The biggest Goggle event of the year, I/O brings together the company and its developers to talk about the present and future of Google’s products. It’s also the week Google tends to make its biggest announcements every year in the middle of May, in a three day event. Here are the major highlights of what is expected:
Google+
Google+ has become a total messaging platform with the exception of SMS as : text, video, voice calls, and chat, all in one place. Google finally rolled its various messaging solutions like Talk and Google+ Messenger into one. Hangouts is most simply a messaging app for iOS, Android, Chrome, and Gmail. All your conversations stay in sync between each platform, just like with Facebook Messenger. Entering a video hangout is now just one tap (or click) away, since there’s a video hangout button at the top of every text conversation.
Google’s social network, Google+ has a new newspaper-style mosaic layout that spreads posts out over your entire page width, instead of having one vertical stream. Every related story is intelligently fixed with hashtags. Most importantly, the new version of Google+ includes a new photo gallery that enhances, categorizes, and styles your photos, in trying to be the new Flickr
Google Play music all access
Google enters into the subscription-music ring withGoogle Play Music All Access facing competitors like Spotify and Rdio. Available now with a free 30-day trial, the streaming music service is similar to what exists , and can be found on Google Music, Android app, and on mobile browsers. No word yet on an iOS app just yet.
An app store for your classroom
Google faces Apple’s dominance of the education market, with a new play for the classroom called Google Play for Education. Scheduled to launch this year, it’s a custom app store curated to show off apps useful to students and educators. The company said it would also make getting Android tablets cheaper and easier, but did not elaborate.
A Google Galaxy S4
A Google version of the Galaxy S4 is expected with the Android 4.2 instead of the Korean company’s extensive suite of UI tweaks and custom apps, but unlike the Nexus 4, the GS4 features LTE support on both T-Mobile and AT&T. It’ll be available in late June.
Google wallet allows attaching online money to email
One of the simplest features unveiled at I/O was an unexpected crossover between Gmail and Google Wallet, rolling out now. Click the new dollar-sign button in the Gmail Compose window and you’ll open up a Google Wallet dialogue that lets you attach money to your email the same way you’d attach a file. There’s a 2.9 percent fee per transaction unless you set up a bank account, and anyone receiving money will need to set up a Google Wallet account before they can cash out.
