Google I/O 2016 Highlights: Android N, Daydream VR, and Instant Apps

Google hosted its annual developer conference last night at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. As far as tech events go, Google I/O 2016 was a pretty straightforward affair, though a few never before heard of announcements were made. So let’s take a look at the high points of the conference, particularly where average consumers are concerned.

CEO Sundar Pichai started off on a note we’ve gotten familiar with lately. The company announced their new digital helper, the Google Assistant. Think of it as the Google counterpart to Siri or Cortana, though she seems to have markedly less of a personality. However, what she lacks in colour she makes up for in operation. Google is applying all its machine learning experience to Google Assistant, as well as it’s past breakthrough with Now on Tap’s contextual searches. For instance, ask the assistant, “What’s playing tonight?” and she’ll show you movie listings in nearby cinemas, according to your taste. But the cool thing is, replying saying that you intend to take your kids along this time will cause Google to modify the results to instead include family movies, without having to restate your original question.

But Google Assistant is just the tip of the iceberg, the really exciting stuff lies in where Google wants to put her. The answer to that is, of course, everywhere. The company announced a new device last night, to tie into the IoT trend. Google Home is a smart home hub cum speaker. It’s computing unit will let you control your smart lighting, thermostat, even your Nest device, all using just your voice, and without needing a phone or smartwatch nearby. Just talk to Google Home to manage your house, or even use its built-in Search features to look up information or book tickets. Added to that is the fact that it also functions as a wireless speaker, with cloud streaming support and multi-room playback. Google Home also syncs up with your Smart TV letting you stream content directly to it. And all of that from a device you can hold in one hand.

Another announcement was for two new apps from Google; Allo and Duo. Allo is a new smart messaging app that aims to do it all. It’s based off your phone number, so you can call anyone in your contact list, and also features a bunch of expression tools to play around with. A simple Whisper-Shout  mechanic lets you type out text and then, drag the send button up or down to decrease or increase the text size respectively. Ink lets you post a photo in chat and then draw in it. Smart Reply, on the other hand, is a little different. It’s a feature that provides contextual quick response options for a chat. It even works for photos you receive in chat with Google’s photo recognition at work, to the point that it can even identify a breed of dog in a picture, to mention in your reply. Allo also has Google Search integration, meaning making dinner plans just got a lot easier. You can search for restaurants, for example, within the app itself, which pops up Google Cards all chat members can see. After that, you can even go ahead and make reservations through the app. As an added plus, you can even chat with Allo by yourself, as it works like a digital assistant. You can ask questions, check the news, and even play mini games within the app. Best of all, Allo remembers details about you and uses that to gather context whenever you ask a question.

In addition, Allo has an incognito mode that adds a few features. For instance, while all chats are encrypted, incognito Allo chats are end-to-end encrypted. It even has private notifications that block the sender name and message contents from alerts. You can also activate timed-expiry messages, that deletes chats after a certain time has passed, or delete chats manually to make them disappear forever.

The other app, Duo, is a one-to-one video calling app that also works off your phone number. By the looks of it, it’s not so different from Skype, except for its revolutionary “Knock Knock” feature. What this does is preview the live camera feed of your caller, instead of a profile picture, as your phone is ringing, and then seamlessly transitions to call video when you pick up. Best of all, both Allo and Duo will be coming to Android  and iOS later this year.

Of course, the big announcement of the night was for Android N. First things first, it still doesn’t have a name, so make your way over to android.com/n and put in your suggetion. Moving along now, N is supposedly greatly improved on the performance end. A new Vulkan graphics API means games will run smoother and with less lag. In addition, Google says app installs will now be 75 percent faster and will take 50 percent less memory. On the multitasking side, there are a couple of new tools. Firstly, a Clear All button has been added to open apps window. There’s also new Split-View and Picture-in-picture modes, as well as 72 new emoji. Android N will makes it’s way to users later this year, but developers can download a beta preview right now.

Another large addition to Android N is Daydream, Google’s Android VR platform. For the feature, Google has revamped the Play Store, so users can browse and download apps with the VR headset on. Movies will also be viewable in VR now, as well both regular and 360-degree YouTube videos. And while Google mentioned (but didn’t display) a new headset coming later this year, they did show off a new VR controller. It’s similar to the Wiimote, with two buttons, a clickable trackpad, and motion plus orientation sensors.

Wearables are also getting an overhaul with the new Android Wear 2.0. The OS update changes it so that now any watch face can display data from any app. In addition, smartwatches also get Smart Reply, handwriting recognition, and a new keyboard. In addition, Android Wear 2.0 now supports standalone watch operation. That means, you can strap on your watch for a run, and still have your music and your measurements without having to grab your phone as well. In fact, the entire demo for this section was with a smartwatch that had it’s paired smartphone turned off the whole time.

And lastly, was the surprise announcement from Google. The company has been secretly working on a new Android effort called Android Instant Apps. The principle is that apps are divided into various sections, and AIA allows Android to just fetch the packets it requires temporarily. For example, you get a link to something in Buzzfeed video or 9gag. You just HAVE to check it out, but you don’t have the app to go along with it. So instead, you can just click on the link, and it’ll take Android all of four or five seconds to open that content in the proper app, without actually downloading and installing it. Of course, that sort of techno sorcery requires some serious preparation and coopertion.with developers, so Google say it’s going to “take a while.”

And there you have it, all the best tidbits from a night of exciting announcements. Stick around for more in-depth pieces on Android N and more.