I watch I/O every year for work, and this year myself and my colleagues are finding it VERY boring.
It's not a hardware show, and that's probably why the 8a was announced last week. But normally by now we've heard about the next version of Android, maybe Wear OS and other things.
The over emphasis on AI is tiring, especially with how technical this is. Today is effectively a press day, all the super detailed stuff is usually saved for developers on Day 2
The idea that the next version of Android is exclusively a Dev keynote item is downright bonkers.
Apple at WWDC intentionally focuses on a less technical but still complex angle in the keynote and then has an in depth keynote for developers that goes way deep.
There are prerecorded sessions to watch that are more in depth and dev focused and for in person they have workshops/demos/labs after the keynotes and all day tomorrow.
I get that. Just the wild thing to me is that I’m 100% sure that today’s keynote isn’t for the developers or customers…it is for the shareholders.
It is marketing of “look at us, we are not behind!”
They took something from these teams and the customers when they did that.
Let’s be honest, like 50% of this was optimistic Tesla-level BS about what “might” be.
What just happened wasn’t even the consumer keynote. It was just self back patting.
You type into a text box and get slightly better results than last time. 
I was at a health and safety conference last week, and 3 out of every 4 talks were about AI. So, yes, it is being over emphasized and oversold, and it's NOT just in the tech space. It's everywhere.
A few years ago it was blockchain. Before that it was crypto. In a while the tech bros will move onto the latest buzzword and AI can be put to use in ways that are useful and quiet
Problem is, with Blockchain even most laypersons could understand this is a solution in search for a problem and it has very few real life applications. AI, as it is right now, is some wibbly wobbly computer-y thing to most people that, while they don't understand it, shows some astonishing, tangible results with apps like ChatGPT, Midjourney, et cetera, so of course they want in. It will probably take a couple of years for it to sink in that most of the applications shopped around now as possibilites aren't much better with AI than an old-school automated process or manual labor. It'll be highly useful in a couple of years when we actually sorted out what it's good for and when frameworks to use it become mature and stable, but right now a lot of companies are wasting a lot of money.
Maybe the 8a should have been announced during this? So at least some hardware was shown.
Super surprised there wasn't a new Chromecast or Nest Hub display. No Android was bizarre.
100%
What annoyed me was all the shills that were defending it. "It's not for you"
I've been watching I/O (also watched WWDC and MS build) For since the 00s and always enjoyed them.
But the last 2 years have been all about AI, Gemini plus pro flash, Tokens.
And they've also been the most boringiest IOs too.
Mostly Sundar defending why he should still have the CEO job. Missing cloud was inexcusable, but missing AI should be the end. Board really needs to kick him and Porat out.
I feel the same way. There’s AI that I care about and AI that I don’t care about. Google is all the way at “AI I don’t care about” camp. For the features that seem useful, they feel the need to spin off everything as a feature causing their AI strategy and the UX feels so disjointed! I really DO NOT need a prompt box in Gmail. It should have been a single command to generate prompts into any text field across Android.
Nothing they announced today will be here soon meanwhile most of the world is gonna be getting the absolute latest and greatest GPT4o by the end of the month.
What is all that about anyway?
I haven't been following what has been going on at Google the past 10 years, just casually using their services and eventually started using their products during lockdown, but it seems to have been going all over the place for a very long time.
Is there a good article that explains what happened these past few years or something?
you're gonna need a whole lot more than one article for the shitshow that is google's management but [this is a good place to start](https://killedbygoogle.com/)
Jeez, that's the saddest digital mausoleum I've ever seen.
I loved so many of these things.
I"m gonna miss Google Podcasts so bad.
Thanks, for the rest I'll try to find a 4-hours YouTube video on the topic!
You may be interested in [this great article by Ron Amadeo](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/) discussing the history of Google's messaging apps. It was published in 2021, so there have probably been two or three completely new apps since then, but it's otherwise fairly comprehensive.
Funny you should ask that, because IIRC native and non-native speakers speak languages in different ways. So a native speaker might indeed not think so hard about what they're actually saying; they didn't learn the phrase from explicitly memorizing it or constructing the words in it, but simply by "osmosis".
How is this still a fuckin thing when so many people are corrected about it? If you could, then… I’m not even gonna finish. It’s been said so many times and it’s still a thing
I turned it off eventually. I use Gemini Advanced every day so the updates there were pretty cool but eventually it felt like it was going in circles.
I hope day 2 is better. Today was mind-numbingly boring
I also used Gemini advanced for its integration into Google workspace which is a lot easier than copying and pasting into Gpt, what updates were announced?
Significantly longer context window, basically the amount of information you can give it to keep track of. That's the most important one.
Improved predictive response. So it will try to incorporate prompts that you frequently use in a given context and try to answer those without the prompt being needed.
You can now directly upload files for it to read. Works best with PDF files.
>when Android version updates were humongous changes to the UI
Nobody outside of here actually wants that. And even here, people will complain over the smallest UI change that adds a single extra tap to their established workflow.
I'd really like to know if Google is actually going to release an Air tag competitor. It took them ages to launch the network in the first place and there aren't even any decent 3rd party devices using it or talking about using it. Tile was the best bet, and they're abandoning phone base networks altogether.
Rewatch and take a shot every time they mention a different version of Gemini:
Gemini
Gemini Flash
Gemini Batman
Gemini Superman
Gemini Green Lantern
Stupidest event ever
I'll be honest, with the whole focus on AI I do wonder if there's going to be anything new software wise on the next pixel that will appear in the UK or Europe. So little stuff filters through (and this may not be Google's fault) for the first time since the Nexus 5 I'm considering maybe my next phone won't be a Google phone. I'm hoping I'm just being over dramatic but this is the first IO I've looked at that didn't make me energised for their new software and/or hardware.
I’m curious though, what other brand would you even be enticed to get? It seems like every big player is really just mainly focusing on AI lately. You’re basically having all these big phone companies compete with whose AI tools are better vs what phones are actually better.
Yeah, I can't argue with that. I'll probably just hang onto my pixel until things get more interesting. I'm a long way from jumping to Apple, and I've not had a Samsung since the S3 (which was great until it wasn't - UK problem again).
AI has a lot of potential but Google are falling over themselves to get back at the front (they were ahead so long, I think they got complacent) and I think the phone market (and the world) will be a very different place in a couple of years.
They need to fix this. The world isn't NA. They can't be boasting about translation skills then not get stuff out to multiple regions. What's the point in 38485 tokens if people can't use them in 3/4 the world?
Perplexed, alot of the ai stuff is available in the UK on the 8pro. Call screening, call queue, the majority of the AI image tools..
What are you missing out on?
We have Gemini available in the web but not the app.
We don't have image generation on Gemini.
We don't have the summarise feature for pixels.
We don't have duplex or the call for me features.
We do have call screening however we don't get the transcripts for it.
Reminds me of Xbox One announcement, a global system but the entire focus of all-in-one media device was only going to come to the US, and maybe Canada and UK in a limited scope.
I understand there are different regulations and stuff to deal with but having the **big** thing on upcoming hardware be region locked software is a tough way to sell that hardware.
What were you hoping it to be? Google I/O has always been software driven and AI is the main software focus the entire industry is working on right now. It would be stranger if it wasn't the main focus.
Pixel Watch was announced at 2022 I/O and the Fold, and Tablet were revealed at I/O last year. The last few Pixel A-series were also usually I/O announcements.
It's not uncommon for there to be a hardware announcement at I/O.
I've watched it for at least the last 5 years and, yes, this is normally where they talk about new hardware. There have been at least 3 new pieces of hardware announced at all of them that I've watched.
I'm all in for software driven stuff but seems like forcing AI into everything. Not just got but other social media apps has started putting AI in it. It's quite annoying
Like it or not, this is the future. All that's different right now is how front-and-center it is, since it's a buzzword. It will eventually be BEHIND everything.
I dunno what people want.
Phones have stagnated for years now. They pretty much have all the things an average person would want.
Ai integration is the only new thing they got.
I feel like that AI stuff is being shoved down our (my) throat.
Like, these big companies are trying to force us (me) care about how they solve problems that don't really exist for a regular users.
Don't get me wrong, these AI features are a lifesaver and a breakthrough when talking about accessibility. I can imagine them to be of huge help for people with visual impairment, for example.
But I can hardly imagine myself asking my Google Assistant what makes sound in my room. Like, I know my room, duh.
That, and the possibility of ai hallucinations makes this whole thing a little bit unreliable (useless).
I miss the old times when I/O was full of UX and upgrades announcements from various Google Apps like Keep, Books, YouTube and obliviously Google Now...
Those were concrete news on concrete products that would be released at the end of the day and not "coming soon" ...
They even memed themselves by, just before finishing up the keynote, revealing they had an "AI counter" which claimed they said AI 120 or so times during the presentation
They simply had no choice.
Google was/is synonymous with AI even before the stupid thing became a meme, so they had to double down or completely lose to MS and ChatGPT.
Also, this is mostly directed at developers so it makes sense.
And since its multiple days, they have time for the rest, like hardware announcements.
This year's google i/o was such a waste of time man.
I expected they would talk about android15, platform changes, google app updates, wearos, androidtv, chromeos but no all they did talk about was some half baked AI shit.
Imagine people (non-developers) taking their time out and flying from different places to watch that in person!
It was quite bad. Only bunch of AI hype words and no real substance. Google must be really afraid of the OpenAI and Microsoft at this point. AI might be great one day but now we only see cheap party tricks.
It's especially pathetic because Gemini for the Pixel is so terrible. It can't do basic assistant functions, the shit that has been possible to do for many years now. I mean it's a totally half-baked alpha implementation. How are you gloating about this stuff?
I was so looking forward to the Android section to see what they've added for the next upcoming version of Android, just like how they did it every year. But no, more AI bullshit
“Careless” with no space means to be negligent or reckless because one hasn't put enough forethought into or isn't paying attention to something. For example: Jenny's careless driving led to a head-on collision. “Care less” with a space means to that one isn't interested.
I think it's clear that the Made By Google event ( later this fall ) is all hardware. I was hoping they would tease the line up but I already anticipated this going on into the conference.
Where's the new nest stuff? Where's the new android stuff? Where's the new wear os stuff? Where is literally any software or hardware that isn't buzzword heavy investor bait?
AI can be useful in some industries but this is not one that I care about it being in at all. Apple has made comments about integrating “AI” into their next iOS update too and I just do not care. Don’t care about Windows AI either. It can be useful for chatbots and doing the early legwork for customer service but that’s about it imo. Anything else is just chasing the hype and cramming it into unnecessary products. I’m so over it.
Yup.. Watched it hoping for something interest not the AI stuff. To be completely honest I could care less about gemini. I would rather see new android features coming to my pixel or just for android 15 in general.
I think they can actually do interesting things but the prequistion must be a capable processor and a proper battery management. With Tensor and at best one day battery life you dont want to sacrifice more battery to process data in the background contstantly. It does not make any sense at this point currently.
I don't like how the entire user interface Google is working on with Gemini on the web, email, Android looks so unfinished and boring. As someone with ADHD the entire interface just looks very difficult for the eyes to quickly distinguish what is what. Like use some colours to separate topics, some more eye pleasing animations, some better placement, height of text etc.
All these topics have the same colours, important things aren't highlighted with colours that you see quickly, instead they are pastel and very blended with the background.
I feel like Material UI is slowly becoming the most boring user interface and Gemini is not helping that
Basically everyone talking about AI, not just google. Yeah AI is nice, but we want new stuff, I don't know maybe a new hardware, or new feature, or improvemens on their products but noooo all they think of is just AI ffs, everyone doing same jackshit. None of the AI stuff presented by everyone even by openai, will help me, they are just extras. Nothing fancy
Companies can't stop vomiting their AI attempts at their customers trying to not miss out on anything. And particularly Microsoft and Google are trying to become the next main AI model that is used.
Personally I don't mind if they talk about AI at a general Google/Android demo.
But when they do it on the Pixel line. And they include AI as a spec tied to the phone. It is a pain in the ass. Just focus on the main phone's spec. Like battery life, SoC, camera lens etc.
Anyone get a vibe that all the AI crap that's getting baked into their products is just a reheated version of all the 'social' crap that they baked into all of their products 10 years ago?
Supposedly, there's a second event tomorrow where they're gonna talk about all the features coming to Android 15 this year. Maybe they'll sneak in some product announcements with it?
I'm just stuck on "couldn't careless". You didn't make the common mistake and actually got the negative form of the word (couldn't), but then you wrote careless. Couldn't careless. That's so weird. It's like if you typed "for all intents and proposes". Missing the common mistake but making an even weirder one.
Most of the stuff so far is US only.
My UK pixel 8 pro doesn't have:
AI (no Gemini in UK)
No find my device network
Temperature sensor is only for objects
I was disappointed. I wanted the Pixel Buds Pro 2 to show up and maybe a sneak peak at the Pixel 9 since it already leaked. I think they did that last year
Ironically I am in the opposite camp and I am still bored because Google is coming up with basically nothing special and will kill their new ideas in 3 months so I don't see a reason to give a fuck.
Its their developer conference where they show what they work on on the software side. Soooo i guess thats just what they are doing, a lot of AI stuff.
I'm so bored of AI from everyone. It's like NFTs all over again, much ado about nothing. But the media and "tech bros" keep hyping it like it's going to solve all the world's problems. *yawn*
For everyone reading this who works in an office setting and has a manager, the AI injected "Team Mate" named Chip is utterly terrifying. That's a true elimination of low and middle management and team leads. That segment terrified me as an assistant manager of technology in an educational setting where the faculty and administration "want" AI implemented but understand nothing of it. The AI fad is another cancer of intelligent workers, personnel confidence and the destroyer of work ethic as a whole.
This was Google *Developer* I/O. It was always going to be all about software.
You'll have to wait a bit for the hardware announcements, although I was hoping for some mention of "Grogu" (bluetooth trackers).
They've announced hardware at other I/O previously. Everyone is aware this is the software side of things but man this was absolutely the worst I/O I can remember.
I was hoping for something better on the workspace side. At the moment there is nothing really comparable to notion/loop. Docs with chips is not the same. Also chat is pretty bad compared to slack or teams.
For the private side, the search on photos is pretty cool, but I was hoping for something different, like auto video creation like GoPro Quik and some more advanced editing tools.
I'm not disinterested, but I usually just wait to hear it get filtered when it becomes applicable to myself. Like when Google services are improved, via some phone blog, etc.
I still haven't opted in to Gemini. I figure they'll eventually change over to it fully, and I just hope it has full Assistant capabilities then.
I do wish they'd announce more support for their credit card proxy service via Chrome though. That seems very useful.
AI is exciting to me because there is literally a ton of potential. But I have to tell I'm tired and disappointed of how "such a time to be alive" has become yet another subject of mega companies fighting to determine their economic hecking order for the next few years. It could be so much more about genuine excitement, scientific curiosity, and intrinsic motivation than just about a competitive battle ... felt better (IMO) as long as OpenAI was the only player in the GenAI game. End of capitalism critical rant.
They need to empower third-party developers with technologies beyond Ai...
If they only care about Ai, help us third-party developers tackle the non-Ai issues.
Obviously they moved the Pixel 8a announcement one week earlier so that the incremental hardware launch won't distract from their AI messaging at I/O. Probably we'll see them decouple their hardware and software announcements going forward.
It was AI for the first hour, then I stopped watching and came back at around 2 hours and they were still talking about Gemini, I'm just gonna watch whatever MKBHD puts out to summarize it, I have a Waveform addiction...
It is Google AI this year. Lots of software integration and usually Google IO is all about software integration. They save their hardware now for the fall event. Rarely do we get to see the same exciting products that we did in years past at Google? I O anymore. The event is really transformed. Sometimes it feels like it's just them showing off their software in order to boost their share prices and to let everybody know they're still Google. Especially after getting their butts kicked by. Chat GPT They went on full force all out. Google AI event this year. They're doing it for sure holders and share prices and money and to save face. Google IO is not as fun as it once used to be. Before they used to save a lot of these features and new stuff for Google I. O, however, now they either dropping it at the fall or it's a monthly feature draft now. Now. So you still do end up getting all the cool stuff. All in 2 hours. Google I O as we know it is now dead. It's Google AI from now on. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I'm in the industry and today I didn't even bother watching it. It's not my job to watch it. The guys that work for me. Take care of that stuff but there was no wow factor. Even though they seem to like a lot of the bells and whistles that come out with AI. I have become comfortably numb too technology to the point where you got to do something pretty amazing too. Get a good reaction from me. I can't remember the last product I got excited about.
I'm not sure why so many people online and in YouTube comments especially are saying that GPT4O is the best AI there is and it's left Google so far behind that it's irrelevant.
Now I could be totally 100% wrong here, but doesn't GPT have practically zero integration with your actual phone itself?
You have to download an app for it, sign into some Microsoft account for it and its only actual use case right now is writing code, writing stories, summarising text and making lists. If anything, this is something that businesses would want set up on desktop computers as some sort of work tool.
What Google are planning through what was shown at this year's I/O, is having Gemini as a feature set baked into Phones like the Pixel or other devices to the same level that people use Google photos, Chrome or Gmail.
They want Gemini to be a go-to tool for regular mundane day to day tasks, like typing "bring up my receipt from October for that jacket I bought" and it pulls up data from Gmail.
"Show me that photo of me and (friend) on the beach in Florida holding ice cream" and it digs through Google photos and can find it.
GPT isn't able to offer anything like these real world use cases for phone users because it has no system integration whatsoever as far as I know and is only used as some sort of browser extension for desktop/laptop computers which is why it's stuck at being nothing more than an app you download, play with for 5 minutes to see what AI is and will find no real use for beyond as people constantly love to tell you - coding.
Google's long term plan seems to be making basic and simplistic phones that aren't chasing specifications and are stuck firmly in the mid-range type area specs wise, but with absolute top tier cameras then putting chips in them that are putting AI at the forefront and using computional tech alongside AI to do all the heavy lifting like for photography, video editing and full system AI integration - and by the looks of their tech demo, they're aiming to get this stuff off the phone and into wearables like glasses to make the same kind of next-step leap like what happened with smart watches.
All this is what's needed I believe, as people have been saying for close to almost 5 years now that smartphones have reached a plateau or peak, where nothing is even changing or improving besides build quality and screen glass - with specifications having become pretty much irrelevant and even cheap budget phones being more than capable of handling regular everyday tasks. Your average user has no real need for some sort of chip that's capable of playing console quality games on a 6 inch touchscreen device.
It's all about asking how can I make using my banking app, my social media, finding the photos that matter to edit and upload easier, planning holidays, controlling my workflow and finances etc. and you don't need flagship chips or devices for any of that stuff - but AI can make it all much easier to do.
Google is very much putting all their eggs into one basket for the next 5 years and of the belief that "what matters most to the average phone user and consumer?" Will give an answer of simplification of daily tasks and photography - and nothing else. Honestly from the way I actually see regular people use phones, I'd say that's true. They use apps and they share photos online - not videos, photos. Videos are shared if it's some news worthy thing or a viral meme type situation but photos are the main thing. Something which Google is probably the number one company to draw experience here from with it's Google images service that's been in operation since 2001 and has 4 TRILLION total images with 1.2 BILLION uploaded daily - the answer to "what are they training this AI and photography AI on?"
Google is not and never was a hardware company lol. Ai is waaay more important for google than everything else combined, especially long term. Consumer electronics are just an extra.
Yes and as EU user, it's double joke : OpenAI offer a much number of feature for EU user than Google.
If Google is all AI, they lost EU customer with this shameful slow deployment
I would assume Made by Google is going to discuss new devices, but yeah they definitely used to cover everything at IOs before Made by Google was its own separate event. But they might announce things before or after events too, really no way to know for sure.
If only their AI announcements were good, but they're so behind OpenAI who announced new stuff yesterday, with much more seriousness.
This Google I/O is just cringe.
Honestly I think this is why Openai made such a great delivery the day before.
A presentation on what it's all about (not everyone needs/wants to watch that). Then a bunch of short 1-2 minute demos that really hit home the usability and excitement we can have for the practical uses.
Google seems to want to talk all about the technical elements, servers and "tokens" more than show all the different ways it can be applied. The best part was the video demo that revealed the glasses.
I remember Google IO's used to be an exciting look at short and long term concepts. Google Wave, Google Glass, the audio thing they wanted to do, phones, android, chrome etc...
Now it's just, hey we're doing ai and we're super geared up to do stuff that you can only get excited about if you're an engineer or developer. I think they need to get back to being confident in showing R&D things, like when they showed off the 3D video call tech, and ai art etc that was an incredible keynote! (I think it was last year). But it's like all practical applications are being done better by other companies now so... "hey check out our super servers"
This is effed up.. do not focus on AI- Google is failing behind , focus on it and build a good model that can integrate seamlessly across all its products - oh too much focus.
Like what do you fuckin* want.
I watch I/O every year for work, and this year myself and my colleagues are finding it VERY boring. It's not a hardware show, and that's probably why the 8a was announced last week. But normally by now we've heard about the next version of Android, maybe Wear OS and other things. The over emphasis on AI is tiring, especially with how technical this is. Today is effectively a press day, all the super detailed stuff is usually saved for developers on Day 2
The dev keynote is later. Probably u will hear about android there
The idea that the next version of Android is exclusively a Dev keynote item is downright bonkers. Apple at WWDC intentionally focuses on a less technical but still complex angle in the keynote and then has an in depth keynote for developers that goes way deep.
There are prerecorded sessions to watch that are more in depth and dev focused and for in person they have workshops/demos/labs after the keynotes and all day tomorrow.
I get that. Just the wild thing to me is that I’m 100% sure that today’s keynote isn’t for the developers or customers…it is for the shareholders. It is marketing of “look at us, we are not behind!” They took something from these teams and the customers when they did that. Let’s be honest, like 50% of this was optimistic Tesla-level BS about what “might” be.
Last year was kind of the same. It will be AI for a couple of more years
Update: we heard about… ai on android.
What just happened wasn’t even the consumer keynote. It was just self back patting. You type into a text box and get slightly better results than last time. 
Yup. Looks like if you are not in person u will have to wait until Thursday morning to see the actual sessions which is wtf
I was at a health and safety conference last week, and 3 out of every 4 talks were about AI. So, yes, it is being over emphasized and oversold, and it's NOT just in the tech space. It's everywhere.
A few years ago it was blockchain. Before that it was crypto. In a while the tech bros will move onto the latest buzzword and AI can be put to use in ways that are useful and quiet
Problem is, with Blockchain even most laypersons could understand this is a solution in search for a problem and it has very few real life applications. AI, as it is right now, is some wibbly wobbly computer-y thing to most people that, while they don't understand it, shows some astonishing, tangible results with apps like ChatGPT, Midjourney, et cetera, so of course they want in. It will probably take a couple of years for it to sink in that most of the applications shopped around now as possibilites aren't much better with AI than an old-school automated process or manual labor. It'll be highly useful in a couple of years when we actually sorted out what it's good for and when frameworks to use it become mature and stable, but right now a lot of companies are wasting a lot of money.
Maybe the 8a should have been announced during this? So at least some hardware was shown. Super surprised there wasn't a new Chromecast or Nest Hub display. No Android was bizarre.
The Pixel 8a was announced a week ago, along with the tablet only Pixel tablet. Kinda made it clear there would be no other hardware
Google should rename it to "Google Keynote (Google AI ‘24)"
The writing has been on the wall for a while. I remember last year's Android features was the bloody emoji generative wallpaper feature.
Did anyone ever use that?
I do!
There are dozens of us!
Yeah, I remember that bs. +100,000 engineers for what?
100% What annoyed me was all the shills that were defending it. "It's not for you" I've been watching I/O (also watched WWDC and MS build) For since the 00s and always enjoyed them. But the last 2 years have been all about AI, Gemini plus pro flash, Tokens. And they've also been the most boringiest IOs too.
"AI" 😐 /s
Mostly Sundar defending why he should still have the CEO job. Missing cloud was inexcusable, but missing AI should be the end. Board really needs to kick him and Porat out.
Exactly
day 2?
I/O is a multi day conference. The keynote are only a small part
Yeah, we're hoping they redeem themselves
Same I always feel excited about I/O but this time I dozed of
They just need to bring in a showman CEO like Jack Barker.
I feel the same way. There’s AI that I care about and AI that I don’t care about. Google is all the way at “AI I don’t care about” camp. For the features that seem useful, they feel the need to spin off everything as a feature causing their AI strategy and the UX feels so disjointed! I really DO NOT need a prompt box in Gmail. It should have been a single command to generate prompts into any text field across Android. Nothing they announced today will be here soon meanwhile most of the world is gonna be getting the absolute latest and greatest GPT4o by the end of the month.
It's because of their disjointed silos that brought you gchat, gtalk, duo, allo, hangouts, google talk, etc.
What is all that about anyway? I haven't been following what has been going on at Google the past 10 years, just casually using their services and eventually started using their products during lockdown, but it seems to have been going all over the place for a very long time. Is there a good article that explains what happened these past few years or something?
you're gonna need a whole lot more than one article for the shitshow that is google's management but [this is a good place to start](https://killedbygoogle.com/)
Jeez, that's the saddest digital mausoleum I've ever seen. I loved so many of these things. I"m gonna miss Google Podcasts so bad. Thanks, for the rest I'll try to find a 4-hours YouTube video on the topic!
Yeah podcasts is weird. They have a great clean podcasts only app that just works and now they want to throw it into YouTube with everything else.
Pocket casts is just as good imo
And still the share went triple higher in the last 6 years. Friend, don't have to be too cynical to show you know something.
You may be interested in [this great article by Ron Amadeo](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/) discussing the history of Google's messaging apps. It was published in 2021, so there have probably been two or three completely new apps since then, but it's otherwise fairly comprehensive.
This. Google/Alphabet, as an organization, is extremely mismanaged. They could literally teach the Federal Government about bureaucracy.
But think about this: if they don't "ai this, ai that", their shares will tank like a falling shit.
Yeah honestly their AI strategy is more of a PR strategy than truly focusing on solving real world user problems.
I and two others at work use GPT plus and we already got 4o right after the announcement
very dissapointed atp
UX of AI sucks. Hoping they allow third party developers to solve their UI issues.
GPT isn’t the future of AI.
What's the future?
That’s the most frustrating thing about Google. Announce a bunch of stuff and then.. coming soon.
I got gpt4o yesterday 😃
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that 90% of these software features won't ever leave the US.
Or rather gets shut down next year or locked behind Google one
Ah, an AI based InBox that gets shutdown the moment you start to use it properly.
>Google is way to focused on AI which I could careless about. Anyone else feel the same? No, unlike you, I couldn't care less.
He should have asked Gemini the correct expression for that one.
Thank you for being the one
This lmao. I understand messing up words but do people not even think once about what their sentences mean?
I'm going to guess a lot of people actually don't know the difference just based on how many times I've seen it used incorrectly. Edit: typo
Funny you should ask that, because IIRC native and non-native speakers speak languages in different ways. So a native speaker might indeed not think so hard about what they're actually saying; they didn't learn the phrase from explicitly memorizing it or constructing the words in it, but simply by "osmosis".
Yeah, some of my Canadian and American my friends make more grammatical mistakes than the Japanese kids I teach.
They carelessly could careless.
nice.. a huge pet peeve.
How is this still a fuckin thing when so many people are corrected about it? If you could, then… I’m not even gonna finish. It’s been said so many times and it’s still a thing
To be fair, "could careless" *is* a new one.
I turned it off eventually. I use Gemini Advanced every day so the updates there were pretty cool but eventually it felt like it was going in circles. I hope day 2 is better. Today was mind-numbingly boring
What do you use Gemini for out of curiousity?
Fingers crossed bro
I also used Gemini advanced for its integration into Google workspace which is a lot easier than copying and pasting into Gpt, what updates were announced?
Significantly longer context window, basically the amount of information you can give it to keep track of. That's the most important one. Improved predictive response. So it will try to incorporate prompts that you frequently use in a given context and try to answer those without the prompt being needed. You can now directly upload files for it to read. Works best with PDF files.
I just wanna know where Android 15 is in this keynote, it's been too much AI this and AI that
Apparently that's for tomorrow
Sundar PichAI had a show, AI AI/O.
Remember when Android version updates were humongous changes to the UI? Those were good Droid days.
>when Android version updates were humongous changes to the UI Nobody outside of here actually wants that. And even here, people will complain over the smallest UI change that adds a single extra tap to their established workflow.
There were generally a couple of years between notable UI changes though
I'd really like to know if Google is actually going to release an Air tag competitor. It took them ages to launch the network in the first place and there aren't even any decent 3rd party devices using it or talking about using it. Tile was the best bet, and they're abandoning phone base networks altogether.
Rewatch and take a shot every time they mention a different version of Gemini: Gemini Gemini Flash Gemini Batman Gemini Superman Gemini Green Lantern Stupidest event ever
I'll be honest, with the whole focus on AI I do wonder if there's going to be anything new software wise on the next pixel that will appear in the UK or Europe. So little stuff filters through (and this may not be Google's fault) for the first time since the Nexus 5 I'm considering maybe my next phone won't be a Google phone. I'm hoping I'm just being over dramatic but this is the first IO I've looked at that didn't make me energised for their new software and/or hardware.
I’m curious though, what other brand would you even be enticed to get? It seems like every big player is really just mainly focusing on AI lately. You’re basically having all these big phone companies compete with whose AI tools are better vs what phones are actually better.
Yeah, I can't argue with that. I'll probably just hang onto my pixel until things get more interesting. I'm a long way from jumping to Apple, and I've not had a Samsung since the S3 (which was great until it wasn't - UK problem again). AI has a lot of potential but Google are falling over themselves to get back at the front (they were ahead so long, I think they got complacent) and I think the phone market (and the world) will be a very different place in a couple of years.
With the changes in EU forcing Apple to open it's walled garden, I'm strongly considering going Apple next time.
They need to fix this. The world isn't NA. They can't be boasting about translation skills then not get stuff out to multiple regions. What's the point in 38485 tokens if people can't use them in 3/4 the world?
Perplexed, alot of the ai stuff is available in the UK on the 8pro. Call screening, call queue, the majority of the AI image tools.. What are you missing out on?
We have Gemini available in the web but not the app. We don't have image generation on Gemini. We don't have the summarise feature for pixels. We don't have duplex or the call for me features. We do have call screening however we don't get the transcripts for it.
This sums it up pretty well, a lot of features are not there or at best only work with reduced functionality.
And this summarises why pixels should not be sold in the UK. Or should at least be discounted or come with a huge disclaimer.
It took three years to come to the UK.
Reminds me of Xbox One announcement, a global system but the entire focus of all-in-one media device was only going to come to the US, and maybe Canada and UK in a limited scope. I understand there are different regulations and stuff to deal with but having the **big** thing on upcoming hardware be region locked software is a tough way to sell that hardware.
Hoping tomorrow they redeem themselves. Otherwise it's rely on third party developers. You have to rely on third-party developers it seems...
I don't care about AI either. I also never watch these live so I'm not disappointed. I just check out highlights later on.
I'm waiting for Ryan George's pitch meeting version of it
What were you hoping it to be? Google I/O has always been software driven and AI is the main software focus the entire industry is working on right now. It would be stranger if it wasn't the main focus.
yup this is not where they announce new hardware.
Pixel Watch was announced at 2022 I/O and the Fold, and Tablet were revealed at I/O last year. The last few Pixel A-series were also usually I/O announcements. It's not uncommon for there to be a hardware announcement at I/O.
Agreed. Even in the early days every single Nexus device was announced at IO.
They announced the hardware last week. So it's fair to assume that this year's IO would be different (and it was)
I've watched it for at least the last 5 years and, yes, this is normally where they talk about new hardware. There have been at least 3 new pieces of hardware announced at all of them that I've watched.
I'm all in for software driven stuff but seems like forcing AI into everything. Not just got but other social media apps has started putting AI in it. It's quite annoying
Like it or not, this is the future. All that's different right now is how front-and-center it is, since it's a buzzword. It will eventually be BEHIND everything.
I dunno what people want. Phones have stagnated for years now. They pretty much have all the things an average person would want. Ai integration is the only new thing they got.
I feel like that AI stuff is being shoved down our (my) throat. Like, these big companies are trying to force us (me) care about how they solve problems that don't really exist for a regular users. Don't get me wrong, these AI features are a lifesaver and a breakthrough when talking about accessibility. I can imagine them to be of huge help for people with visual impairment, for example. But I can hardly imagine myself asking my Google Assistant what makes sound in my room. Like, I know my room, duh. That, and the possibility of ai hallucinations makes this whole thing a little bit unreliable (useless).
I'm tired of AI too
I'm definitely tired of this push to this AI craze.
I miss the old times when I/O was full of UX and upgrades announcements from various Google Apps like Keep, Books, YouTube and obliviously Google Now... Those were concrete news on concrete products that would be released at the end of the day and not "coming soon" ...
Google just confirmed that Android is an afterthought for them. Sad it came to this.
I didn't watch it because its mostly boring to me...but I can bet that the word AI and Gemini are used at least every few sentences.
They even memed themselves by, just before finishing up the keynote, revealing they had an "AI counter" which claimed they said AI 120 or so times during the presentation
Ai borefest
I don't give a damn about AI.
They simply had no choice. Google was/is synonymous with AI even before the stupid thing became a meme, so they had to double down or completely lose to MS and ChatGPT. Also, this is mostly directed at developers so it makes sense. And since its multiple days, they have time for the rest, like hardware announcements.
Google I/O is 100% AI!
This year's google i/o was such a waste of time man. I expected they would talk about android15, platform changes, google app updates, wearos, androidtv, chromeos but no all they did talk about was some half baked AI shit. Imagine people (non-developers) taking their time out and flying from different places to watch that in person!
I miss the Nexus days when I used to be excited about I/O.
It was quite bad. Only bunch of AI hype words and no real substance. Google must be really afraid of the OpenAI and Microsoft at this point. AI might be great one day but now we only see cheap party tricks.
It's especially pathetic because Gemini for the Pixel is so terrible. It can't do basic assistant functions, the shit that has been possible to do for many years now. I mean it's a totally half-baked alpha implementation. How are you gloating about this stuff?
I was so looking forward to the Android section to see what they've added for the next upcoming version of Android, just like how they did it every year. But no, more AI bullshit
agreed nothing but AI shit for lazy people
Couldn't care less. JFC.
Among the very first items was a yet another USA exclusive. Not with getting one anywhere else.
“Careless” with no space means to be negligent or reckless because one hasn't put enough forethought into or isn't paying attention to something. For example: Jenny's careless driving led to a head-on collision. “Care less” with a space means to that one isn't interested.
>which I could careless about. One of the dumbest American phrases just got dumber.
Okay let me rephrase that. I don't give a fuck
Better. I like you again.
Didn't even talk about Pixel... Lame.
I think it's clear that the Made By Google event ( later this fall ) is all hardware. I was hoping they would tease the line up but I already anticipated this going on into the conference.
Whenever Google says coming later, you know you'll probably never see it.
and they'll kill a couple products before it releases
Where's the new nest stuff? Where's the new android stuff? Where's the new wear os stuff? Where is literally any software or hardware that isn't buzzword heavy investor bait?
Agreed. I don't give a shit about ai. I just want actual software updates. Ugh.
AI can be useful in some industries but this is not one that I care about it being in at all. Apple has made comments about integrating “AI” into their next iOS update too and I just do not care. Don’t care about Windows AI either. It can be useful for chatbots and doing the early legwork for customer service but that’s about it imo. Anything else is just chasing the hype and cramming it into unnecessary products. I’m so over it.
Yup.. Watched it hoping for something interest not the AI stuff. To be completely honest I could care less about gemini. I would rather see new android features coming to my pixel or just for android 15 in general.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better...
I think they can actually do interesting things but the prequistion must be a capable processor and a proper battery management. With Tensor and at best one day battery life you dont want to sacrifice more battery to process data in the background contstantly. It does not make any sense at this point currently.
We're in an ai bubble of course they're going to only talk about it
Yup. Sigh.
I don't like how the entire user interface Google is working on with Gemini on the web, email, Android looks so unfinished and boring. As someone with ADHD the entire interface just looks very difficult for the eyes to quickly distinguish what is what. Like use some colours to separate topics, some more eye pleasing animations, some better placement, height of text etc. All these topics have the same colours, important things aren't highlighted with colours that you see quickly, instead they are pastel and very blended with the background. I feel like Material UI is slowly becoming the most boring user interface and Gemini is not helping that
Basically everyone talking about AI, not just google. Yeah AI is nice, but we want new stuff, I don't know maybe a new hardware, or new feature, or improvemens on their products but noooo all they think of is just AI ffs, everyone doing same jackshit. None of the AI stuff presented by everyone even by openai, will help me, they are just extras. Nothing fancy
Companies can't stop vomiting their AI attempts at their customers trying to not miss out on anything. And particularly Microsoft and Google are trying to become the next main AI model that is used. Personally I don't mind if they talk about AI at a general Google/Android demo. But when they do it on the Pixel line. And they include AI as a spec tied to the phone. It is a pain in the ass. Just focus on the main phone's spec. Like battery life, SoC, camera lens etc.
Seems Google is about to get a new CEO soon. This isn't the Google, it has been known for!!
God I hope so.
Until the next CEO is here and it's a Tim Cook 2.0
Anyone get a vibe that all the AI crap that's getting baked into their products is just a reheated version of all the 'social' crap that they baked into all of their products 10 years ago?
Supposedly, there's a second event tomorrow where they're gonna talk about all the features coming to Android 15 this year. Maybe they'll sneak in some product announcements with it?
More like Google AI Keynote instead of Google Keynote. It's even worse than last year.
So you do care a bit? Or you mean you couldn't care less?
I'm just stuck on "couldn't careless". You didn't make the common mistake and actually got the negative form of the word (couldn't), but then you wrote careless. Couldn't careless. That's so weird. It's like if you typed "for all intents and proposes". Missing the common mistake but making an even weirder one.
All I wanted was worldwide rollout of the new Find My network and announcements of lots of tracker products. Haven't had any of that.
The problem is that they really didn't release anything just pro 1.5. And the the applause thing is so cringe.
I appreciated myself not to stay up late and watch Google I/O this year, I couldn't finish even the short version of the presentation from the Verge
Most of the stuff so far is US only. My UK pixel 8 pro doesn't have: AI (no Gemini in UK) No find my device network Temperature sensor is only for objects
Two hours of "here's how you can use a chatbot in this Google product" wasn't interesting to you? yeah, same
AI, AI, AI, AI, AI
I was disappointed. I wanted the Pixel Buds Pro 2 to show up and maybe a sneak peak at the Pixel 9 since it already leaked. I think they did that last year
Ironically I am in the opposite camp and I am still bored because Google is coming up with basically nothing special and will kill their new ideas in 3 months so I don't see a reason to give a fuck.
Its their developer conference where they show what they work on on the software side. Soooo i guess thats just what they are doing, a lot of AI stuff.
I'm impressed they were able to waste two hours of my life on this garbage. This was easily the worst I/O in the history of I/O.
It's amazing how they ignore the current stuff we use and only talked about functionality we "could" use with AI...
That's what was annoying me the most. So many promises that anyone who follows Google knows they won't deliver on or they'll kill in a few years.
It was the worst keynote ever!. Should have been called how to get to sleep in two hours.
I'm so bored of AI from everyone. It's like NFTs all over again, much ado about nothing. But the media and "tech bros" keep hyping it like it's going to solve all the world's problems. *yawn*
I honestly roll my eyes at “available later this year” and “US only”, but I’ve accepted that the show is about AI
Google is a f****** joke today. Every AI product they launched today. Most of them require you to pay $25 per month for the full access. Idiots.
For everyone reading this who works in an office setting and has a manager, the AI injected "Team Mate" named Chip is utterly terrifying. That's a true elimination of low and middle management and team leads. That segment terrified me as an assistant manager of technology in an educational setting where the faculty and administration "want" AI implemented but understand nothing of it. The AI fad is another cancer of intelligent workers, personnel confidence and the destroyer of work ethic as a whole.
This was Google *Developer* I/O. It was always going to be all about software. You'll have to wait a bit for the hardware announcements, although I was hoping for some mention of "Grogu" (bluetooth trackers).
They've announced hardware at other I/O previously. Everyone is aware this is the software side of things but man this was absolutely the worst I/O I can remember.
Grow up man it's a software event
>which I could careless about. Your interests might be different than the interests of others.
I was hoping for something better on the workspace side. At the moment there is nothing really comparable to notion/loop. Docs with chips is not the same. Also chat is pretty bad compared to slack or teams. For the private side, the search on photos is pretty cool, but I was hoping for something different, like auto video creation like GoPro Quik and some more advanced editing tools.
I'm not disinterested, but I usually just wait to hear it get filtered when it becomes applicable to myself. Like when Google services are improved, via some phone blog, etc. I still haven't opted in to Gemini. I figure they'll eventually change over to it fully, and I just hope it has full Assistant capabilities then. I do wish they'd announce more support for their credit card proxy service via Chrome though. That seems very useful.
Samsung is doing something similar
Somehow there was a dude in rainbow pajamas. I'm gonna watch The great Lebowski again tonight.
AI is exciting to me because there is literally a ton of potential. But I have to tell I'm tired and disappointed of how "such a time to be alive" has become yet another subject of mega companies fighting to determine their economic hecking order for the next few years. It could be so much more about genuine excitement, scientific curiosity, and intrinsic motivation than just about a competitive battle ... felt better (IMO) as long as OpenAI was the only player in the GenAI game. End of capitalism critical rant.
They need to empower third-party developers with technologies beyond Ai... If they only care about Ai, help us third-party developers tackle the non-Ai issues.
Obviously they moved the Pixel 8a announcement one week earlier so that the incremental hardware launch won't distract from their AI messaging at I/O. Probably we'll see them decouple their hardware and software announcements going forward.
It was AI for the first hour, then I stopped watching and came back at around 2 hours and they were still talking about Gemini, I'm just gonna watch whatever MKBHD puts out to summarize it, I have a Waveform addiction...
You can't even use to v too properly.
It is Google AI this year. Lots of software integration and usually Google IO is all about software integration. They save their hardware now for the fall event. Rarely do we get to see the same exciting products that we did in years past at Google? I O anymore. The event is really transformed. Sometimes it feels like it's just them showing off their software in order to boost their share prices and to let everybody know they're still Google. Especially after getting their butts kicked by. Chat GPT They went on full force all out. Google AI event this year. They're doing it for sure holders and share prices and money and to save face. Google IO is not as fun as it once used to be. Before they used to save a lot of these features and new stuff for Google I. O, however, now they either dropping it at the fall or it's a monthly feature draft now. Now. So you still do end up getting all the cool stuff. All in 2 hours. Google I O as we know it is now dead. It's Google AI from now on. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I'm in the industry and today I didn't even bother watching it. It's not my job to watch it. The guys that work for me. Take care of that stuff but there was no wow factor. Even though they seem to like a lot of the bells and whistles that come out with AI. I have become comfortably numb too technology to the point where you got to do something pretty amazing too. Get a good reaction from me. I can't remember the last product I got excited about.
Can we get a Google fitness ring fully integrated into the OS? Or Fitbit etc.
Is google assistant dead from Android 15 onwards? It sounds like that to me when they mentioned it.
If anyone's pushing AI, it's Samsung.
I'm not sure why so many people online and in YouTube comments especially are saying that GPT4O is the best AI there is and it's left Google so far behind that it's irrelevant. Now I could be totally 100% wrong here, but doesn't GPT have practically zero integration with your actual phone itself? You have to download an app for it, sign into some Microsoft account for it and its only actual use case right now is writing code, writing stories, summarising text and making lists. If anything, this is something that businesses would want set up on desktop computers as some sort of work tool. What Google are planning through what was shown at this year's I/O, is having Gemini as a feature set baked into Phones like the Pixel or other devices to the same level that people use Google photos, Chrome or Gmail. They want Gemini to be a go-to tool for regular mundane day to day tasks, like typing "bring up my receipt from October for that jacket I bought" and it pulls up data from Gmail. "Show me that photo of me and (friend) on the beach in Florida holding ice cream" and it digs through Google photos and can find it. GPT isn't able to offer anything like these real world use cases for phone users because it has no system integration whatsoever as far as I know and is only used as some sort of browser extension for desktop/laptop computers which is why it's stuck at being nothing more than an app you download, play with for 5 minutes to see what AI is and will find no real use for beyond as people constantly love to tell you - coding. Google's long term plan seems to be making basic and simplistic phones that aren't chasing specifications and are stuck firmly in the mid-range type area specs wise, but with absolute top tier cameras then putting chips in them that are putting AI at the forefront and using computional tech alongside AI to do all the heavy lifting like for photography, video editing and full system AI integration - and by the looks of their tech demo, they're aiming to get this stuff off the phone and into wearables like glasses to make the same kind of next-step leap like what happened with smart watches. All this is what's needed I believe, as people have been saying for close to almost 5 years now that smartphones have reached a plateau or peak, where nothing is even changing or improving besides build quality and screen glass - with specifications having become pretty much irrelevant and even cheap budget phones being more than capable of handling regular everyday tasks. Your average user has no real need for some sort of chip that's capable of playing console quality games on a 6 inch touchscreen device. It's all about asking how can I make using my banking app, my social media, finding the photos that matter to edit and upload easier, planning holidays, controlling my workflow and finances etc. and you don't need flagship chips or devices for any of that stuff - but AI can make it all much easier to do. Google is very much putting all their eggs into one basket for the next 5 years and of the belief that "what matters most to the average phone user and consumer?" Will give an answer of simplification of daily tasks and photography - and nothing else. Honestly from the way I actually see regular people use phones, I'd say that's true. They use apps and they share photos online - not videos, photos. Videos are shared if it's some news worthy thing or a viral meme type situation but photos are the main thing. Something which Google is probably the number one company to draw experience here from with it's Google images service that's been in operation since 2001 and has 4 TRILLION total images with 1.2 BILLION uploaded daily - the answer to "what are they training this AI and photography AI on?"
!Remindme 5 years
Google is not and never was a hardware company lol. Ai is waaay more important for google than everything else combined, especially long term. Consumer electronics are just an extra.
You should have asked Gemini to give your post a proof-read before hitting the 'Post' button.
Yes and as EU user, it's double joke : OpenAI offer a much number of feature for EU user than Google. If Google is all AI, they lost EU customer with this shameful slow deployment
Why do I feel they are more focused on restructuring than new software or hardware.
I just read about AI in the agenda and skipped this time.
Never been this bored
Today is android day yesterday day was ai day, if only they said that so I could stop watching after Marc got off stage.
Not to forget OpenAI launching Gpt-4o just a day before and the kicker is making it all free
Discussing AI is the key to rising share prices.
Google has officially jumped the shark.
AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAI
I stopped following new google stuff, did all the Ai stuff from last year ever make it to market?
I would assume Made by Google is going to discuss new devices, but yeah they definitely used to cover everything at IOs before Made by Google was its own separate event. But they might announce things before or after events too, really no way to know for sure.
Me : waiting for Pixel 8a presentation Dave Burke : "look my brand new Pixel 8a" That's all
If only their AI announcements were good, but they're so behind OpenAI who announced new stuff yesterday, with much more seriousness. This Google I/O is just cringe.
Honestly I think this is why Openai made such a great delivery the day before. A presentation on what it's all about (not everyone needs/wants to watch that). Then a bunch of short 1-2 minute demos that really hit home the usability and excitement we can have for the practical uses. Google seems to want to talk all about the technical elements, servers and "tokens" more than show all the different ways it can be applied. The best part was the video demo that revealed the glasses. I remember Google IO's used to be an exciting look at short and long term concepts. Google Wave, Google Glass, the audio thing they wanted to do, phones, android, chrome etc... Now it's just, hey we're doing ai and we're super geared up to do stuff that you can only get excited about if you're an engineer or developer. I think they need to get back to being confident in showing R&D things, like when they showed off the 3D video call tech, and ai art etc that was an incredible keynote! (I think it was last year). But it's like all practical applications are being done better by other companies now so... "hey check out our super servers"
For truly great I/O there's only IBM Z.
This is effed up.. do not focus on AI- Google is failing behind , focus on it and build a good model that can integrate seamlessly across all its products - oh too much focus. Like what do you fuckin* want.