Google’s seven-year Pixel update promise is historic — or meaningless

I can’t believe Google finally did it. I’m still in disbelief. An Android phone with seven years of updates — not security patches, but real OS and feature updates? It’s unheard of. It’s historic.

It’s the opposite of what we’ve come to expect from Google over the past decade and change — so many great smartphone features sadly left locked away because of Android fragmentation, so many products buried in the Google graveyard. With “seven years of OS upgrades, security updates, feature drops, and AI innovations,” will the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro finally break the cycle?

I was ready to buy a Pixel this week, and I still might. I want to believe.

But during Google’s keynote, I noticed a gaping hole in Google’s promise — and though we tried repeatedly, Google refused to meaningfully discuss that hole with The Verge this week.

The hole: Google is arbitrarily locking software features behind the Pixel 8 Pro’s $999 paywall, even though the $699 Pixel 8 has the same Google Tensor G3 processor, the same camera, and the same seven-year guarantee.

If Google is already arbitrarily dividing up software features, what’s actually being promised over the next seven years?

Want to “zoom and enhance” photos like in the movies? That’s a Pro feature. Bring Night Sight to your video? Gotta pay for the Pro. Even if you just want to adjust your camera’s shutter speed or ISO manually, that’s considered a “Pro” control.

Only the Pixel 8 Pro runs Google’s “foundation” generative AI machine learning models on the device itself, which powers the new real-time transcription summaries for Google Recorder, enhanced Magic Eraser, and even smart replies in Google’s keyboard. Google spokesperson Matthew Flegal confirms to The Verge that both the Recorder Summaries and upgraded Magic Eraser are exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro.

We asked Google: Why are these features exclusive? Don’t these phones have the same Tensor G3 and camera sensor? Flegal replied:

These devices offer the latest hardware and software, including faster performance than ever before, upgraded camera sensors and the latest AI powered features – all powered by the new Google Tensor G3. 

He also wrote that “not every update is available for every phone due to various limitations,” without describing those limitations. What could they possibly be? The Pro does have 12GB of RAM vs. 8GB on the non-Pro, but it’s hard to imagine that being the blocker on something as simple as camera controls — or, for that matter, features that don’t even run on your device but rather in the cloud.

Speaking of that, Google did tell Android Authority why one specific feature is exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro: “the cost of the cloud infrastructure required to run Video Boost processing” is behind the decision to gate it behind the pricier phone for now. Video Boost is in the cloud, so it has nothing to do with the phone’s capabilities and everything to do with economics.

And frankly, that’s what I’m worried about for the entirety of Google’s seven-year promise.

Try this logic on for size:

1. Google is promising Recorder Summarize, Zoom Enhance, and Smart Reply in Gboard in future Pixel Feature Drops.
2. The Pixel 8 has seven years of guaranteed Pixel Feature Drops.
3. The Pixel 8 will not receive those features because they’re exclusive to the Pro.

What is actually being guaranteed here?

But let’s extend the analogy further. If Google is arbitrarily deciding that Pixel 8 buyers don’t deserve the same software features as Pixel 8 Pro buyers, why would we expect it give Pixel 8 Pro buyers the same features as Pixel 9 Pro buyers next year when it’s got new phones to sell?

In fact, we’ve already seen Google do that exact sort of thing: one year ago, the company told Phone Arena that the Pixel 7’s Clear Calling and Guided Frame features would come to the Pixel 6 lineup. Guided Frame is still MIA, and Flegal told us in January that the Pixel 6 wouldn’t be getting Clear Calling after all.

I do have to give Google credit for bringing its auto-transcribing Recorder app and time-lapse camera mode to non-new Pixels in 2019, but that trend hasn’t continued as comprehensively in recent years. Last March, Google admitted it could have given the Pixel 5, 5a and 4A 5G the best flavor of 5G cellular via a software update — but didn’t.

By the way: the reason I’m spending so much time talking about Pixel Feature Drops instead of Android OS versions is because that is the promise that matters.

It used to be that Android operating system updates were everything — the big arguments we had around Android fragmentation were because year-old phones would miss out on new features and security patches for months or years at a time since the OEMs and cellular carriers had to certify an entirely new operating system to roll them out.

But all of that has changed: security patches have been broken out into their own distinct update channel; Google Mobile Services, Google Play Services and individual Google apps are all silently updated and upgraded in the background. An actual new Android operating system version number is less of an event than ever.

Seriously, Android 14 barely got a mention at the Google I/O developer conference or at the Made By Google hardware keynote this week. You would be excused for not noticing that the new operating system is already rolling out.

Google didn’t make a big deal of it because, like modern iOS updates, the changes are pretty subtle! Just check out Google’s own video of Android 14’s “top 14 features,” which include such minor things as AI wallpaper and a monochrome theme.

Google is clearly saving its best ideas for its own phones, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s also not hard to imagine a world where Google drops the annual OS update entirely, like how Microsoft spent six years on Windows 10 after calling it “the last version of Windows.”

This week, Google promised these new phones would get “seven years of OS upgrades, security updates, feature drops, and AI innovations.” But that could still technically mean zero OS upgrades and no major new features if Google decides it’s not profitable to backport them from Pixel 9 to Pixel 8.

The fact the Pixel 8 isn’t getting Pixel 8 Pro features doesn’t give me confidence. It feels like Google told on itself right out of the gate.