Android 5.0 Lollipop Review
Oh so sweet.
2014 has proven to be one of the most monumental years for Google’s Android Operating System. First, it’s beloved creator Andy Rubin, left Android. Next, Sundar Pichai was handed the reigns of the worlds most popular OS. Then, in the summer of 2014, Google announced Android 5.0. Android 5.0 changed everything for in the OS. A complete visual overhaul with the new design language, dubbed “Material Design”. The aim was to have Android, everywhere. With the radical departure found in Android 5.0 Lollipop, is it as magical as Google would like us to believe?
Design-#PraiseDuarte
Android 5.0 Lollipop is the most radical visual departure we’ve seen in Android so far. Every action is filled with animation and a playful responsiveness that has not been seen on Android before.
Starting with the Lock Screen, it’s apparent this is a new OS. There is no longer a lock ring, but rather just a simple swipe up from the bottom. Notifications are now front and center below the giant clock widget(much like Roman Nurik’s fantastic DashClock Widget). If you don’t swipe up all the way, the lock screen will fall back down. Notifications that are present can be swiped away, double tapped to open, or swiped down to expand. All very intuitive and familiar for those seasoned with Android OS.
Once you’ve unlocked device, everything that was once familiar is still present, but at the same time it isn’t. Notifications now have a card that pops up along the top edge of the screen allowing you to read it, tap it, or swipe it away. You can swipe down to see all of your card style notifications. Swipe down again and you will be brought to the redesigned quick toggles. Where tapping the WiFi icon will enable or disable WiFi. Tapping the name of the toggle taking you to the settings. Every single button or action found in Lollipop has more than one function depending on what you do. Those familiar with the Android interface rules will be right at home. Single Press, Long Press, and Swipe are still king.
Color is the other largest part of Google’s sweet OS. Gone is the electronic blue outlining dark, brooding icons. The status bar changes color, every Google app has specific color schemes. Everything in Android’s new OS is bright, responsive and alive. Part of Material Design is the idea that everything in Android has literal rules. If you slide a card away, it goes somewhere. If you tap on a music album, the track listing will expand from the icon. This is the main magic that makes Android 5.0 Lollipop so special. It’s a refined set of rules for the OS to exist inside. Every animation is playful and satisfying. While some may believe that the animations take too long, I disagree. The animations are quick and do not take too long at all. They add a certain sense of satisfaction when you swipe to open the camera to find that the camera icon sends a white shockwave to open the app.
#PraiseDuarte indeed. Android 5.0 is powerful, beautiful, and refined.
Feature Focus- Security
Security has been a rather important focus this year. It seems as though everyone is being hacked or spied on. Android 5.0 Lollipop beefs up security with encryption out of the box. In order to read this data, you need the right credentials. This is an added layer of security for your device. Seeing as more and more of our lives are moving onto our phones, this is important. For Android tinkerers who like to root, 5.0’s encryption cannot be disabled. To some, that won’t matter, to others it might.
One thing that has been reported that has suffered due to this encryption has been Read/Write speeds from the internal storage. In my non-scientific-just seeing how long stuff loads testing, there was a minor slowdown with some apps loading. But music and video was still nearly instantaneous. It might be worse for some, but in my usage it was a non issue.
Where there is an issue, however, is boot up times. It took my Nexus 6 an entire minute and thirty seconds to boot up. For instance, in my Nexus 5 Review I did a similar boot up test. The Nexus 5 booted up in only 25 seconds on Kit Kat. A major disparity in time waiting for a phone to boot up. Encryption is probably the issue here.
Bluetooth has added another layer of security in Android 5.0 Lollipop. In Google’s effort to kill the password, Bluetooth has become a tool for authentication. For example, if I were to password protect my device. If I were to have my Moto 360 connected to my phone, I could unlock my phone without a password. These Trusted Bluetooth devices are an ingenious way to keep your phone secure when you’re away from it, and quickly accessible when you’re close to it.
Feature Focus- Battery Saver
The achilles heel of any smartphone or tablet is battery life. Google has aimed to help alleviate the stress of a dying battery with 5.0 Lollipop. Battery Saver is a mode you can enable that will stop all background syncing and scale back device performance. This mode can be enabled at 15% or 5% battery. My Nexus 6 has hit 15% at 8PM, battery saver clicked on, and the phone lasted until 1AM. That’s really great stamina for a simple mode change. It does come with a tradeoff though. No background data will sync. This means no emails or tweets can come through the background. The bigger issue is performance. Using my Nexus 6(Which has bleeding edge specs) with Battery Saver turned on renders the device so sluggish it’s nearly unusable. You can get by using Battery Saver if you really need your device to last, but it is not a smooth experience.
Feature Focus- Touch to Restore NFC
This is a nifty feature that was introduced in 5.0 Lollipop. When you power on your Android 5.0 device for the first time, you have the option to restore it from your previous phone. When I initially set up my Nexus 5 with Lollipop(I pushed the factory images, so I had to start fresh). I chose to try the Touch to Restore NFC feature with my OnePlus One. The result was surprising. All of my apps were pulled from the Play Store and were downloaded onto my device. None of the app data transferred, though, which is to be expected.
Unfortunately, when I tried the same scenario on my Nexus 6, only half of the apps downloaded correctly. So this feature needs some work, but it is still incredibly convenient.
Feature Focus- Flappy Android
Every Android contains a small easter egg. Finding it is quite simple: Settings->About Phone->Repeatedly tap Android Version.
In previous updates, things such as original artwork, a Nyan Android, and a Jelly Bean hurling activity have been present. This year is no different. Inside the Android Version lies a tribute to one of the most popular games of the year: Flappy Bird. Navigating Android’s own little green robot through pipes is immensely frustrating and fun.
Bugs
Now, every major OS update will come with bugs. Microsoft squashes bugs weekly, Apple broke phones with iOS 8.0.1. Stock Android 4.4 Kit Kat did not play nice with Snapchat. Every update has the potential to have nasty bugs. Lollipop is no different. Some are major, some are minor. As soon as the 5.0.1 update pushes to my Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, I’ll be sure to update the review with any bugs that have been fixed or new ones that have arisen.
My Nexus 6 has randomly rebooted every day or so. I will lock the screen, wait a few seconds, attempt to unlock my phone only to find it has shut off. It’s a frustrating bug considering it takes over a minute for the phone to boot back up. This might be an issue of stability caused by moving away from Dalvik.
In Snapchat, the camera performs atrociously in low light. Now, the normal camera works great in low light. It seems to be yet another issue between Android and Snapchat(This is far better to stomach than Kit Kat’s issues, though).
Those are the only bugs I have found in my extended usage of Lollipop across three different devices. If any more arise, I’ll let you know through Twitter and Google+. So be sure to follow me there.
A New Foundation
