On Tuesday, Google announced a series of new products, including the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4XL, and almost nothing about them was a surprise. In fact, the Pixel 4 might have been the most leaked about phone ever, making its announcement about as exciting as opening a birthday present you wrapped yourself. Actually, the birthday present would be more exciting, since it's presumably something you were looking forward to.
Look, Google isn't really a hardware company. Sure, it bought Nest a few years ago to beef up its hardware engineering chops, but honestly, that's not really its thing. Google is a software company whose core revenue-making business is selling digital advertising.
Which is why its hardware events are always, well, interesting.
The hardware isn't bad--mostly due to the design influence of Nest, but there's nothing amazing about it. The new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL feature Motion Sense gesture controls, as well as Google's version of FaceID--called Face Unlock, dual rear-facing cameras, and a much improved Google Assistant.
Except, we already knew all of those things were coming because not only did just about every spec leak ahead of time, the actual device was seen in the wild, revealing the design ahead of the launch.