Android KitKat is the codename for the eleventh Android

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...

, representing release version 4.4. Unveiled on September 3, 2013, KitKat focused primarily on optimizing the operating system for improved performance on entry-level devices with limited resources. The first phone with Android KitKat was the

Nexus 5 Nexus 5 (code-named Hammerhead) is an Android smartphone sold by Google and manufactured by LG Electronics. It is the fifth generation of the Nexus series, succeeding the Nexus 4. It was unveiled on October 31, 2013 and served as the launc ...

. 1.39% of Android devices run KitKat. it is the oldest Android version still supported by

Google Play Services Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device When it was introduced in 2012, it pro ...

and is currently the minimum version to develop apps for the

Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...

History

Android 4.4 " KitKat" was officially announced on September 3, 2013. The release was internally codenamed " Key lime pie"; but John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships, and his team, decided to drop the name, arguing that "very few people actually know the taste of a key lime pie". Aiming for a codename that was "fun and unexpected", his team pursued the possibility of naming the release "KitKat" instead. Lagerling phoned a representative of

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

, who owns the

Kit Kat Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom, and is now produced globally by Nestlé (which acquired Rowntree's in 1988), except in the United Sta ...

brand and produces the confectionery (outside the United States, where it is produced by

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

under license), and quickly reached a preliminary deal for a promotional collaboration between the two companies, later finalized in a meeting at

Mobile World Congress MWC Barcelona (formerly but still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress) is an annual trade show organised by GSMA, dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry. The event is held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the ...

in February 2013. The partnership was not revealed publicly, or even to other Google employees and Android developers (who otherwise continued to internally refer to the OS as "KLP"), until its official announcement in September. As part of the promotional efforts, Kit Kat bars in the shape of the Android robot logo were produced, while Hershey ran a contest in the United States with prizes of

Nexus 7 Nexus 7 is a series of Android-based mini tablet computers co-developed by Google, and may refer to: * Nexus 7 (2012), the first generation * Nexus 7 (2013) The second-generation Nexus 7, also commonly referred to as the Nexus 7 (2013), ...

tablets and

credit. The

, developed by

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered ...

, was unveiled on September 30, 2013, as the launch device for KitKat. Up to October 2017, Android 4.4 was still supported with security patches by Google for the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...

Development

Continuing on from the focus on improving visual performance and responsiveness on Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean", the main objective of Android 4.4 was to optimize the platform for better performance on low-end devices, without compromising its overall capabilities and functionality. The initiative was codenamed "Project Svelte", which Android head of engineering Dave Burke joked was a

weight loss Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health, or physical fitness, refers to a reduction of the total body mass, by a mean loss of fluid, body fat ( adipose tissue), or lean mass (namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon, and other co ...

plan after Jelly Bean's "Project Butter" added "weight" to the OS. To simulate lower-spec devices, Android developers used

Nexus 4 The Nexus 4 (codenamed Mako) is an Android smartphone co-developed by Google and LG Electronics. It is the fourth smartphone in the Google Nexus product family, unveiled on October 29, 2012, and released on November 13, 2012, and succeeded th ...

devices underclocked to run at a reduced CPU speed with only a single core active, 512 MB memory, and at 960×540 display resolution—specifications meant to represent a common low-end Android device. A development tool known as ProcStats was developed in order to analyze the memory usage of apps over time, especially those that run background services. This data was used to optimize and decouple Google apps and services found to be inefficient, thus helping to reduce the overall memory usage of Android. Additionally, 4.4 was designed to be more aggressive in managing memory, helping to guard against apps wasting too much memory.

Features

User experience

The overall interface of KitKat further downplays the "Holo" interface appearance introduced on 4.0, replacing remaining instances of blue accenting with greys and white (such as the status bar icons), and getting rid of the

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

upstream and downstream traffic indicators (triangles pointing up and down), though they can still be seen in the quick control center menu. The Wi-Fi icon colour when only a connection to an access point with no Internet access has been established has changed from grey to orange. The appearance may deviate in custom vendor distributions such as

TouchWiz TouchWiz was a user interface developed by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd with partners, featuring a full touch user interface. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as an operating system. TouchWiz is used internally by Samsung for smartphones, ...

. Apps may trigger a translucent status and navigation bar appearance, or trigger a full screen mode ("Immersive mode") to hide them entirely. The launcher also received a refreshed appearance, with the implementation of the translucent navigation bars, and the replacement of the black backdrop in the application drawer with a translucent backdrop. Additionally, action overflow menu buttons in apps are always visible, even on devices with the deprecated "Menu" navigation key. In the Settings menu, users can now specify a default Home (launcher) and

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...

app. On stock devices, the Messaging and Movie Studio apps were removed; the former was replaced by

Google Hangouts Google Hangouts is a discontinued cross-platform instant messaging service developed by Google. It originally was a feature of Google+, becoming a standalone product in 2013, when Google also began integrating features from Google+ Messenger a ...

, which supported

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

. The AOSP Gallery app was also deprecated in favor of

Google+ Photos Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape (which at that time was incubated by Ide ...

Platform

A new

runtime environment In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile ...

known as the Android Runtime (ART), intended to replace the

Dalvik virtual machine Dalvik is a discontinued process virtual machine (VM) in the Android operating system that executes applications written for Android. (Dalvik bytecode format is still used as a distribution format, but no longer at runtime in newer Android version ...

, was introduced as a

technology preview A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

in KitKat. ART is a cross-platform runtime which supports the x86, ARM, and MIPS architectures in both

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculati ...

and

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A ...

environments. Unlike Dalvik, which uses

just-in-time compilation In computing, just-in-time (JIT) compilation (also dynamic translation or run-time compilations) is a way of executing computer code that involves compilation during execution of a program (at run time) rather than before execution. This may co ...

(JIT), ART compiles apps upon installation, which are then run exclusively from the compiled version from then on. This technique removes the processing overhead associated with the JIT process, improving system performance. Devices with 512 MB of RAM or less report as "low RAM" devices. Using an API, apps may detect low RAM devices and modify their functionality accordingly. KitKat also supports zram. WebView components were updated to utilize a version of the

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, ...

rendering engine Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined ...

. A new Storage Access Framework API allows apps to retrieve files in a consistent manner; as part of the framework, a new system file picker (branded as "Documents") allows users to access files from various sources (including those exposed by apps, such as online storage services). A public API was introduced for creating and managing

clients. Sensor batching, step detection and counter APIs were also added. KitKat supports host card emulation for

near-field communication Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm (1 in) or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be u ...

s, which allows apps to emulate a

smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

for activities such as

mobile payment A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of ...

References

External links

* * * https://getapkfree.app/ {{Google Inc. Android (operating system) 2013 software