SAN FRANCISCO: Google on May 11 took an enormous step towards pushing its Pixel product line-up down a street already paved by Apple and its array of trendsetting gadgets.
The newest additions to its six-year-old Pixel model will embrace Google’s first smartwatch that attracts upon the options and experience it has gained from final 12 months’s US$2.1bil (RM9.21bil) acquisition of health gadget maker Fitbit.
The new watch, focused for an autumn launch, marks Google’s first main try and make its mark in wearable know-how, a market that has been rising steadily since Apple launched its smartwatch in 2014. Until now, Google’s presence within the smartwatch market had been restricted to creating a model of its cell Android working system for watches made by different corporations.
Google additionally used its annual I/O builders convention to tease a Pixel pill that it’s scheduled for launch subsequent 12 months to compete in opposition to Apple’s market-leading iPad.
Besides showcasing its upcoming gadgets, Google additionally previewed the subsequent model of its Android working system, which runs a lot of the world’s smartphones outdoors Apple’s iPhone. It additionally highlighted a number of advances within the subject of synthetic intelligence.
Google’s emphasis on new gadgets indicators that an organization finest identified for its dominant search engine and different in style web software program is assured it now has a greater deal with on the way to design and manufacture {hardware}. It launched its first Pixel smartphone in 2016.
“It takes a long time to build the capabilities, and now you are seeing very visibly that technology be expressed through many different products,” Rick Osterloh, the manager answerable for Google’s system division, instructed reporters earlier this week. “It was like an iceberg in that you didn’t see a lot what was happening underneath, but now you can really see all these things coming to the surface.”
Because it already brings greater than US$200bil (RM877.30bil) yearly in digital advert gross sales, Google can afford to department out into totally different instructions and discover new methods to attach with individuals, mentioned Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen.
Adding extra products to the Pixel line-up “gives them another touch point to learn and experience things with people more directly”, Nguyen mentioned. “Now, they not only be in your pocket, but now they can be on your wrist, and in your ears, too.”
Before launching its smartwatch, Google will likely be fleshing out its collection of Pixel telephones with a brand new funds mannequin referred to as the 6a popping out in late July, together with its first set of wi-fi ear buds to incorporate noise cancellation.
The Pixel 6a will embrace Google’s top-of-the line processor however promote for US$449 (RM1,969) – a 25% low cost from the marginally extra refined Pixel 6 launched final fall. The Pixel Buds Pro will promote for US$199 (RM872). Both products are scheduled for a July 28 launch.
The watch would be the first product to check a privateness pledge that Google made to realize regulatory approval for its Fitbit takeover 16 months in the past. As a part of the deal, Google promised to not gather the well being and health info collected by means of Fitbit options to promote digital adverts that generate most of its income – a dedication that the corporate mentioned it can honour with the brand new Pixel Watch.
Although they nonetheless aren’t wherever as in style as telephones, smartwatches continued to make important inroads with projected worldwide shipments of 31.3 million models this 12 months, up from 18.5 million in 2019 earlier than the pandemic helped stoke much more demand for Internet-connected devices.
Even after pouring billions of {dollars} right into a {hardware} division that now employs 1000’s of individuals, Google hasn’t made main inroads.
Despite occasional glowing critiques, Pixel smartphones have lower than a 1% share of the worldwide market for the gadgets, in line with the analysis agency International Data Corp. All instructed, IDC estimates that fewer than 30 million Pixel smartphones have been bought for the reason that launch of the primary mannequin almost six years in the past. By distinction, Apple shipped greater than 56 million iPhones through the first three months of this 12 months alone, in line with IDC.
But IDC analyst Nabila Popal mentioned there are indicators that the Pixel smartphone line is beginning to achieve extra traction. She believes the Pixel 6 would have bought even higher than it already has had been it not for chip shortages which have damage quite a lot of products, rising the possibilities that the decrease priced 6a mannequin will likely be “very well received”.
For its half, Google says the Pixel 6 already has outsold the Pixel 4 and Pixel 5 mixed throughout its first six months in the marketplace. – AP
