The Android One affairs gives third-party accessories about the aforementioned analysis Google gives its own accessories — will it be abundant to accomplish these phones a success?
We’re hot off the heels of the barrage of Xiaomi’s Mi A2 — an Android One accessory that makes us appealing aflame for the approaching of the platform. The affair is, a lot of bodies are still appealing abashed about what Android One is, exactly. Is it a product? A platform? Both?
We absitively to go beeline to the source, so we sat bottomward with Google’s Director of Android Accomplice Programs Jon Gold to allocution about Android One and Google’s role in the initiative.
If you’re wondering, Android One is not a angled adaptation of the platform. This is still amount Android, but Google is alive acutely anxiously with a few baddest manufacturers to aftermath its eyes for Android on third-party hardware. There aren’t any amount software differences from your boilerplate Android device, but you get the affirmation Google put in the added accomplishment to accomplish abiding an Android One accessory works and runs about as calmly as its own Pixel phones.
This affectionate of sounds like a certification, right? Google takes a phone and performs its own tests, again works anxiously with the architect to accommodate an acquaintance it is appreciative to stick its cast on. While this accurate to an extent, Google absolutely wants users to anticipate of Android One as a artefact — one they can acquirement and feel assured that Google has taken the time to optimize.
During my account with Gold, he told me Google absolutely wants users to see Android One as a trusted artefact from Google. If they can’t absolutely ascendancy the accouterments and software, alive anxiously with the manufacturers to hit assertive affection standards is the abutting best thing.
Unfortunately for abate manufactures, accepting your phone into the affairs isn’t absolutely easy. Gold told me Google selects Android One manufacturers actual carefully, so you’ll accept to get Google’s absorption afore they’ll alpha alive with you to optimize your device. This has advance Google to assignment anon with companies that accept apparent accelerated advance like Xiaomi, authoritative the Android One branding both advantageous as able-bodied as a attribute of success.
From my point of view, this is all about accretion Google’s eyes for Android about the world. The added accepted Android One accessories become, the added companies will be clamoring for the befalling to assignment with Google on a phone. This leads to a agglomeration of pseudo-Pixels clearing the landscape, area Google’s own apps and software will assignment best.
It’s a win-win for both players in the partnership. A aggregation like Xiaomi gets to assignment anon with the developer of Android itself, and Google gets to assert that companies use its own services. Most bodies adopt Google casework over third-party options as it is, but Google is still a software aggregation at the core, and accepting added users onboard with its eyes for the belvedere is its primary goal.
There seems to be a mindset that Android One accessories are declared to be account phones. This is an barefaced delusion based on absolute accessories in the lineup, with aberrant accessories like the Nokia 8 Sirocco actuality accessible outliers. Back I mentioned this, Gold brought up the admirable specs present in some of the Android One devices, alike if they aren’t advised “flagships.”
“[The Mi A1] has 4 gigs of RAM, 64 gigs of ROM and has a 600 alternation chipset in it. Just because it costs $230 doesn’t beggarly that it’s necessarily not aerial performance.”
Still, we’ve apparent aboriginal duke that specs aren’t everything. The Google Pixel 2, with its now hardly anachronous Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 still feels smoother than a lot of 845-enabled accessories on the market. A lot of that is due to access — the aforementioned access Google is aggravating to bulb in Android One devices.
The smoother Google can accomplish its own Android experience, the added acceptable users will alpha to see Android as a applicable option. Abounding bodies still see Android as the buggy, janky another to the iPhone. If Google can’t ascendancy the acquaintance advancing from assorted manufacturers, this muddies the accessible acumen of Android as a whole. By alms Android One as an accustomed artefact with Google’s name on it, Google is guaranteeing barter a phone activated with the aforementioned analysis as its own devices.
Look at the anew appear Xiaomi Mi A2. This is acutely an ultra-affordable accessory at 250 euros (~$290), but the camera has already been hailed as aberrant for its amount point. Who arguably makes the best camera on the bazaar apprenticed primarily by software? That would be Google.
I accomplished out to Google afterwards the account to ask how abundant access it had on the development of the Mi A2’s camera, and got this response:
Google acutely understands what makes a phone adorable to the user, so they acceptable put a lot of assignment in to accomplish abiding the camera was analgesic on this phone. The camera was one of the Pixel’s capital affairs points, so befitting the affection constant on a phone with Google’s eyes for Android alone makes sense.
These partnerships finer accomplish Android One an change of the long-gone Nexus line. Gold told me manufacturers are still actual absorbed in alive anon with Google to optimize their devices. Android One is a abundant way to let them do that, and it allows Google to advance ascendancy of the affection and experience. If you can ascendancy the absolute assemblage of software and hardware, it is abundant easier to advance a abundant experience.
We’ve apparent a agnate affairs appear and go before. Google Play copy accessories finer slapped “stock” (our word, not Gold’s) Android on absolute accessories to amuse a subset of users, but Google was abundant beneath complex in this process. Area One accessories are absolutely fabricated with the Google acquaintance in apperception from the beginning, Play Copy phones alien as a appropriate alternative with Google software. You accept to architecture a accessory absolutely abnormally if Google’s alive alongside you, and abounding manufacturers are blessed to oblige.
See Also: hack wechat“I see [Android One] as an change of [Nexus] rather than an change of Play Edition. Play Copy was too abundant of a one off. There was too abundant of a ‘Just booty this and bang the acquaintance on a device’,” says Gold.
Obviously, Gold sees the affairs as article Google is accessible to advance in abounding stop. There are currently sixteen Android One accessories accessible on the market, but Gold told me we can apprehend a cardinal of new One accessories to barrage in 2018, with alike added advancing in 2019 as the affairs matures. Google hasn’t mentioned what manufacturers it will be alive with during this period, but we can acceptable apprehend a few added boilerplate players will accompany the backpack as the the action moves forward.
What are your thoughts on Android One?
Let us know.
What alike is Android One, anyways?
Optimized doesn’t accept to beggarly budget
Nexus, Play Edition, or article abroad entirely?
Graduating class: Nexus – Pixel – Android One – Android Go
Stock Android vs Android One vs Android Go
Android One is a curated portfolio of baddest accessories that we anticipate are right.
We don’t accept a animadversion on this accurate device/camera, but in general, we do a lot of centralized testing (including “dogfooding”) and accouterment bugs calm with our partners. We do accept camera is a actual important affection for abounding smartphone users, so it’s absolutely one aspect that we focus on back alive with ally to bear a aerial affection experience.
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