Earlier in Google I/O 2017, Google had announced a lighter version of Android dubbed as “Android Go”. Google has finally released it for manufacturers to take advantage of. It is worthy to note that Google has also pushed out the Android 8.1 update to it’s Pixel and Nexus devices.
To recollect, Android Go is a toned down version of Android 8.0 Oreo that is designed to run on lower end budget smartphones without major hiccups. Apart from the operating system itself, Google is also providing ‘Go’ alternatives for the core Google apps like Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, Maps and many more. The Go Program is also storage friendly and occupies twice as less storage when compared to Android Nougat. And more importantly, the Go apps occupy a fraction of the storage as well.
Android Go is aimed at smartphones which come with low-end SoC’s, less internal storage and upto 1GB of RAM. Future software updates have been a huge issue for budget smartphones as their hardware usually isn’t compatible with the latest and greatest. But Google has fixed exactly that with the Android Go program.
Google explains that the smartphone will still run smoothly inspite of the lower end chipset powering it. And since the apps are toned down as well, they will demand lesser horse power along with very less RAM usage. Google claims that the apps open up 15% quicker on Android Oreo Go.
Google is continuously working on releasing more Go versions of apps given that the search giant has recently launched the Google Go and the Files Go apps.
Google is one company that takes security as a priority and hence the Go build will receive timely security patches, much like regular Android versions.
