Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has been making big waves since its reveal at Google I/O last month and we know that many readers can’t wait to be able to download the latest software to their devices. We have good news today for owners of devices already running 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the beta version of the Jelly Bean keyboard is available from Google Play now.

We’ve been bringing plenty of news for those who want to know everything about the latest Android OS and the just-released Google Nexus 7 tablet, which was the first device to be launched running Jelly Bean. The first Jelly Bean updates will come to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S phones but while you’re waiting for the update to reach your device the Jelly Bean Keyboard beta may interest you. It comes from app developer Beansoft and is compatible for Android devices using 4.0.3 ICS or later.

The Jelly Bean Keyboard was brought to our attention by Talk Android and is available from the Google Play store here. It’s a free app and although initially you may think it looks little different to the ICS keyboard you should notice major improvements to the prediction software. Remember if you want to try it out though that this is in beta so there could be the odd bug or three. The port of the AOSP Jelly Bean Keyboard does have some limitations including only supporting English for full next word prediction or auto correction of missing spaces. There may also be an FC issue for some users when adding words to the dictionary.

The installation procedure is pretty simple involving just two steps and you can see full details on this and other limitations at the Google Play link above. We reckon that plenty of people will want to check out the Jelly Bean Keyboard from Google Play on their ICS devices. On a broader Jelly Bean note you may want to check out two of our recent articles, one regarding likely devices that will receive the 4.1 Jelly Bean update, and the other about a full list of all the new features and changes in Jelly Bean.

We’d like to hear from readers who try out the Jelly Bean Keyboard from Google Play. What do you think of the beta and your Jelly Bean experience? Would you recommend that other readers check it out? Let us know by sending your comments.