Pixelated - A Pixel Pre-order Pickle

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Welcome to episode 65 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Damien, Abner, and Will take a break from talking about the endless onslaught of Pixel 10 renders to take in a more zoomed-out look at Google's current ecosystem. As the company starts advertising the Pixel 10 series, new reports suggest we might be waiting a few months for the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 4, and the Pixel Buds 2a. Meanwhile, the company's decision to stop selling refurbished Pixel 6a models has us thinking about hardware longevity compared to software longevity, and how the two sometimes collide in unexpected ways. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Timecodes 00:00 - Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Buds 2a delayed launch rumors 15:01 - Pixel 6a battery issues 25:50 - Pixel 10 ad campaign begins Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Report: Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold not releasing until October Google stops selling refurbished Pixel 6a amid battery reduction update Google Pixel 10 ‘Soon’ teaser goes hard on iPhone’s AI Siri delays [Video] Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek The Buzz Podcast Space Explored Rapid Unscheduled Discussions Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer.

So how long do you think both of you? This is a question to both of you. How long would you be willing to wait for pre-order? Do you genuinely think, what, a month, two months, three months? Oh, I'm intrigued to hear what you think. From, like, from time you put your credit card down to time it comes in the mail. Oh, man. We're talking about a smartphone, or are we talking about anything?

I mean, we're definitely talking about smartphones this week, but. In general, I think it's a big or wider question as well. I think it's a fascinating one. I want to say like about a month, but it does depend a little bit on the on the thing. Because for example, you know, I waited a month and a half or whatever for the switch too. I waited. I guess I'm still waiting for my my pebble time too, right? Like that's that I preordered months ago and is coming maybe in December. But yeah, I think I think like about a month is is like the maximum amount of amount of time. I think. for a general gadget. I personally think a month is like the perfect amount of time, but we've all been like kind of, everyone's been tricked by this in the past. You make a pre-order and 12 months later, it's still not arrived.

Hey, we've all been stung by a Kickstarter campaign, right? But I just kind of wonder in my mind how this is going to affect some potential news we've had this week about pixel series, like Pixel Watch 4 might come out slightly later, according to certain rumors. Pixel Fold, I guess that one's a little bit more, forgivable, given the weird kind of release schedules they've had for the fold in the past.

This is the third generation. I don't know how I feel about potentially waiting. It could be upwards of two months from announcement to Pixel Watch 4 being on my wrist. Like, I don't know how that. I don't know the optics of that. Fascinated. Yeah, it's 1.5 weeks-ish, but at the same time, didn't something happen, what, too? No, last year.

Everything was segmented. Everything came out in waves. which I think last year is more forgivable. Like 1.5 months is too long await like in terms of like on one end if you release Google releasing things in waves like last year had the benefit of you get a new phone, you get you use it, you get you adjust to it. And then a few weeks and then like two weeks later you get a new foldable. You get a new watch or two weeks after that.

you get new buds or something like that. There's a benefit to stacking it out so that you get to use something in full and not be distracted by something else shiny and two weeks later you get another present, so to speak. But I think 1.5 months is a bit wrong. And if whatever the reason Google can't chip at the same time, I wish they prioritize things to do it,

in, I don't know, that two weeks increment, rather than waiting 1.5 months for everything to launch at the same time. Yeah, I wonder what the, I wonder how, or if, I mean, depending on if this is true, and I'll obviously work on early rumors here that potentially the Pixel Watch 4 and the Pixel 10 pro fold, which I constantly stumble on the word. And the Pixel Bud's 2A. And the Pixel Bus 2A. Okay, well, that's news to me.

I clearly didn't read this correctly. that basically like specifically the buds as well like they're the kind of thing that people are just going to pick up any time so maybe there's a little bit more forgivable nature to that but I don't know do you think do you genuinely think that someone's going to forego the new iPhone

in favor of the pixel 10 pro fold are they going to put the money down straight away like I don't know how it works in I know the US your credit card pilled so you guys love your credit cards I'm not going to put it on a credit card I'm going to pay it off straight away and I want the device pretty darn quickly

I don't think anybody's going to see the pixel announcement and be like, oh, well, I was going to buy a Pixel 10 Pro Fold, but, you know, the iPhone's going to ship sooner. So actually, let me, let me go buy an iPhone. I genuinely think that, like, the divide between Android and iOS users and the ecosystem buy-in on both sides of the fence is so, you know, in 2025 is such a dominant factor that I don't, I don't think it matters, you know, to any grand. degree, right? Like, I'm sure a few of those people exist, but they are largely enthusiasts who buy, you know, they're like us. They buy lots of devices anyway, and so it doesn't really, you know, maybe they're going to decide to buy the iPhone instead of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold this year, but next year, the biofoldable or something, right? Like, and in a lot of ways, I think they'd be more likely to skip the ProFold and buy like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, right, like a more comparable device.

Same with the watch four in the Galaxy Watch 8. Like I think they're more likely to stay on the Android side and maybe look at what Samsung just launched instead of what Google's launching, or excuse me, what Apple's launching. But I, yeah, I don't know. I've seen some people be like, oh, that's dangerous because of the Apple launch. And I just, I don't think there's enough crossover

at this point that it really matters. I agree that there's a limited crossover, but I think this year for the iPhone is a very different in terms of that Air Phone. I think it's going to be highly competitive to people. But to your point, this is an, this is an, we're talking about the enthusiast market

who buys all the gadgets they want. That's not the mainstream. And the same can be said of the pro fold. It's not a mainstream device. But it's the watches or the gap for the watches is unfortunately. Yeah, do you kind of think the auxiliary accessories are the things you have to nail? I feel like if you're going to have a watch, you're going to have air buds, you're going to have,

I don't know, whatever it is, a new charging brick. You kind of need to get them out day one. I feel like they're the kind of things you buy with the phone, with the tablet, whatever it is, and you get them all in one, like you don't want them piecemeal. You don't want them like bit by bit. I don't know. That's just my opinion. I guess you guys might have different thoughts on it, but I would be kind of annoyed.

I want to buy everything in one go. So I'm like, I'm fully kidded out if that makes sense. I agree with that. My bigger issue here is that I don't see the reason. Like I obviously, maybe this will be different post event. But just looking at the leaks, it's like these are very similar devices to what you release flash year. I kind of understood, you know, like the pixel 9 pro fold shipping a little bit later than

the rest of the devices because it's this new design. And it's a complete reworking of the previous fold. but this is not that, right? This is like very much using like, you know, I, at this point, by reusing the full design to me, you're telling me, okay, this is like an established product. Like, we believe in this. We're doing annual releases for it, you know, whether or not I agree with that. But they're doing annual releases and here's the product.

And in my opinion, that means that you have to have it like ready to go with the rest of the lineup. And to your point, Damien, I think that's. true for the, you know, watch and the buds as well, where it's like, look, like, you guys are, you know, you guys are playing in an ecosystem now. Like, this stuff matters. Like, this stuff should launch at the same time as everything else. And even if, you know, I'd almost argue, it's like, okay, if you have the, you know, the rest of the Pixel 10 series ready to go, but half of the stuff you're going to announce in, you know, in a couple weeks is not ready. Bump that, you know,

announcement back a little bit, or even just make everything available at the same time in October, I'd almost think I'd rather have everything ship later on the same day than have this piecemeal. No, I mean, look, it's controversial, I know, but... Again, the fold is not a mainstream device. The watches are, the Bud's 2A is not a flagship product. I think in this talk of a delay, we're ignoring that the mainstream sellers are the 10, the 10 pro and 10 pro excel, they're out a week later, which is actually better than Apple's usual two weeks-ish, just under two weeks. It's, I don't know, it's the phones that people are actually

going to buy are going to be out on time. And I feel like that's all that matters right now. Yeah, no, you make it a fantastic point. I think if, say, I don't know, I don't know Google's manufacturing capacity, but if they said, okay, those are those devices, the 10, the 10 pro, the 10 pro Excel, these are our, I mean, they are going to sell like hotcakes compared to the fold and the buds and the, probably the watch as well, I think it definitely makes sense for them to put as much manufacturing effort into those devices, right? Like, if, if that means that we get these devices, like you say, Abner, according to these rumors, a week after the keynote, hey, I'm not,

I'm definitely not complaining. I think that's awesome. It's just interesting to see that we have two devices that maybe they've just said, okay, they're not as much of an upgrade as they probably should be. Let's push them a little bit later for whatever reason. I just think it's one of those things that it does, I guess in some respects, it shows that Google is really proud of their three mainstream products in some respects because it's like these are going to stand alone while we have this bigger portfolio. I do wonder, I do wonder just in generally what the reception is going to be to the

pixel 10 pro fold and what the reception is going to be to the pixel buds 2a is that correct to pixel buds 2a yeah the naming conventions need i think they need a little bit of work somehow they don't roll off the tongue as easy as i will never feel confident saying pixel britt pixel buds pro too right it's not pixel buds 2 pro it's pixel buds pro yeah i'm never going to be confident i'm trying to get in my head never going to be confident but yeah i think i think that's the one that might be the outlier i do feel like that's the one that maybe it would have been nice to have that day one because if you have a 9A, which I'm currently rocking the 9A for everyone out there listening, I've switched to the 9A again recently. I'd love to have those cheap A buds to pair with them

and I think it would be nice for anyone who's maybe recently upgraded, but it is what it is. It is what it is. I think I do side with both of you, largely speaking. I, to allow me to play devil's advocate, the only other thing I would say is that I think it feels a little, it makes Google feel like a smaller player than I think they should be, than I think they're capable of being when they can't release the entire lineup at once. Like Apple, Apple usually releases its entire lineup at once. Maybe there's like an additional week if they're doing iPads or something.

Maybe like the iPad is a week later or whatever compared to the rest of the stuff. But typically like whatever they announce that their hardware events kind of comes out on the same day. I would say the same is true for Samsung, right? Like we watched, we just watched a Samsung launch and all of that stuff launched on the same day. I would like to see Google get up to that point. You know, if it is a, if it is limits in terms of manufacturing, like, you know, it's one thing if you're like a one plus or a nothing, but like, you're Google. Like, I don't need to cut you slack on, on your manufacturing

limits. Like, you should be able to do this. You have all the money in the world. You can play devil's advocate to your devil's advocate. Just layers. Are there? How big is Google? Okay, I think the thing... They're not huge. They're not, but I think they should act like they are. That's all. I think the thing that gets lost in the discussion of Google

is that they are a big company and the actual teams working on your products are smaller than you think they are. They are. With the exception of Google search. It's these teams, I'd say, it's not Apple scale. in terms of employees, in terms of manufacturing capability, in terms of advertising even, I wouldn't say they're at the same of Apple or Samsung scale.

I do think they're bigger than, would they be bigger than One Plus? I ask that because I'm thinking about their whole structure thing. Yeah. So maybe that's not the best example. I don't know about team size. I really just mean the ability to throw money in a problem. And that's the same thing. And that applies how much resources they spend is proportional to their position in the broader company.

So I don't necessarily think they can spend at Apple levels of money for a better discussion to lock down the supply. If they did, they would be able to get the absolute rate of this TSM stuff. They would be able to get the entire production lines. I think we have built quality would have been a bit higher than maybe we want it right now. So I think the scale is not as comparable to Apple or Samsung. That is fair. That's a fair point. But then let's give, I suppose we can give credit to the fact that they can push things so quickly

in terms of the software side of things. We get very much once they're announced, they're almost live. like that's their big, I guess that's where we're kind of come full circle with this huge argument that effectively on one hand they don't necessarily have the resources but in the other hand they have the expertise and the knowledge to push things ridiculously quickly compared to the competition and I do wonder if that like this, it's like conflicting isn't it? On the one side the hardware's being a little bit slow for say three products versus the speed of updates for software and services. So yeah, it is fascinating.

It's going to be a fascinating launch period, especially because we're not necessarily getting those huge upgrades that we're expected. And I mean, I think we're probably at the point now we're almost sick of talking about Pixel 10, and we just want to tell you when we get the opportunity to test them

what it's like to use them because we're speculating, speculating, speculating. But yeah, hey, it is what it is, isn't it? We're at that stage where we're kind of in this downward trajectory towards this upward trajectory, if I can even say it. Yeah.

But there you go, Other than every argument you could have possibly made. We did it all for you. Yeah, October, you will learn more before we're trying to say, according to the leagues. But in other side of things, other side of the draw, as it were, we kind of seen this, and I wanted to touch upon it as a little bit,

is that we've had this recent situation where the Pixel 6A is having this software update to potentially protect batteries and stuff like that. And I suppose this is the opposite side of the coin kind of taking the positives that certain people have had issues with battery life we've had two months of an update from July you can't go back beyond Android I think it's a second Android 16 update

yeah like refurbished devices have been pulled from the Google store I'm kind of hoping that that is something that is not necessarily going to be any as much of a problem in future we don't seem to have many hardware problems post pixel 7 era I just hope that that's one of those things that is signposted done dusted, we don't have a problem with it in future. But hey, I don't know. I'd love to hear what you guys think because it's one of those things that we don't test devices here very often do it for two, two, three, four years.

I mean, to me, here, my take, and like this is what I was talking about before we started recording, but my big take on this is that this shows the limitations of extended software support cannot always meet hardware, right? Like, you are going to, go ahead, sorry, what was that happening? It's only three years. It's only been three years. But that's my point is that they promised three years and then upped it to five years of software support.

And that's true. But genuinely every day, like on the pixel subreddit, people are like, I can't use this phone anymore. You know, I unplug it at eight in the morning and it's dead by three.

Like, I have to go get a new phone now. And this is not going to hit every pixel. But I do think that like this echoes a lot of the concerns that people were having when Google and Samsung shortly thereafter rolled out their initial seven-year software policy, which is okay, but what do these phones actually run like in seven years? I mean, we are here with the Pixel 6A, which has now five years of software support,

but largely speaking, people are abandoning this phone because it just no longer functions the way it did for the first 36 months of owning it. And I do think that there is something to be said for, like, remembering that that software support is not the entire story when it comes to to using a phone for the entire five to seven years of, you know, promised support from an OEM. So is the argument there? It's like seven years, how extended software support is like greenwashing? It's pointless.

No, no, no. I think it's a great, I think software support is the step in the right direction, obviously, but I think that... You need a hardware spot, go with it. Yeah, and we are going to hit hiccups where there is an unforeseen hardware issue. You know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying Google did this on purpose, obviously. Like, there was clearly an issue with the battery that needed to be fixed. But that this is a, this is, when you are buying a phone, you have to remember that, like,

software is only half of the equation. Like, the ageing hardware will catch up to you and there's only so much you can do with it. Do you think, though, will that effectively, you go and you buy a phone, right? And I think it's fantastic that you can go and get this update. And let's give Google another bit of credit in this podcast because we're giving them a little bit of credit and discredit at the same time with the Pixel 10 launch stuff.

Getting five years of support for a device that is, I don't know, what did they cost when they came out? 449. 449 for the Pixel 6A's was a fantastic price at the time. There is nothing that they could have done to foresee that batteries might have issues in three years' time. Do you know what I mean? Like, absolutely right?

There's only so long, right, to test a thousand charge cycles. Exactly. And there is only so long, so many, how would I describe it? Like, the way I charge my phone, I could have it literally sat on top of a heater or I could have it in the window of my car. Like, you can't account for these things. So while nobody's put, I don't think anybody can seriously put blame on the process of building a device with the hardware that is available to them.

And I think. I mean, correct me from wrong. This was during the pandemic that this phone was released, Abner, right? Is that correct? It was all those constraints of the pandemic. It was a pandemic, though. Like, this is a 2022 phone. Like, it's...

Okay. So, sure, like, it is being made during the pandemic, but, like, it is coming out in a post-vaccine world. And, like, not just, like, the vaccines have been available. It's a post-Omocrine if we're really doing the timeline. You know what I mean? Like, that's how deep into the pandemic the 6A is. And I think that's a fair excuse, but it's also something we haven't seen

affect really any other pandemic era smartphone, I think. So, yeah, but I guess, I guess there's the other side of the coin in that you're not going to be using top tier off-the-shelf hardware. And there's also, if you're not in, when they were designing this product, they probably were doing it during the pandemic and not able to put it through its paces in the traditional sense of like you would in a traditional phone

and this is something that has hey, it's never really affected any other pixel device apart from technically the four rate just has a bad battery like this one is there could be safety concerns there could be safety concerns with every phone that you ever buy right? I've had Samsung's that have exploded in my drawer

like that's, I mean and I have two of them that are just just gone like it's insane. So I don't. I don't think it's, I don't think in some respects, without going to back for someone, it, it's hard not to do to put it into perspective, right? I think certain hardware faults happen. It happens with everything. The other thing I would chalk this up to a little bit is that the, the Pixel 6 series in general, was rocky. And I think some of that can be owed, like,

to the fact that TensorFlow was a massive change for Google, even the first-gen tensor, which was kind just a rebranded Ex-Nos chip. Like, I think that caused a lot of hiccups, right? A lot of hardware issues that some could be fixed via software updates. Some could not. Some were just major software issues that took a month or two to be ironed out. You know, I remember the first six or seven months of the Pixel Six series was just every, it felt like every update brought fixes along with new problems.

And I wonder if this is kind of a reverberation on the hardware side of just like the six series was such a massive change that it was bound to have, you know, some, some, uh, some, uh, some kinks that needed to be ironed out. And, and this is maybe the last little, uh, the last little echo of that, if you will, of like, of like a hardware problem on phones that have otherwise kind of like moved past their time. I don't know. Like I, I, I don't think it's an entirely thing, but it is, it is interesting that the, the, the six series, in particular had all these issues. And I do talk some of that up to tensor.

In a good way. I think those, I think it was good to do that move, but it did bring along some, some quirks into the lineup. Yeah, I mean, I mean,

in some respects, at least Google's tried to address this. There are other companies that just don't, don't even go into it. It's like they don't even bother trying to address it. They don't offer any sort of like, sometimes you don't get software fixed. Like they've tried to put a software fix out there.

It's, yeah, sure, it limits the battery, but it keeps the device safe. I think that's the most important thing. You have a device that is safe, it's updated, and any device that potentially gets battery replacements in future, you would hope very much that in the next three to four years, not three to four years,

two years of support windows still left, then they're going to still be usable. And I would pretty much trust that that will happen and we'll have no issues with it. But yeah, it's one of those things that we don't, you don't tend to see it to this extent. You don't tend to see battery as one of those things because the support window is fantastic.

and we're really happy that you get five years. But yeah, it's just a sad. It's a bit sad if you have a pixel 6A and you're now looking at it and the battery's dying at 3pm. Yeah, it is one of those things. Maybe we're lucky in that we get to upgrade on a regular basis. I think it's kind of a privileged thing to say, isn't it?

But yeah, for anyone out there affected with the 6A, make sure your device is updated, make sure it's first and foremost, and then go look into the options that Google's made available to you because there is credit towards new devices. And I've seen Google get a lot of heat for these, for the options that they gave to Pixel 6A owners.

I actually think these are completely fair options for a device that is probably, you know, even if you bought it near the end of its initial first year of sale before it was replaced with the 7A, you know, I think, I think getting $100 in cash or $150 in store credit is pretty fair for what was a pretty cheap phone already at the time. I think that's, you know, we're also, you know, if we want to talk software support, the 6A was originally only promised for three years.

So we have passed what was originally going to be its lifespan. So I do think that's interesting too. Now, obviously Google extended that lifespan out. That was a decision they made before they knew about these battery issues or at least made them public. But I don't know. I think these are totally fair options for 6A owners to jump into something like the 9A that Damien's using that I think is a fantastic. device and a huge leap over the 6A, in my opinion.

Like, that is a really, really good upgrade. Yeah, I think the 9A is fantastic if anyone's looking to jump ship. But there's some really good devices. Even the 8A is still a really good buy. I think that's come down a lot in price. And touch wood, no such hardware issues. And it's weird because we talked a few weeks ago on the podcast, didn't we, about how Google's hardware is improving year over year over year.

I don't, like, I'm going to cross my fingers here a little bit. I don't personally foresee many people complaining about Pixel 9 specifically. It's been the best in terms of the hardware for Pixel. So it's making me a little bit more excited for what's going to happen with 10 because there's probably going to be some benefits again, once again. So yeah, it's one of those subjects, right, that people you don't necessarily hear about and sadly it affected the Pixel 6A this time. But there are other phones that have their own issues, OnePlus with screens,

Samsung with their own battery issues, the batteries expanding and causing issues. Yeah, I lost a couple of my classic Note series devices due to that. So, yeah, kind of sadly part and parcel of electronic goods. Yeah. So, yeah, this week, Google also started its advertising campaign, I'd say, for the Pixel 10. The general tagline is ask more of your phone, which is the one that reeked during that Canadian Photoshop.

or whatever, which is hilarious. So as more of your phone, it started this Monday with a 30-second teaser that goes straight at Apple and how this AI Siri upgrade has been delayed and will be launching until 2026. So I think this sets up a huge preview of how Google is going to advertise this phone. And I think it's appropriate with the pixel 10 being the 10th model that they go this hard. they're almost reading into an anniversary aspect of it. So this ad, this 30 second ad, it starts with the Drey's song, Drey Snoop Dog song, the next episode, which Apple, of course, owns beats. They've used it twice now in another Ressa ad about changing your phone.

So it's interesting. The Pixel 10 is a lot of it has reeked. but is this the year for them to go this hard at Apple? Do they have goods, basically? That is a tough question. Do you think last year they had the goods? No, I think last year it was like... I think this year offers a refinement year,

so best foot forward in that regard. But I'm just curious about whether the AI features it would incentivize people to switch. And we won't really know that until we get the full picture. but from what we have today is the hardware enough. Do you know, I hadn't even put two and two together about Dr. Dre and the beats thing. I actually hadn't even anticipated.

Yeah, genuinely, that's pretty damn cool. I think that's pretty clever, actually. I just thought the next episode thing was like, oh, we're going to, Pixel 9 was the first episode. So I was surface level analysis and you've gone deeper than I could have even anticipated. But I feel like it is a weird one because when you look at it on the face of it,

was the pixel 9 a bit of an homage in terms of design to the iPhone? So to then go for, because like there were so many similarities, right? Yeah. That's squarey shape. And I get it. We're all going to end up converging on one smartphone shape. We've done it countless times in the past decade. I don't know.

Is there a little bit of overconfidence there? I guess the marketing team are not the team behind the actual piece of hardware. But I guess, yeah, going back to what I said about last year, there was definitely a really, really positive reception to the Pixel 9 from like the kind of people who don't necessarily care about Android in Pixel. Whereas with the iPhone, there's definitely some negative sentiment towards what they've done with Siri specifically and WWDC making promises with Apple's intelligence is it or lack thereof. I feel like, yeah, Google does tease as well. They do, they know how to make an ad. They have, I mean, they've had that sewn up right for a long time.

Actually, I'd say that it's the opposite. They have the best teasers, but the actual ads to the phones themselves once they're out are not, they're not iconic. That's to put it, kindly. I don't know. Maybe we're so in the smartphone era that you can't really, there's not that much to advertise again. But I don't know. I'm still not over how the ad for Gemini Live was taking a picture of what's in your fridge. and asking for a recipe.

Apple just said that too with chat. You've not done that. You need to do that. Apple just said that too with the visual stuff and chat GPT. And I don't see why this is so comparing that everybody has converged around that as a use case. Do you think an ad of me just asking when the soccer or the football games are on TV would work in the same way, though, because that's how I'm using it. So maybe we need a real.

Maybe we should redo our own realist ad for how to use Gemini. live. Like, what is this tree? What is this stain on my rug? How do I clean it? That kind of stuff. Only if in the middle of it, there's like two minutes where I'm arguing of it. I was like, no, that's not what I wanted you to do. No, no, no, no, no. You're way off topic. Come back. Like, absolutely. Um, no, I, uh, I agree. I think this is a great teaser. I, pixel's, I, I, I, I kind of think the best ads Google has done for the pixel are the, like, are the best friends ads with the iPhone. Yeah, I was about saying.

I think those are the closest to iconic. I agree. Yeah, the most memorable, but I still don't like that. It's tough. And that's fair. But they're everywhere. They're, like, I feel like every time I go to the movies, they play in front of a movie. They are.

It is the most widespread one. Yeah. But the fact that you're literally showing your competition has always gotten me. It's free advertising. Whatever you're doing, my problem with those ads. is that even though they're trying to portray the iPhone with lesser features compared to Google, they're still showing the competition.

Like, I feel that comes as more pace of weakness rather than the pace of strength. And Apple never does it. You know, obviously there were the Mac versus PC ads, but it's hard to compare those to like the iPhone being a specific product versus the overarching, you know, idea of a Windows PC and you know it was more about the operating system than it was the actual device they would call out something like Windows Vista right you know they would hint at Android or

or Windows you know stuff on stage especially the jobs era but like advertising campaign you're and like Apple yeah oh good good no I'm just like I'm exasperated I mean the iPod ads obviously but even those early iPhone ads you know with the white background and the app store typically they're just showing on the like those are I think much more iconic than anything

you know any of these companies have done over the last five 10 years and I think that just is because everybody has a smartphone so it's it is harder to sell it's like oh apps like you want apps right it's like you can't really that's not how you get people anymore

in AI is probably about to be if not already. Like, that's the thing. And, and I do think it is interesting this teaser focusing so much on the Apple delay. Like, I think that kind of cements exactly what the three of us have been talking about for what feels like a month now, which is that, that like, these phones are about software. Like, the reason that the pixel 10 leaks seem so boring is because the hardware is not the story this year. It really is going to be the software and AI features and all of that. And this is true, this is continuing to push the AI first agenda that that, that, that

kind of adopted last year with the pixel 9, and I think it's just going to be double and tripling down on that. I am shocked. I had not realized how, you know, this video as we're recording is three days old. This thing's almost at 10 million views, and that's nuts to me. They're advertising it's so hard. They're pushing it so hard. A hundred percent, but like even for, even with the like pre-roll in terms of videos, Like they're really making a big push on this in a way that I did not. I didn't fully expect them to do. You know, I would have expected to open this and see two, three, four million views from,

from pre-roll ads and all that. But this is like, even with sponsors, like that's nuts. Like I think they are really hyping this to be something that they want to go mainstream in a way that like Pixel has struggled before. And I think they're trying to ride off the success that they've seen with the Pixel 9 series in terms of like surprisingly healthy sales. And I'm curious to see how that ad campaign goes from here. Yeah, I don't know.

They'll probably run it, what, a couple of times now before the keynote. Like, is it twice? Oh, and it's going to be all over like, oh, when the NFL returns in a month. Like, this is all, like, every ad break is going to have at least a pixel one pixel 10 ad. It's going to be everywhere. So, you know, it's, and I'm sure I'm not as much of a baseball person, but like, I'm sure it's going to be similar. Any sport, any live event that they can get the ads into, they're going to be there.

Yeah, I mean, but if there's anybody out there on Google's ad team, you know, you know to call me, I'll be in the ad, it would just be me getting equally frustrated about where I need to watch certain football matches, certain soccer games, and that will get a million views regardless. So yeah, we need to do, we need to get that one hooked up. But yeah, I think we're kind of in a situation now where it's, again, it feels like every week I'm saying this, that we're on countdown. on countdown to launch, we literally are within, what, two weeks potentially have launched now. So it is, yeah, and everything is, as it tends to happen, I think you kind of called this a couple

of weeks ago, will the force it's going to slowly start opening and then it's a leakage is going to start to become a full on flow of information, if that makes sense. So yeah, yeah, expect us to just keep talking pixel 10 in the coming weeks. But I want to, my big thing coming up soon is Android 16 QPR 1. I'm more excited for that in some respects, because. kind of the phones, everything's known. I'm just really excited. I keep forgetting it's not live because I'm using the beta, right?

Like, I'm on, and like, it's surprising. Like, I have run into very few bugs on my end. I don't know about you guys, but, like, I keep forgetting that it's not finished software, that I'm like, oh, right, like, the expressive update is, like, not actually real yet, technically. I keep forgetting. Well, I briefly mention it because I just hope

that they do something with ads for that, because I remember seeing the original material you ads, everybody went crazy. for that and I just hope they lean into it because if they're going to go software, please showcase the fact that iPhone iPhone is a little bit stayed if you're going to compare them, don't compare them

because like you say I'm going to doink three advertising. This is the year. The update is fantastic. If the hardware and the software merge like we hope they do, I think it's going to be a really, really strong year. And I think that probably seems like a really, really good place to end this particular episode. Thanks guys for joining me.

I'm back. who knows where I was. I was, I was wasn't here. And yeah, thanks, thanks for just, thanks for humoring me for another hour. I think there was probably going to be mutiny if I stayed on too many episodes last, and that's why you got rid of me last week. But yeah, I'll speak to you guys soon. Thank you very much. Bye.