Pixel Launch Ruined by Leaks, Google Could Still Surprise Us

Thanks to a torrid set of leaks, we know that Google is set to announce its Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, the Google Home virtual assistant appliance, the 4K/HDR-capable Chromecast Ultra, and a mesh-based Google Wi-Fi networking solution. But that doesn’t mean Google doesn’t have a major surprise it could share with us on Tuesday.

How you feel about the leaks depends heavily on how you view surprises, I guess. New parents, faced with learning the sex of a baby, have to choose whether to be surprised by ultrasound during pregnancy or at birth. And it’s fair to say that opinions are strong in either direction despite the fact that a surprise is a surprise. It doesn’t matter, in some ways, when it happens. Except, of course, that it does.

For tech giants plotting a major product introduction, the stakes aren’t so personal, but they are financially very important. Google, like Apple, relies on the burst of attention it receives around product releases like the ones planned for this week. They rely on the surprise.

Well, there’s no surprise here. And like Apple before it—the only real “surprise” at that firm’s recent iPhone 7 launch event was that Nintendo had belatedly found religion and will release the first mobile game based around one of its core franchises—Google has been bit by leaks. Ravaged, really.

It’s pretty clear that we already know everything substantive that Google will announce tomorrow.

We know that Google is killing its Nexus brand and will use the Pixel brand going forward instead. That the two phones it will announce include a 5-inch Pixel that replaces the Nexus 5X and a 5.5-inch Pixel XL that replaces the Nexus 6P.

We know that these phones will come with high-end specs—a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 1080p (Pixel) and Quad HD (Pixel XL) displays, 12 MP cameras, and rear-facing fingerprint scanners—premium materials and finishes, and the premium price tags to match. This is a departure from the previous generation devices, which were affordable given the quality of the products.

We know that the new Pixel smartphones will be powered by Android 7.1, and will include a new app launcher and home screen icon design.

We know that Google Home, Google’s virtual assistant appliance, will cost $129, putting it right in the middle, pricing-wise, of the Amazon Echo product family with which it will compete.

We know that Google is updating its excellent and affordable Chromecast family of products with an excellent and affordable Chromecast Ultra model that sports both 4K and HDR capabilities. And that it will cost just $69.

And we know that Google will announce Google Wi-Fi, a mesh-based multi-router system that will ensure you never have a weak Wi-Fi signal in your home, ever.

We know, in short, way too much.

But here’s my advice to Google about creating a sense of surprise on Tuesday.

For the past few years, rumors have swirled about Google’s plans to combine Android and Chrome OS into a single operating system platform. Google has publicly denied these plans, stating last year that “Chrome OS is here to stay.” And this year, it went so far as to bring Android apps and the Google Play Store to Chromebooks, a moved that some might believe satisfies the needs for a merged OS.

Android apps on Chromebook is exciting, and it has the potential to do two things: Disrupt Windows in a way that Macs and Linux/netbooks never really achieved. And make Chromebook viable beyond the confines of the cash-strapped U.S. educational system.

But Android apps on Chromebook are only the tip of the iceberg. What Google is trying to achieve, years after Netscape had the same dream, is nothing less than the final nail in the coffin of the struggling PC industry. And it approaches the problem from the opposite direction: This is, as The Wall Street Journal reported a year ago, Chrome OS being “folded into” Android, not the reverse.

Google needs to announce this initiative on Tuesday. It will do so to bated breath.

When Google first announced Chromebooks and Chrome OS several years ago, I was unimpressed. Here was a web browser backed by a thin layer of Linux-based OS code, that could run on low-end PC hardware but required a constant Internet connection. Why on earth would Google create another thing, I only asked at the time, when it already had Android? Why not just build a PC platform based on Android?

Despite regular and important improvements to Chrome OS, I still wonder the same thing. Rather than duplicate its efforts across two platforms, Google should work from a single code base and simplify things. For itself. For developers. And for users.

And today, or soon, Android—or this meshed FrankenOS that some called Andromeda—is finally, probably, mature enough to let it happen. The pieces are all in place. Structurally within Google. And architecturally within the products themselves. It’s what Microsoft finally did with Windows 10, whereas it had previously developed Windows for PCs and Windows phone separately.

It’s interesting to think about and debate the relative merits of Google’s and Microsoft’s positioning here, but I think it boils down to one thing. Microsoft’s only true client OS success has come from classic desktop PC Windows, and it has failed to successfully bring this platform to devices. Google, meanwhile, dominates the mobile world, especially smartphones, and it’s seen only partial success with its pared-down desktop PC system, Chrome OS.

I’ve written before about how much easier it is to make something simple (iOS, perhaps, or Android) more sophisticated, and about how, likewise, it is so difficult to take something complicated (Windows, macOS) and make it smaller and simpler. Apple succeeded in designing iOS from macOS, but Microsoft thus far has struggled. As a result, it is vulnerable to attack from those companies—Apple with iOS, and Google, with Android/Chrome OS—who are coming to the market from the opposite position.

Microsoft has two advantages, of course. One is inertia: Its core enterprise customer base is slow to change, and while that has proven problematic during the migration to new Windows versions, it will help stave off attempts to replace real PCs with mobile devices. The second is that Windows 10, against all odds, and despite the FUD, achieves the impossible: It is equally usable and productive on traditional PC form factors and 2-in-1 hybrids. That is, it provides customers with a way to move forward at their own pace.

The issue is that the same customers who are still slowly upgrading PCs are very quickly adopting, and sticking with, smartphones and even tablets. And once you discover that you can get much of your job done—in some cases, all of your job—on a mobile device, the switch happens. You’re no longer using different platforms. You actually move on.

Apple is trying to jump-start this transition with the iPad Pro, and Google offered a tepid half-step with its Pixel C 2-in-1 tablet (which is based on Android). This week, Google should stake its claim for the future. It should explain the move to Andromeda, and it should shake up the PC industry for good. It should deal the death blow.

Don’t misunderstand. I still approach personal computing with Windows at the center of things, and I expect that to continue for some time to come. But if Google, like Apple, is serious about removing Microsoft from the OS equation, it will need to take big steps in the PC space. And tomorrow is an excellent opportunity to do so.