Hey, Google: It’s time to step up your Pixel improve promise
The Pixel is supposed to signify the easiest Android has to supply. But it is lagging behind in a single critically essential space.
Google/JR Raphael
Look, it is no massive secret that I’m a fan of Google’s Pixel program.
I’ve personally owned Pixel telephones for the reason that first-gen mannequin graced our gunk-filled pockets manner again in 2016. And Pixels have been the one Android units I’ve wholeheartedly beneficial for most people ever since.
There’s a cause. And greater than something, it comes all the way down to the software program and the general expertise Google’s Pixel method gives.
- Part of that’s the Pixel’s interface and the shortage of any pointless meddling and complication — together with the absence of complicated (and sometimes privacy-compromising) duplicative apps and companies larded onto the telephone for the producer’s enterprise profit and on the expense of your person expertise.
- Part of it’s the unmatched integration of outstanding Google companies and unique Google intelligence that places genuinely helpful stuff you will truly profit from entrance and middle and makes it an built-in a part of the Pixel package deal.
- And, sure, a part of it’s the Pixel improve promise and the truth that Pixel telephones are nonetheless the one Android units the place each well timed and dependable software program updates are a built-in function and assure.
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To ensure, different Android device-makers have gotten higher about upgrades on and off through the years. But they’ve by no means dealt with that space with the consistency and the precise dedication Google gives — notably in relation to the timeliness facet of the coin. That’s very true with the oft-overlooked previous-gen flagships, the place most different Android-associated corporations actually drop the ball.
So, please, maintain all of that context in thoughts once I say this: Google’s gotta do higher.
Allow me to clarify.
The Google Pixel replace evolution
To get to what’s taking place right this moment, we first have to fly again for a second to this time six years in the past.
Way again in the beginning of the Pixel line’s existence, again within the fall of 2016, providing a telephone with two years of working system replace help was just about desk stakes.
That quantity was the de facto Android ecosystem commonplace — for a flagship telephone, a minimum of, even when most others producers did not at all times observe it.
So seeing Google keep on with that setup for its preliminary Pixel product made sufficient sense. It wasn’t distinctive in and of itself, however the truth that Google truly delivered all of these updates to all of its Pixels roughly instantly after every replace’s arrival was completely one thing price celebrating (and that is placing it mildly).
Still, even then, it felt like there was room for Google to do extra. As a sure comely author mused that October, shortly after the unique Pixel’s debut:
If the Pixel goes to signify the easiest of Google and Android, because it’s supposed to, Google ought to convey issues up a step from the baseline and make the Pixel stand out not only for its dedication to timeliness but in addition for its dedication to longevity. …
An additional 12 months of updates would present that this can be a telephone meant to final — that it truly is a lower above the remaining. It’d present that Google is worried with long-term shopper satisfaction over short-term gross sales. It’d present that on this type of holistic state of affairs, updates do not should be a supply of frustration on any degree.
More than something, it’d present that the Pixel actually is a particular telephone, via and thru — a telephone that … offers you unmatched worth to go together with its unmatched person expertise.
One 12 months later, Google listened.
With the Pixel 2 in 2017, Google boosted its software program help promise to a few years of each Android working system updates and month-to-month safety patches. By the time we hit the Pixel 6 in 2021, that promise had expanded to a full 5 years of safety patch help together with the identical three years of working system updates. That’s definitely nothing to shake a stick at.
But on the identical time, the ecosystem across the Pixel has progressed. The commonplace has shifted. And as a substitute of main the way in which with longevity, Google’s Pixel is now lagging behind a few of its contemporaries.
To wit: As of this 12 months, Samsung is now pledging a full 4 years of working system updates for a few of its Galaxy-branded Android merchandise. And simply this week, OnePlus introduced it’d do the identical for its top-of-the-line flagship telephones beginning in 2023.
Now, there are many caveats to be thought-about there. Both of these corporations are confoundingly inconsistent with how lengthy it takes for present software program to really attain its highest-paying clients — a notion that is very true in relation to the previous-generation merchandise. If you are planning on maintaining a Samsung or OnePlus telephone for greater than a 12 months, you’d higher be okay with ready an excellent lengthy whereas to get the updates that ought to, by all counts, attain you inside a matter of days.
And that is to say nothing in regards to the timeliness of the equally essential safety patches, which OnePlus will apparently ship solely on a bimonthly foundation as a substitute of sending ’em out each month, as they arrive.
So, sure: Google’s Pixel telephones nonetheless present a superior all-around software program help setup — one thing that is notably obvious if you’re palming a one-, two-, or three-year-old Pixel and nonetheless getting the most recent and best (and most privacy-respecting and safe) Android software program inside hours of its launch as a substitute of ready months to see it.
But nonetheless: That’s solely a part of the story. When it involves longevity, Google’s now behind the curve with its Pixel promise as a substitute of main the way in which — or on the very least matching the main provide.
Google Pixel perspective
To be clear, none of this takes away from the Pixel’s place as one of the best out there all-around Android choice in my e book. The asterisks across the different main Android selections are much more vital, and even on a purely numerical foundation, the Pixel truly nonetheless comes out forward in most measures.
Consider:
- The Pixel 7 prices $600, whereas the Galaxy S22 begins at $800.
- If you divide these costs by the variety of years every machine receives lively working system updates (and thus is totally advisable to make use of, from a privateness and safety standpoint), the Pixel 7 finally ends up costing $16.67 a month over its 36-month interval — which is precisely the identical as what the Galaxy S22 prices per thirty days over its 48-month OS help window.
- And keep in mind, the Pixel 7 will truly get its updates roughly instantly upon their launch all through the length of its life, whereas the Galaxy S22 will face an more and more delayed supply with annually that it exists.
All of that being mentioned, the comparability right here is not completely parallel. Google is not Samsung. Its function throughout the Android ecosystem is dramatically completely different — as is its enterprise mannequin and what it stands to realize from getting individuals on board with its merchandise.
Google, suffice it to say, is not your common Android producer. While most device-makers rely totally on {hardware} gross sales to show a revenue, Google makes the vast majority of its cash by encouraging you to spend as a lot time as doable utilizing the web and thus its companies (which in flip, after all, means you will present extra information that’ll let Google present you extra and higher focused advertisements throughout the online).
Google’s final objective, in different phrases, is not strictly to promote as many telephones as doable. It’s to make the Android expertise nearly as good as doable for as many individuals as it might probably. More than something, it needs to offer a spectacular ongoing person expertise through which its personal companies shine, as that the majority successfully helps its major enterprise mannequin.
Google’s in a novel place to set its personal singular commonplace
That places Google in a novel place to boost the stakes on software program help and on the very least match however ideally surpass what every other device-maker is doing. It places Google ready to set its personal singular commonplace — one befitting of the Pixel’s positioning as one of the best out there Android expertise, with one of the best out there help.
And particularly when you think about the truth that Google now makes use of its personal custom-made chips to energy present Pixels — thus eliminating a standard barrier to offering prolonged software program help, as that may typically rely a minimum of partially on the producer of a telephone’s processor persevering with to help the machine’s elements — there’s actually no nice justification for Google to not make a transfer like this.
Last however not least, take into account: Google’s supposedly now “doubling down” on its funding in Pixel units, in keeping with a latest report on the web site The Information. The firm is claimed to be gearing as much as extra aggressively market and push its merchandise as probably the most optimum solution to expertise Android, in an effort to extra successfully head off latest U.S. market positive aspects being made by Apple.
All that is lacking is the ecosystem-leading longevity promise — and now greater than ever, the items are in place to handle that.
It’s time, Google. If you really need the Pixel to shine and to exist in a league of its personal, with none apparent “buts” round it, that is the transfer to make. And that is completely the second to make it.
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