0:00

Coming up next on all about Android.

0:02

It's me, Jason Howe. We got Ron Richards, went

0:04

to a Dow, and we got

0:06

a lot of news, a decent amount of hardware

0:08

to talk about former Google app

0:10

founder pulls no punches

0:13

in a very scathing medium post

0:15

that you maybe you've heard of, but you definitely wanna

0:17

read all about Google. Huawei

0:20

Watch will wear its own with earbuds.

0:23

I tried to find a word that was earbuds

0:25

with be you to complete that, but I couldn't

0:27

figure it out. So that's all you get. 618 plus

0:29

eleven concept brings the bling

0:31

with some really flashy blue LEDs

0:34

on the back. Twitter blue, speaking

0:36

of blue, required for SMS

0:38

two factor authentication going forward. Why is

0:40

that? We talk about it some cool animated

0:43

photos and Google Photos that win

0:45

shares with us and we have a whole lot of your

0:47

feedback and a whole lot more. We're up next. 618

0:50

all about Everett.

0:53

Podcasts you love. From

0:55

people you trust. This

0:58

TWiT. Android. This

1:02

is all about Android episode six hundred

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1:06

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1:53

Hello. Welcome to all about Android. This

1:55

is a reap resourceful latest news. Hardware and

1:57

apps for the Android faithful on this show,

1:59

we talk about nothing 618 Android, I'm

2:01

Jason. And I'm Ron

2:03

Richards.

2:05

And I'm going TWiT now. I only say

2:07

that because I do It's just gonna

2:10

have here Empire strikes

2:12

back the laser disc, and we're definitely not

2:14

gonna talk about this on tonight's show. Well,

2:16

because here's the thing. On on this show

2:18

that you're either watching on the livestream

2:20

or on YouTube or listening on your podcast. We just

2:23

talk about Android. This is all about Android.

2:25

Yeah. But if you show up when

2:27

we record this live around

2:29

five PM Pacific eight PM eastern. For

2:32

about three hours, we talk about other things

2:34

such as one hit wonders laser

2:37

discs,

2:39

bottom commands. That guy who

2:41

who starred in American

2:43

Werewolf in London. Apparently, he was also a

2:45

singer. Yeah. Who knew? Did

2:47

you know that? You would right

2:49

now if you were with us

2:52

twenty minutes

2:52

ago. Yep. Look at that channel

2:54

slash live.

2:56

Missing out. I'm missing out. Alright.

2:59

And actually, I should also mention TWiT

3:01

is where you can get that conversation after

3:04

the fact because we're gonna publish it on

3:06

the TWiT Plus podcast feed. So there you

3:08

go. Oh, we're doing this

3:10

now. Twit Twit

3:13

Tod TV slash club TWiT. That's

3:15

all I'm gonna say. Otherwise, it's gonna get

3:17

removed from this episode because

3:19

club twist subscribers

3:21

also don't get ads about TWiT, so I'm just

3:23

gonna stop. And you all

3:25

got that. That wasn't an ad. It was just

3:27

a funny little bit. Okay? Alright,

3:29

don't complain to me and it was free. I love

3:31

you. Yes. You didn't have to pay

3:34

for it. I mean, you had to pay for club TWiT. Anyways,

3:36

we should start this show because we got

3:38

a lot of Android to talk about. We got a

3:40

lot of Android. And this top news story,

3:43

it's a doozy. So Burke,

3:46

we've at this point, we've given you an hour's

3:48

worth of content. Let's dive in.

3:53

Well, here on Andrei

3:56

news. Yeah. We have a mission.

3:58

We have urgency. And I may

4:01

or may not have delusions of

4:03

exceptionalism. Mhmm. More

4:06

grandeur. More grandeur. What on Earth Is

4:08

Burke talking about? Most of

4:10

the time we don't know. But tonight, we actually

4:13

do. Because if you

4:16

been watching any of our shows, you know,

4:18

was particularly like this week in Google and

4:20

and this week in Tech. This last

4:22

week, you know that there was an employee

4:24

of former employee of Google named

4:27

Praveen Seshadri or Seshadri.

4:30

Sorry if I mispronounced your name. Former

4:33

employee founder of App Sheet,

4:35

which was a company that was

4:37

acquired by Google Cloud in twenty

4:40

twenty. And apparently,

4:42

he doesn't work Google anymore. In fact,

4:45

if they got acquired in twenty twenty and

4:47

he had, I'm guessing, a three

4:49

year commitment to stay with the company. It

4:52

kinda sounds by the tone of this medium

4:54

post that he waited until, like,

4:56

the day that was up and then said, peace out,

4:58

I TWiT. And then wrote a medium article

5:01

about all the reasons and all the things

5:03

that are happening wrong. At Google behind

5:05

the scenes. And I don't doubt his perspective

5:08

at all. You know, he's obviously he

5:10

obviously has a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings

5:13

about this. The article is called the

5:15

Maze, is in the mouse,

5:18

and really excellent

5:20

read. It doesn't take too long to get through the medium

5:22

article itself. 618 it has

5:24

a lot of really choice nuggets in it. And

5:27

I think why it relates

5:29

to what we talk about with Android?

5:31

Well, yeah. We're gonna get into that because I know

5:33

that we have thoughts about, like, the

5:35

Android team and how that relates to

5:38

what he's talking about here. 618 we do

5:40

talk a lot about eroding trust

5:43

in the brand. We talk a lot

5:45

about this kind of

5:47

inability of Google to commit

5:50

to certain products of its

5:53

catalog, if not a lot of them.

5:56

And Praveen really

5:58

lays out a lot of, you know, the kind

6:00

of the rationale or the reasons that

6:02

he sees behind those. He says, Like

6:04

mice, they are trapped in a maze of approvals,

6:07

launch processes, legal reviews,

6:09

performance reviews, executive reviews,

6:11

documents, meetings, bug reports, triage,

6:13

OKRs, h one plans, followed by h

6:16

two plans, all hand summits 618 reorgs,

6:18

which I'll just stop and say, like, most

6:21

companies have a lot of that stuff. Right?

6:23

But sounds like Google has a lot

6:25

a lot of that stuff. Says the mice

6:27

regularly fed their cheese, aka

6:29

promotions, bonuses, fancy

6:31

food, fancier perks. Despite

6:33

many wanting to experience personal

6:35

satisfaction impact from their work, the system

6:38

trains them to quell these

6:40

inappropriate desires and learn what it actually

6:42

means to be googly. Just

6:44

don't rock the boat. Interesting

6:48

read. Again,

6:50

one person's perspective. Maybe

6:53

he has, you know, maybe

6:55

he's got a bone to pick, you know, or he you

6:58

know what I mean? Like, we don't know what happened

7:00

in during his time at Google necessarily

7:04

except for what he's written out here. But

7:07

we were chatting about it in Slack. And

7:09

when you were you and

7:11

Flow were talking lot about kind of the

7:13

developer side as pertains to Android

7:15

and how I thought this is really interesting

7:17

how Android in some ways is

7:20

kinda shielded from this

7:22

sort of thing. Do

7:24

you do you believe that the Android group is different

7:26

from what Praveen is talking about here?

7:28

IIII doubt that they're totally insulated

7:30

from it because they probably you know, there

7:33

there's gonna be someone hire at

7:35

any big company. And, again, I'm speaking from

7:37

an experience that is not Google,

7:39

but feels very familiarly a lot

7:41

of things that that, you know, has talked about by

7:44

Praveen and and that we talk about very familiar

7:46

to me. And and, yeah, like, I I don't think they're totally isolated,

7:48

but I think what's really interesting is that

7:51

even, like, thinking back even to, like, Chuck House's

7:53

book, you know, we had Chuck House on -- Yeah. -- back before

7:56

the holidays. And even from the start,

7:59

has seemed like that the history of the Android team

8:01

has been very self driven they

8:03

have, you know, ideals, they have

8:05

goals, they have this open software

8:08

platform that they wanted to make. And they and,

8:10

like, a lot of people that were on it were very 618.

8:13

About what they were doing, about creating

8:15

an open mobile platform,

8:17

and that they refused to compromise on certain

8:20

things that they saw as maybe being trying

8:22

to figure a a graceful way of saying this,

8:25

serving more the interest from

8:27

a more 618 level rather than the

8:29

spirit of an open source platform. And it

8:31

sounded like they happen to just get a group people

8:33

that were tenacious enough to maintain

8:35

that. And if you reach 618 which you

8:37

should, they they even altered the way that Google

8:40

hire like, the Google hiring process. And

8:42

so it feels like ever since Android

8:44

started, you know, they've they've had a

8:46

goal in mind. And I think that goes to, you

8:48

know, what what

8:50

kind of like the four things that broke into that.

8:53

That Praveen says that our big problem is

8:56

a company in terms of, like, no mission, no urgency,

8:59

delusions of exceptionally 618. I I feel

9:01

like a lot of those things were were

9:03

kind of addressed or just part the

9:06

the the good ways that you, you know, I mean, there's a

9:08

lot of self deprecating us. There was

9:10

lot of kind of like self examination.

9:13

There was there was urgency and there

9:15

was commitment to this project. And that that really

9:17

feels like especially reading Chet's book and and

9:19

talking to a lot of the engineers who by the way

9:22

are still there. lot of the people who are OG,

9:25

Android engineers that that help create

9:27

the system are still there,

9:29

which is absolutely astounding in

9:31

the tech in the tech world. Like, that's

9:33

insane. Like, Romanchi,

9:36

Diane Hack, one all hail Diane. Like

9:38

Dan Sailor, all these, like, names that that

9:40

I hear all the time in my Android dev

9:42

life, and that that I see every year at Google

9:44

I owe, They've

9:45

been there from the beginning. Yeah.

9:47

And there's That's really impressive. That is

9:49

really pretty remarkable. I had Not

9:51

to. It is not to. It is not also Yeah. And it is

9:53

it is not also not to again, 618

9:55

and just with the devil's advocate of TWiT, with

9:57

that brings not

9:59

complacency or stoicism, but brings

10:02

a lot of legacy and a lot

10:04

of fundamental,

10:06

you know, kind of things getting cemented in.

10:08

Like, I've I've I've talked to and I've

10:10

I've worked in and I've been around

10:13

other environments where you've had

10:16

618 really is considered lifers. Right? Like,

10:18

people who have been with a company for

10:20

so so long that the

10:22

perspective sometimes shifts and

10:25

they, you know, they've already tried everything. They'll

10:27

be the first to shoot down new ideas or

10:30

that that, you know you know, sometimes gatekeeping

10:32

occurs, you know, like, oh, like, so many

10:34

different things can come of that. And when I think

10:36

I think I think it's remarkable and it's

10:39

so respectable and it's so, like, you know,

10:41

there's some legendary legendary folks who deserve

10:43

a massive matter of respect. But In terms of

10:45

the stew or the soup that

10:47

makes an organization that is all the ingredients

10:50

are

10:50

people, that's not always a good thing. No.

10:52

IIA hundred and twenty -- Yeah. -- percent

10:55

thousand percent agree with Iran that that

10:57

that that that also plays into

11:00

people tend to move around lot. IIA hundred twenty

11:02

percent agree with you, and I met people like that.

11:04

And I think that there's just something there's

11:06

some kind of magic sauce with Android that these

11:08

people these engineers keep

11:11

pushing. And and kind

11:13

of another thing that I think Ron

11:15

in his write up called out is also, like,

11:17

the fact that Android feels stable,

11:19

and they they have lot of responsibility. Right? They release

11:21

an OS every year. They have

11:24

I mean, like, the way that they have

11:26

this process of yearly,

11:28

you know, and even quarterly, like,

11:30

software releases and they do an orderly manner. They

11:33

take a feedback. They they they it's

11:35

it's like they're they're a machine that

11:37

works. I don't even know how to describe it.

11:40

They're they're a software machine that works

11:42

that cranks out releases every year. And I know

11:44

that doesn't seem like a big deal that seems like it

11:46

should be table stakes, but it

11:48

is insane how uncommon that

11:51

can be to have people that just know how to release

11:53

software relatively smoothie. I know

11:55

it's not always the best. I know that there are bugs. I know

11:57

that there 618 but it's kind of insane.

11:59

And and and kind of like going

12:01

back to what the original point was is that not everything

12:03

in Google works like this.

12:05

Sure.

12:07

And I don't know. I I as

12:09

developer, you know, getting to

12:11

see these people every year, getting to hear

12:13

and witness the feedback loop

12:15

that is the users, the

12:17

developers talking to the

12:19

under team and then having things come out of it and

12:21

having continue improvements and having

12:23

us complain at them and then having them, you know,

12:26

like, iterate on the platform and try make things better.

12:28

That is really special and very very

12:30

interesting to me and very fun.

12:33

And the fact that maybe Android

12:35

is a little bit of an exception in the

12:37

mass that is Google, kind of places

12:39

that I mean and I there's plenty of stuff that I know

12:41

I've complained about. lot of it is stuff that is

12:43

kind of like, you know, more ancillary like Google

12:45

Play Services, Google Play Store, all

12:48

the stories we've had of, like, you know, developers

12:50

getting their apps pulled for no reason for months

12:52

and TWiT, you know, like, kind of those kind of stories

12:54

-- Mhmm. -- that that that

12:56

in my very biased view of

12:59

Google with Android, you know, I think you

13:01

can kinda tell which parts, you know,

13:03

are less under the purview of the direct

13:05

Android team and which are more kind of, like, more

13:07

under influence of the broader organization. So

13:10

I I I'm biased, but I

13:12

I kinda feel like in in the

13:14

reality of the software release and

13:17

the the relationship that I know

13:19

developers have with the Android

13:20

team, this fits this

13:22

makes sense to me. So Mhmm.

13:25

Yeah. It's And and I

13:27

and I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't

13:29

doubt that this was not his experience.

13:32

Right? I think Praveen had, you know

13:34

and he says in the article they worked at Microsoft.

13:36

It wasn't his first go with a monolithic huge

13:39

kind of corporation -- Mhmm. --

13:41

this could very much be his experience.

13:43

Doesn't mean it's every googler's experience. Right?

13:46

Like, opinions are that. They are opinions. There

13:48

could be -- For sure. -- there could be another you know, there could be other

13:50

foe like, like, it's funny because, you know, obviously,

13:53

like, I I was I was laughing because, like, of course,

13:55

Ron wrote this article. Right? Of course. I love

13:57

on Amadea, 618, like But, like, he he

13:59

is, like this was, like, I was, like, oh, of course, he's

14:01

covering this and that's what we're referencing and, like, putting in

14:03

his own personal kind of opinion and stark to

14:05

it. Because that it it is just that.

14:07

There's that opinion. I'm sure you could you could

14:09

pull you could go to Mountain View and pull five random

14:12

Googlers and get five different opinions

14:14

of Praveen's position, you know, kinda thoughts

14:16

around the company. Right? Like, because the company

14:18

is that that big and so

14:20

many people work on so many different things. And

14:23

everybody has a different perspective. Right?

14:25

So I I think there's a lot of points in here

14:27

that as a user and as in, you

14:29

know, whatever we are, punted analysts,

14:31

whatever we are. You know,

14:33

of of the company critic, the

14:37

the math seemed to work. On a lot of some

14:39

of it, but I don't know. We're not inside of it either.

14:41

Right? So it's it's it's you can't take

14:43

you can't take one person's experience after

14:45

three years at a company of literally

14:48

thousands and and say, this

14:50

is exactly what it is. For everyone.

14:52

Yeah.

14:52

Yeah. Yeah.

14:53

Yeah. I I agree. There there were

14:55

you know, I think you take something like this with

14:57

a with a grain of salt because it is a per perspective.

15:00

That's exactly what it is. It's on medium after

15:02

all, you know. It's what person's perspective

15:04

about their experience. I'm sure it's

15:06

representative of a lot of people's experience.

15:09

Like, I'm sure he isn't out on an island alone.

15:12

But not everybody is on that island with

15:14

him as well. I thought it was really interesting

15:17

how he how he mentioned that

15:19

because he was only their his company

15:21

was only acquired in twenty twenty.

15:25

And he said after two years, he

15:27

had worked there longer than half the

15:29

company. don't know if he was just, like, throwing that.

15:31

I was, like, I practically worked there longer than half

15:33

the company or that was true. And if so,

15:36

how he knew that. But his point

15:38

was essentially like, there's

15:40

so many people going in and

15:42

out of Google that when they come in,

15:44

instead of instead of it being an environment

15:47

where it's like, okay, a new perspective. You know,

15:49

how how can we look at things differently?

15:52

It was always like, this is

15:54

how we do it at Google. This is the Google

15:56

way. And I I think when you are

15:58

a company of that size, how

16:01

do you avoid that from happening? Right? Like,

16:03

at a certain point, you're just so massive

16:05

and so huge that that

16:08

ship as, you know, the the illusion is always

16:10

the ship is hard to turn and

16:12

does the environment support new

16:14

perspectives or does it put you in a box

16:17

in say, well, you're a googler now, and this

16:19

is how we do it at Google. And is that

16:21

how we do it at Google? Is that serving

16:24

the company? At the end of the day, and that

16:26

really resonated for me. I

16:28

could absolutely see that as being

16:30

a real challenge for Google. It's probably also

16:32

a real challenge for any other company, Google size.

16:35

618, you know, we, as consumers, see

16:38

the impact of things like that. When

16:40

we see all these products come out,

16:42

that, you know, there is no

16:45

devotion to the product because the people

16:47

who are making the product, you know, they

16:49

end up getting their kudos. They end up moving

16:51

to a different, you know, place in the

16:53

company and that's no longer their baby.

16:55

It's somebody else's baby who doesn't care about that

16:57

baby nearly as much as they did and then it

16:59

goes away. Alright. Piece stadia

17:01

or whatever, you know, random service you

17:03

TWiT throw into that mix. Just go to build by

17:05

Google and you'll see tons of them. So

17:08

so it does. So whether the

17:10

Android team is actually, like,

17:13

you know, if this is indicative of

17:15

the Android team or not, which it sounds like

17:17

it's probably not, those other,

17:19

you know, those other experiences do have an

17:21

impact on users of Android in

17:24

other ways. And I think

17:26

the erosion of trust is just a really

17:29

I don't know. That's a really big challenge for

17:31

Google. So I I have to say a lot

17:33

of this resonates for me and I I don't wanna keep,

17:35

you know, holding up the show on this, but it really

17:37

there were parts of this that really

17:40

reminded me of when my comp my old company trial

17:42

got acquired by Atlassian. So I don't

17:45

It it is hard. And for actually, for a long time,

17:47

you know, we, as Trello, because

17:49

of the terms of the acquisition, we were kind

17:51

of, like, left alone for couple years. So in many

17:53

ways, we felt for a couple years that we were just this

17:55

weird little company inside of Atlassian,

17:58

and we function quite differently -- Mhmm.

18:00

-- than them. And, you know,

18:02

because we were very remote, like, for we were,

18:04

like, a remote, like, first company and,

18:07

like, Atlassian had actually we're

18:09

not at the time. And

18:12

I think yeah. I and it's weird

18:14

because, yeah, some of the stuff that you talked about, Jason does resonate

18:16

with me. Like, kind of there was a certain trelliness.

18:19

There's a certain, like, perspective and and,

18:21

like, ideals that we made the product with

18:23

that we tried to hold on to as long as possible

18:26

eventually, when you become part of the company,

18:28

they're not gonna leave you alone forever. No.

18:30

Not forever. They might say that they will.

18:32

They might say that they will. Inevitably

18:35

TWiT

18:35

Right? Right. Unless you're printing, you

18:38

know, if unless you're literally a goose

18:40

that's laying golden eggs, like, by the by

18:42

the by the I don't touch dozen every day. Yeah. Yeah.

18:44

That that that that will that does not distribute

18:46

touch. You're you're going to be brought

18:49

in. And that's when all those

18:51

dying acronyms like OPRs and all

18:53

this kind of metric, it it really starts to

18:55

warp incentive incentives

18:58

and it really starts to warp like,

19:00

what the original, like, spirit

19:03

and maybe direction the product was because, yeah,

19:05

they bought a thing. They need to make money

19:07

from the thing. And if have a whole bunch of other

19:09

things. They kinda make sense. Like, just like Google, just like

19:11

another big company is multiproducts. They kind of want

19:13

synergy. You know, they want to create

19:15

avenues to cross sell. They wanna create

19:17

new opportunities to kind of, like, maybe

19:19

multiply, you know, the product that

19:21

they have using all of you know, they wanna use

19:23

all the tools in the toolbox to make, you know,

19:26

to to make stockholders

19:28

happy. And that's not always

19:30

a bad thing. I'm not trying to, like, demonize

19:33

capitalism by any means, but

19:35

that and and and and so and so you

19:37

start feeling decisions that might make

19:40

a lot of sense for the company as a whole that might make

19:42

sense on average as a positive

19:44

for all the products, but starts to

19:46

kind of erode the trust that

19:48

maybe a user of one of those products

19:50

had. And they start making decisions that maybe

19:52

takes away from that original idea and that original

19:54

experience. And, I mean, that's

19:57

been my experience and, like, the

19:59

fact that, you know, they're pointing out Android still

20:01

holding on is is kind of amazing, but I

20:04

don't know. As another person who got acquired

20:06

has been a big company, I

20:08

I would say that I don't I

20:10

I would not call this man a liar for

20:12

his experience or nor do I feel that

20:15

it's

20:15

uncommon. So anyway, yep. No.

20:18

I I think I think you're I think you're totally totally

20:20

right and because this

20:22

was his experience, you know. But I just think

20:25

that also Burke presented

20:27

in our in our little Slack chat behind

20:29

the scenes. You know, Google is a company

20:31

that is made up of many other companies. Right?

20:34

And there's so much friction, and there's

20:36

so much, you know, there's

20:38

so there's so much, you know,

20:40

personalities involved and things like that.

20:43

you know, it it it it's

20:45

funny because having worked at I

20:47

you know, I've been lucky and lucky enough or

20:49

crazy enough to work at startups. Of,

20:52

you know, less than ten people, you

20:54

know, less than twenty people, you know, like,

20:56

that sort of thing when you can you can directly

20:59

point to the strategy originating from single

21:01

person in some cases. Right? Yeah.

21:03

To being a soldier

21:06

of one of hundreds of thousands

21:08

of people for a mega corporation and

21:10

something like that and everything in between and

21:13

the dynamics of every organization is

21:16

so complex and so unique and

21:18

so wild to think that, you know,

21:20

you can have two people working at the same company

21:22

of completely different kind of takes. And

21:25

that's what kind of what's makes us all so fast anyway.

21:27

I think interesting to analyze and we're

21:29

so, you know, we're so on the outskirts

21:32

that we just kinda take whatever we can get.

21:35

Yeah. So I can't imagine Google

21:37

was happy with this though. So

21:39

No. I can't imagine that either. 618

21:41

what what are they gonna do? Fire him? I don't know.

21:45

He's out the door. That's

21:47

what he was saying when he wrote that media article. What

21:50

are you gonna do? Therapy. Anyways,

21:53

we'll see what he does next.

21:56

Ron, you got the ad. Yes.

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23:19

Alright. We got a jam packed hardware block

23:22

coming up right now.

23:33

Alright. Well, we got

23:35

a lot of hardware. So let's dive right into it.

23:37

Our good friends at Huawei

23:39

actually are working on a working

23:42

on a new wearable and

23:43

Huawei working on a wearable Huawei

23:46

working on a wearable. Mhmm. But

23:48

I I do gotta admit that, you know,

23:51

we talked a lot about sameness and seeing the

23:53

same thing over and over again and the kind of the complacency

23:55

in the in the space. was excited to see that

23:57

Huawei is working on something that that I don't

23:59

think we've seen before. They're called

24:02

watchbuzz. And

24:04

it's a smartwatch with earbuds

24:06

that dock inside the watch itself.

24:09

So the display hinges up to reveal

24:12

earbuds underneath. So if you ever

24:14

wanted to think of, like, where is the most compact

24:16

place I can store my earbuds? Oh my watch.

24:19

That here's your answer. Now

24:23

you've gotta now you're probably doing the mental

24:25

math now. Earbuds, watch,

24:28

you're doing the the size of earbuds, how

24:30

they look? Yes. That means the watch is

24:32

massive. Yeah. It is a big watch.

24:34

It's a chonger. It's

24:36

got more volume than even the Apple Watch

24:38

Ultra because it's gotta store

24:40

those earbuds inside of it. Yeah. Got

24:43

four hundred and ten milliamp battery to run the watch

24:45

and charge the earbuds, which is just

24:47

crazy. I love this. Huawei claims

24:49

it gets a three day battery life. GPS

24:52

twenty four seven heart rate monitors sleep tracking.

24:55

618 here's the catch. No water resistance

24:58

whatsoever. Because it has a hinge

25:00

that opens up to little little

25:02

charging ports.

25:04

That's unfortunate 618 the watch is

25:06

on your wrist and you gotta do things like, you know,

25:08

wash your hands. I

25:09

mean, or, like, go out in the rain. Go out in the

25:11

rain. Like, So

25:15

hopefully, you live in Palm Springs. Yes.

25:17

And so and the earbuds themselves

25:20

have thirty milliamp batteries They give you four

25:22

hours regular operation and three hours with

25:24

noise cancellation. So this

25:26

is crazy, but good

25:28

on you, Huawei, for trying to come up with something

25:30

different. I like it. Yeah. They're

25:32

up for preorder. So this is

25:34

not like a, you know Maybe

25:36

someday we'll do Isn't this weird? This is

25:38

this Sucker is up for preorder in

25:40

Europe. Four hundred forty nine

25:42

pounds or

25:45

about five hundred forty two dollars

25:47

US converted. Out. The buds themselves

25:49

are pretty junky too. Look at that. They're

25:51

like Look. Well, yeah. They're they're

25:53

a little kinda like bullet

25:55

sized. Not

25:56

here, but Where? So weird

25:58

looking. Yeah. And apparently, the

26:00

clip that holds them in may scratch

26:02

the earbuds, and that's just part

26:05

of regular

26:05

use.

26:06

I think

26:06

they said that.

26:07

Really? Oh, man.

26:09

Yeah. Somewhere in there, like oh, by

26:11

the way. Don't worry. Just as

26:13

a feature, not above. That's

26:15

how you know they're yours. Yours you

26:18

you know your earbuds has that one little

26:20

scratch that looks like AJA0, like,

26:22

forensics. Just like the Right.

26:25

Which is fitting because they do look like little bullets

26:27

that you put in your ears. So bizarre.

26:30

I'd never in my life

26:32

considered, 618, I want some earbuds

26:35

to store inside of my watch. 618, hey, you

26:37

know, I'm not making technology

26:38

products. And Huawei is. So

26:41

Huawei's way out there with their

26:43

Way out there with their where Huawei, there

26:45

we go.

26:47

I have But they watch clubs. They're

26:50

so cute. Those watch clubs. Like,

26:53

someone got drunk watch a James

26:55

Bond movie and then, like, you know 618? I have an idea.

26:57

I was like, no. Hear

26:58

me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. I I know

27:00

what we can do with our watch. What you can shoot

27:03

AAAA what do they call

27:05

those those wires so that you can go up to,

27:07

like, the the top of a building? That that

27:10

I don't know. Those things, grappling

27:12

hook. A grappling hook.

27:13

There we go. Thank you. A grappling hook. A grappling

27:15

hook. You have to shoot

27:16

out a grappling hook from your watch. No.

27:18

A grappling hook. 618.

27:20

How do you how do you get three days

27:22

of battery life out of a watch that,

27:25

like, most of its innards are taken up

27:27

by storage of earbuds and

27:29

not more

27:29

battery. I don't understand this doesn't make

27:31

any sense to me. I I love I

27:33

love it because this defies all

27:35

logic of what normal things should be. Yeah.

27:38

All

27:38

logic, I think what

27:39

mean. All logic. Right? Yes. Thank you, Vern.

27:41

All logic. Mhmm. Like, this

27:44

is this is fascinating. And this

27:45

is, like, IIII I'm I'm tempted. I'll

27:47

be honest with you, I'm tempted.

27:50

You you miss all the shots that you don't take. So

27:52

Yeah. Exactly. Yep.

27:56

Oh, goodness. Okay.

27:58

Well, in in terms of innovation,

28:02

we got another leaky piqui for you

28:04

because we talked about the APO

28:07

sorry, n two sorry.

28:09

I got so many acronyms. We talked about

28:11

the APO find n two flip. Last

28:14

week, And so if you didn't quite get enough,

28:16

like, flippables or recombine them flippables

28:19

or flippables or flippables? Like Oh, same show.

28:21

Here we go. Clam shelf bowls. If you did not get

28:23

enough clam shelf foldables, well, Motorola

28:26

might be coming up with, you know, their

28:28

third gen Motorola razor. And so

28:30

something about the, you know, APO

28:32

finds sorry. The APO end

28:35

oh my gosh. The APO find end to flip that

28:37

we talked about was the fact that it's outer screen

28:39

is pretty interesting, especially since it is

28:42

so comparable to the z fold four, which

28:44

has the one point nine inch horizontal outer

28:46

screen. Well, the find

28:48

n t flip has a vertical three point six

28:50

inch screen. Well, you know,

28:52

given all that, Motorola is like hold my

28:54

beer. Uh-huh. And if

28:57

if these kind of leaks from, you know,

29:00

mister Eve leaks, Evan Blasser. Correct? The

29:02

third generation of the Motorola razors will

29:04

be nothing but outer screen. So it looks

29:06

like from these renders, which, by the way, are really rough.

29:08

So obviously, a huge huge grain of salt

29:11

to be taken with this. 618 it looks like

29:13

it could be possible that the Motorola razors

29:15

is just going to keep, you know, making

29:17

the real estate that it's out of screen which is already kind

29:20

of sizable enough and actually is fairly fully

29:22

fully functional, you know, whereas kind of some of

29:24

the other other clamshell foldables tend to

29:26

just limit the outer screen content to

29:28

bunch of widgets. You know, Motorola has been trying

29:30

to make it a little more of fully functional screen

29:33

to help them in that, yeah, the whole

29:35

outer the whole the whole half of the

29:37

phone is the outer screen, even having 618 for

29:39

the camera looks like from these render. So

29:42

I mean, you know, and and it even looks

29:44

like I mean, these are really rough, but, you know,

29:46

to to kind of facilitate this

29:48

much real estate, maybe they'll have, like, navigation

29:50

buttons even for the front screen to make it a

29:52

little more, like, very independent and

29:55

kind of, again, more fully functional. Who

29:58

knows still kind of TWiT of a leaky picky,

30:00

some rough renders? I mean, that's roll rough. So

30:02

I definitely you know, unless you have,

30:04

like, some blood pressure issues this with a big grain

30:06

of salt. But it it would be

30:09

really cool, I think, to see, you

30:11

know, how we could push this form factor.

30:13

I don't know. Does it is 618 do you think?

30:15

Like, a whole big like, a whole half of the screen?

30:17

I love it. I mean, I I think I

30:19

I think why why not make the whole screen,

30:21

the whole front the screen? You know, like, we've seen

30:24

foldables that have the you know,

30:26

Jason, haven't we seen, like, the foldables? Were, like, the

30:28

screws on the outside, on the inside? And, like, we've

30:30

I feel like we've seen a whole bunch of different 618,

30:33

but they've all been in the either the

30:35

conceptual or, you know,

30:37

prototype or examples or,

30:39

like, things like that. 618 to see, you

30:41

know, somebody taking a stab at

30:43

making a, you know, mass produced phone that

30:45

that that has more screen real estate for

30:48

display. I love it. I think it's cool. Yeah.

30:50

I think it makes sense. I think if Sam if

30:52

Samsung could do this, I think they

30:54

would, but they can't, obviously. Only

30:56

Motorola can. Right. I hear

30:58

that Samsung. Yeah. Motorola can do

31:00

something you can't do. What do you think about that?

31:03

Samsung, why why wouldn't Samsung

31:07

Oh, yes. Samsung. Thank you

31:09

for reminding me. I have the Ultra, by the way.

31:12

Got it. Got it. Absolutely. Yeah.

31:14

Look at them. Do they do they

31:16

freak out when?

31:18

That I'm okay. Just just just no

31:20

more. Just

31:21

more. Just no more. If there was a

31:23

sacrifice if there was another one right there,

31:26

it would be

31:26

too much. That's just many soon

31:28

as I feel bad for

31:30

anybody watching the video show because we're zooming in

31:32

on the camera section of the

31:34

Samsung Ultra. And if you have a few of

31:36

holes, this is this is not a why are

31:38

you still watching? So Yeah.

31:39

Yeah. And it's not a very sharp picture

31:41

either. was great. Really, like,

31:44

crazy. Jason Jason, did you know you can

31:46

you can fold up that panel of cameras and put

31:48

your earbuds in

31:48

there?

31:49

Oh, yeah. No. Actually actually

31:51

618 it is, Ron, each of these is an earbud

31:54

or an earbud. Yeah. They pop out. Right?

31:57

Take that out. It's your camera lens doubles

31:59

as an

32:00

earbud. Anyways, where were we?

32:02

No. We're gonna move on. Okay. Yeah.

32:05

Because we've there's been a lot of chatter

32:07

about OnePlus lately, and you

32:09

know, we thought we knew what we were gonna get with

32:11

the OnePlus 11, but

32:15

looks like OnePlus is throwing the curveball. One

32:17

the OnePlus eleven concept with

32:20

a 618 can only be described as plentiful

32:22

LED array on the rear of the device

32:25

And if you're watching the video show, you can see it

32:27

a LED circle around the camera bump

32:30

and then some squiggly lines coming out from

32:32

the bottom of TWiT almost looks like a

32:34

tron phone, to be honest, it does. Mhmm.

32:37

Yeah. So very, very

32:39

cool LED around the camera and around back

32:41

of it. And it's according to

32:43

one plus is meant to, quote unquote, show the

32:45

engineering breakthroughs of the one plus eleven

32:47

concept by highlighting the icy blue

32:49

pipelines which run through the entire

32:51

back of the phone almost almost

32:53

like the OnePlus eleven concept has its own

32:56

series of blood vessels. And

33:00

this is gonna be revealed next week at Mobile

33:02

World Congress twenty twenty three in Barcelona with

33:05

all the hang on. 618,

33:09

you know, but the the question

33:11

that that brings up is that brings up

33:13

when you see all these LEDs, is that

33:15

does it make does this mean the OnePlus eleven

33:18

is making a foray into gaming

33:19

phones? No.

33:20

That's all it takes. No. LED And it takes

33:22

just some some dramatic lighting. 618,

33:25

you know, it's got a Snapdragon eight Gen two,

33:27

a hundred twenty eight twenty a hundred twenty

33:29

hertz display, hundred watt charging,

33:32

or could one plus be

33:35

taking a little dig at their former founder

33:38

now ahead of nothing, Carl

33:40

Pay. With this design,

33:43

which fast saying that this comes right

33:45

hot off the heels of recently Carl Pay

33:48

took to YouTube to give his opinion

33:50

of the new OnePlus and threw

33:53

some shade back at his former

33:54

company. Do we got a little

33:56

feud going on here? Do you have OnePlus Is

33:58

that what's happening?

33:59

Yeah. I don't yeah. I mean,

34:01

did one plus make this specifically

34:04

to counter nothing? I

34:06

don't know. But pretty interesting

34:09

that they're both doing that thing, you

34:11

know. The the nothing

34:13

phone one had it with their lift

34:15

interface on the back last year, and

34:17

then now one plus has this yeah.

34:20

There's the nothing phone. One,

34:23

you know, not not very many LEDs back there

34:25

compared to what we're seeing on the one plus. I

34:27

mean, it's not like an LED. There's a blood stream. It's

34:29

not like a blood stream with LEDs in the back of

34:31

that number. Phone. Yeah. I

34:33

I just like the idea. It's a certain it's a classic,

34:35

like, response to the nothing phone. Like, yeah.

34:37

You want LEDs? Sure. Here here You got

34:39

LEDs. Yeah. Parza

34:41

Blue. Yeah.

34:43

I don't know if that's the case, but I think that'd be really

34:45

funny. It was just more, like, they pre clapped back

34:47

at, like, you know,

34:49

at at at at nothing just to be, you

34:51

know, like, yeah. Yeah. Be petty. Yeah. Sure.

34:55

We'll make a limited edition release

34:58

of our

34:58

phone. See, we can do it too.

35:01

No big deal. It's

35:02

not like it's not like nothing's been sitting back doing

35:04

nothing though. Right, Jason? Well,

35:06

no. Thank you, Ron. No.

35:09

You know 618? They've been doing for the last six months.

35:11

They've been working on Android thirteen. And

35:14

finally got their official update. So Android

35:16

thirteen released six months ago. Here

35:19

we are six months later and nothing phone

35:21

one is finally getting their update. You

35:23

may remember, you know,

35:26

just last week beta testers

35:28

could get in on Didn't take them long to kind

35:30

of make it official for everyone else.

35:34

They committed to three years of android

35:36

updates, so major OS updates

35:38

when they released the nothing phone one

35:41

last year. Also four years of security

35:43

update. So this would be the first major

35:45

update. Those six months later,

35:48

I just kinda feel like that's a little bit long, but

35:50

apparently, I forgot that

35:52

Carl Pay back in August, and

35:54

I do think that we talked about this on the show --

35:56

Yep. -- replied to a fan on Twitter

35:58

who was asking about the Android thirteen update?

36:01

Because the Android thirteen, I think at that point,

36:03

you know, had either come out or was

36:05

about to or 618. And Karl

36:07

Pei said on TWiT, a product is more

36:09

than just its specs, features, and

36:12

version numbers. So,

36:14

you know, kinda hitching, hey, you know 618?

36:18

Just because Android thirteen came out doesn't mean

36:20

you're gonna get it 618. We got

36:22

a lot more things that we're working on than just

36:24

this android release, which

36:27

And I don't know why I find that surprising, but I

36:29

do coming from here. I I would've would envision

36:31

him embracing the

36:32

yes, we're gonna get you the updates fast as possible,

36:35

but apparently No. I'm not surprised by that at all. I

36:37

think think that they're given nothing's whole

36:40

product 618 definition around

36:42

design and their approach and, you know, clearly,

36:44

they're working on things like ear sticks and working on the

36:46

nothing phone too. Like, they have to prioritize their

36:48

roadmap the way they prioritize it. So I'm not surprised

36:50

at all. I'm more surprised that it's February

36:53

and it's out. Based

36:55

off of what we saw last month about

36:57

the when the the

36:59

beta phone came out and they said, it

37:01

was running a, you know, a beta version of Android

37:04

thirteen and things like Google 618 and

37:06

YouTube might not work. Right? So,

37:08

you know, Like, given where we were in January,

37:10

it seems like they got to a release candidate pretty

37:12

quickly to

37:13

me. Good catch. So good catch. Yeah.

37:15

I I completely spaced that.

37:18

That's right. And then speaking of

37:20

Karl Pei TWiT. Because apparently,

37:23

he tweets he's using the bird side

37:25

a lot. Talking about

37:27

the good battery life

37:29

on the nothing phone one. Carl tweeted, big

37:31

difference now having our own team

37:33

who previously delivered oxygen OS

37:36

together versus an

37:38

outsourced team who don't really care about

37:40

the successor failure of our company. So

37:44

little clue here. I don't know that I knew this,

37:46

that a bunch of, you know, the old the

37:48

the people who were on the original

37:50

oxygen OS team at one plus

37:53

are there at nothing working

37:55

on their phones. I suppose this is

37:57

a a call out to anyone who's

38:00

totally upset at the direction that OnePlus

38:02

has taken with their color OS

38:06

influenced version of their

38:08

skin. Maybe you need

38:10

to check out nothing because that

38:12

whole team's over there. So if you like what they were

38:14

doing for OnePlus while they were there, maybe

38:16

a like what nothing is doing

38:18

on their future phones. So I thought that was

38:20

interesting. I didn't know that. It is. Karl

38:23

is like a like a pepper farmer y'all. He's just

38:25

like dolan out that spice. He's just like farmer

38:27

enough of spice and he's hanging handing it

38:29

out. It's a farmer's market. My goodness. TWiT is

38:31

He's like, join us. Come with

38:33

me. And

38:37

they do. When when coffee says

38:39

come with me, you come with him. Okay.

38:43

Well, let's take a quick break and then

38:46

we will get to some app news

38:48

and a really interesting app

38:51

tip from JR Refill. From

38:53

Android Intelligence. That's the next. But first,

38:56

this episode of all that Android is brought to you

38:58

by Eight Sleep. I'm

39:01

sleeping right now, thinking about Eight Sleep. 618

39:04

I can't sleep right now because I gotta actually

39:06

talk about Eight Sleep, which is easy because

39:08

Eight Sleep. Is awesome. Good sleep

39:10

is the ultimate game changer. The

39:12

pod cover is the ultimate

39:15

sleep machine. That's actually what I have at home.

39:17

It's powering our bed

39:19

at home. It's amazing. Consistent good

39:21

sleep can help reduce the likelihood of

39:24

serious health issues. It can increase

39:26

the risk of heart disease, lower

39:28

blood pressure, even reduce

39:30

the risk of Alzheimer's. And

39:32

if you've ever struggled to fall asleep,

39:35

or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night

39:37

or you argue with your partner

39:39

because, you know, with because the

39:41

thermostat, no, you know, you can never agree on

39:44

where to set the thermostat, those those types

39:46

of things. Well, the in sleep pod cover

39:48

is really perfect for you. Works

39:50

hard all night long to improve

39:53

your sleep so you don't have to.

39:55

And like I said, I have the pod cover at

39:57

home both my wife and I,

39:59

we have the app on our phones. You

40:01

know, we can set how cool

40:03

or how warm we want our side

40:05

of the bed to be because I definitely

40:08

like to sleep warmer than my wife.

40:10

She likes to sleep cooler. And,

40:13

you know, III will

40:15

say from for a lot of my life. Like, I

40:17

I just blame it on being tall, but my

40:19

limbs get really cold. Like, my hands

40:22

and my my feet right now are freezing.

40:24

My 618 get really cold and

40:27

often when I would get into bed, it

40:29

wasn't warm enough for me, for my already

40:31

cold feet to warm up. Right? So I'd have,

40:33

like, throw on socks or whatever or,

40:35

you know, make sure that my feet were warm before

40:37

I got into bed somehow. Take a shower

40:39

or whatever it is because it could be really distracting.

40:41

It's like, I just wanna fall asleep. 618 my feet are

40:44

like icicles. With sleep,

40:46

I actually don't have that problem. It's awesome

40:48

because I set my bed and

40:50

you know, it's warm by the time I get in.

40:52

It's it's almost like I was sleeping

40:54

in it and I got up and then I came back. You know, when

40:57

you come back to your bed after you've been sleeping in it,

40:59

it's nice and warm and you just get back in, you fall

41:01

right back to sleep, it's like that, but when you get

41:03

into bed for the first time. That's my experience

41:05

anyways. And mind you, it's wintertime, so

41:08

it's warm now. In the summertime, I'm

41:10

gonna be cooling things down, guaranteed,

41:13

and I'm just really looking forward to that too.

41:15

Sleep rules. The pod cover fits

41:17

on any mattress. It allows you to adjust

41:19

the temperature of your sleeping environment. It

41:22

provides the optimal temperature that

41:24

gets you the best night's sleep. Now the

41:26

pod cover features dual zone temperature control

41:28

like I said, so you and your partner can set

41:30

your sides of the bed to as cool as

41:33

fifty five degrees Fahrenheit or as

41:35

hot as a hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit.

41:38

I I like sleeping in warmth, but that's just a

41:40

little too hot for me. 618 if that's perfect

41:42

for you, hey, great. Here's your

41:44

solution. Based on your biometrics,

41:46

your environment, your sleep stages even,

41:49

The pod cover makes temperature adjustments throughout

41:51

the night that limit wakeups and

41:54

increase your percentage of deep sleep

41:56

That's share always trying to get. Right? That super

41:58

deep, restorative sleep. That's

42:01

the goal. In addition

42:03

to its best in class temperature regulation.

42:06

The pod cover has sensors that also

42:08

track your health, your sleep metrics without

42:10

the need to use a wearable device. We've

42:12

talked about this on the show many times. Right? Like,

42:15

I'm I'm curious and interested

42:17

about my sleep metrics, but wearing a watch

42:19

to bed, like, I don't wanna have to wear

42:21

something around my wrist. It feels, you

42:23

know, too constricting like I I don't know. It

42:25

just doesn't work for me. You don't have to here.

42:28

You just lay out your mattress. Lay on the pod cover.

42:30

It does the work for you. Better sleep is

42:32

the health habit you'll love sticking to night

42:34

after night wake up fully energized. With

42:37

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42:39

life throws at you. Because let's be honest, everything

42:42

is a lot easier if you've got a good night's sleep.

42:44

Right? So go to eight sleep dot com

42:46

slash You can save one hundred

42:48

and fifty dollars a check out on

42:50

the pod cover. Eight Sleep currently ships

42:53

within the USA. Canada,

42:55

the UK, and select countries in the

42:57

EU. And also,

42:59

don't forget Australia. That's

43:01

eight Sleep dot com slash Twitter. We

43:03

thank Eight Sleep. For their support, and

43:05

I thank Eight Sleep for my sleep

43:08

because I like to sleep. Thank

43:10

you, Eight Sleep. And that

43:13

is that. Let's

43:15

jump into some app news. We actually have something

43:17

sweet. If

43:26

you are still using the bird's sight,

43:28

that is Twitter on your

43:30

Android device and

43:32

you use two factor authentication you

43:35

should know something. Elon

43:38

Musk announced a change to how two factor

43:40

authentication for Twitter is going to work

43:43

starting on March twentieth. If

43:45

you're not a paid user of

43:47

Twitter Blue, the

43:49

SMS two factor authentication goes

43:52

away for you. Yes. That

43:54

frowning 618 kind of smiling guy

43:57

right there. That that pretends

43:59

surprise with a pretend frown

44:01

guy. 618,

44:05

I mean, we're all smart educated, security

44:07

minded people here. Right? This is a company.

44:10

We know enough about technology to know that SMS

44:12

two factor authentication while it's

44:14

better than no protection is

44:16

definitely not the the best version

44:18

of two factor. So I find this

44:20

really interesting and bizarre

44:23

that they would like, if

44:25

the idea is to get people using,

44:28

you know, paying for Twitter in

44:30

order to get something that keeps them

44:32

more protected. Why why

44:34

this? Because the free thing that

44:36

I do, which is I have, you know, to

44:39

an authentication app, and my

44:41

Twitter is is tied into that instead

44:43

of SMS, then I can't get 618 do they

44:45

call it? SMS hijacking

44:47

or or 618? Where's Mhmm. SIM

44:49

SIM jacking. There we go. So I can't get

44:51

SIM jacked and someone could, you know, log in anyways.

44:54

Like, that won't happen on my account because if I got

44:56

a authentication app that I use,

44:58

like, that's still

44:59

free. Why would you hide the

45:01

the SMS authentication? Because they

45:03

won't. Because the majority

45:06

my this is my take on

45:08

this, but the majority of users

45:11

are using to factor with

45:13

our phone because it's simple and easy and don't

45:15

know -- Yeah. -- Authenticator apps

45:17

or whatever. And so this is the the path

45:19

of least resistance, and it's already been set

45:22

up, and they can easily start charging

45:24

for

45:24

it. Yeah.

45:25

Basically.

45:26

Yeah. And

45:26

SMS cost and and it cost money to

45:28

send SMS. So it's kind

45:30

of -- Yes. -- because

45:31

we know how tight the pennies are

45:33

over there and, you know

45:35

Right. That's true.

45:36

Squeeze in -- Yes. -- squeeze in blood out of stone

45:38

or have a turnip or something, whatever that phrase

45:41

is. I'm literally

45:43

setting up Google Authenticator on

45:45

my Twitter account as we speak right now

45:47

because it's just

45:48

silly. It's just

45:50

March twentieth, you haven't till then. So you out

45:53

in a month. But I think it's so funny is that, like,

45:55

we keep coming back up on this authenticator conversation

45:57

that I'm just like that we

45:59

spent, like I feel like we spent a month talking

46:01

about two factor authentication TWiT Have

46:03

everyone ever finally done? All the emails had

46:05

trickled away that, you know, like, okay, we've got

46:07

nothing more to say. And now we've just opened the

46:09

floodgates

46:09

again. Next week, it's one

46:11

of these entire

46:11

feedback section about two factor authentication users.

46:14

But listen, while you said that, Jason, I

46:16

set up Google Authenticator on my phone.

46:18

Phone and and Twitter and everything. So I'm all

46:20

set up. So TWiT it is that easy. So if you were using

46:23

Twitter and you're using your phone for SMS

46:25

to f a, go set it up

46:27

with Google Authenticator or or

46:29

the Authenticator app of your choice given that

46:31

there's so many if you wanna use off the or

46:33

whatever else they

46:34

are. It is so easy to do. I literally just

46:36

set it up right now while while we were talking

46:38

about this story. I'm happy

46:39

that works for you, Ron, because I tried setting

46:41

up two factor on a show, and I got

46:43

locked

46:44

out of bed and laid out almost lost everything.

46:46

So I do not recommend if you are podcasting

46:48

that you set up two factor weighted you'll have to

46:50

write yourself a note, get a little TWiT note,

46:53

2FA on it, and put it on

46:55

your display for after the

46:56

show, Ron, next time. I'm just saying, you

46:58

know, well, you don't wanna lose access forever.

47:01

It it would be a shoe in for the best of

47:03

twenty twenty three, though, that. Unfortunately, since

47:06

now Yeah. That's the That's the

47:08

the silver lining. We got a clip

47:10

in the best of I lost

47:12

my account. We got a clip in the best

47:14

of. So I mean,

47:16

you got a point there, Jason. Yeah.

47:19

Okay. I'll do it. Fine. Here we

47:21

go. I'm gonna lock myself out. No. I'm not gonna

47:23

do I've done it once. I've learned my lesson.

47:25

I saved those things for after the show. Alright.

47:30

This was really cool when you post

47:32

something in our Slack. And while it's

47:34

not like news that I

47:36

mean, our you know, all the Android blogs

47:38

are writing about, at least I don't think so.

47:40

I haven't seen this in my Google

47:42

photos, and you did, and it's really kinda

47:44

crazy. Yeah. So this

47:46

is kinda fun. This is like your own

47:49

wins, like, break like, breaking news

47:51

on stuff she found in Google photos.

47:53

So So

47:59

I So today

48:02

on Wynn's phone, I was actually in Google

48:05

Photos, and III actually do enjoy

48:07

the the suggestion, like, when Google

48:09

kind of generates, like, collages or,

48:11

hey, like, six years ago. It was a great Yeah.

48:13

Six years ago, remember before all this happened,

48:16

and you were out, like, traveling and stuff and hanging

48:18

out with people with and, like, the world was

48:20

regular or, hey, look, here's you ten

48:22

years ago. Look how young you looked in, also,

48:24

I I love all that stuff. So today, I

48:26

would I I like to just look at them and there was

48:28

one that was highlight on me

48:31

and then I clicked it And

48:34

what I started to notice is that

48:36

when I opened and played this

48:38

video that Google generated for me, and we can

48:40

just go ahead and bring it up just so that the

48:42

the videos. I was noticing very

48:45

interesting. So it was nominally a

48:47

video. And at first, I was like, oh, it

48:50

looked as if Google had kind of compiled

48:52

a bunch of motion photos, you know, like, so, you

48:54

know, with, you know, your pixels and other

48:56

kind of android phones, sometimes you can turn on

48:58

motion photos where it takes you know, some small

49:00

video and, you know,

49:02

it's a motion photo where you can, you know, export

49:05

it or change the frame. No. These weren't motion photos.

49:07

These were these are these are all static photos

49:09

that I know were just static

49:11

photos that were taken. And what

49:13

Google did -- What Google photos did

49:16

was to create moving

49:18

versions of these, when

49:21

I know that these are not motion photos, you just

49:23

static photos, and, you know, it did stuff like,

49:26

like show me opening my eyes or

49:28

it TWiT kind of our describe, but basically looks

49:31

like it's adding motion to static photos.

49:35

And I was very intrigued

49:38

because, yes, like so basically, what it seems like

49:40

Google FODGE is doing is

49:42

taking you know, photos that are very

49:44

similar. So at first, I thought maybe always

49:47

as a generative AI thing because I knew

49:49

that these were old photos that didn't

49:51

have before even pickles at

49:53

motion photos. And I was wondering, are they using,

49:55

like, computational photography or

49:57

something to kind of, add motion? Because

50:00

the motion was very natural. Like, in a lot of

50:02

them, it it looks like Google

50:04

Google photos is trying to, like, you know, if I'm smiling,

50:06

it actually animates seems like it's animating

50:08

my mouth so you can kinda see me like opening

50:11

my mouth a smile or it

50:13

looks like I'm opening my eyes wider,

50:15

like the first photo is me and my

50:17

husband hang out in my mother-in-law's basement,

50:20

and I kinda start opening my eyes into

50:22

into a look of surprise. Just like that,

50:24

I'm like, I know I did not take that picture. I know

50:26

my husband didn't take that picture. So at first,

50:29

I thought, oh, is this some kind of, like, you

50:31

know, again, computational 618

50:33

AI thing? And later when I was going through

50:35

the static photos, I found out what it is. And basically,

50:38

Google photos is going through, you

50:40

know, a series of

50:42

successive photos that are similar, and I actually

50:44

posted some in our Slack in in case

50:46

that's not clear. But basically, you know, sometimes we

50:48

take photo don't just take, you know, one photo, you

50:50

like, several photos at a time. And so you have a lot of

50:52

very, you know, very similar but slightly different photos.

50:55

And so 618 it's doing is

50:57

interpolating

50:58

when it finds two or more of like a very similar

51:01

photo, it's actually interpolating between the two

51:03

to create this video. And

51:07

618 is it is it that or is it

51:09

the the kind of photos that

51:11

it's recording video

51:13

No. And picking up the best frame from? No.

51:15

These were some of these were really old photos from,

51:17

like -- Really? -- five, six years ago. Yeah.

51:20

So

51:20

Oh, wow.

51:21

And I think that mean, I I don't know exactly when

51:23

I first got motion photos that I'm pretty darn sure

51:25

they're not. So, yeah, there's

51:27

one where there was one in picture of me

51:29

and my husband and Copenhagen some years ago, and there's five

51:31

pictures. Yeah. And, you know, I

51:33

saw I'm almost I'm kinda sitting in a cafe and

51:35

I'm kind of, like, looking around and he caught, like, five

51:37

or six images. And so 618 Google

51:40

photos did was it took all these, and it interpreted

51:42

it into, like, this five second clip where you can see

51:44

my my people's kind of, like, moving

51:46

around, like, watching this, like, kinda moving

51:48

around, you know, across the ceiling. And

51:50

it's the weirdest thing because, you know, you kinda think

51:53

of when

51:53

oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ron.

51:55

I'm sorry. The motion photos premiered with

51:57

the Google Pixel two, so that's twenty

51:59

seventeen.

52:01

Well, it'll be

52:01

definitely not Well, no. But -- Okay. -- motion

52:04

photos, isn't that the thing where when

52:06

you take a picture and you're like swiping

52:08

through? It has that little, like, clip

52:10

of -- It has a -- of movie that he has right

52:12

up to the clip, that's different than what we're seeing

52:14

here. Yeah.

52:14

That that's No. No. No. No. But but motion

52:17

but motion photo is also what

52:19

will happen is is that I'll look at some photos

52:22

and it will capture

52:24

the video of the moment and I will see

52:27

the video

52:27

play, and then it stops on the best still

52:29

from the photo, whatever it is. It's

52:31

like a clip of

52:32

video when it's actually stills. Yeah. Yeah.

52:34

Exactly. It's it's both and is capturing

52:37

this video on the front end and on the back

52:39

end of it. And I'm sure this probably is

52:41

probably doing both of those. It's probably utilizing

52:43

both of those here. Right? Like, when when what you're

52:45

saying is then the extrapolation between photos

52:47

where it doesn't have that data -- Yeah. -- but then on

52:49

the motion photos, it can extrapolate

52:52

what is going on beyond the video

52:54

got captured because it it it it

52:57

captured

52:57

video. So there's a a larger sample

52:59

size to pull from. Yeah. Scooterized

53:02

Scooterized in Chat just

53:05

found a tweet from Google

53:08

May eighteenth twenty twenty one.

53:10

Here, let me see if I can get this to

53:12

you, Bert. We'll use

53:13

machine machine learning to fill in the

53:15

It's cinematic. Photos. Yeah. Cinematic. Yeah.

53:18

I put the lake in the dock underneath the story.

53:20

I have I have never seen these before. And this is, like,

53:22

the first time I've I've ever seen

53:24

618 of my go But I think you're right. Look at the fur

53:26

by the way, look at the first 618. So, really,

53:28

first, look at this tweet. It says when you're trying to

53:30

get the perfect photo, you usually take the same shot a

53:32

few times. Google Photos will use machine learning

53:34

to fill in the gaps between two photos create a

53:36

vivid moving image. These 618 moments

53:39

will be available across Android and iOS. And the first

53:41

comment is Oh, that's weird. And

53:43

Google responds and

53:44

says, hi there. We value your feedback. Please

53:46

share feedback here with

53:47

us. You

53:50

know, this this isn't an opportunity --

53:51

That's nice. -- customer service, whatever.

53:54

This is just a random personal leader that that,

53:56

you know, saying, you know, that's weird. Funny.

53:58

We want to fix your problem. My problem

54:00

is that's weird. 618,

54:03

yeah, I mean, you were right. Right? Like, it is

54:05

interpolating. This is exactly what

54:07

this is. It shows, like, two or three images, and then

54:09

it fills in the gaps between them. So,

54:12

yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. This is

54:14

it. Thank you, Scooter accident. That's it. Thank

54:16

you. But yeah. It's it I mean,

54:18

III think like I've seen them before where it looks

54:20

like it was

54:20

more, like, just parallaxing the background.

54:22

Yeah. It's a couple of good shots where my

54:24

husband was, like, hiding behind me.

54:27

And and, like, I think, actually, the cinematic photo

54:29

made it kind of fun because you can actually kind of see, you

54:31

know, kind of actually add something to it, but then

54:33

there's sometimes where, like, my

54:35

eye is closed in, like, the first one and then

54:37

it's open in the second one and TWiT interpolates

54:40

it. Yeah. But

54:41

interpolates it by pushing my, like,

54:43

not to make it sound like a horror film,

54:45

but it cross fades between my eye

54:47

open and my eye closed. It goes like my eyes

54:49

pushing out from my eyes.

54:53

So sometimes it's really good and even

54:55

I think it's smiling interpolation. I I still feel like

54:57

there's some kind of like Google sauce where

54:59

they interpolate, but they still maybe use like

55:01

face meshes or something that you know,

55:03

does a good interpolation. It's not like an anamorphosis

55:05

thing, you know, like the old anamorphosis covers like when

55:07

we're kids. 618,

55:10

yeah, some of it is still a little uncanny valley.

55:12

And I saw this and I was like, I've

55:14

never seen a cinematic photo in Google photos

55:16

before. Maybe I just missed but Yeah.

55:18

So I was real good. I was looking in

55:20

in my photo world while we've been doing the story

55:23

and I can't find any. I have seen the ones

55:25

where it changes the parallax, where it's just

55:27

a single image and it changes, you know, like, zooms

55:29

in and that and that looks usually,

55:32

that turns out really well. But I haven't

55:34

seen this, which is like it's totally animating

55:36

it. Which -- Yeah. --

55:38

reminds me of there's these,

55:40

you know, when you're looking at, like,

55:42

really old photos, you know, from your family, there

55:44

are sites that you can put those in and

55:47

they will they will like bring them to life.

55:49

So it's like, here's your, you know,

55:52

your great great grandfather in the photo,

55:54

and then you you upload it to the site and

55:56

then it animates it, like, in this way.

55:58

It, like, brings this motion to it and

56:00

you're like, whoa.

56:02

Very strange. AI is so crazy.

56:05

What it's doing right now? Yes. Some of them

56:07

were like, oh, okay. That's nice. But yeah.

56:09

Some of them are

56:10

real, like, Well,

56:13

is that yes. And that's the thing that's the thing is

56:15

that that they are they are taking from

56:17

your library and using, like, to

56:19

your point, like, similar shots. Like, I found I

56:21

found a couple of these that were collecting

56:24

photos of people in my family. Like, my

56:26

mother-in-law and stuff like that. Like, that was the theme of

56:28

it. Right? But it's there's little

56:30

to no value being

56:32

applied on it. Is this a good photo that

56:35

you would wanna include or not? Now,

56:37

you can go into these and edit and remove

56:39

photos you think don't look good to say in

56:41

in in the whole stream. Like, you you can

56:43

edit that stream of photos, and you can remove ones

56:45

that you think aren't good. 618 it's taking

56:47

its best guess and that's the that's the

56:49

fault in the machine learning or the AI and

56:51

that there's the human, yes, this

56:53

is good photo I like. Factor

56:56

that they never can figure out.

56:58

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Interesting

57:01

stuff.

57:03

Thanks for showing off your your photo

57:07

TWiT Oh, there was some it was

57:09

I just I was, like, Wow. I know that

57:11

this is a static photo. What is going

57:13

on here? And yeah.

57:16

Some some of them were weird. Though when it makes

57:18

you smile by having your bottom

57:20

teeth kind of morph into your tongue teeth.

57:22

Yeah. Maybe that's just I maybe that's just because

57:24

my smile's weird, but I was like, whoa. It's

57:26

kinda but also kinda

57:28

creepy.

57:28

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway Work better

57:30

than others for sure. For

57:33

sure. Alright.

57:36

Well, that's cool. That's an I I love I do

57:38

myth. I like Google Photos. It's got all those

57:40

little things buried in TWiT you. And

57:42

I do like the curations they provide and

57:44

and throw 618 Me and my wife are sending, you know, stuff

57:47

to each other all the time. And it and it

57:49

it it is calling back the memories, like,

57:51

actually, to, you know, today

57:53

is the four years since I brought my

57:55

son home from the from the hospital and

57:58

sure enough Google photos there four years ago

58:00

today, and it was like all the pictures. And I was like, oh,

58:02

yeah. That that reminded me that that happened.

58:04

Wow. So yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That

58:06

is cool. Google is pretty smart,

58:09

and Google assistant is pretty smart.

58:12

And good thing we've got our Good Buddy JR

58:14

here to give us another awesome Android

58:17

tip, little bit Android intelligence tip

58:19

on on Google Assistant tips.

58:21

So JR, let's hear it from you.

58:24

Hey. So all the hype in the tech

58:26

universe right now is firmly

58:29

focused on the AI chatbot circus.

58:32

For better or, yeah,

58:34

maybe for worse, but forget

58:36

about being the bard,

58:38

bard, bard, all that bally hoo for just a second

58:40

because it's easy to overlook with

58:43

all the noise going on in this area right

58:45

now. We've actually got a really

58:47

good voice controlled companion

58:50

at our fingertips this very second.

58:52

Talking of course about Google Assistant. And

58:55

today, I wanna share a splendid

58:57

little trick I stumbled onto. They're

58:59

making it even easier to use.

59:02

So you know how assistant works. Right? You say

59:04

those two magic words, HEY,

59:06

Google. An assistant perks up and stands

59:09

by to listen for your question. Or

59:11

command. Well, that's all well and

59:13

good, but it can be hard sometimes to know when

59:15

assistant actually hears you

59:18

and is listening and ready to respond. Even

59:21

down that road before. Right? Were you just keep saying

59:23

the launch phrase over and over and over because you

59:25

don't know if things listening or not? It's even

59:27

more of challenge if you've got multiple assisted

59:29

devices around you? Maybe not just your phone,

59:31

but also a speaker or smart display

59:33

or something. Well, here's little

59:35

secret that'll help. We'll start with

59:38

the speakers into blaze because that part's

59:40

relatively easy. Just head into

59:42

the Google Home app on your phone

59:44

and make your way to the list of devices associated

59:47

with your account. Find and tap the name

59:49

of any display or speaker you see there,

59:51

then tap the little gear shaped

59:54

settings icon in the upper right corner

59:56

of the screen. Now look in the menu

59:58

called accessibility. Hey,

1:00:00

would you look at that? Right there

1:00:03

buried where most reasonably sane

1:00:05

mortals would never look are

1:00:07

two switches that'll turn on a friendly

1:00:10

little chime sound. That'll let

1:00:12

you know every time that device starts

1:00:14

and stops listening through your commands. TWiT

1:00:16

those bad boys on. You'll never have to wonder

1:00:19

if and when that specific device

1:00:21

is listening and ready for you again.

1:00:24

Now on the phone front, this is where

1:00:26

things start to get a little more tricky. This

1:00:28

part is about as buried as can

1:00:31

be And it's our, I'd say,

1:00:33

slim to none that any even remotely

1:00:36

normal person would ever figure

1:00:38

out how to enable this. Lucky

1:00:40

for us though, I am anything

1:00:42

but normal. So here we go. First,

1:00:44

head into your phone system settings and

1:00:46

open up the accessibility section

1:00:49

Look for an option there called switch

1:00:52

access. Tap that,

1:00:54

then tap the toggle next to use

1:00:56

switch access to turn it on.

1:00:58

Confirm that's what you wanna do. And if your phone

1:01:01

asks what sort of switch you wanna use or

1:01:03

anything like that, just pick USB, make

1:01:05

your way through the next couple questions, That

1:01:07

part really doesn't matter because you aren't actually gonna

1:01:09

use this. Having the system enabled

1:01:11

is just a quirky, completely undocumented

1:01:14

requirement to get our assistant

1:01:17

alert sounds to work on Android.

1:01:20

Alright. We're halfway there. Now

1:01:22

take a quick break to consume a cracker

1:01:24

and or cabbage. Than say

1:01:27

HEY Google Assistant settings

1:01:30

to pull up your phone's Google Assistant

1:01:32

settings section. There

1:01:34

you'll wanna tap see all assistant

1:01:37

settings, then tap accessibility. Now

1:01:40

see those toggles for Mike open

1:01:42

notification and Mike close

1:01:44

notification, make sure they're both

1:01:46

turned on, and that's it. The next

1:01:49

time you call out for assistance 618, You'll

1:01:51

hear a cheery little chime, let you

1:01:53

know that your phone's listening, and you'll hear

1:01:55

another sound that indicates when it

1:01:57

stops. Pretty

1:02:02

sensible, once you say, it's weird that you gotta

1:02:04

jump through all those hoops to make it happen. But hey,

1:02:07

now you know, And now you'll never have

1:02:09

to wonder if assistant is ready and

1:02:11

listening for you again. Hey,

1:02:14

remember, you can get tips like this directly

1:02:16

in your inbox with my Android Intelligence

1:02:19

newsletter gives you three useful

1:02:21

new things to try every single Friday straight

1:02:23

from me to you. Sign up for free now

1:02:25

at android intel dot net

1:02:28

slash TWiT, and I'll send a few special

1:02:30

bonus tips your way too. That site

1:02:32

again is android intel dot

1:02:34

net slash tweet. That's

1:02:36

all for today. We'll pick up next week

1:02:38

with another neat assistant trick one

1:02:40

that might just come in handy the

1:02:43

next time you've got all about android

1:02:45

on your mind. Back to you,

1:02:47

gang, I'm

1:02:49

intrigued.

1:02:51

You really know how to keep me watching

1:02:54

and listening. Especially when

1:02:56

you put in old photos of me that

1:02:59

I don't approve

1:03:00

of, but they're on the Internet. So what can I do?

1:03:03

They're out there. Dang

1:03:05

it. Uh-huh.

1:03:08

Oh, Birx says, hold on. I know what Birx

1:03:10

doing right now. Don't do it Birx.

1:03:12

Yes. Oh,

1:03:14

wow. Wow. Wow. There's university, Jason.

1:03:17

Yeah. Wonderful. University,

1:03:19

Jason. That was a long time ago. Narrow

1:03:23

glasses. That was my lion's man

1:03:25

hair do era. Yeah. I

1:03:27

don't know what I was thinking. Anyways,

1:03:30

JR, thank you for the tip. It's

1:03:32

funny that they that this is something

1:03:34

that you do have to jump through hoops

1:03:36

in order to do because wasn't this just

1:03:39

the default for the longest time?

1:03:41

Like, that's just how assistant worked

1:03:43

for the longest time. When you fire assistant, you

1:03:45

hear that do

1:03:45

dink? Right. You know what I mean?

1:03:47

And now, I guess, you don't and

1:03:50

but if you

1:03:50

want comes around. If you people

1:03:52

are annoyed by the Duiting can turn it off and

1:03:54

-- Yeah. -- who knows? And then we're missing

1:03:57

a question whether Google was listening and

1:03:59

now you gotta turn it on. So

1:04:01

Right.

1:04:01

Well, according to Praveen, no Google is not

1:04:03

listening.

1:04:05

That's true. Yeah. You're gonna have

1:04:06

any rainbows. I like it.

1:04:10

It's a spicy show. Touche.

1:04:12

Okay. As Google

1:04:14

Girls.

1:04:17

618 up next, we got some of your feedback. That's

1:04:19

coming up. Welcome to

1:04:21

the VERTAS, the flagship podcast. Of our

1:04:23

feelings about technology. I'm the epitope.

1:04:25

I'm Alex Krans. And I'm David Pierce. We

1:04:28

published two episodes a week. On Fridays,

1:04:30

we try to make sense of the biggest news stories

1:04:32

in

1:04:32

tech. And then on Wednesday, as we dig deep into

1:04:34

the products we use and how they affect our lives.

1:04:36

Okay. But fair warning, we tend to run

1:04:38

long and we tend to go on long tangent about

1:04:41

streaming apps, wireless

1:04:42

radios, and what a computer actually

1:04:44

is. Because honestly, what is a computer?

1:04:46

Do you know? You should tell us. 618 ask

1:04:48

that question and lots of other questions twice a

1:04:50

week on the

1:04:51

vergecast. Find it anywhere. You listen

1:04:53

to podcasts. Triple

1:04:56

a to a dot TV, 347 show

1:04:58

a a. Those are the ways you contact

1:05:00

us, and some of you did. Like

1:05:03

Jim, our first e mailer,

1:05:06

who wrote in to say, I just switched

1:05:08

back to a galaxy after being on pixels

1:05:10

the last few years. And for god,

1:05:12

how nice Samsung Internet is

1:05:14

Samsung Internet is the Internet, like,

1:05:16

is the browser on Samsung devices. You also

1:05:19

have Chrome on there. But Samsung, of course,

1:05:21

likes to have its own apps that are integrated

1:05:23

with its ecosystem that is Samsung Internet.

1:05:26

He says, Is there a way to open links

1:05:28

from the search bar widget in Samsung

1:05:31

Internet instead of Chrome? So

1:05:34

Yes. There is and

1:05:36

this is, I think, part of Android

1:05:39

by default at this point. I think it was

1:05:41

added in maybe two or three

1:05:43

years ago as an option

1:05:46

in your settings. So probably

1:05:48

every phone is gonna get you there a little bit

1:05:50

618. But if you do a

1:05:51

search, you'll probably be able to find it pretty easily based

1:05:53

on what I tell

1:05:54

you. But what you need to do is you need

1:05:56

to set your default browser app

1:05:58

in your settings, in your phone settings

1:06:01

to your browser app of choice.

1:06:03

In this case, you would set that to Samsung Internet.

1:06:06

I think by default on most android

1:06:08

phones that set to Chrome. Chrome, as

1:06:10

you know, ships on all android

1:06:12

phones that are clear, you know, that have

1:06:15

a GMS contract with with

1:06:17

Google. So but

1:06:20

on Samsung phones, I

1:06:22

I can't I don't you have a Samsung phone?

1:06:24

I do, but I haven't set it up But

1:06:27

actually, but I did just set it up from

1:06:29

from Square one. Let's see here. So

1:06:31

if but hold on because I think

1:06:33

Leo's Tim is here and I don't wanna need text

1:06:35

messages to pop through. This is Leo's

1:06:38

phone, by the way. Okay. So if we go

1:06:40

to settings, and then

1:06:42

I'll read my my little notes that I left

1:06:44

here. And then we go to choose

1:06:46

default apps. Oh, so we go to

1:06:49

apps. So let's find apps. Do

1:06:52

to do apps and

1:06:54

then choose default apps. We'll

1:06:56

go there. Oops. Browser app

1:06:58

right up at the top. You can see. So by default,

1:07:01

on this newly setup oops.

1:07:04

I hit the wrong thing. On this newly setup

1:07:06

galaxy s twenty three Ultra, the browser

1:07:09

app that's set by default is in fact

1:07:11

Chrome. So I tap that. I

1:07:13

get two options here. The

1:07:16

one you wanted was Samsung Internet.

1:07:18

And boom. Now if I do a

1:07:20

search like TWiT,

1:07:24

I do a search. Jason Photos. No.

1:07:27

I won't do that. I won't do

1:07:29

that. BERC. And

1:07:31

then we'll go here and, yes,

1:07:33

I haven't logged in Samsung Internet. That's why it's

1:07:35

giving me this. But if I was, it opened

1:07:38

it in Samsung Internet. I know because

1:07:40

it says update Samsung Internet because apparently

1:07:42

I need to update Samsung Internet. Anyways,

1:07:45

that's how you do it. There's your answer,

1:07:47

Jim. See, sometimes instead of like looking this

1:07:49

stuff on your own, you can just send us your question,

1:07:51

and we will answer it on the podcast, and

1:07:54

you'll get your name read on a

1:07:55

podcast. As well. So there you go. I

1:07:57

hope that's helpful, Jim. Thank you.

1:08:01

Boom. Well, boom. We

1:08:03

got some more kinda

1:08:06

questions about how to do things with Google things

1:08:08

from Aaron. And I have to admit,

1:08:10

I am very sympathetic to

1:08:12

Aaron's plates. Aaron writes to

1:08:14

saying, I have been having a recurring issue with

1:08:16

Google Assistant and wanted to see if you share

1:08:18

my woes. Consistently over the

1:08:20

past couple of months after prompting assistance.

1:08:23

On my Galaxy S twenty one Ultra

1:08:25

or various Google homes in my house, There

1:08:27

is a ten to twenty second delay before

1:08:29

the action is performed. This

1:08:31

can be particularly annoying when trying to

1:08:33

turn a light on or off.

1:08:36

I have two hundred fifty plus megabit

1:08:38

megabit

1:08:40

what is that? M b p's. M b p's Internet service.

1:08:43

I don't

1:08:43

know if that's that megabits per site. Megabit

1:08:45

per second. Thank you. Yeah. And my I'm so sorry.

1:08:48

And my my provider has

1:08:50

been the same during this time. I use Google

1:08:53

WiFi for my mesh system, no assistant

1:08:55

settings were knowingly changed. I wonder

1:08:57

if any of you have experienced the same issue

1:08:59

and have a fix. From

1:09:01

Aaron. Aaron. I I

1:09:03

don't know okay. So III

1:09:05

just want yes. I've been we've been having this problem,

1:09:07

specifically with our Google Home Nest

1:09:10

Hub Max. And to some degree

1:09:12

with, like, the phones 618 we've really been noticing

1:09:14

it on our on our desktop max. I don't

1:09:16

know if y'all have pauses at

1:09:17

all. I haven't noticed as much of a slowdown,

1:09:21

618, wow, a ten to twenty second delay before

1:09:23

an action is performed does sound

1:09:25

concerning. Yeah. And I guess It's infuriating.

1:09:28

Yeah. I'm that's

1:09:31

a really long time to wait. I mean, that

1:09:33

that makes the product unusable in my opinion.

1:09:35

Like, why would you continue to use a product that

1:09:37

takes twenty seconds to answer your question? I don't

1:09:39

know. Oh,

1:09:40

yeah. I've said some bad words as a Google Adi, so

1:09:42

I don't have I don't

1:09:44

I don't have, like, a answer for the phone

1:09:47

specifically just because it hasn't been as a

1:09:49

problem. But for the NetApp Max, I

1:09:51

I hate to say the the best thing. We just reset we just

1:09:53

factory the device, and it seems to have improved

1:09:55

it. She seems to be answering little bit

1:09:57

quicker. And also

1:09:59

just yeah. We also were running into weird

1:10:01

things like the Nest Hub max would just

1:10:04

become a blank white screen. Like, not even

1:10:06

we almost thought that she was busted. Yeah.

1:10:08

And that I haven't noticed that since we reset

1:10:11

factory reset, which was really annoying because then we

1:10:13

had to obviously do all the we'd like to

1:10:15

me and my husband and all the accounts set up. But

1:10:17

I mean, if you're really desperate, try that with your Google

1:10:19

home. And I I was maybe

1:10:21

there's a way to maybe just, I don't know, reset

1:10:23

the data or one

1:10:27

of the Google Assistant. I'm not sure what what

1:10:29

what what an analog would be for the phone, Google

1:10:31

Assistant, but -- Yeah. It definitely

1:10:34

has improved our quality of life with the

1:10:36

desktop max, so that's my

1:10:38

best

1:10:39

voli at a problem here. Yeah.

1:10:42

I like, I I put this in here not because

1:10:44

I necessarily had any experience with

1:10:46

this or or knew the solution really

1:10:48

if if others out there have

1:10:50

experienced

1:10:51

this, I'm just super curious to know if this is

1:10:53

isolated or or what because

1:10:55

Oh, no.

1:10:55

Like, I don't know yeah. I don't know what

1:10:58

you do with that, but that's super annoying.

1:11:01

It's it's pretty bad. We almost threw

1:11:03

out the NetApp Max. Like Yeah. I would

1:11:05

We thought we thought this it was

1:11:06

ridiculous. Yeah. So

1:11:09

I wish we knew a fix, but we don't

1:11:11

know a fix. Other than --

1:11:13

Factor -- because it's off and back all the

1:11:15

good. Yeah.

1:11:16

So just factory reset it. Yeah.

1:11:18

Factory reset it. Did it answer

1:11:20

your phone? Nah. Might as well. I mean, what do you

1:11:22

got to lose? It's not like these I mean, those devices

1:11:24

don't really store much on the device.

1:11:26

Right? I wouldn't

1:11:28

think so. wouldn't think so either. Like, what would

1:11:30

they put on there? Like, maybe the the ones

1:11:33

with the screen would maybe cache some

1:11:35

information there. 618, like, just

1:11:37

the straight up speakers, like, they're

1:11:40

not cashing anything on the

1:11:41

device. I mean, or or if they are,

1:11:43

what 618 would it be? And it's

1:11:45

just the straight Absolutely. The slight they they

1:11:47

know recognize your voice. That's about

1:11:49

it. And Yeah. Maybe that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

1:11:51

Yeah. Kind of the data to to

1:11:53

recognize the voices possibly. 618, yeah,

1:11:56

very, very puzzling, Erin. If

1:12:00

we get any any feedback from

1:12:02

others who have ideas or have experienced

1:12:04

this, we'll definitely include it on

1:12:06

next week's show. Alright,

1:12:09

Ron. You've got the otters.

1:12:12

I do. I do. I do. It is that time,

1:12:14

that time of week, when we read

1:12:16

an email,

1:12:18

that we feel for the week. It

1:12:20

is the email

1:12:22

of

1:12:22

the week. Why

1:12:25

do we just try to I was why do we try to

1:12:27

get Burke hovering over the button again.

1:12:31

TWiT. our good friend of the show

1:12:33

Rick from Denver, Colorado. I didn't

1:12:35

say it, Burke. He's mad with power.

1:12:38

Our friend Rick from Denver, Colorado writes

1:12:41

in, and this is the email of the week, ladies and

1:12:43

gentlemen. He

1:12:45

says, this question is basically

1:12:48

for Ron, which is good because I'm reading

1:12:50

it. He says, I know you have a

1:12:52

passion for SMS apps and spent a lot

1:12:54

of time curating them. So I wondered if

1:12:56

you might have a suggestion for a reliable and

1:12:58

reputable SMS app that can block

1:13:00

text messages based on keywords.

1:13:02

Email of the week. There

1:13:05

you go. Yeah. Most SMS

1:13:08

blockers seem to be all or nothing. IIE,

1:13:10

they block all messages from a given number,

1:13:12

but what I would like to do is block certain messages

1:13:14

based on keywords 618 allow all other messages.

1:13:17

I have a situation where I receive a lot of text

1:13:19

messages from work where many are from for

1:13:22

different department, and I would like to block those

1:13:24

messages while allowing messages meant for my department.

1:13:26

Are there any apps you could recommend for the situation?

1:13:28

Thanks for all your hard work on the show each week.

1:13:31

And you're welcome, Rick. We do the show for you and

1:13:33

only for you. And that's why you are

1:13:35

the email of the week. So

1:13:38

so that said, you are right, Rick.

1:13:40

I love I love SMS apps

1:13:42

and the whole category. I have

1:13:44

settled on Google messages, which

1:13:46

does not support this feature. It used

1:13:49

to, but Google took it away -- Yeah. -- for

1:13:51

some reason. And there are lots of upset

1:13:53

people in product forums about that. But

1:13:56

I got a couple of options for you.

1:13:58

Now I haven't used them

1:14:01

for this particular usage. So I'm not giving

1:14:03

you any, like, my own personal experience

1:14:05

because I haven't experimented with with blocking

1:14:07

my keyword. As of yet.

1:14:09

But I feel like some of these are 618. Although,

1:14:12

if you read in the comments and the reviews of

1:14:14

the apps, you might see your your mileage may vary.

1:14:17

But 618, you know, all of these 618 been around for a

1:14:19

little while. The first one is

1:14:22

Pulse, which you may remember, was

1:14:24

originally coded by Luke linker of Talendfame,

1:14:27

and then he sold the app to

1:14:30

a to a company

1:14:31

to see what he got out of here. The Twitter

1:14:33

app business when he could get some money for his

1:14:35

business. Exactly. Well, he didn't he well, he's

1:14:37

he well, he he didn't get out of the Twitter app business

1:14:40

early enough. He got the SMS app because

1:14:42

he sold the TWiT sold the SMS app.

1:14:44

Yeah. So but if you take a look

1:14:46

at Pulse, that is available on

1:14:48

the Google Play Store and it

1:14:50

does allow he

1:14:54

saw it to a company called what are they called? They're

1:14:56

called I saw before, Maple Media.

1:15:00

618 Pulse allows you

1:15:02

to block by

1:15:04

keyword. So and you could do you

1:15:07

you can also do automated replies based on

1:15:09

keyword. So it's very, very powerful. It's what

1:15:11

you would expect from Luke Clinker, and it's

1:15:13

great to see that Maple Media has

1:15:15

continued to keep you go continue to keep

1:15:17

Pulse going. So Pulse SMS is a good

1:15:19

option. Another one was

1:15:21

an app that was originally called anti

1:15:24

nuisance, but has renamed to the SEO

1:15:26

friendly call an SMS blocker,

1:15:29

blacklist app, also available

1:15:31

in the Google Play Store. It's

1:15:33

had this one has over I mean, the way,

1:15:35

Pulse had over one million downloads. This

1:15:37

one has over five million downloads. Right? So

1:15:39

it's been around for a while. And basically,

1:15:41

this is just like a hyper blocking for

1:15:44

SMS and calling where you can block calls

1:15:46

and numbers based off their black list database,

1:15:48

but then you can also block SMS via

1:15:51

keywords, which is the key thing you want there. And

1:15:53

then the last one is spam

1:15:55

blocker for Android, which

1:15:58

has over million downloads as well. And

1:16:01

Here it is. It allows you to block by SMS

1:16:04

keyword. So text blocker,

1:16:06

easily block text. Messages

1:16:08

is the most powerful options to block

1:16:11

based on mobile number, sender title, content

1:16:13

keyword, email, text message, and wildcard

1:16:15

rules. So you could block text

1:16:17

from you know, you can you can combine

1:16:20

the number plus keywords, things like that.

1:16:22

So I would try these three apps as starting

1:16:24

point. I think they're all reputable. They've been around for a while.

1:16:26

They have a good reputation. And hopefully

1:16:28

that gets you what you need.

1:16:29

So nice. Congrats,

1:16:32

Rick. It's gotta feel good.

1:16:35

Good. What I like is that not only was it an

1:16:37

email the week that was complimentary, but

1:16:41

it was also one

1:16:43

that I could answer without even working very

1:16:45

hard. This is ironic because he said,

1:16:47

thanks for all your hard work on the show. And

1:16:49

it it was like, I was like, oh, I know the answer to this

1:16:51

one because

1:16:52

Wow. I know a category, which is

1:16:54

Yeah. There you go. Hold

1:16:56

on. Well, it started with you,

1:16:58

so I immediately put your initials on

1:17:00

it. So I'm happy to work with you.

1:17:02

Because I am the email of the week.

1:17:04

No. Reader's the email of the week. Wait a minute. I'm

1:17:06

gonna be the email of the week. Yeah. Alright.

1:17:10

Well, Rick, there you go. You

1:17:13

can I was gonna

1:17:15

say you could create a t shirt that says I was the

1:17:17

email that we 618

1:17:18

really, we should be creating that t shirt?

1:17:20

Right. Yeah. I'm giving it to you and

1:17:22

I'm sorry. Giving it to JR to use

1:17:24

on a tip. Right? Someday.

1:17:29

We keep saying we're gonna make these t shirts. I'm

1:17:31

gonna 618 gonna mention that to Anthony.

1:17:33

He's always asking me for t shirt. Is

1:17:35

it? It is. We got it. We got it. I've given

1:17:38

plenty of t shirt ideas. They never get

1:17:40

made. Well, I mean, not a mining

1:17:42

bin made either. That's true. He's just looking

1:17:44

for ideas.

1:17:44

Well, but let's Let's take a look at the course

1:17:46

there. So you're not wrong. Yeah. You're not

1:17:48

wrong. Because I feel good. III

1:17:50

will not argue with that. Alright. What

1:17:52

we have reached the end of this episode is 702

1:17:55

current time, which is ten

1:17:57

o two, Ron's time, which means he's

1:17:59

got some trash cans to move out to the curb. So

1:18:02

we will say goodbye at this

1:18:04

point. Ron, what do you want to leave people with?

1:18:06

Yeah. So you can go follow me on Twitter and on

1:18:08

Instagram at Ronxo. But

1:18:10

if you're looking for some more audio entertainment

1:18:13

head over to ifamboy dot com, where

1:18:15

we recently released our monthly media upload

1:18:17

podcast where we're talking about all things in the media

1:18:19

And that is very

1:18:22

odd. That page should have content. But

1:18:25

I gave Brooke a link that is is loading the player.

1:18:27

But anyway, I'll look at that later. 618 it's

1:18:29

me and the guys talking about

1:18:32

the Oscar nominated movies and ranking them

1:18:35

by who we think we'll win. So there you go.

1:18:38

And

1:18:38

I also talk about the TV show poker face, which

1:18:40

is fantastic.

1:18:42

I keep hearing that. Awesome. Watch

1:18:44

it. So good. Yeah. When are the Oscars?

1:18:46

They've October, like, twelfth

1:18:48

or nineteenth or something like that. I'm I'm

1:18:50

sorry. March, not October. Yeah. So March

1:18:52

twelfth or nineteenth or so. We've got around March nineteenth.

1:18:54

Okay. Alright. Well, you got some

1:18:56

time. Check it out. Thank you, Ron. March

1:18:58

twelfth. March twelfth at eight o'clock. March

1:19:00

twelfth. Alright. And

1:19:03

then when 618 you

1:19:05

got

1:19:05

cooking? What's going on? Just

1:19:08

usual thing day job as an Android

1:19:11

developer, you can check out any Android

1:19:13

development related content that I have on my website,

1:19:15

randomly typing dot com, including

1:19:18

pretzel notes, code, video, all

1:19:20

that kind of good

1:19:21

stuff. And you can find me on

1:19:23

social media of several types

1:19:25

at queen code monkey and then

1:19:27

And you should. You can

1:19:30

and you should find win on social

1:19:32

medias. Heidi. Sorry.

1:19:36

That was not intentional. Thank

1:19:39

you, Ed. Thank you JR

1:19:42

for your awesome android intelligence tips

1:19:45

each and every week. We

1:19:47

appreciate you except for that one week where

1:19:49

you had strep throat and, like, I still don't

1:19:51

forgive you, man. You should've worked through that stuff.

1:19:53

In that one week, we wear the same shirt. Yeah.

1:19:56

What about

1:19:56

that? I don't remember that.

1:19:57

That wasn't. It was a Okay. Yeah. That didn't

1:19:59

happen. His shirt game is

1:20:01

top top of his field. So I'm

1:20:03

not gonna fault him on that, not

1:20:05

yet anyways. Well, if he keeps

1:20:08

pulling up photos of me like he did

1:20:10

today, I might fault him a little But anyways,

1:20:13

Thank you, Burke. Thank you, Victor. Everyone

1:20:15

behind the scenes helping us do this show and bring

1:20:17

it to you and make it look easy. And

1:20:20

then I'll just take all the credit. But actually,

1:20:23

they're doing all the the really hard work. So

1:20:25

thank you. You can find

1:20:27

me on tech news weekly every Thursday

1:20:29

to what I TNW with Micah

1:20:31

Sargent interviewing people. I'm sure this

1:20:33

week we're gonna have some sort of interview around

1:20:35

the section two thirty stuff that's happening in

1:20:37

the Supreme Court. We're gonna get a

1:20:39

lot of coverage of that on the network this week

1:20:41

because it's a really big deal. So we'll

1:20:44

be following that closely. And then,

1:20:46

yeah, just producing a lot of the other

1:20:48

shows on the network behind the scenes,

1:20:50

so you'll see me pop into the discord and chat

1:20:53

and stuff when I'm doing that as well.

1:20:54

Don't forget club

1:20:57

TWiT, that rhymed. I wish I had

1:20:59

another rhyme to, like, tag onto it.

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There we go. Club is our ad free

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We will see you in that Tuesday. Have

1:21:44

a great week, everybody.

1:21:53

Hey, I know you're super busy, so I won't keep you

1:21:55

long, but I wanted to tell you about a show

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here on the TWiT network called

1:22:00

Tech News Weekly. You are

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a busy person. And during your

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you may want to learn about all the

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tech news that's fit to, well,

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