Google I/O revealed more updates for Wallet, Wear OS, Google Play, and more

The Google I/O keynote might 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 a number of the updates Google didn’t spotlight in the course of the keynote.

Stay Updates are coming to your smartwatch

Google is making ready to convey Stay Updates — a function that lets customers track the status of certain activities in supply, rideshare, and navigation apps — to your smartwatch. We already knew about Google’s plans to convey it to smartphones with Android 16, however in a developer session noticed by Android Authority, Google’s Aaron Labiaga confirmed that it’s going to additionally work on wearables “later in 2026.”

Apple already has the same function, known as Stay Actions, that shows at-a-glance status information on watchOS devices.

Google Pockets can take out your boarding cross if you get to the airport

Google announced a bundle of upgrades for Google Pockets, together with a brand new “Close by Passes notification.” Should you allow the function, Google Pockets will immediate you to take out your cross if you attain a location the place you would possibly want to make use of it, like a espresso store, airport, or fitness center. “This notification serves as a direct gateway, permitting customers to seamlessly entry the related cross 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 assist for UK passports. It can additionally permit airways with loyalty playing cards to “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 function is precisely what it seems like: it would let customers “request purchases” from people outside their Google Family by sending them a cost 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 attempting to make it simpler to cease the rollout of buggy apps as effectively. The corporate says it would 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 matter pages, too, that can let customers flick thru “well timed, related, and visually partaking content material” for reveals, 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 modifications, according to 9to5Google. It additionally provides new options like MediaQualityManager, which can let apps robotically “take management over choosing image profiles.” Google TV will assist the Eclipsa Audio codec, the spatial audio format that Google and Samsung are working on, as effectively.