Google’s Android OS recently released the latest update for its popular platform, which is dubbed Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). Yes, Android users are in for another treat, as Google promises that the open source platform it loves so much only gets better with the release of the fastest and smoothest mobile OS to date. The latest incarnation builds on the simplicity and beauty of its previous version, Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0).
Google now
Google now is a personalized browsing application for mobile devices powered by the Knowledge Graph. It features Google’s Voice Search, a voice assistant that could be the most valuable rival to Apple’s wildly popular Siri app. Google Now is at your disposal with everything from today’s weather to the traffic situation near Park Avenue. It can even send you an estimate of how long it will take you to reach the destination. Ask a few questions and expect factual and accurate answers. “Who is the president of Egypt?” or “What is the current euro-dollar exchange rate?” or “How tall is Yao Ming?” Leave a few voice commands like “Remind me to renew my RingCentral phone service subscription tomorrow at 9am”, and watch your alarm ring the next morning at the time you specified. Or better yet, ask him to make a note saying, “Note to self: Take a box of Cheerios and two cans of Campbell’s Soup from mom’s cupboard.”
project butter
project butter aims to respond to device lag issues commonly experienced on Android powered devices. This processing framework was developed so that the CPU and graphics resources of each Android phone run parallel to each other to increase the speed and responsiveness of the device. Google previously said that devices with the Butter interface were expected to run at around 60 frames per second, depending on the hardware or processor. Overall graphics performance has reportedly improved, along with better touch response. Obviously, adopters should expect a smoother and faster user experience on their Jelly Bean powered devices.
Face Unlock
Although this feature was previously introduced to Android 4.0, versions that are better than Face Unlock also came to Jelly Bean. Given that something as simple as a photo print of a phone’s actual owner could be used to trick a phone into unlocking itself, Jelly Bean’s developers decided to take it to the next level by verifying that a real living, breathing human had it. identity is verified via the front-facing camera. Now the owner of the phone has to flash before the phone unlocks itself.
Android light
Another interesting feature bundled with Jelly Bean is the ability to “teleport” anything from one phone to another Android light. All you have to do is touch your NFC enabled smartphone to another NFC enabled smartphone to facilitate the transfer of files, links, bookmarks, videos, maps or just about any file you can think of.
Android 4.1 codenamed Jelly Bean, the highly anticipated incremental update to the Android OS, assures users that the already excellent Android operating system will enjoy more improvements both in terms of functionality and performance.
