A wonderful dev has created a rather nice looking app to handle of that for you. Now it’s not much of a review but it ticks all the right boxes, It looks nice had nice functionality including upload and camera sync!

So if you don’t have a 50GB Dropbox account, this will do the same job. More or less.

Head over to the Play Store and grab it.

Feature List

- Browse your MEGA storage account
- Upload and download files to your Android device
- Camera Sync, upload your photos and videos to MEGA automatically
- Search for files within your MEGA account
- Share and download MEGA links
- Delete files
- Rename files
- Move files
- Create folders
- All within a modern Android interface…

Remember Carbon for Android? I don’t blame you if you don’t its been a while and it started to turn into vaporware but huzzah! It has finally been released after months of waiting and a recent sneak preview it has hit Google Play for your enjoyment.

Its has a wonderfully smooth UI and destroys the official Twitter client in just about every way.

Go give it a whirl and expect to see our opinion soon.

Carbon for Twitter – Google Play

Then look a bit harder! Our friends over at Android Authority are giving away a Nexus 4 for reaching 100,000 Subscribers on YouTube, That is quite a milestone.

Head over to be in for a chance to win but be quite about it!

Nexus 4 Give Away – Android Authority

It can be in your hands in around 2 weeks, Not bad in my opinion. I waited 45 days for mine and then had to replace it due to a fault.

I’m sure your experience will be more successful than mine!

The bumper is still out of stock however as is the 32GB Nexus 10.

After the success of Temple Run with over 50 million downloads on Google Play never mind the hits original run on iOS, Imangi Studios have released their eagerly awaited sequel Temple Run 2!

Now I have only have a short play at this game before posting but it has a few changes from the first instalment, with new achievements, new obstacles, different power-ups and a completely new world.

The play style is very much the same with a few differences, we now have different power-ups that can be equipped as well as character specific enhancements. A bit more time and effort has been put into the look of the world as well, no longer playing just straight but curving as well.

With new graphics, new world and some great enhancements, I recommend you download it now and find out if you will be addicted to it just like the first one.

Temple Run 2

In October 2011, Google launched Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) which completely transformed Android from an ugly iOS cousin into an OS that had distinctive identity. As Matias himself explained on the stage, “We wanted to break away from the past”. He laid out pretty aspirational goals “Enchant Me”, “Simplify my life”, “Make me awesome”.

Indeed 4.0 was enchanting but there are things in 4.0/4.1/4.2 that can be better and make Android “Simple” & “ Awesome”. Matias also mentioned “4.0 is just the first step towards these aspirational goals”. So it is right to assume that engineers would be hard at work in Google towards achieving the same, possibly for Google IO 2013 reveal.

Till then I want you to see my design concepts for making Android “Simple” and “Awesome”.

Simplify my life- This is one aspect of Android which always bothers naive users outside the geek circle. It starts right with home screen, Shortcuts, Widgets etc. I have talked and observed naive users using stock android & other skins but there has been 1 consistent behavior. Rarely anybody uses more than 1 screen or at max 2 to put app shortcuts on the home screens. Everybody uses App launcher.

Further, Most naive users rarely use widgets. They tend to use already configured out of the box widgets and even then don’t know how to remove them. Story is even more cumbersome for carrier branded phones which are overloaded with unwanted widgets & app shortcuts. The whole experience is too complex. Its a lot to chew for them.

My solution is simple to overcome both these problems. There should be 3 main components to the home experience. Home, AppBoard, WidgetBoard.

1. Home: There should be 1 home screen with non removable widget, which I will be visiting later in the post accompanied by 4 shortcuts of the most used app/Folders & a permanent Dock.

2. AppBoard: There should be no launcher. All apps should always be on the right from home. It should be your AppBoard where you find all apps all the time.

3. WidgetBoard: There should be WidgetBoard always on the left of home. WidgetBoard should be the place you always go to access your information quickly via widgets. Adding a widget should bring up widgets list and touching the widget should add it on the WidgetBoard in the available space or it gets added on a new page on the left.

Below is my redesign. It shows 1 Home, 2 pages of AppBoard, 1 WidgetBoard page with quick controls and Music widget already added. Another page showing “Add Widget” experience. You will notice home wallpaper being shown in full resolution and glory on Home but when you move to either AppBoard or Widgetboard, it gets blurred to surface the content that matters to you. (Click on the below image to see full resolution)

Make me awesome – This is the part you all know and love. Some think it is working great for them. Some say it has potential to work great in future. I say both. I am talking about “Google Now”. Again this feature in its current implementation is behind the search box. My redesign shows “Google Now”  as permanent widget on Home that cannot be removed. It cannot be removed because it makes you awesome and it should be right in front and center, always accessible and visible. It shuffles cards as per relevance. Its slick. Its translucent.

So, No launcher. Apps on the right. Widgets on the left. Google Now as home screen.
Overhauled System apps : Apart from the redesigned home experience, I think a lot of effort should go into redesigning system apps. They should be slick. It should look like part of the Google family. That is exactly what I have done. My redesign is purely derived from Google’s style language and Google’s iOS Gmail app. Yes, its Google’s light palette. I really want Android to use light palette. It just looks slick and approachable.

1. Redesigned Dialer.

2. Redesigned Call log.

3. Call log with items tilting on over scroll similar to gallery app.

4. Contextual Settings screen. I think every settings page should be contextual.

5. Redesigned incoming call screen.

There is one thing I want to pass onto Google. No matter how great an OS looks and operates, how good system apps perform , OS is defined by 3rd party app support. I firmly believe Google should take “Play Store” under review umbrella. I do not know if “Play store” alone can be brought under reviewing terms when OS itself is open sourced. But Google definitely should do it.

Just as other chip manufacturers have done at CES, Samsung revealed their new Exynos 5, an 8-core mobile processor which keeps in mind ARM’s big.little reference design. It pairs four larger and more power hungry Cortex A15s with four smaller, energy efficient Cortex A7s. This should allow an increase of up to 70% according to ARM, which will help as devices screens are becoming larger and larger, and more demanding applications and games are being developed. Exynos 5 should allow for substantially more powerful devices, even more so than the already powerful the Nexus 10 which has a processor with a dual-core A15 implementation. The Exynos 5 is also being built on a 28nm process as compared to the 32nm process for the Exynos 5 Dual and the Exynos 4 which should also add to the power saving ability of this chip.

Sources: ARM, Android Central, The Verge, AnandTech

At CES today Archos showed off their take on a solution to android gaming. Rather than having developers cater their games to the specific layout of the device, Archos uses a different solution, one which emulates the controller and maps onscreen buttons to hardware controls. The overall opinion from many sites such as The Verge, Android Community, and Engadget is that support for many games will be limited, but its up to Archos to improve games that the Gamepad will work with.

The device itself has a 7-inch screen, 1024 x 768 screen, 1.6GHz Cortex A9 processor, Mali 400 GPU, Android 4.1, 8GB internal storage which is expandable with a MicroSD, and 1 GB RAM. The device is already shipping in Europe and should be available for $169.99 in Q1 2013.

Source: Engadget, Android Community, TheVerge

Just as Nvidia unveiled its new processor the Tegra 4, today Qualcomm followed suit and unveiled two new chips, the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800. Starting off with the 600, basically a S4 Pro which is in the Nexus 4 or Droid DNA and make everything better and faster, it combines a quad-core Krait 300 CPU with speeds up to 1.9GHz, Adreno 320 GPU, LPDDR3 RAM support, and to top it off will be up to 40 percent faster than the Snapdragon S4 Pro.

The Snapdragon 800 is even faster, which means phones which have this silicon will fly through almost any application. Qualcomm promises a 75 percent increase in CPU performance and to double the graphics compute performance. This is achieved through quad-core Krait 400 speeds up to 2.3GHz, an Adreno 330 GPU, 4g LTE CAT 4 and 802.11ac support, Ultra HD support (4K), support for DTS-HD Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround, and Dual Image Signal Processors (ISPs) up to 55-megapixels.

Both chips have integrated LTE which should provide power benefits over non-integrated solutions, following the precedent of the S4 vs Tegra 3 as was seen in the varying versions of the HTC One X. The Snapdragon 600 and 800 should start arriving mid-year.

Source: AndroidCentral, TheVerge

Sony’s new flagship for 2013 has been announced it’s called the Xperia Z. The phone itself has a 1080p display, 2GB RAM, 1.5GHx quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, LTE, up to 16GB internal storage with a microSD card slot for expansion, NFC, Android 4.1, a 2330mAh battery, a 2.2MP front-facing camera and a 13-megapixel Exmor RS camera sensor.

Sadly, the phone is not running stock android as many other phones at CES have been, but Sony’s additions may help in the multimedia department with the likes of ClearAudio+, Bravia Reality Display, and Bravia Engine 2 onboard. Furthermore, the software has caught up with HTC in burst photography which allows a 10fps burst mode when shooting in a 9-megapixel format. The camera on the phone also allows for video HDR similar to what was shown off in Tegra 4. In regards to battery life Sony has added on a Battery Stamina mode that automatically kills background processes and apps when the screen is off which will significantly help battery life. The phone is especially cutting edge in terms of its water resistance to a depth of one meter. Similar to the Nexus 4 it has glass on the front and back of the device, which may make for problems as dropping phones with glass on the front and back usually does not go well. The Xperia Z and ZL variant (without the glass back and water resistance in select markets) are planned to be released in March. Sony says the device will be able to be updated to 4.2 shortly after it is released.

Sources: TheVerge, TechCrunch

At CES today Polaroid unveiled the iM1836 mirrorless camera, which has an 18.1-megapixel mirrorless body and a 3.5 inch display, built in WiFi, bluetooth, and Android 4.1. The camera will be able to switch optics with an adapter for Micro-Four Thirds lenses. The camera should arrive in Q1 2013 and comes with a low price tag of only $399, which may be able to produce higher quality pictures than rivals Nikon and Samsung.

Source: Android Police, Engadget, TheVerge

In addition to the Ascend Mate Huawei showed off a smaller phone today at CES, the D2. It has a smaller screen at 5 inches, perhaps a more manageable size, and higher resolution at 1080p. Huawei touted it as the “world’s most powerful smartphone” and it features a formidable K3V2 1.5GHz quad core processor, 3000mAh battery, and a 13 megapixel camera. Pocket-lint went hands on with the device and said “Huawei poured loads of water over the phone in front of us and it had no issues; they also threw it at the ground and it survived quite a bash” which is quite encouraging for the longevity of the device and those who frequently drop their phones. It also features Huawei’s Emotion UI like its bigger brother the Ascend Mate, and will come in an alternate 4.7 inch size.

Here’s a short video showing the Huawei’s Ascend D2.

Source: TheVerge, Pocket-lint

Huwaei just announced the biggest android phone yet, the Ascend Mate which has a 6.1 inch 720p display. This phone features a 1.5ghz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, a 4050 mAh battery to power the large screen, and an 8 megapixel camera. It also features “Magic Touch” technology which allows the phone to be used while wearing gloves, not unlike what the Lumia 920 features. The phone has Huwaei’s Emotion UI which may make the giant size of the device more usable, featuring software additions such as making the keyboard or dialpad fit into the bottom corner of the device.

Source: TheVerge

Vizio decided that it would launch its tablets both in the 10 inch and 7 inch form factors, with stock android today at CES. Both tablets look to be competitive and able stay up to date with their un-skinned android which is “bone-stock”. Nilay Patel from The Verge talked with Vizio’s head of design, Scott McManigal, who said that the device was made primarily for the use in one hand in portrait orientation, and feels significantly smaller than the Nexus 7. The design however is not final. The specs include a Tegra 3, a 1280 x 800 IPS display, 16GB of storage, and a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera. Pricing has not been announced, but it will be available in the first half of the year. Will this be enough to stand against Google’s own Nexus 7 and more importantly the iPad Mini?

Source: TheVerge, Gizmodo

Vizio just introduced a new 10 inch tablet that contends with the Nexus 10 and perhaps the iPad 4. TheVerge notes that it has the brand new Tegra 4 processor, a processor which seems extremely fast, and runs stock Jelly Bean, Android 4.2, has a 2560 x 1600 display, 32GB of storage, Bluetooth  4.0, and looks to have mini-HDMI, micro-usb, a 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi, and front and rear cameras. On their hands on TheVerge noticed that the tablet is extremely light, thin, and feels smaller than the iPad 4 or Nexus 10. Nilay Patel had a hands on with the device which can be found at the source link.

Source : TheVerge

It runs stock android and has TegraZone integrated, and games were shown off being displayed at 4k resolution showing the power of the recently announced Tegra 4.

Hawken was shown off, a game based on unreal engine 3 which looked crisp and multi-player gaming between the devices looked quite convincing.

Also announced was the integration of Steam Big Picture which allows one to connect to a PC with a GTX Graphics Processor to stream to Shield, which can then be connected to a TV for a full gaming experience. The graphics are also streamed to the screen of the Shield which seems extremely crisp. Assasin’s Creed III and Need for Speed were shown off streaming through the PC and has access to games from Google Play and Steam. Steam Big Picture mode was automatically brought up once Shield was connected successfully. It was also said that instead of HDMI to display on the TV, it would be possible to stream images wirelessly in the near future. Pricing and availability were not announced.

Also unveiled was the fact that HDR will be improved with Tegra 4 and ”Nvidia computational photography engine” that can drastically improve the results of HDR as a result of taking 2 simultaneous pictures, taking .2 seconds vs 2 seconds on the iPhone 5, and Tegra 4 doing the image processing in the background. Also shown was HDR while video was running, an impressive feat that rendered HDR in real-time onstage. Processing is said to be done all on the chip so there is “No modification necessary, no porting necessary.”

Dead Trigger 2 was also shown off, and although it did look good, it is still behind console games and very far behind PC Games.

Tegra 4 also has technology based on the Icera i500 modem and they are sampling a 4g modem based on the technology that was acquired. Jen-Hsun Huang also mentioned Android as being the fastest growing operating system. It was also announced that it would be in “Project Shield” that is based on the Tegra 4 and has full Google Play support.

Image from androidcentral.

Yesterday, Google refreshed their quarterly android install base chart. The state of the chart perceived by most tech blog community is rosy, as they are pleased with Jelly Bean numbers and overall increased ICS percentage. But where this chart starts to show holes is 47% Gingerbread install base (around 250 million devices) which isn’t going anywhere for next few years, thanks to Samsung and other android OEMs!

Lets look at some numbers and start with US market. Samsung sold around 22 million devices between June 2010 – July 2012. Guess what, most of these phones except members of GS2 family are not getting update beyond Gingerbread. Situation with HTC was even worse with updates in gingerbread era.

Rest of the world also show the same trends. Samsung sold around 50 million in 2010 and approximately 90 million smartphones in 2011. All indications point to Asia as the largest market for Samsung and also the most price conservative. Trend depicts around 60% of all sales were mid range phones with no hope for ICS update.

Specifically in India, 8 out of 10 all time best selling Samsung phones were budget phones. In short no ICS ever.

47% of gingerbread may slowly descend to approximately 35-40% mark but will be around for next few years until users buy a new phone. Speaking of buying new phones, US users are generally tied in for 2 years contract. Cost conservative market consumers stick to their phones even longer. No matter how much Google praises OEMs for android success, it has backfired in the shape of fragmentation bomb. Recently Eric Schmidt confirmed the fact “The core strategy is to make a bigger pie. We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.”

Bottom line is, this is going to continue forever. Today it is with Gingerbread, tomorrow it will be with ICS, when latest version would be 6.0 or beyond. Best thing to have happened around this fragmentation explosion, Google saw this coming early and made big bet on Motorola. Once Google influenced Motorola phones starts selling well, other OEMs would be forced to follow the suit of vanilla android, thereafter.

As you all might know, Google voice is a brilliant service from Google that never took off as everybody hoped. Most of it has to do with its limited free availability in key markets and rest to a very weak mobile app. Google voice was initially introduced on Android back in July of 2009. Since then, it still rocks version 0.4.2.72 as of writing this article and I have no hopes of the situation getting any better for a foreseeable future. I am almost sure this has to be one of those million things that gets blocked because of carrier pressure. At the same time if it is offered as an app in a Play store or other competing stores, consumers get to choose which app to use and which to refrain from. Additionally it would not violate Verizon’s hypocrisy theory, who possesses more control over Android than Google themselves.

There are already several existing successful apps(WhatsApp (doesn’t support calls but great multi-platform texting app, Viber, Skype to name a few.) which does the same or in some cases even more than Google Voice. It turns out, people love them and really want to make use of them. On the other hand Apple has already changed the rules of texting game on their platform with a nuke named iMessage(which was supposed to be open sourced, but they are still dealing with thermonuclear round one).

This is where I think Google Voice comes to the forefront with the concealed capabilities and power of cloud behind it. The single best feature that comes along with Google Voice is “It gives you one virtual number that can be hooked with all your phones(including land line)”.

Lets step back for a minute and analyze the offerings already in the market WhatsApp,iMessage for texting and Viber for calls. The problem with all these apps is that they use your real phone number or your primary email ID. Even if you do not want to share your phone number or email ID with strangers who also happen to have this app installed, you would be FORCED to share with them.

This can all be overcome by an excellent Google Voice client which needs to be on all major platforms so that consumers who have access to the internet can communicate with each other without worrying about privacy and irrespective of the platform being used.

Similarly it applies to text messages, one can connect with their acquaintances without really having to share your actual number/email ID with them.

Internally too, Google is fighting a war with these diverse communication tools namely Gtalk, G+ Messenger, Google Hangouts and good old forgotten Google voice. Indeed Google confirmed, they are working to unify their communication platform but it does not mention Google Voice anywhere which is disappointing to say the least.

In an ideal world Gtalk, G+messenger, Google Hangouts and Google voice should be unified as one tool ruled by one virtual number.

App should be a multi-platform with one time assignation of virtual number working seamlessly over TCP/IP. I personally can’t wait for carriers to convert into dumb pipes rather than be a draconian freaks controlling phone experience  Google Voice 1.0 would just be the beginning!

Mandatory blurry cam pic for your pleasure!

So far everything that I have read about and seen never mentioned it coming in any other colours so this is a bit of a surprise. Don’t have any pictures of it yet but will update as soon as we get more on it

Now the CPW employee wouldn’t let me have a snap of the system but we’ve supplied one for  you anyway!

After a chat this morning in my local store, You could get a White Nexus 4 on contract but currently the warehouse stock was empty and the Black Nexus 4 was in stock, however couldn’t be ordered for some reason unknown to the clerk.

out.

Many people have assumed that since the order page for the Nexus 4 has returned to the “Notify Me” state that the phone is probably out of stock, That assumption is correct after a quick work with Google they have confirmed it is sold out in all territories that is it currently live in.

America, Fingers on those buttons!

Sold out in Australia in under 20 minutes, The UK it took at least an hour for the order page to change. But suspected to have sold out in around 40 minutes from the information Google supplied.

Next up for launch was the UK rumored to be available after 8am. We just ordered out Nexus 4, How about you?

Coming in at a grand total of £294.99 for the phone with a bumper case and delivery cost.

With the roll out of Google Music now available in the UK, Could more US only services be making their way to UK shores? If this screenshot is anything to go by then maybe!

Lets wait and see tomorrow shall we?

Lets start with the UK LTE Network. Currently only available with Everything Everywhere (and those roaming on their network) on the 1,800 MHz band.

O2 and Vodafone will be launching LTE on the 800 MHz band.

The iPhone 5 has LTE, but won’t work on this frequency, Is it worth sticking LTE into a phone when you might not be able to use it on all networks? Personally I say no. I’m sure the next Nexus will have cover LTE next time round when it is a more mature network across the world and not just in the US.

What about network cost? Lets use the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE Edition as an example.

The phone on an unlimited plan is £41 per month, Which bags you unlimited minutes  texts and 3G data with an upfront cost of £29 available on T-Mobiles Full Monty plan.

Now lets look and the only provider with LTE in the UK Currently.

The phone on an £41 per month plan will get you unlimited minutes and texts but only 1GB of 4G data and £49.99 upfront cost from Everything Everywhere.

Now this is a great deal but not all providers are created equal.

Lets looks at Orange, £46 per month will only net yourself 1200 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of 3G data with an upfront cost of £29.99 for the phone.

Whilst again with Everything Everywhere £46 per month gets you unlimited minutes, texts and 3GB of 4G data with an upfront cost of £29.99.

That’s better I hear you say? Well yes it is but a 24 month contract for a 6 month old phone isn’t something I’m happy with. I pay as little as £12 a month for unlimited data which suits me perfectly and it’s not a contract either which is just an added bonus all round.

Would I like 4G? Absolutely. £56 for 8GB of data? Absolutely not.

Feel free to order a free sim. We both get something out of it and it will arrive with you Nexus 4 provided you’re not doing next day delivery on your order.

Not much to say on this one. If you use Cyanogen 9 nightlies next time you boot to recovery, Their is a good chance you will be on a new version of ClockworkMod Recovery.

Changes? Unsure at the moment, But if we find a changelog we will update you.

After a week or so I’ll write my thoughts on the new update and what Google Now is actually like working on a daily basis.

Look forward to any feedback you may have on the update as well. Has this worked for you?

Linkage

Have you been wanting a Jelly Bean port but unhappy with the terribly ROMs where “No major bugs” is stated but the most basics don’t work like Wi-Fi, Audio and 3G Network?

Well now that Android 4.1 is starting to roll out into AOSP, It looks like CyanogenMod are getting ready to “roll their own” With Any luck we will see a CM10 built on at least the Galaxy Nexus tomorrow, with it slowly coming to other devices during the week.

It will feel good rubbing Jelly Bean in the faces of those I know who taunt me with their Galaxy Nexus.

I’m feeling a tad smug. But that’s aloud. Right?

CyanogenMod

Get your copy now.

We say out now, They say coming today.

Source.

The Nexus 7 when shown at Google I/O looked a bit odd, It looked like it was stuck in phone mode as well as portrait mode.

Turns out portrait mode is to blame as the launcher and needs a slight tweak. Phone mode on the other hand is down to the screen and its DPI. Just tweaking the Nexus 7′s build.prop to a DPI of 170 will make the tablet UI that looks oh so good kick in.

As you can see in the screenshot it looks 100 times better instantly in my opinion. The switches have changed from the parallelogram (god that hard to say) styled switch to a normal rectangle that looks like Apple iOS switches (as im sure they would argue it in a courtroom.)

All this Jelly Bean talk I thought I would change the subject, maybe something to pass the time until it’s released?

Recently I came across a game called 100 Floors which has taken up some of my spare time.

Each floor has an elevator door you need to open, some need to you use items while others you gotta swipe, shake all while figuring out the puzzle to get to the next floor.

Some of the floors get quite complicated and I’ve had to go back to it later on with fresh eyes, and some I’ve just tapped the screen hoping for the best. With over 5 million downloads most of you should find this to be quite an enjoyable game, the puzzles are also a good way to keep your brain active.

An example of one of the levels, you have a red arrow on the side of the elevator with the other missing. You can move the bin to the side, picking up the button to put it in place and then using it to open the door. Now this is at the start of the game and as you progress the puzzles do get harder.

At the time I’m writing this there are 70 floors available with more to come with regular updates. I’m looking forward to the future updates and new puzzles.

100 Floors is 27mb and free, so get downloading and let me know what you think of it yourself in the comments.

Download Now

Final Fantasy III is now available from Google Play. Originally released in Japan on April 27th, 1990 never seen an international version until its remake for the Nintendo DS in 2006. The version available for Android now has been remastered again and features exclusive only on Android story sequences.

It’s available for Android 2.2 and above. At 172mb, size isn’t the only big thing as it will also set you back a fair few pennies with a £10.99 price tag.

I’m pretty certain that won’t make too much difference to the avid Final Fantasy fan with new story and being able to play it whenever you like on the go from your pocket.

  Game Features

- New and improved 3D visuals and story sequences only for Android

- Smooth, intuitive touch-panel controls specifically tailored to Square Enix’s smartphone RPGs

- Quicker browsing through the monster bestiary and other game records

- New visual designs for the Job Mastery Cards

So who will be buying this and what’s your thoughts on the price for a mobile app?

Final Fantasy III

After years of waiting for VLC to come to Android it has finally graced our screens.

A project that’s been in the works for over a year is finally here in a basic beta.

If your a user of VLC player on a desktop you may or nay not be disappointed. Grab it and find out!

VLC Player via Google Play

Audio out over USB could bring docks similar to the iPod/iPhone however the main issue I see here is port placement. Sometimes its on the bottom sometimes its on the side sometimes its back to front (Looking at your HTC)

USB audio output support allows hardware vendors to build hardware such as audio docks that interface with Android devices. This functionality is also exposed with the Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) to give all developers the chance to create their own hardware

If you haven’t checked out what’s to come with Jelly Bean, Have a good read on the Android Developers site.

Android Developers

Many of us were expecting to see Majel at Google’s I/O, even Google Assistant as it was rumoured to be called. We didn’t get either of those, what we did get though was something called ‘Google Now’ which is maybe what they decided to call it? Or maybe this is just a preview of what is to come and this is a basic version of the end result? If so I can’t even imagine what Google has in store for us next year!

Google Now takes your phone to a whole new level, helping you with everything and anything it can. To give just a few examples, it can track flights and let you know if there are any delays, let you know the best dishes at a restaurant and even let you know if there is traffic on your usual route to work and when best to leave as well as an alternative route to take.

You can ask it questions with voice, whether its who the president of Japan is or where the nearest sushi bar is to mention but another couple of demo’s we were shown. What Google is doing is trying to make our lives a little easier with that device we have in our pockets every day in life called a phone, helping you with things it knows you like or if you are somewhere you have never been letting you know the best places to eat or go.

What was shown of the software at Google I/O makes this look amazing, its smart, fast and most of all takes your phone and makes it into one of the best assistants you could ask for. We still have to test this for ourselves but it won’t be long until we can see what Google Now has to offer.

Most of us will welcome this with open arms, but for those worried about Google stealing your soul (I gave them mine already) a lot of the information it will be taking from you will all be opt-in, with location services, web history and access to calenders all needing enabled.

Google Now

Installable Apps. – Pulled straight from a Jelly Bean install (Some apps may be out of date like Google+)

• Books
• Currents
• Google Earth
• Google Play Movies
• Google Play Store (If you’re not in America you won’t see a difference.)
• Google+ (Pre-update for those that don’t like the new layout.)
• Magazines
• Maps
• Street View
• Talkback
• Wallet (Will only work in official countries and carriers)

Jelly Bean Applications

You will have to copy the apk files over manually for the rest.

You can also down the Boot Animation for the Jelly Bean on the Galaxy Nexus.

So with Google I/O comes the announcement of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. We all knew it was coming but what we didn’t see coming was the ton of changes they have now implemented that keeps the Android we know and love keep getting better and better.

Jelly Bean will be smoother than any other Android version before it thanks to Project Butter. Google were throwing out terms like, triple buffering, synchronizing touch, CPU input boost and anticipating where your finger will actually touch the screen. What this means to us? This will be the fastest and smoothest Android yet.

While watching the stream on YouTube, I watched Google use a high speed camera to film the animations on a Galaxy Nexus running stock Ice Cream Sandwich and stock Jelly Bean. The results were as clear as day, just proving how much they have refined Android so far.

The Notification bar was another main highlight of the day. As well as it showing more richer notifications, the ability to use a swipe gesture to bring down even more detail even bringing in photo’s in some cases. Developers can now also add custom actions. One of the examples shown was a missed call, with a quick call back action positioned just underneath.

New language support, including left-to-right or right-to-left scripts and support for offline Voice Input just adds to the already daunting list of improvements they are bringing.

Google Now and the new Jelly Bean flavored enhanced Google search is hands down the most exciting feature to come out of I/O so far, I think this  one deserves a post of its own though.

Google will be releasing Jelly Bean mid-July to the Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom and Nexus S

Among the annoucement of everything else today including Jelly Bean some of the apps that got updated may have got lost in the excitement. Here are the main changes.

Maps
*Save maps for offline use

YouTube
*New UI: Guide on the left side of the screen with instant access to channels
*Preload videos while on WiFi and charging for smooth playback on the go
*Turn your phone into a  remote, to play YouTube videos on other devices
*Access your watch History across devices

Google Books
*Add bookmarks to a page by tapping the top right corner or using the menu.
*Stream video and audio embedded in books.
*Support fixed-layout EPUBs (on Honeycomb or higher), SVG images(on Honeycomb or higher), and original fonts.
*Enable or disable auto text-to-speech in “Settings” menu.
*Enable or disable downloading via WiFi only in “Settings” menu.
*Links in books now works.

Google+
*Tablet support
*New feature: Events with Party Mode
*Visual refresh and improved navigation
*Improved circle management

Chrome
Chrome has a slight tweak to the UI and has finally lost its beta tag with a full release.

Earlier today CyanogeonMod 9 released the first “Release Candidate” of the Ice Cream Sandwich based OS. Ice Cream Sandwich source has been available for 225 days now and the Cyanogen team have managed to work out most of the bugs in the core OS to deliver this to us.

It wasn’t quick or easy, but we are extremely proud of this release and what it represents for us as a group. The jump from 2.3.7 to 4.0.4 in many ways was a fresh start for this project

They are right their, It wasn’t quick but it’s been worth the wait (almost!) Lets just hope Jelly Bean doesn’t cause to much of an issue.

CyanogenMod

As if we weren’t expecting it and didn’t already know the name they were going to use the Google Developers Google+ Account recently added a new post with this picture and the caption “Spotted at the Googleplex this morning”. 

I think its now safe to say that an announcement on Jellybean (Android 4.1) is now officially just around the corner now that it has arrived on the lawn of building 44.

I look forward to see what is to be included in this update. What would you like to see included?

Source

Google Developers