Android 4.1 Jelly Bean - Is it a Tasty Update?

Although many of us are still awaiting our update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), Jelly Bean is now officially only days away from debuting on Google Nexus 7. Can we expect a tasty new recipe that has as much variety as a pack of gourmet Jelly Beans however, or is this update rather inconsequential and lacking in flavours to tantalise our tastebuds?

Far from being a meteoric step up on the OS technology front, Jelly Bean is rather a gentle upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich, a sticking plaster full of minor improvements before what will possibly be the next big update, Android 5.0 that's likely to be named 'Key Lime Pie'.

Aside from Jelly Bean's flagship device, Google Nexus 7, other Android phones / tablets that will be seeing this update many months before most others, by July in fact, are; Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Xoom. As with previous updates, we can only speculate as to when or if other manufacturers / carriers will make this leap.

Even though this is in essence a relatively small update, there are still a few goodies to salivate over.

Jelly Bean Camera Improvements

One of the ingredients included in mostly every update is improved camera functionality. Jelly Bean is no exception, which is only to be expected as camera hardware on our handsets continually improves to meet our demands and needs, as more and more of us use our phone as our primary camera.

Jelly Beans camera app now includes touch auto exposure. There is also a new film strip style scroll for viewing pics and you can delete unwanted photos by simply pinching and swiping upwards. The camera is also faster at capturing memories than ever before too.

Project Butter Improves Performance

Just like slicing through butter, Project Butter is set to make the user experience smoother and faster than ever before. Scrolling and using the touchscreen will be much more fluid and the interface will be humming along at 60 frames per second. Lagginess will be less of an issue and graphics will be buffered three times over, so all in all user frustrations will become a thing of the past.

Google Now

Google Now is set to make your day just that little bit easier, giving you info you want when you want it. By swiping up your homescreen you will have access to a variety of 'cards' that you can personalise to show you useful things such as the weather, the traffic before you set off on a journey or train times. Cards will appear throughout the day depending on how you have set them. But don't take our word for just how useful this feature is. Take a look at the YouTube video below:

Intelligent Keyboard

Jelly Bean just made the keyboard even easier to use, a feature that may aid those of us that struggle immensely with typing on these things. You will be able to use offline voice typing, which means you won't even have to be connected to the internet and will not have to bother yourself with the finicky, too small for your finger keys.

However, if you wish to stick to good old typing to input your message, this keyboard learns quickly from you and is able to predict what you meant to type when you make mistakes. New audio cues to help blind users and an option to use a Braille adaptor are also included.

Offline Maps

As well as offline voice typing, you also have access to offline maps and navigation with Jelly Bean, something that has long been wanted and is now a reality. If you would like to use this feature all that you have to do is choose it from a pop-up menu, selecting the area  you wish to make available offline. The area can include a whole city, although the larger the map you wish to store, the more memory your phone will use for the privilege.

Of course, there are a host of other minor improvements throughout the Jelly Bean update including many UI tweaks, but it is also worth noting that Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) is the first update that Adobe is not supporting with Flash. This is something that we all have to get used to as Flash is gradually filtered out in favour of HTML 5 on all mobile devices.