Hands on with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

28-06-2012

Perhaps it's my software analyst bias talking, but for me the best announcement at Google I/O is Android 4.1, a.k.a Jelly Bean, an incremental version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Google created Jelly Bean to unify Android tablets and smartphones, and after playing around with the update on both devices, I found no differences feature-wise. It also syncs more than apps. For instance, when you're consuming media on a Jelly Bean-ized tablet, whether it's reading a book or watching a TV show, you can start from where you left off on a Jelly Bean-ized smartphone. Suddenly, there's an incentive to own an Android smartphone and tablet.

Jelly Bean brings only a few improvements to Ice Cream Sandwich, but they're great. With auto-resizable widgets, uber-intelligent Google search, pinch-to-zoom notifications, and more shortcuts, Jelly Bean actually manages to make Ice Cream Sandwich look a little...bland.

Here at Google I/O we attendees aren't getting Jelly Bean-loaded devices for another four hours, but I got a demo of the update on a Nexus 7 tablet and Galaxy Nexus. Click through the slideshow below for a look at all the new features in Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean.

App Drawer

App Drawer

Jelly Bean's app drawer brings Google Play apps front and center: Music Books, Movies, Play. That third icon is new: Magazines.

Google Now

In a single swipe from your app drawer you can open Google Now, a native Google search feature that opens a bag of uber-relevant results. More details on the next slide.

Native Google Search

Google Now is a smarter search engine that combines reams of data from your past Google searches, rankings, clicks, etc, with data from mobile sensors (like geolocation and time zone). For example when you open Google Now you’ll find widgets for the weather where you are. Performing a Google search through Jelly Bean will now yield more relevant, personalized results than through a desktop.

Notifications

In Ice Cream Sandwich, the pull-down notifications came in a list format. Now you can pinch to expand them. For instance, this screenshot became…

Expanded Notification

.. This! Within each Notification you’ll also find shortcuts for sharing.

Intelligent Widgets

This got a lot of applause during the keynote. So in Ice Cream Sandwich, you had to constantly switch in and out app icons and widgets to fit your screens. Now you can just drag widgets to a screen with apps, and they’ll automatically resize to fit into a crowded screen.