Transcript

Seang 00:00:00 So the plan is that we would also make Gemini Nano available on Pixel 8 behind a developer option so that developers who know exactly what the impact to their user experience would be are able to use this feature. And of course, any users that also understand the potential impact to the user experience are also able to use this feature. We're still doing system health validations 'cause you know, even if you're a developer, you might still want to use your phone on a daily basis. But we're planning on getting it out by the next feature drop.

Voiceover 00:00:29 Welcome to the Made by Google podcast, where we meet the people who work on the Google products you love. Here's your host Rachid Finge.

Rachid 00:00:37 Pixel phones. Now come with an amazing seven years of support, but how did that come about? We're talking to Seang Chau, Vice President of Engineering.

Voiceover 00:00:46 This is the Made by Google podcast.

Rachid 00:00:49 Seang, build high quality, intelligent, and helpful first party devices and health and home platforms for everyone. So that's the mission statement on your internal profile at Google. Listeners often made by Google Podcasts will know that we frequently refer to that internal profile. So tell us a bit more about how you arrived at your mission statement.

Seang 00:01:08 Yeah, you know, that mission statement kind of reflects why I joined Google in the first place. I want it to be part of building really great devices that weren't just helpful, but you could actually call them smart. Uh, if you think about early smartphones, they were connected to the internet and they ran apps. And I think that's why people call them smartphones 'cause they were, you know, like computers. I wanna make people feel like Google meets them where they are, right? Like, you don't have to do anything to use a Google product. We thought of you, right? Like Google thought of them. You know, as an example, if you saw our Superbowl commercial Pixels have some of the best cameras available on a phone, but for people who have vision impairments, we wanna make sure they're still able to use the cameras. Uh, so we built Guided Frame so that everyone can use the camera and you know, I really love that my work helps me let people get things done so they can get on with their lives. And that's kind of why that mission statement is written as it is.

Rachid 00:01:59 If I'm not mistaken. You joined Google about two weeks before the very first Pixel phone launched back in 2016. I'm wondering what you remember from that first launch and were you on the Pixel team at that moment?

Seang 00:02:10 I was on the Pixel team. I was at the launch event, uh, which is great, even though I didn't have much to do with it. One of the very first things that I worked on for the first Pixel launch was trying to decide what to do about our HDR plus mode. So specifically, like we knew that the Pixel Camera and HDR Plus was just amazing. It was just groundbreaking work and the images were awesome, but early reviewers and early testers, dog fooders as we call them, when they turned it off mm-Hmm it wouldn't turn back on. And so then all the rest of their pictures would be really bad. And, we got together a bunch of us and tried to figure out, okay, what should we do? Should we allow them to turn it off? Should we just turn it back on?

Seang 00:02:53 How do we handle this problem of people being able to turn off HDR Plus and then not realizing that it's still off? Sounds like a very simple thing, but it's unusual to not respect the setting, which is what we ended up deciding. Reset. Alright, we'll respect the setting while that camera app is still active, but the moment you exit and you come back, we're gonna ignore that setting and go right back to turning HDR Plus on. And that's where we landed to make sure that people got the best pictures out of the camera that was available.

Rachid 00:03:21 Yeah, I think you saved a lot of pictures with that decision for sure.

Seang 00:03:24 Yes.

Rachid 00:03:25 You're the Vice President of Engineering for the software of our devices and services. So what does that mean? Like what's a day like for you?

Seang 00:03:32 Yes, I'm in charge of designing and engineering software that allows Google to build our first party devices that as much as possible fit into your life as seamlessly as possible. And this includes, uh, as I mentioned earlier, our Nest products, our Google Home products, our Fitbit products, and of course our Pixel products that we're discussing today. And of course Pixel is Phone, Buds, Watch and our Tablet as well. Some of these devices are built into your home, like for instance, our Nest doorbells and our cameras and our thermostats. So a lot of that job isn't just developing and releasing and launching those products, but also maintaining them with software updates to make sure that they stay secure. You don't want people being able to hack into your camera feed and be able to view what's going on with the camera or your doorbell or change your temperature in your home or anything like that.

Seang 00:04:22 So we wanna make it as secure as possible. And so we have to make sure that not only is it secure, but we're thinking about sustainability as well. 'cause when you want to be able to use those things built into your home for as long as possible, I mean if you apply that kind of thinking and sustainability to, uh, mobile devices, our phones, our watches, our buds, et cetera, we need to also think about how we can have those devices live longer with people. And for high value devices like phones and tablets, if you are passing them down, trading them in, making sure that whoever you're giving them to or whoever is buying it in the secondary market gets to enjoy that device for as long as possible.

Rachid 00:04:59 So when Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro launched last year, we announced seven years of software updates. I have a lot of questions about, you know, the seven years and how you got there, but maybe it's good to start with a more general question about software updates and, and the longevity of them. So what are challenges for teams when trying to keep products supported for such a long time? Like why isn't everyone doing that?

Seang 00:05:21 Yeah, so seven years. Seven years is a long time. Just to share a fun fact, my seven year Google anniversary was right before the Pixel 8 Pro launch. So I thought it was kind of neat to be able to go, uh, to seven years. A lot of work is necessary for that. We ended up having to work with a lot of our suppliers and our partners to get to that seven years because if you look at how many different SKUs we have, right? Then you have the Pro SKU, you have the AER SKU, you have the non-Pro SKU, and we sell in different regions to different carriers. So there's different memory configuration, storage configurations. So there's, there's a lot of different SKUs and the longer you support the more devices you have to test anytime you make an update. And we have these security updates that we tend to push out. We're talking about a lot of devices after after three or five or seven years. So you need to make sure that your labs are equipped to do that kind of continuous testing that your partners are able to do that kind of testing. Everybody needs to be equipped to be able to ensure the highest quality experience once it gets actually pushed out to our users.

Rachid 00:06:29 So maybe the hardest thing is then talking to partners, making sure that everyone is on board to go the distance for the seven years. Maybe it's much more a matter of bandwidth than it is. Like is it technically complicated?

Seang 00:06:40 I think it's both technically complicated but also resource intensive because as you support for longer periods of times, there's different versions of the Linux kernel that you're trying to support because each phone launch with a different version of the Linux and each phone may have launched with a different version of Android that you're updating to. And then as you break off and branch between a version of Android and a different security update, then suddenly you've got different versions of security to updates against different versions of Android. And just that matrix just gets really, really complicated. And that's what took us so many years to finally get to seven years was because we've been working at it and chipping away at that complexity. We've been chipping away that matrix. As an example, when we went to the Tensor SOC when we built our own SOC, we said okay, well now we've simplified that matrix a ton because now our A series and our Premium and our Pro and all of our devices use that same flagship SOC.

Seang 00:07:35 That cuts it down a ton right there because the SOC generates probably the most complexity when we're talking about software updates. And if it's all the same across an entire generation of products or its entire portfolio, then it makes it really simple. That's why when we launched Pixel 6 in 2021, we were able to up our update promise from the three that we had previously to five. So we went to five years of updates and then after we got a couple more years of Tensor under our belt and were really being able to figure out how to best do those updates, but then also launched two more form factors with the Fold and the Tablet, we got a lot more comfortable saying, okay, yes, now we can go to that seven years and be able to deliver to our customers that extended time.

Rachid 00:08:23 So how did you land on seven? Why is it not six? You, you came up with seven, I know it brings us in 2030 for, for Pixel 8, which is a neat number of course. Yes. . But I'm just wondering like how do you decide where, where, where that limit is?

Seang 00:08:35 That is a great question. When we made that announcement, I saw a lot of people, uh, kind of talking about, oh, can we actually trust Google to update for seven years? Why would anybody keep their phone for seven years? You know, all these other questions. But I didn't see very many people back. I didn't read any questions about why seven and why now. Um, I think I already answered the why now, but the why seven is interesting. You know, Pixel's been around for eight generations, right? We just launched the 8 and 8 Pro. Um, and then we were around for, you know, a few years prior to that with Nexus devices, right? Google was in the phone business partnered with Android OEMs to build Nexus devices. Now, when we looked at active user data for Nexus devices, it didn't tell us as full and complete a story as we'd like because Nexus was, you know, kind of targeted towards enthusiasts.

Seang 00:09:22 Mm-hmm Android enthusiasts particularly. But Pixel we built for everyone as I mentioned earlier. Uh, we really wanna focus on building parameters. So when we look at the trajectory of where the original Pixel that we launched in 2016 landed and how many people were still using the first Pixel, uh, we saw that well actually there's quite a good active user base, uh, until probably about the seven year mark. So if we think about okay, we wanna be able to support Pixel for as long as people are using the device, then seven years is about that right number. And please, understand it's not the same user that's using the device for seven years, but for some of them it may be the same user using the device for seven years, but a lot of them are, you know, passed down again to loved ones, friends, family or they're traded in for a new Pixel, uh, or they're uh, you know, sold in a secondary market.

Rachid 00:10:14 What do those seven years look like? I guess technically you could say well we'll do just another update in seven years that wouldn't be really fair. Like are we doing yearly updates? Is there a different cadence? What do I get when as a Pixel customer? Yeah.

Seang 00:10:28 I think one of the neat things that we do with Pixel and as far as I know you get only with Pixel is you don't have to wait until our annual release in the summer to get all the latest and greatest that Android is delivering. You get these feature drops, right? Pixel exclusive feature drops where you not only get Android OS updates but you also get new features on your Pixel device. You know, from what we've seen, people love their Pixel feature drops and the longer we can keep doing that and you know, we're talking about seven years now, uh, even if you're a buyer on a secondary market or it was passed down to you, you're still getting these Pixel feature drops that you can be delighted by, right? As you get new features and new capabilities. I think the other thing that we strive to do is update our entire portfolio of supported devices around the same time, right? So whether you're getting a Pixel fold or a Pixel Pro or you know, one of our premium Pixel devices or an a series or a tablet, they all get updated around the same time. Um, if it's supported, uh, it'll get the update.

Rachid 00:11:27 Absolutely. So for this season of the Made by Google podcast, we're asking our super fans to tell us what questions they want us to ask from Danielle Phillips of our super fan community. His question, what are the biggest challenges of seven years of support? Well, you alluded to like this complicated matrix, but I guess let's say you worked out the Matrix now maybe it's 2030. What are other challenges you're looking at other than the sort of vast amount of configurations you need to cater for?

Seang 00:11:54 Yeah, look, one of the things I haven't gotten to yet, but I think, uh, helps to answer this question is that we didn't just move from five years to seven years. What we moved was from our previous promise of three years of OS upgrades, right? And five years to security updates to a full seven years of Android OS updates and seven years of security updates. The way we made that happen was partnering really, really closely with the Android team here. If you remember , this is kind of, you know, inside football here, but one of the things that we did right after the Pixel 6 launch is we transitioned from what we used to do where we started these beta programs to a year-round beta program where you just sign up for beta once and then you stay on beta throughout the entire year. And what you would get is an early sneak peek into our, what we're calling our quarterly platform releases.

Seang 00:12:49 So we actually started updating Android every quarter rather than waiting for, you know, a massive drop every summer on these annual SDK and uh, version number bumps. We would have these uh, incremental updates. And over the two years after the Pixel 6 launch, those quarterly updates actually got bigger and bigger so that we could deliver more and more functionality to users throughout the year on Pixel. And what we saw was now that we have these beta programs year round, we have much more confidence that we'll have a reliable update for users on a quarterly basis because we have a lot of beta testers and ensure that uh, features that we're moving from the annual releases to these quarterly releases are going to, uh, work and work well for our users.

Rachid 00:13:36 So having extra beta testers, I'm sure there are a lot of listeners, uh, on the Made by Google Podcast who might be opted into the beta program definitely helps you get through that seven years a little bit easier.

Seang 00:13:46 Yes. And that also helps us do Android os updates that more frequently 'cause we're able to do the security updates and the Android OS updates and just tie them together. And with more frequent testing and more frequent, um, betas, uh, we're able to do that with a lot more confidence.
__ Rachid 00:14:01__ So what happens like five years down the line, there is another feature drop in maybe March of 2029, is the Pixel 8 getting the sort of same features as what is then the latest flagship Pixel device? Is that the target?

Seang 00:14:14 Yeah, I think it really makes a difference on what exactly that feature is, right? So if it's a feature that doesn't require extra RAM or it doesn't require extra storage or a co-processor that we don't have in there or some other hardware capability, then we do our best to make sure that that feature does go back to a currently supported products. And you'll see a history of that where we've done exactly that, where if it's a software only feature, we try to make sure that it's available on, um, supported devices.

Rachid 00:14:42 I'm wondering, we've seen some other OEMs now following up also saying, you know what, we're gonna do seven years as well. How does that make you feel?

Seang 00:14:50 I think that's great , right? Um, I think it's fantastic for the entire Android ecosystem. I feel like, uh, in some ways Pixel needs to be like the tip of the spear on bringing the entire Android ecosystem forward and you know, whether it's uh, quality or the system you want or the user experience or you know, AI features and innovations or even if it's just something as quote unquote simple a concept as sustainability and keeping your device for longer. It's a really hard problem. And as I noted, it really needed a lot of really deep collaboration with Android and with suppliers and with partners. And once we're able to do that with carriers and with Android and these other teams that are common with the rest of the Android ecosystem, like we love that others, uh, are doing this as well. So we think it's fantastic.

Rachid 00:15:43 Perfect. Setting the bar for the others then see, and there's another question on my mind. Last year you announced that Pixel 8 Pro was the first smartphone to run Gemini Nano. In fact, it powers the summarize feature in the recorder app and also Smart Reply and gboard. Has that process changed how you think about software updates?

Seang 00:16:01 Yeah, that's a great question. We've been, uh, we've been running dozens, dozens and dozens of models. Uh, we actually called out the exact number in our last fall event for a very long time. LLM models, AI models and you know, that's been able to deliver a lot of really cool features, whether we're talking about Magic Editor or Magic Eraser or any of the other things that we've been able to deliver to our products that people find really useful when large language models and these, uh, generative AI models came out, we're like, oh, this is great. Like Tensor is a great solution for this. And so we were able to pretty quickly move these very large, uh, language models onto our devices and start playing with them. And the Pixel 8 Pro, you know, having 12 gigabytes of RAM was a perfect place for us to kind of put it on the device and see what we could do with a portable quantized version of a large language model.

Seang 00:16:51 And when we took a look at, okay, can we take this to the rest of our portfolio? And we looked at the Pixel 8 as an example, like, well, Pixel 8’s got 4 gigabytes less memory and you know, it wasn't as easy a call to just say, all right, we're just gonna enable it on Pixel 8 as well. And we've been doing a lot of testing and validation to make sure that, you know, we weren't going to deliver much worse experience, you know, as we talked about earlier, we wanna make sure that our updates improve your experience and doesn't actually degrade your experience. And so having eight gigabytes to RAM for a, you know, memory resident model, we didn't even make a memory resident by default on Pixel 8 Pro because we didn't want to, uh, degrade the experience there. Right? Uh, we're doing a, what we call lazy loading of the model.

Seang 00:17:35 When you go to summarize in the, in the recorder app, smart reply is something that requires the models to be RAM resident. So that's available all the time. You don't wanna wait for the model to load on a gboard reply. So we keep it resident and that of course is behind the developer option so that folks can use the feature if they want to play with, Hey, what can we build with Nano in the future? And so we wanna make that available on Pixel 8 as well, right? We wanna make that available for developers. So the plan is that, uh, we would also make Gemini Nano available on Pixel 8 behind a developer option so that developers who know exactly what the impact to their user experience would be are able to use this feature. And of course, any users that also understand the potential impact to the user experience are also able to use this feature.

Rachid 00:18:23 Well that's definitely amazing news. So when is it happening?

Seang 00:18:26 We're still doing System Health validations. 'cause you know, even if you're a developer, you might still want to use your phone on a daily basis, but we're planning on getting it out by the next feature drop.

Rachid 00:18:35 That's great. I'm sure many people are eagerly awaiting the next feature drop. And finally, Seang, I just like asking this to anyone who works on Pixel. Tell me about your favorite Pixel feature.

Seang 00:18:46 Ah, yes. I think the thing that keeps me on Pixel, because I also work on Nest and Fitbit products, you know, we, we obviously also build iOS apps and so a lot of us also have to carry iPhones. So one of the things that I think keeps me on Pixel and using my Pixel as my primary all the time is the Pixel Call Assist features. I don't make or receive many phone calls, but when I do the Pixel Call Assist features are just, it just absolutely priceless, right? If you, if you think about, okay, I have to call a business, right? Then the Direct My Call feature where it just, it kind of transcribes the menu tree in real time so that you see what the menus are and then you can just tap the screen for the menu item that you want. That is priceless.

Seang 00:19:28 And then when you actually make it to the menu item you want, the phone will just hold for you until a human comes on. Talk about, uh, saving time. So like, these are the things that, yes, I don't use them very often, but when I do use them, they're just, they're amazing, right? It's magical. And then of course, receiving phone calls on my Pixel, I almost never get any spam calls anymore, right? Because Call Screen is there, it's directing things to call screen automatically if it's, if it's likely spam. And if it's not spam with our latest update on Call Screen for Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, the voicemail, the call screen voice is so natural and so human sounding that I've had zero humans that were trying to reach me, that I actually wanted to answer the call hang up, right? They didn't hang up, they actually answered, they would say why they're calling. I would see the transcription on the screen and then I was able to pick up the call. So for a phone, I think the smartest features, and I think my favorite features are definitely, uh, the Call Assist features.

Rachid 00:20:23 It's real now. The smartphone.

Seang 00:20:25 Yes, it's exactly, yes, it's real. Now I can call it a smartphone and, and Pixel is, you know, in my opinion, one of the smartest smartphones

Rachid 00:20:33 Absolutely seeing. Thank you so much for joining the Made by Google podcast and hopefully we'll see you around again somewhere in the next seven years. Great.

Seang 00:20:41 Thank you.

Voiceover 00:20:42 Thank you for listening to the Made by Google podcast. Don't miss out on new episodes. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to listen.