Android 4.4 or Kit Kat as it’s better known is about to be rolled out, in fact it already has been rolled out and is live on Google Nexus 7. Soon it will be on your Android device, that is if your device happens to be Motorola or HTC, however there’s no news on Samsung as they are staying a little quiet on the whole issue. The big deal as far as mobile gaming is concerned is how will it affect operators...if at all.
Over the last 18 months it became very clear that mobile gaming operators much preferred dealing with iOS. When iOS 7 was rolled out it took just a short 36 hours and it was installed on around 50% of all iOS devices, Kit Kat, although appearing to offer an improved platform for gaming operators to work with, is a little different. The fact that there is no news of a rollout to Samsung devices is a major headache to operators, as of course Samsung users are aplenty.
There’s no doubt when looking at the figures that Kit Kat will offer gaming development teams something good to work with, and the fact that it is designed to work with a whole range of devices with a small 512MB of RAM is also a plus point. Developers are being handed a memory monitor to work with which allows them to check how their app performs on devices with low RAM, and to assist in seeing how much RAM your device will use when running in the background...pretty handy.
The Addition of Chromecast
Android is a little fragmented in nature and it is hoped that Kit Kat makes the operating system a little more like iOS and that is nothing but fantastic news for mobile games developers. Being allowed to design and rollout updates onto a more efficient platform will most definitely be a huge plus for them. Kit Kat will also add Chromecast support meaning that handheld devices may soon be able to be linked up to big screen HDTV’s, now that is a huge thing for mobile casino games developers. Full screen apps will be available, meaning that our little handhelds may soon be offering us the ability to play the largest on screen games ever. That won’t be for a while however but it’s thought that Chrome apps and Chromecast will be the next big thing for development teams.
