I confess, I followed most of the Google I/O Keynote Speech on Wednesday. The Verge sums it up), or you can watch the entire 3.5 hours below.
It was at times very dull, but there was an awful lot of very clever stuff in there.
It’s probably known that I’m a fan of what Google do. I’m very aware of both their failings as a large corporate and of the risks of putting all your data in one place. They’ve also not been without their failures, and they’ve been late to the party on a lot of newer developments. But, as a computer scientist and someone who’s very interested in web and information technology, they’re a fascinating company to follow.
The kind of things that Google are working on may not always sound amazing, but they are, behind the scenes, doing some really very clever stuff: the knowledge graph and semantic search; conversational and personal search, voice search, ‘auto-awesome’ tools for photos, Google now and anticipative information services.
And there’s the benefit of putting all your data in one place (should you be willing to do so): integration!
I’m fairly well entrenched in the Apple mobile ecosystem now, but what I saw on Wednesday would seriously make me consider adopting Android.
I’m also really impressed with Google’s bold design trend. I tend not to care about aesthetics too much, but I do really like what they’re doing design wise. It’s clean, clear, simple. Unlike their competitors they manage to present large volumes of information in very usable ways. Where Facebook struggle to introduce new features without causing lots of clutter, Google have kept things beautiful and meaningful.
Voice search is particularly impressive and the recognition is vastly superior to Apple’s ‘Siri’ technology.
I’m really looking forward to what Google develop in the coming years. I feel like they’re creating some quite revolutionary things that, in years to come, we’ll wonder how we did without.