It was little more than two and a half years ago, Google launched the G-1, using their “free” Android operating system. It was available in one country, on one carrier. The platform has grown exponentially.
This morning at Google I/O, the Android team shared some updates. There are now:
- 100 million activated Android devices
- 400,000 new Android devices activated every day
- 200,000 free and paid applications available in Android Market
- 4.5 billion applications installed from Android Market
This morning Google announced the next version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich. Their goal with Ice Cream Sandwich is to deliver one operating system that works everywhere, regardless of device, unifying smartphones and tablets.
Ice Cream Sandwich is due in the fourth quarter, so in the interim Google is releasing Android 3.1, an update to Honeycomb, which is designed for tablets. This enhancement includes making Android tablet devices USB hosts, so that USB devices can be hooked up to them, and allowing Android developers to create applications for the Google TV platform. It will also let you hook up game controllers, keyboards, and other devices over USB, and showed a Xbox 360 controller hooked up to a phone.
Other news at Google I/O:
- Google launched Music Beta, a new service that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and Android devices. With the new service, your music and playlists are automatically kept in sync, so if you create a new playlist on your phone, it’s instantly available on your computer or tablet.
- Google has added Movies for rent to Android Market. You can choose to rent from thousands of movies starting at $1.99 and have them available across your Android devices—rent a movie on your home computer, and it’ll be available for viewing on your tablet or phone.
- Google TV is getting a bump, with Android 3.1 and Android Market coming to a TV near you. Developers will be able to use one SDK and ship apps that work both on Honeycomb tablets and on Google TV devices. Google also hinted at new hardware from Samsung and Vizio.
- Google announced a new feature of Android called Android @ Home. It transform an Android device into a home automation controller. It can be used to control gaming consoles, lighting, appliances, irrigations systems and anything else developers can envision. Google also announced project tungsten, which consists of a hub that runs the Android OS and the Android @ Home framework. It can stream music directly from Music Beta by Google to any supported home audio device. Android @ Home is completely open and developing with the framework requires no fees and no registration.
The two day I/O conference will be live streamed at I/O Live, including the two keynote presentations, two full days of Android and Chrome technical sessions, and the After Hours party. Recorded videos from all sessions across eight product tracks will be available within 24 hours after the conference. Engadget has a liveblog.
