Screenshot: Sundar Pichai / Google
Google’s annual developer’s conference is happening today! After a bizarre Glass Onion-style puzzle invite encouraging developers to bring their friends along for the “fun,” Google I/O 2023 will air online today from the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA, where select guests will be attending in person.
Most notably, it seems the conference is only one day long this year, rather than the usual 2-3 additional days of breakout sessions after the initial keynote. Regardless, we’ll be there to ring in the new announcements, and we’re already looking at what might be on the roster for Google’s annual “state of the union” keynote.
The company typically uses Google I/O to herald its AI and machine learning efforts. There will be an abundance of that this year, with so many new players dabbling in artificial intelligence. But there will also be some news about the Google products we rely on daily.
Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Of course, Google’s biggest operating system is Android (sorry, ChromeOS), so expect most of the show to be about what’s new in Android 14 for developers and users alike. Android enthusiasts have already unearthed some neat wallpaper customization features using emojis, and this week’s second developer preview shows there’s an emphasis on privacy and security. The Photo Picker API, for instance, will be a forced part of the operating system regardless if the app you’ve installed has it integrated or not.
The Direct My Call feature on the Pixel 7.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
With the AI wars going full force, it’s easy to imagine that Google’s keynote is being rewritten right this second to place a harder emphasis on the company’s work in machine learning. Part of this will likely manifest in new features for Android users. Remember when Google showed off the Duplex demo back at Google I/O 2018? It’s now a significant part of the Pixel smartphone experience. The technology currently helps your Pixel 7 answer the phone for you when you don’t want to.
Screenshot: Google
With a more profound emphasis on Android 14 building upon the multi-screen work Google started on with Android 12L, the developer conference is likely to make a big to-do about the varying screen sizes the platform currently supports. But where is the Pixel Tablet? We were expecting something in the first quarter of this year after Google announced the tablet device at I/O 2022, but there’s yet to be anything. Perhaps Google I/O will mark the official debut of Google’s new tablet device—just like the year it debuted the Nexus 10 or the Pixelbook. In fact, a now deleted listing for the Pixel Tablet first spotted on Amazon’s Japanese website has already shown us the full specs for it, so it’s definitely right around the corner.
The author interprets what a Pixel Fold would look like (this is two Pixel 7s stacked next to one another).Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Android is already ahead in foldables. Samsung is on its fourth generation of folding hardware, and more brands overseas are joining the game. We like the reports giving us concrete specs—like this leak about a larger battery pack in the Pixel Fold. Though Google I/O is not immediately a hardware show, the company has used the conference to tease what’s coming in the fall maelstrom of phone launches. Google’s already teased that the Pixel Fold is coming during I/O, so we’re excited to see what the company has in store.
Google’s New AR Glasses Promise Live TranslationScreenshot: Google
Of course, it’s not a Google developers conference without something that won’t come to the public. I’m thinking of the pair of AR glasses Google closed out the show with last year. The two-minute video showed how a standard pair of Buddy Holly-style glasses could translate languages in real time. But we’ve yet to see Google launch something in this particular form factor, despite competing AR translation glasses having already made their way to market.
Google has been experimenting with artificial intelligence over the past few years, but the company has only recently been feeling the heat from competitor OpenAI.Image: Ascannio (Shutterstock), achinthamb (Shutterstock)
Google is putting a lot of dev power into AI now that it’s facing some real competition from Microsoft after that company went all-in on ChatGPT. In previous years, the company has mostly trotted out AI theoretically. But now that Microsoft is in the game (and even Zuckerberg), expect much of the Google I/O 2023 keynote to be about Bard, its competitors, and what’s next in the company’s language learning models.
The Pixel 6a is all the basics in a palatable package.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Every year for the last few years, Google has used its developer conference to remind us it’s making mid-range Pixel devices that are super affordable. Expect to hear about the Pixel 7a from this year’s keynote. It’s likely to launch in the summertime, like the Pixel 6a. We’ve already got some rumors floating around from noted leakers that the mid-range device recently passed through the FCC.As for what the Pixel 7a will be like, we’re expecting a blue phone with a Google Tensor G2 chip, a 64-MP primary lens, a 90Hz display, and a May 11 release date.
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