Android One: $100 Nexus 5-ish phones for developing markets

Android "L": not ready for release yet, only "developer preview"

- "Material Design": a clever extension of the flat card-based design they've been using all along, plus nearly everything is animated. As a dev, you just assign a z-value to UI elements, and the framework does all the rest (drop shadows, etc.). Also, they've got support for the same look and feel in web app (Polymer). It's all eye candy, but it's very well done eye candy. (Also, there's a new release of the Roboto fontset.)

- New phone unlocking magic. If you're wearing an Android Wear watch and it's in radio range of your phone, then you won't be challenged for an unlock PIN.

- The distinction between native apps vs. web pages are somewhat blurred together now. They all stack together ("Recents"). HTML5 as an alternative to "native" app development? They're not saying it, but they're clearly working in that direction. Notably, with "app indexing", a URL in the browser can point directly into an app that can handle it.

- It's faster, replacing the Dalvik compiler with ART (a new compiler, with claimed 2x performance improvement, that notably supports ARM, MIPS, and x86). Also a new garbage collector, full 64-bit support, better GPU support ("PC gaming graphics in your pocket" on phone hardware coming soon) and better power management (e.g., non-urgent network transmissions can be labels as such and coalesced). One nice thing is a "battery saver" mode, which normally kicks in if you're below some percentage, which will shift all sorts of things around to maximize what you've got left (e.g., it will disable background data).

- Developer preview binary images will be online tomorrow for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7.

Google Play Services: ships every 6 weeks; 93% of users are on the latest version. Developers can thus rely on it being current.

Universal Data Controls: they're giving users some centralized control over privacy leakage (i.e., whether apps can learn your location). This is a big deal. This is clearly a response of some sort to the PrivacyGuard / XPrivacy features that you previously had to root your device to get.

Connected, seamless experiences: everything knows what you're doing, whichever device you're using, and everything's voice enabled. It's the Google Now idea of trying to feed you what you need to know, when you need to know it, and then some.

Android Wear (smart watches): All of the speakers have one on their wrist. They're all too big and ugly (a complaint I also raise with many normal watches these days). Hopefully the guts are smaller and third-party watchmakers will be able to shoehorn them into traditional watch cases. We already knew about using the watch to display notifications. They've now included all the cards from Google Now and they do support "native" watch apps.

- Also, there's a bunch of fitness support (pedometer, connected heartrate monitors) built in. Presumably, you can go running with this watch and a Polar Bluetooth HR strap, and no phone. That's a feature for me.

- Also cool is "Navigation for Mobile", which is "particularly useful when you're walking".

- The wearable portion of an app is automatically installed / maintained when you install the corresponding app on your phone.

- Voice actions, e.g., "Ok Google, remind me to do X when I get home.": lots of neat stuff going on in the background to make that work correctly. To-do items seem to dump into a "Notes" app that looks a lot like Google Keep. "Ok Google, call me a car." That's all it takes to summon a car with Uber or Lyft.

- LG G watch and Samsung Gear Live, available for order today. Moto 360, later this summer. More coming.

Android Auto: This is the thing I've really been waiting for, like literally waiting for this before I replace our ten year old Acura TL. Very simplified UI, so big buttons for the things you care about, not a grid of apps. Everything is voice activated. Demo was in a Kia Soul cockpit, forcibly removed from a Kia... Plug phone in and the phone controls the screen.

- They've done custom automotive front-ends for navigation, phone, music, and text messaging.

- A bunch of third-party audio apps have already been built to support the new APIs (Pandora, iHeart Radio, etc.).

- "Over 40 new partners have joined the automotive alliance". Looking at the screenshot, I see: Acura/Honda, Alfa Romeo/Fiat/Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep, Audi/VW/Skoda/Seat/Bentley, Ford, Chevrolet/Opel (+other GM?), Hyundai/Kia, Suzuki, Subaru, Volvo, Renault/Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Maserati. "First cars will roll off the lot before the end of 2014."

- Notably absent: Tesla, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota/Lexus/Scion, Porsche, Ferrari (odd, given the inclusion of Maserati), Rolls Royce (related somewhat to BMW), Bugatti (related somewhat to VW).

- Also included are a stack of third-party head unit and add-on vendors (Alpine, Clarion, Parrot, JVC/Kenwood)

Android in the Living Room: They're pitching "Android TV" as a unified programming experience to make it easier to program TV sets. Given that Google TV's been around for years, I don't expect much excitement happening here. What's new here is voice input on remote controls, or just the app on your phone (as in Chromecast). You can also use your phone as the remote-control d-pad.

- Notably included: Games. Google's trying to connect Android games onto the TV. Good luck with that.

- Notably missing: any discussion of integration into AV receivers.

Chromecast: unsurprisingly, it's really, really popular. Being cheap is a feature. "YouTube sees more engagement on Chromecast than any other TV streaming product."

- I was hoping that Google would merge Chromecast and GTV in some fashion, but that's not the plan. They still have a "lay back" UX for GTV and the phone-touch UX for Chromecast.

- One curious feature is that they let you connect to a Chromecast even if you're not on the same WiFi network, using some vaguely specified way of determining if you're physically nearby.

- "Backdrop" - you can customized the images being displayed by the "ambient" feed when you're not otherwise watching TV. That now includes personal photos (from any G+ image gallery). (So, finally, Chromecast + any TV = a big digital picture frame.)

- You can mirror any Android device to the TV, kinda like Koush's Allcast. (Curiously, they're deploying the smartphone-side feature behind this through Google Play Services.)

Chromebooks: they're popular.

- They unlock the Chromebook screen when you get nearby with your phone. They've got a bunch of other random bits of integration (e.g., SMS messages).

- Android apps on Chromebook. (Leverage that popular platform again.) Looks like they ported a full Android software stack to run on the Chromebook platform. But, wait, Chrome runs on Android... on Chromebook. My head hurts.

Home/Corporate device sharing

- Underlying data separation

- No modifications to existing apps

- Enterprise management features

- Integrates Samsung Knox into the core Android platform (!!!)

Miscellaneous announcements

- Native MS Office document (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) editing in Android Google Docs apps

- Google Drive: encrypting data at rest (!!), and unlimited storage $10/user/month. Wow.

- Google Cloud Platform: assorted server-side features to encourage you to build on Google's server infrastructure rather than Amazon EC2, and claims that it's cheaper than the competition. The speaker doesn't seem to feel comfortable when an audience member heckles him. Does Google I/O have bouncers around for its keynotes?

I ran out of time with half an hour left in the video. Yeesh.