We’ve been bringing you all the news regarding the Google I/O developer conference 2012 which kicks off in only a few more hours. Earlier today we gave you a roundup of what we expect to be announced later and now we want to look more in depth at just one of those aspects, Android Jelly Bean, and what details are envisaged.
We’ll start off with a recap of some of the leaked information we’ve had so far on Jelly Bean and one of the main details is that for some time it was referred to as Android 5.0 but it now seems as though it will be Android 4.1, suggesting a minor update. Other things we’ve heard about for Jelly Bean but not yet confirmed are that the Galaxy Nexus is likely to be the first phone to get the update. Another suggestion is that Google will now cut out manufacturers and carriers from software updates in the future and this would be great news for speeding up the process and there has also been talk of Majel, a voice recognition feature.
A useful article on Phone Arena gathers some more thoughts about Jelly Bean expectations. It’s thought for example that after the radical user interface overhaul with ICS the UI for Jelly Bean will stay much the same but possibly receive some subtle enhancements such as a home screen search bar. There’s also been talk of the default Android browser being replaced with Chrome but that doesn’t support Flash. However this does fits with Adobe once stating that Flash support for Android wouldn’t extend beyond ICS. This is certainly something that we’ll be keeping a close eye on.
More expectations include a built-in file manager for Jelly Bean getting round the need for some to download one from Google Play and something we confess we had no inkling of before is that Jelly Bean could be tablet-centric rather than aimed at phones. This seems to be based on the fact that that Galaxy Nexus 7 tablet running Jelly Bean looks set to be announced at I/O too but of course this doesn’t necessarily mean that Jelly Bean will be tablet-optimized. Finally Jelly Bean could feature an updated virtual keyboard. The Google I/O keynote takes place later today and if you want to follow developments then check out details of live streaming and world times here.
These are just some of the ideas being bandied about for Jelly Bean but there could be other features that come to fruition that we haven’t even thought of. What new additions are you hoping to see announced for Android Jelly Bean? Maybe you’d like to see unified messaging and further social network integration, or maybe a better range of stock apps? Perhaps you have a suggestion for something we haven’t mentioned here? Let us know with your comments.
