The First Non Nexus Device Upgrade To Jellybean

Seems like ASUS is rolling out Jellybean to Transformer Pad TF300 users already according to Engadget

So ASUS wins over Samsung and HTC, though it looks like Samsung is just around the corner to push Jellybean out on some of their devices.

Its good to see a start of this trend of quick upgrades on Android devices

Galaxy Note II - Is This It ?

Knowyourmobile just released the following picture of what is supposed to be a leak of the new Galaxy Note II

Even though it looks convincing I have a feeling its a fake, because it looks like the fake image that was released for the Nexus 7 a while back. Also note the image above has the home button and practically no edge at all.

Samsung S Voice + Touchwiz

 A while back I had said that because of S -Voice (competing with Google's Google Now), Samsung's take on Jelly Bean might take more time than HTC . If the rumor mills are to be believed S3 owners might see the new version by August.

I am really interested to see how they incorporated Google Now in to touchwiz because I just don't see Samsung give up the "long press" home key to Google Now. For now the best solution that comes to mind is Google Now being a separate app or worse they just dont include it at all.

A thing to note, I have had a Samsung Captivate before and know the target for Froyo went from "just a few months" to "Dec 2010" to sometime late in 2011 after ATT added their delay so I would lean towards them not making this deadline.

The Next Phone

After Google IO I was quite impressed with what Jellybean had to offer esp Project Butter and Google Now, but I knew that buying a Samsung Galaxy S3 ( I hate the buttons btw, get with the program) or a HTC One X would mean that I wouldn't know when Id get to play with it.

So at that point I decided that getting timely upgrades were more important to me so I got myself the Galaxy Nexus as soon as I/O ended.

So far I'm loving it and cant wait to get Jellybean sometime next week.

 

What Google has to deliver with Jellybean

Quite an exciting month for tech news this has been. After Apple & Microsoft next week Google has their I/O Conference where it is very likely we will see the next iteration of Android aka Jelly Bean. As an avid Android fan I'm quite excited to see whats new but feel that there are 2 key things they have to hit out of the park with this release

Innovation : Go above and beyond with features that really set it apart from the competition. With the release of iOS 6 it is now very close to the features that are offered outside the box of Android, just have a look at the chart from this PC World article .

 This time around they have to leap frog ahead with their offerings that makes the ecosystem attractive not only to geeks but to everyday users eg Google Majel - its concept of an assistant and a powerful API , 5 nexus devices ready for all networks completely taking out the carriers from the middle are exactly the type of stuff that has to come out

Control : Jelly Bean comes at a time when Ice Cream Sandwich is at 7% adoption on the devices and even by the time I/O rolls around we can see that number be at 10% or so. Google has to lay out a plan for how upgrades will be handled going forward and work towards minimizing "fragmentation". Take control of their ecosystem, keep the manufacturers and especially the carriers for marring the experience for the user. One way I can think of is the ability to turn off skins from the OS if the user wants the stock experience as that is the one of the biggest hurdles when pushing updates out.

My Phone Timeline

I saw this on the verge forums and figured it would be fun to share my phone time line till now. Feel free to post yours 

Sony Ericsson t60d (circa 2002) - This was my first cell phone and bought it when I started university 

Song Ericsson T226 (circa 2004) - I had this phone for a week before I returned it for the next one. 

Sony Ericsson t610i (circa 2004) - A great looking phone, was also the first to have a camera

Sony Ericsson W550i (circa 2006) - Swivel phone with a whopping 256mb of internal space

Nokia E71 (circa 2008) - Finally after getting tired of waiting for Nokia to ship a phone to the US, I bought  my first smart phone unlocked . Amazing industrial design and still use it today when I go to India. One of the best phones Nokia made

Samsung Captivate (2010) - Android here I come. A great phone and when it came out was no doubt the best on the market. The phone that started it all for Samsungs dominance in Android

Is This The Next Nexus Tablet ?

Saw these images about a possible leak for the next tablet from Google. Im going to go with No. Just looks too fake and the second image is definitely some phone with the buttons wiped out

http://phandroid.com/2012/06/06/is-this-googles-asus-made-nexus-7-tablet/

Google Nexus 2013 Prediction

If the wall street journal report is true that Google will release 5 devices under the nexus line , I'll make the following predictions about the news :

1) The manufacturers will be Samsung , Motorola, HTC and Asus . Motorola and Asus will have tablets, Asus won't have a phone
2)  HTC One Nexus, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Droid Nexus will be the names of the devices
3)  The devices will be under the google play line of devices powered by android and sold in the play store