4.1 - 3/4 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jul

Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OTA (JRO03E) Now Available For The Nexus S i9020A [Download]

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

After owners of the Nexus S i9023 and i9020T got an official 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OTA last night, the update has become available for the Nexus S' i9020A variant as well.

Just like before, the update can be downloaded straight from Google's servers, though Google has indicated that the OTA should be rolling out to Nexus S phones on "a number of carriers," meaning the wait for an automatic update prompt shouldn't be long.

RT @googlenexus: We've started rolling out Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, to Nexus S phones on a number of carriers with more to come. Enjoy!...

Jul

ASUS Announces Its Jelly Bean Plans For Transformer Pad, Prime, And Infinity - Others Are Uncertain

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in ASUS, News

You might remember ASUS as the company that manufactured the overwhelmingly popular Nexus 7 tablet. Did you know that ASUS makes other tablets as well? It's true! Among them are the Transformer Pad, Transformer Pad Prime, and Transformer Pad Infinity. If you happen to own one of these tablets, then ASUS would like you to know that your slate is "scheduled to receive Android 4.1 updates in the coming months." Nice, huh?

Here's the full statement from ASUS:

Dear valued ASUS customer,

At ASUS, one of the key commitments we make to our customers is a relentless drive to deliver the best user experience.

Jul

CyanogenMod 10 Preview Builds Available For Galaxy S III On AT&T, T-Mobile, And Sprint

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Galaxy S III, News

CyanogenMod 10 is still cooking, and heck, CM9 isn't even fully baked for all devices yet. That hasn't stopped Steve Kondik, aka the guy who puts the Cyanogen in CyanogenMod, from posting preview builds of CM10 over on XDA for the AT&T and T-Mobile Galaxy S III variants. Plus, a third preview build being posted for the Sprint version by another developer. Keep in mind, of course, that "preview build" translates into "absolutely nothing is guaranteed to work." It is exciting, nonetheless.

The threads go out of their way to point out that CM10 isn't even close to being ready to ship and that just about everything that could go wrong probably will.

Jul

Google Posts Official Changelog For Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, News

Need some reading for the weekend? Google has you covered. To celebrate the shipping of the first batch of Nexus 7 pre-orders, Google has posted up the full, official, exhaustive changelog for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Covering everything from Accessibility to Widgets, the changelog delivers comprehensive explanations of each and every change users can expect to find in Android's latest iteration, as well as changes to Google apps and the "new Google experience on Android," including Google Search and Google Now.

While the raw changelog may not be quite as compelling (or nearly as visually rich) as Ron's Getting To Know Android series (which has three parts so far: part 1, 2, 3), it's still a great read for those wanting to explore each and every detail of Jelly Bean.

Jul

[Update: Now With yakju] How-To: Download And Update GSM Galaxy Nexus To Android 4.1.1 Manually (Jelly Bean JRO03C)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Galaxy Nexus, Google, Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Samsung, Tips & Tutorials

Following yesterday's Jelly Bean AOSP invasion, the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus is now receiving the release build 4.1.1 (JRO03C) of Jelly Bean. That's indeed great news, but since the rollout is usually staggered, not all phones are allowed to receive it the second it's out there. If you're rooted or have an unlocked bootloader, why not just bypass the line and flash the update manually? I just did, and it took only a few minutes.

Prerequisites

Update 7/11/12 4am PT: we now have yakju!

Here's what you need to have for this method to work (I will update the post if we figure out the links to OTAs for more variants):

takju - this is the GSM variant sold directly by Google and given out at I/O 2012.

Jul

[Download] Want The New Predictive Keyboard From Android 4.1 Jelly Bean? Get It Now On Any 4.0+ Device

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Development, Jelly Bean 4.1, News

So, you heard about Google's new predictive text engine in the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean keyboard, right? Now you can download that keyboard courtesy of Beansoft (developer of Thumb Keyboard), from the Play Store, free of charge. It's ported straight from AOSP, though it's currently in "alpha" state. The only catch is that you need to be running Android 4.0.3 or higher (Ice Cream Sandwich).

I've noticed the Android 4.1 keyboard also seems to have improved accuracy and speed (it looks ever so slightly different, too), so this is definitely worth a try. There's one more caveat here: the user dictionary doesn't work yet, and attempting to add a word to it will force close the keyboard.

Jul

[Weekend Poll] Are You Happy With The Improvements Made In Jelly Bean?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Jelly Bean 4.1, Polls

Last Updated: July 7th, 2012

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Do You Regularly Rent Moves Through Google Play?

Jelly Bean isn't a huge evolution of Android like previous updates have been, but that's understandable given just how polished the OS has become. Still, as the company showed us on day 1 of I/O, things certainly have moved forward in quite a few ways (Ron provided a deeper look at some of them in his first Getting To Know Android 4.1 post). Probably the 2 biggest changes: massive optimizations and tweaks to make things very fast and smooth, and the addition of Google Now.

Jun

Jelly Bean's Face Unlock Asks You To Blink For The Camera, Locks Out After Several Failed Attempts

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Jelly Bean 4.1, News

Face Unlock, a security feature introduced with Ice Cream Sandwich, while a fun concept, proved vulnerable to trickery. Specifically, the unlock method would recognize photos of your face as if they were your real face. Another issue with Face Unlock was that it ostensibly never locked users out after numerous failed attempts.

Looking to address these issues, Google did a bit of tweaking to Jelly Bean's Face Unlock. Namely, FU now features a "Liveness check" option which, as the name suggests, makes sure you're a real, live person before unlocking your device. It does this by asking the user to blink during facial recognition.

Jun

Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) ROMs Released For GSM And Verizon Galaxy Nexuses

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Nexus, Jelly Bean 4.1, News

Ah, the joys of owning a Nexus device. In what has to be some sort of record, Jelly Bean ROMs for the GSM and Verizon Galaxy Nexuses have been released and are ready to flash. And thanks to the Nexus being a dev device, getting the builds up and running is actually extremely simple.

For the GSM variant, just download the ROM, do a full wipe, and flash the ROM via Clockwork Mod Recovery. A root fix and updated radio can also be flashed via CWM. If you have the Verizon version, do a full wipe, flash the ROM, and flash SuperSU.

Jun

[Update] The Next Version Of Android Is Confirmed As 4.1 Jelly Bean, Will Be Coming To The HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus From Google Play First

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Google's let a bit of info slip a little early via the Play Store. When purchasing a Galaxy Nexus via the site, while checking out, the device is listed on your order as "Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ - The latest smartphone from Google, soon the first phone with Android 4.1 Jell..." This marks the first time the name Jelly Bean, and the version number 4.1 has been referenced publicly.

More interesting than that, however, is that the listing specifically says that the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus from the Play Store is "soon the first phone" running the new OS. While most major versions of Android are launched alongside flagship devices, this implies that 4.1 will not have it's own new Nexus phone.