Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google I/O 2023

io.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 443 posts

Re: Google I/O 2023

#11

Post by capableweb »

gumballindie wrote: post #8
danwee wrote: post #2

I was very enthusiastic about Google I/O in the past (around the year 2010). Full of nice tech talks; I learned a lot. These years, I couldn't care less. It's all business talk. I guess developers are not the target audience anymore (and for newcomers, perhaps the "I/O" may be misleading).

Google is a factory and software is manufacturing. They want to sell their goods to managers not engineers. Makes sense if you think about it. Most of what google does is yesterday’s tech, the web isn’t new and they aren’t making bank by selling stuff to software devs. We want free stuff, preferably open source. There’s so much of it anyway that it has zero value. They might babble a bit about how ai can replace work…

All of that makes sense for Google in general, but Google I/O used to be explicitly a developer conference, with everything targeting developers, which no longer seems true.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#12

Post by tjpnz »

jefftk wrote: post #6
ugjka wrote: post #5

I stopped caring about I/O when it became just corporate talk

When was that? (I expect whatever year you give other people will say it was already just corporate talk before then)

The Android presentations in the early 2010s were something to get excited about.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#13

Post by i_love_cookies »

danwee wrote: post #2

I was very enthusiastic about Google I/O in the past (around the year 2010). Full of nice tech talks; I learned a lot. These years, I couldn't care less. It's all business talk. I guess developers are not the target audience anymore (and for newcomers, perhaps the "I/O" may be misleading).

[dead]

Re: Google I/O 2023

#15

Post by intrasight »

danwee wrote: post #2

I was very enthusiastic about Google I/O in the past (around the year 2010). Full of nice tech talks; I learned a lot. These years, I couldn't care less. It's all business talk. I guess developers are not the target audience anymore (and for newcomers, perhaps the "I/O" may be misleading).

Same. Google invited me to participate and have a booth - in 2010 or 2011 - because we were an early business adopter of their APIs. It was a cool event. I think the hot new tech that year was NaCl. I don't think startups get invited now just for using new Google tech. And is a reminder that this year's hot new tech will be forgotten in a few years.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#16

Post by packetlost »

capableweb wrote: post #11
gumballindie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a factory and software is manufacturing. They want to sell their goods to managers not engineers. Makes sense if you think about it. Most of what google does is yesterday’s tech, the web isn’t new and they aren’t making bank by selling stuff to software devs. We want free stuff, preferably open source. There’s so much of it anyway that it has zero value. They might babble a bit about how ai can replace work…

All of that makes sense for Google in general, but Google I/O used to be explicitly a developer conference, with everything targeting developers, which no longer seems true.

That was when Google thought they needed the support of the "developer" community that they don't write the paychecks for. Now they make nothing new or interesting, or on the off chance they do, they kill it after it proves not to be a cash cow.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#18

Post by clnq »

jefftk wrote: post #6
ugjka wrote: post #5

I stopped caring about I/O when it became just corporate talk

When was that? (I expect whatever year you give other people will say it was already just corporate talk before then)

Around 2013 is when I/Os became less about showing technological progress and more about corporate talk.

Examples of I/O topics before 2013: Android, Maps API, App Engine (cloud), Chrome, AJAX for their APIs, real-time collaboration/Wave, Google TV (early predecessor to Android TV), Chromebooks, Chrome Web Store, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Glass, Gmail updates, Google+, YouTube updates.

Most I/O topics after 2013 revolved around marginal improvements on a lot of things, like individual Android features and apps. And naturally, when there is so little to talk about, corporate speak fills the void.

There were still some interesting topics after 2013, especially if you follow some specific developments in the Android ecosystem. But there were very few groundbreaking topics. Google will probably talk about Bard this year, which has not been a huge success, but at least it's something bigger that harkens back to pre-2013 days.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#19

Post by azangru »

danwee wrote: post #2

I was very enthusiastic about Google I/O in the past (around the year 2010). Full of nice tech talks; I learned a lot. These years, I couldn't care less. It's all business talk. I guess developers are not the target audience anymore (and for newcomers, perhaps the "I/O" may be misleading).

I looked at the schedule for the web section, and some of the talks look useful. Much has been done in the browser space: new CSS capabilities and webgpu among them.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#20

Post by TimCTRL »

I for one benefited so much from Google Developer Groups while at University. Google made sure we learned how to build Android Apps, and consume API's and services like Maps, Firebase, etc. Overall, I gained a good understanding of how systems work, Thanks Google!

--From Uganda

Post reply on HN