Google announced a host of new products and services for India, including an app called YouTube Go, to help users facing challenges such as low-powered phones, 2G connections, and very little data. The tech giant is looking to “deepen India’s participation in the internet”.

For one, it will start extensive user tests of YouTube Go, an app “completely reimagined for the next generation of YouTube users,” which for now will only be available in India.

It will play YouTube videos across various connectivity situations, supposedly provide users with transparency and control over their data consumption and let them share videos easily with people nearby without using any data.

As for the Google Play app, it will pre-load the most popular parts of the store on Wi-Fi so that browsing is faster even on a weak signal.

When choosing to install an app, users will also have the option to “wait for Wi-Fi”.

The Assistant feature in Allo, the messaging app Google recently started rolling out, will soon be available in Hindi, as will its ‘smart replies’ feature.

Chrome on Android will automatically “optimise pages to their essentials” when 2G-like networks are detected. The company claims these pages will load up to 2x faster, saving more than 90 per cent of user data.

Similarly, Google News and Weather apps will now have a “lite mode” for people on low-bandwidth connections that trims the content down so it can download faster. This mode uses less than one-third of data levels and will automatically be triggered when a slow connection is detected.

The firm also announced Google Station, which will provide software and guidance on hardware to turn fiber connections into Wi-Fi zones.

The next billion
“Building for India and other countries where the next billion internet users are coming online not only improves their experiences, it gives us better ideas that work for everyone,” said Caesar Sengupta, VP of Google’s Next Billion Users Team.

Back in May, India’s government said it would soon allow Google to run a four-day pilot test of its ambitious Project Loon.

Earlier in the year Google also said it will train two million developers in the country as part of a new Android Skilling initiative.