Android 5.0 L Features List: What's
new?
What is new in Android?
Android 5.0 L is here. Google showed the new
software off at Google I/O 2014 , letting us
Android fans know exactly what new features we
have to look forward to.
Here's a spoiler: there are absolutely loads of
them. This is the biggest Android update we've
seen in a long, long time. So grab a cuppa and
strap in because we're going to look at exactly
what you'll get in Android 5.0 L.
New look, dubbed Material
The first thing you'll notice about Android 5.0 L is
that it looks quite different to the current Android
4.4 Android, and it's not – as we once thought –
like the experimental Experience UI used in the
Nexus 5.
Google has come up with a new interface look,
called Material. It's a lot more vibrant that
current Android, and it makes much more use of
interface layers. This is quite the opposite of
recent trends in UI design, which have all been
about making interfaces as flat and simple as
possible. Material may be simple, but it's not flat.
Real-time Shadows
The depth is not just about the way the interface
is laid out, either. Android 5.0 L introduces real-
time generated shadows for interface elements.
This should really help to spruce-up the look of
Android, giving it some of the visual tactility of
iOS 7 . We have seen attempts at this kind of
more substantive look in some third-party
custom interfaces before, but they generally
don't get it right.
Others end up looking busy, and there are often
performance hits to any visual flashiness. But we
don't expect any of that with Android 5.0 L.
Redesigned nav soft keys
The look of the nav buttons that are a key part of
Android have been changed as well. Their
functions seem to be the same as ever – back,
home and recent apps – but the look seems to
have been pilfered from a PlayStation controller.
A triangle, circle and square do manage,
strangely enough, to encompass what each of
the soft keys are for well enough, though. And
the extra simplicity of this is no doubt all a part of
the Material look.
More coherence across tablets, phones and PCs
Google is keen to big-up that the Material look is
going to be fairly consistent between phones,
tablets, desktops and laptops. It wants to offer
that smooth cross-platform feel that you get
when you really buy into the Apple universe, with
an iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
Of course, on the PC front Google is only really
going to have access to the Chrome interface –
it can't reskin Microsoft's Windows. But the look
on a laptop isn't a million miles removed from the
tiles of Windows 8.
Redesigned Gmail
It's not just the Android interface that has been
given a refresh. The Google apps have too. Much
more colour has been injected into Gmail, and
the look of the app is both a lot cleaner and more
modern.
The square avatar pics of current Gmail have
also been traded-in for circular ones.
Dynamic 'heads up' notifications
Another element of Android 5.0 L that we've seen
in some third-party Android interfaces is head-
up notifications. These pop-up on top of
whatever you're doing, meaning you don't have
to go to an app or drag down the notifications bar
to find out what's going on when your phone
beeps.
It seems highly likely that you'll have control
over what apps can send you these pop-up
notifications. As otherwise they'll become very,
very annoying.
New lock screen notifications
Notifications also have a real spot on the lock
screen. And, again, this is something that has
been common for some time in many custom
Android interfaces.
Each notification shows up as a little bar across
the screen in high-contrast fashion, making
them super-clear. It looks as though four
different notifications has be displayed on the
lock screen at once on a normal-size phone.
3D multitasking
A minor visual tweak of Android 5.0 L is the new
multitasking menu. It still shows your 'recent'
apps, but rather than being displayed as a 2D
scroll of apps, it's now a 3D cascade of app tiles.
It looks quite similar to the tabs screen of the
Chrome browser for Android – no surprise there.
The look of the Android take is better, though –
sharper, simpler and with good use of those new
realtime shadows.
Direct links to apps from Google searches
Developers will now be able to have links to their
apps take the place of websites in web
searches. What this means is that you'll be able
to head directly to a specific part of an app right
from the Chrome browser on your phone.
This feature has been accessible to a handful of
apps to date, but now it'll be available to all
developers. If you're worried about being
launched from Chrome into some dodgy app,
don't be. Just as lesser sites don't tend to
feature too highly in your search results, ropey
apps won't either.
64-bit CPU support
One new feature we knew was coming – support
for 64-bit CPUs. As 64-bit CPUs clearly designed
to work with Android devices have already been
officially announced, this one was obvious.
As well as letting many more instructions take
place simultaneously, having a 64-bit CPU really
lifts the lid on how much RAM Android phones/
tablets can actually make use of. With a 32-bit
processor the limited address space means that
only so much RAM memory can be accessed at
once.
Improved GPU support
Google has improved the coding of Android's
execution of graphics, allowing for much more
advanced visuals. It has been dubbed an
'extension pack', and will finally make top-end
processors start to make a bit more sense.
The extension pack enables tesselation,
geometry shaders, computer shaders and ASTC
texture compression. The latter is an advanced
image compression algorithm that will allow for
highly effective reduction in the size of art
assets.
ART runtime is in
Android 5.0 L switches over to the ART runtime.
If you've read our Android 4.4 tips and tricks
article you'll know that this is something people
with recent Android phones have been able to try
out for themselves for a while.
At present Androids use the Dalvik runtime as
standard. ART is significantly quicker, but uses a
bit more storage space for apps. It's a fair trade
off in our opinion.
Smartwatch as authentication
One of the funkiest little additions in Android 5.0 L
is a new way to bring your phone out of standby
securely. Android Wear watches will work as an
authentication tool, meaning you won't need a
password to unlock your phone if you're wearing
your watch. We're not quite sure yet exact what
tech is used to do this. But it is neat.
BUT, of course, if you get mugged your attacker
is probably going to nick your Android
smartwatch as well as your shiny new Galaxy S6
mobile phone. But it should at least stop your
friends from being able to tweet on your behalf
should you nip of to the lav for a minute.
Support for USB audio
One of the new APIs of Android 5.0 L is USB
audio. This means you'll be able to transmit
digital audio right from a phone's microUSB port,
bypassing the DAC stage used when you listen
through a headphone jack.
What will this mean? It opens up an Android
phone to being a genuine audiophile source when
paired with a decent outboard USB DAC, and
could mean we start to see USB headphones –
something Apple is rumoured to be working on
through Beats. The Nexus 5 supported USB audio
output, but it is not native to all Android 4.4
devices.
Battery efficiency optmisation
Android 5.0 L gets some new battery features,
including a reworked Battery Saver mode.
Android 4.4 falls well behind the competition in
this respect – where phones like the Galaxy S5
have extreme power-saving modes on tap, the
basic Android 4.4 battery saver is rather
rudimentary.
The lock screen will also tell you how long your
phone will take to charge when plugged in – a
clever little tweak that seems so obvious now it's
in place.
Bluetooth 4.1 support
Android 5.0 L offers native support for Bluetooth
4.1. Top-end phones have Bluetooth 4.0 these
days, but what's the difference?
Bluetooth 4.1 doesn't clash with 4G signal like
Bluetooth 4.0, and it gives manufacturers much
more control over the timeout times of the
connection. This gives much more scope for
controlling power consumption. Bluetooth 4.1
also improves connectivity, letting Bluetooth
peripherals talk to each other more easily.
Android Auto
A major new bit of Android 5.0 L is Android Auto.
This is a bit like Apple's CarPlay – it's an in-car
system that runs off your Android phone.
You jump into your car and your Android 5.0 L
mobile will start transmitting Android Auto to the
screen on your car's dashboard. Its interface
looks quite a lot like Google Now and Android
Wear, and will of course let you GPS navigate to
wherever you want to go. We imagine it'll be a lot
more open than CarPlay too.
Android TV
While not a core part of the Android system,
Android TV is a huge development in the Android
universe. It's a version of the platform designed
for your TV, and it'll eventually be built into set
top boxes and TVs.
You'll control the thing with your Android phone,
and will be able to play Android games, watch
video and do pretty much anything you can with
your Android phone.
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