page.title=New in Android
page.tags=KitKat,Android 4.4
page.image=images/cards/design-new-in-android_2x.jpg
@jd:body
<p>A quick look at the new patterns and styles you can use to build beautiful Android apps…
<h2 id="Android5">Android 5.0 Lollipop</h2>
<h3>Material design</h3>
<p><a href="{@docRoot}design/material/index.html">Material design</a> is a comprehensive guide for
visual, motion, and interaction design across platforms and devices. Android 5.0 provides a new
theme, new widgets for complex views, and new APIs for shadows and animations that help you
implement material design patterns in your apps.</p>
<h3>Notifications</h3>
<p><a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/notifications.html">Notifications</a> receive important
updates in Android 5.0, with material design visual changes, notification availability in the
lockscreen, priority notifications, and cloud-synced notifications.</p>
<h2 id="kitkat">Android 4.4 KitKat</h2>
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/branding_googlemusic.png" style="float:right;width:260px;padding-left:3em;margin-left: 28px;margin-right:15%;">
<h3>
Your branding
</h3>
<p>
Consistency has its place in Android, but you also have the flexibility to
customize the look of your app to reinforce your brand.
</p>
<p>
Use your brand color for accent by overriding the Android framework's default
blue in UI elements like checkboxes, progress bars, radio buttons, sliders,
tabs, and scroll indicators.
</p>
<p>
Show your app's launcher icon and name in the action bar so that users can
see it in every screen of your app.
</p>
<p>
<a href="{@docRoot}design/style/branding.html">Your Branding</a> highlights
these and other pointers on how to incorporate elements of your brand into your
app's visual language — highly encouraged!
</p>
<h3>
Touch feedback
</h3>
<p>
Before Android KitKat, Android's default touch feedback color was a vibrant
blue. Every touch resulted in a jolt of high-contrast color, in a shade that
might not have mixed well with your brand's color(s).
</p>
<p>
In Android KitKat and beyond, touch feedback is subtle: when something is
touched, by default its background color slightly darkens or lightens. This
provides two benefits: (1) <a href=
"/design/get-started/principles.html#sprinkle-encouragement">sprinkles
of encouragement</a> are more pleasant than jolts, and (2) incorporating your
branding is much easier because the default touch feedback works with
whatever hue you choose. Check the updated <a href=
"/design/style/touch-feedback.html">Touch Feedback</a> page for more
details.
</p>
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/touch_feedback_reaction_response.png" style="padding-top:1em;">
<h3>
Full screen
</h3>
<p>
Android KitKat has improved support for letting your app use the entire
screen, with a few different approaches to meet the varying needs of apps and
content. The new <a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/fullscreen.html">Full
Screen</a> page will guide you in setting the stage for deep user engagement.
</p>
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/fullscreen_landing.png" style="margin:1em auto 2em auto;">
<h3>
Gestures
</h3>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-6">
<p>
The updated <a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/gestures.html">Gestures</a>
page covers new and updated gestures introduced in Android KitKat:
<strong>double touch drag</strong> and <strong>double touch</strong>. These
gestures are used for changing the viewing size of content.
</p>
</div>
<div class="col-7">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/gesture_doubletouch.png">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/gesture_doubletouchdrag.png">
</div>
</div>
<h2>Android 4.1 Jelly Bean</h2>
<h4>Notifications</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>Notifications have received some notable enhancements in Android 4.1:</p>
<ul>
<li>Users can act on notifications immediately from the drawer</li>
<li>Notifications are more flexible in size and layout</li>
<li>A priority flag helps sort notifications by importance</li>
<li>Notifications can be collapsed and expanded</li>
</ul>
<p>The base notification layout has not changed, so app notifications designed for versions
earlier than Jelly Bean still look and work the same. Check the updated <a
href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/notifications.html">Notifications</a> page for
more details.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/new_notifications.png">
</div>
</div>
<div class="vspace size-2"> </div>
<h4>Resizable Application Widgets</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>Widgets are an essential aspect of home screen customization, allowing
"at-a-glance" views of an app's most important data and functionality right from
the user's home screen. Android 4.1 introduces improved App Widgets that can
<strong>automatically resize and load different content</strong> based upon a
number of factors including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Where the user drops them on the home screen</li>
<li>The size to which the user expands them</li>
<li>The amount of room available on the home screen</li>
</ul>
<p>You can supply separate landscape and portrait layouts for your widgets, which
the system inflates as appropriate when the screen orientation changes. The <a
href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/widgets.html">Application Widgets</a> page has useful
details about widget types, limitations, and design considerations.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/new_widgets.png">
</div>
</div>
<div class="vspace size-2"> </div>
<h4>Accessibility</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-11">
<p>One of Android's missions is to organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful. Our mission applies to all
users-including people with disabilities such as visual impairment, color
deficiency, hearing loss, and limited dexterity.</p>
<p>The new <a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/accessibility.html">Accessibility</a>
page provides details on how to design your app to be as accessible as possible by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Making navigation intuitive</li>
<li>Using recommended touch target sizes</li>
<li>Labeling visual UI elements meaningfully</li>
<li>Providing alternatives to affordances that time out</li>
<li>Using standard framework controls or enable TalkBack for custom controls</li>
<li>Trying it out yourself</li>
</ul>
<p>You can supply separate landscape and portrait layouts for your
widgets, which the system inflates as appropriate when the screen
orientation changes. The
<a href="{@docRoot}design/patterns/widgets.html">Widgets</a> page has
useful details about widget types, limitations, and design considerations.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-2">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/new_accessibility.png">
</div>
</div>
<h2>Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich</h2>
<h4>Navigation bar</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>Android 4.0 removes the need for traditional hardware keys on
phones by replacing them with a virtual navigation bar that houses
the Back, Home and Recents buttons.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/whats_new_nav_bar.png">
</div>
</div>
<div class="vspace size-2"> </div>
<h4>Action bar</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>The action bar is the most important structural element of an Android
app. It provides consistent navigation across the platform and allows your
app to surface actions.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/whats_new_action_bar.png">
</div>
</div>
<div class="vspace size-2"> </div>
<h4>Multi-pane layouts</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>Creating apps that scale well across different form factors and screen
sizes is important in the Android world. Multi-pane layouts allow you to
combine different activities that show separately on smaller devices into
richer compound views for tablets.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/whats_new_multipanel.png">
</div>
</div>
<div class="vspace size-2"> </div>
<h4>Selection</h4>
<div class="cols">
<div class="col-7">
<p>The long press gesture which was traditionally used to show contextual
actions for objects is now used for data selection. When selecting data,
contextual action bars allow you to surface actions.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-6">
<img src="{@docRoot}design/media/whats_new_multiselect.png">
</div>
</div>