By the end of 2022, the YouTube Go app will be abandoned by Google as it is no longer needed and perhaps something similar could happen in the future for the Gallery Go app, which lost its ‘Go’ branding this week.
Recall that Android Go was launched in 2017 (with Android 8.0 Oreo) as a version of Google’s mobile operating system optimized for low-end devices.
The team of developers of the Mountain View giant has thus created “light” versions of the most important Google apps, specially redesigned for this variant of the operating system (among the first “Go” applications to be launched were Google Search, YouTube, Google Assistant, Google Maps and Gmail).
The Gallery Go app is no longer “Go”
The Gallery Go app was launched in 2019 as a lightweight version of Google Photos with a particular focus on being able to use it offline. Despite a “weight” of just 10 MB, Gallery Go is able to automatically organize the library by dividing the contents by categories (people, selfies, nature, animals, documents, videos and films) and can also count on an automatic editing system (obviously basic).
Well, this week with version 1.8.8.436428459 the Gallery Go application on the Google Play Store has lost the “Go” brand (also removed from the icon and the app bar), becoming simply Gallery:
At the moment it is not clear whether a broader change is underway by Google that affects the entire Android Go ecosystem, which with Android 12 should include several important changes (as announced last year by the Mountain View giant) or if it is simply the Google team believes that most of the company’s apps are sufficiently optimized even for entry-level devices and, therefore, the “Go” brand is starting to be superfluous.