Android Go: The Details Keynote

Android Go was announced during the opening keynote of the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View on Wednesday. Since the an...

Android Go was announced during the opening keynote of the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View on Wednesday. Since the announcement, there has been a lot of confusion regarding the project - is it a new version of Android? Can Android Go devices run all Android apps, or only the apps that have been optimized for the Go experience? How will this impact OS updates for consumers, and what will developers need to do differently to optimize their apps for Android Go?

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• Is Android Go a new version of Android?
• Android Go is not a new version of Android, it’s not a different Android, it’s a project name inside Google.

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• What will be the Android version that Go devices will ship with?
• Android O - there’s no separate OS called Android Go

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• So what will be different about Android Go devices?
• Think of Android Go as a bunch of presets that your Android O device will ship with. Some OS settings will be switched on (or off) by default; some Google apps will be a bit different than other Android O devices; and the Google Play Store will highlight third-party apps optimised for the Go experience - that’s about it. “The other thing though is there are some feature that we are adding, so it's not just about taking away but about adding features. We mentioned yesterday in the keynote that data management is very important to users that are coming online today. So data management will go in Quick Settings as another example of the UI change. So there are some things that are added and some things that are modified.”

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• The three cornerstones of Android Go
• Stands for three things - first, is continuing to optimise the Android operating system to run smoothly on entry-level devices, starting with Android O. Second, is making sure that Google apps that we load on these devices are also optimised, which means that we are rebuilding many of the Google apps. I showed in the keynote yesterday - YouTube Go, which is a new app entirely, which is much smaller in APK size, it uses less data, and gives users much more control over data and how they use it, which is very important. And then finally, it’s not just the Google apps, but also we have many developers that make apps, so we are optimising the Play Store to highlight the apps that are tuned to the needs of users that are coming online for the first time.

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• Will Android Go device only be able to run apps optimized for the Go experience? Will the Google Play Store on Android Go devices only feature these apps?
• All Android apps that run on any ‘regular’ Android O device will also run on Android Go devices, barring of course any apps that may not be compatible with your hardware or not available in your region, something that’s the case even today with Android N (or earlier). “The Play Store on Go devices will contain the whole app catalog - no restrictions, unless the developer has a restriction, but the developer can do that today anyway, but no restrictions from Google on the apps,” Samat told Gadgets 360. In other words, the Google Play Store on Android Go devices will include all Android apps, not just apps optimized for Android Go devices. The latter will, however, be highlighted by Google prominently within the Play Store on Go devices, which might make it worth the developers’ time to optimise their apps if they want to target this audience.

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• Can Android Go devices install the ‘regular’ versions of their default apps?
• In a word - yes. In more than one word - Searching for YouTube on Google Play Store on Android Go devices will show the ‘regular’ YouTube app as well, and users will be free to install this app on their phone. How many users will actually do something like this when they already have a YouTube app on their phone is debatable, and most Go users - supposed first-time smartphone owners - are likely to go through the lifetime of the device without discovering the ‘main’ app. Now in the case of YouTube, specifically, the Go app looks pretty useful with features that the main app itself doesn’t have. But this lack of discoverability of the main app - to reiterate, why will a regular user search for YouTube in Play Store when the phone already has YouTube (Go) installed - might prove to be a problem in the future if, say, it gets a cool new feature before the Go app. Now just to be clear, there are no signs from Google that this will happen in the future, but with two different apps, it’s not entirely inconceivable.

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• Can ‘regular’ Android devices run apps optimised for Android Go?
• Absolutely. While these apps are optimised for entry-level Android Go devices, there’s nothing stopping your Google Pixel XL or Samsung Galaxy S8, for example, from downloading and running, say, the YouTube Go app. These apps will also show up like any other app when you search for something via the Play Store on your device.

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• When will the first Android Go devices ship? And at what price points?
• As announced at the keynote, the first Android Go devices are expected to hit the market in 2018. In terms of price, Samat won’t commit to a number, saying that the objective of the Android Go project is “not to set a price point”. The idea, he explains, is to “allow manufacturers who are building entry-level devices to bring their price points as far down as they can” without compromising the overall experience.

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• Why the 1GB RAM limit for Android Go devices?
• With many entry-level devices like the ₹6,999 (approximately $108) Xiaomi Redmi 4 shipping with 2GB of RAM, some might wonder why Google wants to optimise the experience for devices that may not represent a majority of smartphone shipments, especially by the time the first Android Go phone ships in 2018. We asked Samat to weigh in on the subject. “I think that the data that we are seeing from industry analysts and what our manufacturing partners tell us is that there are many, many devices shipping - millions of devices shipping - every year with 1GB [RAM] and below,” he says. As per Counterpoint’s Market Monitor data, smartphones with 1GB or less RAM accounted for more than one-fourth of the total smartphone shipments during Q1 2017 in India.

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• Will I see Android Go update on my existing device?
• Almost certainly no. Samat says the focus of the Android Go project is on new devices only, so don’t expect your existing entry-level phone to get Android O’s Go configuration.