Day 1 was full of goodies for developers. You can check out the round up of Google I/O Day 1 here.
Day 2 ( The Android Day ) as we told you yesterday was indeed full of Android related announcements plus a new product. The day was also full of Vic Gundotra‘s witty remarks about Apple and some presentation failures, but we don’t blame the men on stage, shit happens !
So for those who missed it, lets give you a quick roundup post of what all happened yesterday at the Google I/O Conference – Day 2 :
The much awaited launch of Google Android 2.2 a.k.a Froyo : Google has been immensely successful with its mobile platform since it’s launch nearly 2 years back ( October 2008). Complementing the powerful and immensely well crafted HTC / Motorola / Samsung labeled phones, Android has been able to make a huge impact in several countries.
Android 2.2 is a big step forward. It won’t affect the UI much ( there are many people who dislike the android UI ) so its a bad news for them but for every other person, this update will prove to be important and exciting .
Lets take a look at what Android 2.2 / Froyo has in store for us :
JIT – Just in Time compiler gives apps a 2x-5x increase in speed. In a demo of Replica Island, one of Androinica’s favorite apps, Éclair and Froyo were introduced side by side to show how each handles the game on a Nexus One. Éclair often fell below 30 frames per second, but the JIT-packed Froyo never came close to falling. No red flashes at all!
Enterprise – Google announced 20 new enterprise features: New Exchange auto-discovery, security polices, and GAL lookup. Also added Device Admin API’s for things like remote wiping. This is crucial for many IT workers and critical for Android becoming a major player in the enterprise crowd.
Application Data Backup API – Allows in-app data to be saved and restored. When you switch from one phone to the next, your stored data will in apps will transfer over if the developer takes advantage of the API. Imagine not having to lose your scores when you reinstall an app or upgrade devices.
Cloud to app communication – A new feature for intents allows users to upgrade to communicate from desktop to mobile. Search for Google Maps on your computer and send it to the phone, your device will immediately go to Navigation mode. BOOM! Reading an article on the web and need to read it on the go? BOOM! It opens up in the browser (the API may allow it to open up in your RSS reader of choice?)
Tethering & Portable Hotspot – Your Android device can become a hotspot. You rooted users have been doing this for months, but the feature will now be integrated into the device as a standard feature. Froyo includes built-in tethering to allow your mobile devices (netbook, laptop) to access the web through your cell phone.
Browser
Browser is now 2x-3x faster with V8 for Android. Javascript tweaks have been made to more than double rendering, making your phone access the web much faster. An Éclair, Froyo, and iPad were all using a swimming lap test. Even with a lead for the iPad, Froyo still lapped it…SEVERAL times. Gundotra said, “Froyo has the world’s faster browser.”
via androinicia
Besides these updates, Android 2.2 users will finally be able to use Adobe Flash 10.1 on their devices. But, according to several news on the web. Android 2.2 is a must to run the Flash 10.1 on mobile devices. According to HTC, only those devices which were released to the public in 2010 are likely to receive Android 2.2. Also, I am assuming - a better processor will be able to utilize the hardware acceleration that Google has been talking about, so 1 GHz processor could be the minimum configuration pretty soon .
Watch the Android 2.2 official video by Google :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAZYSVr2Bhc[/youtube]
Watch Android 2.2 Froyo in action:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-76GVAmgc[/youtube]
Here is a video which can show you some examples of how various websites respond to the mobile optimized Flah 10.1 :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zZLp1e2FiQ[/youtube]
Android’s growth is unstoppable, in near future you will see Android in more mobiles than ever before.Pretty soon you will see Android running on several tablets as well. Growth is imminent. With the world’s fastest mobile browser and a near perfect mobile operating system, Google can beat any company, for example Nokia – which has falling market shares in USA but is still strong in developing countries because of cheap and affordable mobile devices but is slowly falling apart due to lack of updates and lack of developers taking interest in the Symbian. Hopefully, we will see cheap android devices too in few months, I believe.
The announcement of Google TV - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said in the conference that the technology that Google TV works on was needed since a long time. The technology didn’t fail to excite us. Lets take a look at what Google TV is all about :
According to the Official Blog post :
With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more,
You can know more about Google TV by checking out the Google TV Story .
Google is now trying to get into our Living Rooms. Google has tied up with Intel, Logitech, Sony and many more to give you the ultimate experience. Intel is providing the Atom processors, Sony is providing the integrated Google TV experience with their next generation television sets and Logitech will make users without the Google TV Integration experience the Google TV( like sony tv will prove – built in Google TV experience) , just connect the Logitech box to your TV and Voila ! Internet on your TV, an experience worth waiting and watching. You can use your android device as your remote – search channels and playlists (on youtube) with your mobile- search videos on youtube – and share with your friends in the near future. Also, Google TV allows signing in, hence its just like any other device with internet access. Favorite your video on the internet / create a list and watch it on your Google TV anytime . If you didn’t see the presentation yesterday ( which was full of #fail elements ) do check out this video :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diTpeYoqAhc[/youtube]
Android is definitely the best mobile operating system at the moment ( in my opinion ) and is now being worked upon to be implemented on various platforms .Due to its open source nature, developers are having a blast and releasing amazingly creative applications plus their aren’t many restrictions when you compare it to the iPhone App store. So its good for everyone and now with Flash 10.1 coming to the Android powered mobiles, internet experience will be immensely improved and will pave way for more mobile flash optimized videos.
Day 2 belonged to Android. This brings an end to two days of Google related action. Google’s plans of achieving ‘ World Domination ‘ seems to be on the right track at the moment. If you missed the Google I/O Day 1 check out our blog post .
The Full Day 1 Keynote Video is embedded below :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a46hJYtsP-8[/youtube]
Do let us know your views on the various developments and announcements at Google I/O.
