Apple’s surprise event seems to be having little effect on Pixel 6 hype

There’s no denying the effect Apple events have on the news cycle. When they take to the stage to announce a new product, it tends to feel like everything else in the tech world just gets put on hold. With their place in the overall consumer tech scene, this isn’t that surprising. Here in the USA, the volume of iPhones, iPads and Macbooks sold means that Apple has the largest base of users in the mobile computing world, but they also have the eyes of major media as well. Put plainly, Apple is the king of media events.

From a sheer metrics point of view, we feel the hit every time an Apple event looms large. As a company that derives its revenue based on traffic to our website, we keep a very close eye on our analytics all day, every day, and I can confirm that Apple events tend to suck the air out of the room for hours before and after they occur. There’s no stopping it and no denying it: we just plan for it and move forward.

This one is a bit different

This time around, however, it would seem that the ‘Apple Event Effect’ isn’t quite as…effective. I really thought that Apple’s recently-announced presser would steal a bit of the Pixel 6 thunder as we turned the corner into this week, but based on our metrics here at Chrome Unboxed, that isn’t the case at this point. Instead of seeing our daily traffic fall off on the eve of Apple’s latest shindig, we’ve seen higher traffic than usual on our Pixel 6 posts.

This indicates to me that there’s more than a passing interest in the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. We’ve not seen this sort of traffic behavior surrounding any Google-made device in the past, and I don’t think that is a coincidence. In fact, with the recent price leaks and the hype around these flagship-level phones, it seems that we could finally be looking at a breakthrough for Google in the high-end smartphone arena.

While they’ve had success in the low-mid-range with devices like the Pixel 3a, 4a, now the 5a, Google’s never been able to really carve out a space in the flagship range of Android phones. With Pixel 6, that could be changing. Perhaps Google’s finally put together a device that will have mass appeal on many levels and they’re ready to let the world know through heavy marketing. One way or another, we’ll find out after pre-orders go live in the coming days. For now, just know that the Pixel 6 hype train seems to be completely on track right in the midst of the upcoming Apple event that we thought might derail it a bit.