What to expect at Google I/O 2015 for Android, Internet of Things, Chrome and more

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Google I/O 2015 is likely to see plenty of updates and some new releases, with Android, Chrome and the Internet of Things the likely stars

Thursday sees the start of Google I/O 2015, Google’s yearly developer conference at which Senior Vice Presifent, Sundar Pichai, will kick off talks about the future of its various platforms. In the past, Google I/O has been used to show off new products such as Google Glass, and this year should also see some new developments for Android, Chrome and more. Here’s what we expect to see.

Android: Android M

This one is a racing certainty. Google has always used Google I/O as a way to get developers up to speed on the next release of Android and, following the alphabetic tradition of names, this version is almost certain to be called Android M. That won’t be its final public name, though: as with previous Androids, it will have a sweet-flavoured name once released.

What’s likely to be in Android M? Rumours on 9to5Google suggest there’ll be more features to make Android palatable for enterprise customers, something which the platform badly needs given iOS’s lead in business. It’s also likely that Google will open up Google Now to third-party applications.

Chrome: Mobile, WebRTC and Offline

Chrome always gets a lot of attention at Google I/O, as you’d expect for the platform that now dominates web browsing. However, taking a look at the Google I/O schedule does give us a few clues about what Chrome’s focus is going to be.

The first thing Google wants to promote is clearly WebRTC. There are two sessions on using WebRTC across Chrome, iOS and Android, and it’s clear that Google sees this as a way of delivering video chat across every platform, both desktop and mobile. The second big push is on making web apps available offline. Connectivity may be more ubiquitous every year, but Google still sees the web as a platform that needs to work offline too – especially on mobile devices.

Google Photos

Google I/O will almost certainly see the public debut of a new version of Google’s Photos service, at last pulled away from Google+. Photos has been one of the strongest parts of Google+, with an impressive range of features that make it easy to archive your images and automatically improve them across every platform. Android Police has already shown off a build of Photos, and it looks good. Expect it to be cross-platform too, as Google will want iPhone users to be uploading their images as well as Android.

Internet of Things: Brillo and Nest

Despite people’s misgivings about Google having yet more of their personal data, the company is still keen to put sensors in your home. According to The Information, Google will give developers a peek at a project codenamed Brillo, software designed to run low-power devices with only a few megabytes of memory. This could open up everything from smart fridges to lightbulbs to Google’s data centres.

This isn’t the first time Google has made a play for the home, of course. Back in 2011, the company announced Android@Home, a version of Android designed for home devices, which promptly vanished. Hopefully, Brillo – which will also be marketed under the Android banner – will fare a little better.

Meanwhile, Google has sessions on Works with Nest, showing developers how to create apps that interact with Nest’s devices. Whether this will integrate with Brillo or remain something separate is yet to be seen.

Google Cast, Chromecast and Android TV

Google’s Chromecast remains one of our favourite devices, but it’s now two years old and could potentially see an update at Google I/O. There are several sessions at the conference on Google Cast and its features.

Android TV, which was announced last year, has got off to a fairly slow start. If Google is serious about the system, it will have to keep it front and centre of the minds of developers by at least featuring it in the keynote. Certainly the Nexus Player needs an update.