Google Releases Android Jelly Bean Source Code

Google has announced that the source code of Android Jelly Bean is available for users and developers to download. This allows custom ROM makers to customize the latest version of Android.

The announcement was made by Jean-Baptiste Queru, the Android team person responsible for source code maintenance and release. The necessary binaries have also been released along with the source code; files needed to get Android working on the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7.

Now that the source code has been released, developers can modify the operating system and bring it to new devices. The makers of Cyanogenmod, one of the largest custom ROMs based on Android, have already indicated that they will merge the changes from Jelly Bean with their project as soon as possible. Thanks to these kinds of custom ROMs, old devices, for which a manufacturer no longer releases updates, can often still run new versions of Android.

In the past, the release of the source code was also the moment that Google partners such as Samsung, HTC and Sony could get started with it. That has now partly changed. Starting with Jelly Bean, Google will release a platform development kit several months before the overall release. It contains all the major architectural changes of the upcoming version of Android and allows manufacturers to make some of their firmwares ready. In the case of Jelly Bean, the PDK was distributed a few weeks ago.

The hope of Google is that the PDK will ensure that manufacturers update their devices faster. Now it often takes several months before recent devices get the latest version of Android.

Although the released code can also be compiled for the somewhat older Nexus S smartphone and Xoom tablet, no binaries are yet available for those devices. Those will follow as soon as Google releases the official over the air updates, expected later this month.