Mar

Samsung: Galaxy S III, Probably Note II And Others Will Be Updated With Many S4 Features

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

According to PCMag (I apologize for the awful floating ads in advance), Samsung will be issuing a software update to the Galaxy S III that will incorporate many of the new Galaxy S4's features.

Nick DiCarlo, a Samsung VP, said "Anything that we can do that's not dependent on hardware like infrared, we'll definitely bring to all the flagship devices."

So, I take that to mean the Galaxy S III, Note II, and possibly a couple other devices that might support some of the features in the S4 - perhaps the Note 8.0 and Note 10.1. Considering Samsung has massively overhauled the camera app and added a handful of new S-features, a new Premium Upgrade Suite with Android 4.2 is likely to bring some of those S4 goodies to older hardware.

Feb

Getting To Know Android 4.2.2 - Many Extremely Tiny Changes, And An Android@Home Sighting!

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Android 4.2.2 is out, which means it's time for another edition of Getting To Know Android, the series where I impress/frighten everyone with my borderline-mental-disorder powers of observation. Fair warning: These are going to be very minor changes. If Google moved a pixel, you're going to hear about it.

We already covered the big stuff like the ADB whitelist, the new download notification, Quick Settings toggles, and sounds, so we'll skip those for this article.

As usual for GTKA, the old version, 4.2.1, is on the left, and the new version, 4.2.2, is on the right. This edition promises to be pretty screenshot-heavy, so I hope your internet connection is feeling up to it.

Feb

Google Posts Factory Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) Images For Nexus 4, 7, 10, And Galaxy Nexus (Yakju / Takju)

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy Nexus, Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 10, Nexus 4, Nexus 7

With the Android 4.2.2 update finally rolling out for most Nexus devices (minus Sprint / VZW GNex), Google has posted factory images of each on the Nexus Factory Image page. These images are useful for flashing your Nexus device back to stock, whether to get an OTA update, or fix that brick you just caused.

These images are for the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi and 3G), Nexus 10, and Galaxy Nexus (Yakju / Takju variants). If you want to see what's new in Android 4.2.2, check out our post detailing some of the changes. For a deeper dive, take a look at the developer changelog.

Feb

The Nexus 4 Finally Gets Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) As Well - Here Are Instructions For Installing It Manually

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 4

Good news, everyone! The Nexus 4 Android 4.2.2 OTA (JDQ39) is finally here, surprisingly late in the update cycle, following the Nexus 10 and older Nexus devices, such as both variants of the Nexus 7 and both variants of the Galaxy Nexus. Chances are you probably don't have the coveted update notification just yet, but who wants to wait if you can sideload it manually? Rooted, unrooted, stock or custom recovery - it matters not.

What's New?

To see what's new in Android 4.2.2, see New Android 4.2.2 Features: Toggle From Quick Settings, Better App Download Notifications, and Some New Sounds!

Feb

Here's The Android 4.2.2 JDQ39 Update For The Yakju GSM Galaxy Nexus [Manual Installation Instructions]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Nexus, Google, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

A few days ago, Google pushed out the Android 4.2.2 (build JDQ39) update to the takju variants of the Galaxy Nexus. Takju Nexuses are the devices sold in the Google Play Store, whereas yakju ones can be found in other retail channels. Good news for those waiting on the latter - though a day after its sibling, we finally have the yakju OTA file that can be applied manually on any stock device, including unrooted ones with stock recovery.

If you're not sure whether you have a takju or yakju variant, download Nexus Update Checker from the Play Store and see what it says.

Feb

Google Has Effectively Killed Adblock Plus In Android 4.2.2

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

A small change in Android 4.2.2 has left one of the biggest ad-blocking app on Android basically dead in the water. Adblock Plus is one of the web's most popular ad-blocking tools, and has been available for Android since November of last year. So, why has Google effectively killed it? Security issues.

Adblock Plus relies on the internet permission in Android to function, but it relies on a rather specific subset of that permission in order to work: the ability to automatically set a device's proxy server to 'localhost.' As is pointed out on a thread in the Android issues section of Google Code, this is a pretty serious security flaw.

Feb

[Download And Instructions] Get The Nexus 7 3G Android 4.2.2 Update (JDQ39) Right Now

Posted by David Ruddock in Device Updates, Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 7

If you're looking for the Android 4.2.2 update for the Nexus 7 3G, good news: we've got the link to download it from Google's servers (download). To get a sense of what's new in Android 4.2.2, check out our post on the new features here. And if you want an even deeper dive into the changes, you can check out the developer changelog here.

So, how do you go about flashing the Android 4.2.2 update to your Nexus 7 3G right now, instead of waiting for it to be pushed to your device over the air? Well, just keep reading, and you'll find out.

Feb

Weird: Google Changes The Nexus 7's Estimated Battery Life From 8 Hours To 10 - Android 4.2.2 The Reason? [Updated]

Posted by David Ruddock in Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 7

Last Updated: February 13th, 2013

So this is interesting, Google just updated the product page for every Nexus 7 model on the Play Store, and the change on every one is the same: estimated battery life. Previously, the Nexus 7 was listed as having "Up to 8 hours of active use," but now the figure has been revised to 10 hours - within a day's time of the release of the Android 4.2.2 update (manual update download here).

Update 2/13/13: Google just reverted all the Nexus 7 pages back to 8 hours. Why must you toy with our feelings like that?

We've been digging for new features and changes in Android 4.2.2 (see here, here, and here), but we've yet to see anything specific about improved battery life.

Feb

New Android 4.2.2 Features: Toggle From Quick Settings, Better App Download Notifications, and Some New Sounds!

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Last Updated: February 20th, 2013

Android 4.2.2 is out, and while an OCD-fueled 4.2.2 edition of Getting To Know Android is on the way, we figured it would be a good idea to highlight the big user facing changes that came with this release. We already covered the new ADB Whitelist and posted the raw developer changelog, so this should be the last of the important stuff.

New Download Notifications

First up is the new notification for in-progress app downloads, which now shows the percentage and an estimated time remaining for your app downloads while they are happening. Or, if you want to be technical about it:

Calculate speed of in-progress downloads and estimate time remaining
until completion. Uses a moving average that is weighted 1:1 with
the most recent 500ms sample. Funnels timing data to notifications
through DownloadHandler.

Feb

[Developer Changelog] Here's What's New In Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Galaxy Nexus, Jelly Bean 4.2, News, Nexus 10, Nexus 4, Nexus 7

Following yesterday's Android 4.2.2 OTAs to various Nexus devices, Google today followed up with the push of all 4.2.2 open source code changes to AOSP. There is a lot here to parse through this time around compared to the minor 4.2.1_r1.2 commit from 10 days ago.

We've already identified some obvious user-facing changes, which we'll post about separately soon to keep it clean and organized. The purpose of this post is, as before, to find the low-level changes that may not be obvious. So move the beard out of the way and dig in.

Update: Ron detailed some new things here: New Android 4.2.2 Features: Toggle From Quick Settings, Better App Download Notifications, and Some New Sounds!