Top five new features of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Now that Google has officially announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, many people are wondering why it is a big deal. Clearly, according to Google’s 4.1 nomenclature Jelly Bean is not a major Android update and could be considered a delta update. That said, Google has indeed announced a few key features. Some of these bring Android on parity with the competition and some help Android leap frog its competitors. Read on to find out our list of the top five new features of Android Jelly Bean.

Offline

Google has always been about staying online and connected, but with Jelly Bean, the search giant is finally understanding that the US does not encompass for the whole world, not even by a bit. The reason Android is at the top of the ladder, is more or less due to its penetration in the lower-end of the market as it drives sales in developing markets, where Internet penetration is not exactly ideal.
In Jelly Bean, Google has added a number of offline features to its apps. For instance, the new YouTube app which downloads and stores videos when the user is on Wi-Fi. Even the maps app, gets a long overdue offline element. Users now have the ability to download maps and use them without a cellular or a Wi-Fi connection. Another biggie, is the inclusion of offline Voice Dictation which will allow users to dictate message and emails, among other things offline. Previously, this feature worked when the device was connected to the Internet.

Voice

Google has always had the lead in voice based inputs. But that perception changed when Apple announced ‘Siri’ with the iPhone 4S. In hindsight, we all know that ‘Siri’ is not all that good especially with the Indian accent and in fact to a certain degree Google’s Voice dictation works better, but it never had the ability to get regular tasks done, in a personal interactive manner. To remedy this, Google improved the Voice recognition capabilities of Android with it now understanding natural speech. Along with this Google has added the recently released Google Search Knowledge Graph, which now acts more like an Answer based engine, like Wolfram Alpha used by Apple’s Siri. So when we ask a query, users will get specific cards that answer queries, but these cards are also supplemented by a Google search listing, all in unified UI rather than the app shuffling back in forth between a browser.
What we are yet to see is, whether users will be able to open third party apps like Facebook and Twitter and post status updates using this feature. Currently, what Google showed off is more or less locked in to the Google ecosystem. Developers will get API access to voice commands but it remains to be seen how well it is integrated in their apps.

Notifications

Android always has had the best notifications system amongst all mobile operating systems. In fact, Apple went ahead and ripped off Androids pull down notification system in iOS 5, but their implementation was haphazard at best. Google improved the notifications in Ice Cream Sandwich, but with Jelly Bean, they have upped the ante to whole new level.
Notifications in Jelly Bean are richer and now provide more glance and go information and are also supplemented by thumbnails. Notifications, can be expanded and collapsed via pinching gestures and Google now also supports different types of content like photos. Users can also do a lot more from the notifications menu, such as receive calls or hang up, check-in to Google+ or FourSquare. Admittedly, the ability to receive and hang up calls has been added in previous versions of Android via OEM skins like TouchWiz, but that does not take away anything from Google.

Google Now

Google Now accesses the users search, location and calendar and delivers personalized content to provide preemptive information that the user might need. It could be an early reminder for a meeting if the traffic on the road is heavy or simple suggestions for restaurants during lunch hour depending on the user’s preferences judged from search results or check-ins. The amount of content, it deliver builds up over time as it starts to understand the use case scenario of a device.
For instance, it will tap in to the search history, to notify the user when his/her favorite his favorite team is playing. Google Now will know this on the basis of the users frequently searched items. Another example of this is for maps, as it can deliver efficient routes for ones office, or it can even tap in to the traffic info and deliver a faster detour if there is a traffic jam in the regular route. This, however, may not work in India, considering Google does not offer turn by turn navigation and traffic information to its Indian customers. Through Google Now, users will be able to get information regarding restaurants via Google Places, Apple taps into Yelp for this, in Siri.
Other tasks like booking tickets and finding movies running in theater can also be achieved via Google Now. In Jelly Bean, Google has also integrated Google Now in the lockscreen and the users will be able get weather information among other things right from the Google Now button on the lockscreen.

Project Butter

Google started the Jelly Bean announcement with Project Butter, which basically hinted at making the Android user experience buttery smooth. The great Android lag is a big detractor for buying into the Android ecosystem. In terms of purely smooth user experience Android has never matched iOS and Windows Phone, but as Android User Experience Director, Mathias Duarte put it, “We have declared a war on lag.”
To begin things, Google has stabilized the system-wide frame refresh rate to a nice 60 frames per second, which will definitely speed up the UI. Additionally, tricks like triple buffering of animations via VSync should help matters more. Google will also ramp up the CPU clock speed when the touch interaction is started, to enable the buttery smooth experience. On paper, all these things should definitely help, but we will only call Android buttery smooth when we see it ourselves.

But the key out here is that, the Android experience will not only be buttery smooth on newer devices like the Nexus 7, but also on the current crop of dual-core devices like the Galaxy Nexus. Simple things, like the task manager and the swiping between the home screens seemed to transition noticeably faster in the Google demo, but we will reserve our judgement for now.
While Jelly Bean may not be the sweeping update Android fanboys had hoped for, it does push Android further along with Google adding number of crucial features and also improving the experience for the end-user.