Difference Between Android Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, And Jelly Bean

By Author: Yancy Marry
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Android is currently the leading platform in the mobile world. The first commercial version was released on September 23, 2008 and since then; Google has released 9 versions of the operating system with Jelly Bean being the recent one.

So, what is it that makes one Android OS different from another? An OS update comes with the already present features and some new additions to the existing platform. Be it a better UI, performance enhancement, or introduction of an altogether new feature, users will find Android OS updates inclusive of all these things. In this article, we will discuss the difference between the three latest Android OS; Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Jelly Bean.

Android 2.3.x Gingerbread
Android Gingerbread was released on December 6, 2010 with support for voice or video chat using Google Talk. The OS had support for extra large screen sized phones with higher resolution. Here are a few more features:

1. Native support for SIP VoIP telephony
2. Faster and more intuitive keyboard
3. Allowed users to select a word by pressing-hold, copy, and paste
4. Support for ...
... Near Fear Communication Technology5.
6. Support for secondary camera
7. Support for gyroscope and barometer
8. Shadow animations for list scrolling
9. Google Wallet support for Nexus S 4G

Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich
The Linux Kernel 3.0.1 based Android ICS was released on October 19, 2011. It has a new look and feel, the Holo theme. Moreover, the activity manager has a complete new UI and all the running applications appear as thumbnails. Here are a few more advancements in the OS:

1. Face recognition application to unlock the phone
2. Contact list shows more information about contacts and their social networks updates
3. Zoom in/out feature in calendar
4. Google has moved lot of SQL handling from native to Java layer, which is different from Gingerbread. Since, many apps perform SQL operations at the beginning, it reduces the app start-up time
5. Graphics hardware acceleration is on for all applications from API level 14.
6. It has a customizable launcher
7. Ability to access apps directly from the lock screen
8. Built-in photo editor
9. Ability to automatically shut down the applications, which are using data in background
10. Wi-Fi direct
11. New web browser that allows up to 16 tabs

Android 4.1.x Jelly Bean
Android Jelly Bean is the newest OS launched on June 27, 2012. The primary aim of Jelly Bean was to improve the functionality & performance of UI. "Project Butter" was the main feature of the new OS, which used touch anticipation, extended vsync timing, triple buffering, and fixed time rate of 60fps for improved performance and more fluid & smooth UI. Here are a few more up gradations:
1. Bi-directional text & language support
2. Expandable notifications
3. User-installation keyboard maps
4. Bluetooth data transfer from Android Beam
5. Google Wallet
6. Multichannel audio
7. User can turn off the notification on the basis of specific application
8. Offline voice dictation
9. Replacement of Stock Android Browser with Android mobile version of Google Chrome

Google will soon be unveiling a new OS, Key Lime Pie, which will be more feature enabled and enhanced than the present OS. Similar to Android, Apple, RIM, & Windows Mobile also release updated versions of their OS to keep themselves at par with the competitors

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