Android 5.0 Lollipop Starts Rolling Out

Google, after introducing its Android L and the new Material Design interface back in June this year, and officially launching Android 5.0 Lollipop it last month alongside the Nexus 6 smartphone and Nexus 9 tablet, has on Monday finally commenced the roll-out of the operating system to users worldwide.

Android 5.0 Lollipop features the new Material Design philosophy. "Design is a major focus for Lollipop-the latest version of Android-which begins to roll out today," added Nicholas Jitkoff, an Android Designer at Google, via the official company blog post on Monday.

Jitkoff however, failed to give details on which regions will be the first to get the update. The Android 5.0 Lollipop update will roll out first to the Nexus 4, Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013), and Nexus 10, apart from Google Play Edition devices. Android One smartphones should be next in line to receive the update.

Notably, Google's latest operating system starts to roll out few days after Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Android, chose to depart the tech firm. The Android section of Google currently falls under Sundar Pichai, who recently was put in charge of Google Search, Maps, Google+, commerce, advertising and infrastructure and was already heading the Chrome and Android division.

Google describes Material Design as a "bold, colorful, and responsive UI design for consistent, intuitive experiences across all your devices. Responsive, natural motion, realistic lighting and shadows, and familiar visual elements make it easier to navigate your device. Vivid new colors, typography, and edge-to-edge imagery help to focus your attention."

Besides Material Design, Android 5.0 Lollipop features an improved notification system; Kill Switch and improved security; a new messenger said to be a simplified version of Hangouts; device sharing with Guest user mode; ART Android runtime for improved application performance and responsiveness; support for 64-bit devices and SoCs; native 64-bit apps; improved hardware keyboard accessory support (including support for multilingual, emoji input, search key, and improved app and system key chords), support for 15 new languages (including Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu); improved accessibility features (such as text contrast boost, colour inversion, and enhanced colour differentiation); improved audio, video, and camera capabilities, and improved Internet connectivity everywhere apart from more powerful Bluetooth low energy capabilities.

Google has also rolled out the source code of Android 5.0 Lollipop to its Android Open Source Project (AOSP) page with build number LRX21M, and has also started rolling out the source code for Nexus devices from the Nexus 4 to the Nexus 9. The company has also released updated Android 5.0 Lollipop documentation for developers.