Android's latest operating system, Android 4.4 KitKat, was announced in the second half of 2013 and has slowly been rolling out to compatible devices. The flagship (and first) smartphone running the updated version of Android was Google's own Nexus 5.
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'Immersive Mode' on Android 4.3 -
not on just Android 4.4. |
The Nexus 5 is a standard Android smartphone with a crisp display, unpredictable battery life and a poor camera. Despite the flaws, the phone is ideal for android developers who want to update their apps to KitKat and test how well they will run. Some of the features in KitKat currently only work on the Nexus 5 which makes the Nexus 5 a more appealing smartphone however this is bad news for other Android handset manufactures. Android 4.4 KitKat is a small software update of minor tweaks anyway so making some of the features exclusive for some phones just makes the update almost pointless.
Other updates which Google claim are major in KitKat is activating a Google search in Google Now by just saying 'Okay Google', 'Hangouts' and text messages being combined in the 'Hangouts' app and a redesigned 'Quickoffice'. (Which reminds me, why does Google install both 'Google Drive' and 'Quickoffice' on all Android devices when they do the same thing?)
Anyway, all of the above are app updates which you can get if you run Android 4.1* or above! This means that when the KitKat update finally does come your way it means that most of the changes are unnoticeable.
*approximately