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What's new in Android 4.3

developer.android.com

81–90 of 125 posts

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#81
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.

Bluetooth 4/LE in AOSP is a big deal, since there are lots of end-user devices (Fitbits, etc) that won't work with Bluetooth 2.

Android had really fallen behind there.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#83

>You can access notifications through new APIs that let you register a notification listener service and with permission of the user, receive notifications as they are displayed in the status bar...You'll be able to launch any intents attached to the notification or its actions, as well as dismiss it from the system, allowing your app to provide a complete user interface to notifications. wow. that should have some i…

This can be done on older versions as well but the app has to declare itself as an Accessibility Service, which is a massive hack. Google are fixing that by mirroring that specific use case in a separate service.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#84
post #25

Bluetooth Smart Support is a big deal. It's going to make it easier for hardware devs to develop Bluetooth apps.

Yes, this adds support for a bunch of recent running/biking sensors that are currently iPhone 4S and up only.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#85

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?...

Reposting a dead reply to your comment:

> 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

#86
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And not only will it continue to work, it should (hopefully) be the only way of getting a custom image. http://source.android.com/source/building-devices.html#unloc... IMO promoting 'security holes' as a mechanism of freeing your device is counter-intuitive. What everyone needs is a safe way of running their own software; security bugs are toxic to the entire ecosystem.

I agree. Just that the parent's point that "Google (and vendors) certainly wouldn't like users to have unrestricted access to their phones" doesn't make sense in light of this fact.

Unlocking the phone does a factory reset, right? So you won't have access to any data that your phone holds (unless you were able to export it or store on SD card).

And, if I understand things correctly, custom ROMs do not have Google Play. Well, in reality they do, but I believe Play .apk's floating around are just warez. Maybe I'm wrong on this matter, though (please correct me if I am). But if I'm right, then, legally, phones flashed with custom ROM should not have access to Google Play.

So you're certainly allowed to put whatever software you want (if you can write, build or find one, huh) on your hardware. But, at the same time, you're not welcomed to tinker with Android as provided out of box, except in a way you're allowed by vendor.

I'm not advocating hacks to get root by any means, though. They're security holes that are exploited in a lack of better ways.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Just that the parent's point that "Google (and vendors) certainly wouldn't like users to have unrestricted access to their phones" doesn't make sense in light of this fact.

Unlocking the phone does a factory reset, right? So you won't have access to any data that your phone holds (unless you were able to export it or store on SD card). And, if I understand things correctly, custom ROMs do not have Google Play. Well, in reality they do, but I believe Play .apk's floating around are just warez. Maybe I'm wrong on this matter, though (please correct me if I am). But if I'm right, then, leg…

Google authorizes distribution of their apps through a separate channel. This issue was resolved when CM was present a C&D in early 2011 (iirc) for distributing Google apps with the ROM image. My understanding is that as long as Google apps are in a separate file, Google consents to the distribution, at least in the case of CM. IANAL.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#89
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?...

Reposting a dead reply to your comment: > 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.

Oh, thanks! I imagine CM is pretty much stock, no? It might even have PDroid patches, I'll have to look. I wonder how stable it is.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#90
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.

The "not much", at least wrt to user-visible features, makes sense. My feeling is that they save the big user-facing features for the major releases, i.e. whatever comes after Jellybean. It seems like the minor number bumps are primarily for new developer APIs and better performance/stability.

I think this is great, and is a sign of Android's increasing maturity as both a platform, and a UI.

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