Yes

 

It was announced about an hour ago on the Verizon website that KitKat (19.5.3) is starting to roll out to users.

... Thom

 

I have been using it for a while and observe very little difference between it and Jelly Bean. The things that I did notice were ...

A new icon on the Notifications screen that is the same as the Back button.

The Notification Bar now has an option under Nova Launcher Prime that results in "almost transparent".

The Flash notices that appear near the bottom of the screen are now rounded and a little easier to read.

The Easter Egg has an "S" for some reason that if you click on it a few times changes to a KitKat logo. Why "S"?

Settings has an option to select a Launcher.

I ran for about a day without a problem. I then encountered that period when it dropped into 3G and I got back to LTE after doing a Soft Reset. After that point I did a Factory Data Reset. It has been rock solid since then.

They fixed the digital clock and did away with that stupid boldi hour in Jelly Bean.

... Thom

 

The settings has an option to choose a default messaging app.

The network status icons, while still blue, are slightly different

The status icon that shows location services access has changed. It is a white "teardrop" icon, sort of like the pushpins that you see in Google Maps.

The clear all notifications in the notification shade is now a weird icon that looks like three parallel lines slightly offset from each other. Completely unobvious in my opinion.

(I am sure that there are more than what Thom and I noticed. Please add anything that we missed!)

As for performance, I've noticed two things: I am getting better WiFi and I am getting slightly worse battery life. Battery was absolutely terrible the first day; I think I found an app causing my phone to be held awake all day, and its been better since, but still about 1% an hour worse than what I had on JB. With WiFi, I have occasionally had times on JB when the WiFi would be connected, and the status icon blue, but no data would be received. Toggling WiFi always fixed that problem for me. It happened at least three or four times a week, sometimes more. It has not happened on 4.4.

I plan on a factory data reset to try to resolve the battery issues but just haven't had time to do one since I received the update, and probably will not until next week.

 

Still getting 48 hour battery with normal to heavy use but a little less than JB. Print option now available in gmail. I'm using the stock launcher and like the black notification bar. Appears faster and solid for me.

 

It was recommended to give it 3+ days after upgrade before judging battery use and that before then the uuse will look higher than normal.

... Thom

 

I've seen that said. It's been longer than three days for me, and I'm still seeing worse battery than before. Last night it was down to 39% when I went to bed. That only happened twice in two months with JB, and one of those times was due to a bad signal area. I wasn't in a bad signal area yesterday.

Again, I'm going to FDR when I know have the time to do it right and see if that makes a difference.

 

I was hoping for a Christmas gift with the update today. Looks like no go for me.

 

No one wants a bricked phone for Christmas. I can wait a couple more days.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

Did you try Settings | About phone | System updates? (I can not test it since I have already installed the update.)

... Thom

 

My understanding is that the rollout is continuing, randomly by MEID number of your phone. It will come.

 

To add to Thom's list of (slight) differences from JB that I've noticed (I apologize if these have already been reported):

- as probably already noted, there is now a "Tap & Pay" setting which will enable tap and pay with Google Wallet. (I haven't used it; I don't plan to.)

- settings->apps now has a separate page for disabled apps

- settings->apps, "Running" tab used to have a bug where the time running would show the wrong characters when an app was running longer than 100 hours. This is fixed.

- when you press the "home" button while running an app, it acts like you pressed home twice. If you opened an app from one of the other home screens other than your default, when you press home it goes back to the launcher, then it goes back to the default home screen. This must be a bug.

 

posted by doogald- when you press the "home" button while running an app, it acts like you pressed home twice. If you opened an app from one of the other home screens other than your default, when you press home it goes back to the launcher, then it goes back to the default home screen. This must be a bug.

Really? Why?

 

Past versions would just take you back to the home screen you launched from. To go back to the default screen was just a second press of the home button.

Many of us like to stay oriented on a page other than the default and have the default screen contain close to no information that could casually be disclosed to someone else ... like in a sales meeting.

With Nova Launcher Prime it works the new (unwanted) way for a while and then suddenly starts working the old (wanted) way. I have no idea what triggers it to switch.

... Thom

 

Thanks for the information. The Verizon website is a little misleading.

All you can do is wait then. It will happen when it happens.

... Thom

 

Tired of waiting, I'm considering installing the update myself using the OTA. Directions here on XDA. Anyone done this? Success or trouble?

Currently I am not rooted, although I was prior to the last update. I've certainly flashed my share of ROMS on other devices and used RSD to get back to stock so that I could flash the last update with success. I never did get prompted to get that update so I lost patience just like I have now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

Just installed it with no problems!

 

I thought Kit Kat was supposed have a different dialer? I don't see anything different.

 

Its exclusive to nexus and GPE devices.

You'll have to manually download it (similar to the GPE launcher)

 

Unfortunately I am not rooted so no mass.

Google's Dialer With Built-in Search Is Exclusive To Nexus And GPE Devices, But You Can Install It Manually On Other KitKat ROMs [Download]

 

I like the old dialer more anyway.