Google officially revealed Android 5.1 today… somewhat. The upgrade to Lollipop was introduced alongside the launch of Android One phones in Indonesia, and those phones seem to be shipping with it out of the box. Android One’s Indonesian website also makes passing references to the upgrade.
So what’s new? Unfortunately Google isn’t delivering the changelog we’d all love to see, but a couple of screenshots from folks who have fondled the new devices do well enough to get us started.
The biggest known change is in the notification pane where you will notice two handy dropdowns for Bluetooth and WiFi. These will allow you to switch between devices and networks instead of your standard toggle action. It’s not a huge feature, but it’s small stuff like that coming together that makes Lollipop the big, sweet package it is.
Some of the handsets also seem to be loaded up with battery analysis apps to see if project Volta — Google’s big battery-saving changes — is doing its job. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like much more than your typical battery monitor, and we’re not even sure it’s meant to be accessible to the user as its pre-Lollipop user interface seems out of place.
Of course we could be wrong, but that’d take an actual changelog from Google to confirm. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take too long for the Mountain View giant to make the announcement formal.
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