Galaxy s4 KitKat Disappointment.

[AJ26T]

Well after being the last carrier to release the update and waiting so long for the KitKat update i must say i wish i could go back to 4.3. Samsung and Verizon completely ruined this update and the user experience with this phone.

First off they took the simple option away of hiding any app you wanted to in the app drawer. So if you dont use a 3rd party launcher you have to see almost all the stupid useless bloatware apps that they put on the phone. Almost all touchwiz has had that option and now they thought it would be great to just take it out and that's it.

Second the touchwiz itself is still as ugly as usual. There has been no updates to the UI to have a little bit of the GS5 look to it. Probably because they just want users to go out and buy a GS5.

Emergancy Alerts app

Vzw cloud   all useless i bet to most people.

OOH they made the notification icons white like KitKat, I am actually totally suprised they didn't leave them green because that seems like something they would do.

Well besides being a little bit smoother i must say if i could downgrade back to 4.3 i would

thanks Verizon and Samsung for ruining the KitKat experience for us GS4 users.

[Ann154]

AJ26T wrote:

Well after being the last carrier to release the update and waiting so long for the KitKat update i must say i wish i could go back to 4.3. Samsung and Verizon completely ruined this update and the user experience with this phone. Sorry, no going back to the previous OS once the update is installed

First off they took the simple option away of hiding any app you wanted to in the app drawer. So if you dont use a 3rd party launcher you have to see almost all the stupid useless bloatware apps that they put on the phone. Almost all touchwiz has had that option and now they thought it would be great to just take it out and that's it. Can you still disable the applications in the same manner as other devices running KitKat?

Second the touchwiz itself is still as ugly as usual. There has been no updates to the UI to have a little bit of the GS5 look to it. Probably because they just want users to go out and buy a GS5.

Emergancy Alerts app

Vzw cloud  all useless i bet to most people.

OOH they made the notification icons white like KitKat, I am actually totally suprised they didn't leave them green because that seems like something they would do. They are following the KitKat design standard. Google is requiring some things remain untouched in order to be certified as an android device to get the Play Store and other Google Apps loaded on the phone. Personally I prefer the white. The other looked cartoonish.

Well besides being a little bit smoother i must say if i could downgrade back to 4.3 i would

thanks Verizon and Samsung for ruining the KitKat experience for us GS4 users.

[AJ26T]

Yes I know they have to stay the KitKat design standards, Your missing the point i'm saying they could have beefed up the update and made it nicer looking for users like the GS5.

Yes you can disable apps from the app drawer but in 4.3 you could hide any app you want now its only a select few. I dont want to disable them just hide them so they don't take up all the room in my app drawer.

[Ann154]

I would rather disable/turn off the applications I will never use then just hide them from the application drawer.

[DiGravio1]

I just made a folder and put all the apps I can not hide in it

[August1959]

I'm sorry, but the "white" notification icons look very bland and cheap. At least the green ones had a little depth to them! At&t and Sprint doesn't have white icons now??

The update has also increased my battery consumption by a small amount in standby and by a significant amount while using the phone. I used to be able to charge every 3rd, sometimes 2nd, day. Now I have to charge it everyday. Not good, but it also has much more Google crap apps installed and more running processes and cached processes running.

[Ann154]

August1959 wrote:

I'm sorry, but the "white" notification icons look very bland and cheap. At least the green ones had a little depth to them! At&t and Sprint doesn't have white icons now??

The update has also increased my battery consumption by a small amount in standby and by a significant amount while using the phone. I used to be able to charge every 3rd, sometimes 2nd, day. Now I have to charge it everyday. Not good, but it also has much more Google crap apps installed and more running processes and cached processes running.

The Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and all the other Galaxy S4 models with the KitKat update have the white icons. I thought the green Samsung battery icon looked cheap. The HTC battery icon before KitKat looked more polished with its green interior then the Samsung version. It looks more chaotic when there are multiple colors on the notification bar. In fact I cringe every time my weather app displays the temperature in red because there is some alert also happening. Google wanted the Android system more uniform across the different manufacturers and I don't blame them. Both the blue icons of ICS and green icons used by others were difficult to see the bright sunlight.

The battery usually takes a day or two settle down after a major update. There can be some background processes still occurring after the update to optimize your phone.

[August1959]

Matter of opinion - I still hate the white icons a lot!

Hopefully the battery will settle down. It will probably help when I get all the crap apps that were installed too.

I should have waited before installing like I always have with Microsoft products.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[jrh4054]

Does anyone know if VZW/Samsung/Google have fixed the majore issues with 4.4? Because of everything I've read here, I keep putting off the uupgrade. My past experience with other Samsung phone upgrade is horrible. My last phone turned into trash after a major upgrage.

[jacks968]

Verizon is replacing my S4 - after 4.4.2 upgrade the battery life was less than half and the cause was the SD Card was frequently unmounted and remounted causing "Media" to consume up to 38% of Battery. I am waiting on the new phone hoping it will fix the problem.