Today, Motorola began rolling out Android 4.4.2 to the Moto G. Beating their timeline of having KitKat available in January for their new budget device. The Moto G just began shipping here in the US this week, and it’s already updating from Android 4.3 to Android 4.4.2. Not bad Motorola, not bad at all. Here’s the changelog for the Moto G:
Android 4.4, KitKat: Android 4.4.2, KitKat, is the latest release of the Android platform. KitKat includes enhancements such as restyled status and navigation bars, a new full-screen mode, color emoji support, improved closed captioning support, stronger security, smarter power use, and more tools and capabilities for better app development.
Phone dialer: Improved the phone app with the ability to look up contacts directly from the dial pad, see and tap frequent contacts, and search your corporate directory easily.
Camera – Focus and exposure: Enhanced the “touch to focus” option with a new circular, on screen control that can be dragged by your finger around the viewfinder to adjust a photo’s focus and exposure.
Gallery – Photo editing: Added new photo editing options to the Gallery app including new filter effects, draw on your photos, advanced cropping, and adjustments to color, exposure, contrast and more.
Printing documents and pictures: Added support for printing photos, Google Docs, GMail messages, and other content via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and hosted services like Google Cloud Print and HP ePrinters.
Hangouts – SMS/MMS support: Incorporated a new version of Google Hangouts that supports integrated SMS/MMS messaging. Hangouts can be set as the default SMS app under Settings > Wireless > Default SMS app.
Accessory: support Added support for Square credit card reader.
Pretty big update. It’s pretty interesting to see the Moto G get this update before the Moto X. But my guess is that the Moto G is even closer to stock Android than the Moto X is, and they probably started on that update after the Moto X updates were complete, which is when Android 4.4.2 came out from Google. Hopefully the Moto X will have Android 4.4.2 in the next few weeks. Motorola’s doing a great job with updates lately.