With unlikely year's corporate restructuring prohibited of the room, 2016 was a twelvemonth of rebuilding for Google and its parent company First principle.
This year, Google got much more serious about hardware, while placing big bets on artificial intelligence as the heart of its software. Products that fit this delegac got revamped, while those that didn't got axed or ignored. Read connected for a review of what went right and wrong at Google in 2016.
Hit: Hardware hotness
Fancy by Melissa Riofrio
As of 2016, Google is no longer just a backseat driver in the consumer hardware business. The new Pel phones are the first to bear single Google's brand name—no more shared space with other vendor—and they'rhenium a perspicuous hand-hewn above the Nexus handsets of previous years. The company also undercut Amazon's Reverberation with the impressive Google Home speaker, crashed the standard home-networking job with Google WLAN, and elevated the comfort of VR with the Daydream View headset.
These aren't one-soured efforts, but rather the start of a major new computer hardware press that will presumptively bring young iterations on a routine foundation, and Google is already off to a rousing start.
Miss: Hangout with Allo and Couple
Image by Google
One of Google's more confusing moves of the class was the launch of cardinal new communications apps, Allo for text messaging and Duo for video chat. The apps themselves are fine—with Duo focus along acuminate one-on-cardinal chats, and Allo benefitting from Google Assistant—but they lap with Google's existing Hangouts app and with Android's stock SMS Messenger app.
Google hasn't made a impregnable shell for shift to Allo and Duo, which may explain why they're ranked 152nd and 265th in the Google Play Store Eastern Samoa of this writing. Some streamlining whitethorn be necessary in 2017.
Hit: Each about Helper
Image aside Google
Although Google's new hardware looks impressive from the outside, the reason it matters is the AI happening the inside. The Pixel phones and Home speaker are showcases for Adjunct, which efficaciously turns Google's far-reaching Net search locomotive engine into a conversational AI. Google already trounces Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa on basic internet queries, merely the company is also taking serious-minded steps toward tertiary-company integration, and then you buttocks conjure an Uber or mastery your smart thermostat without having to think too hard about syntax.
Miss: Where are Wear and Android TV?
Image by Google
Wearables and streaming Boob tube devices seemed to take a backseat at Google in 2016, as the company focused more connected AI for smartphones and smart homes. Humanoid Wear 2.0, a Major smartwatch system upgrade announced in Whitethorn, has been suspended until next twelvemonth, and longtime ironware better hal Motorola says it's not provision any new smartwatches amid consumer spiritlessness.
As for Android TV, Google nonmoving seems scarcely interested in the send off. At that place were no major software updates this year, and the sole new situated-top box to impinge on the market, Xiaomi's Naut mi Box, softly appeared in Walmart stores without whatsoever fanfare from Google.
Hit: Chromium-plate OS's Android app infusion
As jackanapes machines for browsing the internet go, Chromebooks act up a stellar job, but Google's efforts to build an ecosystem for native web apps never gained much traction. Indeed in 2016 Google embraced a diametric scheme, porting over the entire Android app catalog.
Although not all Chromebooks substantiate Android apps just notwithstandin, those that do feel like entirely unaccustomed devices. These apps may also comprise the commencement step toward a broader Chromium-plate OS-Mechanical man merger, pavage the style for more useful laptop-tablet hybrids from Google.
Miss: Plan Ara breaks aside
Image away Florence Ion
Google had noble goals with Project Ara, a smartphone that would cut down along electronic waste away letting people switch out separate components. But after three years of development, with numerous delays and strategical shifts, Google quietly abandoned the project. Although the party didn't give an official reason for the cancellation, Ara didn't fit inside Google's new AI-infused computer hardware strategy, and information technology's unclear how much demand there was for the concept earlier. Licensing the tech to other vendors does remain a possibility, providing a glimmer of hope for modular believers.
Hit: Google Keep's indorse wind
Paradigm away Derek Walter
Google Keep old to have the air of a neglected product, with few significant updates that would help it contend with other notice-taking services much as Evernote and Microsoft's OneDrive. That denaturised in 2016, As Google delivered loads of recently features such as automatic labelling, pinned notes, iOS shortcuts, tighter Chrome integration, handwriting-to-school tex conversion, and shopping-list integration with Google Home speakers. Between those additions and the iOS app that launched in late 2015, Google Keep seems like a keeper.
Miss: Alphabet's muddle
Finally year, Google created a retention company called First principle, whose goal was to make property businesses come out of experimental efforts such as ego-driving cars, internet access, and life sciences. Alphabet hasn't made a good deal progress yet, with non-Google businesses losing $3.6 billion last class, and another $2.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2016.
The losses were punctuated by the going of Nestle CEO Tony Fadell afterward the company's inside drama became world, and a major scaling back for Google Fiber (which also saw an executive director step down.) Perhaps the cutbacks and changes will put Alphabet in a better put off close year, but there's little evidence thusly far that the company's bold bets are paying off.
Hit: Google Photos shines brilliantly
Image by Derek Bruno Walter
Google Photos was already a highlight in 2015 thanks to its untrammelled storage and scary-right brass recognition. This year, it got even better with new sorting options, video-based animations, support for iOS Hold ou Photos, cleared sharing with other users, and—arguably best of all—an easy way to digitize publish photos. A a ware, image management may non be as glamorous American Samoa a talk virtual subordinate or a lustrous new smartphone, but it's a hugely important military service for citizenry, and Google is nailing it.
Miss: The perpetual seclusion shadiness
What would a year in Google be without the hybridization of some concealment boundary? This year's transgression involved a privacy policy update that lets Google combine biscuit information from DoubleClick—essentially, information about your browsing activity—with personally recognizable information from other Google services.
As ProPublica reported in October, the shift could allow Google to "bod a complete portrait of a drug user by name, supported connected everything they pen in electronic mail, every site they visit, and the searches they conduct." Google founder Sergey Brin erst vowed not to combine these data pools. The push to collate many exploiter data may as wel explain why Google backtracked this year on default last-to-end encryption in its novel messaging app Allo. If you needed reasons not to trust the search giant, 2016 provided a fair share of fodder.
WTF: Fuchsia Osmium
Although Google already has two in operation systems in Android and Chrome OS, more or less Googlers are like a sho building a third with Fuchsia. The project is still in its infancy, and fairly mysterious, but it's notable for start with an entirely new arrangement kernel, kinda than relying on decades-archaic kernels such as Linux and Unix. The goal, it seems, is to create a new OS from scratch that's better at dealing with small-scale, internet-connected devices. As for whether it becomes a proud deal or remains a curiosity, we'll have to wait until at least following year to find out.
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Jared Newman covers personal technology from his remote Cincinnati outpost. He as wel publishes two newsletters, Advisorator for tech advice and Cord Cutter Weekly for help with ditching cable or satellite TV.
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