I/O 2013
30 announcements tracked. Reality Score: 57% shipped substantially as promised.
Shipped 10
Android 4.3 Jelly Bean (previewed via new Nexus 7 / Galaxy S4 GPE)
Indirectly previewed at I/O via the Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition and stock-Android emphasis; the next Jelly Bean update with Bluetooth LE, OpenGL ES 3.0, restricted profiles, SELinux and an internal App Ops privacy panel.
Android 4.3 launched July 24, 2013 at the 'Breakfast with Sundar Pichai' event in San Francisco, on the new 2013 Nexus 7. Long since superseded by later Android versions.
App Ops was hidden and pulled in Android 4.4.2.
Android Studio (early access preview)
A new Android-focused IDE built on IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, intended to replace Eclipse + ADT as the official Android development environment.
Released as an early access preview (v0.1) on May 16, 2013. Reached 1.0 in December 2014, became the official Android IDE soon after, and Google deprecated the Eclipse ADT plugin in 2015. Still the standard Android IDE 13 years later.
One of the most successful I/O 2013 announcements.
Chrome at 750M MAU and mobile-web push
Sundar Pichai announced Chrome had 750 million monthly active users (up from 450M a year earlier), with the goal to 'do to the mobile web what we did for the desktop web.'
Chrome kept growing — passed 1B users on mobile alone by 2015 and is by far the dominant browser on every major platform in 2026. Mobile-web parity, however, took much longer than implied.
Chrome Experiments: Racer and Roll It (multi-device mobile web)
Two Chrome multi-device experiments demoed at the keynote: Racer (a 5-device synchronised slot-car race in the browser) and Roll It (phone-as-controller skee ball), built on WebSockets, Canvas and HTML5 to showcase mobile web capability.
Both shipped publicly within weeks of I/O 2013. Roll It went on to win FWA's Site of the Month for July 2013. They remained in the Chrome Experiments gallery but are now historical curiosities rather than products.
Marketing/demo experiments, not products.
Fused Location, Geofencing and Activity Recognition APIs
Three new Google Play services location APIs: a battery-efficient Fused Location Provider, a Geofencing API, and an Activity Recognition API (still / walking / cycling / in-vehicle) that didn't require GPS.
Shipped via Google Play services soon after I/O 2013. All three APIs are still part of the standard Android developer toolkit in 2026, with Activity Recognition expanded over the years.
Google Compute Engine expanded availability and features
At I/O 2013, GCE moved out of limited preview with sub-hour billing, shared-core instance types, larger persistent disks, SDN-based networking and ISO/IEC 27001 certification, broadly available to developers.
Shipped as announced at I/O 2013 and reached general availability on December 2, 2013. Google Compute Engine is still the foundational IaaS layer of Google Cloud Platform.
Google Play game services
An Apple Game Center-style cross-platform service for Android (with iOS and web SDKs) offering achievements, leaderboards, cloud saves and multiplayer.
APIs shipped at I/O 2013 and the standalone Google Play Games mobile app launched on Android on July 24, 2013. The service is still alive and has since been extended with a Google Play Games on PC client, but the broader iOS SDK was deprecated and removed years later.
iOS support was wound down (Google deprecated the iOS SDK in 2017), but the core Android service is still actively maintained.
Google Play textbook rentals (Play Books)
At I/O 2013 Google said textbooks were coming to Google Play, with rentals at up to ~80% off versus purchase, partner publishers including Pearson, Wiley, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, Cengage and Random House.
Launched in August 2013 on web, Android and iOS with rentals, highlighting, bookmarks and night mode. Google Play Books still exists in 2026 and still offers textbook rentals, though the rest of Play for Education around it collapsed.
Play Developer Console: alpha/beta channels and staged rollouts
New Play Developer Console with private alpha and beta testing tracks, staged percentage rollouts of releases, professional app translation service, revenue graphs, optimisation tips, and referral tracking.
All of it shipped. Alpha/beta tracks and staged rollouts are still core Play Console features in 2026 (now with managed publishing, halt-rollout, etc.).
WebRTC progress (data channels, getUserMedia improvements)
Substantial I/O 2013 push for WebRTC across MediaStream / getUserMedia / RTCPeerConnection / RTCDataChannel, with TURN support, screencapture experiments and WebAudio integration, plus the promise of WebRTC powering experiences like Chrome Racer.
WebRTC progressed steadily, became a W3C/IETF standard (W3C Recommendation in January 2021) and is the backbone of Google Meet, Discord, Whereby, etc. RTCDataChannel shipped broadly in browsers.
Scaled back 2
Dart programming language progress
A strong Dart presence at I/O 2013 with new tooling, a Dart-to-JS compiler, Dart Editor, Dartium browser, package manager and Polymer.dart — pitched as a credible JavaScript replacement Google wanted in browsers.
Dart-in-the-browser ambitions died in March 2015 when Google announced Dart would no longer be integrated into Chrome and Dartium was eventually killed. Dart found a second life as the language behind Flutter (2017+) and is still actively developed in 2026.
Original 'replace JavaScript in browsers' promise abandoned; language survived via Flutter.
Google Maps complete redesign (web, Android, iOS, iPad)
An all-new Google Maps for desktop (vector/WebGL based, full-window, personalized) plus refreshed Android and iOS apps and a brand-new native Maps app for iPad coming summer 2013.
New web Maps shipped as an invite-only preview from I/O and went fully public in 2014. New Android Maps shipped July 10, 2013 and the new iOS app, including the first-ever native iPad Maps, launched July 16, 2013. The redesign lost some power-user features (terrain, embedded Street View overlays, My Places) at launch which were partially restored later.
Maps itself is still very much alive — the 'scaled-back' is because the original web preview removed features that long-time users relied on.
Rebranded 7
Conversational Search and 'Ok Google' hotwording in Chrome
Natural-language conversational voice search that talks back, with hands-free 'Ok Google' hotword activation on Chrome desktop — Amit Singhal called it 'the end of search as we know it.'
Voice search with spoken answers shipped to Chrome later in 2013. The 'Ok Google' hotwording in Chrome shipped as an experimental extension and was eventually removed in 2015 due to low usage. The underlying voice-and-context tech evolved into Google Assistant (2016) and then the Gemini-powered assistant.
Promise broadly delivered, but under Assistant/Gemini branding rather than as a Chrome feature; the standalone Chrome hotword feature was killed in October 2015.
Google Cast / Chromecast (teased)
Cross-device 'cast from any screen' concept teased via Chrome Experiments (Racer, Roll It) at I/O; the actual Chromecast hardware and Google Cast SDK weren't formally unveiled until July 24, 2013.
Chromecast launched July 24, 2013 at $35, became a runaway hit. The Cast SDK opened up to all developers in February 2014. The Chromecast hardware line was eventually retired in 2024 in favor of Google TV Streamer; the Google Cast protocol itself remains alive in Google TV and Android TV devices.
Original Chromecast dongle line discontinued in 2024 but Cast protocol carried into Google TV Streamer.
Google Cloud Messaging Cloud Connection Server (XMPP, upstream messaging)
Major upgrade to Google Cloud Messaging: persistent XMPP-based Cloud Connection Server, bi-directional and upstream messaging from device to server, notification sync across devices.
Shipped after I/O 2013. GCM was renamed/folded into Firebase Cloud Messaging in 2016, and the legacy GCM endpoints (including the XMPP CCS) were fully deprecated and shut down on June 20, 2024.
Functionality moved to Firebase Cloud Messaging; the original GCM service was eventually killed.
Google Now: reminders, new cards, and coming to Chrome desktop
Voice-set reminders ('remind me to call Katie next Wednesday'), new cards for books/music/TV/public transit, and Google Now coming to Chrome on desktop / ChromeOS.
Reminder cards and the new content cards shipped within weeks. Google Now for Chrome desktop landed in alpha in January 2014 and went GA in March 2014. Google Now itself was folded into the Google app feed (2016) and then Google Discover (2018), and the 'Now' brand was retired.
Functionality persists as Discover and Assistant; the Google Now Chrome desktop integration was removed in 2015.
Google Wallet Instant Buy API and Wallet Objects API
An Instant Buy Android API for one-tap in-app purchases and a Wallet Objects API to add loyalty cards, offers and tickets to Google Wallet.
Both shipped. Instant Buy evolved into Android Pay (2015), then Google Pay (2018), then back into the relaunched Google Wallet (2022). Wallet Objects API survived and is now the Google Wallet API for passes.
The brand has been rebooted multiple times; the underlying capabilities persist.
Google+ Photos: 15GB free, Auto Enhance, Auto Highlight, Auto Awesome
15GB free storage for full-size photos and unlimited storage at a standard resolution, plus a suite of automatic photo intelligence features (Auto Enhance, Auto Highlight, Auto Awesome animations/collages).
Shipped at I/O 2013 inside Google+. When Google Photos was spun out as a standalone product in May 2015, all of these features moved into Photos and are still there (Auto Awesome was renamed 'Assistant' creations). The Google+ container was killed in 2019.
The features survived; the Google+ wrapper did not.
Polymer and Web Components
Polymer, a new library built on the emerging Web Components standard, pitched as the future of UI on the web with polyfills so it works in today's browsers.
Polymer shipped at I/O 2013, reached 1.0 in 2015 and 3.0 in 2018. At I/O 2018 Google announced LitElement as the recommended successor; classic Polymer entered maintenance-only mode. Web Components themselves became a real, shipped browser standard.
The underlying Web Components vision delivered; Polymer the library was effectively succeeded by Lit.
Killed 11
Chromebook Pixel given to all I/O attendees (and refreshed)
Every I/O 2013 attendee received a Chromebook Pixel (the high-end Chrome OS laptop launched February 2013), reinforcing Google's commitment to premium Chrome OS hardware.
Pixel handed out at I/O 2013 as promised. A second-generation Chromebook Pixel followed in March 2015. The Pixel laptop line was discontinued; Google later launched the Pixelbook (2017) and Pixelbook Go (2019), both of which were also eventually discontinued and Google formally killed its own Chromebook hardware in 2022.
Hardware line ended; Chrome OS itself remains active on third-party Chromebooks.
Google Glass Explorer Edition (expanded enrollment)
Following the 2012 skydiving demo, Google used I/O 2013 sessions to expand the Glass Explorer program, with the $1,500 Explorer Edition shipping to developers and an open consumer launch teased for the future.
Explorer Edition shipped to developers from April 2013 and was opened up to all US consumers in May 2014. Google ended the Explorer program and pulled Glass from sale in January 2015. The hardware was repositioned for enterprise (Glass Enterprise Edition) before that too was killed in March 2023.
Consumer ambitions collapsed in 2015; enterprise version survived another eight years before being discontinued.
Google Hangouts (unified cross-platform messaging)
A single, cross-platform messaging service combining Google Talk, Google+ Messenger and Google+ Hangouts video into one product across iOS, Android and the web, with group video chat and group messaging.
Shipped at I/O on May 15, 2013 across iOS, Android and the web. Failed to absorb SMS cleanly, was eventually split into two enterprise-focused products (Chat for Workspace, Meet for video) and the consumer service was wound down. SMS integration was removed in May 2017, Google Voice integration left classic Hangouts in 2021, and the consumer service was fully shut down by November 2022.
A textbook 'unify everything' announcement that ended in a more fragmented messaging lineup than before.
Google Map Maker (continued investment messaging)
I/O 2013 reinforced Map Maker as Google's official crowdsourcing tool for global map edits, alongside the bigger Maps redesign — pitched as a long-term mapping bet.
Map Maker stayed alive but was repeatedly hit by vandalism and abuse (notably 2015). Google announced its shutdown in November 2016 and Map Maker fully closed on March 31, 2017. Contributions migrated to the Local Guides program inside Maps.
Google Maps JavaScript API v2 turn-down (alongside Maps overhaul)
Tied to the broader 2013 Maps overhaul: the older Maps JavaScript API v2 (deprecated since 2010) finally stopped working on May 19, 2013, days before I/O, forcing migration to v3.
v2 went away as scheduled. v3 has been the canonical Maps JavaScript API since (with periodic versioning bumps).
Included for context with the I/O 2013 Maps reset.
Google Play for Education
A curated Play store for K-12 with bulk app distribution to school-owned Android tablets, age/grade/subject filtering and education-friendly purchasing.
Launched in the US in November 2013. Google announced in February 2016 that it would stop selling new Play for Education licenses, effectively winding the program down by March 31, 2016. Chromebooks ate Android tablets in education.
Less than 2.5 years on the market.
Google Play Music All Access
On-demand subscription music streaming on top of Google Play Music for $9.99/month ($7.99 if you signed up before June 30), pitched by Google as 'radio without rules.'
Launched in the US on May 15, 2013, expanded internationally over the following years and grew into the main Google Play Music product. The service was retired in favor of YouTube Music: the music store became unavailable in October 2020 and the service was fully shut down in December 2020.
Library and playlists were migrated to YouTube Music, which inherited the catalog but launched as a separate brand.
Google+ redesign with 41 new features (cards Stream, Hangouts, Photos)
41 new Google+ features: a Pinterest-like multi-column card Stream, Hangouts integration, photo hashtags, related photos and a major Photos refresh.
Shipped at I/O 2013. The consumer version of Google+ was shut down on April 2, 2019 after a security bug and persistent low engagement. An enterprise-only version was rebranded into Google Currents (which itself shut down in 2023).
HTC One Google Play Edition
Companion to the Galaxy S4 Google Edition: an HTC One M7 running stock Android instead of HTC Sense, $599 on the Play Store, announced May 30 (days after I/O), shipping alongside the Galaxy S4 GPE.
Shipped June 26, 2013. Retired August 5, 2014, less than 14 months later.
Same fate as the Galaxy S4 GPE; Google Play Edition program never produced a credible second wave.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition
A Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, sold unlocked on the Google Play store for $649 starting June 26, 2013, with full LTE support on T-Mobile and AT&T.
Shipped on June 26, 2013 as promised. Removed from the Play Store in early 2015 with no successor (no Galaxy S5 Google Edition materialized). The wider Google Play Edition program was quietly wound down through 2014-2015.
The whole Google Play Edition concept lasted less than two years.
Send money as a Gmail attachment via Google Wallet
A $ button in Gmail compose to send money to anyone via Google Wallet — free from bank account, 2.9% fee on card; US-only initially, with the UK following.
Launched in the US in May 2013; rolled out in the UK later. The product was rebranded to Google Pay Send, then discontinued in 2020 when Google Pay was reworked; sending money in Gmail is no longer a built-in feature.