> she took it into an Apple store

What the parent is saying is that's precisely the difference. Your wife brought her phone to the manufacturer.

The Nexus phones were not manufactured by Google. If I don't buy it from the Google store, my buying didn't establish a commercial relationship with them. The Pixel phones, though, are manufactured by Google.

Disclaimer: Even though I'm a Google employee I have no idea how these things work. I'm just clarifying what the parent said, which sounds likely to me.