Also-Ran (Premium)

Google published a reasonably objective comparison of its Pixel 9a to Apple’s iPhone 16e on its Google Store site, and I agree that the Pixel is the better entry-level smartphone. But I also see this for what it is. And I feel like a lot of the technology I’ve supported over the years falls into the same category.

Right. It’s an also-ran.

To be fair to Google, what else can it do? Pixel sales have apparently improved in recent years, but that bar is about as low as it can be. And it’s not like the online giant mentions ever the product line in its quarterly earnings reports unless it just launched new premium phones. And then it mentions them only in passing and never with any hard numbers.

God, this is so familiar and so frustrating. I’ve been down this road before. We all have, I suspect.

I recall debating the merits of the Amiga vs. PC compatibles in the very early 1990s and just being laughed at. The Amiga stands as the ultimate also-ran because it was demonstrably superior for so long and, almost literally, no one cared. And the reason no one cared is that winning in the market isn’t about being the best, technically or functionally, or in any other way that might matter to people who love personal technology. Granted, being the best does help. But winning requires savvy marketing. Leadership. And a bit of luck, I guess.

By most accounts, Apple is the biggest smartphone maker in the world by unit sales, profits, and revenues. Only the first of those measures ever fluctuates; it’s possible, for example, that Samsung regained the unit sales crown, if barely, after it shipped its S25 series flagships in January. But Samsung will never catch up to Apple where it matters most–money, ching-ching–and while there are opposing views on this, my opinion is that it will always trail Apple in an elusive and subjective category I call quality.

But Pixel is interesting.

As with Microsoft Surface, it’s a hardware family made by the company that designs the operating system. Unlike Surface, and I think this is key, Google heavily modifies its own OS for its own devices, giving them capabilities that other phones do not have. (Yes, there are some exceptions–in an interesting twist, Microsoft and Google both partner with Samsung on devices in their respective ecosystems, and both companies grant Samsung some unique capabilities as well.) Google describes Pixel as “the helpful phone,” and that’s as accurate as it is bland and instantly forgettable. Every time I use a Pixel, I am reminded of this. The helpful bit, not the bland bit.

Looking at Pixel over time, I see specific eras. The me-too first few models, which were so heavily influenced by the iPhone that if you blinked, you might think Samsung made them. Then there was the single camera lens era, during which Pixel at first beat out Samsung and iPhone despite the other two supports multiple lens more quickly, before losing out as its multi-year switch to lower-end processors doomed it to irrelevance. And then we have the Tensor era, during which Google finally brought its own processor designs to market and made Pixel more premium again. This era is marked by solid physical designs that somehow manage to be unique, but also by heat issues, middling performance, and poor battery life.

What’s the biggest complaint about the iPhone? That it’s boring? That Apple usually adopts new technology belatedly, well after its competitors? OK. But that’s what maturity looks like. That’s what market dominance looks like: Where the bar for Pixel is low–so low–the bar for the iPhone is impossibly high. How does one improve on perfect? Or innovate in a market that has consolidated and matured, where there are no new ideas?

I know. The iPhone isn’t perfect. I just wrote about that. But every product is a compromise, sets of features and components and costs. It’s up to that product’s designers to figure out the right mix for customers, just as its up to the company’s market department to sell this thing to the world. And Apple seems to stick the landing a lot, especially now that it’s built out this seemingly impenetrable ecosystem of devices and services that just work and, as important, work together. People seem to love Apple products.

I know. People. What do people know? They know what marketing told them, that’s what. And, wait for it, in addition to designing and building some of the best products in the world, Apple also has the best marketing in our industry. And perhaps more broadly than that. I don’t know. I only care about this world.

Like the Amiga before it, like OS/2 in the mid-1990s, like Windows Phone and any other pet peeve “why on earth did they kill that?” Microsoft product you can think of, Pixel has certain advantages. And the iPhone has certain disadvantages. Not for the first time, I’m reminded of an excellent moment in Red Dragon, the Thomas Harris book that came before his biggest hit, The Silence of the Lambs, and is essentially the same story. In Red Dragon, the protagonist is Will Graham, the expert serial killer profiler who captured Hannibal Lecter. Like the inexperienced Clarice Starling in Silence, Graham has to visit Lecter in prison and ask for his help. Lector agrees, but only if Graham answers a question that’s been haunting Lecter.

“How did you catch me, Will?” Lector asks.

“You had disadvantages,” Graham explains.

“What disadvantages?”

“You’re insane.”

In the movie version of Red Dragon, Anthony Hopkins’s Lecter responds only with a perfect “mmm” to that. But the disadvantages that Apple has, in this case, are a lot less dramatic. The iPhone feels like the safe bet. So many people they know have an iPhone. Few ever complain, and most seem not just happy but passionate about the thing. Insane, almost.

But insane, to these people, is upending their world. Not just for Android, but for all the apps, the services they pay for or don’t, some of which are on Android, but some of which are. I mean, what would their friends or family say? Are any of these people really above the stigma of the blue bubble in Messages? (Or is it green? Who cares?)

Am I comparing Tim Cook to … Hannibal Lecter?

Mmm.

But no, I jest. Probably. It’s just that you can tell Pixel doesn’t have a chance, not so much by how Google promotes its products, but rather by how Apple ignores Pixel. And Apple ignores Pixel, just like the market does. It obsesses over Samsung, however, and that’s because Samsung is its only real competitor in this market. But here’s the thing. Samsung is a competitor, for sure, and like Microsoft in the PC/Mac wars of yesteryear, it competes in an entirely different way than Apple. It goes for volume and sells more low-cost devices. Apple goes for quality, and it sells more premium devices. Oddly, it sometimes outsells Samsung by volume, too. This is confusing. But Apple has never made sense.

In any event, when Apple was the underdog–the also-ran, if you will–in the PC market and the Mac was its biggest product, it incessantly advertised against Microsoft, Windows, and the PC. It did this in advertisements, like those “I’m a Mac” ads, but also in its public events. It never let up. This went on for over a decade. Look it up.

But when Apple is the dominant player, as it is now in smartphones, it can ignore the competition. Which in this case isn’t much competition at all, despite the quality of the products. And that’s what it does. It ignores Pixel. As I guess it should. I hate it to have that luxury.

Apple never did catch up in the PC market, and the Mac is obviously doing OK. But Pixel has never caught up in the smartphone market, either, and if you’re a Pixel fan, you have to be honest with yourself on this one. Do you really trust Google, this flighty company that kills products with abandon, to keep Pixel going? Don’t you always worry about this? Just like you worried about the Amiga. Or OS/2 or Windows Phone. Or whatever you cared about that no one else seemed to understand.

Yeah, you do. Apple needs competition. Pixel needs a hit. And from my vantage point, the Pixel 9a is the better phone, and the better value, than the iPhone 6e it’s positioned against. I want to believe. I always have. But we’ve been here before. And this doesn’t end well for the also-ran. It rarely does.

Mmm.