Smartphones launching in 2020 will be required to come with Android 10

Over the years, Google has made a concerted effort to try and fight against Android fragmentation through a variety of initiatives. In their latest efforts, the folks at XDA Developers have come documentation for Google Mobile Services, in which they discovered that smartphones launched after January 31st, 2020, they will need to ship with Android 10 preinstalled.

For those unfamiliar, Google Mobile Services is a suite of Google apps and services that handset makers need to license if they want to use Google’s products on their smartphones. Based on this, it means that pretty much all smartphones launching in 2020 will come with the latest build of Android.

This is good news because there have been instances that some handset makers have chosen to use the previous build of Android, despite the fact that the latest version was already available. This will help fight against platform fragmentation where devices would use all versions of Android, leading to very different user experiences.

This effort also seems to be in line with Google’s attempts at trying to unify Android, where in the GMS, it also hinted that handset makers would need to adopt Android 10’s new gesture navigations and prioritize it over their own.

Source: XDA Developers