7 years of updates 7 years that is what
Google is promising on their new pixel 8 and pixel 8 Pro Series and I don't mean
security I'm talking feature drops and full OS updates and security but I mean
come on a promise from Google that's kind of like your cat promising to not
eat your plants and pee on your stuff in
the last 6 months alone Google has killed 11 products and services
including YouTube stories their podcasts Google domains and jam board and there's
even been broken promises in pixel's past and again the rest of made by
Google 2023 sounded kind of awesome too
like a high-powered Google Assistant I really want to believe them
here so all right gosh darn it I'm giving them another chance let's talk
about everything they're planning and hope that they've matured enough to
follow through on the plans like I'm going to follow through on my plan for
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the big announcements are naturally the pixel 8 and the pixel 8 Pro this is the
third iteration of the big camera bar design that Google introduced on the
pixel 6 series and it is well it's still polarizing but hey it's what's on the
inside that counts right and Google has packed it in this year their new 120 HZ
actua displays are brighter than ever they can do 30 watt fast charging now
and the 50 megapixel wide angle main shooter gets a new sensor and 10bit HDR
photo capabilities both phones are ip68
water resistant making them great candidates for people who get wet
sometimes though there are other options and both get an upfront promise of 7
years of os security and feature drop
updates also unlike Apple's new lineup
both Pro and non-pro users get Google's
new tensor G3 chipset of course latest
doesn't necessarily mean greatest and Google's tensor family of semic custom
chips from Samsung have been a source of frustration for Pixel users due to their
lackluster performance compared to apple and their sometimes thermal issues this
time around they're using Samsung's 4 nanometer process with four little cores
four medium ones and then a single high performance cortex X 3 unlike the G2
whose main claim to fame was better AI the G3 looks like it will have
significantly more performance on top for CPU intensive tasks games and okay
well if Google's Focus during the event was anything to go by mostly still AI
but that's not a terrible thing necessarily in fact one of the
highlights of the event was the improved audio cleanup features clear calling
background noise removal is better than ever with updated training models I'm
going to be ready to come out and join everybody for for dinner so are you
still thinking of trying that place on 63rd and audio Magic Eraser is a new
video editing feature that removes unwanted background noise from say that
clip of you showing off your Funko Pop collection with the uncomfortable
breathing noises the demo really was
impressive but it was also pre-recorded
and obviously designed to show it in the best possible light but according to
Google this new chip will enable all kinds of new on device machine learning
capabilities thanks to its support for more concurrent AI tasks and its support
for learning models that are 10 times the complexity of the pixel
6 I do have to say that Google's lack of
focus on the new chipsets CPU and GPU performance does make me wonder if the
onp paper improvements we talked about before will translate to the real world
but maybe our upcoming ShortCircuit unboxing in first Impressions will give
you a better idea of what to expect head on over there and subscribe if you
haven't already for now I guess we'll talk about AI some more best take looks
kind of awesome to be honest in the past you could take a burst of pictures and
Google would recommend the best one out of the lot but that was then and this is
now now you can mix and match the best
faces for each individual creating a new
best shot where your aunt who always blinks and your ADHD nephew both look
their best however unrealistic that might be they
also spoke of improved real tone that allows for better color grading on
different skin tones except for that last guy they showed whose forehead and
eyes kind of completely disappeared points for improvement and honesty I
guess Google but it's clear that there is still work to do um you can pinch and
Igan the main focus of your photos now kind of like selecting a sticker from an
image on iOS oh and there's video boost which will allow you to upload your
videos to Google's data center where they can be processed for improved HDR
and for night sight If Video night sight
is anywhere near as good as Google's already Stellar night sight for photos
then I'm very excited for its launch later this year or at least I would be
if I poned up the extra $300 for the pixel 8 Pro cuz video boost isn't coming
to non-pro users at least not now and
what's never coming is the better camera system with matching 50 megap main
Shooters neither NE the 8 nor the 8 Pro are going to look bad but the pro gets
an additional 48 mapix 125 1/2 Dee Ultra
wide camera and a 48 megap 5x telephoto
camera both with Optical image stabilization and quad pixel phase
detection which has benefits like faster more accurate autofocus and improved low
light performance and not only will it take better pictures but the 8 Pro might
display your pictures better as well it's super actua display is not only
larger it is denser brighter and has a
wider variable refresh rate range thanks to its ltpo OLED display in real world
terms this Tech should offer both power savings and improvements to Peak
brightness with the eight Pro hitting a claimed
2400 nits and ironically we have apple
to thank for it so uh good job on ltpo
Apple the larger size of the pro variant also allows for a larger battery though
Google claims that both models will deliver an identical experience for
battery life and then finally in what was Far and Away the biggest curveball
that we saw today the pro also has a temperature sensor you know what I love
it I don't have any idea what I'd use it for yet but to make sure that the milk
in your baby's bottle is just the right temperature but in a world where phones
keep losing Nifty features like headphone Jacks and IR blasters I think
this is a great addition even if it'll probably go away in the next pixel
because you know Google things moving on
from the new pixels let's talk about the version of Android that'll run on them
it's Android 13 wait no sorry it's 14
but my goodness does it ever look a lot like 13 uh okay well there's
customizable lock screens woo um new
clocks and widgets and we also get the ability to make shortcuts to specific
apps and controls I mean to be clear these are all nice things it's just that
they aren't exactly exciting especially when you consider that some of these
features have been present on competing Android devices
for time uh you can create custom
wallpapers using text to image generative AI though which is not nearly
as interesting as the amazing looks you can create using LTT Store.com how about
the Plaid flannel for fall huh um oh back to pixel oh wait no there's
something uh there's improvements to accessibility these are always welcome
and this time they come in the form of way larger font sizes and nonlinear
scaling that will prevent titles and headers from taking up the entirety of your screen this is actually really
great news for whenever I need to help my mother-in-law with her phone because she always turns the text size to
maximum I'm just how do you even use this thing it's all taken up by the header also those who are hard of
hearing will have an easier time setting up and routing audio from their phone to
their hearing aid and using flash notifications to grab their attention
Google is also adding more privacy focused sharing settings and app
permissions and some improvements for folding phones including a two-way
translation feature that looks really cool and ah crap that last one is pixel
exclusive all right so for the dozens of people who bought the pixel fold you get
to use that neat uh Health Connect though is not pixel exclusive and will
keep your Fitness data in a single location allowing apps that support the
feature to sync that information so no more entering your weight into three
different apps I mean one times enough right at least assuming that the apps
use support the framework and that Google keeps it alive
or resurrects it later kind of like their Smartwatch Ambitions that's right
there's also the new pixel Watch 2 the
original pixel watch hey it was a great first reffering from Google into the
wearable space but it was hamstrung by truly awful battery life well no more
now Google claims that you can get 24 hours of notifications on your wrist
with the always on display active and even longer without thank you Google a
Time pie should always tell me the time it should never wait for me to ask the
time and it gets even better if you're the kind of person who likes to be with
their watch all day and all night you can get a 12-hour charge in just 30
minutes before you go to bed so you can take advantage of sleep tracking also
Google is finally taking advantage of that Fitbit acquisition and bringing
along some of their branding and expertise to make use of three new
sensors there's the improved heart rate sensor that promises 40% more accurate
heart rate tracking there's a skin temp sensor now and the new Ceda measures the
microscopic beads of sweat on your wrist to help determine your emotional state
and stress level oh good I really need
Google knowing my emotional state you seem stressed have you tried retail
therapy from one of these brand Partners uh um oh also there's um AI improvements
like personalized coaching and fitness data analysis Google didn't explain if
this happens on device or on a distant server somewhere but seeing the current
state of Google's B AI I probably won't be taking Health advice from my watch
even when this feature launches sometime next year uh speaking of Bart what about
Google Assistant with Bart
really your AI couldn't generate a better branding idea than Google
Assistant with Bard awful branding aside
this really does seem like it's going to be the first big upgrade to Google
assistant in years allowing you to ask more complex questions and interact with
it more naturally will it allow me to turn lights off in one room and on in
another room with the same command though only time will tell they showed
off features like making grocery lists which seems great on the surface except
uh the thing is these convenient AI features only work when you can actually
trust the output which currently I don't know about you guys but I don't really
feel like I can and unless Google has made massive strides with Bard I have
some serious doubts though if at least I
I can call Jake tyy without saying Jake
tivy then I'll be really happy oh
actually coming back to trust for a second though this is only sort of on topic but I've got a feeling that more
googlers are watching this video than usual hi um and I wanted to talk about
Google's ongoing pattern of eroding trust in their ecosystem this is not a
new observation but Google has this propensity for killing projects that are
enjoyed by many of their users recently they killed Google podcasts which is a
fairly self-explanatory product and jamboard a well-liked whiteboard
software that's used in business and educational settings and I know you can
listen to podcasts and YouTube music now and they are going to support jamboard
customers by helping them migrate to something else but these kinds of
changes affect people and sometimes it's
just a minor personal inconvenience but other times it's a significant amount of
money or it's a major personal inconvenience and while they seem to
take a try to do the right thing approach to this stuff like when they
bought back stadia hardware and issued an update to make the controllers work
Standalone sometimes it's not a onetoone replacement like when Google play music
went away and YouTube music showed up with the same catalog of songs but the
inability to stream to my Sonos gear that I had spent thousands of dollars on
and whose functionality still hasn't been restored because Google won't pay
Sonos for using their patents this kind of behavior makes both
both individuals and organizations think twice about relying on Google's products
and that isn't something that you can fix with money um Google used to get
away with this kind of Reckless product murder because they were the constant
disruptor they were always creating exciting products that changed how
people us the web and then giving them away for free but in present year with
the web and mobile sectors maturing into places where people expect to get real
work done they suddenly expect continuity and ease of use and I mean
sure look at Apple they do things like
throw away their entire Hardware ecosystem every 15 years or so but then
think about how relatively elegant the switch was from Intel to ARM Apple
understands the importance of a smooth customer experience
predictability no one is worried that Apple's first-party podcast app is just
going to disappear for for some reason and if it does they can reasonably
expect things to still work I mean even Microsoft does a better job of this like
they have tools that enable intergenerational software compatibility
and they mostly work pretty
okay to be clear I think that the 7-year
OS update commitment is an absolutely
massive step in this direction not to mention a great step for better
sustainability might even take some of the sting out of the $100 price heye but
for me to start saying pixel in the same breath as iPhone when I talk about
product support and Longevity I got to see them follow through on this promise
unlike what they did with pixel pass Google's pixel phone upgrade program
that disappeared before anyone got to use it or hey remember unlimited pixel
photo uploads bye-bye it's time for Google to stop
doing this kind of stuff and to be boringly reliable if you guys enjoyed
this video maybe go check out the other side in our coverage of Apple's new
iPhone 15 and 15 pro pro Max Pro Max
Ultra whatever all the iPhones