Android L, the next version of the mobile operating system, sounds like a big deal. While Google didn't give it a version number or a cutesy name, the company did throw up a slide full of API information hinting at new features we're surely going to hear a lot more about tomorrow, when Android L becomes available to developers with Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 devices.
Some of the features on this slide, like the new Material design, were covered in depth, but most of them weren't.
Here are the things Google threw up on its "kitchen sink" slide, slightly annotated:
- 64-bit trusted execution environment
- Activity transitions
- ART [the new app execution environment]
- audio patch panel
- Battery historian
- Battery Saver mode
- BLE central & peripheral modes [Fixing the Android-to-wearables equation]
- Bluetooth 4.1
- Burst-mode camera APIs
- CardView
- Cast receiver [Android TV and Chromecast related]
- Closed caption
- Color extractor
- Color inversion
- Color space correction
- Do not disturb
- Document-centric multi-tasking [Interesting ...]
- Enterprise
- H.265 [a new format especially for 4K video]
- hardware-assisted hot-word [voice control related]
- Heads-up notifications
- HFP 1.6 SAP [A Bluetooth profile for cars]
- improved AV sync
- Improved battery stats, predicted time remaining
- Improved game controller support
- Improved text rendering
- JobScheduler
- Lock to app APIs
- Lockscreen notifications
- Low latency audio recording
- Map Email [That's probably MAPI, which is Microsoft Outlook email]
- Material theme
- multi HFP [So you can have Android in the car *and* a BT headset]
- Multi-network
- NDK media APIs
- New quick settings
- OpenGL ES 3.1 & Android Extension Pack
- Path animations
- Personal unlocking
- Phone rotation lock
- RecyclerView
- Time on lock screen
- Time to charge
- TV input framework [key for Android TV]
- USB audio
- View elevation
- View shadows
- Volte [Voice-over-LTE, a new voice system cell-phone carriers are rolling out]