Google I/O 2012 - Wow

Google I/O was starting this morning at 12:30am and I was contemplating on whether to watch it. Since it was 12:30 by the time I was ready to go to bed, I figured what the heck, and turned on the live presentation on Youtube to check it out as I laid in bed.

I have to admit the presentation caught me off guard, cause I found myself watching most of the presentation till it was pretty late! Remember I mentioned how the unveiling of the Galaxy Nexus felt like a "classroom project presentation"?, Google I/O on the other hand was really well done, different from Apple's Keynote, but still good in its own way, and certain nothing as boring as Microsoft's Surface presentation at all!

Jellybean

Jellybean (Android 4.1) is one of the highlights of the show, and apart from the fluidity upgrade to an already pretty fluid ICS, and apart from its new search engine which includes offline voice-type and even a Siri-like voice search, I think the one that took the cake for me was Notifications.

Notifications has always been one of the key features in Android, and though many debate which came first, iOS or Android, many will agree that Notifications was something Android has provided which is a great feature now also found in iOS.

With Jellybean, Google has taken notifications to another level, one that allows you to not only see what notifications you have, but do minor tasks via the notifications without having to launch a full app.

The left is how the ICS notifications bar looks like, the right is NOT an accurate example of how Jellybean's notification bar will look, the image on the right is in fact a full pulled down version. The way it's suppose to look would actually be that only the top notification is pulled down while the notifications below stays minimized.

However, as the image on the right shows, if you want to pull down a notification below the first one, you can but using two fingers to swipe down.

This will allow future devs to develop apps that makes full use of this new feature, such as being able to "like" a facebook reply directly off notifications, even more. Check out below examples of how some developers have already implemented such a feature for the upcoming Android build.

Foursquare's use of pull down in different ways

This would actually help increase efficiency and productivity for users who don't want to waste having to enter an app to do a task and can just choose the task at hand directly off notifications, really good way to save time and get things done quick.

Nexus 7


The decision to make a Nexus tablet to me was a pretty standard next step if Google wanted to show manufacturers and developers that it was dedicated to supporting Android on a tablet platform.

Image taken from Slash Gear

I'll leave specs aside and let you go search them yourselves. This is a wifi-only tablet btw so no 3g here if anyone's interested to know.

With access to the Google Play store, users will be treated to music, movies, books, games and apps at their convenience.

The thing about the Google Play is that the store to books, movies and music aren't available in a lot of countries so if you're say, like me in Singapore, stick to iTunes for now.

Nexus Q


I think this device caught a lot of people off guard, cause there weren't any rumors of it at all.

The Nexus Q is to me, a really cool entertainment centre that not only streams your stuff at home, but also allows other Android users to share their content when visiting!

An Android user who has access to Google Music can connect to the Nexus Q via wifi or NFC, and share a song for example, and instead of having the piece of music stream from his/her phone to the Q, it plucks that same song from the cloud and streams it in the house, so phone doesn't have to drain battery constantly feeding music to the device.

The back of wires may look intimidating to some and not as Zen as say Apple, the connectors are there because they output to high end devices, a port for TV, and high end audio ports for the certified audiophile.

However, from the videos so far, it seems like the Q is more of a companion device, meaning you have to use it with a tablet or your phone. It isn't a media centre, it doesn't hold its own content, so its not a media player. If you have your own content separate from Google Play, this device isn't for you, get a WDTV, or Asus OPlay instead.

Good Ethics


I think one of the things that impressed me the most, is Google's ethics during its presentation. I enjoy Apple's presentation but I do find its need to make fun of its competitors during their keynote a bit unnecessary, leave that to the tech blogs, they'll gladly do it for you.

During Google's presentation, the presenters made no effort to out any competition, they did talk about iOS, but about how their apps such as the new Google+ features and new Google Maps app were soon going to be available on the iPhone and iPad.

Sure one can say "Google needs to rely on Apple to survive too" and that's fine, I agree, like I said, let the bloggers write these remarks. It's nice to see a presentation that is very gentleman and leaves the criticism out of their presentation altogether.

And for those hardcore Google fanboys who have no love for Apple: