Google I/O coming to Mountain View, May 18 - 20; what's on tap?
Google I/O, the company's annual developer event, will be held on May 18 through May 20 in 2016. Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, tweeted the news on Tuesday morning, saying that the event was heading back "to the neighborhood where it all started 10 years ago: Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View."
Typically, Google I/O is held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, so this year represents a venue change. No other details, such as the schedule or topics to be discussed, were announced.
At last year's Google I/O, the company introduced Android M, which later became known as Marshmallow, adding useful features such as granular app permissions, battery savings and Android Pay. Google's IoT play became more apparent as well, with news of Brillo and Weave. And Google Now gained the On Tap function for even more contextual app information.
So what will Google I/O 2016 bring?
I'm not expecting a totally new version of Android to be announced although we'll likely see what tweaks and improvements Google will bring to its mobile platform.
One that might make the Google Pixel C tablet a little more appealing is the addition of multiple apps on-screen at the same time.
Better yet, let's see the Pixel C gain a dual boot mode for Android and Chrome OS.
I'm hoping we hear more about Chromebooks and the Chrome OS platform which was generally a no-show last year. I'm particularly interested to hear where Google is with bringing Android apps to Chrome OS, which it has worked on for the last two years. Android Wear should get some stage time as well as smartwatches are gaining new features such as native cellular connectivity.
And I'd also like to see more Google hardware partners announce support for Project Fi, the company's triple-network voice and data service that's currently limited to Nexus handsets, even though I got it working unofficially on the latest Moto X Pure Edition phone.