7-inch IPS touchscreen, NVIDIA Tegra 3 quadcore processor and 1GB of memory, along with a 1.2-megapixel front facing camera. Connectivity includes WiFi and Bluetooth, but no cellular option at present. Google says the battery in the Nexus 7 should last for around eight hours of wireless browsing.
Nexus 7 hands-on:
Shipping is expected from July 27, though previous reports suggested stock was expected from July 20 so if you get in early you might get one sooner than the official date. Ebuyer claims to have over 900 units available for pre-order (at time of writing).
Over the next few days we’re expecting to see PC World, Dixons, Comet, and the Carphone Warehouse all post listings for the Nexus 7, each confirmed to be planning to offer the tablet. For more on the Nexus 7, check out our full review
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean devices will not get official Flash support, Adobe has confirmed, with the company pulling Flash from the Google Play store altogether after August 15. The decision, which follows Adobe’s move to adopt HTML5 for mobile platforms rather than Flash last year, also means that updates to Flash Mobile on Android devices will become more sporadic.
“Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed” Adobe said in a statement. As for handsets like the Galaxy Nexus, which currently support Flash on Ice Cream Sandwich but which are expected to get a Jelly Bean upgrade in mid-July, Adobe warns that the change in OS might prompt instabilities.
“If a device is upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1, the current version of Flash Player may exhibit unpredictable behavior, as it is not certified for use with Android 4.1. Future updates to Flash Player will not work” Adobe says. “We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1.”
Having long argued with mobile device manufacturers – particularly Apple – that Flash was relevant for smartphone and tablet users, Adobe conceded defeat in November last year. ““Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores” the company announced. “We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.”
Ice Cream Sandwich was the last Android OS version to receive a certified Flash Player installation, and as devices gradually migrate to Jelly Bean the framework will shrink in relevance.
Google’s Andy Rubin suggested the Nexus 7 would reach third-party US stores eventually — we just didn’t think it would be this quickly. GameStop says it’s taking pre-orders for the 16GB version of the Android 4.1 tablet starting today. At $249, it will cost exactly what it does in its currently exclusive Google Play home; in other words, one of the parties involved could be taking a voluntary hit on the already razor-thin profit margins. The 7-inch slate should be arriving roughly at the same mid-July timeframe as it is for those ordering straight from the Google source.
It wouldn’t be GameStop if there weren’t trade-ins involved, and sure enough, the game retailer is using the Nexus 7 as the lure. Confirming an earlier leak, the chain is now accepting Android tablet trade-ins worth up to $200 in cash (or $250 in store credit) depending on how pristine the hardware is coming into the store. Play your cards right, and you’re very nearly getting the Google-blessed tablet for free. As an extra incentive, any gear whose exchange goes directly towards buying the Nexus 7 will get a 30 percent boost in value. Knowing the buzz surrounding the price-to-performance ratio of the ASUS-made Nexus, we won’t be surprised if GameStop suddenly faces a glut of older Android tablets in its backrooms.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Don’t you think it makes sense for the latest, most powerful Android-powered smartphone from Samsung to feature the latest operating system version from Google? Many people think so, too, and after having an unofficial ROM ported over the 
