> Tensor G5 and the latest version of Gemini Nano work together to run Magic Cue privately and securely on your phone.
Running Gemini Nano on device is the most interesting thing here. Magic Cue sounds exactly like the Siri improvements that Apple failed to launch this past year (and have stayed mostly quiet about for this coming year, except saying "eventually"). I hope it works well, because on-device AI for simple lookups and such is actually one of the most interesting use cases for LLMs on mobile phones to me.
I love the idea of an on-device model that I can say something like "who's going to the baseball game this weekend" and it'll intelligently check my calendar and see who's listed. Or saying something like "how much was the dinner at McDoogle's last week?" and have it check digital wallet transactions. There are so many possibilities. I assume this kind of thing would just be implemented as tool calls with app intents. I hope we see this across the board in the next three years.
This seems like a good place to randomly drop my thoughts on switching from a Samsung s20+ to a Pixel 9 Pro. The hardware is excellent in the hand. The display is great, battery life excellent, the UI is snappy, does all the basic things I expect from a quality device. Over all, no huge regrets..... but...
The scrolling in every app is just "different" from the Samsung, and in a "not as good" way. I moved to Pixel with the (as I now realise) very out dated idea that a Pixel phone would allow me MORE customisation and configurability than the Samsung/Galaxy environment. Oh boy, how wrong I was. Turns out there's a whole stack of Samsung bundled apps or ones available through their Galaxy store for free that I'd gotten so used to I thought it was default Android stuff.
I miss:
- per app volume control
- nav bar customisation
- lock screen config
- many of the good lock apps
- shake for torch
- the samsung camera app
- control of what apps CAN run in the background (the pixel murders everything)
- subtle ways that Nova Launcher has problems
So yeah, next time I'm in the market for a phone I think I'm going back to Samsung.
Looks like they're still only available in "Huge" and "comically oversized". I guess I can keep buying Pixel 4s until new ones (req for battery) are no longer available.
The people at Google seem to think much more like me than the people at Apple.
There are 3 primary decisions Google made that click with me, while Apple's choices are a mystery to me:
1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles.
2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unsorted photos are. When I sit in a bus or in a cafe, I go through it and sort the new photos into folders. This seems impossible on iPhones. Everything stays in the main folder forever. You can add photos to albums, but that does not remove them from the main folder. So there is no way to know which photos I have already sorted.
3: On Android I can use Chrome. Which means web apps can use the File System Access API. This makes web apps first class productivity applications I can use to work on my local files. Impossible on iPhones.
I'm sure people who prefer iPhones have their own set of "this clicks with me on iPhones and puzzles me on Pixels" aspects?
Is this a "left brain vs right brain" type of thing? Do most HNers prefer Androids?
Unfortunately these new phones don't fix the main issue with the Pixel: the hardware.
The performance is just unacceptable, it's already 50%+ slower than a snapdragon 8 elite flagship released in the same year.
This affects everything, pixels just don't last nor have great battery life for this reason.And the big issue is they aren't even much cheaper anymore.
I like GrapheneOS, but my pixel just randomly stopped working after being laggy and having the worst battery life on cellular (less than 2h SOT with a 5000mah battery)
It's hard justifying buying another pixel after such a horrible experience, were it not for GrapheneOS I would never consider buying a pixel in the first place.
Heck even the camera isn't that good anymore, most photos are just gray, and the hardware is also very lacking.
>12. Restrictions apply. Some data is not transmitted through VPN.... See https://g.co/pixel/vpn for details.
Does anyone know what data doesn't go through the vpn?
On the positive side it lists a 24+ hour battery life!! This is huge for me!! ..but it has a footnote, as well
> 6. Battery life depends upon many factors and usage of certain features will decrease battery life. Actual battery life may be lower. Over time, Pixel software will manage battery performance to help maintain battery health as your battery ages. See https://g.co/pixel/battery-tests and https://g.co/pixel/batteryhealth for details.
I am considering switching to Google, I am getting annoyed by Apple more and more, but the critical feature for me is AI assistant.
I am the first to criticize the LLM hype and I do not expect much out of them - but the fact that I cannot get Siri to turn a single light in my room instead of all of them is just FUBAR from my perspective. Siri is such garbage at this point that the gap between it and ChatGPT app is unbelievable. I can't even get it to reliably call people in my contacts, meanwhile my 4 year old can talk to ChatGPT in Croatian. Google Gemini seems to be on par so their assistant should be at least semi competent.
The lack of a physical SIM tray is just one more way to lock users in Google's walled garden. eSIM support is not implemented in Android itself (AOSP), but part of the proprietary GMS package. This means Google-free Android forks like LineageOS will be unusable on the Pixel 10 series :-(
> Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL are all available for preorder today starting at $799, $999 and $1199.
Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.
Also, what is up with that camera module? This doesn't look like it can physically slide into jeans pockets. At least round the corners or add little ramps. I guess this is what happens when design folk are allowed to trump engineers.
Have they fixed the ability to easily transfer your existing Android data to the new Android phone? I find that every time I upgrade, despite choosing the options to transfer apps/settings, that 90% of the apps I open just greet me with the login screen and I have to set everything up completely from scratch. I remember maybe a handful of apps, I think one was Uber, that were able to transfer everything including the login session. That was truly magic. That's how it should be for all apps. I understand banks might have special security requirements and I already know for Google Wallet, your cards need to be reactivated even if they transfer over, but most apps are not banks.
> For instance, when you're calling an airline, it can automatically find your flight details from your email and display it during your phone call.
Is this really the best example usecase they can think of? How often does an individual call an airline? I'm sure in aggregate they get a lot of calls, but I don't think I've ever had to.
It just seems really weird that this is the top example of on-device AI. The other examples mentioned, like "finding the right photos to share with a friend", seem more relatable.
If you own a pixel phone remember to do regular emergency call tests. They have a bug that has stuck around for generations but for some reason they get a pass.
Looks like a minor improvement to the pixel 9 series. Honestly, that's fine, I'm pretty happy with my Pixel 9 Pro.
The built-in magsafe charging magnets are a nice addition, although a case with magnets in it works for me for now.
Of course, the #1 feature I'd like to see is expandable storage, which Google seems to be strangely against. #2 would be a headphones jack - Google has already reversed course on that one once, but another reversal seems unlikely.
> It isn't just a simple crop; Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
Unclear what "intelligently recover and refine" means here, and I'd like to make a request of people who might also be unclear yet influenced by this idea...
If you build features that sound like this into the image-capturing stage (from the user perspective), and your target users include serious photographers who care about authenticity, please be sure to make any kind of "generative"/inferencing of image details be optional.
And fall back to nth previous generation of sensor processing, autofocusing, and anti-shake technology -- where the compute still influences the images, but errs on the side of missing/fuzzy detail rather than fabrication.
Imagine the priorities of photojournalists as a category of user -- not only users who want appealing snapshots, selfies, or professional editorial fashion/lifestyle shoots.
There's still a place for consciously fabricating/enhancing/fixing in interactive post-processing, when you you choose to do it, and it's clear to you what is being done.
I have the pixel 6. It's still fine. This looks like a very incremental update to me as have the previous few editions. Same with the OS. I can barely tell apart Android versions these days. And since most of the value is software based, there isn't much practical difference between different generations of Pixel phones.
My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It seems camera sensors plateaued about 4-5 years ago. It's a great sensor; the raw images are pretty amazing given the form factor (tiny sensor and lens). And I expect it still is. People confuse the AI capabilities (removing subjects, adding missing detail, etc.) with simple operations to make the photo 'pop'. Boosting the contrast, saturating all the colors, applying some aggressive smoothing (noise) and sharpening, etc. Doing that manually on the raw files yields very similar results. It's good and convenient. But most of that is just the sensor being awesome and some tasteful defaults for these edits. Adding optical zoom is impressive. The digital/AI zoom is not something I'd use. They still seem to use different sensors for the different cameras; which is something Apple stopped doing with recent iphones. So, you have to choose between the right lens with lots of noise or the right sensor with the wrong focal range.
The AI stuff is interesting as a gimmick but not something I use a lot. It seems to be the main differentiator for Google these days but I just don't see that being worth hundreds of dollars. It's a bit of an artificial differentiator and a race to the bottom. The advantages tend to be a bit hand wavy and other phone manufacturers of course copy them.
I might go for the 10a when it comes out in six months or so. My Pixel 6 won't be getting major updates anymore and the battery is starting to deteriorate. The difference between a 500 euro phone and a > 1000 euro one are not worth it for me. And with the 9a at least it even had a slightly bigger battery.
My dream is to have a phone like this that supports thunderbolt host mode, runs grapheneos or similar and can drive a couple of displays via usb-c docking station. With the memory and CPU this phone could easily replace my work laptop (vscode and ssh for the most part). Sadly I haven't found any phone that would make this possible (Samsung Dex doesn't count because it's proprietary)
I want to know how the TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compares to Samsung-manufactured Tensor processors and also how TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compare to TSMC-manufactured Snapdragon processors. Samsung's Tensors (also Exynos) had the fame of getting superhot. I want to know if these problems persist in new Tensor chips.
12 years later and still no availability in Middle East or Africa. Only available in 30-something countries. Google can't figure out retail, while upstart Chinese companies hit the global market immediately.
If you buy it in a country that's not officially supported you don't get 5G, most unique features, and of course no warranty, support, or repairs.
You can't install any of the AI models on the Pixel 9 if you have the bootloader unlocked. Wouldn't be surprised that Gemini Nano or Pro Res Zoom didn't work, either.
> Exclusive to the Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, Pro Res Zoom captures astonishing detail at up to 100x zoom. It isn't just a simple crop; Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
So it's not just a crop. It's a crop + hallucinate.
I really like their AI strategy. It’s much stronger than Apple’s, which seems to be nonexistent. The problem I have is I really like my Apple Watch Ultra. There is nothing like it in the android space and I can’t rely on Google. Actually caring about building a great product the way Apple does. Googles hardware products always seem to be some strategic wedge play to keep the ecosystem in check. They don’t seem to exist because they really care about building the very best watch, or phone, or whatever and at any point they might just cancel the effort.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
jjice|6 months ago
Running Gemini Nano on device is the most interesting thing here. Magic Cue sounds exactly like the Siri improvements that Apple failed to launch this past year (and have stayed mostly quiet about for this coming year, except saying "eventually"). I hope it works well, because on-device AI for simple lookups and such is actually one of the most interesting use cases for LLMs on mobile phones to me.
I love the idea of an on-device model that I can say something like "who's going to the baseball game this weekend" and it'll intelligently check my calendar and see who's listed. Or saying something like "how much was the dinner at McDoogle's last week?" and have it check digital wallet transactions. There are so many possibilities. I assume this kind of thing would just be implemented as tool calls with app intents. I hope we see this across the board in the next three years.
Fuzzwah|6 months ago
The scrolling in every app is just "different" from the Samsung, and in a "not as good" way. I moved to Pixel with the (as I now realise) very out dated idea that a Pixel phone would allow me MORE customisation and configurability than the Samsung/Galaxy environment. Oh boy, how wrong I was. Turns out there's a whole stack of Samsung bundled apps or ones available through their Galaxy store for free that I'd gotten so used to I thought it was default Android stuff.
I miss:
So yeah, next time I'm in the market for a phone I think I'm going back to Samsung.I want Google to be better...
the__alchemist|6 months ago
mg|6 months ago
There are 3 primary decisions Google made that click with me, while Apple's choices are a mystery to me:
1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles.
2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unsorted photos are. When I sit in a bus or in a cafe, I go through it and sort the new photos into folders. This seems impossible on iPhones. Everything stays in the main folder forever. You can add photos to albums, but that does not remove them from the main folder. So there is no way to know which photos I have already sorted.
3: On Android I can use Chrome. Which means web apps can use the File System Access API. This makes web apps first class productivity applications I can use to work on my local files. Impossible on iPhones.
I'm sure people who prefer iPhones have their own set of "this clicks with me on iPhones and puzzles me on Pixels" aspects?
Is this a "left brain vs right brain" type of thing? Do most HNers prefer Androids?
ge96|6 months ago
If I'm taking a picture of something I want it to be real light-to-pixel action not some made up wambo-jambo
fariszr|6 months ago
The performance is just unacceptable, it's already 50%+ slower than a snapdragon 8 elite flagship released in the same year.
This affects everything, pixels just don't last nor have great battery life for this reason.And the big issue is they aren't even much cheaper anymore.
I like GrapheneOS, but my pixel just randomly stopped working after being laggy and having the worst battery life on cellular (less than 2h SOT with a 5000mah battery)
It's hard justifying buying another pixel after such a horrible experience, were it not for GrapheneOS I would never consider buying a pixel in the first place.
Heck even the camera isn't that good anymore, most photos are just gray, and the hardware is also very lacking.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-image-processi...
I found Mrwhosetheboss overview really good, he explains how the pixel just comes short in every way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRegbipwCsc
somewhatrandom9|6 months ago
>12. Restrictions apply. Some data is not transmitted through VPN.... See https://g.co/pixel/vpn for details.
Does anyone know what data doesn't go through the vpn?
On the positive side it lists a 24+ hour battery life!! This is huge for me!! ..but it has a footnote, as well
> 6. Battery life depends upon many factors and usage of certain features will decrease battery life. Actual battery life may be lower. Over time, Pixel software will manage battery performance to help maintain battery health as your battery ages. See https://g.co/pixel/battery-tests and https://g.co/pixel/batteryhealth for details.
Which I guess is understandable
rafaelmn|6 months ago
I am the first to criticize the LLM hype and I do not expect much out of them - but the fact that I cannot get Siri to turn a single light in my room instead of all of them is just FUBAR from my perspective. Siri is such garbage at this point that the gap between it and ChatGPT app is unbelievable. I can't even get it to reliably call people in my contacts, meanwhile my 4 year old can talk to ChatGPT in Croatian. Google Gemini seems to be on par so their assistant should be at least semi competent.
vader1|6 months ago
bityard|6 months ago
Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.
Also, what is up with that camera module? This doesn't look like it can physically slide into jeans pockets. At least round the corners or add little ramps. I guess this is what happens when design folk are allowed to trump engineers.
herpderperator|6 months ago
Jabbles|6 months ago
Is this really the best example usecase they can think of? How often does an individual call an airline? I'm sure in aggregate they get a lot of calls, but I don't think I've ever had to.
It just seems really weird that this is the top example of on-device AI. The other examples mentioned, like "finding the right photos to share with a friend", seem more relatable.
Jabbles|6 months ago
That 100x zoom looks a bit... sloppy...
The car has one wing mirror and the rear tire is wider than the front. Edit: this might be real, see child comments.
Is there someone who knows more about cars who can confirm that this is in fact, not real?
thebruce87m|6 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1ano09x/pixel_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1jzo5hu/pixel_...
ortusdux|6 months ago
nfriedly|6 months ago
The built-in magsafe charging magnets are a nice addition, although a case with magnets in it works for me for now.
Of course, the #1 feature I'd like to see is expandable storage, which Google seems to be strangely against. #2 would be a headphones jack - Google has already reversed course on that one once, but another reversal seems unlikely.
neilv|6 months ago
Unclear what "intelligently recover and refine" means here, and I'd like to make a request of people who might also be unclear yet influenced by this idea...
If you build features that sound like this into the image-capturing stage (from the user perspective), and your target users include serious photographers who care about authenticity, please be sure to make any kind of "generative"/inferencing of image details be optional.
And fall back to nth previous generation of sensor processing, autofocusing, and anti-shake technology -- where the compute still influences the images, but errs on the side of missing/fuzzy detail rather than fabrication.
Imagine the priorities of photojournalists as a category of user -- not only users who want appealing snapshots, selfies, or professional editorial fashion/lifestyle shoots.
There's still a place for consciously fabricating/enhancing/fixing in interactive post-processing, when you you choose to do it, and it's clear to you what is being done.
jillesvangurp|6 months ago
My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It seems camera sensors plateaued about 4-5 years ago. It's a great sensor; the raw images are pretty amazing given the form factor (tiny sensor and lens). And I expect it still is. People confuse the AI capabilities (removing subjects, adding missing detail, etc.) with simple operations to make the photo 'pop'. Boosting the contrast, saturating all the colors, applying some aggressive smoothing (noise) and sharpening, etc. Doing that manually on the raw files yields very similar results. It's good and convenient. But most of that is just the sensor being awesome and some tasteful defaults for these edits. Adding optical zoom is impressive. The digital/AI zoom is not something I'd use. They still seem to use different sensors for the different cameras; which is something Apple stopped doing with recent iphones. So, you have to choose between the right lens with lots of noise or the right sensor with the wrong focal range.
The AI stuff is interesting as a gimmick but not something I use a lot. It seems to be the main differentiator for Google these days but I just don't see that being worth hundreds of dollars. It's a bit of an artificial differentiator and a race to the bottom. The advantages tend to be a bit hand wavy and other phone manufacturers of course copy them.
I might go for the 10a when it comes out in six months or so. My Pixel 6 won't be getting major updates anymore and the battery is starting to deteriorate. The difference between a 500 euro phone and a > 1000 euro one are not worth it for me. And with the 9a at least it even had a slightly bigger battery.
mrintegrity|6 months ago
varbhat|6 months ago
do_not_redeem|6 months ago
Reminds me of https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moo...
I guess we'll never be able to trust any photos taken with a Pixel 10 or above.
seventhtiger|6 months ago
If you buy it in a country that's not officially supported you don't get 5G, most unique features, and of course no warranty, support, or repairs.
qwertox|6 months ago
They zoom from 100x to 0.5x and present 0.5x as "what it actually looks like."
They're making 100x zoom appear twice as impressive by using ultra-wide (0.5x) as fake 'normal' vision.
drewbitt|6 months ago
munificent|6 months ago
So it's not just a crop. It's a crop + hallucinate.
mrcwinn|6 months ago
JoshTriplett|6 months ago
I don't know why they assume that someone buying a $2000 phone doesn't want the best available camera.