In the wake of the all the Android 4.4.3 madness arising since yesterday the one question on plenty of people’s minds(and by plenty I mean mostly the ROM flashers)is when their ROM of choice will be getting its very own update to the newest version of Android. While we all sit back and patiently await for that day to come, Paranoid Android has put out a new beta of their latest PA ROM build, but before anybody gets super excited this is not their iteration of Android 4.4.3. This is still Android 4.4.2. That is perfectly OK though, because there are some awesome goodies in this update that PA has undoubtedly worked hard at. The reasoning boils down to the fact that this release of Android 4.4.3 fell too close to the release of the build they were already working on, so adequate testing was not possible in the time window they had set to put this newest beta out.
With that said, here’s what’s new with the Paranoid Android Beta 4.4. First off which is something that jumped out to me as the most notable change, is that Hover(which is the evolution of the previous HALO feature from older ROM builds)is now stable and the bugs that some may have been experiencing in previous beta builds prior to today should have been fixed. I can’t stress enough how awesome and important of a change this is. Quick settings have also been improved, and this version has also been successfully translated into over 30 languages which is quite a task. How do you say Paranoid Android in German?
Another major change here is the addition of the Theme Engine(yes, THAT theme engine, the one from CM11!!!)which quite honestly now that I think about it, sounds like a bigger change than that of a stable status for the Hover feature, but in any case both changes coming in this beta are awesome to have. In light of having the CM 11 theme engine join the PA beta build ranks, the team at Paranoid Android has decided to do away with the lockscreen blur feature for now. They did state that this is something that will be coming back as part of the theme engine evolution later on though so don’t stress too much. Think of it like the feature is taking a short vacation. Flipping back to Hover for a moment, the inCallUI for Hover is now improved and fully working, which is something that some of you may have noticed. I haven’t experienced what warranted the improvement myself because I never use voice calls, but it’s nice to know that the change was made. We haven’t forgotten about Pie, as Pie has gotten some improvements and changes in this latest build as well, like the capability for rotation of the Pie controls and a huge improvement to the trigger spots for the Pie controls. You can check the full details of the beta 4.4 changes on the original Paranoid Android G+ post below, otherwise do your backups and get to flashing. Speaking of backups, the PA team strongly recommends a “Clean Flash” due to all the massive changes in this build. If you’re ready to flash, you can find all the appropriate builds here at the PA website. Stay Paranoid!