Google’s new squeezable Pixel 2 is certainly the Pixel of 2017.
Boy, is this phone “trendy.”
At the tech giant’s Made by Google event earlier today, it announced the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, successors to 2016’s Pixel and Pixel XL. The Pixel 2 has two major changes that many won’t necessarily agree with: you can squeeze it, and there’s no headphone jack.
The first squeezable phone was the HTC U11 earlier this year, and nobody has quite figured out a good use for it yet. That didn’t stop Google from introducing the feature into the Pixel 2. Instead of having to do that inconvenient gesture on your home button to open Google Assistant, all you have to do is squeeze your phone! Personally, I don’t see the utility and just see it as a gimmick.
As rumors have been saying for some time now, Google got rid of the headphone jack. Why? It’s trendy. Unlike Apple, they didn’t say it was “courageous,” they just removed it.
This article may, and is intended to, come off as opinionated. This is because gimmicks and trendiness have surpassed utility as a major factor in designing phones, and I don’t agree with that.
