Google I/O is the biggest date in the firm’s calendar: it’s the conference where it gets everyone together in one big room (actually, this year it was a tent) in California to reveal all the cool stuff it has been working on.
This year was more focused than most. It’s the first I/O since the company restructured itself into Alphabet, hiving off the wilder projects such as Google Glass, self-driving cars and life-extension research into other subsidiaries. Gone are the days of livestreaming a parachute jumper wearing Google Glass from the I/O stage. But that doesn’t mean the company wasn’t trying to impress with more down-to-earth revelations.
Google Home
Leading the pack was the company’s latest foray into the connected home business: Google Home. A direct competitor to Amazon’s Echo, Home is a small cylindrical speaker that you place on your coffee table and instruct to listen to everything you say.
Think of a turbo-charged, always-present version of Siri or Google Now and you’re most of the way there. It can answer questions, play music and (if you have any smart home gadgets installed) control your house. It might sound creepy, and that was the reaction that many had when Amazon launched the Echo in 2014. But 18 months on and the Echo has been surprisingly popular, selling an estimated 3m smart speakers since its US-only launch.
Google Assistant
Where Home is the physical manifestation Google’s desire to build your always-on digital butler, Assistant is its digital counterpart. It says it’s an “order of magnitude” smarter than its competitors, such as Siri and Alexa (the intelligence behind the Echo speakers), but such claims are tricky to judge.
Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive, demonstrated one use case: asking Assistant what movie he and his wife should see. Building up the complexity, he added that they wanted to bring the kids, and then asked how good one choice, Disney’s Jungle Book, was. Assistant responded with the film’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (In case you’re curious: it’s very good.)
Google Allo
Not apparently named after an 80s British sitcom, Allo is Google’s newest messaging platform. It comes with some baggage: the company still has an entirely separate platform, Hangouts, which is built in to Android phones, as well as a number of lesser-used predecessors including Gchat and the now-defunct Wave. But Allo also represents a fresh start for Google, allowing the company to offer end-to-end encryption for the first time. That decision will throw it headfirst into conflict with the FBI, standing alongside Apple and Facebook against the US government’s desire to read the text messages of criminal suspects.
It’s still less secure than iMessage or WhatsApp, however, requiring users to actively opt-in to end-to-end encryption through an “incognito mode”. But security isn’t the main selling point of Allo. Instead, that’s the built-in chatbots, including Google Assistant itself: Allo users will be able to use Assistant to find extra information or send auto-generated replies. Impressively, it can even parse images, leading to the (perhaps overly specific) suggestion of “Nice Bernese mountain dog” as one such reply.
Duo
Why stop at one messaging app? Duo is Google’s take on FaceTime, letting users chat face-to-face, mobile-to-mobile. That’s something Hangouts already does, but unlike Hangouts, Duo is mobile-only and tied to your phone number, not your Google account.
One interesting feature Duo offers is “Knock Knock”, which shows a video preview of you before your recipient even picks up the call – akin to looking through the peephole of your front door before pretending you aren’t in when your weird neighbour’s knocking.
Instant Apps
If you’re worried all these apps will fill up your phone or take years to download, Google has its own answer for you: Instant Apps. This is a new feature, which will arrive with the next version of Android, N. It lets you load up the part of an app that you need just from clicking a link.
For example, a Buzzfeed video can play in the Buzzfeed app even if you haven’t installed it, while someone shopping for a camera can buy it using B&H Photo’s mobile app rather than their website. For users, it’ll be seamless, and Google’s promising that it won’t be too much work for developers either.
Daydream
Never afraid of duplicating itself (see: all its messaging apps), Google is launching a new virtual reality platform called Daydream. Built on top of Android N, Daydream is essentially Android for VR: it’ll offer users a home screen from which to access apps. Among them will be Google stalwarts including the Play store, YouTube and Photos.
Google already has a VR platform, Cardboard, but that’s a deliberately limited beast, designed to let users trial a VR-lite experience through nothing more than their existing smartphone and a piece of laser-cut cardboard. Daydream, by contrast, looks built for purpose-made VR headsets, and will probably end up competing head-to-head with the likes of the Gear VR, a Samsung/Oculus co-creation.
… and finally
Google didn’t actually save the most surprising thing for last – that’s an Apple thing – but alongside the reveal of Daydream came a second announcement: the company has created a VR headset. Sort of.
Android remains an area where Google prefers to work through third-party manufacturers, rather than building its own kit. Therefore, the Daydream headset it showed off on stage won’t be available to buy in stores. Instead, it’s a reference design, intended to show manufacturers who want to build their own Daydream sets what sort of features they’ll be expected to provide. But Google’s Nexus phones started off as reference devices, and now you can buy them direct from Google. So who knows what’s to come?
