Amidst all the rumors around, there has been an expected disclosure that the next version of Android is going to be Jelly Bean. And it will carry the version number as 4.1 not 5.0. Though the disclosure is unintentional and is reportedly seen on the US Play Store when purchasing a Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ smartphone described
as “soon the first phone with Android 4.1 Jell…”
From this piece of text it is rather obvious what the next version’s name and version would be.
Moreover, there’s also an image showing a few of the visual changes present in Jelly Bean. That’s a new wallpaper and a visually refreshed Google search bar on the homescreen, but the dock looks almost the same. The picture is of low resolution, but still the changes are somewhat visible.
It is the features what we are looking forward to not the visuals. There hasn’t been any leak about the features though, we fully expect it to pack a punch like the current version.
This further confirms that Jelly Bean will be a minor update to Ice Cream Sandwich and we should expect “Key Lime Pie” to be Android 5.0 and probably launch with a new Nexus smartphone in the winter!
Despite of Ice Cream Sandwich’s success it has failed to reach the masses. Even after 3 months of its release less than 1% of the total android devices are running Google’s latest Android version. Despite of being open source and fully capable of running on low-end devices; as suggested by custom builds like cm9; it is being served with only high-end devices.
It has been a major drawback because of which developers are rather confused and do not prefer developing for individual devices. This lack of a universal platform has led Apple’s ios enjoy a better stand with updates throughout the series at one go.
It is rather a pity that Google has not been able to control such a potential platform. Quick and innovative reforms are expected of it to serve its customers alike, if it wants to be seen as a serious competitor to Apple in years to come.
Don’t forget to watch Jelly Bean in action at the Google I/O Conference on June 27.
