Jelly Bean 4.1.2 Coming up

In Australia, Vodafone customers like myself are still waiting for the deployment of the Android OS update Jelly Bean and now there is talk in the USA of an even newer Jelly Bean release 4.1.2. The good news is that Vodafone Australia has confirmed that they will be sending out this new Jelly Bean update (4.1.2) to Galaxy Nexus users when they do get around to making it available. In other words, we are skipping the 4.1 stage and going straight on to 4.1.2.

Nothing much seems to have changed with the new 4.1.2 update, except for stability changes.

Shortcut for Turning Tethering Off

We are always looking for faster ways to do things so if we can save a few seconds, that's good enough. One timesaver is that you can turn off Tethering just by switching the WIFI on.

On your home screen you should have one of the widgets which allows you to toggle WIFI, bluetooth, GPS, screen rotation and screen brightness. Turn on the WIFI by pressing the first icon and this will switch the tethering off.

Vodafone Australia Announce Jelly Bean in September

Galaxy Nexus users in Australia on the Vodafone network have a little while yet to wait for the jelly bean android OS update. The build which brings in the new Google Now features are definitely worth waiting for. At the swipe of the phone, you can start telling Google what to do such as 

1. Set my Alarm - To set your alarm, open up Google Now and press the microphone then say "set alarm for 8:30". The Nexus will then set the alarm for you.

2. Navigate to a Destination - When Google Now is told to "Navigate to Oxford University", Google Navigation will start up and start giving you directions how to get to Oxford University.

3. Play a Song - Google can also be told to "Listen to Pachobel's Canon" which will activate a search on Youtube for "Pachobel's Canon". That's pretty cool...

4. Leave Note to Self - You can also leave a note for yourself with the instruction "Note to Self" "Do not take West Ring Road" and Google will create a note on your screen for your reference later.

To see more of what voice commands you can issue to your android with a Jelly Bean update, head over to the My Nexus 7 blog.

Screen won't go off!

I managed to fix a problem that I have been having recently where the screen would not dim. I looked for rogue apps that may be keeping the screen on but that did not amount to much. It was a relatively simple fix. I looked in Settings -> Display and noticed that under SLEEP there was no time selected which is strange because I definitely had it on 1 minute a while ago. The option to not select any sleep delay wasn't even available and yet there seemed to be no delay selected. Check out your settings and you may be able to fix this problem as well. However I am at a loss as to how the phone managed to unselect ALL the options.

Nexus still not Sweetened by Android Jelly Bean

Galaxy Nexus users could be forgiven for thinking that they have been forgotten by Google. All the hype in the past few weeks has been surrounding the launch of the Nexus 7 Tablet for Android. Also, the new Jelly Bean update for Android phones has been flagged to appear on the Nexus S phone, a phone which was around a year before the Galaxy Nexus.

So why is the Nexus not getting Jelly Bean? There has been some reports overseas that when the Jelly Bean update is applied to the Galaxy Nexus, the phone does not get a precise GPS lock on your location. Not good. As a result, there seems to be some delay in releasing the update to our phones.

The solution is to keep waiting and keep an eye out for the update. Leave a message if your Nexus has been upgraded to Jelly Bean.

Store Membership Numbers in Your Contacts

Have you ever called up a company and they ask you on the spot what your membership number is? One small trick you may not have gotten used to is to add your membership numbers to your Contacts. That way you can look up the numbers at any time quickly.

Send your REALTIME location via SMS

Here is one of those awesome apps that make you really sit up with your eyes wide and excited. It's called Glympse and it gives you the ability to send your current (and moving!) location to someone via sms, twitter or facebook.

Let's say you are meeting a friend in the city. Send the Glympse via sms to them and set the time for 10 minutes. For the next 10 minutes, your friend can see your location as you move closer and closer to the city. Rather than calling each other to find out where you are, you can then track your friend's location until you see him right in front of you. You can even know how fast he is travelling!

I don't have screenshots yet but you have to check out this app and leave your comments and excitement below.