what is Android L

Google has unveiled the next version of its Android software for smartphones and tablets: Android 5.0 L.

Announced at the company's annual I/O developer conference in San Francisco, the software will be released in the autumn. It will be preloaded on new Android devices, although manufacturers and mobile operators will dictate when it is downloadable for older ones.

Key features in Android L include a new "material design" look and feel, improved battery life and enhanced notifications.

"This is one of the most comprehensive releases we have done: it has over 5,000 new APIs, and we are thinking not just for mobile, but for form factors beyond mobile," said Google's Android and Chrome boss Sundar Pichai, during the keynote presentation at I/O.

Key to these changes will be a new look and feel across smartphones, tablets and other devices, dubbed "material design" by Google's design chief Matias Duarte, during the keynote.

"What if pixels didn't just have colour, but also depth? What if there was an intelligent material that was as simple as paper, but could transform and change shape in response to touch?" said Duarte. "We drew inspiration from paper and ink, but unlike real paper, digital material can expand, reform and reshape."

Google claimed that L will be significantly faster than previous versions, including when running on existing Android devices like the Nexus 5 smartphone. It will also support 64-bit processors, matching Apple's latest devices.

Meanwhile, a Google initiative called Project Volta has focused on improving battery life on Android devices, including a new "Battery Saver" mode that the company says could give users up to 90 minutes more battery life over the course of a typical day, for some devices.

Google is improving the notifications feature on Android, with users able to read, open and dismiss notifications from the lock-screen of their devices. The software will also try to learn from users' behaviour, in order to judge which notifications are most important for them.

L will also have a centralised setting called Universal Data Control, where Android users will be able to control how data on their handset is shared. Users will also be able to divide their devices between work and personal modes.

"In the PC world, companies gave you a separate laptop for work, and your own personal laptop... that model starts breaking down when you start talking about phones. Nobody wants to carry two phones around," said Pichai, of the new feature.

"We are doing it thoughtfully by providing underlying data separation: all your personal data is isolated from your corporate stuff, and vice versa."

Earlier in the keynote, Pichai said that Android now has 1bn "30-day active users" – people who've used an Android device in the last month – up from nearly 530m a year ago.

He also claimed that Android now has a 62% global market share of tablet shipments, fending off past potshots from Apple that many of those devices are not being used by citing stats from Google's YouTube video service. Android accounted for 28% of its tablet viewers in May 2013, but is now up to 42%.

"We aren't building a vertically integrated product. What we are doing is building an open platform at scale. We work with hundreds of partners globally to bring a product and a platform that touches billions of people. And we want to do it in a way in which we are innovating at a very very fast pace," said Pichai.

He also took a shot at Apple, which has recently added some new features to its iOS software that were already in Android.

"Custom keyboards, widgets. Those things happened in Android four to five years ago. We are working very hard to bring an open platform and innovate on it at an unprecedented scale," said Pichai.