Kobo Arc gets Jelly Bean upgrade

If you’ve got a Kobo Arc, get ready for jelly beans.

Kobo has released an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean firmware update for its 7” Google-certified Kobo Arc tablet. Promised enhancements include faster performance, improved search capabilities, increased touch responsiveness, and additional intelligence features. The update is available to Kobo Arc customers when they next connect to Wi-Fi.

“Kobo Arc is the perfect tablet for people that love consuming books, movies, and surfing the web,” said Wayne White, executive vice-president of devices for Kobo, in a statement. “With the latest Jelly Bean update, Kobo Arc becomes the perfect eReading companion that offers more with intelligent search recommendations, voice-to-text, and a highly responsive touch screen.”

Related StoryKobo launches Arc tablet to battle Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD

Kobo is touting several new features and benefits with the move to Android 4.1, including:

Google Now: Personalizes information based on a user’s location, time of day, history, and calendar events, to show restaurants in the area, how much traffic to expect before the morning commute, when the next train is coming, the score of a current game, a flight status, and more.

Richer notifications: Notifications can be accessed from directly within the notifications area.

Improved search: Google Search can be opened directly from the locked screen by swiping up and users have the option to simply say “Google” to activate Voice Search within the Google Search screen.

Optimized voice recognition and boosted predictive typing: Jelly Bean introduces text-to-speech capabilities and an embedded speech recognizer that enables Voice Typing without an Internet connection.

Face Unlock: The improved Face Unlock now calibrates in different conditions and can now optionally require a blink to verify a live person is unlocking the device.

Toronto-based Kobo launched the Arc last year to go head-to-head against Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD. Launching with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, its specs include a 1280 x 800 HD display, a 1.5 GHZ dual-core processor, and 1 GB of RAM. There’s a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for videoconferencing and the battery life is rated for 10 hours of continuous use with WiFi turned off, and two weeks on standby.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras is a technology journalist with IT World Canada and a member of the IT Business team. He began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada and the channel for Computer Dealer News. His writing has also appeared in the Vancouver Sun & the Ottawa Citizen.

Featured Story

How the CTO can Maintain Cloud Momentum Across the Enterprise

Embracing cloud is easy for some individuals. But embedding widespread cloud adoption at the enterprise level is...

Related Tech News

Get ITBusiness Delivered

Our experienced team of journalists brings you engaging content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives delivered directly to your inbox.

Featured Tech Jobs