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This move helped to simplify the market for consumers who were confused about the difference between Android 2.3 and Android 3.0 Gingerbread. However, this left some residual issues.
With Android 4.0 ICS, users found that the operating system had become so advanced that they started to experience significant lag when opening an app, moving from one home screen to another and other frequent activities.
Google become aware of the problem that was building up as the complexity increased and initiated “Project Butter” as a separate initiative to work on making Google Android operating system smoother, with smoother transitions between home screens, cleaner animations and a slick interface that would be much more in keeping with what had already been evident from Apple with their iOS.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a short four months' later, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean were the answer.
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Android Jelly Bean 4.1
Jelly Bean 4.1 seemed like a small improvement over the previous Ice Cream Sandwich, but the code had been extensively overhauled to remove the hiccups that had slowly crept in. As a result of the efforts of “Project Butter” the user experience improved dramatically, particularly on smartphones and tablets that were running on dual-core processors (some devices with single-core processors were not fast enough to run Android 4.x).Android Jelly Bean 4.2
Multi-User SupportThe first big improvement with 4.2 was to bring in multi-user support. This meant different access and separate home screens for each user. Currently this is only supported on tablets instead of smartphones, possibly because Nokia own a patent relating to this type of use on smartphones.
Expandable Notifications Panel
Apple started copying Android's notifications panel for iOS 5, which of course is flattery indeed. The panel took a big leap forward for 4.1 with intelligent panel options being expandable and capable of launching related apps.Reading a Tweet
One can choose to reply and this will open the default Twitter app to draft the Tweet. Notifications stay in view unless they are swiped away, so nothing gets missed. Android 4.2 added a Quick Settings menu with convenient access to frequently chosen options like Brightness adjustment, Wi-Fi connection, etc.Buttery Smooth Animations
Animations have been improved across the board. The Calendar app now has content fading in and page transitions being performed in smoother fashion. The Phone and People apps have been made more responsive, with swipe gestures and other subtle innovations for ease of use.Tablet Display Changes
Tablets received a Android 4.2 Jelly Bean makeover too with a simplified main screen that removed the application switcher on the left side and went just for a clean home screen with a number of important quick app icons at the very bottom, just like with a Google Nexus 4 phone.The new application switcher is now a full screen affair. The layout of the home screens now varies for 10-inch and 7-inch screen, and from tablet to tablet depending on the manufacturers' own implementation, to accommodate the different amount of screen real estate available.
Peter MilesAbout the Guest Author:
Peter Miles likes to check out new apps to try on his trusty iPhone 4 .
