Google I/O starts tomorrow. Discussing Android development on the Games forum got me looking forward to the news that will start coming quick and wondering what surprises - if any - may be announced.
Jelly Bean is pretty much a given. Not much information about what precisely that will imply, but I'm guessing the focus in this iteration will be largely on apps.
Google Assistant (the counter to Siri) is strongly rumored; it remains to be seen whether they can deliver anything that really ups the ante on that field. Living in a non-English speaking part of the world, I'm not likely to get a lot of use out of this, but my technical curiousity is looking forward to seeing what they manage in this field.
Nexus Tablet - Google's answer to the Kindle Fire. This is another given - it will be a 7-inch, fairly well-specced tablet at $200 or $250, and running Jelly Bean. I would be more excited about this if I didn't already have a tablet and actually needed a 7" device, but it's certainly going to be interesting to see what impact this may have on the market.
The item that really interests me - and which was hinted at a bit during GDC - is that of Google Games. Supposedly a merger of Google+ Games, Android, and Chrome web store under a single umbrella - complete with social gaming and multiplayer support and a payment system that is streamlined with Google Play. It's been almost two years since Gamecenter - I'm going to be really annoyed if this does not happen very soon.
Common to all of these rumors is that they are very reactive announcements. I wonder whether we will see anything really new? Google Glasses perhaps? I'm sceptical about that arriving so soon, though.
Thoughts? Anyone heard about anything really exciting that is likely to come out over the next couple of days?
I'll make the same hopeless prediction I've made for years now:
They'll finally fix the audio delay bug in Android, enabling actual music-creation/sound-modification apps to be created for the OS.
Been there since the start; there's no good reason for it; they'll never, ever fix it.
Tell me about it. Windows also has crap latency in its native stack. Thank god for ASIO or my whole hacking project would be doomed on Windows. Fortunately Win8 kept desktop mode because Metro audio latency will probably suck too....
Yes, it's a huge drag that only Apple has really gotten the corporate concept that audio latency matters. I am hoping Microsoft will get dragged into the "latency matters" world as they keep working on Kinect 2 and get into the head-mounted game, where latency is even more critical than in audio. But it's just as likely that audio latency will continue to be a non-issue... and YES IT TOTALLY SUCKS.
Damn shame to hear that Android is in the same ballpark, only with no ASIO to provide you an end-run around the crap native stuff.
Leaks Nexus Q weird ins't this a Google TV? A simpler version of it? Are they killing the google TV brand?
Watching it.
400 million Android activations.
They have shown a comparison of ICS vs JB, to show off how now it's more responsive and butter smooth.
I'll be interested in the first release of an Android SDK library for Glass, but I suspect that won't be for a while yet. There are undoubtedly a few trusted developers under contract now, though.
The Nexus Q looks weird, but intriguing.
Nexus 7 display was amazing, and at $199, shipping in mid-July...I'm psyched.
Okay, the Nexus Q just made the Google Play digital library worthwhile. Love being able to share my entire library at a friend's. $299 is a bit steep, though.
Now you just need to convince your friend to shell out $300 for the piece of shit. It's an obvious loser.
The appleTV is $99, and a bit closer to home, vizio is releasing a googletv device for $99 too. With Plex installed, it's pretty usable.
The Nexus Q looks great, but $299 is way too much. $199 is better, and $99 is probably about right. I mean, it's basically a (much better) Roku, or an AppleTV that doesn't suck ass, or a 360 minus the ability to play fancy-ass games, and not even the 360 is $300 any more.
Jellybean looks great -- you can really see Matias Duarte's hand at work on the Android tiller.
It's not a much better roku. Roku has hundreds of channels streaming internet video, and you can buy one for $50. AppleTV has a dozen or so channels, and it's $99. GoogleTV has real apps, can stream tons of video, and with Plex is adept at local media.
Unless they somehow forgot to mention it during the keynote, Nexus Q doesn't support apps, it just streams from google play. It can't even fucking play netflix.
Actually, one of my friends is REALLY excited about the Nexus Q, but $299 is too much.
At $300 The Q is DOA. Have they learned nothing from the Logitech Revue? $99 is the only way the thing has any chance of success. Google Tax?
I figured they were trying to escape the stigma of the failed googletv branding, but then they said $299 and it was facepalm time.
If you're still watching, they just did an awesome live Glass demo with skydivers, rapellers, and stunt bicylers and are discussing it now. It's not consumer ready, but it's neat technology.
Sigh. Google really don't have a clue about how to present stuff.
No way man, the Glass demo was awesomesauce.
The nexus Q doesn't so much fail in presentation (although the sphere with glowing LEDs is admittedly bizarre) as in pricing and features.
Nexus 7, eh? That's one better than Roy Batty's generation!
You think so? I find listening to those guys directly painful. "So... eh... we have this incredibly powerful device... eh... its quite cool, don't you think. We can do this and this and this... and that would be really cool, right?"Originally Posted by stusser
Just show us.
They did. They jumped out a frickin plane and broadcast it live from six separate perspectives to a google+ hangout from little cameras on their eyeglasses.
I can do that with a linked-up headcam. Show me how it will change my life.
To be honest, it's not the intro that I have a problem with though. That was OK - but then they went to the presentation.... the baby sequence was not too bad, though. Should have been more like that.
These Glass presenters are painful to watch.
Whole bunch of IO attendees are about to make bank by flipping their Glass on ebay.
I don't know. My little brother (mid-thirties yuppie who works for REI corporate) has music listening parties with his friends on a super regular basis. They all get together and perhaps smoke a bit, and just play each other music all night. The Q looks perfect for that sort of thing- if they weren't all already locked into the iPhone ecosystem.
Yeah, that was not a polished presentation. But it's not a consumer product, so that's OK.
Didn't catch all the presentation but did they just show pictures and videos again for the glasses? That's a bit disappointing.
No, they had 6 guys jump out of a blimp in wingsuits, parachute down to the roof of the convention center, handoff to a bunch of dudes on bikes who stunt-biked to the edge of the building, handoff to a couple dudes who rapelled down the side of the building, then handoff to a couple more dudes on bikes who biked to the room they were presenting from, all streams broadcast live simultaneously on a google hangout.
They're also selling them to developers for $1500, to ship sometime next year.
Yeah. I think the wrap-up of the Glass presentation nailed it; nerds presenting to other nerds. Heh.
A pity that it's US I/O attendees only, but $1500 is a bit pricy anyway.
And they're really upping the ante on the stash that I/O attendees get. I won't pretend I'm not jealous (seeing as how it's unlikely I'll ever get to attend one of these events); but I do think it sort of destroys the point of this being a developer conference. I'm willing to bet that more than half of the people there wouldn't be if nor for the stash.
Looking forward to tomorrow when they presumably present the new ADT.
I could be reading more into this than it warrants, but I thought it WAS a GoogleTV, only with new apps to make it have more of a point.
It costs $550 to register for the conference, so it's not a convincing value proposition for the goodie bag alone.
No, it's not a googletv. It only streams from google play (and youtube). Unless the presentation was completely misleading, anyway. You'd think they would have mentioned that it can run apps from the play store, etc. They specifically said it was not an airplay-analog, it doesn't play media from your tablet or phone. Your tablet/phone is just a remote control.
I have to disagree.
$550 for a Galaxy Nexus, a Nexus Q, and a Nexus 7? Plus, in this case, exclusive preorder on a Glass device. And those are just the highlights from the first day (the package contains more); usually there are also lots of goodies being given out by other Google Partners.
How is that not a good value proposition?
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