Getting a Taste of Jelly Bean 4.2

Although the name remains the same in the new fl avor, the latest version of Android packs a punch. Read on...

1. Daydream: Daydream lets your Android device display informati on when idle or docked. With this, you can use your Android device to show off your photo albums, get the latest news, etc.

2. Fast and smooth responsiveness and UI: In att empts to make Android feel fast, fl uid, and smooth, Google tried to make graphics and transiti ons bett er, including moving between home screens and switching between apps. Thus, the touch responses are now more reacti ve and uniform. Android 4.2 boosts your device's CPU instantly when you touch the screen, and turns it down when you don't need it to improve batt ery life.

3. Google Search powered by Knowledge Graph: Android's voice search is powered by the Knowledge Graph, bringing you a precise answer if it knows it, and precisely ranked search results, so you can always fi nd out more. Search is one area where Google currently has both the icing and the cake as far as the majority of users are concerned.

4. Richer download noti fi cati ons: The Android 4.2.2 update gives more informati on about running downloads. For instance, now there is a percentage completi on shown with the progress bar, and also the esti mated ti me left for the download to complete.

5. Quicker `Quick' setti ngs: This is a ti me saver for convenience in crunch situati ons. In a manner similar to how doing a long press on an app icon on a home screen results in giving you an opti on to take it off the home screen, long pressing on connecti vity opti ons such as Bluetooth and Wi- Fi toggle the state of the same.

6. Noti fi cati on sounds: Wireless charging (which had no sound noti fi cati on earlier), as well as low batt ery have new sound noti fi cati ons.

7. Security: Android 4.2 now supports having a whitelist of systems for USB debugging. In some cases, especially with default opti ons, this can help prevent attackers from stealing your data via ADB.

8. Gmail with built-in image viewer: The Gmail app comes with a built-in image viewer that doesn't automatically resize images to fi ll the screen. This also has an eff ect on the `Recent Apps' list, which now shows the att achment thumbnail, instead of the Gmail message itself.

9. Usability enhancements: Now Android 4.2 remembers where you were in a list while checking out diff erent apps from the Play Store. Aft er installing an app and returning to the list, you will be at the same positi on in the list so that you need not scroll again. When you uninstall an app in Android 4.2, all you get is a small popup and there is no blocking ‘OK' required to be clicked as was the case with 4.1. Also, the Clock app in 4.2 has a built-in ti mer and it it comes with voice acti on support.

10. Bett er camera and Gallery apps: Taking a cue from the radial browser controls in the stock browser of earlier versions of Android, the new Camera app has similarly styled controls. The Albums in the Gallery too have undergone major redesigns, with much larger thumbnails and camera icon. The Filmstrip view is more easily discoverable now in 4.2 and editi ng images now shows live previews of the results based on the actual image being edited, compared to a stock image of a fl ower.

Why Should You Go For The Android Experience?

With the glut of platf orms available, every consumer, developer and organizati on is asking, "Why should I go for Android?". We look at 3 reasons why they should

For developers...

1) Android has the largest market share: Around the same ti me as iPhone 5 was launched, Google announced that 500 million Android devices had been acti vated globally. Meanwhile, Apple says that the number of iOS devices has crossed 400 million. Google also claims that over 1 million new Android devices are being acti vated daily. What this means for developers is that they have the widest audience to reach on the Android platf orm. A recent Nielsen study highlighted the trend that consumers

heavily prefer the Android operati ng system in India, with 62% purchases between Sept 2012 - Oct 2012 made on handsets running Android.

2) It is open source: Android sti ll has the disti ncti on of being the only major mobile platf orm that is completely open source. While OEMs make customized proprietary versions of the operati ng system, Google sti ll off ers all versions of Android under open-source licenses to the developer community. This means a great deal to the developer, as they can go ahead and make their own custom ROMs and extend the OS as they like it. Platf orms such as iOS and BlackBerry10 are proprietary,

so while the APIs are provided to developers to make apps for the platf orms, they are not given access to any OS level

component code.

3) Provides high RoI: It is totally free to develop and test an app on the Android platf orm. A developer just has to pay the US$25 registrati on fee to submit a free/paid app to Google Play. Given the large base of users, a high-quality app is bound to be purchased and the developer will receive a 70% cut of the proceeds. However, on the competi ng iOS, one has to pay an yearly fee of US$99 to enroll in the developer program, and be able to publish apps in the app store. They cannot even test their apps on an iOS device without paying the fee.

For consumers....

1) Variety of opti ons available: With Android phones starti ng from a price of litt le over Rs 3,000, there is an abundance of mobile phones with diff erent confi gurati ons running Android. From the cheap Lava Iris (priced at Rs 3,399 on Flipkart) vs the Galaxy Note 2 (Rs. 35,400 on Flipkart), there is a wide range of prices at which the Android phones can be purchased. On the other hand, the iPhone 4, which is already considered old, is sti ll selling at around Rs 25,000. With accessibility to many apps that run on higher-end Android devices, many consumers in India are sati sfi ed with a basic smartphone.

2) Greater degree of personalizati on possible: Don't like your phone's theme? Change it. Don't like the screen layout? Change it. Android sti ll off ers the highest level of customizability across all the major mobile platf orms, and this is something consumers love. With Android 4.2, users can even change the size of widgets on the home screen. iOS devices, unless jailbroken, cannot be customized beyond being put into separate folders. While Windows Phone 8 does also offer customizability, it only revolves around the color themes of the device.

3) Growing number of apps: With over 800,000 apps in the Google Play market, there is unprecedented acti vity in the app store for Android. Many high-quality apps are available, and several of them which are paid on other platforms, are free. For example, WhatsApp is free for Android users but comes at US$0.99 for iOS users. The classic Angry Birds is free on Android, but has a price of Rs.55 on the iOS store. While you do have to accept ads on most of these free apps, they sti ll provide a

high-quality experience.

For Enterprises....

1) Extensibility of the platf orm: Although Android does not have any nati ve features specifi cally tailored for Enterprise, the ease with which third-party device management apps can be developed for it is amazing compared to other platf orms. Unlike the ti ghtly-bound iOS ecosystem, enterprises with good developers can develop their own Android enterprise apps and deploy them on their employee-owned devices. However, on the iOS and Windows Phone platf orms, they need to submit it to Apple/ Microsoft to get the apps rati fi ed according to their own standards.

2) More security than before: Android's 4.2 update introduces some muchneeded security upgrades. First, the OS now scans side loaded apps for malware before installing them. It does this by checking with the Google server against a list of blacklisted apps to detect if the app contains any malware. This is criti cal given that the Android ecosystem if much more loose than the iOS ecosystem. Another feature called VPN lockdown restricts the amount of data transmitt ed across an insecure channel. Also, if an applicati on att empts to send a text message without your permission, Android will alert the user to the acti vity and close the processes that triggered the event.

3) High on BYOD: Especially in India, a majority of "BYOD" users will be bringing Android devices to the workplace. While BB10 arguably has very good enterprise features, it simply does not make sense to support a platf orm that has such litt le penetrati on in the Indian marketplace. If an enterprise wishes to implement "BYOD" at the workplace, they will need to support a platf orm that is being most widely used in the enterprise space, which is sti ll Android in India. Since most enterprises cannot hire the IT staff to manage multi ple environments, supporting Android would be the most cost-eff ecti ve way to manage a single corporate environment on mobile devices.