Androidifying

The latest and greatest version of Android has now been officially announced, and it’s named after a candy bar. Android 4.4 KitKat is the next version of Android, soon to grace Nexus smartphones all over the world, and eventually other brands whenever they get around to updating their phones. KitKat sports an updated aesthetic, getting rid of the Tron blue accents for all white icons in the status bar. Also, the status bar and navigation bar are both transparent on the homescreen. The Roboto font has been tweaked, and the launcher has been redesigned. Icons look different as well. It isn’t a huge change, but it refreshes the look of the operating system and keeps things fresh and modern. And if you don’t like it, remember that it’s Android. Just theme it! A few apps were redesigned as well. The dialer now has smart searching capabilities, allowing you to find people or businesses without leaving the dialer. Also, the Messaging app is simply gone, replaced by a new version of Hangouts

The Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 might be arriving very soon, but Google has already been working on updating all of its apps on the Play Store, a couple of days before the Kit Kat announcement. They’ve just updated all of these apps (Hangouts may still not be updated for everyone yet, but it should be soon, which means you can enjoy SMS support): Blogger Calendar Chrome Drive Earth Gmail Goggles Google+ Hangouts Keep Play Magazines Translate Wallet This isn’t exactly the first time Google has done this, although perhaps they’ve never updated so many apps at once, and around the time of the new Android version launch. This may be because there could be a lot of new changes under the hood for Android 4.4, and Google needed to upgrade all of its apps to take advantage of those changes. That also means that unless you will get Android 4.4 soon, you might not be able to take advantage of those changes. Since Google is going to get the Linux kernel 3.10, if they took advantage of the kernel’s

Once upon a time Google launched something called Google TV that was supposed to take the world by storm. Unfortunately it never really took off the way Google thought it would, and just this year it seemed that Google might just be dropping the Google TV thing for a little device called Chromecast. While Chromecast does many things, it isn’t even close to being as full featured as Google TV, and there’s a big reason for that.  Google TV runs Android, and as such is a lot more powerful than Chromecast is. There’s also the fact that the hardware on a Google TV device is generally a lot more powerful than a Chromecast too. Now it sounds as if all that is going to change with the introduction of Android 4.4 KitKat. We’ve heard in the past that Google might be trying to re brand Google TV to Android TV, but this is the first big rumor about KitKat changing the landscape for those devices. It’s not clear whether or not Google will push for all Google TV’s up to this point to be updated to

Google on Monday advised SMS app developers to get their apps in order for the arrival of Android 4.4 KitKat, which will let users select their “default SMS app.” The company did not reveal when Android 4.4 KitKat will be released, although it did say it’s coming “later this year.” Furthermore, Google did not mention whether Hangouts will get SMS and MMS support in Android 4.4,  as it’s currently rumored . However, it’s clear that Google plans some changes for SMS apps, which is why it’s making sure developers update their apps accordingly. Developers will have to update their apps to make sure they work properly in Android 4.4, as only one app will become the default SMS app – which means just one app will be able to both send and receive SMS messages. Other installed SMS apps will be able to only receive the same messages, but will not have the power to send messages – until the user selects the app as a default SMS app, that is. Developers are encouraged to turn off features of thei

    Here’s some interesting news, and a leak that normally happens close to an announcement. It appears that some web logs are seeing Android 4.4 builds on some Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 devices. The build is KRT10F, KRT10, and KRT13. So this looks to be a more updated version of KitKat than what we’ve seen in other leaks lately. What’s interesting is that it’s showing up on both Nexus 4 and Nexus 5′s. Which pretty much confirms that the new Nexus will be named the Nexus 5. Now how can we decode these build numbers? Well basically the first letter stands for the release. So in Jelly Bean we had J builds, and in Ice Cream Sandwich we had I builds. Now the second letter stands for the branch code that allows Google to identify which code branch the build was made from. R is normally the primary release branch. Now the third letter and two numbers are for the date. The letter is for the quarter and the numbers are for the day. So it looks like this one was built on October 10th an

It was just last week when our friends up in Cupertino announced that the iPhone 5S will be launching with 64 bit support. Apple may not be the only player in town when it comes to adapting the 64 bit architecture on a mobile phone. Thanks to a photo that was reportedly taken at an Intel Developer Forum, 64bit support is slated as a future enhancement to Android. Although the word “Kit Kat” was not in the photo, if true, the timing may not be a coincidence. If this photo is legitimate, we may have also gotten our first glimpse of some of the changes that may be appearing in Android 4.4 Kit Kat including NDK Apps Bridging Technology and a Highly Tuned Dalvik Runtime. If these features are correct, they will help speed up the execution of applications. It is important to note that if Android 4.4 Kit Kat does indeed implement initial support for 64 bit processing, you will need to have a device that can take advantage of the new architecture to run in 64 bit mode. So no, your Nexus 4 (

The next version of Android will be called Android 4.4 KitKat and offer the great Android experience to everybody. On the eve of IFA 2013 Google has dropped a bombshell. The next version of Android won’t be called Key Lime Pie, in fact it won’t even be Android 5.0. Senior Vice President of Google, Sundar Pichai, confirmed that the next version of Android will be named after the chocolate KitKat. Apparently KitKat’s are a favourite snack at the Google offices, hence the name  Android 4.4 Kit Kat. Just back from a whirlwind trip to Asia visiting our Android ecosystem partners in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Exciting to see all the high quality Android devices available now, including Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, LG G2, Sony Xperia and many more. Also looking forward to the new devices our partners are launching in Berlin at IFA, played around with them last week and really nice -- stay tuned; we’ve got a lot more coming! All this Android innovation is driving tremendous ecosystem momentum an