All About Android 624, 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.
Ron Richards (00:00:00):
This week on All About Android, we welcome back Matteo Doni to the show, and he's got the ridiculous Unihertz Tank Phone, along with the Unihertz TikTok and Nokia G22. We recap the April Fools gags from nothing, Razor and Asus, and lots of app talk as Google launches the new Nearby Share, shuffles Google Assistance staff to Bard, and much, much more
Speaker 2 (00:00:22):
Podcasts you love, from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Ron Richards (00:00:31):
This is All About Android, episode 624, recorded Tuesday, April 4th, 2023. The Bard of Colorado.
Leo Laporte (00:00:39):
Listeners of this program get an ad free version if they're members of Club TWiT. $7 a month gives you ad free versions of all of our shows Plus membership in the Club TWiT Discord, a great clubhouse for TWiT listeners. And finally, the TWiT Plus feed with shows like Stacey's Book Club, the Untitled Linux Show, the Giz Fiz and more. Go to twit.tv/club twit and thanks for your support.
Ron Richards (00:01:06):
Welcome to All About Android, your weekly source for the latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. I'm Ron Richards,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:14):
And I'm Huyen Tue Dao.
Ron Richards (00:01:16):
And unfortunately, Jason Howell is still on vacation. He hasn't returned yet, but we are very, very lucky to welcome a returning special guest who is filling Jason's chair at this very moment there in the TWIT studio. Everyone, please welcome Mr. Matteo Doni, Matteo welcome back to the show.
Matteo Doni (00:01:34):
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me back, everyone. It's a, it's a pleasure to be here in the studio.
Ron Richards (00:01:40):
Well, what's fascinating is that you are in the big chair in the studio. You're the, you're in the, you're in the captain seat. You're in the middle position. So Matteo, I am just gonna hand the whole show to you and you're gonna drive it from here on out. All right.
Matteo Doni (00:01:52):
Well, if you hand me the show, you know what that means?
Ron Richards (00:01:55):
I do <laugh>. It's playing, it's playing with fire or playing with goats,
Matteo Doni (00:02:00):
<Laugh>. Exactly. Goats and crazy phones.
Ron Richards (00:02:03):
Yeah. <laugh>. Well, so yeah, so, so we're very excited cuz you've got, I mean, it's your first show with Huyen, Huyen you've never done a show at Matteo before, I don't think, right? Or were you on the
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:10):
Show? No. Good. I, I was on the show, but the first time I ever took off the show, I think, well, the second time I took off the show was Matteo's last p last appearance. So I'm, I was really sad to Miss Matteo. So now, and I, I, yeah, I, I, I think I almost missed this week too, but yeah, I'm here and I'm really, I'm
Ron Richards (00:02:28):
Glad you made it. There you go. Yeah, yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:29):
Me too. Matteo Extra.
Ron Richards (00:02:31):
You last joined us in February of 2022, so it's been an entire year. So before we get into stuff, let's catch up a little bit. How, how, how you been Matteo, what's what's your daily driver phone these days?
Matteo Doni (00:02:42):
Very well. Well, as any proper person who wears cargo pants, I tend to have four daily drivers. One is obviously the Google Pixel 7 Pro. That seems to be the best all rounder for my needs especially with the, the camera it has. I then obviously for a bit of balance in the force carry an iPhone 14 Pro as, and then whatever I'm reviewing seems to take the other two pockets. So, at the moment, the Nokia G 22, I take it the crickets are for the iPhone <laugh>. We won't speak about the, the fruity one anymore, trust me, <laugh>. So the Nokia G 22 is currently one of my review devices as well as the Unihertz Tank, which I heard mentioned a few weeks ago on AAA. And so yeah, I, I do have multi multiple devices, but two tend to be review devices. And then the main one is the Google Pixel 7 Pro. That's the one with the roaming sim card in and my main phone number in it.
Ron Richards (00:03:49):
Cool. Well, we are gonna get to the Unihertz as well as you've got some other exciting stuff for us to look at as well as a tale of woe that we will cover in the hardware section. But we got a pack show this week, so why don't we dive right into the news and then we'll get on with it. So Burke or Victor or whoever's back there, take it away.
Victor (00:04:13):
What up kid? Matteo's in the house!
Ron Richards (00:04:19):
What, what was that Victor? It was Victor, back on the back on the mic. Welcome back, Victor in studio.
Victor (00:04:25):
Thanks. And Ron, I know your, your kids are a little young right now, but you're, you're gonna have to perfect the the the old man cool sounding voice.
Ron Richards (00:04:37):
Oh, okay.
Victor (00:04:38):
For, for your kids. I'll
Ron Richards (00:04:39):
Work on that. Like,
Victor (00:04:40):
Okay. When, when they get older. Right. I, I don't wanna totally derail us from the Android news yet, but I was having a little bit of fun with AI. We talk a lot about ai and I'll just show it to you.
Ron Richards (00:05:00):
Oh, here we
Victor (00:05:01):
Go. The prompt <laugh>. So if you ask, if you ask a, a stable fusion or leonardo.ai to, for a, a goat using a phone gives you some pretty interesting stuff.
Ron Richards (00:05:14):
What? Oh, dear Lord <laugh>.
Victor (00:05:16):
What,
Ron Richards (00:05:17):
What is happening? What is happening would
Victor (00:05:20):
Go back One, one
Ron Richards (00:05:21):
Break, wait on both. We got, I'm horr I'm horrified by this, but I'm also disappointed that mid Journey, or Leonardo, whatever you use, didn't give any photo of Matteo and a goat and this show in any of the artwork from that, because as we've learned with chat, GPT AI seems to only know what it knows from the internet. And Lord knows we put a lot of goat Android content out there over the years.
Victor (00:05:45):
<Laugh> Well, there, there's, I I tried to customize it for, for Matteo, and this one here is a goat using a phone with a crocodile
Ron Richards (00:05:57):
For,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:58):
For the, for the audio stream listeners. I don't, I actually, I don't have anything for you. I, I don't How, what it the crocodile looks like. It's actually a pelican that has been crossbred with a crocodile,
Ron Richards (00:06:12):
With, with human hands.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:14):
With human hands. And there's human hands coming out of a goat head. And the phone has also been genetically spliced. I, I, it's, it's in I Okay. That's it. I've, I've lost the thread. It, what horror is. Oh,
Ron Richards (00:06:28):
Okay. Oh, is that a, is that a phone with a mocodile case?
Victor (00:06:31):
Yes. <laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:06:34):
That is, that is a Android phone or tablet. It would, looks like it's covered with the skin of a crocodile <laugh>,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:41):
But it's kinda melted. Yeah. Every, yeah, everything is kind of Dali-esc almost like
Victor (00:06:47):
The Necronomicon. Yes. Right. Ex
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:51):
Mortis. Don't read it. Don't read it. Don't open the phone <laugh>.
Victor (00:06:55):
And,
Matteo Doni (00:06:55):
And then little wait. It is stuff of nightmares. That's, that's actually quite, oh, that's
Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:59):
All right.
Ron Richards (00:07:00):
Here's just, this is a nice, a nice goat smiling with a human hand holding a phone in front of it. And the phone background is bright green, like Android. That is a decent rendering of a Android phone and a goat. There's something going on with its toes, but Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:14):
Yeah, I don't, the goat appears to have the, the one toes. Okay. That's what
Victor (00:07:18):
I pedicure. That's a Matteo or less view that are Matteo related. I think this one is tech, travel, goat wow.
Ron Richards (00:07:27):
But I mean, this is a, there's a highly rendered handsome man who I can only assume is meant to be Matteo with a goat, with very right angle horns coming out of its head while the man is looking at the
Victor (00:07:40):
Phone. The, the thing down at, at the bottom right is supposed to be a crocodile. So that's what, what, that's what the AI thinks is a crocodile. I don't
Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:50):
Think mid, I don't think midjourney knows what a crocodile is. This is also on the handsome man is crotched down on the beach, presumably on a tropical island with the goat and with what is not a crocodile, but we'll go with crocodile. It kind of looks like a, a capuchin mixed with a, a lizard mixed with, I
Ron Richards (00:08:08):
Will say, I will say
Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:08):
All
Ron Richards (00:08:09):
Chat room just asked, just asked, is that Olivier Giroud? The French soccer player, <laugh> does really look like him. Good eye mate. Looks just like
Matteo Doni (00:08:17):
That. That's a really good call. Okay. Cousin of Jah. It also happens to be an AC Milan player. So I'm all for that. Now I have a goal for my next six years of
Ron Richards (00:08:28):
Haha goal. And
Victor (00:08:30):
Last one,
Ron Richards (00:08:31):
This is the, this is, this is a, this is an, alright, this has gotta be the last one. But this is a, an an what is a anthropomorphized human holding, an Android phone with a goat head with not one, but 1, 2, 3, 4 horns, two of them purple coming out of its head while sitting on a plane. Which I also feel like Matteo, given your travels and your past career and stuff, that this is a very accurate
Matteo Doni (00:08:56):
One that is very, very accurate. Though not May, maybe not the part where, where I'm wearing a tie,
Ron Richards (00:09:01):
But Right. It's a little too formal.
Matteo Doni (00:09:02):
That's formal. Mm-Hmm. It's been too formal for me. Yeah. But that is a very good depiction. I will need to see if I can get a copy of that and maybe have a print done. Oh, that, that's looks as if it's me on TWiT studio.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:09:13):
What, what's, what's around this? I
Ron Richards (00:09:16):
Don't even know. Okay. We gotta do a show, guys. We can't, we can't do this the whole night. <Laugh>.
Matteo Doni (00:09:21):
Anyway, thank AI for my future Nightmares. Yes.
Ron Richards (00:09:24):
Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you, Victor, for crashing the top of the show and humor. Humor is a related theme. Because we are recording today on April 4th Tuesday, April 4th, 2023, which means that this past weekend was in fact April 1st, which is affectionately known around the world as April Fool's Day. Which historically has been a good fun day in the tech world. Although, you know, Google used to participate until they stopped doing it during the pandemic, and they have not returned to the battlefield. But there was a couple of a couple of tech Android specific ones that we thought we'd share and just kind of reflect back on this past April Fools. And the first one was from our friends at Nothing who posted on Saturday, April 1st that they were announcing beer parenthesis 5.1%. And they posted onto Instagram a a very bare can of beer, a gray minimalist can that says beer 5.1% and says it's technically refreshing. And they say crisp, unfiltered rice lagger, carefully crafted for a distinct and drier taste independently brewed and Whales UK nothing engineer approved, technically refreshing sign up for updates that nothing got checked. National Minimum Drinking Age applies. So Matteo, when, if you had to rate this as far as April Fools jokes, what would you give? Nothing for their beer. Good, bad cringe.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:56):
It gave it a four, I sorry, 5.1 would be the A B V, is that what we're Yes. Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:11:02):
The abv I think it's a play on phone. Phone one and phone two in the parentheses. But the 5.1 is the A B V. Yeah. So sorry.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:11:08):
I'll give it a four, maybe a three. It's interesting.
Matteo Doni (00:11:12):
I dunno. So sorry. That's four or three out of 10.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:11:15):
Yes.
Ron Richards (00:11:16):
Outta 10. Outta 10, yeah. Let's do outta 10.
Matteo Doni (00:11:17):
Yeah. So I'm, I'm actually going to go for an eight. Wow. It's not unheard of, of tech companies doing food product as a marketing push. True. We've, we've seen food products or rebranded food products to do marketing. Just think back to how many different partnerships Google has done with the Android versions. I've had quite a few Android Kit Kats. Yep. So it's, well, to
Ron Richards (00:11:45):
Be clear, Matteo, this beer is not real.
Matteo Doni (00:11:48):
I know. I know. But it's believable that they would make a nothing beer as in true. I would not, not put it past, nothing to do something similar in the future,
Ron Richards (00:11:57):
To do something with nothing. All right, cool. Well, was nothing getting, nothing getting in on the joke. All right. The next one up. I actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna preface this that I thought this, this did make me laugh. Razor you might rem you know, the, the company known for gaming, phone gaming computers and gaming phones, and they bought the they bought the next bit Robin back in the day on April 1st they announced the Razor Razor, yes. Which was a mouse and facial hair razor. I love it
Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:32):
So much
Ron Richards (00:12:33):
With a complete video explaining that, you know, sometimes when you're, you know, sh when you're plugged into the game for so long, you, you don't have time to take care of yourself. And so that's why they've introduced the razor razor <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:44):
I I I I'm gonna give us a nine. I I have to because we are Oh, I was, oh,
Ron Richards (00:12:53):
<Laugh>. So we're watching the video now where the gamer has like hairy eyebrows and overgrown mustache and beard, and now they're showing the mouse, and he is trimming his eyebrows and beard and mustache with his mouse <laugh> as an electric razor.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:07):
Yeah. And it's, it's got a very I'm sorry, not my forte, not my area of expertise, but, you know, very Gillette style, where they're like showing like the, what is it? Like the double, the little foil
Ron Richards (00:13:18):
Rollers? Yeah, like the double blades. Yeah. Yeah. Double
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:19):
Blades. Ooh. Feel sharp. Play sharp. I like it. We are a razor house. My husband and I are big Razor fans for a long, for a long time Razor fans. He has all the razor things. He also spends an enormous or not amount of time in our gaming room, and I could see him totally using this. So I, I have to give it a nine outta 10, but, oh, oh hell. You can also manscape also
Ron Richards (00:13:43):
Going below the belt there,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:44):
You can manscape with the, with the Razor Razor. Yes. Also, my husband has hipster shaving gear, so I think this is great. I need to show this to him after the show. Nine outta 10. So what
Ron Richards (00:13:55):
Would you, what would, so you, you rate this highly then when, huh?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:57):
Yes. But it's kind of geared towards people living in this house, including myself. Sure. So not, not the landscaping,
Ron Richards (00:14:03):
But, so if you had to give it a one to 10 rating, what would you give that one?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:08):
9 9, 9. Nine.
Ron Richards (00:14:09):
Nine. All right. Batan, what's your score there?
Matteo Doni (00:14:12):
I'm easily amused, and I find this, again, quite believable, so I'll give it a seven.
Ron Richards (00:14:17):
All right. There you go. I, I give this one a nine as well. That one, cuz it made me, if it makes me laugh out loud, I'll take it. Although the next one might take the cake because Asis announced the ro the r o g Ally Ally, a l y I guess ally handheld gaming pc, which is basically positioned as a steam deck killer. But the joke was, this isn't a joke, it's actually an announcement of a product. <Laugh> ACEs is actually gonna do a portable gaming machine to compete with the steam deck. And just happened to have posted it on April 1st. That was why. So it's not a prank <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:57):
Well, I, I now have mixed feelings. Like
Ron Richards (00:15:00):
What?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:15:01):
Well, okay. I mean, okay. Oh, I can't separate my feelings of, oh, this makes a lot of sense. We are obviously seeing a lot of cloud gaming, you know, handhelds, the steam obviously is doing well. And like, you know, try and you got like the g g cloud and Razor has one coming out, so it kind of makes sense. And Ro o g is great with the heart, but now I'm just like very distracted by the fact that they decided that it would be a good idea to release this on April 1st. Cuz now I I'm questioning reality. No,
Ron Richards (00:15:29):
Nobody believed it, right?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:15:30):
Is it real <laugh>?
Ron Richards (00:15:32):
I
Matteo Doni (00:15:32):
Dunno, to be fair, let's think about it. One of the tools we most of us use on a daily basis, Gmail was also launched on April 1st.
Ron Richards (00:15:41):
True. True. So, so what happened was, is that at midnight on April 1st, ACEs here. I have the tweet if we wanna show it. Here, I'll throw it into the dock. Cause I know there's a lot of stuff here. Where is it? There you go. So ACEs tweeted at midnight introducing Ro or what, however, did we, did it say Ro what do we
Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:05):
Say? It's og It's our
Ron Richards (00:16:06):
Og r og introducing Ro OGs first gaming handheld console. Taking your PC games outta your gaming room is no longer a fantasy. Play wherever you are, whenev, where, wherever you are, whenever you want with the rock ally, you never have to stop gaming again with a link to best to a page on Best Buy for it. And <laugh> just basically everybody thought that it was a joke, <laugh>, and then two days later they confirmed that it was actually real <laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:36):
No, really? No, really no. For realsies. We, we were serious about it, honestly. Yeah. Like realsies for realsies. Promise
Ron Richards (00:16:42):
Me. So and, and it was funny because a lot of people really analyze it cause it announced like Ally or Ally like Ally, you know, a lie, you know? But it's, but it is, it is real. It is it, it's, it's legit. So more is coming. So so if you're looking for a Steam deck competitor ASIS announced it in a very odd way. But yeah, you can go to Best Buy and put in your email address and find out more about it and get notified. But yeah, it, it exists. So <laugh> so based on this, I give this one a 10 <laugh>. I love it. So I agree. Well,
Matteo Doni (00:17:18):
April fool, may, may it have long life as a product. Sadly, it seems to be running Windows 11 instead of Android.
Ron Richards (00:17:25):
Oh, that's a mistake. So, oh, well. So based on that, Matt Matteo, what would you give this one then?
Matteo Doni (00:17:30):
I will give it a nine. I, I really, I, I like the idea that there's some competition in the handheld space. And gaming, gaming is, is definitely something that needs to be more mobile.
Ron Richards (00:17:43):
Yep. All right. Agreed. And when, what do you, what do you think of that one?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:48):
I'll give it a six. I, I completely agree. I am also, we are also Aus, r o g fans here, so we will probably think about buying one, even though we both have steam decks. And I, I think, I think Aus has proved themselves very, you know, capable and consistent with their hardware and their, their current mobile hardware devices. But I'm just confused. So I'm, I, I'm just confused by, by, by who marketing, who did the, who approved this. So I'm gonna just drop 'em down three points just because I'm confused just
Ron Richards (00:18:16):
For, just, just for the confusion. Just, just
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:18):
Cause I'm confused. But that's fine. The rest of it is fine. And I, I, I look forward to us talking more. Oh. And if it's not Android, then you gotta type off another minus two just for the topicality. And also just, you know, Android dev kind of,
Ron Richards (00:18:29):
It's like, it's like the Olympics where they knock off points cuz they, they, they tripped or something like that. So for
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:34):
Technicals, for technical? Yep. For, for technical. Technical, yeah.
Ron Richards (00:18:36):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, all right, well, why don't we get to some more serious more serious Android news when, why don't, why don't you, some big, big news dropped or was was shared nearby. What exactly
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:49):
Happened there? Yes. Oh, good. Yeah. So, so if you were thinking that, hey, you know, those iOS folks have their air drop, which you know, is their technology for allowing you to easily and wirelessly send files between various Apple devices, iPhones max and otherwise, and you were wondering, huh, wouldn't it be nice if Android had something more like airdrop? And I mean, we already kind of have it, which has sort of been around for a bit nearby share, which is, you know, you know, a new protocol that utilizes wifi and Bluetooth to allow you to share, you know images files otherwise between Android devices and also Chromebooks. And it's kind of taken another step to be more of an, a proper airdrop, you know, competitor with a recent launch of a Windows 10 beta. So now you have Airdrop beta for Windows 10 and up, and it will allow you to share files between your Android devices and your Windows pc.
(00:19:45):
There are a few caveats about this. So this was launched Friday. It is a beta. So take that as you will. There's probably some weird UI and UX issues, I think, I think both Flow and Bening over at nine to five Google. And just noted some little kind of, you know seams is beta. It is limited by region but not by device. So as long as you have a modern computer with wifi, Bluetooth and a 64 bit os Windows 10 or 11 not arm. So like a Surface dual, you're outta luck for now. Yeah, you can give the beta a try or you can sign up to give the beta a try. And I mean, generally speaking, between our own Florence ion and Ben Schon over at nine to five, Google, the, the early feedback has been positive.
(00:20:27):
It quote just works flow said it quote already feels native. It's relatively quick to at, in terms of like the file transfer speed. And yeah, so here you go. If you are an Android user and you have a Windows box, and you've really found yourself wanting to an easy and very, you know, se more seamless way of transferring files, rather than say, plugging in your phone into your PC as a mass storage device and downloading Android file transfer or some other, you know, doing some other solution to, you know, being able to drag and drop files from your PC to your phone or, or vice versa. You have a lot more of a native experience. Looking at the client, it looks a lot like, you know, the Android experience that we all well know, including things like allowing the PC to have, you know, the same visibility and naming settings that you might think of with just, you know, nearby share on your Android device.
(00:21:21):
So yeah, if that's something you are looking for, seems like it's a really good time to get in on that beta and give it a shot. And then we'll see kind of in the future how that support might expand. Nine to five. Google, by the way, has a hands on video if you want kind of a little more like step by step flow for blow tour of nearby share for Windows. So is this something that either of y'all are excited about, Sharon, Sharon files between your Windows computer and your Android device takers? Anybody
Matteo Doni (00:21:52):
As, as a, a creator, someone who does a lot of video and uses a Pixel seven Pro to record a lot of B-roll. I definitely am looking forward to this because for I u my workflow usually involves plugging my phone into my laptop to transfer tiles over. This will really make my life easier. And thanks to cousin of Ja, I think that in the chat, he has the perfect name for it. It should be called Andro.
Ron Richards (00:22:22):
<Laugh>, yeah. Yeah. <laugh>. But that gives, that gives Apple a little too much credit with the naming thing. But yeah, that is, that is very funny. But what, what I'm most impressed by this is all the, like, when, as you said, all the positive feedback from everybody mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, who's experienced is hands on about, you know, how smooth it works and how great it is, and how Seamless, I mean, flows comment about it, just, it just, it, it seems like it fits and it just like mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and it just works like they really needed to get this right. And it's, it's nice to see that it looks like they did, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I don't, I don't personally, you know, have a, have a Windows machine anymore. So, you know, sharing from Android to Windows isn't, you know helpful for me, but the promise of, you know, one day being able to do it to a Mac or to, you know, or just just the, the Android to Android kind of device transferring and stuff like that. It just, if the whole nearby share experience becomes seamless and delightful, then that, that, that's just promising for the whole operating system as a whole. Right?
Matteo Doni (00:23:20):
Yeah. I I wouldn't be surprised that this is a bit of internal tooling that Google internally has been using for years and they're now just testing the water of making it more widely available.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:31):
Yeah, we talked about the cross device SDK a few months ago, and Ryan over at Google actually kind of amplified our tweet. And so the cross device sdk, which we kind of talked about before, is kind of a, a regathering and reorganizing of a lot of these different kind of connectivity like functionality, whether that's Bluetooth, wifi, and even kind of bringing in modern concepts like share shared sessions, being able to transfer some kind of authentication session from your phone to your TV cross devices. And that s e K actually does, at least in terms of like, looking at the documentation, giving into cursory glance is meant to support non Android devices like like Windows and like iOS. So hopefully as you said, this is going to be just taking some of those, like, you know nice things that they had kept to themselves to do, you know, some of the, you know, this integration work that, you know, only Google's been done, been doing, and hopefully, you know, this might be an example or just a better, you know direction forward for any kind of cross device, you know, communication and experiences.
(00:24:36):
Yeah, it's, it's really cool that they got it right. But you know who, you know, who, you know, you know, sometimes Google gets things right, but they sometimes also get things wrong. I, in the vein of file sharing or cloud files I, I can't think of a, could stay away there, but there was something very interesting that happened interesting in a bad way. So Google had silently introduced a file limit on your Google Drive. Now, this was a huge limit of 5 million items, which is probably for the average user, maybe the average, you know, non-content creator or non, like, you know, someone who's not really generating a lot of files or data that seems, you know, not too bad, but it was done silently, and it actually became quite controversial, con quite controversial, because it was not transparent at all.
(00:25:25):
It was opaque af I guess I can say. And also it, it's weird because of the nature of this limit, the people that were running into this limitation, which by the way wasn't clearly communicated all that these people that were hitting this 5 million file limit could see was that, oh, they got a warning that they can no longer upload or create files, and that's it. No explanation. So it was absolutely opaque. And what's interesting is that the people that got hit hardest by this file limit are people that are paying for the, you know, two terabyte, five terabyte tiers. So, so this is, so not only was this not communicated well, and the, you know, user experience also, again, was the follow-up was also very opaque. It was hitting people that are actually paying probably the most upwards of $25 a month for storage.
(00:26:10):
So people didn't like it, you know, like people don't like it when you take away their things and you don't tell them about it <laugh>, especially when they're the folks that are p paying you the most money. So Google acknowledged the mistake, and in, in April 3rd tweet, they said that they are going to, you know, remove the limit. And they're going to kind of, again, as Google likes to say, when they do a bad, they're going to take this think on it some more, mull over the mistakes and continue working on, you know, improving experience while trying to, and, and, and for, you know, and I think that there's a reasonable in my personal opinion, there's probably a reasonable, you know balance here of giving people all the storage, but also having to, as a company that is the one, maintaining and paying for, you know, the actual storage stability and performance and all that kind of stuff. So they did apologize for that. And they will, they said in a follow up team, if we make, if we need to make changes, we will communicate them to user users in advance. So, I don't know, that's, did, I mean, were they right to implement a limit? Is it just that they communicated it badly? Is it, was it because it's kind of attacking their, you know, highest paying? What, what do y'all think was this unreasonable? Well, yeah,
Ron Richards (00:27:17):
I, I, I think that I, I mean, I, I think to your point, like to the average user, this probably would never even encounter 5 million follows. But also when you think about it, I've been using Google Drive for over a decade, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, so like that mm-hmm. <Affirmative> piles a add up, you know, they, they definitely, you know, would impact that. I do think that, you know, we've seen the slow, you know, kind of like, remember when everything was free and like you had unlimited storage and it was Google and it was great. And we've seen the slow degradation of that to get more, you know, wrap more arms around it. We see Google one introduced to add more storage and, you know, charging and that sort of thing. And so, you know, it's, I'm not surprised to see that this happened, but it's embarrassing to see how it played out in terms of like, quietly putting it out there and then people calling them on it. I mean, you know, Matteo, you're, you're, you know, you're a self, you know, self subscribed creator there. You know, I gotta imagine you're, you, you rely on Google Drive a lot, don't you?
Matteo Doni (00:28:06):
I do, yes. I u use Google not only as a creator, but also for some, some of my stuff in home automation mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, as in, I have little reports dumped to my Google Drive regularly, and then I have something else that goes and reads to them. So I haven't actually encountered this issue, but I was surprised to hear that there was one, because I had just read through Google Drive and Google One documentation. I am a two terabyte Google one subscriber, and had never seen anything about a file number limit. Yeah. So, th this is surprising to me, but it's good that they've fixed it. Eventually. at the end of the day, these consumer products are often used by important organizations. For example, it's not a Google issue, but the UK government during the pandemic was keeping all its stats for the daily briefings on an Excel sheet.
(00:29:03):
And at some point they ran out of, of Columns, or Rose, I believe, I think it was actually Rose, they ran out of Rose to be able to share or capture that data. And that's became an issue. But at least Microsoft had informed their users in the really fine print about the limitations to to, to Excel. Whereas we didn't know about that in, in Google Drive. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But I, I usually upload files which are over a gigabyte in size because it's video, it's 4K video. And so I were, was going to be unlikely to hit that anytime soon.
Ron Richards (00:29:42):
Yeah. It's just, I mean, and, and good on Google for, you know, owning it, right? And, and, and making the adjustment and rolling it back. But it's go, I feel like this is gonna boomerang back, or there's gonna be some sort of limit. The number of files is a weird limit is a weird number.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:29:55):
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Scorge.
Ron Richards (00:29:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I could, cuz I can have 5,000,015 K text files and I'd hit that limit versus 5 million, you know, three gig, you know? Yeah. Video files, right? Like it see, like they, you know, and they, they, you know, they claim, you know, performance and capacity and all stuff like that, but the number of files is an odd thing.
Matteo Doni (00:30:17):
But to be fair, they, they are an entity and so they have to be sort of indexed somewhere mm-hmm. <Affirmative> Sure, yeah, yeah. In a database, it's natural to have a, a potential limit there.
Ron Richards (00:30:28):
Yeah. So it's very strange. Well, in as far as strange things being a foot at Google here we are, it is a, you know, early April and everybody's, everybody's all excited for the monthly pixel update. And sure enough it's late and this marks two months in a row that the pixel update is being late. You know, so they, and this was as of yesterday, it still hadn't rolled out yet. So it may have started rolling out at this point because Google did post the pixel update bulletin April, 2023 on the Google website with the full factory in OTA images that was all posted yesterday. But as at, at the time of reporting carriers have yet to detail, they haven't let to detail the carrier support of it and has it actually rolled out to it. Now that said, you know, there's little expectation this is gonna be a big a big patch or big security patch or upgrade since Android 13, QPR two rolled out last month, and that was a big one.
(00:31:26):
And the next feature drop isn't scheduled until June. But still the fact that it it's April 4th and it hasn't rolled out yet. It's weird. Like you, this used to be on clockwork, like, what's going on? And then you add on to the fact that last week it actually did roll out to one user <laugh> last week with no other reported people getting it. But someone got it on a Pixel five a week ahead of schedule which one has to assume something went wrong with internal testing. But it just seems like, like what's, what's going on over there? Google everything, everything. Okay. Like, can you, can you check in like what's, what's the deal? So
Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:05):
I, I wanna know the mechanics of that just as a developer, how does one person on a Pixel five get an update? I, I just want to understand the mechanics of that. I don't really know much about ota, but yeah,
Ron Richards (00:32:15):
Not only that, how does one person on a Pixel five get the update and how does it make the blogs, how does that one person know to go post to Reddit or an X d and have it get picked up by writer? Like, that's what always baffled me. Like when one person gets something that's like, there's a needle in a haystack, how do you find that? But sure enough, here we are. They do. So, Hmm. I don't know. I, I mean I devil's, you know, like, or, or what, what devil's advocate give Google a break. It's, it's, they've done the work, it's coming out, the carriers will roll it out. Everybody's just like, you know, breathing for these monthly updates, but like this, there's nothing planned that's major for this one. You know, patching, it's not like there's a, a huge, you know, you know, zero day patch or something like that that's needed. So I dunno, we'll, it'll roll out. This might be much to do about nothing. I don't know. Matteo, you, you used so many phones, how, how, you know, were you waiting by your phone yesterday to see if the monthly update rolled out to your pixel
Matteo Doni (00:33:09):
Or No, not at all. And just before the show, I checked on my big Pixel seven pro to see if there was an update. There was nothing there. In, as with all security updates, I believe there might, might be something going on in the background we don't know about yet. And I trust Google will include as much as possible in the update when it's ready, it's ready. I would prefer to wait a few extra days to get something slightly better than it could have been. That's just me being the old, old grumpy person who's been through multiple
Ron Richards (00:33:41):
You, old grumpy, no,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:43):
<Laugh> no. As, as a developer, I very much appreciate that sentiment because there's, there's always pressure to get it out faster rather than better. So as a developer, I appreciate that, that statement. As a consumer, I get a little less patient, but that is just the two sides of the coin. So yes, I appreciate, I appreciate old men grumpiness when it comes to getting it right.
Matteo Doni (00:34:04):
But also as someone who supports software I will say that it's always best to deal with a better release than a release and a quick hot fix shortly afterwards.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:14):
Yes. Yes, I have. Yes, yes. I've been, yes, yes.
Ron Richards (00:34:20):
You gotta have feelings about that, right? When
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:22):
No there, I don't wanna necessarily I was on a team where we had to hot fix three or four times in a day. And I think a lot of that was like we were a small team. And there was less process on that team, less rigor on that team. And we had, I think we had a manual tester and I think all of us were at a conference, and so it was just a bad week for us to have a release. And I think I, I think that the, the hot fix was, was necessary, right? So we had to get this out. So there was pressure. We hot fix like three or four times because we figured, okay, now we have it. We sort of tested it. Again, our tester was with us at the conference.
(00:34:59):
So no, I, it's weird because in the moment you are doing these things and like, I, I can sit step, sit back now as like a 40 year old developer be like, yeah, that wasn't the best idea. And of course, we all the next day figured, yeah, that was not the best way to handle that. But when you're in the moment and you want to make sure that, you know, your app is, you know, your, you're decre you're like minimizing downtime for your, for your customers, you wanna minimize one star reviews. It's tough. It is tough. And I think that sometimes it, it does take someone to just say, Hey, like, we need to pause, you know, and just do it the right way. And that, that can be surprisingly very, very hard depending on, you know, who's telling you what to do, your stakeholders and who your bosses are and who's managing you. It can be really hard. So it, it, it's, it, it's when you're under pressure, sometimes common sense or the be like, the better option goes out, the, like, this kind of leaves your head and you just kind of respond to the pressure. Anyway, I, I sympathize and I'm gonna stop ranting about that. Cause that wasn't a great day.
Matteo Doni (00:35:59):
This is becoming a, a sort of developer therapy group when
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:02):
It is. I think I I it has a little bit, but I mean, you know, anyway yeah. So and there was actually some ado about something that we talked about last week. I was trying to like segue a little closer to your much to do, but something, so last week with Flow, we kind of covered an interesting, a little back and forth where there was some reports from, you know, fairly trusted and consistent leak slash informants like Max Jambo and Suby Tech about oppo and and kind of like some of its subbrands, like one plus leaving the, the leaving leaving Europe uk, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. But then very quickly that was kind of disavowed or kind of APO released a statement saying, no, no, we're we, we don't have any plan to leave Europe.
(00:36:51):
And then now we have another kind of nugget of information coming out that really, you know, what was happening is that due to some legal action with Nokia in Germany oppo is temporarily halting operations in Germany. So it feels like, you know, we, we kind of covered the story because there, there felt like, you know, we cover leaks all the time. We cover, you know kind of rumor the the rumor mill a little bit. And this seemed like a very odd, you know, misstep for a lot of people that, you know, have generally been on the mark. And we kind of were trying to pontificate on what, why might that be, what might that be? So, I don't know, does this make sense that maybe this is it, is it this just legal action in Nokia and APO did a bad job at kind of making a clear statement, or do y'all still think there's something nefarious hitting my mic nefarious going on? So,
Ron Richards (00:37:44):
I dunno, I wanted to get Matteo's take on this because being our, you know, man of the continent on the other side of the Atlantic <laugh>, you're kind of closer. You're, you're kind of closer to it, you know, like what do, do you, do you smell any smoke with this oppo one plus story or?
Matteo Doni (00:37:59):
I think there is let's face it, oppo and their parent company, B k K are a massive organization. And it's even in the best of times, organizations that size will have contingencies plans. They'll have teams of people dedicated to to, to working on contingency plans if anything were to happen. And the lawsuits that no Nokia or Nokia have taken against that group has been ongoing for quite a while now. So they probably had the plans all in place and circulated internal documentation saying, we need to be ready for this if it were to, to go south. And that's probably what got leaked to, to Max. And he then announced that I think that's what's happened. But I've reached out to someone I know in the group. I have not had a con confirmation of what I've heard.
(00:38:58):
But this seems to be what, what's happening in my view. And I think it's normal as in we've had multiple cases of that Sony, for example, didn't sell smartphones in the US because of ongoing issues regarding patents on certain components they were using, or they released products that were didn't have fingerprint scanners. It's quite common for these back that these sort of back channel conversations to be happening for the contingency plans to be made up. And I think that someone leaked the wrong thing at the wrong time. But it's still too early to say, because these product launches are, are not expected. For a while, we already knew that the Viv o sorry, the, the oppo X six Pro or six X Pro was due not to be released in Europe anyway, so this may be the, the backstory that we were missing.
Ron Richards (00:39:58):
Interesting.
Matteo Doni (00:39:58):
So we'll see what happens. Yeah, like happens, it's, it's big business is happening in the background. The legal conversations are active, we know that. And it may just be opera saying, well, rather than selling our phones in Europe, we just won't sell them. And Nokia you won't get any of the patent money at all. So it might just be a, a negotiation tactic as well.
Ron Richards (00:40:20):
Yeah. Like, like we talked about last week, and I agree with you, is that like, that rumor was too, there, there, there had to like, there was some smoke, there was some fire to match the smoke. There had to have been, right. And I think, I think with your, your observations are pretty correct, you know, or are are close there. It always, it always comes down to business. It always comes down to either patents or licensing or like the things that drive revenue, right? And so yeah, so I I, I wasn't surprised to hear this and and I imagine this is gonna continue to develop we'll probably hear more of it, so, all right, cool. All right, well that was a lot of news for the week, but the wait is over. Matteo is the man with the devices in his cargo pants. So let's jump into hardware
Speaker 7 (00:41:07):
<Laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:41:09):
Excuse me, here it is. It is Matteo's Hardware shack. Mr. Matteo, what do you got for us first up,
Matteo Doni (00:41:16):
Right then? First up, I have the Untz tank. No, I heard you mention this recently on the show when I was listening at home. The Untz tank is from a plucky little startup in Hong Kong called Untz, who to most of us is unknown, but for those in the know is a company who really riff quite hard on hardware and they really do crazy stuff. The unhs Tank is special because it's quite the chunk. Now, I apologize in advance, I do not have a banana for scale here, <laugh>, but it is a thick, heavy phone, which is unapologetic about wearing, weighing more than half a kilo. This half kilo is probably due to the fact that it has a 22,000 million power battery. So for a bit of context, that's more than four times the, the battery capacity of the Google Pixel seven Pro. Now, attached to that power bank, you have a pretty decent smartphone. This is a device with a, an LCD display with a Dodge or a cutout for the selfie camera in the top left hand side of the screen. In terms of battery, I last charge this I took it off charge on, let's see, I took it off, off charge on Wednesday last week. So it's been almost seven days and it's still at 58% charge. You're
Speaker 8 (00:42:52):
Get get Out Matteo get, oh,
Matteo Doni (00:42:53):
50% <laugh>, it's still at 58%. But to be fair, I have not had a SIM card in it. I accidentally picked up the wrong sim card at Walmart and got one of the Verizon compatible ones. It has only been used on wifi but I would say a week's charge on a smartphone is more than most people can ask for. As well as that it has an IP 68 rating, which means it can resist dust and water up to a certain amount. The, that is achieved by actually having a rubber lip that I'm putting my fingerprint in to show you off the, the SB type sea port for fast charging and a courage port that is a 3.5 millimeter audio jack. So yes, you have a courage port and USB type C the 22,000 million power battery is charged rapidly with a 66 watt charger.
(00:43:50):
And obviously a 22,000 million power battery is quite big. So it will probably generate a lot of heat, but I haven't really noticed that, cause I've slow charged it overnight when I needed to charge. Now obviously the power is not just for the phone. At the back you have a triple set of cameras, which is quite handy. So you have a, a main sensor, which let me just check the speck here. The main sensor is, in this case, I think it's a 64 megapixel sensor but it has a 20 megapixel infrared camera. So Victor, if you've got the link in the, in the spreadsheet, we have some examples of Burke in the Twitch studio. In the server room in the TriCaster room there's a, a link there that shows you the pitch black picture and then Burke in the server room taken with an infrared camera.
(00:44:53):
The way this SE 20 megapixel sensor works is that it actually shoots infrared lasers from the bottom here, bounces that laser off, and then captures a, a black and white image. So this is my kitten Ronan in pitch black. I could not see anything. It still managed to see a slightly angry kitten looking at me. And that's one example. And then we have the, the picture of Burke in the, the Twits studio in the cupboard. It was pitch black. If you go right one you'll see this is what the main sensor saw at the same time. So really, really interesting camera setup. I think this is mainly aimed at the construction industry, but I could be wrong. If you can think of a reason why you would want an infrared camera on your phone, please do let us know. But that's a really cool one. And then there's that all important sticker camera. It's a two megapixel macro camera, which is, in my view, completely useless, but it looks good in a, on a spreadsheet.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:45:59):
<Laugh>, I, I love this. Who is phone? This phone? Who, who this
Ron Richards (00:46:03):
Phone? Dunno what I <laugh> aside from when, aside from when, who is this phone for <laugh>,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:46:09):
But I didn't say it was for me, but I wanted, I, I I imagine like, I don't know, just back, you know, super like rugged outdoor, like you know, places where you have to actually get in a Jeep, like a proper Jeep and like, you know, Ford across the river because, you know, you don't have to charge it very long. So if you're out, you know, if you're not near, you know, an outlet or some power source, it has infrared cameras. So if you need to be like adventuring at night or you're like chasing, you know, if you're, I don't know, an animal documentarian, wildlife documentarian, I love it. And it's got that big old like light in the back. Yes. You know, which I mean, you should always have headlamps, but, so
Matteo Doni (00:46:44):
Yeah, I mean torch enthusiasts are a thing. The tech travel geeks YouTube channel has regular torch and flashlight reviews because travelers do use them. This one has the usual l e d flash torch, which you can activate by long pressing the custom ba button at the back. So it's a normal l e D light. As you can see here, it works just the same as most smartphone torches work. But then you have this massive panel at the side. I believe that's what is it? We've got it in the spec sheet here. It's a, it looks 1000 lumen lamp, which would long press the, the other button for, and I'm gonna have to look away here.
Ron Richards (00:47:33):
<Laugh>. That's ridiculous. Only his look. Oh my gosh.
Matteo Doni (00:47:36):
Whoa. It's a thousand lumen lamp at the back of
Ron Richards (00:47:41):
The, so for, for our audio listeners, there, there is a, there is a trapezoid shape panel on the back of this phone that lights up like, like a flashlight. This
Matteo Doni (00:47:51):
Is, is a proper camping lamp. This is amazing. So part of my vacation is, is here in California, is that my wife and I are planning to go to Humboldt County. I'll switch that off now because I can't see anything. We're going to Humboldt County where there's very little light pollution to do some nighttime photography with Google Pixel phones and whil, we're at it. I'm going to try out this amazing torch lamp thing phone which I think is for outdoor people as much as construction worker people. But I think the real audience for this the us real consumer base for this smartphone is people who live in maybe in rural areas or mm-hmm. <Affirmative> regions where there's not regular access to electricity where the cost of illumination or just generally the, the life comforts that most of us have are not always available.
(00:48:50):
This phone will probably solve a lot of problems for people who live in different parts of the world without regular access to electricity. That's my take on it. You know how it's do this as the tank and they do a lot of really interesting phones similar to this. One of the things I like about it is uni, how are using the side mounted fingerprint scanner. It's not under the screen. It's much more accessible in my view. So you just pop your finger on the scanner and it unlocks the phone. It's really good. So overall, I'm obviously not at winds levels of fitness, but my hands are a lot strongest after the last few weeks of using this phone. And once you get used to it, it's actually a great little phone for gaming too. So I've been playing Call of Duty that's probably due to the Helio 67 89 chip set, which is also known as a Helio G 99 chip set.
(00:49:49):
Which is perfectly good for everyone's use. The only thing it lacks is 4K video recording, in my view. But that's just me as someone who creates video for, for, for YouTube, for everything else. It's a good phone. It works well. The problem is that if you live in the US you won't be able to use it on Verizon or similar networks. It's a GSM sort of standard or GSM base phone which interestingly doesn't require a sim ejector tool. Just pop your finger fingernail underneath to take out the dual sim slot and pop it back in. It has a nice rubber to keep the waterproofing. And that just goes back in next to the infrared blaster. So you can also use it as a TV remote control if you can't find your remote control or your batteries run out. So Uni, how's tank? Great. The device. I'm really enjoying my time with it and I likely carry on using it in the future because I can use it as a power bank to charge other phones if needed.
Ron Richards (00:50:51):
It's, you can, you could power your house for a day or so. Like, gee, it's like a generator. It's a <laugh>.
Matteo Doni (00:50:56):
I, I wonder if I can reverse charge a Tesla with it or so, or similar <laugh> Electric.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:03):
This is the phone. That's amazing. Zombie apocalypse. This is when the infrastructure of our society has fallen and you know, we only have like, you know, far distant like powering stations. This is the phone for the zombie apocalypse. Yeah, I, I'm gonna get one as part of my zombie apocalypse prep. That's a little
Matteo Doni (00:51:18):
Bit. So that is, it also is, is also a tool for natural selection. If you were to be using this in bed and drop it on your face that would be one way you could hurt yourself with it. The other is it has a nice little lanyard strap here where you can put a lanyard through it and wear it around your neck and probably snack your, or
Ron Richards (00:51:36):
Use it as a mailing weapon.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:38):
Yeah. Yes. There we go. Or as both put it on the lanyard, then spin it around. Exactly. I dunno what kind of weapon that is.
Ron Richards (00:51:46):
Oh, Matteo, I mean, clearly this phone is packed with features. It's, it must be expensive, right? I mean, how much does this thing cost?
Matteo Doni (00:51:53):
Well, expensive is a relative term, but I would say for 369 US dollars, this is a bargain.
Ron Richards (00:51:59):
You get what?
Matteo Doni (00:52:00):
A power bank, a phone, an infrared camera, a camping torch light and a remote control as well as a smartphone all bundled in one device.
Ron Richards (00:52:10):
That 369 that, that's unreal. That's ridiculous. How <laugh>, how does this exist in this world? Oh man.
Matteo Doni (00:52:17):
But it is, love it. It is a lovely, lovely device. And UniHealth are, are not only doing crazy stuff in this space the next device I have here, and I'll put it next to the uni hets tank, it, this is the Untz TikTok s. Now, one thing that I should probably explain is that un hows do some pretty crazy stuff with phones. They try a form factor, and then they just add letters at the end of it. So this is the TikTok s, which is the third iteration on the TikTok form factor, which is a normal smartphone at one side, as with the tank, you have your side mounted fingerprint scanner, volume rocker, two custom button buttons, which can be programmed within the US and infrared port at the top, at the bottom, you don't get a courage port, but you get the little plastic flappy bit with USB type C. And at the back of the rugged construction, you get what is a little glass screen at the side, which you can turn on. I've programmed one of the quick action buttons to turn on the smartwatch feature. Now, essentially this is so,
Ron Richards (00:53:28):
So it's tick. So it's, it's the TikTok not in the social media platform, but in the fact that there's a watch on the back of it.
Matteo Doni (00:53:34):
It is, and mm-hmm <affirmative>. I've spent time, I've spent a lot of time with this device, and it's previous situation, the TikTok e and investigating how this works. Now, my gut feel is that there was a lot of not quite smart watches left over in the Chinese market a few years ago, and they just bought them all up. Essentially what this is, is an similar to the Huawei watch. Remember that? Watch Ron?
Ron Richards (00:54:02):
Oh,
Matteo Doni (00:54:02):
Yeah, yeah. Separate operating system, not Androids Wear or Weir Os. It was it was running its own operating system, which I believe is known as Light Os. So it can control the music on your phone. It can have a compass in it, which is quite handy if you're out in the wild. And needing to, to know your bearing. It has this camera option, which allows you to use the rear screen to take to take pictures of you using the main sensor. So it's essentially a rear screen facing screen. Now, the way I know that this is a separate device, it's not actually an integral part of the smartphone, is I'm demo demonstrating this here. You tap on the camera option, and it doesn't actually let you take a picture. If the camera app in the phone is open, that's because you're using the camera api trying to use the camera API when it's already engaged with another application.
(00:55:03):
So I'll close all apps on the phone and then lock the phone. If we tap on the camera there, you can see I can take a selfie of myself using the screen. So it's a handy feature. If you want the best selfies your phone can take, use the main camera. And that's 48 megapixel main sensor. It's a pretty decent camera. And then there's another little two megapixel macro camera, which is a sticker camera. So this is even more affordable. It's about 260 US dollars. It's a great smartphone is rugged, it's waterproof. It doesn't have a, a courage port, sadly. But for 269 US dollars, you get a decent smartphone with an outstanding rear screen which would stand out if you want to make a statement about being different, the un how's TikTok? S does do do quite a good job at that.
Ron Richards (00:56:01):
They're pricey. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're affordable. The, the price is right on these wacky uns phones. I just wanna, I just wanna sit in on a brainstorming r and d meeting at Unihertz where they're like, wait a minute. What if <laugh> <laugh>?
Matteo Doni (00:56:16):
Well, the crazy thing is, I, I've, I've had the pleasure of doing something pretty close to that and going, going and visiting a few of sort of startups in Southeast Southeast China. And it is pretty much like they say, a lot of software companies say, well, you need to have pretty much continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous releases. They're pretty much doing the same thing with hardware, with weekly releases of products, <laugh>. So I'm all for it. This is the sort of craziness that then brings great things to the world, and hopefully Google will be watch, look, watching this, say, this is great. This is what we're here to do. We're enabling these companies to worry about the hardware once we do most of the work with the software. Having said that, one of the downsides of un inherits is their, they're software updates.
(00:57:07):
They have lots of customer hardware. They're using mainly media tech chip sets. So in terms of security updates and software updates, it's not great, but their products do solve a problem, and most people buying these phones don't really care if they're getting the monthly secur security update from Google for Android. On that note the sort of people who buy the next device will probably believe the marketing and purchase in this case, the Nokia G 22. This is the repairable affordable smartphone from Nokia, which in terms of specs, I think you, you ran through them recently on the show. It's an an affordable smartphone. It runs about 170, 180 US dollars. It has a 50 megapixel main camera. It has a 6.7 inch screen. But when it comes to updates, they promise you they used to promise regular updates in the marketing before launch.
(00:58:10):
I'm sitting here on April 4th, 2023, and it's sitting on the January 5th, 2023 security update. So in terms of software updates, H M D Global, who are the company who make Nokia smartphones, sadly, have a really bad track record in promising a lot of monthly or quarterly security updates to their smartphones and not delivering them. And I've been covering Nokia for years at this point. Sadly they promise a lot on their website, but don't deliver. Maybe it's just because I'm in the UK and I have a UK SIM card in the devices. But that, that's something that I'm quite concerned about, is they're promising those security updates, which never seem to be delivered regularly. Whereas Google maybe delay them. They definitely give us the updates. And in my experience at the moment the best company for Android updates seems to have become Samsung after years of being the worst.
(00:59:11):
Yep. So agree. The cool thing about this phone is that it's affordable. It has a nice big screen, it works well. It's running on a chip set or, or a system on a chip made by a company called Uni. And I think this is an important thing to look back at the pandemic for. We had supply chain issues. Qualcomm couldn't make chips fast enough. Media tech couldn't make chip chips fast enough. And so along came unis who were best known for making chip sets and systems on chips for TV set top boxes for cable set top boxes. They came along and started using their 28 nanometer chips for smartphones. And in the entry level, in the sort of sub hundred US dollar space in the market, that actually works really, really well. So they've been filling that gap in the market.
(01:00:05):
And even Nokia or H MD Global have now started using unis chipset. And in terms of performance, you only get full HD or 10 80 p video recording, but you get a perfectly functional phone, which for most people is more than enough. The key, other key feature of the smartphone, apart from price, is the Repairability. This is an I Fixit device where if you were to break the screen or damage the device, you can take it apart and replace it yourself. So you should have kits available from, I fix it to replace the battery on the phone and to replace the screen. Now, I haven't had reason to do that yet, but at some point on the Tech Travel Gates YouTube channel, I will be breaking this phone to then go through the fixing process. I might actually drop the UN hows tank on it. What do you think, Ron? Do you think that's a, a feasible
Ron Richards (01:01:05):
Use case? I think so. I think
Matteo Doni (01:01:07):
There's a idea. So I drop this on the screen first, used to get the i I fix it kit, which is what you need.
Ron Richards (01:01:14):
My boots are also
Matteo Doni (01:01:15):
Available, so it should be easily repairable, which is commendable. I'll just need to make sure I'm filming in slow motion at 120 frames per second, capturing that drop of the Uni Hertz tank onto the phone. Geez, <laugh>. So, all
Ron Richards (01:01:31):
Right, well, so Nokia Uni Hertz Tank, and TikTok, some interesting stuff. Real quickly, Matt Matteo, you've had some, you've had some adventures with Android Auto while you've been here in the States.
Matteo Doni (01:01:42):
I have. So at home in the uk I am a regular user of Android Auto. I have a Fiat 500 little car, which has Android Auto. It just works seamlessly with both my phone, my wife's phone I should say my phone's plural. And it's a great system. I love Android Auto, and I use it as much as I can when driving because it's safer and solves a lot of problems in my life, such as messaging whilst driving. So we had our car rental when we arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. Picked up a 2022 Chevrolet Malibu which I call Stacy. And it has Android Auto. And I was really, really frustrated because I couldn't get my Google Pixel seven Pro work in it. So it supports wireless, android, auto wired, Android Auto. I've tried 12 cables. I've tried tried using the wireless Android Auto. My Pixel seven Pro just won't work. The Nokia and the Uni Htz phones work, but not the one with my good SIM card in it.
Ron Richards (01:02:50):
I, ironically, the Uni Hertz one works, of course, <laugh>, the Univert slows the card down several miles per hour. It's so heavy
Matteo Doni (01:02:58):
Efficiency will be terrible, yes, because of the unit health tank. But we couldn't work quite out's. Gotta charge it too. My wife's Google Pixel six Pro worked great. And then I figured out what was happening. It was vpn. If you have a VPN N Service on, apparently it stops Android Water from working. And this is completely new to me because in the UK I don't have this problem. I can run Surf Shark Express vpn, Nord vpn and win scribe with no issues. And it just works. Whereas when I come to the US when those services are on, or maybe it's the Chevrolet in Malibu maybe that's why that's happening. But it was quite a head scratcher, and sadly, it's it drained my wife's data allowance for this trip. We'll probably need to top up her ESY as a result. But that's, that's an interesting learning that I had on this trip so far with regards to Android Auto. Turn off your vpn. N if you have a Chevrolet Malibu or you're having issues with Android Auto, that will likely solve the problem. But as always, I always recommend using VPN when you're connecting to public wifi services. It's the best practice when traveling.
Ron Richards (01:04:16):
Sure. All right. Well, sorry, it hasn't worked smoothly, but luckily that uni hurts work, so there you go. So, <laugh>, well, that was a fun journey into Matteo's Hardware Shack goat Shack. But a couple other quick hardware notes to get through real quickly. And Matteo, actually, this one, I'm, I'm curious to hear what you think of the Motorola Edge 40 Pro was announced earlier today. And it's gonna be aimed at Europe and Latin America pricing out at 899 euros, about $982 in US, US dollars. And it could come to North America this year. And it just seems like everybody has been very excited about this phone. It's running the eight gen two. It's got three rear cameras 50 megapixel primary, 50 megapixel ulti ultra wide, and 12 megapixel portrait on the rear with a 60 megapixel primary camera on the front. It's got a 165 hertz refresh rate, 6.67 inch display. It looks beautiful. This, this seems, yeah, this is Motorola doing the flagship. We talked, we've talked recently about Motorola doing mid-range and, and affordable and here they are with a flagship Matteo. Is this phone worth up to all the hype?
Matteo Doni (01:05:39):
I haven't had hands on time with it. I'm glad to see Motorola doing a, a proper flagship again. I really hope the cameras live up to the marketing hype in the past with Motorola Edge branded devices. I've been a little bit disappointed by the quality of the cameras in actual use. On paper it looks great. It looks like it's got a great main sensor, but more importantly, it has a proper 50 megapixel ultra wide sensor, which is great not only for video, but also for stills if you're trying to use that ultra wide to either make your cat look like a giant or to get really good architecture or landscape shots. So on paper, this all looks great. I'm a, a bit, a bit ambivalent. I don't, I don't feel great about Motorola as a brand. I think the Lenovo side of the Lenovo roller name has taken over, and they're a bit more limited in what they're doing in terms of, of their product development. They're still doing great in their key markets on the affordable segments. I just see them half-heartedly working on flagships. I'm, I, I, so I really want to spend some time with this device to be able to, to pass judgment.
Ron Richards (01:06:59):
Sure. All right. Well, we'll see. And we'll see. It's gonna be available in Europe soon and, and, and might be coming North America. So we'll definitely see if the Motorola flagship is up to snuff. And then there was another phone announcement already this week. When, what do you got?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:14):
Yeah, so today, actually one plus hat there, hold on. I, I wanna get this right. They're larger than life. A one plus Nord launch event, which by the way, if you start the live stream, there is a, in Nord amount of weird screaming at the beginning. Which was very surprising to me when I <laugh> when I was looking, watching things for the segment and for the show. But yet, earlier today, April 4th, one plus officially announced officially launched rather the mid-range Nord CCE three light. It is a 6.72 inch, 120 hertz full HD plus rocking MLS display at rock and phone. It carries the qc sorry, the, my QC is my notes. Qualcomm snap drag, 6 95, up to eight gigabytes of Ram 128 gigabytes of storage and, and not quite as big as the tank, but a, you know, s sizeable 5,000 milliamp battery with 67.
(01:08:05):
Wat a watt super, is it Super vogue? Super. V O O C? How do you pronounce that? Is it V vo Super vo Super Vogue charging? It has a courage port and 108 megapixel main sensor. That's an audio jack, by the way. In case you were just wondering what I was just talking about there. And what we've mentioned before. And also a two megapixel secondary depth sensor for adding that, you know, nice slightly artificial, but always lovely portrait bouquet effect. There's a ACC megapixel whole punch selfie camera, and this phone will ship with oxygen OS 13.1, which is based on Android 13. And with the Nord CE three light, you will get two year twofold OS updates. And we'll see about security updates. Unfortunately for now, that couldn't really tell. And it does come into very nice colorways pasta lime, which just looks very festive on a chromatic gray.
(01:09:08):
And then to go with your Nord with your Nord you know, CE three light for your mid-range phones, we also got the reveal of the Nords, the Nord Buds two, which are very much like the original OG Nord Buds, a budget friendly option. But this time you're getting noise cancellation and a bit of a jump in price. So the Nord Buds two will come with noise cancellation that will drive the price up 50% for that nod cancellation from all the way from $39 us to a whole stink and $59 us. So still hyper affordable in regards to buzz, but it is a, you know, significant increase. A lot of the design is the same. It has the same 12.4 millimeter dry drivers as the previous version. And it does have the same base seven hours of batter life.
(01:10:01):
Now that is without noise cancellation turned on. If you are using noise cancellation, you'll be able to get five hours out of it. And yeah, it's still ip 55 rated got Bluetooth, got one plus fast pair. Design of the case is mostly the same, just a little softer edges to make it easier to go in and out of your pants, pockets, cargo or otherwise. So yeah, a couple of things from one plus for a y'all. And we like us some mid-range phones and some affordable accessories to go with. So there you go. The one plus larger, say larger than life event pack in some really good mid-sized, mid-sized goodies. So, thank you. Go.
Matteo Doni (01:10:38):
Cool.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:39):
Yeah, I'm not sure what I fishy face, but yeah, sure. Yeah, I love the color too. The,
Matteo Doni (01:10:43):
The mid What's your take on the, on the Nord? Oh, sorry. The, the mid-range Musketeer in me is very, very happy at the moment,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:50):
<Laugh>.
Matteo Doni (01:10:51):
We have quite a good selection of affordable smartphones in that price range. For example, the Honor Magic five light, which I've just finished reviewing, is running on the same Snapdragon six series chip set and is a really good smartphone. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this device and seeing how one plus handle it, but on paper looks like a third tier chip set from Qualcomm in day-to-day use. Most users will think they're using a flagship. It is really a, a great platform to build a smartphone on. And knowing one plus, they'll have made the experience quite delightful. So mid-range phone, more mid-range phones at this price point, offering those feature sets. And more importantly, the courage port is, is, is good news for me. <Laugh>.
Ron Richards (01:11:38):
Yep. All right. So that was fun hardware time. And now we're gonna get into a couple quick apps, things. So let's do the apps.
(01:11:56):
So this first story actually called, you know, a little, little banter here, All About Android hq as we were talking about it today. You know, there's been a lot, we've been talking about it on the show for the last couple weeks. There's been a lot of much ado about chat, G P T and ai, and the effect of it and Google release there res response to chat, e p t called Bard which doesn't stand for anything as we discussed on last week's show <laugh>. But but, but here we are with some news coming out of Google as a leaked memo revealed that they are shuffling a bit of the staff on the Google side of things. And then actually the team behind Google Assistant is gonna be shifting over to focus on Bard.
(01:12:40):
Actually specifically one of the longtime VPs of Google Assistant is leaving the company for personal reasons. And another engineering vice president is shifting over to Bard. And now additionally, not additionally, but initially, sorry, my thought was is like, well, we often blur the lines on this show between what is Android specific and what is mm-hmm. <Affirmative> Google specific, right? Because it's hard to talk about Android without talking about Google, but it's very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of talking about Google and having have, it had nothing to do with Android, right? I mean, when we fu I feel like we, we tow that line a lot. I mean mm-hmm. <Affirmative> Twit also has this week in Google, right? Which covers all things Google, but so sometimes it's hard to separate the two. And my thought was like, well, Bard really is an Android specific.
(01:13:28):
Let's, let's not put it in the show this week. But actually as we were chatting our own Florence Zion chimed in and her point that I wanted to make on the show here was that, you know, that this actually is very Android Pacific because they're consolidating the teams and considering that assistant is such a big part of Google's business, it eventually will have a downstream effect and will absolutely affect Android because it's gonna, it's gonna eek its way into the user interface, and it's gonna affect how people inter interact with their phones. And this all shows that Google is shifting the focus from assistant to a, to Bard as an AI based kind of platform, and what that means for the future of Android and the future of assistant and the future of everything that we do comes into play.
(01:14:12):
Now, a lot of that is conjecture, who knows where it's gonna go, but it seems pretty impactful for all things that Google's doing in terms of taking what is seen as one of their more successful teams with Assistant, despite my battles with Assistant on my Google Home <laugh> which go on on a daily basis, it is ridiculous. But try, just try requesting a song on YouTube music on, on your Google Home with Assistant, it's, it's maddening. But but shifting them over to Barge shows this kind of investment in in ai you know, when I'm, I'm super curious to hear what your take on this is. Yeah. And what kind of what, what you think this means about the future of Google's kind of software development.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:14:50):
Yeah, so I, I think it's really interesting because, you know and, and to kind of give some background, I, I think all of us in, in the Android, am I, sorry. I, I think all of us in the Android dev space have, you know, oh, had had some meeting or some conversation with a pm about is there a way that we can all leverage assistant? Because it seems like the drive is to, you know, having this conversational, natural language way of interfacing with not just your phone, but the apps and the content within it, right? And up until now, you know, I, I think for a third party app, you know, a non Google app, basically, it's been really difficult to do that because, you know, it's, it's a whole other kind of level of experience of product design, of effort that needs to be done on top of like the regular, you know, application development.
(01:15:44):
And, you know, it's it, it, it's interesting because I think <laugh>, when it comes to Andrew development, and I've mentioned this a lot, if the ROI is not there, we're going to, whether we like it or not, not do a thing. And so I think that, you know, because of the effort that assistant has required to make third party app to integrate with it, and the fact that, you know, even the avenues that devs have had to integrate with assistant are a little bit still primitive, I guess, and still, like, not you, you know, like assistant has kind of tried to gear itself to be more conversational. Was it like two years ago at the first, like, you know Corona Google io, where they had like, someone talking to the planet Pluto or something. And, and so there, there's this like, kind of move to making, communicating with your devices more like having a conversation.
(01:16:34):
It's been like that for a while, but it's not something that I feel that most third party devs even feel like is an option or feel like it's like a big, you know, it would be a big driver for business. It just feels like n the, the APIs feel kind of rudimentary or just take a lot of work to really make them sing, or it's just not something that we have to deal with. And that's just something that even extends to say, like accessibility and things where, you know, non-touch interface and non-touch interactions tend to get deprioritized because it's harder, and it's not, it's not, it's not a right thing, but a lot of these kind of things that are not, again, high r roi, high engagement from users tend to get put on the back burner. So, what I would like to see and what I, I hope this means is that, as you know you know, things like Bard Chat, G p T, the way that I I, if we're moving towards a different way of interacting with our devices, that will necessitate developers, designers, PMs, thinking about how, what, what is the app experience?
(01:17:35):
What is an app anymore? And I can see that being a very kind of top-down change in how we approach things. It'll probably start with like, okay, how do we integrate, how do we make, you know, our app work better with Bard? Maybe we don't have to, maybe Bard or whatever other, you know, AI chat Bott will figure things out. But then, then it also goes to how can we maintain, like the, the, how can we maintain like the consistency and the integrity of our app experience when, you know, Barb will just figure out how to do stuff, you know what I mean? And, and, and, and figure out how we can maintain a brand experience. Like, there's always really interesting questions that will cha that that change when the way that you interact with a thing changes. And I can kind of see that being something that we're all gonna have, we're all going to have to think about and start to take more into account.
(01:18:22):
I'm all for things like widening the accessibility of technology to people. We, we should have, we should be doing more with that now with talkback with mobility device. So all the kind of these different avenues we have for communicating with people via devices. And this is just going to speed that up because we're, we're taking leaps and bounds with talking to our devices in a more natural way. So that's kind of my quick, not quick two to three minute rant on, I think, you know, it's going to be, it, it's, it's gonna change how we design and think about apps and hopefully make them more accessible in the positive light. I, I think there's like a slew of other negative things too that, that we'll have to think about, like liability. You know, I, I think flow wrote, wrote about this and, and kind of, you know, had some good, I think thought experiments on what are the negative impacts of this as a user and otherwise, but yeah. It'll definitely change how we, how we, how we do things. We're all gonna have to care about this at some point, I think so.
Ron Richards (01:19:21):
For sure, for sure. So, thank you when that's a great point of view. Yeah. I hate to make you talk more, but I know this next story is right up your alley, though, in terms of the Wind Big news card.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:30):
Yes. Sorry. So I love Google Keep, and I love Foldables and kind of in the vein of making, you know, the, the, the various Google Workspace apps, whether that's slides sheets and notes, you know, kind of more conducive to large screen experiences, because that's kind of like a, been a big focus for Google, is who do we, who do we get to use large screens? Who do we get to use foldables? And a lot of that has been kind of productivity workspace, right? People that might be, you know, like warehouse workers like, kind of like day-to-day things where you're carrying around spreadsheets, you're carrying around, you know, a larger, you know, surface area and making, being able to leverage that surface area. So there's been a lot of stuff on Google Workspace and making them more you know, conducive or more finely tuned experiences for, and Android tablets.
(01:20:17):
So Google Keep along with having, you know, better widgets. We've talked about their kind of enhanced like double pain UI that's meant to take take advantage of the large space is now letting you open notes side by side. So you now, with Google Keep on Android, Android tablets and Foldables will be able to open, you know, notes side by side so that, you know, if you're taking notes, you kind of can compare things. I do this a lot in my every day where maybe I'm like, you know, I have a bunch of, I don't know, it always comes back to working out with me. I have like my workout plan on the left side, and then like, if I have kind of notes for my coach, like, oh, this felt weird, or, Hey, I got like three unassisted pull-ups, which I did today, yay.
(01:20:56):
You know, the, the, it'd be able to kind of make more use of the space, right? Because that's one thing that happens a lot with large screens is that content's only so big, large screens got a lot of space. So how can we kind of create a higher visual density? And then to go along with that, and again, in the theme of making these productivity apps more useful on our screens, you're going to get mouse full mass support on slides and sheets, which is something that has been available in 12, well, for a while. But is again, kind of, it, it reminds me of the story we did like two weeks ago, Ron, where we talked about packet casts, <laugh> finally supporting watches, and you're like, do a little too late. I won't say that here, but it feel, does feel like finally, you know, Google bringing their productivity apps to another level, you know, with these screens that, you know, have a large, I think use case for productivity or a large you know, there, there's a lot of space there for them to get some engagement, market share, however you wanna call it, insert business term here with large screens and folks that use productivity apps.
(01:21:57):
So anyway, there you go. If you're on Google Workspace and have a large screen, have you some fun with Google Keep and, you know, side by side notes and all the other features that are making your large tree in life better.
Ron Richards (01:22:10):
Awesome. Matteo how do you feel about the, the, the upcoming tablet revolution that's coming?
Matteo Doni (01:22:18):
I've been waiting for it for a while. I've, I'm, I'm a bit of a tablet enthusiast. Yes. But it's good to see the signals are there that Google is getting ready for the complete relaunch of Android on tablets. Until we see the upcoming Pixel tablet, it'll be it's still under shroud, but we see little things here and there. We see honor with the honor, PADD eight which I'm currently using as my main tablet computer, have already solved a lot of the UI issues within magic UI to make the tablet usable as a productivity tool, and also mirror or have a window onto your phone from the tablet. So, having seen what Honor is doing and what likely Google is, is refining at the moment, I think we're in for the year of the Android tablet, 2023. Having said that, in Google ke I had a notes that, because I had reached out to someone at Google about the naming Bard last week. We talked about or you talked about bards and the, the what Bard stands for. Now. Have you heard of the, have you heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem?
Ron Richards (01:23:37):
No. Enlighten
Matteo Doni (01:23:38):
Us. So the Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard, oh,
Ron Richards (01:23:46):
Of course,
Matteo Doni (01:23:46):
For an infinite amount of time, will
Ron Richards (01:23:49):
Room of typewriters, yeah. Yes.
Matteo Doni (01:23:50):
Yeah. Will all surely type a given any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. Now, William Shakespeare is also known as the Bard of even, so I think that what Google's hinting at with the name Bard, whoops, one of my phones fell. I think that what Google's hinting at is that in this case, they have access to most of what's on the internet. They have the infinite monkeys. They're eventually going to hit Bard's Bard entity.
Ron Richards (01:24:25):
If anybody could do it, I, I imagine they would, and then they'll rewrite Hamlet, and then we'll be better for it.
Matteo Doni (01:24:30):
So <laugh>. So that's the hint I was given, but that's just one take. Who knows? Only the Real Googlers know.
Ron Richards (01:24:37):
Yeah. Well find time will tell. I also, also, fun know, fun, but,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:24:41):
Oh, sorry. Go ahead Ron.
Ron Richards (01:24:43):
Not you, hun. Fun fact.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:24:44):
Oh fun fact. I, that's why, that's why my website is randomly typing because I figure I'm a CodeMonkey. There's not infinite of me, but I'm infinitely typing on a keyboard, and hopefully at some point something interesting will come out of it. So that was why my website's called Randomly Typing. Sorry. That was, there
Ron Richards (01:25:00):
You go. Look at it. Bring it
Matteo Doni (01:25:01):
Around. Love it. So you, you, you could be the Bards of Colorado.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:05):
I could. I could. Oh, that's, that's a lovely, that's a lovely title. I like that very much.
Ron Richards (01:25:10):
<Laugh>. That's pretty good's. Gotta ring to it.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:12):
Like, I wander around the mountains and, and sing. I don't sing but perhaps I play a loot or something similar. Anyway, all
Ron Richards (01:25:19):
Righty. So we are moving right along. I know this has been a fun night with Matteo, but we're gonna take a quick time out to hear from our good friend, JR Raphael of Android Intelligence is, he's got another super simple tip for using YouTube on Android. So, Jr take it away.
Speaker 9 (01:25:35):
Well, hello there. Great to see everyone as always. So, last week we talked about two easy ways to give yourself a better YouTube experience on Android this week. I wanna pick up right where we left off with that. And I wanna show you one more super simple step you can take to make watching videos on your phone about a zillion times more pleasant. It's a highly, highly scientific measurement, let me tell you. So here it is, prepare to have your mind blown. Few mere mortals realize it, but YouTube's probably showing you grainy low quality videos instead of crisp, clear goodness most of the time on your phone. This was a major wake up call for me when I stumbled onto this a little while back. And here's the explanation. The YouTube Android app has an option for video quality that's typically on an auto setting by default.
(01:26:29):
Now, that's supposed to adjust to give you the best experience for your conditions at any given moment as Google puts it. But more often than not, it seems to result in most videos getting dumbed down to a disappointing four 80 d p resolution translated out of geek speak. That means fuzzy wy, bad, bad, sorry, I've been spending a little too much time around my children lately. The good news, though, is that this is incredibly easy to fix. Just prance your way into the YouTube app settings by tapping your profile picture in the upper right corner of the app on your phone, and then selecting settings in the panel that pops up. Tap video quality preferences in the main settings menu, and in the video quality on wifi section, change the option from auto to higher picture quality. Now, I'd suggest leaving the setting on auto for mobile network connections, unless you've got a truly unlimited data plan without any asterisks attached.
(01:27:31):
But with wifi, it's well worth your while to treat your eyes to the better quality video and let that stunning screen of yours shine. And there you have it, one setting 15 seconds of effort in an infinitely improved Android YouTube experience. It's one heck of a deal. Hey, speaking of phenomenal deals, if you haven't signed up for my Android intelligence newsletter yet, who, boy are you missing out? You'll get three new things to try in your inbox every Friday, all sorts of super useful stuff. One email a week from me to you all for the OhSo affordable price of $0. Doesn't get much better than that. Head over to android intel.net/twit to get your first issue and get a few extra bonus tips. Now, that site, again is android intel.net/twit. We'll keep the YouTube theme going next week with a look at some spectacular hidden shortcuts sprinkled throughout the YouTube Android app for some of my all-time favorite discovery, some of the tricks I use more than any other in my own day-to-day life. Hopefully they'll be useful for you too. We'll pick up there soon. For now, back to you gang.
Ron Richards (01:28:42):
All righty, well, thank you JR. That's a nice handy YouTube YouTube trick there. I want, I'm, I need to adjust that on my side as well. Cause I do watch YouTube on my phone a lot, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative> go to android intelligence.net/twit and check out all jr's Great. Awesome Android intelligence. And with that, we've got some emails from you, the community. So let's get into emails next.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:29:04):
<Laugh>. Sorry,
Ron Richards (01:29:07):
<Laugh>,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:29:08):
Is that, is that, is that what it is that the sound of, of a infinite number of goats typing on a
Ron Richards (01:29:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Matteo, how many goats does it take to recreate the work of the barn?
Matteo Doni (01:29:18):
I have no idea, but it's an interesting thing. I, I'll have to look into goats and obviously we need to define which bar the Bard of Colorado or the, the Bard of Avon <laugh>.
Ron Richards (01:29:30):
We'll see, we'll see how
Huyen Tue Dao (01:29:32):
Take less time from me,
Ron Richards (01:29:34):
<Laugh>, so you can get it on the action. You can email us@aaatwit.tv and when you got the first one. So take it away.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:29:40):
Yeah. So our first email comes from Hilton Young, hi AAA fan. Do you guys have any insight info on what Google plans to do for its customers who have Nest Secure? I have heavily invested in the entire Google ecosystem and spent $500 on the system, and today they sent an email saying they were going to end the Brinks monitoring at the end of the year. Is Google planning on giving us a refund like they did with Stadia? Why don't I say it, say it like that. Stadia. are they going to make the Nest Secure hardware work with a d t since they appear to have bought into that company? I need answers. And Google Tech support isn't helping. I'm assuming they are slammed with people wondering the same thing. So they can't handle handle the call volume as it goes. I'm a Google fanboy who has a Pixel Nest secure Yale Lock Nest cams, Google Home in every iteration.
(01:30:34):
It feels like Google wants me to get Samsung and Amazon instead. Say, it ain't. So keep up the good work. Hilton Young Hilton, you certainly, you certainly are a very loyal Google fanboy in, in your investment in Nest Secure. But it does sound like there were some articles, I think from recently from nine to five Google basically about Google and a D t and a d t together launching kind of like a d i y security system. And the, it's meant to work with the existing Google or Nest hardware. But I mean, the Nest Secure was its own kind of set of like security keypad and, and things like that too, right? I have, I'm not as familiar with The Nest Secure but it does seem like they are kind of going in on their partnership with a d t. I don't, it, it's, it's, someone can, like, correct me if I'm mistaken, I don't see much mention here about Nest Secure. So I think there's still options for you to, you know, integrate, you know, with a D T and your Nest cams and you know, kinda some of your other like Nest devices. But I'm not exactly sure where Nest Secure fits in this ecosystem right now. So, yeah. It's
Ron Richards (01:31:55):
Another mystery. Yeah, I know, and a lot of people were really liked it, but it's leaving lots of open questions for sure. So,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:02):
Yeah, and it's a bummer because obviously, you know, I, I, I feel like we, many of us Android faithful have had this, I don't know, buyers or remorse, but more like one bitten a a a heck ton shy about investing in Google things, and then kind of them, you know, taking a very hard turn to some other partnerships, some other things. So I hope that's not the case. I, I, I would just kind of maybe see what this a d t self this, this A D T D I Y self-serve kind of security system is, and hopefully there's a place for your Nest secure and related peripherals in it. If not, I don't, yeah. Yep. The, the good one,
Matteo Doni (01:32:40):
$500 is, is a lot of money you could buy. You don't have money this tank and use it in self-defense
Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:45):
<Laugh>, you could almost, with lanyard,
Ron Richards (01:32:48):
That's like two and a half tanks, all right, or two and two thirds tanks. So
Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:52):
Yes, you'd have one in each hand
Ron Richards (01:32:55):
With lanyards. Yeah. So, all right, well, well definitely stay, stay tuned in and, and Hilton, if they, if Google does refund you, let us know. Hopefully they do. Because that is, that is not cool. So all right, our next email comes from Joey who says, Hey, All About Android crew. I love the show, big fan. Thank you, Joey. I do wanna comment on the rcs discussion. I do agree that Apple should support it. I also agree that companies should pressure them, but I don't think Google should be one of those companies. Google has over 10 different messaging clients in the last 10 years. They get all excited about something, then they kill it. Apple has had one messaging product called iMessage. Google has no credibility in discussion. They do more to hurt the discussion than they do to help it. Whether you like Apple or you don't, they stick with things and Google when Google doesn't.
(01:33:39):
And consumers know that. Us in the tech community all the time talk talk about should consumers jump on the latest thing Google gets excited about, like inbox or Stadia, and then eventually at 18 months kill it. So all this advertising and how Apple should move to rcs, that's coming from Google to me, just brings me back to the password again, excited about a Google product and adopt it, and then they would kill it. I don't think Google should comment on this. I think Google needs the focus on making the next product they're gonna announce and then kill it in 18 months. Let other companies that have a history of sticking with things, they announce pressure Apple, not Google. Thank you for the wonderful show. And, and Joey, you, you echo you, you share and echo a sentiment that is absolutely right, which is that Google does not have a lot of earned credibility in the space because of their, you know, move fast and break things and, and mm-hmm.
(01:34:25):
<Affirmative> and, and develop and discontinue and roll into the next thing and kind of go like that. And they have, you know, we, we've seen the, the, the, the gra the Killed by Google graveyard that shows that and I'm sure somebody from Google would have an intelligent response as to why they operated that way. But you're right, you know, Google, Google does take a lot of flack and it does weaken their argument in arguing for rcs, but it doesn't mean that they're wrong. And also in the space when you say somebody else should pick up who's gonna do it, Samsung, no. You know, I mean, like, who else has the clout to pressure Apple in that direction or not, other than Google, like, I, you know, you won't see the carriers doing it. The carriers tried and failed. So so yeah, so I definitely think you've got, you know, it's, your point is valid, but I also think that it's, there's really nobody else in the space too. I mean, Matteo, how do you feel about the Google Google's peer pressuring Apple campaign to adopt rcs? Do you think it was effective or cringey?
Matteo Doni (01:35:25):
From the outside, from from outside the US it looks a little bit like infighting over something that's pretty much no longer relevant between WhatsApp, telegram, WeChat, Kakao talk. I think globally, most people have moved away from text messaging. It used text messaging or SMS used to be a mainstay of, of the telecoms industry. But because the phone companies kept the pricing relatively high the, it's essentially we've moved over to internet messaging that's not not related to SMS and r The rcs conversation is pretty much redundant. It's the swan song of, of messaging over the network itself. I think we're move moving into internet service based messaging, and that's where things are, are really interesting. So from the outside, it looked a bit interesting to me. It was good to see a bit of posturing, but I think that's pretty much what it is. The real people with power here are the networks, the likes of Verizon at t at and t t-Mobile, and all the other network operators around the world. They're the ones who can make the final decision and just make it happen. Apple will have no choice if the networks decide to, to decide with Google, but I think it's at this point a pretty redundant conversation. Sorry, is that a bit too grumpy of me?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:36:59):
No, it no's too. I personally, yeah, sorry, I, I always think as also to, I think we, we do mention a healthy amount on the show, but that a lot of this is a very American, north American or you know, very, we we have, we have a very US-centric point of view of these things, and it, I mean, obviously the US is a huge market, but as you mentioned, a lot of countries have their own local, you know, messaging services that they develop, you know, both business and culture around Kaka talk line, all that kind of thing. And it, it's weird because, I mean, these are, you know, these are also, you know, heavily you know, tech-centric company or countries like Korea, Japan. And so it, it's interesting to kind of always think about these conversations in the context of the broader world and what, I mean, regardless of what happens with rcs is there, is there some future where the conversation is still going to include more than just, you know, us text messaging or text message carrying US rcs impacted folks, I guess, or more impacted folks? So, I dunno, I think it was a good point to bring up.
Ron Richards (01:38:05):
All right. When do you get to wrap us up now?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:38:08):
I do, and it is time for the email of the week and the email the week comes to us from South Carolina, from Daryl Hills. I have been a huge fan of AAA since nearly the very beginning and look forward to each weekly episode. Great work everyone, and I appreciate the fun and hard work that you all share each week with the viewer and listener community. Last week in episode 6 23, an email from Joseph indicated that he couldn't get the March, 2023 OTA security update on his Pixel six A, even though it was available. And rolling out there is a way to force an OTA update onto your device, but it is not necessarily something that every user may feel comfortable with doing. I found a video from nine to five Google on YouTube that I use to walk through side loading the OTA onto my pixel phones whenever I don't wanna wait for the carrier rollout of the monthly pixel update for my phone, or waiting for the slow optimization process when using the normal check for update process.
(01:39:11):
I hope this helps Joseph and others in the audience who may be comfortable with attempting this process. Thanks everyone for your hard work and dedication to the audience and bringing some weekly fun talking about Android and have a blessed day. Regards Daryl Sen from South Carolina, and here is our and here is Daryl's hot tip on the nine to five Google nine to five Google walkthrough on side loading the ota. And yeah, so definitely if you're like Joseph and you, you just need, you get need, need you some security update and for kind of like helping out some fellow Android faithful Darryl Hilton. That is why you're our, sorry, sorry, Ron. My
Ron Richards (01:39:56):
Bad. I love, I love the community helping one another. Yes, it definitely is neat to see, you know, folks chiming in and especially given the April update is late, you know, maybe somebody's gonna do the side side loaded. So there it is. So grateful. So good one. All right, well that's gonna wrap us up for this evening. Matteo, thank you so much for stopping by, for sitting in, sitting in Jason's big chair. Yeah, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you after they listen to the show. Where, where, where can they follow you and your adventures? Matteo?
Matteo Doni (01:40:28):
Well you can follow me on most social media channels, including the Twit Social Master. Then on my Handle, which is Lio, that's Tango, Oscar Delta, Oscar, Lima Echo, Oscar. My videos are uploaded to our YouTube channel, the Tech Travel Geeks YouTube channel. You can find that on YouTube and subscribe and mic. It's always appreciated. We mainly cover consumer electronics and gadgets, we think make the travel experience better. I'm the, I'm the Chief mobile, so you can subscribe there. It's it's a bit of fun. It's great fun to review devices. We tend to take longer to review devices so that we experience the update the updates and the longer life of a product. But if you're interested, subscribe to us there. That's where you'll see most of the content we create. There's also some travel stuff such as the videos. My wife and I have been making Quest out here in California and our Chief Aperture officer, the other side of Tech Travel geeks, he is currently about to go on his honeymoon to Bali. And he's going to be taking a, another mid-range Musketeer smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy, a 54 5G with him. So be sure to be subscribed if you don't see more of that type of content.
Ron Richards (01:41:51):
Right on. Cool. Well, thank you mate. Matteo, it is always great.
Matteo Doni (01:41:55):
Thanks for having me back on the show.
Ron Richards (01:41:57):
Yeah, we mi we miss you. You gotta come back. Don't wait a year before you come back. Okay. When Jason gets back, we're gonna make sure we get you back in the rotation here. Okay.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:42:04):
Concur.
Matteo Doni (01:42:05):
Definitely. Yeah. <Laugh>. and it was a pleasure being on the show with you when
Huyen Tue Dao (01:42:10):
You too Matteo. Yeah, yeah,
Matteo Doni (01:42:13):
It was. So
Ron Richards (01:42:14):
When, why don't you tell folks where they can follow you?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:42:17):
Yeah. That you can find me on the internet at Queen CodeMonkey. And as mentioned before, my website randomly typing has a lot of my Android related content. If you are a person of the continent like Matteo, you actually can see me live on the Kotlin Confs livestream next week. I'm headed out to Amsterdam on Saturday. That's why I'm gonna be out next week. So I'm going to, Colin Conf footage is the official Jet Brains Conference for all things Kotlin. I'm going to be both giving a talk as well as doing livestream interviews with some of the fantastic speakers at Colin Conf. So if you are again, of the continent and want to check things out live, you can, if not wait for the videos later if you are not of the continent. And yeah, generally you can find this infinitely typing Code Monkey in the foraged places. But it was an absolute pleasure to finally get to do a show with you mate. Matteo Sal, please come back soon when I'm here.
Matteo Doni (01:43:10):
Will
Huyen Tue Dao (01:43:11):
Do. That's my demand, <laugh>.
Matteo Doni (01:43:13):
And if you're, you're at Con Kotlin Conf it's likely our, our friend Yolanda Ver hoof Yes. Will be there. She was also here on All About Android a few years ago with me say hello from us.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:43:27):
I, I absolutely 120% Wow. When you said her name, I was like, oh, I gotta say something
Ron Richards (01:43:32):
Next week. Devices. Nice. Mad on. All right, cool. And of course everybody can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at Ron xo. Always a pleasure to see people on the social network. Appreciate it. Huge thanks to JR Raphael of Android Intelligence for giving us a tip every week and bringing a great t-shirt game. Go to android intelligence.net/twit to check out more of his Android tips. And a big welcome back to Victor in studio joining Burke, keeping everything moving smoothly behind the scenes. Thank you, Victor and Burke for doing your thing. We appreciate it. Welcome back, despite the goats, Victor <laugh>.
Victor (01:44:08):
Thanks Ron. I'm shouting. But if Matteo keeps coming back, I might run out of goat bumper ideas.
Ron Richards (01:44:15):
Yeah, possibly. Yeah, we gotta be careful. So thanks.
Matteo Doni (01:44:19):
Thanks Burke. Thanks Victor. It was you. You really made me feel welcome.
Ron Richards (01:44:24):
And not only did they make you feel welcome, but there was fantastic pre-show banter that you get to watch only by tuning in when we broadcast live every Tuesday afternoon. Or you could join Club Twit, which is a great way to get involved with Twit. It's our ad-free subscription tier, all of our shows with zero ads. Also an exclusive twit plus podcast feed with tons of extra content like our pre-show banter, which is always fun. And members only Discord that you get to participate in and chat with all the great staff and fans over at Twit the Discord is really where it's at. It costs you just $7 per month or you can pay a full year for $84 to get access to Club Twit. We thank everybody for doing that. Head to twit.tv/club twit and sign up today.
(01:45:13):
So that's gonna wrap it up for this week. It's a great, it was a great show. Great. Have Matteo back. Jason will be back next week. Quinn won't be here. I'll be here. We'll have lots more Android fun stuff, so it's gonna be good. This podcast publishes every Tuesday evening. Make sure you subscribe@twit.tv slash a a a. You can call in with a voicemail at 3 4 7 show aa. Or you can always shoot us an email, aa aaa aa twit.tv. We'd love to hear from you. Send in your video or voicemails via email. Keep 'em 30 seconds or shorter to get on the show. But it's always great to hear you might be the email of the week. And with that, there's the bell. It's gonna wrap us up. We'll see you next time on All About Android. Have a good night or day.
Speaker 7 (01:45:57):
Hi mom.
Speaker 10 (01:46:02):
Hey, I know you're super busy, so I won't keep you long, but I wanted to tell you about a show here on the Twit Network called Tech News Weekly. You are a busy person and during your week you may want to learn about all the tech news that's fit to well say, not print here on Twitter. It's Tech News Weekly. Me, Micah Sergeant, my co-host Jason Howell. We talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news, and we love the opportunity to get to share those stories with you and let the people who wrote them or broke them, share them as well. So I hope you check it out every Thursday right here on Twitter.
