Android KitKat released

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by mr_nihilism

Nexus 7 (2012) just updated today.

Same here

[MeSue]

Originally Posted by mr_nihilism

Nexus 7 (2012) just updated today.

Mine did too. So that's why my connection was so slow earlier today!

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I'm just receiving the update.
I've charged it for the first time in maybe 10 days.
Maybe connecting it to the charger makes for the difference?
Anyway...downloading now...

Safe guard?
Similar to "do not cut off."
"Don't unplug."

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Update just downloaded. I need to decide whether or not to install it now.

Why are you hesitating? I'm getting excellent battery life on my N7 ever since I updated and I haven't experienced any bugs so far.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Why are you hesitating? I'm getting excellent battery life on my N7 ever since I updated and I haven't experienced any bugs so far.

Loss of Flash support is the blocker for me.

The thing is, I don't even know whether the sites I look at use Flash or HTML5 - how could I tell?

Websites I use most are the BBC website (videos embedded in that) and YouTube. What about BBC iPlayer - is that Flash?

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Loss of Flash support is the blocker for me.

The thing is, I don't even know whether the sites I look at use Flash or HTML5 - how could I tell?

Websites I use most are the BBC website (videos embedded in that) and YouTube. What about BBC iPlayer - is that Flash?

Embedded videos on the BBC website and BBC iPlayer are both still working fine on my Nexus 4 which updated to KitKat yesterday.

The update's waiting on my N7 (2012), so I'll just go run that and test there, then edit this post with the results.

Edit: Mixed results. See below.

Graham

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Loss of Flash support is the blocker for me.

The thing is, I don't even know whether the sites I look at use Flash or HTML5 - how could I tell?

Websites I use most are the BBC website (videos embedded in that) and YouTube. What about BBC iPlayer - is that Flash?

BBC and YouTube videos all work fine.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Graham

Embedded videos on the BBC website and BBC iPlayer are both still working fine on my Nexus 4 which updated to KitKat yesterday.

The update's waiting on my N7 (2012), so I'll just go run that and test there, then edit this post with the results.

Graham

Originally Posted by Gazella

BBC and YouTube videos all work fine.

Thanks both - that looks promising then. I'll just wait for Graham's update.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Thanks both - that looks promising then. I'll just wait for Graham's update.

Hmm. You may want to hold off for a bit.

I'm getting a problem with audio on the N7 (2012). BBC iPlayer and videos on the BBC website play fine, as does Netflix, but in all of them the audio sounds weak and distorted.

It's louder from Google Play Music and games (I tried Settlers of Catan), but still scratchy and distorted.

It sounds fine through headphones. So if you don't use the speaker on your N7 you'd be fine, but otherwise keep an eye on the internet for a fix to the audio problem. (People seem to be reffering to it as 'the speaker bug'.)

Graham

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Why are you hesitating? I'm getting excellent battery life on my N7 ever since I updated and I haven't experienced any bugs so far.

I agree. I even went for the full KitKat look like on the Nexus 5 by installing the GoogleHome.apk. By installing this one small apk it gave me the complete Google Experience Launcher as seen on the Nexus 5. I had to read a little and I watched one quick YouTube video on the launcher so I could set it up the way I wanted but it looks and operates great (YMMV). You also get the search voice activation if you are not in an app. Say OK Google and search pops up waiting for input.

Use the following at your own risk. I'm not sure the risk vs reward is large enough to mess with this unless you like mucking with things and do not mind killing everything and starting over from scratch.

I went one step further. Android packaged a new experimental Android Runtime called ART. You can go to Development Options (google how to unlock this feature if you haven't done so yet, a 3 second operation) and Select runtime and change from Dalvik to ART. Keep in mind this is experimental.

The difference between the two is Dalvik uses Just in Time (JIT) compiling to compile the app into an executable when you run the app. ART will compile the app ahead of time. This means when I go to launch Scrabble it starts quite a bit faster than it previously did because the lengthy compiling has already completed. I specifically mention Scrabble because it is quite large and was my absolutely slowest, as far as startup was concerned, app. I can say without hesitation that this single app does start-up noticeably faster under ART.

Most of the other apps I use regularly I run from a widget so I think they are already running when I go to start them up.

As a matter of fact if you switch to ART it will immediately take the time and compile all of your Apps, this could take a few minutes. Since it is experimental it also means some apps might not run. I have not run into any apps yet that do not work. I have tested the following apps:

All Google Apps
AVG Antivirus Free for tablets
Flipboard
Feedly
Calibre Companion
Moon+ Reader Pro
Color Dict
Plex
Justin TV
Twit.tv
Vettle
Netflix
HuluPlus
WFMY Radar
WFMY News
Yahoo Weather
Dropbox
iHeartRadio
Amazon App Store
TweetCaster
Twitter
Facebook
Tapatalk 4
File Manager HD (by Rhythm Software)

I also use the following Widgets
Flipboard
Calendar
Gmail
Uptime
Clock
Battery HD (by smalltech)
FlashLight HD LED (by smalltech)

[Bilbo1967]

Thanks Graham.

Given that I virtually never use the speakers, I've gone ahead and updated. BBC iPlayer seems to work fine, but I don't seem to be able to play embedded video on the BBC website via my preferred browser (Firefox). Having said that, Chrome seems to work fine, so I can live with that - what browser were you using?

ETA; in case anybody uses Sky Go, that appears to stop working - prompting for an unavailable update. If you clear the app's data it seems to work just fine again.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Given that I virtually never use the speakers, I've gone ahead and updated. BBC iPlayer seems to work fine, but I don't seem to be able to play embedded video on the BBC website via my preferred browser (Firefox). Having said that, Chrome seems to work fine, so I can live with that - what browser were you using?

I was using Chrome.

Is the sound through your speakers OK?

I've been doing some research, and the issue with Nexus 7 speakers goes back a year. An internal mesh can shift and then low frequencies cause a buzz. An earlier update to Android apparently changed the EQ slightly to remove these frequencies to mitigate this problem on devices where the speaker assembly had shifted.

My current guess is that my N7 had got the speaker problem, but that the 4.4 update doesn't have this EQ fix, so it seemed to appear suddenly after the update.

I've had a reply from Google Support but they just gave me instructions on how to set my ringtone, etc. I sometimes wonder if support staff ever actually read the issues first time round, or whether some automated bot sends out a reply on the first pass based on keyword recognition, and then human beings only deal with the subsequent follow-ups.

Graham

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Graham

Is the sound through your speakers OK?

Not the same model, but the sound through my speakers on my Nexus 7 (2013) seems fine.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Graham

I was using Chrome.

Is the sound through your speakers OK?

Graham

I'm at work so can't really try that out now I'll update when I'm at home this evening.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Not the same model, but the sound through my speakers on my Nexus 7 (2013) seems fine.

Thanks. I'm thinking this is a hardware issue. My Nexus 7 came out of warranty today sadly... bought on 26th November 2012.

Edit: My wife just came home and confirmed that the Nexus 7 has had the problem for a couple of weeks. So, definitely hardware and not related to the 4.4 update.

Graham