Until last year, Google historically held its mobile device launch events in October, ceding the yearly first-mover advantage to primary competitor Apple with its September comparable-device announcements. In 2024, however, Google “flipped the script”, jumping ahead to August. The same thing seems to have happened this year…assuming Apple does a late summer or early fall event at all, of course, since all we have right now is a lot of leaks, not a solid date. That said, Google rolled out the latest updates to its longstanding smartphone, smart watch, and earbuds products last Wednesday, August 20th at its Made by Google event, along with making additional announcements related to other R&D programs and product lines.
I suppose I probably should touch on (and get past) the “schtick” aspect of this post title’s first. I didn’t watch the livestream, as I was fully focused on my “day job” duties at the time. And truth be told, I still haven’t watched the archived video in its entirety, because I can’t stomach it:
Say what you want about Jimmy Fallon as a comedian, television host, actor, singer, writer, and producer; I personally think he’s quite talented, generally speaking:
As a tech event host, however, in this initial experiment at least, his skill set was a mismatch, IMHO at least. Not that the other guests, or even Google’s own spokespersons, were much—if any—better, for that matter. Here’s what TechCrunch noted in retrospect:
The result was a watered-down, cringey, and at times almost QVC-like sales event, which Reddit users immediately dubbed “unwatchable.” In large part, this had to do with Fallon’s performance. Trying to shift his goofy late-night persona to a corporate event, he ended up coming across as deeply uninterested in the technology, necessitating an over-the-top display of decidedly less-than-genuine enthusiasm.
The Verge’s conceptually similar take was aptly titled “The Made by Google event felt like being sucked into an episode of Wandavision”. Here’s an excerpt:
The real unsettling thing was understanding that I — and other gadget nerds and media — were not the target audience for this show. The point of a keynote is to be both informative and impressive, telling the most interested audiences about the ins and outs of the new products and attempting to wow them with live demos and technological feats. Today’s Pixel event was less concerned with product minutiae and more concerned with making it all entertaining.
That said, Victoria Song’s self-aware closing comments were thought-provoking; perhaps at least some of the reason for my underwhelming reaction was that I’m traditional and…old:
Back in the day, [Steve] Jobs needed media to get the word out and build buzz. In this new age, companies can go straight to the source through influencers, YouTube (which Google also owns), and livestreams. It’s why you see an increasing number of influencers invited to launch events — and featuring in them. There were plenty in attendance today. It’s not that journalists are getting left out. It’s more that the keynote as we know it isn’t the only way to get attention anymore. All I know is today felt like the end of an era. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ll confess that traditional keynotes have felt stale as of late. As cringe as it was, this was at least something different.
That all said, I give Google kudos for taking it straight to Apple this time, which depending on your perspective, reflects either genuine confidence or deluded arrogance. And I’d still suggest you stick with The Verge’s 11:39 abridged video versus slogging through the full 1:16:55 version:
The processors
One downside to the reality that “gadget nerds and media were not the target audience for this show” is that we didn’t end up getting nearly as much technical detail as we’d like. At this point, for example, we don’t have any idea whose SoC is inside Google’s new Pixel Buds 2a earbuds:
To be fair, we don’t generally find out this kind of info for these kinds of products anyway, at least until either the supplier reveals its presence or someone like me tears ‘em apart. And speaking of suppliers subtly-or-not revealing themselves, the fact that Qualcomm rolled out its latest “Snapdragon W5+ and W5 Gen 2 Wearable Platforms” for smart watches and the like the same day as Google’s event was a tipoff that it’s what’s powering the new Pixel Watch 4:
The main IC, comprising a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 CPU matrix and a Hexagon V66K AI DSP, is fabricated on a 4 nm process (foundry source not identified). The key difference between the W5 (which Google’s smartwatch uses) and W5+ is the latter’s inclusion of a separate 22 nm-fabricated always-on coprocessor (AOC). The Qualcomm chipset’s narrowband non-terrestrial networks (NB-NTN) support enables emergency message transmission and reception via satellite when out of cellular and Wi-Fi coverage, something rumored for the (near) future with Apple Watches but not available with Apple’s current wrist-wearable products. And dual-band GPS capabilities, coupled with “Location Machine Learning 3.0” RF front-end (RFFE) and processing algorithm enhancements, claim to improve positioning accuracy by up to 50%.
Speaking of “foundry sources”, a supplier transition here is one of the most notable aspects of the new Tensor G5 SoC powering Google’s latest Pixel 10 products, including the newest Fold:
Google provided no detailed block diagram, sorry, only a pretty concept picture:
And when it comes to specs, there’s only high-level handwaving, at least for now, until third-party developers and users get their hands on hardware:
- An up to 60% more powerful TPU
- A 34% faster on average CPU, and
- New security hardware
The other thing we know is that Google switched from its longstanding foundry partner, Samsung, to TSMC this time around. The Tensor G4 (along with its G3 precursor…perhaps that lithography stall was behind the foundry switch?) had been built on a 4-nm process. Now it’s fabbed on 3 nm.
Beyond that…
The Tensor G4 contained the following “octa-core” CPU cluster:
- 1× 3.1 GHz Cortex-X4
- 3× 2.6 GHz Cortex-A720
- 4× 1.92 GHz Cortex-A520
along with an Arm Mali-G715 MP7 GPU. Ars Technica notes that this time around, the total CPU core count is the same (eight), but the “mix” is different; one “prime” core, five mid-level ones, and two efficiency ones. Core identity and speed specifics are TBD, as are GPU details, although benchmarks (including relative comparisons to Apple SoC counterparts) have already leaked. To wit, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) for on-device AI inference seems to be notably upgraded:
The more powerful TPU runs the largest version of Gemini Nano yet, clocking in at 4 billion parameters. This model, designed in partnership with the team at DeepMind, is twice as efficient and 2.6 times faster than Gemini Nano models running on the Tensor G4. The context window (a measure of how much data you can put into the model) now sits at 32,000 tokens, almost three times more than last year.
More on the Pixel Buds 2a (and Pro 2)
As I’d mentioned upfront in my Pixel Buds Pro teardown published at the beginning of 2023, Google’s initial earbuds product efforts had been hit-or-miss at best. The Pixel Buds Pro, though, introduced at the May 2022 Google I/O developer conference, was a notable update, adding both active noise cancellation (ANC) and “transparency”, among other improvements:
The subsequent enhancements made to their Pixel Buds Pro 2 successors, unveiled at last year’s Made by Google event, were more modest, and I took a “pass” on the upgrade. The original Pixel Buds Pro remain my Android-paired “daily drivers” to this very day, actually. But now, with the gen-2 update to the four-plus year old A Series:
I may reconsider my longstanding no-update loyalty. Shipping in October, they carry forward the bulk of the Pixel Buds Pro 2 capabilities, including first-time A-Series ANC support, at the modest tradeoff of decreased between-charges operating time. Speaking of charging, the batteries inside the case (albeit not those in the earbuds themselves) are user-replaceable, precluding you from needing to toss the case in the trash when its original cells expire. And did I mention that the Pixel Buds 2a costs $100 less than its “big brother”? Presumably as an attempt to maintain (and maximize) the feature set differentiation, as a means of rationalizing the ongoing price differentiation, Google also announced a new color option and pending modest feature set updates for the Pixel Buds Pro 2:
More on the Pixel Watch 4
I never would have believed that a smartwatch update would be the highlight of a new product launch suite, but I actually think that’s what Google pulled off last week. The glass face is now domed across the entirety of its diameter, not just curved at the outer edges…as is the display itself, which Google refers to as “Actua 360”. The result? A 10% larger active area, even with 16% smaller bezels, and an edgeless appearance. It’s also 50% brighter, with a 3000-nit max output.
No word on battery capacity expansions for either/both the 41 mm and 45 mm diameter models, although given that the new Qualcomm chipset’s RFFE is ~20% smaller than before, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Google filled the now-available internal space with more Li-ion volume. Regardless, Google claims that the Pixel Watch 4 has a 25% longer battery life (30 hours on the 41 mm version and 40 hours on the larger battery capacity 45 mm variant), further extendable to two days (41 mm) and three days (45 mm) via Battery Saver mode.
And when recharging is necessary, Google has made welcome updates here as well, claiming that the Pixel Watch 4 charges 25% faster than before, from zero to 50% in just 15 minutes.
The approach shown in the above video marks the third charging scheme Google has employed across only four smartwatch generations to date. The first-generation Pixel Watch was launched three years ago at Made by Google:
having been previewed a few months earlier at the 2022 Google I/O conference. It remains in daily use on my wrist to this very day. The premiere Pixel Watch leveraged proprietary wireless charging, which was convenient but slow and inefficient, and also translated into thermal tradeoffs that “encouraged” the back panel to fall off. Second- and third-generation successors switched to physical charging contacts on that same back panel. And now Google’s moved them to the side, among other things, translating into improved (more accurately: finally feasible) repairability.
Unsurprisingly, the new SoC affords additional Gemini-fueled AI capabilities, both fitness-specific (a pending Fitbit revamp is planned) for example, and more general. Other UI enhancements are physical versus virtual: a 15% stronger haptic engine and a louder, clearer speaker. Pixel Watch 4 preorders are now open, with product availability slated for October.
More on the Pixel 10 phone family
And now for the smartphones, normally the upfront-in-coverage stars of the show. Unless you look closely, and disregarding the varied color options this time around, you won’t be able to discern any differences between them and last year’s Pixel 9 predecessors, at least from the outside. Same four models (10, 10 Pro, 10 Pro Max, and 10 Pro Fold, the latter also with October availability), same screen-size options (albeit with modestly boosted peak brightness) and other dimensions (albeit slightly thicker in some cases), etc. The biggest external evolution is the baseline Pixel 10’s added (third) 10.8 Mpixel backside telephoto camera, prompting a (presumably bill-of-materials driven) devolution of its ultrawide peer to 13 Mpixels from the Pixel 9’s 48 Mpixels (the wide camera resolution also dropped slightly, from 50 to 48 Mpixels).
Pop off the screen and peer inside, and things get more interesting. The 3rd gen Fold version, for example, is now IP68 water and dust resistant; Google was also refreshingly candid that it’s not a “forever” panacea (for it or any other device, for that matter, either). The Pixel 10’s Wi-Fi downgrades from 7 (on the Pixel 9) to 6e. Battery capacities have gone up slightly across the board, as have between-charges battery life estimates. And how does one charge those batteries? Legacy wired USB-C connections are faster than before, at least for the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which can charge to 70% in 30 minutes using a 45-W input. And that same product variant also supports up-to-25W wireless Qi2.2 charging. The others are “only” 15W-capable, although their common Qi2-gen technology first-time embeds magnets, branded by Google as Pixelsnap:
One pleasant surprise, speaking of bill-of-materials costs, was that tariff pressures aside (Pixel products are variously manufactured in China, Vietnam and, increasingly, India), and aside from the $100-more Pixel 10 Pro XL, there were no other price increases from last year’s models to this year’s. And Google also didn’t “hide” tariff costs by cutting RAM capacities (which would counterbalance its burgeoning AI ambitions, anyway) or offering only higher-capacity, higher-priced (and profitable) storage variants, the latter as Apple is rumored to be doing with at least some of its various upcoming iPhone 17 flavors. Speaking of storage, the baseline interface moves from UFS v3.1 on the Pixel 9 to faster v4.0 on the Pixel 10…as long as you purchase a device with at last 256 GBytes of flash memory, that is. Bump that up to 512 GBytes or further, and you also get “Zoned UFS” (ZUFS). Google didn’t say much about it last week, but here’s how SK Hynix explained it in a year-plus-back press release:
The ZUFS is a differentiated technology that classifies and stores data generated from smartphones in different zones in accordance with characteristics. Unlike a conventional UFS, the latest product groups and stores data with similar purposes and frequencies in separate zones, boosting the speed of a smartphone’s operating system and management efficiency of the storage devices. The ZUFS also shortens the time required to run an application from a smartphone in long hours use by 45%, compared with a conventional UFS. With the issue of degradation of read and write performance improved by more than four times, the lifetime of the product also increased by 40%.
The explicit ZUFS tie to higher capacities suggests to me that it’s explicitly tied to multi-die memory modules, which are inherently easier to manage from a multiple-simultaneous-access (read and/or write) standpoint. Further, regarding the claimed performance and durability improvements, it’s conceptually feasible that a portion of the total capacity allocation might derive from more costly (on a per-bit basis) but more robust single- or dual-bit-per-cell flash memory, with the remainder using cheaper but slower and less durable triple- or quad-bit-per-cell flash and the operating system on-the-fly directing usage to one or the other as appropriate. One final internal (with external ramifications) change of note: with the exception of the Fold variant and only in the United States, Google has dropped physical SIM support from this year’s phones, just as Apple had done with its iPhone 14 product line three years back.
Other “teasers”
Google also mentioned last week that a pending migration from Google Assistant to Gemini, in both free and paid service tiers, was planned for its various existing Home devices (likely a reaction to both users’ increasingly vocal complaints about their existing setups and competitor Amazon’s underway Alexa+ staged rollout), along with reassuring everyone that Gemini support in Android Auto and Google TV is still on the way. And apparently, judging from a teased image, “Gemini for Home” will be supported by not only legacy but also new hardware. I could imagine, for example, that legacy memory capacity and processing horsepower limitations would significantly hamper, if not completely preclude, local “edge” AI inference capabilities:
(yes, that’s Formula 1 Team McLaren driver Lando Norris)
And what about new (specifically Google-branded) product categories? Company executives indicated, for example, that Google has at least temporarily paused internal tablet development after the underwhelming market acceptance of its most recent (2.5 year old) Pixel Tablet model:
a particularly interesting twist in light of chronologically-coincident reports that Amazon is dropping its Android-derived Fire OS and refocusing on “pure” Android for its future tablets.
Similarly, Google claims it has no definite (public, at least) plans to release branded smart glasses or other head-mounted wearables—instead being content to develop foundation O/S and application suites for partners to productize—or even a smart ring. I’m particularly skeptical about that last one, as I am regarding Apple’s claimed non-interest in the smart ring product category. I’ve been testing various manufacturers’ smart rings in recent months, with compelling albeit embryonic outcomes, and I find it hard to imagine either Apple or Fitbit-by-Google perpetually ceding that particular product-category space to others (that said, the effectiveness of patent-portfolio barriers should never be underestimated).
Stay tuned for the first in a series of smart ring-themed posts by yours truly in EDN starting next month. And with that, nearing 3,000 words, I’m going to wrap up for today. Apple is rumored to be holding its own event in a few weeks, which I’m as-usual also planning on covering. Until then, as always, let me (and your fellow readers) know your thoughts via the comments!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
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