Many people are excited about the upcoming Android Kit Kat update, but according to a recent leak, this new version may actually be a major step forward both in terms of usability and capabilities for Google’s OS.
Amir Efrati, who has broken Google and Android news before, has apparently taken a look at some official inside documents concerning Android 4.4 KitKat. According to him this might be a radical update to Google’s platform not just an iterative one.
Among the many new features and improvements that it’s supposed to bring, KitKat will supposedly finally deal with the fragmentation issue that has plagued the Android ecosystem ever since the OS first launched. This will come both in terms of support for the update and in integrated solutions that unify separate approaches from different OEMs. For example instead of Samsung, HTC, Moto and Sony each offering their own way to interact with an IR blaster, KitKat now brings an integrated solution that works on all handsets.
According to Efrati, KitKat has also been engineered to work on older and lower-end devices in a bid to bring them up to speed with newer and more powerful handsets. Memory management has also been improved, now allowing much more fluidity and responsiveness even in devices with only 512 MB RAM.
Speaking of those, KitKat also seems to be focused around new lower-end devices with many improvements designed to make Google and its OEMs more competitive in this field. After all, while the high-end markets seem saturated, developing markets are a huge and valuable battlefield for OEMs looking to sell more devices.
Other improvements are focused around Bluetooth and the addition of new sensors: geomagnetic rotation vector, step detection and step counters. These are definitely geared towards wearables, whether they’re Google Glass or upcoming smartwatches from OEMs or even completely new products that haven’t been announced yet. Whatever the case, Android is definitely gearing towards a wearable computing future.
Finally developers will supposedly be able to create applications that use “full-screen mode” which completely hides the navigation bar and lets the app shine from edge to edge. And alongside all these changes there may be some significant battery gains thanks to improvements in the KitKat update which should make many users quite happy.
Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long until Google decides to unveil KitKat to the world, and here’s hoping this info is accurate and the update does end up being a major one.
Source: JessicaLessin.com via: Engadget | Image via Google
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