Intel Releases Pre-Alpha Jelly Bean Code, Adds Windows 8 Dual-Boot Option

Intel's place in the mobile market so far is relatively small, with only a few devices based on its first generation Medfield architecture made and sold in limited quantities. The most high profile Intel-based smartphone released to date is the Motorola RAZR i, packing a single-core Atom chip clocked at 2.0 GHz, but even this device has had fairly low market impact.

As this is the case, one would assume that Intel isn't all that interested in supporting these devices any further, since its next generation of mobile processors is on its way — but that assumption would be wrong. In fact, the chipmaker recently put out an Intel-optimized version of Android's latest version, 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, albeit in a pre-alpha stage.

Indeed, Intel's Open Source Technology Center has been hard at work on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to ensure that the newest iteration of Jelly Bean will work well not only on Intel mobile devices, but also on PCs used for debugging purposes. This version of 4.2.2 features the Linux 3.8 kernel, a new interactive installer and the ability to dual-boot on a Windows 8 system, which is good news for developers.

There's still no word when Jelly Bean will make its way to those who own an Intel device, but it shouldn't be much longer.

Intel first began testing Jelly Bean on its mobile devices back when it was still only version 4.1 in September, stating at the time that it worked quite well on the Medfield architecture. It makes sense that the company would work to push out this release to its mobile devices, as the "Project Butter" enhancements introduced in Jelly Bean significantly improve Android's performance on nearly any hardware.

Meanwhile, the company announced at Mobile World Congress in February its latest mobile platform, the 32nm dual-core Atom "Clover Trail+" SoC. Including three processors — the Z2580, Z2560 and Z2520 — this platform is available in speeds of 2.0 GHz, 1.6 GHz and 1.2 GHz, respectively, and supports Intel Hyper-Threading Technology.