 |
| © Provided by Quartz The new Nokia 8110 is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona |
About 83%
of the world’s four billion smartphones run on Google’s Android
operating system, making it some of the most influential code of our
generation. But fewer people are buying smartphones for the first time
in a decade, and the market for cheaper feature phones has started to grow again.
So Google is going after feature phones, too.
The
Mountain View, California-based firm has made a $22 million investment
in KaiOS, a company that makes the operating system for feature-phone
manufacturers like Nokia. As a part of the deal, the stripped-down
feature phones will offer Google apps like Assistant, Maps, YouTube, and
Google Search.
Google Assistant, the company’s virtual personal
assistant embedded in flagship products like the Pixel smartphone and
Pixelbook laptop, could be a challenge for feature phones with slower
processors. The AI software that Google uses to turn audio into text
typically requires a fast processor, though the company is working
to make that software easier for phones to handle. Inclusion of
Assistant and speech-to-tech technology from Google could also bypass
one of the biggest limitations of feature phones, which is the lack of a
full-size keyboard for text entry.
Android
is a critical aspect of Google’s business: it guarantees users of its
other software products like search, Gmail and Google Drive, which in
turn feeds its advertising and cloud businesses. These apps now on KaiOS
have a similar effect: Every user in the Google ecosystem is money in
the bank.
KaiOS is based off the operating system first started by Mozilla’s ill-fated $25 phone experiment. The new software has shipped on 400 million devices, according to TechCrunch, and in India, KaiOS phones are more popular than iPhones.
There may come a time where smartphones become cheap and ubiquitous enough to supplant feature phones entirely, but until then Google has its bases covered.
There may come a time where smartphones become cheap and ubiquitous enough to supplant feature phones entirely, but until then Google has its bases covered.
COMMENTS