Google IO 2013

Contributed by Neev Technologies on 16 May 2013

Google’s IO 2013 is an ongoing event with a lot of interesting new features for developers. From an Android developer’s perspective we found a few features quite interesting. Here’s our take from the first day.

1. New Google Maps Android API

Google has exposed 3 new location APIs for developers

-       Fused location provider
-       New Low powered provider
-       2nd API for Geofencing

These APIs will help in providing better location services and also reduce the battery consumption as the current services utilize a lot of battery power. It would be interesting to see how the developers utilize these in the apps going forward.

2. New Activity recognition API

Accelerometer and machine learning to identify motions like walking, driving, etc. will help in more fitness related applications on the Android platform.

3. Google + Sign In

If an application exists on the web as well as on mobile, with help of Google + Sign in, the user can seamlessly move across devices without any interruption to the activity they were performing.

4. Google Cloud messaging

-     Persistent connection for sending large messages
-      Upstream messaging from device back to server
-      Synchronizing notifications across devices

Presently, if you read a notification from twitter on the web, you still have to mark it as read in the mobile app as well. Sync notifications will help in resolving such issues.

5. Google Play game service

-      Cloud save to persist game state
-      Achievements
-      Leaderboard using game and services
-      APIs for IOS and web as well
-      Multiplayer for P2P connections. Uses Google+ to invite friends and others to play the game.

6. Developer tools

We found this the most exciting.

New tool: Android studio based on IntelliJ provide real time preview of the application across different form factors.

Variable folding: It shows the value rather than the variable name which makes it easy for the developers and is much better than eclipse which is currently used by developers. It is a generic Java development platform but for the Android. Android Studio seems to be a real boon for the developers.

7. Google Play developer console

- Optimization tips for improving performance of the application
- App translation service in console. Connection with translation service providers
- Google analytics - usage metrics in console, revenue, etc
- Beta testing and staged rollouts for app deployment.

On the whole, the event started off on a good note. The event shows how Google is now focusing more on its services and apps. Till date the previous keynotes focused on the next version of Android SDK, Nexus devices etc. For the first time Google has moved away from this and primarily focused on its services.

Is this how Google is trying to resolve the fragmentation problem?

Well now you don’t need to have a device with latest version of Android SDK to enjoy the best of Google. You get that via its apps that will work across different OS/SDK versions.

Now does it impact the other players in the ecosystem?

Well the biggest winner here is Apple, as all the services announced by Google will work on iOS platforms as well and none of the iPhone users will feel left behind. And when it comes to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 this might be yet another reason for people to stay away from the platform. Its high time Microsoft gets into an agreement with Google to bring these services on to their platform as well.

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Tags: Google IO 2013, Google IO keynote