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Comment by dubcanada | Hacker News Reader

Ouch, not a good look when people lose almost complete faith in your hardware products. Every one I know of has been shut down at this point. Why would I buy a Google Hardware ever? Especially considering how they treated the Onhub...

Stadia Onhub Glass

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Pixel phones seem to be an exception from that. Let's hope Google doesn't kill them too.

Pixel is doing better than ever though.

Pixel still had recent major software issues (Crashing when calling emergencies, a year after the first reports), or ongoing issue, like massive battery drains in certain conditions.

I bought a Pixel 6, I don't think I'll buy another Pixel again.

The official pixel case got destroyed due to wear in not even a year (my own 3D printed case in TPU now lasted longer than google one). The official pixel case also caught some dust and scratched the glass of the back.

The pixel without a case is so slippery it slip alone on any surface not perfectly flat.

> The official pixel case got destroyed due to wear in not even a year

welcome to the "official case" club. all my iphone cases get destroyed in max 6 months, with one lasting less than 3 months. during the course of an iphone (2 years) i go thru 5-6 "official" cases.

I bought an Otterbox case that has lasted 2 years and is only just now starting to show some wear and rubber/plastic separation. My Apple case was a bit embarrassing to pull out in public after only 6 months.

did they manage convince to samsung to fix the critical vulnerabilities that require you to turn off your mobile data yet?

otherwise you can be pwned by a phone call

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2023/03/multiple-inte...

phones from mid 2022 seem like abandonware already

those bugs were fixed in early March

https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/pixel/2023...

a few of them were (3)

out of 18 or so

you can see on the linked page on google's own bugtracker that they're still unfixed

Misinformation.

> require you to turn off your mobile data yet

Wifi calling and VoLTE is not mobile data.

> phones from mid 2022 seem like abandonware already

Samsung supports updates for multiple years. Mid 2022 gets you previous samsung model - S22, where S23 was released this year 2023.

sorry, when I said mobile data I actually meant "all cellular communications", which is far more broad

for some reason Android allows carriers to hide the VoLTE and Wifi calling toggles in the UI

meaning the only fix is to turn cellular connectivity off completely

What you wrote is full of disinformation and FUD. Please do better.

The Pixel 5a had a design flaw where the screen would die permanently if you dropped it from a couple of inches, even in a case.

Does it though? Especially in the context of Google, and Google Products? John Gruber summarised it correctly: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/09/12/google-pixel-po...

And Google's approach to Pixels reflects that: they make them greta, then they all but abandon them, then okay again, then...

you can never put it past Google to just kill anything up to Google Search, but the Pixel is a success and it doesn't make sense to compare a high-end line of products on a per-unit basis to cheapo phones like TLCs

for instance the most profitable watch companies in the world are Timex, Rolex and Omega, and they have a combined market share of a fraction of a percent and on a per-unit basis they don't sell, combined, a thousandth of the units Casio alone sells (by the way most smartwatches are sell at nearly no profit and Apple's watch business has been losing money for a while)

> but the Pixel is a success and it doesn't make sense to compare a high-end line of products on a per-unit basis to cheapo phones

Compare it to high end products then, and you'd still come up short.

There's also the reason why I pointed out "in the context of Google, and Google products": it's a tiny product made at great effort and expense that Google clearly doesn't know what to do about (they haven't even supported their own phones for more than three years until recently).

compare it to high-end lines and Google is #3 in some markets and #4 in others, which is unmitigated success

companies don't get to #3 or #4 in some of the most lucrative sectors in the world and then just decide to close shop because they're not #1 or #2

there are a bunch of profitable companies that ONLY make money in Pixel's sector, are recognised brands and they are already behind the Pixel in market share

it's essentially like being Rolex in the watch business (number 1 or 2 in profit depending on market) and just closing shop because Casio sells 1000x+ more watches

When there are really only 3-4 high end phones that's not a great ranking.

but there are many more

almost every major brand has essentially their flagship and most do worse than the Pixel

Asus, Xiaomi, Huawei, Sony, Vivo, Oppo, Motorola, OnePlus, etc etc all have high-end phones

only Apple and Samsung are doing better than Google Pixel

Again, you're clumping all pixels into one category. Even if major Pixel sales seem to be coming from the relatively cheap Pixel 6a.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/21/consumers-are-splurging-on...

"While both Honor and Google’s share of the premium smartphone segment more than doubled in 2022 from 2021, they still only account for around 1% of the pie, so they are still significantly smaller players."

Behind Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

To put it in perspective: Pixel was launched 6 years ago which replaced Google Nexus, launched 13 years ago. It's a very minor product that Google has been pouring money into with little to no effect.

last time I researched into it last year, Google Pixel was already the biggest division in hardware for Google in terms of profit (above Nest and Home) and had better-looking numbers in profitability than all the main players in hardware except Microsoft - and that included Apple for the first time

since Google killed Stadia and perhaps has no chance at the console business, it strategically looks like a terrible idea to exit the mobile hardware division, but again, with Google you never know

the image Google has created around having essentially no commitment to any business lines makes it hard for them to enter the console market with longer cycles, but doesn't hurt them as much in the mobile market as phones are replaced often anyway

PS: Pixel is just Google's newer mobile hardware brand, for me there is no real difference with Nexus in that respect - just a rebranding

> compare it to high-end lines and Google is #3 in some markets and #4 in others, which is unmitigated success

Define: High end

Define: "some markets"

Also: Pixel isn't one phone. It's Pixel 7 Pro (premium) and Pixel 7 (sorta medium) and Pixel 6a (cheap)

Also: We're talking about Google, 80% of whose revenue comes from online advertisement. Spending a lot of effort on a relatively low-volume hardware product that may be some number in some markets is not nearly enough to guarantee long-term viability of the product. I'm surprised Google has stuck by Pixel (given the very spotted history of the phone) at all.

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