The Android team is now “designing for satellites”, and this support is planned for the “next version of Android”, which the tech giant has confirmed as Android 14.
Android 14 to bring direct satellite connectivity to smartphones
After SpaceX, T-Mobile and Apple with its iPhone 14 lienup disclosed plans to provide direct satellite communication to devices, tech giant Google said that the next Android 14 will “support our partners in enabling all of this”
Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President of Platforms and Ecosystems at Google, expressed on twitter how it “was a stretch to get 3G + Wifi working” on the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 in 2008, the first Android phone to release.
Wild to think about user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites. When we launched G1 in ’08 it was a stretch to get 3G + Wifi working. Now we’re designing for satellites. Cool! Excited to support our partners in enabling all of this in the next version of Android!
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— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) September 1, 2022
“Wild to think about user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites. When we launched G1 in ’08, it was a stretch to get 3G + Wifi working,” Lockheimer tweeted.
“Now we are designing for satellites. Cool! Excited to support our partners in enabling all of this in the next version of Android.”
The Android team is now “designing for satellites”, and this support is planned for the “next version of Android”, which the tech giant has confirmed as Android 14.
The OS release is likely to arrive in mid-to-late-2023, the report said.
According to Lockheimer, compared to standard LTE and 5G connections, “user experiences for phones that can connect to satellites” will be different.
Satellite connectivity on phones is primarily aimed at emergency situations and getting rid of cellular dead zones, the report said.
Currently, satellite connections are only utilised in dire situations or to fill in for dead spots where networks are harder to get and it would be difficult or expensive to build cell towers or install fibre for 5G.
However, increasing the use of satellites in smartphone connectivity may be essential to managing the rise in connections outside of major cities and providing coverage for mobile devices.
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