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
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
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
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.
Read more: iOS 8 vs Android 5.0 Lollipop: Material Difference
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
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).
Read more: Motorola Moto X (2014) Review: The Year's Best Smartphone
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.
Updated App Switcher in Android 5.0 Lollipop (credit: Gordon Kelly)
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.
Read more – How Google Changed Reinvented Android And Nobody Noticed
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.
Read more: Android RunTime: An Easy To Way To Make Your Phone Faster
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.
Read more: Android 5.0 Camera Tests Show Update Instantly Improves Every Smartphone
Update: Expanded SD Card Support
I missed this off the original post: Android 5.0 Lollipop significantly expands the usability of microSD cards after many privileges were lost in Android 4.0 KitKat.
New Lollipop APIs make several key improvements, most notably giving third party apps full access to microSD card storage and file structures. This allows apps to save data to SD cards (great news for media heavy apps) or even be fully installed on them. Google has also bolstered the security around microSD card access to cut it off as a route for malware.
The downside this functionality isn't currently backwards compatible with older versions of Android, so you will need Android 5.0 Lollipop and apps specifically updated for it to gain this functionality. That said expandable storage is one of Android's big advantages over iOS so it is great news to see Google once again unleash its full potential, even it is continues not to offer microSD expansion on its own line of Nexus devices.
Next Page: The Worst...
The Worst
There are not too many things to get annoyed with in Android 5.0 Lollipop, but it does have some elements which feel either rushed or relatively early in their implementation.
Material Design Oversimplification
While Material Design is a truly revolutionary step forward in interface design, not all its choices will please everyone.
The most obvious is that its mission to clean up and simplify Android means that several options that were once on the surface are now buried in menus. The new Gmail is perhaps the worst offender with only search and compose buttons now available with a single tap. Mainstream users are unlikely to care, but power users have already expressed frustration.
Another knock on effect of Material Design’s declutter mission is that everything is more spread out so you get less information on a single screen. Again Gmail shows this off where about six emails show up before you need to scroll, when before it was possible to get 8-7.
Similarly the top banner in the Google Play Store is so wide it feels wasteful (above) while Material Design’s greater use of colour has seen some state that they think it is garish.
Tap & Go
This is a great feature, half done. It finally gives users a fast way to migrate their old phone or tablet setup to a new model. Previously Android just dumped your apps across your homescreens when you first logged in and it required third party apps and even rooting to get a smarter setup.
Tap & Go takes a step forward by restoring your apps in your folder arrangements, but it doesn’t restore third party app settings like iOS. For example, this means your podcast app will be in your ‘Media’ folder in the right place, but you’ll still need to setup your preferences again and subscribe to your podcasts.
As it stands Tap & Go needs more work.
Read more: iPhone 6 Plus Vs Galaxy Note 4 Review: 2014's Biggest Phone Fight
No Continuity Rival
One of the best new features of iOS 8 is ‘Continuity’ which lets you ‘hand-off’ calls, SMS and even the cursor position of the document you were writing between any device running iOS or OS X.
As something of a Cloud master, it is surprising Android 5.0 Lollipop doesn’t measure up here. Yes Google has always had Cloud syncing between things like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive and Hangouts, but Continuity goes a step further.
At the moment third party apps can bridge a lot of the gap, most notably Pushbullet, but Google has gone from being the leader here to lagging a little behind.
Biometrics
One of the more subtle features introduced with Lollipop is the automation of Face Unlock. This means while you are looking at your phone and its lockscreen notifications Android is working in the background to unlock your phone based on facial recognition and whereas it was slow and cumbersome it is now fast and accurate.
In some ways this is an advancement on TouchID as it doesn’t require any active participation on your part or the use of a specific finger or thumb. The problem is this doesn’t work in all situations and it isn't a practical or secure enough alternative to propel Google Wallet into the limelight like Apple Pay.
Google needs to build fingerprint biometrics into the heart of Android as this will convince phone makers to then build it into their devices, rather than the erratic options like the fingerprint scanner on Samsung’s Galaxy phones.
Soft Keys
Not a world ending problem, but Google’s decision to virtually clone PlayStation controller keys is not the most intuitive of changes and their reduction in size could leave some users squinting at their phones.
As phones get larger it is also arguable that the positions of the multi-tasking (right) and back (left) buttons should switch to position (as Samsung phones do) so the more regularly used back button is in the more convenient place.
Android 4.4 KitKat (above) and Android 5.0 Lollipop (below) - soft key redesign will split opinions,... [+]
Read more: Android Lollipop Hit By Big Battery Life Problem
Roll Out
Google deliberately broke from tradition by announcing ‘Android L’ five months ahead of release so handset makers and app developers could race out of the blocks.
In some ways this has happened: many apps are already updated with Material Design principles and the majority of big handset makers have said Lollipop will hit their phones within a few months. In fact LG and Motorola have said updates should start appearing within a week or two.
The problem is Google has fluffed its own roll-out. Despite launching Lollipop a week ago not a single existing Nexus or Google Play Edition device has received the update and there has been no announcement from Google to explain why.
With the roll out of Google Play Services, the stereotype of Android fragmentation has been largely overcome but Google still needs to set a better example.
Next Page: Too Soon To Tell and Final Thoughts...
Too Soon To Tell
Android 5.0 Lollipop brings an array of major new features which I haven’t touched on so far for the simple reason that it is too early to tell what the future holds. These include:
Google Wallet
While the service is now three years old, it has failed to gain mainstream adoption. The launch of Apple Pay, however, has once again propelled Wallet into the spotlight and given it a real chance to finally catch the public’s imagination.
So far, despite a spit and polish Lollipop has not yet done enough to get Wallet into a state to challenge. I would expect Wallet to be a major focus for Google over the next 12 months, but it isn’t ready yet.
Google Fit
Like Apple HealthKit, it remains very early days for Google Fit which is essentially an umbrella service for all your fitness apps (like ‘Play Games’ is for gaming) and its success will be dependent on convincing enough major third party makers to step aboard.
Nike, RunKeeper, Polar and Withings are among the high profile backers, but Fitbit, Jawbone, TomTom, Garmin and others have yet to commit. Time will tell.
Read more: iPhone 6: Doctors Raise Concerns Over Apple HealthKit
Android Auto
Another great idea very early in its gestation. Android Auto once more has a direct rival in Apple (CarPlay) and it has the similar aim of seamlessly transferring the functionality of your phone to your car’s entertainment system.
This includes telephony, mapping, music control and voice driven web search and message composition. Like CarPlay, a mass of car makers have signed up: Abarth, Acura, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Bentley, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jeep, Kia, Maserati, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, RAM, Renault, Seat, Škoda, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo.
But not one has yet come to market at the time of writing and its future - like Fit - likes in its adoption by third party manufacturers.
USB Audio
Very much on the undercard with the launch of Lollipop, USB audio is Google’s answer to Apple’s support of audio through the Lightning Jack. This data port enables potentially higher quality audio along with far greater control options and it also does away with the need for the legacy 3.5mm headphone jack.
The problem is in how Google plans to implement this. Part of the beauty of the headphone sector is how platform neutral it is and moving to USB/Lightning would fracture that between Apple and everyone else while potentially making simultaneous charging and audio playback clumsey.
Again the potential is there for great things, but there are also concerns.
Read more: Apple To Abandon Headphone JacK?
Final Thoughts
Despite some relatively minor concerns, Android 5.0 Lollipop is a remarkable triumph. It addresses many of Android’s biggest historical flaws (notably design and battery efficiency) and introduces some truly innovative advances I would expect to see mimicked by rivals for years to come.
Obviously it is the best version of Android to date, but it is also one of the biggest jumps in the platform’s history. It ups the stakes for every rival and that is a tremendously good thing.
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