It was the addition of a “Notifications” tab this week that broke the camel’s back for me. The Google app on Android is in desperate need of a redesign. 

As I said in 2022, Google Calendar is my favorite first-party app for Android tablets and foldables. Following an update detailed at I/O 2024, it retains that top spot for me. 

Originally, my interest in Google came down to how I think it does cool-to-wild things with technology in an accessible/affordable manner that nobody else is doing.

Google Search is effectively a bridge between users and content on the web nowadays, but volatility in Search has led to many smaller websites seeing steep dropoffs. As Google I/O approaches, will anything at the event provide a ray of hope?

At the moment, there are two mainstream wearables: smartwatches and headphones. Smart glasses will be a third when display technology sufficiently advances. The Humane Ai Pin shows the path for a possible fourth wearable form factor, but it’s buried beneath questionable core design decisions and hubris.

Google should standardize when it kills products and major features instead of doing it sporadically throughout the year. The current approach, especially for the average user, is too hard to keep track of, and contributes to the perceived — deserved or not — sense of impending doom with Google services.

A new Chromecast is coming. If you look around at what folks want from it, it’s all about performance and speed. Basically, a lot of folks want a high-end Chromecast, but it doesn’t seem like Google is planning for that, and it seems unlikely they ever will.

This is the least important part of the next 4K Chromecast — RAM, then storage (fight me in the comments below), but I don’t think “Chromecast with Google TV” is a good name/brand by any stretch.

My technological “how often do you think about the Roman Empire” is the double twist shortcut introduced with the Moto X that would launch the camera from anywhere, including when the screen is off.

Since the beginning of March, Google Wallet has seen a somewhat uncharacteristic flurry of updates with both new features and behavior changes.

To coincide with the Android 12 push and Material You, Google introduced a pair of weather widgets for Pixel in 2021. With the Android 15 Beta, the exclusive Pixel nature of these weather widgets has been enshrined.

The past year has seen an explosion of AI tools and software, but over the next couple of months, we’re also going to be seeing a lot more AI hardware. Personally, though, I’m just wondering if any of it will become anything more than novelty.

Now Playing on the Pixel is my favorite example of ambient computing that we have right now. Dating back to the Pixel 2 and 2 XL in 2017, it shows what song is playing on the always-on display, lockscreen and notification shade without requiring you to do anything. It’s “better than instant.”

In short order, the explosion of generative AI technology has changed the way we read and write for one another, especially in journalism and blogging. While the many AI tools all appear to be useful on the surface, I fear we’ve lost our human connection along the way.

I feel like a broken record at this point, but amid new leaks of the Pixel 9 this week, there are many still asking Google for a “Mini” device, forgetting that small phones are dead.

I wish Gmail and Google Calendar were built for consumers instead of businesses. That shift could make the suite of apps infinitely more useful. They are already vital in day-to-day use, but the target audience feels more like employees of a company than anybody else. 

Before “Google Podcasts,” there was the ability to play podcasts in Google Search on Android. This straightforward feature was announced a few days after Google added podcasts to Play Music in April of 2016. It was rather emblematic of how Google did two of everything.

This week the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the company has built and maintains an illegal monopoly. Whether or not Apple actually has a monopoly over Android in the smartphone market is up for the courts to decide, but what’s clear is that Apple really wants one.

Fitbit has had a number of back-to-back announcements and changes in recent weeks. I don’t think it was particularly planned to be that away, but the flurry of activity is more promising than not. It starts with a “Google Fitbit” name that cements how the brand is firmly a part of Google, just like “Google Nest.” If Google Fitbit was always the plan, they should have really done that from the start instead of picking a “Fitbit by Google” stopgap that was shown to people for sometime on product packaging and marketing. 

The first two generations of Samsung Galaxy Gear watches in the early 2010s had cameras. Coming in at around 2 megapixels, the quality was unsurprisingly mediocre. With Wear OS having a renaissance, it would be interesting if Google and its partners experimented with cameras.

Accessories are an important part of any tech purchase, and it’s an area where Google Pixel has been lacking. I really hope to see a push from Google’s third-party partners this year for more Pixel phone cases and Pixel Watch bands.

As a platform and ecosystem, Wear OS is in a good place right now. That wasn’t the case three years ago before the Samsung partnership. Wear OS 3 reinvigorated the operating system with the Galaxy Watch 4 serving as the flagship device until the Pixel Watch over a year later. The next hardware milestone was the Snapdragon W5 in mid-2022 giving manufacturers a more capable chip to work with. Also, keep in mind how Google and Qualcomm are working on a RISC-V chip for Wear OS.

The Google app on Android handles a lot of common information requests throughout your day, and I’m not just talking about Assistant, Lens, or Gemini.

Smartphone glass has gotten much better over the years, but Corning’s new Gorilla Armor feels like the first truly big upgrade we’ve seen in a while. I want it on everything.