Google’s Pixel 6 with Sundar Pichai and Rick Osterloh

Dieter Bohn sits down with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and SVP of Devices and Services at Google Rick Osterloh to discuss the launch of the Pixel 6 — including its tensor processing chip, the Android ecosystem, and what makes this Pixel launch different from the rest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Greetings, mobile accomplishers. Welcome to The Vergecast. I am Dieter Bone and you are listening to our short run series of very focused special episodes on Tuesdays. And I'm very excited about this week's episode. It's all about the Pixel. But more importantly, I got to go to Google's campus and speak to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Hardware Chief Rick Osterlo. I was there to talk to them about this big Pixel launch because it's a big moment for the Pixel, maybe the biggest since the very first one. It's important because it's the first time that Google is making its own processor. It's a system on a chip called Tensor. It's also the first time Google is saying unapologetically that it's made a flagship phone. It wants this to be a real Hockey stick moment for the Pixel where it actually matters in the market instead

• 2:14Speaker 01

  of just being sort of a thing that we have existential questions about all of the time. So when I went to speak to them, what I wanted to find out and what I think you should listen for here is how they intend to make this the moment, the Pixel goes from a sideshow to the center stage, both within Google and for the phone itself. How are they making this phone the best possible Pixel that there could be? How are they making this a special phone? But also in the phone market itself, because just because a phone is good, doesn't mean that it's successful, especially here in the US. You have to make deals with carriers. I also didn't want to let Sundar Pichai get away without talking about the rest of the Android ecosystem, because the Pixel obviously exists in the Android ecosystem and the Android ecosystem is facing some pretty big questions, especially surrounding antitrust. Google has faced some decisions

• 2:59Speaker 01

  in South Korea, for example, about payments in the Google Play ecosystem. They have to allow third-party payments. They've also faced some questions about whether or not they have to allow Android forks. One of the stories here is that when a manufacturer signs up to make an Android phone with Google services, they are not allowed to make a fork of Android on the side. And South Korea just told them they're not allowed to do that. Got to ask Pichai about that. And, you know, we asked about a whole bunch of other stuff. The Fitbit acquisition came up and plenty more. So what we're going to do is we're going to roll the tape of the interview. And then after it's over, I'm going to bring Neelai Patel on and we're going to talk over some of their answers. But we're also going to talk about the Pixel, because we have these devices, we're able to tell you about our impressions of them from our hands-on time with them. And one last thing to mention, I may have to apologize here and there for the audio quality. I had

• 3:43Speaker 01

  to record this in a different place than usual. And then we went down to Google's campus, we recorded outside. So you might hear a bird chirping and you might even in one spot hear a truck backing up. We're going to do our best to clean it up in post. All right, here's Rick and Sundar. Sundar Pichai, Rick Aslo, thanks for coming on The Vergecast. I have asked both of you a version of this question at least a half a dozen times, but I feel like because the Pixel 6 is now announced and out and you've got your own chip, I'm going to ask it one more time. Start with you, Sundar. Why is it important that Google's in the hardware business?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I've answered it before, but I think it's worth saying. You know, if you're committed to driving computing forward, I do think you need to think at the intersection of software, services, hardware to evolve it. I think we have a unique expression of it. You know, we have kind of always invested in deep technology to build helpful experiences with AI. We see a chance to express it in a unique way. So I think we will bring newer insights, newer experiences. Second, it helps us drive the ecosystem forward. Pretty much in my experience, every time we have done something well in a category, that category as a whole benefits in Android. It was true with our first, be it the Nexus phone or Nexus 7 as a tablet and so on.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  And third, to do this well, you have to build a sustainable business. So we're looking, we're committed to it. We're building a business. We want to grow and do well as well.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Well, OK, so I imagine the third answer is where I'm going to turn to you, Rick. Like, is that, how's that going?

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Well, we're still very early in this. I mean, I think the organization was started about five years ago. And especially in such a mature market that matters so much to users, it takes a long time to build the right capabilities to be leading. And we feel like, you know, finally, at this moment, we've gotten to the place where we feel really good about the innovation we've been able to build, the organization and capabilities we have in that towards building great phones. And we think Pixel 6 is a big step change and a nod to where we're going in the future, which is really focused around AI innovation, really focused around building a portfolio that tries to address big parts of the market. And so we want to give our users the best of Google. So that's what we're trying to do.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Can you tell me why you think that Pixel 6 is categorically different than other smartphones that are currently on the market? Or do you think that's true? I guess is a better question.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  I mean, I think there's significant differences that, you know, first off, the number one thing is that it really is a clear representation of Google's brand. Like, what we're trying to deliver is the very best possible Google experience. We do that by bringing, you know, all of our services that many people use, pulling them together in a cohesive user experience on the latest Android. Android 12 and beautiful new material UI. And then we also have been bringing a lot of our AI innovation. We've been working in tight coupling with our AI research teams. We've been building silicon together and we kind of put all that together in Pixel 6. So, so we can build the best possible experience. And you know, you see that in the workaround speech.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  This is like really exciting new improvements in that arena. We've always been strong in computational photography, but we're taking that a lot further with Pixel 6 and Tensor. And we've got a big jump in our video capabilities too. We're just really excited about this being like a moment where we pull it all together in its best possible form.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  But do you think that sort of say you're intending to go toe to toe with the best that Apple or Samsung have to offer in terms of their flagships?

• 7:07Speaker 03

  That is our intention, yes.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Are you intending to take market share from either of those companies?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Certainly, we want to grow. You know, we're, first of all, we acknowledge we're a challenger. The market's been pretty ossified. There's been a couple of key leaders for a long time. We think we're taking a different approach with AI-led innovation. You know, we think our time is now to be able to grow in that we've taken a big step change in so many parts of the overall experience that that it's a good time for us to be investing a lot in distribution, in marketing and of course, in the product and technology.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm bringing up the ecosystem, Sundar, because it's Rick's job to sell a bunch of phones. It's part of your job to make sure that the Android ecosystem is growing and secure and that all your partners are happy with it. So when you're sitting down with Samsung to talk about Android, are you talking about the Pixel line? How does, how do those conversations go?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  You know, they are, they are our most important partner on Android. And you know, first of all, I think Samsung is a big partner for, you know, our devices and services team as well. This phone, you know, is obviously, you know, they're a big, big partner. There are many components here from Samsung to make all of this work as well. So they're a big partner there. Definitely, and we, you know, from, from an Android standpoint, very focused, for example, the work we are doing with Samsung on foldables, working hard to make that leap and make them, make it successful. The partnership more recently on the watch, which we have. Done together with them. And so, you know, I see this as Android is in some ways designed so that, you know, it's one of the more customizable and flexible OSes out there.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  You know, it gives Samsung and other OEMs the chance to really innovate and, you know, we have Google also doing that. I think some part of it will grow the pie overall and I, I think it's good as a consumer. It's good. We want to put out something unique in the market and it's more choice. So I think, you know, I think it's healthy that way.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  I'm actually wondering what both of you think about the market, specifically with Android. You called it ossified. You're coming in as a challenger. You'd say you want to grow the pie, but I can't imagine there's a lot of new smartphone customers to get. So I'm wondering, going forward, what you think you need to do to be successful. You mentioned marketing. I'm wondering what else you might need to focus on to shake up the market like you seem to want to?

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Well, I think first off is innovation. I mean, our main focus as a company and especially in our phone products with Pixel is to try to offer as much help as we can to users across a lot of different arenas and, you know, people are very familiar with what Google does and with search and Gmail and so many other categories, but we also think we can help people even further with AI as applied to photography or videos or speech or natural language processing or translation and on and on. And we can put that together in the best way on Pixel. We also feel like, you know, there's an opportunity to give people great value for money with a combination of these things. Our Pixel A series has done a really good job with that to date, I believe, and we intend to continue forward with that.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  So there's, there's like both innovation and value for money opportunities in the market and we hope to offer that for users.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  So Dharani, any thoughts on what you think the Android market needs these days?

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Look, I also take a slightly longer term view and if you look at computing as a whole, you know, there's phones. You've seen hints of people doing stuff beyond their phones as well. There's watches. You know, we've done obviously Google TV with Chromecast and, you know, so to me, I take a long term view of Google Home. And to me, this is as much about building a deep capability to innovate. In computing for the very long run. And so taking that 10, 20 year view, you know, I think the day to day of the current position in phones, the high end phones, you know, I think that's one snapshot in time.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  But if I zoom out, you know, I that's what I meant by growing the pie and taking that long term view.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  And if I could add one thing, it would be that, you know, we, we believe that we have a somewhat unique portfolio and then it covers a lot of the activity in the home. We recently acquired Fitbit. And so we have a nice, robust capability on wearables now that we intend to grow and knit together. And then of course, the phone is the most important part of people's computing day to day usage. And, and so we believe this unique set of things is the right portfolio to, to best express where Google can go in the future. We've been calling our computing vision for the future, ambient computing. And that's, that's sort of the way we think about it is we want to have people be able to use these devices wherever they are, whatever situation they're in, whenever they need it, be able to naturally interface with them.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Google Assistant is a common interface across all these services. And we think it's the leading assistant and this combination is the right set of technologies for the future of where we feel computing needs to go for users. And so that, that is going to be our unique element in this is the strength in the home and mobile and wearables. And we're excited to start on that.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  And hopefully do it in a open way. I think, you know, hopefully all this computing doesn't mean you have to be locked into one brand or one OEM. And, you know, I think some of what Android brings is the ability to have many people plug in and participate. And, you know, so, you know, I'm excited about that as well. And us doing all this also, you know, really pushes us hard to make sure different phones can work with different watches, et cetera, in a way that it doesn't add to complexity for the user. And, and things can be seamless. And, you know, and I think that's important as well.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Well, we brought up AI a bunch of times. I definitely want to talk about Tensor, but since you mentioned Fitbit, I gotta ask, how's that going? I know they're still releasing new products that are on the Fitbit platform, waiting to see if they're going to be doing hardware on your watch platform, the software.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Story seems a little bit confusing. There's some Fitbit stuff, but Google Health is still sitting around sort of. So what's what's going on with it?

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, they joined our company six or seven months ago now. So it's pretty early in the integration. James and team are part of my organization and we're working really closely together. We're we've consolidated a lot of our health work in to the Fitbit organization. So that we can really have a focused consumer health approach for wearables and mobile. We announced at Google I O that we'll be working on Wear OS in our Fitbit team. So we're really excited about where that'll go. You can no doubt you'll see them build wearables on Wear OS in the future. And so we're hard at work at that.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Okay, I asked too soon. We'll check in on it next year.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Yes, next year. Let's talk.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  All right. So let's talk about Tensor. When did this project start? When did you decide we're making our own system on a chip?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  I think I started April 16th and it was around the 17th.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  So literally the day you started at Google, you walked into Sundar's office.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  When Sundar and I were talking about starting this organization five years ago, this this came up. We felt like it was inevitable that we'd need to start to invest here. Exactly. The form wasn't clear. But like Moore's Law and general computing, you know, laws started to break down around that time and a little bit earlier. And so it's pretty clear, like if you wanted to be on the cutting edge of AI innovation, it would have to involve real complete system design. About a year in, in 2017, we decided we actually really needed to build an S O C. Because you couldn't just build a single co processor in order to really harness the full capabilities we needed across a diverse set of AI models and approaches. And so, you know, we discussed this a long time ago.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  I was, I remember talking to Sundar, letting him know this is going to be a pretty big investment and take a long time. And we didn't have an organization at that point to build it. So so it's been a long journey, but we're really excited. We're here. I mean, this is like why I came back to Google, why we wanted to work together on this.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Look, I've always felt like you have to do deeper work. And if you if you look at our services we have built on that. Consumer side, our data centers. We've never shied away from be the fastest switches you needed for our networking side, subsea cables. So, you know, we've always TPUs. We obviously deeply, you know, on our data center side, we work, you know, we buy a lot and deeply use Nvidia GPUs and so on. But we have also tried to push the boundary with TPUs custom built for our AI services. And, and so I, I think it's important, I think, recognizing that to do well here, particularly if you want to do it well from an AI standpoint,

• 15:35Speaker 02

  we need to kind of evolve silicon with that focus, you know, and I think we had good DNA and thinking on the server side too here. And so I think, I think it's a natural part and, you know, I appreciate the long-term focus. I clearly remember our conversation and so it's good to see it all come together.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  I mean, cast yourself back to this conversation. Was it obvious that you wanted to do what you've ended up doing? Or was it a little bit fuzzy or like, well, we're going to need to do some kind of AI, AI chip will figure it out. Or, you know, were you thinking, well, Apple's got their own chips. We got to have our own chips. Like, what was that conversation and decision process like?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  It, it wasn't a hundred percent clear what form our system design work would take in the very early days. It was only after really thinking through what was the direction of travel in our various AI research teams that we realized that we really needed to build the whole thing, simply because of, you know, how data moves in and out of our models and how when we're doing computational photography, we're using not just an accelerator, but like all parts of the chip to achieve what we need. And so, you know, and there were other elements too, like being able to have a very low power set of the system that could do things when the device was otherwise at sleep. So this combination made us realize like we actually really need to build

• 16:53Speaker 03

  a, a full applications processor that includes a lot of different heterogeneous subcomponents. And so that was evolutionary thinking. I mean, that took a while to fully come to that realization. And we had a lot of, lots of discussions about it along the way. But it wasn't, it wasn't like one, one flash of

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  One inspirational moment where that came to us. It was an evolution of thinking.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Well, that's the old history. I need to ask about more recent history. This morning, as we're, we're talking Qualcomm decided to say that if a company's making their own SOC, that's a red flag on Twitter. Wondering if y'all have any, anything you'd like to reply to Qualcomm with?

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Qualcomm's always been great partners of ours, you know? We're doing this so that we can work closely with our AI team.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  You know, I mean Qualcomm plays a really important role in the Android ecosystem and will continue to play so. And, you know, that's why I gave the server side example as well. You know, we have done tensor processing units on the server side, but, you know, we deeply use Nvidia GPUs across everything we do too. And I think the market has overall done well. I think pushing the high end of silicon across all of us is good. And so, but, you know, we are doing this for Pixel. And, you know, and so Qualcomm and others will play an important role in supplying the Android ecosystem.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Right. The other thing I'm thinking about specifically with Tensor. This is a problem across all of Google communicating with customers. And it's a specific problem now with Tensor on the Pixel. Explaining the value of your AI systems, of getting people to understand what they can do, why it's helpful, and have it be more than just, well, it does this specific feature where you can erase something in the background. I feel like a lot of the time when we talk about AI, it ends up just sort of ending on like jazz hands, AI. And it's supposed to be better. So I'm wondering how you're thinking about communicating the capabilities that you've built for this phone to customers?

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, I think it's, it's really difficult to reduce AI to a benchmark or any sort of simplified measure. So I think the way we, we intend to try to communicate the value to users is through specific experiences that they're likely to really get excited about. And, you know, it does make things possible that weren't possible before. I mean, on, for instance, on Tensor and Pixel 6, the speech recognizer is out of this world. And, and we took a lot of engineering efforts to move our data center quality models, make them run on device, run on Tensor using the TPU. It wasn't possible before Tensor. And what you get out of it is something that can recognize words at 200 words a minute. I mean, it can go faster than I can think. And I think it'll totally change how I use the phone. And I think people will see the same thing.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  And it works across the whole device. That's a, that's an example of how AI will affect everyone's day to day usage of devices. We've been doing it for years in other areas, like with calls that might be unwanted or in computational photography areas. And we get to apply that more and more to harder problems. So we'll show users these specific problems that we solve with it. And hopefully they'll find it helpful. Hopefully they they'll see the benefits of AI overall.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  When you're thinking about what features to launch next, how much are you thinking about potential backlash? I think that with duplex in particular, there was a very strong reaction. And it took a while for the cycle for y'all to figure out how the best way to talk about it. And, you know, how to get that out into the world. When you're thinking about new features for the phone, or even, you know, for Google search or something, how are you thinking about, well, we can do this now, but we got to think about how to roll it out.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Well, it's a good question. I will say, you know, we now have experience of many features across our products. People use and rely and they actually work with their feet. You know, think about smart compose in Gmail. You know, it's kind of a new thing to get used to. You know, you have effectively AI suggesting phrases to you and stuff. You know, I think users really it resonates with the users, right? People understand it. And so people are really, I think I would give credit to people using our products a lot. They understand they they are adapting and, you know, they let us know if we get something wrong. So I've seen across search, across maps. And when we do these features well, you know, I think the bar doesn't change. You know, if it's a AI feature or not, the bar is still the same.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Are you kind of doing something which users find it magical and useful? And if so, I think they will kind of adopt it well.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  And if I could add one thing, a wonderful attribute of tensor is it enables us to do a lot of these capabilities closer and closer to the user. Keeps them in control. You know, like we took great pains to move our data center quality speech model to the phone. It's running locally on device. The information stays on the device. A lot of our computational capabilities are done there with our photography experience. And this is a direction of travel for us. I mean, we want to strike a great balance between like making sure that we've got great capability for users and also making sure they're comfortable with how data is being handled.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Right. How are you balancing adding capabilities to the Pixel specifically? And, you know, maybe you've got a Pixel for a year and then it goes into Android a year later or something. I could imagine a bunch of Android manufacturers would love to have your speech model on their phones. So how are you thinking about the stuff that you do? Does it get put into the rest of Android in some way?

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a balance that we work on with our platforms and ecosystems team and Hiroshi's organization. But you know, a lot of times Pixel is basically the vanguard of our innovation across the company. And so we can get it to market through that quickly. And then a lot of it does flow into our ecosystem. Some of it is harder for that to happen in that a lot of the Pixel 6 innovation, for instance, is driven by new hardware capabilities that haven't been possible so far. And so those might take a while, if ever, to move over to the ecosystem. But in general, we want a lot of this capability available to people.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Right. Be it Google Assistant or G-Board, the Google Keyboard, et cetera. So you know, there are many ways to do it. Over time also, and this is not directly answering your question, but I would say we are taking our speech APIs, computer vision APIs through GCP through cloud, providing to companies as well. So you know, both, you know, we're giving it through APIs as well. But it's a good question. I do think I've rarely seen if OMs are interested in accomplishing an experience, I think we work hard to make it possible. And so I've never seen that be the gating factor. If people have really wanted to make camera better on their phones and they engage with us, I would say our teams work super hard to make their cameras better.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Right. Well, I guess this maybe is a little bit of an aside, but since we're talking about Google services on Android, I do need to ask, South Korea recently ruled you need to allow third-party payment systems in Google Play. It seems like you're going to go along with that?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  You know, obviously, we, you know, I think our Google Play team is assessing it and understanding it. I think they are in dialogue with it and will find the right way to comply and, you know, make sure we support the ecosystem well. It's an important ecosystem for us. I do think it's important to understand Android is different from others. We, you know, invest thousands of engineers, build the operating system, which we provide for free. We don't take a share of the device sales, not a share of the carrier revenues. And so some way we have to sustain our ecosystem. So we have a different model. And so Google Play is an important way. In fact, it's the main source of revenue. It supports Android as a whole.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  So I think we'll make that viewpoint clear. And, you know, but, you know, we'll engage in conversations. And I think the team will, you know, I'll leave it to the team to figure out the right next steps.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  I guess similarly, they're also ruling that your contracts have often not allowed manufacturers to make forks of Android if they want Google services on their Android phones. Do you know what your reaction to that ruling is going to be?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, I literally spent my so many years in computing. I've never seen anything as open as Android, right? I, I buy a Peloton and I discover it's built on Android, right? And no one from Peloton, I'm sure, ever talked. I don't know whether they talk to people at Google. Amazon ships on Android, you know? So we are always in, obviously, one of the areas where Android gets criticized is at an end user level, the fragmentation as a cost, right? You know, because developers complain of complexity. So we are constantly striving to create that balance, right? And, and as part of that, sometimes there may be feedback from regulators. And, you know, I've taken the approach, we will understand it.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  I haven't seen this as a major issue, but to the extent it is, I think we will address it too.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Okay, I guess I don't know what I mean, what addressing it means. Are you?

• 25:36Speaker 02

  It depends on, I mean, it depends on what the specific thing is, you know? But I'm just basically pointing out many different ways people work on Android and ship Android. And in fact, there are like, literally, I think if you tabulate all the form factors, all the versions, all the, there are fork versions of Android which ship all the time, right? And like, you know, and so I do think we are trying to make sure at the end of the day, we feel responsible for delivering a user experience on top. And so there are going to be areas where we are going to have viewpoints. And I understand there's a balance and, you know, we'll, we'll have to figure that out on a case by case basis.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Okay, let's talk about to end one more fun thing, I think, which is spending a ton of money, which y'all have been doing on Pixel Marketing. I have seen billboards, there are TV ads, the thing isn't even officially launched yet. You've got ads before we know the price. This is a blitz. Is it gonna get bigger? Have you got more planned to try and sell this phone?

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yes, we're excited about the product and we want to make sure people know about it. We started our marketing early this year, which is a bit unusual. And the reason we did that was it's a really big change. And so we started that effort a couple of months ago and have been building it. You'll continue to see it build throughout the year. We're doing a terrific partnership we're going to announce with the NBA. So we're very excited about that. That's just one of many things we're doing. But you'll see Pixel is the official phone of the NBA and we're very excited about that because I'm a huge basketball fan. So this is a fun topic.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Did you know this NBA deal happened? I saw you do a double take.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  I realized the real thing that drives Rick to work hard on Pixel so that he gets some courtside seats somewhere for an NBA game.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  What about carrier deals? Even with the iPhone, I think that a bunch of their recent success has been coming from getting huge discounts on trade-ins and huge discounts on, you know, they're not called subsidies anymore, but they might as well be. Especially here in the US where I think you're really targeting. Phone sales are driven by carrier deals and subsidies. How is your thinking around that going?

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Well, we're going to be working very closely with carriers. You should expect to see Pixel on all major carriers going forward. In the past, we've had, you know, distribution with them, but not always the whole portfolio and not across all of them. But that's going to change going forward. And so we've been talking to all the, all the carriers in the US and we expect to see that for Pixel 6 going forward.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Do you think you're going to be able to make enough of them to meet demand?

• 28:04Speaker 03

  I hope so. I mean, we're making a lot more than we have in the past. We've got, you know, there is a minor supply chain issue happening in the world.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Semi-conductor supply chain issue, which you may have heard about.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  We feel good about where we are right now for this year's supply and hopefully that will continue throughout next year. But, but we'll see. I mean, we're small right now, so it's hard to know if we've gotten enough.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we are, you know, people look at Google and say sometimes in all these kind of, there are many areas in which. We are a small player trying to do better. So we face the same challenges. We are competing against others who have economies of scale, a better supply, power, and so on. And so I think the team has to work extra hard, be it on the go-to-market side, getting carrier deals and making sure people can see the product, or on the other side, making sure we can get supply. And I think those are all the challenges, which makes it even more exciting, but uncomfortably exciting, yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Well, this actually leads to my last question. There's a cognitive dissonance when it comes to thinking about Google as a small player. As you're Google, but you're a very small player in the actual phone market. I think it was four years ago, I asked you when you think the business will be big enough to start breaking it out in your financial results, and you told me five years. So you've got a year left. You think you're going to get there?

• 29:26Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't want to make any forward statements

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  from a financial standpoint, but broadly, I want to be clear, we are building, want to build a sustainable business. And look, there are other areas, we are a challenger, right? I think when we try to compete for enterprise contracts, we go up against big Microsoft bundle contracts all the time, trying to convince CIOs. So I think there are several aspects of business which have that characteristic. And just like we have done with cloud or YouTube, I think we are committed to, I think, do well in technology. You have to build a sustainable business, and they go hand in hand. Otherwise, you can't. For someone like us who believes in deep R and D investment, so it is even more important to do it well. And so we are committed to, and I take a very long-term view.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  And you're right, it's a year, four or five, but I thought of this in a 10- to 20-year timeframe.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Right. Was the plan to have this be the hockey stick moment for Pixel? Because it seems like you've been building up to this, and this is the moment when you, instead of sort of having a little bit of success, but you really want this phone to be the thing that launches it into a real competitor with Samsung and Apple?

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's definitely a step change moment for us. This is, we see this as truly the starting line for Pixel in that we've brought together all the elements that we think we need to be a real player in the space. But consumer electronics in general doesn't usually see like hockey sticks like you would in a web services business. It's a steady build and that's, that's how we're approaching the next several years is a real steady build and, and we're excited about where it's headed because, you know, what we're building with Tensor and with Pixel 6 is how we see the future as well.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, Tensor was a big part of it. So I think a common question I would ask Rick is like about Tensor timelines and not, you know, and, and, you know, where the status of the project is because, and so in some ways, I think we had a view towards, you know, part of the reason that I think the team has been more modest in their approach with Pixel over the past 18 months or so is because they've been waiting for Tensor to time, time our investments this way.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Cool. Well, Rick, Sundar, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Thank you, Dieter.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Thanks, Dieter. Great to be here.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, I'm going to bring on Neelai Patel and we're going to give you our impressions of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. And we also want to dig a little bit into some of the answers we heard from Sundar and Rick. We'll be right back.

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• 34:22Speaker 01

  All right. My thanks to Sinder Pachai and Rick Osterloh for speaking with me. And I'm also about to thank my good friend Neelai Patel, who is here to speak with me also. Hey, Neelai. Hey, man. How's it going? Going good. So I want to bring you on because we both have the phones. We have the phones. Like, I'm literally holding them right now.

• 34:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And so first I want to say that was a great interview.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks.

• 34:44Nilay Patel?

  I learned a lot.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  I think your strategy of getting them to talk to each other was a good one. I'm buttering you up because I'm going to tell you how I feel about the holding the phones.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, okay.

• 34:55Nilay Patel?

  Which is that I don't like holding the phones.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  So I don't disagree with you. If you've seen the phones, you probably know. Well, first of all, I will say first, the way that Google's doing this is they're trying to have like a hands-on moment. And so the rules for this embargo with this moment are we can tell you about the hardware and what the screen looks like on the home screen, but we can't tell you about any software, camera quality, speed, impressions of use, any of that stuff. So we could talk about hardware and specs and that's it. So having said all that, I don't think that especially the Pro feels as ultra-premium competes with the Samsung S21 Ultra as they seem to want it to.

• 35:34Nilay Patel?

  I absolutely do not feel that way. And it's funny that, you know, the rules are the way they are because I can't even get myself to the software. I just can't. And I'll be honest, they sent me the white one. It has a chrome ring around the whole thing. And it's got that camera ledge and the whole thing feels cheaper than the flagship phones from Apple and Samsung. There's just no getting around it for me. And then the way I hold a phone, and I take this with an absolute grain of salt, because once you hold a thing for a long time, you change the way you hold it. But the way I hold a phone now means that my finger hits that camera ledge constantly.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Okay, sure.

• 36:12Nilay Patel?

  Right? So it's just like an uncomfortable thing to hold that I don't like holding. Like, I don't know what else to say about that. And then you and I have discussed this. I think you feel differently about this than I do. I do not like the display on the Pro.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  So I'm less offended by the display than you are. But I'm not saying it's like the best display ever. A Samsung S21 display or even an iPhone 13 Pro display is superior in several ways. The thing that Neil is referring to is the display on the 6 Pro is curved on the left and the right-hand side. And the result of that curve, which is fairly aggressive, is that you can see sort of a shadow on the edges when you hold it at a certain angle because the glass and the screen are literally curved away from you.

• 36:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and my thing with phones is that you are always holding them at an angle.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Although, let's just say, I don't have the ledge thing under my finger and I don't, I don't, I, I hold my phone straight on, so this might just be a you thing.

• 37:05Nilay Patel?

  No, it's a me, it's absolutely a me thing. It is just, and I like the non-pro a lot better because it is slightly smaller and it doesn't have the chrome ring. It's, mine is black, so it's a matte black ring and it has a normal flat display. So, most of my hardware concerns are solved in some way by the, the regular one. But the pro to me, which is supposed to be the flagship, just holding it and looking at it, I immediately perceive that shadow and a little bit of off-axis color shift and brightness shift with the display. And what I mean is you're always looking at off-axis is your hand is always moving. So if you're sensitive to it, you are always seeing some part of a giant screen off-axis.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:46Nilay Patel?

  Right? It's cheaper than the, than the Samsung phone and the Apple phone.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Well, it's literally cheaper. So the, the 6 Pro starts at $8.99 and the regular 6 starts at, I believe, $5.99. So they have spec for spec undercut not only Samsung, but also OnePlus. This is a relatively inexpensive device, especially the regular Pixel 6. But the 6 Pro is also, you know, giving you all the stuff you expect out of a full premium flagship at less than that price. Except that, that one of the things you expect is like, nothing to complain about with the hardware. And there are some things that you can either nitpick or genuinely be bothered by here.

• 38:23Nilay Patel?

  And I'm saying that I can just see the, I can see the discount in the screen on the pro. I can't, I can't see it as much on the, on the regular one, but usually when it's like, we've got a, a two-step embargo like this, we're like, the hardware looks nice. It's great. It's like, you know, it's serviceable. And here, I think the design of this phone is going to be very polarizing for people, especially the pro.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's true.

• 38:46Nilay Patel?

  I think the design of the regular one, because it is more inexpensive, because it is more straightforward. Yeah, I think people will focus on the camera shelf and that'll be fine. I think the pro is gonna, you have no hope but to react to the design and the size of the pro.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Now, we should speak about the camera shelf. It is the most obvious, and I think for anybody that hasn't looked at the screen a bunch, maybe the most polarizing aspect to it. I think that, first of all, all camera bumps are funny looking. This one is more funny looking than most because it's, one, just bigger, but two, it's not what we're used to. I think it is possible that over time, it just becomes like a thing that is normal and fine, and I'm willing to believe that. But I'm also willing to believe that maybe it won't. But I think it probably will end up being just, you know, a different kind of camera bump. But the thing to say about it is, one of the reasons it's so big is, they chose a truly massive sensor for their main camera. It's 50 megapixels and it's a 1 over 1.3 image sensor size, 1.31.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  So it's technically a larger sensor than is on the iPhone 13 Pro, but it's a, it's pixel width, you know, because of quad bear, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's 1.2 microns. And they're, even those 50 megapixels, they are at the like sensor level, at the hardware level, bending it down to 12.5. So you can't get a 50 megapixel raw out of this thing with the way that they've got it currently set up. But if you just look at it, it is giant.

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And so on the shelf, right, you, on the Pro, you've got three camera holes. One for the, the Periscope telephoto lens. And then you've got the main one, which is just, it's eye, it's eye catching. You're not used to looking at a smartphone camera and being like, oh, that's huge. And this one, this one definitely has that reaction. But again, coming back to the shelf, it's neat that they've got the cameras, but I don't think this, this design is not going to last, is my, is my prediction, only because we have been seeing these camera bumps eat phones. Like every year, they're getting bigger, every year they have to support bigger and bigger sensors. And this one, at some point, it's got to get yet bigger again and go from being like this rectangle to being a square. Yeah, like, you can just see the direction it will have to grow.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  The way that everyone else's is growing. And I'm just curious to see if the combination of how people react to it the first time you see it, and where cameras are going generally, means this design is particularly long lasting.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think the way to take this whole conversation to this point and maybe turn to talk about some of the stuff that came up in the interview is, this is the Pixel 6, and there's been a couple of As. So this is what, the eighth, ninth, maybe even 10th pixel that they've made? In five years of making pixels. But in many ways, it feels like a first generation product, in just terms of the fit and finish, especially the Pro one. And so we have this weird juxtaposition of Google, a massive tech giant. Being, you know, around for five years making phones and making Nexus phones before that. So when Rick Osterloh says, you know, we're new at this, I'm always like, are you? Cause it's the run, we're on the sixth one here. But it is true. It's a brand new system on a chip for them, brand new processor. And it is like, this is the one where they are

• 41:45Speaker 01

  like, really trying. I think Sundar even sort of intimated that they kind of had been not trying that hard on the last couple of pixels, which is, we've all seen it. So like, no, I don't know, you, you listen to the interview, like, how do you think about this being like this weird, like, sixth generation thing from a giant established company and also a very, a first gen product from like, a challenger that's like, quote unquote, you know, new to the market, even though they're not?

• 42:10Nilay Patel?

  I think this is where you, you have to talk about the tensor chip and the fact that they made their own SoC for this device. This runs directly into the fact that we can't talk about the software. So it's in there. I assure you it's in there. But, you know, the way they talked about it was, Google thinks of itself as an AI company. They have made a phone with their own chip that is supposed to accelerate AI functions. I thought them saying there's no way to benchmark AI was really interesting. They're still learning how to talk about it, how to articulate its value to people. And that is all connected to, yep, I get why they would do it, because they can't count on other companies to accelerate their specific AI functions, or to ship Android without being adulterated in other ways. All fine. But at the end of the day, when you ask them, why do you make Pixel phones?

• 42:55Nilay Patel?

  The answer was, we want to show people the best of Google, which is not solve a problem for anyone but Google employees.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:03Nilay Patel?

  Right. That's, that's like, why they've been running at this thing for so long and shipped so many phones. And they're kind of, they reset their hardware. This is the first flagship that is made by the HTC team that they purchased. So that's all fair. But they still have to articulate, what is this for? Like, why would you want this as opposed to the heavily subsidized iPhone or Samsung phone that your carrier is going to put in your face? And I think that, that's the real challenge, right? Are they going to make enough of these phones? Are they going to do the advertising? Are they going to get the carrier deals? I heard some of those answers. I didn't hear all of them, I don't think.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I saw demos. I saw some demos when they first announced the tensor chip from before. They showed me some other demos. The dictation and real time translation is shockingly stunningly fast. In the interview, you heard Rick talk about bringing their full language model onto the phone locally. Totally believe that. But when I said that often talking about the benefits of AI, the consumer ends up just being jazz hands AI. You know, it's like, it's like the aristocrats joke at the end. Actually, it's not at all like that. That would be weird. If all they're doing is saying it does this feature, this feature, this feature, this feature. Those could be genuinely transformative and interesting features for you as a user. But how do you do that in a way that sounds different than Samsung saying we'd have portrait mode in video?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Because on a Samsung phone, portrait mode in video is a gimmick. On a Google phone, their ability to take a picture of a kid that's moving and have that face automatically de-blurred for you may not be. But those two pitches sound very similar to, I think, the average person, especially if they're like standing in a Verizon store, you know?

• 44:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think we just did our survey. People love Google more than almost any other company, say, Amazon. There's a lot that you get by saying this is the Google phone. But I think that answer is integration with Google services and then Google's perception is being very helpful and good at search. Right? I mean, Sundar literally says he wants Google to be thought of as a helpful company.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:56Nilay Patel?

  We haven't used the software. I can't tell you, but just from listening to the, there you go, there's the wall. But just from listening to this interview, because they just put out the chip, they've built some functions. But this is the platform from which they're going to explore that aspect of what it means to make a flagship Google phone. As opposed to every other Pixel phone we've seen for years, where it's been like, we want to make a really good, cheaper phone.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my hope coming into the Pixel 6 was, all right, they're saying this is the one. They got their own chip. It's the flagship. I want no question about why the Pixel exists, why Google makes it, what it's for, how it's going to compete with Samsung, how it's going to steal market share from Apple. Like, I don't know, naive to believe all those things would happen just from looking at a phone. But I don't think all those things are necessarily happening.

• 45:41Nilay Patel?

  Well, you asked him, are you going to do carrier co-marketing?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:44Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, unclear.

• 45:46Nilay Patel?

  Was I going to have them all the carriers? I laughed when you asked Sundar if he knew about the NBA deal.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  He can't see it in the podcast, but he definitely did a double take.

• 45:56Nilay Patel?

  Look, I think that stuff is great. I wish them well with it. I just think because the design is polarizing, they're gonna have to communicate a lot about the value of the phone.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:04Nilay Patel?

  And that, we've been saying that about Pixel phones for a long time.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:07Nilay Patel?

  Especially now that the camera stuff is evened out.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  So, let's assume, just Wonder World assume that they get some traction this year or next, that things are rocking, they're stealing market share from Samsung, maybe Apple, who knows. This leads us to the stuff that I asked Sundar about, like Android ecosystem. Because if they do steal market share from Samsung, like, that means something, right?

• 46:31Nilay Patel?

  I think it means something to Samsung. I think what I learned from this interview is it might not mean anything to Google.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Right, because it's a small business for them?

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  Right, I mean, the hardware is not the business. Their business in Android, and Sundar was direct about this, he was like, "Google Play purchases support the business of Android. It's our main source of revenue." That's a huge thing to say, especially when, you know, Epic is suing Google over in-app purchases, which is where that revenue comes from. South Korea just told Google and Apple to cut it out with in-app purchase taxes. They've got to figure out what a new way is. But more importantly, we always thought that the way that Google monetized Android was search and ads across the web and like owning that operating. You know, it's the most popular mobile operating system in the world. It's amazing that it has turned out that, you know, just like iOS, that purchases and mobile

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  games turn out to be the most lucrative thing about the whole business. So it kind of doesn't matter what phone you have, if you're clicking the buttons and buying stuff, like, Google's making money. And I think that's a real, that's a real disconnect for them from the phone business versus the Android business.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and it's, again, it's completely different. It's different from how Android started. The reason Android exists is because Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, was terrified that Windows Mobile was gonna win and they would, like, lose all of their search revenue to Bing. That was, that was a genuine fear in 2007. It was a different world. And so to learn that, you know, they cut out getting, you know, money from carriers on like your bill or whatever, and they're making most of their money off of Google Play. Presumably, you know, that also includes like Google mobile services and some other stuff. But yeah, that's a wildly different way to think about Android than most of us usually do.

• 48:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And I think, again, all of the controversy with various developers and governments has brought to light how all of these mobile operating systems make money and where the taxes are. But for Google in particular, when we're like, we want them to make a Pixel phone and have it be the version of Android that we like the best. If there's not a huge financial incentive to do it, and we can't know, they don't report those results, another thing you ask them about, then the financial incentive is to keep making money in Android, which, which just, it kind of doesn't matter who sells the Android phone, as long as they're using Google services. So that to me, you know, over the next few years, as they build on these new flagship Pixel devices, it will always be the disconnect. But, you know, they have invested in the chip, they are trying to compete at the flagship

• 48:55Nilay Patel?

  level, they are paying the NBA a lot of money to be their official camera. Sure, they're doing a bunch of stuff to prove that they're doing it. We don't even consider that disconnect with Apple, right? To get the money from in-app purchases, they have to sell iPhones. There's only one company that sells iPhones. They have a lot of incentive to make and compete with the iPhone. Google makes all the money in Android from software buttons. The software buttons can be anywhere.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, we don't have these, like, such existential conversations about, like, the Microsoft Surface. It's like a very similar idea, but everyone sort of knows that it's not, I don't know, core to what Microsoft is anymore, right? It's not essential to their future. But it just feels like with the Pixel, there's like that chance that Samsung could say, screw it, we're going Tizen, or, you know, something could happen. So they need this thing as a hedge. And it's also, it just, it seems like it's more fundamental to what Android is, that it gets developed on a Pixel than Surface exists in Windows land. And so it's this weird thing where it's like, well, we could just think of the Pixel like we think of the Surface as like a side hustle for a company. But Google doesn't talk about it that way. And there do seem to be.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Certain elements of its existence in the ecosystem that give it more weight and importance than the surfaces for Microsoft. And so the reason we keep coming back to like, why does a pixel exist? Let's have emotions about the pixel is it has some kind of important resonance to the entire Android ecosystem. But nailing down exactly what it is and exactly what Google thinks it is, is difficult. And you asked them, and I did, and they told us, you just listened to it. Their answers make sense. But once you start really scratching at it, it's like, is that the whole story or not? It's really hard to know.

• 50:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I would give the Pixel over time, a lot of credit for a few things. One, the Pixel team straight up revolutionized mobile photography.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, no small thing.

• 50:39Nilay Patel?

  They shipped HDR first, they got it right. They were the benchmark for a long time. That is a very Google thing to have done, right? They thought about the data off the camera sensor differently than everyone else did. Maybe all the trains are pointing in the same direction, but Google got there first, and for a long time best. So that is just like a unique, I think, Google, because of the way Google thinks of the Pixel and what it's for, a unique accomplishment. Second, and I think this relates to what the Surface is for Microsoft, they've set at least a benchmark for mid-range phones for a long time. And Microsoft has been very honest with us, their executives have been very direct with us, that if they don't make the Surface, the Windows OEM ecosystem is motivated to a race

• 51:22Nilay Patel?

  to the bottom. And they will just make the cheapest possible Windows laptops and cede the high ground to Apple, right above a thousand dollars. So Microsoft makes the Surface devices, they actually license a bunch of Surface hardware stuff out, or they give it away. They've been honest about that, too. I don't see Google doing that with the Pixel.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  They were really, what I asked about that, it was very unclear what exactly. It seemed like the answer was nah.

• 51:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think the answer is no. I think they're like, much more competitive, but that market is much more competitive overall. And there's not the race to the bottom. There's always Apple at the top, and all the phone vendors want the expensive people who buy a lot of things on their phone. Great. But I think at least the Surface story is clarified for me in that way. I know why it's there. It's to keep Dell and HP from making ever cheaper laptops. The Pixel story is like, is it a bunch of tech demos that then force everyone to compete? So they don't have to hear about the Pixel in reviews? Maybe, maybe that's all you need. But I think to their credit, to Sundar and Rick's credit, we've been asking these questions of the Pixel for a long time. You have, I have. The answers have been consistent. I think the clock might be running out.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Well, the answer's been consistent, but like the, the proof of Microsoft being successful with the Surface is we made a nice Surface and some people bought it and it's, that's it. The proof of the Pixel, given the way they talk about it, is we are a competitor that matters in the smartphone market. And you have to get above 2%, 3%, 4% market share to keep making that argument. And you have to do it in a reasonable timeframe. And that, you're right, that clock is running out.

• 52:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we'll see. We can't talk about the software.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  But look, if, if Google would just say, yeah, we, we want to make a nice phone that's really nice Google phone. Like if they said, if they talk about the Pixel like they used to talk about the Nexus, it's a thing that exists as an example, and then our, our biggest fans can buy it and we're happy to sell it to them. That would be, that would be the end. But they, they talk about it in much grander terms. And so we, uh, we think about it in grander terms just to, you know, hold them to their own claims.

• 53:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, here's a question that is a very virtuous question. Do you think that carriers in the United States want more than two smartphone vendors to exist?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I would assume yes, but I, I don't know. It may be no, it may be just simpler.

• 53:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just to constantly pit Apple and Samsung against you. Like you just need to know fewer people overall. You can just like not have to worry about it so much like.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  You can spend your time buying and selling, you know, media companies and destroying them in the meanwhile.

• 53:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you're like, I do want to own it, own the NFL rights this year. No, I don't. Yeah, that, I just keep coming back to that. If this was a wide open market that wasn't being funneled through the four carriers, three carriers.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:56Nilay Patel?

  Then maybe some of this works. And if it was easier to switch and all this stuff. But the reality is when you buy any phone, the thing you're doing is handing someone your old phone. And their decisions about what to incentivize in exchange for your old phone are the market.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 54:11Nilay Patel?

  And so if Google can participate in that this time. They might crack into some of that market share. But if the carriers don't want that to happen, or Google doesn't pay them to make that happen, I think we're asking them what the Pixel is for again next year.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Well, if they are throwing as much money at the carriers as they are at NBA deals and billboards and commercials, then they might actually be doing it this year.

• 54:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we'll see. I mean, that it's all it's all to be told. But I like those two. I like hearing you talk to them. But my main question is really not for them. It's for AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Well, we also have other questions to answer, like, how are the cameras? How is the software? Does the AI do the stuff that it does? All that will come in the review, so please stay tuned for that. Neelai, thanks so much for coming on. It's a weird thing to say. Thanks for coming on The Vergecast.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  Here I am. I live here.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  If you want to tweet at us, you can. I'm at Backlon. Neelai is at Reckless. We'll be back on Friday again with the chat show. There's so much to talk about this week. There's the Apple event. There's this Google event. There's a Samsung event. We have our own event, and there will be a special episode of The Vergecast coming out from that, so stay tuned for that. And if you happen to listen to this podcast in time, and it can be in New York, this Friday and Saturday, October 22nd and 23rd, we would love for you to come to our party. It's called On The Verge, and you can find more information about it at voxmediaevents.com/ontheverge.

• 55:37Speaker 05

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash apple watch series 12.

• 56:07Speaker 07

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