Not a fan of the design of the Pixel or iPhone. They both have these cold, sterile design that doesn't look like it was designed to be used and held by a human hand. It was designed to be looked at or for curated display in an Apple Store.
And what's with all the flat design, we need skeumorphism and warmth back in industrial and UI design.
I prefer the soap bar design which seems to have been forgotten. And no more glass backs please. I don't get the appeal of glass, they shatter so easily, finger print magnets and just add unnecessary weight.
> And what's with all the flat design, we need skeumorphism and warmth back in industrial and UI design.
I’d be interested to know your general age group.
I have a theory that skeumorphism is a cross-generational design trend that serves a purpose to articulate a radical new technological paradigm in a language that makes sense to people that have never experienced it (i.e. A radio app that looks like an actual radio because that’s what everyone grew up using). I think once people are fully immersed and familiar with the tech, though, skeumorphism is limiting and ugly. We don’t need radio apps that look like radios anymore because everyone should now know how digital interfaces work. We can abstract away dials and knobs and make better use of the space for something that fits better with the constraints of a screen rather than the constraints of the physical world. This harkens back to the old discussions around the save icon and how there is an entire generation clicking an abstract symbol that holds no meaning to them while the generation prior comfortably recognized this symbol as “equivalent to archiving on my floppy disks.” Skeumorphism is really only intuitive to the first generation. Everyone that comes after just sees another (possibly ugly) abstraction that makes just as much sense as the next one. Screens don’t need metal dials, plush felts, and eye-popping gauges where a simple shadow would otherwise suffice.
I mean this with no disrespect. We all have our own sense of aesthetic. Just a thought I’ve been ruminating on. Personally I find neumorphism [1] to be a pleasing blend of the positives of both skeumorphism and flat design and I hope to see more of it going forward.
If they go plastic back, it looks and feels cheap. If they go metal, wireless charging breaks. I guess they could do alcantara or something. Tough spot to be in.
FWIW, the iPhone mini at least fits in my hand, so they get bonus points regardless of sharp edges. It does kind of stink needing a case to prevent it flying away.
I might just be a curmudgeon, but a lot of the newer tech products (iPhones being the exception) look really ugly to me. Pixel 6 and MacBooks being the most recent and serious offenders.
I think I’ve just accepted that we’re in a weird time for design and as long as the function is fine I’ll overlook the looks. Pixel 6 looks to me like it was deliberately designed to be so ugly people would talk about it. Same with new MacBook notch, which I wouldn’t mind if it looked exactly like the iPhone notch but larger. The curves are just off.
I guess this is karmic justice for me being so in love with Metro and flat UI ~8 years ago. I take comfort in knowing it’s cyclical and in a few years we’ll wrap around to Fisher-Price XP-style UI.
I felt this way too. I recently (and reluctantly) switched to an iphone 13 pro max. I've dropped it unto asphalt from > 2m without a case twice now (not on purpose) and neither front nor back has shattered. Whatever apple did to that glass is working! Maybe everyone else just needs to do the same thing to their glass?
If you're trying to build a look and feel which many other developers will follow then it has to be neutral in some way, something which can rely on minimal color + branding to build adequate distinction for the many companies who are to be in your ecosystem.
I agree. I had a Palm Pre and tried a Palm Pre 3 and they were truly delightful objects to hold. Things like the Unihertz Atom and TCL Palm phone still exist but occupy a miniscule niche.
Though ultimately I get why slate/phablet phones won out with their larger screens.
Agreed on the glass backs. Aluminium was way better. My Pixel 4 slides off just about anything, even surfaces that are just a few degrees tilted. Also, what is the point?
Not a huge fan of the Geordi La Forge band. Feels...bulky. In general I'm a little baffled at the Pixel's aesthetic vs the iPhone. Like take the corners on the Pixel. They're weirdly small and sharp, making the phone seem a lot more blocky. Or how the lime green doesn't go quite as well with the pastel turquoise back. Say what you will about Apple's products, they get a lot of these details right.
Maybe you just haven't met anyone with one or even noticed people who do own them. I've owned almost every pixel phone. In my opinion, they're some of the best Android phones available with great cameras and less crapware pre-installed.
Love the back design of the phone, symmetry is always good. Finally one can put their on the table and tap on it without making a noise to hell and beyond.
But this presentation, with the potato chips 1 hour long ad... and i can see that more effort went for the video than the engineering effort of the phone with that amazing selection of genders, skin color and ethnicity, not to mention the sexual orientations of the actors. And that not taking into consideration the order in which to present them - imagine the wars that were waged in the planning room.
Yeah... plus, I don't know why, but the guy in the video immediately made my skin crawl, which continued throughout the whole video to the point where it was hard to pay attention to anything but how viscerally my body wanted to reject anything this guy said.
I don't know why Android OEMs keep thinking they can get away with controversial design choices and high prices as if they were Apple. (not sarcastic :P)
The thing I think sucks about this design decision is that I always like to have a phone case with a card sleeve on the back. Seems like the camera band makes such cases inconvenient or maybe even impossible to design.
I was looking around to buy a new phone, and the Pixel 5a seemed very nice. The design is clean, the screen may be big but the battery is bigger, and it works with Graphene OS! I just want a boring phone that will work. But they decided to sell it only in the US and Japan. Apparently one of the reasons for this decision was to not distract away from the Pixel 6. Now the only option I have left is to maybe buy a Pixel 4a from last year, if want a normal looking phone.
interesting, don't really disagree with the comment about the form factor of pixel and iphone being cold/sterile (although it's been for so many years now kinda used to it and don't really notice) -- however, one thing that occurred to me on this launch is how much the software has a human feel/push from Google. The colours and theme shifting - giving your device, the UI, that personal feel which is really what makes it yours in the day-to-day (big customization/wallpaper/launcher fan here, always has been the Android advantage), and many human elements from inclusive photography to translation and things about people connecting - I appreciated that approach.
[EDIT]
On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says, "Guaranteed Android version updates until at least: October 2024" and "Guaranteed security updates until at least: October 2026" for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
> Will app developers get access to the Tensor chip?
I think this is another classic bit of Google branding. Tensor is their custom SoC with CPU, GPU and an ML co-processor (think this was codenamed Whitechapel). Not the ML processor itself. Whereas Google's Tensor Processing Unit is a large scale ML accelerator. Why they've decided to use the same name for two totally different chips with different functions is anyone's guess.
Anyone knows if having some items in the basket while being unable to complete the order somehow guarantees a certain spot in the queue on store.google.com?
I want this phone badly, I want to be part of this inclusive camera experience, but due to systemic issues in the ordering process, I am still unable to checkout.
I have a feeling it does. It seems the basket is stored serverside. I tried logging in on different devices/sessions and basket was there despite not having any shared cookies. Fingers crossed.
I'm curious why, what does face unlock do for you that fingerprint doesn't?
If I'm unlocking my phone, I have my hands on my phone, so using my fingerprint isn't a hassle. Plus with COVID and needing to wear masks, I can still unlock my phone easily without needing to pull down my mask.
Really surprised to hear this. I've had really bad luck with face unlock. I find I have to type in my PIN half the time anyway. On the other hand, with my previous pixel that had a fingerprint reader, I never had any issues with it whatsoever. I think face unlock is a bit of a regression on the part of device makers.
Face Unlock has been an available feature on every Pixel for a while and is present in the latest Android 12 Beta, it's just not depth-sensing because it lacks the hardware that the Pixel 4 and iPhone use, just uses front-facing camera instead and warns you about using it.
Why do manufacturers have to trap the good features like telephoto lenses on devices with bent screens? I don't like having the first letter of every line doing the lean-back. I don't like having to find the one exact body angle that keeps glare off the screen.
This is just how product announcements look these days. I want to say this was popularized by Apple but I don't have a source on that.
If you doubt that, here are some quotes from Apple's new product pages from yesterday:
'most powerful', 'scary fast', 'scary faster', 'best display ever', 'super fluid'
Not to mention the product names: 'pro' vs 'max', 'liquid retina', ...
I am really liking the "Shareable moments" sidebar on the right. Such a cool idea and it's so smooth along with the right types of media (gif, png, video)
For what it's worth, I had this thing in my basket since 10-ish pacific, during all this time, i was stuck at the order checkout 'comfirm purchase' step.
In google fashion, it'd fail in very diverse ways:
1) mostly 'OR_PCVH_01' "unexpected error occured".
2) sometimes a troika of codes with the label "your purchase has expired". This would be ~5% of the time.
3) sometimes no error at all, just a blank page.
I was rather afraid to attempt going back to 'store.google.com' to checkout my cart again and find the items sold out, but I courageously overcame my fears and decided to stand up for myself. Consumer me went ahead, created a new tab, clicked the basket and pressed 'checkout'. And after the one or two 'OR_PCVH_01' and some blank page, boom, it went through.
Long story short, i suspect that error message 2 is misleading in what it means. It doesn't mean 'try to click this comfirm purchase' button later, it means try to "checkout your cart again".
Does anyone knows about the state of the futuristic AI features from Google?
I recall a presentation about AI phone assistant that was ordering something on the phone and it was indistinguishable from a human, handling edge cases flawlessly. Are people using AI assistants to make them book places or order things on the phone?
I can definitively say the real-time language translation they demoed on the original Pixel Buds was complete vaporware (and the last time I bought a newly released Google product).
I have yet to get the AI assistant to book anything for me. The only related function I do use is the call screening piece, but that's hardly AI...
Wow. The marketing team for this have been taking very detailed notes on Apples presentation style. Products aside, this is almost identical to Apple's launch yesterday.
Awkward people standing with shoulder width apart because the studio director told them so.
Let people stand the way they feel comfortable. Tim Cook yesterday appeared like his feet are glued to the ground in the process of squatting. Naturally people never stand with feet this far apart. But the trend continues and shitty directors at Apple don’t get it.
This type of production gets zero points from me. It’s just terrible.
[+] [-] mouzogu|4 years ago|reply
And what's with all the flat design, we need skeumorphism and warmth back in industrial and UI design.
I prefer the soap bar design which seems to have been forgotten. And no more glass backs please. I don't get the appeal of glass, they shatter so easily, finger print magnets and just add unnecessary weight.
[+] [-] bleachedsleet|4 years ago|reply
I’d be interested to know your general age group.
I have a theory that skeumorphism is a cross-generational design trend that serves a purpose to articulate a radical new technological paradigm in a language that makes sense to people that have never experienced it (i.e. A radio app that looks like an actual radio because that’s what everyone grew up using). I think once people are fully immersed and familiar with the tech, though, skeumorphism is limiting and ugly. We don’t need radio apps that look like radios anymore because everyone should now know how digital interfaces work. We can abstract away dials and knobs and make better use of the space for something that fits better with the constraints of a screen rather than the constraints of the physical world. This harkens back to the old discussions around the save icon and how there is an entire generation clicking an abstract symbol that holds no meaning to them while the generation prior comfortably recognized this symbol as “equivalent to archiving on my floppy disks.” Skeumorphism is really only intuitive to the first generation. Everyone that comes after just sees another (possibly ugly) abstraction that makes just as much sense as the next one. Screens don’t need metal dials, plush felts, and eye-popping gauges where a simple shadow would otherwise suffice.
I mean this with no disrespect. We all have our own sense of aesthetic. Just a thought I’ve been ruminating on. Personally I find neumorphism [1] to be a pleasing blend of the positives of both skeumorphism and flat design and I hope to see more of it going forward.
[1] https://uxplanet.org/neomorphism-the-hottest-design-trend-in...
[+] [-] n8cpdx|4 years ago|reply
FWIW, the iPhone mini at least fits in my hand, so they get bonus points regardless of sharp edges. It does kind of stink needing a case to prevent it flying away.
I might just be a curmudgeon, but a lot of the newer tech products (iPhones being the exception) look really ugly to me. Pixel 6 and MacBooks being the most recent and serious offenders.
I think I’ve just accepted that we’re in a weird time for design and as long as the function is fine I’ll overlook the looks. Pixel 6 looks to me like it was deliberately designed to be so ugly people would talk about it. Same with new MacBook notch, which I wouldn’t mind if it looked exactly like the iPhone notch but larger. The curves are just off.
I guess this is karmic justice for me being so in love with Metro and flat UI ~8 years ago. I take comfort in knowing it’s cyclical and in a few years we’ll wrap around to Fisher-Price XP-style UI.
[+] [-] dmitrygr|4 years ago|reply
I felt this way too. I recently (and reluctantly) switched to an iphone 13 pro max. I've dropped it unto asphalt from > 2m without a case twice now (not on purpose) and neither front nor back has shattered. Whatever apple did to that glass is working! Maybe everyone else just needs to do the same thing to their glass?
[+] [-] threatofrain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asoneth|4 years ago|reply
Though ultimately I get why slate/phablet phones won out with their larger screens.
[+] [-] errantmind|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melony|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|4 years ago|reply
Only weight is valid statement. Matte glass on iPhone is unbreakable.
[+] [-] buro9|4 years ago|reply
Overview: https://store.google.com/product/pixel_6_pro?hl=en-GB
Buy: https://store.google.com/config/pixel_6_pro?hl=en-GB
Weirdly I kept seeing an internal MOMA login page asking for an @google.com login. So clearly something is broken (I do not work at Google).
Edit: Past all of those problems... error R013 when trying to check out.
Edit: Oh well... I missed out. Sold out before I got past the R013 error.
[+] [-] hardwaregeek|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haunter|4 years ago|reply
New year, same shit again.
I wonder who are the target of these phones really are? Never seen anyone using a Pixel out in the wild
Feels like a pet project of Google to me. Like "we make Android so we better make some phones too otherwise people don't take us seriously" idk
[+] [-] habitue|4 years ago|reply
Marques Brownlee on YouTube generally gives them good reviews. They're good for the ~vanilla android flavor vs manufacturer skins.
[+] [-] davesque|4 years ago|reply
Maybe you just haven't met anyone with one or even noticed people who do own them. I've owned almost every pixel phone. In my opinion, they're some of the best Android phones available with great cameras and less crapware pre-installed.
[+] [-] Bhilai|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sto_hristo|4 years ago|reply
But this presentation, with the potato chips 1 hour long ad... and i can see that more effort went for the video than the engineering effort of the phone with that amazing selection of genders, skin color and ethnicity, not to mention the sexual orientations of the actors. And that not taking into consideration the order in which to present them - imagine the wars that were waged in the planning room.
[+] [-] Enginerrrd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsjvjn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vadfa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codr7|4 years ago|reply
The recent camera bevels are bad enough.
[+] [-] davesque|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daptaq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hu3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whichquestion|4 years ago|reply
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_6_pro?hl=en-GB
[EDIT] On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says, "Guaranteed Android version updates until at least: October 2024" and "Guaranteed security updates until at least: October 2026" for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
[+] [-] Workaccount2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smarx007|4 years ago|reply
Will all the features of the phone and the Titan M2 chip still work with another Android build like grapheneOS or LineageOS?
I don't think those were covered in the video.
[+] [-] KuiN|4 years ago|reply
I think this is another classic bit of Google branding. Tensor is their custom SoC with CPU, GPU and an ML co-processor (think this was codenamed Whitechapel). Not the ML processor itself. Whereas Google's Tensor Processing Unit is a large scale ML accelerator. Why they've decided to use the same name for two totally different chips with different functions is anyone's guess.
[+] [-] vidoc|4 years ago|reply
I want this phone badly, I want to be part of this inclusive camera experience, but due to systemic issues in the ordering process, I am still unable to checkout.
[+] [-] dayfa1r|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bhilai|4 years ago|reply
Wait, no face unlock? Thats a dealbreaker.
[+] [-] JacobLinney|4 years ago|reply
If I'm unlocking my phone, I have my hands on my phone, so using my fingerprint isn't a hassle. Plus with COVID and needing to wear masks, I can still unlock my phone easily without needing to pull down my mask.
[+] [-] davesque|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsriv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meerita|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] causi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] decebalus1|4 years ago|reply
'The best', 'our most powerful', 'The most advanced', 'Most hardware security', 'most light ever', 'most fluent', 'most layers of hardware'.
Seriously?
EDIT: This felt familiar, apparently I noticed something similar in the previous launch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24641965
[+] [-] progbits|4 years ago|reply
If you doubt that, here are some quotes from Apple's new product pages from yesterday: 'most powerful', 'scary fast', 'scary faster', 'best display ever', 'super fluid'
Not to mention the product names: 'pro' vs 'max', 'liquid retina', ...
Yet I don't see people complain about those.
[+] [-] thallavajhula|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidoc|4 years ago|reply
In google fashion, it'd fail in very diverse ways: 1) mostly 'OR_PCVH_01' "unexpected error occured". 2) sometimes a troika of codes with the label "your purchase has expired". This would be ~5% of the time. 3) sometimes no error at all, just a blank page.
I was rather afraid to attempt going back to 'store.google.com' to checkout my cart again and find the items sold out, but I courageously overcame my fears and decided to stand up for myself. Consumer me went ahead, created a new tab, clicked the basket and pressed 'checkout'. And after the one or two 'OR_PCVH_01' and some blank page, boom, it went through.
Long story short, i suspect that error message 2 is misleading in what it means. It doesn't mean 'try to click this comfirm purchase' button later, it means try to "checkout your cart again".
[+] [-] mrtksn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradstewart|4 years ago|reply
I have yet to get the AI assistant to book anything for me. The only related function I do use is the call screening piece, but that's hardly AI...
[+] [-] Drew_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvz|4 years ago|reply
Well, it's getting scarier by the second. For example, 'Magic Eraser' was a requested feature by Stalin.
You cannot believe any image on the internet anymore these days. This time it is getting much worse.
[+] [-] dzader|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidoc|4 years ago|reply
what a joke!
[+] [-] nicoburns|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] systemvoltage|4 years ago|reply
Let people stand the way they feel comfortable. Tim Cook yesterday appeared like his feet are glued to the ground in the process of squatting. Naturally people never stand with feet this far apart. But the trend continues and shitty directors at Apple don’t get it.
This type of production gets zero points from me. It’s just terrible.
[+] [-] justicezyx|4 years ago|reply
When I was at Google the cloud unit, there is always a vibe that "we are the best" without much substantiated from the products and etc.
At least they realize that something better is done for the phone department. Although I guess it's so much more obvious than cloud.