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Android 5.0 is one of the biggest updates to the Android mobile operating system since its inception, bringing a whole new visual look called Material Design to its devices, as well as changing the way notifications work, and extending battery life through something Google calls Project Volta. With this new visual design comes a brand new look for the notification center. Now, instead of a pull-down that completely takes over your screen, the notification center comes down only as long as it needs to and another pull will allow you to access the Quick Settings menu.
Google had added Quick Settings to Android 4.2 which, as the name indicates, had a few settings included for quick access, including a battery view that allowed you to see the battery percentage, but the first preview for Lollipop saw that gone. However, in the updated preview that Google released on the 17th October, this has now come back. When you pull down the notification center to access the Quick Settings, a battery percentage will appear at the top, showing you how much percentage you have left, next to a vertical battery icon.
Another addition Google has made to the Quick Settings menu is the inclusion of a flashlight setting that enables you to use your LED flash as a flashlight. This feature has been available in custom ROMs, as well as in OEM skins, such as Samsung with TouchWiz that enables the setting in the notification center. However, Google’s flashlight seems to be rather smart, as it will detect whether or not the device has a flashlight to show the button. For example, the Nexus 7 (2013) doesn’t have the flashlight setting because the camera on the device doesn’t actually have an LED flash.
There’s also a new rotate toggle in the Quick Settings for phones now, something that wasn’t there before, despite larger devices, such as the Nexus 7 (2013), having them in Android 4.4. This toggle, as one would expect, allows you to change how your display rotates, making it either stay in portrait mode or allowing it to rotate. There are also other interesting toggles that only appear once users have manually enabled them. One such toggle is the Wi-Fi hotspot that can be enabled. Once users turn their hotspots on once, the toggle will appear in the Quick Settings menu.