I/O hasn't necessarily been your typical tech announcement event where months of pre-leaks reveal 90 percent of what will happen. But while we can't know what's coming for certain—everyone remembers those skydivers wearing augmented reality glasses, right?—we can go into this year's show with a few informed predictions. Based on our analysis of evidence, past news, and Google's usual release schedules, here's what we're expecting at Google I/O 2018.
Android P Developer Preview 2
This first one is easy. Every year Google releases a new developer preview of Android at I/O, and Google's own schedule says we'll get a new developer preview in "May," the same month as Google I/O. A new preview of Android P is pretty much a lock. The real question is "What do we expect in the second Android P Preview?"More Material Design 2
The first Android P preview arrived in March with a big UI overhaul. There's an all-new notification panel and quick settings, a new main settings screen, and lots of redesigned system UI components like the volume interface, text selection, animations, and dialog boxes. In the past few months we've also seen a whirlwind of UI changes from Google in other products, with a new design style appearing in Gmail.com, Chrome in its Desktop, mobile, and OS varieties, the Google account interface, Google Pay, the Android Developers site, and the new Google Tasks app.All of these redesigns could loosely fit under the same overarching design style, which feels like an evolution of Google's current "Material Design" guidelines. The new design doesn't have an official name, but internally at Google it has been called "Material Design 2" and "Material Design Refresh." Whatever Material Design 2 ends up being called, at I/O we expect Google to formalize the new design style, publish design documents, and have several developer sessions covering all the new changes.
Google likes to keep the I/O schedule vague before the keynote, but there are a few sessions that suggest Google will talk a lot about Material Design 2. One session is titled "How to incorporate what's new with Material Design in your code base." Another session will cover "how UX researchers helped test, refine, and evolve the latest Material Design guidance." I'm going to interpret mentions of "what's new" and "evolution" as hints of Material Design 2 news.
In Android P Preview 1, there was a pretty clear clash between newly redesigned screens and old interfaces that haven't been touched yet. In Preview 2, hopefully we'll see more parts of Android redesigned so we have something approaching a cohesive OS.
Gesture navigation
Android borrows a lot from iOS in this round of updates. In addition to iPhone X-style notch support, Android is apparently getting gesture support. This feature was seemingly leaked by Google itself, which accidentally posted a picture to the official Android Developer blog showing a navigation bar we haven't seen before. The home button was a pill shape instead of a circle, the back button used an older design, and the recent apps button was missing. This was Android's in-development gesture UI.There's a ton we don't know about gesture navigation, and it's clearly still in development from the screenshot. While it seems inevitable it will come to Android, we can't guarantee it will be ready in time for Android P Preview 2. It certainly seems like a major change for Google, and it's something the company may want to release in beta so people can wrap their heads around it and offer feedback.
Google Assistant "Slices"
The first Android P Developer Preview contained a new "Slices" API, and we're still not sure exactly what it will do. The Android P developer docs say a slice is "a piece of app content and actions that can be surfaced outside of the app," but that's pretty vague.Sebastiano Poggi from the app development house Novoda has been diving into the Slices API since release, and he thinks the most obvious use for slices is for apps to display their own content inside the Google Assistant search results. The UI with Slice renders currently looks very unfinished, but the layout is similar to a Google Assistant reply. Poggi has built a whole Slices demo app showing how a Google Assistant interface might work. One app would be a primary "Slice Host" (a Slices-aware version of the Google Assistant) and many other apps would be "Slice Providers" and offer up information to display inside the host app. So imagine asking the Google Assistant (the Slice host app) for Infinity War movie times, and instead of displaying search result info, users with the Fandango app installed (a Slice provider) could provide custom UI for the Google Assistant that would let users quickly buy a movie ticket.
Since Google will need app developers to build a Slice capability into their apps for this to work, the company needs to come clean about what the Slices API is and how developers should use it. Google's largest developer show seems like a good place to do just that. Again, the I/O schedule is very vague before the keynote, but the talk "Integrate your Android apps with the Google Assistant" might have something to do with Slices.
An Android TV dongle
When Google ended support for the Nexus Player this March, it suddenly found itself without a first-party device for Android TV. This is very unhealthy for the Android TV developer ecosystem, since, as usual with Android, third-party OEMs take their sweet time when updating any device. If Google released a new version of Android TV today, exactly zero people would have access to it on real hardware. Until Google fixes Android's update situation, any good Android form factor needs a Google-made developer device with day-one updates.For Android TV, it seems like a new developer device is coming in a Chromecast-like dongle form factor. A Google-branded dongle with remote showed up at the FCC in April, which would make it a prime candidate for a Google I/O launch. The dongle has similar hardware to the $69 2017 Amazon Fire TV, which would make for a good developer freebie for those who attend the show. Android TV seems to be primarily focusing on a form factor that is built right into televisions, but there are also set-top boxes like the Nvidia Shield and Xiaomi Mi Box. There's really nothing in a dongle form factor for Android TV, though. A souped-up Chromecast-style device with the full Android TV interface on it would be great for wall-mounted televisions and people who don't want to buy a whole new TV.
Nothing in the I/O schedule shouts "We're making new Android TV hardware!" but Google's TV OS has not been forgotten at I/O. There's a "What’s new with Android TV" session that could end with a hardware freebie being given out.
Flutter, but not Fuchsia
For the past few years, Google has been hard at work on a new cross-platform mobile SDK called "Flutter." Flutter apps ship with their own high-performance app engine, so they run on Android and iOS, allowing developers to write one app for both platforms. Flutter apps also ship with their own UI framework in both iOS and Android flavors, allowing them to maintain a native look.Google's Flutter SDK hit beta 1 in February, and with Beta 1 comes Google's first promotional push to actually get developers to start using Flutter. Google I/O will have a sizable focus on the new SDK, with six sessions dedicated to Flutter.
Flutter is also the app platform for Google's in-development, experimental operating system, Fuchsia. Fuchsia is a from-scratch rewrite of an operating system meant for phones and PCs, and unlike Android, it's not based on Linux—it instead has a Google-developed kernel called "Zircon." While Flutter can run on Android and iOS, I like to think of Fuchsia as the "Flutter OS."
Fuchsia hasn't changed much since we first got it running on the Pixelbook. It's still a very early operating system full of placeholder interfaces that are totally non-viable for day-to-day use. I feel like every few months I see an overzealous commenter saying the next big Google product will be Fuchsia powered, but I think we'll have to wait until at least 2020 for a consumer release.
Fuchsia has only been in development for two years, while Android—which was rushed out the door to compete with the iPhone—took five years to develop even after starting with Linux as a base. With Fuchsia, Google has much less reason to be in a hurry. Android has an 80-percent market share, so there's no competitor to catch up with. Google also wouldn't want to spook Android device makers by loudly signaling that a new operating system is coming. I would be surprised to hear a single official utterance of the F word at Google I/O.
If we imagine that Fuchsia will survive the development process, become a good and successful consumer operating system, and be able to replace Android (all of which are long shots and would take a lot of work), pushing developers to use Flutter would be "step one" on any plan to switch from Android to Fuchsia. So for now, Google pushes Flutter for Android and iOS. If a few years down the line Fuchsia works out, then—surprise!—everyone has also been building Fuchsia apps when they use Flutter.
Android Things hits 1.0
Android Things is yet another Android form factor, this time targeting "Internet of Things" devices. These would be Android devices that either work as a kiosk and only display a single app (ATMs, public information terminals, digital signage) or devices that don't have a display at all (all sorts of sensors, appliances, etc.).The Internet of Things is all the rage at shows like CES, but around Ars IoT is mostly known for being a security nightmare. That fancy new toaster you buy comes with Wi-Fi and an internal operating system, and that operating system will have security flaws, and it will never be updated. Android Things aims to solve this security nightmare by making all these devices run Android.
I know what you're thinking—Android is not known as a particularly secure OS, because Android devices are never updated, either. This is true of devices from Samsung, LG, and other third parties, but devices from Google, which are regularly updated directly by Google, do not have these security problems. With Android Things, your average Android IoT device should be much more secure than your average Android phone, because Google is taking a more Windows-like approach to device updates. Android Things device makers are not allowed to modify the underlying Android OS, allowing updates to come directly from Google. For functionality and customization, device makers are allowed to do whatever they want at the app level, but the operating system is off limits.
Android Things was announced all the way back in 2016, and currently it's on its eighth developer preview. It seems like we're due for a 1.0 launch soon. Google notes that Preview 8 "represents the final version of the API surface for the upcoming, stable 1.0 release." Google has said the final version of Android Things will be based on Android 8.x Oreo and that Google's upcoming Google Assistant Smart Displays will be one of the first devices that ships with Android Things as the OS.
At I/O 2018, there are a whopping eight sessions dedicated to Android Things. With the final dev preview out and products launching soon, it seems like all the stars are aligning for I/O to have a 1.0 launch of Android Things.
Other vague things promised by the I/O schedule
Android Automotive—"What's new in automotive" promises "an exciting preview of what's ahead." We know that in addition to Android Auto, the projected smartphone app, Google is working on "Android Automotive," a full-blown operating system for car manufacturers to integrate into their vehicles. We've already seen the system demoed a few times, including last year at I/O. Maybe we'll hear about an actual product launch for it? It's hard to know because car manufacturers have such huge, multi-year product development cycles.Google Photos—A session titled "What's new in Google Photos" will "preview some exciting updates to Google Photos." Last year at I/O, Google promised an object removal feature in Google Photos that never actually came out. Maybe this will finally launch? Otherwise, I have no idea what this could be.
Probably not coming to I/O
Google has a few other projects in the works that could conceivably launch at Google I/O, but there's no evidence to support that happening. They're good to keep in mind while watching the show, at least.Smart displays—In January, Google announced Google Assistant Smart Displays at CES 2018. Like the Amazon Echo Show, these were smart speaker voice appliances that added a display to the mix, like a new-age Internet appliance. Lenovo, JBL, LG, and Sony have signed up to create devices at some point, but nothing has actually launched yet. Lenovo seems furthest along in terms of actually launching a Google Assistant display, and that company has promised device availability this summer. However, that's too late to make Google I/O. There is still a session that mentions smart displays, called "Design Actions for the Google Assistant: beyond smart speakers, to phones and smart displays," I just can't imagine hardware launching at the show in time. Still, I wouldn't rule out a few demos.
The mid-range Pixel Phone—Google is supposedly working on a mid-range Pixel phone that will launch in the summer. The report gave a launch window of "around July-August," which is too late for I/O.
Google's Gaming machine—Apparently Google is (was?) working on a streaming gaming consolethat was meant to launch at the end of last year but didn't. Such a project would require lots of developer communication, and since I don't see anything gaming related on the I/O schedule, I'm going to guess this doesn't appear at I/O, either.
Google's audio mess—Google is working to clean up its hot mess of audio offerings, working to combine YouTube's music offering with Google Play Music. The resulting service would be called "YouTube Remix," and reportedly it would lead to the death of Google Play Music. YouTube Remix was originally supposed to launch in March, but that never happened, because, like with all music services, these things are at the mercy of music license contracts. Google is also planning anotherpodcast service, one that might replace the dying Google Play Music app with a standalone podcast app. Right now we don't have any timeline for these products, so who knows if they will be at I/O.
