The Google Pixel 9 is, overall, a pretty good phone. It has a solid selection of hardware and software upgrades, albeit at a price that’s higher than most people would like. The phone has also been slightly redesigned, complete with a brand new camera bump and flatter edges.
While the camera bump is an evolution of the camera bars on Pixels of years past, the flattening of the edges makes the new flagship look very similar to an iPhone. Some colors, like Obsidian, even resemble the titanium frame of the iPhone 15 Pro – although they are made of the much weaker and less high-quality aluminum.
Aside from the camera bump, this is the closest Pixel has come to an iPhone design – and I, for one, am all for it.
Apple’s iPhone design is so convincing
There are many reasons why I would never buy an iPhone. Price, software, the walled garden and so on. The One thing I have had no problems with over the years is the design of the iPhone. Not only has Apple never bothered to release a phone with one of those miserable curved displays, but it’s also pushed the idea of ”flat” about as far as it can go. Provided you ignore the protruding cameras, that is.
It’s incredibly satisfying to have a smooth, almost continuous straight edge on the side of the phone. Even better when that edge is rounded at the corners so that in any number of unfortunate circumstances it won’t gouge out someone’s eye. Or that I can prick my palm when using it one-handed, although that’s a much less serious problem.
I don’t know about you, but it’s not just about looks either. I find that the straight-edged design is more comfortable to hold. Especially when the phone has some weight to it, like the Pixel 9 series. Not everyone agrees with this, and some of my colleagues at Tom’s Guide prefer rounded edges so they can grip their phones better and hold them comfortably.
While there have been rumors that Apple might use a rounded design on the iPhone 15, which has been the subject of many opinions, if that was the case, it wasn’t very noticeable. Those edges are still straight enough that I could draw straight lines with an iPhone 15 Pro – assuming I ever had to do that in a hurry.
Honestly, it’s pretty surprising that this design hasn’t been adopted a little more widely. Often, what Apple does is copied so many times that it’s impossible to tell who did what first.
The choice of designs is limited
This is also true when you consider that companies have a limited choice when it comes to phone designs. In fact, they’re making a glass rectangle that has to be almost 50% screen, and that doesn’t leave you much room to create something new and unique.
This is one of the reasons why phones with rounded sides and rounded backs were so common for so long. Phone companies tended to go with this until other factors led to various changes. For example, curved backs fell out of favor because they made wireless charging much more difficult.
It would be easy to criticize Google for using an iPhone-like design instead of doing its own thing. But when your options are already pretty limited, it’s only a matter of time before multiple companies go with the same design – even if neither party intentionally intended it.
I don’t see the redesign as an Appleification of Google products. After all, the camera bump is still clearly Pixel-specific, even if it’s not quite the same as the one on the Pixel 8. Rather, Google thinks that phones with rounded edges have had their day and it’s time to try something new.
Although I find it hard to believe that it took this long to happen by chance, considering that the flat-edged iPhone has been around since the iPhone 11 in 2019. More likely, certain companies avoided comparisons to the iPhone until another factor forced them to do so.
Not that I’m complaining, I think Apple has gone for an excellent design and I’m glad I can finally experience that on a daily basis on a Pixel phone. It’s just a shame it took so long to get this sorted out.
Conclusion
There are many good reasons why the Pixel 9 is great. Battery life is particularly noteworthy, as Google has increased the phone’s lifespan by several hours compared to the Pixel 8. It might seem a little odd to fixate on what is essentially a fairly small design change. But it’s still a design that I’ve been jealous of for some time, but was out of reach due to my refusal to upgrade to an iPhone.
I would never buy a phone just because I like a design feature, otherwise I would have bought an iPhone a long time ago. I will Avoid certain brands for design choices I detestbut most of the time I try to look at a phone as a whole before I open my wallet – which is important when they cost so much. But that doesn’t mean I appreciate it when fate arranges itself and my next potential purchase actually looks the way I want it to.
Now if Google could just change the size of the Pixel camera bump and make it a little less gigantic, I would be a very satisfied customer.
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