This past week, I attended Google’s I/O developer conference, and I wanted to share a few thoughts about my experience.
It’s important to mention that Google sponsored my trip and set me up with demos, panels, and more. This wasn’t my first experience with Google’s developer conference, either; I was also there last year when the company unveiled the Pixel Fold, Pixel Tablet, Pixel 7a, Android 14 features, and more.
And to get this out of the way, yes, I’m not a developer, but I’ve been a fan of these conferences, and before I started working at MobileSyrup seven years ago, I would even take the day off of work to watch the event.
Google I/O 2024 had some announcements I was pretty excited about, but overall, it was a bit of a disappointment. To clarify, I’m not saying it was bad, but I was left disappointed after the week, and this wasn’t only my own sentiment, based on quick conversations with other journalists, influencers, developers, and even an engineer at Google.
Lack of hardware
Google I/O isn’t supposed to be a product-focused event; however, the Mountain View, California giant has set a precedent for unveiling tech at I/O over the last few years. We’ve seen the launches of devices like the Daydream View second generation, nearly every Pixel A series, the Pixel Fold and more. We even got a teaser of the Pixel 7.
I had just finished writing a Google app update when the company showed off renders of its Pixel 7 and 7 Pro in an extremely shocking and exciting twist. And then, even after that, the tech giant showed off a sketch of the Pixel Tablet.
That was awesome and exciting, but we didn’t get anything like that this year. Of course, Google unveiled the Pixel 8a last week, but I think the event might have been better if the company had held the launch for I/O. Alternatively, Google could have shown a quick teaser of the Pixel 9 series, which is rumoured to have a Pro XL variant this year. And considering we got a Pixel Fold at I/O in 2023, not even mentioning the foldable is wild. I’m definitely more hardware-oriented; I’ve been reviewing Google devices since the launch of the Pixel 4 XL and had my own Pixel and Nexus smartphones beforehand, so I’m a bit biased.
Still, come on, we all want and look forward to it.
Project Astra and Gemini Live
I was feeling inspired after watching so many incredible demos at #GoogleIO yesterday from @sundarpichai, and @demishassabis, and many others – so I thought I’d share this real time video of #ProjectAstra I took in my office. For more cool Astra videos: https://t.co/9r3x8rZR3E pic.twitter.com/tLuQ2yJgsd
— Philipp Schindler (@PhilippSchi) May 16, 2024
On the other hand, we got a lot of AI — some would say too much, but I enjoyed learning about advancements to Gemini and the Project Astra demo.
Project Astra seemed like a very useful tool with memory; it could recognize code, locations and items and had a very natural language model. I even got an off-hand Project Astra demo that showed a bit more details about the company’s technology that it will implement into Gemini Live.
In a demo offered by Google to me and other media, we learned that you’ll be able to bounce ideas off the Assistant and how it will be able to use extensions like Google Keep. I also like that it seems like a natural next step to Google Assistant, but oddly, only Gemini Advanced users will get access to it. OpenAI recently revealed ChatGPT-4o, which will be free for all users, so it seems like a misstep that Google is making users pay for Gemini Live access.
Still, it seems cool, and I look forward to trying it out when it launches.
Project Astra glasses?
We’re sharing Project Astra: our new project focused on building a future AI assistant that can be truly helpful in everyday life. 🤝
Watch it in action, with two parts – each was captured in a single take, in real time. ↓ #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/x40OOVODdv
— Google DeepMind (@GoogleDeepMind) May 14, 2024
But if we’re discussing Project Astra and Gemini Live, we must also talk about the glasses used in the video.
In a panel, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the company is trying out different form factors to see what would best fit with Project Astra, and it’s true that if Google could implement Gemini Live/Project Astra into smart glasses, it’d be an awesome experience. Seriously, take my money. But why did the company show off the glasses if it didn’t intend to discuss the hardware? While cool, it was a bad move from the company and essentially felt misleading. Even if Google said it was partnering with Qualcomm or TCL or intends to make its own smart glasses with Gemini Live in 2026, it would have been more favourable than showing smart glasses that it had no intention of talking about. Further, it was unnecessary. I think many were impressed by Project Astra’s smartphone experience; we didn’t need the fake glasses.
Where was Android 15?
Learn about the new features making a splash on @Android to make your devices more helpful → https://t.co/UL84hbwxzl pic.twitter.com/nrWwFKM5Mv
— Google (@Google) May 17, 2024
With AI taking the main stage, Android 15 announcements were pushed to the second day. This felt odd because of Android’s significance for Google. Consumers and developers look forward to new Android announcements, so it felt like Google was out of touch with what people wanted. It seems like Google doesn’t even care about these updates all that much. In the company’s blog post about the 100 things they announced at I/O, it didn’t mention the Android 15 Beta 2 until number 61 on this list.
“61. Oh, and we introduced the second beta of Android 15.”
I think this lack of enthusiasm for Android 15 is unsettling and makes me less excited about the newest version of the OS.
Some of the things Google eventually announced for Android 15’s second beta were pretty interesting and useful. I’m already using Private Space on my Pixel 8 Pro, as it allows me to securely hideaway my banking apps, so I know that if anyone tries to steal my phone, there’s just that extra layer of protection on the device. However, because this feature wasn’t announced during the main conference, it’s possible that people will not learn about it.
Google didn’t completely snub Android during the presentation and spent 12 minutes discussing it. But it wasn’t very exciting, as it spoke of a Circle to Search update for math equations, another Gemini update about it being more integrated into Android. They also mentioned that Gemini Nano will be multimodal, but it already is, so that was a bit weird. (If you ask Gemini Nano if it’s multimodal, it’ll reply yes.) You can also use Gemini to process text, images, and your voice, so it’s weird to say this is coming later this year.
Anyway, this felt like a Gemini Advanced recap, just for mobile.
Weird pacing
From Veo to Search to Android 15 — here are all 100 updates from #GoogleIO ↓ https://t.co/gOkS8K9iVZ
— Google (@Google) May 16, 2024
The pacing was probably the most confusing part of the main event. There was a lot of Google repeating itself, making what could have been an hour-long event nearly two hours. For instance, why did CEO Sundar Pichai introduce AI Overviews five minutes into the conference, only for head of Search Liz Reid to talk about AI Overviews again during the Search section? Why did Pichai give us that sneak peek into AI Overviews when Reid could have introduced the feature when she was explaining it? Because of this, we had to hear the explanation of AI Overviews multiple times.
Twelve minutes into the event, Pichai also spoke about Gemini Pro 1.5 getting a 2 million token context window, which is very exciting because it’ll allow users to insert a crazy amount of information into Gemini. This could be a paralegal or a medical student’s best friend. They brought up this 2 million token context window near the end during the developer section of the presentation. The 2 million token context window should have been mentioned near the end, and it could have easily been a “one more thing” moment that developers would have loved, especially considering we didn’t get that during this event.
Looking to the future
Google I/O 2024 had pretty interesting topics and announcements. Announcements like Ask Photos, Private Space, Gemini Live, Project Astra, Gemini 1.5 Pro, AI Overviews, Imagen 3, Veo, and more have me excited for the future of Pixel and AI. However, a lack of hardware, enthusiasm for Android 15, and the odd pacing make me look back at past years with greater fondness.
I’m looking forward to Google’s October product launch; by then, I hope the company will have more to discuss regarding Android 15, Gemini Live’s launch, and, finally, hardware.
General, Features, google, ai, Google I/O 2024 MobileSyrup
This past week, I attended Google’s I/O developer conference, and I wanted to share a few thoughts about my experience. It’s important to mention that Google sponsored my trip and set me up with demos, panels, and more. This wasn’t my first experience with Google’s developer conference, either; I was also there last year when
