Google Relies on Smart Apps to Push Pixel Sales | TechTree.com

Google Relies on Smart Apps to Push Pixel Sales

Features like smarter cameras and use of audio speech recognition and AI via apps are game changers in the latest of Google’s smartphone series

 

Trust Google to latch on to something that has the potential for tomorrow and then innovating to enhance it today itself. Just when one thought that they have been beaten at the phone camera game by rivals, the company has focused on making the latest Pixel series unique through the use of apps that help users in ways that competing products do not.

When the Pixel series launched, users went gaga over the phone’s cameras. Experts said Google had put in several yards over competition with this piece of software. However, with Apple and Huawei followed by Samsung experimenting with better and bigger sensors and lenses, Google took a knock while users contemplated on what was value for money in a crowded market.

And this is when Google turned the tables with a new trick. It launched a new Audio App and Live Caption for the Pixel devices. The latter captures and automatically captions videos and spoken audio on the device (barring phone and video calls). The captioning happens in real time on the device itself which means there is no need for the Internet or the cloud, says Google.

Then there is the new audio app that functions as a real time transcription device within the smartphone. Audio app uses speech recognition and AI to automatically transcribe any recordings that the user may seek on a real time basis. Once again, the app doesn’t require the Internet so can function without any problem even when the phone is on airplane mode.

All the journalists who covered the Pixel 4 launch went gaga over this feature as there is no more reason to carry around a Dictaphone. Of course, other phones also allow a recording feature through the several apps that are available both on Google Playstore and Apple, the impact of having the phone do the needful is indeed unique.

What’s more, Google doesn’t just stop with the transcribe feature. It has added advanced search capabilities that allows the user to seek out any specific words used during a recording. In other words, if one were in a meeting and recording the proceedings, one could specifically search for the part where the discussion veered around a particular topic and get directly to it, without having to manually play the tape back and forth.

Of course, it is a small matter that these features are only available on Pixel 4 devices though the time may not be far when Google adds these to other devices. Of course, the company itself is silent whether they would be lending these features to the Android community in general, given that such a move could prove counter-productive to their market, especially in the hardware segment.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that Google has broken yet another barrier for competition to seek new ground. They did so again by adding Radar Sensors to the Pixel 4 that allows it to detect motion of all forms around the device. The phone can wake up when someone approaches it and turn off when one moves away. Of course, it is this feature that is having problems now and has landed Google in some bit of embarrassment.

Suffice to say that Google has made eyes turn with some of the tech advancements on the latest Pixel series. Would it be sufficient to keep them in the race over the next twelve months? Well! Only time will have the right answer for this question.

Unless of course, Google comes up with yet another app that predicts the future. Maybe they have! But that’s possibly reserved only for Sundar Pichai and other top brass!


TAGS: Google, Pixel 4, Smartphone Apps, Audio App, Live Caption

 
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