Google I/O 2012 expectations

So, I happen to be one of the lucky 5,500-ish people who has a ticket to Google I/O 2012. That is, if the confirmation email I received is to be believed. This will mark the fourth time I've trekked to San Francisco and the Moscone Center for what has become one of the most anticipated technology events of the year. (In fact, you could probably make an argument that it is the most anticipated tech event, but I will leave you to decide how it ranks with CES and WWDC, etc.) But this year is different in a number of ways for me.

In the past, while I have always looked forward to the tech stuff, I/O has been an annual opportunity to meet friends from around the globe that I never see otherwise. This year, however, none of my friends are making the trek for I/O.

Also in the past, I have scheduled flights to and from SFO so that I would be there and back as quickly as possible (i.e., I arrive late afternoon/evening the day before and depart early morning the day after). However, this year, the airlines have left me with what is going to amount to a half day of nothing on either end of the trip. So I may actually have a chance to get out to see a couple of sights.

I suppose, though, that all of that is a moot point. And it's probably not why you're reading this post. With less than two weeks to go before the opening keynote of I/O 2012, you're looking for what I'm expecting to see and hear coming out of the Great Big G. So here are some thoughts that I've been contemplating.

• Android. It is a foregone conclusion that Google will use I/O, as it has each of the last three years, to preview the next iteration of the Android operating system. I expect we'll hear some astounding activation numbers and see some awesome developers spotlighted. But what I am really looking for is some sort of plan to stop Android fragmentation. Clearly, with any open platform, there is going to be fragmentation as companies try to distinguish their products, but when I bought a Samsung Galaxy S phone from my cell carrier 2 years ago, I expected that it would be stable and receive updates in a timely manner. To the contrary, while the phone is stable most of the time, I am still compelled to remove the battery every few days because it's frozen or going berzerk. The Froyo update, which was released nearly 9 months after the fact, was such a disaster that I skipped it altogether. And the Gingerbread update, while fixing some bugs, came only after Ice Cream Sandwich was already in the wind and included issues of its own. And then there was the fact that I had to use Samsung's Kies software to install the updates. Kies, however, does not run on my Mac. And I was never able to get it to perform the updates on a PC. So I want to see a mandate that Android phones will receive automatic OTA updates of at least the base platform in a timely manner.
• HTML5. With the introduction of MSIE9, HTML5 became a viable option for a wide variety of things. I am looking for Google and others to provide insight into what browsers will be doing to push the envelope over the next year. I'm particularly interested to hear about advanced filters in CSS3 and such.
• Chrome OS. I have been a fan of Chrome OS since it was first officially announced. I have a CR-48 that I use frequently. I had a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, but I gave it to someone who needed it. The lightweight platform has very real potential for those who live, primarily, in the cloud. However, adoption has been somewhat lackluster. I am therefore concerned that the big G will grow weary of maintaining two complete operating systems (i.e., Android and Chrome OS). So I will be listening for a sense of direction on that front. I hope that Chrome OS does not go the way of Wave and Buzz and such.
• Performance. Over the last couple of years, I have been spending increasing amounts of time working to optimize my web applications and sites for performance. It's like a challenge to trick out every bit of speed I can. (Some people do this with lawnmowers or cars; I do it with web stuff). So I'm looking to learn a lot about what the Chrome team and others are doing to ramp performance in the browser.
• Brainfreeze. I hope to learn so much that my brain seizes sometime during day 3 of I/O. That's right, they added an extra day!

So, that's about it for my expectations. I would love to hear what others are anticipating at I/O!