Google makes Android 4.2 Jelly Bean SDK platform available

Google has released the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean SDK to the masses, letting anyone and everyone grab the latest software development kit. Available immediately, the API level 17 platform brings a number of new features and improvements to Android.  A post on the Android blog reminds us of some of the standout changes.

• Performance: We’ve worked with our partners to run Renderscript computation directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, a first for any mobile computation platform.
• Users can now place interactive lock screen widgetsdirectly on their device lock screens, for instant access to favorite apps and content. With just a small update, you can adapt any app widget to run on the lock screen.
• Android 4.2 introduces platform support for external displays that goes beyond mirroring. Your apps can now target unique content to any number of displays attached to an Android device.
• To help you create better apps for users in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, Android 4.2 includes native RTL support, including layout mirroring. With native RTL support, you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users with minimal extra work. Android 4.2 also includes a variety of font and character optimizations for Korean, Japanese, Indic, Thai, Arabic and Hebrew writing systems.

To get started developing and testing, download the Android 4.2 Platform from the Android SDK Manager. For a complete overview of what’s new, take a look at the Android 4.2 platform highlights .