One of the most interesting parts of the developer preview of Android 5.0, or L release, or Lollipop (or whatever we're going to call it until Google announces it will finally be called Lamington), was just how many features the new stock Android has absorbed from custom ROMs, third-party apps and manufacturer skins. While this is perfectly acceptable given the open source nature of Android and can be seen as an enriching of the core experience in Android based on what users actually want, it also steps on the toes of a lot of developers in the business of Android ''add-ons''. So will the new stock Android be better than all three?

Android L release date and features

Android L is here, and it's brought a raft of new changes, with Sundar Pichai, head of Android, proclaiming it to be one of the biggest upgrades to Android yet.

It's going to have a radical new design, 5000 new APIs, will be available for developer previews soon, and it's going beyond the mobile form factor. Android L will be contextually aware of its surrounding, plus voice is going to me a major input source.

The experience will also be seamless, so Android L devices communicate properly, although Pichai was at pains to point out the mobile phone will always be the priority.

Release date

Here's what most of you will be wanting to know: when can I get it on my phone? Well, if you're a developer with a Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 then its easy, as it's now available as of June 26 to developers only.

For the rest of the world, it's coming 'this fall', which means that this is very much a preview to appease those that want to get cracking on development, and launching it at Google IO makes sense.

HTC has already been in contact, giving the following statement about it's forthcoming upgrade to Android L:

"HTC is excited about the new features in Android L and we can't wait to share them with our customers. We are committed to updating our flagship HTC One family as fast as possible.

"We will begin rolling out updates to the HTC One (M8) and HTC One (M7) in regions worldwide within 90 days of receiving final software from Google, followed shortly thereafter by other One family members and select devices."

Remember, this doesn't mean the developer preview, but the final version later in the year. So expect Android L on your HTC One M8 and M7 around Christmas.

We'll update you as soon as we find out any more information from the other manufacturers about their plans for Android L release schedules.

Features

Floating notifications

I'm a huge fan of mini apps and popup notifications and the popup feature on instant messengers like Viber, also drop down preview of text messages as they come in. In the developer preview we saw just how cool the ''heads up'' notifications in the next version of Android will be.

Kill switch

I've been following the progress of the legally required kill switch in smartphones for a while now. Google already had Android Device Manager as a default location and remote wiping tool, but now the feature will be a core component of the operating system and not an add-on service. Plenty of other tools are available but it seems unlikely any will work as well as the built-in version.

Lockscreen notifications

Lock screen notification apps like Dynamic Notifications and Peek are a good example, being able to access and respond to your notifications directly from your lockscreen in stock Android is a great move in my opinion. Add to this the debut of Android Wear and you ll hardly need to unlock your phone again.

Multitasking

Anything that cuts down on endless app switching is going to get lots of attention. The new Rolodex-looking, card-based recent apps setup along with smarter Google Search and dialer predictions are all great things for users.

Privacy settings

privacy settings are a blessing and nothing would go anywhere without Permission Manager and Permissions Observatory. In the upcoming Android release we'll see built-in app privacy settings via Universal Data Controls and ''on-the-spot'' permission requests, so you don't need to add any third-party apps, custom ROMs or settings to take control of your privacy. Is Google just skimming from the great ideas of others?

Power saving mode

With the next version of Android coming with a stock battery saving mode and battery historian for developers (and surely users) to monitor the battery consumption of their apps and optimize (or just plain kill) the power-hungry ones. Will manufacturers let these features seep through to their skins or stick with their own?

Google Fit

Other than being able to get a pedometer on your Nexus 5 there's not much in the way of health integration in the current Android. Google Fit in the next version of Android makes a lot of these third-party options unnecessary and puts up a big challenge to the likes of S Health and LG Health. So who will do it better?

Personal unlocking

Google wants your apps to be able to talk to one another - it used the example of searching for a place, only to have it served up in Google Earth, which is where it originally was being looked at. The idea goes much deeper than that though, to have my phone know when I'm at an unlock-friendly place (like work) or to know that it's me picking up my phone because of my Bluetooth headphones or smartwatch makes it even easier, especially when it's baked into the core system. Just how much of this is for convenience and how much to push wearables?

Performance

Everyone love tweaking things and customizing system settings to get the absolute best performance out of their smartphone. Most nerds have been running ART since it debuted ages ago, but not every app was running properly and it was, of course, a developer option that wasn't quite finished, even if it did speed up your performance significantly. Making ART the default runtime (that can also handle just-in-time compiling of older apps) makes it the perfect solution, it also supports 64-bit processing.

Themes

Many actually likes CyanogenMod's Themer engine and the many different custom launcher themes you can switch things up with. Android tends to look quite disparate due to its open-source nature, so it's not always easy to get a streamlined, harmonious experience. By introducing the Material theme to their own apps, Google is providing a unified example, and Project Polymer makes it easier for developers to create apps in the Material Design language via reusable web components. This should hopefully make the entire ecosystem a lot more stylistically consistent but will it make Android look like iOS?