I think the one thing that people are realizing is that you cannot trust
Google to maintain anything they announce today for any period of time. The live support system could be shut down six months from now. The fact is that
Apple deliver software updates (not just security updates) for over four years on some of their devices. Google on the other hand is just promising two years of security updates. If Pixel is a huge failure (largely because of the pricing), I would not be surprised that Google would dump it like they dumped Google Glass.
The specs does not matter. Phones with 820 costs around 30% of what they are seeking for the cheapest Pixel phone. Sure it has a highly rated camera. Sure it has 'exclusive' software features. But are they worth 70% of the price of the phone? Nope.
This would be the first time I would ignore a Google branded phone for a third party phone. I have dabbled with HTC and
Motorola phones and they were awful. But I am in no way going to pay a premium price just because Google decided to target the segment that has been largely exclusive to Apple
iPhones.
This company talks about bringing the next billion online. I am not sure how they are going to achieve that by shutting down the
Android One program (budget) and Nexus program (reasonably priced).
Personally speaking, Google should have launched these devices under their Nest branding. They sold Motorola with the excuse that they did not wanted to annoy their hardware partners (
Samsung primarily). What has changed in the last 2 years? Is Google preparing for the situation where Samsung dump Android for Tizen? Is Pixel the solution for such a situation? Seriously?
Google launching premium phones under the Nest branding while retaining the Nexus program would have been the smarter choice. Nexus program did great to boost the fortunes of companies that are struggling.
Huawei gained a lot of goodwill because of the 6P.
Sony could have used similar support.
I really cannot understand what made Google do what they did this week under the leadership of Sundar Pichai which has been talking a lot about bringing more people to the web.
I also do not understand the logic behind exclusive access to Google Assistant (for the time being). Sure I can access it through Allo on my current device. But this is something that any logical company would have wanted more people to have access to so that they can get more data about what users ask these AI assistants. Based on my experience using it inside Allo, it is pretty useless as of now. Sure it is open. But who would invest in integrating their own technologies with Allo if it is not widely used? Allo has already slid down the popularity charts on app stores. This is something that Google should have rolled out as broadly as possible because that would have helped the company improve it at as faster pace and excite more developers into integrating their own apps with it.
