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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.
There is no problem at all. If you don't care about OS updates (and many many people don't) you buy a cheaper product from a company that does not give you one. If you think it is important you buy the top models from Google or Samsung and pay the price for it. Unlike Apple products in this case you have the choice of not to paying the premium price for future upgrades if you think you don't need them.
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.
"Easier for Developers"? LOL. I have developed apps for Android and I know what's required to develop apps for IOS. First of all, Android apps can be developed on Windows (all versions), linux, and OSX platforms. Apps can even be developed on Android itself. Eclipse + ADT plugin makes it very easy. IOS apps, on the other hand, can only be developed using Xcode running on OSX. Also, its pretty easy to test your Android app while in development using the emulator but most devs prefer to side-load their app onto the device because its faster and just better than using an emulator. Let's try side-loading an IOS app....oh wait, no USB port. Of course then there's the whole tightly controlled ecosystem you mentioned with Apple...Despite that, vulnerabilities still surface but I bet there are others that Apple stays tight-lipped about and maybe fixes quietly. When Android has a vulnerability, the whole world finds out through the open system of development, arguably making Android appear less secure.