Once More Unto the Pixel, Dear Friends, Once More (Premium)

Thanks in part to the rise of generative AI, 2024 has emerged as a critical year in the battle of digital ecosystems.

But there's much more going on than that: Energized by the improvements I saw in the Google Pixel 8 Pro, I invested heavily in the broader Pixel ecosystem and was horribly disappointed. Thanks to the then-coming Snapdragon X-based PCs, I purchased an Apple MacBook Air and was blown away by its quality, performance, and efficiency. That experienced started a deeper dive into Apple's ecosystem, with me returning to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, purchasing AirPods 2 Pro earbuds, a 13-inch iPad Air, and, most unexpectedly, a pair of expensive HomePod 2 smart speakers, and subscribing to a 2 TB iCloud plan. And then the inexcusable Sonos meltdown almost pushed me completely over the edge, triggering a reevaluation of how I consume digital music. It's been a crazy, chaotic year.

And then Pixel 9 happened. Suddenly, everything is up in the air again.

I need to get a grip: On the one hand, I know that no matter how good these smartphones are, the broader Pixel ecosystem is still lackluster compared to what Apple offers. And these phones were telegraphed well in advance, so this shouldn't have been surprising. When a reader asked whether I'd be upgrading to the next Pixel Fold--what's now called the Pixel 9 Pro Fold--I said no, that the Pixel 9 Pro XL was the right phone for me. But I was doubting this assertion even as I typed my reply. Part of me was wondering why I should even bother. With Pixel, with Android, with anything consumer-related that didn't sport an Apple logo. I was teetering on the edge of a mad, mad new era of certainty. For me, the biggest change of all.

I write about these things all the time. Sometimes explicitly, and sometimes just as an aside. Despite this, you have no idea how often the events and changes of the past several months have caused me to rethink almost everything I do. And that's saying something because I make a point of specifically testing alternatives regularly, so I can stay up to date on where competitors to the products and services I do use are. And in those rare instances where it makes sense, change the way I do things. I am still writing a very long article specific to music, the article that triggered last week's From the Editor’s Desk: Music (Premium) editorial. It's not ready, in part because of uncertainty: It's all in flux. But I didn't expect Google's event this week to change a thing. Why would it?

And yet, in a year of unprecedented change--and, yes, unprecedented spending on my part--I still found myself swayed by what Google announced today. The new Pixel phones are an interesting and unexpected wrench in what was slowly turning into what felt like a solid, obvious direction. I surprised myself by being as interested as I am.

To be clear, only two of the devices Google announced today are of any interest. My experiences with the Pixel Tablet, Pixel Watch 2, and...