It seems as though all phone carriers who stocked the Galaxy S3 at one point in time are hell-bent on getting the Android 4.4.2 Kitkat update out finally and pushed OTA to everyone. We just finished writing on how Bell, TELUS and Rogers were issuing it in Canada, and now AT&T has decided to do the same on the same day. Right now we are well into seeing Android 4.4.3 for many smartphones and tablets, and although there is a halt in recent weeks of that, companies want to release the 4.4.2 sooner and not later s there isn’t any overlap in their own platforms.
Before today, it was the 4G LTE variants that received all the love in this software department. The phone carriers always look after the better handsets first, and incentive to make you buy them, or at least to give some satisfactions to the people who did spend all that money by making them the favorites. It’s not a tremendous compromise and if you don’t mind waiting a few extra weeks then who cares. Whats more is that the Canadian guys are publishing this all at the same time on this variant of the S3, so there is more unity coming.
It is an OTA update that arrives over the air either as a notification or from the Software updates menu. Most will get a notification, and you can simply click on the option it gives to begin the installation but sometimes it doesn’t appear due to reception concerns and other issues. Therefore, if you want to check manually you can do so by conforming to Settings > More > About Device> Software Update, and it will ping back any I747UCUFNE4 firmware ready for installing.
We’ve gone over it a lot, but we’ll go over it again, so you guys know what to expect after this update completes the download. The first thing after reboot you will instantly see is a camera icon on the lock screen. Now you can slide your thumb up and open the camera app. Note that it will not open it if you tap it and nobody can see your photo galleries unless the device it unlocked. It is purely for taking live-action photos. It allows people to take pictures of you doing activities without you yelling out the pass code cross a room full of people because that is not real security. Also, a lot of the time our photos happen in the moment and by the time we get around to unlocking our smartphones that moment is gone. It should aid in getting better shots exactly when you want one just like you would expect if you had a real camera in your pocket. What’s more is that it comes with wireless printing, keyboard improvements, Emoji for the keyboard, a new landscape mode, full immersive mode, HCE, default UICC, Google Hangouts for SMS texts, better Bluetooth connections, better phone dialer and the dialer application and more. You will also see white status bar icons including the WiFi, signal strength and battery indicators. When they start draining the left over area will be a transparent white. The notification tray is translucent and also has a new font inside.
No matter what phone carrier you are subscribed to these incremental updates roll out in stages so it might be there for you to install today or it might come sometime over the next few weeks. A lot of people bought the S3, and AT&T is a big name so the unluckiest of people certainly could be waiting the whole duration of several weeks until it comes to them.
The battery in this handset has a 2100 mAh capacity and gives 22 hours of talk time. That’s a good battery that can last, but these stats are for when it was brand new. By now we know that it is anything but new, and you’ll have to make sure yo have enough power to see through this update without it turning off. I recommend starting with 75% battery power and doing it over the home WiFi connection for better speed and less risk of a bad connection.
I recommend that everybody partakes in a full backup of the smartphone data to either internal storage or external storage depending on what better suits you. Most people do not have an external SD card, so they prefer to use internal storage if there is any space left. The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes with 32 GB of built-in storage and if you want more space try signing up to use Google Drive, Google’s own service that offers more data space. Backup call logs, photos, music, MMS and SMS texts, contacts and any other sensitive data you don’t want to lose. You can also sync with Samsung Kies or the Google Gmail account that your mobile is signed up with to use. Everybody needs this to begin using their smartphones for the first time.
If you want to beget some pleasure try heaving to Settings > About device and tapping on the build number fast to open up the KitKat Easter Eggs. In the past, we have seen the Zombie Androidpocalypse, Tron: Legacy Bee, Nyandroid, Jelly Bean mini-game and now we are exposed to the KitKat magic tiles.
Have you already received this update? Can you memorize the date and time you purchased your S3 smartphone from the store? Fill our readers in with what you know about this update so far after getting it to help them understand more.