So here is my mini list/wrap up/commentary on 10 things we got and 10 things still up in the air for Android
On the + Side of Things
1) Holo Light Music App - The music app was getting long in the tooth looks wise as it was introduced before Google really had a clear design vision. Now it's in line with their new look similar to the new Play Store.
2) Streaming Music Service - Basically Google's answer to Spotify or their version of Zune Pass. Long time rumor finally came out true.
3) Hangouts - A GTalk replacement that seems like an upgrade in theory, but seems sort of half baked. Should be legit once they iron out the kinks and add in the requested features like SMS
4) Cross device Message Swipe Away - Ability for devs to have their messages be swiped once on say your phone while being mirrored on say your tablet.
5) New Low Powered Location Device Pinging - Supposedly location pinging won't kill your battery anymore. I assume they just mean the location services box checked, and not gps though.
6) Geofencing for Location Based Apps - Should be interesting for Location Based Apps
7) Redesigned Maps - Google redesigned Maps. Looks cool with all the new features.
8) Cloud Saves for Gaming +Matchmaking + Achievements - Basically Google's answer to game center via G+ with cloud saves, matchmaking, and game by game achievements. XBL for your phone without the monthly fee.
9) Amped up Google Now - New cards as well as new abilities like being able to set reminders. A clear swipe at Siri while also still focusing on pushing relevant info to you via all the big data Google has on everyone. Oh and it's on the desktop now.
10) Switched up developer environment - Google switched stock dev environments from Eclipse to IntelliJ. It seems better at first glance, but only time will tell
There are other things like new dev tools for translation, better app analytics, and the G+ repositioning. For not really getting a ton of new flashy stuff yesterday we really did get a ton of stuff. That being said..
Still Up in the Air
1) No New Hardware - Sure we got the stock GS4 dev edition but we didn't get any new hardware persay. The LTE Nexus was nowhere to be found. No Xfone or Nexus tablet refresh was there, and of course no Nexus 5 phone. No real idea when or how we'll see these new things either.
2) No New Android - No new version of Android. Hell we didn't even get another jelly bean refresh either. We got what we got for now.
3) No Gmail App Update - Everything seems to slowly be moving towards Holo light, but much like Android itself Gmail didn't get memo yet either. Music got updated, and Maps is coming. Stands to reason Gmail has to be on the to do list.
4) Services still US Only - For Google being such a big power house of a company they absolutely fail miserably at getting their stuff outside of the US. Things like Google Play Music still isn't available to the world at large, and instead of fixing that Google adds in things like music streaming for the US only.
I gotta admit it would be HARD to be a big Android supporter if I was outside of the home country. Apple kills them in this regard
5) Developer Global Reach - In a similar vein I keep waiting for Google to make a big push for getting a global reach of developers working on the OS. I just didn't see Google do that at all yesterday, and that would have been my #1 question to Larry Page in the Q&A
6) No Real Answer Yet on the Audio/Abstraction Layer Issue - I didn't expect this to be answered in the keynote though. I expect this to be more of something discussed in a session.
Point still stands though that interactive media such as Games or Music Production Apps just have latency problems with sound. That's one reason why iOS has a ton of apps in each of these areas, and well Android is lagging behind
7) Chrome for Android Glossed Over - I mean we all know it's there, and they are actively working on things both with the stable and beta. It was sort of not talked about at the conference though, and as we all know performance isn't where we all want it to be yet. Google probably figures this is already being worked on as we go in the 6 week release frames so I could see this being more of a session topic instead of keynote.
8) No Touch Upon Phone Updates - Google made this a point of emphases that manufacturers and carriers would push more updates faster last I/O. This wasn't really talked about this I/O, and I think many would say last years talk never really turned into a ton of action.
9) No Real News on the Chrome/Android Might Merge Front - Google didn't even mention this at all so the rumors didn't come true of a Chrome/Android merge. That being said they never squashed the rumor either. I definitely see this rumor continuing on.
10) No Road Map for the Future - In terms of Android's future there really wasn't any talk. We didn't get a road map of where it's going. We didn't get an update on how the whole merge Android back into the Linux Kernel project was going. We didn't get any glimpse of if Android might grow out to other areas like set top boxes, baked in TVs, into laptops, or wearable objects. In this regard Google seems to be rather tight lipped.
Yeah yeah yeah. This was long winded, probably stupid, shittily written, and mostly obvious. I wrote it anyways so there ya go Android-GAF. I know I probably missed a ton of stuff to so you can kill me on that if you want to.
