back to article Google begins to roll out Lollipop to Nexus devices

Google is gradually handing out the fifth major iteration of its Android OS, codenamed Lollipop, to some fortunate devices – and has made the firmware available for folk to download and install. #AndroidLollipop rollout has started and will soon be available on most #Nexus devices. Dessert is served. pic.twitter.com/ …

  1. Khaptain Silver badge

    Longer battery life

    I truly wish that the manufacturers would start playing a competition to increase battery life to at least 1

    week, Instead of the race to have larger screens, thinner frames etc ..... Can't they make a true smartphone for the road warrior...

    Whether I go on a trip for 1 day or for one week I always have to arm myself with extra cables and chargers. Sometime I can use my laptop as a charger, sometimes I can't, so it is always necassary to have at "least one" extra mini usb hiding somewhere.

    Ok when you have the cables it's really not a problem but when you don't...... the frustration levels really rise quickly.

    A new user interface, so what .... A new app, so what..... unlock with your fingerprint, so what...... We already have most of what we need, except the damned battery life.

    5 day battery life, now we are talking...

    1. Ian Watkinson

      Re: Longer battery life

      They do, plenty of phones last a week.

      But did you buy a phone that didn't meet your requirements? If so, surely then Samsung or whoever got your hard earned dosh thinks well, he bought it anyway, so why worry.

      Unfortunately for most, a £30 battery pack and a £3 micro usb cable fixes the problem for all phones.Fro the rest, the phone only has to last from home to office, and then goes and charge and office to home again.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Longer battery life

        Since the article is about Nexus 6, ie we are talking smartphones....

        The idea of carrying an extra battery pack defeats the purpose...I wouldn't carry a laptop and 4 extra batteries either... The whole idea is to keep things as light as possible whilst requiring the minimum of gadgets/extras/chargeers/cables etc.... The more you need the more likely that you will forget/lose something.

        Which smartphone do you know of that has a full weeks battery life and has a screen size larger than 3.5". And I obviously don't mean a smartphone that will remain unused, doesn't surf the web and doesn't receive email from either 2G/3G or Wifi.

        I have had several Samsungs which I like but their batteries are certainely not capable of any more that 2 days without requiring a full charge and that is only with the lightest of usage.

        1. Owain 1

          Re: Longer battery life

          I've been very impressed with my sony z1 mini. It lasts about 3 days without charging (albeit with low usage - a bit of googling, email checking, a call or two, and a text or 10), and a limp mode to drag that out for another day when it hits 15%. Antutu score of 40309. Waterproof. Removable micro sd card. Not the coolest looking (especially not when wearing a protective case), but certainly the most practical phone I've owned - coming from an S3.

        2. Dr. Mouse

          Re: Longer battery life

          I wouldn't carry a laptop and 4 extra batteries either.

          Go back a few years, and that would have stopped you from being a mobile worker. I remember members of staff whose laptops had an extra battery in place of the optical drive, plus they carried 2-3 extra batteries when they went on business trips. It was the only way to get the thing to last more than a couple of hours.

          And I obviously don't mean a smartphone that will remain unused, doesn't surf the web and doesn't receive email from either 2G/3G or Wifi.

          I think you are asking the impossible. I have a Oneplus One and it has the best battery life of any smartphone I have had for several years. It has a large battery, but even it can only last about 2 days of moderate use.

          To get what you are asking, they would need to triple the battery size. This would increase the handset's size and weight. When most people are OK with charging every night, why would mfrs ruin their handset by making them bigger and bulkier than they need?

          And if you are happy with extra weight, you can buy a USB battery pack. Mine cost about £20, will charge 2 devices at once, and has enough juice to charge my phone 3-4 times, which would put my away-from-charger time up in the region of a week.

          Or you can buy a phone with a removable battery, and a few spare batteries. I used to do this with my phones, and it worked a treat.

          1. Khaptain Silver badge

            Re: Longer battery life

            >Go back a few years, and that would have stopped you from being a mobile worker. I remember members of staff whose laptops had an extra battery in place of the optical drive, plus they carried 2-3 extra batteries when they went on business trips. It was the only way to get the thing to last more than a couple of hours.

            Yes, I wholeheartedly agree but that was several moons ago.

            Now we have laptops with 13" screens that have 8 or 9 hours of autonomy so their has definately been advances within the battery technology ( Ok, I digress it is also due to lower Processor requirements and SSDs for the power consumption decrease).

            But look at the smart phone market the screens are at least double what they were intially and yet the power duration remains the same. So there have obviously been advances here too, just not enough of them.

            Larger screens, brighter screens, scratchless glass, fingerprint readers etc certainely are appealing

            but it seems that the research is far to heavily biased on Marketing rather than on function...

            The smartphone market hasn't really provided us with anything world changing in the last year or so, maybe we ahve reached peak gadgetry. I can only hope that it will go the same way as laptops and that they will now start to concentrate of developing durability rather than marketability

            1. Dr. Mouse

              Re: Longer battery life

              but that was several moons ago

              You now have a device in your pocket which is more powerful than those laptops, a tiny fraction of the size, and lasts longer on a charge than they did. There are solutions to your problem, whether with external batteries, extra batteries, or the extended-life batteries for phones with removable back covers and batteries.

              As for durability, there are niche phones which cater to that market, just as there were with laptops. They are more expensive and lower spec, just as the durable laptops were.

              Things may not be advancing in exactly the direction you want, but they are certainly advancing quickly.

    2. Real Ale is Best
      Holmes

      Re: Longer battery life

      I would happily have a 100% thicker phone if that space was taken up with battery.

      1. Cliff

        Re: Longer battery life

        100% thicker - most major handsets with removable batteries and backs have after market battery backs to do just as you request - make the phone thick and hefty but keeps all features and runs for days.

        If you go too hefty though, they wreck the cut of your suit.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Longer battery life

      2 days between charges with heavy use, the Xperia Z3 destroys everything else on the market, It's also very stylish, waterproof, cheaper than an iPhone6 with a better camera...

      Just because you haven't heard of things, doesn't mean they don't exist...

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Longer battery life

        2 does not equal 7

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Longer battery life

          3-4 days light use is great though, and again destroys anything else out there by a mile, with Android 5.0 the Z3/Z3C will get even better. This doesn't come with a weight, price or girth penalty either. Just great Sony engineering.

    4. Soggytoast

      Re: Longer battery life

      A battery life of longer than 2 days is not realistic for how these devices are used in this day and age.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Longer battery life

        A few years ago we said the same thing about laptops, look where we are today. All that changes are the manufacturers goals...

        If the marketing bods came to the realisation that battery life sells better than biometric readers then they would push for better battery life than than some silly gadgets that fool the fools into buying..

        Battery life will increase but it is simply not a current priority.

        1. HMB

          Re: Longer battery life

          This is rubbish. The demand for better battery technology has never been higher. More than anything it is being driven (pardon the pun) by applications that absolutely depend on better battery technology, such as electric vehicles. It's not that the manufacturers don't care, it's simply that it takes a LOT of effort to make a small improvement in battery technology. Sinclair wanted an electric car in the 80s, but he was simply too early. There weren't a bunch of stonecutters holding him back!

          If and when major breakthroughs occur then it will, one way or another trickle down to mobile phone users. No manufacturer is going to chose to ignore new opportunities so long as they're cost effective.

          I don't understand. I mean I really don't. I get my phone out each night to check my alarm and after I've done that I pop it down roughly on my wireless charger, whereby it magnetically locates and charges. I haven't gotten over the novelty of that yet and I've had my Nexus 5 and wireless charger for over a year.

          Maybe wireless charging is something you want to look into, until you can put yourself into stasis so you don't have to wait for the international development of energy storage.

          P.S.

          I for one would prefer to buy a cheaper phone that lasts all day than a more expensive phone that lasts multiple days. This is true until sleeping every night becomes optional for me.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Longer battery life

            As soon as a better battery technology is available does it increase battery life for phones? nope, it's used as a way of shaving a few more mm off the phone.

    5. Skymonrie

      Re: Longer battery life

      The problem is simply crud that manufacturers add on to bring you the "best" experience. Not everyone will be willing to go this length but Iswill

      - Remove unnecessary apps which won't impact MY experience, not just factory ones but ones I've installed

      - Install boot manager and stop services I do not immediately need starting up automatically

      - use greenify to stop services I do use from running without need after a given time

      - avoid apps that push notifications for the sake of it like the plague

      - most importantly, use my phone when I need/want to, not feeling the need to check every ten seconds

      This gets me 5 days of reasonable use. It's a Samsung note 2014 10.1

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Longer battery life

      There's a stupid obsession with the thickness of phones. Blame Apple and their "engineering challenges".

      I couldn't give two shits how thick my phone is.

  2. Maventi

    Upgraded the Nexus 5. Early impression are that Google seem to have done a very good job of polishing the old interface without creating jarring changes. The notification pull-down in particular is very nicely done. Top marks!

    1. Real Ale is Best

      Still waiting for mine to get the update :-(

      I'm currently wondering if constantly pressing the check for updates button will push me to the back of the queue...

    2. Adam 1

      Did you get it over the air or flash it from the website download?

      Mine still claims to be up to date on KitKat.

  3. IHateWearingATie

    Anyone know if the Samsung Galaxy S4 will get it any time soon - can't find much either way on Google?

    1. Kris Akabusi

      Why don't you <insert favourite search engine> "samsung galaxy s4 lollipop"

      1. IHateWearingATie

        So the part of my comment "can't find much either way on Google?" passed you by?

  4. Richard Wharram

    Original Moto G?

    Is it getting it? 4.4.4 is so last month tbh...

    1. Stuart 22

      Re: Original Moto G?

      Yes, on Tesco, according to this page: https://motorola-global-en-uk.custhelp.com/app/software-upgrade-news/g_id/1994

      Page down to check out by your supplier. 2nd gen has had released notes already issued - see here:

      https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod_answer_detail/a_id/102639

      Which means we are either bringing up the rear or have been forgotten.

      1. Cosmo

        Re: Original Moto G?

        Thanks for that link. It looks like the Moto E is getting Lollipop too. That is fantastic news for £89

  5. HMB

    WiFi Not Detecting Channel 13 AP

    Well I just jumped in but my phone is no longer seeing my Channel 13 AP, the channel I used because it's a lot clearer than the other bands. I don't want to switch the AP :(

  6. Manolo
    Linux

    Nexus 10 as well

    Your article does not mention it, but the Nexus 10 is also supposed to get the update.

    I am eagerly awaiting it, as so far it has been my most disappointing Nexus device.

    It locks up or reboots spontaneously.

    It looses it's wifi connection all the time, or has a very slow connection.

    You can't use a Bluetooth keyboard while you have wifi on as this causes repeat keyboard presses.

    If Lollipop doesn't fix it, I am tempted to bin it.

    1. A J Stiles

      Re: Nexus 10 as well

      I'll take it off your hands, if you don't want it .....

  7. Cosmo

    iPlayer

    Apparently Android Lollipop fixes the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) bug that was affecting iPlayer downloads, so I'm gagging to get it ASAP

  8. jack jack

    We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

    It's pretty simple really.. same reason why electric car batteries don't give you 1000 mile ranges with 15 minute charges... battery technology is disruptive to other markets, namely, the oil industry. If we could build a battery that keeps a phone running for a couple weeks, we could build a battery to give a car 1000+ mile ranges which is more than enough to drive for 15 hours or longer before needing to charge for a couple hours. What happens to the oil market when we no longer need gas to power our cars?

    I think it will eventually happen, but I suspect it will be years from now as we ween off of oil before we have batteries that can last a week or two without a charge. Maybe they'll add perpetual motion chargers to phones and require you to shake them to keep the screen on...

    I do agree though, while more speed, memory, better screens, etc is all nice, it's all minute compared to a phone that doesn't need to be charged one or more times a day. We carry portable rechargeable batteries that weigh 10x the phone just to ensure our dying batteries on our year-old phones can be used throughout the day.

    1. Pierson

      Re: We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

      "Maybe they'll add perpetual motion chargers to phones and require you to shake them to keep the screen on..."

      I now have this image in my mind of the air in Starbucks filled with ballistic 'Droids and iThings, as their owners inadvertantly lose their grip during the cyber-fapfest recharging ritual.

      Somewhat like the riverboat Derringer shootout in the Simpsons' Hucklebery Finn parody, only more lethal.

    2. Steve Knox

      Re: We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

      It's way simpler than that harebrained conspiracy theory.

      Every time we get better batteries, we use that improvement to make them work harder, rather than last longer.

      Compare what the average person does with a smartphone now with what they did just ten years ago.

      And you're surprised that the batteries don't last longer?

      As for the car battery analogy, the amount of power needed to move something as heavy as an automobile for even a few miles at any reasonable speed is at least a full order of magnitude greater than that needed to power a high-end smartphone for a week.

      My Samsung Galaxy S5 gets 2-3 full days at moderate usage on a 3.85v 2800mAh (= 10.78Wh) battery. At 3x my usage, it would take a 75Wh battery to keep that phone running for a week.

      My Prius C, on the other hand, can drive for 1-2 miles at up to 30MPH on its battery, which is a 144-volt 6.0Ah (=864Wh) battery.

      As for a 1000+ mile range on a 15-minute charge? Bollocks.

      To get a 1,000 mile range at a pedestrian 30MPH that Prius C would require a 432kWh battery (assuming best case scenario, and increased battery weight fully offset by motor efficiency improvements), or roughly 4,007 Samsung Galaxy S5 batteries.

      (For a check, gasoline contains about 33.3kWh per US Gallon. Since a good gasoline engine pushing a small car might get 50MPG (US) at 30MPH, that would mean 660kWh of energy to go 1,000 miles. So I am being quite optimistic for the battery here.)

      To charge that battery in 15 minutes with a perfectly efficient charger would require 1,728kWh, or about 7,200 amps at 240 volts.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

        The kWh wouldn't change - I think you meant 1728kW for 15mins

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

        Congratulations, that's the most boring post ever.

      3. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: We'll never get longer lasting batteries...

        "But it must be a conspiracy!"

        Please point out any battery technology that comes into the same order of magnitude as petroleum in terms of energy density. You won't find one. There are claims from labs (usually before they've done anything past micro-scale tests on a single tiny cell and extrapolated up), but zero actual products - prototype or real - at scalable / commercial sizes. Because, inevitably, they become unwieldy and impractical very quickly.

        Batteries are getting better all the time. You can now run your car or motorbike entirely from a battery. Hardly anybody does, because the charging times are in the same order of magnitude as the discharge times in use. It simply takes that long to put that much power into something that you want to push that much power out over any length of time. It took several million years and billions of tons of rock compressing organic matter to make your petrol, that's the only reason we can take it "for free" and use it almost immediately.

        I have a 85KW car engine in my 15-year-old car. Do you have any concept on how much damn power that actually is? You house probably has 240V x standard 100A consumer unit = 24KW at absolute max. My car supplies over three times as much power as my house can take without asking the electricity board to up the incoming line for me. Even if you extrapolate that down from the maximum, my car at 3000rpm is generating levels of power that my house couldn't handle. From petroleum, it'll do it for half a day straight.

        What you're asking for is the impossible at the moment, not the result of some conspiracy theory. The guy that fixes the battery problem, plus the associated current-handling problems for a decent time of charging, is a billionaire overnight. Just the patent would be worth billions. There are no patents of this kind even filed, let alone being sat on. There's plenty of research. THOUSANDS of "this will be the next battery". Nothing that scales, no matter how reproducible or well published it is.

        I have a 240V 32A "commando connector" (building site connector to you and me) on the side of my house. We use it to power a pottery kiln to 1600 degrees for 12 hours. When we do that, we have to be careful of what else we turn on in the house, because that's the single-biggest current draw we have and very unusual for an ordinary house.

        It's not even close to what's required to charge an electric car in any short amount of time. Standard charging units recommended for electric cars are usually in the 80A range. My connector, connected to a top-of-the-range electric MOPED would take a couple of hours to give a full charge that will get me 100 miles at 25mph. Just. Batteries are just atrocious storage units - actually, they're not, only when compared to petroleum do they look puny in comparison.

        The next tech is super-capacitors. They don't have the "hours to charge" problem, but instead have immense "current-draw" problems which would blow the *street* fuse if you did what you want to do (charge in 15 minutes). They also lose current still, are stupendously expensive to make, and that amount of power going into and out of a device generates all kinds of issues - not least arcing at terminals, conductor degradation, heating, and actual PHYSICAL STRESS. You can make any high-power device move, click, buzz and bang by flicking the switch, imagine what something an order of magnitude more powerful does.

        The world is moving away from oil. The company that holds a patent on a battery technology capable of even a fraction the energy density of petroleum will own the industry overnight. Energy companies, oil companies included, will give their right arm to secure their future as it's looking increasingly bleak for them - everything from pollution to renewable grants to energy prices to wars in oil-producing countries is against them. The first to do so will abandon oil for energy (maybe for plastics, etc.) and push their battery technology into your face and gain billions in worldwide government grants that would make our global oil budget look like chicken feed.

        It's not a conspiracy. It's just impossible to pack that much energy into that small a device without doing it on the molecular level. And that's expensive and energy-intensive and difficult to do.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Android is getting like Symbian. It keeps getting new releases and features, but ultimately it always has the same crap UI with a bit more polish on it. It doesn't even look better than the original iPhone OS yet.

    1. Toothpick

      "Android is getting like Symbian. It keeps getting new releases and features, but ultimately it always has the same crap UI with a bit more polish on it. It doesn't even look better than the original iPhone OS yet."

      And your suggestion(s) for a better, more polished UI are ....... ?

  10. Gusty O'Windflap

    am i going to get back...

    my external SD card usage?

    1. Stuart Halliday

      Re: am i going to get back...

      Well version 5 of Android will allow that once apps are updated for it.

      Course you could do it today by rooting your phone and applying the SD card patch app.

      Took me 30 seconds. :)

  11. /\/\ORPH

    I may not be the b heaviest user but I've been really pleased with my Note 3 and the standard battery. It gets charged twice a week and is used for calls text emails and surfing daily. Not massive amounts to be sure but it's not left doing nothing for 3 or 4 days at a time either. I religiously close all none essential apps and clear ram, keep wifi and blue to off if they're not being used and always fully discharge my battery to < 5% before charging to 100% before unplugging. Great phone, great battery life and if lollipop makes it even better? Then I can't wait :)

  12. yoganmahew

    New UI? How do I get back the old one...

    Nexus 7. Not happy with the new UI, particularly the keyboard, but also the screen unlock, showing stuff on the screen when locked etc.

    Is there nothing to be said for a 3270 interface Ted...

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