WHY MADE BY GOOGLE EVENT BOMBED - DESPITE INCREDIBLE PRODUCTS

E79 WHY MADE BY GOOGLE EVENT BOMBED - DESPITE INCREDIBLE PRODUCTS

Transcript

Dalton Anderson (00:00.078) Welcome to Bitch Step podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Google arguably had the strongest Pixel lineup announced last week, but due to their bizarre late talk show reveal, it left a lot of people confused and a bit dazed. And some of you just had to tune out. For me, as a Google fan boy, and I've got the Google Pixel 9, and I had the Google Pixel, I think,

seven, five, four a, and I'm a big, big believer in Google and a lot of the stuff that they, they offered the world like Gmail and these other Google suite things. I'm a big Google user. had a Google, Google TV all in on Google. The only thing is I might be too far deep in Google and I'm trying to get out a little bit. I just want to get to a place where it's not a complete dependence and I'm reevaluating my relationship.

Not because Google's treating me bad, but what if Google one day wants to do that and I'm stuck. I'm saying that it was deemed a cringe fest, this announcement, and we're going to walk through some of the stuff that's important and then some background and thoughts about what they announced. And I'll show some little clips of it. haven't pulled up. So we'll have clips of

the announcements, these weird situations that I'm talking about. But first off, the agenda is what did Google actually announce in the real upgrades? Weirdest presentation format I've seen in a while. I, this definitely tops Sam Altman's announcement. What's his name? Blanking on his name. His announcement.

for his AI hardware products where they're doing like the hug, like they're doing the hug behind and then they canceled the product launch and then they relaunched and then, I don't know, it was just a whole weird thing and their video was like them meeting at a bar and they were just talking about how cool they were and how they were awesome people and they could do all these great things and they're just like, it was a hype video. The whole thing was just a hype video and it was super weird.

Dalton Anderson (02:22.454) and it had AI, they used AI in the video, it was a bad video. This definitely tops that for sure, no doubt about it.

Why the delivery matters just as much as devices. That's pretty important. And then.

Dalton Anderson (02:39.672) Just...

I don't even know how did we get to the point where we're having this conversation, Google.

I'm dumbfounded that video announcement that they did live made by Google 2025 was crazy. Crazy.

that would have been really rough to do live. Like I do these podcasts and these podcasts are live in my opinion. I stream them. I don't think anybody tunes into the stream because they're at random times, but.

I don't make edits. Like if I say something that I didn't like or I mispronounce a word or I start messing up and I'm like, I don't know. That's all in here. Like I'm not hiding anything. That's fine. Cause I'm perfecting my art of speaking to you in the group. So instead of hiding, I'll just leave it all out there.

Dalton Anderson (03:46.49) and through the shame of messing up, I'll eventually figure it out and I can reevaluate. But when it's live like that on that scale, I couldn't imagine that one. Well, I could imagine it, but I wouldn't wanna be in that area. You could just feel how awkward it was and just how odd, like the two formats didn't match up.

You know, that's like if you're going, you're wearing party clothes like bright neon green and you're like, you have some tank top and some short shorts and you're just ready to party and you're all wired up and then you go to a funeral. Like the two audiences, there's just such a big clash between what they want to do and how they're going about their day. And that's kind of how it felt. Like the announcement of the tech, like some of the tech stuff was pretty sick.

But then the way that it was announced seemed really forced and awkward with either the celeb camos or

Jimmy Fallon, the host of Saturday Night Live, like saying odd things and like, wow, about like small features. He's like, yeah, that's groundbreaking. And yeah, just, it was a odd. So let's get into the main takeaways. So very strong pixel lineup. One thing I was surprised about was no announcement of a pixel laptop. There was speculation that that was going to happen. I think the main reason why they were still waiting,

is they're not depreciating, but they are deprecating. Wait, no. Yeah. So they're getting rid of Chrome OS, not Chrome, yeah, Chrome OS. See, this is the stuff that you'll get when I don't edit the episode. They're getting rid of Chrome OS and they are rolling into one stack and they're rolling into, they're going all in on Android. So Chrome OS is now gonna,

Dalton Anderson (05:54.871) roll into Android and then Android on your phone is gonna be Android and then the tablets are gonna be Android. What does that sound like?

Yeah, it sounds like iOS. iOS, but by Swift. The coding language is called Swift.

that has one tech stack for many different screens, screen formats and devices. And so you can produce one app and it would work on all devices. And then the developer environment for those ecosystems will handle the rest for you. And so it makes developing apps very simple and there's not much friction. And so I think they're waiting

to be one of the companies, because it's their new initiative, to launch the laptop. That's what I think. But for the Pixel 10, the Pixel Pro XL, and the Pixel Pro, and the Fold, the biggest announcement I think would be the new chip. They've got the new Tensor chip. It's better, it's more efficient. I mean, is it groundbreaking? No. Is it?

give you more battery life and these other things? Sure. Would you upgrade if you have a nine pro or nine? No. Should it be, should you upgrade if you were like two years away or maybe you're looking at a different phone?

Dalton Anderson (07:31.438) Two years, when I say two years away, mean two years away from the most recent iteration.

It depends what phone you have. you have like a Pixel 8, then maybe you want to upgrade because you have the new design, but otherwise, no, I don't think so. If you're looking for a new phone, should you consider Pixel? Of course, but I have a Pixel, so it's kind of biased there. Being neutral, I still think it's a really good deal. Back in the day, like when I say back in the day, like four or five years ago, like Pixels were like really good deals.

They gave you all sorts of the crazy features and for the price, I would say it was good. Like it's not the best phone on the market for sure. Like back in the day. Now Pixel is seemingly, it's getting up there and in a flagship manner. Do I think it's like an absolute flagship, like an iPhone Max or a Samsung? What is this Samsung? Is it Samsung Ultra?

No, but I don't think Google is trying to compete with those phones. They're just trying to get market share because they're still pretty low. So I like their I like their phones. They're great. The software is amazing. It's like I would describe it as the iOS version of Android where it's a little bit less customization, very clean interface.

everything's stripped out. There's no extras. It's just very minimalistic. You're using this software built by one of the best and brightest software companies in the world, Google. And so this is Google's take on their own ecosystem, Android. And so this is Google's version of Android and it's very minimalist and it's good. I really like it. Like if you have used iOS,

Dalton Anderson (09:33.26) or iPhones and you use a pixel, you pick a pixel up. It feels the same. So, okay. So the pixel stuff looks good. The phones look good. They didn't change any designs. They upgraded the camera. They've got a hundred X pro zoom on the pro, which was pretty interesting. Don't know what your use case would be besides being a stalker. It's like who, who is using that? Like my phone has hold on.

My phone goes up to 30x zoom and I mean

Dalton Anderson (10:16.334) The quality is still pretty good, I just, what are you using 100X for? I don't know what you're using it for. what use case are you that far away? I'm like, hold on, hold on, I gotta take a photo. Maybe if you're doing some landscape stuff and you're trying to get a close up with the mountains or whatever it may be, but if you're really into it, you probably have your own camera set up.

Don't know what the use case is for it. Don't know how useful it is. As you could tell, because I'm struggling. But it was interesting. Don't know if it's useful though. What I did find useful is these AI features that they're rolling out. One was called Magic Q and another one was Camera Coach, which I think is cool if you need help taking photos and like positioning the photo correctly. Not everyone's great at photos. Not everyone's interested in photos. People just want to

take a couple and then call it a day. And so this would really help with people that are taking photos of the group, like a family photo, Nana. I'm looking at you. You can see we're making eye contact through this TV right now where they, they might get a little nervous or they're not as confident in their photo tographer abilities. This makes them a pro photographer and it coaches them through

with digital prompts, like how you want to position the camera. And then you'll take the photo and then the camera will do all the work in the backend and they'll, they'll do everything for you and you'll get a whole bunch of different photos, which I thought was interesting. Great for people that need help.

Dalton Anderson (12:08.513) Okay, and then Magic Queue, I talked about Magic Queue. That was really cool. it uses Gemini locally on device. This is all locally on device, by the way. Uses Gemini to take information on your text messages. The examples they shared were booking info for flights, like flight information, like when you use your flight land, reservation information, and then the other one that was kind of cool was

asking for a photo of Greg, but Greg was a dog. So the AI needed to know that the dog was, cause it asked for Greg wearing the hat and AI knew that Greg was the dog and the had to find a dog wearing the hat and then attach the photo for them. And then for the booking information, it pulls it off of Gmail, but it's just nice. Like it's the stuff that you're doing all the time where people are asking for things and it's important, but

It's not top on the list. It might be important to them, but not important to you at the time. And you've got to switch to different apps. Now you could just see the text message. You'd be like, oh, like I have to go look that up on my phone on the other app or figure it out, or I've got to get that from my computer or whatever it may be. Now you can just see what Magic Queue says. And it's like, Hey, I found the information. Is this right? And then you say, yep. Boom. There you go. That's it. It's over.

Simple, two clicks. I would love it. I would love it. It looked good. It looked good. I was seriously, I liked that. I was seriously impressed about the Magic Q.

That's something that adds real value to everybody. Everybody has that problem where you get asked a question, you're like, I don't know, I've got to go to this different app, go look it up, pull the information, copy, paste it, put it in there and let them know. Now you don't have to do that. When I say now, it's not rolled out yet because the phone isn't out and I could check, I'm in the beta. I don't think I have that.

Dalton Anderson (14:20.299) And I think they're rolling that out as an exclusive. Don't think they said either, but it was kind of hard to follow with the show format they had. It was all over the place and it was crazy.

Dalton Anderson (14:34.101) So speaking of the format, the late night show with Jimmy Fallon as the host.

didn't make much sense and all the celebrity cameos, like they had Alice Cooper, they had Lando Norris, they had the subway guy.

they had one of the NBA players, like they had people just everywhere. NBA and Lando Norris made sense because Google Pixel is a phone partner with the NBA. And so I think like any of the influencers that are there taking stuff on their phone, they've got to use the Pixel. They have the same similar thing with teams like I'm a fan of Liverpool FC. It's a soccer team in England in the city, Liverpool. They're decent.

They actually won today. Let's go over in like extra time and the dying impers of the game. But they have a deal with pixel too. So players or influencers that are there, they use, they have to use pixels or like all the videos shot on phones are used by pixels. And so that stuff makes sense. And Landon Norris, the team he drives for is sponsored by Chrome. So it makes sense.

All that stuff makes sense. And then the other folks, like, it just felt like there was too many people coming in there just to do like a quick talk and then leave. Like you're just there for five minutes and then you go and then they're there for five minutes. And it was just so abrupt, like you couldn't really get the information you needed because it was just, it was about the show, the introduction, the production, the degenerative laughter. And it just,

Dalton Anderson (16:27.585) didn't match with the ambiance and the vibe of announcing cool technology products. And this is why it's important. None of that was really done besides the magic queue. The other stuff was wrapped on a, on a bow and shipped to you and there you open it up and there's this big confetti splash and everyone is laughing and yelling and you didn't even get to look at the present.

You're in the show. You're not watching it, you're in it. And that's the issue is that there wasn't.

Dalton Anderson (17:11.905) that ability to observe. It was the ability to watch but not observe and those are different.

And so you didn't really get to take it all in. And that is one of the reasons why it fell flat. It was very hard to watch. It was difficult in many reasons, but one of them is like the forced smiles and laughter and the, just like the queuing and it's just, it was rough. How about I show you? So let's share my screen.

Dalton Anderson (17:53.144) You won't believe it. You won't believe it. Share with audio. Okay, so this is the first announcement of the show. I'm gonna play these videos all at once, but I'll stop, talk, and discuss it, or give an intro of what I'm trying to show you if you are listening via audio. So this is the intro of the show. A couple minutes in, here we go.

Dalton Anderson (19:55.852) Okay, so the first part of the intro was great. Like I was like, wow, this is cool. This is high energy. This is different. It's a different approach.

And that's fine and dandy, but the last part of the intro, you could hear all the people that are coming in on the show. Like they're showing videos of what they've done or they're coming live and they are talking about the new feature, demoing it.

and it's being demoed.

by the celebrities or these people, whereas previously it was demoed by the tech people that literally made the product. And so you could really feel their passion, why they were excited about it. You could feel their energy. It's hard to say, but when you work on something for so long and it's hard.

you can just admire what they've done because they're excited about it. And it kind of rubs off on you. You feel excited about it. When you pay somebody just to get on stage for seven minutes, talk about what they're told to talk about, press the buttons that they have trained to press and leave. There's not that same vibe, which I think is important.

Dalton Anderson (21:21.195) Okay, so this is this 100x zoom thing I was talking about. And this is one of the cringy parts. Just yeah, just listen in.

Dalton Anderson (22:13.581) It's so funny. So.

I wanted to share that clip because all the cute laughter, like it's a late night talk show. And another thing is in these fireside chats that people would have and they're recorded or there's live audience, you're talking to the other person. You're not talking to the audience. And so in these things, it seems like the idea was to talk to the host, which is Jimmy.

and have a conversation and show him the stuff that Google has done and why it's so cool. But at the same time, they're also presenting and maybe in the fireside chats, it might be an 80 20 to where they might have some stuff with the audience and they're presenting stuff or talking about whatever they're talking about. And it's more general. And then the other 80 is they're having a legitimate conversation and like they're looking the other person in the eye.

and they don't even care about the audience. This is a weird format where it's almost like 60, 40, 60 % of the time they're presenting to the audience, 40 % of the time they're having a conversation.

Dalton Anderson (23:29.355) And then there's the laughter and the clapping and all that stuff. It's just odd. It just doesn't match the format at all.

Dalton Anderson (23:45.175) But this is something that was cool and well done, so I'll share that, because I also want to be positive. This is the Magic Queue. I really like that. They give two quick examples or three quick examples, and it's pretty dope.

Dalton Anderson (26:43.83) Magic Hue, well done. Great presentation too. It felt authentic. Where Jimmy's like, wow, that's on the doing the demo. And then the features that were shown were impressive. And there was genuine feel like, wow, this is useful. Appreciate this, this is a great product. The delivery of the show in general,

was bad. Some things that people said was lacked authenticity, a show that no one wanted to watch, The Verge said it was like being trapped in a wanna vision episode.

TechCrunch referred to it as a cringe fest.

Dalton Anderson (27:39.258) And I don't know how Google got to this place where they thought this was gonna go well, or they're like, yes, this is our idea, this is what we're gonna do, we're confident in it.

And I think there's a couple things here. Google have...

Dalton Anderson (28:06.285) historically been just killers. They just kill their products all the time. Like there's a website killed by Google and it's got all the products that are killed. And so people have like a real issue with Google and stuff that they launched because they don't really believe that they are going to continue the product. And I think that's one of the reasons why Google announced that they're going to do above industry standard on

maintaining their phones for security updates and just updates in general because well, people didn't really believe that they were gonna keep going. They had low market share and just people weren't too confident in what the next steps for Pixel were.

And with that said, another thing is, don't seem like they have a core identity. Like it felt like Pixel had a core identity where it was a part of Google and you were using all this AI infrastructure and technology and industry know-how and deep mind and integrating that into the phone and you're gonna have the best phone that you could possibly have on the market, not in a hardware sense, but software and AI.

capabilities. That was their cell and that has been their cell for years. And then

That was good. I feel like people resonated with that. And the people who built the product were talking about what they built and why it was cool. And people thought it was good. I mean, it's better than you telling people what the product is. You've gotta let the product speak for itself and not distract people with all these.

Dalton Anderson (30:05.667) guests and things that they're trying to do. It just was too much going on. The story fell short. If you add too many points or too much color.

What you're trying to get across isn't direct enough. And then if you're too direct, then you'll scare people away. You've got to find the happy medium to where you're offering enough color where it sells the story, where you're being direct enough that people don't fade out.

Dalton Anderson (30:36.623) I think the biggest takeaway is have an identity, stick to your identity unless you need to pivot.

The good delivery amplifies the hype and the bad delivery undermines everything about it. And I can't tell people to go to tune in to the show that they had last week. And I'm a fan boy, like I love Google, like Google's great.

this one fell really short. I think the last point I had before we close out is

Google already has one of the best markets or marketers and that's their fans. The people who use their products, they're a niche product. It's not mainstream. No one cares if you have an iPhone or a Galaxy. But if you have a Pixel, it's peculiar. It's like, wow, why do you have a Pixel? And if people have Pixels, they're strong believers in the product.

And those folks are probably more tech centric than other folks. You don't need to be tech centric to have a Pixel, but the early adopters typically are. Pixel's pretty much still in that stage. And so your biggest fans and best spokespeople are the people that you're demoralizing with this show. They want to know about the tech. They want to know about what's going on. And just because I listened to the

Dalton Anderson (32:10.4) watch the Saturday live show doesn't mean that I'm going to tune into made by Google because Jimmy's hosting or just because I'll listen to Alex Cooper doesn't mean I'm going to go and watch the show. The 10 minute demo she does. Those things aren't correlated, but what is correlated is if you don't let me resonate and observe and you just give me the show and let me watch it.

It's going to fall short.

Dalton Anderson (32:45.744) Google's building real stuff here with Gemini, their AI stack, their hardware, the things that they're doing with AI at scale, and the benefits that they're gonna be able to offer to people who use their products is gonna be great. And I'm really excited about Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft.

Unfortunately I can't say Apple because they're not pushing, but they're all pushing each other to build the best products and that's a benefit to all of us. And so I'm excited that they're keep pushing things to the next level, but I'm disappointed in their presentation.

Dalton Anderson (33:29.477) Well, I hope you enjoyed the show. Leave a comment if you feel like you want to. And my name is Dalton Anderson. Of course, wherever you are in this world, have a good day, good afternoon, good evening. Thanks again and tune in next week. See ya, bye.