Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Android 5.0 Lollipop Beginning to Arrive

Android Lollipop Day

Last month, Google unveiled the latest iteration of its operating system, Android 5.0 Lollipop (LRX21M), accompanied by the Nexus 9 and the Nexus 6 reference devices. Despite the unveiling, no official date for the OTA rollout was given. However, “Lollipop Day” was later confirmed for today, November 3rd through various means. And to top things off, Google just added an article to the Official Android Blog detailing how developers can get their apps ready for Lollipop. Initially, the Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 10 and Google Play Edition devices were listed as Lollipop candidates, but the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 (2012) were added to the list later that day.

Android Lollipop’s most prominent feature is its refreshed design language, Material Design, which brings physics and a paper and ink-styled reality to our mobile devicess. Under the hood, the Android Runtime (ART) has permanently taken the place of the older Dalvik Runtime, 64-bit support has been added, SELinux is enforced for all apps and Project Volta is all set to maximize battery life on our devices. Besides these changes, some of the other notable features are available such as multiple users for phones, an updated notification pane, a much improved quick settings panel, and screen/application pinning.

Android Lollipop will be available if you own a Nexus device by flashing the factory images once provided by Google, but for the faint of heart running stock, unrooted firmware on the aforementioned Nexus devices, waiting for the OTA update might seem more preferable. Once Google decides what it is they’re doing, the OTA rollout will begin with the Nexus devices, followed by the Google Play Edition devices, with OEM updates expected to arrive over the next few months (or years as we look at Samsung and recently Sony). Note: To receive the OTA update, you will need to be running an official stock ROM. 

The AOSP code drop is still in the works as Google has been uploading blank repos but has yet to upload the Platform Manifest and add the new branch and tag. Once they do that then everything will be in place. You can keep track of all the things they have been pushing via the manifest mirror.

As to the timing of the OTA release, Google has stated via the official Nexus twitter account that the OTA for the Nexus 5 will be available in the coming weeks so take all the speculation and just wait and see:

The post Android 5.0 Lollipop Beginning to Arrive appeared first on xda-developers.



source: xdadevelopers

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