Apple vs Google: Hardware and software face off in the ultimate phone battle

Google is leaving no stone unturned in the latest Tensor-powered chapter of its Pixel products. Not only has the company refreshed Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, but it’s also announced the Pixel Watch and more details about the Pixel Tablet. While  Google’s new flagship Pixel phones and its first-ever smartwatch house top-of-the-line specs, that’s not what it’s banking on to sell them. Instead, it’s taking on Apple’s iPhone 14’s unrivaled hardware by playing to its strength: software. 

The Made by Google event made one thing unequivocally clear: Google knows taking on the iPhone’s hardware is an uphill battle. Apple’s in-house silicon division has years on Google’s fairly nascent counterpart. Even though Google’s Tensor processor was a success on last year’s Pixel 6, it’s still far from catching up to Apple’s A-series chips. 

Google’s pitch for the Pixel 7 phones, therefore, was in clear contrast to the one Apple made for the iPhone 14 last month. Unlike Apple or any other phone maker, Google didn’t spend much time diving deep into the Pixel 7’s specs — it didn’t tell its audience what the contrast ratio was of the screen or the number of transistors inside its new Tensor G2 chipset. No, once it revealed a few essential bits of the phones, such as their display sizes and the addition of Face Unlock, Google quickly moved on to discuss the experiences these upgrades enable and why they matter.