14 DAY TRIAL // Google announced the Android L back in June and the search giant launched a developer preview version for those who want to experience the new features ahead of the final version’s release.
For the first time, Google followed Microsoft’s example and offered developers an early version of its upcoming operating system, Android L. The preview version of Android L was compatible with Nexus 5 devices, but recently a build running on a Samsung Galaxy S5 was leaked as well.
The folks over at SamMobile have just published a video preview of what they claim it’s an early Android L build, which is not meant for day-to-day use.
After testing the build for a few days, they have decided not to make it available for download due to the high amount of issues that make it unusable for daily use.
The good news is we can still see how the Samsung Galaxy S5 will look like with Android L installed. As many of you probably already know, Google has revamped the Android interface completely and turned it into something called Material Design.
The new UI should offer users a more smoother and natural experience, and from what we’ve seen during Google I/O 2014 presentation, the search giant did a great job.
Samsung is redesigning the TouchWiz UI to comply to Material Design guidelines
Unfortunately, the new Material Design interface won’t be available in all smartphones, as most OEMs are using their own UIs. For example, Samsung is using TouchWiz, while HTC has the Sense UI installed on all their smartphones.
However, those who own Google Play Edition smartphones will be able to take advantage of the new Material Design UI. But there’s hope, as Samsung has already started to tweak its TouchWiz UI to comply with Google’s new design guidelines.
The new UI that’s supposed to come along with Android L has been redesigned, as Samsung dropped the blue theme in favor of a white one that better matches the Material Design look.
SamMobile also confirmed that apps such as Dialer, Messages, Memo, Clock and a few more, have been redesigned from ground up to make it look more like Material Design.
Although Android L should be much speedier than any previous version of the platform given its compatibility with the new ART runtime, the build tested on the Galaxy S5 was slower than the official Android KitKat iteration.
Still, the final version of Android L should be faster than KitKat, but until Google releases it and we get to see some benchmarks, we can’t say for sure how well Android L smartphones will perform. Make sure you watch the video below and check the screenshots in the gallery.
