Apple thanks Google, for Pixel4

Google's October Pixel launch event grabs a lot of eyes from tech community. Google has always been a technology company, be it software or hardware. Their search engine needs no introduction, Google maps, Android, Google glasses, Wear OS, Chrome OS/Book, Google cloud. In addition they have a repository of frameworks that millions of developers around the globe use for their ideas, production and solutions. "Google" today is one of the most respected company in every possible way. This enormous presence, allows for access to enormous data be it about consumers or products. When such a company announces an event, it's nothing short of a festival, for people like me.

Let's shift our focus from Google to Pixel - Google's own mobile. Pixel's history has been mixed market. They have gained a lot of traction for one because it is owned by Google, but also for other reasons - Vanilla Android, no carrier based apps, reliable hardware and so forth. To know more, this article is a great read. Google does not share or should I say does not care to share a lot of sales stats. Although, we have a lot of claims from the fastest growing phone to increased market percentage. Their launch events, except for 2018 have been fun to be a part of.

Expectations

As I said, it's Google, what can be more hyper than that? This 2019 October event expectations were NOT high. Pixel 4 is the most leaked phone in the history of phone events. "Leak" is not the right word. Most of those share's came from Google itself. I wondered, if Google really needed an event of this magnitude, given all the leaks. They could have had a silent launch.

From the leaks we all knew, Pixel 4 did not carry highest or the best specs. It was boring to say the least. But, one always hopes for a surprise in events like this. If there was any company in the history to pull a magic, I bet it on Google. What people were looking forward in this event, was not the launch, but veracity of leaks and a possible surprise element. Unfortunately, our wish and hope was shattered from beginning.

Pixel is a flag ship phone from Google. It should be a trend setter for Android eco system. If you look in the past all the way from Nexus phones, you'll see that Google's phone hardware was solid even if not the best. Nexus phones were considered a benchmark so to say. Google not only gave a simple, great working hardware, but also conveyed a message, why you should buys Nexus line of products? There's a reason people love Pixel & Nexus devices.

Launch Event

It's not just this 2019 October event, even the one before was a little somber. There was more and more of philosophical discussions over attitude, stats and quality supremacy. At some point, it felt like a tech session more than a release event. When you are less than 5% in market, there is no way you can claim to know the market. That's numero 1 mistake. Google continues to do it. Google is better off beating its competitors by producing premier devices in its segment than dismissing "normal is boring". Honestly Pixel is not even in normal state (or in any state) to say that. Samsung beat its competition in multiple segments, One plus made a name for itself, by not doing things differently. If there's something Google can take away from this event, its this one-line "Google does not know what their customers expect".

October event opened by talking about a product state to release in 2020. Seriously? I'd think that should be the last item, like "one more thing....". Google had 3 to 4 products to be announced (including software, applications) but they choose to talk about an item that will come a year later. VERY WEIRD!!!

There was not a single piece of stats about Pixel's in the market. They did not share on what they learnt from last 3 years. They did not say how people use different features - like display time, skins/launchers, Google Actions, Squeeze feature.... In-spite of Google being the search giant and milky way in the universe of analytics no information on usage. Another disappointment!

Then they started to talk about design, camera and things that they had leaked a lot. Honestly this design is not even great, what's there to talk for an hour? Entire event was such a drag. This should have been an hour long event, but was dragged for 2 hours....sweat, sweat and more sweat

Phone hardware

Before you launch a product, you look at what's in the market and what my competitors are up to. You don't need to beat every product out there, but if you are in premium segment, you better show your might. If you buy anything online, you can see a comparison chart of the item you picked, against competitor products with features, price & quality. I'm not sure, if Pixel 4 would show up in any such comparison chart let alone being suggested to buy. The only place I think this will show up is in YouTube ads, because Google owns the space.

There's the big gorilla "Samsung", innovation giant "Vivo" and its subsidiary "One Plus", other big guns include LG, HTC, Nokia, Sony, Motorola...... I can't think of a single differentiation factor to help me choose Pixel 4 over others both within or outside the segment. Yeah, I know the s/w advantage, but manufacturers like NOKIA, One Plus, Motto, they roll out updates fast, may not be fast enough but fast enough for most cases.

A sweet spot that could have been leveraged is phone size. If you look at Android market as a whole, there are a lot of big & bigger phones. Not many medium to small sized phones. If Pixel wanted to be different, they could have taken some time effort to spread themselves in different sizes - without compromise to performance or battery life. But NO, din't do that. Which means, you lost 25% of interest on the product. It seems, Google is confused in its market strategy. It does not know if it wants to win over Apple or other Android carries. Beating Apple is a long distance, With Pixel 4, I don't think Google Can beat Pixel 2 or Pixel 3.

There were couple of big issues with Pixel in the past - Battery and BT. Neither of them got a mention or was talked about. Even worse, when most of Android industry scales up their battery, Google decided to down size. Why? OS improvements? better integrated h/w? On one side, Google says it improved OS performance to keep battery for all day and reduced Pixel 4's battery capacity. On the other side they increase battery capacity in Pixel 4 XL? Why? BTW, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, LG all have crossed 1.5 to 2 days battery life. while Pixel 4 struggle to drag for a day.

If there was one good news, it was 90Hz display. As you know, OnePlus has 3 phones with 90Hz display and have been talking about it for a year now. Samsung and Apple are talking about 120Hz in 2020. Although it's not new, a welcome addition to Pixel. But again, If Pixel is so nimble to automatically switch between different refresh rates, should you not add more battery to constantly monitor and switch? If not, aren't you hanging a RIP board around your neck.

Pixel 4's RAM size was even more puzzling. 6GB of RAM is lower than its contemporaries. We already have more phones at lesser price with higher RAM - 8 to 12GB. If Google claim's optimization, it should show stats to back their claim with games, apps and 3D render. Another disappointment.

Display & camera has always been shipshape for Pixel phones. They are Google's hallmark and rightfully so. With telephoto lens Google continues to excel in camera and its feature and a different one too. But by missing out on wide angle camera, I reckon, they missed another opportunity to take lead.

Finally face unlock and radar technology. This was the most disappointing factor. Trend seems to be move away from Face ID, but Google sees it other way. Carriers are thinking of proximity sensors, body presence and in some cases, bring back finger print. Google goes all out with stronger face ID. FACE-PALM. Well their claim to stronger Face ID failed with a serious bug. You can unlock Pixel 4 with your eyes closed. This open up a can of worms. Anyone can unlock your phone when you are sleeping .... May be they will fix it with an update sooner, but its ridiculous that the most touted feature, failed right away.

It seems to me that Google is addressing all Pixel 1 backlogs in Pixel 4 :) About radar technology, it does not complement voice. Google's strength is Google Action. They should sell it in every possible way. Radar technology is more of a distraction and certainly not a feature. I'm not a fan of gesture based technology, not because of historical reasons but for the following

1. This is Google's primary flagship phone, don't experiment on this. Put your best foot forward
2. How will you differentiate hand wave's when there are 2 or more people in a room
3. Can radar solution integrate with 3rd party options like SPen. Are there any 3rd party tools to interact with, may be WearOS or others? If you choose to take a bleeding edge route, go with it all the way

Oh, there's more - GSuite account issues, no more infinite Google storage, ear phones won't come along with the phone...... I think this is a hard and a deep fall for Google. They've scared their customers. It will take a long time to recover. For the moment people jumped have turned their focus to OnePlus, Samsung. HTC has had a quite year. May be they come back harder? Motto will start peek into niche market, may be? More possibilities open up with a flag ship phone like Pixel fail so badly and fall on its stomach.

Software

No updates except for Google Actions. Remember Android 10 has made subtle changes to UX that now feels more like iOS12. Hmmmm, did they not mock that UX in 2017-18. Google Action/Voice is the best in the industry and I love it, use it all the time. Care to talk about optimizations for Pixel 4 or performance? No answer. How are people using it in daily life, except those silly alarms and snooze......no answer. Google not only did not sell features people asked for, they are also under selling their best feature. Can't understand it......

Pricing

Pixel 4's price is a joke. People will any day take iPhone 11 over Pixel 4. If they are hardcore Android folks, they'll go to other carriers. Google should not have priced this any more than $600. And BTW, last 2 years, Google made a mess of itself with their discount sale. They reduced the price by almost $300 during holiday seasons, which irked a lot of early adopters. This year, even those interested in Pixel will not buy until holiday discount sale.

What can be done?

• One Pixel 4 free for another, sounds like one way to get some market acceptance
• Cover case with additional battery for Pixel 4 & XL version to double battery life, although phone may get bulkier. But worth it???
• Free Pixel buds
• I don't know. This list is much bigger. May be the best thing to do is START OVER......what do you say?