MasHD Blog

Google demoed a developer preview of the upcoming Android "L" project aka Lollipop at Google IO  2014 . The update is the biggest change since the holo theme used since Android 4.0 ICS back in 2011 and it features major changes in the way the platform performs and scales to multiple devices which include Smartphones , Tablets ,Smartwatches ,In Car entertainment systems and Home Entertainment systems . First off , we have Android's new design language called "Material design" - this is Android's replacement to the Holo theme used from Android 4.0 to 4.1 . The new UI uses a card type Interface with flat surfaces with variable 3D shadow effects which are rendered real time . the theme is easily scalable for smartphones and tablets so developers can easily use the set designs to make quality apps for the platform . Android L says Bye bye to Dalvik officially , and is now replaced by ART which supports faster transitions at around 60fps . Android...

Google and Oracle have been tied up in a fight for a while over how Java works in the Android operating system. In 2012, Oracle specifically targeted the Dalvik virtual machine that runs on Android devices in its legal assault against Google, though Google eventually prevailed in that case. Google has been working toward replacing Dalvik in secret and users running Android 4.4 will be able to use Google’s new alternative. Android 4.4 will reportedly allow users to select which runtime they use. The available options will be Dalvik and Google’s new runtime called ART. Google has stated on its website for developers that ART is a work in progress and is considered experimental at this time. Users wanting to give it a try can enable the new runtime in Android 4.4 via the Settings, Developer Options menu. Indications are that users won’t notice much difference between the two available runtimes for now. ART is said to handle app execution in a fundamentally different way than Dalvik. W...