Pixelated - New Year, Same Pixel

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Welcome to episode 84 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will talk through Google's big changes to Gmail, including a new AI Inbox and improved search. They also turn their attention to Gemini's Personal Intelligence feature that aims to make it the best virtual assistant we've seen yet, but not before digging into the latest Pixel 10a leaks that have us scratching our collective heads at just how familiar this phone feels. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Timecodes 00:00 – Intro 00:50 - Pixel 10a leaks 14:25 - Personal Intelligence 26:35 - Gmail AI tools 35:45 - Pixel manufacturing 39:35 - Google updates 41:18 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Google Pixel 10a releasing in ‘mid February’ with ‘Berry’ color, leak claims Leaked Pixel 10a prices could somehow go down from last year Google Pixel grew by 25% in 2025’s global smartphone market as Apple takes top spot Google announces the future of Gmail with AI Inbox & new AI Overview search Gemini rolling out ‘Personal Intelligence’ beta that uses Gmail & your Google apps data Google Pixel development reportedly moving almost entirely out of China 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.

Welcome to Pixelated episode 84. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Damien Abner and I dive into Google's latest AI announcements, alongside the inclusion of an AI inbox and improved LLM-powered search functions in Gmail. Google is also giving us personal intelligence with Gemini, which promises to use the mountain of data the company has on you to create a more powerful assistant. We're also diving into the latest pixel 10A rumors that have us wondering exactly why this phone exists in the first place. It's all coming up.

Happy New Year, gents. It's always nice to see you again. It feels like we haven't done this for a while. I know you are still kind of reeling from CES, but we've had some news that's been pretty cool. We've had some, maybe not the Pixel 11 news that we want, but the pixel 10A is potentially on the horizon. Like, I'm, I mean, I'm sure Abnerner, you're the same. I feel a little bit biased. I'm a big A-series fan. The news isn't huge, but we're getting some little leaks here and there. Pricing potentially is going to be a little bit lower than we expected. So do you think that maybe softens a blow that potentially this isn't going to be that huge leap over the 9A from last year and more in line with other brands that do iterative updates?

So I guess starting with the design looking the same, knowing the pixel 9 and the pixel 10, I guess it shouldn't be surprised that the A series is going to keep its design for, two or three generations now going forward to match the main flagship series. So I guess in hindsight, that isn't too surprising. And I think like we said last year, we liked the design of the 9A. So that gets carried over. And we've seen some colors, some nice colors that could be coming in. I'm not a massive color fanatic. Then again, I do always buy the limited version. Like, what do you what what what what's your basic opinion of colors will because i know you're a little bit like me where you we complained a little bit about the one plus 15 i nearly called it to one plus

13 um are you a case guy like me or you kind of roll it without any cases like abner because i know he's a heathen i did just see his iPhone air in person uh yeah it's um it depends on the phone i think is is the the fairest way to put this because it's like uh i use you you know, on a lot of my pixel devices, I use cases because Google has to split matte and glossy finishes on both series, both the regular and pro pixels. And so unless I buy in a series, I'm stuck in something that is glossy and picking up smudges and fingerprints and so on. But other products, like, I mean, honestly, like something like the one plus 15, where it is all matte and soft touch, like I would never, or even the one plus 13, I would never use a case on, on, on

those. So it kind of depends on the build and the materials used and the colors. And to that point, like, I think, I think Google is pretty, is above average on colors. I don't think they, they are the best in the industry. I think Motorola is better than them. I think One Plus has been better at them in terms of just like interesting or, or unique, both colors and finishes. But there's always at least one color in a pixel lineup I like. And it's usually saturated. And it's usually poppy and fun. I loved the lavender pixel 9A last year. Yeah, last year.

Wow, it is 2026. And, you know, hearing something like Barry, you know, which we've seen other Google products use Barry, like the third-gen Nesscam. I don't know. It makes me excited. Like, I'm genuinely interested in the color. And that's about it because otherwise it seems like the same phone. I mean, they'll call it berry, right?

And we know that there's this really, I love the, I love a really red. It's almost like classic, I guess, I want to say technology, but it's classic appliance colour, like a 50s style red, like the Corvette red, that kind of colour to me.

I don't think, knowing Google, knowing the way that they kind of diminish the bright, overall brightness of colours, I feel like this berry will be a really light colour, maybe somewhere closer to the salmon sort of pink of the 9A. But at the same time,

I might do this service to what they potentially have in store because like you say, specifications-wise, we're expecting same chipset, same camera system, probably all the rest of the internals are almost identical. Like, this could be the only reason to buy one of these beyond the prices, the cheaper potential price that we'll touch on in a moment. But a bright red phone, do you think we're due this from Google? We haven't had one.

We had a bright red Google pixel phone, but Nexus 5 is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Yeah, Google is so sparing with colors that it always seems when they announce the choices for the year, it always seems like a brand new thing because they're just so sparing with the one or two per year. And I think that's how they get some novelty out of their color choices every year.

But to what you're saying about the specs, again, if I had my way, I'd be using the 9A over the 10 from a purely design standpoint. I'm not the same boat. Yeah. However, the chipset, it's rumored to be a G4 is it, and not being able to take advantage of something, let's say, like pixel screenshots or whatnot. That to me, or the new Gemini, the latest Gemini Nano, which. I don't think on-device AI is a big deal yet.

But for my line of work, and I know that doesn't necessarily apply to the general populace, I don't think I'd go down to something that doesn't have the latest and greatest right now. Do you think, okay, let's play devil's advocate for a moment here. Do we think this is potentially the divergent moment that maybe Google has needed for the A-series? I know that they've sold it on the back of,

you get the latest chip with the cheapest phone. I personally think this makes a lot of sense to do this now and to have a cheaper phone that maybe uses probably leftover tens of chips from last year or whatever it is in the past and then slowly start to diverge the two and then you have your flagship model, you have this slightly cheaper device that hangs around. I think it makes sense.

I want to hear your guy's appointment. Do you hate that opinion or do you like that opinion? I don't hate that, but it's... It's pixel is software, and that divergence, I think, on principle, is a bad idea to not have the latest AI features. I agree, but then again, how can you have that without the hardware? So, I don't know, if they have other software features, not necessarily AI, they can do, sure, maybe that's a way, but I think based on how they advertise the pixel, based on what, the pixel software and increasing AI experience is, they need to keep it pretty close.

I'm also intrigued. I mean, we're all seemingly big fans of the 9A. Where does this leave the 9A, will, do you think? Because I know that you love this phone as much as I did. We know Abner loves this phone because he's an A-serious guy like me, but like we're in this confusing status now where the 9A is going to be fire sold ahead of the 10-8 or potentially afterwards. Like, surely that makes that a more enticing.

product as a result? Yeah, I don't, I mean, this is probably a larger conversation than we have time for today, but maybe one we should have in the coming weeks or months, which is, you know, as we are facing rising smartphone prices once again, like, like expect higher prices this year just in general because of RAM, because of storage prices, et cetera, et cetera, just components in general getting more expensive in an AI era. I think we really, and I know people have been saying this for a decade now, but like, I really think these companies need to start thinking about like skipping generations essentially. Because I don't understand, like, why don't you just mark down the 9A by $50 and keep it going other than the fact that you want it to match the number of the current. But it already doesn't for half the year.

So like, I don't, I don't understand, you know, if the A series launched at the same time as the 10, I don't think that would make a lot of sense. say it did. Like I would understand the naming structure. And I would understand being like, well, like cars, we need a new model year because we need it all to be 2026. We need it all to be pixel 10. We need it all to be pixel 11, et cetera, et cetera. I don't, I, that's not how the pixel lineup works. That's not how smartphones work. And I, I really think this could have been a time where Google just goes, like, we're not done with the A series, like publicly make that clear. But also, like, we don't see room to both make a new A series device and keep, you know, the price at or below $500 in the US, which is what this feels like to me is that like this is kind of just like round two of

the 9A because that's what the pricing allows for. I don't know. I just, I don't totally understand why this exists beyond like checking off something on a list. And it's going to make the 10A feel like a bad phone, even though it probably won't be. I'm in full. But I've wrong said it should be 18-month cycles. Exactly. Yeah. But it's almost like mutual issue destruction. They can't disarm unless everybody else also does it.

Exactly. The cycle to this that is so locked and ingrained. And I think there's probably something to do with finances on the bigger scale in terms of they can't be a dip in finance in the financial. earnings or whatever. Yeah. So I am, I do want somebody to take that and do an 18-month cycle on products or whatever just to stretch things out.

But I don't think a major player has to do it first. Yeah. No, I agree. I think this ties in, sorry to interrupt, I feel this ties into this. Other news that we had at the earlier start portion this week is that the pixel has gained 25% market share global. which is a statistic, within a statistic, obviously global markets are a lot more competitive. A device like this would be aimed at emerging markets effectively, and that's quite a disrespectful

term in a lot of ways of emerging markets, but there are lots of people out there who don't want to spend effectively, even over the course of a sell plan, $1,000, $2,000 on a phone with a carrier plan and in the rest of the world, sadly, I know US listeners out there, you guys get a raw deal with your cell plans. So I think a lot of people will get cheaper devices like the 9A and potentially the 10A. I wonder if this recent growth that we've had probably spurred on by the Pixel 9 and the Pixel 10 over the last year or so based on this report from, I think it's counterpoint research. I wonder how this is going to affect that moving forward. So when the 10A arrives, are people going to push back against that?

And maybe undo a little bit what Google have done in it specifically in global markets where the A series tends to sell exponentially better in a lot of ways. than the main flagship devices? I don't know, because you can't forgive certain, I guess, component choices, lesser or negligible hardware upgrades, or in this case, not at all, versus the flagship model, if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean?

I do wonder how that's going to affect that, because it's going to have a knock on effect, surely. No, I guess to pay devil's advocate is if the audience that's buying this isn't, necessary, they don't care about the specs and they don't care about, they just want a phone. And that's probably where the 9A excels on the pricing standpoint. I guess just incrementing the number for the sake of doing so, maybe that doesn't matter. Yeah, maybe I'm overestimating the cost to spin up the 10A from the bones of the 9A.

Maybe it really doesn't add that much to Google's bottom line, so why not do it? But to me, I'm just like, and also to your point, Abner, like, you're right. People don't, like, people in general aren't going to really care about the phone specs, and people buying the 10A really aren't going to care about the phone specs for the most part. And so, as long as they're, like, good enough. And so, yeah, I don't know. I guess at the end of the day, maybe Google's like, well, like, this is just how the industry rolls. Like, we put the amount of money that we need into it.

And if it's 98% the same phone, well, that's what we just did with the Pixel 10, too. So I guess the regular 10 actually had changes, but the 10, you know, the pros for sure basically were a spec bump. Yeah. Well, regardless of lack of upgrades internals, I'm still excited for this. If we get a new color, to me, that's probably more than enough. I mean, we complain we don't get enough colors. You know, done, they were only done it a couple of times, but they, you know, with the pixel 8, they did that mint color way like halfway through. They should have just done that for the 9A.

Been like, we've got three new colors have added. Well, I guess. Yeah, honestly, I guess this makes sense. Enough to assure people that it's not dead. That it's not dead. Exactly. It shows life, yeah, without forcing a new model and forcing this fire sale. And then also, again, to your point, Damien, like, making it so that the 10A feels like a bad bargain if you can find a 9A for cheap.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we potentially don't have as long as we might have expected for this. There are rumors that this might be coming earlier than usual. So yeah, drawing a line under the Pixel 10A, there is a lot of 9A to report on it is what we're trying to say here and some new colors to kind of get into. But let's get into a feature that is broadly being talked about. I'm excited, although I haven't been able to use it. It's US only for now. Please tell me that this personal intelligence with Gemini is exactly what I hope it is, Abner.

Don't disappoint me. Don't upset me. Please tell me what I need to know about this. It seems like an incredible feature. So Google's goal with Gemini at the high level is to make a smart assistant, to make the smart assistant we've been wanting for the past 10 years. And they've laid out to them a smart assistant, a smart assistant should be personal, it should be proactive, and it should be powerful.

I think these were the tent polls they laid out last year. So I think powerful we have that Gemini tree and personal to advance on that front this week, Google announced something called Gemini Personal Intelligence. This is Gemini being able to tap into your Gmail, your workspace, your drive, your calendar, your YouTube history, your search history, Google Photos. It basically treats that as a source. like the web sources it does today. It uses your personal information as a source

to add, to better person, to hyper-personalize its responses to you. And this is something you that Google's uniquely able to do by the fact that it has Gmail, that it has Google photos, that has search history,

with honestly the only other player that could approach this would have been Apple and they're trying to do that with Apple Intelligence, but Google got their first in beta. So yeah, personal intelligence. It's available in beta in the US right now, if you're an AI Pro or AI Ultra subscriber. And the example that Google used is tapping into,

it's tapping into, let's say you're buying tires for your car, and you need to know what that information, what kind of tire, the size, the model, the trim, whatever. And Gemini, if it's in your Gmail, Gemini can now tap into it, can answer questions about your life at the high level. That's what personal intelligence is. My thought process is that this feels like something that everybody kind of wants

and has alluded to wanting. but have almost been scared to admit to themselves that they want to, if that makes sense. I know that sounds really, really stupid, but there's a lot of people out there who love the idea of AI and Magic Q and all of these tools, whereas Gemini has, it has all of our data,

rightly or wrongly, Google has a lot of data on us because we use services for a long time, not being able to ask these contextual questions, I think has inhibited Gemini in a lot of ways, but this is that true differentiation that you're not going to get with chat GPT, you're not going to be able to get with Claude. You're not going to be able to get with whatever the... I don't even know it.

I can't even think of any of the AI tools off the top of my head. Being able to ask specific contextual details about the data you have in, say, Gmail and as you say, photos, even flights. Like, I would have loved this option recently. Like, oh, I'm going to stay at this particular place while I'm on vacation. Can you give me some ideas of places to dine around my hotel

based upon my dietary requirements and all that kind of stuff? Or before my train leaves, you know my train ticket is leaving at 10 a.m. Like those kind of things is where I think this is, we all know it's going to head that direction, but to get it now feels like Google is very much a few steps ahead of the competition in a lot of ways, just because they have all this day already.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's like a really interesting approach. I'm glad it's opt-in, right? I don't know if you guys feel the same way, but like I think this, even after this is not in beta, and like, who knows when that is, you know, This feels like one of those Google products that will be in beta for a long time.

Maybe not, but I would like to see this stick with opt-in. Like, I think you should make it clear to two Gemini users that this exists, you know, especially once it's available for all free users. But at the same time, I just, I don't think it's worth it to Google to like the privacy implications of making it opt-out or, you know, I guess it would never not be opt-out at the very least. But I think opt-in is the right mode for this. I think people who want to use this, you know, Google does have like the most data on all of us of any tech company, right? So like it makes sense to leverage it.

But I also, I appreciate that those guardrails are there. And I hope they don't go away once there's like a full rollout. Could you see yourself using it on a regular basis? I can see myself using it. Like I'm kind of come to terms with the fact that Google does already have all this data on me. So I want to leverage some of those that for beneficial terms. I have this knee-jerk reaction of like, of like, like you look at the list of data it's digging through

and I just, I do have that knee-jerk reaction of like, that's so much data. And it's like, it's data they have, right? Like it's weird to be weirded out about the going, about Google being able to look through Google photos when it's Google photos. But I'm like, I'd have that knee-jerk, it's in my brain that says like, I don't,

I mean, there is privacy implications here. I don't know how big they are. They could be extremely minor. So I don't know. I guess I'd have to try it. And I'm not on a paid plan as we've talked about previously. So I'll have to wait, I guess, or at least upgrade my plan for a month. But I'm curious about it.

I'd want to see, you know, if it's like magic, if it's truly, like, if it's, if it's what, as you said, Damien, like people have been asking for for ages, I could see just like being like, yeah, this is another step towards, you know, not having a ton of control over my data, but my data being able to help me all. lot when I'm just out in the world. I could see leaving it on. It kind of depends on how well it performs. I just think personally I would want to leverage what I have already. Like, for instance, if it saves me time and effort, like being logical about it, there is Gemini already baked into Gmail. There's Gemini technically already baked into Google Photos and the tools power certain things internally. And obviously I understand, like you say, privacy implications aside, they are already using these tools anyway. And I haven't had an opt out for having Gemini in Gmail

and I have used it before. It can be useful to search for specific emails, for instance, or help me find a certain purchase. If I want to be able to tie that to certain things, like the example that Google gave us, as Abner alluded to, is making a purchase for tires. I mean,

that's a very simple way of thinking about it, but there's times where, for instance, you may purchase something and it's become damaged and you have a warranty, you may have taken, like, I'm a stickler for this. And I highly recommend anybody out there listening. When you buy a brand new, whatever it is, I bought a car recently. And my previous car had to go back to the leasing company. I took photos of the vehicle before I gave it them back.

So if there's any damage after they've received it, I can say, here is the proof that there is no damage on this particular day. If I can get Gemini or Gmail or whatever it is all tied together to be, like this company has sent me this email, they've made this query, show me the photos of no damage on the vehicle on this date or whatever it is on this particular model.

That's going to save me so much time and effort. And I think that's, I'm trying to, I think maybe as tech media, we are inherently skeptical of AI, but there is certain things I'm willing to embrace. And I think over the last six to seven months, there are a lot of things in Gemini

I have utilized more readily. This to me, while I can't use it in the UK, and I'm disappointed about that, is something that would genuinely benefit me on a day-to-day basis as someone who's probably borderline ADHD. Like, I could honestly see myself being more organised by being able to ask these follow-up questions and get information about things I've done and seen and need

and having that one, rather than having to dive around into photos, into Gmail, and it's all pulled in from one place, I can see myself doing it. And it could be the tool I wanted. So I've had access to the personal intelligence beta for less than a day as a recording. Right now, it doesn't, it seems more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Yeah. But I think that is because I am trying to think of plums on how to use it. I think like all things AI, Once it helps you in a specific use case, when you weren't thinking about, oh, there should be an AI request, I think that's when you see the utility in your life.

It has to be, like I've said before, AI is the hardest thing in the world to market. It has to be useful in your life in your specific use case. And until that alive, so you won't realize how powerful it is. So I think that's where I am initially with this personal intelligence. Again, it's a Google's three-long strategy. And to what Damien was saying earlier about his war example,

the next step is being proactive, is the AI, is Gemini being able to do the things or surface things in your life without you asking? So I think in the context of a personal assistant, that would be next. And I'm excited to see if that happens this year or soon after. but it is the road map they have,

these three temples, personal, proactive and powerful, they're definitely on the right track to making an actual assistant. Do we think we might see something a bit more assistantee by the time the pixel 11 launches? I know we've seen, because this to me feels like on the same side of the, well, maybe not on the same side of the coin, but on the same coin as Magic Q, this feels like the next step and then like almost like,

a step two magic queue too, as it were, like magic cubed. I don't know what you call it. So the fact, I forgot the name of what they announced of magic queue that basically working in the crowd that's been alive since November or whatever. And again, to me, that is evidence that on-device AI is not powerful enough. It has to be handled in the crowd. And in many ways, personal intelligence and magic cue in the crowd, they're basically working on the same track.

I don't know, maybe one day, these things end up being combined or whatever, but it is magic. The idea is the fundamental idea between magic you and personal intelligence, uh, proactive help. It's, it's all there. And Google is, it's nice to know, it's nice to see where Google is working towards and working towards improving. Yeah.

I'm excited to see this one where this one develops. I'm excited to see it actually expand first. I'm sure that there will be a lot of people out there who are confused by why this is so potentially powerful. But if like me and if you're a listener out there, I'm sure you've used a lot of Google services for a long time. I think that if you're a paid member of Gem and I and eventually it will probably come to the free tier,

this could be the one that develops over time. And I'm sure that in 12 months' time when people are using this, it will be even more powerful than it is right now in base phase. But we're still on the Gemini, I think. There's been a lot of Gemini launches this last few weeks. In terms of Gmail, we've had incredible powerful feature. Tell me a little bit of that one.

So, yeah, this is, I kind of see it as the second phase of Gemini coming into Gmail. The first one was stuff like better smart replies, to help me write in composing your inbox, which is now all that stuff, contextual replies, the help me write that is going free to all users, rolling out now. But the future of Gmail is this AI inbox

that instead of prioritizing the individual messages, it prioritizes what the message actually say, and it makes them actionable. So this AI inbox, you get a risk of suggested to-dos, which is the things that you need with hard dates, actionable things that you should do in your wife immediately or whatever. And the other thing is called topics to catch up on, which is like a birthed risk of taxes, finances, events, health and wellness, that kind of stuff, purchases, subscriptions. it just prioritized it makes a rest of things you might want to know

to keep mind of but basically this is the future of Gmail in regards that it's less about your messages and it's more about what you need to do with your life I think I don't know if you guys are inbox zero because I gave that

a long time ago I feel like I am in box zero oh you're a you're a king among men I live in the mess by that one, Abner. Yeah, I've become living in the mess as of the last few years.

I think I kept inbox zero for so long, but if Gemini can help me manage that, that's all I need, that's all I want. And I know that this is slightly off topic, but kind of related. Do you think that this is going to be the way that Google is almost going to reintroduce some of the features that people were obsessed with inbox?

I know, sorry for bringing that up, guys. I know it's RIP, but there are certain functionalities here that we can do with AI that almost replicate that, quite readily and I think Gemini does a pretty decent job of it. Do you think we're ever going to reach that stage where we can have that personalized experience? I don't know if I care anymore. Like, in fact, I think I would be annoyed if features that I had on my phone in college

a decade ago only came back now as, as labeled as AI tools, when they were supposed to come to Gmail in like 2018 or whatever. 2019, did inbox shut down in 2019? Is that app like less? that's crazy. I always think that shut down to like 2016. It's, it didn't. Um, yeah, uh, uh, you know, I don't know. I just, it's fine if those come back and I'm sure I'll use them or whatever, but like, those could have been here at any time. You don't, you, you didn't need AI, uh, specifically, or even machine learning, which wasn't even really a term for most of inboxes life, uh, a widely used

term at the very least, uh, for, for apps. Um, I don't know. I, I, I'm fine with this stuff. But like, to your point, Damien. And I'm happy this stuff is coming, I suppose, but I've been reluctant to use a lot of the AI tools in Gmail because, you know, the earliest ones were centered around, like drafting emails. And I don't, I've never felt like I needed help doing that. Yeah.

And so it's nice to finally see tool sets coming that, like, feel a little bit more, you know, like they're starting to verge on, like, things that would help me, you know, clean up my inbox. But to your point, like, Google should build some kind of AI tool that just like lets you achieve inbox zero or sort all the unimportant stuff out immediately, you know, like with that specific goal. We'll get there, I think.

But, but, I mean, you can with the sidebar. To be fair, you can with the sidebar. You use it. Obviously, it's now going for free users. I think dive into that. I was reluctant to use it because when stuff gets added, you're like, I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. But when you start to utilize it, it genuinely is quite useful. It's like I would liken it to a stripped back version of AI mode for with your inbox, which is always useful because it is tailored to you. And then tying back into Gemini being having access to all this stuff, I think it could be really useful in the long term. But yeah, definitely try that, definitely try that because it's kind of good to give you the whole of your stuff. Yeah, AI.

Besides AI inbox, it's the other thing is the search getting a big upgrade. And I think it was kind of almost undersold by. giving it the AI overviews branding that is search, that is forever associated with Google search. But basically, this is, I think this is a more, a less dicey way of, basically when you search, you get the answer immediately rather than just getting the email. And it just summarizes it for you.

It posts information directory, so you never need to open an email. And it's great. it's this is the most obvious use of AI search and just pulling your information so that you don't have to go to multiple emails to find what you need. And I think this is the very, the most obvious way to add AI to Gmail. Also, search and Gmail kind of sucks. At least these days, I think it does. I feel like I remember a time in which Gmail search was good.

but like, you know, for as long as I can remember, it's been like, if you search for a keyword and it's a, you know, you might search Home Depot receipt hoping to find a receipt from Home Depot in July when you bought all that paint, but you don't remember it was in July, et cetera. So you search Home Depot receipt and you're, you're going to get every use case of the word receipt. You can add modifiers, obviously, but a lot of people don't know how to do that. And then there are other times where you'll search what you think. is like a more specific keyword and it just straight up it'll pull up two emails neither which are are helpful to what you're looking for so I personally think this is this is the thing that got me the most excited was was the search functionality when I'm talking about like finally we're seeing things that I could see because I hate searching for emails in in Gmail and so I don't know yeah like I would like to see more like this than than just more writing tools which I feel like we've seen, you know, you can keep iterating on them, but at a certain point, you're just kind of reinventing the wheel over and over and over again. And they're clearly, you know, you and

the two of you and myself might not use AI writing tools in our email, but I certainly can tell other people are doing it because I will get back a fairly, the most formal response of the most normal, like, response of like, of like, yeah, like somebody wrote this back to me and it's got capitalization and punctuation. And then you'll be like, cool, talk to you on Thursday for that meeting we just set up. And you'll get like all lower caps, OK, space, THX back. And you're like, that's a completely different way of typing. I was just talking to AI.

But neither here nor there. I have a little bit of a hack for anyone out there listening, is that you should use this to, and this is where I think AIO views and AI search is really useful, is that you have, so many years, potentially, you might have 15 years of an inbox unorganized pre-2010, for instance, or whatever it is, whenever Gmail was first made available to you in your region. I have been able to search for things that is long beyond my memory capabilities, i.e. finding out mortgage documents, insurance documents, old travel documents that I may have needed, like passport applications, all that kind of stuff. It sounds silly, but being able to have

contextual search for those actual things within your inbox means you don't have to do as much work because you may have received it from an email that you can't remember. You might not remember certain specifics. I think that is fantastic because it's able to pass all that information a lot faster than you ever could as a human being. In that respect, more organisation on my inbox might eventually get me to inbox zero, but it's going to help me stay organized anyway, which is the main thing. But yeah, it's really really. It's really. out right now. Hopefully you'll get better proofreading of your emails as well. We'll have some more overly formal responses because Google seems to be a bit too formal for my liking. But I

think it's a really good way to start the year for people, especially Gmail being the biggest product, probably in Google's Arsenal Save Search and YouTube. So yeah, it's great to see there's some element of updates and functionality coming there, especially for free tiers. I wanted to finish the pod on a few other things with regards to pixel. So we have a little bit of a pixel Gemini sandwich. We've seen that, I mean, obviously over the past few years, Google has been trying to move and they've had production outside of China. It looks like they're reportedly moving almost in Thailand out of China as of this week,

according to some reports coming out of Reuters and Nicae in Asia. do you think this makes a big difference to potential costs or is this is it just a straight up avoidance of the kind of things like tariffs and problematic areas that that maybe google has been trying to snip from if that makes sense yeah i think google has been you know i think the tariffs are part of it and maybe accelerated google's plan um regardless of whether or not those i mean genuinely we're recording this thursday and who knows that they could be ruled illegal by the time this comes out on Friday. But, um, you know, it's, I, I think this has been part of like Google's plan in general reading the tea leaves in the room to be like, there is some, like, there are clearly

arguments being had about like manufacturing things in China and, and so on and so forth, even before, um, Liberation Day last year. And so I think, I think this is part of Google's plan to just like, uh, you know, get out of China for the time being, um, and, and, you know, move for like because they've already, they obviously already have these partnerships in Vietnam and like that is where the bulk of production already happens. This, this would be for, for earlier development phases for new production or new product introductions or NPI's. So it's one of those things where I wonder if they also just see it as a benefit of like, well, if we're already building, you know, the majority of, of pixels in Vietnam, why don't we just do the entire process there?

I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I thought, I, I, I mean, we've had some production in India. I'm really intrigued to see how Google handles this. If they're going to, if they're reaching this point of, I mean, I don't know what critical mass is for, for pixel sales, but I do wonder how this is going to benefit everybody in the regions. Like does this mean cheaper prices potentially? I personally don't see that, but especially with RAM and storage costing so much currently

and currently looking only upwards in terms of pricing structure. Like, I would be really interested to see if we get a pixel 11 that's solely produced in Vietnam and because it's interesting, I think, from a production standpoint, but I guess it doesn't affect the end user at the end of the day where the phone is made. It's just a different name on the product. But if it means lower tariffs, then surely that means

the price can be kind of shielded from the consumer. I don't know. Yeah, I think it would just end up being, like, helping Google. And, you know, Vietnam has tariffs on it as well. It's just that it's not quite as active of a trade force. Yeah, exactly. And so, like, you know, I, it's more, I think more of just like a larger, long-term economic plan on Google's behalf, rather than, rather than specifically targeting the last 12 months of economic activity.

But, but I think this also, it's, it's more. more of like two birds, you know, two birds one stone kind of thing. Like, let's, we're already moving out of here because we had already done that. And also this helps us at least face lower tariffs and a more favorable, uh, negotiation market, uh, between the U.S. government and Vietnam than between the U.S. and China. Hmm. Yeah. I think, I think, uh, we're going to have some rocky road of, uh, of that and finding out what's happening. But, um, yeah, if you've got a pixel out there, just what last bits of

of kind of housekeeping is that the latest pixel January updates rolling out. There's potential benefits to performance in terms of gaming with Pixel 10 series devices. We've also had a, I don't know if you want to briefly touch on the QPR3 release, Abner, but there really wasn't anything of note there from that update, but yeah, it's basically what you were saying. It's a really quiet a beta and my guess you'll see it in March as a stable release which is still due for one more release

I don't think that cycle is changing but it is there's still some bugs with people are reporting with third party app so it might not be ready for most people to use right now but it is

otherwise there are some nice upgrades with the flashlight slider being particularly prominent and obvious. Yeah, it is a shame. We always like, we always like to dive into a beta, but there isn't much, there's much to write home about that respect. But yeah, a quiet start to the year for the pixel side of things, I guess, definitely more prominent for Gemini. I'm excited to see what happens with Gemini.

I'm kind of slowly coming around to be about the convert for Gemini, but it's always interesting to see things developing and how they affect how we use our smartphones and how we use Google technologies in general. So, yeah, a slow start to the year in a lot of ways and a fast start in other ways. But you want to say thanks guys for joining me. I know you're still on the come down from CES. In fact, did you see anything cool while you were there that you want to share with the listeners or you want to share with me because I'm a nerd as well and I always want to see what's going

on at CES? So many accessories. on my behalf. It was the accessory showcase for me. You know, and I truly at this moment cannot remember what isn't isn't NDA'd, so I'm going to leave it at that. Definitely stay tuned then, guys, for more coverage about NDA uncovered accessories of pixel-manent.

Potentially pixel snap stuff as well, all the accessories. Oh, yeah, everything's magnets. So I don't think that's breaking an NDA because lots of the stuff I saw that I know is public as magnets. Everything, magnetize everything was the theme of, Well, the theme was AI, but below that, it was magnetize everything. AI is powered by magnets would be CES 2027. But yeah, thanks guys for joining me.

I really appreciate it. It is always great to talk. And I think when we haven't had a podcast for a few weeks, it's always nice to get back into the swing of things. So hopefully listeners out there, it wasn't too much of ramble. And you've at least learned something. But yeah, thanks guys for joining me. Always appreciate it. And we'll speak to you in the next one.

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. And then go five, four, three, two, one. I shouldn't say... I forgot Linus was on my lap and he jumped. All right, we're good.

There's a shame we didn't have a video for that, but yeah. I know. Sorry, let me recompose myself. You're scaring your poor cat.