List of Google April Fools' Day jokes

Piano & Guitar Analytics Playback

Google Analytics allows the user to playback their website statistics on piano and guitar.

Google Racing

Google announced a partnership with NASCAR to help create self-driving vehicles to compete in stock car racing.[135] The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's site was also changed to "I'm Steering Lucky."[136]

Gmail Tap

Gmail Tap for Android and iOS doubles typing speed with a revolutionary new keyboard.[137] The system involves a keyboard with three keys: Morse code "dash" and "dot", and a spacebar (along with backspace). Shortly before midnight, on March 31, 2012, added Gmail Tap[138]

YouTube contest for the best video

In YouTube's sixth April Fools' prank, YouTube joined forces with The Onion, a newspaper satire company, by claiming that it will "no longer accept new entries". YouTube began the process of selecting a winner on April 1, 2013, and would delete everything else. YouTube would go back online in 2023 to post the winning video and nothing else.[157] After that, on April 1, 2013, YouTube briefly repeated the "YouTube Collection" joke from April 1, 2012. They also broadcast a live ceremony in which two "submission coordinators" continuously read off the titles and descriptions of random videos (the "nominees") for twelve straight hours, claiming they would do hold the same ceremony every day for the next two years.[158]

Treasure Hunt on Google Maps

Google Maps allows the user to start a treasure hunt by selecting the "Treasure" view from the top right. Google Maps notes that the "system may not be able to display at higher resolutions than paper print" and that the user should "take care when unfolding the map to avoid ripping it." Also, the user is warned to 'beaware [sic] of pirates'.

Software Dogengineer

Google created an entry in their careers page looking for a dogengineer.

Google Maps Pokémon Challenge

Google joined forces with The Pokémon Company, Game Freak, and Nintendo to develop a new Google Maps app for the iOS and Android, which allowed users to capture Pokémon while exploring the real world using Google Maps.[171] The concept of the app would later be refined and released as Pokémon Go in 2016.[172]

Gmail Selfie

Pac-Maps

Google added a "Pac-Man View" to Google Maps, allowing users to play Pac-Man along real world streets. The bell and key were replaced by the map marker and the Street View "pegman" respectively. Created by John Tantalo, a software engineer at Google, and his wife Mary Radcliffe, an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Washington, Pac-Maps remained available for about ten days.[192]

Ingress Pacman

Niantic Labs, a startup internal to Google, added Pacman to the Ingress scanner.[193]

#ChromeSelfie

Google added a "Share a reaction" button to the Chrome mobile app menu, which lets the user take a half-selfie, half-

Gmail Mic Drop

A new feature was added to Gmail called "Mic Drop", which archived the email message as soon as it was sent and inserted a GIF of a Minion from the Despicable Me film series.[206] However, the feature immediately caused backlash. Many people complained about accidentally sending the GIF to people at businesses, which resulted in some people being dropped from job consideration or even being fired. Google removed the feature not long after, citing those reasons and a bug that caused the GIF to be sent after hitting the regular send button.[207][208]

Google Cloud Style Detection API

Google Cloud announced a new Machine Learning API called Style Detection, which allowed automatic identification and categorization of the fashion metadata in a given image.

Ms. Pac-Maps

Google has partly revived new Pac-Maps to allow users to play the popular video game Ms. Pac-Man along the streets of the world. Although, this time, instead of turning the player's current location into the game level, the player is taken to a random spot in the world. The mobile app for Maps also displays a button to play Ms. Pac-Maps.[222]

Google Wind

Google Netherlands says that "Holland[sic] is one of the greatest countries to live in, but the biggest downside is that it rains 145 days a year". They also stated that "it uses Machine Learning to recognize cloud patterns and orchestrate the network of windmills when rain is approaching. Test results look very promising." On April 1, they would be able to ensure clear skies for everyone in the Netherlands. This is an example of an attempt to control the weather locally.[223]

Google Japanese Input Puchi Puchi Version

Google Cloud Hummus API

Google Israel launched a "hummus API" to organize information, even hummus. It attempts to store their favorite type of hummus as information.[237][238]

Gboard Physical Handwriting Board

Google Japan, from the Google Japanese Input team, proposed a physical handwritten version of Gboard. The device was developed "to realize intuitive character input". It was also said in the video to stretch the feature to beyond keyboards, such as an abacus and even corn.[239][240]

Sssnakes on a map

Google Maps had a feature to play Snake in several cities. During the week of April Fools' Day, this was accessible in the app. Many cities were available, such as Cairo, London, San Francisco, São Paulo, Sydney, and Tokyo, and even the world. There was also a standalone site at snake.googlemaps.com.[246]

Google Tulip

Google Nederland released a video on YouTube about a new app allowing communication with tulips, by translating the root signals of tulips into spoken words.[247]

Google Calendar

Google Calendar invites a user to clear their schedule, one meeting at a time, with laser-sharp precision. Click the Gear icon, then select Play a game (alternatively, deep link is: https://calendar.google.com/?playagame)

Gboard Spoon Bending