Take this with a grain of salt. According to this article, the mighty Samsung Galaxy S III which will begin shipping in the next few weeks (on Verizon in the U.S.), is scheduled to receive Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” in Q4 2012. There is no mention of a source, at least that I can find, so this could be just pure conjecture. Still, it’s not hard to believe that Samsung would want to update their flagship Android smartphone to the latest and greatest, especially with the iPhone 5 just around the corner.
Jelly Bean, as we saw this week at Google I/O in San Francisco, serves up some pretty sweet new features including: Google’s version of Siri called Google Now, resizable widgets, performance improvements thanks to Project Butter which will enable steady-state 60fps operation (i.e. it’s incredibly smooth), enhanced notifications (already far better than Apple’s) including dynamic interaction so you can answer calls, control media, etc. without having to jump into an app.
I wrote yesterday about the big dilemma (of the week). That is, if you want Jelly Bean, and are set to upgrade (I’m coming from OG Droid circa 2009 believe it or not) what is your best option:
Samsung Galaxy Nexus OR Samsung Galaxy S III?
Nexus is Google’s darling of course. It, along with the Nexus S and Nexus 7, Moto Xoom tablets, will receive an OTA Jelly Bean update mid-July.
But when it comes to hardware bragging rights, the S III is untouchable and currently sits atop the Android heap, at least in most users’ eyes. However, unlike the Nexus, the S III will not see Jelly Bean for quite some time, which for us early adopters is a bit of a buzzkill.
The biggest concern I have over Gnex is its woeful battery. The extended battery helps somewhat, but the Internet is awash with complaints.
For now, I’m leaving my S III 32GB pre-order intact; TouchWiz be damned. Though that could change over the weekend. As at least one commenter on Stark Insider suggested it could be a savvy move to just buy a GNex on eBay, use it sans contract, and then upgrade to the next Nexus surely to land in Q4 (to counter iPhone 5).