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Welcome to Pixelated episode 101. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Damian and Abner are at Google IO 2026 talking to two very special guests from Google. Siang Chow, VP of Android, and everyone's favorite Google Visionary, Deer Bone. Heads up that this is an IO recording, so this episode's audio quality is just a little different than usual and contains a couple of minor hiccups. Bear with us and we'll be back to our typical sound next week. With that said, let's dive into our chat live from Google IO right after this word from our sponsor, Proton. Grab your phone and take a look at your app drawer right now. You've probably found yourself relying on these same old
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Pixelated listeners can save 30% off an annual subscription to Proton Unlimited, which includes 500 GB of cloud storage, custom email domains, a dedicated customer support team, and so much more. It's what's best for your current phone, not whatever you were using back in 2013. Upgrade to Proton today and save 30% on your annual subscription by heading to proton.me/95google or by clicking the link in the show notes. That's proton.me/95. me/95google. Thanks to Proton for sponsoring Pixelated. Um, I just want to say this is a very special episode. This is episode 101 of Pixelated and we have our first guest, two very special guests. One is a crowd favorite. One is very, very, I guess,
knowledgeable, which is an understatement on all things Android. We, you know, that we love talking about Android here on Pixelated. I just want to welcome Shiang Chiao and Dabbon to the podcast. Thanks for joining me in a very hot room here at IO squirreled away in the background. Just tell me how you guys have been getting on today the last couple of days leading up to probably the biggest IO in a few years I guess. Yeah, I think we're getting on pretty okay. Like I was very excited about the keynote. There were some surprises for me in there. Um, but you know, we got to announce so much of our stuff at the Android show that, you know, I
wasn't like sitting and chill. We had Android announcements today for sure, but uh the sheer volume of it wasn't uh wasn't today. So, I got to actually like experience IO more than I usually do. Yeah, it was great seeing the reaction to the Android show and the things that landed really well. Yeah. Uh, and then, you know, we had saved Android Halo for today. And I think that, uh, to go along with the Agents, uh, specifically Gemini Spark. Um, and I thought that, uh, I thought that was pretty interesting as well and seeing the reaction to I'm going to jump on the Halo thing a little bit.
Like, you've teased this. Yeah. And I've tried to make some kind of assumptions on this. I know you probably won't be able to tell me this, but like, is this something that you want to do more with Android in general? And obviously in this era of kind of teasing potential product announcements, IO seems like the perfect place to do that because it has a lot of eyes on the prize more broadly than say Android on its own or is that just something that may or may not happen? You know, I think there's a couple of things, right? One, you know, we've been talking about how we're transitioning from an operating system to an intelligent system. So, we want to make sure that these kind of capabilities
when we're talking about agents, where we're talking about proactive functionality, we're talking about those kind of things that help you doing your workflow. So then you don't have to come to the AI or remember that you have assistance there. Yeah. Uh and then we can come to you. I think that's where we have to build this kind of functionality in. But the industry is moving so fast. The capabilities are moving so fast. The agents are getting so much better so much more quickly that we have to be able to uh you know react uh but also move very quickly. And I think being able to do these releases throughout the year, um, and pre-announcing, it wasn't meant necessarily to be just a tease, but you know, we're just saying, hey, look, all
this stuff came really fast and we want to make sure that we're keeping up with it. I mean, from my perspective, I quite like that there's a dedicated little bit of Android in an IO keynote that's so focused on AI, but my big kind of question is, is Android now developing to the point where AI is still so prominent within it that it feels like this brand new thing every year or is it just going to iterate almost slowly? I guess like until we get to this point where I mean from my perspective, it feels like and I have a prediction that Android is Gemini and vice versa. I think Gemini and our models can be a very nice platform as you can see you know people are building a lot of things on top of it but I think you know
applications still have a role in our lives right we still use them to get things done um and so you know I don't think that transition is going to be happening anytime soon where the operating system simply uh dissolves away into the model uh but I do think the models are getting extremely capable and you know one of the things that we try to do. And one of the reasons why so much of what we've done in Android is quote unquote behind the scenes is because we kind of try to make that technology disappear into the background. Like the user should not have to worry about what's happening where and how it looks like and all these shiny things. Uh but just you know things happen and you know things that
you would like to get done just happen faster. So, would you say in like an ideal world, Android looks more like Chrome where everything silently updates in the background and people don't necessarily need to care or know what version they're running on. Uh, I don't know if I would say that it looks more like Chrome. Um, I think I think Chrome is a very different interaction model than your um than the applications that are running on your device. a lot of the uh being able to very rapidly switch and get kind of immersive experience as you're either consuming content or getting something done uh in a particular creative app or a game or something like that. Uh I think it's still a very uh different
model especially on a mobile phone form factor versus a sit down posture of like a laptop. Kind of think of Chrome more as uh you know mouse and keyboard input. A lot of websites are optimized for that. Of course, there's a lot that are optimized for mobile as well, but those tend to be and I think people prefer still native applications on their mobile phones as opposed to wrapped websites. I'm going to lead into a little bit there with regards to like the future with Google book and that being part of Android. Like we saw last week Gemini intelligence, we're now seeing a lot more Gen UI stuff for like interfaces and things like that. Do we
kind of are we in a transition period now where potentially we're going to make the applications to bridge the gap maybe because I know Google books a brand new form factor. It is building upon what Android can currently do. Do we potentially see um Google books getting uh software from the user themselves rather than expecting potentially companies to come in and do that and make certain uh software and productivity suites and packages available. Is that something that you you think you might push yeah users to do more? I think the fact that um the Google books are built on an operating system that's built on the Android technologies thing allows us um to you know have a lot more flexibility with
respect to how people how users get to applications and services. Uh so whether they're developed by a partner a thirdparty developer or they're designing their own widget as an example where you instead of going to a particular website and hitting refresh every time they want that information like we just do that for them inside a widget and then they can uh put that on their on their space right um and you can you can imagine that as there are more areas that we decide and that we can build a high quality experience there could be other places where genui and there was a lot of genui that was shown on stage today um that more and more aspects of the user interface where they make sense of course and we can
where we can build a high quality uh interface would show up on the device as well. Yeah. I mean one of the benefits of Google book is like because it's built the OS is built on the Android technology stack the a bunch of the innovations that we are bringing for other form factors are easier to bring. So we can do create my widget on a Google book relatively quickly uh because like we can do those innovations in multiple form factors at once. With regards to like the create my widget thing, this is kind of more a fun question. Have you seen any anyone in your teams, whoever it is who's been testing this out internally or whether that be externally, have you meet seen anyone made any like really cursed
widgets? The kind of things kind of the kind of things like why would you want a widget for that? So uh I think I can say this on the watch the one of the things you can like you know pull into a create my widget is like certain health metrics. So you are free to display your heart rate next to anything that you could think of that may or may not spike your heart rate. So you could put it next to sports team or you know whatever stock price. Yeah price is a common one. Yeah. So, so nothing too drastically insane, just kind of like I guess it's data driven, is it? So, I think a lot of people would do it that way.
Yeah, I think when people were testing it internally in using it is they actually will use it for we have red teams that will test it for Yeah. some of the more trickier things. Yeah. But yeah, internally I think people are really just using it for things that are going to be most useful. What are you guys currently What have you I'm guessing you're both testing it right now, right? That'll be obvious an obvious question. What Tell me Tell me the most insane one you've made so far. insane, man. Why doesn't have to be insane? It could be boring. I gotta be honest with you.
Both boring. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, that's I'm a bit disappointed. Um I think if I was to do myself making Geni widgets, which is something I've I think I've actually posed this on the podcast before, haven't I? I've talked about it. So, I don't know if you guys have been listening secretly. Uh we talked about potentially having more like kind of um Gen AI within the actual OS of Android itself. like maybe you've already done AI uh icons. I was about to say wallpapers. That was a few years ago. Yeah. Um I think is widgets just the obvious place to start because I guess high quality widgets can be few and far between sadly I think on Android.
Well, I think it's a lot about um getting information you're looking for to you as uh more rapidly, right? cuz yeah, if you're trying to check something, you know, you go to search, you uh look for something, then you go to that page and then you're kind of hitting that refresh button and trying to get that data. Now, with the generated widgets, we go to that website for you, create that widget, and then pull that data from that website in order to have it on your widget. So, it's actually really cool technology to be able to do that and have that information surface to you anytime you need it.
Yeah, I can definitely see that with sports teams. is this that is a big one for me cuz my sports team the Google widget doesn't always work cuz they're so low down the English football pyramid as it were that I don't think it's on anybody's radar. The other thing about the create my widget that I've experienced is you know I set my home screen once and then I like don't change it for a year right but so but with create my widget like I'm I'm now using my home screen more. I'm like creating widgets. Oh, I don't need this anymore. Get rid of it. and then like make another screen that's like for this set of information and that set of information. And so I actually find myself moving away from
like, oh, this is just like a curated space that shows my wallpaper and my calendar widget and nothing else into a thing that's actually useful as more than just a like where is my folder for my like you know music icons or whatever. Yeah. I guess um I guess in terms of interactivity is that something as well that you start to see a lot of people doing more because I always find that static widgets are something that I'm like do I need this or do I need something that I'm going to be interacting with and opening an application instead? Yeah. Like foldables are a good example, right? I have the pixel temporal fold and I kind of feel like there's maybe a lack of high quality foldable widgets apart from those maybe the first party
ones. Is that something that obviously we didn't get to see it in the Android show, but is that something that can be a little bit more I guess tailored to that form factor? Um, you know, because the widgets that we create are resizable. I don't know if we actually ended up Yeah, we show just a little the basic resize, but you can specify what you'd like to see. It figures out how to lay it out, puts little icons and on there for you, but then it's it's fully resizable. So, you should be able to uh configure it for the size of the display you have, whether it's a foldable or slate.
And I guess the other thing I'll add is um you know, these are appearing on watches and phones. Yeah. Foldables, tablets, Google books, auto. Auto is a big one actually. And so, um you know, the layouts and the shapes and the, you know, the iconography that we're going to be able to do, we're going to want to make sure that it works well across all those form factors. And so, uh, there doesn't need to be a specific focus on just a foldable form factor because we're making these things adaptive across completes and foldables will just benefit from that by dent of being in that spectrum.
You mentioned Android Auto. I'm a huge fan of Android Auto. I love the siloed experience that you have in a vehicle and I understand that like and I kind of love that you guys have been paying attention to that this year. Have you seen people utilizing the w I don't know personally how I would use widgets in my car. But I guess once I get them and have them available, I can play around with it. And also, you guys tend to show in demos the landscape orientation of Android Auto. And I'm a portrait orientation vehicle. I have a Volvo. Is that something you can showcase a little bit more with portrait orientation Android Auto a little bit more?
Also, I also have a Volvo with the portrait orientation. So, I will advocate for people like shared happens. good cuz I like as much as I like I loved seeing the widget integration stuff like that in the uh Android show demos I was like how's this going to look on my screen because my screen looks completely different to everything that tends to be out there and I guess in the real world I'm kind of intrigued to how I will use them but I guess everyone uses them differently right have you seen any cool uh use utilizations of widgets in vehicles so far I haven't gotten on to the dog food for this one actually yet so I haven't had a chance to test it myself. Um I mean I imagine I'm going to I mean you've
already got like your ETAs on your maps and stuff, but um there I don't know there might be some um widgets I might use for like stores that are on my commute and like maybe they're they're opening and closing hours. I can swipe over like oh I can make it to the this you know I can go buy chicken on the way home or whatever. That's something I might try. But I got to experiment with it. Um, and that's the other thing about creating my widget is it's it's caused me to be more experimental, not just with my home screen and with what widgets I can make, but also like with Gemini actually, like I'm I as the models improve and as I'm using it more, I am trying things with it that I wouldn't have even six months ago.
Um, and it's it's opening up new things I can do with my devices that I never would have considered before. Yeah. The interesting thing about uh Create Vision, maybe I shouldn't call this out, but you know, it's it's mostly open. You get to ask for whatever you want. You know, you brought up wallpaper and you brought up uh icons. We don't let you just create whatever you want. There's a picker, right? We keep it pretty. And even our automations from early this year when we launched it with the Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10, like we constrained it to certain applications. But you know as the models are getting better as we are making sure
that from a safety privacy data security all those things we're starting to expand it more and you're going to be able to have a lot more uh capability when you're talking about cross app automations cross app data retrieval and going you know taking data from this application and using it over here becomes really useful especially in the auto use case. Yeah I can definitely see that. I think having that safety sided mentality makes the most sense. I think um without dropping CarPlay in it, I don't think the CarPlay experiences as nicely siloed to the vehicle. It feels very much like an extension of the phone, even though it kind of should be and shouldn't be at the same time. Um I want to ask one more question related to IO. what
announcements that you have seen today that maybe you weren't aware of ahead of IO have you been most interested in outside of your usual remit in this uh kind of Android sort space. So mine is universal cart. Uh I was not aware that was coming and um I think it's going to solve a real painoint for me that I like it's one of those things. It's like oh actually this is great. Like I've got carts on other you know stores and then I'll like save it for later blah. Um, but I'm, you know, I have a constant set of things that I'm like ambiently shopping for. Um, but not like actively shopping for. There's sometimes when I like I know I want to buy this specific thing.
I go to the store, I buy it, I go to the website and I buy it. Um, but like I my uh personal failing is I keep looking for like the ideal bag for me. This is your bag. Um, and so having a universal cart where like I just sort of like have a bunch of bags that I'm considering in there and it will be able to tell me, oh, there's a sale on this one or oh, you can get a deal on this one or you know, whatever. Like the idea of having a cart that works across multiple stores and that can actually reason on the things in the cart. They show the example of like your PC parts aren't compatible or whatever.
Um, I think that could end up being really useful. Well, I don't want to like I haven't used it yet, so I don't want to like I don't know hallucinate ideas of what the thing can do before I've actually used it, but I can see the potential there and I'm really excited about it. Yeah, I think I'm I'm kind of the bad I'm not a bad guy. Yeah, I do like the universal car, but if you want a different answer as well. So, last year for me was it was very clearly flow. That was very cool. Um this year, great upgrades to flow, but Pix is quite interesting. Google Pics because I have young kids and I'm terrible at making signs, flyers, these just that kind of content, right? And so something that helps me create all of that much easier um as a
Google product that uses all the information that I already have like that's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, if you want to talk about stuff that we like had some ideas that were coming like out of everything at IO, I think for me it's probably Spark that Sparks that's like going to be like the most but like you asked what we didn't know was coming and that was Yeah, we knew that was coming. We've both been using it. It's amazing. Yeah. Nice. I'm excited to try a lot of these services. I guess we have a lot to look forward to in the next three, four, five, maybe six months. Um, I know you guys love saying summer or coming later this year. Um, and I mean at risk of
putting you putting pressure on you guys, when do you think maybe later this before September we might see some of these features Gemini intelligence and things like that in coming to devices? Oh yeah, I think we said summer. It's okay. You should be able to figure out why summer. Yeah. But yeah, it's we fully expect uh these Gemini intelligence features, at least some of them to be available um where they can be. Yeah. Yeah. And just to be clear, S just said some of them like we're it we're going to be rolling these things out as they're ready over the course of the year. Um and so um you know, not everything uh will be like dropping on
like the very first Gemini Intelligence device day. Um so we're we were we're taking the time to make sure we get everything right. safety, privacy, security, all those are very important. Uh so we just need to make sure and of course the quality bar. If it only works like half the time or even 80% of the time, that's just not good enough. People stop using it, then you're you're you know, you shot your shot and that's that's it. Yeah. I'm excited to try Rambler because I'm the kind of person I Yeah. I was going to say we can't end on that down note. Like Rambler is great. Like everybody that switches to Rambler just will not switch back to this.
Yeah. really looking forward to trying that cuz I'm the kind of person who will I'm sure you've done it before and I think in your example on the in the Android show it was like a shopping list. Yeah. I'm so bad at like remembering something or it may be something that oh I've quickly checked in the cupboard and I know that it's not there and I'm excited to be able to test that and I know my partner will get really annoyed at me for doing it and be like why have you sent me a huge block of text um and it's already bad enough as it is but getting rid of those hums and ours is going to be fantastic for me. I don't know if you had any other questions
happening before we wrap up, but um it's a very hot room guys. We put we've put Der and Shang through this and um we are melting. So, thanks very much for joining us. I want to say thank you guys. It's been a pleasure. It's been a short one and uh hopefully we'll speak to you again on the podcast in future maybe. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Damon. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Pixelated, a 9to5 Google podcast. If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.
