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 by the Android
4.1 Jelly Bean release that arrived
powering the super Nexus 7 in July
of 2012.
Two more flavors of Jelly Bean were
to follow: Android 4.2 was released
on 13 November 2012, and then
Android 4.3 arrived on 24 July
2013.
Throughout the Jelly Bean reign,
we've been gathering rumors of the
next major Android update,
Android 5.0. The word was that this
release was being developed under
the dessert-related codename of
Key Lime Pie but then on 3
September 2013, Google announced
that Android 4.4 KitKat would
precede Android 5, so the Key Lime
Pie name looks to have been
ditched.
We're still expecting an Android 5
release, of course, but with
different features, a new code name
and a later release date than we
were originally anticipating.
The dessert-themed moniker that
we assume will begin with L is
anyone's guess at this stage.
Android 5.0 Lemon Cheesecake or
Android 5.0 Lemon Meringue Pie,
anyone?
As we wait on official news of that
code name, as well as the Android
5.0 release date and features, we
can start to pull together the latest
rumors from around the web.
Android 5.0 release date
Until Android 4.4 was announced
we had expected the Android 5.0
release date to be some time in
October 2013. We now expect to
see Android 4.4 KitKat launch
during that month. In the face of
that point release, we think it's
now likely that we'll see Android
5.0 shown in mid-2014, quite
possibly at Google IO, Google's
annual two-day developer
conference in San Francisco.
That's a year on from when we had
originally expected to see Android
5.0, which was at Google IO 2013 ,
which took place from May 15 to
May 17 2013. Given that Google
announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
at 2012's IO conference , it seemed
reasonable to expect to see Android
5.0 at the 2013 event.
But on 13 May 2013, we got our
confirmation that there would be
no serving of Android 5 at Google
IO from Sundar Pichai, Google's
new head of Android. Pichai told
Wired that 2013's IO is "not a time
when we have much in the way of
launches of new products or a new
operating system". Boo! "Both on
Android and Chrome, we're going to
focus this IO on all the kinds of
things we're doing for developers
so that they can write better
things," he added.
Android 5.0 phones
Rumors of a new Nexus handset
started trickling in during the third
quarter of 2012, as we reported on
1 October 2012 . There was talk that
this phone would be sporting
Android 5.0 but the handset, which
turned out to be the Google Nexus
4 , arrived running Android Jelly
Bean .
While the Nexus 4 didn't appear
with Android 5.0, speculation that
we reported on 21 January 2013
suggested that the Motorola X was
the Android 5.0-toting handset
that would be revealed at Google
IO. The Moto X wasn't on show at
IO and instead appeared in August
2013, running Android 4.2.2.
We also heard whispers that a new
Nexus phone, most likely the
Google Nexus 5 , might be blessed
with Android 5.0 and on 18 March
2013, 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.
The latest speculation, which we
reported on 13 September 2013,
suggests that the Nexus 5 will now
arrive sporting Android 4.4 KitKat.
If rumors that we covered on 30
May are correct, then HTC will be
bringing us an Android 5.0-
powered 'phablet' in the form of
the HTC T6 (now looking as though
it'll launch as the HTC One Max).
Featuring a 5.9-inch full-HD screen,
the One Max will be squaring up
against the Samsung Galaxy Note 3,
which broke cover at IFA 2013 .
According to tipster evleaks, the
One Max will feature a 2.3GHz
quad-core Snapdragon 800
processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of
internal storage. With a rumored
release date of the end of 2013,
though, it's going to arrive too
early to come with Android 5.0 out
of the box.
Android 5.0 tablets
The original Nexus 7 tablet was
unveiled at Google IO 2012, so we
thought it possible that we'd see a
refreshed Nexus 7 2 at Google IO
2013 . The speculation earlier in the
year was that Google would team
up with Asus for this, as it did with
the original Nexus 7. We expected
an upgraded display on the new
Nexus 7 tablet, while Digitimes
reported that the 2nd generation
Nexus 7 would have 3G service and
range in price from $149 to $199.
The new Nexus 7 was a no-show at
IO, but the Asus-built device was
later launched by Google on 24 July
2013, albeit running Android 4.3
rather than 5.
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
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 . Do note that
this claim was made before Google
announced Android 4.4, so if it was
ever correct, it's probably a lot less
correct now.
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 gave rise to the notion that
this kernel might power Android 5.
One improvement that the 3.8
kernel brings is lowered RAM
usage, which would mean a
snappier phone with better
multitasking.
On 13 June 2013, VR-Zone also
claimed that Android 5.0 will be
optimised to run on devices with as
little as 512MB of RAM.
We're now expecting that Linux 3.8
kernel to show up in Android 4.4,
given that Google's stated aim with
KitKat is "to make an amazing
Android experience available for
everybody".
Android Geeks reported that Google
Babble would debut on Android
5.0. Babble was the code name for
Google's cross-platform service and
app with the aim of unifying its
various chat services which include
Talk, Hangout, Voice, Messenger,
Chat for Google Drive and Chat on
Google+.
A screenshot that we were sent
from a Google employee on 8 April
confirmed that not only was this
unified chat service on the way,
but that it was called Google Babel
not Babble. The service was to
come with a bunch of new
emoticons and Google+ built-in so
you can jump from Babel chat to
hangout. A leaked Google memo on
10 April provided a few more juicy
details including talk of a new UI
and synced conversations between
mobile and desktop.
On 10 May, we discovered that
Babel would launch as Google
Hangouts , and on 15 May we saw it
come to life for devices running
Android 2.3 and up. So much for it
debuting on Android 5.
Following an 18 April tear-down of
the Google Glass app MyGlass by
Android Police, it looked as though
there may be an iOS Games Center-
like service coming to Android 5.0 .
Android Police found references in
the code to functionality that
doesn't exist in Glass, which
suggested that developers
accidentally shipped the full suite
of Google Play Services with the
Android application package.
The files in the package contained
references to real-time and turn-
based multiplayer, in-game chat,
achievements, leaderboards,
invitations and game lobbies.
As expected, we found out more
about Google Play Games at Google
I/O , but it's not an Android 5.0
feature after all as it has been
made available already.
Android 5.0 interface
While this is pure speculation,
we're wondering whether Android
5.0 might bring with it a brighter
interface, moving away from the
Holo Dark theme that came with
Android 4.0.
Google Now brought with it a
clearer look with cleaner fonts, and
screenshots of Google Play 4.0 show
Google's app market taking on
similar design cues. Is this a hint
at a brighter, airier look for Key
Lime Pie?
On 6 August 2013, we learned that
Google had applied to patent a
rather cool piece of functionality
whereby an Android user would be
able to launch different apps by
drawing different patterns on the
lock screen .
If this feature makes it into
Android 5, we could be able to
launch the camera app by drawing
one pattern and Twitter by drawing
another.
