Android L
Hi everyone. So the big Google announcements from yesterday are now
known
and well. there's been some surprises and a few Huh
really!? So first of all is the big thing
and that is Android L. That's going to be the next version
of Android. It looks like we're kind of dumping away from, you know,
4.4 or even Android 5 and then moving to a
letter naming convention. So may very well be
that we won't be seeing any more sweet treats in the naming conventions of Android L
Android. Now the really big change here is a complete
overhaul of the look and feel of Android. Gone are
well, the do-it-any-way-you-feel and now we really have a
well, unified design language across all Android
devices from smartphones to tablets to wearables
and now even to your car. Now really the big change here
is almost in how Google is thinking
about the layers that appear within smartphone app design.
So for instance now we have a kind of concept called Materials.
Now really that is taking what they've done with Google Now
with the carded design, kind of tweaking it up.
So essentially now what we have is a backplane. Now that backplane
is where an image could go so in most cases a cover image of Android L
the thing you happen to be looking at, some information from the app etcetera.
Really it's just there to add a nice
kind of visual flair. The really key information here
is the way these cards now sit across the top of
those layers. Now essentially you can have multiple cards
set one on top of each other. You can have cards floating on top of
on top and what Android will do is it will
automatically apply shadow and light to those cards
so essentially they could have a depth of field of
sorts to them. They now no longer feel like, well, basically a card just sort of
hovering in space. They now feel like they have some depth. Essentially
the Android operating system and its GUI are Android L
kind of now layered. If you were to turn them on the side you would kind of see
a stack of cards, almost. Now this new design language
is designed, funnily enough, to operate across
all of Android's different device types so it works beautifully
across smartphones, tablets smart watches and
of course cars and TVs. The idea from a development point of view
is developers will be able to build an app once and have it reflected
everywhere with a common look and feel and those are things they can depend on
within the ecosystem. No more of this... well we want to put an app on a Smart Watch, how exactly
are we going to rejig our app to do that?
Now, it's basically a case of taking in those additional Android L
components for the SDK SmartWatch, building your app and
everything goes into one single app When the user installs that app onto their
smartphone device
if they have a Smart Watch connected that app is then pushed across the Smart Watch
as well in its cut down watchy form. This is really good stuff.
The one thing I think I would say about Google IO 2014
is this year has been very much about the integration.
There's not really been a lot of what I would class as low level tech talk around
with key features and so on.
What they've really gone for here is the big overall
let's get everything integrated, let's get a common look and feel. Let's have some
common
operation between all these different Android devices Android L
but let's more importantly make it very easy for developers.
The overall look and feel of Android L well, frankly, blows away
anything from any other manufacturer right now, even if you look at what
they've done on
IOS where we've got the kind of candy bar going on
and obviously on Windows mobile with their tile design
what Android L is promising here is something
very, very special. It's another jump ahead again on the
design language on mobile platforms. It looks great,
the functionality they're building in here especially with things like the home screen
and the new notification area, it all looks
really really cool and fluid. We'll actually get to use this Android L
in a developer preview as of today so we'll be getting our Nexus 5
up and running with that as soon as possible and we'll bring you some full demonstration
videos.
So what do you think? Have Google managed to knock it out of the park again?
Have they well and truly trounced Apple and Microsoft in the design stakes?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments and do please throw a like on this
video.
Android L