Google Pixel Sounds Like the Android Phone of Our Dreams
IT’S FITTING, IN a way, that Google’s new Pixel phone resembles the iPhone. Apple’s world-changing gadget is the very device Google is aiming for. The 5-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL are meant to be the best, most powerful, most unified Android phones ever. They have best-in-class specs, best-in-class design, best-in-class everything. And for the first time, Google seems to want you to buy one.
Even as it has taken on a decidedly more crap-giving position in the hardware process, Google’s still a software company. The Pixels are running Android Nougat 7.1, a software update so new it didn’t even exist until today. The Allo and Duo messaging apps also comes pre-installed. The most important thing about the Pixel, for Google and Android and probably you as well, is that this is the first phone to have the Google Assistant built in. Google Now is dead, long live the Google Assistant. It’s a core piece of the phone, available everywhere just the way Siri is on the iPhone.
In a very real way, the Assistant is the future of Google. It’s the Google brain, distilled and personified and right there waiting for you to ask who won the 100-meter dash in 1996. (Donovan Bailey.) You can hit that home button, or say “OK Google.” This is the showcase feature here. I’m pretty sure Google only made the Pixel this good so that a few more people might try the Assistant.
wired.com
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