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Mobile OSs Android 4.4 KitKat revealed?
- Thread starter paulbennett95
- Start date
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Android Police says the leaked images are fake: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/09/21/these-probably-arent-photos-of-android-4-4-kitkat-heres-why/
: shrug :
: shrug :
I disagree with them. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but these look in line with the direction Google's latest apps have been moving. Bright, clean and flat. I like it.
I'm in love with the new dialer. I never thought I'd say that about a dialer.
They look believable to me, too.
I wonder if that Message app means no Message + Google Voice integration into Hangouts. That would be disappointing if so. Hangouts is so great to use, but it needs to be unified with Messages and Voice.
Or maybe that will come in an individual Hangouts update? I don't know. Google needs to get on it.
I disagree with them. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but these look in line with the direction Google's latest apps have been moving. Bright, clean and flat. I like it.
I'm in love with the new dialer. I never thought I'd say that about a dialer.
I hope you're right.
And I think that dialer looks amazing, too..
Even if they are fake, it is still the direction Google has been moving. I just wonder if they'd make changes like this in 4.4 or if they'd wait until 5.0. Either way, we'll know soon.
Any news or hints on how 4.4 will deal with the fragmentation issue? I can't imagine how a software solution will deal with this, we are still at the mercy of the carriers and when they want to release these updates.
It's all up to the OEMs to prevent fragmentation. When OEMs like HTC, etc actively abandon very recent phones, it only increases fragmentation. No reason to blame Google for it.
This is the word on the street:
-Firmware availability to older phones
-Fragmentation changes (screen resizing)
-Miracast updates
-New Gallery Visualisation
-New APIs regarding animations
-Change android default blue to other preset palette colours
-New notification widgets
I don't necessarily blame Google, but in certain ways I do. They could have pushed for the PC model, where you can upgrade your own OS, although I have no idea what kind of leverage they do, and don't have, especially at the beginning when they were trying to just get a foothold. Apple did it, but then again Apple probably had a lot more leverage, although before the first iphone was ever released I wonder how much leverage they really did have versus a company like Google.
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I still don't see how that would affect the carriers power to release updates when they please. I know Google offloaded much of their "updates" by updating thru the Play store instead of the OS updates, which was a great move. But I think with the name KitKat being so popular people are going to be that much more aware of the fragmentation issue.
Personally I think it stinks. I just bought a LG G2, it's a sick phone and I like it a lot, but I'm a bit bummed it doesn't have 4.3 on it as I would very much like the user profiles.
There is little to nothing Google can do regarding when and how carriers push updates. It's the nature of the beast. The only thing Google can do is continue to forge healthy relationships with the carriers and hope that carriers get better with software updates (don't hold your breath!).
If having the latest software is important to you, you know what you have to do. I think this is where Google can help themselves: release more GPE phones of annual flagship devices. Imagine every flagship from every maker having a GPE edition. It wouldn't be far fetched. And obviously, continue offering better and better Nexus devices at competitive prices. This, too, is on its way to maturity -- each Nexus device has been better and better compared to the previous generation. Each new Nexus directly addresses the issues of the previous ones.
There's also flashing ROMs, which I'm sure you're aware of, too.
I could see an option to "upgrade" to plain vanilla Android without rooting your phone as a possibility. Something where the user has the option to run the Google Play Edition or the Manufacturer Edition during setup.
However, I don't see this happening for a couple of reasons:
1) They probably make more money by directly selling these phones on the play store with the fact it runs the "Google Play Edition" of Android right out of the box.
2) It doesn't make sense for Google to support every device (or at least all the new devices) out there with AOSP version of their latest OS.
Yeah I'm just waiting for some nice ROMs to get released in the wild, but I'd much rather have a LG version as I really like some of the stuff they put in. If not that, I'd at least like an official vanilla version from Google, so at least I know it's been tested.
LG seems to be much less popular than Samsung so I'm not sure how much luck I will have in the ROM market, but hopefully something comes out, maybe cyanogenmod.
There were rumors of this happening a while back. Whether those rumors ended up being Google Edition Phones or not, not sure. But the theory was that you could switch effortlessly between skin and non-skin (aka stock) Android. Almost as simple as switching between launchers.
Whether this will happen or not, time will tell. I am not holding my breath.
Wouldn't some kind of hardware standards solve #2? I mean the PC market has been doing this with Windows for decades. If you have a PC, you have a guarantee that Windows will run on it, regardless of what hardware you have installed. I don't see why Android phones couldn't be the same, Google can even charge for it's OS just like every other OS manufacturer does, or you can get the carriers version for free if you want to just keep the phone stock.
As for #1, interesting, but does Google really make that much money off of a google play edition phone? It's priced the same as it's carrier equivalent I believe, so Google would basically be working off of whatever discount the phone manufacturer gave them, which I couldn't imagine would be much. I would think they would make more off of just straight up charging $30 for a vanilla Android build with a disclaimer that no warranty will be provided, it's the users choice to buy it or not.
The more I think about it, the more the PC model makes sense, or at least the option to purchase the latest Android build and install it. There has to be an exponentially larger number of PC's out there, and because of standards they all run user installed versions of Windows.
Good question. Anyone have any info on how well the GPE's have been selling? I've heard no reports whatsoever on this front.
I disagree with them. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but these look in line with the direction Google's latest apps have been moving. Bright, clean and flat. I like it.
I'm in love with the new dialer. I never thought I'd say that about a dialer.
The kernel build date spells out the name of the month, August, but as far as I can tell the month name has always been abbreviated, Aug. That shatters the illusion for me. I was really hoping these were real. Unless they suddenly changed the month abbreviation in 4.4, they were likely Photoshopped.
Google rolled out an updated version of Gmail on Android today, adding elements of the card theme. Considering we are seeing more and more of it across Google's apps, it's probably a pretty safe bet that it will also be part of the OS itself--if not part of KitKat, most likely in 5.0.
One of the changes found in the leaked log file is that apps are being changed from com.android.(whatever) to com.google.android.(whatever). The implication of this is huge, in my opinion. It could mean that all built in apps are being moved to the Play Store. That does seem like the direction they've been going, so it isn't too far fetched to believe that is what it means.
Google said that their goal with Kit Kat is "to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody." Perhaps what they meant is that ALL of the new apps in KitKat, even the camera, gallery, dialer, messaging, contacts, etc, will be available for everyone. Can you imagine that? You could have a more stock-like experience regardless of the phone you have.
http://androidcommunity.com/android-4-4-code-reveals-updated-apps-ois-for-the-camera-more-20131002/
Google said that their goal with Kit Kat is "to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody." Perhaps what they meant is that ALL of the new apps in KitKat, even the camera, gallery, dialer, messaging, contacts, etc, will be available for everyone. Can you imagine that? You could have a more stock-like experience regardless of the phone you have.
http://androidcommunity.com/android-4-4-code-reveals-updated-apps-ois-for-the-camera-more-20131002/
The website that found this information in the log file is an Italian site. They said that what stood out the most to them is the following.
com.google.android.GoogleCamera
com.google.android.dialer
com.google.android.gel
The last one, .gel, is in reference to GoogleHome.apk. At first, they thought it might be the launcher, but since it doesn't have the permissions that launchers need, they think it could be a new hub type app. It certainly is an interesting find.
They also note that when the Calendar moved to the Play Store, it changed to com.google.android.calendar.
http://www.androidworld.it/2013/10/...i-e-supposizioni-dal-log-del-nexus-5-188227/#
com.google.android.GoogleCamera
com.google.android.dialer
com.google.android.gel
The last one, .gel, is in reference to GoogleHome.apk. At first, they thought it might be the launcher, but since it doesn't have the permissions that launchers need, they think it could be a new hub type app. It certainly is an interesting find.
They also note that when the Calendar moved to the Play Store, it changed to com.google.android.calendar.
http://www.androidworld.it/2013/10/...i-e-supposizioni-dal-log-del-nexus-5-188227/#
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