by Bilal Iqbal
It’s been a long time coming, ever since the rollout of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean back in October 2012. After Project Butter debuted on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to address the biggest criticism that users levelled on the platform — mainly the perceived lag while navigating an Android device — 4.2 was a relatively minor upgrade.
Surely then, the next version will be Android 5.0, said pundits. Instead, come July 2013, all we got was another flavour of Jelly Bean, 4.3 this time, bringing with it similarly incremental upgrades as Android 4.2.
Some perceived the move as an attempt by Google to address Android fragmentation, something that had been plaguing the platform since it moved from Android 2.3 Gingerbread to Android 4.0 Icecream Sandwich. The platform had matured sufficiently enough for Google to slow down the rollout of major features and instead give manufacturers time to catch up — a smart decision, in retrospect, given how the term Android Fragmentation gets thrown around a lot less nowadays than it used to just two years back.
Android 4.4 Kit Kat in September 2013 was another attempt by Google to address fragmentation issues. The focus this time was to run on a wide range of devices in the market, with 512mb of RAM being stated as recommended to run Kit Kat. Just about all low-end devices now ship with a minimum of 512mb of RAM, meaning no device gets left behind. The optimisations made to make Android 4.4 Kit Kat that much leaner came to be known as Project Svelte.
But where was Android 5.0? Was Google planning to stay at 4.x for the foreseeable future? Google had be following a roughly six-month release schedule for its Android builds up until now, with one update usually being minor and one major. The next update was expected somewhere around June or July and gave Google a good eight to nine months.
But come June 2014, all we got was the preview of what’s coming next, codenamed Android L (with no mention of the version number). The biggest apparent improvement to Android L was going to be a new interface, dubbed by Google as Material Design. In Google’s words, the idea is to “develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes. Mobile precepts are fundamental, but touch, voice, mouse, and keyboard are all first-class input methods.”
If you own an Android device, chances are you have already seen Material Design in action on Google apps, like Google Plus, Chrome browser, Gmail, Maps and Play store etcetera. Google’s plan is to eventually have all its products across the board use the Material Design language for a consistent user experience.
It was not until last week that Android L was officially unveiled to be Android 5.0 Lollipop, signifying that Google considers this to be the next major Android release.
What’s New
Material Design. It’s fluid and features a large amount of animations, all without the hint of stutter. A Techcrunch hands-on of the newly announced Nexus 6 (launching with Android Lollipop) said: “At least running on a freshly-unboxed Nexus 6, Lollipop is smooth. Ridiculously smooth, even. Every animation (and Lollipop/Material Design uses a lot of animations and transitions) ran like butter, refusing to stutter even when I tried to trip it up by loading many apps in rapid fire.”
But unless you use a Nexus device or one from a manufacturer that does not like to make plenty of changes to the stock Google look (like Motorola, for instance), all you will be getting are hints of Material Design throughout your UI. A leaked Samsung software running Android Lollipop, for instance, shows that the Samsung UI looks more or less consistent with what it is right now. That said you will still see snippets of Material Design shine throughout the user interface.
Lollipop also features a refreshed notification system, where each notification is displayed on a card and batches of notifications can be clubbed together by an app. This will give apps more freedom to display information. The existing notification system, while a good start, was beginning to get a bit long in the tooth given its restrictive nature. You will even be able to see notifications on your Lock Screen as cards, if you want to.
Other major improvements in Android Lollipop are behind the scenes. For instance, Google is promising improved battery life by at least 90 minutes. Geek.com noticed that they were consistently getting about 2.5 hours more from their Nexus 5 (and when you are struggling to make through the day, every single minute counts).
Google has also changed the way applications run on Android. They have moved from Dalvik to ART. Dalvik was a Just In Time compiler, meaning it would get the code ready to run each time you would use an app. As you would expect, this would mean that it would take longer for an app to load up. In contrast, ART, or Android Runtime, prepares the code to run the moment an app is installed. Without having to compile the code at runtime, apps load up much faster and the system performance is improved. Compiling the code ahead of time does take up more space on your device, but with the high storage options now available on devices with the ability of expanding memory for cheap, this should not pose that big of an issue to anyone.
These are not the only changes made to the Lollipop, but these are by far the most visible. Other changes are more behind-the-scenes that should help developers.
Who’s getting it?
The big question, will your phone get it? If you are running a Nexus 4 or later or any Nexus tablet, you should be one of the first people to get the Lollipop update. That is to be expected, given they are Google devices.
But who else?
Sony has committed to bring the Android 5.0 Lollipop to the entire Xperia Z line-up. It did not make any mention of its lower-tiered devices though. HTC has also committed to upgrading its One flagships and One Mini phones to Lollipop, but has said nothing about its lower-tiered devices.
Motorola gets major brownie points for taking it up a notch, committing to upgrading all its newer devices (from the flagship Moto X to the entry-level Moto E).
That’s it. Seriously. It’s been a week and there have been no announcements or commitments made by the other two major Android manufacturers: Samsung and LG. While we are certain that Samsung and LG will bring Android Lollipop to their recent flagships, an early announcement would have been nice. We are also concerned about the state of the multiple Samsung devices that dominate the midrange: we fear many of them will probably not get the upgrade and a word from Samsung on their fate will go a long way in allaying our concerns. Here’s hoping we get good news.
The authour can contacted on email at [email protected] or followed on Twitter at @tknobeat
IMPROVEMENTS: The Android 5.0 Lollipop update brings with it a new User Interface and faster performance that goes easier on the battery.
