Android 4.2's four best new features

Some of the Android 4.2 upgrades are minor. Sure, it might be nice to use the Photo Sphere feature to stitch together photos to from Google Street View style panoramic images, but you're not going to do that more than once every blue moon. It's also nice that the 4.2 Play Store app includes a personalized music-shopping function, Music Explorer. Thanks to personalized music services such as Pandora, I really don't need more help in finding new music.

Other new features, however, will want you to make the jump. From least to most important in my book these are:

4) Smart Screen-Savers

Android 4.2's Daydream is actually a smart screen-saver. It lets you display photo slideshows, news headlines, and the like. While you're not likely to use this on a smartphone I know I'll set up a news feed screen-saver on my Nexus 7 tablet and I know my day-trader friends will be setting up market wires on their devices as well.

3) Gesture Typing

Do you use Swype, the popular third-party on-screen keyboard replacement? If you do, then you'll find the same basic functionality to make on-screen keyboards more useful in Gesture Typing. This probably won't be enough to sway hard-core Swype users away from their favorite virrtual keyboard, but it will show screen-typers that there is a better way than using a display keyboard than just as a QWERTY glass keyboard.

2) Miracast: From Tablet and Smartphone to TV

Apple recently introduced AirPlay Mirroring in iOS 5 and Mac OS X, Mountain Lion. With it, you can throw your screen to any Apple TV-equipped television. Android 4.2 will let you do the same thing with any TV, DVD-player, or other media device that supports Miracast.

Miracast is the trade name for Wi-Fi Direct or WiDi. This is an 802.11n compatible network protocol for display-sharing. With a compatible device or a Miracast adapter, you'll be able to stream Internet TV shows and movies from your smartphone or tablet to your TV. Miracast adapters will be available this quarter.

1) Multi-user support

On Android 4.2-powered tablets, but not on smartphones, you'll be able to have multiple users. Each user will get his or her own setup. That means, for example, you can have your own home-screen, background, widgets, apps and games, while your spouse or office partner can have their own unique tablet experience. You can set this up so a new user must login to the tablet or they'll be able to simply hit a button and away they'll go with their own tablet take. -zdnet.com