There's one thing about the newly announced Google Pixel 9 that's hard to convey in photos: its camera bar is prominent. Bigger than ever. It’s about the same thickness as two US quarters stacked together, almost a third the thickness of the rest of the phone. It’s so big that even the standard Pixel 9 is now about the same thickness as a “Pro” iPhone, with a much more prominent camera module.
“A modern and uncomplicated approach”
I've never felt a lump like this, but I don't hate it! I argued in 2022 that the Google Camera bar was a good Thing: The first major design element of a smartphone that's truly Google's own. In an era when most phones are just rounded rectangles, it's a fun way to stand out, giving the phone a cute robot face.
I ask Claude Zellweger what he He thinks of the thicker bump and says it's “absolutely intentional.” As the design director for Pixel phones, he's the man behind the team behind the camera bar and calls it a “modern, unapologetic approach.”
I don't bring up the idea that the camera bar gives the Pixel a cute robot face, and neither does Zellweger. When I ask about her reasoning, she says the bar is simply “the most efficient way to package these camera modules” and that it's designed to highlight that minimalist beauty. “There's a purity to our photography, right? We want it to reflect that.” (Elsewhere, Google says the camera bar design is Inspired by the shape of the search bar..)
But while he says Google wants to “establish a new era in phone design” with the Pixel 9, he doesn’t think a big bar will necessarily dominate future Google phones forever. Bump or no bump? He says it depends on how much future phone buyers need big camera hardware inside.
“The desire to have really good photographs is not going away,” says Zellweger.. These days, that means big sensors and big lenses, which means big bumps if you want the rest of the phone to stay thin.
He says designers will likely revisit the relationship between camera hardware and phone hardware as the whole concept of a “camera” continues to evolve.
Speaking of smaller hardware: I ask Zellweger what she thinks of small phones, the kind that have largely disappeared after Apple and Google stopped selling them. (Some would say they don’t sell well; I argue that these companies have never really given gadget enthusiasts a real choice.) Surprisingly, Zellweger says she’s personally a fan of small phones, and pulls out her own Pixel 9 Pro, which is the same size as the Pixel 9, to prove that Google is no longer pressuring you to buy the biggest phone to get the best features.
But when I point out that his 6.3-inch phone isn’t as small as my beloved 5.4-inch iPhone Mini, he says modern expectations make it harder. “Making small phones is fundamentally a bigger challenge,” he says, pointing to battery life, cameras, temperature, and user experience as aspects that tend to push manufacturers toward taller, wider phones. He says that many people these days expect to watch videos or play games on phones, and therefore prefer larger screens.
But Zellweger says that may not always be the case: “I think in the future some people will have different priorities about how they use their devices, and if so, compromises can be made.”
