[VERGE] Google’s seven-year Pixel update promise is historic — or meaningless

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Google spokesperson Matthew Flegal confirms to The Verge that both the Recorder Summaries and upgraded Magic Eraser are exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro.

The Pro does have 12GB of RAM vs. 8GB on the non-Pro, but it’s hard to imagine that being the blocker on something as simple as camera controls — or, for that matter, features that don’t even run on your device but rather in the cloud.

Speaking of that, Google did tell Android Authority why one specific feature is exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro: “the cost of the cloud infrastructure required to run Video Boost processing” is behind the decision to gate it behind the pricier phone for now.

I do have to give Google credit for bringing its auto-transcribing Recorder app and time-lapse camera mode to non-new Pixels in 2019, but that trend hasn’t continued as comprehensively in recent years.

By the way: the reason I’m spending so much time talking about Pixel Feature Drops instead of Android OS versions is because that is the promise that matters.

Just check out Google’s own video of Android 14’s “top 14 features,” which include such minor things as AI wallpaper and a monochrome theme.

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