Presented at Zebra Technologies AppForum in London in October 2015. This deck is a quick explanation of what are the new features in Android, starting from v4.2 up to v6.0 (I know the title was posted before having 6.0 officially released) relevant for an mobile enterprise developer.

2. Android KitKat & Lollipop
New Features for Enterprise
Developers
Pietro F. Maggi
EMEA SW Consultant Sales Engineer

3. Agenda
• Android History
• Android Architecture Overview [Linux, Dalvik, Security]
• From J to L, what’s new in Android
• What about M?

4. ANDROID BRIEF HISTORY

5. History
2003
Android started as a separate company. It was run by Andy Rubin and a few other big names in the early world of mobile
tech. They were trying to build software for phones and digital cameras.
2005
Google bought Android in 2005. Andy Rubin and his team quietly worked on what would become the Android mobile
operating system.
2008
Google partnered with T-Mobile to launch the first-ever Android smartphone, the G1.
2007
The Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC,
Sony and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas
Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop open standards for mobile devices
2013
Google's smartphone operating system powers a whopping 80% of devices worldwide.

6. Android Vision
Our goal is not just a single device.
Our vision is a mobile platform that
runs on many many different
devices.
- Eric Schmidt

7. PlatformVersion Version API Level Nickname
2008 September 23 1.0 1 Android
2009 February 9 1.1 2 Android
2009 April 30 1.5 3 Cupcake
2009 September 15 1.6 4 Donut
2009 October 26 2.0 / 2.0.1 / 2.1 5, 6, 7 Éclair
2010 May 20 2.2.x 8 FroYo
2010 December 6 2.3 – 2.3.2 9 Gingerbread
2011 February 9 2.3.3 – 2.3.7 10 Gingerbread
2011 February 22 3.x 11, 12, 13 Honeycomb
2011 October 19 4.0.0 – 4.0.2 / 4.0.3 – 4.0.4 14, 15 Ice Cream Sandwich
2012 July 9 4.1.x 16 Jelly Bean
2012 November 13 4.2.x 17 Jelly Bean
2013 July 24 4.3.x 18 Jelly Bean
2013 October 31 4.4.x 19, 20 (Wear) KitKat
2014 October 16 5.0 21 Lollipop
2015 March 9 5.1 22 Lollipop
2015 October 6 6.0 23 Marshmallow

8. Version Distribution
Source, Android Developer Dashboard:
http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

9. AOSP and Google Mobile Services
Android Open Source Project (AOSP)
This is the Open source version of Android, used by Amazon, Zebra Technologies, Xiaomi and others
OEM to build devices without the Google services.
Google Mobile Services (GMS)
This are additional features only available on devices that signed Google’s Anti-Fragmentation
Agreement, including:
Google Play Services, Google Maps, Gmail, etc.
History
Version 1.0 was released on September 26, 2012
Version 4.4 was released on May 7, 2014
Version 5.0 was released on June 25, 2014
Version 6.5, was released on November 17, 2014
Version 7.0 released on March 2, 2015
Version 7.5 released on May 28, 2015
Version 8.1 released on September 24, 2015

10. ANDROID ARCHITECTURE
OVERVIEW

11. ARCHITECTURE

12. ANDROID != LINUX
Androidism – differences between Android and Linux
• Binder
• Paranoid Networking
SELinux – further defines boundaries of the Android application sandbox
• Introduced in Android v4.3 – MAC not enforced
• v4.4 – MAC enforced on 4 core services (installd, netd, vold and zygote)
• v5.x – MAC enforced on everything (more than 60 domains)
MAC = Mandatory Access Control
DAC = Discretionary Access Control

13. Android Runtime
Dalvik VM is Android implementation
of Java VM
Dalvik is optimized for mobile devices:
• Battery consumption
• CPU capabilities
Key Dalvik differences:
• Register-based versus stack-based VM
• Dalvik runs .dex files
• More efficient and compact implementation
• Different set of Java libraries than JDK
Oracle had accused Google of copying the APIs of Java, a programming
language Oracle owns, and putting them into Android.

14. Android Runtime
With the latest I/O conference, Google has finally publicly announced its plans for its new
runtime on Android.
ART
ART is designed to be fully compatible with Dalvik’s existing byte-code format, “dex” (Dalvik
executable).
The big paradigm-shift that ART brings, is that instead of being a Just-in-Time (JIT) compiler, it
now compiles application code Ahead-of-Time (AOT).
The performance gains over Dalvik are significant;; roughly a 2x improvement in speed for
code running on the VM.

15. Applications

16. Application Security Box
Upon Android application installation:
• A unique user ID is created for each Android app
• Each app is started in its own process
• Each app runs in that DVM
• The file permissions are set for the owner only to access

17. Application Signing
The important points to understand about signing Android applications are:
• All applications must be signed. The system will not install an application on an emulator or a device if it is
not signed.
• To test and debug your application, the build tools sign your application with a special debug key that is
created by the Android SDK build tools.
• When you are ready to release your application for end-users, you must sign it with a suitable private key.
You cannot publish an application that is signed with the debug key generated by the SDK tools.
• You can use self-signed certificates to sign your applications. No certificate authority is needed.
• The system tests a signer certificate's expiration date only at install time. If an application's signer certificate
expires after the application is installed, the application will continue to function normally.

18. FROM ‘J’ TO ‘L’

19. What changed from Jelly Bean v4.1 to Lollipop v5

20. What NEW IN Android v4.2.x
(the lockdown release)
• RTL Layout support
• Native, always-on VPN
• Certificate Pinning
• New Bluetooth stack
• New NFC stack
• Hidden developer menu and USB debug whitelist
• System.Settings are now read-only (e.g. Airplane mode)
• Content providers are no longer exported by default
• Additional layer of security in the WebView interface for JS binding

21. What NEW IN Android v4.3.x
• SELinux (in permissive mode)
• Multiple account and restricted profiles (tablets)
• Bluetooth SMART support (aka BLE)
• WiFi Enterprise API (e.g. EAP access)
• WiFi Scan-only-mode (get position even with WiFi off)
• Improved RTL Text support
• Hardware credential storage

22. What NEW IN Android v4.4.x
• SELinux - in enforcing mode for 4 core services
• Restriction on External Storage (SDCard read only)
• NFC Host Card Emulation
• Chromium webview
• Screen recorder through adb
• ART (Android Run Time) optional, Dalvik still the default Runtime
• Improved RTL (Drawable Mirroring and Force RTL for developers)

23. External Storage till Android v4.3

24. External Storage from Android v4.4

25. What NEW IN Android v5.x
• SELinux - in enforcing mode for all domains
• WebView updates without OTA
• Multiple user and restricted profile on phones (prev. only tablets)
• Full disk encryption “enforced” and improved
• ART (Android Run Time) only available Runtime
• Material Design
• Screen Capture and sharing: https://github.com/googlesamples/android-ScreenCapture
• 64-bit support
• Managed provisioning
• Screen Pinning (Kiosk Mode)
• Manually: Settings > Security > Screen Pinning
• Programmatically: StartLockTask()
V5.1
• Multiple SIM cards

26. MARSHMALLOW

27. API Level 23 - MarshMallow
• Doze and App Standby
• Doze: Screen off and unplugged device stationary
• App Standby: when an app is idle the OS diable networking
• Removed access to Hardware identifier:
• WifInfo.getMacAddress return always 02:00:00:00:00:00
• BluetoothAdapter.getAddress return always 02:00:00:00:00:00
• Fingerprint Authentication
• USB Connection are now charge-only by default
• Adoptable Storage Devices
• App permissions changes
• Check for Permissions
• Request Permissions

28. THANK YOU