 And begin to begin I need I need like one of those clapboards like a clapper like the rolling Yep, yeah, everyone quiet take speed Speed rolling Can I get a room tone? Yeah, everybody quiet for 20 seconds. Yeah, I once did a gig This is years ago. Sony hired me to like be the Peppy host of like a video about their new digital cameras or whatever like and it was and it was the it was a full Video production unit, you know kind of thing There was a PA who like picked me up from the hotel and brought me in that they did They did that clothes fitting and all that sort of stuff Wow and did all that did all that like quiet on the set room time And I was like what am I doing it was like one of those like two-day things where it was like I am not cut out for this life Like it was you know like they should have gotten Anthony Carboni or somebody like it was it was should not have been me, but Felt it felt out of place. Yes. Yeah, for sure. It's like wait a minute all this Looking at me. Yeah, I'm at the center of it That was actually what you just said there that that commercial that I went, you know tried for Remember that that was kind of how I felt about that too. I was like, okay if I get this I mean, I suppose it's a little bit of an ego boost that like they picked me and everything But it's gonna be really weird. Yeah, it's gonna be really weird to like fly out to Vegas and do this thing and Be one of those things where you like, you know the eb expert when you when you go on the on those on those journeys I find myself and like how much do I want this? I mean like right is the is the awkwardness and the Whatever of it were worth the money. I'm getting for it and sometimes it's not and sometimes it's okay to say no, so yeah But then also at the end of the day Time is time and as awkward as it is when you get on the other side of it It's in the past. Yes, and it happened. It's not happening right now in the moment But what's in the past is like, yeah, okay, so I was painful for a little while, but now it's now it's done Now it's done and I've got money And money lets me do things So I'm doing the opens the open Z's. Yeah Yeah, I got a lot of a lot of chat activity before the pre-show even started That's good. Everybody gets in there. Does the pre-party their pre-punk Pre-parliament Funkadelic. Yep Um Jason when we start the show, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about the patreon. So if you want to pull that up on Okay, yeah show no if I can do that. Yeah, yeah Yeah Y'all think my notes sink because well, I am ready to start whenever anybody is as ready my notes think I'm ready to Okay You know, it's very funny. I emailed the Lovely PR person from HMD who got me the Nokia t-21. I was like, oh, thanks again. Here's the link to the review blah, blah Never heard back. No, and they're like, thanks. I'm like, oh, I guess I have a Nokia t-21 now They were knowing happy to send it back That's what they do sometimes they've been they like they never respond like I've had times where I have a device And I'm like, all right, I'm done. Here's the review Give me, you know information on how to send this back to you and they reply to answer everything else from the email But they you know This specifically do not reply to that part of the question. So then I follow up on it again And then like I never hear back. I'm like, so my you're ditching me with this phone So so my thought is that it is not our job to follow up with them to close the loop on it. Yeah, but now 10 plus years into it. I've got boxes of Exactly that's that's that's totally where we should start giving them the page We're gonna start giving them the patrons who who was neat I guess that I have, you know This other phone in a drawer, but it's just a phone in a drawer I've got a Moto G from 2016 that a lucky patron is gonna get in the mail one day That's why so many of those like like one plus is you know, they're big time on that They just like end up leaving the phone and I ended up having to give those away because I was like I don't need these and I feel weird holding on to them because like there are people in this world that need phones Right, exactly. We can't sell them and so it's like yeah, so anyway Oh To live this life. Yeah. Wow. Let me go. Let me go do it. Let me go do a paid hosting gig while getting free hardware All right, let's do a show. What was us? All right, cool. We've done our exciting pre-show First we'll give you some insight into what it's like to review phones Okay Let me see y'all Get over to the controls of which I need. Okay, so it is run Hello Just making sure it's in here The right order, okay All right, so I wouldn't I wouldn't have read. Oh, I know right. Yeah, I don't know why I do that Michelle Vermont. No, I do too Yeah, it's like it's like I have to close the loop. Otherwise I can't start until I close the loop. I hear you Okay, I will remove I will remove I will stop my cam There is Ron now. He's gone Yeah, yeah, oh, okay Just kind of sounded like a song speaking of song here you go Welcome to Android faithful. We're your weekly source for the latest news hardware and apps for the world of Android Coming out of beta or coming into beta coming out of beta. I don't know something about beta. I'm Ron Richards And with me as always. Yeah, I'm Jason howl just getting down And I'm went with down And I'm so Ramon. All right, the gang is down down is all back together. I appreciate it I miss you I missed you guys last week We missed you too, but yeah fun. Yeah, I know I did I was actually I was in New York City Going to see a band called swami in the bed of nails Featuring the talented John Reese of a drive like j-hoo and rocket from the crypt I actually went to I went to Four shows in the span of five days. I saw a man. I saw a man. Are you a teenager? I know I How do you do that? I saw the magnetic fields two nights in a row Friday and Saturday and then Sunday I went to a hardcore matinee at the Bowery ballroom where I saw sieve and shelter and then I took Monday off and then Tuesday I went to see swami in the bed of nails and that show the doors opened at nine o'clock And they did not go on until 1030 and I did not get home until after one and I am not young anymore But it was still worth every minute of it. It was you pulled it off And you didn't just do one crazy show like that you did a bunch in the exact and I was in the crowd noting the types of phones Everyone is using to take pictures and videos and I saw people in the pit holding up their folds They were that's a city full. I would see how you see being held up. No tablets. Thankfully no But I did I did see I did see I did see a couple of Samsung's in the pit there with me with my pixel I didn't say any other pixels, but um But yeah, it was a fun time But you know and when I it was your return show after being in Japan. I missed that last week Did you have a good trip? I did. I had a great trip I also tried to note what phones people had although there was a lot of tourists So my my sampling is skewed and also in Japan. It's not really like great to like invade people's privacy So I was like trying to like surreptitiously like You know lean over well, that's that's a great tease because we actually got an email about that very topic So everybody stay tuned to the show later on to the at the end of the show when we read your emails Some cool travel emails in there, but before we get started I want to remind everybody that if you like Android faithful if you like listening to us for an hour and 20 minutes on average a week four times a month You could support us directly by going over to patreon.com slash Android faithful We love our patrons. You guys are awesome. We we are here for you by signing up on patreon You get access to our exclusive discord You get to vote for a story that we talked about on the podcast to hear later today If you sign up at various different levels you get some merch you get an exclusive t-shirt stickers that sort of thing It's all at patreon.com slash Android faithful. We are exploring ways to make it even better So if you've been on the fence and you haven't signed up for patreon Let us know why you haven't and what you want out of supporting Android faithful you can email us a contact at Android faithful calm But seriously, you know, we thank everybody who's supporting us. You guys are awesome It is such a small percentage of you folks who are listening So if you're thinking about it, you know, it's priced You know the right price there just you know the cost of a cup of coffee. You can support us for five bucks a month At ten bucks a month you can get an ad-free version of the audio podcast And we're working on different options to give you some cool video stuff there as well So yeah, so go to patreon.com slash Android faithful We really really really really really appreciate it and I mean for that one person out there That's like, you know, I've got like five hundred dollars a month that I want to just blow on my favorite podcast You can do that too. We're just saying we're not gonna turn you down You'd be the patron of the month and if you are the patron of the month only one person can be the patron of month And you can come on the show with us. That's you. Yeah, and you can be in the chair talking about Android with us I dare you to do it Make us eat our words make us bring you on the show That's all you got to do Thank you. Thank you everybody for your support That said Android 15 drumbeat rolling on Michelle. What is the latest with Android 15? Yeah, as so let me switch over to There we go, so Android 15, you know We've already had the developer preview one in February then developer preview two in March and now in April actually last week Google released the first beta of Android 15 So Android 15 beta one was released and on the surface if you just read the blog post There's not really much to talk about Dave Burke the VP of engineering at Google talked about a couple of major changes that I wanted to highlight Including a new edge-to-edge by default mode in Android 15 for apps that are targeting Android 15 So there aren't any apps that are targeting Android 15 at the moment because it's not even something the developers can do You can't release apps that target Android 15 yet, but By default once those apps are able to be released to the Google Play targeting Android 15 You'll see on the screen right here On the left you have an app that's not enabled with edge-to-edge mode on the right You do have an app enabled with edge-to-edge mode and what this will enable is that App content will be able to be drawn underneath the system bar So the navigation bar and the status bar This is something that apps have been able to do for a very long time on their own But a lot of apps just have not enabled it and there's various reasons for that You know, you can be it depends really depends on the app and the developer that's making it but now seems Google wants app developers to actually take advantage of the full screen and so they're gonna start enforcing it and I know when this is gonna draw some thoughts from developers I want to hear like what do you think about this change? It's gonna be a frickin pain in the ass and I say that because actually today today for my current gig I actually am Dealing with not this specific thing This like I'm not dealing with the fact that edge-to-edge is being enforced on me edge-to-edge is a choice that I'm making at the job that I'm doing and I'm Having to rejigger some of the things in the UI to make it work So I I I don't know I mean being able to handle any case whether that's immersive mode or not like any kind of like form factor is Something that you should be doing as an Android dev I just I don't necessarily see immersive mode as something and I've already said this before I don't really see it as being necessary for everyone to do and it can be a real Time-sync. I mean that was literally my entire afternoon is trying to figure out how to render The spacing behind the status bar and the navigation bar and the keyboard correctly And it's actually not that easy depending on how your UI is set up So, yeah, but when if it was if it was supported at the OS level would that make it easier for the developer then because It just can't be it just can't be because your content because like well So what happens is that once your content starts like going edge-to-edge Then you have to deal with it and surprisingly sometimes you think I mean like I'm in like most cases I'll say like let's say 80% of cases You won't really have to change much But in like that last 20% of cases Especially if you're like, you know the job on mom where everything is like highly custom component, which actually a lot of companies Do they do like highly customizing? Especially if it's like a big company and they want like a strong brand identity and design system across all their experiences Then they start really getting into like like customizing everything That's one as a real pain in the butt and I'm talking like big companies not like, you know Some nerdy developer who's like a UI addict and just wants to do everything themselves Like really big company. So it it it it it's it's it's it's normally fine 80% of time, but that last 20% man My afternoon. So I I don't know. I guess like I kind of I'm just curious about about the reason for it But it's coming we're gonna deal with it because it looks cool. I Guess that's why I guess I mean, it's immersive. I I mean VR Everything's immersive these days. So that could be that could be a part of it Yeah, I mean, but if you're if you're a media app, you probably already have immersive mode turned on I'm still like my favorite my favorite example, of course is the banking app or I don't know Pick your favorite boring useful, but boring app. I don't know Instacart does Instacart need to be immersive or some other like related like I don't know. Anyway, no, I'm not happy I'm gonna be spending a lot of continued dev hours on this and I'm sure someone else will anyway That's my thoughts All right Edge-to-edge mode isn't the only major change in Android 15 beta. There's also As mentioned on the blog post app archiving support So this is something that was actually released in Developer review to but Google is now choosing to actually highlight it and basically tell developers. Hey, this is coming You need to get prepared for it. So I'm just gonna do a quick demo here I have a pixel 6a running the Android 15 beta one release and I have this app flipboard here So what I'm gonna do is an open its app info page then here you see there's a button called archive If I just tap this it'll archive flipboard and so now it's not available It's not installed, but the data that I previously had is kept there So if I just tap on the icon, it'll just Redownload it from Google Play and then I can relaunch it and I'll be back into the app I do like that will have been lost I do like how the icon is the same kind of little cloud with an arrow icon Like in Google Drive with files and things like that. It's very unified across obviously from from you know Like it just feels like it belongs, right? So yeah Yeah, it's very intentional and this is actually so if I just go back to the blog post This is actually a feature that Google Play has had for some time now Actually, it says right here Android Google Play announced support for app archiving last year But what Android 15 is doing is it's Building this feature into the OS that other app stores can implement their own app archiving feature so they can take advantage of the same capability that Google Play already has and You know they're introducing API so that launcher developers like Nova launcher and other app stores can implement the same kind of Functionality that Google Play and the stock launcher have there's a couple other changes here One of the ones actually Ron. I'll let you yeah mention Well, it was really exciting because we're talking, you know, obviously Android 15 beta is you know hot topic and that sort of thing In the pre-show of the live stream, which by the way, you can watch us live every Tuesday at 8 p.m Eastern 5 p.m Pacific on YouTube and on Twitch You can find the links at Android faithful calm, but in the YouTube chat One of our viewers blind Android Shared that he said a feature request I got submitted about a year ago made it into the Android 15 beta Now when you use talk back guidance is provided when using the fingerprint sensor move up move left, etc So user by the name of blind Android, that's very cool You and everyone else listening if you submit a feature some day it might make it in I think that I think honestly I think you're the first person I've ever heard Defendably says I submitted a feature and it's in the beta. That's pretty cool So and it's great to see more accessibility options and more accessibility functionality and it shows that they are listening To users whether we believe it or not and in fact, that's a teaser for another story later in the show as well, so I'm all about teases today All right, and of course that was just what was officially announced in the blog post as always on On all the social media platforms I do my deep dive into what's new and there's always a lot of stuff that Google doesn't mention in their blog posts like for example This new default wallet app feature. So for those of you don't know You can set a default contactless payment app under settings and NFC then contactless payments and this app Basically is the default app that handles a transaction when you tap your phone against a you know, NFC terminal and what? Android 15 beta one is doing is they're changing that default payment app page to Default wallet app and I could actually show you it right here because this is actually live in Android 15 beta one so under default apps at the very bottom you can see wallet app at the bottom and Right now Google what is there if I had the American Express app installed that would also show up There's not many apps that can be set as a default wallet app just Google wallet and an American Express as far as I can tell and Basically, it's just a rebranded version of that default contactless payments Page that I've talked about previously that in fact that page no longer exists when you go to the NFC settings I can show you quickly and you tap on Actually, that's another thing I'll help bring up NFC is broken in this release So do not install Android 15 beta one on your phone if you rely on contactless payments That's a warning. Oh, that's a very important word a warning. I think we should have got out Yes, that's actually relevant to it a feature that's actually relevant to one of the future things I'm talking about So anyways back to the default wallet thing I don't really know why they're changing this I Speculate in this article. I read for Android headlines potential reasons why but I honestly don't know Why would they allow to change a default wallet like would they allow you to use someone else's wallet like That's well, you already can technically right the default you can Unlike iOS you can change the default app that handles NFC payments and that is basically your default wallet app already All right, so yes, I mean you get choice in Android So I guess that that that makes sense with the whole paradigm of Android and that we've got more control than iOS So cool. All right That's by far not the only thing so one of the other things that I wanted to mention bring up is this new Actually this new cellular network security settings page and this is actually these actually controls the new Anti-stingray protection features that I talked about on our previous episode So you go to settings then security and privacy more security and privacy I know it's a handful and then there's a new cellular network security page that lets you talk of security notifications and require encryption and this is exactly what I talked about where it allows you to control the setting for where a Whenever a Cellular network your neck and to tries to access your device's Unique identifier you'll receive notification and then this require encryption toggle will tell you whether or not A network you're connected to is using a insecure or unencrypted connection Some other relevant changes is this one is actually a little fun. There's a new Updated predictive back animation so predictive back gesture was something announced in Android 14 as a developer preview But it's still not enabled but now there's this new animation that kind of gives you a better idea of like Sorry, it's a beta. It's a little buggy. So you can ignore that little crash warning But like you can see this animation like I kind of see like a peek behind of where I'm going previously it would Kind of like quickly glide back to the previous page and you wouldn't exactly see what page you're currently going on This animation I think is a little better than what I previously was Yeah, it doesn't really give you any true information as far as what is there It just basically confirms that there's something there Right because it's just it's the tiniest of slivers. So really there's not a whole I can do with that other than go Oh, yeah, there's something back there, you know, and no you're coming It really felt like literally just to circumvent the case where people exit out of an app Like literally just the one I don't want the home screen to be peeking through like maybe it's like a little clue that you know You're going a place here that you don't mean to go. Oh, dude I actually did I tried to pay with my phone yesterday and I am on vanilla vanilla ice cream ice ice baby And I I just thought it was me not being able to use the machine I'm also by the way if you're on Android 15 and I've been getting tons of crashes Trying to open like any kind of search results from like the Google app or any other like deep link when it opens chrome It crashes every single first time Yeah, it's been a good one y'all this is this is that wonderful feeling of being a beta tester being a beta tester. Oh God Feels great All right And there's a couple other at least one other change in that's available in the public beta that wanted to highlight So if you go to the network details page, there's this privacy button Previously when you tapped it it just opened a little dialogue now It opens its own dedicated page that has these options to rent use randomized MAC address and to use device MAC address And also a third toggle to send device name. This third toggle is entirely new in beta one And this allows you to toggle whether or not to send your device's name to the Wi-Fi network that you're connected to and That's it for the Like actually public-facing features in Android 15 beta one there's a couple of other changes that I wanted to talk about so The big one is a very early look at the lock screen widgets in Android 15 And also confirmation unfortunately that this lock screen widget feature is Limited to tablets like the pixel tablet So you're not gonna get locks in widgets on your phone or even your foldable But if you have a pixel tablet with access to the hub mode You'll be able to add them to the lock screen and I'm playing a video here. I recorded a video for Android authority It's still in a very unfinished state like when you when I add widgets as you can see if you're watching the video feed And then I go back to the lock screen some of the lock screen UI elements like the clock are still overlaid on top of it So it's it's very janky looking But the functionality is there and it's something that Google is working on which is very exciting because We used to have this all the way back with Android 4.2 And then they renewed removed it with lollipop in late 2014 So it's been almost a decade since we've had lock screen widgets. It's old as new again There it is. All we need is all we need is that that cool honeycomb background, right Jason, and then we'll be back What was that? What was that Motorola tablet the first? Zoom I actually have that down stairs Motorola zoom and of the powering the power supply, which was a proprietary power supply That's that's an odor of a pixel tablet I Think I want lock screen widgets. I think I do You know, it's it's I Definitely spend the tablet more often in on the dock here in my office And I use this as a speaker and that sort of thing But having the ability to control media or to do something very quickly just from that widget versus actually having to unlock The tablet and doing stuff. I think I like so yeah that would address like the issue that my husband and I had it where it felt too much like a Tablet and not enough like a nest like a like the actual smart smart home device. So yeah, it certainly helped So a couple other things that I wanted to bring up so as I alluded to earlier the NFC functionality and or 15 beta one is broken for all users on a pixel phone and partially the reason for that is because Google didn't oopsie in their migration process from the os NFC stack to this new unbundled Project mainline led NFC stack. So they're working to turn the NFC stack into a project mainline module that's updated through a separate module package and in that process the os is still looking at the Location of the old NFC system app and where instead should be looking at the location of the new system app That's in a completely different directory and because of that Android throws an error and thinks that NFC is just not available on the device And that's kind of like one of the big stories here is that Google is working to make NFC updateable through Google play because previously You had to update it with the operating system Which means that you have to rely on carriers to a lot of updates You have to rely on OEMs to roll out updates But in the future Google themselves will be able to push out updates directly to all the Android devices Just like they're able to do with a lot of other components. Thanks to project in line Well, this is this is the place for it to crash. So I mean beta is working Exactly one other NFC really One other NFC related feature that Google is working on is finally introducing support for NFC charging This is a standard that was actually announced back in May of 2020 And NFC wireless charging is basically just another way to wirelessly charge But it's significantly slower than G wireless charging up to one watt of charging speeds over two centimeter distance Wait a minute. What what wait a minute? I love I love this It's like it's like listen We've got you a new way to wireless charger device and it's slower and it's the thing No, but but is this but is this an answer for? Lower tier or mid-range phones that don't know no no it's not for phones at all It's actually so the thing about she wireless charging is sometimes there are certain classes of devices that are just too small To fit a coil big enough that can actually receive power That's where NFC wireless charging can come in It's meant for incredibly tiny devices like individual earbuds like tracker tags like styluses In fact, the usi 2.0 stylus if you have a pixel tablet with a USA to usi 2.0 stylus That standard the USA 2.0 style standard Actually bakes in NFC wireless charging as part of the standard. So what this NFC wireless charging standard enables is you can charge Compatible devices via NFC and hopefully this opens up You know like we talked about last week the launch of the find my device network a lot of those tracker tags have non-replaceable batteries or not even Unretargeable batteries Maybe in the future we could have tracker tags that support NFC wireless charging So that you can just charge them using your phone once a year and you don't have to worry about replacing the battery or a big Plugging in them in with a USB cable That would be nice Very cool. Speaking of nice quality of life improvements Android 15 also preparing a new screensaver called home controls so this is something I spotted in development actually before Android 15 beta 1 was released and this new Screensaver basically just shows your Google home device controls as a screensaver That's basically it. So if you do the button the home app around on the on the screen in random ways So there's no burn in or anything like that Good question. I don't I'm pretty sure it does I haven't tried it like I've actually like, you know I did try it to take these screenshots here to show what it looks like on a phone and a tablet And I'm sure it does shift around. Yeah, but I mean I'm sure if you if you access the home controls button on your Android phone from the lock screen often you might find this new screensaver You know really useful because it's always there whenever you have your phone or your tablet dock This is not available yet, but this is something that could be coming soon in a future update four pixel devices is Burn in on a smug allow me to take a slight tangent off in a neverland neverland is screen burn in on a Mobile devices even still a thing I remember early on an Android when it was definitely a thing and and there were articles written about it for particular phones and everything I haven't heard about that in years. I feel like I feel like any screen can get burned in if it's left on long enough But our devices, you know rarely, you know, they're almost always have some sort of time out going so right except when they don't Right except when they don't I suppose yeah Yeah, and it's also usually not enough static UI elements like you're always interacting with something something's always moving So it's not enough not much opportunity for things to burn in. Yeah. Yeah Well, that's why they want edge-to-edge so that you the status bar and then I'm not really Couldn't even finish the joke I am imagining my husband asked me to turn off the bedroom lights and be having to play fruit ninja to get like this Switch, you know All right, well Michelle's there anything else in Android 15 beta Yeah, just to wrap things up a couple of last minor things There are some new features in the pixel launcher that are being prepared like this new animation for when you go Back to the home screen by swiping up. It's very slightly different. It's just Spring gear faster and you can see a bit more of the wallpaper zoom effect Google's also introducing well better widget recommendations that are categorized. So for example in this image, you can see there's essential social entertainment there's also In the recents menu Google is testing this new title bar We can see like above the chrome window There's a little pill that says chrome and then the drop-down arrow that you can tap that service Slightly different compared to what we have right now Which is basically just the icon itself that you kind of have to tap or long press to surface in the context menu very minor change and Then lastly earlier today published this article on a feature This is not actually related to beta one something that's also in previous ones But it's a feature Google is working on to potentially quarantine misbehaving apps So right now Android has the concept of suspending apps Which is what digital well-being uses whenever you put an app in focus mode or its app timer runs out and it also has You know the focus mode yet So that's basically what digital well-being does and when an app is suspended its notifications can't be shown Its activities are stopped and it can't ring the device and what quarantining an app does is it takes that a bit further It does the same thing as suspending, but it also makes sure that its services can't be queried by other apps It can't be bound to receive broadcasts from other system or other apps and it can't be resolved So like I won't show up in intent disambiguation dialogue or the open app with the like the open something open file with dialogue and this is basically like in between Disabling and suspending an app. It's like a more putting an app in a state to where it can't really do anything unless the user explicitly launches it from the launcher and This is basically, you know something that a lot of operating desktop operating systems do if you've ever dealt with Windows Antivirus software, you know Android doesn't really work the same way as Windows. So you don't really have to actually like Quarantine an individual file because of the way Android is built, you know Android apps are They don't get systemable access by default They're sandboxed and they can only communicate with each other using very well-defined APIs and only if they're granted specific permissions So this kind of permission this kind of quarantine capability is just you know filling in the gap or Features like play protect like Google play protect right now Can basically either Recommend that you uninstall an app or automatically uninstall an app. It can't do anything in between So in case like it detects a potentially harmful app, but doesn't want to take action potentially this new quarantine apps feature to allow play protect to Quarantine an app it thinks is malicious, but doesn't want to actually automatically uninstall on your behalf So this is something that they're working on I don't think I'll actually launch an Android 15 to be honest Just because it's unfinished and this settings page that I'm showing that I'm scrolling over right now after watching the video feed this quarantine apps page is actually removed in Recent betas like it popped up first in Android 14 QPR 2 beta 1 back in November but it's since been removed like all the code for this quarantine app feature still there but nothing is really implementing it right now and Yeah, that's basically it for Everything I've covered Android 15 from the past week. There is of course a whole lot more left to be discovered A whole lot more in my backlog. So if you want to find out more stay tuned All right, exciting and if you've installed it NFC doesn't work Maybe I'll maybe I'll install it on another device. Maybe not my daily driver, but like yeah, yeah I mean in years past. I just throw caution to the wind and just be like, yeah What better way to learn the ins and outs of this new beta than to live with it on my main device It's just my whole worry about that is the situation when like you said we're like I'm standing at the turnstile of the New York City subway system and trying to scan my my phone and NFC is not working and the Line is backing up behind me like I don't want to be in a situation where I need to do something and the beta gets in The way, yeah, yeah, no good. All right Well, cool. Well, that was a ton of stuff But it wouldn't be a fun episode that talking about some market share numbers. Who's got some They're actually very fun numbers see yeah, they're fun numbers So we very often check in with the International Data Corporation the IDC and they released a report called the Worldwide Quarterly Mobile phone tracker that has all those wonderfully spicy numbers about who were the top manufacturers in a smartphone World well, guess what there's good news for the smartphone market as a whole because worldwide shipments of smartphones are up 7.8% in the first quarter of 2024 so over the last couple years with Everything that's been going on in the world The smartphone industry definitely has taken a hit in terms of like, you know sales and things like that And of course a lot of very reasonable reasons that people are you know saving their money not going for expensive phones Etc. Etc. So it looks like the smartphone companies are kind of coming out from underneath the you know decline in the last few years and the The increase in this Q1 of 2024 is actually the third consecutive quarter of shipment growth So overall seven seven two hundred eighty nine point four million units have sold in Q1 of 2024 That is an increase of seven point eight percent over Q4 of 2023 But that's not all in the spiciest news at least the spiciest news of 2023 Q4 was that Apple finally dethroned Samsung as the number one smartphone manufacturer in regards to unit shift Well, guess what? Samsung not to be outdone. I guess it was it rocky. I don't know if something rocky insert rocky metaphor movie metaphor here Rocky and bullwinkle The punchy one I have tiger Samsung has taken the crown back And they now have twenty point eight percent market share In contrast to Apple seventeen point three percent and rounding out the top five are not surprisingly show me at forty point one percent Transient and if you don't recognize transient, they are the owners of Increasingly, you know favorite brand around here techno that has made all the different foldables and flip-ables and is the in fact the number one Smartphone manufacturer in sales in Africa. They're number four at nine point nine percent and rounding out as a poet eight point seven percent Yeah, so basically all across the board people were covering this doesn't you know This doesn't mention a wall way in the top five But of course we also have had wall way wall way coming back in the recent year with various, you know improvements in their technology and kind of advancements in whatever they're doing like making a whole new OS, but yeah, so basically the IDC's research director nabila popol points out that you know what they're seeing actually is an increase in the value and average price of These sold units so basically people are buying more expensive phones But probably expecting to keep them longer as we've seen you know a lot of companies are now offering longer and longer support periods and longer and longer, you know promises of both OS and security updates and Popol also knows that there is quote a shift in power among the top five Companies which will likely continue as market players adjust their strategies in a post recovery world So there you go folks. We're not in recovery. We're post recovery smartphone Manufacturers have recovered and now do you can get out for those top spots? So yeah, Xiaomi's got a big recovery after large, you know declines the last couple years transient is quote a stable presence and wall way, of course making a lot of moves so The very interesting thing especially for those of us at Android faithful is that iPhone of course had to give up their top spot and they did that by losing 10% or rather their sales dropping 10% last quarter and Yeah, I mean it's significant It's not I mean they're not gonna they're not doomed or anything But that's a pretty significant yeah, that's I mean like the two the two three percent shuffle that we've seen You know or like our rounding errors, right or like it's like a little here a little there 10% drop is like I can't imagine Cupertino yeah conversations are very positive after after seeing that yeah when when when Samsung and Apple switch places in last year It was kind of like 20 point something percent and 19 point point something percent, right? It was super close tiny tiny little shift. It was Just slightly edged out But I mean with an overall drop of 3% and their own like their own individual sales dropping by 10% that's a big deal and CNN actually talked to Nabila Papal of IDC and Basically, they are positing that the main cause of the sharp drop is China because quote nationalism a rough economy and increased competition Have heard Apple over the past several months and that kind of makes a lot of sense Right and like I guess going into other spheres a lot of Chinese domestic companies are trying to like you know kind of I guess take up the mantle where a lot of Western companies have traditionally served China so that makes a lot of sense So it's not RCS being the death knell of Apple No, unfortunately not. I think I was I think Apple's gonna do okay I think they're gonna bounce back from this But it's it's still a blow because China is an important market to Apple only second to the US And also in a just if you want to just kind of keep the kind of kitty. Oh, he Android faithful feelings going Finally IDC did comment that they're expecting Android to grow at twice the pace of iOS So enjoy that feeling of that statement for just a second. Yes But the provider that statement is that because the entire space because the growth of Android has been in decline for the last Couple years that means there's a room to grow So so down so far it can only go up again. It can only go up in here. So Optimism and yeah, I I I want to mention this because we can't not get away from AI But one final thing that Pope Paul kind of mentioned to CNN is that she is noting that Apple doesn't have a strong AI message yet Although maybe whisper whisper whisper see what they have to say in their June developer conference, but Yes, and see what that shakes up, but it's it's I mean People the top the top companies are rachel and rachel and for whatever market share they can get And yeah, there are your numbers Folks at like numbers. It's it's it's a tug-of-war a five ten eight No, I guess tug-of-war like between Samsung and iPhone and everybody else is fighting for the rest of it So glad to hear we're post recovery. That's great. Yes declared. We're good. It's post recovery Not pre not not not not in the middle of it in the middle repose I think everybody I think consumers largely around the world. We're just waiting to see what these AI pins What a future without smartphones and with wearable AI devices was going to be and then when they saw the reviews of the humane AI They said, okay, actually, I think smartphones for at least the next ten years. Let's just continue I'm sort of feel bad as the humane feedback piles in I'm just like, oh I mean if they launched it to early they launched it too early. I don't know what to tell you I did feel bad at first, but then I heard about how much money they raised for this whole thing And then I stopped feeling bad fair enough fair enough. Yes This is like a bit of an off-topic But there are some wild things like people are now like clapping back at like people like Marquez and KBHD for not being Responsible or doing no harm with their reviews and I'm like you've got to be kidding me That's what tech reviewers do they review tech and they got to be honest with their opinion So anyway, um, yes, it's all ridiculous and I do feel bad for humane But as you said Jason don't do that don't don't release product too early Yep, there you go. I'm pretty certain that wasn't the reason for the IDC report just to just to clarify Just you know just having a little fun well, you were talking a lot about OnePlus and Oppo and I've got some news here. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but Oppo and OnePlus Apparently getting in on the AI game like we actually we already knew that they were doing this earlier They're like I think in the last week or two or maybe in the last month one plus had released its first AI feature AI Eraser, but now there was an announcement that was a little bit bumpy to say the least That Oppo and OnePlus were getting in on Gemini with Google The original press release said that they would be the first company to bring Google's Most powerful version of Gemini that would be 1.0 ultra to its phones this year But that is actually not the case They later issued a statement to clarify that that is not happening. They were mistaken. They are bringing age on a Gemini model But not the most powerful one that the first smartphone to bring the most powerful one You know, that would have been pretty big news if that was going to Oppo and OnePlus I thought it was kind of strange when I read it the first time, too I was like wow Google's getting really cozy with OnePlus right now. That's interesting So is this is this a reset to that's been X number of days since OnePlus has a marketing miss after? Oh dear. I mean I guess you could I thought we were past those days. Yeah Hey, you know what every company puts their their foot in their mouth at some point one plus is not is not perfect Yep, as we are reminded This release though the Gemini not the 1.0 ultra version of Gemini Will happen sometime later this year. They plan to release more than a hundred AI features in the next five years No availability or supported phone list was announced for this. So there's that one plus getting in on the generative AI with Gemini here pretty soon But not the best Gemini Yeah, and and real quick on that tip Samsung also announced We had talked on the show how they had opened up galaxy AI to the previous generation of S series phones and you know the foldables and tablet and now they've gone back another generation So they announced yesterday the s22 series the z-fold for Z flip for and the galaxy tab s8 series all getting it so There you go more devices get in the galaxy AI Manufacturers are just AI crazy right now. Yeah, I mean, it's I I keep refer to for referring to it as the year of AI 2024 is like the year of AI and smartphones It's just yeah I mean it's funny because like I feel like I gotta have their play Like last year was the year of AI because like as an emergent, right and and this year I think you're right as the year of AI and smartphones or it could be argued the year AI broke You know similar to the year punk broke, you know, like when when you say broke you mean broke out or you know Yeah, not broke a little humane. There you go But but broke in terms of like, you know reaching a massive audience and really going super super mainstream Yeah, yeah If you like galaxy AI by the way, I did a video on it earlier today After spending a couple of months with the galaxy AI on the s24 ultra So if you're watching our video show right now, you see Jason paused his video on YouTube at a very inopportune moment Is that better? Do you like that more Ron a little more luck than the close die in between word Let me tell you as the person who edits all my videos. There is no good paused screenshot of me It always looks awkward. So there you go. And where can people find that video? Yeah, yellow gold studios. Just go to YouTube and search for yellow gold studios. Cool right on Yeah, all right. Well now is the time my favorite part of the show as I mentioned earlier when we started the show We love our patrons. We love everybody who supports us over our patreon.com slash android faithful and every week Those loyal patrons get to vote on a story for us to talk about on the show We do a fun post up on patreon where we include a little bug droid that was designed by one of the listeners Using AI and this week William Steele for giving us a cute little bug droid having his morning coffee while reading a newspaper presumably of Android news Yeah, reading an issue of Sipis I love ad ills. I love how AI cannot do words. It's very funny Um, if you tell it explicitly what words it can do it. Yeah, sometimes, but yeah But very cool. Yay bug droid reading the morning news got eyes on its legs Knees I thought maybe that bug droid finally got knees and could articulate its legs. Oh, okay But they're on the sides But that's okay. It's all good awesome nonetheless But yeah, do love the do love the bug droid by the way, we're running low So if you're listening and you're into making AI art make a bug droid reading android news or doing something of android news email it to us at contact that android faithful.com because The more you send in the less work I have to do Because I could do your height but but I'd rather highlight what you guys do. This is a fun little thing All right, so this week we had three stories that were up for voting The first one the first one i'll go from the bottom up 29 of the vote went to a review of carcify a simple wireless android auto device That got 29 of the vote 34 of the vote went to Instant translation with circle the search is now widely available But the winner and it was very close between a circle search story and this one The fact that google messages prepped single line text field redesign after all of your complaints up on nine to five google And a interesting story here written by abner lee over at nine to five google Basically, if you might remember google messages did a tweak to the input box where they added a second line With shortcuts for emojis and images and attachments and things like that And when you tapped into the message it expanded and was very kind of bulky and I remember when it rolled out I was like, oh, I don't like that. Um, well, apparently many of you agreed with me and complained And google listened So soon those buttons are going to integrate back into a single line format The way things were before they switched to the two line format Which is great to hear and great to see and makes me ask Can we all now unify around them bringing back the inbox organization? between spam business emails and business Text and personal text because I still don't know why they removed that from google messages that I want it back And so listen if everybody listened android faithful if we all complain to google Maybe they'll listen and make that change again. Could could be could be I forgot about that feature kind of asking google once again for his Categorized inbox. I seriously I was just scrolling through google message. They're trying to find a text message I have so much crap. I give me some way to organize them like it was such an elegant solution um Who who else is doing google messages? Am I the only one or not? I use google messages for a couple people. Yeah How did you guys feel about this to the two line redesign when it rolled out? Were you like, oh, that's weird I like it or were you on the side of this good the complaints I wasn't I never had a strong opinion on it, but I do agree the single line You know text feel looks much better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't I mean the two line thing I guess would make sense if all of this space was used for something, but it's not It's just like let's move it down a line and then keep it blank at least on the one line thing It's integrated and I don't know and I Freeze up a little more space up top But I don't know that it doesn't take away the totally bothered me And it doesn't take away the conversation too because that's that second line lets you see less conversation above Without having to scroll so yeah, yeah I'm sympathetic to it But I worked at a company where we did a lot of like, you know message bars and stuff and it's it gets difficult to put stuff Yeah, it doesn't get in the way. Sure. Well, the other the other challenge here is that on the screenshot example We were looking at that's someone using gboard, which I use gboard and you've got duplicative buttons, right? That's true. That's necessary on the on these screenshots. I have three places to tap to get emojis Right. There's the emoji button in the text field box There's the emoji button at the top of the keyboard and there's emoji button to the left of the space bar Right. There's three places to get listen. I love emojis, but like If you love the emojis, then you'd have a fourth place for right exactly If I really love the emojis, I'd have like a chap bubble emoji thing going there Um, and now that that's understanding that this is you might not use gboard You might use a different keyboard that doesn't have so you want to have the emoji access and that sort of thing But still I don't know it just it it got it got a little cluttered from my tastes. So Yeah, hey, they listened and they listen they listened, which is great Sometimes we don't we don't know if they're listening or not. Um, but I'll tell you who else is listening our fantastic patrons And I want to thank a bunch of our patrons for supporting the show brian helman Noah dunnevin Long time listener jason going back to all about android lori helms who we've known lori for so long. She's fantastic Thank you for your support lori Matt buonacanti I love your last name matt you you pizan matt buonacanti And uh, and daniel curiel By the way y'all you're getting a standing ovation from jason if you're audio only like jason is so tall Which yeah, I was gonna say if you watch the video you can see how tall jason actually is when he's standing He's very tall But brian helman, Noah dunnevin lori helms matt buonacanti and daniel curiel Thank you for your support over at patreon.com slash android faithful. You're all the best Thanks so much. Oh ron when you were out last week I did I did feel remiss that I wanted to make the joke that for Francisco frderico is still dead and and ron probably still doesn't have circle to search and then uh Poverty attendance clinton woodward did ask an important question ron. Do you have circle to search yet? Still no circle to search. All right, so I know wait. Is it francisco frank? Wait, I always miss francesco franco Francisco franco francisco franco francisco franco still dead and ron still doesn't have circle search. Yep All right, sorry All right. Well, there you go. I have it though I don't know how I wasn't supposed to get it. But now I do Sorry, not to rub salt in the wound. It's all right. I mean clearly something is wacky something happened I need to wipe my device and start again if I truly want it. I don't need it that badly I don't want it anymore. I don't I see. I don't want it. So all right. Well, we're running long. Uh, that's it for the news So now, uh, let's go into hardware. Yes, let's go into hardware after this Okay, let's go into hardware. Yes, we should We well the first thing we can go in with hardware is some lovely information from Camila Vojcikhouse Which sorry Vojcikowska. Oh my gosh, Camila I was practicing before the show and I just totally just like crashed and burned right there I even had notes on how to pronounce your last name. Sorry So Camila Vojcikowska has reported a couple of interesting things one is that the google pixel 9 series is probably going to get Satellite connectivity and that is thanks to a new modem chip the samsung modem 5400 Um, there's a lot of interesting background story about, you know, what's up with the tensor chips modems Which were qualcomm but then switch to xx nox x nox modems And then insert, you know, many references to the many connectivity problems that people have with pixel over the years But yeah, this is a new modem and it will support 3g pp Roll 17, which is the standard for 5g which increases introduces support for satellite connectivity And so satellite connectivity will hit the pixel 9 series including the pixel 9 pro fold wait What did I just call the next gen fold? Hmm. That's not a lead into the next story. We're going to talk about But the satellite connectivity will also possibly be coming to an underdevelopment 5d tablet nicknamed clementine But yeah, so the next chip the next tensor chip the g4 is going to be bringing to you a modem with satellite connectivity So there you go And yeah, what did I call the next 10 pixel fold? What did you call it? I called it. What would you call it? Well, it could be called the pixel 9 pro fold And so in other rumors it could be that google is looking to kind of realign The naming of the pixel ecosystem the pixel family of devices And instead of being the pixel fold 2, we're looking at the pixel 9 pro fold Which would I guess place it as a properly premium device just of a different form factor And it looks like the lineup could be if rumors are true The pixel 9 the pixel 9 pro the pixel 9 pro xl And the pixel 9 pro fold So we'll have to see why not why not the pixel 9 pro xl fold? Seriously, here's the thing here's the thing you google you need to release eight fold Seven more folds in between the pixel fold and the pixel 9 pro fold to To maintain the numbering because you haven't had nine foldables. This is like the year samsung jumped numbers. Do you remember that jason? What year was that when they the galaxy series when they they jumped the s10 20? Yeah, it was the s20. Yeah, yeah, because they wanted to align with the years Right. So yeah, but I mean at the same time though I will I can understand the other side of it too if if this is part of the pixel 9 Family, sure. Yeah, then you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that there were nine folds. No, I kid I can I know Well, we would need seven more folds because we have the first fold and this would be the ninth Right. So we need seven more folds So you don't need to sell a lot of them just make seven different folds pretend like you did Just do like do revisionist history I did behind closed doors at google The interesting thing about you know, the name basically implies that This could launch alongside the rest of the pixel 9 series in the fall versus updates like everybody else does Yeah, that's another thing because the first gen pixel fold launched out of cycle with the rest of the pixel 8 series And pretty much got shafted on so many features Like so many features are available on the pixel 8 and the 8 pro but not the pixel fold Which is considerably more expensive wasn't circle It was circle to search was initially one of them. Yeah, Gemini nano is another one of them um, there's a couple of others And hopefully that won't be the case for the pixel 9 pro fold because it'll be launching alongside the other pixel 9 series and it'll pack the same tensor g4 chip Do you think we'll see these phones at google io? No, I don't think actually I probably not So do we hate the naming scheme? Do we understand it? Do we like it? Makes sense to me It's a mouthful, but it makes sense if you wind it all up It does make sense. I think having the whole lineup, but then we were talking I think it was two weeks ago. We were talking about adding the Third phone to the pixel line like getting rid of the 8a or the 9a and making it You know, that's what they so now you're gonna add a fourth like and if they all come at the same time Like this goes back to the release schedules having four phones out at the same time Going to be hard for the audit for the for the consumer base to grasps and which one do you choose and all that's I don't know. It just it seems it seems like apple does it every year. The apple does it. It's answering does it. Yeah. Good point. Yeah I don't time will tell we'll see I mean, it really is just though a theme in smartphones that you know, they have the four or five six names in the Name of the smartphone and it's actually speaking of which there was one little tidbit in the article on the satellite connectivity that you missed win And it's that camilla brought up that there's going to be a 5g enabled tablet There's a clinton in our chat just asked. What's the next tablet called and that's a good question We don't know what it'll be called But we know there's going to be a 5g tablet. I didn't I didn't want to I thought I did mention it Did I not say that it's literally a minute. Okay, never mind. But yes, it's nicknamed clementine Oh, yeah, yeah, you mentioned clementine. Okay. Okay. I remember going oh my darlin right after you. Yes. Yes I was thinking clementine's a delicious By the way, okay, so Sorry, just real quick another quick diversion because we're running on time running short We're running over again, of course We don't need more divisions But the code names for the nine nine pro nine pro excel nine pro fold are toke Kamen komodo and comet toke is a gecko. Kamen is like an alligator like thing komodo dragon I couldn't figure out what comet was and it it makes me like Foil hat like oh this must have been like a last-minute marketing decision because the code name doesn't match the other Things and someone's going to tell me that a comet lizard is or a comet I don't know. I just did a quick search on google and dragon veil wiki has comet dragon I don't know that I don't think that's a thing It's adorable though. It is adorable. It's a really cute dragon cute dragon adorable. Yeah, I don't know Um, all right. Well What what else do we have in hardware michelle some sony stuff, right? Yeah, so yeah, um, we allegedly have a new flagship phone in the xperia line called the sony xperia one mark six Um, I think that's how they call it in their lineup And yeah, this is going to be their top tier flagship ultra premium I'm sure it's over a thousand dollars because I think the previous phones in the sony xperia one line We're also over a thousand dollars and one interesting thing potentially about this phone is um, so what we have here are Renders from reputable leak or on leaks shared with android headlines We have 3d renders of the phone, but what we don't have are the exact dimensions So kind of like the android headlines article kind of speculates That this might be the wider phone that's been rumored for a while So for those of you don't know the sony xperia one line is kind of famous for having a Super tall 21 by 9 aspect ratio as well as a 4k a true 4k resolution display And it looks like according to rumors that this aspect ratio might be cut down and the phone might be a bit wider Um, it might be a 19.5 by 9 aspect ratio and a 2k resolution display So kind of more in line with other flagship phones from other brands Um, that's interesting because sony has kind of been the oddball in their Aspect ratio and their resolution choice mostly because they wanted to target like a pro camera Um enthusiast market like they wanted you to buy this phone and not only use it as a pro camera But also use it as an accessory for your thousands of dollars worth of sony camera equipment You know because you had the ability to actually use your sony xperia flagship As a input monitor for your camera so you could use it as a display And that's one of the unique features of it and having that 4k resolution display Kind of really helped with that because you could record and actually see The native resolution from your camera output But um going down to 2k kind of produces that benefit But also makes a lot more sense from an actual smartphone usability perspective because Almost nothing you're doing on your phone on your smartphone requires 4k resolution on such a tiny display Right right like you're not going to notice The difference in the pixel density At a certain point it's wasted. Yeah, it's wasted energy. It's wasted battery. It's it's for very very very diminishing returns Perceivable gain. What's the ROI there really? Yeah. Yeah most people like it needs to be sharper Yeah, we don't have any other specs. I mean, but we can assume it's going to have you know Actually, we can see in the photo. It's going to have a triple rear camera It's probably going to have some pretty insane camera hardware And it looks like it'll all still have a headphone jack because sony is you know pretty dead fast that feature around and a dedicated camera shutter button and we'll likely also have uh qualcomm sat dragon h n3 just a guess And you know 120 arts OLED, you know yada yada the typical premium top-tier flagship specs of 2024 and Probably a very high price tag to boot Yeah, looks looks nice samsung being very courageous with that port headphone port Very crazy someone out there. Sorry sony. Yeah, still holding on mateo. I know you out there All right cool and last but not least, uh, I feel like we've past couple weeks We've been talking a lot about Motorola and the upcoming edge series Well, they've rolled out the three new phones in that series the edge 50 ultra the edge 50 pro and the edge 50 fusion Um, and this is where it just gets it. This is just the greatest thing ever Thank you, jason jason a little behind the scenes jason assigned the stories like we identify what we're going to talk about And jason knew that this is right up my alley because the edge 50 ultra um is the flagship of this line And for the back panel of the phone you have a vegan leather option, which we've seen in the past or real wood Yes, yes like wood like actual like what my desk is made of what your house is like a wood back Camping and you've run out of firewood. You've got a phone. Just throw that in there This is just fantastic So it's running on a snapdragon 8s gen 3 chipset It's got a 6.7 inch oled display with a Pantone validation and a wood back in case I didn't mention that It's got ip68 water resistance Is the wood ip68 water resistant because I want to know how they did that is there a lacquer like what does that work? Um, it's got wireless charging through the wood apparently, which is amazing I didn't know wireless charging work through wood Um, and it's got a triple camera set up with a 50 megapixel main 64 megapixel telephoto and 50 megapixel ultra wide macro Going down the line the edge 50 pro is the mid-range option running a snapdragon 7 gen 3 chip with an ip68 Rating wireless charging and it's got an additional 10 megapixel telephoto camera compared to the fusion model And the edge 50 fusion has no wireless charging shares the ip68 with the other models All three phones have ai of course So they've got google's magic editor in photos with limited free edits and things like that those features Uh and Motorola plans to launch these phones outside the us But they do plan to possibly bring all three to the us later this year and Motorola if you're listening I want the wood phone. I want it. I need to know how this works. I'll take one. Yes So, uh, I hope it comes to the us because I would like it to work Um through it with his wood back. Oh, remember I do I actually added the story with it this morning I think right before jason actually went through the stories and I was really excited I saw it I was like up at 6 30 because I'm still jet lag and I'm like Going in the right going in the trolley wood back wood bag. I want one. I will buy 2014 Yep, I remember this retro how Motorola brought wood back literally What this tells me is that there is someone in the product department at Motorola who really wants to make wood back phones work Right and like and 2014 he had a shot didn't work. They gave him 10 years or him or her And they're like, okay, we'll do it again. Come on You're still if you're still around fred we promise 10 years from now if you're still around You'll get your shot with the wood phone again. Okay. I love it fred is really fred at Motorola is really really excited. So, yeah All right, cool. Well, that's gonna we just have to be able to put ai in it Can we do ai and oh you can put anything in wood by the way wireless charging ai It's got it all don't put a headphone jack though. No headphone jack in the wood We can't cut a hole in the wood for that All right, that's gonna wrap up for hardware going out on our bang with a wood background with a wood backed phone. Um, yeah We got a couple of things in apps, right jason Yeah, speaking of ai, uh, super special google photos ai features coming to everyone starting may 15th Um, no subscription required With an asterisk. It's not like 100 completely free and clear For example, if you're non pixel user you get 10 free magic editor saves per month Again, this is a very common kind of Thing that we're seeing in a lot of ai tools and stuff is that they give you the small amount for free But if you want more than that you have to pay the subscription So google's kind of doing it here, but it's magic eraser photo umblur portrait light included the magic editor tool Is expanding from the pixel 8 and the 8 pro to all pixel devices All of them. I don't know. Maybe I maybe I wrote that down wrong. I'd be surprised, but I guess maybe it is Um, maybe like the last couple. I don't know. I feel like I missed a detail there Um, non pixel users like I already said get only the 10 free magic editor saves per month pixel users. Um On google one premium subscription get unlimited saves Um, so actually let me rephrase that pixel users and google one premium subscribers get unlimited saves So they get kind of like an unlimited Uh, you know approach because well you're you bought a pixel and that's what they want Um or the subscription. So that's coming starting may 15th ai photo features coming to you So i'm i'm a double whammy there because i'm both a pixel owner and a google one subscriber So so you get double unlimited double unlimited. Yeah You get unlimited unlimited my pixel tablet just gave me a search result about google one I did not say okay g by the way. It like it thought it heard something You know, you should do ron is ask her though, whether your google one will have vpn Oh, I know the answer to that. Well, the answer is no because google one vpn is being discontinued. Um I I liked jason's notes on this because it he he wrote in his notes Google google one vpn is about to die a painful googly death and is that not the thing But we can't really blame google or any kind of weird business Directions or pivots or anything they basically told all the folks that love vpn. Well, you know what you didn't love it enough You didn't use it enough So this is on you I was gonna say i'm i am a google one customer Focus group of one asked me how many times I use vpn by google one How many times have you how many google zero? Ask me if I knew google vpn was part of google one. Did you had no idea? Oh, okay Didn't really need vpn I understand if vpn is important to you that this would be a nice perk But there are so many other vpn options out there that probably do it better than what they're doing And if they didn't have the use the users to justify the maintenance of it then You know because to vpn is all about what security and you need to keep you need to be on top of that stuff You need to keep you know Making sure it's updated doing all that stuff and if there's not enough users doing it then you know Yeah, and it's I think it's also got cannibalized by the fact that um, there's the free pixel vpn And i'm also a google one user, but i'm also no pixel user so cannibalizing users That's a little confusing It is a little confusing and a little confusing and so that's not going anywhere, right? The presumably not no changes at all no changes for now for now It is interesting though because I feel like most time with vpn. I mean, what do you usually think of? As a normal like consumer person you think of nord vpn You think of all the things that you hear about on your other podcast Yeah, this one, but other podcasts and other youtube watching nord vp. Yeah, so anyway Um, it was first introduced in october 2020 It was kind of expensive at first at ten dollars per month for premium plan, but then they brought it down to 199 Or is that google Google it's just tied to google one in general. It was google one. Okay. Never mind. I don't know what that no Was one thing but anyway, it's going away for good in the next few months But I I don't know if you're going by your data set of two You won't notice because you have a couple of folks in our live chat Matthew said he has google one never never even knew about a vpn three More be a 65 and twitch said I use the google vpn probably a dozen times Okay, really saying that you do you willy willy scott says he does use it when traveling. Yep. Uh, The google that's the vpn. Oh google five google five. Yeah again, that's you know You got a lot of vpns floating around google between five It's like three different avenues for vpn within google. So well, then you can't really blame google for Basically just continuing this feature and then allowing them to refocus the resources used to me. Here's my question though We're losing google vpn. Does that mean my google one subscription is getting cheaper? That doesn't happen But if you're a pixel user at least so that built-in pixel vpn that launched with the pixel 8 That's remaining but also it's going to be expanding to the pixel 7 series and I think the pixel fold as well With the next pixel feature drop, which is in june So that's one thing to look forward to if you have a current pixel device I don't even know that I've used the the pixel the included pixel vpn I have nord vpn because I guess I like wasting money But I know right like like I have express and express um proton has a good vpn, right? Yeah, I like the nord vpn interface Yeah, so I don't know but then I get rid of express and then I'd use the google one on the pixel and then two months later Google would kill it and then Then I'm right back to express again. I think I think this is definitely a google's problem thing I know that they're putting out on us for not using it, but I think we can still put it back on them for just Not kind of confusing Position badly like it should have been its own service separate service called just google vpn And then you could get access to it by subscribing to google one versus Obviously, like we saw right now, right? People didn't even know right had access to this as a part of your google one play Because it was just within the google one app. Yeah. Yeah Yep Oh vpn mysteries Yes Send us your vpn thoughts and mysteries at contact at android faithful dot com Then during this segment of the show we might read it Next week not this week because we haven't gotten your email yet But we have gotten some emails that we're going to read this week including this one From steven Who wrote in to say in episodes 37 38 possibly in 39 that i've not yet listened to maybe you have now while you're hearing Me read this out loud. Anyways, it's getting really weird You've discussed how to be on a phone call and stay on the navigation screen of google maps I have two words for you driving mode if you launch your drive using driving mode calls work as you've said You wanted them to you can talk to google assistant hands-free to make calls and text play received Text or start an app like pocket pocket casts. Sometimes I want to say packet casts All the while the map stays front and center just as you would want You can start driving mode a couple of ways here. Let me skip forward That I know of but of course there may be others Okay, gee start driving mode. It's pretty easy There's a maps widget for driving mode that you can place on your home screen Which you tap when you get in the car and place your phone in its car mount This is the way I do but frankly after describing method one I'm not sure why I do it this way muscle memory for the record. I am using a pixel 7 pro Love the show. Glad to see it has been reborn I wasn't aware of it until this january. So I've been catching a past episode or two when my listening cue gets Short. I love that people go back in time and listen to like outdated news Because they enjoy listening to us like that says something about this show. That's why we love that's why we love our audience Absolutely. Thank you for sending that in steven from ajax, ontario So this was this was the question from back when one was on the show about how to use google maps while driving and that sort of thing And when we got this email and went driving mode like I knew that like sometimes the most obvious answer Escapes you in the moment. So uh, yeah, that's why everyone listening. I'm glad uh, they chip in when when when needed Indeed, isn't driving modes today. Am I did is driving mode shutting down? No, that was assistant mode Assistant driving mode. Okay. That's not confused. Okay. Yeah, sorry. No confusing maps. Yeah Yeah, it is a really confusing. I was just thinking about it for a second, but like are they the same or are they different? Wait, there was an assistant driving mode that was accessed within Google maps and most of that functionality is shutting down So like all there's going to be is a little bar at the bottom with just your music I think and it just is a navigation But given that it started. Sorry. I my bad. I'm not trying to like um, make it confusing but given that Sorry, steven stephen uh said that You could use it doing. Okay g. That's not google assist. Sorry. Um That's that's not google assistant. Right. That is google assistant. You're right He might be referring to the stuff that's going away and hasn't realized it's going away Which would be Yeah, I mean my yeah my my understanding is that there is a driving mode and that is the google assistant driving mode And that that is officially shutting down. Um as of the news reported on january 31st 2024. Right. Um, so that might work for you now It might not work for you much longer So it's saying it's shut down in february. So if it's still working, it's still working. Okay. Yeah, it's the app launcher that's gone away. So previously um, I can Like share this little image in our chat so that you can open it and show it on stream jason Okay, so I just shared it in the chat Open up that image. Hold on. It's that screen that's going away. So this app. Oh, yeah, that's gone. That's gone. Yeah The screen for audio listeners the screen that if you were in driving mode There was a way to see like all of your apps and they were enlarged Versions of the icons to make it easier for you to tap on your driving. That is definitely gone Um, and that's not what that's not what the what the email is talking about though, right? Right. Yeah, okay But that was part of the assistant driving mode experience. Got it. They were talking about right which I Rarely ever used the those icons Hang on. So I didn't miss those. So there's a maps widget. Hang on. I'm going to try this live right now. I'm sorry all right, so Widgets and I'll go down to maps Here we'll go ahead and put the camera just widgets for maps nearby traffic search and then there is a driving mode widget Let me drop it on my on my screen and let me adjust my Brightness so you can all see it. I should have had my my second camera rig up, but That is driving. You see there. It says driving a little button. I see if I can I saw the little button There you go says there you go. It says driving Okay, and when I tap that Be sure it doesn't show your address It gives me a different mode of google maps. Okay. Okay. So so so just to clarify one of the stories Which was by andra police that I'm sure that we covered about google assistant driving mode being killed was updated in on february 1st By a friend of the show will Saddleburg Google reached out to us andra police to claim that actually assistant driving mode isn't dead It's just being and we covered this to reduce down to a media playback bar and a shortcut So we're all just confused. It's not dead and you can use it to Navigate and take calls. Thank you very much Yeah, so driving mode Viva driving mode it lives Long live driving that was a journey right there. It was a journey I do I do remember actually talking about this story too that the one that you just Yeah, I don't think we thought that it was look folks We talk about a lot of newsy things here and sometimes they they just kind of fall through the cracks It's hard to keep track of it all it's not like they make it easy for us too Well, and then will and will fast is that will is that will a will article Will and will fashion had another article saying google says assistant driving mode isn't dying, but it sure seems dead to us Will love will love you guy All right on to the next email All right, and our next email comes from Mike Reifen, Ohio Who wrote right away to tell us that they bought a used ticks watch? Sorry? I'm really struggling right now They bought a used tick watch e3 off a swap of $50 just to try a smart watch It runs the wearos 3 they loved it so much they picked up a new in the box pixel watch 2 off of ebay Um says I love it But can I find out how to change the ringtone that plays when I get a call on my google pixel 6a? Can it be changed? PS for ron. I have circular search on my 6a. Congrats Micripe in, Ohio So this is actually something i was looking up right before this that's why i was kind of like uh scrambling And just to quickly show you yes, you can change the ringtone on your wearos watch The available ringtones will differ and i'll show you right Whoa, that was interesting I meant to do There we go, so on my 1 plus watch 2 Hopefully I can show you here. Yeah, i'm gonna Go to settings please A little laggy right now, but i'm gonna go to settings Is this working? Yeah settings. Yeah, it's a little blurry, but we can see what you're doing. It's okay Then sounds into vibration and then all the way at the bottom there's a ringtone section And here you should be able to Change the available ringtone on your device and I checked the support page And also there are some articles and stuff that mentioned on the tick watch at least on wearos 2 before the wearos 3 update You should be able to change the ringtone so one thing to note though is that um The available ringtone options are predetermined like you can't customize your ringtone in wearos If you want to do that, you'll unfortunately have to Like get familiar and comfortable with adb You have to like push whatever ringtone you want To a specific folder that you have to manually change The setting that you know controls what the actual ringtone is set as but if you want to just change The default ringtone to one of the preloaded options You can do that in wearos settings by going through the sound and vibration Settings that I just showed on my this is a one plus watch too But most wearos watches should allow you to do the same I I'm sorry. I'm going to be the old person tonight in sound and vibration I'm wearing my pixel 2 watch. By the way, I've been converted to wearables. I really love this pixel 2 watch I really liked it. So now whenever someone asks if someone was wearable, I do sorry So I so on the on the pixel 2 watch I see sound and vibration is two different settings. I can't I can't okay But and I don't don't try to show it. It's a wearos thing It's like every every smart watch has like a different version of wearos because they're all customize it a lot So, okay, so maybe maybe you will be different on every watch, but it should be somewhere in there There's not that many settings. I'm going I'm on the pixel 2 watch. I'm going to settings and then I'm going to I'm going to Sound the sound and vibration are two separate sections. That's what I should be sound scrolling all the way down to the bottom And I see nothing. I see nothing as well. I think that's the problem that Mike, Ron and I are all having is we cannot The one plus watch two does have that's what you were pulling it from michelle, right? Because I found Yeah, okay. So you might have to get a little little comfortable with adb then I'll actually I have a pixel watch too I don't use it as my daily, but I'll figure out I'll test maybe right after the show to see if you can change the ringtone Well, according to google's own google help site. Yeah, it says yeah In wearo wearos by whereos by google help to change the watch's ringtone Settings tap sounds of vibration wear to tap sound or sound and notifications Then watch ringtone, but that is not so maybe it's under notifications, but that says where to it's where to right Did they not include it in wearos? No, I Yeah, I don't know if this is saying like you should find it under sounds of vibration But if you're on where to you'd find it under sound Yeah, I think I think you're right jason. Yeah It is interesting that it's not there on your pixel watch too. Yeah Maybe google just decided it wasn't worth letting people change the ringtone well, that's That's wild. So it is not available on the pixel watch too, but it's available on the one plus watch two And even then on the one plus watch two you can't Use a fully custom ringtone. You can only use whatever I mean to be fair the list is pretty big, but you can only list is pretty big one plus provided Good lord. I cannot believe it's not there. Yeah, it's interesting and the support documents just make it very confusing. Yes, like that's I thought this was going to be a slam dunk because it's right there in the support doc Right, let's go. Oh, here you go. You know, like let me google that for you Okay, I don't feel so bad about being the old person like excuse me guys. I actually see that That's wild. All right, mike. Um Pixel watch pixel watch two crew Sound sound ring tone ring tone unchanged. I don't know. Good luck, mike. Good luck to all of us. Godspeed. I guess I don't believe it. I don't believe you can't anyway. Let's go to the next email, but I still can't believe it Okay, well just to round things out We are going to talk about phones and travel once again with john and Cincinnati, but john was not in Cincinnati Uh, john is writing to us about his travels in france. Hello all I just returned from a trip to paris france and here are some small things I noticed about tech in 2024 Number one, my wife looks for fashion and I look at what phone people are using I say i'm a doret of android and some z fold. I'm a five user phones as well Iowa has a strong showing but to me it looks like android takes the day so far in france number two, it's high time To stop calling llms ai I use chat and gpt and gemini to help find the best route to a train station from my hotel Luckily, I did this the day before I had to go I tried the route come to find out the route that was ai suggested had a closed track section If I had depended on if I depended on the so-called artificial intelligence I would have missed my train to norbandy If it's truly intelligence it should have learned about the route and not suggested it Let's call this tech llms instead of ai for now Number three google translate and maps gets an a plus. Love the show john and synzatti ps I forgot to mention using circle to search is a great way to find out information on what building you are looking at In an old city like paris. It is wonderful to have an historical guide in the palm of your hand. No kidding I agreed to pretty much A lot of stuff that you said john Yeah, I agree I like I like that tales of travel I do like I would yeah, I would definitely caution you on on trusting that an ai output for You know travel directions and stuff is going to actually get you to the place Sounds like the kind of thing that it should get right, but I mean ai's just you know, oh, sorry llms They're just not a hundred percent there You can't like you know 100 percent just trust what it puts out and If you do you're probably gonna end up in a situation that you you know, you'll be upset with Yeah, I mean and I think it's a good point point out that that ai that llms are ai but not all ai is llms Um, I mean it is more jason's wheelhouse, but I think that's like a very fair point to make is that Don't treat an lm like a general intelligence thing. Yeah ai as a terminology gets thrown around a lot I know i'm guilty of it too. I mean it's well you have all show about it. So Um Going back to the pixel watch too. I refuse to uh to accept this to accept defeat I threw some links in the chat for us to talk about so I quickly found two things one that there is a whereos app out called feel the where two notifications I feel like That that works on whereos 3.0 watches that claims they allow you to set custom vibrations and sounds for your apps notifications. Um, so some people are saying you can change the ringtone there. Um with it so Your mileage may vary across 219 to try. Um, Michelle, like you mentioned, uh, if you're comfortable Hacking and using adb There's a app called whereos tools version eight Which is a reddit thread up just search whereos tools V8 and you'll find all the stuff you can do and you can change the ringtone And a lot of other stuff that you could do, uh, you know make modifications there for it But uh, you've you've got to be very technically savvy in order to do that And I cannot believe they removed it from the pixel 2 watch as just a standard thing that you can do as a user That is insane. That is weird. I still like it. But yeah, that's that's wonky chicken. It's wild All right, okay, well that'll do good sleuthing ron up Yes, so everybody email email us a contact at android faithful.com We love to hear from you and your questions and problems and all that fun stuff Um, but now we're gonna wrap up the show and we want to tell you where you can find out more about all of us jason Uh, what tell us about your the aforementioned ai show what? Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. We can do that. Um I do a show every wednesday with jeff jarvis called ai inside and if you go to ai inside dot show That is the podcast page where you can find all the ways to subscribe There are video versions that are actually out As well on the illegal studios youtube page. So if you go to ai inside dot show you can Subscribe to the audio and you can link to the video for each of the episodes and uh, Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot about ai That's part of the reason why I wanted to do a show about ai was to Learn more about it turns out doing a show about something is a great way to learn about it That's that's good. It's a good a good lesson to be learned there. Yes. Yes indeed Cool. So michelle if people want to hear more about android 15 beta, where can they find that? You can follow me on all the socials like twitter mastodon threads Telegram, etc at michelle ramon I actually if you want to find all my links because there's so many of them you can go to my link tree which is like link tree Uh dot com slash I think it's like link dot tree or something like that Anyways, you just go to my socials. I link it everywhere that has all my links And if you want to support my work, you can go to patreon.com slash ronald armon Um, and join my discord group which you get access to by subscribing for at least three dollars a month I also occasionally post some exclusive member only content And the discord group actually is where I share a lot of my thoughts and a lot of the things that i'm working on Ahead of time before I share it publicly, you know through articles or through social media posts. So Um sign up if you want to learn more about android 15 because I assure you there's So much more android 15 content left to be posted about like my my backlog is massive More than you can shake a stick at All right, uh, win. How about you? Yeah, hi. I'm an android dev I have been for oh almost 13 years now and I still love this job And I often talk about this job and you can find associated Talks about android development and kotlin on my website randomly typing com as well as video and codes that goes with them And you can find me on the social medias at queen code monkey, but it's mostly instagram But yeah, I'm there too Uh, and if you follow me on twix, uh, thank you But I just don't really post there anymore Or other places, but I'll try not on twix other planks. Anyway, that's me I shut up now And on my side of the fence, uh, I'm at ron xo in some way shape or form across all the very social medias Um, and also as I mentioned before, uh, me and my friends have an app called scorebit that Helps you, uh, keep track of your scores on pinball if you're into playing pinball We just released an update to that app. Uh, I think it came out the week I was out So I'm finally mentioning it. Um, but yeah, so very very excited to be working on this for a while We added a new feature where you can have an interactive score timeline For our video viewers jason, if you scroll down, we have a little gift that shows how you use it But um, a lot of big thing about pinball is like, you know, people get these crazy scores You're like, how do they do it? And this kind of visualizes it to show you Over time how the score happened and what kind of jackpots they got and what kind of modes they play and all that fun stuff That's a single game that you're looking at. That's a single game that we're looking at That shows how somebody got to their final. That's really neat. Yeah, it's very very cool And we're just scratching the surface what we can do with that. So it's really exciting So yeah, so you can get it in the google play store. It's called scorebit. Um, just search scorebit pinball And you can be able to find it there. Thanks everybody Uh, and that's gonna wrap us up for this evening. What a wonderful show Uh, what a wonderful show good times Uh, quick reminder, you can get everything at android faithful.com You can find links to subscribe to the show links to our merch over a thread list We can get our t-shirt All the fun links. It's all there and of course you can support us at patreon.com slash android faithful We thank everyone who does it. We're on social media. We're on twix. We're on facebook. We're on threads We're on blue sky. We're on everything. It's all out there. Just go find us there. Um, and we publish every tuesday night We hope you enjoy it and until next time we are the android faithful Amazing Fun fun times Fun stuff good show and now it's time for you folks out there to work I'm gonna put you to work right now. Are you ready to work? Yeah, I don't know. We didn't mention it at the beginning of the show and I didn't see any coming through the chat So I don't know if we have actually if we obviously I'm not looking. Oh, we have some there we go. There we go Thank you clinton's cousin and john willie for keeping it. Yeah, there's some in here. Yeah, we heard you like emojis wear os ringtones workshop Where whereas at the end of that we still don't have a solution. I like the very seo friendly android 15 beta round up All right There we go get right to the get right to the meat of it. We need seven more folds widgets. What's old is new again? Google one vpn becomes google zero Driving mode not dead yet missing the train to normandy watt the nfc wood backs wood backs Viva driving mode and if it hadn't been for kotlin I Well, my vote is wood backs Kotlin I jowl. Oh, I could cousin and john you got you got to explain that. I'm no no cut cut night joe Okay I thought that's what it was, but I didn't want to like show my age I think that's what it is music group Appreciation group So we have a three-way tie for android 15 beta round up. We heard you like emojis and wear os ringtones workshop Kind of like the work where os ringtones Wear os ringtones workshop Join us on android faithful Oh Sure, and but we can do that but spell shop sh o ppe shoppy. Yeah, that's a good idea shoppy. Yeah He old he old wear old wear os ringtones shoppy. I always go with the searching one. I think You're gonna wear os All right, uh, no, I yeah, I don't care. I feel like android 15 beta round up might get us better search results Yes I know wear os ringtones workshop people look at that and be like I go ahead and skip that it's fine Wear os 15. I cannot believe they got rid of that by the way like that is crazy So All right, cool. Yeah, that is crazy. I still like the watch What I like Jason you wrote in the dock wear os 15 beta round up Wow, we're on version 15 of wear os already Well, it's only in beta Welcome to my brain everybody. This is how it works. This is literally the the battle I have on a daily basis I think that's still seo. Is that so as any of that would still be How about android os 15 beta? All right. Well, if you want to be all factual about it instead, all right android 15 beta round up two words or one Round up. It's not it's not insect. Is round up one or two words It's not we like hyphenate. It's a hyphen. Wait. Hang on. I just googled round up or round up Um Round up one word the gathering together of animals are in cows. Nope Well, I guess that's wait. Yeah, I mean it's that's what it is According to dictionary dot com round up the active process collecting animals gathering of scattered persons or things Or a summary of information one word. There you go. Boom round up two words is a verb Uh to gather or bring in together for years going to round up. Yeah Let me round up Sorry, so I guess the question is is that what is is android 15 beta round up is the round up is a noun in that It's not the verb Like we're doing. Yeah, I think right. Yeah, so that's a good point. Yeah Well Really at the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter a whole lot like set it like set up and set up Right, exactly. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Yeah, okay Cool. All right fun time everybody Good times So We'll see you next week As the march to google io continues. Oh my goodness. It's gonna be one month out before we know it one month out now Oh, really one month out Wow, I'm excited. It's gonna be fun Yeah, it's good. All right. Cool Well, thank you everybody for watching and listening and participating We love you all. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week Have a good night. Bye