Are Google’s new devices worth getting excited about?

On the upside, we won’t have to queue for the loos 😉

Yes, it was definitely an audience of nerds. Quite a lot of journalists, but also sales channel partners and various other folk, many flown in by Google from around Europe.

To be fair, security is a really major focus with all the tech companies now. I saw someone say that a big breach is like a plane crash for an airline: catastrophic. And that’s possibly overstating it, but it’s not a bad metaphor. But yes, I think there will be a reluctance from normal folk like us to share everything with the big tech organisations.

Why do you think Google+ failed as a social platform Kate?

Simply because Facebook was really lucky/smart with its timing. Facebook came along as most of us got home broadband, and then really took off when 3G happened and we started getting smartphones. Facebook did it better, and at the right time; Google+ was so obviously a half-baked clone, rushed out to compete with Facebook, and it didn’t do anything better than Facebook.

I wrote a piece about why it’s so hard for new social platforms to succeed a couple of years ago (FT, you’ll probably need to register to read it) https://www.ft.com/content/eefcc49c-6e68-11e4-afe5-00144feabdc0 and I stand by what I say in that: it’s really hard to challenge a big incumbent.

There was a big appetite for connecting socially online at the time, too. The older generation were loving Friends Reunited while the kids were all on MySpace and Bebo. From what I can remember they were all pretty poor experiences, until Facebook came along with its cleaner interface and easier navigation, plus its ability to tag photos.

And here’s a picture …

Everything’s a Hub!!

Obviously this is aimed squarely at the iPad Pro market, and it’s the same kind of price, too: the slate on its own is going to start at $599 (no UK price given, but I’m guessing it’ll be £599). Keyboard is $199 and the Pen is $99 (seriously, you don’t need the Pen; I never use mine with my Pixelbook.)

ah, ok, now we’re getting the UK prices: £549, and the keyboard £189.

They’re enthusing enthusiastically about the HDR mode, but I turned it off on my Pixel 2 XL because it felt heavily overprocessed to me and you don’t have any granular control over it. It takes really nice photos without HDR on.

Here comes some low-light stuff – it’s called “Night Sight”. Apparently it uses machine learning to perform better in low light. Coming next month to older Pixel phones and shipping with the 3. There’s also a mode that shoots several pics (basically, bracketing) so if someone blinks or whatever you’ll probably have a decent shot without the blink.

And there are some new AR stickers, too, which are quite fun.

And they’re finally bringing wireless charging to the Pixel 3, with a few smart tricks thrown in, such as being a window to your Nest doorbell, should have such a device.

And do let me know what you think – will you be going for any of these devices? I’ll be looking in more detail at probably the Home Hub and possibly the Pixel Slate in the December issue of Which? Computing.

I think you’re bang on, Derek, and it answers Ian’s question, too: it’s really hard to come up with new products and to be innovative. Both Google and Apple’s strategy is clearly to keep giving you good reasons to stay with their respective ecosystems, and of course the same applies to Amazon.

I like the look of the Home Hub: it’s smaller than I expected and it looks as though Google has thought carefully about its functions. It’s not a glorified tablet; it’s got clearly defined functions. I’m looking forward to getting a review sample to play with

To be fair, all phones look alike these days: they’re all shiny fondleslabs that all do more or less the same thing. It’s a real challenge for the phone manufacturers to differentiate their devices, and they have to offer the things people want, such as a bezel-free device. I’m not sure I want to go back to the Nokia 7600 (I had one to review: it was a weird device). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600

“Fondleslabs” was I think coined by someone on The Register, but it’s such a great word. I used it once on the Today programme when I was being interviewed by Evan Davis about something (can’t remember what). Evan hadn’t heard the word before and chortled like a delighted elf.