"We are giving users control of app permissions in the M release. Apps can trigger requests for permissions at runtime, in the right context, and users can choose whether to grant the permission. Making permission requests right when they’re needed means users can get up and running in your app faster. Also, users have easy access to manage all their app permissions in settings."
Great, finally Google got it. Hopefully with the old Android 2.3 style fine granular permissions and not the few permission groups of Android 4/5.
Using the developer preview now there is no difference when installing new apps, so do developers all have to make manual changes in their apps for it to work, or will Google flip a switch at some point?
Currently you can change app permissions once an app is installed, but they gain all the permissions they ask for when installed.
If each app has to be updated by the developer for the changes to take place, it might take a while for this to have any large effect on the ecosystem.
IMO, the most game changing feature announced today is 'Now on tap'
Google isn't releasing more details on it, but with it, Google would be able to understand what you do, when you do it, who your pals are, who you go out to movies with, who you chat with the most, are you looking to quit your job, are you about to break up, are you going through a depression and so on...
They haven't revealed anything about how exactly 'Now on tap' works...but the potential for data collection is enormous. With 'Now on tap' they promise to do 'searches' based on the context (which is derived from the contents in the app that's showing on-screen). So no matter what app you're using, Google will get its hand on the data. It sounds nightmarish and exciting at the same time.
What scared me about that announcement was that "no changes in the app are necessary" which basically means that google from now on will parse the text that is displayed, regardless of the type of app that is open.
Without any further clarification i have to expect Google now to send the displayed data of my mobile banking app to its servers everytime i hit that "Now on Tap" button, accidentally or not, while its open. I don't like that.
I am curious if this will be a source of friction with app developers. If Google is scraping app data usage for both content and context ostensibly to extend the benefit of that app's data and utility, wouldn't that make it considerably easier for them to clone the app and improve upon it?
> Google would be able to understand what you do, when you do it, who your pals are, who you go out to movies with, who you chat with the most, are you looking to quit your job, are you about to break up, are you going through a depression and so on...
Google is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android.
In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO)
Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negotiators to go to the right meetings at Motorola, Verizon, etc to talk about updates?
Damn lies and statistics. The Android dashboard numbers are always super pessimistic on upgrade rate.
I am the lead for an app with >250,000 installs. Over 45% of our usage is coming from Lollipop. The rest is JB & KK. We see <6% ICS for the last 30 days.
I know other major apps that have even better numbers.
Looking at my data, L usage was basically nil in January 2015. There was slow growth from there until April, when we saw an inflection point in the number of Lollipop users. This aligned with the release of several Samsung updates that pushed Lollipop to some of the most popular devices out there.
If you want publicly available numbers, I would rely on Mixpanel[1] not the Android dashboard. And even this understates it, as of writing this comment Mixpanel is not including 5.1 in the Lollipop numbers which is cutting 2-3% off that. [2]
Your post was word for word identical to posts made 2 years about KitKat when it was released. Only instead being compared against Gingerbread. And several years before THAT when Gingerbread was released people were saying it about Donut & Eclair.
So yes you'll have to wait ~2 years for the majority to be on M or higher. Oh well. Does that suck? Yeah. Is it a major, show stopping, "omg google why haven't you devoted 100% resources to fixing this?" issue? No, that's absurd.
And why do you think Apple has negotiators for this? Apple doesn't license iOS to anyone. They've never attempted to solve this problem. Ever. For anything.
> Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negotiators to go to the right meetings at Motorola, Verizon, etc to talk about updates?
I don't understand why things like these are necessary in the USA. Why should network operator have control to which version you're running? Most other places you can just get new firmware directly from manufacturer.
The situation is so bad that they announce all this new stuff, and I think, that's great and all but who cares. A few thousand people will use this stuff and everyone else is 2-3 versions back. And they don't care, either.
> Battery - We’re making Android devices smarter about managing power through a new feature called Doze. With M, Android uses significant motion detection to learn if a device has been left unattended for a while. In this state, Android will exponentially back off background activity, trading off a little bit of app freshness for longer battery life.
Will this improve wakelock performance that has been plaguing Android for years?
Wakelocks have just been a scapegoat for people to pretend to sound smart when just saying that they want better battery life. They haven't actually been an issue for years.
No, this won't magically fix bugs in apps that lead to poor battery life. If an app opens the camera and forgets to close it, yeah that's gonna murder your battery.
The keynote claimed they took two identical Nexuses side by side with Lollipop and M loaded it up with a bunch of common apps. The standby battery time with M was around double.
The update to provide run-time permission prompts pleases me as a user; as a developer, I'm not as excited about it, especially if it doesn't come with narrower categories of permission. I could see it prompting the user to provide permission to do much more than is being done, and without the ability to provide reasoning and context in the dialog.
I'm actually considering going back to Eclipse (or dumping IDEs altogether) because my computer is struggling under Android Studio's memory requirements.
(I'm unemployed and don't really want to pay for a 64-bit system. Anybody want to hire me so I can afford a new computer?)
"The M Developer Preview includes an updated SDK with tools, system images for testing on the official Android emulator, and system images for testing on Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player devices."
> Android Design Support Library - Making Material design apps gets even easier with the new Android Design support library. We have packaged a set a key design components (e.g floating action button, snackbar, navigation view, motion enabled Toolbars) [...]
Finally! I had to start developing for Android not too long ago, and I couldn't stand seeing "mandatory" material components for certain usages that weren't supported in the official SDK.
Nothing is mandatory. Material guidelines are a suggestion and a set of tools to make the baseline app better by default.
In general the UI components are moving out of the SDK into the support libs or the community at large. RecyclerView & Toolbar are examples of Google untangling the foundation from the look & feel, and letting the community come up with the final implementation of things.
> Most notable is a much requested feature from our Android NDK & game developers: code editing and debugging for C/C++ code
Does this mean gdb integration with android studio? That would be fantastic! Working with the NDK has been a pretty painful at times, and this change will make a lot of people very happy.
frik|10 years ago
"We are giving users control of app permissions in the M release. Apps can trigger requests for permissions at runtime, in the right context, and users can choose whether to grant the permission. Making permission requests right when they’re needed means users can get up and running in your app faster. Also, users have easy access to manage all their app permissions in settings."
Great, finally Google got it. Hopefully with the old Android 2.3 style fine granular permissions and not the few permission groups of Android 4/5.
calvin_c|10 years ago
EDIT: The permission groups are
Location
Camera
Microphone
Contacts
Phone
SMS
Calendar
Sensor
e40|10 years ago
hyperion_|10 years ago
Currently you can change app permissions once an app is installed, but they gain all the permissions they ask for when installed.
If each app has to be updated by the developer for the changes to take place, it might take a while for this to have any large effect on the ecosystem.
ignoramous|10 years ago
Google isn't releasing more details on it, but with it, Google would be able to understand what you do, when you do it, who your pals are, who you go out to movies with, who you chat with the most, are you looking to quit your job, are you about to break up, are you going through a depression and so on...
They haven't revealed anything about how exactly 'Now on tap' works...but the potential for data collection is enormous. With 'Now on tap' they promise to do 'searches' based on the context (which is derived from the contents in the app that's showing on-screen). So no matter what app you're using, Google will get its hand on the data. It sounds nightmarish and exciting at the same time.
Roritharr|10 years ago
Without any further clarification i have to expect Google now to send the displayed data of my mobile banking app to its servers everytime i hit that "Now on Tap" button, accidentally or not, while its open. I don't like that.
rob_lh|10 years ago
higherpurpose|10 years ago
Sounds a lot like the NSA.
27182818284|10 years ago
In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO)
Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negotiators to go to the right meetings at Motorola, Verizon, etc to talk about updates?
krschultz|10 years ago
I am the lead for an app with >250,000 installs. Over 45% of our usage is coming from Lollipop. The rest is JB & KK. We see <6% ICS for the last 30 days.
I know other major apps that have even better numbers.
Looking at my data, L usage was basically nil in January 2015. There was slow growth from there until April, when we saw an inflection point in the number of Lollipop users. This aligned with the release of several Samsung updates that pushed Lollipop to some of the most popular devices out there.
If you want publicly available numbers, I would rely on Mixpanel[1] not the Android dashboard. And even this understates it, as of writing this comment Mixpanel is not including 5.1 in the Lollipop numbers which is cutting 2-3% off that. [2]
[1] https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/android_os_adoption [2] https://twitter.com/mixpanel/status/604025242529308672
The narrative about Android fragmentation is really out of touch with what I experience on a daily basis.
kllrnohj|10 years ago
So yes you'll have to wait ~2 years for the majority to be on M or higher. Oh well. Does that suck? Yeah. Is it a major, show stopping, "omg google why haven't you devoted 100% resources to fixing this?" issue? No, that's absurd.
And why do you think Apple has negotiators for this? Apple doesn't license iOS to anyone. They've never attempted to solve this problem. Ever. For anything.
vardump|10 years ago
I don't understand why things like these are necessary in the USA. Why should network operator have control to which version you're running? Most other places you can just get new firmware directly from manufacturer.
digi_owl|10 years ago
serve_yay|10 years ago
heyheyhey|10 years ago
Will this improve wakelock performance that has been plaguing Android for years?
kllrnohj|10 years ago
No, this won't magically fix bugs in apps that lead to poor battery life. If an app opens the camera and forgets to close it, yeah that's gonna murder your battery.
jaredmcateer|10 years ago
tdkl|10 years ago
"Unsurprisingly, there are three apps set to ignore battery optimization by default—Google Play Services, the Play Store, and Download Manager."[1]
So, nope. GPS will continue to do whatever they want and poll location every 60s.
[1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/28/android-m-feature-sp...
JasonFruit|10 years ago
EddieRingle|10 years ago
amolgupta|10 years ago
quotemstr|10 years ago
wtracy|10 years ago
(I'm unemployed and don't really want to pay for a 64-bit system. Anybody want to hire me so I can afford a new computer?)
pjmlp|10 years ago
So at least we can make use of some C++ love, even if the frameworks access is limited.
jfuhrman|10 years ago
runjake|10 years ago
"The M Developer Preview includes an updated SDK with tools, system images for testing on the official Android emulator, and system images for testing on Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player devices."
So, no.
Zigurd|10 years ago
hadrien01|10 years ago
Finally! I had to start developing for Android not too long ago, and I couldn't stand seeing "mandatory" material components for certain usages that weren't supported in the official SDK.
krschultz|10 years ago
In general the UI components are moving out of the SDK into the support libs or the community at large. RecyclerView & Toolbar are examples of Google untangling the foundation from the look & feel, and letting the community come up with the final implementation of things.
axg|10 years ago
And downloads page: https://developer.android.com/preview/download.html
jwilm|10 years ago
Does this mean gdb integration with android studio? That would be fantastic! Working with the NDK has been a pretty painful at times, and this change will make a lot of people very happy.
jordanthoms|10 years ago
mahouse|10 years ago
That image... Seriously, when will Google stop doing things like these? Will they ever learn to be attentive?
isbadawi|10 years ago
gtk40|10 years ago
amolgupta|10 years ago