Android Lollipop was years in the making

With a complete UI overhaul, enhanced functions, and a new runtime, Lollipop is the biggest Android update ever. Android’s Vice President of Engineering Hiroshi Lockheimer sat down with Business Insider to talk about how Google came up with such an amazing update.

The early roots of Material Design actually started around the same time as the Gingerbread and Honeycomb updates. That was three years ago, so it’s obvious that Google took their time to make it right.

Hiroshi said they didn’t plan for the Lollipop update to be so big. Material Design was a big chunk of it, but the fact that they added the ART runtime and 64-bit compatibility contributed significantly. The Android L Developer Preview was also the first time Google offered something like it. They knew they needed to give developers time to get their apps up to speed for the actual release, which I think paid huge dividends. Even those that don’t have Lollipop, will feel like they do right from the start.

Hiroshi also mentioned that Lollipop is the first major update that was done totally under Sundar Pichai. KitKat began with Andy Rubin and ended with Sundar. he also said that although a billion users enjoy Android daily, they still act and and feel like a startup. They do that by choice because it’s their “way of staying nimble and doing things quickly.”

He also touched on Nexus devices, and said that in no way are they meant to compete with the likes of HTC, Samsung, LG, and others. He said, “The main reason we do Nexus is to show, internally, for ourselves, without doing it in the abstract. That’s the worst kind of software to build — you kind of throw some software over the fence and hope someone ships it.” The fact that customers like to buy them is great, but it’s a win win when customers by any Android device.

There’s a lot more so check out the source link.

source: Business Insider

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