Google I/O Announces Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Google I/O 2012 has just announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

This new new version of OS brings about a few great improvements, starting with platform optimization for both computing resources and GUI acceleration. The codename of this enhancement is called Project Butter.

The core idea of Project Butter is to bring about faster performance GUI. Dave Burke, Android engineering director announced that Project Butter consists of 4 main components.

1.) VSync - enhanced synchronization of processes
2.) Triple buffering
3.) Touch responsiveness
4.) Intelligent resources load balancing

Up next is home screen improvement. Smartphone users spend a great deal of time looking at the home screen and trying to figure out what to do next. Now the home screen can automatically perform resizing on widgets.

The new text input supports two great features.

1.) Predictive keyboard
2.) Offline voice typing for US English.

The developer team has managed to compressed the voice recognition engine so small that it is able to fit into the limited memory space of Android devices.

Search features have also been uplifted with a new  GUI, faster and more natural voice search as well as introduction of knowledge graph where it provides summaries of search results which are derived from computation of data which comprises of both graphical and text information. It is graph because the decision is based on statistics.

More automation features are introduced. With Google Now, which makes use of data of your location, calendar and search patterns to help users with organizing their hectic lifestyle, offering a new hope to cope with the complexity of digital age. It is able to automate public transport schedules,
place of interest, next appointments, flight schedules and sports updates; just anything that one requires on daily basis.



Availability:

  • By Mid July 2012 on Nexus phone and open source.
  • Software development kit (SDK) - the beta version is already available for download.
  • Platform development kit (PDK) for android hardware developer, the beta version is already available for OEM partners.

Conclusion:

The keynote, apart of Android technology, is all about new age lifestyle and the presentations which reminds me of Steve Jobs.

There are now 400 million Android devices all around the world.

The keynote thanks software developers around the world for making Android a reality.


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