What it’s good to know
- Google initially developed the Pixel Digicam Bar to deal with the problems of larger digicam setups and to forestall the gadget from wobbling when laid flat.
- Additional iterations of the bar within the Pixel 7 collection had been impressed by liquid metallic surfaces and Materials You.
- The Pixel Fold omitted the extension alongside the sides to align with the gadget’s distinctive look.
- The upcoming Pixel 8 will keep the Pixel 7’s design from the Digicam Bar.
For the reason that digicam bar made its debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional in 2021, the function rapidly emerged as a staple of Pixel telephones. Google calls the brainchild a “trademark” function — which has since developed over a number of iterations — and now the tech big is spilling the beans on the function’s evolution and design course of.
In a firm weblog publish, Google notes that “since its debut on Pixel 6, the digicam bar has grow to be a trademark of the lineup” and makes the gadget stand out in a sea of comparable flagship Android telephones identified for his or her digicam features.
Relating to the digicam bar’s origins, though the function has a smooth design and distinctive look, the corporate needed to deal with points related to larger digicam setups.
“When you look again at Pixel 5 all of the sensors had been all grouped into this little sq. — so after we knew the digicam can be vastly improved, we needed to do one thing totally different,” industrial designer Sangsoo Park mentioned. “We didn’t need the cellphone to be larger, and needed to actually keep every thing being contained and streamlined, but in addition celebrated in a manner.”
With larger cameras additionally comes the elevated chance of telephones wobbling in the event you use them mendacity flat on the desk. And so, Google needed to resolve the issue by arranging the cameras horizontally.
Google additionally mentioned naming the visor “digicam bar,” which — in line with Pixel product supervisor Stephanie Scott — is “a nod to look bar,” the corporate’s inaugural function.
The corporate additional notes that the brand new design additionally introduced some limitations with it, with a number of hidden constraints. As an example, Scott says, the principle and ultrawide cameras wanted to sit down subsequent to one another to allow portrait mode. “A few of our engineers likened arranging the cellphone to Tetris — discovering a spot for every thing,” she mentioned. “I believe it was extra like chess, as a result of the design is so interdependent.”
The next introduction of the Pixel 7 introduced additional tweaks to the digicam bar, as the corporate needed to provide it a extra seamless look and provides the digicam even larger emphasis. This prompted the thought to combine the bar with a metallic body. “We took inspiration from liquid metallic surfaces to create this look,” mentioned industrial designer Jaeun Park. Additional inspiration got here from Materials You, Google’s design language, which contains round and pill-shaped bins that customers can see on the Pixel 7.
The Pixel Fold, nevertheless, sported a extra distinctive type — sparking a departure from the digicam bar’s common look. As a substitute of extending from the sides of the gadget, the visor is affixed on the again. The explanation for this variation, Google says, is to provide the gadget extra construction, with Park noting that it’s “simply the correct quantity of the area between the hinge and the enclosure, so it’s visually properly balanced.”
One factor to notice is that the one gadgets Google mentions have already been launched. Nevertheless, you could have already seen photographs of the upcoming Pixel 8 collection, which might be launched on October 4 and can pack most of the identical designs we’ve seen within the Pixel 7.
