DigitalTrends: What's new in Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

Google on Wednesday finally unveiled Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the next update for its mobile operating system. The update will roll out for the original Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 while the New Nexus 7 will come pre installed with the update. If you would rather not wait for an OTA update, read AddictiveTips's post on how to download and install Android 4.3 on your Nexus device right now. Apart from this, the Google Editions of HTC One and Galaxy S4 will receive the update soon as well.

So what exactly has changed and is new in the new version of Android, read on to know more.

Restricted profiles

Tablet owners can create restricted profiles to limit access to apps, for family, friends, kiosks, and more. Your app can offer various types of restrictions to let tablet owners control its capabilities in each profile.

Bluetooth Smart

Now your apps can communicate with the many types of low-power Bluetooth Smart devices and sensors available today, to provide new features for fitness, medical, location, proximity, and more.

New camera app

Google Play Editions of the Galaxy S4 and HTC One got these apps first; Nexus devices will get them as part of Android 4.3. The new Camera app features a tweaked new radial dial for accessing different options, and allows taking photos with Volume buttons. Read our post on the new Camera app for further details.

Autocomplete in Dialpad

Just start touching numbers or letters and the dial pad will suggest phone numbers or names.

Google Keep becomes a system app

Google’s answer to cloud-powered note apps like Simplenote – Google Keep – has become a system app with Android 4.3.

OpenGL ES 3.0

Game developers can now take advantage of OpenGL ES 3.0 and EGL extensions as standard features of Android, with access from either framework or native APIs.

Better support for dual core & quad core CPUs

Android 4.3 comes with an updated graphics renderer that optimizes draw commands, and supports multithreading across multiple CPU cores. Text rendering will become sharper, and apps will load faster than before!

More features

Read full features on Android Developers or Android home page.

The video below gives a nice side-by-side comparison, and in terms of aesthetics, not much going on. It’s roughly the same look and feel, but 4.3 is noticeably faster, even though it’s still called Jelly Bean. It snaps through web pages faster, and navigating through normal phone functions are also smoother.