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Play Store Downloads Show Google Pixel Sales Limited To 1 Million Units (arstechnica.com)
While Google has yet to release official sales numbers for its flagship Google Pixel smartphone, a Play Store app may shed some light on roughly how many units are in circulation. The Pixel Launcher, which is installed by default on the Pixel and Pixel XL, just crossed into the "1,000,000-5,000,000" install tier, leading us to assume that Google has finally sold 1,000,000 Google Pixel units. Ars Technica notes that "the Pixel is seen as Google's answer to the iPhone, but considering Apple sells 40 to 50 million iPhones in a quarter, Google has some catching up to do." From the report: This calculation is complicated by the fact that Google Play doesn't show exact install numbers; it shows installs in "tiers" like "100,000-500,000." So most of the time, we won't have an exact Pixel sales number -- except when the Pixel Launcher crosses from one download tier to another. So guess what just happened? The Pixel Launcher just crossed into the "1,000,000-5,000,000" install tier (you can see some third-party tracking sites, like AppBrain, still have it listed at 500,000). So for this one moment in history, eight months after launch, we can say Google finally sold a million Pixel phones. The Play Store device targeting ensures no one other than Pixel owners can download the Pixel Launcher, and the install count doesn't include sideloading. The most popular sideloading site, APKMirror, has more than 1.3 million downloads on just a single version of the Pixel Launcher, so we know that sideloaders actually outnumber legitimate Pixel Launcher users. There are some statistically insignificant root shenanigans you could pull to download the Pixel Launcher from the Play Store on a non-Pixel device, but there is no way the number of sold Pixels is higher than 1 million units at this point in time.
Isn't the Pixel Launcher installed by default? Simply having it preinstalled won't count as a download, so can't be used to gauge how many devices are out there.
Also, if there have been multiple updates, won't that count as multiple downloads per device? What about reinstalls after factory resets etc? If updates don't count as downloads, and only Pixel devices can install this launcher app, then the download count should be at zero. If other devices can install the app, then it's meaningless to try to use the number to count Pixel devices.
When will they admit its not going that well? The carriers really didn't adopt the Pixel. The development / modding community really didn't adopt the Pixel. It was not a replacement for the Nexus line. The OnePlus devices are clearly the winner and replacement for the Nexus line as far as I'm concerned.
Now if someone could tell me what I could replace my three Nexus 7 (2013) tablets with that aren't high dollar devices. Seems like the tablet market, with ROM / development support has all but disappeared.
>"Ars Technica notes that "the Pixel is seen as Google's answer to the iPhone, but considering Apple sells 40 to 50 million iPhones in a quarter, Google has some catching up to do."
Seen by whom? It is just a phone, one of many Android phones. Add up all the Android phones and it dwarfs the number of iPhones. What are they trying to say, that selling a million Pixel phones is somehow a failure? Yeesh, you can make statistics say anything...
I've used iPhones since the iPhone 3G, and I admit I'm pretty bored with it honestly. The Pixel looks like it is a nice alternative. When it was time to trade in my iPhone 5s, this last line of Nexus phones had just been released, and I was tempted. But I just couldn't do it when it came down to it for a few reasons. First, my old iPhone 5s still runs the latest iOS. Apple supports their devices for an insane amount of time. The Pixel/Nexus line seem to be the only ones that have any chance of seeing more than one or two versions of Android. Second, lock in. It's getting to the point where the respective app stores have enough investment that the thought of rebuying or finding alternative apps is very daunting. And third, I was not in the market for a giant phone. I guess I am one of the rare people who will pay premium prices for a small, powerful phone. So I opted for the SE. If I were already an Android user, I can't think why the Pixel wouldn't be the phone to get. As a potential switcher, I keep watching to see if Google can woo customers away from Apple, but I think they need to put a better focus on what Apple switchers are unhappy about in their ecosystem. And Google has a bad history of not sticking it out with a product line if the first few iterations don't sell well. I still miss the Nexus 7 line :(
Google has a bad history of not sticking it out with a product line if the first few iterations don't sell well.
Google either sticks with unpolished products (such as Google for work, now called G Suite for some reason, which has barely evolved over the last decade) or breaks things that used to work well so they can promote other stuff; case in point, the Chrome/Chromecast integration which now requires the Google Home android app to access many features (like changing wifii). They always do this shit like when they forced everyone on Google+.
I don't trust them, plain and simple.
lucm, indeed.
What is the advantage to this? It just looks like tighter google integration in the main UI. People want this that badly that they're willing to side load it?
Twinstiq, game news
The support time is very short compared to Apple but pretty much par for the course when it comes to Android. So assuming you pick it up on a 2 year contract when it is first released it will be EOL by the end of your contract. If you get one now you're only up for a year of Android updates.
....that there were massive shortages of the phone which often had several month long waiting lists, it's not surprising that the installs are low. It was impossible to get. The small one was more available, but the Pixel XL, which is the phone most people wanted, still requires several weeks of waiting to get the unlocked version even after 9 months in production. The phone is certainly worth waiting for (an excellent device all around), but it's no surprise the install numbers are low.
If you're not talking about Android or iOS, then I don't know what the fuck you _are_ talking about... Chrome ships with Chromecast streaming built in and has for a dreadfully long time.
Let's say I use Chrome to cast stuff from my Linux laptop. Works great. But then let's say I change the wifi password on my wifi router, or let's say I move and I get a new wifi network from a new ISP. In the past, all I had to do was to use Chrome to reconfigure the device; now i can't. I have to go find an Android or IOS device, and install Google Home.
https://support.google.com/chr...
It wasn't always like that. I'm a bit of a roadwarrior and I've frequently reconfigured ChromeCast from Chrome in the past. Now I can't, and I get absolutely no added value from using Google Home except to do what I used to do in Chrome.
lucm, indeed.
a better count could be achieved from someone like facebook.
because anyone, any one of us, could download it from play store and it is FAR MORE LIKELY that we would do it from the play store than from apkmirror etc.
in other words the real device count could be like 50 000.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's not a big number. But when you are thinking about that it's only sold in "Australia, Canada, Germany, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, United States" then its not that bad.
If Google really wanted it to be a big seller then they would sell it world wide as pretty mutch any other phones.
.... that is the economic system war between US and China
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
...at the price they are selling, they should be glad they sold whatever number of units they sold. Yeah, I know, the iPhone and the Galaxy. The iPhone and the Galaxy are status symbol items. Google as a brand is associated with value for money. Not to mention that most consumers know the Pixel is a rehash of the HTC 10.
That is just Android. Yes, it is powerful, yes, it is configurable in great detail, but it never was and never will be particularly stable. Reboots, crashes, random battery drain, those are just part of the package.
Wait, this is just a one megapixel device? No wonder it hasn't been selling better.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Even Apple fanatics would be a bit slow to adopt if you MSRP a device > $900. I own one only because I was able to combine several discounts and reward systems together to bring the price down drastically. I know a few other colleagues have them as well, and yes it's good. However it's only marginally better than the competitors. The main selling point to me is the security updates aren't being held hostage to force buying another device.
DROP THE PRICE! It isn't like you couldn't afford it!
Google for Nexus and Pixel devices does 2 years of OS updates and 3 years of security updates. As they release OS updates annually you will have the latest version of android for 3 years if you buy at launch. Since the Pixel costs about 2x the price of older Nexus devices I think they should support it a bit longer. You can however continue to get OS updates from 3rd parties.
While it's impossible to trust Google Play completely, developers of large applications have stated a few times that the bins they were in flipped over reasonably close to when they go that many users purchasing their app.
So it has a historical confirmation of reasonable accuracy for non-Google apps, and the result for this app isn't very flattering to Google, so there is no obvious reason to disbelieve this number is reasonably accurate as well.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
The support time is very short compared to Apple but pretty much par for the course when it comes to Android.
And that is the beginning, middle, and end of that story.
So, if a Pixel phone costs $1000 and is supported for (at most!) 3 years, that works out to:
$333.33 per year of SUPPORTED use.
But if an iPhone costs $1000 and is supported for FIVE years, that is more like:
$200 per year.
So, is the Pixel (which by all accounts is a vastly inferior phone, performance-wise, to its iPhone competitor (iPhone 7 and 7 Plus)), really worth $133 dollars PER YEAR more than an iPhone?
Surface's revenue is around $1 billion per quarter, not per year. Anyone who brushes this off is delusional.
Hahahahaha!
And THIS is the worst of the two 2017 Quarters so far:
https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/02...
That is just Android. Yes, it is powerful, yes, it is configurable in great detail, but it never was and never will be particularly stable. Reboots, crashes, random battery drain, those are just part of the package.
And so who the HELL wants THAT on something they need to depend on, with a dead car in the middle of the dark, snowy night?
It's not a big number. But when you are thinking about that it's only sold in "Australia, Canada, Germany, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, United States" then its not that bad.
If Google really wanted it to be a big seller then they would sell it world wide as pretty mutch any other phones.
Oh, please. Quit making excuses.
In Q1 of 2017, Apple sold $31.97 BILLION in iPhones in "the Americas" alone (I assume that means North, Central and South America). If each iPhone costs $1000, that equates to 31.79 MILLION iPhones...
in "the Americas" alone.
In one quarter.
Well that really depends on what you want. If you want an OS/device that you can hack on and do whatever you want with where you would otherwise be limited by a closed ecosystem, then yes I would say it likely is. Personally I prefer to mess around with my PC or raspberry PI and leave my smartphone to just be good at being a smartphone so I use an iPhone.
There is theoretical advantage in having hackers get in and play with the internals to do innovative things, the theory being that open collaboration would produce innovation but thus far there hasn't really been anything compelling that really gives Android an advantage, like no really awesome "must have", disruptive feature born from open collaboration.
That's not the point. I didn't need Google Home before, and I don't need it now, except to do things that I used to be able to do with Chrome. It's obvious that Google is again doing their "gentle nudge" approach to get a higher number of users on whatever product they're trying to push. If Microsoft was doing the same thing you'd be the first to get your panties in a bunch.
lucm, indeed.
what about if you want to use the voice assistant to do things like play music from any service that isnt Apple's? Siri isnt capable of doing this and despite Google offering its own music service like Apple does its voice assistant is much better and can play music from other services like spotify or pandora.
Who cares?
With Apple Music, I have access to nearly the whole iTunes catalog of music for $10/month. No ads, no bullshit. Home or car, WiFi or cell data, I have relatively unfettered access to play what I want, when I want. I don't use "curated channels", no copying my music to the cloud. Just a big, fat jukebox in the sky. Perfect for listening at work or in the car.
I say "Play Album Brian Eno Taking Tiger Mountain" to Siri, and a couple of seconds later, it launches the Music App, sees that the album isn't in my local Music library on the phone, contacts Apple, and starts streaming it from their servers. No muss, no fuss, no smell of burning hair. Just a nearly limitless well of music that YOU pick; not some algorithm. Apple Music has those, too; but I choose not to use it that way.
What's not to like?
When "freedom" is a simply the power to use inferior options, how is that a worthwhile thing in real life? And siince every music service has limits, aren't you just trading one "walled garden" for another?
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy OWNING music; I still buy 90% of my music on optical discs. But for the times when I just want access to a music library a million times larger than any one user could afford to purchase, to listen to that song or album I like but never will get around to buying, or to "try before buying" (which is really handy!), Apple Music is cheap, completely legal, and easy to use. Oh, and the sound quality is very good for a streaming service, too. 128k AAC isn't QUITE "golden ears" audiophile quality, but it is more than adequate for anything but the most critical of applications.
So, in short, I personally couldn't give a rat's ass if Siri can only interface with Apple Music; particularly since it in no way keeps me from using another streaming service in my iPhone. So, where's the "lock-in"? Where are the "walls"?