Will Google be able to convince people that user experience is more important than hardware specifications?
If everything goes as expected, in less than eight hours from now, Google will unveil its first real plan that demonstrates the importance of controlling the entire product stack with the amalgamation of hardware and software. Today we will finally get to witness Google’s vision of the role connected devices like smartphones, VR headsets, in-home smart devices and possibly even laptops should play in your lives. Today’s event might have been positioned as a “Made by Google” hardware event, but at the heart of it lies Google’s suite of services.
Rumor has it that Google will launch two smartphones today — the Pixel and Pixel XL. Google is expected to let go of the Nexus branding and opt for the new Pixel branding instead, which would signify moving away from the “stock Android” interface, to Google’s vision of what smartphones should be capable of doing with smart software services. The smartphones might be made by HTC, but it is expected to carry only Google’s branding. The leaked specifications of the smartphones suggest there is nothing special about the hardware, which could set it apart from other flagship Android smartphones. In fact, “Made by Google” devices are likely to be not about hardware at all.
We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we’ll be talking about Oct 4, 2016.
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) September 24, 2016
In the last eight years, smartphone makers have been using Android just as an operating system layer that would help them sell more boxes. Most of the innovation has happened on the hardware front and many brands don’t even care about bringing the latest updates to their devices. No matter how many cool features Google might bring in Android Nougat, the fact remains that even a year later, less than 10 percent of Android users are expected to experience it. And that is not surprising at all.
All these years, Google hoped that it would provide the best software experiences and tools that users would love and brands would use to sell more smartphones. Google hoped that more people would end up using its services, which would either mean more search advertising revenue or better user profiling to improve its advertising targeting. But its hardware partners are just interested in one thing — to sell more smartphones. And it was in their interest to keep improving hardware specifications and force people to upgrade to new devices than to ensure they kept getting an improved user experience on their existing devices.
Google tried to change that with its Nexus program, but it was a half-hearted approach. The hardware partners did not have much incentive to sell more Nexus smartphones than their own competing devices. The Nexus devices were supposed to inspire other brands to focus on regular software updates. At the end of the day, the only benefit of Nexus devices were that you got regular software updates — something that bothered only a very small percentage of tech savvy users.
With Pixel smartphones and other hardware devices expected to be showcased tomorrow, Google will finally start the process of owning the experience, just like Apple does for its iPhones. Yes, the phones will be manufactured by HTC but Google will use hardware as a medium to show off its software and services. Google Assistant will be one of the key experience drivers, be it interacting with the smartphones, with products like Google Home and even services like Allo, which we have already seen.
But it is going to be an uphill climb for Google, which has dabbled in hardware in the past as well, but hasn’t been able to deliver a blockbuster hit — something that could compare with the success Apple has witnessed with the iPhone or for that matter, even Samsung with its range of Galaxy smartphones, which are all based on top of Android.
So the million dollar question in front of Google today is whether it can convince people to look beyond hardware specifications for a better, smarter user experience. And that alone will decide the success of Google’s hardware ambitions.
Source: bgr.in
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