 Well, hello and welcome to another edition of Android faithful We are your weekly source for latest news hardware apps and fun discussion about everything under the Sun in the world of Android I am Ron Richards. I'm Jason Howell. I'm going to it now. Hello my friends We got no no Michelle tonight because it's his birthday So everybody should go on every social network in the world and wish Michelle a happy birthday because he's on every social network in the world And I saw him he was posting away on his birthday even though we told him take the fault all day off But we made him skip the show so you can go celebrate so hopefully he's out in a date him with birthday love But in his place, we are so excited to have on friend of the show first time on Android faithful Mr. Will Saddleburg from Android police the phones editor over there. How you doing? Well, I'm good. Hi guys Thanks for hanging me. I am no I'm no substitute for Michelle. Well, who is? Well, we're so excited because We had you on the old show But this is your first time on the new show and this is this has been several weeks or months in the planning because we time Yeah, right as you were no longer jet lagged after a mobile world Tuesday on Tuesday the 5th will will no longer be falling asleep at 9 30 on his couch. So perfect Well, we're so excited. We're gonna get into the the post game on mobile Congress a little later in the show So we're so excited to have you on But before we get started we got a bunch of news to go through first But real quick just want to remind everybody you're listening to the show. You're watching the show. You are the Android faithful. You're fantastic Help spread the word tell your friends leave a review on Apple or anywhere that leaves reviews for podcasts on pod chaser Or any of this stuff like that Help spread the word about this podcast. You probably have friends who also enjoy it Make sure they're listening to it go get them to subscribe to it You can go to Android faithful calm that's got all the links all the various pod catchers and things like that Help us spread the word about the Android faithful Post about it on social media say hey, I love this podcast go find it here every little bit helps So thank you everyone. We appreciate hey Do you know what an oppo is if you don't then you need to check out? What what is an oppo an oppo? What is an oppo? What is a one plus? What is a nothing you might not know and you sure and very faithful calm and if you go on social media and Mention us tag us because we're on social media find us on whatever platform you do and tag us We'll we'll we'll interact with you just we're trying to get as many people aware of the show as possible So every little bit helps I'll be it indeed So that said let's get into it because we got a lot to go through Jason You've got the first news story if we had yeah, I would play it. So take it away Well, you know how we're all rooting our phones these days because they just don't do enough and we realize like the only way We can get our phones to be overpowered and to do the things we want them to do is to root and rom them. Oh Wait a minute. No, that was like 10 years ago. I was gonna say what year is it Jason? But still people do and I'm sure we'll I will hear probably from at least a couple of them saying hey I heard that you like called out like root and rom people on the show. That wasn't fair Well, I have a story for you all because RCS, you know the real communications Services is not working apparently on rooted phones Using Google messages, which I don't think that is there another messaging client for Android that supports RCS at this point Or is it still just Google messages? I think it's just Google message Doesn't the other like some like Viber or whatever doesn't that support it but not Google's RCS spec, right? Right. Yeah, it might be the the yeah the universal protocol, but not Right Google flavor. Yeah, you might be right. Well, if you If you are running, sorry, I'm gonna get this here on the screen here If you are a root user and you're trying to use Google messages and you're trying to send an RCS message You might be having troubles with that. I don't think this is a far and wide thing Because I'm not seeing any definitive Declaretives in these articles like as of now it's not working But I am but it does sound like a lot of people who have their devices rooted and wronged Are experiencing issues sending anything via RCS and actually Michelle showed off this action In a video from a Redditor. Do I even have that? No, I don't know. Thanks. Yep and It basically just kind of shows like if you're sending an SMS message Straight, you know, no RCS it sends the second you type out an RCS message and hit send. It's like it just disappears It's like you never sent it It just like it appears in the you know the cascade of messages and then it just disappears poof. It's gone and the reason for this is the play integrity API system it has attestation checks and Basically, what is checking for is if these phones are GMS certified, which is, you know It doesn't have the clearance to be running Google services same thing would happen on a rooted phone when you try and do something like pay with Google pay or Android pay or whatever the heck they call it these days You're not going to be able to get the clearance there either and so RCS is kind of following into the same bucket Really has to do I think with the fact that Google's RCS is not the free and clear wide open RCS That I think the standard began as Google really implemented its own flavor of RCS and as much as we love it It's not quite as open as the as the open version of RCS. So hence we are here So I have two questions one Who is rooting their phone these days and why and two How different is this than Apple blocking beeper mini? Right like this is this is Google protecting their their the service right and if the phone isn't certified They're not going to let the traffic go through Hmm It's an interesting point. I feel like I have to think about that one a little bit more to know I mean feel free to tell me if I'm wrong, but that that's the first thing jumped out of me Yeah, I guess I guess it is pretty similar I don't know that well no, I guess I was gonna say I don't know that Google's necessarily targeting specifically No, but just in general the idea of the idea of protecting the garden, you know Yeah, yeah, what yeah well at the end of the day are they protecting the garden? Are they protecting like you know, are they on the the hill? Screaming like no This is how we protect you because it's end-to-end encrypted with our implementation of the open version is not and then encrypted You know, so maybe that I don't know what I mean Google isn't is Google even really talking about this Oh, yes, they are actually the communications manager. I be hunt said the OS is quote Ensuring that message issuing and receiving devices are following the operating measures Defined by the RCS standard to which I say which RCS standard the open one or Google's one Says in this case users that are not able to use RCS still have access to SMS and MMS messaging So you can still send messages that way. You just can't do it this way. Yeah I don't know. Well, what do you think what would you take on this story? Yeah? I As the verge coverage points out as well. They Google has had Issues with spam in RCS. So like yeah, if that is really why they're You know Tackling this I don't I don't really know what the what the relationship is between rooted devices and spam Like that they would have to go into that a little bit more but like obviously I Would I'm tempted to take Google's word here that like they've pinpointed that like rooted devices can like Blow up spam on on RCS. And so they might as well just Block it because I mean to your your first question Ron like Who is rooting their device anymore like this really won't impact that many people like that many like end users So it's you know, it's probably them weighing the risk of you know, pissing people off and being like well like 0.01% of Android users are rooted anymore. So like whatever just do it or you know, whatever the actual stat is, right? I Just want to fix just a side effect of as Michelle mentioned the GMS certification Google mobile services Certification, which is like the certification that OEMs have to pass in order for you to be able to have like Gmail and other like, you know very Google googly Google proprietary services and Not that it's like intentionally Targeting rooted phones or that rooted ones are a problem But just because of the nature of how rooted phones are and jailbreaking phones that you and again It's like what Michelle noted in his post Is that it's just that because a rooted or custom ROMs don't have that you kind of just basically get excluded Not intentionally but just because you're you know, you're not an official, you know, an officially cleared OS or something like that and because and because of because of GMS certification is or because of all that play integrity is catching it I don't know They used to work Maybe they changed something I don't know Decision that changed things I'm being devil's advocate by making the Apple beeper, you know kind of point. I get why they would do this I mean a a rooted and a ROM You don't you can't you can't police that device, right? You don't know what that it's not following the certification is not doing all this sort of stuff in order to play You need to have these sort of things checked off and if that doesn't check off, then you don't get in like I get it In terms of you know, especially with their position on user safety I don't know. I just if you're a rooted ROM person, you'd be probably frustrated and is there a path Is there a path for you to get on to that track would be the next question? But again, will to your point how many people are doing that these days like What a blast in the past I mean, you know even back in the day, it wasn't a lot back back when lots of people in air quotes were rooting and Well, yes, of course, I was but there was still a very small percentage of any of the users of Android Were you flashing your device daily at one point? Oh There were certainly times where I was flashing and like not like every day for an entire year But there were times where I'd like flash a ROM and then the next day I'd be like, yeah, I don't like that one What's a new one and that night I'd flash another one and you know what? I mean that absolutely That was like you with ROMs was like me with keyboards back And a certain point though it was just like keyboards and launchers. Yeah, it was just kind of a pain in the butt Like do I really enjoy sitting here for three hours setting this up for a while? I didn't know a certain point. I was like, I just want my phone to work and be neat, you know, yeah This feels like Android more than Android growing up and getting a job or having a job I'm having to wear a suit or business business casual to work And yeah, I mean like the thing is like with root access you get like so Yeah, I think something is like that having having root access to the phone gives you access to privileged systems and services on the phone And I mean, I think most most people who are just enthusiasts aren't going to do anything nefarious But there are a lot of issues when you gain privileged access to a phone That I guess I suppose most of the time and I'm an expert is not my field of expertise But it feels like when you can kind of get privileged access to things you're normally not supposed to with a user on a phone Nefarious things can happen. I don't know. It's not necessarily like protecting user from themselves But maybe the user from other users other interlopers. I don't know Well when you said it's kind of like growing up and getting a job and we're in business casual I feel like a Google it's all it's all business every day, right? And every month is a new drop there is a new drop But this one this one isn't just you know a fancy drop for for those folks that are on the latest and greatest new things Although there is nothing wrong with pixel 8 pixel pixel 8 pro But if you're on an older phone and we're feeling left out with all these you know Different features that we've been talking about that only come to the newest phones You might be in luck because this is a pixel drop for how can we say this the more? I don't know There's like a fine wine for some way The age the well-loved the well-aged there's basically just a bunch of wonderful pixel features coming to Some of the other devices pixel 7s pixel 6s pixel folds And a lot of them are really kind of worth talking about For example, I mean this is like a nap special, but if you were an Instagram user still They have actually enabled capture and share support for 10-bit HDR video directly in reels as well as the ability to upload and support Ultra HDR now this is going to be on your pixel 7s pixel 8s and pixel fold. So hey Cool for me And if you were missing out on circle to search Which I guess many of us were after all the hype from Samsung Galaxy and packed and and having the pixel 8s get it Well, guess what if you're in a pixel 7 you're in luck because you'll be getting circle to search soon I bugged my husband about this because he's a pixel 7 thing. Oh, baby. You gotta try to circle such it's coming out soon Can I interject here? I'm on a pixel 8 pro and I still have yet to get circle really are you serious? I think it's not on my phone and you're up. It's alright I just I just I come on when I just checked earlier system is completely up to date It is not I go through all the how to enable search and circle search gesture It's not there and even on my phone. Also. It says nearby share is still called quick share and settings So like I don't know if I'm behind on a play services update Well quick share is the is the name is the name or is the year? Oh, okay I Will say though that my husband has gesture nav enabled and he did so when I told him about it He looked up and he was like 95 Google has an article that says enabling circle to search from the Gesture nav is very difficult. So I kind of just left it at that. So maybe that's also a thing that I have On Don't literally don't have like the update but yeah, I think I don't have it Yeah, so do I I don't know did you did you peeve someone off on the update? Okay, so if you can't get circle search if you like call screen I'm pretty sure everybody here likes call screen There are a couple new features for call screen from the pixel 6 up and include and the pixel fold You have a couple new chips now when you have the call screening UI Experience up where if you know some the person that is being call screen just isn't answering You actually have a little chip that can have the Responding, you know voice say hello to try to get them to answer And even you know a lot have a button to say hey hang on if you are just not able to pick up the call Once you've decided it's legitimate so there's that for all you you call screen levers a little bit more for you and Yeah, there's just a lot So this is one of those things where now we're talking about a bunch of features that are available I think on 5a plus and all of these things need like a table to let you know which Version and device you have these on but hey give it a shot try it. Maybe you'll be like Ron and just be sad I'm so sorry run or maybe you'll be lucky and have things like single abcast sharing Which is when you are trying to you know, share your screen And you don't always want to share the entire window Well, now you can just like Screen share just a single app kind of like you can do on your desktop with most, you know call You know kind of call software now now you can do it on your tablets and your phones too question mark Yeah, on your phones on your pixel 5a and above Pixel 5a above folds and tablets are also getting kind of better like history like device history with fast pair Fast pair previous pairings will not be kind of like propagated to like your new devices So you don't have to you know go through the as nice as fast pair is we'd like to make it even faster faster pair And that will remember previous devices that you had so you don't have to kind of go through the connection process Eventually eventually Google run name it fastest pair fastest pair quick quick pair. It'll be quick pair The quickest quickest a quick share Yeah, G pair And hey if you were a Google Docs person you like to collaborate and you like you know kind of miss the old school Just writing notes on someone's Documents to to get an annotate things if you have Google Docs you don't need a stylus you can now use your finger to You know mark up annotate draw notes on Google Docs from your pixel tablet. Isn't that fun? I think it's also also this is also on 5a plus and fold as well. It's I need a table It's who knows who knows it they started to kind of drop off Telling us what was available on what devices so I don't know just try it out. Maybe you're lucky and you know this feature I'm sorry. I don't mean to be sound so mean about it, but it's a little unclear sometimes But that is available at least on the tablet and one special tablet feature Which I think we kind of talked about as a leaky-peaky, but is now out of a be presumably feature flagging it is now Fully released on your Google Pixel tablets is the new Google G board voice toolbar Which tries to make like voice typing and other voice interactions a little bit easier to use on your tablet And giving you back a lot more space if you actually are using your voice to input into chat or something So yeah, there is your Google drop Bring in all the goodies to everybody else who doesn't have a pixel 8 or pixel 8 Pro I think it's nice that they're doing this, you know, it's good. They feel like they should do this is a good thing In the in the scope of of pixel feature drops This is a good one. I feel like we had like a spectacular one like the last time. Yeah, and I think probably you Encounter a challenge following up like a really really great something with anything So what's the problem with the monthly with the monthly? Yeah regime that they have and that's why I like seeing this focused on not the most Current phones. I think it's kind of a breath of fresh air. Yeah, totally. Yes Absolutely. Well, how would you rate this drop compared to other ones? Uh, yeah, I mean, I mean to your point. It's it's a little If you have the latest hardware, it's a little hard to be excited about this I I do agree having I have the table in front of me for which feature is coming to which pixel and it's still confusing And I would like to start from the top and break it down for it. No, it would take it would take the rest of this show Yes, exactly It's it's, you know The the conversation around Android fragmentation. I feel like kind of slowly Quieted down over the last several years and now I just feel like we need to have a talk about pixel fragmentation Which is there Bonnie because now I have to write this You're welcome I Just I just think that like, you know, you compare this to to I mean to Apple is the closest comparison and like, you know The only devices that don't get the latest features and you'll you'll find the list of footnotes on the iOS page at the bottom of it But of you know, oh the iPhone 12 doesn't get this but at that point you're talking about, you know To have a decade old hardware and not like the pixel fold still doesn't have circle to search Well, why it's a it's less than a year old. It's an $1,800 phone. You don't there's no successor to it It's its own product category. Why isn't it there? Like I It's a frustrating thing where it's there's no reason for us to have to refer to a chart on what's getting what Like all of this stuff or a lot of this stuff could run on Back to you know, the pixel six or even some of it like is going to the pixel 5a and I would want to see them kind of Get better at this because otherwise. I don't know how we take their how we take Google's Seven-year software update policy seriously if if it's like, okay, sure I'm running Android 18 But there's nothing on it. It's just like a software bump like I don't know Yeah a little bit though and say like like on the Apple side, you know, the iOS devices iPhone devices Last a long time, but especially when they get older, you're not getting every fine line, you know I mean, like I said, there is kind of a cutoff. Yes Yes, that looks like it's long and it's it's probably just as complicated as this table But but it is still older hardware than then the pixel fold or the pixel. Yeah, no, um, well, that's actually I'm I'm so happy you said that because yes, I have a pixel fold. It's my daily driver Why don't I get these things? Like it's a premiere. It's weird. Yeah, it's a high-level premiere phone. You're absolutely right Why why can't I have circle to search is ridiculous? Like look I had look at all the real estate I have to circle you come on Google like Come on. I could test the crap out of this fake feature It actually really makes me wonder like what is it about circle to search that's hard to implement You know what I mean like what exactly is it like I realize it's using AI But I mean so so many other features do and that yeah, that's so weird that that pixel fold is too much screen to search Is that what it is? Maybe All I can think is like maybe is there some weird Exclusivity agreement that they made with Samsung and that they're they just the loopholes were all sewed up minus the pixel A also by the way, I'm so sorry I I somehow deleted the entire block about pixel watch features by the way if you have a pixel watch one You're gonna get auto stop and auto start workout detection along with auto pause You're gonna get the Fitbit relax app and you're gonna get both pace tracking Which is kind of like little haptics and voice cues when you're slowing when you're taking a run Ron if you're not making your pace your your if you had a pixel watch one I know you have a watch to if you had a pixel watch one It will now you know yell at you in the way that your pixel watch two does and similarly for heart rate tracking if you're Kind of like a heart rate zone targeting you'll have that 90 pixel watch one. I am so sorry I somehow deleted that out of my nose and I was like something else is missing. Well, there you go pixel watch one fans you get some cool stuff, too, but Neither here nor there Fragmentation still pixel fragmentation is yeah, will I want you to write that article? Yeah, I think I have to now I think if my boss hears that I said that he's gonna make me And I honestly think I honestly think that that point that you made about you know holding Google to their to their Seven-year kind of thing. I just want to see consistency Exactly like that was my complaint about the pixel drops From a year ago was like they come out with the pixel like monthly pixel drops And then you just quietly don't hear like by May or June you stop hearing about the pixel drops And then IO happens and it's the next version of Android is the next hardware like they're not month They haven't been monthly pixel drops. They like, you know, I'm sure they will point to the updates They've made stuff like that But like the meaty pixel drop Jason that you were referring to they don't do that on a monthly basis because eventually you run out of stuff And that's why setting the bar too high is dangerous, right? And so I would rather I would rather a pixel drop not be as Frequent and be more meaningful. Yeah, I think this is kind of my preference Right if they were to do it once a quarter, which honestly, that's what I thought a pixel drop was was like once every three months Or something like that But if they were to do it a little bit with it though, they just did one like yeah, that's true They have been out of the blue. Yeah, but I mean if it means less of them, but it doesn't feel like a You know, we've talked about it on the show before. All right. Hey, any any departments here at Google you got anything your worker Yes, that one. Okay. We'll include that. Sure. What you got. Yeah, I don't know. That's not quite okay Whatever we'll throw that in there, too I like Jason Jason just improv the product management meeting at Google live on the show That was fantastic. That's really what it's like in Mountain View, by the way That's yes now. Yes, Google campus is one bedroom Everybody works in yes, that's what I mean This is all relevant because speaking speaking of pixel phones and pixel features and things like that It's a bummer. Michelle's not here. It's because it's his birthday and this would have been a great gift for him because he really wants satellite service on these phones but We are all still waiting for satellite SOS To come the pixel phones as promised for Android 14 to come the Android phones at all a recent update to the adaptive connectivity Services shows it's coming to pixel phones sometime soon And the feature will enable sending messages to emergency services via satellite when mobile network and Wi-Fi are unavailable And the settings page will be located at settings safety and emergency satellite SOS And it could come to more than just pixel phones But right now just indicates that it's coming to pixel phones at some point As we inch closer to a world where our phones are connected to satellites, which blows my mind So, you know, the here's a this is a feature that when it goes out I bet you Jason is gonna be in a pixel drop Yeah, I imagine so And now that this would be a pretty big feature to come to a pixel drop like that certainly. Yeah, I think so be neat Cool. All right. Well, that's gonna wrap it up for the news except except we have our Patron pick that's right If you are a supporter of Android faithful on our patreon a patreon.com slash Android faithful You have the opportunity each week to pick from a carousel of story options That we might talk about if it gets the most votes and we usually put Three stories up for vote give our patrons are amazing patrons the opportunity to vote on them this week Let's see here. We have let me sorry. I'm juggling a lot and we also also a reason to join patreon to vote in this because you also get to see the Listener. That's the wrong one the listener submitted Bug droid reading the news and this week it comes from listener William Steele who gives us a very dapper bug droid Listen to a podcast while reading the newspaper. It's a bug droid wearing the suit This was generated with Microsoft co-pilot by the way So, yeah, that's a solid generation. I like it Remington steel Android like that old show Very solid picture here and Right at the bottom of the voting count was Google's photo sphere is still present on older pixels that got 16% of the vote Second place was Google contacts minor UI revamp and new feature to view messages on widgets Y'all didn't care that much about that. That was 19% the majority vast majority 65% Voted on the story that we have here, which is about Google not that one. We already talked about that one Sorry, I've got a few things out of order here Google making Talking more fun as the blog post Says here with sound reactions and Effects and do we get to can I like play some of these things? Oh, you know what? I can only do that if I'm sharing I don't think you want to though Go over them. I'll see if I can get it to work, but yeah All right. Well, it's fine if we don't but basically sound reactions Is this just gonna be like kind of like a Like a sound board Integrated with Android or like what what exactly is? Audio emojis, this is wild so these these links by the way Jason or links to theog files that exist So I actually don't know if I can play those on the show or not But so instead of like visual emojis, it's gonna be like audio emojis So there's also an animation like in Google messages because you scroll down you could see that that's the that's the animation the drumroll animation is drum and a chatting Teeth like teeth chattering guy coming out of it So I have to be looking at my phone when I'm taking a call. Yeah, this is so weird. Yeah, this is weird What's happening you guys? No, I'm so confused About making us make phone calls. Why are they trying to make us make phone calls? Yeah, it's so weird What can I play ag with quick time? Yeah, I know I was I was gonna dive in and I was like, you know what? This is probably a wormhole that's not worth going down But what I like is the Google phone beta by the way This is if you combine AI and AI listens to the conversations and can accurately do this like the sad trombone or the or the applause or whatever and it turns your phone call into the sat into the The the z100 morning zoo kind of experience. I will make more phone calls then If I'm on hold with a customer service agent who's like, oh, I was able to change that flight for you and it goes This is very weird, this is I want a canned laugh track I want AI to make me feel like I'm funny so that when I make a joke Regardless of whether the person I made the joke to laughs I want the canned laugh track like in full house or something Or or it's Jenna It's AI that that analyzes the person you're talking to To understand what their laugh would sound like so if they don't laugh at your joke Then they laugh anyways because the the system just makes it play See, there's a lot of ways you can go down this road. I'm also I'm oh wait. Oh geez So I was a little concerned about the fact that so the these the odd files that this this blog post provided were Sad applause party popper laugh drum roll and poop Uh-huh, and that was the one I was worried about because really what are you you know, like how is that gonna work? And I pulled up VLC And I can't play audio. Can I hear but sadly it is I don't know if you guys can hear this No, no, it's it's it's a farting noise. Unfortunately. I Don't want that on my phone. I'm sorry Remember those apps to remember all the apps Push the button to play the sound effect and time is a flat circle. Yeah, oh Boy, well patrons you asked for it Wait, I found a I found a I found a web-based org player. Oh If this works, this will be great. Let's see. Just remember in stream yard. You got a share. Oh, yeah, I got you I'm on it. Yeah, you got it go I got a share. I know what he's going here. Here we go. Okay, all in the pursuit. All right. You're ready. This is all okay So this is the applause one As we watch it upload. Here you go. Oh No, you hear that. Yes. Yes. All right, so you you would hear that When something good happened, uh-huh, or if for some reason something bad happened You would hear this That's really that's an extra slightly extra gross one that code exists on the phone somewhere You know, I'm really surprised we'll put that in there. That was in product That was that was in a that was in a project management. Someone had a ticket. Yeah said hey like Fred implement a fart noise Yeah, man, and I was probably Fred doing that the hands on the face thing. Yeah He had to put that in there and then he went home and said what was my life? Oh Well, it really makes you wonder But this is a beta right so who knows if it's actually gonna get out or not, right? Here's one more just This is this is the drum roll. So Okay Ready? Yes A rim shot shot. Yeah, I just don't know that I'm ready. So here's the question if you're on the phone with somebody and It's enough to like you want to tell a joke and then also play this rim shot Like the timing of being on a phone call and practice doesn't work at all. Let's move on. This is awful. So I'm super curious about this is that there's something doesn't feel right about this. Yeah, very very bizarre Anyways, you asked for it patrons. That was that was because of you segment So yes, and I'm talking to you Chris Pictor from the UK Roger Martin from Arizona David Arnold. Yeah, I'm calling you out from Indiana That's right That's three of you and so many of your peers in the patreon at patreon.com Slash Android faithful made that segment happen and you can make another segment like it happen next week You just got to be a patron patreon.com slash Android faithful You can make us talk about stories that involve farts. Will. We're sorry We really All right, we will talk about it with will in a second. All right Well unlike the rest of us shmucks who are sitting here wondering how fart fart sounds get into our Google dialer you actually got to go to mobile world Congress in Barcelona and I think what's interesting is that you know I in in our in all of the the talking that we've done about mobile world Congress It is inevitable that we talked about a lot of the kind of more wild and fantastical, you know products and demos that Are good friends friends of the show and and fam got to see there Even like things like there's apparently with a Lenovo transparent laptop not quite our Area, but obviously something that had a lot of attention We could not help but talk about the Motorola bendable phone and all kinds of other things and I I really liked that you had a little bit of a different take on kind of Where are we going with all this whereas mobile world congress going with all this and I don't just go ahead and like Just kind of walk us through your thoughts and feelings as you're kind of seeing this interesting trend or maybe this interesting Yeah, I guess trends with what what companies are doing at mobile world congress Yeah, so this this was my second nwc and I I basically Last year's big splash, right was the was the uh The Motorola riser right which which I spent the entire show calling the uh, Rizzer before I realized it was I was making a rise joke and I didn't I didn't get it and it took it truly I said it's so many people I said it in Rizzer my head It was it was in my I hadn't said it out loud until we recorded the ap podcast last year and then like 30 minutes before I was like Oh my god, it's riser I hadn't said it out loud um Anyway, neither here nor there so I think but that that the phone got a lot of uh publicity Um, and rightfully so it's it's really cool. They they had it again this year. Um, they had it next to the bendable um, and I think not just motorola, but but everyone kind of wanted to follow their lead in terms of having some sort of futuristic concepts of the bendable, right, which which, um Uh shout out to nick gray at fandroid. I think I put this in one of my pieces too on it Who who reminded me while we were getting the hands on that like they had this in 2016 And I had just completely forgotten but like they had, you know, obviously it's it's up It's gotten updated design, but they had the same like bendable Attached it to your wrist, uh, like demo, you know eight years ago And they basically I don't want to say they dug it out of a drawer But they kind of dug it out of a drawer and we're like look it's back. Yeah um, you know So you've got that you've got the Lenovo transparent laptop which like Lenovo and motorola were were sharing a space at mwc So it was like literally go in the basement you can see the laptop go upstairs and you can see the phone like Truly they were they were the teams were like right next to each other um techno, uh who who sponsored my uh trip to mwc. It's why I I got to go They had a rollable although it was a different shape than than uh the motorola one from a year ago um Samsung display which is like a you know technically its own company away from from samsung Always has concepts. I wrote in a whole Article about the concept displays. They had at ces. They had even more this time including their own Vendable uh that I would have loved to try someone broke it before I got there They like slap banded it on their wrist Like Yeah, they fully slap bracelet it it's not a verb. Uh, but yeah, they did that It is now and and yeah it is now, uh, uh, but like to see you know Oh, well that wrap because it was like a different build than the razor one or the motorola one I should say and um So it wasn't working anymore by the time I got to it um And I I was talking to my boss and we were talking about the show and and I went back and looked at like what was announced, you know a decade ago, right? So what was at mwc 2014 and it's like You know less there were a couple concept products But it was like the galaxy s5 was announced there, right? Like nokia's first android phone like hot off being purchased by by microsoft Like you had like project tango, which was google's like ar thing, you know a decade ago um All sorts of heart like hdc held the the one m8, but they they announced some desire models like All of this stuff, right? Like there were new wearables and and um, I can't remember lg I can't forget lg lg had the g pro 2 like all sorts of stuff That you would eventually be able to buy like on store shelves And and it's not to say that like concepts aren't cool But at a certain point when you've seen your fifth concept of the show you're like, okay But what do you want me to take away from this like like, you know The the riser in particular a year ago. I I thought was like, okay. This is a a phone that um Grows into like a standard size, but then can can shrink down into something that I think we're all a little nostalgic for Like a form factor a smaller form factor. We're all nostalgic for And I didn't see that this year, right? Like Motorola's big, uh Selling point on like the idea of a bendable phone was that you could attach it to a bracelet That you just I guess wear all the time like and it doesn't do anything when you don't have the phone on But you could do that and then they were like, oh you can go for a run and I was like, okay Putting aside the fact that I don't know if I trust the magnets in this bracelet to hold the phone for a full run Like putting that aside What does that get me that like my smartwatch doesn't right like it's I'm gonna View Strava on a bigger screen. I guess but that's about it and and otherwise like You know, it's heavier. It's like I like it's more dangerous. Um It's stuff like that where I'm like you got it does feel a little bit like everyone's just building things to build things and and That's exciting and it's cool And I'm not trying to take away from that like all of the stuff I held was very cool the transparent laptop like very impressive Uh, even just seeing uh, microsoft paint, uh with like a clear background. It's just neat Uh, but I would like to see something a little more concrete a little more um Where are we going with this? Does it does it feel like I mean, I think we talked about this and especially like I when when we were looking at all these Kind of crazy prototypes and we wondered out loud Is this just you know, obviously like and we've talked about this for a few years that smartphones are kind of getting not boring But that there's very little, you know mind-blowing advancement. Um, there's not like a you know, one more thing moment Very rarely these days and even like foldables and flip-ables are are great But it there's not nothing like kind of like industry shaking And is it do you think there's any merit to to You know, maybe trying to give companies a credit and that okay, maybe they want to balance risk But also kind of throw, you know swinging for the fences and just throwing out concepts Is there any merit do you think to them just getting feedback be like, hey, here's a bunch of crazy ass ideas What are people responding to these any merit in that or do you think this is really just kind of a little bit to Hand wavy wishy-washy like do you feel like that your feedback your impressions? Your interest is going to drive anything or just just like as you say is it just purely just what are we doing? um, so I would like to think so but but And all of my hands-on's really it's never been about like let's get feedback, you know Like like I said, they had the they had the riser there again right next to the bendable and like It was unchanged down to the plastic case that that they used to keep it safe like They hadn't done anything on it in a year and and you know, it's one thing if you're talking about new phones But like it's a prototype like they can change the prototype in a year and and they hadn't You know, it's it's the same with like samsung displays concepts like a lot of times Like you can you can dig through the archives and they very often don't you know appear anywhere. Um I think I think it's an issue that for me This these sorts of experimental form factors this sort of um unique The unique offerings that you can get only on android, right is like what what is going to like I don't want to say save this platform because that sounds too dire, but like certainly get uh Get it back to a place where it's not just like Oh, yeah, that still exists to like the vast majority of like mobile people Particularly in the u.s. Which is like the market that I'm I'm focused on covering like I I and I've written about this and jason has had me on other podcasts to talk about it But like the the amount of like teenagers who have just like it's like 90 of teenagers are on on ios at this point And I think that like Stuff like this where like if they you know a company like Motorola Will take the plunge and like be like, you know what like actually we're gonna go out there We're gonna we're gonna try to sell this bendable. It's a thousand dollars or however much it is and like You know, we're going to establish ourselves as like a fun You know a fun company like that. We're not like trying to just do like the standard slab You know iphone or whatever like I think that energy needs to be there to kind of get Interest backup especially among younger users This is all anecdotal but but I'm 28. Most of my friends are you know, let's say 25 to 30 and like the one It's not a particular phone But the one form factor that like all of them because they all have iphone's the the one that like really wins them over is Is is clamshell phones like they're always like oh like I would maybe consider switching that and I think there's an in there That at the same time like none of these companies are particularly brave enough to like fully Like jump in like even samsung like Five years ago and I wrote a little bit about this too when I saw the z fold six leaks Like they felt really Ready to kind of push forward on this hardware innovation right like the first fold was five years ago now and now it's like Oh like the fold six it's a little wider than the fold five like it's still the the Thickest foldable basically at this point right but without the battery to back it up really and and at least if the you know leaks are to be believed and and the the flip six leak looks identical to the flip five and and there's a stagnation in Changing the hardware that I worry will essentially make these products not as exciting But isn't but I'm sorry to interrupt you but isn't that the isn't that the history repeating itself? Yeah of android right because like and jason and jason we you know, we've been doing A show like this for 13 years right how many years like we go through this phase of like Burst of excitement difference and then years of stagnation and then burst of Burst of change or difference or a different approach and then years of sameness and copying and all that sort of stuff And so you know will I was gonna say to you it was like I feel like the the folding phones were the prototype Seven years and six seven years ago and we're like folding folding phones are coming and now they're here And and I guess something must happen in the supply chain Or in some reason why they can't make big deviations But you do have companies like we were talking before the show like tec Tecmo or tecno tecno ball Tecno and and like and and What were the phones that we were talking last week with the with the music phone who had that zte right? I feel like some companies are trying right. I mean Well, so so this is actually this is the other issue and it kind of ties back into why I I off-handedly was like the u.s. Market that I mostly focus on which is like there is excitement in in mobile On a global scale right like there are lots of smartphones that I think even like just slab smartphones that I think are interesting particularly when it comes to the camera You know We still don't have a phone in the u.s. That you can buy officially with a one inch sensor And like that's been a standard thing on on android flagships for like two or three years now like on a global scale You know so so to me if if these companies if companies like samsung aren't going to push forward heavily on You know, I've been I'm back on a on a s24 ultra and I like it But if they're not going to push forward on like making a big deal of like why anyone should switch to it I would want them to kind of Dive headfirst into the prototypes that they're all very proud of and be like no No, no like you did it once with foldables like do it like do it again You know establish yourself as a leader and then point at apple which which is the competitor here and be like They're stuck in their old ways like we're pushing forward on what we think The future of mobile technology is and we think it's like we we don't think it's this like rigid form factor that like You put in your back pocket because it's too big for your front pocket now like it's it's something completely different and I'm fine with you know concept phones if I think that they're going to you know Eventually become something of a reality, but I haven't seen the evidence There so far I know we're running long But I kind of want to go back to it because like I think you also made a good point in the article about how you know Way back when mwc was was really where samsung would do Um announcements like galaxy impact, but now they're doing their own, you know announcement It feels like you know like we've talked about like every single company we talk about like xiaomi zd They kind of now have their own You know online very specific their own brand events um And is that just I don't know is that just like it kind of reminds me of e3 the Electronic entertainment expo where it used to be a big deal and now it kind of died because sony and all of the companies are kind of Doing their own thing. Yeah Is that just where this is going to go? And is that why is that why in part maybe myc is all prototyped because people like the companies want to control or spotlight their actual, uh, sorry, uh actual tactile Substantiated product is not their vaporware. I don't know is is it going to get any better? Or is it's just everyone's going to do their own press conference No, I I think everyone's going to do their own press conference and some of them will will do it from mwc And some of them like like samsung won't and don't have to I would say You know the the bright side right is that um Unlike e3 where when sony pulled out or you know, it's we're kind of in the phase where where it's like 10 years ago e3 where nintendo was starting to do their like digital events if we're going to continue this analogy They're digital events, but they were still on the show floor like samsung is on the show floor Google has still has android alley right that you can wander and you can go find all your free pins, right like That's all still there. It's just that like the announcements aren't there, right? So samsung's entire booth is set up to show off, you know, everything they've announced over the last three months You know stuff like that where it's it's you know Google will announce some like software stuff for android and show that off at the at the booth But like I will you know, their booth was smaller than it was at ces and it would say the announcements They had were were smaller than what they had at ces and and so on and Obviously the big stuff they're saving for io, which is two ish months away at this point So in fact, we should get an invite like any day now Which is crazy, but uh, yeah Wait for it. I need to know those fingers. Yeah. Yeah. I know I I looked recently and I was like, oh it was like early march last year. Okay. Like I should it should be sometime soon But uh, yeah, I don't know. I I think you know, there will always be an uh enough small players for something like mwc to to continue existing um, but but and and samsung wants to be there to make an impact and Show that they're like the dominating factor that they are But it's it's certainly like a very different show than it was 10 years ago Well, I I I do wonder and I want to transition to our next topic because we're just still on mobile or congress But but is there a space for an event like this to let other folks shine Other than the big hitters right other than the sam songs and things like that And what caught my eye as I as we were prepping for the show and I was like, all right Well, what was the stuff that was happening mwc that we didn't talk about that was kind of under the radar And uh, there was a wired article that caught my eye that was focused around AI, you know drink, right? Um, but uh, you know the premise of this was like, you know These are companies that have a plan to collapse right and and it was basically saying how you know with the emergence of AI How is it being integrated into phones and it really you know and mentioned the rabbit r1 Which we saw at ces when that got announced as you know kind of a handheld device But it was a bunch of devices that I hadn't heard of and so well I was curious to see if you you had seen these or got your hands on them But um, you know, so deutch telecom And team mobile I believe teamed up and they were they have a concept smartphone featuring an llm That will replace apps on the phone and acts as a concierge to what the user wants And it will generate interfaces on the fly based on that request um The the humane AI pin was at the show and I saw friends of the show Miriam and and michael fischer were Posted videos of them using it the laser projector On the humane AI pin that looked like the real deal man That looked like it was actually something that that uh, that could be real um, and then The other one which cracked me up from which gave my head Gave me a headache from an seo standpoint, but I guess a lithuanian company is building a phone called a phone a friend Which by the way, if you google a phone a friend all you get are who wants to be a millionaire websites about phoning a friend But oh Yeah, but this one is interesting because they're building a smartphone that acts as a personal assistant via AI It's going to be based on android It will have an app mode to access your favorite apps But the idea and right now this design is just a concept will go back to your point of just showing the concepts um But the idea of that you know this little device will remind you of things or play videos for you Or show you know like becomes a full screen photo scrolling kind of thing when you want to do it It'll know what you want to do yada yada Um, again, it has a keychain. Yeah And it's just a concept, but they do have an app called a radio friend that delivers news to you in the voice you choose Um, so did you get to see where you did you check out any of these companies or anything going on there? I didn't get a hands-on with humane. I did they were at like qualcomm's booth And so I I I was there for a little bit So I saw a bunch of people wearing them and and trying them out. I didn't get my own hands on it and then The the uh t-mobile, uh, the the dutch telecom Concept phone. I again didn't try but but we have a whole Hands-on at the site, uh, man. Well, uh, I always screw up man. Well's last name. I'm so sorry man. Well, uh, phono Wrote an entire hands-on about about the ups and downs of using this like AI concept phone because It's so weird because it's like, oh like we don't want you to use apps but we're just going to kind of do the apps in the background like it is you know, it is it is very much one of these like early AI devices where um You look at it and you're like, so i'm just kind of using i'm using apps But in the but like not using apps and they're like, yeah, exactly and it's like, okay Well, like I don't you know, we're getting there. It's early steps, right? Like we gotta we gotta maybe hit some some speed bumps before because you know, you look at this stuff And you're like, I'm pretty sure I can order an uber faster than this I could see this fully being the way it goes though because it reminds me a lot of when google assistant was still a thing and dev still had kind of like ways to You know provide functionality to google assistant So I don't apps will go away in that they'll be self-contained You know interfaces in themselves, which makes me sad because i'm a ui specialist, but that's here or there But what matters will be the service and the function like the underlying functionality that can tap into this Conversational, you know more natural interface. I don't yeah, I don't think apps are going away It'll they'll just look very different It it really already does remind me of how we used to be able to tap into assistant when that was a thing or with action So makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not mad at it No, I'm not either I think it's I actually think it's interesting because it kind of goes back to the concept phone stuff Which is like it does feel like everyone is kind of looking at their phone and being like Why don't I don't know if I like where we ended up like let's let's try thinking about You know This in a different way whether it's on a hardware level and it's like we want it to wrap around your wrist or it's a software level and we're like we want you know A apps to go away and forever for the phone to just know what you need at all times Like I do think it's really interesting that everyone is kind of being like Okay Maybe maybe something else, but like no one has like fully locked into what that's going to look like Yeah, it's really it's really kind of like a uh Gold rush mentality right now. Like okay ai is a huge thing Everybody's really excited about it. You know, and I think it also really helps that like johnny ive You know, and this was a rumor from like, I don't know a year and a half ago I think that johnny ive was partnering up with open ai to create some sort of mobile device that was ai centric You know that was different than a smartphone And i'm not saying that's the reason why all this other stuff is happening But that's certainly very validating to hear that rumor whether it's true or not And so everybody wants to be in on that and everybody wants to know like well, then What is a future where smartphones are not as app focused and instead? It's really a digital assistant or personal assistant that I just ask questions with my with my normal words No syntax and it knows exactly what i'm looking for And so they're all yeah, they're all kind of jostling around trying to figure out what that what that looks like And so we look back at 2024 mwc as the moment In 2015 when samsung had a foldable prototype at mwc, right? You know, I mean, I think that's yeah, that's the era that we're in right now for all this stuff It's early. I mean it's first inning right, but it's yeah Five seven years down the line things are gonna be a lot clearer But yeah, it's gonna be and and we're gonna have the same reactions to it now That we did back then where we're like, oh my god, that's so ridiculous. So look at that thing And then you know, I mean, I I want it. I love it. I I mean, I want it. I want I mean like I I can't wait I'm waiting. I'm anxiously waiting for rabbit to ship me there the my r1 right like I want to get my hands on it I am and I'm also prepared to be disappointed by it. Yeah fair fair But I mean like I just think it's cool like the phone a friend thing looks silly, but like that looks cool I want to get my hands on it right the humane pin. I want to get my hands on it. I want to play with it I want to see what it looks like I don't know But so I know we're running along. We still got a bunch more to go through but will Was there anything else at mwc that you saw that was worth talking about or interesting that we didn't touch on yet? uh We kind of I mean, I mean the concept stuff was really what I was I was focused on there were a bunch of actual like New phones or at least at least new on a global market rate like honor was there. Xiaomi was there Um, I'm very jealous of some of that stuff just again like I said from a from a camera perspective like I would love to see Some of that the the one plus watch two launched That is a bizarre gadget. Um, I didn't review it, but I was around seven people reviewing it and I was like Jason's got it Jason's got it right now, right exactly Jason I need to I need to ask you how many egg tarts have you burned today calorie-wise how many how many slices of pizza Wait, what? So talking about so in the in in o health Which is of course the one plus health app It will tell you On the watch like congratulations. Like you've burned 800 calories today. That's three egg tarts I'm not really getting many of these notifications. Definitely not egg tarts Very weird apps That is the thing if it's like my fitness app will tell me that I lifted x number of pounds And that's equal to three elephants or something. I think I think it's like so it's kind of like that feeling like you can It's like a positive reinforcement thing It puts it in real tangible things I've been hung up on egg tarts because it's such a like specific thing Sure guys plays more to like an international It does that's definitely why it's there. Yeah, it's it's that and and sometimes it'll say serve like one serving of fries And I'm like, I don't know what that means. Like what one thing of fries Yeah, it's a small medium large extra large five fries 10 fries 20 Wedges what like what is it exactly? You know the really important things Well speaking of international audience Maybe that's a good segue to and we don't have to spend a huge amount of time on this because I literally just got it yesterday, but I have the Nothingphone 2a That was delivered to me yesterday. I have it right here. Very cool. And actually I also have with me the Nothingphone 2 Which and I don't know if this webcam is going to do an okay now. You're just now. You're just bragging Um, the nothing you can kind of see that they're like the same size They're like nothing the Nothingphone 2a with the camera with the camera that it looks like a robot Right like with the horizontal with the horizontal camera Bump and where it is in the circle. It looks like it looks like a battle star galactica or like, um, you know Like some like, you know kind of robot. They definitely they definitely resemble eyes when they're centered around the little circular No, it reminds me of the gyro robot from nintendo entertainment system when we were kids Oh, okay, you remember that? Yeah, except except it's it's got its intestines spilling out underneath it It's like the gyro robot with its intestines spilling out So the 2a this is uh, this is this one is actually 349 because it is the 12 gig 256 12 gigs of storage 256. Um Sorry 12 gigs of memory 256 gigs of storage. There we go. Um, but the 2a has Kind of a plastic build as opposed to the glass that you have on the two That's a pretty standard replacement when you're kind of revving down on the spec list, right? Um But it still has as you saw kind of like the see-through design Kind of hard to show because I ended up getting the dark gray. I actually did get this direct from nothing They sent me this phone. Um, it's funny. They actually sent me Uh, like they ran out of of units to ship out like the normal ones that are all boxed up and everything I can't remember what they called it, but it's basically like a production unit and when I got it it was encased with those stealth like plastic phone cases that you see in photos of like, oh, I caught someone on the street You know, I think it's the pixel 8. We can it, you know, meanwhile, it's like in this like plastic case Whoo, that's loud. Um, Yes, well, yes And so I did like an unsteal thing of it because the only way that I could get to the phone was to Find the screw head that actually fit the very particular and specific tiny little screws that hold this thing together And really work it apart. It took me a while to actually get into it Sorry, but it was but it was fun. It was like, okay cool. Like, you know, it'll be a it'll be a journey of discovery. Um So anyways inside MediaTek Dimensity 7200 pro So I'm curious about the the processor going to put that through its paces Um, I don't expect obviously that it's, you know, like premium flagship processor quality because it's not but I want to see what it's capable of 6.7 inch AMOLED The display actually can ramp between 30 to 120 Hertz So it doesn't go all the way down to one Hertz, but I feel like that's reasonable like You know, maybe you're not going to get as much battery savings out of it If you're reading text and all you really need is one Hertz refresh But whatever, I think it's pretty reasonable 1300 nits ip 54 Um, so you probably don't want to go nuts, you know in the in the rain with this thing 5000 milliamp hour battery which is pretty large. I I feel like uh considering Um, you know the price category 350, uh, no wireless charging So if you love your wireless charging, you're not going to get it on this But it does have a 45 watt wired charging capability. So it charges pretty fast and then um real quick Because again, we don't need to spend a huge amount of time on it. Uh, but I do want to point out The glyph interface code. So basically it instead of having on the nothing to You got all these different areas where you can imagine I don't have it powered on right now where you can imagine those kind of lighter strips or all leds and part of the glyph interface of the nothing to And the nothing one actually of all nothing, um phones Is kind of like an led lighting system that you can use for like notification and general flashiness For different things and the 2a does have it, but it's a lot more paired down. It's got one strip right there It's got one little one right there and then it's got one rounding out here But this is like multiple uh steps So, you know the example that they like to use is when you're waiting for an uber Um it this light will go from full to empty depending on where the uber is Is it close to you? Then it'll be emptier, which I I think is a really funny use case for this stuff if I'm completely honest, but um, anyway, so that's what that light enables is things like that or a countdown timer that sort of thing um In the us it is only available through the nothing developer program, which is what they did with the original nothing phone So I wouldn't consider this necessarily a phone that you can get freely In the us the way that you actually can get the nothing phone 2 I think it's a much wider release with the nothing phone 2, but the 2a you can get it through the developer program Um, I'm not certain because I haven't tested it yet How that impacts kind of the bands uh the frequency bands that we rely upon here I asked the nothing representative, you know, like what is the impact there and they said no It should work, you know, just the same in the us as anywhere else. Um But uh, yeah, there you go nothing phone 2a I I believe it's only 5g on t mobile and I think i'm using 4g and on verizon in 18t Okay, and that would actually make sense because I told her like i'm going to be using this on t mobile And so she did say yeah, I think you'll be you're good to go. Yeah, I'm good to go You're on one of the other Jason are good to go and and all of my t mobile You know cohorts, yeah But people on verizon, you know some of the other networks you might Not get the full speeds and that's probably part of the reason why they're doing it through the developer program but I am I will say like from a build quality standpoint like You know sometimes the difference between glass and plastic and you can really feel a difference and uh You know, I I don't really feel much of a difference like and looking at them. They're they're pretty close like Yeah, I think it's you know so far so good. Um, but literally got it yesterday. So good price though Geez, I love I love those mid lows low those low cost mid rangers. I love well Yeah, and I think you know the I think the the real story here is when you're in the 300 to $400 price bracket When you are firmly in that mid range, you're looking to save money You have to make a choice as far as what you're willing to sacrifice in order to get there Because you will have to sacrifice something when you're comparing it to a premium smartphone I think in the case of the nothing phone like I'm sure I'm going to figure out, you know What those sacrifices are is that the camera? Is it the processor? But what you get out of the nothing phone 2a is you get this like stylish Doesn't look like anything Sort of device which a lot of other phones in this price category all kind of had that similar kind of You know mid-rangey look and feel they aren't very impressive to look at. They're just like, yeah, they're serviceable They have they have benefits in other ways But the design is rarely like cutting edge. And I think that's what you're paying for here You know what I mean? So what is the trade-off that gets you that that's what I have to find out Cool Yeah, nothing phone 2a make sense. There you go insert nothing jokes about nothing Something from nothing All right, um, let's take this home. We got we got some app news to quickly touch upon Windows folks, uh, this pertains to you windows 11 android support has an end date And uh marker calendars. It is in two one year from today march 5th 2025 Microsoft announced its plans to deprecate the windows subsystem for android And this is actually what enabled the amazon app store to run android apps on windows 11 since 2021 Um already installed apps will continue to work. So you won't lose access to them Newly installed apps will no longer be done via the microsoft store. So, um, uh Well, I think you did a review of this that made me smile Yeah, I a while ago. Yeah, it was like two years ago when it when it first like really really came out. Um it it's it's I don't I have not stuck with using android apps on windows. So like part of me is like I am I'm surprised that they um That they are are fully killing it off But at the same time like it doesn't seem like something they ever really built out Like when was the last time you really thought about android apps on windows 11? Yeah, you know like I I forget they're there and and to be honest like A lot of what I do is is already in the web anyway And so like a lot of the stuff that I would want from an app is probably it's just like well, I'll just open up a new Tab, it's fine. You know, like I I reserve dedicated apps for stuff like Photoshop, right? Like, you know push all and even then but they're You can edit photos in the browser. But yeah, I don't know it's um, it never quite got the like attention I think it needed to fully uh Be a thing anyone wanted to use regularly and then on top of it like I think just like relying on the amazon app store There's just not enough apps there and they're not kept up to date enough I think that's really the the one to punch and you got to imagine that microsoft has those usage numbers and they know Oh, yeah, I imagine they're pretty low. Yeah, so I mean all along with with features like that when it was like, you know Run android apps on on your windows pc That's like how many you know millions upon millions of apps that you now have access to and I like it never really Worked for me like I don't I don't personally see the value in it because like you said will so much of this stuff Anyways is found on the web if it's like services, you're probably going to find one that's more tailor made for your desktop You know through a through a web service because that's what they're designed to kind of work within um, and then games like maybe but I don't know it just It never it never quite sat with me that there would be this large rush of people looking to do this and I think this is just kind of proof of that All right, so what about youtube jason? Excuse me picture and picture is the story of youtube right now apparently um, so this was a feature that was available for everyone and then I think removed at some point From everyone and and isolated to just premium subscribers then in 2022 it was activated Sorry, no in 2022 Yes, that's right 2022 is when they basically kind of opened it up at least here in the us So that people who were not premium subscribers could enjoy picture in picture Which is kind of like the overlay of the video playing on top of the other app that you happen to be using And I actually use that feature pretty regularly and I am not a premium subscriber um, and google has been promising to bring this feature to um a worldwide release in this capacity and in recent weeks Some international users have been noticing that the feature is working for them though. It hasn't been officially announced Uh, and it is not I should say working for everyone internationally, but it is working for some So I guess that's kind of an indication that it's near or happening or someone messed up. I don't know what the answer is Take your pick. Yeah, one of those things Oh, well picture in picture used to be like I remember it used to you remember they used to have commercials for tv's that had picture in picture So you could watch that right and watch anything else well two shows at the same time Exactly. So it's an inherently tv feature to me, but you know We have other features come into tv's and particularly google tv is not really a new feature But your apps your apps the your apps. Sorry Quotations your apps your apps my apps everybody apps are getting a makeover in google tv There is like a your apps row if you have google tv and basically they're just redesigning it to take Uh make better use of the real estate. It's going to have smaller circular app icons Take the space you're going to have free channels, which is like everything from local news to movies and sports So you'll always be able to find something to watch Even if you don't even if you're rebelling against the you know streaming service Renaissance What's what's the more negative word than renaissance? I don't know if you just don't feel like paying for all the streaming services You want some free tv you're going to get it And more importantly and something that we're going to do is be able is utilize the reordering and add apps feature To the your apps row, which is just very needed because again, we don't have too many of those streaming services So we're just going to shuffle those all to the back or off the edge of the fold So anyway, if you got a google tv and you really wanted to like just have more and have it in the order you want Gonna get that soon on your google tv Knowing all this stuff has come into google tv I sat we sat down to watch tv the other night and I was like Let me just check to see if I have an update on my google tv and sure enough It's like yes, so sat on the couch and forced my wife to gasp Just chat with me while it updated and went through the whole update thing restarted And I was like I wonder what we're going to get and oh no nothing I think google there's like a google i think something i got And i've new google tv stuff. Yeah, we'll see Oh no Google, please help All right Interesting All right. Well, we're close to the end of the show Now is the time where we want to hear from you the audience a quick reminder You can email us at contact at android faithful.com. We love to hear from you. Please send your emails in If you have bug droid ai generated images send them in we'll use them on the show Email us. We'd love to hear from you all and our first email comes from yannick In montreal canada And he said long time triple a listener and happy af listener here In a recent episode someone asked if there was a way to get the volume to adjust automatically when connecting to different bluetooth devices Tasker and other automation tools were mentioned But I wanted to say that i've been using a dedicated app made for this purpose for years simply called bluetooth volume manager Uh and with bluetooth volume manager, you can set different volumes for different bluetooth devices And it will adjust the volume when your phone connects to the device That way you can have the volume full blast in your car but lower in your headphones Thanks for the great show every week. Uh yannick from montreal canada And uh, he said along the google play store link. So you could see bluetooth volume manager And the little icons get the bluetooth icon with the volume slider on there in the google play store What was the last updated? That's always a question. September 10th, September 2023. Yeah, so still an active development So and that was um, that was blake from corpus christie texas who asked who had that problem Last month so blake you're listening Yes, there's your answer bluetooth What is it called bluetooth volume manager? I love it when we don't have the answer you all write in with the answer Which is fantastic. Yeah, it's great. It's so great. You guys do our work for us. Thank you And apparently that was an old, uh, all about android arena app Because of the job how many apps did we have at the arena? Wow. Yeah So pardon us for for not remembering Can we feed it into ai and then we're gonna ask ai did we it was this app featured on app arena? Let me tell you for many years. I installed an insane number of apps on my phone I've definitely slowed down on that one too Not rooting in ramen as much not installing as many apps as you know, I'd say you used to also drive and root in ramen Ah Robert frimering uh wrote in to say here. Let's see here Oh, there we go uh wrote an email to uh android Sorry contact at android faithful.com to say I had a routine set up in the default clock app on android and noticed lately The routine hasn't been starting. I checked my alarm and routine is gone. There's only an option for weather The default clock app tried making a new alarm, but no option to add a routine I didn't see anything about the clock or alarm in the assistant settings Any idea what happened? Did I miss something if you're curious? My routine was turn on a light in the room and update on the weather Yeah, I'm super curious about that. So I Texted michelle on his birthday to see if he knew about this and he hadn't heard anything either Um, I did if I mean, uh, win if you've got your pixel fold handy, um Go look on the clock and on an alarm. I checked on my clock app and routines is not available I thought maybe it was related to the fact that I gemini installed and was there some gemini assistant nonsense happening So I uninstalled gemini routines did not show up Um, so if you click on a if you go into the clock app and then go into an alarm Um, where is my clock app? Yeah go go into the settings for an alarm um And there at the bottom of it. You've got You know pause alarm to uh sound vibrate weather forecast and then that's it no more. I still got google assistant root Sorry, you can't see it, but I still have google assistant routine on mine. So let me let me click on it. See what happens Yeah, sending me into the wizard for it So I wonder I wonder if it's because I installed gemini. Did that do something to it? So I don't have it I don't have it. Robert doesn't have it when you have it will you're nodding Um, yeah So I don't have gemini. So yeah I would be curious to see if robert had installed gemini and like if that lines up with uh With when this started happening. Yep, interesting some folks in the chat saying that they have it as well so I don't know. I don't know how to get it back because I thought uninstalled gemini put everything back to assist it The way it was but maybe you need to clear cash or something like that. Yeah Yeah, I don't know So if if anybody has a uh, if you have Gemini and then got rid of it and got it back emails to contact an android faithful. Let us know so Yes, indeed. All right. And of course, if any questions or anything you always email us. We'd love to hear from you Will thank you so much for hanging out with us for a couple hours on this tuesday night We appreciate it. You're awesome. So yeah, no, thank you guys for having me. This was uh, this was a lot of fun Yeah, so uh, why don't you tell folks if they want to hear more from the world of will where can they find you? Yeah, android police com I'm I'm all things phones there if I didn't write it. I probably edited it So it's you know, it's it's it's got my fingerprints on it somehow And then the the android police podcast if you want to hear more of my voice It's me and daniel beter right now Um, so if you guys miss like old school android central podcast like he's still doing it It's just with me and then I'm I'm taunting him into talking about You know movies instead of Sometimes or the philosophical side of AI. I don't know we get weird on that podcast sometimes. It's it's uh, it's a lot of fun Excellent. Well, you're doing the lord's work over there and we appreciate it. That's for sure. So thank you All right, so jason. What's the latest from yellow gold studios? Oh Yeah, well, I mean I've just been I challenged myself and I said, all right every week I got to put up a video and let me tell you it's hard to put up a video every week Like a fully edited video. But anyway, it's just go to yellowgoastudios.com. It's uh Where uh, I am putting you know, like the last one I put up was a one plus watch two versus the original Um, you know doing playing around with some shorts the other day ron was like, hey jason Doing any shorts on your channel? I said no not really. It's like you better you should And I was like, okay, and so I started doing that and uh, you know, I'm I'm just learning about the youtube thing It's it's been a really uh interesting journey. I also have all of our episodes of ai inside appearing there So just go to yellowgoastudios.com And you can find all that stuff and yeah, I'd appreciate it if you do that. Thank you, ron. Cool. Awesome You're doing great work. I love the shorts. It's good stuff. All right. When where can folks find you? You can find me on my website randomly typing.com where I talk about android dev stuff because that is my day job You can find technical talks that I do include including associated code and video and find me on Probably instagram Maybe one day again Mastered on and other things like that at queen code monkey and I just want to say well I'm so glad to have you uh back on the show I think you were like my first like guest when I started hosting AAA. I just remember I didn't know that yeah Yeah, yeah, like that you were on february 8th 2022 and I started january and you were like our first guest So I you know, so anyway, just yeah, just really glad to have you back in here So anyway, this is it's so full circle. I I have in that time started doing the the ap podcast and now feel much more At home and talking about this Yeah, I did I did yeah, I mean I hadn't even been at ap for a year the last time You guys so and now it's been literally three three years in 10 days. So yeah, it's been a long time Very cool. Yeah, well, it's good to have you back. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here trying to get the clock after the routines I'm really gonna bet because some people in the chat were like trying to you know, so I've removed gem and I I'm I'm on google assistant and it's still not there So I'm I really want Robert to listen to this and to write in and let us know if he had gem and I installed So I think that's what did it so all right, and for me when I'm not messing with my clock app or Enjoying will's work at android police. Um, you can go find me on all the various shows socials at ron xo Across the board just that's where I am. So you'll find me instagram. It's probably I'm the most busiest, so Cool, excellent. Let's go to wrap it up for this week's show. Um, again, thank you to will for joining us Wishing michelle a happy birthday. Um, this podcast publishes every tuesday evening We live stream on daily tech news shows youtube channel and uh over on twitch.tv Such a good day internet. Um, we live stream every tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific You can find everything at android faithful.com links to subscribe links to support links to patreon all the fun stuff It's all there at android faithful.com. Um, we love doing the show. We love that you enjoyed uh us doing the show We love the world of androids. Let's keep it up. Um, because there's just so much to talk about because we are The android faithful, so there you go. Have a great week everybody. See you next time