Should we design for Android L Material theme yet?

Question

I just started designing my app for Android L Material theme. I understand that we have to first check whether our existing apps work fine with the ART, the new WebView and all that, but going a step further I want my app to be release-ready when Android L is officially released. But I see that there's very little documentation and I'm not able to get around to find answers to some questions I have -

1. Is the material theme itself going to be available for older versions of Android?

2. Is the Android L SDK that's publicly available right now good enough to start building apps using it? I found a few posts on stack overflow where commons guy has said to hold off until Android L is released.

3. There are a few things that are mentioned in the design specs but there's no documentation on it. Like "Toolbar", for example, is replacing the "ActionBar" according to Google IO 2014 App's source. But why is it not mentioned anywhere in the Android L getting started page? And is it going to be backward compatible with older versions through support library?

4. Any sample code on how to achieve extended app bar as mentioned in this page?

Answer 1

Is the material theme itself going to be available for older versions of Android?

There have been some comments from Google suggesting that they'll be doing some things in this area. Not everything is strictly possible to offer in the form of a backport. Hence, we won't really know until they ship.

Is the Android L SDK that's publicly available right now good enough to start building apps using it? I found a few posts on stack overflow where commons guy has said to hold off until Android L is released.

The reason for my advice is that we have no idea how stable the L APIs are, particularly with respect to Material Design. If you want to experiment with L for that sort of thing, great! But I'd leave such stuff on a development branch until the next shipping version of Android.

But why is it not mentioned anywhere in the Android L getting started page?

There are lots of things not mentioned in the docs, particularly in API level release notes. That's normal for Android, and it is why I and others write blog posts like this one and this one.

And is it going to be backward compatible with older versions through support library?

That has not been announced. We'll find out when the next production version of Android ships.

Any sample code on how to achieve extended app bar as mentioned in this page?

I am not aware of any, though I haven't been keeping an eye out for it either. My personal aesthetic says "yuck" for that particular aspect of Material Design. :-)