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What's new in Android 4.3
- darxius 13y agoI'm new to the Android world and this is the first update I've seen. When should I expect an update pushed to my phone? What does it depend on? I have the Galaxy S4 so I assume Samsung has to make some modifications to the version to support some stuff?
- keeperofdakeys 13y agoThe image is modified heavily by Samsung. Besides their custom UI, they need to write/integrate custom drivers for the hardware in the phone. As for time, it could be a few months before it's updated. This is the advantage of Nexus phones, as Google ensures that the manufacturer has a release ready, and that previous phones are updated (within reason).
- untog 13y agoTL;DR: not much. It's smoother, which is a great thing. But in terms of actual features, the only one I'm looking forward to is being able to use Wi-Fi positioning while I've turned off the ability to connect to Wi-Fi. That is to say, I'm not very excited about this release.
- brokenparser 13y agoThere are lots of things in the new version, but just because your random wish isn't there it's "not much"? Give me a break. Besides, you can already do that with DroidWall or any other firewall in the play store.
- untog 13y agobut just because your random wish isn't there it's "not much"? Er, where did I say that? My "random wish" was one of the new features they announced that I am glad they included. There are plenty of new features in 4.3, but they're all developer-centric. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, but it means it isn't so exciting for many people. Especially as few people can afford to target these new features right now, given that their potential market of 4.3 users is tiny.
- tadfisher 13y agoFuture Android updates probably won't be as exciting because Google is migrating most of their system apps to Play. In the past, a system update might have brought new features to Maps, or to Google Search, while now those are updated on a more frequent (and less buzzworthy) schedule.
- lnanek2 13y ago+1
- qznc 13y agoYes, for users nothing really changes. Though, some people will probably appreciate the i18n stuff. I consider this a sign of maturity, though. The smartphone UI is now quite stable.
- scott_karana 13y agoBluetooth 4/LE in AOSP is a big deal, since there are lots of end-user devices (Fitbits, etc) that won't work with Bluetooth 2. Android had really fallen behind there.
- kelnos 13y agoThe "not much", at least wrt to user-visible features, makes sense. My feeling is that they save the big user-facing features for the major releases, i.e. whatever comes after Jellybean. It seems like the minor number bumps are primarily for new developer APIs and better performance/stability. I think this is great, and is a sign of Android's increasing maturity as both a platform, and a UI.
- gergles 13y ago> The /system partition is now mounted nosuid for zygote-spawned processes, preventing Android applications from executing setuid programs. This reduces root attack surface and likelihood of potential security vulnerabilities. Well, that sounds great. It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device.
- glhaynes 13y agoIt's also like they're trying to reduce root attack surface and potential security vulnerabilities.
- Nux 13y agoI believe current Fedora is also setuid free, possibly other distros, too.
- king_jester 13y agoConsidering there haven't been devices yet that are unroot-able, this shouldn't be a problem. At a minimum the various Nexus devices work with fastboot to unlock the device very easily.
- runjake 13y agoI'm guessing you're talking strictly about the Nexus line? Because there's several Android devices that have proven un-rootable thus far, such as most Motorola devices, several HTC devices, and so on.
- Lewisham 13y agoHonestly, if rooting is important to you, you should be buying Nexus devices anyway, right? I realize that there are some consumers that are forced into certain handsets, and those people lose out. But many people buy devices like Galaxy S4s with the expectation to root and fix what they don't like, which is never something Samsung promises. If such consumers vote with their wallets, we'll see more things like the S4 Google Edition, which is what such buyers want in the first place. I don't see much of a problem here (exception of those people who don't have Nexus as an option for whatever reason).
- stevewillows 13y agoThe nice thing about restricted profiles is that it should allow us to create a really simple 'Kid mode'.
- eliben 13y agoYes, especially limiting in-app-purchases seems like a very useful feature for letting kids use your tablet without worrying too much.
- znowi 13y agoAs an owner of Nexus 4, the only feature I'm looking for is a reduced battery usage :) They provide optimizations for the location API, but I suspect that the more prominent performance features will end up draining battery even faster :)
- king_jester 13y agoSome of the performance changes for handling graphics should help with battery life since they will be more efficient in using the CPU and GPU. Some of the Android engineers covered this at I/O 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQZFaec9NpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQZFaec9NpA
- slacka 13y agoI too have been waiting impatiently for Google to fix the audio latency. Great to see behind the scenes of how the Android engineers are tackling this issue. Surprised this is primarily a Linux scheduling issue and of course priority inversion. Between "fast path" and matching buffers/sample rate, looks like we're almost there. Great watch! Thanks for posting that link. Any android developers working on audio should check out: https://code.google.com/p/high-performance-audio/ https://code.google.com/p/high-performance-audio/
- wavesounds 13y ago"Nexus 7 should receive the update today, other devices in the coming week" http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/android-4-3-will-be-available-for-nexus-7-nexus-4-nexus-10-and-galaxy-nexus/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/android-4-3-will-be-availab...
- dholowiski 13y agoMaybe they changed it since your comment, it now says ". All of these devices will receive the over-the-air update today." Seems highly unlikely to me. I haven't gotten the update on my Galaxy Nexus yet.
- jordanthoms 13y ago'Recieve' there means that the OTA is out and being deployed to some devices, not that it's been rolled out and made available to everyone. If you want the update sooner, you can download the factory images and flash it. (which have already been released).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- LeeHunter 13y agoStill no low latency audio? I wonder if Android will ever be a useful device for serious musicians.
- jordanthoms 13y agoThis is something which is being worked on, but it's a complex problem and takes time to improve. Android 4.3 has halved the audio latency on the Nexus 7 (2012) and Nexus 4. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3kfEeMZ65c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3kfEeMZ65c
- sologoub 13y agoThere seems to be a significant push for more video/entertainment/proprietary content related stuff. Anyone familiar with this? "Modular DRM framework To meet the needs of the next generation of media services, Android 4.3 introduces a modular DRM framework that enables media application developers to more easily integrate DRM into their own streaming protocols, such as MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1)." Wonder if I'll finally see Amazon Instant Video on vanilla-android... probably not.
- mtgx 13y agoIf Amazon supports it, I don't see why not.
- sologoub 13y agoBecause of their Kindle Fire line.
- untog 13y agoThing is, Amazon Instant is already on Google TV. So I don't think there is any technical reason for them to not implement it.
- dangrossman 13y agoAmazon Instant on Google TV is just a shortcut to launching Chrome pointed at the Amazon site where the videos play in Flash. It's not a real Android app, not on my box at least.
- jdboyd 13y agoAmazon Instant on some Google TV devices is the real Amazon Instant app. However, the devices supported by Amazon Instant are all ones that offered DRM.
- ville 13y agoIs Google lacking imagination? This is the third version with the same name. I'm missing the times when every release was a new sweet thing.
- rahoulb 13y agoI suspect it's part of their strategy for deflecting from the "fragmentation" issue - "what version of Android does your phone run? Jelly Bean? Snap!" I also reckon that they will start releasing bits of the OS via the Play Store, bypassing the manufacturers and carriers (as they are already doing with the standard keyboard).
- king_jester 13y agoThey do that with Google Play Serivces (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...) already. The things 4.3 has w.r.t. bluetooth, opengl es support, etc. are probably really difficult to ship independently.
- ok_craig 13y agoNone of the most recent releases have really seemed significant enough to warrant a new release name.
- SEMW 13y ago> I'm missing the times when every release was a new sweet thing. There's never been a time when all point releases had a new codename. Eclair covered 2.0 and 2.1. Honeycomb covered 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. I don't see any evidence they've changed their naming practices.
- dannyr 13y agoBluetooth Smart Support is a big deal. It's going to make it easier for hardware devs to develop Bluetooth apps.
- JeremyNT 13y agoOne such piece of hardware being Fitbit, which only presently supports some Samsung devices (since Samsung apparently got tired of waiting and hacked in their own support). Perhaps we'll finally get full Fitbit support on Android devices running 4.3.
- smackfu 13y agoYes, this adds support for a bunch of recent running/biking sensors that are currently iPhone 4S and up only.
- Nogwater 13y agoI missed it in the presentation. Did they say when this will ship to Nexus 4?
- Lewisham 13y agoRolling out today, is what I read on The Verge. However, that doesn't mean you'll get it today; rollouts are usually so slow that you can wait weeks.
- Zikes 13y agoThe Check Now button in About Phone seems to be something of a placebo button, as well. In the past I've got around this by going to Settings->Apps->Google Services and clearing the cache and killing the process. That will force an actual check by pressing the Check Now button. Of course, if your phone isn't scheduled to receive it yet then you'll still come up bupkis, like I have thus far.
- jordanthoms 13y agoI don't think anyone has gotten the OTA update yet. Once someone has, the zip will get posted and then we can all update from that. Or, you can flash the factory image which is out now but you'll lose your data on the phone.
- cageface 13y agoJust checked for the update on my N4 and got it immediately. I'm in SE Asia, if that makes any difference.
- timdorr 13y agoThe 4.3 factory image is available right now: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images?hl=pt-BR#occamjwr66v https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images?hl=pt-BR#... As for the OTA update, that will take a few weeks to get to every device.
- samstokes 13y agoOn the "actual user-facing feature" front: Android 4.3 adds built-in support for Bluetooth AVRCP 1.3... In addition to exposing playback controls on the remote devices connected over Bluetooth, apps can now transmit metadata such as track name, composer, and other types of media metadata. I've been waiting for that for car audio (iOS already supports it).
- stevedub 13y agoDid they say when the source code will drop?
- jamesprudente 13y agoIt's there. https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/android-4.3_r2.1 https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
- rcchen 13y agoIt seems that only Nexus devices are getting the update today, and not the Samsung/HTC Play Edition phones. It will be interesting to see when those two devices get the update; in the meantime, not all Play devices are made equal?
- StavrosK 13y agoDoes anyone know if there will be images for the Nexus Experience S4 and HTC One?
- jordanthoms 13y agoThere surely will, they said in the announcement that updates for GPE devices are coming 'very soon'.
- StavrosK 13y agoAh, I'm so conflicted... Do I keep Sense and the IR blaster/Zoe, or do I get stock with all the improvements and saner UI?...
- drivebyacct2 13y agoThere are already patches for the IR blaster in CM10.1 (or 10.2 now). You have to cherrypick them though, as of two weeks ago they weren't merged yet.
- comex 13y agoReposting a dead reply to your comment: > There are already patches for the IR blaster in CM10.1 (or 10.2 now). You have to cherrypick them though, as of two weeks ago they weren't merged yet.
- StavrosK 13y agoOh, thanks! I imagine CM is pretty much stock, no? It might even have PDroid patches, I'll have to look. I wonder how stable it is.
- danso 13y agoNot to start a flame war here...but what is the likelihood that newer devices still on 4.1 will be bumped to 4.3, on the reasoning that third-parties waited until 4.3 to make the upgrade? Or does it become increasingly unlikely that any upgrade will happen? I have a Sprint HTC One...which was released in 4.2's latter days but still had 4.1...wondering if an upgrade will ever happen
- Zikes 13y agoThat seems to be largely a carrier issue, and unfortunately the best solution seems to be to root the device and install/update stock Android manually. This is why Google is moving a lot of Android's functionality into applications, which can be updated easily via the Google Play Store.
- luke_s 13y agoI should also put a shout out to the compatibility library and google play services - these mean app developers are not tied to having to code against the latest version of android to use new features. Essentially all Android updates do now is to change some of the core OS plumbing. The big changes from 4.1 to 4.2 were rendering speedups. 4.3 seems to be new versions of the bluetooth stack and open GL.
- mey 13y agoConsider it unlikely. I have a flagship Verizon device stuck on 4.1.1, this is true of my previous Android device. The carriers seem to want a model where you replace your device regularly to get the newer software....
- Achshar 13y agoLol, Funny how we have very different standards for stuck. I would not consider 4.1.1 "stuck" any time soon. I have gingerbread on 800mhz, 420x840. I would LOVE to be "stuck" on 4.1.1. Google chrome and Google Now seem like such neat things.
- 13y ago
- napoleoncomplex 13y agoThis is more developer related, but one of the biggest news is a backwards compatible ActionBar in the official support library. All that's left to say is a big, enormous thank you to Jake Wharton for keeping us all sane until now. Edit: The video about the ActionBarCompat is available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TGgYqfJnyc#at=20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TGgYqfJnyc#at=20 Seems largely identical to ABS in its implementation, which makes sense.
- jknightco 13y agoSeriously, this might be the most important change in the list. Jake's work has been incredible, but having this provided by the support library is a huge improvement to Android development.
- kumarm 13y agoAbsolutely ActionBarCompat is the best addition to 4.3. Thanks for the video link.
- luke_s 13y agoUm, its worth nothing that ActionBarCompat is not an addition to 4.3. Its an addition to the support library. If you include the support library in your project and you can use features from 4.3, such as fragments, and the action bar all the way back to android 1.6. The support library is a backport of modern functionality. This is part of googles approach to addressing fragmentation on the Android platform.
- ZoFreX 13y agoSmall correction, the support library which has ActionBarCompat only goes back to 2.1 (each version has a number representing the API version it supports, in this case v7)
- archivator 13y agoPersonally, I'm still really annoyed that Espresso - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ugmCuNxDU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ugmCuNxDU - hasn't been released!
- nileshtrivedi 13y agoSo 4.3 fixes neither the ad-hoc WiFi issue #82 nor the audio latency issue #3434. I will continue to pass as those are the deal breakers for me. It’s amazing – these two have been pending for more than 4 years. Google hasn’t cared to even comment on the former while thousands of users beg them to: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82
- Zikes 13y agoIt would appear that both were assigned on Friday, so that is a good sign.
- Ologn 13y agoYes. I'm still watching issue #7147 aka #20814 ( http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7147 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7147 ). The programmer who created Dalvik was working on a fix to this prior to his leaving Google in 2011, but apparently no one there picked up the ball ( http://bit.ly/12kk0l4 http://bit.ly/12kk0l4 ). I'm happy they have improved some things over the past year, allowing for staged rollouts and so forth. I do hope they work on fixing things like this, as opposed to just including things like more APIs for DRM to plug into.
- notatoad 13y ago>You can access notifications through new APIs that let you register a notification listener service and with permission of the user, receive notifications as they are displayed in the status bar...You'll be able to launch any intents attached to the notification or its actions, as well as dismiss it from the system, allowing your app to provide a complete user interface to notifications. wow. that should have some interesting possibilities.
- randallu 13y agoHello smartwatches!
- archivator 13y agoThis can be done on older versions as well but the app has to declare itself as an Accessibility Service, which is a massive hack. Google are fixing that by mirroring that specific use case in a separate service.
- abirkill 13y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Accessibility Service hack only allows apps to read notifications? One of the other advantages of this new API functionality seems to be that it will also allow apps to dismiss notifications, or detect when the user has dismissed a notification. This will allow notifications to be kept in sync between the system and an app (or on a linked device like a smartwatch), which is a very nice addition.
- Goosey 13y ago> Wi-Fi scan-only mode is a new platform optimization that lets users keep Wi-Fi scan on without connecting to a Wi-Fi network, to improve location accuracy while conserving battery. Out of all the features this is the one I am most excited about.
- knodi 13y agoNew master key?
- ippa 13y agoNice to see they're working on rendering-performance. I bought the prev Nexus 7 but returned it some days later. The jittery scrolling and constant microlag drove me crazy.
- joaomsa 13y agoFrom my time working with SELinux on the desktop I'm curious to see what they do with it eventually, now running it in permissive audit mode doesn't do much at all. I'm wondering if the plan is to eventually have each app ship with a policy file (doubt it)? Use a targeted policy to only confine certain apps chosen by the user with corresponding policies and run everything else unconfined (minimizes breakage)? Run the entire dalvik vm in a separate confined domain? Just leave it there as an option for enterprise and government customers who would really take advantage of flexible interface for writing access policies?
- vegasbrianc 13y agoOne more reason to have a Nexus device is to take advantage of these updates right away.
- artagnon 13y agoRunning CyanogenMod nightly, because it's the closest I can get to open source: I love getting updates in the form of git SHA-1s every few days. I wonder if upstream Android will ever take to a rolling-release approach.