Android, the world's most popular mobile platform

Jelly Bean

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  Android 4.3
  
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  Android 4.2
  
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  Android 4.1
  

Welcome to Android 4.3, a sweeter version of Jelly Bean!

Android 4.3 includes performance optimizations and great new features for users and developers. This document provides a glimpse of what's new for developers.

See the Android 4.3 APIs document for a detailed look at the new developer APIs.

Find out more about the new Jelly Bean features for users at www.android.com.

Faster, Smoother, More Responsive

For a graphics performance boost, the hardware-accelerated 2D renderer now optimizes the stream of drawing commands, transforming it into a more efficient GPU format by rearranging and merging draw operations. For multithreaded processing, the renderer can also now use multithreading across multiple CPU cores to perform certain tasks.

Android 4.3 also improves rendering for shapes and text. Shapes such as circles and rounded rectangles are now rendered at higher quality in a more efficient manner. Optimizations for text include increased performance when using multiple fonts or complex glyph sets (CJK), higher rendering quality when scaling text, and faster rendering of drop shadows.

Improved window buffer allocation results in a faster image buffer allocation for your apps, reducing the time taken to start rendering when you create a window.

For highest-performance graphics, Android 4.3 introduces support for OpenGL ES 3.0 and makes it accessible to apps through both framework and native APIs. On supported devices, the hardware accelerated 2D rendering engine takes advantage of OpenGL ES 3.0 to optimize texture management and increase gradient rendering fidelity.

OpenGL ES 3.0 for High-Performance Graphics

Key new functionality provided in OpenGL ES 3.0 includes acceleration of advanced visual effects, high quality ETC2/EAC texture compression as a standard feature, a new version of the GLSL ES shading language with integer and 32-bit floating point support, advanced texture rendering, and standardized texture size and render-buffer formats.

You can use the OpenGL ES 3.0 APIs to create highly complex, highly efficient graphics that run across a range of compatible Android devices, and you can support a single, standard texture-compression format across those devices.

OpenGL ES 3.0 is an optional feature that depends on underlying graphics hardware. Support is already available on Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 4, and Nexus 10 devices.

Enhanced Bluetooth Connectivity

Connectivity with Bluetooth Smart devices and sensors

Now you can design and build apps that interact with the latest generation of small, low-power devices and sensors that use Bluetooth Smart technology.

Android 4.3 gives you a single, standard API for interacting with Bluetooth Smart devices.

Android 4.3 introduces built-in platform support for Bluetooth Smart Ready in the central role and provides a standard set of APIs that apps can use to discover nearby devices, query for GATT services, and read/write characteristics.

With the new APIs, your apps can efficiently scan for devices and services of interest. For each device, you can check for supported GATT services by UUID and manage connections by device ID and signal strength. You can connect to a GATT server hosted on the device and read or write characteristics, or register a listener to receive notifications whenever those characteristics change.

You can implement support for any GATT profile. You can read or write standard characteristics or add support for custom characteristics as needed. Your app can function as either client or server and can transmit and receive data in either mode. The APIs are generic, so you’ll be able to support interactions with a variety of devices such as proximity tags, watches, fitness meters, game controllers, remote controls, health devices, and more.

Support for Bluetooth Smart Ready is already available on Nexus 7 (2013) and Nexus 4 devices and will be supported in a growing number of Android-compatible devices in the months ahead.

AVRCP 1.3 Profile

Android 4.3 adds built-in support for Bluetooth AVRCP 1.3, so your apps can support richer interactions with remote streaming media devices. Apps such as media players can take advantage of AVRCP 1.3 through the remote control client APIs introduced in Android 4.0. 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.

Platform support for AVRCP 1.3 is built on the Bluedroid Bluetooth stack introduced by Google and Broadcom in Android 4.2. Support is available right away on Nexus devices and other Android-compatible devices that offer A2DP/AVRCP capability.

Support for Restricted Profiles

A tablet owner can set up one or more restricted profiles in Settings and manage them independently.

Your app can offer restrictions to let owners manage your app content when it's running in a profile.

Android 4.3 extends the multiuser feature for tablets withrestricted profiles, a new way to manage users and their capabilities on a single device. With restricted profiles, tablet owners can quickly set up separate environments for each user, with the ability to manage finer-grained restrictions in the apps that are available in those environments. Restricted profiles are ideal for friends and family, guest users, kiosks, point-of-sale devices, and more.

Each restricted profile offers an isolated and secure space with its own local storage, home screens, widgets, and settings. Unlike with users, profiles are created from the tablet owner’s environment, based on the owner’s installed apps and system accounts. The owner controls which installed apps are enabled in the new profile, and access to the owner’s accounts is disabled by default.

Apps that need to access the owner’s accounts — for sign-in, preferences, or other uses — can opt-in by declaring a manifest attribute, and the owner can review and manage those apps from the profile configuration settings.

For developers, restricted profiles offer a new way to deliver more value and control to your users. You can implement app restrictions — content or capabilities controls that are supported by your app — and advertise them to tablet owners in the profile configuration settings.

You can add app restrictions directly to the profile configuration settings using predefined boolean, select, and multi-select types. If you want more flexibility, you can even launch your own UI from profile configuration settings to offer any type of restriction you want.

When your app runs in a profile, it can check for any restrictions configured by the owner and enforce them appropriately. For example, a media app might offer a restriction to let the owner set a maturity level for the profile. At run time, the app could check for the maturity setting and then manage content according to the preferred maturity level.

If your app is not designed for use in restricted profiles, you can opt out altogether, so that your app can't be enabled in any restricted profile.

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