All About Android 581, 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-host Huyen Tue Dao and Ron Richards. And we have a lot of news for you this week. Pixel feature drop just happened. Also includes access for Pixel phones for a music creation app. It's a little weird USB-C all the way in the EU coming up in a couple of years, Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 6a for sale on Facebook Marketplace, even though they're not even out yet kind of crazy stuff, Meet and Duo combined to create the mullet of video conferencing apps. And Bixby invades the feedback section up next on All About Android!

Narrator (00:00:41):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:00:49):
This episode of All About Android is brought to you by Trade Coffee. Right now, trade is offering new subscribers, a total of $30 off your first order. Plus free shipping. When you go to drinktrade.com/aaa, that's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz and let trade find you a coffee you'll love. Hello, and welcome to All About Android. This is episode 581 recorded on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022. Your weekly source for latest this news, hardware and apps for the Android faithful. I'm Jason Howell!

Ron Richards (00:01:25):
And they call me Ron Richards. They do

Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:29):
<Laugh> and I'm Huyen Tue Dao

Jason Howell (00:01:30):
They call you Huyen it's good to see you. Welcome back Huyen, Hey,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:34):
I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back.

Jason Howell (00:01:36):
Yes, indeed.

Ron Richards (00:01:37):
It's good to have you back. Yeah, good to back.

Jason Howell (00:01:41):
<Laugh> I feel like that you all too. I feel like my brain is a little scrambled. Our pre-show we're playing around with an app that we're gonna talk about. <Laugh>

Ron Richards (00:01:49):
Our pre-show was a, was an adventure.

Jason Howell (00:01:51):
It was an adventure for a number of reasons, but this app that we're gonna talk about here in a few minutes, I feel like it's kind of broken me a little bit, cuz I have these weird little patterns skipping through my head and I don't know if I like it. I don't know if I like this kind of pattern that's that's going nonstop in my head, but we have a, actually a pretty decent rundown of, of stories this week. New, the news gods were good for us this year, this week and the world

Ron Richards (00:02:19):
Last cuz last week they made us work for

Jason Howell (00:02:21):
It. Yes, exactly.

Ron Richards (00:02:23):
Yeah. I dunno. I don't know if you watched or I, I listened. Yeah, I listened <laugh> yeah, it was, it was rumor Palooza, It was feedback Palooza, It was like Jason and Ron vamping for an hour 20. Yeah. <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:35):
Yeah, it was fun,

Jason Howell (00:02:36):
But it all worked out as it usually does. So but we do actually have some pretty good news to talk about. So why don't we get to talking about it? Burke, I, I hope you're ready for this <laugh> it's time for the news.

Burke (00:02:51):
I'm just gonna have to say that it must have been the teenage engineering app also that

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:55):
Scrambled <laugh> yeah. Letting me

Jason Howell (00:02:58):
Maybe that's what, what happened? Maybe this app that we're gonna talk about here in a second actually broke the TriCaster. Like it, it was, it was like a QR code, but an audible QR code that actually hacked our TriCaster. We'll never know, but anyways, Huyen I don't wanna steal your thunder, so go for it. Well,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:14):
Yeah. Well, I mean, well with this first story, we actually probably could get a beat drop for this feature drop for the June, 2022 feature drop for Pixel 4 and above and just right off the bat, let's talk about this thing. Very unusually for a feature drop is the pocket operator for pixel. So the pocket operator is actually an app that was done in collaboration with teenage engineering. Is it teenage engineer, engineer engineering? I think I wrote that down on teenage engineering. Yeah, teenage engineering. You got it. I'm not a musical person or a musician. So I don't know if, if this is like a well known company, but they're a Swedish consumer electronics company known for kind of wireless audio devices and synthesizer sequences and sequences, sequencers and samplers. And one of their products is actually a physical device called a pocket operator, which is basically a small ultra portable music device, which promises to do quality sound and flexibility to make music on the go.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:07):
Well, guess what? They've taken that. And they've made an app out of it with Google. And so that's, if you were fortunate enough to be on the live stream before the show started <laugh> oh boy, that is, that is what you're hearing the Pocket Operator. So it's basically an app that allows you to either import or record your own video and with a little ML and other magic. It actually seems to like take the audio from the video and the video file itself and kind of try to break it up into mixable sequencable clips throws in some like different tracks and, and other kind of effects and yeah, you can make music just like the beautiful beats that, what, what was

Jason Howell (00:04:46):
That? I don't know, puppet it, what, this is a, this is a section of the app that I don't know that I had what had found

Ron Richards (00:04:54):
It looks it's a game.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:55):
Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:04:56):
Yeah. Well there is something called like a chaos pad or it's a, it's like a midi control pad and, and so it changes the X, Y coordinates, depending on where this is. So you assign that to different effects and it does different things. So I I'm imagining that's what this is, but

Ron Richards (00:05:09):
Yeah. So yeah, for our audio listeners, Jason is holding the app and on the, the upper portion of the app is a video. And the bottom portion of the app is, is previously in the pre show. When we're looking at it was the controls where you could tap on, oh, my notes, or, or instruments or stuff like that. Now it's a series of colors. Oh, look

Jason Howell (00:05:25):
At that. Oh, just figured out, oh, something new on the, if

Ron Richards (00:05:28):
You tap, if you tap on the, the far left and right. Of it, it swipes between the controls. Okay. And so the first screen is interesting, a series of instruments, you know, guitar draw is those are drums, right? Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:05:40):
Yeah. That's like the drum pad and then over here

Ron Richards (00:05:43):
Got, and then those are the notes. And then, and then there's a mini PADD of block of colors and things like that. This is fascinating. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:49):
Yeah. It's, it's a very unusual Android app. It's very free form. It's, it's nothing like a typical Android app that actually, you know, is for everyday kind of things. It it's very freeform. It it's really bright and colorful, which I think jives with the Teenage Engineering's like aesthetic a lot of their devices are like hyper like colored and very kind of like I don't know teenage engineering kind of like encapsulates this kind of feeling of like very youthful and very fond and very like colorful, which I think, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So for people on the video stream, you can actually see, this is the actual pop, like the, the tangible pocket operator. So they're really brightly colored, lots of different colors. And it's really meant to be like this, like portable music creation and it's kind of cool to see them bring it to Android.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:35):
It's a very atypical app. I would, I would not even know how, where to start with this. It is a little confusing, but I think it's really cool because, you know, it's trying to blend a lot of things that Google does. Like, I, I think there's definitely some machine learning in it because it's actually parsing the video file and creating, like for example, Jason coughed and it created like modulated versions of it in like a Dore me FA scale. I use it to similar effect and yeah. <Laugh> and it allows you to basically mix and match. There's like multiple tracks and you can export this. And yeah, I mean, it's part of the feature drop in June for the June feature drop. It's more of like

Burke (00:07:15):
Software emulation of their hardware device that they

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:17):
Make. Yeah, I think so. 

Burke (00:07:20):
To me at least,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:22):
Yeah. I mean, it, it, it definitely is interesting. I, if you go to keyword, which is the Google blog they have this whole like flashy, like feature drop video. So it, it kind of, I feel like it's blending in with trying to make pixel fun and like, I don't know, well designed, you know, kind of hip and like brightly collared and, and energetic

Jason Howell (00:07:43):
Share. So maybe it's like something that's shareable share, you can export the video and the audio and share it online. And yeah, teenage engineering, I mean, in the audio realm has, has definitely has some credibility for being incredibly unique and creative with their tools and, and and everything. And also, you know, like that portability factor. So the idea of their hardware ending up on something that's already portable, your smartphone actually makes a lot of sense. It is a little confusing, I will admit. And like, I'm a musician I've played with a lot of different, you know, pieces of software audio software and everything like that. It's, it's not impossible to learn something like this, but it's, it's kind of interesting to me that this kind of an app was bundled in with or bundled in with the announcement of mm-hmm <affirmative> the pixel feature drop, because this is not the kind of app that applies to everybody. This is a very well, very niche product.

Ron Richards (00:08:39):
You know, I have two thought, I have two thoughts about that. First, the first thought I have is we talked about this in the pre-show like, I like, they include this in the feature drop. Right? Yeah. It's a weird to your point niche thing that only, you know, like a subset of the population will get people like us will play with it and be like, oh, that's weird. And that sort of thing, but put weird stuff in, show us what it can do. I mean, you know, Huyen you said it, you said it, that it's probably is using machine learning of it's Google, of course it's using machine learning. Right? Yeah. And so it's showing off some fun aspect of it and, and I think that's, I think that's neat. There's something like this in every, in every feature drop that's cool. But then secondarily Jason, to your point, this is the kind of thing where like, I feel like we go to an event and we see someone DJing with this app.

Jason Howell (00:09:21):
Yeah. Right. And, and that's, and that's when you go, oh

Ron Richards (00:09:25):
Yeah, they're doing their whole thing and they're just tapping their phone and they're doing it. And then like, I go home and I try to do it and I cannot replicate it at all. And I respect that, you know, that's really cool. It's like, it's like, it reminds me when, when, when the tablets came out and there were, you know, you had tablet DJs for the first time. And like, I, you know, I like music. I've, I've, I've, I've attempted to DJ over the years and I downloaded the tablet, DJ apps and tried to do it. Like I saw my friend do it. I'm like, oh, I can't do this. And so it shows that, you know, it's not the tool so much as the person using the tool, you know? Yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and so I, I think that's pretty cool. So I like, I like everything about this,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:00):
So, no, you're right. It's very aspirational. Like, I, I mean, like a lot of the apps I've worked on are pretty, I wouldn't say boring, but very practical. Like I've worked on grocery store apps in my life and like, you know, things like of this nature, which are helpful, but not aspirational. And yeah, maybe this is like a way to take kind of all the elements that Google's been working on from ML to design, to other things and say, Hey, like, you know, this is where we can, this is what we can do with like, you know, mobile processing and mobile experiences, not just like, you know other wonderful things that we'll talk about in a little bit that are a little more practical, but yeah. It is like aspirational and, and, you know actually Jason found, I think you, you found like a pre-made one that sounds a lot more like someone had time and <laugh>

Jason Howell (00:10:44):
Well, yeah, the, the one that, that ships with it is like, oh, yeah. Is the demo. And I mean, it, it sounds like a, you know, it's, it's got like an actual, like, quality to it that isn't just total randomness you <laugh>. Yeah. But yeah, but it's still, but still, like, I have no idea what it does. Like

Ron Richards (00:11:06):
Here's the, here's the thing, what else is in, what else is in the pixel drop? Yeah. Are talking about any of it? Well, no, no, no. That was a, there was a rhetorical question. I mean, like of all the things in the pixel drop, like cool shortcut for COVID vaccine card store, a device. Neat. Yeah. You know, the lock screen shows a video feed. Cool. Did you see this cool music sequencing app? That, that, I mean like that, like this got us talking about the feature drop. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:11:30):
That's fair. No, that's really fair. That's really fair. Especially since, by the way just to get serious for a second, the vaccine proof thing that you can download locally to your device, it's not actually shared is only for certain countries and only for certain healthcare providers, by the way. But you know, if your healthcare provider in, if you're in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Jersey, I just bypass the fact that I actually uploaded like a song. And now I get to like, just walk, walk, like talk after you don't have to see playing my song. I'm not playing my song. Sorry, let me start that over. So yes. What are the other, what are the actual feature pixel features in the feature drop and not a whole like amazing aspirational and absolutely insane. Music creation is vaccine proof from your home screen.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:14):
It's interesting because this is only available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Jersey, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the UK, and the us, and only through supported health services. So basically if you get either a vaccination or a test through a supporting provider, say, example Walgreens in the us, you can actually go to that provider's website, presumably, and be, and from your like electronic results hit, save to phone, it will save it to your phone. Now this is a local copy only. So it's not like it's saved to the cloud. If you had multiple devices, for some reason, you, and you wanted your COVID COVID vaccination or test results on multiple devices, you have to do it manually, but there you go, a very practical thing, but way less fun than the the pocket operator, for sure. <Laugh> yeah, but if, if you happen to be using like any of the listed providers on the Google support page for the COVID vaccin vaccination proof, you can get it on your phone. Other things like Ron mentioned at a glance is getting some new features. If you have a nest doorbell, you can see the feed right from your lock screen. I like that. I wish I, I do like that a lot. I, yeah. Did a and we have unify and I wish I had that as well, just because sometimes someone rings the doorbell and you're just like trying to figure it out. Look,

Jason Howell (00:13:30):
Look, gotta unlock, gotta jump in there. Hit the live

Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:32):
Feed. Yeah. So there you have that. If you are a nest doorbell user, you can, I actually am really excited about the flashlight reminder. So if you have left your flashlight on at a glance, we'll show you that it's on and give you a shortcut to turn off. My husband will really like this because I tend to leave the flashlight on and then talk to him with my phone and turn to him, <laugh> with the flashlights still on. So this is absolutely a feature that I will use. And very soon, also very practical, but very much sad. You will get air quality alerts on, at a glance as well, which you know, for our friends in well for us in California and Colorado is probably gonna be really important the summer big time. So yes, so that will also soon be available on your, at a glance if you are in us, the us, Australia and India.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:19):
Okay. So laundry is a bunch of other things to celebrate pride month, you're getting a trio of really beautiful, bright and bold news sorry. Wallpapers made by Jan bastard, a Spanish born illustrator who collabos Google on those. If you are using these sound amplifier app, which is an app that is specifically designed for people with hearing loss, to kind of amplify and filter the important sounds with you for around you, there's gonna be a conversation mode that uses machine learning to actually, if you're having conversations with someone and you point the camera at them, the sound amplifier will use both the audio information and the visual information that you're giving the app through the camera to basically filter out, to, to kind of focus in on the voice of the person you're talking to, which is pretty awesome. Yes. 

Ron Richards (00:15:04):
That's very cool. That's very

Huyen Tue Dao (00:15:05):
Cool. That is really awesome. And then real tone filters are now live in Google photos and it is using the open source monk skin say monk skin tone scale, which was talked about at Google IO during the keynote. Yeah. Big and wow. There are a lot of really practical, but slightly, you know, less fun features because you're also gonna get car crash detection in Canada. Now this was release previously I think in beta in the us, but basically your, your phone will be able to tell when you've had a serious car crash and automatically call emergency services for you in the us report is 9 1 1. And I I'm sorry, Canadian friends, I have no idea what the equivalent would be, but you're getting that as well on your pixel and live translate is adding support for a few more languages, traditional Chinese Dutch, Korean tie, and Turkish on your pixel six and six pro. So those, those are your features.

Jason Howell (00:15:56):
Those a pretty solid drop. I have to say

Huyen Tue Dao (00:15:58):
Very solid, very solid, some like practical and then the absolutely insane, ridiculous and fun pocket operator. I feel like it actually is a good balance because there's a lot of very practical yeah. Super serious kind of things that you need and then here for, for, for, for the lulls and for the joy of life. Here's your podcast. Totally.

Jason Howell (00:16:15):
Yes

Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:16):
<Laugh>. And then along with the feature update, you also are going to get your June security patch and bug fixes. And just in general, this is going to be the release of Q P R three. The quarterly quarterly pixel release is that I can't remember what acronyms it's been a long day, quarterly, quarterly pixel release three has been released along with the security patches and feature drops. And that brings the Android 12 beta program officially to an end. Now with Android 13 on, on deck, after you get your June update, you can either manually opt out the bitta program without having to data, wipe your phone, or you can wait to be automatically unenrolled in the following weeks. So yeah, you will need to opt out of the Android 12 beta before the Android 13 beta hits. And it seems that the Android 13 beta will kind of mirror this year is in run until next year, June, 2023. So, so

Jason Howell (00:17:09):
About this time next year. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:11):
So about next time's here. So what a bang to end the Android 12 beta program with, you've got QPR three, you've got your security and bug fixes, and you've got a whole bunch of both useful and fun features for your June, 2022.

Jason Howell (00:17:25):
So there you go. Yeah. I, I, I've already seen people on, on articles written about that teenage engineering app talking about like wildly for pixels. This should be for all phones.

Ron Richards (00:17:34):
See, there it is. There's the, I mean, there's the value add for the pixel drop for the free feature drop, right? Yeah. This is smart. This is a smart move. Yeah. You know, now next feature drop, do some sort of like video editing thing or do like, like you just do you do a type of app that caters to a niche audience. I mean, you wanna show why, why you need to buy a pixel. There you go.

Jason Howell (00:17:55):
So, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's good. All

Ron Richards (00:17:59):
Right. All right. So, so some cool news followed by some downer news. We talked on the show recently about how RCS spam in India has gotten outta hand. And now actually Google is disabling RCS ads in the country. And Google said, quote, we are aware that some businesses are abusing our anti anti spam policies to send promotional members to users in India. We're disabling this feature in India while we work with the industry to improve the experience for users. And if you're wondering, how are they sending ads via RCS? They're actually sent via RCS business messaging feature where verified businesses can send media rich messages to customers, which, you know, believe it or not, if you like it or not. SMS marketing is a huge industry. I, in this country, as well as gotta imagine worldwide. I mean, like there's a bunch of, you know, vendor like Ben Sherman, the closed company, like I signed up for text message for them. They send media media rich thing. So like, this is a legitimate function when not when used correctly and not abused.

Jason Howell (00:19:02):
Right. Not abused.

Ron Richards (00:19:02):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And India is Google's biggest market by number of users. And then with, you know, with all of the efforts around RCS, this is a bit of a setback because it's just a strike against it where people can be like, oh, well, RCS is bad because it can, you know, it can be, you know, spa, it can be used to send spam and all this sort of stuff. I think they're gonna, they're gonna get it under control and figure it out. It's Google it's early in RCS is life. I'm not that spooked by it, but this is the kind of thing where click bait headlines will happen and, and, and chew it up. Sure, sure.

Jason Howell (00:19:34):
Absolutely.

Ron Richards (00:19:34):
Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:19:35):
Yeah. And I mean, I'm not super familiar with it, but apple and iMessages also has kind of a business messaging feature. And to my knowledge, they don't suffer from, you know, these kind of, these types of manipulative ad pro processes or, or whatever approaches. So there are ways around it. There are ways to make sure it doesn't happen. Just seems like Google hasn't figured that out yet. And they need to cuz yeah, I guess, you know, and just to be clear, like people who are receiving these from my understanding, it's not like they're just getting like something from a bank that they went to, you know, a message that as kind of like a follow up, they were getting like, you know, online casino gambling and, you know, total spammy stuff suddenly coming in, not good as verified businesses. And that's the real problem.

Jason Howell (00:20:25):
It's kind of like if I'm opting into something, that's one thing. But if suddenly my phone is just getting in inundated with all this, you know, really kind of loud and dominant kind of media around things like online gambling and stuff, that's a whole other let level, so yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well hopefully they figure that out. This is interesting to me, us BBC in the EU, apparently going to be required as of 20, 24 fall 2024, the EU lawmakers actually reached an agreement on legislation to force smartphones sold in the country to use the USBC port also other electronic devices. So it's not isolated to just smartphones, it's tablets, digital cameras handheld video game consoles, e-readers headphones, the whole nine yards USBC port is the way somewhere down the line that would extend to laptops apparently. And you know, meant to reduce e-waste of course meant to make things easier for consumers, which it would, it would achieve both of those things. I'm just, I'm curious to know how you all feel about kind of regulating and saying the technology that you have to use in your smartphone or, or tablet or whatever the techno, whatever the, you know, the piece of gear that you're using has to be this particular plug. Is there a time somewhere in the future or near future where a better plug actually exists, but they can't use it because it's been regulated.

Ron Richards (00:22:03):
I gotta imagine that they have, that they have that they have provisions for that, right? You, you gotta be able to, Futureproof something like this and I'm not an EU lawyer by any cases, but I gotta imagine it's less about USBC and more about the U, right? So like if us B D comes along, they're gonna adjust to adapt for us B D to make it mandatory, as long as it's universal, as long, it is not proprietary and limiting. I don't know that for sure. We can look at the text, but yeah, that's a great point, Jason. And it would be awfully silly if we're here in three years talking about how great USB D S B D is and the EU can't use it. That'd be silly.

Jason Howell (00:22:42):
Right? Right. Yeah. Well, scooter X, you know, points out in the chat, us BBC five years old at this point you know, this start, this begins in two years, right. So that's seven years in. Geez. Yeah. And we know how technology works. Like, I mean, there, there is an evolution,

Ron Richards (00:22:59):
But the play devil's advocate USBC is pretty good. I mean, how much better are they gonna get you over SBC? I mean, it's like, it's great. Pretty solid. Right.

Jason Howell (00:23:08):
But we don't, we don't know what we don't know. Right. The truth is like that that's the now view. And there might be something somewhere down the line. It's not like technology reaches that pinnacle point. It's like, well, us diseases as good as it could ever get. So we're gonna speak with this forever. Mm-Hmm

Ron Richards (00:23:25):
<Affirmative> oh, is it April fools? Oh, no, it's an April fools. Okay. Sorry. I just Googled us USV type D and I saw, and then it's like, it was April catch.

Jason Howell (00:23:34):
Good catch.

Ron Richards (00:23:36):
Whew. Yeah, that was close. So worries.

Jason Howell (00:23:39):
And obviously this really, you know, I see a lot of apple sites writing about this. Yeah. Because arguably yeah, sure. This is a much bigger deal for apple than it is for Android, Android. Smartphone manufacturers have almost entirely switched over to USBC. So it's, you know, it's not really changed in the world in the Android front, but apple would have to conform to that. And that'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Ron Richards (00:24:07):
Yeah. I will also find, I also found a Quora question where someone asked if there will be a S B D successor USBC, and someone answered with the April fool's joke and all the answers are pointing out that the answer is an April fool's joke, which is very funny.

Jason Howell (00:24:21):
<Laugh> really, you got your answer.

Ron Richards (00:24:25):
Yep.

Jason Howell (00:24:26):
<Laugh> all right. Let's take a break and thank the sponsor of this episode. And then we will get into some hardware, which, you know, once again, it's kind of a hardware light time of year. So we've got we've got unreleased hardware to talk about that's coming up next. But first this episode of all that an Android is brought to you by trade coffee. Do you like coffee? You're gonna love trade coffee. I happen to love coffee. I also happen to be really into decaf coffee. And I know that's a, that's a mocking point for a lot of coffee drinkers, but I've gotten used to decaf. So at this point, like I literally could not tell you the difference in flavor between regular and decaf. I've been drinking so long and I find the problem ends up being, I go into a store and there's far less decaf options than there are caffeinated options.

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And they actually guarantee you're gonna love your first order or get this they'll replace it for free trade is delivered over 5 million bags of fresh coffee with more than 750,000 positive reviews. And right now trade is actually offering new subscribers, a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping. When you go to drink trade.com/aa, that right there, that's more than 40 cups of coffee for free, not bad. Get started by taking their quiz. You can find that at drink, trade.com/aa, let trade find you a coffee. You'll love, that's drink, trade.com/aa for that $30 off. And also don't forget about father's day, that's coming up a trade subscription. It's a great gift for the coffee lover in your life. And we thank trade coffee for their support of this show. All right. It is time for some hardware news. Let's get to it hardware that you can't have yet <laugh> you

Ron Richards (00:28:55):
Can't get it. That's, that's the best kind of hardware that there is. And I, I love that we have another story here because I just still find this whole story just completely baffling and possibly not true. Was it last week, Jason, that we talked about it, was it LA? Well, it was last week.

Jason Howell (00:29:11):
Yeah. Last week we talked about one instance of this

Ron Richards (00:29:14):
Happening. So yeah, so we, so last week on last week show, we talked about how seemingly the pixel seven pro prototype showed up on eBay, which we debated the validity of and whether or not it was actually BS or not, or legit or real. And now here we are a week later and yet another pixel seven pro prototype has appeared online and read it. This is all like, this is like a crazy wall of connecting social media websites <laugh> so it appeared on Revit read it because someone claims they bought it off of Facebook marketplace. It was listed there as a pixel six pro without a box and they were able to use the phone for three weeks. The phone had been running fine up until a few days before articles were written about it and Google had remote wiped it. So I don't know, like, like here's the thing, if you're gonna say, if you're gonna say that you, you, that it was purchased online on Facebook marketplace, you're gonna claim that you got a prototype and stuff like that. Fine. I can believe that, but then you're gonna tell me that it stopped working after articles about the eBay. One popped up online and Google remote wiped device.

Jason Howell (00:30:25):
Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:30:26):
That's a, that's a little farfetched for me. What do you guys think? Do you, do you think it's legit?

Jason Howell (00:30:32):
I don't know. I, the more I think about this, the more I'm like, why, like I, I understand, and I know I probably sat on both sides of this debate and the, the debate being does Google or do companies do this purposefully? I'm sure some of them do, but I don't understand why a company would do this on a device that is months out and the photos. I mean, it's not like the photos are very flattering. Like, I don't know if, if you're a company you've created this thing and you're really proud of it. Are you really gonna seed out really crappy looking photos of this device and, and let those be the hero images for months on end, like, right. I mean, I guess it's playing the game potentially, but I don't know. I kind of believe that that this happens. I don't know, but I don't understand how I don't. I really just don't understand how something like this does

Ron Richards (00:31:23):
That, I mean, is, is the FA is the man, the manufacturer or a fabricator, whatever the prototypes really just like, like we'll take all those prototypes, not under lock and key. Yeah, totally.

Jason Howell (00:31:34):
Like,

Ron Richards (00:31:34):
Yeah. Like, like I don't get it and accounted for by serial number. And like, and you're gonna tell me that Google has the technology to identify pixel seven somewhere on the network and reach in and remote wipe it well like that doesn't bother anybody.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:31:48):
<Laugh>

Ron Richards (00:31:48):
Like, can they do that to any of our phones?

Jason Howell (00:31:52):
Well, that's a good question. I can understand why they would be able to do that with a prototype though. Prototype.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:31:57):
Yeah. You

Jason Howell (00:31:58):
Know what I mean? Like

Ron Richards (00:32:00):
I just find this all very fishy.

Jason Howell (00:32:02):
What do you think Quinn?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:03):
I, I don't know what to think. I mean, I, I mean, I understand that the manufacturing is quite removed from Google itself. It just, this just feels so it's just so weird. I don't know. I, I, when I try to like, actually I was listening last week and I was actually thinking, how, how does this happen? Yeah. And the only thing I could come up with is some kind of fast and furious style, like, you know, heist where they, they like jump out of a plane and, you know, like jump on the person, carrying the prototype from like building a, to building B like

Jason Howell (00:32:34):
The

Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:35):
Prototype research

Jason Howell (00:32:36):
Aums, razor would, would state that. You're probably right. That's the simplest thing that could possibly happen. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:42):
And I, I don't know what people get outta this. Like, I, I understand that, you know, all the leaks and everything that happen. I think we always have, I think like, especially in this space, there's always a lot of great buzz and discussion about the devices. And I can't up to think that even just what's that phrase, but there's no such thing as bad publicity. I, I don't, I don't really think that's true, but I do think that people talking about your stuff right, right. Before it comes out does keep it in the, in the consumer awareness. For sure. But as you were saying, this is months out, this is not actually a good, this it's not like flattering. It's not like someone founded at a restaurant and like relatively speaking, that's kind of a funny, interesting story. This is like, yeah. Somehow I got on the, it just, it

Jason Howell (00:33:23):
Just, it's kind of embarrassing is what it is, is

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:25):
A company

Jason Howell (00:33:26):
Google size, Google mm-hmm <affirmative> for this to happen, to happen with, with a product that is literally like six months away. It's, it's embarrassing. It's like, okay, well, Google really doesn't know what they're doing. If they can't control these devices to that end. I, you know, I, I really don't think that Google would do this on purpose, but I just don't understand how it happens. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:46):
I mean, they just wanna be relatable. It's like, Hey, we make mistakes too.

Jason Howell (00:33:49):
<Laugh> I dunno. Right. Yeah. Google's human too.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:52):
Google's human that's okay.

Jason Howell (00:33:54):
I just like you and me.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:56):
Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:33:58):
So, well,

Ron Richards (00:34:00):
I think, I think this is just bizarre. Just bizarre.

Jason Howell (00:34:03):
So it is, it really is. And I'm,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:05):
I mean, do you think it's a monetary, oh, sorry,

Jason Howell (00:34:07):
Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no, go, go.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:09):
Do you think it's a monetary incentive for, I, for someone to leak this? Like, do you think someone is just saying, Hey, this makes good content. So if someone can steal a thing and we can make an article out of it, or like just independent of Google, I don't know. Like, is that a thing? I, I can't think

Ron Richards (00:34:27):
Of why this, sadly it is a thing it like after, after the first article about the EBA one popping up, like there's motivation there. But, but then again, I don't know what the motivation is. It's just bizarre. It's just the whole, thing's bizarre.

Jason Howell (00:34:39):
Yeah. I mean, I actually read a God, I'm trying to, trying to find it right now, but I don't know if my Google food will allow me to, but I read a, a post on Reddit which was like a PSA around, like, if you, if you happen to come across something like this, here are the things that you do and do not do, because if you don't do these things, then Google can identify you and do things like wipe the device before it can get to, you know, a journalist that can, you know, proliferate that information and everything like that. And a lot of the criticism and actually actually the, the, the author of this post was this is tech today. Shoot. Why am I blanking? He's he's been a guest on this show before. It was a couple of years ago.

Jason Howell (00:35:28):
Why am I I'm looking? I apologize. Was Brandon Lee, there we go. There we go. Brandon Lee from episode 4 93. Anyways, he was the author of this Reddit post because he's, he's posted a lot of leaks here and there and he's just, and so he posted basically saying like, look, if you end up getting these phones and then you go onto a social media site with your handle, that's easily identifiable to you, you know, do all these things. It's going to make it easier for a company like Google to know exactly who has it potentially they come after you, or they, they show up at your door to get the prototype back or they know kind of roughly where the location is. And then they can, they can kind of triangulate and know, okay, well, where was the source of it? If they, if these are appearing here, then the source might be over here and they can like target all of those prototypes and remote wipe them.

Jason Howell (00:36:20):
And so then you're outta luck. And some of the criticisms in the Reddit post were like oh, and, and one of his PO his points also was like, and whatever you do, don't sell this because then you're break. Then you're potentially breaking a lot of, a lot of rules and, and potentially the law and Google can come after you. But a lot of people took him to task. And the comments saying, wait a minute, what you're saying is don't have, don't be motivated by money. If you come across one of these things and sell it, give it to someone like me so that I can put it out, my video channel,

Ron Richards (00:36:55):
I can, and I can

Jason Howell (00:36:57):
Cross it off of it. Yeah. And I don't know that that was necessarily Brandon. Like, I don't know, I haven't talked to Brandon in quite a long time, but I don't know that that was necessarily his intention, but it is kind of a double standard there to, to say that. And like, I don't, I don't know how that works. And the, and the rules of all things. I mean, a journalist is a journalist, you know? And, and so they're given a lot of lot of leniency as far as like reporting on a prototype if they get their hands on a prototype, I guess, but I don't know, kind of tied in with what you were saying,

Ron Richards (00:37:29):
What a, what a strange journey this was.

Jason Howell (00:37:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not over the journey is not over because this is not the only phone to appear online that isn't released yet and appear online for sale. The pixel six, a we know about that, you know, that was, that was announced a couple of weeks ago, Google IO as well though the release date for that, the official release date is July 21st and surprise, surprise <laugh> multiple models of the six a were appearing on the Facebook marketplace, as well as eBay selling in those places for around $524. Yeah, just kind of further illustrating that Google is really bad at like, preventing this. Now I will give this one credit. These photos are actually pretty decent compared to a lot of photos that end <laugh> yeah. Being done. They're all like framed and everything. So

Ron Richards (00:38:22):
They definitely pass that kind of check for sure.

Jason Howell (00:38:25):
<Laugh> yeah, totally.

Ron Richards (00:38:26):
This looks legit. This definitely looks legit

Jason Howell (00:38:29):
<Laugh>. Yeah. But but you know, it's all SMUD and stuff and I don't know, whatever. Yeah. I'm sure that, that I'm sure that the the planned you know, pretend release happens. Like I, I have to imagine it's happened before. I don't know if it's every single time it happened, you know, that we see a leaked device end up on a marketplace that it's happened, but yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:38:53):
Is this like the movie night crawler is that I I've actually not, is this, is that a spoiler? Is that something like night crawler where, you know, he's like an investigative reporter and trying to find bigger stories. So kind of like, you know, you know, trying

Jason Howell (00:39:05):
To remember,

Ron Richards (00:39:05):
But from news is that, is that Jake Gill hall, Jake Gillman hall of, of ambulance fame for

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:12):
Ambulance. That's great. Yeah. My movie time together.

Ron Richards (00:39:16):
So just so everybody listening, everybody listening at home Burke has a new favorite movie. It's the movie ambulance.

Jason Howell (00:39:21):
You loves that movie

Ron Richards (00:39:22):
Directed by Michael bay. So if you're, if you're, if you don't have time to listen to this week at Burke,

Jason Howell (00:39:28):
He's a big fan of, of Michael bay.

Ron Richards (00:39:32):
I mean, really the latest episode this week in Burke, where they talk about where Burke talks about Michael bay for two hours was great. Listen, <laugh> go subscribe to it. Yeah. So

Jason Howell (00:39:41):
There we go. Okay. Bravo,

Ron Richards (00:39:43):
I got Burke. I got him.

Jason Howell (00:39:44):
Bravo. You got him. All we can do is applaud.

Ron Richards (00:39:47):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:39:48):
All right. It's okay. Burke, calm down. Alright, Wayne, you've got the next one.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:55):
Yeah. So in, in other news for other Google devices in FCC filing has just been filed on June 5th for a quote wireless device with a description resembling that of V Chrome crash, voice remoteness, audio, Google clips I, and nine to five Google speculates by looking at say some other information included, you know, with the filing, like a test configuration description that this might be an HD Chromecast with Google TV. So without going into that, a technical detail, it just really looks like from this test configuration that this device, which has a wireless land Bluetooth link and control link 10 80 and 60 at 60 Hertz video streaming, a USB cable, and a remote controller just really, really, really seems to look something like a Chromecast with Google TV, but at HD the current version on sale right now, which by the way, had expanded to eight different countries in the EU for sales.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:54):
It supports up to 4k HTR and is available for 39 99 USD down from 49 99. So it's possible that, you know, if you are a fan of Chromecast, but only need HD and want something even cheaper, this might be coming to you sooner rather than later based on kind of speculations on this FCC filing. So, yeah. I actually didn't know, or wasn't as, as aware of the Chromecast with Google TV, when I was like prepping for this show and I told my husband about it and he bought one. So <laugh> oh yeah, I, I, cuz we have Google TV, all the things. So I don't know. Are, would you all be interested in a HT version of the Chrome cast? I

Jason Howell (00:41:30):
Google TV. I'd just know what the price of this would be. Cause cause the the 4k one it's is not that expensive.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:36):
No, it's already pretty cheap. Yeah. So what like a 29?

Jason Howell (00:41:39):
Nine yeah. 25 or 29. Yeah, probably you're probably right. 29. Something like that. I mean, you can get the 4k version right now. Well, I don't know about this moment, but it's been on sale for 40 bucks, you know? I think normally it's around 50, so yeah. Yeah. Pre inexpensive. If you're going for just the HD version, I have to imagine it's probably something like 30 bucks and yeah. With a, with a remote that's a pretty, pretty nice deal, I think. Yeah. Depending on the TV you're putting it on.

Ron Richards (00:42:05):
So speaking

Huyen Tue Dao (00:42:06):
On for traveling too.

Jason Howell (00:42:07):
Yeah, yeah. Totally good for traveling. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Ron Richards (00:42:09):
Speaking of Google TV, I ran into an interesting problem with my goo Chromecast, Google TV yesterday where I believe they were trying to update the remote software. Like it was doing a auto update to the remote control while I was using it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and I also dropped the remote control and stepped on it and, and it

Jason Howell (00:42:31):
Litted on fire and threw it out the window. And

Huyen Tue Dao (00:42:35):
It,

Ron Richards (00:42:35):
It either unpaired when it was updating the remote firmware or when I dropped it and stepped on it, I did some sort of key combination that put it into talk back accessibility mode.

Jason Howell (00:42:48):
Oh no.

Ron Richards (00:42:49):
So what I had to do was, and, and the, the remote was bricked. Like I had a solid white L E D light at the bottom of it. No buttons did anything. And I had a green box around items on the screen and I couldn't use the device. And finally I remembered that they rolled out remote on, on remote control on your phone, via the Google home app. And so I went into the Google Chromecast, Google, Google TV on the home app and sure enough, there was open remote, and I was able to navigate to the settings and repair the remote and then run the software update for the remote and then repair it again and get it all working again. So it was a it was quite the adventure. Yeah. I had

Jason Howell (00:43:35):
Deal.

Ron Richards (00:43:36):
Wow. Was, was screaming three year olds asking for their YouTube video while I'm like, I just

Jason Howell (00:43:40):
Walmart,

Ron Richards (00:43:41):
The Google. Yeah. The Google TV is just like, is like movies, television for you. It's like, you're just saying everything on the screen. Cuz it's in accessibility mode. It was, oh my goodness, man. It

Huyen Tue Dao (00:43:50):
Was brutal. That is like my worst fear with some of these bundled like, like remote and things like this now. Like if it breaks or if it, you just, just, if it chips, I mean, like I, I assume there's probably some easy method for repairing it. I, I had this flash of like pairing, like my parents' old, like all device IR remote control.

Jason Howell (00:44:07):
Oh my goodness.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:08):
You know what? You look up your like manufacturer and you hit a certain combination or of numbers on your, on your board. And I feel like it doesn't have to be that hard or maybe it's easier. Like I was really hoping there was a remote reset for the remote. Yeah. That you would say, but that doesn't make any sense, but yeah, I'm always like definitely afraid of losing, like, you know, like my remotes that come with my like high end device, it's just,

Ron Richards (00:44:28):
Well, it really made me realize like without that remote, that device is done, like there's nothing to do with it. Like thank God they put that Google home thing in, or I wouldn't have been able to do it, so. Right.

Jason Howell (00:44:36):
Yeah. Right. Well, it would cost you another $50, which is nice

Ron Richards (00:44:41):
Is

Speaker 6 (00:44:41):
Not. Yeah. So,

Jason Howell (00:44:43):
Or 30, if you wanted to downgrade to HD, apparently <laugh> that's our cats anyways. We don't know that for sure. <Laugh> all right, coming up next. We've got some app news to talk about. That's up next?

Speaker 7 (00:44:56):
Thanks for listening to twit. Do you want customized host red ads that stand out then the twit network is the perfect place for your next advertising campaign. If you are tired of forgettable ad reads and once an authentic introduction of your products and services, then reach out today. Twit ads are compelling, specialized in all of our shows include video, which means we can show off products, websites, and customized videos, visit twit.tv/advertise and launch a tailored campaign. Now that's twit.tv/advertise.

Jason Howell (00:45:36):
All right, Google's taking the chocolate that's duo and the peanut butter that's meat and putting them together. Google's doing the thing where it's like, we got these two things and we want them to be the same thing. And they're doing it with duo and meet. The combined platform will be called Google meet. <Laugh> what, which we already know what Google meet is. As we know, duo is kind of like the social video kind of platform calling app, that sort of thing. Meet has been more for like professional groups and conference calling that sort of stuff. Now it'll be consolidated, but it's still kind of confusing because Google meets features will be added to duo, right? This is like first step. And then later in the year, the duo app will be automatically updated and renamed to Google meet with, with everything combined.

Jason Howell (00:46:30):
So it's like, you got your meat over here and then all those features are going into duo. When that happens, the old app, the app that is Google meat now will turn into something called meat original. And so then you're using duo. Yeah. Then you're using duo with meat features. And then at some point they're gonna phase out meat, original and duo will get an update and it'll turn into Google meet again. So Google just loves to make these things just kind of a little confusing. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I feel like they've seen this somebody a few times before

Ron Richards (00:47:05):
Someone on Twitter Adam J on Twitter re flag someone else's post for me on Twitter. A guy by the name of dare Obando, who said, Google hasn't met a problem. I couldn't solve by creating yet another messaging app

Jason Howell (00:47:20):
<Laugh>. Mm that's true. Yeah. So I dunno, this kind of reminds me of, of the wallet you know, know the Google wallet, Google page, GP, back and forth ping pong match, where it's like, okay, now it's over here, but it's got the name of the thing that it came from, but that only happened eventually. It actually also reminds me of the story that we're about to talk about after this. But do you think it's do you think it's a, a good move to consolidate meat and duo? They, they do serve different purposes, but they kind of revolve around the same thing, the video streaming technology. So what do you think

Huyen Tue Dao (00:47:56):
I kind of hate this honestly, like I, and, and for, and for that reason you know, I, I, I, so I say that because like, I know at first with duo, I think whenever it was announced that at Google IO, I, it was kind of like, oh, good, you get another video thing. But I, I, I, I think as I get older and crankier in my developer years, I kind of feel like things that have different demographics and different use cases are best served by being separate apps, like everything, all in the same pot. I feel like generally tends to water things down Jack of all trades, master of none kind of thing. And I, I think in certain situations it makes sense. Like, I I've actually kind of really gotten into duo a lot, especially like now my sister had our first kid and, and we live far away to, to use duo to like talk to her and my little niece and a lot of the features that are kind of really delightful about duo, like the pre-call like, you know, like video and just some of like the features, which are more actually on the level like Snapchat, like there's tons of filters and cute little things and messages you can send back and forth.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:54):
They are very geared towards like one-on-one conversations, you know, and, and kind of more in depth silly often, but kind of in depth conversation. And then I was actually on Google beat for like five hours today. And I can't, I can't imagine the same app serving both these purposes cuz Google meet it is good for certain things. Like it's good for, you know, large discussions it's got like things like the, the hand raising gesture and like the, the separate chat it's very much like a zoom thing. And I don't know, I just don't like it like as a developer and as a user, when you try to cram everything into the same app, something is not gonna work. Like, yeah. Like there's just too many features. Like how do you like, you know surface things that will work for your specific user and their specific use case. I mean, it can be done, but I, this doesn't feel like it, this feels like, Hey, let's just have less things to like name let's have new, new meat and meat classic and then, you know, y'all figure it out later. And I, I don't, I don't really like it, but I'm also a little biased because I've really liked using duo for the purposes that I think it was intended for. So I

Jason Howell (00:49:55):
Just meat is the business in front duo is the party and back <laugh>. Oh, right. Oh my God. Just call it mullet. And Jason

Huyen Tue Dao (00:50:04):
Meat lit

Jason Howell (00:50:05):
Mali meat lit <laugh> meat

Huyen Tue Dao (00:50:07):
Just seems that's like the butcher app remind. Oh gosh.

Jason Howell (00:50:12):
But in all seriousness, like that's kind of what you're describing, right? Like duo yeah. A little bit, I guess. Yeah. Duo has kinda like a playfulness to it and has features that are really great for person to person. That's what it was designed to be. And then meat is really designed for kind of like that business thing. And they're, they are two very different things, even though they're at their core, it's still video calling and that's, that's kind of, their point is, well, they're two video calling apps. Why can't they be the same thing? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, I'll be really curious to see how they retain the playfulness of duo while also retaining the seriousness of meat in the same app environment without crossing the streams <laugh> or maybe they cross the streams. I don't know, but how is that gonna look okay.

Ron Richards (00:50:58):
I'm not sure can't cross the stream. Jason, you know that,

Jason Howell (00:51:00):
You know, I know the streams, they say don't, don't

Ron Richards (00:51:03):
Tell you, I don't have to tell you twice

Jason Howell (00:51:05):
<Laugh> but some rules were meant to be broken, Ron

Ron Richards (00:51:08):
<Laugh> so

Jason Howell (00:51:09):
Yes, the Google mullet. That's what they should have called it. The Google mullet. Oh,

Ron Richards (00:51:12):
I like that, man. That's not good. That's not good. Imagine what that app icon looks like for the Google mullet.

Jason Howell (00:51:18):
Oh, I can imagine. I can see it right now.

Ron Richards (00:51:22):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:51:22):
I like it. I, I like it in an ironic sort of way there. We

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:29):
<Laugh>. I don't really

Jason Howell (00:51:30):
Like it. Yeah. Yeah. Gotta put that asterisk in there. <Laugh> all right, Ron, you got the last one.

Ron Richards (00:51:36):
I do have the last one. And so everybody just loves, oh

Jason Howell (00:51:39):
Wait, no, sorry. Did

Ron Richards (00:51:42):
We skip? Wait

Jason Howell (00:51:42):
A minute when you have the next one. Not the last I have

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:45):
The next one. Not the last one. I apologize. All right. So

Jason Howell (00:51:48):
I got thrown off by the mullet.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:50):
I know we just, it just, we got two party in the front. We gotta get to the bus. Wait, is it part wait

Jason Howell (00:51:55):
Party in the

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:55):
Back. This is the front party in the

Jason Howell (00:51:57):
Back. You can do a reverse mullet. Have we ever seen? Yeah. That's that's like a flock of sea's haircut,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:03):
Which

Ron Richards (00:52:03):
By the way, oh, it is. Isn't it band. And you should, should listen. Let's

Jason Howell (00:52:07):
If,

Ron Richards (00:52:07):
If you listen to, if you listen to first wave on Sirius XM, they play Foxs all the time and it's so good.

Jason Howell (00:52:13):
<Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:13):
Excellent.

Jason Howell (00:52:15):
All right. When you got it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:17):
Okay. So over the last week, if you're still using Android auto on your phone, you may have seen the following message front and sender in the app. Android auto for phone screens will stop working soon. So not a it's like so ominous. Yeah. Like

Ron Richards (00:52:33):
By the way, hitting it right on the nose, like no subtlety whatsoever, right? No,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:37):
No front and center. And also every single time you open the app, it's not like if you swipe it away to dismiss, you'll see it the next time you open the app. So they really wanna make sure that, you know, this is happening. Yeah. And I mean, it's not a surprise, right. Because if you're on, if you're on 12 and above you, or I guess it's just 12 right now, we haven't quite got to 13 yet. But if you're on 12, you know, that you can't even get Android auto for, for the phone. And if you even managed to install it, it won't launch. I've, I've tried so hard. I've tried so hard. And of course, on older versions, if you were lucky enough to still be on an older version, you had a stay of execution until now. Don't and you know, there's not really a date that we know of our, of the impending doom of Android auto auto.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:20):
Why did I write Android audio in my notes, Android auto for, for phone screens. But I mean, it basically Google just noted in a statement that current users of Android auto on phone screens will be quote, transitioned to Google assistant drive mode, which is our next evolution of mobile driving experience. How is that for youth Muslim transitioned? The last refuges of refuge refuges, the last refuge of Android auto will be in any new vehicles you happen to purchase with it equipped, but other than in, other than that intensely expensive and probably very impractical for most of us option, you're gonna be using Google assistant driving mode which arrived in Android 12. And we're Google is driving us all eventually. So enjoy Android auto on your phone screen, why you can because it won't be there for very much longer. Sorry. Y'all

Jason Howell (00:54:11):
Yeah. Replaced with that Google assistant driving mode have no fear. At least we have that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not the same. It's not the same,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:21):
Man. Yeah. I, I haven't tried it. Has anyone tried it do y'all like it, I mean, I, I, I, as I understand this, the, you can probably accomplish the same things, but I, I, I like major auto.

Jason Howell (00:54:30):
Yeah. I mean, there's just something to be said for the, an Android auto specific isolated experience that is, you know, designed to do this thing. It's just, there's just so different. And I feel, I feel like it's not an apples to apples comparison between the two. It's a step down it's, you know, feature less, it's less features all across. So, so I'm not a fan, but I don't know. I, is it like duo and I don't know why Google thinks that it's a good replacement for it, like duo, like, what is it

Speaker 5 (00:55:04):
Like duo and messages, you know, they're just like kind of the same, but not, you know?

Jason Howell (00:55:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean the, the, the most that I've used this mode is kind of like that integration in maps. And it's fine, I guess, but it's just, I feel like I never, at least with Android auto, like if I was playing music, like I had all the controls, the controls were there with any, you know, with any of my experience using Google assistant driving mode, it just feels less. It just feels like, like simplified instead of, and, and I understand like the, why is, you know, because you're driving, we don't want to give you too many options and that's distracting and everything, but I think that there is a way to give those options and have it not be distracting. We have tablets twice the size of this computer in, you know, modern day cars and with touch points all over it. And, you know, whether you like 'em or hate 'em, I mean, plenty of people are driving around with those things and interacting with them and, and apparently being relatively safe. So why can't that be done on a smaller screen, in a better way than what they're giving? I don't know. That's kind of my random thoughts about it. Anyways.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:56:21):
It's fair. It's kind of weird. It, like, we complain about Google kind of having a lot of different, slightly overlapping products that sometimes are confusing. Yeah. You know, like they try a lot of different things, like a lot of overlapping areas and we kind of get confused on what we should be using. And it's like, now maybe they're trying to consolidate, but yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's a little too much, it's like the big crunch, everything is just hurtling hurling towards one kind of like point mass. And at some point maybe it'll explode, but <laugh>, I don't know. I, I, I just, I, yeah, I, I liked Android auto and especially for like a driving experience, which I mean, of course is like, I, I, I think scooter exit on, on, in chat, like I also like the Android auto on the phone screen as well. It's just very very flexible. And also just, I just like, I enjoyed auto just period. I, I think it's a good experience and I really enjoyed using it. So I'm sad. And I guess I'll have to try Google driving, Google assisted driving mode, and then give an actual opinion. But I don't know.

Jason Howell (00:57:20):
Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:21):
This just feels like one of those taken away toys.

Jason Howell (00:57:23):
Yeah. Well, it, it's, it's very similar to the whole meat and duo thing, right. It's like, oh, we have this thing now we're doing this thing. And you know, this is like the other side of it. It's like, in this case, we're at the end of that transition and the meet and duo we're at the beginning of the transition. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, if this end is a signal of what to expect in the meat duo and <laugh>, I don't know that I like that so much because I don't like where, where it's landed here.

Ron Richards (00:57:53):
<Laugh> duo. Oh, man. All right. Well, it wouldn't round out an app section without talking about weather app. <Laugh> all of a sudden Jason, it like it six 20 is 2013 here, all of a

Jason Howell (00:58:05):
Sudden. Yep. Yep. 

Ron Richards (00:58:08):
So the screams, the, the, the, the, you might have heard millions of Android users screaming and this is all in their desire to want dark sky back on Android. Those screams are somewhat being answered by apple. A apple announced during its WWDC keynote yesterday that its weather kit will replace the dark sky API, which was depreciated for Android in 2020, in 2020. Weather kit will enable developers to tap into the same dark sky backend on Android apps. Location info will not be personally identifiable according to apple and weather kit, beta includes 500,000 API calls per month per apple developer program membership 1 million calls per month for 49 99, all the way up to 20 million calls per month for $999 and 99 cents. And it really begs the question as to whether or not Android developers have moved on from dark sky or not after two years, or will they come flocking back and give apple their money to access the API and make more weather apps? Do we need more weather apps?

Jason Howell (00:59:11):
I don't know. I kind of feel like having people moved on at this point. I don't, you know, who is it? Phoenix warp and chat says is dark sky. Seriously? That good. What's so great about this app. I feel like I'm missing something here. And yeah, people were just like loved their dark sky, you know, AB and were really upset about it. I didn't really use it a whole lot. I mean, I think the crux of it was the hyper local weather aspect and that it just did that really well. And then apple scooped it up and maybe that's what it is. It's it's that it was really immortalized. Right. when apple scooped it up and took it away from Android, then it's like, oh, well, we gotta have it if we can't because apple took it. So maybe that's part of it too, but here's, here's an entrance back in, I don't know that it really answers a call that I, that I've got. But what do you think when

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:02):
I, I, I can't speak to dark sky. I, that kind of like bypassed me yeah. In a little bit in terms of like liking dark sky. I, I think it's interesting. I, I kind of think of it as like from an API side. So like, I don't necessarily, I mean, paying for APIs in general is important. And I think that something that might be important to some people is parody of data. Like we, I usually talk about feature parody when it comes to like Android versus iOS apps. But I think having the same API to work with that, that works across both your apps is probably important. I guess, like, I guess it, it sort of matters. It sort of doesn't matter. I think it, it might be well, okay. It, it probably is easier for a product that has an Android version in iOS version to just use the same API.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:50):
And if you decide that weather kit is, you know, worth it, then if you're running, if you're building two apps, then sure. Why not? I don't see why someone who's just writing an Android weather app would need to do this. Really, but I, I do think it's important for companies that do have both apps to be consistent. And I mean, I, yeah, I wonder if you pay, I wonder if you already have a developer account where you have an app that's already using it, that it would make sense that you could just use that same membership to, for, to drive your Android app. I, I presum still cause its probably on the same key. So yeah. I mean if, if I was running weather app and my, I were determined to use weather kit, but like yeah, sure. We use it for Android. But other than that I, I, I just don't, I I'm sorry the hype passed me, so I'm not a good person to ask

Jason Howell (01:01:37):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah,

Ron Richards (01:01:39):
Yeah. Same. Yep. Same.

Jason Howell (01:01:41):
But somebody out there is,

Ron Richards (01:01:42):
But Hey listen, if you love it, you love it. And now maybe you can get it. You'll do something totally. Yeah. You know? Absolutely. 

Jason Howell (01:01:47):
Yeah, there you go. Triple a TV. Let us know why you love it so much. Why do you love it so much?

Ron Richards (01:01:53):
Please do.

Jason Howell (01:01:55):
Speaking of AAA twit TV, we've got your feedback coming up. <Laugh> in a second. All right. It

Ron Richards (01:02:03):
Great. It's a great week for feedback everybody this, I mean we put, we put out the call and you guys you answer you, you answered it, which is great, which is fantastic.

Jason Howell (01:02:12):
This is really, this is a theme to feedback section because we put out the call for BBY, you know, <laugh> <laugh> wanna know what is it about BBY and, and how many of you are, how many are there of you out there? Who did I say that? Right? <laugh> yeah. Who love BBY? And we did hear from a decent amount of you,

Ron Richards (01:02:33):
Is this first email, the one I forward you?

Jason Howell (01:02:35):
Yes it is. Would you like to

Ron Richards (01:02:36):
Read it? Yeah. So, so, so while this, this first email I'll I'm gonna intro you Jason. Oh, okay. While this first email isn't the

Jason Howell (01:02:46):
Burke email. Oh, he was like that's later, man.

Ron Richards (01:02:49):
Thank you. <Laugh> so this is not the email the week. I do wanna give him credit because unless we show I was, I, I put out the call pretty passionately for you all to let us know about Bixby. And this next emailer really wanted to track me down so much so that he sent in a support ticket to this, to my company's website, saying that get in, I'm trying to get in touch with Ron. It's funny. That's awesome. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty funny. So, so I woke up the next morning to her. So to one of my partners going, Hey, there's a Zen desk ticket for you. That's not about work, but yeah. So so good job on this first emailer for being a, a detective and figuring out how to get in touch with me

Jason Howell (01:03:35):
Getting the email

Ron Richards (01:03:36):
The

Jason Howell (01:03:37):
Week, even though, even though we often say triple a@twi.tv on the show. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. We appreciate the lengths that you were willing to go. Who are we talking about? This is Emery Wal who wrote in to say, I wanted to comment about BPE, which you asked about in a recent episode of all about Android. I just installed Google assistant on my watch as I have been using it. I have been used to using it on my Android phones, but since it was not available, when I bought my galaxy watch, I gave Bixby a shot. And I don't think that it is trash at all. I left it on my watch as well. Bixby has some capsules that are very useful. Capsules are kind of like things that you can insert into the app to extend its use in different ways.

Jason Howell (01:04:22):
In particular, it has a capsule called my brain. That is great. And he included a link to a video only the first 15 seconds of the video actually show my brain. If you wanna play it, you can work. You don't need to, it continues to say one difference between Google assistant and Bix B on the galaxy watch is that you must keep a watch button depressed when using Bixby where that isn't the case with Google assistant though. I think that difference can be circumvented. Anyway, you might change your opinion of Bixby. When you see that video, I will be interested in hearing your opinion after seeing that video. And I mean, yeah, so this whole video, like it starts with my brain, but it shows off a lot of different uses like extensions and what they call capsules for BBY and yeah, I think that's, that's great. There's a, there's a marketplace for that. There's a, a way for developers to extend. And of course they're going to do that and yeah, I think I'm, I'm all about it. I'm all about this being supported by people who are passionate about Bixby. That's great that you have that option.

Jason Howell (01:05:27):
And yeah, it's a well done video. It actually has a lot of detail in there. So I, how do I mention this so that folks can find it cuz I don't know that we'll have it linked. But it is if you go to YouTube and look for a ode TV has a, has a video called galaxy watch four. This is why Bixby is amazing advanced Bixby features. Go look for it. All right. Thank you, Emory. Appreciate it. When you have the next one.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:05:56):
Yeah, well I neither Joah I have the email of the week, but <laugh>, but I, I actually really love this. This is fromt in Greensboro, North Carolina. I've been hearing a lot about Bixby in the past two episodes and wanted to chime in since I'm a longtime Samsung galaxy user. I'm not sure if this counts, but I use Bixby routines on my galaxy S 22 ultra it's similar to Tasker. And if this than that, I F T T T. But I find that it's easier to use. I have routines set up such as protecting the battery at night, which turns off all types of fast charging and limits the battery charge to 85%. But turns off shortly before I wake up so that it tops off tops at 100% off. So it tops off at a hundred percent before I unplug, I also have other simple automations for certain circumstances.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:45):
It's not the Bigsby voice assistant, but still a very useful app utilizing a form of BPE. And honestly, I, I really love this. I used to use if this, then that for, you know, like you, you can use like simple triggers. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> like, if you get an email, you can send it somewhere else. If you get a text, you can like do do certain things. And I, I had no idea that Bixby or a Bixby adjacent product had this. So I'm going to freaking try this on my S 22. And we also have some great screenshots basically showing you how, you know, you would set up a routine and yeah, it's just like Tasker. And if this and that, so yeah, you, if something, if a trigger then do something else, which is pretty freaking awesome. Yeah. I, I, I legit love this. Yeah. and it's, it's kind of one of those things, like where I feel like sometimes automation feels like a super like super user pro user kind of thing, but this is makes it very accessible and it's right. Built in right to BPE

Jason Howell (01:07:38):
Nice.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:38):
So, yeah.

Jason Howell (01:07:39):
Yeah. That's you remember when automation was limited to Tasker and it was basically its own language that was so confusing and confounding yet you knew how powerful it was. You know, I knew how powerful it was. So I wanted to dive in there and figure it out. I never truly figured it out, but I could figure my way through it. And then over time, you know, if this than that, and of course this and everything, they finally kind of got to that point where I was like, how can we do this in a way that really makes it pretty simple to program these routines? And yeah, this looks pretty easy to use, so good suggestion. Love it.

Ron Richards (01:08:20):
All right. So we're gonna have to change the name of the show from all about Android to all about Bixby. I think everybody looks like we've got an untapped marketplace in terms of would be

Jason Howell (01:08:33):
Aby. It'll be a sister show.

Ron Richards (01:08:35):
Yeah. <laugh> but I, I love the fact that the Bixby discussion not only yielded the entire email block for this episode, but we have not won, but two

Ron Richards (01:08:50):
Emails of the week. Because if you remember last week in my passion plea to have Bixby users let us know about using Bixby. And if we should care about Bixby, if it's any good. I also said, if you knew bill Bixby to please write in and we got two responses. First up is Adam and San Diego who has email the week. Number one, which says, since you asked Ron, I met bill Bixby once in LA, in 1990 at a grocery store shopping for apples. I told him to quote, only buy the green ones because they Bruce less easily. He didn't laugh.

Jason Howell (01:09:26):
<Laugh> he didn't laugh. Come on.

Ron Richards (01:09:29):
I gotta tell you if I was bill Bixby, I would not have laughed at that joke either. There are 19 better jokes you could have said to bill Bixby in a grocery store, other than because they Bruce less easily. Like what? Like what, like don't buy the green ones. You wouldn't wanna get them angry. You won't like them when they're angry. Like, come on. That writes itself, the green, you know? Yeah. That was pretty anyway. So, all right. Well, Adam, that's awesome. I love the fact that you met bill Bixby. But then we hear from will in sunny Taggar Oregon who has email the week number two or duo and will says, I never, I never met bill Bixby, but my grandmother's maiden name was Bixie Bixby. And she was, his cousin probably means nothing, but I thought it was cool growing up. <Laugh> and will that means you are related to bill Bixby?

Jason Howell (01:10:15):
Yeah. That's that's like nothing.

Ron Richards (01:10:17):
That's not nothing like, like, like yes, your grandmother was bill Dixie's cousin that makes you bill Dixie's cousin in some way, like, like you're you're in the family dude. Yeah. So we're also gonna change the name of the show to all about bill Bixby and we're gonna celebrate the great life and work of the actor bill Bixby. Thank you. And if we wouldn't get in trouble for playing copyrighted music, I would say, play the piano fade out from the incredible Hulk bill Bixby, walking down the interstate hitchhiking music, but we won't play that now. So well instead we will thank everyone for the awesome emails of the week. Its

Jason Howell (01:10:57):
So I mean we don't have to play it, but I could, I could import it into teenage engineering.

Ron Richards (01:11:05):
Oh, that'd be pretty cool.

Jason Howell (01:11:07):
Cool. Yeah. If only I have thoughts, you're welcome for the show to record this. Thanks to Victor and Burkes urging for me to do so. The only thing is like it's, you know, it's annoying. <Laugh> it's annoying once it's, once it's roped into here. Let's see here. Okay. So now we got it. Just play

Ron Richards (01:11:26):
It on. Yeah. Hold it by the mic or hold the mic close to it.

Jason Howell (01:11:29):
Okay. Is this what you wanted? Ron?

Speaker 8 (01:11:35):
Kind

Ron Richards (01:11:35):
Of, this is pretty great.

Jason Howell (01:11:39):
Oh yeah. See, this is beautiful.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:44):
Oh no, not the effects.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
Can't you just play it without, you know, like hold press and hold. So that it's a preview of the unaltered clip.

Speaker 8 (01:11:56):
I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:57):
Dunno. Why would it be that easy Burke

Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
That's fair. That's fair enough.

Ron Richards (01:12:02):
Someone could really make magic with this. Jason. Someone, it might not be you, but someone could,

Jason Howell (01:12:09):
There you go. I wanted to give you what you all came for. You all came for bill Bixby, walking away, getting remixed by an app that that Google announced earlier today. I know, I know. There you go. All right. We've reached the end of this episode with that. Thanks so much for watching and listening and putting up with that noise there at the end there. When, what do you wanna leave people with what you got going

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:31):
<Laugh> yeah, I am an Andrew developer and I do occasionally do technical talks and things like that. And you can find all those including video and code at my website, randomly typing.com and otherwise you can just find me rambling about sometimes Andrew development and often other things at queen code monkey on Twitter and Instagram

Jason Howell (01:12:52):
Rat on. Good to see you in. Good to have you back. Good to be back this show today. Yes. Appreciate it, Ron. What about you? What you got cooking?

Ron Richards (01:13:01):
Well, my friends and this I'm talking to Emery Walton and anybody else. Who's curious if I can't in touch with me. I am on Twitter and on Instagram at Ron XO, where you can just write to me there or send me a DM. My DMS are open, go like go for it. But I appreciate the tenacity there and Marine tracking me down, but yeah, follow me there. And Twitter on Instagram having some fun there, go to gobi.io to check out all the cool pinball stuff we're doing or go to the Google play store and download the, score it app and check it out. Go play pinball. It's fun. Lots of places in the country and play pinball now. So get in on, on the action. So

Jason Howell (01:13:34):
It's a, it's a hot new trend. It's called pinball.

Ron Richards (01:13:37):
<Laugh>, it's almost as cool as bill Bixby

Jason Howell (01:13:40):
Almost, almost not quite, but almost. Thank you Burke for all of your wrangling of the technology back there today could obviously couldn't do it without you. Thank you. <Laugh> was quite the wangle today. Yes, it was. But she got there also big thanks to Victor. Even more behind the scenes, editing the show, coming up with ideas like what you saw a few minutes ago appreciate all the work you do, Victor. Thank you. You can find me at Jason Howell on Twitter. I also do tech news weekly with mic Sergeant every Thursday, that's twi.tv/tnw. We do an interview show and it's just a lot of fun bringing on journalists, people behind the news that you're reading about that sort of stuff. As for this show, we do this show all about Android every Tuesday evening. So it publishes to the feed. If you go to twit.tv/aa, all the feeds are listed there. You can jump out to a podcaster of choice. You can jump out to YouTube subscribe and the new episodes will just appear like magic either late Tuesday, evening or early Wednesday morning. So twi.tv/aa is what you need to know. But I think we've reached the end. That's it for this week. We'll see you next time. Next week on all about Android. Bye everybody.

Speaker 9 (01:15:02):
There is the music.

Speaker 10 (01:15:15):
Did you spend a lot of money on your brand new smartphone? And then you look at the pictures on Facebook and Instagram and you're like, what in the world happened to that photo? Yes you have. I know it happens to all of us. Well, you need to check out my show hands on photography, where I'm going to walk you through simple tips and tricks that are gonna help make you get the most out of your smartphone camera or your DSLR or mirrorless, whatever you have. And those shots are gonna look so much better. I promise you so make sure you're tuning into twi.tv/hop for hands on photography to find out more.