So Jelly Bean finally (finally) came out for the Samsung Galaxy SIII here in the U.S. of A. I did the download about 48 hours ago...here's my impressions:
(BTW...as a quick note this will not be a discussion of my incident where I received my brand spanking new GS3, immediately ordered a case for it, and then two days after I got the damn phone I dropped it in a parking garage, shattering the Gorilla Glass before the case arrived a day later. It will also not be a discussion of the unbelievably painful procedure of getting the insurance claim processed and then having to shell out $199.00 for a deductible...the exact amount that I paid for the damn thing with a 2-yr. contract renewal. Nor will it be a discussion of the Otterbox case I promptly wrapped my replacment GS3 in to hopefully prevent such from happening again. Still after all that, the GS3 is such an amazing piece of technology and such a warpspeed jump ahead from the Blackberry Torch I had been previously using, none of things I won't talk about I've listed above mattered one bit in the long run...)
So...I won't digress on those subjects...
Firstly...the update took a long time. A loooooonnnnnnggggg time. Like attach my phone to my laptop after loading Kies onto my laptop and go to bed and get up the next day and see if it's done installing long. At one point before hitting the sack I commented to my wife that it's somewhat poignant that my phone takes so much time to update and has a larger operating system than many of my computers I've owned in the past. However, to it's credit, the update and install did everything on it's own. We all know what it feels like to start an update, go to bed, and get up and see that it was waiting for a response from you for some step that it hit at 11pm the night before and now has another 11 hours to go. Not so with the Jelly Bean for me...the phone was done when I sat down with my morning coffee.
Jelly Bean's calendar is much improved...more data displayed on appointments within the main calendar, better colors and highlights, all make it easier to glance at your month/week and know what's coming.
(We'll chat about Google Now in a bit). The new Google Search is supposedly the Siri-breaker. To be honest I can't really comment on this as I've never experienced Siri personally, but I gotta say, Google Search with voice recognition seems to be pretty darned good. my only issue is that I have been experiencing problems getting my Google Search to come up when I say "Google." This leads to much laughing in the household when I am yelling "Google" at my phone. So far I have to hit the microphone icon to get it to work. This may be me doing something wrong...but we'll see. When it is up, Google Search is kinda scary cool...it seems to get what I'm asking 95% of the time and searches pretty well.
Google Now. Terrifying. Amazing. Let's see how it works over time though. I mean this is really cool if it works well. Essentially, Google Now will send you info cards on your phone based on what's going on around you. Drive by a good restaurant...Google Now will bring you up a card about that restaurant. Commuting to work...Google Now will tell you how long it will take at a given moment to get there. Miss the football game...Google Now will pop up with the score for you. And on and on. Apparently it will also learn based on your search history and your habits and get better as you go. This could be the goose that laid the golden egg for Android...it could also turn out to be a duck...so we'll have to see. First impressions however? Awesome...
Yea sure...the UI of Jelly Bean looks pretty much like the UI of Ice Cream Sandwich...but it does seem to run smoother, cleaner, and somewhat nicer. Or is that just me thinking it does because they told me so? Hmmm...
Can't comment on the new Jelly Bean keyboard...I use SwiftKey 3 and will never, ever go back to anything else. Swiftkey is simply friggin' great...
Jelly Bean notifications. Yea, their much better, more detailed, and frankly a big step up from ICS. I really like the new notifications...consider it a big win overall!
So there's probably more...but those are the big ones. My final score is pretty high for Jelly Bean...so plan a night to download Kies for your 'puter if you haven't already done so and plug your 'Droid in to update to Jelly Bean. Then go to bed...
Peace...
M.D.
@michaeldunkle
(BTW...as a quick note this will not be a discussion of my incident where I received my brand spanking new GS3, immediately ordered a case for it, and then two days after I got the damn phone I dropped it in a parking garage, shattering the Gorilla Glass before the case arrived a day later. It will also not be a discussion of the unbelievably painful procedure of getting the insurance claim processed and then having to shell out $199.00 for a deductible...the exact amount that I paid for the damn thing with a 2-yr. contract renewal. Nor will it be a discussion of the Otterbox case I promptly wrapped my replacment GS3 in to hopefully prevent such from happening again. Still after all that, the GS3 is such an amazing piece of technology and such a warpspeed jump ahead from the Blackberry Torch I had been previously using, none of things I won't talk about I've listed above mattered one bit in the long run...)
So...I won't digress on those subjects...
Firstly...the update took a long time. A loooooonnnnnnggggg time. Like attach my phone to my laptop after loading Kies onto my laptop and go to bed and get up the next day and see if it's done installing long. At one point before hitting the sack I commented to my wife that it's somewhat poignant that my phone takes so much time to update and has a larger operating system than many of my computers I've owned in the past. However, to it's credit, the update and install did everything on it's own. We all know what it feels like to start an update, go to bed, and get up and see that it was waiting for a response from you for some step that it hit at 11pm the night before and now has another 11 hours to go. Not so with the Jelly Bean for me...the phone was done when I sat down with my morning coffee.
Jelly Bean's calendar is much improved...more data displayed on appointments within the main calendar, better colors and highlights, all make it easier to glance at your month/week and know what's coming.
(We'll chat about Google Now in a bit). The new Google Search is supposedly the Siri-breaker. To be honest I can't really comment on this as I've never experienced Siri personally, but I gotta say, Google Search with voice recognition seems to be pretty darned good. my only issue is that I have been experiencing problems getting my Google Search to come up when I say "Google." This leads to much laughing in the household when I am yelling "Google" at my phone. So far I have to hit the microphone icon to get it to work. This may be me doing something wrong...but we'll see. When it is up, Google Search is kinda scary cool...it seems to get what I'm asking 95% of the time and searches pretty well.
Google Now. Terrifying. Amazing. Let's see how it works over time though. I mean this is really cool if it works well. Essentially, Google Now will send you info cards on your phone based on what's going on around you. Drive by a good restaurant...Google Now will bring you up a card about that restaurant. Commuting to work...Google Now will tell you how long it will take at a given moment to get there. Miss the football game...Google Now will pop up with the score for you. And on and on. Apparently it will also learn based on your search history and your habits and get better as you go. This could be the goose that laid the golden egg for Android...it could also turn out to be a duck...so we'll have to see. First impressions however? Awesome...
Yea sure...the UI of Jelly Bean looks pretty much like the UI of Ice Cream Sandwich...but it does seem to run smoother, cleaner, and somewhat nicer. Or is that just me thinking it does because they told me so? Hmmm...
Can't comment on the new Jelly Bean keyboard...I use SwiftKey 3 and will never, ever go back to anything else. Swiftkey is simply friggin' great...
Jelly Bean notifications. Yea, their much better, more detailed, and frankly a big step up from ICS. I really like the new notifications...consider it a big win overall!
So there's probably more...but those are the big ones. My final score is pretty high for Jelly Bean...so plan a night to download Kies for your 'puter if you haven't already done so and plug your 'Droid in to update to Jelly Bean. Then go to bed...
Peace...
M.D.
@michaeldunkle
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