Google's very strange Pixel 10 event with Ben Schoon

Welcome to The Sideload, where we are excited to take to the streets of New York City and film our very own Jonas Brothers music video. I am your host, Will Saddleberg. This is the very first episode of Sideload. So thank you for joining me on this. It's probably a good idea if I tell you what the show you're listening to is or watching because we are doing this on video. I'm very excited about that.

The sideload is supposed to be kind of a chill, low-key weekly conversation where I'll be joined by a rotating panel of guests to talk about Android and the world of technology at large. I really find that for as many... technology podcasts as there are today i i think there are very few that are willing to be A little more laid back, a little casual, while still hopefully hosting interesting conversations about whatever is both happening at the moment and whatever is catching my eye that week.

And so that is kind of where the sideload comes from. And I can't think of a better time to kick off this show, not just because this episode is coming out on my 30th birthday, but also because it's Pixel 10 week or it is. we're recording this and um i i truly don't think i've ever been so blessed as to have just a an interesting podcast uh fodder fall into my lap because because we're not here to talk about the Pixel 10 or the Pixel Watch 4. We are here to talk about.

Made by Google 2025, a truly fascinating piece of marketing, in my opinion, one that I think worked as often as it did not work. It's absolutely bananas. If you didn't watch it, we're going to break it all down. I have a lot to say about it. I know my guest does too. You know him from over 13,000 articles on a nine to five Google.

Ben pushing 14. I saw it when I went to look up the number today. Uh, he's a close personal friend of mine. The reason I am working at nine to five now, uh, now, uh, Ben shown, thank you for coming on and being my very first guy. Excited to get your show going. People won't know this, but this is the second episode. There's an unreleased one with you that we recorded last week that was a practice round. So you are as warmed up as I am for this.

Yeah, it's going to be fun. You were at Made by Google.

Yes, you flew in, flew out same day. I would call you a maniac, but Abner at nine to five Google did the same thing. And he lives on the other side of the country, which is farther than you. So that's nuts. um so tell me a little bit said absolutely said with love i i i think he would also say it was nuts we we recorded uh pixelated this morning and he he did seem very tired um as you would be from from

14 hours of flying or whatever he did in one day, in addition to a full days of work. Ben, tell me a little bit about your your overall impressions of. made by Google. Maybe let's start slow before we really break down this event, because I frankly, when rewatching it this morning, I kind of want to go segment by segment. I think this is. I can't remember the last time I saw a tech event like this. It's probably been a decade. I would argue never.

The one that comes closest to where some of those earlier Samsung launches for the S3 and S4 where they would put on like. Oh God, not the S4, that one. The S4 one in particular was rough. Going into this event, especially once they announced that the host was going to be Jimmy Fallon. My first thought was, this is either going to go really good or really bad. And my biggest fear was that it was going to be on par with that 2013 Samsung event, which...

If you have, if you don't, if you've never seen that before, you absolutely need to go find some clips from it because it is. I'll edit some clips in right here. It'll, it's worth, it's worth it. If you, if you, if you think the pixel event was cringy. It's got nothing on this one. But the old guy doesn't speak English. And John doesn't speak Chinese. Hang on.

But that's not going to be a problem for him, not with the new S translator. What are you doing here, Vivian? I'm not Vivian anymore, see? No gloves. I'm Sheila now, and I was invited. Okay, but no more interrupting. How many calories I've burned up walking throughout my day. I love it. What if you're walking while eating cheesecake? You're only cheating yourself, DeeDee.

And last but not least, let's give it up for the star of our show, the new Samsung Galaxy S4. That was my biggest fear and I'm very glad that's not what happened. I... I was asked right after the event ended by a few people who work at Google and a few people who were just there. And they were asking, oh, what did you think of the event? And at the time, I was like, I really don't know yet.

But by the time I got home last night, I settled on, I think it was a good event. I think it had some missteps, but I think we're going to look back on this one for years in a good way. um because it was unique and it tried something different and it mostly landed i think

It's so tricky to tell, right? We were talking about this and people can go listen to Pixelated. We talked a little bit about the event. I don't I don't truly I think this might be my biggest problem with the show. I don't know what. It was really I mean, obviously, it was setting out to to advertise the Pixel 10 and the Pixel Watch 4 and so on. But who was this for? Right. Like, who was this trying to target? Because I've heard people say, oh, they're trying to get.

you know, more casual users to watch this stream. Okay. why like who's who is tuning into this uh at 1 p.m on a wednesday like even if you exactly and even if you yeah they say it so many times even if you were like well

people caught it on demand. They went home Wednesday night. They made dinner. The family sat around the TV and watched Jimmy Fallon introduce the Pixel 10. I just don't know who those people are that are... interested enough in pixel but have never watched a pixel event i i it feels a little bit like an event for nobody while simultaneously trying to make it like quote-unquote hip and cool and and um yeah i i

No matter where I land on this, which is much more of a mixed bag than it was yesterday when I initially watched it, I still can't escape this feeling of like, this was for no one. In particular, because I'm not even sure it really appealed to like the usual tech audience. No, I don't think it was. I would say if anything, it did not appeal to them. And I don't think that matters. They made it pretty clear throughout the event that they wanted this to appeal to less techie people.

But realistically, and one of the big takeaways that I had was just that they really wanted to make it clear, like, hey, Apple people, you should not write us off right away. I think they made that abundantly clear. Yeah. Yeah, and we will get, let's just jump into the show and I'll, yeah, I think it's worth it. This presentation began with...

A what I assume. OK, I'm like it's it's I'm turning 30 today. I'm going to sound old. I don't really use to talk that much. I assume that the like I'm handing the phone off thing. is a TikTok trend. I think I've seen it before on Twitter or whatever.

it felt dated in a way that like even i was like this feels like from two years ago and it's like a corporatized version of it and then you entered you you split it in with like ai recordings of like the lochness monster that didn't look very good and and i really felt like it was getting the show off onto like the wrong foot but for you ben i want to say

You had already the show for you had already started like 15 minutes earlier because what viewers at home didn't see was that there was a hype, a literal hype man as if this was a Jimmy Fallon. Late night taping. Yeah. About 10, 15 minutes before the event started, a guy came out. He's just trying to hype up the crowd. Was having some fun interactions with, you know.

Some of the tech journalists in the audience who obviously are not responding to that while they're, you know, getting their coverage out because. Weirdly, this is the first time in a while that we've had a tech event where the embargo was an hour beforehand. So all of our coverage went out way before the event even started. And also with the audience. to add on to why the hype man was like a mixed bag was, I would say it was maybe like a third, maybe half.

you know journalists and youtubers and stuff there's a lot of influencers it was a lot of pixel super fans and it wasn't adding on to your earlier point of you know who is this for is i yet the audience was also a who is this for? Cause it wasn't a normal tech event audience, but either way, hype man came out, had some fun with the crowd, threw out some literal merch. I think he, I think he threw a t-shirt at someone.

Great. And then Jimmy Fallon came out and that's when the live stream started. Yeah. The biggest thing I noticed immediately after that initial like TikTok.

intro was that the crowd's reaction to Jimmy Fallon was like loud and like vocal in a way that tech events are usually not because as you're saying if half the audience are journalists those those are not usually and you can see you can see that crowd in the in the video there's like a shot as Jimmy's walking out of the audience and everybody's on a laptop. Like, was it what?

What was the vibe in the room? Like, I know Abner told me there was an applause, like a literal applause lighting up when you were supposed to applause. But like, was it was it Google employees? applauding was it was it the influencer crowd like was it like what was the vibe like for like while this show started unfolding so because going into this no one really knew what to expect

The vibe kind of changed throughout the event. At the beginning, it was a little uneasy. It was a little bit like, oh, what are we supposed to do? And it's being carried by like, you know, the influencers and a handful of like the fans and stuff like that. But by the end, actually, I noticed a lot of the journalists were getting pretty into it. OK, that's fascinating because that typically doesn't happen at the at the numerous events I've been where it's like, you know.

half the time you're writing yeah you know like half the time you were straight up just writing a post and the other half you're watching information that you know you you have usually covered under embargo and so that that is interesting to win the crowd over in that way. Yeah. Uh, and honestly throughout, like a good amount of the jokes were landing with the audience. I mean, he honestly, a few times, a few of the jokes were like actually genuinely pretty good.

Jimmy's monologue felt right out of I guess his own show in a way and I should preface this by saying I'm not a Jimmy Fallon fan it's fine if you are I remember You know, he took over the Tonight Show when I started college. And I think that was peak, like Jimmy Fallon can't escape his clips. Like everybody, you'd walk down like a hallway.

with door rooms and you just hear like inevitably like a Jimmy Fallon clip being played. Like that was, I feel like the peak of his popularity. And I don't, I have not kept up with him at all outside of just like he. does a lot of advertisements, including kind of this event. And I don't, you know. He's not my thing, but he's also like so inoffensive in a way that it's really easy to understand why Google would pick him to host this. You know, I think his monologue was perfectly.

fine for something like this my real big critique with Jimmy Fallon and I feel this way about his show too is that he never He really lacks a level of sincerity when he speaks that where where everything sounds like he is in an advertisement for something. Right down to when he interviews like celebrity guests, it sounds like he is advertising whatever they're there to promote. And I guess he is. But that's not a thing I find a flicks.

any other late night host, even the other ones that I may or may not like. So I don't know. I guess this is the right fit for him. But that doesn't mean that he escaped from from that usual tone of. I'm just here to advertise these products. No, I don't disagree one bit. I think before the event, we were talking to some people and they were talking about how he ad libs, which.

That's what his career is built on. And I kind of felt that the most in the monologue, especially because I could see the teleprompter. Yeah. And I could see how much he was ad-libbing. Well, there is a there is a moment and I have it written down. There's a moment later on. We'll get to that. I think his ad lib was like actually exceptional. And I wish the show had been more like this. I think I know which one it is.

I'm excited excited to know if or to find out if you know um before we get there though because that that's like halfway through the show I was really surprised how um comfortable Rick Osterlow felt on stage with Jimmy Fallon. Yeah. I think Osterlow has always had pretty decent, uh, stage presence, uh, especially in this decade of. Very rarely having good screen or good stage presence at these tech events. You know, I'm I am sorry to Sundar Pichai.

um but it is he's not quite at the rick osterlo level i would say i i feel that way about a lot of people like apple too like they're not it can come off very wooden right yeah um Rick felt very comfortable in a way that like I it did almost feel that was I think the part besides his monologue that felt the most like you were just watching a Tonight Show episode, except instead of interviewing.

I don't know, Bradley Cooper about a new movie. You were interviewing Rick Osterloh about a new smartphone. But otherwise, like, you know, they they made callbacks to like his previous times at Google and and. you know, Rick did a pretty decent job breaking down what he was excited about without sounding You know, obviously he is a huge part of Google, but it almost sounded like it sounded very genuine. Yeah. Right. Like it came off as personal and genuine.

And Jimmy, I think this was the most interested Jimmy ever, ever felt. And frankly, I would have appreciated more of the show that felt like that, like a little more casual and conversational. I don't know where you landed on it. No, I agree. I think I really enjoyed the opening segment. And I... It really did a good job of setting a tone for how Google felt about the event and what their stakes were going into it. I will say...

I did, you know, to answer my own question, perhaps from earlier, I did wonder in this segment because Rick seemed so excited to be doing this. Was was this all just for Rick? Is this just like as Rick always wanted to go on The Tonight Show? And now he finally kind of gets his dream. I don't know. It was it was a thought I had while I was I was rewatching this morning. And yeah, it's it's it's interesting.

So there's this there's this sports demo. Right. With with I can never say his name. Janice. Right. Sounds right to me. That's his first name. It's there's this this Gemini thing with with basketball. i think it's a perfectly fine segment but like it it is so it's stuck in my brain so little that truly i

I can barely recall it right now. I want to get to the big section of this, which is which is I think the thing that the people that most people remember or will remember from this event, which is I'm just going to call the QVC segment. Right. Yeah. This is when they. this is when google unveils all of its products they get up on stage they have this big wide table with all of the phones and the watches and the earbuds and they

Instead of holding back and doing everything very segmented, as is tradition at these events, typically, they broke down. They kind of just said.

all of the products at once and then were able to like refer back to them throughout the rest of of the uh keynote i really liked this on rewatch i didn't really like it yesterday and then on rewatch i was like With a couple of odd moments or exceptions, like I actually think this worked very well in terms of getting the information out in a natural way that felt like an ad, but in a way.

That it wasn't trying to shy away from, which is what I think modern tech keynotes like modern smartphone keynotes like tend to feel like they are trying to hide the fact that they're an ad. They are. This is also a thing that I feel about like. Jeff Keighley's various gaming shows where he wants it to feel like it's not just a series of promotional advert like in advertisements, but it is.

This felt like the right mix of everything. I thought the Google employee, I cannot remember her name that they had on stage. Adrian Lofton. Yes. Doing the presentation with Jimmy Fallon was was like very charismatic. She was the star of stuff down easily. I totally agree. Breaking stuff down really easily. Nothing in her mannerisms or her language felt robotic at all. It felt like she was very similar to Rick felt like she was excited to do this.

I kind of want other companies to rip off this format. Like I know is stupid to say because it is just kind of doing what QVC invented 30 years ago or whatever. Right. But but. It works like there's a reason that QVC stuck around for so long. Frankly, I actually don't even know if it still exists, but that style of show we've seen Amazon do it with their with their Black Friday sales and stuff like that. Like.

People like that type of marketing thing where you just talk to them about the product and sell it to them in a more human way. And I. genuinely think that doing that as opposed to someone kind of lecturing at you about how life changing the device was worked. Yeah. And I think there's two levels in particular that it worked on, which is one.

The smartphone is so mature. You don't have, like, the average person does not care about every little spec, every little feature. Being able to just talk about it like a human being. and say this is the thing i'm excited about this is what it feels like was kind of refreshing i know it was very frustrating to people who were like i want to know what storage version is inside of this thing

But that's not really what the keynote should be for. And Google gets out of that anyway, because they published all of that information an hour before the event even started. So it's not even like you're waiting for this, these spec sheets to be published. They're live on the Google store right now, right next. to the pre-order button. I agree with that. Yeah, and then the other reason that it really works is Google had already showed off the Pixel 10 Pro like weeks beforehand.

It's been leaked to death. So anyone who actually was paying attention already knows 90% of what they need to know about these phones. So there was no reason to go over every little spec because... Ultimately, no one cares. No one goes back to a keynote and says, I want to see what Google said about this spec. The keynote is just an introduction to the product. It's a way to get you to go down the rabbit hole. And I think they did that quite well. What's fascinating about this?

uh part of the show which is about uh 15 almost almost 20 15 minutes long is that it has one of my least favorite moments and my favorite moment from the entire, uh, event like back to back, uh, which would be, and I'm so curious. I feel like I'm going to. I feel like not everybody's going to agree with me on this and that's totally fine. But I really did not like the tensor moment. No, Jimmy Fallon. That was the cringiest moment.

We'll play a clip. But Jimmy Fallon just shouts Tensor into the crowd and then, like, I think asks where his Tensor nerds are or something like that. Now that's credit to our Google Tensor G5 chip. Tensor!

Come on. You know the Tensor nerds out there know what I'm talking about. Tensor G5! It just like, it didn't feel particularly... funny it wasn't like there was no joke it was just yelling the word and then simultaneously tensor g5 appears to be a pretty big leap forward as we were kind of expecting And it felt very diminishing of any of the work Google did. So I can't imagine they loved it from their perspective either.

Yeah, I don't know. What do you think? No, I completely agree. And I think the exact same thing stands for, you know, moments later when they talked about the Pixel 10 Pro Fold being the first IP68 foldable. It's like, yeah, that is actually. meaningful thing despite what some people will try to say about it um and jimmy just making like kind of an offhanded joking tone about it like

So not joking. He was just it was so insincere. It comes back to his problem with sincerity, where I just like this dude does not seem to care about anything, no matter what he's talking about, which. You know, again, I feel like at the height of his popularity was was very. you think about 2013, 2014, it's like the peak of Marvel and like that very, like the Joss Whedon era of Marvel where it's very like.

tongue-in-cheek and who cares anyway you know what i mean and like that i feel like that entire tone had really permeated every every Every aspect of entertainment up to and including Jimmy Fallon of like, oh, it's silly, but who cares? Right. And I don't know if that's. But the current, at least in my opinion, that is not kind of the tone of the modern day. I think you can see that. And like, I mean, even if you just want to use superhero movies, it's like a it's like a as a.

barometer of where we are as a culture. I think you can look at like, you know, the even just James Gunn making Guardians of the Galaxy, which feels very that first one, you know, has heart, but it feels very like. oh like you know like we're we're the offbeat like weirdo people like who cares and and you know compare it to superman which is a very sincere film um i i think i feel like

You know, when I see people have issues with that movie, the problems they have are sometimes too sincere. And yeah, I feel like Jimmy Fallon has not kind of. translated well into into that space yeah like those that was really the bulk of my complaint was just moments like that where it was so insincere that you couldn't there was no

There was no buying it. Like no one's buying your excitement there. It's just you're saying it because it was probably on a bullet list. And it's like, that's not how they wanted to get that across. But. It's fine. That was that was like, what, five percent of the entire show? It was a very small moment and ironically was pretty quickly followed up by the moment that I think was was specifically not drawn from a bullet.

list or at least not one that was given to Jimmy Fallon because my favorite moment with with Jimmy Fallon on stage and one of my favorite moments of the keynote was the RCS moment where. And I didn't really clock this yesterday, but where Jimmy Fallon says something, when she brings up RCS, Jimmy Fallon says something like, oh, I didn't. I actually don't know what this one was. I know what everything else is, but I don't know what RCS is. And.

It was like the one time where he genuinely sounded interested to learn about what something was. Yeah. No, I completely agree. It's not the moment I thought you were going to bring up. We'll get to that. No, that was my moment. I don't know. It really worked for me. Yeah. No, the moment I was thinking of. just to circle back and close that one was when he was talking to Rick about Gemini and was talking about his daughter and like that, how they were using circle to search.

Yeah. Yeah. Because and this I like I know from the outside perspective, it just came across like a scripted bit. That was that was kind of my ad lib. Okay. That entire bit was completely ad lib. It was not on the teleprompter at all.

see that's interesting because because i think that's what i was looking for was more of those ad-libbed moments yeah which which i mean you were right by the teleprompter i have to assume him saying he didn't know what rcs was was not in the teleprompter i could not see it anymore at that point so

another behind the scenes thing is which it was really cool to be behind the scenes and see basically yeah episode it's the tonight show in action yeah uh they had all of the cameras were on moving like dollies with uh Camera crews operating them, including one that was a robot. Like a guy was just standing, walking around behind it with a controller. Kind of cool. But that included the teleprompters. The teleprompters were on little moving things. Okay.

But yeah, so no, that part was completely ad lib. I don't know about the RCS, but it was very clear the way he was talking about it, that it was definitely just completely ad lib. It won me over in a way where it felt like.

It felt like a conversation I've... personally had trying to tell somebody about like why rcs does matter even if it does come with some uh occasional headaches you know like it does make a difference and um as much as i find Google's policy of like you know we're we're done talking about blue bubbles and green bubbles to be a little eye rolling just because it's like okay but like you guys spent so long talking about it that it's it feels a little disingenuous to be like

problem solved yeah you know but um but but yeah i found that entire little segment in the in the overall successful qvc segment to be to be um particularly good yeah i know i agree and i also think that that part was the one that really cemented how I felt about Google in the event, which was they were really confident in this one in a way that I don't think another Android brand has been in years.

Every single Android event that we go to, that people watch, that just happen, they all feel like we're just trying to live up to Apple. Or we're trying to live up to Samsung or whatever. Yes. Like they never feel like they, like what they're doing is, even if it's not enough by, you know, reviewer or tech head standards.

Google said – they basically just said this is what we did. We are very, very confident about it. I think Adrian literally said the word we are confident about it when mentioning Apple. Yeah, no, it was I that was my biggest takeaway from this event is Google is extremely confident about the Pixel 10 in a way that I don't think they've ever been. And it's really refreshing.

it is it is unfortunate that in this conversation we've reached the point where i think the show dips for a little bit yes we said we've said a lot of good things um but after the qvc segment uh we get the magic queue demo, which was, I would say the part of the show that felt the most like the past few pixel launches, like that felt very in line with, you know, other than the fact that like.

It was on this constantly moving, evolving set. Like other than that, it felt like something out of IO or out of, you know, previews made by Google events. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is one of those things where when you've watched enough of these, you look at the demo, and instead of imagining the possibilities, you think, this is about all this can do. Yeah, and it was a huge shift in tone. It was a huge shift in tone. It was kind of unclear what...

It was even demoing at a couple of times there were there was, you know, specifically that Jonas Brothers moment where where Jimmy's on stage and he's handed a pixel 10 and he's like, oh, this is we're going to demo Magic Hue. It's a thing that like.

Gets information from across like apps and pulls it in and like present it to you when when there's like a specific question on screen. And I don't I don't think it was well explained, which is why I think my explanation just now was also not very good. And. Then in the demo, like he's just kind of opening random. Jimmy seemed unsure about what he was doing. It didn't seem like they had practiced this at all.

And then he would open like a random text message and there'd be a question at it that's like, what was that new Jonas Brothers song you were telling me about? And the phone would just automatically suggest the one that they're going to make a music video for later. And. They never said where it was getting that information from. Like it wasn't in the messaging app. So I truly don't. So like it wasn't a good demo. Like even like I was confused.

watching it yeah i think they explained it too quickly beforehand because so what they did is when he got up there he they the presenter said to jimmy we're going to do this demo on your phone and he just pulled out his phone and that's the one they were doing And that would have been a compelling demo if it wasn't just a bunch of canned messages. Exactly. Blank conversations. Like if it had had a whole conversation set up and they did it based on that. Cool. But it was just.

it was just one message and it was acting like, Oh, this is even a moment where he, he jokes about like, it's like, Oh, Alex Cooper. texted me as if Alex Cooper is not on the guest list and is not the next person in the segment and is like and Jimmy's like oh I know a lot of celebrities and I'm like there's one text in here from Alex Cooper.

Like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, this is clearly like a demo. Yeah, it was. That was another example of it was just it was too insincere and couldn't be believed. But. The focus on the Jonas Brothers song, that was not a great example of it. I did like the examples of pulling in the flight information when they asked for when he was landing.

pulling in his, what was it? Dinner reservation to put in the name. And then when he called, it showed the details. And they called, yeah. That's a good explanation. Like, that explained itself. But... Yeah, they should have trimmed that down a little bit and made it maybe a little more realistic. When you've watched enough of these, it starts to feel like these are the few modes of this application that you can use.

as much as Google kind of leaves the door open for like, who knows what magic you could be or could do for you. And it ends up feeling like. But now this is about it. It can do these things and put these things in your messages app for you. And that's kind of how I felt about pixel screenshots last year where it was like.

very promising on stage and in demos. And then when you try it out for yourself, you're like, oh, I actually had already seen everything that this could do. I don't know why I thought there was more here. Yeah. I feel like that's just the problem with AI in general is that. There is no way to market it because it's so personal. No. Every AI ad is just like pictures of people like typing out a computer and then being like.

At Dell, we think you should do things better and faster than ever before. And that's why we've built Dell AI to push the boundaries of what you can do today, tomorrow. And that's the whole thing. There's no explanation. What are you advertising? I don't even know what I'm supposed to go buy. Like, what do you want me to spend money on? That's like half of AI advertising. And then and then like just Google products is the other half.

Yeah, I agree completely. That brings us to Alex Cooper, who I don't personally like very much. I'm not a Call Her Daddy fan. I'm going to be honest. I didn't even know who she was before this event. that's this is what I'm saying where I'm like I don't who is why is Alex Cooper here like the the like I do not believe okay

Let me back up, actually, because I do know why Alex Cooper is here. And I don't mean this in a mean way, but she's there for the same reason that Jimmy Fallon is there, which is that there was a paycheck involved. And I know this because... And I know this because I'm a serious XM subscriber, which you can make fun of me for. It's fine. I like it in my car and.

Alex Cooper, nobody will know this. Alex Cooper has a Sirius XM station called Unwell Radio, which is named after her production company. It was mentioned in the in the. keynote yesterday it's unwell productions or something like that um unwell media maybe um And it plays like a pretty generic mix of like pop songs from the last couple of decades. Like I turned it on yesterday just to see what they're playing. And it was Stronger by Britney Spears. Right. Like that's.

But then it's like interspersed with comments from Alex Cooper being like, this one's for the girlies who have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. But then they'll play like... i don't know like happy by pharrell like it's like i don't know it's truly like one of the most confounding radio stations i've ever seen and then you think about the fact that like her audience is like you know

at the oldest like in their young 30s like basically our age Ben and then and then younger right ranging downwards into like their 20s um at least as far as I know that is that is Alex Cooper's demographics and i i can't imagine there's a lot of crossover between that audience and SiriusXM subscribers in the same way that I don't think there's a lot of crossover between Alex Cooper fans and people who are going to watch Made by Google. Yeah, I agree.

Or Jimmy Fallon fans for that matter. But at least he's, I do feel like he is a staple of pop culture in a way that, that. He's on broadcast television. I know that doesn't mean as much as it used to, but it means something. She has like a Spotify podcast, which is not it. Listen. Nothing wrong with podcasts. We're literally recording one right now. But I do feel like there's like it's very different there. And I don't know what the.

crossover is so it's it's it's odd um i found her segment not very good i don't really have any notes on it other than it was it was boring and went on way too long and i think it's the reason the show went 15 minutes over i agree my my only note on it is that The camera coach feature, which, you know, camera coaches, AI looks at the picture and tells you what to do to make a better picture. Not a terrible idea, but it's definitely hard to demo.

The demo they chose was bad because it was just how do I make Jimmy on a couch look better? And the one they picked was do a close up. And then they really didn't do like they basically just said, show me how to take a picture in portrait mode. Yeah. And the picture was bad. And they clearly knew that because they spent like a good 40 seconds scrambling to hide it. Yeah, no, that was a horrible. That was the worst part of the event for me was just it was a bad demo.

And it probably should like that part should have just been skipped altogether. I think. Yeah. It's especially because. You know, again, to go back to who is this or who is this? What audience is this made for? Right. This features not for anybody watching this event.

Anybody watching this event at least knows how to use portrait mode on a camera or they could they can figure it out if they don't. Right. They have faith in anybody watching made by Google that they will figure out where portrait mode is in the camera app. This is for. You know, either kids or like, you know, older relatives like I that's which is not to say it's a bad.

idea for a feature it's just that it's probably one you don't need to demo in this keynote i think you can truly just skip over this it can be it can get a quick mention personally you know if i was crafting this I would have the the the photographer Andre D Wagner, who they had they brought out after this segment to he's like an actual photographer to talk about like photos he was taking on the Pixel 10 on like a pre-release Pixel 10.

that were you know other than in black being in some of them being in black and white were apparently unedited um that was a great segment with like you know like he had really good chemistry with the like google guy who was presenting it with him and and um and the pictures Like the pictures looked really nice and like colorful in a way that the last few generations of pixel phones have not. And that felt very specifically targeted to people like you and I who have been complaining about this.

Because they even mentioned the colors. You know, it was good. And I really feel like you could have cut the entire bit with Alex Cooper and Jimmy Fallon, just had these two talk and then have this guy be like. Hey, if you want to get into photography, like the Pixel 10 also has all of these tools that like I wish I had had when I was starting out. Like they're really they they would teach you how to like take a photo properly or like like.

teach you about the rule of thirds or so on and so forth. Like I think there's, there could have been a lot of. uh, room for that to work in a way that the Alex Cooper thing just ended up falling like completely flat on its face. Yeah. And like, I think my biggest complaint there is that. I am pretty confident that the main reason they did the show like this was to get a ton of viral clips out of it. Viral moments. Just to get shorts and reels, TikTok, whatever. That part.

was never going to lead to that. The feature itself could, but the way they staged it was not going to happen. No, no, it wasn't. And I don't know. Again, it was like... alternating between like highs and lows in this event where i'd be like charmed or kind of enjoying the broadcast and then just like it would immediately go off the rails and then come back and

That's kind of how I feel about the Jonas Brothers on this. A band that I have no ill will for. And I quite enjoy their cover of year 3000. If we're going to name Jonas Brothers songs we like. I can't say their new stuff has done anything for me, but that's OK. It this this didn't work for me. The segment where they were. going behind the scenes to capture the music video that they will premiere in 20 minutes in the event, you know, with a Pixel 10. But.

Simultaneously, like we said earlier, it felt straight out of Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. Like it felt like something that they would produce, you know, other than the fact that it was clearly an ad because there were, you know, moment. where they're like, oh no, it's getting dark. What are we going to do? And then one of the other Jonas Brothers is like, don't worry, we have Night Sight TM video. Like, it's...

Good Lord. But yeah, personally, that clip worked for me. I think that that was pretty well done. I think the biggest issue and the reason it probably didn't land in the context of the event was that. they weren't the ones introducing it i think if they had been there and had like they had like a even like 30 seconds beforehand where they started talking about the camera and said You know, had them introduced the clip themselves, that would have been much better.

in in nick jonas was there especially because we'll find out at the end of the stream i don't understand why they didn't have him come out and be like yeah look at what me and my you don't even need all three of them as if you have one have him intro it and at the very least I do. I agree with you. I think it's a little, it lands a little better or at the very least feels a little less like an ad. It just felt a little too out of nowhere. And also.

kind of like lowered the expectations for the rest of the event because going in, they had already teased. Like, I think the Jonas brothers were the number two. On the list of celebrities that they had announced. Which is, I'd also argue, not true. Only Nick Jonas was there. No, like they were a part of the event. They were a part of it, but like, but yeah, if you know, he's not live on stage, he's already there. Use him twice. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

You know, and then and then again, like like we keep going to highs to lows. I thought the quick little phone call thing was good. I don't have a lot to say on it, but I thought that was that is the exact kind of we should say this was a demo of like phone call translation tools that uses your.

own voice like that's the that's the key thing is like it yes it takes you speaking another language translates it to the other language but uses translates your voice into it so it sounds like the other person talking The Jimmy Fallon one in particular, like his voice really sounded like him. And that's the kind of demo that I think only lands. It was a little scary. That kind of demo really only lands.

in my opinion, when you are doing a live show like this, if Apple or even like some of, you know, Samsung sometimes does some live stuff, but really what Samsung does is they put one person on a stage and then they should play videos at you. So like this would have been a video. This wouldn't have been done on stage for Samsung either. And I don't think it would have felt like anything. But because this was like a live demo that they did.

Yeah, it worked for me. I don't have much else to say about it. It was a really quick segment. It's like three minutes long. It's going to go super viral online. Jimmy's reactions were very, that was a good use of Jimmy Fallon.

was just having him react it's also one of the first translation tools that i've seen where because it is your own voice i'm like actually like okay that's actually cool it's not gonna feel like like impersonal the way that so many of these other translation tools do yeah um and again worked without a hitch which was which was impressive um

That was that segment was actually longer than the next segment, which was an episode episode of subway takes, which I do know. I do know subway takes. Somehow the segment is shorter. And yet felt interminable. I this was a real low point for made by Google. I really disliked it. I don't like that guy in general. I think he is not. I don't.

his shtick is not my, not my cup of tea. That's all I'll say. Uh, but this one in particular felt like mean in a way that I like kind of nasty in a way where I'm like, You know, it's one if you want to make fun of wired headphones or like try to try to accuse the fashion industry of being the ones that are bringing back wired headphones with like.

younger Gen Z teens on TikTok and not just that like they're that people like older technology like that's fine I guess it's not what I would do but then they start getting into this bit where they're like

If my and I understand this is hyperbole, but like, I don't think you need to be hyperbolic and be like, if my kid came home with wired headphones, I'd kick them out. What are we doing? Yeah, I. when that it wasn't presented i don't know again i know it's hyperbole but it wasn't presented in a funny way where i was laughing at all it was just like mean and then like the punch line at the end is that someone has been sitting there with wired headphones the whole time and like

It just, it was like weirdly mean. Yeah, it was. When it started, I was already like put off just by like. the pacing and the way they were talking. Yeah. But within the first like 10 seconds, I just turned over to Abner. I said, this sucks. That was by far the worst part of the event. And also now I'm looking at, so it's on YouTube.

already and I was really curious how people were reacting to this literally every comment says this is a bad take wired headphones are good why are you like wired headphones it is crazy to me that google does not know that people like wired headphones the and like so many of the things in there were like

dumb ideas like having someone say that wired headphones were only good when they were free in the box those were the worst wired headphones what are you talking about like i i really like i really recoiled at this one and it's it's i guess comforting to

know that like this segment is completely falling on its face because it's also the one that felt the most like what you were talking about where this entire thing was designed to break viral moments out of it to use as advertising for the next few months This one feels like something where they, you know...

They'll probably use it, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one dies in a couple weeks because I don't think people are going to like it. I think Google is going to deeply regret being attached to this one because their name is on it on YouTube. Yeah. Oh, it's obviously an ad. I mean, down. to the fact that she's like check these out like pulls out a pair of pixel buds i think the only good thing on google's site is that they never actually say pixel buds

No, it's very weird that they don't. But it's clearly a pair of pixel buds, if you know. It's a good thing now, because everyone hates this, that, yeah, they don't say pixel buds. But knowing that this was made... for an event and is like the only time they talk about pixel buds because pixel buds

Did not get any attention. I don't think they were in the QVC. And they were like there for like two seconds. But like to the point where like if you blinked and you missed it. They got no attention during this event. This was the most attention they would have gotten. And they're not even mentioned by name. And also, I'm pretty sure those were Pixel Buds Pro and not 2A. This was just, that part was an absolute mess.

like the idea of like it has to well the whole thing is it's supposed to be a hot take right because that's the idea of this video series can you not think of a better or at least like less like intense way to describe your feelings like because because i am one of the people who generally i i am pro wireless earbud which feels like a contrarian thing to say now but like

I find that like any of the hiccups that were there, you know, bordering on a decade ago now have been completely ironed out over the last few years. And like the. comfort and flexibility of not having wires like surpasses. any any of the advantages to using wired earbuds in my opinion like i even just charging i don't find particularly inconvenient anymore i agree and yet i've spent this whole video going like

I'm just going to go buy wired earbuds just to just to not be part of this movement. I don't know what this is. This sucks. Like, yeah, it was it's it's bad. And also like a much easier and better target would have just been, you know. Bad wireless earbuds. Yeah, absolutely. Buying the cheap crappy ones to advertise your new semi-affordable but really good earbuds. There was no reason to...

Go after wired ear headphones when they're having a moment. It was bad. And to your point about, about, you know, the Apple. conversations of it all why not have the subway takes guy do like a hot take on on like someone being talking about like ai on your phone And like how bad it is on iPhone and how good it is on pixel. Yeah. That would have been enjoyable. And then have like the earbuds come down to like.

Maybe some of the athletes you had who were talking about how they wear them while they play basketball and they don't fall out of their ears and they can answer a phone call by nodding up. Right. Like I. I feel like if you, you, you do it in like a different order, it makes a lot more sense. I don't know. Like maybe that's just me, but I very, very weird miss. Yeah. Bizarre, bizarre moment.

And and I did write down at one point. I'm sorry. I do have to point this out. And then we can move on because we spent we spent so long talking about the segment. She she says. She says something like, you wouldn't want to go back to manual crank windows. Who wants to do this, right? And then 10 seconds later, she's like, you know what's cool? Vintage cars. And I'm like...

Vintage. Every vintage car will have hand crank windows. What are you talking? You just said you don't like those. What are you talking about? Anyway, clearly I thought too much about this. I don't have a lot to say about the Peloton guy. I have no idea who he is, but he did.

kind of win me over he he was he made many jokes about his love life but it was he he had a good enough personality i i feel like he's probably went viral on tiktok at some point and i just don't know about this it was fun energy to talk about It was fine energy. I thought the segment was perfectly fine.

It's kind of the last good thing I have to say about the show, though, because I thought that the one, you know, bringing Rick Osterlow out to be like, we've got one more thing. And that one more thing is a sketch with Steph Curry. The sketch was good. I really enjoyed the sketch. I thought it was. But saving that for the one more thing is bizarre. That was dumb. They should not have done that at all. This should have opened the thing instead of doing the TikTok.

trend thing about handing the phone over they should have opened with the steph curry thing yeah i don't understand why they don't do that this or just done it alongside the pixel watch four part sure it was not deserving of one more thing but it was a very enjoyable little sketch The other reason it was not deserving of the one more thing was because they announced it like seven hours before. And that's why you should open with the.

You should open with it because it's, and I understand they'd announced everything before the event, but I don't know, man. I really, really feel like. Yeah. And also it wasn't like, I don't know who's. Making a product decision based on a basketball player helping with their health app. But that was very undeserving of a one more thing. I can't really think what would have been deserved. No, they should have just teased the glasses.

again they should just use the glasses again just done a quick little demo with them that would yeah maybe the demo would have worked this that would have been way better just you know go up on stage or just don't do a one more thing because they also kind of used the jonas brothers as a one more thing

And that also didn't work for me because I thought this music video looked really bad. Did you? I thought it looked okay. I wasn't watching it on the stream though. So it looked really bad on the stream. And I, I believe if I was, if I looked at. If I if I read the Reddit thread this morning correctly, the the music video they published initially was pulled down and uploaded with a higher bit rate because of just how bad it looked in its original state.

So they had to like put it back up with a new link because the original link died. But I. Yeah, I'm looking at it on YouTube now. It's not great. It looks like it was shot with a phone. Yeah. Like, and I don't mean that in a, I don't really mean that in a bad way or a good way. I just mean that like, if you're trying to impress me and be like, look at what this phone can, look at the video this phone can produce. I'm like looking at it. I'm going like.

Yeah, no, I mean, this is about what I'd expect this phone to be capable of. I'm not amazed. So, like, I thought it had ups and downs. I think the clips of, like, them... You know, using it as in selfie mode or whatever. Them spinning around with like the hot dog guy and stuff. I think those clips looked really good. The clips of like people walking down the street looked good.

I think a lot of them landed flat, especially the one in the restaurant. That was just bad. Yeah, that one looks bad. The rest of the ones that didn't look really great looked good enough to be like, to fit in with their whole, you know.

thing which is you know a little bit jokey it does it the other thing i'd say is that the end of that video when it is when god thank god for night sight video right um it looks it looks overexposed and over it doesn't look like night yeah in the way that like this is the problem i've had with video boost since they started using video boost which is that i just don't think it looks i think it it just

completely eliminates any contrast or shadow or sense of darkness like maybe some people want but I I was I was not I was not particularly impressed by by how they ended I really felt like this um this event really ended with like a fizzle and also that song is really catchy but not in a good way i don't particularly like it but it's been stuck in my head all day so um you know good for you jonas brothers you wrote a you wrote an earworm nice job

I mean, that's it, man. That's the that's the Pixel 10 event. That's that's made by Google. And and I don't think we'll probably ever break down an event like this again. But truly. You know, halfway through this event yesterday, I was like, this is this is the first episode of the podcast because this is a bizarre. This is a bizarre show.

Yeah, it was a weird experience. I am glad that I went to it. Like I had mixed feelings beforehand of whether or not I was actually going to go to it. But I am glad I went to it. I did have a good time in person. And like I said, I think over time, we're going to look back on this one fondly. I don't know if Google is going to do another one just because there's so much negative reaction out there to people like.

Just not giving it a chance. Not looking past Jimmy Fallon. And I'll say, I'll say, I wasn't looking past Jimmy Fallon. Yesterday, my knee-jerk reaction was, this sucked. And that... You know, I appreciated them trying something new, but but I don't think they should do it again. And having rewatched it this morning, knowing what it was going in, there are some high points like there's a lot to take away from this. I think.

they can refine it as we've addressed, but, but no, I, I, I would, I give me a hundred of these every day over anything Samsung's doing. And to be honest, the last five years of, of Apple events too. I really, really dislike their infomercial approach in a way that like this at the very least had energy to it. Like.

the way those apple events work it's like it it it it's just they're so dry and boring but they're trying to be like there's the only reason they do cool camera things is to try to make it at all interesting because otherwise it is just like a lecture no what these new products are i fully agree

I think for me with the Apple events, I think their production is fantastic. Production's great. I have no notes on the production. It's the content within. And so many people focus on that. They focus on that, on, you know. Craig's bits are great. I love his his bits. You love Craig's bits. Sure. I like the jokes. I like those are funny. I think everybody likes those. But yeah, the event itself is usually way too drawn out. And yeah, I'm kind of tired of it.

This was nice. It was refreshing. I do hope they do it again next year, if only because now they have a lot of feedback to improve it. And I think they can narrow down the guest list. Fewer celebrities. Again, their best guest was this photographer I've never heard of. He was by far the guy I thought was the most interesting. They don't need as many. They just need a compelling host. They need to continue picking.

Googlers who are really good at this. Yeah. Which was the most unexpected thing of the day. I think they have their... The best group of like Google of employees compared to, you know, again, I'll just do Apple and Samsung compared to Apple and Samsung. I think these are the most charismatic or have the most stage presence. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I like I said, I think we're going to look back on this one for a while as this was a good event and I'm going to compare it to a lot of other ones. So Ben, thank you for breaking.

this down with me because truly this has been about as much fun as i hoped it would be when when we were talking about this yesterday because um you know i think initially we had talked about me just talking to you about what it is What's it like to be in the room at one of these events? Because most people do not go to a tech event in their life, let alone as many as you've gone to. I don't even think you could.

possibly tell me how many uh tech events like this you've been to um i have done this for a fraction of time compared to you and i couldn't tell you how many i've been to so um but but no uh this this one really

was something else. And I would encourage people, if you haven't seen it, to at least go watch some of the highlights that we pointed out in this, because there are some interesting moments in this as far as... even just a marketing event goes like I really do think that like there were some good ideas on stage there were also some bad ideas and some misfires on stage so it's but again I'll take one of these every day over something where I have

Nothing to say. Ben, thank you for joining me. Where can people find you? Believe it or not, 9to5Google. What? I know. Yeah, read Ben's stuff on the site. I'm very excited to finally be launching this. Ben, you and I have been talking about this for literally months, like most of this year. So I'm happy to be here and the show's only going to get better as it goes.

Yeah. If you want to reach me, talk about the show, anything like that, you can reach me at will at 9to5mac.com. You know, find me on social media as well. Not very active on any specific website, but I will check them and see if people are talking to me. And, you know, we'll be back with another episode next week. Although it is Labor Day, so it might be a little delayed. We'll see. But we will be back with another episode next week. And, yeah, I'm really, really excited to see where this goes.

Thank you for listening. We'll catch you in the next one. Bye.