Today at Moscone, we kicked off our 7th annual Google I/O. This year, we’re focusing on three
key themes: design, develop, distribute, helping you build your app from
start to finish. It’s been amazing to see how far you’ve come: in fact, since the last Google
I/O, we’ve paid developers more than $5 billion, a testament to the experiences you’re
creating. In the keynote, we had a number of announcements geared towards meeting the user
wherever they go: on the TV, in the car and on your wrist. Below is a taste of some of the
goodies we unveiled to help you along the way:
DESIGN:
Material
design: we introduced material design, which uses tactile surfaces, bold
graphic design, and fluid motion to create beautiful, intuitive experiences
L-Release
of Android, with material design: Bringing material design to Android is a
big part of the L-Release of Android: we’ve added the new Material theme (which you can apply
to your apps for a new style) and the ability to specify a view’s elevation, allowing you to
cast dynamic, real-time shadows in your apps.
Bringing
material design to Polymer: As a developer, you’ll now have access to all
the capabilities of material design via Polymer, bringing tangibility, bold graphics, and
animations to your applications on the web, all at 60fps.
DEVELOP:
L
Developer Preview: Get extra lead time to make great apps for the next
version of Android, with 5,000 new APIs to make Android simpler and more consistent on screens
everywhere
Android TV
SDK — Explore, learn and build apps and games for the biggest screen in
the home. Your hard work will pay off in the fall when Asus, Razer and other partners launch
their first Android TV devices.
Google Cast
SDK: Help users find your content more easily with the improved Google
Cast SDK developer console, which lets your app get discovered on chromecast.com/apps and on
Google Play.
Android Auto SDK coming Bring your app experience to the car by extending your
existing app with Android Auto APIs. Be in millions of cars - with just one app.
Google
Fit: An open fitness platform giving users control of their fitness data
so that developers can focus on building smarter apps and manufacturers can focus on creating
amazing devices
Gaming:
Learn what's new about Google Play Games and the Android platform to take games to the next
level.
Google
Cloud Platform: Get help with debugging, tracing, and monitoring
applications in with new developer productivity tooling. Also, try Cloud Dataflow, a new fully
managed service that simplifies the process of creating data pipelines.
The new Gmail
API: Add Gmail features to your app with RESTful access to threads,
messages, labels, drafts and history
DISTRIBUTE:
Building
successful global app businesses — Scalable solutions to help you find
more users, understand and engage them, and effectively convert your active users into buyers.
Direct
Carrier Billing to tablets: Direct Carrier Billing has expanded coverage
to seven more countries for a total of 25, and will now be available for tablets, bringing you
more ways to monetize your apps on Google Play
With the keynote behind us, we’ve still got two full days of session content for your viewing
enjoyment at google.com/io. No matter where you
are in the lifecyle of your app--whether you’re digging into user research, coming up against
a tough technical challenge, or looking to get your app in the hands of millions of users--you
can tune into the I/O Live stream for talks covering the themes of Design, Develop, and
Distribute. Posted by Louis Gray,
Googler
By Monica Tran, Developer
Marketing team
