Samsung is rolling out Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software updates for the Galaxy note 10.1 and Galaxy Note 2 line of tablets. The Note 10.1 update also includes Samsung’s new “Premium Suite,” which offers a few new features and performance improvements.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 already supports opening multiple windows side-by-side for true multitasking. The update adds a few new ways to do that, including a Cascade View option that lets you resize, move, and pin apps.
There’s also a new Air View that lets you preview an app using the Galaxy Note’s S Pen without actually opening the app. For instance you can preview email attachments without opening them or preview photos without opening a full album.
Air View also lets you move the pen over a video slider to preview frames from later or earlier in the video without actually skipping ahead or back.
Samsung’s new Quick Command tool lets you launch apps using customized S Pen gestures.
Other updates include the ability to add handwritten notes to photos, additional templates in the S Note app, and a few other things that I’d probably never use, since my handwriting is illegible whether I’m using paper and pencil or a tablet and a digital pen.
There’s no Premium Suite for the Galaxy Tab 2 tablets with 7 and 10.1 inch screens, because neither of those tablets come with a digital pen. But Samsung is rolling out Android 4.1 to the WiFi versions of both of those tablets in order to offer faster performance and other enhancements such as expandable notifications and automatic rearranging of home screen icons to make room for new apps and widgets.