The company even confirmed that Samsung intended to launch its foldable phone sometime in early 2019. You'll hear more about that at Samsung's developer conference (which is just starting as we write this), but it's good news if you want to see just what Google is talking about.

To some extent, this is a defensive move. Google has grappled with fragmentation before as device makers (including Samsung) implemented major features before they were built into Android, such as split-screen views and picture-in-picture modes. While that did give you features years in advance, it also forced developers to write code for specific devices, increasing their work or leading them to skip features entirely. Google is nipping that problem in the bud this time around, since most foldable Android gadgets will honor the official approach as a matter of course.