Android Go, officially Android (Go Edition), is a stripped-down version of the Android operating system, designed for low-end and ultra-budget

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...

s (but is also used by some tablets). However, it is intended for smartphones with less than 2 GB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

and was first made available for

Android Oreo Android Oreo ( codenamed Android O during development) is the eighth major release and the 15th version of the Android mobile operating system. It was first released as an alpha quality developer preview in March 2017 and released to the pub ...

. This mode has platform optimizations designed to reduce

mobile data Mobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access via mobile networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a tablet/ smartphone (possibly tethered) or other mobile device. The fi ...

usage (including enabling Data Saver mode by default), and a special suite of

Google Mobile Services Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a collection of proprietary applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) services from Google that are typically pre-installed on Android devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. GM ...

designed to be less resource and

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

-intensive.

Google Play Services Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device When it was introduced in 2012, it pro ...

package was also modularized to reduce its

memory footprint Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running. The word footprint generally refers to the extent of physical dimensions that an object occupies, giving a sense of its size. In computing, the ...

. The

Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...

will highlight lighter apps suited for these devices. The

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

's interface differs from that of mainline Android, with the quick-settings panel giving greater prominence to information regarding the battery, mobile-data limit, and available storage; the recent apps menu using a modified layout and being limited to four apps (in order to reduce RAM consumption), and an

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

(API) for allowing

mobile carrier A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...

s to implement data-tracking and top-ups within the Android settings menu. Some system services are disabled such as Notification access and Picture-in-picture mode to improve performance. Most devices running Android Go use Google's "stock" Android

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

, although there are several manufacturers that still use customized GUI.

Versions

Android Go was made available to OEMs for Android 8.1, and later, for

Android Pie Android Pie ( codenamed Android P during development), also known as Android 9 (API 28) is the ninth major release and the 16th version of the Android mobile operating system. It was first released as a developer preview on March 7, 2018, and ...

References

External links

* {{Android Android (operating system) Smartphones Tablet computers

Versions

See also

References

External links