There’s no reason why
Google should slow down its reigning Android development, with Android 4.0
laying its spellbound cast on Galaxy Nexus late in 2011, followed by
mid 2012 by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean release that arrived ruling over
the super Nexus 7.
But, quick-jaded group
of helpless techies that we are imagine how Google's going to sustain the tempo
of advance in its next edition of its dessert related Android OS 5.0 code named
The Key Lime Pie. Being no official status from Google yet on the release date
and features, it’s likely that the Key Lime Pie autograph will be given to
Android 5.0; we can start pulling together the strings of Key Lime Pie rumors
from around the web and tie them up for the curious update-obsessed people that
you are. With Sony preparing to produce the next Nexus, may lend some credence
to this rumor being another rumor.
Google has proclaimed
its next developer conference - Google IO - to take place in mid May this
year. Given that Google publicized Jelly Bean at 2012's IO conference,
it's not irrational to anticipate a fresh slice of Android 5.0 be served at
this year's episode.
On 31 January, a
perception of Google IO demonstrating of Android 5.0 looked more probable
when screen grabs of a Qualcomm roadmap were leaked, showing the
fresh cadre as breaking cover in the mid season edition.
Android 5.0
phones
Rumors of a Nexus
handset started seeping in during the third quarter of 2012. There was hearsay
that this phone would be sporting Key Lime Pie, but sources who spoke to
AndroidAndMe acceptably claimed that the handset, which turned out to be
the Google Nexus 4 would be running Android Jelly Bean.
While the Nexus 4 didn't
appear with a helping of Key Lime Pie, a rumor suggests that
the Motorola X Phone is the Android 5.0 ruling handset that will be
revealed at Google IO. The same dripped Qualcomm docs quoted above
also made mention of a two new Snapdragon gears, one of which will be,
predictably, a new Nexus handset.
If the accompanying
specs, leaked along with the photo by the unsigned source, are factual, then
the Nexus 5 will mark a 5.2-inch, 1920 x 1080 OLED display, 2.3GHz Qualcomm
Snapdragon 800 processor and 3GB of RAM.
Samsung's
Android 5.0 upgrades
Although Samsung is yet
to authoritatively confirm its Android 5.0 agenda, a SamMobile source
is claiming to be acquainted with which phones and tabs will be
getting the Key Lime Pie upgrade. According to the source, the devices set to
receive the upgrade are the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note
2,Galaxy Note 8.0 and Galaxy Note 10.1.
Features
For 24 hours, it seemed
as though the first confirmed feature for Android 5.0 was a Google Now widget,
which briefly appeared in a screenshot on the company's support
forum before being taken down. As it was so hastily pulled, many people
assumed it was lined up for the big 5.0 and, out of the blue, revealed early.
As it happened, the following day, the Google Now widget rolled out to
Jelly Bean.
While we wait on Key
Lime Pie features to be revealed and scour the web for more Android 5.0 news,
we can hopefully hope with TechRadar writer Gary Cutlack, the new mobile OS to
feature some of these features
1. Performance
Profiles
It's bit of a fuss
managing your mobile before bed time. Switching off the sound, turning off
data, activating airplane mode and so on, so what Android 5.0 really needs is a
simple way of managing performance, and therefore power use, automatically.
We've been given a taste
of this with Blocking Mode in Samsung's Jelly Bean update on the Samsung
Galaxy S3 and the Note 2 but we'd like to see the functionality
expanded. Something like a Gaming mode for max power delivery, an Overnight
low-power state for slumbering on minimal power and maybe a Reading
2. Better multiple device support
Google already does
quite a good job of supporting serious Android nerds who own several phones and
tablets, but there are some holes in its coverage that are rather frustrating.
Take the Videos app
which manages your film downloads through the Play Store. Start watching a film
on one Android device and you're limited to resuming your film session on that
same unit, making it impossible to switch from phone to tablet mid-film.
You can switch between
phone and web site players to resume watching, but surely Google ought to
understand its fans often have a couple of phones and tabs on the go and fix
this for Android Key Lime Pie?
3. Enhanced
social network support
Android doesn't really
do much for social network users out of the box, with most of the fancy social
widgets and features coming from the hardware makers through their own custom
skins.
Sony integrates Facebook
brilliantly in its phones, and even LG makes a great social network aggregation widget that incorporates Facebook and Twitter - so why are there no cool aggregation apps as part of the standard Android setup?
Yes, Google does a great
job of pushing Google+, but, no offence, there are many other more widely used
networks that ought to be a little better "baked in" to Android.
4. Line-drawing
keyboard options
Another area where the
manufacturers have taken a big leap ahead of Google is in integrating clever
alternate text entry options in their keyboards. HTC and Sony both offer their
own takes on the Swype style of line-drawing text input, which is a nice option
to have for getting your words onto a telephone. Get it into Android 5.0 and
give us the choice.
5. A video chat
app
How odd is it that
Google's put a front-facing camera on the Nexus 7 and most hardware
manufacturers do the same on their phones and tablets, yet most ship without any
form of common video chat app?
You have to download
Skype and hope it works, or find some other downloadable app solution. Why
isn't there a Google Live See My Face Chat app of some sort as part of Android?
Is it because we're too ugly? Is that what you're saying, Google?
6. Multi-select
in the contacts
The Android contacts
section is pretty useful, but it could be managed a little better. What if you
have the idea of emailing or texting a handful of your friends? The way that's
currently done is by emailing one, then adding the rest individually. Some sort
of checkbox system that let users scroll through names and create a mailing
list on the fly through the contacts listing in Android Key Lime Pie would make
this much easier.
7. Cross-device
SMS sync
If you're a constant SIM
swapper with more than one phone on the go, chances are you've lost track of
your text messages at some point. Google stores these on the phone rather than
the SIM card, so it'd be nice if our texts could be either backed up to the
SIM, the SD card, or beamed up to the magical invisible cloud of data, for easy
and consistent access across multiple devices.
8. A
"Never Update" option
This would annoy
developers so is unlikely to happen, but it'd be nice if we could refuse app
updates permanently in Android 5.0, just in case we'd rather stick with a
current version of a tool than be forced to upgrade.
Sure, you can set apps
to manual update and then just ignore the update prompt forever, but it'd be
nice to know we can keep a favored version of an app without accidentally
updating it. Some of us are still using the beta Times app, for example, which
has given free access for a year.
9. App
preview/freebie codes
Something Apple's been
doing for ages and ages is using a promo code system to distribute free or
review versions of apps. It even makes doing little competitions to drum up
publicity for apps much easier, so why's there no similar scheme for Android?
It might encourage
developers to stop going down the ad-covered/free route if they could charge
for an app but still give it away to friends and fans through a promo code
system.
10. Final
whines and requests...
It's be nice to be able
to sort the Settings screen by alphabetical order, too, or by most commonly
used or personal preference, as Android's so packed with a huge list of options
these days it's a big old list to scroll through and pick out what you need.
Plus could we have a
percentage count for the battery in the Notifications bar for Android 5.0? Just
so we know a bit more info than the vague emptying battery icon.
Really helpful
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work !!! :-)