Verizon Wireless was the last of the four big carriers in the US to pick up the HTC One, arriving months behind AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. Despite the delay, Verizon has announced they will be updating the HTC One to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean across the US.
The HTC One originally arrived with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and there was no update to Android 4.2.2. Instead, HTC and the various carriers around the world have waited for Android 4.3 and Android 4.4, the last step in Jelly Bean and KitKat.
Since this is a Verizon update, the HTC One will get its fill of new and improved bloatware. This has become commonplace for US carriers and we long for a time where Android OEM partners decide enough is enough, like Apple has done since the original iPhone.
The HTC One is still a fan favorite and many review website still call it the de-facto smartphone of 2013, despite newer smartphones available with better specs. HTC delivered an amazingly well designed smartphone with an operating system skin that didn’t upset many core vanilla Android fans.
HTC has already announced their plans to get Android 4.4 KitKat on the HTC One by January, making this update seem a little redundant. Of course, since carriers ship out the updates in the US, we probably won’t be seeing KitKat on HTC One devices in the US until late spring 2014.
Android 4.3 only brings a few updates to the OS and the major one is Bluetooth Low Energy and other Bluetooth updates. Open GL|ES 3.0 has also been added to the update, along with some UI changes.
Android 4.4 KitKat is where all the new Google-ideas come into play, not only does this update make low-end smartphones compatible, it also makes Google Now more impactful, adds full screen album art and immersion mode for applications and Google has merged SMS and Messaging together, similar to how Apple did iMessage.
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