Android Jelly Bean 4.1 Update Leaked on Google Play Store

It has been a year since the introduction of Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich, and now Google is all set to introduce the upgraded version, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at their I/O conference which is to be held in the coming weeks, if hints dropped by the company on their Play store are to be believed.

The device listing at the Google Play store already indicates that the unlocked HSPA+ version of the Galaxy Nexus is expected to be the first phone that will run on Jelly Bean. Google’s Nexus phones have always been the first ones to receive Android updates. This information may have been accidentally leaked a week earlier itself and a tech site managed to grab a screenshot of it before it was taken off. Apart from the smartphone, the Nexus 7 tablet may also run on the updated platform. Google’s I/O is going to bring along a couple of important announcements. There are updates on Chrome lined up, along with a new Android tablet that will run on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad core processor and will supposedly be priced at less than $250 USD.

According to sources, Jelly Bean is also said to have a new search bar and background image. Though there were clear differences between Android 2.x and Android 1.x, between Android 2.x and Android 3.x and between the other upgrade that followed, Android 4.1 may not offer any major update from Android 4.0.

After the success of Android 2.0 Donut and 2.1 Éclair, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 4.1 Jelly Bean are expected to match up to the same levels. However, currently only a disappointing 7% of Android devices run on ICS, ever since its launch eight months ago, in spite of the significant updates it offered. Verizon Wireless and Motorola have introduced the ICS update on RAZR MAXX and Motorola Droid RAZR only now, after a delay of eight months.

Newly launched phones like Sony Xperia Ion are still running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. With Jelly Bean, Google is offering the new OS to a number of manufacturers, unlike in the past where they entered into a partnership with only a single vendor when a new software was launched. In the end, the question remains, how quickly will devices be upgraded to Android 4.1 considering that less than 1/14th of Android devices have Android 4.0 and will it be possible for users to directly switch to Android 4.1 from 2.3?