Introduction, design and peformance
Android Lollipop isn't a baby anymore – it's been around for almost a year. And, now that we have the benefit of hindsight, has it been a success or will it be remembered as a bit of a dud in the development of Google's Android operating system?
Up-to-date Nexus devices now run Android 5.1.1, which has had a few tweaks that address some of the things people really hated about Android Lollipop when version 5.0 first arrived back in 2014. Doesn't time fly in the tech world?
I'll take a quick look at what has changed since the software launched, before diving into a full appraisal of the Lollipop software, which is set to be kicked into the past by Android Marshmallow very soon. Later on in this review I'll also give you an overview of what's changing in the next version of Android.
Do take into account though that unless you're running a Nexus device, it's likely that only parts of this review will apply to your phone. Just about every other phone uses, on some level, custom software that significantly alters how the phone looks and operates.
Updates since release
Android Lollipop hasn't really changed too drastically since it first appeared. On the surface it looks pretty much the same as it always has.
Not counting the move to Android 6.0 Marshmallow we've had four core Android updates since the big 5.0: 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.1 and 5.1.1. The only one we really need to worry about is Android 5.1, as the others were really just bug fixes.
Android 5.1 still didn't radically change the system, but it did add a few features like HD video calling, a security tweak that blocks a phone even when it's reset, and a tweak to how the notification menu settings toggles work. The most important change, though, was to how the volume buttons work.
It sounds minor, but this was probably the most contentious aspect of Android Lollipop at launch – it's certainly the bit most people complained about. The issue was that there wasn't a simple silent mode that you could just flick on, and users worked themselves into quite a state just trying to shut their phone up.
There still isn't a simple silent mode, in fact. However, it's a lot easier to switch notification alerts off for an hour, or indefinitely. So do I still miss good old silent mode? Sometimes. Sometimes, I do. Sob.
Design
The most important and obvious change in Android Lollipop compared to KitKat is the visual design. Back when the system was launched, Google introduced this as 'Material', but since then the term seems to have more or less been forgotten; it's just the norm.
What it stands for still applies, though. Lollipop sees Google move away from the slightly cold visual efficiency of Android KitKat to something a bit fuzzier-feeling. It's a bit less electronics superstore, a bit more IKEA catalogue.
Some of this is down simply to the textured wallpapers Lollipop devices (well some of them) ship with as standard, but the apps menu is now backed by a 'sheet' of white instead of seeming to float on top of the interface.
There's this sort of collage-like vibe going on, although without a hint of the scrappiness that implies. It's still very clean, but Android Lollipop wants to feel as though it's made of near-tangible (but flat) layers. It wants to seem a little bit less… overtly computery than the Android of old.
It kind of works too. As part of this Android Lollipop reappraisal I dug out an old Android 4.4 Moto G I hadn't updated. If you don't use the flashier-looking Google Now UI (the UI the Nexus 5 launched with, now largely lost in time), Android 4.4 seems seriously dated.
Performance
It's not just about surface visuals, though. Android 5.0 Lollipop also moves completely differently to the previous version. It's a lot less ultra-snappy than KitKat; it feels smooth rather than instantaneous.
This can feel great in the right phone. However, having now used more Android Lollipop phones than I can count, the software's style seems to work against a lot of lower-end devices.
During the Android KitKat era, the general rule was that if your phone had 1GB of RAM and a quad-core CPU, say the Snapdragon 400, you were almost guaranteed good performance. Any chronic lag was really the fault of whatever software customisation the manufacturer had glooped on top, like a layer of lumpy custard over the system's cogs.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case any more. The majority of 1GB RAM phones I've used over the last 12 months have suffered from some form of lag or another, even most Motorola Moto-series phones, which in the old days offered really quite great performance in their class.
So what's happened? I'm not a software engineer, but it seems that the way Android handles memory management has changed quite a bit in the transition from Android KitKat to Lollipop. And it hasn't been good news for budget phones – if you're buying a new phone, try to get a 2GB RAM one if you can.
Going back to the Android 4.4 Moto G I mentioned earlier was quite a revelation: it's seriously fast compared to the Moto G second-generation model (running Android Lollipop) I've used recently. Apps generally load slower under Lollipop than under 4.4, which is rather disappointing when Lollipop's move from the Dalvik to the ART runtime was meant to speed things up.
The silent mode switch was what had a lot of users up in arms when they first got the upgrade to Android Lollipop. However, having now used a small army of different Android 5.0 phones, it's this loss of speed that is the big shame. Android Marshmallow will try to address this with better memory management tools and hopefully it'll help, because it's rather depressing to see new entry-level phones feel slower than those of 18 months ago.
Notifications, Google Now and email
Notifications and lock screen
One of the most significant usability changes for Android 5.0 Lollipop was the new notifications system. Notifications are now treated a bit like post-it notes that can appear in both the drop-down notifications bar and the lock screen.
As I said in the design section, Lollipop likes layers. Notifications feel like another layer, and each can be flicked away like a virtual bit of paper.
It's perhaps the lock screen that really changes how notifications feel in use. The notifications system is one of the most common elements to make the transition to the various custom interfaces used by Lollipop phones, and the lock screen effectively becomes a list – a ticker tape stream – of these updates.
They can be flicked off one by one. And, if you don't want them to be quite that visible, they can be hidden behind an unlock security prompt. After all, the idea of just anyone being able to read your WhatsApp messages and emails isn't too hot, is it?
Google Now
The new notification style is an important part of making us familiar with a style of relaying information we're seeing across Google's mobile systems. They're all powered by Google Now, the hub that now oversees pretty much all the services in an Android phone.
Google Now is also the brain that brings together all things in Android Wear, where every piece of information is delivered as a 'card', comparable to the way Android Lollipop's notifications work. Of course, Lollipop also features the main Google Now interface itself.
Here's where things get a bit confusing. While Google Now is these days a very big part of how Android works, being the basis of the system's visual interface, it's also a more specific digital assistant, the Android equivalent of Siri.
It keeps an eye on where you are, and offers information 'cards' based on your location and what your past behaviour suggests you might be doing. So you'll get a card displaying the weather, one detailing how to get home and, say, another suggesting local restaurants.
In Android Lollipop this still feels like a developing area of Android, and the system doesn't force it on you too heavily. For example, you can opt out completely if the whole idea just sounds annoying.
As our phones become tools that talk to gadgets elsewhere on our bodies and in our homes, though, Google Now is only going to become more important. And it's pretty important already.
Email and browser
Not every part of Android Lollipop feels as though it's either shifted or shifting, though. Take Google Mail: it feels pretty much the same as ever, and has just been given a bit of a pastel-inflected revamp to bring it into line with the new look of the rest of the system.
Red is still the signature colour, but the tone has been tweaked slightly to give it that bit more of an 'interior design' vibe. That there are now little colour-coded circles signposting the names of your contacts is also a 100% Android Lollipop-flavour touch.
There's also evidence of the layering we've seen elsewhere in the system. Nothing too flashy, of course, but just check out the drop shadow on the Compose button. Dozens of these little flashes of new-style UI give Lollipop that bit more visual accessibility. It's just that bit less nerdy than before.
It's also what Google is trying to sell us with its new-design logo: a rounded, pastel-inflected friendly vibe, with all the weird techy edges sliced off. I've always rather liked Google's nerdy side, but I appreciate the changes to Android Lollipop.
On the browser side, Lollipop is business as usual. While some Android Lollipop phones continue to offer 'stock' browsers, Chrome will be the lead web browser of any 'vanilla' Lollipop device.
It's a nice, clean-looking browser that, more than ever, tries to streamline your path through the web, wherever you're headed. This is mostly about taking web browser information from any desktop version of Chrome you use, and offering auto sign-in for passwords for just about anything you need to log into.
Security, keyboard and camera
Security
So many details are tied into your Google account these days. For example, as someone who has to make a clean start on a new phone almost every week, I end up re-downloading a load of apps, frequently.
But these days, download Netflix and you'll be automatically logged-in, your identity already confirmed by your sign-in to your Google account. Android feels more connected, more informed about you, than before. It's all data that at some point you've released, but when that's demonstrated, it can be unnerving.
This isn't something that has been rolled out alongside the Android Lollipop release, though. It's been a gradual thing. You see, Google's core apps are no longer tied to the main Android releases.
Google Mail, Chrome, Maps and so on are now quite separate entities that simply live under the Google umbrella. Set your phone to auto-update and you may not even realise that these apps are quietly progressing in the background every now and then.
This sort of progress makes you wonder about security. Well, that and the scare stories that go around every now and then.
While it doesn't generally feel as though Android Lollipop rams security down your throat more than KitKat did, there are new options that make securing your phone easier and potentially more effective. First, there's the Trusted Devices Smart Unlock, which unlocks the phone when it's in range of a known wireless Bluetooth device.
This works best with a smartwatch, enabling you to bypass whatever security you've put in place when the phone senses its wireless buddy in range. As such it's not a perfect way to stop your friends from reading your messages, say, down the pub. But it does mean you can leave your phone on your desk at work and nip out to get a coffee without your co-workers writing a Facebook rant about Overlord Xenu.
This is part of a feature called Smart Lock, and it also enables an Android Lollipop phone to unlock automatically when it recognises your face, using the front camera.
The idea is that you'll be able to apply security, but make it almost invisible to you. At this point, though, you'll probably want something a bit more robust. Security experts wouldn't recommend you relying on these security methods if you have anything remotely sensitive on your phone, and neither would I. Face unlocking in particular is very flimsy.
What about fingerprint scanners? There's been a huge expansion of these during Lollipop's lifetime, and they've gone from being rubbish to being pretty great in phones like the Huawei Mate S and Samsung Galaxy S6. The shocker is that Android Lollipop still doesn't natively support them – if an Android phone has a fingerprint scanner it works because of custom software shoehorned in by the manufacturer.
The good news is that system-level support from base APIs is arriving with Android Marshmallow. It's something to look forward to, as it'll radically increase what scanners can be used for, beyond just unlocking a phone and with Android Pay or Samsung Pay validating some payments.
Keyboard
One of the Android Lollipop improvements I've appreciated the most is the keyboard. It was one of the Android 4.4 elements most in need of a redesign, and Google has certainly provided one.
The Android Lollipop keyboard's default theme no longer has buttons at all anymore, just a flat field of characters with the same flat-but-layered look as the apps menu. Its aim seems to be to get you to embrace gesture typing, something I did years ago as it's generally much faster than tapping away on keys one-by-one.
Conscious that it's a bit of a departure, the Lollipop keyboard can also be customised with black and white 'Holo' themes that look a lot closer to the Android keyboards of old. They also look a bit outdated too, though.
Google Fit
From the updated to the totally new, while Google Fit is really its own entity rather than something umbilically linked to Android Lollipop, it did arrive at the same time. This is Google's own fitness tracking app, designed to monitor your activity level throughout the day.
It's hardly the most audacious of apps, though. Several third-party alternatives have been offering the same thing (or better) for years, generally with cross-platform support too – I'm thinking of things like Fitbit here.
Of course, Google Fit will have more appeal if you have an Android Wear smartwatch, which uses (or can use) Fit to track your movements a little more constantly than a phone would.
Google Fit is something that will get more exciting in the future, with any luck. As wearables gain a bit more clout, and we start to see some more interesting ones that link into your Google account (and Fit) rather than just plain old identikit smartwatches, it'll gain a more specific appeal.
Right now though it seems like 'just another' fitness solution, and not one that fitness enthusiasts will want to use. Keen runners will still want Runkeeper or one of its rivals, and most cyclists I know still use Strava. Fit is fine, but it's just not that interesting yet.
Camera
If there's one part of Android Lollipop that's just pootling along, seemingly not desperate to get anywhere in particular, it's the camera app. I can't really blame Google too much, as every single major phone manufacturer gets rid of the standard Google app and replaces it with their own.
The UI design just isn't as good as some of the alternatives, particularly Samsung's latest. And Motorola's custom app has a lot more interesting stuff going on, combining simplicity with, for example, the facility to customise the exposure level with a quick gesture.
Ultimately the Lollipop app feels a couple of years out of date. It has a largely 'fire and forget'-centric interface, where other custom apps have realised that even casual shooters are learning to use a couple of controls. HDR in particular isn't as readily-accessible as I'd like.
The things it puts at your fingertips are special modes like the 360-degree panorama Photo Sphere, Panorama and the background-blur Lens Blur. These are things you'll barely ever use (apart from Panorama when you're on holiday), and the best camera apps put more useful controls nearer the surface.
Android Lollipop vs Android Marshmallow
Most phones are still on Android Lollipop or earlier, yet Google has already finished Android Marshmallow and it's likely to be coming to a handset near you in the next few months. So just what's changed? And will you be missing out on much if your phone doesn't get updated?
Fingerprint scanners
One of the big new additions to Android Marshmallow is native fingerprint scanner support. Some phones already have scanners, but now the tech is open to developers, allowing apps to build support in for them.
So in future you might be able to log into anything on your phone with a tap of your finger. Similarly, you could potentially authorise any in-app payment with a quick scan of your finger, it just requires the app's developers to add the functionality.
Now on Tap
Google Now has evolved a bit with the addition of Now on Tap, making it easier to get the information you need without interrupting what you're doing.
To use Now on Tap you just hold the home button and it will bring up information relevant to whatever was on your screen at the time.
For example, if you're texting someone about a movie or restaurant it might bring up reviews or timings. Tap it while listening to a song and it will give you links to the YouTube video or additional information on the music. It makes Google Now more seamless and useful than ever.
Battery boosts
Battery life is the single biggest issue faced by most smartphones and with Android Marshmallow it should be a little more bearable.
For one thing a new Doze mode has been added, which puts your device into a sleep state when it's inactive, so less juice is consumed. There's also now an App Standby mode, which limits the impact of seldom used apps on battery life.
Permission controls
Many apps ask for an enormous number of permissions, but with Android Marshmallow you can pick and choose which ones to give them. Certain functions won't work without granting certain permissions, but you can give and take away as and when you want.
Interface
One thing which hasn't changed much is the way the interface looks or operates, with the only real change coming in the form of the app drawer, which now scrolls vertically rather than horizontally. Unless you're using a Nexus device, your interface probably only has a passing resemblance to stock Android anyway.
Other changes
There are various other little tweaks and changes as part of Android Marshmallow, including performance improvements, granular volume controls and improved voice interactions.
Android Lollipop vs Android Marshmallow
Android Marshmallow certainly adds quite a bit to the mix and you'll want to download it if and when it becomes available for your phone, but the new features and improvements largely seem handy rather than essential, so don't sweat it if you have to wait a while.
Verdict
Is Android Lollipop the most important Android update yet? Not really, from my point of view as a phone user. However, it shows the style direction Android is heading in, leaving Android Marshmallow to tighten up the bits that have gone a bit slack as part of the Lollipop fashion show.
We liked
Android looks better than ever. The new visuals show us the refinement of the new style Google was playing with when it released the Nexus 5's Google Now UI. It's less juvenile, more lifestyle, and I think it works. It offers a very wide appeal without being totally bland.
The more natural movements of the system are neat too, making Android feel a bit less abrupt than before. It's what the system needed, having been the 'nerdy' mobile OS since its launch almost ten years ago (cripes, I'm getting old).
The new notifications style is great. By keeping a visual consistency between how they appear on the drop-down bar and the lock screen, they now feel like they have a life of their own.
We disliked
The new look and feel of Lollipop does seem to come at a price, though. Phones with 1GB RAM often have more performance issues than they would have running Android KitKat, and the system all-round lacks the lightning-fast response of Android 4.4. This is something for Android Marshmallow to work on.
Lollipop has also ended up being behind the times in a few areas. It doesn't have proper support for fingerprint scanners, meaning that those I've used have relied on third-party software, limiting how deep in the system the scanner info can work to an extent.
Many people don't like the way its volume/alerts interface works either. It was pretty bad at the beginning, I'll admit, although I've since grown used to how the tweaked version is. Sometimes I do miss having a neat, simple silent mode, though.
Final verdict
Android Lollipop is a charming visual update that shows a sensible deviation from the new direction Google put forward in the 'Google Now' interface it introduced with the Nexus 5. It looks and feels good.
However, it relies more on having good base hardware than Android 4.4 KitKat did, which has not been great news for more affordable phones trying to make their mark. Perhaps it's the price of progress, but it leaves Android M with plenty of work to do to implement worthwhile improvements, other than those you'll be sold as new features.
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