[I/O 2014]Android L
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Android L
In an Apple-esque move, Google opted to preview the next version of android that will launch fully in the Fall. And this update is big. Google’s biggest ever. Let’s jump into it.
Features
Lockscreen
As you can see, the new lockscreen has iOS-style notifications. What shows up here can be customized: you can show the whole notification, a non-sensitive version (e.g. tell you that you have a text but not what the text says), or nothing at all. Of course, you can set these for each app, so you don’t have to worry about all that snapchat sexting showing up on your home screen @Scuzz ;)
Heads Up notifications
In immersive apps, a new type of notification can appear on top of your content and be either actioned or dismissed with minimal interruption. There was no mention of whether this can be turned off, but in their game demo, I felt like this kind of notification is actually more interruptive.
Personal Unlocking
One of the benefits of contextual awareness is that your phone can change it’s security level based on your setting. In the keynote, they showed how when you’re wearing your smart watch and unlocking your phone, the phone unlocks as if there were no security. When the watch is taken off and moved across the stage, unlocking asks for a pin to get in.
Obviously not everyone will have a smart watch, but they also mentioned being able to use the following to determine whether the setting was trusted:
- Geolocation
- Voice print
- Bluetooth devices
Recents
In the new recents, apps like chrome can show each tab as a separate entry. Rather than having to go into the app and select the tab you want, the recents will show each tab at the OS level. This feature is being opened to other apps where this might make sense.
Search
There were a couple nice little updates to search to make it more integrated.
One is that search links that can open in an app will open in an app (makes sense.)
The other is for rediscoverability.
if you’ve looked at Ferry Building Marketplace in Google earth before, you can use google search to find it again.
Performance
ART
As of Android L, The Android RunTime (ART) is the ONLY runtime. Goodbye Dalvik.
If you’re not familiar with how Java code is run the process basically as so:
- Compile source code to Java bytecode
- Java bytecode is interpreted by the Java virtual machine
- For code that is run often, use a Just In Time compiler (a JIT) to convert java bytecode into native machine code that can be run directly and more quickly.
One of the benefits of ART is that it does #3 when you install the app. The app is profiled and heavy-use sections are compiled into machine code and then the whole app is updated with these fully compiled sections. This means that you don’t have to do #3 above at each runtime - only once when the app is installed (I’m simplifying but you get the idea).
We should see a faster, less memory intensive Android.
Also, ART fully supports 64-bit operations which Dalvik did not.
Graphics
Android will add apis for the following
- Tessellation
- Geometry Shaders
- Computer Shaders
- ASTC Texture Compression
I’m not going to pretend I know much about graphics, but I guess this should mean more graphically intense android apps and games in the future.
Battery
Of course google knows that battery is a huge deal. For this they’ve added a battery saver mode where the cpu is underclocked and refresh rate is lowered to try to extend that last little bit when your battery is low.
Additionally, there are now better battery profiling tools which should give both developers and users more information about where they are losing the most juice.
Wheh. And this is just from the Keynote! Android L looks like it’s shaping up to be a major update to the Android platform. From the feature updates we saw today, I’m definitely quite excited!
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Do those Heads Up notifications pause the game or do they keep the game running in the background. I know if i get a call from someone while playing a game, the game will usually pause and then resume once the call has ended.
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In the keynote I think it kept going. That might change by the time of release.
