There’s still hope

Talk about timing: right after we posted the question of what happened to Google’s initiative, Android One, Google posted an update on their website concerning developments of their ambitious smartphone program. The good news is that it’s finally reached this side of the planet – the bad news is that its making its SEA debut in Indonesia first. Google’s partnered up with Evercoss, Mito and Nexian to bring their affordable Android vision to the local Indonesian populace, promising Android 5.0 Lollipop powered smartphones for under 1.5 million rupiah, or Php 5.2K in our currency.

Google has also partnered with mobile service provider Telkomsel to provide free OTA updates as well as an allowance of 200MB per month of downloads from the Google Play store, which is similar to the sarch giant’s partnership with telcom players in India when they launched there last year.

The only question now is when – we’re hoping that the next blog update they do is the one for the Philippines. One can only hope.