google pixel

The Pixel phone shows how Google is becoming a bit more like Apple 

Prashant sachan  

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For all its talk of making the world a better place, there is no place where the competitive ideals of American capitalism are more evident than in cut-throat Silicon Valley.

Almost every move by Apple, Google or Facebook is seen through the lens of offence or defence, either against each other or towards a nimbler startup trying to turn them into yesterday’s news.

But as well as competing directly, these clashes between titans have manifested themselves collaterally into a series of ideological arguments. Take the battle between privacy and progress: Apple, for example, has taken a strict line on using customers’ information, while others are more relaxed, partly because their use of data has allowed them to make great strides in areas such as artificial intelligence. 

Another one of these religious splits has been in the idea of “open” against “closed” systems. The first is the idea that technology should be infinitely tweakable and free of bias. It is the libertarian foundation of the world wide web: democratic rather than dictatorial. Closed means that the technology is less flexible, that decisions are taken by those who know better, rather than letting the user run amok. It is authoritarian, if largely benevolent.

Those that worship at the altar of open include Wikipedia and Mozilla, which develops the Firefox web browser. At the other end of the spectrum are Nintendo, which has tightly controlled both its video game software and hardware, and Facebook, which rigorously controls how its users experience the social network.

But it is the two biggest tech companies that best represent this divide. In the open corner is Google, which was born on and is dependent on the web, and dreams of indexing the entire world’s information for everyone. On the closed side is Apple, which is obsessively devoted to simplicity and as a result shields its users from having too many choices.

Google’s Android mobile software, which runs on thousands of smartphones, is free and massively customisable. iOS, Apple’s operating system, runs on one mobile - the iPhone - and uniform across devices. One is open, one is closed, and that is how it has been since both existed.

Until last week, at least. For on Wednesday, Google took a leap into the unknown by unveiling its first phone. The Google Pixel is intended to be a direct competitor to the iPhone (as the frequency of Google’s potshots at Apple during its presentation showed). At its heart is the Google Assistant, an artificial intelligence designed to respond to millions of voice queries and demonstrate the power of the company’s smarts.

It is a rare foray into hardware for Google, which has traditionally left the job of making Android phones to other manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and HTC. This has served it fairly well, with Android accounting for four in five phones sold globally, so why do it, especially in 2016, as growth in smartphone sales peters out and innovation seemingly dries up?

Partially, at least, the answer lies in frustration at the state of the equipment manufacturers that Android relies on. HTC is in dire financial straits, and others such as Sony are losing market share. Samsung also appeared to be in trouble a year ago, and although has enjoyed a rebound in sales recently, Google had made the decision to sell its own handsets by then (now that the Korean group has been thrown into turmoil by defective handsets, the decision looks tremendously prescient).

The fastest growing phone makers are in China, where Android has no Google services due to the company’s blackout of the country.
Google has also been frustrated at the endless tampering with Android by manufacturers, who have often promoted their own apps and relegating Google’s. It is partly why the company requires that its search engine and web browser be installed on any Android phone that wants to use the Google Play app store, a directive that has landed it in hot water with EU competition regulators.

The new Google Assistant software
that features in the Pixel is a crucial element of the company’s future: computing is moving away from the web searches that make the majority of the company’s money and towards artificial intelligence that can talk and answer questions, so naturally Google is desperate to control this new channel.

So ask yourself: if you were Google, and needed Assistant to be a success at this crucial juncture, would you leave it to unreliable third parties or take things into your own hands? Suddenly, being a little less open and (whisper it quietly), a little bit more like Apple, starts to look attractive. Control both the hardware and the software, and you can be sure that customers are getting what you intend them to.

Google’s ambitions go beyond the phone: the internet giant is also set to release the Google Home, a voice-controlled smart speaker that also puts the company’s AI at its heart. The two products will work together as well as with the Chromecast, its internet TV device. Gradually, it is building an “ecosystem” of products, seamlessly tied together with its software: another strategy that Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac have used to great effect.

While it will protest that it has not abandoned its open ideals, Google has taken a big leaf out of the Apple playbook.


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