Google Play Edition versions of Android phones and why they disappeared

Google has been developing the Android operating system for many years, and it still is. The popular operating system has gone through busy phases in its history, and it has been subjected to various ups and downs as well. Perhaps those interested in the technical field always prefer Android versions that do not include major modifications.

This is where smartphone manufacturers are modifying the Android system significantly to add their own user interfaces. But a large segment of users did not prefer this. This led to the emergence of Google Play Edition versions of smartphones.

These versions, which were known as GPE for short, allowed obtaining smartphone versions with the same specifications, but without the pre-installed applications and features and with the deletion of most of the modifications.

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Google formally introduced this idea at the Google I/O 2013 conference with the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S4 in GPE version, which came with an operating interface closer to raw Android and is only sold through Google stores.

The phone was sold at a price of $ 650, although the price of the regular version of it was $ 580. This sums up the idea behind Google Play Editions, which is to provide a raw Android version of the flagship phones.

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Google Play Edition versions of Android phones

Google supported its new idea greatly, and also got support from other manufacturers. In the same year, the GPE version of the HTC One was revealed, which was priced at $600, compared to $575 for the regular version.

These phones suffered from the same problems as all Google devices, which is poor global availability. What made the situation of the GPE versions even more difficult was that they came at a higher price than the regular versions.

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Later, the Sony Xperia Z Ultra was launched in 2014, but this time the GPE version of it came at a lower price, but later the prices of the two versions were reduced, and besides, all GPE versions were available exclusively in the United States of America.

And later phones such as Moto G, HTC One M8 and others appeared. And in just two years, the Google Play Edition project was completed, as Google was not very patient with it. Since the project was terminated in 2015 until now, Google has not considered reviving it except with Android One.

The reason behind the disappearance of these versions is the difficulty of continuing to produce two versions of each phone, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the provision of these phones was done by Google itself, and therefore the problems of global distribution remained.

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