It appears that the case involving Apple and Google’s Galaxy Nexus device (made by Samsung) has yielded a bit of a confusing set of circumstances. According to Foss Patents legal aficionado Florian Mueller and All Things D writer Ina Fried, we’ll still need to wait on a ruling for the pre-ruling on if the Galaxy Nexus will continue to be able to be sold in the USA. The case at hand has Apple filing a suit against the Galaxy Nexus and has since this weekend had a sales ban enacted through the court against said phone until the court case can decide if the device truly does infringe upon Apple’s patent for a ’604 Siri-style quick search.
This current case has ended for today without an immediate indication from the judge in charge for the case, Judge Koh, on whether or not she will stay the injunction pending appeal. Whether or not this means you’ll be able to go out and pick up a Samsung Galaxy Nexus this week is currently unclear.
Stick around for more news from the courtroom in regards to all things tech – if that’s your bag – all week here on SlashGear. Choose sides and make a game of it! Also have a peek at the timeline below to get caught up on this current case as it unfolds as well.
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
It hasn’t been Samsung’s best week. Just days after Judge Lucy Koh granted a preliminary ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, she’s following it up with a similar granted request on the Galaxy Nexus. Judge Koh had already signaled that she thought Apple’s lawsuit over four patents might have merit, but it’s only now that she’s deciding the potential damage is worth halting sales of the phone until there’s a final trial verdict. Samsung will no doubt try to appeal the dispute, which centers on Android 4.0’s slide-to-unlock mechanism (among other elements), but there’s a lot more urgency here than with the outgoing Tab 10.1: the Galaxy Nexus is still a current-generation device, and just became Google’s Android 4.1 phone flagship. Samsung’s odds aren’t great given that Apple has already used one of the patents to give HTC grief with its imports.
Update: As patent lawsuit guru Florian Mueller found, the clincher for the ban was the patent on unified search that’s linked to Siri. Although Judge Koh is inclined to believe Apple’s view regarding all four patents, that search patent is the one whose violation would reportedly merit more than a slap on the wrist. She’s similarly convinced that Apple’s patents are legitimate and likely won’t be dismissed anytime soon.
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!
Google’s next iteration of Android wasn’t quite the full-point release jump that many of you were perhaps anticipating. Rather than using Google I/O 2012 as the launching pad for Android 5.0, we’re being formally introduced to v4.1 — a mere 0.1 ahead of where Ice Cream Sandwich placed us around six months ago. Aside from grabbing a name change, the minor numerical bump also provides Jelly Bean the opportunity to usher in a few new features for Nexus owners to enjoy.
If you missed yesterday’s keynote, Google revealed that Android 4.1 would arrive on Nexus devices in “mid-July,” but there’s no clear word on when partner companies will begin pushing it to their products. Moreover, pundits are quick to point out the legions of Android products that still haven’t made the leap to 4.0, leaving us to wonder if those Froyo and Gingerbread laggards will simply take the fast track to 4.1 now that it’s (almost) available. Care to see if the latest and greatest will live up to your expectations once it lands in a few weeks? Head on past the break as we discuss some of the larger changes that Jelly Bean has to offer.
In Gingerbread, those tapping repeatedly on the version number with Android’s “Settings” menu were greeted with a picture of “zombie art” by Jack Larson. In Honeycomb, a bee found its buzz. In Ice Cream Sandwich, we saw an image of the Android robot dressed up in an Ice Cream Sandwich, which grows in size when you long-press it until it transforms into a Nyan Cat-style animation. Today, we grabbed hold of a Galaxy Nexus equipped with Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), and sure enough, the tradition continues. This time, we’re graced with a cutesy bean, and when long-pressed, you’re presented with a game that encourages you to flick candy around a gravity-less location… for eternity. Care to see for yourself? There’s a video just past the break.
As is the norm for developer summits, Google’s kicking off I/O with a keynote highlighting whatever the heck it wants to. Jelly Bean is, of course, one of the big topics of discussion at today’s session, and we’re hearing more news come down the pipeline straight from the horse’s mouth. Jelly Bean, also known as Android 4.1, should be making its way to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Motorola Xoom in mid-July as an OTA update, and the SDK will be available today as part of a developer preview.
Keep up with the latest Google news by checking out our I/O keynote liveblog!
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