10 Pixels in, the purpose of a Google-made smartphone remains the same

Google didn't need to make its own smartphone. Even though the company spent several years having other manufacturers build phones it could slap its "Nexus" branding on, selling hardware is not core to Google's business. Things like advertising and Search still handily dwarf the inroads the company's made as a smartphone manufacturer, and that will likely remain true for the foreseeable future.<br /> Compared to the contributions the iPhone makes to Apple's bottom line, the Pixel has always, in some sense, been a hobby. Which means Google finds itself in a familiar place heading into the launch of the Pixel 10. It's better than it's ever been at the business of building phones, but the task for the Pixel remains the same: get people to use Goog [...]