Pixel chief says not having a billion installs is actually an advantage
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Ric Osterloh, the former Motorola executive who is now in charge of Google's Pixel division, was interviewed by Stratechery following Tuesday's successful "Made by Google" event. Many are saying that the event showed how far ahead Google is in AI compared to Apple. It also put immense pressure on Apple to fix up Siri with Apple Intelligence or else Gemini Live, like Google Assistant before it, will leave iPhone users with a second-rate virtual assistant once again.
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For phone nerds, the interview is fun to read especially since Osterloh has been with major players at key moments. He was with Motorola when the Moto X (2014) was released in 2015 and at the time he called it, "the best Android smartphone in the world" (although our review of the phone at the time certainly didn't agree!). In 2016, Osterloh had joined Google to run the hardware unit.
"I should back up and say something first — to make a phone is probably one of the hardest things to do, it is so hard, you’re trying to put in so much technology into a small form factor, it’s got really complicated regulatory authority and certification work, it’s got all sorts of standards you have to meet for RF transmission, it’s got all sorts of interesting computing capabilities that are required and in an ever-increasing set of consumer demand. So, it is very, very hard to make a phone, and because it’s so important in people’s lives, the amount of quality issues that users will tolerate is very close to zero.
So not only do you have to ship a new one every year, hit your targets for timing, hit your targets for cost and price points, but you also have to nail quality and you have to be innovative enough at the same time that people are interested. It’s really, really, really hard to be in that space, it’s why there’s only a handful of people that can do it, and why the people that have risen to the top in the premium end are folks that have done this very well repeatedly forever."-Ric Osterloh, Google Senior Vice President of Devices & Services
So not only do you have to ship a new one every year, hit your targets for timing, hit your targets for cost and price points, but you also have to nail quality and you have to be innovative enough at the same time that people are interested. It’s really, really, really hard to be in that space, it’s why there’s only a handful of people that can do it, and why the people that have risen to the top in the premium end are folks that have done this very well repeatedly forever."-Ric Osterloh, Google Senior Vice President of Devices & Services
The executive repeated an interesting anecdote about what happened right after he joined Google. He asked to meet the Pixel hardware team and discovered that it was just two guys. He also brings out an interesting point which is that Google's relationship with Samsung is very important to the company and that Android has to be able to work on more than just Pixel devices. Google even rolled out Gemini Live to Samsung devices alongside Pixel handsets before Tuesday's event.
Trying to take the Pixel line from a proof-of-concept for Android to a flagship smartphone line that competes with Apple and Samsung is still a work in progress. The Pixel line does not make the top five global smartphone brands. Osterloh was asked whether Pixel buyers are coming over over from Samsung and he surprisingly said that very few are switching to a Pixel from a Galaxy device.
Well frankly, this is another great aspect of Pixel. That’s not a billion user product, so we can make these kinds of trade-offs and really for the first rollout of Gemini, it was a choice. The user could decide to stay with Google system or switch to the Gemini App, there were some trade-offs, a lot of people elected to switch to the Gemini App. Some people were unhappy at first, quite frankly, that helped us make it better and we quickly followed up with improvements to the capability and obviously we’re still trying to make it as good as we possibly can. Right now, it’s now got a pretty high rating."-Ric Osterloh, Google Senior Vice President of Devices & Services
He did say that it is easier not to have to work on a product with a large install base which includes the Pixel. "Well, I think, generically, it has both pros and cons to be a challenger and a new entrant versus someone that has a really large install base and has to be careful," Osterloh stated. "Various aspects of Google have this dynamic too. It’s very, very difficult to change things at a billion-user scale versus a much smaller scale for our newer products."
This means that the Pixel team can deliver more innovations and changes every year without having to worry that these changes are affecting a billion users who are used to using their phones in a certain way.
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