Android 4.4 KitKat has been officially announced and as
usual, the latest version of the Android OS debuts
alongside the a new Nexus, the Nexus 5. So, what's new?
Well, the 4.4 KitKat aims to reach the next 1 billion users
and it will scale automatically to fit on the devices with as
little as 512 MB of RAM.
The design of the OS has been polished and it looks better
than ever. Android 4.4 brings a new phone app, which now
helps you search across your contacts, nearby places or
even through any other Google app accounts, right from
your dialler app.
Google's new Hangout app comes out of the box on Android
4.4. It puts all your SMS and MMS under one roof along
with other conversations and video calls so that you don't
miss messages regardless of how they are sent.
The lock screen now has a camera shortcut and there is an
option to rearrange the home screens to match your
requirements. All devices without hardware keys now get
extra room as the navigation interface disappears as soon
as an app is launched.
As one can expect, the newest Android version brings a
whole lot of new features for Google's search platform.
You can now activate search with keywords and the speech
recognition engine is about 25 percent more accurate than
before, according to Google.
You can use the hotwords to launch voice search with the
Google Now, send a text, get directions or even play a
song. The upcoming version of the Google Now will bring
new card types that keep you updated with contextual
topics of interest to you.
Android 4.4's new framework allows you to AirPrint (a
feature similar to wireless printing), which is however
limited to HP printers only for now. The OS now supports
third-party cloud storage in the Gallery app
Google aims to make Android accessible to everyone, even
people with low-end hardware. In the past, due to the
memory constraints, some lower-end smartphones couldn't
get a taste of the newer Android versions, but with KitKat
that's about to change. Android 4.4 KitKat removes
unnecessary background services and reduces the memory
consumption to a large extent, which now allows the OS to
run smoothly even on devices with 512MB RAM. Ironically,
the Galaxy Nexus with 1GB RAM will not get KitKat.
Google has also managed to enhance the battery
performance through its sensor batching, which reduces
the data requests. Lastly, Android 4.4 comes with under
the hood tweaks and changes to enhance the overall
performance of the OS.
Android 4.4 KitKat will be powering the newly launched
Google Nexus 5 out of the box, while the roll out for the
other Nexus devices will begin in the coming days.

http://www.gsmarena.com/android_44_kitkat_official_aims_to_reach_1_billion_users-news-7105.php