 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. And if you can hear my voice, that's you. Thanks to you, including Chris Smith, Mark Gibson, Reed Fishler, and our brand new patron. Everybody welcome in Ian, aka Lurkyo. On this episode of DTNS, why do teens hate Android in the U.S.? Plus, Edith Pioff is the first big movie star to come back as A.I., apparently. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, November 14th, 2023. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Secret, Bunker, I'm Sarah Lane. I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. And joining us, phones editor and Android police, Will Saddleburg. Welcome to the show, Will. Thanks, Tom. Good to be here. Thank you for your service in surveying the teens. We're going to talk about teens and Android in a little bit. Also, and we'll mention this a little more later, if people recognize your name, it may be from World's Greatest Con, Justin Robert Young and Brian Brushwood's show. Yep, I work with Justin a lot. So I'm editor on World's Greatest Con or also working on the next season with them. And then also if you listen to We're Not Wrong, you probably hear my name every episode because I'm the editor there. And know a little more. And know a little more. I pitched in a little bit. I have. I edited a few of the episodes this last season. Yeah, thank you for that. Absolutely. All right, let's start with the quick bits. Testimony during Google's antitrust trial reveals just how much Google makes by putting ads in Safari and how much the search giant pays Apple for the right to do so. University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy testified that Google gives Apple a 36 percent cut of all search revenue that comes from Safari and that in 2021 that was a number that Google had requested be kept confidential. In previous filings, well, oops, that's how lawsuits work. There's a lot of focus on the Apple Google search deal as Judge Amit Mehta says he considers it the heart of the DOJ's case against Google. One big trend we're expecting to continue in smartphones is to offer on device AI. People don't like it when their requests go into the cloud. So there's going to be a lot of marketing on device processing. And usually that means we are dealing with more powerful processors, specialized processing units, which is true, but you don't hear people talking as much about the fact that you need more RAM for that. WCCF Tech points out an interesting report from Macquarie on just how much RAM Android phones will need to do proper on device AI for image creation. Macquarie estimates you'll need about 12 gigabytes. That's something that's not on most base models. Usually you're going to get around eight, but it's available. So that shouldn't be too much of a big problem for folks. But for a fully capable digital AI assistant, Macquarie estimates you'll need 20 gigabytes of RAM. That also exists, but it's rare. So expect higher RAM in your Android phones in 2024. TikTok is partnering with Spotify, Amazon and Apple Music to let you save songs that you hear in TikTok directly to your music streaming service. An add song button will show up at the bottom of a TikTok video next to the track name. And the first time you tap it, you'll be able to set what music service you want to add songs to. In my case, it would be Apple Music. In your case, it might be Spotify or something else. Songs will be added to the liked songs playlist in a TikTok songs playlist on Amazon. The feature is rolling out now in the UK and the US with more markets to follow. Couple of important numbers to be aware of today. South Korea's trade ministry says memory chip exports rose one percent in October. Now, that's not a lot, but it's the first time they rose in 16 months. Specifically, multi-chip packages rose 12.2 percent. DRAM still declined, but it's now declining in the single digits instead of the double digits. And overall, the exports are up. So we may be seeing the bottom of the memory market. Counterpoint research said phone sales in China rose 11 percent last month. That was led by an 83 percent rise in Huawei sales pointing to the success of the Mate 60. Xiaomi sales also rose, surfing right along on that Huawei wave rising 33 percent. Well, you might see the tech press buzzing about the new Opel Tadpole webcam. This is designed for laptops. It's very small with an easy way to clip on top of a display of a laptop and a button built into the USC cable as well. The camera itself is a 48 megapixel Sony sensor shooting 4K video and downscaling to 1080p for video calling compatibility. Also has a directional microphone to limit background noise and room echo. Now, the Opel Tadpole is available now for one hundred seventy five dollars. I happen to be using the Opel C1, which is about twice that price. And I've got some issues with it, which we haven't really talked about on the show before, but we're going to in this following episode of GDI. All right, let's talk about one of the busier pieces of news out there today. Users of nothing phone to an Android phone are going to get access to Apple iMessaging starting Friday, November 17th, least if you're in North America or Europe. You may wonder, how are they doing that? They have partnered with Sunbird, which is a company similar to Beeper. We've talked about Beeper before on DTNS. Sunbird operates a server farm of Mac minis that it uses to sign you into an Apple account. At least that's how we think it works. It sends your message from that machine over an encrypted connection to the Sunbird app on your phone. Sunbird and nothing both say that messages are never stored at any point. They're just passing them along for you. But you do have to log in on that remote machine with your Apple log in. Sunbird has a wait list right now. But if you're a nothing phone to user, you skip that wait list. And in fact, the only way to get a sunbird access for the next couple of months is going to be to get a nothing phone to and sign up for it. You're you're skipping the line if you're a nothing phone to user. So giving a company access to your Apple account does seem like it might be a bit high price for a lot of folks to pay. Will, I'm curious if that's worth it to get a blue bubble on Android to you. Yeah, it's funny because we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, teens and Android later on. And I think I message is is the biggest part of of my story today. Sure. So this is kind of a weirdly timed story. But yeah, I have not used Sunbird. That wait list is real. I have not, to be honest with you, have not spoken to anyone who's managed to get off the Sunbird wait list. I've used Beeper, which which I found fairly reliable. It is interesting that Sunbird is basically putting its wait list to the side for several months. Well, while just nothing phone to users get it. I mean, with any of these apps, either, you know, there's air message which requires you to have your own Mac or, you know, Sunbird and Beeper, which use like, you know, remote Macs. You're you're putting your trust in this company that you don't know a lot about, you know, they have a privacy policy. But, you know, those only matter so much sometimes. And so it's a gamble that I think some users, especially some nothing phone to users, because that's such an enthusiast device might take. But yeah, you are trusting it with your Apple login and all of your messages, it says it's encrypted. But, you know, you don't really know what's going on behind the scenes. Yeah, exactly. I mean, right now, if something goes wrong, I say Apple, Apple screwed up. Yeah, this, you know, it it Daisy chains things to a point where it just it it allows more option for error. I also I don't know how many people are going to buy a nothing phone to just to be able to, you know, use iMessage as if they were on an iOS device or they would just buy an iOS device. It is a fun perk. It's it's a little sort of buzzy, I guess. It's it's an interesting idea just because we've been talking for years now about the fact that Android and iOS do not play well together, being the two big mobile OS's that, you know, most people use. And, you know, the idea that this is going to become more harmonious without Apple moving to our CS is is a fun idea. But yeah, I I'm with a lot of folks out there saying, listen, it's not that I think Sunbird is a bad company. It's more of just, hey, you know, data breach happens and you you're you're possibly in a world of hurt with something like an Apple ID, which I use for lots of other things. You know, I'm curious. The other part of the story is that obviously Sunbird and Beeper and these companies are kind of skirting, you know, what Apple wants people to do with iMessage. The louder this noise gets, I think it was Michael Fisher on Twitter who who brought up the the like palm comparison of like working with iTunes, right? Like, you know, 15 years ago now, basically. And, you know, how quickly that was shut down. And I am curious about like how, you know, much noise does this make until Apple finally steps in either with litigation or, you know, some kind of action to try to put an end to what is essentially unauthorized use of iMessage. Yeah, I mean, it's authorized technically because you are logging into your Apple account and saying, yes, please send these. But it's it's certainly not authorized in the spirit of the law. Right. I found that interesting, too, because nothing said to the Washington Post, Carl Pay, nothing. CEO said to the Washington Post that he thinks this will start a conversation. And I'm sure he's right. I'm not sure what that conversation is going to be. But I do think it's different than the the palm era. They're doing a conversation. Well, yeah, but I think he means the conversation with the EU. Because that's where I was going. We're actually going to be with needles. The European Union is talking about possibly forcing Apple to open up iMessage, declaring them a gatekeeper and requiring them to interoperate. And so Apple doesn't want to do anything that encourages the European Union to rule in that way, which means they probably are going to want to turn a blind eye to this, at least for now. Well, machine generated videos only getting more common. You may know them when you see them. You may not. But there's enough confusion that YouTube has new policies regarding AI video. Creators must now disclose when they made altered or synthetic content that is supposed to look realistic. Failure to do that could lead to content removal, suspension or other penalties. Creators can also request a removal of generated content that simulates their face and or voice like deep fakes. Some deep fakes may be allowed if they're parody or satire or involve public figures. So there's there's a certain kind of newsy situation that might take place there. But many of them would not be under those rules. Music labels and distributors also can request the removal of generated synthetic music that mimics an artist's voice. Some exceptions may be made for newsworthy posts again. Yeah, so these rules are meant to stop people from being fooled, which brings us to Edith P off. Tom, how did we get here? Warner Music. I'm glad you asked. Warner Music Entertainment, a production company called Seriously Happy and the Edith P off estate. Crucially, those three, including the Edith P off estate, have all agreed to use some generative models to use some AI to make animation of Edith P off for a biopic movie. It will create her voice as well as her image. P off's voice will narrate the story of her life from the 1920s to the 1960s. This biopic will be less, you know, Johnny Cash and more documentary. It'll use actual recordings. It'll use actual TV footage, but it will also have some generated content to show parts of Edith P off story that were never recorded. How do we feel about this? Because it's got everybody on board. Will, does this this sit well with you? I mean, you know, I'm curious how it turns out, I suppose. Like, I think there's a chance that this is like an interesting dive into her life. But like, we've had a biopic about her life previously in Oscar winning biopic. We've had, you know, this is the kind of thing that, like, I don't necessarily think you need AI to tell this kind of story. It feels maybe a little gimmicky. But but again, it's hard to really judge it until you see it and hear it and see how it sounds. You know, the fact that they have their estate, it's hard to critique too much at the moment, even if, you know, maybe it's it's still a little on the on the line, because you're like, well, did she have wanted this? Right. So, yeah. I had the same question, like, what would Edith P off herself? Exactly. I have no idea. But, you know, we won't know. Well, and she's not going to be weighing in on this, obviously. Her voice will be, though. Well, exactly. Well, and that's kind of that's where I feel like this is either totally cool and, you know, artistically makes a lot of sense in a way to tell a story, all of course, depending on the production team who's behind this. And I liken it to, you know, dramatic reenactments of things that you see on TV. Sometimes they're really bad and you go, gosh, I really had no they had no real footage to work with, you know, it's like showing like the same photo over and over, you know, and then, you know, actors recreating scenes that are being talked about in a particular scenario. True crime stuff is rampant with us. But if the estate for Edith P off is behind this and there are, you know, it's this is not this is documentary, right? There are there isn't somebody who is going to be playing P off herself. I would like to see this be done well. I I would like a lot of things like this to be done well, if possible, if it really tells a story. This is the thin edge of the wedge, though, right? Because you could do a reenactment. I mean, honestly, that's what all these biopic movies usually are. They're just well done reenactments. You just get good actors to do them instead of what they do on the on the TV show sometimes. And you could do that with this. But what they're doing is saying, we want to see what looks like Edith P off. We want to hear her actual voice, you know, in a way that an actor couldn't make. And I wonder if not going to put things. We're going to show scenes that we never could have shown before. And it's like, once you do that, then the next step is like, well, but, you know, what if we did more of a dramatic take? What if we had Edith P off act in a an affictional role now that we've done it with the real thing? Exactly. Yeah, it's it's like if it's so good that it would not necessarily fool somebody, I mean, I guess it would be pulled. Yeah, it's not about somebody. It's it's convincing. Like, yeah, just like this is what she would have said. You know, we found her diaries or, you know, whatever, you know, whatever the source material is, I, you know, I think the is it so good that it's too good and therefore people are weirded out? Is that the question or does this just become another way to tell a story based on stuff we already know? Yeah, and does it set a precedent? Is it good enough to set a precedent or does it become a trivia question of like, you know, the first actor to be virtualized in a movie you ever forgets? Was it a fear? It'll probably be one of those two. Well, folks, we have a lot of Android to talk about on the show today. But if you're like, still not enough, need more Android, then listen to Android Faithful every week. Android aficionados, Ron Richards and Huantui Tao bring you the latest Android news and information and you can watch it live Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Eastern, five p.m. Pacific at youtube.com slash Daily Tech News show or twitch.tv slash Good Day on the Internet or get it at your leisure when you want it. Just subscribe to the feed at AndroidFaithful.com. We've talked before about the numbers that show teens prefer Apple's iPhone to Android smartphones in the US. We talked about that Piper Sandler survey, 87 percent of teens indicated they owned an iPhone in the US. Will wrote a piece for Android police titled Android isn't cool with teenagers and that's a big problem. Well, you identified three problem areas with Android. Let's go through those. What's the first? Yeah, so I would say that the first and the biggest is ecosystem lock in and then and then kind of further down advertising and bad overall experiences with maybe like lower end or cheaper Android phones, especially pre 2019. You know, when $200 can get you a pretty good Android phone today, that has not always been the case. So is the ecosystem lock in more than just blue bubbles, green bubbles? I mean, yeah, yeah, it is. So so let's set that aside because I think I think that's a conversation that's pretty well tread, right? Like, yeah, sure. It's if you are a child and you're getting your first iPhone and your parents have iPhones and you all have blue bubbles. And like, that's, you know, that's that's an easy way to be locked in. But I also think, you know, like, what are what is the first device that, you know, children are probably using today? It's not an iPhone. It's not any smartphone. It's probably an iPad. And so they are already kind of used to that ecosystem. You know, maybe they have a Mac in the house. But I think that the the adoption of like tablets and specifically iPads at younger ages basically sets up children and then teenagers as the agent of their first smartphone to kind of naturally be drawn into Apple's ecosystem. It's as much luck in a familiarity as features. It's it's exactly both. It sounds like, yeah, exactly. Now, you mentioned advertising. Yeah. So I don't know. Samsung has some pretty cool looking advertising, but I'm also 53 years old. So I'm the wrong target market. Yeah, I it's just a matter of, you know, the iPhone is kind of the default phone in the US these days. It's it's, you know, it's not so much Apple's ads or Samsung's ads. It's the carriers ads, right? So I am I live in Buffalo. I am a I'm a Bill's fan, although we'll see after last night. And and if you tune into basically any NFL game, right? You are going to get hit with with tons of carrier ads from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and the the phone that they're talking about in between their plans or their trade in values is, you know, the iPhone, the amazing new iPhone 15 Pro Max with titanium is like basically the exact quote that all of these ads use. And again, you know, it's just kind of hits you over and over again in the head with it. It becomes kind of the default like smartphone for millions of people of all ages, but especially younger audiences. I mean, you also go ahead, sir. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say that, you know, you mentioned younger folks might, you know, be given an iPad and then you're used to that ecosystem. I cannot tell you how many times and I'm not even arguing with people at this point in my life about like, what's better? It's like, just use the one you want to use. It's fine. We're all good. Right. You know, but but, you know, there are many people I know who have switched from iOS to Android for whatever reason. Yeah. Depending on the hardware that you have. And they say it's all the same. I mean, it really is. It's all the same. And like here are some tiny little things that are different in Android that I actually find are better for me or, you know, are better for, you know, the core cloud services that I might be connecting to. Yeah, no, I think that the two platforms I'm working as much as I work at an Android site. I'm the phones editor there. I'm working on a review of the iPhone 15 Pro Max right now because I think it is important to look at, you know, iOS in context of Android. And yeah, I agree. The platforms are more similar than they've ever been. Which makes it difficult to switch unless you're being drawn to something like a foldable and experience that you won't get from Apple. But, you know, at the end of the day, especially, you know, more than 15 years now into the modern smartphone experience, like switching all of your apps, all of your content that you've accumulated over a decade and a half, or, you know, however long you've been using these devices, like it's a challenge. And I think for a lot of people, it's not even so much that they're like truly committed to Samsung or Google or Apple, but it's just kind of very easy to state where you are. Yeah, so the three things that you mentioned in the article, the ecosystem lock in where you just get used to it, the advertising just kind of pummeling you, you know, and raising awareness. And then the bad experiences that people have because there are just so many more models of Android, right? Yeah, and especially with a chance. Right. And, you know, there are plenty of high end, you know, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is going to give you as good of an experience as the iPhone 15 Pro Max. But when we're talking specifically about younger users, they're not buying $1,200 smartphones or $1,800 foldables. They're getting whatever is available through the MVNO that they're signing up for or, you know, the low cost phone that Verizon is giving away for free on their family plan. And those experiences, I think. Or dad's old iPhone. Yes, well, I mean, and that's the other thing is that that, you know, sometimes it's better for those parents to give them, you know, dad's old iPhone and that that puts them back in that ecosystem lock in, right? And so you're kind of dealing with a one to punch of you're either starting with a bad Android experience that makes you want to go to, you know, a much more expensive iPhone or you're starting with an older iPhone that puts you already in that ecosystem. All right. So poor Google, poor Samsung. They they're sitting in our audience listening right now. Well, what do they do? How do they fix this? I think it's a challenge. I've not I don't know if I'm particularly optimistic. I think there are ways to kind of what I would say is stop the bleeding, right? So, you know, the number 87 percent is high enough. The other stat in that survey is 88 percent of teens want their next phone to be an iPhone. So that's one percent in addition to the 87 percent that already own an iPhone, which is, you know, even worse, right? And so I think, you know, the biggest thing they can do is kind of embrace customization for younger audiences. So, you know, making phones personal, personalized, I guess, to to fit what you want out of a device better. That means more colors. That means, you know, something like motor, moto maker from 10 years ago, where you could, you know, get mix and match stuff when building a moto X. That means foldables. That means all of that stuff, right? I think, you know, the other the other thing is that Gen Z and younger generations are really environmentally focused. And so I think proving, you know, matching and beating and proving that, you know, you're as green as Apple is is a challenge because I think Apple has been, you know, we saw that Octavia Spencer skit from the the iPhone 15 announcement with the Apple Watch series nine, right, right. And maybe it's a little that maybe was a little cringy, but like that shows how far ahead they are of platforms like Google and Samsung, where it's mostly still like we took the charger out of the box to eliminate e-waste. And also if you want a charger, it's thirty dollars. That's a weird coincidence. So I think I think going that way and then, you know, tried and true method, make Apple feel like the thing your parents use, like make it feel like Facebook, right? Like you don't want to be on, you know, kids don't want to be on Facebook because their parents are on Facebook. Make Apple and iMessage and FaceTime feel like the platform your parents use, like it's that's a challenge. But I think there is like a natural sense to like rebel from stuff that, you know, like, oh, that's for old people. I don't want to use that. And so that's what Mac did to the PC. Exactly. Famous. I'm a Mac. I'm a PC commercial from so long ago. Yeah. So I don't know if any or all of those will work. These are pretty dire stats in the U.S. But, you know, it's a start. Like I think that's that's a way for these companies to think about addressing this problem. But like it's a problem. Like these are these are bad stats for Android. Well, folks, if you want to read more about Will's analysis of this, you got to check out the full article, androidpolice.com. We'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Before we go, let's check out the more bag. Thanks to R.W. Nash and a few others who wrote in about our note taking app conversation with the Allison Sheridan yesterday. Definitely had a nerve. Carter wrote then I'm a college student studying computer science. I've been mostly using my iPad to take notes for my classes. Though I haven't tried out as many note taking apps as Allison. I found two free apps that are my favorites. Kola note, that C-O-L-L-A note was actually made by a college student and lets me take handwritten notes without having to pay to access all the features that I need. And Notion is great for type notes with the different formats of blocks that you can use like the code block. Carter says, just thought I'd share my favorites in case there are other students listening. Thanks so much for putting on a great show. Yeah, and Toby and Devon in the UK said there's a current winner for notes and tasks cross Apple platforms with Cloud Kit sync and for text and code, the venerable 30 year old and still excellent bear bones editor BB edit, which has a scratchpad for disposable notes and the save new files, survive, quit and reboot. Thank you, Toby, for those notes as well. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't on the show yesterday. But when when Carter wrote in about Notion, boy, do I know a lot of people who swear by Notion up and down. I don't personally use it. I know everyone's note taking situations are different. But but yeah, thanks to everybody who who wrote in. We definitely, you know, we people care about the sort of thing because we we we all need to take notes over. We need to. Yeah. No, no, no. Speaking of taking note will Saddleburg. I don't know what kind of note taking up you're using these days. But let us know where we can keep up with how you might tell people about that or whatever else. Yeah, yeah, I'm at Android Police. You know, you can find all of my writing there. I'm primarily covering smartphones. I'll have reviews of everything that comes out next year. We're kind of done for the year. We also have the Android Police podcast. I'd point people in that direction if you want even even more Android coverage, I guess, if you just need every Android podcast in your life. And then on the non Android side. Yeah, like I mentioned up top World's Greatest Con, working on it with Justin Robert Young and Brian Brushwood. That season is coming soon. So keeping out for that. Very exciting. Patrons, stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet. Everybody knows TikTok's picking sides, right? Or are they? Everybody seems to think so. But the data is less clear. We're going to talk about that. And don't forget, Sarah is going to share a little bit of her experience with the previous Opel camera. Stick around. Indeed. But just a reminder, we do the show live and you can catch it live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC. And you can find out more and share with a friend. DailyTechNewShow.com slash live back again tomorrow with Scott Johnson joining us. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.