All About Android 614, 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. We've got Ron Richards, Huyen Tue Dao and Mishaal Rahman. And there is a ton of news to talk about tonight. Probably should have cut it down a little bit, but somehow we got the show done in time. So I don't know, you figure that out. Google layoffs. We got Twitter API fallout, Android 13 stats. So good that Huyen can't help but talk about it now. Also, a use for that Stadia controller, a look at the Tic Watch Pro 5, Google's Grogu Tracker plus your feedback. And like I said, a whole lot more than just that, next on All About Android. Also, don't forget our annual survey is going strong. We don't wanna miss your feedback here. So go to twit.tv/survey23. You can take that survey. The last day to take the survey is actually January 31st, so it's about a week from now. The survey really helps us to understand our audience, that's you, so we can make your listening experience even better. It'll only take a couple of minutes to go to twit.tv/survey23 to take it. We really appreciate that you do that. Thank you.
Announcer (00:01:09):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Jason Howell (00:01:18):
This is All About Android, episode 614. Recorded Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, Nord to nothing. This episode of All About Android is brought to you by EightSleep. Good sleep is the ultimate game changer, and the pod cover is the ultimate sleep machine. Go to eightsleep.com/twit, check out the pod cover and save $150 a checkout EightSleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the uk, and select countries in the EU and Australia. And by Tanium. Titanium unites operations and security teams with a single platform that identifies where all your IT data is, patches every device you own in seconds and implements critical security controls all from a single pane of glass. Are you ready to protect your organization from cyber threats? Well learn more at tanium.com/twit and by HPE GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at CDW. Who can help you consolidate and manage all your data in one flexible edge to cloud platform to scale and innovate. Learn more at cdw.com/hpe. Hello and welcome to All About Android, your weekly source for the latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. I'm Jason Howell.
Ron Richards (00:02:39):
And I'm Ron Richards
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:41):
<Laugh>. And I'm Huyen Tue Dao.
Ron Richards (00:02:44):
You gotta love the hand gestures.
Jason Howell (00:02:47):
And in the fourth corner,
Mishaal Rahman (00:02:50):
I'm Mishaal Rahman.
Jason Howell (00:02:51):
There we go. There we go. We had to complete the complete the Voltron. How y'all doing? It's good to see you. Ron, thank you for covering last week with the help of Flo and Father Robert. Of course, you guys, it
Ron Richards (00:03:04):
Was a, it was a fun show. I'm sorry that everyone had so little to say <laugh>, but we'll do better next time. No, it was a blast. It was great. Anytime with Padre and anytime with Flo. It was great. And I feel like we really like close the book on CES.
Jason Howell (00:03:18):
Yes. I think we don't have to talk about CES anymore, <laugh>. No, no, no. That was fantastic coverage of don't you know, you, you can never escape CES. The moment CES ends, you're getting invites the next CES.
(00:03:30):
Geez, the
(00:03:31):
Worst. It's, it's, it's just like Android seconds afterwards. It's just like Android versions. The second the, the new one is officially out, we start getting hints of the beta of the next version. There's never any rest. That's how it all ties in.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:46):
Well, we can, we can report back to it though. I mean, like, and we got some 14 news for you, but we can check in with 13, see how it's doing. Yeah, that's right. Because that's, that's right because the Google hasn't released official distribution numbers in quite a while. I think, was it August or something like that? Since the last report. But they did very recently talk about the distribution of Android 13 on devices. And it looks at, looks like 13 is sitting at a healthy 5.2% of all devices within six months of launch. I know like nominally 5% doesn't seem like a lot, but I think considering that, you know, that's with efforts from Samsung, OnePlus and Sony, that's not so bad. And there's some other interesting things to note as well. You know, 12 and 1L they aren't distinguished in these numbers, but 12 and 12 L said at 18.9%, 11 is at 24.4%, 10 is at 19.5 and nine is at 13.2%. I think they even mentioned Kit Kat. Oh, when,
Ron Richards (00:04:42):
Hold on. I love that you're dive. I love that you're diving right
Jason Howell (00:04:45):
Into it. You're so excited when are, are so excited.
Ron Richards (00:04:49):
Gonna wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are we, are we in the news?
Jason Howell (00:04:52):
I think somehow we're in the news. Think
Ron Richards (00:04:55):
Burke. I we're in the news.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:58):
Oh my God. I thought it was the same way, Jason. I was ready. I am gonna
Ron Richards (00:05:02):
Wait.
Jason Howell (00:05:02):
It was a great segue. You were, it was a fantastic segue. <Laugh>. I don't mind not doing the news. Just Yeah, we, we don't have to at this point. Well, I,
Ron Richards (00:05:10):
You were in the news Burke. Okay,
Jason Howell (00:05:12):
Here we go. We're going into the news Huyen.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:14):
I can't do it.
Jason Howell (00:05:15):
<Laugh>. Just, just do it. Burke. Oh my God. Now it's your turn. Show us your brilliance. It's always our intent to do news and bring it to you well
Ron Richards (00:05:26):
Here on Android News. I just, I, I respect the energy of being so excited to get
Jason Howell (00:05:31):
Get
Ron Richards (00:05:32):
A breakdown, numbers breakdown. We love our numbers. It's great Huyen. I'm sorry. Please tell us, tell us about KitKat.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:38):
<Laugh>. No, I was like, segue way. That's like, that was such a good segue way. I thought
Jason Howell (00:05:42):
It was great to me.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:43):
I was like, I saw my moment to do like a really smooth segue way. Love
Ron Richards (00:05:47):
It. I love that you went for it. I love I love it <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:50):
It's so yeah, so apparently Kit Kat has finally, finally fallen off the map. Yeah. So, yeah. It looks like adoption of all the releases of Android are kind of going at a really steady pace. 13, of course, again, is, is doing well. I personally didn't get 13 on my Samsung until like last month. So I, I think considering that we have a lot of OEMs and their various flavors of 13, you know, having to come at disparate times 5.2% is not bad.
Jason Howell (00:06:20):
Although, although, so, you know, although anyone looking at the number will automatically be like six months, 5.2%. Yeah. I mean, yeah. What I did not take the time to do, which I wish that I had, is compare, you know, again, keep a run some sort of a running list of previous versions and you know, some sort of comparable timetable that we know mm-hmm. <Affirmative> like, is Android 13 actually doing better than Android 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 at six months in? You know, is 5.2% good comparatively speaking, or is that number always gonna get smaller because we're always gonna have more Android version numbers in the rear view. Does that make sense? Maybe Mishaal, maybe you have some insight onto this because I know you probably follow these things a little bit closer than I have.
Mishaal Rahman (00:07:10):
It's hard to determine that because like, the percentage will shrink because there's going to be more and more users who are getting Android smartphones for the first time and like the budget segment is continuously growing, you know, like Mm. Like much faster than like the flagship segment. So you're getting a lot of users who are buying maybe devices that are running Android 10 or Android 11. And so, like, even though Android 13 is coming out and it's like releasing the flagship devices, you're getting people who are buying new devices that are on those older versions. And that's like skewing the percentages. And we really have no way of knowing that. Like the only people who would would be Google, cuz they can actually track the statistics, but they only give us what they give us. And that's that chart in Android studio.
Jason Howell (00:07:51):
They used to give us a whole lot more. Now they do not now it's like, eh, they
Mishaal Rahman (00:07:55):
Used to do it monthly. Yeah. At least they give us like, sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:00):
And, and like percentage wise, how many, so what is the number of active Android devices? I think, okay, I'm googling real quick. It's like 3 billion active devices, right? Ooh, 5% of that is, is, hold on. Oh my gosh. Goo 100. Wait, how many zeros? 1 billion. Wait, what's 5% of 3 billion? Like a hundred million something. I can't, I don't do that. This calculator doesn't have comma. I'm sorry. I'm like kind of
Mishaal Rahman (00:08:25):
What,
Jason Howell (00:08:26):
One
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:26):
50 million, 150 million. That's 150 million devices. Come on. No, it's
Mishaal Rahman (00:08:30):
Two include, that's
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:31):
250 million. 250 million.
Mishaal Rahman (00:08:33):
250 million. Keep in mind that 3 billion active also excludes every single Android device in China. So there's several hundred million there to add to it.
Jason Howell (00:08:43):
Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:43):
Yeah. So very good point. So yeah, like the numbers seem small, but it's, I I would say between 150 to 200 million is pretty dang good. And wait till, you know, and then, I mean, I guess we can always like take a look at, as you said, Jason will be track, track. We're gonna be with 13 next year or rather later this year when 14 comes out. Now we do have some, you know, 14 news for you. Of course, as we said, once th once, once the one is out, we're always talking about the next stop on the train. And so we have a couple of things we can talk about with Android 14. I'm gonna start with first with the report or rather this kind of article by our very own Florence Ion on his gizmodo reporting that Android 14 could prevent you from installing ancient apps.
(00:09:30):
This is not a huge deal. Basically, this is kind of along the vein of, you know, Android and Google just basically not letting you get, let your apps get out of date. There's, we've talked already about how the Android, oh, how Android and the Google Play store kind of tightening, you know, the specifics of, you know, what version you should be targeting and like when you should be updating and what happens to your app on the app store if it doesn't happen. So this is more just codifying it in Android 14. And basically the interesting part is that if your app is targeting through Android six, which by the way is Android marshmallow, which was risen 2015, it's just gonna be blocked. Now, this could hurt folks that are like to side load. They're, they're deer and they're old and dear, you know, apps and things like that.
(00:10:15):
But this is not really out of that, that it's not really a surprise. And I mean, really this is about securing the platform. Because obviously if an app is targeting before marshmallow, which is when you know all of that permissions requests came in, then, you know, there there's a bigger pool of exploits and losers security measures that bad AC actors can swim in. So that's one thing. Now another thing that was really cool, and I really love this, was found or wrote, reported, found, and reported on by our very own Mishaal Vermont. And it's about something that is really, you know, useful but has had kind of a checkered pass checkered usability in the past of Android. And that's the share menu. So Mishaal, over to you. What did you find out about the share menu in Android 14?
Mishaal Rahman (00:11:01):
Thanks, Winn. So first of all, caveat I don't know for sure if this is going, this change is going to land in engine 14 for everyone. You can see bits and pieces of it in the Android 13 QPR betas. So I'm just like telling you what I found and just saying, Hey, this could be coming an Android 14, or it could be coming an Android 15. Who knows? So basically the share sheet, you know, as you know, whenever you go to share something, like you open your file buzzer app and you go to your meme folder and you want to hit the share menu and you wanna share it to your friend on, you know, Facebook, right? That share menu experience is going to vastly differ depending on what application you use and what device you use. So a lot of apps like Facebook Twitter, Chrome, et cetera, they all use their own custom share menu.
(00:11:52):
And you have the share menu, the system share menu that's on Android, on your pixel phone. It looks different than what's on the share menu on Samsung phones or OnePlus phones. So if you use a lot of different phones or use a lot of different apps, chances are you have absolutely zero muscle memory of like what buttons you gotta pressed when you wanna share something. And that's kind of annoying, right? Because a lot of people, you use a share menu all the time, you wanna share photos, videos, links, et cetera, between apps. Like something you do every single day, multiple times a day. So the problem, or at least like one of the root problems that causes this share menu inconsistency is that
Jason Howell (00:12:32):
Is that they wanna play with us, they wanna mess with us, they wanna make the experience horrible for us. <Laugh>,
Mishaal Rahman (00:12:37):
Sorry,
Jason Howell (00:12:38):
Right? Is that what you were gonna say? Well,
Mishaal Rahman (00:12:40):
<Laugh> well, sometimes that's
Jason Howell (00:12:42):
How it feels. Good
Mishaal Rahman (00:12:42):
Reason, <laugh>, it's, it's a, it's a bit of a long-standing like design problem. So like app developers have good reason to want to use their own custom share menu. They're able to prioritize their own shared targets ahead of anything else. They're able to design, you know, implement certain custom things that you can't do in the system one. And then you have the system share menu, which is designed and customized by OEMs. And that's one of the big problems that causes inconsistency. The share menu isn't updateable like outside of the Android os. So what Google is working on is they're, is they're working on unbundling that from the OS into a separate app called Intent Resolver. And by unbundling it and potentially turning it into a project mainline module, I'm sure you've heard that term before mm-hmm. <Affirmative> they'll be able to update it through Google Play system updates.
(00:13:31):
So through the, you know, Google Play store as with any other project mainline module. So the idea is if they unbundle it and make it updateable, then they could both make it consistent and same experience across all devices. And then hopefully if they extend it and add additional features that want to make developers drop their own custom share menus, then you'll have the same share menu you experience across devices and across apps. So that's a long, long-term goal. This is just the first step. They're trying to make it unbundled. They're testing it, first of all, like it's not even a guarantee. This is actually going to become a new module in Android 14. But there's a lot of, like, this is the, the laying the groundwork for fixing the share sheet experience. And if you wanna learn how the share sheet experience works what I mean by unbundling, what intents are all that jazz. Like, go read the article, it's really long, it goes over all the background and hopefully explains everything you need to know.
Jason Howell (00:14:27):
Yeah, it's on Sper do io on the blog and then we'll link to it in our show show notes at twit tv slash a a a, the share menu. Gosh, I feel like, wasn't there big news like a couple of years ago where I was like, yeah, the share menu, it's gonna get more consistent. I was just, I feel like we hear this every two, three years and it never happens. <Laugh>. Yeah. Maybe it'll actually happen this time. We can only hope because it is really, it can be very frustrating. Every app has a different thing. It's like, wait a minute, I have that pinned up. Why is that not up at the top? Oh, because it's not pinned up over here. You know, it's looks completely different. Some of them are like night and day difference. Like some of them are very similar to each other, but not quite perfect match. And then others are just completely out of the water.
Ron Richards (00:15:13):
So Android 12 forced apps through the official share menu mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So I feel like that's gotta be the last time we talked about was like, everyone's gonna use the same share menu, right? Like, wasn't that like a Yeah. A a it was a unification or a like commonality of everybody that's that's, that's that's sharing.
Jason Howell (00:15:31):
Yeah. That was the hope. Hope was Oh, great. We're fi finally the share menu mess is over. Eh,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:15:37):
I mean I think I've, I've been on, I've been on many teams where we just because of the inconsistency, we just make our own
Jason Howell (00:15:44):
Because every, that's what everybody else is doing, right? Like, it's not great. Yeah. And
Mishaal Rahman (00:15:48):
Yeah, Ron, the Yeah, sorry. The Android 12 thing, just to, to just to correct that the Enter 12 thing you're referring to was forcing everyone to not replace the system share menu. It didn't force apps to use the system share menu. It was kind of a, like a fixing this little thing that power users like to use.
Jason Howell (00:16:07):
Hmm. Okay.
(00:16:09):
Yeah. Well, let's hope that things actually get fixed <laugh>, or at least more consistent. Cuz it, it is a glaring thing that, that I don't know, maybe it's just annoying to people who, you know what I mean? Like, maybe it's like a power user or a kind of a, an Android fan would notice these things, but a regular Android user is like, I don't care. Like it pulls up a thing and I find the thing I wanna share it to. Alright. it's there on the list somewhere. I don't know what that could be easier. Who cares? Anyways,
Ron Richards (00:16:41):
Who knows? Well, I'll tell you something that's broken that needs to get fixed and it's Twitter. Who so following up on last week's last week's conversation at my dismay at finding out the talent stopped working and a lot of our complaints was the fact that, you know, third party developers with apps like tweet bot and, and, and Talent, and, you know, you name it were all frustrated that all of a sudden their apps won fr you know, Thursday or Friday night, stopped working Loop Twitter, since, since last week's show, Twitter has actually updated their developer agreement to spell out the restrictions specifically on third party client development. And they added the following text to the restriction section, quote, you sir, access the license materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter applications. So if there was any ambiguity as to whether it was officially turned off, third party applications or not, it's right there in the agreement. Which is just unbelievably frustrating and a huge bummer. Yeah. And hope that they turn that around at some point.
Jason Howell (00:17:43):
I just don't know that that's gonna happen. Yeah. And tweeting out, and as we're showing right here, Twitter is enforcing long-standing API rules that may result in some apps not working. Some apps like Twitter result just one example, 16 year old app suddenly discontinued. It's just,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:02):
It's just, it's so sad. It's
Jason Howell (00:18:03):
Sad, right? Like, it's like, I mean, and I guess, I guess if you're a developer and the thing you develop is a service around another service, like you, you are taking a risk as a developer when you do that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, there is no guarantee that in perpetuity your business is going to be able to survive because the business that is built on top of might do exactly this. So that's this,
Ron Richards (00:18:27):
This re this reminds me of the great Facebook game Purge. Do you remember
Jason Howell (00:18:31):
That? Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:18:32):
Totally. All these Facebook games and one day Facebook's just like, Nope. You know, and so like when you build a business based on someone else's platform, you run the risk of having them turn it off. And that's exactly what's happened here. And it's a bummer. And because we never thought it would happen to Twitter because Twitter was so for the people and blah, blah, blah, now it's all over.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:50):
So yeah, it's definitely blah and it's so crazy. To me, it feels like, and look, I'm just an engineer. I'm not a business analyst, I'm not a product person. I'm not a strategist, but I feel like social media and things that are networking kind of thrive off integrations and being able to hook into things that people actually use or things that people like to use or prefer to use. Either way, they're still using Twitter. So I I I, I understand that if someone's like, and I think the wording was like it had and has been, if you're replicating the core, like business functionality, that's a no go. But I don't know. I, I think there was a lot of good points to be made about how, and this happens a lot in especially app development. We're third party clients or, you know, other folks that utilize your APIs come up with functionality that you didn't think about before.
(00:19:36):
And then you get to, you know, kind of subsume that, consume that. Yeah. or take that in, or, I mean, even from just like a, like an idea generation machine, like third party clients can be really valuable. I don't, I, I mean, and, and like Twitter has other monetization things. Again, I'm not an expert. I hate this. Basically tldr, I hate this a lot, so good luck Twitter. But yeah, I mean, it, it's, it's just a bummer. And it is, I keep thinking about a friend of mine Joaquin Vargas, he did Falcon Pro back in the day in Twitter, and he ended up going to work at Twitter. Yeah. And, and, and like a lot of these other, like, things that are part of Twitter culture came from third party clients. So anyway, ear lost Twitter. My bad. Just angry Dev.
Jason Howell (00:20:18):
Ignore. Yeah. <Laugh> Phoenix no long, you knows, pull the developers pulled that from the play store.
Ron Richards (00:20:25):
I mean, hu makes a great point that a longstanding recruitment tool for companies like Twitter have been people who, third party developers who are doing that. Now you're just basically closing that all off, you know? So it's just, it's just, it's just a huge
Jason Howell (00:20:38):
Bummer. So It is.
Ron Richards (00:20:39):
Yep.
Jason Howell (00:20:40):
Huge. Yeah, it's just, eh, like, so like, as a, as a company, they have the right to do this. Yes. The way it was done was just really gross and icky. Mishaal, what were you gonna say? What Twitter clients did y'all use? Well, Alan,
Ron Richards (00:20:57):
100%. I only used Alan for years.
Jason Howell (00:21:00):
I've, I've used a lot of third party yeah, Twitter clients, but I will say in the past, probably three years, it's been the, the first party, it's, it's been the Twitter created app at a certain point. I just, same. I just mm-hmm. <Affirmative>
Ron Richards (00:21:12):
Kinda switched to it. Oh, I st I I stuck with Talon up until The Bitter End Talon was My Ride or Die. I love that app. And the, the, the, the native Twitter app just drives me a little batty. Like I, it just, I I, what was great about talent is it kept the timeline and there was no algorithm. It was, was
Jason Howell (00:21:27):
Great.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:28):
Oh my goodness. So sorry. Anyway, yes,
Jason Howell (00:21:31):
<Laugh>, that's so unique, <laugh>. That's,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:34):
That's really unique. That's not disturbing the user experience. That's such a great idea. Not like disrupting someone's like reading flow. Okay.
Jason Howell (00:21:40):
Sorry, yeah. Stopping now. Oh, okay. Well, we've got one last piece of news before we hit our break and then head into hardware. Google, like many other tech companies, is cutting it's workforce. 12,000 jobs, slashed the largest layoff according to Ron Amadio at ours. Technica in the company's history, 12,000 jobs, which is, I mean, that's a lot of people. Yeah. I don't know how many, how many people are employed by Alphabet in, in some or in total, but I imagine this is a small percentage of it, but still 12,000 jobs is in is a lot many of those jobs coming from, or at least a large percentage coming from area one 20, which we've talked about on the show many times. That's their kind of like experimental incubator where they play around with new app ideas and, and, you know, lot lots of weird funky things.
(00:22:35):
In fact, I think JR had JR Rayfield had a tip or two in the last couple of months from the area one 20 incubator projects. So stack tables, thread bite checks, bunch of apps that, you know, some of them you, you may not have ever heard of, so no surprise that they're kind of canceling out a lot of those projects. Some of them that you heard, I know we've talked about Stack on this show from time to time. Also Fuchsia OS team got hit losing 16% of its team Fuchsia's always been this kinda like question mark thing year after year after year. We're like, yep, wait a minute, why did Google create this again? Was it to replace Android? That may have been in the beginning kind of the, the discussion, but we're, that's obviously not what their plan is, or at least it hasn't come to a fruition yet. They're starting to implement and integrate the OS into some of their products that they're shipping and everything. But it's still very kind of curious as far as what that actually is. So what does a 16% hit actually mean for Fusia? Time will tell. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:23:41):
Did you I heard one thing, and I'll share Burke. It's in the threw it in our chat and Slack. It, it was basically, at least in Google, New York City, people were finding out based on whether or not their key card worked or not. Oh, that morning. So the e the emails last trend seven, the emails went out at 7:00 AM and, but if you didn't check your work email until you got to the office, oh my
Jason Howell (00:24:05):
Goodness,
Ron Richards (00:24:05):
If you did it, it, it flash green or flash red, like that was like a real thing that was happening. So that's,
Jason Howell (00:24:11):
That's
Ron Richards (00:24:12):
Not, that's a bummer. That's
Jason Howell (00:24:13):
Not Yeah, that is a bummer.
Ron Richards (00:24:16):
But it, but you know, I I, I reached out to, I have some friends at Google and that sort thing, and like, it did the, like, like at like 11:00 AM like, are you okay just to see if there's a bounce back? And and luckily folks, you know, YouTube wasn't impacted. So folks, I know YouTube, stuff like that seem to be okay, but I mean, a layoff is never, never easy. It's never fun. A layoff of this size is just the moralizing. It's just, and like what's interesting also is I saw another article that was talking about the the reaction of Googlers inside where there was a lot of, you know, like internal conversation and like, you know, and chat their chat, you know, things and things like that. And people were like, well, why? Who, what was the decision factor? What, who decided who, who went and who cut like Googlers were asking for answers and like, calling out Sundar and calling out the other senior management who were like saying, this is never hard. And they were like, wanted, you know, like some you know, some conversation about, you know, who got laid off and why and what the, what the business justifications were, whether or not they were provided those. I doubt it cuz the legalities of it. Yeah. Yeah. That, that conversation was indeed happening, so, mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:25:21):
Well that's disappointing and I'm sorry to anyone impacted by these layoffs. I mean,
Ron Richards (00:25:27):
It's, it's just a bummer.
Jason Howell (00:25:29):
Yeah. And it's, it's widespread right now. We have some hardware news to talk about here in a moment. But first, let's take a break and thank the sponsor of this episode of All About Android. Brought to you by eight sleep. Eight sleep is super cool or warm. Eight sleep is warm if you, if you like to sleep warm or it's cool if you like to sleep. Cool. Good. Sleep is the ultimate game changer. And the pod cover is the ultimate sleeping machine. And boy, it is a machine. It's a machine that powers your sleep. It's awesome. Consistent, good sleep can help reduce the likelihood of serious health issues, decrease the risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, even reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. So if you are someone who struggles to fall asleep, or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night, or, or you argue with your partner over the thermostat, the eight Sleep pod cover works for you all night long to improve your sleep so that you don't have to, and it works individually right in my house.
(00:26:34):
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Ron Richards (00:29:11):
I was gonna try to speed over you, Jason, and go right into the first hardware
Jason Howell (00:29:15):
<Laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:29:16):
I was holding back hardware bumper, but I, yeah, but I I, I didn't try hardware. I dunno, maybe
Jason Howell (00:29:20):
It's a new format. Maybe the top story of every block is, is disgusted before the bumper <laugh> and then the bumper and then the last two stories.
Ron Richards (00:29:29):
So <laugh>, so just don't put me first in the block ever again. <Laugh>
Jason Howell (00:29:34):
<Laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:29:35):
So some interesting interesting rumors or, or kind of stuff coming to light and the fact that Google apparently is working hard on a Tracker device. Codename, and I questioned the legality of this, but code name Grok according to Leaker, Kuba Wazowski on Twitter grok Grau Witch, if you know, if you've been living under a rock or not, is the name of the young Yoda esque child on the Mandalorian on Disney Plus. But yeah, but so this, this tracker device would be a competitor to Apple air tags and tile trackers. And it's possibly coming in assorted colors with an onboard speaker could support Bluetooth, LE and Uwb and both the Pixel six Pro and Pixel seven Pro support uwb. And it could be released this fall when that, when they do their consumer hardware releases. Who knows? We'll see, I do find it interesting though because I feel like the only time I ever see Apple Air tags talked about in the news, it's in the context of someone's baggage being stolen or someone stalking someone or like in some negative capacity. And I, I get why they Google would want to do this because if Apple's doing it, keep up with the Joneses and Tile's been around forever. Like didn't tile sponsor the show years ago or was that another one? Oh,
Jason Howell (00:30:53):
That's, yeah,
Ron Richards (00:30:55):
Years and years ago we had a sponsor of the show that was one of these,
Jason Howell (00:30:58):
It wasn't, it wasn't tile. God whoa man, who, who was it? Because we got, I have them in my office actually. The you
Ron Richards (00:31:04):
All that Android, the sticker, the
Jason Howell (00:31:06):
Personalized, all that. Yes, the personalized ones. Tracker, tracker,
Ron Richards (00:31:10):
Tracker. That's what it was. Tracker without
Jason Howell (00:31:12):
The e tracks, like yeah, T R A C K R tracker.
Ron Richards (00:31:15):
So, so like, like, and I think Tile got bought by Life 360, I believe if, if memory serves, but yeah. But so this is an established market space of like little, little donals allow you to track your stuff and so Google just get into it and just, you know, another piece of the consumer ecosystem, but Yeah, but I, I do feel like the only time I hear about this is it's like in some weird negative capacity. So
Jason Howell (00:31:39):
<Laugh> Yeah. What, what kind of negative things does it, does it empower Mishaal, what you got?
Mishaal Rahman (00:31:45):
So I think what's interesting, what's more interesting about the story is not the Google Tracker itself because they're already trackers on the market, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, what's more interesting is that Google is working on integrating locator tags slash tracker support into Fast Pair. And so Fast Pair interesting, as you all know, is we just talked about it's a service that's part of Google Play Services. And if you don't know, Google Play Services is available on the 3 billion plus Android devices that we talked about earlier in the show. So that's the more significant aspect of this news, the fact that Google is not only working on their own tile competitor, but they're also working on Tracker support within Fast Pair. And that could enable a network of 3 billion Android devices to track, you know, the location of other Android devices or accessories or, you know, whatever. Because a problem, one of the big problems that tile has is that they don't have the network that Apple does. Nobody does only Google to do that with its, you know, Google Play Services Network. Yeah. And we're waiting on them to unveil that. And so when that happens, finally we'll have something that's on the level of Apple find my network.
Jason Howell (00:32:56):
Well, I feel this isn't the first time that we've heard about the Tracker I tracking or Tracker device or whatever you want to call it, implementation into Android. Did you write about this Mishaal? Like I I, I wanna say like a few months ago
Mishaal Rahman (00:33:11):
I wrote about it. I think it's over a year ago now. Yeah,
Jason Howell (00:33:14):
Yeah, it was, it
Mishaal Rahman (00:33:14):
Was, they on this for a while, they've been working on creating a Find My Device network or it might be called the Finder Network. So that's, I think they're gonna start with Android phones supporting based on what I've seen in Google Play Services, and then they're gonna expand support for fast pair accessories, like these tile trackers. So you have these devices that would ping each other and then they'd store their last known location. And then, you know, if you spot a stolen device or lost device nearby, then you could probably track that and then later on you'd add support for Bluetooth trackers that work with Fast Pair, and then you'd have these trackers that also tap into that network. And so none of this has been released yet. Like we're still, we have no idea how far away we are. Like it could be this io it could even be next io. Like who knows? We've been waiting so long and there's no real clear indication that this is definitely coming like this year. Right. It's probably coming this year. Who knows
Jason Howell (00:34:13):
Co Yeah, co Cuba is, is pointing to a theoretical release potentially of, you know, the hardware hardware event later on this year. I'll tell you, who knows?
Mishaal Rahman (00:34:25):
They don't act, they're not actually sure of that either. I'm pretty sure they're, they're just guessing like I am
Jason Howell (00:34:31):
They, yeah, that's, that's what I mean. Like it's, it's kind of like, yeah, it could, could happen at the hardware event. A lot of things could happen at the hardware event. We could see foldable, but we could also not see affordable, you know, I guess what just all remains to be seen with, with things like this. All, all I know is that I love, like when I hear Fast Pair, like more things tapping into Fast Pair, that puts a little smile on my face because my, my experience with Fast Pair is very positive in the, in the, you know, few times that I've had that, you know, had a pair of earbuds and I want to, you know, I open up the thing and Boo I get that little graphic, I get that little toast message that says, Hey, you know, these, these these earbuds are, can pair easily just tap here and you do it and boom, it all happens. It's the first
Ron Richards (00:35:18):
Time this, the first time you use, the first time you use Fast Pair. It like, to your point, it is magic Jason, it like, it feels so mm-hmm. Like, it's like, how did we ever live without
Jason Howell (00:35:27):
This? Yeah. Because it was so painful before and now it's not. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Yep. So yeah, I loved seeing that this would be you know, kind of part of that. Hopefully that means that the Tracker experience would be as good, you know, on on, on the same level of enjoyable experience as just the simple act of pairing some earbuds to a phone at the same time. You bring up a good point, Ron, which is there are a lot of not so not so great uses for things like trackers that but I mean, I guess these things are nothing new. They've been around for a long time. It's just now those networks are hyper powered. You know, the problem with like Tracker, the, the product that, you know, sponsored on this network many years ago was that the network was very small.
(00:36:18):
Like, yes, if another Tracker user came in, you know, close to the tracker that, that you lost, it would register with the app. But how many Tracker users are there? You'd be really lucky that if one actually happened a across yours when you're talking about, you know, all Android devices in a, you know, and this is the same way with Apples iPhones and, and air tags, right? You've just got this massive network that now taps into it, which supercharges it, makes it super powerful, but also kind of increases the nefarious the potential of something like that as well. So yeah,
Ron Richards (00:36:57):
Just like that.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:58):
Just to follow up, dark Knight <laugh>
Ron Richards (00:37:00):
Yeah, there, go ahead. Yeah, the Dark Night. Yeah. That, that was, that was like the, the nightmare realized. But and just to follow up on the, where are they now with the former sponsor of the show Tracker looked it up on Wikipedia and in fact in 2018 they rebranded themselves as a Darrow as, oh, and they changed their focus to other uses for tracking technology like taking Tracker beyond Bluetooth fobs that have been the core of the service. And they shut down this, they shut down the Tracker service and removed apps in August, 2021. And currently the aero website, aero.com is re is giving back a 4 0 4. So looks like they did not make it.
Jason Howell (00:37:35):
Oh, poor one out for Tracker.
Ron Richards (00:37:38):
Yeah. Wa w
Jason Howell (00:37:40):
W
Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:41):
Well, if we wanna talk about something that Kuba leaked that has less ethical slash criminal implications or bad press potential but, and in fact actually has a lot of good press, especially on this show, and this show's lovely listeners and viewers Kuba also posted pics of the next Tick watch. So there has been much, much, much, much, much love for Mavoy tick watches, I believe. Mishaal, you have a, you, you rock a you rock a tick watch, right?
Jason Howell (00:38:11):
He's got a Tick Pro three
Huyen Tue Dao (00:38:12):
Watch. There it is. There it is. There it is. Yes. and we've gotten tons of love, you know, through your feedback about the Mavoy Tick watches as a very affordable and very effective, you know, alternative to the watch, the smart watch landscape. So Mavoy did kind of set out a little teaser for like their next watch, which has this like really kind of sexy you know, textured like Face Rim. But Cuba has a few more interesting details that we can go ahead and kind of ponder on for a little bit for the next tick watch, which would be the Tick Watch five, by the way, and the, well, the, the Tick Watch five and the Tick Watch five. So presumably this would be one of the first whirls to ship with the Snapdragon W five plus and with where OS three and thanks to the Snapdragon W five plus, it would probably have about 50% longer battery life, as that is one of the benefits of this newer chip set.
(00:39:07):
What's something that's kind of interesting is that in terms of like user, I guess user experience more or less, is that the Tick Watch five Pro, or sorry, the Tick Watch, sorry, tick Watch Pro, sorry, I'm reversing the numbers. And the, and the words tick Watch Pro Five will have one Crown as opposed to the previous design, the Tick Watch Pro three, which has two of them. And yeah, I mean, I, I've definitely kind of really thought about the Tick Watch given all like the really like satisfied tick watch users on the show that listen to the show. So I guess we'll have to see what the final profile looks at. I don't know, Mishaal, are you gonna, are you excited for, for what's coming from the Tick watch line? Can they pick you up a five
Mishaal Rahman (00:39:51):
<Laugh>? I'm hoping they keep the dual display that was, you know, featured in the previous tick watch pros that like, lets extends the battery life significantly because, you know, you have a much lower power display that your watch enters whenever you're not, you know, actively looking at it or you're flipping it around. And yeah, if they keep that, I'm definitely gonna get a five. And maybe if they also commit to a better software update schedule.
Jason Howell (00:40:16):
<Laugh>, that was gonna be my, my question to you, Mishaal, because when I was putting this together, I was kind of, you know, reading some of the articles and then I always like to go into the comments, even though you never know what you're gonna get in the comments, but a lot of feedback from people that were responding to this news or this information, A lot of people had some pretty harsh words to say about the software update cycle saying the watches are amazing, the hardware's amazing, there's so, so much great about this watch. If they could only do software updates the way they should. And so explain your, your viewpoint on that. Does that, I mean, how does that hinder the watch in your eyes? Because I imagine you value getting software updates,
Mishaal Rahman (00:41:03):
Right? Well, I mean, like, if I check the update status on my watch right now, it says up to date, even though it's running the October 1st, 2021 security patch. Ooh, that tells you how bad it is. But I mean, it's a watch, so I don't really mind as much, right? Yeah. but still, yeah, like, and, but that's, that's only, that's one problem. The second problem is they, their promises they already made was that they promised that the, their watches with the Snapchat and wear 4,100 would get where was three update mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And that still hasn't been delivered yet. So you can see other manufacturers like Fossil, they have delivered Waro S three for their compatible smart watches. But we're still waiting on like, when's the update coming to the Tick watches?
Jason Howell (00:41:45):
Yeah, the Waro s waiting game continues. I think I saw a headline, headline on Fair Tale on Android Central from Derek Lee. I'm wary of this wears. Wait, nice. We've just been waiting too won. Oh dear <laugh>. Anyways, sorry about that. <Laugh>. excellent. And finally Google Stadia. Yes, it's done as of January 18th, so end of last week. I don't think this was in the show last week but I think it's important to note after. Yeah, we can, we can listen to a little bit of this while I talk. It's, it's fine. It's, it's a click of Bull Stadium goodbye. However, if you had stadia and you got one of those fancy controllers, you would know that it's a pretty darn nice controller. And it was more or less, it was really locked to Stadia for a few different reasons. Well, now Google has given people who own these controllers what they have been asking for ever since they found out that Stadia was going under open up Bluetooth capabilities so that this controller can be used in any other, you know Bluetooth controller faculty.
(00:43:04):
So on a computer, on a smartphone or whatever, Google finally, along with the announcement that Stadia has done for good said, okay, here's a site. This will open up your controller, this will I to use that controller in Bluetooth mode for anything else that you want to use it for. So how benevolent of them. Yeah, <laugh>, Hey, it's better. It's, it's better than, you know, a, a, a great controller that ends up in a landfill or displayed on a, you know, on a display because it's rare or I don't know, I dunno what the alternative is, but, so if you got one of those controllers, you can open it up and continue using it again and you probably want to, it's a pretty nice controller. That was one of the things about Stadia that the hardware was nice, it was a good controller.
(00:43:55):
Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. Alright, up next we got some app news for you. But first let's take a quick break and thank the sponsor of this episode of All About Android. Brought to you by Tanium. The industry's approach to cybersecurity, well, it's fundamentally flawed IT management and security point tools. They only offer a small piece of the solution that's needed to protect your environment. Many of them actually promise that they can stop all breaches when let's be real. They just simply cannot do that. Making decisions based on stale data and then trying to defend your critical assets from cyber attacks with tools that don't talk to each other, that's no way for IT teams to navigate today's attack surface, which as you know, is incredibly complex. Well, it's time for a different approach. Tanium says it's time for a convergence of tools, endpoints, and IT operations and security.
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This stuff happens fast. And that's so important when you're talking about security. Kevin Bush, the vice president of IT at Ring Power Core says Tanium brings visibility to one screen for our whole team. If you don't have that kind of visibility, you're not gonna be able to sleep at night. So there you go. Take it from Kevin. With realtime data comes realtime impact. If you're ready to unite operations and security teams with a single source of truth and confidently protect your organization from cyber threats, it's time that you met Tanium, check it out for yourself. You can learn more. Just go to tanium.com/twit. That's Tanium, T A N I u m tanium.com/and we thank Tanium for their sport, their continued support of all about Andrew Android. All right, we've got some app news for you coming at you right now.
Jason Howell (00:46:44):
There we go. I think, yeah. Okay. And take, enjoy all of these outdated icons in our apps bumper.
Ron Richards (00:46:53):
It's my favorite thing about the apps. It's my favorite thing about this. It's a trip down memory lane. Every time we do it,
Jason Howell (00:46:58):
It's not outdated, it's just nostalgia. Yeah. It's just remembering when, you know, five, six, maybe seven years ago, <laugh> on Android when
Ron Richards (00:47:06):
Blogger was a, was an active apps <laugh> when, when app icons you said have a bit
Jason Howell (00:47:11):
Of uniqueness to them. Yeah. And now they're all the same. Yeah. Now they're all exactly the same.
Ron Richards (00:47:17):
Exactly. So anytime any combos going on about Google messages, I'm there. And Mishaal, I couldn't help but notice that you tweeted out that Google Messages is starting to roll out support for having up to a hundred members in an end-to-end encrypted group chat. What's the skinny here? What's going on with encryption end to encryption on Google messages?
Mishaal Rahman (00:47:39):
It's pretty much exactly as what you just said. You can now have <laugh>, I mean, at least some users in the beta program of the Google Messages app are noticing that they can add up to a hundred members in an end-to-end grouped group chat. So the previous limit was 21. Google confirmed to nine to five Google that that 21 member limit was intentional. When the, you know, group end to end grouped group chat first rolled out to users on the beta program like last month, early last month. And now some users are noticing that that limit has quietly been raised to a hundred users. It hasn't been formally announced. Like Google has informally said, Hey, we raised a limit to a hundred. But some users are noticing that, yeah, you can now do this.
Ron Richards (00:48:24):
That sounds horrifying. A hundred people in a group chat.
Mishaal Rahman (00:48:27):
<Laugh>
Jason Howell (00:48:28):
Not all chatting mean it's pretty common
Mishaal Rahman (00:48:30):
In like Yeah. Yeah. If, if you wanna make it like a proper telegram thing. Oh, I know. Yeah. What's that competitor then? Yeah, you gotta have bigger group chats.
Ron Richards (00:48:39):
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I'm just, I'm just joking, but yeah. But it's, it's nice to see that that encryption is there at, at that scale. That's us. So, yeah. That does require everyone to be using Google Messages though, right?
Jason Howell (00:48:51):
Of course. Yeah.
Mishaal Rahman (00:48:52):
Yeah, yeah. So,
Jason Howell (00:48:53):
Yep. And you gotta have that little chat thing turned on.
Ron Richards (00:48:57):
Yep.
Jason Howell (00:48:58):
Also, Mishaal on the app beat the clock app, I guess customizations coming to the clock app. I never knew that I, that I wanted to record my own alarm <laugh>, which actually, I mean, isn't it, hasn't it been possible? I guess you could just like, you can drop a file and it's like
Mishaal Rahman (00:49:17):
A ring tone.
Jason Howell (00:49:18):
Yeah. Yeah's just a ring tone. You
Mishaal Rahman (00:49:19):
Can just add it own ringtone. Oh, okay. All this added, like, I, I don't know why I got so much press. All they added was a button that opens the Google Recorder app to let you record an audio file, and then that gets imported into the clock app automatically.
Jason Howell (00:49:33):
So it's like a sampler. It
Mishaal Rahman (00:49:34):
Just saves you, it saves you like two steps. Maybe it's something you could already do. Yeah, it just opens, it's
Jason Howell (00:49:41):
An alarm app clock sampler is what it is now, <laugh>. And when I think of it that way now I think it's kind of cool. So, so I don't have to do all the nerdy stuff behind the scenes and, you know, bring it, import a, a ringtone and save it to my, it's exactly the same, except in this way, it's like using your microphone to record the door closing. I wanna wake up to the sound of my door closing. We're gonna use
Mishaal Rahman (00:50:02):
That awesome Android mic to
Jason Howell (00:50:04):
Record it. Yes. That high definition Android mic.
Mishaal Rahman (00:50:07):
The only caveat of this is that for some reason it's exclusive to pixel phones because like they hardcoded it to explicitly launch the Google Recorder app. And the Google Recorder app is only available officially on pixel devices. Oh. I don't know if that's actually changed with the most recent Google clock 7.4 update. It's also rolling out, which I guess we'll talk about now. So Andrew Police reported that Google Clock 7.4 changes the way the you know, the snooze and the dismiss buttons look when you are going to, you know, dismiss or action on an alarm. So normally before the 7.4 update, when you go to snooze, when you go to snooze or dismiss an alarm you have like a little slider. You gotta like put your finger on the middle and then slide left or right now in, in Google clock 7.4, those actions are now buttons. But for some reason, this is actually tied to whether or not you have any accessibility services enabled. So if you have an accessibility service enabled, then I believe you have the slider interface and if you turn them off, then you have the buttons or it's the other way around. I might have just gotten confused, but check out that Andrew Police article. They, they cover how to fix the change if you find that annoying after updating.
Jason Howell (00:51:26):
Mm. Okay. I don't really use the Google clock for my alarm clock. I use sleep as Android for whatever reason. I don't know why
Ron Richards (00:51:35):
I use the Google clock <laugh>. I, I don't, I don't think so. I don't send an alarm anymore. My, my child runs in and wakes me up every morning. But <laugh> I use it for timers and things like that. I, I think it's a very handy little app.
Jason Howell (00:51:45):
Yeah. I use it for timers. I just don't use it as my alarm clock. Yeah, sleep is Android, which by the way, since we're on this an alarm clock tangent I have tried activating the snore detection. Did I already talk about this on the show? This? Yes. We already talked about snore detection.
Ron Richards (00:52:05):
No, I, we talked about snor detection and, and it's the most horrifying aspect of my phone. And I hate it, but yeah. What about your, what's your experience been?
Jason Howell (00:52:11):
<Laugh>? I just, I'm, I'm amazed. I snore a lot. <Laugh>. I, I don't
Ron Richards (00:52:15):
Think it's real. I don't, I don't believe it to be honest.
Jason Howell (00:52:18):
But I mean,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:19):
We had some listener feedback that was very
Jason Howell (00:52:20):
Worried for us. That's right. That's, that's right. We did, we did, we did talk about this. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I was a, I was a week away and I, and I had a brain fart that we actually talked about that
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:30):
We, we should come back to talk about it though. If, if we all are having either us or our spouses continuing to have snor snoring issues, we should continue to
Ron Richards (00:52:37):
Talk about it. Well, what what I find, what I find interesting is that, is that, is it detecting me or my wife, cuz we're both in the same room. Oh yeah. Like it's, you know, like that sort of thing. And secondarily like, I mean, we've been together, Jesus, now what? It's seven going on, seven going on eight years or whatever. Like, she's never complained about me snoring. I've never complained about her snoring. Someone's snoring, right. So like, it's just according to this thing. But like, I don't think, like, does it, like, does everyone snore a certain degree? I don't know. It's a whole, we can do a whole podcast of snoring. All about
Jason Howell (00:53:06):
Snoring. But yeah. My, my wife definitely does not snore to any degree. I know that I snore cuz sometimes I wake up and like my throat is kind of sore from snoring, like a interesting, a snore snore throat. I don't know if that's nore
Ron Richards (00:53:18):
Throat <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:53:20):
And and my daughter, when she, my nine year old daughter, she actually snores sometimes too. So I'm, so sometimes I'll look at the data and I'm like, that's not me. That's her blame my daughter
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:32):
Snoring. Well, you know what else, if we can put a snooze, hit the snooze button for is Google Podcasts. And not because it needs some more sleep, but because in the near future, Burke might be, might might have to be warm. Run up that TAFs button again. Not yet. Not yet, but not yet. Not yet. Not
Jason Howell (00:53:51):
Yet. I know. Take the finger off the button, Burke.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:53):
Okay. Take it off. And, and Corak over at killed by Google website. Don't don't, don't, don't, don't warm up that post just yet. But it's not looking great for Google podcast. So. Oh. In Google Cop podcast was doing real good in 2020 and, you know, had a lot of work on it work done to work, work done with it designed mobile app, you know, that whole experience where you could like listen to a podcast on your desktop and then seamlessly move to your phone and then, you know, with Google Assistant, all that stuff. But I, you know, since then, not a lot has gone on with it. In fact, I think it's been, let's see, I looked this up. It was, it's been since August, 2022 that this wonderful, fully featured 4.6 star on the Play Store app has gotten an update.
(00:54:41):
Geez and Pod. Yeah, it's, it's been a while. It's a long time. And Pod News also reports that podcasts no longer appear in search results. So if you do like a Google search for, you know, some podcasts before, you know, Google using their Google e Magic would have highlighted podcast episode results with, you know, very specific format as well as a play button, which would directly launch Google Podcast. Well, that is no more. They've reverted to just plain old search results. And, you know, Google said this was intentional with a very googly message of quote, we're constantly experimenting with ways to improve the experience for our users, which I don't know, might include just, you know, shunting podcast functionality over to YouTube. Because as some folk can't recall, in late 2021 there was some news that YouTube didn't wanna just take over the music game. They wanted to take over the podcast game too. So related.
Ron Richards (00:55:39):
And I mean, if, if it is related, which it could be like Google Play music, YouTube music, like all the stuff that we went through. I mean, YouTube is definitely making a play for audio, you know, in terms of seeing, you know, the opportunity there, acknowledging that people listen to podcasts and listen to like ambient music and noise and stuff like that on YouTube all the time. But I, I just, you know, like the stuff they're doing to support pod, like go to youtube.com/podcasts and it's just like a collection of Joe Rogan. It's just like, it's, it's, it's, it's weird. It's, it's not done in a way that that is true to what podcasts are. And this is immensely frustrating. And this is just sad. This is so
Jason Howell (00:56:15):
Sad. I didn't even know that youtube.com/podcast was was a thing.
Ron Richards (00:56:18):
Yep. That's their, that's their hub for just like youtube.com/live. Right? youtube.com/podcast is where there, you know, they're collecting all the podcasts, all, all there and it's all like, I mean, you know, I don't know, it's just, it's it's just video. It's just video Pod podcast. Like, like this show. I mean like video. Honestly, Twitch should be on here, to be honest. I
Jason Howell (00:56:37):
Was gonna say, I bet you we don't show up on this page.
Ron Richards (00:56:39):
Yeah. But it's a lot of, it's a lot of movies and games and finance and all this sort of stuff. Yeah. But like, oh, you know, but we do, you know. Oh, do you? Nice.
Jason Howell (00:56:48):
Yeah, well ask the tech guys is up there. Cool. Oh Lord. You're, I mean, we told you to take your finger off the button. Burke
Huyen Tue Dao (00:56:55):
Stop. Not yet.
Jason Howell (00:56:57):
You put your finger back on the button. It's just not time yet. Okay. Let's not make this happen. Although I don't use, use Google Podcasts. So there's that <laugh>. True.
Ron Richards (00:57:05):
We not good. That's why, that's why you don't use it.
Jason Howell (00:57:10):
I use Is
Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:10):
It use use YouTube?
Ron Richards (00:57:12):
I don't, sorry, hun. Go. You go. Sorry.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:57:13):
No, no, no. Go. But I'm just, is it kind of funny that, I mean, YouTube obviously YouTube, the video platform is doing just fine. We're not gonna be hitting the button for that, Lord Judgment. No. But is it funny that so much of this like, like, you know, other content that eventually and does end up needing Taps and does end up being on Killed by Google starts to kind of migrate over to YouTube. It's like, it's like it's, it's like it's kinda like that movie in Bruise or something. It's like YouTube is in Bru, ISRU and then all these like, you know, little like Google apps and Google functionality just go there to kind of meander for a little bit before they end up on Killed by Google and Burke hits the button for them. I don't know, it's just weird. I don't know why YouTube has to be everything.
Mishaal Rahman (00:57:53):
Yeah. Honestly, I mean, it makes sense. I feel like they should have done this from the beginning instead of Google Podcasts being into independent thing. Like how, think about like, like how does, actually how does Google make money from Google podcasts? Like it being on YouTube. I can understand cuz they already have this, like
Ron Richards (00:58:08):
This, the Ad network, huge
Mishaal Rahman (00:58:09):
Successful ad business and YouTube premium, they're trying to sell you fair. Like what do they get out of Google Podcasts? Like I don't actually see anything for Google.
Jason Howell (00:58:17):
Yeah, it's a, it's a good question.
Ron Richards (00:58:19):
Yeah, fair question.
Jason Howell (00:58:21):
I I was always really kind of found the you because you remember the, the big podcast news and actually I think we, we had someone on from Google to talk about it, didn't we? About the, the podcast effort at some point, maybe my memory is, is incorrect these days. I wouldn't be surprised. But about the kind of integration with search and the potential of making every recorded podcast like searchable top to bottom. Yep. Right? Like Google has this great ability to and has for very long to transcribe audio pretty effortlessly at this point. And so to make podcasts fully searchable and then Google as a search product is incredibly, you know, supercharged by all of this content that once was just, you know, you only heard it if you knew about it. And now it's fully accessible to everyone through a simple search.
(00:59:20):
And I just don't feel like it delivered on, I don't know if that was necessarily a promise, but that was the idea that I had based on news that they were talking about what, three years ago as far as what Google Podcasts could be. And yeah, it's just kind of a bummer if they give up on that. Cause I thought that was really powerful. Although now that I'm talking about this, I'm also realizing like, you know, there was a story that was gonna be early on in the rundown but we didn't have time for it in the top news about Google being really nervous about their competition with artificial intelligence apps like chatGPT and so maybe, you know, like, like that's, this seems like one of those things that would be really great for a search engine to have these podcasts infinitely searchable.
(01:00:09):
But you know, their attention isn't there. Their attention right now is how can we do what the ChatGPT people are doing to supercharge our, our search in a completely different way, which is, you know, like integrate these chatbots that tell you what you want to know instead of, I don't know, searching inside a podcasts and giving you direct access to that content. So they're a little, they've they've, they've got a lot on their plate right now. Google does. A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. All right. Well it is time to pass the mic over to JR Raphael from Android Intelligence. He has a search alternative that he wants to show us. Take it away, JR.
JR Raphael (01:00:51):
Hey, all right. Today I wanna talk about search these days we've got tons of different places to track down information. And let's be honest, Google's great at a lot of things, but sometimes it's easier to find what you need elsewhere. Whether that's Reddit, Wikipedia, I don't know, maybe even TikTok. That's still a thing, right? With that in mind, I've got just a thing for you. It's a whole new approach to online searching, and yet it's delightfully familiar. At the same time, allow me to introduce you to a clever little site called Swirl. Swirl. That's S W U R L. For anyone who's listening, swirl isn't a search engine Exactly. It's more like a search portal. It let's you dig through lots of different places you already know in a single nicely designed spot. And the site's main page is super minimal, just a plain box, basically, not much else around it.
(01:01:45):
And you use that box to type in whatever you wanna search for. <Laugh>, imagine that, right? Let's check this out. Now a second later. Squirrel shows you regular Google search results alongside results from Google News, Wikipedia, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok list. Just keeps going and going. The idea is that everything you could possibly need is right there in front of you on a single page. When you wanna move from one source to another, you just swipe horizontally on your screen or tap the appropriate icon at the top to jump directly where you want to go. All the columns have infinite scrolling two, so you can dive as deep as you need into any of the results without ever having to click on a second page or peck at a pesky load more button. Pretty nifty, isn't it? Swirls completely free to use for the moment.
(01:02:32):
Two, the company behind it describes the site as a design experiment, doesn't sell any user data or have any especially troubling terms in its privacy policy or anything like that. You can check out swirl for yourself by pulling up the services website in any browser, on any device, phone, computer, electric, donkey, whatever. It's swirl ssw u r l.com. We'll throw a link into this week's show notes for you too. And hey, while we're talking about websites worth visiting, be sure to make your way over to my little corner of the in nodes while you're at it and sign up for my Android Intelligence newsletter. You'll get three new things to try in your inbox every Friday, straight from me to you. No cost, no cash, just head over to android intel.net/twi to get started if you haven't already. That's android intel net slash twit. That's all for now. I'll see you back here next week for even more googly goodness,
Jason Howell (01:03:31):
Ly goodness swirl. I had never heard of Swirl. It really looks like tweet deck, but for search engines, <laugh>. Yeah, it has a tweet deck quality to it.
Ron Richards (01:03:42):
That's great. And I feel like we, we couldn't, we couldn't move on without calling out JR for the fantastic t-shirt selection this week. For our audio listeners you gotta watch the video to CJ's Sporting a t-shirt with Clippy from the e olden Microsoft Days Clipy, the, the handy paper clip. So Bravo,
Jason Howell (01:04:00):
The paper clip. We love to hate <laugh>. There's Clipy come for the Android Intelligence Day for the fabulous t-shirts. Yes. I mean, hey, you know, week after week he delivers. As far as the t-shirts are concerned, I I'm wondering when
Ron Richards (01:04:12):
We're gonna, it's a strong
Jason Howell (01:04:13):
Tshirt. Repeats, repeats,
Ron Richards (01:04:15):
Strong t-shirt
Jason Howell (01:04:16):
Game. Yes, indeed.
Ron Richards (01:04:18):
<Laugh>. Well, that brings us to our final sponsor the evening. And we want to thank the fine folks at H P e GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at C D W for bringing this episode of all that Android to your listen and ears. Cuz listen, the people at C D W understand that your organization needs simple management over its big data. But with workloads remaining on-prem due to legacy systems, it can feel challenging to organize and optimize your data. And that's where C D W can help your organization. By consolidating and managing all your data in one flexible, unified experience with HPE GreenLake Edge to Cloud platform, the experience you'll get with HPE GreenLake is unique because no matter where your data or applications live, you can free up energy and resources with automated processes and streamline management. And we can all use a little more streamlined things, right?
(01:05:07):
I could, I could use a little more streamlined things. So could you, especially with technology. Not only that, HPE GreenLake creates a seamless cloud experience among multiple data environments, thanks to the, as a service model that meets your remote workforce at the edge. And with unrivaled scalability, you'll see an instant increase in capacity, allowing for greater flexibility and accelerated business growth. So your team can tackle bigger priorities like innovation, like you should be, you're in business, you should be innovating, and they'll help you do that. So when it comes to streamline management, HPE makes data transformation possible. CDW makes it powerful and you can learn more at cdw.com/hpe. And we thank them for supporting All About Android. Find folks at HPE GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at cdw. Thank you, our good friends. We appreciate you.
Jason Howell (01:05:53):
Thank you and thank you. That's right. You, if you wrote an email to AAA TWI tv, thank you. If you sent a voicemail to 3 47, show a a a thank you for that too. Although we don't get very many of those anyways. Ken wrote in to AAA twit TV to say longtime listener here from Singapore. I'm originally a one plus user. Before that, a Nexus owner, my previous two phones were the original Nord and the Nord ce. Both were exceptional devices until they got updated to the latest color os This annoyed me and forced me to change the Nord to the nothing phone. I'm still using the CE though. The Color OS is just terrible to use, especially when they remove the app drawer, or as Ron likes to say, the app draw search function where I can <laugh>, where I could immediately <laugh> type to search for apps without having to tap my fingers at the top of the screen to type and search.
(01:06:51):
I still use the CE because it's battery is so good, can easily last me two days when I just use it for reading. Not bad. Anyway, that's my rant about the downfall of one. Plus, if you would like to know more about anything related to the Android market here in Singapore or Malaysia, you can ask me anytime. Have a great day and thank you for a great podcast. Podcast says, Ken, thank you for writing in. Love to hear about that. And yeah, we might just have to reach out to you for, with our Singapore and Malaysia beat coverage. You might hear from us, Ken. Yeah, there you go. Color os not a fan, eh, didn't really bug me that much, but I, it really does. It's very visceral for some people. The the, the one plus that's like piece UI change, it's like,
Ron Richards (01:07:36):
It's like the blue people in Avatar, people really react to it.
Jason Howell (01:07:40):
Oh, on Kenny Valley of UI there, <laugh>,
Ron Richards (01:07:42):
Right?
Jason Howell (01:07:43):
I sure I write a paper on this. That is a great idea. <Laugh>, there you go. I'll credit you wrong.
Ron Richards (01:07:48):
Or Andrew, I take, I take no responsibility for my pronunciation of draw, by the way,
Jason Howell (01:07:53):
<Laugh>,
Ron Richards (01:07:53):
I just can't even do it with my mouth. It's very just, it's very disturbing. Say,
Jason Howell (01:07:57):
Say
Ron Richards (01:07:58):
Water. Water
Jason Howell (01:08:00):
Wa water.
Ron Richards (01:08:01):
So anyway let's not play with my Long Island
Jason Howell (01:08:03):
Accent. Okay. All right. All right. That's for close show.
Ron Richards (01:08:07):
Our next email comes from front of the show named Mike, who says, I came across a nothing phone in the wild in Dubai. I have a limited picture since I saw it in the hands of a clerk at a liquor store. And it's a bit of a touchy subject here, <laugh>. I also noticed a giant billboard across the street from the, from me on the main highway. I'm not sure what'll make it to the us but they're investing here. Love the show, Mike. And good job Mike. And spotting it in the wild of all places. A liquor store in Dubai. That's kind
Jason Howell (01:08:32):
Of like liquor store in Dubai
Ron Richards (01:08:33):
That's talk about needle in a haystack. <Laugh>.
Jason Howell (01:08:35):
Yeah, we got a photo. We got a photo there. I don't know if you saw that Burke, but we do, we have a photo in case you don't believe him. We have photographic evidence from the liquor store. I he know, he, no, it definitely does not look like a liquor store. That countertop is not liquor store quality countertop,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:08:57):
<Laugh>
Jason Howell (01:08:59):
<Laugh>. But yeah, it's a touchy subject. Still got a photo of it. Yeah. Looking
Ron Richards (01:09:06):
Looking like, and I'm not surprised at all to hear that they're investing in Dubai, like with advertising stuff. Like that's where money is and it's a different region and all that sort of stuff. And you know, as complicated as as, as as Dubai might be from a marketplace, it, it's, you know, the US has gotta be way more complicated with, with all the carriers and all the, you know, apple and Google and all that sort of stuff. So it makes sense that they're, you know, kind of getting established in places like Dubai. Yeah. So especially with their, with their design aesthetic and price point.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:09:34):
So yeah. Yeah. The, the hipness and the kind of, I mean, it's a mid-range phone, but it still has like a certain set of status and like ex sort of exclusivity and kind of hipness to it. So it makes a lot of sense.
Jason Howell (01:09:45):
<Laugh>, you gotta be in the know to know about this phone. Which <laugh>, I, I think I, I'm realizing as we're talking about like this particular phone being seen in the wild, like I almost think like different phones have different scores. <Laugh>, like, it could be a game, it could be like the Fho smartphone and the wild game. Every time you see an iPhone it's like negative points because you're just so used to seeing them <laugh>. Same for Samsung phones. But if you see a nothing phone out in the wild, that's like, you get a hundred points for that. That's like iPhone high scoring iPhone.
Burke (01:10:14):
I saw a Windows phone in the wild once.
Jason Howell (01:10:16):
<Laugh>. Oh my gosh.
Burke (01:10:17):
Like, yeah, it was my, what is our back? Someone that was actually in our alley in the old place, like somebody who worked across the alley from us. Yeah. Like that was super
Jason Howell (01:10:27):
Random. Yeah.
Ron Richards (01:10:28):
Well, it's like how excited I got when I saw Samsung foldable a couple years on the subway in New York. I was like, yeah,
Jason Howell (01:10:33):
That would be,
Ron Richards (01:10:33):
Somebody's actually using it like this is great. Yeah. Yeah. So
Jason Howell (01:10:36):
Yeah, that, that'd be like 40 points. Nothing phone I feel like is a hundred because like,
Ron Richards (01:10:40):
Well, and also it's,
Jason Howell (01:10:41):
It's who knows about the nothing phone and the, you know,
Ron Richards (01:10:43):
It's, it's scaling. Cause I feel like the time that I saw the foldable, it would've been worth more points. Cause it's earlier in the life cycle, right. Is way earlier rare where now it's a little more common. Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Howell (01:10:51):
Oh, this, there's a game here. I think we're, I I think there's a game, game game to be found here.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:56):
Oh, absolutely. Well, and then, you know, me, Flo and I could start a little kind of side hustle where we just walk around with our foldables if someone needs some points Oh, why do in this direction with
Jason Howell (01:11:08):
It? Oh wow.
Ron Richards (01:11:09):
You're
Jason Howell (01:11:09):
Taking the results
Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:10):
Like the, I'm like hustler.
Jason Howell (01:11:12):
Sorry. You, you're the, the hustler. Yeah. You're the, you're the, like the foldable phone hustler. You're like, yeah. So you want the photographic evidence that you ran across organically, this foldable phone on the street. It's, it's gonna cost you. I'm
Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:25):
Sorry. Sometimes I get some extra cases and stuff just to disguise my, if you
Mishaal Rahman (01:11:27):
Were to play this game, what city or area do you think would be the best place to win? Like, like if you're accounting, like, you know, how many unique phones can I spot on the street? Which city do you think would be the best place to play this game?
Jason Howell (01:11:40):
That's a, it's gotta be San Francisco. Yeah. I mean, my,
Mishaal Rahman (01:11:44):
My bed is Hong Kong.
Jason Howell (01:11:45):
Oh, oh, yeah. I mean internationally. Yeah. Shenzen maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We gotta open this up worldwide. Yes. And I think you're absolutely right because now
Mishaal Rahman (01:11:54):
That you brought that up, I feel, I feel
Burke (01:11:56):
Like maybe, maybe Alex Gumple was like a plant. Like he sort of fixed, he, maybe he gave this windows phone to the lady across the street and like staged the whole thing.
Jason Howell (01:12:03):
Could be Alex Gumble. Yeah. Was the hustler then. And you had no idea. You had no idea. Burke this this game is, is gonna be off. There's legs to it. There's yeah, there's legs. Anyone who wants to help us develop it aaa, Twitter, tv, <laugh>, let us know <laugh>, that's almost too, too much to manage actually too much. Develop it for us and then let us know what you come up with. Yeah. Yeah. <Laugh>. Go for it. All right, Wendy, you got the last one.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:39):
All right, well, it is now time for the email of the week, and the email of the week is from BV ni Singh. And we're going to talk a little bit about how to kind of appeal to Google's sensibilities in terms of like feature requests. So Bob writes us saying, I bought the Pixel seven at a Galaxy Watch five in October, just an upgrade after purchasing. I was very happy with both of them, but after using them, I feel like, I felt like, I felt like they have some essential features missing, like a better split screen mode in pixel UI or some sort of TV remote app and pod and podcast app in where os mm-hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But I don't <laugh>, I dunno where to request these new features from Andrew development team except the AAA podcast or Twitter. Do you guys have any suggestions where the Andrew community can post new features ideas to Google and Andrew development team and have them, you know, see it? Because nowadays you cannot trust Twitter to do it. And please don't say Google Pixel Community Help Center.
Jason Howell (01:13:41):
Well, <laugh>, I don't know. I I mean, you can send feedback through the Google app. I mean the, the, the problem here is, oh
Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:51):
No,
Jason Howell (01:13:51):
No, there's no real great way to send this sort of feedback to Google. I, I feel like the, the few times that we've had someone from Google on the show and I've mentioned like, or one of us has mentioned Leo would be a good idea, blah, blah, they always make some like smart ass comment of like, oh, it's a feature request time, or something like that. Like, like, I don't know that they really care a whole lot <laugh> these ideas. Sadly, they've had, they've got their own thing going on, but you can send feedback through the Google app. It's, it's in there. Just open up the Google app and there's like a send feedback section, but I kind of feel like you're just dropping mail into a bucket that's never gonna be red. But I could be wrong. I
Mishaal Rahman (01:14:31):
Could be wrong. So yeah, to actually answer the question, I do have an idea. You're, I think the best way that the average user could actually get their feedback eventually read by a Googler who can actually eventually take action on it is the Google issue tracker. Or if you're on the Android beta program, one of the Android releases, it's the the feedback app. Yeah, that's true. That the issue tracker is like a really, really outdated, like clunky ui. But if you actually submit something there and it gets starred enough, and then one of the people who goes through and triages the bugs, like eventually decides they'll take, take this on, you might get lucky and they might actually decide we'll implement this in, you know, a future release. So like
Ron Richards (01:15:15):
Example a, there's a lot, there's a lot that has to go your way in order for that to happen
Mishaal Rahman (01:15:19):
Though, let's be honest. <Laugh> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's, there's no guarantee it gets read, honestly. Like, it, it's, it's not a good way, but the best bet is literally like, if you have a big enough social media following any, you have Googlers follow you to like tag a few Googles say mm-hmm. <Affirmative> please do this. Yeah. Because they can, they can bypass that internally Yes. And say like, we should do this <laugh>. Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:15:41):
I I I I hesitate to encourage that though because yeah, I, someone randomly tagging you is a little bit difficult. But I mean, that's not to say like a valid idea, I think is a valid idea. And I, I, I a hundred percent concur with Mishaal that it's kind of like critical mass. Like if you create a suggestion and like, yeah, if you get like a thousand stars on the issue tracker or if you use the bird site or Macedon and you get like a ton of, you know, you get like a, an exorbitant amount of boosts or likes or repost of what have you that does that, that means something. But I kind of agree. Like I feel like you know, as a developer I benefit because the Andrew development team is kind of more like super, like, I think in tune to like the developer community because you know, like part of the platform success is, I mean, obviously from the users too, but also like the apps as well, there's a little bit more of a direct line with us.
(01:16:32):
And I, it it's really hard for like users requesting features to kind of cut through because I mean, like, to be fair to Google an Android with, you know, 3 billion active devices, they probably get a, a, the, the signal to noise ratio is not good. Mm-Hmm. So I think, you know, trying to get in a place that is public where you can get people kind of chiming in, in like a legitimate way helps. That being said, I agree. It's not easy for, for like a user to request features or just just general generic feature development. Yeah. So
Mishaal Rahman (01:17:03):
Yeah, don't, don't beg people, please don't, don't go tagging random people on social media.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:08):
Ask and don't tag like 12 people in the same thing.
Mishaal Rahman (01:17:10):
They're not gonna do that.
Jason Howell (01:17:12):
Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:12):
Yeah,
Jason Howell (01:17:13):
Yeah. The eyes will glaze over on something like that. But I am, I, I do appreciate that that you, and you're not alone Bab, but that you feel that having us read <laugh>, the, the features that you, that you want on the show will make an impact. I don't know that it will, but we get, I, I'd definitely get these emails from time to time. Can you please tell Google? Whoa, Mike, my audio just totally canceled that. Can you hear
Mishaal Rahman (01:17:45):
Me? I,
Jason Howell (01:17:48):
I think, oh, I think I unplugged something when I hit the table. <Laugh>.
Mishaal Rahman (01:17:52):
Well done. There is, there is one more thing I would like to add to that. Yeah. And it's if you have, you know, a good enough idea and you articulate it well enough and you post it on like Reddit or you send a tip to like Android police or Android Central or one of these big news sites and they publish an article on it, there's a decent chance that someone, you know, within Google Yeah,
Jason Howell (01:18:12):
There you go. Will
Mishaal Rahman (01:18:12):
Share it around like, you know, you're not gonna know that they're actually reading this stuff. You're not gonna know that they've actually taken your feedback into account, but there's a chance that that work. Like they might say, Hey, look at this article. We think this is a good idea. There you
Jason Howell (01:18:23):
Go.
Mishaal Rahman (01:18:24):
You wouldn't know until the next release until like eight months later they actually decide to do it. But it could work, you know, it's, it ITT worked before you didn't know about it until like 10 months later.
Jason Howell (01:18:33):
Yes. Right,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:34):
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Hyundai pay like credibility and also like volume slash critical mass slash not entropy. The other thing what is the thing that makes things go shoot
Jason Howell (01:18:48):
Lots of people. Not velocity. I don't know. Lots,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:51):
Lots of people. There you go. We'll call lot of people after the show and be mad, huh? Sorry. Yeah. No, I'm thinking of a physics term. We like critical math. It's
Jason Howell (01:18:59):
Going criticalness. Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:01):
Okay. Whatever. but no, I agree. It's, it's, it's really difficult, but I, I, I, yes. If for what is it? For what it's worth, yeah. Listen to Mishaal. That's probably the best way. And it, it's unfortunate because it's more of like a, a volume issue, especially with Google Android because the volume is so big. I mean, I would encourage anyone, like for your, you know, day-to-day apps where, you know your, you know, the developer team might be like less than a hundred, a few dozen people, a handful of people that yeah, reaching out to them works. It's just, I think to be fair to an organization that's really, really large, it's really hard to filter that from like spam trolls and other stuff like that. So they do care. I I, I really do feel like they care, but it's just hard to filter it out. Yeah. So yes.
Jason Howell (01:19:46):
The amount of, the amount of feedback that they probably get is just insanity. Yeah. That's difficult. So how do you get yours? Your your feature request read or taken seriously or any of these things? And there is no right answer for that, but yeah, that's a couple of strategies. I don't know if any of that is helpful bene, but there you go.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:10):
Momentum, that's what I'm meant to say.
Jason Howell (01:20:11):
There we go. Momentum
Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:12):
<Laugh>. And for, and for getting this great discussion on a momentum going and for reminding when what the physics term was. That's why Bethany, you are our email of the week.
Jason Howell (01:20:23):
There we go. And with that, we have reached the end of this episode of All About Android. Always so much fun. Mishaal, I wanna throw it over to you first because you posted on Twitter yesterday some news, and I don't want to be the one to announce it, but what, what do you want people to know right now? <Laugh>?
Mishaal Rahman (01:20:46):
Yeah, Jason, unfortunately you know, there's massive layoffs everywhere across the whole tech industry. And at my own company, Esper, I was involved in a layoff. And so I wasn't like, I'm not fully out of a job. I'm like now reduced hours, it's a contractor, but that does mean I'm looking for additional work or potentially a full-time, you know, employment contract somewhere else. So if you're looking for someone who really knows Android, A O S P you know, Android ecosystem, et cetera, like how to navigate all those waters, you know, someone who knows really, really knows, you know, how to work with Android. I'm your guy, you know, contact me at Mishaal Rahman on all the different social media platforms, Twitter, Macedon, Reddit, et cetera. So yeah, please reach out if you have you know, if you're interested in hiring me,
Jason Howell (01:21:36):
All you really have to do is go read Mishaal's expansive work at Esper. Yes, of course. But, you know, for many years at X D A to know, and, and I mean very active, like in places like Twitter and Reddit, like you said, but if you find his posts, I mean, this dude is so damn smart. So I don't think you're gonna, I don't think it's gonna be long for you, but I realize I'm just sorry, I, I hate knowing that people are getting laid off right now, and it sucks to have it, it's so close to home. And I'm just really sorry that that happened, Mishaal. And I really hope that you find something quickly. So I hope that we can give you a little, at least a little bit of of exposure to help that happen faster too. So there you go. Every, every,
Ron Richards (01:22:22):
Appreciate it, every transition is an opportunity.
Jason Howell (01:22:24):
That's a, that's true,
Ron Richards (01:22:25):
Mishaal. And I, I, you know, that's true. You'll, you know confident you'll land somewhere that'll be even better and it'll be good and, and, and get to do even more, right?
Jason Howell (01:22:32):
So there you go. <Laugh>. There you go. Well, Mishaal, we love having you on this show and offering your, your insight and your knowledge to the show when we can get you on. So thank you for hopping on today and into the future. And yeah, I'll keep, keep us posted, let us know how, how the job search is going. We'll do our very best to help you out. When, what you got going on?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:23:00):
Well, I just wanna say that I'm an android dev. I'm actually a very senior slash staff level engineer. And I think that Mishaal's knowledge content enabled an ability to make connections about what's going on at Android is super valuable for consumers and people like me. I have been linking a lot of Mishaal's content to my former coworkers and current coworkers cuz it's that valuable and that in depth and that insightful. So yes, I just wanna say that put that out there. And yeah, it's like, that's my day job and Mishaal makes my day job easier, especially communicating what's happening Android. So that's what I want people to know. And you can find me if you feel like it on randomly typing.com. I sometimes talk about Android stuff there, and you can find me on other places at Queen CodeMonkey. If you're on Macedon, I'm currently at Queen Code Monkey at Macedon Social. That might change, but that's where you can find me for now. <Laugh>. and that's it.
Jason Howell (01:23:59):
Cool. Thank you. Win. It's good to see you also. Good to see you. Ron Richards.
Ron Richards (01:24:04):
Thank you so, so much. And you can fi I realized I didn't give Burke my my, my link to for my plug, and I'm sorry I was, I was too busy doing the show, so I'm gonna vamp a little while I pull up a link to send a Burke. But yeah, you can follow me over at Ron XO on, on Twitter and over on Instagram where I'm posting nonsense periodically every now and then. But also wanna give us a quick plug and shout out to Corbit, which is my fun little startup that made a couple friends of mine have around pinball. Go to corbit.io or look for corbit in the Google Play Store. We released a major update to the mobile app last week, version one dot version 1.3 came out.
(01:24:48):
Now make it a lot easier to auto claim your scores when you're playing a pinball game on a score, but enabled machine, better follower notifications, you can scan your contacts to find people who are in the app. A lot of cool stuff in there. So that's a photo for a video viewers. There's a photo from Indyk, which was the big tournament that happened in Riverside, California earlier this month where we were score, it was actively keeping track of scores. Yeah, so fun time. So yeah go to Google Play Store, download the app, check it out. And my hat's off to Hu and all other app developers cuz it is very, very hard. And we're finding that out the, the, the easy way, also the hard way. But we're doing the best we can to make the best stuff we can. So hope if you like playing pinball, go check it out.
Jason Howell (01:25:33):
So right on corbit.io. Thank you Ron. Yeah.
Ron Richards (01:25:37):
In the Google Play Store.
Jason Howell (01:25:38):
In the Google Play Store. Where else would it be? You, you already know to check the Play Store. So go there and check it out. Thanks once again to j r A field Android intelligence, of course and all of his awesome tips. Thank you to Burke behind the scenes and sometimes talking on the show. You hear his voice from time to time. Also thank you to Victor. Behind the scenes. You don't hear his voice very much. He's not here right now, but he does the production. That's not Victor, that's somebody else. <Laugh>, I know. I can't remember his name, but he's really hairy. Victor on the other hand, he is at home. He produ, he does the kind of the post-production work for this show and turns out the the podcast. So you can thank Victor for the fact that it downloads to your device when you're subscribed.
(01:26:25):
So make sure that you're subscribed. Twit tv slash a a a as for me, you know, I'm on I'm, I'm still on the Bird site at Jason Howell, but I'm also on Master on Twi do social slash at Jason Howell. I was gone for a week, so I've been very, very out of the social thing. So now that I'm back to work, maybe I'll post a few things. <Laugh>, I don't know, I'm so out of the habit at this point. It's hard to get that engine running again. And I also do another show with Micah Sergeant every Thursday called Tech News Weekly. So twit.tv/tnw. We have a lot of really great interviews with people on the technology industry about some of the biggest news stories that are happening each week. So check it out. Don't forget Club Twit. This is in, in many ways, this is kind of, you know, heading into 2023 where there's a lot of uncertainty, like we've been talking about on the show, layoffs happening at technology companies and everything.
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Speaker 8 (01:28:28):
Come. Bye.
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