Something I take note of is when people recognise a smartphone. The iPhone has managed to become ubiquitous and easily recognisable. That’s not something that most Android handsets can match; Samsung perhaps manages it by dint of being the “not Apple” manufacturer, so it becomes a safe guess.
I find it’s the Pixel that is noticed and recognised, albeit as “that’s the Google phone” rather than “Pixel”; but they are being identified and it is the camera bar doing all the work.
It’s probably one of the most important pieces of design made by Google in recent years, and now the company has talked about the decisions that led to the iconic feature.
The Camera Bar did not start from a fresh sheet of paper. For the Pixel 3, 4, and 5 family of smartphones, Google pushed the camera into a raised and rounded square block in the corner of the phone. It added character, but there were issues – notably the off-center location creating an unstable device when laid on a table and a lack of physical depth to pack in new optical hardware.
This had to change for the Pixel 6:
“If you look back at Pixel 5 all the sensors were all grouped into this little square — so when we knew the camera would be greatly improved, we wanted to do something different,” says industrial designer Sangsoo Park. “We didn’t want the phone to be bigger, and wanted to really maintain everything being contained and streamlined, but also celebrated in a way.”
The Pixel 6 and especially the Pixel 6 Pro allowed Google to step up its optical game – an important step up as the Pixel 6 was also the first device to ship with the Google-designed Tensor mobile chipset and the addition of AI and ML hardware to help process and edit photos. That extra space and volume allowed for everything to scale up, and the results were clear, as the team at DXOMark noted:
“With a DXOMARK Camera overall score of 135 the Google Pixel 6 Pro puts Google back into the group of manufacturers that is battling it out for the smartphone camera crown, making the device, at least from an imaging point of view, the best option for Android users in the US market by surpassing the competition from Samsung and Asus.”
Not only did it leave space for the hardware, but the Camera Bar’s design worked alongside the Pixel smartphone’s function, ensuring that what helped the camera also helped the user experience in as many ways as possible. Simply put, you could use it on a table without it rocking, as Paul Thurrott picked out in his Pixel 6 Pro review:
“…I do give Google credit for creating a distinctive look and feel that in no way mimics what Apple and Samsung are doing and at least somewhat respects the Pixel past. Better still the design is practical, too: the camera bar extends across the entire back, so the handset won’t wobble on a table as do Apple and Samsung flagships.”
The design evolved with the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, bringing with it a feel that was closer to the elements on display in the software; the rounded menu bars and circular elements of Google’s Material You interface echoed in the next Camera Bar:
“We took inspiration from liquid metal surfaces to create this look,” Jaeun says. Pixel 7 and 7 Pro’s metal surface surrounds the cameras with pill and circle shapes, which are also found in Google’s Material You UI, bringing cohesiveness between software and hardware.”
The Camera Bar is not the answer to every device – Google’s move into the foldables market with the titular Pixel Fold saw the Camera Bar create the same problems it tried to address in regular phones:
“After exploring multiple options, they went with a Pixel Camera Bar that lived within the phone’s body instead of spanning from edge to edge entirely, as it does in Pixel 7 Pro. This was both a structural and aesthetic choice. “It provides a nice structure that attaches the protective case more firmly. It’s also just the right amount of the space between the hinge and the enclosure, so it’s visually nicely balanced,” Sangsoo says. “Everything became more harmonious with this approach.”
The problem, of course, is that the camera bar was on one side of the Fold; the other side had to be the screen used when the unit was closed. Open up the Pixel Fold in all its glory, and while you had the thinnest Pixel device yet, you had a Pixel device with a huge bar across half of its back. The depth needed for the camera and the desire for a large screen that could fold ultimately worked against the Pixel Fold’s dual modes. PC Mag’s Iyaz Akhtar:
“The camera bar is large and traverses a good portion of the rear panel. It wobbles because of the camera bar when placing the Fold down on a flat surface in tablet mode but is steady if laid down when closed.”
The Pixel Fold remains a niche device (arguably, all foldable phones are niche, at least for a few more years). There are limitations to the Camera Bar, but those limitations are limited to the technology flex of a foldable phone rather than a popular and recognisable mainstream device.
The blog post doesn’t go into what comes next, even though we all know the answer is the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. The next smartphones will be launched at the “Made By Google” event on October 4th. Ahead of the New York shindig, Google has teased the event and the phones online, and it’s clear that the Camera Bar remains an integral and easily identifiable part of the package.
The smooth blend into the side of the phone can be seen, the oval and circular cutouts matching the Material You elements are visible, and the integration of the new temperature sensor, larger lenses, and improved image sensors are still tucked under the bar that stops your phone from wobbling.
The design continues to delight.
Now read the three leaked features that will help the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones stand out…
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