The dust has yet to be removed from Apple’s September event and iPhone 14 launch, but another big smartphone release is looming. The Google Pixel 7 arrives next month with a new processor, a slightly modified look and a clear desire to challenge the iPhone for a place among the best camera phones.
Google even flagged just before Apple’s event, announcing its own product launch on October 6 just 24 hours before Tim Cook took to the stage to showcase the latest iPhone 14 models. The move didn’t steal any of Apple’s new smartphone thunder—a big chance of a That — but it helped keep the upcoming Pixel in mind while reminding people that the steady rhythm of falling phone releases continues.
But if Google was smart, it also cared about Apple’s introduction of the iPhone, which saw the iPhone 14 Pro and large screen iPhone 14 Plus models join the standard model as the best iPhones in Apple’s lineup. The major phone makers generally keep their own lawyers when it comes to what features to add and bring, but you can always sense a consumer’s interest by watching how your competitor puts forward their new devices, especially with what they choose to emphasize.
The iPhone 14 launch had some clear things to say about where the smartphone market stands at this point in 2022. And Google could draw some lessons from Apple about how it handles the launch of its Pixel 7 next month.
Lesson 1: Fix the things people have put you down because of them
You sell products by building things that meet what people demand. And there is no more certain way to meet these demands than by listening to people’s complaints about your current product.
For Apple, this is a huge challenge, as their iPhones tend to be well reviewed by the tech press and well received by paying customers. But the company still finds complaints that need to be addressed with modern phones — and most importantly, it makes those fixes more often.
Take the iPhone 12, which impressed in many areas but fell behind in terms of battery life. Perhaps it was no coincidence, then, that the launch of the iPhone 13 last year saw larger batteries inside all four of the new models. As a result, every iPhone 13 improved with the battery life of its predecessor in our tests. The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max even landed on our best phone battery life ratings.
You don’t even have to go back to the iPhone 13 launch to find an example of Apple introducing new capabilities that address lingering complaints. I don’t think I’m the only one to notice that the iPhone is starting to lag behind competing camera phones when it comes to shooting in low light. And Apple did note that people noticed — when talking about the new iPhone 14 camera features, it emphasized low-light improvements, both with modest changes to the iPhone 14’s main camera sensor as well as more significant improvements over the iPhone 14 Pro models.
Apple hasn’t explicitly acknowledged that previous models didn’t produce sharp shots when the lights were low. Instead, it just focused on how the upcoming changes to the camera settings on its phones will make things better than before. And that’s an approach Google would be smart to take with the Pixel 7.
After all, Google Home has its share of problems. It’s been a while since the Pixel phone has done well in our battery test with every Pixel 6 model — including the mid-range Pixel 6a — yielding below-average results. Google doesn’t have to continue figuring out why this is happening, but it should confirm the steps taken to make Pixel 7 models last for a cost when it introduces these phones.
Likewise, it could focus on fingerprint sensor response times on new phones, and implicitly address complaints about the difficult fingerprint reader on the Pixel 6.
Lesson 2: Smartphone experiences matter
See, I love reading the specs as much as the next guy, but when you’re showing off a new phone, you also have to talk about the possible experiences with this device. What can I do with your phone that I couldn’t do before.
Apple excels in this, especially when promoting cameras on its iPhones. Yes, he could simply talk about the changes in pixel size on the iPhone 14 camera sensors and how that will help capture more light in low-light settings, and that should spark people’s interest in the cameras on the company’s upcoming phones. But it also went into detail on the Photonic Engine — a new image-processing technology that applies Apple’s earlier Deep Fusion feature in image processing for better detail, improved colors, and preserved textures — with image samples to match. Motion mode, which captures steady video even when you’re moving at high speed, also got a long look.
This is especially important for Google, which has already confirmed that Pixel 7 phones will feature a new Tensor chipset, a follow-up on the original Tensor that debuted in the Pixel 6 series. Google’s silicon takes advantage of machine learning to enable experiences you won’t find on other mobile devices , such as translation and transcription on the Pixel 6 and its ability to navigate the phone’s menus. With the emergence of a new Tensor chip, we expect Google to give us a look at more of the new features now available on the Pixel 7 — and the more detailed the demos, the better.
Lesson Three: Surprises are welcome
You may not have headed to Apple’s iPhone 14 presentation, “I hope this is the day Apple takes advantage of in-phone motion sensors to detect if you’ve been in a car accident so you can notify emergency services right away,” but nonetheless, this This is exactly what Apple did with the Crash Detection feature added to its new phones.
The iPhone 14’s Emergency SOS feature hasn’t been a surprise — rumors that Apple will switch to satellite calling to help you send emergency messages when there are no cell towers nearby since the iPhone 13’s launch — but the details on how the feature actually works have been pretty exciting. And it was surprising to know that Emergency SOS is available on all four new iPhones, not just the iPhone 14 Pro models, and that it’s free for the first two years after you buy your phone.
We can’t begin to speculate what surprises Google might have up its sleeve for the Pixel 7. If we knew now, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise, right? But we really hope that Google – which is notorious for leaking information about pixels before they’re revealed – will keep something aloof for its October 6 announcement. Surprises are part of the fun of launching smartphones.
Lesson 4: Price is critical
At the risk of repeating my talk, perhaps the most exciting thing about Apple’s announcements last week was the pricing. iPhone 14 models cost the same amount as their predecessors — great news in the case of the iPhone 14 Pro, which was rumored to be in line with the $100 price hike.
I don’t need to tell you that money is tight right now, so anytime prices can remain stable, it’s a big win for shoppers. Apple achieved this win by keeping its iPhone price streak.
Can Google do the same? We haven’t heard much about the rumored Pixel 7 pricing and don’t expect to until we get close to Google’s October 6 event. But if the new phones can hit the roughly $599/$899 mark that Google has charged for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, respectively, we’ll be looking at this welcome news.
Pixel 7 overview
Google, of course, does not need Apple to tell it how to operate a smartphone. It has done a pretty good job of rolling out the Pixels on its own in the past few years. But the differences between a decent product launch and a really memorable turnaround are in a lot of little things. If Google follows Apple’s iPhone 14 game plan, it should be the iPhone 14 versus Pixel 7 showdown for the ages.
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