Android 4.1.2 in Nexus 7

Google announced today that it is rolling out a minor update to Jelly Bean in the form of Android 4.1.2. This minor bump brings performance and stability improvements to the Android Open Source Project, on which many custom ROMs are based, as well as specific improvements to devices like the Nexus 7.

The software update also adds a key feature to devices running the Jelly Bean software: home screen rotation support. Prior to this update, all Android 4.1 devices use portrait mode for the home screens, even when the smartphone or tablet is in landscape mode, making for a disjointed experience.

In fact, upon the announcement it was discovered that the update is already being pushed to Nexus 7 devices all over the world, with the added bonus of bringing landscape support to the stock launcher.

According to Google’s resident AOSP guru, Jean-Baptiste Queru, the update is especially important for the Nexus 7 as it corresponds with a slight hardware change.

We’re releasing Android 4.1.2 to AOSP today, which is a minor update on top of 4.1.1.
As a note to maintainers of community builds running on Nexus 7: please update to 4.1.2 at the first opportunity. Future variants of  the grouper hardware will have a minor change in one of the components  (the power management chip) that will not be compatible with 4.1.1.

The build number is JZO54K, and the tag is android-4.1.2_r1.

–
Jean-Baptiste M. “JBQ” Queru
Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project, Google
It’s expected that Android 4.1.2 will roll out to other Nexus devices, including Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Motorola Xoom, over the next few weeks.