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First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

android-developers.blogspot.com

11–20 of 74 posts

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#11
post #3

Woah: >Improved Java 8 language support - We’re excited to bring Java 8 language features to Android. With Android's Jack compiler, you can now use many popular Java 8 language features, including lambdas and more, on Android versions as far back as Gingerbread. The new features help reduce boilerplate code. For example, lambdas can replace anonymous inner classes when providing event listeners. Some Java 8 language…

This has been possible for some time with retrolambda.

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice Cream Sandwich, which is 5 years old, has about vanished. Jelly Bean still has 30% market share, but are owners of 4 year old phones a significant portion of app revenue? I'd wager the people spending money have at least KitKat. Lollipop, at a year and half old, has another 30%

KitKat is three years old at this point. And I still see new phones and tablets with 4.1 or 4.2 on sale. Digital Signage platforms especially (the part of the Android market I actually care about) seem to be largely stuck on 4.1.

Sure, but ask yourself if that's a market you want to target. Do you care if digital signage terminals can run your app?

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#13
post #3

Woah: >Improved Java 8 language support - We’re excited to bring Java 8 language features to Android. With Android's Jack compiler, you can now use many popular Java 8 language features, including lambdas and more, on Android versions as far back as Gingerbread. The new features help reduce boilerplate code. For example, lambdas can replace anonymous inner classes when providing event listeners. Some Java 8 language…

This has been possible for some time with retrolambda.

In fact, they've implemented lambdas exactly like retrolambda does via anonymous classes.

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice Cream Sandwich, which is 5 years old, has about vanished. Jelly Bean still has 30% market share, but are owners of 4 year old phones a significant portion of app revenue? I'd wager the people spending money have at least KitKat. Lollipop, at a year and half old, has another 30%

KitKat is three years old at this point. And I still see new phones and tablets with 4.1 or 4.2 on sale. Digital Signage platforms especially (the part of the Android market I actually care about) seem to be largely stuck on 4.1.

How much does a digital sign really benefit from tracking the most recent releases anyways? Other than the obvious issue of security fixes, it doesn't seem like that is a domain that would really care that much about trying to keep up.

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#17
post #6

Besides finally saying something about Java support, I found other items interesting. ART will recompile applications based on profiling data. Introduction of support to hardware keystores, with the mention that one use case is to prevent jailbreaking. Prevent the NDK users that ignored the documentation and linked to non official platform libraries to keep doing that.

> ART will recompile applications based on profiling data. They went back to having a JIT in addition to AOT - which means there is no AOT when the app is installed. When the device is idle/charging then AOT will selectively precompile the used portions of the app and optimize it further using the profiling data. So faster app installs (boon for FDE devices with slow NAND write speeds) and no optimizing apps step aft…

> no optimizing apps step after system update.

That is fantastic news. Every single time my Nexus 6P gets an update it feels like it takes at least 15 minutes to "optimize apps". Every. Single. Update.

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ART will recompile applications based on profiling data. They went back to having a JIT in addition to AOT - which means there is no AOT when the app is installed. When the device is idle/charging then AOT will selectively precompile the used portions of the app and optimize it further using the profiling data. So faster app installs (boon for FDE devices with slow NAND write speeds) and no optimizing apps step aft…

> no optimizing apps step after system update. That is fantastic news. Every single time my Nexus 6P gets an update it feels like it takes at least 15 minutes to "optimize apps". Every. Single. Update.

The effect will be even more amazing for non-nexus/carrier devices with bloatware - my work phone (VZW M8) just got Marshmallow and it took couple hours to complete - most of the time was spent on twice optimizing 303 apps! (Only 30-35 out of those are things I installed.)

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been possible for some time with retrolambda.

In fact, they've implemented lambdas exactly like retrolambda does via anonymous classes.

So this is just another way to blow up your dex method count?

Re: First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools

#20
post #3

Woah: >Improved Java 8 language support - We’re excited to bring Java 8 language features to Android. With Android's Jack compiler, you can now use many popular Java 8 language features, including lambdas and more, on Android versions as far back as Gingerbread. The new features help reduce boilerplate code. For example, lambdas can replace anonymous inner classes when providing event listeners. Some Java 8 language…

I find the fact that streams and functional interfaces are not backwards compatible almost a deal breaker. Using Java 8 streams makes so many things easier that once you start using it, there's no going back. Now you're not going to be able to use it in production till 2019.
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