Android "L" at Revealed at Google I/O, Looks Rad! (Also Android in your car and TV)
50 replies, posted
[img]http://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/files/styles/large/public/article_images/2014/06/gmail-before-after.jpg?itok=kXM_lztR[/img]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht8yzpIV9M0[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8TXgCzxEnw[/media]
[quote]Google’s main event of the year, I/O 2014, was chock-full of news: some expected, some decidedly not. The company showed off a colorful and playful new design style for all of its products, as well as a new version of Android, codenamed “L,” that won’t arrive until later this year. Google debuted a cheap but elegant Android One phone to court buyers on a budget. Android was everywhere at the developer conference: on smartwatches, in car dashboards, and even on your body with Android Fit, a new platform for fitness wearables and apps designed to rival Apple’s HealthKit.[/quote]
[img]http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DK615_ANDROI_G_20140625131751.jpg[/img]
[quote]Google’s web products and its own Android mobile operating system haven’t always meshed very well in terms of their visual design, but no longer. At I/O 2014, the company unveiled a unified design language called "Material Design," which will carry the same visual style across the web, Google’s Chrome browser, and all Android mobile devices — including Google’s new pack of wearables. Material Design is, in essence: colorful, minimalistic and airy, with lots of wide open spaces with more breathing room for text. But it’s not totally flat: boxes of information slide over each other and disappear when not needed, and there are dramatic, almost movie-like animations for switching between tasks. It’s clearly inspired by Google Now, the company’s predictive personal assistant for Android phones. Google even created a whole new website showing off Material Design so that third-party developers can better tailor their apps to fit Google’s new unified visual style.[/quote]
[quote]Google today showed a sneak peak of the new version of Android coming this fall, codenamed Android L. L is a fresh look at how a software operating system should work, no matter what device you’re using it on. L works inside cars, TVs, and mobile phones, and incorporating all the principles Google laid down in its Material Design principles while maintaining your favorite things about Android. The lock screen, for example, has been redesigned to show a notifications stack hovering over your wallpaper, which you can interact with or swipe away. Every button reacts when you tap it, and every card or button flies off-screen when you swipe on it, like Google’s new interactive notifications. There are also some new, less design-centric features. With L you won’t need a passcode to unlock your phone if you’re wearing a smartwatch that you’ve paired, or if you’re in your car. "Personal unlock" searches for familiar things nearby to check if your phone’s with you, or if it might be somewhere else. Another important feature: when you Google something, relevant results might pop you directly into an app you’ve already installed.[/quote]
Personally this looks like a big step forward for android in every sense. From performance and battery life to the general "feel" of the operating system.
Sources:
[url]http://pocketnow.com/2014/06/25/android-l[/url]
[url]http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/25/Android-L/[/url]
[url]http://www.cnet.com/news/time-for-android-in-your-watch-and-car-and-tv/[/url]
[url]http://gizmodo.com/android-l-release-everything-you-need-to-know-1595912430[/url]
[url]http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/25/5842050/the-most-important-things-google-announced-at-i-o[/url]
Not a fan of most of those screenshots :/ Some of the design looks kind of tacky.
[QUOTE=KmartSqrl;45214221]Not a fan of most of those screenshots :/ Some of the design looks kind of tacky.[/QUOTE]
Nitpicking just because you can right?
Hopefully this wont end up distracting the drivers.
In-car android will have to solve the issue of ambient noise screwing up Google Now and having to end up yelling (often with the windows open) OKAY GOOGLE DIRECTIONS TO X several times for it to register
[editline]f[/editline]
I hope this means better Android DIN / Double-DIN units come out though
I would say I still prefer the old design, simplicity is good and all, but you don't need to go too far down the slope.
The "return" arrow also shows a more clear intent than a simple left arrow does in my opinion, not to mention the circle and square(wat)
Not to mention the gigantic amounts of padding on everything.
In the first image in the OP, it just shows how much less information you fit onto the same screen, you still get a short part of the email but now since there's so much more padding, there is so much less information in there.
The only thing that actually seems to have improved in the first image is that it shows the time since you recieved the message if it's within 24 hours, instead of always displaying a timestamp, but that's hardly something that requires a complete redesign.
The ambitions for beautiful transitions in apps are nice though, I hope that is actually adopted in most.
I would say the biggest problem with android and it's ecosystem is the lack of complete adoption of style in applications simply because it isn't enforced.
Google can say that theres a style guide and that apps should behave in a certain manner, but if even popular app developers don't follow the guide, what does it matter?
I just found just found the new style guide, go through it and click the videos, looks amazing!
[url]http://www.google.com/design/spec/animation/responsive-interaction.html#[/url]
[editline]edited:[/editline]
[vid]http://material-design.storage.googleapis.com/videos/animation-meaningfultransitions-view_contact_large_xhdpi.webm[/vid]
[vid]http://material-design.storage.googleapis.com/videos/animations-meaningfultransitions-focus-timely_large_xhdpi.webm[/vid]
[vid]http://material-design.storage.googleapis.com/videos/animations-meaningfultransitions-hierarchical_transitions_topLevel_large_xhdpi.webm[/vid]
[QUOTE=mix999;45214301]I just found just found the new style guide, go through it and click the videos, looks amazing!
[url]http://www.google.com/design/spec/animation/responsive-interaction.html#[/url][/QUOTE]
It does look great, but I'm confused as to why they seem to have made all their examples videos?
Wouldn't examples you can interfact with better communicate the "feel"?
Even if most users/devs might be sitting there with their mouse and hovering over elements and such, it's still better than a non-interactive video playing.
I find it hard to believe it would be difficult to accomplish in a web context.
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;45214317]It does look great, but I'm confused as to why they seem to have made all their examples videos?
Wouldn't examples you can interfact with better communicate the "feel"?
Even if most users might be sitting there with their mouse and hovering over elements and such, it's still better than a non-interactive video playing.
I find it hard to believe it would be difficult to accomplish in a web context.[/QUOTE]
I believe it's because its just coming out as a developer beta right now. This site is for examples for developers and just provides an outline for them. Not really for users.
[QUOTE=mix999;45214404]I believe it's because its just coming out as a developer beta right now. This site is for examples for developers and just provides an outline for them. Not really for users.[/QUOTE]
Maybe I wasn't very clear, but I was referring to people looking at the examples, be it users or developers.
Developers are people too :v:
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;45214317]It does look great, but I'm confused as to why they seem to have made all their examples videos?
Wouldn't examples you can interfact with better communicate the "feel"?
Even if most users might be sitting there with their mouse and hovering over elements and such, it's still better than a non-interactive video playing.
I find it hard to believe it would be difficult to accomplish in a web context.[/QUOTE]
With videos you can be sure that it either works fully or doesn't work at all.
If you try to do that in a browser (without Flash), it's usually fairly difficult to get it exactly right reliably. (It could be possible with animated SVGs.)
Besides that, these show a single interaction and it's easier to play the video than to first find out what to do.
[QUOTE=Tamschi;45214423]With videos you can be sure that it either works fully or doesn't work at all.
If you try to do that in a browser (without Flash), it's usually fairly difficult to get it exactly right reliably. (It could be possible with animated SVGs.)
Besides that, these show a single interaction and it's easier to play the video than to first find out what to do.[/QUOTE]
Most of their examples aren't terribly hard to accomplish with HTML5/CSS/JS, but yeah I get the point about compliance and compatibility with browsers
(just annoyed since I find interactive examples far more compelling :v:)
I mean just look at FirefoxOS, their whole software stack runs on HTML5 and JS
A bit too animation-heavy for my liking.
Looks like they're actually putting effort into their os unlike apple
The non intrusive notifications and lock screen notifications is something I've been wanting for a long time
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;45214436]Most of their examples aren't terribly hard to accomplish with HTML5/CSS/JS, but yeah I get the point about compliance and compatibility with browsers
(just annoyed since I find interactive examples far more compelling :v:)
I mean just look at FirefoxOS, their whole software stack runs on HTML5 and JS[/QUOTE]
The Polymer site has some web examples in the demo section [url]http://www.polymer-project.org/[/url]
Is that detailed notifications on the lock screen? The lack of those has been my single biggest problem with Android. I've been using locker pro to fix it. It's nice but a separate lock screen app takes a second or two to update when you unlock your phone.
[QUOTE=redBadger;45214593]Looks like they're actually putting effort into their os unlike apple[/QUOTE]
lol
[editline]26th June 2014[/editline]
apple unlike google don't change their UI every other year
I hope they will also push manufacturers to ease the process of flashing a new Android version.
My GT-I9001 is a dead model in Samsung's eyes for example, and won't get any updates pushed out anymore. So therefore I flashed CM 11 on my phone, nearly bricked it too.
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;45214436][...]
I mean just look at FirefoxOS, their whole software stack runs on HTML5 and JS[/QUOTE]
That's not necessarily a good thing.
In this episode of "Spot the Apple Fanboy"...
Oh goody, more voice tech that will undoubtedly struggle with a Scottish accent.
[QUOTE=bravehat;45219394]Oh goody, more voice tech that will undoubtedly struggle with a Scottish accent.[/QUOTE]
Hey, normal people can't make sense of Scottish accents, how are machines supposed to?
Looks nice but I bet they're still beating the dead horse which is Java. They need to go native soon, look at the power and battery life iDevices get with a dual core and small batteries it just proves it's far more efficient. Now is a good time to do it too as pretty much all phones are running Qualcomm chips now so it should be easier to optimise it.
[QUOTE=PyroCF;45219533]Looks nice but I bet they're still beating the dead horse which is Java. They need to go native soon, look at the power and battery life iDevices get with a dual core and small batteries it just proves it's far more efficient. Now is a good time to do it too as pretty much all phones are running Qualcomm chips now so it should be easier to optimise it.[/QUOTE]
Impossible for Android. They would have to support x86, various ARM versions and MIPS. And now multiply that by 2 for 32bit and 64bit versions. Using a managed language is definitely the right way to do it. Especially since they have the NDK too for stuff like games.
[QUOTE=Robber;45219740]Impossible for Android. They would have to support x86, various ARM versions and MIPS. And now multiply that by 2 for 32bit and 64bit versions. Using a managed language is definitely the right way to do it. Especially since they have the NDK too for stuff like games.[/QUOTE]
How about a VM that is not Java then? Something .net/mono like?
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;45219418]Hey, normal people can't make sense of Scottish accents, how are machines supposed to?[/QUOTE]
Well, either way I'll enjoy trying to use it in my car once and instead of it playing my favourites playlist on Spotify, it decides to start playing a 2 hour long avante garde cinematographic masterpiece that causes me to crash because I'm weeping so heavily.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;45219920]How about a VM that is not Java then? Something .net/mono like?[/QUOTE]
That's possible and already exists. [url]http://xamarin.com/platform[/url]
Just installed the developer preview on my Nexus 5. I have to say that this version is the nicest looking and feeling Android update yet.
[QUOTE=Robber;45220789]That's possible and already exists. [url]http://xamarin.com/platform[/url][/QUOTE]It's just developing apps in C#, it does not make your android run in MONO vm. Not to mention xamarin is expensive. The free version has app size limit which is so small you will hit it after a few dozen code lines.
Java is less than ideal VM these days. Especially for phones where battery life is kind of a big deal.
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