interesting reactions to Google conference.
My opinion, as european, is that it was kinda worthless, Google Now is still not available in my language, so Assistant is worthless to me right now. It is an interesting thing, but voice commands ,while nice and sometimes convenient, like when driving, are not crucial for a good smartphone experience. It makes much more sense for Google Home though. We have to see if it works well too, not really sure about that.
And what is Google Home supposed to do for you? Answer banal questions or setting reminders on your calendar? I find it hard to see it worth the money. I consider it like a wireless speaker for music. Maybe i am wrong though.
As for Pixel phones, as some have said before, they come too late, at least if we consider the usual SoC cicle for android phones, just like the Note 7, in this case just rocking a slightly improved SoC compared to early 2016 flagships. And besides Google exclusive features, some of them interesting once we know everything, like unlimited photo/video cloud storage,nothing really groundbreaking compared to other android devices.
And then, some questions still not answered, battery life, google hasn't been great before with nexus phones, and camera, seems to have great quality, but we have to see real world behaviour and lack of OIS is not a good sign.Also some missing features, like waterproofing, are hard to overlook now that both, Apple and Samsung are giving their flagships water protection. That was a nice bonus back in the day when only xperias had it, but now, like fingerprint scanner, are standard features for the best selling phones, so a newcomer, that rivals the price, has to offer at least a comparable list of features, and maybe some extra ones.
We will see how it does, note 7 issues may help pixel phones a little in the android ecosystem, but S8 is not far away (probably closer than ever if samsung wants to forget Note 7 issues) with 10nm SoC.
And it also seems Google has pissed some Nexus users by locking them from 7.1 (they will have to wait now if i am not mistaken) and from Pixel software features too.
So yes, skip year.
ANd i see disappointment since many were expecting a Nexus 6P with a decent SoC, it was a great phone, expensive, but not as much. Too bad it has the 810.
Oh and chromecast ultra..... not sure if it is worth if Mi Box manages to solve its early problems with 4K.
