We meet Google’s head of design Claude Zellweger to discover the brand new Pixel 9 sequence

We’re in a gathering room in Google’s present central London HQ, excessive up on the higher flooring of the Renzo Piano-designed Central St Giles complicated. Earlier than us on the desk is an expansion of cell phones, representing the total design evolution of Google’s devoted, personal model, in-house Pixel smartphone. These vary from the unique 2016 system all the way in which as much as the brand new suite of Pixel 9 telephones.

Speaking us by means of this flatscreen smorgasbord is Claude Zellweger, Google’s long-standing head of design. Over the previous seven years, Zellweger has spearheaded the Pixel design ethos (amongst different issues), beginning with the ‘new period’ aesthetic that started with 2021’s Pixel 6. In lots of respects, having this evolutionary journey made specific is a part of the established playbook of smartphone design. These are extremely complicated units that evolve in myriad methods, not simply of their bodily type however by means of modifications in provide chains, laws, technological advances and shifting buyer allegiance.

From Pixel 6 onwards, images grew to become a Google USP. ‘We invested large time within the optical modules in Pixel 6,’ Zellweger says, mentioning that this marked the debut of the horizontal digital camera bar throughout the higher a part of the cellphone again. It’s been a dominant characteristic, by means of Pixel 7, the first-generation Pixel Fold to final yr’s suite of Pixel 8 merchandise. Now it’s time for one more change.

Google Pixel 9 household: what’s new

In Pixel 9, the digital camera bar turns into a extra discreet raised factor, evoking a cluster of lenses standing proud from the cellphone again, full with rounded edges that give the impression of a extra standalone digital camera system. Zellweger explains how this new digital camera bar takes visible hints from high-end optical design, together with SLRs and different specialist gear, with finishes that wouldn’t be misplaced in watchmaking circles. It additionally helps to include an even bigger optical module. These curves are additionally carried by means of into the perimeters of the cellphone itself. ‘It appears to be like smaller, and feels higher within the hand,’ says Zellweger.

The brand new Pixel household consists of the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Professional and Pixel 9 XL, together with the Pixel 9 Professional Fold. At Google’s launch occasion, the Pixel Watch 3 was additionally unveiled, now in two dial sizes, alongside a brand new set of earbuds, the Pixel Buds Professional 2. This annual cycle of shiny new {hardware} feels considerably profligate on this straitened period of useful resource consciousness. Based on Zellweger, the corporate may be very conscious of this. ‘[Pixel 9] is extra repairable,’ he says, ‘we attempt to be forward of the laws.’

All aluminium is 100 per cent recycled, and the telephones are available fully plastic-free packing containers. The corporate additionally guarantees seven years of software program updates for all its Pixel units. Not solely are contracts getting longer, however smartphones are getting extra sturdy. Briefly, one merely doesn’t have to improve yearly. If not for all times, a cellphone can and will final for a few years.

Pixel 8 additionally marked the debut of a much more intensively AI-driven strategy to images, not simply by way of how the sensors and processors managed mild, color and publicity within the second, however the methods during which images could possibly be enhanced, manipulated and customarily messed about with as soon as they had been within the cellphone. Pixel 9 clearly goes additional, not simply by bodily foregrounding the digital camera itself, however by means of new lens and new software program.

The bottom Pixel 9 has two digital camera modules, while the 9 Professional and XL have a extra refined triple modules. The Pixel 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL will be specified with as much as 1 TB of onboard reminiscence, while the common 9 solely goes as much as 256 GB. As well as, brighter hues at the moment are within the palette, together with two completely different shades of pink, and the general color assortment is much less sober and business-like than earlier than.

The brand new Fold now takes on the numbering system of its sister smartphones, turning into the Pixel 9 Professional Fold. When the primary mannequin got here out, Zellweger advised us that he ‘believed the shape issue of the Pixel Fold is optimised for what Google is nice at – productiveness and leisure use’, and never a lot has modified by way of intention. This can be a flagship system, virtually twice the worth of an equal smartphone, with an enormous display when opened and a Tensor G4 processor that may energy by means of gaming, streaming, picture and video enhancing, and all the opposite computationally intensive duties you may need as soon as relegated to a laptop computer or desktop.

‘The brand new Fold is sort of completely different from the primary,’ Zellweger says. ‘It’s all the time been our objective to create a folding cellphone that appears and seems like a standard cellphone when it’s closed.’ Meaning a 6.3in show on the surface, and an 8in show inside, with split-screen modes for working and watching, or video conferencing, and even while utilizing the digital camera. The digital camera modules are slimmed down, with upgraded sensors and lenses and all of the AI talents of the opposite Pixel 9s. When folded, it’s simply 10.5mm thick.

Prior to now, smartphone’s glossy sophistication and impenetrable carapace have been onerous to reconcile with the thought of repairability. ‘[With Pixel 9] we’re making the fitting steadiness of high-end look and accessibility,’ Zellweger says, including that ‘the business in all probability went a bit too far prior to now’. A partnership with iFixit, quick turning into the go-to provider for smartphone longevity, bolsters the choices to restore a damaged display, for instance.

Google’s much-vaunted AI funding additionally performs a job right here, with the bodily system you employ to entry the service turning into much less necessary than the service itself. ‘Telephones are actually beginning to ship on that promise of a private assistant,’ says Zellweger, and the AI providing within the Pixel 9 household will get a lift with the provide of a one-year subscription to the Google One AI Premium Plan. Not solely does this provide you with 2TB of cloud storage, but in addition entry to Gemini Superior, a extra refined AI mannequin that may parse paperwork as much as 1,500 pages in size, utilizing as much as a million multimodal tokens per question: put merely, every token represents a knowledge level out of your enter, be it textual content, photographs, or video. The extra tokens obtainable, the extra refined the evaluation of the info set.

Google Pixel Watch 3: greater, higher, longer battery life

In any case this intensive AI discuss, it was a aid to discover the virtually enjoyable atmosphere of the brand new Pixel Watch 3, now obtainable in each 41mm and 45mm instances for the primary time, the latter offering 40 per cent extra seen display. Based on Zellweger, the design inspiration was way more pure; the Watch’s clean floor is impressed by a 3D scan of a water droplet, whereas the Pixel Buds Professional 2 are supposed to evoke a pebble or rock smoothed by a river.

Pixel Watch enhancements aren’t restricted to the size change. The larger watch additionally has an even bigger battery (35 per cent) and advances in software program, together with an ‘Auto Bedtime Mode’, give an extended battery life and sooner charging. Put on OS5, the newest model of Google’s wearable working system, contains extra integration with the health and sensor capabilities, leaning into Google’s 2021 acquisition of Fitbit.