What are the biggest announcements from Google I/O 2017?
For Android people, Google I/O is both frenetic excitement — all the announcements! — and a huge party. But main takeaways are the products and services that will affect the way developers and consumers interact with Google products every day.
Here are all the major announcements from Google I/O 2017!
Android O beta is live
The Android O public beta, and the second Android O Developer Preview, is now available to download on your Pixel or Nexus device!
Android announcements
Android engineering lead Dave Burke told attendees that Android Wear 2.0 is launching on watches from 24 of the world's top watch manufacturers. And in the living room, this year, Google will be bringing the Assistant to Android TV, with a new launcher UI.
Google announced Fluid Experiences in Android O — demonstrating picture-in-picture mode in O for the first time as part of a more intuitive multitasking setup.
Notification dots make Android's notifications smarter, with the ability to long-press on icons in the launcher to preview details of that app's alerts.
Autofill with Google lets you take the pain out of setting up a new phone or tablet, letting you bring usernames and passwords saved through Chrome on the web, or older phones, into apps you're setting up on a new device. In O, on-device machine learning can automatically select phrases, names, addresses and phone numbers by double-tapping anywhere the item.
A new special version of TensorFlow, called TensorFlow Lite, will help developers work with neural nets to for smarter AI-enabled capabilities.
Google Play Protect — an extension of the Verify Apps — codifies many of the security features that have been in Google Play for the past several years. Google scans 50 billion apps per day to keep harmful stuff out of the Play Store.
And Google is making Kotlin an officially supported language in Android, an existing robust language that developers have been asking for, giving them a much-wanted alternative to Java.
Android Go
Google announced Android Go, a new platform focusing on optimizing the latest release of Android for low-specced, low-cost devices. There'll be a new set of Google apps using less memory and data, and a version of the Play Store that highlights apps suitable for Go devices.
Data management is front and center in Android Go, with a quick settings button for data allowances. Data saver in Chrome is enabled by default. And YouTube Go lets users download YouTube videos on Wi-Fi to watch later on-the-go.
Google's "Building for Billions" initiative will help developers work to best practices for creating apps targeting emerging markets.
Every Android release from O onwards will have a "Go" version for low-memory devices. The first Android Go devices will ship from 2018.
Daydream, VR and AR
Google announced that LG's next flagship phone, launching later this year, will support Daydream. And Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will add Daydream support this summer with a software update.
A new kind of Daydream VR device is coming — standalone VR headsets with components built specifically for VR. Partners include Qualcomm, which makes the reference headset. The first standalone consumer Daydream headsets will come from HTC and Lenovo, coming later in the year.
In the world of augmented reality, ASUS's Tango-enabled ZenFone AR will be launching summer.
In other Tango news, Google announced its Visual Positioning Service — VPS — which can help you find specific objects in the real world, relying on key visual feature points. For example, you might be able to find a specific kind of screwdriver in a hardware store. And Expeditions will help bring AR to the classroom with interactive educational experiences.
Android passes 2 billion active devices
The enormous growth of Android continues, with the OS passing the 2 billion active device milestone. "It's a privilege to serve users at this scale," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said during the opening minutes of the keynote.
In other milestones, Google revealed that Drive has 800 million users, and Photos has 500 million, with some 1.2 billion photos being uploaded per day
Google Lens announced
Google Lens is a set of vision based computing capabilities that can identify things in the real world using Google's AI and knowledge graph. Lens is effectively Google Goggles on steroids, and it'll be shipping first in Google Assistant and Photos, before arriving in other products.
Sundar Pichai gave a few examples of Lens's capabilities, including identifying specific flowers, finding camera at Wifi username and password by scanning a sticker, and identifying a restaurant in the real world.
Google.ai and TPU Cloud
Google.ai is the company's new AI platform for developers, allowing them to build machine learning applications in the cloud. Google.ai uses neural nets to design neural nets as part of a reinforcement learning approach, and Google is already using it in healthcare and pathology.
Google Assistant
Google revealed that 100 million devices now have access to Google Assistant. And Assistant is about to get a whole lot smarter thanks to the capabilities of Google Lens, Assistant will be able to have a conversation with your about what's on your screen. In addition to all that, Google announced that you'll finally be able to directly type to Assistant.
What's more, Google Assistant will finally be coming to iPhone, as widely rumored in recent weeks.
The new Google Assistant SDK allows manufacturers to build Google Assistant into whatever device they want — from cars, TVs, drinks mixers to toys to home appliances, opening up the platform to significant new markets.
And new languages are coming too — French, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese this summer, and Italian, Spanish and Korean by the end of the year.
Actions on Google
Actions on Google will be getting payment support, allowing food orders directly through voice in Google Assistant. The on-stage demo showed ordering from Panera, with alterations to order, pulling address and payment from existing data in the Google account.
Google Home
This summer, Google Home will be launching in Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. Proactive assistance will be coming to Google Home — for example, Google Home might light up, prompting you to ask Google what's up, to notify you you'll need to leave earlier to reach your next appointment.
Handsfree calling will be coming to Google Home, with free calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. And thanks to multi-user support, asking Home to "call mom" will call the right person depending on who's asking.
On the entertainment front, new partners including HBO Now were announced, and users on Spotify's free service will be able to use Google's smart speaker in addition to the premium subscribers.
Bluetooth support will be coming to Google Home too, effectively turning it into Bluetooth speaker for iOS and other devices.
And Chromecast will be updated to show visual responses on your TV when you ask for help from Google Home — for example "show me my calendar" might bring up the result on your TV. Through Google Assistant, all the actions supported on other platforms will eventually be available on your TV.
More: Google Home just leapfrogged Amazon Echo at I/O 2017
Google Photos
Google Photos is getting new features to make sharing easier. Suggested Sharing can help you find the best pictures of your friends, and share them, using machine learning to recognize people in photos, and offers to share with that person, based on your own sharing patterns.
The new Shared Libraries feature can help to automate sharing of pictures of specific people, things or places. Shared Libraries can notify recipients of new photos, and automatically save photos to personal library — no more worrying about whose phone has which photos. Suggested Sharing and Libraries will be rolling out on iOS, Android and the web in the coming weeks.
Google Photo Books lets you print photos from your library, automatically selecting the best pics from a selection of your choice, based on search. Photo Books are available in the US now: Softcover books will cost for $9.99, with hardcover coming in at $19.99.
Google Lens support will be coming to Google photos too, using the power of Google's knowledge graph to help you learn more about what's in your photos.
YouTube
Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube told keynote attendees that viewers watched 1 billion hours of content on the video platform in 2016.
360-degree video is coming to YouTube's TV app, including live 360 video. Using the TV remote, you can pan around the video.
Superchat, YouTube's paid promoted message system, is getting more creative. A new superchat API will let Superchats trigger actions in the real world, like turning the lights in a creator's studio.
Google for Jobs
Google for Jobs uses Google's AI to match applicants to jobs. 46% of employers have openings and issues finding talent, Sundar Pichai told attendees, "Google for Jobs is a commitment to use our products to help people find work." The Cloud jobs API was announced back in November, and is being used by FedEx, Carrier, Johnson & Johnson — the latter found 18% more applicants using the API.
Google for Jobs will offer filtering for relevance, new listings, full/part-time jobs, job title, with machine learning clustered in list.
More to come!
There's lots more to come at Google I/O, so stay tuned!
Reader comments
The most important announcements from Google I/O 2017!
Developers and users are really like the announcement of Android O beta. I would like to share some of the best features which developers and users discuss on different forums.
- Desktop notifications
- Notifications improvements: Snoozing, timeouts and more
- Better audio quality
- Auto-select and auto-fill
- Picture-in-picture mode
- More visible virus protection
I was rooting for Google Allo to step up, suck it's pride and integrate SMS. Guess the devs are still a bunch of stubborn a$$wipes
And we are still stuck with Lollipop's interface. I know, don't fix what ain't broken. But being the third major upgrade since V5, I was expecting some fantastic cosmetic changes.
Super disappointing. No SMS for Allo, nothing good available now, no portable Google Home, no watch, no daydream device, not a single freaking piece of hardware (remember when they used to give out Chromebook Pixels, google glass, Nexus tablets...fun stuff? ), still no tablets (guess Nexus is dead), no other versions of Google Home (like the echo dot/tap). At least wait until you had some cool software updates ready to go that day. Things like Google Photos when search AI first came about, I believe the update went live that day. These are all hopefully this year kind of changes. The future is somewhat exciting at least on the AI front but the present was boring as hell.
How about Waze for Android Auto.. promised during last year's event.
Google is becoming another "me too" entity, like Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple of late. None of these lead anymore, hell, they barely even "fast follow". All of them are chasing the leader - Amazon.
I was with you until Amazon.
Doesn't Amazon use someone else's OS for their tablets?
Was hoping to get an update on the expansion of YouTube TV to other markets, even though it is still in its infancy.
Mr. pichai u only give maximum updates to pixel and nexus what about company like sony or Samsung
That is the major drawback of having an Android phone
Mr. Pichai isn't responsible for what other companies do with their product.
How many of these thing are available now? Unfortunately we are accustomed being disappointed when we hear coming later.
PS: the ads are killing Android Central. I don't mind ads... but when they slow your browsing to a crawl and crash the page, it's overkill. I don't read AC anywhere as much as I used to for this reason alone.
Agreed. Nearly every time I disable my Adblocker for a Mobile Nations site (Android Central, Windows Central,....) the ads proceed to crash the page. Just, yuck.
If you're going to do ads, that I'll agree to view, do it right.
Ads blocked,54 on this page
Bingo. I just cannot believe that a website that has the intent of catering to tech enthusiasts would insult our intelligence with the overbearing add payload that each page brings. If I'm on my mobile device, I have to run an adblocker just to stay sane. It's not that I don't believe good content should be free or that I'm dishonest or anything like that - I need to get to a story and read it without browser slowdowns or Chrome crashing or scrolling ultra-jank because my finger can't wait for your ad server to push all 48 ads to the page before scrolling.
i've unfortunately started visiting Android Police more often now because at least their ads don't take over my screen or frustrate me by stopping scrolling for 5 seconds while ads load.
As a side note, Daniel is not even in the same league as a replacement on the podcast for Phil. He is nowhere near as knowledgeable, connected in the industry, or intelligently opinionated. Most of the opinions that he holds on hardware and software are not informed from years in the Android trenches and come across to me as uncomfortably sophmoric. God bless Jerry for not just telling him to F off because I hear the disdain in his voice every single podcast. I just feel like he is being forced on us and really just comes across as a damn boring Canadian.
So, Jerry, what do you think the wireless Daydream VR will mean for the existing Vive?
One shouldn't effect the other very much if at all. The Vive is a much more powerful and much more expensive system than Daydream. I have a Pixel XL with Daydream and an HTC Vive. They are both fun, but offer very different experiences.
Ok, thanks for the insight!
I was hoping they would announce anything about Allo... ='(
So yes it was boring.. And whenever I hear.. Is coming later this year.. They really mean 31 Dec 2017 to early Jan 2018.
And even by then it will not be sent to anyone. So I guess everyone will have it by Google io 2018
Yeh, remember Wear 2.0 was supposed to hit "later" in October 2016? I finally got it pushed to my original Huawei Watch last week, May 2017. Google is very timeline challenged. Their implementation of agile development must be horrid.
While all of this shiny new stuff is nice to hear about, it'd be even nicer if Google delivered on their existing promises first.
The UK is still waiting for the rollout of Assistant. In the absence of any updates are we to assume that we'll get it sometime between now and "the summer" when the French, German, Brazilian and Japanese markets get it? If Google needs help translating American English into British English then I'm ready to volunteer my services.
I am looking for an announcement about Andriod One for the US market.
No messaging stuff? No streamlining updates? The Allo, Duo, Hangouts cluster$#@^ or whatever the heck they're doing anymore?
Yep...and no physical products either. It's been a bad 2 years. Was hoping for a portable Google Home or at least integrating Home in a current speaker from another manufacture to compete with the Tap. They should have just postponed this until they had something that could launch right away or a new product to show off
Hopefully we'll hear more about Android Auto but alas it seems to be "Dude,, your new car comes with this but who knows what's what and there a 100 streaming apps but not much else." Sad really.
I enjoyed the announcements so far :D. Excited that Assistant is maturing more and more.
hoping for some Google Play Music updates, and YouTube TV being available on set top boxes. Maybe a combo deal for GPM, YouTube Red, and YouTube TV
Yah no GPM news is a downer especially as this is the one Google service I actually pay for. GPM is still far from great and has been rather annoying lately (hand off between casting and BT is terrible for instance).
The biggest problem I see is this:
This service is not available in your country.
Ditto :(
Disappointing that android apps for chromebooks didnt even really get a mention (was hoping they would be pushing that hard for devs), and neither did Allo. Allo needs to see some very major improvements to become a viable messaging app, ...the kind that if were coming soon, you'd think would've been mentioned in the keynote.
^^^
See my reply above.
Also, where is my 10" 2-in-1 Chromebook with Stylus???
On Microsoft Surface...
Isn't there another keynote?
Not another keynote, but Android Apps on Chrome has its own dedicated session.
I was hoping for Allo to get some new features, specifically web interesting as it doesn't look like SMS will ever come I guess the dream is dead, but other than that it seemed ok. Lots of small improvements.
I was hoping to hear something about Google Voice. To be honest, I'm sooo frustrated with Google's handling of Voice that I'm about ready to give up on it. Only problem is, what else out there even comes close?!?
I use it as a second number but other than that I've not had too many issues with it, I like the new layout and app, out of curiosity what sort of things would you like to see it do? Do you use it as a primary number?
They finally made Home seems interesting to me. Google Lens sounds impressive, too. And just like last year, the keynote makes me want to learn more about AI. And also like last year, I'm sure that desire won't survive my first six pack.
People need to realize that this s a developer focused event now more than ever... I for one was excited for quite a bit of these announcements and im no developer
it easy to see who is looking for shiny things instead of real tech advancement.
I geeked out about everything, except YouTube Superchat.
I'd settle for hearing about for support for products they already own and are letting just die...like Google +, or Hangouts...not a refresh if Google Goggle's...which wasn't exactly the barn burner of all apps. I'd love to hear about the new OS, hell I'd have settled for a new device of some sort (even if it was just a new Chromecast)...
So yeah, as a consumer...new and shiny (read: interesting) is important to me...
A refresher in Google Goggles is needed, especially when you consider elderly people that thought Amazon's Alexa SILVER was a good idea.
Well...that's an extremely boring line up of announcements. Android is now going to do something that Samsung devices have done for two years - some "Don't buy Alexa" crap and a handful of machine learning applications for photo and assistant recognition - that no one's ever going to use and the neck beards are going to call "Illuminati" on...
It's starting to feel like boring old MWC - remember the days when these shows were about products and services people actually cared about - remember when people used to stand up in their seats and clap? Guess those days are done - no new hardware, an iterative software approach playing catch up and a bunch of AI crap that can only excite those of us with math degrees...
And that... Is all there is too say about that. Not a single thing that excited me.
Whaa whaaa whaaa....don't like it? Develop your own OS you whiny ****.
I*m super excited.. lots of extremely cool stuff that would be crazy science fiction 5 years ago.
Yah the news about Assistant, Home and Chromecast sound really great. Phone calls is fantastic. I live alone in a sizeable house with two home units. Being able to speakerphone calls with them will be really handy.
Yes man
Samsung might have been doing it for 2 years but tell me, what about S Voice is better than the Google app? What in Bixby is better than Google Assistant? I've used nothing but Samsung devices for the past 5 years or so and Samsung apps that attempt to emulate Google apps are garbage.
Since when was I/O meant to excite entitled pricks like you? It is a developer conference not a show for shiny shiny things to amuse the likes of you.
Is this a pre-article?