They say that it never rains to everyone's taste, but this time perhaps the saying is not fulfilled, and it seems that they have finally heard the prayers of both developers and Android users. Or at least that seems to be demonstrated with all the novelties presented by the Android 4.4 Kit Kat system, some of them aimed at improving the Holo interface. Let's also thank Google. The search engine par excellence has decided to completely renew its Android design guide a few days ago, although more than deciding we could say that it has been "forced" to do so to include all the news of this new version. Then the professional review team exposes them in detail so that you do not lose detail:

More neutral system colors

Let's not forget that consistency in the interface is the most important aspect to be taken into account by the Android team, but without neglecting that developers have the flexibility to customize their applications. The new section Your Branding explains to developers that for certain interface elements such as checkboxes, radio buttons, progress bar and scroll bar or tabs, you can use another color that replaces blue by default; It even presents the possibility of adding your own icons that represent your own brand image in the application while respecting the Holo interface.

Due to this customization that developers can carry out in their own applications, Google has decided to use more neutral system colors, for example: some effects and icons of blue holo tones have become gray, such as when we press a button or the same status bar, whose previous blue didn't quite match the application's colors. But let's not think that this small change is due to a whim but that it has its logic, which is to avoid high color contrast with applications.

Fullscreen

The developers are in luck since Android 4.4 offers two new methods to see the applications in full screen, something very useful if they are devices that do not have physical buttons and are forced to display virtual buttons on the screen. These new modes are known by the name of Recline and Immersive.

Recline mode

The Recline mode is none other than the full screen that already existed since Android 4.0. This mode is used for those applications in which the user is hardly forced to have to interact with the screen, such as playing a video for example. Hence the name of this mode. Anywhere on the screen you tap will always show bars.

Immersive mode

Immersive mode is the full screen that most users were wanting to officially see on Android. Thanks to this mode developers can make their applications hide the bars and buttons, thus allowing the user to interact all the time with the screen. This method is perfect for reading books or playing games. To make the virtual buttons and the status bar reappear, you just have to make a sliding gesture from the upper or lower frame of the screen.

Translucent bars

Showing information behind app bars is no longer a problem: Android 4.4 officially adds transparent bars. Thanks to them we find the feeling of having a full screen, even if the status bar and the virtual buttons are shown. It is a very useful feature for example for the use of the maps application, as shown below:

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New gestures

The design guide also recommends two new touch gestures that Google has been using for a long time: Double tap and double tap with swipe, something very useful if we want to zoom with a single finger (no one escapes the inconvenience of using two in other terminals) in some applications: maps, navigators, etc.

Bigger icons

Given the high screen density of many high-end smartphones, such as the Google Nexus 5, developers are preparing to create icons with higher resolution (XXXHDPI 640dpi), which is equivalent to four times the size of the base icon (MDPI 160 dpi). These icons will normally be shown at 48dp in the application launcher, although this is not the case with the Nexus 5 where they will be shown at 60dp, or what is the same, 25% larger.