Ariel Zambelich/WIREDGoogle's Sundar Pichai started things off with a preview of the upcoming "L" (Android 5.0) release today. It's the first time that Google has offered an advanced look at its next generation operating system, and developers will be able to download it. The mobile OS has a new design, which he brought Matais Duarte, Google's vice president of design, on stage to talk about.
Duarte asked what if pixels didn't just have shape, but also depth. The L release will feature something Google is calling material design, which is meant to mimic real world design. Basically, developers will have the ability to add the illusion of depth. It looks really nice, and features a grid-based layout so that developers can create a design for one device, and easily port it to others with different screen sizes. There's a unified set of style guidelines for every screen and all devices. It also has new animation capabilities that support things like ripples. There's a Z component to support elevation---which lets developers add things like real-time shadows. (There's a ripple touch effect that radiates out when you hit buttons from the dialer, too, for example.)
L also streamlines the notifications process. You get instant access to notifications from the lock screen, so that you can act on them without unlocking the phone. The most important ones rise to the top, but you can also swipe down on them to expand them. There's a heads-up notifications feature now, too, that allows you see a notification and act on it from within an app without stopping what you're doing.
But what about lock screens? Well, there's a new feature called personal unlocking that looks at signals like location, Bluetooth, and even voiceprint to authenticate a user. It lets you unlock the phone just by swiping, so you don't have to unlock the phone with a pin code in certain situations. If it can't see, say, your Bluetooth watch, it will prompt for a PIN.
Avni Shah, director of program management for Chrome came out next to talk about mobile web experience. On the mobile web, Google's also bringing in new design elements. Search results in Chrome will feature cards that take advantage of Material Design, for example. It features fast, fluid animations at 60 frames per second---scrolling through images in a Google search, for example, looks like actually flipping through an image book.
Chrome also gets a multitasking upgrade. Chrome tabs are listed equally among the apps in the recent apps view, for example. It's meant to make moving between the web and apps much easier. And it's built on top of a new API that lets apps populate multiple tabs.
Google has also beefed up app indexing, which lets developers give Google the ability to search within apps. A Google search for a restaurant will show it in both the Web, and also the results within an app like OpenTable. This feature was previously only open to a few apps, but is now global. (And all apps can allow for Google-sign in to have public content show up in search.) There' also a new API in Google services to let you recall things you've done in apps--apps can make content available based on a users previous actions. It's meant to let developers help users rediscover content.
There's a new Battery Historian that lets you see what's affecting your battery life. It comes with a new battery saver mode---which we had trouble hearing about because a protestor interrupted the event urging Google to "stop Jack Halpern." It was kind of bananas. But Google says that it can help you improve battery performance by up to 90 percent.
"We aren't building a vertically integrated product, we are building an open platform at scale," Pichai says. He also notes that the things iOS is doing---although he doesn't call it out by name---like custom keyboards and widgets, came to Android four years ago. He uses this idea of an open platform to promote Google Play services: 93 percent of users are on the latest version, he says. This means that Google is able to better support security features with L, including malware protection, security patches via Play services, and factory reset protections. There are also universal data controls to manage things like location history.
Finally, L is also meant to move from screen to screen. Here's how Pichai says it will do that. It will have contextual awareness, so it's right for you whether you are at home or at work. It's voice enabled, so that you can always talk to it if you are driving or cooking. Finally, it's mobile first, because you always have your phone with you. And the first way we're going to see this implemented today is in wearables. To describe it, David Singleton, director of engineering for Android, came onstage.
Android Wear will support various screen configurations---circular or square, for example. It understands your voice, so you can interact with it. Singleton shows this in action on an LG G watch. It has an always on display that supports notifications via vibrations. The touchscreen display lets you swipe vertically across it to see notifications from various apps. Swiping horizontally lets you see them. You can also swipe them to dismiss, or hold them to scroll across different ones.
You can interact with it, telling it things like "remind me to check my mail when I get home." It syncs to your phone, and sets that reminder. That takes place across applications. Dismiss an app on the watch, and it dismisses on the phone, too. You can do things like ask your watch a question ("what is Limburger") and you'll get the answer via a Google search that takes place via your phone, and is sent to your wrist. Wear can show incoming call notifications, and let you decline calls from the wrist. You can set a do not disturb mode on your phone via the wrist, so notifications won't interrupt you at important times. Wear can also control other devices---like a sound system.
It takes advantage of Google Now to give you relevant contextual information as you're traveling through your day---restaurant reservations, transit schedules, plane tickets---all displayed on your wrist. It can show health data like step counts and heart rates. That's all "out of the box" notes Singleton. Developers can use it to build even more sophisticated contextual applications. Because Android notifications APIs let you include things like images, sound, and interactions, those can all be supported on the wrist. Notifications can either be stacked, or have pages. The idea is to give people the ability to act on notifications in a meaningful but lightweight manner within seconds---maybe you can swipe through pages in a notification if you want to see multiple steps, for example. Google says it is making the full Android Wear SDK available today.
When Google showed off some of the ways these play out in real life, Singleton shows how he's able to order a Pizza within 20 seconds by repeating a previous order he made on Eat 24. It prompts him at the same time of his previous order, offers to repeat it, and lets him pay even. This is all done using Play APIs, and all he has to do is install the Eat 24 app on his phone to have that experience on his watch.
An even better version of this is the Lyft example. Just by walking outside and saying to a watch "Okay Google, call me a car" it summons a Lyft, and even lets him rate the ride afterwards.
The LG G watch will be available later today on the Play Store. Samsung is rolling out the Samsung Gear Live, also available later today. The Moto 360, the first round Android Wear watch, will be available later this summer (which gets an audible groan from the crowd.)
Google is coming to your car, too. Google's Patrick Brady, a director of engineering for Android, announced Android Auto today---a way to use connected Android apps and services in the car. Navigation, communication and music will take center stage here. Android Auto is contextually aware to give you information like time to your destination when you need it, and it's voice enabled so you can interact just by talking to it. Android Auto will also cast the phone screen to a car's screen, and let you use the car's controls to interact. It looks like part of the car, but the apps are running on the phone. It brings your personalized experience to any compatible car---so you have the same experience in a rental as you do in your own whip.
The interface has also been optimized for the car. Play music was adapted to have simpler controls. Google Maps is completely voice enabled. You can say, for example, "how late is the DeYoung Museum open," get an answer, and then ask to "navigate there" and get directions to the destination. In the demo, Google showed a way to get directions without ever saying the address itself. Incoming messages show up as heads-up notifications, without taking away the Maps display. Replies can be activated via a button on the steering wheel.
Google announced an Android Auto SDK today (released "soon") to help developers build apps for the car. These are focused on audio and messaging. Audio APIs will let you listen to news, music, podcasts, and more. Messaging APIs will be open to other messaging apps, like WhatsApp for example, that let you respond via voice. The same APIs work with Android Wear. More than 40 parters have joined---lots of familiar faces, but I didn't see a Toyota logo there.
Oh, hey and Google is also coming to your TV with Android TV. "We're simply giving TV the same level of attention as your phone and tablet," said Google's Dave Burke. Basically, it just treats the TV like another Android screen. The interface is extremely slick. It has a very simple UI that reacts to your usage patterns. On the home screen, shows are up top, below them are apps, and below that games. The key to this is keeping the experience seamless across devices. It's the same API for TV, phone and tablet. You can use your Android Wear watch to navigate the options on your TV, which mirror the options on you tablet. Android TV includes full Google cast support, so you can use it just like a Chromecast. Essentially, it is a built in Chromecast. This means you can go to someone else's house, and play your videos and music.
And of course it's all driven by Search. You can say "Breaking Bad" and it shows you that show on every service you have installed. You can drill down to explore, for example, cast members too. You can search for "oscar nominated movies" and get a list back. You can ask "who played Katniss in the Hunger Games" and get the answer right on your screen.
Games are getting huge support too. Android TV brings Google Play games to the big screen. It supports multiplayer games, played from various devices, so one person can play on a phone and another on a gaming pad simultaneously.
The store will open in the fall with content tailored for the TV. It's going to have TV support from Sony, Sharp, TP Vision, and box support from manufacturers like Razer and Asus, among others.
Rishi Chandra, director of project management for Chromecast, says the device has already sold millions. It's one of the top selling electronics devices in multiple countries. YouTube sees more active engagement on Chromecast than any other streaming products. That Google cast support is now coming to lots of other devices. The Google cast SDK across Android, iOS, and Chrome lets developers take any app from those platforms and sling it to the TV. To promote these, it's launching a new listing service at chromecast.com/apps. It's also making it easier for others to cast to your TV without being on the same Wi-Fi network. Users can opt-out of this too, so you don't have to worry about your TV just being open to anyone.
Chromecast is getting a new photos experience too, called Backdrop. This lets you personalize the photo feed to the ambient feed of images that are cast when the TV isn't showing anything. Bottom line: You can cast your own photos to the TV now. But you can also select theme-specific images like art, places, lifestyle, weather and news, among others, that are curated by Google. Every topic has synchronized cards, so you can ask it to tell you more about what you're seeing and it will send a card to the TV with images. It ships later this summer.
There's also a new room cast feature that lets you mirror select Android devices to your TV. It means you can display any app---or anything on your phone really -- on the TV. This is really cool. Samsung, Nexus, and HTC are up first, with more on the way.
But it isn't all Android---or at least not entirely. Pichai also wants to tell us about Chromebooks. It began with one reference device, and today there are eight OEMs making 15 devices with "many more on the way," he says. It's keys are speed, simplicity, and security. All of the top ten highest rated laptops on Amazon are Chromebooks. Short take: It's a success.
Chromebooks are bringing in cues from Android as well. It already supports Google Now. When you unlock your phone, and are close, it can also unlock your Chromebook. Your incoming calls and text messages are displayed on your laptop. Low battery notifications even show up.
But the big goal has been to integrate Android applications into Chromebooks. And it's happening. Pichai showed an Android version of Evernote running on a Chromebook. There's a Vine app running on the desktop---and it even supports the Chomebook's camera so you can actually create a Vine right from the desktop.
Oh, and Android is coming to your office too! Google is enabling support for enterprise on phones so you don't need two devices. You can have corporate and personal applications living on the same device. Personal data is isolated from work data. Enterprises can bulk deploy apps, and existing apps don't need to be modified, if they are Ice Cream Sandwich or above. In the fall, there will be a certified Android for Work program.
Google Docs has also been beefed up to make your office happier. There's a new Slides program (think: PowerPoint) and it opens and supports native Office apps. Collaboration features have been enhanced to make viewing and accepting or rejecting changes easier. Google Drive now has 190 million monthly active users. It supports encryption in transit and on server. There are audit and activity APIs, unlimited storage, and it's $10 per user per month.
And of course, because this is a developer event, Google talked about its cloud services as well. It's trying to make it really easy for developers to offload data, debugging, tracing and processing functions to the cloud. This announcement was interrupted by a protestor, who chanted "wake the fuck up," and repeatedly claimed "you're all working for a totalitarian company that builds robots that kill people."
Still, developers seemed to like the lines of code scrolling across the screen behind the shouting.
A large section towards the end of the keynote was largely devoted to talking about developer tools. It was a tedious end to an event that had already stretched more than two hours, but also a reminder that this is a developer event, not a consumer one.
This was followed by a segment about Google Play, which was essentially a business development pitch, with some consumer news about Google Fit interjected in the middle.
Google Fit is meant to integrate multiple sources to provide a unified view of a person. You can integrate data from multiple devices and applications into one experience. Google Fit APIs let apps and brands share fitness activity with a user's permission. They're also taking in data from hardware like Adidas, and announced partners including Nike.
We then heard about ways Google Play Games are getting boosted, and how much money developers can make in the Play Store.
If you look at I/O as an event that speaks to its products, this was a weird little interlude and perhaps gets at the problem Google has in speaking to people in the same way, say, Apple or Amazon is capable of doing.
But overall this was an incredibly ambitious event, with lots of moving parts and lots to digest in the coming weeks and months.
