 Hey, welcome to Android Faithful, where we are your source for the week. Sorry, we're your source for the weekly. Sorry, my goodness, what's going on this week? Let's try that again. Welcome to Android Faithful. We're your weekly source for the latest news, hardware, and apps in the world of Android, even if sometimes we don't know where we are at what we're doing. Do you want to do that again? Yeah, let's do it again. Okay, cool. All right. My bad. I don't know. My brain just went somewhere else. Hey, listen, 18 episodes, we haven't had to redo an intro, so it's fine. Hey, well, congrats to me. Sorry, sorry, everyone. Let's start it. Welcome to Android Faithful, your weekly source for the latest news, hardware, and apps in the world of Android. I'm Wintwit Dow. And I'm Ron Richards. And I'm Michelle Ramon. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Good to see you in another week. Hey. Good to be on another week. Yep. 18, my lucky number. Yep, episode number 18, and we're super excited to have a new guest to welcome to the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome, Miriam. Welcome, Miriam. Thanks for having me, folks. I'm excited about this one. Yes, your first appearance on the new Android Faithful after the new podcast. You know, you were kind enough to have me on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, so I want to return the favor for sure. Thanks. So welcome. And for those who might not know who you are, where are you from, Miriam? Oh, it's complicated, but I'm mostly in San Francisco and in Vancouver, Canada. And I'm a long-time tech journalist and pundit and generally very cranky about everything. But I cover, I have a mobile and everything around mobile and mobility, too, like EVs and stuff. So yeah, check out my podcast sometime. We'll talk about that later. We've been podcasting for many, many years together. I know, all about Android, a bunch of other stuff. Exactly. So I'm glad to have you on the new show. That's awesome. Thank you. Cool, welcome. Well, before we get into the news, real quickly, we want to do a quick update on our Patreon. We wanted to thank everybody who's supporting us over at patreon.com slash android faithful. And we did want to let everyone know that we have a new perk that we've added at the base level, $5 a month, or you can go $10 or $20 a month, no matter what. We're gonna start giving shout-outs to you, the patrons. We realized that there's so many of you and you're so awesome. So we wanted to thank each one of you on each episode. So listen in a little bit when we get to the patron news story, our first shout-out will occur. And if you want to get a shout-out on the show, you can go to patreon.com slash android faithful. But with that, we can get right into it and very excited whenever we have numbers to talk about. But the numbers are interesting this time around. Basically, as we look at sales numbers in Q3 2023, comparing them to Q3 2022, we see that Samsung, Google, TCL all had declines and smartphones shipped in the United States year over year. Basically, an Apple was also in there with a modest loss, as they say here on Android Authority. And the really the only people who had wins were Motorola and HMD Global, who shipped more phones during that time. So what do we think of this? I mean, Miriam, you're covering this stuff all the time. You know, like are the newest flagship phones just lasting longer? Or is it an effect of inflation and people have less money to spend? Like what do you think here? All of this. And if you look at the brands there, Moto and Nokia or HMD, they make mid-range and budget phones, right? So this is not North America we're looking at there. I think this is, if we're looking at North America, it's basically the prepaid carriers that are making that happen. And if we're not looking at North America, it's Latin America and other markets, right? But here's the thing, you said it's US, so I think it's definitely the prepaid. The thing is this, right? Like look, most big phone makers now are what, four years of updates, maybe up to seven years in some cases. And then five years of security, this is good. This is good for everyone. But look, the reality is this, I'm lazy, I'm selling a Pixel 6 Pro, yet I have a 7 Pro in my bag and an 8 Pro that I'm about to set up and finally replace my 6 Pro with. Why? I don't wanna change, I get a phone a week or so and I don't have time to change my SIM and everything, all my apps, all my banking, all my Tesla and everything else. So even I feel like I'm perfectly happy with a two year old phone, right? So the reality is I think a lot of people in that boat and then you're right, inflation, like it's really expensive. Like, we're all super into new phones here and I don't want anybody to stop enjoying their new phones. Like I'm loving the open, for example, but at the same time, it's pretty reasonable to expect for people to keep a phone two to three years now, especially with these updates, especially since things are kind of not really evolving too much, I think cameras are still really evolving fast, but the rest of it, you know, like every phone has stereo speakers, every phone has a beautiful AMOLED variable, you know, refresh rate display, every, well maybe not the iPhone 15, 60 Hertz. But I mean, you know what I'm saying, right? Like I think that the baseline, even the battery on my six pro is still holding up after two years and lots of wireless charging that heats up. It's a little slower, it's a little warm, you know, I'm ready to go to the eight pro and I'm about to do it like in the next couple of days, before media tech summit is my goal. But the point is, you know, I didn't switch to seven pros simply because I didn't have time, I wanted to, but I know here we are a year later and I didn't do it, right? So I used it, I took tons of photos with it. I had it in my bag all the time for all my product photography. So I think that's what we're seeing here. Yeah, no, I definitely, I agree. I mean, Michelle, what's your take on this? I mean, yeah, I definitely think the number one factor is the economy. Like that's the reason why everything, it's not just phones that are declining in sales, it's also laptops, tablets and all these other things that were kind of on the upward trend during COVID because everyone had a lot of money to spend and they're staying home and not, you know, spending money on travel and all the other expenses. But now that the economy is kind of, you know, in this odd state where a lot of, some people are doing well, a lot of people are not doing well, so much high inflation, people just are not spending as much money as they used to on things they don't really need, which is upgrading their phone. Yep. Is it fair to expect maybe a Q4 bump? I mean, I don't think that much, not much is gonna change from now on Christmas of anything else to make Christmas, you know, the holiday season harder, but is there usually a bumper on Q4? The challenge with that, I think there is a bumper on Q4 with holidays and things like that, but the challenge also with these quarter, year over year quarterly looks is that you need to account for the release schedules, right? Because what happens is that a new phone comes out and you see a huge surge in, you know, people buying to get that new phone and stuff like that. And sometimes those numbers don't get reflected until Q4 if they come out in the fall, you know, like, and so like Q3 is normally summer, it's a quiet time for phone releases, you know, like we saw, we've seen Google, Google had a pickup in Q2 this year because of the Pixel Fold because they released the phone in the spring, right? And so it depends on that too. There's all these different kind of variables. It's, numbers are always fascinating, but speaking of numbers, we have an additional bit of numbers in that, you know, I love it when a new entry, not a new player enters the arena, but the Chinese company Transition, which is the holding company behind brands like Infinix, Itel and phones that we've been talking a lot about here on the show recently, Techno, right? Remember when we saw those foldable things like that from Techno? They've quietly grown and actually in worldwide shipments taken over Vivo and are becoming a player. And honestly, if you've been looking at this chart and this from Canalis chart that shows shipments from Q1 2021 to Q3 2023, you see Transition, you know, plugging along there at the bottom and then shooting up in Q2 and Q3 2023, being competitive with Oppo or Oppo, right? Like, you know, which is, you know, not easy. You know, like that's a pretty nice big spike from five to close to 10% of the market share. Miriam, do you have any, have you played with any Transition phones, Techno? Yeah, so I've got a whole bunch of Infinix and Techno phones, they keep sending them to me and I love them. Software is the only thing that's kind of wonky, right? It's like seeing Chinese phones from five years ago, it's kind of the same thing. Like, it's only gonna get better, but the hardware is really great and of course there's issues with bands in North America because they're primary markets are like Africa and Middle East and Eastern Europe and like India and stuff. But look, I think they're getting certainly better. I've been following them for about three, four years now, like for a while and like in the early days, it was like all these mid-range, you know, Helio based 4G phones like that and then they started adding OLED and they started adding 5G and I started adding better cameras and OIS and stuff and wireless charging and crazy some, the highest charge, the fastest charging phone in the world is I think a Techno at 260 watt, right? So my point is they're doing some cool stuff. The software, it's very, you know, you're not gonna get updates, you're not gonna get security updates, you're gonna get some mistranslations. Think about what China was like in the early days, basically and think about even like what red magic is like today. That's the brand you can buy here, that's supported here, that makes some great gaming phones and still there's always mistranslations. There's always weird stuff in the software. I'm sure Michelle could go on about this. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I mean, I've never personally, I haven't used any Trenchin phones for many of their sub brands, but yeah, in general, there's a lot of quirks with the software that you gotta get used to if you're using something that's, you know, from OnePlus, OPPO or many of the Chinese brands. I would love to get my hands on one of those tech notes. So like some of that, right, when like both of us were like, ooh, these look really cool. So yeah, we'll have to chase those down. But all right. All right, so enough numbers. We got some meat to talk about back in the course. All right, Michelle. Yeah, so today is actually the second day of the big Epic v. Google trial, which is, you know, Epic's suing Google over alleged anti-competitive practices and they're trying to get Google to open up the Play Store for alternative payment processing. Lots of open up Android for alternative app stores to reduce Google's deal making that they've been doing with other OEM. So this trial, Sean Hollister at The Verge, has been doing a great job keeping up with the trial and reporting on it from the actual, you know, the actual trial day. And one of the big differences that you should know about this trial versus the Epic v. Apple trial is that the Epic v. Google trial is being decided by a jury, whereas the Epic v. Apple trial was decided by a judge. So we don't know exactly how that'll play out. That could make a significant difference in how it's decided. But again, this is only day two of the trial. There hasn't been any outcome yet. But there's been a lot of arguments being fun around on both sides about, you know, whether or not Epic is the bad guy or Google is the bad guy. So let's start with a couple of things that Epic has been saying. So Epic has been saying that Google Play Store in the year 2020 accounted for 90% of all app installs on Android devices. And Epic says that even though Google says that Samsung's app store is installed on 60% of all phones, it still only represents a tiny sliver of the overall app installs from app stores. And Google says this is because users are just choosing not to use Samsung's Galaxy Store and that this is proof that, you know, there are alternatives to the Google Play Store and Android devices, but just users choosing to use our store over and others. Epic is also arguing that Google makes it way too difficult to sideload apps. They showed off this screen where they had the 16 step process to sideload an app. And I do want to note though that a lot of these steps are kind of self-inflicted because Epic is first asking you to install the Epic Game Store app. And then that is asking you to sideload the Fortnite app. And then also they showed off one screen where you have to grant a bunch of permissions to Fortnite before you can install it. And that's also the fault of Epic because that's only because they're targeting an older Android version. So it kind of feels like they're inflating the number of steps required to sideload an app. I mean, it is true. You do have to go through a bunch of permissions. Of course they are. It behooves, I mean, much like the Google antitrust case that's happening right now where the prosecution on the other side is trying to show how hard it is to change your default search engine on phones, right? They're going to make it show the path of most resistance to prove the point, right? Absolutely. So a couple other things they brought up. They brought up this project hug, which in which Google allegedly made deals with multiple game developers to secure them from leaving Google Play. This supposedly involved deal making, like offering incentives or potentially financial incentives. It's several top game makers like Activision Blizzard or Riot Games. And the allegation is that Google was scared of a contagion effect of top game developers leaving the market. Although it's debatable whether or not how serious some of them actually were in going through with this. And then finally, Epic argued that Google's anti-steering provision is anti-competitive. Anti-steering being that Google basically says if you're distributing your app on Google Play, you can't mention or link to alternative payment processes, alternative payment methods on your website or like an email or things like that. And this is actually one thing that this is the only thing that Epic won when they sued Apple on. The judge in that case ruled that Apple's anti-steering provision was struck down. But although that decision is being put on hold. So whether or not Epic actually has a chance of winning this case is kind of up in the air because they lost most of what they sued Apple over. And their case against Google is even shakier considering Google does allow you to side load apps. There are alternative app stores available on Android. And of course, Google had some of its own arguments to share. They argued that side loading is for security because a lot of malware is distributed via side loading. They argued that their anti-fragmentation agreement is necessary because if you allow OEMs to fork Android and make whatever modifications they want, then there's no guarantee that developers who are making apps can have their apps run the same on all Android devices. They also argued that their revenue sharing fee is a market fee and not a monopoly fee. And that other payment providers like other platforms like Nintendo, Xbox, Steam, et cetera, charge the same. And that they're not PayPal or Stripe because they do more than just process payments. They also help users discover apps, spend money on them, and deliver the downloads. They also provide tools, assistance to users, and all these other things. So they're basically saying this 30% is justifiable because you're getting more than just payment processing. And also, most developers don't even pay 30% because most developers earn under $1 million in revenue and for those developers, they only have to pay 15%. And then there was a lot of other arguments that Google was making in their defense against Epic. And I will say, I want to add in because we're looking at here for, on our video viewers, we see their Googles like closest to official statement about this, kind of where their VP of governor affairs and public policy has a whole piece about maintaining choice and opportunity to Android, Google Play. And they outline all those bullet points, Michelle, that you mentioned, but of course they end with this lawsuit risks making Android less safe, right? Which I feel like is always their defense of anything that's questioning what they're doing because they're, and maybe they're right. I mean, like, if they're elevating the users and the safety of the platform above all, but at what cost and how far is too far and all that sort of stuff. A lot of interesting questions, right? Yeah, yeah, the question is all like, there's a lot of question about intent and intentions because Epic is really trying to hammer in that, you know, Google is saying this in public, but in private, they have all these communications that are being hidden or censored and whether or not that will actually fly, whether or not that actually makes a difference. And to the end user, it is good for the user to go through one single payment provider and one single app store. A lot of users like, like you see the same thing with the Apple side, a lot of users actually like having to go through the app store and having that payment provider as a single, you know, Apple payments and everything. A lot of users like having that option just having to do that. And we'll have to see whether or not that the jury agrees with Epic or Google in this case. Although it seems like, you know, based on their failure in the Apple case, they probably have a tough uphill battle to climb. Right, but at the same time, you've got an antitrust case happening that I gotta imagine juries are aware of or at least it's hard to find a jury that isn't, you know, like, I don't know. It's just an interesting time for these lawsuits for Google. I don't know, we're two days in, right? So we have no idea how it's gonna go and whatnot, but it's a lot. I don't know. When? We'll see. I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a little bit reading the official statement a little bit. Just rolled my eyes a little bit, but I mean, I guess we'll see. We'll see. Sorry, it's just really interesting to have two weeks in a row, having all of these cases kind of come to bear and having to kind of sing on how many different friends Google can say, no, really, we're not evil, we swear, you know? And I guess, again, it's interesting. I did roll my eyes a little bit. All due respect, that's kind of opposite to what I'm saying, but I had not great feelings reading that statement, but we'll see. Miriam, you lit up when said she rolled her eyes. I mean, the whole thing is just a load of BS, you know? I mean, I just look like, I understand, like, okay, look, Google is evil, we know that. I mean, they're not, you know, nobody is really, I don't think Epic is much better, honestly. I think the use of the word evil is subjective because I think Google is- We're talking about businesses that want- I know Epic games, right? I'm not saying like evil per se, I'm just saying like, it's capitalism, guys. Yeah, 100%. And that's why it's a non-issue. Like, I'm actually rooting for the user and the average user doesn't want to deal with side loading, I'm sorry, okay? True. Like, I'll do it, you all will do it, but like the people listening here are all gonna do it, but like, should the average person do that? The friction is insane. And, you know, yeah, you know, like the whole, I get it, like Apple's making a cut, Google's making a cut, all this, but that's why they're upset, Epic, because they don't want to pay the cut. Well, guess what, you know what? That's a tax, that's a tax. The tax of doing business with the big boys, okay? You're not the big boy, Epic. You know, compared to those guys. And I don't know, look, whatever comes out of this, I don't think it's gonna, as long as it benefits the end user, I'm happy. You know, that's all. And right now on Google, it doesn't matter anyway. I mean, I hope they don't take it out of the Play Store because I'd be stupid, but I'm hoping that, you know, for Apple, it's a big deal because I'm more worried about the EU coming along and saying you have to let people side load on iOS. And then what? And then what kind of disaster do we get after that? Because, you know, who's gonna, who are the hackers gonna target? Not the Android users. Right, that's true. Yeah, I think just having this starting out with a singular, you know, everyone has access to this singular App Store is really good for the user because if you see this alternative situation, like, Microsoft tried, and they're still trying to get people to use at Microsoft the Windows App Store, but very few popular apps are actually distributed and you download it through the Microsoft App Store. So you see now everyone's just downloading executables from the internet, from different websites, and occasionally getting tricked and installing the wrong executable from the wrong website. And so, you know, it is better for the user, for the average user to have access to this one App Store if you can get all their apps from. Yeah, so. All right, well, we'll be monitoring it. We'll see how it goes. We wish everyone luck in the trial, I don't know. I'm not for the jury, honestly. Yeah, I mean, there's so many challenges that the lawyer's job now is to simplify this and make a jury understand exactly what's happening in very technical, very economic, very, like, all this sort of stuff. It's, I mean, it would be amazing. It would be fascinating to be a jury on that trial, but it would be exhausting, so. Well, yeah, I'm sorry, but we've got a little more corporate tea before we do some more fun stuff, and I pushed for this. And talking about the kind of difference between the front that a company puts and then their actual business directions. So it came out in a November 1st article in Bloomberg that Apple had actually pretty much come very close to completing an Apple Watch, Apple Watch compatibility with Android. This was called Project Fennel. And, you know, the article itself was basically about Apple's healthcare mission, which, you know, I'm not an Apple Watch user, but I know many, many very happy ones. And yeah, you know, healthcare, life quality is a big issue, a big kind of driver right now in like the mobile space. And so of course, you know, Apple's kind of in this article talking about other big ideas. And it's just kind of funny that, yeah, like Project Fennel, this project to make the Apple Watch compatible with Android was basically about bringing their, you know, health device to mark, you know, places where they have very little market share. But guess what? They killed it because, you know what? According to the source that spoke to Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett for this Bloomberg article, quote, if you gave up the watch to Android, you dilute the value of the watch to the iPhone. And basically the iPhone just drives, sorry, the opposite, the Apple Watch drives iPhone sales. And I included this, I really pushed for this because number one, I get it. You know what I mean? Like I think it's so funny because right now in Android, you know, we're still kind of trying to find, all the manufacturers and OEMs are trying to find their Apple Watch moment. They're one thing that will just cement wearables in the Android space. And they just can't keep up with Apple Watch. And I personally know many really good passionate Android devs who are using iPhones, quote, because of the watch, literally every single one of my friends that are on iOS user and an Android dev set because of the watch. So I just think this is interesting. And, you know, I just think it's also funny that they're all in on this like health mission. But, you know, for the business, we'll just keep the Apple Watch themselves. So anyway, I just wanted to include it to mention it because I think it's funny and no hate to my Android fam that use it because the watch, they get it, they get it. We're still working on it over here. Miriam, what do you think of the Apple Watch? I love it. I think it's the best wearable. You know, I worked for Pebble and I think it's the best wearable and I don't have one because I'm an Android user. Yeah. It's smart to keep it to itself. Would I want one? If anything, I'd love an Apple Watch Ultra. I really love how I like big watches. Right now I've got a Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, the one with the rotating bezel. And it's not the right size for my wrist. You know, that's why I wear it. And also it's probably one of the best along with the Pixel Watch 2 and, you know, the Apple Watch. I think there was a time, and there is a time in a way today where, you know, you can install Apple Music on an Android phone. So, you know, why is that? Like, that's weird to me, right? Like, honestly, it really is weird to me because like- Where's the line? Music is a universal thing. If you have potentially arguably the best music service, I'm a YouTube music user, but every time I use Apple Music, it's a really great experience. The UI is way better, in my opinion. I mean, if you look at Apple Music versus even Spotify, like, I think it could be considered the leader. And at the same time, it's available on Android. So it's weird to me that they're like making some exceptions but not, you know, they stop making iTunes or whatever. I guess it's called Music on the Mac now. I'm sitting in front of a Mac, you'd think I would know. You know, they did iTunes for Windows for a while. You know, for me, that was a gateway drug to getting an iPod, actually. Right, in 2001, back in the day. But look, in an ideal world, yes. I want that. In an ideal world, I also want iMessages for Android. In an ideal world, I want Apple to adopt RCS. In an ideal world, there are many things I want. I want to unicorn, I want dinosaur, yay! But look, the reality is this, is we all have an iPhone. I mean, maybe not all of you here, but a lot of people here, I bet have an iPhone. I keep an iPhone around. I just bought a 15 Pro Max because I was on an 11. And that's how long, I have four years on an iPhone. And I only use it for video recording. And I wanted to play with the camera. And because I live in Canada, part-time, I could get one of the SIM tray, oh yeah. So I got one. And you know, I always have one to try stuff out. And also I'm a Mac user, so it's nice to have the integration. Will it be my daily driver? Never. But I could buy an Apple Watch if I carry the iPhone around all the time. But nah, I would rather carry two Android phones, honestly. So I don't think I'm gonna buy one. But it's definitely something, I get why they didn't do in the end. This is a major, this is a major kind of like, you know, fly trap for, you know, for Apple, right? Yep, yep. It's definitely, yeah. I mean, it's the line of where they will play nice and won't play nice. And again, going back to Google and being evil is all driven by shareholder value and capitalism and all that. Don't worry, Apple is evil too. Everybody's evil. It's so funny because I mean, last week we were talking about the billions of dollar deals that they have between Apple and Google for the default search. But then here they're like, you know, we're not friends, but over here we're kind of buddies. And then yeah, but we want our own like proprietary app stores. And you know, it's just, it's very, it's very funny. Yep, for sure. These are big companies with many different teams and divisions working on them. True, left hand, right hand. Potentially different priorities, you know. Yep. So all right, cool. Well, that's gonna wrap up the news but we've got one more news story to talk about. The aforementioned, that we mentioned at the top of the show every week are patrons over on patreon.patreon.com slash android faithful. Ken vote for a story for us to talk about each week. And it was laughing all day as I was watching the votes come in because the low, I'll do it from bottom up or the lowest vote getter was the Samsung S24 targets Apple with AI. That got 16% of the vote. Second, with 33% of the vote was pixel eight users reporting poor battery life. But the number one story this week with 51% of the vote is all about how the pixel weather app is driven by AI and with an in-depth report on metnet three that powers Google's 12 hour forecast and the new pixel weather app. And I gotta tell you, I love the Android community especially our Android community's interest in the weather app. Whenever weather comes up, it's the winner. Weather's where it's at. But yeah, but if you're interested in this, 95 Google has a great breakdown of going actually where Google broke down and introduced to the world through their research blog metnet three, which is the state-of-the-art neural weather model that they're using in Google's weather products. And that is what is driving when it's gonna rain, the forecasting, all the stuff in the new app and it's all driven by machine learning and AI, right? That's the whole thing. It says, you know, some data sources such as weather observations and radar of characteristics similar to a continuous stream of data while others such as NWP assimilations are similar to batches of data. The system is able to align all of these data sources spatially and temporarily allowing the model to create an updated understanding for the next 12 hours of precipitation at a very high cadence. So this functionality in Nowcast is available in the US as well as 27 countries in Europe. And basically Google is very, they're very hyped on metnet three. They say it has the potential to create new possibilities for weather forecasting and to improve the safety and efficiency of many activities such as transportation, agriculture and energy production. So if you were curious at how Google knows it's gonna rain, it's metnet three. That's for sure, which is just too funny. I like the new weather app. I mean, I don't know if you guys had a chance to play with it or not. I think it's great. I love the Nowcast feature. Yeah, I've seen it a few times. Yeah, so do we need to add, is weather widgets on our Android faithful drinking game? Because I think it is. I think just weather apps in general. Weather apps is weather. Weather apps, widgets, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, so. Nice. Speaking of apps, it's not even technically an app. It's still built into the Google app and you still have to like stretch for weather then add it as a home screen shortcut. I still don't know why Google hasn't released an app on Google Play that just a shortcut to it. Like they did with podcasts and assistant and lens. Like I would really like for them to add that so people can just stretch for weather and get it right there and just open it all the time. I will say while we're complaining, I have been very frustrated with Android 14 because they've combined up here in the little top widget, your calendar and weather and the tap space to get to weather is micro, right? I end up on the calendar app more often than the weather, right? And that's actually against material design guidelines, by the way, you need 48 density independent pixels for each touch target. So I don't know, somebody file a ticket somewhere. There it is. Have you considered it's just a single touch target and AI is deciding whether you should be in your calendar? Yeah, whether I should be in my calendar. What will irritate my user most right now? The AI definitely knows better, especially when it comes to weather. But excellent, so that was the patron pick and we wanna give a shout out to Bob Coborn, Bob Coborn who has been a loyal listener for the past four months. And we wanna thank Bob for his support. Thank you, Bob. So thank you, Bob, you're the best. Thanks for supporting Android Faithful. And with that, we're gonna get into some hardware because we got a lot of hardware to talk about. And first up is we've been very bullish on the OnePlus Open, right? OnePlus Open is very cool. It's a must. But it was revealed last week that the whole Open Canvas system, the multitasking system, OnePlus is promising that it's gonna come to the OnePlus pad. So those of us who've been using the OnePlus Open and the Open Canvas system for multitasking, if you're planning on getting the OnePlus pad, you will also be able to use Open Canvas, which is great news because, and also not surprising because if they've come up with a, this should be the way multitasking is handled on OnePlus devices, it makes sense for them to bring it to the tablet. But they did a AMA on Reddit where they confirmed that they are working on bringing Open Canvas to the OnePlus pad. So no word on when that's gonna happen, but it was confirmed on their side. So Miriam, both Michelle and I had the pleasure of seeing you at the OnePlus event in New York a couple of weeks ago. I was mad. Do you remember? Yes. Yes. It's been a couple of weeks and bargos are lifted. Very curious what you think of the OnePlus Open. I know you reviewed it on your podcast recently. Yeah, and also my review on hot hardware. If you want to go to hothardware.com, you can watch the video there and the actual 3000 word review, guys. Cause you know, I had words to say, look, I love it. I love it. I love it. And I was mad because the lack of wireless charging. I'm still mad because the lack of wireless charging, but I've been able to excuse it because this phone is so good. I think it's definitely up there in my top five 2023. And it's for me open the floodgates to I want a bookstore folding phone in my life. It's the first one. And I tell you what, like I've got them all. Like, you know, that's a big step. I've got the Pixel Fold. I've got the Z Fold 5. I've had the previous Z Folds. I've had some of the Chinese ones. And this is it. This is sticking like glue for me. And that's a tall order for a OnePlus phone. I mean, I love me a OnePlus. You know, I'm an underdog lover. You know that. And I've always been a big fan of OnePlus, but I've only daily driven a OnePlus 8 Pro once before because it was the first with wireless charging and I need my wireless charging. But this one's coming very close. I definitely have it as a second phone in my pocket all the time. And I'm using it as a way to be more productive, especially on airplanes and stuff. I travel so much and, you know, I'm a big person and yes, I get upgraded a lot because I got status and stuff. So I travel business a lot, but sometimes I'm stuck in economy still. And even my 13 inch MacBook Air is just not gonna cut it on that tray table. And I don't wanna carry an extra tablet and then have to worry about, is it charged? Do I have my content on there? No, I just pull out the open and I'm happy as a clam. So I think it's the multitasking that does it for me. I think it's also the fact that the display has a bit of an anti-glare coating. I think it's the form factor when shut. You know, it just feels like a small flagship. I think it's the camera is the first OnePlus camera where I feel like I'm not losing out. Like, you know, and it's come close a few times, but it's really good. It's up there, like it's not quite Pixel 8 Pro. It's not quite, you know, Galaxy S23 Ultra. It's not quite iPhone 15 Pro Max, but it's damn close. And you know, you can't say that about Moto, for example, right? And they're the only other kind of player we have other than Google, Samsung, Apple and OnePlus in this part of the world, unfortunately. Now, there are a lot of Chinese folding phones that I love and I've used, you know, some of them are super thin in light, like the Magic V2 from Honor. And Xiaomi makes some good stuff. Apple, of course, you know, they're essentially, this is an Apple, right? This is the Apple Finance 3. It's in the other case, guys, because I don't trust myself enough. But here's the thing, right? Like, I think they nailed it. And I think that it's a small price between a lot of wireless charging. If you look at how thick the camera pot is, it's kind of like, where do you put it to charge it wirelessly? Like maybe on a charger that's like this and you put the phone down like that. You know, that might work. Like if it coils down there, I definitely want them to resolve this somehow in the next generation. But right now, I think that, you know, if you're looking for a folding phone and you want something a little different, the Pixel Fold is great, but it's G2, G2 sucks. And it's heavy, really heavy. And I love the passport form factor though and the cameras are great. But then there is Pixel. I've never liked the Folds from Galaxy, from Samsung. Like they're tall and skinny and thick and unwieldy. I just want to throw them against the wall every time I have one in my hand. It's like, get out of here. We talked a lot about how the Samsung Fold and the Pixel Fold were like too small, too fat and like the OnePlus Open feels just right in terms of the size, you know? It's like an aspect of Radio Slider and the Fold is on this side and the Pixel Fold and then OnePlus just like right in the middle. And then the software doesn't suck. It's all speedy. You got a great chip set there. You can't go wrong with that. Lots of storage and RAM too, like no skimping. I don't understand like, look, I love me some, I love me some reviews out there that are critical. And you know, I've seen some critical OnePlus Open reviews. I'm not gonna name names, but you know, big publications. And you know, from writers that I trust and like and am friends with, and I'm like, what kind of pill did you have before you wrote this review? Because I'm like, you know, you look at the fact that this is essentially a $14.99 phone. Like all day, as we were joking around at the event, you can light a phone on fire and send it in and get $200, okay? So like, you gotta get your $200 off. And on top of that, you're getting, you know, 16 gigs and what, 512 gigs, you know, storage and RAM. And you're getting, you know, basically a really great phone all around. It's like, how is that not a good thing? Like, I don't know. I wanna encourage people to buy something else in a Samsung or an iPhone. So there you go. That's your solution right there. Yeah. All right. I could go on. Cool. Well, speaking of Samsung, we got some insight into them, right? Yeah, we do actually. So we kind of had a very interesting up and down few years with Exynos and Snapdragon. So of course, in the Samsung S22 series, as many Android 5th were familiar, Samsung was split processor duties between their in-house Exynos chips and the Snapdragon or the Qualcomm Snapdragon, the last time that happened was the S22 with their in-house Exynos 2200 chips and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 being in your S22, depending on your region, you know, like us folks in the Americas had, I think they had the Snapdragon and mostly Europe and parts of Asia and Africa got the Exynos, Exynos. Sorry, I had this problem last time we talked about Exynos a lot. But, you know, as... Sean Connery. Sean Connery, like Snapdragon and Exynos. Okay, anyway, but as many Android people are aware, Samsung kind of flipped the table a little bit on their Exynos line and basically tanked or kind of nuked the 2300 after reports of overheating in the Exynos 2200 and focused instead on the 2400. And that meant that the S23 series was all Snapdragon all the time. And I think somehow, I think we kind of wondered out loud whether this might be a perma thing, whether they're just going to go ahead and ride on Snapdragon's recent successes, but guess what now? Unsurprisingly, they were working on that 2400 and for the S24 series, it wasn't a proper announcement, but it was more just the Qualcomm CEO, Christiana Aman saying, yes, we expect to have the majority share of the S24 processors, which again, implies that they don't got it all, which implies that Samsung will in fact be coming back with the Exynos 2400, which has a lot of AI in it. There's your drink. And it will, depending on what market you're in and actually what model of S24 you're buying, at least as rumors go for now, you'll be getting either your Exynos or your Snapdragon HN3. So far the rumors are S24 and S24 plus will have the Exynos outside of North America. All of North America will have the Snapdragon HN3 and the S24 Ultra will indeed be all Snapdragon all the time. So we'll have to see how that all shakeshot for Exynos, but there you go. I actually couldn't stop doing it after it started happening. You're on a roll. You wouldn't stop. Oh, there we go. That's freaking amazing. Well, thanks. Go after you, Michelle. No, no, no, go ahead. I was gonna say, Mary, Michelle, how much does this matter to the average user? What's his line? It doesn't, but it does because the Exynos gets hot and has crappy 5G reception. So I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't, look. I don't know. I think here's the thing. I think it's a yield thing. And maybe Michelle can confirm this. Four nanometer, right? Or is it three? Where are we at with the Snapdragon? It's four. I think there are four. That's four. Okay. So maybe not a yield issue, but I'm thinking if, you know, TSMC is making all these chips for everyone and they're also busy making chips for Apple, right? The three nanometer chips, the M3 and stuff. Like their foundries are like cranked up to 11. And so maybe, maybe, you know, Samsung's predicted that they're gonna sell more of the S24 because, you know, they keep hoping that the flagships are gonna sell and we know that's not gonna happen. But, and so they're like, okay, we need some Exynosis. So how do we make this palatable and making it palatable means that some markets aside from the ultra are getting the Exynos. And I can see that, but it's gonna be a disappointment for those of you who have it. I'm sorry to tell you. If it was the MNC-9300, I'd be fine. All right. Well, this is a good segue into the MediaTek news, right? Yeah, I hope y'all aren't actually doing a drink every time someone says AI, because if you are, then you're gonna be drinking a lot. Oh no. Oh boy. So MediaTek announced the Dimensity 9300 earlier today or was it yesterday? My time is a blur right now. And while they did talk a lot about generative AI, just like Qualcomm did the Snapdragon 8 III, the most surprising thing is actually with the new CPU setup in this chipset. So the Dimensity 9300 has a 4 plus 4 CPU setup. So they have four Cortex X4 cores and four Cortex A720 cores. And this is a bit unusual because there aren't any of those usual lower performance power efficient Cortex A500 series cores. And for reference, the Dimensity 9200, which is a previous generation chipset have four A510 cores. And this generation Snapdragon 8 Gen III has two 5A20 cores. So does this mean that the new Dimensity 9300 will suck up more power and just be less power efficient in general? Not necessarily. And it's true that the A500 series cores do use less power at their lower frequencies, but they actually consume more power when they're running at their highest frequencies versus the A720 cores when those are running at their lower frequencies. And given that the 700 series cores tend to perform better overall, it's actually more beneficial to offload less demanding tasks to those cores, have them be completed more quickly compared to if they were offloaded to the A500 series cores, and then have the A700 series cores race to idle. So in general, like in CPU and power consumption, the faster you can quickly complete your task and have the CPU cores enter an idle state and spend more time in that idle state, the more power you can save. So that's basically the philosophy behind why you have this all big core setup. As for why we haven't really seen this done before with other Android flagship chipsets, it's mostly just because of the combination of factors that make it more viable now. Like ARM CPU designs, they've been steadily improving the performance per watt of their 700 CPU designs. And then there's also improved fabrication nodes with the TSMC now having their Thread Generation 4nm chips. And yeah, so that's some of the surprising thing about this chipset as a CPU. And there's also, of course, as I mentioned, generative AI improvements. The Dimensity 9300 upgraded APU, that's 45% reduced reduction in power consumption. They can run 7 billion parameter large language model at 20 tokens per second, which is fast enough for real-time use. And MediaTek even says something surprising. If you pair this chip with 24 gigabytes of RAM, which actually exists on some smartphones, you could run a 33 billion parameter large language model at a slower three to four token per second rate. Then there's also other improvements like the GPU upgraded with a 12 core Immortalis G720. This actually runs it up to a staggering 1300 megahertz. Then there's also, you know, the year on year performance improvements and power consumption reduction. Then there's also other stuff like ultra HDR image capture, support for ARM memory tagging extension, dedicated OIS sensor core and a whole bunch of other stuff. And this chipset, because it's a MediaTek chipset, we probably won't see it in any devices that are shipping in the US, any flagship devices anytime soon. We'll probably see devices launching in China, followed by a global launch in Europe sometime throughout 2024. Yeah, I've got a phone here with 24 gigs of RAM. It is the Realme GT5. And it is China only right now, 240 watt charging. It's the successor to GT3 they launched at MWC. But it's got 24 gigs of RAM and one terabyte of storage. Like, okay. But going back to what you were saying, I think it's interesting that they have like, basically get big, big designs instead of a big little design. And you know, the best analogy I can make for listeners that are maybe not as tech savvy as Michelle is that we, you know when 5G was, we were told it was gonna be more efficient? If you're an IoT user, like if you are a farmer that has a sensor out in the field that's connected with 5G to gather temperature or humidity or, you know, wind speed or whatever. It's not a lot of data, right? 5G seems like overkill. Why not use 3G or 4G? I mean, obviously those networks are disappearing, but say you have a 4G radio in there, like wouldn't that be enough? Well, it turns out that 5G, you kind of pull up your data because you don't necessarily need that data in real time. And then you send it out in bursts really fast because it's 5G and the efficiency on that sensor out in the field is infinitely better. So you get better, essentially battery life or if it's solar powered, you know, less use of energy for that sensor out there. And I think this is the equivalent type of thing. You know, and if you want to get more nerdy you can call this basically both with modulating the big cores, right? You're just sending bursts of tasks instead of like a continuous steady flow of efficiency core work, right? And I can see that being more efficient, especially because as Michelle said, we're gotten to a point where the big cores are actually very power efficient. So maybe this is a good approach. I think it's very interesting. And, you know, we discussed this before the podcast start. I think Apple's doing the same thing with M3, right? Or A17 Pro maybe, Michelle? I don't think, I don't, I don't know if we know exactly what their efficiency cores entail, but we know their M3 series is all big cores and also Snapdragon X Elite all big cores. So yeah, this is definitely the approach that is not, it's unusual in the Android space, in the Android like chipset space, but it's not unheard of. Right, cool. We'll definitely keep an eye on it and see how it all develops, right? So, excellent. All right, so we've got one last story here in hardware that Michelle, I know you're on the edge of your seat to talk about this one, eh? So speaking of unusual things, Lenovo this week announced a collaboration with three fashion designers for a proof of concept Lenovo Tab Wear Collection. So this collection features designs that find ways to incorporate Lenovo's tablets and audio listeners, you really have to go on Android authorities website and look at this article because we're trying to, I'm trying to keep a straight face now as I talk about this because the designs are just absurd. It's like a kangaroo pile to your tablet. They basically have these fashion designs, these like jackets and these clothes to where you can put a giant tablet in it. And I'm just reading this and I'm like, this is an argument for why we need book style foldables. Like nobody wants to carry around a tablet and have pockets big enough to carry around a 10 inch tablet. Like why not just carry around a foldable as small as the OnePlus O-Bone that can unfold into the tablet? I'm like, why does this exist? Who's gonna wear this? In Lenovo's defense, right? Fashion designers often push the limits, right? Like the whole idea of these experimental prototype, all this sort of stuff, they're not meant to be that practical, right? So you've got three fashion groups, one based in London, which did a normal looking kind of jacket hoodie thing with a big slot to put the tablet in front as well as like these straps that go around your neck that come down in front of you for you to pull the tablet out in front of you and be able to use it while attached to you, whatever. Not like your own like airline tray, but attached to your neck. It's really interesting. Then there was a Hong Kong based designer that as Andrea, the authority explained here went the cyberpunk route, which probably explains to you what it looks. It looks like out of anime, right? Like kind of like these weird kind of outfits that they would just, that they would slide the tablet into. But the one that has gotten the most length of here of course is from an Amsterdam based designer that created this pink jacket that also it has a pouch for the tablet, but also can inflate and turn into a hammock. I was gonna say, it looks like a deflated airbag. It literally is a deflated airbag because it can inflate and turn into a hammock that you can then use your tablet while laying on. It's very, very funny. Lenovo has a whole website called lenovo tabwear.com where you can go look at these in more detail and check them all out. And it's, you know, they're trying something and they're trying to give legitimacy to tablets, which, hey, I love tablets. You know, I love foldables, but I also love tablets. I like seeing something new in the space, I guess, right? Yeah, I mean- I think we'd be making- Go ahead, Michelle, please. I just, I'm just saying, I think we'd be making fun of this less if they came out with this like years before book style foldables and rollable concepts like enter the main, enter the tech mainstream. Yeah. I mean that the one, the Dutch one from the Amsterdam, yeah, it's not just inflatable. It has this kind of quilted bubble wrap-ness about it, which, by the way, makes means that you won't have to use a case or any protectors on your tablet. So, hey, like that might actually be the solution for people like Ron that, you know, don't want to muddy the beautiful industrial design of his phone with a case. You just have to put the protection on your clothing, Ron, and then you're good when you go out running. He looks really quite comfy, actually. I love the description. The description is a transforming all season hammock to create your, to create your, to create your me time cocoon anywhere. Oh, goodness. Disguised in an inflatable poncho. It looks like a chamois or whatever it was. I mean, it's very flurrant. It definitely is borderline SNL sketch, right? I just feel like we're not cool enough for this, guys. Yeah. If you have a chat right now and you're cool enough, please let us know. Yeah, seriously, the inflatable, the inflatable poncho to hammock is something I never thought I'd ever see. So me time cocoon is just, it just sums it all up. Excellent. So that's a good one. Wow. So is that the future of tablet wear? I don't know. Who knows? All right. Well, we got a little more practical stuff to talk about in the world of apps, right, when? Yeah. And so we talked about this a little bit, but messages for web is starting to roll out that new QR code lists pairing of your web and sometimes tablet devices to your messages on your Android phone. I actually tried this this afternoon. And yeah, it's still technically in beta. So if you're like me, I actually signed out of my messages unpairing. I'm willing to unpair for the Android faithful. That's the amount of love I have for y'all that I'll unpair. So basically what happened is when I unpaired, I went to the web. You can still see the old QR code, but there is now a banner underneath that says, hey, beta, you can sign in without a QR code. And it basically takes you to another screen where you confirm logging in with your Google account. And basically once you do that and you open up the Google messages app on your phone, it kind of automatically just communicates. And then it shows you three emojis in a bottom sheet coming up on your Android device that you need to basically tap the matching emoji from your to be paired browser window on your phone. And it was easy, peasy lemon squeezy. It's like longer to say it than it was to do it. Basically log in with your Google account, tap the matching emojis and go off into the sunset with your Google messages pairing on the web and tablets. I always knew that emojis would come in handy for authentication. Saving the world and people's security. So yeah. Clever uses of emoji. Miriam, I'm curious what SMS app you're messaging at these? Are you using messages? I use Google messages, yeah. I even install on these Chinese phones that I get like this. Talking of Dimensity 9200, this is the Xiaomi 13T Pro. It's a like branded second affordable flagships like the 10T or the 11. Well, there's no way that's true. We talked about it on. Yeah, you know the one. Anyway, it's completely like it came out early October and then they launched the Xiaomi 14, like late October. What gives Xiaomi? I haven't had time to review this yet. God. Anyway, yeah, I have it on there and I put it on my phone messages. I don't know. I just like it. I just like it because it works on the web. I like it because it supports RCS flawlessly. I like it because it's just great. It's just nice. It's funny how, you know, geez, five years ago like SMS apps was like a legitimate like, you know, textura, like all this sort of stuff. And I've just been on messages and it's just been, it's doing the job. I have a request if anybody from Google is listening, is there any way we could kind of like pin and lock which account you're using as your default because, you know, it's often, it's actually a general thing in Android. I've got three accounts going and like, you know, you sometimes accidentally swipe down and you change accounts. Like in Google Maps, you change accounts. All of a sudden you realize your entire search history is gone because, well, it hasn't followed you to your main account or whatever you wanted to use, right? So I'd love to pin like, Gmail is one that I don't want to pin because I check email on multiple accounts. But for things like maps or things like messages, wouldn't it be great to kind of say because this is the priority account unless I jump through a bunch of hoops to change it, do not let me change it? Yeah. If we're making a request, Google, can you bring back the message, the organization feature, the tag? Yes. Oh, the tag. Oh my God. I don't know why they got rid of that. I'm waiting for the next chapter of that story because hopefully it's worthwhile or something, but this is a great segue to the next story actually, Michelle, right? Yeah, so for those of you who use Google for maintaining a shopping list, you may have known that there's been multiple ways over the years to do it. There's Google Keep. There's also the Google Assistant Notes and there's also the Google Shopping List. And the last two ones, the Assistant Notes and Shopping List are being phased away in favor of Google Keep, which is kind of like going full circle because they launched Assistant Notes and Shopping List then they also announced like third party integrations for a shopping list creation through Assistant then they got rid of the third party Assistant creation and now we're back on Google Keep for everything, which kind of makes sense. This is, I think how it should have been done from the get-go instead of having this built-in shopping list web interface, you access through Google Assistant and then you can only really interact with through voice and then like the way to actually access Shopping List and the Shopping List item within the Google App was like a convoluted tap of steps, like multiple taps to get to it. And so like, I think this should have been done a long time ago, just having Google Keep handle all your notes and lists because that's literally what's designed for, it's an app for your lists. Yeah, and it's also Google what goes around, comes around, like, you know, like- Time is a flat circle. How often do we see that? Yeah. And at least this case, a Shopping List is such a simple thing that like- Simple function. It's so simple. It's such a simple function, right? The transfer migration process is basically CMOS and like you'll get a notification on your phone telling you that you should migrate from this one from your old system to the new Google Keep system. So hopefully, you know, this shouldn't upset many people because I mean, it's just a Shopping List, right? Like how, what kind of complex things are you doing with the Shopping List? Well- Why does somebody have an edge use case? Right, yeah, exactly, yeah. See what users come up with, that's for sure. Oh boy. All right, here's Google Keep and I love it. And, you know, and the only challenge is my spouse and I share some notes and they don't want to use the Keep interface. They don't want to go to keep.google.com. So they use it in the calendar next to, or email next to their, like as a sidebar and they don't get all the functionality. So we're always fighting. I'm like, come on, just use the Keep website or use the Keep app on your phone. And they're like, no, I don't want to, this is nicely integrated in my email or whatever calendar. It's just so funny because Google has so many ways of doing the same things, right? And that's exactly what we're talking about. Yep, and they're just slowly trying to find the right path and then in a couple of years bring it back to the one that they changed from and then bring it back or it was just, it's a carousel. Oh, I'm waiting for tasks now to pick up some kind of shopping list or to do list functionality. And actually the other day, I swear, either I was drunk or sleep apping, sleep app using smartphone using, I swear the tasks widget just appeared on a home screen on my phone and I never, never used it before. So anyway, I think that's maybe like, maybe that's how they're going to just start. Do you think that's- It was always there. You never noticed it. It was always there, yeah. Or there's a turf war internally and they're just trying to figure out who's going to win the get shit done war at Google, keep or tasks, I don't know. It's like reminders, right? You can set reminders when you talk to the assistant and then they don't appear anywhere. I mean, they do I think maybe somewhere but they don't appear where I want them to appear, which is my calendar. Like if I want to set a reminder, give me a calendar entry for it. Make it a special color so I know it's a reminder or something. Like that's what I need. Not like some hypothetical thing where I don't get a notification and I forget the reminder. It seems it's simple. It was a good mention in the chat from JJ that is Google turning into Microsoft because it sure seems like it. So, all right, well, one last story which I thought was really interesting. We don't talk about VR that often but this is a nice kind of cross section. There was a AMA with the Meta CTO recently and the question of the Google Play Store on the Quest came up. Basically what the Meta CTO said, I'll say verbatim from the Instagram AMA that happened to Andrew Bosworth, the CTO. He said there's nothing preventing Android developers have an APK that's running on Android phones today to bring them to VR. They just have to ship the APK to us. They may have to do some light modification depending on how they want the control screen to work but maybe not even necessarily much of that. He said we don't have any way of automatically ingesting those. We would love for Google to bring their Play Store of apps to VR. We've asked them, they don't wanna do it so it's up to developers to do that. So what you've got here is you've got Meta asking Google to bring the Play Store to the Quest environment and open up Android apps to users who are using Quest VR and Google doesn't want to. So if any Android developers are out there wanna be in Quest VR they have to bring the APK directly to them. I just thought that was interesting that for like, what does Google got to lose by not doing that? I guess especially after they gave up on Daydream and all that sort of stuff I don't know it just seems kinda silly. Well, I mean we don't know whether or not Meta like agreed or disagreed to the other terms that Google might have had for, if you want Google Play you gotta agree to these terms you gotta pay us this fee you gotta ship all these other apps. And we do know like Google did announce they're working with Samsung on an XROS and presumably that will have access to Google Play. So, we don't know exactly what was said behind the scenes with Meta and Google. I did think it was interesting coming out of AMA looking into it that Quest does support PWAs progressive web apps. And so that's interesting to see how that's kind of evolving. I also don't know anybody who has a Quest. I don't know anybody who's using it who's asking for this stuff. I'm sure they're out there, but yeah. Actually, the Quest 3 has been like blowing people's minds with how good its pass through is and like actually the resolution of the full color pass through. And like I see a lot of like really mind blowing clips from people on Twitter, formerly X. The other way around X formerly Twitter. Too funny. About the Quest 3 and I'm really impressed by what they've done with it. Cool. All right, maybe I have to check that out. So if you're using the Quest, email us in. You can email us at contact.androidfaiffle.com. Let us know what your experience has been. So, all right, let's go to wrap it up for apps. We're almost done with the show. We got a couple of emails though that we wanted to get to and when you've got the first one. Yeah, and the first one is from Jeff. Hey, Android faithful crew. I'm loving your show. I started listening to the old show back in 2012. I'm so glad you've created this new show for those of us that still want to keep up with the latest in Android. The show is as good as it's ever been and with even more enthusiasm. Even more. It's awesome. There's an enthusiasm for you. Very, very sincere. When it comes to Android hardware, I'm probably in the minority in that I buy my phones outright and I buy my service from one of those MVNOs. I won't pay more than $500 for a phone and even that is kind of steep for me. I know for high-end phones, it's the year of the foldable slash flippable, but how's the mid-range market shaping up? Is it growing or shrinking? What kind of choices do I have? What features are finally making their way into this range? What should I be looking out for in the coming year? I know you do discuss mid-range hardware as it's released, but I would love to hear any insights you might have about the segment as a whole and where it's heading. Thank you so much. And a shout-out to who into it now. Go Terps. Go Terps. And that's from Jeff, presumably a fellow Terps. Thanks, Jeff. I thought this question was great because Miriam, you're here and we were talking about mid-range earlier. So if you were going to recommend a mid-range phone to Jeff, what would your choice be? If you're in North America, Jeff, there's no, it's a no-brainer, Pixel 7a all day. I mean, you know, it's like affordable and it's got, it's essentially a flagship. If you look at the specs, it is a flagship, just missing a telephoto, but then that Pixel 8 doesn't have a telephoto either. So, you know, now it could be argued, you know, Pixel, it stretched your budget at a Pixel 8, but look, I have a soft spot for the 7a because the 7a is just so much more affordable. And I mean, if you want to be contrary, which I support 100% by this, which is the Moto Edge 2023. I was going to ask you about Moto, what your thought on it. I just got this in, I haven't set it up yet. It's, look, I think Moto, because it's beautiful phones, you know, leather, vegan leather, metal frame, you know, curved glass, which is not my favorite, but some people love it because it's narrow in hand. It's a small phone, 6.6 inches relatively. The only thing that's iffy on this is Mediatek 7030, which is a very much a mid-range chip, but and the camera, of course, imaging is not Moto's forte, but honestly, this phone for the money, it's $599 on sale for $499. That's like, it's got wireless charging, like everything. So I think these are your candidates, maybe one plus Nord N30 or 20, the previous one, the 20 I think is better value, because it's slightly cheaper and you get an OLED display. It's only 60 Hertz, but you still get an OLED, but that's kind of bringing you down more to the mid-range and not the kind of affordable flagship, which I think where these two phones are sitting. So I don't know, this is a North American view. I also have the Pocos and the Redmi's and the Realme's and the, you know, all the other ones here in my drawers, I could go dig one out and tell you what I think. Well, I want to get your take on a mid-range phone that I see a lot of blogs, stuff like that, are suggesting also nothing phone too, would you suggest that? Well, yeah, I mean, but it's a little pricey. It's a little pricey. It's on the top. One plus 11, it's a little pixel eight. This is the sign, 500 is its budget. I'm like, I'm going to respect that, right? Like we can all stretch a bit, but I think, you know, pixel seven is what? 499 all day long more or less and sometimes on sale or soon to sometimes be on sale because, you know, Google and this thing is currently on sale for 499. So even though it's let's 599. So I think, you know, look, there is always, again, if you want to save it a money, get that Nord N20 from a year ago. It's actually really solid phone, you know? But it's not good. It doesn't have wireless charge. It does a metal construction. You know, it's like a step down. So, you know. Oh, one plus and wireless charging. They keep, they keep, all right, cool. Well, Jeff, hopefully there's a suggestion for you. Email us back in, let us know what you net out on or what you choose if you're going to get a new mid-range phone. And our last email is a little interactive. So when Michelle, Miriam, I want everybody to get their phone, get your phones out and open up Chrome. And then I'll read the email then you know what we're going to do from there. So Brandon writes in, it says, real quick, I heard the guy last episode said he had 33 Chrome tabs open. At any given time, I have 75 to 100 tabs open. It's wild. I may not have a pixel, I may not have a pixel three, but I have a seven. I'm constantly having my phone freak out. And that's what I know. I need to close tabs. I wonder if anyone has more. So let's start with Wynn. How many tabs do you have open currently in Chrome? I only have 23. I actually am a good, I do good tab housekeeping these days, tab hygiene. And I actually just cleared out, well, I actually just cleared out yesterday. So I've already back up to 23. I don't know what's the, what the right answer is a high number or a low number, but Miriam, how many tabs do you have open currently? My pixel was in my main phone two. Okay. My one plus open one. All right. No, I clean up. I'm compulsive at cleaning up. You know, I've always wanted to go for light and thin, especially on my laptops. And so I've learned to kind of like, I lived as my main travel computer with a MacBook 12 inch. You know the one, the Retina one with the underpowered Intel chips in it. I lived with that as my main travel computer for a long time. So I learned to like more than five times. Yeah. More than five times. You don't run more than three apps kind of thing. And so this is kind of how I live my life on my phones. I'm always close closing apps. I'm always closing tabs. Terrible. Don't follow my example. Be cooler than me. Michelle, how many, what's your, what's your count at? I have five open right now on the one plus open. I do use, I do clean up the tabs a lot. Like I use tab groups, the built-in feature in Chrome to create tab groups. Then also have an extension called one tab. So like I create a tab group of things I'm researching. Then I use one tab to archive it. So like whenever I want to go back and actually write something or post something on it, I just open that tab group back up. So I do have a lot of tabs just not all open all the time. Power user, Michelle, you look at that. I have 14 tabs open currently at the moment. So do I win or do I lose? I don't know when I don't know. I've lost the thread. I don't know what the winner is. But well, email us. Let us know how many tabs you have open. Again, that's contact.androidfable.com. And that's gonna wrap up our show. Miriam, thank you so much for joining us. That's fantastic. So great to have you. Thank you very much. Where can people find you on the internet? Well, so, ah, thanks for bringing up my link tree. This is a good one. So the podcast is my main thing, mobiletechpodcast.com. If you want to subscribe there, please do. And then there is a Patreon you can join as well right there. We get a video version of the podcast, which is a little earlier than the audio and has generally more content. Sometimes I have to cut stuff out to keep things in time. So check that out. If you want to support me, that's the way we do this YouTube video channel. YouTube, have you heard of that thing? And it's got some videos in it, like hands-ons, unboxing, and kind of stuff. It's not very active, but if you want to read me, read me on Hot Hardware Geek Spin and Gear Diary. Mostly Hot Hardware. I do most of their major phone reviews. And then you probably want to read me about car stuff. And I should probably update this, but TechRadar is really my main. I cover car tech and EVs and a lot of these opinion pieces. I do a kind of bi-weekly column there. I'm all about mobility, not just with the phones and the personal tech, but also with the vehicles out there. So yeah, that's it. Awesome. And people just, if they Google, Google you. Oh yeah. Google Tank Girl, they'll find it. And then the handle that you see on the screen here, Tank Girl. Tank Girl, drop all the vowels. That's my Twitter X, Threads, Insta, Blue Sky, but I'm not a Mastodon. I know I've already been like pan for that today, but bear with me, one day I'll figure it out. All right, excellent. Thank you for joining us. It was so great to have you. Thanks for having me. All right, Michelle, where can folks find you? You can find me pretty much everywhere. I'm on Twitter, X, Mastodon, Reddit, Threads, Discord, Lemmy. Lemmy, where? What's Lemmy? Oh, my husband's on Lemmy. All right, Lemmy. I'm pretty much everywhere at Michelle Ramon. Same handle everywhere except for Threads, where there's Michelle on Discord, Ramon. And if you wanna support my work, I'm on Patreon at Michelle Ramon. You can join my members only Discord where I talk a lot about what I'm working on, things that I've found, and also some exclusive posts from time to time. Cool, excellent. Well, thank you, Michelle as always. Appreciate it. Where can folks find you? You can find me. I'm an Android Dev, and I generally talk about Android Dev stuff. You can find any talks that I've done, accompanying code and video on my website, randomlytyping.com. And in places, I'm at Queen Code Monkey, except for the Fediverse, where I am at queencommonkeyatmastodon.social. And I also wanna say for video viewers this week, you get an extra special bonus because I think Miriam, I'm kinda vibing on Miriam this week with the color tone with my lipstick and Miriam's glasses. I think we're vibing. The microphone has a blue LED in it. I'm finding out that because I never really do podcasts at night, it's like lighting up my face. Oh, look at that. It's uplighting. It's a vibe. We're a vibe. So the glasses match. And I love, yeah, your lipstick and stuff. Yeah, so we're vibing this week. So anyway, as a video viewer. I mean, there's a bunch of pink though, and the blue, I don't know what I'm saying. No, it's good. It's like accents, just like popping. Anyway, if you're a video viewer, you get this wonderful kind of like little visual extras, accoutrement. And you can go, you can find that. You can find the video on our website at androidfaithful.com or over on the Daily Tech News Show channel on YouTube. So let's check it all out. So cool. And for me, I am Ron XO across all the various socials. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon, Blue Sky, blah, blah, blah. I'm not very active. I need to be more active. Maybe I will be soon. We'll see. But I am most active on Instagram. And actually I took the other night to see a band called Quicksand. And I took my Pixel 8 Pro. And there's a photo. I was, this is zoomed in probably at like 6x or so. But also took some really, really good quality video from being far away. I was very happy with the Pixel 8 Pro in a concert environment. I thought it did a good job to get my stuff up on Instagram stories. So you can find that at Ron XO. You can see that there. It was a fun night out in New York City. So good times. And that's going to wrap us up for the show. As the app for mentioned, androidfaithful.com, that is where you can find all of our links to subscribe to the show. Or you can see our most recent episode. You can watch the video. It's all there. There's also a link to Contact Us where you can email us. There's a link to our Patreon. Everything you need there. It's all, it's your one stop shop for all things Android Faithful. And of course we want to thank everybody for watching, listening, supporting, just being awesome. We are here every Tuesday night. We're live on YouTube and on Twitch. And then we release the podcast Tuesday evenings after that. And we'll be here next week because we are the Android Faithful.