‘We have some amazing researchers’

Continued from FP1

“Partners get an operating system from Google and then they make their hardware choices and their choices with what they do with software or AI themselves,” Mario Querioz, Google’s vice-president of hardware product management, said in an interview prior to the keynote.

“With Pixel, you really have the best package of Google experiences built into one phone where we have really tightly coupled the operating system with the hardware, sensors and Google’s AI.”

The Pixel 2 will come in 64GB ($899) and 128GB ($1,029) models, in Just Black, Clearly White and Kinda Blue colours. Meanwhile, the Pixel 2 XL will be $1,159 (64GB) and $1,289 (128GB) and available in Just Black and Black and White. Pre-orders start Wednesday through Google, all major carriers and select retailers.

Other new products that were announced as coming to Canada are Google’s first wireless Bluetooth headset, a mini Google Home speaker, Pixelbook laptop (and Pixelbook Pen) and an updated Daydream View VR headset.

Last month, Google said it was buying HTC Corp.’s mobile division team for about US$1.1 billion. Querioz said that 2,000 engineers were coming to Google from HTC as part of a larger hiring spree of people that specialize in design, mechanical and electrical engineering.

But it’s not just about hardware for the company. From the stage during Wednesday’s keynote, the company’s various executives made it clear that Google thinks smartphones are going to become similar and compete less on specs moving forward. Instead, it’s the complete package of hardware, software and artificial intelligence that will set Google apart from the competition, the company argued.

That said, both devices have a glass-aluminum design using Gorilla Glass 5. The fingerprint sensor is faster, the camera has been improved with a better aperture and smarter algorithms (DxOMark, that independently rates cameras, has given the camera a score of 98, the highest of any smartphone), plus the battery still boasts fast charging that gives you up to seven hours after being plugged in for 15 minutes. There is also an optical image stabilization and video stabilization to help shaky hands.

While the Pixel 2 has a five-inch OLED display for those wanting a smaller device, the Pixel 2 XL’s screen is what really impresses this year. It has a large sixinch OLED curved screen with very little to no bezel — much like competitors Apple and Samsung — which makes for an 18:9 aspect ratio and quad-HD resolution.

“The OLED allows us to do an always-on display this year. We’re really proud of the way that works,” Brian Rakowski, vice-president of product management at Google, said during a prekeynote interview. “It’s a super helpful feature, as you can just glance at your phone to see the time, date or any notifications.”

Google has something new at the bottom of its Always On display. Called Now Playing, the feature is essentially like the app Shazam as it can identify the music being played nearby, however it uses machine learning and an on-device database of tens of thousands of songs so it can always be used — even in airplane mode.

“We have a team that has gone off and figured out that we can build a model that will detect music playing in the environment when you are completely disconnected,” Rakowski said.

“It becomes an ambient way that you can glance over at your phone if you’re in a coffee shop, gym or in the car and see what song is playing.”

While Google Assistant has been given more functionality in terms of software — such as being able to turn on and off new settings within the phone or apps — it can now be accessed by physically squeezing the phone, another example of designing the hardware and software to work together.