Kit Kat: What you need to know
With the impending launch of Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) on a wide variety of devices, what are the key features mobile gambling operators need to know about?
Android KitKat is here, with version 4.4 of Google’s smartphone operating system already live on the Google Nexus 7 and coming soon on an Android phone near you. Well, probably. Plans for the rollout of Kit Kat onto HTC and Motorola devices are underway, although there has been something of a deafening silence from Samsung so far.
Compare the rollout of iOS 7, which saw the updated OS installed on 50% of devices within 36 hours of launch, to Kit Kat and you get an instant insight into why operators prefer Apple devices at this point in time. And the absence of Kit Kat on Samsung devices would be a big miss to egaming operators as these are typically premium users. But there is a lot to be excited about with Kit Kat.
First and foremost Kit Kat is designed to work with a huge range of devices with the minimum requirement just 512MB of RAM. According to Google, KitKat streamlines every major component to reduce memory use. Developer tools include a memory monitor to see how much RAM your device uses when running in the background as well as how your app performs on devices with low RAM.
The aim, seemingly, is for as wide an adoption of the Kit Kat update as possible to bring it more into line with Apple and move away from the current fragmented nature of Android. This would be a big win for developers, but it’s not just about making the OS leaner and more efficient. With Kit Kat Google are moving more towards the phone being the centre of the users payments world with new open architecture for NFC payments. This allows users to use their phone as an NFC smart card.
But far more interesting for egaming operators is the addition of full screen apps and Chromecast support. The ability to launch apps full screen is designed to give a more immersive user experience with even the status bar and navigation bar hidden. For casino games suffering from the small screen experience this could be a huge boost. But the ultimate big screen experience is through the link to Chromecast.
Kit Kat adds Chromecast support to allow Android users to view mobile content on their HDTV using a Chromecast dongle. The devices aren’t openly available in the UK until some point in 2014, but the use of Chrome apps and Chromecast are expected to be a big area of focus for Android egaming developers over the next year.