For the record I used to be a huge Google fan. Had many of the Pixel phones, had Nest cameras, doorbells, nest secure, nest protects, multiple TV's running Android TV, Stadia (lol), and more.
I don't understand how a company with basically unlimited resources and the best people in the world just completely flops on product strategy time and time again.
That waiting turned into more and more beloved products being shut down, drastically changed to shell versions of themselves, or left to stagnate, while google continued to randomly launch, acquire, shut down other beloved brands.
I am not aware of a single product person in Google. They are very much a tech company. They make / research and develop technology and search for a solution.
Nest was such a great product and brand, and Google completely fucked it up.
I wouldn't say there was a definitive final straw. It was more of a death by a thousand cuts. Everything getting shittier and worse over time. Pixel phones originally were great, but I really wanted a great 1st party watch. Pixel Watch finally came out and it was lightyears behind the Apple Watch.
Software integration wise across the entire ecosystem as well. Google has been promising it, but Apple seems to have actually delivered it.
The Nest stuff hurts though. I've invested well over $3k in various Nest devices over the years, and to see what Google has done to the ecosystem is a shame.
But yes they’re moving into ads. It seems to be “over the top” revenue for them, not a core revenue stream like Google. Apple is basically taking any free internet connected endpoint they provide and tossing ads in (news in stock app, App Store, etc?). It’s annoying but it’s nowhere near as invasive or impactful as any other advertising giant (Google, Meta, Amazon, etc). They’re also way less invasive at tracking you - but they’re as equally opaque at telling you.
Google TV is unusable for 10-30s of refresh depending on how long it has been since you’ve used the TV. It’s the worst part of an otherwise high end TV. The multiple user UX is odd across Google products. You can haplessly sign in to your account for YouTube TV on another family member’s Google (TV) account without it bringing up an account switcher. About five minutes into you wondering why your settings are off (or being annoyed because you realized what happened) you get Google’s suggestion to press the right combination of buttons on the remote to do so. Then you switch accounts and sit through the 30s of account refresh. It’s death by a thousand cuts.
Roku is great. It does what you ask. Settings are remembered. The Roku Ultra 4K upscaler produces a great image. I used it to replace the Samsung experience on one of their first Gen OLED TVs that still produces a great image in spite of its slowly failing software stack.
Samsung seems to simply give up on updating the software on the TV at some point. Things start failing over time as services move on past your TV’s software stack. My newer Frame TV is on the newest software stack (for now) and everything works fine in comparison. Probably my biggest annoyance is the laggy UI and that they try really hard to direct you to their free TV channel. You were watching YouTube the last time you watched the TV, but nevermind that. Samsung wants to show you a loud TV show from the 50s on their classic TV channel. Or KPop. Or Hells Kitchen. Not sure why but that is what my Samsung TVs cycle through.
Realize it's cat and mouse with an updatable controlled platform's data exfiltration, but curious if there are any low-maintenance solutions to do some good?
Agree that Rokus are a great solution, but I'm uncomfortable with a one-time-purchase device's long-term revenue priorities.
Also remember that if you’re using cloud TV services, you’re just moving the data aggregation/ad network integrations/resale to that service.
Does that work okay? I would worry that you needed an iOS app to configure it or something. It works as a totally stand-alone device?
I currently have a Sony one with Android TV that I bought in 2017 and software wise it's unusable. I have Apple TV setup for all the media apps and that works well enough though.
My flagship LG oled screen has modal ads that are pushed to my screen when it starts up.
It was a pain to get mine repaired by them. They sent me to a "local" repair shop (40ish minutes drive away), who despite being their only authorized repair shop in the area, couldn't get any parts off Google for it, and wouldn't for months to come (and indicated this is just a constant story for them, and that what I was seeing was very common). Google essentially wasted a bunch of my time driving back and forth to repair shops. Then I had to send it to them and it sat unacknowledged (despite having delivery confirmation) for well over a week. They did at least send me a complete replacement, but my assumption has to be it's going to do exactly the same thing again.
For my wife's phone, they argued that because I clicked a wrong button in their repair website despite logging the phone as broken in time that it died after the warranty expired. I had a long argument with them, then gave up and decided I'd take my trade elsewhere.
In both cases, their attitude towards me as a customer was absolute bullshit. I've never had to work so hard to get someone to acknowledge that a phone could stop working, without having done anything to it.
I like the hardware and the pure Android experience as an end user. I'm not willing to deal with hostile customer support to get it.
[1] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/11833075?hl=en
In what way did it die? My wifes 4a stopped reading the sim card, any sim card. Even after a factory reset. Its over two years old and I haven't bothered to try and argue for a replacement yet. She's moved to Samsung Flip as its even smaller (when folded) and not a pixel.
Really disappointing, I've never had the sim card reader just fail like that. I guess its a cheap component thats died.
Picked it up off the my desk to going use it, and it was powered off, never turned back on again.
Wife woke up to hers dead.
If I had an iPhone, I would roll up into an Apple Store and get a new device on the spot, no questions asked. It would fully restore a backup of my old phone within a hour, and I'd forget it ever happened.
But I had a Pixel.
Google doesn't have Google Stores (they did have one in NYC, but it was mostly a pop-up to show off their stuff staffed by contractors), so I was relegated to their chat support. They told me I needed to take it to a local UBreakIFix to get the lens repaired. Since it would take them two days to get the part and replace it, I landed up buying an iPhone instead.