Google I/O 2016 Thread

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=862r3XS2YB0

Ars Liveblog: http://live.arstechnica.com/google-io-2016-keynote/

Any predictions on what we'll see? Certainly we can expect N features to be detailed.

 

[Red Storm]

Rumors say an Amazon Echo competitor, which I am very excited about.

A standalone VR headset, not as powerful as the Rift/Vive but maybe better than the Gear VR.

 

[Crono]

Watching the TWiT stream of it.

Hoping for Android Nougat awe and a good VR platform. Cardboard is okay as an entry into VR but underpowered, and the other VR units are (currently) expensive and/or unavailable.

Also I'd like *some* news about Project Ara. It's taking seemingly forever. Even if it's canceled, I'd rather have news than not.

A hint or preview of the next Nexus phone would be nice, but I'm not expecting it.

 

[openwheel]

ALLO!!!

 

[Commodus]

Google Home looks nice (if obviously meant to copy the Amazon Echo), but the fact that we didn't get pricing or availability shows that it's a ways off. My hunch is that it's arriving with Android N and the new Nexus phones in the fall.

Let's just hope that it isn't the next Nexus Q or Nexus Player. Sounds awesome in theory, doomed in practice.

 

[Crono]

Excellent, no more "optimizing apps". Best news so far. I'll forgive them for not announcing/picking the name for N.

 

[sweenish]

We went from JIT to AOT and now we're on a hybrid, I think. Ideally one that gives the best of both worlds.

 

[tsupersonic]

I just looked at a couple liveblogs, and I'm not impressed :\

Hopefully Allo/Duo will take off as Google hopes. They've just struggled with messaging in general.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm super excited for Google Home, but I wonder how it's going to handle multiple users? Two people living in a home will most often be working at different places, so how will it know which "work" is in context?

No mention of NFC with Android Wear 2.0, really? And not one mention of Chrome OS?

 

[sweenish]

Seems the N previews dropping early dampened stuff for a few people.

I'm still excited. I'll give the new messaging apps a go as well. It would have been nice if one of the new things, whether the messaging apps or instant apps or Google Home was ready to go now or in a week or two.

I guess there was the announcement of a new N beta available today. But my devices are too old.

 

[cronos]

I just looked at a couple liveblogs, and I'm not impressed :\

Hopefully Allo/Duo will take off as Google hopes. They've just struggled with messaging in general.

It looks great, but I'm still not sure why they don't just call it Hangouts 7.0 (seven 'dot' oh, which is for some reason how they say 'point' these days) instead of creating another app. The only difference this has with Hangouts is that Hangouts tied in to your Google account, while this one will tie in to your phone number.

 

[sweenish]

It looks great, but I'm still not sure why they don't just call it Hangouts 7.0 (seven 'dot' oh, which is for some reason how they say 'point' these days) instead of creating another app. The only difference this has with Hangouts is that Hangouts tied in to your Google account, while this one will tie in to your phone number.

One obvious reason is that Hangouts is already at 8.1.

 

[Red Storm]

The only difference this has with Hangouts is that Hangouts tied in to your Google account, while this one will tie in to your phone number.

That is a pretty major difference though.

 

[Commodus]

The Android Wear improvements are nice, although some of them definitely represent Google playing catch-up with the Apple Watch (like smart replies and support for third-party complications in watch faces). The keyboard and reply sketching are definitely welcome, though. And finally, you won't have to put up with notifications perpetually obscuring your watch face. I never quite got why Google felt compelled to clutter your watch with info you've probably already seen or don't care about.

 

[cronos]

One obvious reason is that Hangouts is already at 8.1.

Haha I was going to type 5.0 at first and then thought that may be too low so I just picked two complete versions later thinking that would be high enough

Can't believe eight major freaking versions and they still won't allow us to change the ringtone for incoming calls. I mean, really Google?

 

[cronos]

That is a pretty major difference though.

I guess you're right.

The irony is that I've actually seen complaints about Telegram/Whatsapp/etc that these are using phone numbers to identify contacts. Some people really don't like it that anyone who has their phone number in the contact list can easily know that they have those apps installed and can be contacted through them (with a very reliable delivered/read receipt)

 

[Artdeco]

Downloading the Android N beta now

 

[tdawg]

I wish they would make the beta available to the 2nd gen version of the nexus 7

 

[GTRagnarok]

I'm liking that double tap to switch back and forth between two apps. I would use that a lot.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I'm liking that double tap to switch back and forth between two apps. I would use that a lot.

Not sure why they insist on making it double tap. Why not long press like CM has done it?

I feel like Google should incorporate well designed features and not try to do it themselves. Another instance is the quick toggles. CM and Samsung already had good working versions that allowed toggles to only occupy a small portion of the notification shade. Yet Google went ahead to go with Quick Settings and put it on a totally different page for all of 4.x Not to mention they weren't even toggles until 3-4 months into 4.2. Even Lollipop and M's toggles aren't the best. It takes up like 2/3 of the screen just to show 8 buttons.

 

[sweenish]

But why not a double tap? It makes more sense than a long press to me, at least.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

But why not a double tap? It makes more sense than a long press to me, at least.

Not as big of a deal with this one because I suppose CM adoption isn't that high, but I don't see why not use something that already works. The QS example I gave was probably a better example of Google deviating for the sake of deviating.

 

[dlock13]

Long press is being used for the multi-window. I think that makes more sense to use a long press to activate that.

Double tap would be for a quicker action like switching to your most recently used app.

Makes sense when you think it out like that.

 

[basslover1]

No ones excited for Android Auto working stand alone? It's something they promised way back when it was first announced, now it's almost ready from what I've read.

 

[sweenish]

That news is only just coming out, it wasn't announced during the keynote.

The standalone Android Car OS also looks pretty slick.

I had a brief stint with Android Auto, and I liked the potential that I saw. They're already removed the scrolling limitation when using using Play Music. But it still has a way to go from my limited experience. Navigation was aces, at least.