JellyBean

[vb1992]

JellyBean

" developers will be able create 'actions' for their apps' newly-expandable notifications — allowing the user to 'like' something directly from the notifications menu, for example."

Android 'Jelly Bean' 4.1 launches with its sights set on Siri and developers | Mobile Devices | ZDNet UK

Developer tools

One of the key announcements at Google I/O was the arrival of the Android platform development kit (PDK), which will be given to hardware makers a few months before each update to the mobile OS. This is intended to reduce Android fragmentation, as it will make it easier for manufacturers to update their own customised version of the operating system more quickly, so customers can in turn update their phones or tablets sooner.

Google has also addressed another frequently-cited concern of Android developers, namely people copying their apps without paying.

"From Jelly Bean and forward, paid apps in Google Play are encrypted with a device-specific key before they are delivered and stored on the device," the company wrote in a developer blog post. "We know you work hard building your apps. We work hard to protect your investment."

Jelly Bean also comes with new APIs for accessibility services, making it easier for developers to integrate gesture-based commands for the visually-impaired. Other new APIs target functionality such as network bandwidth management and low-level media codec access.

In a move that could prove useful to both users and developers, Google has updated the Play store so that app updates no longer require the fresh downloading of the app's entire installation package (APK). Instead, the new 'smart app update' will only download the part of the APK that has changed, saving on bandwidth and battery.

According to Google, there are now more than a million new Android device activations each day. :sign0060:

Google aims for an Android in every pocket

 

[Roger Garstang]

Now is that just preventing copying the apk off the device and putting it on another or is that going to prevent me from using (Installing from Play) applications, bought on one device that dies, on the replacement?

 

[NJDude]

Now is that just preventing copying the apk off the device and putting it on another or is that going to prevent me from using (Installing from Play) applications, bought on one device that dies, on the replacement?

Just copying from one device to another.

 

[Roger Garstang]

Hope so, that wording of before they are delivered stuff just sounded weird. I actually thought there was something like this already as apps I have from Play and Amazon all call home to daddy every once in a while and if they can't get a connection they just shutdown. Amazon apps are really bad about this.