Mobile Network Comparison

Simply put, Jelly Bean is the latest update for the Android mobile operating system. In case you didn’t know, Google have been naming each new version of their OS alphabetically after sweets and desserts and the list so far has been Cupcake, Donut, Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich. Yum yum. What better to follow up that list than Jelly Bean which will become version 4.1 of Android.

In reality, it’s more of an update rather than a whole new version as the last edition, Ice Cream Sandwich was 4.0 and brought a huge number of stunning new features and redesigns to Android phones. In fact, Ice Cream Sandwich is still so recent that only some of the fanciest phones have got official updates for it yet. Still, that’s not to say that Jelly Bean hasn’t got its fair share of badass features.

Cementing its position as the most powerful and usable mobile operating system, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean comes with expandable notifications and user-customisable keyboard maps. Also, keeping one step ahead of the limiting and simplistic “grid of icons” design that iOS prefers, widgets are now automatically resizable. Add to this all the great features of ICS and new upgrades to contact photos, the camera app and proper gapless playback, and it’s hard to argue against this being the most modern mobile platform around.

One of the best examples of Google’s attention to detail is the improvements to the interface dubbed Project Butter. They have tried to make every aspect of your interaction smoother, more graceful and more aesthetically pleasing. While it’s not something you’d ever really think about, it makes the daily interaction with your phone that much faster and more pleasant. To show this feature off, Google got hold of a $20,000+ RED camera that shot a video of the phone’s interface at 120 frames per second really showing off how fast, fluid and smoothly it runs. Check it out for yourself:

But perhaps Jellys Bean’s killer feature is the new Google Now which seems to do everything Siri does on the iPhone and much more. And this time it has a pleasant synthesised voice instead of that harsh robot woman. You can test your phone with all sorts of questions and it will recognise your voice, work out what you mean and give you the answer in a matter of seconds. It can do simple things like set an alarm for Mothers’ Day, tell you the films Natalie Portman has been in, how much Bill Gates is worth, the fall in the stock price of Barclays or the height you have to be to ride Space Mountain. What what’s even more impressive is it can do calculations in real time, give you real time updates to football match scores and even automatically plan the fastest route to work for the current traffic when it notices you’re leaving home in the morning. Pretty neat, huh?

Some of the other notable new features (there are hundreds of them) includes new keyboard and a gestures input method. There’s also a much improved browser that runs much faster and has HTML5 tweaks. Your phone can easily replace a GPS abroad too as Maps now has an offline feature as does the voice recognition/dictation feature. Perhaps the coolest thing to try out in practice though is Android Beam which uses near field communication technology to transfer files between phones by simply touching them together.

But when can you get this in your eager hands? As mentioned earlier, you need to have a fairly new handset to run Jelly Bean now but it will be slowly rolling out onto more and more devices. The Google branded phones such as the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus will get it right away as will the Nexus 7 tablet. Other tablets such as the Motorola Xoom will get it and it should be possible to manually upgrade many phones if you want. Still, if you have an ancient phone and are drooling so much you have to upgrade, now might be time to invest in a Galaxy S3 🙂

So, are you desperate to get Android Jelly Bean on your own phone? What’s your favourite feature? And is it good enough to convince you to upgrade your handset? As usual, please drop us a comment 🙂

Just a quick video post for you while we put the finishing touches on our full Android Jelly Bean post. In case anyone was still under the impression that Siri is a reason to use an iPhone, spend ten minutes with us and check out how it performs when compared to the new Google Now:

And if that weren’t convincing enough, check out all these things that Google Now can do:

What do you think? Which do you prefer? And would you ever actually use these features? Let us know in the comments below.

Samsung and O₂ were big winners at the 2012 Mobile Industry Awards last week. The glitzy ceremony, run by Mobile Today was held at The Brewery in London on 14th June and included gongs for all aspects of the mobile phone industry. Handset manufacturer Samsung scooped an unprecedented three awards while O2 took home the coveted Best Network award and their subsidiary Giffgaff doubled up with the best MVNO award. Other big winners were Phones4U as well as HTC who picked up the Best Manufacturer Field Marketing Team Award and the Hottest New Phone Award for the One X.

One of the biggest stories of the night was the Phone of the Year award. The field was tough with the iPhone 4S, Sony Xperia S, Nokia Lumia 800 and HTC Sensation XE all nominated. But, in the end, the iPhone-beating Samsung Galaxy S II took the prize and most people would say deservedly so. Boasting an incredible camera, a recent update to the lighting-fast and uber-powerful Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android OS and stunning good looks, it’s really be the standout handset over the last 12 months.

Customer-run virtual network Giffgaff proved it’s really coming of age by scooping the Best MVNO award. Up against tough competition such as the huge Tesco Mobile and Lycamobile, they capitalised on their innovative business practises and massive growth over the last year to earn the award. Hopefully they will continue to go from strength to strength next year too.

Samsung really proved their worth though with a hat-trick of gongs scored. They beat off the likes of Apple, HTC, Nokia and Sony for the Best Manufacturer award. They then picked up the Power 50 Person of the Year award with their UK chief Simon Stanford. Stanford has previously put in stints working for mobile industry giants such as Everything Everywhere and O2 and has helped massively expanded the marketshare of Samsung phones in the UK. Others on the shortlist included Phil Dobson , Ed Richards, David Dyson and Olaf Swantee but in the end they were no match for the Samsung man. Finally, Samsung completed the trifecta with the highly-regarded Phone of the Year award which went to the Galaxy SII. Who knows whether they’ll complete the double with the Galaxy SIII in 2013?

Another exciting award was the Hottest Tablet for 2012 Award which was unsurprisingly won by Apple’s new iPad. There never really was much competition despite nominations for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition and Orange Tahiti and, at the end of the day, the latest and greatest iPad deservedly romped home. Hopefully Android and Windows tablets will provide some stiffer competition by this time next year.

The rest of the prizes included O₂ winning the Best Network award having been praised for its customer bonuses and no doubt helped by its sponsorship of major entertainment venues. 3 got Best Mobile Broadband, Uplands fended off rivals Quore, Savin and Communicate Better to take home the Best Dealer gong while Micro-P won Best Hardware Distributor. Avenir Accessories made it two when they were awarded the Best Accessories Distributor prize after Avenir Telecom got Best Airtime Distributor. One of the most anticipated awards of the night, the Shop Idol 2012 was won by Nicola Black of Phones4U whose company also got the Best High Street Retailer prize.

Do you think that anyone was looked over in this year’s awards? Who do you think was most deserving of their win? And what are your picks for the 2013 awards?