14 DAY TRIAL // Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean is now available as an over-the-air software update for the owners of Nexus S smartphones out there.
Google reportedly started to push the new update out to users as build number JRO03E, and both i9023 and i9020T Nexus S variants are receiving it.
The update weighs in at 114MB and packs inside all the goodies that Google announced for the Jelly Bean platform release.
The platform can be downloaded from Google’s servers as well, so users don’t necessarily have to wait for the OTA software to reach them.
However, for the manual installation to work, users need to make sure that they are running the stock ICS ROM (IMM76D), and that a custom recovery is there to help.
Those who fit these requirements would simply have to copy the .zip file to their handsets, and then flash as normal.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was designed to bring along a series of performance enhancements over Ice Cream Sandwich, while also packing various graphical changes, as Google themselves unveiled.
It comes with an updated stock browser, with better HTML5 video support, and changes to the calendar app, which now shows event colors if the color was given on the PC, and which delivers more detailed notifications.
Moreover, users will benefit from a series of enhancements brought to the Camera and Gallery, allowing users to swipe back and forth between them. There is also a pinch to zoom action in the gallery, enabling a "filmstrip mode."
There is also support for bidirectional text and more input languages, along with more accurate and more relevant dictionaries, and new notifications on text messages, displaying the entire content of the SMS.
The notifications shade in Jelly Bean was redesigned, with alerts from the same app being grouped together, and with the possibility to identify the app that created a notification through touch-hold. This way, users can also turn off notifications for that app.
Various other improvements were also included in the new platform, ranging from the people app to phone, settings, networking, widgets, and going all the way to Google Search, Google Now, and a bunch of Google apps, such as Google+, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Maps and more.