Google IO Wrap-Up

I never claimed to be a good "blogger" and I guess this is proof. I've been back from Google IO for a couple days and have not covered any of the exciting Android related news that was released during the conference. Before I begin though, San Fransisco was awesome. It was my first trip to California and I really enjoyed the scenery and the weather. It was also awesome to finally meet all the TuneWiki team, muthu from HelloAndroid, and so many great people from the Android community: Muthu Ramadoss and Mary Ann Cotter (Cooking Capsules), Michael DeJadon (Safety Net), Jeffrey Sharkey (AndroidScan), Rob Mickle (Fingerprint), Amir (PedNav), Josh Guilfoyle (Five), Jason Hudgins (GeoMata), Weathertop Consulting Guy (HandWx), Finn Kenedy (TeeDroid), and many more.

Videos and commentary after the break...

New Android Demonstration

The keynote address on Wednesday morning was very informative because I was not familiar with many of Google's services, and it was also a treat because Google's Steve Horowitz demoed an Android prototype featuring a very cool home screen that we haven't seen yet. The homescreen allows the user to scroll the application list up and down or access "desktops" to the right and left. Steve also demonstrates a creative "unlock" feature that we have not seen before and a new zooming method for the web browser. Video courtesy of AndroidCommunity.com:

Then Steve breaks out a feature to make the crowd go wild! Listen to the crowd go "awwwww" when he demonstrates compass integration into Google Street View (Enkin come to mind anyone?):

Android "Market"

We have seen some great Android package delivery mechanisms like SlideME and Trackdroid, but I think Google is brewing up their own package management system. The last session of the conference was Android's Fireside Chat. This chat had a panel of some of the people working on Android technically and strategically. In this chat there were multiple questions about content distribution, and in spite of all the "beating around the bush", I would think this video from AndroidCommunity.com is a pretty good indication that there will be some kind of built in package distribution:

AndroidCommunity.com also goes on to show that there was an icon labeled "Market" in the Android demo from the day before, and the icon certainly looks like it could indicate an application to "buy stuff":

All the sessions from Google IO will be posted on Google IO's website in the next couple weeks, so I'll keep you posted on that. Google IO was a lot of fun (and somewhat informative), and I'm looking forward to next year already!