01
Jul
Screen-Shot-2014-07-01-at-4.02.37-PM

Android "L" Preview Source Code Going Live In AOSP, Includes Support For Nexus 4, 5, 7 (2012+2013), And 10

Posted by in Android OS, Development, L, News, Nexus 10, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7, Nexus 7 2013

It looks like Google is serious about getting the "L" preview out to developers in all of its forms, even as code. That's right, the source code is live on AOSP!Screen Shot 2014-07-01 at 4.15.59 PM

This isn't just platform code, it looks like all of the recent Nexus devices are covered - everything from the 2012 Nexus 7 up through to the Nexus 5. Note: there still aren't any binary packages or kernel source for the Nexus devices, so a completely stock AOSP-based build will have to wait a little bit longer.

A few other notable projects to check out:

It's not clear yet if all of the source code is fully uploaded, but I've yet to see a project that doesn't include an "l-preview" branch that appears to contain a full file structure.

It's time to start poking around to see what we can find!

[Android Open Source Project]

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Cody Toombs
Cody is a Software Engineer and Writer with a mildly overwhelming obsession with smartphones and the mobile world. If he’s been pulled away from the computer for any length of time, you might find him talking about cocktails and movies, sometimes resulting in the consumption of both.

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  • Carlos

    Nice

  • B3astofthe3ast

    Wow, not only the Nexus 4, but the original N7! Nice!

    • scouser73

      Great news isn't it.

  • brkshr

    S**t just hit the fan

  • Besnik Rrustemi

    Cant wait to have it on my Nexus 4

  • Fabian Pineda

    Begun, the L Custom ROM Wars have.

    • oneyedmonkey

      There you go, I just read it that way

      • Justin W

        Even in Yoda's voice, this confused me.

      • KoRRo

        i can't stop laughing!
        you made my day, sir!

  • Phil Oakley

    Every Nexus 4 owner (and OG Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 owners) are thanking Google right now.

    Thanks, Google.

    • IamTheFij

      And even 2013 N7 LTE owners.

      • Justin W

        Hold that though! No, really, hold that thought. Google hasn't submitted the code to Verizon yet, so they won't allow it on their network.

        • IamTheFij

          Good thing I use T-Mobile and get my data for free.

    • Franco Rossel

      When i saw this i tought
      "2012 Nexus 7? PRAISED BE DUARTE, GOOGLE TAKE MY CHILDREN!"

  • http://patrollpl.tk/ Cadence
  • http://www.ronakg.com/ Ronak Gandhi

    Looks like my Nexus 7 (2012 wifi) will survive after all.

    • http://toastedpastillas.com/ Kim Reyes

      i just hope it fixes lags on it, because it's kinda slow right now when i upgraded to 4.4.4

      • samoanbiscuit

        A lot of the problems of the first Nexus 7 come from the cheap EMC ASUS used, and the fact that the first few versions of Android running on it didn't have TRIM support. The damage is already done. Just keep a lot of space free and you should minimize slowdowns.

        • MrSonicBoom

          I'm just waiting for the next nexus tablet. I love my N7 2012 but it has become painfully slow and has also developed ghost taps.

      • Justin Swanson

        Yeah, I'm having the same problem, but L Preview is pretty laggy on my N5... hopefully we'll see it optimized. (I'm pretty sure it isn't).

        • MrSonicBoom

          My N5 is currently running the L Preview. I got lag when opening apps. Easy fix was to turn all animations to .5x in the dev options. :)

        • MikeOxlong

          Laggy?????????
          I can say with 100% confidence that its something on your end (most likely an incompatable or buggy app), and not the actual preview. Its as smooth as silk on my n5 and n7, and has been since Friday when both were upgraded.
          Same goes for everyone I know who's owns the same hardware.

  • Ambroos

    If KitKat is any indication, this is going to make it to Xperia's in a few days. Xperia Z was the first non-Nexus with a stable and fully functional KitKat only a week after the source code was release. Looking forward to it!

    • TSON1

      This is a preview though. It's not gonna be hitting anything until later when the build is done.

      • Ambroos

        Huh? It's the code for a preview version, not a preview of the code. It should be possible to make custom ROMs exactly like the preview images Google released at IO. Which is all we want right now anyway.

        This is also a major chance for OEMs to start working super-early on their stuff, though. If Google will be updating these repositories from time to time and if they make sure the kernel doesn't change too much anymore OEMs could be REALLY fast releasing their updates.

        • Brandon Smith

          I think TSON1 meant that it won't be officially released by Sony any time soon. Yes, they can get a head start on porting it to their devices, but they won't release a public build of the first beta of the biggest update that Android's seen.

    • Rodrigo Gonzalez

      I suppose you're talking in terms of non official update, because the Xperia Z updated to 4.4 in May '14, and the first non-Nexus device to update was the Moto X

      • Ambroos

        Of course, it was an unofficial AOSP build. The Xperia Z is incredibly easy to develop for.

        • Gaja

          Because it's the same chipset as N4.

  • silver_arrow

    So does this mean we are going to be getting custom L roms soon?

    Also the Nexus 7 (2012) did not have LTE

    • Peter ‘Firefox’ Fox

      very likely but for non-nexus devices, who knows but I know people are already on it

  • aaron cooper

    f yea......

  • Randy Strye

    son of a bitch i just flashed a new rom... now i'm going to have to flash another...

  • remister

    Must resist with every atom and dead space of my mind!!!......

  • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/pamela-hill/ Pamela Hill

    Yes! I was hoping they would include N4 in the L release. I was pretty sure, but not 100% after the whole Galaxy Nexus KitKat ordeal.

    • remister

      I agree, I am still bitter about that!

    • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/cody-toombs/ Cody Toombs

      I think the GNex issue really was just about TI abandoning the platform. If not for that, we might have even seen L running on it. Who knows, L might have even made the GNex battery life tolerable ;)

      • http://androidintvfilm.tumblr.com/ wade_county

        Doesn't Google Glass have KitKat already? I know that has a TI OMAP.

        • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/cody-toombs/ Cody Toombs

          It does... but ask any Glass owner about system stability... There is none :

          The Glass team did an admirable job of porting KK to Glass, but there are definitely a lot of problems that were never worked out. That's a big part of the reason so many people are confident Glass will get a hardware revision before it is officially released.

        • mrribbits

          But it's unstable as heck.

          • Dhaiwat

            That bad?

      • Clubber

        Yeah. The Nexus program director even said the fact that Texas Instruments quit was the reason the Galaxy Nexus didn't get KitKat.

        I imagine all the current Nexus devices will have long lives. Great time to be a Nexus owner.

        • rstat1

          He was uninformed then. TI is currently working on upgrading OMAP4 based devices to run on a much newer version of Linux, including video drivers. So to me it sounds like it was Google that quit. Not TI.

  • Spasillium

    make dir ~/Android/development/AOSP-L && cd ~/Android/development/AOSP-L && repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-l-preview && repo sync

    I'm so ready to play on my Hammerhead!

    • Matt

      Pretty sure the branch is just called l-preview, not android-l-preview. At least, the other one doesn't appear to found in manifests.

      • Spasillium

        thanks for the heads up. i haven't booted into ubuntu yet and that would've saved me from a few seconds of going "wth?"

    • MHS

      ihavenoideawhatiamdoing.jpg

      • MHS

        Holy smokes, it downloads every single piece of Android for every version. I stopped the process at 310 GB downloaded. My /home partition is 350 GB big o.O

  • http://www.about.me/WinterSoldier53 Esteban Méndez ⚡

    Everything is Awesome!

    • Thiago Bachi Rehbein

      Everything is cool when you're part of a team

      • 0A05

        Everything is Awesome when you're living out a dream

  • Mobile_Dom

    forgive me if im wrong about this, but i cant go and download this and flash it on my Nxus 4 yet can i?

    • arturodelac

      If you compile it yes

      • Mobile_Dom

        yeah i dont know how to compile shit, once someone else does it ill try it.

        side note, is compiling hard, havent the foggiest

        • Spasillium

          i'm still a newbie on dealing with android source but after reading a few tutorials (including the one on android's site) it's pretty easy to work with. the only headache i've come across so far is dealing with a few binaries that are missing from what google supplies for my N4 & N5, which is solved by pulling them from those phones running the version of android you're trying to build.

          • Mobile_Dom

            yeah... i think i'll let someone else do it and then thank them profusely isntead :P

      • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/cody-toombs/ Cody Toombs

        Well, there still aren't any binary packages posted for the Nexus hardware on L, so even pulling the source and compiling it isn't quite an option. However, those packages will probably be posted very soon.

        • Matt

          Actually, newer preview binaries were posted a few days ago, which led to a lot of speculation on XDA that the Nexus 4 and other devices would eventually get L preview. People are still in the process of testing them out with the new AOSP l-release branch (obviously) but most speculation suggests that they're for the L release.

          https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/blobs-preview

    • Peter ‘Firefox’ Fox

      no, but someone will compile it and then you can most likely try it... I assume it needs to be signed though unless you have an unlocked boot loader, but don't take it as fact on the signing part

  • insanezz

    People demanding ''L'' features in custom roms in 3..2..1..

  • http://them3blog.wordpress.com/ Abel

    "Nexus 7 (2012 Wi-Fi)"

  • BarKa

    Thanks google but not a big fan of original ROM. OMNI rocks for me and they would have given L anyway

  • Alvin Brinson

    Ahh, so we can BUILD for the devices that weren't included? Schweet.

    I'm updating my build environment ASAP.

  • http://www.androidpolice.com/ Shawn De Cesari

    OK so I said the Nexus 4 and N7 2012 probably wasn't getting it. I'm man enough to admit when I was wrong. I'm wrong. Not only was I wrong, but I'm GLAD I was wrong!

    • http://SammyToday.com Krzysztof Bryk

      why would it not get it =)

      • http://www.androidpolice.com/ Shawn De Cesari

        Because I assumed that it was coming out in the fall and used history as my guide. Google supports the current and previous hardware generation and that's it. By the time the fall comes, the OG N7 and N4 will presumably be 2 hardware generations behind, therefore the logical conclusion I came to is that they wouldn't get it.

        • http://SammyToday.com Krzysztof Bryk

          glad they seem to prove you were wrong :)

        • HolyFreakingCrap

          We are too big a force not to be reckoned with. The people who own the original N7 and N4 are the main people who made Nexus popular by bragging to everyone that it was Nexus or nothing. Google owes us.

          • http://SammyToday.com Krzysztof Bryk

            nope

          • Nope

            There were three nexus phone before the nexus 4.
            You bought a Google subsidized phone.
            Google doesn't owe you dick.

      • Matthew Merrick

        i'm honestly amazed 2012 is getting it, seeing as nvidia is only supporting that specific tegra 3 chip past 4.3 because google asked for it. and this is the only tegra 3 that is being supported.

    • http://ubuntu-su.blogspot.com/ Kleverson Royther

      Everyone makes mistakes, Shawn. I too was skeptic about it, even though I had reasons to believe in it, but, after being sad for losing so many things lately that I thought were certain because I had reasons to believe, I held myself on conclusions to the point I started not trusting my reasons.

    • mrribbits

      Yeah you and others like you were so clearly wrong to me that I didn't get how you came to that conclusion. The 18 months you guys kept quoting was a freakin minimum amount of time they would support hardware not a damn cutoff.

  • Henrique Persechini

    Yey! can't wait for it to show up in the multiboot thread for the nexus 4 like it did with the 7

  • weeeecomments

    Nexus 4 <3

    • guest

      No, 4 > 3

  • Gabriel Gonzalez

    Can I flash it on my nexus 4 ?

  • Connor

    PRAISE BE TO DUARTE

  • Nupicasso

    Now all those Nexus 4 owners who had their panties in a bunch, overreacting when their phone wasn't included in the preview, and thinking it wouldn't be supported, can relax.

    Phew. Close one. :)

  • http://riteshtripathy.wordpress.com/ Ritesh

    Didn't I tell you guys the Nexus 4 ain't officially dead yet?

    Hell yeah!!! :chicken dance:

  • n_a_v

    Awesome. would have been really crappy to not support the Nexus 4 since it has more than enough power to handle L

  • Alvin Brinson

    Good thing I just put a new screen on the N4.

  • Pootis Man

    Hurray!

  • JohnG
    • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/cody-toombs/ Cody Toombs

      Those packages are intended to match with the master branch of AOSP at the date they are posted. I'm not sure if they are compatible with the l-preview branch.

      • JohnG

        ahhh! Okay! Hopefully we'll find out soon!

  • Scott Ebbage

    Google you are simply the best! Can't wait to get this running on my N4

  • http://allezweitagediat.de/ sofenza

    Hold that though! No, really, keep that thought. Google has not presented the rule to Verizon yet, so they won't allow it on their system.

    Dukan Diät Plan

    • IamTheFij

      Did you literally copy and paste @jt122333221:disqus and then change one word?

      Pretty clear spam bot here.

    • http://www.androidpolice.com/author/cody-toombs/ Cody Toombs

      Congrats, your spam lasted literally 2 minutes... Go away

  • Christopher Bement
  • David

    My Nexus 4 is screaming for Lollipop preview.

  • Raymie Humbert

    It's a reminder that I need to either get a Nexus 5 now or hope for a Nexus 6 this fall. The GNex is just going to keep getting the shaft. Thanks, TI.

  • http://www.twitter.com/italofigueired Italo F.

    Nexus 7 2012?!?!?!?!! Google, I love you 💜💜💜❤❤❤

  • http://si97.com/ Saif

    I hope they release factory images soon.

  • odd

    Please excuse this amateur; does this mean the owner of these devices can flash to L or that developper now have another piece of the environment to develop on L?