The 2024 Google I/O: It’s (pretty much) all about AI progress, if you didn’t already guess

Starting last year, as I mentioned at writeup publication time, EDN asked me to do yearly coverage of Google’s (or is that Alphabet’s? whatevah) I/O developer conference, as I’d already long been doing for Apple’s WWDC developer-tailored equivalent event, and on top of my ongoing throughout-the-year coverage of notable Google product announcements:

• Smartphones and smartwatches and their Android O/S foundations
• Various form factor computing platforms and their Chrome OS origins
• New and evolved processor architectures for all of these plus “cloud” servers
• etc…

And, as I also covered extensively a year ago, AI ended up being the predominant focus of Google I/O’s 2023 edition. Here’s part of the upfront summary of last year’s premier event coverage (which in part explains the rationalization for the yearly coverage going forward):

Deep learning and other AI operations…unsurprisingly were a regularly repeated topic at Wednesday morning’s keynote and, more generally, throughout the multi-day event. Google has long internally developed various AI technologies and products based on them—the company invented the transformer (the “T” in “GPT”) deep learning model technique now commonly used in natural language processing, for example—but productizing those research projects gained further “code red” urgency when Microsoft, in investment partnership with OpenAI, added AI-based enhancements to its Bing search service, which competes with Google’s core business. AI promises, as I’ve written before, to revolutionize how applications and the functions they’re based on are developed, implemented and updated. So, Google’s ongoing work in this area should be of interest even if your company isn’t one of Google’s partners or customers.

And unsurprisingly, given Google’s oft-stated, at the time, substantial and longstanding planned investment in various AI technologies and products and services based on them, AI was again the predominant focus at this year’s event, which took place earlier today as I write these words, on Tuesday, May 14:

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The Pixel 8a

Look back at Google’s Pixel smartphone family history and you’ll see a fairly consistent cadence:

• One or several new premium model(s) launched in the fall of a given year, followed by (beginning with the Pixel 3 generation, to be precise)
• one (or, with the Pixel 4, two) mainstream “a” variant(s) a few calendar quarters later

The “a” variants are generally quite similar to their high-end precursors, albeit with feature set subtractions and other tweaks reflective of their lower price points (along with Google’s ongoing desire to still turn a profit, therefore the lower associated bill of materials costs). And for the last several years, they’ve been unveiled at Google I/O, beginning with the Pixel 6a, the mainstream variant of the initial Pixel 6 generation based on Google-developed SoCs, which launched at the 2022 event edition. The company had canceled Google I/O in 2020 due to the looming pandemic, and 2021 was 100% virtual and was also (bad-pun-intended) plagued by ongoing supply chain issues, so mebbe they’d originally planned this cadence earlier? Dunno.

The new Pixel 8a continues this trend, at least from feature set foundation and optimization standpoints (thicker display bezels, less fancy-pants rear camera subsystem, etc.). And by the way, please put in proper perspective reviewers who say things like “why would I buy a Pixel 8a when I can get a Pixel 8 for around the same price?” They’re not only comparing apples to oranges; they’re also comparing old versus new fruit (this is not an allusion to Apple; that’s in the next paragraph). The Pixel 8 and 8 Pro launched seven months ago, and details on the Pixel 9 family successors are already beginning to leak. What you’re seeing are retailers promo-pricing Pixel 8s to clear out inventory, making room for Pixel 9 successors to come soon. And what these reviewers are doing is comparing them against brand-new list-price Pixel 8as. In a few months, order will once again be restored to the universe. That all said, to be clear, if you need a new phone now, the Pixel 8 is a compelling option.

But here’s the thing…this year, the Pixel 8a was unveiled a week prior to Google I/O, and even more notably, right on top of Apple’s most recent “Let Loose” product launch party. Why? I haven’t yet seen a straight answer from Google, so here are some guesses:

• It was an in-general attempt by Google to draw attention away from (or at least mute the enthusiasm for) Apple and its comparatively expensive (albeit non-phone) widgets
• Specifically, someone at Google had gotten a (mistaken) tip that Apple might roll out one (or a few) iPhone(s) at the event and decided to proactively queue up a counterpunch
• Google had so much else to announce at I/O this year that they, not wanting the Pixel 8a to get lost in all the noise, decided to unveil it ahead of time instead.
• They saw all the Pixel 8a leaks and figured “oh, what the heck, let’s just let ‘er rip”.

The Pixel Tablet (redux)

But that wasn’t the only thing that Google announced last week, on top of Apple’s news. And in this particular case the operative term is relaunched, and the presumed reasoning is, if anything, even more baffling. Go back to my year-back coverage, and you’ll see that Google launched the Tensor G2-based Pixel Tablet at $499 (128GB, 255GB for $100 more), complete with a stand that transforms it into an Amazon Echo Show-competing (and Nest Hub-succeeding) smart display:

Well, here’s the thing…Google relaunched the very same thing last week, at a lower price point ($399), but absent the stand in this particular variant instance (the stand-inclusive product option is still available at $499). It also doesn’t seem that you can subsequently buy the stand, more accurately described as a dock (since it also acts as a charger and embeds speakers that reportedly notably boost sound quality), separately. That all, said, the stand-inclusive Pixel Tablet is coincidentally (or not) on sale at Woot! for $379.99 as I type these words, so… Read Original