It is always a nice and welcome change whenever one of the big players in the mobile smartphone world takes to the stage to announce the release of something new. Familiarity often breeds contempt, and considering the mobile sector is an ever-changing landscape, the release of new hardware or software really helps to keep things fresh and keep end-users and developers alike engaged.
The mobile app development business is a funny old game. Designing and developing quality apps takes an extremely unique skill set, something that often gets overlooked by a lot of people due to the fact that anyone with a computer can throw some code together and bundle it onto the relevant app stores for people to download without having a second thought about the experience. True developers on the other hand live and breathe through their creations with good code flowing like poetry, and when mixed together with flawless design, makes up for an amazing app.
Owners and lovers of devices running the Android operating system will regularly tell you that one of the shortcomings of iOS is the fact that the visuals of the software can't really be customized in any way. While this may be true for stock installations of Apple's mobile operating system, performing a jailbreak on the device leaves the whole system open to intense customization.
As of right now, the existing consumer tablet market is dominated and was essentially created by Apple when it released the first iPad. Since then, Microsoft and Google have been working to catch up and get their foot in the door of this Apple-dominated market. Google's Android tablet OS has managed to gain some ground, and we can expect Windows 8 tablets to hit the shelves later this year. However, in the past two weeks, both Microsoft and Google have announced special tablet hardware devices that they hope will help them gain even more ground in this market.
Apart from all the hardware-based announcements, Google is also updating their Maps app for Android with offline maps support, and a big update to Google Earth, which takes it to version 7.0 and features highly detailed 3D maps of cities around the globe. More details after the jump!
The opening keynote of Google I/O 2012 has come to an end, with lots of hardware and software based announcements in tow, Google has really managed to impress the crowd with their new offerings.
Google I/O 2012 has so far exceeded all expectations I had from the event. The number and variety of announcements is enough to rival Apple’s at WWDC. So far, we’ve seen an updated version of Android (4.1 Jelly Bean), a Nexus tablet, a show-stopping Google Glasses demo and, the news we will be discussing in this post, new Google+ apps and features. Check it out after the jump.
Following quite a few rumors suggesting that Google had some sort of TV/entertainment device up its sleeve, the Nexus Q - touted as a "social streaming media player", has now been officially announced at the big Google I/O event today. The Nexus Q is described as a device that can stream all of your content from Google Play - which includes an assortment of HD movies and TV shows - and YouTube, along with your own content to your living room screen and speakers.
While Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is still on less than 10% of all Android smartphones and tablets, Google has announced the next version of Android: Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. As you can tell by the .1 increase in version number, it’s more of an incremental update than the revolutionary update that Ice Cream Sandwich was. We’ve got the details right after the jump!
It has been rumored from time to time that Google is working on a tablet of its own, but evidence of its existence has been sparse lately. But luckily today, a leaked image from the Google Play Store reveals that the tablet is very much real, and is all set to be announced today.
