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posted by martyb on Friday September 13 2019, @12:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the touching-story dept.

https://9to5google.com/2019/09/11/google-scrapped-touchless-chrome-android-feature-phones/

For the past six months, we've been tracking Google's progress on introducing feature phones as a new form factor for both Android and the Chrome browser. Now it seems plans may have changed, as Google seems to be removing all of the code for Chrome's Android-based touchless mode.

Early this year, we discovered that Google was working on a version of Chrome that was designed to be used by feature phones without a touchscreen, a form factor that still sees significant usage in emerging markets. This "touchless" Chrome even included a bonus standalone version of the Dino Runner mini-game reworked for the new screen size.

This morning, reader Kawshik tipped us off to a new work-in-progress commit with the straightforward title, "Remove touchless* with the exception of Blink code." In the code change, we see Google removing all references to touchless Chrome and deleting the hundreds of files within the "touchless" folder.


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  • (Score: 1) by tbuskey on Friday September 13 2019, @01:55PM (1 child)

    by tbuskey (6127) on Friday September 13 2019, @01:55PM (#893633)

    I know I have a few friends who are now in the 50s that were early adopters of the iPhone (having had a blackberry through work) that have discovered their iPhones work just fine with no data plan and diligent use of free wifi at their favorite coffee shops and restaurants.

    So, an iPod touch or Android tablet :)

    Try finding a phone plan in the US with a smart phone but no data plan. Just calls/text and WiFi data. I had Republic Wireless like that. It worked very well most of the time for me. Not so good for using GPS type apps, but I had a real GPS then.

  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday September 13 2019, @03:52PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Friday September 13 2019, @03:52PM (#893704) Journal

    Try finding a phone plan in the US with a smart phone but no data plan. Just calls/text and WiFi data.

    There are some BYOP prepaid talk/text plans you can game into costing less than $10 a year if you don't use them much. If you go up to $30 a year you can get a MVNO that will work with most Verizon phones (and unfortunately Verizon towers currently have the best US coverage AFAIK). There are similar options for AT&T phones, and just generally unlocked GSMs. The more you talk the more it costs, obviously, but if you don't lock yourself into a contract when purchasing a phone you can probably find a prepaid MVNO that will give you a cheap talk/text option.