The moment Android fans had been waiting for has finally arrived! Google has announced the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop – the latest version of the world’s most popular mobile platform. Google is throwing in their latest OS with their new debutants: the Nexus 6 smartphone, Nexus 9 tablet and the Nexus Player streaming device. For those of you with the Nexus 4, 5, 7, 10 and Google Play Edition devices, Google will be reaching out to you in the coming weeks!
The OS had been in the developer preview grounds for a good period before this, and Google has finally ironed out all the quirks it gathered during this testing phase. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you would know that – Android L as it was called till a few weeks back, features Google’s new Material Design language, which offers some notable visual enhancements.
The new Material Design offers a cleaner design with flatter icons, a bolder color palette, coupled with fluid physics-based animations offering a smoother and more consistent user experience on the Android platform as well as apps. You don’t have to run the Android L Developer Preview to check out the Material Design, however it does offer the most noticeable design changes. With Google pushing out the Material Design update for its own Google+ app, subsequently followed by an update of the Play Store as well, users were able to peek into the Material world. Google’s attempted to use the Material Design to unify the Android experience across all devices, something that started out with the introduction of Android 3.0 Honeycomb, if you had forgotten.
However, Android 5.0 Lollipop is not just eye candy, and sports some major changes under the hood as well. The Android OS is the first version of the OS which has been optimized for 64-bit architecture (I can almost sense the iPhone fans punch their fists in the air). This should finally allow hardware manufacturers to jump onto the 64-bit Android smartphones and tablets bandwagon.
The latest OS from Google also comes with a new lock screen with notifications that allows you to take actions on them: such as deleting an email. A new battery saver mode will give you 90 minutes of extra time between charges, but this may vary from device to device, especially slightly older devices. There’s plenty more, but as such there are features taken from the various hardware manufacturers own implementations. Seems like Google wants to make these needed implementations part of the core Android experience.
When compared to Android 4.0, version 5.0 Lollipop is easily Google’s most significant visual update along with some UI changes. Android’s latest has all the right ingredients Google needs to showcase the Android OS as a software that can look beyond just the phone and tablet platforms.
The complete set of Android 5.0 Lollipop features are as follows:
We know for sure that in the coming months, flagship devices from major manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, LG etc. will be getting some Android 5.0 goodness. While we can’t really throw in dates, we’ll keep you updated with the news as it happens!
Let us know what you think about Android’s latest offering. Sound off in the comments section below!
You may also like to check out:
- Google Nexus 9 Tablet Announced: Features, Specs, Price, Release Date [Video]
- Meet Google Nexus 6: Features, Specs, Price, Release Date [Video]
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.
