Google, and its Pixel division, have been under a lot of criticism lately and that is because of the recent reports surrounding their hardware team. There was a report earlier this month which exclusively revealed that Google’s Pixel team lost two of its key members earlier this year.
This is because both these members quit the company and reports even suggest that the resignations were due to Google Hardware VP Rick Osterloh criticizing the decisions made for the Pixel 4 lineup.
As per the reports, Rick internally said that the battery was too small on Pixel 4 lineup and that happened even before the launch took place during a meeting. It is said that this was the main reason why Pixel team’s members Marc Levoy and Mario Queiroz quit the company.
The major problem here is that both Marc and Mario were the core members responsible for Pixel’s camera prowess. Pixel’s camera is one of the main reasons why the phones are selling and even being talked about because the hardware has never been a strong focus for the devices.
For this reason, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made an appearance on the Vergecast which is a podcast hosted by The Verge where he has set the record straight. Sundar has cleared that the company remains committed to the Pixel hardware “for the long run” answering all those who assumed that Google’s Pixel division is in trouble due to the members quitting the team.
Apart from that, Sundar Pichai also mentioned that they have had to do a lot of “stitching together” in the last few years as they have “combined Google hardware efforts with Nest (and) absorbed the mobile division of HTC”. Google CEO also does mention that “Hardware is hard” which is kind of acceptance of blame for all the weird decisions they have made so far.
Pichai also hints at the possible Google chip in the works that would power their phones as per a report from last month. He says that “Some of the deeper efforts we are putting in will take three to four years to actually play out” adding that “when they come in, I think I’m excited about how they will shape where we are going.”
