Review: Android 4.2

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Android update brings improved security, multiuser support, and 10" tablet UI.

The last version of Android to be released, 4.1, code-named "Jelly Bean," was only an incremental bump over the major 4.0 release ("Ice Cream Sandwich"). But that little bump made a big difference. Android became more or less fully realized with Ice Cream Sandwich, but Jelly Bean brought a level of polish and maturity that the platform previously lacked.

The biggest improvement for the end-user experience was "Project Butter," the name given to a group of adjustments vastly upgrading Android's responsiveness to touch input. These included adding triple buffered graphics rendering and maximizing the CPU's clock speed briefly whenever the screen is touched (there were also a few other underlying architectural improvements). Taken together, the tweaks made overall performance much more consistent in Jelly Bean. Before, Android's interface was capable of smoothness on sufficiently fast hardware (see our Optimus G review for evidence of that), but Jelly Bean brought smoothness even to older hardware like the Motorola Xoom and first-generation Kindle Fire. Using Android finally felt as good as using iOS or Windows Phone.

Now, only four months after Android 4.1 was released into the wild, the mobile operating system is getting another incremental bump. Android 4.2 carries the same "Jelly Bean" code-name as 4.1. It doesn't bring any drastic changes to the operating system and, given its quick turnaround, no one really expected it to. However, it introduces enough new features to keep Android a healthy contender in the vicious smartphone and tablet markets.

Multiuser support

On tablets, Android 4.2's biggest innovation is multiuser support. These devices are often shared between family members, but a way to keep everyone's chocolate out of everyone else's peanut butter has been generally lacking among tablets since the iPad popularized the form factor 2010. With Android 4.2, different users will be able to configure their own home screens (along with backgrounds, apps, and widgets) and application settings. Finally, there's a way to allow children to play games on the tablet without accidentally erasing all of your work e-mail.

The feature will only be coming to tablets at this point, however—speculation on exactly why has ranged from the innocuous (tablets are more likely to be shared than smartphones) to the litigious (Nokia has its name on a patent that may prevent the feature's implementation on phones). Google informs us the feature will also be coming to 7-inch tablets, so the Nexus 7 should gain multiuser support as soon as its 4.2 update drops.

Currently, we have as many questions as you do about how Android's implementation works: what are its storage requirements? What are its memory usage requirements? Can apps be shared between accounts? Are usernames and passwords set locally, or can you sign in with Google accounts as in Chrome OS? What security measures prevent one user from getting notifications and other data intended for another user? Unfortunately, we don't have any answers at the moment, because the Android 4.2 build that enables multiuser support won't be delivered to Nexus 10 tablets before they begin shipping on November 13. At that point, we'll install the update and publish a follow-up report.

Notifications

Pull-down notification panels have almost always been a part of the Android package. Apple even took a page from Google's playbook by introducing pull-down notifications in its iOS 5 update. Notifications are the gateway to the Android brain, enabling users to keep an eye on what their handset is doing. They have proven to be an unobtrusive way of delivering essential information.

In Android 4.1, Google enhanced notifications panels by making more of them expandable and enabling users to work within them without having to click too many times. Users are no longer just checking to see that someone tweeted them. Instead, they can see exactly what was tweeted, and then reply by launching the Twitter application from the pull-down shade. Notifications aren’t deleted unless they’re swiped away or dealt with, so you don't have to worry about missing something.

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