So yes, this story is pretty much an excuse to show off our fancy new Android story category (it’s 2014. We thought it was time), but hey, it’s still informative.
In case you’ve been wondering why you don’t see many applications with Google’s new Material Design just yet, it’s because applications created with the Android L Preview SDK may not yet be submitted to the Google Play Store. In fact, said applications won’t even run on non-Preview devices to begin with.
Alongside the release of the Android L Developer Preview images, Google also released the Android L Preview SDK. Using the L Preview SDK, developers are now able to make use of Theme.Material.* and give their applications this highly sought after theme. And in fact, this is only available when using the preview SDK. However, Google makes it very clear that applications created with the preview SDK should not be published to the Google Play Store.
It’s pretty clear Material Design simply isn’t done yet, and as such, Google has wisely decided to not let developers use it in the real world just yet.
They said that they did not finish it:
http://youtu.be/97SWYiRtF0Y
At around minute 20 say how they compute shaddow on GPU and they try to appear physically correct.
The whole point was that this year Google wanted to start giving developers early builds of future versions of Android so they’d have more time to develop (what with I/O being a developer’s conference). So in four months or so when 5.0 is released to the public, many apps should already be in good shape.
It’s encouraging that Google seem to have a coherent view of what Android is; centered around the smartphone, with specialized versions of Android for wearables, TVs and cars (and maybe on chromebooks later) that Google controls. I expect to see rapid improvements to Wear as feedback comes in over the next few months, for example. The first Android watches aren’t perfect, but I think that they’re definitely going in the right direction – and Google Now will be their killer app.