U.S cellular, one of the smallest mobile phone carriers in the United States, is kindly updating their Samsung Galaxy S3 units with Android 4.4.2 KitKat OTA starting now. It’s not always the case that the biggest wireless communications service provider issues these over the air software updates first, but inevitably the ones that are towards the bottom of the list in terms of subscribers are often the last. That has been the case here yet again, but the good news is that it didn’t take that long since we first saw the Sprint company release it, and they were first. Boost mobile and Virgin Mobile are also two smaller wireless companies that begun their roll out already also.
Some blogs that are popular are calling this 4.4 when in fact it is 4.4.2. They seem to do this deliberately although to me that doesn’t make sense and is very confusing. I’m confident this is the software with another .2 on the end and not the original KitKat. Some may say that it is not a big deal, but that is not true because there are several feature changes on top of bug fixes that make this update worthwhile and certainly worth a mention and reading about.
Before I get started on what is in this update let me first say that we are witnessing some forum chatter about a few issues, some people are experiencing after updating to this firmware. The one to look out for is in the WiFi. Only a few people are reporting this so it won’t necessarily happen to you if you go ahead and install it, but a slight chance is there. As so often is the case, the amount of goodness that it brings with other bug fixes will far outweigh any new bug. If you are experiencing some signs of an unstable OS then by all means download this one with confidence.
This software update has an all new Emoji keyboard that has various new smiley faces. If you text a lot there is no better way than letting more personality come through your texts other than with Emoji. The lock screen has a new camera shortcut. Many people don’t know that you can also bring up the music album from the lock screen also. Note that the camera app is opened here by swiping upwards and not by tapping. It looks like a nice tap will open the big icon in the bottom right corner, but it won’t. The default messaging app has changed. Select it between messages now and it is the Google hangouts that start as the native app. Visit he settings menu to change this. Get access to the Home launcher by TouchWiz basic home, TouchWiz easy home and any third-party launcher. Location services are more detailed and integrated better than before. Wireless printing is now easy done through a dedicated Wireless printing Network. GMS apps are updated to support Google Drive and Google Photos.
Then there’s the usual list of all white icons in the status bar. Some parts f this was green and orange. It is changed to better suit Kitkat. The notification tray has a new font. Performance is a lot better than before. Speed-wise it is amazing and much faster, browse through the OS seamlessly. There ‘re heaps of bug fixes and enhancements so get cracking and download when you can. For your sake, I hope that it soon and you aren’t one of the last ones to find it. Remember that often these files became available to download manually.
If you are subscribed to U.C Cellular, unfortunately, there is no changelog released by the team, so all the information you have to go on is what we report. Luckily we do know a lot about this particular build and although everything might not be identical, and there are bound to be a few different bug fixes, for the most part we will find out the same.
It rolls out in stages so not not everybody will be receiving it on the same day. The good news is that you don’t have to keep checking manually because a notification will be issued that a system update is ready to for installation. However, if you do want to install it manually, you can always go to Settings > More > About Device > Software Updates and check for updates. After tapping, it will now search and pingback in response.