During Tuesday’s Made by Google event at its Mountain View, California, headquarters, Google introduced several new hardware products.
Roughly one month before Apple’s yearly iPhone event, the devices—which include its Pixel 9 portfolio, which consists of the foldable Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 3 (with enhanced health and safety features), and Pixel Buds Pro 2 earbuds—arrive.
Google most likely planned the event to coincide with Apple’s annual hype train, which guarantees that its products would be in demand for a few weeks at the minimum. Yet, the goal of the search engine giant’s newest gadgets isn’t really to sell hardware in some respects.
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Of course, Google won’t flinch at any sales. Nevertheless, the company’s primary goal in pursuing hardware is to demonstrate its prowess in AI.
While most of the focus of Google’s event was on its next phones and accessories, the company also gave a detailed explanation of how its Gemini platform, which generative AI drives, will function as a genuine smart assistant. We’re talking about anything from answering your phone calls to assisting you with travel arrangements.
That’s not to say that Google’s new hardware isn’t excellent; on the contrary, in addition to being more streamlined than previous models, these phones are also equipped with powerful cameras, processors, and screens that, on paper, make them formidable rivals for any Android device, let alone Apple’s iPhone. Furthermore, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold appears to be among the most intriguing foldables available right now.
But in Google’s quest to become the AI king, all of it is subordinated to its attempts to defeat Apple, Microsoft, and any other rivals.
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It all comes down to AI
In the past, Google’s Pixel product line has included some of the most remarkable watches and smartphones available. However, Google has no intention of taking the lead in global gadget sales. That will be left to Apple and its Android partners, Samsung and Motorola.
Rather, the company showcases its software skills through its hardware. Giving customers and other Android makers a greater grasp of how its many services and platforms come together to deliver a distinctly Google experience, the company has been doing this for years with its Pixel phones and, before that, its Nexus line of devices.
Google is now attempting to demonstrate that its AI software is superior to its Pixel 9 phones. It’s accomplishing this by making Gemini, its virtual assistant driven by generative AI, the focal point. The company’s previous Google Assistant will no longer appear when customers say, “Hey, Google,” or long-press the power button on their phones; instead, Gemini will appear.
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Gemini offers many exciting new options, one of which is the ability to quickly retrieve data from other apps through app extensions. The firm is currently concentrating on its first-party applications, such as Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. In the future, it plans to incorporate extensions into Tasks, YouTube Music, and Keeps. Gemini is intended to “talk” to your apps on your behalf, saving you the trouble.
Google, for instance, claims that you can ask Gemini to look up the date, time, and location of your friend’s surprise birthday party in your Gmail account. Then, without requiring you to ever open the app, the assistant will retrieve the device from your Gmail account and provide you with all the pertinent details. Then, you can ask Gemini to estimate how long it will take you to go to the party; it will display the estimated time as well as the Google Maps route.
If you snap a photo of a concert poster, you can use Google to find out if you can attend the performance during the artist’s visit. Following that, Google will look through your calendar to see if there are any conflicts and inform you of your likelihood of attending or not.
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After watching a YouTube video of someone crocheting flowers, Google also demonstrated how a user may ask Gemini to teach them how to crochet the same kind of flowers. Alternatively, you may ask about all of the venues mentioned in the travel vlog and add them to Google Maps, so you’ll have a ton of dinner alternatives when you arrive. This is especially useful if you’re planning a trip to London and want to see which restaurants are the best to visit.
Talking to Gemini for a fee
In the upcoming weeks, Google will also begin offering its Gemini Live service to English Android and iPhone users who have Gemini Advanced subscriptions. You may communicate with the assistant in real time as if you were on the phone with them thanks to a built-in function in Gemini.
It’s hard to predict how well these solutions will be received by customers. Yes, I can ask Gemini to retrieve information from my Gmail or to obtain directions in Maps, but I doubt I’ll use Gemini Live more than I use my current, occasionally used Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri.
In addition, I would have to pay $19.99 a month for a Google One AI Premium account to subscribe to Gemini Advanced. Yes, that does include Gemini for Gmail and Google Docs as well as 2TB of cloud storage. However, that is still an expensive option.
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The announcement of Apple’s first line of iPhones after announcing its Apple Intelligence service at its WWDC event in May, the iPhone 16, is just a few short weeks away.
Similar to Gemini, Apple Intelligence is designed to function with all of your apps and services. It offers you extensive app integrations that can extract data from your calendar and emails, AI authoring tools, and summaries of text messages and email exchanges. Additionally, Apple is releasing a more intelligent Siri that has a fresh appearance and a less robotic voice.
None of these generative AI capabilities are yet guaranteed to be popular with users or to perform as promised. After all, there are many examples of Gen AI applications going wrong. However, if Google gets its wish and Gemini fulfils the hype, its Pixel phones would serve as a launchpad to help make it the next big thing among Android consumers. And perhaps even win over a few Apple devotees.
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