14 DAY TRIAL // Following the launch of Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 devices in various markets around the world, complemented by the availability of the Android 4.2 OS upgrade for these devices, Google has also decided to make the platform release’s code available for developers.
Today, the code for this OS flavor can be found in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) as “android-4.2_r1,″ so that developers and ROM builders can start playing with it.
At the same time, the availability of the code will provide handset vendors with the possibility to start building software updates for their devices.
Additionally, Google also announced the availability of an updated Android SDK for software developers to start taking advantage of. The new Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) SDK platform comes with API level 17.
According to Google, the new release comes with performance changes, as the company worked with partners to run Renderscript computation directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, the first time that this is being attempted.
As mentioned before with regard to Android 4.2, the new operating system version comes with support for interactive lock screen widgets, which will provide users with instant access to apps and content.
“With just a small update, you can adapt any app widget to run on the lock screen,” Google notes in a post on Android Developers.
“Daydream is an interactive screensaver mode that users can encounter when their devices are charging or docked in a desk dock. You can create interactive daydreams that users display in this mode, and they can include any type of content.”
Android 4.3 also comes with support for external displays, enabling developers to build apps that can target unique content to any number of displays that have been attached to the Android device.
At the same time, the new operating system comes with native RTL support, which should provide developers with the possibility to come up with better apps for users in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian.
“With native RTL support, you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users with minimal extra work. Android 4.2 also includes a variety of font and character optimizations for Korean, Japanese, Indic, Thai, Arabic and Hebrew writing systems,” Google explains.
The Android 4.2 Jelly Bean SDK can be found on Softpedia on this page.
The Android NDK is available via this link.