For the first ever time that Google has released a preview of the upcoming Android software version they plan to launch this fall, we’d say Google has done a pretty good job of providing what the L preview is about. People are either loving or hating the build, but for the most part, having it made available to anyone who was willing to give a try has been met with some pretty good response. The Android L preview is first and foremost a “developer preview” of the software, so as most people probably know already it isn’t meant for the average consumer to use as a daily driver. It is nowhere near that stage of readiness, and its main purpose is so that developers can get their apps ready for the launch of Android L faster and to be fully compatible by the time Google is ready to launch Android L.
The video basically gives a rundown of what can be expected within the Android L developer preview if you decide to flash the image, and as most of you probably already know it’s only compatible with two devices. The Nexus 7 2013 tablet, and of course the Nexus 5. Many people have already been sinking their teeth into the preview to get a taste of what’s to come when the software version is ready for a full fledged release, although this preview has merely a fraction of the stuff the full release will carry later on, like the new camera api labeled camera_2, the material design language that will be replacing the holo styling currently seen in devices, and other things like the notifications on the lockscreen.
The fall is fast approaching but there are still a good few months before we can probably expect Android L’s full release, so one would expect the possibility of updates to the Android L preview to introduce more stuff. We say possibility because people might have been hoping for such a thing but recently after the latest dev bytes video Google actually puts the question to rest, when a user named Michael Panzer who had seen it asked Google’s Rich Hyndman about whether or not we would see any updates to the preview before official release. The short answer reply was basically no we shouldn’t expect to. Rich’s actual words though, were that “There will be some extras coming, like the 64bit emulator. But I don’t believe new device images are coming.” So while it looks like we can expect to see perhaps a new feature or two, those will likely be the only new things we see come to the preview. While it would be awesome to see a new preview update build, the official release is close enough that it probably won’t bother most.