00:00 – Mishaal Rahman: Android Auto may soon let you place widgets on your car’s dashboard.
00:03 – C. Scott Brown: And Android 17 could let you use Google Maps on your phone’s always on display.
00:08 – Mishaal Rahman: I’m Mishaal Rahman.
00:09 – C. Scott Brown: And I’m C. Scott Brown, and this is the Authority Insights Podcast where we break down the latest news and leaks surrounding the Android operating system.
00:18 – Mishaal Rahman: So, we recently found evidence that Google is working on a major expansion to the Android Auto dashboard experience. The company might let you soon add widgets directly from your phone onto the dashboard, giving you a lot more choice over what information you want to see at a glance.
00:34 – C. Scott Brown: And meanwhile, we’ve spotted clues that the next major version of Android, probably to be known as Android 17, will let apps integrate with your phone’s AOD. So, apps will be able to show you specialized minimal interfaces that allow you to view key information at a glance. And lastly, we’ve got some more bad news for mobile gamers who are considering buying the Pixel 10.
00:59 – Mishaal Rahman: It feels like we’re just getting bad news after bad news after bad news on the Pixel 10, you know. It’s kind of easy to hyperfocus on the bad aspects, but of course, most users will probably be just fine, but if you are really into gaming, you might have some disappointments with the Pixel 10.
01:16 – C. Scott Brown: As a guy who runs a YouTube channel centered on the Pixel phone and is colloquially known as the Pixel guy, yeah, you know, sometimes it hurts talking about these things.
01:29 – Mishaal Rahman: Well, before we talk about the bad news, let’s start off with some pretty good news. So, we discovered recently that Google is working on bringing home screen widgets to Android Auto. So, we found evidence our Authority Insight team, as usual, AssembleDebug in collaboration with Adamya, who wrote up this article on our website, saying that Google is developing a new feature code named Earth in the Android Auto application. And this will allow you to literally add widgets to the home screen of your Android Auto dashboard. So this will create a split screen view with the widget appearing on one side of the dashboard. And in order to add a widget, you’ll have to go to the Android Auto app. There’ll be a — it’s not going to be called customize Earth as it is right now in this demo because it’s still in development — but through this settings app in the Android Auto on your phone, you’ll be able to add widgets, you’ll be able to scroll through the widgets that you have installed and select a widget to be displayed on the Android Auto dashboard. And as for what it’ll look like, we have some representative screenshots here. We see we added the Spotify widget. This is the Google Clock widget, you can see it’s kind of comically oversized, kind of cut off the timer and the start and stop button. You also see you have the music, YouTube Music Turntable widget that actually fits quite nicely. Clearly still a work in progress. You see we have the Gemini widget here on the left, Google Calendar, surprisingly fits pretty well despite how cramped it is. Google Weather, and another widget that notably if you try to tap on any of the widgets right now, it fails to launch the app because Android Auto doesn’t allow you to actually launch full applications. You’re only allowed to launch specialized applications. So, Scott, do you use Android Auto on a daily basis? Like what do you think of this feature? What do you think of widgets coming to the home screen?
03:14 – C. Scott Brown: So I do use Android Auto all the time. and I do want to clarify that there are probably people thinking to themselves, wait a minute, Android Auto already supports widgets. So what the widgets that work currently in Android Auto only appear on the taskbar. So just for clarity, these are widgets that appear in the main area of the Android Auto screen where your maps, you know, would usually be. As far as we know, the taskbar widgets aren’t going away. They’ll continue to exist, but these are much more indepth and also much more customizable. I love it. I’m super excited about this. I think this is going to be something that’s going to make, you know, driving in my car feel more like an experience that I curate because right now Android Auto is fairly restrictive on what, you know, your screen looks like and what, you know, information you can have at a glance. You know, for example, with the current widget setup, I can have my music player on the bottom instead of seeing a bunch of apps and then I can have the maps above it. But yeah, if I wanted a calendar, if I wanted, you know, maybe a photo. We haven’t seen a widget for Google photos, but that seems like something that could be pretty easily thrown in there. Maybe just a scrolling, you know, every one minute it refreshes and it just shows a picture of, you know, family and friends and stuff like that. Like that’s cool. Like that makes your driving experience much more personal to, you know, to you the driver. So yeah, I’m all for this. I think that if assuming that it can be executed properly. Right now it’s a hot mess, but, you know, obviously that’s why it’s not out. Like they’re still working on it. But yeah, but hopefully by the time it does come out, it’ll be something a lot better than this. But yeah, if they can refine it, I think this is awesome.
05:07 – Mishaal Rahman: But I mean, on the flip side, like there’s a good reason why you’re quite limited in what you can do in the Android Auto dashboard. Right now developers are only allowed to release apps that fit under a specific number of categories and follow a certain kind of template that Google provides for developers. You can’t just arbitrarily launch any app on your phone on your Android Auto dashboard. And the apps they can’t look however they want to. They have to look a very specific way so that when you use it, users are quite familiar between applications. Music apps, they look basically identical between Spotify, between YouTube Music, between whatever other music player you use and whatever navigation app you use looks quite similar on the Android Auto dashboard. And obviously, the reason they do that is for safety because you don’t want to be fiddling around with the touchscreen figuring out, oh, where’s the button to hit go next in the, you know, in the playlist? Where’s the button to actually switch applications? You really don’t want to be messing with stuff while you’re actively driving. So, you know, there’s a good reason why it’s quite limited, but adding arbitrary app widget support could complicate things because widgets are designed to be not used on the phone, right? I mean, on the car right now because you’re using widgets on your phone and developers didn’t primarily intend for you to put those on your Android Auto dashboard. But the way this feature is being developed right now allows you to put any widget that you want on your Android Auto dashboard. So I’m a little concerned about that. What do you think?
06:38 – C. Scott Brown: I think there’s plenty of leeway here for some flexibility. In my opinion, Google has been far too restrictive with what works with Android Auto. You know, you’re right in the sense that there are a lot of safety concerns to keep in mind and it shouldn’t just be a free for all. You know, but I think Google’s been for the past, you know, whatever, five, 10 years has been on the opposite end of the spectrum and being far too safe. You know, for example, if I’m parked in front of my partner’s job waiting for her to come out so that she can get, you know, in the car and I can drive her home, you know, why can’t I watch a YouTube video on my screen, you know? Like obviously, I shouldn’t be able to watch YouTube videos while the car is in motion. That’s extremely unsafe. But there are tons of times that people are sitting in their cars waiting for something to happen and why not be able to watch a YouTube video during those situations? The software can already tell when you’re in motion and not in motion. You know, you can’t text input into Google Maps while you’re driving because it’s unsafe. So you can only use voice commands. So it already knows if you’re driving or not driving. So there should be tons of opportunities for things to work when you’re not driving. There’s also the case of the passenger, you know, for example, I could be connected to the car and driving along by myself, but if my partner’s in the car with me, she could be connected to Android Auto and you know, doing her own thing with her own phone, but there’s no delineation between that. Android Auto has no concept of who is connected to, you know, the Android Auto system and who is primarily using it. It’s just, you know, it’s connected and it’s not. So I think safety is paramount, but at the same time, I do think there’s a lot of leeway that Google could take and it started to do that. You know, I think that you can now play games if your car is parked. There are a limited selection of games that work with Android Auto. So Google is getting better at this, but it’s moving very slowly and deliberately, which is great. Totally understand and absolutely respect that. You want to be more safe than sorry when it comes to people driving in their cars. No question. But yeah, like, you know, there’s plenty of room for development here. Some could argue that the idea that I had of having like a rotating set of pictures showing up on your dashboard. Some could argue, well, that’s unsafe because that’s a distraction. Now you’re looking at that photo instead of the road. Right. But then other people could argue that that’s not at all unreasonable and that people have posted notes and photographs and, you know, things dangling from their mirror and air fresheners and who knows what else, their phone, you know, mounted to their screen playing who knows what. You know, I’ve definitely seen drivers driving along with YouTube videos playing on their phone that they’ve mounted onto their dash. That’s also completely unsafe. So I think that we should give a little bit more credence to people’s own definition of their personal safety than being super restrictive. So that I don’t know. I feel like there’s a healthy balance there and Google needs to find it.
10:07 – Mishaal Rahman: Right, but you know, also this feature isn’t finalized yet. Like it could be very well the case right now that only right now during development, Google is allowing you to add any application, any application widget to the Android Auto dashboard just so Google can actually test what a variety of widgets look like. And when they actually go to release this feature, they could actually implement some kind of restrictions where the Android Auto app only allows widgets that have a certain kind of tag. And this tag is something that only the developer can add, kind of basically certifying that, okay, this widget is acceptable. We want to allow our widget to be shown on the Android Auto dashboard. That is potentially one way they could have their cake and eat it too. You know, they could open up Android Auto to third-party app widgets that are currently only available on your phone screen, but also give developers the control and the piece of mind that, you know, their application widget won’t potentially be shown in an unsafe manner on, you know, your car dashboard.
All right, so moving on to the next story. So Google is potentially working on a new feature called Min Mode in Android 17 that will allow you to show full screen application experiences on the always on display. So this might be a new developer API, a new developer feature that lets apps create their own minimal persistent interfaces to show on the AOD. Think of it as turning the entire AOD into a dedicated ultra low power screen for just a single app. So it’s designed to prevent screen burn-in in case you’re worried about that by shifting pixels around one at a time. And as a result of running in the AOD mode, which is an ultra low power state, it saves battery life, but also allows you to see more glanceable information, you know, without having your full screen turned on and everything else running. So for example, you could use this for Google Maps, which is one use case that Google is already preparing to add support for. You could have this low power power saving mode for Google Maps running on your AOD so that if you have a long road trip and you’re worried about Google Maps guzzling up your battery life because it’s, you know, running your GPS, running on mobile data, it’s using your screen at the same time, then you could have this low power mode running allowing you to see the next turn and the next turn and the next turn after that at a glance, but without completely destroying your phone’s battery life. So Scott, you know, what do you think of this new AOD feature? I know like the AOD on Pixel phones in particular, I guess, you know, you’re the Pixel guy and you’ve used Samsung phones before. And in comparison, the AOD on Pixel phones has been admittedly pretty lackluster. But slowly but surely, Google’s adding more and more features and it looks like they’re, you know, prepping for some major changes in the next release. Like what do you think of Google’s overall progress on AOD on Pixel phones?
12:54 – C. Scott Brown: I mean it’s been great progress, but it’s been very late. It’s late to the game. I think Google has for whatever reason thought that the AOD was just a, you know, not super important. And you know, like you said, Samsung has been doing a lot better of a job with the launch of the Galaxy S24, Samsung brought, you know, lock screen wallpapers on your AOD display, which was a huge thing. And but really, Apple has been the one that’s since it started actually accepting that people wanted AOD, it’s been ramping up and doing all these cool things. And I feel like a lot of people are looking at what Apple’s doing with their AODs now and saying, wow, we could be doing the same thing, why aren’t we? And so I feel like Google is feeling the heat from both from both directions, from both Samsung and Apple to really up the AOD game. And like you said, to Google’s credit with the Pixel, the launch of the Pixel 10, you know, the Pixel 10 Pro and the Pro XL have the ability to have lock screen wallpapers, which is really cool. But yeah, why why not the Pixel 9? Why not the Pixel 8, you know, like those phones also support, they have the hardware to do always on displays that can show wallpaper and other information, but, you know, for whatever reason, Google hasn’t done that. So yes, so Google’s got a lot of room to grow here. And this seems like a huge deal. Like this seems like something that no one has. Apple, Samsung, like I haven’t seen anything like this at all. So this is really cool. So I’m really excited for this because it shows that Google is finally taking this seriously and starting to develop really innovative ideas for it that will set it apart from the crowd. But yeah, I mean, this is like a classic conundrum. Like you’re driving along, let’s say you’re in a car that does not have Android Auto and you have your phone just like propped up on a little, you know, phone cradle on your dash and you’re using that to navigate around a place you’ve never been before. Why does the screen need to be on, you know, at full brightness draining your battery needlessly when you could just have it be a black and white thing that refreshes once every 30 seconds or something like that. Like you don’t need this, you know, full power OLED brightness for navigation. So this seems great. The question is like where else could it go? Like what other things could we do? And just like off the top of my head, like, you know, maybe something like a fitness app, which would be a similar kind of thing. Like if I’m riding my bike and I have my fitness stats on my screen, that doesn’t need to be full brightness, full color. That could just be a black and white thing that refreshes every 15 seconds or something showing me my heart rate and what not. And that would be a game changer. Now instead of going for a bike ride, you know, for a two-hour bike ride and coming home and being like, wow, I lost, you know, 40% of my battery because it was at full brightness the entire time. Now I come back home and it’s only 10% gone, you know, like game changer. So I think there’s a lot of room for cool things here.
16:04 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah, it’s a very clever feature, but you know, as is usual with anytime Google introduces some kind of new developer feature, the question is, will anyone actually use it? Because as we’ve seen time and time again, Google releases a new feature in a new Android version. Take for example, Live Updates. That was a big part of Android 16 and it’s live now. Like there’s a lot of devices that support it. Well, not that many devices, but devices running Android 16 support this feature, but how many applications can you count that actually support Live Updates? There’s Google Maps. Not many. There’s the Google App for like sports scores and recently Google Wallet, although like I haven’t seen any screenshots of that actually out in the wild yet, but apart from Google apps, who actually supports Live Updates and who is planning to support it? And that’s a feature that’s available like that doesn’t require any kind of hardware support, whereas this new, you know, AOD Min Mode requires not only support for devices that have AOD, which a lot of Android phones do have, but in addition, we don’t know if there’s any additional constraints beyond that. Like we don’t know if there’s a requirement for example for the device to have a particular AOD implementation. Say maybe the AOD has to support a certain refresh rate, maybe like 30Hz, instead of like just 1Hz or maybe it requires a certain level of color information or maybe it requires, I don’t know, something else that requires that limits this feature to only certain new devices. Like take for example, if this is something that only the Pixel 11, the next year’s Pixel 11 can do, how many applications will actually support this? I bet nobody outside of like Google Maps, which is the use case we’ve already seeing. So that’s a concern that I have.
17:42 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, you know, and that I don’t know. Like I think Google locking features to Pixels is not new. You know, like there are plenty of features that you cannot get on any other phone except for a Pixel. You know, Now Playing being one of the features that just, you know, pops up the top of my head. All the calling features on pixels like Direct My Call and Hold For Me and so the idea of Google investing a bunch of money and resources and time into developing what seems like on the outset, a very, very cool feature and then locking it only to Pixel phones, it’s not exactly unheard of. So it is possible, yeah, that Google’s not concerned about wide adoption of these features because it’s going, you know, it’s planning on locking it to Pixels alone. That wouldn’t explain what you’re talking about with Live Updates. Obviously, that’s just confounding. Like I have no idea why the first thing that pops in my head, why people why developers haven’t embraced it because it’s not as forward facing as what Apple did with the Dynamic Island. You know, like it’s not quite so sexy, you know, because like your Live Update appearing at the very top of the phone coming out of the Dynamic Island and then going back in like that has like a sex appeal to it that that, you know, that the Android one doesn’t have.
19:04 – Mishaal Rahman: I love that you say sex appeal. I’m not sure I would ever use that term to describe, but I know what you mean. Like comparing on the Pixels, like you have that little chip in the top left corner that has like what, seven characters and maybe an icon. It looks really bland, really plain.
19:21 – C. Scott Brown: It’s not as good. Yeah, it’s not as it doesn’t give you that serotonin rush that iPhone users get when, you know, their sports score or whatever, you know, pops out of the top and they’re like, ooh, that’s cool. Look at that, you know, and that just doesn’t happen. So, yeah, so I think that might be part of it, but yeah, in the end, it’s probably just down to Google, you know, doing what it always does, which is here’s a cool feature and then literally moving on. Like they don’t do anything to encourage adoption. At least I haven’t heard anything. Maybe there’s developer communications that they’re, you know, where Google’s directly talking to specific developers. Obviously, I wouldn’t know about that, but if that is happening, it’s certainly not happening on a large enough scale that somebody in my position would hear about it.
20:09 – Mishaal Rahman: I think to their credit, there’s only so much they can do. Like they do provide documentation, they do have videos and code labs and samples and things that developers can look at, but ultimately it’s up to developers whether they want to do it. And just because of the way Android is distributed, there just aren’t currently enough devices running Android 16, for example, for it to actually be worth the time and effort it takes to support Live Updates as an example of a feature. But this applies to basically every new Android feature. You know, there’s just not enough incentive for developers to rush out and go and support the latest Android features that Google releases every year. You know, once it reaches a certain critical mass and that version of Android becomes widely available beyond just the latest and greatest hardware, then there’s an incentive to add support for it, but I think that’s probably the reason why we don’t see a lot of new Android features on a lot of devices. But even then, yeah, even then, if Google were to only release this feature and only Google Maps were to be utilizing it, I still think it would be a game changer. Like I still think it would be an amazing feature to have.
21:13 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, no, 100% agree that this would be a game changer feature. But yeah, I mean, what you just talked about to me opens up a very long and intense conversation about Google’s need to heavily invest in making sure developers implement these features. Like you’re just saying, developers might say to themselves, okay, there’s not enough saturation yet with Android 16, so I’m just going to put this off. But by the time there is enough saturation with Android 16, we’re already into Android 17 and they have a whole new bunch of stuff that they have to work on. So Google doesn’t have the advantage that Apple has where, you know, the next day after the latest iOS release drops, you know, millions and millions of iPhones are already on that. And that makes the developers be like, oh cool, I have this wide swath of devices I can work with. And Google doesn’t have that advantage. So in order to push the developers to do it, Google has to entice them. And that could just be monetarily. That could just be like if you develop your app and it incorporates a Live Update feature that we think is cool, we’re going to give you a huge cash sum. Like I know that sounds like pay-to-play or whatever, but at the same time, like if Google wants developers to get on board and make Android be a viable alternative to iOS. And in other words, make it so that somebody on the iPhone will be more attracted to coming over to Android, Google has to accept that this is the reality of the situation. It’s been whatever, 15 years, like it’s time to accept that this is how it is and we need to play the game or else we’re never going to get to the point where we’re always going to be at the point where developers make all their stuff for iPhones and then, you know, once they figure that out, then they’ll maybe toy around with Android. Like if Google wants it to be a more even playing field, it’s going to need to accept that it’s going to have to make it much more enticing for developers to come in. So yeah, anyway, this is a larger conversation that we don’t need to have about this. But yeah, I think that something like this feature, this is a great idea. This is an awesome idea that has real world implications for users, saving them battery life, giving them information that they need at a glanceable situation and making better use of a very underutilized Android feature, which is the always on display. So this is something that’s very strong, a hit, like right now I’m looking at it and I’m like, this is a hit. This is a hit feature that is going to be very, very exciting for Android users. And if Google just sort of lets it out and then just like says, okay, cool guys, and then goes on to the next thing, that’s a waste. That’s a wasted opportunity. So I really hope Google starts to see how the game works and starts playing the game by the rules. But we’ll see.
24:11 – Mishaal Rahman: Well, speaking of playing the game, you know, a lot of Pixel fans are hoping that Google Pixel 10 will start playing games better in the near future because right now, after Google switched to a new GPU partner, Imagination Technologies and also a new silicon manufacturer TSMC, people were kind of really hopeful that the Tensor G5 would be a significant leap forward for Pixel performance. But unfortunately, in our own testing and in user testing, people have found that the real-world gaming and emulation performance has been quite underwhelming. and in some cases even worse than the Tensor G4-powered Pixel 9 series. So we ran some testing, our Robert Triggs ran some testing, in-depth performance testing over on the secondary Android Authority channel and we found that gaming performance has been a mixed bag to say the least. The Pixel 10 Pro XL isn’t a clear winner over the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Like while it does do better in Genshin Impact, it performs worse in Asphalt Legends. However, it has some noticeable choppiness even if the average frame rate is similar between the two devices. But very importantly, the phone draws significantly more power, sometimes offering worse performance, which means that you get worse battery life if you’re gaming on the Pixel 10 versus the Pixel 9. And when it comes to emulation, which is, you know, something that a lot of enthusiasts like to do, they like to play retro console games on their phones, it’s basically a disaster is what we concluded with the Pixel 10. So for higher end console emulators like the GameCube, the Wii, etc., the Pixel 10 is a significant step backward from the Pixel 9. So the new Imagination GPU in it is the weak link in our opinion because the phone not only throttles because of the new GPU, but also because of the driver it uses, like it doesn’t support a lot of features that the emulators come to expect. So it just does not perform nearly as well as it could. So, Scott, I know you’ve talked about these topics a lot and as being the Pixel guy, you probably gotten a lot of questions from Pixel fans, should they buy the Pixel 10 if they’re a mobile gamer? And what do you have to say to those people who ask that kind of question?
26:27 – C. Scott Brown: So you need to define who a mobile gamer is, you know? My dad is a mobile gamer, you know, he has a couple of games on his phone and he plays them, you know, like he’s a gamer. He does it. And I think that people who visit Android Authority and listen to podcasts like ours and and go to YouTube and watch lots of tech videos, you know, by people like me or whoever, you know, they are not the audience that Google is going after anymore. And I think that that’s sort of a tough pill to swallow for a lot of pixel users, especially ones who have been with Pixels for, you know, years and years now. Google doesn’t really want to focus on them anymore. Google is going after the standard default regular Android consumer, and that person does not care about playing COD or playing Asphalt Legends or even playing Genshin Impact. They care about playing Candy Crush, they care about playing, you know, Wordle. Like, you know, that’s what they’re doing. And they’re certainly not emulating old consoles. I think what Google has done here is just drawn a line in the sand and been like we don’t care about this. Like we know that if you want to game on your phone, and when I say game, I mean like hardcore game, whether that be emulation or intense mobile games like COD or whatever, you’re going to get a Snapdragon anyway. Like that’s what you’re going to go for. You’re not even getting a MediaTek. Like even though MediaTek processors benchmark almost as high as the Snapdragon processors, the drivers aren’t as good and there’s all these, you know, incompatibilities with things or whatever. So just get a Snapdragon. Like that’s kind of what Google is saying. Obviously, it’s not actually saying this. There hasn’t been like a press release or anything, but Google is basically saying, if you want to game, don’t buy a Pixel. Do what you were going to do anyway, which is buy something with a Snapdragon processor inside. And so if Google is saying that, if we just assume that that’s what Google’s actual plan is, why bother? Why bother investing in GPU gains? Why bother making Genshin Impact work better? Why bother making emulation better on the pixel? It just doesn’t care. It’s like so yeah, so I think that what Google is doing is delineating its resources properly. It’s saying we don’t care about this. That buyer is not going to buy our phone anyway. So we’re just not going to spend any money or time fixing it. And instead, we’re going to focus on, you know, making an AOD thing that shows Google Maps in black and white. Like we’re going to focus on things that our users actually will care about, or let me rephrase that, let’s focus on things that the user that we want to buy our phones actually cares about. And yeah, I think that’s just business. So yeah, I don’t really mind this Imagination driver situation. Granted, I think Google could have it both ways. You know, Google could go for both markets by just making Tensor G5 or Tensor G6 and G7 and all those other ones better with better GPUs and better driver support and all these other things and making it more competitive. But that’s a lot of money, that’s a lot of resources, that’s a lot of focus, that’s a lot of R&D. It’s a lot that Google would have to do and I think Google’s just like we can’t do it all. So instead of trying to do it all, we’re going to do what we know we do better and do more of that. And people might not like that, but Google I think has accepted that fact and it’s just like, we don’t care anymore. If you don’t want it, there’s another phone for you out here. And yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about the whole situation. But I will admit as the Pixel guy and as the guy who is defending Google in this situation, I will admit that there is a world where Google could have it both ways. It’s just not investing in that world and you can be angry about that and you can be upset about that and you can say that Google sucks for that and all that and that’s fine. But you can’t argue why the strategy exists, why Google is doing it because it makes perfect sense once you think about it. So, yeah.
30:49 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. I mean especially in the markets where Google primarily, you know, sells its phones in, you know, Google is not doing a lot of heavy marketing in China, for example. They don’t even sell a Pixel there. They’re not doing a lot of heavy marketing in Southeast Asian countries where mobile gaming is actually huge. They’re doing a lot of marketing mostly in Western Europe, in the Americas. So like in there, the shiny new AI features matter more to consumers than, you know, better performance in Genshin Impact. So it makes sense why Google is so heavily focused on improving AI features, camera features, camera capabilities with Tensor, but it’s still a little disappointing that, you know, they’re putting gaming on the back foot because it’s a huge business. It’s a huge part of Google’s business too. Like they make an astronomical amount of money from in app purchases through the Play Store, like especially on the gaming side. They make so much money from that. So the fact that their own phones are, you know, one of the last choices you should get if you’re looking for a flagship phone and you want to do mobile gaming, the Tensor-powered Pixels should be on the bottom of your list. Like that’s a sad fact right now. Like the fact that your go-to default is Snapdragon. And the fact that Snapdragons aren’t slouches at AI performance either. You know, Qualcomm does a lot of work to enable their chips to do a lot of powerful AI processing. You see most of the Samsung Galaxy AI features on the Snapdragon and the Exynos versions of those chips, those features can all run on-device using the Snapdragon chip. And they can do a lot of powerful AI features just like Pixels can. You know, arguably Pixels do some things better than Samsung can and Samsung is catching up in ways that, you know, Google’s already had features before Samsung, but still that’s not really an indictment on the chip itself. That’s just like, you know, Google’s prowess as a machine learning company taking advantage of the hardware they’re given despite its underperformance in areas like CPU and GPU, like focusing heavily on improving the machine learning aspects and the camera performance, you know, things that matter to most consumers, but a lot of consumers like to game on their phone. So it’s a shame that, you know, that’s not more of a priority for Google right now.
32:57 – C. Scott Brown: 100% agree, you know, it is a shame that Google is not as focused on this as maybe it should be. But the thing that upsets me, once again, as the Pixel guy, is that people get so upset about this. Like they feel like it’s a personal attack against them that Google is not making phones for them. You know, like that’s what’s so weird to me. Like, you know, if a phone company came out and made a phone and it was designed for the elderly, you know, it’s super big, the text on it is astronomically large. It’s very simple. It only does a certain amount of things, whatever. I’m saying this as if I’m making this up, these phones exist. And people buy them for their elderly parents, you know, saying like, hey, you know, this is not as complicated. This is a phone that’s perfect for your particular situation. Here you go. I don’t see people on YouTube comments going like, what the hell? Why can’t I play Genshin Impact at 120 frames per second. Like, but for Pixels they do and it’s just so bizarre to me how angry and like attacked people feel about Google’s strategies. And to me, all Google is saying is there are so many phones out there for you. There are so many phones that run the Snapdragon. There are, you know, every single Chinese manufacturer is using Snapdragon and on at least one of their phones, you know. There are the Red Magic phones that are specifically designed for the gaming community, you know, that have specs up the wazoo and they’re cheap, you know, much cheaper than a lot of other phones that you can get. Get one of those. Get a Snapdragon-powered Galaxy phone, you know, like that phone is available right now. You could get last year’s Galaxy S24 Ultra for hundreds of dollars off and play literally every game at almost the max frame rate compared to the Galaxy S25. There are so many options for you. Why do you get so upset about this? That’s what drives me crazy. Like the fact that this happens doesn’t really bother me. It’s the anger back towards it. And so that’s what weirds me out. But you know, for me, I’m just like, yeah, Google’s making a marketing decision and it’s maybe the wrong decision, it might be the right decision, but it’s making a decision and it’s rolling with it and that’s its prerogative. So if you don’t like it, don’t buy the phone.
35:17 – Mishaal Rahman: I mean I think I actually have an explanation or a potential explanation for why there are people who get so upset by it. Like even if they don’t particularly care about mobile gaming, I think it’s just the psychological aspect of it. Say you’re spending $1,000 on the Pixel 10 Pro, right? And you have the choice between that or like the iPhone 17 Pro. And say like both you’re getting the $1,000 model and you’re doing a comparison, right? Like say potentially the iPhone would be better at gaming, right? But you don’t even really game, but you’re spending $1,000 and you have the choice between these two phones and you spend and you buy the Pixel 10 Pro. I think people kind of feel like, okay, I’m spending $1,000. I could have gotten this other phone that’s better at gaming even though I might potentially game in the future. I don’t really do it much now, but they kind of feel like they’re missing out. Like they’re getting scammed. You know, they feel like, oh, I’m spending $1,000. I should be able to get the best hardware for the money that I’m paying. And they feel like they’re not getting that with the money they’re spending right now on the device. And I think that’s probably one of the reasons why people are so upset they want the best value for money even if they’re getting everything they want. They feel like they could have gotten more, so they’re upset at not getting more. They’re like, why wouldn’t Google just use a Snapdragon chip? Like they think it would just be a simple change for them, right? Like it wouldn’t really affect anything, which obviously it would, it would change a lot of things. But that’s kind of the logic that I think a lot of people have when they get upset by this decision.
36:45 – C. Scott Brown: So I’m glad you brought this up because this is something that I actually addressed in a video that I made for my own channel, which you can check out at C. Scott Brown and on YouTube. And a Porsche 911 will cost you $150,000. And a tricked out Sprinter van will also cost you $150,000. Now, obviously a Porsche 911 and a tricked out Sprinter van are completely different vehicles for completely different purposes. And one will go, you know, 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds and the other will go to 0 to 60 in a minute. So they’re very, very different vehicles that cost the same amount of money. No one in their right mind is going to buy a sprinter van and say to themselves, oh man, I thought this was going to go 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds. because it’s a Sprinter van, because that’s what you’re buying. You’re buying a vehicle that can transport your family, transport your sleeping bags, your tents, your bikes and all that stuff and you can sleep in it, you know, like that’s what you’re buying. And so one could argue that Google needs to do a better job of marketing the Pixel line and being much more clear about why you’re buying a pixel as compared to, you know, another smartphone. But the argument that you’re spending X amount of dollars on smartphone A, so therefore it should do everything that the other smartphone that costs X amount of dollars does, that’s a terrible argument because there are so many situations in which that’s just not true. You know, like I could buy a $10 million home here where I live in Marine County, California, and a $10 million home here is going to look like, you know, a nice place, a really nice house. But if I spend $10 million on a home in rural Alabama, I’m going to have a compound where I could house hundreds of people because it’s a totally different situation. So yeah, no one is complaining. I mean people are all complaining about the housing crisis, but for the sake of this discussion, no one is thinking in their right mind that buying a $10 million home in point A and buying a $10 million home in point B are the same. They’re not the same. And so, yeah, the Pixel and the Galaxy and the Pixel and the iPhone, these are all very different phones that all cost the same amount of money, but you’re getting different things for them. And, you know, that to me makes perfect sense. So really just every time I hear these arguments, I’m like, these don’t hold weight. Like the bottom line is that if you don’t want a Pixel, then don’t buy a Pixel. Like that is the bottom line. And if you don’t want a Galaxy…
39:33 – Mishaal Rahman: Like if mobile gaming and retro console emulation are your number one priorities, like the things you want to do the vast like you want to spend a lot of time doing that on your phone, then yeah, the Pixel’s not for you. But if it’s not, if it’s somewhere toward the lower bottom of your list, then I don’t see why it’s a problem picking up a Pixel.
39:49 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, you know, and the same thing for the iPhone. Like, you know, if retro console emulation is your bag, like the iPhone is still not going to be as good for that as a Snapdragon-powered phone will be, you know, for multiple reasons which I don’t need to go into here. The emulation, you know, people listening will know what I’m talking about, but yeah, like no one, no one who is a serious console emulator, you know, emulation fiend with their phones is going to buy an iPhone to do it. And they know that. Yet the iPhone costs just as much as, you know, so I don’t know. Like it really just comes down to buy the phone you want to buy and let people buy the phones they want to buy. If someone says, I’m going to buy an iPhone, you know, don’t literally yell at them because of it, you know, and if someone says I’m buying a Pixel, don’t yell at them. Like just say be like, that’s awesome, bro. Get the phone that you want to get, you know. You know, to me it’s just like that. Why can’t it just be like that?
40:53 – Mishaal Rahman: I wish, you know, why can’t we all just get along? Yeah, yeah, seriously. You got an iPhone friend, you got a Pixel friend, just let’s be #BestPhonesForever.
41:01 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, totally. #BestPhonesForever. So, yeah, anyway, so going back to the actual topic of what we’re discussing here. Like, I think that Google is prioritizing in the way that it wants to prioritize with these drivers and this lack of GPU power and going with the Imagination system instead of something better. I think that it’s all deliberate. You know, it’s not something that Google was like, oh, this is cheaper or or whatever, who cares, no one’s going to notice, you know, like I don’t think that was it. I think Google made a deliberate choice and was like, we’re going to go with a weaker GPU and we’re going to not care much about supporting that GPU. One thing that’s floating around right now is that there’s like a driver update in the works and this mystical driver update is going to make the GPU within the Pixel 10 series better. And you know, maybe that’s happening, maybe it’s not, but we asked Google about this directly. We sent them a message and said like, this is what we’ve been hearing. We’re really excited about this. What do you got? And Google didn’t even respond. And if Google really had this going on and really had this like, you know, thing in the works that was going to make its GPU system a lot better on the Pixel 10, why it would just immediately not tell us. It would be like, yeah, we totally have this coming. This is going to be big news. Please buy a Pixel 10 so you can get it. The fact that it didn’t do that and literally didn’t even say anything leads me to believe that even if this driver does come out in the near future, it’s not going to be a game changer because like I said, I literally don’t think Google cares about this at all. So, you know, I wouldn’t wait. I think that the GPU on the Pixel 10 does everything it needs to do for the user that Google is going after with it. and nothing more.
42:55 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah, waiting for that mythical driver update to fix everything. It sounds like cope to me, but you know, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s something we’ll have to eventually hopefully get an update in the near future and you know, find out for ourselves whether it actually fixes things.
43:08 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, and stay tuned because if that does happen, then you know Rob Triggs here at Android Authority is going to be all over that. He’s going to be comparing like, you know, what it looked like before the driver update, what, you know, he loves that kind of stuff. So, so definitely stay tuned. If that does happen, we’re going to have all the data that you could ever want to know.
43:25 – Mishaal Rahman: Oh yeah, he developed some shiny new tools to test all that stuff and you can bet he’s going to be using it to its maximum extent.
43:33 – C. Scott Brown: Have you ever met Rob?
43:35 – Mishaal Rahman: No, not in person actually.
43:36 – C. Scott Brown: Oh man, he’s the coolest guy and he’s so smart and just like he’s exactly what you think. He’s like very soft spoken and just super, super intelligent, but then super funny. Like when he, you know, starts talking and gets comfortable and he’s just hilarious and a really, really great guy. He’s a definite asset to the Android Authority team. Just amazing, amazing work. If you’re listening to this and you haven’t checked out Robert Triggs’s work at Android Authority, check it out if you’re a data nerd or just want to know more about how your phone works. He’s just amazing. So check him out.
44:11 – Mishaal Rahman: All right. And that’s everything we’ve got for you this week. You can find links to all the stories mentioned in this episode down in the show notes and you can find more amazing stories to read over on androidauthority.com.
44:21 – C. Scott Brown: Thanks for listening to the Authority Insights Podcast. We publish every week on YouTube, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. You can follow us everywhere on social media at Android Authority, and you can follow me personally on Instagram, Bluesky, and my own YouTube channel @CScottBrown.
44:38 – Mishaal Rahman: As for me, I’m on most social media platforms posting day in and day out about Android. If you want to keep up with the latest news on Android, follow me on X, Threads, Mastodon, or Telegram @MishaalRahman. Thanks for listening.
