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There’s now leaked video showing Android running on your grandpa’s feature phone

Neat, but sadly it looks like the project was canceled.

Google android on a feature phone
Image: 9to5Google

A video has been making the rounds which shows an unreleased version of Android running off of a feature phone – a phone that contains some features like internet and apps, but not full functionality like found in a smartphone. 9to5Google states that the video in question shows a Nokia device on which Android is being used.

The user in the video can be seen activating Google Assistant and scrolling through an app drawer which contains a handful of Google’s apps and services, which I have to say is pretty cool.

We already knew that Google was working on an Android version for feature phones

Last year, 9to5Google discovered references within Chromium’s source code that highlighted a new “touchless” mode for Google’s browser, obviously designed for devices without a touchscreen. Multiple screenshots were leaked which suggested that the “touchless” mode would be made for specifically for feature phones.

Furthermore, the device is said to be running Android 8.1, and describes the phone as “Iron GAFP” which could possibly stand for “Google Android Feature Phone.” The video also highlights an app called Proxx, which is a Minesweeper clone that Google detailed earlier this year at its Google I/O conference.

Earlier this month Google started to remove this code which probably means they are scraping the idea as a whole – or at least delaying it quite a bit – which is quite disappointing as knowing myself, I would definitely rock a feature phone running Android.

This could be due to the fact that Google invested $22 million in KaiOS which is an alternative feature phone operating system based on Firefox OS. KaiOS already features all the Google applications showcased in the video so maybe Google didn’t see the point of an Android for feature phones.

What do you think? Would you like to see a version of Android come to feature phones? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Murtaza is a Computer Science student who takes immense interest in mobile technology. He believes the future of computing lies in smartphones because ARM architecture will eventually take over. He also loves to tinker with ROMs and kernels keeping up with the latest in smartphones.

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