Live from New York, it’s another awkward Pixel keynote

Inbox is written by Daniel Bader. Read previous issues here, and then catch up with Ben Schoon’s excellent Weekender column.

⭐️ Starred

For the second year in a row, Google opted to announce its new Pixel products publicly at a star-studded New York event hosted by a comedian. But this year’s version, like the product lineup itself, was a modest year-over-year upgrade, replacing the interminable Jimmy Fallon with the much more down to earth and likable Trevor Noah.

What didn’t change was the overt attempt to convert the Pixel brand into something it’s struggled to become over its 10-year history: a mainstream success. Rick Osterloh once again sat on a couch talking to the host and once again spoke effusively of “asking[ing] more from your phone,” with Gemini at the center of the experience.

“This is a huge change in how we use phones and watches every day right now. And we’re also using Gemini to reimagine devices that people have taken for granted for years, things like laptops, smart speakers, TVs and in cars.”

In a lot of ways, though, the spectacle was also a very typical tech keynote. Product managers from Google’s various hardware and software teams took turns reading from a teleprompter, mostly relying on features and specs to carry the messages that celebrities and professional athletes tried, with varying degrees of success, to augment. Google mainstays like Alex Cooper and Steph Curry were joined by newcomers Chari Hawkins, JuJu Watkins, Peggy Gou, PinkPantheress, and others.

To Google’s credit, while there were a few moments of cringe, it was a far smoother, funnier, and more entertaining show than last year’s near-disaster. Trevor Noah knew when to stick to the script and when to toss an improvised quip that, thanks to his decades as a stand-up comic, mostly landed with the audience.

But while the event’s ambitions were as lofty as Rick’s promises to “push the state-of-the-art forward in software and AI and hardware,” it remains to be seen whether the products themselves can possibly live up to those high expectations and, more importantly, whether an evening New York event will make regular people finally sit up and take notice.

✉️ Inbox

Yesterday was busy: we published over 25 articles in the Made by Google 2026 canon, but in case you missed them I want to highlight some of the most important:

• Everything announced at Made by Google 2026: Pixel 11, Pixel Watch 5, Pixel Tag, & more
• Pixel 11 Pro launches with the best of Google’s Gemini Intelligence starting at $1,099 [Hands-on]
• The Pixel Watch 5 isn’t much at a glance, until you get to ‘At a Glance’ [Hands-on]
• Pixel 11 hands-on: Better, but no longer a bargain at $899 [Video]
• Pixel 11 Pro Fold is $1,899 and Google says the back is ‘nearly impossible to crack’ [Hands-on]

Incredibly (and selfishly, to be honest), the news didn’t stop with Pixel, so here are a few other things that have happened recently:

• Honor finally launches Robot Phone starting at around $1,500. The Chinese company’s long-awaited gimbal phone is now available, and while it’s cheaper than it could have been given *gestures at everything*, at $1,500 it’s still pricey. But you get an actual, honest-to-goodness pivoting camera that follows its subjects and can pivot up to 180-degrees. I was pretty skeptical of this thing when it was announced earlier this year, but I’ve come around.
• Amazon will train on Twitch streamers’ content by default, unless they opt out. “I’ll take ‘Headlines that don’t surprise me at all’ for $1000, Alex.” [TechCrunch]
• SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.6, claiming GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Fable 5-level intelligence. I’ve spent most of the last year making fun of how far behind Grok appeared to be compared to frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI, but I guess now I can just make fun of its terrible name. [xAI]
• Sources detail moves behind Google’s AI reshuffle; Sergey Brin urged key staff to go all in on Gemini, and some teams shifted from DeepMind to corporate Google. Unsurprisingly, there appears to be a lot more to the story of Demis Hassabis’ exit from Google DeepMind than Google initially made it appear. The tl;dr? Hassabis was reportedly distracted from the goal of commercial AI success, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin encouraged the executive team to refocus on getting Gemini to better compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. [Reuters]
  • Former Google Exec Has Been in Talks for a $10 Billion Valuation for AI Startup [Business Insider]
• Report: Apple seeks publisher deals to give Siri AI better access to current events. Apple is reportedly talking to publishers to make Siri a better news aggregator. Many AI companies like Perplexity and OpenAI have entered into similar deals with publishers to compensate them for indexing their real-time news feeds. [9to5Mac via WSJ]

🤑 Action items

In honor of Pixel announcement day, I’d like to recommend a few products that make my life better as a Pixel owner.

First, my bedside charger is the Nomad Stand One ($129) which, while technically designed for iPhones, works great with the Pixel 10 and now 11 thanks to 25W Qi2 support on the phone magnet and basic Qi behind it on the earbuds holder, which works with everything from the Pixel Buds Pro 2 to my beloved Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. This is a low-profile setup that’s ideal for seeing your phone in either portrait or landscape, and it’s been next to my bed for over a year now with no plans to replace it anytime soon.

I’ve got a number of decent USB-C chargers around the house and in my travel bag, but my go-to has been a variation of this Anker 70W 3-port ($36 on sale), which offers two USB-C ports and a single USB-A for legacy devices.

For a case, I’ll be sticking with my tried-and-tested Peak Design Everyday Case when it’s available for the Pixel 11 lineup, but until then I’ll be treating myself to a dbrand Grip case ($60) and one of its leather skins. I’ll also be attaching my Bellroy Mag Wallet ($45), which carries three cards, attaches magnetically to the back of the Pixel (or any MagSafe-compatible case), and doubles as a kickstand.

🙃 FWD:

This section has some of our favorite stuff from around the internet. Great videos, weird memes, fun reads, recommended apps, whatever. Send us your recommendations!

If you were, like me, too busy to watch the many feeds of yesterday’s total solar eclipse, NASA has a wonderful real-time overview of it for you, replete with insightful and enthusiastic commentary.

While North America wasn’t in the path of this year’s phenomenon, I vividly remember April 2024’s partial solar eclipse, and still reflect on the awesome magnitude of daylight almost entirely disappearing in the middle of the afternoon.

I adore how eclipses also bring people together as a shared event, particularly young astronomy buffs like this one who make me a bit more hopeful for the future.

🗑️ Trash

I was riveted by this incredibly sourced investigation by the WSJ into North Korea’s infiltration of the remote American IT job market.

Increasingly, these fraudsters are relying on AI to bolster their chances of winning over prospective employers, along with credulous Americans who are eager to make a bit of money in a side hustle. Incredible journalism.

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