Google Announces Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean”

Google has released Android 4.1, known as Jelly Bean, which according to the company is optimized for high performance and low touch latency.

According to the website, Android 4.1 extends vsync timing across all drawing and animation done by the Android framework to ensure a consistent frame rate. It also adds triple buffering in the graphics pipeline for more consistent rendering. Additionally, Android 4.1 reduces touch latency not only by synchronizing touch to vsync timing, but also by anticipating where the user’s finger will be at the time of the screen refresh. 

The website states, “Android 4.1 is designed to work with a new tool called systrace, which collects data directly from the Linux kernel to produce an overall picture of system activities. The data is represented as a group of vertically stacked time series graphs, to help isolate rendering interruptions and other issues.” The tool is available now in the Android SDK.

Other features include: new APIs for accessibility, bi-directional text and other language support, user-installable keyboard maps, enhanced notifications, resizable app widgets, and improved task navigation.