What better day to announce your new candy-themed operating system than the day everyone is dressing up and trying to get their hands on as much chocolate as possible?
Today Google debuted the operating system it announced last month with the launch of the Nexus 5 smartphone. Android 4.4 KitKat is finally up for display and, while it doesn't necessarily reinvent the Android operating system wheel, it is still packed with plenty of exciting new features.
"Building a platform that makes mobile phones accessible for everyone has always been at the heart of Android," reads a post on the Google Blog. "Until now, some lower-end Android phones couldn't benefit from more recent Android releases due to memory constraints. With KitKat, we've slimmed down Android's memory footprint by doing things like removing unnecessary background services and reducing the memory consumption of features that you use all the time."
KitKat does take many features from its predecessor, Jelly Bean. According to Google, KitKa can run comfortably on devices with at least 512MB of RAM.
According to IGN, changes to the Android interface include an updated Phone app, which adds integrated searchable contacts, directories in other Google apps and even nearby businesses. When you're watching a video or reading a book, the immersive mode will hide all of your open elements that are eating up storage on your phone and allow you to focus on the content you're actually using. A new Hangouts app will allow you to throw all of your messages and texts into one area and not make you worry about backing out of the app to find the messages elsewhere. Android 4.4 will also allow you to use any third-party text application on the Google Play store as your default SMS conduit.
Android 4.4 is available right now, pre-loaded on the new Nexus 5. The os update will also be available to Nexus 4, 7 and 10 devices in addition to the Google Play Editions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One sometime in the coming weeks, according to Google.
