I/O 2015
32 announcements tracked. Reality Score: 41% shipped substantially as promised.
Shipped 8
Android Auto traction update
Updates and partner growth for Android Auto (originally unveiled at I/O 2014), with Hyundai shipping as the first OEM and dozens more on the way.
Hyundai delivered Android Auto via update in May 2015. Android Auto is now supported by 500+ vehicle models from essentially every major automaker and is one of Google's clearest long-term wins.
Android Fingerprint API
A standard fingerprint authentication API in Android M so any OEM sensor (and any app, including Android Pay) could use biometrics in a secure, consistent way.
Shipped with Marshmallow in October 2015, debuted on Nexus 5X/6P with 'Nexus Imprint', and became the industry baseline for Android biometrics. Later evolved into BiometricPrompt in Android P.
Android M (Marshmallow) Developer Preview
Next major Android version focused on polish: runtime permissions, Doze power management, App Standby, official fingerprint API, USB-C support, native app links and Now on Tap. Public release promised in Q3 2015.
Shipped on schedule as Android 6.0 Marshmallow on October 5, 2015 to Nexus 5/6/7/9/Player. All core platform features (runtime permissions, Doze, App Standby, fingerprint API) delivered as promised and remain in modern Android.
One of the few I/O 2015 promises that landed as advertised and stuck.
Android Studio 1.3 (C/C++ NDK support)
Big Android Studio release with first-class C/C++ editing via JetBrains' CLion engine, a faster Gradle plugin, data binding, and a new Vector Asset Studio.
Reached stable on July 30, 2015. Android Studio has gone on to become the default Android IDE; full NDK / C++ support has matured significantly since.
Android Wear Always-On apps, Wi-Fi, wrist gestures
Major Android Wear update: apps stay visible in low-power ambient mode, Wi-Fi support so the watch works without a tethered phone, new wrist-flick gestures to scroll cards.
All three rolled out via the 5.1.1 update in spring/summer 2015 and remained core Wear capabilities until the platform's reboot as Wear OS 3 in 2021.
Doze and App Standby
New Android M power-saving feature that puts a stationary, unplugged device into a deep-sleep state where apps can't wake the radio or run background work, promising up to 2x longer standby.
Shipped with Marshmallow in October 2015 and has been a permanent, regularly improved part of every Android release since (extended in N to apply on-the-go, in O with background limits, etc.).
Genuinely transformative for Android battery life.
Google Play 'Designed for Families' and age ratings
A new family section in the Play Store, age-based content ratings via IARC (ESRB/PEGI/etc.), curated kid-safe app program, and family-friendly filters.
Designed for Families launched May 28, 2015 as announced; IARC ratings rolled out as a developer requirement in 2015. The Family section still exists in Play and the rating system is universal.
Offline Google Maps
Full offline functionality — download an area and still get turn-by-turn driving navigation, search, and place info without a connection. Promised 'by the end of the year'.
Shipped on Android on November 10, 2015 and on iOS shortly after, exactly as promised. Has been a stable core Maps feature ever since.
Scaled back 3
Google Cast platform momentum and Cast for audio
1.5 billion stream sessions to date, 20,000 Cast-ready apps, and continued expansion via Cast for audio speakers (Sony, LG, Denon HEOS, Onkyo). New 2nd-gen Chromecast and audio-only Chromecast Audio teased.
2nd-gen Chromecast and Chromecast Audio launched September 2015. Chromecast Audio was discontinued in January 2019. Google Cast still powers the broader Chromecast / Google TV ecosystem today, though many Cast-for-audio third-party speakers have been EOL'd by their makers.
Cast survives; the audio sub-product was killed.
Google Photos (standalone) with free unlimited storage
A brand-new Google Photos product separated from Google+, with automatic organization, face/object/place recognition, assistant-generated creations, and 'free unlimited' high-quality photo and video backup forever.
Launched May 28, 2015 and became a runaway hit (1B+ users by 2019). However, the headline 'free unlimited' promise was killed: on November 11, 2020 Google announced that as of June 1, 2021, new uploads would count against the 15GB free quota. The product itself is alive and well; the promise is not.
Classic 'shipped but the killer feature was killed' story. Pixel 1-5 retained the exemption.
Project Soli (ATAP radar gestures)
A miniaturized 60 GHz radar chip from ATAP capable of recognizing sub-millimeter finger motion as gesture input. Demoed on-stage controlling a watch face with a virtual dial.
Took four years to ship, debuted in the Pixel 4 (October 2019) as 'Motion Sense' for air gestures and face unlock assist. Dropped from the Pixel 5 (2020) as 'too expensive'. Reappeared in the 2nd-gen Nest Hub (2021) for sleep tracking. No new flagship use since.
Shipped at much smaller scope than promised and quickly retreated.
Rebranded 5
Android Pay
A new NFC/tap-to-pay payments platform replacing Google Wallet, with an open API, Smart Lock support, and partnerships with the major US carriers (T-Mobile/Verizon/AT&T).
Launched September 11, 2015. Rebranded to Google Pay in January 2018, merging in Google Wallet's web features. In May 2022 Google announced a new Google Wallet app at I/O — partially de-merging the brands again. The underlying tap-to-pay service still works fine; the branding has been a mess.
Original promise (tap-to-pay) still delivered, just under different names.
Google Cloud Messaging for iOS and Chrome
GCM (Google's push notification service) extended beyond Android to iOS and Chrome, becoming a single cross-platform messaging backend for developers.
Cross-platform GCM rolled out in 2015. At I/O 2016 Google rebranded the whole stack as Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). GCM APIs were deprecated April 10, 2018 and the GCM server/client APIs were fully shut down May 29, 2019. FCM continues to deliver the original cross-platform push promise.
Lives on as FCM.
Google Cloud Test Lab
A cloud-based service for running automated tests of your Android app on a fleet of real, physical devices in Google's data centers, with automatic crash reports.
Rebranded and shipped at I/O 2016 as 'Firebase Test Lab for Android', then expanded to iOS in 2018. Still actively offered today as part of Firebase.
Promise delivered, under the Firebase brand.
I/O 2015 keynote framing: 'mobile-first, contextual computing'
Sundar Pichai (then SVP, Android/Chrome/Apps) framed the keynote around mobile dominance (1.4B active 30-day Android users) and 'in the moment' contextual help (Now on Tap, offline Maps, Photos).
The 'contextual assistant' narrative survived but the I/O 2015 vehicle (Now on Tap) didn't. The strategy was effectively rebooted at I/O 2016 with the launch of Google Assistant and the Google Home speaker. Looking back, I/O 2015 is a high-water mark for promised features that quietly died.
Strategic continuity via Assistant; the specific I/O 2015 products mostly didn't make it.
Smart Lock for Passwords
A cross-device password store: passwords saved in Chrome would sync to Android (and vice versa) and auto-fill into compatible apps, with a passwords.google.com management page.
Shipped via Google Play Services 7.5 in mid-2015 and the passwords.google.com web vault went live the same month. The feature has evolved into Google Password Manager (the Android-side Smart Lock for Passwords SDK was deprecated in 2022 for new development).
Still alive as Google Password Manager.
Vapor 1
Project Vault (ATAP secure microSD)
A full secure computer in a microSD form factor — ARM chip, 4GB sealed storage, NFC, hardware RNG, on-device crypto — that you could plug into any phone or PC for encrypted comms and file storage.
Google deployed about 500 prototypes internally, released a dev kit and open-sourced the design. No consumer product was ever sold. ATAP moved on.
Demo-ware. Never reached the public.
Killed 15
Android Wear for iOS
Android Wear watches (then LG Watch Urbane, Huawei Watch) would pair with iPhones via a companion iOS app, opening Wear to Apple users.
iOS app shipped August 31, 2015. From day one it was sharply limited: notifications only, no replies, no third-party apps, restricted watch faces, no Google services beyond very basic ones. Apple Watch crushed it. Wear OS for iOS has effectively been abandoned — modern Wear OS 3+ devices (Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch 4+) don't support iPhone at all.
Shipped but withered; new Wear OS dropped iOS support entirely.
App Indexing for iOS and deep links
Google Search would index content inside iOS apps (not just Android), opening links directly into native apps from search results, even for users who don't yet have the app.
Shipped through Google Search Central in 2015 with launch partners like Pinterest, Facebook and OpenTable. Eventually largely superseded by Firebase App Indexing (deprecated 2019) and the move to web-based deep linking via App Links / Universal Links and ultimately Firebase Dynamic Links (also being shut down in 2025).
The capability lives on via OS-level deep links; Google's branded SDK is dead.
Brillo (IoT OS)
An Android-based, stripped-down embedded OS aimed at IoT devices with as little as 32-64 MB of RAM. Developer preview promised in Q3 2015.
Quietly rebranded as 'Android Things' in late 2016. Android Things 1.0 shipped in May 2018, then in 2019 dropped support for low-memory IoT devices entirely and refocused on smart speakers/displays. The console shut down January 2022 and all data was deleted. Brillo as originally pitched — a real IoT OS for tiny devices — never delivered.
Rebrand that lost the original promise, then died.
Cardboard SDK for iOS
iOS support for the Cardboard SDK so developers (and the Cardboard demo app) could build VR experiences for iPhones, not just Android.
iOS Cardboard SDK and demo app shipped in 2015 and were extended into the broader Google VR SDK. Maintenance ended with Google's broader VR pullout; the SDK was open-sourced in November 2019 and is now an unmaintained open-source project.
Google Cardboard v2
Updated Cardboard viewer with a bigger phone slot (up to 6"), simpler assembly, and a capacitive button instead of a magnet. iOS support via a Cardboard SDK for Unity and a native iOS Cardboard app.
The new viewer and iOS support shipped in 2015. But Google quietly abandoned the platform: Daydream (Cardboard's premium successor) was killed in October 2019, the Cardboard SDK was open-sourced in November 2019, and the Google Store stopped selling Cardboard viewers on March 3, 2021. The whole VR push is dead.
Google Expeditions for schools
A classroom VR kit — 30 Cardboard viewers, a teacher tablet, and a curated catalog of guided virtual field trips. Pitched as VR's killer education use case.
Rolled out through the Expeditions Pioneer Program starting in late 2015. Google shut down the Expeditions app on June 30, 2021 and moved selected tours into Google Arts & Culture. Most school deployments lost their content; third parties had to pick up the pieces.
Google Now expansion (70+ partner apps, contextual cards)
Google Now would pull data from 70 third-party apps (Pandora, Lyft, Airbnb, etc.) to surface deeper contextual cards, in addition to the Now on Tap home-button feature.
Third-party Now cards did roll out in 2015-2016, but Google steadily wound Google Now down in favor of Google Assistant (2016 launch). 'Google Now' as a brand disappeared; Snapshot, the closest successor, was killed in early 2022. The Google Now Launcher was delisted in 2018 and stopped functioning in April 2023.
Google Spotlight Stories (immersive mobile shorts)
ATAP's interactive animated short-film platform, originally launched on Motorola, expanded with new films (Help, Special Delivery, Buggy Night) and a path to YouTube and Cardboard VR.
Spotlight Stories continued producing critically acclaimed shorts (Pearl won an Emmy and got an Oscar nomination). Google shut the studio down on March 14, 2019, with no clear successor.
Inbox by Gmail updates and public access
Inbox (launched Oct 2014 by invite) opened to everyone, with new features like trip bundling, customizable Snooze, undo send, and an Inbox API for developers.
Public access shipped in May 2015 as promised. But Google killed Inbox entirely on April 2, 2019, telling users to fall back to Gmail, which had absorbed most of Inbox's signature features (snooze, smart reply, bundles).
Jump (VR camera platform with GoPro)
A 16-camera circular rig (built with GoPro as the 'Odyssey'), a cloud-based stitching pipeline, and a YouTube playback path, all to enable easy stereoscopic 360 video production.
The GoPro Odyssey began shipping in May 2016 for $15,000; a YI Halo followed in 2017. The Jump cloud stitching service shut down on June 28, 2019, citing a declining user base. The rigs technically still work with third-party stitching software.
Now on Tap
Long-press the home button anywhere in Android M and Google Now would understand on-screen context, surfacing relevant cards, deep links and actions without you having to type a query. Pitched as the future of Google's assistant.
Shipped with Android 6.0 Marshmallow in October 2015 but the contextual understanding was shallow and depended on apps adopting the API. By 2017 Google rebranded it to 'Screen Search', stripped most of the intelligent contextual features, and folded what was left into the new Google Assistant.
The flagship Android M feature was effectively dead within two years, replaced by Assistant.
Polymer 1.0
First production release of Polymer, Google's web components library, billed as the future of building web UI on standards-based custom elements.
Polymer 1.0 shipped at I/O 2015 and was widely adopted internally (used to build YouTube's web UI). On May 2, 2018 Google moved Polymer into maintenance mode and announced the successor library lit-html / LitElement, later just 'Lit' (2021). The Polymer Project itself is effectively sunset; only Lit is recommended for new work.
Lit is the spiritual successor but Polymer itself is dead.
Project Jacquard (ATAP smart fabric)
ATAP demoed conductive yarn that could be woven into ordinary fabric, turning a jacket cuff into a touch surface. Levi's announced as launch partner for a smart commuter jacket.
Levi's Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard shipped in 2017; later expanded to Saint Laurent, Adidas/EA Sports, and a Levi's Trucker v2 in 2019. Google shut down the Jacquard companion app on April 24, 2023, bricking every existing Jacquard product. The technology never escaped the wearables-experiment ghetto.
Shipped, then bricked by app shutdown.
VR view for the web
An embeddable web/mobile component to drop 360° photos and videos into any web page or app, viewable as VR through Cardboard or as a pan-and-zoom widget on desktop.
VR View shipped in March 2016, slightly after promised. It lived on through the Google VR SDK, but with the rest of Google's VR efforts wound down by 2019-2021 it has fallen into disuse. Web-native solutions (three.js, A-Frame) have taken over.
Weave (IoT communications protocol)
A cross-device communications layer that would let Brillo devices, phones and cloud services discover and talk to each other. API publication promised in Q4 2015.
Lingered on through Android Things, but on December 19, 2019 Google announced it was joining Amazon, Apple and Zigbee in the 'Connected Home over IP' project (now Matter) and was contributing Weave to it. Weave as a standalone Google protocol was effectively retired in favor of Matter.
Folded into Matter; the original branded protocol is gone.