Google I/O Day One: Music, Movies, and Sandwiches

Google kicked off its Google I/O 2011 developer conference with a keynote full of announcements. Some were exciting, some were interesting, some were meh. Here are some random thoughts on today’s announcements. Of course I want to hear what you have to say about them as well. Let’s get to it!

Android Ice Cream Sandwich — The next major version of Android will be called Ice Cream Sandwich. It will combine the phone features of Gingerbread and the tablet features of Honeycomb into one mobile operating system for all devices. The UI will receive a major overhaul and the application framework — which hasn’t been detailed — should help developers code more efficiently for multiple devices.

I’m psyched to get some Honeycomb features on a phone…but I’m bummed that I’ll have to wait until Q4 2011 to get them. The UI enhancements are completely necessary; as powerful as Android is, it still feels rough compared to Apple iOS and HP WebOS. It’s a bummer that Ice Cream Sandwich will take so long, but at least it should have a cool Nexus phone to show off its features.

I’m also praying that the new application framework truly makes things easier for developers and greatly increases the allowed file size for apps (currently 50MB). After attending numerous developer panels, I’ve come to understand what a pain in the ass it is to create games for the platform. The file size limit is just stupid. Android gaming will always be a step or two behind iOS until that restriction is lifted.

Google Music Beta — The company’s cloud-based music-service is now official. Its incredibly unexciting placeholder name is Google Music Beta. As you’d expect, it allows you to store music on the cloud and listen to songs on numerous devices. Flash is currently required to use the service. Amazon recently launched its Cloud Player service and Apple is expected to announce its iTunes cloud plans next month, so this move was expected and necessary.

I was surprised by the elegance of Music Beta’s UI. It looks smooth and intuitive, which is surprising for a company that’s known for UI that’s rough (at best) and clunky (at worst). Google will allow users to store 20,000 songs on the cloud. Several writers have pointed out that this is higher than the 5GB allowance on Cloud Player, but few of them reminded their readers that buying an online album bumps the storage to 20GB.

Music Beta looks like it’s off to a promising start. Going into the conference I was kind of “meh” about the service, but the UI really surprised me. That said, I think the company is at a huge disadvantage since it doesn’t sell music. Buying MP3s from Amazon instantly adds them to Cloud Player and I expect iTunes to behave similarly. While Music Beta looks cool and smooth, it adds an extra step. On the plus side, Music Beta offers a number of free songs to download.

Movies on Market — Movie rentals will be available on Android Market. The first Android products that can use movie rentals are tablets running Android 3.1 (released today for Xoom). Android 2.2 phones will be able to rent movies in a few weeks. Google claims that it will have “thousands” of movie rentals available for $1.99 each. Movies can be “pinned” so that they can be watched offline.

I’m positive that Google is going to mess this one up. The interface is clunky — certainly worse than what I saw from a beta of the competing HTC Watch service. Netflix is also coming to Android. One huge advantage that Netflix has is that it has a consistent feel whether you’re watching through a gaming console, a phone, or a PC. Android’s movie rental service feels awkward and competes with Google’s recently announced YouTube rental service. I think it was a mistake to launch a separate service for Android. I understand that it wants to keep all Android commerce on Android Market, but it’s an enormous waste of the YouTube brand — you know, the brand known for video.

Teaming Up for Faster Updates — Google announced an initiative that will ensure that Android phones will support the latest updates for 18 months after they’re released, as long as the hardware can handle it. Working on update guidelines and efforts to speed up the process are AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Vodafone, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericcson, and LG.

This is smart move that should have happened earlier. Although Google is slowing down the Android release schedule, it’s still fairly frequent. New Android phones are released every week (or it feels that way). Getting the latest software update is bottlenecked by hardware manufacturers and carriers. Bringing everyone together to make the process faster will keep phones competitive for a longer period of time and, more importantly, keep customers happy.

Also, that photo of Christina Aguilera is there for no real reason.

Google TV Gets Android 3.1 — *yawn* I was excited for Google TV when it was announced at last year’s show. The products have been disappointing, but not as disappointing as Google’s lack of support for the service. Hopefully new hardware and new software can help Google TV live up to its potential.

Android Accessories — Google is releasing a development kit to broaden the use of Android. It wants Android phones and tablets to be used with atypical products. It showed an Android phone being used as a heart rate monitor paired with a stationary bike. This could be fun…or it could be like the Wii heart rate monitor. *joke* I expect to see a ton of crap Android “accessories” at CES 2012. I’m positive that I could make a one-hour show about it.

Android @Home — Google is also working on ways to have Android control appliances and lights in the home. This is kind of neat in the “house of the future” kind of way…but I’m scared of a micro-Skynet scenario. I don’t want to die because I pissed off my refrigerator and it ordered my barbecue grill to roast me.

Your Turn — Those are my initial thoughts on today’s Google I/O announcements. Now it’s your turn! Please let me know what you think when you have a chance.