Google I/O Keynote: No Fancy Hardware, But Lots of Improved, More User-Friendly Consumer Products

The Google I/O keynote presentation was a four-hour marathon of announcements of very cool things. It may not have fulfilled the expectations of many who were looking forward to new hardware and gadgets, but there was enough to wow consumers. There was a lot of information shared, but one of the key impressions is that consumer-friendly interfaces and functionality seem to be the focus of this year’s Google I/O keynote.

Having 900 million active Android devices and 48 million apps installations may have something to do with it. Developers are getting revenues from Android as app revenues consistently increase. As a matter of fact, Google reportedly paid developers more in the first four months of 2013 than for the whole last year.

On existing technologies

The lengthy and prominent section of the keynote on Google Chrome (now with 750 million users worldwide) does not have any major innovations to speak of. The only exciting part of the Chrome presentation is the mention of JavaScript optimization to allow for gaming on tablets, smartphones and Chromebooks. Current efforts are targeting enabling C++ complex games to be played without plugins.

The most promising innovations

But there are new offers that Google consumers can avail for very affordable prices. One such new product is the Google Play Music All Access is the new streaming service which is now available for a monthly fee of $9.99. The subscriber can stream music without limit from his or her private library and Google’s online catalogue. Anyone based in the US can get a free 30-day trial or sign up now for only $7.99 (good until the end of June). This one gives the user the capability to create his or her own personal radio station.

Google Search and Google Now (mobile devices only) are leveling up as well to provide searches a seamless experience. Improvements are being affected all across the board from natural language searches to the use of contextual data to implementation of voice search for all devices. And Google Now can even anticipate information that the user has not yet requested for.

Google Plus has 41 new features to boot including animated UI, a new layout, new Hangout apps for Android and iOS, 15gigabytes of storage for high resolution photos for free, and an advanced data analysis too that automatically attaches metadata (watch out for those hashtags) after scanning the content – both text and images. This may feel a little bit intrusive, but Google+ is hoping to get piece of the action from Facebook with these new features.

Google Plus is now also equipped with a more advanced photo editing, hosting, and sharing features that are definitely worth exploring. “Highlight” chooses only the best photos for posting. That may be a bit invasive to some, but at least all the photos will be up to par with high photography standards. And “Awesome” can do photo stitching and create HDR shots as well as animated GIF.

Google Maps is getting rid of the pins and will be providing labels on the map instead. It is also more personalizes, and “visually compelling.” Now, 3D models may be viewed directly in the browser with this new version of Google Maps. The new version will be available today and those who get the invites can zoom out and see a zoomed out view of the earth with real-time clouds hovering. The improvements will be available much later in the summer for mobile users.