Pixelated - Lights and Laptops

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Welcome to episode 97 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Damien and Will are joined by Andrew Romero to talk through a couple of Pixel hardware leaks coming out of Android 17 Beta 4. First, they discuss the growing possibility of a Pixel Laptop, and wonder what Google needs to do to succeed in an ever-competitive space. Then they turn to "Pixel Glow," a mysterious new notification light system seemingly on the way for Pixel 11. Sponsored by Proton Unlimited: Pixelated listeners can save 30% on an annual subscription to the company's suite of privacy-friendly services by signing up using our link. Thanks to Proton Unlimited for sponsoring the podcast. Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google's rumored Pixel Laptop 28:09 - Pixel Glow 46:50 - Android 17 QPR1 Beta 1 and Wrap-up Hosts Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Andrew Romero Read more Google working on Pixel ‘laptop’ and ‘Pixel Glow’ lights that are also coming to phones What do you want Google’s ‘Pixel Glow’ lights to do? Google releases Android 17 QPR1 Beta 1 for Pixel Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer. And for even more Android discussion, dive into the official 9to5Google forums!

Welcome to Pixelated episode 97. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Andrew Romero joins Damien and I for a deep dive into a pair of interesting leaks we spotted coming out of Android 17 Beta 4. First, we discussed the ongoing rumors surrounding Google's Pixel laptop and Android for desktop, and wonder what this company needs to do to compete in an increasingly tough field. Then we look over to Pixel Glow, a rumored in-development feature for the Pixel 11, that might help explain what's going on with its uncovered camera bar. Or we might be hilariously proven wrong in just a few short months. Either way, it all starts right after this message from our sponsor, Proton. Grab your phone and take a look at your app drawer right now.

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which includes 500 gigabytes of cloud storage, custom email domains, a dedicated customer support team, and so, so much more. It's what's best for your current phone, not whatever you were using back in 2013. Upgrade to Proton today and save 30% on your annual subscription by heading to Proton.me slash 9 to 5 Google or by clicking the link in the show notes. That's proton.me slash 9 to 5 Google. Thanks to Proton for sponsoring Pixel needed. So we have a special guest, guys, that I think we should all give a round of applause to.

This is a good friend of everybody who should be listening to this podcast. This is Andrew Romero, colleague, friend. Any superlative you can give this man, you all give this man. He's joining us in lieu of Abner, jet setting around the US. And we're going to talk about something pretty cool today. I think we're going to be talking about potential leaks, what's going to be happening with the pixel lineup, well, the proposed pixel laptop. I just want to ask you straight away in lieu of Abner not being here because he's a big fan of ecosystem. What do you think of the possibility of a pixel laptop, Andrew?

I'm scared to get excited. I'm really scared to get excited. Why? Google's never screwed up a laptop before. That's true. That's a fact. You know what? Actually, I say that.

Most of their laptops have been decent except for like the pixel. I guess I'm thinking about like the pixel something like the pixel C, which is more of a hybrid device. But it's more that they have not fully commit. They've had commitment problems with laptops. Yeah. Well, some of the best hardware experiences I had originally came from, I mean, I guess it wasn't technically the laptop, but their tablet that they had with the glass and metal panels. It was just, it was boxy and nice. And it was great.

The pen was great. At least that was my experience of it. But on the software side, I'm excited. I just don't know. You don't know. Yeah, I think this is the thing. Obviously, just to reiterate the news, if anyone is unaware, that there was some indication that there is going to be pixel laptop like this year,

based upon some leaks that I think were sourced by 95 Google ourselves. We don't have any information on what it might look like, but we do know that there are lots of other things at play here where Google is going to be working on integrating Android and ChromeOS into what. on, I guess, unified platform. Like, I have some, I think we've talked about it at length on the podcast before, but as somebody who, and I'm sure you're like, the same as me and same as Will, is that we have certain productivity tools that we can't necessarily use outside of, say,

Windows and Mac. I'm intrigued to see how somebody who we haven't necessarily spoke to at length about this feels about Android as a potential desktop operating system. Yeah. We're shoehorned ourselves into like one. specific spot where we need to we need things to certain programs to live in our little bubble and historically things like Chromebooks really haven't suited our needs you know in that that kind of area and you know I've been thinking because we've talked about this and it sounds like Andrew you're in a

very similar boat to myself and Damien and that like there are enough applications that don't have easy web replacements or Android app replacements to to make a switch to a crunch own book as we know it today. I'm really, and I've made this, I've kind of said this before, but like in the era of like compatibility layers being as good as they are today, right? Like every operating system is kind of using them at this point to some degree. You know, you have the Mac Silicon transition and you have the Windows on Arm transition and you have SteamOS and Linux and emulating or running the compatibility layer for Windows. apps, you know, I, I, there are Windows emulators that allow you to play Steam games on Android now, right?

Like all of this stuff tells me that like, okay, with this transition to Android, let's make this stick, let's build these compatibility layers that will allow me to buy a Google laptop and open, you know, I'm recording this podcast and Adobe Audition right now. Open Adobe Audition, you know what I mean? Like, do we think, so in terms of, like we don't have any visuals of what it's going to look like. But my biggest shocking aspect of this entire thing and the fact that Google is working on a laptop, we kind of thought that would be the case. This would arguably be the first dedicated, and I hesitate to use the term Android desktop, but Android desktop laptop. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous. I

knew it swore at how ridiculous it was. Like Google has to nail this out of the gate, surely, because how are they going to get partners on board to do this? Surely, I'm sure. I'm sure. or Samsung will do something there. They're kind of doing that with the tab series anyway, right? I don't know if any of you guys are used a tab, a Galaxy tab for a while, but some of those just feel like at this point, just get a laptop. So maybe this is that final bridge that does it. I don't really, I'm kind of trying to understand how they're going to sell this

to the likes of Samsung. Yeah, I don't know. Obviously, you have no idea what they're going to do. And that's the whole point of this, right, is just speculation. you would really hope that they give it a proper like like you said desktop laptop feel you know because that's this point that's the only way it survives among like people who are more serious about about what they're doing you know like I couldn't like I said I couldn't live on a Chromebook I couldn't work on that just because they're great for certain things right but they're dedicated

apps they need you know all of my RAM for better or worse you know for using And it's, I would really hope that Google feels the same way about this perspective, you know, laptop idea. You know, it's, we've, like I said, we've talked about this a few times, you and I, Damien, and I'm really happy to have your input here, Andrew, as well. Because it sounds like we're all sort of looking at this the same way. Those previous times have talked about this. I've been like, you know, Google is, I would argue, already late to launching a, this operating system, like Android for desktops as an operating system, like whatever the Android experience that would power this laptop, right? I want to like triple down on that that I think

they're late. Like, because, because when I was talking about that, I was talking about that in the context of Windows 11 unpopularity, like people, you know, microslop, right? Like, all I have to tell you is that word and you know exactly the like commentary online I'm talking about. And in the, you know, last month we've seen movement from Microsoft that they are trying to and like I'm very skeptical about this but they did this whole press blitz where they talked about how they're going to make a bunch of changes to Windows 11 that fix a bunch of the complaints people have about it and you know unrelated to anything AI like improving the start menu and improving its general performance and all of this stuff right like things that people have you know,

allowing the task bar to change sides again like you could on Windows 95, I think. The first desktop operating system I ever used was Windows 95. And I feel fairly confident I could do it on that, certainly on XP. You know, again, XP is 20, God, like 25 years old almost. So they've done this press blitz, and they're saying they're going to roll these changes out over the next few weeks. And then, you know, or months or whatever. And then on the other side of it, you now have the, the MacBook Neo, the $600 MacBook Neo that is like, you know, certainly a mid-range laptop, right?

Like, nobody's pretending that thing is like, quote, unquote, premium. But for its price range, I would argue it is. And it has a real operating system that you can't, you know, I'm not saying that you're going to get your best Photoshop performance on the MacBook Neo, but it will run Photoshop. right, like in a way that you can't really talk about Chromebooks right now. Maybe Photoshop's a bad example because there's web stuff. But like name your Adobe choice or name your desktop app of choice that that isn't on Chrome. Like it can probably run well enough on the Neo unless you're really exporting like 4K video or something.

But like certainly I could record this podcast and edit this podcast on the MacBook Neo in a way I cannot on a Chromebook at the moment. And so it has gone from me thinking that Google is late to this but can still. nail it to me being like Google needs to like if Google doesn't 100% nail whatever this Android desktop experiences whatever whatever the pixel laptop you know hardware software and pricing is nobody's going to buy it like that like we've are like the landscape of this desktop OS war is shifting dramatically like on a weekly basis and and it has gone like the stakes just continue to get higher do you think the focus on creating the tablet-style devices that perform as well as a laptop.

Like, among the entire market has knee-capped companies like Google in terms of being able to create something powerful as a laptop in that form factor, just because they don't want to commit to something in that. They don't think it'll sell. But, you know, and then Apple comes out with the Neo, and it's an instant hit because it's the first logical purchase in a long time. It makes sense as a product. Yes.

Meanwhile, a lot of these other companies might still be in the same headspace of, well, let's just try to make our tablets as powerful as possible so people can use them as laptops. And part of me thinks that maybe that's hindered them and their plans to like actually get ahead and just create something that works. Yeah. I mean, Google's, you know, I sort of misspoke on Google's history with laptops because I don't think it's all that bad when you look at the grand picture.

that's not true for tablets. I would say that Google's experience of optimise, everything from optimizing Android for tablets to trying to get better tablet dedicated applications or experiences to their own experience making tablets outside of the Nexus 7 devices, which are...

I won't ever have slander against Nexus 7, by the way. I'm not slandering them, but I think they were both good products, especially for their time and for their price. They're also 15 years old. So, like, you know, like we're talking ancient history here. Like, we're talking Android 4, you know, like, I don't know. I guess to me it's more like you sort of in a post-Ipad world, if we're going to talk. Speaking about the iPad, I'm worried that Google will fall into the trap of the iPad.

We don't want a halfway house. No, no, no, this needs to be a Windows Mac competitor. This cannot be a, we brought, this can't be a. Dex competitor because that's not a real thing. And like, that's my biggest fear is that this is just like a Dex like experience on a Google, on Google branded hardware where I'm like, yeah, like it's fine for what it is. But the problem is that like the Chromebook experience, the Chrome OS experience is outdated. Like it was perfect for the time in which Google launched it and pushed hard on it. Right. And I'm not just talking about, obviously you want to talk about

enterprise and specifically education. Let's set that aside, even from a consumer perspective, you know, Chromebooks launched in the wake of netbooks, right? Like, they were a netbook and an iPad competitor. And it was easy to see of like, well, like the web can do all the basic stuff you're doing on either a netbook or an iPad, right? Like, you're going to miss out on the iPad had apps again. But if you're more focused on productivity, the idea of buying a cheap but, but easy to use and fast enough for the price laptop, like with, you know, just running Chrome was appealing at the time. But I think, you know, we've, as, as performance, price to performance has gone down, even in the rampocalypse, right? Like, kind of setting that aside, but like,

largely speaking, you don't get to a MacBook Neo without advancements and what, what performance you can achieve for lower price points, right? In that era, you are looking at devices that are only a few hundred dollars that are running on like, even just like mobile hardware, like the MacBook Neo or like, you know, the, again, I mentioned Android emulation. Like if you throw WinLater or any of those like Windows emulator apps on like a Galaxy S-26 Ultra, like it's going to run Steam games decent. well with that performance.

Like within this era of desktop applications are kind of table stakes now. Like Google needs to have this there or I just, it's such a waste of time and effort because like there's so many other options now that you can go. And I mean, even if you're against the MacBook Neo, if you're worried about its RAM constraints or you don't like macOS, fine, but like the, you know, sort of the comeback I've heard from like Windows fans. I had XDA's Rich Woods on side load to talk about this,

is that there are other options you can buy in that $600 range that run Windows that might appeal to you more. But either way, I can't imagine this laptop launching for less than $600. So this is the competition that it's going to face. It needs to be as useful. I mean, surely in the next few months, obviously, we are aware that Google are doing this. We know that they're moving towards this desktop paradigm.

they're going to have to get all of these partners on board. I think if they, I think if one partner signs on, and I do think Adobe is obviously I'm, we're biased, we'll will say Adobe. But it's, it's just the most obvious example of like,

get them on stage. Look, I don't like that company. I hate that I have been paying monthly fees to them since college. But, you know, it's, regardless,

I have personally not found enough apps to substitute my own Adobe suite. Um, because I use so, many aspects of it. It's not just that I use like just Photoshop and Lightroom. Like they're, truly, there is not like a great replacement for audition that I have found in the way that there is for Photoshop or even Premiere. Um, you know, like, like get them on stage and that's, that's a win because that's usually who Apple turns to to promote productivity on the iPad. I mean, I mean, there's another, I think there's another kind of elephant in the room is that

we've seen in the last two weeks, Linux has gained 5% market share on. Crazy. Steam's hardware survey, which is insane to think that. And I'm part of that 5%. A few devices running Linux. I do genuinely think I would rather run Linux at this stage than obviously I'm going, speaking from my composition of not knowing what Android desktop is going to look like. But I'm very, very intrigued to see how Google rolls out updates, how there's a transition from Chrome OS to Android desktop, whatever they call it, aluminium OS, is it. I think it's been worked on. But I guess, the biggest difficulty is how are they yet you mentioned it is that macbrook neo like i think they're using a smartphone processor is almost like a look what we can do with this hardware

available to them if i cannot imagine the uproar if google does not make performance games if they think they're going to put a tensor chip in a laptop i can imagine it would be i don't think it would be disastrous for performance i just don't think it would be where it needs to be but at the same time, I'm wary that would they go with a snapfriken chip? Could you see Google saying, we're going to put a snapfriken X2 Elite in a, in a laptop that has our name. They do, I always forget, they partner with Snapdragon on the watch. They have not switched to to TensorFlow on watches. So like, it's not like that there isn't a relationship there they could build on if they're like, yeah, you know, we we think tensor is best left for for phones.

have we seen any like laptop specific tensor or build names come out or anything like we did nothing at this stage yeah it's almost so early it's so early we're kind of like kind of preempting a lot of the stuff that may potentially maybe make this void in about 248 hours time

but I can't there's been no evidence even in in software league I mean this is this is from the most recent Android 17 stable beta if that makes sense not QPR which we'll get onto towards the end of the podcast. But I'm intrigued to see what your perfect setup would be.

Do you think we could see a two and one? I can't see them going back to that. I think this is just going to be a bit like, I mean, I think if Google made the pixel book go, but kind of for the new gen, I would be kind of happy because I think the hardware

is absolutely fantastic there, but I know a lot of people love, the original pixel book and it's kind of like weird hinge. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm interested to see what you guys think. Do you think you could stomach a two and one or do you think it's just best off being a complete clamshell laptop that we used to?

I would, my, my gut says a clamshell laptop, just generic. Because there's so much data now around like the response we're seeing around just good laptops versus like things like, you know, what Lenovo releases on yearly basis. They make good products. I like Lenovo's stuff a lot. But they do release just quant. It's in different hinges, different styles and everything. And you don't see a lot of those as go-to for a majority of people. And I think if they want to hit the broader target, just the generic laptop, you know, with good, good hardware. But you don't, that's the thing is, you don't know what their game plan is. Do you think they have a plan to make, you know, years of laptops? In that case, are they just going to start with, you know, so-so performance for now? You know, maybe they do make a tensor chip for their own laptop.

That would have to start at a baseline. It can't be amazing out of the box. If it is great, but it's probably not going to be. I'm concerned you're describing the pixel tablet because that's the argument you can make of like, of like, oh, they just like, you know, they started with like a so-so tablet. But don't worry. They're going to iterate on this. I did.

Just kidding. Nobody bought it. We're not making anything. Like, that's my concern is that Google struggles to. take big, big screen devices seriously sometimes, I think, or at the very least, you know, maybe they take them seriously, but they, they have commitment issues and they don't really know, they don't have like a great idea in terms of like, you know, how to make it stick in the market. And I genuinely think the only thing they can do here is to effectively build a, a MacBook Neo

competitor. It's got to be, you know, and it can be a two and one or, you know, I think a touchscreen is a no brainer, obviously. Like, it'll have a touchscreen. But I think, they'd probably be better off thinking about it how the like the surface laptop right where it's like it's got a touchscreen but it doesn't bend all the way back around um you know i think that would be fine although again it depends on how they're thinking about or how they're thinking about android are they thinking about it in terms of like this is just kind of a chrome os rebrand and you know the apps here still work how they do on chrome os or is this like we have new ideas on how on how this platform will work it's going to be more like a traditional Windows or Mac desktop.

It just comes down to that. But yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm just, I think they have to, maybe I'm being too hard on Google, but after the pixel tablet, I want them to nail this. Like, they have to, and the fact that they flirted with laptops so many times and gone back and forth, like at least two times now on whether they're going to make laptops, like do it. Or you have to nail it.

I don't believe you, basically. I mean, the biggest question I think that might come off the back of this is, how is an Android desktop operating system going to truly separate itself from Android the phone platform? Because I feel like there's going to be some sort of level divergence there because of the way that these updates will potentially work. So MacOS is updated in a bigger fashion over a slower period. But I think putting Android in front of it, and this is my potential concern, and if they're pushing the updates at the same rate

that you would push the updates for photons, then you could get a drastically different experience year to year. And I don't think people are going to like that. I think we're kind of used to a desktop paradigm that stays, to be frank, almost quite static for a long period of time. Like, I'm the kind of person who I will not update my Mac studio, my MacBook. If I know something's going to potentially break a piece of software,

if, yeah, this is a, these are the kind of things I'm hoping that they've thought about because you can't have something that's constantly evolving when it needs to be a workhorse. It just has to work in its A-based configuration with little to no updates necessary. It can be completely siloed away from your phone. I'm kind of wondering how they're going to broach all these subjects. I'm really intrigued to see if we could speak to somebody at Google about this in future when this product is available, why they made certain decisions. And obviously we're preempting it and we're kind of speculating.

But there is, when you start to look at it more broadly, I agree with you, Willis, this has been something that they could have done, they could have pulled the trigger on multiple times, but they obviously decided not to do it. There's probably for good reason why they wouldn't want to do that. How do you convince people to, oh, you're not using Windows anymore, you're going to use Android? Well, I always use it on my phone. So why would I do that?

Right. So that's, and maybe this is the last thing we can touch on before we move on to whatever pixel glow is. but yeah, I think the thing we have not brought up yet, and we've been recording for 22 minutes, is Gemini, the Gemini question around all of this, and whether, whether, you know, the three of us, me especially, is just looking at this from a quote-unquote outdated perspective.

And I'm not actually saying my perspective is necessarily outdated, but perhaps in Silicon Valley it is. how much of this is about them building a laptop that is, is, it wants to be powered by Gemini as much as possible. And I think the answer might be a lot. Hmm. Can that make up for it though?

I don't know. You guys are, no, I, like, like I, I'm turning to an operating system to, to get work done typically.

Like, I'm not, you know, if, when I'm, when I'm, I, I grab a tablet or,

or my phone at night, right? Like, I, every now and then I'm on a laptop at night. But typically, for, you know, I'm reaching for devices that are a little bit easier and, and less stress to use. And I'm turning to Windows or Mac to do my job. And I would prefer to see that experience from Google,

but I also know that, you know, the pixel in general is all about Gemini at this point. Like, that is a Gemini first phone. And I can see them, you know, after having said, we're not going to make laptops anymore being like, ooh, but what have we made an AI first laptop? Like, I'm guessing that's kind of where this rebrand. You have to imagine that would rebirth catalyst. Yeah, exactly. Catalyst, perfect word. Exactly. It has to be how this started was the idea of interacting with Gemini. And that's not, you know, you've seen the same thing with Windows and co-pilot. And that's a rousing success. Everybody uses co-pilot. I'm kidding. I'm joking. where you were going with that too.

I mean, Gemini would be much better, but like, there's a reason I will not buy another Chromebook because it doesn't fit my life. Yeah. I'm intrigued. I think that the idea that Google is now building a lot of desktop application,

we've seen Gemini come to Mac, it's coming to Windows. It's probably good time. The clue, we talked about the clue last week. It's the Gemini first desktop app. It's just alt space away on my current PC, but, you know, I don't use it all too often.

You know, if I need anything, it's Chrome. You know, Google it or use other tools that I'm used to using on my workhorse computer. You know, like I have patterns and I've built these synapses physically, you know, in my own way of doing things. Right. I don't know. It'd be a new experience no matter what, right? It's a new operating system. Which is a risk in general because nobody wants to relearn, you know.

Again, if you're using this stuff for work. you want to get that work done as fast as possible and relearning the basics of an operating system, you know, even over a week will is a, is a hiccup that you have to convince people to, to get over. Now, there is a subset of users who will jump at new things to do those things. A hundred percent, but it's not. But we saw that with, with a lot of the AI stuff that has been pushed over the last, you know, a couple of years. Because you can do this better just by describing what you want to do. And sure, but I know how to do that in a couple of clicks.

Yes, exactly. That's just where I fall on it, but obviously people are going to differ in their opinions. Yes. Yeah, I think the first protocol is just making that Chrome experience fully featured on Android. We're probably talking about this from a phone-centric and a tablet-centric situation. And I think maybe Google has probably already thought about this internally. And I'm excited to see kind of what they do with the operating system first, but then the hardware comes a little bit secondary. I think that kind of is the piece of the puzzle

that obviously builds itself once you have a preset notion of how this desktop OS is going to look. Let's get into another piece of information that happened late last week is it appears that Google is working on a, I guess it's a function, a feature for the Pixel 11 series.

We found that it's going to be called Pixel Glow. Is it pixel glow? Yeah, pixel glow, which sounds to me like a light or something along those lines or a lamp or something, but it looks as though it could potentially be something tied to the pixel 11 hardware specifically.

And given the fact that there's not many changes there, I'm unsure as to how this is going to help sell this is a brand new device or as a new device in this trio of lineups that looks exactly the same. Yeah. Let me read the screenshot we have here that kind of lines out what this is, or at least how, what language we're going to be discussing here. Stay in the moment without losing touch. Pixel glow uses subtle light and color on the back of your device to inform you of important activity when it's face down.

Use pixel glow. Then there's a managed experiences button and then an information description that says use pixel glow with caution if you're light sensitive. If you have flash notifications turned on, you won't see pixel glow for incoming calls. Which seems to give a load. So I have two theories here. And I had floated them in Slack last week when this broke, and I'm now going to bring it to the wider pixelated audience, which is, one, it is the reason that the camera bar no longer has a cover on it and is back to a pixel six-esque uncovered all-glass camera bar. We had talked when this first leaked a couple weeks ago, we talked about how strange it is for Google to go back to this because the reason they had moved away from the all-glass camera bar, was the pixel six had lens flare issues because of how it was designed.

And so with the pixel seven, one of the changes they made was this new cover that has slimmed down in the year's sense, but has kind of stuck there since the pixel seven, not here anymore. Number two, and Damien, you'll remember, we spent like five minutes on this podcast talking about the larger flashlight and how interesting it was that the phone seemed to have a larger flashlight. and how I was like, oh, I hope they add like Google or Apple's beam control that they have on the iPhone, on the pro series iPhones. Now with the pixel glow context,

I'm like, it's something with this LED, something with this LED and maybe how it reflects on the glass or something. I'm not, like I don't obviously know exactly how it's going to work, but you can see looking back with hindsight, you're like, I see the puzzle pieces starting to form from this leak, from these two leaks, how this is going to maybe function.

I'm intrigued to see what you guys think in terms of if this just ends up being, as you've described, effectively a big notification LED. Like, what is old is new again. I was going to say pixel glow by LGTM. I mean, because it feels very LG. It does feel very LG. It's very ticker screen on the V10 and 20

or the LG friends on the G5. Like it feels very like, I don't know. Let's just do a fun one for this one. Like, um, which is awesome. I think people, if, if this works even remotely well, I think people are going to lose their minds like, like nerds are going to, like us are going to lose their minds over this. Because how many times have people been like, I miss notification LEDs so much? Like I wish they would bring them back.

Oh, I bought like, I bought Sony phones for seven years longer than everybody else because they didn't get rid of the notification light. Um, you know, I think people. will love this and in a way that I think is like more interesting than you know Samsung's like edge glow lights yeah they've done in the past like I think this is you know and and I think one plus has done that as well this is much more this is much more interesting and we'll probably I think it's going to look cool like I'm excited to see what this looks like yeah I'm I mean it helps it helps differentiate doesn't it helps differentiate a design that has kind of stayed the same for a few years

and I'm I mean even if it is just a notification early the option which it I'm I'm sure there's more to this. I would not be surprised if in the advertising campaigns, it's the Gemini Live Glow and when you're talking to it, it can't, or maybe we can take a phone. You can see the ad in your head. You know exactly what it looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what do you think in terms of like external features that this could potentially bring up? I can only think of like Flash or maybe, I mean, the notification is obvious, but maybe you could have like soft glow for video, something like that, you could have like a, like a diffused light. I don't really know. We've seen companies do lighting at the back of their phones as a, and I don't like the term

gimmick, but as a selling point, this is, I don't think this needs to be the key selling point. I think it's just one of those extras that just happens to be part of a better device, I guess. Do you have any theories, Andrew? It's hard to, to pin down for me. I like what you're saying about it being diffused light throughout the camera bar. I think that would be pretty cool. But I don't think it has to be one or the other. I think with that new,

at least my thinking with the new flashlight profile, I guess is more of a beam, beamed look, but with the glow, maybe not in the flashlight itself because both can't work at the same time. I don't know how it'll work. It might not be the flashlight at all,

to be clear. I'm just floating. It could be, into the back of the phone that manages to shine. through the glass because it says subtle light and color on the back of your device. I don't, I just don't know what that is.

Right, right. It does mention, it does mention that if you have flash notifications turned on, you won't see pixel glow for incoming calls, which makes me think it has something to do with that, with the, with the flash, right? Like it's,

it could, or it just doesn't want to double down. Yeah, it could also be that it doesn't want to, want to double down. Yeah. Yeah, but flash notifications are on the front of the screen in the software.

Are they on the front? I thought it was referring to like the ability to have the camera. No, the flash notifications are the ones where you put it on screen. So I think it is slightly different, but I think it's LED notifications for pixel. But don't quote, don't quote me on that.

No, I'll cut it. That's, that's very confusing terminology from Google. Yeah, it's basically the flash notifications is, I think, to be fair,

let me just quickly check. Is there not an accessibility thing that allows you to turn the flash on for? Okay, there is, right? I don't remember it being. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't, like completely making this up in my head. Okay. I was like you were right. Okay. So flash notifications

was initially the one where you would have your screen flash a different color. And then flash, you can choose now to camera flash is an option within this section. It wasn't in there initially. Okay. So you have the option to pick one. Yeah. I mean if if if as I think you, you can probably speak more to this will is that if it is disabling the camera flash notifications yeah. And this is a lot more subtle. It might be good in professional environments for start. It might be better in the evening if you have you found on the side of your bed. I kind of hope that Google does some more stuff with this with regards to like you

can have, say you had it on an alarm and you can have like a soft lighting. Oh yeah, like a sunrise. A little mini sunrise alarm. Yeah, mini sunrise at the side of your bed or whatever it is or like it goes a different colour for specific alarms and things like that. I can imagine Google doing something around that. But at the same time, I'm intrigued to see how this will look. Is it going to take up the entire.

camera bar, is it just going to be the tiny little sliver that we're kind of used to with the, you know, like the assistant glow that you get, you know, where the lines come in. I kind of hope that we get to learn more about this sooner rather than later, but... It's definitely a Gemini thing, right? Like, we have evidence that it will have visual feedback when you're talking to Gemini, but I also... So, like, I definitely see them pushing it that way, but also, I wonder if this is, like, maybe another attempt at like a digital wellness thing of like don't worry yeah turn your phone down

like turn your phone over and turn your phone over and will use subtle light and color to tell you when you need to pick it back up like I could see that's fine by me yeah I love that idea flipping my phone over and just well also I really hope that they'll they'll you'll be able to assign LED colors to specific priority notifications you know promotions I can always ignore that color The manage experiences button makes me think you will be able to customize this to some extent. It just depends on. Or maybe their AI assigned. Either way, I think that the AI categorization has been working pretty well anyways.

So I'd be happy to see that. I mean, thinking a bit more broadly, this could be a really good visualizer for like audio, like music, all that kind of stuff. I think kind of cool as well. That would be really fantastic to see. Yeah. You're thinking, you're thinking very broad. And I'm like, I just want to work. I just want one of these little things to work well, you know.

But this seems like it could, you know, like I also wonder, is this why the temperature sensor is gone? Like, is this making space for that? That or bust, you know, I mean, which is fun. This is such a, this is, at the very least, this is more fun. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, even if this is kind of a gimmick, so is the temperature sensor. And I would argue this is a lot more fun.

So I will, I will take this. I mean, do you think, do you think we need? something like this. Just as a differentiate, I think maybe this is one of those things that Google has thought about of like, oh, how do we maximize the, I don't want to say marketing, but it kind of is, isn't it? It's like you're out and about in the world and say you're taking a photo and it's using an AI feature on your camera. I have no doubt in my mind that you'd be able to do something with the camera with it. Oh, for sure. Like a red recording light or something. Or like a three to one countdown. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or like a, um,

Ooh, like a group photo alignment, like no, uh, indicator or something, like stuff like that. I mean, there's, that'd be cool. I think, I think that's where Google does at least try things like that. And I'm kind of, I'm kind of like, I don't want to say excited. I'm, I'm intrigued to see how it's going to work. But it's one of those features that like you, a lot of like, you know, Samsung devices in the past have had these little features and those little things. have the power to keep people buying them for years.

You know, if Google needs those little like hooks, not, they're not gimmicks necessarily agree with you. It would be a functional tool, but it's one of those little quality of life things. It's like you can't drop, you know, same way you, a lot of people just can't drop, you know, screen calling or call screening or stuff like that.

It's a little. It's now playing for me. It's not playing for me. Literally, the most inconsequential feature on a phone, and I can't get rid of that. For me, it's huge. It's so, it's, I have been saying this for, God, like, genuinely eight, eight plus years, or no, sorry. Yeah, eight plus years, 20, 2017.

Why is no one copy now playing? Like, ever. Like, I don't, like, Apple owns Shazam. And they never thought to, like, they haven't built this in. I just don't, I don't understand. Like, that I've always felt like that was ripe for the taking. And, and I don't know, maybe people don't use it as much as I think they do. but it is, it sent the pixel too that has been my like,

and that's why it's, it's been nice to see Google like fix it a little bit. Like they kind of busted it for like the last few months and like it seems to be coming back into a better spot. They added the like button to search from the lock screen back, which I don't understand why that ever went away. That was so handy. When it wouldn't detect a song, you could just automatically launch it anyway. I just, yeah, man. And to bring it back to pixel globe, like it's the same, it's the same idea of like,

Like you're saying, Andrew, I love this. I love this thing. And now I'm going to stick with pixel for as long as it's here. And then to echo what you're saying, Damien, it also draws more attention to the most iconic piece of the pixel design, which effectively acts as marketing when you're out in the world. Like it's, it's such a smart idea. And I'm, oh, man, I'm so like prepped to be disappointed that we've floated all these really cool ideas for it. And then we're going to get like two of them. But like still, I hope that like, there's so.

there's obviously so much potential here. I really hope Google, like, crushes this. Because I think it's, I think you could do a lot of cool things with, with, with, with what is effectively just lights on the back of a phone. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think I feel like they're doing, the way that they're going to integrate this into the hardware makes the most sense.

I think there's obviously, I've tried different devices like, I want to say an ASUS ROG device. I don't know which one it was, which had an LED strip at the back, which you could put a custom message on. But that's kind of like, yeah, that's okay. it feels like you're looking at a ticker tape on like a... Do you know what I mean? Like you've seen the train times or the bus times.

It feels a bit weird, but... Nothing. You're reminding me of nothing now too, which we haven't brought up. But this feels very nothing. Which is a funny thing to see us. Yeah, it feels very nothing, but... It does, but at the same time, I think this is going to be integrated into a component that makes sense as opposed to...

I don't have any disdain for what nothing's doing with their devices. Make your phone stand out as much as possible. and with Google now starting to make inroads probably more so than nothing can at the premium end of the spectrum. You can 100% imagine going into, I mean, I don't do this very often, but I know you guys in the US love your carrier stores.

You go into a carrier store and all these phones are lit up looking at you with the Gemini glow. You can imagine that people like, what the hell is this? Go over and look at it, pick up the phone and realize, wow, this is pretty darn good.

I can 100% see it from that aspect, even if it is just something that is there, Like, I don't know what the, I'm sure the manufacturing costs were exponential over just having a metal bar, but you can 100% see why they would do this. Anything to get eyes on their prize at the moment is just massive and a great hulking light at the back that doubles as a camera. Flash is going to work, right? Surely. Yeah. I just want to say, I don't think love is the right word when describing our relationship with carrier stars.

You know what I meant. You know what I meant. No, I just had to make that joke. Yeah. It is an interesting time because this is actually coming to the pixel laptop as well. There is some element of pixel glow coming to the laptop. So just kind of talk about that for a little bit. I can't imagine that's going to have any insane functionality on a laptop form factor as opposed to a phone.

So speaking of Asus really quick, as my Windows PC, I use the G16, I think. Yeah, yeah, the Zephyrists G16. Yeah, I know what you have. Yeah, we use the, we use the 14s behind me. Yeah. Yeah. And that has the LED strip on the front, on the top lid. Does that do notifications when it's asleep, or is that literally just a power status and other gimmicky?

I actually don't know because my G14 model is the one that doesn't have the like dot matrix display in it. So I'm not, I'm actually not sure if it can, if, because every demo I've ever. seen of it is just like showing like little art designs or like whatever text you've put in as opposed to like actual information yeah I don't that idea I don't use it to do that and it doesn't do that for me maybe because I haven't set it up but it's just not wasn't interested in it I feel like I'm scared it'll be something like that where it's just on the top of the top panel and you know maybe it's like a notification thing like the same thing or I mean it it has I guess it's different I guess it's different with notifications on

on an Android tablet, though, isn't it? Because the way in which we receive notifications on our phone, and if it's going to pair with the phone, it's going to be more cohesive. I guess the closest approximation I can think is how MacOS handles its notifications versus Windows. So maybe there is some utility there. You would think that Google would want to emulate that,

given now they're adding that little piece of the puzzle in their ecosystem. Yeah, possibly. If it's supposed to be like that piece of the puzzle and not like, you know, Chromebook like, or, you know, just to go over. version of something, you know. Interesting.

Quick, quick follow up on the ASU stuff, because I found the how-to. First of all, it's called Anna, Anna, Me Matrix. It's anime, but me is the M and is capitalized. I don't know. Whatever. So mostly it's for like cool animations or text, largely speaking. But if you scroll far enough down, you can get to a part where it says you can switch from animation mode to system mode, which allows you to show notifications or system stats.

But the only thing it seems to show in the notification settings example they have here is mail, clock, alarm, date and calendar and battery level. All the things I use on my laptop. I was going to say by mail, I assume they mean the Windows mail app. Right. The only time it is open on my computer is when I click an email link and forget that that's not going to open Gmail. Yeah. So it's it's not great even though the idea is obviously there. I bet there's I bet there's third party tools that allow you to do this more,

but clearly in the in the armory crate stuff. Asuos has not taken this idea quite as far as maybe it could be taken. Maybe that's for Google to pick up and run with. Yeah, I mean, if it's surfacing now in these leaks, it's probably something that's like, you know, I would assume it's something that's much bigger than, you know, just the afterthought because it has a lot of potential. I mean, we've spent how many minutes talking about lights.

It has potential, you know, to be something really cool. Yeah, I think that's all we're hopeful. I think the main thing is Google needs to, you need to land this laptop out of the gate and make sure the lights do something cool. And I think most of us will be pretty happy. But I just want to say thanks for joining us today, Andrew, we'll have you back on in future to talk about this laptop when it comes because I think there's going to be a lot of interesting discussions around,

Android is a desktop operating system. And maybe, maybe a pixel glow is just an afterthought in that piece of hardware. And I think that's all it needs to be. Just nail the software. And I think everything else will kind of fall into place. Damien, I want to give a shout out to Android 17 QPR 1, beta 1, which we mentioned briefly earlier. If you were wondering why we're not talking about it, it's because there's nothing really

to talk about. There's no user-facing features. Yeah. We're expecting a bigger update around IOs. So it'll come, but this is just laying the groundwork for whatever is next. but it's there if you want to test it. If you want to test it, there's nothing new there, sadly. There's maybe a tiny few little tweaks of UI elements,

but for the most part, absolutely nothing to report on that. But yeah, thanks for joining me, guys. I know it's a bit of a different one. We're talking lights and laptops, which is very out of our wheelhouse. Thanks for the name of the year. Episode, Damien. Yes, so thanks to join me, guys.

Hopefully it speaks you very soon. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Pixelated, a 9-to-5 Google podcast. If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.