Google keynote: all of the news from the Pixel 2 event

Google on Wednesday took the wraps off its new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL phones, the sequels to the first-ever Google-designed Android handsets. Both devices look sharp, minimal, and sport what the company says is one of the best mobile cameras on the market, with original Pixel buyers able to testify the device line’s prowess in the picture-taking department.

But perhaps you’re still on the fence. Maybe you own an Apple product, and you’re simply fed up with iOS, or have no intention of buying the iPhone 8 or shelling out for the iPhone X. Or perhaps you’ve been looking for a cleaner, simpler, and bloatware-free Android phone, but not sure you want to get something quite as premium as Pixel 2. It does start at $649, and can get as expensive as $949 for a 128GB Pixel 2 XL.

Yesterday, Google announced the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, two phones I’ve been excited about for a while now. They have big screens, a delightfully playful design sensibility, and what promises to be a fascinating upgrade to the previous Pixel’s best-in-class camera.

They also don’t have headphone jacks.

Google’s Pixelbook is the revived image of a high-end Chromebook, a top-shelf version of a Google laptop running Chrome OS that’s meant to stand shoulder to shoulder with devices like Apple’s MacBook or Microsoft’s Surface Laptop.

The Pixelbook starts at $999, which isn’t exactly cheap by Chromebook standards, especially when considering that the price doesn’t include the $99 Pixelbook Pen stylus. But if you can work with Chrome OS — something that gets easier and easier with each passing day as Google’s operating system gets more and more capable — it might just be worth the price.

When it launched the iPhone 7 a year ago, Apple confidently declared the headphone jack obsolete technology that we could learn to live without. I disagreed with the necessity of its removal then, and I disagree with it now, but with Google joining the ranks of jack-less phone makers, I think it’s time to accept the inevitability of the 3.5mm port’s demise. According to the two towering US giants of mobile tech, the future is wireless (or, in emergencies, dongle-shaped) and even though that will make our lives less convenient and our tech less compatible, we should all just come along for the ride.

I’m not okay with this, but it isn’t my choice to make.

Yesterday, Google announced the second round of its very own Pixel phones, but it also expanded its small universe of “Made by Google” hardware. One of the new products under that umbrella, and a first for Google, are the Pixel Buds. They’re around-the-neck wireless earbuds (or “neckbuds”) that, in some ways, resemble Apple’s AirPods.

Much like Apple, Google has done away with the headphone jack on its new phones, so selling a pair of its own wireless headphones makes sense. They’re even priced exactly the same as AirPods, at $159. However, there are plenty of differences between the Pixel Buds and AirPods that are worth elucidating at the outset, even if we’ve only gotten a very brief chance to try them so far, and can’t really say much about the sound quality just yet. (If you want to know much more about Pixel Buds alone, check out our own exclusive first look at the product.)

It’s been only three hours since Google’s Pixel 2 event wrapped up — but if you’re planning to buy one and haven’t gotten around to it yet, you’re already late enough to be on the waiting list.

Many models of the Pixel 2 and every model of the Pixel 2 XL have already seen their delivery dates slip past the phone’s October 19th launch date. Here’s the current situation in the Google Store:

The Google Pixel event has wrapped and we got a good look at a bunch of new hardware lineup this year: the second generation of Pixel smartphones, new Google Homes, a Pixelbook, and a surprise new Google camera that uses artificial intelligence to snap pictures and videos of your family. Is it as weird as it sounds?

If you missed the keynote where Google presented everything, here’s a recap of everything Google announced in about two hours cut into a 19-minute video so you can see for yourself if these new products will make it to your shopping list this holiday season.

You’ll be able to use Google’s newest smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, without needing to pop in a SIM card, the company announced today. As long as you’re a Project Fi subscriber, Google will use the devices’ built-in eSIMs to authenticate your cellular account. Prior to today, no smartphone has ever used the eSIM standard. The relatively new technology has typically been reserved for LTE-equipped tablets, smartwatches, and other cellular wearables.

“This means you no longer need to go to a store to get a SIM card for wireless service, wait a few days for your card to arrive in the mail, or fumble around with a bent paper clip to coax your SIM card into a tiny slot,” writes Joy Xi, a product manager for Project Fi, in Google’s official blog post on the subject. “Getting wireless service with eSIM is as quick as connecting your phone to Wi-Fi.”  

Correction October 5th, 2:15PM ET: It turns out, Google hasn’t changed the ordering process this year — the company will still email customers when stock returns and then sell them on a first-come, first-serve basis; you won’t be able to hold a place in line. That’s too bad, since the Pixel 2 is already out of stock in some configurations. The original story is below.

It ought to be at least a little bit easier to get a Pixel this year. Google says it’s updating its online store so that if the Pixels are out of stock, you’ll be able to reserve one and hold a place in line.

Google’s tech specs page for the Pixel 2 seems to indicate that buyers of the company’s latest smartphones can expect to receive Android software updates for three years from the time of release. Previous Nexus devices and the original Pixels were guaranteed updates for at least two years.

This extension went completely unmentioned during today’s keynote, so I’m really hoping it’s not a mistake. It’s written in the footnotes of the Pixel listing at Google’s own store, albeit with somewhat confusing wording. Both software updates and security updates are mentioned as offered for three years:

Google just announced onstage during its Pixel event that it’s launching a “Made for Google” certification program for third-party accessories. The news, which was reported earlier this week by 9to5Google, means that the company will adopt a similar approach to how Apple handles recommending things you might want to plug into (or slap onto) your phone.

Made for Google will include everything from phone cases, to USB-C earbuds, power adapters, and more, many of which are already available in the Google store alongside the company’s new hardware. The new program shouldn’t be confused with Made by Google, which is what the company uses when referring to the galaxy of its own hardware products.

Rick Osterloh has been on the job as the senior vice president of hardware at Google for just over 17 months now. In that time, he's had to repeatedly answer the same questions from reporters like me: just how serious is Google about making its own hardware? Is it a hobby or is it going to genuinely affect Google's financial bottom line? Is the company sure it won't repeat the same mistakes it made with its ill-fated Motorola acquisition and subsequent sale years ago?

He's heard it all before: Osterloh was actually president of Motorola for a time under Google. In an hour-long interview, his answers to those questions haven't changed since last April. They might not stop us from asking them over and over, but the consistency of the answers is important. And if there was any doubt about Google's ambitions in hardware, the company definitively put it to rest by acquiring 2,000 or so phone engineers from HTC last month, along with some IP and equipment.

The first thing I noticed about Google’s new Daydream View VR headset is the pink controller.

In the original View, all plastic parts were beige or gray, even if you got the model wrapped with rich crimson fabric. Now, they’re coordinated: if you buy the colorful “Coral” edition, you’ll get a coral remote, too. It’s not a big change, but it’s emblematic of Google’s overall goal: re-creating last year’s carefully engineered mobile headset, undoing a few mistakes, and making its individual parts a little nicer.

Chromebooks mostly exist in two camps. The first is the education market, where an entire generation of students have been using cheap, low-end laptops to get their schoolwork done. The second camp is the direct-to-consumer market, where manufacturers like Samsung and Asus have been introducing higher-end models that creep up into the $500 range, but don't have the power or flexibility of a proper Windows or Mac laptop.

Now, for the first time since Google discontinued the Chromebook Pixel last year, it’s back in the top end of the market with the Pixelbook, a laptop that starts at $999 and can be priced all the way up to $1,649. And if you want, you can spend $99 more on the Pixelbook Pen, a stylus designed specifically for this laptop.

Not 10 minutes after Amazon's surprise announcement of new Echo devices last week, I walked into a small meeting room in Google's Mountain View headquarters to hear about the new Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.

If there was ever a sign that Google had a big hill to climb to stay competitive in home speakers, this was it. But Rishi Chandra, Google’s GM of Home products, was characteristically relaxed about the whole thing, even joking about it. His take on Amazon's strategy of flooding the zone with so many different kinds of Echo speakers? "It only shows we're in the early stages of this area, let's just say that. There are different approaches."

Google is making wireless headphones that are specifically designed to be the first and best option for people who buy Google phones — just like AirPods are designed for iPhones.

The new Pixel Buds borrow a lot of ideas from Apple's AirPods: they have a new, easier way to pair with your phone, they come in a little battery case, they use touch controls, and they have tight integration with an intelligent assistant. They're also priced exactly the same, at $159, and are coming out in November.

Unbeknownst to me, at the very moment on Monday morning when I was asking Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the biggest ethical concern for AI today, Google's algorithms were promoting misinformation about the Las Vegas shooting.

I was asking in the context of the aftermath of the 2016 election and the misinformation that companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google were found to have spread. Pichai, I found out later, had a rough idea that something was going wrong with one of his algorithms as we were speaking. So his answer, I think it's fair to say, also serves as a response to the widespread criticisms the company faced in the days after the shooting.

You know what a digital camera is. It's a lens and a sensor, with a display to see what you're looking at, and a button to take the picture. Google Clips is a camera, but it only has some of those parts. There's no display. There’s a shutter button, but it's completely optional to use. Instead, it takes pictures for you, using machine learning to recognize and learn faces and look for interesting moments to record.

It took me a while to wrap my head around Google Clips. It didn't land for me until Eva Snee, the user experience lead for the camera, told me a story about a little moving photo I was looking at. To me, it was just a couple of toddlers. To Snee, it was something very different.

For a majority of the 10 years smartphones have been mainstream, phone makers have been copying each other’s designs. It's not easy to differentiate when all you really have is a slab of glass and a handful of variables like materials, camera, ports, and bezels to work with. It's only recently that we've been able to suss out some genuine schools of design thought, and genuinely competing philosophies of phone design are only beginning to emerge.

That’s why the designs for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are remarkable: in its second year of making phone hardware, Google is establishing an aesthetic that isn't just consistent, but is distinct from what both Apple and Samsung are doing. Google hardware is all about pragmatism and approachability.

Google has announced a new generation of Daydream View virtual reality headsets alongside its Pixel 2 phones. The new Daydream headsets still look like squishy, cloth-covered mobile headsets, with the same controller and basic features as the first Daydream View. But they’ve got a new look and a few design tweaks, as well as new (and per Google, improved) lenses. They’ll sell for $99 apiece, slightly more than the $79 original View, and now come in “charcoal,” “fog,” and “coral” editions. Preorders open today, with the headsets launching on October 19th.

The first Daydream View was released in November of 2016 exclusively for the Google Pixel. Several phones have added Daydream support since then; there are now over a dozen Daydream-ready Android devices, including the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and upcoming LG V30. Google initially envisioned Daydream as a platform with multiple headsets, but so far, the View is the only one available in the US. The new View will launch in 11 countries: the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, India, Italy, France, Spain, Japan, and Korea.

In addition to its Pixel phones and Home devices, Google announced a surprise today during its Pixel event. The company has come out with a camera that uses artificial intelligence to capture intimate moments that you aren’t able to get on your own. If your dog or baby is camera-shy, you can plant the Google Clips camera somewhere nearby to automatically take photos for you. The camera is trained to capture soundless video of faces and pets that it recognizes.

As shown in the demo onstage, Google Clips looks to be targeting parents and pet owners, allowing them to focus more on interacting with their kids and pets than holding a camera in their hand. By only capturing soundless video, Google Clips dodges any laws against wiretaps. When the camera is on, an LED light blinks to let those in the room know they are being photographed.

Google-branded earbuds are coming. The company announced at its annual hardware event today that it'll be releasing truly wireless earbuds this fall called the Pixel Buds. The circular Pixel Buds feature gesture controls, including swipes or touches to switch songs, answer phone calls, or adjust volume levels. Touching the right earbud will activate the built-in Google Assistant, which can be used to get directions, set reminders, or access music and messages. They should last for five hours on a single charge.

Just like the Pixel phones, the earbuds come in three colors: black, white, and blue. They'll cost $159. Google's online store says the blue and black versions will ship in six to seven weeks but lists the white as "out of stock."

Google is adding augmented reality stickers for the Pixel, including official collections based on Stranger Things and Star Wars, among other franchises. The company says its Pixel 2 phones’ cameras are specifically optimized and calibrated for high-quality augmented reality, and it showed this off at today’s event with a variety of AR apps. One lets you watch League of Legends in augmented reality, and another lets you play with augmented reality Legos, similar to an app that already exists for Google’s Daydream VR platform.

In AR Stickers, character stickers can interact with each other — if you put Stranger Things heroine Eleven in a scene with her nemesis the Demogorgon, for example, she’ll quickly vanquish it. You can record these little scenes and send them to friends, in addition to watching them in real time.

Google has announced the second generation of its Pixel smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. While the Pixel 2 looks almost identical to its predecessor, the 2 XL has seen some substantial design changes: it’s jumping from a 5.5-inch display up to a 6-inch display, and that display now covers almost the entire face of the phone. It’s not a perfectly edge-to-edge look, but there are just the trimmest of bezels at the top and bottom of the screen.

The smaller Pixel is sticking with a 5-inch display, squared-off corners, and thick bezels. (Unless you’re looking closely, it’d be hard to tell it apart from the original model.) The only real difference is on the back, where on both new phones the glass accent at the top has been shrunken down, so that it no longer encases the fingerprint sensor (which Google says is the fastest on a smartphone). The Pixel’s camera lens has gotten larger as well, and it now juts out ever so slightly from the back of the phone. The bump is back.