Latest Smartphone comes with great shooters with decent mega pixels and optical systems. Most of the people are really enjoying it and we can see lots of pictures taken by Smartphone on social media. Some of them are edited as well using various mobile image manipulation applications.

However factory camera application always comes with basic features only. If you need more features you have to install some 3^rd party camera app. I was trying different app in my Galaxy Nexus running with Android Jelly Bean. The best android camera app I could find is Pudding camera. Let’s take a closer look in to this app.

Getting Started With Pudding Camera

• Search and download the Pudding Camera app from Google Play.
• It will automatically add an icon to one of your home screen.
• In camera interface you can find various controls. Before you go better to take a look at settings.
• In right top corner you can see settings icon as well as tap anywhere to shoot, flasher controller and flip camera icons.

• In settings you can adjust various options such as image size, geo tagging, grid display and sharing.
• Right hand side you can find shutter button and shortcut to pudding camera album in photo gallery.
• This app support tap to focus as any other camera app.
• In left hand side you can see dial with red marker. Tap to expand it and rotate it to change exposure compensation.
• Down there you can see a camera icon. That’s where the magic is. Tap on it.
• It will take you to another interface where you can find different cameras and films.

• Cameras will add different effects to your picture such as fish eye, panorama, depth of field etc.
• Films will add different color profiles you your pictures such as vivid, vintage, monochrome etc.
• You can use different combinations of cameras and films to create the effect what you really need.
• There is an option for you to download cameras and films as well.
• After selecting cameras and films go back to main screen by tapping on camera icon at the right top corner.
• Frame the picture, tap to focus and then tap on shutter button.
• Entire photos you taken will be saved in separate folder in gallery named “PuddingCamera”.

Wrapping Up

Pudding camera is having wide range of effects and color profiles in built. The way they design interface to change them is also very user friendly and unique. Whole application performance is at a greater level and having very short initial load time as well. It is applying effects within couple of seconds.

All the above futures make Pudding camera is the best android camera app in Google play for sure. You can use this as your primary camera application with no trouble. Try this and share your experience here with NOG community.

Tags: #Android #Camera

For the last few years most of the Android Smartphone took the lead in market, yet tablets couldn’t do the same. Samsung released a wide range of tablets and many other manufactures did the same, but did not succeed as expected. However, one Android tablet changed this picture and dominated a significant tablet market share. It’s Amazon Kindle Fire.

It’s the initiator of 7 inch tablet trend. This was the basic inspiration to Google Nexus 7. This popularity motivated Amazon to come up with better Kindle Fire and they did it. It came to market with the name Kindle Fire HD with much better features as well as competitive price.

Features Highlight

Display

Display is the major upgrade in Amazon Kindle Fire HD. As name says, display goes HD with resolution 800 x 1280 px. Same as the previous Kindle Fire, it has 7 inch IPS panel and giving you 216 ppi of pixel density.

Processor and Storage

Processor is the next upgrade. Now it’s, 1.2 GHz Dual Core Cortex A9 running on TI OMAP 4460 chipset. GPU is very popular PowerVR SGX540. The device comes with 16/32 GB internal storage options and RAM is 1 GB, another major upgrade.

Operating System

Previous Kindle Fire was powered with Android 2.3 and this time they have wrapped Kindle Fire HD with Android 4.0 ICS. However, you won’t be able to experience pure Android on Kindle Fire HD. It’s heavily customized to deliver Kindle branded experience.

Camera

Another attraction is, Kindle Fire HD comes with front facing camera. Now you make video calls with it. However this 1.3 MP camera won’t allow you to record video. Although it’s allowed, it won’t be practical since its front facing.

Connectivity

Kindle Fire didn’t support GSM or LTE connectivity from the first day and it continues to do the same. The primary connectivity in Kindle Fire HD is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Wi-Fi is using dual band dual antenna technology which will give you super speed data transfers. For PC connectivity there is a micro USB port.

Battery Life

Specified battery life is 11 hours but the battery capacity is not given. However battery life is highly subjective and totally depends on your usage style. Given value in specification would be true for most of general users.

Wrapping Up

Kindle Fire HD is an appropriate upgrade to previous Kindle and improved most essential features in optimum ways. High resolution display is a wise move and processing power is also in its sweet point. It’s very light weight, only 395g. Design is also great and highly portable.

If you are doing lots of web browsing, eBook reading and you need portability this is a good choice for you. If you are a big fan of gaming, Kindle Fire HD would work for you just great. It’s having decent processing power and great GPU to support it.

Kindle Fire gives you many Amazon specific features as well. It’s giving you unlimited free Cloud storage space for entire Amazon content. There are many other services such as Kindle FreeTime, instant video and lending library.

You can buy Amazon Kindle Fire HD only for $ 199, amazing price for amazing device. This would be a great upgrade for previous kindle and great choice for people who are looking for 7 inch android tablet, for web browsing, eBook reading, multimedia and gaming.

Tags: #Amazon #Android #Tablet

2013 is the year of 1080p Android phones. We already have Oppo Find 5 and HTC droid DNA. The new member to join the club is Sony Xperia Z. There were tons of rumors around the web and previously I rounded up all of those for you. Putting an end to all those rumors and leaks Sony Xperia Z made its first appearance in CSE 2013. Let’s go and take a look in to this amazing device, its strengths and weaknesses.

Insight for Sony Xperia Z

Design

Dimensions: 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm

Weight: 146 g

The design is following the same concept as previous Xperia. The most interesting part here is dust and water proof body. Sony demonstration about this water proof design attracted all the attention to this device.

Display

Size: 5 inches

Protection: Scratch resistant glass

Technology: TFT

Resolution: 1080 x 1920 px

Sharpness: 441 ppi

Spec is pretty impressive and same as all the other 5 inches 1080p devices. The display is TFT. It suppose to give lesser color contrast, narrow viewing angles and poor power efficiency compared to latest AMOLED displays. But due to super high resolution this display looks stunning and colors are great as any other Xperia.

Processor and Storage

Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064)

Modem: Qualcomm MDM9215

CPU: 1.5 GHz Quad Core Krait

GPU: Adreno 320

RAM: 2 GB

Internal Storage: 16 GB

Expandable Storage: microSD up to 32 GB

This is a pretty much standard spec for any 1080p you can find in the market. Best chipset, one of the best modem, high end CPU, GPU and storage completes this device. You will never miss 32 GB model since you have the microSD slot.

Software

OS: Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean

UI: Sony UI

It originally comes with previous version of JB and expected to have upgraded to 4.2. You already know the bad side of manufacture themes. If I’ll get this device I’ll definitely flash it with naked android, probably CyanogenMod.

Camera

Primary: 13.1 MP // LED Flash // HDR // 1080p @ 30 fps

Front Facing: 2.2 MP // 1080p @ 30 fps

Camera sensor has lots of pixels and this is the new standard for Smartphone. It has a beastly hardware, so no one stops it from shooting HDR photos. Front facing camera is also above the average and 1080p self video might set a new trend in YouTube soon.

Connectivity

Mobile Network: GSM // HSDPA // LTE

Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

GPS: A-GPS

NFC: Yes

Bluetooth: 4.0

USB: microUSB 2.0

Here you have nothing else to ask for. It supports all the 2G, 3G and LTE bands. If you get a factory unlocked phone you have the freedom of switching between pretty much every mobile carrier.

Battery Life

Type: Li-Ion

Capacity: 2330 mAh

Battery Life: 11h Talk time

Battery is not as huge as I expected, but it’s pretty decent. But still I’m not sure whether this would be enough to survive a whole day with this gigantic super revolutionary display. However, answer is in the future. More the people get their hands on this, we will get the answers.

Wrapping Up

To stand out in the competition with other 1080p 5 Inches phones the best trump card Sony Xperia Z has is dust and water resistant body. This will come in handy for frequent travelers, especially outbound travelers. Even in general usage you don’t have to be over protective about your phone. Other than that it shares a common spec as any other phone in same category.

Sony was carefully building up a solid range of Android phones. They offered unique features and becoming a threat to giants like Samsung and HTC. Sony Xperia Z would be another step toward capturing more Android market share.

Soon you will be able to enjoy this device with your favorite mobile carrier. In the meantime join the discussion in the comment section below.

If you like to stay tuned with Notes Of Genius subscribe to out email list.

Tags: #Android #Qualcomm #Smartphone #Sony

Whenever a new Android version comes out, the main thing I look for is battery life. Android is already full in features than any other mobile OS, so no point of looking for features. Before the Jelly beans came out I was looking for smooth UI. But now battery life comes first.

Android 4.1 was highly optimized to save battery life along with its performance and smooth UI. But everything burnt to ground with poor battery life in Android Jelly Bean 4.2.

Recently Google rolled out Android 4.2.2 to Android devices with very minor UI tweaks. But it’s size was 44 MB. So there has to be something more than those minor UI alterations. I had a gut feeling that they must have done something to get the power management back on track. So I ran a battery life test and here we go with the results.

Battery Usage Report

I tested this on my Galaxy Nexus with original battery (Almost 1 year old). Wi-Fi was on in the whole time and mobile signal strength was also good. Screen brightness was set to 50%. Basically I was using the device to browse web, social media, email, eBay and games such as a Temple Run 2.

I took a screenshot when battery reached 5%. By then device was ON for 25h 19m (3h 16m Screen on). This is amazing compared to 12h and 53m (3h 24m Screen on) in Android Jelly Bean 4.2. Here are the screenshots of battery life report.

And here is the screen on time.

So Yeah! That 44 MB is not just for minor UI tweaks. Google have done some core level optimization to make Android less power hungry as well as more secured.

• Mobile Device: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
• Mobile OS: Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2

It’s good to know that Google developers are fighting against one of the major and crucial problems in Android OS. Software optimization is the best way to achieve better power management and performance, not increasing number of CPU cores or memory.

You are invited to share your experience with latest Android 4.2.2 in the comment section below.

If you like to stay connected with NOG subscribed to our email list.

Tags: #Android #Battery #Jelly Bean

Personal computers are getting advanced day by day with lots of innovative technologies day by day. This rapid evolution out date any super computer with in less than three years. Few years ago there was one CPU core in a PC and and today we have 6 Core CPUs. You may remember the time of SD RAM and today we are using DDR3. But this evolution of PC is reaching a dead end.

You can test this yourself. For web browsing and other general work I’m using a Laptop, a very old one. It’s having 1.8 GHz Dual Core processor and 2 GB DDR2 RAM. (Computer 1) For software development I have another PC with Intel CORE i5 Generation 2 processor with 8 GB DDR3 RAM. (Computer 2) If you compare performance of those computers, of course you expect a picture like Gulliver and Lilliput. But it’s not the case.

Both the computer is having pretty much same booting time, only couple of seconds difference. I use chrome and its launching time is identical. It’s same with most of Office applications. Opening time for adobe Photoshop is also not significantly different, only a few seconds. However, there is a significant different when I’m rendering a Maya Project or a Adobe After effect project. And yes, I could notice it when I’m converting video as well.

This shows that there is a limiting factor, clearly not the CPU clock, RAM clock or size which is holding the CORE i5 computer back. Where is this performance bottleneck which is not letting it to be a real Gulliver?

Understanding Data Flow in a Computer

Normally there are three major parties involving to complete tasks in a computer. They are CPU (Central Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive). HDD store data and RAM store them temporarily while CPU is processing them and give it back to RAM. If you are running graphic application your GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) is also involving.

CPU is the fastest data handle, then RAM and slowest is the HDD. Normally CPU and RAM speed is in GHz or MHz while HDD speed is on MB/s. There for I’d like to use multiplication factor of Computer 2 compared to computer 1 for comparison purpose.

Computer 1

• 1.8 GHz CPU
• 2 GB SD RAM
• 80 GB HDD

Computer 2

• 2.2 GHz CORE i5: Computer 1 X 5
• 8 GB DDR3: Computer 1 X 6
• 1 TB HDD: Computer 1 X 1

Now you can see the problem. Processing power and RAM has grown both horizontally and vertically with many cores and high speed clocks. But still HDD speed is same. For last 10 years there was a insignificant growth in HDD speeds though their capacity got increased. What is the solution for this problem?

Solid State Disk

HDD contains rotating disk and heads for both side. This technology is at its dead end and there is no way to further increase rotation speed in disks or reduce seek-time in heads. If you need high speed persistent storage, what you really need is brand new technology. That’s where Solid State Disk comes in to picture. It doesn’t have any moving mechanical components. Technology used it pretty similar to a USB flash drive. So it solves major problems in HDD which is rotation latency and Seeks time to achieve greater data transfer rates.  Below is a speed comparison of HDD and SSD.

• HDD: 50 – 100 MB/s
• SSD: 200 – 500 MB/s

Solid State Disk is the solution to make the Computer 2 a real Gulliver utilizing its great CPU and RAM power. But there is one problem. Solid State Disks are very expensive, more than 10 times than HHD and maximum capacity you could find in the market is 240 GB. We found a technical solution to utilize the power of Computer 2. But now we are at practical dead end. It’s too expensive for personal computer.

What is The Most Cost Effective Way to Use A SSD in Your Computer?

Since SSD is very expensive what you can do is use it only for frequently using persistent data, in other words your system partition. Get a SSD with good speed, 120 GB may be 60 GB would be enough and install you OS and other software on it. Gamers would love to install games and related other resources on SSD to increase the speed.

Keep your documents, multimedia and other data in conventional HHD and you can easily buy 1 TB one for less than $100. For your data you might be able to use a USB 3.0 external HDD. This would be the most cost effective way to use a SSD in a personal computer.

Wrapping Up

Now you know that getting a CPU with maximum clock speed and maximum number of core or getting RAM with maximum size and best clock speed won’t make your computer speedy. You have to pay attention to speed of persistent storage as well.

Next time you are buying a customized computer, get a decent CPU and RAM along with a SSD with good speed to install OS and other software. Then you will be able to get the maximum out of your investment.

Tags: #Desktop #Notebook #Storage #USB

In past few posts I was talking about the latest and greatest mobile computing platforms introduced in CES 2013. They were Nvidia Tegra 4 and Samsung Exynos 5 Octa. In next few years they might change the face of the whole mobile computing industry. This discussion is incomplete without Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974). Here we go and take a closer look in to that.

Tech Spec

CPU

Semiconductor architecture used here is 28 mm same as previous Snapdragon S4 and it has a Quad Core Krait 400 CPU that supports up to 2.3 GHz. L0 cache is 4 KB + 4 KB, L1 is 16 KB + 16 KB and L2 is MB. We already witnessed the power of Quad Core Krait CPU in many devices. With next generation Krait CPU with increased clock speed, Snapdragon 800 will be blazing fast.

28 mm architecture is highly power efficient as we already know. Though Snapdragon 800 has 4 beastly CPU cores they are intelligent enough to work in optimum speed to save battery power. Each CPU core can work in its own clock speed depending on the workload. With all those Snapdragon 800 will be highly power efficient as well.

GPU

This comes with next version of Adreno GPU which is Adreno 330. According to the spec this is 50% faster than Adreno 320 which was there in Snapdragon S4 Pro. This is capable of rendering full HD graphic at 30 FPS which is pretty impressive. The best part here is, it is 2X power efficient than Adreno 320.

Memory

Memory access technology used here is 32 Bit Dual Channel 800 MHz LPDDR3 gives blazing fast 12.8 GB/s data transfer rate. It’s same with all the leasing SoC introduced in year 2013.

Connectivity

Even in Snapdragon S4 it supported all the major connectivity technologies. Snapdragon 800 is even widening it with 802.1 ac Wi-Fi connectivity.

Application And Possibilities

This will be available to device manufacturers by mid 2013 and still we don’t have any device to test this beast’s performance. Once a manufacturer utilize Snapdragon 800 for a mobile device it will definitely be a powerhouse at the same time less power hungry.

Adreno 330 GPU is 50% faster at the same time 2X power efficient. It will be great news for gamers. They will be able to play high end games with much better graphic for a longer time on the go.

Wrapping Up

Qualcomm Snapdragon always had competitive advantage over other mobile computing platforms. They were always powerful and less power hungry. They customized ARM architecture to be even more powerful with their Krait processors. They always wrapped up best GPU and blazing fast memory with latest connectivity technologies. Here with Snapdragon 800 they have done it again.

This would be much better than Nvidia Tegra 4 but not sure about the competition with 8 Core Samsung Exynos 5 Platform. The major success factor of SoCs in 2013 would be energy efficiency more than power. In that case I have a strong feeling that Snapdragon 800 will beat Exynos 5 Octa.

Tags: #Qualcomm #Smartphone #Tablet

There are several applications, both offline and online to manage To Do lists. But my personal favorite is Google Task which you can find in main drop down menu in Gmail. It’s giving you a pop up at bottom right corner where you can manage entire To Do list.

This is a great solution for people who are using Gmail throughout the day. In that case your To Do list is right next to you. If you have an Android Phone, there is an app called GTask which you can use to sync and manage Google Tasks.

But what if you want to use to as a desktop application even after you close your browser? There is no direct solution for this problem. But if you think creatively, there is a solution and it comes as a Rich Internet Application.

Getting Started With Google Task Desktop App

• Install Latest version of Google Chrome browser. Update it to latest version if you have already installed.
• If we are trying to use it as a Rich internet app, there has to be a URL which will open Google task on browser tab. But so far it came out as a pop up in Gmail and option in calendar.
• But you can use this URL to open it in a separate tab.
• Half of the problem is solved now. Go to Tools -> Create application shortcut. Make sure you are creating all the shortcuts you need.
• Now you can use the created app shortcut to use Google Task as a desktop app even when Chrome is closed.

• Hardware: Intel Core i5 2nd Gen // 4GB DDR2
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium // 64 Bit
• Browser: Google Chrome Version 23.0.1271.91 m

This is a very simple solution. All we did here is put together few things we already know to solve a problem we faced when using Google Task. Enjoy the new Google Task desktop app and never forget to share your experience here with as a comment below.

Tags: #Gmail #Google #Rich Internet Applications

uTorrent is a very popular BitTorrent client which always provides faster performance and consume insignificant amount of system resources. And it supports previous torrent files as well as magnet links. It comes for free and if you want more power you can go for ‘uTorrent plus’ for some money.

Sometimes you might have noticed that the download speed indicated there is lesser than half of your internet connection speed. Then obviously you check the internet connection and what if there is no problem. Then the problem must be with the uTorrent.

Here we are discussing how to configure uTorrent to get the maximum out of your internet connection speed.

Step by Step Configuration

Health of Torrent

This is the number one factor. There has to be a greater number of seeds and lesser number of peers. Seeds are the people who have already downloaded the file and only uploading. Peers are still downloading while simultaneously uploading already downloaded parts of the file.

When you download the torrent file you can see the number of seeds and peers. Again you can see the current number of seeds and peers once you start downloading file in uTorrent. There are services called trackers to update the status of the seeds and peers.

If you have unhealthy torrent, in other words more peers and less seed, all the below configurations won’t help. So get a Healthy torrent first.

Router Settings

When you go to Options -> Preferences -> Connections in uTorrent you will be able to see the port used for incoming connections. If you are behind a firewall or a router, they must open this port for incoming connections.

Even if you have no way to accept incoming connections, still you can download the files. But in that case there is a possibility for you to get banned from some trackers which lead to lesser download speeds.

The way to open port would depend on the Firewall or the Router. In order to configure that, you have to read the user manual for the product.

Tip: Use a port around 10000. Some ISPs block all the ports after ~15000.

Bandwidth

When you go to Options -> Preferences -> Bndwidth you will be able to see current bandwidth configuration.

Here you must set the Maximum upload rate. If you have greater upload rate your download speed will decrease. Therefore set an appropriate maximum upload limit and that would depend on your internet connection. I suggest you to set half of the amount of your upload speed here.

Of course you can set very VERY lower upload speed, but here we are sharing file. You can download because someone else is uploading. So be considerate enough to do your duty as well.

By changing number of connections you might be able to increase the speed of downloading. However, this might lead to very lower speeds as well. Try increasing Maximum number of connected peers per torrent and decreasing number of upload slots per torrent. If this won’t work you can always go back to default configuration.

Protocol Encryption

Some ISPs block all the torrent traffic or give them a very low priority. If you suspect such, you can enable protocol encryption from Options -> Preferences -> BitTorrent.

Then your ISP won’t be able to identify that this is BitTorrent traffic. However once you enable Protocol encryption you will get slightly lesser download speed due to encryption overheads. So enable this only if it’s highly required.

Queuing

Finally you have to set Queuing. For that you have to go to Options -> Preferences -> Queuing.

If you are downloading many torrents at the same time, you will be having lots of Network Overheads. So my recommendation is download only one torrent at a time. For that set Maximum number of active downloads to 1.

Once the torrent completes downloading it will automatically start seeding. If you have many numbers of seeding torrents again you will suffer lower download speeds. Best configuration is have one downloading torrent while having another seeding torrent. For that set Maximum number of active torrents to 2.

Now you will be able to download torrents with maximum utilization of your internet connection Bandwidth.

• Hardware: Intel Core i5 2nd Gen // 4GB DDR2
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium // 64 Bit
• uTorrent: 3.2.2

Special Note!

Notes of Genius say NO to illegal file sharing and Software Piracy. We consider that as a serious crime but nothing else. I used to be a Software Engineer myself, so I know the pain of Software Piracy.

With all these I decided to share this information with you because, BitTorrent is an amazing technology which let you to share huge files through a weaker network. And I believe we can use this in a good way to share actually sharable content.

Tags: #BitTorrent

In past few years most of the gamers around the world moved away from TV based consoles and started using mobile devices. That gave birth to PSP, high end gaming Smartphone and tablets and Nvidia Project Shield.

However gaming consoles are pretty much irreplaceable in hard core gaming communities and there are few big players in the game such as Microsoft and Sony.

With the popularity of mobile gaming Android has become the fastest growing mobile gaming platform and the best part is, it’s open source and comes for free! Any independent developer can develop games for Android.

Recently a very special gaming console came in to market combining the strength of Android and very powerful hardware called OUYA.

Ohh Yeah! That’s something worth looking at.

Closer Look at OUYA

Design

Dimensions: 75mm x 75mm x 82mm

Weight: 300 g

There is only one word that can explain the design. It’s “Cute”. This small, nice looking cube would look great next to the TV. The gaming controller looks pretty standard and has joystick, direction pad and dedicated gaming buttons.

Processor and Storage

Processor: Nvidia Tegra 3

CPU: 1.7 GHz // Quad Core // Cortex A9

GPU: GeForce

RAM: 1 GB

Internal Storage: 8 GB

Expandable Storage: Yes, microSD

The console looks cute, but the inside is beastly. There was a huge mobile gaming trend developed around Nvidia Tegra 3 with Smartphone and Tablet. OUYA is taking all those goodness in to the TV Game console world. The spec is not really high end, but would be great for decent gaming experience.

Internal storage may not look sufficient, but nothing to worry about. You can expand it with microSD cards.

Software

OS: Android 4.1

UI: Customized

As the base OS, OUYA is using Android 4.1. But it’s heavily customized from core to UI. Android is mainly designed for touch screen devices. OUYA team has turned the UI upside down to make it a good fit for game consoles controlled by a game controller.

You can access OnLive gaming platform and watch TV on TwitchTV with OUYA. If you are a game developer try developing some cool games for OUYA. It could be a huge potential market and Development Kit is totally free.

Connectivity

Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth:  Yes, 4.0

USB: 1 X USB 2.0 // 1 X microUSB 2.0

Ethernet: Yes

HDMI: 1080p // 1080i // 720p

Yeah, this has all that is needed to be connected to a gaming console. The gaming controller is connected via BT, so it has high speed 4.0 connectivity. Through HDMI port you can connect to Full HD TV and enjoy awesome games on it.

Wrapping Up

OUYA is utilizing Android OS and growing mobile gaming trend around it to produce a TV game console with high end hardware. This is actually taking all the goodness in mobile gaming devices in to your living room.

The best part is, this is an open platform so any independent developer can create games with free development kit. All these goodness come only for $99.

This might be the next era of game consoles and could be a major threat for Xbox and PlayStation.

Tags: #Android #Gaming #Nvidia

Couple of days ago as several news sources reported, many of Nexus 7 devices received an OTA System update. It has updated the system to Android 4.1.2, a minor incremental update fixing few bugs and Nexus 7 specific UI issues.

As long as this update is addressing Nexus 7 related issues I didn’t expect it to come to my Galaxy Nexus. But surprisingly yesterday, October 15, 2012 I got a pop up for Android 4.1.2 system update. The update size was smaller, only 15.1 MB compared to 45 MB update in Nexus 7. I tap Restart and Install to find out what’s new in yummy new Jelly Bean.

Android 4.1.2 – Update Spotlight

In the first look I didn’t see much difference. UI is same as Android 4.1.1. After few minutes of usage I figured out that button glow is more significant now. To be more specific, outer glow area has expanded.

Then I noticed that there is a UI revamping in Location Access in settings. Previously there were different check boxes for mobile network location service and GPS. They are still the same, but now you have one master switch to all location service.

In Notification Area something interesting is going on. Now you need only one finder to expand and collapse notification details. All you have to do is tap the notification and drag it down. With a haptic feedback it will expand to show you more details. However it doesn’t work if you try to collapse them. For that what you can do is first try to expand and then collapse without relapsing touch.

Those are the major visible changes in Android 4.1.2 update. Other than those, AndroidPolice reports that there is a new developer option to take bug report, long text messages not getting converted to MMS anymore and location in Google account has changed to Location setting.

There aren’t much interesting things in this 0.0.1 incremental update and you can’t expect anything more. If you received Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean OTA update tell us what you feel about it and new things you discovered.

Tags: #Android #Google #Jelly Bean