Google's
showing no signs of slowing its pace of Android development, with
Android 4.0 appearing on the Galaxy
Nexus late
in 2011, followed in July of 2012 by the Android
4.1 Jelly Bean release
that arrived powering the superNexus
7.
But,
forward-looking, update-obsessed people that we are, we can't help
but imagine how Google's going to maintain the pace of innovation in
its next version of its mobile OS, Android 5.0.
All
we know so far is that Google's working away on the K release of
Android, which it's developing under the dessert-related codename of
Key Lime Pie. Regarding the version number, it's likely that the Key
Lime Pie moniker will be given to Android 5.0. We thought we
might find out on 29
October 2012 but
as yet there is no official word from Google.
So
now as we wait on official news of the Android 5.0 release date and
features, we can start to pull together the Key Lime Pie rumours from
around the web, with the first sighting of Android 5.0 on
a benchmarking website, apparently running on a Sony smartphone.
There has previously been speculation that Sony is in line to produce
the next Nexus phone, which may lend some credence to this rumour.
Android
5.0 release date
Google
has announced that its next developer conference - Google IO
- will take place from May
15 to May 17 2013,
a month earlier than 2012's June dates. Given that
Google
announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at 2012's IO conference,
it's not unreasonable to expect to see Android 5.0 at this year's
event.
Androids
out in force at Google IO 2012
On
31 January, a Google IO showing of Android 5.0 looked more likely
whenscreengrabs of a Qualcomm
roadmap were
leaked, showing Android 5.0 as breaking cover between April and June
2013.
Android
5.0 phones
Rumours of a new Nexus handset started trickling in during the
third quarter of 2012, as we reported on 1 October 2012. There
was speculation that this phone would be sporting Key Lime Pie, but
sources who spoke to AndroidAndMe correctly 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,speculation that we reported on 21 January 2013 suggests
that theMotorola X Phone is the Android 5.0-toting handset that
will be revealed at Google IO. According to a post on the DroidForums
website, the phone will also feature a virtually bezel-free,
edge-to-edge, 5-inch display.
The same leaked Qualcomm documents cited above also made
mention of a two new Snapdragon devices, one of which will be,
unsurprisingly, a new Nexus phone.
That Nexus phone is most likely the Google Nexus 5, though
we'd be surprised to see it break cover at Google IO, given that
the Nexus 4 only went on sale at the end of 2012.
On Monday 18 March, supposed images of the Nexus 5 surfaced,
with the handset apparently being manufactured by LG. If the
accompanying specs, leaked along with the photo by the anonymous
source, are true, then the Nexus 5 will feature 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 officially confirm its Android 5.0
schedule, a SamMobile source is claiming to know which
phones and tablets 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.
As
you'd expect, the S4 will be getting an Android 5.0 update
Android
5.0 features
For
24 hours, it seemed as though the first kinda, sorta 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 hurriedly pulled, many people assumed
it was slated for the big five-o and accidentally revealed early.
As
it happened, the following day, on 13 February 2013, the
Google Now widget rolled out to Jelly Bean.
On
28 February 2013, we learned
from Android Central that
Google is working with the Linux 3.8 kernel, which gives rise to the
notion that this kernel might make it into Android 5. One improvement
that the 3.8 kernel brings is lowered RAM usage, which would mean a
snappier phone with better multitasking.
While
we wait on Key Lime Pie features to be revealed and scour the web for
more Android 5.0 news, TechRadar writer Gary Cutlack has been
thinking about what we want to see in Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie.
Hopefully the new mobile OS will feature some of these things...
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 mode for no
bothersome data connections and a super-low backlight.
Some
hardware makers put their own little automated tools in, such as the
excellent Smart Actions found within Motorola's RAZR interface, but
it'd be great to see Google give us a simple way to manage states.
Another
little power strip style widget for phone performance profiles would
be an easy way to do it.
Set
telephone to BEDTIME SLEEPY MODE
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 aggregator widget that incorporates Facebook and
Twitter - so why are there no cool aggregator 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.
UPDATE: Google
heard us and this feature appeared in Android
4.2.
P-U-T
T-H-I-S I-N A-N-D-R-O-I-D 5-.-0
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.
Make
this a destination, rather than a never-used list
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 favoured
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.
Let
us keep older versions. Many people fear change
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/freemium
route if they could charge for an app but still give it away to
friends and fans through a promo code system.
10.
Final whinges 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.