IN DEPTH: Google roadmap: All of awesome stuff we didn't see at IO

Google's vision for the future

Google is a search company that finds what I'm looking for in 0.38 seconds, but at Google IO, it didn't deliver all the results I had hoped for in its a two-and-a-half hour keynote.

Sure, as I sat in the Android-developer-packed audience, I saw Google Photos finally get its own app, Android M make a subdued debut and offline Maps make navigation easier.

Android Pay and Google Now on Tap pleased me, too, but I was more impressed with Project Jacquard, Project Soli and Project Ara from ATAP the next day.

It's just that Google IO 2015 didn't live up to the adrenaline-pumping excitement of the 2012 conference, which featured the ridiculous skydiving IO debut of Google Glass.

The good news? Google's roadmap has a lot more to offer than what we saw at last week's rather grounded event in San Francisco.

Google's self-driving car

I really wanted Google's self-driving car to roll out onto the Moscone Center stage all by itself. After all, Mercedes Benz let us drive (or not drive) around in its autonomous vehicle prototype.

That never happened at IO, though Google did talk about it for exactly 67 seconds at the very end of its keynote.

Its limited public appearances will change by the end of June. Google promises that its next-generation driverless car is going to be cruising around Mountain View this month.

Don't be fooled by its adorable look. Google knows why this is important: there were 33,000 car accident deaths in the US alone last year, which is almost 100 per day.

Think a self-driving car isn't "your thing?" Okay, but think about the 40 million blind and 285 million visually impaired people who can't drive a car.

This cute-as-a-button car relies on machine learning and is an improvement on Google's Prius and Lexus hybrid models, which have already driven more than one million miles.

There's still many more miles to go. Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president, was quick to point out that no self-driving accidents have been the fault of the driverless car.

Phones for 2015

It's a little bit too soon for new Nexus devices, so a refresh didn't happen at Google IO. But we've been hearing about replacements for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 phones for weeks.

LG may make a 5.2-inch Nexus with a Snapdragon 808 chip, while Huawei handles a 5.7-inch phablet with a Snapdragon 810 processor, according to the latest rumors.

Google expects new Android phones to start including the faster USB Type-C port soon, and there's no better way to set an example than by adding one to its own reference devices.

None of this appeared at Google IO, leaving Project Ara to act as the only unreleased phone hardware on stage. Sadly, it wasn't out on display for a hands on afterward.

While Project Ara is rumored to have its first trial run in August in Puerto Rico, the Nexus 5 and 6 are due for a refresh in November.

Don't hold your breath for a new Nexus 9. Current reports indicate it's not in the cards, which may be why the company gifted the solid-performing tablet to all Google IO attendees.

New Android Wear watches

Google IO 2014 marked the launch of the first Android Wear watches, the Samsung Gear Live and the original LG G Watch. Neither were outstanding.

Besting these rushed smartwatches a few months later were the Moto 360, Sony Smartwatch 3, Asus ZenWatch, LG G Watch R and LG Watch Urbane.

One year in, there was less Android Wear excitement at this Google IO, with the company repeating the news about the Android Wear 5.1.1 update with little to add.

However, there's more to show. Namely, the promised Tag Heuer and Fossil smartwatches. Both are expected to be out within the year.

The Asus ZenWatch 2 is doing its best impression of the Apple Watch with two sizes and better waterproof specs. Expect to see this Android Wear watch in September at IFA 2015.

Project Fi & Google Fiber

The irony wasn't lost on me: Google is planning ambitious cellular and fiber optic alternatives, but its Google IO Wi-Fi for press didn't work for anyone I spoke to at the keynote.

Luckily, for the even wider audiences of Google Project Fi and Google Fiber, those ambitious plans sound more promising. Here's what Google didn't bother to re-cap at its event.

Project Fi is poised to offer low monthly prices for calls, texts and data, with rollover packages on unused data, the likes of which are only offered by T-Mobile. And it's all off-contract.

Of course, the attractive Google Project Fi prices and no commitment policy does come with two catches: it currently only works with the Nexus 6 phone and invites are still rolling out.

The waiting game is also a big part of Google Fiber, which has slowly brought super-fast broadband and cable services to about 30,000 US subscribers.

Its delivers gigabit internet for $70 a month, which is the same price paid by US customers of other old-fashioned cable networks running a 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up.

While Google could make some money from these operations, getting more people online to use its services is the bigger benefit to its entire roadmap.

Messaging

There are few apps more important on a smartphone than messaging. But like much of Android, its messaging services are fragmented.

Google's Hangouts app now combines SMS and internet messages, which is great for people who don't want to avoid texting fees, but still want to check the occasional text in one app.

It's not all roses. Hangouts is a bloated, cumbersome app that you have to beg people to use instead of the slicker and more popular Apple iMessages or WhatsApp.

So Google introduced a new Messenger app on Nexus 6. It's a barebones SMS app that doesn't really solve the problem for providing a comprehensive messaging solution.

Google could strike the right balance in the future. It acquired Emu, a messaging app with a Siri-like built-in assistant last August. Google Now on Tap has some of its functionality.

If Google could harness Emu's usefulness and better integrate a cross-platform internet message and SMS system (without sending my computer-based messages through the confusing Google Voice number nobody knows about), then it could regain the ground it's lost.

Calendar

Google Calendar received an artful redesign last year with the introduction of a Material Design look, and it recently spread to iOS with its first official app.

The work isn't done, however. Google's roadmap still includes revamping the nine-year-old web interface and making use of another new acquisition: Timeful.

While it's still too early to know what Timeful will bring to Google's services, the start-up's past efforts have been about applying machine learning to smart scheduling.

That's a feature that could makes sense of appointment data found in Google's Inbox app and port it over to the Calendar or Tasks list.

Google already has Tasks, Keep and Reminders full of this same static information. The last thing it needs is another "dumb" to-do list, and Timeful may have the brains to do something different.

Chromecast 2

The only thing smaller than Chromecast's presence at IO is its price. There was an off-chance that Google could introduce a new version, but it hasn't happened - yet.

Chromecast is 22 months old, and there's more it could offer TV-watching cord cutters. A potential Chromecast 2 could bring 802.11 AC and 5GHz Wi-Fi to the app streaming stick.

Further down the line, I expect it to support video streams of 4K and 1080p 60fps. These are all feats of strength that Google's own YouTube can perform.

Enterprise shouldn't be left out of Chromecast's benefits, either. Google wants the meeting room-friendly dongle to "bring the richness of the 'second screen' to life," according to Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management, at a 2014 GigaOm event.

Other Chromecast 2 features we'd like to see on Google's roadmap? The ability to mirror iOS devices and natively bringing Amazon Instant Video to Chromecast and Android TV.

Google Glass 2

As I predicted, neither Google Glass nor its successor were a part of this year's Google IO keynote. I counted just 50 Explorers at the convention still donning the wearable computer.

Rumors about a more stylish Google Glass 2 making an appearance were unfounded. Why? It didn't make sense to resurrect a program that closed down this past January.

Google executives have admitted that Project Glass launched too early. If that was the case, then would why the company rush out a new version five months later? It wouldn't.

That's not to say Google Glass is dead. Far from it. Tony Fadell, Nest founder and the "father of the iPod" has been tasked with bringing it back - eventually.

While Google searches for a less obtrusive-looking mainstream strategy with Google Glass 2, it remains committed to its Google for Work program, serving enterprise needs.

Reinventing Google Glass is going to take time, which is why Google IO 2016 may be a better venue for the new product than any Google event this year.

Project Loon

Google is bringing us the internet by land with Google Fiber, by air with Project Fi and by even more air at a much higher altitude with Project Loon.

It's a far-reaching initiative that Sundar Pichai only briefly explained during the lengthy Google IO keynote. It's one part of Google's roadmap that deserves more attention.

Project Loon puts high-altitude balloons at the edge of space in an effort to beam the internet to hard-to-reach places, like rural areas.

Google can now deliver LTE speeds directly to handsets and can cover an area four times what it could before, roughly the size of the US state of Rhode Island.

It can connect balloons together so they can relay the internet far from a base station and keep them afloat for more than 100 days, breaking NASA's own 50-day record.

Project Loon is being tested right now in New Zealand, where it must be fascinating to stream Lord of the Rings in the middle of nowhere and still get a signal.

Google plan calls for connecting "the next billion people" through this experimental method. The only question is when we'll see that sky-high figure reached.

Smart contact lens

Google doesn't want to just analyze your search data, it wants to capture your tears for a very altruistic reason: making life with diabetes a little bit easier.

That's the noble idea behind the Google Contact Lens, and not the future of Google Glass like everyone first thought when this was announced last year.

As a shrunken wearable for the eye, it has a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor embedded between two layers of a soft contact lens.

In prototype form, it's been able to generate glucose readings once per second, and plans are to provide round-the-clock monitoring with LED warning lights in the future.

There's nothing easy or pain-free about living with diabetes, so this is one moonshot on the minds of 387 million people who suffer from the disease - a number that's expected to rise.

Google Calico

Google doesn't want to stop at curing diseases, it wants to stop death altogether. Or at least that's the broad idea behind the company's wildest project yet.

Calico is a new biotech company set up by Google and Apple chairman Arthur D. Levinson to research the biology of aging, and therapeutic approaches to diseases of aging.

"We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that'll totally change the world," said Google CEO Larry Page in 2013.

"But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it's very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it's not as big an advance as you might think."

Those are going to be bold words to live up to. The idea of not just Googling your symptoms to reach WebMD, but having the search company cure your old age is exciting and a bit frightening.

But the future, and answering to life's biggest riddle, shouldn't be calming.

• Here and now: What's the best phone of 2015? Hint: it's an Android.

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