Late summer is when our thoughts typically turn to pastoral pursuits. Long drives along the coast. Wine tastings. County fairs. Smartphone launch events.
Wait, smartphone launch events? Those usually happen in late September and early October. Yet here we are talking about new phones and mobile gadgets in mid-August, on the eve of Google's big Pixel hardware launch.
On Tuesday, Google will host the media and its industry partners for an event in Mountain View, California, that it's calling Made by Google. This is where the next Pixel phones will be launched: the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and new Pixel 9 Fold. Also, if we can go by the rumors and the early leaks—there has been an astonishing number of both this year, some from Google itself—it's where the new Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds will be unveiled as well.
Putting all this stuff out into the world a month or two earlier than usual may seem odd, but it's not exactly unexpected. The smartphone launch schedule has long been dictated by Apple, which for more than a decade has stuck to mid-September launches for iPhones. Samsung was the first big manufacturer to break from that calendar for its Galaxy Unpacked events, which take place at different times of the year. Now Google is going early, either to get ahead of Apple in the news cycle or to give a bigger stage to Gemini, the artificial intelligence assistant embedded across its devices.
Here's how to tune in to Tuesday's event and what to expect.
How to Watch
The Made by Google 2024 event starts Tuesday, August 13, at 10 am PDT, 1 pm EDT, and 6 pm BST. You can watch the whole thing on the Made by Google YouTube channel that Google uses for all of its hardware videos. There will also be an after-party hosted by Keke Palmer. That's scheduled to start at 11:20 am Pacific, which tells us that we should expect the main presentation to last about 80 minutes.
Reporters from WIRED will be attending the event in person, and we'll be running a liveblog on Tuesday to provide insight around Google's announcements has they happen.
What to Expect
We're going to see a lot of hardware from Google this year. We can expect to see the entire line of flagship Pixel phones refreshed on Tuesday. The Pixel 9 will be the star of the show, and it will be joined by the Pixel 9 Pro, the Pixel 9 Pro XL, and the Pixel 9 Fold.
Unlike previous Pixel phone releases, where the Pro was larger than the standard Pixel, this year's 9 and the 9 Pro will reportedly be the same size. The rumors suggest that the only bigger phone this time will be the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which will have a larger screen measuring 6.7 or 6.8 inches, as well as a bigger battery. All of the Pro Pixels will have the more powerful triple-camera array and beefier internal specs. All of the phones—Pro and standard—will have next-generation Tensor chips inside to power Android's newest AI features within Gemini, Google Assistant, and base Android, as well as providing an extra layer of device security.
The newest version of the Pixel Fold should also be unveiled on Tuesday. We're excited for the Pixel 9 Fold (that's the rumored name) because the current Pixel Fold is already our top pick for folding devices. Among book-style foldables, it's leading the pack when it comes to price, performance, durability, and functionality.
The only Pixel phone that's not expected to get an update this week is the budget model, the A-series handset. We just saw the Pixel 8A in May, and it's our top pick for cheap Android phones. These inexpensive A-series phones typically come out in the spring; they're offset from the flagship Pixel releases by six or seven months. So look for the Pixel 9A in the first half of 2025.
Other things we won't see this week are new Nest Thermostats and Google-powered TV streaming devices. That's because both of those things were announced last week, ahead of the Pixel event—probably so the company can concentrate on just the Pixel-branded devices during the Made by Google show.
The Pixel Watch should get an update Tuesday, and we hope to see better battery life, improved sensing, and snappier performance in the new wearable. Since the smartwatch is Google's proving ground for its Wear OS software, we can expect the Pixel Watch 3 to take advantage of all the newest Wear OS capabilities, including tighter integration with Pixel phones, Pixel buds, and smart home devices.
With the AI arms race in full swing, and with Google investing so much energy into its Gemini generative AI chatbot, we can expect Tuesday's keynote to include demonstrations showing how these new devices facilitate Gemini interactions. Google, Apple, and all the other big players in AI are eager to get us talking to our devices in ways that feel more natural, so we can expect to hear about how Google is trying to deliver a frictionless Gemini experience.
On that same tip, the new Pixel Buds and Pixel Buds Pro are expected to arrive alongside the new phones and watches. These buds should have improved audio quality, of course, but we can expect them to have additional features that improve the voice control experience. In Google's vision of the Pixelverse, when you're interacting with Gemini using your voice, you're doing it with a pair of Pixel Buds in your ears. So, the new headphones will have to deliver on that.
Tune in tomorrow to see all of these products make their debut. Plus, maybe a surprise or two. We'll see you at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern, and 6 pm in the UK.
