 Hey, welcome to Android faithful your weekly source for the latest news hardware and apps in the wide wonderful world of Android I'm going to it out and I'm back Welcome back. I'm Ron Richards And I'm Michelle Raman and I'm also back Excellent, excellent. Welcome back win from your your international travels. How was how was Japan? Japan was super. She cut the Super she cut that it was wonderful And I'm very lucky because we I'm coming back to it absolutely wonderful show I mean, I missed a lot of wonderful wonderful shows while it's gone But we are incredibly lucky to have well a few very wonderful guests tonight Sorry about that. There you go. And you know just always remixing and replaying our fabulous theme song But first let me introduce Shannon Morris to the show our first time guest Hi, that's fam. Hi Shannon. Hi. Thank you so much for having me on. I know. Yes. Yes, we're twinning Shannon's appearance has been months in the making. We've been trying to get Shannon on the show. So it really has. Yeah, I Went to Japan and then when did so? Yeah, it's just been like months Coloradans, it's like you we're just like we were like besties on DTS So shoot we had to have her. We are totally But that's not all we are lucky to have Shannon, but we are also lucky to have on the show Co-founder of beeper Eric Mijikowski Eric. Welcome to Android faithful. Hi, everyone. Thanks very much for having me on Welcome Eric. Thank you for joining us. Especially today. Yeah, huge day Yeah, so Eric had previously been on all about Android years ago And it was we're so excited to have him on because if there's been one story since Android faithful started I feel like beeper and our beeper RCS messaging has been a main theme and beeper was like an immediate sub bullet So Eric, you've dominated a lot of our conversation to this point. So Well, I'm happy to provide I've been a long long long time Android user dating back to 2010 I think and One of the yeah, one of the funny things is that so I I've never put my sim card my main sim card in an iPhone So I never really had iMessage. I was never a blue bubble Until a couple months ago and then we were starting to test beeper mini, which is this new app that we built to give Android users the ability to send and receive iMessages on Android and Put you know, we kind of cracked the code. We figured it out. We figured out how to register your Android phone number with iMessage and my phone number was the first the first one that we ever did back and I think it was like July or June or something like that and since then I've been a blue bubble But all of my friends who know me, you know as someone who would never ever get an iPhone and like that first reaction like well Did you did you just get an iPhone like that is very out of character? Exactly the reaction that I got when I when I sent my first blue bubble message to my friend It's like who is this who is talking to me like the Michelle? I know only Definitely I think we all had our same like who's the person in my family I'm gonna text to show them I'm a blue bubble And then also Eric I spent about 20 minutes because of my wife is not one of us like tech people, right? And so she's like she's like all right like I get it's a thing But is it really a thing and so like I had explained to her the what was it the Wall Street Journal article about like the the societal you know the sociological impact and the bullying and she was like you got to be kidding me It's just over a color and I was like yep Then she's like is there any additional functions I explained RCS and the functionality It's right, but Apple's adding that right so now it's it's feature parody and I'm like right But they're keeping it as green bubbles and she's like well, why would they do that? They're just jerks and I was like well We're kind of dancing around the issue we're talking about this app that we've all tried But I don't think our listeners who may not have seen the news early today know what we're talking about So I only take a step back and actually ask you to explain like you know We've talked about before on the show But can you explain what the difference is between the original beeper and this new beeper mini app? So beepers started three years ago Mostly to solve a personal problem. I Would just look down at my phone and see this folder full of apps Chat apps that all kind of did the same thing But each one would have a slightly different segment of my contact list, you know, what's that SMS and I Just got sick and tired of it So we started building beeper solve that problem We wanted to build one single chat app that you could use to chat with anyone on any chat network on Android though There is no iMessage app no native iMessage app And so one of the hardest things that we've had to solve is how to connect an Android phone to iMessage To be able to be part of Bluebubble group chats and to send high resolution images and Video and be able to do emoji reactions and typing status and all that good stuff Over the last three years. We've produced a number of different solutions None that were perfect none that they all had they all had a few caveats or we had to kind of like Explain them in some way That all changed over the summer. We met a very young hacker who? security researcher who had figured out how to Reverse engineer the actual iMessage protocol He contacted me on discord of course because that's where you know these things go down and He said hey, I reverse engineer iMessage and my reaction was I Don't believe it because it's a pretty wild claim right like no one in the world has done this Even us before the way that we made it work was we had these data centers full of Mac mini servers Acting as relays between beeper and iMessage wasn't perfect cost us a little it cost us a lot of money to run this And it wasn't perfectly secure because there was this third-party server that we had to relay messages back and forth and So he figured it out We started working with him in August and since then we've been heads down Working on a completely new version of beeper that we're calling beeper mini. It's Android only To start and it is dedicated to iMessage you download the app you press literally three or four clicks and Boom your number your phone number the SIM card that's in your Android phone is now a blue bubble That means that when an iPhone friend of yours texts to you Their number your number shows up as blue you can get added to group chats Get all of the features that you know a normal iMessage user would have like full resolution images videos Typing status being able to unsend a message edit a message send those threaded replies Emoji tap backs everything you get it all and your friends, you know, we love iPhone users you know their friends family spouses, but They basically don't understand Much of what's happening when it comes to messaging, right? They have a messages app on their home screen. They tap it They click your name. That's that's the it just works. It's just that's what it does Yeah, well, it doesn't work. That's because you know a green bubble chat through an iPhone doesn't have all the features It's not even encrypted, right? It's it's an unencrypted SMS and so I think Apple is currently doing a disservice to their users by forcing all of their, you know security privacy-minded iPhone users to send these unencrypted messages and so Beeper Mini on the other hand is Fully end-to-end encrypted that means that when you download and use it your encryption keys stay local on the device They never uploaded they never sent from your device anywhere every message is encrypted before it's sent from Beeper and it Yeah, it Is the and the first real iMessage app for Android? It's it's wild It really is as simple as you did like when I installed it last Thursday took like five minutes and I was up and ready And it like automatically imported a lot of my previous text message conversations And even upgraded them to Beeper once I started messaging the back, which is a really cool thing to see I like the the lineation line where you're green up to a point and then it's like post deeper So Eric, what is it? What is it? So we launched today? What is that? Have you been happy with the response? If it's anything like us I gotta imagine it's been overwhelming Yeah, the whole team was up at 6 a.m. Pacific today and we have a distributed team So there's like a bunch of people that were in Europe and they were you know having dinner by the time things rolled around But yeah, we've been going hard for the last 10 hours. It's crazy. It's only been 10 hours Awesome. Well, I know I know I know we have you for limited time We've taught we've a ton of questions, right? So maybe we'll rapid-fire some of them or So so my first question is Why two apps now why not just made why not just why not just update beeper Which is now called beeper cloud the beeper that we've been talking about the past couple of months Why not just make that be you know roll this functionality into that app? pretty simple We wanted to start fresh Our last our kind of current gen or past gen android app is about three years old It wasn't built with Jetpack Compose it had a bunch of kind of older parts of the code base. We wanted to start fresh and build something That was a 100 percent, you know new and and Kind of perfectly designed for the android ecosystem. So we started with a new code base a completely new UI all built in jetpack compose And it's fast. It's performant And we decided to start with one app or one network to start much easier to do one than then 15 Which you know beeper cloud supports, but over time we're going to be adding all of those back in It's pretty easy for us because we've already done it once So it's just a matter of kind of one by one testing them adding them back in and then releasing them So anyone who has subscribed to beeper mini will just open the next couple months Just every couple weeks get a new release of sms and then what's app and then signal and then You know the 10 other networks that we support that will all be added into beeper mini over time And will beeper cloud go away at that point or Yeah, so we're going to be taking the same local first uh end to end encrypted Um, we call it kind of like client side bridging like previously We bridged between beeper and these other networks on the cloud We're moving that to the client. We'll be using that same technology in beeper desktop and beeper ios So over time beeper cloud will just kind of go away and we'll be offering everyone the chance to move over to What we're currently calling beeper mini, but we'll eventually just be beeper once it has access to all of the different networks And that was and i'm sorry I don't want to I don't want to take up all the questions But that was one of my other questions was we got a lot of our audience asking and folks in our discord asking Will there be a web app? Will there be a desktop app? Will there be ios? Absolutely Yeah, definitely like one of the coolest parts about beepers You can just pick up any device you're on and continue the conversation you've had or You know you're anything like me and you get a new phone once every You know six months because you sell the old one at swappa Then it's really cool to be able to just like download one single app and get connected to all of your networks I am so excited about that I'm one of my biggest concerns with texting like my entire family on iphones is the fact that it is not encrypted So every single time I chat with them. It's just it's very concerning Especially if they're sending pictures of like the nieces and nephews etc etc So the fact that you mentioned like integration with other applications like Signal that i've tried to get my family on which they've never downloaded because they're happy with iMessage That makes me very happy. So with that said Um, are you planning to do like third party audits? Have you already done this? You mentioned hiring a hacker to reverse engineer the the code which is amazing and awesome because hackers are the backbone of the internet So with that said like how how are you going to proceed when it comes to security for your users? So we've been working on this for three years now. Uh, we think that You need to be able to trust the apps that you use for messaging Messaging is you know, pretty much the most private thing that you do with your phone So like it's your conversation with your spouse with your partners with your colleagues like this is pretty important stuff we've Worked in three main ways to be able to convey to you that Bieber is worthy of your trust The first way that we do it is we try to be as transparent as possible Uh, you know, you know who we are We're you know, uh, you know, I'm a longtime founder. I started a company called pebble Worked as a you know vc for a few years And we're not hiding who we are. I think it's really important for you to know who makes the apps that you use and understand What their motivation was We're also transparent about our business model. We charge money in exchange for a service Which is slightly revolutionary these days We don't sell ads. We don't use your data for any purpose other than delivering you an amazing service And we think that's important like Too often people aren't given the choice like they they are told that an app is free and that's the only way that works but obviously if you're not paying for something then Then you are, you know, the customer or you are the product. You are the product. Yeah The second way that we try to earn your trust is by open sourcing as much of the code as possible Obviously, we can't open source the whole app because then anyone would be able to kind of copy our work and potentially You know charge for it But if you go to our github github.com slash beeper, you'll see about 60 repos that we've published These include Pretty much every chat network that we connect to All the code that we use in under the hood to connect to these services is published there We do that for two reasons one is so you can inspect exactly how beeper interfaces with each one of these different Networks inspect the code and understand it. The second reason is we actually give people the ability to self-host for our cloud services You can actually self-host the connection yourself So that the code is never even running on our servers and then the third way With beeper mini is we've actually um done what's called a red team security analysis on ourselves. We've Deconstructed our own app Analyzed everything that gets sent over the network layer and publish that so if you go to our blog blog dot beeper.com You can see that we've got a post called how beeper mini works and we go into graphic detail here including wire shark wire shark analysis of all of the Oh yay over the wire And you can see I love wire shark. That's great Yeah, exactly like we you know going back to the first point like We want you to be able to trust exactly how this app works and no better way to do it than to just let you see it That's awesome to hear i'm super excited about that and now I want to see you at defcon because I think it would be super fun to put you in a room with a bunch of hackers Well, actually the person who should who should be there is the uh 16 year old security researcher who cracked the iMessage code I agree And he is somewhat of a very gifted individual Yeah, so he's uh that he would he would do he would do a great gift. It is an understatement And I would I mean shannon, I know you're a big defcon fan But I would I avoid the west coast when defcon is happening just because i'm up for fearful of what could happen But anyway, uh michelle, you know next question Yeah, I kind of want to touch on two little two small aspects You you seem like you know really optimistic about the future of this app Obviously, you know it's doing really well today with the press and users And a lot of users are wondering like why you're charging two dollars a month given that You know this app is directly connecting the apple servers They're relating the messages directly to the phone and you did publish a blog post like after the announcement went live That talked about some of the features you want to add to beeper mini Including importing chat history text search and all this other stuff But one thing that a lot of users have been bringing up is You know, is there a possibility that this App may invoke the eye of sauron, you know the the big fruit company may take a notice and they might not like what they're seeing Is there a possibility that beeper mini, you know may not well first of all? I've heard people mention that but i'm kind of shocked that people think that because at the end of the day Beeper mini actually makes iphone users lives better. So today, you know, we're all android users So we know what it's like But on the other side of the equation all of the friends that you chat with who have an iphone Are forced to send you sms's in order to chat with you or find out, you know, one of the other apps that you use But at the end of the day, it's not as simple as just opening their messages app. And so today By virtue of not having an iMessage app for android Apple is currently penalizing their own users like here in the bay area There's these billboards on the 101 that just says like iphone equals security or iphone equals privacy They don't have an astra accepted that that says well unless you're chatting with someone on android And so beeper mini actually increases the privacy of iphone users Like as an iphone user I would want my friends to download deeper mini because then I know that my conversations with them are encrypted We get full resolution images and videos and all of the other features that I've come to expect from chat And so at the end of the day like I think apple would be should be happy that beeper mini exists and you know They've obviously gone out of their way over the last three weeks to mention that they are building rcs into messages So it's not that crazy to imagine right? They're already thinking that they've made a mistake Like there needs to be interoperable messaging between iphone and android And you know they mentioned that over the next year rcs might come out It's still tvd exactly what will be supported I think they mentioned that they're going to try to support the gsma version of rcs which Honestly, I've never even read the rcs spec. It's incredibly difficult to understand the only people on earth who understand rcs I'll work at google and It's not clear that anyone besides google actually runs a rcs server at this moment I think that all the carriers currently use google's rcs server and so Yeah, like I think that rcs is you know a good Protocol or good enough protocol beeper Cloud actually supports rcs today. So you know we already have that whether it Works in practice still remains to be seen and Yeah, I guess I'm not as optimistic about that all Coming to fruition that quickly and maybe that perfectly Well, it's it's I just have to laugh because I mean I you were total and you were absolutely right shannon You were right michelle. You were right the security element the the encryption element But from a society element like I'm coming at it from it's literally the color Bubble and I was explained I was explained to my wife how we have a mutual friend who when she she's now married But when she was dating She said she'd meet a guy on the dating apps and then they'd move to text and if he was a green bubble bubble She was done And I was just like and I was like come on really? Yeah, so like this could eliminate that think about that world that'll open up to but um But eric I didn't want to follow up to michelle's question So like obviously the question is what does cupratino think? But what does mountain view think you know like you know with all the efforts that google is taking towards Bringing google messages to bridge the gap and get the message and stuff like that Do you think that this is something that google would be happy about as well too? so I mean, I would hope they are Like the one one of the number one reasons people complain about switching from iphone to android is missing out on group chats and Beeper mini is literally an app you download and it solves that problem in about 30 seconds so uh, yeah, I think I honestly like it's 2023. We shouldn't have problems communicating There shouldn't be artificial silos that divide us like we live in the future. How come messaging doesn't feel like the future Agreed you don't have to buy an entirely new phone just to use a messaging app Exactly or or use use use the messaging app as a deterrent to get people to buy your phone Honestly, that's really what it is. You know, and that's what might be my issue And so if you look at if you look at what's happening in europe, the europeans recently passed a law called the digital markets act It's a pretty broad piece of legislation That actually has some pretty good some pretty good things in it. It's it's basically like a gdpr For these large tech companies that mandates that the large internet, you know The big the big tech companies open interoperable interfaces for their networks And so it's it's the law in europe. It's going to be coming into force april 1st 2024 And most of the largest chat platforms will fall under the uh under that domain And so like the winds of change are moving like this is the direction that things are going we we know that there is like Interoperability is is is here. It's on the horizon. It's happening. And so even in the states It's just a matter of time And I think you know beeper mini and beeper in general Is a very clear expression of what it looks like when we have an interoperable chat, you know network So we did uh Our live audience are full of questions and we're not going to get to all of them But uh, we did have one which I thought was uh, great killbot 4404 want to know what happens if beeper mini messages another beeper mini Uh, so my wife is an entered user, uh, of course And we for the purposes of testing have been using iMessage between ourselves for the last three months And so we've been messaging each other Through beeper mini through iMessage Uh, mostly to test it, but also because it just works. It's a good app It's just it's just it's routing the messages through iMessage. It says if it was two iMessage users, right? Which is very funny I like that Um, so so you'd mentioned michelle you'd mentioned, you know that they laid out their product roadmap for beeper cloud as well as beeper mini Eric, I feel like this is you know, it's been a very very long day for you, but it's also just the beginning, right? So you know in terms of In terms of the reaction I gotta imagine stability making sure everything works everything's bug-free and then you guys are just going to get into rating mode Or what's next for beeper mini? I guess so So this is only you know version 1.0 Point 24, uh, so there's there's a lot to come after that um, we have You know tons of new features that we're working on Uh, we've published a blog post. Um, where we talk about you know, some of the near-term roadmap things like being able to import your chat history A couple different message types that we haven't gotten to yet um And then over the kind of longer term We're going to be focused on bringing other chat networks into beeper mini adding sms adding rcs adding What's app adding signal adding all of the other 10, you know to 15 networks that beeper supports Into the app and making it into a true multi-platform messenger Cool. Um, do you guys have any plans for any sort of backup type or I guess the cloud? I mean that element there because that's that's one thing every time I get a new phone I use a Ancient app sms backup restore to backup my sms messages and the restores of the new phone If I get a new phone, I'm using beepers. It'll be a world where just being everything is there Yeah, we that's that's on the list. We didn't ship with the ability to kind of transfer to a new device That is something that we're working on Well, excellent All right. Well, um anybody else have any other questions that we want to I guess Eric while we still got them Thank you for being so transparent. That was really interesting Yes, no, we're happy to and we're very responsive If any, you know anyone who's using beeper mini has any questions We actually have a five person support team to help out with all these different, you know things that may come up So don't hesitate There's a button inside the app that you can use to report a problem or ask a question Um, and we are happy to chat. We spend a lot of time chatting Excellent. Yeah, I know someone in the someone in our chat actually was saying they were running into a problem So, uh, they should definitely reach out to support and get taken care of right? Um, It blew past me. We got so many people talking, but yeah, I definitely definitely know that was happening Um, but hey, congratulations, man. You guys you you rock. I think you rock the the the mobile world today with this announcement It's just day one. So we'll uh, we've got some work to do. Yeah, it's really good. Thank you very much for having me on and Yeah, yeah, everyone should go to beeper.com and get their hands on beeper mini And then go to the google play store and install the app and check it out and uh, and it's $1.99 a month, right to After the trial that's it with a free free week trial support your devs support your devs exactly agreed So eric, thank you so much. We'll let you get back. Hope you get some rest. Uh, congratulations Uh, and we'll look forward to seeing the future of beeper. So Yeah, great job. Thanks, eric Wow That was a lot. I mean I I kind of wanted to like go back a little bit and I think something I I mean I talked to one of my good friends who is a friend of the show vishnu. Um, and he's an android dev He's an iphone. I think he wanted to kind of actually separate the conversation out of the blue-green thing and go back to basically saying You know iMessage has become its own social network in a sense And so it's not for people like him who choose who would who don't mind android at all but who choose to be on ios that Yeah, missing out on missing out on the social aspects and being able to You know, it's the same reason why a lot of us are still on facebook and other places where You want to be part of the conversation and and you want to be part of your like your motorcycle group or your local Like, you know gym group or your hiking group and if they're all on using iMessage and you're The green the green like bubble you kind of miss that on that social aspect And so even even the status thing aside just being able to participate with other people and social networks I mean we would have this conversational time with rcs something like that you have to go where I can actually give you a very specific example because when I texted my cousin with an with an iphone about this He's like oh you finally got an iphone right now. I'm just like I still have my android phone I'm still using I just have this new app that I that I installed and he's like Like he he remembers like in in high school. It was actually like a big deal because all his Android using friends are left out of like the iMessage games they're playing Like they're like playing like eight ball in class and all their android friends are left out So this is definitely this social this peer pressure aspect involved with the green bubble My sister told me about it with my nieces in middle school when the kids are starting to get phones And there was real I mean like that wall street journal article was real like there was real shunning of kids With android phones that don't have iPhones because you know, whether they can't afford it their family can't afford it or what not And so normalizing I think is amazing is an amazing thing to do Um and actually uh reverb mic in the chat Asked the question you know is a blue bubble worth two bucks a month You know, I think that's a that's a that's a really good question I think two bucks a month honestly is I mean it's talking about money It's not it's not a lot of money right the amount of what goes into it. Yeah, and and it's yeah and for me It's less about is it worth it? Rather Do you want to support the people who are really trying to bring fundamental change to this world? Personally for me, I think beeper mini is fantastic. I think this is amazing I am not switching to it. I'm not paying the dollar 99 a month because I'm waiting for sms and rcs And what's that like I want to make sure that it like I'm a one messaging Person right now and while you know, michel we're talking We're you know, you're I saw you're talking in the chat and stuff like that I don't want to be bouncing between google messages for sms and beeper mini for iMessage and stuff like that, especially when I've moved all my apple friends and family to whatsapp once they Bridge this gap and make the the amazing beeper thing. I will pay more than two bucks a month I'll pay five bucks a month. I'll pay, you know, like I think it'll be well well worth it personally So yeah, and you have really got to look at your own context and like who you're messaging like if everyone You know has an iphone and this is a no-brainer to install if only like If you only if you only have like one person who has an iphone and you like text message and everyone else is on whatsapp Then there's no rule points and downloading it and it's really going to be person to person And it's whatever works for you. I mean shannon. You're very security minded It's two bucks a month worth being you know that that that sense of security that you're looking for Yeah, honestly, like I'm I'm gonna look into it further But I liked a lot of the answers that he gave to my questions which can pose Some significant stress to people whenever they're advertising a new product So I definitely understand that like, you know, if somebody was a little little less Transparent going forward, but he was very transparent and And it's not just about the security like the end to an encryption is great And the fact that they're looking at security from a hacker mindset like that's really important But he also mentioned that you know, it's opening up the availability of me to be able to Send my sister A whole bunch of pictures and she gets them on high resolution Like I can get videos that she's sending to me When my little niece opens her birthday present Like there's little things like that that make Two dollars a month worth it because I can save those high resolution Videos that I currently don't have access to Yeah, um, so, um, we're gonna move on in just a second to More messaging talk But just just before we leave off for those of you that want to try beeper mini and that go through the process of You know, uh, signing up You should be aware that what what beeper mini is doing is registering your phone number with iMessages So if you decide that beeper mini isn't for you after trying it You have to make sure you go into the app and Unlink your phone number from iMessages because otherwise if you don't do that as a friend of mine put it If you continue to message your iOS having friends your your messages to them or their messages to you might go into a black hole Into the ether into the into the iMessage ether So feel free to try it But make sure if it's not for you and you uninstall beeper that you unregister from iMessages So that you can still talk to those blue bubble heaven folks and it's really easy I did I did both I downloaded the app. I installed it. I deregistered and then I did it again just to do it You know, like yeah, yeah, it's in the settings. Yeah, it's in the setting. It's really easy And if you want more information on beeper, uh, we got to give a little golf club round of applause to our own Michelle here who who did a fantastic piece at android authority Um, Michelle Bravo on this one really in depth. Uh, this must have taken a while to put together Right. I mean it was you know, tell us a little about the article Yeah, it's just a very extensive hands-on with the article because I know that beepers own blog posts go into great depth about how the Actually how the app actually works under the hood So I thought I'd go from a more consumer perspective Like what's it like using the app why you should use the app how it's different from the previous solutions like, you know beeper cloud and the Short-lived nothing chat app that launched for like a day and then was taken down So Well, good job, Michelle. So you can find that over on android authority. Um, and it's always great when a big announcement happens Um, and we're in the mix on it. So and huge thanks to Eric for joining us Today to talk about it. So well not to be forgotten But good old google messages as well as some other google products have released some new features because they want to let you know Hey, we're still here. The timing on this stuff is crazy. Yeah By the way, yeah, so what did the google messages stuff rolled out last week, right? Yeah, and it's to celebrate 1 million 1 billion rcs users and there's a lot of other Android features that drop, but yeah 1 billion rcs users and to celebrate google let you know that there is a bunch of fun to be had in google messages Which is kind of ironic because honestly, I'll be using google messages a lot less a little bit a lot less for a while While i'm using beeper, but hey, I might be missing out on some fun stuff in messages This includes voice moods in your google messages, which is basically when you are using the brand new Actually, are we on? Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about photo moji first. Let's talk about photo moji If you ever wanted to just react with like a custom image of a cat or a friend or your kids Google messages is bringing to you photo moji where when you are reacting you can actually add a picture A picture of your selection You can pick a pick an object in that photo and that and that object in that photo will be Emojified for you to send as a reaction to your Person or group chat of choice. It will appear as a reaction under the reacted to messages just like any other Emoji reaction and it'll actually be saved in a special tab so you can reuse it for later And as a bonus bonus if you're in a group chat other people in the group chat with you can also use any photo moji As you send if you go to the announcement Blog post on the keyword, which is like one of google's, you know product blogs You can see an example of a cat photo moji being made So if that's something you really wanted And you were just waiting for it where you're going to get it real soon I actually have the google best messages beta installed right now. I didn't see photo emoji photo moji But hopefully coming soon And yeah, I mentioned this already but voice moods using kind of the updated Voice recorder in google messages. You can now just not only record messages of audio messages for Your friends in context, but now you can add a little mood to the recording Again, I have the latest beta. I didn't see this but presumably when you actually record a message You hit attach you'll get a new extra interface that shows a bunch of different themes Which shows different colored backgrounds as well as you know emoji that kind of can give some emotion and pizazz To your audio recorded message. I guess kind of letting giving a heads up to the person you're talking to what the message is like I suppose there's like an angry emoji if you're telling your husband He left, you know, like the trash out on the street or a happy laugh emoji Got some fun picks or memes to share with your friends. So check that out something Else is screen effects. Um, if you just don't find, you know emojis as you know communicative of enough as you needed If you send, you know in google messages beta soon enough A single emoji response to the person you're talking to depending on what that emoji is or sorry It's not an emoji, but a particular Sorry, I was I'm mixing that that is different. There's so much stuff in this This is this is actually picking up the words. Love you. Sorry. So screen effects. Yeah Yeah, and so saying love you in the text message it has an explosion of hearts and stuff like that happened It's not so unlike when you type in gboard and it starts like either creating stickers for you or a happy birthday or time Not to talk about the distinguished competition But like in the new version of mac os when you give a thumbs up on a video chat All of a sudden thumbs up bubbles start flying around you and things like that. Yeah Yeah, um, so if there's a there's a set number of phrases So if you type them and send them google messages will detect that and then send Some full screen animations or the example in the post is if you type I love you. Not only will that person get the sincere emotions of your words, but also Hearts and sparkles even does flying across the screen for a couple seconds. So that's screen effects. My bad um There's more to talk about there's custom bubbles If you wanted to change the color of both the background of a chat as well as the color of your bubbles Or the person you're talking to bubbles you can do that and in fact you can do it per context So if you want to make sure that you don't send the wrong message to your mom Or to you know people that don't appreciate nsfw humor You can make sure that you appropriately theme your chats based on person content audience And again that is per contact and of course you can always like um, you know Change that in the settings and this is what I meant to talk about late earlier is reaction effects If the regular, you know, if you don't need, you know full screen animations from what you type or you don't need No photo emoji. You're just happy using the regular reactions. Well, Guess what they're just going to add some extra on it for you. So if you do use certain reactions like a thumbs up Google messages will just give you a little extra. So the example they give is reacting with with a single thumbs up But you still get a bunch of extra thumbs up popping up on the screen when you send that reaction. So Just lots of delight and extraneous and pizzazz From google messages and and a little bit less flashy, but kind of interesting is also profiles You'll soon be able to customize Basically a profile your profile the these displayed name and picture that people will see when they receive a message from you And this is really handy when you send someone a message or you receive a message and that person is not in your context That then so once profiles goes into effect You'll be able to see instead of just, you know, some number and hoping that it's someone you actually know and not a scammer You'll be able to see hopefully a legit picture and a name Not obviously conclusive to, you know, the true identity of a person, but it kind of helps so Um, that and that's kind of like across, you know, google contacts and accounts. So it's a lot of stuff there Yeah, a lot of stuff. I will say I will say I um, I was using google messages And some and I hearted react a heart emoji reacted something and the hearts blew up on the screen and I I was like, what was that? So Shannon, what do you use google messages or what is your sms app of choice? I do I got frustrated when like signal got rid of sms. It it hurt me to the core So I started using google messages when they introduced rcs, but um, I am very very excited about that photo emoji I feel like i'm going to create a whole bunch of like sailor moon Replies for my friends because they know i'm such a moony and every single response is just going to be like a photo emoji of sailor moon's expressions Love it I mean, it's it's really cool that they that they did this to you know to time it with the rcs kind of milestone And these are all really really cool and really neat things to keep you engaged in google messages, but Where is my? My filtering and my otp filtering out and the stuff they took away from us Yes, oh my gosh, ron. Why do you want actual substances stuff? It's like you're asking for vegetables when google when google messages giving you like sprinkled sugar and sprinkle and sprinkle Like why do you want your cake and you want to eat it? I do Call me crazy, but yeah, I want I want but like that wasn't broke like something like why did you fix that? That wasn't broke. I would like if we ever talked somebody from google that works on messages I would like to know why and will that come back because I felt like that was so impactful really so Well, I mean if you want some actual like substantive features, there's a couple more things They had a they've the google product steam release another post about a whole bunch of new features I'm not going to go through all of them, but there are some things that are pretty handy Especially if you have a wear os watch um You can actually control more smart home devices and actually controlled lighting groups from your wear os watch Which is awesome including like setting like light and temperature From your wear os watch For your light groups and your other google home devices You can even like turn on and dock your robot your your google home compatible robot vac and map If that's just something you just got to do right now from your wear os Also, you can start you can actually initiate google assistant routines and and actually this is pretty awesome You can actually set your google home status to home or away from your wear os watch Not a second too soon because I feel like that kind of stuff is is kind of aces for Awareable right when you're on the go and you want to make sure that your home is taken care of Makes a lot of sense. So you can do that. Um, and yeah a couple good accessibility things. Um, here's your ai story Oh, sorry go ahead Ron. I was gonna say what I thought was interesting about all this About this this kind of feature announced for a feature drop was that it was well rounded It was like messages google tv wearable home It was all the like it was it was quite comprehensive in terms as well as being just being focused on like what android can do for you No, yeah, and you were saying uh ai right? Yeah, and ai actually an ai for accessibility, which I think is something that ai Um, it is a good avenue for ai So a lot of times for people with uh blind and low vision if you know a image content on Your android apps don't have good descriptions. So a lot of times that's us our devs fault Um now with talkback, which is the google screen reader You can have ai generate descriptions for images that don't have accurate text descriptions so that when you're browsing media Or any kind of any on device media? Um Again folks who are blind or have low vision will you know be able to have ai Give them a good text description. Uh, and then live caption is getting a little bit of extra support in terms of more languages But now during calls Live caption will not only you know caption, you know the caller you know speaking to you But you can also now text the response that we read out loud to the other person on the call So there's you know, basically adding, you know both ways to you know, um Listen listen, uh, you know listen and respond, uh, even if you cannot speak or hear so ai stop, um, sorry not ai, but accessibility and ai Not a bad combination those those live caption changes already existed on pixel phones google just making it Uh available on more android devices now So it's no longer pixel exclusive the expanded language support and the live caption in phone calls feature Accessibility something that should be inclusive anyway, but yeah, thanks for thanks for clarifying Yeah A lot of stuff. So that's a whole lot of that's a lot of features to roll out But there's one if there's one feature a lot of us really really want google to roll out It's the find my device network. They announced I forget how long ago actually was it last Was it at google io? I think yeah, I think it was at google io They announced to find my device network But then in late july they announced that they are holding on the release of find my device network because they wanted to wait For apple to roll out unwanted tracker alert detection in ios because the argument was that if google Released find my device network and then tag manufacturers release their tracker tags that are compatible with it Well, then those tracker tags could be used to stalk and potentially You know harass iphone users because they wouldn't have any protections built in to detect those tags. So google um Decided to hold off on releasing find my device network until apple rolls out an update to ios that brings unwanted tracker tag Contection it's been several months since that initial announcement of the delay and to date There has still been no word on when apple will actually implement unwanted tracker tag detection Which means we still don't know when find my device network will actually roll out to users and it's unfortunate because you know This is holding back a potentially really useful feature for android users like there's going to be a lot of travel There already has been a lot of travel this holiday season But none of us can use like an air tag equivalent for our luggage for our Personal possessions things like that and a lot of us would want to do that Like i'm i'm waiting for something that's equivalent to the air tag to stick onto my luggage like samsung has something They have a galaxy tag But it only relies on the network that's generated by other samsung devices an android equivalent network would include billions of devices and would be Very equivalent in functionality to apple's find my network But unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to continue waiting because the specification that apple says they are Implementing their own unwanted tracker tag detection based on That's still not been finalized and it's on track for being finalized Hopefully by the end of the year But then even if it is finalized, we don't know how long it'll take for apple to actually roll out a feature based on And this is such a this is such a weird situation because google's doing the right thing by holding it back Yes And i don't know what apple's motivations are in holding it up If it's just resources prior like who knows what it is, you know Like you know, I've worked at big companies and you work you've got your list of priorities and things like that Maybe this isn't a priority for them, but chan and you you you seem visibly frustrated by this Apple has every incentive to slow walk this like they have no reason to go fast on this I want it to be a thing so that I can put trackers in my Sluggage and I can just track them with any of my android phones And it won't matter which one I have like oh i'm just waiting for this to be a thing And then I will feel so much more secure and less anxiety whenever i'm traveling. That's it. That's all What I think is funny is that like especially coming off the messaging conversation, right where which is like Oh apple, why are you doing this now? This is like Completely different and it's the same thing happening right where google's promoting something that that is That seems to be good for the community seems to be good for the user base and apple is holding it up right and so It's weird how it doesn't even matter what the what the functionality is but like the same the same thing happens And we need a we need a some gadget guy wan ran to us to get this automatic soapbox on while high How apple opened up a panel is talking security issues and it's just you know instead of closing the box or putting stuff back in They're just you know like finding more crap to pull out the box or at least stop everybody else from fixing it so and To pat michelle on the back again. He had a great post on threads about all this right michelle Yeah, I was just following up on the nine to five google article, which brought it to my attention. I had forgotten That it was still delayed So to shannon to clarify as a very security and privacy You know a conscious person you you do not currently use any kind of like air taggy type trackers or anything just because No, I I tried using the samsung ones But again the limitations of it just working on like the samsung network didn't make it very reliable for me So I wasn't using them and I I will not touch an apple at your tag So because I I just can't use it with my android phones like it's there's no reason for me to purchase one Yeah, and that makes sense because it the networks rely on other other phones of that are compatible to actually Do the location so it's a really good point I never thought I didn't actually think about that when looking at the samsung tags that If not everybody's if not more people are using them they get the effectiveness goes down. That's a good point So a couple of great comments in the chat I mean cousin a job points out, you know, they work quickly together on cova notification protocols There's no reason for this right and although that's a different situation, you know General society's health. But yeah, that's a good point But kilbat 404 again with the great question ask what's the reason google has to wait on apple for um, and michelle curfew i'm wrong it's this is They're holding it back on purpose because it's going to be impactful with apple to protect Yeah, it's a protection situation. It's not this isn't a case of well, we'll release it and then iterate right? This is something whereas this is all in or not and apple committed to doing it. They're just slowing it down, right? So Uh wild All right. Well, I want to talk about something that will make everybody happy and that actually Those of you who are supporting android faithful over at patreon.com slash android faithful Every week you get to vote on a news story for us to talk about here on the show And this week, uh, we had three stories. Um, the one that got the least number of votes seven percent of the vote Was that uh, then the the the kind of revelation that activision blizzard was once planning to launch its own android app store for games Um, I don't think that would have gone very well, but still Then with 16 of the vote coming in second, uh, the fact that amazon redesigned the the alexa app And it looks a whole lot like google home now, which is funny But I I whatever we're not talking about it because that didn't win. I have thoughts though But the story that did win with 78 percent of the vote And talk about giving us something that we've wanted for years Google will make it easier to set custom ringtones on android the folks over at nine to five google Broke this new i don't know if they broke it. They actually didn't break it, but they're reporting on it Um, and it's one of the things that we talk about a lot And nine five google pointed out assembled the bug on x twitter twix whatever pointed out that google contacts is going to get a separate section for contact ringtones And assemble debug On x says the new section will make it easier to set ringtones for contacts You can play the ringtones here, which you have set for contacts if you have set ringtones for any contact before They will also appear here. Um, and my question is whether or not This and this is all within the contacts app and android My main question is is that does this affect text messages notifications as well because that's what I really want I want to hear a different notification chime based on who sends it But this is a step in the right direction and something. I know we've all wanted. I mean you could do and as You know berk points out in the chat our dear love our beloved berk You've been able to do custom ringtones forever at least on pixel phones Um, and while you can having this on the android level and for everybody allows everybody to do it And there are third party apps that let you do it, but it would be nice to have in the operating system side of things Although I can't tell you less than my phone rang. I've had my phone turned off for ever I think it does work for incoming messages. Um, and yeah, I mean right now you do can you do it But you have to manage it through the contacts page So, you know, you know, you can't tell like who like who have who haven't you who haven't you bestowed a custom ringtone All in one place so easier management better for users Yeah, yeah, this page just adds an an easier way to set custom ringtones So it's not technically new functionality. It just makes it a lot easier to do And this is only for using the google contacts app by the way, which you know, if you use some other a lot of other OEMs they ship their own contacts app samsung has their own contacts app But if you use google contacts, this is one feature you can look forward to Yep, cool. All right, so go to patreon.com slash android faithful where every week you can vote on a story for us to talk about Um, so up next we're gonna talk about some hardware, uh, and shannon. What are your thoughts on one plus? Have you got the play with the one plus open yet? Have you are you on the one plus train? Well, I I got to touch one at an event when I had several friends that had opened So I got to play with them and it's a nice phone. I was very impressed with it I was impressed with the cameras and with the how smooth the screen was It was it's a good phone. So I'm I'm looking forward to what one plus is doing for us in the coming year Well, yeah Well, so yesterday was the 10th anniversary of one plus as a company, right? Congratulations to our friends at one plus, you know, random applause I remember being on our old show all about android gena trapani who got the one plus one the first one plus phone And show and I remember being in person looking at it like oh my god It's a new company and it felt so exciting at the time and we've definitely had You know a roller coaster of emotions with one plus over these past 10 years From their marketing missteps early on To the telescoping camera that came out that that was just so cool that I had on my one plus seven Pro it was so cool to then carl pay leaving and One plus really kind of like not mattering for a few years But now I feel like we're in a one plus renaissance. We're a one one plus a sense And today in china one plus rolled out or Unveiled the one plus the one plus 12 Which is then which is the new phone New flagship coming from them It's going to be rolled out in the us next month in january And actually if you go to their website Oneplus.com slash us slash launch slash 12 They have a little teaser about how the one plus arrives in early 2024 And you can sign up to get notifications for it But the one plus is 12 is here and we saw a bunch of We saw a bunch of leaks and stuff like this over the past couple of weeks But it's really exciting. It's so it's running the snapdragon 8 gen 3 And it's got 24 gig of ram and one terabyte to storage You get a big battery a big chonka chonka battery with 5400 milliamps. They are on there and Yeah, and they've got that hassle blad camera going on in the back and some very pretty color ways At least with that green they've got a black version a white version and the green coloring on the phone So now the one plus 12 is official and real. What do we all think about it? You know shannon, is this as nice as the one plus open you think? Even though we haven't seen it Oh my goodness. This thing is sexy. Come on now It looks so good and the fact that the hardware specs are like so upgraded has it's peaked my interest I my interest has been peaked over here and I went to get my hands on one I don't like to say like oh, this is going to be my favorite phone or anything like that before I've actually used it So I'm just waiting until I can get my hands on one and review it and then I'll definitely have my my ideas about it I really want to see one plus actually commit to implementing wireless charging like They had wireless charging in the one plus nine series. They they were like hyping it up You know, we're bringing the fastest wireless charging in the u.s They had 50 watt charger and then one plus 10 and 11 gone now one plus 12 It looks to be coming back one plus open didn't have it and a lot of people were upset at that and like If I buy the one plus 12 at whatever price it is Hopefully it's pretty affordable and I get this wireless charger Will the one plus 13 have wireless charging like can I assume it will because we don't know because they don't seem to have A commitment to wireless charging and it would be nice to see if they actually stick with it this time Yeah, I mean the wireless charging. I feel like is the big sticking point for a lot of us Especially coming out of the one plus open Announcement, but yeah, this this this sucker looks very pretty and I'm I'm excited for january to come around with the u.s Launch for for it. I want to get my hands on one to Shannon Like I like that green. I like a phone. Yeah, I want a phone. It doesn't look like another phone. That's all So many people don't care about the color, but I need my aesthetics. Okay. I need my nice aesthetics I gotta tell you I got I mean I'm using the blue It's not the lighting doesn't show but I'm using the blue one. Yeah the one plus I'm jealous. Sorry google pixel 8 pro and I gotta say it like I was watching We were watching the macy's thanksgiving day parade a couple weeks ago and my daughter saw the pixel commercial and said dad It's your phone And it's because of the blue right like she connected like it doesn't look she doesn't say that to my wife Like it doesn't look when she's in iphone commercial like it you the phone's visual identity. I think is so So important and I and again in the same roller coaster like we've gone through with one plus where With phone designs we went from you know smartphone chocolate bar design to like crazy designs with next bit and hgc And all this sort of stuff to then we got back to a little more of the sameness And now I feel like we're coming out of the same and this could be like a post pandemic Like people got back to work and wanted to get creative and stuff like that. I don't know what it is I don't care as long as the phones look different. I'm happy so That is the thing actually in japan I managed to scope out quite a few pixels and it is because of the distinctiveness of the camera bar that it's easy to see Even with the case on and so that is that is that is the thing the aesthetics If nothing else for being for being able to peep other people's phones and admire Yeah, and it's important to note that the one plus 12 has the same camera system as the one plus open with the hassleblad and the All the all the specs and all that sort of stuff So all the great stuff all the great talking you heard about the cameras on the one plus open We'll apply to one plus 12, which is great. They're just up, you know, they're they're paying that technology forward and iterating and you know, so Uh, curious to see get our hands on it and play with it. I'm very very excited. So Cool. All right. Well, uh, that's not it in the world of hardware, right? If you talk about one plus you gotta you gotta talk about samsung Yeah, and if you're talking about samsung, you gotta talk about foldables these days And we don't know too much about the six the six series of these flip-ables and foldables yet But annulus ross young dscc ross on twix had some things to say and some leaks to give about if anything the cover display Of the z fold six and the z flip six now definitely for the flippable flipable slash can't clam shell Sorry cram shells clam shell version of all the foldables this year It felt it felt like a kind of a game of like, you know leapfrog where okay Well, we have a this big screen and all of our cover screens this bag and then razor Plus is just like well our our screen is just the whole dang front cover Well, samsung, of course, not to be yet done. Apparently, uh, it's going to have an even bigger cover screen I think the report is that the z flip six cover display will be approaching 3.9 inches I forgot to look up what the razor plus is although I have one right here Um, but it just seems that that cover display is you know a huge point for flipables these days And samsung, of course, probably seeing the success and the hype around the razor plus is just going to In big in things like everybody else. I would like to make a point that the very first branded android phone the g1 Had a 3.2 inch Display screen on it. Oh, yeah So this is you're talking about this display the folded front screen on the flip six will be bigger than some of the first generation smartphones back in the day I want to think that's been mine though When comparing phones from back in the day to today is the aspect ratio because we used to have like 16 by 9 phones And now you know, we have these really tall and narrow ones Speaking of which, you know that report ross mentioned that the cover display on both the z flip six and Z fold six will be bigger I'm wondering if the z fold six's cover display will be wider as a result or if it'll be Even taller like it'd be kind of ridiculous if they made it even taller than it already is But if they made it wider, I think they'll make a huge difference And that's like the number one. I think complaint that I think Every every every one and everyone in this sphere like I think most people just the number one thing that is Wrong if you want to say that about the z fold series is just that cover screen is too dang narrow And I'll be honest. I still kind of like a shorter aspect ratio. I don't know if it's just my particular thumb Thumb range that I don't need a super tall phone if they make that z fold any taller I'm not going to get a six as much as I have adored my fold five and four So let's hope that they're listening to the feedback and making it wider. I'm with you there Shannon, how do you feel about foldables in general? I like them. Um, I've I've really enjoyed my google pixel fold Like I've I've been messing around with that for months and months. It's one of my primary devices and Uh, if I'm comparing the two, I use the pixel fold a lot more than I use my fold five Just because that front screen is so narrow Like it's it's just not something that works for me in my like really bad eyeballs when I'm trying to type things out. So Yeah Excellent. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm a sucker for foldables again because I don't want phones to look any different or that sort of thing So, um, they're great for productivity. Yep I just wish the cameras weren't such potatoes. So I know the open doesn't have a potato like one plus open but the other ones do It's it's a big difference I actually took my pixel eight with me to japan and I just I actually started leaving my pixel fold back at the Hotel and just bringing the pixel eight just because there's such a there's such a jumping quality and that's yeah I think you're right the the the more potato we Cameras on the pixel fold are kind of a bummer given the cost of the device as well Yep $1,800 potato pics Well, so uh, just to round out hardware and this isn't this is this is truly hardware Um, last uh, what was it last year a couple weeks ago? We were talking about what what company did those fashion designs? What was it? Uh, Lenovo Lenovo Lenovo had that had that like clothes for tablet users or whatever Well, our good friends at nothing Are very stylish and very fashionable. I got an email today announcing that they are rolling out nothing apparel Um, which is going to be coming this thursday december 7th Um, and they're letting you sign up to get notified and you might wonder what is nothing apparel Well, they made a short film, uh, that explains it where you see, uh, uh, a you know A young a young and uh going into the uh the nothing headquarters in london And gets introduced to the new world of nothing apparel Which appears to be this very I don't know stylish or how you want to call it Windbreaker kind of see through a kind of uniform rain jacket That has a nice little spot to put in your nothing phone and have the the leds light up in the breast pocket We'll be curious if those of the designs are selling or that's just what he needs to wear to go into Into the nothing nothing apparel factory But nothing's really leaning into apparel Becoming this thursday, so we'll see what they we'll see what they have there So you don't have merch. You're not you're not a real brand if you don't have merch Exactly exactly. They really they really took the the stylist approach here for it. So that's guys, although when the um The nothing your Earstick came out I think they didn't they have like a then they premiered about a fashion show where they had Like models down the runway like with the nuts I might misremember bring that but there's definitely like been a they've tried to connect themselves to fashion And they released the nothing phone on what is that the the the site where you can buy expensive nikes Oh Yeah, so they're they're kind of continuing this like adjacency or connection to fashion and Coolness, uh, which which to be fair to that young man, you know in the video I think it was purposeful that he could use a little more cool in his life That was the way the framing of the ad. I'm sure he's a very nice guy. I'm a bad dude Oh lordy the the cross-section of hardware and fashion though is this very we sit with the with the purse phone And then the uh, Lenovo clothes and now this but yeah fun times All right. Um, well, let's talk about some apps because it is that time of year. It's the end of the year It's december 2023 is coming to a close and so google play Has rolled out, uh, the best apps and this is a this is a fun game I like to play every year in that have you ever heard of this app? There's so many apps in the world and luckily this year I have heard of a bunch of them But there's some I had nerve so I'm curious what you guys think of so the best app overall from the google play store is Uh, an app called imprint learn visually From polywise, which is an educational app that uh that drives psychology philosophy personal development History, etc. Um through visual learning Um Has anyone heard of imprint before this nope No, and I don't want to point this out too hard, but it seems to have a 3.8 rating on the store Right and only a hundred thousand downloads Like look yeah, I mean You can you can only trust App Store reviews so far because let me tell you people are mean And I think they're usually especially if they're mad. They're unfairly mean but 3.8's kind of I wouldn't say sus, but it that's a little surprising from Especially especially considering that especially considering that google play on the business side has a a mandatory Rule that they will not promote you unless you have a four star above app Right, so I wonder if this was higher and that driven down once it got announced or I don't know what the history of it or whatever It was but like because I know you know at jobs I've worked on stuff like that. We worked google and we're like can you promote the app? They're like well, you need to get your rating up above four so I'm very curious about that but um But yeah, so the user choice winner for best app of the year is chat gbt There we go Chat gbt I was wondering I was like at least at least google's pick wasn't a popularity contest But then the user choice winner of course And do we really think chat gbt is the app of the year just not only in android but in general just in terms of being Like transformative changing there's nothing remarkable about the android app I mean it's a it's a functional app, but like The app itself is not anything remarkable It's just it's just a uh, it's just a uh, what's your call it a uh interface into the technology, right? Yeah, if it if it works I mean to contrast 4.8 stars, but I mean Yeah, not that that means they're rating the quality of chat gbt itself. Not the yeah, exactly Not the app itself, right? Yeah This is like on amazon reviews when someone reviews like how fast they got the shipping rather than the actual item themselves I love that All right, so the the best app for fun is bumble Which we've all heard I've never used because I got married after it came out Yeah, after it came out I got married But sure I get it a 3.6 star rating on the app store by the way, but uh Um, so best for personal growth void pet garden mental health Um, which I had never heard of anybody heard of this it has 4.8 4.8 stars in the in the app store um where I guess you you can collect emotions uh based on meditation and and uh I don't know exactly what this is or not, but it's I don't think I want to collect estrangement I'm fine without estrange collecting the estrangement dragon. Is it like a pokemon? Like style gamification of your mental health If so that's interesting No, I mean people people who actively seek out install this app seem to really like it 4.8 stars Is yeah, I wonder if it's a way of like I mean because obviously part of you know Any other kind of like self-care is just consistency and being able to kind of like do it every day and you know Kind of reap long-term benefits. I guess I mean, I know we're making fun of it But I guess we should probably know more about it and and gamification doesn't seem like a bad way to encourage people to kind of Take their you know be consistent with their mental health and and really dive into something Well, so google's own editorial about the app was emotions can feel like anything from wild animals to well-trained house pets And that's the idea behind this delightfully engaging app with a combination of game like elements vibrant colors and simple language Simple I feel like that's code for you're stupid and simple language void pet encourages you to check in Name your feelings and analyze their impact come back regularly to discover mindfulness exercises meant to grow your virtual garden and real life well-being So if if if you're having challenges with your emotions Check out void pet. So All right, uh, so the best app with ai was not chat gbt Character ai ai power chat, which is the ability to chat with user-created ai characters All right Wait, is this a separate chat app? Yes, is oh gosh. No, there's too many. So you can you can you can create Fake people and talk to them That sounds like catfishing You're catfishing yourself Congratulations, you can't Oh goodness And best everyday essential app was artifact The news app which we we talked about on all about android earlier this year. It's got 4.2 stars I still use artifact every now and then it's it's a good news app I use it every every week for for us when we come for compiling Links for the show. Yeah I'm an artifact scholar now Because that's why the that's part of the gamification of artifact. They give you I like artifacters, but by x instagram people, right? Yeah. Yeah. Is it good for like Is it good for like bookmarking all of your news into one spot? So it's easy to find whenever you need to actually access it to be perfectly frank. I use pocket for that Oh, I think it's it's done better at about suggesting new stories that I like I mean, I would rather look at artifacts suggestions to me than google discover google discover gives me absolute garbage these days, but I think artifact Even though I think the publishers that at lists are limited Have been, you know, kind of consistent and they have kind of nice features I I don't remember if they're still in effect, but they try to do things like d click betify if that's a verb now They do which I really I really like that the fact that you can yeah, you can you can you can like or dislike something You report something for being inappropriate, but you can also mark it as clickbait, which is awesome. So yeah, I like that You probably there probably is a bookmarking section Shannon, but I just use pocket because I do And the the other in there in their app description. They also highlight, you know about paywalls because I can't stand when That's useful. You're like, yeah when you get to well, it doesn't avoid the paywall Rather what it does is that when you hit your limit, you're like you get like three articles from vanity fair if you don't pay It will then snooze that publisher for 30 days until you can read articles again, which I think is great. So Really smart All right, best hidden gem app was aware mindfulness and well-being I always feel like these mindfulness and well-being apps always do well in these end of the year things Right, like I feel like every year it's another like, you know Mindful one best for families was the paul patrol academy app Oh, dear Which I just watched the paul patrol mighty movie with my children this past weekend So maybe I should check this out. Although I don't want them to know that my devices have games on them So maybe I won't do that Cool, and then what I thought was also interesting was that some subcategories Including the best multi device apps of 2023 which, you know, we talk about their commitment to Tablets with the pixel tablet and we talk about, you know, the pixel fold and foldable is becoming a thing, you know And so, you know the way they position this was every year fresh app innovations for devices beyond phones Offering convenient ways to stay in touch work on goals like creativity shine These apps this deliver incredible experiences on watches tablets and more So the best multi device app want spotify Which I was just like, oh cool. They're highlighting Apps that do things in different things. Oh cool spotify the app that every one billion downloads cool I mean, good job that spotify did it and even though they laid off 17,000 people today, uh, we're 1700 people today, but um I was disappointed to see spotify get like the best Multi, you know, even though it's probably good. I don't use spotify, but so, um They also best for watches. What's that messenger? um And then best for tablets concepts sketch note and draw the sketching app, which is great on the tablet um best for chromebooks Flip a clip create 2d animation, which is very cool. I've seen this in action. That's really cool um And best for google tv, uh, they gave it to max of all the streaming apps They said max was the best one of them all, um, which I don't know if I agree with either, but there you go Um and bet and this one had me this one had me really What that's that for cars amazon prime video Uh, um, and so I needed I needed to I need to understand more why they like that um And they said all of our favorite shows and movies from amazon prime video hit the road this year And we couldn't be more excited. The streaming service is now available in select cars that google built in So whether we're charging our car and have some time to kill while we're parked We love exploring the app streaming library that includes movies shows etc Should you be watching amazon prime video in a car while you're driving? I don't think so. Well, they don't enable it. We're charging. Yeah It's probably like when you're parked and charging your e-v. Yeah, I love that android auto didn't win this But no and it's only available in select cars with google built in which is android automotive Yeah Yeah, so I thought that was a bit suspect but uh I too like that in the category of best for watches and best for uh auto the screenshots are still the phone one So we don't actually see what what sap looks like on the watch You just just trust us. What's up is great on the watch. We didn't Yeah, because they pulled their play store app the images. So, yeah Oh, man, so, um, I don't know I love these lists end of your list are always fun. Like I said, I always love to see what they uh What apps I've actually heard of but if you guys had to pick your favorite app of the year, what would it be? Hmm Yeah, it doesn't have to be a new app Beeper mini what do I use? Beeper mini Um, it's gonna cop out. Oh Recency guys cap cut because it saved me so much time editing shorts All right. Oh, that's awesome. That's a good one. There you go Are you using that like on like when you're going to like, you know, the different events and stuff and just want to do like a Yeah, yeah, 100% and like it auto translates what I'm saying into captions like it's so good It saves me so much time. How's the performance like on I mean, obviously you probably have a you know How's the performance in terms of like exporting and like uploading? It's really good I mean sometimes the export takes a little bit of time because I like to export into 4k and then upload to all the Different places that I upload my shorts and reels and tiktoks to but I I have to say like it's In terms of like integration onto like my s9 My tab or my pixel fold or my 8 pro like it works really good across all those platforms nice Um, I can say that now because I used to work I used to work on on adobe on a cap cut competitor And now I can just I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. I was using that one too and it kept on crashing on my pixel So we're What is the app called it's called cap cut Yes, I am I am sharing my hack for shorts right now like cap cut. It was made by the bite dance So depending on how you feel about that, but it's so good for This is how everybody who got famous on tiktok makes all their videos. It's cap cut. There you go. It's so cool Cool, I'm obsessed All right, so that's how I mean it will play by bite dance you you got to trust they know what they're doing when it comes to short form video Yeah, they really do Yeah, uh 4 by 4 stars in the google play store with over 500 million downloads. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah Um All right cap cut. That's a good one. That's a good pick. Um I mean, I feel like a lot of people would say beeper just before beeper mini Unless that was in the show I've been using obsidian which is like a writing app that That tries to keep all of your that that works offline Uh and has like a lot of plug a whole plug-in ecosystem. It does have some syncing It really is again kind of an app that focuses on security And privacy which is why they kind of focus on keeping your files offline if you want to and doing very specific things for syncing And the android app is pretty good. So of course markdown and all kinds of stuff. I like it I use it for the show Cool. Not really a hack because you know my my show prep is out as it is, but it's it's a good app I will chime in and give michelle a little more time to pick one. Um an app I started using an app I started using this year. Um Nothing to do with creating videos or prepping for the show, but rather to keep track of what tv shows i'm watching Uh show called tv time track shows and movies. This is the one that finally got it to work for me. Um, so basically, uh, I don't really ironically I don't use it to find out where stuff is streaming. I still use just watch for that that just watches better for it, but in terms of uh keeping track of what i'm actually watching Um and keeping a list of the shows that i'm you know, you know, not only will I tell it what shows i'm watching It will say when shows are cut when a new episode is coming I can check it to say i've watched it, you know, like and definitely have that that that history It also works for movies as well, but I mainly use it for tv So tv time is my pick there for sure. So um All right, michelle. How about you? I've amped enough for you I'm just gonna go with beeper mini beeper mini. All right fair. I mean, I have a lot of apps that I use But I haven't installed many new I haven't like Install any new apps and been using it for a long time as extensively beeper mini right It's only been a few days too. I've been using it like a lot Excellent All right, so that's apps of the year So if you've got an app that you enjoyed this year Please write in and tell us email. I'll set contact at android faithful Let us know your favorite android app or anything android related stuff that happened this year And we'll talk about it on our last shows of the episode last episodes of the year Like lot going on today. It's a bit of a busy show All right, we got we got a couple more things to talk about When some uh google keep stuff. Yeah some google keep. Okay. You need more more ai drinks are on deck because Google keep is getting is slowly getting that google ai powered list creator Coming in 95 95 google's apk insight team Played around with it a little bit and actually enabled it and gave us a little bit of a sneak peek of what it looks like so the This feature kind of previously codename magic list is actually in the latest version, but it's not enabled But those folks over the apk insight team enabled it And what they could tell us was a few things The notes ai integration or the keep notes rather ai integration is called quote help me create a list And that's how you enable it and it seems a given the text on a pop-up For beta for the beta testing program that appears in the app. It seems it will arrive as part of workspace labs And it does warn users specifically that if they want to test out this ai feature This is kind of like allowing ai to kind of help you generate lists Please don't give it any sensitive slash personal info because during the preview Any kind of like input might be sent and reviewed by human Testers or human like actual humans as part of kind of test testing and you know kind of Improving quality. So Yes, try it out, but don't don't don't expect any privacy there Just just have fun with it Ron, I think you're muted I would say don't expect any privacy period. So now just don't just just don't just don't put anything You wouldn't want anybody else to see in your lists But if you do decide to you know Give it a preview what you can see is the feature will appear As a new flooding action button a fab after creating a new note And it'll bring up a sheet and this sheet will give you at at this moment some suggested prompts Kind of like some just some ideas of how you can use this AI powered quote help me create a list And some of the suggestions that Kyle Bradshaw over at 9 to 5 google got Or things like things to do on a weekend in norlands classic movies to watch on a rainy day And like yes steps for brewing excellent coffee It's not the results results aren't perfect Kyle said that he asked for quote a shopping list for Cajun chicken alfredo pasta And the results weren't bad, but they had like redundant things like buying pre-made alfredo sauce But then still buying the butter and cream so You know take the results with a grain of salt as is you know the overarching You know warning slash, you know user tip with any kind of generative AI, but you know Once we get this AI powered help me create a list That's kind of generally how it will work and and and what it will give you a good starting point for You know creating your lists for vacation work home whatever you want. Uh, and yeah There you go. I love keep I My wife keeps my wife's on my phone by the way Confession time and she keeps our shopping list just in the notes app on the phone And I was like, you know, we I really should just put you on keep and we can share the list And that way we can you know do it. So I'm going to try to do that for for my side, so I don't know. I like the AI stuff. I think it's neat. I know everyone hates AI and the privacy implications, but I would totally use this so Jen and have you been chat GP team or barting or in some Yeah, I've tried it a little bit mostly to just give me some like outlines for videos or give me like a good idea of A comment that I can use on instagram whenever people check my instagram pictures But other than that like I haven't found it to be really Useful for my use cases whenever I'm working on youtube videos But in terms of using like google notes or keep keep which I currently use for a lot of my note taking and applications In terms of using that and having it just like generate a list for me I would definitely use that but I'm going to wait until it's a You know a little more secure If that ever happens with google. Yeah, I don't really want to do that, but you know, no not today All right, we got one last story to talk about and michelle. I feel like you're you're ongoing saga with webcams No, yeah Trials and tribulations of using your smartphone as a webcam So the folks over at android authority have discovered while digging through the latest update to the microsoft phone link beta app That there's code suggesting that you'll be able to use your smartphone as a camera another way to use your smartphone as a camera So there's some suggestions that this feature will allow you to Stream your camera from your phone to your pc Connect via microsoft phone link. Um install on your pc and your phone There's not many details about Exactly what device models will be supported whether or not it'll be available to any user who installs the app Or if it'll only be available on devices where the phone link app is pre-installed Which as we talked about on previous shows includes Samsung phones on our phones and now opo slash one plus devices on android 14 Um, but there are there are some hints that you'll be able to switch between the front and the back camera There'll be some controls like turning off auto framing and things like that But uh, we don't know exactly when this feature will allow the android authority Writer reached out to microsoft but did not receive a comment They didn't confirm or deny the out of the report, but it's in the android app. So it's probably coming. We just don't know when All right Cool, we'll be on look out for that. Um, I have a hard time getting excited about the microsoft link stuff Just because I just don't use windows. I don't like what you know like so But I recognize that there's a whole population that does so Um, all right, cool. Well, we are running long, but we're gonna wrap this up We do have a couple of a couple of quick feedbacky things from you the audience Um, and I will take this first email And ryan from garden grove writes in and says hey af crew Long time listener here like ryan. I don't like the buds that go in the ear canal Unfortunately, one of my beloved one plus buds is starting to fail. So i'm looking for a comfortable replacement What are you guys using any recommendations? Thanks for your help and love the new show ryan and garden grove And ryan I want to take this moment to plug and i'm not being paid by nothing, but I love the nothing ear stick Um, it is fantastic. It is not any ear. It's earbud style wireless bluetooth works fantastically Um, and just you know, I I can't recommend it more. Mine broke. I sent it back to them. They fixed it and it's all set from there Um under warranty like it was great. It was a great experience. So nothing is getting something right As far as I'm concerned. Uh, when are you still using the nothing stick? I would be but I lost them at my sister's house So I decided to Um, and I I love the ear sticks a lot I think that the case is really an innovative design very fun very tactile and yeah the ear the ear sticks worked well Very well, um, but then I started to try the ear twos instead just because uh The one the one thing I had against the ear stick was like when I work out I tend to fly out of my ears So I got the ear stick because they are more they are in ear Sorry, I got I got the earbud twos because they're actually in ear and they stay in But I mean and I have a not that you wanted them But I think nothing's ear products are great. So would also recommend the ear stick Loved it. I just just tried something else. Actually, it probably was the fastest thing that shipped on amazon I know that's horrible, but that's that's probably why I got the ear twos Shannon, are you an in-ear person or earbud person? Oh, well, what do you think? For for the audio listeners, I'm currently wearing a pair of sony headphones and they're amazing The bleach youth compatibility is great and they the battery lasts forever. So I think these are the They have such a long name xm Yeah, I I always mix it up. I just say xm3 xm4 xm5. Yeah, one of those it goes over year year And they're very padded and comfortable. Um, when it in terms of In-ear, I usually use my what do I use samsung buds pro or the google big Google pixel buds pro those are generally the ones that I switch between And michelle, what is your choices while you're nodding or what do you you go with? Uh, I mean I use Right now. I'm using the sony wh Cole dash But I also use the samsung galaxy buds 2 pro Recently got those a couple of weeks back I I will take this moment to also plug my wired earbuds that I use on the show That are sony earbuds that I believe are 7.99 on amazon And plug in via an old courage is that uh seven dollars seven dollars and 99 cents and okay I swear by these suckers to the point where when I run like I'm running a half marathon in january I won't use the ear sticks I will wear these with an adapter to my phone because like my fear is that like in the middle of a of a two and a half Two hour run. Hopefully two hour run More likely a two and a half hour run. Uh, that something happens with the with the uh, Bluetooth connection I'm there fiddling with my with my phone when I should be running so I'll go wired for those things I can do wired for these shows as well So oh, I I lost the ear sticks almost before I lost them forever I was in dia, uh Denver international airport and I was waiting for the train And I just noticed that I lost one of the the left earbud And so as I'm walking towards the train I'm just like hoping someone kicks it towards me someone did and I didn't put it back in my ear But I was tempted but yeah, just yes. That's just one thing Oh, man secure things when you're in motion. Yes, so in transit All right, and we got one last email And I I'm going to attempt to pronounce this name correctly Yehevni Bronikov emailed in just a heart emoji and the screenshot of his Spotify unwrapped And basically thanking us for being his top podcast of 2023 And thank you, Yehevni for listening and for choosing us to be your top podcast and if anybody else got Us as the top podcast in your Spotify raft, please email us at contact at android faithful We'd love to see it or love to hear about it And just that at all if you have any questions email us at contact android faithful.com Always good to hear from you all And that's going to wrap up the show for this week before We bid adieu to Shannon and do our whole plugging and everything I do want to remind everybody that we're going to attempt to do a best of this year So if you go to I have the url If you go to tiny url.com slash af best of 23 And we're going to put the link in the chat and the discord and the show notes and everything else We've only got a handful of submissions from folks And they're either like the first episode or the most recent episode So we know you all watched and listened to stuff So tell us your favorite episodes Tell us your favorite moments even if you don't know the time codes just email us or fill out the form Sorry fill out the form And we would love to hear from you because we're going to attempt to do a best of episode When we're off for the holidays, so please do that everybody But that is going to wrap everything up Shannon. Thank you so much for joining us Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. You're the best So where can everybody find you? youtube.com slash Shannon morris is the best place to find me. I recently posted my pixel 8 pro Full review. It's super super in depth and a lot of people hit it up, but you should definitely watch it as well Excellent I love your videos. You're doing you're doing great on the youtube for sure. Thank you. My editor is amazing She makes me look good Well, I love I love the fact that I mean just nothing. I mean Shannon, you know, I've known each other for Over a decade now like going back to the ref. Oh god. Yeah Yeah, yeah, like like pre pre 2010. We've known each other since back then Oh, you knew he has a baby and I love And I uh, I love you. I love your newfound friendship with win After you guys got put together on dtns, which is fantastic. So yeah, so uh, I love our little tech family that we've built together I do too It's awesome. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. We hope you'll join us again in 2024 Because you're awesome. So please come back. All right. So michelle. Tell the folks where I find you Aside from everywhere. That's actually everywhere. You know twigs Macedon threads telegram reddit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera at michelle ramon Um, if you want to support my work, you can join my patreon at patreon.com slash michelle ramon I also have a thriving discord community. I'm surprised by how many people actually comment on it every day We chat about google and andro stuff all the time um, so if you want to Join that group you can just support me for three bucks a month and Get access to some scoops that I will post hopefully more of soon If you want to check those out Excellent definitely support it. So we say support your dev support your press support your journalist support shannon support michelle Support us everybody support everybody please So when how can people support you? Just watch this just watch this show Be a patron for this show for now Uh, and yeah, if you are interested in android development, which is what I do is a day job You can visit my website round me typing dot com where I post any kind of talks that I do along with associated code And video and I'm on the social networks at queen code monkey. Um, and that's it Find me there Hooray, and I just I was still sharing my screen when I wanted to show everyone my instagram You go follow me at ronix. Oh, um Where I took a bunch of pictures with my pixel 8 pro of live music. So, um, there's my friend already But yeah, so go do that at instagram Blue sky mastodon. I'm trying to post on everything else. Um, so definitely go check that out And of course everyone, um, if you can go to android faithful.com Where you can subscribe to the show sign up get a link to the patreon get back episodes that sort of thing That's where you can find everything about android faithful And we're thankful for everybody who listens to this show week in week out We're super excited. We're coming down towards the end of the year But we've got so much more coming before we break for the holidays And we want to thank everybody for watching on youtube and on twitch And tune in every tuesday this podcast releases tuesday nights on your rss feeds And until that next time we'll see you then because we are android faithful