1page.title=Jelly Bean 2tab1=Android 4.2 3tab1.link=#android-42 4tab2=Android 4.1 5tab2.link=#android-41 6 7@jd:body 8 9 10<style> 11#android-41 {display:none;} 12</style> 13 14<script> 15function revealSection(hashy) { 16 if (hashy != "" && !$(hashy).is(":visible")) { 17 sectionId = $(hashy).closest(".version-section").attr("id"); 18 link = $("#title-tabs a[href$="+sectionId+"]"); 19 link.parent().addClass("selected"); 20 link.parent().siblings().removeClass("selected"); 21 22 sectionDiv = $(".version-section"+link.attr("href")); 23 if (sectionDiv.length) { 24 $(".version-section").hide(); 25 sectionDiv.show(); 26 } 27 28 $('html, body').animate({ 29 scrollTop: $(hashy).offset().top 30 }, 100); 31 } 32} 33 34$(document).ready(function() { 35 $("#title-tabs li a").each(function() { 36 $(this).click(function(){ 37 $(this).parent().addClass("selected"); 38 $(this).parent().siblings().removeClass("selected"); 39 $(".version-section").hide(); 40 $($(this).attr("href")).show(); 41 return false; 42 }); 43 }); 44 45 hashy = escapeHTML(location.hash); 46 revealSection(hashy); 47}); 48 49window.onhashchange = function () { 50 revealSection(escapeHTML(location.hash)); 51} 52 53</script> 54 55 56 57<!-- BEGIN ANDROID 4.2 --> 58<div id="android-42" class="version-section"> 59<div style="float:right;padding:0px 0px 12px 34px;"> 60<div> 61<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-device-2.png" alt="Android 4.2 on phone and tablet" height="348" width="400"> 62</div> 63</div> 64<p>Welcome to Android 4.2, the latest version of <span 65style="white-space:nowrap;">Jelly Bean!</span></p> 66 67<p>Android 4.2 has performance optimizations, a refreshed system UI, and great 68new features for users and developers. This document provides a glimpse of what's new for 69developers. 70 71<p>See the <a href="/about/versions/android-4.2.html">Android 4.2 APIs</a> 72document for a detailed look at the new developer APIs.</p> 73 74<p>Find out more about the new Jelly Bean features for users at <a 75href="http://www.android.com/whatsnew">www.android.com</a>.</p> 76 77 78<h2 id="42-performance" style="line-height:1.25em;">Faster, Smoother, More Responsive</h2> 79 80<p>Android 4.2 builds on the performance improvements already included in Jelly Bean 81— <strong>vsync timing</strong>, <strong>triple buffering</strong>, 82<strong>reduced touch latency</strong>, and <strong>CPU input boost</strong> 83— and adds new optimizations that make Android even faster.</p> 84 85<p>Improvements in the <strong>hardware-accelerated 2D renderer</strong> make 86common animations such as scrolling and swiping smoother and faster. In 87particular, <strong>drawing is optimized</strong> for layers, clipping and 88certain shapes (rounded rects, circles and ovals).</p> 89 90<p>A variety of <strong>WebView rendering optimizations</strong> make scrolling 91of web pages smoother and free from jitter and lags.</p> 92 93<p>Android’s <strong>Renderscript Compute</strong> is the first computation 94platform ported to run directly on a <strong>mobile device GPU</strong>. It automatically 95takes advantage of <strong>GPU computation</strong> resources whenever possible, 96dramatically improving performance for graphics and image processing. Any app using 97Renderscript on a supported device can benefit immediately from 98this GPU integration <strong>without recompiling</strong>.</p> 99 100 101<div style="float:left;margin:16px 24px 12px 0px;"> 102<a href="" target="_android"> 103<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-nexus10-1.png" alt="10-inch tablet running Android 4.2" width="380" height="281" /></a> 104</div> 105 106<h2 id="42-ui" style="margin-top:2em;">Refined, refreshed UI</h2> 107 108<p>Android 4.2 refines the Jelly Bean user experience and brings familiar 109Android UI patterns such as status bar, system bar, and notifications window to 110all tablets.</p> 111 112<p>All screen sizes now feature the <strong>status bar</strong> on top, with 113pull-down access to <strong>notifications</strong> and a new <strong>Quick 114Settings</strong> menu. The familiar </strong>system bar</strong> appears on the 115bottom, with buttons easily accessible from either hand. The <strong>Application 116Tray</strong> is also available on all screen sizes.</p> 117 118 119<h2 id="42-multiuser" style="margin-top:2em;clear:left;">One tablet, many users</h2> 120 121<p>Now several users can <strong>share a single Android tablet</strong>, with 122each user having convenient access to a <strong>dedicated user 123space</strong>. Users can switch to their spaces with a single touch from the 124lock screen.</p> 125 126<p>On a multiuser device, Android gives each user a separate environment, 127including user-specific emulated SD card storage. Users also have their own 128homescreens, widgets, accounts, settings, files, and apps, and the system keeps 129these separate. All users share core system services, but the system ensures that 130each user's applications and data remain isolated. In effect, each of the multiple 131users has his or her own Android device.</p> 132 133<p>Users can install and uninstall apps at any time in their own environments. 134To save storage space, Google Play downloads an APK only if it's not already 135installed by another user on the device. If the app is already installed, Google 136Play records the new user's installation in the usual way but doesn't download 137another copy of the app. Multiple users can run the same copy of an APK because 138the system creates a new instance for each user, including a user-specific data 139directory.</p> 140 141<p>For developers, <strong>multi-user support is transparent</strong> — 142your apps do not need to do anything special to run normally in a multi-user 143environment and there are no changes you need to make in your existing or 144published APKs. The system manages your app in each user space just as it does 145in a single-user environment. </p> 146 147 148<h2 id="42-engagement" style="clear:left; margin-top:1em;">New ways to engage users</h2> 149 150<div style="float:right;margin:22px 0px 0px 24px;width:280px;"> 151<div> 152<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-lock-calendar.png" alt="Calendar lock screen widget" width="280" height="543" style="padding-left:1em;margin-bottom:0"> 153</div> 154<p class="image-caption" style="padding:1.5em">You can extend <strong>app widgets</strong> to run on the lock screen, for instant access to your content.</p> 155</div> 156 157<h3 id="42-lockscreen-widgets">Lock screen widgets</h3> 158 159<p>In Android 4.2, users can place <strong>app widgets</strong> directly on 160their <strong>lock screens</strong>, for instant access to favorite app content 161without having to unlock. Users can add as many as five lock screen widgets, 162choosing from widgets provided by installed apps. The lock screen displays each 163widget in its own panel, letting users swipe left and right to view different 164panels and their widgets.</p> 165 166<p>Like all app widgets, lock screen widgets can display <strong>any kind of content</strong> and 167they can accept direct user interaction. They can be entirely self-contained, 168such as a widget that offers controls to play music, or they can let users jump 169straight to an Activity in your app, after unlocking along the way as 170needed.</p> 171 172<p>For developers, lock screen widgets offer a great new way to engage users. 173They let you put your content in front of users in a location they’ll see often, 174and they give you more opportunities to bring users directly into your app.</p> 175 176<p>You can take advantage of this new capability by building a new app widget or 177by extending an existing home screen widget. If your app already includes home 178screen widgets, you can extend them to the lock screen with minimal change. To 179give users an optimal experience, you can update the widget to use the full lock 180screen area when available and resize when needed on smaller screens. You can 181also add features to your widgets that might be especially useful or convenient 182on the lock screen.</p> 183 184<h3 id="42-daydreams">Daydream</h3> 185 186<p>Daydream is an <strong>interactive screensaver mode</strong> that starts when 187a user’s device is docked or charging. In this mode, the system launches a 188daydream — a remote content service provided by an installed app — 189as the device screensaver. A user can enable Daydream from the Settings app and 190then choose the daydream to display.</p> 191 192<p>Daydreams combine the best capabilities of live wallpapers and home screen 193widgets, but they are more powerful. They let you offer the any kind of content 194in a completely new context, with user interactions such as flipping through 195photos, playing audio or video, or jumping straight into your app with a single 196touch.</p> 197 198<p>Because daydreams can start automatically when a device is charging or 199docked, they also give your app a great way to support new types of user 200experiences, such as leanback or exhibition mode, demo or kiosk mode, and 201"attract mode" — all without requiring special hardware.</p> 202 203<div style="float:left;margin:20px 30px 0px 0px;width:460px;"> 204<div> 205<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-dream-1.png" alt="Daydream screensaver mode" height="300" style="padding-left:1em;"> 206</div> 207<p class="image-caption" style="padding:.5em .5em .5em 1.5em;"><span 208style="font-weight:500;">Daydream</span> lets you create powerful interactive screensavers that display any kind of content.</p> 209</div> 210 211<p>Daydreams are similar to Activities and can do anything that Activity 212can do — from rendering a UI hierarchy (without using RemoteViews) to 213drawing directly using Canvas, OpenGL, SurfaceTexture, and more. They can play 214video and audio and they can even accept direct user interaction. However, 215daydreams are not Activities, so they don’t affect the backstack or appear in 216Recents and they cannot be launched directly from your app.</p> 217 218<p>Implementing a daydream is straightforward and you can take advantage of UI 219components and resources that you’ve already created for other parts of your 220app. You can provide multiple daydreams in your app and you can offer distinct 221content and display settings for each.</p> 222 223<h2 id="42-external-display" style="clear:left;">External display support</h2> 224 225<p>Android 4.2 introduces platform support for <strong>external 226displays</strong> that goes far beyond mirroring — apps can now target 227unique content to any one or multiple displays that are attached to an Android 228device. Apps can build on this to deliver new kinds of interaction and 229entertainment experiences to users.</p> 230 231<h3 id="42-display-manager">Display manager</h3> 232 233<p>Apps interact with displays through a new display manager system service. 234Your app can enumerate the displays and check the capabilities of each, 235including size, density, display name, ID, support for secure video, and more. 236Your app can also receive callbacks when displays are added or removed or when 237their capabilities change, to better manage your content on external 238displays.</p> 239 240<h3 id="42-presentation">Presentation window</h3> 241 242<p>To make it easy to show content on an external display, the framework 243provides a new UI object called a <strong>Presentation</strong> — a type of dialog that 244represents a window for your app’s content on a specific external display. Your 245app just gives the display to use, a theme for the window, and any unique 246content to show. The Presentation handles inflating resources and rendering your 247content according to the characteristics of the targeted display.</p> 248 249<div style="margin:0 auto;width:569px;padding-top:1em;"> 250 251<img src="{@docRoot}images/external-display.png" alt="" width="555" height="351" style="padding-left:1em;margin-bottom:0"> 252 253<p class="image-caption" style="padding:1.25em">You can take full control of two or more independent displays using <strong>Presentation</strong>.</p> 254</div> 255 256<p>A Presentation gives your app full control over the remote display window and 257its content and lets you manage it based on user input events such as key 258presses, gestures, motion events, and more. You can use all of the normal tools 259to create a UI and render content in the Presentation, from building an 260arbitrary view hierarchy to using SurfaceView or SurfaceTexture to draw directly 261into the window for streamed content or camera previews.</p> 262 263<h3 id="42-preferred display">Preferred display selection</h3> 264 265<p>When multiple external displays are available, you can create as many 266Presentations as you need, with each one showing unique content on a specific 267display. In many cases, you might only want to show your content on a single 268external display — but always on the that’s best for Presentation content. 269For this, the system can help your app choose the best display to use.</p> 270 271<p>To find the best display to use, your app can query the display manager for 272the system’s <strong>preferred Presentation display</strong> and receive callbacks when that 273display changes. Alternatively, you can use the media router service, extended 274in Android 4.2, to receive notifications when a system video route changes. Your 275app can display content by default in the main Activity until a preferred 276Presentation display is attached, at which time it can automatically switch to 277Presentation content on the preferred display. Your apps can also use media 278router’s MediaRouteActionProvider and MediaRouteButton to offer standard 279display-selection UI.</p> 280 281<h3 id="42-protected-content">Protected content</h3> 282 283<p>For apps that handle protected or encrypted content, the display API now 284reports the <strong>secure video capabilities</strong> of attached displays. Your app query a 285display to find out if it offers a secure video output or provides protected 286graphics buffers and then choose the appropriate content stream or decoding to 287make the content viewable. For additional security on SurfaceView objects, your 288app can set a secure flag to indicate that the contents should never appear in 289screenshots or on a non-secure display output, even when mirrored.</p> 290 291<h3 id="42-wireless-display">Wireless display</h3> 292 293<p>Starting in Android 4.2, users on supported devices can connect to an 294external display over Wi-Fi, using <a 295href="http://www.wi-fi.org/wi-fi-certified-miracast%E2%84%A2">Miracast</a>, a 296peer-to-peer wireless display standard created by the <a 297href="http://www.wi-fi.org/">Wi-Fi Alliance</a>. When a wireless display is 298connected, users can stream any type of content to the big screen, including 299photos, games, maps, and more.</p> 300 301<p>Apps can take advantage of <strong>wireless displays</strong> in the same way as they do other 302external displays and no extra work is needed. The system manages the network 303connection and streams your Presentation or other app content to the wireless 304display as needed.</p> 305 306 307<h2 id="42-native-rtl">Native RTL support</h2> 308 309<div style="float:right;margin:22px 0px 0px 24px;width:340px;"> 310<div> 311<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-rtl.png" alt="RTL layout mirroring" width="340" height="457" style="margin-bottom:0;"> 312</div> 313<p class="image-caption" style="padding-top:1em">Developers can now <strong>mirror their layouts</strong> for RTL languages.</p> 314</div> 315 316<p>Android 4.2 introduces <strong>full native support for RTL</strong> 317(right-to-left) layouts, including layout mirroring. With native RTL support, 318you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users, whether 319their language uses a script that reads right-to-left or one that reads 320left-to-right.</p> 321 322<p>When the user switches the system language to a right-to-left script, the 323system now provides automatic mirroring of app UI layouts and all view widgets, 324in addition to bidi mirroring of text elements for both reading and character 325input.</p> 326 327<p>Your app can take advantage of <strong>RTL layout mirroring</strong> in your app with minimal effort. 328If you want the app to be mirrored, you simply declare a new attribute in your 329app manifest and change all "left/right" layout properties to new "start/end" 330equivalents. The system then handles the mirroring and display of your UI as 331appropriate.</p> 332 333<p>For precise control over your app UI, Android 4.2 includes new APIs that let 334you manage layout direction, text direction, text alignment, gravity, and locale 335direction in View components. You can even create custom versions of layout, 336drawables, and other resources for display when a right-to-left script is in 337use.</p> 338 339<p>To help you debug and optimize your custom right-to-left layouts, the 340HierarchyViewer tool now lets you see start/end properties, layout direction, 341text direction, and text alignment for all the Views in the hierarchy,</p> 342 343 344<h2 id="42-intl">Enhancements for international languages</h2> 345 346<p>Android 4.2 includes a variety of <strong>font and character 347optimizations</strong> for international users:</p> 348<ul> 349<li>For Korean users, a new font choice is available — Nanum (나눔글꼴) 350Gothic, a unicode font designed especially for the Korean-language script.</li> 351<li>Improved support for Japanese vertical text displayed in WebViews.</li> 352<li>Improved font kerning and positioning for Indic, Thai, Arabic, and Hebrew 353default fonts.</li> 354</ul> 355 356<p>The default Android keyboard also includes an updated set of 357dictionaries:</p> 358<ul> 359<li>Improved dictionaries for French (with bigram support), English, and 360Russian</li> 361<li>New dictionaries for Danish, Greek, Finnish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, 362Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish</li> 363</ul> 364 365 366<h2 id="42-ui-tools">New ways to create beautiful UI</h2> 367 368<h3 id="42-nested-fragments">Nested Fragments</h3> 369 370<p>For more control over your UI components and to make them more modular, 371Android 4.2 lets you <strong>nest Fragments inside of Fragments</strong>. For 372any Fragment, a new Fragment manager lets you insert other Fragments as child 373nodes in the View hierarchy.</p> 374 375<p>You can use nested Fragments in a variety of ways, but they are especially 376useful for implementing dynamic and reusable UI components inside of a UI 377component that is itself dynamic and reusable. For example, if you use ViewPager 378to create fragments that swipe left and right, you can now insert fragments into 379each Fragment of the view pager.</p> 380 381<p>To let you take advantage of nested Fragments more broadly in your app, this 382capability is added to the latest version of the <strong>Android Support 383Library</strong>.</p> 384 385 386<h2 id="42-accessibility">Accessibility</h2> 387 388<p>The system now helps accessibility services <strong>distinguish between touch 389exploration and accessibility gestures</strong> while in touch-exploration mode. 390When a user touches the screen, the system notifies the service that a generic 391touch interaction has started. It then tracks the speed of the touch interaction 392and determines whether it is a touch exploration (slow) or accessibility gesture 393(fast) and notifies the service. When the touch interaction ends, the system 394notifies the service.</p> 395 396<p>The system provides a new global accessibility option that lets an 397accessibility service open the Quick Settings menu based on an action by the 398user. Also added in Android 4.2 is a new accessibility feedback type for 399<strong>Braille devices</strong>.</p> 400 401<p>To give accessibility services insight into the meaning of Views for 402accessibility purposes, the framework provides new APIs for associating a View 403as the label for another View. The label for each View is available to 404accessibility services through AccessibilityNodeInfo.</p> 405 406 407<h2 id="42-camera">Improved Camera with HDR</h2> 408 409<p>Android 4.2 introduces a <strong>new camera hardware interface and 410pipeline</strong> for improved performance. On supported devices, apps can use a 411new <strong>HDR camera scene mode</strong> to capture an image using high 412dynamic range imaging techniques. </p> 413 414<p>Additionally, the framework now provides an API to let apps check whether the 415camera shutter sound can be disabled. Apps can then let the user disable the 416sound or choose an alternative sound in place of the standard shutter sound, 417which is recommended.</p> 418 419 420<h2 id="42-renderscript">Renderscript Computation</h2> 421 422<p>In Android 4.2, Renderscript Compute introduces new scripting features, new 423optimizations, and direct GPU integration for the highest performance in 424computation operations.</p> 425 426<h3 id="42-filterscript">Filterscript</h3> 427 428<p>Filterscript is a subset of Renderscript that is focused on <strong>optimized 429image processing across a broad range of device chipsets</strong>. Developers 430can write their image processing operations in Filterscript using the standard 431Renderscript runtime API, but within stricter constraints that ensure wider 432compatibility and improved optimization across CPUs, GPUs, and DSPs.</p> 433 434<p>Filterscript is ideal for hardware-accelerating simple image-processing and 435computation operations such as those that might be written for OpenGL ES 436fragment shaders. Because it places a relaxed set of constraints on hardware, 437your operations are optimized and accelerated on more types of device chipsets. 438Any app targeting API level 17 or higher can make use of Filterscript.</p> 439 440<h3 id="42-rs-intrinsics">Script intrinsics</h3> 441 442<p>In Android 4.2, Renderscript adds support for a set of script intrinsics 443— pre-implemented <strong>filtering primitives that are 444accelerated</strong> to reduce the amount of code that you need to write and to 445ensure that your app gets the maximum performance gain possible.</p> 446 447<p>Intrinsics are available for blends, blur, color matrix, 3x3 and 5x5 convolve, 448per-channel lookup table, and converting an Android YUV buffer to RGB.</p> 449 450<h3 id="42-rs-groups">Script groups</h3> 451 452<p>You can now create <strong>groups of Renderscript scripts</strong> and 453execute them all with a single call as though they were part of a single script. 454This allows Renderscript to optimize execution of the scripts in ways that it 455could not do if the scripts were executed individually.</p> 456 457<div style="float:right;padding-top:1em;width:400px;margin-left:2em;"> 458<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-rs-chart-versions.png" alt="Renderscipt optimizations chart" width="360" height="252" 459style="border:1px solid #ddd;border-radius: 6px;" /> 460<p style="image-caption">Renderscript image-processing 461benchmarks run on different Android platform versions (Android 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2) 462in CPU only on a Galaxy Nexus device.</p> 463<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-rs-chart-gpu.png" style="border:1px solid #ddd;border-radius: 6px; alt="" width="360" height="252" /> 464<p style="image-caption">Renderscript image-processing benchmarks comparing operations run with GPU + CPU to those run in CPU only on the same Nexus 10 device.</p> 465</div> 466 467<p>If you have a directed acyclic graph of Renderscript operations to run, you can 468use a builder class to create a script group defining the operations. At 469execution time, Renderscript optimizes the run order and the connections between 470these operations for best performance.</p> 471 472 473<h3 id="42-rs-optimization">Ongoing optimization improvements</h3> 474 475<p>When you use Renderscript for computation operations, you apps benefit from 476<strong>ongoing performance and optimization improvements</strong> in the 477Renderscript engine itself, without any impact on your app code or any need for 478recompilation.</p> 479 480<p>As optimization improves, your operations execute faster and on more 481chipsets, without any work on your part. The chart at right highlights 482the performance gain delivered by ongoing Renderscript optimization improvements 483across successive versions of the Android platform.</p> 484 485<h3 id="42-gpu-compute">GPU Compute</h3> 486 487<p>Renderscript Compute is the first computation platform ported to run directly on a mobile device GPU. It now 488automatically takes advantage of <strong>GPU computation</strong> resources 489whenver possible to improve performance. With GPU integration, even the most 490complex computations for graphics or image processing can execute with 491dramatically improved performance.</p> 492 493<p>Any app using Renderscript on a supported device can benefit immediately from 494this GPU integration, without recompiling. The Nexus 10 tablet is the first 495device to support this integration.</p> 496 497<h2 id="42-dev-options" style="clear:right;margin-top:1em;">New built-in developer options</h2> 498 499<p>The Android 4.2 system includes a variety of new developer options that make 500it easier to create great looking apps that perform well. The new options expose 501features for <strong>debugging and profiling</strong> your app from any device 502or emulator.</p> 503 504<p class="caution" style="clear:right;">On devices running Android 4.2, 505developer options are hidden by default, helping to create a better experience 506for users. You can reveal the developer options at any time by tapping 7 times 507on <strong>Settings</strong> > <strong>About phone</strong> > <strong>Build 508number</strong> on any compatible Android device.</p> 509 510<div style="float:left;margin:20px 42px 0px 0px;width:290px;"> 511<div> 512<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-dev-options-device.png" width="280" height="548"> 513</div> 514<p class="image-caption" style="padding:.5em">New <span 515style="font-weight:500;">developer options</span> give you more ways to profile and debug on a device.</p> 516</div> 517 518<p style="margin-top:2em;">New developer options in Android 4.2 include:</p> 519 520<ul> 521<li><strong>Take bug report</strong> — immediately takes a screen shot and 522dumps device state information to local file storage, then attaches them to a 523new outgoing email message.</li> 524<li><strong>Power menu bug reports</strong> — Adds a new option to the 525device power menu and quick settings to take a bug report (see above).</li> 526<li><strong>Verify apps over usb</strong> — Allows you to disable app 527checks for sideloading apps over USB, while still checking apps from other 528sources like the browser. This can speed up the development process while 529keeping the security feature enabled.</li> 530<li><strong>Show hardware layers updates</strong> — Flashes hardware 531layers green when they update.</li> 532<li><strong>Show GPU overdraw</strong> — Highlights GPU overdraw 533areas.</li> 534<li><strong>Force 4x MSAA</strong> — Enables 4x MSAA in Open GL ES 2.0 535apps.</li> 536<li><strong>Simulate secondary displays</strong> — Creates one or more 537non-secure overlay windows on the current screen for use as a simulated remote 538display. You can control the simulated display’s size and density.</li> 539<li><strong>Enable OpenGL traces</strong> — Lets you trace OpenGL 540execution using Logcat, Systrace, or callstack on glGetError.</li> 541</ul> 542 543<h2 id="42-platform-tech" style="padding-top:1em;clear:left;">New Platform Technologies</h2> 544 545<p>Android 4.2 includes a variety of new and <strong>enhanced platform technologies</strong> to 546support innovative communications use-cases across a broad range of hardware 547devices. In most cases, the new platform technologies and enhancements do not directly 548affect your apps, so you can benefit from them without any modification.</p> 549 550<h3 id="42-security">Security enhancements</h3> 551 552<p>Every Android release includes dozens of security enhancements to protect 553users. Here are some of the enhancements in Android 4.2:</p> 554 555<ul> 556<li><strong>Application verification</strong> — Users can choose to enable 557“Verify Apps" and have applications screened by an application verifier, prior 558to installation. App verification can alert the user if they try to install an 559app that might be harmful; if an application is especially bad, it can block 560installation.</li> 561<li><strong>More control of premium SMS</strong> — Android will provide a 562notification if an application attempts to send SMS to a short code that uses 563premium services which might cause additional charges. The user can choose 564whether to allow the application to send the message or block it.</li> 565<li><strong>Always-on VPN</strong> — VPN can be configured so that 566applications will not have access to the network until a VPN connection is 567established. This prevents applications from sending data across other 568networks.</li> 569<li><strong>Certificate Pinning</strong> — The libcore SSL implementation 570now supports certificate pinning. Pinned domains will receive a certificate 571validation failure if the certificate does not chain to a set of expected 572certificates. This protects against possible compromise of Certificate 573Authorities.</li> 574<li><strong>Improved display of Android permissions</strong> — Permissions 575have been organized into groups that are more easily understood by users. 576During review of the permissions, the user can click on the permission to see 577more detailed information about the permission.</li> 578<li><strong>installd hardening</strong> — The installd daemon does not run 579as the root user, reducing potential attack surface for root privilege 580escalation.</li> 581<li><strong>init script hardening</strong> — init scripts now apply 582O_NOFOLLOW semantics to prevent symlink related attacks.</li> 583<li><strong>FORTIFY_SOURCE</strong> — Android now implements 584FORTIFY_SOURCE. This is used by system libraries and applications to prevent 585memory corruption.</li> 586<li><strong>ContentProvider default configuration</strong> — Applications 587which target API level 17 will have “export” set to “false” by default for each 588ContentProvider, reducing default attack surface for applications.</li> 589<li><strong>Cryptography</strong> — Modified the default implementations 590of SecureRandom and Cipher.RSA to use OpenSSL. Added SSLSocket support for 591TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.2 using OpenSSL 1.0.1</li> 592<li><strong>Security Fixes</strong> — Upgraded open source libraries with 593security fixes include WebKit, libpng, OpenSSL, and LibXML. Android 4.2 also 594includes fixes for Android-specific vulnerabilities. Information about these 595vulnerabilities has been provided to Open Handset Alliance members and fixes are 596available in Android Open Source Project. To improve security, some devices 597with earlier versions of Android may also include these fixes.</li> 598</ul> 599 600<h3 id="42-bt-stack">New Bluetooth stack</h3> 601 602Android 4.2 introduces a new Bluetooth stack optimized for use with Android 603devices. The new Bluetooth stack developed in collaboration between Google and 604Broadcom replaces the stack based on BlueZ and provides improved compatibility 605and reliability. 606 607<h3 id="42-audio">Low-latency audio</h3> 608 609<p>Android 4.2 improves support for low-latency audio playback, starting from the 610improvements made in Android 4.1 release for audio output latency using OpenSL 611ES, Soundpool and tone generator APIs. These improvements depend on hardware 612support — devices that offer these low-latency audio features can 613advertise their support to apps through a hardware feature constant. New 614AudioManager APIs are provided to query the native audio sample rate and buffer 615size, for use on devices which claim this feature.</p> 616 617<h3 id="42-camera-interface">New camera hardware interface</h3> 618 619Android 4.2 introduces a new implementation of the camera stack. The camera 620subsystem includes the implementations for components in the camera pipeline 621such as burst mode capture with processing controls. 622 623<h3 id="42-nfc-interface">New NFC hardware interface and controller interface</h3> 624 625Android 4.2 introduces support for controllers based on the NCI standard from 626the NFC-Forum. NCI provides a standard communication protocol between an NFC 627Controller (NFCC) and a device Host, and the new NFC stack developed in 628collaboration between Google and Broadcom supports it. 629 630<h3 id="42-dalvik">Dalvik runtime optimizations</h3> 631 632<p>The Dalvik runtime includes enhancements for performance and security across 633a wider range of architectures:</p> 634<ul> 635<li>x86 JIT support from Intel and MIPS JIT support from MIPS</li> 636<li>Optimized garbage-collection parameters for devices with > 512MB</li> 637<li>Default implementations of SecureRandom and Cipher.RSA now use OpenSSL</li> 638<li>SSLSocket support for TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.2 via OpenSSL 1.0.1</li> 639<li>New intrinsic support for StrictMath methods abs, min, max, and sqrt</li> 640<li>BouncyCastle updated to 1.47</li> 641<li>zlib updated to 1.27</li> 642<li>dlmalloc updated to 2.8.6</li> 643</ul> 644 645</div> <!-- END ANDROID 4.2 --> 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670<!-- BEGIN ANDROID 4.1 --> 671<div id="android-41" class="version-section"> 672 673<div style="float:right;width:320px;padding:0px 0px 0px 34px;clear:both"> 674<div> 675<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-android-4.1.png" height="426" width="320"> 676</div> 677</div> 678<p>Welcome to Android 4.1 the first version of Jelly Bean!</p> 679 680<p>Android 4.1 is the fastest and smoothest version of Android yet. We’ve made 681improvements throughout the platform and added great new features 682for users and developers. This document provides a glimpse of what's new for developers. 683 684<p>See the <a href="{@docRoot}about/versions/android-4.1.html">Android 4.1 APIs</a> document for a detailed look at the new developer APIs.</p> 685 686<p>Find out more about the Jelly Bean features for users at <a href="http://www.android.com/whatsnew">www.android.com</a>.</p> 687 688 689<h2 id="performance">Faster, Smoother, More Responsive</h2> 690 691<p>Android 4.1 is optimized to deliver Android's best performance and lowest touch latency, in an effortless, intuitive UI.</p> 692 693<p>To ensure a consistent framerate, Android 4.1 extends <strong>vsync timing</strong> across all drawing and animation done by the Android framework. Everything runs in lockstep against a 16 millisecond vsync heartbeat — application rendering, touch events, screen composition, and display refresh — so frames don’t get ahead or behind.</p> 694 695<p>Android 4.1 also adds <strong>triple buffering</strong> in the graphics pipeline, for more consistent rendering that makes everything feel smoother, from scrolling to paging and animations.</p> 696 697<p>Android 4.1 reduces touch latency not only by <strong>synchronizing touch</strong> to vsync timing, but also by actually <strong>anticipating</strong> where your finger will be at the time of the screen refresh. This results in a more reactive and uniform touch response. In addition, after periods of inactivity, Android applies a <strong>CPU input boost</strong> at the next touch event, to make sure there’s no latency.</p> 698 699<p><strong>Tooling</strong> can help you get the absolute best performance out of your apps. Android 4.1 is designed to work with a new tool called <strong>systrace</strong>, which collects data directly from the Linux kernel to produce an overall picture of system activities. The data is represented as a group of vertically stacked time series graphs, to help isolate rendering interruptions and other issues. The tool is available now in the <a href="{@docRoot}tools/index.html">Android SDK</a> (Tools R20 or higher)</p> 700 701 702<div style="float:left;margin:12px 24px 0px 0px;"> 703<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-accessibility-focus-250.png" width="240px" height="469"> 704</div> 705 706<div style="width:85%;padding-top:16px;"> 707<h2 id="accessibility">Enhanced Accessibility</h2> 708 709<p>New APIs for accessibility services let you handle gestures and manage <strong>accessibility focus</strong> as the user moves through the on-screen elements and navigation buttons using accessibility gestures, accessories, and other input. The Talkback system and explore-by-touch are redesigned to use accessibility focus for easier use and offer a complete set of APIs for developers.</p> 710 711<p>Accessibility services can link their own <strong>tutorials</strong> into the Accessibility settings, to help users configure and use their services.</p> 712 713<p>Apps that use standard View components <strong>inherit support</strong> for the new accessibility features automatically, without any changes in their code. Apps that use custom Views can use new accessibility node APIs to indicate the parts of the View that are of interest to accessibility services. </p> 714 715</div> 716 717<div style="clear:both;padding-top:1px;"> 718 719<h2 id="intl">Support for International Users</h2> 720 721<div style="clear:both;padding-top:16px;float:right;"> 722 723<div style="float:right;margin-left:18px;fpadding-top:90px;padding-bottom:60px"> 724<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-r2l.png" width="280" height="356"> 725</div> 726</div> 727 728<h3>Bi-Directional Text and Other Language Support</h3> 729 730<p>Android 4.1 helps you to reach more users through support for <strong>bi-directional text</strong> in TextView and EditText elements. Apps can display text or handle text editing in left-to-right or right-to-left scripts. Apps can make use of new Arabic and Hebrew locales and associated fonts.</p> 731 732<p>Other types of new language support include:</p> 733<ul> 734<li>Additional Indic languages: Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam</li> 735<li>The new Emoji characters from Unicode version 6.0</li> 736<li>Better glyph support for Japanese users (renders Japanese-specific versions of glyphs when system language is set to Japanese)</li> 737<li>Arabic glyphs optimized for WebViews in addition to the Arabic glyphs for TextViews</li> 738<li>Vertical Text support in WebViews, including Ruby Text and additional Vertical Text glyphs</li> 739<li>Synthetic Bold is now available for all fonts that don't have dedicated bold glyphs</li> 740</ul> 741 742<h3>User-installable keymaps</h3> 743 744<p>The platform now supports <strong>user-installable keyboard maps</strong>, such as for additional international keyboards and special layout types. By default, Android 4.1 includes 27 international keymaps for keyboards, including Dvorak. When users connect a keyboard, they can go to the Settings app and select one or more keymaps that they want to use for that keyboard. When typing, users can switch between keymaps using a shortcut (ctrl-space).</p> 745 746<p>You can create an app to <strong>publish additional keymaps</strong> to the system. The APK would include the keyboard layout resources in it, based on standard Android keymap format. The application can offer additional keyboard layouts to the user by declaring a suitable broadcast receiver for ACTION_QUERY_KEYBOARD_LAYOUTS in its manifest. </p> 747</div> 748 749 750<h2 id="ui">New Ways to Create Beautiful UI</h2> 751 752 753<div style="float:right;margin:22px 0px 0px 24px;width:280px;"> 754<div> 755<!-- <img src="{@docRoot}images/jd-notif-cd.png" style="width:200px"> --> 756<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-notif-ex1.png" width="280" height="548"> 757</div> 758<p class="image-caption" style="padding:.5em">Developers can create custom notification styles 759like those shown in the examples above to display rich content and actions.</p> 760</div> 761 762<h3>Expandable notifications</h3> 763 764<p>Notifications have long been a unique and popular feature on Android. Developers can use them to place important or time-based information in front of users in the notification bar, outside of the app’s normal UI.</p> 765 766<p>Android 4.1 brings a major update to the Android notifications framework. Apps can now display <strong>larger, richer notifications</strong> to users that can be expanded and collapsed with a pinch or swipe. Notifications support <strong>new types of content</strong>, including photos, have configurable priority, and can even include multiple actions.</p> 767 768<p>Through an improved <strong>notification builder</strong>, apps can create notifications that use a larger area, up to 256 dp in height. Three <strong>templated notification styles</strong> are available:</p> 769 770<ul> 771<li>BigTextStyle — a notification that includes a multiline TextView object.</li> 772<li>BigInboxStyle — a notification that shows any kind of list such as messages, headlines, and so on.</li> 773<li>BigPictureStyle — a notification that showcases visual content such as a bitmap.</li> 774</ul> 775 776<p>In addition to the templated styles, you can create your own notification styles <strong>using any remote View</strong>.</p> 777 778<p>Apps can add up to three <strong>actions</strong> to a notification, which are displayed below the notification content. The actions let the users respond directly to the information in the notification in alternative ways. such as by email or by phone call, without visiting the app.</p> 779 780<p>With expandable notifications, apps can give more information to the user, effortlessly and on demand. Users remain in control and can long-press any notification to get information about the sender and optionally disable further notifications from the app.</p> 781 782<div style="float:left;margin:66px 30px 0px 0px;width:280px;"> 783<div> 784<img src="{@docRoot}images/jb-appwidgets.png" width="280" height="548"> 785</div> 786<p class="image-caption" style="padding:.5em"><span 787style="font-weight:500;">App Widgets</span> can resize automatically to fit the home screen and load different content as their sizes change.</p> 788</div> 789 790<div style="padding-top:1px;clear:right;"> 791 792 793<h3>Resizable app widgets</h3> 794 795<p>Android 4.1 introduces improved App Widgets that can <strong>automatically resize</strong>, based on where the user drops them on the home screen, the size to which the user expands them, and the amount of room available on the home screen. New App Widget APIs let you take advantage of this to <strong>optimize your app widget content</strong> as the size of widgets changes.</p> 796 797<p>When a widget changes size, the system notifies the host app’s widget provider, which can reload the content in the widget as needed. For example, a widget could display larger, richer graphics or additional functionality or options. Developers can still maintain control over maximum and minimum sizes and can update other widget options whenever needed. </p> 798 799<p>You can also supply separate landscape and portrait layouts for your widgets, which the system inflates as appropriate when the screen orientation changes.</p> 800 801<p>App widgets can now be displayed in third party launchers and other host apps through a new bind Intent (AppWidgetManager.ACTION_APPWIDGET_BIND).</p> 802 803</div> 804 805<h3>Simplified task navigation</h3> 806 807<p>Android 4.1 makes it easy for you to manage the “Up” navigation that’s available to users from inside of your apps and helps ensure a consistent experience for users.</p> 808 809<p>You can <strong>define the intended Up navigation</strong> for individual Activity components of your UI by adding a new <strong>XML attribute</strong> in the app’s manifest file. At run time, as Activities are launched, the system extracts the Up navigation tree from the manifest file and automatically creates the Up affordance navigation in the action bar. Developers who declare Up navigation in the manifest no longer need to manage navigation by callback at run time, although they can also do so if needed.</p> 810 811<p>Also available is a new <strong>TaskStackBuilder</strong> class that lets you quickly put together a synthetic task stack to start immediately or to use when an Activity is launched from a PendingIntent. Creating a synthetic task stack is especially useful when users launch Activities from remote views, such as from Home screen widgets and notifications, because it lets the developer provide a managed, consistent experience on Back navigation.</p> 812 813<h3>Easy animations for Activity launch</h3> 814 815<p>You can use a new helper class, <strong>ActivityOptions</strong>, to create and control the animation displayed when you launch your Activities. Through the helper class, you can specify custom animation resources to be used when the activity is launched, or request new zoom animations that start from any rectangle you specify on screen and that optionally include a thumbnail bitmap.</p> 816 817<h3>Transitions to Lights Out and Full Screen Modes</h3> 818 819<p>New system UI flags in View let you to cleanly transition from a normal application UI (with action bar, navigation bar, and system bar visible), to "lights out mode" (with status bar and action bar hidden and navigation bar dimmed) or "full screen mode" (with status bar, action bar, and navigation bar all hidden). </p> 820 821<h3>New types of remoteable Views</h3> 822 823<p>Developers can now use <strong>GridLayout</strong> and <strong>ViewStub</strong> views in Home screen widgets and notifications. GridLayout lets you structure the content of your remote views and manage child views alignments with a shallower UI hierarchy. ViewStub is an invisible, zero-sized View that can be used to lazily inflate layout resources at runtime.</p> 824 825<h3>Live wallpaper preview</h3> 826 827<p>Android 4.1 makes it easier for users to <strong>find and install Live Wallpapers</strong> from apps that include them. If your app includes Live Wallpapers, you can now start an Activity (ACTION_CHANGE_LIVE_WALLPAPER) that shows the user a preview of the Live Wallpaper from your own app. From the preview, users can directly load the Live Wallpaper.</p> 828 829<h3>Higher-resolution contact photos</h3> 830 831<p>With Android 4.1, you can store <strong>contact photos</strong> that are as large as <strong>720 x 720</strong>, making contacts even richer and more personal. Apps can store and retrieve contact photos at that size or use any other size needed. The maximum photo size supported on specific devices may vary, so apps should <strong>query the built-in contacts provider</strong> at run time to obtain the max size for the current device. </p> 832 833 834<h2 id="input">New Input Types and Capabilities</h2> 835 836<h3>Find out about devices being added and removed</h3> 837 838<p>Apps can <strong>register to be notified</strong> when any new input devices are attached, by USB, Bluetooth, or any other connection type. They can use this information to change state or capabilities as needed. For example, a game could receive notification that a new keyboard or joystick is attached, indicating the presence of a new player.</p> 839 840<h3>Query the capabilities of input devices</h3> 841 842<p>Android 4.1 includes APIs that let apps and games take full advantage of all input devices that are connected and available.</p> 843 844<p>Apps can query the device manager to enumerate all of the input devices currently attached and learn about the capabilities of each.</p> 845 846<h3>Control vibrator on input devices</h3> 847 848<p>Among other capabilities, apps can now make use of any <strong>vibrator service</strong> associated with an attached input device, such as for <strong>Rumble Pak</strong> controllers.</p> 849 850 851<h2 id="graphics">Animation and Graphics</h2> 852 853<h3>Vsync for apps</h3> 854 855<p>Extending vsync across the Android framework leads to a more consistent framerate and a smooth, steady UI. So that apps also benefit, Android 4.1 <strong>extends vsync timing</strong> to all drawing and animations initiated by apps. This lets them optimize operations on the UI thread and provides a stable timebase for synchronization.</p> 856 857<p>Apps can take advantage of vsync timing for free, through Android’s <strong>animation framework</strong>. The animation framework now uses vsync timing to automatically handle synchronization across animators.</p> 858 859<p>For specialized uses, apps can access vsync timing through APIs exposed by a new Choreographer class. Apps can request invalidation on the next vsync frame — a good way to schedule animation when the app is not using the animation framework. For more advanced uses, apps can post a callback that the Choreographer class will run on the next frame. </p> 860 861<h3>New animation actions and transition types</h3> 862 863<p>The animation framework now lets you define start and end actions to take when running ViewPropertyAnimator animations, to help synchronize them with other animations or actions in the application. The action can run any runnable object. For example, the runnable might specify another animation to start when the previous one finishes.</p> 864 865<p>You can also now specify that a ViewPropertyAnimator use a layer during the course of its animation. Previously, it was a best practice to animate complicated views by setting up a layer prior to starting an animation and then handling an onAnimationEnd() event to remove the layer when the animation finishes. Now, the withLayer() method on ViewPropertyAnimator simplifies this process with a single method call.</p> 866 867<p>A new transition type in LayoutTransition enables you to automate animations in response to all layout changes in a ViewGroup.</p> 868 869 870<h2 id="connectivity">New Types of Connectivity</h2> 871 872<h3>Android Beam</h3> 873 874<p>Android Beam is a popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two NFC-enabled phones together.</p> 875 876<p>In Android 4.1, Android Beam makes it easier to share images, videos, or other payloads by <strong>leveraging Bluetooth for the data transfer</strong>. When the user triggers a transfer, Android Beam hands over from NFC to Bluetooth, making it really easy to manage the transfer of a file from one device to another.</p> 877 878<h3>Wi-Fi Network Service Discovery</h3> 879 880<p>Android 4.1 introduces support for multicast <strong>DNS-based service discovery</strong>, which lets applications find and connect to services offered by peer devices over Wi-Fi networks — including mobile devices, printers, cameras, media players, and others. Developers can take advantage of Wi-Fi network service discovery to build cross-platform or multiplayer games and application experiences.</p> 881 882<p>Using the service discovery API, apps can create and register any kind of service, for any other NSD-enabled device to discover. The service is advertised by multicast across the network using a human-readable string identifier, which lets user more easily identify the type of service. </p> 883 884<p>Consumer devices can use the API to scan and discover services available from devices connected to the local Wi-Fi network. After discovery, apps can use the API to resolve the service to an IP address and port through which it can establish a socket connection.</p> 885 886<p>You can take advantage of this API to build new features into your apps. For example, you could let users connect to a webcam, a printer, or an app on another mobile device that supports Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connections. </p> 887 888<h3>Wi-Fi Direct Service Discovery</h3> 889 890<p>Ice Cream Sandwich introduced support for Wi-Fi Direct, a technology that lets apps <strong>discover and pair directly</strong>, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-peer connection. Wi-Fi Direct is an ideal way to share media, photos, files and other types of data and sessions, even where there is no cell network or Wi-Fi available.</p> 891 892<p>Android 4.1 takes Wi-Fi Direct further, adding API support for <strong>pre-associated service discovery</strong>. Pre-associated service discovery lets your apps get more useful information from nearby devices about the services they support, before they attempt to connect. Apps can initiate discovery for a specific service and filter the list of discovered devices to those that actually support the target service or application.</p> 893 894<p>For example, this means that your app could discover only devices that are “printers” or that have a specific game available, instead of discovering all nearby Wi-Fi Direct devices. On the other hand, your app can advertise the service it provides to other devices, which can discover it and then negotiate a connection. This greatly simplifies discovery and pairing for users and lets apps take advantage of Wi-Fi Direct more effectively.</p> 895 896<p>With Wi-Fi Direct service discovery, you can create apps and <strong>multiplayer games</strong> that can share photos, videos, gameplay, scores, or almost anything else — all without requiring any Internet or mobile network. Your users can connect using only a direct p2p connection, which avoids using mobile bandwidth.</p> 897 898<h3>Network Bandwidth Management</h3> 899 900<p>Android 4.1 helps apps <strong>manage data usage</strong> appropriately when the device is <strong>connected to a metered network</strong>, including tethering to a mobile hotspot. Apps can query whether the current network is metered before beginning a large download that might otherwise be relatively expensive to the user. Through the API, you can now get a clear picture of which networks are sensitive to data usage and manage your network activity accordingly.</p> 901 902 903<h2 id="media">New Media Capabilities</h2> 904 905<h3>Media codec access</h3> 906 907<p>Android 4.1 provides low-level access to platform hardware and software codecs. Apps can query the system to discover what <strong>low-level media codecs</strong> are available on the device and then and use them in the ways they need. For example, you can now create multiple instances of a media codec, queue input buffers, and receive output buffers in return. In addition, the media codec framework supports protected content. Apps can query for an available codec that is able to play protected content with a DRM solution available on the the device.</p> 908 909<h3>USB Audio</h3> 910 911<p>USB audio output support allows hardware vendors to build hardware such as <strong>audio docks</strong> that interface with Android devices. This functionality is also exposed with the Android <strong>Open Accessory Development Kit</strong> (ADK) to give all developers the chance to create their own hardware.</p> 912 913<h3>Audio record triggering</h3> 914 915<p>Android now lets you <strong>trigger audio recording</strong> based on the completion of an audio playback track. This is useful for situations such as playing back a tone to cue your users to begin speaking to record their voices. This feature helps you sync up recording so you don’t record audio that is currently being played back and prevents recordings from beginning too late.</p> 916 917<h3>Multichannel audio</h3> 918 919<p>Android 4.1 supports <strong>multichannel audio</strong> on devices that have hardware multichannel audio out through the <strong>HDMI port</strong>. Multichannel audio lets you deliver rich media experiences to users for applications such as games, music apps, and video players. For devices that do not have the supported hardware, Android automatically downmixes the audio to the number of channels that are supported by the device (usually stereo).</p> 920 921<p>Android 4.1 also adds built-in support for encoding/decoding AAC 5.1 audio.</p> 922 923<h3>Audio preprocessing</h3> 924 925<p>Developers can apply <strong>preprocessing effects</strong> to audio being recorded, such as to apply noise suppression for improving speech recording quality, echo cancellation for acoustic echo, and auto gain control for audio with inconsistent volume levels. Apps that require high quality and clean audio recording will benefit from these preprocessors.</p> 926 927<h3>Audio chaining</h3> 928 929<p>MediaPlayer supports <strong>chaining audio streams together</strong> to play audio files without pauses. This is useful for apps that require seamless transitions between audio files such as music players to play albums with continuous tracks or games.</p> 930 931<h3 id="media-router">Media Router</h3> 932 933<p>The new APIs MediaRouter, MediaRouteActionProvider, and MediaRouteButton provide standard mechanisms and UI for <strong>choosing where to play media</strong>. Support is built-in for wired headsets and a2dp bluetooth headsets and speakers, and you can add your own routing options within your own app.</p> 934 935<h2 id="renderscript">Renderscript Computation</h2> 936 937<p>Android 4.1 extends Renderscript computation to give you more flexibility. You can now <strong>sample textures</strong> in your Renderscript compute scripts, and <strong>new pragmas</strong> are available to define the floating point precision required by your scripts. This lets you enable <strong>NEON instructions</strong> such as fast vector math operations on the CPU path, that wouldn’t otherwise be possible with the full IEEE 754-2008 standard.</p> 938 939<p>You can now <strong>debug</strong> your Renderscript compute scripts on <strong>x86-based emulator and hardware devices</strong>. You can also define multiple root-style kernels in a single Renderscript source file.</p> 940 941 942<h2 id="browser">Android Browser and WebView</h2> 943 944<p>In Android 4.1, the Android Browser and WebViews include these enhancements:</p> 945<ul> 946<li>Better HTML5 video user experience, including touch-to-play/pause and smooth transition from inline to full screen mode. </li> 947<li>Improved rendering speed and reduced memory usage for better scrolling and zooming performance.</li> 948<li>Improved HTML5/CSS3/Canvas animation performance.</li> 949<li>Improved text input.</li> 950<li>Updated JavaScript Engine (V8) for better JavaScript performance.</li> 951<li>Support for the updated HTML5 Media Capture specification (the "capture" attribute on input type=file elements).</li> 952</ul> 953 954 955<h2 id="google">Google APIs and services</h2> 956 957<p>To extend the capabilities of Android even further, several new services for Android are available.</p> 958 959<h3 id="gcm">Google Cloud Messaging for Android</h3> 960 961<p>Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send <strong>short message data</strong> to their users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution. </p> 962 963<p>GCM handles all the details of <strong>queuing messages and delivering them</strong> efficiently to the targeted Android devices. It supports message <strong>multicasting</strong> and can reach up to 1000 connected devices simultaneously with a single request. It also supports message <strong>payloads</strong>, which means that in addition to sending tickle messages to an app on the device, developers can send up to 4K of data. </p> 964 965<p>Google Cloud Messaging is completely <strong>free for all developers</strong> and sign-up is easy. See the <a href="{@docRoot}google/gcm/index.html">Google Cloud Messaging</a> page for registration, downloads, and documentation.</p> 966 967<h3>App Encryption</h3> 968 969<p>Starting with Android 4.1, Google Play will help protect application assets by encrypting all paid apps with a device-specific key before they are delivered and stored on a device.</p> 970 971<h3>Smart App Updates</h3> 972 973<p>Smart app updates is a new feature of Google Play that introduces a better way of delivering <strong>app updates</strong> to devices. When developers publish an update, Google Play now delivers only the <strong>bits that have changed</strong> to devices, rather than the entire APK. This makes the updates much lighter-weight in most cases, so they are faster to download, save the device’s battery, and conserve bandwidth usage on users’ mobile data plan. On average, a smart app update is about <strong>1/3 the size</strong> of a full APK update.</p> 974 975<h3 id="gps">Google Play services</h3> 976 977<p>Google Play services helps developers to <strong>integrate Google services</strong> such as authentication and Google+ into their apps delivered through Google Play.</p> 978 979<p>Google Play services is automatically provisioned to end user devices by Google Play, so all you need is a <strong>thin client library</strong> in your apps.</p> 980 981<p>Because your app only contains the small client library, you can take advantage of these services without a big increase in download size and storage footprint. Also, Google Play will <strong>deliver regular updates</strong> to the services, without developers needing to publish app updates to take advantage of them.</p> 982 983<p>For more information about the APIs included in Google Play Services, see the <a href="http://developers.google.com/android/google-play-services/index.html">Google Play services</a> developer page.</p> 984 985</div> <!-- END ANDROID 4.1 --> 986 987 988 989 990 991 992