Today at Google I/O, the company has announced quite a bit of news surrounding upcoming Android updates, a brand new tablet, numerous updates to Google+ and more.
There’s heaps of information to cover, so let’s get to it. Here’s everything you need to know:
The Stats:
Today at Google I/O, it was announced that there have been a total of 400 million total Android activations, with one million activated per day. Read more on that here. We additionally found out that there are some 600,000 games and applications available for Android devices. Even more, those applications have been downloaded some 20 billion times. More on that here.
Google announces Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
This is big: Google has today announced the latest version of Android, 4.1. It is code named Jelly Bean and implements new technology from Google’s Project Butter to enhance performance and visuals, along with a new search experience.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
For all you eager beavers, Jelly Bean is coming to the Galaxy Nexus, Xoom, Nexus S in mid-July, and an Android developer preview is available today.
This update brings quite a few changes to the OS, including massive performance improvements to boost responsiveness, fluid animations, a new predictive keyboard, Google Voice Search, enhancements to Google Beam and notifications system. Read more on that here.
Android gets new search experience with “Google Now” & Knowledge Graph
With the release of Jelly Bean, Android is getting a completely new search experience. The entire system is set to give you the information you want, based largely upon your location.
More specifically, “Google Now” works to make your life easier, moment by moment: It figures out where you commute to work and how. It gives you a faster route if there is a lot of traffic. When you’re at a public transit stop, Google Now tells you when the next one arrives. Read more here.
Introducing the Nexus 7 tablet
Today, Google has also announced the Nexus 7 tablet, a 7″ device running Android 4.1 and made by Asus. It has a Tegra 3 quad-core chip with a 12-core GPU, 1280×800 HD display. The tablet is available directly from Google Play for $199 starting today and will ship in mid-July. Read more here.
Google Play gets Movies, TV Show and Magazine Purchases
Google Play is expanding with the new addition of movies, TV and magazine purchases. This additional content is available today in Google Play.
Movie partners include the likes of Disney, Bravo, NBCUniversal and more. As for magazines, Esquire, Wired and Family Circle are launch partners, and issues can be bought individually or users can buy a subscription. Previously, Google Play only offered Movie and TV show rentals, and now with complete purchases and magazines, the company is clearly taking on iTunes.
Google announces Android’s Platform Development Kit
According to Google, this PDK will be released on time for Jelly Bean’s launch. As for future major Android releases, a new PDK will be made available two months before each of them, TechRadar reports, pointing out that it will give manufacturers enough time to bring innovations to their devices and experiment with them.
As entrepreneur Paul Allen noted in his liveblog about today’s event, a beta version of Jelly Bean PDK has been available to a few Google partners over the last few weeks.
Google Currents now has Google Translate baked-in
For future owners of the upcoming Nexus 7 Tablet, you’re going to be able to fully utilize Google’s Currents product, as it now has translation baked-in. Users can load content, and then have it quickly translated to the language of their choice. On stage, English was translated to Arabic. Read more here.
Tons of Google+ news
Arriving on tablets: Google has announced an overhaul of its tablet experience for Google+. The Android version is available immediately and the iPad counterpart has been submitted and is on its way. Read more here.
250M+ accounts, 150M+ are active monthly: Here are some juicy new stats on G+ usage…
– 250M+ accounts have upgraded to or signed up for a Google+ account
– 150M+ accounts are active every month
– 50% of its users sign in every day
– On average, 12 minutes a day are spent in the Google+ stream
Google+ for Android gets an update: Those same updates that are coming to tablets will also arrive on Android phones. With a brand new way of going through your stream in landscape mode, you’ll be able to go through all of the items in your stream, with importance placed on the most popular items.
It’s a beautiful visual experience to just swipe through all of this content and decide on which piece you’d like to dig into. Read more here.
Google+ announces “Events”: Today Google is also introducing a completely new feature for G+, dubbed “Events.” This feature helps with all facets of having an event: before, during and after.
Google+ Events is available today, and might take a while to roll out to everyone. This is another example of how Google is using G+ as a social layer to tie all of its products together. Read our first look here.
The Nexus Q
We knew about this before the event started, but it’s still worth a look: According to the Google Play page, The Nexus Q is a “social streaming media player.” This $300 device appears to rely heavily on having an Android device at its heart. Read more here.
Google Glass Awesomeness
Lastly, Google Glass came to the stage, but first it was featured in a sky-diving, biking, building scaling spectacle. The demos were quite impressive, continuing Google’s great tease.
Surprisingly, there was actually news too: For US-based developers attending I/O, they’ll be able to order a preview device today for $1,500. Learn more here.
This is just a brief look at everything that has been announced today. To see it all in much more detail, you can head here for all of TNW’s Google I/O coverage.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.