GOOGLE I/O 2021: ANDROID 12, PRIVACY & WEAR OS

Utrecht, April 5 | 3 minutes

Yesterday the Google I/O started, the annual developer conference of the well-known tech giant. During these 3 days, the company announces all kinds of new services and products, but also shows which innovations they are working on. This year is mainly dominated by Google's new operating system: Android 12. Curious what else was discussed? Read more below??

ANDROID 12: GOOGLE'S PARADEHORSE

It was already known on the internet, but Google officially presented Android 12 during its keynote. The new operating system has undergone a complete redesign. In their own words, this is the largest redesign in the history of Android. In addition to a better user experience, the focus is also clearly on protecting user data. Privacy was a word that was mentioned all too often during the presentation.

Android redesign

The biggest and visible change in Android 12 is the use of color. With the new operating system it is possible to fully personalize your phone with a custom color tablet and the renewed widgets. Nice detail: the system itself measures which colors are dominant on your background and adjusts the interface accordingly (notification bar, lock screen, buttons and widgets).

Technical improvements

In addition to the redesign, a number of technical improvements have also been made to Android 12. With the new operating system, the energy consumption of the CPU is significantly reduced, which improves the performance and battery life of your device. Curious what else has changed in Android 12? Check out the video from tech magazine The Verge below.

PRIVACY, DATA AND SECURITY

Google has been protecting everyone's data for years and gives the user more options when it comes to storing your own data. Last year Google already launched auto-delete, a functionality where Google automatically deletes your data after 18 months. This year it will be expanded with a new version of Password Alert. This improved functionality now immediately shows when your account has been part of a data breach, with the Password Alert Chrome extension you can immediately change the password of this account in your chrome browser.

Snow Cone: Google's privacy dashboard

In addition to the Password Alert update, Google also announces 'Snow Cone'. An overview on your android phone with everything about your own privacy settings and data usage. In the dashboard you can see which apps use your location, microphone and camera. For the time being this is only in Android 12, but we expect this to be launched with the next update of Chrome OS.

GOOGLE WEAR: ATTEMPT TO COMPETE WITH APPLE?

During the presentation, a large part was devoted to the renewed collaboration between Google and Samsung. These two tech giants have been working together for years. For example, every Samsung smartphone has Android installed and all your smart Samsung devices work seamlessly with Google Home. Starting this year, they will expand their collaboration with wearables. They merge Tizen (Samsung) and WearOS (Google) into one operating system. This OS called 'Wear' should (according to Google) give a whole new user experience to smartwatch users. For example, Google Pay will be rolled out in 20+ countries as soon as possible and Google will build the health and fitness functions from scratch together with Samsung and Fitbit (recently bought by Google).

Google immediately presents that many more apps will be made available in the new Wear OS. Examples include Sleep Cycle, Calm, and Strava. Below you can see an overview of apps that will soon be available on Wear (or will receive a major update).

CURIOUS ABOUT THE REST?

Much more was announced at this Google I/O. Curious about the rest? Check out Google's summary below. You will be up to date within 9 minutes. In addition to the big presentation, more keynotes and meetups will be organized in three days. We are going to go through all of these and will soon come up with an in-depth blog post about the latest developments. stay tuned..