Google I/O happened last week and there was a lot to take in and dissect even from the two-hour long keynote to kick the Google’s 2021 developers conference off. We highlighted our favourite moments and things that we learned from Google I/O 2021. What caught our attention this year was their WearOS partnership with Samsung announcement. Android 12 is getting a huge visual revamp too this year. At the end of the show, something else caught our attention, and that was the Project Starline.
Google’s Wear OS is about to get a revamp and overhaul thanks to their new formed partnership with Samsung. This also means that Samsung will be ditching their Tizen OS development and focus on developing Wear OS with Google. Funnily enough Fitbit is not really getting involved. While they spent a very small amount of time making the announcement, there is more to Wear OS and Samsung’s involvement than Google made it out to be though. Fitbit is also not entirely out of the picture at this point.
We also saw the new Android 12 with Material You design language. The UI is cleaner, more intuitive, and even more customisable now. It is technically more YOU, more personal. You can change your theme colours to fit YOU. You can tune certain UI features to YOU. It is even more personal too with a Privacy Dashboard. You can even turn off your camera and mic completely if you want to; even your camera app will not be able to access both functions.
Project Starline was amazing. In brought to life a concept that we though will never see the light of day until way later. The whole pandemic situation has isolated us even more, and with conditions expected to take a turn for the worse in the coming year, physical connection to other human beings is sorely missed. Project Starline is as close as you can get to a physical touch and interaction to others at this point of time. To be fair, the technology is still in its early development stage and brings 3D and holographic telecommunications to life. It was encouraging and exciting to see, but we wonder how practical it would be if you want to bring that kind of technology to your homes or offices.