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Google Attacks Android's Major Problem With Files Go

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The great thing about Android is that pretty much any company looking to make a smartphone can run with the operating system. If it wants to tap into a wealth of applications and a strong foundation of an ecosystem, then signing up for Google’s flavour guarantees not only the OS, but a suite of apps that help meet user expectations.

The last year has seen a rise in the number of ‘pure’ Android handsets, where manufacturers focus on using Google’s apps rather than implement their own solutions for problems already solved. It allows smaller companies to focus on the hardware, safe in the knowledge that the software bases are covered. The recently launched Razer Phone, and the return of the Nokia name through Finnish start-up HMD Global both use pure Android both as the core of their handsets and as a marketing point to promote that the handsets have the features consumers want.

But with some of the biggest names still planting their own apps into the home screen field (including the likes of Samsung, Huawei, HTC, and OnePlus) the issue of app and data fragmentation remains a concern for Google. After all the goal is to have every Android phone interact with every other Android phone, with Google’s services, and allow consumers to move between manufacturers while staying within Android.

Google

That’s where the portability of the stock apps comes in useful, and it is one reason you’ll still see many manufacturers work hard to have their own apps (and cloud services) present on Android devices so they can act as a firewall to keep consumers inside their product range.

So when Google releases a new app with the intention of rolling it into the stock offering, you should pay attention. In the case of Files Go - which The Verge’s Jacob Kastrenakes reports is currently in beta - Google has decided to improve the transfer of individual files between devices. It’s an area that can be haphazard at the moment (Android Beam is an option, but requires NFC and tapping action).

Once it leaves beta, Files Go will open up easy file transfer wirelessly between local devices, it creates a tool that will hopefully become expected by end users, and reduces the fragmentation of Android software by (eventually) sitting on top of any manufacturer solutions with a genuinely global option.

You can download the beta of Files Go here.

Now read more about Android Oreo and how to install it on your new Nokia smartphone...

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