8 Things We Want (and Won't Get) in Android 4.3

Android 4.3 is almost upon us and we probably won't get anything we're really looking for. Google's Android may be the most popular smartphone OS in the world, but it's far from perfect. We asked our analysts to voice their top criticisms of Android and a pretty daunting list resulted. Let's see if the rumored Android 4.3 release on July 24 brings any of these key features to the table.
1. A 60-day rollout. New versions of Android are irrelevant if nobody can get them. It took Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" a full year to become the most popular version of Android used, and even now 34 percent of Android devices are running Gingerbread—from December 2010. We can argue about whether it's the OEMs' fault, carriers' fault, or Google's fault, but regardless, Google is well behind all the other major OS providers in ensuring its updates get into customers' hands.

2. Mandatorily removable bloatware. All bloatware and UI layer changes should be removable. Microsoft has mandated this on Windows Phone, so it's possible. And we're not demanding every Android phone comes without bloatware or uses Google's stock UI, just that users, not OEMs or carriers, get the last word on how the interface looks and works.

3. Project Cocoa Butter. Project Butter fixed some UI lags, but we still see jerky Android UIs, especially in devices with slower processors. Stamp that out and make the UI as smooth as Microsoft and Apple manage, even with processors slower than many Android phones.

4. More granular permissions. Third-party apps tend to ask for way too many privacy permissions, such as the ability to make phone calls when they really don't need to. Allowing users to uncheck permissions they aren't comfortable with would give people much more faith in the security of Android.

 

 

 

 

source [[ pcmag ]]