Google Finally Takes On Apple’s AirTag, But Its New Pixel 11 Costs $100 More

Google held its Made by Google event Wednesday, unveiling its flagship smartphone Pixel 11 series, Pixel Watch 5, and Pixel Tag, its long-awaited first entry into the item-tracker category Apple’s AirTag has dominated since 2021.

The event also served as a showcase for a wave of new Gemini-powered features across Google’s hardware, but the announcement drawing the most immediate scrutiny wasn’t a feature at all.

The base Pixel 11 now starts at $899, a $100 jump from the Pixel 10, with Google explicitly tying part of that increase to industrywide memory chip shortages rather than added premium features alone.

A Tracker Google Should Have Shipped Years Ago

According to TechCrunch, Pixel Tag connects to Android’s Find Hub network like Apple’s AirTag connects to Find My, letting users locate keys, wallets, or luggage through the Find Hub app. Users can also ask Gemini through Pixel Buds to find or ring a misplaced tag. 

That voice-activated retrieval option is a genuinely useful wrinkle Apple’s own tracker doesn’t offer. 

But the timing raises an obvious question: Apple’s AirTag has had the item tracker category essentially to itself for five years, just like its wearables, while Tile carved out whatever share remained. 

Google is entering a mature market rather than defining a new one, competing on price and Gemini integration rather than novelty.

Storage Doubles, But So Does Some of the Cost

The Pixel 11 price increase comes down to two changes: the standard model now starts with 256GB of storage, double the previous base capacity, while Google has removed the cheaper 128GB option. 

Google’s own materials describe the new camera bar as more than 40% thinner with an all-glass surface. 

Meanwhile, 9to5Google confirmed a 48-megapixel main sensor with 56% more light sensitivity, a Tensor G6 chip, and 12GB of RAM as standard. 

Google also said the ongoing RAM supply shortage is contributing to the higher price, echoing reasons companies including Sony and  Microsoft have given for their recent hardware price increases. 

Gemini’s Push Into How People Actually Talk and Move

Beyond hardware, Google built directly on the AI capabilities it teased earlier this year at Google I/O 2026, unveiling several refined Gemini features. 

These notably include Rambler, a new Gboard voice input feature designed to handle filler words and run-on sentences without requiring carefully phrased input. 

Proactive Assistance, an expanded version of last year’s Magic Cue, now surfaces richer contextual suggestions, such as flight status links and restaurant bookings, in a slide-up interface. TechCrunch described Rambler as built for more natural voice input.

The broader focus of these Gemini updates is reducing the effort needed to use AI. People can speak naturally instead of crafting careful prompts, while location-based suggestions can surface loyalty cards without a manual search. 

That’s a quieter form of AI progress than a benchmark score, but it could matter more for a hardware company whose AI features only succeed if average Pixel owners use them without thinking about it.

Source:  Made by Google 2026