Written by
Ed Bott, Senior Contributing Editor
Ed Bott
Senior Contributing Editor
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades’ experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
Full Bio
Posted in The Ed Bott Report
on December 29, 2021
| Topic: Mobility
Image: Sebaztian Barns / ZDNet
When you use the same hardware and software for long enough, you overlook the shortcomings you’re constantly working around.
Avoiding this sort of technological tunnel vision is one reason I regularly switch between Android and iOS for my primary mobile device. Earlier in 2021, I realized I had been using an iPhone for nearly two years (with a fairly recent iPhone 12 upgrade) and was overdue for a check-in with the latest Android device.
Bedtime Mode
One of my favorite features from the late, lamented Windows Phone era was the Glance Screen, which had a night mode that showed the current time in a dim reddish font. In that configuration, I kept the phone at my bedside and always knew at a glance what time it was if I woke up in the middle of the night.
Bedtime Mode, once a Pixel-only feature but now available on all Android devices, does something similar. I’ve set it up to kick in when the phone is charging during my normal sleeping hours. It switches on Do Not Disturb and changes the display to grayscale while leaving the clock visible. Just the way I like it.
Five years’ worth of updates
One of Apple’s big advantages through the years has been its absolute control of iOS updates. By contrast, Android phones have suffered because updates are often at the mercy of carriers who lose interest in keeping phones up to date for more than a year or two.
With the Pixel 6, Google has guaranteed that Android version updates will be available until at least October 2024 (three years after the hardware shipped), with security updates available for at least five years, until October 2026. That’s a major improvement over previous devices, which only promised security updates for a total of three years.
The price is right
The Pixel 6 is a no-doubt-about-it flagship phone, but it doesn’t come with a lofty price tag. My phone, with 256 GB of storage, cost $699. That’s $200 less than the similarly configured iPhone 13, and Google threw in a pair of Pixel Buds (A-Series) as part of the deal.
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