Android Circuit: Sony's Xperia Z3+ Mistake, Galaxy S6 Beats iPhone 6, Samsung Risks Apple's Anger

Taking a look back at seven days of news across the Android world, this week’s Android Circuit highlights a number of stories including the reveal of Android M, Google Now on Tap, Project Brillo and ‘The Internet of Things’, Google Photos spins out of Plus, Android loses market share to Apple, Samsung’s new camera control, The Sony Xperia Z3+, and how the Galaxy S6 beats the iPhone 6.

Google Reveals Android M, The Sixth Major Version Of The OS

As Google’s annual I/O developer conference opened, the big focus was on the next version of Android. Android M (which confectionary the M will be named after is still to be announced) brings in a sea of changes to Mountain View’s mobile operating system, and Forbes’ Gordon Kelly has taken a look at the differences between M and its predecessor, Android Lollipop (L):

Well, just like Apple’s upcoming iOS 9. Android M will also focus primarily on optimisation with speed and battery life central to the experience. That said there is still a lot of key differences between Android M and Android Lollipop, the first of which is a potential game changer.

Tapping Into The Contextual Market

The biggest change is Google ‘Now On Tap’. This moniker covers a sea of updates and improvements to the contextual ‘Google Now’ application which is currently available through a long-press on your Android smartphone’s home screen. It brings even more granularity to a search, with Google Now able to interpret data from any app that you are currently using. TechCrunch’s Frederic Lardinois explains what it will tap into:

Say you are playing a song in Spotify. Tapping and holding the home button will bring up more info about the song you are looking at. But you can also do a voice query and ask: “Who is the lead singer?” Google Now already knows what song is playing and using data from the Knowledge Graph project — it can (hopefully) answer your questions.
Similarly, this service can work its magic from Hangouts, for example. Say you are discussing “the new George Clooney movie” with a friend. Bringing up Now On Tap will give you more information about Tomorrowland, because Google knows that’s what you are talking about. Some of the information you can expect to see are movie times, reviews and maybe more information about the actors in the film. Because of Google’s App Indexing project, it can also recommend related applications (maybe IMDB or Flixster) and deep links into them (if you have them installed). If your friend had asked you to remember to buy tickets for the movie, Google Now would also have popped up a box to set a reminder for you.

And best of all (for Google) developers do not need to add in any more hooks, as the platform’s APIs provide enough data to work with (although extra meta-data can be supplied by an application if a developer wishes).
With search on mobile not generating the same level of revenue as search on desktop, this extra interaction should benefit Google’s bottom line… if there is enough buy-in from end users. Searching on what you are doing on your phone feels a touch creepy to me.