Android 4.3 isn’t Key Lime Pie, but an amazing update nonetheless

It’s that time of year again, the time where being a Nexus owner really pays off. Yup, it’s update season, or “The strangest thing I’ve seen on the internet in years.” It’s the time of the year where nerds from around the world await their supposedly deserved updates. In fact the barrage of “why isn’t my OTA here yet?” posts across all Android channels made me avoid said channels just because of people’s petulance after new software. Said update arrived three days later to many people, yet the amount of whinging about it really does ruin the fun, for me at least. However, I don’t want to give more time to this kind of thing, so what I’ll do instead is tell you why android 4.3 isn’t a “minor update” as some would have you believe.

Seen but not heard

I’ve sat back, used 4.3 for a few days and reserved my judgement, simply because the latest iteration of Jellybean is to 4.2 what 2.3.5 was to Gingerbread. Sure, it’s probably not perfect, but from what I’ve seen it’s improved everywhere – most noticeably in battery life.

Sure, you can’t actually see most of the changes, but you certainly will notice the font change. Roboto has been tidied up, slimmed down, and although I was skeptical of how much I’d notice the new font, I’m strangely conscious of it, for all the right reasons. My OCD has been satisfied with the status bar clock being hidden when you have a clock on your lockscreen. Yes, this even works for Dashclock Widget, so I assume most clock widgets would work. I know it’s small, but it’s a level of polish that Android has never had the luxury of having. They have now and I think it shows. I flashed the factory images from scratch, as I do with a version bump.

A tale of three Androids 

On all three devices I updated, my Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 (2012) and the Nexus 4, the performance boost was no placebo. I’ve found a lot of hating on the forums when it comes to stock Android for some reason: custom ROM enthusiasts flaming the stock fans, and vice versa, and it really just boggles my mind. We’re all on the same side here people. Play nice. The boost, as I said, was no placebo, it’s courtesy of the new support for OpenGL ES 3.0. Android is the first mobile OS to support the extension coincidentally, so look out for some amazing graphics on Android tablets in the very near future.

The Phone app finally has auto-complete, effectively a T9 Dialler, something which I know the custom community has been clamouring for, well, since I started using Android. I know that this also may not seem unique, but it’s something Android needed.

Bluetooth 4.0 (or Bluetooth Smart) has finally arrived. This is especially great, because of the much improved power usage, especially for wearable devices. The Bluetooth stack has also been replaced and those who have had to suffer without album and artist names on their car stereos can now rejoice, for it has been fixed.

Location services also received a small improvement, and I think this is one that perhaps gives 4.3 its biggest win for me thus far. , Under the WiFi settings, there is a new setting to allow WiFi to scan for local networks for your location. That might sound weird, but using both radios for a short burst helps conserve battery. If you’re like me and you use Google Now (there are many who don’t for some reasons, mostly battery usage) this is doubly awesome as I leave all my location history on.

I like seeing where I went, the route I took and I don’t really care that Google knows that I went there. Google Now is awesome and for me at least, worth it. Now, I don’t think the one location setting made all the difference. I think it helps, but I’ve noticed at least an extra hour of screen-on time, and that is huge. I don’t care what people say, the fact that I can use my phone for a full extra hour every day is amazing. Needless to say I’ve been plugging my phone in at night with about 40% – 45% battery left after about 17 hrs off the charger. I’d normally have to plug my phone in at some point during most evenings after a normal day of walking to and from work.

There were a few more changes: restricted user profiles for tablets, some DRM changes and full 1080p streaming from Netflix. Many new developer tools aimed at helping devs (seemingly Google’s focus in 2013) create more beautiful apps for you and I to use. I know the custom developers are also pretty excited about the back-end changes, and the community is bound to light up in the very near future.

Until then, or until we receive our OTA, how about we all keep it tidy, douse the flames and silly questions? And please, please, for the love all things Nexus, you should know that clearing the Google Services Framework to “trigger” an OTA is a myth. See the image below, I am sure I don’t need to tell you who Jean-Baptiste Queru is.

As I was saying, I don’t believe this was a minor update at all, I think it was a level of polish that Android deserved. Jellybean is stable, and it’s officially the most used version of Android for the first time, and by keeping it “minor” Google also allow OEMs to catch up, and a few have already announced that they’ll be skipping 4.2 altogether, pushing 4.3 when the time comes. I can only say good things about the latest flavour of Jellybean, so from me it’s a big +1.