The
4.4 KitKat version of the mobile OS and the Google Nexus 5 are two of
the biggest Android developments which
can disrupt the mobile industry going into 2014.
KitKat was in the pipeline and people were waiting for Google to make
it official along with the company's latest mobile device, the Nexus
5. After months of unconfirmed image and specification leaks,
speculations and debates, Google's premium smartphone is finally
available to order on Google Play.
According
to Sundar Pichai, senior vice president, Android, Chrome and Google
Apps, the new operating system has been redesigned making it not only
compatible with a range of smartphones in 2014 but also phones with
last year's specifications. This is great news for Android
app developers as the new OS
opens up the market even further, by including lower to mid-range
phones that don't ship with a lot of RAM. Google says the minimum RAM
requirement for KitKat OS to run smoothly on mobiles is a modest 512
MB.
What to expect?
Google's mobile OS and its
different versions power numerous devices. With KitKat, the company
wants to unify all of its software under a common umbrella. It
foresees the next billion people going mobile with a single OS –
KitKat 4.4. Till now, these different iterations posed a challenge to
publishers of fun, hip mobile apps who weren't able to design
programs that would work on all devices. Users stuck with older
versions of the OS were not able to get access to improvements or
upgrades each succeeding version had to offer.
This
latest Android development
will surely be appreciated by millions of users in developing markets
and around the world as the changes in the new OS enable it to work
with limited memory capacity smartphones in the entry level price
bracket. Pichai also remarked that Google is looking to take the same
Android version and make it compatible with all existing and future
versions (till atleast 2014) of mobile devices. The whole idea behind
this new release is to prevent fragmentation of the multiple versions
of the OS and bring them all together.
New revenue source for
developers
The
good news for Android app developers
has to be the fact that Google has already released KitKat to handset
makers. It means they can start building their smartphones based on
the new software, with developers getting more monetization
opportunities from apps that can run on both past and upcoming
handsets. KitKat has quite a few improvements up its sleeve,
especially the user interface, which is now richer and more
intuitive. The OS anticipates what a user wants to see before being
asked, like when you are near a movie theater, it displays show
times.
Google went with LG again this
time to design its latest smartphone. The South Korean consumer
electronics company had partnered with Google last year to
manufacture the Nexus 4. Back then, Google introduced their Jelly
Bean 4.1 OS running on the phone, and though the device had a lot
going for it, erratic supply chains prevented it from becoming a
phenomenon like other flagships, namely the Samsung Galaxy S3 or S4.
But that was last year, and this time around, we hope both Google and
LG to get their acts together.
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