Pixel is a brand name for high-end reference-type devices designed and built by Google, such as the Chromebook Pixel, Pixel C, and Pixel phone.
Nexus is (was?) a brand name for low-cost reference-type devices designed and built in collaboration with hardware manufacturers, such as the Nexus 5, Nexus 7 and (odd) Nexus Q.
Android is a mobile operating system used on platforms such as phones, tablets, cars, and as of a few weeks ago, IoT devices.
Chrome is an overarching brand name for various web-centric things Google is doing: Chromium is the browser. Chrome OS is a version of Linux strictly limited to providing a web browser paradigm-based user experience for computers. Chromebooks are a class of low-cost laptops that use Chrome OS. Chrome_cast_ is a brand name for streaming content to unconnected devices such as TVs and speakers by way of microcomputing devices such as the Chromecast Ultra or Chromecast Audio (which all run a stripped down Chromium under the hood).
All things considered, for a company as large as Google, I don't think it's really all that hard to comprehend. I think it's pretty consistent, and they try to fit as much as they can into the above set of brands when they can. For instance, Android Things used to be called Brillo. It feels a lot simpler than how eg. Microsoft used to do naming up until a few years ago. Calling for "whomever is responsible" to be "let go" certainly feels hyperbolic.
Nexus is in purgatory. Who knows what google will do with that.
Yes, but the APIs aren't the same as pure Android, and originally Brillo was expected to have a set of C++ Frameworks instead of Java, and Google gave up on it.
Um, no.
> Is "ChromeBook" an operating system, a system architecture, or what?
It's a brand name for laptop form-factor devices running the ChromeOS operating system.
> It uses the App store from my Android phone, does that mean my phone apps will work on this thing?
It supports Android Apps from the Google Play Store, so, yes, apps that run on other Android devices, including phones, will generally work on it
Now it gets interesting, because Windows and Android will finally be competing directly in a niche which neither of them has a strong hold on.
This isn't Android, it's ChromeOS. And ChromeOS is pretty well established for what amount to modern netbooks.
In USA, abroad not really.
In Europe, Windows 10 is the synonym for modern netbooks being sold at consumer stores.
I get that there are a lot of different groups at Google and they all have their own vision of their own part of the universe, and its super empowering to tell every product manager "Hey, if you can get it market ready you can ship it!" The part that I don't get is that people working for Google aren't clueless. I know a lot of smart people that work there still. So why tolerate a company behavior that is so harmful to their consumer image? Rebranding is treated like a dot dot release it seems. Sure you can get away from a stigma maybe for a bad choice but rebranding on a whim? This stuff has to go through legal right? Trademarks and all that. Who decided to make Pixel a phone? And to just sort of drop the whole Nexus thing? (here is a funny discussion about the Pixel trademark: http://thetrademarkninja.com/2016/10/03/google-event-tradema...)
What it means is that nobody in any authority at Google understands brands, and that is a big red flag for Google's aspirations in the product space.
Because they make more money than God? I mean, okay, some customer somewhere is mad at Google abstractly, but not mad enough to stop paying Google (still use Android/gmail/g-suite/buy chromebooks/use chrome). If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
edit: For real, they "tolerate" it because looking ahead into a future where this "harm" to their "customer image" does actual harm to Google is really hard. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't, but no one can say how likely or precisely when. So, make hay while the sun shines?
PS: perhaps Apple was able to achieve "centralized creativity" only because of Jobs.
Metaphoric org charts of tech companies: http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2011.06.27_or...
Compare to for example Apple which seems to think so much they get very little out.
Maybe it is very difficult for large organisation to find the balance between these two. Grand vision requires somebody to manage it and filter what gets out. That can lead to great products getting killed just because they were not invented by the VP Visions.
These maybe the beginning stages of that convergence. Maybe they are attempting a device convergence too ?
https://9to5google.com/2016/11/15/andromeda-rumor-tidbits-oe...
Then there was an interview in which Google's Hiroshi Lockheimer stated that what would most likely happen is each OS gaining features from each other like how ChromeOS can run android apps and how android is using some of chrome's updating methods. you can read the article:
https://chromeunboxed.com/chrome-os-and-android-not-merging-...
Its hard to say but it seems the andromeda thing is real. I personally think andromeda is just more ChromeOs features put into android. andromeda might just be android O.
I assume that's the crux of the problem. Whomever that is is either entirely impotent to impose a coherent vision across google or, probably more likely, that person simply doesn't exist.
As a technologist and someone who spends way more time picking apart computer architectures than is healthy, I think it is great that Google is enabling a 2-in-1 ARM architecture which Microsoft pioneered with Windows Surface. I think Google's approach of making it more phone+ rather than laptop- is likely to be better at setting performance expectations.
That said, whomever is responsible for brand communication at Google should be let go. I have never seen branding so confused by such a large company. Pixel is a high end chromebook, uh no its a phone now, Nexus is a phone, no its a tablet, no its a speaker system? Android is an OS? Phone OS? Just Linux? Free? Not free? Open? Not open? Chrome is a browser? An OS? A type of device? A TV peripheral? A way to talk to TVs?
It stuns me how so astonishingly bad this is. Someone should tell them "Hey this is like Star Trek OK?, a lot of nerds follow you and you really have to get what is canon and what isn't canon straight otherwise you'll lose the entire audience."