With faster shooting, better image stabilization and artificial intelligence, Google aims its Pixel phones straight at the photographer crowd.
If you look at the top cameras used on the Flickr photo-sharing site, you’ll see four out of five of them are Apple iPhones. But with new camera technology debuting in its Pixel and Pixel XL phones on Tuesday, Google hopes to find a place in the hearts of photographers.
In an exclusive in-depth look at the new phones’ cameras, the company offered a number of reasons it thinks its phones will attract creative types who’ve largely ignored the company’s earlier Nexus line of phones.
The Pixel camera app is faster to launch and shoot, gives you better control and uses AI to find the best in a rapid-fire photo burst. A new 12-megapixel Sony image sensor locks focus sooner. Special-purpose Qualcomm processor hardware turns raw sensor data into a finished photo faster while lowering battery consumption.
But there’s a bigger reason that more people could appreciate Pixel photography. This time, Google’s fully controlled the Pixel design and now aims to make it a mass-market phone you’ll see in stores and on the streets. Moving beyond Nexus’ niche success with developers and Google fanboys is what Google needs to climb the Flickr ranks.
“The ambition is to build the best smartphone in the world,” said Dave Burke, vice president of engineering for Android. “When we go from Nexus to Pixel, we want to have that much broader audience and hit the premium high end.”
It’s an immense change for Google, which until now relied on companies like Samsung, HTC and LG to make its Android phone software a marketplace success. Now Google designs the phone, buys its components, puts a “G” logo on the back, sells it and supports it. In short, Google is more like Apple, a single company that delivers it all.
Starting at $649 for a 32GB model, Pixels are priced same as the world’s highest-profile phones, Apple’s iPhone 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy S7. The 128GB Pixel costs $749, and the corresponding Pixel XL models cost $769 and $869. If you like Google’s sales pitch, you can order now, with the phones arriving in retail October 20.
One independent assessment, DxO Labs, gave the Pixel camera its highest-ever DxOMark Mobile score, 89, a point ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the HTC 10 and three points ahead of the iPhone 7. (DxO hasn’t published iPhone 7 Plus results.)
Google’s hardware link
A single electronic connection embodies Google’s new approach. It links the image sensor with the motion and tilt sensors so the phone knows exactly how the camera is moving, updated 200 times each second.
That’s crucial for one of the phone’s big improvements, digital image stabilization that’s now good enough to shoot smooth video while walking. That’s in contrast to Apple’s approach of stabilizing the actual physical camera component.
“Having full control over the whole stack made this possible,” said Tim Knight, leader of Google’s Android camera team, who started working with Sony in 2014.
The phone’s image stabilization constantly crops and warps the image and repairs rolling-shutter artifacts commonly called the Jell-O effect. “If I shake the phone, it’s rock solid,” Burke said.
The iPhone 7 has the same 12-megapixel resolution as the Pixel, but Google’s sensor is physically larger so each pixel — 1.55 millionths of a meter across — can gather more light. That helps in dim situations and compensates for the fact that the Pixel’s f2.0 lens aperture doesn’t let in as much light as the iPhone 7’s f1.8 lens.
Faster shooting
Last year’s Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X had good image sensors but were too slow to compete. But the Pixels beats the Apple iPhone 6S, iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7, Burke said.
Launching the camera app is 40 percent faster than with the higher-end Nexus 6P, partly because Android 7.1 software loads the camera app into memory in advance. Taking the photo is 74 percent faster, Knight said.
New chips help. Sony’s new IMX378 adds autofocus technology so Pixels lock focus 70 percent faster than a Nexus 6P, Knight said. And Google spent two years tailoring its Halide image-processing software to exploit Qualcomm’s Hexagon technology.
Android 7.1 also brings camera app improvements. There’s no more stutter if you rotate the camera from portrait to landscape orientation. Pressing and holding on the screen locks exposure and focus on the point you picked, and tapping again resets it. Sliding your finger up and down after setting focus brightens or darkens exposure.
Always watching
Another performance boost comes from the fact that the camera continuously shoots 30 frames per second. When you tap the shutter button, the camera app grabs up to 10 frames out of memory and combines them into a single shot. It’s a refined version of the HDR+ (high dynamic range) technology that Google already ships.
“The goal was to maintain quality but improve speed,” Knight said.
By circulating images through memory constantly, the Pixel also lets you take rapid-fire shots. Once it’s got a focus lock, it’ll take pictures about as fast as you can tap the shutter button.
Smart burst and AI
When you capture a sequence, a feature called smart burst presents you with what it thinks are the best options to make it easier to delete the duds.
Shooting so much could fill your phone’s storage. But if you max out your Pixel, Google will shuffle the oldest photos and videos, in original quality, to its cloud storage for free for the life of the device.
Smart burst uses a type of artificial intelligence technology to decide which shots are best. More such AI effectively stabilizes low-light photos by picking the sharpest “lucky shot” frames taken when you happened to be between wobbles. AI also sets the exposure, Knight said.
It’s all possible because Google now fully controls all the hardware and software. “It’s our phone, our product,” Burke said.
Sourse: cnet.com
I’ll stick with the 20mp Zeiss Pureview camera on my 950XL. People are always mindblown at the quality of my images.
Google Nexus 6P was a flop, well perhaps I’m exagerating and maybe not, probably it accounts for less than 1% of all Android smartphone marketshare but that’s not enough to compete with iPhone. Lets see how many Google Pixel handsets Google sells for this Christmas season.
“[Google] now aims to make it a mass-market phone you’ll see in stores and on the streets. Moving beyond Nexus’ niche success with developers and Google fanboys.” Well, they ALMOST had this potential until they decided to exclusively partner with Verizon so that the other of the “Big Four” can’t sell it in their stores. That severely limits it largely to word-of-mouth instead of a phone that store reps can recommend.
@nonnarb Also I read that Pixel phone can’t be rooted, so all the benefits of Rooting and installing custom Cyanogen mod ROMs on Nexus devices is gone.
The word Nexus meant openess, while the word Pixel is like Apple, its a walled garden, which is not bad at all since now Google controls what you can do and what you can’t do but that was the advantage of Nexus phones IMO.
@visio_del_amor @nonnarb I would take that with a grain of salt since technically no phone can be rooted upon release, right? That’s why it’s up to the hacker community to discover the vulnerability and make it possible?
“It’s all possible because Google now fully controls all the hardware and software.”
Controlling hardware AND software? Great idea! Why didn’t someone think of that before?
😉
@baconstang Look back at the early days of computing. Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Radio Shack, IBM… they all controlled the hardware and software. I include IBM because they did control the OS on the servers and tried to retake control of the OS on clients with OS/2.
@baconstang Because in previous Nexus devices enthusiasts of the Android OS could install custom ROMs and root their devices, but now this feature is gone from Pixel phones.
@visio_del_amor @baconstang How about the developer option that’s available in Nexus devices?
I will feel disappointed if a pure android phone is not going to be available in the midrange market (i.e. nexus 5 or 5x). A lot of the growth in smartphones has been at the mid to low end and mid to low end smartphones now comprise a big majority of the market. That’s a pretty good indicator that smartphones don’t need to be high end to do what people want them to do. OEM’s chasing the high end brass ring are going to be running away from the core market. They risk running off the field.
@Seaspray0 I agree. However since smartphones have pretty much plateaued it is not surprising that they are all going after the premium part of the market. Once something becomes a commodity the upper end is where the money is at.
@befuddledms @Seaspray0 There are plenty of commodities where the money isn’t at the upper end. But since I can’t predict the future, I’ll just go with “we’ll see what happens.” How about sharing a bag of popcorn and watching it unfold?
Maybe this was an interesting article — blotted out by that obnoxious unremovable video box.
Buh bye.
@forenz Seriously though. I can’t stand intrusive aggressive ads & videos on some sites.
@forenz You can disable autoplay, and you ought to be able to close the video box, too.
@Shankland @forenz Huh, all I see in Chrome is an empty black box with no way to turn off Autoplay. But in Explorer, I do see Autoplay OFF, and it works. So I guess I’ll have to look into my Chrome settings. Anyway, thanks!
Didn’t anyone else catch the ‘gotchas’ here? The camera app stays in memory, and is always active, watching where you go, what you do, and, one must assume what you say. This will need a HUGE battery, and a lot of RAM, and if the camera just decides you need more space, it starts uploading the photos to Google’s cloud storage, ON YOUR CELLULAR CONNECTION???? I think NOT. All these non-specific ‘faster, ect. statements need both documentation (specs), and tests before I can credit them at all. Frankly, I think Google knows more than enough about me without a camera watching everything I do all the time, and burning battery power to do it! Better? For Google, probably, for the user? NOT. And what idiot put the fingerprint sensor on the back? Maximum inconvenience.
@rphunter It is not shooting the 30 frames per second unless you have brought up the camera app so your statement is incorrect. Also based on what I read elsewhere, the phone will delete pictures that have already been uploaded to the cloud. I would assume there will be settings to allow you to upload them over the cell network if you want to but you don’t have to. As to the finger print reader on the back. Well that is where my index finger naturally goes when I pick up my phone so it is actually quite logical. I know it isn’t an iphone and you are clearly one of the apple faithful so you are obviously very biased. Just because it isn’t an iphone doesn’t mean it is a bad phone. Its camera is better than the iphone 7. I don’t like the fact that Verizon is the only carrier you can buy it from directly and I wish it didn’t look so much like an iphone but over all it looks like a nice phone.
@rphunter It really is kindof BS for project fi customers (and also Verizon customers)
Google want to back up my 4k video for me? Great.
Google wants to charge me $10 per GB to upload 4k video to the cloud without my sayso? WTH? No. granted, we’ll have to wait and see if that is really true. Meanwhile your babbling about the camera being on is idiotic, and you have no idea what you are talking about.
@rphunter Will it? Do you close all your apps on your smartphone when not using it? Many do not. Those apps sit in the background doing nothing until you pull them up again. They don’t consume any resources other than sit in memory. That’s not all apps… there are some specific ones that can become active in the background (i.e. mail apps, notification apps, apps performing widgets) for brief periods of time. So you can’t say for sure (neither can I). But simple hearing “preloads into memory”? No, don’t assume until you know. If you find out for sure, feel free to let me know then.
@rphunter I agree with everything except about Google photos, this app is not a mandatory app, I have a Sony Xperia M4 Aqua phone with Android 5.0 and I don’t have Google photos so that app is just optional, you’re not forced to be an Android user and use that app if you don’t want, and thats what I like from Android, you’re not forced to use Google services at all.
In my phone the only Google app I use is youtube, everything else I have it disabled, like Hangouts, Google TV and Movies, Gmail, GDrive, etc.
@rphunter It’s only circulating frames through memory when you’re using the camera app. It stays in memory, but the process isn’t necessarily active. At least as I understand it.
I’m about 50-50 on the fingerprint sensor on the back. I use both an iPhone and a Nexus 6. On the back, it’s more convenient when getting it out of my pocket. On the front, it’s more convenient when it’s on the table next to me.
@Shankland @rphunter “… isn’t necessarily active.” I’m asking the same question and I don’t think enough details are out there yet to get an answer. Please keep your eyes open.
I liked the Old Google a lot more. The New Google seems to have forsaken many of the things that used to make it cool. Now, it’s just another corporate overlord (Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) looking to capitalize on its acolytes on its way to wider profit margins.
@gork_platter Just ask what Larry Page is doing is now, cut budget of Ara modular phone, cut budget for Google Fiber, cut budget for Nest, they are on the SEC sight and every penny Google looses on bad business is now going to transform into job cuts. If you ask me, there are better companies like Facebook where workers can experiment on new things, Google is not that company anymore.
So expensive.
@ibrocky All the high end smartphones are this expensive or more. And yes, it’s expensive.
That phone looks very similar to my iPhone 6 Plus.
@MatthewCFL I’m not a fan of white bezels (even Samsung has some with white bezels). My favorite is the black bezel because I like how it blends with a dark screen and doesn’t show dirt like white does. But that’s off topic. Yea, it does have similarities. You’d have to get up close where you can see the detail to notice the differences. The edge is beveled (not rounded). There’s no big physical button in the bottom bezel. The back doesn’t have a camera bulge. It does have a headphone jack. However, these are little details that can be easily overlooked which can give the impression the two are very similar. Put them both in a case and it would even be more so.
Samsung must be pretty upset.
Exploding phones.
The Chinese really mad at them for being dissed.
Now this.
@Europodboy Fortunately for Samsung, they still make billions from other enterprises, which could make their recent losses seem like legitimate write-offs to their advertisement budget.
@DeLeon629 @Europodboy
Other enterprises like exploding washing machines?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/29/first-it-was-samsung-phones-now-its-exploding-samsung-washing-machines/
Ok. Got it.
@Europodboy @DeLeon629 Their the largest investors of their government technology and military supplementation, the world’s leading semiconductor producer, in addition to having produced several key components needed to complete the assembly the last two iPhone generations…
@Europodboy You’re infatuated with hating Samsung (not even on topic for this article). What have they done to you personally to deserve it? How about posting just that rather than repeatedly spew vitriol. Because right now, you look to me like a disgruntled fanboy who can’t stand another company competing with your favorite brand.
@Seaspray0 @Europodboy
Hehe.
The ONLY doubt and risk compare to iphone: Will the performance be Just SAME as NEW phone over the 2 years?
Impressive DxO Mark score. Those Sony image sensors are hard to beat.
A mass market phone with an exclusive partnership with only 1 US carrier, Verizon? Makes absolutely no sense. After all these years, does Google not have the cloud to make it available at all US carriers? Many people want to touch a see the phone up close.
@sjxm That is exactly what Apple did with AT&T when the iPhone came out.
@MatthewCFL @sjxm That was at the birth of the mobile revolution though. Not a cut throat multibillion dollar market like it is today.
@amirami @MatthewCFL @sjxm Very true! I am interested to see if this works out for Google and Verizon. I know here in FL if you have Verizon it is comparative to MetroPCS, or some other low-cost / low-quality carrier. It was probably a very lucrative contract for Google.
@MatthewCFL @sjxm No, it’s not. Verizon refused Apple’s condition for the iPhone and ATT grabbed it and made it exclusive. Verizon couldn’t forget that painful lesson.
@sjxm
It’s not an exclusive to Verizon like you think. Verizon will be the only carrier selling the Pixel phones in retail stores. You can still buy one from the Google store and use it on T-Mobile, ATT, etc.
@sjxm The phone will be available unlocked for use with any (or most) carriers. Verizon will be the only service provider selling it directly, for now. No big deal for Google. Most fans of theirs will research it online and figure that out pretty easily. Or buy it at another retailer.
@sjxm Verizon is a good choice, since it doesn’t overlap/compete too much with project FI, which is the other major US carrier to carry the phone… Plus, you can always buy the phone unlocked, if you want to.
I don’t think so google is just a bout email and maps but phone with cam ….mmmmm
I’ll stick with the 20mp Zeiss Pureview camera on my 950XL. People are always mindblown at the quality of my images.
Google Nexus 6P was a flop, well perhaps I’m exagerating and maybe not, probably it accounts for less than 1% of all Android smartphone marketshare but that’s not enough to compete with iPhone. Lets see how many Google Pixel handsets Google sells for this Christmas season.
“[Google] now aims to make it a mass-market phone you’ll see in stores and on the streets. Moving beyond Nexus’ niche success with developers and Google fanboys.” Well, they ALMOST had this potential until they decided to exclusively partner with Verizon so that the other of the “Big Four” can’t sell it in their stores. That severely limits it largely to word-of-mouth instead of a phone that store reps can recommend.
@nonnarb Also I read that Pixel phone can’t be rooted, so all the benefits of Rooting and installing custom Cyanogen mod ROMs on Nexus devices is gone.
The word Nexus meant openess, while the word Pixel is like Apple, its a walled garden, which is not bad at all since now Google controls what you can do and what you can’t do but that was the advantage of Nexus phones IMO.
@visio_del_amor @nonnarb I would take that with a grain of salt since technically no phone can be rooted upon release, right? That’s why it’s up to the hacker community to discover the vulnerability and make it possible?
“It’s all possible because Google now fully controls all the hardware and software.”
Controlling hardware AND software? Great idea! Why didn’t someone think of that before?
😉
@baconstang Look back at the early days of computing. Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Radio Shack, IBM… they all controlled the hardware and software. I include IBM because they did control the OS on the servers and tried to retake control of the OS on clients with OS/2.
@baconstang Because in previous Nexus devices enthusiasts of the Android OS could install custom ROMs and root their devices, but now this feature is gone from Pixel phones.
@visio_del_amor @baconstang How about the developer option that’s available in Nexus devices?
I will feel disappointed if a pure android phone is not going to be available in the midrange market (i.e. nexus 5 or 5x). A lot of the growth in smartphones has been at the mid to low end and mid to low end smartphones now comprise a big majority of the market. That’s a pretty good indicator that smartphones don’t need to be high end to do what people want them to do. OEM’s chasing the high end brass ring are going to be running away from the core market. They risk running off the field.
@Seaspray0 I agree. However since smartphones have pretty much plateaued it is not surprising that they are all going after the premium part of the market. Once something becomes a commodity the upper end is where the money is at.
@befuddledms @Seaspray0 There are plenty of commodities where the money isn’t at the upper end. But since I can’t predict the future, I’ll just go with “we’ll see what happens.” How about sharing a bag of popcorn and watching it unfold?
Maybe this was an interesting article — blotted out by that obnoxious unremovable video box.
Buh bye.
@forenz Seriously though. I can’t stand intrusive aggressive ads & videos on some sites.
@forenz You can disable autoplay, and you ought to be able to close the video box, too.
@Shankland @forenz Huh, all I see in Chrome is an empty black box with no way to turn off Autoplay. But in Explorer, I do see Autoplay OFF, and it works. So I guess I’ll have to look into my Chrome settings. Anyway, thanks!
Didn’t anyone else catch the ‘gotchas’ here? The camera app stays in memory, and is always active, watching where you go, what you do, and, one must assume what you say. This will need a HUGE battery, and a lot of RAM, and if the camera just decides you need more space, it starts uploading the photos to Google’s cloud storage, ON YOUR CELLULAR CONNECTION???? I think NOT. All these non-specific ‘faster, ect. statements need both documentation (specs), and tests before I can credit them at all. Frankly, I think Google knows more than enough about me without a camera watching everything I do all the time, and burning battery power to do it! Better? For Google, probably, for the user? NOT. And what idiot put the fingerprint sensor on the back? Maximum inconvenience.
@rphunter It is not shooting the 30 frames per second unless you have brought up the camera app so your statement is incorrect. Also based on what I read elsewhere, the phone will delete pictures that have already been uploaded to the cloud. I would assume there will be settings to allow you to upload them over the cell network if you want to but you don’t have to. As to the finger print reader on the back. Well that is where my index finger naturally goes when I pick up my phone so it is actually quite logical. I know it isn’t an iphone and you are clearly one of the apple faithful so you are obviously very biased. Just because it isn’t an iphone doesn’t mean it is a bad phone. Its camera is better than the iphone 7. I don’t like the fact that Verizon is the only carrier you can buy it from directly and I wish it didn’t look so much like an iphone but over all it looks like a nice phone.
@rphunter It really is kindof BS for project fi customers (and also Verizon customers)
Google want to back up my 4k video for me? Great.
Google wants to charge me $10 per GB to upload 4k video to the cloud without my sayso? WTH? No. granted, we’ll have to wait and see if that is really true. Meanwhile your babbling about the camera being on is idiotic, and you have no idea what you are talking about.
@MargonTheGodless I’ll bet you’re a blast at parties!!!
@rphunter Will it? Do you close all your apps on your smartphone when not using it? Many do not. Those apps sit in the background doing nothing until you pull them up again. They don’t consume any resources other than sit in memory. That’s not all apps… there are some specific ones that can become active in the background (i.e. mail apps, notification apps, apps performing widgets) for brief periods of time. So you can’t say for sure (neither can I). But simple hearing “preloads into memory”? No, don’t assume until you know. If you find out for sure, feel free to let me know then.
@rphunter I agree with everything except about Google photos, this app is not a mandatory app, I have a Sony Xperia M4 Aqua phone with Android 5.0 and I don’t have Google photos so that app is just optional, you’re not forced to be an Android user and use that app if you don’t want, and thats what I like from Android, you’re not forced to use Google services at all.
In my phone the only Google app I use is youtube, everything else I have it disabled, like Hangouts, Google TV and Movies, Gmail, GDrive, etc.
@rphunter It’s only circulating frames through memory when you’re using the camera app. It stays in memory, but the process isn’t necessarily active. At least as I understand it.
I’m about 50-50 on the fingerprint sensor on the back. I use both an iPhone and a Nexus 6. On the back, it’s more convenient when getting it out of my pocket. On the front, it’s more convenient when it’s on the table next to me.
@Shankland @rphunter “… isn’t necessarily active.” I’m asking the same question and I don’t think enough details are out there yet to get an answer. Please keep your eyes open.
I liked the Old Google a lot more. The New Google seems to have forsaken many of the things that used to make it cool. Now, it’s just another corporate overlord (Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) looking to capitalize on its acolytes on its way to wider profit margins.
@gork_platter Just ask what Larry Page is doing is now, cut budget of Ara modular phone, cut budget for Google Fiber, cut budget for Nest, they are on the SEC sight and every penny Google looses on bad business is now going to transform into job cuts. If you ask me, there are better companies like Facebook where workers can experiment on new things, Google is not that company anymore.
@gork_platter Not sure expanding into hardware per se will expand profit margins — internet services can be pretty plump.
So expensive.
@ibrocky All the high end smartphones are this expensive or more. And yes, it’s expensive.
That phone looks very similar to my iPhone 6 Plus.
@MatthewCFL I’m not a fan of white bezels (even Samsung has some with white bezels). My favorite is the black bezel because I like how it blends with a dark screen and doesn’t show dirt like white does. But that’s off topic. Yea, it does have similarities. You’d have to get up close where you can see the detail to notice the differences. The edge is beveled (not rounded). There’s no big physical button in the bottom bezel. The back doesn’t have a camera bulge. It does have a headphone jack. However, these are little details that can be easily overlooked which can give the impression the two are very similar. Put them both in a case and it would even be more so.
Samsung must be pretty upset.
Exploding phones.
The Chinese really mad at them for being dissed.
Now this.
@Europodboy Fortunately for Samsung, they still make billions from other enterprises, which could make their recent losses seem like legitimate write-offs to their advertisement budget.
@DeLeon629 @Europodboy
Other enterprises like exploding washing machines?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/29/first-it-was-samsung-phones-now-its-exploding-samsung-washing-machines/
Ok. Got it.
@Europodboy Like Hotpoint and LG then? We get it, you hate Samsung and LOVE Apple.
@Europodboy @DeLeon629 Their the largest investors of their government technology and military supplementation, the world’s leading semiconductor producer, in addition to having produced several key components needed to complete the assembly the last two iPhone generations…
@Europodboy You’re infatuated with hating Samsung (not even on topic for this article). What have they done to you personally to deserve it? How about posting just that rather than repeatedly spew vitriol. Because right now, you look to me like a disgruntled fanboy who can’t stand another company competing with your favorite brand.
@Seaspray0 @Europodboy
Hehe.
@Seaspray0 @Europodboy He’s always been a troll….
The ONLY doubt and risk compare to iphone: Will the performance be Just SAME as NEW phone over the 2 years?
Impressive DxO Mark score. Those Sony image sensors are hard to beat.
A mass market phone with an exclusive partnership with only 1 US carrier, Verizon? Makes absolutely no sense. After all these years, does Google not have the cloud to make it available at all US carriers? Many people want to touch a see the phone up close.
@sjxm That is exactly what Apple did with AT&T when the iPhone came out.
@MatthewCFL @sjxm That was at the birth of the mobile revolution though. Not a cut throat multibillion dollar market like it is today.
@amirami @MatthewCFL @sjxm Very true! I am interested to see if this works out for Google and Verizon. I know here in FL if you have Verizon it is comparative to MetroPCS, or some other low-cost / low-quality carrier. It was probably a very lucrative contract for Google.
@MatthewCFL @sjxm No, it’s not. Verizon refused Apple’s condition for the iPhone and ATT grabbed it and made it exclusive. Verizon couldn’t forget that painful lesson.
@sjxm
It’s not an exclusive to Verizon like you think. Verizon will be the only carrier selling the Pixel phones in retail stores. You can still buy one from the Google store and use it on T-Mobile, ATT, etc.
@cpearlm @sjxm Just can’t use JUMP!
@sjxm The phone will be available unlocked for use with any (or most) carriers. Verizon will be the only service provider selling it directly, for now. No big deal for Google. Most fans of theirs will research it online and figure that out pretty easily. Or buy it at another retailer.
@sjxm Verizon is a good choice, since it doesn’t overlap/compete too much with project FI, which is the other major US carrier to carry the phone… Plus, you can always buy the phone unlocked, if you want to.