What’s new in Android 4.4.3 KitKat

Now that Android 4.4.3 is available for some devices, it’s time to take a look at new features an improvements. For the most part the update is about bug fixes and security enhancements, which isn’t surprising when Google only bothered to change the version number from 4.4.2 to 4.4.3.

But there are a couple of more visible changes including a new phone Dialer app, an updated People app, and more.

Android 4.4.3 factory images and binaries are available for the latest Google Nexus phones and tablets, and the software is starting to roll out to users in over-the-air updates.

Here are some of the things you can expect to see if and when you get the new OS:

• The Dialer app has a light color scheme instead of dark.
• You can also rearrange contact cards in the Dialer.
• Google has also updated the People app with colorful icons for contacts that have no pictures (just like you’d see in the Gmail app).
• You can now pause downloads of additional game files for large games from the Play Store.

Some users are also noting improvements for specific devices. For instance Nexus 5 users reportthat there’s no longer an audio hiss when recording videos, WiFi performance is more consistent, and the mm-qcamera-daemon bug which had caused the camera to drain battery on some devices some of the time seems to have been fixed.

While it looks like Google plans to limit write access to the /system partition for rooted devices (unrooted devices never had support for writing to /system) in a future version of Android, that security feature hasn’t made it into Android 4.4.3.