Taking some in the Android community by surprise, Motorola has announced that the KitKat 4.4 update is rolling out for the Moto X smartphone on Verizon before any of the competition.
In a blog post on the company’s website, Motorola's SVP of software engineering, Steve Horowitz, confirmed that the update will be “rolling out in phases to the Moto X on Verizon Wireless starting today.”
KitKat 4.4 offers improved support for mobile payment systems, including NFC and Square's credit card reader, a restyled navigation menu and a very handy “Find My Phone” feature that allows the user to initialize a search for a lost handset via voice control.
The new style of transparent navigation area is included, along with the white icon set in the notification area and transparent background. You’ll find a new dialer, updated camera icon, tweaked notification quick toggles, better location management, new Clock app, and that famous mosaic style Easter Egg. Tap & pay and Printing are now included in the settings as well, though Google Wallet still isn’t playing nice. I’m wondering if Google needs to push an update to Wallet to make it play nice with other Kit Kat devices.
One thing that is most definitely missing is the new Google Experience Launcher, but you shouldn’t have expected it to be there. Google already told us that the GEL was a Nexus 5 exclusive, so when you jump into the app drawer on the Moto X with Android 4.4, you will still see Widgets included; a long press on the home screen will also still only get you into a wallpaper picker.
Other enhancements included in the update include color emojis, an improved phone dialer, a drag-to-focus interface feature for the camera app and new photo gallery effects.
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