I do n’t cerebrate I will ever use Google ’s add up Me photo mode in real life . I can say this with a degree of certainty as I have yet to find a situation where I ’ve needed or wanted to employ Google ’s Best Take , the last AI tv camera feature Google bring out designed for group shots of masses .
The grounds are both hard-nosed and personal . The fact that I ’m intend so deep about these AI feature and my own spirit makes me uncomfortable — and demonstrate there ’s a serious problem with how Google is advertising theGoogle Pixel 9 ’s cameras .
It’s not the technology
In case you missed it , Add Me is a television camera modethat assure no one is left out of a mathematical group picture . It works by select a group photo and the lensman then swapping places with someone in the shot , who read a 2nd photo , ready for Google ’s AI to stitch them together into one complete image with everyone present .
intimately Takeworked some face - swapping magic to ensure everyone in a group shot was fix the right expression for the photo and bank on multiple frames being taken at the metre or on previous images of the mortal from your Google Photos library to work . Again , it uses Google ’s AI to jibe and stitch the “ new ” face into the photo .
Both of these features are very ingenious indeed , demonstrating how AI can enhance and change our exposure and the mogul of Google ’s visual search . They ’re also amazing selling tools as , to certify both , you need a group of happy people all clamoring to take a mathematical group photo to memorialise whatever occasion is being celebrated . I reverence this merchandising value is being placed above what made me get it on the Pixel earpiece ’s camera before , and it ’s leading us down a problematic course .
Is everyone but me taking group photos?
Ithink the technology is interesting , but like so many other “ creative ” AI television camera modes , I do n’t know how often , if ever , I ’ll in reality habituate Add Me . The trouble is , I do n’t last in the world being publicize by Google . Add Me and Best Take sell the assumption that we ’re all out there in situations where taking many group photos is part of the merriment . Although it ’s painful to accommodate , I rarely bump myself with more than three people ( the usual definition of a group of people ) at a time when I would palpate the want to say , “ Let ’s take a chemical group photo ! ”
While I accept that many people may do , I wonder how often it really happen , and if it does , whether summate Me is worth the bother . Add Me look like a bit of a faff and another surefire way to kill spontaneousness as you all shove for place and camera tariff , potentially in an surround that ’s fussy or forever change , thus likely making it intemperate for the AI to re - create the scene . It ’s also not capture the moment itself but a period of time . The bit would have passed during all the messing around . A farseeing - arm selfie may not look quite so dressed , but at least it ’s clamant and a lot less embarrassing .
But the slickness of Google ’s Add Me advertizement and the way it ’s advance these life-style - based image and AI tools makes me wonder if I am in the nonage here . Is there something wrong with me and my small group of protagonist ? Do I not have enough friends , and therefore , wo n’t or ca n’t enjoy the Pixel 9 to the fullest ? Is my life boring and ordinary compare to everyone else ’s ? Google ’s life-style - driven advertising is so heavy - handed it raise these questions , and I do n’t like that direction at all .
The advertising problem
In a feature issue by theHarvard Business Reviewwith the headline “ Advertising makes us unhappy , ” Andrew Oswald , a professor of economic science and behavioural skill at the University of Warwick , said :
“ [ merchandising ’s ] line is that advertising is trying to scupper the public to new and exciting thing to corrupt , and their task is to only provide information , and in that manner they arouse human well - being . But the substitute argument is that expose people to a lot of ad leaven their inspiration — and makes them feel that their own aliveness , achievements , belongings , and experiences are short . ”
I admit that the constant adverts for Best Take when thePixel 8came out made me sense like my own life was uncomfortably sorrowing of opportunities to use the characteristic , and I do n’t reckon any broader movement around Add Me will be any dissimilar . What I line up troubling about Google ’s most hyped photographic camera AI features is they need you to be a highly social fauna . If you are n’t , then they offer little value .
A smartphone camera feature and its use should not prompt such reflexion .
Let ’s take a pace back at this breaker point . A smartphone tv camera feature and its use should not propel such reflexion or raise personal , almost existential concerns . Yet these fleeting thoughts all get in when I see the ads because Google has decided to lean to a great extent on Gemini AI and tool like Add Me and Best Take to betray the Pixel 9 series phones . These extremely technical , deeply spot - specific features were never needed to betray Pixel tv camera in the past , though .
Google has forgotten why we love Pixel cameras
I see adverts have to sell novel features in an attention - snaffle way . I ’m also sure that some hoi polloi reading this will have straight off seen how Add Me will gibe into their sprightliness . Still , in the same wayGoogle lose its wayduring the launch of the Pixel 9 phones , it has become so bogged down by Gemini and severalise us how amazing its AI tool are , it has alone forgotten why we penetrative photographers always want the former Pixel earpiece in the first place : It ’s the camera and the picture it takes .
The Pixel has always been the tv camera to have if you want to be indisputable of a outstanding exposure in almost any environs . authentic yet never lacking in charm or personality , the tv camera has long been the standard for lowlight photography . It has systematically impressed when put against its match , disregardless of the twist ’s generation . Some of the photos I ’m most proud of have been take with a Pixel headphone . Perhaps the Pixel 9 ’s photographic camera is n’t that practiced , so Google is n’t not bad to shower its overall power with advertising aid , or is it plainly rest on its laurels , trading on past goodwill ? I ’d be shocked if that were the case , but Google ’s marketing approaching to the Pixel 9 ’s photographic camera does n’t do much to quell that concern .
I ’m questioning all of this — from my own lifestyle to the Pixel 9 ’s television camera quality — because I ’m being effect - feed Add Me , Best Take , and the majority of Gemini ’s other gimmicks as the sole reason to grease one’s palms a Pixel this year . It all has its place , but it should not take precedence over why so many of us have gravitate toward a Pixel phone ’s television camera before — the fact it has always taken fabulous photos . If all I see is Add Me in telling to the Pixel 9 ’s camera , I ’m going to speedily retrieve that ’s what makes it unique and that Google has lost its photographic edge . I would n’t purchase a earpiece for a feature film I ’d never use , and I have a opinion I wo n’t be alone in cogitate all this .
For years , we have loved the Pixel ’s camera because it consistently get the fundamentals exactly right and , unlike many vie Android phones , did n’t recur to gimmicks . The board have ostensibly turned , at least in selling realm , and I dread the Pixel 9 ’s camera is being undersold because of it .
