Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review
Only eight months have passed since I took a shufti at Ice Cream Sandwich, back then it was the new version 4.0 of the Android operating system for mobile devices. A few days ago, my Asus Google Nexus 7 tablet landed on the doormat. It's preinstalled with Jelly Bean, the ICS replacement and lends itself to poking with the …
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Bring on the Jelly
It was pushed to my Google Nexus handset last week, its a great improvement on all fronts. Only wish the speed up update was across the board as I am still waiting on ICS for my Galaxy Tab 10.1. Which sucks as the new version ships with it and its technically a poorer spec.
Widgets
What are the widgets in the screen shots? The curvy battery meter etc....?
Me like.
Re: Widgets
The battery meter is this...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.hubalek.android.reborn.beta&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsIm5ldC5odWJhbGVrLmFuZHJvaWQucmVib3JuLmJldGEiXQ..
and the WiFi widget is this....
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kman.WifiManager&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm9yZy5rbWFuLldpZmlNYW5hZ2VyIl0.
I heartily recommend both.
How about fixing loss of signal behavior?
How about fixing what happens when the phone loses cellular signal?
Right now, when the phone loses cellular signal, rather than shutting down the cellular radio for a period of time (like a minute or more), and then re-activating, looking for signal, and repeating as appropriate, the phone goes into the Yorkie separation-anxiety moment of "OMG NO SIGNAL NO SIGNAL HELLO TOWER HELLO TOWER OMG NO SIGNAL NO SIGNAL TOWER TOWER CAN YOU HEAR ME OMG" and burns the battery down to nothing in no time.
True, some of that behavior is in the radio system firmware, which is outside the Android framework - but Android can see the RSSI value, Android controls the power to the radio system, Android can say "OK, take a breath cellular system. We have no signal, the odds of that being fixed in the next 2 milliseconds is pretty low, chill and we'll check in a minute, OK? - Breath!"
Re: How about fixing loss of signal behavior?
this is in the 'it always works, dunnit??' class... the same as PC wifi... blissfully happy, until it all goes wrong.. another good use of android, to see whether some nutter has kicked the router, or messed up the PC...
yes, they managed to crash IE, and instead of phoning support, went all though the network settings, instead of restarting... :(
Apple really missed a trick in not patenting "smoothness". I'm sure they're kicking themselves.
I mean, they got a patent on "scroll bounce"!
Can you fucking believe that?
Am I the only one...
... who's disappointed that the British English "Siri" voice wasn't based on Peter Tuddenham's?
I've had mixed results with Siri. British English has a far greater variation in accents and dialects than is found in the US, so I suspect we'll see "Scottish English", "Welsh English", "Geordie English", etc. eventually. (Irish English accents might be covered by US English though; the Irish influence on most of the east coast American accents is very noticeable.)
Re: Am I the only one...
"I've had mixed results with Siri. British English has a far greater variation in accents and dialects than is found in the US"
Boggle.
You'd not been to:
the South
Wisconsin, donchanow
Texas
like, California, fur shur
San Francisco (they have their own accent)
Any Barrio area
(just for starters)
Yes, US TV would have you believe we all talk like Kansans, but seriously, we have as many incomprehensible accents as the UK does.
Don't Call me Mr. Fahrenheit
Still can't get google to respond to "What's the weather like" in anything other than the antequated American Fahrenheit scale, despite setting all things to English (UK). I have to specifically ask for the temperature in celsius to get a proper British response.
And asking and talking about the weather is a bloody British pass time!
Bit rubbish and really quite annoying.
Re: Don't Call me Mr. Fahrenheit
for things like that, the BBC weather site is much better...
Or set your search to use www.google.co.uk
Re: Don't Call me Mr. Fahrenheit
Or just pick your preferred units in settings.
Google now -> settings -> Google now -> weather -> units
Not difficult.
Lacking
Well it doesn't work on my Samsung nexus thing whatever. GPS does not work, can't answer the phone......
Re: Lacking
Um, you have realized if it is a nexus 7, that it is NOT a phone?? (or did you forget your sarcasm tag??)
What about the telly
Question, I'm about to take delivery of the nexus 7 and I want to mirror the screen to my telly (by one of those old fashioned wire things if needs be) I know there is no HDMI out socket but is there any other way of doing it (even if I have to crack the beast open and roll my own connector) ?
Android FINALLY catching up to iOS
No Flash plugin for the browser. LOL.
Re: Android FINALLY catching up to iOS
see my post in answer to AC 24th July 2012 13:21 ... who may just be lazy, or found the links dont work... :/
please try them, all the reviewers wont bother! It will be a few months until JB is out for 'old' handsets anyway.... :( :(
meanwhile, if you are a newb like me, and dont want to 'root' - then 'astro filemanager' gives you an easy way to back up your apps.. :)
Video
Hi illiad, sorry for the late reply.
JB ships with Chrome as the default browser so playing Flash video in the browser a non starter. Also the Flash player won't download onto the Nexus 7 from the Play Store. I have heard tell that if you root your Nexus 7, side load Flash player and use a third party browser you can play Flash video in-browser. I've not tried this so can't comment.
The YouTube app works as it does in previous versions of Android and HTML video plays in Chrome. All the video links you posted either played in Chrome or launched the YouTube app.
I didn't cover this in the article as I didn't consider it part of the story of what's changed from ICS to JB though I should perhaps have mentioned that Chrome has now replaced the old webkit browser as the default.
Hope this clarifies matters.
No need to root the nexus 7 for flash
a quick search will give you the xda-developers thread where you sideload flash 11.1.102.59 which will work with firefox beta on the market or for a less buggy experience sideload Dolphin 8.5.1
Voila - iPlayer on the nexus 7.
Al Taylor: thanks! :)
Great to hear from someone with brains (seriously)!! :)
Thats very interesting about those links... I guess it is too early to see what will happen, but there is some recent chatter about getting something working, beyond saying 'its wonderful' etc..
As I said elsewhere, we'll have to wait until after aug 15, to see what happens, and how many devices are nearly or fully bricked by desperate geeks, and how many just 'work'.. :P
thats the thing that gets me steamed, peeps talking about stuff before it is even 'put in the oven', never mind baked...
I think the worst example was the rip of the new 'hulk' movie in 2000, that was so bad, it was most likely copied straight from the studio's editing suite, unfinished!!!
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