98 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 44
OPINION
In fact, it seemed like every new Google product
released last month had a singular message seemingly
aimed squarely at Apple. Google might have a long
way to go before it starts selling iPhone-like numbers
of Pixel phones, but there is one important area where
it’s firmly in the lead, and it has nothing to do with
bezels or beats. It’s about intelligence.
At Apple’s September iPhone X event, Tim Cook
pulled out Steve Jobs’s old Wayne Gretzky quote
about skating to where the puck is going, but there’s
only one firm that’s thinking forward right now and
it’s not Apple – it’s Google. New hardware might have
been the reason for the event, but machine learning
was the strongest undercurrent, and the message
Google sent was clear: our AI is better than yours.Brains before beauty
Google CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off the Made by
Google event by talking about his favourite topic:
machine learning. It’s not enough that Google makes
uncannily accurate search algorithms anymore.
Google is using its AI smarts to make its products
more responsive and adaptable to each user’s lifestyle.
It’s not about specs (although the Pixel phones
have really good ones) or design (although the Google
Home Max will look good in any room). In fact, none
of Google’s new products are all that interesting on
the surface, but what’s inside is leaps and bounds
ahead of what Apple is doing with Siri and iPhone X.
It’s about smarts, and Google has integrated Google
Assistant and machine learning into every one of its
devices in a, dare I say it, Apple-like way.