The good, the bad, the ugly: Android Kit-Kat

Smart phones have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Blackberry kicked off the smart phone revolution and stayed on top for a number of years. Then came Apple. Apple and their iPhone swept the smart phone landscape by introducing a sleek case, intuitive features, and it combined a number of devices in one. It held the majority of the smart phone market share for a fair amount of time, and still today it holds a decent amount of the market share. But then the mighty Google came with their smart phone operating system. It was gunning for the top of the smart phone throne, and they had the resources to make a good run for the top. Google was able to have a number of phone manufacturers on board to host the Android operating system on their phones, and really the phone manufacturers had a lot of freedom in how the phone hardware looked and acted. This created a lot of freedom and a lot of phones came on the market that consumers really liked.

Android quickly became a top contender for king of the smart phones and recently Forbes said that Android had 81 percent of the market share. They are dominating the field, with many saying that the iOS 7 release by Apple was looking to mimic the look and feel of the Android Market. As they say, copying is the biggest form of flattery, and when Apple is copying your work, you know that you have definitely done something right with your product.

A Fresh Look

Most of the time, when new updates are released for consumer’s phones, not a lot changes. There are often little changes here and there, with some slightly added visual features and some more major updates in the background for various programs, and how the operating system works. Based on latest technology news and reviews, this however was not the case when Google released the Android Kit-Kat. Google launched a whole new look and feel with the operating system, and it is really quite the jump from what the operating system looked like beforehand. Likely trying to step away from being too similar to Apple’s iPhones, the people at Google knew what they were doing.

Screenshots of the Android Kit Kat reveal a much softer and lighter looking operating system than the Android operating systems of the past. Rather than having blue as the common theme throughout the operating system, Google decided to use a lot of white among the features created within the operating it. This is a lot easier on the eyes of the user, which is going to be great for those who view their phone a lot in the dark. It also makes for a much cleaner look and feel to the operating system.

Better Features

There are also a number of better features that come along with the Android Kit Kat operating system by Google. Voice activation is one of the biggest improvements that can be found within the Android Kit Kat operating system, according to the website named Stuff. Especially with winter approaching, great voice activation is an important feature to any smart phone. The iPhone voice activation and even phone activation of many previous Android operating systems were not very good. You had to speak slowly and deliberately if you wanted any of the words to be read properly and, even then, there were often a lot of mistakes. Google seems to have fixed that as reports are saying that the voice activation on the updated system is doing really well.

The layout of Google’s apps is much better on Android. The company has of course included integration for a variety of Google applications. Google Play, maps, etc., are all well laid out within the operating system, easily accessible, and will be a great experience for any Android user.

Final Thoughts

Google has done a spectacular job with the new Android Kit Kat. The product can be used on many older phones, requiring only 512mb of ram. Google has really opened it up to make sure that their product can be used by almost every current Android user. The product is extremely easy to use, and intuitive. It’s mixed all the right factors that a great mobile operating system needs into one lightweight package.