Pixel Envy

Comments (Archived):

1. Personally, not seeing much in the phone that would get me to switch from my Samsung Note. Much of the “new” stuff is simply existing Google apps that few are actually using (duo, etc).

   1. The camera is amazing. As is the form factor and (supposedly) battery

      1. Hope the battery doesn’t blow up 🙂

      2. to me the only interesting thing was the reduced touch lag, it always drives me mad when using android instead of my iPhone

2. I’d be fascinated to hear more about what it is that attracts you about the Pixel – I’ve been holding off upgrading my venerable (but horribly dated) Nexus 4 until this announcement. I like the look of the phone but it’s not clear (aside from the camera) what I’m going to get out of it that I won’t get from most other Android devices, although possibly Google Assistant will be a Pixel exclusive.Certainly at the higher price point it’s a tough decision to make – I never thought I’d consider an iPhone but the camera is becoming an increasingly important feature for me and the double-lens option on the 7 is particularly interesting.

   1. Assistant in the Google messaging app already out for any Android Phone.

3. If they did a “Sky Blue” Pixel, I’d consider it BUT … the thing about Apple products is that it looks and works in a unified way.Google hardware design is … a miss for me. It doesn’t induce the same viscerals.https://uploads.disquscdn.c…https://uploads.disquscdn.c…https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

   1. works > looks, for me. I’d just throw it in a case and keep in my fannypack.

      1. TWAIN BUY = function (work x looks) and the whole of the variables of work and looks being factorially better than the sum of the parts.

   2. I’m waiting to see how it all integrates – that is the most promising thing I took away from the event yesterday. Google is making a serious effort to contain their ecosystem to create a more fluid experience overall. That’s what I really like about the Apple ecosystem right now, would be open to trying Google stuff if they can get it right (I for one like the design of the google stuff)

   3. “we have the biggest bezels” seems to be their hardware strategy

      1. i think the bezel is a look. I actually kind of like it, reminds me of old school jewelry

   4. Apple design and quality level is tough to achieve, specially if the contender don’t have enough design awareness and well, Jony Ive.Goggle is surely mocking Apple with their set of colours :)I miss “Braggadocious Orange”, it would be an instant hit.

      1. Can we name any Creative people at Google? Apart from Jony Ive, Apple has Marc Newsom, Jimmy Iovine, Dr Dre, Angela Ahrendts, Richard Howarth, Alan Dye.Marc Newsom:* https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

      2. Envy Green?

4. I have a Nexus (6 i think) that is a couple years old. It’s very slow and the camera doesn’t work at all (crashes) and I’ve tried the fixes. It’s been bad enough that I was contemplating the iPhone 7S (also a good camera it seems). I’ll look at the Pixel carefully before I make my decision. Thanks Fred!

5. Since yesterday’s post endorsing Hillary was not controversial enough I see you’ve decided to double down with iPhone v. Android. Looking forward to Vim v. EMACS on Friday.

   1. 🙂 Although lately I haven’t seen anybody passionate about Vim v. Emacs anymore. Most of our new hires don’t.

      1. lets do open source programming versus microsoft instead

         1. Most of them prefer Mac. Common editors I have seen in usage – Sublime, TextMate & TextWrangler.Interestingly they are not religious about editors, don’t even take the bait if I diss their editors.

            1. I’ll confess I’m a sublime user but don’t really feel the need to evangelize. GitHub’s Atom seems popular in some circles as well.

            2. Use Sublime for most day to day tasks, but when I have to write serious C code I switch to vim.

            3. why (out of curiosity)

            4. Because most of the time I tweak code and sublime does a great job of that, but when I am deep into I keep on pressing esc on Sublime – muscle memory.

            5. Atom is interesting, but it slows down as it gets pluginsOTOH it is really easy to script plugins (in theory) which is whta alll text editors/ides need

            6. Yes, but to my point above, those Macs are often just dumb terminals to get into Ubuntu or other linux boxes. And some of the developer bootcamps (e.g,. Flatiron School ) teach folks to use VIM.

      2. I’ll nibble: It’s vim or death.

         1. Actually ed.

            1. You’re a glutton for punishment. I do use ex though.

            2. ED IS THE STANDARD EDITOR!

            3. edlin for the win.

      3. Agreed – the debate these days seems to be around “Sublime” vs “Intellij IDEA” vs “Eclipse”

         1. I don’t have strong opinions about editors, but I do hate Eclipse ;-)For me, the tool of choice depends upon the language being used. Not sure why.

            1. I like using platform default tools, so it is Xcode for OSX and iOS and Android Studio for Android, based in IntelliJ. I still use Eclipse for C/C++ and Java code in Linux, but I am seriously considering moving everything to Jetbrains IDEs because jumping between editors and IDEs generates considerable hidden overhead.For scripting and retouching I use Textastic for iPad.Younger people around seem to use Sublime, a lot.https://www.jetbrains.comhttps://www.textasticapp.com

            2. Yup, I like all Jetbrains things (PHPStorm, WebStorm). Although I still end up preferring Sublime for my Angularjs work (I’m not ‘younger’ heh). Maybe it’s just habit.I haven’t found a ‘home’ for my Golang work yet. I use TextWrangler, which is just silly on my part :-PEclipse feels Byzantine to me, ha!

            3. Eclipse badly needs some 21st century UI designer love, I wonder why open source usually means zero design. I guess it is underfunded as many open source projects are.On the good part, Eclipse has integrations with external tools that any other IDE or editor has, specially for C/C++ in Linux.

            4. I use JetBrains IDEs (Webstorm, Intellij), vim, and XCode for iOS. Seriously contemplated switching to JetBrains swift IDE.Honestly for dynamically typed languages I like vim the best.

            5. Data Science Experience IDE:* https://datascientistworkbe…

            6. I like sublime, its useful for all things textWhy do you like the standard/platform default?

            7. Mainly to be inline with Apple and Google, the last APIs and the integrated tools and designers. Now, more than ever, developers are forced to develop for the latest version of the OS.

            8. Hah! I concur. That said I am out of date having switched from dev to product management — i don’t get to play with IDE’s as often :-/ I still find excuses to use Sublime (my todo list is a text file always open on sublime and is backed by a git repo so i can keep working on a growing list (big text file) but compare checkins if I want to see “what got done when” — crazy I know but it works for me)IDE’s to me are evolving like messaging platforms. There is no need for a “new one”… the tools/languages/platforms just need to plugin to the IDE a developer is already familiar with. Lots of domain specific editors keep coming up … not sure how efficient this is.Counter point: Sublime of course was a response to IDE bloat and I do love it 😉

         2. Ugh, Eclipse.

         3. java or something using java group?(and for gods sake – eclipse?)

      4. Have you visited Williamsburg Brooklyn recently?

         1. Don’t usually travel outside the Silicon Valley island 🙁 but google images shows mostly mac’s on Williamsburg Brooklyn coffee shops – similar to most coffee shops in the valley https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

            1. Yes, and on those macs there are developers using SSH to get to Ubuntu boxes. VIM vs. emacs is basically a pick up line in Brooklyn now, like tabs vs. spaces, or Intel vs. AT&T assembly syntax. These are things that matter when you’re doing locally sourced artisanal coding.

            2. CONTRIBUTORS:A photo of human Androids…..

            3. where is this?

         2. No

      5. what are they using (and I have heard of people passionate about that argument – its up there with keynes vs neoclassical)

         1. Sublime, TextMate, TextWrangler..

   2. endorsing HillaryFeather in Pence’s cap last night. All the talking heads panned Kaine and his caffeinated childish interruptions. The potentiometer was set way way to high. It’s been decided by the heads that he will be the ticket in 2020 for the Republicans.http://www.businessinsider….http://dailycaller.com/2016…

      1. If the GOP runs anyone from this ticket or this election cycle in 2020 then they will have learned nothing.

   3. Friday is not VIM vs. emacs … it’s Intel vs. AT&T i86 Assembly syntax.mov $0x133A1EF, %rax

   4. Matt Zagaja:don’t agree with Fred on everything but really enjoy him having coconuts. Tired of the passive Democratic party. Republicans have been kicking their posterior for over sixteen years with their noise.If a Democrat voices an opinion it is controversial and if a Republican states the National Enquirer or Fox News commentators talking points it is gospel.

   5. zing!

   6. anyone tried a Fairphone?https://shop.fairphone.com/en/then there’s the modular (not Ara!) idea;https://shop.fairphone.com/en/

6. I am going to the Pixel. Count one more here on the Pixel bandwagon.

7. only if you get the 5″

8. Apple is seriously lagging on VR front. We are currently in biggest VR frenzy, and everybody is asking for VR and buying VR (both products and services) and we are hardly getting any sleep these days as everybody went nuts. Apple missed the train on this big-time. iPhone now feels like outdated device from the last decade, and not trend-setting hardware. Such a shame.

   1. apple also “missed” the walkman and created iPod..

      1. It was Jobs

         1. Jobs one in a kind but also the “front” of many talented people at apple

   2. Apple is more interested in AR which is 4X VR market. iPhone 7 is move in that direction. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

      1. Interested-in is nothing without a product. AR is useless without glasses and Hololens and Magic Leap are already here. HTC will expand its VR offer into mobile with positional tracking very soon now. VR is a challenge on many fronts not only hardware, and Apple is not there. Apple did buy few companies in related industries, but we don’t see anything happening. If they had VR enabled phones (with dual cameras for AR) it would be something worth considering. We are buying Samsung phones in bulks as clients are asking for mobile VR.. these could have been iPhones.

         1. How many consumers are going to wander around the streets wearing VR glasses / headsets that take them out of their environment?Apple thinks about these friction points for consumers.

   3. People also say Apple lags Google in AI. Ok, Google released Tensorflow and a whole bunch of AI tools (Word2Vec etc).Yet … Apple’s recent acquisition, Turi, has a distributed Deep Learning framework that’s THREE TIMES faster than Tensorflow.And research has emerged that shows Google Word2Vec is blatantly sexist.So just because another techco releases a tool / hardware product first, doesn’t mean Apple’s won’t be better.https://uploads.disquscdn.c…https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

      1. Unfortunately Apple’s work is behind closed doors. Researchers build on top of each other’s work and in the last ten years radical collaboration has been one of the major contributors to the current Surge of AI.Yes there are challenges with TF (and other frameworks) but they are well known. In this case word embeddings are based because of training data – our past was biased, not where we should be as a society. Hopefully we don’t depend on it to create the future (this is a concern ( I am not sure if this is being addressed). Internally TF on their clusters is pretty fast.Unfortunately since apple doesn’t share anything we have no idea how biased it’s framework is and where they are in the state of art. Siri definitely looks dated.

         1. Hmmn … IF the issues of systemic biases in training data and elsewhere were being addressed by the (mostly) male devs in Silicon Valley … And they didn’t keep iterating and building on top of those self-reinforcing biases of their work …I wouldn’t have had to return to coding to solve those persistent problems of the WRONG types of data. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

            1. Whole heartedly agree.Not an easy thing by any means, but should be done. The reason we know about the problem is due to the fact is open and subject to peer review. Unfortunately, Apple’s ML/AI work is behind closed door and examined.Anecdotally from what I see in conferences, ML/AI appears more diverse than other technical areas. Also, more women seem to be interested/pursuing careers in artificial intelligence (Major kudos to Fei-Fei Li for her mentorship efforts)

      2. Also interestingly WaveNet[1] a generative model for raw audio published few weeks ago, went pretty quickly from paper to product announcement or at least that is my interpretation of this.”The text-to-speech of something like Siri is basically a really, really sophisticated cut-up of one real person talking. Google has been working on machine speech that’s totally synthetic but still sounds natural.” [2][1] https://deepmind.com/blog/w…[2] https://live.theverge.com/g…

         1. interesting. will it have vocal fry

9. Battery that last 7 hours on a 15 minute charge? I’m in.I’ve had the last few Nexuses and have loved them all. Pixel is super pricey but I can’t see myself getting any other Android phone, aside from maybe the OnePlus.Fred, you going 5″ or 5.5″?

10. Some people have two main gripes about the iPhone:(1) lack of storage space due to pictures many people don’t have time to organize.(2) battery recharging and Mophie, etc. ancillaries to always have battery life.Was thrilled to see the announcement of the Pixel for these reasons. I am right alongside, meaning I am looking forward to replacing the iPhone w/a Pixel!

    1. my gripe about iPhone is storage. battery life as phones age has always been an issue for me too, but not so much with iPhone 6plus

11. I’m With You (of course, on the Android train).And paired with Google Fi, this is unstoppable. Fi now has LTE in most world countries. Using it today flawlessly in Azerbaijan and Israel. They finally nailed it (yes I put a similar comment the other day).Used an iPhone 6 for a month, only because a scooter sharing co in Berlin only supported it. Couldn’t wait to be back home on my 6P. iOS is awesome, but I find Android so superior, especially around notifications

    1. I’m surprised that so few phones have a dual-SIM option. That seems to be a big release valve when travelling across countries and carrier monopoly zones. You just pop a new SIM without worrying about your existing base one.

12. The Google Pixel is an interesting alternative to the ruling parties of Apple and Samsung.Every 6 months or so, there’s a iPhone or Samsung “killer” that comes out. It’s like the “independent” ticket to the election. Trick is- can they get elected for 4 years?

    1. Also, I don’t understand smartphone envy William.I moved from my iphone 6 to OnePlus 3 last month because the iphone screen cracked. The OnePlus 3 has the specs I want, does what I want it do.Two years from now, I’ll look at whats available then…pick one and move on.But how does one get envious over a smartphone 🙂 ?

       1. I hear great things about the OP3. At $200 less than a Samsung 7 it is a good value, although not waterproof which seems to be something that everybody wants now, whereas it wasn’t an issue before.

          1. I’m seriously considering the OP3. OP seems to be working hard on updates and patches. I value that in a phone company.

             1. No sdcard expansion. No swappable battery. It’s a shame. I was so close to buying one.

             2. it does have duel SIM and is unlocked, which is nice.not many phones have swappable batteries (LG?). the new Moto Z has the Incipio Mods battery pack.

             3. There isn’t much to not like in the OP3.

             4. Using the OP3 for nearly a month now. Like it.

             5. Are you using the dual sim feature?

    2. I’m a Xiaomi convert. The Mi 5 would be an amazing phone for US$800, but it’s one heck of a phone for US$335!

       1. I had one of the first few Mi5’s that left China in early May and kept it for 2 months, then traded it for an iPhone 6+. It was a great phone- the best features were speed and charge time (50% charge in 30 mins), but I found many Apps I wanted (especially in the health/wellness space) were not compatible with it. There is a hierarchy of Android compatibilities that App developers go through, and it starts with Samsung of course. I’d be on the phone with the support line, and they would say “Showme (that’s how Xiaomi is pronounced) what” “How do you spell it’? “Never heard of it”. And it goes downhill from there.

          1. Interesting. I have never found an app that wasn’t compatible, but then I have fairly vanilla tastes in apps.I’m a big fan of the new MIUI 8. It’s delightful.Xiaomi have a retail store in Mong Kok now. It’s quite well done. They even have a post sales station where a talented kid with steady hands will flawlessly apply your tempered glass screen protector (if you’re so inclined).

             1. Mong Kok makes me feel like a kid in a candy store. I’m overdue for a return visit.

          2. Do you think this hierarchy issue also works against the OP3?Are block crypto bitcoin devs still putting out apps on iOS first and Android ‘maybe’?

             1. I’m not that close to wallet Apps which is where most of these apps are at. I’m more excited about other vertical apps that will be coming out later when you may not realize that blockchain is part of it.

             2. I hope sooner and not later.I know you went back to the iPhone. Do you think the devs of these new vertical apps will favour iOS release over Android?

       2. Agree, they just need to support all of the US LTE bands.

          1. Right. They don’t seem overly interested in the US right now which is understandable given their two main markets are each considerably larger.

       3. really? why do you like it

          1. Looks good. Dual sim. Massively fast with plenty of RAM. Big battery. Nice camera with OIS. NFC. Delightful MIUI — without question the nicest non-stock Android — with frequent releases. Now on sale for US$310.

    3. Congrats on the Jay’s win last night. Baltimore is bummed this morning. The talk radio shows were crying.

       1. Yuppp!!! Go Jays!

13. Even as an Apple diehard, I will admit lately that I have been thinking about the next move — every fall, it seems, I get a new Macbook and/or iPhone. This fall, what if I got a Chromebook and Pixel? I’d likely feel the pain on iMessage and Keynote, which are part of iOS ecosystem, but beyond that, all web browser stuff is covered and on the phone, iMessage would be a hit. Is anyone here going Pixel+Chomebook?

    1. i’m going pixel, mac. wishy-washy

       1. Google Mobile Services more critical on mobile, indeed. Would be solved if iMessage launched Android app.

    2. Keynote online? iMessage another issue.

14. Just watched the promo video. The headphone jack reference is pretty great 🙂

15. @fredwilson:disqus It would be really interesting this week to get your take on the idea of converting Twitter to a cooperative….https://www.theguardian.com…

    1. Chris Sacca’s shared his views:”Ask anyone who works at Twitter and they will tell you @jack is the leader that will take them to the next level,” Sacca tweeted in September 2015.Sacca told Bloomberg on Tuesday that one of his goals behind pushing Dorsey to be CEO was that he wanted Twitter cofounder and board member Evan Williams to get more involved in the company’s decision making again.”I think he’s the one who’s had the product vision at the company,” he said of Williams.* http://uk.businessinsider.c…—–Interestingly, Twitter’s founders all had different ideas of what Twitter is and its investors also have different ideas of who the Product Visionary at the company is.

       1. And its users all have different ideas of what it is 😉 All these years later. Never has a product inspired such a feeling of ownership amongst its constituents. Fascinating.

          1. Twitter is a stream of collective consciousness but it takes a lot of work (too much?) to sift for the gold nuggets.

             1. Not you, too! Imma have to teach everyone here how to use Twitter! Sifting is easy and automated.This is what I keep harping on. Twitter needs to automate the way that ‘successful’ users (like me) onboard themselves.

             2. To me Twitter’s challenges demonstrate that tech innovation is cheaper and faster than business model innovation. Twitter is not the first and will not be the last (Napster comes to mind as well) It is a medium/platform/social-network/<<insert>> that clearly scratches a big big itch … but it does not fit into our standard menu of “how do i monetize this” … unfortunately innovating this menu is a LOT harder than innovating tech. Yes, Napster ultimately failed due to legal reasons but I see legal is an extension of a business model in most cases.

             3. Yep. I guess I’ve felt for a *long* time that “media company” is almost always the wrong answer to “how should we monetize?”

             4. for instance, this -> https://twitter.com/cdixon/…

             5. He’s short-medium term wrong. There are huge gaps in AI -> medicine, partially because outside technology is still expensive, partially because of HIPAA, partially patent wars, partially a huge math problem*, partially we have missing technology, partially very little in medicine is user friendly enough, and partially most problems are still not addressed.EG:I am starting to sketch out (in order to build) a family tree maker for tracking genetic and familial diseases (or what could be a familial disease, like obesity). I happen to need one, because I need genetic testing and convincing people to skip the junior tests means tracking a lot of people in order to rule out potential genes. I’d like to also have a way to not only append infomration like people, diseases, but also documents like death certificates, and entire genome files. I plan on open sourcing it, for one reason and one reason only:The software doesn’t exist. It should, given how cheap genetic tests costs, and the rise in people seeking genetic counselors, but it doesn’t.Now, combining this dataset with others and you start getting some interesting meta-datasets that someone could find out a lot of things about genetic and familial diseases from.But the fact is, it is super hard to do so, because patients can’t track their family trees well.So how could ai even work well in this space if you are still missing such early ingredients…(Your genome is huge. Then deal with how RNA deals with your genome on a cellular level, then chemicals between cells, like proteins or whathave you, given that the chemicals are the triggers for how rna interacts with dna, then scale up to organ level, then scale up to inter-organ level. That’s a sh*it ton of data to track, all before you do something like eat, or even twitch a muscle to scratch your nose)

             6. Definitely give a tutorial. I also have serious challenge sifting though stuff. Almost need to have a feather figure for blocking people, plus being very selective on who to follow. Feels like maintaining a garden where I have to constantly trim, week and plant new seeds. Would love for everything to be automated or be more efficient at it.Any tips or how to from ‘successful’ users like u.

          2. …from Bloomberg today.http://www.bloomberg.com/fe…

    2. It’s an interesting idea but this gives me pause:who proposes that less than 1% of users – no small number, at three million – could each buy $2,300 worth of shares and vote as a bloc for a transition to cooperative ownershipThat would be a logistical nightmare to organize, coordinate, enforce and so on. And that assumes it’s even legal. What if someone wants to buy more shares? What about other block sizes?Most likely one of the current suspects will buy twitter.I will also bet you that Fred doesn’t give his take on your question!

       1. There are a few ways to go about it. But obviously it’s a long shot.Agree that Fred’s take is also probably a long shot 🙂

16. I actually keep two cell phones. One is the regular one that I carry around everywhere. The other is what I call the bat phone. I use that for certain work related things that I do where I don’t want to expose my cell phone or don’t want a call coming in when I am driving or in a place where I am not setup to do business. Also for messages to people that it’s preferable not to have my everywhere cell phone.

    1. You could just use Google Voice for all that. Works great.

       1. I do use google voice but for another purpose. But what I have found is that google voice is flaky. It doesn’t always recognize when I hit “1” on a desk phone to take a call for example. I actually have several google voice numbers. Also with google voice there is friction to return a call (using the number that the call came in on) and the chance of not doing that (by accident) on some return calls is a problem.

       2. I heart google voice. Essential safety thing in my life

    2. LE:”I use that for certain work related things that I do where I don’t want to expose my cell phone or don’t want a call coming in when I am driving or in a place where I am not setup to do business. Also for messages to people that it’s preferable not to have my everywhere cell phone.”Was there cryptic message in your post? Can you edit for clarity? Your message appeared disjointed. (Edited for clarity)

       1. Specific question?

17. FRED:Go with Google Pixel XL.Disclosure: Not fond of Apple products but the Technology is great they harvest from other companies.

18. As I think about the ‘What’s best for AVC’ decision (not kidding), I’d rather see Fred write about his reactions to Pixel (than iPhone 7). We have seen (and will continue to see) too much analysis of iOS devices by folks who do that for a living.If you watched yesterday’s #madebygoogle event (as I did), you may wonder if Pixel *really* works as smoothly as all of the (heavily-rehearsed) demos indicated, and well, if Fred is thinking aloud about it, I say we endorse Pixel for his next mobile jaunt.In Fred we trust, in Pixel we ponder.

19. Predominance of Whatsapp over iMessage in Africa makes the switch to Android a whole lot easier. Saaying that, I still like the mix of Apple products running Google software. And I am a MSOFFICE addict – how is google docs these days? Complete replacement yet?

20. Who builds the Pixel, HTC?

    1. yup.

    2. i tend to like htc phones – i am actually a bit sad that they “lost” to samsung. Never did understand why people loved samsung

21. Go on….just get both 🙂

22. Since Twitter is mentioned on this thread, posting this, which some might not know about. Just saw it myself:Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week (wsj.com)https://news.ycombinator.co…

23. I thought the area around the sensor would be a gesture surface. Seems not. Disappointing

24. Tomorrow: Tabs over spaces.

    1. With all our MBAs and Ph.Ds on campaign, that will be all that you can get. Can’t we nerds have a bit of fun?

25. I think that they should have come in with a lower price than they did…just to entice a few folks on the fence with Apple to convert.

26. could you in theory get both and switch off day to day (and have both use the same number?)

27. CONTRIBUTORS:Maybe next year METS fans.

28. Good upgrade for google but there is very little phone differentiation, so my box score – it will eventually flame out. I’m more interested in their other product introductions (google home, and VR headset), which have a legitimate shot to challenge Amazon and Facebook.The way forward – focus more on future markets and much less on mature markets/products.

29. I’m sure everyone saw this very cool 150 Google Now commands to make Pixel come to life (from product hunt): http://ok-google.io/

30. For me the USP of the Pixel vs. iPhone 7 is really the unlimited storage and the pairing with other hardwares released yesterday – Google Home and Dreamwear. I already ordered the iPhone 7 through my carrier but I am thinking getting the Pixel just so I can compare the functionalities side-by-side. And I am pretty sure there will be Pixel 2 coming next year or two 🙂

31. Did you end up getting the Google Pixel? I saw it the other day at the Google Pop-Up store on at 96 Spring in soho and was very impressed.

32. Google has serious SEO issues with their pixels 😉