“We are working with carriers in these markets to provide affordable carrier packages with these devices,” Pichai said at the event.
Seeking Developers
In addition, Google said it has a new set of tools to help developers build apps for its popular Gmail program. The new offering gives “fine-grained” control to a user’s mailbox.
Google’s push to get Android everywhere still faces hurdles with developers, who need to be persuaded to create programs for the sprawl of initiatives.
“I don’t run out and jump into any of this stuff because I need to see that there’s going to be a market around it,” said Todd Moore, whose three-person development studio, Tmsoft LLC, makes a popular sleep-aid app called White Noise. “Most developers are cautious when a new platform or new app store is created because we want to wait and see if there’s going to be widespread adoption before we put forth effort.”