Google has confirmed that it will soon block access to some of its most popular services on older smartphones.
The U.S. tech giant will be removing support for Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, and other apps from some Android devices later this month.
This will leave millions of people around the world excluded from critical software – unless they update their phones or buy a new mobile phone.
Google announced the deadline in a short article on its website.
The tech giant said it plans to block users from signing in with their Google accounts on devices running Android 2.3, an old version of the Google operating system released in December 2010 from September 27.
Google said it’s withdrawing support for the platform “as part of our going efforts to keep our users safe”.
The California search giant regularly drops support for older versions of its Android software when they release new ones.
This is because older operating system versions are much more vulnerable to bugs and hackers.
The latest version of Android is Android 11, 2.3 is miles behind the software that runs on most Android smartphones today.
In February 2017, Google suspended Google Pay contactless payments on phones running Android 2.3.
Later this month, anyone using a device running the software will find that they won’t be able to sign in to their Google Account.
They will receive a username and password error even though they entered the correct credentials.
Attempting to add a Google Calendar or a Gmail account to the device settings menu will result in the same error..
Other famous Google apps to stop working are YouTube, Google Play Store, Google Map, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.
To continue using these apps, you must upgrade your smartphone to Android 3.0.
You can do this by going to Device settings and tap systems> Advanced> System Updates.
However, some users will be outrightly blocked because not all devices running Android 2.3 are able to move on to the next version.
Android 2.3 includes Sony Xperia Advance, Lenovo K800, Sony Xperia Go, Vodafone Smart II, Samsung Galaxy S2, Sony Xperia P, LG Spectrum, Sony Xperia S, LG Prada 3.0, HTC Speed, HTC Evo 4G, Motorola Fire, and Motorola XT532.
If you can not upgrade your device, you can always connect to YouTube via your browser.
.
