Within a few days of its announcement, the Google Maps Go app is now available on the Google Play Store. Google had released the Android Oreo Go edition at an event in New Delhi earlier this month. Along with Oreo Go, Google had also announced a slew of lightweight apps. The new Google Maps Go app is part of these apps that will be available for low storage devices.
Google has announced some of the lighter version of apps for Android phones running with 1GB or less RAM as a part of the Android Oreo Go edition. Some of these apps like, Files Go and Google Go recently became available to users on the Play Store. Similarly, lightweight variants of Google Assistant and Gmail are also on the way.
What’s Google Maps Go?
The new Google Maps Go app will be available exclusively for Android phones – running Android 4.1 Jellybean or higher. Unlike Files Go, which is available for phones with higher RAM as well, the new Google Maps Go app will be available with a RAM capacity of 1GB or lower.
According to Google, the Maps Go app has been designed only to work on devices with 512MB or 1 GB RAM. So, if you have a smartphone with 2GB or more RAM, you may not even find the app in your Play Store search results.
The Maps Go app provides a shortcut to the Progressive Web App version of Google Maps. The Maps Go version offers similar features as the main Maps app, including detecting your location, providing you with directions, and traffic information for different modes like cars, public transit, and walking. It has support for 70 countries as of now.
Google stated at the Google for India event that the main aim of developing Go versions is to help new smartphone users who connect to the Internet. Android Oreo Go edition has been launched especially for the Indian market in a bid to get millions of first-time smartphone users to experience Android on affordable smartphones.
