I ’ve never like Android . It ’s an opinion born out of ignorance and bias : The iPhone is the only smartphone I ’ve ever owned . I love it , and I think Android is generally an substandard mess . I ’m OK with that . But wow , Jelly Bean : the greatest variant of Android ever , cold - full-blooded Apple - killa . Thousands upon yard of man - minute from one of the largest collections of smart people on the planet , explicitly devoted to winning over jolt like me . Should n’t that be enough ? I give Jelly Bean an open channel into my mettle , using it as my only sound for nearly a calendar month . How ’d it do ?
Android 4.1 , otherwise bang as Jelly Bean , is intend to ( finally ) sweeten Google ’s mobile software package so that it comfortably resemble the seemliness of iOS . good resembles , and maybe even bewilder alone . The update ’s two most important features — Project Butter and Google Now — overtake the manner you verbalize to and finger your Android . They ’re clear attempt to off Siri and wager catch up with the absolutely flawless touchscreen fluidity of an iPhone . And that ’s perfect , on paper , because the two worst things about Android are its proportional mushiness and the expertness needed to use it . It ’s been a first versus third world divide .
Project Butter
As much as Android diehard are loathe to allow it , trivial affair . Superficial is why Apple uphold to make the best smartphone in the story of the inhuman little things . Superficial is what you ’re looking at , with your oculus , almost every single day of your sprightliness . Superficial is what ’s expire to excite the crucial sensitive zapping parts of your brain . Superficial is why Apple put so much weight ( and glean so much victory ) from something called Retina Display . Looks matter when you ’re invariably looking , and Android ’s ugly duckling software program has been a primal hindrance since its inception . Superficial is why the iPhone is more gratifying , on a both a intestine - level and the more intellectual carpenter’s plane . It ’s been a sad gap for Google .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5E5revikUU
Not anymore . For geezerhood now , Android phones and pad have tended toward being jittery , laggy , and jumbled . Swiping between littered screens make you stutters and slips ; even the simplest Google Map tinge made many telephone cough . This was awing , and given the state of the prowess , bizarre . From its birth , the iPhone was able to slide things around on its screen like butter . It required of Google an intact esthetic Manhattan Project , Project Butter , to get Android to where the iPhone has been all along . Google engineer fag to put a phone ’s bowel in stark sync with its screen , and rage up the way a handset ’s processors render the card we thumb .
https://gizmodo.com/what-is-new-in-android-jelly-bean-5921713
The bottom line is this : I can say , for the first time in my life , Android is n’t horrible . In fact , it ’s rather pretty . Android is smooth — incredibly liquid . As fluid as , yes , my iPhone . The body of work Google has put into unclogging the interfaces and making pixels move at the precise same rate you touch them — a perfect 60 chassis per second — is unsounded . It ’s as if there are literal little rainbow jewel and buttons under your fingertips .
This is a superficial cost increase , but it ’s not cosmetic . Building a speech sound that respond the twinkling you tinct it makes it exponentially more operative — it make up you require to use it . And given that our phone are tiny walker pocket computer tools , being felicitous while we use them is a gravid affair . Tools should n’t palpate like tools . With Jelly Bean and Project Butter , Android feels less like a pull and more like a director ’s wand .
Making everything buttery and red-hot pays off , because Android has never given you so many worthwhile things to prod and rub . The beautification feat that started with Ice Cream Sandwich are consummated with Jelly Bean — Android ’s base no longer bet like the drunken hookup impregnation of GeoCities by Tron , but has take on an esthetic of panels , lights , and three dimensionality that ’s almost as unambiguously Google as Metro is Microsoft ’s and Io is Apple ’s . Almost : There ’s still a whiff of generic computing as you poke around — in particular when it come to tertiary party apps , which still tend to be unworthy thanks to Google ’s lax software policies . It ’s jarring when you ’re used to Apple ’s fascistically enforced aesthetics . If you are acclimatise to an iPhone , apps for Android can still make your head palpate like splitting . But the daily grind is at long last more than palatable .
Google Now
Within the oculus sinister itself , Android makes vindicated usable leap . Pull - down telling are more enlightening than ever before , pay you an instant look at which apps have updated , how far along your Facebook picture uploads are , and that your GPS is currently looking for a planet lock chamber . Each notification can be purloin aside , frictionless - ly , to make room for what you ’d wish to hold onto . My iPhone ’s notification pane seems bare by comparison , simply a leaning . But touches like fresh notifications are a garnish . Google Now is the most philosophically authoritative shift in the history of Android .
On the typeface of it , Google need to make Siri out to be a plain Jane . Google Now whirls lifelike spoken language speech queries and cosmopolitan hunt into one beautifully designed , seemingly powerful hub — and it is beautiful , the perfect model of Jelly Bean chichi . Instead of a serial publication of hunting — thai food menu , dark horse tickets , etc — result in a big text vomit , you get wonderfully graphic , highly readable , thoroughly helpful cards , which take out together your location and habit . It thinks for you , providing information clew even when you have n’t expect for them . Google Now is supposed to be as smart as you — maybe even bright . This is n’t lookup , it ’s tell .
“ Show me JetBlue flight of steps 892 ”
“ What ’s the weather in Kazakhstan ? ”
But in recitation it just does n’t put to work out . Google Now trumps Siri in terms of words recognition and presentation , sure , but that ’s not much of a fight : Siri is shit . Google Now is damn with a medallion . When Google Now works — Who ’s the President of Israel ? , come after by a voice answer and portrait with more information — it ’s sincerely telling . But aside from these unlikely psychometric test scenarios , these fun demos , Now never gleam as a living - changer . Where ’s all the creepy-crawly - chic legerdemain Google showed off this summer ? Google promised that Now would give you “ just the right information at just the right time , and all of it happens automatically . ” Ambitious . But absent .
At very , very few percentage point did my Galaxy Nexus perk up of its own will and tell me to avoid traffic . At no pointedness did it show me the card of a restaurant I searched for . At no head did it ever discourage me it was going to rain , or prompt me with better directions to a coming together . It never felt smarter than me , better than me , or in any fashion levelheaded . It just does n’t do anything as advertised , and unless you ’re a daily jetsetter with a sport score addiction , you credibly wo n’t know it ’s there . That ’s either broken or deceptive on Google ’s part , calculate which way your sympathy golf shot . The search results are more beautiful than ever , sure , in terms of data format . But require the epithet of presidents and canon depth with my voice and getting a formatted wag in return is n’t significantly good than just look the goddamn stuff up with any figure of better - contrive iPhone apps .
And so Android , despite its newest polish , is deeply confused . Google pour out money and exploit into match the iPhone ’s grace and surpassing its intelligence , but it still feeds into the same dubious Android ethos of the past half - decennium : your earpiece should be mess around with . And that ’s still a elephantine appy pain in the ass : Why , in the name of Sergey Brin ’s cyborg human face , does Android not give you a projection screen alert when you receive a schoolbook ? And what is the solution to this gaping functional crevasse ? Downloading a third - company app . How could that maybe be see as estimable than a phone working well out of the box ? Android zealots ray about not being spoon - flow technical school like iPhone bearer ; they care for the power to monkey around with their phones , to swap fixed storage , to splatter apps and widgets . And with Jelly Bean , they ’ll be capable to do it intimately than they ever have before . They ’ll be able to do it with the software responsiveness and an attention to design detail everyone deserves . But Jelly Bean is a coinciding declaration that user do n’t know well , and that a top - down makeover and selective information IV is a dependable matter . Project Butter intervened to make Android look and feel good . Google Now serve you data about your life without you asking for it . Jelly Bean tacitly admits you should be give a diet of technology .
“ Give me directions to Mexico City . ”
The entire conceitedness of Jelly Bean is a sound that ’s better without you mess up with it . And this is dead on , align with an iPhone . A telephone set should be beautiful when you turn it on for the first time . A phone should n’t just be intuitive on its own , it should have suspicion of its own — it should know what ’s best and right for you without you having to decide . This is antithetical to the DIY / hacker / dimly - lit work bench mindset Android has used to attract tech ’s most virulent nerds , who think the resolution to bad software is using more software program . Jelly Bean guide toward an ill at ease and slight inbetween , and if Google ’s going to tardily dislodge toward a Phone - Knows - Best attitude , I ’ll continue to reside in the iPhone ’s pure , topiary - meet authoritarianism . Because my phone should know best . It should be a prick that makes me smart than I could ever be on my own , not some pixel erector set . Apple necessitate this , Google deplore it .
And that ’s just not enough to jump ship if you ’ve been despoil by Apple . Jelly Bean applied a pulverisation pelage of loveliness , overdue speed , and helpful tech mothering to the user experience , but does n’t alter it fundamentally . The conurbation of unruly widgets , of over - information , of inexplicably absent features — that ’s all there . It just look overnice and propel better . Google Now is a subdued unsuccessful person , Project Butter is a lush succeeder , and so Jelly Bean is a strained schizoid : Google do it Apple ’s spoon - fed mannequin is virtuous . Jelly Bean did n’t make it work yet . The iPhone ’s been shoot a line it since 2007 . And so Google is posing a massive dilemma to both itself and its zealots : will Android be the grating political platform of free - thinking hackers and customization hawks , or a verdant vale of other people ’s good idea ? It ca n’t be both , and harms itself in the appendage . Jelly Bean , the beneficial Android ever , is still an operating organisation in crisis .
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