Google I/O 2017 is in full swing, and we're about halfway through the first day as I write this post. Even so, we've already had dozens of stories come out of Google's big developer conference, and we want to make sure you're able to find all of our coverage in one place. Google Home, Photos, Assistant, Android O, Daydream - all saw major announcements today, and we're just getting started. I'll break it down for you. I've bolded what I think are some of the more important stories out of I/O today.
Android, Android O (and beta news)
- Looking for the Android O Beta? We've got what you need in our post
- Android O could cut in half the time it takes for your phone to reboot, and it may make some apps way faster
- Text selection is getting smarter in Android O
- Ready for an emoji revamp? Google has a huge one in store in its next OS release
- Notification dots will put rich notifications in your app icons
- Play Protect gives a new name to Google's malware scanning behavior
- Android Go appears to be a deep-level rethink of Google's approach to Android on low-end Android phones
- There are over 2 billion active Android devices on Earth now
- Android TV is getting a brand new launcher in Android O
- The Pixel launcher is getting options to change the shape of icons in the new O beta
- Quick settings is getting a new grayscale UI in Android O
- Google's new Visual Positioning Service is a neat AR technology
- The emoji support library in Android O should reduce the chance you'll see broken emoji in the future
- The night light feature is getting an intensity slider in O
- Android O will start housing a shortcut to a given app's widgets in the app shortcut interface
Day 2
- Bluetooth will now allow you select which AVRCP version you want to use
- A redesigned version of the Pixel launcher appeared in a demo area at I/O
- Animations in Android are going to start being based upon physics, which sounds pretty cool
- Android O has a brand-new "actionable" battery menu, and they've gone in-depth on explaining why it's there
- There are new developer tools in Android Wear for watch face complications and app interfaces
- Significant changes to how fonts are handled are coming in Android O
AR/Daydream VR news
- Fully standalone Daydream headsets - with beaconless position tracking - are coming
- Google's educational Expeditions app gets a new mode with AR that looks like it could be pretty cool
- The Galaxy S8 and an unannounced LG phones will be Daydream-certified later this year
Day 2
- The ZenFone AR is finally coming out - exclusively on Verizon in the US
- Daydream 2.0 and Chromium VR were announced
Google Home
- Google Home streams TV from many more service now - including HBO and Hulu
- This one is big - Google Home is going to start working with your other Android devices and display visual information to go along with responses
- Home will start warning you about upcoming events, and support for reminders is coming soon
- Hands-free calling is coming to Google Home, and it sounds amazing
- Google Home supports the creation of calendar appointments now
- Soon, you'll be able to stream music to your Google Home directly over Bluetooth like a standard speaker
- New music services have been added to home - including Spotify free, SoundCloud, and Deezer
- The Home device will be launching in Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and Japan this summer
- The Google Home app is going to be updated with user-defined, customizable shortcuts
Assistant
- Actions on Google, the platform for doing stuff across various Google products that is built into Assistant and Google Home, is coming to smartphones - and it could let the Assistant do some crazy stuff
- Assistant will be available in five new languages this summer, with more by the end of the year
- Google Assistant is now on iOS
- Soon, you'll be able to type to the Google Assistant, not just speak to it (or have to use Allo) - [Update: Rolling out now]
- Google Lens is an absolutely amazing object recognition platform that is going to be baked into Assistant
- The error rate for speech recognition using Google's engine is now under 5%
Day 2
- Assistant works with a whole lot more smart home products
- You'll seen be able to send money through Google Assistant
- Google Assistant will now allow to view your query history, and edit or delete it
- Google is working with 50 app developers for its first batch of instant apps
Google Photos
- Google Lens is a thing, and it's going to make Google Photos even more eerily smart than it already is
- Photos generally saw some major updates, and a lot of them use fancy machine learning to make Photos work harder to give you the pictures you actually want
- Physical photo books are something you'll be able to order from Photos soon
- Google Photos is going to start suggesting what photos you might want to share with friends and contacts
- Google Photos is getting absolutely insane automatic obstruction removal for your pictures - Adobe-level stuff
Various other news
- YouTube for TVs now supports 360-degree video
- YouTube has over a billion hours of video watched - per day
- Smart replies are coming to Gmail today
- New Profilers are coming to Android Studio for app performance visualization
- The Play Console Dashboard has new tools to help devs find and fix problems with their apps
- Developers can start making Instant Apps today
- Kotlin is now an officially-supported language for Android apps
Day 2
- Automatic APK size optimization will help developers shrink their packages
- Autosizing is coming to to TextViews
- Google is working on a new payments API for the web and mobile devices
- Devs are getting the ability to exclude any device that doesn't pass SafetyNet from installing apps on the Play Store
- Google Play App Signing will make key management a lot more streamlined for developers
- Android Studio 3.0 brings Kotlin support and a ton of new debugging tools