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Android 5.0 Lollipop reviewed

159 points by jonathansizz 12y ago

click170 12y ago
Just a quick skim through, lots of neat features but it doesn't look like there's a lot of privacy-oriented ones, which is rather disappointing. I was really hoping they would bring back whatever API made it possible for things like AppOps Launcher to allow you to prevent other apps from accessing things like your contacts, account listing, or location. I was hoping that when they took it away it was because it was intended for release in a future version, but we've yet to see it since.
- mrich 12y ago
  Unfortunately not. Making this available is a lose-lose for Google: It will prevent collection of personal data which their business model relies on, and break apps which will diminish the user experience and reflect badly on Android.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Doesn't look like it, and they actually promised a more advanced permission control at I/O this year.
- kijin 12y ago
  AppOps is still alive, though you'll need root in order to access it. The problem with coarse-grained control like AppOps is that it can cause apps to malfunction or even outright crash when they try to use permissions that you revoked. This is probably not the kind of behavior that Google would like to enable for the average user. Personally, I'd prefer a subtler (but possibly more draconian) approach, such as exposing a fake or empty contact list to apps that want my contacts; exposing some random location in the middle of nowhere to apps that want my location; and exposing a fake or empty folder to apps that want my pictures. Grant access to my messages, but never actually notify them when a new message comes in. Grant access to my microphone, but only ever feed them silence. Poor apps will not even suspect that anything is amiss! Is there any way right now to do something like this on rooted phones?
  - surreal 12y ago
    The CyanogenMod OS has this built in. Very similar to what you describe (provides empty contact list, empty folder etc to apps you specify). Don't know if there's a standalone app to do the same.
  - clumsysmurf 12y ago
    > The problem with coarse-grained control like AppOps is that it can cause apps to malfunction or even outright crash when they try to use permissions that you revoked. The problem with Android, being a meta-distribution, is that Google has less control over when users (not just Nexus) get version X of Android. I remember Andy Rubin said Android could evolve more quickly because it was open source. Without debating that, its clear that in practice we haven't seen that when taking into account what users are actually using. This makes it very difficult for Google to make these breaking kinds of changes to make things better, so entropy keeps accumulating in the platform.
  - chris-at 12y ago
    AppOps is hardly a solution. It's a very complicated interface for what should be a "Do you want to allow ..." yes/no question.
- yhlasx 12y ago
  IMO they should take some cues from IOS and allow users to allow/disallow such things when apps make the requests, not dump all permissions as allow all or none when users install the apps.
  - click170 12y ago
    IMO this all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to installing apps is the single biggest problem with Android right now, trumping even the perceived fragmentation problem.
dav43 12y ago
just my 2 cents, but my biggest grips are still no universal search, ala spotlight; and privacy controls for each app, for each function. If they fixed those i'd switch. (and no, i don't want to have to download other apps, tweak this and that to achieve the desired outcome. It should be standard)
- amaks 12y ago
  Isn't always on voice search (which is always listening on suitable hardware such as Nexus) and regular search from the Google search bar including results from the supporting apps a universal search?
  - bhouston 12y ago
    I've never seen an app result in those listings. Maybe no apps support it, or it is very hard to see the app results.
    - GeneralMayhem 12y ago
      What are you expecting to see in the search results? It'll pop up links to apps if you search for their names, and it can just open them directly if you say something like "open app hacker news." There are also a few that integrate with other magic spells for voice search - mostly it's Google apps, but the Spotify app is registered as a provider of music, so I can say "play Radiohead" and the system will open Spotify and start playing.
    - district487 12y ago
      You definitely get app results in the listings for apps that are installed, a la Spotlight. This is an example of what I get when I use the Google search bar on my phone with a query of 'ch': http://i.imgur.com/UdqXvNm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/UdqXvNm.jpg
- WaterSponge 12y ago
  Universal search (once a part of Android) has long been stripped out due to patent issues with Apple. The app permissions system on Android is all or nothing. Which I think would benefit from a more rigorous approval process. All the access is disclosed though before install. Glad the world has options.
BorisMelnik 12y ago
This is an extremely thorough review. Tough to say anything negative. Huge fan of Google Material design and have been using a lot of it for my native app designs, and my users have frigging loved it. Also transferring a lot of this into desktop (web) design as well and getting lots of great feedback.
- Larrikin 12y ago
  I like Material design a lot too, but I don't like how branding is mostly done through colors now with no icon in the action bar. Since everything is flat now, it makes all apps look too similar to each other.
ot 12y ago
This paragraph made me smile: > Since Dalvik only compiled at runtime, the compiled code was never written to disk. [...] This would lead to a lot of disk thrashing [...] Since ART is already compiled, the compiled code can be paged out to disk (emphasis mine) It's funny that we still call disk any slower, non-volatile memory (and it's even funnier to imagine an Android phone with an actual disk).
felixrieseberg 12y ago
I am one of those people who always felt that Android didn't look nearly as good as it was feature-loaded. Feeling that I could always do pretty much anything with a powerful Android phone, I'm happy to see Google taking a serious big swing at design.
rezistik 12y ago
"Android 5.0 Lollipop is at least the biggest update since Android 4.0" Isn't that how versioning works generally?
- thezilch 12y ago
  I took it to mean that 4.x to 5.0 has been the biggest major-to-major update.
  - mitchell209 12y ago
    Yeah it's obvious what they meant, but they probably could have worded it better.
bane 12y ago
Pure conjecture, but at some point, Android is basically just going to be the Kernel and a distribution medium. Everything else will come from the Play store, the GUI, device drivers, the fonts, the apps, the clock, core APIs, the runtime, everything and the OS will simply move to rolling partial updates. Version x simply won't be meaningful anymore and the kernel can stay static for years and years. This is a great future that honestly wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the fragmentation and slow update issue that carriers and device manufacturers created. It's like trying to grab toothpaste once it's out of the tube. The harder you squeeze, it simply finds another crack in your hand to go out of. Material is also fantastic, almost joyful to use. It almost nails the flat-with-a-dash-of-skeu that Microsoft and Apple have both missed. There's still a few too flat bits here and there, but it's a great place to be.
- camillomiller 12y ago
  IOS 7 and 8 are all but flat. Translucency instead of shadows, but still. The iOS design needs to be perfected in many ways, but I think that the not-complete-flatness was nailed from the get go.
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    In my opinion Material > iOS8 > Metro. All are an improvement over previous designs, but I don't think complete flatness is very practical. Something I'd like them to "fix" in material for the next version of Android/style guide is how to combine colors. I think all 3 platforms have issues with this. In Android 5 there are some colors combined that don't make sense (I think the least favorite is the green icons in Settings). In iOS7/8 I've seen apps that basically use a dozen different colors in their apps, and for Metro I've noticed a lot of times that third-party developers but also Microsoft itself choose really ugly colors.
    - camillomiller 12y ago
      Unfortunately you can't really control the way third party devs will adhere to your design Guidelines. Under iOS, at least, it's easier to notice a general common sense, especially for the most used and popular apps. Material design really is great, and for that reason it's a shame that's gonna be inevitably wasted by: - third party customization by the manufacturers - fragmentation of iOS version on android devices, especially in the entry level market - huge flocks of developers with no sense of design at all -internal fragmentation by the too many Google product team themselves Looking at the design per-se, you may be right about its superiority to iOS design, but this stuff doesn't live in a vacuum.
clhodapp 12y ago
In my opinion, the level of stretching and radially-wiping animations in material design is completely at odds with Google's claim that the central metaphor is paper/cards. While I like most of their redesigned applications rather a lot, even if I try to force myself to see them as sheets of paper, I cannot, as the widgets actually behave almost nothing like paper.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago
  That's why it's a metaphor, not a strict skeumorphism. The core ideas taken from the concept of "paper" are stacking, layering, print-design-style blocks of color, and the idea that things can be shuffled and moved but cannot instantly appear and disappear in/out of thin air. That doesn't mean it's literally trying to be a pile of looseleaf, just that it's mimicking those abstract concepts from the real world in an attempt to make the interface intuitive and less "magical" (in the negative sense).
buro9 12y ago
Received the calendar app this morning, it is a major step-backwards. What was once a killer app, a core productivity tool, has given way to an almost unusable interface. It is now really hard to perform some tasks. For example, I am a heavy calendar user and I have something in the calendar almost every day. It is now extremely difficult to answer the question: When is a three hour window free in the next month or two? That used to be a single glance at the month view which communicated to me full day events, part-of-day events, and for the latter which part of the day and how long the event took. A single glance at month view could answer it and I could move forward backwards to glance at the next/prev month. Old: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56.24.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56... (October 2014 in the old v4.4 Calendar app) To achieve it now, I'd need to use the 5 day view, and for each 5 day segment to scroll up and down as even on my Moto X (2014) I cannot view more than half of the working day. New: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56.51.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56... (October 2014 in the new v5 Calendar app) Gone is the ability to use Calendar on the phone as the core way to organise your life, it is essentially now unusable on the phone for anything other than a near-term agenda/itinerary. All of the new Gmail/Inbox to Calendar features? Dead to me, all of my accounts are Google Hosted accounts and none of the Google Now, Gmail, or Inbox integrations with Calendar work on Google Hosted accounts.
- rurounijones 12y ago
  Wow, that is a pretty drastic change, did they not consider this use-case or something?!
  - hayksaakian 12y ago
    Drowned under the trumpet of flat design
    - wodenokoto 12y ago
      The screenshot of the old calendar looks pretty flat to me.
m_mueller 12y ago
As an iOS user since the 3GS, I have to say this is the first time I find Android to look significantly better and more usable than iOS, which IMO has regressed since iOS 7. How is the situation with backups and restores nowadays? If I'd have to redo all my settings when switching from an Android to another Android phone in 2016, I'd be pretty sad. I'd even be willing to restrict myself to Nexus devices if that makes a difference. Oh, also, are there any good Nexus phones with dual simcards? That would be a major reason for me to switch over.
- doughj3 12y ago
  "For existing Android users, the next step after signing in is to restore your Android settings and apps"
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ProCynic 12y ago
  I saw an article on migrating android phones earlier today: http://lifehacker.com/5843206/how-to-upgrade-to-a-new-android-phone-and-take-everything-with-you http://lifehacker.com/5843206/how-to-upgrade-to-a-new-androi...
- kukkukb 12y ago
  I recently upgraded my Note 2 to a Note 4. One of the first things it asks when you first switch on the phone, is to log into your Google Account. After that it asked a couple more questions. By the time the install wizard was done, most of my phone had been restored: Apps Contacts (including favourites) Emails (they live in the cloud) Photos Music Even things like WiFi passwords, preferred hotspots, etc. I don't even think about backing up and restoring my Android device. It all just works.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "As an iOS user since the 3GS, I have to say this is the first time I find Android to look significantly better and more usable than iOS, which IMO has regressed since iOS 7." I agree BUT how long will it be before developers implement material design on Android? I've got Android apps still using pre-holo design.
Kiro 12y ago
How is the lag? Still a lot of stuttering everywhere?
- jordanthoms 12y ago
  Better. Flawless almost everywhere, couple of places which can still drop a frame or two in specific situations - but iPhones do that too.
  - Kiro 12y ago
    Thanks. Sounds great!
clay_to_n 12y ago
Good review. I really love Material, and would place it above iOS 8's design guidelines after using and developing apps for both. However, there are some inconsistencies - besides the Calendar app heavily described here, the Contacts app on my Nexus 7 has some weird design choices. Firstly, when viewing a contact, there is no back button in the top left - you need to use the system back button, or drag the card down. Secondly, when adding a new contact, the checkmark button is in the top left, and to discard you need to go to the top right overflow settings button, and choose discard changes (the only option in the overflow). Completely counterintuitive (top left for Create, top right for discard), and the opposite of the Gmail app's Compose window (which uses the standard layout).
e12e 12y ago
"Devices that ship with Android 5.0 are encrypted out of the box. If you set a lock screen, you're given the option to require a security challenge before the device turns on. Enable this and a PIN, pattern, or password prompt will come up even before the boot animation. After you pass authentication, the device decrypts the data partition and mounts it, allowing the device to fully boot." Good news. Not sure if I think it is good news that you can pair the (presumably ok) encryption with face-unlock... though. Seems like it's not possible to (easily) brute force a disk-image off-line any more at least: http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption-android-5/ http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption-android-5/ “In addition to enabling FDE out of the box, Android L is expected to include hardware protection for disk encryption keys, as well as hardware acceleration for encrypted disk access,” Elenkov concludes. “These two features should make FDE on Android both more secure and much faster.” Now we'll just have to wait for the source code, to see if this will be usable by all "tenants" on Android hardware... I hope so -- I'd love to be able to drop to a simpler unlock key, knowing that it's eg: set to self-destruct/severely rate-limit after N tries.
- SloopJon 12y ago
  In 4.x, the decryption password is the same as the unlock PIN. I'm hoping it's possible in 5.x to separate the two, so that the password can be stronger than the PIN.
  - AlyssaRowan 12y ago
    It actually never had to be; if you're rooted you can set it fr the command line. http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption However, please note that I have not yet reviewed Android 5.x's FDE.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Thank you for that. Right now I'm running stock Samsung rom on my Note 3 (thought I'd wait for cyanogen to mix it up with 5.0 before flashing). But at least then there is another option than what I do now, basically a compromise that combines the worst of both worlds: a password/phrase that is too long to be convenient to type in to unlock, and probably too weak to offer real security, assuming the encryption key is generated via a straightforward derivation (not sure if there is any decent stretching involved?). Either way, for a device like a phone, I'm pretty sure TPM is the way to go. Alternatively a strong pass-phrase to unlock/boot, and a hard limit on attempts to unlock the lock screen before the device turns itself off (or at least "guarantees" that the disk is unmounted and the key wiped from ram...).
dingaling 12y ago
One of the most significant changes in 5.0 is the new Camera API, which will introduce two major benefitting photographers: 1. Ability to change exposure settings without purging the imaging pipeline, making exposure bracketing and high-FPS shooting faster and better. 2. RAW capture; phone lenses are improving but will always be limited on account of their dimensions, so having the RAW is even more important in trying to improve images than in a compact camera. Every little helps... Looking forward to camera apps that take advantage of these new features.
antman 12y ago
The most important feature: Full access to the SD card has been reenabled for apps after the public outcry[0]. Updates: Status: Released Labels: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit Comment #4444 on issue 67570 by jshar...@android.com: Android 4.4 Samsung Galaxy s4 external sd card is now read only, Remove or option to edit non app files. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570 Hey all, in KitKat we introduced APIs that let apps read/write file in app-specific directories on secondarystorage devices, such as SD cards. We heard loud and clear that developers wanted richer access beyond these directories, so in Lollipop we added the new ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intent. Apps can launch this intent to pick and return a directory from any supported DocumentProvider, including any of the shared storage supported by the device. Apps can then create, update, and delete files and directories anywhere under the picked tree without any additional user interaction. Just like the other document intents, apps can persist this access across reboots. This gives apps broad, powerful access to manage files while still involving the user in the initial selection process. Users may choose to give your app access to a narrow directory like “My Vacation Photos,” or they could pick the top-level of an entire SD card; the choice is theirs. To make it easy for developers to transition to these new APIs, there’s a new DocumentFile support library class. It looks and feels just like a traditional java.lang.File object, which makes it easy to adapt existing code: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/provider/DocumentFile.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/pr... These new APIs aren’t just limited to shared storage; they can be used with any DocumentsProvider that adds support for Root.FLAG_SUPPORTS_IS_CHILD, such as the advanced Vault example: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/android-5.0.0_r2/samples/Vault/src/com/example/android/vault/VaultProvider.java#258 https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/andr... If you're an end user, please reach out to app developers to ask them to start using these new APIs. With these new rich APIs in place, this issue is considered fixed. [0] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570
- on_and_off 12y ago
  I still feel that offering desktop style access to the file system is a mistake. The file system is way too complex for a normal user and since developers can put files almost anywhere it is usually a total mess. I would much largely prefer a personal sandbox for each app : their own folder in Android/packageName like they can optionally use right now. On top of that, add an API to grant access to shared folders for music/photos/documents/misc files.
wernerb 12y ago
Good review, I agree on all points! But no mention of the new keyboard design where the borders surround the letters have been removed. On my Nexus 5 I am making significantly more typos than usual. Anyone else notice this?
cweiss 12y ago
Maybe not the place to ask, but why is Calculator part of the core OS?
DaveWalk 12y ago
I have tried to port my IMAP email accounts into the new GMail. As far as I can tell, there's still no support for IDLE and the phone constantly suggests a "sync time" for my accounts. I guess my phone checking for mail every 1/5/15/30 minutes shouldn't bother me with the new job scheduling upgrades etc. but it does feel half baked. I'm happy to go back to the K-9 Mail derived apps which I've always used...but I was hoping that the new GMail design would be easy on the eyes (since I spend much of my phone time reading e-mail). Then again, now that I think of it there's no real "archive" support for non-GMail accounts in the GMail app either, so maybe it's more of a hack.

159 points by jonathansizz 12y ago

Just a quick skim through, lots of neat features but it doesn't look like there's a lot of privacy-oriented ones, which is rather disappointing. I was really hoping they would bring back whatever API made it possible for things like AppOps Launcher to allow you to prevent other apps from accessing things like your contacts, account listing, or location. I was hoping that when they took it away it was because it was intended for release in a future version, but we've yet to see it since.

mrich 12y ago
Unfortunately not. Making this available is a lose-lose for Google: It will prevent collection of personal data which their business model relies on, and break apps which will diminish the user experience and reflect badly on Android.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Doesn't look like it, and they actually promised a more advanced permission control at I/O this year.
kijin 12y ago
AppOps is still alive, though you'll need root in order to access it. The problem with coarse-grained control like AppOps is that it can cause apps to malfunction or even outright crash when they try to use permissions that you revoked. This is probably not the kind of behavior that Google would like to enable for the average user. Personally, I'd prefer a subtler (but possibly more draconian) approach, such as exposing a fake or empty contact list to apps that want my contacts; exposing some random location in the middle of nowhere to apps that want my location; and exposing a fake or empty folder to apps that want my pictures. Grant access to my messages, but never actually notify them when a new message comes in. Grant access to my microphone, but only ever feed them silence. Poor apps will not even suspect that anything is amiss! Is there any way right now to do something like this on rooted phones?
- surreal 12y ago
  The CyanogenMod OS has this built in. Very similar to what you describe (provides empty contact list, empty folder etc to apps you specify). Don't know if there's a standalone app to do the same.
- clumsysmurf 12y ago
  > The problem with coarse-grained control like AppOps is that it can cause apps to malfunction or even outright crash when they try to use permissions that you revoked. The problem with Android, being a meta-distribution, is that Google has less control over when users (not just Nexus) get version X of Android. I remember Andy Rubin said Android could evolve more quickly because it was open source. Without debating that, its clear that in practice we haven't seen that when taking into account what users are actually using. This makes it very difficult for Google to make these breaking kinds of changes to make things better, so entropy keeps accumulating in the platform.
- chris-at 12y ago
  AppOps is hardly a solution. It's a very complicated interface for what should be a "Do you want to allow ..." yes/no question.
yhlasx 12y ago
IMO they should take some cues from IOS and allow users to allow/disallow such things when apps make the requests, not dump all permissions as allow all or none when users install the apps.
- click170 12y ago
  IMO this all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to installing apps is the single biggest problem with Android right now, trumping even the perceived fragmentation problem.

dav43 12y ago

just my 2 cents, but my biggest grips are still no universal search, ala spotlight; and privacy controls for each app, for each function. If they fixed those i'd switch. (and no, i don't want to have to download other apps, tweak this and that to achieve the desired outcome. It should be standard)

amaks 12y ago
Isn't always on voice search (which is always listening on suitable hardware such as Nexus) and regular search from the Google search bar including results from the supporting apps a universal search?
- bhouston 12y ago
  I've never seen an app result in those listings. Maybe no apps support it, or it is very hard to see the app results.
  - GeneralMayhem 12y ago
    What are you expecting to see in the search results? It'll pop up links to apps if you search for their names, and it can just open them directly if you say something like "open app hacker news." There are also a few that integrate with other magic spells for voice search - mostly it's Google apps, but the Spotify app is registered as a provider of music, so I can say "play Radiohead" and the system will open Spotify and start playing.
  - district487 12y ago
    You definitely get app results in the listings for apps that are installed, a la Spotlight. This is an example of what I get when I use the Google search bar on my phone with a query of 'ch': http://i.imgur.com/UdqXvNm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/UdqXvNm.jpg
WaterSponge 12y ago
Universal search (once a part of Android) has long been stripped out due to patent issues with Apple. The app permissions system on Android is all or nothing. Which I think would benefit from a more rigorous approval process. All the access is disclosed though before install. Glad the world has options.

BorisMelnik 12y ago

This is an extremely thorough review. Tough to say anything negative. Huge fan of Google Material design and have been using a lot of it for my native app designs, and my users have frigging loved it. Also transferring a lot of this into desktop (web) design as well and getting lots of great feedback.

Larrikin 12y ago
I like Material design a lot too, but I don't like how branding is mostly done through colors now with no icon in the action bar. Since everything is flat now, it makes all apps look too similar to each other.

ot 12y ago

This paragraph made me smile: > Since Dalvik only compiled at runtime, the compiled code was never written to disk. [...] This would lead to a lot of disk thrashing [...] Since ART is already compiled, the compiled code can be paged out to disk (emphasis mine) It's funny that we still call disk any slower, non-volatile memory (and it's even funnier to imagine an Android phone with an actual disk).

felixrieseberg 12y ago

I am one of those people who always felt that Android didn't look nearly as good as it was feature-loaded. Feeling that I could always do pretty much anything with a powerful Android phone, I'm happy to see Google taking a serious big swing at design.

rezistik 12y ago

"Android 5.0 Lollipop is at least the biggest update since Android 4.0" Isn't that how versioning works generally?

thezilch 12y ago
I took it to mean that 4.x to 5.0 has been the biggest major-to-major update.
- mitchell209 12y ago
  Yeah it's obvious what they meant, but they probably could have worded it better.

bane 12y ago

Pure conjecture, but at some point, Android is basically just going to be the Kernel and a distribution medium. Everything else will come from the Play store, the GUI, device drivers, the fonts, the apps, the clock, core APIs, the runtime, everything and the OS will simply move to rolling partial updates. Version x simply won't be meaningful anymore and the kernel can stay static for years and years. This is a great future that honestly wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the fragmentation and slow update issue that carriers and device manufacturers created. It's like trying to grab toothpaste once it's out of the tube. The harder you squeeze, it simply finds another crack in your hand to go out of. Material is also fantastic, almost joyful to use. It almost nails the flat-with-a-dash-of-skeu that Microsoft and Apple have both missed. There's still a few too flat bits here and there, but it's a great place to be.

camillomiller 12y ago
IOS 7 and 8 are all but flat. Translucency instead of shadows, but still. The iOS design needs to be perfected in many ways, but I think that the not-complete-flatness was nailed from the get go.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  In my opinion Material > iOS8 > Metro. All are an improvement over previous designs, but I don't think complete flatness is very practical. Something I'd like them to "fix" in material for the next version of Android/style guide is how to combine colors. I think all 3 platforms have issues with this. In Android 5 there are some colors combined that don't make sense (I think the least favorite is the green icons in Settings). In iOS7/8 I've seen apps that basically use a dozen different colors in their apps, and for Metro I've noticed a lot of times that third-party developers but also Microsoft itself choose really ugly colors.
  - camillomiller 12y ago
    Unfortunately you can't really control the way third party devs will adhere to your design Guidelines. Under iOS, at least, it's easier to notice a general common sense, especially for the most used and popular apps. Material design really is great, and for that reason it's a shame that's gonna be inevitably wasted by: - third party customization by the manufacturers - fragmentation of iOS version on android devices, especially in the entry level market - huge flocks of developers with no sense of design at all -internal fragmentation by the too many Google product team themselves Looking at the design per-se, you may be right about its superiority to iOS design, but this stuff doesn't live in a vacuum.

clhodapp 12y ago

In my opinion, the level of stretching and radially-wiping animations in material design is completely at odds with Google's claim that the central metaphor is paper/cards. While I like most of their redesigned applications rather a lot, even if I try to force myself to see them as sheets of paper, I cannot, as the widgets actually behave almost nothing like paper.

GeneralMayhem 12y ago
That's why it's a metaphor, not a strict skeumorphism. The core ideas taken from the concept of "paper" are stacking, layering, print-design-style blocks of color, and the idea that things can be shuffled and moved but cannot instantly appear and disappear in/out of thin air. That doesn't mean it's literally trying to be a pile of looseleaf, just that it's mimicking those abstract concepts from the real world in an attempt to make the interface intuitive and less "magical" (in the negative sense).

buro9 12y ago

Received the calendar app this morning, it is a major step-backwards. What was once a killer app, a core productivity tool, has given way to an almost unusable interface. It is now really hard to perform some tasks. For example, I am a heavy calendar user and I have something in the calendar almost every day. It is now extremely difficult to answer the question: When is a three hour window free in the next month or two? That used to be a single glance at the month view which communicated to me full day events, part-of-day events, and for the latter which part of the day and how long the event took. A single glance at month view could answer it and I could move forward backwards to glance at the next/prev month. Old: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56.24.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56... (October 2014 in the old v4.4 Calendar app) To achieve it now, I'd need to use the 5 day view, and for each 5 day segment to scroll up and down as even on my Moto X (2014) I cannot view more than half of the working day. New: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56.51.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56... (October 2014 in the new v5 Calendar app) Gone is the ability to use Calendar on the phone as the core way to organise your life, it is essentially now unusable on the phone for anything other than a near-term agenda/itinerary. All of the new Gmail/Inbox to Calendar features? Dead to me, all of my accounts are Google Hosted accounts and none of the Google Now, Gmail, or Inbox integrations with Calendar work on Google Hosted accounts.

rurounijones 12y ago
Wow, that is a pretty drastic change, did they not consider this use-case or something?!
- hayksaakian 12y ago
  Drowned under the trumpet of flat design
  - wodenokoto 12y ago
    The screenshot of the old calendar looks pretty flat to me.

m_mueller 12y ago

As an iOS user since the 3GS, I have to say this is the first time I find Android to look significantly better and more usable than iOS, which IMO has regressed since iOS 7. How is the situation with backups and restores nowadays? If I'd have to redo all my settings when switching from an Android to another Android phone in 2016, I'd be pretty sad. I'd even be willing to restrict myself to Nexus devices if that makes a difference. Oh, also, are there any good Nexus phones with dual simcards? That would be a major reason for me to switch over.

doughj3 12y ago
"For existing Android users, the next step after signing in is to restore your Android settings and apps"
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ProCynic 12y ago
I saw an article on migrating android phones earlier today: http://lifehacker.com/5843206/how-to-upgrade-to-a-new-android-phone-and-take-everything-with-you http://lifehacker.com/5843206/how-to-upgrade-to-a-new-androi...
kukkukb 12y ago
I recently upgraded my Note 2 to a Note 4. One of the first things it asks when you first switch on the phone, is to log into your Google Account. After that it asked a couple more questions. By the time the install wizard was done, most of my phone had been restored: Apps Contacts (including favourites) Emails (they live in the cloud) Photos Music Even things like WiFi passwords, preferred hotspots, etc. I don't even think about backing up and restoring my Android device. It all just works.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "As an iOS user since the 3GS, I have to say this is the first time I find Android to look significantly better and more usable than iOS, which IMO has regressed since iOS 7." I agree BUT how long will it be before developers implement material design on Android? I've got Android apps still using pre-holo design.

Kiro 12y ago

How is the lag? Still a lot of stuttering everywhere?

jordanthoms 12y ago
Better. Flawless almost everywhere, couple of places which can still drop a frame or two in specific situations - but iPhones do that too.
- Kiro 12y ago
  Thanks. Sounds great!

clay_to_n 12y ago

Good review. I really love Material, and would place it above iOS 8's design guidelines after using and developing apps for both. However, there are some inconsistencies - besides the Calendar app heavily described here, the Contacts app on my Nexus 7 has some weird design choices. Firstly, when viewing a contact, there is no back button in the top left - you need to use the system back button, or drag the card down. Secondly, when adding a new contact, the checkmark button is in the top left, and to discard you need to go to the top right overflow settings button, and choose discard changes (the only option in the overflow). Completely counterintuitive (top left for Create, top right for discard), and the opposite of the Gmail app's Compose window (which uses the standard layout).

e12e 12y ago

"Devices that ship with Android 5.0 are encrypted out of the box. If you set a lock screen, you're given the option to require a security challenge before the device turns on. Enable this and a PIN, pattern, or password prompt will come up even before the boot animation. After you pass authentication, the device decrypts the data partition and mounts it, allowing the device to fully boot." Good news. Not sure if I think it is good news that you can pair the (presumably ok) encryption with face-unlock... though. Seems like it's not possible to (easily) brute force a disk-image off-line any more at least: http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption-android-5/ http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption-android-5/ “In addition to enabling FDE out of the box, Android L is expected to include hardware protection for disk encryption keys, as well as hardware acceleration for encrypted disk access,” Elenkov concludes. “These two features should make FDE on Android both more secure and much faster.” Now we'll just have to wait for the source code, to see if this will be usable by all "tenants" on Android hardware... I hope so -- I'd love to be able to drop to a simpler unlock key, knowing that it's eg: set to self-destruct/severely rate-limit after N tries.

SloopJon 12y ago
In 4.x, the decryption password is the same as the unlock PIN. I'm hoping it's possible in 5.x to separate the two, so that the password can be stronger than the PIN.
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  It actually never had to be; if you're rooted you can set it fr the command line. http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption However, please note that I have not yet reviewed Android 5.x's FDE.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Thank you for that. Right now I'm running stock Samsung rom on my Note 3 (thought I'd wait for cyanogen to mix it up with 5.0 before flashing). But at least then there is another option than what I do now, basically a compromise that combines the worst of both worlds: a password/phrase that is too long to be convenient to type in to unlock, and probably too weak to offer real security, assuming the encryption key is generated via a straightforward derivation (not sure if there is any decent stretching involved?). Either way, for a device like a phone, I'm pretty sure TPM is the way to go. Alternatively a strong pass-phrase to unlock/boot, and a hard limit on attempts to unlock the lock screen before the device turns itself off (or at least "guarantees" that the disk is unmounted and the key wiped from ram...).

dingaling 12y ago

One of the most significant changes in 5.0 is the new Camera API, which will introduce two major benefitting photographers: 1. Ability to change exposure settings without purging the imaging pipeline, making exposure bracketing and high-FPS shooting faster and better. 2. RAW capture; phone lenses are improving but will always be limited on account of their dimensions, so having the RAW is even more important in trying to improve images than in a compact camera. Every little helps... Looking forward to camera apps that take advantage of these new features.

antman 12y ago

The most important feature: Full access to the SD card has been reenabled for apps after the public outcry[0]. Updates: Status: Released Labels: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit Comment #4444 on issue 67570 by jshar...@android.com: Android 4.4 Samsung Galaxy s4 external sd card is now read only, Remove or option to edit non app files. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570 Hey all, in KitKat we introduced APIs that let apps read/write file in app-specific directories on secondarystorage devices, such as SD cards. We heard loud and clear that developers wanted richer access beyond these directories, so in Lollipop we added the new ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intent. Apps can launch this intent to pick and return a directory from any supported DocumentProvider, including any of the shared storage supported by the device. Apps can then create, update, and delete files and directories anywhere under the picked tree without any additional user interaction. Just like the other document intents, apps can persist this access across reboots. This gives apps broad, powerful access to manage files while still involving the user in the initial selection process. Users may choose to give your app access to a narrow directory like “My Vacation Photos,” or they could pick the top-level of an entire SD card; the choice is theirs. To make it easy for developers to transition to these new APIs, there’s a new DocumentFile support library class. It looks and feels just like a traditional java.lang.File object, which makes it easy to adapt existing code: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/provider/DocumentFile.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/pr... These new APIs aren’t just limited to shared storage; they can be used with any DocumentsProvider that adds support for Root.FLAG_SUPPORTS_IS_CHILD, such as the advanced Vault example: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/android-5.0.0_r2/samples/Vault/src/com/example/android/vault/VaultProvider.java#258 https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/andr... If you're an end user, please reach out to app developers to ask them to start using these new APIs. With these new rich APIs in place, this issue is considered fixed. [0] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570

on_and_off 12y ago
I still feel that offering desktop style access to the file system is a mistake. The file system is way too complex for a normal user and since developers can put files almost anywhere it is usually a total mess. I would much largely prefer a personal sandbox for each app : their own folder in Android/packageName like they can optionally use right now. On top of that, add an API to grant access to shared folders for music/photos/documents/misc files.

wernerb 12y ago

Good review, I agree on all points! But no mention of the new keyboard design where the borders surround the letters have been removed. On my Nexus 5 I am making significantly more typos than usual. Anyone else notice this?

cweiss 12y ago

Maybe not the place to ask, but why is Calculator part of the core OS?

DaveWalk 12y ago

I have tried to port my IMAP email accounts into the new GMail. As far as I can tell, there's still no support for IDLE and the phone constantly suggests a "sync time" for my accounts. I guess my phone checking for mail every 1/5/15/30 minutes shouldn't bother me with the new job scheduling upgrades etc. but it does feel half baked. I'm happy to go back to the K-9 Mail derived apps which I've always used...but I was hoping that the new GMail design would be easy on the eyes (since I spend much of my phone time reading e-mail). Then again, now that I think of it there's no real "archive" support for non-GMail accounts in the GMail app either, so maybe it's more of a hack.