This Man Is Explaining Google’s Hardware Bet to Android Partners
- Android chief to treat new Google hardware unit like Samsung
- Old friends Lockheimer and Osterloh can’t talk business
Everything You Need to Know About Google's Pixel Event
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Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer already has a tough job. When his old friend Rick Osterloh joined Google parent Alphabet Inc. this year to lead the company’s big new bet on hardware, Lockheimer’s task got even harder.
Google is making its own high-end smartphones now, like Apple Inc., and it unveiled the first of these devices, the Pixel and Pixel XL, at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. That’s a huge change from the way Google has operated in the mobile business since it launched Android as a free, open-source operating system that phone makers like Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. use to run their own devices.