Thursday, June 05, 2014

What's new in the Android 4.4.3 KitKat update?

Google has started to push an over the air update to Android that is a minor patch but offers a couple of user interface tweaks.

It has reportedly started to hit Google Nexus 5 devices, as well as phones that feature a raw Android 4.4 experience, including the Moto E, Moto G, Moto X and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition.



The Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets will get it too. So, if you have any of the related handsets, what can you expect to find once the update has installed?

Bug fixes

Android 4.4.3 KitKat is mainly an update to ensure that the phones or tablets run smoothly and several bug fixes have been pushed to ensure that is the case.

Excessive battery drain issue

One of them is a fix to the battery drain issues that could occur when an app uses a device's camera. This tended to only occur on devices sporting a Qualcomm processor, but to be honest that covers a vast number of handsets and tablets out there.

Dialer application

A new dialer application has been introduced with Android 4.4.3. It's effectively a Google design tweak, with a new colour scheme and the white background and blue numbers suit the style of KitKat far more.

People application

The people app offers the exact same functionality, but gone are the grey photo icons for contacts without photos to more colourful alternatives. It makes that segment more fun-looking.

Others

A full change list detailing the numerous other fixes is yet to be revealed by Google. The ones listed above are the main ones though, so you can see that this isn't exactly the biggest Android update we've had in recent times.
As they are mainly applicable to devices that are unskinned by manufacturers, it is unlikely to roll out in the same form for those devices. Some of the bug fixes might be pushed in time.

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