The Google I/O developer conference included the introduction of the developer kit for Android L, the next major release of the Android OS. The most recent version of Android is named KitKat.
Android L contains over 5,000 new application programming interfaces (API) and a new interface standard called material design.
Google designer Nicholas Jitkoff explains that material design was created to establish consistency of appearance and user experience of Android across the many platforms and form factors that now use Android.
"In material design, surface and shadow establish a physical structure to explain what can be touched and what cannot move. Content is front and center, using principles of modern print design. Motion is meaningful, clarifying relationships and teaching with delightful details. We needed something that felt at home on the smallest watch, the largest TV and every screen in between. We've created one unified set of style guidelines that work across any platform," wrote Jitkoff.
Android L is an extensive reworking of the user interface and a collection of changes and additions to functionality. The visual design seems to be based on the interplay between blocks of squares and rectangles that layer on each other and shift position on the screen by moving from front to back or by sliding underneath. Fonts are consistent across the board and have a "friendly" appearance that is easy to read.
Android L introduces a novel approach to keeping your device safe from prying eyes or theft - a new personal unlocking feature will circumvent the need to type in a password code to unlock the phone by recognizing environmental clues such as your voice, your Bluetooth headset or any other Android device you own that happens to be with you. Unlocking the phone is then achieved by swiping up the main screen. In the absence of identifying markers, the old-style PIN code would still be required.
The new material design interface establishes a cleaner, less cluttered and more open look to many functions. However, at times this happens at the expense of information being evicted from the new look. For example, the old Gmail interface does look cluttered and busy. But it also offers up more information about individual emails (as well as more emails per screen) than the Android L Gmail screen, which is clean but can be perceived as presenting an oversimplified at-a-glance view of email details. To some extent, this "breathing room vs. data saturation" philosophy also afflicts Apple's iOS 7.
Another feature that seems quite impressive is a predictive battery meter that will graphically provide the user with information on battery power rundown time and time-to-empty data.
