Whenever a new Google android version arrives, a fresh game starts: Which of the lovingly referred to fresh system features will neglect to surpass its hype and finish up fading from the foreground – either to be eliminated completely or simply brushed apart and consigned to oblivion?

It looks like a funny issue to say, however when you look back again at Android’s history, you understand how many once-transformative-sounding functions finished up fizzling and getting forgotten immediately after their grand debuts. Some stay buried in the program while others vanished over time of inertia quietly, however they all share the truth that they’re nowhere close to the center-stage-worthy components they once were.

(I’ve been worried for some time that Android widgets might find yourself on this checklist, incidentally, but Apple’s high-user profile adoption of the idea this year makes myself hopeful that Google might start caring about any of it for the very first time since roughly 2011 again. Funny how that may happen, isn’t it?!)

So grab some snacks and get set for a nostalgia-filled trip – one bound to be peppered with an increase of when compared to a few “Oh, best, what happened to that ever?!” reactions.

1. Slices

Our first faded Google android feature found its method into our existence – theoretically, at the very least – back with 2018’s Google android 9.0 Pie launch. It was called, fittingly rather, Slices, also it sounded delicious at that time downright.

Slices “could eventually reshape just how we find details and activities within apps,” as you extraordinarily handsome and exceptionally modest article writer put it. In a nutshell, the system was likely to integrate bits of apps straight into Android’s search user interface – so you might search for something similar to “Lyft” in your house screen search container or via the Search engines Assistant and start to see the current wait around time for a trip, alongside icons to purchase a ride actually, right and there then. Or you could visit a movie on YouTube or another streaming services and play it ideal in the results, without leaving behind that screen ever.

Instead of opening person apps and digging around to get information and perform actions then, put simply, you’d simply use one particular, consistent system user interface to accomplish it all. It had been a whole new style of interaction, with unlimited possibilities and massive implications. And the underlying Slices system would rapidly “iterate,” Search engines promised, with that preliminary framework serving just as a starting place for what was ahead.

Now, i want to ask you this: When has been the final time you found anything resembling Slices doing his thing on your cell phone? The solution, I’m assuming, will be somewhere between “Uh, just what will be it, again?” and “Wait, does he actually expect loud me personally to respond out?” (Either response is flawlessly acceptable.)

The presssing issue with Slices, it appears, will be that the machine quite progressed from its early seed-of-an-idea condition never. It technically still exists, but in accordance with an interview published with 2 Android executives previous this season, Google hasn’t “found the fit for this just yet”:

We don’t believe we[‘ve] found the proper balance between hard work for the programmer and user functions to make it seem sensible yet. It’s something we’re still really thinking about. … I believe it’s just the facts of how exactly to apply it and make use of cases aren’t quite there yet.

Day so maybe one, Slices shall makes the way off this listing and into our virtual hearts. For the present time, though, it’s hard to create a far more appropriately dusty idea to start this collection.

2. Miracast

Mira-huh? Its name may be a distant memory for most people today, but a marquee function of Google’s 2012 Google android 4.2 Jelly Bean discharge was assistance for a then-new wi-fi streaming process called Miracast. Heck, it had been even described occasionally as being the major “highlight” of this year’s software.

Suffice it to state, Miracast quite caught on seeing that a standard never, and Search engines eventually pivoted to its proprietary Cast system while Android’s streaming set up of preference. With 2015’s Google android 6.0 Marshmallow release, Miracast officially entirely disappeared from the program, to the immense disappointment of seven people approximately.

3. Lock display widgets

Being able to place widgets on your own lock screen was the “killer feature” of 2012’s Google android 4.2.

JR

Two years later on, the ability itself was killed.

4. The tablet-specific user user interface

Way in 2011 back, Google made a large present of its new undertake the tablet user interface with the Google android 3.0 Honeycomb launch. Core system functions just like the navigation control keys, notifications, and app drawer all existed in corners of the display screen to create two-handed access simpler than ever before. It was a complete ” new world ” for large-screen ergonomics!

JR

Well, about a year for, anyway: In 2012, Google android 4.2 brought the more traditional phone-want UI to tablets back again. These full days, the once-touted tablet-specific UI life on just in a small number of long-abandoned relics like the Motorola Xoom (pour one out…) along with other old Android devices.

5. Live Folders

Here’s one for the real Android veterans in our midst: In the ancient period of 2009, Google’s Google android 1.5 Cupcake discharge brought an amazing-seeming function to the equation – a spiffy little somethin’ called Reside Folders.

As Search engines explained it in its Android Developers Blog, Live life Folders “let [apps] screen any way to obtain data on the house screen without forcing an individual to launch a credit card applicatoin.” That meant the folder could be experienced by you with the dynamic see of contacts, bookmarks, playlists, email, information stories, and so forth – and any noticeable adjustments to the related data seems in the folder in real-time. (Y’know, as though it were “live.” Obtain it?)

GoogleIf this idea sounds a lot just like a widget, that’s since it is. Assistance for third-celebration widgets was furthermore additional in Cupcake, and that setup finished up getting the more versatile and popular option clearly. Live Folders passed away with nary a peep alongside the arrival of 2011’s Honeycomb release.

6. An integral People hub

Search engines tooted its horn loudly concerning the relaunch and rebranding of Android’s Contacts app with 2011’s Android 4.0 Ice Lotion Sandwich release. Our mobile phones were about a lot more than contacts, the considering went, therefore it made more feeling to contact the app People – also to have it become a hub for several of our sociable communications.

INDIVIDUALS app aimed to create all your contacts’ social media connections into single, centralized profiles. You can visit a person’s tweets or, yes, even Google+ postings immediately – a “live windowpane into your social planet,” mainly because Google put it in the right time.

Sadly, renaming Contacts to Individuals mostly appeared to confuse individuals who couldn’t find out where their contacts had opted. By Lollipop, the app returned to its original title unceremoniously, also it didn’t take miss the complete “single hub” matter to fade, too – if even, here in 2020, this type of notion seems even more relevant and desperately needed than ever before.

7. A indigenous video-editing system

Video editing hasn’t exactly been among Android’s greatest strengths, therefore the advent of the native program app for film manipulation was a huge selling point for Honeycomb in 2011.

But oddly, Google appeared to give up its named Film Studio app virtually soon after its birth aptly. The app got very much in the form of updates or enhancements never, and after shipping and delivery sporadically with Android gadgets through 2012’s Nexus 4, it kinda&nbsp just;silently evaporated – to never be replaced roughly much as discussed once again.

8. IR blaster support

‘Twas a period when having the ability to use your telephone as a remote control was a serious feature and stage of differentiation for a few Android device-makers. The function was prominent good enough that Google added established support for this in the system with 2013’s Google android 4.4 KitKat release.

Today it is possible to still find some phones offering the opportunity to blast IR-style, but it’s an extremely niche-style choice and a long way off from the mainstream, box-worthy bulletpoint it was.

9. Android Beam

Back at its 2011 debut, Google’s Google android Beam system was an authentic way to obtain excitement – a “futuristic twist” which used the then-crazy-seeming brand-new Near Field Communication technologies to enable you to tap two phones jointly and transmit details between ’em such as a wizard.

Let’s all state it collectively: Whoaaaaaaa…

And, pardon my Keanu, but whoaaaaaaa again:

The problem: Regardless of the admirable advertising effort, Beam in no way worked particularly well very, and numerous additional systems for sharing became simpler and much more reliable. Beam formally got the shoe with the arrival of Google android 10 in 2019, and I’m confident next to no-one even noticed.

10. Daydream screensavers

Another Android 4.2 development, Daydream introduced the opportunity to set a custom made screensaver that’d arrive whenever your mobile phone was docked or charging. Boy, oh boy, had been it the business enterprise when it arrived!

Then, just like the other functions on this list, the spotlight went away – and Daydream got forgotten and buried. So much, actually, that whenever Google announced Daydream because the title of its (now lifeless and gone) VR system in 2016, anyone appeared to make the bond hardly.

Following overlapping launch associated with that other Daydream, the initial Daydream has been quietly debranded and renamed only to “Screen saver.” It exists beneath several layers in the Google android system settings still, each year where tens of individuals think it is and put it to great use.

11. Google Today/Right now On Tap

Some things arrive and go for justification – or at the very least with relatively minimum impact. But Google Today? Google was something specific Now. It had been something unique. It had been a thing that brought Google’s special understanding of our lives and the world jointly in a fantastically helpful way. And Google Right now On Tap had the potential to get its power even more and change just how we interacted with Google android.

Google/Archive.org

But right once the Now providers were about the brink to become invaluable, Google quit on the concepts – without the real fanfare or just as much as an announcement. The Google feed eventually morphed right into a glorified news stream and&nbsp Now;lost its soul and sense of purpose. In accordance with a 2015 record by the web site Recode, the majority of the original Now team still left Google over frustration “that the merchandise, born within Android, was shuttered into lookup” – and that, following decreased role of Search engines founder and ex – CEO Larry Page, was more time being treated as important no.

Even though Google slowly&nbsp has;- veeeeerrry sloooowly – additional some Now-reminiscent components into an out-of-the-way section of the Search engines app known as Snapshot, it’s never were able to reclaim the momentum or the magic of the once-promising but prematurely abandoned authentic.

Fortunately that, well, that is Google we’re talking about – so if we more than enough wait around long, it’s possible things should come complete circle and at the very least a few of these items find yourself falling back to favor again. So what can we say? For much better and for worse occasionally, flipping and flopping will be area of the Google way just.

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