Is Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) the most advanced phone/tablet OS in the world?

[cerebus]

Whether JB is great or not, i cannot update my Galaxy S.
Yet i can upgrade my ipad1 to ios 6.

I have JB on my SGS1 and it works like a treat. Not that hard to do, just visit XDA for instructions.

You can, but must do it yourself.
Not Googles fault. Talk to the OEM.

Indeed whatever else fragmentation is, it is conclusively NOT Google's inability to manage their OEM's.

 

[TowerGuru]

Jelly bean is awesome. Been running it for about a month now...by far the best. The no flash support though is killing me...for certain reasons....

 

[phoneJunky]

Do you guys know how to force the backup and restore to only work over wifi?

JB is nice and fast, but it still has a few deficiencies that other platforms support. But atleast with each passing upgrade it is getting better and better.

 

[hawker]

Jelly bean is awesome. Been running it for about a month now...by far the best. The no flash support though is killing me...for certain reasons....

You can sideload it.

Just find the .apk somewhere and install it.

 

[Viva]

This review of Android was written before Samsung's JB TouchWiz was available as I can kill most of those issues listed as "fixed" or "never happened to me". As he states at the end he had to remove items as he was writing as things were fixed so quickly. The return to scroll position is still a major hastle though, but that is overcome by installing from the PlayStore in GMail kn a browser (felm PC/laptop) instead of trying to do so on the phone itself. PlayStore in GMail is a winner and makes life so much easier.

I was a big critic of Samsung's software abilities, especially with TouchWiz. Since ICS they have made huge strides forward and on JB it is a joy to see and use. Samsung must be credited for upping their game substantially both in hardware and software over the last 18 months. I am not a Samsung fan, but I find myself getting more and more Samsung products these days as they are just so damn good. No wonder Apple are pi$$ing in their pants already.

This article is about stock Jelly Bean, like I have on my (fully updated) Nexus 7. And they are all still reproducible. If you have a device with stock Jelly Bean installed, go sit down with it and work your way through the list. Also, not all issues mentioned in the article are bugs - many are design issues, like

- No Two Icons Are The Same Size
- The Google Voice Icon Makes No Sense
- Google Music Has No Status Bar... In Landscape
- Horizontal Support Sucks
- Unmanageable Cloud Storage Pictures In The Gallery
- Jelly Bean Broke The Menu Button Glow
- GTalk Messages Are Buttons That Don't Do Anything
- This Calculator Button Is Broken
- The Uninstall Interface is Half Popup and Half Full Screen
- The On-Screen Button Rotate Animation Is Completely Wrong
- Contact Pictures STILL Look Like Ass
- There Is No Way, Anywhere, To See Your Purchased Apps
- Google Makes A Million Texting Apps
- App Navigation Styles Are Diverging

I do love Jelly Bean and I wont trade it for any other OS, but these issues really needs fixing. Whether or not Samsung addressed some of these on their phones, I cannot confirm. Point is, they shouldn't have been there is the first case.

So basically I'm really looking forward to Android 4.2 which will hopefully address all these bugs/design issues.

 

[superskully]

Yoh, it seems everyone replied to my post.

In anycase, after trying a rc1 ics a few months back, the problem i had, i went back to gb.
Just been lazy to do rc2 ics, also cos i want to upgrade, S3 or note 2, if only cell c can luanch some good specials!

 

[kingrob]

JB is nice and all but I must admit, Google Now is scaring the **** out of me.

Not for what it can do now, but for what its capable of doing and where it's heading. Google Now + Google Glases + AR Facial recognition and social link-up. I can already see the dam thing showing people's tweets/wall posts when you just look at them.

Not only that, the dam thing is learning your habits and so is Google.

For example see http://www.zdnet.com/google-reportedly-buying-ar-facial-recognition-firm-viewdle-7000005082/

This is scary and awesome.

 

[CoolBug]

Commenting on the above "issues" I'm using 4.1 on my TF101

- No Two Icons Are The Same Size - You are more than welcome to change any image to anything you like, you cannot blame Google for how each dev makes their own icon.
- The Google Voice Icon Makes No Sense - It's a microphone for you to speak? I must be missing something
- Google Music Has No Status Bar... In Landscape - We have Google music?
- Horizontal Support Sucks - I pretty much only use horizontal on my 10" tab
- Unmanageable Cloud Storage Pictures In The Gallery - I don't use cloud so can't comment
- Jelly Bean Broke The Menu Button Glow
- Talk Messages Are Buttons That Don't Do Anything - Yes I also punch doors because of this
- This Calculator Button Is Broken
- The Uninstall Interface is Half Popup and Half Full Screen - I can't believe you are crying about this, Yes the settings menu is full screen, yes to uninstall gives a popup, so effing what?
- The On-Screen Button Rotate Animation Is Completely Wrong ? How so?
- Contact Pictures STILL Look Like Ass
- There Is No Way, Anywhere, To See Your Purchased Apps - Uh yes there is, just click on downloaded apps, each app either says free or purchased next to the app title so you dont even have o click on it
- Google Makes A Million Texting App - Really? Okay.. please list 10
- App Navigation Styles Are Diverging - And how can Google fix this? Ask the devs to be consistent?

 

[Viva]

Commenting on the above "issues" I'm using 4.1 on my TF101

- No Two Icons Are The Same Size - You are more than welcome to change any image to anything you like, you cannot blame Google for how each dev makes their own icon.
- The Google Voice Icon Makes No Sense - It's a microphone for you to speak? I must be missing something
- Google Music Has No Status Bar... In Landscape - We have Google music?
- Horizontal Support Sucks - I pretty much only use horizontal on my 10" tab
- Unmanageable Cloud Storage Pictures In The Gallery - I don't use cloud so can't comment
- Jelly Bean Broke The Menu Button Glow
- Talk Messages Are Buttons That Don't Do Anything - Yes I also punch doors because of this
- This Calculator Button Is Broken
- The Uninstall Interface is Half Popup and Half Full Screen - I can't believe you are crying about this, Yes the settings menu is full screen, yes to uninstall gives a popup, so effing what?
- The On-Screen Button Rotate Animation Is Completely Wrong ? How so?
- Contact Pictures STILL Look Like Ass
- There Is No Way, Anywhere, To See Your Purchased Apps - Uh yes there is, just click on downloaded apps, each app either says free or purchased next to the app title so you dont even have o click on it
- Google Makes A Million Texting App - Really? Okay.. please list 10
- App Navigation Styles Are Diverging - And how can Google fix this? Ask the devs to be consistent?

From your comments it looks like you did not read the article I was referring to in this post.

You have to keep in mind that some of these issues are specific to stock Jelly Bean as experienced on a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 7. Other issues are present in all JB Roms.

I agree with you that none of these are major issues, but they are issues nonetheless. I would, like you, only want to see my favourite mobile OS get even better.

 

[CoolBug]

I'm surprised the back button problems weren't listed