Google I/O: the devices and fun
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 Peter Liaw, Principal Engineer
Continuing from Monday’s post, I have more from Google I/O last week, including Chromebook. Google believes Chromebook can satisfy 75% of enterprise users, who basically need just Web apps. This really makes sense, especially with Web apps getting faster and more feature rich everyday. Even Angry Birds now can run as an Web app!
Google is betting on the following:
- majority of computer use is in a browser anyways
- web apps are continuously getting more powerful and feature rich, very comparable to standalone apps
- traditional OS maintenance and upgrade is very costly and difficult; Chromebooks update seamlessly and automatically
- Chromebooks don’t require anti-virus, firewall add-ons
- data always in the cloud, so data backup is a non-issue
- supports offline usage (I’m not exactly sure how well it works)
Session Highlights
As expected, I attended mostly Android sessions. My personal favorite was Android Development Tools, where they demonstrated some major tools improvements that should save me lots of time. Building Android UI for phones and tablets was also very good, as it demonstrated how to build a single app that runs on both platforms.
I also found the session on OpenID and OAuth to be very informative on how to leverage Google account for other sites. My least favorite was Taking Android to Work. I was hoping to learn what was new in Android to help enterprise management and deployment of Android apps. It was very disappointing, as nothing new was added in the OS to support device management/software distribution. It’s still lacking.
Many of the IO session videos can be found here on YouTube.
Office Hours
This is the best part of these dev conferences. You get to talk directly to developers to ask those questions that you can’t seem to get answered elsewhere. I got a few debugging questions sorted out. Just like at Apple WWDC, developers were very friendly and eager to help.
Angry Birds
To demonstrate the power of the HTML5 Web browser and WebGL, Angry Birds has been released for Chrome. Check it out at: http://chrome.angrybirds.com I also tried it from Firefox, and surprisingly, it runs in Flash! [Ed Note: I love that we have to do this for "work"!]
Gadgets Galore
I got a chance to check out some smartphones that have yet to be released.
- HTC Evo 3D is very nice, but I wasn’t impressed with the 3D screen. It doesn’t require glasses, but you have to view the screen straight on. 3D images also seem to have only half the resolution of a 2D image. I played a Spiderman game in 3D, and it looked great. But for photos, it was hit or miss.
- Sony Experia Play was fun to play with. It was basically like having a PS controller built into the phone. The nice thing is you can play the game without having to touch the screen, which often interferes with game-play/scenery.
- Samsung Galaxy S II has the Super AMOLED Plus screens, which is supposedly very readable outdoors. They didn’t let me take one outside for a demo. This phone is incredibly thin and light.
- I tried to play with the HTC Flyer tablet, but the $80 stylus was missing. Hmmmm, that’s one expensive pointing device!
Dancing Robots & More
This is hilarious. This Crazy Android Robot did make an appearance at the after hour party. And so did Jane’s Addiction. And here’s a room-sized labyrinth controlled by a Motorola Xoom. No one seemed to be able to get past the first two or three holes.
Wrap up
I’m very happy that I made it to Google I/O this year, after missing last year’s conference. For developers and gadget-lovers, attending these conferences is like a kid going to a toy store. I’m looking forward to Apple WWDC next month, also at Moscone Center. For the record, on the last day of the conference, I ran from Moscone to Caltrain at 4th and King in 7 minutes flat to catch the express train!
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