I think one big thing that differs between the Nexus line and the Pixel line of phones is who was actually supporting the phone after its sale. The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever). So it led to some pointing at the other person when there were problems.
With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this.
Add the usual quality control (how many years did my android phone alarm not go off or my SD card get trashed with photos on). Nope!
I bought Google's flagship handset online from the Google Store. It was branded as the "Google Nexus 6P", it was shipped to me by Google, and it bricked itself while booting after a Google-supplied Android update. Google provided and managed the warranty. I had one warranty claim with them prior to my phone bricking itself, handled entirely by Google; Huawei was not involved in that claim at all.
My relationship as a consumer of a Google product is with Google, not with its contract manufacturer.
The Bootloop of Death affected multiple SKUs across different Nexus models. The 5X was manufactured by LG for Google, and the 6P was manufactured by Huawei for Google. The Bootloop of Death was present on both models.
If Google has a quarrel with Huawei, LG, or another contract manufacturer over the cost of managing a defect, that's their prerogative. However, I am not party to that quarrel. I am just a customer who bought Google's flagship handset.
Google suggested that I contact the nearest Huawei service center...in mainland China. The company took an arrogant "who, me?" attitude toward its flagship handset, and tried to weasel its way out of dealing with valid customer complaints, rather than taking some semblance of responsibility for an obvious problem.
> The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever)
This is not true. The Nexus 6P was marketed by Google, not in a shared manner. You're thinking of the Nexus 6, a Motorola-made device that preceded the 6P and was offered in some markets without Google branding.
> With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this.
Google fully owned support for the Nexus 6P until the bootloop issue came around, at which point Google changed its policies. Also, Pixel devices have been manufactured by competing handset manufacturers for Google (Pixel 2 phones were manufactured by HTC and LG).
The result of my experience is that I will never, so long as I live, ever buy another Google hardware product. Not a single one. I will not buy a Nest Thermostat. I will not buy a Chromecast. If my best friend has a lapse in judgment and makes the mistake of buying a Pixelbook, I will wait for him to leave it on the couch, unintentionally sit on it, and buy him a 16" Macbook Pro as a replacement -- apologizing profusely all the while, unlike Google support which was ostensibly trained not to use the phrase, "I'm sorry." Every time someone tries to defend Google for its handling of the Nexus Bootloop of Death fiasco, I add twenty years to the length of time that the trustees of my estate will prohibit my assets from being used to buy Google hardware products after I am dead and gone.
We should definitely hang out, asap.
The iPhone 6s released in 2015 is still being supported at least through September 2021.
Google seems completely uninterested in servicing that market with hardware. They could’ve absolutely dominated e.g. aerospace MRO with Glass + pixel tablets but instead most companies are just building iPad apps.
i know in the iphone world it's important how long apple updates it. in the android world that doesn't apply. the manufacturer doesn't have to. because literally anyone can, and does.
I have two problems with this model. The first is that it really only applies to the kind of people who would be in this thread on HN - consumers at large are not updating their phones based on some community-supported Android rom.
The second is this: do we really want to train non-technical people that it's ok to let random organizations on The Internet control the operating system on their phones? These are deeply personal devices that can be relatively trivially turned into 24/7 remote surveillance stations, and say what you will about open source but with rare exception these roms are not undergoing line-by-line code audits.
In my opinion, the world is better served when companies support their own hardware.
If it turns out that Apple is spying on users, we have legal recourse. If orchiddroid928 on GitHub is doing it, that's a different ballgame.
i won't argue with the rest of that, as you are arguing open source is inferior. one you convince every enterprise out there not to use open source, you can revisit this with me.
you are also arguing all servers and consumer pcs should be made by microsoft, since they run windows.
> you are also arguing all servers and consumer pcs should be made by microsoft, since they run windows.
That's not really what I'm saying at all; this isn't like e.g. expecting to get Windows updates through Dell, it's more like expecting that Dell will continue to deliver compatible drivers for their hardware that enable the updates I get from Microsoft to keep working.
That's a basic expectation when we buy PC hardware, in part thanks to the relative standardization of PC components - if I couldn't update Windows ~2 years after I bought a laptop and Dell's answer was "maybe someone in the community can help you", I'd be incensed.
In the smartphone/tablet market, that's just business as usual.
Dell doesn’t have to release new drivers. I installed Windows 10 on a Dell E6500 Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop that was sold in 2009.
My mom still occasionally uses my Mac Mini Core Duo 1.66Ghz from 2006 with Windows 7. This was without any drivers from Apple. Windows 7 recognized everything.
Going even further back, I bought a DX/2-66 DOS Compatibility Card from Apple in 1994 that came with Windows 3.1. I upgraded it to Windows 95.
Microsoft figured out how to nourish a platform over 25 years ago. Google and Android - not so much.
you don't need anything from dell to update windows. you literally just install windows.
the reason i bring up linux isn't clear? because android runs on it.
You can't even go to a store and ask them for help to have a custom rom installed. Plus you don't know what's inside that ROM.
i actually do know what's in the rom. and so does. anyone else who wants to check. and you have hundreds of 3rd party people who do. source code is available. you're literally arguing hardware and software should be tied together to the hardware manufacturer. the entire world of computers disagrees.
what's inside your ios rom?
Quite possibly, yes! I recall Microsoft pushed upgraded to Windows 10 quite aggressively at the beginning to the point it basically scheduled automatic upgrade. That was 5 years ago, I might not recall correctly.
The big difference between iOS/Windows 10 upgrades and installing custom ROM is that in the iOS/Windows 10 case, you click one button (or even let it install automatically!) and it installs itself. It cannot be easier probably. I can expect it was reasonably tested and that it's reasonably safe.
With custom roms, it really needs to be your hobby to do that. For majority of people, it's not viable solution to do that - they lack time and/or knowledge.
Putting Android 10 into Samsung Galaxy S2 is kinda like putting Corvette V8 engine into VW Beetle. It's possible, there are people that did it, but it requires skill and time to do that.
When the Pixel works, it works great. If you ever have a problem though, good luck. You're in for a nightmare.
These are all things I would be fine replacing myself but it seems that everyone who has tried this ends up cracking the display since the phone is glued together. Google also does not sell replacement cameras so you have to find one second hand which isn't easy or cheap.
I will never buy another google phone but I'm not really sure what my options are.
If it was an open platform, I'd fix the issues myself. If it was a closed platform, I'd get it replaced. Google fails at being non-Apple and also fails at being Apple.
I’ve noticed this tactic more and more. Price a product as if it’s yours, but then disown it when inconvenient.
I can’t imagine Apple saying something like “that’s a Samsung issue, take it up with them” because of a component.
As a customer, I don’t want to have a decoder ring for how to get support for my product. If it says google and is sold by google then google should fix it. Maybe they sub it out to HTC or Huawei or whatever, but don’t make me know about it.
If google makes bad supply chain decisions then own up to it. Not doing so just makes Google seem incompetent at management as I don’t care or have any value in them directly for manufacturing.
As an Australian this is so weird to hear. I have a business relationship with the person I gave money to, not some third party factory or manufacturer that I never met. The law requires the merchant to take the return and make it right, after that it's their problem. Most likely they have a better idea about the next step than I would as a random customer.
For some strange reason Google supporters never consider that had Google actually cared, there would be support contracts in place with its providers.
Apparently that is something that doesn't exist in US, the hardware maker is the only one to blame.
My general impression is that most companies are quick to take responsibility for consumer products sold in the US, unless product failure results in liability for a major safety risk (think McDonald's coffee scalds or Ford Explorer rollover accidents).
If the engine computer fails in a BMW due to a widespread defect, the BMW dealer doesn't send the customer to Bosch on a wild goose chase. If a Macbook Pro SSD fails due to a widespread defect, Apple doesn't tell the customer to call Samsung. They either take ownership of the problem and make the customer happy (with the expectation that a brand-loyal customer's next purchase will pay the cost of solving the current problem), or they make an effort to offer some kind of solution at the customer's cost.
I'm taking it a step further and saying we don't even talk to the manufacturer, just the store - it doesn't matter what Apple thinks (unless you bought it directly from them). There's a legal concept of whether or not the item is fit for purpose or defective (generally, if you knew X would happen before you bought it, would you still have bought it?) which shuts down excuses.
Pixel is a different story.
you have gcp. working for vars over the years, per year i sell over $10mil of solutions that run or dr to cloud. i have not once put gcp as an option in front of a customer - all azure or aws. google has, and will, lose millions in gcp revenue. because of me. and this is true for most vars.
now, as far as others in my office -8 people like me. only one puts gcp in proposals. he's new.
this is very common. we don't trust or respect your offerings -too flaky, not going to risk our customer relationship when you drop the ball and we get the hit for proposing a bad solution. and yours are all bad solutions. not because of function -because it's risky for a business to be involved with you in any way, or count on you for anything.
you probably lose 50-80mil annually from my office alone. and it's not just lost cash. it goes to your direct competitors.
and i don't know a single person who wants you to fix your practices and act like a real company. only 2 real cloud players drives up prices, and we get more on our spiffs.
and last i checked, aws and azure have been, are, and will always be kicking your ass. because even if you fix your business practices now, you'll have to wait 30 years before all the sales staff and company decision makers retire. and that is eternity in tech time.
do you, yahoo!? see you on myspace.
I get what you're saying, I understand it. But from the consumer's point of view it just doesn't matter. The nature of the business relationship between Google and whomever should not be their concern. It rings of the same cop-out Amazon likes to make, that I'm not dealing with them, I'm dealing with a some third part merchant even though I visited Amazon.com, I paid Amazon, and the item is shipped to me by Amazon. They want to you deal with their suppliers.
I remember when Google bought Revolv and then stabbed all their customers in the back by bricking all their home automation and then graciously offering them a discount on a new Nest home system.
Google would remotely brick pacemakers if they stood to make money off doing so and anyone who thinks they can be relied upon long term is a bloody fool.
Had Google been serious about the Nexus it would have made contracts that would legally bind those maker to how many years Google would see fit, and they would have to provide such support or pay compensation when not.
Google excuses only work for those that don't understand law.