Google’s push into hardware resulted in the company establishing itself as a key player in the mobile, wearable, and smart home industry. The latestGoogle Pixel 8series brings new AI advancements and focus on services. TheGoogle Pixel Watchbrings health tracking, the Pixel Buds provide a seamless listening experience, while the Nest-branded devices enable you to control your smart lights, thermostats, cameras, and other parts of your smart home.
Understanding the Google ecosystem
These devices work seamlessly together, providing a great ecosystem for hardware products. However, the software for mobile devices still lacks key services and applications, where Samsung and Apple are far ahead of Google. The company doesn’t provide the same level of native apps as its counterparts, making switching from Apple or Samsung a bit more difficult for the non-tech-savvy end user.
Google has been building out its ecosystem for quite some time, and the company is constantly bringing out new devices and services that build on capturing as much user data as possible, to help improve the Google ecosystem and shape it in a way that brings more advertisers and revenue for the business.
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At least the hardware looks good together
There are a few reasons why Google might be hesitant to bring more native apps to the platform, and some could be explained with one simple service, search. Google Search already has many features built-in, making it easy and accessible for billions of users. However, there are times when native apps could be deemed more useful and beneficial.
Google Search is a powerful beast
The built-in Google app, which is also part of GMS (Google Mobile Services), already acts as a shortcut for Google settings and built-in features and options. It contains Google Lens, Voice Search that relies on Google Assistant, and most importantly, the powerful Google Search engine.
The Google app acts like an “everything” app that can do many things, and direct you everywhere on the world wide web. You can search, find photos, videos, news articles (also use the integrated Discover feed), see the stock exchange, currencies, the weather forecast, get notifications about flight details and gates, see live scores of ongoing sports events, and much more. You can even flip a coin when you can’t decide between two things. And there are dozens more useful and fun commands built-in, helping you get more done quickly and efficiently.
And when you actually search for something that doesn’t provide you with a more direct answer, search will present you applications that’ll get you in the right direction and offer a solution. That’s where a compass might be useful, or you might want to see more in-depth information about a particular stock you’ve been following. There are, however, no direct competitors to Apple’s Fitness, Journal, and other key services.
The downsides of relying on a single service for capturing data
Some might argue that the standard Google app and Search have become so powerful in the past few years that separate apps are unnecessary to do the same tasks, as they could take up valuable resources from other departments within Google to help maintain individual apps. Instead, Google is focusing on improving the Search experience by squeezing even more features into the app everyone uses.
Google doesn’t need to build separate apps, as it can simply link out to them using the built-in Google app, which already contains shortcuts and various settings, features, and options that take users to their relevant locations within the system settings. The company has done a great job minimizing bloatware, and it feels like a great overall package for most users.
However, users who are just joining the platform, those who aren’t as tech-savvy, and those switching from iOS, might want a more streamlined and seamless experience that’s easy to understand and use. Non-power users might not be familiar with the full capability of Google Search, and native apps could streamline this transition.
Google needs more built-in apps to streamline the experience for new and existing users
Apple already does a great job with its native apps
Apple doesn’t have a search engine, and the company has done an excellent job retaining users, ensuring they’re provided with enough basic apps to keep them satisfied with the state of iOS.
iOS has many native apps that improve the overall experience, and offers the basics for most users who are just getting started and setting up their devices. And while Apple only includes essential apps, it does a great job of allowing users to replace them with more feature-rich and premium alternatives using the App Store. The company also offers its own services in bundled apps.
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Apple is a good example of how first-party apps could provide value to users to understand and access content. The Weather app provides in-depth information about the forecast, showing everything a user might want or need to know. The Notes app syncs across Apple devices without requiring a subscription, and it feels native on all systems and devices. It’s the same with the Stocks, Podcast, Shortcuts, Health, and Fitness apps. One of the latest apps to join the list of native offerings is Journal, which helps users reflect and practice gratitude through journaling. Even more recently, Apple launched a dedicated Sports app, no searching for scores needed.
Google needs more data that can only be captured through Search
Understanding how these apps play a significant role in keeping users satisfied and happy with the platform makes us question why Google hasn’t done the same. The simplest explanation is that billions of people use Google Search. In contrast, single and individual apps areonlyused by millions – and this could tamper with Google’s ability to track users and get their habits and ability to discover and spend more time using the primary services.
However, there are signs that Google might want to attempt something similar. The Weather app on Pixel phones already looks like its own separate app, while, in fact, it’s technically just ashortcut that opens weather forecast applet from the main Google app.
Looking ahead to the future, the chances of Google moving forward with a similar strategy seem more likely, and we’ll presumably continue to see more elements built into the main Google app, with native-looking apps acting as shortcuts to help streamline the experience, at least on Pixel devices. While this won’t please everyone, it’ll likely make the experience better for millions of people thinking about switching from competing platforms, and it could help reduce the number of steps required to get to certain services while using Pixel devices.
