Nexus 7 and Android 4.3 Jellybean Announced

If you've been considering getting a tablet but nothing has caught your eye yet, you might want to take a second look at Google's Nexus 7, which just received a major update, along with its operating system, Android 4.3.

Google today announced the release of updates to two of their flagship products, the Nexus 7 and the Android operating system.

The Android update, number 4.3, codenamed “Jellybean,” offers a number of incremental changes to the operating system. The biggest change is the addition of restricted profiles. Restricted profiles allow parents to change application behaviors on their childrens' accounts. This means parents can restrict their kids from making purchases, accessing inappropriate content, or changing system settings, much like parental controls on Mac and Windows operating systems.


Android 4.3 also added support for Bluetooth Smart, which is a low-energy version of the close-proximity Bluetooth profile. At the announcement event, one of the Google interns got on stage and did jumping jacks to demonstrate Android's ability to pull in measurements from a bluetooth heart-rate monitor.

The update also adds support for much better graphics, supported by some of the new hardware put out by Google, including the Nexus 7.

The Nexus 7, which has been Google's flagship tablet, also received significant updates. The biggest change was an increase in pixel density. The new Nexus 7 has a screen with higher resolution than the printed page, making it the most precise tablet screen on the market. It has a 1900x1200 pixel screen, which allows it to play full HD videos and games. In order to support this, the new Nexus 7 also features upgraded hardware, like a faster processor, doubled memory, and stereo speakers. The screen size however remains the same.

Google also refocused on Android as a gaming platform with the Nexus 7 announcement, revealing the “Google Play Games” app, which allows you to connect with your friends who also play games, and compares you across leaderboards. Several new games were also demoed on the Nexus 7, including a new Prince of Persia game and several racing apps. Also included in the Google Play store update was the option to rent textbooks for six months at a time.

The Nexus 7 starts at $229 for the 16GB version with Wi-Fi Only.