Technology Android

[dilla]

Foldables will blow up in the next 24 months, because they'll be the new status symbol. Hard to floss your £1200 iPhone when every other phone on the market looks the same from a distance.

Agreed. With the same large screens and a standard "black" case around every iPhone and Samsung phone, it's hard to tell phones apart now. I now look at the shape/prominence of the notch to ID phones but even that's not too reliable.

I just want to see long term reports about the durability of the screen on the foldable devices. I don't know the number of "fold/unfolds" these phones are rated for but I imagine it's a couple of thousand opening and closings. I can see myself sticking to using the oblong front screen for most things but opting for unfolding it for media consumption or social media.

Typing a message or tweet might be difficult when unfolded, unless you can get used to typing on a touchscreen in a clamshell format. Like the LG EnV. Man, I miss that phone.

 

[masta247]

Yeah I agree that foldables are very promising once they become mainstream-ready and the fold and usability are perfected. Who wouldn't want their phone the size of your average iPhone Max to unfold into a super large screen when needed. Getting them as usable as today's mainstream smartphones are is still a challenge for manufacturers though. Huawei is the closest so far with the Mate X but it still feels like a prototype.

 

[dilla]

Yeah I agree that foldables are very promising once they become mainstream-ready and the fold and usability are perfected. Who wouldn't want their phone the size of your average iPhone Max to unfold into a super large screen when needed. Getting them as usable as today's mainstream smartphones are is still a challenge for manufacturers though. Huawei is the closest so far with the Mate X but it still feels like a prototype.

Yeah. I bet the Chinese OEMs are all over it. Too bad we don't get a lot of their stuff here, outside of OnePlus.

 

[dilla]

We've been on Android for so long, I forgot what each major update brought along with it. Then someone posted this on rAndroid and it brought back some memories. 10 years ago, around this time, Honeycomb was released. I remember going with a few friends to Best Buy after class and looking to try out the XOOM but this one Asian couple hogged the tablet for the 45 minutes we were there. Ridiculous.

https://www.computerworld.com/artic...sions-a-living-history-from-1-0-to-today.html

 

[masta247]

We've been on Android for so long, I forgot what each major update brought along with it. Then someone posted this on rAndroid and it brought back some memories. 10 years ago, around this time, Honeycomb was released. I remember going with a few friends to Best Buy after class and looking to try out the XOOM but this one Asian couple hogged the tablet for the 45 minutes we were there. Ridiculous.

https://www.computerworld.com/artic...sions-a-living-history-from-1-0-to-today.html

Android changed a lot to reach its basically final state around 5.0. While we could see major system-wide changes until then with Android evolving significantly with every release, since then we only had minor tweaks and feature additions. Considering how big the changes were before that, and how small the changes have been since then, I'd say Android 11 is genuinely more like Android 5.11.

I was surprised to recently see my old Galaxy S4 from 2013 and realize things haven't changed much since then. Sure, Samsung's UI has, but in terms of features Android 5.0 would be perfectly usable today without seeming all that different from 11. It's also funny to see how ahead Samsung's additions to Android were, as only 9.0 brought Android to pretty much feature parity with Samsung's 5.0 (which already came with things like split screen, picture-in-picture and some of the later UI improvements).

I also realized that phone had this certain "coolness" that Samsung phones of today miss, and I realized I really miss the old Samsung experiments, like eye tracking and hovering-hand tracking. I started reading an article and the fact it would just scroll the screen for me as I was reading the bottom lines feels amazing even in 2021. And this was only the very first iteration of their technology for this. These features were surprisingly cool, and it's a bummer they dropped their experiments, as if they stuck with them and continued developing these they'd be able to do really cool things by this point. Not sure if you remember the LG tricks like self-healing body or arched devices that they released, but I wish companies didn't abandon such things after a generation of two, I miss the cool tricks and.. variety. The fact everyone today releases just the same baseline feature sets definitely contributes to how boring the market feels.

 

[dilla]

Android changed a lot to reach its basically final state around 5.0. While we could see major system-wide changes until then with Android evolving significantly with every release, since then we only had minor tweaks and feature additions. Considering how big the changes were before that, and how small the changes have been since then, I'd say Android 11 is genuinely more like Android 5.11.

I was surprised to recently see my old Galaxy S4 from 2013 and realize things haven't changed much since then. Sure, Samsung's UI has, but in terms of features Android 5.0 would be perfectly usable today without seeming all that different from 11. It's also funny to see how ahead Samsung's additions to Android were, as only 9.0 brought Android to pretty much feature parity with Samsung's 5.0 (which already came with things like split screen, picture-in-picture and some of the later UI improvements).

I also realized that phone had this certain "coolness" that Samsung phones of today miss, and I realized I really miss the old Samsung experiments, like eye tracking and hovering-hand tracking. I started reading an article and the fact it would just scroll the screen for me as I was reading the bottom lines feels amazing even in 2021. And this was only the very first iteration of their technology for this. These features were surprisingly cool, and it's a bummer they dropped their experiments, as if they stuck with them and continued developing these they'd be able to do really cool things by this point. Not sure if you remember the LG tricks like self-healing body or arched devices that they released, but I wish companies didn't abandon such things after a generation of two, I miss the cool tricks and.. variety. The fact everyone today releases just the same baseline feature sets definitely contributes to how boring the market feels.

I remember the eye-tracking feature but I thought it was just for a few, select cases. Like if you were watching a video and looked away, it would pause. I didn't know it scrolled down pages for you as you read. I also remember turning those features off because back then I was stupid and worried about SOT and battery life like a maniac. Maybe my S10+ just has that great of a battery life now and I'm used to it but I regret falling in to that trap with my S3 and S7. Although, to be fair, I am convinced Samsung stuck a bum battery in my S7 that dropped to 67% of its total capacity 9 months in to use. I should have gotten it replaced under warranty but I never sent it in because I was traveling downtown daily. Should have done it, though.

I think in regards to OEMs, they saw what Samsung and Apple were doing and realized their novelties appealed only to a select few people. Namely enthusiasts. I bet most casual users didn't tinker with the settings too much to enable or disable these features, as far as software goes. Hardware? I remember when brands would boast about getting nice, audio companies to supply their phones with headphones or speakers. I know Samsung had AKG more recently but I think HTC had Beats when they both were popular companies? I think some other OEMs partnered with other audiophile companies for their internal speakers. Maybe not Bose but maybe Bowers and Wilkins? Harmon Kardon? Something like that. Yeah, they were willing to get creative with certain parts to make the experience better. But I don't think most people bought their phones based on who tuned the audio or supplied the speakers. Those OEMs probably decided to aim to compete with Apple and Samsung and to keep it simple. Like drinking the OEM Kool Aid and just sticking to simple things. And they still failed because Apple and Samsung dumped a ton in to marketing and had a few software gimmicks here and there and that's all they needed to increase their lead and pull away from the pack of other OEMs.

Even Samsung, like you mentioned, went corporate. Whatever makes the money, that's it. Minimal new stuff. They still make good stuff and it's hard to find another Android OEM that makes something as feature-packed as Samsung's stuff. But Android was always Batman and TouchUI or whatever Samsung had was always second-fiddle. Now, like you also mentioned, Samsung is introducing the features and Google is slowly following along. Robin is now the star of the show and Batman is basically getting cucked.

The notifications from T-Mobile and Sprint are becoming more frequent now for me to upgrade to a new phone. I believe I will have paid off the S10+ by next month and they're offering $850 trade in credit towards an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I'll have to make sure there's no catch, though there usually is. But I may do it. My mom's S10 and the other 2 XS Maxs in our house also fetch the same $850 trade in credit. I think on certain plans, it's BOGO on the 12 Max. Again, there's likely a catch but $850 for a phone I ultimately paid $800 or $900 for? I'll take it.

 

[dilla]

So Apple has its own set of problems recently. One is the SSDs on the M1 Macs possibly wearing out very quickly in the future due to some bug. Or maybe its a hardware flaw, I don't know, but it sounds like a bug.

https://www.macworld.com/article/36...d-you-be-about-your-m1-macs-ssd-lifespan.html

Hopefully they fix it somehow but it's still not a good look for them to have another recall on yet another generation of Macs. The previous gen Macs had backlight issues and then the granddaddy of them all was the Butterfly keyboard replacement/fix. I think there was a smaller, battery-related problem too on some models.

And then the iPhone is having some issues with its color rubbing off on the sides. I saw images of the red-orange version and it might just be that color that's having the issue, but I'm not sure on that.

But one interesting thing of note is a potential mini-LED iPad Pro. I think mini LED is the tech everyone is waiting for and is hoping will beat out even OLED tech. At least that's what I remember from our conversations with @masta247 when we were discussing TVs a while back. EDIT: I just looked, and it was micro LED. I get confused between the two. I also didn't know the iPad Pros already didn't implement OLED screens like the iPhones have. I guess I never meant to check in all the time of owning my Pro but I just thought the iPads were also OLED like the iPhones. So looks like the miniLED upgrade will be a significant one compared to the old tech they've been using so far.

 

[masta247]

MiniLED is basically like an LCD TV with local dimming. It's not ideal, but certainly a step up over a regular LCD. OLED looks better, but yeah MicroLED is the end goal, although on phones and tablets OLED is pretty much as good. And yeah it sucks iPads don't come with OLED displays. That's literally the only thing the Galaxy Tabs have going on for them - OLED displays on tablets look amazing.

 

[dilla]

MiniLED is basically like an LCD TV with local dimming. It's not ideal, but certainly a step up over a regular LCD. OLED looks better, but yeah MicroLED is the end goal, although on phones and tablets OLED is pretty much as good. And yeah it sucks iPads don't come with OLED displays. That's literally the only thing the Galaxy Tabs have going on for them - OLED displays on tablets look amazing.

I bet. Whenever I see deals for the Galaxy Tabs, the big point is the OLED screen over the iPad. But I don't know how Android app development is going but it doesn't sound much better than it was in 2013 when I last had an Android tablet before selling it. Which wasn't good. For media consumption, I bet it's fine but, for me, the iPad shines with a better stylus with the Pencil and better apps natively like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. That might have more to do with being able to sync it all across all my Apple devices, namely my Mac.

Masta, if someone were looking to get a non-Samsung Android phone from TMo, what would you suggest?

https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phones

I'll have paid off my S10+ in a month or so and while I said I'd hang on to it for as long as I could, I got the itch to upgrade. I think TMo is still offering $800ish for a trade in of my phone so that makes flagships from any OEM no more than $300. I might just do it, be the 12 Pro Max or the S21 Ultra.

 

[masta247]

I bet. Whenever I see deals for the Galaxy Tabs, the big point is the OLED screen over the iPad. But I don't know how Android app development is going but it doesn't sound much better than it was in 2013 when I last had an Android tablet before selling it. Which wasn't good. For media consumption, I bet it's fine but, for me, the iPad shines with a better stylus with the Pencil and better apps natively like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. That might have more to do with being able to sync it all across all my Apple devices, namely my Mac.

Android tablets suck. The Nexus 7 singlehandedly represented the golden era of Android tablets. Now nobody bothers anymore. When I made apps I wouldn't even test them on tablets, yet they were available if someone had one, lol! iPad are incomparably better - they are actually my favorite Apple product line, and it's a market that Apple might as well just have to themselves.

Masta, if someone were looking to get a non-Samsung Android phone from TMo, what would you suggest?

https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phones

I'll have paid off my S10+ in a month or so and while I said I'd hang on to it for as long as I could, I got the itch to upgrade. I think TMo is still offering $800ish for a trade in of my phone so that makes flagships from any OEM no more than $300. I might just do it, be the 12 Pro Max or the S21 Ultra.

Oh man you guys are so screwed out of choices over there! It's literally Samsung or some oldies! Shit. I guess.. OnePlus 8.. out of a lack of better options? It's the worst time to buy it though as it's getting old and OP 9 launches literally in 5 days. Perhaps that's going to be an option?
Otherwise the S21 Ultra is an awesome phone if you don't mind the size and don't get burdened by its cost - likely the best phone you can get there.

 

[dilla]

Android tablets suck. The Nexus 7 singlehandedly represented the golden era of Android tablets. Now nobody bothers anymore. When I made apps I wouldn't even test them on tablets, yet they were available if someone had one, lol! iPad are incomparably better - they are actually my favorite Apple product line, and it's a market that Apple might as well just have to themselves.



Oh man you guys are so screwed out of choices over there! It's literally Samsung or some oldies! Shit. I guess.. OnePlus 8.. out of a lack of better options? It's the worst time to buy it though as it's getting old and OP 9 launches literally in 5 days. Perhaps that's going to be an option?
Otherwise the S21 Ultra is an awesome phone if you don't mind the size and don't get burdened by its cost - likely the best phone you can get there.

Those are the options if I stick with TMobile, which I plan to do. ATT's plans are ass and the only other big carrier is Verizon. I could go with them but it's a gamble on reception in my house. It's in a series of valleys and peaks and that messes with reception. It's great everywhere else but at home is an issue and I refuse to use WiFi unless it's needed. TMo gives me decent coverage indoors. Well, I should say serviceable, around 2-3 Mbps which is enough for 720p streaming of video and browsing social media. I had Verizon ten years ago and it was not good indoors and killed battery. It's possible they've changed though and expanded more. They are #1 in coverage unless TMo overtook them in the ratings after acquiring Sprint.

I'll likely wait for a deal of some kind for whatever phone it is. For the iPhone, it can get as sweet as a BOGO which would work out since it's likely my mom will make the switch to iOS to join my dad and sister. If I do too then that would be quite a deal.

But yes, our market is rather shit. It really is just Samsung or Apple devices. Really it's shit for Android devices as LG phones can't even be given away for free. I think they're flagship prices are the same as what an S10 or S20 would cost today, which would be heavily discounted.

 

[dilla]

Incidentally, I went to best Buy yesterday to pick up an SSD and I got the chance to finally use the Galaxy Fold. It's a pretty neat phone and I can see myself really using it "opened" whenever I can. It's still a very pricey phone so maybe in a few years when foldable phones become more commonplace and affordable.

I haven't used the Galaxy Flip but that one doesn't seem as exciting. I haven't had a chance to use it so I won't speak on it too much but I imagine its front-facing screen is more usable than the Fold's. So while I could see really appreciating the size of the fold's inner screen, the front screen was laughably small. It really would only be good for making phone calls and even then the dialer was a bit odd to use.

But I love the concept of the Fold where it can go from the slim screen of cell phones from the early 2000's, to being a mini-tablet when opened in seconds. And the footprint isn't too far off from regular smartphones we have now.

I hope it continues to sell like shit so that carriers, or maybe Samsung themselves, offer drastic discounts on them.

At $1200, I might bite on a Fold and if Samsung or TMo offers the $850 trade in for my S10+, that might seal the deal.

 

[dilla]

So I saw a few review videos of the OP9 that dropped today. I also saw the OP Watch and it looks pretty neat, especially with a $159 price tag. I have stopped reading up on news of phones other than Samsung and Apple since those two seem to be the most popular and best options in the US so I'm pretty clueless on the OP lineup. I'll look in to the OP9 and see if maybe I'm just sick of Samsung and not just Android as a whole. Their phones are expensive, especially compared to the OP2 days of the "flagship killer" moniker but they're still cheaper than Apple or Samsung's best offerings. The Warp Speed charge sounds pretty cool too, even though charging speed isn't an issue for me with the S10's Fast Charge. Battery life is certainly important but I think the S10's is so good that I get by with small top-ups while driving and never running below 30% after two days of use. I think OP is going to have to offer more than just the Warp Speed charging speeds to get me to switch and the price tag is one good thing going for it.

 

[dilla]

RIP LG: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/04/133_306481.html

 

[masta247]

Ironically LG used to make great phones up until the G2 or so, which was ahead of its time. After that one they started somehow steadily regressing in design, quality, ideas and their implementation. Ever since ~2015-2016 they really had it coming.

I also find it interesting how Japanese and Korean companies are getting progressively weeded out by Chinese ones. I mean, the new Xiaomi Flagship is technologically the best phone that money can buy at the moment, with an almost 1-inch camera sensor, which is incredible:

I'm glad Samsung and Sony are still doing cool things, but they are amongst the last ones left really, and frankly this Xiaomi phone blows them out of the water.

 

[dilla]

Ironically LG used to make great phones up until the G2 or so, which was ahead of its time. After that one they started somehow steadily regressing in design, quality, ideas and their implementation. Ever since ~2015-2016 they really had it coming.

I also find it interesting how Japanese and Korean companies are getting progressively weeded out by Chinese ones. I mean, the new Xiaomi Flagship is technologically the best phone that money can buy at the moment, with an almost 1-inch camera sensor, which is incredible:

I'm glad Samsung and Sony are still doing cool things, but they are amongst the last ones left really, and frankly this Xiaomi phone blows them out of the water.

Lack of true mainstream competitors isn't a good thing. You can have these small companies that no one has heard of put out a phone that blows the competition out of the water but if they don't sell then that's it. OnePlus did it 7 years ago but that was it. Who else has emerged on the scene, in the US, that shook things up? Even Google can't unseat the likes of Samsung with the Pixel phones. Pixels have stuck around since being introduced and might be the second most recognizable phone/brand that runs Android in the US but it feels like a drop in the bucket compared to the brand recognition Samsung has. And I'm speaking about the average person, not someone who keeps tabs on mobile news. Who else has stayed relevant? Maybe Moto? But I don't think they make flagship phones anymore and their offerings, while good, are still popular on prepaid plans, month to month. I know in Europe and Asia, it's a different story but in the US it's all Apple or Samsung.

LG had some unique designs but I think the bootloop issues it had for 2 or 3 years worth of releases really did them in. I had a friend that I heavily encouraged to buy a G2X back in 2011 and it was nothing but issues for him. He was switching from BlackBerry at the time so it was still a step up but after that he went to the iPhone 5 or 5S and never looked back. He's on the XS or 11 now and loves it. So that kind of BS with LG reliability didn't help them either.

Also, it must hurt Korean brands that the Chinese are taking over a market they had firm control over for quite some time.

 

[dilla]

So this is interesting: https://9to5google.com/2021/04/02/pixel-6-google-gs101-whitechapel/

I hope it does well. We were just talking about Google needing to compete more in its own Android ecosystem. at the back of my mind, I'm wondering "when is Google going to drop it like a retarded baby" but on the other hand, I'm glad they're taking some cues from Apple, albeit a decade later. I don't think I've ever had an Exynos powered phone. Maybe my S3? My S7 and S10 were the US variants and therefore SD variants. I think the S3 was also an SD because when I used to flash ROMs on it, I think the international version were Exynos or whatever Samsung had back then and the SD variants were much easier to work with. The international variant didn't have an unlocked bootloader or something and ROMs were few and far between. I think you could get root but no ROMs. Whatever. But Exynos has taken second place to SD for quite some time now and Apple's chips have always been "better." I wonder if Google will suffer the same fate as Samsung did and not be able to top QC. One would think if Samsung couldn't do it, Google might do an even worse job of competing with QC.

I'm still looking forward to it. The idea of a pure Android phone always appealed to me but the Pixels always seemed to have caveats that made me hesitant to jump from Samsung. A lateral move, at best. But it will be really good timing if it comes this Fall (the Pixel) and I see what my options are if i were to upgrade my phone. iPhone 13, a cheaper S21/Note 21, or the Pixel phone.

 

[masta247]

Lack of true mainstream competitors isn't a good thing. You can have these small companies that no one has heard of put out a phone that blows the competition out of the water but if they don't sell then that's it. OnePlus did it 7 years ago but that was it.

I know it seems very different from the North American perspective, but mainstream competitors rose big time, except they are coming from China, and the US is still trying to barricade their market from these. You guys are the final bastion, but customers are missing out on some of the most interesting tech to be honest, not to mention the most fairly priced. You'd be surprised how mature and polished their phones have become.

Xiaomi is enormous and sells more phones than Apple, they are on track to overtake Samsung in terms of smartphone sales in a year or two. They are the third biggest in terms of revenue at this point too. And that's without even being in the US/Canadian markets - let them in and they instantly become the no. 1 smartphone maker in the world, even if they only end up being only the third option there. For every phone that Google or OnePlus sell, Xiaomi sells 30, and at this point most of them are mid-range or flagship devices as Xiaomi spun off separate budget brands.

My thinking is that they are steering clear of the US market to fly under the tariff/ban radar, as Huawei was in the same position and as they were about to become the biggest they got choked out by the US government, lol. I bet they are reevaluating the situation with the Biden administration in place now, but there's no guarantee there won't be another Trump.

Then you have Oppo or Vivo who are also enormous - for perspective, OnePlus is amongst the smallest Oppo brands. Oppo-owned brands sell more phones than all "Other" companies (including Google, LG, Sony and HTC) combined. Xiaomi is even bigger than that. In the US you just don't see how enormous they've become.

 

[dilla]

I know it seems very different from the North American perspective, but mainstream competitors rose big time, except they are coming from China, and the US is still trying to barricade their market from these. You guys are the final bastion, but customers are missing out on some of the most interesting tech to be honest, not to mention the most fairly priced. You'd be surprised how mature and polished their phones have become.

Xiaomi is enormous and sells more phones than Apple, they are on track to overtake Samsung in terms of smartphone sales in a year or two. They are the third biggest in terms of revenue at this point too. And that's without even being in the US/Canadian markets - let them in and they instantly become the no. 1 smartphone maker in the world, even if they only end up being only the third option there. For every phone that Google or OnePlus sell, Xiaomi sells 30, and at this point most of them are mid-range or flagship devices as Xiaomi spun off separate budget brands.

My thinking is that they are steering clear of the US market to fly under the tariff/ban radar, as Huawei was in the same position and as they were about to become the biggest they got choked out by the US government, lol. I bet they are reevaluating the situation with the Biden administration in place now, but there's no guarantee there won't be another Trump.

Then you have Oppo or Vivo who are also enormous - for perspective, OnePlus is amongst the smallest Oppo brands. Oppo-owned brands sell more phones than all "Other" companies (including Google, LG, Sony and HTC) combined. Xiaomi is even bigger than that. In the US you just don't see how enormous they've become.

Yeah, the markets are so different. I know many years back, it took you by surprise just how prevalent iPhones were in the US market compared to the rest of the world. Slowly, Samsung has climbed up to close the gap with Apple, but it still trails, if I'm not mistaken. By a good bit.

Same with me and Android and how prevalent it was everywhere else, especially Asia. It helps that a lot of Asian but not Chinese OEMs existed, especially in India. They were making basic devices for dirt cheap and people were buying them up, be it phones or tablets or even wearables. It explains why Android had such a stronghold in Asia and to a lesser extent in Europe. The Apple brand and status symbol is stronger the more West you go, ending in the US. I guess that's just expected from different markets.

I'm also aware of how many devices these Chinese OEMs make. Xiaomi and Oppo seem to have quite the lineup, especially once you move beyond their 1 or 2 flagship models. Tons of midrange devices.

Going back to Google's in-house chips, I read a bit more and some of the commenters were saying they're expecting the power to be along the same lines as midrange phones. That will be a bummer if that's true but I can understand if that's the case for the first and maybe second generation of the chips, just to start off. And that Google will eventually scale up the performance within a year or two to compete with other flagships. At least that's what I'm hoping for. Otherwise the chip can be amazing and efficient as any other, but if it continues to perform at a midrange level, I wonder if Google "lost" by making their flagship phone into a midrange phone and giving up the high end market to Apple and Samsung alone.

 

[masta247]

Yeah, the markets are so different. I know many years back, it took you by surprise just how prevalent iPhones were in the US market compared to the rest of the world. Slowly, Samsung has climbed up to close the gap with Apple, but it still trails, if I'm not mistaken. By a good bit.

Apple has been significantly behind Samsung since ~2018. At this point Xiaomi overtook Apple. iPhone sales were better in Q4 selling the most devices that quarter, but Xiaomi are consistently growing their units sold by ~15% YoY and already selling more devices per year. At the same time almost everyone else is seeing a decline, with the biggest decline hitting Huawei (25% YoY decline due to tariffs) and Samsung (around 15% market share lost in 2020).

Going back to Google's in-house chips, I read a bit more and some of the commenters were saying they're expecting the power to be along the same lines as midrange phones. That will be a bummer if that's true but I can understand if that's the case for the first and maybe second generation of the chips, just to start off. And that Google will eventually scale up the performance within a year or two to compete with other flagships. At least that's what I'm hoping for. Otherwise the chip can be amazing and efficient as any other, but if it continues to perform at a midrange level, I wonder if Google "lost" by making their flagship phone into a midrange phone and giving up the high end market to Apple and Samsung alone.

I'm a bit confused about this "Google chip" talk. The current design of that chip is slated to be a stock-ARM-based Exynos with extra purpose-built Google additions baked in. Basically a semi-custom Exynos chip. Google will not be creating new CPU or GPU cores. They're asking Samsung to take an Exynos design, integrate a couple of Google-designed modules (AI, ISP, something else?) and fab it for the Pixel.
The added benefit is that Google would have more control over the exact configuration and fine-tuning to target a specific device. Honestly that's nice but doesn't sound like that much of a big deal. Samsung is creating a semi-custom Exynos the way AMD made semi-custom Ryzen CPUs for the Xbox and PS5.

Google has no capability of designing their own custom chipsets the way Apple does. They only built a small semiconductor design team last year largely poached from Qualcomm, a fraction of what is needed to actually design a high-performance core from scratch alone, which would take multiple years for a huge, experienced design division that Google lacks.