Apple picker At its annual conference called I/O, Google presented several new products, some of which will please even Apple users, especially the announced Google Apps for iPad will make tablet owners disappointed with Apple maps happy. The lack of any hardware news can be a slight disappointment.
The Hangouts app
As expected, Google has unified its trio of communication services and finally offers one comprehensive solution for Internet communication. Google Talk, Chat in Google+ and Hangouts have been merged and form a new one called Hangouts.
The service has its own free application for iOS (universal for iPhone and iPad) and Android. It can be installed in the Chrome internet browser and thanks to it you can also chat inside the Google+ social network. Synchronization is handled across all platforms and applies to both notifications and message history. According to the first experiences, everything works great. As soon as the user starts Chrome and chats through it, the notifications on the phone are interrupted and are not activated again until the communication inside Chrome is finished.
In a way, Hangouts is very similar to Facebook's Messenger. It also offers the user the ability to communicate with friends anytime and from anywhere, send pictures and, to a limited extent, also video chat. Synchronization is also handled very similarly. However, Google's big disadvantage for now lies in its user base, which Facebook has significantly higher. So far, despite Google's great efforts to promote it, the Google+ social network is only playing second fiddle in the relevant segment.
Google Maps for iPad
Google Maps is probably the most popular map application on the web, websites and mobile platforms. In December last year, the company released the Google Maps app for the iPhone. Now Google has announced that the map application will also be available on tablets with the iOS and Android operating systems in the summer, where they will primarily use their larger display area.
However, the web interface of maps from Google will also face major changes in the near future. Information will now be displayed directly on the map itself and not on its sides, as it was before. Jonah Jones, lead designer of the new map concept, told TechCrunch: “What if we could create a billion maps, each one for a different user? That's exactly what we do here.” Google Maps will now adapt to a user's interests, showing restaurants the user has visited or might like, and will also focus on what their friends are doing.
The current version of the maps is static and waiting for a specific request. The new one, on the other hand, anticipates and offers. If you click on a restaurant, for example, a tab will appear with the ratings of your friends from Google+ and critics from the specialized portal Zagat, which Google previously acquired through acquisition. A preview of photos from Google Street View or panoramic images of interiors, which Google has been offering since autumn, is also automatically displayed.
Route search will also be more intuitive. It will no longer be necessary to switch between car and pedestrian routes. We immediately get all the options distinguished only by the color of the line. A big step forward is the ability to simply click on two places on the map to display the route without having to laboriously enter the address.
The integration of Google Earth is also new, thanks to which a separate installation on the computer will no longer be necessary. Eliminating this necessity allows you to link the classic map view with easy access to the preview in Google Earth. When you zoom out of the Earth in the Google Earth interface, you can get to the orbit, and now you can also see the real movement of the clouds. A very interesting feature are the so-called "Photo tours", which will offer a combination of photos from Google and those taken by users at individual locations. We will thus get a new way to "visit" well-known tourist destinations cheaply and conveniently.
Even with its maps, Google bets a lot on its social network Google+. In order for everything to work as it should, it is necessary for users to rate individual businesses through it, share their location and their activities. In short, the current concept of Google Maps requires active participation of users in their development and improvement. It is therefore a question of what the real form of the entire service will be compared to the sample.
Google Now and voice search for Chrome
The Google Now function was presented by Google exactly one year ago at last year's I/O, and last month it also appeared in an application update Google Search for iOS. The talk announced several new tabs that will appear in the Google Now menu. First of all, there are reminders that can be set in a similar way as with Siri, i.e. by voice. A public transport card has also been added, which will probably suggest direct connections to places where Google assumes you're going. Finally, there are various recommendation cards for movies, series, music albums, books and games. However, it can be assumed that the recommendations will be directed to Google Play, so they will not appear in the iOS version.
Voice search will then be extended to computers via the Chrome internet browser. It will be possible to activate the function either with a button or with the activation phrase "OK, Google", i.e. with a phrase similar to the one used to activate Google Glass. The user then enters their search query and Google tries to use the Knowledge Graph to display relevant information in a form similar to what Siri does. As with Apple's digital assistant, Czech users are out of luck, because the Knowledge Graph is not available in Czech, although Google can recognize the spoken word in our language.
Similar to Game Center for Android
At the first lecture, Google did not present the expected version of Android 4.3, but it revealed new services for developers, which in some cases could be the envy of colleagues developing for iOS. Game services for Google Play largely duplicate the functionality of Game Center. They will especially facilitate the creation of online multiplayer, because they will take care of finding opponents and maintaining connections. Among the other functions are, for example, cloud saving of positions, player rankings and achievements, everything that we can already find in the current form of Game Center (if we count iCloud for saving positions).
Among other services, Google offered, for example, synchronization of notifications. For example, if users cancel a notification on their phone, it will disappear from the notification center and on the tablet, if it is a notification from the same application. A feature that we would certainly like to see in iOS as well.
Google Music All Access
Google has launched its long-awaited music service Google Play Music All Access. For $9,99 per month, users can subscribe to stream music of their choice. The application not only offers a large database of songs, but also the possibility of discovering new artists through recommendations based on songs already listened to. You can create a "radio" from one song, when the application creates a playlist of similar songs. All Access will be available starting June 30 only for the US, later the service should be extended to other countries. Google will also offer a 30-day free trial.
A similar "iRadio" service is also expected from Apple, which should reportedly still be negotiating with record companies. It is possible that the service could appear as early as the WWDC 2013 conference, which starts in three weeks.
At the first keynote, Google also demonstrated other innovations, such as the redesigned Google+ social network with photo enhancement functions or its WebP and VP9 web formats for images and streaming video. At the end of the lecture, Google co-founder Larry Page spoke and shared his vision of the future of technology with the 6000 audience present. He devoted the last half hour of the overall 3,5-hour keynote to questions from the developers present.
You can watch the recording of Wednesday's keynote here:
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