Latest Pixel leak shows Google has no original ideas

Google announced last month that the latest in their poor-selling line of Pixel phones will be a face unlock scheme almost directly ripped from Face ID that Apple launched two years ago. Seemingly the only difference between Pixel Face Unlock is that it completely eliminates the lock screen.

“Other phones require you to lift the device all the way up, pose in a certain way, wait for it to unlock, and then swipe to get to the homescreen. Pixel 4 does all of that in a much more streamlined way. As you reach for Pixel 4, Soli proactively turns on the face unlock sensors, recognizing that you may want to unlock your phone. If the face unlock sensors and algorithms recognize you, the phone will open as you pick it up, all in one motion.”

Google announced Project Soli back in 2015, which uses a motion-sensing radar to detect subtle movements. Like many announcements from Google, this project was never heard from again until nearly five years later with this Pixel announcement. In addition to ruining the Pixel lock screen, Soli will allow users to wave their hands at the phone to change songs and swipe photos. So far Google Motion Sense sounds as gimmicky as the much-maligned Air Motion feature LG launched this year on the G8 ThinQ (actual product name).

Combined, both of these features sound like excuses for Google to put this Soli radar tech into a product rather than creating a cohesive user experience.

In all, the Pixel 4 is shaping up to be another hum-drum smartphone saved in the eyes of tech reviewers only by the still-photos it produces and how it stands apart from the rest of the bloateded up, insecure Android ecosystem as a whole.

It’s fitting then that the next Pixel would follow in the footsteps of the Pixel 1, which ripped off the look and feel of the iPhone 6. If Google hadn’t insisted on pushing the fingerprint-on-the-back meme, the first Pixel would have looked like this

Google followed up the Pixel 1 with a screen they touted as being tuned to sRGB, but which ultimately produced muted colors and screen burn in. The burn in was so instantly apparent that some tech reviewers began to see it within the first week of launch. The Verge updated its review to account for the burn in.

In an attempt to copy Apple again, Google removed the headphone jack and launched Pixel buds. Unlike the AirPods, which went on to become a cultural and business success, the Pixel buds were trash and Google never mentioned them again. Removing the headphone jack served only to burn Android fans who were forced to endure the shaky USBC ecosystem.

Apple announced the iPhone X a few months prior, with an all screen design, Face ID, and a new gesture based UI that became an instant hit. This made the Pixel 2 look extremely dated by contrast, launching a month after the iPhone X announcement. Google set their engineers to work to quickly come up with ways to knock off the iPhone.

At Google I/o 2018, Google announced a new gesture user interface similar to the one found on the iPhone X. In making the announcement, Google VP of engineering for Android, David Burke, stressed they had been experimenting with this interface “for more than a year.” The fact that users immediately disliked the new UI and Google announced drastic changes to the interface a year later is pretty clear evidence that Google rushed its gesture interface to badly copy Apple. It’s either that or Google really had been working on this new interface for “over a year” and released a trash experience on its users that it immediately reversed.

With the Pixel 3, Google continued its track record of badly copying Apple by launching the phone with a gigantic notch. By this time, many android OEMs had already rushed out their own knockoff iPhone notches so Google doing the same wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how grotesque and universally reviled the Pixel 3 notch turned out to be. And unlike the iPhone X, which packed in cameras and sensors to justify the use of space, the Pixel 3 did nothing special. By all accounts, the UI interface and gigantic notch were there for Google to copy Apple without any of the care or user experience understanding that Apple puts in to its products.

The Pixel 3 notch was so embarrassing that Google enabled a software feature to hide the notch. A year later, Google has already dropped the notch entirely. There’s no rhyme or reason to Google’s “design.”

Tech reviewers have given Pixel phones passes in the past, arguing that Google was new to the hardware business and was still learning. This main flaw to this argument is the Nexus line existed before Pixel, so Google has actually cranked out mediocre phones for nearly a decade now. It will be interesting to see what excuse tech reviewers come up with this year.