The twin phones Google will launch Tuesday will show the company is finally serious about tackling the iPhone head-on. And they couldn’t be arriving at a better time.
With iPhone demand falling and many fans disappointed with the improvements Apple has made with the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, it’s a perfect opportunity for Google to prove it can out-innovate its biggest rival in the smartphone industry.
Apple was handed a lucky break when Samsung was forced to recall the Galaxy Note 7 just weeks after it went on sale due to faulty batteries. The flagship phablet launched to rave reviews and looked like it would make life even tougher for Apple’s “boring” iPhone refresh.
As it turns out, the Note 7 wasn’t even available when the iPhone 7 went up for pre-order. Samsung’s recall meant that all 2.5 million devices it had sold up to that point had to be recalled and replaced, and it simply couldn’t get new units to market quick enough.
[contextly_auto_sidebar] Samsung says that around 90 percent of Note 7 owners chose to take a replacement Note 7 when returning their original, but a recent report from SurveyMonkey revealed that around 26 percent of early adopters were planning to switch to iPhone instead.
This has helped boost iPhone 7 sales, according to reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. However, even with that boost, it’s thought shipments of Apple’s newest smartphone will only just match those of last year’s disappointing iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
It’s not that the iPhone 7 is a bad phone. It’s blazing fast. It’s water-resistant. It has a stellar camera and stereo speakers. It has an improved Retina HD display. And it’s available in stunning jet black. But it’s not a significant upgrade over iPhone 6s — or even iPhone 6.
This year’s iPhone looks almost identical to last year’s — and the one that came before it. The 4.7-inch model desperately needs more pixels (1280×750 just isn’t sharp enough in 2016), and a bigger battery. There is no wireless charging. NFC is still exclusively for Apple Pay.
This gives Apple’s rivals a great chance to capitalize on the boredom many long-time iPhone fans are experiencing now. Samsung is trying — its Note 7 is still selling like hot cakes in the few markets it is currently available — but it kind of blew its chance with the recall.
Google can’t afford to do that. Its new Pixel phones have to be the best Android smartphones available. They need to deliver premium design, the best specifications available, excellent cameras, and all the features you’d expect from a high-end Android.
According to the leaks, they should check at least a few of those boxes.
Built by HTC, both Pixel phones look incredibly pretty. In fact, they look a lot like iPhone clones that run Android, with aluminum unibodies that wrap around at the edges to seamlessly blend into the 2.5D curved glass that covers the display.
They’re expected to deliver a new Snapdragon 821 processor from Qualcomm, coupled with 4GB of RAM (that’s twice as much as you get in the 4.7-inch iPhone 7), up to 128GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, super sharp displays, and big batteries.
They will also ship with Android 7.1 Nougat pre-installed, which boasts new features like split-screen multitasking, and old Android favorites like a file manager and all the customization options you can shake a stick at.
If you’re a long-time iPhone owner who needs a change, what more could you ask for?
There’s no need to worry about bloatware that slows things down, because Pixel phones will be running stock Android that’s free from third-party tweaks. You’ll also get immediate software updates because they’re Google phones, so that’s another concern you can forget.
Google just needs to ensure it doesn’t screw anything up. When you want to do battle with the iPhone, you can’t afford to cut corners. If its cameras suck, its speakers are poor, or it’s missing big features like water-resistance, the company will be blowing a great opportunity.
Next year’s iPhone refresh won’t be so boring. It’s the handset’s tenth anniversary, and you can be sure Apple will have something special up its sleeve for that. Kuo expects all-new designs made out of stainless steel and glass, and the iPhone’s first OLED displays.
Google probably won’t get another opportunity to out-innovate Apple for some time, then. It needs to grab this one with both hands.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
66 responses to “Pixel phones are Google’s chance to out-innovate Apple”
“Pixel phones are Google’s chance to out-innovate Apple”
Riiiiiiiight.
Aside from copying everything from other OEMs how much as in what way has apple innovated the past 3-5 years?
You gave got to be kidding me. Just two things – The iPad Pro and Pencil kick major ass and is the first really viable implementation of a stylus, the Portrait mode on the iPhone 7+ is the perfect marriage of hardware and software as an innovation.
If it wasn’t for Apple, Android phones would still have a rubber antenna and a sliding keyboard.
Child,
First viable my @sss. What does it do that Samsung can’t? It’s pretty easy though to copy any idea and improve upon it.
You can say what you want about Android, iOS had a head start and got crushed.
If it wasn’t for Android, iPhones would still have a sh!ty 3.5″ display with an ugly interface and none of the almost 100 features stolen from Android.
I am not a child, I am a 50 year old developer.
You clearly have no sense of technology history, go research your stuff before you post.
No, Apple would have had larger screens eventually because they didn’t want to put out a laggy product. Apple waited until their processors were 64 Bit, and they had better battery life. Do you remember the first couple of generations of Android phones with larger screens? They were laggy, they had horrible battery life, and even with those so called features, they were just junk.
A lot of their so called features were badly implemented, they had a tremendous amount of security problems, and other aspects that simply sucked, but you ignored that.
They had the face recognition software to unlock the phone, but it was badly implemented, They had NFC first, but again, it got hacked, so it was badly implemented, They had dual screen, which again was badly implemented and causes laggy performance.
Apple was holding back on features because they were busy dealing with making them more secure and better performing. It’s not who is first with a certain feature, it’s doing It where the feature is useful, and is implemented where it doesn’t cause problems, but Android fanboys are too ignorant to understand this.
And let’s look at the OS updating practices. Nougat came out 3 weeks ago, and how many people are actually using it? The numbers are so little, they don’t even show up to even release the adoption numbers publicly. Apple, released iOS 10 2 weeks ago and they already have 55% adoption rate. So, even if Android has a feature before Apple, the users don’t get access to it for another 6 months to 3 years because they have to upgrade their phone to a more powerful unit that can actually run the later OS. Most users of Android are using a 2+ year old OS version. THINK ABOUT IT.
But there have been many features on Apple’s platform before Android. Multi-Touch touch screen display smartphone to begin with. You know, the initial design. Apple was the first, and Android phones copied catted it. It’s too bad Apple had Eric Schmidt on their Board of Directors during their R&D phase of the iPhone. If they didn’t, then Android copy cats would have been delayed even further.
notice how Apple didn’t copy the Bump Phone feature. Why? Because it’s a stupid feature. You know, there are such a thing as a stupid feature, and Android has plenty of those.
You do realize that what you actually said is a testament against Apple ? If they only passively copy and cherry-pick successful technologies, then without that competition they would have nothing…
I am gaining around 6000-8000 dollars monthly working on the internet. Those who are ready to work basic at home task for 2h-5h /a day from your home and gain valuable income for doing it… Then this work opportunity is for you… FAVE.CO/2bocRGL
They might steal some ideas from each other. Which is good for us consumers. I don’t complain one bit. Also they Need to be different. Or else we just end up with 1 brand. And what fun is that?
It doesn’t spontaneously combust. Can a Note 7 do that?
Hate to bring it to you but MS implemented the Surface Pen at least 3 years before Apple did, and their offering is actually better than Apple pencil.
You’re a developer, riiiight. Great and vast knowledge of widely available technology. You’re a perfect example of someone living in Apple’s closed garden – it’s like living in North Korea – you only know what the leader wants you to know and nothing else – outside world technology is forbidden until Apple decides to implement it.
The surface pen that doesn’t have palm rejection so you have to keep your hands hovered over the screen. It cracks me up in their commercials when you see the people using them unable to rest their wrists on the screen and the noticeable lag.
Yet ANOTHER example of why Apple is smart to wait until they know they can do it right.
They should have started by removing those damn bezels. It’s my least favorite part of the iPhone.
They’re huge but serve purpose.
Join the design team.
Easier said than done. You think it’s a design choice?
Google is out-innovating Apple by releasing phones that look like iPhones…can’t make this stuff up.
Haven’t you heard? Apple copies EVERYTHING from Android, even before Android even makes it.
Actually Apple has ripped off Android for quite sometime now. Yet Apple only sues Samsung for features that Google puts into Android so why haven’t they sued Google or ALL other Android OEM’s. Failure to sue all companies that copy slide to unlock is a failure to protect their patent.
If you deny that Apple has blatantly stolen features from Android then you are an apologist or asleep.
How much Android has been copied into iOS 7-10? Last time I counted more than 60.
Still saddled with the biggest issue of android….FRAGMENTATION….
Fragmentation isn’t an issue–apple rushing to brag about adoption numbers makes every iOS release cause problems. Wi-Fi almost never works an this time around, iPhones got bricked.
Fragmentation is a huge issue. What the hell are you talking about? I have over a 60 iOS devices I oversee and they have had 0 problems with WiFi.
What freaking planet do you come from? Why do you come to Apple sites to troll?
Do Android users have such an inferiority complex that they must go to Apple sites to bad mouth Apple?
Looks like there’s no spell check or grammar check on iPhones.
This, ladies and gents, is a textbook example of a troll and an excellent candidate for the wonderful little block button in Disqus. Mindless drivel.
Yep, ‘just blocked the lik doofus.
Cheers!
I guess that android IED of yours forgot to let you know you needed the word “It” to make a proper sentence. LMAO…..FAIL
He wrote everything perfectly, European dude. You need to learn how to read.
Fragmentation is less of an issue than you make out, people with older android phones that work stay on an os that works for them.
I have owned lots of iphones, ipads and android devices I have given my older kit to people that needed a phone etc
unfortunately most of the older iphones and ipads are left pretty much useless by Apple! at the point they decide that you need to update the OS on an older device, they provide a feature missing version of the new OS that slows the device down to a crawl and leaves it unusable!!! and unlike the fragmented Android devices where you can roll back the OS to one that works or better still head over to somewhere like XDA and take advantage of some great coders and devs that continue to add support and value to older devices, with your IOS device you are screwed as Apple will not let you go back, leaving you no choice but to spend high amounts on Apple hardware to keep in their ecosystem and start the process again.
Give me fragmentation if if means that older devices dont find their way in to the scrap pile so quickly.
The other reason that Apple fans lord over Android regarding the fragmentation ‘issue’ is that it makes it harder for devs to make their software work over the range of android os’ the thing is that most of the older hardware running older OS’ is owned by people that are not likely to be bothered by newer software.
before you accuse me of hating Apple, this is being typed on a macbook pro 15.6 i7 I love macs but find the iphone a bit too overly priced fisher price.
I have several 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation iOS devices that work perfectly fine with the latest iOS they each support. Not sure why you are having problems with yours.
Thanks for posting your reply, it’s nice to see in black and white someone that has overdosed on the android kool-aid LMAO
These facts you made up are very interesting!
Really ? I have devices running 4.0, 5.1, 6.0 and 7.0 – and guess what ? they all run all of my apps without any issues. Yes, Android is fragmented, but it’s not causing so many issues as Apple would love you to believe.
Absolutely. Apple goes out of their way to support further releases, both of the Motorola devices I have are forever doomed to stay running the version of Android they came out with.
Wow. This is a terrible article. Isn’t this the same guy who a few days ago said that you should buy the Galaxy Note? Why is this guy even on Cult of Mac?
There are many good reasons to consider the Note and reasons not to.
Yeah, like exploding and stuff
From the iPhone 5 – 7 iPhones have had exploding batteries and 3 people died using the iPhone 6.
Yes, and Steve Jobs was the Zodiac killer.
Keep proving my point. And you said you are over 50?
Samsung gives their employees cancer and then denies it.
Dude, grow up. If you can’t recognize the good and bad of both OS’s then you should really hold off posting nonsense until you do. iPhones have had there fair share of problems. Perhaps you need a history lesson? And for the record, my daily phone driver is an iPhone. I use an iPad Pro 12 inch for work related projects. I own a 5k iMac…..I am an apple fan.
I don’t think their fair share of problems involved capabilities of taking down airplanes, or burning down homes and cars.
Reasons to buy a Note:
Start a campfire
Impromptu grill to cook on
Expensive IED for terrorists
To match your exploding samsung washing machine
“Pixel phones are Google’s chance to out-innovate Apple”…
… By making phones that look like the iPhone 6 (with the Home/Touch ID button moved to the back).
(͡° ͜ʖ°)
I have a horrible little Motorola Android tablet that does this. It’s the worst design ever. If you are reading a book in the dark you have to flip the thing around to hunt for the button. Not to mention that it is stuck in some ancient version of Android and it won’t even allow me to upgrade.
But, no, fragmentation is no issue I guess.
Sucks so much why did you buy it? Why do you still have it?
Lie much?
We bought 12 devices to evaluate for a large scale museum development. We rejected all Android based devices and deployed over 300 iPads. Because of fragmentation, security concerns and lack of build quality. If you must know.
Android devices were cheaper, so they had that going for them.
iPhone 6 released in 2012 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42f18202fe7e9126e161a35429738f01847054eaf6331a651dea98c5a05495c9.jpg
I guess it was too incriminating to post a link to Killians glowing review of the iPhone 7. Got my comment taken down. Lol.
I had a link to the Atlantic’s article regarding Android copying iOS and it was taken down. I think now outside links are allowed.
There’s a link to the review in the story where it says “It’s not that iPhone 7 is a bad phone.” Also, I love the iPhone 7, but not everyone feels the same way. I’m talking about the many fans who are bored of it now, and don’t believe this year’s refresh was enough.
Boy apple fanboys sure sound like Trump voters.
better than sounding like that hag hillary lol
Ssssshhh, politics and religion together is atomic toxic. Dont do that ^^
But in reality apple and fans stopped funding Trump and supporting Hillary openly.
Google doesn’t sell much more than a few million units of their phones, and it’s because they really aren’t going after market share because their product is more for Android developers more than it is for general public and it’s to promote developers to begin developing on their new OS release. They give away free phones to their own employees to use, and then they sell enough to the general public that essentially gives them enough sales to break even. It’s a very low margin product for Google.
If Google had been less concerned about ad revenue (that is their focus) and taken a direct control of Android OS and its updates like Apple has and Microsoft does with Windows then Android would benefit greatly. For me the iPhone gets the job done, but its not the end all device. I preferred Android for options, but the lack of OS updates and feature benefits taking nearly a year to arrive IF they got there at all was enough to say ENOUGH and move on. Work phone = iPhone 6, Personal phone = 7Plus 256GB, Tablet = iPad Pro 12.9, Desktop iMac 2016, Wife’s phone iPhone 7Plus 256GB.
If Google can deliver on hardware and software then great, but if the software is going to be dependent on the hardware vendor of the year then forget it.
Pixel phone – or any other phone – you can save a PDF without resorting to pass the file through 2 cloud services.
You can use the magic thing called an SD card to expand your storage by 256GB for 69$, not 129$ for additional 32gb as Apple charges.
There you go – out innovated already.
I could list dozens of other points but there’s no point…
Yeah, use a crappy SD card slot and have an endless battle of deciding the location every time you want to save something.
Btw, PDF generation is possible in iOS without a single cloud service. Since (at least) iOS 9 you not even need a separate app for that.
Come on, tell me more.
Something tells me that the last time you used iOS was back on iOS 4…
There are many ways to download PDFs to iOS.
Will Google deliver? NO. Another boring Android phone. Google isn’t tackling the iPhone head-on but Samsung, Oppo, OnePlus, Huawei…, These won’t sell, like any other Nexus, more them a couple millions.
I saw a picture without a jack. They will drop jack too?
You mean, like the Moto Z?
Thank you for posting this. These Android idiots really need to learn their history. Android exists because of Apple…you’re welcome.
Well I guess now you can see how foolhardy this was… more delusional than dreaming about a Mets Series victory…