Android Version Changes

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

  • Not Yet Released. Right Now It Is All Rumors & Speculation. We will have the details once it is officially released.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

  • Lock/home screen rotation support for the Nexus 7
  • One-finger gestures to expand/collapse notifications
  • Bug fixes and performance enhancements
  • Photo Sphere panorama photos
  • Keyboard with gesture typing
  • Lockscreen improvements, including widget support and the ability to swipe directly to camera
  • Notification power controls
  • “Daydream” screensaver, shows information when idle or docked
  • Multiple user accounts (tablets only)
  • Support for wireless display (Miracast)
  • Accessibility improvements: triple-tap to magnify the entire screen, pan and zoom with two fingers. Speech output and Gesture Mode navigation for blind users.
  • New clock app with built-in world clock, stop watch and timer


Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

  • Smoother playback of video and animations by:
  • Vsync timing across all drawing and animation done by the Android framework, including application rendering, touch events, screen composition and display refresh
  • Triple buffering in the graphics pipeline
  • Enhanced accessibility
  • Bi-directional text and other language support
  • User-installable keyboard maps
  • Expandable notifications
  • Ability to turn off notifications on an app specific basis
  • Shortcuts and widgets can automatically be re-arranged or re-sized to allow new items to fit on home screens
  • Bluetooth data transfer for Android Beam
  • Offline voice dictation
  • New interface layout for tablets with smaller screens (closer resembling that of a phone)
  • Improved voice search
  • Improved camera app
  • Google Wallet (for the Nexus 7)
  • High resolution Google+ contact photos[citation needed]
  • Google Now
  • Multichannel audio
  • USB audio (for external sound DACs)
  • Audio chaining (also known as gapless playback)

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich


  • Virtual buttons in the UI, in place of capacitive or physical buttons
  • Separation of widgets in a new tab, listed in a similar manner to apps
  • Easier-to-create folders, with a drag-and-drop style
  • A customizable launcher
  • Improved visual voicemail with the ability to speed up or slow down voicemail messages
  • Pinch-to-zoom functionality in the calendar
  • Integrated screenshot capture (accomplished by holding down the Power and Volume-Down buttons)
  • Improved error correction on the keyboard
  • Ability to access apps directly from lock screen
  • Improved copy and paste functionality
  • Better voice integration and continuous, real-time speech to text dictation
  • Face Unlock, a feature that allows users to unlock handsets using facial recognition software
  • New tabbed web browser, allowing up to 16 tabs
  • Automatic syncing of browser with users’ Chrome bookmarks
  • A new typeface family for the UI, Roboto
  • Data Usage section in settings that lets users set warnings when they approach a certain usage limit, and disable data use when the limit is exceeded
  • Ability to shut down apps that are using data in the background
  • Improved camera app with zero shutter lag, time lapse settings, panorama mode, and the ability to zoom while recording
  • Built-in photo editor
  • New gallery layout, organized by location and person
  • Refreshed “People” app with social network integration, status updates and hi-res images
  • Android Beam, a near-field communication feature allowing the rapid short-range exchange of web bookmarks, contact info, directions, YouTube videos and other data
  • Support for the WebP image format
  • Hardware acceleration of the UI
  • Wi-Fi Direct
  • 1080p video recording for stock Android devices

Android 3.0 Honeycomb

  • Optimized tablet support with a new virtual and “holographic” user interface
  • Added System Bar, featuring quick access to notifications, status, and soft navigation buttons, available at the bottom of the screen
  • Added Action Bar, giving access to contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content at the top of the screen
  • Simplified multitasking – tapping Recent Apps in the System Bar allows users to see snapshots of the tasks underway and quickly jump from one app to another
  • Redesigned keyboard, making typing fast, efficient and accurate on larger screen sizes
  • Simplified, more intuitive copy/paste interface
  • Multiple browser tabs replacing browser windows, plus form auto-fill and a new “incognito” mode allowing anonymous browsing
  • Quick access to camera exposure, focus, flash, zoom, front-facing camera, time-lapse, and other camera features
  • Ability to view albums and other collections in full-screen mode in Gallery, with easy access to thumbnails for other photos
  • New two-pane Contacts UI and Fast Scroll to let users easily organize and locate contacts
  • New two-pane Email UI to make viewing and organizing messages more efficient, allowing users to select one or more messages
  • Support for video chat using Google Talk
  • Hardware acceleration
  • Support for multi-core processors
  • Ability to encrypt all user data


Android 2.3 Gingerbread

  • Updated user interface design with increased simplicity and speed
  • Support for extra-large screen sizes and resolutions (WXGA and higher)
  • Native support for SIP VoIP internet telephony
  • Faster, more intuitive text input in virtual keyboard, with improved accuracy, better suggested text and voice input mode
  • Enhanced copy/paste functionality, allowing users to select a word by press-hold, copy, and paste
  • Support for Near Field Communication (NFC), allowing the user to read an NFC tag embedded in a poster, sticker, or advertisement
  • New audio effects such as reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization, and bass boost
  • New Download Manager, giving users easy access to any file downloaded from the browser, email, or another application
  • Support for multiple cameras on the device, including a front-facing camera, if available
  • Support for WebM/VP8 video playback, and AAC audio encoding
  • Improved power management with a more active role in managing apps that are keeping the device awake for too long
  • Enhanced support for native code development
  • Switched from YAFFS to ext4 on newer devices
  • Audio, graphical, and input enhancements for game developers
  • Concurrent garbage collection for increased performance
  • Native support for more sensors (such as gyroscopes and barometers)