10 ms·

I popped in for a few minutes to verify something. I'm ... over this whole annual what's new presentation stuff. I just don't care anymore. And honestly the thr

I popped in for a few minutes to verify something. I'm ... over this whole annual what's new presentation stuff. I just don't care anymore. And honestly the three presenters I saw didn't even seem like they rehearsed at all. They just read from the prompter and tried to put excitement in their voice at the same time and it just fell flat.

cogman10 4y ago
They've become really disappointing. When Google IO started it was a nice fun tech presentation with a lot of side classes showing devs how to work with these new google technologies. Now, it's mostly just google introducing new products to the press.
- akira_f 4y ago
  For that dev part they have the developer keynote. Google just gave away many online training classes for free, which includes many many hands on coding labs.
- oofbey 4y ago
  When they introduce new products, do they say "and really we won't abandon this in 2 years" and keep a straight face, or do they just not even bother?
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    They push as if they firmly believe in it and then let it drop, see Project Tango, Sceneform, NDK packages,...
  - oofbey 4y ago
- akomtu 4y ago
  I doubt it's press who is the audience. People behind these projects want to be seen by SVPs and above, so they get those 5 minutes of attention, get their promos and immediately switch teams to chase the next promo.
- karmakaze 4y ago
  Okay so it wasn't just me. The I/O event in the past always had much interesting content. I was surprised to find that not a single one made me even consider reading about it.
CydeWeys 4y ago
Fwiw, I gave a much less important I/O presentation than this four years ago and I had to go through endless hours of prep/review/practice. I can't imagine they didn't rehearse it. Maybe they're just not great speakers? I doubt I am either.
systemvoltage 4y ago
I miss Steve Jobs era of keynotes. All keynotes are just so dull today. What went wrong?
- kadoban 4y ago
  They're a bit low on charismatic bullshitters right now, and the tech got better enough that gains are small.
- sidibe 4y ago
  If you like to gush over exciting announcements there's still Musk. Unfortunately it's been many years since his company actually built anything he announces
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I don’t like to gush over any leader and stop stuffing words in my mouth. I’m stating the “era” (2000-2010) keynotes were super fun, original and exciting. W̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶h̶o̶s̶t̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶? (You've edited your comment, thanks).
    - staunch 4y ago
      > What’s with so much hostility? There's a popular and cynical meme that people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are just marketing bullshitters that don't actually do anything useful. It's laughably false and easily disproved. And yet it seems to comfort cynical/pessimistic/unhappy/ignorant people, of which many exist, and so it prevails.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        Hmm, weird, I find Steve Jobs and Musk truly inspiring.
        TheRealNGenius 4y ago
natly 4y ago
I think tech in general is kinda stagnating at this point. We've plucked all the low hanging fruit, to get new revolutionary things will be much more slow going from here.
- lkxijlewlf 4y ago
  I think that's fine. Let's slow down and catch our breath.
hintymad 4y ago
It's probably because the new products are really incremental improvements over some niche. There's nothing wrong with that either. I don't expect that a company would churn out groundbreaking products year over year -- I certainly wish so, though, as it means new problems to tackle, more meaningful projects to work on, and more demand of engineers in the industry.
rvz 4y ago
Yes. It is always about what they don't tell you in these keynotes that is more interesting rather than what they are already announcing on stage. The only exception is the last announcement which is them trying to re-enter the race for AR/XR glasses which again some thought they gave up. This acquisition is the reason why they are trying again: [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmented-reality-glasses-start-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...
- reaperducer 4y ago
  AR/XR glasses Is "XR" a typo for VR, or is there another new R that I should learn about?
  - easrng 4y ago
    XR = catchall for VR and AR
izzydata 4y ago
I think Apple, Samsung and Google should give up on this whole iPhone 13 and Pixel 6 naming and numbering scheme and stop pretending like it is going to be an exciting brand new product every single year. They should name them more like cars where you can always expect there to be the latest revision each year, but you never expect it to be something completely new that you need to upgrade to. We need the iPhone (2023) and the Pixel (2023). You would just say you have "an iPhone" and if for whatever reason it is necessary you could say it is a 2023 model.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  >You would just say you have "an iPhone" They tried this with the iPad 3 IIRC. Was just "The New iPad" but they then reverted back the next year.
  - wlesieutre 4y ago
    They didn't really go back though, it's iPad (9th generation) instead of iPad 9. Not quite versionless naming like they use for Macs, but it's less versioned than the iPhone naming.
  - saghm 4y ago
    The problem with calling something "The New X" is that you basically can't come out with _another_ model after without making it confusing to differentiate between the "new" one and the "New" one. I think the main reason they felt they could try that is that they new they were not going to come out with any more "generic" iPads and instead have the Pro and Air models like they have for Macbooks.
- bsimpson 4y ago
  I work at Google and I don't always know which phone is which. It's a phone. It does phone things.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    And, really, how many more phone things do you need it to do? Will doing more phone things make it noticeably better?
azangru 4y ago
> And honestly the three presenters I saw didn't even seem like they rehearsed at all. They just read from the prompter and tried to put excitement in their voice at the same time and it just fell flat. Yes. I haven't yet watched talks from this IO, but it was exactly my impression from last year's IO and Chrome Dev Summit. There are some speakers, mostly dev rels, who clearly love speaking and are great at it; but most of the speakers were just woodenly reading from the screen. As if they are unaware that written language is different from spoken language, and it takes rare skills to write a speech and then read it back to the audience in such a way that would sound natural and engaging.
jonas21 4y ago
Yeah, 90% of it was boring, but the Immersive View in Google Maps looks pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qfp8TAg9tg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qfp8TAg9tg
pjmlp 4y ago
Same here, I used to care, but since Google has never seriously pushed for updates (Treble doesn't require OEMs to actually care to update), gave up on keeping Java support up to date, I lost interest. As long as Chrome and the NDK stay around, I am good and don't care anymore whatever version I can only use 5 years from now with already deprecated APIs.
dudus 4y ago
Yo me it just seems like everyone is following a playbook for presentations based on some bullshit science and pairing that with the best Steve Jobs impersonation you can.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I used to be a professional speaker (Amazon, VMware, etc), and presented at more than 600 events. They said I was pretty good. Point is, after years of perfecting my craft, I can instantly spot the difference between a good presenter and a "fake" / bad one. Most people are bad. Really. Sorry to be blunt, but it is what it is. A bit of training and a bit of rehearsal would go a long way. I am shocked that big events like this one do not try to invest more in preparing the speakers. It wouldn't take much.
- tsunamifury 4y ago
  The audience is also able to detect professional speakers like yourself, with calculated hand movements and inauthentic voice pitch calibration and is equally turned off -- its just that professional speakers so rarely admit that since they make money off saying otherwise. The problem here is just that the topics aren't compelling enough. And you rarely get a good speaker who also knows the topic well so as to be perceived as authentic. Look at Elon's keynotes, they are TERRIBLE from a public speaking perspective, but excellent content that generally is interesting. Also no one perceives them as inauthentic, just off-hand-ish. It works.
  - simonebrunozzi 4y ago
    > inauthentic voice pitch That would be a "wannabe" professional speaker, not an actual one, imho.
    - tsunamifury 4y ago
      Sure. No true Scotsman and all. the pros are cheesy as hell.
dbbk 4y ago
I've watched a lot of tech presentations and though I don't care for their products, Panos Panay when he talks about Surface stuff is the gold standard. That guy just exudes charisma and you can tell that he's genuinely passionate about it.

cogman10 4y ago

They've become really disappointing. When Google IO started it was a nice fun tech presentation with a lot of side classes showing devs how to work with these new google technologies. Now, it's mostly just google introducing new products to the press.

akira_f 4y ago
For that dev part they have the developer keynote. Google just gave away many online training classes for free, which includes many many hands on coding labs.
oofbey 4y ago
When they introduce new products, do they say "and really we won't abandon this in 2 years" and keep a straight face, or do they just not even bother?
- pjmlp 4y ago
  They push as if they firmly believe in it and then let it drop, see Project Tango, Sceneform, NDK packages,...
- oofbey 4y ago
akomtu 4y ago
I doubt it's press who is the audience. People behind these projects want to be seen by SVPs and above, so they get those 5 minutes of attention, get their promos and immediately switch teams to chase the next promo.
karmakaze 4y ago
Okay so it wasn't just me. The I/O event in the past always had much interesting content. I was surprised to find that not a single one made me even consider reading about it.

CydeWeys 4y ago

Fwiw, I gave a much less important I/O presentation than this four years ago and I had to go through endless hours of prep/review/practice. I can't imagine they didn't rehearse it. Maybe they're just not great speakers? I doubt I am either.

systemvoltage 4y ago

I miss Steve Jobs era of keynotes. All keynotes are just so dull today. What went wrong?

kadoban 4y ago
They're a bit low on charismatic bullshitters right now, and the tech got better enough that gains are small.
sidibe 4y ago
If you like to gush over exciting announcements there's still Musk. Unfortunately it's been many years since his company actually built anything he announces
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I don’t like to gush over any leader and stop stuffing words in my mouth. I’m stating the “era” (2000-2010) keynotes were super fun, original and exciting. W̶h̶a̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶h̶o̶s̶t̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶? (You've edited your comment, thanks).
  - staunch 4y ago
    > What’s with so much hostility? There's a popular and cynical meme that people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are just marketing bullshitters that don't actually do anything useful. It's laughably false and easily disproved. And yet it seems to comfort cynical/pessimistic/unhappy/ignorant people, of which many exist, and so it prevails.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      Hmm, weird, I find Steve Jobs and Musk truly inspiring.
      - TheRealNGenius 4y ago

natly 4y ago

I think tech in general is kinda stagnating at this point. We've plucked all the low hanging fruit, to get new revolutionary things will be much more slow going from here.

lkxijlewlf 4y ago
I think that's fine. Let's slow down and catch our breath.

hintymad 4y ago

It's probably because the new products are really incremental improvements over some niche. There's nothing wrong with that either. I don't expect that a company would churn out groundbreaking products year over year -- I certainly wish so, though, as it means new problems to tackle, more meaningful projects to work on, and more demand of engineers in the industry.

rvz 4y ago

Yes. It is always about what they don't tell you in these keynotes that is more interesting rather than what they are already announcing on stage. The only exception is the last announcement which is them trying to re-enter the race for AR/XR glasses which again some thought they gave up. This acquisition is the reason why they are trying again: [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmented-reality-glasses-start-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...

reaperducer 4y ago
AR/XR glasses Is "XR" a typo for VR, or is there another new R that I should learn about?
- easrng 4y ago
  XR = catchall for VR and AR

izzydata 4y ago

I think Apple, Samsung and Google should give up on this whole iPhone 13 and Pixel 6 naming and numbering scheme and stop pretending like it is going to be an exciting brand new product every single year. They should name them more like cars where you can always expect there to be the latest revision each year, but you never expect it to be something completely new that you need to upgrade to. We need the iPhone (2023) and the Pixel (2023). You would just say you have "an iPhone" and if for whatever reason it is necessary you could say it is a 2023 model.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
>You would just say you have "an iPhone" They tried this with the iPad 3 IIRC. Was just "The New iPad" but they then reverted back the next year.
- wlesieutre 4y ago
  They didn't really go back though, it's iPad (9th generation) instead of iPad 9. Not quite versionless naming like they use for Macs, but it's less versioned than the iPhone naming.
- saghm 4y ago
  The problem with calling something "The New X" is that you basically can't come out with _another_ model after without making it confusing to differentiate between the "new" one and the "New" one. I think the main reason they felt they could try that is that they new they were not going to come out with any more "generic" iPads and instead have the Pro and Air models like they have for Macbooks.
bsimpson 4y ago
I work at Google and I don't always know which phone is which. It's a phone. It does phone things.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  And, really, how many more phone things do you need it to do? Will doing more phone things make it noticeably better?

azangru 4y ago

> And honestly the three presenters I saw didn't even seem like they rehearsed at all. They just read from the prompter and tried to put excitement in their voice at the same time and it just fell flat. Yes. I haven't yet watched talks from this IO, but it was exactly my impression from last year's IO and Chrome Dev Summit. There are some speakers, mostly dev rels, who clearly love speaking and are great at it; but most of the speakers were just woodenly reading from the screen. As if they are unaware that written language is different from spoken language, and it takes rare skills to write a speech and then read it back to the audience in such a way that would sound natural and engaging.

jonas21 4y ago

Yeah, 90% of it was boring, but the Immersive View in Google Maps looks pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qfp8TAg9tg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qfp8TAg9tg

pjmlp 4y ago

Same here, I used to care, but since Google has never seriously pushed for updates (Treble doesn't require OEMs to actually care to update), gave up on keeping Java support up to date, I lost interest. As long as Chrome and the NDK stay around, I am good and don't care anymore whatever version I can only use 5 years from now with already deprecated APIs.

dudus 4y ago

Yo me it just seems like everyone is following a playbook for presentations based on some bullshit science and pairing that with the best Steve Jobs impersonation you can.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I used to be a professional speaker (Amazon, VMware, etc), and presented at more than 600 events. They said I was pretty good. Point is, after years of perfecting my craft, I can instantly spot the difference between a good presenter and a "fake" / bad one. Most people are bad. Really. Sorry to be blunt, but it is what it is. A bit of training and a bit of rehearsal would go a long way. I am shocked that big events like this one do not try to invest more in preparing the speakers. It wouldn't take much.

tsunamifury 4y ago
The audience is also able to detect professional speakers like yourself, with calculated hand movements and inauthentic voice pitch calibration and is equally turned off -- its just that professional speakers so rarely admit that since they make money off saying otherwise. The problem here is just that the topics aren't compelling enough. And you rarely get a good speaker who also knows the topic well so as to be perceived as authentic. Look at Elon's keynotes, they are TERRIBLE from a public speaking perspective, but excellent content that generally is interesting. Also no one perceives them as inauthentic, just off-hand-ish. It works.
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  > inauthentic voice pitch That would be a "wannabe" professional speaker, not an actual one, imho.
  - tsunamifury 4y ago
    Sure. No true Scotsman and all. the pros are cheesy as hell.

dbbk 4y ago

I've watched a lot of tech presentations and though I don't care for their products, Panos Panay when he talks about Surface stuff is the gold standard. That guy just exudes charisma and you can tell that he's genuinely passionate about it.