There’s one thing about the just-announced Google Pixel 9 that’s hard to convey in photos—its camera bar is famous. Bigger than ever. It’s about as thick as two U.S. coins stacked together, and almost a third as thick as the rest of the phone. It’s so big that even the regular Pixel 9 is now roughly as thick as a “Pro” iPhone and has a more prominent camera module.
“A modern and unapologetic approach”
I’ve never felt a bump like this, but I don’t hate it! I said in 2022 that Google’s camera bar is a OK The Thing: The first major smartphone design element that’s truly Google’s own. In an age where most people’s phones are simple rounded rectangles, giving your phone a cute robot face is a fun way to stand out.
What did I ask Claude Zellweger? he Thinking of a more powerful collision – which he said was “definitely intentional”. As design director for Pixel phones, he’s the man behind the team behind the camera bar, which he calls a “modern and unapologetic approach.”
I didn’t bring up the idea that the camera headlines gave the Pixel a cute robot face, and neither did Zellweger—when I asked for his reasoning, he said the camera headlines were just “the most efficient way to package these camera modules,” and It aims to highlight the beauty of simplicity. “There’s a purity to our photography, right? We wanted it to reflect that. (Google says the design of the camera bar was inspired by the shape of the search bar.)
However, although he said that Google hopes to “usher in a new era of mobile phone design” with Pixel 9, he does not believe that one big standard will always dominate Google’s future mobile phones. To hit or not to hit? He said it depends on how much future phone buyers want large camera hardware built into them.
“The desire to have really good photography will never go away,” Zellweger said. These days, that means big sensors and big lenses, and if you want the rest of the phone to stay slim, that means a big bump.
He said that as the whole concept of “camera” continues to evolve, designers may re-examine the ratio of camera hardware to mobile phone hardware.
Speaking of small hardware: I asked Zellweger what he thought about small phones, which have largely died out after Apple and Google stopped selling them. (Some would say they didn’t sell well; I don’t think these companies ever gave gadget lovers a real choice.) Surprisingly, Zellweger said he’s personally a little cell phone junkie and took out his own The Pixel 9 Pro, which is the same size as the Pixel 9, proves that Google no longer forces you to buy the biggest phone to get the best features.
But when I pointed out that his 6.3-inch phone was nowhere near as long as my beloved old 5.4-inch iPhone Mini, he said modern expectations made that even harder. “Making small phones is fundamentally a bigger challenge,” he said, citing factors such as battery life, cameras, cooling and user experience that often help push manufacturers to produce taller, wider phones. Smartphones. He said that many people today want to watch videos or play games on their mobile phones, so they prefer larger screens.
But Zellweger said that may not always be the case. “I can foresee a future where some people have different priorities for what they use their equipment for, and some compromises can be made.”
