(Credit: Google)
Android 17 is coming into focus now that Google has taken the wraps off much of its new mobile OS a week before Google I/O. While previous beta releases revealed architectural-level refinements, such as requiring app interfaces to adapt to the larger screens of foldable phones and tablets, the details dropped at today's Android Show event began with an extensive set of "Gemini Intelligence" AI features.
The Intel on Gemini Intelligence
Sometime this summer, Galaxy S26 or Google Pixel 10 owners will be able to assign the AI system tasks across apps. Google suggests automations such as booking a better spot in a spin class or looking up a class syllabus in Gmail and adding the required books to an online bookstore’s shopping cart.
“Most importantly, you remain in control: Gemini only acts on your command and stops the moment the task is complete. All that's left for you is the final confirmation," the company says.
Gemini Intelligence will be available on other devices later. Judging from past rollouts of on-device AI, however, older and less powerful phones won’t get all of these features.
In late June, Gemini will also surface in Chrome as a more powerful browsing assistant. An optional, enhanced autofill will pluck less obvious personal details, such as a passport or frequent-flyer number, from connected apps (a good password manager can already do that).
A new AI-powered “Create My Widget” will help you craft your own shortcuts to app features and sounds, a bit like Apple's Shortcuts tool in iOS. And Gemini Intelligence will surface in Rambler voice transcription that Google says will, uh, scrub out those, ahem, distracting verbal tics we all, like, sometimes exhibit.
Stopping Scams, Thwarting Theft, and Other Defenses
Google’s security and privacy news from today, however, isn’t confined to the next version of Android. A new feature designed to warn about scam calls impersonating banks will have Android check banking apps to see if they're actually calling you. If the app says no, or if the bank has marked a phone number as never used for outbound customer calls, Android will hang up. A blog post names Revolut, Itaú, and Nubank as Google's first partners.
(Credit: Google)Even semi-antique phones should be able to use this, as Google will ship it for Android versions as old as the 2020-vintage Android 11.
Google is also strengthening its Advanced Protection option, which turns on Android's highest security features. It will backport theft-deterrence tools such as automatic locking of a phone if its sensors detect sudden movement, suggesting somebody snatched it, to Android 10 “in markets with high demand,” including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the UK.
Android 17, meanwhile, will expand on theft protections introduced two years ago by having phones marked as lost by their owners shut off from new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections.
The next version of Android will feature two notable privacy upgrades. The lesser of them is finer-grained regulation of an app’s request for your location; you can grant it only a short-term peek at your precise location, without providing it ongoing awareness of your whereabouts.
The more important addition starts to catch up to a feature Apple shipped two years ago: A new contacts picker will let an app request access only to specific contacts, or even individual fields of a contact. Too many apps demand your entire contacts list for dubious benefits. ChatGPT may be the most egregious example, but WhatsApp requiring that just to back up your messages to your Google account is also ridiculous.
Finally, Android 17 will ship below-the-surface security enhancements, including support for post-quantum cryptography.
Entertainment-Minded; Mindful Entertainment
Google's announcements on Tuesday include an unusual set of features for a specific app: Instagram. Android 17 will let users of Meta’s media-sharing app capture in Ultra HDR color and use Android’s Night Sight low-light mode from inside Insta. After taking that shot or clip, they will also be able to tap into automatic upscaling, processed via on-device AI, and have distracting sounds like wind noise filtered out.
Google says these features are coming to “our most advanced Android devices,” so phone buyers on a budget will probably have the same Instagram as before.
Likewise, Pixel phones are first in line to get a new streamlined interface for recording reaction videos, starting later this summer, and Galaxy S26 and vivo X300 Ultra phones will be the first to support the APV (Advanced Professional Video) format developed by Google and Samsung.
Finally, a Pause Point feature offers a limited form of therapy for app overuse: If you designate an app as distracting, it will require you to wait 10 seconds, during which it suggests taking a deep breath or switching to something less shallow, like looking at photos. The screenshots provided, however, don’t reveal a shortcut to uninstall the app.
No Android announcement seems complete without news of new emoji, in this case, a redrawn “Noto 3D” set of characters. We hope they liven up your group chats a little.
And Beyond Phones
Just as last year’s I/O announcements covered devices outside the computing mainstream, Tuesday’s news dump goes beyond phone and tablet features and new Googlebook laptops. It also spotlights Google’s attempts to turn connected cars into another Android interface.
In cars with Android Auto phone-mirroring software, that dashboard interface picks up the Material 3 Expressive design introduced last year, adds more detailed “Immersive Navigation” guidance, and will be able to tap into on-phone Gemini Intelligence for automations like “Magic Cue” AI-assisted replies to texts and ordering food via DoorDash on the drive home.
While parked, you’ll be able to watch YouTube in 60 fps full HD on compatible vehicles from BMW, Ford, Genesis, Hyundai, Kia, Mahindra, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Škoda, Tata, and Volvo. Once the car is in motion, the playback will switch automatically to audio-only, with Dolby Atmos surround sound in many of those models.
Vehicles with Google’s software built-in will get live lane guidance that taps into the forward-looking cameras of cars and plain-language explanations of what to do about the weird light that just went on in the dashboard. GM is the most notable adopter, having decided in 2023 to dump Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay.
Google’s release also touts “access to meeting apps, including Zoom, this year,” which we can’t regard as much of an upgrade. Please keep your focus on driving, show some manners toward other people in the car, and save those calls for after the drive.