Gadgetory

hey guys Google i/o is just around the corner and you know what that means more cool stuff coming to Google's Android operating system what are we going to see we don't know for sure but here are some of our predictions what are some things we might find at this year's google i/o number one hardware Google loves to release new hardware at Google i/o that's where we saw the motorola xoom that's where we saw the Galaxy Nexus so what are we going to see this time around probably not a phone because we saw that last time with the Galaxy Nexus but one thing we probably will see is Android 4.1 which is codenamed jellybean some things that we know so far one it might not be 4.1 probably will but we won't know until they announce it I'll get to that in a minute jellybean we're pretty sure because earlier today they got a big Android filled with jelly beans out in front of you know the Android building at the Google campus so chances are it's going to be called jelly bean now 4.1 versus five point oh well Google kind of let that one slip as well so you can buy the google nexus directly from the google play store and we did capture a screenshot that said that it's going to be the first device that gets jelly bean android version 4.1 they quickly took that down so of course they could change their minds it might be 4.3 it might be seven point 12 I don't know but if I were a betting man I'd say it's 4.1 and it's coming to the Galaxy Nexus as the first phone phone so probably no new hardware tablets however rumor has it google is going to get directly involved into the tablet market you see to date we haven't had a google nexus tablet what do i mean by that well we've had google nexus phone starting with the nexus one which was a google phone it was built by HTC and later later iterations have been built by Samsung but it was a google phone pure Google with tablets we haven't had that we had the motorola xoom but it was a motorola tablet just running a pure stock version of Android Honeycomb which since has been updated to Android Ice Cream Sandwich but it still hasn't been a Google device so what we suspect and what we're predicting is we will see a Google branded tablet it will probably be called the Google Nexus tablet or the google nexus 7 or the Nexus 7 tablet or something like that it will probably be a 7-inch device and it will be able to go head-to-head against some of the e-book reader / hybrid tablet things you know who you are nook and kindle fire they're cheap and they're not a real Android experience but they're half the price of an Android tablet Google is probably going to offer this tablet for somewhere around one hundred and ninety-nine dollars another prediction but beyond hardware what else are we going to get moving from hardware to software let's start with the operating system jelly bean we predict is going to have improvements to the way Android handles some of the hardware that we have in existing tablets and smartphones particularly around multi-core processors GPUs and being able to more adequately handle additional amounts of RAM all three of these components need to play nicely together we suspect the jelly bean is going to help unify all these take advantage of some of the higher-end features and functionalities that we're seeing in the latest rounds of hardware next since LTE is coming to most carriers around the world the US has been a little bit slow to adopt but we're getting there we suspect that voice over LTE would become a native part of the operating system so that the dialer will be able to handle that right there inside the dialer app itself right inside jellybean what not any need for additional third party stuff to make it work speaking of graphics there's probably going to be additional support for higher resolutions specifically 1080p we really haven't seen much of that in current versions of Android and we suspect that may be a limitation of the current iteration of Ice Cream Sandwich jelly bean however we suspect is going to be able to handle these larger resolutions and be able to do so much more gracefully than a lower version of Android would we also think that this might tie in really well with Google TV which is currently running up to Android Honeycomb 3.2 and is designed for a ten-foot experience on large high-definition television screens can you imagine Google TV in full 1080p with really really crisp graphics we might also see some hardware announcements around that as well number three is apps now I know apps aren't specifically jellybean related but they are hear me out so Google has this new 3d mapping technology they kind of tried to beat Apple to the punch kind of give them a little of a bit of a jab back after apple pulled support for google maps as the default map provider in iOS so Google came out and said well we got this really cool 3d thing where we can make 3d maps and you know buildings trees terrain based on photography we don't have to have modeling anymore to do that instead just a whole bunch of computing power and a really smart algorithm they showed that off in fact we showed that you can check that back at pocketnow.com and it's really really cool but we haven't seen it in action on any one of our devices yet reason I suspect is it is going to be jelly bean specific they're going to be some api's and some extra stuff inside jelly bean that are required to make this new version of maps work to get all the 3d glory and let me tell you if you haven't seen it it is amazing just completely blows your mind can you imagine individually modeling not only every building but every tree in a metropolitan area you just can't do it this however this can be done so we're probably going to see Google Maps 3d released for devices running jellybean which it release time is probably going to be the tablet and maybe if we're lucky galaxy next I that are running or upgraded to jellybean very very shortly however don't want that concern you if the past is an indicator of the future will likely see Google reverse engineer these new features to run on previous versions of Android starting first with ice cream sandwich and then moving slowly backward until they get the majority of everyone covered so we suspect that Google Maps 3d will be a major component that's going to be brought forth with Android 4.1 jelly bean Google assistant or Google assist or who knows what they're going to call it but Google needs to do something to combat Siri Siri is ridiculously intuitive and helpful and bridges the gap from well user and computer to digital assistant which is really the holy grail of where we want these devices to be we haven't heard much but we suspect google has been doing something to improve the the google voice intense that we have right now and have had for some time in previous versions and current versions of android we suspect we might see something from google that will help to bridge that gap and at least catch up with where Apple is with Siri lastly polish operating systems look best when they're polished when there are no rough edges things look right they look consistent and their intuitive they do what you want to do without you thinking about how they have to be done now this is something that is a continuous process so we're going to continue to see that refinement that polish in this and future versions of Android it's nothing groundbreaking but it is something that just makes the overall experience even better so there you go our four major predictions four major areas of prediction really but what about yours I know we've only got a few hours left before so go ahead and go on the record with what you predict we're going to see at Google i/o specifically what we're going to see in Android 4.1 jelly bean make sure you head over to pocketnow.com and leave those comments over there for pocket now predicting the future I'm Joe Levi