In recent times, Google have managed to become a very impressive force in bringing us interesting and sought after gadgetry. First, of course, there was Android, and well, we all know how that’s going. There was the Nexus 7 which helped kickstart the 7 inch tablet craze as we know it today, then the Nexus 4 which remains possibly the best value for money smartphone on the market in terms of performance capability to price.
And now of course, we have Google Glass, which is looking to single handedly get us all very interested in wearable reality augmenters.
It helps then, that Google’s I/O conference is under a month away, going from the 15th to the 17th of May, and there’s rumours abound as to what we can expect to be revealed to us. So we thought we’d do a little round up here at Kumulos of the stuff we think are the most interesting possibilities.
Nexus 4 update or even Nexus 5
The Nexus 4 is a great phone, and clearly quite popular as it sold like hot cakes over the Christmas period. Combining high performance with low price and vanilla, always up-to-date Android, it’s a pretty good package overall if you’re looking for a modern smartphone. That said, it has its problems. For one it’s only got 16Gb max of space and doesn’t have an LTE chip, meaning no 4G for you. However, there are strong rumours Google are either looking to update the 4 with LTE and/or 32Gb of space, or perhaps announce a whole new Nexus 5 handset to combat Samsung’s current powerhouse, the SIV.
This could risk current Nexus 4 owners feeling a little burned, but in this modern mobile world, it’s not exactly unexpected that whatever tech you buy is quickly going to go out of date.
Key Lime Pie 5.0
Android Version 4 has certianly taken the little green robot into a whole new area of quality. With the improvements that ICS and JB brought Android could, for the first time, stand up against Apple’s ever pretty iOS. But we’ve been on v4 for a while now, and many are starting to ask what’s next. Well, considering last I/O we got Jelly Bean, it would make sense that now we’ll get KLP 5.0. What improvements are expected aren’t entirely clear right now, but Google Now is said to be a big part of it all.
What’s going on at Motorola
Google quietly acquired Motorola back in 2011 and the company has been largely silent since then, turning out medium tier handsets but nothing that’s caused any waves in the mobile market. That could be, until now. The rumour mill has been kicking up a gear recently in relation to the X Phone. Specifically, if what’s being said right now is to be believed, the X Phone line may be a game changer in the current market. There have been quotes talking about its potentially being the most powerful, capable handsets ever seen, with new, never seen before features. Of course this kind of hyperbole is common when there’s no real facts to go on, but where there’s smoke there’s normally fire; so we’ll be eagerly paying attention to this one.
Google Glass
Now we all know what GG is all about, but so far we’ve not really heard much about developers or the potential apps that are coming to Google’s wearable reality augmentation. It makes sense that they’d give us a look into the future of GG at I/O, and it will be very interesting to see where they can imagine taking the technology.
(UPDATE 2017: Google discontinued selling the Google Glass prototype in January 2015.)
New Nexus 7?
The Nexus 7 is now the grandaddy of modern tablets in terms of age. It’s already a year old, which is about 65 in mobile technology years, and definitely ready for retirement. But what to replace it with? Well, a shinier, better Nexus 7 most likely. Google are being tipped to be working with Asus again so we can probably expect another high quality, ferociously low priced tablet if there’s one coming. A few of us at Kumulos (Backend as a Service) have Nexus 7s, so it will be interesting to see what comes of it.
Surprise project?
Now, we know that this is unlikely, after all, this is the age where a company can’t even attempt to make a new handset without it getting leaked so heavily the announcement is more of an official stamp of existence rather than an exciting reveal.
But still, it would be very cool if Google could bring us another announcement like Google Glass again, after all, what’s more fun than getting something good you didn’t ask for?
