Google I/O 2013 - What to expect

Google’s big annual developer conference kicks off on Wednesday 15th May 2013. Last year brought us, among other things, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Google Glass-wearing skydivers falling through the sky to San Francisco’s Moscone Center. What will this year’s event hold? 

Google I/O never ceases to amaze. We can't ignore the fact that bits of the hottest tech have come out of Google's annual developer gathering, while some of the world's most anticipated advancements, such as Google Glass, have captured our imaginations during the conference.  This year's show is stomping through San Francisco's Moscone Center May 15 - May 17, and we anticipate the 2013 iteration to be one for the ages. Google always has something cooking, whether it be a new tablet, a new way to communicate or a new way to view the world. 

Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, or 4.3 Jelly Bean?

The rumors and reports so far indicate that the next version of Android won’t be as large an overhaul as we’ve seen in the past, making us wonder if we’ll see a full-on upgrade to Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie or mark an upgrade in the current OS, Jelly Bean?

We hope Android decides to keep the update “smaller” and stick with Jelly Bean, allowing the company’s pesky fragmentation problem among its widely varied devices to shrink a bit. Jelly Bean brought with it a slew of new features, like Google Now, that have tons of room for improvement.  So we think it would be 4.3 and not 5.0. But then you never know, google has surprised us before and you might see Key Lime Pie being launched as well.

Google Game - Gaming Hub

Code within Google Glass’ My Glass development kit indicates that Google could be dipping its feet in the gaming space with a multiplayer gaming hub similar to Apple’s Game Center. Further investigation by Android Police, which made the initial discovery, found that Google Play Games, as it could be called, will include a drop down menu for account and notification management, as well as the ability to sync games, badges, achievements, invitations, and top scores across devices.We could see a very game-centric Google IO as a few signs point to a greater emphasis by Mountain View on the play pastime theme.

Google Glass Gets Clearer

Google Glass isn't just a weird object sitting on a few Googlers' faces anymore. Now, thousands of developers have the hardware, and most of them will be at I/O. Google is loading Day 2 of the conference with several sessions dedicated to developing for Glass, and there's a good chance it will use the conference to reveal more official apps. Maybe we'll finally see automatic picture-taking mode.

Nexus Phones

The rumors suggest that we won’t see a brand new Nexus phone at Google I/O this year, but what we could see instead is a mid-cycle upgrade for the Nexus 4. In fact, the existing version seems tailor-made for a couple quick internal hardware upgrades to inject some fresh life into sales and activate some new buzz around the product, which by most accounts has been selling fairly well, especially when compared to previous Nexus flagship phones. What we’ve heard indicates that the Google Nexus 4 will appear at I/O boasting a 32GB internal memory upgrade, along with built-in LTE support. There’s an LTE-capable wireless radio built into the current Nexus 4, but it lacks a proper signal amplifier and as such remains officially disabled. Nearer the Nexus 4′s launch, you could activate it with a backdoor hack, but Google quickly shut that down.

Nexus Tablets

There’s less buzz around new Nexus tablet hardware making an appearance at I/O, but there are some indications we could see some upgrades there, too. KGI Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo says there’s a brand new Nexus 7 coming, with a high-res, 1920×1200 display, an improved processor and a decent rear camera. Reuters also reported earlier that a next-gen Nexus 7 would arrive, powered by a Qualcomm chip

I’d hesitate to suggest we’ll hear about much more beyond the Nexus 7 in the tablet category. Sales of the Nexus 10 have reportedly been quite low so far, and that device was only introduced in partnership with Samsung late last year. Google will likely want to give it a bit more time to try to pick up sales, or might focus its Nexus tablet efforts on the apparently more popular 7-inch market instead.

Nexus Q

Google must have a love/hate relationship with this black plastic orb. Where it was once heralded as a home entertainment solution (at Google IO 2012, in fact), the Nexus Q has now fallen into a sort of purgatory page on Google Play. Yes, it's still there, but it's not for sale. We expect more on this.

Babble

We've seen the screen grabs. We've read its description in a purported company memo. Now it's time to hear straight from Google's mouth what Babel is, what it does and when we can get it.

Reports and our own source have given us plenty on this G-chat service synthesizer, but we want, and greatly expect, Google to outline its specifics at the conference.Babel looks very likely because it's something Google really needs. However, various sites are reporting that Babel is just a code name, and Google will instead adopt terminology from Google+, and just call the new tool Hangouts.

These are some of the Rumours and some real leaks doing the rounds just before I/O. Stay tuned with us for the latest.