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Sunday, May 1, 2011

What might or might not happen at Google IO 2011.

This won't be a very exciting post.. I'll just point out what might happen on the 10th/11th of May 2011 based on rumors, sorcery, voodoo, chicken bones and the official available information.

It might be vague but it is for sure better than Siegler's techcrunch troll-diarrhea.

Android:

Yeah there will happen a ton of stuff on the IO. First of all, they will push the Honeycomb source into AOSP. It will happen, because it is simply overdue! They already pushed quite a bit of the GPL parts to the source-tree, but vital things are still missing... Like the launcher, the browser etc.
Probably they will also announce/preview Honeycomb 3.1, which contains tons of bugfixes and a few new features, but it is also possible, that they'll drop the 3.1 Source directly on github, because they want to comfort the raging open source community (including me).

The Google TV code might or might not be released. At least they will introduce the SDK for Google TV. That will happen for sure. Why? because in Room 11, there will be a Session called "Building Android Apps for Google TV" at the IO. This also means, that all Google TV devices will gain Market access pretty soon (I guess they will start a rollout for updates at the IO).

Maybe they give also an early taste of the next Android generation "I", maybe Ice-Cream Sandwich. If I'd speculate very wildly, Google could already release a limited preview SDK of the new Android OS, but probably they'll just pre-announce it. The "I" generation will merge GoogleTV, Honeycomb and Gingerbread into one version, probably because they fear source fragmentation and the three repositories have always to be synced so the versions drift not too far apart. So that's why it's simply more economic to merge all three Source-Trees.

Furthermore, Google will force the device manufacturers to provide open interfaces to their custom UIs they built on top of Android. (Session: Designing and Implementing Android UIs for Phones and Tablets) But this is wild speculation. [WARNING: this is unlikely to happen and just wishful thinking :) THX @Sam for reminding me that this needs a clarification]

GoogleTV and Honeycomb (and other Android versions?):

They will get a webapp-store for mobile/tablet/GoogleTV apps integrated in the system-browser or as a frontpage-link on Google mobile-search (see session "Building WebApps for Google TV") (wild speculation)

Blogger:

They will start the rollout for the new Blogger views (you know them already, don't you?), which will be partially optimized to be somewhat like a pendant to Facebook Pages for companies (see session "Building a Business Web Presence using Blogger API's"). This could also hint to an integration of Blogger into Google's mysterious social network.. They will also present a "+1" plugin for blogger the same time... clever huh? :)
BTW: Have you ever noticed the similarities of the new Blogger-Views design and the new Google profiles design? Coincidence? I don't think so. It might be the start to integrate all those social services (including picasa & Places/ex-Hotpot) into one social net, which parts are all opt-in. (way better solution than facebook's "we shove it into your face and if you are lucky enough to find the correct button, you can opt-out" mentality)

+1:

+1 will be officially introduced, what means that the +1 button for content-sites will also be introduced. (yay!) See session "An introduction to the +1 button" (for sure)
The Chrome-Extension (or even browser-built-in functionality?) for +1 will be presented. (for sure)


+1 Extension CONFIRMED: Watch the video (Dear Sophie) closely:


or jump to 0:51

Google Places:

Will be integrated with Google's other social Services like +1. I already confirmed that because I discovered the following fact:

If you rate a place "best time ever" and save the place for later/star it, it gets automatically +1'd in the places search on Google.

I also think that places will get a tab in Google Profiles or at least gets somehow integrated into the +1's.
Places will also possibly get somehow linked to Public Profiles or Blogger accounts of companies (wild speculation).
Overall Google starts an attack on Facebook, providing functionality for advertising, offers etc, that will be integrated in the Google search as a part of social search.

Google Social Search:

Will be extended... Nothing more on that.

Google Circles:

Will be announced, but maybe not directly on the IO but soon. It isn't a real social network... it will just incorporate existing social functionality on Google and make it possible to share information actively and passively with contacts and the world wide web. (The contacts will influence prioritization or highlighting of search results etc, maybe there will be also a commenting/sharing function, who knows)

Google Maps:

will get more social.
It will be tighter integrated with hotpot/places (maybe latitude too).

Google Shopping:

Will be integrated in the social experience. (probably) At least they will lay the foundation for integrating it into social search.

Games:

A shitload of stuff about games using GWT, HTML5 and Android.
Maybe they introduce a new Platform for game-devs.

Geolocation:

Shitloads about geolocation, maybe unification of API's. They push geolocation use for making the social search and personalized search more effective.

Google Analytics:

Gets in-Android-App-Performance and usage logging thanks to the new GA API for Android.

Google Docs:

Might get an addon.

Google Voice:
Might gain VOIP support.

2 comments:

Sam said...

"Furthermore, Google will force the device manufacturers to provide open interfaces to their custom UIs they built on top of Android. (Session: Designing and Implementing Android UIs for Phones and Tablets) But this is wild speculation."

umm.. no. These sessions aren't intended for device manufacturers, they're for application developers. It says so right in the description of that session. It's about making nice looking apps, not skinning android.

NoName said...

@Sam Yeah I know that it is for dev's, but it was just a wild shot of what "might" be possible :D I don't think it will happen, but it would be cool if you could interface with Sense UI etc. from a dev perspective... It was more of a wishful thinking ^^

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