At I/O this year, Google displayed its vision for a more ubiquitous and conversational way of interacting with technology. Its Assistant is chattier, answering natural language queries with a more human voice, and its found its way into several new Google products: the messenger Allo and the Echo-like speaker Home. Both are areas where other companies have a lead, but Googles strength in AI gave these services some nice twists, doing things like automatically generating surprisingly specific reactions to photos.
Google also announced improvements to Android though N, out of beta this summer, still needs to be named as well as a mobile VR platform that will come with the new OS. Theres a FaceTime rival Duo as well, and a way to run Android apps without downloading anything. Below are the 10 biggest announcements.
Google has a new VR platform
Google has two new messaging apps
More assistants in more places
Android keeps getting bigger
What does it all mean?
Seeing these products through wont be easy. VR, messaging, and smart assistants are three of the hottest areas of tech; today, Google took big swings at all of them. The demos were impressive, especially where the intelligence of its Assistant was on display, but the result leaves us with a lot of questions. Will a smart chatbot be enough to surmount the lead of Amazons Echo or Facebooks Messenger? Can Googles Daydream platform catch up with the Vive and the Rift? Amazon has been aggressive about partnering with other services, and Facebook well, Facebook is where everyones friends already are. Well need a much closer look at the products before we can start to guess at the answers, but in the meantime, Sundar Pichais Google has showed it isnt afraid of making big bets.
Google I/O is the biggest date in the firms calendar: its the conference where it gets everyone together in one big room (actually, this year it was a tent) in California to reveal all the cool stuff it has been working on.
This year was more focused than most. Its the first I/O since the company restructured itself into Alphabet, hiving off the wilder projects such as Google Glass, self-driving cars and life-extension research into other subsidiaries. Gone are the days of livestreaming a parachute jumper wearing Google Glass from the I/O stage. But that doesnt mean the company wasnt trying to impress with more down-to-earth revelations.
Leading the pack was the companys latest foray into the connected home business: Google Home. A direct competitor to Amazons Echo, Home is a small cylindrical speaker that you place on your coffee table and instruct to listen to everything you say.
Think of a turbo-charged, always-present version of Siri or Google Now and youre most of the way there. It can answer questions, play music and (if you have any smart home gadgets installed) control your house. It might sound creepy, and that was the reaction that many had when Amazon launched the Echo in 2014. But 18 months on and the Echo has been surprisingly popular, selling an estimated 3m smart speakers since its US-only launch.
Where Home is the physical manifestation Googles desire to build your always-on digital butler, Assistant is its digital counterpart. It says its an order of magnitude smarter than its competitors, such as Siri and Alexa (the intelligence behind the Echo speakers), but such claims are tricky to judge.
Sundar Pichai, the companys chief executive, demonstrated one use case: asking Assistant what movie he and his wife should see. Building up the complexity, he added that they wanted to bring the kids, and then asked how good one choice, Disneys Jungle Book, was. Assistant responded with the films rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (In case youre curious: its very good.)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks during Google I/O 2016. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Not apparently named after an 80s British sitcom, Allo is Googles newest messaging platform. It comes with some baggage: the company still has an entirely separate platform, Hangouts, which is built in to Android phones, as well as a number of lesser-used predecessors including Gchat and the now-defunct Wave. But Allo also represents a fresh start for Google, allowing the company to offer end-to-end encryption for the first time. That decision will throw it headfirst into conflict with the FBI, standing alongside Apple and Facebook against the US governments desire to read the text messages of criminal suspects.
Related: Google Allo: new messaging app is latest to fight FBI over encryption
Its still less secure than iMessage or WhatsApp, however, requiring users to actively opt-in to end-to-end encryption through an incognito mode. But security isnt the main selling point of Allo. Instead, thats the built-in chatbots, including Google Assistant itself: Allo users will be able to use Assistant to find extra information or send auto-generated replies. Impressively, it can even parse images, leading to the (perhaps overly specific) suggestion of Nice Bernese mountain dog as one such reply.
Why stop at one messaging app? Duo is Googles take on FaceTime, letting users chat face-to-face, mobile-to-mobile. Thats something Hangouts already does, but unlike Hangouts, Duo is mobile-only and tied to your phone number, not your Google account.
Erik Kay introduces Allo and Duo during the Google I/O 2016 developers conference in Mountain View, California. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters
One interesting feature Duo offers is Knock Knock, which shows a video preview of you before your recipient even picks up the call akin to looking through the peephole of your front door before pretending you arent in when your weird neighbours knocking.
If youre worried all these apps will fill up your phone or take years to download, Google has its own answer for you: Instant Apps. This is a new feature, which will arrive with the next version of Android, N. It lets you load up the part of an app that you need just from clicking a link.
For example, a Buzzfeed video can play in the Buzzfeed app even if you havent installed it, while someone shopping for a camera can buy it using B&H Photos mobile app rather than their website. For users, itll be seamless, and Googles promising that it wont be too much work for developers either.
Never afraid of duplicating itself (see: all its messaging apps), Google is launching a new virtual reality platform called Daydream. Built on top of Android N, Daydream is essentially Android for VR: itll offer users a home screen from which to access apps. Among them will be Google stalwarts including the Play store, YouTube and Photos.
Related: Google Assistant takes on Amazon and Apple to be the ultimate digital butler
Google already has a VR platform, Cardboard, but thats a deliberately limited beast, designed to let users trial a VR-lite experience through nothing more than their existing smartphone and a piece of laser-cut cardboard. Daydream, by contrast, looks built for purpose-made VR headsets, and will probably end up competing head-to-head with the likes of the Gear VR, a Samsung/Oculus co-creation.
Clay Bavor introduces Daydream during the Google I/O 2016 developers conference in Mountain View, California. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters
Google didnt actually save the most surprising thing for last thats an Apple thing but alongside the reveal of Daydream came a second announcement: the company has created a VR headset. Sort of.
Android remains an area where Google prefers to work through third-party manufacturers, rather than building its own kit. Therefore, the Daydream headset it showed off on stage wont be available to buy in stores. Instead, its a reference design, intended to show manufacturers who want to build their own Daydream sets what sort of features theyll be expected to provide. But Googles Nexus phones started off as reference devices, and now you can buy them direct from Google. So who knows whats to come?
