I’ve been a big Pixel fan since the launch of the very first Google Pixel. While often outshone in sales numbers by Samsung, the allure of “Android’s iPhone” has always been too much to resist for me.
A smartphone with a great camera system and a smoothly running operating system? Toss in a solid battery life, and I’m all yours — and that’s exactly what I got when I finally got my hands on a Pixel 3a XL.
Despite some rockier handsets along the way, my love for the Pixel phone has not soured.
With that in mind, you might expect this to be my favorite time of the year. The summer days are long and luxurious, birdsong fills the air, and a new Google Pixel is on the horizon.
However, I’m not looking forward to it at all — and it’s not because I’ve given up on Pixel phones. No, it’s because new phone launches have gotten really boring.
Phone launches were once a parade
A celebration of the new
Once upon a time, a smartphone launch was momentous and exciting.
It’s where we learned about Apple removing the headphone jack. It’s where Samsung trimmed the bezels from the Galaxy S8, ushering in a new world.
Heck, it’s where big phones began to strut their stuff, and where two and three camera lenses became commonplace.
I even have a soft spot for the introduction of the periscope lens with the Galaxy S20 Ultra. I know, I’m a massive nerd, but hey, it keeps food on the table.
Those of us keeping a close eye on rumors knew this was coming ahead of time, but there’s still a certain joy in seeing a whole new feature introduced to the world.
It’s the biggest sell it’s ever going to get, and it’s fun to get swept up in the hype.
Admittedly, it wasn’t like this every year, and nor should it be. But there was always something that Samsung, HTC, Motorola, or OnePlus would highlight to make a new hardware launch special.
It’s not like that now. Because all that anyone wants to talk about now is the same thing, over and over again. And that thing has killed my enthusiasm for announcements stone dead.
I am, like everyone else at the moment, talking about AI.
I’m just so sick of AI features
They’re all the same
Here’s a curious admission. I didn’t mind AI features when everyone was calling it ‘ machine learning‘.
They thought we wouldn’t notice when they changed the name, but we did. And I get it; AI is a sexier term. It’s a buzzword that inspires strong emotions, whether that’s awe and imagination, or trepidation and a touch of fear.
Nobody cared about machine learning because it doesn’t inspire any particularly strong emotions.
Source: Google
It’s also true that when everyone was calling it machine learning, it didn’t take over the show. Now it does.
Every new product launch shoehorns in AI somewhere, and it’s exhausting. In fact, no. I’ll go even further: It’s boring.
I am now actively bored when AI comes up in a presentation. If I’m not required to pay attention for professional reasons, then I mentally tune out. That’s a big deal.
I’ve only previously done that for the sections where they talk about sales numbers, and in theory, AI should be sexy and new. So why isn’t it?
One part is overexposure. It feels like I’m exposed to three new AI-powered products before breakfast, all of them clamoring for my attention.
New phone announcements have just become a part of that noise, and I don’t have the energy or inclination to pay attention to all of them.
But the other part is something no one in tech wants to acknowledge, and I think it’s that we, tech enthusiasts and casuals alike, are starting to see the wizard behind the curtain.
AI does a lot of things. It does some things pretty well, and the rest … it ranges from ‘okay’ to ‘actively bad’. Sometimes within the same activity.
I’ve played with a lot of the newer AI tools, and one thing has stood out to me: very few of them are good enough for me to keep using them.
But it’s not just about skill. Google’s Magic Editor is the gold standard of AI tools as far as I’m concerned. It’s fast, efficient, and very good at what it does. I would go so far as to say I really like it.
However, I don’t use it more than once every few months. Partly because I don’t need it, but also because I keep forgetting about it.
And that’s my experience with basically every AI feature that I actually like; they’re great, while I remember they exist.
This should be a golden age of hardware advancement
Can’t see the new hardware because of AI’s bubble
Smartphones have gotten dull. Every new device follows the same basic formula: it’s a rectangle with a 6-inch-plus display, multiple camera lenses, and no front bezel.
It’s a sleek and futuristic formula, yes, but we’ve now seen it a hundred times. It’s gotten to the point where adding a new colorway or a funny-shaped camera module is enough to work us all into a frenzy.
When phone manufacturers went back to flat edges, it kept us talking for months.
It’s dull — but it shouldn’t be. Because we’re on the cusp of the biggest revolution in smartphone hardware since the start of the smartphone revolution: folding phones.
Except we aren’t on the cusp, we’re seven generations in. And yet, it still doesn’t feel like folding phones have really arrived.
Why? High costs are certainly a factor, but so is the fact that the entire smartphone industry has been chasing the AI fairy for the last few years.
I can’t tell you for certain whether folding phones would have taken off better if AI hadn’t been a thing, but I’m sure there would have been more of Samsung’s and Google’s marketing heft pushed behind the new form factor.
Why does this matter? Because folding phones are the future of smartphones. They’re the real innovation here.
AI, such as it is, has proven to be a sideshow. It can make images, write me an email, or edit my photos, but it’s little more than a momentary distraction. It’s not what will propel smartphones into the next generation.
We’ve wasted a ton of time and effort on it anyway, and seeing companies trying to sell a new waste of time as something new and exciting is getting boring.
I don’t hate AI. I’m just tired of it dominating the technology space, and I’m sick of every new product launch or keynote address basically starting with the presenter opening his arms and declaring “AI.”
I’m tired of new AI features that I won’t use, and I’m tired of twenty minutes of puff only to be told that a new feature is coming “later this year”.
Please just tell me about something substantial, something I can see, something I can hold in my hand.
Will the Pixel 10 launch be rammed full of AI features? I don’t know for sure, but I absolutely suspect it will be. And that’s why I won’t be bothering to watch it, because it’ll be just the same as everyone else’s launch. Boring.
