Late last month, the search engine giant Google revealed the next Android operating system version, the 4.1 Jelly Bean, at Google I/O. The version’s operability is centred on the improvement of the user interface, both in terms of functionality and performance.
It is an incremental update that incorporates Google’s Project Butter, which uses touch anticipation, triple buffering, extended vsync timing and a fixed frame rate to create a fluid and “butter” smooth user interface.
Project Butter is seen by experts as Google’s effort to address something its Android operating system has been criticised for, or said to be lacking as compared to Apple’s iOS — a sexy and smooth user interface.
Google believe that with the release of Jelly Bean, they have made the user experience feel fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens and switching between apps is said to be effortless, like turning pages in a book.
What’s also impressive is Jelly Bean’s ability to improve battery life by boosting the smartphone’s CPU instantly when the screen is touched, and turning the CPU down when not needed.
Another useful feature is Google Now. It aims to deliver to the user the right information at the right time. For instance, it can tell the day’s weather, update on traffic, commuter train arrivals or a favourite team’s score. The informationis displayed by Google Now automatically as it happens.
Information cards appear on the smartphone throughout the day whenever the user needs them, as anticipated by Google Now.
Some of the notable features are:
- Vsync timing across all drawing and animation done by the Android framework, including application rendering, touch events, screen composition and display refresh
- Triple buffering in the graphics pipeline
- Enhanced accessibility
- Bi-directional text and other language support
- User-installable keyboard maps
- Expandable notifications
- Automatically re-sizable app widgets
- Bluetooth data transfer for Android Beam
- Offline voice dictation
- Improved voice search
- Improved camera app
- High resolution contact photos
- Google Now
- Multichannel audio
- USB Audio (for external sound DACs)
- Audio chaining (also known as gapless playback)
