So Android L is a pretty big deal, right?

[sweenish]

either it wasn't a priority, or required a lot of overhaul under the cover in dalvik (and wasn't possible without breaking a lot of other things)

looking forward for android L sources to drop...

what dalvik?

L uses ART exclusively.

 

[Mopetar]

L looks nice and hopefully the design overhaul gets developers on board to update their apps, but as other posters have pointed out, ART is going to be the bigger deal.

 

[Roland00Address]

Very eager for the official release. Buying a Nexus 4 was such a great move

Not from Google, but people have made nexus 4 and nexus 7 2012 roms now based off L if you want to try it. Like it was said before this is not ready for final release.

 

[DeathReborn]

what dalvik?

L uses ART exclusively.

I believe they are talking about prior versions of Android which do use Dalvik and don't have the power savings in L.

 

[BrightCandle]

Kind of annoyed that it doesn't look like this is coming to the Nexus 7 2012 edition. ART would make a pretty big difference on the lower performance tablet and its annoying its not in 4.4.4 as a developer option like it is on the 2013 edition.

 

[glenn1]

Nexus 6 here I come

How much improvement would the N5 see once L gets rolled out to it? I'm seeing that the N6 presumed release date is Fall 2014 would think it would have L natively. Which leads to the eternal question, wait a bit for the next generation or enjoy current gen now? My VZ contract is up end of July, so I could hold off a month or two without issue if the N6 will really be a huge improvement over the N5.

 

[sweenish]

I believe they are talking about prior versions of Android which do use Dalvik and don't have the power savings in L.

Re-reading helped me out. Yeah, I misunderstood the intent of the post.

 

[paperwastage]

How much improvement would the N5 see once L gets rolled out to it? I'm seeing that the N6 presumed release date is Fall 2014 would think it would have L natively. Which leads to the eternal question, wait a bit for the next generation or enjoy current gen now? My VZ contract is up end of July, so I could hold off a month or two without issue if the N6 will really be a huge improvement over the N5.

depends what you do...

the nexus line will never be on verizon... so you must be planning to switch (to a GSM provider? definitely not switching to Sprint I hope)

if you are looking to go to t-mobile, might want to wait to see if N6 supports the 700mhz band 12 if t-mobile owns band 12 in your area (if N6 does support band 12, I'm upgrading from my N5 immediately 😀)

 

[Roland00Address]

Kind of annoyed that it doesn't look like this is coming to the Nexus 7 2012 edition. ART would make a pretty big difference on the lower performance tablet and its annoying its not in 4.4.4 as a developer option like it is on the 2013 edition.

Unoffical port of nexus 7 2012. It is not a finished product but then all android L is unfinished.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/android-l-developer-preview-ported-nexus-4-nexus-7-2012-wi-fi-1455587

So while we may not get an official version or we may get an official version, it is very likely we will get something like cyanogenmod or some other version of Android L for the nexus 7 2012 when the final AOSP comes out.

 

[lothar]

I think the large battery improvement comes from the queues synching of network requests in L. Wakelocks are the biggest part of battery consumption for idle use.

But the test by ARS wasn't really an "idle" test, meaning it doesn't touch standby optimizations/syncing of Network requests improvements.

We did the test on a single device to remove variances in battery, which meant flashing to 4.4.4, signing in, updating apps, charging up, running the test, and then flashing the same device to the L preview. Our battery test keeps the screen on and automatically loads webpages over Wi-Fi every 15 seconds until the battery dies. For each run, the screen brightness was set to 200 cd/m2, as verified by a colorimeter

If there is this much improvement in an active test, I wonder what the improvement in an idle/standby test will bring?

 

[hanoverphist]

i would love it if the home page would go all landscape on the note 3. why doesnt it already?

 

[sweenish]

i would love it if the home page would go all landscape on the note 3. why doesnt it already?

How does this apply to the topic at hand?

The answer, bee-tee-dubs, is that it doesn't. However, in the spirit of helping out, just get a launcher that lets you do that. Nova, Apex, Action, etc.

 

[Yuriman]

Kind of annoyed that it doesn't look like this is coming to the Nexus 7 2012 edition. ART would make a pretty big difference on the lower performance tablet and its annoying its not in 4.4.4 as a developer option like it is on the 2013 edition.

I'm sure it'll come, if unofficially. I'm already running with ART and F2FS, my tablet flies.

 

[hanoverphist]

How does this apply to the topic at hand?

The answer, bee-tee-dubs, is that it doesn't. However, in the spirit of helping out, just get a launcher that lets you do that. Nova, Apex, Action, etc.

it applies as the topic is about improvements L will bring, and that being a feature i think would BE an improvement.

i know about launchers, and i know it doesnt inherently do it. unless you have it docked. at least, the motorola versions rotate when docked for the "car" or "desk" mode from what i remember of my old razr

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

But the test by ARS wasn't really an "idle" test, meaning it doesn't touch standby optimizations/syncing of Network requests improvements.

If there is this much improvement in an active test, I wonder what the improvement in an idle/standby test will bring?

Oh I agree. We have a long way to go with battery tests. Almost everything right now is testing for CPU ramp and brief periods of idle, with screen on. No one's really testing true idle time with the exception of GSM Arena, and even their testing isn't very formal to come up with an "endurance" rating.

No one's also testing effects of touch input. There was some discussion about how Project Butter's CPU ramp actually eats quite a bit of battery too, which is pretty much why every damn custom kernel out there is focused on replacing the ondemand governor which uses Qualcomm's mpdecision to decide CPU speeds.

 

[lothar]

Kind of annoyed that it doesn't look like this is coming to the Nexus 7 2012 edition. ART would make a pretty big difference on the lower performance tablet and its annoying its not in 4.4.4 as a developer option like it is on the 2013 edition.

Most of the Nexus 7 2012 crappy performance is from the slow NAND. Software can't fix that.

 

[sweenish]

it applies as the topic is about improvements L will bring, and that being a feature i think would BE an improvement.

i know about launchers, and i know it doesnt inherently do it. unless you have it docked. at least, the motorola versions rotate when docked for the "car" or "desk" mode from what i remember of my old razr

And I don't think it would be an improvement at all. This thread doesn't really exist to discuss fantasy features; I think Google brought enough to the table that discussing what is actually coming ought to be plenty. Like you said, "improvements L will bring," not "things I think are improvements that L should bring."

I would further argue that homescreen orientation is not such a hard to implement feature that Google itself has to do it for it be done right. Dashclock is great, but Android just putting notifications on the lock screen is better in that it doesn't require the app to support yet another API. Homescreen orientation is easily enough implemented in a third party launcher without seeming hacky or over-burdening app devs.

There's a line for features that should be done by Google, and features best left to devs. I don't think homescreen orientation on phones falls into Google's lap at all.

Granted, if they want the GNL to be more competitive, things like icon themes, more freedom in widget re-sizing, grid size and homescreen orientation are things they'd have to bring. But that's still not an Android feature. Android doesn't have to change to allow that.

 

[Roland00Address]

Google released a newer version of android l build number lpv81c. I have no clue what they changed.

Edit: Netflix and HBO GO work now 🙂