Android 5.0 Lollipop is finally here! This is Google’s biggest update to the Mobile OS since its release of Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Lollipop brings new functionality, options for developers, and a new look that will set the standard for what a modern OS should feel like.
Material Design
Material design offers a whole new set of design standards to give Android a splash of color, refreshed iconography, and a consistent interface hierarchy. The concept for these new design standards came from the idea of treating software on the screen as actual objects. With material design, users can expect to see a cleaner, colorful, and modern look to their Android UI experience.
Bluetooth 4.1
Android 5.0 will support Bluetooth 4.1, which focuses on improving usability for end users. Improvements include making sure Bluetooth and LTE radios don’t interfere with each other’s transmissions in a device and letting any device be a peripheral and a hub at the same time.
New Notifications
Notifications in Android 5.0 have undergone visual changes consistent with the material design theme. Now notifications can be seen on the lock screen of a device and high-priority notifications can be displayed in a new format called heads-up notifications. This new format displays notifications toward the top of the device’s screen in a way that won’t take the user away from their current task. Notifications are cloud-synced in Android 5.0, so when a user dismisses a notification on one device it will dismiss it on all their other Android devices as well. The volume and alert duration of priority notifications or all of their notifications can also be managed.
Audio Support
With new audio support APIs, Android 5.0 offers a better experience when it comes to sound. It will have lower latency audio input to provide an amazing realtime experience, multi-channel audio stream mixing, and USB audio support for microphones, speakers, amplifiers, etc.
Improved Camera
Android 5.0 brings amazing new functionality to its camera APIs. It will bring ability to capture full resolution frames around 30fps, support for RAW formats, control capture setting for the sensor, lens, and flash per individual frame.
What from Lollipop can be supported from older versions of Android?
Card View – Android now has APIs built into it to allow applications to take on a card based view. This is where content is grouped into a view that looks like a rectangular card. Card views are displayed in apps like Google Now and Google Plus.
Color Palette – This gives more flexibly to new theme attributes: primary color, primary dark color, and an accent. With these new theme options applications can also change the status bar (the spot on the phone that shows cell signal, a clock, wifi signal, etc) of the device they are displayed in.
