All About Android 574, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Jason Howell (00:00:00):
Coming up next on all about Android. It's me, Jason Howell, my co-hosts Ron Richards and Huyen Tue Dao. And we have a lot of news to dive into today. Android 13 hints galore care of, of course, Mishaal Rahman, the Pixel 6a is getting realer. You know, what's getting really realer the pixel watch. That's right. We have some information there. Unsurprisingly Amazon's Android app store for windows 11. Isn't awesome. We go down a one by Google rabbit hole. That's a lot of fun and Burke sings the email of the week theme. Next on All About Android

Narrator (00:00:40):
Podcasts. You love From people you trust. This TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:00:47):
This episode of All About Android is brought to you by checkout.com. Modern businesses need flexible payment systems that can help them adapt to change, grow and scale fast. Discover how checkout.com can help your business thrive at Check out.com/android. Welcome to All About Android episode, 574 recorded on Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 your weekly source for the latest news, the latest hardware and the latest apps and some feedback. We should put that in there too. I'm Jason Howell

Ron Richards (00:01:20):
And I'm Ron Richards

Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:22):
And I'm Huyen Tue Dao

Jason Howell (00:01:24):
I, I left out the most important part.

Ron Richards (00:01:26):
I gonna say

Jason Howell (00:01:27):
Faithful,

Ron Richards (00:01:28):
Faithful. We're nothing without the Android. Faithful.

Jason Howell (00:01:30):
Yes, we are the Android. We are we're but a, a component of the Android faithful, but

Ron Richards (00:01:35):
We're just, we're just, we're just a platform for the Android, faithful to show up and get angry or happy or, or question or whatever you want. That's why we're here for you. The Android faithful. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:01:45):
We, we convey your emotions in the world of Android. And usually it's a lot of anger. Like why did Google do this? And you know, I, I will just say once again, someday we'll have a t-shirt that says All About Android someday. It'll happen. Do that. I believe in it. So before we jump into, well, the, the rest of the show right before, in fact Burke, I hate to call on this last minute, but do you have a breaking news bumper? Cuz if you do, we might as well play it cause we haven't played it in a while. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:17):
Oh nice.

Jason Howell (00:02:18):
This is breaking news even though it's not actually like newsy news <laugh> and it is news to me that Huyen right before the show answered a question from last week's show Chris from mobile, Alabama, Huyen explain what you what you sent over.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:36):
Yeah. So this was literally right before the show, about a half an hour ago, where well, okay, so last week Chris from Mobile, Alabama mentioned that while using Android auto, something that he was not happy with was the lack of ability for him to location share while he was using Android auto to navigate. So I think Jason, you brought up that Android police article that yeah. Was not a positive article, but Android auto, but seemed to imply that that was available. So I did not today, but yesterday, while I was driving around, look for location sharing and I found it and I didn't record it yesterday cuz I was driving. But today right before the show I went into my garage, started my car, which is very dangerous. Don't do that. Don't your car in a garage with the car door closed. But for the Android faithful, I took a risk <laugh> and actually recorded how it works.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:27):
And so if we could play like the first video and I wasn't smart because I, I was trying to rush to the show. So I, this video was in two parts when it really didn't have to be, but if we can run the first video, so this is me and my car, I have a navigation started and if I actually click, so if you're running navigation, you can find location sharing in that little overflow, three dot menu, you open it up. And that's basically the only thing you can see share journey and it will bring up a list of email contacts. So I think there was some confusion about, you know, whom you could location share too. Yeah. And basically it was literally every email in my contact list. Some of them weren't even like Gmail, Google email. So I think it's literally just scrolling through your contacts and will allow you to locations share to that person by email or

Jason Howell (00:04:14):
Searching. Yeah. There was

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:15):
A search or searching. Yeah, you can search, but it's still kind of just, yeah. You search by email and I I'm guessing it's email because you can always send someone a link to a location share. But I presume if it's someone who's like a maps contact, they probably will get a nice much nicer, more streamlined experience. And just to show you what it looks like afterwards, if we can roll like the second video, you will get a little bit, you can see here I, this is my husband. And so it kinda lets, you know, you're sharing a trip with this person and you'll see a little my fingers over it, but you can see next to like the directions. Yeah. We like scrub back test just like to the, almost to the end because I'm an idiot. And I was like rushing to the show little person. Yeah. So you can see that you're oh yeah. In the pro. Yeah. So you can see that you are sharing and then if you wanna stop, I think you go back just the same thing and you can cancel it. So that is location sharing on your Android auto. I'm sorry, this is my first time doing something for the show. No, this is fine. And I, I <laugh>

Jason Howell (00:05:17):
Burke is just struggling to get the player to actually behave because he's like trying to park the, the thing on the timeline so that it keeps showing that little icon that you're talking about and everything lets go of it. It like jumps to the end and yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:29):
Yeah. So if you're using hand Android auto and you have navigation enabled click on the, the three dots, the overflow menu as like Des might call it, but the three dots that are basically at the bottom under the directions and you will be taken right to location sharing. That's all that's in that menu as far as I could see and just be careful while using it while you're driving. Because like some of us, maybe your contact list is super long. So just be careful. Yeah. My fingers over it. But yeah, there's location sharing. It is limited and it is, but it's there, it's there. Thank you so much, Chris, from mobile Alabama, because I now learned how to do location sharing on Android auto. So thank you for your question. And that would be

Jason Howell (00:06:08):
Something you anticipate using You anticipate using that very often. Like

Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:15):
yeah. We use of time, especially when meeting friends. Well, so caveat, a lot of our friends are other <laugh>. So we like to use all the features. Yeah, of course, course. But like, yeah. But especially when we're going to some someplace for like dinner, especially, or just sometimes something time sensitive where we're meeting someone, we'll often use locations sharing so we can see who's gonna get there first who's who has to go to like, well, when we went to restaurants, when we, who would like go to the, you know, host or matre'd whatever and ask for a table, so we use it quite often. It's pretty handy. And yeah. Nice. So if you're like a folk like that, there

Jason Howell (00:06:53):
You go, go do it. What,

Ron Richards (00:06:55):
What I like about this is that a, a question from the Android community leads to experimentation and now adoption, like we all, not, not like we're all making each other benefit from this process, which I like, so yeah.

Jason Howell (00:07:07):
Cool. Love it. Right on. Thanks for recording that. And you, you were bestowed upon you the breaking news bumper. So that's, you know,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:15):
Aw, that special. Thank you. That's special. I love it.

Jason Howell (00:07:20):
All right. Yeah, that one

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:22):
<Laugh> yes.

Jason Howell (00:07:24):
That bumper that's been around for a very, very long time. I think I created that years ago. All right. It's time for some newsy news in the news block now named the newsy news block.

Burke (00:07:41):
I'm excited to talk about this whole self share thing

Jason Howell (00:07:46):
Self.

Burke (00:07:46):
Not, not to be confused with oversharing.

Jason Howell (00:07:49):
Yeah. Different, different actually what this top block area is, is friend of the show, Mishaal Rahman from esper.io, Former XDA and Victor came into the office earlier. And we were just talking about like how prolific this dude is. Right. Like, I feel like if we wanted to do a, a block every single week, that is like, here's the interesting thing that only Michelle discovered, you know, hidden inside of the code. Victor was saying earlier, like, does he just go through like line by line? I

Burke (00:08:24):
Can vouch for that. He said that to me

Jason Howell (00:08:26):
<Laugh> I mean, how else does he find all of this stuff that he finds? I don't know, but I mean, he, he, he wrote this really comprehensive Android 13, I mean, could be like an, a manual for Android 13 base than what we know. I mean, it was incredibly comprehensive at Esper IO. Definitely we're checking out, but that's just because he just like knows so much about how this stuff works. So so anyways, this top block is, is basically four different things that he tweeted about, but all interesting in their own rights. So let's go through these, the first tweet had to do with Android 13 based on what he's finding, getting location privacy indicator. So this would match up with what we are already seeing of my understanding is correct what we're already seeing with the microphone and the key camera when you're using Android 12 and an app goes to use the camera.

Jason Howell (00:09:19):
For example, you get this little chip up in the top right hand corner that shows a little camera up in your notifications slash area the notifications of the top right corner. And that, you know, lets you know, Hey, by the way, your camera is being used by an app as part of the privacy features of Android 12, apparently they're gonna get that into Android 13 for location, which makes a yeah, there you go. You can see it in the top right corner if you're watching the video which makes a lot of sense. Apparently IO iOS, you know, this is one of those features that iOS has had for a while and it kind of makes sense. It seems like location camera and Mike are the three really sensitive data sharing things that Google has focused on in the last couple of years. And so this seems prime to be included in that immediate notification. Have you, have you guys found the, that that feature in android 12 to be useful? I kind of like it, like, it it's been, it's nice to know when an app is actually using something.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:20):
It, it is. And I think sometimes it's, it's kind of easy sometimes for apps to be not sometimes purposely and sometimes unintentionally a little sneaky or maybe we, they just, a lot of times, especially with camera, how difficult it is. It can be. Yeah. So I'm being very nice here and being very like positive intentioned forward or assuming how do we say it work, assuming positive intent where it's, it's kind of easy with certain resources to leave 'em open or just to not know that you have them from a positive side, but yeah, I actually, there's been a few cases where it went on and I didn't realize it either. Maybe just I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, exactly. Or it was an app that generally does use the camera, but I kind of, maybe wasn't seeing the camera feature, whatever it was at that time.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:58):
Maybe like Instagram or something. And I was like, oh crap. Like, you know, kind of, <laugh> prepared to be on camera. I, I love it. And I think, you know, just like in many of the other initiatives for security and privacy and with those transparency, it just makes sense. It just makes sense. I mean, I know like in the last three years, my high husband and I bought like webcam covers and like I know like friends that I have just basically their webcams out of, out of the USB whenever they're not using them. So this is the kind of mindset I, I feel like people are getting into, so this, yeah, let's switch, let let's do that. And it makes sense you can make it for location too.

Ron Richards (00:11:33):
What I think is fascinating about the Mike indicator is that when I see it go off at the top, my first in is to immediately close, like turn off my phone. <Laugh> like, its, it's the weird, it's the weirdest thing. Or like, Or like whatever light

Jason Howell (00:11:50):
It on.

Ron Richards (00:11:51):
Right. Because it's like something that changes in a section that never changes like visually. Yeah. And so my, my like muscle memory or muscle reaction is that something's wrong. Right. And so like I immediately like stop it and then I go, oh wait a minute. Oh yeah, no, the mic was on. Cause I'm using this or that sort of thing. Like it may like it takes a second to process why that visual change happened.

Speaker 7 (00:12:10):
Yeah. but yeah. So then

Jason Howell (00:12:13):
Excuse me,

Ron Richards (00:12:15):
Sometimes, sometimes you name indicator that you're gonna sneeze.

Jason Howell (00:12:17):
Yeah. <laugh>

Jason Howell (00:12:19):
I, I need to, I need to take Claton is what that indicates my allergies are really bad right now. Sorry about that. Nobody heard it. Of course. I I'm muted my mic unless we have a mic in here. Yeah. Okay. Second thing that Michelle has covered nearby share, which is a feature that I never actually end up using, but it's useful for someone I'm sure. Which is the the kind of integrated way of sharing files from one device to another, you set up, you know, on, on this device and you say, all right, open up a near nearby share. I've got this file that I wanna send over to your phone. As long as phone is receptive to receiving that request. I, you know, added through the contact list and it's activated and on and looking then I can share that file across sometimes that can be I dunno, sometimes that can be one step too many or maybe, maybe you're trying to share it to yourself, which is what I think this feature is.

Jason Howell (00:13:11):
He's discovered a feature called self share mode, which actually shares files quickly with another, with another device that's logged into the same Google account. And actually that's a feature that I think I would end up using cuz there are times where I've like got this file and I just want it on this other device. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it would be nice to just be like, oh yeah, zap it over to my other device real quick so that I can do what I need to do over the, there that's come up plenty of times here at TWI with, you know, with the need to move media around and stuff like that. So apparently that's coming self share nearby Sherry. Heck yes. Yeah. Heck yes. Okay.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:45):
Heck yes. Heck yes. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I was taking screenshots, so I, I have like two, many, I think today was five. I, I was doing work today. I was sitting on my couch. I had five different devices around me cuz I'm testing a feature that is like kind of like landscape tablet or like orientation and tablet dependent. So I had like five different phones around me. And so what I'll tend to do is usually when we submit something, we try to send screenshots and like screen caps to kind of let our tester know like what changed. And so what happens? I is I take a screenshot on the phone that it's on. I wait for it to sync up to Google photos. It go like my word comp. Yeah, totally. So I'm in love with this, so I don't have to do this anymore. So this is literally like this, I mean, and I'm a, maybe that's a really special case. I'm sure both people aren't like sitting on their couch with five devices around them or maybe you do the injured faithful who Andrew faithful a very enthusiastic bunch. So, but I I'm really looking forward to it for that. Specifically I know that's a very dev centric thing, but I cannot wait.

Jason Howell (00:14:45):
Yeah. Yep. Oh greed. Third thing, I feel like this is kind of minor, but just cuz it was fun to have four things to talk about. Android 13 is looking to be, get, be getting a revised security page in the setting that includes privacy. So instead of just security or PRI and or privacy, it'll be security and privacy all in the same thing he says it's not functional. But there you go. I don't really have a whole lot to say about that other than okay. <Laugh> unless you guys do <laugh> but there you go see proof visual proof. It will be combined. Okay. Now, you know, but this is the one that, that makes me laugh. Google pay, oh, is gonna remain at the brand or contactless payments. So Google pay the, you know, the, the name of which has been changed a million different times at this point is staying Google pay. So that's good. That's the upside, but <laugh> the flip side of this is that based on what he's found digital cards the, the place, my understanding is the place where digital cards will be housed, might be branded as wallet. So we're back, we're full circle. Again, <laugh>

Ron Richards (00:15:57):
Someone needs to map the journey of Google and payments and money and like yeah. Cheap, Google pay, Google wallet, G pay, Google pay, Google wallet. Like they just keep throw like the carousel of all this

Jason Howell (00:16:10):
Stuff to each other

Ron Richards (00:16:12):
Is killed by Google when you need it or is it

Jason Howell (00:16:15):
No, you know what we need, we need a new site and it's called recycled by Google

Ron Richards (00:16:19):
Recycled by Google. So from 20, from 2013 to 2016, Google wallet card was a prepaid debit card that users pay things in person and online using their wallet balance and then re retailing an accepted MasterCard that was Google wallet. And then let's see, Google pay hasn't died yet. G right? Wasn't that one

Jason Howell (00:16:40):
G pay. Yeah, that was one G pay. Yep. Yep. Well

Ron Richards (00:16:42):
They just keep re I don't understand.

Jason Howell (00:16:45):
Yeah. Anyway, I mean, at least the, the whole thing isn't being changed to Google wallet, cuz that would just be like, are you kidding me? But, but it is, yeah. It is a return of sorts to the wallet thing that we thought was gone. God,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:00):
I don't understand. I actually was looking things. I, I looked at my phone, I have both Google pay and G and I didn't realize it at first. And what's really confusing is you open up G and hit, ready to play, which is where ready to pay, not ready to play that you're ready to pay your way to play. But if you open up that section, it's the exact UI that's in Google pay. Yeah. Like the, the, the care I, and I was like, okay. And now I really don't know where I am is, was really confusing. What is anything? Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:17:26):
Yeah. It was really confusing when they were doing the transition. I remember, I can't remember the specifics, but I do remember them both existing and, and you know, the, the, the, oh, there was some overlap, but there was some things that one could do that. The other couldn't with the promise that like, oh, eventually this will be your app that does all the things. And it's kinda like, okay, but this is like, nobody's gotta be clear on, on exactly what to do right now. And I, I think only recently did I actually remove G from my, from my phone, cuz I still wasn't, you know, super clear like, wait a minute, do I still need this? Am, am I gonna run into a situation where I actually need this app still? So anyways yeah. Google pay with a feature called wallet. Thank you very for Michelle's deep investigative work into the world of Android sometimes without it we'd have less to talk about. So thank you.

Ron Richards (00:18:16):
Someone's got, someone's gotta do it. I'm glad it I'm glad he's on the, we need him on the wall. So there it's

Jason Howell (00:18:21):
<Laugh> indeed. All right. When you have the next one.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:24):
Well, we have another very interesting deep dive this time we are at, sorry, this is a nine to five Google APK insight. This is when they take an APK and decompile it. And whenever you decompile an APK, which is basically the binary that helps you install any like program on Android, you know, quite a bit, you know, too much often, it's actually kind of a vector attack sometimes, but this was for good. So this is nine to five doing an APK insight. And they've actually found some new strings in the latest version of Google play services that basically point to Android, getting ready to replace passwords with PA keys that will sync to your Google account. So what does all this mean? So basically idea of PAs keys is something that is already being used on apple. And basically rather than having you have a password for every single account and service, you will basically kind of really only authenticate to your Google account.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:20):
And this will be using past keys rather than passwords for any other service that you wanna authenticate through the Google. So the past keys are basically using, I believe it's been a while as a, my crypto cryptography class, but it's basically using public key cryptography, also known as, as asymmetric cryptography where there's a public key and there's a private key in the public key. You kind of send that into the world because of public. And then anyone that wants to communicate with you can use that public key to DEC encrypt a message. And then you have your own little private key, which is the only key that can decrypt that message. So they're, they're basically two keys they're mathematically connected and it's a, it's a very, you know, well tested form of cryptography. So what's gonna happen is, is if you want to register on a new online service, the service will will actually you'll, you'll basically create be creating a, a new one of these key pairs.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:12):
It will basically allow you to keep your private key, which will be synced to through Google and then the new service through with which you registered gets your public key. And that's basically it. So that from now on, whenever you wanna sign in, you don't have to enter in a password. You just have to be authenticated through Google and that they will do the management of kind of like authentication using these keys. And again, everything will be cloud synced through your Google account. And of course that does mean that, you know, whether it's apple, whether it's Google managing these keys, the security will now be <laugh> on the platform itself and how they authenticate you, how you're able to basically kind of restore keys and credentials on your devices and things like that. But it really does look like Google is moving towards past keys and it's unsurprising because, you know, if you all have heard of, is it Fido, I guess it's Fido.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:03):
The F identity online Alliance is basically is of a lot of different companies, big ones like Google and Amazon and kind of more governmental agencies like N I S T that are really pushing people to replace passwords, you know two, two factor authentication and other multifactor authentications are great, but they believe that the future is pass keys, basically actually using cryptographic keys to authenticate people. So there you go. It, they've got some, basically the strings that, that nine to five found in Google labor services are literally hello, pass keys, goodbye passwords. So if it, if it

Ron Richards (00:21:40):
Wasn't clear,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:42):
If it, you know, if it maybe just speculating on code and like, you know, things constant that might look like a, this is literally a message, a welcome message in Google play services. So there you go. It looks like Google is just going to be moving to pass keys with everybody else.

Jason Howell (00:21:57):
I have, I have last pass as my password manager and it kind of has the master key approach. Right. So I guess it's kind of similar to that, right? Like, yeah. Yeah. I, I have my main password that I need to remember that unlocks my vault and gives access to, you know, all the different passwords that I have for whatever site I happen to be logging into. Some folks in chat room in the chat room are, and discord are kind of pointing out that this could lead to more lock in as far as Google is concerned. Right. It kind of goes away from the tried tested and you know, ubiquitous password and goes to this method methodology that is entirely based around yeah. Your Google password. So that's something to consider. I mean, that's not insignificant.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:44):
Yeah. That's why I kind of laughed a little, I mean, so I think it's very fair and think that Fido's fear of, of just the normal, like all of us, like all of us, I think many people, most people are bad with passwords. We use passwords. We don't change them frequently. Yeah. I mean, even

Ron Richards (00:23:02):
Also, also, sorry, that's just that chime in there. A lot of people are bad with passwords, but a lot of the services have made it increasingly more challenging for you to be good with passwords. Yeah. Right. Yes. Where, where the, you know, where it used to be and which I get like, don't get, don't get me wrong. Like we've seen the reports and we've seen like, you know, the hacks and the leaks and stuff like that. And, and, you know, oftentimes if you use the same password on one site or, or multiple sites, it gets, it comes up in those reports and that's a danger. And I understand that it, you know, it's better to mix uppercase and lowercase and numbers and symbols mm-hmm <affirmative>. But when you're in a scenario where every site has a different paradigm or a different scheme, it is ha it is nearly impossible for a sane person to keep track mm-hmm right. So like the whole, the whole password protection import, you know, not, not questioning the importance of it, but it makes it extremely, that much more challenging to be competent at it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:57):
So,

Burke (00:23:57):
Yeah. I think the, the strength of this thing, this is that the keys are different for every place you go. I maybe

Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:04):
Yes. It's generated for each one. It's kind of similar. I'm like to S SA like you would generate like a SSH key, sorry. Yeah. It's generated for each site. And so I, I definitely am two mind by that. I totally agree, Ron. And also as a rant, what about sites that don't let you copy and paste into the password, like saying, and I have sit there and like, dictate, like, okay, why did they do that? Do they do that? No, I, it, it feels like a false sense of secure, like literally a false, like, feeling that this is more secure. If you don't paste it, it tries to be freaking nuts or yeah. Like places that make it, like only like limit the, the length of your passwords. Like only, only 16. I was like, are you serious? But anyway, that's a rant I'm too of two minds of this.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:45):
I totally degree that. I, I agree with Chad that this makes me nervous just because yes. Like I, I recently had a friend whose dad got locked out of his Google account and that's frightening, especially with, I know maybe I shouldn't say that publicly, I'm a little too bought into Google. If that happened to me, it would ruin my week. And also again, like as noted in the art as noted in the article, like, yes, the ultimate security, the one stop shop for whether this is gonna be ultimately safe or not in terms of this past key is going to be the platform through which you sync your keys through Google, apple, whoever. So if that whoever, or even, you know, even if it's a big player that, you know, it's out of your hands, Microsoft. Yeah. So I get that, but I also get the point that yeah, the average user is not great.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:25:34):
And of course, yes. As Ron mentioned, everybody does it differently. Everybody is, feels like they're conspiring against you to make it harder to make your password managers work. So I don't, I don't know what the answer is personally because I, I mean, and even I, it was only like last week that I actually got to FA set up on all my really, really important accounts. So, I mean, even those of us, I think that are savvy are not immune to being lazy or just having better crap to do than to manage all these things. And it's challenging why I it's challenging. Yeah. So I can imagine like my, my O older father, you know, I, oh my gosh, I really try to get him to be better with passwords, but he doesn't because it's hard. It's, it's hard because he doesn't understand and using a password manager, especially when the extension breaks and he can't use it is difficult. So yeah. He's going to have bad password habits and yes, having him on a Google, like pass key a little more like tolerable to me where maybe he just logs into Google and he's good at any site he wants to go to is hopefully better than what he does, which I'm not gonna say, but it's a bad habit. Like one of those bad habits. Yeah. So many people habits. Yeah. Most people probably,

Ron Richards (00:26:43):
But, but you mentioned, but when you mentioned, you know, lock into the Google account and the importance of two FA I mean, Jason, you know, nothing about that,

Jason Howell (00:26:50):
Right. <Laugh> well, I just, I just posted in, in discord and on IRC episode, 358 of this week in Google, back in June of 2016 was the episode it's called two factor Folley. Because during the show we were talking about two factor and while everybody else was talking and Ron, you were on that episode, Gina trap Penn. I was, of course, Jeff Jarvi, my gosh. And while, while you guys were talking I was like, oh, I'm gonna set up my two factor, cuz I need to do it. And I've always been put, wanting to do it and putting it off. And I ended up doing it on the show, but I ended up using my Google voice number as my two factor authentication number, which means I need to be signed in to the account that receives the account. So I can, or that receives the code so that I can sign into the account.

Jason Howell (00:27:35):
It was recursive. I ended up locked out of my, my Google accounts and ultimately like, oh, I'm, I'm almost certain only because I was on this particular show and Googlers watched and listened was I able to get back into the account? Otherwise, like I could have lost everything. And it was frightening. Like it was, it was downright. Like it it's, it was in that moment where I'm like, holy cow, my life is here and I might not have access to it again. Exactly. You know, my digital life is, is locked in in the these walls and I can't get access to it. So anyways, so I know what that, I know what that pain feels like. <Laugh> it was scary.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:28:11):
I like Jeff Jarvis's face on the thumbnail. And for those of you that are just listening to podcasts, I can't see it. Imagine the most perfect face Palm, what on earth are you doing kind of face with his fingers to his forehead, just staring into the screen. It's the most amazing case.

Ron Richards (00:28:25):
It was so amazing. It was fantastic.

Jason Howell (00:28:28):
So yeah. Oh gosh. One, one of my more memorable episodes of, of pretty much any show I've done on twin. Yeah. There we go. There's a, there's the screen. There we go. A beautiful, I mean, we're all doing a show, right? Like, and, and when it happens, everything that I know normally use for the show just disappeared. It was like, it was like on a, on a, a movie where like the hacker hit enter and everything goes right. Yep. And it was that. And I was like I had to like interrupt everybody and be like so something happened and check this out. It was, it was funny, funny and terrifying. So there you go. <Laugh> all right. We have lots more to talk about and we will, but we gotta pay some bills. We gotta thank the sponsor and then we'll get into some hardware news.

Jason Howell (00:29:16):
It's not really news. Actually this week, the hardware block is roomy. Goodness, that's basically what it is, but that's fun sometimes too. So that's coming up next first though, this episode of all about a Android is brought to you by checkout.com. Tech should be groundbreaking. It should promote innovation. We talk about that on the network all the time. That's really the foundation of technology and the coverage that we do, traditional payment systems are heavily layered. They're disconnected. They're perceived as a cost center for a business modern businesses need flexible payment systems that can actually help them to adapt to the change that's bound to happen so that they can grow and scale fast. We recently came across a company with technology, that approach payments through a radical new lens. That company is checkout.com and checkout.com is a leading digital global payment solution provider. For brands like grabs Sony electronics wise, Henkel so many more checkouts, flexible payments platform is purpose built with performance, scalability and speed in mind, which makes it ideal for businesses who are looking to seamlessly integrate better payment solutions globally.

Jason Howell (00:30:29):
They've got a dedicated team of local experts spanning 19 offices, five different continents, checkout.com offers a strategic partnership to help businesses improve their acceptance rates, their payments performance, and ultimately grow their business globally. Checkout.Com exists to enable businesses in their communities to thrive in the digital economy. They deliver innovative payments solutions that actually flex to your needs. The valuable insights that help you get smart about your payments performance and the expert that you can count on as you navigate all the complexities of all of this, it's a very, you know, it's always changing. The digital world is ever shifting. They're gonna help you through it with checkout.com. You're gonna get global optimization. So local acquiring and multiple geographic locations and improving authorization rates, lowering cost ultimate. You also get a transparency. Their fee structure is super clear, it's straightforward. And they also happen to have in-depth reporting that gives you visibility no matter where you operate.

Jason Howell (00:31:35):
You also not only from a global perspective, but you get local expertise. They have dedicated local teams that bring regional international and rate regulatory expertise. And that's gonna enable you to navigate market complexities with confidence, cuz you know that you've got a partner on your side to direct your way through it, strategic partnership. They actually take a collaborative, personalized approach to solving complex problems for their merchants and ecosystem partners. And I mean, you've probably heard it about checkout.com before they're everywhere and when it comes to digital payments, you know, if you're a developer, they've got really awesome developer friendly APIs tools, all through a single integration, they make it really easy. There's so much to love about what checkout.com is doing. So check it out. <Laugh> literally check it out, check out.com. Discover how checkout.com can help your business thrive at checkout.com/android and see for yourself why so many others, so many other businesses, so many other developers they're using checkout.com. That's checkout.com/android. And we thank them for their support of all about Android. All right. It's hardware, rumor time, three hardware rumors that we gotta talk about right now.

Speaker 8 (00:33:00):
Oh

Ron Richards (00:33:00):
Yeah. I do love the rumors.

Jason Howell (00:33:02):
Yeah. Although I guess this top story, isn't really a rumor. It actually happened.

Ron Richards (00:33:06):
Yeah. This is fact. Yeah, this is fact. Yeah. But it, but it's like it's, it's leading the path, fueling the rumors for what we might see very soon. There you go. It's also something that's on my radar because I am waiting to get at my sister her next, next new phone. And I would like it to be the Google pixel six a. So I was delighted to see that the Google pixel six a has landed in the lap of the FCC which is something that always has to happen before. Stuff gets cleared and ready for announced and, and launch for although unclear is how it gets out. Like that's weird. Right. But I never really dig into exactly how people find out what, what goes to the FCC or not. But with this report, it says that there will be four models in total.

Ron Richards (00:33:51):
One model will support mm wave for an extra cost. Of course you're not getting your mm. Wave for free everybody. And the hope is that four models will equal a wider global rollout than we've seen in the past few years of, of pixel a phone rollouts and is expected to launch during Google IO which is May 11th, just around the corner. And also the geek bench listing for the pixel six a was spotted by Android headlines. They confirmed that six gigabyte of Ram and tensor chip on the device. They also show that the six a performs better, albeit minimally better, but still better than the pixel six in single core and multi-core geek bench tests. So there it is. And you ask a question, you get an answer when I wondered how people know phones are going to the FCC, a little magic person in our document dropped in the link to the FCC reports the office of engineering and technical technology exhibits list that outlines where this information comes from. Isn't it wonderful transparency in government.

Jason Howell (00:34:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. FCC sent that. Yeah. So there

Ron Richards (00:35:03):
It's

Jason Howell (00:35:04):
All, every April 19th, if you,

Ron Richards (00:35:06):
If you could, if you could imagine how boring a government website would look, I it's this one right

Jason Howell (00:35:12):
Here. It's oh

Ron Richards (00:35:13):
Man. Just,

Jason Howell (00:35:14):
Just take it in, breathe in those hyperlinks. Oh, sexy. My goodness. Yeah. Random seemingly random combinations of letters and numbers. Yeah. Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:35:25):
Fun times. Oh my goodness. So what do we think of pixel six a I mean, or, or, or we don't doubt its existence, but do we think it's gonna be good? What do we think? Well,

Jason Howell (00:35:35):
I think the four different models hinting at a wider release is gonna, you know, is, is good. I mean, I feel like the, a series has in the past received a wider release than, you know, the last couple of years has been really limited for obvious reasons. The world's, you know, as we know has been different, <laugh> in many different ways. So I, I suppose that points to kind of a getting back to, to normal business sort of thing. And if they're gonna do it with any device, I think the Aeries is the right one to, to do that with right. Like the pixel six is not really, you know breaking it, breaking any records, but we know that the Aeries phones have been really good for, for, for Google. It might not be the phone that they want to be known for, but it's the phone that the majority of, of units are selling when it comes to pixel devices. So it makes, so it makes E even more sense for me that they would widen that out if they have the opportunity to, so that's good.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:33):
Yeah. And I wonder if, I mean, I've generally, anecdotally speaking, heard really good reviews of a series devices from users or friends that have it friends and family that have it. Yeah. And this one will have the tensor chip. So, I mean, who knows what that could be? I mean, you know, I, I honestly can't tell a difference sometimes between different chip sets. I think there's a lot that goes into what makes a great phone, but I find it very intriguing. Yeah. And I would definitely recommend it to family that don't wanna spend 900 bucks on a phone and, but still want a pixel experience.

Jason Howell (00:37:04):
Yeah. It's interesting, as you say that, I'm, I'm kind of realizing something that I don't know that I had really kind of drawn a correlation to, you know, apple has like, it's M one chip soon to be it's M two chip depending, you know, and they've got hardware that has that chip, that ranges in cost all over the map, but what you are guaranteed to get when you do that, you get the M one chip in all of those models, whether it's a, you know, I'm just pulling numbers out of thin air, but whether it's a thousand dollars device or whether it's a $4,000 device, it has that M one chip some something along those lines anyways. And it seems like that's, that's, you know, that that's happening on iPhones seems like here, Google's really doing that with the pixel chip the the tensor chip as well, right?

Jason Howell (00:37:47):
The, what used to be a differentiating factor for midrange and premium devices. You know, one of those big key points on the list was the processor inside. And, you know, maybe what this signals is more and more, we're moving into a kind of a smart for a smartphone paradigm where that processor matters less the, you know, depending on the manufacturer, of course, but Google's in a position to do this where all their phones always have their best processor and the differentiators are maybe it's like camera quality or whatever, but that's one less thing for someone who's buying a mid-range phone to have to worry about it. At least they know it's gonna run solid with the tensor chip because that's the same chip that's powering their pro devices.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:38:32):
Oh, that's a really good point. I like, I like that idea too, especially since I think the, if, if anything else, the marketing for the M one has been fantastic. There's nothing been nothing but good press. And I think there is a buzz about that, especially, you know, even like in like your lower end iPads or whatever devices that have the M one, you kind of, there's just a good buzz about it. So I think that's a reason is point even just from a marketing perspective to have that kind of coherency and that kind of like automatic level of some trust or some expectation of good quality. That's a really good point. I like

Jason Howell (00:39:01):
That. I, although I will also say the M one has a really great reputation because it's a damn good chip. Is that fair? Is the tense or there yet? Is it there yet? Is it quite the same thing? Like the strategy appears to be the same. Yeah. But is, but is it automatically, oh, it's got the tensor chip that thing's gonna be banging. You know what I mean? And I don't know that we're necessarily there yet. Like, it's not like it's a bad, you know, phone, the pixel six running the tensor chip, but I don't, I don't automatically think of the pixel six as like the highest performing smartphone in the history of smart, smart heart phone kind, you know,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:37):
Fair. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:39:38):
Very fair. Whereas the one is like knocking it out the park for apple. So

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:42):
Heck yes.

Jason Howell (00:39:43):
Yeah. So I dunno if it's the same, but it's, similar-ish <laugh> right. When you've got the next one, well, oh,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:52):
You've got the fun. How about I got the fun ones. So on April 15th, Evan bla styled, the king of leakers posted a screenshot of, I don't understand what this interactive tutorial was, but he posted

Jason Howell (00:40:05):
See there <laugh>,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:05):
It's kinda confusing. What, what looked like a hidden page that had the words interactive tutorial and a Dropbox that had like different OS and it said pixel Rohan, where OS 3.1 and he, a boss made the comment of won't long. Now I have no idea where this is, but it seems to indicate that something called a pixel Rohan will Rohan Rohan, am I saying it like the Lord of the rings thing? Anyway, Rohan anyway,

Jason Howell (00:40:33):
Writer, the Rohan

Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:35):
Rohan. Thank you, Rohan RO. So it seems that something that is pixel branded will run where OS 3.1. So it seems to indicate that maybe as other rumors that we've discussed have been saying that we might be getting that pixel watch soon. And so this special agent is pretty interesting, but I thought what was really fun was Victoria's song who kind of wrote up on this on the verge is basically noting the very interesting path that Google and where have taken the last three years. And that maybe this is just that Rohan Rohan, which by the way, I looked this up Rohan in terms of being an Indian Sanskrit name means red haired, red or ascending. And I couldn't help, but feel either ascending is a very kind of like positive way of saying, Hey, here's your pixel watch that has come after this very long history or that it's saying that yeah, that, that watch was kind of the redheaded stepchild, but they're coming into their own.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:29):
Now. I just couldn't help, but think that a little bit, but yeah, it's been a very interesting three years for Google plus watches. So Victoria noted like a, a lot of interesting things happening, like in early 2019, Google bought a bit of secretive fossil smartwatch tech and fossil of course has been a long time wearable partner for Google. And they did announce that at, I think we, one of the events that year, they were focusing on ambient computing, which is basically just Google offering its services everywhere you are with the same interfaces and commands. So from your desktop to your wrist, to your phone, everything is gonna be a Google accessible experience. And that same year they bought Fitbit for $2.1 billion. And then, you know, not much in 2020, but in 2021, of course they announced the partnership with Samsung to combine war OS with Samsungs. I never knew how to pronounce that. Ties ti ties

Huyen Tue Dao (00:42:25):
To create a unified where O S and then of course in late 2021, we got the Samsung gala see, watch four, which debuted with where OS three and James Park, the CEO Fitbit have been saying, they're gonna get a wears Fitbit watch soon. And, you know, Callcom is expected to release, you know, the new snap dragon wear 5,100 sometime this year. So there's just a lot, I think the point was that there's just been a lot of interesting announcements in the last three years and that maybe the pixel watch will just be a caper to a very interesting three years for, or the very interesting saga of Google and smart watches. So we will just have to wait and see. And Victoria actually asked the end of the article, a few questions, which I, which I wanna ask you guys. So if you had to guess, would you think that the focus of the pixel watch would be fitness and wellness, or would it be kind of more smart watchy integrate with all the things to kind of go with ambient computing? What, what would you all <affirmative> seeing? What you all think you'll see,

Jason Howell (00:43:15):
That's a good question. I mean, the, the watch face that we're seeing on this 91, mobiles.com article lends it to be fitnessy, but, but I mean, most smartwatches have a fitness element too. It's like most of them have the heart rate monitor. Most of them track your steps and, you know, can track out. So what exactly is the difference nowadays? Cause I feel like that's a fair point, you know, most relatively premium ish smart watches also do the fitness stuff. Like I kind, I, I just kind of feel like it's, it's, it's all the kind of, part of the same soup in my opinion.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:43:54):
Yeah. That's oh yeah. I also missed a bit where actually very recently Google received clearance to measure passive atrial fibrillation. Oh, right on Fitbits, which is basically measuring your heart rate to be able to detect certain things like that, that basically types of heartbeat that allow you to detect whether a person is at high risk for a stroke. So I kind of should have mentioned that, cuz that would probably lean you towards maybe a but see watch. But I think you're right. Jason, I think fitness is just part of the package now, whether that's like, you know health monitoring, like literally your stats and vitals and measuring activity to even, you know, the, the, the screen. Well, what is it? Sorry, the screen wellness. The not being on your phone so much. Sorry, what is that called?

Jason Howell (00:44:37):
Oh, digital digital wellbeing.

Ron Richards (00:44:39):
Digital

Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:40):
Wellbeing. Yeah. Yeah. So it, yeah, it does seem like the line is

Jason Howell (00:44:44):
Blurry. Well, it's, it's almost like in my, in my head, it's like, you've got your fitness watches that don't include the smart stuff that are just fitness. And then you've got the smart watch that also includes the fitness. So it's like the smart watch. And maybe, maybe that's not always the case, but it seems like the smart watch is the step up. It's like, yeah, you get the fitness and you get more.

Burke (00:45:03):
But it also seems like, like smart watch is that's like what the, the most basic thing that they should be able to do is be smart and help you with the, these things like your health, you know, take your blood pressure.

Jason Howell (00:45:14):
Right. It would be weird. It would be totally weird to get like a, a premium, smart watch and not be able to do the fitnessy stuff like oh, but

Ron Richards (00:45:21):
What's so, but what's so funny though, is that like, I, I mean, I don't, I mean, I don't care about that stuff.

Jason Howell (00:45:27):
I don't really,

Ron Richards (00:45:27):
You know, you know, and I, and I get, and I get it that there's a large number of people who do it and people love tracking that stuff and people love data and all this sort of stuff, but like, you know, it it's like that. That's a real good question when, which is like, what do you want out of it? Because like, yeah. Tracking heart rate and stuff like that, I couldn't care less. Yeah. And, and it's not that it's not that I don't care about fitness or that I'm not healthy, you know? Like I, I, you know, I run, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, I, I, you know, I use Google fitness to track my running. I've got a treadmill, I've, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm running more mileage than I have in, in, you know, since bef you know, before the pandemic, thankfully trying to get it all in, I have to have knee surgery. So I'm tracking it all in before I get to, excuse me, I tore a, a tore cartilage in my knee that apparently I can run straight, but I can't go left. And right. So I'm just like killing time before I actually get the surgery. But I but like, I couldn't, I couldn't care less about all that data. Like I just thought so, like, it's not a must have for me, but

Jason Howell (00:46:19):
It is for a lot people.

Ron Richards (00:46:21):
It, no, it is for a lot of people, not for me. And it's at a point where the wearables gotta be everything for everybody. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> versus versus just doing whatever it wants to do. Like, like I'd be more interest did in a, you know, media focused at communications at based wearable than one with all fitness stuff. You know what I mean? Where that, that made, you know, receiving messages and sending messages and receiving calls and, and listening to music and things like that easier or more effective. And I would gladly sacrifice all the fitness stuff in favor of that. Is there enough people to justify that as a single, single product? No, no. Or, you know, and the fitness people probably like, I don't care about any of the media stuff or the app stuff. Just give me the data, give me the heart track and gimme the AFib stuff, give me all this sort of stuff, but you don't wanna lose the people who don't care about the fitness stuff. So it becomes this Mirage of just like lots of functional. That is almost overwhelming when you sit down to unpack it, at least from my perspective. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:47:19):
But yeah. Yeah. Another aspect of this before we move on and I add, I did add another link, just so you know, Burke in between the link, the 91 mobiles link and, and the nine to five Google link, there is another nine to five Google link. So the 91 mobile mobiles.com screen or image is of the watch face of supposedly of the pixel watch. Right. It's, you know, it's rounded it's and it's not that it's not what you're looking at there. That's that's like the header image. I don't know why they do that. They do like not the actual thing and the header image. And then you scroll down to see the real thing. No, no, no, it's fine. Then in fact, Google does that all the time. So these, these are images that were leaked care of John Prosser back at the end of last year.

Jason Howell (00:48:03):
And I remember we talked about it on the show. These are supposedly, you know, the pixel watch branding, some marketing, I mean, could be real, could be not right, but they have that like really flat kind of kind of approach to it. Like it looks really thin, right. And I don't know if that's just the angle or what it is, but very rounded. You can tell the display, the, the display glass is very, you know, rounded and it's a circular design with a little knob on the side. Now, if you go back to the 91, mobiles dot com link not to have you jump around all over the place, but not that one. Nope. No. Where are you on? I don't know. Okay. Whatever that one dance

Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:49):
Dance,

Jason Howell (00:48:50):
Honestly. Oh yeah, I know, right. I'm sorry. Honestly, those photos are very similar to what it is on the 91 mobile link. Yeah. But what's interesting. It's not the one I'm seeing, but that's okay. It's okay. It's is that if it's that thin, then the battery life can't possibly be good. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you, I guess, I guess what, what I'm trying to figure out is like, okay, what am I missing in the screenshots here? Because it, yeah, that's it. If the device is as thin as these marketing materials say, then the battery life can't possibly be good. And if it's thicker than it is, then these photos really, aren't doing a good job of showing the girth of these smart watches, which is also a big problem with smart watches, not fitness, wearables, fitness wearables can actually do really well when it comes to battery life and longevity, because they are doing less. But then now you've got a smart watch that has all the fit Fitbit functionality to it. And like, where are you getting your battery power for that, that it's gonna last for as long as people are. I guarantee you gonna complain about if it comes out this thin, because <laugh> because it's just not gonna last the way people expect.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:49:58):
Yeah. And sometimes the other functionality suffers. Like, I, I really wanted to like, like a lot of my other, like, oh my, my wear OS my wear OS watches. And I had like a Withings for a while, but I feel like sometimes also kind of, as Ron mentioned, when there's a MI things like it's like the Jack of all trades and like the master of none, like even the other components, like can just suffer like exactly. I, I actually do care about heart, heart rate. And like, I, I can't, I, the only heart rate that I feel like device that I feel has been accurate is my little, not smart fitness tracker here, which has no screen, no nothing. It just does what it does. And I'm not even showing it well, but yeah, I, any kind of smart watch I've had, I've liked the idea that my heart rate is integrated with everything else, but it it's always inaccurate as, as I'll get out. So, yeah. Eh, I like, I'd love to see like multiple smart watches kind of gear to different kind of use cases. But I, it just doesn't seem like a big enough market for that. Like to split hairs that much. It just seems like, yeah, there someone's gonna be chosen. And I guess whether you want one or not is gonna be, is gonna depend on yeah. What you, whether you're a fitness person or not, or I don't know, maybe. Well, I will have to just see when the pixel watch comes out. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:51:05):
But I mean, those screenshots don't get at me wrong. It looks like a really nice smart, like wearable it's it looks really like sleek and yeah,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:14):
Like the edges have that kind of infinity, like just like the pixel phones now, or other phones have that kind of, sort of infinite like edge where it kind of falls off falls off the side. So it's, well, it says it's Beals, but yet has that kind of, of Sam, Sonny, pixel, pixel 60, you know, feeling of the screen being endless

Jason Howell (00:51:34):
Glass glass all over the edges running off there, you sides and everything. Yeah, totally. Oh, there it is. And all of its big foot blurriness <laugh> right, right. Let's see here coming up next. We're gonna talk a little bit about some app news. Let's do it. When do you have a windows machine?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:07):
I do not by choice because I'm still not I'm Alay gamer. So I have a, I have a windows

Jason Howell (00:52:11):
Machine. You have a windows lead machine. And would you want AADE apps on it?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:17):
<Laugh> no. And, and, and as a friend of the show will, will Oberg says in the title, not like this, not like this has been one of the most entertaining articles. I have a, well, if you're, if you happen to be listening, this is like one made my afternoon reading this, not in a great way, but will recently <laugh> so sorry. It's a great article will recently in, in this title or in this not like the Android apps on windows 11 review, not like this tell article gave us a review of Android apps on windows 11, which comes in the form, the Amazon app store on windows 11. Yeah. So this was announced last year. So summer last year at Microsoft windows 11 launch event, Microsoft announced kind of surprisingly that they would support Android apps on windows. And you please read world's article for the absolutely hilarious way that he describes it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:12):
But that kind of the up the downside to that very surprising upside was that it would be through the Amazon app store. And, you know, I mean, if I think maybe folks are aware that the Amazon app store was pretty interesting, what like eight, 10 years ago when it was a, a competitor to the Google PLA to the place where, which there are sorely very, very few of, but, you know, nowadays it's, it's a thing it's, it's a thing I think will phrase it very aply as an also ran, you can just say that your app store runs on the Amazon app store and that's pretty much it it's used primarily on Amazon tablets and pretty much any popular app that you'd wanna download in 2022, really can't be found on it. And if you do find it, it might be an outdated or Benin version and rewarding to, well, you're gonna be really disappointed, downloading it on your windows 11 machine, because as small as the catalog of apps are on the Amazon app store, which kind of, you know, also is not including Google apps for obvious reasons is E well, if you're disappointed already with the catalog on the Amazon app store, normally you can be even more disappointed because the windows 11 version is a subset of that.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:25):
And mm-hmm <affirmative>, I mean, if you wanna try it, go ahead. It's not, it's not gonna be, it's not gonna come pre-installed on windows 11, but you can easily download it for the Microsoft store. It's a free service. It's a little unclear though for non-US users when, and if you'll be able to access it or more when I think, but, you know, if you do download it and give it a shot, you might find, I dunno, may maybe you might take some interest in Will's observations will notes that, that this Amazon app store was sluggish, even on his quote, souped up gaming laptop. So it doesn't seem like it's running very well. And maybe to pair with that, the design is not very inspired. It's pretty perfunctory sounds like. And as kind of a already mentioned, the app selection is bad. No Google apps.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:55:09):
And apparently if you're a social media, Mediaite, Mediaite, Mediaite what Mediaite, Mediaite, Mediaite, Mediaite, you'll be a little, if you don't use TikTok, you're gonna be disappointed because TikTok is the only major social network available to the Amazon app store. Of course. And, yep. Yep. And if you were looking to kind of exercise your mobile gaming habit on windows 11, you might be a little bit sad because none of the top games are there, like among us call duty Roblox will noted that of the top paid apps in the Amazon app store on windows 11. He only recognized two, two of them, and he really only recognized the IP, not the games themselves. So again, the theme seems to be limited like per just implemented and not a lot going on in terms of selection and availability of apps. And you know, it, it's kind of disappointing.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:56:05):
I, I think I as we know, Google is trying to make a big push for large screens and Android, but there have been years of both entropy and, and Ty antipathy to deal with. So you think that windows being willing to run Android apps on their OS would be just another way to kind of circumvent this and to encourage people. But yeah, not so much. It's a, it seems like it's a lost opportunity. One of the apps that is fairly popular, well downloaded that is available on the app store is the Washington post unsurprising because of who owns a Washington post and who owns Amazon.

Jason Howell (00:56:42):
Yes. That's true. Good point. Make that connection, but you're right.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:56:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So even though windows 11 might be a good place to try out large screen Android app devices will said he tried it and it basically looks like they're doing an Instagram, they're taking the mobile app and just blowing it up.

Jason Howell (00:56:59):
Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:00):
It's it's what's that film term, when it's letter boxing, you have like letter boxing. Thank you. Yeah. It's letter boxed and it, they haven't even updated the UI to make, to, to kind of account for the fact that it might be running on desktop. And it even still has like cues, like swipe to continue on a desktop that doesn't have a touch screen. So poor showing to be fair. And, but that's,

Jason Howell (00:57:21):
That's on, that's on the developers, right.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:25):
I guess,

Jason Howell (00:57:25):
Right. Because they would be, have, have to be the ones to say, yeah, what, what device is this running on? Oh, it's wondering on a windows PC. Okay. Instead of swipe, say a wider

Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:35):
You yeah. Say, with, say

Jason Howell (00:57:38):
Click here and drag drag, drag, continue I'll squiggle over this way. Or I, I don't know whatever they say.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:45):
Yeah. Yeah. You, you do. I believe you do have to specifically support the Amazon app store. And I will say from it, it was a thing that we were all doing back when we wanted to be everywhere. And I'd say a lot of us have dropped it, so, or you just kind of ignore it until you get a user saying, Hey, like this thing looks full on, on the Amazon app store and then you either fix it or you say, nevermind, we're not supporting the app store no more the Amazon app store no more. So it, it, it is very much a dev fault thing. But I will say that I am not surprised at all from personal experience that this has maybe been left to with her and da

Jason Howell (00:58:25):
Yeah. Like how many, how many developers are going to prioritize that? Like, and that's, that's kind of like, my question is like how many people are really gonna use this, especially if the version of this that they get is so poultry, you know, in, in offering like, like it's really only as good as, as the stuff the, that people can install from it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> right. Like, and I think people would even put up with a, a poor kind of like functioning app store kind of experience if the, all the apps were there, as you know, and that's obviously not the case,

Burke (00:59:01):
Even if it was the full Amazon app store, you maybe it would be okay, but not, but it's nothing, not even a fraction of the things you get on that Google place or where you could find everything.

Ron Richards (00:59:15):
Yeah. I, I, I just, I mean, I don't know how many minutes we've been spending is any of this a surprise?

Jason Howell (00:59:19):
No, it's not. It's really not, it's not it, but Microsoft has made a deal of it. So I find that

Ron Richards (00:59:25):
Status surprise that doesn't shock me either. Like,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:28):
Yeah. It's because

Burke (00:59:30):
It's cause Microsoft won't work with Google or Google won't work with Microsoft, I think is what they were

Ron Richards (00:59:34):
Saying

Jason Howell (00:59:35):
While Google's doing its own thing. They have their Google plays store that also runs on windows 11. And I would, I would say that's the probably maybe even a little more appealing, you can install your own APAs through that, from what I understand. So, but

Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:46):
Well we Reed Will's Reed wills, saddle Berg's article for just a fun time. If you just wanna feel the shot Freud of ha haha. This really did not go well. Yeah. In terms of the Amazon app store. And also if you are just a, a tech head and you wanna side load APKs on you windows 11 and see if you can get maybe better apps, you can do that. It, you have, you have to have the Amazon app store, you have to do some other things, but will details how to do it in his article. So if you wanna try, make it work go for it otherwise. Hmm. Yeah. Then, then sound too good then sound too.

Jason Howell (01:00:21):
Yeah. Not so much not so, but it's

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:23):
Funny. It's really funny.

Jason Howell (01:00:25):
<Laugh> yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:25):
Sorry. I'm so mean.

Jason Howell (01:00:28):
All right. Ronnie got the next, I

Ron Richards (01:00:29):
Don't think you're that mean. I, anyway, so <laugh> so a little bit of blast in the past back in the day, Jason, do you remember doing lots of apps in the arena and things like that? Weather apps were such a vertical of apps that were like strong

Jason Howell (01:00:46):
Vertical,

Ron Richards (01:00:47):
The strong vertical and at the king of that vertical was dark sky, right? Yeah. And so if you've been missing dark skies, hyperlocal weather alerts ever since it was bought by apple and removed from Android well guess what your buddies over at AccuWeather they're here for you. All right. They are bringing hyper local weather alerts back to reality on Android. Although it is behind a paywall for just 1999 per year from the premium plus subscription you'll, you'll get to remove all your ads from the AccuWeather app, which is a nice feature <affirmative> but also as ACU weather alerts which gives you notifications based on weather events happening around you. And so if you are a hyperlocal weather nut, this might be your new solution on Android. So go check

Jason Howell (01:01:35):
It out. There you go. There's other free.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:01:37):
Awesome.

Ron Richards (01:01:38):
Yeah. There are people who do this for free. You can get the, I mean the weather channel I get, I don't get alerts, but I get hyper local. Like I know I can tell you what time it's gonna my radar. So yeah. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:01:48):
Oh,

Ron Richards (01:01:49):
But it's okay. This is cool hockey weather. We support you.

Jason Howell (01:01:52):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, I didn't really use the hyperlocal feature. I just know that a lot of people were really, a lot of people loved a couple years ago and dark sky went away and that was dark sky's thing. So, so there you go. Accu weather woo. Only, only $19 99 cents per year. That's all for your weather app. There you go. <Laugh> if you're a weather fan and finally Google did it after a long amount of time, you waited, you waited. You now finally have the switch to Android app on iOS. That's right. If you are locked in apples, Wald garden, and you want to switch to the green guy, but, or green girl, you know, I don't know the, the green person, there we go, and you don't know how to do it. You know, you need an app to help you do it.

Jason Howell (01:02:45):
Well, Google has created the app it's called switch to Android. It helps with importing calendars, contacts, photos, videos, but I would say probably the most important thing is that it actually walks you through the process of turning off apples. I Ms. In, in a proper way so that your text messages don't get hijacked essentially as a result. One thing that it doesn't do, and I don't even know if this is possible to do in either direction, but it would be really nice, although probably a privacy intrusion to migrate apps between platforms to say, Hey, on your, on your iPhone, you have all these apps and we've found those apps in the play store. Can we install those for you? That would be nice. It doesn't do that, but there's probably a privacy reason for that. But yeah, there you go.

Jason Howell (01:03:35):
I don't think Apple's gonna help you not yeah, they get they're they're they're not gonna, if, if privacy is a thing that apple cares about, which it is, Apple's not gonna say, Hey, developers some of you can scan the phone and see what other apps are installed. Like that seems like something that probably used to be allowed at least on Android. I'm pretty certain it was allowed at one point. Yes, it was. I don't think it's allowed anymore. And privacy has to be the reason for that. And that would be required in order to do a feature like that. So in on second thought, don't do that. <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:09):
<Laugh> that's right. Yeah. Don't don't, don't don't open. Don't let us open the box.

Jason Howell (01:04:13):
Yeah. Let's not open that box

Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:14):
Don't

Jason Howell (01:04:15):
But apples had a similar apps in September of 2015. I don't know what took Google so long. Why? Yeah. This is seven years later and Google's like, yeah, sure. We'll make it easy for people to switch or I don't know what that means, but yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:29):
Longest app review ever. Cause yeah, sorry. So whenever, so this is actually a very interesting part of kind of being on a dual platform team is that traditionally when we would and release, like, you know, we, we try to keep like mobile releases, like paired so that, you know, especially when we have, like, we want to keep feature parody on things we try to release simultaneously so that, you know, no one gets so that we can have one press release or that just so that people on all platforms can expect the same feature

Jason Howell (01:04:56):
Feature. That's great. And I applaud that effort because it always, it always irks me when I see. And I understand like some teams just like they can't, you know, they don't have the ability to, and it looks good. Bring, bring both together. Yeah. But but I can't help as, because it's usually the Android side that gets left behind, you know, for, for the iOS.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:05:16):
Oh yeah. We, we try not to, but something that's interesting is that if we, so there's always a little bit of wiggle room, but for example, previously, when we would try to like, if, especially if we had say a big marketing release where we wanted to do like a blog post with like the, like, like the, through our marketing department, sometimes a lot of releases are just, we write funny release notes and just, it goes out into the ether and, and whatever. But sometimes if it's a big feature, we'll have a big marketing push that has a specific date. So there's a lot more teams than just us involved. And a lot of, one thing that we always have taken into account is that I think at that time, iOS apps or reviews could take like a week, maybe like a, like a week.

Jason Howell (01:05:54):
Yeah. Yeah. They take long week.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:05:55):
Yeah. Long time. We do have some review now, but I think it's just maybe days if that, but I, I just think that's, that's just very interesting. So I just, I think it'd be, it'd be funny if the reason that the Google app didn't come out is that they were just in like app review limbo, which has happened. I think, I, I'm not sure if it was like at Trello or somewhere else where I think there were some policy that the, the release kept butting up against and we like the iOS devs kept trying to fix it and like resubmitting it. And they're like, no, you gotta fix this again. So I could imagine, imagine that like for seven years, just this poor dev at Google, just trying to get this out. And then finally, whoever was the Magnani Magna magnanimous person on the apple app store was like, you may go,

Jason Howell (01:06:36):
I, if that were the case and I'm I'm, you can almost serve.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:40):
I don't think so. I'm

Jason Howell (01:06:41):
Just being funny. But, but if it were, I would almost be like, holy cow, apple is like actively trying to prevent Google from like releasing this app that is intended for bringing people from apple over to Android. But that is, that's probably not what happened.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:56):
I'm just being funny, just being mean again that's and not what happens, but It

Jason Howell (01:07:00):
Would be funny, but holy moly. Yeah. I mean, it is weird that it took this long. I, I do wonder, you know, I have to imagine Google didn't prioritize it at a certain point, but like, why not? Like that's at least one more way to get people to kind of come back to your platform. Why, why would you not do that?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:18):
I, I wonder what the, maybe the numbers just, I mean

Jason Howell (01:07:20):
Maybe yeah. Maybe Googles, like yeah. People aren't leaving iOS for Android.

Ron Richards (01:07:25):
<Laugh> right. What's the game. Yeah. Like <laugh>, what's the, what's the end game here, right? Like,

Jason Howell (01:07:31):
Yeah, no one needs this app. No, one's leaving iOS for Android. Why do we need to make,

Ron Richards (01:07:36):
But

Burke (01:07:38):
That they have to have approved to apple and everything, you know? So it's like, it is, yeah. It's not an

Ron Richards (01:07:43):
Android. Well, apple can't apple can't cuz of antitrust apple. Can't not allow it. Right. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:07:49):
Yeah. For sure. I,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:50):
I assume so.

Jason Howell (01:07:51):
Yeah. Apple has controls over what they will allow these apps to do from a privacy standpoint, security and all that. So, you know, hence the, the a whole app matching thing would never happen as a result of that, but they, yeah. Apple couldn't say no, Google, you, you can't do this. Right. At least I would get, I mean, obviously they can't because Google did it,

Burke (01:08:11):
But they can drag their feet.

Jason Howell (01:08:13):
They can, yeah.

Ron Richards (01:08:13):
They can drag their

Jason Howell (01:08:14):
Feet. They can spend seven years saying, oh no. Now, you know, that's not quite right yet. No, <laugh>

Ron Richards (01:08:20):
You didn't, you didn't close that bracket. Oh, wait

Jason Howell (01:08:22):
A minute. We're not doing anything until that bracket is closed.

Ron Richards (01:08:26):
Well, listen, if you've ever used Xcode or tried to get an app out at Iowas it's I can relate. So,

Jason Howell (01:08:36):
All right, coming up next. We've got some of your feedback probably to be answered by when next week on the show. <Laugh> just kidding. All right. So AAA twit TV 3, 4, 7 show AA. I've got the first email and it is from, to who writes. I have a URL that I use for my Gmail lately. I've been receiving messages from Google that the service I've used for all these years is changing and will become a charged service in June. Since this is my personal email, I plan to remove my URL from Google slash Gmail. What I haven't found an answer for is what happens to my years of Google play purchases. If my email is no longer associated with, with Gmail, I've seen where one can share, if you have an@gmail.com address, but this account does not thank you for any help you can provide.

Jason Howell (01:09:30):
I am pretty certain what Todd is writing about was something that we talked about not too long ago on the about legacy G suite users, who for the longest time it was free. And then Google came along and said, Nope, we're gonna charge you. And then they came along again and said, all right, we're gonna make some sort of a path for you so that you don't lose everything. So I don't know if Todd, you were aware of that, but they said, and I quote, in the coming months, we're gonna provide an, an option for you to move your Nongo workspace, paid content, and most of your data to a no cost option, this new option won't include premium features like custom email or multi account management. You'll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1st, 2022. So that's a couple of months from now.

Jason Howell (01:10:14):
And prior to account suspension, we'll update the article with details in the coming months. So that tells me that, like the answer that you're looking for, we probably don't have it yet, but that Google is going to provide some sort of something so that you don't lose access to that stuff. Cause I agree. That would be really crummy if in all of this, it fizzled away and you have years and years of Google will play purchases and all this stuff that you just have to accept is going to die. I don't think Google's gonna let that happen. They're gonna allow you to transfer that data into a Gmail account of some sort. So you can have a free account tied up with it. That's my guess. Anyways, so, Hmm. Oh, and then scooter X posted a link in the chat earlier this month saying that Google has delayed when the legacy G suite users have to start paying no cost waiting list is coming. So they're actively working on this looks like now been slightly delayed June 1st. Okay. So it's the same that I, that I mentioned. So anyways, T B D sounds like, but I would be really surprised if you ended up in a situation where you have no choice, but to lose that information, I don't think Google's gonna do that, but I think we don't really have the answer yet.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:30):
So it would be a bad look.

Jason Howell (01:11:32):
Really bad luck. Yeah. Yeah. Totally

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:34):
Having passion. I upgraded. I, I, I, I, I was weak. I, I just,

Jason Howell (01:11:39):
You, you gave in and so what, what is the cost for you? If you don't mind me asking,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:43):
It's actually nothing for now. There's like an introductory period. I should have actually, now that I mentioned it, I should have taken more note about what I just paid for. But I think actually free for some months. I there's, there's like a free period. And then it was, I wanna say it was under $50 cuz I, I just it's just me. It was for my LLC when I was like self-employed yeah. So it's just a user of me. So it's not very expensive at all because you know, these kind of things are always kind of user it it's per user paid. So it's not that bad. I wanna say it's like under a hundred dollars a month, but I could be totally off base. I will let you know. Y'all know next week I, I will actually re I will re I will argue lot. I will forensically figure out what I did and report back next week. Cuz I don't remember. And I should remember it for the show. I was just like, after I I'd kind of like succumbed to the pressure and done it all. I was like,

Jason Howell (01:12:29):
No, no, no, no, no. It's all good made story. I can't help, but get hung up on a hundred dollars a month. That sounds like a lot of money.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:35):
Oh no, not a hundred dollars a month. I said a year, a year year.

Jason Howell (01:12:38):
Oh, okay. Okay. A hundred a, I do that a lot. Sorry.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:39):
Hundred a year under a hundred dollars a year. It was not. Okay.

Jason Howell (01:12:42):
Sorry. I was like, that's not that's not that's significant.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:45):
No, I would've been like, nah, nevermind. Just take it. I'll take my data. I don't care. I'll start over. Start.

Jason Howell (01:12:49):
Like there are many things that I pay a hundred dollars a month for that's for sure. So, oh no,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:53):
No, no. I'm sorry. I, I misspoke. Thank you for recording that I was about to be

Jason Howell (01:12:57):
Like, it's all good. I was a little worried. I was like, oh boy, Todd. I don't know what to tell you. <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:01):
Oh dear. My pockets are not that deep. Nevermind. Sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My bad. Okay.

Jason Howell (01:13:07):
All good. Well, there you go, Todd.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:09):
Well, well in other kind of subscription type news, I know we talked very recently about was that, that last week we talked about the new deal that Google one has with T-Mobile. And so we have Martin F from Chicago writing to talk about that. So I'm a Google one subscriber and was very curious about T-Mobile's new deal with Google Google from,

Jason Howell (01:13:32):
Oh my,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:33):
Oh my God. Sorry. It all downhill from here. You guys, <laugh> sorry, Google for unlimited storage. Then I looked at the prices and it's like the whole thing doesn't make sense. They're offering two terabytes, an unlimited storage for $15 a month, but Google one already offers two terabytes of storage for 9 99 a month. Why would I pay an extra $5 a month, $80 a year or so for the same thing? The only thing I can think of is that these T-Mobile plans are for people who plan to keep all their photos, videos, and files on their phones for people like me who feel that storing our memories on Google photos is a much more secure option. This plan is essentially a NoGo even if I had T-Mobile, which I don't

Huyen Tue Dao (01:14:14):
And yeah, Martin, I, I, I think it's a good point to make that really. It's not, I mean, I guess it, it, it is a good question. How much does the unlimited storage matter to you? And I, I mean, I used to, when I previously, I, I did like a YouTube to an where I did a lot of video work interviewing other Andrew dev devs. And I, I actually did use my drive a lot to share I things with people and it was the closest I ever got to getting over or towards two terabytes. And I think that was a really like weird case. And I, I remember kind of, I bought like, I think I upgraded my Google one or Google drive towards the time to like really high. And even that I kind of had Trump will filling out. So I I'm with you. I think, I think the allure of unlimited storage is very interesting, but it's maybe is it, I, I don't know, like, do do people actually look at their usage and say, Hey, like, you know, maybe I just want the unlimited storage and never have to think about it or do people actually kind of like audit their usage and say, Hey, take terabytes. It's fine. I don't know. I don't what the average use case is.

Ron Richards (01:15:13):
The, the, the, but the, but I think the big, the big difference here, at least in, in, in what Martin's pointing out is that for 9 99, you get two terabytes of storage. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> through Google one. Right, right. Period. Right. And that storage include photos on Google photos, but you, you stop at two terabytes. The 1599 T-Mobile offer is two terabytes of storage for Gmail and Google drive and unlimited storage on Google photos. Yeah. So it's too it's and, and, and Jason, hun, correct me if I'm wrong, if us reading it, but it's like, it's two terabytes plus unlimited.

Jason Howell (01:15:56):
That's my understanding too.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:15:57):
Yeah. That's okay. That

Ron Richards (01:15:58):
Was, so is that worth the additional five bucks? Yeah. Possibly depends on how much photos you.

Jason Howell (01:16:03):
Yeah. It really depends on how many photos you're taking. Like I, I'm looking at my Google photos right now and I'm, I'm hardly, you know, I'm, I'm like 170 gigs and I've, I'm put a ton of photos up in that storage. Nowhere close to two terabytes. So I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:16:20):
I's what I'm wondering. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:16:21):
How, how much, how much content are you putting in the cloud that you're getting close?

Ron Richards (01:16:25):
Two. Right now on my, so I'm, I'm paying the nine, the 9 99 for Google. One storage with I'm not even paying no, actually I'm not even paying that. What am I paying? What, what deal do I have? I have, what am I paying? I'm paying the 200 gigabyte per year. Right. So I don't even, I don't even have the two terabytes of storage and I'm looking at my storage. And I have all my photos, all my kids, all that sort of stuff. I've got 90 gig on Google photos.

Jason Howell (01:16:53):
Wow. Yeah.

Ron Richards (01:16:54):
So,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:16:55):
Yeah. So I, so, so as I mentioned, I upgraded, I have four terabytes of storage from when I was doing video and even so I have grossly overestimated what I use and maybe because I don't really do much of the YouTube interviews anymore that I, I don't need to share as much video I'm using. <Laugh> 383 gig gigabytes of four terabytes. I should downgrade.

Jason Howell (01:17:16):
Oh my goodness. Yeah. You should definitely downgrade. Cause you can always regrade again later. Yeah. You just throwing money away. I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:23):
Just throw money away. You're throwing money away right now and it's not insignificant. I actually look this up. It's like, yeah. Like, and upgrading is like the next level up. And, and so this is where I understand the next level up. So if you get, I think was it premium? So I only looked at the premium one, but premium. If you just pay for the year, two terabytes is a hundred bucks a year to, to sort of, to get to five terabytes. It's like more than double it's like one, 150%. It's it's one and a half more. So, so I get, yeah. So I guess like, I don't know, like maybe, so this is obviously there's some kind of onus on the user to actually see what they're using and see, see if it's worth it. Yeah, totally. Dang. I should down. Oh my gosh. I should down.

Ron Richards (01:18:02):
I mean, Go ahead. What I think, what I think is fascinating here is that not only do I have 90 gig Google photos, but I've got 3.37 gig in Gmail.

Jason Howell (01:18:14):
Oh yeah.

Ron Richards (01:18:15):
Which, which is an account that literally I've had since, oh, when did they open up Gmail? When like 2003, 2004. Right. So like, what is, what is, how do, how do I get rid of that three gig? Like, I don't want that, like, that's crazy.

Jason Howell (01:18:36):
Yeah. I mean, I guess how do you get rid of that three gig? I, I guess you go through and you delete all your email. I mean,

Ron Richards (01:18:43):
I'm, I'm, I'm searching has attachment <laugh>. I mean like what else could, what else can you do? Like any, any email with an attachment I wanna see.

Jason Howell (01:18:50):
Yeah. And sort old to new. Yeah. Right. And then just work with your old stuff and be like, do I really need this? Yeah. Custom.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:58):
Right. I be, yeah, I've got, I've got 4.7 gigabytes, gigabytes or gigabytes in my Gmail run. I be, I don't even, how do you

Jason Howell (01:19:05):
Find that? Wow. How do you know? How much, how do you even do that? How, how do you find that, that stat

Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:09):
Go to, if you, so I'm a, in the Google apps, Google one app. And if I go to storage Yeah. I can see where specifically it is.

Jason Howell (01:19:18):
Oh, that's great. So I go into one app. Okay.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:20):
Yeah. The one app, the one thing that I've ever opened this app for is to see if I'm wasting my money. The answer is yes. Y'all <laugh>

Jason Howell (01:19:28):
Yes. I have 17 and a half gigs in G know,

Ron Richards (01:19:33):
Wait,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:33):
Did you say 17 and a half? Oh,

Jason Howell (01:19:35):
You. Oh. Oh. So this is actually telling me more that, okay. So I revise my what I said earlier, because this actually breaks it down. I was opening up Google photos and going from the number there, but that's my total photo usage or my total file storage usage. Google is, I only have 113 gigs, Gmail. Ah, oh, 17 and a half Google drive. I got around 40 gigs. And then, yeah. And that's basically about it. Oh,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:02):
Oh. Y'all I'm not wasting my money. So I just hit the downgrade option. Let me see if, if I have any, okay. So I just had the downgrade option, Uhhuh, hold on. Gotta refocus. And so, or I must have gotten on some old plan. That was four terabytes because, sorry. I'm so sorry. Y'all on the that's okay. My screen, where is it? I

Jason Howell (01:20:22):
Feel like I'm not wearing my glasses right now. There we go.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:25):
Okay. It's hard to see, but this is the downgrades downgrade options. Uhhuh. My plan is not in here. My plan is not in here, so, oh, I apparently am paying 9 99. I'm paying the two terabyte price for four. Cuz if I look in my storage,

Jason Howell (01:20:40):
Yeah, cuz 99 99 is two terabytes and you're getting four out of it. Four. Oh. So you're getting a deal.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:47):
I got a deal. So I'm not wasting my money. You all, I just got

Jason Howell (01:20:50):
Grand other grand. Well let's, let's go back a little bit. You might still be wasting your money because if you're paying, wasting your money, because if you actually don't need all that storage space and you're spending 99 bucks a year instead of 30 bucks a year, I mean on she's a developer. Yeah. Anyways.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:07):
Thanks. But now I promise am, but I'm not wasting as much as I thought.

Jason Howell (01:21:11):
There you go. Yeah. You're getting more value out of the same amount of money that you're wasting <laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:18):
Yes.

Jason Howell (01:21:20):
OK. This was a fun little hole to go down. Probably should have been the email of the week. Caught him off guard.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:29):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:21:30):
Yeah. He's he's grunting right now. <Laugh> it's not working. You don't even get a fake email of the week horns slash drum. Roll Martin. Sorry about that. There we go. <Laugh>

Ron Richards (01:21:43):
How about we actually do the,

Jason Howell (01:21:46):
I don't know. Burke might

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:49):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:21:50):
Can you hear break button? I can feel that

Ron Richards (01:21:55):
Burke is fall asleep.

Jason Howell (01:21:57):
Gonna look there's a square <laugh> I have a feeling this could be entered into post. Oh. So we could just assume that there is an you email of the week to sound. Okay. There we go. Okay. All right. Good enough. Well,

Ron Richards (01:22:17):
Our first, our, our only email of the week,

Jason Howell (01:22:21):
This week comes

Huyen Tue Dao (01:22:22):
<Laugh>

Ron Richards (01:22:23):
Comes, comes from Benjamin, who did not tell us where he is writing in from. And he says in all about Android episode 5 73, Ron was talking about needing to have a can of compressed air to clean the charging port. It reminded me of a story of mine. I had a pixel two XL that refused to charge on occasion and the USB plug no longer had enough friction to hold itself in. Sometimes it would just fall out side note, Benjamin Ben Benjamin been there. I've had phones like that. Where when, when the cable just falls out, it's maddening anyway, mm-hmm <affirmative> so Benjamin says, I thought the port was just worn out, but I found that pocket link lint gets into the port. After some Googling the act of plugging it in over time, packs the lint down into the connector and no amount of compressed air is gonna free.

Ron Richards (01:23:05):
It, the only way to remove the lint is to get a small needle or pin and fish it out. I was astonished at how much lint came out of the connector. I had no idea that was possible after fishing it out of the PL after Phish it all out, the plug was like brand new. Since then I fixed multiple friends phones this way. I just thought I'd bring up the story. Because in my experience, it seems like a common, an issue with USB type C connectors on smartphones due to them resigning in pockets. And not a lot of people know about it. If any, if anyone out there thinks their port needs to be replaced, try this method first, it could save you a lot of money. Good. And Benjamin is absolutely correct. The compressed, there is a great first step. Your second step is some sort of probe like thing that in there and scrape stuff out. Just be careful. You don't do too much and great tip in the chat room of scooter X to use a toothpick. I've also used the toothpick. Cool. That is very handy, cuz it's not conducive. And it helps you get in there. So yeah.

Jason Howell (01:24:00):
Yeah, we, it won't be conductive, so yeah. You don't wanna damage your port, either your phone at all. So we use that wood toothpick. If you're gonna do this, that's the way to go. Thank you, scooter X for that Burke whispered in my ear or it was kind of like a grunt in my ear that he has something to add onto this

Burke (01:24:19):
Compress air is absolutely the worst thing you can do to almost every device. You want to blow things out of your devices, not into the devices, no matter what.

Jason Howell (01:24:27):
Well, that's true. If you've got a port and you, you point compressed air into the port to blow the stuff out, like it's not gonna come out cuz you're blowing it in. Well,

Burke (01:24:36):
It might, it might come out, but chances are, it's gonna go farther in too depend. All depends on the Jack. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:24:41):
If there's, you know, closed Jack. Yeah. Yeah.

Burke (01:24:44):
It's just not a great idea. If it comes down to the fact that you can't use the phone ever, if you can't use the port, then, then that's

Jason Howell (01:24:50):
A different story.

Burke (01:24:51):
Maybe it sounds like this is, but I was cringing. When you said that last week

Ron Richards (01:24:55):
I saw, I saw you in our, in our chat behind, but I've listened compressed. There is a handy tool and gets stuff out of there. Oh,

Jason Howell (01:25:00):
Oh

Burke (01:25:00):
Wait. Oh. And there's another thing. The cold, like you, you could literally destroy things with how cold stuff get it's with compressed

Jason Howell (01:25:08):
Air. Oh yeah.

Ron Richards (01:25:09):
Oh, well

Jason Howell (01:25:09):
Including

Burke (01:25:10):
Plastic. I'm just saying

Ron Richards (01:25:11):
Right? No. fair. But you shouldn't be doing it to the point where you're, you're setting the cold along. You're the, the, I, there's a way. That's why it comes with the little straw people.

Burke (01:25:20):
Don't the way to use it. Super easy to do it. That's

Ron Richards (01:25:22):
All. And don't hold it upside down. That's a big, that's a big key to it too. So

Jason Howell (01:25:25):
It makes it colder if you hold it upside <affirmative> yes. Oh, interesting.

Ron Richards (01:25:30):
If you hold compressed air upside down and shoot it out because you're pushing the liquid air to the, to the thing sooner rather than going through the whole system and out that's what we used to do. I used to do it at work all the time. Cause we'd have compressed air in the repair shop when I fixed computers back in the nineties and you, you to sneak up to somebody, turn the compressor upside down and spray it on their neck and it would freeze their neck.

Jason Howell (01:25:53):
<Laugh> oh, that's just me horrible.

Ron Richards (01:25:56):
I was a teenager. I'm

Jason Howell (01:25:57):
Not the mean hilarious when it's not happening to you.

Speaker 9 (01:26:03):
So

Ron Richards (01:26:03):
These are the things we do when we're, when you're bored in a computer repair shop.

Jason Howell (01:26:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Fair. That's awesome. Love it. Oh goodness. Okay. B BA, there you go. Email the week. Thank you for writing in and congratulations. You, you got the special email of the week. B bye. There we go. Right. We have reached the end of this episode of all about Android and well, you know, it always is. It's always a lot of fun, but I love the tangents that we got into, especially near the end of this episode today, a ton of fun when, what you got going on in your life in your career, you know, anything you wanna talk?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:26:44):
Yeah. I have a few things coming up. I can't talk about 'em just yet, but when they do happen, you can find out about them on Instagram and Twitter. By following me at queen code monkey and I have been known to give technical talks and do things of this nature in regards to Andrew development. And you can find those materials talks and videos at my website, randomly typing.com

Jason Howell (01:27:08):
Right on. Thank you. Thank you, always good having you here. And then of course, Ron, what you wanna talk about?

Ron Richards (01:27:18):
Not much you can just go follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at Ron XO where you can see my little slice of social media heaven that I don't post through that much, that often, cuz I've been fighting this cold for what seems like a month. And then also head over to gobi.io, check out all the fun stuff going on with pinball. Over there, you can find us in the Google play store just search for Gobi. And if you wanna keep track of your pinball scores, do fun. Cool other did pinball stuff score bits, what you wanna do. So Hey, I'm tired.

Jason Howell (01:27:49):
<Laugh> well, thank you. Regardless

Ron Richards (01:27:54):
One day being

Jason Howell (01:27:55):
Trooper Ron. Yeah. Trucking through it all. Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> let's see here. Big, thanks to Victor and Burke, both in the studio, both doing different things. Victor of course, you know, managing all the behind the scenes stuff to get this podcast into your ears and into your eyeballs. After the fact Burke behind the board pushing buttons that don't work. And occasionally whoa, the, the buttons work now apparently does that mean that if I say email the week it'll actually play? No.

Ron Richards (01:28:27):
Why is the button of a moaning cat? I

Jason Howell (01:28:29):
Don't know. I've never, these sounds are not in the right profile in a cat. <Laugh> that's all I got. We've invaded a different show. Apparently <laugh> you guys could just see back here when brick was just doing, it was like a kinda shades of a you know, that scene is Lander. I, I don't know if you they trying to get into the computer.

Speaker 9 (01:28:51):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:28:54):
He's just hitting every, every button here. Like anything, everything. I dunno. Just do something. Okay. Right. Stop. Stop that. I can't take it anymore. Cats. Cats may be neat and all, but I can't take them screaming into my ears. All right. Well that's birth. There we go. That is per thanks for that. Find me at Jason. How on Twitter? Doing tech news weekly with mic a Sergeant every Thursday. So check for that twi.tv/t N w and producing a whole bunch of shows for Leo in between there as well. Don't forget club TWI, twi.tv/club TWI. You haven't forgotten, but in case you, you're not remembering it's our ad-free subscription tier all of our shows, no ads. You also get of twit plus podcast feed content, like for instance, today's show is going to include a pre-show discussion on Majong. Yeah, it just is, it was a lot of fun.

Jason Howell (01:29:51):
So we're gonna put it in there. You also get access to the members only discord $7 per month at twi.tv/club it, and by the way, we just launched annual pricing. So for yeah, seven bucks a month, also $84 per year, you can get a whole year of club to it. As for this show, twit TV slash AA is the show page on the web where you can go to subscribe audio, video formats jump out to YouTube. If that's your preference, all that can be found on our place in, on the web TWI TV slash AA. We do this show every Tuesday evening. So if you're subscribed, then you're gonna wake up Wednesday morning and it's gonna be waiting for you and you're not gonna have the work to find it or anything. It's just gonna be just like presented on a silver platter for you in your podcast catcher. So do that. We hope that you'll subscribe and we hope that we'll see you next time on all about Android. Take care everybody.

Speaker 10 (01:30:49):
Bye.

Speaker 11 (01:30:54):
Hey, I'm rod pile editor of ad Astra magazine. And each week I'm joined by TARC Malik, the editor inchi over@space.com in our new this weekend's space podcast, every Friday tar and I take a deep dive into the stories that define the new space age what's NASA up to when will Americans, once again set foot on the moon. And how about those samples in the perseverance Rover? When are those coming home? What the heck is Elon must done now, in addition to all the latest and greatest and space exploration will take an occasional look at bits of space flight history that you probably never heard of and all with an eye towards having a good time along the way. Check us out in your favorite podcast. Catcher