Google I/O 2016 one of the most influential events is here and is here with many huge announcements so without wasting any time further let’s go over things announced until now
Google Assistant
similar to amazon echo and Siri Google assistant is digital assistant which can manage your calendar play music, even order pizza for you and many other things even though we had all this functionality in Google now earlier, Google assistant is much more personal and has conversational approach to questions and supports multiple platforms like android, android wear, android auto, and third party integration makes it much more useful. In other words, it is the same google now but now more personal and widespread.
Google Home
Google home is the hardware companion for the Google Assistant much like Amazon echo it also enables smart home functionality like home automation, managing tasks, play music and videos on your TV and ask to google all this can be accessed in your home from any corner seamlessly,
Home can also connect with other devices such as Nest and other IoT products for a smarter home
Allo – another new Messaging app from google
Google is notorious for creating messaging services and abounding them like google talk messenger etc seems like Hangouts has the same fate it is now being replaced by the new Allo.
Allo is basically a messaging app as you might have understood by now but it is much more than that since Google assistant is integrated into Aloo it can make your texting life easier by providing smart and personalized reply suggestions also it can do stuff like finding you places to eat, book tickets and much more depending on the context of the chat
Duo
Duo is a video calling apps like skype and facetime but Duo focuses on much more secure and reliable connection with end to end encryption while also promising better experience even with slower network speeds.
adding to that is a feature called knock knock which basically allows seeing the person calling before even accepting the call.
Virtual Reality
VR is now supported by android officially which is called Daydream, with this google is trying to bring more VR content to the table and improve the experience by using new techniques like single buffer rendering and adoption of Vulkan APi which allows better GPU utilization and overall improve performance.
Android N
Android N has now got heck a lot of new features which are said to improve performance security and productivity.
Performance
Google has now turned its focus towards graphic runtime with extended openGL standard for better graphic abilities adding to the mix is the support for Vulkan API enabling developers to access modern 3D graphics API with direct control of GPU and overall give better gaming performance
The Android N compiler has received an upgrade. With the optimizations Google has done this time around, app installs on devices are up to 75% faster in Android N. Storage space needed for app code has been reduced massively as well, with a promise of up to 50% reduction.
Security
Android N now features file-level encryptions. This is different from prior releases which adopted a block level encryption pattern.
To improve on the Security aspect of Android N, Google is also offering seamless updates of the OS. New system images will be downloaded in the background and installed, allowing a seamless switch into the new software image.
Productivity
Multiwindow
Multiwindow in Android is being implemented in two ways: via split screen and via PIP (Picture-in-Picture). Split screen is for traditional Android devices like phones and tablets while PIP is reserved for Android TV. Users can now long tap on the recent button to activate split screen mode in supported apps.
Recent Screen
The Recents App screen is also seeing changes. Google concluded that 99% of the instances of app switching involved going back to an app within the last 7 used apps, so Google has removed apps from the recent screen that you have not used in a while. This should limit the number of cards present in the view, and make the carousel finite. You can also double tap the recent button within any app to quickly switch to the last used app.
Notifications
Notifications have received small improvements . The most noticeable of them all is the inclusion of direct reply on notifications. You can also now long press on notification to change its notifying priority.
Unicode 9
Unicode 9 brings 72 new emojis. You can now choose from emojis with color
Android wear 2.0
notable upgrade for android wear is the inclusion of stand-alone apps which can have their own network and resources which makes the experience more fluid along with that wear 2.0 also has new watch faces which fetch data from any apps, new user interface, and improved fitness
