Your ancient Android Gingerbread phone is about to turn even some-more useless
When was a final time we suspicion about your aged Gingerbread phone? Google launched Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to a open scarcely 10 years ago, ushering in a days of a Tron-inspired Holo UI, yet some mythological Android inclination — including a Moto Droid X, HTC Evo 4G, and Samsung’s bizarre Galaxy S — never done a jump. If you’re still holding onto a phone regulating Gingerbread, it’s about to get a whole lot harder to use with Google services.
Starting Sep 27, any device regulating Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread or progressing will no longer be means to pointer into a Google comment (via 9to5Google). The association privately highlights Gmail, YouTube, and Maps as apps unfailing to furnish username and cue errors following this date. In an email sent to influenced users, Google suggests updating your device to Android 3.0 or aloft if probable (a bizarre request, deliberation Honeycomb was a tablet-exclusive release), yet realistically, a essay is on a wall. If you’re still regulating a Gingerbread phone as your daily motorist — or even as a delegate device — it competence be time to give adult a ghost.
As with many of Google’s OS restrictions, this is driven essentially by reserve and security. While Android phones have gained copiousness of new facilities given 2011, they’re also far, distant some-more secure. Monthly confidence rags have turn a norm for a reason, after all. These apps are also distant from a initial to be infirm on Gingerbread phones. WhatsApp stopped ancillary a height in Jan of 2020, and it was dropped from Google Play Services wholly approach behind in 2017.
If, for whatever reason, we need to keep accessing Gmail or YouTube on an influenced device, we aren’t wholly out of luck. You can try logging into your comment regulating your phone’s browser. Some web apps will still work with this method, yet Google didn’t prominence what will and won’t be upheld in a support forums.
Although distribution numbers for Android ceased being shared a integrate of years ago, Gingerbread had depressed to 0.3% marketplace share by May of 2019. It’s protected to contend that series has given forsaken even further, tying a series of users this affects to a tiny organisation of collectors during best. If we know of anyone still examination YouTube videos on a Nexus One, make certain they know it’s finally time to lift a trigger on that upgrade.
