Mere days after the official rollout of Android 11 for Pixel devices and other handsets, Google has announced what people can expect, in terms of software updates, for lower-powered devices. On 10 September, the company published a blog post detailing Android 11 (Go edition).

In 2016, Google first revealed its Android Go initiative, explaining that it hoped to bring the power of Android to everyone. Android Go is, therefore, meant to be a lighter version of stock Android. It is still predominantly Android as you know it, but the new software is optimised for smartphones with lower-performing processors, smaller amounts of memory, and less available mobile data. We have a guide explaining exactly what the software does and why here.

The latest version of the Go software adds grouped notifications from chat apps in your notifications, just like standard Android 11 does, as well as the ability to grant apps one-time permissions. Oh, and apps will launch 20% faster versus the Go edition of Android 10. It also includes a gesture-based navigation system.

Google said Android 11 (Go edition) is now available and will work on devices with 2GB of RAM or less. (Note that Go edition of Android 10 is for devices with less than 1.5GB of RAM). The software will reportedly only come loaded on new phones that meet those specifications.