Gadgetory

welcome to android weekly my name is Jace and this week we get to talk about some real goodies right from what the head or director of Android user experience Matias to art said is the single most exciting thing to come to the Nexus 5 to what experimental edition has been added to KitKat that could potentially change Android as we know it I know you're thinking that's hyperbole and one of you said I'm probably on Mac I am NOT but it does have something to do the speed now to start off let's talk about the new google keyboard what's new in the google keyboard it now has rationalized punctuation across different device sizes inserted emoji entry points and layouts simplified mini keyboard on full stop long press d blued press dates added space aware gesture typing so now you won't have to lift your finger while gesture typing except for when you go to the spacebar moving on to the latest hangouts update the latest google hangouts update actually features a newer build version than was found on the Nexus 5 this update seems to fix the video chat and crashing issues that some devices we're experiencing with the Nexus 5 version of the app if you have yet to try out the new version the biggest change here is the SMS integration there's also new animated gifs and the ability to share your location during a chat 4.4 kitkat unofficially arrives for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus you see when 4.4 KitKat was released last week with the promise to also be released to most of the older nexus devices Samsung Galaxy Nexus owners were happy but that was revealed shortly afterwards that Nexus owners wouldn't be getting KitKat through any official release yes and they cried a little bit weak but the good news is that the developer community is rallying to the support of those Samsung Galaxy Nexus owners at least in an unofficial capacity when available you can find the links below to get your version of 4.4 KitKat you'll feel right as rain the new Google Experience launcher is basically a revamped google search google now app with launcher functions that are currently exclusive to the Nexus 5 it may not come to android devices at all including Nexus models according to Matthias to art the director of Android user experience although you can download the apk for the Google Experience launcher providing the links below so why would Matthias report to the verge that this launcher is the single most exciting thing about the Nexus 5 well think about this for a moment if Google put search front and center of every product that it builds it certainly seems to be doing that it would then extend the greatest value to the user so at the moment it only applies to the home screen the google google now app and the launcher so to follow up on what matanzas said could then they be thinking of extending that feature to third-party apps think of the possibilities I could be watching Game of Thrones and at the same time search for the name and history of that amazing redhead without having to leave the app I know what you're thinking you know nothing geez bro oh let's talk android kitkat roms for those who don't mind going the unofficial route Android 4.4 KitKat roms already exist for the nexus 4 and 7 and even the verizon and gsm variants of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus now it looks like we can add three more devices to the list the gsm HTC One the Sony Xperia Z and a sprint towards plus version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus now moving on to the m8 otherwise known is the successor to the HTC One we know for instance that HTC is currently working on the successor to the popular one do in the first quarter of 2014 according to EV lakes the device is codenamed internally m8 you see the HTC One was codenamed m7 and will be the first device to run HTC's Sense 6 Android overlay let's talk about tickets experimental feature you see deep within KitKat is a feature that could potentially have a significant impact on user experience and it is called art no not that type of art I'm talking about Android runtime now it is meant to replace the aging dalvik and dalvik is a process virtual machine that's basically responsible for running Android apps on Android devices but it's slow and its aging an art is fast so fast that it is effectively halved the execution time of all the applications thrown at it far so even on old Galaxy Note devices i'd be like things but right now I'm more like LG g2 android 4.4 kitkat update tip for November or December a French mobile operator revealed on a smartphone software update page that the LG g2 will be updated to Android 4.4 KitKat in the following weeks without providing an actual update date it was listed November or December 2013 as they expected KitKat update period for LG's flagship smartphone which is what the Nexus 5 is largely based on now look into Samsung and 2014 and beyond peering further into the future Samsung hopes to have you HD also known as 4k displays on the market by sometime in 2015 while the benefits of such a high resolution are debatable Samsung and other display manufacturers are clearly going to push the envelope in this area as much as they can now if everything goes according to plan Samsung will move to have the current high-end resolution standard full HD moved to wqhd or 2560 x 1440 so how far can this res war really go and what's the point of an ever increasing resolution if it moves beyond what the human eye can appreciate anyway seems like things could get really silly I'll look at those images