Google’s New Pixel Studio Is Weirdly Obsessed With the iPhone

Pixel Studio launched on the Pixel 9 series last year, but the Pixel 10 Pro allowed me to spend time testing Pixel Studio using a more advanced generative AI model. The result is better quality images, a much deeper understanding of keywords and a wider range of image styles that can be created.

But its quality goes deeper, being now able to generate actual text instead of strings of nonsense as well as creating pictures of people — including photorealistic depictions of known faces like Taylor Swift and Queen Elizabeth II. 

We’ve tested the tool extensively across multiple phones and indeed multiple continents, and we’ve found some wild results — both good and bad, including finding out how weirdly obsessed Google’s AI is with the iPhone. 

Here then is a selection of the most stand-out images from Pixel Studio on the Pixel 10 range.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent company of CNET, in April filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

“A woman holding a phone” is all the prompt I provided. Pixel Studio did the rest, generating an iPhone in the person’s hand. The iPhone is popular, sure, but other phones do exist yet almost every image I generated using just the generic term “phone” resulted in an iPhone. 

Pixel Studio is well aware that the iPhone has made a splash in the world. Asking for a phone in the Ukiyo-e style mashes up the famous wave image and an iPhone.

“A phone on a birthday cake” and yep, it’s an iPhone.

“A phone trapped inside a sphere.” Sure, it’s an older model judging by the physical home button, but that’s still unquestionably an iPhone.

And yes, if you just ask it to create an iPhone it’ll produce a photorealistic render of one. So what if you ask it for a Google Pixel phone? Surely Google’s own AI will know what that is. 

Nope! Some of the familiar elements of a Pixel phone are here, including the Pixel 7’s shiny camera strip, but this is an otherwise mangled approximation of what a Pixel looks like. 

Same again. Maybe it’s actually so smart that it’s pulling from unreleased prototype drawings that only Gemini has access to, but I suspect not. 

And yet, “a man holds a phone” has a perfect depiction of, yep, an iPhone. At least we can’t accuse Google of bias toward its own products. 

“A pelican on a bike holding a plate of avocado toast” resulted in what is, to my mind, the most California thing I may have ever seen.

And while we’re enjoying creating American things in AI, here’s America’s first president, George Washington. 

“Abe Lincoln wearing sunglasses.”

It’s not just American faces it can do. Here I had the late Queen Elizabeth II depicted shouting at a bear. I think the bear needs to buck its ideas up.

Which it clearly did as soon after it was seen dancing with her majesty while wearing an impressive crown of its own.

Pixel Studio’s newfound ability to generate faces is impressive, but I also wonder whether it’s going to get Google into hot water down the line. It’s had no problem generating an almost perfect likeness of Taylor Swift here.

It’s not clear whether Taylor Swift ever has ridden a giraffe that’s smoking a cigar, but this picture is all the proof I need to start writing my series of fan fiction novels.

Speaking of giraffes, here’s one having a great time with a cocktail on the beach. Notice the very clear “wish you were here” sign above. Generating legible text is quite a new skill.

This is what last year’s AI on the Pixel 9 Pro could manage. A weird jumble of lines that sort of look like they could be letters if you squint. And are drunk. And aren’t wearing your glasses. And recently got a bee in your eye.

“A noir owl playing pool while a tiger watches and laughs.” Not just a dream I described to my therapist, also a prompt I put into Pixel Studio. And it’s done a great job using the realistic Freestyle mode.

And in the Cinematic style, things get even more dramatic with the lighting.

The scene in the Claymation style is adorable.

While the traditional Ukiyo-e style is almost perfect for a tattoo.

And I’d absolutely pay someone to re-create this stained glass style for real to put in my house.

The Children’s Book style almost always delivered some wonderful results, often with speech bubbles or other text I didn’t even ask for.

“A house party with too many balloons” is all I asked for here, but I like that the AI added the title. 

The same prompt looks a bit more nightmarish in the watercolor style.

This “psychedelic mushroom party” is perfect for a 1970s album cover.

Whereas as a kid’s book it looks simply adorable.

And as Ukiyo-e it looks like fine art I want framed on my wall.

Pixel Studio will not create explicit images, but with the right set of prompts, it can absolutely create bawdy and suggestive images. I love the wink of the man holding his sausage. I didn’t even ask for the title, but it’s absolutely stellar work by the AI here.

And I genuinely laughed out loud when I saw this one. Yes, I was trying to push the boundaries and see how rude Pixel Studio would be, but my prompt was only “a salami pokes out of a man’s trousers” — the AI did the comedic heavy lifting here with the wonderfully alliterative title.

When not filming The Last of Us, Pedro Pascal apparently works at a coffee shop, at least according to this AI-created image.

CNET’s Jeff Carlson used some specific keywords to create this bear image, but I think it can be succinctly summed up as the “ultimate Pacific Northwest.”

100% that bear is wearing a pair of weather-worn Danner boots. 

Sometimes I enjoyed being quite vague with my prompts. This one was just “too many horses.” I think it nailed the assignment.

And this was “peak Florida man” that is absolutely spot on, short of a ‘gator or two. 

“An alien monster looms over Edinburgh.” Doesn’t it just.

What are you doing with those phone boxes, alien monster? It’s 2025, they don’t even work. Why don’t you have a mobile phone? 

I can generate the adorable cover page first and write the best-selling series of kids books after. Pure profit, here I come!

“Four men drink Guinness.” It’s like a scene in literally any old pub in the UK.

“A man spills a latte all over his apron like the fool he is.”

This person playing the guitar while riding an ant is simply perfect in the stained glass style. I’d buy that album.

Aliens remove a man’s eye. Weirdly, it let me generate this image a couple of times before then deciding it was too graphic and telling me it won’t do it anymore. 

“The smartest person in the world.”

Pixel Studio really Kermit-ed to this one. 

I always knew jackalopes existed. What I didn’t realise was that they were also keen bloggers with a significant online following, but this image has shown me the truth.