Google’s latest Android update, Android L (unofficially known as Lollipop), is now available in beta, offering developers a preview of the big changes coming down the pipeline, according to PC Advisor. The Android L developer preview will work for anyone using at least a 2013 version of Nexus 5 or Nexus 7, but beware—as a beta version, it’s tricky to install and could cause phones and apps to stop working.
On the corporate scale, a leaked roadmap document shows that smartphone maker HTC is ready to jump on the ‘L-evator’ by the end of the year, according to CNET.
What the L?
So what does L bring to the table? Google’s Developer Preview page provides the best information, and divides important L features into four categories. First is a new UI design called “material design,” which includes improvements to themes, widgets, and animations. It also provides support for what Google calls the “Z property,” or the elevation of view. This allows developers to control the shadow size cast by UI elements, along with their drawing order. L also comes with a new runtime protocol, ART, which stands for Android Runtime. While ART was optional in 4.4, it’s the default in 5.0 and provides ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation, improved garbage collection, and better debugging.
Power to the Dev
Resource use and notifications are also getting a makeover with L. Enhanced notifications allow developers to control where notifications live on screen, how they look when they appear, and what they’ll look like if users aren’t on handheld devices. Meanwhile, Project Volta improves control over when apps perform tasks, and how to do so for smarter power usage. It is now possible to create specific conditions under which a task will execute, such as when the device is charging, when it’s deemed to be idle, or when it’s connected to an unmetered network. Granular control seems to be a theme in L—giving devs (and by extension, users) more control over critical Android functions.
Going Up…
And according to CNET, HTC may be prepping to release as many as a dozen smartphones running L by October of this year. The supposedly official roadmap has HTC skipping the soon-to-arrive 4.4.4 update for some devices, including the One Max and Desire 610, opting instead for Android L. Of course, HTC hasn’t made any official announcement regarding the roadmap; even if the data it contains is accurate, the timeline is subject to change if the Android L developer preview doesn’t go as planned, or if Google decides to hold off on 5.0 until 2015.
Still, the document represents a reasonable facsimile of general consumer malaise when it comes to 4.x.x. Windows and Apple have taken pages from Google’s book in recent software updates, but as a recent Forbes article notes, the design of Apple’s UI tends to trump Google’s best efforts, in part because Android is open source and, once released, can be cannibalized by developers and manufacturers alike. As a result, users and developers are ready for a new letter, not just an updated version of KitKat.
Google is well on its way to Android 5.0, with HTC apparently first in line to ride the L-evator. What’s your take on the latest Google OS?
a) KitKat? Delicious. Lollipop? I’ll pass.
b) Improved UI, power management and notification control means I’m on Team L.
c) Meh, let’s see how it plays out. Developer preview looks interesting but I’ll wait for release candidates.
d) Android what? Give me iOS 8.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
[cf]skyword_tracking_tag[/cf]