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It appears the close relationship between Asus and Google, as touted by Benson Lin, Corporate VP at Asus, has just gone closer. According to Digitimes, Google is working with Asus to develop a new 7 inch tablet which could be launched as early as May this year.

This nicely ties in with rumours of Q2 2012 launch of Jelly Bean and Asus' assertion that they will be among the first to release Jelly Bean on their devices. Though, according to Slashgear, the device will have ICS — in which case one can expect a quick upgrade to Jelly Bean very soon after launching.

The device is rumoured to be a low cost device targeting iPad and, more importantly, other rivals like Kindle Fire with a price tag of US$199-$249. Google has no control over Amazon, even though Amazon is using a derivative of Android, and in a short period has become the largest Android tablet maker, even though it may be more appropriate to call Kindle Fire an Amazon device rather than a tablet.

The device is also expected to have a 7 inch screen with a high resolution of 1280X800, higher than other low cost tablets.

The new device could also be the first to have the new unified gaming platform, which Google is developing on the lines of the recently launched Play which consolidated content across apps, music, video and books.

It could also be among the first device to get the new Jelly Bean updated.

Why Google choose Asus
According to the sources, Google began looking at Taiwanese co-partners to build a new tablet in end 2011. Presumably Google didn't want Motorola, to avoid sending a negative signal to other device manufacturers, who are already silently worried about Google-Motorola relationship.

Other Android device makers like HTC wanted more control and were also not willing for a low cost device due to the potential damage to their brands.

While Asus lacked in-house research and design capabilities, it was still selected as it was willing to play a second fiddle to Google, allowing it complete freedom in the design process. Acer is believed to be looking at this opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the Android platform while also making inroads in the US market. 

Asus had sold 1.8 million tablets in 2011 and has projected minimum sales of 3.0 million tablets in 2012. But the company has set a very stiff internal target of 6.0 million units, more than triple the current sales level, which will see it overtake Samsung. It is with this in mind, that Asus seems to be going after a low cost device, when HTC seems to have clearly rejected it.

According to a Bloomberg news report, Google and Motorola have been ordered by a US judge to handover documents related to development of the Android operating system to Google. The two companies have also been asked to handover documents relating to the merger of Google with Motorola.

The fight has its root in the lawsuit filed by Apple against HTC in March 2010 claiming that HTC's products infringed on 10 of Apple's patents.

The fight between Apple and Motorola started when Motorola filed a lawsuit against Apple in October 2010 claiming that iPhones, iPads, iPod touches and even some Mac violated Motorola's patents. In total, Motorola's four complaints cited 18 patents, which according to it were infringed.

Later Motorola joined the Apple-HTC lawsuit asking the judge to invalidate 20 of Apple's patents on its products.

After this Apple turned its attention towards Motorola, and in the same month, October 2010, filed two lawsuits against Motorola claiming that its products violated six of Apple's multi-touch and OS patents.

This particular case relates to the October 2010 lawsuit filed by Apple.

In a March 2 filing, Apple's attorneys had asked for the documents stating “The Android/Motorola acquisition discovery is highly relevant to Apple’s claims and defenses."

The judge apparently agreed with the assertion, and has asked Motorola and its soon-to-be-parent Google to submit sensitive documents related to the development of Android as well as related to the merger between the two companies. 

Google is so far not a party to the lawsuit but the judge expected that because of their relationship Motorola should submit those documents stating “Motorola shall be expected to obtain full and immediate compliance by Google with Apple’s liability discovery demands.”

 As expected Motorola has opposed the request arguing that Google and Motorola are two different companies saying “Google’s employees and documents are not within the ‘possession, custody, or control’ of Motorola, and Motorola cannot force Google to produce documents or witnesses over Google’s objections.” Google has so far not commented on the judgment.

The judge has next round of the case is scheduled to be held in June 2012,  which will address the issue of six Apple patents and three Motorola patents, according to Bloomberg.

Source: Ars Technica, Bloomberg, Engadget

In a blog post titled Android Apps Break the 50MB Barrier, Google has said that the max app size has now been increased from 50MB to 4GB. 

Currently apps get around the 50MB limit by forcing the users to download "sd data" outside the market which has security issues, as Google has no control over what data is downloaded.

The refunding policy has also been changed so that the refund will start only after the app has been completely downloaded — which is a welcome change.

Currently Android market only allows an app to be upto 50MB in size. This works for most applications like productivity suites, timers, video players etc.

But many games already have overshoot the 50MB mark and get around the android market limits by forcing users to update outside the market through wifi or 3G from the developers website.

Users also, are not able to see the total size of the app before buying, which is important  on devices with limited storage memory.

What the update addresses

This has two main advantages:

Because the "sd data" was downloaded outside the market, Google had absolutely no control over it. So a rogue app developer, could make the apk harmless, but the data download could potentially have a malware code.

With this update, Google is closing this huge loophole as the entire data will be hosted in the market and only the approved data, checked by Google, will be downloaded by the users. This is in-line with recent Google initiatives like Bouncer and running apps in emulators to check for rogue behaviour.

This welcome update tackles this issue also, as the windows will start only when the entire app including the data will be downloaded. So you can not actually test the app for 15 minutes to see whether or not you would like to keep it

Overall a very welcome update, which not only has the potential to make Android more secure but will also help many users frustrated with the 15 minute refund window for games which had a huge of data to be downloaded. Thumbs up!

Now hopefully Google will look to address more security concerns like stopping access of personal photos by rogue applications.

We had earlier reported that Jelly Bean is rumored to launch in Q2 with an aim to target Windows 8 tablets.

Now, according to TechRadar, Benson Lin, Asus’ Corporate VP, has said that “Asus is very close to Google, so once they have Android 5.0 I think there will be a high possibility that we will be the first wave to offer the Jelly Bean update.”


What the statement implies
For one, the candid admissions means that the next version of Android is indeed code named Jelly Bean and there is some substance to the rumours hinting that Jelly Bean will be launched soon, even if not in 2Q 2012.

Delight for Asus' users
This is good news for users of Asus devices, as they could me amongst the first to taste the new OS. Asus was also the first to release Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update on Transformer prime.

Android platform
If all these rumours are true, Google is releasing Jelly Bean even before ICS has gain any significant traction. According to an earlier Google data, less than 1% of the Android devices were running on ICS.

This means that, as we had earlier speculated, ICS could be skipped by majority of the Android devices and they could jump straight away to Jelly Bean from Android 2.x/3.x, assuming that the device manufacturer comes out with updates. Though devices will continue getting ICS updates, till there is a formal announcement by Google and also for devices were significant work to update them has been done.

Jelly Bean: Target Windows tablets
The early release of Jelly Bean probably has one major objective — to release a version compatible with Windows, before Windows 8 is launched. Microsoft plans to launch the next generation, metro interface Windows 8 OS before holiday season.

With the release, Google will be hoping that Android+Chrome gain a foothold on x86 based Windows netbooks/tablets. While there may be doubts about the Metro interface for full fledged desktops, Windows 8 could prove to be a success in the tablets market, and this is where Google wants to give the users and option to install Android alongside Windows.

This will significantly increase the reach of Android and give developers further incentives to develop on Android. Google will be hoping that previous Android users will be liking the interface and the apps enough to install them along with Windows, a strategy which might work as there will be no extra cost involved in installing Android. Plus, Windows 8 store could take some time to take off, and Google will like to attack Microsoft in that period.

With this strategy, pure Android tablet sales might suffer, but they haven't been very successful so far, especially when compared with iPad. And in spite of the acquisition of Motorola, Google is a "data" or "information" company and not a hardware company, hence more the users using Android, better is the business opportunity for Google.