Why We Are Excited About Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

Android Jelly Bean | Android | CC-BY-3.0

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean was announced yesterday. It promises to be a very exciting release for Mediafly for a number of reasons.

1. Support for MPEG-DASH.  The MPEG-DASH specification promises to offer a major step forward in feature set, compatibility, and DRM support. More importantly, it shows a commitment by Google to provide industry-standard video playback technology on Android, whereas the current implementation of HLS is riddled with bugs and suffers from Android fragmentation.  It remains to be seen whether MPEG DASH addresses the bugs, and if/what Google does to address Android fragmentation.
   
2. Secure, private key stores. Maintaining proper encryption and DRM starts first and foremost with strong key management and coordination with hardware. Android’s key management systems have historically been poor: keys were easily accessible by other apps/processes, and there was zero coordination with the hardware.  Android 4.3 changes this: keys can be stored on hardware itself, and even the OS kernel cannot access those keys.
3. ChromeCast. This is the most exciting announcement. Many of Mediafly’s ProReview customers prefer to watch video on their TV. Today, their options consist of our Roku apps and iOS + AppleTV.  The former offers a very limited user interface, and the latter is very expensive and is often blocked by corporate WiFi security rules.  At $35, ChromeCast promises to bring Android to the front and center for Mediafly customers to stream content to the TV.

We are very excited to see how these updates improve our apps. Stay tuned as we learn more about Android 4.3 Jelly Bean!