Lollipop's playful, animation-rich aesthetic, which
Google calls "material design," feels fresh and
alive, with an internal logic that should mean both
longtime and new Android users can get
accustomed to their new surroundings quickly –
for the most part.
Google's new mobile operating system is now
available to consumers, as new Nexus hardware
(starting with the Nexus 9) begins to make its way
into the hands of pre-order customers.
Version 5.0 of Android continues the candy naming
tradition with "Lollipop," and despite the fact that 'L'
is just next in the alphabet, something about the
name seems to resonate with the bold new design
direction Google has introduced for this generation
of its software.
Lollipop's playful, animation-rich aesthetic, which
Google calls "material design," feels fresh and
alive, with an internal logic that should mean both
longtime and new Android users can get
accustomed to their new surroundings quickly –
for the most part.
Design: It's possible that design is the most
significant part of Android 5.0. Lollipop marks
Google's full commitment to its material design
principles of user interface creation, which take
cues from real-world materials to present the
user with UI elements that slide over one
another, casting shadows and animating in and
out of maximized and minimal states. The final
effect is somewhat like paging through a
unique small-run art book, a complex yet
instantly understood artifact made up of bold-
flat colors covered in simple, elegant typefaces
that seem to leap from the page despite a
print-like adherence to the same.
Features: Of course, Android 5.0 isn't just
about surface changes. The new software also
comes with new features, and many of these
represent potentially big changes in how users
will interact with their devices. One of these
that occurs as soon as you set up your device
is automatic encryption. All your data on a
brand-new Android 5.0 device is encrypted
from the start by default, and that encryption is
tied to both a secret generated by your user
security code (should you set one up). This
means that if you lose your device, the data
will be better protected even if your lock
screen code is bypassed and the data is
accessed directly. It's a nice feature, but it's
something that you won't actually notice or
benefit from unless you unfortunately lose your
device or have it stolen.
Best Of The New: Android's new security
features offer a lot of peace of mind, and the
Smart Lock function that uses devices that
have connected with the tablet through an
active pairing protocol to bypass screen
locking is an extremely useful feature when it
comes to user convenience. This, combined
with default decryption of all of your device's
data, should help users feel more secure even
when they lose their tablets. Lollipop is also a
visual delight, through and through. The small
touches like visual blooms of color and shading
to indicate received touches or to subtly
indicate that you've reached the end of a
scrollable field, plus the way elements balloon
to life or shrink back to their idle state are all
things that, when first noticed, can sometimes
evoke an actual grin, and that continue to
amplify the overall experience even once
you're used to them.
What's Not So Great: Some of the visual appeal
of the new Android could conceivably place
additional hurdles in the way of users coming
to grips with the OS, whether for the first time
or after becoming familiar with Android on
previous devices. The new notification tray
reveals no clear way to get to Settings, for
instance, and it’s not at all natural to expect
that clicking on the new User Account icon
would eventually get you there. Nor is it natural
to expect that double-tapping on the same icon
will bring you to your actual user account
options. Likewise, the new simple geometric
buttons aren’t immediately illustrative of their
functions, with the exception of the triangle,
which does in fact resemble a back arrow.
While some of Google's core apps, like Gmail
and Calendar, have been overhauled to take full
advantage of everything Android Lollipop has to
offer on a tablet, there are others that have
been sadly left out, including Hangouts.
Hangouts is an especially glaring oversight
because of how key messaging is to the
overall communication experience on mobile
devices, and because the app seems ripe for a
design that takes advantage of more screen
real estate.
Bottom Line: Android Lollipop represents a
complete change in tone for Google's mobile
software: from heavy-handed, almost PC-like
user interfaces to a light and airy feel that
actually seems at time to be mood improving.
It's true that Google has been hinting at many
of the things it's doing in Android 5.0 for a
while now with iterations on its individual apps,
but seeing everything come together at the
system level really produces a cumulative
effect that feels dramatically different.
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