Android 10 Go Edition Improves Speed and Security For Low-cost Phones

Android Go has made smartphones more accessible by focusing on lower-cost devices, but it's frequently pokey and sometimes insecure -- not a great introduction to modern mobile tech. Google is aware of this, though, and it's tackling those issues head-on with its newly unveiled Android 10 Go edition. From a report: The scaled-back version of Android 10 puts a strong focus on speed, with faster and more memory-efficient app switching as well as launching that's 10 percent faster than in Android 9 Go. It should be more reliable, too. For some, data protection may be the real star of the show. Android 10 Go edition includes a new Adiantum encryption system that should secure data without affecting performance or requiring special hardware. You won't have to worry that your sensitive info is vulnerable simply because you bought an entry-level device.

Software kills hardware!

[mspohr]

Good to see this. I think that every computer and smartphone I have purchased has eventually been killed by software bloat.
They run fine when new but with every new release of software, they get bogged down to the point where they're unusable.
That's why I like the lite versions of Linux. Even run on underpowered Raspberry Pi computers.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is great!

[Oh really now]

Now how can I install it? Anyone?

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[iampiti]

TFA doesn't give many details and I haven't read anything else but I guess this Android version has fewer features compared to the standard one, otherwise why not use the lighter version everywhere?
OTOH, its mere existence is an acknowledgement that regular Android is too heavy for less powerful phones

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[unixisc]

Yeah, I have 2 Verizon Ellipsis tablets, and would like to install this Android 10 there. How can I go about it?

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[twocows]

It's OEM. You buy a budget phone that uses the Android Go distribution. Alternatively, if you're able to flash custom ROMs, you might be able to find the distribution on XDA or somewhere else, but it may not be fully supported or even work. The distribution's really meant for crapphones and isn't really necessary on new phones that don't come with it. As far as old phones go, it probably won't work anyway and custom ROMs are probably a better bet.

What you can do is install the Go series of apps on your p

Android

[sexconker]

Android will always be a bloated, slow piece of shit.

It's spyware on Java on Linux on ARM with limited, short-term support.

"It's not Java!!" Call it what you want, it's still fucking Java.
"You can compile to "near native" code now!!" Except they don't because they target older Android versions and devices.
"Fuchsia will save us all!!" Oh, is it a year that ends in a number again?

The bottom line is no matter what you do, "Play Services" and about 5 dozen cryptic services and components will always be runni

Re: Android

[shibbie]

Excellent troll but I'll just point out that compilation to binary is done per device "they" only send all packages of bytecode. Doh you got me.

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[williamyf]

Android will always be a bloated, slow piece of shit.

[...]

I'd still never buy an iPhone, however.

Then what are you rocking now as a CellPhone? A featurephone? A Jolla? A KaiOS? A WinPhone? A BB10?

Does it let you run your banking application? Hail a Cab? Control your robot vacuum Cleaner? View office documents on the go? Get offline and online mapps with traffic alerts? Does it get security patches (because, bloated or not, no SW is perfect)?

Yes, I agree with you, android is a bloated mess, but that bloated mess gives me functionality to make me more productive and simplify my life. If it runs too slow,

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[lactose99]

He doesn't need a phone, he obviously calls people with his mind.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Guybrush_T]

I'd give him that focusing on security is kinda pointless if you don't have long term support, a.k.a. security fixes.

Making it faster is also pointless since low-end devices won't get updates anyway so it won't extend the life time of low end devices.

So while the article title was interesting, the details were disappointing. For speed, I would have hoped for a C-like API yet portable, which would make code run faster. For security, I would hope to see live patches for security issues even for no longer up

Now with ...

[Retired ICS]

Now with enhanced spying!

'Secure' and 'smartphone', hahaha

[Rick Schumann]

Pick one. You can't have both words in the same context. You can either have something that's secure, or you can have a smartphone. You can't have both. Thank the telecoms for that, among others.

So in other words...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"...launching that's 10 percent faster than in Android 9 Go"

10%? So in other words, not enough difference to notice.

So what are the downsides of Android Go?

[schweini]

So what are the downsides of Android Go?

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[MagicMike]

As a developer? Smaller memory limits per process, typically the devices themselves will have pretty limited storage and CPU power (so you have to be more mindful of user impact), I believe there are some differences with regards to how you can display popups etc (by which I mean: inside your own app, it's a window layering restriction for performance reasons).

As a user it potentially means that if you live in a country where the minimum wage is like $4/hr you might be able to actually afford a smartphone o

Streamlining for cheap phones?

[X!0mbarg]

Maybe some of us that never link our device to any form of online account, never go to facebook, twitter, instagram, or any other form of social media with our phone, might actually get some decent use out of it.

If only there were a batch of decent little productivity apps that weren't so ad-filled, account-linked and bandwidth-hungry that we could still get things done without signing our privacy away, that would be great.

Sadly, too many people can't live without checking into facebook every 5 minutes, upd