HTC and LG follow Motorola with Android 4.4 updates

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Android By Russell Holly Dec. 2, 2013 11:30 am
It looks like Google’s PDK plans for Android are finally working out, because OEMs are pushing 4.4 updates to their flagship phones in record time.
In the past, being an Android handset owner has been a real let down when it was time for the next version of the mobile OS to be released. Unless you owned the right Nexus device on the right carrier, updates have taken months in the past. It’s a lot of hard work to build these updates since the manufacturers aren’t using the Android Open Source Project as their base, and even after they have succeeded in updating their devices it can be weeks and weeks before carriers in the US approve the updates and start releasing them.
Android 4.4 seems to be a little different. OEMs who are tired of their users constantly complaining about forces they have no control over have started to fight back with updates for phones that aren’t controlled by carriers.
HTC and LG have both announced Android 4.4 updates for their respective heavyweights, the HTC One and the LG G2, less than a week after Motorola dropped the same for the Moto X. It was originally assumed by many that Motorola had been given favor by Google, and the early access to 4.4 meant they could update before everyone else. Shortly after the announcement, HTC and Samsung dropped updates for their Google Play edition phones.
While Samsung has yet to announce 4.4 for their phones, HTC followed up immediately with an update path for unlocked HTC One phones running HTC Sense. LG, who is not part of the Google Play edition program, followed suit immediately with a update for the Korean version of the LG G2.

While it is easy to assume that HTC, Motorola, and LG could have been given early access to the Android 4.4 source because of their individually significant relationships with Google, a more reasonable answer would be the Google Platform Developer Kit. This is a program that Google announced two years ago, specifically for manufacturers to get updates out earlier for their hardware.
While this doesn’t help with the delays put in place by carriers, who individually test and certify builds before releasing them, phones that aren’t bound by those rules are already seeing the updates roll out.
Ultimately, this is a great way for OEMs to show exactly where the slow point in the update chain is. This empowers users to voice their complaints at the carriers instead of the manufacturers, which will ultimately be good for everyone who wants updates to their Android phones in a timely manner.
Now read: Geek.com’s 2013 holiday gift guide



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