T-Mobile and Google have announced a strategic partnership that can promote Android gadgets on one of many best wireless carriers in the U.S. As a part of the brand new partnership, T-Mobile helps to additional unify the Android ecosystem by adopting more of Google’s services as defaults on the platform. In addition, T-Mobile plans to broaden its choices, which may introduce a greater diversity of smartphones.
On the software program entrance, T-Mobile more or much less taking a backseat with its personal software program and “bundling” Google’s apps and services into each Android telephone it sells. One main benefit to that is the increase to Google Messages and RCS, now that T-Mobile plans to make this the default on all of its Android telephones.
This consists of telephones just like the Samsung Galaxy S21 which already embody full assist for RCS inside Samsung’s default messaging app. T-Mobile beforehand expressed its commitment to RCS prior to now, however making Google Messages the default on its smartphones will additional its efforts.
The swap, which ought to occur later this yr, will assist to set up RCS as a typical, giving customers entry to enhanced messaging and serving to Google improve its messaging around Google Messages, which has lagged ever because it started pushing RCS options onto the app. T-Mobile additionally highlights the end-to-end encryption that Google has rolled out to beta users, stating that the rollout will proceed all year long, providing higher buyer privateness.
T-Mobile is placing more Google onto your subsequent Android telephone.
T-Mobile additionally introduced that it is making Google One its default for cloud backup storage on Android gadgets as an alternative of bundling its personal. This additional differentiates T-Mobile from different carriers like Verizon, which prefers to bundle its numerous cloud and messaging services with its telephones. Thanks to these modifications, T-Mobile clients ought to discover a lower in service bloat that always plagues new Android smartphones. It’s unclear if T-Mobile will provide reductions for the service, which begins at $2 monthly for 100GB, however clients will doubtless default to the traditional free 15GB.
As a part of T-Mobile’s push to additional promote Android, the corporate introduced that it could start providing a greater diversity of gadgets, beginning with Google’s personal smartphones. While the corporate presently sells the Google Pixel 4a 5G and helps different Pixel gadgets, it’ll doubtless imply that T-Mobile will promote future gadgets just like the Google Pixel 6. Until now, Verizon has held a largely unique maintain on the Pixel smartphones, so the transfer ought to broaden the attain of not solely Google’s smartphones however different Android OEMs as nicely.
T-Mobile already has “essentially the most Android smartphone clients within the U.S.,” in accordance to CEO Mike Seivert, explaining that the partnership extends the decade-long relationship between the 2 corporations:
We’re constructing on our decade-long relationship with Google to give clients a fair higher expertise with the world’s best possible merchandise and services….it is one of the best of Google, mixed with the nation’s largest and quickest 5G community on T-Mobile.
T-Mobile additionally plans to focus on Google’s leisure choices by switching to YouTube TV and shutting down TVision. The firm additionally states it plans to make investments more in Android TV, which implies we may quickly see the corporate provide more of the best Android TV boxes.
