Android 7.1 Nougat's Changelog Reveals Pixel-Exclusive Features Not Available To Nexus Devices (bgr.com) 116
With the launch of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL yesterday, Google failed to mention the fact that vanilla Android is dead. The Pixel and Pixel XL run Android 7.1 Nougat, custom software made solely for the new Pixel devices and not for past Nexus smartphones. A changelog for Android 7.1 reveals that Nexus smartphones and tablets will not get Pixel-specific features. They won't get the Pixel Launcher or Google Assistant. BGR reports: Google is trying to set the Pixels apart by giving them special features, and it's not like that's an irrational business decision. But the Pixels might change the way Android fans buy devices. Before, you could go for Nexus to get the hottest Android features as soon as Google released Android updates, or you could buy anything else and hope for speedy software upgrade. Now, it seems that you'll have to buy Pixel to get a full Android experience as Google envisions it, or get anything else and never experience Android in its full glory. Some of the Pixel product-specific features, as mentioned in the changelog found by Android Police, include: Pixel Launcher, Google Assistant, unlimited original quality photo/video backup to Google Photos, phone/chat support, and various cosmetic changes.
It's called "vendor lock-in," people! (Score:1)
And the list of companies that practice it, or attempt to, reads like a Who's Who of tech.
Why am I not surprised?
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Pixel == Nexus (Score:1, Interesting)
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Re: Pixel == Nexus (Score:2)
You're right, Google is a monopoly.
On what THEY do.
They decide to rebrand Nexus to Pixel? Suck it up or not. Your money.
They decide to skin Pixel phones with special sauce? Suck it up or not. Your money.
Their business. They owe you nothing if you turn away. Their loss.
To buy a Galaxy.
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Every business is invariably going to have a monopoly on something, especially when it comes to copyrighted works and patents, which are that way by design. Android is a mix of both.
As for whether Google has an overall market monopoly, yeah they likely do for web search (and smartphone platforms in most overseas markets, but not in the US.) However unlike what most people know as monopolies, there really isn't anything compelling end users to switch to it other than they just want to. And in the case of Win
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Every business is invariably going to have a monopoly on something,
Your corner dry cleaners?
Producers of toilet paper?
There are many businesses that operate just find on commodities. They will generally have certain products and/or customers that are their backbone, but that doesn't mean that they required a monopoly just to stay in business. Sometimes just knowing the right people on the other side is enough. Sometimes even providing better service.
Re: Pixel == Nexus (Score:2)
In both cases, trademarks and locations would be something they hold a monopoly on.
Re: Pixel == Nexus (Score:5, Funny)
...To buy a Galaxy.
I hear you can get a smokin' deal on them now!
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I'm going to wait for the fire sales
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I'm holding out for the next version. Rumor is it rotates about its diameter and runs longer without recharge.
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No, not in a fun way...
Re:Pixel == Nexus (Score:5, Informative)
Except in the past those exclusive features usually had a reason behind them. Like the hardware didn't support the feature.
No, it was the same thing with the Nexus line as well.
Take the action bar library for instance. When it first came on the scene, it wasn't backwards compatible. The community created its own library for backwards-compatibility. Eventually, Google supported an official version of the backwards compatibility library and the community version was discontinued. There are dozens of other examples like this.
First Google comes up with a new feature, which it implements on the latest hardware and on its latest flagship device. Then later, the real work begins, both the open source community and Google try to bake an adaptation of that new feature into a compatibility library (that hopefully won't run like a dog on the older hardware).
Ya know... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, base features like Assistant piss me off. I like vanilla android with a common stock set of features. Making elite features is more of an Apple like move.
Doing it for what will amount to such a small fraction of Alphabets bottom line borders on ridiculous. I am very seriously torn between lust for the new device and disgust. Considering moving elsewhere, but where? Samsung I despise, as well as apple. HTC and LG are just okay, but falling off the update treadmill leaves me highly concerned.
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Dont want to sound like a fanboi but, lots of hate & vendor lock-in comments in regard to Apple truly isn't warranted.
The iPhone 4s (ancient by any smart phone measure) is capable of running iOS 9 while base line for iOS 10 is the iPhone 5.
Adoption of iOS 10 [appleinsider.com] is now > 50% on all compatible devices.
So, while Linux and Android fans hate on, Apple supports and updates it's users.
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But iOS 10 on an iPhone 5 might 'run', the user experience (from what I've heard) isn't as good as iOS 9, so thereby 'pushing' users to upgrade their phone before they might have if iOS 10 wasn't a 'free' upgrade for them...
So don't pretend that just because Apple gives out 'free' software updates that its a benevolent action
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You don't have to update iOS. My wife's iPhone 6 is still on 9.3.5. Apple makes it available, but they don't force you to update. It's called having options. Why is it meh when Apple does it, but considered the best thing since sliced bread when an Android vendor does it?
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I prefer Android myself, but I have to admit; most Android devices don't even have the option of updating to a new Android version supported by the hardware vendor.
Apple makes up for it's (obvious) lack in hardware choices by not abandoning older hardware nearly as quickly as most Android vendors.
Samsung's then-flagship Galaxy S4 officially support upto Android 5, and it's slightly newer than an iPhone 5.
Google itself doesn't even offer updating support on it's Nexus devices. My 2012 Nexus 7" tables can run
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Apple still makes features exclusive for its newer hardware. For example, when Siri came out, it would only turn on for newer devices, but people with jailbroken phones were still able to make it work anyways without any apparent issues.
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Dont want to sound like a fanboi but, lots of hate & vendor lock-in comments in regard to Apple truly isn't warranted.
[...]
Apple supports and updates it's users.
What does support and update has to do with vendor lock-in? Apple is the worse company on earth for vendor lock-in. They still have excellent support.
Re: Ya know... (Score:2)
Worst? Have you never heard of:
Microsoft
Oracle
Cisco
IBM
?? Apple wishes they could achieve the level of lock-in that Oracle has achieved over their customers...
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I once had the joy of working with that clusterfuck called Oracle Apex; a simplistic and severely limited intranet site builder locked to an incredibly expensive database.
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Yes I have heard of them and Apple is far worse with its proprietary connectors, features only working if you have both an iPhone and a Mac, the iPhone even have its own damned Messaging and Video chats protocol! It's just like if Cisco's routers had a proprietary protocol instead of TCP/IP.
You can install Microsoft's software on PCs from any vendor (including Apple). Cisco switches works well with PCs from any vendor. The level of lock-in is just not the same level.
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The Android way of issuing security updates only for phones on older versions of the OS is arguably better than the Apple way of requiring a recent OS to stay secure.
The problem with updating the OS is that, at least with iOS, it tends to make the phone rather slow and annoying to use. Extra features require more disk space (so less room for your data), more RAM and more CPU time. So ideally you would be able to stick with an earlier version of iOS that runs well on the phone, but still get security fixes.
T
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I don't think you understand how profitable Android is. It's all about the ads and in-app purchases. The issue I see here is that they're now trying to make a profit at both ends, hurting consumers in the process.
Re:Ya know... (Score:5, Interesting)
there are no updates, for all practical purposes. android update model is worse than window10, and THAT is saying A LOT.
linux: I can update and patch the kernel, the ip stack, apps, etc etc.
android: sigh. it sucks. that's all.
we need a real linux based phone and not google's lock-in bullshit that is abandonware.
the vendors don't care and neither does google. all this just made ME not care about phones, pretty much. I love linux and have been a linux admin since the 1.1 kernel days, but I refuse to spend time on 'phones' since they are junk and more frustration than its worth.
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You must have an immeasurable tolerance for frustration if you find Android and/or iOS devices to be frustrating to deal with. It's a phone with apps. It's not a do-it-yourself Mars explorer.
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Most Android phones are like that because most people just don't care. They're not the only option though. If you buy a bootloader-unlocked phone you can run straight-up open source software on it. You can optionally install the Google apps on top, but AOSP is a fully functional baseline setup - phone, web, mail, SMS, etc - with no lock-in. You can download the whole thing as source, build every bit yourself, and load it on your phone.
You'll want to stick to models with strong community support. Anythi
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Unfortunately, the only company that even conceivably has the resources to contemplate a "pure Linux" alternative to Android is Canonical/Ubuntu... and they dropped the ball so many times & made SO MANY design decisions that were just plain *awful* (like making literally EVERYTHING a gesture, to the complete exclusion of support for real hardware buttons AT ALL), their credibility in the mobile realm has been almost permanently ruined. And truth be told, even IF they pulled it off, they'd STILL basicall
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there are no updates, for all practical purposes.
Tell it to my 2 and a half year old Samsung phone which had a security update pushed to it last weekend. Okay it may have only received 2 major Android version upgrades and is unlikely to receive a Nougat upgrade, but .... good. Android updates haven't gotten faster or leaner since version 5 and its quite clearly still getting security updates so what's the issue? I doubt this phone will last to the end of the year anyway.
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There are still updates for my old Galaxy S3 running 4.4, coming from Google via Google Play Services. So far there is not a remotely exploitable vulnerability they have been unable to fix or at least mitigate that way.
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Regular users don't want this eith
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Making elite features is more of an Apple like move.
Actually it's more of an every single Android vendor move.
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I have been a fan of google. Not as rabid as many of the apple fanboys, but still a fan. Some of these make sense, bundled cloud storage for photos, support for the device (with that price tag you better).
Having read the article, they haven't removed anything from the Nexus upgrade, rather they're pointing out the product specific features of the Pixel. Things like the Pixel Launcher, Google Assistant, Cloud features, so on.
As a happy Nexus 5X owner, I don't really want any of those features. I suspect a lot of Nexus owners will be the same, Pixel and Nexus are different products with different goals, Pixel is more consumer focused where as Nexus was for people who wanted to be on the bleeding edge.
Al
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you know http://www.cyanogenmod.org/ [cyanogenmod.org], don't you?
Good! (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want the Pixel launcher or assistant. All I thought about during the presentation was how to disable all the crap. I'll gladly keep using my N6 if it means I don't receive all the stupid speech/assistant crap.
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I agree. I don't see much on that list that I wouldn't disable almost as soon as I have the phone. The few things I would like to keep I already have thanks to 3rd party apps.
Doesn't fit into Google's business model (Score:4, Insightful)
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I use almost all google's stuff, and the only place I even notice any ads from them is on the web search page. I don't recall ever seeing a google ad on my android phone.
If that little bit of annoyance on the search page is all I have to give up to get all the awesome tech they bring, then sign me up for more.
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I use almost all google's stuff, and the only place I even notice any ads from them is on the web search page. I don't recall ever seeing a google ad on my android phone.
The other stuff is for collecting your data.
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Re: Troubling but not surprising (Score:1)
Probably a language barrier. I'm sure you would butcher his language way worse if you tried. At least he's trying... you probably only speak enough English to make snide comments about others' grammar.
Try contributing to the conversation next time.
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OK. Sure. Cede some market to Amazon (Score:2)
Alexa is available for all Android devices.
Prime Subscribers already get unlimited Photo Storage and ridiculously cheap ($50/year) truly unlimited Cloud storage accounts.
Sure, you're trading your privacy off to a different internet giant, but if I'm looking for the particular feature set available with a Pixel phone, it seems like I can get them just fine from Amazon's apps and services without having to buy Google's phone in particular.
Likewise, I already know the Pixel doesn't have hardware features I le
Perfect! (Score:1)
The first thing I do on my Nexus phones is install Nova launcher, remove all that Google Now stuff. I don't want Google helping me. I have a brain and don't need AI to know if I have to catch a flight or if there is a storm coming or something.
I think part of the problem is nobody wants to just make money on hardware anymore. I miss those days (especially as a hardware engineer). I buy the hardware and it doesn't need to talk to the mothership to work.
Too bad the Firefox Phone OS died.
Isn't this just a name change? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true today that old Nexus phones also don't get upgrades to the most recent Android versions -- only recent ones do. So the real question is: will future generations of Android only target newer versions of Pixel, or will buying a Pixel guarantee some number of Android updates?
Also, apps like Google's Assistant are not core operating system features. The worrisome sign would be not getting improvements to the underlying OS (such as to battery life or graphics performance), or even worse API incompatibilities for app developers.
This might not be a good move for Google (Score:4, Interesting)
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There's one thing Samsung does have: They can make their alternative OS phones look like their Android Touchwiz layer and so many people wouldn't know they're not running Android...except when they go to install apps and many of their favorites are not available. In fact, they actually did the UI thing with some o
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Isn't it about an 'Assistant' that works with the data that's in Google's silos?
Let's say, Amazon has data about physical purchases you make with them, e-books if you use them, movie streaming if you use them instead of 15 other vendors. Apple has your "itunes", but if you don't buy/rent your music and movies there they mostly just know about your installed apps and your messages/SMS/phone calls, perhaps browser history if they steal it from you.
Google has your searches and google maps searches and youtube
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Yep, my Nexus 4 was not fit for use. It barely worked, and actually did stop working after six months. I'm very hesitant to buy another Nexus phone. Though the Nexus 4 was made by LG, I found other LG phones aren't that bad. The G4 was a pleasure to use until the CPU died--I'm told the CPU dies on nearly all LG G4 handsets.
My conclusion from this admittedly small sample size: there is little Q/A on Nexus phones, and their design and build quality compares poorly to a phone whose production is entirely contr
No SD card slot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's "flagship" devices have been missing an SD card slot since day one. Google wants all user date migrated to the cloud where they can sift through it.
So Nexus or Pixel. It doesn't really matter. They're both irrelevant to Android users serious about the data on their devices.
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It's a very rare use-case, you know... /SARCASM
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That is why I don't get any of their phones.
I work somewhere with VERY poor cell reception and the wifi has a lot of non-research stuff throttled. I have a 64gb SD card in my current phone and I can store all my music, podcasts and some videos on it just fine.
I have a limited amount of data every month and even on the commute the network coverage is not very good. Probably because the train is just a large metal box.
In the end Google's everything in the cloud approach just does not work for me in my phone.
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it works for any common consumer? (here in Brazil the answer is NO)
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Google wants all user date migrated to the cloud where they can sift through it.
To be fair this is consumer driven. I used to be a favour of local ownership right until my phone died and I spent 2 hours manually re-entering contact details and a month lamenting lost information in messages and pictures on the device. I still have an SD card but that's because my phone makes for an easy way to move data around if needed. The idea that data isn't locally coupled to a tiny fragile device that is easily lost or stolen is a plus in the eyes of many.
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I get that, I use sync for contacts and let my phone back pictures up to the cloud. I just like being able to download music to the device so that I'm not burning through my data plan and battery life when I'm listening.
That said, I've currently got a 32GB phone with a 64GB SD card in it for media, so the 128GB model would be fine for me. But just not at the price point they're selling it for.
I have my Nexus 5 about 2 years (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand that the initial release makes the Nexus 5 closer to 3 years, the fact is that my first Nexus 5 was damaged and the second I purchased just before the 5x was out. What I find frustrating about this is that most people think it's just OK that we just scrap 2 year old phones if we want the latest features. It's not as if the hardware can't support most if not all the features.
Nexus was the Google line and today it's Pixel. In two years there will be another. It just boggles my mind how we accept that that it's OK just to scrap this technology. Don't tell me that they are recycled. That has been shown to be a lie. Most of the parts just go to a scrap heap in some third world country and we feel just great about doing our part.
Apple is doing the same and now it's doing it with the Macs. It's not that older hardware can't support it since they are selling slower systems today than some that they will no longer support. The fact is there is no reason for this, other than to push new product.
Not that most people care anyways it's not going into their back yards.
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I agree that we should be able to use our Android devices much longer than three years.
However, if I am able to upgrade my Nexus 7 with CyanogenMod 13 (Android 6) with security patches for the next ten years or so, I am happy. I care about longivity, not the latest features (which makes me learn new things all the time). I am fine with the current feature set.
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It's not as if the hardware can't support most if not all the features.
That's interesting. Android crowd complains about lack of updates. iOS crowd complains about how slow their phones get after a few years of forced updates.
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It's not as if the hardware can't support most if not all the features.
That's interesting. Android crowd complains about lack of updates. iOS crowd complains about how slow their phones get after a few years of forced updates.
Absolutely - it's a problem either way. For me the problem isn't that I don't get the shiny newest features on my phone (I didn't buy it in the first place with those features so if I do get it later then that's a bonus, not a right), it's the lack of security and bugfixes. Android seems to have very little mechanism for security fixes other than "run the latest version". Microsoft managed to keep releasing patches for old OS versions, so if Android is going to be a serious OS then it needs to do the same.
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Upgrades are completely optional.
Except for those cases where they're not, such as your phone having a problem and being brought into the braindead bar.
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While I understand that the initial release makes the Nexus 5 closer to 3 years, the fact is that my first Nexus 5 was damaged and the second I purchased just before the 5x was out. What I find frustrating about this is that most people think it's just OK that we just scrap 2 year old phones if we want the latest features. It's not as if the hardware can't support most if not all the features.
That is the cost of wanting to live on the bleeding edge. I know people who dont care about the latest features, my previous housemate was happy with a Galaxy Note 3. In fact when it broke, he went out looking for another Note 3 because he was so happy with it and didn't like the Note 5 he bought as a replacement. He managed to find an unopened box on Ebay somewhere out of Hong Kong.
Given that phone contracts have been sold in 24 month periods for donkeys years, 2 years was the defacto standard for many,
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> Apple is doing the same and now it's doing it with the Macs.
Interesting you say that. After the disappointing release price of Pixel XL, the next phone I'm buying will likely be an iPhone --- their support for old phones lasts 5 years. From what I can tell, iPhones have the longest, most robust support of any of the phones on the market.
Pixel & Pixel XL is promised 2 years of support and a 3rd year of security fixes. ...for $650 & $750? no thank you!
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When I owned a iPhone, which was a long time ago. I went on a trip and the phone crashed. The only way to restore it was to connect it to my Mac which was over 3000 miles away. Not an option. No Apple store nearby. While I had a computer nearby it wasn't the one my phone was synced to. It didn't even have iTunes. Short story I had no options.
Don't know if it's any better now but I have no intention to spend $800 to find out. My next option will most likely be a real phone. Like a flip phone if they still ex
This is me not giving a shit (Score:2)
Here's all the stuff that's Pixel-specific.
Pixel Launcher – swipe up for all apps, new Search Box, date/weather header on home
Google Assistant
Unlimited original quality photo/video backup to Google Photos
Smart Storage – when storage is full, automatically removes old backed up photos/videos
Phone/Chat support (new support tab in settings), screen-share functionality
Quick switch adapter for wired setup from Android or iPhone
Pixel Camera:
Electronic Image Stabilization (
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Aww c'mon, that's hilarious - iOS has had dynamic calendar icons since it was known as iPhone OS 1.0. Welcome to 9 years ago, Android.
A bit of bullshit (Score:2)
Of course you get android in the full glory, you just do not get the pixel stuff in the full glory. But the pixel exclusive software is then just as some samsung exclusive software or weird htc launchers. Why does the author think, that the most powerful google phone has the software everyone wants? We want a nice clean android, that's not neccessarily the latest firmware of the official google phone.
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Anyone who quotes that slogan/motto/whatever is an absolute moron who deserves a long, but extremely pain-filled life.
Hmm is this like Samsung apps or anti trust (Score:2)
I guess there's two ways we could interpret this:
1. It's like Samsung, LG etc all deploy their phones with their own bloatware
2. They are engineering the OS environment to give their products/services an advantage (Like MS did with IE and Windows)
Either way it feels like Google are becoming more like Evil Corp everyday
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Yeap - but it's yet so so far from others like MS/Oracle/Apple...