Yesterday, Apple confirmed that those pesky leakers were once again 100% correct, and the iPhone 15 launch would be happening on Tuesday September 12.
Not wanting to be done, Google has announced its Pixel 8 launch, sending out invites the very next day for an event that’s still over a month away on October 4. Good for people with busy calendars, but it does suggest they’re less confident than Apple that journalists will drop everything to show up at short notice.
While Google doesn’t mention the Pixel 8 (it refers to “the latest additions to our Pixel portfolio of devices”), the company did manage to let the cat out of the bag for anybody who was unsure.
It briefly published a picture of someone using the Pixel 8 Pro on its online store, either accidentally or in a sly attempt to steal Google’s thunder. That’s it at the top of the page.
You may think “well, that looks an awful lot like a Pixel 7 Pro”, and you’d be right. For experts in ‘spot the difference’ there are small clues, but more damningly the alt text read “A person takes a call on a Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain.” So thanks to Google’s commitment to accessibility, we have confirmation that this was indeed something prematurely uploaded.
According to leaks, the Pixel 8 Pro will be all about the camera, with 50MP wide, 48MP telephoto and 64MP ultrawide sensors on the back. For some reason, it’s also set to get an infrared heat sensor, which would have been handy back when Covid was all the rage, but feels a bit odd now. Maybe Google will have a good explanation for it on October 4.
We’re also expecting a second-generation Pixel Watch, which will reportedly abandon the six-year-old Exynos 9110 processor in favour of the comparatively spritely Snapdragon W5, which only came out last year.
That should not only make the watch considerably nippier, but more energy efficient to improve on the sub-par battery life of the original too. As ever, it never pays to be an early adopter…
