Jelly Bean is here! And what a wonderful taste it is...

Editors note: On the eve of the Nexus 7 arriving here at AndroidNZ we thought we'd take a little look at some of the clutch features of the newest iteration of Android, Version 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Anyways, we'll let renowned Android ROM developer, and fresh AndroidNZ contributor CdTDroiD take it from here, since he has actually been doing some development work on a Galaxy Nexus and is the first of our crew to really get some hands-on with Jelly Bean...


Ever since getting into Android I must admit there was always some things that I wished I could have that the iPhone had… Super-fast scrolling was always an issue with Android, we could get it fast but not super “Buttery” smooth. The new SIRI got me a little emotional, I wanted a phone that would talk back to me and be accurate enough to actually be useful.

All this has changed with Jelly Bean, I no longer feel I’m missing out in certain aspects, Google has bought it even closer to the perfect device. So lets talk about Jelly Bean’s.

This isn't a complete run down on Jelly Bean by any means, but merely a primer on some of the most important elements. Starting with...

“Project Butter” = Amazing

Jelly Bean has introduced a few new words to the code that some of you gamers and geeks might appreciate, “Vsync” and “Triple Buffering” These are all new features of the new “Project Butter”  that make it almost hard to believe they have made such a big step. Now everything runs in sync with the CPU and GPU so touch events, screen composition and application graphics all run together so we get a more stable frame rate. With the triple buffering and Vsync what happens now is Android actually anticipates where your finger is going to be at the next screen refresh and ramps up the CPU speed instantly to give such a smooth feel to the UI that its such a joy to use.

Notifications

The new notification system is fantastic. ICS was a big upgrade with the “swipe” functionality to get rid of email, SMS, app notifications etc. But now with Jelly Bean you can stretch them out with a two finger gesture to display more information, so when you get a new email you can see the subject, who it’s from and even a clip of the content. If you get a missed call you can now call them or SMS then straight back without leaving the notification menu.

Home screen and widgets

We now also have a much more intelligent widget system where they resize themselves, and app shortcuts simply move out of the way so you no longer have to add them to an empty page and drag it over once you have moved everything else. It just does it for you.

Google Now

Google now is a new search system that is intended to take the whole search thing out of the picture and replace it with the information already being there, for example… It takes information from your calendar and GPS locations, When it sees you have a meeting in an hour it will send you a notification saying you have 45 minutes to get there, give you a map and some public transport times if you need it. When you walk onto a train station platform it will have already bought up the time tables to where you want to go because it knows where you, where you are going and what time you need to be there. On top of that it now has a much more polished voice search function making it extremely similar to iPhones SIRI with pop up cards with images and information as well as speaking it back to you.

USB Audio!

This is a feature we've been campaigning in aid of for quite some time here at AndroidNZ, so we're really glad to see this is now a stock feature in Jelly Bean. There are still a few questions to be answered about its implementation in Android, but rest assured we'll be putting it through it's paces in this regard ASAP. In addition to USB audio there are a number of other audio tweaks for Jelly Bean, including some significant ones like major reductions in audio signal latency. Anyways, here is what Google have to say about USB audio and Jelly Bean "USB audio output support allows hardware vendors to build hardware such as audio docks that interface with Android devices. This functionality is also exposed with the Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) to give all developers the chance to create their own hardware." You can read more about the changes in audio handling for Jelly Bean here (and in fact you can read about lots of the other features in depth there too, well worth a read straight from the horses mouth!).

So, what are your favourite features or enhancements in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean? Let us know in the comments below, and while you're at it ask whatever questions you have about the Nexus 7 too - it'll be in our hands very soon!