Millions of smartphones without YouTube and Gmail from today: what happens

Time: 12/Jul By: kenglenn 471 Views

ANDROIDMilioni di smartphone senza YouTube e Gmail da oggi: che succede

Google has removed support for a small percentage of Android smartphones which, however, amounts to several million devices.Here is happening.

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Millions of Android users all over the world have woke up today with bad news: they can no longer access from the phone to their Google account and, consequently, to use the apps of the Californian giant such as YouTube, Gmail or Maps.The even uglier news is that, most likely, they have no solution to this problem except to buy a new phone.

The problem, as Google herself explains, is in the Android operating system: all those who have a phone with Android 2.3.7 or previous can be affected by this problem.It is a very old version of Android, released in December 2010 and currently used on a very small percentage of phones: between 0.2% and 0.3%.But since the Android smartphones in the world today exceed 3 billion (number reached in March 2021), making a quick account it is clear that users with Android 2.3.7 are between 6 and 9 million in total.Few, therefore, but not very few.All these users, from today, could experience a long series of problems because they can no longer use Google Mobile Services (GMS).

Android without GMS: what happens

In a nutshell, users with Android 2.3.7 from today will no longer be able to access their Google account, because the Google services that serve to verify the user's identity have been deactivated.This leads to a series of possible errors, if the user tries to perform one of these simple and common actions with his smartphone:

Much of the operations that each user performs daily with his Android mobile phone, therefore, are blocked and all Google's main apps are almost unusable.

Because all this happens

The reason why from today Android 2.3.7 users can no longer use Google Mobile Services is very simple: the used version of Android is too old and Google does not support it anymore.

The more old an operating system is, in fact, the more expensive it is for those who develop it to keep it updated with the safety patches.Android 2.3.7 has been supported by Google for 10 full years, now it is the time that retires.

What Android users do 2.3.7 do

At this point, those who own an Android 2.3.7 smartphone have only two opportunities: update it to a more modern version of the operating system, or simply buy a newer model, equipped with a recent version of Android.

Unfortunately, very often, it is impossible to update the phone because the manufacturer offers one or two updates to the maximum.In this case, the only possible solution is to buy a new smartphone to return to use your Google account without problems and apps such as Gmail, Maps or YouTube.