Pixelated - Putting Google Maps Back in the Driver's Seat

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Welcome to episode 77 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will discuss the latest AI improvements making their way to Google Maps in the coming months, including improved conversational guidance along routes and landmark navigation. From there, we cover Google's ongoing feud with Disney following the expiration of their shared YouTube TV contract, before finishing up with a dive into some extremely impressive Pixel 10 sales numbers. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google Maps improvements 18:49 - New Google icons 22:22 - Google's feud with Disney 37:49 - Pixel 10 sales numbers 54:35 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Google Maps gets Gemini for conversational navigation & traffic reporting on Android, iOS Google Maps rolling out landmark-based navigation, Gemini-powered Lens New Google Maps live lane guidance uses AI, camera on Android Automotive These are the new Google Photos and Maps icons with a gradient redesign Disney movies disappear from Google TV, YouTube, and Play amid YouTube TV feud Disney-YouTube TV feud extends to Movies Anywhere, as Google no longer syncs digital movie purchases Pixel 10 is a hit in the US with Google’s new ‘single-month sales record’ amid iPhone 17 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 77. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, we're serving up a three-course meal of Google Stories, beginning with this week's Maps announcements. With new AI-powered features like conversational guidance and landmark navigation, is this the Google Maps update some of us have been waiting for? Then we dive into the messy split between Disney and YouTube TV, which is quickly managing to affect far more than just Google's cable TV replacement.

Finally, we end with some excellent sales news for the Pixel 10 just in time for those Black Friday sales to make an even bigger splash to end the year. So Google Maps and Gem and I getting a little bit of a conversational navigation option. Abner, I'm really interested in this because I like the idea of real world conversational style directions. Yeah. Tell me through what this is. This is a big, to me, this is a big example. big application of Gemini and actually applied application of Gemini in that it's for the at the high level it's replacing Google assistant with something much more conversational that can

take more nuanced commands that don't have to be in a specific structure so yeah Google's bringing in the way this update is a bit it's it's a bit hidden how big this update is because because there's no real UI. It's mostly a voice first interface with some prompts at the bottom, with some confirmation at the bottom. But this is a big voice UI that to Google is giving, it's like you have a knowledgeable friend in the passenger seat at all times.

And I think this is gonna be a really interesting test case of how Gemini in its voice only experience really, can handle all your driving commands. So my interpretation of this is that you'll get that contextual information that maybe Maps is not that great at, whereas Maps might say, it won't even say something as simple as take the second right. It will be a little bit less, I guess. So basically this is the exact foreign assistant,

the phone assistant we have today, the one everybody has right now, not Gemini Live, the main foreign assistant, with the added knowledge, with the added skill set of Google Maps stuff. So you can use voice. If you see something on the road, traffic incidents, you can use your voice to report it. You can ask for fine restaurants

along your loud, specific restaurants. You can have a conversation about what kind of dishes at the restaurant, that kind of stuff. in addition to other smartphone, other commands, like adding stuff to your calendar or on Android, sending somebody or ETA. I mean, as I was just about saying,

I think this is rolling out for iOS as well. Like, does this put Apple? I know this is kind of like a sideways thing, but this put Apple in a strange position because their maps were, Apple Maps was gaining some sort of traction over the last few years. And this kind of puts, I mean, pun intended here,

does this put Google Maps back in the driving seat across all OSs now? it's almost like you have this, like I feel like that contextual awareness is so much better, especially in your places where you're not used to. And like you say, it is like having someone who is familiar with the area in the passenger seat. Like, I know if I went,

got in the car with you, you and Will, you and will at the same time and you know the area will, you can tell me, oh, take a left here. It's a bit going to be shorter.

If you go this way past, I don't know, the ice cream stand or whatever it is. Like, I feel like that would be a bit, it would make you feel at ease, especially driving in places you don't know. Yeah, yeah.

It's, well, there's actually several announcements, AI announcements today. The other one you alluded to is how it's called landmark-based navigation in which instead Google Maps navigation when it speaks aloud, it'll tell you to turn at a specific gas station or restaurant that is highly visible on the road. It uses RAN marks as common markers Instead of turn at the stop sign

Or in 500 feet or whatever It will use things that you see on the load This is leveraging Gemini's visual capabilities And it's sifting through the street view library And it's specifically ignoring things That don't have high visibility on the road It's going to be very obvious are where to turn.

Yeah. This one is fascinating to me because it is essentially combining the method of getting around that most of us have gotten used to over the past 20 years or so

of GPS navigation systems, whether it was standalone or then replaced by the smartphone, obviously. With the old school, I've given you a piece of paper with written directions on it after the lake, turn right,

and that, you know, just keep going until, pass a farm and it's it's literally that and I think that's fascinating we've come full circle and combined like the the the advancements and technology that we've again like how many how many places do you go regularly where you're like or maybe not regularly but how many how many times have you gone somewhere and been like you know I didn't even think about how I got there and I've never been here before and if I had to do this without my smartphone like I'd be so lost and it's so funny to then combine it with like the old school method

of like just keep going man you'll you'll get there turn turn right after the dirt pile i don't know it's it's fascinating i would love i would love them to plug in google map street view with like random people that are at the side of the road like oh when you see the guy who's drunk on the corner like that would be amazing i don't i don't anticipate google are going to do that and that was like a bit of a question for you you here abner because i know that you were you were covering this news is there any indication of how how are they going to keep this updated is it going to be a little bit of like if you're going to use street view for instance for landmarks like what if a landmark closes because like i mean i don't know what it's like in the u.s right now but in the

UK a lot of my favorite restaurants are closing down and like if that restaurant closes down and then the sign disappears and there's nobody there and then when i navigate to it yeah so i it's also tapping into so google maps has this 250 million businesses place listings and they'll also be tying it into that. So if I guess it'll cross-reference, if it's closed, they'll factor that. But that's a good point, that Street View is, it's not updated too frequently. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. So the other thing that was announced was how even if you don't have Google Maps open, and if you don't have Google Maps open on a common route that you take, it will send out a notification telling you if there are any load closures or anything that could delay your traffic.

This along with landmark navigation is already rolling out. The Gemini stuff is coming soon. The Gemini navigation stuff, that's coming soon. But the features that you should see any time now is the landmark navigation and these notifications about disruptions. and common routes do you take? I do wonder how people are going to react to this because I know you briefly said it a little bit, Willis, that like you turn left at the dirt pile,

like, are people going to like this? I personally think it's fantastic. I much prefer that old-school kind of directional information that you get from a random guy on the street and he says, hey, take the second left or whatever it is. After you see the donut shop, like I think that works for me as opposed to turn left in 500 feet.

Like, because, yes, I can try and conceptualize 500 feet, but sometimes you kind of have that situation. I'm sure you guys have had this one driving it, and it is stressful when you're driving in a new place, is it'll say take the second left, and there might be like a mini street there that isn't really accounted for, and you're like, oh, is that a lane,

or is that like a street that I can drive down, or is that one that you can walk down? Like that, I hope that this almost resolves some of those confusing. in aspects, especially if you're abroad, for instance, as well. Yeah, I think to me, it's the combination of everything, right? So it's not just the spoken directions. It's not just the on-screen display.

It's like a con, and it's not just these new, you know, landmark-based, you know, turn right here. It's everything combined, right? So, like, I think my favorite update to modern maps apps have last like five or maybe even a little longer. I don't remember exactly when this was added. When these services got like stop sign or stoplight symbols on the maps themselves, right? Like I, that was probably the like, because to your point, Damien, when you're driving, sometimes you're like, I can't tell, I don't know what 500 feet is. I can't tell if that street or

that street is the right I should be taking. But if you were like, oh, I, I'm turning at the light, that street has a light. Yeah. can kind and same with like oh okay i'm turning the road but right before the light again you can you can kind of use that and so i think the combination of everything here the landmarks the you know signage on your maps and the just the normal navigation guidance that we've gotten used to like i think it can only help right like i don't think it can hurt beyond the occasional and i do think it will happen the occasional confusion of like a business closed two days ago and they already took the sign down and it just hasn't, you know, even even the maps listing online hasn't been updated to say

permanently closed or something. I think you'll get little, little bits like that. But I think it'll be few and far between and for the most part, just because how, like, I feel like when a business closes around me, like, usually Google is pretty quick to get that, like, listing updated and that stinks to maps. And so, yeah, I don't know. I'm curious to see how it goes. I hope this also helps with some of the, I don't know about you guys.

I feel like over the last like five or so years, Maps has gotten a little bit like less accurate in terms of like knowing specific roads or like, oh, there's this one, there's a one way near me for at least two or three years now. Maps, when I navigate, there's a store right by it. And when I navigate to that store, it always tries to send me the wrong way down the one way to get there. And I, like, I have no idea why it does this. But like little things like that, I'd like to see Google like not, you know, these are good improvements, but like I also would like them to use like AI or even maybe just like let me report that using my voice in the same, instead of having to like try to remember to figure out how to report inaccurate, you know, directions later on. I think this can only

help stuff. I think making directions a little bit more conversational, you know, commands, especially I love the change that we brought up earlier to reporting accidents. I think it's so much smarter to use that with your voice rather than having to tap on the screen. Yeah. All of that stuff just makes driving safer. I can tell you from experience in my vehicle. So I have a, is it Google built in now? Is that what it's called? It's Android automotive.

Yep. So I have a pulse-up. This is not flex, I'm just saying. I have a Polestar too, and the screen is terrible. Yeah. After three years of driving it, I'm glad that I'm going to get rid of it in that respect. It's a really nice car to drive, but reporting accidents on the road and then getting the notification of, is there is still a car crash or is there still the road blocked?

They're always delayed. Like, they're so always. And by the time I'm like tapping at the screen, I'm like, oh, I need to pay attention to the road. So just being able to control with your voice is something that I think in the car, it's kind of nice. And I guess this has a safety benefit actually when I think about it more drastically, is that when we have vehicles that, and I hate this anyway, and I'm sure I don't know if you guys agree, there are too many vehicles out there relying on touchscreens while we're driving. And that's not the best place for a touchscreen, right? You need to be paying attention to the road. So having like dials and touch buttons is great.

Analog in the vehicle amazing. But because car manufacturers want to sell their cars on the entertainment stack, it is a big touchscreen. So being able to use your voice is kind of good. So this feels like the most obvious way for Google to do that. Whether they've done this on purpose, which I assume they have, it's an inadvertent benefit for anyone who uses Android-based navigation and Google Maps-based navigation.

So I'll give them a big part on the back, for that one. I think that's a really nice thing to do for safety purposes. But like, do we anticipate there's going to be people who push back against this? I feel like I'm going to like it, but some people might like the traditional, what I say, the traditional Google Maps element of turn right in 500 yards, turn left in 700 yards. Like, I feel like there's going to be purists, as it were. So Google, when announcing this stuff, they did some user testing and they think that this is significantly more helpful and that people they've tested it like it much more. You can't really turn this off. You can only turn off the general voice, the voice prompts. So this is the default behavior going

forward. But yeah, the one thing you mentioned about Android automotive, so Google built in, Google announced that Paul Star 4, a much newer version of your car, is going to be using its camera to provide live lane guidance. So modern cars, they're basically smartphones on wheels. They have cameras, they can see, they have radar, et cetera, et cetera. And this is something that people are pretty interested in. the idea that. I love that. Yeah, I love that idea. I mean, I mean, imagine it's like that at, um, in LA where you, where like, I don't know, I know the, I know the driving's bad and you can

probably tell me from experience I'm that it's kind of like the huge highways and you don't know what lane you're in. I'm, I only, I only grown up on small British roads where we have like two or three lanes and that's about it. Like if we get a four lane highway, that's insanely big. So to know what lane you need to be in to say take a certain exit is that's the dream me. If the car can take control of that or tell me, then that's amazing. And it prompts you if you're on the long, if you haven't turned yet. Yeah. I 100% need that. I 100% need that kind of direction, because otherwise I will get stuck and drive 50 miles out of the way to come back on myself. So the final Google Maps announcement is, so Google Maps has lens in it. It has its own

instance of lens. It has for quite a while on the top right corner of the search bar. So Google is adding Gemini to that so you can have a full conversation with Lens about like what kind of restaurant this is, what vibe is, et cetera, et cetera. This is right now, this is specific to the version of Lens in Google Maps, which I find interesting. The general one, well, Lens is in Google Maps has this live view feature from Google Maps that shows you interesting price marks. places that are around you, etc. That's different from the main one, but it's kind of interesting

that Google's doubling down on a map-specific version of lens. Have either of you used that? Once or twice? Yeah, once or twice, but it's not common. I'm not a heavy lens user to be, like, general. To be perfectly honest, like, it's just,

it's not something I've ever sprung from my phone before. The live view is the thing. that tells, that gives you walking directions. Right. You can pan your camera around. I do use it when I go to new places, but it's not, even that is not the big thing for me.

I'm usually fine with the 2D walking navigation directions too. This feels targeted to take down apps like, maybe not take down, but certainly to combat apps like Yelp. Like this feels very, don't even bother launching Yelp to look up. because Yelp has all this information for a restaurant. It's like, don't even bother opening Yelp, you know, just pull out maps. And maps will tell you the information just by pointing your camera at it. And like, I can see that being a selling point, if they can make it obvious enough that you can do this with with lens and maps.

So you say this is rolling out right now. I am going on vacation to Japan for two weeks in just over a week's time. I am going to give this a whirl and get back to you on my experiences with it because I know for a fact, be using maps for translations and also getting reviews. I know that in Japan, Google Maps for reviews is not as popular, but I'm going to, hopefully this arrives on multiple devices. Any device it gets it on, I'm going to test it with. So I will report back on how this live view works for like recommendations and getting

information and stuff, because just seeing the UI, it looks like a really good usage of it. It just depends on how I navigate the world. And now willing to talk to your phone. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that might look a bit ridiculous. But even then, I think a lot of the things we do in this job can be seen as ridiculous from the outside looking in. But yeah, that's rolling.

So that's rolling out right as of speaking. The two features rolling out, the landmark navigation and the notifications, disruption notifications on Android. The other stuff is still coming soon, unfortunately. but it should be soon. Yeah. They say that about Gemini and Android Auto too. Yeah, true. Don't get me started on that.

I will cry about that. All those Gemini features coming to the Android and iOS app are coming to Android Auto via that Gemini update. And this coincided with a little bit of news that you broke over the weekend app now that there is some new gradient redesigned logos. Tell me about them because I think they look gorgeous to be quite honest with you.

They're a bit more abstract, but I kind of like them. Gradient icons are in. It started with the Google G for search. Then it came to Gemini, the Gemini Spark, Home, just got it. And over the weekend, we saw that two new icons are next. Google Photos and Google Maps. To get Google Maps, I'll do it way first. It is the same pin icon as we have at the moment,

but it's a bit more modernized. It is, there are no partitions, it's just a gradient. It looks very, it's a nicer of the two. It looks very abstract, I think you were saying. Yeah, a little bit. It reminds me a bit of the globe. I don't know why. That sounds ridiculous, but it's just trying to color, the way the colors of like blended.

It does look like a bit globy, if that makes sense. But I don't know. I'm not a flat earther, obviously, because I'm a globe guy. But yeah, new icons. And the other one is photos, which is basically the same pinwheel, but with a gradient effect. I wish they'd bring back the old one personally. I love the old one. I miss the old Google Maps one that was full screen before the current pin.

That was a very gorgeous icon. It took up the entire, I guess, to remind myself of that one. It is, the old one was a bit harder to describe. It was a full map, but it took. advantage of the full circle. It went edge to edge versus like putting things on a white background, which is our current faith. It is the new norm.

We'll see if, I mean, the Google Home one is fine. I like it. It looks modern. It definitely looks modern. But the photos one, it looks a bit, yeah, whatever. It kind of just looks like they added a bloom effect to the middle of it, to be honest with you. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it looks transparent in the middle. Yeah, a little bit. Of the Google Photos one. It's the maps one is much more of like, you know, a, we started fresh, right? And this one, it looks like they opened the P&G file in Photoshop and messed around with it for 15 minutes. We're like calling it a day. Yeah. But yeah, these icons aren't out yet, but we expect them to be pretty soon.

And that is the direction Google is going. Yeah. I don't know why they don't just blank. kit do it in one go, but it kind of is what it is. I feel like, I feel like we all expected it to happen, but I'm sure that maybe some... Can you imagine if one day you wake up to all the icons and your phone being different? That is... I love that. That would be amazing.

Is it also kind of tied to, I feel like the apps that have gotten, and correct me if I'm wrong in this, but the apps that have gotten the gradient update the most are the ones that are also like leading with the charge towards like Gemini-infused applications. And so I wonder if basically as more Gemini features roll out to these apps, they get the updated icon. Yeah, it's like the home stuff. That's a big Gemini thing. Gemini itself.

Google searches AI mode. So it's at any time with these apps, photos or they have conversational editing. Yeah, photos feels a little late here, but the rest of it, the rest of it feels about timely. Yeah. Yeah, it's at any time and these apps can be updated. Most of Google stuff have Gemini at this point. Yeah.

Well, I'm looking forward to it, but what we can't look forward to is, A very distinct lack of Disney movies, Google TV, YouTube, and play. Yes. Will, you've been all over this, Will. I mean, I'm not a Disney, I'm not a Cape, I'm not a Cape, I'm not even say the word, I'm not a Cape fan. I'm not a Marvel or Cinematic Universe fan. So I don't care about specific things there.

I don't care about Disney films, I don't care about stuff, but, you got to remember. Sports, sports. Sports. Sports. Also, a lot more movies than, than you might think are under the Disney. but let's let's start with sports because that is where this kicks off which is a week ago as you're listening to this uh youtube tv and uh disney their contract uh expired so every disney station on on youtube tv so that's ABC all the ESPN's uh Disney channel and so on went black uh which

is a which is a problem if you are watching either um a lot of college sports or a lot of sports in general and then also obviously uh monday night football was was not on cable uh on monday this week um you know it's gotten ugly pretty quick obviously you know uh carried carriage disputes are nothing new in terms of in fact they're very old in the in the cable world but exactly but with this one this one is getting you know like we just watched NBC universal and and google sign a deal like rated rated the deadline but pretty quickly they came to an agreement this time Disney and Google are beefing

pretty hard so we saw Disney you know come to Google and say oh we'd like to restore ABC for 24 hours to allow for election night coverage in the US on this past Tuesday and Google wrote this scathing response that they published

to in a blog post that was like well actually nobody even watches ABC for election coverage I was I was I had the same thought even before who watches ABC for election coverage cable right the thing is that you can go

and I think ABC I think their election coverage is probably on YouTube or at least it has been in the past all of these all of these networks like want as many people to watch their stuff as possible

on these high attention nights so so I totally get where who's coming from but it was very funny for them to in a public response be like we looked at the numbers and actually nobody watched your network during last year's election

so we don't care just just fascinating and then simultaneously in the background we've seen uh disney pull its entire movie collection from from google play and then more um you know frequently visited the the newer google tv service and um youtube where you can rent movies on youtube and and uh as well as clearing out um movies anywhere support we we found out this week that they quietly published a support a support page I put in air quotes that basically tells people, I don't know, as of October 31st, like Google's not a partner with movies anywhere anymore. Movies anywhere, of course, being, although an agreement between a bunch of studios, it's Disney owned. It's a Disney owned service.

So it allows you to share your digital movie collection with a bunch of different, you know, Prime and Apple TV and previously Google, but no longer. And so to come back to that point, Damien, it's not just, this is kind of the problem is that because Disney owns so much of the market, it's not just, you know, the Avengers and Star Wars, but it's the sixth sense. It's Lincoln. It's quiz show. It's the help. It's pretty woman. It's, it's diehard. It's alien. All of these either acquired franchises like Alien like Die Hard or movies that you probably don't think is Disney, were made through various studios like Buena Vista or Touchstone, like The Sixth Sense, gone, right? So it's big. And if you own those movies, you can still watch them, but it, you know, it's a big blow to Google's on-demand services. So what's what, I know these contract negotiations, they never, we never actually any get finite details. But what are the ass, what has been said publicly, what has been traded behind the scenes,

etc. Yeah, to the best of my knowledge, I believe Google wanted a shorter, I think it's like one to two year contract instead of like three to five, I think is the typical contract. And essentially saw their growth with YouTube TV, which has been primarily, I think their adoption has been primarily driven by sports. And obviously they have, they are. you go if you are an NFL fan in particular. I think they see that as leverage on their part to demand a shorter, more favorable contract on Google side. And then on Disney side, you know, they see this as an opportunity to try to get maybe

a bundled deal, whether that's with Disney Plus or more channels carried on YouTube TV service, obviously for a higher dollar amount, which would then inevitably. trickle down to consumers and once again raise the price of YouTube TV, which has become very expensive for the last few years. Yeah, 82.99. It's, on the sports thing, I think one thing that gets brought up a lot is that they're consolidating a sports play. Is it Fubo?

Is that? Yes. So like, in that just, that deal just closed like a week before all of this started. So, you know, part of the thing has been like, oh, are you mad at Disney about this? and you don't want to support, like, you know, you don't want to support ESPN Plus or actually you can't even watch Monday Night football there, but you don't want to, you know, figure out a way around, you know, signing up for one of their services. Oh, well, Fubo is an alternative, but they're owned by Disney now. So yeah, I mean, the market has become fairly consolidated.

Same with Hulu plus live TV, obviously a Disney service. So it becomes a thing where Google has effectively closed the doors to any, or Disney has closed the doors to any way to watch football in particular, or their, their carried football games in particular, if you are not willing to give them money. Yeah. This sounds like this was always going to happen, though. This feels like they have strong-armed, they've strong-armed Google in a way that Google would have ordinarily strong-armed other players in this space. But, I mean, I'm watching from afar, and this is fascinating. The thing with this one, I don't see an immediate ending on this.

No, I agree. The outcry is maybe a bit strong, even what this is. And I can honestly just sign up for another service, which is annoying and you have to pay more. But it's not, it's as simple as signing up for another service in the grand scheme, which is, again, annoying. But yeah, this idea of having one, I just have YouTube TV in terms of for the cable replacement aspect of it. That has, this is not a novel thing, but it's the same price as cable, these cold cutting services are the same price of cable. And again, with this one, I don't see it ending anytime soon. I don't think YouTube is going to capitulate unless Disney Disney.

changes their offer in this case, which is, it feels different from all these other past disputes. They got NBC over the line. Again, this happens every three years, but I don't, I think this one is going to run a little bit longer. And I don't, I don't know who's going to cave at this point because for Disney, they just want people to sign up for their services, which might be enough. and for YouTube, they, I don't think they want to pay the, they're in a real cost-cutting kind of stretch.

I guess I see one other thing, it is interesting that YouTube TV is only in the US, which is probably why Damien doesn't care too much. In the context of Google, it has, I've always found it interesting that YouTube TV is the one country service. For a company that loves scale, that is an oddity to only offer that,

YouTube TV only ever made sense in the US. Maybe they could bring it to Canada as a close neighbor kind of thing. But there's never been talk of expanding YouTube TV globally or anything like that. So this is a very US thing. I wonder if that is because the unraveling of this situation

could have, if this was every single nation where they had these deals signed, I feel like they're probably. probably had a difficulty breaking into specific markets. Like in here in the UK, Sky is huge. Like that is the what, the TV service everybody uses like satellite TV. But now mostly through the internet, which is effectively replicating what YouTube does, but through a set-top box under your television. I feel like, I feel like if Google would have done that with YouTube everywhere, I think they probably would have had so many difficulties like this on a scale,

unprecedented because yeah I don't know I just feel like it'd be so much so difficult to get all these deals signed exclusively so that it doesn't break other deals that these companies have and then the broadcast rights

for specific sports possibly not I mean I mean logically it would make sense like to have one consolidated service but we've seen that with everything we do there is there's always a oh Google Maps to rule them all it may be the market leader

but we end up with like five different mapping services and I guess that's what the free market dictates that we have to have multiples of rather than one standard. But it's a shame to hear this. It's a shame to hear that people who have put money into YouTube TV and expected it to be this service that provides them with access to everything in almost one ticket. It breaks down and you end up,

I feel like maybe Netflix helped propagate this by everybody. It was like, do you know what? Netflix is making too much money of us. We're going to make our own service. So I feel like Disney Plus will be that big Trojan horse for everything. Yeah, it's to speculative fiction something. If Disney and Apple ever merge, the thing I've always found interesting is what if, okay, Disney Plus is a fine.

In terms of this technical infrastructure, it's fine. It's an okay app. It's Hulu. I don't like the Hulu app. But I always wondered what would happen if in some merge, or some partnership if Apple ends up being the one to handle the streaming UI

for all of Disney's content. That would be, the regulatory would be very much painful for everybody involved. But I always wonder what if those two companies ever merge and there has been

in the Steve Jobs, Bob Eiger era, there have been one or two rumblings of that happening. But that company would be an absolute behemoth. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Technology and content. One of the most popular consumer electronic companies with a vast, vast media library. And you imagine Apple owning Disneyland. I just feel like Apple wouldn't, they don't want to get into that. I think I can understand they maybe want from the streaming services, but there's some good stuff

on Apple TV, but I think the rest, it's not worth the money, to be honest with I think if I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I definitely feel like this is the biggest advert for piracy I've ever seen from the service of the last two, three years. Like taking all of these things away from people who they're paying an exponential amount of money for. What is it about, do you say about $200 a month?

That is insane amount of money. That is all of the streaming services, right? You could pay for, or basically what, what's Netflix? $20. $20.5. If you want the top tier plan, yeah. Okay, so you could probably pick and choose what you really wanted and not be worried that, oh, I don't have access to this. I mean,

just Disney Plus is probably going to cover every single base that you need, right? So, yeah, it all comes back to sports in a lot of ways, I think, on this, right? Like, and it's, it's a weird piece of leverage, you know, for Disney to play because, like, I mean, they have ESPN, but outside of football, a lot of, a lot of the ESPN stuff can be watched live on ESPN plus. You're going to hit blackouts. Like, I can't watch local Sabres games, but I can watch all the other hockey games than ESPN Plus, unless you have a VPN, but you didn't hear that for me. But yeah, I don't know. It's, you know, of the weekend games, as far as the NFL goes, which this is obviously, they're,

you know, that's their big leverage at the moment. I feel like the most noise I heard about this was on the Monday night football side. That is the only game that they have on the NFL side. They're more on the college football stuff. So it's like, okay, well, if I'm a, which, you. know, I have YouTube TV for, for the football season. It's like, well, I'm only, I, you know, Thursday nights through prime. And then the, the Sunday games are CBS, Fox, and then one at night on NBC.

ABC does not, in the US fan, don't come into the picture until the final game on Monday night football. And so I don't know. I think it's assuming a lot for Disney to be like, oh, yeah, like these Google subscribers are just going to jump over to Fubo and pay us all this money to catch one more game. Like, I don't know. I think it's weird. Like the NBA basketball just started and it's not. Basketball's, yeah. It's not.

Nobody cases into the finals or, yeah, no, nobody cases to the finals. So it's two, like nine games in into the season. So it's. Well, yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, it's easier to treat NFL games like every NFL game more like an event just because there are significantly fewer of them than there are of hockey or or basketball or so. like this is the one sport where it's like, are you, are you an NFL fan? Your team plays, you know, like not counting the playoffs, 17 games a year, not not 17 games a month, 17 games a year. So yeah, I know, I'm again, baseball just ended go Dodgers. And I am on to basketball,

basketball is the only thing on that I care about sports. So I am fearing it, but not enough to like, it's a start season. Yeah. So yeah. Again, so I don't see this ending any time. soon. Yeah, I was about to ask, I was about to ask that. Do you think that this is going to be one thing that's dragged out? Because it's not a good look for anyone involved. I think it probably makes, if I'm being honest, I think it probably makes YouTube look worse than it does Disney.

No, yeah, I see that. Because people are saying, what am I actually paying for here? And Google can try and that's all they can do in this situation. But let's move on to something a little bit on positive that Google has been trying to do things recently. And it looks like, at least for the month of September, they have made major inroads in sales of their pixel 10, which I know a lot of people were very concerned about,

as in the same phone again, all that kind of jazz that we've seen online from fans and detractors alike. This news comes from counterpoint that the US-based pixel sales have jumped, I think, is almost 30% in September 2020-5 versus 2024, which to me, from an outside looking in and we're going to pick apart this data,

is absolutely insane, given the background of this device, the background of the launch, all that kind of stuff. Where do we think this information is, like, where does this stand up, where does it kind of fall down, if that makes sense? So I guess the high level thing I'd say is that if enthusiasts, those very plugged into the internet would think that the pixel 10 wasn't doing that well.

If you just read comments on the internet, this is giving an alternate suggestion that, you know, the pixel fan. I really do wish that Google just give us numbers or it's obvious in earnings calls when the pixel's doing well, but they'll never do that. And they'll never do that. It's the scale needs to be much bigger for them to even consider breaking it out. But in rule of that, we have to rely on the. these numbers and these research and as firms supporting.

So, and that's where we are, you know. I feel like, I feel like in, in defense of the analysis and the, and the, and the firm behind this counterpoint have been pretty,

they're pretty consistent, right? Yeah, Google users are stuff too. Yeah, they wouldn't, I don't think they would stake the reputation on, on false data. And with Google being, I mean, let's be completely honest,

we're all Google, we're all Google users and, and we use Google services, but the pixel is a very small proportion. of Google's output, right, hardware, sales, whatever it is. Like, I can't imagine that there would be any other reason for Counterpoint looking into this data

and pulling this out without there being a shred of truth to it or a grain of truth to it. I feel like what would they gain from this? There would be no gain from this. The most important thing about these analyst firms is the consistency. As long as I keep using the same methodology, that's all that matters here,

in terms of the year-over-year comparisons or quarter over quarter stuff. So let's look, I think the good thing here, let's let's break it out a little bit more then. So they're saying that Google's share of the $600, is it $600 plus range? Yeah. As being seen a huge gain, Will, I know you covered this in depth.

It's basically Counterpoint specifically look at, so this is separate from the 28% figure year over year. Counterpoint looked at the $600 plus range, which they call the premium range of smart. phones, which, you know, I feel like that $600 number should probably be more like $800. Yeah, a few of a little low these days, but, but we'll run with it. I guess there's, there's not a ton of devices in the $600 to $800 range anyway, so we'll, we'll go.

But basically, you know, 600 plus, you know, they broke it down by carrier. So effectively, T-Mobile and Verizon were the big ones, right? So it's basically comparing it to three years ago, which is right before September 2022 is right before the launch of the Pixel 7. So perhaps a little unfair, you know, apples to oranges rather than being right after the launch of new hardware. But T-Mobile and Verizon both basically went from their amount of $600 plus phones being pixels at like 0.0 or 0.1%, right?

Like essentially a rounding error in terms of this space up to roughly 7% for both carriers, AT&T still significantly lower at 2.3, but it's clear that T-Mobile and Verizon stores are moving pixels in a way that like, it's not, you know, it's Apple dominates the space. Samsung is, is, is also in here. But if you look at these figures, I mean, you know, the chart I use in the, in the article is the T-Mobile figures, but you're looking at, you know, Samsung's down to 12% of the space at T-Mobile and Google's up to seven, that's not that big of a difference. Like for every, you know, essentially for every two Samsung phones sold, they're selling a pixel. Or two, you know, every two Galaxy S devices, they're selling a pixel.

That's pretty impressive. I think given the fact that we've had, I mean, obviously you mentioned briefly that at the start of, they've analyzed it from a point just before the launch of the pixel seven. So that encompasses pixel six sales. And that was the first period of time. I think that Google really started to spend serious, serious ad money on their pixel marketing budget, all that kind of stuff sponsoring. I think it sponsored the NBA in their first year, was it, or something like that?

Yeah. They sponsored like the England national team, the England, Arsenal, Liverpool. They've started to sponsor some big brands here in Europe and in the UK specifically. Like in the US, I feel like they probably are starting to get into, and this is credit where it's due, they're almost alongside these two brands that have spent 20 years duking it out, being the two top dogs. And to even be in the conversation is with such a small market share is incredible, really,

to be quite honest with you. Like there is no reason you would expect someone like OnePlus or I know Oppo don't sell the devices in North America. There are brands that are in China and the rest of the world that would kill for this kind of market share in the US. And Google are starting to do it without, I guess, without much fanfare, that makes sense? Yeah, I mean, I think, and this is kind of getting back to something that Abner said, but I really think that this is a sign that Google is, and I think I've said this on previous episodes,

but Google's on the right track with prioritizing AI on the pixel. I genuinely think that. I mean, I can't, I couldn't even tell you how many times I have seen the Pixel 10 Vanilla Pro ad at this point. Oh my gosh, that ad. I had that song stuck in my head for a week. That ad would have worked any other year, but the iPhones, they got a redesign this year. I know they actually did get a redesign. I guess the idea is behind that ad is to like, well, we're the AI phone.

And I do think it's not a bad pitch, right? It does, I'm sure it's. It's not a bad pitch, but at the end of the day, people kind of care what colors their phone is when it works this year. And they actually changed it this year. So it's a bad year to do it. It's a bad year to do it. But, but, like, it does show this, like, confidence Google has about that. I feel like they maybe didn't have a few years ago against the iPhone, where they are,

kind of filling the usual Samsung role of going up to Apple and being like, no, no, no, no, we're the better option here. Like, we're the more modern, advanced option here. But I think they're doing it in a way that doesn't, maybe doesn't speak to power users in the way that, like, a Samsung or, you know, if you were to advertise a one plus phone, a one plus phone. I don't know. I think that's interesting.

I think it's, I, I, I see the complaints on tensor and I don't disagree with them, but I've had a pretty good time with my pixel 10, all things considered. And, you know, I don't think most people care about GPU performance versus the competition, like most, most people. And I think you're seeing that kind of reflected here, especially because, again, you look at these charts, you know, comparing September 22 to, you know, September of this year. the chunk that that Google seems to be taking out of in this premium space is Samsung. So like clearly Google is speaking to a consumer base that perhaps was

riding on Samsung for years, mostly through momentum and maybe are seeking out the device they've seen advertised on TV because Google has stepped up their advertising game like that. I mean, playing devil's advocate for a little bit. I wonder if the fact that Google was such a small player in the space for such a long time, and now they've put this huge market and effort into it.

Most people going into a carrier store, and I believe that's the way most people still buy smartphones in the US, right, and they get them on plan. I wonder if there are people who've seen the Samsung phones not really visually develop too much over the past few years, and then they see a pixel 9 and a pixel 10 on store shelves, pixel 9, 8, whatever it is. And it's like, this is different.

This looks different to what I have. Like my S-23 to the S-25 is visually, hey, it's almost the same phone, right? Well, and Samsung, Samsung didn't just, Samsung hasn't just wrote out the same design language on their premium devices. They've brought that design language to every device down to the lowest end A series. And I don't think that has, I don't think that's made the A series feel more premium for the most part. I think that's made the Galaxy S series feel less premium. Like it's less special that this phone looks.

like this because they all look like this and say what you will about the pixel but it has a very striking design and you know as much as there was lots of conversation earlier this year about about the idea of branding in the in the you know camera bar perhaps divorcing that from the 9a was actually a smart move because it again makes the flagship stand out that much more this is the phone that looks like this you know aside from that there's the uh you know iphone uh uh air, I guess, kind of looks like it. But really, for the most part, like, it's just the, the pixel nine and ten series that looks, that has this design. I think it's maybe smart just from a, I want something new perspective.

I also, I also think, and I think, I don't know if you agree with this, this appra. I think we've both spoke about this at length when we've done, when we've written reviews about these pixel devices and the previous generations is, I think that they've had this holistic approach to smartphones that seems from the outside as a, a, and tech, hardcore tech fans don't like that. They kind of like something that is, I want it to push every single button possible. I want it to go 300 miles an hour. I want it to not have all these, I want it to have all the bells and whistles. And I think Google's approach over, and then it feels like that since maybe we didn't see it with the pixel six, because obviously the performance difference between the first gen tensor and the

top tier snap records wasn't as drastic as it is now. I feel like, and obviously AI was never really admit, it was a component, but not a major component of the devices. do wonder if that is breaking through to people that's there is so much power in the in the palm of your hand anyway like it still is very very powerful phone in the when we start to compare it to other things in our lives yeah i do wonder if that's breaking through to people a little bit it is i think that the i think the pixel nine switch the iPhone design we've mitigated that a lot but I do the people who want to switch to a new phone

they feel like they want something different but at the end of the day they don't want that much difference they maybe want to change one or two things maybe they want more customization or whatever but at the end of the day they want something that feels like their old phone and that's what we kind of got

with Google being able to go into that design language. They got something that's similar, feels similar, but of course has a different, entirely different OS and innovating more

on AI stuff and helpfulness and whatever. So it's kind of interesting when people who want a different phone, they just want it a little bit different, not a lot different. And sometimes that is enough

for them to properly switch over or to feel like they can switch over. People like the smart people like the smartphones that feel the same. Yeah, I think, I think you hit the nail on the head a little bit there. I think it's almost like a pair of slippers or comfortable pair of shoes that you used to. You've worn them in a little bit. I feel like the design is just enough to get people to look at it through the window, if that makes sense.

I think there is almost enough where people, and I think pixel snap will make a big difference as well. I thought about this over the last few weeks. And there's little things with the MagSafe integration that I can understand from someone who maybe he's used an iPhone for years, they don't have to throw away into accessories. Like you may have spent hundreds of dollars on chargers and docks

and camera mounts and stuff and you don't have to get rid of those straight away. Like that has to be at the forefront. It might not be at the forefront, but it's like a background thought, oh, I don't have to get a brand new case for this. I don't have to get you in-car holder.

That kind of stuff really does that. People are using that stupid 5-watt charger from the original early iPhone. They still use those. And to be honest, Like two years ago I just stopped using the 15 watt charger from the original pixel

That was like one or two years ago The one that had color-coded Bases that matched the black blue or white Yeah I'm guilty of that All of my fast chargers are in my office The charger that is next to my bed is like I probably a decade old like 15 or 20 watt charger

Because who cares I'm going to bed Who cares? Yeah. For like, for a good, like, six, seven years, I was using the first USBC cable in my travel bag from the Nexus 5X. Oh, my God. That's stupidly stiff cable. I stopped using it because it, like, the thing, the wiring started coming apart. That's the only reason.

People want to use the existing accessories. And to your point, Damien, pixel snap. Different name, same thing as MagSafe, which has had the high, the benefit of being around for years at this point. That's enough to get people to switch over. And I think speaking in retrospect, like there was a loss of we kind of decried Google moving from, again, I love the eight, but Google then moved to the nine design language, the iPhone design language. And there was kind of a loss of originality, but the benefits for cases, then now that they're adding MagSafe, that's kind of, it took a while to see for the vision,

come to fruition, but it's happening now. And if these in any way play the part in the numbers we're now seeing, that Google's benefit. They made the right calls. Yeah. One final word I want to say about that, though, is that these sales figures are pre-discount. So if this is September, if this is for the September 2025 that I remember, then we didn't see a major discount on the, apart from maybe some carrier pre-order deals, which I should, I'm sure those, those were very, very like kind of juicy and really beneficial to people making a purchase or maybe getting it free on a sell plan and hey getting devices out there is a major is the hardest thing right it's the hardest thing to do in this competitive ecosystem where Samsung and Apple dominate in the United States

but if we look at it from other areas if if there are not huge discounts or people were picking them up without that discounts when we're coming into this Black Friday period and we've had sales for Amazon Prime Day as well like the unlocked device sales figures will bolster that as well. So I'm really interested to see how this plays out of the next few months because we've seen a few spikes

like this in the past. But it looks good. I just, I'm interested to see how it's panned out the rest of the world because we've had more markets kind of opened up

for pixel sales. And most people tend to be very, very happy when you speak to them. There are a subset of people who don't like pixel devices after using them. But for the most part,

the people that I speak to really love the experience. I think Material 3 Expressive is another compelling reason for a lot of people to look at this from another other, as we're seeing other manufacturers go down that liquid glass route, Google's just kind of, we're going to stay in our lane,

we're going to do our thing our way, and in some ways I'm glad it's paying off for them because it means that the competition is going to be more rife across the globe because, yeah, it's great to see another Ando Doe M out there doing good things other than Samsung. Yeah, well said. So I'm guessing we'll see more fall out of this in the next few weeks. Hopefully we'll get counterpoint.

it will be producing more information. But yeah, some good, some bad and a little bit indifferent for Google this month. But ending on a high with their smartphone lineups is good for us to talk about. We're here, we're pixelated. We talk pixel most of the time. So seeing some good news after maybe some kind of worries ahead of time is nice. So yeah, I just want to say thanks guys for joining me. It's always good to talk to you.

It's been a little bit of a longer one than usual. We've really got into the weeds a bit. You get me going on those studio deals. I just can't shut up. Well, maybe we'll have more to talk about that in the next few weeks if Google manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat and resolve that situation. But yeah, thanks guys for listening. Hopefully you've enjoyed this one.

Remember to leave likes, reviews, share it with your friends out there who are into pixel, especially all those new people in the US who've picked up a device. They are our new audience. Get them on board. Get them listen to us and we'll hopefully get some feedback from them as well. but thanks for joining us and I'll speak to you soon. Bye. Bye.

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