- The Google I/O conference takes place every year in California, typically in May.
- Google I/O is a flagship event for developers, featuring Google’s latest updates and launches.
- Here’s what went down at Google I/O in the last few years and how to watch it every year.
Google’s annual developer conference, called Google I/O, is Google’s flagship event for developers. It’s where the company shares its latest updates and makes major announcements, including launching new products and services.
As Google’s Chaim Gartenberg put it in a company blog post, “Googlers — and the world — expect at least a little magic from I/O.”
The event features a range of speakers, including . The new “Material Design” had a cleaner look with some shadows, layers, and animations.
Google also gave demos of Android Wear and announced LG and Samsung now have Android Wear watches available.
Google also announced Android TV, a new platform for TVs, its second attempt at creating TV software. The new platform for TVs lets users voice-search to find content and integrates Chromecast, which has features like setting your own photos as the background of your TV.
2013
Google updated some of its key products at I/O 2013, like Google Maps and Google+. It also released a streaming music service competitor to Spotify called Google Music All Access, which was priced at $9.99 per month.
The biggest surprise of the event was Larry Page, the CEO at the time, who appeared for a live Q&A and gave a speech about the future of technology.
2012
Google I/O in 2012 hosted 6,000 in-person attendees, according to a recap of the event. Google announced its latest milestone at the event: One million Android devices are activated every day. Other Google product announcements that year included Nexus 7, a seven-inch tablet running Android 14.1.
Project Glass was one of the biggest updates at Google I/O in 2012. Google had reportedly worked on the computerized glasses for a few years and announced they would become available in early 2013. The product has since been discontinued, but there may be a new version of it coming to market in the future.
2011
Google announced an upgrade to Honeycomb, which it rolled out the day of the event to Verizon customers and allowed for more efficient app switching.
It also had several updates to Google TV and came out with Music beta by Google, which allowed users to build playlists based on any song they picked.
Google also announced Android devices could now act as USB hosts, which was a big step forward in importing content like photos.
2010
Google I/O 2010 was the company’s first attempt at merging TV with the internet. Although unsuccessful, it marked an important step forward in the future of smart TV.
Google I/O 2010 also reveals how fun some of the names of Google products used to be, like Android Froyo, which brought faster speed and mobile hotspot.
Google claimed Froyo had the fastest browser and demonstrated it next to an Eclair phone and an iPad. Google also announced a Chrome Web Store to make a market for browser apps.
2009
Google I/O in 2009 focused on developer tools, especially for app creation. The company also introduced Google Web Elements, which let users embed Google products on their pages, like YouTube videos.
It also revealed Google Wave, a cloud service that let users exchange messages and media or collaborate on documents. Wave was discontinued a little over a year later, in 2010.
2008
Google I/O in 2008 marked the launch of the Android platform, which was a major step forward in the evolution of smartphones.
Google also announced the app engine, which was a platform for developing apps.
2007
Google held its first developers event in 2007, but the name at the time was “Google Developer Day” rather than I/O, and the event’s structure was also different. Google held developer gatherings worldwide that were focused on educating groups on Google’s technologies.