If you have read my extensive iOS 8 vs Android 5.0 Lollipop review you will know I’m a big fan of both platforms. You will also know that, for me, Android edges iOS in this generation. Despite this Lollipop is not a perfect operating system. It gets a lot right, but there are still areas where Google GOOGL +1.32% hasn’t quite hit the mark.
So here are my thoughts on the best and worst aspects of Google’s latest and greatest version of Android.
The Best
Material Design
Google’s decision to give ‘rules’ to its new Android user interface is not just brave, it is brilliant and easily the most exciting thing about Lollipop. In fact it might be the single biggest step forward in user design since Apple AAPL -0.01% unveiled the original iPhone in 2006.
Why so much excitement? Because Google has thought beyond how its user interface should look and extended it to how it should interact. Every button press, animation and UI layer is given physical properties so navigation is not only consistent but educational because you can see the point of origin of any action and follow the transition to the next step.
Android 5.0 Lollipop on smartphones
It feels wonderfully intuitive in use and enables even someone using Android for the first time to be quickly and confidently navigating the OS in minutes. With Material Design Google has moved the game on. Never again should an interface design only be superficial.
Google the design king? It would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
New Notifications
Notifications have been Google’s big selling point since day one, but rivals have been catching up. Apple’s Notification Center takes a big step forward with the addition of widgets and quick actions in iOS 8 and Microsoft MSFT +0.47% has incorporated a similar (if currently more basic) system into Windows Phone 8.1.
With Android 5.0 Lollipop, however, Google strides ahead of the pack once more. Notifications not only offer quick actions and quick access to settings, but they are incredibly dynamic. They can be expanded or contracted to see more or less information, individually muted for a specific period (eg stop Facebook Messages, but not SMS), prioritised and even hidden according to your privacy requests.
The richness of these notifications now also finally expands to the lockscreen – something iOS had long done better and third party Android apps were required to match. It also enhances them with glanceable information on supported hardware (similar to the functionality on the superb Motorolla Moto X).
Project Volta – Big Battery Life
Android has long had a bad reputation for battery life and in many ways this was justified. Android phones have long had to fit larger batteries than iPhone rivals to get through the day, but all that may change thanks to ‘Project Volta’.
Volta is equal parts innovation and catch-up. The innovation comes from the way it reorganises background app activity into batches to save unnecessary phone waking. It also automatically detects when you are in an area of weak or no signal to stop the continual network data requests that wreck your battery life.
Early results are groundbreaking. Ars Technica found installing a beta build of Lollipop on a Nexus 5 increased the battery life by 36%.
Google also plays catch up with a battery saver mode – long seen on third party Android handsets – that automatically kicks in at 15% battery life (though this can be changed) and it turns the top and bottom bars of the UI orange so you don’t accidentally leave it on longer than necessary.
Finally a ‘Battery Historian’ offers deep dive analytics which not only provide you with detailed analysis of what is most impacting your battery life, but is also used by Google to continually tweak OS and app development.
App Switcher
Another early iOS and Windows Phone differentiator for Android was multi-tasking, but it has remained largely idle until now. With Lollipop multitasking on Android fundamentally changes.
Instead of switching between apps, Android can now switch between operations within the same app. This means instead of switching between, for example, Google Docs and Chrome you can switch between the different documents you were working on its docs and the different browser tabs you had open in Chrome.
The result is you can jump into the new rolodex-style UI and go to a specific operation (tab, document, etc) rather than just the app itself and have to cycle to what you want. It fundamentally changes how you use Android.
Multiple Users And Guest Mode
The ability to have multiple user profiles has long existed on Android tablets, but Lollipop brings this feature to smartphones along with a new Guest mode.
The former is relatively straightforward: from the quick access settings in the notification bar you can switch users with a single tap. The switch over only takes a few seconds and each user has their own selection of apps, homescreen layout and settings.
Meanwhile Guest Mode is rather clever. Switching to it allows you temporarily create a blank phone for someone to use without any access to your apps or data. You can also take this a step further by ‘pinning’ a specific app so it cannot be exited – great for kids playing games or strangers borrowing your phone (holding down the back and multitasking options exits it, but don’t tell anyone!).
Performance – Speed And Camera
Under the hood Google also makes some key changes with Lollipop. Android now supports 64-bit chipsets which future proof the OS and allows for ever greater amounts of RAM.
It also switches from ‘Dalvik’, the ageing process which is responsible for running third party apps, to ‘Android RunTime’ (ART) which dramatically speeds up operation. It works by giving apps a slightly larger install footprint (yes they use more space) so that they operate in an always-ready mode and can spring into life.
Google claims ART can lead to 4x the performance and it makes the whole UI much smoother, something born out in my testing.
Google has also upgraded camera performance by giving third party apps direct access to the original RAW files that are captured, rather than the compressed JPEGS. This means there is far greater potential for high quality image processing and even to create profiles specific to an individual phone’s camera optics.
So here are my thoughts on the best and worst aspects of Google’s latest and greatest version of Android.
The Best
Material Design
Google’s decision to give ‘rules’ to its new Android user interface is not just brave, it is brilliant and easily the most exciting thing about Lollipop. In fact it might be the single biggest step forward in user design since Apple AAPL -0.01% unveiled the original iPhone in 2006.
Why so much excitement? Because Google has thought beyond how its user interface should look and extended it to how it should interact. Every button press, animation and UI layer is given physical properties so navigation is not only consistent but educational because you can see the point of origin of any action and follow the transition to the next step.
Android 5.0 Lollipop on smartphones
It feels wonderfully intuitive in use and enables even someone using Android for the first time to be quickly and confidently navigating the OS in minutes. With Material Design Google has moved the game on. Never again should an interface design only be superficial.
Google the design king? It would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
New Notifications
Notifications have been Google’s big selling point since day one, but rivals have been catching up. Apple’s Notification Center takes a big step forward with the addition of widgets and quick actions in iOS 8 and Microsoft MSFT +0.47% has incorporated a similar (if currently more basic) system into Windows Phone 8.1.
With Android 5.0 Lollipop, however, Google strides ahead of the pack once more. Notifications not only offer quick actions and quick access to settings, but they are incredibly dynamic. They can be expanded or contracted to see more or less information, individually muted for a specific period (eg stop Facebook Messages, but not SMS), prioritised and even hidden according to your privacy requests.
The richness of these notifications now also finally expands to the lockscreen – something iOS had long done better and third party Android apps were required to match. It also enhances them with glanceable information on supported hardware (similar to the functionality on the superb Motorolla Moto X).
Project Volta – Big Battery Life
Android has long had a bad reputation for battery life and in many ways this was justified. Android phones have long had to fit larger batteries than iPhone rivals to get through the day, but all that may change thanks to ‘Project Volta’.
Volta is equal parts innovation and catch-up. The innovation comes from the way it reorganises background app activity into batches to save unnecessary phone waking. It also automatically detects when you are in an area of weak or no signal to stop the continual network data requests that wreck your battery life.
Early results are groundbreaking. Ars Technica found installing a beta build of Lollipop on a Nexus 5 increased the battery life by 36%.
Google also plays catch up with a battery saver mode – long seen on third party Android handsets – that automatically kicks in at 15% battery life (though this can be changed) and it turns the top and bottom bars of the UI orange so you don’t accidentally leave it on longer than necessary.
Finally a ‘Battery Historian’ offers deep dive analytics which not only provide you with detailed analysis of what is most impacting your battery life, but is also used by Google to continually tweak OS and app development.
App Switcher
Another early iOS and Windows Phone differentiator for Android was multi-tasking, but it has remained largely idle until now. With Lollipop multitasking on Android fundamentally changes.
Instead of switching between apps, Android can now switch between operations within the same app. This means instead of switching between, for example, Google Docs and Chrome you can switch between the different documents you were working on its docs and the different browser tabs you had open in Chrome.
The result is you can jump into the new rolodex-style UI and go to a specific operation (tab, document, etc) rather than just the app itself and have to cycle to what you want. It fundamentally changes how you use Android.
Multiple Users And Guest Mode
The ability to have multiple user profiles has long existed on Android tablets, but Lollipop brings this feature to smartphones along with a new Guest mode.
The former is relatively straightforward: from the quick access settings in the notification bar you can switch users with a single tap. The switch over only takes a few seconds and each user has their own selection of apps, homescreen layout and settings.
Meanwhile Guest Mode is rather clever. Switching to it allows you temporarily create a blank phone for someone to use without any access to your apps or data. You can also take this a step further by ‘pinning’ a specific app so it cannot be exited – great for kids playing games or strangers borrowing your phone (holding down the back and multitasking options exits it, but don’t tell anyone!).
Performance – Speed And Camera
Under the hood Google also makes some key changes with Lollipop. Android now supports 64-bit chipsets which future proof the OS and allows for ever greater amounts of RAM.
It also switches from ‘Dalvik’, the ageing process which is responsible for running third party apps, to ‘Android RunTime’ (ART) which dramatically speeds up operation. It works by giving apps a slightly larger install footprint (yes they use more space) so that they operate in an always-ready mode and can spring into life.
Google claims ART can lead to 4x the performance and it makes the whole UI much smoother, something born out in my testing.
Google has also upgraded camera performance by giving third party apps direct access to the original RAW files that are captured, rather than the compressed JPEGS. This means there is far greater potential for high quality image processing and even to create profiles specific to an individual phone’s camera optics.
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