Mark Scheel Reports on Google I/O 2012 – The Prediction Post

Mark Scheel Reports on Google I/O 2012 – The Prediction Post

Arrived in San Francisco today. I like to play a game on the plane to I/O where I guess who is going to the conference. Simple math says about 100 people will come from each state so there probably isn’t anyone else on my plane from Denver. But you never know if the guy with a Family Guy T-Shirt and an 8AM Slurpee, or the skinny hipster with Chuck Taylor’s and an ironic t-shirt, might be in. A green robot hoodie? Dead giveaway.

Later, after picking up my badge at Moscone and dinner with friends it is off to the Lookout Mobile Security party at Gallery 16. Should be a great bash again this year. Open bar, gourmet Food Truck snacks and a great crowd of smart, interesting people.

OK, enough banter, lets get to some predictions …

1 – Google is going to start marketing and direct selling their own Android tablets. That’s a snoozer, it’s been widely forecasted by many media outlets. The tablet is to be manufactured by Asus and will be 7″. I don’t know how I feel about 7″ tablets, that form factor feels like an enormous phone, but I am sure the tablet will be fast, make for a great gaming system and a wonderful e-book reader. I hope to hear something from Google about how they plan to keep it updated in the future with Android improvements, as well as how other hardware from various manufacturers will be updated. Android has a real problem when people buy devices from carriers who promise future upgrades, but then the manufacturers of the hardware don’t come through. This was mentioned at I/O 2011 as a major initiative going forward, but it seemed to be all bark and no bite. Hopefully they have a better solution announced this year.

2 – Jelly Bean, the new Android mobile operating system will be the roots of an eventual merger between Android and ChromeOS. I think we will see some kind of demonstration where Google will start making in-roads into the desktop computing market. This might involve remote desktop software pairing a 7 inch tablet to a notebook with a full keyboard, as well as cloud based software you can share between computers, leveraging the new Google Drive service (a DropBox knock-off). Where will the apps in the cloud be hosted? We will see something less like Google App Engine (which will remain important) and more like Amazon elastic computing.

3 – Project Glass, in the wishful thinking category I propose that I will get to try out a pair of the futuristic Google glasses that augment reality while pairing to a bluetooth and internet connected device. Even more amazing would be to get a pair to write software for. I can only hope that Larry Page’s mysterious dissapearance from the public is so he can lead a team of intrepid Googler’s on a death march to production release. However, this seems very unlikely. I would be surprised if I didn’t see one on stage at least.

That’s it for now, I think in general Google will make a big push from our home offices into the rest of our homes. Our living rooms. Our den’s. Entertainment options and smart, connected devices will be powered by Android, and tablets, will be a big part of this. Its amazing to think that at last years Google I/O there was a single, brand new Android tablet, the Motorola Xoom. Since then, the Android tablet market has exploded. Check out a Best Buy for proof. Developers are still figuring out this new form factor and Google will give us even more tools to amaze and delight our end users. As the user experience improves so will adoption. The rocket powered Android growth machine will report more astounding growth, I bet.

My next post will be about what’s cool at Day 1 of Google I/O 2012.

Mark Scheel is president of Digital Construction Inc. a software consultancy based out of Colorado, who has done work for the National Association of Realtors and the Department of Defense in the past year. Currently Mark is involved in a business turn around effort and acting as Vice President of Mobile Software–heading up Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 development–for a California company in the Entertainment vertical.