All About Android Episode 562 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, we've got a lot to talk about today. This show goes in all sorts of different directions. Sometimes unexpectedly some of the best episodes do that. We've got surface duo. Finally, finally getting its Android 11 update when dives deep jet pack composed and shows what you can do with a very limited amount of time using that tool. If you're a developer really cool stuff. Ron reviews, the Mexico air T2 wireless earbuds, YouTube music is finally getting support or giving support to supervised child accounts through family link. Plus your feedback, your email Allen a whole lot more next on All About Android
... (00:00:46):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This it TWiT.
Jason Howell (00:00:47):
This episode of All About Android is brought to you by better help find their awesome new mental health podcast. Getting better stories of mental health on apple podcasts, iTunes, or Spotify. Hello, welcome to All About Android episode 562 recorded on Tuesday, January 25th, 2022. Your weekly source to latest this news hardware apps and developee stuff like we're gonna talk about tonight for the Android faithful. I'm Jason, how
Ron Richards (00:01:25):
And I'm Ron Richards
Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:27):
And I'm Huyen Tue Dao. Yes. How's it going? Y'all it's good to have us us back in the saddle last week.
Ron Richards (00:01:34):
Happy belated, different happy belated birthday Huyen <laugh>
Jason Howell (00:01:39):
Yes, indeed. Happy birthday. It's good to have you back. And yeah, you know, this is this is a week where we actually have a lot of news, but we also have some developer stuff to dive into, which I'm super excited about. That's gonna be coming up at the top. We were talking before the show though, and realizing before we even get to the news, we've got some stuff to talk about. Actually I think Ron has, oh yeah, something special. And I'm, I'm really curious to know, cuz I know nothing other than he has something. What do you have?
Ron Richards (00:02:09):
I have an exciting blast from the past for you Jason. So those longtime Watchers of the show know that I used to live in San Francisco. Right. I used to drive up and do the show live with you in the studio Petaluma. It was awesome. And then in 2016 I moved back to New York. And when I moved back to New York, I took all my stuff in my apartment in lower hate and I put it in storage and I moved to New York to a small one bedroom apartment with my wife and kept that stuff in storage. And then I moved to long island into a house. And then a year later I finally emptied that storage unit and it's all in the basement now and I've slowly been going through boxes and I opened a box this weekend and oh, the Android treasures that I unearthed. Oh, no way. So, so turn back the clock to maybe in the range of 2012 to 2015, right?
Jason Howell (00:02:56):
Ooh, okay. Results. I
Ron Richards (00:02:58):
Found, I found this little guy, which if you might remember
Jason Howell (00:03:03):
As the Nexus S right?
Ron Richards (00:03:05):
Nexus S right. And just to give comparison, here's the nexus S compared to my nexus six, right. Wow. Which is in terms of, in terms of just, it is like, I feel like a giant holding this tiny little phone. Isn't that weird.
Jason Howell (00:03:23):
And at that time, I mean, obviously we only compare to what we know in that moment, but at that, and, and, you know, before, right before that era of smart phones, we had feature phones that were like little candy bar things, and they were still much smaller than the phones that we today, but that felt normal. Then it does not feel normal now.
Ron Richards (00:03:42):
So this has got the, this has got the weird little plastic bump at the bottom. Remember like that you could kinda frame it, whatever. So, so there it is. And then in the same box, I found my nexus four.
Jason Howell (00:03:57):
Okay. Right.
Ron Richards (00:03:59):
With a little, with a little bit of shattering in the back from the glass that's right from, from overuse. Also remember how it had like the rubberized outside of it.
Jason Howell (00:04:08):
I forgot about the rubberized outside. I always remember the sparkly back, but spark, it
Ron Richards (00:04:13):
Was the three money, the rubberized shell around it. Which after seven years of being in a box is like tacky. Now it's like sticky. Oh, no,
Jason Howell (00:04:22):
I hate it when that happens. Okay.
Ron Richards (00:04:25):
Not great. So there's the nexus four. Right. And then I also found my nexus five that I shadow.
Jason Howell (00:04:34):
Okay. That's my favorite. Oh, I miss my nexus five
Ron Richards (00:04:37):
Sticker and yeah. So there's my nexus five. And then in that same box, I found the nexus five. I got to replace the one that I shattered. <Laugh> put
Jason Howell (00:04:47):
The same sticker on sticker, on knife. Exactly.
Ron Richards (00:04:50):
Yeah. This also the, the, the, the rubbery back, not as tacky as the, as the nexus four, but a little bit of stick, a little bit of sticky. Okay.
Jason Howell (00:04:59):
Give it a couple of years. I'm sure it'll get as stickier probably. And then
Ron Richards (00:05:02):
The, the last gem I found was this one, Jason, which I know you're gonna love, but the old LG watcher, which
Jason Howell (00:05:09):
Oh, the watcher look
Ron Richards (00:05:11):
How thick that monsters watch is. Look at. That is hideous. It is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. So
Jason Howell (00:05:17):
Look, we had to start somewhere. Right.
Ron Richards (00:05:20):
So, yeah. So it was a, it was a lovely box of Android around 20 13, 20 14. No kidding. I want, I wanna power them all up, but I, I, I don't have these cables. Like I need to find the, the USB micro cables somewhere in another box. But I'm gonna try to power 'em all up and try, try to see if they're still running, see what apps I can find. So I, I've got a, I've got a little fun time capsule adventure ahead of me. And I'm also gonna, like, I know somewhere in other boxes, there's my next bit Robin. Like, I'm gonna try to get all my old phones together and have a nice little
Jason Howell (00:05:52):
So that's the, there you go. Yep. That's kind of what I have in my office back at the, at the TWI studio. I have the little section of this bookcase that is like my little Android. You have a huge display collection. Yeah. Yeah. There's a decent amount of stuff you got and you got the Q ball in there and everything. The nexus Q yeah. Yeah. We have one of those. Yeah. Do you nexus plugged in and running? So it glows all the time. Cause unfortu only do, I should not have done that.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:18):
We used to have it on the shelf, just so people ask what it was. I think my husband like powered it up once and that was like it, but I, I would, I, I actually have my Bo like, I have a little crate box of all of our collected phones over the years. And like, a lot of them are doubled. Like we have two actually nexus SS because my husband broke one once during brunch and immediately were gonna go up to the mountains like that afternoon. So instead of like hanging out, we just immediately ran to the mall. So he'd get like a new one.
Jason Howell (00:06:43):
<Laugh> gotta have one for the trip.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:46):
No, I just, yeah. Like I think we were like very much just like smartphone addicted by that, by that point. So he was like, okay, I can't go mountain with my phone. So yeah, that was like two hours of us sitting in the car in a sum on a summer day with my mother-in-law and her brother and my sister waiting for my husband to get a new phone because you know,
Jason Howell (00:07:06):
Fun time because it's important. It's so important. It
Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:09):
Sounds, I say it now.
Ron Richards (00:07:13):
We sound silly when you say, I'm sorry, honey. Later,
Jason Howell (00:07:16):
It sounds as ridiculous as some of the, those phones and like the standards around those phones back then look ridiculous now. Right? Like we look at some of the choices that, and, and also like when you power those up, Ron, it's always really interesting to take those old devices and actually power them up. And then you it's like, you get flashbacks of like, oh yeah, that's right. The OS did you used to look like this? And why are those gray bars there that looks so bad? Like, like yeah. I don't know. You forget about these things until they're right in front of you. Yep. So that's great. I love it.
Ron Richards (00:07:52):
Well, I thought, I thought you'd appreciate that a little blast in the past. So whenever, whenever I get the opportunity to do that and, and you can thanks me for being a hoarder and keep you everything. So there it is. <Laugh>
Jason Howell (00:08:00):
Yeah. What else you can do with it? Thank you.
Ron Richards (00:08:03):
I found, I found, I, I found a Christmas card from my wife years before we were even dating where she said, she said, don't you wanna come back home? <Laugh> cuz she was trying to get me home even back then. But of course she didn't date the card, so we don't know what year it was from, but still it's like
Jason Howell (00:08:17):
A nice little blessing right on. <Laugh> love it. Thank you. I can't wait to see more when you find the next bit Robin and, and the next era, the, the, the other box. Yeah, definitely
Ron Richards (00:08:29):
Share it. I would like to find the earlier I gotta cuz I know, I, I know I had the galaxy nexus and I know, I know what happened and I'm, this is killing me and I'm gonna have to buy, I know what happened to my G one. Like I, my next and G one, I lent to a developer at revision three when I worked there to test on and then I quit and I never got the device back. And then yeah. So like, so somewhere that's in a box somewhere is my old net and G one, which is gone. So I'm gonna need to buy one off eBay to complete the collection. But I know I had a galaxy nexus. And then the nexus S and then also I had an nexus one, so those are somewhere. So I might have the full run, but yeah,
Jason Howell (00:09:06):
Your display can literally be like, this is your life on Andrew. <Laugh>
Ron Richards (00:09:11):
What I wanna figure out is I want to figure out my, my art date and end date. Like I wish I kept track of that. Like I started using the phone on this date and stopped using it on that date, just to give a sense of how long the phone lasts and how much usage I got of it and stuff like that. It's like, yeah. Right. It's the same. It's, it's the same thing. I kick myself, Jason, when everybody gets nostalgic about posting ticket stubs or like pictures from old concerts, they went to I'm like, if I could go back in time to when I was 15 and be like, get it notebook and write down every band you saw on the date that you saw totally. Cause 20 years later you'd wanna relive all that stuff and I didn't do it. And it's just like a bummer. So anyway.
Jason Howell (00:09:43):
Yeah. Yeah. It's also just like the past and it's the like on one hand its nostalgic and like I'm totally on the same kind of person. Right? Like I really get attached to nostalgic things in, in my past, but also like you know, what was it however many months ago when I had that hard drive failure and I lost, you know, a lot of what I felt was pretty important data, you know, that really taught me something about like, yeah, but you know, like, why am I holding onto this? Like, does it really matter? Like I think my life is the quality of my life is okay. Even though I don't have that anymore. And yeah. So before we jump into the news real quick Burke, I don't know if you have your finger on the button, but we might as well just push it and bring in some breaking news. Do do Don.
Jason Howell (00:10:32):
It's not the most exciting breaking news in the world, but it did happen shortly before the show. So we'll go ahead and include it. Samsung has announced its unpacked event for 2022 is actually gonna take place on February 9th. That is a Wednesday likely to find out about the galaxy S 22. I think there was even some like hinting that the you know, about the, the note of some sort, which, you know, we know through leaks, the S 22 ultra is gonna have the Spen embedded in it as if it were a note. So should be interesting. So that's yeah, that's Wednesday, February 9th. And we'll certainly be doing live coverage of it. If either both of you would like to join. You're welcome. It's also 7:00 AM Pacific. So it's so keep
Ron Richards (00:11:21):
That in mind. I will not, I believe I'm in, it's on the ninth. Okay. So I'm, I'm out that week. I'm actually gonna be at Disneyland. So I won't be in that morning right on congrats. But, but I do like the fact that they are Samsung appears to have gotten off our publicities get schedule and doing an event on a Wednesday, thus giving us a week later to cover it. Samsung, you need to adjust your schedule, do these events on Tuesday morning so we can talk about it. <Laugh> later that day. Yeah. Google figured it out. Why can't you yeah, totally.
Jason Howell (00:11:51):
Get on the train. Samsung. <laugh> you doing? Any ho, so that happened right before Showtime, but there's plenty more to talk about in the news block. So let's do that right now.
Jason Howell (00:12:06):
Microsoft bless your heart. Thank you. Oh, bless your heart. Bless your heart. Us your little heart, Microsoft. See, this is why people don't trust Microsoft for mobile things, because this happens if you had the surface duo, you know that we talked about not too long ago on the show that you know, it came out well at this point, it came out a year and three months ago, and there were multiple times that Microsoft promised that it was gonna get the next version of and Android. It was gonna get an actual major update to the device and it kept, they kept promising and it never happened. Well, if you're one of those patient, Microsoft surface duo owners slash fans slash hangers on you're finally getting your wish year and three months later, you're finally getting your update to Android 11. And I don't know, it's just, it's just kind of disappointing, right?
Jason Howell (00:13:01):
Like if, if Microsoft was coming out and saying, Hey, we've got this, you know, new mobile effort. Sure. It's not our OS. We're gonna use Android, but we're really excited about this new form factor, this new device, you get people excited and then you don't support it. And that's like, there's no other way to look at this. Other than that, you just, you launched the device and then you didn't support it. And it sure there were reasons along the way. I'm sure they could list off the reasons why, but as an owner of a device, I don't, I don't own this device, but as a potential owner of the device, those view who have this device, like I know if I had bought this device, I'd be, I'd be peeved. I would not be happy about that. But Hey, it finally happened. I don't know. How do you guys feel about this?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:44):
How much does the service do you do a retail for again, by the way?
Jason Howell (00:13:48):
A lot. Oh, that's a good, yeah. I, I mean, I don't think it was an inexpensive phone. What did it, it a thousand. It was a thousand dollars. It was a thousand yeah. Price it launch. Yeah, definitely. So a
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:57):
Thousand dollars. Oh no, no.
Ron Richards (00:13:58):
I'm, I'm sorry. The, the surface du oh two is $1,500. Right. Okay. And the, the surface duo itself was you get a refurbish one for $400, but yeah.
Jason Howell (00:14:09):
So I mean the, the initial one. Yeah. It I'm trying to find what it launched at. I mean it ultimately, yeah. Okay. So we launched at $1,400. It was, it was about $1,400 at launch. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:14:22):
So more than a thousand. Yeah. So, yeah, but Hey, you can get one, you can get one now for 400 on Amazon. So <laugh>,
Jason Howell (00:14:30):
If you, if you really want to do that, so,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:33):
Oh, this is so frustrating. I, I, I feel like, especially like the last 10 years of vendor development, you always hear about like fragmentation and why can't we get updates to our devices and to, to some extent, like there was stuff that Google could do to help. So now there's like project trouble, but it's always gonna be stuff like this that is always going to stick in people's minds about, we can actually call down the F word. I don't like saying it because I feel like I heard it the first three or four years of my Android life, like consequence constantly, but right. It's just crap. Yeah, it's disappointing. And I mean, it's Microsoft, right? I don't wanna say anything mean about my Microsoft, but it just, I don't know. It just, yeah. If you're going to get into Android support the dang device, I dunno. But Hey, they might get 12 L one day something. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:15:18):
Yeah. Well, that's, that's a good point, right? Like maybe, maybe this was like the slap across the face and be like, all right. Or, or the pie in the face, you know, to put it a different way. Microsoft gave itself the pie in the face and said, all right, you had to wait a, in three months for this official update, but we have plans, you know, and apparently, you know, according to Huyendows central Microsoft says they do have plans to bring 12 L to the, both the versions of the surface. Duos can. Now the question is, of course, can you deliver on that, that plan and Huyen? I think the Huyen is, you know, assume that Microsoft's gonna deliver on that. Maybe that's a wrong of, you know, maybe that's faulty thinking, but I assume that they will. It's just, when is it gonna be another year in three months? Cuz then still you're, you're kind of failing, you're dropping the ball. Do it sooner. I
Ron Richards (00:16:06):
Dunno. And would, do you think that they'll likely just skip to skip 12 and go right to 12 L like you, yeah, I think that's like, like, is that, is, are they trying to, like, they're just doing this 11 just to catch up cuz they know 12 L's coming. Right. Like, I don't know, who knows,
Jason Howell (00:16:21):
Sounds like they're doing 11 because they made the promise and they, they had to, you know, they had to get there. But I totally understand them skipping 12 and going direct to 12 L considering 12 L is all about the large informed factor, you know, devices, the, the multiple screen devices and everything. Yeah. It's the point. Exactly. So, right. So yeah. So cross your fingers for that. Let's just hope we're not waiting another year. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:16:50):
Let's hope not.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:50):
It seems like not a, it seems like not a great way, especially know if everyone's, it seems like, yeah. Now we keep talking about foldables because now foldables are a thing. And I don't think we really have this issue when we talk about you know, like the, the flips, the folds and the other kind of fold devices that we got coming. And I suppose like with Microsoft, something that they always have is market share and name, recogni name recognition. So it feels like they're always gonna be around and they can kind of get by with this kind of behavior ish, but it's kind of lame dude kinda lame. Yeah. <Laugh>
Ron Richards (00:17:23):
Yeah, but isn't, isn't isn't that if you look how Microsoft's an, a dictionary, doesn't it like an alternate definition is lame, right. M
Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:31):
I mean, you know, I was, I wasn't gonna say it, but you, I
Ron Richards (00:17:34):
It's true though. It's true. Right. When was the last time, I mean, like we had a, we had a little glimer of Microsoft being cool a couple years ago when they had the Android garage and they were doing those cool kind of apps that like were, were these weird oddities that came out. But when was the last time we had any of those that we talked about, you know? Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:17:49):
So, well, that's true. There, there was that, that time period where M yeah, where Microsoft was getting a lot of thumbs up from the Android community based on what they were doing from software mm-hmm <affirmative>. There was, I think, you know, there was, there was the hope that that would transition over into their hardware. I think Microsoft in general has gotten a lot cooler since Satya Meela has, has such and Nadella has, has come on board. Things have really improved a lot with the company. And I think their cache has definitely improved. It's just their Android track record is still very iffy and this really fair makes that it makes that pretty obvious. Yeah. So when, so this is so coming up here next in the news block, you're gonna talk a little bit about jet back compose and I don't know how, how do we set this up because this isn't necessarily news that happened news within the last week? No.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:42):
Or did this stuff happen? I'm kind of like, no, no, this is old news. This is kind of me making up for like, so the last time we talked about this, I think I talked about composed for the year end show and I was just a guest then. And I, I I think that I wanted to, it's kind of hard when you talk about dev stuff. I really try hard not to make people like you know, like Dr. And, and their eyes roll back in their head, falling asleep when I talk about dev stuff. And so I, I think I didn't do a great job, especially with visuals. And I think because I was just a guest, I wasn't like Burke roll that crispy footage in that link that I, I kinda show you because it, it is, it is a hard thing to see, but I, I kind of wanted to talk about it a little bit more because this is gonna be kind of an ongoing thing with Android and why y'all should be excited.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:27):
And I apologize again for podcast listeners, because again, this is very, very hard to communicate with just voice, but I kind of wanted to go kind of maybe like, reHuyend, like go back to like December 20, 21 when I was talking about compose and kind of, kind of like, maybe give more visual examples and kind of talk about some stuff that we, that that is, is worth getting excited for just from a dev perspective and to give it a proper treatment. So I mentioned that jet jet post is just kind of easier to read more natural. And so that's kind of the thing. If you have any experience with like web development at all, you might be familiar with HTML, like the market language, and you might be familiar with like things like CSS and JavaScripts that build on top of that. And traditionally Android UI has looked like that composes a bit different.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:14):
It's a bit more easier to read and natural kind of languagey. And that was like that tweet actually that just flashed on the screen. Yeah, so this, I mean, it's a little bit hard again, if you're not at deaf, but if you compare the left to the right, this is kind of like things are getting skinnier. This is kind of like a small, like example also it's hard to see, but the, the, the thing, a lot of things I've been that kind of emphasize with more modern development across any platform is just more readability it's, it's getting to be like less magic, less kind of like weird that kind of, kind of whole Greek to me, kind of feel, and kind of becoming more easier to read more naturally language. And that's what kind of compose and cotton brings us.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:54):
But anyway, like the, the real, the really important stuff for us as consumers is the cool crap that people do. I wanted to say a different word there that would've sounded cooler, but basically back in may last year, the Android team, or Google rather put out this Android dev challenge where it was like a four week thing and devs had one week to complete a number of challenges. So like the first week was, Hey, make us a, a pet adoption app in a week. And the second week was make us a timer in a week and kind of focusing on like different parts of dev pack pose. And I kind of wanted to highlight some of that just because I, that, that if you kind of think about the idea of someone writing a really cool app in a week, and then seeing what people came up with using this new toolkit, it's pretty awesome.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:35):
So there's, there's quite a few things. I think one of them that was really awesome was the weather app. So the, so one week for everything and the, one of the Huyenners for visual beauty was a app called weather scene by Chris Horner. And I think if you, yeah, if we like, like one of them. Yeah. so this, this gentleman, Chris, Chris horn actually had another weather app that he was working on, but he was able to kind of rewrite it in a week and jet pack pose. And if are we able to get, like, there's like a screenshot and
Jason Howell (00:22:06):
That start to finish, like, like from,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:08):
From the ground up, start to finish. Right? Yeah. I actually looked at the code and like, his first commit was like the start of the week, his last, like his last commit was like the end of the week. And I think there's actually a picture of it somewhere, maybe in the GitHub or something at the bottom. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:22:21):
If you go to the GitHub and then scroll down, there's the screenshots area. Is, is that what you're talking about? Finish off the
Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:26):
A little bit. Yeah. Go all the way down, down, down, down, down. Oh, wait.
Jason Howell (00:22:31):
No wrong thing. So Burke, if you look on, on the, the collection of links and line 17, you'll see, you'll see the weather app, visual beauty Huyenner by Chris Homer. And there's a GI help link.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:44):
Yeah. Chris. Oh, sorry, Chris corner. My, sorry, my bad. There we go down then you'll see. Yeah. Scroll all the way down. And yeah. So this was done in a week. That's amazing. That's amazing. Right. So there's like beautiful graphical. That makes me
Ron Richards (00:22:59):
Feel like a, that makes me feel like a failure. <Laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:02):
I mean, but yeah, kind of also myself, but also it should give you kind of hope that you can do these kind of beautiful to, and just to kind of visually, there's like a really cool banner with like a really wonderful graphical element. There's even like temperature graphs that, you know, that show like the, the curves and everything and these wonderful tables and just all this data, like really nice to topography and like all these different elements. And that was done in a week, which is kind of mind bloHuyeng to me. And this was like a full functioning app, I believe. And then if you want like a super extreme example, the, the next, the third week was a speed challenge. And, or actually I think that was the fourth week was a speed challenge. So basically right as the coolest app, you can in as fast as you can. I think they did it in like three different time zones. And so I think the Huyenner of our time zone was we trade by Jorge bonos and he wrote this app in two hours in 43 minutes. And I mean, look at this, how
Jason Howell (00:24:00):
Do that? That is amazing.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:02):
Wow. Yeah. I, I mean, and this, this to be, be to be fair, like maybe if you were super, super, super good with like, you know, I'm very well versed in like the old view system, you could do this baby into, I don't, I, I, I actually am sweating thinking about doing it the old way in the old toolkit in the two hours. But so this is basically the idea is, is like, if you take a look at something like that, and it's a really professional looking trading app, you know, it's style, it's beautiful. Everything is spaced out well, there's, you know, trending lines of different colors. Like, yeah, everything looks very professional in and like, you know, it doesn't look like a cookie cutter app. Like I think that was one thing that when material design first came out, everything looked the same.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:39):
This looks like, you know, just some company and, and like has some branding, it looks like a, a unique, well designed well implemented thing. And it was done in two hours and 43 minutes. So I think that's just a just, just to get people more excited. And I know like it's easy for me to be excited cuz it's like my day to day, but I, I think that sometimes when you see the lag between, Hey, like we came up with material you and it's gonna be awesome. And you don't see your, your O you know, your, your favorite apps pick it up very quickly. A lot of it is kind of the difficulty with doing fancy things with, you know, I won't say like stone tools, but like maybe like think of it as a broom versus a vacuum cleaner, you know what I'm saying? Like it it's, there's still work to be done. You still have to do a lot of stuff by yourself, but the speed with which you can do things in the efficiency with which you can do things is to different level. So I just wanted to showcase that. Actually
Jason Howell (00:25:29):
I have a, could I ask you a question before, before we move on, on this on this markets app, what was it called? The, the trade speed. Yeah. Yeah, the, the we trade, so, okay. So the app itself is, is developed using jet pack composed very <affirmative> how much preparation is done prior, like was part of the challenge you can't think of, like, you can't do any like mental planning about this. Cause I, cause I imagine you as a developer, you had to have an idea of like the tree, like the, like the direction that a user goes into. But, but also before you ever get in the tools and play around with the things, how much, how much that does that come into play in something like
Ron Richards (00:26:10):
That, but also like the API and the database schema and like all this sort of stuff, you know, like, you know, like the, the app itself is the, the front end is actually functional. And then what happens inside the app and how it manages data, but then are there any services it's connecting to? Right. So, yeah, absolutely.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:26:27):
No, that's a great question. I, I feel like two hours from portrait events is just straight up coding. I think that's fair to say. Okay. And then like as, and you're a hundred percent correct that like, when we do a feature, there's quite a bit of like I don't wanna say manpower. That's not like person power put into design and figuring out interactions, figuring out like the flow of something, figuring out all the different use cases. And then like, as Ron mentioned, like all the kind of like ex like ancillary, like kind of things like what services do I need and even like designers just generating images. Like I, like, I mean, a lot of stuff can be like kind of hand drawn in Android for lack of a better way of phrasing it. But sometimes we just need someone to draw something pretty and we stick it in the app.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:27:08):
And so that also takes time. So I, I think it's fair to say that two hours and 43 minutes, wasn't like from conception in his brain to, you know, pushing it out, but that like pushing out to the store to get hub or whatever, but that the actual coding time was two hours and 43 minutes, which is still freaking amazing bonkers. Yeah. But, but, but that's actually a good point because maybe this also, because a lot of times when we are building apps and I've mentioned this before, a lot of the compromises that we have to make, and a lot of the decisions we have to make are based on time when we hope to release something, when we have to release something and how much, you know, of resourcing that we have in terms of designers and, and devs. And we cut out stuff like I've very many times said, Hey, I'd like to do a cool animation here.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:27:51):
And it's like, wow, that's kind of at the bottom of the list that gets cut out really easily. Or Hey, this visually we could do something really cool with a typography here. Or maybe we could kind of add in this kind of like little bit of flare and that gets cut out really easily or know, we think we're gonna do a version two and because life is life, we don't get around to it. And so the idea of like more productivity on this end and being able to kind of iterate really quickly is really cool. I mean, there to get a little bit super, super technical with it, like with compose in, in certain situations, you can actually change a value in code and then have it like immediately be reflect in the app, like kind of live edited, live, editing it as like as you go.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:28:30):
And that's pretty amazing. Like if you can imagine just sitting side by side, a designer and developer, and rather than me working the whole day, sending you a build and you saying, okay, maybe checking off three or four or five or six different things that don't look right. You can sit with me and I can just say, okay, I'll tweak this. How to does that look, I'll tweak this to how this look. So there's a lot of really cool, like ease of communication, ease of collaboration that goes along with it as well. So this is just really exciting and hopefully, you know, we'll have, people will have more time and more capability to do cool things, and maybe we will end up making apps that look as cool as it will ones you see at Google IO when, or when Google releases a new thing for Android.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:29:10):
So I just, I kind of wanted to circle back around to that. Love it. And like, yeah. And like big companies are using this now. I I'm gonna call it a, he, a friend of mine, Alex Lockwood. He actually works at Lyft. He used to work at Google and now he would look works as Lyft. And yeah, if we pull up like the one tweet that he did, so Alex is awesome. He's one of my Android heroes. If I can go off on a tangent, my very first paid Android gig ever was a nightmare, a nightmare. I, I was actually at an Android conference, but stuck in the hotel room. My, my husband was speaking and I was in the hotel room just working, not having fun. And we had a, yeah, we had a dev actually walk out on us because he said, I'm sorry, y'all, I've been working in startup for like X years.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:29:48):
I know when my mental health is more important, so bye. And he just left right before and we were releasing like the end of that week, so, oh, wow. So I was, so I was there by myself trying to fix bugs all night. And it's the point of the story was like actually Alex Lockwood, who is like a prolific or was it is a prolific blogger and a prolific kind of experiment. Yeah. I've, I've heard of him. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. So he works at Lyft now and he wrote this great tweet, which I think is a good example of things. So he's writing the design system for Lyft, which is basically a design system in kind of a library, a a kind of like, how do we, as a brand, as an app, you know, do this button, how do we do loading screens?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:31):
How do we do forms? How do we do buttons? And kind of is just the language design wise that you write an app in. And so Alex did this and he, I think the tweet was like let me see what was the tweet? It was like, I've been working two and a half years on the design system for Lyft. And he's really proud, but then he spent less than a day rewriting. Most of the, the common components compos, and he's using a fraction of the code and he's now like, what do I do now? Because he just,
Jason Howell (00:30:55):
I have all this spare time now, what am I gonna do with,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:58):
What do I do? Yeah. So how do I work?
Jason Howell (00:31:01):
<Laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:31:02):
Yeah. And if you're interested in like graphical stuff, Alex Lockwood is a great person to follow. He does amazing experiments. Visually he's like a big Figma person too. He's a, he's a really cool guy. He's, he's super great on both like the super D stuff and the UI stuff, but you know, this is Lyft, right? This is a major company that's investing time and getting a lot of bad benefit from composed. So that's your dash spiel for the week. Love composed, hopefully things cooler and better things will come out better. And yeah, that's, that's some of Alex's experiments with animation and composed like composed, there's still a lot of math and work just like, kind of again, like going back to like the analogy of the broom and the vacuum. You still gotta push that vacuum around, but there's a lot that's easier with composing faster to do. So hopefully, I mean, I, I know the first thing that I wanna do is just stick a bunch of this cool stuff in there, and hopefully now I'll have time to do it. That's, yeah's amazing. I just wanted to kind of touch back and, and kind of more visually explain why this is so cool instead of just being like, Hey, the devs ranting about your technical stuff.
Jason Howell (00:32:02):
But yeah, well, and it also helps to have the examples to look at, right? Yes. Cause like I, as a user, I can really connect with, with what I see and from, from a usability standpoint, and then to consider the, like the speed at which these things were created, like, you know, as, as a user and then non-developer, I think of development, this like complex, like rubiks cube thing. That's like impossible for, for anyone to solve quickly. Like I don't even know where to begin, but yet people are making these incredible apps in a couple of hours as a challenge because the tools enable them to do it that quickly. And that's just a Testament to how far we've come with these tools. Right. Absolutely not. And not just Android, just in general, the, all of these development tools have improved so much over the years and Android as well. So that's amazing. I love it. Really cool stuff. Cool. Thank you for highlighting that. Yeah. And and, and yeah, we'll we'll have more, more of this going forward with you when, cuz I, I just love, I love the knowledge that you bring in general, but also, you know, from the developer perspective, it's just, it's just really cool stuff. It's stuff that like, you know, Ron and I, we, we don't, we don't live in Bruce development the way
Ron Richards (00:33:19):
You guys, I, I wish I wish I did more I'm so, you know, like I'm so thankful for developers like yourself that I know and that you can tap into and get that information. It's it's the totally one of those things where I wish I could, you know, there was a, a moment in time where I could have gone down that path and I chose a different path and not that I have any regrets, but I am very respectful of what, of what you wizards like you can do with all this sort of novel, like
Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:42):
Gel, you guys are like way too sweet. I mean, I think that's interesting thing though. And I, you know, just like kind of like people have different preferences, different things that kind of inspire them. It's really interesting. I, you know, with, with Android, with a lot of other development, especially kind of user facing development, there's kind of like the UI side that you cause UX side, which is what, where I love and I live and then there's the kind of architecture inside. It's, it's just like a car, you know, there's like the outside of the car, like the body of the car, like the way, whether the way that the steering wheel and like the dash is set up and like whether you got a floppy paddle versus like a transmission and then there's like the engine, right? Like whether you have a six or eight cylinder and, and all the other cart terms that I don't actually know, cause this is where my car knowledge stops.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:24):
And so some people, you know, specialize on the engine part. Some people are really great at like kind of like, you know, body work and like kind of like interior design. That's kind of me and my husband's a total architecture person. And what I, what, what I think is interesting is a lot of people don't ne have traditionally kind of hated Android UI development because it is difficult takes time. It's a, it was a, it can be a drag. And I think this is inspiring people to kind of re re look at it again. I've seen anecdotally quite a few people say, Hey, like, this is actually like a lot easier now. So I mean, especially if you, and I've said this before, if you are looking to get into mobile development, dive into this and use the new stuff right away, it is, it is, <affirmative> what we would, what, what is it is increasingly what one would hope development would be where you get to focus on making cool things and not on all the nitty gritty of how the heck you can do the cool thing, which is, which is really what, what we hope for and is like we go forward and, and people are making apps.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:18):
Hopefully they'll make better, more stable, more reliable, more delight, full apps using tools like this as, as we, as we kind of go further along with this 10, 12 years of like mobile space. So anyway. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:35:30):
Cool. Indeed. Love it. Cool. Thank you, Lynn. We've got a lot more coming up here, but first let's take a break and thank the sponsor, this episode of All About Android and that is better help, better help is all about mental health, right. And it's really important. I mean, we've, as collectively, we've all experienced a really hard couple of years. Last couple of years have not been easy for anyone, right? Whether we've been directly acted by COVID, let's say, or, or just kind of considering the impacts of it on our careers, on our lives, you know, whether, you know, or, or the, the, the fear that's associated with, with everything in the last couple of years in employment. I mean, there's just so many reasons why we need to do what we can to take care of our mental health. And that's what better help is all about.
Jason Howell (00:36:19):
We talk about better help a lot on the show on the network. And now they're actually releasing a new podcast called getting better stories of mental health, actually season one, just dropped episodes, featuring interviews with people, you know, notable people, NBA hall of fam Chris BOSH. Who's actually talking about anxiety pop star, Meghan trainer. Who's actually talking about motherhood and panic attacks, Wilmore Valderrama on immigrating to a new country and a whole lot more. I mean, just all sorts of, and, and the thing about these interviews is like, when you listen to them, just so you're listening to someone telling their story and sharing insights about, you know, their own mental health, but there's so many little pieces that we can all connect to from our lives to theirs. And so even if you know, that particular, that person's experience doesn't perfectly match your own, there's still the there's still human emotion and, and, and everything tied up in there that we can all connect to.
Jason Howell (00:37:23):
So it becomes really informative and really engaging from that perspective. Mental health is something we should all be focusing on. Like I said, just, just as much as we focus on our physical health, it's kind of a mind shift to start thinking about your mental health, the way you think about, you know, taking care of your body and your physical health. So join better help as they continue to fight to, to destigmatize actually mental health and show people that everyone struggles with something. So we need to talk about it. That's the best way to kind of remove the pressure, remove the, you know, take the weight out of the backpack, so to speak, you can do your part to help by listening and sharing your favorite episode of the, of that podcast and spreading the word that it's okay to not be okay, that's it. Check it out for yourself, find their awesome new, mental health podcast, getting better stories of mental health. You can find it on apple podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, you know, just look for it where you find your podcasts and we thank better help for their support and for sponsoring this episode of All About Android. I think it's a really, really good good, good thing for all of us to, to look into all right, coming up now, we've got some hardware news to talk about
Jason Howell (00:38:49):
Ron. Not only did you have a box at the beginning of the show, but you've got a box in the hardware section and, but it's different
Ron Richards (00:38:55):
Kind of box. It's my new thing. I'm trying to bring a box to every section. Before we get started <laugh> before we get started, Jason, I, the knowledge sticking with the facial hair. Good, good for you or video Watchers who can continue Jason's mustache and GOE adventure has been going on since November. I look I'm I'm, I'm glad you're sticking with it. So I just noticed that as you were doing that lovely ad read, I just, I was like, oh wow. You know, it's coming in. Nice. We got some colors going on there. We got some, we got some gray, some white, this is pretty cool.
Jason Howell (00:39:24):
This is about, this is how I realize I'm in my mid forties or these little patches are gray know, I don't really have gray anywhere else, but I see it
Ron Richards (00:39:32):
Every now and then every now and then I get one really low on gray in one of those sideburns that I'm just like,
Jason Howell (00:39:40):
Oh, you getting old,
Ron Richards (00:39:41):
Getting old. All right. Well, speaking of getting old, speaking of getting old I have a piece of hardware in my life that is getting old, and those are my galaxy not galaxy. Oh my God. My pixel earbuds. If you remember, if you remember long term Watchers of the show know that I don't like things in my ears. So I don't like in ear headphones. And despite Burke trying to sell me various types of in ear headphones and things to use on the show. I prefer earbuds. I like a simple, you know, nice earbud. That just goes right in my ear. It's perfectly an nothing goes inside my ear because I once had earbud get stuck inside my ear on a plane and it was awful. And so never again. Oh yeah, when it was, it was, that sounds awful. I was at a, I was at a, I was at a conference in park city, Utah, and the flight from park city, Utah, back to New York, right after takeoff, I took the earphone out and the little play thing stayed in and the earphone came out and a five hour flight. I'm trying to get this thing outta my ear. I couldn't do it. It was awful. Oh, so never again. Oh dude.
Jason Howell (00:40:45):
Never again. No, I understand now. Oh my God.
Ron Richards (00:40:47):
Yeah. So, but but my pixel buds are getting, they're getting they're, they're getting tired. I mean, I don't know. When did the pixel first pixel buds come out? Those came out ages ago. Right? let's see what those
Jason Howell (00:40:56):
Are. Yeah. What, what was, was that 20 17, 17, 20 18, somewhere around there, 2018,
Ron Richards (00:41:02):
Somewhere around there. Yeah, I think so. Google
Jason Howell (00:41:04):
Pixel buds. So the verge review 2017 pixel buds in 2017. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:41:09):
So I've had those 17, I've had those since what? 18, 19 21. So four years, four plus years I've been using those. Yeah. So I was like, listen, it's time to get a new, a new pair. So I, I went out and I was searching for a new pair of Bluetooth wireless earbuds, and which is by the way, getting whittling that the search down and filtering out all the in ear headphones was nearly impossible. But I was surprised to find out that there's a pretty decent selection. There was about six or seven earbuds that I was that I was looking for everywhere from, you know, I saw some brands that were like $30. And then I saw like, there's a, a, a, a bows set of earbuds that are like $200. Right. I didn't wanna spend that much, but I wanna spend a little more than that, where I net out was on these, these suckers which in our video viewers can see me holding out the box.
Ron Richards (00:41:59):
It is the NGO air, T2 wireless earbuds. And what struck me about these was that it looked, they claim that they are the smallest thinnest earbuds and charging case. And I'm gonna unbox it here. And I will show you that it is starting small, starting small. This that's awesome. This little case is like so thin and so tiny. I don't know how they did it. It fits in your I'm not gonna stand up and make everyone look at my crotch, but you know, that little, like the little like sub pop inside your genius pocket. Yeah. It fits the pocket within your pocket. That's awesome. Yeah. It fits, it fits in the pocket within the pocket, which is
Jason Howell (00:42:40):
Awesome. It passes Ron's pocket test, which he used to run with tablets tablet. Yes. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:42:45):
I used, I used to put tablets in, in my back pocket to see they fit my back pocket <laugh> but but yeah, so I picked, I, I picked these suckers up. So they've got basically, they've got a great little clam shell case that they sit into and actually it's so small. It's actually hard for my big fat fingers to deal with. But when they're in the CA when they're in the case, when the case is open, they're not charging when the case closes, they are charging, right. And they're clearly marked right. And left. When you see each one comes and you can just pop them out of the case. And these are actually really, really small, but it's a, oh, wait, my I'm horrible at my camera stuff and Burke's moving around. So it's a little, imagine a little earbud without the wire.
Ron Richards (00:43:29):
And it's got just a little bit of like maybe a half an inch of plastic coming down from the center of the earbud and the entire area. So there's a silver circle right in the center of the earbud on the outside. And then there's black plastic. These come in black, white, and red. And there's a little bit of black plastic, the entire plastic and silver circle area is tappable. So wow. All your, all your controls. So it's like, it's not like you need to hit that one silver target. It works for the entire area. And also both the right and the left side are tappable as well. So for me, the, the question was, you know, like how do they fit? How do they feel? And I, I'm gonna put one in, so you can all, so everybody, their video Watchers can see it. They fit and feel great. They just feel like a regular earbud as I, I moved away from the mic. So hang on, lemme do. And
Jason Howell (00:44:23):
Those aren't, those are not extending into your canal, not creating that like suction E effect that I know that you hate. I don't, I don't mind it, but I know you hate it.
Ron Richards (00:44:33):
They are, these are no different than my wired earbuds. I use on the show. I, I, I use a, a pair of nine, $9 and 99 cents. So many earbuds for my monitor ears. It's, they, they actually look almost exactly the same. If you look at the buds themselves, like they're just black circle. It goes right in. When I put the earbud, when I put the wireless earbud in my ear, I did get you, you know, like we finding the right groove for it, or spot to settle in took, you know, barely a second. It just popped right in felt good. They do recommend tilting the little black piece coming down away from your head to get better kind of reception from the on the microphone and all that sort of stuff. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but I, I tested it with phone calls, phone calls sounded great.
Ron Richards (00:45:21):
The person I was on the phone with said, I sounded great. I didn't really do an AB test to the pixel buds or not. It was just more like, Hey, can you hear me? How do I sound? And that sort of thing. But they, you know, the person person on the phone couldn't tell I was using wireless earbuds, which is great. It's got it's it's within this, in terms of the guts of it. It's got the qual Qualcomm, QC 30, 40 chip set and Bluetooth 5.2 which is great. It's also got four microphones in a, in each of the earbuds with CVC 8.0 noise reduction technology. And they claim that it's got up to 28 hours of play time. I have not tested it through all 28 hours. I think the, the lowest I ran the battery down was like 75%.
Ron Richards (00:46:06):
So I haven't given it the full, you know, kind of, you know, let it run for a day without charging. But, but I'm able to quickly pair to my phone or to my tablet. It, it, you know, what I really like about it is is that once you take 'em out of the case they immediately connect to the last device that they connected to if it's with, if it's with within range, but once you put 'em in the case and close that clam shell, it turns them off and severs any Bluetooth, which is actually something I ran into a problem with the pixel earbuds all the time is that, I guess, cuz they were older or the way that you remember that case, that fabric case where they kind of sit in and you had to wrap the thing around it it would be in the case and it would still connect to my phone and then drain the battery. Which is just the pain in the yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean
Jason Howell (00:46:51):
They were also five that was like almost five years ago. These things have come a long way in five years. Lots of advances.
Ron Richards (00:46:57):
Yeah. Yeah. And so they've also got neat little magnets. So when you put 'em back in the case, they just kind of snap into place. So you can't screw it up, which is really cool. They, they it's got IP X, five waterproof and they claim one of the reasons why I got it, what I needed was I needed for both, you know, phone calls and like listening to music. But also I go running right. And now this is where the only point where the review turns a little bit of a ding. I went out finally, the weather got warm enough a couple weekends ago after I got these and I went out for a run and I had mixed results while running. It sounded good. But what happened was is that I was, it was a particularly blustery cold, New York Huyen January Huyenter day, I would get a gust of Huyend and what I was listening to would stop.
Ron Richards (00:47:43):
Like the Huyend was actually whatever the touch control, the combination of me running and the Huyend coming at me was picking up a, a pause tap, which is not oh, wow. Yeah. Anthem tap. Exactly. So I only got to do one run on it and it happened like it was particularly Huyendy when I was running downhill, but then I, I got out of like the direction of the Huyend and then I was running uphill in a more wooded area and I didn't have that pro problem. So I wanna get out for a couple more runs before I say yes, this is like unusable in, in a fitness area. But I, I went to the gym the other day. I brought him to the gym, you know, 40 minutes on the treadmill. No problem. Never paused, never ran into a thing. Obviously got sweaty, never, they never fell out.
Ron Richards (00:48:26):
They never got dislodged. Like it was just like they, they passed, they passed about like 90% of the fitness test. I'll say nice. I do wanna get, I do wanna get out and run again to see how they feel and see if that Huyend problem happens again. But beyond that it was pretty good. So yeah, so I give 'em, I give 'em thumbs up. I like 'em so far. There's 70 bucks on Amazon. I got 'em. I got, as you can see here by the video, I got the black ones. They're half an inch wide. It's crazy. They're so small. So yeah, so if you're looking for a Nonan option for earbuds and you're in the market, I would say, give, give, 'em give 'em a try. So, oh. And it does work with Google does work with Google assistant. It doesn't have all the neat and whistles like the pixel buds have where assistant like is naturally in there, but I can, I can get a notification. I can tap and play me back a message. I don't use any of that stuff anyway. So I was fine. So
Jason Howell (00:49:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the pixel buds are really, I'm, I'm trying to think of any other ear wireless earbuds that do that, always listening thing that the pixel buds do. I think that's pretty much isolated to them for, for that particular feature. Yeah. Which I find really, really useful, especially if you're going for like a run, you know, then you just don't even have to interact at all. You're just like, Hey, G skip forward 15 seconds or whatever, you know, two minutes or whatever. Yep. It's really nice. But the next to go air T2 wireless year, but nice. Yeah. Right on. It was nice to have be earbuds.
Ron Richards (00:49:53):
Yeah. First tryout. I didn't, I was at the price point. I like, I was gonna go get one of the super cheap ones, but I'm like, eh, let me go like mid range here to get ones that will be quality. And, and I'm not regretting the purchase at all yet. So nice.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:50:06):
I, I love the case form factor. I just feel like we, like, most things are trying to go for that. Like apple pod pick bud, like the round little kind of pill case. I love that kind of thin like more elongated case just cause I feel like where the way I carry my pixel buds around is always in like my purse or my pocket. And they always kind of like also just like a thing with women's packets. Not gonna go around about women's posing, but like women's pockets are very small. So if I kind of sit down stuff kind of squeezes out my pocket, so yeah. <Laugh> hopefully if it's a little bit thinner and longer, it won't squeeze out. I've actually broken phones that way, where I'm like in my car and I've got like my phone in my pocket. I, I kind of just stand up and then this, the phone, the phone just squeezes out. And then I hear that. You can tell when you've cracked your phone, it has that very distinct. It's the worst you can. Yeah. The, you can hear the glass. It's like the, yeah. It's that, that sounds, you know, that sound, but yeah, exactly. Yeah. And just like,
Jason Howell (00:50:59):
Anyway, Ugh. Yeah. It's the worst. I've I've had that before by putting my phone in my sweatshirt like the pocket don't do that. Take my advice. It's a horrible place to put your phone and yet I still do it. Like I still forget and put it in there and then it falls out. So I haven't had any horrible accidents lately, but anyways, next to go air T2 wireless year buds. Thank you for the review, Ron. Cool pleasure. Lovely, lovely option there options. Right? When this one's for you, because I know you, you have the experience with the, with foldables so <laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:35):
Yeah. I feel bad now that I'm here, I'm taking foldables a little bit away from Ron, but I, I also,
Jason Howell (00:51:41):
I can share. Yeah, I can share. There's plenty of foldables to go around. There's a box tool foldables yeah. So,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:48):
Well, unfortunately this is a foldable foldable that we in the United States cannot get, but this is the honor magic five. It is honor is a brand honor is a brand formally owned by Huawei. It was actually sold at the end of 2020 to a state owned enterprise in Xin province. But so basically the brand magic five is of flagship foldable. It's super comparable to the galaxies fold. It's got the same form factor of a front screen, which is normal smartphone size. And then it opens up like a book into an inner screen that is, let's see, 7.9 inches. The front facing screen is 6.45. So a little bit slightly larger than the full three. And it's, it's kind of really easy to compare this phone to the full three, cuz the form factor is basically again the same with the front front screen and then an inner screen.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:39):
Let's see what else we got. We got a snap drag, an eight gen one system on chip with 12 gigabytes of Ram and the option of 256 or 512 gigabytes of storage. And they claim that the inner screen is greaseless. And if we actually, if we scroll actually from the honor page, if we scroll down a bit, so the way that they're trying to get this crease list screen is kind of interesting. They have what they call a teardrop hinge. And for those on the podcast, only if you think about maybe looking at the, a closed fold from like the bottom end, what happens is the screen doesn't kind of fold all the way shut like a piece of paper, the kind of like where the middle of the screen kind of forms like kind of more like just rolls or kind of like if you think about folding paper, but not actually like doing the crease on the just kinda yeah, not exactly.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:27):
So, so the screen, so it kinda rounds a little bit. Exactly. Thank you, Jason. That's so much better than what I was talking about, but yeah, so the round kind of teardrop type, they call it a tear drop pinch. So they, they claim that it's crease list, which would be pretty fascinating cuz I know that's a problem that I unfortunately have with my fold three that I can't unsee the crease only certain angles. So that's kinda there. Yeah. And, and in a lot of ways it's a little bit bigger and better than the fold three, it's got a slightly bigger battery, 47 of 4,007, 50 Milant battery with 66 wa wire charging and it claims people to charged fully in 40 minutes. It's got a really nice triple 50 megapixel rear camera. And of course, as we got two screens, we got two front screens in a sense, we've got the outer front camera and the inner front CR camera, both at 42 megapixels 4k HDR, video capable but no H HK yet.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:25):
And a unfortunately there's no water resistance or wireless charging on this one. You do get the honor magic UI 6.0, which is basically their personalized flavor of Android based on Android 12, which includes honors very own digital assistant magic live, which in the vein of other digital assistance is trying to kind of like bring up commonly used information and apps to you. And let's see in terms of price, the 256 gigabyte version is 9,999, Y which is about we'll call it 1600 us versus the $899 or let's call it $900. I always get confused when people do that 99 $900 approximately for the fold three. And similarly we've got the 512 gigabyte version at 10 we'll call it 11,000 yin which is about a thousand which is about $1,700 us D versus the more or less flat thousand that the fold three is. And again, this is only available in China. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I think the idea of a CRE list design would be kind of money, but the price differential is really interesting at 1500 and 1700, especially with no water resistance or wireless charging. I don't know. What do, what do y'all think is this intriguing at all? Or just a nice curiosity of other foldables? I
Ron Richards (00:55:44):
Mean, honors always honors, always a curiosity. So we always appreciating an honor device around here. I don't, we Jason, we need to get Mateo on. So, so cause I feel like an honor, the Mateo is on the honor beat yeah, right, right. Needs to meet Mateo and hear his love for honor devices, but still and MoCo dial. Yep. But this, this is interesting and Burke blew blew the joke, but <laugh> I dunno, I, I, yes, this is the honor is always a, an oddity that's for sure. To me, I don't know, Jason, what do you think? I think this looks like a pretty
Jason Howell (00:56:23):
Snazzy foldable, you know I think they're saying it's a little bit heavier than the Z fold three, but it's also a little bit thinner and that's compelling to me. Cause I feel like, I feel like these foldables are really neat, but it's still like when you get a foldable and it's actually folded up, it feels, they feel like chunkers, right? Like they feel like they do. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm continuing to look forward to the day when we have a foldable, but it's still like, there's, there's some sort of advance in the technology that I'm not sure what that advance is if it'll ever happen. That keeps things still relatively thin. So you don't feel like you're putting a brick into your pocket, like the pocket test, you know, like we were talking about just a few minutes ago with foldables that becomes even more complicated because they're just so huge. So and honor, I mean, it's been a long time since I've had an honor, it like that I've spent like review time with, but the few opportunities that I've had, I've always been left very impressed. Like, you know, it's another one of those manufacturers that really makes like really clean designs on their devices. And I appreciate that. It's just, you know, it's just a bummer that we don't really get them over here without you know, having to import them really.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:38):
I'm, I'm really curious to see what the H how the hinge holds up, because I, I think the crease is one of those things. Like it's literally, I mean, very, I literally seeing the scenes on, you know, a, a device and how it's manufactured and how it actually uses in real life. So I, I would love to, and that's what I think I liked about some of the other things that we've seen is just trying to experiment with design, to see where the gaps are or where the less like polished places are and user experience and seeing yeah. Whether novel designs and kind of mitigate some of those things like the CRE. So I'm, I'm actually pretty excited. It looks good. I mean, I, I find it fascinating. It doesn't have like water resistance. Cause I feel like, yeah, I know like 10 years ago, just like you know, I, I, yeah, dropping my phone in like the, my shower bucket at school, in college sad. Cause I was a poor college student and that now it's just like, now it's like no big deal. I actually, I think we're, we had a Sach explosion incident like a week and a half ago in my house and we just ran my, ran my phone under the, under the tap for a minute and it was fine. Don't ask, but, you know, and it just kinda kinda interesting for such a high end phone to not have water, but maybe that's just me. I don't know. Well,
Jason Howell (00:58:41):
You know, and, and also, you know, Samsung, when it first released there, crop of foldables the Z fold one. And I can't remember if the flip happened then too. I think it did. They did not have an IP rating is, is my understanding. This was in the S 10 era. And you know, so maybe that's kind of like the, the pathway for these companies making these devices, is that adding one water, water resistance, or dust resistance to a device that does all the folding mechanism stuff. It is true and everything is not really it's. It is not as easy as it is with a, with a, a regular phone, not, not to mention these companies have been doing that with regular phones for years. So they've got that down. Foldables is a completely different beast, you know, I'm, I'm just assuming that's, that's probably no,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:28):
That's really fair. No, that's fair. Because obviously like, even from, like, if you go to the honor magic five site, it does like the hinge, it hinge is like me, it looks to be mechanical and that makes total sense where something that's highly mechanical and has moving parts would be a little more susceptible water. So that makes total sense.
Jason Howell (00:59:44):
But, but, you know, Samsung has figured it out, right? Like eventually they, they they're figuring out systems to make it water resistant. Samsung totally obviously has a whole lot of support, you know, and capital to, to make that happen, but they didn't do it on their first foldables and so honor's kind of in the same boat, you know, maybe Arnold will be there on the next iteration. I don't know. You're looking forward to seeing cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that sounds pretty compelling.
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Jason Howell (01:00:45):
And then I will call this next block, the Google hardware, rumor stamped. It's a stamped of hardware rumors. First rumor is that Google is working on an AR augmented reality headset. According to the verges sources, it's gonna resemble ski go <laugh> their words still a few years out. But I think what's interesting about this is being developed by the same team that developed project star line. And I don't know if either of you remember star line from the last I, this was, this was the demonstration where someone's sitting in front of a screen and has a camera bar in front of them are able to do the, the talking to basically a 3d model of the person on the other side of the camera, but the way it's done with, I think, believe light field technology, it makes it look like that person is actually there. I would love to see that in person, but I mean, that was definitely a big wow moment in my I, from my per perspective, anyways, that Google IO and that same team is working on this AR headset. And in fact, both of the devices could launch together in 2024. So that's a little ways out, but if they're, if they did star line, like that gives me hope for an AR headset. What do you think?
Ron Richards (01:02:00):
It's pretty cool. I mean, I, I remember now that it's described that I remember that that whole project and it did seem neat. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is the thing is, is that I just feel like, I mean, Google's gonna keep experimenting in this space and they're gonna try to do stuff and, you know, the, whether it's telepresence or an AR headset. And I just worry that, that whatever they do is not gonna get off the ground. Cause people won't let Google glass go away, you know, <laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (01:02:28):
Right.
Jason Howell (01:02:29):
There's always the Google glass ghost. Yeah. There
Ron Richards (01:02:32):
Always is. And they always bring it up, whatever you talk about, like all the coverage of this AR headset and stuff like that, it's like, Google's at it again and all this sort of stuff. But like, but, but they're one of how many companies that are experimenting with AR headsets, you know, like they, and again, this goes back to the desperately as an industry want AR to work and no one can figure out what the practical application is yet, you know, and if it's through a headset or not, or through a phone or whatnot, but it, you know, like, but if they can figure it out and it's not a joke then cool. You know? Yeah. Lord knows. Everyone knows I'm I'm well documented that I think it's cool. So, yeah. <Laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (01:03:07):
Wow. Well, I'm just kind of thinking, you know, as we're going, oh, I'm so sorry. No, no go. But as we're going like this second year of, you know, oh, what's been going on. I mean, I I'm actually, I'm kind of just thinking like, I'm just having extra pains cuz we didn't go home for Christmas again this year and maybe that's kind of why they can push it from this angle. Is that Hey, like, especially with that Starfield tech or start Starfield star star, sorry, star Starlight star
Jason Howell (01:03:31):
Star. Yeah. Star line
Huyen Tue Dao (01:03:33):
Star line, star line, the star line technology, the kind of idea of being of telepresence, but having it being more real and more satisfying than we're are all kind of sick of zoom calls by now. Yeah. And that maybe this could be the edge, you know, it's kind of weird how things kind of pick up depending on what the world does and what things seem like they'd be good ideas or maybe also like the desperation of not being able to kind of feel like you're close to your family or feel like you can't travel. Maybe that will kind of be like, okay, well maybe a headset's the, on a bad idea. And I, I remember seeing the demo at Google, I thinking that's really great, but are we gonna have like little booths in our house? Yeah. Right. Sit down and do calls with folks. But a, a headset seems kind of, you know, especially now that we're all kind of used to having technology everywhere, like in our pockets, in our purses, if they don't squeeze out of our pockets that, you know, maybe the headset the way to go. I mean, I actually heard someone not understand what I think I was like talking to a relative over the holidays over call and they didn't quite know what Google glass was. So maybe as we get further away too, maybe the
Jason Howell (01:04:33):
Gym's fading, I don't know fading like ghost, but
Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:36):
I don't know. We still remember. So who knows? They're
Ron Richards (01:04:39):
See, they're gonna, they're gonna bring it up every to so yeah,
Jason Howell (01:04:43):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The next two are, are quick hits pixel six, a launching could launch in may of course this last year, the five a was really delayed. Remember, so this would be putting it back on track, timing it more with around the timeframe that Google IO happens. We'll have Google zone system on ship. Same one that's in the the six, a same tensor chip, but no headphone Jack. So if you're holding onto that headphone Jack, this would be the C change in now, the Aeries phones. So that's coming up in may. Yeah. Some of you are gonna care about that, Juan. Bagnas gonna care about that. But and then a low end Chromecast with Google TV, supposedly in the works it would be limited to HD and, and 60 frames per second. So no 4k support less than the 49 90 model that's currently available.
Jason Howell (01:05:38):
So, right. So you've got the $50. If we think about this, the $50 Google TV, Chromecast that's currently available. And then currently there is the three year old Chromecast that still sells for around 30 bucks. So maybe this is like the replacement for that, but now you get it with Google TV and a remote or maybe not with a remote. I don't know if that'll be, so we'll see about that. And then finally, and I'm curious about this one, the pixel notepad, AKA the foldable pixel. We're starting to hear more about this again. It's it's
Ron Richards (01:06:09):
Real. It's real. <Laugh> yeah.
Jason Howell (01:06:11):
Could it be real and could it be happening sometime this year? I don't know, but nine to five Google says the price for is gonna be somewhere in the $1,400 price range. That's a $500 premium over the price of the pixel six pro right now, which kind of falls in line with what Samsung does, you know, with their S series device and the price gap between that and their foldables. So there you go. I don't know if it's gonna be called the pixel notepad. I don't know if that's an actual name for it, but, but I'm curious, curious
Ron Richards (01:06:46):
To see what this comes up with. I I'm very, I mean, I'm very, very curious. I can't wait to see. And then does this continue to move forward? The legitimacy of foldables in the marketplace, right? Like does Google saying like, yes, it's real. It's not a novelty, it's not an oddity. It's something that we believe in and get behind. Does that bolster what Samsung has done, does that get the you know, the, the carriers and the marketplaces to push them harder on customers? Like the, the domino effect that could happen here. That's what I'm waiting for.
Jason Howell (01:07:17):
So yeah. Does, does Google have the, what it takes to drive that kind of, of excitement around something like this? I'm not so, and
Ron Richards (01:07:27):
Also let's, and, and also let's not, let's keep in mind and I know a segment of our audience is gonna love it. When I say this, Google gets to say they did it first when apple eventually launches the iPhone foldable.
Jason Howell (01:07:39):
Maybe not first, but before them at least. Yeah. Right
Ron Richards (01:07:42):
Before them. Yeah. No, but they, between the two of them, they could say they go there before you did. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we'll see. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Howell (01:07:51):
No matter what, I'm curious to see what Google does on that front. And it'll, it'll just be nice at some point to be able to close that book, that chapter and be like, okay, we've been hearing about this for literally years now. It's a thing. Maybe it'll never be a thing it's kinda like the pixel watch. We're still hearing bits and drips dribbles about that, but still nothing. So yeah. That's true. This could be the year. All right. Coming up next. Well, of course we've got some app news that's up next. Oh yeah. When do you care about Andrew are games on PC? Do you use PC or do you use
Huyen Tue Dao (01:08:36):
Mac? I use both. I will game on anything that I can get my hands on. I mobile game. I, I will play games on my Mac if I have to. Thank you, steam. I actually, there I've, I've played like Mac only games. I, I still have a PC and I, mobile gaming is one of my bad habits. Good habits, bad habits. So I'm actually pretty excited. I I'm, I'm, I'm curious, I'm curious for Google play games on Huyendows. So at the 2021 game awards, one of Google's announcements was that they would be bringing a PC application that allows you to download and play and or games on your PC. Now this would be an application that is standalone application runs on your PC, and it would only be serving games, not apps, but there's some interesting things you'd basically be allowed to use mouse and keyboard input.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:09:25):
It would include eventually we don't, we don't know for sure yet if, if it is available yet, but it would have cross platform achievements and syncing, which is really awesome. As someone who really likes their achievements and also obviously access to Google play points. Right now there is a beta, but the beta is only open to Taiwan, south RIA and Hong Kong. And there are some minimum requirements, basically a decent gaming computer running at least Huyendows 10. In fact, they kind of specify a gaming class GPU. So, which is kinda odd. Sounds interesting. Yeah. Which is kind of odd because I mean, you can, I mean, mobile games are generally run, you know, fairly well on most phones. I mean, that's, that's oversimplification, but I mean, phones are constrained devices and yes, it's kind of interesting that they ask for a gaming class PE P or GPU, which I think is super super are interesting and weird. But
Jason Howell (01:10:19):
Yeah, there's, I didn't understand that. I was like, wait a minute. So what exactly is going on here? Is this Aion, is that why? Or, but I don't think that it, I don't think that it is.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:29):
Yeah. And, and the other requirements are, are kind of seem low. Like it requires eight gigs of Ram, which, I mean, that, that definitely sounds reasonable for, for phone, but like, yeah. Right. You see, like, if you have a, if you have a gaming GPU, you probably have more than eight gig, more than eight gigs of Ram actually gig you Don have more gigabytes, but gigabits, but you have definitely have more than eight gigabytes of Ram and you probably have something around. I mean, like most of us have multi Corp CPUs now it's, it's really interesting. But again, because it's, the beta is only open in Taiwan, South Korea or Hong Kong, there are only certain games that are kind of part of the beta right now, but unsurprisingly, a lot of these games that are part of the beta are ones that are incredibly popular, both in China and Korea. Like if you are like a miracle sort player or a cookie run player, I believe those are all part of the beta as well as some of the super successful Chinese games. Like let me see. Mobile legends, bang, bang, or MLB B I believe is the, the fans call it as well as idle heroes. If you were a Gardenscapes player like me <laugh> or I used to be you, you will also be happy that's part of the beta, but yeah.
Jason Howell (01:11:35):
They looking up garden scapes right now. It's
Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:38):
Don't it don't look at my shame. Jason, don't look at my shame, Jason. I'm really serious. Yeah. It's just it's, it's just a really nice little like puzzler kind of game in the vein of like candy crusher stuff, but there's also like this kind of backstory and kind of, and like garden that you're improving by playing, Hey, stop it, stop it. But anyway, <laugh> they're looking to open the beta to more regions, but focusing on again, Taiwan, south three in Hong Kong for now for sure in 2022 and beyond they'll be opening the beta. We'll see how it goes. I mean, I actually am pretty excited about this. It is. I, I do find the requirements a little bit weird because again, these are games that I've already been written for optimized for and run presumably well on mobile.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:23):
And so you think that you wouldn't need a GP, a gaming class GPU for yeah. Running it on Huyendows, but I, I think this makes a lot of sense you know for like, and, and the kind of the regions that they've opened this beta to make sense to me. I mean, I, I'm kind of bummed at that. I can't get ahold of it just to see what it's like. But for example, in South Korea, South Korea has a huge gaming culture. And I think, you know, a huge mobile culture. And even though you were kind of in, you know, a Mo 2022, where most super developed nations have, you know, fairly easy access to good PCs and also good connections that the internet cafe, the PC B is still kind of a big deal and still kind of a big part of culture. So kind of combining, you know, a love for mobile, a highly mobile culture with still kind of being able to go to a place and hang out and play games when PC kind of makes sense.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:12):
So maybe that's why my thing is like why they might have kind of like focused, done these regions first. So it it'll be interesting to see both how the games play, like how the experiences, whether people actually care about going to PC to play these games. But some of these games are actually, you know, they're like mul multiplayer online, mobile. I know mobile, you know, they're online battle arenas, and maybe things that do take up a lot of, kind of intense process. So maybe they would benefit from both the more gaming class DPU again, and also mass and keyboard input. So I'm, I'm actually pretty interested and excited to see where this goes.
Jason Howell (01:13:45):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious. I mean, I don't have a Huyendows PC, so it wouldn't affect me directly, but I'm, I'm curious to see what the what the demand for this actually is, or if this is just kind of another checkbox, like yeah, well you can now and you know, how many people are going to be, but it's a checkbox on the list. And, and it's
Ron Richards (01:14:04):
Another thing, it's another thing that you might, you like, as they talk to some of their like, major developers, like who knows what kind of corporate or strategic Alliance just kind of checks that box for. Right. Look, we're doing it. We're experimenting. See yeah. That sort of thing. So, yeah. Who knows? It's cool. I think it's cool. I don't have a Huyendows box, but yeah, sure. Right on, yeah, <laugh> right on.
Jason Howell (01:14:25):
I think this is pretty cool primarily because I have been super disappointed with Google's, you know, switch from Google, play music fans of this show. No plenty that we have been disappointed with it, but from go from the transition from Google play music to YouTube music, one of the casualties was the ease of use for like kids to play music with YouTube music. Basic, if you have a supervisor, if you have like a family link account and family link is, is kind of a Android and Google's platform for like family controls over ch children's devices and stuff, we use it for our kids, you know, they have it on their tablets. And in the transition from Google play music over to music, there was no support built into it. So therefore, if my kids want to play music, you know, want to play Ariana Grande song, which they are want to do.
Jason Howell (01:15:24):
If I have voice match set up on my speakers, it used to be that it would recognize their voice and there would be controls. And I could say, yes, you can play all music, but don't play the music that has the, you know, these words in it or whatever. And it would still work well with YouTube music that is impossible. And now it looks like they're actually broadening support. So I'm still unclear whether this is actually gonna work with home devices, but they've made a change with something that I actually, I don't know how I missed this, but apparently this launched last year called supervised experiences. And last year it launched with YouTube. So if, you know, if you have family link and you, you know, you have a kid with a tablet and you don't want them to have access to full YouTube, they, they made YouTube kids.
Jason Howell (01:16:07):
And so that was integrated into family link. Everything's fine. Well, at a certain point, they're old enough and we're totally there with our older daughter. She turns 12, like in, in a matter of days. And we're kind of at this point to where YouTube kids really has, doesn't have the content that she, that is, you know, perfect for her. We wanna kind of open it up a little bit, but weren't really sure how to do that. Apparently the supervised experiences is like an added feature in family link that allows you to open up YouTube a little bit further. So it's not just locked into YouTube kids. It opens it up further and yes, you're taking chances, right. You know, some of it's human curation, some of it's AI, but ultimately it allows her to have more access, but not full access to YouTube on her tablet. Well, now they're adding that feature for YouTube music. So that experiences will also give kids access to music based on the controls that I, as a parent set up. And so Hey, we made it eventually it took forever, but we got there. And I'm curious to play around with this once it rolls out
Ron Richards (01:17:08):
In the next few weeks, it's, it's fascinating, cuz so I have two thoughts coming outta that. And this now, now welcome to like parents' corner and All About Android <laugh> first off I would like this because my YouTube music is completely ruined. I open it up now and it's just suggesting in Canto. And it froze and all this sort of stuff. Amen. I mean, literally, literally we've listened to so much in Canto that I saw a new screen on the home screen of YouTube music that I've never seen before, where it completely, reskins the whole thing based on a popular album, which I guess in Canto, like obviously it's a huge hit and everybody's enjoying it and all that sort of stuff. And I'm, I'm somewhat late to the game and the kids are listening to this song's nonstop. But usually when I open a up YouTube music, it would, you know, it give me, I, I knew what to expect.
Ron Richards (01:17:52):
I saw the same screen a lot, you know, and yeah. And then now, now I just opened it up. Now, now I get this now trending in Canto screen. <Laugh> which I've never seen before where like the, the whole, the whole top of the screen has got a, a screenshot from the movie and it's like all stuff that has to do with it because I never listened to anything that's trending. Right. Which, which I think is very, very funny. But so it would be nice to be able to segregate their listening for my listening and all that sort of stuff. But to your point about YouTube, Jason, it's funny because I've had a, you know, having two, three year olds my YouTube, the YouTube app on, on, on the Chrome Google team, Chromecast has been a nightmare because like trying to get them to watch, stop watching TV, like we're trying to like go to bed, you know, like time to turn the TV off.
Ron Richards (01:18:39):
And YouTube just keeps serving new videos and serving new videos. And even I turned off the setting to autoplay the next to the next video. So when it ends, when a video ends, it ends thing, the next video, and you have to press the button to start playing, but not only doesn't have that suggestion, but it's got a row of five recommended videos plus five, watch it again. And I just don't want the kids to see anything. Right. Yeah. So I was like, oh, let me look at the YouTube, the YouTube kids app, because this is for kids, it's supposed to be whatever. And I know a lot about the YouTube kids app from working with, we've been working with Google and a lot of the COPPA stuff. And like my day job requires me to, to, you know, kind of, you know, I do a lot of family entertainment, stuff like that.
Ron Richards (01:19:18):
So knoHuyeng those legal rules and things like that. So I was familiar with the YouTube kids app in terms of its like gating of content and, and shutting off comments and all this sort of stuff, but sure enough, in the YouTube TV, the YouTube kids app for the Google TV, same thing, you finish a video, recommends five more videos. There's no way to turn that off. And I understand that that is, that is, you know, that is, you know, in direct conflict with Google and YouTube's entire business model, right? The, their whole idea is to promote you to keep watching videos. But I would like some level control to like after of the third video, stop giving me recommendations. Cause I'm trying to control the kids' screen time. So it's fascinating that on one hand they're doing stuff to give you controls to help you with the kids, but not when it gets in the way of their business model. So yeah, I dunno. I think that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Howell (01:20:06):
Not surprising at all. <Laugh> you know, yeah. This is just the saga that keeps on going the, the saga YouTube music and YouTube and, and kids, but little baby steps, pun intended. <Laugh> right. I like it. Yeah. Rodney got the last one
Ron Richards (01:20:24):
I do. So if you you're one of those folks who've been using the G suite legacy free edition of Google workspace I'm one of 'em I know I have at least one domain that that's one of those, I think a couple of mine are unfortunately yeah, unfortunately that gravy trains come to an end. Most of these free accounts of existence since 2012, I did that. Every domain I owned, I went and I registered just to get it for free. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So basically we've got, we've gotten 10 extra years of free account access. Now Google is transitioning all remaining users to an upgraded Google workspace, paid subscription based on usage. And those plans start at the low price of $6 a month up to $18 a month. And I don't blame them. I don't blame 'em. Yeah.
Ron Richards (01:21:07):
It's, you know, it, it's a massive, massive service that they deserve to get paid for and they've given it away to, you know, for, for, for, for free, for so long I have, and, and six bucks a month for email drive, all that sort of stuff. If you're using it for your own personal domain or something like that, it gets pricey when you have a business and you've got a lot of users and scales up and things like that. But for a personal six bucks a month is a, again, that's a cup, it's a, some sort of concoction at Starbucks that people get that I don't drink. So yeah.
Jason Howell (01:21:34):
Yeah. <laugh> are. So then both you and when have, have benefited from the last 10 years of free accounts, will you be doing, will you be paying for this going forward? Like is, or like, are these on accounts that you don't use
Ron Richards (01:21:51):
I'll pay for it? I don't wanna lose it. Yeah. So <laugh> yeah. I'll, I'll,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:54):
I'll pay for it. Like this is, this is from my days of like being a freelancer, which I'm not anymore, but I don't wanna lose it as well, so right. But I I'm I'm with Iran, I get it like keeping these accounts around is, was a nicety. We got 10 years. I'm sure that whoever's, that's a
Jason Howell (01:22:08):
Solid amount of time. It is.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:22:10):
It is. Yeah. And it's kind of, I guess they kind of told us 10 years ago that we kind of needed to like, you know, figure things out and 10 years is, is fair. And I, I kind of be now being kind of like part of company, like, you know, part of being projects and companies that have this kind of payment model. I get it. I get it, please, everyone just get on board the new thing. And so we don't have to keep, you know, making exceptions for folks. So I, I get it. I'll pay for it. I'm I'm not, I don't have a problem with paying for it. It's just more like
Jason Howell (01:22:39):
Yeah, I didn't mean to put either of you on the spot, by the way, I was just kind of curious like like 10 years is, is a long time. Yeah. That's a long time. That's a that's. I mean, when you put it that way, it's kind of a good gift that, that you got from Google for, for the last 10 years. So I think it makes sense. Can't complain. All right, coming up next. We've got some of your emails, your feedback that's up next. AAA twit TV 3 47 show AA. If you wanna leave us a voicemail and looks like when you have the first email.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:23:14):
I do. I do. I do. I do. All right. Let's see. Should brought my glasses. Okay. Well, I bought my Eria five mark two last year at launch opt to buy directly from Sony with lots of free add-ons. I was very sad. The five series did not get purple. One more. Purple three is in purple this year. I love the five. I wanted a smaller phone. That's easy to use one handed. I love watching movies and rarely watch on my phone unless I'm at work on lunch. The 21 to nine aspect ratio is great for video content. I app HBO max, even fill the screen with 2 35 1 movies, the Xperia five was targeted at gamers. It was the official call of duty. Mobile game phone was 120 Hertz screen Marvel feature revolution plays great on it, filling the screen and at a high frame rate.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:24:01):
Ooh, when the time comes, I'll get another Xperia. Maybe the one series since it's available in. Well, my favorite color, Robert from Alaska, Robert, I am so with you. I, I actually a very good friend of mine who is one of the best QA testers I know. And is now one of the best devs. I know always love the Xperia. And I actually took a look at it. It's this 21 to nine form factor is actually really cool for games because it kind of leaves room for your hands. And then plenty of content in the middle. Purple is my favorite color too. So I'm right there with you. Robert I'm. I looked at it. I was, I was enchanted by the experince
Ron Richards (01:24:33):
Here. Here's a, it has nothing to do with the experi, but here's something about purple and a color theory I have. So my son's favorite color is purple. And when you mention your favorite color is purple and I have another friend's favorite color. Purple. I find that me and my wife are talking about this who are really passionate about their favorite color. It's always purple. Yes. You never, you never really hear somebody. Who's like, oh, I'm so passionate for orange. Like for some reason, like people who are really into a specific color, it's always purple. It's fascinating. Fascinating. So it's kinda, it's kinda like how some people can taste cilantro and some people can't
Jason Howell (01:25:04):
<Laugh> right. Some people say it tastes like soap.
Ron Richards (01:25:07):
Yeah, exactly.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:08):
I actually have purple headphones. My headphones are the audio Technica and I always never forget NH blah, blah, blah, 50 Xs. And they were in purple and I had to get them.
Jason Howell (01:25:18):
That's a nice color. Purple too. It's kind of a darkish. Yeah. You almost miss it. If you've, if you aren't looking at the right
Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:24):
Angle. It, it is so like, so no one knows that I bought these twice one because they were awesome headphones. And then when they saw the proposal was like, I don't care if I don't need another pair headphones a purple I'm sorry. <Laugh> so people can't see my, my capitalist shame of like buying
Jason Howell (01:25:39):
You need any, we're pointing out your headphones. We're pointing out that game. What was it? Gardenscapes which I installing my phone and check out myself.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:49):
It's it's a, it's a really relaxing time. Jason. It's really good. Just don't get into games like Ile heroes or AFK arena that will destroy your life. Because those, I mean, gardens skate can make you spend money too, but those other kind of games, which are part of the beta, those pans crap. Yes. Anyway. Oh, see like this, like, you know, that's okay. Like the, the folks are like getting to know me and to know my vices as well as you know, other things about me, you're getting this post in the show. <Laugh>
Jason Howell (01:26:18):
It's, it's part of this part of the deal. Yep. Yep. Indeed. I know. I, I ended up okay. I'll I'll go ahead and share my shame with you just to make you feel less <laugh> less shameful. What is this game even called? I was on Twitter at, OK. So this is gonna, this is totally shameful kingdom guard. One of those random like tower defense games. I totally did it. I love a good powered defense and I did it because I was on Twitter and saw a Twitter ad for this thing. And it looked really satisfying. Like there was something about how like the teams came on the screen and then mm-hmm <affirmative> they ate the other team and got bigger. And then that team <laugh> and I was like, wow, that looks really satisfying. Sure. I'll download that. And you know, now like three days of playing it on my trip and I realized after a certain point, I was like, I'm totally just like grinding right now. And like, it's not even fun. I'm doing it. Cuz I'm bored. You know, it totally got sucked in, so I'm probably gonna uninstall it. But yeah, sometimes it just happens. Sometimes we get sucked into these shameful.
Ron Richards (01:27:24):
What was the, what was the game called again?
Jason Howell (01:27:26):
Just curious kingdom, kingdom guard, kingdom, kingdom guard.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:27:30):
I, I also love a good tower defense. So here we go.
Jason Howell (01:27:34):
I will say, I mean, I don't know that it's necessarily a great tower defense game. Like, like I said, after a couple of days, I was like, all right, I think I'm done having fun with this. I'm just doing, I do love. Cause I feel like I need to,
Ron Richards (01:27:44):
I do long for a good tower defense. I remember playing like Warcraft three tower defenses. Yes. Like back in the day, like OG tower defense and just like, I want that experience again. Oh man. So yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll try this. I'll look for tower. I'm just gonna
Jason Howell (01:28:01):
Start me. How you tell me how quickly you, you burnout on this game. Yeah, exactly.
Ron Richards (01:28:07):
<Laugh>
Jason Howell (01:28:08):
Oh look, I'm so cute. But you know what it's here's what bugs me is, is the ad that I saw on Twitter that I thought was so satisfying. Like I haven't even gotten there yet. Like the game it's almost like the game that I'm playing is completely different than the game that was in the ad. Like there is that, that's what I see is something along those lines. But what I saw in Twitter, like called advertising, man, come on. I know, but it's, fakely it's false advertising. Absolutely. And a lot of apps do it.
Ron Richards (01:28:37):
Was it a different game?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:39):
Yeah, it it's almost like a, like it's like a flash game, right? Like you see the ad and it's like a really cool flash game or it almost like almost like a different style that happened to me too. I saw it and it looked like a really good like flashed art style, 2d rendered game. And then I downloaded the app and it was completely different. I think the mini game came up like once or twice. And I was like, I just got, I just got got I'm you got got, I got got totally. But yeah, I think it's, it's really common thing. Right? Brooke. Like, it's like a thing, like a lot of companies, it totally, it has.
Speaker 5 (01:29:07):
Oh. Especially like it depends where you see the ads too. Like I see a lot of in game ads that are just blatantly false. Like the gameplay is just completely rendered. Like you'll never see it in the game.
Jason Howell (01:29:18):
You'll never see it. It's like a, it's like the are they're demonstrating a a theory about the game or, or they're demonstrating kind of some like, yeah. I don't know how to phrase that, but it's called the line. It's
Huyen Tue Dao (01:29:31):
It's like, when they show you a cut scene, it's like, when they show you a cut scene and then they make you think it's like the game play. And so the cut scene's beautiful. Looks like a, a freaking movie or something. And then you actually play and it's like some like super, like you see all the poly guns, it like barely renders. It's like, oh yeah. Okay. Well is the bet I made now?
Jason Howell (01:29:50):
Yeah. Like you said, I just got God. Yeah. That's exactly it. God, no good. Anyways. this is not a, this is not to get you to install kingdom guard, but heck if you want to install it and tell me what I'm missing to triple a TWI TV, let us I'm
Ron Richards (01:30:03):
I'm literally, you've setting me down a rabbit hole, like Googling best Android tower defense. Like I'm trying to find like, so I wanna do something kingdom rush.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:30:10):
Yeah. Kingdom rush is great. Kingdom rush
Jason Howell (01:30:14):
Kingdom rush is different. One is guard is like, oh, kingdom rush did well. Let's do a kingdom game. You see this?
Ron Richards (01:30:19):
This is what annoys me. Like I just did AER I a search. And there's a game called defenders too. And there's a blog and it says defenders too. Is what happens when you mix a tower defense game and a card game together. Like, no, I don't want that like stop
Jason Howell (01:30:32):
<Laugh> <laugh> something for everyone. There's someone out there looking for this. All right. Samuel wrote in to AAA twit TV and says I was listening to Y is episode. This would be last week's episode, I believe this morning. And I heard that some of you are experiencing battery drain on your pixel six devices. I have a pixel six pro and had the same issue a while back. I figured out that it really is the 5g modem that was causing all the issues after doing some speed tests. I found out that here in Montreal on 5g, I was getting lower speeds than on 4g. I then disabled 5g in the settings. And I'm happy to report that for the past couple of months. I haven't had any battery or connectivity issues as Samuel. Were you guys talking about this on the show last week?
Ron Richards (01:31:18):
We did. Yeah. It came. It came up again and yeah, this is pretty it's. This is just confirming what we've seen with the it, with the pixel six pro and the pixel six. I was talking about how I never leave that. I was telling, telling Patrick and flow how I never leave the house. And and so my battery life is fine. And then I left the house and then my battery drained crazy it's cuz of the 5g modem. It's, it's something in the pixel six and it's pixel six pro and how it's managing the battery management with the 5g modem that's causing major battery drain. And I'm hoping that they fix it with future updates. Luckily I'm not out in 5g that often, so it's not that big of an issue, but if you are out in the world and you're off of wifi for extended period of time and you have the pixel six pro or pixel six, I would strongly recommend like Samuel says here to turn off the fi turn off 5g, just cuz you're gonna get decent speeds on 4g. And like he said, here he is, you know, he is getting faster speeds on 4g than 5g. It goes a larger 5g is a myth kind of argument mm-hmm <affirmative> which I don't wanna get into, but still yeah. So <laugh>
Jason Howell (01:32:15):
Yeah, disappointing, disappointing when your, so to get a normal operating phone is to disable one of the key features of the phone. Right. You know, it's odd, but I agree like, so, so more often than not, when I'm shoHuyeng 5g, my speeds are not anymore than they are on 4g and that's just the state of 5g right now. Right? Like maybe that'll improve over time, but who knows to be the case? Yeah.
Ron Richards (01:32:41):
Yeah. All right. Well, it's getting to be the end of the email section, which means it's that time, it's time for the
Jason Howell (01:32:51):
Burke.
Ron Richards (01:32:54):
I'm not gonna say until he presses it Crash and burn Burke. We try to do the email and the rest that I'm pressing it. I swear.
Jason Howell (01:33:05):
All right.
Ron Richards (01:33:07):
Well we'll pretend that we had the fanfare Burke. Can you, can you, can you do a, can you do a a, a little beatbox horns for us or <laugh>
Jason Howell (01:33:18):
Not? Wow,
Ron Richards (01:33:21):
There we go. Sorry. I asked for that. Yeah, that's good. That's right. <Laugh> excuse me. Our, our email, the week, this week comes from Nick G who writes this says, Hey gang. And welcome Huyen. It's great to have you a quick comment on nearby share. I used to use that app to do this, but it was always flaky and quickly got annoying lately. I've been using tail scale, heard of by added on security now to create a VPN between my devices, select the file, share it via tail scale and zip. It pops up on your PC desktop or in the downloads of your phone. It's perfect works from anywhere in the world and consent to any device or any platform that you have added to your personal network. Definitely better than emailing files to yourself with no size limits. It's been very helpful in my case, cheers. From negative 30 degrees Celsius Northern Ontario and my God. I'm sorry. I was just worried that there's 27 degrees FHE in New York tomorrow. Celsius. Jesus insane. Northern Ontario come south. Nick come south, but Hey, awesome. Tip from that you got from security now. I love keeping it in the family. Yeah, this is good. If you're looking for a nearby share S type functionality check out a tail scale.
Jason Howell (01:34:25):
So yeah, and if it came up on security now that's there we go. Recommendation is there we go. And thank you, Nick. We got there. Yeah. Thank you for that recommendation, Nick. Bring that to our attention and congratulations as always we have reached the end of this episode of All About Android. Always a lot of fun. And so yeah, this is kind of the part of the show where we talk about other things we have going on. When what what do you wanna leave people with? Do you have anything you want people to know?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:34:58):
Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm an app Android developer most days. And I do talk about Android stuff occasionally also out on the internet, on the YouTubes giving some talks soon and you can find all the information about any upcoming talks or content I have on my site, randomly typing.com
Jason Howell (01:35:16):
Right on, on randomly typing.com. Thank you, Huyen. And what about you, Ron?
Ron Richards (01:35:22):
Yeah, just follow me on Twitter at Ron XO or on Instagram at Ron XO. And if you're in a pinball, check out, score it. It's in the Google Google play store, Android app to keep track of your pinball scores. And do other cool functionality go to score, but dot I check it all out, working on cool stuff. You pin ball fun times.
Jason Howell (01:35:38):
So yay. Pinball, fun times. Yay. Pinball. Thank you, Ron. <Laugh> also big. Thank you to Burke for finally finding the email of the week button. Well you found the button, just getting it to play. I'm not sure what you did, but we heard it and we, we appreciate all your, your hard work behind the scenes. Also appreciate you, Victor. What is what's new and stream down. Oh, did this cause a problem or something? Yeah. Oh, I see. Well then thanks a lot stream deck and whatever's new in it.
Ron Richards (01:36:11):
Here we go. Making up for, make it up for lost time.
Jason Howell (01:36:13):
I like it. Exactly. Exactly. Also big. Thanks to Victor behind the scenes for editing this show, publishing it and getting it into your feeds without Victor, you wouldn't be listening or watching SORAY for Victor. You find me on Twitter at Jason Howell doing tech news weekly with Micah Sergeant every Thursday, TWIT TV slash TNW. Don't forget we have club TWI as an option for you. If you don't wanna listen to the ads in your podcasts or in our podcast, rather you can join club TWIT, twit.tv/club TWIT. That's our ad free subscription tier no ads in the shows, an exclusive TWI plus podcast feed with lots of extra content, including things like today. After the show, we're doing an a kind of like an ask me anything, 30 minute hangout three of us with and with our discord and with IRC. And then we're gonna publish that to the TWIT plus podcast feed.
Jason Howell (01:37:07):
So you get that if you were a twit plus or a club TWI member and you also get members only access to that discord that I told you about. So twit.tv/clubTWIT, that's it for this week except episode. We always appreciate you. Thank you. Every Tuesday evening is when we do this show. So it publishes later in the evening, early in the morning, the folloHuyeng day, depending on where you're at at TWIT dot TV slash AA. So subscribe, and then you don't have to do all the mental gymnastics to try and figure out when it's gonna appear there, it'll appear for you and be ready for you the next day. That's it for this week. We'll see you next time. Another episode of All About Androids. Bye everybody.
Mikah Sargent (01:37:50):
Hey, you don't have to wait till the weekend to get the tech news. You need join Jason Howell and myself, Mikah Sargent for tech news weekly, where we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news.