Project Butter makes Android 4.1 Jelly Bean smooth

Google’s Android Jellybean 4.1 features Project Butter. Is Project Butter as spreadable and smooth as it sounds? Google seems to think that its new features set will make your Android phone run smoother and faster. But, how? Here's some things you need to know about Project Butter.

Just as the name suggests, this feature aims to make the operating system on devices extremely smooth. In a previous report, they explain this feature by stating, “The Android team did so by bumping up Jelly Bean’s framerate to 60 FPS, and implemented vsync and triple buffering to tighten up the experience. Developers also have access to a new tool called systrace in the Jelly Bean SDK that displays what the rendering engine is up to.”

At the Google I/O conference, Google showed off the difference in speed between Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean and the former pales in comparison.

Spilling the beans

Announced at Google IO 2012 as the curiously named "Project Butter," the engineers behind Android 4.1 have made a concerted effort to finally shake the lag and general lack of responsiveness that Android has historically been known for.

Google used a variety of methods to accomplish this feat, ranging from "vsync timing" (ensuring a consistent frame rate across all screen drawing and animation) to triple buffering, which appears to be the key component which results in an overall smoother feel across the user interface.

It's not just improved frame rates and faster gesturing that makes Jelly Bean fly, though. Android 4.1 also synchronizes the very touch of your finger to its vsync timing, attempting to anticipate where you'll want to go next.

Commenting on the latest operating system, Google states Jelly Bean builds on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. This OS makes everything smoother, faster and more fluid. They claim that notifications are now more dynamic. Elaborating on this feature, they state that if one is late for a meeting or missed a call, then they can send an e-mail or call directly from notifications. With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google claims that the keyboard is smarter and more accurate, and can predict the user’s next word. Another interesting feature is that voice typing is faster, working even when one does not have a data connection.

More recently, Google released the Jelly Bean source code under the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). As per a statement by Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru, Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project, Google, said, “We're releasing Android 4.1 in AOSP today. The name of the tagged release is android-4.1.1_r1. The name of the development branch is jb-dev. We recommend that you create new clients, even if you're working in the master branch. It'll make your clients smaller and faster to sync. Proprietary binaries are available for Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus. Nexus S and Xoom will follow.”