Now Google’s a tease! When Google unveiled an early build of Android Lollipop back in the summer of 2014 as Android L we had a taste of an all new revamped Android goodness. True to what Google delivers it was pushed to all the nexus devices as that is what it was actually developed upon. There are no UI overlays an actual beautiful, pure, sleek Android interface in all its glory. Now all the third manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and even Sony are slowly rolling out the update to their own devices, even though the manufacturers add their own overlays for instance Touchwiz and Sense.

Google's engineers have made noticeable improvements to the overall look. The welcoming look of a flat design, clever use of shadow and UI elements kind of look like paper stacked on top one another. Once upon a time Google was focused on Power users and Geeks, now the search giant is going for the everyday mobile user by softening the look and feel of the OS. As Ars Technica points out, you can check out Google's own guidelines to see how much it's bodging the UI design: " Read Google's developer guidelines for developing Android tablet user interfaces and then look at these screenshots—Google is breaking tons of its own rules."  But still Lollipop is focusing on the normal user and simplifying the interface for easier navigation and aesthetically pleasing interface. After the phenomenal success of Apple Pay and Samsung's new Samsung Pay Google has jumped into the game with its own Android Pay. Confirmed at MWC 2015 by Sundar Pichai Android Pay will not be centralized but it will be released as a developer API. According to Tech Crunch “Google’s system will tokenize card numbers. In the same way that Apple Pay and Samsung Pay do,  meaning it generates a one-time payment token for transmission to the receiving terminal for each transaction, rather than just offering the user’s static credit card information. This decreases the risk if the transmission is intercepted, since a one-time token with finite expiry is of no use once it’s already been consumed.” Google did not mention when Android Pay will be made available, but it may be close to the end of 2015.

 

The main difference for Lollipops new Material design is not aesthetic overall but it also affects the way you will interact with the software. Material design features a whole new set of slick animations, textures, and gesture inputs which blends into the overall design. The emphasis is on the Google Now-like card system all throughout Lollipop. There is a revised multitasking carousel, new lock screen and security options among other changes. The problem is we will never see the Material Design in all its glory, the reason is manufacturers will put their custom skins on their phones. This includes Samsung's Touchwiz and HTCs Sense, a majority of the android devices are not Nexus devices and most except Motorola devices do not run anything close to stock android. I for one feel passionate about the advent of Googles Material Design, and it is just too bad that a majority of the android devices do not run it because the update is simply gorgeous. As you can see I just touched on some of the high points, There is so much more to Material Design than I can put into words. Here is the link to Google's own Material Design page so you can see what we have in store. I for one cant wait until i get it on my phone.