4 takeaways from Google’s Pixel 6 preview
Google’s Pixel 6 unveiling gives us plenty to look at, but the most important messages are under the surface. JR RAPHAEL reports
Well, it looks like the brightly coloured cat is out of the metaphorical bag. The feline in question is none other than two Pixel 6 phones. Google pulled off its new trick and let the air out of the rapidly leaking balloon by announcing its Pixel 6 and 6 Pro months ahead of their actual debuts.
And these new models are pretty different from Pixels past, too. As had been widely expected, they’re the first Google-made phones to feature a Google-made processor – a distinction we’ve been talking about for quite a while and one that could go a long way in separating the phones from the rest of the Android pack.
We’ve already taken a look at the new phones design and specs (page 6). Here, I want to focus on four under
emphasized effects of the Pixel 6 preview – a combination of between-the-lines suggestions and off-hand remarks that are getting less attention than the shiny outer shells and homemade innards.
1. THE SOFTWARE SUPPORT SHAKEUP
This first Pixel takeaway is one I haven’t seen come up at all, directly, as part of the current Pixel 6 blitz – but it’s arguably the most important effect of Google’s shift to a self-made processor.
By having its own custom chip inside the Pixel, Google will be able to support these phones with software updates for far longer than what’s currently possible on Android.
While Google hasn’t announced anything official about it yet, signs suggest the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro could come with a full five years of Android operating system updates. That’s a huge step up from the platform’s current three-year max, to say the least – and it could have some pretty significant implications, as we’ll explore further in a moment.
2. THE ‘ANDROID PIXEL’ FACTOR
A hefty chunk of Google’s Pixel 6 marketing materials focus on the way the phones showcase the new Material You theming system at the centre of Android 12. It’s much more than a fresh coat of paint: Material You is a complete reimagining of the Android experience – think Android on some super-mellow mood enhancers. And it revolves around an ambitious new feature that taps into your own personal wallpaper to create a custom system-wide palette that then stretches across the entire Android experience – everything from your Quick Settings panel and settings screens to icons on your home screen and even the interfaces within apps.
Eventually, the implications will stretch even further than just your phone,
too: Google says your custom design choices on Android will at some point travel with your account across every app and type of device you use – applying to Google apps on the web as well as to Chromebooks, Smart Displays and Wear-based wearables. This is a Google ecosystem move, in other words. And the Pixel, it seems, could be the sole smartphone product to tie into that new cross-platform thread in its full and unadulterated form.
That, suffice it to say, is a monumental shift both for what the Pixel represents within Android and what Android itself represents as an operating system.
3. THE PIVOT BACK FROM THE PREVIOUS PIVOT
Last year, Google threw us a curveball with its Pixel product plan. After four years of establishing the Pixel as a premium, flagship phone, the tech giant came out with the Pixel 5 – which completely redefined what the brand stood for and what it was all about.
The Pixel 5 wasn’t a top-of-the-line, top-dollar phone, nor was it meant to be. It was positioned as a more affordable phone that focused on the qualities that mattered the most but cut out many of the fancier niceties in order to hit a lower price. It was a move back toward the old Nexus model from Google’s past, in a sense – where you could get a good, solid Android phone with exceptional software and without some of the higher-end bells and whistles for a surprisingly decent price.
As part of that, the Pixel 5 lacked the more premium metal or glass constructions its predecessors possessed, and it eliminated the justlaunched (and heavily promoted) face unlocking technology the Pixel 4 had introduced a mere year earlier. It seemed to make sense from a sales perspective, as we pointed out at the time, since Google hadn’t managed to make its high-end Pixels take off but had seen lots of success with its more economical Pixel ‘a’-line phones.
Oh, yes: Google has pivoted back from its previous pivot and returned to the high-end, premium flagship approach for the Pixel, just one year after ever-so-briefly redefining the brand. It’s one hell of a dizzying spin, even by Google’s vertigo-inducing standards.
To be fair, we don’t know exactly how much the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will cost at this point. But in an interview with The Verge, Google hardware head honcho Rick Osterloh said they’d be in a “different” tier from the company’s recent offerings and that the Pixel 6 would “certainly be a premium-priced product.” As the author of that article
notes, it’s tough to take that as meaning anything less than a thousand pounds.
The one saving grace, if Google manages to emphasize it effectively, could be that longer support life we talked about earlier. Think about it: if we arbitrarily say that one of the Pixel 6 models costs £1,200 but also assume that it’ll get that full five years of software support we’re expecting, that effectively means it’d cost £240 per year over the course of its advisable life. The similarly priced Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, in comparison, gets just three years of operating system updates – which makes it £400 per year of advisable ownership.
Only time will tell, of course, if Google finds a way to convey that advantage. Speaking of which...
4. THE MARKETING MACHINE
We’re six years in now to Google’s Pixel phone plan, and as of yet, the Pixel is still mostly a niche-level product for Android enthusiasts and other people ‘in the know’. It’s anything but a mainstream phone, and pretty much every set of market share stats reflects that.
Despite all of the Pixel’s practical advantages over other Android phone options, its not-so-prominent positioning within the smartphone ecosystem isn’t entirely surprising. Plain and simple, six years in, Google still seems to be doing barely anything – or barely anything effective, at least – to market the Pixel and make average phone-buying organisms aware of its most exceptional elements. And with every passing year and every new Pixel-exclusive element that gets added into the picture, that disconnect gets more discouraging.
Well, with the Pixel 6, Google says it’s ready to start selling. “The product is really, now, The Google Phone,” Osterloh told The Verge, “so we are ready to invest a lot in marketing and we want to grow.”
Funny, because Google’s been talking about the Pixel being “The Google Phone” since pretty much the first model. And it’s been talking about moving the Pixel line beyond niche status and into mainstream position as a “next few years”-style goal for quite a few years now.
But maybe this time, it’s serious. Maybe this time, it’s ready to start pushing the Pixel properly. Maybe. We’ve certainly heard that story before, though, more than a couple of times.