Newsletter
Happy birthday, Android 4.4! Your present is death. In a short and sweet blog from Google, we got the news that Android 4.4 Kitkat is officially dead. Google is going to kill off support for this version sometime in August.
We’re sure that a portion of smartphone users weren’t even born yet when Android 4.4 came out. However, for those of us that remember, this version of Android came out 10 years ago. While it was version 4.4, it was actually the 11th version of the platform, right after Jellybean. It was the last version of Android to have a version number with a decimal.
Android 4.4 brought features like saying “Ok Google” to access the voice assistant, full-screen album covers on the lock screen, emojis in the Google Keyboard, unlimited home screen pages, and other neat additions.
Also, a fun fact: Android Kitkat’s internal name was actually “Key Lime Pie.”
Android 4.4 Kitkat is now officially dead
Android was a fun and sweet version of the then-burgeoning operating system. However, all sweets go bad over time, and Google is getting ready to give version 4.4 its official sendoff.
In the short blog post, Google stated that Android 4.4 fell below 1% of active usage. This should come as no surprise, as there have been nine additional versions released since then. Since so few people use devices with this version of Android, Google is officially dropping support for it.
This means that phones running this version of Android will no longer get any updates to Google Play Services. Since Google Play Services are pretty essential to the Android experience, phones running this version of Android will lose a ton of utility when this happens.
If you’re still rocking a phone with Android 4.4 (which isn’t recommended, anyway), you will want to think about switching up. This will officially go into effect in August. Since we’re in late July there’s not much time until that happens.
Need to switch up?
If you need to pick up a new phone, but you don’t have much money to spend, we have a list of the best budget Android phones on the market. It’s an ever-updated list of the best phones you can get on a budget.