Android 11 to Pixel 4a, here’s what to expect from Google’s I/O 2020 conference

This year's Google I/O developer conference will be held between May 12 and May 14 at the company's headquarter in Mountain View.

The annual developer conference has traditionally been the launch pad for Google's next big software offerings including the latest iteration of Android. While we can safely predict the introduction of Android R aka Android 11 this year, the company is expected to showcase new hardware as well.

Last year, Google had launched Pixel 3a series at its I/O 2019 conference. Already, rumours of a Pixel 4a series have picked up pace ahead of the May developer conference.

According to reports, there will be as many as three Google Pixel 4a models. The base model is rumoured to come with Snapdragon 730 processor while other two models will have Snapdragon 765 processor with 5G support.

The top-end models could launch as Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a XL while the base model codenamed "sunfish Pixel" is still at a developmental stage. Google Pixel 4a series could come with a much better design including a punch-hole camera on the front, OLED display, 4GB RAM, and 64GB built-in storage.

It is worth noting that Google skipped India for the launch of Pixel 4 but it's likely to introduce the affordable Pixel 4a phones to India.

As far as Android 11 aka Android R goes, a developer preview version of the new OS iteration was recently spotted on a Google Pixel 4. Not much is known about the next Android iteration so far. Google usually launches the first beta of its next Android version at its I/O conferences.

Apart from Pixel 4a and Android 11, Google is likely to showcase improvements it has made to its core services such as Google Search, Google Assistant, Google Lens and AI-driven Duplex robo calling feature.

For last couple of years, Google has focused on integrating smarter machine learning algorithms to its software in the form of smart battery and smart display. We can expect Google to double down on the machine learning front.

Digital Wellbeing and privacy of users are likely to be under the spotlight at Google's I/O 2020 developer conference.