The “L” is for Later
By now, Android fans and fanatics alike have seen the next version of Android previewed at Google IO, released as a developer preview for select Nexus devices, and now, the developer preview code is making its way to AOSP trees.
“So let’s get the flood-gates started on CM 12!” – right? No
A new wrinkle, but same old same old
Google’s early release and access is something they have never done before, and it is going to wildly help developer adoption of the new L platform; this is exciting to see happen. However, this doesn’t take away the fact that the code, being a preview, is non-final and likely going to change. No one outside of Google knows how much change this means – it could be minor, or it could be substantial. We could spend the next 3 weeks working on integrating CM features against this new platform, and then have it suddenly change dramatically and break in the final release of “L”. This would boil down to a waste of time.
It is much more prudent to wait for the final source drop and Google’s own development to stabilize. Those of you who ran the preview releases on the Nexus 5 and 7 can likely attest that there are not only bugs, but missing features as well, even something as simple as a ‘clear all’ button on notifications.
