Google I/O Developer Event Starts Today

[Andor]

If you'd forgotten, today marks the start of Google's I/O Developer Event in San Francisco.

The Google I/O is a two-day event aimed at developers who are looking to 'push the boundries' of Google's web apps and web technologies.

Amounst the many sessions, here's the pick for Android:

Micheal Jones “Flash API for Google Maps”
Jason Chen “Introduction to Android”
Jason Chen “Building an Andriod Application 101″
Micheal Jones “The Worlds information in Context”
Patrick Brady “Anatomy and Physiology of an Android”
Michael Ashbridge “Parsing and Generating KML with Google’s KML Library”
Android Engineering “Inside the Android Application Framework”

http://code.google.com/events/io

[BedHead]

Ooh this soon came around, i remember the announcement a while back.

Hopefully they'll be an announcement or two for some more info on Android, the Google camp has been pretty quiet recently.

[dr0ne]

I'm really hoping now that the top 50 ADC applications have been announced, that maybe we'll get to see some of them running on Android powered handsets.

With Apple's impending 3G iPhone announcement it would be pretty smart for Google to throw something like that out there

[Andor]

Pics from the opening keynote can be found here:
http://www.talkandroid.com/101-googl...droid-keynote/

[Clinker]

Horowitz: Demoing a device with Android; showing unlocking, standard home screen. Has the same layout as iPhone (prominent icons in grid) and touch screen capabilities. Actually looks pretty stunning and competitive with the current iPhone.

Phone can track live movements, pan around Street View by just moving phone.

That is so cool

Up next should be:

An Introduction to Android
Wed 11:15am - 12:15pm Mobile

Jason Chen

[Clinker]

Basic rundown from the opening keynote:

WebKit is the core
Browser can be used a building block for an app
Maps view
Unlock gestures
Browser
Webkit based
Uses a magnifier for zoom
3g capable
Shows packman
Demoing streetview
Compass mode tracks your orientation

[Andor]

Android built generically to work with a lot of different types of devices. We just happened to show demo with touch-screen, could have shown one with track ball instead.
The specific OEM who made hardware for Android demo can’t be disclosed. Andy Rubin provides some other details about the device, such as how much memory it had.
Mobile World Congress in March was the last real time Android was demoed in public, today shows the most recent advances.

This is taken from the post keynote Q+A, there's gonna be a lot of these kind of little details tricking out over the next 48 hours or so.

Very much looking forward to the 'Introduction to Android' event

[Daniel]

The latest version of the mobile operating system shows subtle but iPhone-like interface touches that haven't previously been seen in earlier builds, including multiple home screens and a tray of permanently visible icons for commonly used apps. A built-in mail client (primarily intended for Gmail) also shares cosmetic similarities to Apple's own application.

Unique to Google's implementation, however, are always-accessible menus: users can drag down the title bar to access recent notifications or tap and hold on a main screen to reach certain bookmarks or contacts. Phone users also have more options to customize the main interface; they can drag contacts and other items out to the home screen to have one-tap access, or add clocks and other widgets directly viewable from the desktop without having to launch a dedicated program.

http://www.electronista.com/articles...emo.at.d.conf/

Also noticed a few iPhone blogs 'up in arms' about the iPhone ripoff demo model :rolleyes:

[Andor]

Here's the full transcript from the post keynote Q+A:

Do you have a more specific release date for Android now?

[Android should launch in the] second half of this year. What you saw on stage looks pretty good, but we want to make sure it’s perfect and that people have a really good consumer experience with it.

Will you have to buy the device with Android on it, or will you be able to load Android onto an existing device.

The software will be released as open-source when the first handsets are available … so people can do with it pretty much whatever they want. We don’t dictate how it’s used.

Touch is heavily featured in the demo today, but Android is extensible to all sorts of different platforms. Were you just showing off the most flashy parts … how did you make those choices?

The platform is designed to be very generic, it has to work with touchscreen devices, D-pad devices and trackball devices. Some devices might not even have a screen. We chose to show a demonstration with a device that happened to have a trackball; we have other devices with a trackball. We could’ve shown that exact demo completely driven by the trackball. That’s pretty compelling as not a lot a lot of platforms have that flexibility.

Could you tell us more about the hardware of the touchscreen handset?

The specific OEM who made built that hardware we’re under NDA with, but I can give you some details on components. It is a UMTS handset, the demo was on HSDPA 3.6Mbps. It was a Qualcomm MSM7201A [Ed: 528MHz] processor, it had a Synaptics capacitive touchscreen, 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash.

When we announced the product and soon after we posted some videos, some of our partners demonstrated the platform at at MWC at Barcelona in March. This is the most recent stuff; literally the finishing touches were put on the device last night. The clock didn’t exist last night.

What was shown here first?

I’m not totally sure if I’m right here, but notifications we hadn’t shown before, the desktop-like launcher of applications where you can put alias and icons on the desktop and get a spatial-representation of workflow. The compass and accelerometer based Street View was a new application. The unlock mechanism - letting the device learn the user’s gesture to unlock it for security and sleep purposes. And Pacman was shown for the first time too!

The unlock gesture would only be available on the touchscreen?

You could select each of the circles using the trackball, but it might make more sense using the touchscreen.

[Daniel]

More zoomed in images from todays conference and if you're looking for a good rundown of the whole event - not just the Android bits CNet has a good little write up here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9950652-7.html