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What's new in Android 4.3

developer.android.com

51–60 of 125 posts

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#51

Does anyone know if there will be images for the Nexus Experience S4 and HTC One?

There surely will, they said in the announcement that updates for GPE devices are coming 'very soon'.

Ah, 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?...

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#52
post #48

Not 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

That 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.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#53

This 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 Seems largely identical to ABS in its implementation, which makes sense.

Seriously, 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.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#54
post #29

There 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…

Thing is, Amazon Instant is already on Google TV. So I don't think there is any technical reason for them to not implement it.

Amazon 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.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#55
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering 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.

I'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.

HTC give you bootloader unlock code in like 5 minutes if you request it. That is a reason why there is so strong support for the devices.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#56
So 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

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#57
post #2

TL;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.

Yes, 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.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There surely will, they said in the announcement that updates for GPE devices are coming 'very soon'.

Ah, 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?...

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.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#59
post #39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device. What utter bullshit. Every Google Android device gives you the full freedom to flash whatever you want to on it. No restrictions at all. Security should not suffer because it might have a negative effect on an absolutely tiny minority of an userbase that can freely disable that added protection anyway.

You are right with respect to the Google-sold devices. Unfortunately, these are only a minority - and this step will make it significantly harder to root devices made by Samsung, HTC, Sony and all the others...

Yes, this is what happens when Google owns Motorola. Things that Motorola cares about (tight control), Google now cares about.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is a problem - root exploits give people control of their device, but are also, by definition, a security hole which can be exploited by malicious apps to break the sandboxing and do bad things (tm). The right solution to the issue of user control is to convince manufacturers (which many already do) to make their devices open without needing exploits, not purposefully making the OS less secure.

Another point to consider. Android 4.3 now includes Digital Restrictions Management framework. In order to prevent users from accessing their data (or running apps) in a ways they're not allowed (copying files, advertisement blocking, tethering and so on), Google (and vendors) certainly wouldn't like users to have unrestricted access to their phones. I really think tightening security with nosuid and SELinux is at le…

'fastboot oem unlock' will still work on Nexus devices, right?
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