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TechnologieTranscription
00:00All right, we just gotta talk about something real quick.
00:02So one of the biggest announcements
00:04at Google's fall event that they just had
00:06was that they're planning on supporting
00:07the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro
00:09with seven years of OS security and feature drop updates.
00:15This is industry leading and super awesome.
00:18Here's a list of some of the other promises
00:20that have been made in the smartphone world
00:21for how long down the road
00:22they plan on supporting their devices.
00:24In the world of Android, this is unprecedented.
00:26So clearly, this was one of the best announcements
00:29of the entire Google event.
00:30And we were finally happy to see that.
00:32But on the other hand,
00:34Google has a rich history of discontinuing products
00:40and abandoning projects and services
00:42that have a lot of people using them or depending on them.
00:45So how do we square those two things?
00:48Like you would think that relying on a big company
00:50is better than relying on a small one
00:52as far as like supporting projects down the road.
00:54Like if I was gonna set up a new smart home, for example,
00:57I wouldn't wanna set up one with like a tiny startup
00:59that I don't know if they're gonna exist in five years
01:01because then all my smart home stuff might not work
01:04when that company goes out of business.
01:05So you'd think a bigger, more established company
01:07would be more reliable.
01:09But it turns out the same problem can happen
01:11when you rely on a gigantic company like Google
01:14because something you might get invested in or start using
01:17might just be like a small rounding error for them
01:20that they might just get rid of at any time.
01:22So I think the thing that really summarizes this all well
01:25is I have a friend that says
01:26that Google is super willing to spin up new projects
01:28and be aggressive and innovative all the time.
01:31But if that new project doesn't either get a billion users
01:34or make a billion dollars,
01:36then it is liable to get axed at any time.
01:39So that's why literally just in the past few weeks,
01:41we have seen Google Domains, Google Jamboard,
01:44Google Podcasts and Pixel Pass all killed.
01:48All active services with various amounts of users
01:51just destroyed, just killed.
01:53And the further back you go, the more there are.
01:55It feels like a running joke that Google will announce
01:57and kill a new messaging service every year,
01:59but just keep strolling back.
02:01There's entire webpages dedicated to chronicling
02:04the long list of things that Google has killed.
02:07Remember Google+, remember the Inbox app,
02:09remember Hangouts, remember Allo,
02:12remember Chromecast Audio, Stadia, the list goes on.
02:15Now, when they kill these products or services,
02:17there are often various degrees
02:19to which they're able to replace them
02:21or support everyone that they just rug pulled.
02:24So like something like Google Play Music,
02:26okay, they were launching another service
02:28called YouTube Music
02:29and it had a lot of congruent features.
02:30So they didn't have the need to have both.
02:33So they made it easy to port your entire library
02:35from one to the other.
02:36You'd still be missing some features,
02:38but at least you still had your whole library.
02:39So that was nice.
02:40And there was a similar thing with Google Podcasts.
02:42Like it was a pretty solid podcast app,
02:44but they again wanted to bring those things
02:47into YouTube Music.
02:48So they've worked on an import process
02:50and some tutorials for that.
02:52And like, it's a good effort.
02:55It's good to at least try to do that sort of thing,
02:56but it's not always perfect.
02:57Google Jamboard,
02:58you might not have heard of Google Jamboard,
02:59but weirdly enough,
03:00the pro ultimate frisbee team I've played on,
03:02New York Empire,
03:03uses Google Jamboard for like our scouting documents,
03:06for like writing everything down
03:07and players and tendencies and all that sort of thing.
03:10And it's gone now,
03:11or at least by the end of the year, it'll be gone.
03:12So I guess we'll just find something else to use.
03:16Google Stadia, the gaming service,
03:17only lasted a couple of years.
03:19The only saving grace with this one is when it got axed,
03:22they would at least let you export your save data
03:24so you could use it on another platform.
03:26And then they refunded every Stadia user for every game.
03:29But again, there are no alternatives.
03:32Fun fact, and this is a true story.
03:33I had literally just switched mkbhd.com
03:37from Squarespace to Google Domains.
03:40It was like a big domain transfer process
03:42that took like 24 hours
03:43and I was like nervous to do it,
03:44but I finally did it.
03:46And then within a week,
03:47Google killed Google Domains
03:49and sold all of those domains back to Squarespace.
03:54So there are no Google Domains anymore.
03:56But maybe the craziest recent one would be Pixel Pass.
03:59Pixel Pass is crazy.
04:00So if you haven't heard of it,
04:01it was basically a subscription plan
04:03that was launched alongside the Pixel 6.
04:05And the idea was you sign up
04:06and then you pay 45 bucks a month,
04:09you get the brand new phone
04:10and then you get YouTube Premium, YouTube Music,
04:13a bunch of Google One storage
04:14and some other stuff all included packaged together.
04:17And then you get a new Pixel for free every two years,
04:20which I mean, sounds pretty sweet, right?
04:23If you use a bunch of Google services,
04:24they're all packaged together,
04:25the overall price would be a little bit lower
04:26than if you'd bought all of these things individually.
04:29And then who wouldn't want to upgrade
04:31to a new Pixel phone roughly once every two years?
04:33Sounds pretty sweet.
04:34Bunch of people signed up.
04:36And then exactly 22 months after they announced it,
04:41so a month and a half before the first upgrade cycle,
04:44they quietly killed the program
04:46and nobody got their free phone upgrade
04:49because they killed it right before they were supposed to.
04:52And there have been no announced alternatives.
04:54The list goes on and on and on,
04:55but clearly this type of behavior
04:57erodes your trust in anything Google.
05:00Me personally, I was thinking
05:02about maybe switching to Google Fi.
05:04There's a bunch of other carriers out there.
05:06I was gonna maybe try it.
05:08The integration with the Pixel seems cool,
05:10but I cannot be sure
05:12that it'll still exist in a year or two.
05:13So I'm not gonna do it.
05:14So my point is launching ambitious new things,
05:17which is what Google does, is easy.
05:20Supporting those ambitious new things
05:22for a long time is hard.
05:25And this new announcement
05:26of seven years of software updates for the Pixel
05:28is the most ambitious software support plan
05:31we've ever seen in the smartphone world.
05:33And that's what makes it so awesome
05:35and so hard to believe at the same time.
05:37Like if I was at Google, honestly watching this,
05:39I would really want to make this promise come true.
05:41I think it's a great promise.
05:43Clearly, I hope more companies see Google's announcement
05:46and try to follow and do the same thing
05:48because making people's devices more useful
05:50and more secure for a longer time is a win for everyone,
05:54for the users, for security, for the environment
05:57if people use their phones longer.
05:58So like if this pans out,
05:59the phones people are buying today
06:01will be up to date till 2030,
06:04which is an eternity in the tech world.
06:06That is so sick.
06:07So I wanna give them credit for an awesome promise,
06:10but it's a promise.
06:11And Google breaks promises all the time.
06:15That's where we're at right now.
06:17I want it to be real, but we'll see.
06:20Will the Pixel even be around in seven years?
06:23We don't know.
06:24The Nexus program only lasted five years
06:26before they killed that and then started Pixel stuff.
06:29And we are on year eight of the Pixel now.
06:32Will it last seven more years?
06:34I don't even know.
06:35But then actually, this also ties into another bit
06:37of a mini trend we've observed lately
06:39that I wanted to talk about,
06:40which is new announcements from tech companies
06:44that have features that are coming soon.
06:47And this isn't just Google.
06:48This has happened across the board,
06:49but this has happened where a device will come out,
06:52but then the new features aren't available at launch.
06:55So reviewers aren't even able to test the new features
06:59until well after the thing is in the wild.
07:00Google just did this with the Pixel.
07:02The video boost feature they talked about on stage,
07:04that they said is coming later.
07:07Video night site is also not available at launch.
07:09That's coming later.
07:11But like I said, not just Google.
07:12Apple has done this actually many times
07:14with iPhone camera features.
07:16And they've done it again this year with a bunch of stuff.
07:19The journal app on the iPhone is still not there,
07:21coming later this year.
07:23The AirDrop transfer via the internet feature
07:26is also not in the phones yet.
07:27That's still coming later this year.
07:30And the double tap feature for the Apple Watch,
07:31which is one of the biggest new features of the entire watch
07:34was announced on stage,
07:36but it's still in beta a month later and coming soon.
07:39I've just noticed a bunch of these
07:40over the past couple of months.
07:41It kind of feels like, I tweeted about this,
07:43it kind of feels like the gaming industry precedent
07:48where a lot of gaming studios
07:49will release like a half finished game
07:51kind of to just get it out there and maybe test the waters.
07:53And if it hooks,
07:54then maybe they'll throw a bunch of patches at it
07:56and updates at it.
07:57But releasing half finished games is just not great.
08:00So I definitely don't love this trend for tech
08:03and for smartphones and hardware,
08:06but for slightly different reasons.
08:07One, just because it makes them much harder to review
08:10if the new feature is not out and we can't test it.
08:13And then we review what's out,
08:14but then a big new feature comes later, tough.
08:18But I guess I'll just stick with the thing that I've said
08:21from the beginning,
08:22which is never buy a new piece of tech
08:26based on the promise of future software updates.
08:29Just don't do it.
08:30Just buy it for what it is today.
08:31And if there's stuff coming later
08:33and it actually gets delivered on the promise,
08:35some are better at delivering that than others,
08:36then it's a bonus.
08:38It just, it's an extra value add for the thing
08:41that you are already happy with,
08:43but never buy it just based on the promise
08:45of future updates.
08:46So that's it.
08:47I just had some thoughts I wanted to get out
08:48into the world.
08:49Hopefully Google and Apple and others are listening.
08:52Hopefully they're able to deliver on these promises,
08:56but also hopefully they're able to deliver on things
08:58that they promise at launch when they can.
09:02And we'll keep an eye on Pixel.
09:03I'm testing the phones.
09:04I'll be reviewing them.
09:05Subscribe to see the review when it comes out.
09:07That's it for now.
09:08Thanks for watching.
09:09Catch you in the next one.
09:10Peace.