Android 4.3, an even sweeter Jelly Bean, is available now on Nexus phones and tablets.
Restricted profiles limit access to apps and content, at home with your family and at work.
Bluetooth Smart support makes Android ready for a whole new class of mobile apps that
connect to fitness sensors. Games look great thanks to the 3D realistic, high performance
graphics powered by OpenGL ES 3.0.
And there's a lot more new in this release:
Audio
Virtual surround sound - enjoy movies from Google Play with surround sound on
Nexus 7 (2013 edition) and other Nexus
devices.
Surround sound is powered by Fraunhofer
Cingo™ mobile audio technology.
Dial pad
Autocomplete - just start touching numbers or letters and the dial pad will suggest
phone numbers or names. To turn on this feature, open your phone app settings and
enable “Dial pad autocomplete.”
Graphics
OpenGL ES 3.0 - Android now supports the latest version of the industry standard
for high performance graphics.
Wireless Display for Nexus 7 (2013 edition) and Nexus 10 - project from your tablet
to a TV.
Internationalization and localization
Additional language support - Android is now translated in Africaans, Amharic
(į įįį), Hindi (ą¤¹िंą¤¦ी), Swahili (Kiswahili), and Zulu (IsiZulu).
Hebrew, Arabic, and other RTL (right-to-left) - now supported in the home screen,
settings, and Phone, People, and Keep apps.
Keyboard & input
Easier text input - an improved algorithm for tap-typing recognition makes text
input easier.
Lower latency input for gamepad buttons and joysticks.
Location
Location detection through Wi-Fi - use Wi-Fi to detect location without turning on
Wi-Fi all the time.
Networking
Bluetooth Smart support (a.k.a. Bluetooth Low-Energy) - devices like Nexus 4 and
Nexus 7 (2013 edition) are now Bluetooth Smart
Ready.
Bluetooth AVRCP 1.3 support - display song names on a car stereo.
Settings
Disabled apps tab - check which apps are disabled in Settings > Apps.
System
Restricted profiles - put your tablet into a mode with limited access to apps and
content.
Setup wizard simplification - getting started on Android is easier thanks to the
ability to correct previous input, and because of streamlined user agreements.
Faster user switching - switching users from the lock screen is now faster.
Enhanced photo daydream - navigate through interesting albums.
Create restricted profiles that limit access to apps
Android 4.2, Jelly Bean
Android 4.2, Jelly Bean improves on the speed and simplicity of Android 4.1 and
includes all new features – Photo Sphere and a completely redesigned camera app, new
Gesture Typing keyboard, Google Now with all new cards, and much more.
Everything in Jelly Bean feels fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens
and switching between apps is effortless, like turning the pages of a book.
Jelly Bean improves performance throughout the system, including faster orientation
changes, quicker switching between recent apps, and smoother and more consistent
rendering across the system through vsync and triple buffering.
Jelly Bean has more reactive and uniform touch responses, and makes your Android
device even more responsive by boosting your device’s CPU instantly when you touch the
screen, and turns it down when you don’t need it to improve battery life.
Accessibility
New Triple tap to enter full screen magnification when you
enable 'Magnification gestures'.
New Enable ‘TalkBack’, a screenreader for Android, right
from the power menu.
With Jelly Bean, blind or low vision users can use 'Gesture Mode' to reliably
navigate the UI using touch and swipe gestures in combination with speech output.
With the new accessibility focus feature, you can move a cursor between controls
to maintain a target for the next action or a source for the next navigation event.
You can double tap anywhere to launch the current item with accessibility focus.
Text traversal in accessibility now gives you more control – choose to move
between pages, paragraphs, lines, words or characters.
TalkBack now supports gestures to trigger actions, to navigate applications, and
traverse text.
Android now offers full support for braille accessibility services (download
BrailleBack on Google Play).
Android Beam
With Android Beam, introduced in Android 4.1, you can easily share your photos
and videos via NFC.
Instantly pair your Android phone or tablet to Bluetooth® devices like headsets
or speakers that support the Simple Secure Pairing standard by just tapping them
together.
Audio Accessories
Support for USB audio docks.
Browser and WebView
Browser has improved performance, CPU and memory efficiency. With better
performance for animations and HTML5 canvases and an updated JavaScript Engine (V8),
pages load faster and feel smoother.
Browser now has better HTML5 video support, and has a new user experience. Just
touch the video to play and pause, and smoothly transition into and out of fullscreen
mode.
Browser now supports the updated HTML5 Media Capture specification on input
elements.
WebView now supports vertical text, including Ruby Text and other vertical text
glyphs.
Camera and
Gallery
New Android 4.2 features a completely redesigned camera
app with new tools for taking photos.
New High Dynamic Range or HDR mode (on supported devices)
lets you see more detail in your shots by widening the exposure range.
New A brand new photo editor features new filters,
borders, and other tools to easily customize your photos.
New With Photo Sphere you can take immersive 360Āŗ images
and wide angle shots that you can view and share on your phone, tablet or desktop
computer.
New Access camera straight from your phone’s lock screen.
To quickly review photos you’ve taken without leaving the camera app, you can
swipe from the camera viewfinder. To start snapping photos again, just swipe back to
the camera viewfinder.
When viewing photos in Gallery, pinch to zoom out to enter 'filmstrip mode' for
rapidly reviewing many pictures. In filmstrip mode you can swipe up or down to delete
a photo. You can undo a deletion with a tap.
When you tap to focus on an object there’s a new animation to show the focus
state.
Clock
New The clock has been totally redesigned with an all new
look which includes both a digital and analog clock style.
New You can use the new stopwatch to track time, count
laps and splits, and share your times.
New You can use the new timer to keep track of
predetermined periods of time, run multiple timers at once, and even label your
timers.
New The world clock lets you check the time in different
cities right from the Clock app or your lock screen.
New New clock widgets let you choose from an analog or
digital clock widget. You can also resize the digital clock widget to display the
time in other cities around the world.
Data Usage
You can now dismiss a data usage warning without changing the data warning
threshold.
To disable background data usage when your device is using a particular mobile
hotspot, you can designate that SSID as being mobile.
Android now automatically detects when one Jelly Bean device is tethered to
another’s Wi-Fi hotspot, and intelligently enables or disables background data usage
on that SSID.
Face Unlock
Face Unlock is now even faster and more accurate, with smoother startup and
animation.
You can improve face matching accuracy by calibrating in different conditions and
with different accessories (e.g. hat, glasses).
Face Unlock can now optionally require a blink to verify that a live person is
unlocking the device rather than a photo.
Graphics
New Platform level support for new wireless display
settings implemented on Nexus 4, including the ability to discover and connect to
Miracast™ compatible devices via Wi-Fi Direct.
New Full HDMI mirroring with notifications and
multi-display support.
Internationalization
New Android 4.2 brings improved font positioning, glyph
cache performance, and more accurate placement of accents in Indic, Hebrew, Arabic,
Thai and Latin font kerning.
New New fonts have been added including Roboto Thin and
Nanum Gothic for improved Korean font quality.
Jelly Bean adds support for bidirectional text and more input languages to make the
platform accessible to more people around the world.
There is improved support for Arabic and Hebrew, including a new Arabic font, in
the platform.
You can now enter text in 18 new input languages including Persian, Hindi and Thai.
Additional Indic languages Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam are now supported by the
platform.
Emoji from Unicode 6.0 are now supported.
If the system language is set to Japanese, Japanese specific versions of glyphs are
now properly rendered.
Keyboard
New Android 4.2 introduces an all new Gesture Keyboard
that lets you glide over letters to type a word while it dynamically predicts what
you want to type.
New French, English and Russian dictionaries are even more
accurate and relevant, while new dictionaries have been added in Danish, Greek,
Finnish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish and Turkish.
The language model in Jelly Bean adapts over time and the keyboard features
bigram prediction and correction.
You can now switch languages quickly with the dedicated language selector key on
keyboard.
You can use custom keyboard input styles for more than 20 languages, with keymaps
for QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, and PC styles.
You can choose the input styles that you want to use for each keyboard, and use a
hotkey to switch between them while typing.
Lock Screen
New Android 4.2 lets you place widgets on your device's
lock screen to give you faster access to your calendar, Gmail, SMS messages, and
even third party app widgets.
New Quickly launch Google Now by swiping up from the
bottom edge of your secure lock screen.
New Easily access camera straight from your phone’s lock
screen.
Messaging and
Talk
New Support for group messaging via MMS.
New notifications display the full text of incoming SMS messages and when you
receive an MMS you can view the full photo in the notification.
When entering recipients for an SMS or MMS a new UI collects recipients as chips,
making it easier to compose messages.
Talk features a new notification style.
Notifications
You can now take action on notifications directly from the notifications shade.
Notifications from the same application are grouped together, and the first item is
automatically expanded. You can also pinch notifications to expand or collapse them.
You now get an image preview in notifications after taking a screenshot. You can
quickly share the screenshot directly from the notification.
On 7” tablets you can lock automatic display rotation from the notifications shade.
For Wi-Fi only devices, quickly see the SSID of the access point you're connected
to from the notifications shade.
You can now touch-hold a notification to identify the application that created it
and turn off notifications from that application if needed, or uninstall the
application.
Networking
New Wi-Fi Direct support has been improved, so your device
can now remember other devices.
New Faster captive portal detection on Wi-Fi, cellular
connections, and pay-as-you-go SIMs.
Wi-Fi protected setup is now supported with WPS push button & PIN support.
A new setting lets you stay on mobile data and avoid nearby Wi-Fi networks with
poor connections.
News and
Weather
News and Weather has been enhanced to provide more frequent news updates whilst
reducing power consumption.
People
The People app is more buttery with smoother animations and improved search
performance.
The People app now retrieves high res photos automatically for Google contacts with
public Google+ profiles and displays higher res photos (720x720) on certain devices.
High res photos set on Google accounts will be backed up and synced across devices.
The People app has a new 7” tablet layout.
You can now quickly add your favorite contacts to a home screen, directly from the
contact's details page.
The People app helps you organize your contacts and reduces duplicates with an
Improved auto-joining algorithm.
You can now clear the frequently contacted list from the People app’s favorites
tab.
Phone
New Use the phone app in landscape orientation or while in a
car dock.
New With new filtering options you can quickly manage and
review your call log.
New Improved TalkBack support with a single tap dialpad.
When you miss a call, a new notification lets you return the call or reply by SMS.
Incoming visual voicemails are displayed in a new notification that lets you play
the message with a single touch.
During a call a new notification lets you hang up with one touch.
As part of Project Butter, the dial pad is more responsive. Call log scrolling is
smoother, and swiping between tabs in Phone is quick and fluid.
You can clear your frequently contacted list in the favorite tab of Phone.
You can now add phone numbers from the call log to existing, read-only contacts.
Settings
New Access Settings by tapping the Quick Settings icon in
the notification shade, or swipe down from the top right on tablets or with two
fingers on phones to access settings.
New Now quickly toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with a long press
in Quick Settings.
Accounts are now displayed in the primary Settings view so you can easily see all
the accounts you're signed into on your device.
You can now easily access all Google Privacy Settings in one place by selecting
your Google account from Settings.
System
New New 10-inch tablet UI which lets you quickly access
your favorite apps from any homescreen and gives improved access to your
notifications.
New New multi-user support for tablets lets different
users have their own separate, customizable spaces on a single device.
New Tablets can now support up to eight users. Three users
can be active at a time, and they can all sync data like email at the same time and
even reuse apps if another user has them installed.
New A new display mode ‘Daydream’ allows apps to display
interactive screensavers - like a photo album or a Currents stream when your tablet
or phone isn’t being used.
New App permissions are now clearer and more intuitive.
New Android 4.2 introduces a new app verification service
(for devices that have Google Play installed) that provides enhanced security along
with always-on VPN.
New You'll now receive a warning before an app tries to
send SMS messages that may cost you money.
New Improved security for devices with debugging enabled -
you can enable debugging for each new debugging client.
Device encryption is now more reliable, and periodically reminds you to decrypt
your device. SMS messages and calls are now declined when waiting for decryption.
You can long press the ‘Power Off’ option in the power menu to boot your device
to safe mode.
A new ‘Reset app preferences’ button lets you quickly manage default applications
for specific activities, background data restrictions, notification suppression, and
more.
A redesigned dialog with larger icons lets you intuitively choose your preferred
application for specific activities.
Google Apps Device Policy on your device may now override the ‘keep screen
awake’ option from developer settings.
Text-to-speech
Jelly Bean introduces a new conversational text-to-speech voice in US English,
available as both a network engine and an embedded engine via the TTS API.
Voice Typing
A new embedded speech recognizer lets you use Voice Typing even when you don't
have an Internet connection.
Widgets
Jelly Bean makes it easier to personalize your home screen. As you place widgets on
the screen, everything else automatically moves to make room.
When they're too big, widgets resize on their own. If you choose to resize a
widget, apps and widgets will now also move out of the way.
You can now quickly remove apps or widgets from any home screen by picking them up
and flinging them to the edge of the screen.
Launching apps and returning back home are now faster and smoother.
The new Google experience on Android
Google Search
New Voice Search lets you launch apps, add meetings to your
calendar or even find out when your next appointment is.
With Jelly Bean, a redesigned experience uses the power of the Knowledge Graph to
show you search results in a richer way. It's easier to quickly get precise answers to
search queries and explore and browse search results.
Get to Google Search faster: Google Search can be opened directly from the lock
screen by swiping up. For devices with software navigation keys, you can now swipe up
from the system bar to quickly access Google Search with Google Now. For devices with a
hardware search key, you can tap it to launch Google Search.
If you're using a wired headset, long press the headset's button to activate Voice
Search. You can quickly perform a search query by voice and have the result read back
to you.
You can say "Google" to activate Voice Search from within Google Search.
For many search queries performed through Voice Search, you can now hear a spoken
answer.
Voice Search recognition is now significantly faster so you can search quickly on
the fly.
Voice Search can now recognize queries even when you have a poor network
connection.
Google Now
Google Now brings you just the right information at just the right time, helping you
manage your day, stay connected and be a local anywhere. And the best part? All of this
happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.
Learn more.
NewHotel card: Get one-touch navigation to
your hotel when you arrive in a new city.
NewRestaurant reservation card: Be
reminded to leave for the restaurant based on live traffic information.
NewEvent card: Get reminders about events
you purchased a ticket for.
NewPackage card: See when your online
orders ship.
NewNext appointment card: When you have an
appointment, Google Now checks traffic so you can know how long it'll take to get
there. You even get a notification for when you should leave.
NewMovies card: See showtimes and ratings
for what's playing when you're near a theater. Also be notified when a movie you're
interested in arrives at theaters.
NewConcerts card: See when your favorite
artists have concerts at nearby venues.
NewStocks card: Get real-time information
about stocks you track.
NewPublic alerts card: Receive emergency
messages such as storm warnings and earthquake alerts.
NewDeveloping story & breaking news
card: See breaking news and other developing stories that match your
interests.
NewNearby attractions card: See what
nearby attractions are popular to visit.
NewNearby photo spots card: Learn of
popular photo spots nearby.
NewTime at home card: When you're in a
different time zone, Google Now shows you the time at home so you never feel too far
away.
Flight card: Get real-time flight status and traffic information to
the airport.
Weather card: When you start your day, Google Now shows weather for
your current location and work.
Traffic card: Get traffic conditions and alternate routes before you
leave home or work.
Sports card: You can see live scores and upcoming games and also buy
game tickets on the fly.
Transit card: When you’re near a bus stop or a subway station, this
card shows you what buses or trains are next.
Places card: When you’re on the go, Google Now will suggest nearby
bars, restaurants, and places of interest.
Currency card: When you're traveling, quickly check the local
conversion rate.
Translation card: When you're in a foreign country, you can quickly
translate words into the local language.
Google Apps
Calendar
New Calendar can now be displayed as a widget on phone and
tablet lock screens.
New Calendar now auto completes when entering event titles.
New New Google Feedback integration lets you give Google
feedback and improve Calendar.
Calendar is more buttery. Content fades in, animations are sprinkled throughout,
and swiping/paging between days is smoother.
Calendar will now display event colors if you've assigned your event a color.
The 'Today' button on the action bar now shows the current day.
When viewing an event’s details you can now email all the guests with a single tap.
Notifications for upcoming events now display more of the event description to let
you quickly see relevant details without having to open the app.
Notifications for upcoming events now let you email all the guests without opening
the app, and you can choose a quick response such as "Be there in 10 minutes" or type
your own.
A new option in Calendar settings lets you create your own default quick responses
for emailing guests.
You can now snooze an upcoming event reminder right from the notification.
Calendar has a new 7” tablet layout.
When viewing Calendar in portrait orientation on tablets, you can hide or expand
controls to give you complete control over how you view your Calendar space.
Calendar will now remember whether you've chosen to hide or expand controls so you
have a consistent experience viewing Calendar whenever you open it.
Gmail
New Gmail now auto-fits messages to your screen and lets
you pinch-to-zoom, so emails are easier than ever to read.
New You can now swipe to archive or delete emails when
viewing your Gmail inbox.
New When composing a message, you can attach videos right
from Gmail.
New When you receive an email with photos attached, Gmail
gives you larger photo previews and a gallery view so you can enjoy the photos more
quickly and easily.
Gmail has an optimized view for 7" tablets in portrait orientation to give you a
better experience reading email.
Gmail and Email feature updated notifications will give you a preview and digest
of your inbox. Notifications will also now display the full text of new mail.
Maps
New Upload your Photo Spheres to Google Maps directly from
your phone, so others can experience them on their desktop.
With support for offline maps, you can select an area to cache and later access
it even when you don’t have a data connection.
Compass Mode for indoor views and street view is more accurate and responsive
with gyroscope support.
With Zagat ratings and reviews built in to Maps, you can quickly get the
information you need about places you search for.
You can now browse Google Offers within Maps to find local deals.
Get indoor walking directions in Maps.
Google+
New You can share Photo Spheres with your circles or
publicly, and anyone you share with can experience them on Google+ on their desktop.
New Photo Spheres are now also saved in Instant Upload.
As you swipe through the stream, large bold photos now fall into place with
animations giving you a more interactive browsing experience.
Google+ on tablets features a new magazines layout in the stream.
You can now create and manage Google+ Events right from your device. Posts and
photos are saved to the event so you can relive it at any time.
Party Mode lets you instantly upload and share photos during an Event so you
capture all the right moments in one place.
New notifications let you +1, comment, or reshare without having to open the
Google+ app.
You can now see live video streams of all participants in a Hangout.
A new navigation menu lets you easily navigate through the app and quickly see
Google+ notifications.
When viewing a post you can now swipe to expand and view comments.
YouTube
YouTube has a new, more intuitive user interface, including a guide that provides
quick access to your channel subscriptions.
YouTube can now preload videos from subscribed channels for seamless playback
even on slower networks.
With a new integrated menu, you can easily watch YouTube on the big screen with
Nexus Q or YouTube TV.
Currents
With performance enhancements throughout the application and updates to the user
interface, you can browse articles quickly and intuitively.
An enhanced layout engine for articles lets you enjoy dramatic, large images on a
variety of articles.
Currents now uses hardware acceleration to make moving between articles smoother.
Currents has a new 7” tablet layout.
For editions written in other languages you can now translate text into your
preferred language.
Chrome
New Chrome is the standard browser on Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and
Nexus 10.
As a part of Project Butter, Chrome is optimized for fluid and responsive
interaction with web content.
To get you started a new product tour guides you through Chrome’s features.
Quickly change tabs by dragging your thumb from the edges of the screen.
Chrome has a new look and feel for the 'Other Devices' page.
Chrome has simplified application-level settings which are more consistent with the
rest of the platform.
Google Play
A new set of recommendations widgets use a variety of signals — content that people
with similar tastes have purchased, stuff that's popular around where you live, content
people in your Google+ circles have +1'ed, and more — to recommend new content like
apps, games, music, and movies.
A new My Library widget, which displays all of your recent movies, books, music,
and magazines and dynamically changes based on what you've been engaging with recently.
Smart App Updates ensure that only the parts of an application that have changed
will be downloaded when you next update it, saving time, bandwidth, and battery.
App encryption for paid apps.
Google
Play Books
Embedded audio tracks and videos can now be easily streamed directly within the
book you're reading.
You can now add bookmarks to remember important information for later or pick up
where you left off reading.
Play Books now offers fixed layout books, with optimized for tablet-reading of
books like children’s books and comic books which have specifcially designed graphics
and layouts.
For visually impaired users automatic text-to-speech settings have been enabled.
Google Play Movies and TV Shows
New You can now buy Movies and TV Shows and access your
library from Google TV.
Movies and TV shows can be quickly downloaded for viewing offline, now with just
one tap.
When you make a new purchase from Google Play that item will be synced directly
to the Play Movies & TV Shows app ready for you to watch when you open the app.
You can zoom in during video playback.
Google
Play Music
New You can discover new music in Google Play by touching
'explore similar artists' and swiping between artists to instantly listen to
previews of their music.
A new Sound Search widget lets you identify songs you hear and gives the option
to purchase them directly from Google Play.
The Google Play Music widget now lets you thumbs up songs as they are playing and
features a new design for better readability.
Playlist art is automatically created based on the album art of songs in that
playlist.
In the now playing bar you can swipe between screens.
The Recent screen features larger album art.
You can delete tracks within the app.
There is a Now Playing queue of tracks.
There is an integrated media routing menu for listening to tracks on Nexus Q,
Bluetooth audio devices and headsets.
You can set a song as your ringtone from Play Music, and the new ringtone editor
lets you crop that ringtone to the exact section of the track you’d like to use.
So now we can start to look forward to the Android 4.4 KitKat release date. But when? We'll take a guess at late October or early November 2013 for now - which is when we were previously expecting to see Android 5.0 break cover.
Cut to the chase What is it? A minor upgrade for Android, to follow on from Android 4.3 Jelly Bean When is it out? The rumors say October 14, 15 or 31 What will it cost? Nothing, it'll be a free upgrade
A release date tipped to Ausdroid - and one which the site says it's taking with a large grain of salt - is October 14.
Writing on his Google+ page on 3 October, Artem Russakovskii of Android Police said that the Android 4.4 release date is actually October 31, a date that was set some time in early September.
"Dates do change, and my information is about a month old, so if KitKat or the Nexus are delayed, Google may not hit the October 31 date," wrote Russakovskii. "I really don't see them finishing everything early, so I wouldn't bet on anything earlier than that date."
Russakovskii added that this date fits with a rumoured October 14 TA (Technical Acceptance) date for the next Nexus, which had been earlier misinterpreted by the media as the release date.
Android 4.3 came with a few minor upgrades including better multi-user customisation, support for Bluetooth smart technology and an updated keyboard. As a minor release, Android 4.3 didn't even get its own desert-themed name, sharing the Jelly Bean moniker with Android 4.1 and 4.2.
So with a brand new code name, we can expect Android 4.4 to bring some bigger changes, but all Google is saying at this stage is: "It's our goal with Android KitKat to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody."
We also learned from Android Central back in February 2013 that Google is working with the Linux 3.8 kernel. One improvement that this kernel brings is lowered RAM usage, which fits with Google's goal of bringing Android to more devices.
The source who tipped Ausdroid with the October 14 release date also leaked some supposed details of the new OS, confirming that it would be available for "older phones", adding that it would also bring gallery visualization tweaks, new animation APIs, new notification widgets and the ability to change the Android default blue to other colors.
Leaked screenshots sent to 9to5Google, as well as other sites, show what might be a sneak peak at the Android 4.4 phone and messaging apps. The screenshots show a cleaner design and a lighter colour, plus a status bar that changes colour according to the colour scheme selected.
Are these KitKat's phone and messaging apps? [Image credit: 9to5Google]
However, Android Police appears to have received the same screenshots, and having taken a close look at them, it reckons that they're actually either full-screen mockups or a custom ROM.
An image that Android Police is more positive about is one of a Korean keyboard that was posted to Google Play. In a small change, that shot shows that the status bar icons have changed from blue to gray. Thoseimages on Google Play have since been replaced with Jelly Bean screenshots.
A screenshot unearthed by Myce suggests that Android 4.4 may indeed come with themes as the icons in the notification area for the image that the site found on the Chromium bug tracker (shown below) are blue. Myce adds: "we found references to theming in the log file but are unsure if it will really become a feature." Android Community reckons the screenshot was taken on a Nexus 4 running KitKat.
Does the change in icon colors signal Android themes ahead?
Another set of snaps claiming to show Android 4.4 running on a Nexus 4 reveal that the KitKat update could sport a re-designed settings menu complete with a print function, plus new photo editing tools in the gallery.
How would you like your print? (credit: Android Authority)
"In fact, the Messaging app is gone and is fully replaced by Hangouts, at least on the Nexus device that was being tested. It should be able to handle MMS as well," he wrote.
Shown off in a 38 second advert, the new Nexus handset looks to be equipped with a large camera and a matte black finish, carrying an LG logo on the back.
Google has since taken the video down, leading to further speculation that it did indeed reveal the Nexus 5.
An Android 4.4 powered Nexus 5 supposedly raised its head again on 16 September where it was seen flaunting its stuff in a bar. 9to5Google posted photos and video of what might be the new Nexus, apparently left there plugged in and unsupervised by a Google employee so that an eagle-eyed bar worker was able to snap some photos and shoot a video.
Google's showing no signs of slowing its pace of Android development, with Android 4.0 appearing on the Galaxy Nexus late in 2011, followed by the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release that arrived powering the super Nexus 7 in July of 2012.
Two
more flavors of Jelly Bean were to follow: Android 4.2 was released on
13 November 2012, and then Android 4.3 arrived on 24 July 2013.
Throughout
the Jelly Bean reign, we've been gathering rumors of the next major
Android update, Android 5.0. The word was that this release was being
developed under the dessert-related codename of Key Lime Pie but then on
3 September 2013, Google announced that Android 4.4 KitKat would precede Android 5, so the Key Lime Pie name looks to have been ditched.
We're
still expecting an Android 5 release, of course, but with different
features, a new code name and a later release date than we were
originally anticipating.
The dessert-themed moniker that we assume
will begin with L is anyone's guess at this stage. Android 5.0 Lemon
Cheesecake or Android 5.0 Lemon Meringue Pie, anyone?
As we wait
on official news of that code name, as well as the Android 5.0 release
date and features, we can start to pull together the latest rumors from
around the web.
Android 5.0 release date
Until Android 4.4
was announced we had expected the Android 5.0 release date to be some
time in October 2013. We now expect to see Android 4.4 KitKat
launch during that month. In the face of that point release, we think
it's now likely that we'll see Android 5.0 shown in mid-2014, quite
possibly at Google IO, Google's annual two-day developer conference in
San Francisco.
That's a year on from when we had originally expected to see Android 5.0, which was at Google IO 2013, which took place from May 15 to May 17 2013. Given that Google announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at 2012's IO conference, it seemed reasonable to expect to see Android 5.0 at the 2013 event.
But
on 13 May 2013, we got our confirmation that there would be no serving
of Android 5 at Google IO from Sundar Pichai, Google's new head of
Android. Pichai told Wired
that 2013's IO is "not a time when we have much in the way of launches
of new products or a new operating system". Boo! "Both on Android and
Chrome, we're going to focus this IO on all the kinds of things we're
doing for developers so that they can write better things," he added.
Android 5.0 phones
Rumors of a new Nexus handset started trickling in during the third quarter of 2012, as we reported on 1 October 2012. There was talk that this phone would be sporting Android 5.0 but the handset, which turned out to be the Google Nexus 4, arrived running Android Jelly Bean.
While the Nexus 4 didn't appear with Android 5.0, speculation that we reported on 21 January 2013 suggested that the Motorola X
was the Android 5.0-toting handset that would be revealed at Google IO.
The Moto X wasn't on show at IO and instead appeared in August 2013,
running Android 4.2.2.
We also heard whispers that a new Nexus phone, most likely the Google Nexus 5, might be blessed with Android 5.0 and on 18 March 2013, supposed images of the Nexus 5 surfaced,
with the handset apparently being manufactured by LG. If the
accompanying specs, leaked along with the photo by the anonymous source,
are true, then the Nexus 5 will feature a 5.2-inch, 1920 x 1080 OLED
display, 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 3GB of RAM.
The latest speculation, which we reported on 13 September 2013, suggests that the Nexus 5 will now arrive sporting Android 4.4 KitKat. Androids out in force at Google IO 2012If rumors that we covered on 30 May
are correct, then HTC will be bringing us an Android 5.0-powered
'phablet' in the form of the HTC T6 (now looking as though it'll launch
as the HTC One Max).
Featuring a 5.9-inch full-HD screen, the One Max will be squaring up against the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which broke cover at IFA 2013. According to tipster evleaks, the One Max will feature a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800
processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. With a rumored
release date of the end of 2013, though, it's going to arrive too early
to come with Android 5.0 out of the box.
Android 5.0 tablets
The original Nexus 7 tablet was unveiled at Google IO 2012, so we thought it possible that we'd see a refreshed Nexus 7 2 at Google IO 2013. The speculation earlier in the year was that Google would team up with Asus for this, as it did with the original Nexus 7. We expected an upgraded display on the new Nexus 7 tablet, while Digitimes reported that the 2nd generation Nexus 7 would have 3G service and range in price from $149 to $199.
The new Nexus 7
was a no-show at IO, but the Asus-built device was later launched by
Google on 24 July 2013, albeit running Android 4.3 rather than 5.
Samsung's Android 5.0 upgrades
Although Samsung is yet to officially confirm its Android 5.0 schedule, a SamMobile source is claiming to know which phones and tablets will be getting the upgrade. According to the source, the devices set to receive the upgrade are the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy Note 8.0 and Galaxy Note 10.1.
Do note that this claim was made before Google announced Android 4.4,
so if it was ever correct, it's probably a lot less correct now. As you'd expect, the S4 will be getting an Android update, but to which version?
Android 5.0 features
For 24 hours, it seemed as though the first kinda, sorta confirmed feature for Android 5.0 was a Google Now widget, which briefly appeared in a screenshot on the company's support forum
before being taken down. As it was so hurriedly pulled, many people
assumed it was slated for the big five-o and accidentally revealed
early.
As it happened, the following day, on 13 February 2013, the Google Now widget rolled out to Jelly Bean.
On 28 February 2013, we learned from Android Central
that Google is working with the Linux 3.8 kernel, which gave rise to
the notion that this kernel might power Android 5. One improvement that
the 3.8 kernel brings is lowered RAM usage, which would mean a snappier
phone with better multitasking.
On 13 June 2013, VR-Zone also claimed that Android 5.0 will be optimised to run on devices with as little as 512MB of RAM.
We're
now expecting that Linux 3.8 kernel to show up in Android 4.4, given
that Google's stated aim with KitKat is "to make an amazing Android
experience available for everybody". Android Geeks reported that Google Babble
would debut on Android 5.0. Babble was the code name for Google's
cross-platform service and app with the aim of unifying its various chat
services which include Talk, Hangout, Voice, Messenger, Chat for Google
Drive and Chat on Google+.
A screenshot that we were sent from a Google employee on 8 April
confirmed that not only was this unified chat service on the way, but
that it was called Google Babel not Babble. The service was to come with
a bunch of new emoticons and Google+ built-in so you can jump from
Babel chat to hangout. A leaked Google memo on 10 April provided a few more juicy details including talk of a new UI and synced conversations between mobile and desktop. We've been fishing for info on BabelOn 10 May, we discovered that Babel would launch as Google Hangouts, and on 15 May we saw it come to life for devices running Android 2.3 and up. So much for it debuting on Android 5.
Following an 18 April tear-down of the Google Glass app MyGlass by Android Police, it looked as though there may be an iOS Games Center-like service coming to Android 5.0. Android Police found
references in the code to functionality that doesn't exist in Glass,
which suggested that developers accidentally shipped the full suite of
Google Play Services with the Android application package.
The
files in the package contained references to real-time and turn-based
multiplayer, in-game chat, achievements, leaderboards, invitations and
game lobbies.
As expected, we found out more about Google Play Games at Google I/O, but it's not an Android 5.0 feature after all as it has been made available already.
Android 5.0 interface
While
this is pure speculation, we're wondering whether Android 5.0 might
bring with it a brighter interface, moving away from the Holo Dark theme that came with Android 4.0.
Google Now brought with it a clearer look with cleaner fonts, and screenshots of Google Play 4.0 show Google's app market taking on similar design cues. Is this a hint at a brighter, airier look for Key Lime Pie? Google Play is lightening up [image credit: DroidLife]On
6 August 2013, we learned that Google had applied to patent a rather
cool piece of functionality whereby an Android user would be able to launch different apps by drawing different patterns on the lock screen.
If
this feature makes it into Android 5, we could be able to launch the
camera app by drawing one pattern and Twitter by drawing another.
Our Android 5.0 wishlist
While
we wait on more Key Lime Pie features to be revealed and scour the web
for more Android 5.0 news, TechRadar writer Gary Cutlack has been
thinking about what we want to see in Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie.
Hopefully the new mobile OS will feature some of these things...
1. Performance Profiles
It's
bit of a fuss managing your mobile before bed time. Switching off the
sound, turning off data, activating airplane mode and so on, so what
Android 5.0 really needs is a simple way of managing performance, and
therefore power use, automatically.
We've been given a taste of this with Blocking Mode in Samsung's Jelly Bean update on the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Note 2 but we'd like to see the functionality expanded.
Something
like a Gaming mode for max power delivery, an Overnight low-power state
for slumbering on minimal power and maybe a Reading mode for no
bothersome data connections and a super-low backlight.
Some
hardware makers put their own little automated tools in, such as the
excellent Smart Actions found within Motorola's RAZR interface, but it'd
be great to see Google give us a simple way to manage states.
Another little power strip style widget for phone performance profiles would be an easy way to do it. Set telephone to BEDTIME SLEEPY MODE
2. Better multiple device support
Google
already does quite a good job of supporting serious Android nerds who
own several phones and tablets, but there are some holes in its coverage
that are rather frustrating.
Take the Videos app which manages
your film downloads through the Play Store. Start watching a film on one
Android device and you're limited to resuming your film session on that
same unit, making it impossible to switch from phone to tablet
mid-film.
You can switch between phone and web site players to
resume watching, but surely Google ought to understand its fans often
have a couple of phones and tabs on the go and fix this for Android Key
Lime Pie?
3. Enhanced social network support
Android
doesn't really do much for social network users out of the box, with
most of the fancy social widgets and features coming from the hardware
makers through their own custom skins.
Sony integrates Facebook
brilliantly in its phones, and even LG makes a great social network
aggregator widget that incorporates Facebook and Twitter - so why are
there no cool aggregator apps as part of the standard Android setup?
Yes,
Google does a great job of pushing Google+, but, no offence, there are
many other more widely used networks that ought to be a little better
"baked in" to Android.
4. Line-drawing keyboard options
Another
area where the manufacturers have taken a big leap ahead of Google is
in integrating clever alternate text entry options in their keyboards.
HTC and Sony both offer their own takes on the Swype style of
line-drawing text input, which is a nice option to have for getting your
words onto a telephone. Get it into Android 5.0 and give us the choice.
UPDATE: Google heard us and this feature appeared in Android 4.2. P-U-T T-H-I-S I-N A-N-D-R-O-I-D 5-.-0
5. A video chat app
How
odd is it that Google's put a front-facing camera on the Nexus 7 and
most hardware manufacturers do the same on their phones and tablets, yet
most ship without any form of common video chat app?
You have to
download Skype and hope it works, or find some other downloadable app
solution. Why isn't there a Google Live See My Face Chat app of some
sort as part of Android? Is it because we're too ugly? Is that what
you're saying, Google?
6. Multi-select in the contacts
The
Android contacts section is pretty useful, but it could be managed a
little better. What if you have the idea of emailing or texting a
handful of your friends? The way that's currently done is by emailing
one, then adding the rest individually. Some sort of checkbox system
that let users scroll through names and create a mailing list on the fly
through the contacts listing in Android Key Lime Pie would make this
much easier. Make this a destination, rather than a never-used list
7. Cross-device SMS sync
If
you're a constant SIM swapper with more than one phone on the go,
chances are you've lost track of your text messages at some point.
Google stores these on the phone rather than the SIM card, so it'd be
nice if our texts could be either backed up to the SIM, the SD card, or
beamed up to the magical invisible cloud of data, for easy and
consistent access across multiple devices.
8. A "Never Update" option
This
would annoy developers so is unlikely to happen, but it'd be nice if we
could refuse app updates permanently in Android 5.0, just in case we'd
rather stick with a current version of a tool than be forced to upgrade.
Sure, you can set apps to manual update and then just ignore the
update prompt forever, but it'd be nice to know we can keep a favoured
version of an app without accidentally updating it. Some of us are still
using the beta Times app, for example, which has given free access for a
year. Let us keep older versions. Many people fear change
9. App preview/freebie codes
Something
Apple's been doing for ages and ages is using a promo code system to
distribute free or review versions of apps. It even makes doing little
competitions to drum up publicity for apps much easier, so why's there
no similar scheme for Android?
It might encourage developers to
stop going down the ad-covered/freemium route if they could charge for
an app but still give it away to friends and fans through a promo code
system.
10. Final whinges and requests...
It's be nice
to be able to sort the Settings screen by alphabetical order, too, or by
most commonly used or personal preference, as Android's so packed with a
huge list of options these days it's a big old list to scroll through
and pick out what you need.
Plus could we have a percentage count
for the battery in the Notifications bar for Android 5.0? Just so we
know a bit more info than the vague emptying battery icon.
Android 4.3, an even sweeter Jelly Bean, is available now on 
Accessibility
Browser and WebView
Camera and
Gallery
Messaging and
Talk
News and
Weather
People
Phone
Settings
System
Widgets
Calendar
Gmail
Maps
Google+
YouTube
Currents
Chrome
Google
Play Books
Google Play Movies and TV Shows
Google
Play Music
Android 4.4 KitKat has been unwrapped
