Apple’s iPhone is about to experience منــافســة شرسة (a stiff competition) from the new version of Google’s gadget—especially in the Arab world!

Its latest update of the Android operating system features more enhancements for Arabic language, the company has announced.

After introducing its “Ice Cream Sandwich” (Android 4.0), Google has come up with “Jelly Bean“, released this week at the occasion of the company’s I/O developers conference.

The Android 4.1 comes with a new “adaptive” keyboard that progressively “learns” the user’s typing, and can therefore يتنبَّــــأ (predict) each time the next word about to be entered.

The “Jelly Bean” was improved to offer faster التصفٌّـــــــــح (browsing) and dynamic notifications.

The big news for Arabic users is that the new phone comes with new improvements for their language. Arabic is offered as one of واجهــــــة المستخــــدم (User-Interface) languages, and system Apps have been localized in order to support الخطـــــــــوط العربيـــــــــة (Arabic fonts.)

المصدر المفتــــوح (open source) fans in the Arab world will feel particularly happy, as the new Arabic features are also available for Arab developers, who can now develop new local apps on their own.

Arabic glyphs were also enhanced for web browsing, as well as the text input.

Furthermore, the Arabic font known as “درويــــــــد نســـــــخ“, or “Droid Naskh” was improved, offering an esthetically pleasing Arabic text.

In addition to the new Arabic font, Jelly Bean supports 18 new languages, including Hindi, Persian, and Thai. Support for blind users is also improved, and Bluetooth supported for external Braille devices.

But the fact that Jelly Bean is able to “learn about you” using Google Now has raised some privacy concerns, since it uses for that purpose your recorded locations, calendar, and even your تاريـــخ البحث (search history)!

Google Now instantly updates its users on their favourite restaurants, and tells them about the local weather, or how their favorite sport teams are doing.