[HN Gopher] Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
___________________________________________________________________
Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
Author : mikeevans
Score : 272 points
Date : 2021-10-19 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (store.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (store.google.com)
| kisamoto wrote:
| I think normally I'd look for the Pixel or the iPhone but my next
| purchase will be supporting FairPhone.
|
| When I think about how powerful I need my phone to be I don't
| need the best. I want something I can fix and update myself;
| something that's supported for more than a couple of years;
| something that is a little "better" for the planet.
|
| Does anybody use all of the new power of these incredible
| devices?
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| > Does anybody use all of the new power of these incredible
| devices?
|
| The old joke about Microsoft Word driving an upgrade treadmill
| (no matter how fast your computer gets, Word will still take 30
| seconds to boot) still applies, except it's to web browsers.
| Welcome to the future, where every tweet will include its own
| multi-megabyte, cpu hungry javascript app.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I stopped looking at what the marketers tell me I'm supposed to
| want in a phone, and went shopping for phones that have what I
| actually want: Durability and battery life. I've started
| getting those rugged phones of the sort they market at
| construction workers.
|
| They're brilliant. Water/mud/dust/salt resistant, you can drop
| them however many times you feel like without cracking the
| screen, battery life is alomost two days (and that is while
| using the thing).
|
| They're also pretty big and clunky, the camera is unimpressive,
| and the performance is middling at best, but I honestly don't
| mind that at all.
| jeltz wrote:
| I only bought my Pixel 5 because it was not huge. Most phones
| are too large for my hands, including the Fairphone and the
| Pixel 6. The Pixel 5 is almost too big too.
| acomjean wrote:
| >Does anybody use all of the new power of these incredible
| devices?
|
| As someone with an years old iPhone 6, I haven't once said, I
| wish this phone was faster. Maybe a better camera would be
| nice, but that's about it.
|
| Maybe with the ability to plug a phone into a screen and
| keyboard and use it as a computer (As is starting to happen)
| I'd want more power but right now I'm good as long as my
| battery is holding.
|
| I just wish more of these phones still had headphone jacks...
| weirdsquid wrote:
| > Does anybody use all of the new power of these incredible
| devices? No, people do the same things with every new
| generation of smartphones. Call, text, scroll social media,
| take photos, or make Google searches. That kind of stuff. None
| of those activities require powerful hardware, so I will never
| understand why some smartphones need processors more powerful
| than the damn PC I'm typing this on. It's equally stupid in my
| opinion that the software we use to accomplish those activities
| is constantly becoming more and more bloated and have ever
| increasing hardware requirements to run smoothly! At the end of
| the day many common mobile apps do the same damn thing they did
| 7 years ago, but good luck running some of them on hardware
| that old (assuming you can even find a phone that has a new
| enough OS).
|
| Anyway, I'd love to support Fairphone as well, but I'm upset
| that they removed the headphone jack in order to sell their new
| wireless earbuds. For a company that's supposedly all about
| sustainability, repair-ability, etc. that's a pretty stupid
| move. Removing a basic feature in order to sell another product
| is the opposite of sustainable. It's greedy, and I thought
| Fairphone was against that.
| breuleux wrote:
| > Call, text, scroll social media, take photos, or make
| Google searches. That kind of stuff. None of those activities
| require powerful hardware, so I will never understand why
| some smartphones need processors more powerful than the damn
| PC I'm typing this on.
|
| They don't "require" it per se, but the power does help. Apps
| will load and start faster, scrolling social media will
| stutter less, more processing can be applied on photos to
| make them look better, more processing can be done locally to
| avoid latency, and everything will be generally more
| responsive. More powerful hardware doesn't only serve
| compute-intensive tasks, it helps for everything. If you have
| money to spare, it's worth it.
|
| So what happens is that phone A has a latency of 0.2s to
| perform a task and people are like, that's fine. Then phone B
| comes out with a latency of 0.05s and people are like, oh,
| that's so snappy, I love it, so they buy that. Then
| developers are like, we know 0.2s was fine, so we've got
| 0.15s of budget to add some features. It's kind of a vicious
| circle, because every step is logical: it's logical for
| people to buy faster devices to get snappier operation, and
| it's logical for developers to use the margin between snappy
| and slow to add new features.
|
| TBH, if we could freeze all hardware development at all
| levels for a few years, it would do wonders for software and
| I think we'd ultimately come out ahead, but we all know
| that's never going to happen.
| JediWing wrote:
| The launch of this phone was utterly botched.
|
| There's a hilarious dissonance between the talk of SoC design,
| AI, computational photography and ambient computing and the
| inability to handle a website with a relatively simple purchase
| flow for a phone that, let's be real, probably has about 1/10 th
| of the interest and web traffic of the iPhone.
|
| From the moment the store website went live with these phones
| there were all sorts of errors, and I ended up forgoing
| purchasing from the google store after trying to for an hour!
|
| Once Best Buy went live with their stock, I instantly was able to
| pre-order with little issue. I'll be picking it up on release day
| there.
|
| Fix the store, Google!
| krzyk wrote:
| People will never learn. You don't preorder Pixels, there are
| always better deals on Black Friday (literally in few weeks,
| just a week after Pixel start shipping).
|
| Never take preorders, especially with Pixels. (learned that
| hard with Pixel 3).
| ac29 wrote:
| Pre-orders come with free Pixel Buds ($99), which if you
| care, is a nice bonus.
|
| With all the supply chain issues this past year, you might
| not even be able to buy one come Black Friday, much less at a
| discount or with a better freebie.
| heffer wrote:
| In Germany (and some other EU countries) pre-orders come
| with Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 (A ~270 EUR
| value). Here in Canada not only is the phone more
| expensive, it also "only" comes with Pixel Buds which are a
| ~CAD 160 value after tax. The Bose headphones are also more
| expensive in Canada (as pretty much anything except gas and
| electricity) so they'd be an even better value here.
|
| So I'll investigate if there are significant (to me)
| differences between the EU and Canada models and may just
| order it in Germany then.
| wpietri wrote:
| And personally, I won't buy anything directly from Google
| ever again. Their customer service for me has been terrible.
| I'll happily buy another Pixel, but from pretty much anybody
| else.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Not true with last year's Pixels in several European
| countries. We got $200 Bose headphones during preorders.
| There was never a better time to buy them after that.
|
| Probably the same thing with the Pixel 6/6P this year.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Year after year, Google keeps reminding us its hardware line is
| not something's it's taking seriously. They sell phones in a
| ridiculously small number of countries, and without fail, they
| can't even do it without hiccups. And when you actually get a
| device, there's often some hardware issue, or annoying bugs,
| and sometimes both.
|
| (Writing this on a Pixel 5).
| seized wrote:
| My Pixel 5 has been perfect. No bugs, glitches, hardware
| issues, etc.
|
| The only complaint I have is them removing the proper burst
| mode on the camera, but that was gone with the 4 series I
| think.
| zamalek wrote:
| I gave up after my Pixel 4, now on a OnePlus. Google has
| consistently omitted something annoying on their phones. No
| wireless charging when everyone else has it, replacing a
| fingerprint scanner with face unlock (hello pandemic!),
| laughable battery life.
|
| They take 3 steps forward and 1 giant step back with each
| iteration. I wasn't willing to find out what stupid shit they
| would pull with the 6.
|
| The color grading on those photos, though. So sublime and
| authentic.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I tried a few times and the store error-ed out and a few mins
| later, the phones were sold out.
| abeyer wrote:
| The phones are too damn big
| executive wrote:
| https://www.asus.com/Mobile/Phones/ZenFone/Zenfone-8/
| [deleted]
| kevmo wrote:
| Miss me with a Google monitoring device.
| numlock86 wrote:
| Whose monitoring devises do you recommend then?
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Google Pixel devices are some of the few with a relockable
| bootloader and availability (though not open source) of
| drivers. That makes them the _only_ option for someone that
| focuses on privacy. (By installing calyxOS)
| josteink wrote:
| Link doesn't seem to work. Could be geo-fenced?
|
| (Location: Norway/Europe)
| GOATS- wrote:
| The phone is only available in a handful countries at launch it
| seems.
|
| https://9to5google.com/2021/10/19/the-pixel-6-series-is-now-...
| krzyk wrote:
| Not only at launch. Google limits Pixel sales/support to a
| small set of countries. Doesn't even include all EU.
|
| Strange tactic for someone wanting to sell more phones.
| jeltz wrote:
| Pixel 5 was never sold in Sweden. I bought mine from a
| French webshop which ships to Sweden.
| krzyk wrote:
| And Sweden at least has Google Store.
|
| In Poland we don't. I bought my Pixel 4 from German
| Amazon, which ships directly to Poland.
| AnssiH wrote:
| Add /us to make it work (i.e. see the Pixel 6 models):
|
| https://store.google.com/us/category/phones
| Hokusai wrote:
| Here in Sweden it shows a list of products, none is a phone.
| notyourday wrote:
| Google fails at even building an ecommerce website for the
| special launch event. In 2021. For a launch of a major "premium
| product".
|
| Why on earth would one ever believe the rest of the product which
| is orders of magnitude more complicated would actually function
| and not suck in 4 months?
| techrat wrote:
| You're right! They suck, this is the first time they've ever
| built a phone and they have no history of working devices to
| prove themselves!
| notyourday wrote:
| > they have no history of working devices to prove
| themselves!
|
| * Boot loops.
|
| * Android updates that they push to _their own phones_ that
| brick those phones or break the cameras. It is as if their
| engineers write code against the devices those engineers can
| 't use to test on.
|
| * Non-existent customer service in case the phone does go
| into a boot loop or update breaks the camera.
| [deleted]
| danellis wrote:
| Oh, I don't know, maybe because those two things have nothing
| to do with each other.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| So is there _any_ info on Google 's processor, any benchmarks,
| any specific synergies to show off that put it ahead of the
| competition?
| nerdwaller wrote:
| Several hours later, I finally got the order through and even got
| an email confirmation and a fairly rapid delivery (end of month).
| If you were having issues earlier, you might be able to get in
| now.
| robocat wrote:
| Link for anyone not in the US:
| https://store.google.com/us/category/phones?hl=en-US®ionR...
|
| Otherwise you see your local country store...
|
| Dang: perhaps replace link so international users get the same
| page?
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I've never understood why they don't sell them in the
| Netherlands. The way they just pretend it doesn't exist in the
| store by redirecting you is extra annoying.
| eis wrote:
| Google seems to have for some reason requested a very/overly
| broad embargo from reviewers which does not let them show any
| photos taken with the device or software features for now.
|
| MKBHD mentions this (and shows nothing from the phone really) @
| https://youtu.be/roWxo6jWoYw?t=140 And Mrwhosetheboss said he
| refused to cover these phones due to the embargo. The Tech Chap
| mentions he can't show anything apart from the home screen. Can't
| even swipe down to show notifications @
| https://youtu.be/aLr7eCsY6Cg?t=191
|
| Wonder what made them think that that's a good idea. Especially
| because Android 12 is not exactly a secret.
| pkulak wrote:
| Did you notice MKBHD said this kind of embargo is a "red flag".
| Well, he already knows any issues that may exist, so it's very
| interesting that he chose to say this.
| causi wrote:
| Are they still arbitrarily disabling HDMI-out to force us to buy
| a Chromecast?
| Farbklex wrote:
| A Pixel phone with this feature would be reason enough for me
| to upgrade from a Pixel 3a. Just let me play games via HDMI out
| and a bluetooth gamepad.
| causi wrote:
| Hell, I'd buy whatever Chromecast Super Mega Ultra they
| wanted to sell me as long as it gave me lag-free mirroring.
| You can't game on a half second delay.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| You're confusing "not implementing" with "disabling". There is
| no default-enabled HDMI out on any SoC. Rather you have to wire
| it up and enable it, which includes paying the HDMI licensing
| fees (and also test that it actually works)
| causi wrote:
| My bad.
|
| "Are they still denying us basic functionality that's been
| part of smartphone USB ports since MHL in 2011 for the
| express purpose of making us buy crap we don't want?"
| crumpled wrote:
| You're the only person I've heard of using HDMI out of
| their cell phone USB port. So, I can definitely see a
| vendor deciding not to provide it and not pay a license for
| that technology on every handset they sell.
| causi wrote:
| Implementing DisplayPort is free. The royalty fee for
| HDMI is five cents per device.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| Every Samsung S Series phone has Samsung Dex which allows
| you to connect your phone to a TV or monitor via HDMI and
| have a full desktop OS experience. It's pretty great and
| they've been offering it for years now. You can also
| connect iPhones to TVs and monitors with the Apple A/V
| adapter.
|
| If google wants to make phones people buy, they should at
| least match their competitors features.
| salusinarduis wrote:
| Yes
| e2e4 wrote:
| Why does pixel 6 cost ~10% more in Japan!?! Y=68,501 vs Y=74,800
| tootie wrote:
| Hot take: I haven't seen a compelling new phone feature from any
| manufacturer in as long as I can remember. I spend 99% of my
| tapping time sending texts, using a browser and taking pictures
| with the rear camera. Same as I did on my Droid X which was my
| first smart phone circa 2011.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I thought the same, but the video quality on the iPhone 13 Pro
| is just absurdly good. I already had the X, but the upgrade is
| very significant.
|
| Similarly several people have commented that the front facing
| camera makes me look noticeably sharper and clearer in video
| calls.
|
| Some basics might not be changing much, but cameras still are.
| finder83 wrote:
| This is precisely why I wish more manufacturers would start
| adding physical keyboards again...at least 60% of my phone use
| involves writing. I still hate touch-screen keyboards, and am
| easily twice as slow as I used to be on physical ones.
|
| If someone would come out with a smaller phone with decent
| battery life, a processor that's not underpowered, physical
| keyboard, a headphone jack, and mediocre camera, I'd definitely
| jump on it. Almost the entirety of this press release is camera
| based, which I just don't care about that much...but maybe I'm
| not the target market.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The camera quality of phones has increased significantly in the
| past several years. This is due both to hardware and the
| algorithms that can really do wonders in terms of focus and
| lighting.
|
| OLED screens and high refresh rate are a treat for the eyes,
| especially if scrolling through text for an hour or more per
| day.
| deadmutex wrote:
| > taking pictures with the rear camera.
|
| I think taking better pictures in low light, etc. can be
| thought of being a "new phone feature" (for any phone).
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Phones are boring commodity devices at this point. The good
| news is even the cheap ones are pretty good these days. Which
| is why the market is so boring these days because it is
| strictly incremental updates to features that barely matter.
|
| I have Fuji camera with a nice lens. So, I have no use/patience
| for ever disappointing phone cameras. I'm well aware that the
| high-end phone cameras are pretty decent at automatically
| getting the most out of mediocre sensors and lenses. However,
| this is something I enjoy doing manually with the best sensors
| and lenses I can get my hands on and the results just don't
| really compare. I think it's great complete amateurs can also
| take nice photos now but just not my thing. I actually care
| about my photography. And since cameras are just about the only
| feature either Apple or Google seems to talk about, I kind of
| lost interest in the whole market ages ago. Bla bla lenses bla
| bla sensors bla bla AI. Could not care less about megapixles,
| fake bokeh (aka. blurring), overly saturated and noise reduced
| (more blurring) photos (aka. night vision), etc.
|
| Phone cameras are just not something I care about
| fundamentally. I use my phone as a glorified document scanner
| occasionally and that's about it. I also don't play games on my
| phone. Just not a thing for me. Otherwise, all smart phones
| I've had in the last ten years are fine for light browsing,
| consuming news, some audio, etc. which is pretty much all I do
| with them. Even answering phone calls from recruiters is not a
| thing I care about and that is quite literally the only
| incoming calls on this thing. Everything else I do with either
| my laptop or my desktop. Typing on a phone is not a thing for
| me either. Endlessly frustrating for me to use touch screen
| keyboards. It's an output only device. All the input modes are
| mediocre and tedious and I have no patience for them.
|
| So, I've been carrying a cheap Nokia Android phone since 2018
| and it's the best phone I've owned in recent years. It no
| longer receives security updates because of Google basically
| twisting people's arms to buy their new but hardly improved
| versions of the same shit they've been shipping since 2008 that
| I've owned before. Other than that it's fine. Battery lasts me
| two days; even more than three years in. And after having owned
| a few Nexus phones, I don't trust Google to deliver a device
| that will actually last as long as my Nokia has. Best phone
| I've had since I actually worked for Nokia when it did not
| license the brand to a generic Android phone manufacturer.
|
| So, not really eager to buy a Pixel phone. I'll probably buy
| another Nokia when I need to. The Nokia X20 looks pretty good
| to me. 5G and using it as a dumb modem would be the big
| headline feature for me.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| Not really a hot take. Just an observation about what is
| compelling to YOU, a singular person with your unique needs.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Btw, I just came across this: https://www.engadget.com/google-
| assistant-call-hold-18123642...
| tootie wrote:
| I have pixel 4a and it has some things like call screening
| and low light photography. I have used them on occasion but
| they aren't things I consider reasons to buy a phone.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Before rushing in to purchase, note that in some regions, you can
| claim back a pair of Bose 700 after purchase of the Pixel (at no
| extra cost)...
|
| eg: https://pixel-offers.com/headphones/en-GB
| rewq4321 wrote:
| Pixel hyphen offers? What a scammy looking domain. This isn't
| the first time I've seen a large company do this. Perfect way
| to help phishers confuse customers.
| abdusco wrote:
| They should have used their `.google` TLD. It would have
| expressed some level of authenticity.
|
| - store.google
|
| - pixel-offers.google
|
| and so on.
| 0des wrote:
| This is from the same company trying to eliminate the outward
| appearance of URL's from their browser.
| po1nter wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing but it's legit and is linked
| from the official Google Store (in France
| https://i.imgur.com/tgwGoQp.png )
| Ninjinka wrote:
| 100% thought it was a scam until I saw major news outlets
| reporting on it.
| [deleted]
| vdfs wrote:
| In many regions you can't even see this page
| robocat wrote:
| Try: https://pixel-offers.com/headphones/en-
| GB?regionRedirect=tru...
| ehsankia wrote:
| In Canada, it's free Pixel Buds Lite worth 140$.
| nick0garvey wrote:
| Site crashed almost instantly, couldn't get through checkout
| [deleted]
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It's truly incredible that the operator of like half a dozen of
| the most heavily used web properties on the planet still can't
| operate a basic e-commerce store that caters to the few fans
| who buy their phones. Maybe they should just start selling them
| on Amazon instead.
| nicbou wrote:
| I really like my Pixel 5, and I hope that Google maintains the
| course with future Pixels.
|
| It's a proper appliance phone. It holds the same place in my life
| as my kettle or my washing machine. It does what I want it to do,
| and asks nothing of me. I don't know any stats about it, only
| that it's fast enough, has a long enough battery life, and takes
| good enough pictures.
|
| I couldn't be happier.
| Symmetry wrote:
| In the same boat but I suspect I'll be sad if I didn't have a
| finger print reader on the back of my phone. But maybe there's
| a good reason everybody is putting it on the front now?
| pkulak wrote:
| Having it up closer to the middle of the screen does at least
| look way more convenient than standard iPhone placement.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Looking forward to the SoC benchmarks and to Pixel 4a getting
| cheaper
| Audiophilip wrote:
| Personally, the lack of a headphone jack is a deal-breaker for
| me.
| executive wrote:
| Zenfone 8 has and is a great iPhone mini alternative:
| https://www.asus.com/Mobile/Phones/ZenFone/Zenfone-8/
| Audiophilip wrote:
| Wow, thanks for sharing! It looks like a strong candidate to
| be the successor of my Pixel 4a. Small size and the presence
| of a headphone jack is a must for me, the 120Hz OLED screen
| is a very nice cherry on top.
| bduerst wrote:
| The inevitable A version (like the 5a) will likely have one.
| bjoli wrote:
| I was reading the material and went "I might actually get this
| phone", bit came to the same conclusion you did.
|
| Both me and my wife are looking for new phones. Both of us
| (despite looking for very different things in our tech stuff)
| went "oh. Damn".
| mchusma wrote:
| I have and like the 5A. Great phone of you want a headphone
| jack.
| wffurr wrote:
| I hope they keep making the A series midrange phones with head
| phone jacks.
|
| EOL for my Pixel 4a is August 2023. So maybe there will be a
| Pixel 7a with a tensor v2 chip and headphone jack by then.
| dreamer7 wrote:
| One interesting thing to note is how much more high-budget
| Hollywood style Apple's event feels in comparison to Google's
| event. Having watched the two events on successive days, some
| things stand out -
|
| Apple throws numbers repeatedly at you through out the
| presentation and you end up remembering quite a few useless
| statistics (55.7 billion transitors in M1 Max)
|
| Apple makes a much bigger deal about each device with lots of
| close ups and pseudo x-raying of the product. Google just throws
| in a Pro with an extra camera that you can barely make out on the
| dark glass.
|
| Apple spends several minutes talking about their SoC. Google says
| it spent years on Tensor and just leaves it as a shiny golden
| box.
|
| The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several
| sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing
| the screen. That just felt very strange.
| mda wrote:
| "The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several
| sections had presenters talking to a different camera than
| facing the screen. That just felt very strange."
|
| The camera director is probably living in a different decade,
| these side shots were used a lot 20 years ago, and it was still
| annoying then.
| nharada wrote:
| Is this also a difference in audience though? Yesterday's event
| was geared mainly towards creative professionals who are both
| more technical than average as well as have specific technical
| needs. Today's is towards the average consumer for a consumer
| device (even though it's called the "Pro").
| azeirah wrote:
| Apple has many products aimed at general consumers, all
| presentations and webpages are held to an equal standard as
| far as my experiences goes.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Apple has next level processors, it makes sense for them to
| brag about them. Tensor is good processor, but nothing special,
| except for the TPU in combination with their ML. So they
| focused on the UX enabled by that.
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| >The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several
| sections had presenters talking to a different camera than
| facing the screen. That just felt very strange.
|
| Not sure if that is reassuring or a sign of carelessness or a
| very well planned stunt.
| 0des wrote:
| This is a common technique used in film when someone is
| reading from a teleprompter. It is meant to draw attention
| away from the speaker's eyes moving from side to side.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| Which makes the Apple presentations all the more
| impressive. The camera is head-on, but I don't notice
| anyone's eye's moving as if reading a teleprompter. I think
| they've memorize it
| threeseed wrote:
| In Apple's presentations they are almost always far away
| e.g. several metres from the camera.
|
| If you look at Craig's OSX section where he is closer you
| can clearly see his eyes slightly move left to right as
| he is reading from the teleprompter.
| ehsankia wrote:
| They did that last year too, it feels more like a
| documentary/tv show than a keynote.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Yeah it's amazing how other companies are unable to generate
| hype or awe in their presentations. I consider most
| Android/Windows products quite ugly but even the pretty ones
| are just not marketed or shot well. Notice how Apple always has
| their laptops displaying some stunning photo? Or how it shoots
| the phones to emphasize the shiny, reflective metal? It's so
| simple yet other companies utterly fail at it.
|
| I remember reading about how Jobs would rehearse product
| releases for months, even going as far as to demand that the
| fire exit lights be turned off. I don't advocate for putting
| your audience at risk but it does demonstrate the fanatical
| obsession with presentation that has remained at Apple.
| fvdessen wrote:
| > Notice how Apple always has their laptops displaying some
| stunning photo? Or how it shoots the phones to emphasize the
| shiny, reflective metal? It's so simple yet other companies
| utterly fail at it.
|
| I'm looking at the Pixel product page, and the pictures are a
| mix of blurry - pixelated - showing compression artefacts,
| banding, in addition of the pictures being super bland and
| boring. Even the animations are stuttering. It's mind-
| blowing...
|
| EDIT: Just looked at Samsung's page and it's not much better.
| _xy8h wrote:
| > The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several
| sections had presenters talking to a different camera than
| facing the screen. That just felt very strange.
|
| B-Camera angles are common in interviews. It's to help create a
| less formal and less stuffy 'presentation' like feel. It's
| intended to be more of a "you're standing there, somewhat
| behind the scenes" feel.
| 0des wrote:
| It is also one way to obscure the fact that someone's using a
| teleprompter because it is more difficult to see that their
| eyes are moving back and forth.
| techrat wrote:
| From what I watched of the presentation, there was also a
| fair bit of moving around. In my studio, we primarily used
| it as a way to hide main camera adjustments in the edit,
| usually from the interviewee changing positions, slouching,
| etc. Generally, a high enough quality production will never
| rely on a single camera regardless.
| dreamer7 wrote:
| I went back and checked Apple's keynote and noticed that all
| their presenters faced the camera. But the camera itself was
| panning slightly which helped, as you said, to feel less
| stuffy. Nice!
| stefan_ wrote:
| Since this is Google making the SoC, surely we have Linux drivers
| within a month for it? Already upstreamed? Some register
| documentation?
|
| I didn't check, but I suppose the answer is "no". Can't keep
| pointing at Qualcomm anymore, I guess.
| deelowe wrote:
| Google certainly didn't design all of the IP blocks from
| scratch...
| Thaxll wrote:
| Why would they release driver for hardware not available to the
| public?
| haukem wrote:
| Intel does this all the time, but they want normal Ubuntu,
| RedHat and so on to support their hardware when their
| hardware gets into the market. With these phones the hardware
| and the software is shipped together in a bundle, it is a
| different thing.
| gambiting wrote:
| What do you mean not available to the public? You can buy
| this phone now, no?
| saghm wrote:
| Usually these devices become available for pre-order on the
| day of the announcement, but take a bit longer to ship out.
| als0 wrote:
| Getting new drivers into the kernel can be a long process,
| sometimes taking months. Some companies prefer to engage
| early to minimise pressure when the device is released.
| stefan_ wrote:
| That happens all the time:
|
| https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-
| Di...
|
| Because working with upstream is not sitting in your chambers
| for years, then throwing a huge patch over at the end of it.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's not how open source works in SoC design. In fact it
| doesn't work at all an here's why: Google hasn't made the SoC
| and doesn't own the IP, it most likely bought a bunch of IP
| blocks from established vendors like Cadence, Synopys, Samsung,
| etc and fused them together to create a SoC.
|
| All those IPs come with their own license terms and NDAs that
| limit what you can do with it. You can use it in your final
| product and make money selling it, but most most IP vendors in
| the semi space will not let you open source anything about
| their design, including drivers, as that IP is their golden
| goose.
|
| If you want to blame someone for this sorry state of affairs,
| you can blame the entire semi industry starting from the EDA
| and IP vendors all the way to the fabs. It's pretty much a
| cartel and they all keep their cards close to the vest any way
| they can.
| haukem wrote:
| I haven't see this as a problem, but I am working for a
| consumer network equipment semiconductor company. I haven't
| worked with graphics drivers which could be different.
| Normally we get the driver code from Cadence and Synopsys
| under a permissive license, it can be integrated in what ever
| you want. The documentation and especially the RTL is under
| strict NDA.
|
| This driver code is often very self contained and does not
| use many or any Linux frameworks, it should be easy to
| integrate it into any operating system in any way. Normally
| you have to rewrite the driver code you get from Cadence and
| Synopsys to get it integrated in upstream Linux, because it
| does not meet the upstream Linux guidelines. This is a
| general problem with the out of tree drivers you get from the
| semiconductor industry.
|
| There are also big players in the semiconductor industry
| which demand that every code inside the Linux kernel they
| ship has to be under GPL for legal compliance.
|
| There is also not a single bad guy in the semiconductor
| industry which prevents upstream Linux support. Every player
| could do it, Google probably got most of the drivers in
| source for their Pixel phones and could have upstreamed them,
| but most of them probably need a rewrite. They could have
| offered Qualcomm some money to port support for the SoC used
| in a Pixel phone to a more recent major kernel version, I am
| pretty sure Qualcomm would have done it for the right amount
| of money.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| NXP manages to do it fairly well though. Their chips have
| excellent upstream support.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| They do, though, their chips aren't on the bleeding edge of
| performance so I guess they're less fearful of competitors
| copying their IP since MediaTek, Samsung, Nvidia and
| Qualcomm steamroll anything in NXP's offering.
|
| That's why their chips are mostly in e-readers and IoT
| devices that don't need massive processing power.
|
| Still, I'm a fan of their approach.
| eikenberry wrote:
| How do they use the GPL2'd Linux kernel then? It implements
| drivers in the kernel and the license requires that the
| source be released. Do they use tricks like nvidia and create
| a free software shim module ties in a userspace driver?
| quotemstr wrote:
| Each major release of Android has an explicitly stable
| kernel internal ABI, meaning that shipping binary drivers
| is much more viable than it was before.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Doesn't matter how easy it is if it is still illegal to
| do so.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Is anybody actually getting in trouble for shipping
| binary kernel modules?
| lima wrote:
| Presumably, they'll show up on https://android.googlesource.com
| if they haven't already.
| vadfa wrote:
| Upstreamed? Why would they want to deal with that kind of crap?
| forty wrote:
| May I ask you what experience you have with upstreaning or
| not upstreaming kernel patches that have led you to make this
| comment? (I have recently read very interesting
| articles/presentation from Netflix and Google about both
| approaches and had a conclusion opposite to yours).
|
| This is also relevant https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=
| news_item&px=Android-...
| paulpan wrote:
| Tensor SOC seems pretty impressive on paper, will be curious
| about how it benchmarks and performs in real-life. The Pixel 5
| with its "mid-tier" SOC (Snapdragon 765G) was actually pretty
| good thanks to the software optimizations.
|
| Bigger news is Qualcomm being left out. Will they go the way of
| Intel by incentivizing their customers build their own SOCs?
| _xy8h wrote:
| The bigger problem with Qualcomm is that they're primarily the
| reason why devices only got a two year span of updates and poor
| support. Each board built for each phone still had to get the
| software support starting with Qualcomm before it could be
| built with new source for updates. Outside that 2 year window,
| every device OEM had to support the hardware themselves. That's
| why new phones with older SOCs never got any updates at all.
| (Read up on Project Mainline as one attempt to mitigate this
| problem.)
|
| I'm not surprised at all that OEMs are moving towards
| own/custom SOCs or other sources. Been seeing more Motorola
| phones with Mediatek socs, Samsung has Exynos, Google now with
| Tensor.
| phh wrote:
| > The bigger problem with Qualcomm is that they're primarily
| the reason why devices only got a two year span of updates
| and poor support.
|
| All Pixels running Qualcomm got Android N+3.
|
| Pixels running Tensor will get, let me check the
| announcement, ah yes, Android N+3.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > will be curious about how it benchmarks
|
| Benchmarks are meaningless and they also took the time to
| mention that in the presentation too. As you mention, the Pixel
| 5 did fine even with the mid-tier chipset. The reality is that
| phones are rarely CPU bound, and most of the heavy tasks are
| done by specialized cores anyways.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I've been playing around with the edge TPU on a coral.ai board.
| It's very impressive - I'm able to do real time object
| detection at tens of frames per second vs one frame every 15 or
| so seconds on my CPU.
| [deleted]
| eric_b wrote:
| This will get downvoted immediately but what the heck.
|
| I understand we need better representation for people of color in
| many places - but dang Google, not a single white guy on the
| Pixel 6 page [0]?? Dozens of photos of people, not one white
| male. Sort of jarring in the reverse if you ask me.
|
| [0] https://store.google.com/product/pixel_6?hl=en-US
|
| Edit: Because the common reply to mine seems to be "Well now you
| know how it feels white man!" - I'd like to mention that I don't
| think it's good to exclude any group. I'm not sure why it's OK to
| vastly prefer one group for representation over another when the
| focus lately is on fair representation of everyone? And finally,
| to those who say "I'm surprised you even noticed" - everything in
| the media where I live is about race and skin color - literally
| to the point where the narrative is that so-called "color
| blindness" is _not_ desirable - so it 's something I'm beaten
| over the head with daily.
| ehsankia wrote:
| 1. Not true, I see at least 2 [0] [1]
|
| 2. Even if it was true, welcome to not being included for once
| in your entire life. Now maybe you can start to begin to
| understand what others have experienced basically every day of
| their life.
|
| [0]
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/s6bCli03aqnY_KvZoPaTgiFqCj...
|
| [1]
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Zq1FVWVv9GOCRJ3oHJg0PHzWgE...
| Rekombinat0r wrote:
| Those pictures don't show up on my browser when I view the
| page. The only pictures that show up are a white woman, an
| Asian man, and then 11 African people. But to address your
| examples, wherever you found them: the first one is swarthy
| Middle Eastern-looking guy who is very far away, way up in a
| building, and then one other guy guy who whose face is
| covered by the arm of a black guy. And who knows where and
| how you even managed to find those pictures.
|
| It would serve your (our (humanity's)) cause better to
| address the issue instead of lying and pretending it doesn't
| exist. You are just going to add fuel to the fire of
| reactionary populism which wastes more of humanity's time.
| busymom0 wrote:
| > welcome to not being included for once in your entire life.
| Now maybe you can start to begin to understand what others
| have experienced basically every day of their life.
|
| Your examples are proving OP's point.
|
| Your snarky response is what's wrong with the world now a
| days. I am brown but this over-pandering by companies feels
| more patronizing and condescending than genuine care. It's
| like winning an award or being hired just for being a
| specific skin color and not because of my skills.
|
| This over-correction ends up creating more animosity because
| people start wondering if their heart surgeon was hired
| because of their skin color or skills and the brown person
| starts feeling lower because they aren't sure if they got
| hired because of their skills or just to tick a checkbox on
| the diversity list.
|
| This type of over-pandering might be okay if this web page
| was localized to lets say another country with those
| demographics. But when countries like US and Canada don't
| have any representation of the largest demographic, then
| that's not genuine and mere pandering. I would even go as far
| as to say it's simply exploitation of skin color.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| Uh, there is a technical reason on demonstration as well.
| Don't try so hard to be that guy.
|
| "Take authentic, accurate portraits with Real Tone.
| Portraits on Pixel represent the nuances of different skin
| tones for all people beautifully and authentically."
| krzyk wrote:
| But that's the point, they don't show all popular skin
| tones on those portraits.
| 28921247 wrote:
| Tide ads don't show every single stain their product
| could remove. Beer ads don't show every type of person
| with a working esophagus. They're trying to get black
| people to buy Pixel phones. Let's not overthink this.
| wpietri wrote:
| That's because photography has a long history of being
| developed specifically for white people:
| https://www.vox.com/2015/9/18/9348821/photography-race-
| bias
|
| The point is that now they've broadened the range where
| the camera works well. So they are showing what's
| improved.
| wpietri wrote:
| > their heart surgeon was hired because of their skin color
|
| This may come as a surprise to you, but for most of
| American history surgeons were hired because of their skin
| color and genitals (two things not as far as I know used
| during the practice of medicine). And many probably still
| are. The number of medical degrees for women is now about
| at parity [1]. But as far as practicing physicians go, only
| 38% are women [2]. And the numbers for surgery are much
| lower. I've heard from multiple friends in medicine tell me
| that surgery has a culture that's very macho and frequently
| abusive.
|
| [1] https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/nation-s-physician-
| workfo...
|
| [2] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-
| by-gend...
| eric_b wrote:
| Your examples are hilarious and you can imagine how I missed
| those. Pretend all the photos were reversed, and those were
| the only two people of color on the whole page. Google would
| be (rightfully) chastised.
| khqc wrote:
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vAkOJHbWYn9AvxSOmlHp_1Vrz
| W...
|
| Does this meet your requirement?
| eric_b wrote:
| If you read my comment, the answer is "no". That appears
| to be a white woman, and I was specifically talking about
| white "guys" which I used to mean "males"
| [deleted]
| 28921247 wrote:
| Reversing the distribution only sounds logical if you
| reduce your sample to this one instance and ignore the
| entire history of product marketing. Which is convenient
| for some people, and totally bonkers for anyone who isn't
| CW&H.
|
| Having to squint to find anyone who even remotely resembles
| you is the lived experience of millions of people. Perhaps
| you should reflect on why you can't relate to people in an
| ad that look different from you? It's a skill that someone
| of us don't have the luxury of not developing.
| buu700 wrote:
| Is it rightful to chastise them either way? It'd be one
| thing if there were a leaked internal memo saying to
| exclude a particular race, but this could just as easily be
| the result of a marketing intern arbitrarily selecting
| stock photos.
|
| Personally, I also didn't notice the presence of white men
| or lack thereof until you brought it up.
| bduerst wrote:
| Yeah this "what about white men?" doesn't feel genuine
| given there _is_ a white man on the page, the new tensor
| feature for detecting POC, historical context of
| marketing in general, and the fact the Apple iphone page
| is comparable...
| dexterdog wrote:
| In what statistical universe could it have played out
| like it did?
| smt88 wrote:
| Any random one, just as it's possible to flip a coin and
| get heads a few times in a row.
| JaggedJax wrote:
| For me, the very first picture on the original article is of a
| white woman. Most of the rest of the photos lower on that page
| and on the page you specifically linked to are showing off that
| their camera captures authentic skin tone, which is known to
| have historically worked well for white skin tones and poor for
| darker skin tones for pretty much the entire history of phone
| cameras. So to me this comes across as a good advertisement
| that their camera takes much more accurate photos than other
| phones.
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| White people don't count towards diversity. White people are
| the status quo. White people don't need to be represented in
| every situation. White people are over represented in tech and
| seeing white people in the minority is refreshing. Would you
| have the same opinion if there were no people of color? Would
| you voice that concern?
| krzyk wrote:
| Why do you think white people are over represented in tech
| (you forgot about Asians, which are there also)?
|
| Because they are interested in it. Just like some like math,
| others like sports.
|
| Why e.g. women are the majority of teachers (at least in my
| country)? They like to teach, are good with children.
|
| That's natural and you won't change that with ads that
| reverse the ethnic proportions in given country.
| ir123 wrote:
| Are you insinuating that certain races are "naturally" more
| inclined to be interested in math and tech?
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| This is a systemic way of thinking. "Oh, most of the people
| working in this industry is one thing, let's isolate this
| group further and discourage others from joining". That's
| how you sound.
|
| Also, depending what on the source white people (in the US)
| account for between 60 to 70 percent of the tech work
| force.
| krzyk wrote:
| Why discourage? How? By doing what?
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| Please research systemic racism in the tech industry. PoC
| have harder times getting interviews, getting a second
| interview, finding mentors, getting raises, getting
| promotions, etc. These all discourage non white people
| from entering the industry.
| silisili wrote:
| White people make up 73% of the US population. According
| to your own statistics, they are then underrepresented.
| randomopining wrote:
| Thought you started out sarcastic, then realized you might
| not be sarcastic.
|
| Amazing that people went from "we need all colors represented
| in ads as best as possible" which was completely reasonable,
| to "maybe we don't need white people in ads at all sometimes,
| ok? maybe it's a good thing!" which is objectively an absurd
| stance.
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| What's so absurd? Often people of color are left out, why
| not the reverse? Your view stinks of privilege.
| ir123 wrote:
| I'm genuinely asking, are you insecure that white people
| might be left out for good or something?
|
| I don't get how some occasional over representation of
| minorities bothers people this much.
|
| It wouldn't bother me a bit if it happened in my country.
| onion2k wrote:
| This is the price we pay for our history. You might think it's
| unfair, and you might think equal numbers would be better, but
| given how shit the entire marketing industry has been to non-
| whites for decades maybe it's not completely unreasonable to
| swing to the other extreme for a while.
| rcatcher wrote:
| Why do some "white" immigrants who came to the US recently
| have to pay for something people in the US hundred years ago
| did?
| nsonha wrote:
| I think the end game is no one should care about this sort of
| thing, so let the people who still care have it.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| To be honest, I couldn't get to the end of the page, and not
| because of the lack of white males.
|
| Scrolling is broken, images bounce all over the place, it is
| slow, laggy, how can Google make such a terrible page? I am
| using an older phone, it is not a beast, but most of the web
| works fine, maybe it is a way for Google to tell me I should
| upgrade to their new phone.
|
| There seem to be a general trend of hijacking the scrollbar in
| product presentation pages, I don't know why but Google is
| particularly terrible at that. Also, it doesn't seem to get the
| idea that you may want to use a language that is not the
| language of the country your connection originates from. For
| example your URL explicitly specifies English but I get the
| French page because I am in France.
| whalabi wrote:
| Not sure you're being fair here.
|
| There's roughly 2 dozen photos of people on the page, 2 of
| which appear to be white-ish men.
|
| One whole section of six photos is explicitly there to
| demonstrate that their cameras now work as well for people who
| aren't white. Itself an issue of underrepresentation.
|
| Several others appear to be white-ish women.
|
| You say "I'm not sure why it's ok to vastly prefer one group
| for representation" but there's many groups represented, black,
| white, Asian, and men and women of each. The fact you see "non-
| whites" as one "group" is a little odd. It doesn't seem good to
| me.
|
| And of course the main point is that if you total the
| representation in society, white males are still massively,
| incredibly overrepresented, so I don't think it was really
| necessary to make this post.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yep, welcome to the woke world where racism is at the front and
| center, instead of pushing it behind us and calling everyone a
| human. Slack is begging me to choose a skin color for my emoji.
|
| Everything about this culture is _extremely_ off-putting to me.
| I am an immigrant to USA and a person of color if that matters,
| I didn 't sign up for this and really don't want this culture
| in the place I now consider home.
| y4mi wrote:
| I'm amazed you even noticed.
|
| going through it some look pretty white though. ill be the
| first to admit that i'm not particularly good at classifying
| people, but this one in particularly looked like a white male
|
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/s6bCli03aqnY_KvZoPaTgiFqCj...
| christophilus wrote:
| I don't know what you're talking about. This guy[0] looks white
| to me. As does this guy[1]. I'm white, and those guys look like
| they could be my brothers.
|
| [0]
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DPnlGlqAvyUh51bNizF0EIC6Pk...
| [1]
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/s6bCli03aqnY_KvZoPaTgiFqCj...
| lucasgonze wrote:
| You're precisely missing the point. There is a new feature to
| better capture non-white skin tones. Those photos are to
| illustrate a product benefit.
|
| https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RealTone&src=typed_query&f=t...
| [deleted]
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| I'd be on board with that reasoning, but at the same time it
| is quite rare to see an able-bodied white man on the "Google
| Doodles" (where Google highlights people from history). At
| some point it does feel like they go out of their way to
| exclude that demographic.
| coryfklein wrote:
| > to better capture non-white skin tones
|
| The copy on the page itself seems to disagree with you
|
| > Portraits on Pixel represent the nuances of different skin
| tones for *all people* beautifully and authentically.
|
| (Emphasis mine)
|
| There does seem to be a discrepancy between the copy saying
| "all people" and the photos above that paragraph only
| including individuals with darker skin.
|
| Edit: I'm acknowledging that there are photos of white males
| elsewhere on the page, but I think my comment's parent is
| specifically talking about that one section?
| 28921247 wrote:
| Unfortunately, since there are more than 7B people alive on
| earth and several more billion people who are dead, it
| would be quite difficult to feature literally all people in
| the copy. So they, like absolutely every product marketing
| copy that has ever featured people in the history of
| everything, included the people for which the actual
| product featured is targeting.
|
| Aside from that, you can also infer from the negative view
| that the copy is implying that other phones do not
| represent the nuances of all people, which is the reason
| that they said it to begin with.
|
| But you knew that already, didn't you?
| kaba0 wrote:
| Maybe because it already took great photos of white people?
| coryfklein wrote:
| Yeah this is probably the best explanation. Elsewhere on
| the page you can see examples of photos of lighter skin-
| toned individuals, and when viewed holistically - both
| photos and copy - this particular section is actually
| trying to communicate that the camera can capture well
| _darker_ skin tones. But I guess it's rude to
| specifically say it that way, and more "inclusive" to
| simply say "all people".
| cyral wrote:
| Yeah, the explanation is literally right above the pictures:
| "Portraits on Pixel represent the nuances of different skin
| tones for all people beautifully and authentically."
| dopamean wrote:
| This may be obvious to the previous two commenters but I
| want to specifically add that a lot of camera tech is not
| great capturing darker skinned people. This has been an
| issue perhaps as long as the camera has been around.
| Clearly google did some work to address that and want to
| show it on the page.
|
| I'm going to assume that because the copy just says "skin
| tones" and doesn't specifically call out darker skin the gp
| (or whatever the first commenter is) is confused by what
| they're seeing and reading.
| freeAgent wrote:
| Are they talking about how they've improved skin tone
| representation for all people, in which case I would expect
| more variation of skin tone in those photos, or are they
| saying that they improved representation of skin tones
| which contain more melanin? They literally said "all
| people," but I assume they actually mean the latter based
| on the representative photos.
| wffurr wrote:
| They already took fantastic pictures of light skinned
| folks.
| eric_b wrote:
| Did you go to the page I linked to? That is only one section
| of many photos.
| e9 wrote:
| I actually don't think this is why they did it. I only know
| white males who use Android. Period. They already got that
| market. Therefore there is no point for them to advertise to
| white males. You always advertise to demographic you want.
| seneca wrote:
| It really has gotten incredibly heavy handed. Their entire
| marketing campaign for this phone seems to primarily focus on
| social engineering.
| 1_player wrote:
| All big companies are adopting this kind of behaviour: show
| we're inclusive by having as few white heterosexual men as
| possible.
|
| We're still decades away from racial and sexual integration
| and equality.
| howinteresting wrote:
| It is frankly ridiculous to call better photos for people of
| color -- particularly Black people -- "social engineering".
| There is a very long history of photography methods
| discriminating against darker skin tones, stretching back at
| least a century.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/lens/sarah-lewis-
| racial-b...
|
| https://petapixel.com/2015/09/19/heres-a-look-at-how-
| color-f...
|
| This is a real issue of racial and ethnic justice with
| material consequences.
| phponpcp wrote:
| Does it bother anyone else that Google is basically saying
| "How can we use race/gender as a driver for selling phones."
| 28921247 wrote:
| Not really. Google wants black people to buy their phones
| because a featured they developed works better for their
| skin tone. Should companies who make smaller handsets be
| barred from advertising to women?
| 1_player wrote:
| Do you think black people striving for equality are
| looking for companies putting black people on their ads?
| They want equality, not their struggle to be washed away
| by bullshit empty posturing.
|
| "Want to end racism? Stop talking about it. I'll stop
| calling you a white man if you stop calling me a black
| man."
|
| - Morgan Freeman
| 28921247 wrote:
| > Do you think black people striving for equality are
| looking for companies putting black people on their ads?
|
| Absolutely. How else would a person with attributes
| typically ignored know that a product was designed for
| them? Ethnic hair care products is another example. Do
| you think only white people should be in ads for hair
| care products for African Americans?
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Do you think that finally tuning their photo processing
| software to produce good results for people with darker
| skin tones (to match the good results they already had
| for lighter skin tones) is empty posturing?
|
| They literally acted instead of talking about it.
| 0xebc wrote:
| The reason why you're seeing this more and more is because
| White liberals are the only self-hating subgroup [0].
|
| "Remarkably, white liberals were the only subgroup exhibiting a
| pro-outgroup bias--meaning white liberals were more favorable
| toward nonwhites and are the only group to show this preference
| for group other than their own. Indeed, on average, white
| liberals rated ethnic and racial minority groups 13 points (or
| half a standard deviation) warmer than whites."
|
| [0] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-
| wh...
| benlivengood wrote:
| Practically, there are more races and nationalities than there
| are people in most advertisements. Once in a while white men
| (like me) will get left out in a fair process for choosing
| models.
| randomopining wrote:
| Agree 100% and upvoted.
|
| But it's never enough for these types of people that want to
| push their narrative forward and over anything that stands in
| it's way. There's never an end to it until the collective just
| says "No".
|
| You can fight it with agree-and-amplify: "Well Google you
| included dark skinned people of west african descent, but none
| of east african. I won't buy your product."
|
| "Well google you only included asians of Han origin, and none
| of Mongolian descent"
| kaba0 wrote:
| Hyperbole is a logical fallacy, just for your information.
| wffurr wrote:
| How interesting that this clearly made made you uncomfortable.
| I imagine it's similar to how people of color feel when seeing
| seas of white faces on product pages past.
| eric_b wrote:
| That was my point. It's ridiculous whichever extreme they
| choose. In 2021 when everything is about race and equity, I
| find it telling who its OK to exclude. Why couldn't they just
| have it be equal across the board?
| gremIin wrote:
| Is it really that ridiculous to put minorities in the
| spotlight for a few years? Try watching a "popular" movie
| from the 70s, 80s, 90s, or early 00s (e.g. Star Wars or
| Lords of the Rings). It is very depressing how blatantly
| they are excluded.
|
| Featuring minorities for a while isn't that big of a deal.
| It would be an incredible moral failing if we pretended
| racial representation is all fine now.
| [deleted]
| seneca wrote:
| > I imagine it's similar to how people of color feel when
| seeing seas of white faces on product pages past.
|
| This is an American company. The US is largely white. A
| product page for an Indian company wouldn't shock anyone by
| primarily including Indian faces.
| eklavya wrote:
| Even though I agree with your sentiment, you would be
| surprised just how many ads in India include foreigners
| (all white) exclusively, it's fucking ridiculous :D
|
| What's frustrating is that almost nobody cares or is
| frustrated by it :D
| seneca wrote:
| That's actually really interesting. I wonder if there has
| been any research around this preferred marketing race
| phenomenon. It's interesting that an asian country would
| show preference for whites, while a white country shows
| preference for non-whites.
|
| In the US the motivation is entirely political (and a
| meta layer of playing to political interests). What's the
| related phenomenon in India about, in your opinion?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Lighter skin is a near-universal beauty ideal, including
| in cultures with no love of the West. It's apparently
| biological, and nobody's sure why it's a thing.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Also nobody seems older than 30.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Thanks for you country redirection Google! I simply can't see
| this page because your country redirection prevents me.
| [deleted]
| hu3 wrote:
| This should work:
|
| https://store.google.com/us
| PennRobotics wrote:
| I was excited about these but realized it's probably because
| Google put so much effort into marketing. The phone is
| unspectacular and has a wacky design that doesn't hit the spot
| for me.
|
| At the end of the day, there's a huge focus on photography, live
| transcribe, and extended support. From my perspective, that's
| their hook.
|
| For photography, I have a Sony Alpha with OIS, etc. Live
| Transcribe has been a Google Research app for months, so it's not
| unique to the 6 or even to the Pixel lineup. Companies like
| Fairphone are fighting to bring long-term support to Android, and
| the major players are slowly coming around e.g. Samsung.
|
| For me, the downsides include the appearance (smooth, shiny,
| uniform glass on both sides; dull two-tone colors), unnecessary
| curved screen on the Pro, lack of a headphone jack, virtually no
| mention of audio quality or tuning of the onboard
| speaker/microphones, giant size, and plenty of features I won't
| use (wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, security chip,
| 120Hz display). The fingerprint scanner seems better in review
| videos than the Fairphone 3's abysmal sensor but is in an awkward
| location if you pull the phone from a pocket with one hand---
| probably the second worst location, TBH, with the worst being
| next to the USB port on the bottom edge. Of all the silly nuances
| (protruding camera, curved glass) the fingerprint sensor location
| is most likely to drive me to put a case around this phone. A
| case isn't a bad idea either; it would hide the weak exterior
| design, keep your palms from accidentally touching the waterfall
| display, and make the thing so bulky and uncomfortable, you'd
| never put it in a pocket and risk bending the frame. It's good
| the software support doesn't last longer than 5 years, because if
| it survives this long, every non-camera hardware feature would be
| an annoyance. This is purely my opinion.
|
| I don't want to financially support the assembly country, as I
| disagree with their style of government, stronghold on entire
| industries, and widely rumored aggression toward outsiders and
| the lower class. They're almost as bad as the U.S.
|
| In short, the price is right. The features feel almost all wrong.
|
| -----
|
| Even the bonus deal misses the mark. In Europe, they're including
| Bose NC headphones. But ... I already have wireless NC
| headphones, so I'd need to resell either NC pair, then sell my
| Beyerdynamic wired headphones, then throw away my wired buds, and
| optionally buy a set of wireless earbuds. At the risk of
| irritating the North American Pixel 6 buyers who would love some
| Bose 700s, I'd rather have the phone for a lower price or have
| not-so-awesome Pixel earbuds as a bonus.
|
| -----
|
| On skin tone: Does every smartphone manufacturer develop their
| own system camera app from the ground up? If most phone makers
| have camera apps based on Google Camera (just as most browsers
| are based on Chrome), it's a bit of a dick move for Google to
| declare great progress in skin tone photography and inclusiveness
| unless your company is gonna share those algorithms with other
| Android partners. You know... since Android is also made by
| Google, and the skin tone correction is likely performed 100
| percent by software. I mean, why not just press release, "Black
| people, dark-skinned Latinos: you all matter to us, ... UNLESS
| you buy an Xperia or Oneplus running our OS and system apps!"
|
| -----
|
| Here's to hoping the Pixel 7 focuses on audio, physical
| durability, and repairability without sacrificing a good
| IP66/67/68 rating.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Another garbage phone to show off. Google Pixel has been highly
| unreliable. My OG pixel XL bricked twice within 2 years. My Pixel
| 3 had defects that forced me to take calls on speaker phone
| otherwise the mic wouldn't work after the warranty expired.
|
| Meanwhile, my wife is still rocking the iPhone 7 with some
| degradation in battery life, but pretty much everything else
| working as it should. I don't regret jumping into the Apple
| coolaid one bit.
|
| I wish instead of "cool features", they'd spend some time
| improving their supply chain. You expect some quality from a
| $1000 phone. And in case it seems subjective, look up lawsuits
| for faulty hardware for pixel phones. I'm not making this up.
| danellis wrote:
| What about it is garbage?
| wffurr wrote:
| My Pixel 2 was solid and reliable up until it stopped getting
| security updates last year. One year in on a Pixel 4a and zero
| complaints with it so far.
| williamscs wrote:
| Maybe it's an odd-number issue with the Pixels? My wife is
| using my old Pixel 2 with reduced battery life, but otherwise
| no issues. My Pixel 4 XL is still working great.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I've had Pixel XL, 2XL, 3, 4XL and 5. They've all worked 3-4
| years (I pass them on to various members of my family). The
| only one I had any issues with was the 4XL, with the back
| plate peeling off, and Support just swapped it for me after
| 5m online chat.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| DUPE of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28920140
| bilalq wrote:
| When I first read about the Pixel Pass, I wished it made sense
| for people on existing family plans. But digging deeper, I see
| that's the least of the problems there.
|
| Some red flags:
|
| * If/when you cancel Pixel Pass in the future, it will also
| cancel your Google One membership. If you're over the 15GB free
| tier, your email will stop working (!!!)[0].
|
| * You have to cancel your existing YouTube Premium subscription
| before you can sign up.
|
| [0]:
| https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9056360?hl=en&co...
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Their claim of "Save up to $294 over two years" seems to be
| based on monthly rather than annual prices too. If you get to
| checkout, they list "Pixel Pass services (Google One 200GB)" as
| $17.97/mo. Annual prices for Google One and Play Pass are both
| $29.99. Add in YouTube Premium which doesn't have an annual
| plan for $11.99, and you're looking at $17/mo.
|
| So the real savings are entirely from the phone + warranty
| where you'll save about $200 on the Pixel 6 Pro, but you're
| still forced to buy all those Google services you may or may
| not need.
|
| I'm also on a family plan (with the grandfathered YouTube
| pricing), so it doesn't seem to be worth it.
| Sodman wrote:
| I hate the trend that the "pro" versions of all these flagship
| phones need to be an XL Phablet monstrosity. Human hands haven't
| gotten any bigger. I have owned most of the Nexus & Pixel phones
| throughout the years. After having the Nexus 6 as my daily driver
| for 2 years, I have always opted for the smaller option ever
| since.
|
| I would totally pay flagship prices for a regular ~5.5-6" phone
| with flagship specs, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Make it
| 50% thicker if there are space/heat concerns, but making it wider
| and taller just makes it super difficult to use consistently with
| one hand. I also say this as somebody with larger-than-average
| hands!
| executive wrote:
| https://www.asus.com/Mobile/Phones/ZenFone/Zenfone-8/
| spinax wrote:
| From a quick look at tech specs from a few sources (asus,
| gsmarena, etc.) the USA version lacks 5G band n41, which is
| the backbone of T-Mobile (+Sprint).
| qwertygnu wrote:
| Recently spent a long time agonizing over getting a new
| phone. This is the only phone that checked all my boxes
| (small, decent ram, storage and camera, headphone jack...)
| but it doesn't work on Verizon :(
|
| Went with the Pixel 4a, we'll see how it goes
| layer8 wrote:
| The Zenfone is still significantly larger and heavier than
| the iPhone mini, which for me is already at the upper limit
| for one-handed use.
| executive wrote:
| Bit larger yes, just under 1oz heavier... not too
| significant. And headphone jack, no notch (dealbreaker in
| 2021), no CSAM.
| layer8 wrote:
| I already found the increase in size and weight from
| iPhone SE (2016) to iPhone mini quite significant, so...
| YMMV.
| jeltz wrote:
| Yes! I have small hands and can barely use the Pixel 5, which
| was the smallest Android phone of the largest generation. And
| now it seems like Pixel 6 has also become a fablet.
| f6v wrote:
| > A pocket-sized personal security guard.
|
| My slim fit jeans say "no". Seriously, how big do people want
| their phones to be?
| [deleted]
| tromp wrote:
| As big as fits my belly pouch. I realize I'm the odd one out
| though...
| ricardobeat wrote:
| The link doesn't work in other countries, is there a press
| release somewhere?
| Ninjinka wrote:
| Why is the subscription purchase option for the Pixel 6 Pro
| saying "From $689.72 or $28.74/mo for 24 months"? Is it really
| $209.28 cheaper than just buying the phone?
| ac29 wrote:
| 28.74*24=689.76
| [deleted]
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Come on Google, continue what you did with Coral, give us an SBC
| with this processor and mainline Linux support.
|
| Just be cool. Let me build my own thing with this.
| [deleted]
| yonaguska wrote:
| Biggest complaint is fast wireless charging limited to their own
| wireless charger.
|
| I had a really hard time finding an in-stock fast wireless
| charger for my pixel 3, and ended up just not purchasing it. Kind
| of a pain since the usb-c charger is always getting gunked up
| from putting the phone in my pocket.
| sekou wrote:
| One of the more compelling new features looks to be Live
| Translate built into the keyboard for 48 languages using Private
| Compute Core. I'd be curious about accuracy but I'm glad things
| moving forward in that space.
| brianmcc wrote:
| 0% APR finance over 2 years in the UK, interesting. Never seen
| that before. Will definitely wait and see though, my Pixel 4 was
| terribly disappointing (woeful battery and tiny screen).
| colordrops wrote:
| I'm interested in pixel devices since they are supported by
| GrapheneOS. Is there any concern of hardware spying by google
| even if using an alternative secure OS without google services
| and applications?
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Not really, the compute enclaves are for privacy rather than
| remote management. (So nothing as nefarious as Intel vPro)
| joemazerino wrote:
| The Titan M and Pixel firmware images are closed source. If you
| can stomach those caveats your data should be safe with a
| Pixel.
| farnsworth wrote:
| The store is working but it won't connect with my Verizon account
| to let me check out. If anything was going to go wrong, of course
| it's integrating with Verizon. Have had so many issues with their
| website.
| short12 wrote:
| They deliver a terrible shopping experience whenever they
| launch anything. At this point I just assume it is intentional
| because there is no way Google can't handle the demand and
| connections to order
| dzader wrote:
| they just have really bad engineers :/
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| What is the warranty experience like on earlier Pixels?
|
| I've heard some bad things about Google's consumer-electronics-
| side customer service, but I don't know how representative those
| stories are.
|
| I dislike iOS, but AppleCare+ is the one thing that tempts me to
| go back to iPhones. If, after spending my entire work day writing
| code and fixing bugs, I have a problem with my phone, being able
| to say "you know, screw it, this is is a problem for the Genius
| Bar" has a very strong appeal.
| krzyk wrote:
| No Face Unlock, bummer.
|
| Rumors where that it will be in the 6 Pro, but technical
| specification doesn't mention it.
|
| So I'm staying with Pixel 4, yet another year.
| bduerst wrote:
| I thought face unlock has been a security vector for the
| iPhone, and that even Apple is thinking of dropping it?
| krzyk wrote:
| It doesn't look like it, they still release phones
| exclusively with face unlock.
|
| What security issues can it have? Fingerprint sensors could
| be fooled with less work.
|
| And fingerprint sensors don't work always (e.g. for me they
| don't).
| bduerst wrote:
| Hmm, I thought Apple had switched to requiring pin/watch
| for face ID unlocks because they were not totally secure.
|
| The same could be said for fingerprint though. I think the
| more secure biometric unlocks require the occasional pin
| verification anyways.
| o_____________o wrote:
| Switched to iPhone last year and can't believe how bad iOS is
| generally. Feels years behind. Missing Android!
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| I'm about to switch in the other direction because there are
| iOS-only apps that I want to run. Plus, because of higher
| resale value, iOS devices cost less.
|
| I already have an iPad which is probably my favorite device to
| use. I might end up taking another look at Android when Google
| finally releases their Shortcuts clone.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| That's how Android felt for me. Too many knobs, and a lack of
| good apps. I'll take Apple's integration over what amounts to
| nothing any day of the week.
| postalrat wrote:
| What are these good apps? I'd like to check some out.
| kubb wrote:
| Not available in my country. That's fine, I'll just buy an
| iPhone.
| jjice wrote:
| I don't really pay attention to smart phone specs (I stick to
| cheapo android phones), but holy cow - 12GB of ram in a phone?
| Better than my work computer and my personal laptop. Kinda neat
| to see. Aside from it being neat, I sure hope to god I'd never
| need that much ram for what I use a phone for.
| DCKing wrote:
| Thanks Google. Think I'll be buying this.
|
| I want as little to do with Google's services as possible in my
| life, but they really deserve credits for making a modern usable
| smartphone that is reasonably open. There is just one single
| feature I will be buying this for - the 5 years of software
| updates. While good image processing is definitely a pro, all of
| these software you're presenting features I really don't give a
| damn about. Just give me a phone that is meant to last a little
| while - and allow me to run what I damn please. This looks to be
| like a continuation of the Pixel 5, which allows you run your own
| software like /e/OS and CalyxOS aside to just being a lot less of
| a walled garden on the stock ROM.
|
| The Android market is completely dire, and no vendor can be
| trusted to provide openness, reasonable taste or security
| updates. They sell you a phone, and once you've clicked buy
| they've already stopped caring. So last year I switched to an
| iPhone 12. I needed to vote with my wallet to get a phone that
| lasts. But although I get what's appealing about iPhones and the
| walled garden, I started feeling claustrophobic. Feeling
| claustrophobic about what I can tailor about my browser, how
| easily I can run Game Boy games, what ads I can block, and
| Apple's stated intents to actively incriminate you by scanning
| your photos on a personal device. I will continue to recommend
| those phones for most people (pending what they're going to do
| with trying to incriminate you), but it's not for me.
|
| Finally here's a seemingly good Android phone with 5 years of
| support - from the only phone vendor outside of Apple who appears
| to give a damn about that aspect. Don't get me wrong: 5 years is
| still too short in my view, and not as long as Apple provides
| support for on their stuff [1]. But the market needs change, and
| I'll put money towards that.
|
| [1]: The iPhone 5S has just hit 8 years of _kernel_ security
| updates last month with iOS 12.5.5. One can dream on the Android
| side, but I'll take 5 years in the current market.
| meetups323 wrote:
| Do you think Google doesn't scan photos uploaded to its cloud
| services for CSAM?
| aaomidi wrote:
| Do you understand how it's different when it's on their
| servers vs having the functionality to scan for anything they
| want on your phone?
|
| We don't need to have this discussion again. Please go
| research the hundreds of thousands of discussions and blog
| posts about how what apple is proposing to do is entirely
| different.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yes, I understand.
|
| When they scan it on my phone, they don't need to scan it
| in the cloud. They have one less reason to touch my stuff
| when it's on their servers. One step closer to full E2EE.
|
| Every major cloud provider is already scanning every photo
| you put up and in most cases without any human review. Your
| photo gets flagged and it's good bye account. Next step: HN
| front page to maybe get a human to look at your case.
| 0des wrote:
| > We don't need to have this discussion again.
|
| There's no need for this tone. People will disagree, and
| that's what makes this place great.
| aaomidi wrote:
| This isn't disagreeing. This is not doing basic reading
| before commenting.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Do you understand how it 's different when it's on
| their servers vs having the functionality to scan for
| anything they want on your phone?_"
|
| It's this kind of casual fearmongering which stops people
| from accurately understanding.
|
| What makes you think Apple doesn't _already_ have the
| functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone,
| given that they built a phone content scanner a decade ago
| for the iTunes Match service and a photo tagger and
| analyser which does run on the phone, and they control
| everything about the software?
|
| What makes you think Google _doesn 't_ have the
| functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone,
| or couldn't add it if they wanted to? Have you the source
| code for the Google Play services? The internal chip
| firmwares? Have you studied Google's terms and conditions
| in enough detail to be certain they can't move any such
| checks client side without telling you? And they also do
| analyse photos on-device and tag their content for normal
| use.
|
| Why do you trust that Google isn't doing anything snitchy
| or on behalf of the authorities, but when Apple announces
| that they won't and designs a system which makes it hard
| for them to do that, then you assume they will? Not even
| quietly cynically suspect that they might, but spreading as
| a fact that they definitely will.
| dopamean wrote:
| I don't understand replies like this one I keep seeing on HN.
| I thought the controversy around what apple wanted to do was
| that it was happening on device and not in the cloud. The
| user you're replying to made that distinction so what gives?
| godelski wrote:
| A big thing too is that Apple sells itself as privacy
| preserving. Google doesn't. It's one thing if someone says
| something they aren't and another thing if someone never
| makes that promise.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be
| uploaded anyway on-device before upload.
|
| Using that they could add multiple redundancies and they
| wouldn't need to look at your stuff on the cloud at all
| before getting multiple positive matches. And even then the
| first level is a human checking if it's an actual match or
| a false positive.
|
| This was somehow a huge invasion of privacy, when people
| were competing on who could misunderstand the very simple
| premise the most.
| howinteresting wrote:
| It is generally a good practice to steelman the opposing
| argument.
|
| In this case, the steelman is that Apple has turned a
| capability barrier (if your scanning is on the cloud, you
| simply cannot scan local photos) into a policy barrier
| (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the
| software which means you don't do so.)
| Duralias wrote:
| > Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be
| uploaded anyway on-device before upload.
|
| Fairly sure that most of the worry around that was
| because such a system could very easily be changed to do
| the same to any photo.
|
| And people felt like their phone wasn't theirs and that
| it could snitch on you. _We_ know that you truly do not
| _own_ your phone, but most people do not view it that
| way.
|
| Sure, it is technically better than doing that check on
| on a server, but the general public do not currently view
| it that way.
|
| Personally do not like the system as you would be unable
| to escape it if it started scanning local photos (which I
| feel is only a matter of time), something you can with
| google drive and such, by not using them.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Don't move the goal posts. On-device scanning has a
| qualitatively different privacy impact from scanning photos
| inside cloud storage.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| Why do people prefer the scanning on the cloud storage?
| That means it will never be encrypted and stored
| unencrypted on HDD's in someone else's computer.
|
| 'scan -> encrypt -> upload' is in my opinion better than
| 'upload -> scan'
| Deathmax wrote:
| Which would justify Apple using on-device scanning more
| if iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, except that it isn't.
| Apple has the technical capability to decrypt photos
| stored on iCloud, so why risk the slippery slope and
| governments applying pressure to expand local scanning to
| more than just what is going to be uploaded.
| kaba0 wrote:
| What about on-device scanning just before syncing it up to
| the server?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| The commenter implied that they plan to use a non stock ROM,
| presumably to get their data and device away from Google
| cloud services.
| DCKing wrote:
| I'm aware of Google's scanning. I'm even inclined to support
| them doing that.
|
| What I like about the standard Google Photos/Dropbox/OneDrive
| approach is that it's no secret you upload your photos to
| their computers, where they process them. They process them
| for useful features, and they process them to catch child
| abuse. But I understand clearly I upload it from my device to
| another device, and that other device can process these
| photos. I'm not a Google Photos customer mind you (as stated,
| I prefer other services than Google's), but I understand the
| premise, value add and what they do with my stuff on their
| computers. It's not my device incriminating me, it's someone
| else's device that does that, someone else's device I chose
| to send my things to. I understand that relationship.
|
| I will not accept a relationship with a device I own,
| situated on my desk or in my pocket, where it try to start a
| process to incriminate me. That's not processing a personal
| device should be engaging in, even if this starts out gated
| behind the heavily pushed iCloud Photos (it's technically opt
| in), even if the solution is technically sophisticated (it
| is), and even if there exist definitions of "privacy
| friendly" where this approach is more privacy friendly (you
| can argue that all day long). I just don't want a personal
| device to do this. If Apple wants to draw the line somewhere
| else than I want to draw it, that means I probably should not
| support that.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Precisely this.
|
| I don't care what happens in the cloud. What bothers me is
| the precedent that Apple sets by shipping iOS with
| `scanPhotoForIllegalContent()` and `reportUserToPolice()`
| functions. This code is working against the user's
| interests. As of now, these functions only run on photos
| that have already been iCloud synced, and they only look
| for CSAM, but they could easily expand this later on by
| changing a few lines of code or adding to the hash
| database.
|
| To be clear, I think CSAM is absolutely disgusting and I
| want those in possession of it to be prosecuted. But
| scanning local photos is crossing a line. (I'm sure they
| catch most pedos through server-side scanning already
| anyway.) Besides, the only reason Apple gets away with this
| is because iOS is closed source. If Google tried to pull
| this shit on a Pixel phone, you could just install a
| different ROM.
| qwertox wrote:
| Software support is 5 years in security upgrades and 3 in OS
| upgrades [1] (at minimum, so it depends on their mood).
|
| In my case it's -1 year because I prefer to wait up to a year
| until I get a good deal, and then there's always the option to
| put LineageOS on the Pixel devices [2].
|
| [1] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
|
| [2] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| >> Apple's stated intents to actively incriminate you by
| scanning your photos on a personal device
|
| You do realize that Google also scans your images for CP, and
| furthermore that Google's current business model is literally
| surveillance advertisement, right?
| bduerst wrote:
| Just FYI, Google has gone on the record to say they don't use
| Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes,
| unless they ask for the user's explicit permission first. The
| hoopla with Apple doing on-device scanning is that Apple has
| invested heavily into marketing it's privacy focus claims.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Sounds like they want to run a degoogled ROM on their device,
| which is paradoxically much easier with the Google Pixel line
| than other devices out there.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Apple's stated intents to actively incriminate you by
| scanning your photos on a personal device
|
| More accurately put, their intent is to scan cloud photos for
| exact matches with known child pornography material (like every
| other cloud provider, including Google), and then have the case
| reviewed by a human only after multiple positives, and only
| then forwarding the case to law enforcement (based on photos
| you chose to upload to the cloud)
| alexmcc81 wrote:
| > exact matches
|
| Not exact matches. Hashes. Hashes that were quickly show to
| have collisions that the company brushed off.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Accurate, but note that intent as OP referred to is not the
| same as implementation. Fucking up doesn't mean you
| intended to fuck up.
|
| With Google you can be absolutely sure that their intent is
| to eat all your personal information and data for short-
| term profit. With Apple it was "just" a stupid attempt at
| legal (over?) compliance.
| psychometry wrote:
| Thus the manual review. No one's going to be going to
| prison over a hash collision here.
| gameman144 wrote:
| But a manual reviewer in Cupertino or elsewhere still
| gets access to your personal (possibly very intimate or
| otherwise private) photos. Privacy from law enforcement
| is hardly the only privacy that people value.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| If you desire privacy, never upload your images to any
| cloud service that doesn't offer true end-to-end
| encryption of the data (that is, one where they do not
| have the key). Use a service where data is only
| decryptable on your own devices or devices that you
| personally authorize. Which is, presently, none of the
| popular services that I'm aware of.
| kemayo wrote:
| It's even probably the right choice for a popular service
| to have made.
|
| Full E2E encryption is going to trigger nightmare "I lost
| all my photos" customer-service stories when people
| forget their passwords... which is acceptable when you
| deliberately signed up for a service where security was
| the selling point, but not great for someone who bought a
| mass-market phone.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Yep. See the perennial complaint about Signal as a
| demonstration of that. They don't persist your messages
| across devices on privacy/security grounds. That's fine,
| it's why I use it (or one motivation for me to use it).
| But it's contrary to what many people expect from that
| kind of service.
| threeseed wrote:
| They would only have access to the photos that are being
| reviewed.
|
| And you can either choose between (a) someone having to
| see your photos or (b) relying on an automated but
| imperfect process. You have to pick one.
| sulam wrote:
| Uh, can't I choose not to have my private images scanned?
| I think that's still a choice, right?
| kemayo wrote:
| It is, but it's perhaps incompatible with uploading your
| private images to a cloud service.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I used to work in the same building, as a department with
| legal authorities (purposefully vague here), and the burn
| out rate was astronomical.
|
| Good, descent people, waking up screaming, cold shakes,
| permanently damaged from what they could not unsee.
|
| You couldn't pay me enough to go through images of such
| sickness.
|
| Outside of all the yes/no, on/off phone stuff, how are
| they going to hire, and keep staffed, a department of
| people having to look at this stuff.
|
| How are they going to insure it?!
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Right. Requiring exact matches for this kind of material
| is absurd as a single pixel change would foil any
| detection. So everyone, practically speaking, trying to
| detect it is going to use some form of hash algorithms.
| And every hash algorithm, by definition, permits
| potential collisions and false positives. Which is why
| any sensible program will use a manual review process
| before pushing anything forward to law enforcement.
| Apple's system, requiring ~30 matches, means that you'd
| have to have 30 or so false positives that _also_ happen
| to look like CSAM to manual reviewers to end up getting a
| false case sent off to law enforcement.
| servercobra wrote:
| They probably brushed them off because a
| malicious/accidental hash collision would lead to a human
| reviewing them and then not going to law enforcement.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Or they will, depending on reviewer, photo clarity,
| current political climate, potentially location and so
| on. You have no say in this process, nor anybody else on
| this forum, or elsewhere.
|
| Its not the law enforcement that's the main issue, but
| various greedy 3-letter agencies who are already well
| known to have ambition to have profile on every person in
| this world (not unlike Facebook but for different
| purposes).
|
| This is not privacy anymore no matter how you bend it, it
| has been cancelled and Apple realizes this very well. And
| it still doesn't care. Literally the only serious selling
| point for many new buyers not invested in ecosystems,
| blowing it off with a nice double barreled shotgun shot.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| My understandimg was that the reviewer gets an extremely
| compressed version of the image, not full resolution,
| likely due to privacy concerns due to the potentially
| large rate of false positives.
|
| I don't trust them not to jump to conclusions with a
| 256x256 (the exact quoted resolution escapes me at the
| moment) image at their disposal.
| tehnub wrote:
| That's why they require that you reach a certain threshold
| number of matches before its sent for human review. The
| threshold allows them to take the probability of a false
| collision, which they can estimate from data, and set the
| probability of an overall false-flag by requiring a certain
| number of these collisions. They've released that the
| threshold, to start, would have been 30 (Page 10 of
| https://www.apple.com/child-
| safety/pdf/Security_Threat_Model...). They claim that,
| given the probability of a false collision, and the
| threshold that they've set, the probability of your photos
| being sent for human review falsely is 1/trillion.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| People have had tons of fun finding collisions and seeing how
| far they can take an image until the apple neuralhash algo
| thinks it different. It very much is not an exact match like
| what you would get with MD5 for example. But a "perceptual
| hash" that means that it gets the same has even if you crop
| it by a couple of pixels or change some pixels.
| pcmoney wrote:
| Or more more accurately, their stated intent is to scan for
| anything any government deems illegal in any country where
| they operate.
|
| Also who is reviewing this known child pornography list?
| Hopefully nobody because it is Child pornography but also
| hopefully somebody because what if somebody slips something
| in there... Say a offensive political cartoon or a ethnic
| group symbol or a picture of Tiananmen Square. This list of
| "offensive images" needs to be auditable.
|
| Also it is crossing a line in the sand because it is on your
| personal device not in their servers. All you can hope for is
| that they don't alter the deal further.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| You know that Google Photos scans everything, server-side,
| since like 2012 right?
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| Amazing how low in the comments this is...not defending
| apple at all but it's insane to think other manufacturers
| are somehow more protective of your data
| fractalb wrote:
| Maybe the point is that's on the server, not on the device.
| selykg wrote:
| On the device means it's going to the server in Apple's
| case. The option is only enabled when you have the iCloud
| Photos feature enabled, which means the photos it's
| scanning are photos that are on their way to the cloud.
|
| If you turn the iCloud Photos feature off, no more
| scanning is happening.
|
| This seems pretty simple to me.
| echelon wrote:
| > known child pornography material
|
| For some definition. Russia's FSB might have a very different
| idea of what this is. Anti-Putin memes, for instance. Navalny
| support materials or brochures. You'll have to watch what you
| download, because your phone might upload it and incriminate
| you.
|
| Or China's MSS. Winnie the Pooh, Tiananmen Square, Free HK,
| etc.
|
| Or even the FBI. Financial or political leaks, Wikileaks,
| etc.
|
| Once they know who you are and why they don't like you, they
| can incriminate you in other ways. This helps them find and
| flag you. They don't even need to monitor and decrypt traffic
| - they can just upload hashes of things they don't like and
| let Apple's dragnet do all the work.
|
| Don't buy into "CSAM" scare. It's never the intent. The
| powers that be don't give a damn about children. It's about
| power.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Hyperbole is a logical fallacy for a reason
| echelon wrote:
| That's a characterization roughly equivalent to "you have
| nothing to hide".
|
| Our defense of privacy should be paramount, and we
| shouldn't defend the fruit company for assailing it just
| because we like the pretty things they make.
|
| Every word of Stallman's warnings about computing freedom
| was right. He was prescient. And just like his arguments,
| there are many people that view this move by Apple as a
| huge erosion of privacy. We all have a very legitimate
| fear that shouldn't be dismissed.
|
| You can attack and trivialize my arguments, but mark my
| words, history will show we're making a huge mistake
| here.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The definition is from NCMEC[0] and ONLY from NCMEC. No
| FSB, no MSS, no FBI.
|
| This is the EXACT SAME database EVERY cloud provider has
| been using for about a decade. Look up Microsoft PhotoDNA.
|
| The only difference is that the company doing it was Apple,
| who wanted to do the checks on-device BEFORE upload. And
| with multiple redundancies and human review.
|
| Not like Microsoft, who have - for example - shut down the
| MS account of a German man for having photos of his own
| children on a beach. No human review, no way to complain.
| Everything gone from Outlook mail to Xbox account.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Missi
| ng_%2...
| echelon wrote:
| Longbets 10 years $10,000 we see this used by Apple (or a
| government agency) in a way that deviates from your
| attestation?
|
| I'll eat my hat if this system doesn't hurt someone
| innocent.
| robocat wrote:
| > I'll eat my hat
|
| One of these yummy nacho hats?
| https://www.google.com/search?q=nacho+hats&tbm=isch
| threeseed wrote:
| I will happily take that bet.
|
| Because if a government agency is involved they will be
| doing so server-side instead of client-side.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| Having my photos warantlessly rifled through by a machine and
| then a human really puts me at ease!
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Correct, but there have been known False positives that have
| hash collisions in this system. That is something to care
| about considering the trust in law enforcement is eroding day
| by day
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The false positives are matches with absolute gibberish
| generated photos.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| This is the stated initial iteration.
| [deleted]
| boppo1 wrote:
| You mean, setting a precedent for expansion of personal
| device scanning
| flutas wrote:
| > their intent is to scan cloud photos
|
| corrected: their intent is to scan all photos in your photo
| library, on your device, including images automatically
| pulled in from from various sources such as messages, if you
| have iCloud Photo enabled.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| " _The CSAM scanning system is a part of the iCloud Photos
| upload process and it will be triggered once the upload is
| initiated. Keep in mind that it does not scan private photo
| libraries stored on iPhone devices_ " -
| https://medium.com/codequest/technologies-behind-the-
| apples-...
|
| If you want to "correct" the claim to say their intent is
| to scan every photo, citation needed.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > images automatically pulled in from from various sources
| such as messages
|
| As far as I am aware, this is false and there is no
| mechanism on iOS by which images are "automatically pulled
| into" the photo library from anywhere, Messages or
| otherwise. Do you have a source or an example of how that
| could happen?
|
| (edit: people are mentioning Whatsapp, which I guess has an
| option to auto-save received photos. Fair enough, but
| that's a third-party app and requires you to enable photos
| access anyway, so it's pretty clearly not what the parent
| meant).
|
| > their intent is to scan all photos in your photo library,
| on your device ... if you have iCloud photos enabled
|
| Yes, that's what I said. Enabling iCloud photos uploads
| your photo library to the cloud, so it's scanning your
| cloud photos.
| flutas wrote:
| > As far as I am aware, there is no mechanism on iOS by
| which images are "automatically pulled into" iCloud
| photos from anywhere, Messages or otherwise. Do you have
| a source or an example of how that could happen? When I
| receive images from my friends, they don't go into my
| photo library until I explicitly tap "save".
|
| Per Apple [0]
|
| >Shared with You works across the system to find the
| (...) photos, and more that are shared in Messages
| conversations, and conveniently surfaces them in apps
| like Photos (...) making it easy to quickly access the
| information in context.
|
| ---
|
| >Yes, that's what I said. Enabling iCloud photos uploads
| your photo library to the cloud, so it's scanning your
| cloud photos.
|
| Being disingenuous about it is still a thing though. You
| stated
|
| > More accurately put, their intent is to scan cloud
| photos (...) (like every other cloud provider, including
| Google)
|
| which makes it appear that the photos are only scanned
| server side "like every other cloud provider". Client
| side scanning is something that no other provider does,
| in contrast to what you stated.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/06/ios-15-brings-
| powerfu....
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Shared with You does not actually save the images to your
| photo library. It just surfaces them inside the Photos
| app. I will admit it's not very clear from the press
| release, but those are the facts.
|
| I was not being disingenuous, frankly. I said that Apple
| is scanning your cloud photos, i.e. they are scanning
| photos that are uploaded to the cloud. Photos not being
| uploaded to the cloud are not scanned. I made no claims
| about where the scanning is happening, and I'm not
| particularly sure why it matters in any material sense.
| virgilp wrote:
| You are thoroughly misrepresenting what Apple does. I
| initially thought you don't know what they do, but
| apparently you do very well.
|
| Still: they scan photos locally - those are not cloud
| photos, those are local photos. And they have deployed
| the technical capability. You can bet that once
| capability exists, they will bend to government demands -
| there's ample precedent for that.
|
| SO, yes, Apple, unlike all others, scans your photos
| locally. If they are going to be uploaded to cloud, _or
| if they are forced to_.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Still: they scan photos locally - those are not cloud
| photos, those are local photos.
|
| They are cloud photos. I say that because:
|
| 1. The photos are in the process of being uploaded to the
| cloud when they are scanned
|
| 2. The result of the scan is attached to the photo only
| when it is uploaded to the cloud. If the photo is deleted
| from the cloud, or the upload is canceled, the scan
| result is discarded
|
| Practically, the system works precisely the same whether
| or not the scanning happens on device before the image
| reaches the cloud, or on the server after the image
| reaches the cloud.
|
| The only well-intentioned argument about why on-device
| vs. on-server scanning matters is that "slippery slope"
| argument, which presupposes that:
|
| 1. Apple putting this scanning code in iOS not only
| somehow makes it easier/more tempting to use it for non-
| CSAM, but all but guarantees it will be used for non-
| CSAM.
|
| 2. Apple does not already have the ability to run
| whatever code they want, on any of your devices, without
| you ever knowing
|
| 3. Apple folds very easily to government demands,
| especially when it comes to privacy, their core
| differentiator
|
| I don't think any of these are true. You might think they
| are, but then I'm not sure what point there is in
| discussing any more.
|
| > or if they are forced to.
|
| I'm not sure what this implies. If someone forces you to
| upload a photo to the cloud, surely that will get scanned
| regardless of whether the scanning is performed on-device
| or on-server?
| virgilp wrote:
| > I'm not sure what this implies.
|
| If _Apple_ are forced to (e.g. by a judge), and they
| can't claim the ask is technically impossible.
| throwaway122905 wrote:
| This conversation is rather bizarre. The input to the
| scanning system is a sequence of bits, read from the
| flash memory in the phone.
|
| Therefore, the scanning is local. There's really nothing
| more to it: The distinction is based on where the input
| is read from, in addition to where the input is
| processed. Both are happening inside the phone while you
| hold it in your hand.
|
| _It is scanning images locally._
|
| This is totally unacceptable, and should never become
| acceptable.
| x0x0 wrote:
| And they've opened a door that others will walk through.
| riversflow wrote:
| >2. Apple does not already have the ability to run
| whatever code they want, on any of your devices, without
| you ever knowing
|
| This is what I don't understand about the whole argument
| about this CSAM debacle. I've read quite a bit of the
| discussion about this, as I'm someone who takes privacy
| fairly seriously, and it never really gets discussed.
| Could someone maybe point me in the direction of some
| literature about this? Is someone doing extensive load
| and packet analysis? Don't they(Apple) upload at least
| some E2E data?...
|
| My iPhone already does an insane amount of "indexing",
| including image classification. This is all under the
| hood and I have no idea what else its doing, for all I
| know its mining Monero. Additionally all my iOS devices
| seem to send an inordinate amount of data to the cloud;
| I'm particularly sensitive to this because I don't have a
| strong internet connection, and frequently have to turn
| off WiFi on my phone or iPad when playing online games to
| stabilize my ping.
|
| I'm also skeptical that you can really insure privacy
| from a 5 eyes country. Maybe I just read too many spy
| novels as a kid, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination
| for me to guess how any given decently large western
| company could be completely infiltrated by a
| multinational espionage coalition.
|
| Idk, I tend to like that Apple is fighting against Ad-
| tech, as that power dynamic is at least believable. I do
| think that playing around with deGoogled Android is fun
| and in my experience is much more suited to dropping off
| the cellphone grid. I have an Android running Lineage and
| microG and with OSM and Kiwix(wikipedia is indispensable,
| IMO) as well as a handful of other apps, it serves the
| majority of the purposes of a cellphone without the need
| for data. I still daily drive my iPhone, mostly because
| the UX is a lot better than deGoogled Android.
| [deleted]
| vultour wrote:
| WhatsApp has a "Save to Camera Roll" option which
| automatically saves all images and videos to your photo
| library.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I know Whatsapp photos that I never even opened (from
| groups I probably muted long ago) end up in the phone
| library whenever I do the (manual) monthly photo dump to
| my PC.
|
| But yes, I agree with the comment, there's no reason to
| hide between details: Apple plans to introduce the
| capability of scanning photos on your local device and
| comparing hashes against an opaque (non-reviewable) list
| of hashes that they (along with governments) control
| (details about how they plan to initially employ this
| capability are irrelevant).
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Sure, but then don't pretend that this is not something
| every other cloud provider is doing (and has been doing)
| for years. This is only such a hot-button issue because
| 1) people love bashing Apple, and 2) Apple actually
| solicited feedback instead of implementing it silently
| behind the scenes.
| peakaboo wrote:
| It's interesting how our minds just give up when we
| realize all cloud providers are doing it. We accept our
| fate as weak consumers, unable to do anything.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Oh, I totally know all cloud providers are scanning
| photos _in their cloud_ and I totally accepted that
| (hence why I mentioned I do manual photo drops from the
| phone and upload them to private cloud storage).
|
| What no one has done before and what I totally don't
| accept is someone scanning photos _on my device_ , which
| is what Apple is doing.
|
| The _in the cloud_ vs. _on your device_ aspect of this
| debate is the most important part and cannot be glossed
| over.
| kemayo wrote:
| > The in the cloud vs. on your device aspect of this
| debate is the most important part and cannot be glossed
| over.
|
| I really do think it's a weird aspect to fixate on,
| though.
|
| So long as Apple is only scanning the photos that're
| being uploaded to its servers, it genuinely doesn't
| matter to me where that scanning happens. It's a scan
| that could have happened in either location, and the
| version where it's happening locally is arguably more
| private/secure-from-fishing-expeditions. If I don't like
| that the scanning occurs, I can disable the uploading.
|
| The distinction would matter if the local-scan involved
| things that _weren 't_ being uploaded. But it doesn't, so
| from my perspective the only difference is an
| implementation detail.
| gigel82 wrote:
| > If I don't like that the scanning occurs, I can disable
| the uploading.
|
| You can already do that today (I do).
|
| > But it doesn't
|
| Maybe, maybe not. Even if I were to trust Apple 100% it's
| again a matter of principle (no local scanning).
|
| Imagine the uproar if Microsoft Defender (which comes in-
| box enabled-by-default on all Windows 10/11 PCs) were to
| suddenly start scanning photos (it already scans
| executables and Office documents), hashing them against
| some opaque "database" and attaching tokens to suspicious
| ones that would be analyzed when uploaded to OneDrive
| (again, enabled by default for your Documents\Photos on
| Windows 10/11 if you use a MS Account).
|
| Then on top of that, imagine Windows was a walled garden
| a-la iOS and you couldn't uninstall / disable / replace
| Defender with a different tool (which you totally can
| today).
|
| I think there would be massive outrage in the press with
| MS being dragged through the mud for months, and droves
| of users switching to alternatives (like Linux)
| overnight. Yet (except for a few privacy / freedom
| organizations and a little press bleep) Apple gets to
| shake it off scot-free; I don't understand the
| dissonance.
| simonh wrote:
| They do not have the ability to scan photos stored on your
| phone that are not uploaded to iCloud. The scan is only
| implemented in the iCloud photos upload system.
| gigel82 wrote:
| If that was the case they'd just implement it on their
| own servers, just like everybody else (it's not like
| iCloud is E2EE).
|
| In reality they probably have a "photoscanner.so /
| .dylib" that _currently_ is only linked in by the iCloud
| uploader thing, but at any time could be called in by any
| other part of the system (or offer exploits new avenues
| for data exfiltration), which was actually spelled out in
| their initial announcement (there will be a system API
| for accessing it).
|
| So they absolutely have the ability to scan photos on
| your phone; the fact that they don't intend to
| _currently_ use it outside of the iCloud uploader is
| totally immaterial to this debate (the thing I don 't
| want on my phone is photoscanner.so or any such
| capability).
| simonh wrote:
| At any time they could implement a new feature in iPhone
| to do anything, yes that's true, and yes they could be
| flat out lying that this is how it's implemented. They
| could be lying about the whole thing. If they'd
| implemented it on their servers, they could still have
| taken that code and later put it on their phones and run
| it on whatever photos they liked.
|
| Come on, now you're really going off the rails. What
| we're discussing here is the system Apple has said they
| have implemented and described. Anything beyond that is
| hearsay and accusation, for which some evidence would be
| appreciated. If you're just going to believe whatever you
| want to, and damn the evidence or what anyone says, go
| ahead. There's nothing much more to say.
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| Additionally, the while the publicity of that announcement
| was terrible PR for apple, it was really a request for
| comment. They got comments from security professionals, and
| then they acknowledged the problems, retracted the
| announcement, and are working with those professionals on a
| system that will be better from a privacy perspective.
|
| Try getting that behavior from Google, a company who's
| existence is dependent on surveillance advertising.
| kadoban wrote:
| Source for that? The most response I saw was a "sorry-not-
| sorry" and they were just going ahead.
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/03/apple-delays-
| controversial-p...
| rumblerock wrote:
| As a former Pixel user that switched because I broke the phone
| and had an extra iPhone in the family, there are a number of
| reasons I'm heavily considering switching back (had been an
| Android user since 2009).
|
| 1. Spam call screening is nonexistent on the iPhone, and
| T-Mobile's blocker still lets a ton of them through. In my
| prior experience Google did a much better job in this
| department. It would be nice to pick up the phone without a 90%
| chance of an annoying spam call.
|
| 2. Speech to text on iPhone makes a lot of mistakes and
| Google's latest update looks like they've widened the gap even
| more. I don't want to handle my phone to text while driving,
| and when the interpretation is wrong it requires extra
| keystrokes to try again, correct it, or type the message if
| urgent. This is unsafe.
|
| 3. I find FaceID annoying, and after replacing the iPhone
| screen because I cracked it, FaceID got noticeably worse. With
| a fingerprint I can have the phone unlocked before I even pull
| it out of my pocket, especially these days when we have masks
| on.
|
| Plenty of other sexy features like camera and the customer
| service line feature are very nice to have, but in my opinion
| these are major benefits in terms of everyday usability. The
| overall integration across services is just smoother too, in
| terms of flows like email -> calendar -> google maps live
| traffic, or email -> boarding pass QR code. I am and will
| always be a PC user so I don't benefit from those integrations
| with Apple products.
|
| Making the switch will require ditching Airpods and the Apple
| Watch, but I think it might be worth it for me.
| wvenable wrote:
| Samsung announced 5 years of Android updates months ago. Before
| that, it was 4 years of updates.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Is it 5 years of Android updates or 5 years of security
| updates?
| bobviolier wrote:
| Security updates, I am afraid. At least that's what the
| launch video said.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Security updates (only) is fine. Except a few geeks,
| nobody I know cares what Android version she has.
| Leherenn wrote:
| Especially since lots of components are updated outside
| Android updates. The browser and many other things will
| keep on being updated independently.
| wvenable wrote:
| For both Google and Samsung, security updates.
|
| Google says "Feature drops for at least three years from
| when the device first became available on the Google Store
| in the US." on the shop page footnotes.
|
| Samsung says you get 3 major Android updates on your
| devices. Therefore, Samsung is a better deal for updates
| assuming Google doesn't release a new major Android version
| every year.
| kadoban wrote:
| Does Samsung still take an eternity to do the actual
| updates once they're available from Goog?
| [deleted]
| wvenable wrote:
| A couple of months for sure.
| DCKing wrote:
| Unless you have more recent info (please correct me in that
| case), that's not quite correct. Last I heard was that
| Samsung's promise has been 4 years of updates [1].
|
| I recognize Samsung as being well clear of the rest of the
| pack of Android vendors. Other Android vendors are outright
| negligent, whereas Samsung seems to generally try to fight
| their bad incentives and come up with some decency.
|
| Where I think Samsung falls short is execution. Samsung is
| fundamentally a hardware company and their software has
| always been mediocre in my view, even to this day. In terms
| of security updates they promise less than Google, they
| promise fewer and slower updates than Google (quarterly
| software updates for some devices / late in the lifecycle
| still makes older devices an afterthought!), and I trust
| their promise to execute on their promise less than Google.
|
| Finally, Samsung devices don't have nearly the same support
| for third party privacy friendly OSes than Pixel devices do -
| you're stuck with Samsung's (warning: personal opinion)
| rather tasteless take on what Android should be, and have no
| real other options.
|
| [1]: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-takes-galaxy-
| securit...
| azeirah wrote:
| I really love what Samsung is doing with their note-line
| software wise. There're just so many integrations and
| little nooks integrated deeply within their Note-specific
| Android version that are all just actually useful in their
| own right.
|
| I'm a huge fan of operating my phone with styluses in
| general, but I think Samsung is the only Android vendor
| (other than Apple with their pencil) that actually cares
| about the benefits of adding a stylus to a phone/tablet.
|
| For instance, last week I discovered that you can annotate
| your calendar with the S-pen. Your annotations stick to
| your calendar like post-its would to a computer. At first I
| thought I was drawing on a _picture_ of the calendar
| application view, but I was writing inside of the app
| itself.
|
| Samsung's Note os is full of these niche-but-useful-when-
| you-actually-need-or-want-them kind of features.
|
| Taking macro photos of that little insect on a hard to
| reach life in the forest? You can point it right where you
| need it with your right hand while you snap pictures with
| your pen in the other. It's a neat little remote.
|
| Use your phone for presentations? The pen is your clicker
| to go through your slides.
|
| Like keeping a digital journal with handwriting? Samsung's
| (and Google's too) keyboard has great handwriting
| recognition built-in. Nobody except me seems to use it, but
| it's actually great!
|
| Need to quickly quickly take a note to make sure you won't
| forget to do that one important thing? Take out your pen
| while phone is locked and you can write on your screen
| directly, this is saved instantly to your device.
|
| Samsung has clearly put a lot of thought into this over the
| years. The integration is excellent and is available in
| places where you would never expect it.
|
| TL;DR: I like my note, not only is the hardware great, the
| software is great too
| wvenable wrote:
| > Where I think Samsung falls short is execution. Samsung
| is fundamentally a hardware company and their software has
| always been mediocre in my view, even to this day.
|
| I disagree. I really like Samsung's take on Android and
| appreciate features like Dex. With some first-party
| software from the company, they also make Android extremely
| customizable. The long tail of Android features that exist
| only on Samsung devices would probably surprise you. OneUI
| is a pretty clean take on Android styling.
|
| > In terms of security updates they promise less than
| Google, they promise fewer and slower updates than Google
|
| I'm getting monthly updates on my somewhat older devices.
| Not just security updates but full on Samsung software
| updates. I just got a bunch of new features on tablet this
| week including quicker multi-tasking, better window
| docking, etc.
| DCKing wrote:
| > The long tail of Android features that exist only on
| Samsung devices would probably surprise you.
|
| We have different tastes in phones, which is okay. I
| wouldn't really normally respond to this, but I think
| this quote highlights _why_ our tastes differ.
|
| "Having more features" is not a selling point to me, it's
| probably the opposite. I want a simple OS with a strong
| set of core features, with a small selection of apps
| relevant to me. Smartphones have been reasonably mature
| products for a lot of years at this point, I know what I
| want from them.
|
| That's why Samsung is quite unappealing to me despite
| their best efforts - I have owned and used multiple
| Samsung devices in the past. They're trying to give you
| everything and the kitchen sink, wow you with a bunch of
| features. Don't bother me with that stuff, I just want
| something more basic - software wise, at least.
| wvenable wrote:
| We might not have different tastes just different ways of
| achieving them. My phone is setup to be very minimalist
| and Samsung has a lot of _features_ to make possible.
|
| One small example, I've removed all the Android indicator
| icons on top of the screen that are always on/same for me
| (alarm, network, volume state, battery, NFC, Bluetooth,
| etc).
|
| Admittedly I _love_ features but I don 't feel like
| having more features necessarily interferes with
| minimalism of day to day use. I've used certain features
| only once or twice but I was glad they were there at
| time.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Unless it's 5 years of full on-time Android version updates
| it doesn't count.
|
| "We patched a few zero days" should be the norm, not
| something you mightily announce as something grand and Brave.
| progbits wrote:
| Definitely agreed, longer software support would be nice. On
| the other hand the repairability is important too, if you can
| replace battery and fix a broken screen easily the phone is
| unlikely to be useful after that many years anyway.
|
| I think the previous pixels were reasonably good in that regard
| (not compared to framework of course).
|
| Improving that would be higher priority in my eyes. Software
| support can always come later: even once the official support
| is dropped the community can backport AOSP fixes etc.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| AOSP does not help with the mountain of closed vendor blobs
| at the bottom of the stack.
| NotPractical wrote:
| > I will continue to recommend those phones for most people
| (pending what they're going to do with trying to incriminate
| you), but it's not for me.
|
| Why? Despite what Apple would have you believe, Pixel phones
| aren't "more complicated" than iPhones. They're just a _little_
| different. For example, I recently had to use an iPhone and the
| interface was difficult to use, coming from Android. Not
| because it was inherently confusing, but because I simply wasn
| 't used to it. But I'm sure it would have only taken a few days
| to adjust.
| bung wrote:
| Interesting comment regarding voting with your wallet and
| choosing Apple for the software. The hardware guys seems really
| unhappy with Apple's "walled garden".
| turtlebits wrote:
| Pixel phones have absolutely not been reliable for me. From the
| Pixel 1 microphone defect to it needing a reboot every few
| days, and my Pixel 4A boot looping, Google phones are
| absolutely not reliable IME. (Almost as bad a Razer laptops).
| tdrdt wrote:
| Germany tries to push for a 7 year minimum update policy in the
| EU.
|
| If the EU agrees this will be very interesting for the
| smartphone market.
|
| 5 years of security updates is already great.
| whichquestion wrote:
| 5 years of security updates, 3 years of feature updates.
|
| On the page it says on the 12th footnote, "Feature drops for at
| least 3 years from when the device first became available on
| the Google Store in the US. Your Pixel will receive feature
| drops during the applicable Android update and support periods
| for the phone. See g.co/pixel/updates for details."
|
| On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it
| says, "Guaranteed Android version updates until at least:
| October 2024" and "Guaranteed security updates until at least:
| October 2026" for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
|
| So they hypothetically could extend it to more than 3 years of
| feature updates and 5 years of security updates with the
| nebulous "at least" wording.
| nextos wrote:
| If you use a third-party ROM such as the excellent
| GrapheneOS, in practice you get fully featured updates for
| really really long.
|
| With that said, open source ROMs don't take advantage of some
| features such as the Tensor SoC, and therefore the camera
| stops performing so good.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Graphene has a specific sandbox for google play services,
| so you can continue to run the google pixel camera app
| (which can presumably run the same way as under the
| official OS)
|
| But also, it has a good hardware ISP that will also improve
| image quality by itself.
| phh wrote:
| GrapheneOS is pretty clear about not supporting devices
| longer than the OEM.
|
| From their FAQ:
|
| Why are older devices no longer supported?
|
| GrapheneOS aims to provide reasonably private and secure
| devices. It cannot do that once device support code like
| firmware, kernel and vendor code is no longer actively
| maintained. Even if the community was prepared to take over
| maintenance of the open source code and to replace the
| rest, firmware would present a major issue
| nextos wrote:
| There was extended support planned for Pixel 2, which was
| dropped recently from mainline, but it has not happened
| yet.
|
| One can always switch to a different ROM I guess.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Unlike iOS where basic features like the web browser require
| system updates, Android is modular and updates get pushed
| through other channels independently of the OS itself.
| ericmay wrote:
| Which is ok, and if you don't use Safari then you don't
| have to worry about this.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic here--all iOS
| browsers are custom skins on top of Safari _.
|
| _ Yes I 'm aware of WKWebView and how it's not the same
| as Safari. I'm using the classic meaning of browser
| skins, dating back to browsers like Maxthon which were
| wrappers over Trident in exactly the same way.
| ericmay wrote:
| No I'm not being sarcastic - I think calling the apps a
| skin on top of Safari is a bit of an over-simplification.
| Most features that users notice happen at this skin
| layer, not the rendering layer. It's peak HN to really be
| caring about this especially as Apple offers (as far as I
| know) no performance difference across browsers using
| Webkit or w/e. You could actually just say that Safari
| itself is a skin too, just the default one that comes
| with iOS.
|
| It's similar to complaining about other basic features of
| iOS IMO (like complaining there's a default settings app
| or that iOS just works a certain way).
| howinteresting wrote:
| What about security updates or new HTML features? Chrome
| or Firefox on Android get security updates for many years
| after official system updates end. The same is not true
| for Apple.
| ericmay wrote:
| Don't think most users know or care about security or
| HTML features so while certainly it's a difference it's
| unlikely to be important for most users.
|
| Think of Safari as a skin that's unbundled from the
| engine. While Chrome or Firefox are reliant on Apple to
| update the engine, so is Safari, but neither are reliant
| on Apple for other functionality that they want to
| implement that users can take advantage of.
|
| IMO it's modular enough.
| Sargos wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by not worrying about iOS
| needing OS updates for browser upgrades as the Safari
| engine is the only web browser engine allowed on iOS and
| third party browsers like Chrome are just skins on top of
| Safari and not real counterparts to their desktop
| cousins. Upgrading the OS is the only way to get new web
| functionality and bug fixes.
| ericmay wrote:
| Web browsers have to use the Safari engine but that
| doesn't mean they don't also separately update the
| browsers and add functionality. I.e. you mostly get
| modularity by not using Safari even if you have to rely
| on the underlying Safari engine being updated. Most of
| the features users notice are updated by the app provider
| anyway.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| It's funny that when discussing the topic of "updates" and
| obsolescence, users focus on the vendor as if they have
| exclusive control over the situation. Authors of applications
| may also play a role. For example, when they "update" their
| applications to _only_ work with newer versions of Android.
| Depending on the user 's application needs, that can shorten
| the life of a an Android device. Some applications will
| continue to work with both older and newer Android versions,
| some will not. For example, F-Droid has numerous programs
| that will work on older, "obsolete" Android versions. This
| allows older hardware to be re-purposed and to continue to be
| useful for some uses. Not sure that Apple has anything like
| this; consider how many programs in the Apple App Store work
| with older iOS versions.
|
| Both Android vendor and Apple hardware continue to work long
| after the software has become "outdated". That hardware does
| not die when the software becomes "obsolete". The vendor may
| choose to ignore this fact in the interest of sales but it
| does not mean that authors of applications must ignore it as
| well.
|
| The third factor besides the vendor and the authors of
| applications are the operating system authors. With older PC-
| like hardware, I can run the latest versions of NetBSD.
| Forever. I update when and if I decide it is time. x86 has
| its benefits. It is sad that these pocket-sized computers
| called "smartphones" are so inflexible.
|
| A non-HN reader recently told me that the "tech" industry has
| turned us all into "beta testers". The entire "updates"
| concept needs a serious examination. Updates are not a
| substitute for quality control.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| This is whats wrong with my iPad. I don't care that it
| doesn't get updates from Apple, but the web has moved on
| and it will fail to open a lot of web pages.
|
| Failed to load the deno.land standard library docs just
| last night while I was watching TV.
|
| Still not going to buy a new iPad though.
| chrismcb wrote:
| I'm not sure how app authors shorten the life. If the app
| author only targets a new version of the os, then if the
| phone gets the new OS then all I good. So it is up too the
| vendor providing the new os, but the app provider. Now, the
| app provider can do supporting old OSes but that won't
| shorten the time past what the vendor sets
| ehsankia wrote:
| Historically, they have. Older pixels all had 2 year feature
| 3 year security, but ended up getting 3 year
| feature+security.
|
| Although, after 1-2 year, the features get a bit thinner
| because a lot of the newer features rely on new hardware that
| the older phones don't fully have. Sometimes they try to make
| it work, like how Astrophotography was available on older
| pixels but didn't work quite as well as on Pixel 4. But in
| general, they probably put the "at least" because it's hard
| to guarantee that a feature in 5 years will be backportable
| to Pixel 6.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| > 5 years of support
|
| I'll wait for the iFixit report on how difficult it is to
| replace the battery, before believing in a phone lasting that
| long. Also as usual for the pixels, there is no analog
| headphone jack. Still I can't believe I'm at least somewhat
| interested in a $600 phone since I'm not that much of a mobile
| user. I wonder if they will do a 6A version any time soon.
|
| The main difference between the 6 and the 6 pro is the pro adds
| a telephoto camera, right?
|
| Anandtech article is up:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16939/google-announces-pixel-...
|
| I'm still somewhat leaning towards a 5a as my next phone, as
| it's already more than I want to spend.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| My parents used several handed down iPhones for 6+ years
| each. I see no reason Google didn't buy similarly good
| batteries.
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| > I want as little to do with Google's services as possible in
| my life
|
| As a Fi and Fiber user, those services have actually been
| really solid and reasonably priced.
|
| Android wise, Calyx maintains a nice de-googled one
| (https://calyxos.org/install/ ) and they will sell you an
| unlocked phone at a reasonable price if you are a member. We
| use one on Google Fi with no issues in any of about 10
| countries so far.
| easton_s wrote:
| I like frictionless Fi is. Phone breaks? No prob. Grab a
| cheap Moto phone from the Fi store listing, get it in the
| mail the next day, and setup in 5 mins. Go over on data? No
| prob. Pay a prorated price at the exact same rate.
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| It's been by far the best phone service I've ever dealt
| with, although to be fair that is a _really_ low bar. The
| international pricing was what made me switch over, but
| everything else has been great since.
| cobertos wrote:
| > from the only phone vendor outside of Apple who appears to
| give a damn about that aspect
|
| I hope the hardware is solid too. After having 2 Google phones
| die just outside of warranty to bootlooping, I'm skeptical
| they'll be able to make them last.
| thecolorblue wrote:
| Which phones did you have trouble with? I am still using my
| pixel 3. I was going to upgrade just for more storage (the
| camera updates are nice too).
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