Malavika Velayanikal · · 2 min readDownload YouTube videos and watch them offline – if you’re in India
Google chose to launch its newest product – the Android One budget smartphones – in India yesterday. And now comes the fun part – an array of apps and services to attract “the next billion” Android users that Google is eyeing.
The first goodie – ‘coming soon’, says the Android One India website – will let YouTube visitors from India save videos to watch offline. India’s unreliable download speeds and the unbearable fees telecom operators charge for overshooting mobile data plans make video streaming an indulgence many can’t afford. What fun it would be to download a movie over wi-fi at home, and then watch it offline on a mobile device during the long commute to work. Of course, users can watch their favourite videos over and over again after downloading them just once – without having to stream it repeatedly.
More details are awaited about how exactly this will work, and when it will be extended to the rest of the world. For now, it’s for users in India only – and it’s for free.
The point of launching low-cost smartphones with the new Android One operating system is clearly to expand the reach of Google services, and YouTube is among the most popular of them in India. So Google executive Ceaser Sengupta wasn’t exaggerating when he made this announcement: “Within the coming few weeks, much of YouTube will be available offline in India. This is huge, and our users will really, really like this.”
Other goodies will come preloaded with the Android One smartphones – such as free 12-month subscriptions to newspapers and magazines on Newsstand. But it is YouTube offline that resolves the biggest pain-point for budget smartphone users in emerging markets – slow and unaffordable downloads.
In another concession, Android updates and app downloads from Google Play Store are going to be free for users of telecom operator Airtel – up to 200MB a month, which should be enough free data to get you started.
It looks like Google is pulling out all the stops to ride the low-cost smartphone boom in India.
See: 5 reasons why Google’s Android One is a game-changer in budget smartphones
Editing by Steven Millward
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