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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Review
New submitter codysleiman points out a review of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) at The Verge. They say the look and feel of Google's mobile operating system has improved in a few different ways. Aesthetically, it isn't trying quite so hard as it did in Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, making the UI less of a distraction. While performance benchmarks aren't much different, Jelly Bean forces 60fps throughout and lets the GPU, CPU and display run independently, so it at least feels smoother and more responsive. Another big area of improvement is notifications: "You can tap a share button on photos, calendar appointments give you a snooze or email attendees option, missed calls provide direct call-back buttons. ... Google has introduced APIs for actions on notifications and I hope that app developers take advantage of them, because it would be nice to have more actions on a variety of different apps." The new on-screen keyboard also got some much-needed updates, and Google Now looks promising.
So I go and check my "About Tablet" and I see... 4.04! What blather are you spouting?
The "blather" that very few Android users as a whole are using the latest version of the OS, with all the new features that are being promoted (like this new API for example) because handset manufacturers don't want to update old phones that are perfectly capable of running ICS, and now JB, but want you to buy a new phone instead.
The last graph I saw showed that only 6 or 7% of Android handset users were on ICS, and now JB rolls around. Google needs to address that problem somehow, but I'm not really sure what it can do given the nature of the way Android works - that freedom has unfortunate side effects in some cases.
Compare that to iOS' distribution, where a *much* larger percentage are running the most recent version, making it a lot easier for developers. the trade off, of course, is that Apple tightly controls the ecosystem.