Enlarge (credit: Ron Amadeo/Google)

There were big changes announced at Google this week as the company’s “Google Hardware” team came out of hiding and announced a slew of products. The star of the show was definitely the Google Pixel, Google’s new pair smartphones that the company is saying it designed while using HTC as a manufacturer. The advent of Pixel phones means Google is an Android OEM again, harkening back to the days when it owned Motorola. This time though, the company is serious about hardware and software integration.

Android is the world’s most popular operating system because of OEM partners like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and LG, though. And if Google wants Android to continue to deliver Google services to billions of people, it will still need all those partners. Google once again has a delicate balancing act to pull off. The company must do its best to deliver a Google-y Android phone while not stealing the thunder from other OEMs or putting them at a serious competitive disadvantage.

To get to the bottom of how this new Google setup works, we sat down with Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP of Android, Chrome OS, and Google Play. Lockheimer is basically the king of “platforms” (software side of things) at Google, while former Motorola CEO Rick Osterloh now runs the hardware team. Like the old setup when Google owned Motorola, the two groups will be kept somewhat separate.