
Google I/O 2014 - asenna
https://www.google.com/events/io?gclid=CjkKEQjw5qmdBRCn--70gPSo074BEiQAJCe7zf8EY8JMUkoqTKWUpWgCoxLkDCZCCf0IDAcajQT_jeLw_wcB
======
basicallydan
I was extremely disappointed when they started talking about "Material
Design", hinting at tactile screens by showing what one might look like, and
then going on to talk about it as a metaphor for tactility.

Still looks nice, but that was mean.

~~~
jaxytee
Yeah, all this design talk is grossly underwhelming.

~~~
psbp
It's great design, but I got really excited for a new screen technology.

~~~
boomzilla
Is it me, or the new design looks like Windows Metro?

~~~
_random_
Especially their design page:
[http://www.google.com/design](http://www.google.com/design)

"[Google Manager]: Guys... Could you make it modern, like Microsoft Metro, but
maybe decrease the padding between tiles and maybe add some blurry shadows."

"[Designers]: but shadows are a violation flat design principles!"

"[Google Manager]: I am sorry, but we cannot come across like _complete_ rip-
offs".

~~~
DigitalJack
We need 7 red lines. All orthogonal, two with green ink and the rest with
transparent ink.

~~~
shadesandcolour
Well here's the problem, you're using a blue pen.

------
tdicola
Automatic unlock of your computer when your phone is near seems like the kind
of feature that sounds great on paper but is a nightmare in practice. What
happens when someone picks up my phone and walks near my laptop, they suddenly
have access to my entire machine?

~~~
ryanklee
The time has come for phones to start recognizing the presence or non-presence
of trusted individuals, granting various permissions.

I'd carry a tiny wearable for this.

~~~
dublinben
Like a Motorola Skip, or any number of other NFC tags that will do this?

[http://www.motorola.com/us/accessory-family-
page-1/Motorola-...](http://www.motorola.com/us/accessory-family-
page-1/Motorola-Skip/motorola-skip-moto-x.html)

~~~
ryanklee
To clarify, I meant this as a matter of ubiquity...

There are options for this functionality out there, of course, but they've not
been adopted much by users.

------
fidotron
My main thought from this is Google are damned if they do, damned if they
don't. Either they do nothing exciting and we complain about that, but if they
did too much we'd complain about them stepping on the toes of everyone in the
ecosystem. As it stands it looks a lot like they're licking too many cookies,
but underdelivering, and being damned on both fronts, but getting the benefit
of neither. Go back to last year's I/O, and Android Studio still isn't really
the main IDE for Android yet, and the much lauded Maps has gone off a cliff.

Let's face it, the only impressive tech stuff here today was the cloud
debugging. Everything else was fluff. Frankly Amazon put on far more dangerous
looking displays of technology prowess these days.

And we still can't mention China. Disappointing, but somewhat inevitable.

~~~
jbigelow76
I'll second your point on Android Studio. I was really hoping to see it was
getting some serious attention this I/O (but I'm not watching everything live
so maybe there is something I haven't seen yet)

~~~
bennyg
As someone who literally started developing for Android about 3 weeks ago, I
also share this sentiment. Android Studio (and a pet plugin project a couple
old coworkers are working on that makes Maven look downright dumb) and Gradle
have been a godsend in getting me up to speed in Android development. I tried
Eclipse once in the past to port an old app and absolutely hated everything
about it - which I naively ascribed towards the entire Android dev ecosystem
as well back then.

I'm hoping for some more stable AS releases and a plan for a 1.0.0 soon.

~~~
jbigelow76
Good news, it may not have warranted discussion in the day 1 keynote but news
of Android Studio is coming on day 2

Session title: "What’s new in Android development tools", 9:00 AM

[https://www.google.com/events/io/schedule/session/ac46ad42-1...](https://www.google.com/events/io/schedule/session/ac46ad42-19c0-e311-b297-00155d5066d7)

~~~
bennyg
Thanks for the link. I'll check it out after our soccer game today.

------
NDizzle
Am I not in on the joke? Here's a magic 8 ball prediction: wearable stuff will
bomb.

All they can do is tell me if I walked or not. I KNOW IF I WALKED OR NOT. If I
wanted to walk more I'd get another dog, not a watch.

I also like DIRECTLY AFTER they show the pedometer they order a pizza. I just
can't imagine a world where these are good ideas. I'd love to have been in on
those meetings to throw staplers at the people who suggested these things.

~~~
akx
I'm very happy with my Pebble.

It can't tell me whether I've walked or not, and I can't order a pizza with
it, but I get all my notifications on it, which alone is very handy (pun not
necessarily intended) for me.

~~~
boomzilla
The thing is not many people want to get notifications from their watch as
they already carry a phone which is perfectly capable of giving notifications.
If anyone can put a phone in a watch, then we start talking :)

~~~
k__
My guess is: the trend will go to phonewatches and tablets.

99% of the time, I'm using the "tablet features" of my phone. I maybe get 3-5
calls a month.

A phone-watch would suffice for this.

If it could tell the time, provide me with notifications, has vibration and
can tell if I move or not, this would be perfect.

The rest of the information I would consume with my tablet.

~~~
gurkendoktor
The thing that makes phones such gold mines is that people in many countries
reliably buy a new one every two years (through a carrier). Tablets are
arguably on a plateau already. I wonder if the industry can really turn phone
watches into something that reliably generates cash.

~~~
alttab
Its almost sad that the goal is "reliably generating cash" instead of "making
something better for humanity." Working to prevent me from having to pull my
phone out of my pocket is not anywhere close to where our technological
efforts should be placed.

~~~
Already__Taken
It's not about making you pull your phone out less its about trying to
integrate more things around you seamlessly to be more interconnected.
Reaching for your phone less is a by-product. Altruistic views are nice but
the driver of our technology is consistent investment facilitating iteration
on all fronts.

~~~
alttab
To a certain degree I still disagree. Integrated and more connected? Take that
all the way out until you can't tell where the machine stop and the human
starts.

While all these micro-iterations on technology are great, and we have some
amazing toys, I can't help but think that humanity is getting too DISCONNECTED
from EARTH.

------
xienze
I think there's something to be said for not completely overhauling the look
and feel of the OS every two years or so. As it stands today a typical Android
phone probably has at least one app sporting the Android 2.3 look and feel.
And even in Google's UI guidelines (not sure if it's still the case), they
suggested providing multiple sets of icons, some that follow the 4.0 look and
feel, some that follow the 2.3 look and feel, some that follow the pre-2.3
look and feel, etc.

They make it very difficult to both follow their latest UI guidelines and the
older ones (because adoption rates lag quite a bit).

~~~
thrownaway2424
The problem seems to be that Google doesn't have any real design rules, they
just have designers, and these guys rotate in and out every year or two,
bringing their own pet ideas with them. So what you're looking at is whatever
the designer they hired two years ago had on his mind.

Android is rife with clear evidence that the project has no design guidelines.
All of the UIs change completely in every release.

~~~
nostrademons
(Background: I worked on 3 visual redesigns for Google Search, and was an
early tech lead for the Quantum Paper stuff that's being demoed today. I no
longer work at Google. This was actually the last project I worked on.)

The design changeover is being driven from the top. Ever since Steve Jobs has
died and Larry took over as CEO, he's gotten the design religion, and his goal
is for Google's design to remain fresh and drive trends forward perpetually.
So as far as the company is concerned, this is a feature, not a bug.

It's true that the individual designers responsible for doing the design often
vary from project to project. However, there's a fair amount of continuity as
well. The designer who initiated the design refresh announced today has been
with the company since 2006; the designer I worked with for the visual refresh
of 2010 now heads up design for all of Search. They are explicitly told by
executives to make things fresh and remove previous constraints when imagining
the new Google.

~~~
georgemcbay
"design to remain fresh and drive trends forward perpetually"

Is this the root cause of why Google Maps/Nav on Android had a giant UX
regression from 6.x to 7.x and still sucks so bad that my next phone may very
well be a Lumia?

~~~
nostrademons
Not entirely sure, I'm less familiar with the decision-making processes in
Geo. I suspect it's similar, where the goal of keeping things fresh and
interesting made them take the product in a different direction, which
naturally will piss off all the customers who started using it because they
liked the old product direction. I don't personally like the new Google Maps
either, but understand that a company's first and foremost goal is to go after
new users, and making existing users happy is only important if they'll leave
if you don't.

------
tdicola
Is anyone else kind of creeped out by the presentation style? I can't really
put my finger on why but everything comes across very wooden and out of touch
with normal people.

~~~
psbp
They lost two of their best presenters over the past year: Vic Gundotra, Hugo
Barra

~~~
maggit
I was so happy to be able to see through the keynote without the presence of
these two guys or anybody like them. They were always more focused on wowing
the crowd than actually saying anything, always begging for more applause with
ridiculous statements such as "It's basically 16 cores!!!" to describe a
device with a four-core CPU and a twelve-core GPU. (Hugo Barra, 2012,
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406363,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406363,00.asp))
For a developer conference, they should respect the audience enough to know
that we understand the real specs and adding two unrelated numbers to make a
bigger number does not make it more impressive, or even any sense.

Vic Gundotra and Hugo Barra are among the all time worst speakers at Google
I/O. This year it again feels like developers talking to developers.
Delightful! :)

------
uptown
One of the features Apple added later-on to iOS7 was "reduce animation" after
user feedback. Much of Google's keynote thus-far has focused on adding
animations everywhere possible. It'll be interesting to see if they receive a
different reception.

~~~
jhenkens
I can't use iOS7 without reduced animated. I'm very happy they have that
feature.

~~~
mreiland
How does one do this?

I hate iOS7 enough that my next phone will definitely be an android. But in
the meantime...

~~~
bobbles
It's the accessibility options in settings

------
pohl
We should all endeavor to guard the memory of the double-sided peanut butter
jar, lost in a tragic speech recognition accident on June 25, 2014.

------
atonse
I can't get past that particular camera angle in the video where they catch
the heads of people walking out.

I understand there are thousands of people there but that particular camera
makes it look like a bunch of people are leaving as the speaker speaks.

~~~
yellow
Being an attendee from last year, I can guarantee you that it's people still
filing in to find seats well into the presentation. The exit is towards the
back left of where the camera is. People going to the right are looking for
seats. It's still not an attractive angle.

------
kyrra
Direct link to the Keynote youtube stream:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLJPvx7-ys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLJPvx7-ys)

~~~
dublinben
Oddly, their live streaming does not work without Adobe Flash. It absolutely
refuses to load anything in Chromium, even though it supports every single
HTML5 format that YouTube offers. I would have expected better from Google in
2014.

~~~
toomuchtodo
HTML5 doesn't support live streaming [1]. You need either Flash or HLS support
(i.e. iOS/Safari).

Disclaimer: I work in the video space.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921790/best-approach-
to...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921790/best-approach-to-real-time-
http-streaming-to-html5-video-client)

~~~
x0054
Why hasn't HLS caught on more broadly? From what I know it's not licensed /
patented by apple. Many Flash players implement it, and overall its a great
way of delivering video over HTTP.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Its encumbered by being an Apple standard (NIH). Adobe is pushing HDS, and
Google is pushing an open standard called MPEG-DASH.

They all do the same thing fundamentally; the only differences are slight
technical details and who is in control of the standard.

------
ChikkaChiChi
I feel the Google Watches are going to be more widely adopted than Glass.
Maybe we'll get to head mounted computers in the future, but right now it
definitely feels like the watch is the next step in social acceptability.

Source: I own a Glass and barely wear it.

~~~
peterchon
but don't you think that someone staring at their watch during a conversation
(or even in large meeting) is quite rude and distracting?

~~~
Igglyboo
People already do this with phones, I don't see how watches are any
different/worse.

------
bane
"Google's Sundar Pichai said, adding that it was "designed for form factors
beyond mobile.""

"ART: ... Truly cross platform: ARM, x86, MIPS"

Sounds like they may be setting up to make a proper run at the desktop market?
Now that all these Windows 8 machines are out there with cheap touch panels,
it's shown that cheap desktop/laptop computers can exist with the necessary
interface bits to work.

edit:and watches and cars apparently

~~~
Zigurd
It's hard to ascribe a whole lot of meaning to "designed for form factors
beyond mobile" because mobile battery powered compiling is the most demanding
case. I suppose it means they can scale compilers for ART across plugged-in,
big battery, and small battery cases.

Dalvik, and Dalvik's JIT compiler are definitely tuned for small batteries.

~~~
kryps
Tuned how? By being slow as f..k? That actually makes it much worse for small
batteries.

~~~
Zigurd
Dalvik claims to be twice as fast interpreting DEX compared to Java bytecode
interpretation.

The Dalvik JIT compiler focuses on critical sections of code. There's a reason
you don't see Hotspot on battery powered devices.

Large amounts of the Android framework, especially the foundations of drawing
and the View hierarchy, are in C or C++. Compiling an interactive app to
native code makes much less difference in performance than a synthetic
benchmark of DEX interpretation might lead one to think.

~~~
pohl
_The Dalvik JIT compiler focuses on critical sections of code. There 's a
reason you don't see Hotspot on battery powered devices._

Hotspot get its name from the term of art for a critical section of code,
though. That's not something that makes them different from each other; it's
what they have in common.

What separates them must be that only one of them was designed with a power
budget in mind.

~~~
Zigurd
Only in a very general sense. Dalvik's JIT really tries to minimize JIT
compilation. Modern Java JIT compilers are oriented around the goal of
extracting maximum performance from compiled code. That's priority #1, and
there is no #2.

------
rsthesmart
Vic Gundotra's absence couldn't have been more conspicuous. That guy was a
great presenter and a showman. Also, was it just me or did the keynote feel
really long? I don't think it was a good idea for them to change the one-
keynote-per-day format, especially when they didn't have stuff like new
moonshot announcements or q&a time with the ceo to make it more engaging and
interesting. Sundar was perfect for the second day keynotes about chrome and
web. I don't think he is a good replacement for Vic for keynotes. The whole
keynote felt a bit stale. The protests livened up the keynote more than the
presenters did.

I wonder why neither Page nor Brin came on stage.

~~~
zmmmmm
The lack of any mention of Google+ was absolutely deafening. If we needed any
more confirmation that it's been dismantled within Google I think this would
be it. Interesting though that nothing was mentioned to take its place or give
us any hint about the future. At very least, they need an identity service of
some kind to power the other platforms.

~~~
72deluxe
Is Google+ the new Blogger?

------
ccozan
Strange, all this features with the Android Auto I can already do with my Moto
X. Ok, is not displayed in the car's big display ( but I don't have one! ),
but I can do almost everything without using my hands.

MOTOACTV is also a precursor to this wearable watches, pretty much capable at
least the notifications. Nonetheless, this was more sports oriented.

~~~
spinchange
Voice actions and Motorola Connect are the best parts about the Moto X, in my
opinion. Like you, I don't have a fancy dash display yet either, but the
experience with the Moto X makes me long for the day when one could take over
UI / input control automatically without even taking the phone out of my
pocket or handling it at all. I will go in for an upgrade in auto at that
point!

~~~
ccozan
Oh yes, I forgot about the Motorola Connect, it jumped on me when they demoed
the Phone-Chromebook integration: hey, I already do that.

It so sad that now for Google Motorola is not a poster child, but something
that they try to forget about it.

~~~
spinchange
I didn't see Moto X listed as an initially supported device for the
forthcoming Chromecast "screen mirroring" feature either- although maybe I
missed it. Hopefully it comes soon. I use the Chromecast constantly and would
be all over this.

I had such high hopes for a Google-owned Motorola too.

------
oxalo
Oh man they've added 5000 API calls. That's 1000 more than iOS 8. Guess Google
wins.

~~~
oxalo
Love the downvotes, but I was just trying to show how silly numbers like that
are. What does '5000 API calls' even mean?

~~~
72deluxe
Maybe they've added Getters and Setters for every private variable, via a
macro (to save typing)? That will certainly mean many more API functions to
call.

Or are they counting how many times they make calls to a part of the API? Like
calling a function in a for loop or something?

Either way, I'll applaud unnecessarily.

EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes! Here's to humour on HN!

------
IanCal
Native office file editing sounds extremely useful, depending on how well it
works. I'm somewhat dubious, given other efforts, but if it _does_ work it'll
be great.

------
currysausage
Anybody knows what these protests were about?

~~~
yulaow
[http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/06/25/google-
io-2014-inter...](http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/06/25/google-
io-2014-interrupted-protester-calling-google-develop-
conscience/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29)

~~~
bsimpson
I wish the press would stop feeding the pigeons.

------
guiomie
Is there a screen in the audience telling the audience to applaud ?

~~~
IanCal
I think they've just been told to applaud whenever the speaker pauses
awkwardly.

~~~
RossM
I think I like it better than manically applauding every bullet item.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Honest question: Are the people who are protesting people that paid to get
into I/O or do they get in some other way?

~~~
simonk
One of them was in the press area and one of them had a paid badge around
their neck.

~~~
VonGuard
Luls, they let in fact press to protest, but didn't let me in for the first
time in 6 years... Nice job Google PR!

------
AVTizzle
No Tesla nor Mercedes in Android's Open Auto Alliance :/

~~~
azurezyq
And no toyota.

~~~
AVTizzle
I saw Toyota

~~~
Zikes
[http://www.openautoalliance.net/#members](http://www.openautoalliance.net/#members)

------
swalsh
What is the deal with these protesters?

~~~
pohl
Here's one article...

[http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/23599/20140625/google-...](http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/23599/20140625/google-
i-o-2014-protester-keynote-interrupted-occupy.htm)

------
i_have_to_speak
Wish the speakers wouldn't look so nervous.. of course all that flicker and
frame drops during the unreal demo didn't help.

------
jbigelow76
iOS, Android and Windows 8 are all greater than the sum of their parts when
you buy in to the complete ecosystem. I hope auto manufacturers are going to
be able to make mobile OS enhancements modular to their vehicles. I would
really hate to pay for CarPlay (iOS for cars) in a car but have cast my lot
with Android, or vice versa.

Edit: corrected name of iOS for cars

------
semerda
Was that frame skipping when they showed the 3D game demo? aka. Apple Metal

~~~
valarauca1
Frame Skipping has been around for decades, Apple Metal didn't invent it.

~~~
semerda
Wasn't saying Apple invented it. I was asking 1. whether it was frame skipping
(confirmed now) and 2. Apple Metal reference is for those that remember how
well their demo went of their engine.

------
anandpdoshi
Consider that a $100 phone can have a reasonably well designed OS

~~~
Synaesthesia
Oh yeah, we're there. My Lumia 520 only cost $100, and I find Windows Phone
8.1 to be delightful on it. The new android offerings look even better.

~~~
72deluxe
They look pretty but it appears to be reverting back to pale grey text on a
white background, thereby making it impossible to read. Is this some nostalgic
reversion back to poor contrast screens like old Psions or the cheap Palm
Pilots when the battery ran down or something?

It's unreadable.

------
bithush
The new keyboard is beautiful.

------
tylerpachal
Tuned in late; did he make any mention of the battery life for the MotoX? One
of my favourite things about my Pebble is the battery life.

------
vkal
Does anyone know if they will make videos of the workshops/smaller talks
available? I'm interested in a lot of these talks.

~~~
WildUtah
They always do. You can usually download them soon after the conference, but
lately Apple and Google have been moving toward letting you download them
within a day during their big conferences.

~~~
vkal
I noticed there also Code Labs, for example the Android Studio one. There are
lots of VODs up for other day one talks, but since Code Lab is a bit
different, do they usually release stuff for those, like
walkthroughs/tutorials ?

------
wildpeaks
One UX issue with the watch is that it seems it will need _many_ swipes to
find the one app you're looking if you have more than a couple apps installed
(see the number of apps people have on their smartphones now), let alone find
the one screen you're looking for in that app; but I suppose they expect
people to use voice commands for that.

------
Kiro
Everyone receiving a Moto 360. Nice.

~~~
bsimpson
I liked how the whole audience sighed when the 360 wasn't ready to ship.

------
fataliss
Ok so, I don't have a TV and my car is 2004 and don't even have bluetooth.
What's the point of the new new new features so far? Pretty much nothing, no
use, thanks.

~~~
hrayr
It's a preview to what's coming up so that industries and consumers can get
ready. They're moving industries forward, not always catering to current or
lagging users.

------
lightblade
Are there any source that have live transcript for the keynote? Unfortunately
I don't have a headphone at work :(

~~~
bane
You can turn on the closed captions, but they're machine generated and foul up
pretty bad on the accents of the presenters.

------
mkagenius
The live captioning - they look good. Wondering if there is any open source
tool that is as good as that?

------
onedev
It was a snoozefest

------
guelo
L? I guess they wanted to be less whimsical. But in a couple years I'll have a
hard time remembering which version that was like I can remember which one
Gingerbread was.

~~~
wldcordeiro
I think they haven't found a nickname for it yet. Remember KitKat was called
Key Lime Pie at first.

~~~
quux
Doesn't the codename usually come before the project?

~~~
wldcordeiro
I believe the dessert names are the actual release names if I recall so a code
name like 'L' is more internal and subject to change.

------
Pxtl
Disappointing to see that X-Box gamepad there. I keep hoping Google will take
console gaming seriously-enough to launch some real Google-branded gaming
hardware.

~~~
angersock
Why?

Why would they want to get involved in that market?

~~~
Pxtl
Because Amazon and Apple are dipping their toes into that pool and Google is
playing catch-up on the set-top-box market instead of leading.

They sell games. They sell hardware on which people play games. They sell a
set-top device that plays games. But they don't sell an actual controller for
that device.

~~~
angersock
All of those are, arguably, markets that are distracting them from their core
competency.

~~~
72deluxe
But they dip into all markets. Someone said they are a "me too!" company that
hurriedly adds products in a particular market area, then abandon maintenance
of it after a while.

Their core competency is marketing / search / ads, so I suppose the entire
Android system and any hardware could be considered a side show?

BTW, I am a happy Android user (other than Maps and Talk, which have gone down
the toilet).

------
nl
Is there a link for the Google Fit APIs?

~~~
bsimpson
[http://developers.google.com/fit](http://developers.google.com/fit)

Sounds like they're about six months in to the project, and will have
something to show in the next month or so.

------
akilism
feel like its not enough work on the battery life.

~~~
pohl
They did mention a new development tool that looks like the Energy Impact view
in Xcode (sorry, I can't remember what Google called it, does anybody
remember?) They said something like "if you can't measure it, you can't
improve it", which is the right philosophy. It just may take another year to
see a payoff.

~~~
techwizrd
The feature they previewed was called Battery Historian. According to the
presenter, there should a be a definitive improvement in battery life for the
Android "L" release. They've been using it to optimize Android and the Google
apps. Hopefully people will no longer have to use all sorts of crazy hacks to
because they suspect Maps/Location services is causing wakelocks.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Android has completely leapfrogged iOS in every way...including design.

~~~
arrrg
Design is irrelevant if OEMs vomit their bullshit all over it on all the
devices that are actually interesting. (Yes, I tried rooting. Yes, it was a
horrific warranty-removing potentially bricking experience. Even Jailbreaking
feels saver.)

It looks super-awesome, though. I want it on interesting devices. I won’t be
able to get it, though.

~~~
dublinben
If you don't want a bastardized experience, don't buy a phone from crappy OEM.
Get a Nexus device (pure Google experience), a Google Play Edition device
(pure Google experience), or a Motorola device (close to stock, easily
rootable Dev Eds).

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Unfortunately that may no longer be an option.

~~~
MaxDPS
Why not?

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
At the same time Motorola Mobility was sold, Google announced the Android
Silver program which seemed to confirm rumors that Nexus devices were being
sunsetted.

I really hope its not true. I love my Nexus devices.

------
mrlase
Their new redesign is pointless in the first place. OEMs will continue to
produce overlays that completely disregard Google's design language. Instead,
they'll put in poorly designed, tacky interfaces.

While this doesn't affect the experience on stock Google devices, phones such
as the Nexus line represent a crushingly small share of the market, so it
doesn't matter.

In addition, I don't understand the pivot towards elevation. The industry has
been moving towards flat design. I like flat. It's simple. Less design is
often better than more deisgn.

The new Gmail design is a great example of this. The current design is simple.
Information is there as soon as you open the application. The new design has
increased usage of whitespace and a larger action bar, not to mention that
intrusive icon in the bottom right.

There hasn't been a single thing about this year's I/O that has impressed me,
or pleased me for that matter. Disappointed that Google continues to pump out
new features instead of perfecting the ones they already have.

The way I currently see it, you have Apple putting out less features with
incredible levels of polish, or Google throwing features at the wall until
something sticks and then only enhancing it a little (i.e. Hangouts).

~~~
commandar
>In addition, I don't understand the pivot towards elevation. The industry has
been moving towards flat design. I like flat. It's simple. Less design is
often better than more deisgn.

I was absolutely relieved to see the elevation parts of the new design. Flat
looks good, but it's been headed to an extreme recently. I can't stand the
near total flatness of parts iOS7/8; it makes it very difficult for me to
visually distinguish content.

~~~
mrlase
I'm interested to know which parts specifically you find hard to distinguish
in iOS7/8? Are you experiencing any similar problems with current Android
design language?

~~~
commandar
The calendar in particular is a complete disaster:

[http://cdn1.appleinsider.com/13.06.17-Calendar-2.jpg](http://cdn1.appleinsider.com/13.06.17-Calendar-2.jpg)

The navigation bar in general just looks like a mass of text to me most of the
time, especially if there are more than two tabs:

[http://www.okilla.com/uploadfile/1/2013/07/10/11373456479/13...](http://www.okilla.com/uploadfile/1/2013/07/10/11373456479/1373456568_ios7-design-
preview-3.png)

EDIT:

And no, I don't have similar issues on Android. Part of that could be the move
to side drawers in Android apps. The greater contrast and lower reliance on
lines as visual separators is definitely part of it as well.

