Leaked case renders further confirm the iPhone-esque look of Pixel 9

Well, that was rather quick. Just yesterday the bombshell reveal of the Pixel 9 (in renders, of course) took the internet by storm not because of some revolutionary breakthrough, but because of a painful likeness the new Google-made phone bears to the existing iPhone. While the design doesn’t look bad, it leans far too heavily on Apple’s aesthetic and feels like an unnecessary departure from Google’s own Pixel look and feel that they’ve been honing in on since the launch of Pixel 6.

But there was a ray of hope in the fact that these were just renders, right? After all, we won’t see the Pixel 9 until October (most likely) and that meant there was time for the look and feel of it to change a bit. But right on the heels of yesterday’s images and video comes news of leaked case renders already circulating the internet that showcase a Pixel 9 model that looks exactly like the renders we saw yesterday.

Again, grains of salt all around here, but I think this is looking more and more like the Pixel we’re all about to get this year. To be fair, the cases do help “Google” things up a bit more, and seeing the phone only from the back really does take the iPhone-like qualities down a bit. Still, I’d love to see the changes made by Google move farther in their own aesthetic direction instead of moving closer to Apple’s.

Regardless, it seems like we should just get used to seeing this look and feel from Google in 2024. There’s plenty of time before launch, but I get the feeling the outer portions of this phone are basically set at this point. I’ll at least grant them this: it’s not ugly. That’s a good thing, right?