The trio of Motorola smartphones including the Moto X, Moto E and the Moto G are receiving a new Android 4.4.4 KitKat update rolling out over the air. While the Moto X signals are not expected to come until the start of February, the other two variants are already being pushed to device owners. Android 4.4.4 traditionally comes with a revamped phone dialer with a new shade of blue, a new font from the phone dialer, some performance enhancement, bug fixes and Google security patches–the largest being the hole found on OpenSSL. However, those features are not stock for all devices and these handsets are finding something different.
According to the official changelog, republic wireless is delivering “interesting functionality” and performance improvements, a revamped phone app with an emphasis on improving the contacts, immersive mode which we know comes with some devices with Android 4.4.2 KitKat, activation process and all that is coming to you under the 4.4.4 KitKat name.
To update is simple: wait for the official over the air (OTA) notification to alert you of a new system update, accept the “download” and “install now” options from the display and wait for the new software update to restart your phone. You can log in to your account again, navigate to the Settings, followed by About Device and check what version of Android your device is running. Hopefully the numbers jump from 4.4.2 to 4.4.4.
Always tap the installation buttons unless you are around a stable WiFi connection. The WiFi doesn’t use up your data allowance from RW, it uses your home account and that doesn’t come with expensive charges if you are going over the limit. Furthermore, the carrier networks usually hope you stay off the mobile data plan when updating to skip the high traffic from others installing the same.
There is some downside to singing up with a network such as Republic Wireless: you don’t have coverage that’s as good in many areas, you don’t get updates as promptly (most Motorola handsets are on Android 5.0 Lollipop already), but you do get great service when it comes. Check out the official changelog here which is personally written up for your pleasure. Most companies including the Big Red–the largest phone carrier network in the United States– do not come with up with such extensive and detailed support pages for your pleasure.
Those of you erring on the side of caution should use the built-in backup functionality to store the data on the internal memory. That way if you perform a factory reset or a hard reset you don’t lose any of the data such as the phone contacts, pictures and video files.