All About Android 628, Transcript

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

Jason Howell (00:00:00):
Coming up on All About Android. It's me, Jason Howell. We got Ron Richards and Huyen Tue Dao, and we are getting super pumped for Google I/O. It's just one week away. And we have a schedule, which is a little confusing, but we're just, we're so excited we can't wait. And you'll realize that when you watch and listen also Apple and Google join forces against Tracker stalking. Super important stuff there. OnePlus Pad, apparently all over the map, depending on the reviewer that you follow. Why YouTube Music's podcast section is merely gaslighting according to Ron. JR Raphael reviews Pixel Search and app for your pixel device, your feedback and a whole lot more. Coming up next on All About Android
Narrator (00:00:45):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Jason Howell (00:00:54):
This is All About Android, episode 628, recorded Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023, Quantifiable Badness. Hello and welcome to All About Android you're weekly Source, latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. I'm Jason Howell.
Ron Richards (00:01:12):
And I'm Ron Richards. And this is my voice completely.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:16):
And this is Huyen Tue Dao. And I might be autotuned right now or pitch corrected
Ron Richards (00:01:20):
You can't tell. I
Jason Howell (00:01:21):
Can't tell. I think so. In pre-show we were talking all about autotune. the other show that we do that is a, our other show, right? Yeah. All about autotune. And I'm convinced that some crafty individual fan of this show will probably snip out the beginning of this podcast. Oh, no. And read it through autotune and email it to us. AAA@twit.tv. I have a feeling if you do that, you might get played in an upcoming show, get the pitch,
Ron Richards (00:01:47):
Correct. Oh, no. I believe
Jason Howell (00:01:49):
<laugh>. I believe
Ron Richards (00:01:50):
Gonna,
Jason Howell (00:01:51):
We're gonna get a
Ron Richards (00:01:53):
A mellange of autotune of me saying, holy cow. And autotune of goat, goat noises and autotune
Jason Howell (00:02:00):
<laugh>. Well, bravo in advance for the person who actually takes us up on this challenge. we got a full show of news. We've got, we've got news. Yes. I'm scanning through. Yes, we've got hardware, we've got, we've got apps. We've got JR with a new tip that has nothing to do with YouTube this week.
Ron Richards (00:02:22):
It was, that was a long
Jason Howell (00:02:23):
YouTube adventure. It was <laugh>. We're now out of the YouTube and onto other things, pixel things. And then we've got some feedback. We've got a little bit of something for everyone who watches and listens to our show. The one thing we don't have is autotune. All right. Burke, it's time for the news.
Burke (00:02:44):
Well, Jason, we've also got a Google I/O schedule.
Jason Howell (00:02:48):
Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:02:49):
Right? We do.
Jason Howell (00:02:51):
That's true. So yeah. Well, and which makes sense, right? Because Google I/O is literally one week away. I mean, it's, yeah. One week, one week away day. That's so weird to say that out loud. How does Google I/O one week away?
Ron Richards (00:03:07):
Well, not only is it one week away, but one week from tonight, we will all be gathered there at the table together in
Jason Howell (00:03:12):
Person for the first night, many years. How exciting is that? So it's gonna be the three of us at the table. Yep. And Mishaal Rahman is gonna be here as well. So there's gonna be four sitting at the table. Flo can't make it. We are so bummed. But we understand she's,
Ron Richards (00:03:28):
She's got a good reason. She said she's, I'm choosing to celebrate my birthday with all of you. She's choosing to celebrate it with friends.
Jason Howell (00:03:34):
So it's fine. <laugh>. I mean, it's a lot to ask. Petaluma is not very close to where Google I/O is. Like, no. So I'm just saying in advance to both of you and to Beal, if he's watching or listening, thank you for actually occurring to come to the studio, cuz it's gonna be awesome to all be here. But it is a big ask and I totally appreciate it from you guys. Oh, you forget the nightlife of Petaluma. Yeah, well, we won't be experiencing that because we're gonna like, do this show and then we're gonna have to hit the road. Cause
Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:04):
Caravan,
Ron Richards (00:04:05):
Wait a minute. I, I, I, I, I'm going to need cake at some point.
Jason Howell (00:04:09):
Oh, well, yes, of course. We gotta do some dinner and some cake for Ron Cake. Yes. So we'll have to get, we'll do get dinner and we'll get you some cake and then we'll go down to Mountain View. It'll be all
Ron Richards (00:04:18):
Good. Yes. But let's get, let's get excited for
Jason Howell (00:04:20):
IO. All right. I'm already getting excited for IO when what you got.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:24):
Well, there, there is certainly something for everyone at IO because on on the schedule that is now released, there will be over 200 sessions in other learning material, keynote technical sessions, and on-demand learning sessions. Oh, it's a little hard for me to tell what is live and what is not. obviously the, the, the big old keynote will be live, I presume the developer keynote will be live, and there is a cornucopia of what's new in da da da da da mm-hmm. <affirmative>. If, if it's a Google thing, there's probably something new in it. Probably something generative AI in it. Yeah. yeah, over 200 sessions covering, you know, mobile, which is really not just phones, but all the things. Foldable, flippables other form factors, tablets, you got your web contents, that's gonna be
Jason Howell (00:05:11):
A big one.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:13):
Probably also some TV and other form factors like that as well. I'm not sure if that, that's probably that might surprisingly fall under mobile, because then you've got web AI is its own category and surprisingly mm-hmm. And cloud and yeah. So yeah. We'll, we'll, kind of, I'm still, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm just not good at reading the schedule, but again, I can't tell what is live and what
Jason Howell (00:05:35):
I can't either isn't, I'm kind of confused to
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:38):
Be honest. <laugh>. So, so last year the, the developer keynote and the big old keynote were live and everything else pre was prerecorded. and so that might be a good baseline. I don't know if More is gonna be live, but regardless, plenty of content. And if you liked setting up your own little pixel self within the IO adventure of 2022, well, the IO adventure chat will be back in 2023. And it's that little virtual playground where you can make yourself a little avatar and quote, interact with the developer community in a virtual chat settings, as well as talk with Googlers to ask questions and discuss the latest product announcement. So if you cannot be there in person, which is, I guess most people other than us, like these at the table you have that as well. but yeah, there's a full schedule, A lot of what's new, A lot of also typical educational, like learning hands-on sessions, so plenty of stuff, especially for us dev folks. So, we'll, we'll have to see how it shakes out and what's live, what's not.
Jason Howell (00:06:42):
So, I mean, as from an event perspective, IO is 200 sessions that can be streamed online, is my understanding from, from like a, a grand view perspective. IO is all these things, which is what we've come to expect out of io. But it's kinda looking like they probably won't be, it's not like they're live sessions that if you're at Shoreline, you can go check it out. The only real live thing that I can understand here is the keynote and the developer keynote. Those two things for sure live, right. It's, I'm confused.
Ron Richards (00:07:14):
Looking, looking, looking at the number, looking at the number of things that are happening on that day.
Jason Howell (00:07:19):
Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:07:19):
Right. Like, I don't think that they, they all can be live, right? No, I think they're taking the pre-recorded, you know, kind of approach there. Yeah. And the focus is on the keynotes and the, and, and that sort of thing. And then the live kind of interactions. But like, yeah, I mean, clearly a lot of this stuff is gonna, is rec record is pre-recorded, and that's the way they're getting that much done in one day, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Jason Howell (00:07:39):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's fair. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And I did see online, I, I wish I had linked to it, but I saw, God, what is it? Was it an article or anything? A Anyways, it was a, it was referring to some tweets by some Googlers behind the scenes recording content for io, which kind of alluded to like, oh, this is the fire based team working on their io you know, discussion or their IO presentation, which makes me think, okay, so there's gonna be a bunch of pre-recorded stuff, but I, but I don't know if that makes up the majority of it. I I would imagine if there was a live schedule, we'd have it by now. Right, right, right. People would need, want to plan for these things. And usually Google's been pretty good at giving this stuff out in advance so people can plan for it, because there's o you know, overlapping things, but it's not an event the way it was an event before. It's not at a sprawling, you know, stadium with many different stages going concurrently. So I kind of think the majority of IO is not live. It will will not be. So, I don't know.
Ron Richards (00:08:41):
Well, I'm excited. I, I'm excited. Right. I will be there bright and early at the Moscone ready to get my seat. just like 2015. Last time we were there together, Jason? Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:08:51):
Oh, when was the last time? When was it? 2015.
Ron Richards (00:08:54):
2015 at the Moscone.
Jason Howell (00:08:56):
Nine years ago. <laugh>, well, sorry. Nope. I can't do math. Eight years ago.
Ron Richards (00:09:01):
Yes. Long time. Long time. Long time.
Jason Howell (00:09:04):
Long time. At Moscone. Yeah. At Moscone. Was that the last year that it was a moscone when
Ron Richards (00:09:08):
It was, it was. I've never been to the ma I've never been in the ma the, the, the shore, whatever it is. The Well, and
Jason Howell (00:09:13):
What, I mean, it's awesome that you're going this year. It's just a bummer though, that you're going and you don't get the full sprawling, you know, thing cuz it's such a festival. Yeah. It's like, it feels like a festival. It's like a Google festival. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, I'm, I'm like so thrilled to get to see all of y'all in in person and and to be there and, you know, kind of see the announcements in, in real time, you know, kind of feel that excitement again. I don't know. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna
Ron Richards (00:09:43):
Be exciting.
Jason Howell (00:09:44):
And we have some interesting interviews in the works. I don't know that the interviews that we're doing, we're gonna be talking with a couple of Googlers while we're there. I don't know that that's gonna be released on the, All About Android feed cuz we were having our show the night before. So I think it's gonna be TWit News. So just to kind of give you a little advanced heads up, there will be extra Android content coming next week All About Android like normal. But then you might have to check out our site and go visit twit news. Twit tv slash news I think takes you there for some interviews that we'll do with some pretty, you know pretty important Android folk as far as the announcements are concerned and everything. That's the plan anyways. Right.
Ron Richards (00:10:27):
Just figure out how to get him into the show then weeks after. I dunno, we can talk about this afterwards, but Yeah. But folks listening to All About Android should hear what we're gonna do there, so Yeah,
Jason Howell (00:10:34):
I mean, yeah, there's, there's certainly yeah, yeah, we could talk about it afterwards, but maybe, maybe there's some, you know, kind of highlights or moments that we can kind of pull in so that people can hear it. That's a really great idea. It's,
Ron Richards (00:10:46):
It's gonna be fun, but we are showing up. Google wants us there. Google is, is gonna be an accommodating and like, and it's really exciting to partner with them again. And to, and I know you, Jason, you and Flo did it in the past. It's great to be a part of it this year. Yeah, I'm really excited. It's gonna be fun. Good FaceTime. So
Jason Howell (00:11:01):
Yeah, totally looking forward to it. We got a lot of fun next week and a lot of work. I mean, it's good. It'll, it's gonna be a busy 24 hours. It's good.
Ron Richards (00:11:09):
It's good work. Yes,
Jason Howell (00:11:11):
Indeed.
Ron Richards (00:11:11):
As far as I'm concerned.
Jason Howell (00:11:12):
So this is interesting. Apple and Google jointly announced work on a new standard for its tracker technology. And really this is designed to tackle the big I'd say the big problem with Tracker technology. Things like air tags, and I guess we don't have Google's tracker yet. Maybe we'll hear about that at Google I/O. But you know, there's the tracker abuse essentially. So what is that? Things like partners monitoring victims or car thieves tracking vehicles. I mean, pretty yucky stuff that people realized, oh, if this is a digital tracker, I can place this on person, or I can place this on vehicle attached to person and I can see they go, or I can, you know, figure out the right time to steal that vehicle or whatever, whatever it is that people that are doing this, you know, come up with. it's a problem for Google and for Apple and for any other company that's in this business because while the technology is helpful and is very useful in certain facets, it also carries this like dark undertone with it.
(00:12:14):
And so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, apple and Google really don't want that to be the case. They want to kind of figure out ways that they can get rid of the bad, but still keep the good of these things. So they're working on a new standard for this technology. they've submitted a draft specification with the internet engineering task force, the I E T F Samsung Tile, Chipo, doofy Security, is it Doofy or Duffy? pebble Bee. They all support the draft spec. and they, it says a universal OS level solution that is able to detect trackers made by different companies on a variety of smartphones that people use every day, which would essentially mean that, like an Android device, for example, could be able to warn its user if the, if they are being tracked by an air tag according to the spec or whatever.
(00:13:04):
Essentially the idea here is that there would be some sort of way to say, this is a legitimate tracking device. This is, this is illegitimate. Like this is one that's near you but isn't registered to you or whatever the case may be. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, and it would be built in hopefully I think eventually into the os at the OS level so that they, they couldn't be bypassed and this would be implemented if this kind of goes to fruition by the end of 2023. That is this year. So it would be a pretty fast turnaround. And I mean according to what I've, what I've read here anyways, a pretty great start to solving that problem. What do you guys think?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:49):
Heck yes.
Jason Howell (00:13:50):
Heck yes.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:51):
Yeah, I
Jason Howell (00:13:51):
Mean, what else can you say? <laugh>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:53):
And obvious. I mean obviously air tag has proven super, super valuable and very popular and, and, but the, the icky side is super, super icky and it kind of makes sense that really to solve this problem, you would have to make it a much more wide standard because obviously if Apple just did it on their own in isolation, you could then just switch phones, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you just, or like, obviously target people that don't have that, but it makes a lot of sense. And of course if Google, and, and we have covered that they are looking to make in their own trackers if they want to put a yet a new thing and have as much positive press as possible, this seems like a good precursor. There was a lot of peas, but I mean, it just makes freaking sense. I mean, I, this makes me feel quite a bit better about it. I do have a, an air tag somewhere just to test it out, I think, but it, it, I, it, it's freaked me out enough that I have not like, been so interested in using it. But this helps, this helps a ton. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> especially if it's kind of done in a cooperative
Speaker 5 (00:14:50):
Manner, cover all bases. So yeah, let's do it.
Ron Richards (00:14:53):
And, and I think, I think the point that you made there is great, which is that there is so much icky or so much negative going with it that in order for the, I I, it's funny because like I of, I have often thought about this and wondered where I feel like for every, every accessory of places to put the tag or like every story about how you can use it to optimize, never lose your luggage, you then see a story about how someone stalked someone or how someone stole luggage or like all this sort of stuff. And so I did wonder like, is this something that is reclaimable or is this just a malign that they're gonna have to live with for the, for always with these products or not? And so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's nice to see them taking steps to try to turn it around. I don't know if it's gonna work or if they can, but, you know,
Jason Howell (00:15:35):
Yeah. I mean, it seems like they're, you know, they're both, they're both committed to working this into the os So on the OS level, you know, with device, with some sort of cross-device compatibility to say all these trackers, you know, have it, our, our solution has the ability to detect all of these trackers via Bluetooth or whatever, you know, the other connection method is, and to determine whether this is a legitimate or illegitimate thing at the OS level. So I'm pretty confident that they can do that. They're, they have a lot of interest, a lot of reason to get it right, you know? so yeah. So I think it's a, it is really great to see this news come out and and, and also to see that it's, it doesn't seem like, you know, if things go according to plan, it doesn't seem like it's gonna be a huge amount of time that we'll have to wait for that solution to start kicking in. You know, it's already, the year's almost half over already. don't know if you realize this <laugh> somehow 2023 is almost half over, which is kind of crazy.
Ron Richards (00:16:38):
It was just hard to believe
Jason Howell (00:16:39):
So crazy at the end of the year. Yeah, that would be, that'd be nice to get that.
Ron Richards (00:16:44):
Yep.
Jason Howell (00:16:45):
All right.
Ron Richards (00:16:46):
All right. Well if talk about things that we never thought we might see when we see the day when this would happen do you, do you, Jason, when, do you remember back in the day when notification and ringtone volumes were separate on
Jason Howell (00:16:58):
Android? Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Remember that? Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:17:01):
Yeah. It was vaguely around the time of Lollipop and it was removed from Android. well, you know, we've been, Android's been around long enough that we've got some reruns or some repeats here, <laugh> cuz it looks like it is back and in testing on Android 13 Q p R three, beta three happening, like
Jason Howell (00:17:18):
I cannot believe it's happening
Ron Richards (00:17:20):
Ing and actually some people are seeing it live in Android 14 beta one. and what's interesting is, like, I read about this and I'm like, wait a minute, I don't have this, I can't do that. And, and sure enough, pixels have never had the ability in my head for some reason I thought we did, but we didn't. because other,
Jason Howell (00:17:38):
Because you've used other phones. I mean, you've used one plus phones, they
Ron Richards (00:17:41):
One plus. Yep, exactly right? Yep. Yeah. Samsung. Samsung
Jason Howell (00:17:44):
Do that. Samsung do that.
Ron Richards (00:17:45):
So Samsung, OnePlus, lg, I've used LG phones, Jason, so Samsung One Plus, and LG and other manufacturers have offered this for many years now. They've done it on top of the os they've done their own kind of versions of it. but now it looks like Android is catching back up, get working it back in, whatever. I, my guess is whoever the person on the product team at Android that hated this around the time of Lollipop has left and moved on, they're like, alright,
Jason Howell (00:18:08):
Now we're gone. We're back. They're a to grind year after years. So Bobby can we finally split these apart? No, I'm still here. I hate that. No, <laugh> fine. Bobby's still here. We can't do it. All right, let's set yourself a reminder. We'll check back with Bobby next year. Bobby bang, Bobby, Bobby's gone. Bob block. Mm. And, and actually Bobby could be a male or a female. I'm just, just saying. I don't know. You don't know. Could
Ron Richards (00:18:36):
Be. That's why I said, that's why I said that
Jason Howell (00:18:38):
Hit you on the way up. Bobby <laugh>. Oh, snap. Anyway, so, okay, great. Cool. What's, what's old? So there you go. This is new again.
Ron Richards (00:18:47):
Things to look out for.
Jason Howell (00:18:49):
Look fun. The circle of
Ron Richards (00:18:49):
Vibe in a bigger release.
Jason Howell (00:18:51):
Yes. <laugh>. Oh, what a
Ron Richards (00:18:53):
Great Newsweek. I love the pre io Newsweek, by the way. <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:18:58):
I know some people like, would see it, would hear that story and be like, are you kidding me? I can't wait. You know, because it's, it's been highly requested. It's just kind of ridiculous. That has taken this long. That's, that's the weird thing. Anyways, all right, we've got some hardware coming up. Let's get into hardware now.
(00:19:26):
So I don't know if you saw that the reviews are out for the OnePlus Pad, and I thought it was kind of interesting seeing this all play out. So Yeah. it does sound like I'm gonna get one of these for review. So I'm working with the folks at OnePlus to, to secure a device. I'll have like a month with it or something, and then I have to send that back for another reviewer. But in the meantime, all we have to go off of are other people's experiences. And I just thought this was kind of interesting. So I'd say resoundingly, the majority of the reviews that I read and scanned through kind of mirrored what I heard from the Verge and from Flow at Gizmoto. they say it's impressive. Great price, high-end features, inspects mid-range price as far as that's concerned.
(00:20:16):
Kind of a return to the classic one plus recipe of success. You know great build, fast, bright, dense display. It's snappy. Flo said she loved the green finish. It charges really fast, has a nice stylist experience, big screen, all this like really great stuff about the tablet. I'm like, wow, this sounds like a really nice tablet. You know, people, and, and I, I would say the reviews were like, is it the best tablet in the world? Probably not, but it's pretty darn good. And one of the better ones you can get for Android right now. But then we're on ama from ours. Technica comes out and I think his headline or his subhead is, I did not know they still made displays this bad. <laugh>, this is one plus first tablet. It definitely feels like it, I don't think the company made the right cost or feature trade-offs to hit this mid-range price point just goes the show. You can't please everybody.
Ron Richards (00:21:13):
I would really, that said, I would really like to see an article where Ron writes about liking something <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:21:19):
Yeah. Yeah. He could be a little, we
Ron Richards (00:21:21):
Talked about in the past. That's, I love him. I think he's, I think he's great, but it'd be in recent years, he's taken a, he's taken a very contrarian position on a lot of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that when, when a lot of people seem to be liking something, he finds the fault in it, and which I get because that does drive clicks and it does drive, you know, kind of interest and all that sort of stuff. But and he, and he probably, and, and I haven't seen the device. He probably has a very, very good point. you know, like he's always very spot on with this sort of stuff, but it's always done in a little, like, just teeters over the edge of like, come on, man.
Jason Howell (00:21:51):
Breaks
Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:52):
Spicy.
Jason Howell (00:21:52):
Yeah, spicy. Yes.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:53):
I got whiplash spicy, I got whiplash reading reading the couple of reviews that we have here in the doc, I got a little whiplash, like, oh, it's so impressive. Oh
Jason Howell (00:22:02):
Wow. I can't wait. Oh,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:05):
And I actually, I actually somehow managed to skip the byline when I was reading Ron's article. And I was like, wow, this is dang spicy. Who wrote, oh, it's Ron.
Jason Howell (00:22:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, he makes the case that yeah, that you know, he, if you go to Ron's article and scroll down, there's a, there's an image of the tablet display and a rendering. Yeah. Go down, go down, go down. There you go. And a rendering of the screen. And basically what it says here, the, it says the vertical bars here show how long each frame takes to render for smooth scrolling, they would need to all be under the yellow line. So, you know, he gives a visual representation for why he didn't like this tablet. He said, when this fast, if, if you're just single, if if this if what you're looking at is like a static shot, things look fine. Things look crisp and clear and everything. It's when you get introduced movement into the experience when things really fall apart, refresh rate. And I don't, I don't doubt him at all that he experienced that. because also I don't know that he necessarily knew how other people were writing. So he's writing to his own experience, not calendar to others. At least knowingly as far as I'm un aware. But but it is interesting to me how, how people can have completely different experiences. And it really seemed like so many of the reviews were like, oh, this display's actually pretty solid. But Ron's definitely not that. I mean, it was definitely the opposite. So I
Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:30):
I was like, did he get a bum like review model or something? Because he, I wonder that too actually turned Yeah, turned on GPU profiling, which is literally the os like profiling of how much the GPU is working. More or less. I'm oversimplifying. And yes, the graph that he showed is nasty. Like, it's kind of funny because this particular tool, you know, when something is bad, because the yellow and red, like warning signs cover the screen. So if you can't even see the apps that you're testing, you know that the performance is actually pretty bad. So it's not like he's just picking on it for, you know, like, kind of like, you know, his own perspective. There's like a quantifi, there's like, there's like quantifiable badness, <laugh>,
Jason Howell (00:24:07):
<laugh>. Have you used this tool before? Quantifiable, like in, in your development? Oh, experience
Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:12):
For, for scrolling, actually specifically for scrolling when I was at Trello. not me per, well, me and testing, but yeah. one of the, the, the gentleman Mr. who wrote, rewrote the Kello board, that was his thing. He had that up constantly. And cuz his whole thing was rereading our board and scrolling is a huge deal. Cause we did both vertical and horizontal and he had that up all the time. So it's a really good indicator of when the app is dropping frames. So it gets janky and it's, it's just a, again, a good quantifiable, you know, way of saying, Hey, the scrolling performance is still demonstrably and measurably bad.
Jason Howell (00:24:46):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative> bad. Yeah. Yes. And that's exactly have
Huyen Tue Dao (00:24:49):
Used
Jason Howell (00:24:50):
Yeah. What he, what he spells out kind of in his, his review as well, the, the quantifiability of using this tool and yeah. I mean, doesn't look good when I, I've never used this tool, but I'm kind of, you know, read through his explanation in, in hearing yours. And so I so is, I don't doubt Ron at all. Like, but his, his eyes are really good compared to other reviewers. I, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's just a bad device, but, but it's interesting. But I'm curious to get my hands on one of these, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. And then I'll give you my own experience on these scrolling capabilities of the OnePlus Pad to see how it goes. Scooter X and chat points out that I think it was Scooter X. Yeah. That this tablet has no biometrics. So no fingerprint reader, no face id,
Ron Richards (00:25:42):
Eh,
Jason Howell (00:25:43):
I mean, or I don't know. I think with tablets it's, it's, it's, I think it's an exception, not the rule that you get biometrics in tablets.
Ron Richards (00:25:50):
Yes, I agree. I agree. And it's, and it's actually kind of funny because I have my Lenovo and it has biometrics on the, on it has the thumb, the, the thumbprint scanner on the power button. And I have it in a case, and it's incredibly annoying to use because the case covers the button and it's like, it, it's, wow. I don't know. Yeah. So it, it, it is, I I get wanting security and especially if you like travel with the, with the tablet and you don't wanna lose it, somebody gets in it. But like for me, like being at home biometrics is a, is it a hindrance at this point? I wanna turn it off because I'm the only person using it. It never leaves the house, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it all depends on the use case and it all depends on what the user's doing with it. Jason, when are you getting this tab? Will you have it like next
Jason Howell (00:26:29):
Week? Ooh, I don't know. I might, I honestly, I don't know. I don't know what I'm getting. I love tablets, but hopefully soon. And if I, I mean, if I do get it next week, of course I'm gonna bring it with, so you can take a look.
Ron Richards (00:26:39):
I would like to look at it, but also, like, hopefully this time, at least in this time in a week plus 24 hours, we, we've got our first gli, we got, we maybe we're holding, got some hands on time with the Pixel tablet. Yeah. You know, if you had the one plus tablet, you can compare and contrast it.
Jason Howell (00:26:53):
Yeah, no kidding. That would be a great opportunity for sure. Yeah. We
Huyen Tue Dao (00:26:57):
Could turn on, we could turn on the GPU profiling on everything and just watch the yellow, red, and green bars go by
Jason Howell (00:27:02):
<laugh> be like, when, how do you turn on GPU profiling? Can you come over here and flip it? Let's turn
Huyen Tue Dao (00:27:07):
On all the devices
Jason Howell (00:27:08):
Personal. Just look it on
Huyen Tue Dao (00:27:09):
Someone just working in the booth and be like, who did
Jason Howell (00:27:11):
This <laugh>? Yeah. If you go to Google I/O and you see G P U profiler on all the devices, you know who did it? There we go. Me. Yeah, it's win. I definitely didn't, I don't know how to do it. It's win <laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:27:27):
All right. Well, so moving on from one plus to our friends at Motorola. about a month ago, Jason, when you were in the, in the jungles of Costa Rica. Oh, yes. we talked, we talked about how Motorola was bringing a flagship to the table over in Europe, I believe, with the launch of the Edge. And now here a month later, we're talking about how they're bringing that flagship to the us. the Motorola Edge plus 2023 edition was announced for a $799. and this is basically the Motorola Edge 40, I think that we talked about early in early April. but it's it got eight gig, eight kilogram, 2 56, 256 gig storage running the Snapdragon eight gen two with a 6.7 inch O L E D 165 hertz display IP 68 rating 68 wat wireless charging 20 milliamp main camera with OISS doubles as a macro. no US carrier partners though. So if you want this, you can get unlocked and, and it will work. But like getting it, you're gonna have to go chase it down. but they also at the same time announce the Moto G for 2023. They're, they're not what's sub mid-range affordable range device, which I love the mo Gs yeah,
Jason Howell (00:28:42):
That's true. It's not quite mid-range is it? It's, it's, it's a
Ron Richards (00:28:45):
Little, it's a notch below mid. Yeah, it's
Jason Howell (00:28:47):
A lot. Not PE below, right? It's,
Ron Richards (00:28:48):
It's, it's like lower middle class. It's like, you know, upper, lower middle class, you know, like they had lower mid-range,
Jason Howell (00:28:54):
Lower mid range.
Ron Richards (00:28:56):
But for $250 you can get si this phone with a 6.5 inch L c d 120 hertz display with four gig gram 128 gig storage, 5,000 mil amp batteries running Snapdragon four 80 plus. And it has a headphone jack and micro SD slot for all you fringe people who need that. Micro
Jason Howell (00:29:14):
People who can't let it go.
Ron Richards (00:29:15):
I know, I know. It's been years, but Motorola, I, I, I don't mind Motorola, there's a, there's a glowing review you can put out their Motorola
Jason Howell (00:29:24):
<laugh>, Motorola. I don't mind. Ron doesn't mind it. I like,
Ron Richards (00:29:27):
I like what they do overall.
Jason Howell (00:29:29):
They do. So it's just, it's just been kind of quiet coming from the Motorola side of things lately. Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:29:36):
I mean the fact that they had a flagship is new. Like that's a new, they haven't really dabbled in
Jason Howell (00:29:40):
That area, so. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not recently. Anyways. And actually, I didn't put this story in here, but Scooter X linked to it in the chat that the Razor 40 Ultra, which is, you know, the, well, it's the ultra version of the, the razor foldable is gonna be kind of like a, a flagship like premier device once they announce that as well. We don't have any, any official word on that yet. But so, you know, if you like what Motorola is attempting to get back into when it comes to flagship territory they have a foldable play and I mean, they've had a foldable play, but now they expect to ramp it up even further and go toe to toe with the other, you know, premiums. Aka I mean, is that gonna compare against the pixel falls? Is that gonna compare against the, the Z flip? You know even further. We'll see. So you go Motorola, you go moto, you go
Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:40):
Go moto. Well, speaking of foldables, mm, speaking of foldables good old Evan bla at e leaks might have slipped us, the official marketing renders of the pixel fo fold, the pixel fold. So we get as much of an official look at the pixel fold as we're gonna get before next week. So yeah, no, I don't think there's anything completely like earth shattering in the renders. Just, you know, we get that very like market marketized view of the pixel. it is noted that it looks like unlike the good old Z fold four there, there's very little gap between the two screens. So it looks like we won't be having any telescope fund where we kind of hold up our foldables and see if we can see each other through it. But <laugh> yeah, I, I mean, it, it looks as expected and Evan did drop a few more spec specs.
(00:31:28):
so allegedly the pixel fold will be five, and it is gonna be a five and a half inches tall 3.1 inches wide when folded, which is quite a bit you know, at least a half an inch wider than the Z fold four, which again, yeah. Oh, and I love, but is too skinny, right? Too skinny to be really used like as a, like, as, you know, regular smartphone. and it will be, let me see, hold on, I'm mixing up 5.12. Wait, no, no, no. It's gonna be 6.2 inches wide when unfolded. So a bit wider than like, actually over an inch wider than the Z fold four went unfolded, but that makes sense. Front's wider double flat, that be bigger and, but the top it off when it's folded, it actually will be thinner than the Z fold force. The Z fold four is a quarter inch thick, one unfolded 0.6 inches thick, one folded to contrast the pixel fold allegedly will be 0.2 inches when folded. So it just says teeny bit thick, skinnier, and only a half an inch thick one folded. So it's gonna be wider and thinner, allegedly. So we will see
Jason Howell (00:32:31):
That's a winning combination.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:33):
It is better fit for pockets, more screen real estate, but yet thinner in the pocket. Like that's, that's kind of cool. That's glorious. That's I, I'm already gonna pre-order it y'all, whenever they gimme the chance to, I'm gonna hit that by button. Just just no spoilers there, just wind's gonna get one. and then just a random smattering of other specs. I p a, it's gonna be IP X eight. It's gonna come in an obsidian or porcelain or perhaps just black and white for the rest of us. and have a 9.5 megapixel 9.5 megapixel dual front camera at F-stop 2.2 and an eight megapixel inner camera at F-stop 2.0. So there you go. The last little drip bitty drop of a leaky peaky before Google I/O next
Jason Howell (00:33:16):
Week. I mean, these press shots just look all sparkling. It's been
Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:20):
So nice. It's so sexy
Jason Howell (00:33:22):
Sparkling.
Ron Richards (00:33:23):
Who thought we, I mean, we speculated a pixel foldable for how, I mean, Jason, hey,
Jason Howell (00:33:27):
It's been a long time for been like couple years, multiple years,
Ron Richards (00:33:30):
Right?
Jason Howell (00:33:31):
<laugh>, like is it ever gonna happen? And then suddenly it happening in io. Really?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:37):
Yeah, I mean it does. I mean, I know it's, it's, it's just like, kind like those, those ga fitness game shots where the person stands like very, like strategically, but that, that, that last shot of the pixel pixel fold does look quite svet. yeah, looks quite svet again, could be just opportunistic lighting and positioning. But I, I'm genuinely excited and
Jason Howell (00:33:58):
I am really curious.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:00):
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Jason Howell (00:34:02):
Yeah, I like it. Fold. Thank you Ed. Leaks for the leaks. <laugh>, thanks. The leaks. Thanks for the leaks. All right. Coming up next. Yes, we promised you we would have app news and we do. That's up next. All right.
Ron Richards (00:34:26):
Love some good app news. If we're lucky. Maybe we'll talk about two f a apps. but first here's some WhatsApp news for you. guess what, what's up now works across four devices, including phones. same account on multiple phones, which is crazy,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:46):
Thank goodness.
Ron Richards (00:34:46):
Exactly. Because if you remember, WhatsApp was tied to your phone number and you can only have an active account on WhatsApp on one device at any given time. and you could, you were able to use companion desktop devices. So, so for example, I have WhatsApp on my phone. I also use WhatsApp on the web on my desktop, so I could use it that way. but now if I had two phones, I could throw WhatsApp on there and still be able to log into the same account. and this follows a new feature that launched last year that supported multiple devices but didn't support multiple phones. And also I saw WhatsApp is because as we know, they are owned by everyone's favorite company, meta they're gonna be link if one of the funniest things in WhatsApp is that every now and then I see like the little circle in WhatsApp, and I'm like, what is that? And then the window pain slides over and realize like, oh, they have like status updates, story functionality that nobody ever uses <laugh>. And but so now, so now they, they've, they've linked that to Facebook. So if your WhatsApp and Facebook account are linked and you post to WhatsApp status, it will post to Facebook's status as well. So,
Jason Howell (00:35:51):
Oh, okay.
Ron Richards (00:35:52):
There you go. Co-mingling.
Jason Howell (00:35:53):
I'll never do that. So yeah. But good to know.
Ron Richards (00:35:57):
Fun times.
Jason Howell (00:35:59):
Okay, this is one of those features that's like, wow, why did it take so long? But they mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they say it has to do with the encryption side of things. So I don't know what's changed that now allows Yeah. For it. Or are they lessening security? Like, is this one of those choices that like, okay, we're giving more, you know, more leeway, but we're lessening the security protection. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:36:21):
Given, given all their encryption and stuff like that. I don't think, I don't, I mean, I think they, they take the security pretty seriously over there. Yeah. Like, they always, they did preta too, like, so I think this is just more of a, you know, I would hope that they're locking down the system, they're keeping it that more secure and just instead of locking it to a single device, realizing that some people have multiple devices and they wanna support that, that use case. So Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:36:46):
Interesting.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:47):
All right. Did I, did I hear encryption? Did I hear compromises? Yes. Between user experience and security
Jason Howell (00:36:53):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. All the above.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:55):
All the above. Well, guess what we're not done talking about it because, you know, we talked last week, was it last week already? Yeah. about Google Authenticator having cloud sync for your one-time passwords. Well, it's a week later. And security researchers at MISK pointed out that the sync is not end-to-end encrypted. And of course, this is, you know, kind of talking about the, the, the fact that sync is now available is a point of large convenience for users. I guess your mileage might vary on that as well, if you don't necessarily mind the kind of migration process which we talked about last week. But, you know, I, some people do really care and understandably so about end-to-end encryption. So this would be different in that, of course, right now Google has access and can replicate your two FA codes if they so desire.
(00:37:49):
not gonna make any statements on whether they would actually want to zit or not. But if you really are super concerned about malicious third parties, or even just another third party, a large third party like Google having access to any of your information the current encryption, which I believe is just in transit encryption and at rest encryption, which is really just, they're encrypting the data when it's in flight and when it's being stored, you know, at rest, either on like, you know, aw w s or on storage or somewhere. That's the only time it's encrypted. Otherwise Google, you know, conceivably can access your two f a code. So if you do not like that, and you really, really wonder why they did not implement end-to-end encryption first. There is a reason Google clarified via Twitter via Christian brand. I'm not sure what position you hold at Google, but he did say that, that there was a, trying to balance the, you know kind of protection of users, but also to be useful and convenient.
(00:38:43):
And he did note that if they did have, if you, if there is end-to-end encryption, if you know that that could actually lead to users being totally less out of their accounts with no data recovery, since obviously Google can not have any hand in like our intervention in that because they just, they don't, they don't they don't have access to the onetime passwords at all. So there is a kind of balance there about, you know, being hypers secure. But then of course, the flip side of that is that win me is hypers secure recovery can be a pain or just in incredibly difficult. So they do say they're going to offer this down the line,
Jason Howell (00:39:16):
Down the line,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:17):
Down the line. So at some point,
Jason Howell (00:39:18):
Sometime in the future, I
Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:20):
Love sometime in the future. So sometime in the existence of planet Earth, this will exist eventually,
(00:39:26):
Sooner or later. <laugh>, you'll get it. Who knows when, won't say when, never say when, but never say when They reiterate with something that we said last week is that like, if you really don't like all of this, just opt out of the cloud, keep your, keep, keep everything offline and you're good for now. Yeah. Yeah. and then we'll, it, where, what happens when Yeah. Keep it where it was. Yeah. And
Jason Howell (00:39:46):
Christian brand product manager, identity and security at
Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:49):
Google, that makes a lot of sense. I'm sorry. I looked at his Twitter for pro profile and just said Google, and I didn't even think to actually Google him. I'm, that's all right. I'm a Christian brand VP of identity and security. That makes a lot of sense.
Jason Howell (00:40:00):
Oh, man. All good. Okay. Well, so maybe someday you'll get the best of all worlds when it comes to encryption and authenticator. Nope, <laugh>, we're not there yet. I
Ron Richards (00:40:12):
I, I do wanna keep track, though, as we go through the year to count this, because I fe the number of episodes where we talk about authenticator, <laugh> or, or two of AF afs or authenticator afs. I just, I think it's fascinating. So
Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:22):
Let's, weeks, weeks let,
Ron Richards (00:40:24):
For the best of, at the end of the year, we should keep track of how often this came up and how we have some sort of like, it's like a assign, you know, it's been nu X number of shows since we talked about authenticator. <laugh>,
Jason Howell (00:40:33):
How about, how about the end of year best of is nothing but a super cut of all of our authentic
Ron Richards (00:40:38):
Conversations,
Jason Howell (00:40:39):
<laugh>,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:39):
Q F A, security encryption, all those words, <laugh>
Jason Howell (00:40:43):
Gotta mix things up a little bit. I it, yeah. But at the same time, like, it's not a horrible thing to continue beating this drum, because the more we talk about it, the more it nor normalizes two f a for even people who might have been, you know, a little hesitant to, to go into the two f a waters. And I think it's important. It's a really great way to protect yourself. So so there you go. There's, there's the,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:07):
The, it, it did occur to me though that, that everyone's moving towards pass like a passwordless future. So yeah, presumably if passwordless sorry, PA keyless, pake, pa
Jason Howell (00:41:17):
Keys,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:19):
Pake, right? PAKEs arrive, then they don't gotta worry about end, end encryption on authenticator, conceivably, right? I mean, sure is how we're gonna be around in a
Jason Howell (00:41:27):
While. Tell, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that also is at some point in the future, how did they, how did they phrase it down the line? Paske is also somewhere down the line. So we're, we're waiting, no matter how you slice it, <laugh> for all these things. one thing you don't gotta wait for if you don't want to, and that's podcasts coming to YouTube. Music, as we know, we talked about it many times. Google's podcast strategy,
Ron Richards (00:41:54):
I have lots of thoughts on this, but get through the
Jason Howell (00:41:56):
News of it. <laugh> little bit of a mess the past few years how Google's approached podcast. the new hotness for Google right now, of course, is podcast within YouTube music after a February announcement and a March testing period, podcasts are now rolling out the YouTube music app to users in the us. So basically and you don't have to be a premium subscriber, by the way. So basically you can use YouTube music as your podcast app, kind of sort of. I, I don't know. I found it still found it kind of confusing. I mean, I could search and everything, but it's like, wait a minute. Am I looking at podcasts on YouTube or am I looking at just like podcast feeds? I, I still don't know. So
Ron Richards (00:42:39):
You're not, so here, here's the issue, and I'll dig into to exactly what's going on here, because obviously this is something near pick
Jason Howell (00:42:44):
This apart
Ron Richards (00:42:45):
My heart, but but basically, so what's happening in terms of podcasts on YouTube is that YouTube has enabled you to identify a playlist as a podcast. And what that means then, is that that podcast will not only be included in their podcast section on YouTube on the desktop, but when looked on the YouTube music app in the podcast section, it looks a heck of a lot like Spotify and podcast. And you can upload your one by one you know, cover art for your podcast and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, they still have not rolled out RSS RSS feed ingestion. They have not rolled out RSS feed sync. They all this is, is that if you have a podcast and you are creating a video file of your podcast, either with, you know, people in front behind microphones like we do, and, and here's the video version of our podcast.
(00:43:41):
Yeah. Or if you just take the audio of your audio podcast and drop it into a video with a static graphic and export that and upload that to YouTube, if you put that on a playlist that's flagged as a podcast, it shows up in the podcast, in the podcast section of YouTube music. Okay. So it is, it, it is, it is fascinating and mind numbing as a podcaster since 2015 to see YouTube music and YouTube to be perverting or, or twisting what the term podcast is. And literally, I know I said earlier, we were talking earlier in the pre-show about a dated opinion, but like to me, podcasts are media delivered via rss.
Jason Howell (00:44:23):
Yeah, I would agree. I,
Ron Richards (00:44:24):
I like, and there's no RSS happening on YouTube music. Yeah. It's just not, not yet now, now I'm, I'm fortunate enough to through at my day job and, and just through my job and everything in particular to have relationships with people at YouTube have, I've sat in on product briefings with the product manager behind podcasts on YouTube. They claim they're going to enable, they're gonna allow podcasters to submit their RSS feed and adjust that way. I've also heard rumblings of, if you don't do video, they'll make it so that you can ingest your audio and create a video that can work in that way. But like at the end of the day, YouTube and YouTube music is a video platform. It's a right video. Like, and it's the, it's the same like the, the, the, the co-mingling and the mixing when they got rid of Google Play music and music to YouTube, to YouTube music.
(00:45:12):
Remember Jason, our biggest concern was, can I just find the audio of the album I wanna listen to, am I gonna have to watch a music video? Mm-hmm. And say even though the audio files are there, YouTube music is priority to video, priority to music video is when I go to my, my annoying nest hub, who by the way, is getting still getting worse. I can't, I I almost took a video the other day of the laughable search results I was getting. Now it's at the point where it's not even playing songs on YouTube music, it's giving me search results. Even though I'm saying play this song on YouTube music, it's like, hmm, how about these search results? It's like, come on. But anyway so while this is making podcasts available on the app to everyone in the us it's not podcasts. Sorry. It's like it's not, but it is so
Jason Howell (00:45:55):
Sorry. Yeah. Well it's, it's kinda like is Google's playing a bit of a semantics game? Because like when I went on there, you know, of course it is Search for All About Android, and I found it, I found All About Android and I could add it to my library so it's not subscribing, it's add to your library. So I'm like, okay, so am I subscribing it or am I like downloading this for offline viewing? Or what, what does that even mean? And then when I hit play, you know, it shows me the video version. Like there was no clarity on am I watching the actual podcast from the feed? Which it sounds like, from what you're saying, I'm not, I'm only watching All About Android as a podcast, as it's found on YouTube, because we also upload our videos to YouTube for people to, you know, find, because we have a video product and that's another place to do it. So it's like, and so, so they's playing sy semantics game because it, Ali anti Android is a podcast.
Ron Richards (00:46:53):
So, so it's, it's this weird, it's this weird gaslighting thing because you're absolutely right, because there's no subscribe feature, there's no notification to a new episode, you're adding the podcast to your library, but that just means that the whole archive is available in your library, and when you search for it, it shows up. There's no push mechanism for a new episode. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it, it's, it's completely, it's just taking the term podcast and slapping it into the thing to say that they're competitive with Spotify which is frustrating. It's
Huyen Tue Dao (00:47:21):
Playlist. I mean, it's a, it's playlist. You too playlist. That's, I don't, I don't, I don't think necessarily that it's being like, get off my lawn to say that that there, that there is a published push. It's a, it's a, it's a stream, it's a published stream of information. Like, it's just like any other kind of show, like a a periodic show. If I make a playlist, I don't, I don't need a podcast feature to make playlists for me. That's not the point. Right. And that presumably is missing a whole bunch of actually like Yeah. Self self-identifying.
Ron Richards (00:47:52):
Right now, the podcast, the only, the only the only podcast function when that you're referring to that it offers up Yeah. Is is the one by one album Art of the podcast. It does show you that as a, as opposed to a 16 by nine thumbnail of the latest video. Sorry.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:06):
Woo. I'm sorry. Right. Just that I, I, yes. That's
Ron Richards (00:48:10):
So like, talk about what we're looking forward to at io. I would really like to hear from the product folks at YouTube Music to understand what the podcast roll out to YouTube looks like. A podcast. And, and like, and cuz it baffles me because I've sat in these meetings and I've sat in these product briefings where they tell, you know, like for a couple years now, YouTube's been telling us, listen, we have user data that people are using YouTube to listen to audio, period. So that means we're gonna support podcasts. And what, what the distinction and what they're not realizing is that yes, people are using YouTube to listen to audio. Because I know a lot of, a lot of coworkers and staff of mine will go to YouTube and put on an eight hour lofi stream. Right. Or, or like background. I know some, I know somebody who puts background music of a coffee shop and that's what they work to. And so they pretend they're at a coffee shop, right. they're people who listen to six hour ASMR stuff and stuff like that. So yes, they're using audio. Those are not podcasts, right. So it's like, it's, it's, there's a weird reality distortion field happening within the YouTube product organization around audio and around podcasts. And it does, as a podcaster, it does feel like I'm being gas lit.
Jason Howell (00:49:15):
Well, yeah. Is it's like <laugh>, it's like YouTube recogniz it, YouTube looked at its platform and said, oh wow, a lot of podcasters are putting their podcasts on YouTube. We should have a way for people to find those podcasts on YouTube. But then when you put it into a category of podcasts, like I think from a user perspective, and maybe it's just from like an US perspective, cuz we're so steeped in podcasting cuz that's like part of our jobs. But from my perspective, like I don't get what I'm going there to get. I get Oh, you're exactly right. I get a playlist of the, of the available podcasts that have been uploaded to YouTube, not podcasts, which is an rss. And as Burke pointed out in Slack, you know, RSS is the playlist <laugh>, right? When it comes to podcasts, but perhaps not playlist. You get there, you get the playlist of the podcast that someone chose to upload to YouTube and then and then tag or Mark as a podcast. It's just, it's, it's subtle. I think the difference is probably subtle to, to some people listening, but I feel like it's an important distinction.
Ron Richards (00:50:20):
No, it's ba it's baffling. It's, it's, it's like somebody who is, like somebody who read an article in USA Today about podcasts, then set up the product in YouTube music for podcasts, right? Like, it's like, yeah. Without a fundamental understanding of what make podcasts, what they are, and how they work and what this entire ecosystem is. And like, to be honest, like, don't get me wrong there. The, the, the a, the now I'm, I'm Soapboxing, but I'm sorry. But the arc of the podcast industry and how, you know, the, the rise and fall and right now we're in, you know, like ad revenues and free fall and all this sort of stuff and, and the industry's crashing and, and all this nonsense. But like, the fact of the matter is, is that there are millions and millions and millions of podcasts out there. The the, and many of them don't stick many of the people who'd try it, hobbyists or whatever.
(00:51:01):
Yeah. But then there are people like us who, who like, Jesus Christ, I mean, it's 2023. I've been doing this for nearly Jason, you've been doing, you know, we've been doing this for nearly 20 years, right, Leo? Yeah. Everybody's been doing this for such a long time. And the, the thing about it is, is that not every, like I know, I know so many independent podcasters who have been doing it for a long time, have a great setup and are committed to audio and don't have the money, the resources or the desire to embrace video in any way, shape, or form. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? And like, and if you go to youtube.com/podcasts on the website in their podcast section, it's all Joe Rogan. It's, it's, it's either Joe Rogan or it's, it's other people with setups like that, or it's IGN or whomever, or like, you know, stuff like that.
(00:51:44):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like, honestly, like twit fits in what YouTube's vision for podcasts are because there is a commitment to video. Yes. Which I give respect, you know, and like, and, and should be there. But like, it shouldn't preclude or shouldn't exclude the, sorry, it shouldn't exclude the, the, the millions of independent podcasters who have built a ecosystem around audio and embraced audio and love audio for what it is. They're people. Like, there's a reason why I choose to listen to my podcast and not watch them. Right. And, and now the reality of it, and again, and now I'm still boxing more, but the reality of it always comes back to dollars and always comes back to ad revenue and always comes back to that sort of thing. And, and once the IAB and all the, the ad networks and other, you know, like a, you know you know, the radio media stuff like that got their myths into podcasting. Everything has slowly degraded what was so pure and wonderful about podcasting, because it became about how do you monetize it? Well, video monetizes better than audio, so you should do a video version. Like, and it just, it, it just, it became a slippery slope to the point where we're at now where YouTube, YouTube music is rolling out podcasts and there's not an RSS feed or an audio file to be found anywhere. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm.
Jason Howell (00:52:53):
<affirmative>. But
Ron Richards (00:52:54):
It's because a video, because if a video ad unit is worth more than an audio ad unit, that's why,
Jason Howell (00:52:59):
And as Lee Woods in the Discord says my kiddos digest everything on YouTube, if you wanna reach their generation, it has to be on YouTube. And YouTube knows this of course. And they know that they have the podcast. Yeah. It's, it's really kind of a complicated, confusing thing. It's like, yeah. To, to that degree. Then I, I sort of understand where YouTube is coming from. Well, we've got all these podcasts on here, why not make it easy for people to find the podcast that are here? Exactly. It's just, there's something about it, like you said, gas lit. There's something about it that feels Yeah. Wrong and how it's being presented, because it's not the same thing that Spotify is doing. No, it's not. And here's the thing. And YouTube an archive of all podcasts, you know, and anyone can, and
Ron Richards (00:53:40):
YouTube's gonna tell us that, that, that they're gonna make it, that we can, we can, we can import our RSS feed. Like they have the engineering capability to have done that from the get-go. You could, everyone would've flocked to, it's, it's, this is Google podcast all over again. It's, it's, it's a fu it's a, it's an innate misunderstanding of what the business is and fumbling of it and how to, how to, how to favor the creators and favor the community that already exists. And what they're doing is they're, they're again doing it to support ad revenue, right? Because it's not gonna be, oh, hey, load your RSS feed and you can have your podcast on YouTube. It's gonna be no load your RSS feed, and we'll allow you to make a video from your audio. So it could be on YouTube music. That's what it all comes down to. Yeah. Right. Advertising, which is their business model, which is their prerogative. But it's like, don't tout and don't celebrate that podcasts are available on, on YouTube music, cuz they're not, it's not podcasts. I'm sorry, YouTube. It's not So case
Jason Howell (00:54:32):
Closed.
Ron Richards (00:54:34):
Oh, sorry, I didn't realize we were go down this, this whole thing. But this is, this is, this is my new messaging
Jason Howell (00:54:40):
Right <laugh>. And now for the next five months instead of two two factor authentication and end to encryption. We'll we'll be back on podcasting for the next five months. Okay. Yep.
Ron Richards (00:54:51):
It's just silly. Here
Jason Howell (00:54:52):
We are again. Thank
Ron Richards (00:54:53):
God. All right, well let's take a break from this. I need to hear from a, a, a more level-headed, much more intelligent person than me. so it's great to hear from JR Raphael with his Android intelligent tip this week. and he, and well, good thing he got off of YouTube after the past couple of weeks is <laugh>. Here we are with with Yeah, right. with a tip focused around pixel search. So JR take it away, sir.
Speaker 6 (00:55:17):
Hey, happy May. We are now just days away from the start of Google's Grand IO extravaganza, as I'm sure you know, by this point in the show. And that of course means the first pixel season of 2023 is officially upon us. How about that? So with that in mind today, I wanna share with you a super useful new app that brings a pinch of upgraded pixel magic onto any Android phone no matter who made it. It's called Pixel Search. And it adds a smarter, faster, and more efficient way of finding anything on any Android device this minute. In the simplest possible terms, it's like an even more capable and customizable version of the already spectacular search system that's built into Google's Pixel devices. Now this is a third party app not made by Google itself. And what's especially interesting about that is that it can give you a pretty significant practical upgrade if you're already using a Pixel phone, but it'll also give you a pretty massive leap forward in user experience if you're using any other kind of Android device.
(00:56:26):
So the app lets you place a familiar looking but extra powerful search bar as a widget anywhere on your home screen. Just tap that and you can then pull up and zip over to any app, any specific function within an app, any contact or conversation, and any file or folder on your phone. As well as search the web itself, all from that same single spot just by typing a letter or two. You can even perform searches inside apps like finding specific videos in YouTube places in maps items within the play store or shows in Netflix. Pixel search is completely free to use for now too, though it does look like it might eventually support some kind of in-app purchases. Oh, and it doesn't do anything shady with data, transmit any info off your device or anything like that. We'll throw a link to the app's Play store page into the show notes for you.
(00:57:20):
And if you've got a pixel, by the way, you've gotta come check out my Pixel Academy e course. It's a completely free seven day course that shows you all sorts of hidden pixel gems things for making the most of your phone's camera, taking full advantage of all of its most advanced features, even eliminating some of its most common annoyances. Just head over to android intel.net/twit and scroll to the bottom of the screen to get started. That site again is android intel.net/twit. That's all for today. I'll see you back here next week for Google I/O. Go time for now. Back to you team.
Jason Howell (00:57:58):
Thank you. JR android intel.net pixel service
Ron Richards (00:58:04):
Mr. J Jr. Rayfield Rayfield, Ray Rayfield. I'm gonna pronou, I'm gonna pronounce it correctly JR. I'm sorry, Ray Jr. Rayfield. I will fix it. Dang my Long Island accent. yes. JR Rayfield, you're the best wish you were gonna be at IO next week to hang out first.
Jason Howell (00:58:20):
Yeah, I know. It's a bummer that he won't be there in in person. It would be great to see him. It's
Ron Richards (00:58:24):
Been, I will fix it from near on out. I will pronounce it correctly. I promise <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:58:28):
So
Ron Richards (00:58:28):
I say on this podcast, served by RSS <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:58:31):
Yes. So, so it is known on this the first day of the second day of, anyways, I can't do that. <laugh>. Okay, we are done with, with that, but thank you jr. Appreciate it. So that is pixel search can be found on the Play store, but check it out. if you got pixel device and you want better search, there you go. That's the way. Thank you JR. That's it. That's it right there. Go get it. Okay, up next, we've got your feedback. That's coming up next. AAA TWIT TV 3, 4 7. Show a a a when you've got the first one.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:11):
Yes. And the first one is from a day one listener Steve. And Steve writes us saying listener since day one. Thanks. my question is to find a secure app to screen mirror my pixel six A to my Samsung tab. A Samsung uses Samsung Flow app, but it won't install on my phone. Other apps are from Hong Kong, et cetera, which I don't trust. Basically I want to mount my tablet to the car dash and use my phone as a base station to navigate apps and info while traveling because the Samsung provides a bigger screen for ease of use. Any solutions Thanks to everyone, Steve.
Jason Howell (00:59:45):
Ooh. I mean, I did some plugging around trying to find solutions and there are, at, at the core what you're looking for is you're looking for an app that you can run on your phone and your tablet simultaneously that will cast the video from your, the, the, you know, the video feed from your phone to the larger screen on your tablet. And those apps do exist, you know, team viewers one any desk screen share, a power mirror. There are all these apps that do that sort of thing. I, but I, but I hesitate to say that that's gonna give you exactly what you're looking for because I don't think that these apps do a great job. I could be wrong, it's been a long time since I've actually tried to do this, but I don't know that they do a really great job of scaling the experience from your phone to your tablet and then giving you the same kind of interactivity. You know what I mean? Like, it's still just gonna be your phone, but a little bit larger, not quite fitting the whole dimensions of the tablet screen. It's, it's not gonna be the same as if you were in an Android Auto and you cast your screen to an Android auto display and things look all nice and and tucked in and everything. It's gonna be different from that. So sure you could try those apps. I I just don't know that you're gonna be happy with what you get. Am I missing anything? Does that make
Huyen Tue Dao (01:01:08):
No, that's a really good point that if you're just blowing up the app, that's kind of just the same US usability issue that a lot of normal apps have on tablets anyway. So yeah, I I would agree. I just advise with caution. It might not, it won't be sames, it might not be as usable on the tablet. It will be bigger, but it will,
Jason Howell (01:01:27):
Yeah, it'll be bigger. But, but I mean even then, like how much bigger, like what is the size of the, what is the tablet that he is using? The Samsung tab A What? That's
Speaker 7 (01:01:39):
A 10 inch
Jason Howell (01:01:39):
Probably. Is that a 10 inch? I mean, it
Speaker 7 (01:01:41):
Could, it's a probably a 10 inch or bigger.
Jason Howell (01:01:44):
Yeah, I mean it's probably 10 inch. I I I would be surprised if it was even bigger than that.
Speaker 7 (01:01:48):
The devices were Samsung, but, but
Jason Howell (01:01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:01:51):
Queen a, a Pixel and a Samsung. No, I don't think so.
Jason Howell (01:01:56):
Yeah. so well, so I'm seeing Pixel or Galaxy tab a eight eight inch, but maybe, maybe there are different ones, so maybe it's a different one. There's eight,
Speaker 7 (01:02:07):
There's 10, there's 13. I think
Jason Howell (01:02:09):
Regardless, I think it's gonna be a, a bump up but not an insane bump up. Especially when you consider that you're just kind of casting the, of the phone. If there was a way to cast your phone and drive the tablet at the tablet's resolution and then get that extra screen real estate and get things to, you know, kind of fit the screen and be able to interact with it. And so everything you do on the tablet screen is actually registering on your, on your phone. Some of these apps might do that. I think maybe team viewer viewer does that. Great. I think the other thing that you run into is that every time you get into your car you have to like manually launch this app and then launch it on the tablet and hopefully it connects appropriately, but sometimes they don't cuz they can be kind of finicky and I don't know, just like when I think about trying to, you know, doing that in my life, like I, I would get tired of it really fast I think if it wasn't perfect every time. So anyways, let us know how it goes <laugh>. I'm curious, curious to know how that goes.
Ron Richards (01:03:10):
Eid, as am I. All right. So our next question comes from way up North from our good friend Robert in Alaska, which is fantastic. Have we gotten an email from Alaska before? Jason?
Jason Howell (01:03:20):
I don't know. Oh, I'm sure we have.
Ron Richards (01:03:22):
I'm sure we have. Yeah. maybe from Robert even. maybe, well Rob, Robert says from Alaska, love the show everyone to the point of what tablet I use, I am mostly the Google ecosystem. I've always had an Android phone since the Samsung Galaxy GT dash I 7,500. I currently have the Sony Experia five two or five I framework, Chromebook, windows desktop for gaming and an iPad ninth gen. I hear from a lot of Android journalists that if they use a tablet, it's usually an iPad says Android isn't really suitable for tablets. Also, I got the iPad more than half off new old demo model that wasn't even opened. and thank you Robert, cuz I think that you are very indicative of what the common tablet marketplace looks like is that whether or not they're an Android user or a Windows desktop, you know, user or an OSX user or MacBook user.
(01:04:17):
You know what, for whatever reason, apple has dominated tablets and, and has gotten the iPad in a place where it is the de facto kind of like, oh, I need a tablet. Let me get that. I I have lots of artist friends who have the iPad Pro and u utilize item for drawing and doing all this fun stuff and things like that. so, you know, we will, you know, can one plus breakthrough can Google Pixel break through, you know, Samsung continues to be, you know, Samsung has never wavered in their supportive tablets, you know, and, and so no, and
Jason Howell (01:04:44):
They, and they, and they produce really great quality tablets. Yeah,
Ron Richards (01:04:47):
Sometimes they're expensive. But, you know, I keep hoping for the year of the tablet, I, I, I love the form factor and I want it to be a, you know, I've said it on the show before. I want it to be a, a usable, you know, great device that is more than just a second screen when watching TV or a media device for going to the gym or for me, like using it for reading or whatnot. but time will tell, we'll see if, we'll see if the marketplace accepts it or not, so
Jason Howell (01:05:11):
Yes, indeed. And just, just so you know, I went into our All About Android inbox and I did a search for Alaska and I came back with 23. I don't know if all 23 of those emails are from Alaska, but they had the word in it. So there's that. There you go. At least <laugh> <laugh> 23 <laugh>. Anyways, yeah, I, I think you're absolutely right Ron. I think Robert's experiences probably mirrors a lot of other users out there tablet fans. It's just kind of the way it is these days it seems. we'll see if that changes. And fa and thank you Robert, for sending in the email and registering your your place of residence as Alaska on our complicated database behind the scenes <laugh>. and now it is time for the email of the week
(01:06:04):
Eric DeStefano, who could be from Alaska, but didn't say where Eric was from. So, you know, there's that said. So I heard another person is having the same problem with Smart Lock that I've been having since a recent update to my Note 20 Ultra happened a couple weeks ago. sorry for Lady Mel. I'm about a week behind on my podcast right now. No, I think you're doing all right. Says anyway, nothing I've been able to find fixes this issue with Smart Lock permanently, but I figured out if you enable the option for lockdown mode, which once enabled is triggered by tapping the power button and notifications and selecting the option for lockdown mode, this temporarily disables smart lock among other things. But as soon as you do that type, as soon as you do that, type in your password or your pin one time and smart lock will work for a little bit.
(01:06:56):
<laugh> seems like the length of time is completely random, though. Sometimes I only have to do this one or two times a day while I'm at work, eight hours connected to my earbuds and other times I have to do it five to six times in that same workday, regardless. This is the quickest way to, to get it working again that I've been able to find, figured I would share it just in case anyone else was looking for a good temporary workaround until there's an update to fix whatever they recently broke. So there you go. Not ideal, but there's an option for getting around it. And I just think it's funny that it's so random. It's like sometimes I only have to do this once or twice, sometimes five or six times. It's so so goofy. But it works. And you have Eric to thank about to thank for that. So thank you Eric. And that's why you are the email of the week. There you go. We'll send you your crown in the mail. No, we won't. big thanks to everyone for watching and listening to this episode of All About Android. Whether you founded in YouTube music or you got it through Google Podcasts or whatever your pod catcher is, your actual pod catcher Spotify, maybe. I don't know. thank you. We really do appreciate your, your support in this show. when gonna see you in seven days and I'm super excited right around the corner. What do you wanna leave people with?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:08:29):
yeah, I'm an android dev and you can find technical content that I do usually on my website, randomly typing.com. And if you look about see social medias and you see someone named Queen Coke Monkey, that is very probably me. If it's not me, let me know. Or if you can't find me, let me know. Cause I gotta claim that name. But yes, <laugh> really glad to be here and can't wait to see y'all in person next week. Yay. It's gonna be awesome.
Jason Howell (01:08:55):
Got some excitement coming up, things to look forward to. It's gonna be awesome to hang out with you. It's gonna be awesome to hang out with you. Ron, what do you wanna leave people with?
Ron Richards (01:09:04):
I'm very excited. I love podcasts, so listen to this podcast. Subscribe to this podcast. Go check out I fanboy and subscribe to that podcast where I also talk about movies and TV shows and stuff like that. podcasts are wonderful. Go check out podcasts. Great is the best app, just podcast. Yay. Podcasts follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Ron xo. That's have r obsessed on your website, on that web. I do, yes.
Jason Howell (01:09:28):
Mm mm I do believe. Can you tell that Ron likes our likes podcasts?
Ron Richards (01:09:34):
I love
Jason Howell (01:09:35):
Podcasts. If he didn't know, you know, now episode 628, you know, Ron likes podcasts. Thank you Ron. Thank you. JR Ray, feel Android intelligence, that's android, intel.net/twi to subscribe to his newsletter. And we'll look forward to next week for more app. tip goodness, thanks to Victor behind the scenes, thanks to Burke behind ish the scenes sometimes in front of the mic as you heard today. both of them doing work that is instrumental to the show and getting it out to you guys. So thanks for everything you guys do. you can find me at Jason Howell on Twitter, Twitter social slash Jason Howell. I can't remember how Blue Sky does it, but I'm Jason Howell there too. I'm just not doing very much on these places, but you can find me and I really do appreciate that you that you do that. So go find me there.
(01:10:28):
this week's tech News Weekly, it's just me, Micah is out. So I'm working on three to four awesome interviews. So check that out. TWIT TV slash tnw on Thursday. And then of course, do not forget Club twit twit TV slash club twit ad free subscription tier for all of our shows. So you would not get any ads in this episode or any episode of Twi of any of our podcasts. you also wouldn't get this ad <laugh> if you were subscribed. you get exclusive TWI plus podcast feed content. So our pre-show discussion on Autotune you'll hear this if you are a Club Twit member. and if I hope that you were here for the live show cuz if cuz otherwise it's gone. plus tons of extra, you know, bonus content shows that you can't get outside of the club.
(01:11:23):
hands on Mac, hands on Windows. this let's see here. What, what am I missing? Suddenly, I'm going blank. There's, there's tons of them. The Untitled Lennox Show, Stacy's Book Club home Theater Geeks. You see, there's so many, it's hard to keep track of 'em all. And a member only Discord, which is a lot of fun as well. $7 a month. And there are even family plans. So, you know, check it out. Twitter tv slash club Toit. let's see here. Cousin Josh says my my blue sky ID is Jason Howell dot bsk y.social. I think that sounds right. so just put that up here for when you get into Blue Sky and, and find me there. I did, I did download the app. I don't have an invite, but I did download Blue Sky. Oh, I have, I I think I have an invite.
(01:12:07):
I haven't given out any, I don't see any notice that I have them, but I'm sure I do. So I will, I will send it your way here. And you almost throw me one too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I ask first. Okay, I'll just, I'll, it's okay. I'll wait. I'll deal with like a deck of cards. I'll throw 'em out at you guys. I will do that. as for this show, we do the show every Tuesday, TWIT tv slash a a a. All you gotta do is subscribe to the magical RSS that we talked about earlier in this episode. Just go to that page and you can do so very, very easily. Thank you so much for watching and listening. We will see you next week on an incredibly special All in person episode of All About Android. I got chills when I said that. I'm looking forward to it. See you guys <laugh>. I got legit like goosebumps gonna be awesome. I was like, that's gonna be so much fun. I'm so looking for our Lala.
Ant Pruitt (01:13:02):
Hey, what's going on everybody? I am Ant Pruitt and I am the host of Hands-On Photography here on twit tv. I know you got yourself a fancy smartphone, you got yourself a fancy camera, but your pictures are still lacking. Can't quite figure out what the heck shutter speed means. Watch my show. I've got you covered. Want to know more about just the I ISO and Exposure Triangle in general? Yeah, I got you covered. Or if you got all of that down, you want to get into lighting, you know, making things look better by changing the lights around you. I got you covered on that too. So check us out each and every Thursday here in the network. Go to twit.tv/hop and subscribe today.