Google’s New App Speeds up Internet Connections in Africa

Google released its app ‘Google Go’ in South Africa with a goal to improve and overcome connectivity problems such as high data cost, and lack of high-speed connectivity in the continent.

The release of Google Go is one of the company’s latest attempts to expand and reach emerging markets in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the company’s blog post, the app reduces the amount of data needed to display search results by 40 percent. It also allows previous searches to be accessed offline; and voice search has been adapted to work better on slow connections, including 2G, by collaborating with pan-African carriers MTN Group and Vodacom.

Google Go is only 5MB in size, making it fast and easy to download without occupying too much space on your phone.

Google Africa Chief Marketing Officer Mzamo Masito said that weak data connectivity, high data costs, and low storage space often make it hard for people to get the most out of the internet; and Google Go is built to handle these challenges.

Many US tech giants see Africa as a relatively untapped market for smartphones, web search, and social media services. Younger users in sub-Saharan Africa demand faster internet speeds and cheaper phones to go about their business, while MTN and Vodacom see the digital space as their fastest-growing market.

Facebook has already rolled out several steps to bring low-cost and free broadband in some remote areas of the continent. In 2017, they announced to teach 10 million Africans online skills over the next five years to make them more enjoyable. Facebook also released Facebook Lite in 2015.

Google Go operates on devices running Android v4.3 (Jelly Bean) and above. It will be pre-installed on all Android v8.0 (Oreo) and will be available in 26 sub-Saharan countries.

Gmail’s New Design

On the other hand, Google has revealed a big makeover for Gmail’s interface on the web.

Google sent an email to G Suite customers to tell them that the company has been working on a brand new design of Gmail. It also listed some of Gmail’s new features.

Some of the new features are: direct access to Google Calendar from the Gmail interface, and option to snooze emails so they will reappear in the user’s inbox hours or days later.

Gmail users on mobile are familiar with the ‘smart reply feature’ that scans an incoming message for wording possible response from the user. The feature will also be available on Gmail web.

Finally, Google is working on a new way of storing emails on the user’s computer for offline access. As the company is slowly phasing out Chrome apps, Google will now be using standard web technologies to let the browser store the user’s data.

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