Android 4.1 Jelly Bean explained

Google’s Android 4.1 operating system, aka Jelly Bean, recently made its debut on Google’s hotly anticipated Nexus 7 tablet. It features a vast number of enhancements and improvements to
Android’s already comprehensive feature set including Google Now, an impressive new means of leveraging existing Google wizardry to present the user with pertinent snippets of information in the form of handy ‘cards’. The appointment card, for example, will take a Calendar invite from a friend or colleague and turn it into a card that not only offers a map and directions to the meeting place, but also checks the traffic (providing an alternative route if required) before recommending a time to set off so you’re not late.

Also, improvements to the notifications bar mean you can complete tasks without having to open the associated apps first. Missed a call? Now you can ring them straight back from the notifications bar.

Voice recognition has been greatly advanced and predictive text has taken a quantum leap forward. Android won’t just attempt to auto-complete the word you’re typing, but the next word too; basically smartphones can now finish your sentence!

Although there’s much more, Smart App deserves an honourable mention for radically speeding up the time it takes to update apps while preserving your data allowance. Instead of replacing an outdated app with the whole new version, it only downloads and updates the portions of code that have changed. Very clever stuff.