This release is packed with new features for users and thousands of new APIs for developers. It extends Android even further, from phones, tablets, and wearables, to TVs and cars. For a closer look at the new developer APIs, see the Android 5. Or, read more about Android 5.
Note: The Android 5. For more information, see the Android 5. Android 5. New 3D views let you set a z-level to raise elements off of the view hierarchy and cast realtime shadowseven as they move. Built-in activity transitions take the user seamlessly from one state to another with beautiful, animated motion.
The material theme adds transitions for your activities, including the ability to use shared visual elements across activities. You can also define vector drawables in XML and animate them in a variety of ways. Vector drawables scale without losing definition, so they are perfect for single-color in-app icons.
A new system-managed processing thread called RenderThread keeps animations smooth even when there are delays in the main UI thread. ART improves app performance and responsiveness. ART also dynamically moves memory to optimize performance for foreground uses.
Optimizations provide larger address space and improved performance for certain compute workloads. Apps written in the Java language run as bit apps automatically—no modifications are needed. Continuing the focus on smoother performance, Android 5.
The audio and graphics pipelines have been instrumented for more accurate timestamps, enabling video apps and games to display smooth synchronized content. Varying notification details may appear on the lock screen if desired by the user. Users may elect to allow none, some, or all notification content to be shown on a secure lock screen.
Key notification alerts such as incoming calls appear in a heads-up notification —a small floating window that allows the user to respond or dismiss without leaving the current app. You can now add new metadata to notifications to collect associated contacts for rankingcategory, and priority.
A new media notification template provides consistent media controls for notifications with up to 6 action buttons, including custom controls such as "thumbs up"—no more need for RemoteViews! Android TV provides a complete TV platform for your app's big screen experience.