As the Google I/O 2012 comes to a close, we were pretty pleased with our predictions on the event. Here’s the rundown of some of the more important things that were announced during the Keynotes.
Android Jelly Bean
The new, or I should say the enhanced version of Android was formally announced during the first day of the event. Although the reception to the new version of Android was fairly good, almost everybody was disappointed after finding out that Jelly Bean will not have Flash Player support. You can read more about Jelly Bean, on our full overview here.
Nexus 7 and Nexus Q
Two new devices were unveiled during the conference. First was the Nexus 7, the new flagship device of the Nexus family from Google in partnership with ASUS. You can read more about the tablet here.
The other gadget revealed was Nexus Q. It is basically a speaker of the future that utilizes the power of the Cloud. You can find out more about this high-end speaker on our previous post here.
Google+
During the Google I/O last year, the search giant announced their in-house SNS which has grown rapidly over the span of a year. As the company celebrated the 1st year anniversary of the site, they’ve also added some features to further enhance it.
The developers added Google+ Events which they think will revolutionize the way we celebrate life’s special moments. The Google+ Events basically takes care of the Before, During and After the event. Here’s how it works.
Before the event – Users can now send personalized invitations and choose who of their friends are invited. The invitation looks like an old-school invitation card, only digital. Invited friends can then say yes, no or maybe on the invite.
During the event – The host and the guests are encouraged to turn on “Party Modeâ€. This feature enables their Android devices to automatically upload pictures taken during the event in one single place on the cloud. These pictures can then be played on a slideshow which as great way of showing different perspectives on a single event.
After the event – Of course, some attendees have brought other cameras (point-and-shoot and DSLR) with them. What the Google+ Events does is that it automatically sends email to all attendees encouraging them to upload other pictures taken during the event to the same place as the other pictures. Those uploaded photos from the event will be accessible to the host and attendees in a chronological order. Photos can also be sorted by person who took to pictures.
Since the Google+ was launched last year, members have been requesting for a native app for the SNS. This year Google has made this possible by bringing an app to iOS and Android devices. The app is not available for download for Android devices and will be available on App Store “very soonâ€.
Google Glass
Although we expected that Google’s Project Glass will be discussed during this year’s conference, we didn’t expect that this will be one of the highlights of the event. After two years since it was introduced, the Google Glass has made significant improvements on almost every aspect but still has a long way to go for it to harness its true potentials. Here’s a short demonstration of its capabilities paired with Google+:
Google Map and Earth
Some enhancements to the Map and Earth app were also discussed during the conference. Apart from the offline map (which is still not at par with Nokia Drive), the compass mode of the Google Map gets a minor enhancement that utilizes the device’s gyroscope to give users a visual tour of a place just by tilting the device.
Google Chrome
Google also did some pretty awesome job on their web browser by adding a neat feature that syncs your browser to all the devices that you use via Cloud. This makes it easier for users to go back on the things that they were browsing without having to open each pages one by one every time you switch devices. That’s not all; even the browsing history are synced and pages are preloaded on the cloud which makes browsing uniform and easier.
As we mentioned on our previous post, the mobile version of Google Chrome will be available for both iOS and Android.
Google Drive
After only being announced a couple of months back, Google has been making momentous strides to get their consumer cloud offering competitive. At the event, a handful of improvements were discussed including “Optical Character Referencing†and Offline file editing. Along with Google+, the company also announced that they will be releasing an iOS version of Google Drive (note: The app is already available at Apple App Store).
That’s about sums up the Google I/O 2012. We just wished that we would’ve been there at San Francisco to cover the event real time. Oh well, maybe we’ll try our luck next year.
Editor’s Note: We’ve pre-ordered the Google Nexus 7 so expect a hands-on before end of the month. – Yuga
