Every time a brand new Android model arrives, a brand new recreation begins: Which of the lovingly described contemporary platform options will fail to dwell as much as its hype after which find yourself fading out of the foreground — both to be phased out utterly or simply brushed apart and consigned to oblivion?It looks as if a humorous factor to say, however whenever you look again at Android’s historical past, you notice what number of once-transformative-sounding options ended up fizzling and being forgotten quickly after their grand debuts. Some stay buried within the software program whereas others quietly vanished after a interval of inertia, however all of them share the truth that they’re nowhere close to the center-stage-worthy components they as soon as gave the impression to be.(I’ve been anxious for some time that Android widgets would possibly find yourself on this checklist, by the way, however Apple’s high-profile adoption of the idea this yr makes me hopeful that Google would possibly begin caring about it once more for the primary time since roughly 2011. Funny how that may occur, is not it?!)So seize some popcorn and prepare for a nostalgia-filled journey — one sure to be peppered with quite a lot of “Oh, right, what ever happened to that?!” reactions.1. SlicesOur first pale Android function discovered its method into our lives — in concept, no less than — again with 2018’s Android 9.0 Pie launch. It was known as, reasonably fittingly, Slices, and it sounded downright scrumptious on the time.Slices “could eventually reshape the way we find information and actions within apps,” as one terribly good-looking and exceptionally modest author put it. In brief, the system was alleged to combine items of apps instantly into Android’s search interface — so you could possibly seek for one thing like “Lyft” in your house display search field or by way of the Google Assistant and see the present wait time for a journey, together with icons to really order a journey, proper then and there. Or you could possibly seek for a video on YouTube or one other streaming service after which play it proper within the outcomes, with out ever leaving that display.Instead of opening particular person apps after which digging round to search out data and carry out actions, in different phrases, you’d simply use one easy, constant system interface to do all of it. It was an entire new mannequin of interplay, with infinite potentialities and massive implications. And the underlying Slices system would “iterate quickly,” Google promised, with that preliminary framework serving solely as a place to begin for what was to return.
Now, let me ask you this: When was the final time you noticed something resembling Slices in motion in your cellphone? The reply, I’m assuming, is someplace between “Uh, what exactly is it, again?” and “Wait, does this guy actually expect me to respond out loud?” (Either response is completely acceptable.)The situation with Slices, it appears, is that the system by no means fairly progressed from its early seed-of-an-idea state. It technically nonetheless exists, however in response to an interview printed with two Android executives earlier this yr, Google hasn’t “found the fit for it just yet”:
We do not assume we[‘ve] discovered the correct steadiness between effort for the developer and person options to make it make sense but. It’s one thing we’re nonetheless actually considering. … I feel it is simply the small print of how you can apply it and use circumstances aren’t fairly there but.
So possibly sooner or later, Slices will makes its method off this checklist and into our digital hearts. For now, although, it is powerful to give you a extra appropriately dusty idea to kick off this assortment.2. MiracastMira-huh? Its title could also be a distant reminiscence for many of us these days, however a marquee function of Google’s 2012 Android 4.2 Jelly Bean launch was assist for a then-new wi-fi streaming protocol known as Miracast. Heck, it was even described in some locations as being the primary “highlight” of that yr’s software program. Suffice it to say, Miracast by no means fairly caught on as an ordinary, and Google finally pivoted to its personal proprietary Cast system as Android’s streaming setup of alternative. With 2015’s Android 6.0 Marshmallow launch, Miracast formally disappeared from the software program totally, to the immense disappointment of roughly seven individuals.3. Lock display widgetsBeing in a position to put widgets in your lock display was a “killer feature” of 2012’s Android 4.2.JRTwo years later, the aptitude itself was killed.4. The tablet-specific person interfaceWay again in 2011, Google made an enormous present of its new tackle the pill interface with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb launch. Core system features just like the navigation buttons, notifications, and app drawer all existed in corners of the display to make two-handed entry simpler than ever. It was an entire new world for large-screen ergonomics!JRWell, for a few yr, anyway: In 2012, Android 4.2 introduced the extra conventional phone-like UI again to tablets. These days, the once-touted tablet-specific UI lives on solely in a handful of long-abandoned relics such because the Motorola Xoom (pour one out…) and different outdated Android units.5. Live FoldersThis is one for the true Android veterans amongst us: In the traditional period of 2009, Google’s Android 1.5 Cupcake launch introduced an amazing-seeming function into the equation — a spiffy little somethin’ known as Live Folders.As Google defined it in its Android Developers Blog, Live Folders “let [apps] display any source of data on the home screen without forcing the user to launch an application.” That meant you could possibly have a folder with a dynamic view of contacts, bookmarks, playlists, e mail, information tales, and so forth — and any adjustments to the associated information would seem within the folder in real-time. (Y’know, as if it had been “live.” Get it?)Google If this idea sounds an terrible lot like a widget, that is as a result of it’s. Support for third-party widgets was additionally added in Cupcake, and that setup clearly ended up being the extra versatile and in style alternative. Live Folders died with nary a peep alongside the arrival of 2011’s Honeycomb launch.6. A built-in People hubGoogle tooted its horn loudly in regards to the relaunch and rebranding of Android’s Contacts app with 2011’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich launch. Our telephones had been about a lot greater than contacts, the pondering went, and so it made extra sense to name the app People — and to have it act as a hub for all of our social communications.The People app aimed to convey your entire contacts’ social networking connections into single, centralized profiles. You might see an individual’s tweets or, sure, even Google+ postings proper then and there — a “live window into your social world,” as Google put it on the time.Unfortunately, renaming Contacts to People principally appeared to confuse individuals who could not determine the place their contacts had gone. By Lollipop, the app unceremoniously went again to its unique title, and it did not take lengthy for the entire “single hub” factor to fade away, too — even when, right here in 2020, such a notion appears extra related and desperately wanted than ever.7. A local video-editing systemVideo enhancing has by no means precisely been one in every of Android’s best strengths, so the arrival of a local system app for film manipulation was an enormous promoting level for Honeycomb in 2011. But oddly, Google appeared to surrender on its aptly named Movie Studio app just about instantly after its delivery. The app by no means received a lot in the best way of updates or enhancements, and after transport sporadically with Android units by means of 2012’s Nexus 4, it simply kinda silently evaporated — by no means to get replaced or a lot as mentioned once more.8. IR blaster assist’Twas a time when having the ability to use your cellphone as a distant was a severe promoting level and level of differentiation for some Android device-makers. The function was outstanding sufficient that Google added official assist for it within the platform with 2013’s Android 4.4 KitKat launch.You can nonetheless discover some telephones that supply the flexibility to blast IR-style at the moment, however it’s an more and more niche-style possibility and a far cry from the mainstream, box-worthy bulletpoint it as soon as was.9. Android BeamAgain at its 2011 debut, Google’s Android Beam system was a real supply of pleasure — a “futuristic twist” that used the then-crazy-seeming new Near Field Communication expertise to allow you to faucet two telephones collectively and transmit data between ’em like a wizard.Let’s all say it collectively: Whoaaaaaaa… And, pardon my Keanu, however whoaaaaaaa once more: The downside: Despite the admirable advertising effort, Beam by no means fairly labored significantly nicely, and quite a few different methods for sharing proved to be less complicated and extra dependable. Beam formally received the boot with the arrival of Android 10 in 2019, and I’m fairly certain subsequent to nobody even observed.10. Daydream screensaversAnother Android 4.2 creation, Daydream launched the flexibility to set a customized screensaver that’d present up at any time when your cellphone was docked or charging. Boy, oh boy, was it the enterprise when it first arrived!Then, like the opposite options on this checklist, the highlight went away — and Daydream received buried and forgotten. So a lot, in reality, that when Google introduced Daydream because the title of its (now lifeless and gone) VR platform in 2016, hardly anybody appeared to make the connection.Following the overlapping launch of that different Daydream, the unique Daydream was quietly debranded and renamed merely to “Screen saver.” It nonetheless exists beneath a couple of layers within the Android system settings, the place tens of individuals discover it and put it to good use yearly.11. Google Now/Now On TapSome issues come and go for good cause — or no less than with comparatively minimal impression. But Google Now? Google Now was one thing particular. It was one thing distinctive. It was one thing that introduced Google’s distinctive data about our lives and our world collectively in a fantastically helpful method. And Google Now On Tap had the potential to take its energy even additional and alter the best way we interacted with Android. Google/Archive.org
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But proper when the Now companies had been getting ready to changing into invaluable, Google gave up on the ideas — with none actual fanfare or as a lot as an announcement. The Google Now feed finally morphed right into a glorified information stream and misplaced its soul and sense of goal. According to a 2015 report by the web site Recode, a lot of the unique Now crew left Google over frustration “that the product, born within Android, was shuttered into search” — and that, following the decreased position of Google founder and former CEO Larry Page, was not being handled as a precedence.And whereas Google has slowly — veeeeerrry sloooowly — added some Now-reminiscent components into an out-of-the-way space of the Google app often known as Snapshot, it is by no means managed to reclaim the momentum or the magic of the once-promising however prematurely deserted unique.The excellent news is that, nicely, that is Google we’re speaking about — so if we wait round lengthy sufficient, it is totally attainable issues will come full circle and no less than a few of these objects will find yourself falling again into favor once more. What can we are saying? For higher and typically for worse, flipping and flopping is simply a part of the Google method.Sign up for my weekly publication to get extra sensible suggestions, private suggestions, and plain-English perspective on the information that issues.[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]
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