Google I/O 2023, the tech giant's annual software developer conference, is just around the corner, and it might end up being the most impactful Google show in years. Very reliable rumors say Google is going to launch three pieces of hardware, two of which will almost certainly change the status quo of their markets, including ending a longstanding monopoly. On top of that, I'm willing to bet that Google, arguably the most influential and powerful champion of machine learning in the world, is going to have lots of new things to show off with Bard, its artificial intelligence chatbot. Considering that AI has been the hottest tech topic of the year so far and has shaken multiple industries to the core, Google will surely be looking to get at the forefront of that movement.
The Google Fold is going to end Samsung's monopoly where it matters most
Even though there are over a dozen foldable phone lines from no less than six companies worldwide, Samsung's never had meaningful foldable competition on a global scale. Most of them have been China-exclusive releases, and the small handful of devices that made it outside of China had limited availability in select European and Asian markets. And since North America is the highest spending mobile market on Earth, and U.S. tech media still drive the bulk of the discourse, Samsung had a virtual monopoly on the scene, resulting in the South Korean tech giant seemingly going on cruise control in recent years.
This year's Google I/O will likely put an end to that status quo, as all signs point to Google officially launching its first foldable. This phone, rumored to be named the Pixel Fold and going on sale as early as May, will almost certainly have wide North American retail availability, including all major U.S. carriers and retailers like Best Buy.
Even if the Google Pixel Fold ends up being rough around the edges (as is usually the case with Google's first-generation hardware), just its mere presence on U.S. store shelves next to Samsung's foldables will disrupt the market. One company having a market monopoly is never a good thing, and the Pixel Fold finally ends Samsung's.
A Google tablet means Android will be better optimized for tablets going forward
We're also likely to see a Google tablet, which the search giant already teased last year. I personally think the Google tablet looks very bland, and I wouldn't bet money that its hardware would be better than the best iPads, but it's still an intriguing and important product. This will be the official Android tablet, which means its software will hopefully be optimized for the tablet experience in ways that Android never has.
The latter has been a frustrating point for many of us tech reviewers who've covered Android tablets. Most of them, like the just-released OnePlus Pad, offer well-designed, polished hardware, but are held back by mediocre software. To put it bluntly, Android has never really been optimized for wide landscape screens. When you use a modern Android tablet that can double as a desk-bound work machine, you'll usually encounter absurd UI elements, like a notification box with six words spanning the entire width of a screen, or apps like Instagram opening sideways because it was designed for landscape screens.
Samsung is the only Android tablet maker that has attempted to find workarounds for Android's awkwardness with wide screens (via DeX, a sandbox UI), and it's the biggest reason why Samsung tablets are the only Android tablets (so far) that we can give high marks to. But DeX is a band-aid for a problem, not a fix. The fix must come from the maker of Android, and that fix is likely coming with the Google tablet.
Once Google designs to actually put some effort into optimizing Android for tablet experience, it won't just benefit the Pixel tablet, but the entire Android tablet ecosystem as a whole.
Bard won't sit quietly and let ChatGPT take all the shine
Artificial intelligence has been a hot tech topic in 2023, particularly, generative AI, which can generate (a.k.a. create) entirely new data like text, art, and music. Unless you've been off the internet, you've probably heard of ChatGPT and its scary ability to generate entire chunks of text that reads mostly natural. Or perhaps you've read about the AI-generated image of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket that went viral?
Google isn't sitting idly by as other companies grab all the headlines and buzz. Last month, Google launched Bard, its ChatGPT and Bing chat rival that can generate structured text responses to queries. And at I/O, Google will surely have more to unveil when it comes to Bard and generative AI as a whole.
As someone who writes words for a living, the idea that AI software can soon churn out entire articles like this is scary. But as a tech enthusiast, I'm excited to see what Google can pull off, given it has access to more data (of which artificial intelligence trains) than perhaps any other company on earth.
There will be even more unveiled at Google I/O
Of course, Google I/O will cover and unveil more things than just the three topics I listed above. There's the official unveiling of Android 14, and very likely a Pixel 7a. Google may have more information on the next Pixel Watch. But while mid-range phones, smartwatches, and Android features like "predictive back gestures" are nice to have, they're not as important or groundbreaking as the Google Pixel Fold or Bard. Whatever the case, Google I/O 2023 is shaping up to be an exciting one.