Android 5.0 (Lollipop): New Features of Android Platform

 

Welcome to Android 5.0 Lollipop(Android L)

This release is packed with new features for users and thousands of new APIs for developers. It extends Android even further, from phones, tablets, and wearables, to TVs and cars.Android 5.0 brings Material design to Android and gives you an expanded UI toolkit for integrating the new design patterns easily in your apps.New 3D views let you set a z-level to raise elements off of the view hierarchy and cast realtime shadows, even as they move.Built-in activity transitions take the user seamlessly from one state to another with beautiful, animated motion. The material theme adds transitions for your activities, including the ability to use shared visual elements across activities.Ripple animations are available for buttons, checkboxes, and other touch controls in your app.You can also define vector drawables in XML and animate them in a variety of ways. Vector drawables scale without losing definition, so they are perfect for single-color in-app icons.A new system-managed processing thread called RenderThreadkeeps animations smooth even when there are delays in the main UI thread. Android 5.0 provides a faster, smoother and more powerful computing experience. Support for Khronos OpenGL ES 3.1 now provides games and other apps the highest-performance 2D and 3D graphics capabilities on supported devices. OpenGL ES 3.1 adds compute shaders, stencil textures, accelerated visual effects, high quality ETC2/EAC texture compression, advanced texture rendering, standardized texture size and render-buffer formats, and more.

Material Design

A bold, colorful, and responsive UI design for consistent, intuitive experiences across all your devices.Responsive, natural motion, realistic lighting and shadows, and familiar visual elements make it easier to navigate your device Vivid new colors, typography, and edge-to-edge imagery help to focus your attention

Lollipop Notifications

New ways to control when and how you receive messages – only get interrupted when you want to be  View and respond to messages directly from your lock screen. Includes the ability to hide sensitive content for these notifications  For fewer disruptions, turn on Priority mode via your device’s volume button so only certain people and notifications get through. Or schedule recurring downtime like 10pm to 8am when only Priority notifications can get through With Lollipop, incoming phone calls won’t interrupt what you’re watching or playing. You can choose to answer the call or just keep doing what you’re doing Control the notifications triggered by your apps; hide sensitive content and prioritize or turn off the app’s notifications entirely More intelligent ranking of notifications based on who they’re from and the type of communication. See all your notifications in one place by tapping the top of the screen

Battery
Power for the long haul
A battery saver feature which extends device use by up to 90 mins.Estimated time left to fully charge is displayed when your device is plugged in.Estimated time left on your device before you need to charge again can now be found in battery settings

Security
Keep your stuff safe and sound

New devices come with encryption automatically turned on to help protect data on lost or stolen devices.SELinux enforcing for all applications means even better protection against vulnerabilities and malware.Use Android Smart Lock to secure your phone or tablet by pairing it with a trusted device like your wearable or even your car

Device Sharing

More flexible sharing with family and friends

 

Multiple users for phones. If you forget your phone, you still can call any of your friends (or access any of your messages, photos etc.) by simply logging into another Android phone running Lollipop. Also perfect for families who want to share a phone, but not their stuff.Guest user for phones and tablets means you can lend your device and not your stuff.Screen pinning: pin your screen so another user can access just that content without messing with your other stuff

New Quick Settings

• Get to the most frequently used settings with just two swipes down from the top of the screen
• New handy controls like flashlight, hotspot, screen rotation and cast screen controls
• Easier on/off toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and location
• Manually adjust your brightness for certain conditions. Then, adaptive brightness will kick in based on ambient lighting

Connectivity

A better internet connection everywhere and more powerful Bluetooth low energy capabilities.Improved network handoffs resulting in limited interruption in connectivity. For example, continue your video chat or VoIP calls without interruption as you leave the house and switch from your home Wi-Fi back to cellular.Improved network selection logic so that your device connects only if there is a verified internet connection on Wi-Fi.Power-efficient scanning for nearby Bluetooth low energy (“BLE”) devices like wearables or beacons New BLE peripheral mode
Runtime and Performance

A faster, smoother and more powerful computing experience.ART, an entirely new Android runtime, improves application performance and responsiveness

• Up to 4x performance improvements
• Smoother UI for complex, visually rich applications
• Compacting backgrounded apps and services so you can do more at once

Support for 64 bit devices, like the Nexus 9, brings desktop class CPUs to Android

• Support for 64-bit SoCs using ARM, x86, and MIPS-based cores
• Shipping 64-bit native apps like Chrome, Gmail, Calendar, Google Play Music, and more
• Pure Java language apps run as 64-bit apps automatically

Media

Bolder graphics and improved audio, video, and camera capabilities

 

Lower latency audio input ensuring that music and communication applications that have strict delay requirements provide an amazing realtime experience

Multi-channel audio stream mixing means professional audio applications can now mix up to eight channels including 5.1 and 7.1 channels

USB Audio support means you can plug USB microphones, speakers, and a myriad of other USB audio devices like amplifiers and mixers into your Android device

OpenGL ES 3.1 and Android extension pack brings Android to the forefront of mobile graphics putting it on par with desktop and console class performance

A range of new professional photography features for Android Lollipop that let you

Capture full resolution frames around 30 fps

Support raw formats like YUV and Bayer RAW

Control capture settings for the sensor, lens, and flash per individual frame

Capture metadata like noise models and optical information

State of the art video technology with support for HEVC to allow for UHD 4K video playback, tunneled video for high quality video playback on Android TV and improved HLS support for streaming

OK Google

Easy access to information and performing tasks

Even if your screen is off, you can say “OK Google” on devices with digital signal processing support such as Nexus 6 and Nexus 9
Talk to Google on the go to get quick answers, send a text, get directions and more

Android TV

Support for living room devices

 

User interface adapted for the living room
Less browsing, more watching with personalized recommendations for content like movies and TV shows Voice search for Google Play, YouTube and supported apps so you can just say what you want to see Console-style Android gaming on your TV with a gamepad Cast your favorite entertainment apps to your big screen with Google Cast support for Android TV devices