So Google I/O kicked off today and it wasn’t long before they started throwing out the big guns with their drawn out three hour unveiling. The big announcements so far is the long awaited update to the Google Maps looks, an update to the Android operating system, a big update to the Google Play Developer console and also the new games service being built into the app store. But the biggest for today was the final unveiling of their Spotify-esque music service, Google Play Music: All Access.
With this being said here’s a quick run down of the what’s been said so far!
Google Maps
A wide range of updates have been announced for the desktop and mobile version of Google maps. The main points of interest on this announcement were the new standardised review, score and offers system that’s going into play across all devices. It has live accident coverage and will now allow you to have a layer of your own customised listings and integrated layers of imagery from space and undersea The AI is seeing an update which is already available.
Google+ Photos
Google+ is getting a revamp on the way it handles photos. Not only will it now have bigger storage for full sized images, there will be a services that will look at bulk stacks of photos and pick the best ones and bring them to the top. This picking method is based on the picture quality, location and the people that are in it. Alongside this Google+ will soon have an Awesome button that takes photos and arranges them in shapes and animated panoramas. Pretty cool.
With this photos update, they also announced a new Google+ look, so we will be seeing a overhaul in the way the social network looks.
Google Developer Console
Whilst this isn’t a wide tech area they are looking out for their app developers too with the new area containing on the fly App Translation services and the other four points they stressed were:
- Referral tracking: checking who and where the app is found, used and shared.
- Usage metrics: see the peoples age, sex, location and amount of time used all in one place.
- Revenue Graphs: Allows the user to see a summary of the app’s revenue all in one place and can be split into locations
And the one with the biggest applaud was:
- Beta Testing & Staged Rollouts: Google will now allow developers to phase out their apps into segments and allow them to roll out updates in an old fashion beta testing route instead of releasing it to all the users at once.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Announced
Not much was said about this but it’s running a stock version of Android instead of Samsung’s custom version and it will be on sale from June 26th on Google Play for $650.
Google Play Services Update
There will be a Game Centre-ish system being integrated into Google Play soon which will allow users a more social side to their games and will be pushing for Google+ Integration to get their system off the ground. This update will allow developers to integrate cloud saved games to allow users to continue on other devices and also leader boards and high score system and will also work cross platform, this new system allows developers to create better live multi-player gaming software but also allow users to play across all of their devices.
Google Play Music: All Access
It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally out in the wild as of today, Google have released their music streaming service which clocks in at just $10 a month, or $7 if you get it before June. It’s accessible from PC, Tablets and Phones, and it has a fair few snazzy implementations. These include adding and removing tracks from the playlist on the fly, seamless personal library integration and a radio service which uses recommendations from your previous listening history and related tracks.
They didn’t go into much more details on it, but I’m sure if it’s accessible now we’ll be getting more info as it happens.
Google I/O is on for another few days so there’s still more to come, but the start has been a heavy handed handout of announcements and we’re excited to see more from Google over the coming days… Thinking about it we haven’t heard about Glass yet, I don’t think any of the on stage cast were wearing any… odd.
