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[SimleuqiR]

now its 9am in new yoik i was hoping they would release the android L

do they usually wait til 'morning' goog time (west coast USA?) or what?

Usually? Usually this would just have been a new version release and OTAs would have started pushing out in a week or so. No this "Developer preview" crap. There's never been a developer preview. It's always been "we are Google and we just released a new version of Android." Then every OEM would spend months trying to catch up.

What the Goog is doing is pretty much holding off officially releasing Android L to allow for OEMs to update their old hardware by fall and have new hardware also include the new version.

Is a PR move to stop the "fragmentation" talks.

 

[Cipherr]

Usually? Usually this would just have been a new version release and OTAs would have started pushing out in a week or so. No this "Developer preview" crap. There's never been a developer preview. It's always been "we are Google and we just released a new version of Android." Then every OEM would spend months trying to catch up.

What the Goog is doing is pretty much holding off officially releasing Android L to allow for OEMs to update their old hardware by fall and have new hardware also include the new version.

Is a PR move to stop the "fragmentation" talks.

What on earth are you talking about. They aren't holding off an official release... Have you read ANYTHING about Ls preview

? Its buggy, beta staged, missing features and very clearly a preview. You are making it sound like they are sitting on a complete release for some kind of PR stunt.

And btw Full versions of Android usually go out in the fall, not the summer. Summer is when we get minor point releases. Not new .0 releases.

Also, OEM's won't be able to update their 'old hardware' instantly in the fall because the final source for 5.0 still wont release until the fall like always, which is why HTC clarified not to expect 5.0 for their phones until some point within 90 days of the Fall launch of the full source code.

This is the exact time frame HTC gave for Kitkat 4.4. There is no PR conspiracy. The early dev release is more for app developers to retool their apps to the new visual guidelines than it is for OEM's. The early release beta will allow for a lot of Android 5.0 visual app overhauls on day 1 from app developers, but the system will remain the same for actual phone updates.

 

[SimleuqiR]

What on earth are you talking about. They aren't holding off an official release... Have you read ANYTHING about Ls preview

? Its buggy, beta staged, missing features and very clearly a preview. You are making it sound like they are sitting on a complete release for some kind of PR stunt.

And btw Full versions of Android usually go out in the fall, not the summer. Summer is when we get minor point releases. Not new .0 releases.

Also, OEM's won't be able to update their 'old hardware' instantly in the fall because the final source for 5.0 still wont release until the fall like always, which is why HTC clarified not to expect 5.0 for their phones until some point within 90 days of the Fall launch of the full source code.



This is the exact time frame HTC gave for Kitkat 4.4. There is no PR conspiracy. The early dev release is more for app developers to retool their apps to the new visual guidelines than it is for OEM's. The early release beta will allow for a lot of Android 5.0 visual app overhauls on day 1 from app developers, but the system will remain the same for actual phone updates.

Well I stand corrected.
They did say it was the biggest Android release yet.

Though there has never been a preview release. This is the first time they ever released an update for only developers AFAIK. App developers and OEMs have always played catch up with every Android release.

Regarding the older hardware; this is probably why we will get Android Silver at the same time 5.0 is released. Google still has not been able to figure out how to make sure OEMs update their devices in a reasonable time frame.

 

[pronk420]

i kind of meant when they release factory images, is there a specific time of day they usually do it at? i'm pretty sure they have released the SDK early before the full source and I think they released nexus factory images at the same time. maybe with ICS or something but I forget.

 

[Bboy AJ]

So you guys still ditching Android for iOS?

I'll wait for the fall events. No point yet. But apple had a great summer conference. Google was absolutely boring. I bet they didn't show hangouts because imessage far surpassed it.

 

[Baroquemantic]

Dat yellow highlighter Nexus.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/06/26/it-looks-like-a-yellow-nexus-5-is-coming-to-the-play-store/

Edit: This is just the current phone in a case though.

I'll wait for the fall events. No point yet. But apple had a great summer conference. Google was absolutely boring. I bet they didn't show hangouts because imessage far surpassed it.

Yeah, no. They more than likely didn't show Hangouts because they had no plans to show it at the keynote, not because of iMessage. They really didn't even focus on individual apps during the thing. Maybe your statement would hold more weight if they showed off a bunch of other Google apps, but they didn't.

 

[jokkir]

"L" factory image is out for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013)

https://developer.android.com/preview/setup-sdk.html

 

[RoadHazard]

"L" factory image is out for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013)

https://developer.android.com/preview/setup-sdk.html

Yeah, I'm eagerly awaiting impressions before deciding whether or not to flash this. I really want to, but not if it's gonna make my phone an unstable piece of garbage. Sure, I can easily go back to 4.4.4 if so, but going through with the flashing means wiping the phone.

 

[AndyD]

I would try this out on the Nexus 10 because it's not as critical as a phone is to day to day work.

 

[Baroquemantic]

"L" factory image is out for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013)

https://developer.android.com/preview/setup-sdk.html

I've never wanted a Nexus 5 more than at this moment. I hope someone can record some footage and post it.

 

[Nicktendo86]

"L" factory image is out for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013)

https://developer.android.com/preview/setup-sdk.html

Will wait for impressions before flashing my n7

 

[RoadHazard]

I would try this out on the Nexus 10 because it's not as critical as a phone is to day to day work.

Only available for N5/7.

I've never wanted a Nexus 5 more than at this moment. I hope someone can record some footage and post it.

I haven't flashed it yet, but from what I've seen there's really nothing to see that you haven't already seen during the I/O keynote (if you watched that). None of the Google apps actually have the new "Material" design, only the OS itself.

 

[Groof]

The bootloops are strong in this preview.

 

[Baroquemantic]

Only available for N5/7.



I haven't flashed it yet, but from what I've seen there's really nothing to see that you haven't already seen during the I/O keynote (if you watched that). None of the Google apps actually have the new "Material" design, only the OS itself.

Ah OK. I know the apps aren't the new design, I just want to see more of the animations and UI changes.

The bootloops are strong in this preview.

Thanks for taking one for the team.

And yo, have you always been a Junior (and I didn't realize it) or did something happen recently?

 

[BoboBrazil]

Did Google finally let you show battery percentage on the status bar in L??????

 

[Groof]

Thanks for taking one for the team.

And yo, have you always been a Junior (and I didn't realize it) or did something happen recently?

Something happened recently. I was having a bit of fun (?)

 

[Groof]

Sorry for double post but....

Boot took forever, but it's running.

Things not working: home button, notifications, quick settings. More testing to come after a quick reboot.

 

[RoadHazard]

Sorry for double post but....



Boot took forever, but it's running.

Things not working: home button, notifications, quick settings. More testing to come after a quick reboot.

Hmm, others have reported the same things. That's a dealbreaker, can't have a phone without a working Home key. Did you do a full wipe and everything? Please report back after rebooting.

 

[BoboBrazil]

Sorry for double post but....



Boot took forever, but it's running.

Things not working: home button, notifications, quick settings. More testing to come after a quick reboot.

Can you check and see if you can change the battery icon to percentage? WHY DOES GOOGLE STILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS???????????????????

 

[Groof]

Hmm, others have reported the same things. That's a dealbreaker, can't have a phone without a working Home key. Did you do a full wipe and everything? Please report back after rebooting.

For the record, this is a Nexus 7. Same issues might not be present on the Nexus 5. And no, I didn't do a full wipe.

Can you check and see if you can change the battery icon to percentage? WHY DOES GOOGLE STILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS???????????????????

Sorry bro...

Oh and I figure I uploaded the wrong screenshot:

 

[BoboBrazil]

For the record, this is a Nexus 7. Same issues might not be present on the Nexus 5. And no, I didn't do a full wipe.



Sorry bro...

Oh and I figure I uploaded the wrong screenshot:

It's cool. I just never understand why Google doesn't give you the option to show battery percentage. I shouldn't have to install xposed and gravity box to be able to see battery percentage. Can you try to do the easter egg on the android version and see what comes up?

 

[RoadHazard]

For the record, this is a Nexus 7. Same issues might not be present on the Nexus 5. And no, I didn't do a full wipe.

Well, that's probably your issue then. This is a major update to a completely new version of Android (in a non-release state), you should definitely fully wipe.

 

[Groof]

It's cool. I just never understand why Google doesn't give you the option to show battery percentage. I shouldn't have to install xposed and gravity box to be able to see battery percentage. Can you try to do the easter egg on the android version and see what comes up?

Blue and red coloured blocks jump around in different sizes.

They're not giving it away just yet.

Also yes, I'll most likely redo it with a wipe to see how that affects things. I mainly skipped wiping to see if it worked.

 

[hitme]

Bought a Xperia Z1 Compact off eBay the other day (arriving tomorrow).

How excited should I be?

 

[JonnyBrad]

Can you check and see if you can change the battery icon to percentage? WHY DOES GOOGLE STILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS???????????????????

It's actually in aosp. They just don't have the switch in settings. You can enable it through an app though.

 

[Bboy AJ]

Something happened recently. I was having a bit of fun (?)

A bit.

 

[BoboBrazil]

Blue and red coloured blocks jump around in different sizes.

They're not giving it away just yet.

Also yes, I'll most likely redo it with a wipe to see how that affects things. I mainly skipped wiping to see if it worked.

Damn, I wonder what it will end up being? Maybe they decided to end the sweets naming system and will just go to letters.

 

[Zeppu]

...booting.....

Groof, judging by your posts it seems like it took you about 15 mins of boot. Should I not panic before then?

 

[Baroquemantic]

Something happened recently. I was having a bit of fun (?)

Ah ok, well at least you didn't get banned!

And that settings app redesign looks great.

 

[Groof]

...booting.....

Groof, judging by your posts it seems like it took you about 15 mins of boot. Should I not panic before then?

It was more like 10 minutes, but yeah, that initial boot took way too long for any heart to handle.

I reflashed with a wipe now. Let's see if it's any different, but seemingly not. Quick toggles are still not working, but can be glanced if I pull down just long enough.

edit: nevermind, they work now.

 

[Zeppu]

Ok I'm up! Now to hack Google Now into working, again.

Yeah I'm boned. The Disable button on Google Play Services is disabled, so my usual way around the location services requirement won't work

 

[Baroquemantic]

DroidLife has a hands on video. What's there looks really nice and pretty smooth on their device.

Android "L" Preview Hands-on and Overview:
http://youtu.be/Ktr-4pvLpDY

 

[Groof]

Ah ok, well at least you didn't get banned!

And that settings app redesign looks great.

Good thing I didn't take it further hehe.

And yes, all my issues are gone with the wipe. Working pretty smoothly now, and boy, this looks pretty as hell so far!

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I have it installed too, I want all the apps to be updated now! The calculator and settings are so pretty.

 

[Groof]

Baaaaseeeeeddddd

Spoiler

bottom right hand corner of the navigation bar

Oh and in any case anyone is wondering, the old keyboard themes are still available.

 

[Bboy AJ]

Give it until beta 3.

 

[LGElectronics]

Is there any news on the LG G3 coming to Canada? I kind of want to buy one and I'm on Telus.

Markus, you are going to have to contact LG Canada[http://www.lg.com/ca_en] on when it will be available there. The release may or may not coincide with the summer release here in the USA.^IV

 

[VoxPop]

Sorry for double post but....



Boot took forever, but it's running.

Things not working: home button, notifications, quick settings. More testing to come after a quick reboot.

I see they finally gave that hideous stock Android a visual overhaul. Looks great.

Looks like they just took Sense 6 and made it their own.

 

[Randam]

got the z1 compact with version 4.4.2 and I want the old 2.3.7 keyboard from my xperia go back!!

with the questionmark and stuff on the top:

and why doesn't chrome let my disable the loading of pics and gifs?

my limit will be gone in a few days..

 

[kehs]

You can press and hold the period to get the symbols.

 

[RoadHazard]

got the z1 compact with version 4.4.2 and I want the old 2.3.7 keyboard from my xperia go back!!

with the questionmark and stuff on the top:

and why doesn't chrome let my disable the loading of pics and gifs?

my limit will be gone in a few days..

Switch to SwiftKey or the Google Keyboard. Both are great.

 

[NotBacon]

got the z1 compact with version 4.4.2 and I want the old 2.3.7 keyboard from my xperia go back!!

with the questionmark and stuff on the top:

and why doesn't chrome let my disable the loading of pics and gifs?

my limit will be gone in a few days..

Wut.

Try Google Keyboard, Swiftkey, Minuum, Fleksy......

 

[3phemeral]

Does L fix the bad inconsistency decision they made with activating toggles? Still drives me crazy that:

On/Off Toggles:
Long press: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Single Tap: Airplane

Modify its settings:
Single Tap: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Long Press: Airplane Mode

 

[The Faceless Master]

Usually? Usually this would just have been a new version release and OTAs would have started pushing out in a week or so. No this "Developer preview" crap. There's never been a developer preview. It's always been "we are Google and we just released a new version of Android." Then every OEM would spend months trying to catch up.

What the Goog is doing is pretty much holding off officially releasing Android L to allow for OEMs to update their old hardware by fall and have new hardware also include the new version.

Is a PR move to stop the "fragmentation" talks.

yep. Google copying Apple again.

we want source code. we want source code.

 

[Groof]

Does L fix the bad inconsistency decision they made with activating toggles? Still drives me crazy that:

On/Off Toggles:
Long press: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Single Tap: Airplane

Modify its settings:
Single Tap: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Long Press: Airplane Mode

It's all single tap now.
However there's no longer a quick way to get to the respective settings menu.

 

[Protome]

Does L fix the bad inconsistency decision they made with activating toggles? Still drives me crazy that:

On/Off Toggles:
Long press: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Single Tap: Airplane

Modify its settings:
Single Tap: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Long Press: Airplane Mode

Yep, they're all single tap for toggles now. No quick access to modifying (although the settings screen itself seems a lot better laid out and quick to navigate.)

Not sure I like the inability to get into the modifying settings but it's at least more consistent.

Edit: Argh, beaten. Anyway, I put the L preview on my Nexus 7 (2013) and have no complaints so far. It all runs well, looks pretty. I'm going to try and put a little app together to play with the new features in the preview SDK over the weekend, what little I've looked at seems interesting.

 

[RoadHazard]

Up and running here. Mostly seems to be working fine, don't have any issues with the Home key or anything like that. Not seeing apps like Chrome get multiple "Recents" entries though. I thought that was in this release? Perhaps Chrome needs to get updated for this to work.

I've found one app that just crashes, and that's Dropbox. Which is a bit unfortunate. I mostly use it to sync all photos and screenshots I take to my PC. I can achieve the same thing with G+ image uploading, but it requires more manual work since those only end up in my G+ account and not on my PC.

Does L fix the bad inconsistency decision they made with activating toggles? Still drives me crazy that:

On/Off Toggles:
Long press: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Single Tap: Airplane

Modify its settings:
Single Tap: Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS
Long Press: Airplane Mode

That has always bothered me too, and it's sort of been fixed. This is what it looks like now (which you probably know):

There's no more long-pressing. Instead, you tap the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth icon to turn it on and off, and you tap the text below the icon to get into the settings. That's only for those two though. The rest are just tap on/off, with no way to get into the related settings. EXCEPT that tapping the mobile network icon takes you to the data usage screen. There's no way to quickly turn mobile data on/off from the quick settings. So that's a bit inconsistent. But they're probably just not really done with this stuff yet. It looks like they're going for better consistency here, at least.

It's all single tap now.
However there's no longer a quick way to get to the respective settings menu.

Yep, they're all single tap for toggles now. No quick access to modifying (although the settings screen itself seems a lot better laid out and quick to navigate.)

Not sure I like the inability to get into the modifying settings but it's at least more consistent.

Like I said, tapping the text below the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth icons takes you to their settings screens. Not entirely obvious.

 

[Protome]

Like I said, tapping the text below the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth icons takes you to their settings screens. Not entirely obvious.

Yeah, I noticed just after I posted. That's pretty cool.

 

[Groof]

Like I said, tapping the text below the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth icons takes you to their settings screens. Not entirely obvious.

Oh nice find. The problem with this preview on the Nexus 7 is that things are very oddly scaled. Most items and text are way too small.

Also how can you stand Swedish on the phone /blech

 

[RoadHazard]

Yeah, I noticed just after I posted. That's pretty cool.

Another pretty cool/bad thing I just found is that you can access quick settings from the lock screen even if you're using something like pattern unlock (which I always do). That's good in many ways, but a pretty bad side-effect is that you can deactivate Location, meaning someone who has found/stolen your phone can also do that without unlocking it. Bam, you can't find your phone (I just tried, and this is indeed the case).

Also how can you stand Swedish on the phone /blech

Hah, I don't know, it's just a habit to have my phones and such devices set to Swedish. As long as the translations are good it's fine. Although that does mean you can't use voice commands, etc.