The Google I/O keynote could have been all about AI, however there have been a handful of different significant updates that didn’t make it to the principle stage. Along with updates coming to Google Pockets, the corporate’s developer classes additionally revealed helpful options that can roll out to smartwatches, the Google Play Retailer, and Google TV.
Listed below are among the updates Google didn’t spotlight through the keynote.
Stay Updates are coming to your smartwatch
Google is getting ready to carry Stay Updates — a characteristic that lets customers monitor the standing of sure actions in supply, rideshare, and navigation apps — to your smartwatch. We already knew about Google’s plans to carry it to smartphones with Android 16, however in a developer session noticed by Android Authority, Google’s Aaron Labiaga confirmed that it’ll additionally work on wearables “later in 2026.”
Apple already has the same characteristic, known as Stay Actions, that shows at-a-glance standing data on watchOS gadgets.
Google Pockets can take out your boarding go whenever you get to the airport
Google announced a bundle of upgrades for Google Pockets, together with a brand new “Close by Passes notification.” In the event you allow the characteristic, Google Pockets will immediate you to take out your go whenever you attain a location the place you would possibly want to make use of it, like a espresso store, airport, or gymnasium. “This notification serves as a direct gateway, permitting customers to seamlessly entry the related go with a single faucet,” Google says.
Moreover, Google revealed that it’s increasing digital IDs to Arkansas, Montana, Puerto Rico, and West Virginia, and can be including help for UK passports. It can additionally permit airways with loyalty playing cards “robotically push” boarding passes to customers’ wallets upon check-in.
Google Play will allow you to ask somebody to pay for you
The Google Play Retailer is adding a new “Ask another person to pay” button. The characteristic is precisely what it seems like: it can let customers “request purchases” from people outside their Google Family by sending them a fee hyperlink. It launched in India first, however now it’s coming to the US, Japan, Indonesia, and Mexico.
Google can be trying to streamline checkouts by letting customers purchase subscription add-ons with a base subscription with “one worth and one transaction.”
Moreover, Google is making an attempt to make it simpler to cease the rollout of buggy apps as properly. The corporate says it can let builders “halt fully-live releases” to stop “the distribution of problematic variations to new customers.” The Play Retailer can be letting builders improve their listings with a content material carousel and YouTube playlist, together with audio samples for well being and wellness app builders.
There are new subject pages, too, that can let customers flick through “well timed, related, and visually partaking content material” for exhibits, motion pictures, and sports activities on the Play Retailer.
Google and Samsung’s audio codec is coming to Google TV
Android 16 is coming to Google TV, introducing some Materials 3 Expressive design adjustments, according to 9to5Google. It additionally provides new options like MediaQualityManager, which is able to let apps robotically “take management over deciding on image profiles.” Google TV will help the Eclispa Audio codec, the spatial audio format that Google and Samsung are engaged on, as properly.