Android Lollipop ( codenamed Android L during development) is the fifth major version of the Android

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...

developed by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and the 12th version of Android, spanning versions between 5.0 and 5.1.1. Unveiled on June 25, 2014 at the

Google I/O Google I/O (or simply I/O) is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. "I/O" stands for Input/Output, as well as the slogan "Innovation in the Open". The event's format is similar to Google Developer Day. Hi ...

2014 conference, it became available through official over-the-air (OTA) updates on November 12, 2014, for select devices that run distributions of Android serviced by Google (such as

Nexus NEXUS is a joint Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection-operated Trusted Traveler and expedited border control program designed for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. Members of the program can avoid waits at border ...

and Google Play edition devices). Its source code was made available on November 3, 2014. The first phone with Android Lollipop was

Nexus 6 The Nexus 6 (codenamed Shamu) is a phablet co-developed by Google and Motorola Mobility that runs the Android operating system. The successor to the Nexus 5, it is the sixth smartphone in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer ...

. One of the most prominent changes in the Lollipop release is a redesigned user interface built around a

design language A design language or design vocabulary is an overarching scheme or style that guides the design of a complement of products or architectural settings, creating a coherent design system for styling. Objectives Designers wishing to give their su ...

known as

Material Design Material Design (codenamed Quantum Paper) is a design language developed by Google in 2014. Expanding on the "cards" that debuted in Google Now, Material Design uses more grid-based layouts, responsive animations and transitions, padding, and d ...

, which was made to retain a paper-like feel to the interface. Other changes include improvements to the notifications, which can be accessed from the lockscreen and displayed within applications as top-of-the-screen banners. Google also made internal changes to the platform, with the

Android Runtime Android Runtime (ART) is an application runtime environment used by the Android operating system. Replacing Dalvik, the process virtual machine originally used by Android, ART performs the translation of the application's bytecode into native ...

(ART) officially replacing Dalvik for improved application performance, and with changes intended to improve and optimize battery usage. , 0.41% of Android devices run Lollipop 5.0 (API 21) and 2.79% run Lollipop 5.1 (API 22) combined. However, this figure is misleading, as on tablets Android 5.1 is much more popular than it is on phones, being ranked 3rd of all Android versions at 8.98% when counting Android 7.0 and 7.1 Nougat separately. When market shares for versions 7.0 and 7.1 are combined, Nougat is more popular than Lollipop, at 11.04% on tablets, making Lollipop the fourth most popular version.

Development

The release was internally codenamed "

Lemon Meringue Pie Lemon meringue pie is a dessert pie consisting of a shortened pastry base filled with lemon curd and topped with meringue. History Fruit desserts covered with baked meringue were found beginning in the 18th century in France. Menon's ''pom ...

". Android 5.0 was first unveiled under the codename "Android L" on June 25, 2014 during a keynote presentation at the

developers' conference. Alongside Lollipop, the presentation focused on a number of new Android-oriented platforms and technologies, including

Android TV Android TV is a smart TV operating system based on Android (operating system), Android and developed by Google for television sets, digital media players, set-top boxes, and soundbars. A successor to Google TV (operating system), Google TV, it fe ...

, in-car platform

Android Auto Android Auto is a mobile app developed by Google to mirror features of an Android device, such as a smartphone, on a car's dashboard information and entertainment head unit. Once an Android device is paired with the car's head unit, the syst ...

wearable computing A wearable computer, also known as a body-borne computer, is a computing device worn on the body. The definition of 'wearable computer' may be narrow or broad, extending to smartphones or even ordinary wristwatches. Wearables may be for genera ...

platform

Android Wear Wear OS (also known simply as Wear and formerly Android Wear) is a version of Google's Android operating system designed for smartwatches and other wearables. By pairing with mobile phones running Android version 6.0 "Marshmallow" or newer, or ...

, and health tracking platform

Google Fit Google Fit is a health-tracking platform developed by Google for the Android operating system, Wear OS and Apple Inc.'s iOS. It is a single set of APIs that blends data from multiple apps and devices. Google Fit uses sensors in a user's act ...

. Part of the presentation was dedicated to a new cross-platform

referred to as "

material design Material Design (codenamed Quantum Paper) is a design language developed by Google in 2014. Expanding on the "cards" that debuted in Google Now, Material Design uses more grid-based layouts, responsive animations and transitions, padding, and d ...

". Expanding upon the " card" motifs first seen in

Google Now Google Now was a feature of Google Search of the Google app for Android and iOS. Google Now proactively delivered information to users to predict (based on search habits and other factors) information they may need in the form of informational ...

, it is a design with increased use of grid-based layouts, responsive animations and transitions, padding, and depth effects such as lighting and shadows. Designer

Matías Duarte Matías Duarte is a Chilean computer interface designer and Google's Vice President of Design. Prior to his current role, he was the Director of Android User Experience. Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" was the first release with major elements of his d ...

explained that "unlike real paper, our digital material can expand and reform intelligently. Material has physical surfaces and edges. Seams and shadows provide meaning about what you can touch." The material design language would not only be used on Android, but across Google's suite of web software as well, providing a consistent experience across all platforms.

Features

Android 5.0 introduces a refreshed notification system. Individual notifications are now displayed on cards to adhere to the material design language, and batches of notifications can be grouped by the app that produced them. Notifications are now displayed on the

lock screen A lock screen is a computer user interface element used by various operating systems. They regulate immediate access to a device by requiring the user to perform a certain action in order to receive access, such as entering a password, using a cert ...

as cards, and "heads up" notifications can also be displayed as large banners across the top of the screen, along with their respective action buttons. A do-not-disturb feature is also added for notifications. The recent apps menu was redesigned to use a three-dimensional stack of cards to represent open apps. Individual apps can also display multiple cards in the recents menu, such as for a web browser's open tabs. Upon the release of this version, for most Android devices, the navigation buttons were completely changed from a left arrow, a house, and two squares, to a left triangle, a circle and a square. Lollipop also contains major new platform features for developers, with over 5,000 new

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

s added for use by applications. For example, there is the possibility to save photos in a raw image format. Additionally, the

Dalvik virtual machine Dalvik is a discontinued process virtual machine (VM) in the Android operating system that executes applications written for Android. (Dalvik bytecode format is still used as a distribution format, but no longer at runtime in newer Android version ...

was officially replaced by

(ART), which is a new

runtime environment In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile t ...

that was introduced as a

technology preview A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

in KitKat. ART is a cross-platform runtime which supports the

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

, and MIPS architectures in both 32-bit and

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A compu ...

environments. Unlike Dalvik, which uses

just-in-time compilation In computing, just-in-time (JIT) compilation (also dynamic translation or run-time compilations) is a way of executing computer code that involves compilation during execution of a program (at run time) rather than before execution. This may co ...

(JIT), ART compiles apps upon installation, which are then run exclusively from the compiled version from then on. This technique removes the processing overhead associated with the JIT process, improving system performance. Lollipop also aimed to improve battery consumption through a series of optimizations known as "Project Volta". Among its changes are a new battery saver mode, job-scheduling APIs which can restrict certain tasks to only occur over

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

, and batching of tasks to reduce the overall amount of time that internal radios are active on. The new developer tool called "Battery Historian" can be used for tracking battery consumption by apps while in use. The Android Extension Pack APIs also provide graphics functions such as new

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...

s, aiming to provide PC-level graphics for 3D games on Android devices. A number of system-level, enterprise-oriented features were also introduced under the banner "Android for Work". The

Samsung Knox Samsung Knox is a proprietary security and management framework pre-installed on most Samsung mobile devices. Its primary purpose is to provide organizations with a toolset for managing work devices, such as employee mobile phones or interactive ...

security framework was initially planned to be used as a foundation for "Android for Work", but instead Google opted to use its own technology for segregating personal and work-oriented data on a device, along with the accompanying APIs for managing the environment. With the "Smart Lock" feature, devices can also be configured so users do not have to perform device unlocking with a PIN or pattern when being on a trusted location, or in proximity of a designated

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

device or

NFC tag TecTiles are a near field communication (NFC) application, developed by Samsung, for use with mobile smartphone devices. Each TecTile is a low-cost self-adhesive sticker with an embedded NFC Tag. They are programmed before use, which can be do ...

. Lollipop was, additionally, to have device encryption enabled by default on all capable devices; however, due to performance issues, this change was held over to its successor,

Android Marshmallow Android Marshmallow ( codenamed Android M during development) is the sixth major version of the Android operating system developed by Google, being the successor to Android Lollipop. It was announced at Google I/O on May 28, 2015, and release ...

Release

A developer preview of Android L, build LPV79, was released for the

Nexus 5 Nexus 5 (code-named Hammerhead) is an Android (operating system), Android smartphone sold by Google and manufactured by LG Electronics. It is the fifth generation of the Google Nexus, Nexus series, succeeding the Nexus 4. It was unveiled on ...

and 2013 Nexus 7 on June 26, 2014 in the form of flashable images.

Source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

for

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

-licensed components of the developer preview was released via

Android Open Source Project Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of ...

(AOSP) in July 2014. A second developer preview build, LPV81C, was released on August 7, 2014, alongside the beta version of the

platform and SDK. As with the previous build, the second developer preview build is available only for the Nexus 5 and 2013 Nexus 7. On October 15, 2014, Google officially announced that Android L would be known as Android 5.0 "Lollipop". The company also unveiled launch devices for Android5.0including Motorola's

and

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

Nexus 9 The Nexus 9 (codenamed Volantis or Flounder) is a tablet computer co-developed by Google and HTC that runs the Android operating system. It is the fourth tablet in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer devices marketed by Google ...

for release on November 3, 2014. Google stated that Nexus (including the Nexus 4, 5, 7, and 10) and Google Play edition devices would receive updates to Lollipop "in the coming weeks"; one more developer preview build for Nexus devices and the new SDK revision for application developers would be released on October 17, 2014. Update schedules for third-party Android devices may vary by manufacturer. The full source code of Android5.0 was pushed to AOSP on November 3, 2014, allowing developers and OEMs to begin producing their own builds of the operating system. On December 2, 2014, factory images for Nexus smartphones and tablets were updated to the 5.0.1 version, which introduces a few bug fixes, and a serious bug that affected Nexus 4 devices and prevented the audio from working during phone calls. A device-specific Lollipop 5.0.2 (LRX22G) version was released for the first-generation Nexus 7 on December 19, 2014. Android5.1, an updated version of Lollipop, was unveiled in February 2015 as part of the Indonesian launch of

Android One Android One is a family of third-party Android smartphones promoted by Google. In comparison to many third-party Android devices, which ship with a manufacturer's customized user interface and bundled apps, these devices run near- stock ve ...

, and is preloaded on Android One devices sold in Indonesia and the Philippines. Google officially announced 5.1 by releasing updates for existing devices on March 9, 2015. In 2015,

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...

forked Lollipop to produce Fire OS 5 "Bellini" for Amazon's Fire HD-series devices.

References

External links

* * {{Google Inc. Android (operating system) 2014 software

Development

Features

Release

See also

References

External links