Finally Google confirmed the meaning of “L” used as new Android version. It will be called Lollipop. So, the new Android will be called as Android Lollipop.
Google confirmed that it is the largest and most ambitious release of Android. It comes with more than 5000 API and offers new Material design look and feel. It is flexible and customizable. Android Lollipop is designed to work on entry-level devices and it is capable of running in just 512 MB of RAM.
Android Lollipop is the third major release of Android. And it was fully developed under Sunder Pichai. Android L was previewed back at Google I/O but name was not confirmed at that time.
Key Features of Android Lollipop
1. Material Design
Android Lollipop offers new Material design which is bold, colorful and responsive. It offers consistent design across all your devices. Visual elements are more user friendly and lets you easily navigate your device. New colors and typography offers better user experience.
2. Notifications
Android has revamped the way you receive the notifications. Now you can view and respond to messages directly from lock screen. You can also hide the sensitive information from showing in the notification. You can also set the time to priortize the notifications to receive notifications only of certain people or app in a specific time period. If you are watching a video or playing a game, it will not interrupt.
3. Security
New Android offers better security and automatically turned on the encryption to help protect data. You can use Android Smart Lock to secure your device by pairing with trusted devices only. It also offers better protection against malware and vulnerabilities.
4. New Quick Settings
Just swipe down to open quick settings window. It offers better controls and easier settings. You can change flashligh, hotspot, screen rotation, wifi, Bluetooth, and location services settings.
5.Connectivity
Google has made the connectivity feature smarter to consume less energy. It has improved the network handoffs to limit interruption. So, you can continue your video calls while switching from Wi-Fi to Cellular network. Bluetooth devices scanning is not power efficient and network selection login has also been improved.
6. OK Google
Even if your device’s screen if off, you can give it commands by saying “OK Google.” But this feature is available only in devices supporting digital signal processing. This feature is available in Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 launched today.
7. Device Sharing
Android Lollipop offers more flexible device sharing with family and friends. You can have multiple users in a phone. If you forgot your phone, you can log into another Lollipop device to access your data including messages and photos. You can also add a Guest user for phone to use only basic features of device not your data.
8. Battery
Lollipop offers smart battery saver which claims to extend the battery life up to 90 minutes. It will also show estimate time left to fully charge your device when the device is plugged in.
9. Performance
Lollipop offers up to 4X performance improvements. It offers smoother UI for visually rich applications. It also improves performance by compacting background apps.
10. 68+ Languages
Google has added 15 new language support. These new languages are Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese (Hong Kong), Galician, Icelandic, Kannada, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Sinhala, Tamil and Telugu.
11. Improved audio, video, and camera capabilities
Lower latency audio input. Multi-channel audio stream mixing. SO, you audio applications can now mix up to 8 channels. Now it supports USB audio. So, you can use USB microphone, speakers and other USB audio devices. Android Lollipop also comes with various professional photography features like capture full resolution frames at 30fps and control capture settings for the sensor, lens, and flash per individual frame.
12. Others Features
- Easily manage multiple payment apps
- Revamped display for battery, data usage, bluetooth and wi-fi settings.
- Print preview and page range support
- Android beam
- Enhanced low vision and color blind capabilities
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