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Android 5.0 Lollipop

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Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#71

Post by on_and_off »

obsurveyor wrote: post #53

> As previewed at Google I/O, Lollipop is our largest, most ambitious release on Android with over 5,000 new APIs for developers. As a developer not initiated to the Android platform, the second half of this sentence is a very scary thing to read.

As an Android dev, Lollipop is indeed a big release but not a 'throw everything you have and start over' style change.

Some things have been completely rewritten :

Notifications have been using the same expanding API since version 1, it has been strongly revamped. The RemoteControlClient (which manages the lockscreen and is used for some other things like communication with Chromecast) was one of my least favorite parts of the Notification code, it is being phased out and replaced by a new, simpler (and hopefully more reliable) one.

The ActionBar API (the bar of controls at the top of every android app) was initially based on the old menu API (from the time when we had menu buttons on Android). It was a very nice move to soften the menu button > actionbar transition but it is now adding unnecessary friction. Since the ActionBar has been redesigned, it was a very good opportunity to deprecate its API and replace it by a completely new one.

ListView (the widget that handles lists) is one of the oldest Android widgets. It has been conceived in an era where displaying a static list was all you wanted. It is a central piece of almost every app UI and it is comically inadequate. It is going to be replaced by RecyclerView, which take into account modern requirements on lists (adding, removing items, handling gestures, ...).

Many other changes are just additions. A better animation system, a tinting system for on screen elements, some new widgets, ... There are also some completely new APIs but many of these will only be used by a handful of developers (it is not every day that you need to convert the content of your screen to a PDF and print it).

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#73

Post by on_and_off »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #33

I am really curious to see if there will be noticeable "real world" battery life improvements. On paper they have done things which SHOULD give us improvements (ART, and "Project Volta" scheduling), however it remains to be seen just how well those theoreticals will translate into improvements on the ground. I have read reports from people who have tried the developer preview, however their anecdotes vary so wildly (…

It is very hard to measure battery life. Testing it on a buggy developer preview is entirely irrelevant. Volta and ART will improve battery life but they can't do anything for a shitty app that requests your location every second ..

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#74

Post by on_and_off »

moskie wrote: post #32
[deleted] wrote: post #12

[deleted]

I don't have personal experience with this, but my anecdotal observations of friends with iPhones is that installing the new version of iOS on devices ~2 years old just makes people want to ditch those old phones and get the new ones, because performance isn't good any more. The conspiracy theorist voice in my head says this isn't a coincidence.

The conspiracy theorist voice in my head says this isn't a coincidence. hahaha. Let's say that optimizing the new OS to an old hardware might not be one of Apple's priorities. This being said, the OS gets more complex over time and more graphical features are added so I can not run just as smoothly as it does on a new terminal.

Android is a particular case. It has been designed to run on any hardware and recent iterations of the OS are focusing on making it run on low end devices, so there are good chances that it will run relatively well on a Nexus 4.

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#75

Post by foldor »

fudged71 wrote: post #69
fakename wrote: post #48

"Improved network selection logic so that your device connects only if there is a verified internet connection on Wi-Fi" jfc, I can't believe this is just now being fixed. This has to be the most infuriatingly stupid thing about android. I don't have hopes of them adding the ability to intelligently switch from a weak wifi signal to a strong cell signal, but this is a step in the right direction. No more assuming I h…

It's a ridiculous hack, but here is what I do on Android: Wi-Fi Matic saves the cell tower info when I successfully connect to an accesspoint, and turns on my Wi-Fi when I enter that area again. When I'm there, Wi-Fi Web Login replays a script that logs in to the captive portal webpage. Great for travelling.

+1 for Wi-Fi Web Login. It's a great app I used to log into the guest network at my work to bypass filters. It even detects when a portal expires your connection after X time and reconnects again.

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#76

Post by JamesSwift »

on_and_off wrote: post #71
obsurveyor wrote: post #53

> As previewed at Google I/O, Lollipop is our largest, most ambitious release on Android with over 5,000 new APIs for developers. As a developer not initiated to the Android platform, the second half of this sentence is a very scary thing to read.

As an Android dev, Lollipop is indeed a big release but not a 'throw everything you have and start over' style change. Some things have been completely rewritten : Notifications have been using the same expanding API since version 1, it has been strongly revamped. The RemoteControlClient (which manages the lockscreen and is used for some other things like communication with Chromecast) was one of my least favorite pa…

RE: ListView

Are they providing first-party horizontal lists (i.e. something to compete with UICollectionViews)? Still waiting for an official Gallery replacement...

EDIT: Did the reasonable thing and actually looked it up myself [1,2]. Turns out they provide RecyclerView paired with a LinearlayoutManager to achieve arbitrary UI on top of a dataset. This is nearly identical to the iOS setup of UICollectionView with a UICollectionViewLayout (and LinearLayoutManager is == to UICollectionViewFlowLayout as far as I can tell).

  [1] - http://www.grokkingandroid.com/first-glance-androids-recyclerview/
  [2] - https://developer.android.com/preview/material/ui-widgets.html

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#77

Post by Too »

eggoa wrote: post #37

A guest user mode is a great idea. It would be nice to be able to lend someone my phone without effectively handing them the keys to my entire life.

Android 4.4 already has this. Anyone know what's new in regards to this?

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#78

Post by tonfa »

Too wrote: post #77
eggoa wrote: post #37

A guest user mode is a great idea. It would be nice to be able to lend someone my phone without effectively handing them the keys to my entire life.

Android 4.4 already has this. Anyone know what's new in regards to this?

Wasn't available on phones iirc.

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#79

Post by agumonkey »

spindritf wrote: post #35

Motorola will also update their older phones to Lollipop. Including Moto X and G starting with the 1st gen. http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2014/10/its-official-andro...

Just got a 2013 Moto G, and really curious to see if the 4x speed improvement ART can bring are frequent enough to matter. Also hope for stability, you know, like the battery bug.

Re: Android 5.0 Lollipop

#80

Post by zo1 »

fakename wrote: post #48

"Improved network selection logic so that your device connects only if there is a verified internet connection on Wi-Fi" jfc, I can't believe this is just now being fixed. This has to be the most infuriatingly stupid thing about android. I don't have hopes of them adding the ability to intelligently switch from a weak wifi signal to a strong cell signal, but this is a step in the right direction. No more assuming I h…

Samsung did their own enhancements to Android just for this problem. They have some sort of feature called "Smart network switch". The description says: "Automatically switch between wifi and mobile networks to maintain a stable internet connection.
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