Google announced in a blog post Wednesday that the Android 4.1: Jelly Bean software development kit (SDK) has been released in full to developers.
"We are pleased to announce that the full SDK for Android 4.1 is now available to developers and can be downloaded through your SDK Manager," Android engineer Nick Butcher wrote on the Android Developers Blog.
Android developers can now create and publish apps against API level 16 using the new Jelly Bean APIs, the post says, adding that Google is also releasing SDK Tools revision 20.0.1 and native development kit (NDK) revision 8b with bug fixes.
Another sweet update
"For many people, their first taste of Jelly Bean will be on the beautiful Nexus 7," says the post, noting that "most applications will run just fine on Nexus 7."
Nevertheless, Google is encouraging developers to "make sure that [they're] keeping up" by updating their apps for the new OS version.
With the correct tools in every Android developer's hands, Jelly Bean could launch with more up-to-date apps than any previous Android update yet.
The Nexus 7, Google's flagship Jelly Bean device, is set to ship this month, with pre-orders reportedly going out in the next week or so.
Google previously announced that the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Google Nexus S will be getting the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update this month as well, though the update's wider release was still on the hush earlier this month.
At the Google IO 2012 summit, the search giant made a promise to help Android device manufacturers "create new guidelines for how quickly devices will get updated after new Android platform releases."
More recently, Google announced plans to start releasing Platform Development Kits (PDK) before any major OS release.
The PDK is "like the SDK, but for Android hardware developers," said Android director Hugo Barra.
But Google hasn't yet announced plans to release the Jelly Bean PDK, which would aid further in getting the Jelly Bean update onto as many devices as quickly as possible.
Update: a Google spokesperson responded to TechRadar's query, saying that Google has yet to make another announcement regarding the availability of a PDK.
"A lot of work has gone into making Jelly Bean buttery smooth," Butcher wrote in yesterday's blog post. "Make sure your app is as well."
