TR Forums

http://developer.android.com/preview/setup-sdk.html#top

Have fun guys. I don't use my Nexus 7 for anything "important" so this will give me something to toy around with. Looks like you can set up a virtual device as well.

Did you install yet? I just popped it on my Nexus 7 this morning. Nothing too crazy that I have seen yet. Minus the keyboard. What the hell is this borderless theme?

Yeah I had downloaded it by the time I posted the thread and installed it yesterday. didn't get to play with it too much before last night. The keyboard is killing me. I downloaded Swype because I already owned the Play version.

Here's the other stuff that has struck me:

It runs pretty well, and is fairly stable. Can't log in to Twitter, but all the other apps I installed run well.

Battery meter percentages are now based on total battery capacity. Previously the percentages reflected percentage of the used capacity, so if you were at 80% and your display was taking up 40%, then it was 100*.4*.2 = 8% of your battery. Now it will just read 8%

Who thought a circle for a home button was a good idea? Why not a pentagon, like home plate on a baseball diamond?

I'm not sure how I feel about an app having multiple instances in the task switcher. I think it'd be easier if Chrome was only listed once then I used Chrome's tab switching interface to find the tab I wanted.

I like the new simplified quick shortcuts. The list was getting too big in KitKat so they brushed it down to the basics - wifi, bluetooth, airplane mode, DND quick toggle, brightness slider and just one or two others IIRC.

I believe Motorola is already doing the lock screen camera shortcut that showed up on my Nexus in L. Instead of a "camera widget" just drag from the right.

And that's about it I think. The Play store auto-downloaded the apps that were installed on it prior to flashing/wiping and it took like 4 hours. I never get good speeds from the Play store, which has prevented me from buying media. If I'd been paying attention I would have canceled the download for GTA3. that's like 1.2GB and ended up being time wasted. But once everything was installed, I got to play with it for about 2 hours while I watched the Cardinals lose, and for the most part, it's Android just like I knew it. I'm sure once devs get to use all that's new under the hood that it'll be a different story. I think barring catastrophe, I'll keep it installed and just use it.

I feel the same way for the most part. I just do not understand that keyboard thing. Maybe I can get used to it, shrug.

I have heard the twitter app doesn't work. Meh.
Battery thing = whatever. I'm pretty careful with my phone, but I don't really care about a tablet. So for the time being I don't have a feeling one way or the other about that.
Circle for home button also seems weird to me. Not that I care much though. I just know it's center.
I think the quicksettings is MUCH improved and better looking. I have never been a fan of the old one. I do however think their implementation of the pull down kinda stinks. They got rid of the two finger pull, which allowed you to open in one swipe and save time - sorta, and now you have to make two actions to get the quicksettings. weak. I never really liked the two finger pull, but gah! just let me pull the thing all the way down in one swipe!
Camera shortcut is present on the Nexus 5 I think...I think that was introduced a while back in stock android. Regardless, it's nice.

I'm more excited to try this on a phone. Android on a tablet vs a phone is very different for me. I want to see how it works on a phone before I render any decision.

Seems to me that maybe the biggest improvement in Android L is the new ART runtime that doubles app performance. Thing is, you can enable that in KitKat already - you just have to get into Developer Options and switch from DALVIK to ART. I did that yesterday on my Nexus 5 and haven't had any issues. Chrome seem to run smoother, but then again I don't do much on my phone that is app intensive, like games.

southrncomfortjm wrote:

Seems to me that maybe the biggest improvement in Android L is the new ART runtime that doubles app performance. Thing is, you can enable that in KitKat already - you just have to get into Developer Options and switch from DALVIK to ART. I did that yesterday on my Nexus 5 and haven't had any issues. Chrome seem to run smoother, but then again I don't do much on my phone that is app intensive, like games.

Don't take that double number to heart. I have been running ART on different devices for a while now. I think that number might be UP TO, and only for select apps. Not to mention Qcomm, among others, already had a pretty optimized version of Dalvik running on a lot of phones. It's an improvement nonetheless.

Going to install this on our studio's Nexus 7 FHD today.

Don't know if I want to try it on my personal Nexus 5 since I'm pretty sure you have to wipe the phone first and I'm feeling lazy.

Yes, I had to wipe the tablet to unlock the boot loader. The flashing process CAN wipe the device a second time unless you edit the script and take out the -w flag. But if you're not boot loader unlocked, then you have a mandatory wipe coming. May as well just wait for an OTA so you can keep your stuff if it's a device you rely on for work purposes.

ART does not and never has "doubled" performance, particularly on apps that use NDK. It does, in my experience with KitKat, eliminate the stutters caused by JIT compiling which is actually better in my book. Stutters were greatly reduced moving from 4.0.4 to 4.1 and then nearly eliminated in 4.4, what's remaining is probably caused by apps reading from the NAND.

The L preview has broken the portable hotspot feature for me. That is unacceptable. Hope they don't ship like that for the real thing.

DancinJack wrote:

Don't take that double number to heart.

I definitely wasn't. I'd think an across the board doubling of performance would be pretty noticeable, even on a phone that ran pretty well on Dalvik, and I haven't noticed and wasn't really expecting that.

fingers crossed that Android "L" makes it to the Nexus 4!

derFunkenstein wrote:

Who thought a circle for a home button was a good idea? Why not a pentagon, like home plate on a baseball diamond?

A round rectangle would have been great since it was on the iPhone button for the longest time. Wait....

Probably the same person who thought a House for the home icon was a bad idea. I'm not sure why it's trendy to create icons that signify nothing, like three slashes for settings instead of a gear.

I chose the pentagon because if it's pointing up it looks like a house. If you have to be abstract, at least give me something to cling to. The back button triangle and square button task switcher at least look like what they do, sorta.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

Probably the same person who thought a House for the home icon was a bad idea. I'm not sure why it's trendy to create icons that signify nothing, like three slashes for settings instead of a gear.

That is not "Settings." It is actions overflow menu. The three vertically laid dots are supposed to represent ellipses - as in "more actions." The three horizontal lines is usually used to indicate a side bar - with each menu item representing one line item.

Settings is still the gear icon.

A lot of thought goes into UX design. It is certainly not like some fellow dreamed up something and it is now part of the product.