Google’s Pixel smartphone lineup isn’t the best-selling smartphone line in the world. In fact, it’s nowhere close, with recent estimates suggesting that Google sold just 3.9 million Pixel phones globally in 2017. To put that in context, Apple sells more smartphones than that in a single day when new iPhone models first go on sale. But what the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL lack in sales, they make up for in adoration from hardcore Android fans. That makes sense, of course, since Google’s Pixel phones are the only handsets that offer a pure Android experience and receive new software updates as soon as they’re made available.
Since the current Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are so widely adored by Android fans, it stands to reason that their successors are hotly anticipated. Early details surrounding the Pixel 3 series began to leak not long ago, and now we have another first to report in the long run up to Google’s Pixel 3 release.
Recent reports revealed a big surprise for Google’s unreleased Pixel 3 phones: there will be three of them. In addition to the Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL everyone is expecting, Google is also said to be working on a third new Pixel 3 phone that comes with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that this third new Pixel phone will apparently be an affordable Android Go phone, likely filling the void left by Google’s dead Nexus smartphone line. The bad news is that it’s reportedly only intended for a few emerging markets, and it likely won’t be available in the United States.
If you’re a Google phone fan who’s anxious to see how Google’s acqui-hire of HTC’s smartphone engineering team pans out this year, we’ve got a tiny bit of news for you on Thursday. For the first time, Google’s Pixel 3 has been mentioned on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) website’s issue tracker. As fans will know, AOSP mentions are always an important point in the leak cycle, and more details surrounding Google’s unreleased phones typically follow soon after..
This time around, the Pixel 3 was spotted by a blogger from xda-developers in a commit titled “Cherrypick ‘Add device config to decide which Auto Selection Network UI to use.'” Here’s the text from the commit:
This change added the config because the HAL V_1_2 only supports Pixel 3, and the new Auto Selection Network UI is based on HAL V_1_2. So we set the flag to decide which Auto Selection Network UI should be used based in the device type.
It’s not terribly exciting, though xda-developers explains that it does make mention of a previously unknown networking feature in Android P. Of course, we’re not sure anyone really cares that Google is updating its “scan networks” feature in Android P. Plenty of people care about the Pixel 3 though, and we can expect to see more new details trickle out in the coming weeks and months.
