Google’s made-for-India cut of Android and the one phone that runs it delayed by chip shortages, testing

Google and giant Indian telco Jio have announced the jointly developed budget 4G smartphone, and the accompanying made-for-India cut of Android, have been delayed. Announced in June 2021, the JioPhone Next will run a version of Android optimized for the device, an integration designed to help Jio sell it at an affordable price …

[Anonymous Coward]

Should the OS really require so much power?

I'm pretty sure that when looking at just the Operating System part, Android is already pretty light-weight.

...so what exactly is this Jio thing leaving out? Presumably it must have the web browser, and that is 99% of your problem right there (and caused by whatever website you visit). I can't imagine that not shipping with a calendar/map or weather app saves any hardware requirements...

[david bates]

Re: Should the OS really require so much power?

Android isn't that light.

My Kobo reader has a 1Ghz ARM simply to handle the network connectivity and display a book. It has a web browser, but that's miserably slow, and it runs a cut down version of Android.

Windows 3.1 could do that and multitask on a 25Mhz 386 With 4mb of RAM, and do it with aplomb.

[Nelbert Noggins]

Optimised for who is probably the better question.

Jio or the Indian government? when a company who have links with the government request 'optimising' a handset while dangling 300+ million potential new users Google aren't going to refuse adding the appropriate optimisations.

Like the cost of doing business in China, I'm sure Google would have no qualms doing the required optimising to get access to the market.