With HTC back in the tablet game, we’re sure many of you are looking at your budget, trying to device if you’ll be able to afford the new Lollipop-powered tablet when it hits store shelves in North America and Europe on November 3rd. Yes, the tablet’s hardware is amazing and will probably be much better than any other Android tablet currently on the market, but the Nexus 9’s main feature is the fact that it’s running Android 5.0 right out of the box. We all love new versions of Android, but what makes this Lollipop flavored update better than KitKat?
Quite a bit, actually.
The main Lollipop, Android 5.0 new features include Android’s new Material Design language, customizable notifications, improved security with trusted Bluetooth devices, multi-user support with guest mode, data syncing across devices which allows you to pick up right where you left off with your music, games and pictures when switching between devices. We’re honestly not sure which feature we’re looking forward to the most.
If you want a little more detail, we encourage you to dig through Google’s official list below.
Android 5.0 Lollipop features
Material design: A bold, colorful, and responsive UI design for consistent, intuitive experiences across all your devices
- Responsive, natural motion, realistic lighting and shadows, and familiar visual elements make it easier to navigate your device
- Vivid new colors, typography, and edge-to-edge imagery help to focus your attention.
Notifications: new ways to control when and how you receive messages – only get interrupted when you want to be
- View and respond to messages directly from your lock screen. Includes the ability to hide sensitive content for these notifications
- For fewer disruptions, turn on Priority mode via your device’s volume button so only certain people and notifications get through. Or schedule recurring downtime like 10pm to 8am when only Priority notifications can get through.
- With Lollipop, incoming phone calls won’t interrupt what you’re watching or playing. You can choose to answer the call or just keep doing what you’re doing.
- Control the notifications triggered by your apps; hide sensitive content and prioritize or turn off the app’s notifications entirely
- More intelligent ranking of notifications based on who they’re from and the type of communication. See all your notifications in one place by tapping the top of the screen.
Battery: power for the long haul
- A battery saver feature which extends device use by up to 90 mins
- Estimated time left to fully charge is displayed when your device is plugged in
- Estimated time left on your device before you need to charge again can now be found in battery settings
Security: keep your stuff safe and sound
- New devices come with encryption automatically turned on to help protect data on lost or stolen devices
- SELinux enforcing for all applications means even better protection against vulnerabilities and malware
- Use Android Smart Lock to unlock your device with your trusted wearable, car or even just your smile
Device sharing: more flexible sharing with family and friends
- Multiple users for phones. If you forget your phone, you still can call any of your friends (or access any of your messages, photos etc.) by simply logging into another Android phone running Lollipop. Also perfect for families who want to share a phone, but not their stuff.
- Guest user for phones and tablets means you can lend your device and not your stuff
- Screen pinning: pin your screen so another user can access just that content without messing with your other stuff
New Quick Settings: get to the most frequently used settings with just two swipes down from the top of the screen
- New handy controls like flashlight, hotspot, screen rotation and cast screen controls
- Easier on/off toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and location
- Manually adjust your brightness for certain conditions. Then, adaptive brightness will kick in based on ambient lighting
Connectivity: a better internet connection everywhere and more powerful Bluetooth low energy capabilities
- Improved network handoffs resulting in limited interruption in connectivity. For example, continue your video chat or VoIP calls without interruption as you leave the house and switch from your home Wi-Fi back to cellular
- Improved network selection logic so that your device connects only if there is a verified internet connection on Wi-Fi
- Power-efficient scanning for nearby Bluetooth low energy (“BLE”) devices like wearables or beacons
- New BLE peripheral mode
Runtime and Performance: a faster, smoother and more powerful computing experience
- ART, an entirely new Android runtime, improves application performance and responsiveness
- Up to 4x performance improvements
- Smoother UI for complex, visually rich applications
- Compacting backgrounded apps and services so you can do more at once
- Support for 64 bit devices, like the Nexus 9, brings desktop class CPUs to Android
- Support for 64-bit SoCs using ARM, x86, and MIPS-based cores
- Shipping 64-bit native apps like Chrome, Gmail, Calendar, Google Play Music, and more
- Pure Java language apps run as 64-bit apps automatically
Media: bolder graphics and improved audio, video, and camera capabilities
- Lower latency audio input ensuring that music and communication applications that have strict delay requirements provide an amazing realtime experience
- Multi-channel audio stream mixing means professional audio applications can now mix up to eight channels including 5.1 and 7.1 channels
- USB Audio support means you can plug USB microphones, speakers, and a myriad of other USB audio devices like amplifiers and mixers into your Android device
- OpenGL ES 3.1 and Android extension pack brings Android to the forefront of mobile graphics putting it on par with desktop and console class performance
- A range of new professional photography features for Android Lollipop that let you
- capture full resolution frames around 30 fps
- support raw formats like YUV and Bayer RAW
- control capture settings for the sensor, lens, and flash per individual frame
- capture metadata like noise models and optical information
- State of the art video technology with support for HEVC main profile to allow for UHD 4K 10-bit video playback, tunneled hardware video decoding to save power and improved HLS support for streaming
Android TV: Support for living room devices
- User interface adapted for the living room
- Less browsing, more watching with personalized recommendations for content like movies and TV shows
- Voice search for Google Play, YouTube and supported apps so you can just say what you want to see
- Console-style Android gaming on your TV with a gamepad
- Cast your favorite entertainment apps to your big screen with Google Cast support for Android TV devices
Accessibility: enhanced low vision and color blind capabilities
- Boost text contrast or invert colors to improve legibility
- Adjust display to improve color differentiation
Now in 68+ languages with 15 additions
- Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese (Hong Kong), Galician, Icelandic, Kannada, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu
Device set up
- Tap & go: instant set up of your new Android phone or tablet by simply tapping it to your old one (requires NFC)
- Whenever you get a new Android phone or tablet, you can bring over your apps from Google Play automatically from any of your old Android devices
And a whole lot more
- Ok Google: Even if your screen is off, you can say “Ok Google” to get quick answers, send a text, get directions and more (works with dedicated hardware, such as Nexus 6 and Nexus 9)
- Tap & pay: easily manage multiple payment apps by quickly switching between them
- Print preview and page range support
- Revamped display for battery, Bluetooth, data usage, and Wi-Fi settings and new search functionality
- New device level feedback for Nexus devices in Settings > about phone > send feedback
- Easier sharing with
- your share option menu adjusts based on your usage. For example, if you typically email photos to your family, email now will be ranked higher in your share option menu
- Android Beam: Share a file with someone nearby by gently tapping the two devices together
- Where supported by the hardware, your device will wake up as soon as you pick it up or tap the screen twice
- Improved hardware keyboard accessory support including support for multilingual, emoji input, search key, and improved app and system key chords.
Source: Google
I am really looking forward to getting this in my HTC One_M8. Any indo regarding that?
Cheers
When will i be getting the update for my htc one mini 2?
When htc e8 will get lolipop update?