Pixel is not reference design. If you go any major city with mass transit, you’ll notice that Google has absolutely taken over physical advertising space with P

Pixel is not reference design. If you go any major city with mass transit, you’ll notice that Google has absolutely taken over physical advertising space with Pixel 7 spots. Watch any NBA game and you’ll see the same thing. I understand why one would bucket Pixel hardware into that old played out “reference hardware”. That has been Google’s approach over the years. But herein lies my point: Google has changed their tune. The top brass have now bought into the integration of hw, sw and services ecosystem that Apple had set out with from the get go. This isn’t some Googler asking Sundar for budget so they can make some vanilla smartphone. This is Sundar putting a stake in the ground with real long term budget to saying: 10 years from now, if we continue to execute on pixel, the US market and perhaps more will be a healthier mix of Apple and Google phones. And I think a reasonable target is like 2:1 iphone to Pixel. Given the importance of the phone as the primary computing device in peoples lives and the amount of profit Google draws in from consumer computing activity, and the lack of leverage Google really has over other OEMs phones, it is super important for Google to eventually hit something like 2 iphones to 1 pixel in sales. Its no a long shot either. With enough money and time this will happen.