Yesterday the Google I/O developer conference kicked off in San Francisco. It was the start of Google’s 6th annual event which will continue through today and tomorrow, an event which is attended by over 6,000 developers and watched carefully by technology enthusiasts.
Yesterday Google focussed upon its two open platforms, Android and Chrome with several announcements aiming to give developers more tools to build apps on those platforms. In addition there were “new innovations” across other Google services including maps, communications, photos, and search.
Let’s look through the main news and announcements one by one.
Google Play Music “all access” subscription service: This is a $10 a month music streaming service to partner the existing Google Music app. This new service puts Google head-to-head against the established Spotify and Pandora services. It will work both on your Android smartphone and desktop computer. The interface, by default is based around search and album artwork. From what has been seen so far CNet surmises that you can “get a lot more with the Pandoras and Spotifys of the world even if you don't pay”. It’s initially a US service only and there is a 30 day free trial available.
Google Play game services: This updated provides Android gamers with cloud saves and synchronisation and a game opponent matchmaking service. Leaderboards and achievements also feature.
Google Maps: This update is said to “get rid of any clutter” and focus upon individual experience and exploration. When you search the new Google Maps, the map which is rendered is apparently individually tailored for you “Like a friend drawing you a map to her favorite restaurant, with only the roads and landmarks you need to get there, the new Google Maps instantly changes to highlight information that matters most.” A lot of this friendliness is highlighting local services and businesses etc with “Info cards” and also building recommendations based upon your history and your Google+ friends.
Another tweak to Google Maps includes a new carousel to bring together the map related imagery available, relevant to where you are exploring. If you use a a WebGL-enabled browser, like Google Chrome, the carousel is where you'll find “Earth view” integrating Google Earth into the new maps.
Google Search: This service has been updated to provide “a multi-screen and conversational search experience”. The ultimate aim of Google is to create a search engine “that can answer your questions, have a conversation with you, and even give you useful things without you ever having to ask”. Natural language search will play a part in this so talking to your computer to search for stuff is the way Google see people interacting and making the most of this new facility.
In an example given on the Google Search Blog a user, hands free, asks his computer “OK Google, will it be sunny in Santa Cruz this weekend?” The answer is spoken by the computer. Then the users can contextually and naturally follow up with voice prompts such as “how far is it from here?” and then check alternatives, “how about Monterey?”
Google+ Stream, Hangouts and Photos: Google continued to try and push its social network. Stream is the redesigned Google+ newsfeed. Hangouts is to become a standalone communications app combining text, photos and live video across Android, iOS and your computer. It is a free app and as a service is available from within Gmail and Google+.
Google Chrome: Google took the opportunity to crow that there are now “over 750 million active Chrome users worldwide”. Also the Chromebook was again said to be building “momentum”, however we recently saw independent figures showing it to be less successful in its momentum gathering than the much maligned Windows RT. Also a Chrome Experiment multiplayer game called Racer was unveiled.
Overall that’s lots of interesting new technology and most of it is available to us for free. Let’s hope for some nice hardware announcements today and tomorrow; a Nexus 5 or Nexus 7.1 would be welcome additions. Google I/O day two kicks off in about 7 hours from now, there will be a live stream available.
