All About Android Episode 557 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.

.. (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:00:10):
This episode of all All About Android is brought to you by Imperfect Foods. Imperfect Foods is catching the food. That's fallen through the cracks of our food system by sourcing quirky yet delicious foods right now. And perfect foods is offering our listeners 20% off your first four orders. When you go to imperfect foods.com, make sure and use promo code Android. Hello, and welcome to All About Android episode 557 recorded on December 7th for this December 28th, 2021. Your weekly source to latest news hardware and asked for the Android faithful. I'm Jason Howell,

Ron Richards (00:00:48):
And I'm Ron Richards and Jason, what a year it's been.

Jason Howell (00:00:50):
What a year it's been 2021 the year for Android.

Ron Richards (00:00:56):
As we, as we look in the rear view mirror and we look back on ours, 17th year of doing the, or no, I'm sorry, our 93rd year of doing the show. No, I'm sorry. Our 11th year doing the show,

Jason Howell (00:01:08):
Something like that, something like that.

Ron Richards (00:01:10):
I think, I think it's about 11, much closer. It's definitely been a year filled with Android, Google one, plus Samsung, all the greats. I feel like we tucked foldables rollable tablets wear OS. We've had so much fun this year in Android, 2021. It's been one of my favorite years. I think Jason, I dunno about you, but yeah.

Jason Howell (00:01:36):
Hey, it's, there's been a lot. That's happened in the world of Android. That's really kind of solidified Google's vision around Android with the release of Android 12 Google's vision of its hardware unit with the release of the pixel six and the six pro. Yeah, this has pretty been a pretty big year. This episode, there you go. And I, I hope that you're enjoying your pixel six. I

Ron Richards (00:02:00):
Do like my pixel six, I will say Santa came early this year and got me a pixel six,

Jason Howell (00:02:04):
But <laugh> 

Ron Richards (00:02:06):
Yeah, no, it's you're right. It is, it has been one of those turning point years for Android as we've been doing this, you know, like, you know, after years of iteration, Android 12 really took a big swing with material U and the new you know, the whole new interface and all that's all that stuff. Definitely. And, and it seems like Google's getting the pixel line now in the sixth iteration on the tracks towards kind of consumer, not, I won't say dominance, but presence mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, with everybody consumer attention. Yeah, exactly. All the, all the critics raving about it, you know, like we'll, we'll be curious to see what happens as we go into 20, 22 to see how much option there is always keeping an eye on those sales numbers and, and that sort of thing. But it does seem like it was a good year for Google and Android. That's for sure.

Jason Howell (00:02:51):
Yep. Yep. Yeah. And it all started as it usually does early, early in the year. And we'll probably experience this year in a couple of months with the leaks of the first version of, of the first kind of like version of the new ver well, the first iteration there we go of the new version of Android and we had it really early on this year. So we're setting up, you know, this, this is the best of 2021. We picked out some Mo throughout the year and the way this is gonna play out is it's really gonna be kind of like sequential. So we're starting at the beginning of the year when we got our first look at some documents that really showed early on what Android 12 might look like. And I think what's interesting about it is that a lot of it was exactly right, but at this point we had no idea if it was certain or not. So that's gonna be the clip that you're gonna watch starting right now.

Jason Howell (00:03:47):
So the kind of evolution of Android, two dark mode took a few versions and then, you know, after dark mode was a thing people started kind of looking towards a theming option. Like why don't we have theming on Android? And we saw a little hint of that. I think on Android 11 they, they integrated some of those tools, but it's not like a full system wide theming. There's certain elements to it. Well, now we have some pretty big Android, 12 leak news. There was a doc document that was shared with major partners that I believe it's XDA developers got a hold of basically this document illustrates at least to some degree, some of the major design changes that are likely coming to Android 12 XDA did say it's authenticity cannot be completely confirmed, but they feel pretty strongly based on source and all that kind of stuff.

Jason Howell (00:04:44):
And you know, everybody looking at this, it kind of seems like everybody's feeling like this is, this is legit. So I, I will say before we jump into this, like, I'm excited because I feel like we talk, we the last two or three years, if not longer, we talk about these major revisions to Android and it's always, it's just become these little things that yes are meaningful and to the experience. But I, I feel like I've been kind of hoping for some like big sweeping change. And I don't know if this necessarily confirms that a big sweeping change is coming, but there's a lot in here and there's screenshots and everything. So if you're not watching on video, I, I apologize, look it up or, or, you know, check out the video to see, but what is in there I'll try and describe it for audio listeners, an updated notification panel UI, which is just, it, it, I mean, trying to describe it, it's, you know, it's, it's large, it's big, it's bubbly.

Jason Howell (00:05:38):
All the screenshots have this kind of like beige color stuff, which I don't know if that necessarily means like the new color of Android is beige. I think what it probably indicates is is if there is a full system wide themeing option, this is one example of it. Yeah. Right? Like you could theme it that way. You could theme it a, a number of different ways. This beige color theme just happens to be the one that, that is shown in these screenshots. So hopefully that's all configurable. Like I said, lots of big bubbly, rounded corners all over the place, some design you know, efficient autos, a online we're really taking Google to task in these screenshots because a lot of like the rounded corners don't match each other. Like some of them are broad. Some of them are really tight. So I don't know what's going on there. But definitely it's a, it's a design language. That's different also in the widgets, some of the widgets that you see on the left hand side of the screen that we're showing right now and, and the widget picker, it's just a different approach on what we're used to seeing in our Android UI right now. And I don't know. I, my, my eyes are liking it. I'm, I'm curious to know what you guys think.

Florence Ion (00:06:51):
I think, well,

Ron Richards (00:06:52):
I think after you flow,

Florence Ion (00:06:55):
Thanks, Ron. I think it's really, I was looking at the screenshots earlier today and just thinking about what, what I was thinking about when I first laid eyes on, was it B pop marshmallow, which was the huge design change when we officially got like the material design paradigm. And that was very much a design that was parallel to what we were seeing in just like the general vernacular. And I feel like now this is just an example to try and make a point when you go to target for instance, and like you walk into the big department stores and they have the displays at the very front. They're just like very perfectly color coded usually because it's like where the clothing accessory sec section is this UI. The, the examples of this UI that are on that XDA article, remind me very much of the latest, like blush craze, just like these very soft pastels at Hughes.

Florence Ion (00:07:59):
We've been seeing a lot of this in this Google product design. So it very much matches the kind of the kind of idea, the kind of way that Google would style you if this was a promo shot for, you know, the nest audio or something or other. So I feel like it matches how softer. Yes, it's just this new, like very soft Android. And it's a very different approach from the hard angles, the the layered material design that we're very used to, the thing that we sort of have known Android for all this time. And I think it actually makes it a little more approachable.

Ron Richards (00:08:40):
Yeah. It's, it's interesting because, you know, Jason, you mentioned that, you know, we we've been, you know, analyzing the recent Android versions and talking about the ITER of changes and just like, it hasn't been a sweeping kind of design paradigm shift. And I looked it up and like material design got added to Android in 2014. Yeah. Right. So it's been, I mean, closer to a decade of this than it hasn't been, but that said, if you look at Android, when material design got rolled out in, in, you know, the mid 20 Ts versus how it is now, it looks completely different. It evolved in in fact, I would say the design on Android has never looked better, has never been sharper, but it's, it's this weird sense of sameness that we felt because it's been so iterative and so gradual, and you know, like, you know, every time you, you, you know, a new version comes out and like, oh, this is a little rounder, oh, the font are unified here. This, you know, this interaction changed and all this sort of stuff. And it, you know, it recently did leave me wondering, okay, when are we gonna shake it up? And if this is gonna shake it up, I, I think it, I think the time is right. I think it's been it's, it's it's, I dunno if it's long overdue, but it's like exciting to have a different approach than an editor of approach that we, that we've had. So it's long over I think's exciting. Yeah.

Florence Ion (00:09:57):
Yeah. It's long overdue. I wanna just, I guess, put a theory out there that I sort of have, which is that I don't know, Android has just always felt very to, to put it plainly nerd centric. You I've been playing with some of these older phones lately that are on like Android four, Android five, because I've been using, playing with some like older, older hardware. So these are things that haven't been updated in years and just that interface, it was a very hard sell back then because it didn't really, it wasn't really approachable for everybody. So I really like this new soft approach. I don't know. I just, I, I wanna dive deeper into it because this is not just an Android thing. The first, the other thought I had when I first saw these screenshots is that, oh my God, that looks very like Apple-like, mm-hmm <affirmative> and just the screenshots I've seen with the way people have customized their new iOS home screens now that they can, you know, go a little further with that. It reminds me very much of that approach. And I, I do like it, it does get me excited and it does make me wanna see what that's gonna look like on a pixel.

Jason Howell (00:11:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's one of the questions that I have is, are we looking, are we looking at Android? Let's say like vanilla <laugh> as a term we haven't used in a while. Like, are we looking at vanilla Android or are we looking at the pixel launcher? I'm not really quite sure. You know what I mean? And I suppose we'll, we'll find out cuz I could totally see the pixel launcher being, you know, I guess where I out on this is, I'm excited for it. But the question that I have is if if we like it and this was a look at a new color OS or oxygen OS UI versus a stock Android UI, would we like it then? You know what I mean?

Ron Richards (00:11:56):
<Laugh> interesting. I don't. Yeah. Like, so, so when it's, when it's not the stock Android, I, I, I, I'm totally guilty of this as well. And I know exactly what you're getting at. It's like, give me stock Android, and then any variations on this, I'm always like, eh, it's not the, it's not what it's meant to be. It it's supposed to be, and it's a little too Samsung UI for me or whatever it might be. Oh too. That's a very good point. But like, but the thing is, is that the Android stock UI is what out is what the baseline is. And then, and, and what happens on top of that then to your, to your point just gets completely come impaired or gets, you know, analyzed in comparison to that stock as that baseline. So like, you know, to, you know, flow to your point, this blush kind of, I know someone in the chat room called the feminine, you know, kind of style to it. You know, that was the baseline. That, that's a very good question because honestly, while I like the idea of seeing something different and a new D design paradigm, I hope this is a theme because honestly that color palette doesn't really resonate with me, you know, it's, you're not gonna yeah,

Florence Ion (00:13:03):
Yeah, yeah. Google is bold colors. And I think just they're introducing that as sort of, I think that that's what we're gonna see. Let's just say this is for real, for real, that is something that we would see on the advertising because that is how the current crop devices are being stylized mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. Which of course appeals to me cuz I'm I'm a suburban mom. <Laugh>

Ron Richards (00:13:27):
So I'm glad you're embracing it. <Laugh> I

Florence Ion (00:13:31):
Come on, have you guys not noticed all the collared shirts I've been wearing in the last couple weeks? Like slowly, my wardrobe is turning into like a, a woman's E zone. So <laugh>,

Jason Howell (00:13:42):
You know, thing, I noticed another thing, not about your clothes or anything about this <laugh> is this would be Android 12, Android 12 is S if you really wanna continue going down to the right. The, the, the treats and stuff. This is a very soft look. So maybe this is Android soft serve or Android soft drink or

Ron Richards (00:14:07):
Something. Well, soft. I wouldn it wouldn't be a soft serve is better, cuz that could be carve and I'm game for carve at any time soft drink. Isn't really a dessert though. Do Jason. So what

Jason Howell (00:14:18):
It's not a dessert, but could, is a sweet treat. Could it

Ron Richards (00:14:21):
Be, is it a okay maybe? Yeah, it is. It's like

Jason Howell (00:14:24):
The sweetest of treats. It's like literally sugar water. <Laugh> what

Florence Ion (00:14:28):
If it's a Mr. Softy? So

Ron Richards (00:14:31):
I'm actually, and this I, this is there. This is a divisive topic flow stepping into because Mr. Softy is beloved by yes. Many

Florence Ion (00:14:41):
I've only added in the east coast,

Ron Richards (00:14:43):
But I, yeah. And, and, and the classic Mr. Softy truck in Manhattan is, is a well known kind of thing. Yes. but I am firmly on the side of carve. Carve is, there is no greater delight in the world than a carve soft serve, hot fudge Sunday. Oh, it's wonderful.

Jason Howell (00:15:00):
So <laugh> all right. Now I'm hungry for dessert.

Florence Ion (00:15:04):
So this one is perfectly in tune today's theme of autos. This, someone comes in from Kyle, from Tampa, Florida. Kyle writes, I was listening to last week's show in my car and was enjoying the conversation everyone was having about Android auto. And in car audio, I just took this picture and wanted to say that even though I mainly listened to the audio version of the podcast, that is not how I pictured Jason, how and Florence I looking <laugh>. And do you have an attached picture of what Kyle is referring to picture now for the, for the audio listeners? I'm gonna describe to you there is a picture of, I don't know who these people are, but they see, I don't either from a hair band of the eighties. And I have to say that I actually kind of do have hair that looks like the male, more like that person in or <laugh> yeah. Guy on the right. You got the bang. The hairstyles are very, I mean, this is what I asked from my stylist. I said, make me look like an eighties dad. So,

Ron Richards (00:16:06):
Well, I was gonna say so, I mean, I know, I know your bay area tried and true, but you don't have to get your hair cut. Like Steve Perry. <Laugh>

Florence Ion (00:16:14):
<Laugh> I mean, look, I haven't been left the house in a

Jason Howell (00:16:18):
While, so not a hard and fast rule. Yes. Now I think what's interesting about this is Kyle. You are not the only person to send this email.

Florence Ion (00:16:27):
Yeah. You're this is

Jason Howell (00:16:27):
A common, this is, this is a recurring thing. And, and this email just happened to come in, you know, the last couple of days. So I saw it today when I was like collecting emails for the show and realized Sam, you were gonna be on the show, which I mean, as cl is as close as we've ever been to having someone who might have some earthly idea as to why this happens, because it's not embedded into the ID three information, this is happening in car infotainment systems mm-hmm <affirmative> and the same image comes up for a lot of people we've been hearing about this for years,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:17:00):
People have been getting this particular image, describe this what's that people have been getting this particular image for this particular image

Florence Ion (00:17:07):
Is not the first time we've seen this for years. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:17:10):
These two people based on what I, based on, what I can see here is this actually looks like a Toyota screen. That's what I was gonna ask

Florence Ion (00:17:17):
You next, what the UI was.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:17:19):
Yeah. I'm pretty sure this is a Toyota, the Toyota's Antune system, which is always a bit flaky anyway. So my guess is it, it's probably picking this out of some cash that it's got somewhere

Florence Ion (00:17:35):
We need to go to Toyota HQ

Sam Abuelsamid (00:17:37):
<Laugh> yeah. That's, that's a weird, that's a weird one. It is weird. I've I've had cars, you know, pull up odd album Mart for podcasts you know, on their built

Jason Howell (00:17:49):
In systems from time to time. But yeah, this is, this is definitely a strange

Florence Ion (00:17:56):
One. We've been getting this for years. This is an annual thing that somebody either tweets or emails us about. So if this is truly a Toyota thing, then I would like to propose that we go to Japan and you know, once the world is safe, again, get some sushi. We go to Toyota HQ and we knock on the door and we ask them to let us in. And we tell them, this is an issue.

Jason Howell (00:18:22):
Let us in works for me. I'm I'm in, I'm up for a trip to Japan. This is an issue. <Laugh> someone in Chad said too bad. You can't do a reverse image search. And I'm like, wait a minute. Why can't we? Well, yeah, you can take

Florence Ion (00:18:35):
A screenshot, go into Google, take a screenshot of those.

Jason Howell (00:18:38):
There drop. Wanna who those people are. Just the album art. Let's see here. Will I be able to, I wanna know who this

Florence Ion (00:18:46):
Is. I wanna know who I am in this, this world that exist. I bet you, this is just like some Toyota, you know alternate universe that exists. Oh

Jason Howell (00:18:57):
My gosh. I figured find out who is it? Who it is? Oh, I love this. This is so great. Okay. So I just PA pasted and it's a giddy images. LA image of all about Eve. Wow. All about E there is United Kingdom, January 1st photo of all about Eve, which is who is Julianne Reagan. Oh,

Florence Ion (00:19:20):
19 80, 19 80. Is the, is the image

Jason Howell (00:19:24):
1980. Oh yeah. Date

Florence Ion (00:19:26):
Created January 1st, 1980. Okay.

Jason Howell (00:19:28):
So I wonder if that's accurate. Cause you know what I mean? Like that, that seems like a date that could have just been like a, a default or something, but maybe so. Yeah. Cause this is a, this is a high res looking image. There they are. So there we are flow <laugh> wow.

Florence Ion (00:19:45):
That's us. I'm just like, I'm like furiously Googling this, this English. Yeah. This wouldn't have been 1980 because their fir their highest charting single was 1988.

Jason Howell (00:19:56):
Whoa, Burke, you, you just super superimposed her picture on flow. And there, there was some <laugh> there was,

Florence Ion (00:20:04):
This is getting weird. Guys is getting a little why I'm in this alternate universe and I don't have access to her. So this is really, this is, this is a lot for me right now. This is,

Jason Howell (00:20:14):
This is a lot, but I, but you know what? We've gotten one, a couple of steps closer to figuring this out. <Laugh> we at least now know who they are. We still have no idea why they keep appearing on all about

Florence Ion (00:20:28):
Androids. Do we invite them on the show?

Jason Howell (00:20:32):
Ooh. That's that's like next level right there. Now you get, I mean, if you could find them, I doubt they look like this today. I'll just say

Florence Ion (00:20:40):
England. Maybe we could have, maybe we could have Mateo, take a train and go like, go find these people and be like,

Jason Howell (00:20:48):
That would be amazing if we got that on the machine, you

Sam Abuelsamid (00:20:50):
Know what, you know what it probably is. <Laugh> a lot of, a lot of cars have you know, they don't do it so much anymore, but they, they did. They used to have a built-in CDDB database in the car, ah, a gray note database with, you know, all the song titles and album art. And so, you know, when you play an MP3 file you know, from a USB stick or, you know, or just phone or whatever, it would query that built in CDB that grace note database and, you know, pull up the, the metadata. And it, it was probably looking for that, you know, cuz this is, he's obviously streaming this, you know, from his phone just streaming the audio file. And so it's looking in that grace note database, it's not finding all about Android. It's finding the next closest thing that it could find, which was all about it's all about Eve and just grabbing that photo.

Florence Ion (00:21:46):
And I love, okay, this is great. We're we're finally getting this question answered after it's know, six years now, we're getting this, this reader email working for

Jason Howell (00:21:55):
Me. Come, come on today.

Florence Ion (00:21:57):
The first real explanation we might have for this, which thank you, Sam you've delivered us. You're from some really intense, evil,

Jason Howell (00:22:06):
All all about Eve was an, an English rock band.

Florence Ion (00:22:11):
Yes. And the bass player who was named Julianne, she was a former journalist.

Jason Howell (00:22:16):
Oh, okay. The band was active from 84 to 93, then 99 to 2004, achieving four UK, top 50 albums recognized for their unique folk rock influence. Take on the Gothic rock style, man. This is one of the more epic rabbit holes that we've gone down. <Laugh> I know <laugh> I love this. I love this. Oh man. Okay. Best done. Here it comes. Wow. Yeah,

Florence Ion (00:22:46):
I just, I, I have clarity. It's good. We probably, we should probably get to the <laugh>.

Jason Howell (00:22:53):
All right. Let's get to the, yeah. The there you go. The email week <laugh> I mean, that, that, that could have also been in the email of the week. We just didn't know that should've

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:03):
Been email the week, to be honest with you after all that.

Jason Howell (00:23:05):
Yeah. We didn't know Kyle. So you were an honorary email of the week. There you go. Thank you, Burke for keeping up. All right. Burke, do you have that breaking news bumper? Cause I think, I think it's time for some breaking news. Oh, I happen to have that ready? Go ahead and flip that switch. Oh yeah. At the end, the, yeah. End of the show, right? We're doing our outros in that signoff block, I went ahead and put a little tweet in there. Wade county in the chat room, posted a Twitter link to Julianne Riggin, who is the one of two band members of all about <laugh>. And the tweet itself is very, you know, very underwhelming it's says rare lockdown pleasures at Simon underscore Reve with a thumbs up. But if you really zoom in on the bottom, at least in my browser, you see that it was tweeted from Twitter for Android.

Ron Richards (00:24:03):
Oh,

Florence Ion (00:24:06):
Excellent. You gotta get her on the

Jason Howell (00:24:07):
Show. So there's an Android user, an Android

Ron Richards (00:24:11):
User. I see it. Yeah. I dunno why it doesn't show up on, on whatever be shown for a video. But I see it as the date and the times it Twitter for Android. I wonder if she's posted any photos. Could we look at the EXIF information to see what phone she's using?

Florence Ion (00:24:28):
She does have a YouTube, I mean a Facebook.

Jason Howell (00:24:31):
This is amazing

Florence Ion (00:24:35):
Person that just like stalking it live.

Jason Howell (00:24:40):
I'm gonna go ahead and follow her. And I realize that start a log. She's not followed by anyone that I'm following yet. So she's off the radar. I don't wanna freak her out either, but this might actually happen. Y'all <laugh> this would be amazing

Florence Ion (00:24:57):
This, yeah, this would be some huge fan service and I'm here for it.

Jason Howell (00:25:01):
Totally here for it. Anyways. Thank you everybody in for doing your investigative work. That is amazing. <Laugh> amazing. All right. Before we check out any more clips from the year, we wanna thank the sponsor of this episode of all, about Android and that is imperfect foods, new sponsor on the network and a delicious dare. I say sponsor on the network every day, a delicious food, you know, delicious groceries. They're falling through the cracks of our food system because of how they look right. Imperfect foods is turning this around. It's sourcing quirky yet delicious foods, and then delivering them to you in a way that's proven to reduce emission. Isn't that cool? What if getting your favorite groceries put time back into your week instead of taking it away? Well, with the weather getting colder outside, that's why I'm wearing a sweater today.

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Ron Richards (00:29:03):
Frequently. It's one of those omnipresent apps. I feel like every year as we like look at our best apps and apps, we might use, it always comes up in like our most used lists and things like that. But I gotta say this is the first time in a very, very long time that Google photos was not talked about in positive light.

Jason Howell (00:29:20):
<Laugh> well, we were just a little shocked. I'd say so let's this?

Ron Richards (00:29:25):
Yeah. Sometimes reality hits you in the face and Google photos did that to us this year. So let, let let's, let's revisit. Let's revisit that moment. Google photos pocalypse is happening. Yes. June 1st, today, Google photos free storage is over. So that ship has sailed. Bye bye. Who rolled out the Google photos? Was it Oscar, was it Oscar low or was it the other guy who was the guy who was really excited about Google photos? What was that guy's name? Remember? It was right, right around the time of Google plus.

Jason Howell (00:29:55):
Yeah, no, this was was that, was it Vic and Dora maybe. Huh? It might remember. I honestly, I can't remember. I'm trying to, to flex my my Google through right now, but your knowledge. Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:30:08):
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so let's, maybe you find that while I'm talking about this, but yeah, I think it was Vic DTRA. I think it was Vic DTRA cuz right, right around the time of Google plus and Google photos and it was great and it all worked together other and all that sort of stuff. And a big part of it was that it was free. And as part of it being free, you got, you got free high quality uploads. So you're able to upload stuff at full res and store it there. That's over. So no more free, high quality uploads for most users, uploads begin to count against your Google account storage. So those of you who, if you look at the bottom left of your Gmail and you see how much percentage storage you've taken up on Google photos will count towards that.

Ron Richards (00:30:49):
And photos uploaded to your library prior to today to today, do not count against that quota only for new images going forward. So there's not like retroactive billing or anything like that. It's just like, this is the brave new world. You've got a store quota for Google that is Gmail. Gdrive Google photos. It's all under one roof. And if you need to expand that storage, guess what you can pay like everybody else does. Yep. So so does this, does this change how much we love Google photos for you, either of you cause Google photos, one of those like right, is that's one of those like gems of,

Jason Howell (00:31:27):
I, I consider it definitely one of the premium premier Google services. I mean, it's definitely one of the ones that I've used the most and valued the most, which is why I, I, as I've like, so, so basically right now I'm working on a HandsOn tech app episode. That's gonna go, that's gonna publish tomorrow where I take the Sonology DS nine, 20 plus network attach attached storage, bless you. And I figure out how to basically replicate the functionality of Google photos on my own network attached storage. And, and it's not, it's not impossible. I, I, I, I don't even want to say that it's like difficult cuz out outright, it's really not difficult. It's very time consuming and it's not a one-to-one replica of what we've come to experience with Google photos. But then I realize at the end of that, like, okay, so I go through all the heavy lifting of, of trying to, you know, do this. Gosh, maybe it just makes sense to continue paying for Google photos cuz if I've loved it as much as I have, which I do, then it does like, why not? Why not pay for a service? That's actually pretty, amazing's the point, you know, and that's the

Florence Ion (00:32:39):
Point and that's the point. Everything is about services now. And I, you know, a lot of, a lot of these companies make the most money off of services. So offering you all this cloud, which it already has all this indexed cloud, which you're just feeding the machine so that you can have a better search engine for your photos. And so for us, the transaction is like, perfect. And that's why we keep paying for this. Even me, like I went to look in my Google one account the other day, I got away with paying for a hundred gigs this far, like this long since I started paying for it. What in 2010 <affirmative> and now I'm almost to that capacity because I was using that one plus eight for what like eight, nine months. And just the photos accumulated from that set me over the limit in my photos. Oh yeah. So it's real. I know that we're saying that this is only going to affect soul users, this you know, the subs, new subscription model, whatever that Google photos is adopting, but the writing was kind of on the wall and the pixel is such a small percentage of the phones that people use. Most Android users are using Samsung devices. Let's let's look at the numbers. That's absolutely. That's yeah.

Jason Howell (00:34:00):
So yeah. Yeah, so by the way, I was looking into it, trying to figure out Vic Dora left Google plus, and he was replaced by Bradley Horowitz who took over photos and streams, which was stripped out from Google plus does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, so I, I think it was Bradley Horowitz who may have announced that I was trying to find like an, an actual announcement by him, but he was the one that took it over when all that switch happened. Yeah. So just a little tidbit there. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, I've been paying for the Google one subscription, the 200 gig plan, which is only 2 99 a month. It's like, that's not, yeah. I'm paying, I'm paying for, I'm paying for that too. Yeah. You know the

Florence Ion (00:34:46):
One I'm paying more for the play pass.

Jason Howell (00:34:48):
Yeah. Right. <Laugh> that's true. Well, that's an interesting comparison. Yeah. Which one do you feel like you get more value out of then?

Florence Ion (00:34:58):
I just feel like they're both. Oh my God. Like I, you know, go in your QuickBooks and do a search for how many times Google charges you in a year. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> they are making a lot of money off of me.

Jason Howell (00:35:12):
<Laugh> they're making a lot of money off of you. Yeah. Between Google one

Florence Ion (00:35:15):
Worth it now. Yeah. Now that I have Mona a granted she's only like 16 months, but now that she, you know, I'm starting to kind of put together little phone devices for her to have in the car with like little apps. Yeah. I find more use out of the play pass because there's so many kids, so much kids content on

Jason Howell (00:35:33):
There and you don't have to buy each and yeah. Each

Florence Ion (00:35:36):
And everywhere. Just, yeah. I just paid $5 a month and totally

Jason Howell (00:35:39):
It unlocks all of it. Yeah. Soba subscription life, hashtag subscription life sub

Ron Richards (00:35:47):
Life. Yeah. That's what it is. I mean, this is the new, I, I I've said it on the show before, but I remember when I, in like 2007 when I was moving to San Francisco and I was hanging out with my dad and we were about web two oh. And stuff like that. And my dad's like, you know, we are all going to die a death of a thousand micropayments mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Like he called it, he was he was Freshy in, in, in that and that's the way everything was going. And that's what happens now. You just get charged a little here, a little there. And that's why things like true bill and like Google pay and stuff like that, that are, was it true bill or whatever, the services that like analyze your bank account to tell you what your cause you might not even know what you're paying for.

Ron Richards (00:36:24):
Cause it's so easy to be like 3 99, 2 99, 6 99. It adds up. So make it a habit every couple, you know, do it like labor day weekend or this past Memorial day weekend. I know. Take some time out to look at your bank account statement and make sure the things you're paying for. I actually want, yeah. I think Google, I think Google photos. Absolutely. And Google storage absolutely falls underneath that catchall. Yeah. The, the, the, having this, having this data, mine of stuff available anywhere that I can share me and my wife have the, and my sister have photo sharing setup. So we take pictures of the kids and anybody else, and it's all in there. It's all in the mix. I can easily highlight photos and make a book out of it. Like it, it, it's a great service. And, and I don't, again, it's like we say, support your devs. That also means Google. Yeah. But also means, you know, people who are doing stuff. And it's a, if it's a valuable tool that you are using, if it's a valuable service pay for it, that's how it goes. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

Jason Howell (00:37:14):
Yeah. This, this whole NAS project has been pretty illuminated for me, because I was like, really, I was just kind of curious, like what would go into it and like, yeah. You know, what, what is the process like? And is it a good, like, would it be a good replacement? And I'm not certain that I've like decided, or you're just gonna have to watch it when it's done. In order to find the, the final result of that. But it really feels like the more I scrutinize the, the switch to using a NAS over Google photos, it's kind of the value proposition. It's, it's like, it's not about value. It's maybe more about just like owning, owning the, the, the mechanisms behind where you, you store those photos. Right. But when you're talking about value, like with Google photos, like, like you said, accessible everywhere, are the AI you know, magic that's happening behind the scenes is topnotch. It's, it's also a cloud destination. So it's, it's not a backup in its own. Right. But I'm, I'm actually considering having them NAS and still keeping and paying for Google photos, because then I do have a backup situation. Well,

Ron Richards (00:38:26):
Did NAS becomes the backup and like, and, and the thing about it is, is that this is very similar to the conversation Jason, we had about music mm-hmm

Jason Howell (00:38:32):
<Affirmative> oh, totally. Yes, absolutely.

Ron Richards (00:38:34):
You know, with the, with the death of Google play music and the emergence of YouTube music and reevaluating this and decided like, and what's funny is that here in that our conversation, I, and I will everyone in the chat room or on discord or whatever is probably screaming right now, but I will be the first to admit that in the music situation go local store, my own music, have an, have an app that I can access it with. That's the,

Jason Howell (00:38:55):
But for photos, Google photos is the choice and you don't need to be one or the other at all times for every sort of thing. But like the, the, the magic that YouTube music or Spotify or anything else gave me for my music, I felt as if was not worth the price. Whereas the magic that Google photos gives me is worth that price. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. That makes sense. So, yeah. Up, yeah. I don't even know that I mentioned on the show that I'm back on YouTube music. I, I had switched to Spotify to try to, to make the move there. And I think that maybe we talked a little bit about the Google homes just causing so much issues with my Spotify account and the different yeah. Members of our family. And ultimately at the end, that was its, that was its undoing for us. Like the, it just happened time and time again, I couldn't figure it out. And finally, my wife was just like, this isn't working. I'm like, you're right. It's not working like at least with the YouTube music, family account, like we knew that we could all play. But yeah, anyways, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but

Ron Richards (00:39:52):
I like the, the honesty between and your wife, when something isn't working, it reminds me of me and my wife are struggling with sleep training, our kids or whatever. We were trying something else. And she might have been in the room with the kid or I was, or whatever, but I just texted her, this isn't working, she just came out and she's like the relationship or what we're doing to get the no, no,

Jason Howell (00:40:14):
Explain yourself what exactly is not

Ron Richards (00:40:17):
Working. They were just randomly text your partner. This isn't working. Yeah. Yeah. That, that sets up loss of alarm bells.

Jason Howell (00:40:22):
Yes. Recipe for disaster there. So anyways. Yeah. So it sounds like we all, we all kind of agree as far as this is concerned, like even, even with the knee jerk reaction, when we first heard this news, I'm sure that I was a little fearful of like a, oh, wait a minute, they're pulling the rug out. I'm seeing some folks in chat and discord, cousin Jai even said, you never get as much functionality as AI mega Don Google, but you will never have to worry about being held hostage. And that's another part of it too, is people feel like it's the rug being pulled out from under them. And they're being pushed into a position that's they didn't think they were gonna end up in when Google was promising free, unlimited. Now the rules have changed. And that really at the end of the day, it's their service. It's their servers. They can make that choice. That's where moving this, this media into your own hands becomes more valuable than, you know, the other stuff. So I, everybody that

Florence Ion (00:41:18):
Offer here at all about Android

Jason Howell (00:41:21):
<Laugh> is storing your photos for you.

Florence Ion (00:41:24):
Well, you know, telling

Jason Howell (00:41:25):
You about all this stuff, telling you, okay. Informing you about yeah. Your options informing you. I was like, are we starting our own photo service? <Laugh> maybe that was the time.

Florence Ion (00:41:37):
Yeah. I now I'm kinda looking into climate impacts of that.

Jason Howell (00:41:42):
Yeah, totally. Maybe not.

Ron Richards (00:41:46):
Jason, you mentioned the Android faithful and I just wanna, there was a great Twitter conversation about all the potential merch that could happen related to the Android show. Yeah, that's true. And I feel like the Android faithful t-shirt was the one that's been staring us in the face for years that we just never really realized. So

Florence Ion (00:42:04):
Part of the tagline.

Jason Howell (00:42:05):
Yeah. Yeah. How did we miss that one? That's like the tagline, since the

Florence Ion (00:42:09):
It's in the tagline, it just sort of

Jason Howell (00:42:13):
Everybody, but, and didn't tell me, cuz my

Ron Richards (00:42:15):
Boat would've been for tiny

Jason Howell (00:42:16):
Hands. Tiny hands. Yeah. That's so niche, you know what? Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna sell like five of those shirts. Burke <laugh> maybe I am the world

Florence Ion (00:42:29):
Business person. Not for like closet, you know, small fans. Okay. Okay. But thank you point for being so die. Hard point take.

Jason Howell (00:42:37):
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean, thank

Florence Ion (00:42:42):
You. I, I just realized how ungrateful that sounded and I'm really sorry. I didn't, I didn't mean to make that sound.

Jason Howell (00:42:47):
No, it was right on

Florence Ion (00:42:48):
Actually, but I just wanna remind us that we're here to make money primarily. That's

Jason Howell (00:42:54):
Wow. We are failing. If I, I put a link to the chat room or sorry to the Twitter post that I put up there next to our names in the doc Burke. And if you pull that up, you'll see, we've got a few ideas friend of the show, which we've talked about before, support your desks. Holy cow, which I don't know, Ron, if you appreciated my, my animated G handy work, I did pull cow, but I created an animated G for you. And I, I really hoped that the internet would take that animated Giff and, and make it mainstream. Hasn't happened yet, but maybe it will was done someday.

Ron Richards (00:43:36):
Yep.

Florence Ion (00:43:37):
Ron, somebody makes that makes you as that person into a video game character.

Jason Howell (00:43:44):
Oh, Hey, that's happened. Wait,

Florence Ion (00:43:48):
Really?

Jason Howell (00:43:48):
That's part of the, yes. That's part of the annals of all about Android is we've had a video game made after us. We gosh. And of course it's in the other dock, so I can't find it on at the drop of a hat.

Florence Ion (00:44:00):
It's in one of the old docks,

Jason Howell (00:44:03):
All about Android game. I'm gonna have a hard time finding

Ron Richards (00:44:08):
This on the searching Android game is, is really not good data type in a Google

Jason Howell (00:44:13):
It's okay. This is, this is a fool's errand it's to is not gonna happen. But yes, this was when was this? Ron? It was probably like 2013 that fan of the show created an endless runner based on the show and it's, and it had Ron as a playable character. It had me, it had Gina. I can't remember if Eileen was in there. This was pre flow, otherwise flow. I'm sure you would be in there. I'm pretty certain it was pre flow. You'd probably know if it of it. If, if it wasn't, I'm sure somebody, somebody watching on the chat or discord will find it for us and tell, tell us in the middle of the show and we'll revisit it, but I have no memory of that whatsoever. So I do you have, wait a minute, you have no memory of this. Are you serious?

Jason Howell (00:44:55):
None. Zero. Listen, Jason, I don't know. I know you said it at the top of the show, but I dunno if you realize we've done 529 of these things now, I, I can't remember them all now. I have to find it just to prove that I'm not going crazy. It it's, it's the truth. It's a thing. All right, well, okay. Okay. I will, I will make it my mission to find it. <Laugh> find at least a link to prove it just so that y'all know I'm not going nuts. And we will, we will circle back around to this. I'll do it in my off time, which is basically never while we're doing a show, but we'll see what we can do. Burke, can you queue up some breaking news? Cause I think it's about time. We, we bust some breaking news in this piece. Let's do it. Let's break some news. Yeah.

Florence Ion (00:45:47):
Oh, what happened? What happened

Jason Howell (00:45:49):
Credit where credit is due use the the person we so lovingly refer to as user 28, 56 in the chat room. Give yourself a nickname then we can refer to you. Sir. Or ma'am <laugh> posted a link to an Amazon page because apparently this app, yes. Developer, Matthew hols him. There we go. That's his name? Matthew hols. Him very long. Created all about Android, the, the game. And I put a link that was shared in chat into the dock. You can see at Burke at the top there next to our names and the screenshots. And I wish there was gameplay footage, but yes, we were. We were had no memory of this whatsoever. Are you serious? I guess it's, it's been a lot of episodes. I, I understand. I might not, not have been on the episode that we talked about it. Like I don't watch watch. We talked about it multiple times. We talked about it multiple times because there were updates and you could get Google glass. I remember

Florence Ion (00:46:48):
Briefly you guys brought it on after I was hired on and I remember were feeling like, oh man, I wish I was in a game, but

Jason Howell (00:46:58):
You know <laugh>. Oh, so now I'm like play that store. Yeah. anyways, so there it exists. Thank you, user 28, 56. Appreciate your backup there. Matthew Holtham is the director or the the developer. Thank you for creating a game and allowing us to say, Hey we have a game that's named after us. It's pretty awesome stuff. Cool. And Matthew, by the way, if you still listen to the show and are still developing, you could always update it and add flow in there. And then her wish would be

Florence Ion (00:47:37):
Great. No, I, I just peeped his Twitter. He looks like he's been busy. You don't oh, I'm he's moved on. Well, he hasn't tweeted since 2019, so I'm assuming there's a lot going on in, in his life, by the way,

Ron Richards (00:47:49):
By the way, he released a trailer and a whole bunch of gameplay videos. <Laugh> it's Matthew Holsman Matthew Holm in 2013. Really had a lot of time on his hands.

Jason Howell (00:48:03):
He was a fan. I put

Ron Richards (00:48:05):
Burke, I put in the

Florence Ion (00:48:06):
Slack, he was probably working on a SA like working on some game dev suite and was learning the app. And this is what he used to learn the app.

Jason Howell (00:48:16):
So well, check it out. Okay. So check it out. Episode 1 34 is when we were first given the insight on this, it was me, Ron and Gina guest was Cameron Samon someon. There it is. There it is. This was November 5th, 2013. When he sent this in, initially you could choose your host. That's

Ron Richards (00:48:38):
Amazing, Ron. That's clearly

Jason Howell (00:48:40):
Your hair.

Ron Richards (00:48:43):
This is great, Matthew. I mean, I mean, you know what eight years later this holds up my friend and you're shooting all different versions of Android, like there's donut and cupcakes. Yep. And right.

Jason Howell (00:48:54):
Oh geez. Yep. With Google glass. It's like your laser and then you've got bosses. Who is the boss? What is the boss? I didn't see it. I cow. Oh <laugh> oh, isn't it great. I did cow. I did that. Oh, okay. Okay.

Ron Richards (00:49:11):
Project

Jason Howell (00:49:12):
Lu,

Florence Ion (00:49:13):
Which has been killed.

Jason Howell (00:49:16):
Yeah. I mean, this game is full of like like killed by Google custom skin.

Florence Ion (00:49:24):
Oh, it's not in the Google play store yet

Jason Howell (00:49:27):
At that point anymore. He was, he was still working on it. He said I've recently been working on a little to game that pay homage to this awesome podcast, 2d, endless runner. But what makes it awesome is that it features the host of all about Android and has awesome Android themed, powerups. Here's a video keep in mind, it's a work in progress. And then he, he sent it to us, you know, and, and we talked about it when it was officially released. And then he mentioned there was an update. And then I think it just kind of, it went dark, but there's more, oh, there you go. There is, there

Florence Ion (00:49:55):
Is

Jason Howell (00:49:58):
What is this?

Ron Richards (00:50:00):
This is the alpha gameplay video.

Jason Howell (00:50:03):
Oh, okay.

Ron Richards (00:50:04):
This is before the trailer Burke. This is older.

Jason Howell (00:50:06):
Ah, this is like a little teaser. Yeah. <laugh> yes. There you go. Oh, that's so great.

Ron Richards (00:50:17):
Fun. Those of you listening to the show, we're looking at the videos of the game. We apologize.

Jason Howell (00:50:23):
We're we're kinda, yeah. Remembering. Yeah. We're

Florence Ion (00:50:25):
We're just, yeah, we're just, I mean, listen, I've never made a game. All right. I made websites back in the day. I've written a lot of stuff, but I've never made a game. So to me, it's amazing anybody who has the patience to do that. So thank you totally.

Jason Howell (00:50:41):
Totally. All right. Cool. Thanks to everyone in chat. Kaja, you know, posted to the the Wiki link and everything. Everybody you, you followed through. We knew when we put it out there, you would, you would come up with something and you did so thank you for that. Sorry. For those of you who got totally bored over the last five minutes, but Hey, sometimes it's fun for us to revisit our history and you're along for the rides. Please

Florence Ion (00:51:04):
Turn us back on. Thank you. <Laugh>

.. (00:51:08):
Thanks for listening to TWiT podcast. Do you want to reach our tech savvy audience with customized host red ads that stand out as an ad supported network? We are always looking for new partners, get an authentic introduction of your products and services to our qualified audience. Our ads are original specialized and all Twitch shows and include video, which means we can show off products, websites, and customized videos visit twi.tv/advertise and launch your campaign today. That's twi.tv/advertise.

Jason Howell (00:51:41):
So something that happened well, it really began last year, but really CA kind of matured throughout this year and, and kind of became the, the fourth host or whatever you wanna call it is the email of the week.

Ron Richards (00:51:58):
And I gotta say, I am addicted to that. Dang noise so much. It, I, I think there's nothing more I look forward to than trying to say email of the week enough to make Burke or Victor whomever's running the controls have to press that button. There's nothing better than the yeah. And the only thing better than the, than the email of the week on a single week was that time that we went a little crazy,

Jason Howell (00:52:28):
We went a little bit. You're absolutely right. And it just worked so well. It's the kind of thing you could only do once one episode ever, but we did it and that's happening right now. Let's do it. Let's read some emails AAA twit TV 3, 4, 7, show AA. If you wanna leave us a voicemail flow, you got the first one.

Florence Ion (00:52:48):
We I've got the, all right. This one comes in from Rebecca. And I think it's really a quite nice sort of father's days-ish post father's day email this past weekend, I was spending the day with my father. He is the one who introduced me to AA, and I think he's happy that he is someone he can talk Android and tech with. My dad is the kind of man to buy things just because this beginning asked me if I wanted a random tablet that he has laying around because he already has two others. And apparently a third on the way, why does he need three tablets? Your guess is as good as mine. I say. Sure. And bring it home. Not thinking of anything. Then I get a Walmart notification. Did I somehow transfer the Walmart app onto this tablet? And that's when I realized I was holding in my hand, the infamous on Walmart tablet that I listened to. You all talk about on the show. I never thought I'd see one in person, but here we are so far, the tablet runs pretty smoothly, but I'm mostly using it to stream and play mindless games on. Just had to share. Thanks Rebecca, for writing in, I have a feeling we're gonna be hearing more about these on no, no, no devices, because Walmart is not stopping making them. So I,

Ron Richards (00:54:01):
I feel like this email should have been the email of the week.

Jason Howell (00:54:04):
Yeah. I, you know, I, I just put that in slack. Yeah. It's really nice. I actually meant for this email to be the email of the weekend. Let's

Ron Richards (00:54:11):
Joke. Let's wait. Okay. So this is what we're gonna do. Let's we're gonna, we're gonna retroactively give this beca I hope you're ready, Rebecca. Congratulations. You are the email of the week.

Jason Howell (00:54:20):
So right. Some weeks we just like to start with the email of the week. That's why we did that. We did that totally on purpose.

Ron Richards (00:54:27):
And so, and, and also, so no one in the other emails for the rest of the show, get too nervous. Jason, we're just gonna randomly mix up the next couple of emails. So we'll mix up the whole thing. So you don't know what it might be and I think you should go next,

Jason Howell (00:54:41):
So. Okay. All right. You know what? I have an idea. What we're gonna do check this out.

Ron Richards (00:54:46):
Oh, I like it. I know. I know what you're doing. I know what

Jason Howell (00:54:48):
You're the sound. All right. Up next, it's an email from Howard Howard. You are our email of the week.

Ron Richards (00:54:57):
<Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:54:57):
I love it. I love it. Well, right, Howard. Congratulations. It's it is truly an honor that you have been awarded the email of the week. We just hand these out. You are very selective.

Ron Richards (00:55:10):
You really have to make the cut. I just want everybody to know Rebecca, how Howard, you, you were both sitting in rarefied air. You were co email the week winners. This is, this is so exciting. So let's hear what Howard

Jason Howell (00:55:22):
Has to say, Jason. All right. All right. The one, and only's see on the dock, by

Florence Ion (00:55:25):
The way, Howard dusty you me all the week. So this is real. This

Jason Howell (00:55:28):
Is legit. This, this is real it's it's in there now. Says I am currently using a four, a 5g. One of the things that I missed from my two XL is the hardware activation of assistant the squeeze feature with beta two. I can now double tap or use the power button to access assistant. I like this is when I say, Hey, G one of my, my other devices is intended to answer. And if I want the phone to reply, this is easier than the diagonal swipe. By the way, Howard, I, I totally agree with that. I do think that, like, I don't use the Suming of assistant on my phone as much when I'm at home, because I just figure a device is gonna pick it up when I use my voice. But there are times when I definitely want my phone to be the thing.

Jason Howell (00:56:10):
And that's when I use the intentional swipe or, or whatever. So that's a really good point. Howard continues for the wallet and home controls. I like them in the quick settings. I unlock the phone with my fingerprint. I like it on the back in the same motion. I pull the quick settings down with my finger on the swiping while swiping down on the fingerprint sensor and have easy access to both the wallet and the home controls with the power button. If I wanted the home controls, I had to go to the bottom of that screen and access to those. Using the fingerprint sensor, ease are more quickly accessed than the power button ever was. Sometimes change is good when accepted, I feel like that last thing was like a, like a Barb, like I've accepted them. Have you. And you know what? I think this is just indicative of the fact that we all use our phones very differently. And yeah, I, I happy that it works better for you. The more I live with them up there, the more I'm kind of annoyed by them to be honest, but it works for you. And that's why you are the email of the week.

Jason Howell (00:57:16):
Congratulations. You should be very proud, Howard,

Ron Richards (00:57:19):
But let me tell you it doesn't stop there really, because guess what, what our next emails from Dan and Jason, what I hope you're. I hope you're sitting down. No, she's Dan. Yeah. I, I gotta tell you, I got this just in Dan. Congratulations. You are the email the week. What? This is unprecedented

Jason Howell (00:57:40):
Congrat. Oh, congratulations. Dan's

Ron Richards (00:57:43):
Amazing is, is that we have no controller over this. We are just fed this information from the all about Android machine. This is unprecedented that the all about Android hive brain would decide that three emails are the email of the week. This week. I can't even,

Jason Howell (00:57:57):
I can't even believe it.

Ron Richards (00:57:59):
It's it's too much. It's a flow has passed out. It's it's more than we can handle. So <laugh> all right. So Dan has to say, he says, first, let me agree with Jason. And they should put the home controls back with the power button. Currently is not the convenience that it was before. And that's in reference to Android 12 versus Android 11. Dan goes on to further say I have been a dedicated Google slash pixel user since the hall of fame nexus five respect. Yes, I've run. I've run beta operating systems since I could first register to do so with no discernable problems until Android 12 uhoh I'm currently using the pixel four XL again like Jason, I like a big phone and I installed Android beta 12.1. My first observation was that the location services did not work properly on some apps, notably Tim Horton's a Canadian and coffee donut chain.

Ron Richards (00:58:46):
Yes, Dan, we are well aware of Tim Horton's by the way, you do not. You do not explain need to explain Timbits to us. <Laugh> but anyway, so most notably Tim Hortons and pebble B a tile like lost key location service. So location was kind of important for that one. The next problem was that my phone would not charge over 80%, but, but this only lasted a day or so then after I updated beta two, I really started having major battery problems. At one point I could literally watch the battery remaining percentage drop as I was using the phone. That's so good at one. Oh, that's never good. At one point, the phone could not charge fast enough and power down a first for me, my only recourse was a factory reset. So need, needless to say has not been a pleasant experience so far, but I hold that hope. I may even install the beta again. And Dan, the reason why you, I think part of the reason why the gods made you an email of the week was was that even despite all those problems, you still are optimistic about installing a beta again. And that's why you sir are the email of the week. So,

Jason Howell (00:59:48):
Oh boy, congratulations to you, Dan. Congratulations, Howard. And congratulations to Rebecca. The first email of the week of the day.

Ron Richards (00:59:59):
It's so much applause

Jason Howell (01:00:01):
Was you, you three you're in good company. It's and, and just for everyone else to know, it's not gonna always be like this, this isn't every week. All right. This is the special week where that happened. Don't expect this again until the next time we mess up. Sorry,

Ron Richards (01:00:17):
You are, you are all not getting it.

Jason Howell (01:00:21):
Well, one of you will next week. One of you will the week after. That's just how it rolls. And then finally, I just thought I'd, I'd bring up the topic that we, oh, so love to talk about on this show, YouTube music because I've been using it a lot lately and primarily, okay. I, I felt, I felt on my trip to Oregon. We were, we were the, the second half of our trip. We were going to this campground, you know, about three and a half hours, south of bend Oregon. And I knew I had a really good feeling that there was gonna be no internet connectivity there. And we have this little Bo speaker and I was like, you know, I just wanna download a bunch of music. Cause I know we're gonna wanna listen to music when we're by the water and at the campground and everything, but I don't wanna spend all my time, like manicuring it and like picking out albums and everything.

Jason Howell (01:01:10):
So I went into YouTube music and went into the liked playlist, which apparently it pulled all of my liked information from Google, play music over to YouTube and and set that playlist to download. And it was something like 600 and some odd songs. So I was like, okay, that's plenty. Like I would never listen to 600 songs on this trip probably. And I'm really curious to find what I heard there. And it was just one of those moments where I realized like, wait a minute, people probably do this all the time. They're so good at liking their music. Like when they hear something, they like it. And then they set their play, their liked playlist to always be offline. That's a pretty great way to have like music. I always wanna listen to there cuz it's the music that I like. I dunno.

Jason Howell (01:01:55):
It was just one of those moments where I felt really out of step, cuz I'm sure I'm not, I know I'm not the only person to have ever thought of it, but was, it was the first time that it occurred to me to do that. And so ever since then, I thought that was so cool because I, cuz I started listening to, you know, in listening to that playlist, I was like reintroduced all these songs I'd forgotten about that years ago I had liked and I was like, oh yeah, I do like that song a lot. Where's that song been for the past like five years. And so I got real, I got really into listening to that playlist cause I was like, man, this is like, I'm, I'm rediscovering all this music that over the last five or 10 years I was really into.

Jason Howell (01:02:33):
And I took the time to, to like, but I completely forgot that I did it. And so now ever since then, I've been going through all of my uploaded library, all of the albums that on Google play music, I had added to my library, you know, like their, their albums through the subscription, but that I added to my library I've been going through and kind of having a, just a really great time rediscovering music in my catalog. Maybe this has less to do with YouTube music more just to do about music in general, but it's been a really cool experience to go through and be like, oh man, Beck has some really awesome albums. I totally forgot about that. I'm gonna listen to this, you know, and like rediscover some of this stuff and in the process I'm, I'm going through and liking more things to build up that like playlist. And I dunno, I just thought it was a, a neat kind of journey and I, I guess that's a, a thumbs up, I, I like that part of, of YouTube music, but yeah.

Ron Richards (01:03:32):
Interesting. Well, let me can I, can I give you a thumbs down for YouTube music? Yes. Counterbalance for some reason I, I don't know about you, but I mean like the majority of YouTube music I listen to is via the Google home. Yeah. And it is a distinct and complete different experience than using the web app or using the, the mobile phone app for some reason directly in turn, in tune with what Google decides to play and what it thinks I want to hear. Yeah. so case in point I was listening to a song by a band called quick sand, which is one of my favorite bands, their post hardcore band, you know, they, they, they have a new new album coming out on epi half. Like they're, you know, like it's great. I have all their albums, I have all this stuff. I listened to them a lot. Right. And so I said, great play shovel by, by quick sand. And so I was doing dishes, I was listening to that song. And then the next song was a Frank Sinatra song. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:04:28):
Okay. Wow. What night and day difference

Ron Richards (01:04:30):
Right then? And the next song was a Louis prima and Geral song. And then the next song was a song from frozen. And then the next song was like, and it was literal. Like it, it was almost as if like in like on TV or the movies when the robots like malfunction malfunction idea, like just throwing out like whatever <laugh>. It was just like, I was just like, what is going on? And I'm finding its ability to pick up the genre I'm listening to based off the song I'm listening to is really, for some reason affected. And I don't know if it's the music app on the Google home, cuz my thought is that the Google, the YouTube music just would pull the mobile app or pull the service and just feed that to the Google home. But I think there's a different thing going on on that device. So

Jason Howell (01:05:14):
The first song that you played was that in your library? Yes. And so maybe what it's thinking and it's

Ron Richards (01:05:20):
Not on YouTube music

Jason Howell (01:05:21):
And it's not on you. So maybe what maybe in that regard. Well, no like you probably don't have frozen in your own. I,

Ron Richards (01:05:29):
My God, right? Yeah, no I don't. I

Jason Howell (01:05:31):
Do not. So, so maybe at the end of that, it's like I, instead of it playing more of that genre, it's just playing more like of what you have listened to in the past should pick up the

Ron Richards (01:05:43):
Genre from the ID three tag in my library. That

Jason Howell (01:05:46):
Would be amazing. But be even the artist that would make sense. <Laugh>

Ron Richards (01:05:50):
Like, wouldn't it be able to, it sees in sees the metadata, that it's the same artist as quicksand who you, it had has, you know, in a system that has five thousands of prime to

Jason Howell (01:06:01):
So wildly different to go from that to Sinatra, to frozen and like who really wants that, that widespread. I mean, right. No, one's no one's looking to, to mix death metal with Disney soundtrack, you know? No. Yeah. And not that they are, but I'm, you know that I'm,

Ron Richards (01:06:17):
I understand that I'm confusing it because I have kids listening to frozen all the time, but like it's Google, it's YouTube. It should be smart enough to know that when I'm listening to hardcore that I don't wanna listen to frozen next that I don't wanna listen to, you know, Peter pan next, like it should be able to be smart enough to realize that it's me and not my ki, like this is the them with it. This is all mashed in. And don't even get me started on despite having every setting to not play music videos, it continues to play music videos.

Jason Howell (01:06:48):
So, oh, I haven't had that problem. It keeps my music videos off. Thankfully. Yeah. But yeah. Do you feel like YouTube or sorry, Google play music did like that same scenario. Would've done it. Right. And what is right?

Ron Richards (01:07:02):
Yes. What, what is right is playing the appropriate genre or a similar would band

Jason Howell (01:07:07):
It would've stuck to the genre. Yep. Yep. Okay.

Ron Richards (01:07:09):
It would've stuck to the genre. It would've stuck to the universe of bands. Like, like almost imagine like there's like a mind map and like this band is related to this band is related to this band. Totally.

Jason Howell (01:07:17):
They should have that. Yeah, absolutely.

Ron Richards (01:07:19):
Yeah. And I, I felt like Google play music understood that and did a good job with it. More so than YouTube

Jason Howell (01:07:25):
Music. Yeah. Yeah. One thing that's been irritating me in this whole liking discovery that I've been doing lately is the fact that is, is just an indication of how separated uploads are from the library. But like we already know that YouTube made no qualms about the fact that like, oh, we're not integrating your upload library with our thing. They're, they're kept in separate silos and they're completely different where that sucks though, is as I've been liking things, I realize like, oh, I have this, this this album by Radiohead, let's say, and I'm in my uploads. And I thumbs a few songs. And then if I happen to search for a Radiohead and find that album in the library, those likes are not translated. So that like exists over in my uploads, but it doesn't exist in the library or sorry, in the the streaming services version of that album. So if I then thumb it up there, it appears in the likes pro playlist twice. And isn't that, you know, and just silly things like that. I was like, yeah. Would it really be that hard? I mean, I, I'm not a developer, so I probably, maybe it is that hard, but that seems, I don't know. This sucks <laugh> yeah.

Ron Richards (01:08:36):
It, it just sucks. And that's the thing. And like, and I don't know, I'm just frustrated by it, but I, but the thing is I tell it to play, you know, beauty and the beast and it plays all Disney songs for my kids. So, or play, you know, or, you know, 10 in the bed roll over and it plays all the pre. So like it, it, doesn't all of a sudden start playing hardcore during the kids' music. So I guess that's, I, I'd rather, I'd rather have Disney music pop up while I'm listening to my music than my music pop up when they're listening to their music. Yeah,

Jason Howell (01:09:02):
Yeah, yeah, totally. Right. almost asleep. You don't want that. Yeah. And don't even get me started on the fact that YouTube music is only for 13 and up. Like I can't set it up with voice match for my kids. The second it knows that it's family family link and that it's my kids. Then it says you are not allowed to, to play. So if they're going to their Google home trying to play something and I have voice match set up the way I used to be able to do with Google play music so that they could only get music that was kid appropriate and not adult, you know, adult themes or, or words or what, or like you could do it before you can't do it now. So I have to leave it totally open, which means they hear, they hear a lot of things at this point, we're beyond the point of like policing it. We're like, okay, just know that this is like a song that you listen to here. And you don't talk about with your friends, you know, because like, well at least I have no alternative. Like, I'm

Ron Richards (01:09:53):
Sorry, at least your kids are of that age, you know, mine or two and a half. And I will say literally just this morning, well, first off, just even before that, for the past couple of months, they'll wanna hear, they'll wanna hear a song. And my daughter will say, you know, play, you know, play, you know, let it go on the Google. And she'll like point towards it, like on the Google. But this morning we put on a song for Moana for my son cause to hear it. And my daughter just walked up to, I have the Google home mini in the bed in our bedroom and she just walked right up to it and went, oh, I'm sorry. I did it. I'm sorry. But that was, I apologies to everyone who I just triggered, but I'm sorry. But my daughter just walked up and said, okay, gee to the device and was like cracking up because we're like, how does she know how to do that? Cause she hears us do it. So it's totally, she

Jason Howell (01:10:39):
Get met her time. The kids pick up on it. Yeah. They're they're right there. Yeah. They're gonna start throwing commands of that thing. <Laugh> at, at the point that they can ask Google to tell them a story. That's pretty awesome. Yep. If, if, if they're figuring it out, teach them that that'll blow their minds. Yeah.

.. (01:10:57):
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Ron Richards (01:11:43):
One of our constant themes. Jason, I feel like that we're always talking about there are two themes. I think that comes out a lot is the comparison to the folks across the street at apple, right? Yeah. And, and we're always, we're Android versus iOS. That's always a, a constant topic. But also our frustrations with messaging and messaging, iOS users and Android users. And, and with the, with the recent kind of emergence of RCS we've had a lot of opportunity to think maybe we'll come to a promise land, but we actually had the intersection of apple and RCS happen this year. Those two topics collided numerous times and it led to some fireworks, right.

Jason Howell (01:12:23):
That that's right. That's right. And yeah, you, you were very vocal about certain things here. That's the, the clip that we have coming up here. This was the topic that just would not sleep. And we heard from a lot of people, people about, about apple and RCS and a few people calling us out on, on taking a hard stance of some of this

Ron Richards (01:12:40):
Stuff. And time and time definitely passes and time heals all wounds. But I still stand by everything we said here. I, I still you know, I probably, if we were doing it again tonight, I would say the same thing. I, I, I feel passionate about mess and get frustrated by apple at times. So yeah. It's, it's, I, I can only, I can only share how I feel. That's why I'm here. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:13:03):
<Laugh>, that's why we're all here. Let's check out the clip right now.

Ron Richards (01:13:08):
It's great. It's been a while switch hoki on the show, which is awesome. And it's also been a while since we've had another friend of the show on but to, to intro him you know, we've talked on the show a lot hoping that apple might someday support RCS on the iPhone. But now our friend of the show, Google SVP, Hiroshi Lockheimer has been tweeting about it. In fact in response to his story about pro golfer Bryson Debos green bubble breaking IMS group chats, Hiroshi tweeted, and I quote, oh, here's Hiroshi. Hello for our video viewers, you can see her good friend Hiroshi, Hiroshi, and Hersi says, group chats, don't need to break this way. There exists a really clear solution, really clear solution, capitalized RCS. Here's an open invitation to the folks who can make this right. We are here to help. Unsurprisingly apple is still very quiet on the its intentions around supporting RCS, but good on you Hiroshi for bringing it to Cupertino. I like it. I like Hiroshi. Yeah. So, yeah. What do you, what do you think of RC, the RCS rollout in general and, and does it, you know, like, are you, are you using RCS? Have you noticed it, does it not even impact you or,

Speaker 7 (01:14:22):
Well, I don't really do anything with, with text messaging in terms of like developing, I do use text messaging and I do have friends that are on the apple side things, which they like to use this feature where they like a message, but then come through Android as Judy liked, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they repeat the phone message. Yeah. Yeah. I hate it.

Ron Richards (01:14:48):
Hate that.

Speaker 7 (01:14:49):
And yes, it is very Urim and I don't see, to be honest, apple jumping in and say, chick is annoyed by this liking business. Let's get onto RCS and standardize a way to have rich communication so that you don't have to both spell out what the other side did because in this group chat or group text, I suppose there are many iPhone users. So they didn't even notice that this is a very strange behavior on the Android side. And I post happy for that to be hidden from the world garden. So I'm not optimistic that we will ever have a standard that will be used everywhere so that I don't have to see those spelled out messages. She told me a while to figure out I was like, why Judy typing all these things, but <laugh> she, she didn't type all that.

Jason Howell (01:15:52):
Yeah. She's retyping verbatim everything. Yeah. Would like at the, at the front of it. That's funny. <Laugh> man, I, anytime I have the, like, I have to type for like 20 seconds just to reply, this is really annoying. It's very exhausting.

Ron Richards (01:16:05):
It's very,

Jason Howell (01:16:06):
There should be a better way.

Ron Richards (01:16:08):
No, but, but I, but I agree is that, that, like, I just, I don't see apple chain and I, and, and while, and, and I feel like a broken record. Every time we talk about this, but it's, you know, it's user hostile behavior. It's, you know, like the, the, the world should be on a unified messaging platform. And you know, it should end the, the, the, you know, the like, there's no, there's no reason not to RCS is clearly you have the carriers adopting it. You have, you know, multiple manufacturers adopting it. Imagine the Goodwill that apple could do if they did it, but they just don't see the forest of the trees. So it's, it's disappointing. So,

Jason Howell (01:16:43):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:16:44):
I'm just happy that sorry, go for it. No, no, go. I'm just happy that email existed before this whole platform split. Can you imagine if when we email people, that's all those also all these boldness that get like added in because of platform differences, that would be so annoying. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:17:03):
Very annoying. Very annoying. Yeah. I don't know. I'm, I'm holding out hope that at some point there is enough market pressure that apple feels like, kind of, kind of understands a little bit about what you're saying, Ron, as far as like user hostile and, and not, not like that apple would suddenly care about Android users cuz I'm not necessarily thinking that, but that apple would care about just people in general wanting to communicate better. And I don't know, maybe that's a, a Rose Rose, tinted goggles way of looking at it. But I mean, at a certain point, if RCS is so incredibly supported that everybody on Android, you know, is, is compatible and, and communicating to, to RCS and Apple's still there like, Nope, not gonna do it. I don't know. At a certain point they, they could be seen as like being very like person hostile, you know,

Ron Richards (01:18:01):
Do they care? Dunno if they care one word for you hubris that's its yeah, that's a good word. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. It is the at apple Hubers. And I know that we've gotten flack for some of the audience, stuff like that for apple bashing, whatever it is. And like I'm, I'm on a Mac right now. I, you know, like I, I'm not, I don't hate apple. Like I have a Mac mini right in front of me. My wife has an iPhone, you know, like, you know, there are apple products in my household. I'm not like completely hating of it. There's a great legacy. It is one, my apple two plus was one of my favorite computers of my entire life. I had so much fun on my apple, two GS. Right. I, I, you know, my first MacBook pro when I moved to San Francisco and the, you know, in the web two oh days, Jason right.

Ron Richards (01:18:42):
Blew my mind and, and opened so many doors. But the hubris of this company of the past couple years specifically when it comes the mobile devices space and, and the, the competitive landscape is just like, it's just, it, it, I don't know. It's just it, I, I, I I've seen the movies, I've read the books. I know the, you know, the Steve jobs philosophy, the closed system and all that sort of all that nonsense, but like open up and look at the world and look at, look at what's going on and look at the opportunity and, and like the global connections and imagine, you know, imagine, you know, if we, if we, if we went in not to get a little political, but if, or, or not political but realistic, but if we found ourselves in another pandemic, when everybody was on a similar platform and we could handle messaging so much better in a more elegant way, you know, think of what could think of what the possibilities could have been. So, yeah. Yeah. And I didn't just blame the pandemic on apples green chat bubbles, by the way, I'm just saying <laugh>,

Jason Howell (01:19:38):
I'm sure we'll get that one email. I know

Ron Richards (01:19:40):
<Laugh>, this is exciting. And I hope not to upset our listeners Android 12 beta users are now starting to get access to a new assistant feature called quick phrases. You can look forward in the assistance settings and it currently supports alarms and timers and incoming calls. And when activated on those instances, you won't need to say the wake word, Hey, G before following with stop or snooze or answer or decline you can just say the word and Google will know what you want. Stop, which is, you know, I feel like is gonna be, you know, potential for disaster, but we'll see how it goes. And there are plans to allow you to skip Hey, G for a longer list of commands on the Google home speakers and some include like, there's a whole bunch of 'em, there's a whole here.

Ron Richards (01:20:27):
Some of my favorites are this, you know, send a broadcast. You can also turn, turn the lights on or turn the lights off, which I do often. That's nice one, you know, turn up the volume, turn down the volume. Like basically it's that conversational thing where Google, Google is assuming it knows the context, you know, like one, you know, skip this to skip a, a music track. But there's also like reset the timer. How much time is left, because it knows that you're using the device in this way. And so it's anticipating that when you say those words, you're talking to it, God knows what's gonna happen when you have music playing on your, on your device and your partner says, turn the volume down and you go, and you wanna say, no, I want it louder, but Google's gonna listen to your partner and turn it down. Like, how does it know when it's being talked to? That's my question, you know? Yeah. Hey, should, is it getting dark? Should we turn the lights on? I turned all the lights. Well, no, I didn't ask you to turn the lights on. We were like, it was a question.

Jason Howell (01:21:24):
Interesting, Google.

Ron Richards (01:21:24):
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. So it

Jason Howell (01:21:26):
Wasn't a command. My Google home speakers already do the, not needing hag for things like turning off timers and stuff. So this seems to be an expansion of that I've been doing. I've been using that for, I don't know, more than a year, at least. Yep. Have you noticed that, have you have, I don't know if you have a, a Google home device in new, your, in your house, Chuy, but I mean, on our devices, if I've got, if I set like a timer in the kitchen and it starts beeping at me with a Google home, I just say, stop. I don't say, Hey, gee, stop. I just say stop. And it stops. And I don't know when they rolled that out. So this seems to be kind of an extension of that. Do you have any of these devices in your

Speaker 7 (01:22:09):
I'm waiting? Cuz it's raining really hard outside. That was last sun that went through. So like,

Jason Howell (01:22:16):
Oh, I'm so jealous,

Speaker 7 (01:22:17):
I wish on, on your show. So yeah, I actually, it's interesting. They Google home that I have, which I got through different events. I didn't buy it. I don't really use it like, and I only use it when I'm cooking and I want to listen to a podcast at the same time. Yeah. So I don't interact with it that much. And it's it's sometimes it's frustrating cuz when I'm cooking and I want to listen to some music and then I will ask it to get to the next song or things like that. I dunno. Maybe it's just, I don't use it enough. It's it's always quite confusing when I, when I listen to a podcast and I want the latest episode, it, it never knows that I want the latest episode and it always brings up that episode. I listened to three like months ago and like, this is, this is what you left off. I'm like, well it's the NPL politics podcast. I don't want to listen to the one three months ago. Can you just like, don't clear it out. Like can I just expire like my podcast? So, or

Jason Howell (01:23:23):
Play the latest that goes episode or something? Yeah. I, I

Speaker 7 (01:23:26):
Do have to remember to say that and if I forget and I can do a chaser and say play the latest episode, I'm never sure whether you actually know the context of the latest episode off whatever podcast that you're currently playing me. So maybe I should, I should try that and see maybe it has developed more context as, as things go through. Cuz I remember one sort of a long time ago, but I, for some reason want to know how to say cheese in German. So I asked Google and then they told, told me is case. And I, I asked Google how do you spell that? And Google said T H a T <laugh>

Jason Howell (01:24:09):
<Laugh>

Speaker 7 (01:24:10):
I'm like, love it. Very funny Google. Very funny. But yeah. So hopefully by now it has learned more context

Jason Howell (01:24:18):
<Laugh> yeah, for sure. For sure. It has. I mean, if that was a couple of years ago, you know, that that's been some of Google's announcements around ASIS stint and on the home devices for the last couple of years is that they're, they're really honing it in so that it understands the context to know that when you say, how do you spell that? You're actually referring to the word you just asked for initially not the word that so I, I guarantee that particular

Speaker 7 (01:24:43):
Interaction again, just to see yeah, yeah,

Jason Howell (01:24:45):
Yeah. That'd be, it'd be interesting to see if it figured it out. I would guess that it probably would, I've noticed a definite improvement as far as that stuff is concerned. But still at the end of the day it comes down to syntax and sometimes the syntax isn't right. Sometimes the syntax you get it. Right. And it still just comes back with something that's totally baffling. Like that thing you, you you posted to are whats that not go Ron where like you're specifically asking for this, well here song can from this album.

Ron Richards (01:25:15):
Can we show it? I mean like I feel, I, I don't know. I wanna be like, so hang on Burke, give you the link. I posted it to Twitter. You can see it on there and we can run the video. Know if you can play audio or not Burke. But yeah, I threw it into the doc. So basically everybody knows my problem with go with Google, with the goo, the nest home hub and YouTube music lately. And I ran into a situation that just had me cracking up, which was my kids. And I dunno if you wanna, if you wanna play the video Burke and play the audio, I dunno if we can for everybody to hear it, but yeah,

Jason Howell (01:25:47):
Yeah. Apologies on, on the ag. That'll come through.

Ron Richards (01:25:50):
Yeah. Sorry about that, everybody, but yeah,

Jason Howell (01:25:51):
No, it's fine.

Ron Richards (01:25:53):
All right. Play the song. Ski Ari by Andy and Susanna

Speaker 8 (01:26:00):
Tonight by Andy Williams. Sure. Playing on YouTube music, what

Ron Richards (01:26:05):
It gets, it gets better play the song. Ski Ari by Andy and Susanna on YouTube music.

Speaker 8 (01:26:16):
What's up by four non blondes. Sure. Playing on YouTube music.

Jason Howell (01:26:23):
Oh that is so frustra T

Ron Richards (01:26:26):
So, so I was, I was literally by Andy. So I was literally, as you could hear me, I was literally asking to play a kid song called skimer in, by a musician group called Andy and Susan that I know is on YouTube music cuz I'm subscribed to them on YouTube music. And I play this, the album for my kids all the time. And I sat there for a half an hour asking it over and over again. And it either gave me Andy Williams songs or random eighties and 90 songs that had none of the words that, that were asked for it. And I went back and forth with Google and they made by Google Twitter account on this. And I was like, no, you're not because like they had, they linked me to the previous time. I complained about YouTube music on Google, you know? And like, well you need to do all that stuff. I'm like, no something's broken here. And other people were saying, other people on Twitter were saying they were seeing similar things where it, it clearly I'm speaking clearly. And it is coming up with something completely different. And I never got an answer why, and it's still happening. So,

Jason Howell (01:27:23):
And what's weird is when you watch that video, you see it, it spells out like, you know how, when you use your voice command, it spells it,

Ron Richards (01:27:31):
Read out. It heard what I

Jason Howell (01:27:32):
Said. It heard it heard exactly what you said. Yes. Yes. So it's, it's not even like it misheard you, it heard it translated it and then it it's almost like like those those visual and what they're like designs that can throw off facial recognition systems, you know, it's just like the pixels in just the right place to make it. Even though it looks like fuzz to us, it comes up with lion of Richie or something. It's kinda like that. But, but for Google home devices is so weird. I don't understand crazy,

Ron Richards (01:28:03):
Crazy. I mean

Speaker 7 (01:28:04):
The way make me feel slightly better that <laugh> not that I'm talking wrong to

Jason Howell (01:28:09):
Google. Right, right. You're that they,

Speaker 7 (01:28:12):
They have their own idea of what people mean.

Jason Howell (01:28:15):
<Laugh> yeah. Or there's something going on there. I've, I've totally experienced that too, where I'm like that's not at all what I asked for and why like there there's no you for me to say this any clearer than I am. Yeah. I guarantee you it's interpreting it correctly. It's just firing off the wrong command as a result. And it

Ron Richards (01:28:34):
Seems, it seems like something's wrong. Seems like something's wrong. And, and, and here's the problem with support is like they don't listen. They have a script where they're like, oh, are you sure? You're are you, do you have a subscription to YouTube music? Are you sure you're using the account? It's like, I don't know how to be like, yeah, I'm in the know, like, I don't wanna be like, do you know who I am, but do you know who I am? And like, it's just like, <laugh>

Jason Howell (01:28:53):
Oh boy. That's that's so frustrating. Totally. Yeah, it is.

Ron Richards (01:28:57):
So I'm I'm but I, I am, I am adamant about getting it solved. I will go all the way up to Hiro or Sundai if I Sundara, if I need to yeah. <Laugh> like, I wanna get this fan. Cause I know that there's a problem, but so whatever we'll find it. Yeah. Someday. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:29:13):
Ooh. Okay. We gotta start with this one cousin of Ja the question, what are your individual, top five devices for the and rate hall of fame, top five. Five's a lot to come

Florence Ion (01:29:22):
Up with. Five's a lot. Five's a lot.

Ron Richards (01:29:24):
Well, this, this goes back to my thing. I think it was last week where I said we really someone's gotta be documenting these because we're just rattling off hall of fame entries. And the only one I remember is the number one, which is the nexus five, but I feel like other devices have gotten in. So.

Jason Howell (01:29:39):
All right. I'm I'm document. So, okay. So Ron nexus five, for sure. Nexus

Ron Richards (01:29:45):
Five, for sure. We're all in agreement. I feel like in order to get in the hall of fame, you need everyone to be in agreement on the panel.

Florence Ion (01:29:49):
Okay, fine. I'll agree with nexus five. I never owned it, but yeah.

Ron Richards (01:29:53):
All right. Oh, it was perfect.

Jason Howell (01:29:54):
Well, yeah, maybe this isn't about anointing to the hall of fame. This is just like, I think his, I think cousin Josh's question is what are individual top five devices for the Android hall of fame. So like, if you could pick three device, let's say, if you could pick three devices to be in your hall of fame, what would they be? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> said Ron, you'd definitely have the nexus five.

Ron Richards (01:30:15):
Definitely the nexus five, the first Chrome cast. Don

Jason Howell (01:30:20):
Chrome cast dongle. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Ron Richards (01:30:23):
That counts, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

Jason Howell (01:30:25):
Yeah. I mean it's a hard way. Yeah. Totally device. Yeah. It's a device. I think that counts.

Ron Richards (01:30:32):
And I gotta go to the nexus seven tablet,

Jason Howell (01:30:34):
Nexus seven. That is, that is a classic. I would have to agree with that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> now flow. You said you never had the nexus five. Does that, does that mean that you wouldn't put that into your hall of fame? What would be your top three picks?

Florence Ion (01:30:49):
No, I, I, I have had a lot of friends who, the nexus five, they kept it around like even after, so, so much longer than they should have <laugh> to be honest. Yeah. It was because it was such a good device. Definitely the next is seven. We were having kind of a love Fest, not last week on Twitter. The first pixel is

Jason Howell (01:31:12):
The pixel pixel

Florence Ion (01:31:13):
One. It changed a lot of things for me. Yeah. It changed a lot of things for my expectations from Android. So I feel like the pixel deserves to be in that hall of fame. And I think, I think we could all resonate with like our first Android phones. So for me that was the HTC. Incredible. that's not a Google, it's not a Google device, but is an Android device.

Jason Howell (01:31:35):
Doesn't have to be a Google device. No, totally. Yeah. HCC. Incredible. That was a big deal back back then. Absolutely. Yeah, it was

Florence Ion (01:31:41):
Absolutely. It was. And I had that phone for three years cause we were upgrading as quickly back then.

Jason Howell (01:31:48):
No, we were, that's probably part of the reason why so many people were rooting and ramming because we wanted to, to like squeeze every last drop of usefulness out of our devices where we had them, you know, for so long mm-hmm <affirmative>. Hmm. Okay. So nexus seven pixel one HTC, incredible. Ron nexus five Chrome castle nexus seven, man. Okay. So I, I definitely have to put nexus five in there. That's that's one of my all time absolute FAS. I it's hard for me to, to argue with nexus seven too. That was a awesome tablet and such a shame too, because it was so good. And then now we really like, and then it just like evaporated, you know, like <laugh> like so tiny too. It was so small, easy NEX is seven, you know, like, like Google bottled up, something magical there. And now apple is capitalizing on that with the with the iPad mini.

Jason Howell (01:32:39):
Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So next is five. Next is seven. What would my third one be? I mean, it could be any number of things. I mean a part of me agrees with you flow the pixel. Although I, I might, I might pick the pixel two over the one. I think the pixel two is a stronger device, but I don't think I'm gonna put that in there. I think to go with a one plus one, because that was a, like, that was a device that when I got that device, I was like, holy cow, who, who is this company? And whatever they're doing, they need to do more of that because it was awesome hardware. It was super cheap. It was totally unknown. It just really was such a surprise that it was as good as was considering. It was a company we'd never heard of. I agree. So I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put one plus one in there.

Ron Richards (01:33:26):
Yeah. That's a good choice. Good choice. Been

Florence Ion (01:33:28):
Like the marketing at first. Definitely. Yeah. They had issues, not okay. But but what they definitely carved a niche for themselves, which is why they yeah,

Jason Howell (01:33:39):
Absolutely. They did. All right. So I gotta explain a little something before we end this show. That last clip, you may not even remember ever hearing that in the episode and unless you were a club TWI member and you probably didn't because sometimes we hold discord chats with with members of club TWI and we did, and that conversation came out of it. And it's something we've talked about on the show many times, like hall of fame devices and everything. And at that moment we named them, you know, we, we decided like let's, let's make some picks, let's plant the flag in the ground right now. And so I really wanted to be sure that we share that moment with everyone and not to just club TWI subscribers. That's why that's here because it was cool. And listen,

Ron Richards (01:34:25):
I, one of my favorite things about all about Android and, and the fact that we've been doing this for bazillion years is the fact that we've been able to see so many great devices and, and experience so much stuff and, and now establish the hall of fame. So that was, this was, that was a real important moment. I thought for the, for this year and also a ton of fun and glad glad for the club TWI members who stuck around to have that conversation with us, that was a highlight of, of the year for me personally, too. So

Jason Howell (01:34:51):
Indeed, indeed. So if you haven't already twi.tv/club TWI, if you wanna check that out seven bucks a month and you get that and so much more Ron, what a year I love doing this show with you. You are such a good friend and such a good person. And thank you each and every year for talking Android with me.

Ron Richards (01:35:08):
Oh, Jason, are you gonna get me all emotional now? But I like, I mean, we, we joke about it a lot, both on and off air, like Tuesdays you eight o'clock Eastern five o'clock Pacific. I look forward to it every week. You know, I know whatever's, whatever's going on. I know that you and me and flow and all the great guests that everybody else that we chat with and talk with all the time gonna have great conversations about Android. And there's so much stuff going on. You know, some weeks are busier than others. Some weeks are lighter than others, but we always have a good time doing in it. And I'm super thankful for it. And 21 was another great year and I'm excited for 22 to see what's to come next year, who knows hopefully tablet do dominance happens, finally, tablets, reemerge. I'm hoping crossing my fingers, pixel

Jason Howell (01:35:53):
Foldables and pixel wear all and all the things, all

Ron Richards (01:35:57):
You say now you're saying all the right words, Jason, you get me all excited. So

Jason Howell (01:36:00):
Speaking your language that's right. Twit TV slash AAA to subscribe to everything that we do here. Big thanks to everyone who helps us do this show each and every week. Burke John, Victor. I mean, everybody helps out and we couldn't do this show without you all watching and listening. So B huge thanks to you for that. And we'll see you next year. That is next week. Anyways, on another episode of all of Ben, Android, bye everybody happy new year, happy new year.