Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Android 4.2.2 - What can I tell you so far? [Updated 2/14 11:20AM EST]

With the release of the newest and greatest version of Android today, everyone is excited and they want to know what it includes. I will keep this article up to date as I discover more and as more is released officially but here is what I have found so far.


Google has certainly done their homework and they know that we have been having problems with Bluetooth on our devices since 4.2/4.2.1. There have been many complaints about it since its release back in November and Google promised that this new version, 4.2.2, would have that fixed. Not only have they improved the quality of the Bluetooth connection, allowing for improved stability and responsiveness but they have also added a few goodies that I have noticed so far. I am fairly certain that this is a new feature rather than a result of the Bluetooth fix but please correct me if I'm wrong. I've noticed that some of the keyboard shortcuts that we've gotten used to on the PC such as CTRL+C for copy and CTRL+V for paste have been implemented into android! (This is on my Bluetooth keyboard, to be clear) For me, this is more than just a shortcut when I don't have a mouse to use for a cursor. Before, when I wanted to copy and paste I would have to hold down the text with my finger and then touch the button to copy and then navigate to the place I want to paste...hold down and touch the paste button. These keyboard shortcuts are VERY useful in my opinion and are very insightful on Google's part to add to the latest update.

Update 1: As I suspected, Google has been up to things that we weren't aware of and adding new features without letting us know of it. It has been discovered, not by me, that if you long press the toggles on the 4.2.2 toggles menu, they actually toggle! I'm so glad Google listens to its users. 4.2.2 seems to be a very useful update, after all. More to come!



Update 2: I have also seen that Google added some new sounds to the system. The first sound is one for wireless charging to indicate that the phone is indeed charging.



The second is a replacement for the old "battery low" sound. I pulled these sounds from the Android Police website, I hope they don't mind :)



Update 3: There are a few new tricks for the 4.2.2 update, which we have discovered so far. One of which is to give you an ETA when downloading apps. It tends to be a bit quick to judge when your speed slows down for a moment and it says it will take 2 hours to download an app but it is still nice to have that kind of support.

Update 4: It seems that Google has had to bend to the law and remove LTE support on the Nexus 4. Of course, it was not official LTE support to begin with but they had to remove the ability in the testing menu to turn on LTE because the FCC did not approve the device for LTE. Does that mean that updates in the US are going to be different than for the rest of the world? I don't know, but I doubt it. Since it wasn't official support to begin with, Google probably decided that it was best to have a universal experience across the board, without LTE.




Have you noticed any new features or fixed bugs that came with Android 4.2.2? Let us all know in the comments section and I will be sure to add them to the list! Also, be sure to experiment with what keyboard shortcuts you can use. I've found a few so far that I use typically but I know there are a lot of them in Windows that I never use or know about.

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