Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: everything you need to know
Today at I/O 2012, Google officially announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the latest version of its mobile OS. Dig into the latest on Project Butter, Offline Voice Typing, Predictive Keyboard, and more here!
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean hands-on impressions (update: video!)
We've shown you the Google Nexus 7 by Asus and told you about the surprising quality you'll get starting at $199, but the most important part of the tablet is arguably the software that's inside. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is here at Google I/O, and we've just spent some quality time with the new revision of the OS. As you'd expect from the ".1," it's not a giant leap forward from Ice Cream Sandwich on phones, but it brings some fairly exciting new features, major tweaks, and brings the tablet...
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in pictures
Google is very good about launching its emulators of the newest versions of Android just as they announce them, and today is no different — Jelly Bean is available now for developers to begin tooling with and testing their apps on. We've taken the opportunity to install the new SDK to spend some extended time with the new operating system, so join us, won't you?
The first thing we noticed after booting up Android 4.1 is that this really is a fairly minor update — the major changes that...
Google Play updated with movie and TV purchase support and magazine subscriptions
Google is announcing a host of changes to its Play service today. Movie and TV shows are now available to purchase from Google Play, including individual episodes or entire seasons. Magazine support is also coming to Google Play today, allowing users to access their favorite subscriptions. Google announced content partnerships with Disney, ABC, NBC, Universal, Sony Pictures, and Paramount alongside magazines from Conde Nast and Hearst.
Check out our Google I/O 2012 day one keynote live blog...
Google announces 20 billion app installs, 600,000 apps and games
During the I/O Keynote, Google announced that it's reached 20 billion Android app installs in the Play Store. In total, 600,000 apps and games are available, with free apps in 190 countries and paid ones in 132. In-app purchases are also a large and lucrative part of sales: 50 percent of revenue apparently comes from billing within apps. Google's still trailing Apple in download numbers here: at WWDC, Apple said it had 30 billion app downloads since the launch of its store in 2008. The total...
Google will release an Platform Development Kit for hardware developers ahead of each major Android upgrade
In addition to providing an SDK for its software developers, Google has just announced that it will release a Platform Development Kit (PDK) for chipset vendors and other hardware developers that will allow them to port Android to their hardware. Google says that the PDK will be available to Android partners between two and three months before major Android updates.
Check out our Google I/O 2012 day one keynote live blog for the latest updates!
Jelly Bean rolling out to Galaxy Nexus, Xoom, and Nexus S in mid-July OTA
Google has announced that Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, will be rolled out to the Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom, and Nexus S via an over-the-air update in mid-July. That's a major departure from Ice Cream Sandwich updates, which took far longer to get to the Xoom and the Nexus S. Unfortunately, it isn't clear if this update schedule will apply to all versions of these devices — we've certainly seen before that carrier variants of Nexus devices can see a much longer wait than their international...
Google Now: search based on time and location
As part of its Android Jelly Bean update, Google has just announced Google Now — a card-based search interface that takes your location and the time into effect to give you more useful information. Google Now works by using your search history, calendar, and location to help make search more relevant. For example, if you have a calendar event, Google Now "will help you get there on time" — if you take the bus, it tells you how long it will take to walk to the bus and when the next bus...
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean coming in July with Project Butter UI, Google Now, richer notifications
The next major upgrade to Android will be version 4.1 Jelly Bean, it has been announced at Google I/O today. Project Butter is the major new innovation in Android 4.1, focused on making the entire UI "fast, fluid and smooth." That includes triple buffering in the graphics pipeline, to ensure consistent frame rates with interface animations. Google's I/O demo showed two Galaxy Nexus devices side by side, one running Ice Cream Sandwich and the other on Jelly Bean, with the latter offering a...
