What you should know
- The Pixel line of phones developed its identity through nature-inspired color variants, unique visor aesthetic for the camera bump, and AI-inspired features.
- Google has given away a lot of its AI technology to Samsung for its Galaxy S24 series of phones, which seems to be a strategy to maintain a competitive edge.
- Google has invested a lot in the development of features for the Pixel line and has offered an outstanding support lifecycle, indicating that they aren’t banking on users upgrading every other year.
- The author speculates that Google may have something better to reveal in the future, as they have given away some of their phone line’s standout features to Samsung.
- The author believes that Google might be the company capable of pushing the boundaries of AI technology in the smartphone industry.
Full Story
The Pixel line found its identity when it started using nature-inspired colors and a unique visor aesthetic for the camera bump. It also incorporated a range of AI-inspired features. But now, Google has given a lot of that AI stuff to Samsung for its Galaxy S24 series of phones. What’s up with that? Is Samsung just trying to catch up?
Before 2023, AI still existed and a lot of phones used it. It wasn’t all about AI, though. Sometimes it was just clever, intelligent programming. Algorithms were doing their thing in the background to help you get the most out of your tech. Typing on an iPhone has felt good and proper since forever now, and that’s always been about clever programs doing accurate guesswork.
Then 2023 happened, and ChatGPT blew up. Suddenly, it became important to market features as AI, wherever applicable. Google spent a lot of time promoting the Pixel 8 line of phones via AI features, related to camera capabilities or otherwise. And from the Pixel 8 line moving forward, Google is offering a whopping seven years of software support and security updates. That’s going to become important a bit later.
A few months later, a little company from Cupertino that you may have heard of introduced the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It had a body made of titanium. Well, sort of, it was more so covered in titanium, but it makes for a great banner, doesn’t it? And, obviously, when you have that, you market it hard as all hell.
Imagine The Office, but it’s set in Cupertino.
Fast forward a couple of more months and it’s 2024. The first and possibly most impactful flagship Android smartphone of the year is introduced. It’s made by Samsung, a manufacturer with years upon years of experience in the industry. Samsung introduces the Galaxy S24, which has a variant made with titanium and a bunch of AI features sprinkled across the series. The phones come with seven years of OS upgrades and security updates. Sound familiar?
I mean, it’s cool, it’s great even! #NoHate But I expected more. Not just from Samsung, but from Google too. I can totally get why Samsung would want to climb on the AI bandwagon, but why would Google give away a huge chunk of the Pixel’s identity to one of its biggest competitors?
The Pixel ecosystem exists, but it still feels like a work in progress. Google already hired the people, thought up the projects, realized them, tested them, implemented them, made them work on a series of phones, and then had those released to the public. The marketing happened too, which I hear is a pretty costly affair. The Pixel 8 line is already offering an outstanding support lifecycle, meaning that Google isn’t exactly banking on you upgrading every other year. So, given the ultimate words of wisdom “money good”, I must ask: “income where”?
If Google spent all this time — and effort, and money — developing features, which were meant to raise up the Pixel line, why would it give those away… Unless it could be all part of a plan, that still aims to achieve that exact same thing?
Here’s the deal: if you are in need of a killer feature for your product and I give you one of mine, fully knowing that I have something better to reveal down the line, I’m essentially guaranteeing myself a certain degree of success.
So if I’m Google and I give you some of my phone line’s standout features, such as the power to delete stuff from your shots, the ability to move subjects in the frame around, the ability to remove reflections, photo blur, straightening up out a shot and then use generative fill, automatic suggestions for overall photo improvement, transcription and speaker labels for the Audio Recorder, then I must have some sort of ace up my sleeve, right?
And here’s where my crazy conspiracy theory comes in: I’m hyped about the Pixel 9 now. Because since all of these are no longer Pixel-exclusive features, can you imagine what Google might have in store for us for its upcoming line of phones?
Next up, the Pixel 9 creates friends for you. I’m joking. Am I?
I won’t pretend like I have any idea of what the Pixel 9 is going to be about. I don’t think that Google is going to aim at another revamp, because it would feel too soon. Thanks to the efforts of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 8, the surface-level details, such as form factor, general design and screen specs have been ironed out. I think that the focus will be on the inside.
And, obviously: AI is still the trend. At a bare minimum, I think that it would be fair to expect for Google to equip Pixel users with supercharged versions of the features mentioned above. But from there on out? The sky’s the limit, especially if Bard gets a green light to come out and play.
It’s been almost a full year since AI has been the talk of the town in the realm of tech and it already feels like we’re at a point of stagnation. The features? About the same. The limitations? Forced and tough to play around (for good reason). So it will take some real creativity and technical prowess to figure out how to make the most of this situation.
And you know what? I think that Google might be just the company, capable of pulling such a thing off. … And when it happens, I just hope that there’s a proper variant in proper blue, because I’m honestly tired of these mellow, cowardly colors.
