592 CHAPTER 16: The Future of Android: The 64-Bit Android 5.0 OS
Kernel, the new Java 7 support, the new “materials” look and feel, and much, much more. Since
Android 5 came out before this book was published, I cover it completely so that you have an
up-to-date Android knowledge-base in one comprehensive book.
What’s New in Android 5: New OS Features
This new version of Android has some fairly major changes and additions, both to the underlying
platforms (Linux, Java, C++, and the runtime), as well as to the feature set for this new, 64-bit
capable operating system.
It is important to note that these new 64-bit underpinnings, and the newly added features, will not
“break” your current Android 4.4 application code and markup. Although there are two new View
(subclass) widgets that you will be learning about during this chapter, there are zero changes to
the existing “core” Android classes, nested classes, methods, constants, interfaces, codecs, new
media file formats, XML definitions, project folder naming conventions, or to any of the related work
processes that you might use when creating Android applications.
The significance of this is that everything that you learned regarding Android development during the
first 15 chapters of this book is therefore still applicable to your Android 5.0 apps development. Thus
Android 5.0 gives you even more speed, power, and capabilities, without taking anything away from
your work process!
The first part of this chapter discusses all of the important changes and exciting additions, as well as
their implications for your Android application development, in great detail. The second part of this
chapter covers how to download, install, set up, and utilize the new Android Studio 5.0 environment
based on the IntelliJ IDEA and Java 7 JDK. Finally, you’ll develop an Android 5.0 application using
Android Studio 5.0 beta 0.8.
Android 5.0 Platform: 64-Bit Linux and Java 7
One of the significant changes to the Android 5 platform that will not affect your application code or
markup, but that makes your applications run up to 100% faster, is the use of the latest 64-bit Linux
kernel and a more modern 64-bit Java 7 JDK. The reason for this is that the new 64-bit Android
5.0 OS matches up perfectly with the 64-bit central processing unit (CPU) hardware that is used in
today’s (and will be used in the future models of) consumer electronics devices like smartphones,
tablets, eReaders, game consoles, and iTV sets.
The main advantage of a 64-bit OS is, as you probably know, the ability to address (or utilize) more
than 3.24 Gigabytes of system memory. Since memory is manufactured using 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and
8GB “modules” (or single chips), it is less expensive for manufacturers to “jump” from 2GB to 4GB
memory support than to offer 3GB memory support. Since Android game consoles such as the
nVidia Shield, Amazon Fire iTV, and the OUYA are quickly becoming popular, expect to see more
Android hardware with 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB of primary system memory, as well as with powerful nVidia
Tegra 3D processor support.
Additionally, certain Java or C++ programming constructs can also run more efficiently in the 64-bit
processing environment, and there is less need for a Dalvik Virtual Machine optimization process,
as full Java SE code can now run in the powerful 64-bit computing space. If 32-bit Android devices