Previously on Lemmy:

Past Discussions:

Sorry for the delay for the weekly. Server’s not that stable right now, maybe we should start the thread on Sundays instead.

I always like to switch things up once in a while because it’s fun. So, let’s get back to the brand discussion this week for the Google Pixel. We’ll do a discussion on repairability next week. Again, ideas are always welcome here.

I’ve never used a Pixel, but people around here should know that I’ve been very critical of Google’s product decisions over the years, and the Pixel is no exception. In my point of view, discontinuing the Nexus series, buying out the talents from the remains of HTC and starting an official “made by Google” phone is the equivalent of reddit buying out Alien Blue to make the official reddit app. I think it’s the event that scared big Android manufacturers like Samsung enough to start making their own ecosystem away from Google, as they are concerned that Google may start locking software features to their own phones instead of improving Android overall (rightfully so, I might add).

It really makes no business sense at all to turn your manufacturing partners into your competitors, but then again, it’s Google.

With that being said, the first years of the Pixels has been marred with growing pains. Whereas the Nexus line has always been barebones, no frills development devices, it seemed to me that the people who made Pixels don’t even use Android and are insistent on turning Pixel into iPhones, removing the headphone jack on the Pixel 2 despite the antagonistic ad from the original Pixel, Pixel exclusive software features like Google camera that necessitating the need of rom mods, as well as the quality issues that seems to be inherited from the Nexus days just really soured me from considering Pixels, as I think it’s against the spirit of openness that made Android great.

But it seems like in recent years, they finally figured out that a large percentage of people who bought Androids not because they can’t afford iPhones, but because they like Android, and I see the introduction of the “a” series as progress. The recent Pixel ad campaign also made me think that they finally figuring it out: people want different things, trying to turn Android into worse versions of iPhones was not going to work, so they should be trying to make the best Android for Android users instead.

(It’s also the reason I think all the previous reddit clones failed, but Lemmy will be the one that finally succeeds.)

  • Bianca_0089@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    A family member has one, nobody else does. Something we all notice is that a lot of our text messages fail to deliver to that one specific family member. Are they unreliable for texting?

    • rigamarole@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Pixel 7 Pro here. Nobody has mentioned to me about messages failing. That’s not to say it isn’t happening, just that no one has said anything. I absolutely love the phone, for what it’s worth.

      • Bianca_0089@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        I reaaly wonder what could be going wrong with their phone. Maybe it got dropped on the concrete a whole lot xD

        Well in the meantime I just now found an option that ‘sends SMS if RCS fails to deliver’ so I’ll just enable that and see what happens. Yaaaay experimentssss

    • Nevermore9197@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My pixel 6a seems to be struggling with that, mostly due to that new style of messengering. I can’t remember now what it’s called. But disabling it and switching back to just SMS remedies it.