Friday 26 July 2013

Google officially announces Android 4.3 Jellybean


Yes, it is true. All those who are fan of Google's Android OS have another occasion to celebrate.Google has officially announced the launch of Android 4.3 with some extra features which are sublime. The new OS is available for download through the Android Open Source Project. That covers those with a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 or Galaxy Nexus (GSM version-only), all of whom can find what they need to start the update process to Android 4.3 (still going by the Jelly Bean moniker).
Some additional and crunchy features are...

1) Support for restricted profiles

This feature is for users who have kids. Android has allowed you to have multiple users for some time now, but with this version you can finally have restricted profiles.According to Google, "Each restricted profile offers an isolated and secure space with its own local storage, home screens, widgets, and settings. Unlike with users, profiles are created from the tablet owner’s environment, based on the owner’s installed apps and system accounts. The owner controls which installed apps are enabled in the new profile, and access to the owner’s accounts is disabled by default."

2)Bluetooth Smart Ready Support

In Android 4.3, with application programming interface (API) support for Bluetooth Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) services, you can create Android apps that will support these devices. This represents a new and potentially very profitable market for Android developers and their Bluetooth hardware partners.

3)Notification Access

People love those notifications at the top of their Android display. I know I do. I'm constantly checking them. Until this new version of Android appeared developers couldn't access this data stream. Now they can. That is, if you, the user, allow them to.
What developers can do is register a notification listener service that, with your blessing, will receive all the data notifications when they're displayed in the status bar. Developers can then launch applications or services for a new class of "smart" apps.

Among few others new features/improvements in the update are a redesigned camera interface, Bluetooth Low Energy support, performance improvements such as smoother animations.
But another feature has been unearthed, a hidden app permissions manager that allows users to selectively disable certain permissions for apps.The feature is apparently called App Ops, and lets users toggle app permissions — such as location and the ability to post notifications — on and off for individual apps. Note that a developer has already created an app (available here on Google Play if you have Android 4.3 installed) that foregrounds App Ops, and has been having a play around with it.
The basic idea of the feature is apparently to give Android users more flexibility over what apps can and can’t do, allowing them to choke off battery draining features, say, or rein in irritating notification behaviour. If Google does decide to fully implement App Ops as a user-facing feature, there are potential big benefits here, from a security and privacy point of view, being as it could give users fine-grained control over what each app can do.

So ENJOY the new Android 4.3 Jellybean soon...

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