 You logged in. OK, sorry. Oh, y'all. Hey, like the wrong button. Obviously, thirty five episodes. They need to add like, are you sure you want to end stream? Well, they probably did. They do, they do, actually. It's just because I was in such a hurry, I looked at the time and I was like, oh, I've got to reboot, like we're late. And so I just like clicked and clicked. And anyways, we're here now. It's right. It happens. It happens. We're testing your your faithfulness. You're what's the word? How faithful to Android are you? How faithful are you? Heidi's not the right word, never mind. It's a little too serious of a word. All right. The thumbnail is updated on YouTube. So that's good. And I'm going to make the old one private. So yeah, you know, the majority of you will figure it out. We'll have figured it out if you have, you know, obviously you have already because you're here. And then I could twitch. It will be some. Yeah. What's that? I was going to say, no, because because YouTube needs the new link. But Twitch, it just starts going again. Oh, it just goes again. Yeah, that's true. So we're OK. And evidently, there's going to be some people, though, that are like, I don't know what happened. So I went and mowed the lawn instead. I guess I'm not doing the show tonight. It's a little dark to be mowing the lawn, isn't it? I guess not. Not here. Yeah, it's still it's still totally mowing lawn brightness outside. Hey, maybe we have some people listening from Australia. Yeah, it's true. It is a good time of day. It's over there to listen. I have recovered. I am prepared. Am I better centered in frame? I just turned the camera down this this week. Looks good to me. You look great. I may never recover run. OK, let's see here. And if it will brand yes for good, collapse, collapse. Oh, Clinton, is that the only thing an HOA is that? We're just one of the few things in HOA is good for. We had two at our old place. Two HOAs, two HOAs, like the neighborhood one. And then like the sorry, there was like two. There was like a neighborhood one and then an even smaller like subdivision, I don't know. There was so what we were late. We should talk about there was a really interesting thing on John Oliver last year about HOAs and how they're taking over the country and this idea. No, I mean, like I'm I'm in Long Island in the suburbs where I'm like in a neighborhood and you just buy a house and that's it, but like that is going the way of the dodo because now it's like these developments with houses and there's an HOA and all this sort of stuff. And I can't imagine being like having to pay into that and just like insanity. So insanity, stop the madness. OK, bye. Oh, no, OK, I will refresh so I can edit 518. All right, we good? All right. I don't know about you guys. I've been here like all afternoon waiting. OK, when you're doing the top of the show and then I'll go when run me Michelle Michelle. OK, so. I will go ahead and remove. One has been removed. Remove. Do I know so low remove? I turn off my camera. It's always so confusing just don't hit the red button, Jason. Don't hit the red button again. Whatever you do. OK. And then oh, that's right. I don't have to hide when she can stay on stage because of the overlay. OK, all right, I think I'm going to go. All right, stand by. Here we go. Hey, welcome to Android faithful where every week we bring you news, we bring you hardware, we bring you apps all in the wonderful world of Android. I am going to it now. And I'm Ron Richards. And I'm Jason Howell. And I'm Michelle Ramon. Hey, the gang's all here. Something worked. Hooray. Michelle, we missed you last week, but you were celebrating the Jehovah Good Birthday. Yeah, just another year getting older and older by the by the day. So do you keep tracking your birthdays like QPQPR betas? Are you just like, yeah, no, this is just Michelle QPR you know, 26 beta nine. Obviously, I don't I don't know when I stopped like actually feeling like getting older at my birthday or when I stopped actually caring that much. But I guess it's a sign of getting older when you're out of the day. You're out of beta is what you're saying. So yeah, you're yeah, you're no longer beta. You're you're no longer release candidate. You're now firmly like official release. What is it, though, when we get to the other end of the spectrum? I was going to say end of life or like the sun setting. We start caring again. I would like to announce everyone that I'll be sun setting in about 30 years. My updates have ended and don't play taps. Don't play taps. Sounds about right. But yeah, but we're out of the mobile Mobile World Congress funk. But and I was like, oh, it's going to be a quiet week this week. And Andrew, the Android train never stops. It feels like. Do you guys do you guys agree? Never is never a quiet week in the world of Android. No, this week in particular, we like we have a whole like organizational system now, which I'm loving, by the way, with Trello on how we kind of collect stories and then mark them for the show and everything. And this week, I went in there to kind of start throwing them into the doc and everything. I was like, God, what do we not include? Because there's too much in here for a show, but it all seems really important. Yeah. So yeah. That's hard. It's hard. It's called curation. It's it's a it's got to do it. You got to do it. Can't do it. But unless you all want like a three hour show, which actually there are some of you that probably do. Don't tempt the people. Where's Marcello in the chat? He's going to vote for three hours. We love you. All right. Well, should we get started? We should. Before we do, though, patreon.com slash Android faithful to support us. Android faithful dot com to subscribe to us. Follow us at Android faithful everywhere you follow things on social media. We are on threads. We're a blue sky. We're a mass done. We're all the places nobody looks and the places people look. So do it. All right. Let's get to the news. Why are we dilly dallying around? Let's get to the news that I think this week is approximately 72 percent Michelle stories that he's written and stuff, some that he's not written. By the way, exclusive coming up later. But Michelle, that's just that's the big thing is that we've got. We're going to have some news on the show. So stay tuned. You won't know what's going to happen, but it's going to happen. And it's going to be exciting. It's going to be a surprise. Tell us a little bit, Michelle, about Android 14 QPR beta or QPR three beta two. It's always a mouthful to say. So yeah. Right, Jason, Google released the second beta for Android 14's third quarterly platform release. This is going to be the release that will be happening in June twenty twenty four or pickling. We'll get it alongside the June twenty twenty four pixel feature drop. By the way, I just I just connected QPR means quarterly platform release. Yes, carry on. So there's not much new in this build in terms of user facing features. There are some things worth mentioning, though. So first of all, there's a new quote, allow camera software extensions toggle under security and property settings that enables the default software implementation of advanced camera features such as ice free videography. And what I think this does is it'll let the Android OS provide a generic software fallback in cases where a device maker doesn't provide their own vendor extension for a particular camera two or camera X feature. So for those you don't know, camera two and camera X are the standard APIs that Android apps use to interface with the device's camera. And OEMs can provide extensions for things like their proprietary night mode algorithm that lets third party camera apps tap into those algorithms. Another user facing change is that when you connect the physical keyboard to your device, you'll now see two new accessibility options, sticky keys and bounce keys. Sticky keys make it easier to enter keyboard shortcuts in quick succession. For example, when you press a modifier key like control or all the sticky key feature enabled, it'll stay pressed down so you don't have to hold it down while pressing other keys. Bounce keys, on the other hand, lets the system ignore rapid successive presses of the same key and basically just helps so you don't have to like mash a button when you're ready to press something repeatedly. And I dug into the code and found it's going to be a third accessibility option for keyboard users that'll be called slow keys. That's coming in a feature release. I don't know when, but I just saw hints of it. Another keyboard related change is that you'll now see a preview before you change the keyboard layout for a connected physical keyboard. You can see if you're watching the video feed now, there's an image that the layout preview changes when I switch to Romanian or Dvorak. And some of the other features I saw that I saw first in the Android 15v1 release have also made this way into the TBR3 Beta 2 build, including haptic feedback when adjusting the brightness slider. It's impossible to show off on camera here and on like video, as well as the new keyboard vibration toggle in haptic setting. One feature that was removed was the app icon appearing whenever an app invokes a biometric prompt dialogue to ask for your face or fingerprint. And those are all the user-facing changes that you'll see if you were to flash TBR3 Beta 2 onto your pixel. There are a couple of under-the-hood changes. One of the most notable ones is the satellite messaging page that I discovered in TBR3 Beta 2. And wrong jokes that I am obsessed with satellite messaging. It keeps messaging. I'm not actually like I like a traditional perspective. I always talk about it because it's a cool hot new thing. So, of course, I have to talk about it on this episode because this is something cool that I found in DLA's Android 14 Beta. So I discovered a new settings page titled Satellite Messaging that tells you about how you can send and receive text messages via satellite if you have a quote eligible account. It goes on to say that your phone will auto connect to a satellite if you don't have a cellular connection. But if you want the best signal, you need to have a clear view of the sky. So things like weather conditions or certain in certain like buildings can get in the way of having a clear signal. But once you're connected, apparently you'll be able to text anyone, not just emergency services. What's particularly interesting about the Satellite Messaging page is that there's a button that takes you directly to an unpublished page on T-Mobile's website. I think it's like T-Mobile.com slash satellite messaging. And if you go to that website right now, it's a 404. There's no public web page for that. But we do know that T-Mobile has been working with SpaceX for a while now to bring Starlink's direct-to-sell feature to existing unmodified smartphones. And in fact, later on in this episode, we'll be talking a bit more about the device's spoiler alert. Teaser. Anyway, this link implies that Google is working with T-Mobile and SpaceX to bring satellite messaging to existing devices, maybe an Android 15. I don't know the exact signup requirements or the location criteria, but it is interesting that they're baking this feature, this settings page directly into Android and what it means for the future of satellite messaging on Android devices. And lastly, one other change I discovered actually just the other day is that if you have a Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, you can finally enable display output on your device without any changes or modifications needed. So for a bit of context, if you have a Pixel device right now and you hook it up to a monitor or TV using a USB-C to USB-C cable or a USB-C to HDMI adapter, then nothing will happen. There'll just be a blank screen. The only exception is if you have a Pixel 8 device running the latest QPR3 Beta 2 release, because Google has finally enabled display output on these devices. So every pixel before the Pixel 8 doesn't have hardware support for DisplayPort alternate mode, which is what lets devices transmit DisplayPort signals over the USB-C pins. A few months back, I talked about how Pixel 8 actually does have hardware support for this feature, but Google disabled it in software. I remember that. But now they just flip that switch and they enabled it so you don't have to do any routing or any shenanigans like that to enable it. All you have to do is plug your phone in and you'll see this dialogue at the bottom. If you scroll down, Jason, on the bottom of the page, there's a photo that shows a dialogue saying mirror to external display. You just tap mirror display and boom, your display will mirror it onto the external display. Now, I know, I know like the article we're looking at here in the video and then also just the chatter online was like, is this laying the groundwork for a Samsung dex like desktop experience? Do you how long have we been hearing about that? Let me know. I know. Do you think it's just about to mention that? Actually, like, do you think it's going in that direction? 100% 100% they are. I know for a fact they're working on it. So back in late 2022, I discovered evidence that they were finally working on revamping Android's latent desktop mode. So Android has had a desktop launcher since Android 10, but it's basically completely bare-bones and intended only for developers. But since Android 13 QPR 1 in 2022, they've been steadily working on improving the windowing experience, the ability to move around freeform windows and all that jazz, and they've been working on it continuously. And my wager is that they enable this display output on the Pixel 8 so that they can test two things, just the desktop mode revamp and possibly connecting to external AR glasses, which is my other guess because we know Google is working on XR devices, right? And a lot of XR devices rely on being connected to a smartphone, but the smartphone needs to have display output capabilities in order to wire project anything onto those displays. So I guess going back to our first conversation with Juan this past summer about AR glasses and then now with Apple Vision Pro with the Infinite Canvas. And even we were talking before the show went live earlier tonight, I'm all in on the world where I put on a pair of glasses and I use my computer and I don't have a monitor. So if I could do that off of my phone, Michelle, you're laying the groundwork for my Christmas wishes. I to give credit, you could already do this if you have a Samsung phone with Dex or like a Motorola phone was ready for. It's mostly Google that's been lagging behind. Right. But I don't have those. Significantly. And and does anybody who has those phones use that? There are people who there are some people who swear by Dex, but I bet right. They swear by Dex with the glasses. That's the question I want to see. Is anyone using Samsung Dex with XR glasses? Oh, I would like to find proof of anyone doing that. The much smaller subset, if so. Well, we we we called a mulligan because normally we would wait until the end of the news to do the patron pick, but it's just so related. It was so related. So let's let's tie it right into it. So every week, if you are a supporting patron of Android faithful over at patreon.com slash Android faithful, you anybody at the lowest level, everybody gets to participate and you get to vote on a news story for us to talk about here on the show. Usually it's something that might not make the cut or something that we're thinking about. In this case, it happened to be one that just aligned perfectly what we're talking about, at least for the winner. But we all do this over on Patreon. And I want to thank Kyle, who is a loyal listener who submitted this week's Android news graphic. And you can see over at patreon.com slash Android faithful, if you're a member, or you can see it live on the video stream right now. It is a very cool bug droid with his little briefcase. I assumed he's going to work in front of this very large machine that says Android news in in neon. Very cool AI generated image. So yeah, Kyle did a good job on this one. So thank you so much, Kyle, for sending that. I also am thanking people. We couldn't do this without all of you loyal patrons. And this week, I'm so excited to see friends of the show. People we actually know in real life as as patrons. So I want to thank Duncan Jaffrey from down on here, Mr. Duncan. We should have Duncan back on the show, Jason. We should be joking. We should. Yeah. So Duncan Jaffrey, I want to thank you for your support. I want to thank Tom Zach, who I've chatted with and Tom's an awesome dude. And I really appreciate him supporting the show. And we want to thank Francisco Herrera, without the three of you. We would not be here without all the rest of you, the hundreds of loyal patrons. So thank you, everybody. So this week, you got to choose from three news stories. The first one being the fact that the Google Play store will let you download multiple apps at once again. That only got 15 percent of the vote or the files by Google app is getting a new scan button that lets you digitize documents, which is pretty cool. But that only got 35 percent of the vote. But the winning story in alignment with Michelle's QPR, blah, blah, blah, beta nine, four, six, two, one coverage is the fact that SpaceX says its satellite service ace tests on Android and iPhone. In fact, so much, you know, we're all familiar with Elon Musk's own company, SpaceX. They they are planning to launch their direct to call sat service in 2025. It is powered by their Starlink satellites. And it used, quote, multiple models of unmodified Samsung, Apple and Google devices using PCSG block spectrum. And they've got a partnership with T-Mobile to bring this to its customers in the United States. And so, Michelle, I give you all the credit. You've been banging the drum on satellite connectivity for all year now. My one question for you coming off this story and this revelation that SpaceX, two questions is one. It's coming to T-Mobile through partnership. Michelle, who is your carrier? Will you even get this? Do you have T-Mobile? OK, good. Good. I wanted to make sure that because if you didn't have T-Mobile, I was going to suggest you switch. Number two, do we believe SpaceX? Yeah, they're certainly capable of doing it. Right. I guess I guess Elon Musk's factor makes me question anything. Any declarative statement from any company that that that has got him. But we're willing to take them at their word for it or. I think it's legit. All right. Satellite world could be cool. I mean, a world with sat phones is. I mean, do you remember the movies in the 80s and 90s of people on the satellite phone with the big chunky antenna? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Usually calling in for helicopter support or something or just an intense, like mission impossible ask. Yeah, I don't know. But but so it seems promising if they're looking towards launching this in a year. I don't know. Like, like, I guess this is such a. I don't know if it's a paradigm shift or a or a different approach. Like, like, are they is it going to be expensive? Like, well, how is this going to affect the world? That's my question. I don't know. It's yeah, it's a good question. Right. This isn't the. This isn't the satellite service in case of emergencies thing. This is actual. We talked about that last week, right? Yeah. Right. It is like I'm trying to figure out is are these two different things? Is there the satellite service in case of emergency? And then is there satellite service that is just meant to be your connectivity? That's what they're starting with, satellite messaging for emergency purposes. But then I think their timeline is they want by the end of 2026 to have it actually be available for like basic internet purposes, too, for phones. Yeah. They have a tier. They have, like, say by the end of this year, they want satellite messaging out by the end of next year. They want something else out. I forgot exactly what the timeline for them is. OK, all right. SpaceX had said their direct to sell works, quote, in urban and rural areas indoors and outdoors in clear sky and under tree cover. Now, the irony is that this will not help my biggest complain about T-Mobile, which is that I can't get a decent signal deep inside a building. Oh, really? Right. Like that has always been my complaint with T-Mobile. Like there was Jason, there were so many music venues in San Francisco that like if I was up by the stage, I had nothing. Yeah. Well, when was that though? Because I feel like years ago. Yeah, I feel like things have improved. They have improved. But I still notice it every now and then when I'm like if I'm in a building that's like Bunker-esque, I'm like, you know, I need to get on the Wi-Fi like that might be my PTSD or whatever it might be. But T-Mobile has always had a hard time with their antennas and their bands breaking into buildings into basements and things like that. I mean, when have you had that same experience or? Yeah, often. Way back when when I had it. But I've been a happy fire customer for some time. But I still I would I would run into that constantly on T-Mobile before. Jason, are you still on Google Fi? No, no, I'm on Mint. So you're a mint. You're a mint. Nice. Yeah. I am so afraid to leave T-Mobile still. It is it is 2024. And I'm on this like legacy contract from when I got my G1 with unlimited data and limited tax and all of that. And I'm not. I mean, you guys are all paying less than I am. I'm paying like 108 bucks a month. But like I'm just a free line. I'm sorry for one line for one line. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. I'm just I'm but I'm afraid to I'm afraid to change anything. I don't know why I have had some very expensive months for silly reasons. There was one time I think one of my sister was moving in and the World Cup was on and we decided to like because she didn't have any hookup. We were like, hey, we'll just use our phones to, you know, stream. That was a mistake. And then actually when we travel for Japan because usually Fi kicks in, which is nice and convenient, but it just costs a lot more. And when you're when we're traveling, we tend to just use our phones constantly for whatever, whatever we need while we're traveling in a country where, you know, you know, something in a language. So yeah, it's been some expensive months. And I kind of do miss I had that grandfathered plan for a long time and I was holding on to it with my husband. But I was like, do five if we travel. I'm like, OK, yeah, I don't know about the grandfathered plan. I was real good, real good. I mean, I got on this plan when I got the G1. I talked my way into limited text and limited data. I regularly I regularly go over the like I've never been should never been throttled. I've never been so I've never hit the, you know, whatever. So like I'm just like, I'm just going to keep everything as it is because I'm afraid of changing anything. I'm afraid of change. Yeah. So I understand I've been pretty happy with with the Mint service, but I understand why people aren't there. Are there other bandwidth? Are there bandwidth limits on it? It is an M.B.N.O. Well, I mean, it's an M.B.N.O. I mean, Michelle, you actually like I don't know I don't know this for certain. But this is an assumption that I've made is that because it's an M.B.N.O. or because M.B.N.O.'s exist, they get second access in priority, would you say, to connectivity? I mean, there's got to be some sort of benefit to being with the actual T-Mobile versus like an M.B.N.O. of T-Mobile. You know what I mean? They pay for it. Probably depends on the exact plan that you have and the deal they negotiated with the primary carrier. But very likely, if you're on like the most expensive plan on the primary carrier, you have the most priority out of anyone. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I rarely, if ever run into issues that I notice with Mint Mobile, I've been very happy with them for years. Well, maybe when T-Mobile rolls on satellite service powered by SpaceX, I will reconsider or change something or whatnot. So who knows? Maybe it'll be it'll be satellite service coupled with like our standard mobile service together to form like a Voltron of connectivity. And it'll probably that's not too much. It'll be cheaper than what I'm paying currently. And I'll be too afraid to change anything. So I won't be able to get it. But yeah, a Voltron of connectivity. So if you want to vote on a new story for us, talk about go to patreon.com slash Andrew Faithful, the vote goes up every Monday by noon or so. When as long as I don't forget, like I did that one week. And we thank everybody for doing it. Thank you for your support over at Patreon. You guys are the best. But we have to do that, Ron. Sometimes I forget to not hit the end stream button right before the show. You never know. It happens. It's all good. We're human, after all. We are human. So how do you know? Say, why do humans? How do humans make sense of the EU? That's the question. There we. OK, good. OK, you've got there sort of the Digital Market Acts, the DMA. This is kind of the thing happening in the EU right now to stamp out anti competitive behavior of big tech worldwide, at least at least in the purview of the European Union. Digital Market Act, Markets Act is kind of their enforcement around this and it's popping. It's arriving starting last week. Lots of related news here. We've got actually four different stories to reference here. And I'll just run through them real quick. Apple making data portability between its iPhones and Android devices easier again in the EU, essentially saying fall 2025 is when the latest is the latest point at which their changes are going to be implemented to essentially enable users, its users, so iPhone users, let's say, to more easily integrate or rather migrate their data between operating systems. They didn't call out Android specifically, but I mean, come on, like androids like the only other major OS out there for mobile right now. And so, you know, that's what they're talking about. But they aren't making it very easy to do the migration. Meanwhile, in the opposite direction, you know, like Google has apps for iOS and for Android to make that migration a lot easier if you're going in that direction. Now, at least in the EU, Apple is making changes to make that easier. But I, you know, who knows if we're going to see this anywhere outside of the EU. And I think that's a that's that's kind of like a running theme of all of this is, OK, some of these changes are really interesting. Are we going to see it outside of the EU? Because maybe it would be beneficial to see it elsewhere. Second, Google announcing the release of its own additional choice screens for browser and for search. So that's coming starting. Well, I guess that started last week, March 6th on devices in the EU. Michelle, you know, you wrote a lot of stuff about these things. But I'm showing the some of the screens that you put into your Twitter, your Twitter blurb on this about selecting a default search engine so that it isn't just locked into a single choice, say, Chrome. Also selecting or sorry, the Google search and then the browser. So you could, you know, choose at the point of install, I'm assuming a different browser and not be automatically locked into Chrome by default. And then, yes, a new external offers program, which essentially allows developers of play distributed apps to, quote, directly lead users in the outside the app, including to promote offers. So allowing developers to kind of create the ability for them to have deals and make sales outside of the confines of offering it through the Play Store or whatever. And then finally, WhatsApp and Messenger becoming interoperable, which we've kind of known about already, but now meta has revealed that it's going to be using the signal protocol to do it. And it's going to ask third parties to use the signal protocol as well for the interoperability and but is open to granting other solutions, given that they can provide that those other solutions are equally as secure and would work properly. That's my understanding. All this in response to the DMA essentially happening last week. And I'm sure there is more to come. Do we want to see some of this stuff outside of the EU? That's a good right. Yeah. I definitely want to see the Messenger WhatsApp interoperability outside the EU just only makes sense. Yeah, I wonder if this one, you know, I didn't I didn't check the article to see if they are alluding to this being wider, you know, in this case, anyways, than just the EU. I do like the external offers things to just from my experience on multiple companies where, you know, monetization is just always a big struggle with apps, especially with companies where the app is the is the product as opposed to being like, I don't know, like your CVS app or something, your bank app where it's kind of like a companion app. So a lot of times with companies that are the app is the service and is the money monetization becomes a big problem. And so having to be very careful about how you even write your app copy or how you link out to stuff and being very careful stuff. I I know it's not like the best user experience ever to always get, like, you know, that monetization stuff in your app at the same time, it's really important for companies to be able to ask you, present you ways to pay them. So it's not I know it's not like the sexiest thing, but I do think external offers is important for the health and well-being of developers if they abuse that than that aside. But, you know, I do I think that just makes a lot of sense. It sometimes you have to do some weird tiptoeing when it comes to both Apple and Google in regards to business, how you mentioned it and how you link to it. So not having to do that when you're just trying to make a living is nice. So. And and I think that the data the data operability stuff that I mean, like that, I mean, that's all we want, right? Like to make it easy to move around, right? And so I hope that Apple doesn't do this just for the for Europe and rolls it out wide and all that for, you know, you know, you know, the answer to that, right? I know the answer. But I can hope, I can hope. I mean, you know, at the same time, it's not like this, you know, the EU is the only location in the world that is kind of looking at some of this behavior and the part of all big tech companies and pushing for ways to, you know, either pass legislation or, you know, implement some of these rules to force them to do business differently. So I wouldn't be surprised to, you know, maybe not immediately, but somewhere down the line, some of this is going to have ricochet effects or at least some form of influence in some of these other markets, including perhaps the U.S. That makes a lot of sense because this is a different kind of fragmentation where if your strategy and your your product has to change per region, if it's like one or two regions, that's fine. When it gets to a certain amount, then it's like, OK, this is still not right. Absolutely. Does it make it more complicated to have to do that? Yeah, like having to have like just code, like just having code or regulations just to fit a specific like here in the U.S. different state or a different country. Yeah. So if enough countries cause a stir, then it kind of makes it might be a breaking point where like, OK, we just needed to make everybody happy all at once and save some money and save some resources. That's what I mean. I don't know what that breaking point for these huge companies is because obviously like to hold on every penny they can. But yeah, right. If everybody's like, hey, it's a complex mathematical formula where they're like, well, do we actually make more money if we don't make that change in all these places? And we just, you know, spend the money to support those changes over there, even though it's more expensive, even though we have to have separate teams in order to do that, are we still making more money over here? Shareholder value. Yeah, right. All comes down to that. And that is the top news. That is one of four segments, four sections of this show. We love lovingly refer to as Andre Faithful. And we've got coming up. We've got important news coming up soon. Yeah, coming up soon. OK, but that news is not coming up right now because we've still got hardware to talk about. There's so much hardware to talk about this week. There was so much little bits of things and things that were going on. And we didn't even cover it all. Like we had to cut some stuff. Yeah, we got some good stuff. Starting with you, Win, which gap. Yeah, well, I know we all like our midrangers around here. And yeah, we got some news about the Pixel 8A. Primarily that it might not be as mid-rangey if you think about price or it's going to be a little bit less mid-rangey this time around. So from information from German retailers, it looks like the Pixel 8A, unfortunately, is going to be a little bit more expensive if you do the math and that it's approximately 10% more expensive compared to the 7A's price. The base model going from 499 euros for the 7A to 550 euros for the Pixel 8A if rumors are true. And that's probably the base, reportedly, 128 gigabyte storage version. It looks like the 256 gigabyte storage version will actually be more on the end of 630 euros. So does it still count as a mid-range phone? I guess so compared to the Pixel and Pixel 8 Pro. But I don't know. I don't know. Thoughts on the Pixel 8A getting more expensive. It is still mid-range, but it's a premium mid-range. Premium mid, upper mid, upper mid, yes. We'll start referring to it as if their audio frequency is lower mids, upper mids, this is a treble. Yeah, we won't actually. Well, the treble with treble. So yeah, but yeah, according to German retailers, we're going to get some familiar colors, Obsidian, Porcelain, Bay and Mint, although probably like other models of Pixels, not all colorways might be available for all configurations, but expect to know a little bit more or be able to get your hands on or start ordering one in April or May. And probably going to have a Tensor G3 octa-core system on chip and rock about eight gigabytes of RAM. Now on the positive side, it does look like that the new battery stats that Michelle's reported on and we've talked about a little bit on the show, which is kind of like that new suite of features that give you the user more information about your battery, including like, you know, cycle counts and relative battery health that is going to come to the Pixel 8A and above. The reason we know this is a little bit of feature hokey pokey on Google's part because that feature did get added as part of QPR1. And then the March 2024 pixel update, it kind of disappeared. And then, of course, someone created a bug for that or issued for that rather in Google's bug tracker and as part of the support responses, they basically confirmed that this is working as intended and that they will only enable, you know, these battery stats on the 8A and above. But yeah, I mean, friend of the show, Ben Shun, in his write-up for 9.5 Google noted that, I mean, it kind of makes sense, maybe they just need additional work because some people noted that the battery health stats as is or as was before they got removed were not that accurate. So, work in progress, but look forward to that. More battery information for your phone, a battery health. And they're probably, they're also working on showing more stuff, more information than was previously available, like the serial number of the battery and whether or not it's been replaced from the factory. Good, good information though. Yeah. Super good information. That's coming, that's not available yet, but that's something they're working on. Working on the works. Never worry about putting that best foot forward because you're always gonna take that foot back and put in a fancier shoe to foot or something. I don't know, hokey pokey. Foot in, foot out, new shoe on, new shoe on. Okay, I think I followed that. I don't know. I'm on four out of sleep, y'all. It made sense to me when it first popped into my head. But yeah, there you go. Pixel 8A, Peekies and Newsy's. And probably not too far away, right? Like it's, I mean, I'm guessing. It's March, April, May. With time. Yeah. Probably see it like right after or during Google IO. One thing I want to know though, is will the Pixel 8A support Gemini Nano? Because Google just confirmed that the regular Pixel 8 does not support Google's mobile optimized large language model. So for those of you don't know, Gemini Nano is responsible for features like on-device summarization in the voice recorder app for Pixels, smart replies in Gboard when chatting in WhatsApp, and the magic compose feature when you're rewriting messages in the messaging app. So it was first made available on the Pixel 8 Pro with the December pixel feature drop, but it's also available across the Galaxy S24 series. However, it's still not available on the non-Pro Pixel 8. And during the Q and A section of the Android show, which is Google's quarterly recap of news for Android developers, not to be confused with the other Android show, which is no longer running. Someone asked Google in Gemini Nano. Even in the podcast world, they're confusing with their names. Someone asked Google straight up if Gemini Nano will be made available on the regular Pixel 8. And a engineer on the developer relations team at Google said that it will not be coming to the regular Pixel 8 because of quote, some hardware limitations, but it will be coming to other high-end devices in the near feature. That engineer did not elaborate on what those hardware limitations are so we can only speculate. It's worth noting that the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro have the same Tensor G3 chipset, but they do differ in how much RAM they have. The regular Pixel 8 has eight gigs of RAM and the Pixel 8 Pro has 12 gigs of RAM. And if you recall when mentioned that the leaks said that the Pixel 8A will also have eight gigs of RAM. So if it's due to the RAM difference being why Gemini Nano isn't available on the regular Pixel 8, that could be one reason. But it's worth noting that the base Galaxy S24 also has eight gigs of RAM, but that does have Gemini Nano. However, the S24 doesn't have the same chipset as the Pixel 8. So we don't really know why Gemini Nano isn't available on the Pixel 8. Is there something specific in the Tensor G3 chipset that just does not allow it to have Gemini Nano support with eight gigs of RAM? Is there something specific to the phones like some hardware specific that we just don't know about? Like Google hasn't really shared any specific details so all we can do is just guess. But either way, it's kind of unfortunate. Like you bought a Pixel 8, you're promised seven years of OS feature and security updates, and then at launch, you're missing out on one of the key AI features that Google is marketing for its bigger sibling. Wow, we could put it like that. Yeah, that's a big deal. Some Pixel 8 users were kind of miffed at this. Yeah, absolutely, I would be. Well, because I think that, I mean, again, no inside knowledge, Michelle, you probably know more than I do, but like it feels like another because they're moving so fast and this whole AI wave is truly a tidal wave that's coming across. And as we know, Google isn't great at the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing, right? And so I wouldn't be surprised if the hardware team has to be developing these phones years in advance, right? And then the AI stuff is going at a different speed and getting those trains to align and operate on time is really hard. And this is probably the byproduct of it. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it also feels like a weird munging of them as a services company and them as a hardware company where obviously we very tightly associate Gemini and Pixel and hardware and Android of course. But I mean, like for example, they have like their Gemini Advance which is a subscription service, which I think I could argue maybe in that case then you could count sort of, even though it's tightly integrated with Android, it's a separate product. And so maybe it doesn't really like, I know I'm not trying to like, you know, say boohoo on you, Pixel 8 havers and users, I'm really sorry, but one could construe that is not really counting as software updates since it is technically maybe a separate product slash service under Google. I don't know. I've been working in corporate for too long y'all. I just, I just keep on. I can relate, I can relate. They had to have been planning like how much RAM the hardware capabilities of the Pixel 8 for a while, but given how fast paced that breaks the development of Gemini has been, I don't know if there was enough time for them to have decided we need more RAM on the base model 8, Pixel 8, before they decided we're gonna ship Gemini Nano. Like Gemini Nano has probably developed so quickly there's just not enough time in the Pixel hardware development cycle to say we have to increase how much RAM this is if we want our base Pixel 8 to have access to Gemini Nano. But either way, I feel like eight gigs of RAM is now just too little for a premium flagship phone, considering where we're going with, which is a crazy thing to say, but where we're going with in terms of like AI models and the processing and how much RAM takes up just for taking a single photo, how much processing is being done in memory. It just feels like eight gig is not enough, especially if you're gonna have a phone for seven years, which Google is promising to be able to do. Oh, for sure. I mean, seven years, no matter how you slice it, seven years is a big promise. I'm happy that they made the promise, but it's a big promise because you just, like two years ago, you didn't know that all of this on-device, you know, AI chips and everything that's happening, like at this moment with Gemini and stuff, like maybe you had an idea of that, but five years you probably didn't. And like seven years, that's an insane amount of time. You just really don't know where this stuff develops into. So yay, it might be running seven years from now and getting updates, but it's probably gonna be knee-capped as far as the depth of what it's able to do at that point. Don't expect it to be a flagship phone for seven years. That was like Android Oreo, by the way, if you had like a phone that was like supported for seven years uphill today, that was like Android Oreo, but when was that? Oh, right, that's a good one. Ages ago, when y'all were eating so many Oreos. Oh, God, my stomach still hurts. Yeah. By the way, Jason, I was in the supermarket the other day and I saw just like a crazy Oreo flavor and I did pause for a moment, but then I kept on walking, so. Good idea. You bought it and you shipped it to me. I thought about it and it would be the first time. Wouldn't be the first time. And it arrived half eaten, would be the first time. Yeah, that happened. Samsung making, or I should say, releasing, making official, a couple of new mid-rangers as well, kind of speaking of the mid-range devices, the A55 and the A35. Both of them have some similarities with each other, but they, so they're definitely of the same family, but with some differences. Both have 6.6 inch, 1080p, Super AMOLED, 120 Hertz displays, 5,000 milliamp hour batteries, 25 watt fast charging, four major OS updates, four major, sorry, I can't talk, four years of major OS updates, five years of security patches, which by the way happens to be two years shorter than their flagship series. But again, we're talking mid-rangers here. I mean, just touching right back into the conversation we had like a minute ago, could you imagine like a, today's mid-range phone lasting seven years? Like I can't imagine seven years of being very useful. So I get it, I understand. The big difference between these two though, is that the A35 is the lower cost version of this, has a plastic frame, Victus, so Gorilla Glass Victus just on the front. It has us, you know, a lesser processor, the XNOS 1380, lesser RAM, six to eight gigs of RAM. So, you know, pushing up to the limit, to the minimum that you were just talking about, Michelle. And, you know, a few cameras on there, 13 megapixel selfie, 50 megapixel main on the back, and an eight megapixel camera back there, as well as a macro, I guess. And then the A55 is a little bit more expensive, but it's kind of like the step up. It has the metal frame. It has the Victus Plus on the front and the back. It has a better processor, the XNOS 1480 SoC, also with an AMD RDNA2-based X-Clip, X-Clips, there we go, 530 GPU, and step ups in RAM to eight to 12 gigs, more storage, better cameras and all that kind of stuff. So if you're in the market for Samsung mid-rangers, there you go, pretty, you can see if you're watching the video version anyways, you can see some of the designs, which are pretty... I like those colors. Guess what? I don't hate the yellow version. I quite like it too. It kind of has a little iridescent quality. It does have, yeah. So does the pink lavender thing. Know what it looks like? The lavender iridescent one looks like my daughter's unicorn stuff. Yes. Right? It looks like unicorn. Yeah. So if you like unicorn phones, you might want to look into the galaxy. If your daughter asked for a phone, you'd get her this and she would love it until she got to junior high and then she'd want an iPhone. My daughter has a version of Monopoly that is the unicorn version of Monopoly. So every property, everything, all looks like that phone's color, so. Wow, there is a version of Monopoly for everything. Is there an Android version of Monopoly? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. That's a good idea. We should get in touch with the Parker brothers and see if they're open to it. I don't even think you need to. I think you can very easily license, because there are like millions of Monopoly games out there now and anyone, I feel like anyone could make, ooh, this is an idea, y'all. Ooh, I'm gonna stop talking about it. I wonder how much that is. Yeah, I don't know. Fascinating. We'll move that for after. Yeah, I'm sure Google wouldn't mind us all making a board game out of Android. Sure, they're all for it, right? Thanks, Gordon. You listen to the show, Google, let us know if we can do that. All right. Yes, and if you are not at Google but you listen to the show and you want an Android board game or let's say an Android faithful board game based on Monopoly, let us know, contact at androidfaithful.com. Funny thing is I bet you there's some people at Google who would want the board game if we were to make it because they're not gonna make it. Anyway. Yeah, totally. Well, moving on to even, this is like the mid-range theme. We've got this all going. Yeah, totally. But hey, I'll tell you what's no joke. Those folks over at OnePlus, that's for sure because they announced that a new phone is coming another than April Fools. On April 1st, OnePlus is launching a new Nord. And if you might remember, the Nord was the mid-ranger that's been out for the past couple of years. So they're talking about the Nord CE4 mid-range phone. It's gonna have a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, which is the same as the Vivo V30. It's got the triple rear camera action and it possibly might have 100 watt wireless charging. And I love that coming off of the OnePlus Open. OnePlus is just putting wireless charging on everything they do, which is crazy. So there you go. 100 watt charging. 100 watt charging is impressive. Yeah. It's gonna come in two colors also, which is gonna be interesting. And I feel like it's March 12th and it hasn't come out yet, but here we are talking about everything. They haven't announced it, but here are all the details. But yeah, but if you want to get on the OnePlus bandwagon and you're looking for a mid-ranger, the Nord might be the one that you want to check out. So keep an eye out on April 1st. Yeah, I mean, they haven't released it, but this was per-press release. So this isn't, you know, and none of this is like leaked necessarily. What is official? They put out a press release because they haven't released it yet. This is like, it's a vortex. Yeah, it is. On the last phones, the Samsung ones, we were talking about kind of like the multicolored iridescent and this looks like it has kind of like a cloud color to it as well. It's not a solid, you know what I mean? A minty cloud. Minty cloud. I hope the color name of the phone is minty cloud. Minty cloud. Yeah. For all you mint cloud lovers. There you go. Very nice. Yep. Cool, cool. Yeah. Well, if you want some speedy ir charging, Motorola might have the phone for you. At least that's what the rumors and the leaks say. And we're getting a leaky-peaky of the next Motorola flagship phone, the Motorola Edge 50. Although if you are a US citizen like we are, you'll be calling it the Motorola Edge Plus. And yeah, if you're on the video, if you're watching the video or on the live stream, you can kind of see this is like a very different design for flagships in 2024. It is keeping the curved screen, which was premium, but has been kind of shunned by the flat screens of the Pixel 8 Pro and the S24 Ultra. The Motorola Edge Plus or slash Edge 50 Pro will be having a curved a 6.7 inch display at 165 Hertz refresh. The back actually is pretty interesting. It has a camera bump, but kind of unlike most of the other camera bumps we've seen, it kind of is like molded. Like it has like these sloping sides that flow, like the camera bump in between like the lenses that is the same material as the rest of the camera. And it kind of flows from this like camera bump down. It's like a slope, kind of like a dune maybe. It's like, it's a gentle slope. A gentle slope. And like, yeah, depending on which color way you have, they have like a purple, a, is it white? Like a stony, a st- It's like a brushed kind of marble-y looking. Yeah, like almost like brushed, not brushed stainless steel, but kind of like horizontal brushed pattern. And then like a kind of like a purple and black color ways. The purple and black ones apparently are, what's the term, vegan leather, artificial leather, but having a leather like feel. And yeah, I really like the bump design. I mean, I know like kind of right now, we're just basically kind of nitpicking and looking at all the fine details of camera bumps in 2024. Cause, you know, the biggest, the next big thing in phones is a bit way away, but I honestly really like this design. The bumps, I like, that's not such a, trying not to say something inappropriate. The bump is cool. The Motorola Edge 50 bump is cool. But I mentioned super fast charging. This thing has a 4,500 milliamp battery allegedly and 125 watt wired charging and 50 watt wireless charging. So, you know, you can fill up that 4,500 milliamp battery pretty fast. It will be rocking the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, 12 gigabytes of RAM. And then, you know, that, that flowing camera bump in the back will have, you know, the three camera unit, 50 megapixel main, wide angle and wide angle at 13 millimeters and telephoto at 73 millimeters. So yeah, it should release in China in April, April 3rd specifically before coming to the U.S. So if you're a Motorola fan and looking for a new flagship, there you go. Can you have some reporting here? I will say, I will share your appreciation of the design of these phones. I do like the bump. You could have been inappropriate if you wanted to win, but it was, it's very, it's bump-tacular, I will say. But no, I think the colorways on this are good. Like, I don't know. Jason, you remember years and years and years ago, I was a big Motorola fan through the ups and downs of Motorola. Motorola's kind of get the groove back, I think. I don't know. I would love to get my hands on this one. It doesn't look like any other phone on the market, which as you know, is always what I want out of a phone and that looks pretty good. That purple colorway, that's my jam. And also in vegan, someone had an interesting phrase for it, I saw one of the leak articles, I can't remember it right now, but vegan leather. That purple colorway is your grape jam. Grape jam, yeah, grape jam. That's your grape jam, right there. That's my grape jam. Yep. Before we move on, Jason, I do want to say, I was, while Wynn was talking about that, I was side-googling how much it was to license monopoly. And I actually did stumble upon the company that runs their licensing. Okay. We're highlighting this partnership that recently launched, which is Oreo and Monopoly, which I feel like is even more of a sign that we need to do this, Jason. So yeah, so there you go. Now we just need to know that there's demand. So if you want your own Monopoly game themed after Android, and we can get away with it and we can afford it, contact at androidfateful.com. Oh, man. Oh boy, I'm sorry for what I've possibly signed us up for in the future, y'all. Real quick, before we continue on, we don't need to spend a lot of time on this, but I did a video and actually, Ron, why don't you set this up because it was a very interesting confluence of events. Yeah, so the other night I went out in New York City for drinks with Brendan Bigley, who was on the show early on when we first started. He had gotten the Pixel Fold, if you remember, when Michelle, my buddy Brendan. So we were hanging out and he had teased hanging out saying, I'm embarking on an Android adventure that I wanna tell you about. And I was like, oh, great. So we go to the bar, we get some Tiki drinks, and he pulls out this device, which looked like a smartphone, but had an e-ink display. And it was from a company called Onyx and it was the Books, B-O-O-X. And basically what he was doing, since he's been on the show, he has left the Pixel Fold and is now back on iOS. And what he's been doing is that he is tethering the Onyx Books to his iPhone and basically treating it like, do you remember the simple phone? Or the minimalist phone or whatever? Treating it like an extension of his phone as a way to get him to stop using his phone as much. So he limits the number of apps that are available on this Onyx Books. And he tries to use that at home, puts his phone away and just carries this and has like very light text messaging and like all this sort of stuff. And so I came home and I jumped into our private Android faithful chat with my good friends, Jason, Win and Michelle. And I was like, oh my God, I saw the weirdest device tonight is the Onyx Books. And they're all like, oh yeah, yeah, we already know about it. And Michelle's like, yeah, no, I've been playing with it. And then sure enough, Jason, you're like, yeah, I'm doing a review, a video of it that's coming up this week. And so it was a weird stars aligning around this Onyx Books thing. And so Jason, I would love to hear what you thought of it. It is, I got to say my experience with it was the refresh rate on this thing was insane. And it might be the best e-ink display I've ever seen. Oh really? Yeah. I mean, I don't have a whole lot of e-ink display experience. I mean, outside, like I do have a Kindle somewhere around here that like if I'm going on vacation or whatever, I usually make sure there's a book on that and bring it and pretend like I'm going to read something. Then I don't because I just listen to books more than I do read them if I'm completely honest. But yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, as far as e-ink displays are concerned and like looking at it with my aging eyes, it looks super sharp. Like what did you mean by the refresh rate blew you away? Because I feel like e-ink refresh is just pretty slow. Like right in the context of e-ink refresh being slow, at least the model I played with, which I think it was the black version of the one that you played with, I don't know if it was a different one or whatever, but they had multiple modes of refresh rate. And there was like the ultra fast one that felt just like a regular display. Like normally with e-ink, my experience is that the whole display goes white and then it redraws with the new data and that sort of thing. This was way more dynamic and re-drew much faster than my experiences with Kindles, so. That's what I meant. Full refresh frequency, five taps, full refresh, interesting. So I'll have to play around with that to see. I don't have the Books Palma. I've had the Books Note Air for I think two years now. And I use it for reading like manga and comics and things like that. And yeah, you're right, there are multiple modes and you gotta be careful which mode you pick because if you pick like a higher refresh rate mode when you're reading books, you're gonna get a lot of ghosting. So it depends on what you're doing. But in the use case of what Brennan was doing, my friend Brennan was doing is that he's using it as a smartphone device, as a display extension. So you need that high refresh rate because whether you're on threads or whatever you might be doing. But yeah, so yeah. Interesting, I'll have to play around with that. I haven't really dove into the settings quite that way. But yeah, it's a really interesting device. I mean, I got a little bit of pushback on the video that I published because like the thumbnail says, a ink Android smartphone? Question mark, you know that? It's fair, it's fair. I think that's fair because I think when I was looking around about this, like a lot of people look at it and they assume it is a smartphone and it's not even though it looks like it would be. And I apologize, it's really bright. You can tether it to a smartphone via Wi-Fi and it can be an extension of your smartphone, right? Like in the case of... I hadn't considered that, but I suppose so. Yeah, but yeah, it's interesting. I basically, I did, you know, it's not a review on my YouTube channel. It's more like an unboxing. I was playing around with the format of unboxing and first look and everything. And I think it turned out pretty well. But yeah, it's a cool device that I can't wait to spend a little bit more time on. I think it's kind of indicative of what I love about Android, which is that it shows up in really unique and interesting ways in different places. And sometimes it totally falls on its face when it does that. And sometimes it's successful. And it seems like the reviews that I've read about this are that, hey, I didn't realize that I needed or wanted an e-reader, you know, an ink e-reader in this form factor. I think what's one thing that's interesting is at least the way they touted this is, yes, it looks like a smartphone, but they've also tried to kind of replicate the size of like a page, like the dimensions of a page. It's a page just smaller. And I don't know, it feels a little narrow for a standard book page in my personal opinion, but maybe they're right. I guess I'd have to measure that out, but so I'll be playing around with that. The fact that it has the Google Play Store that you can install apps, you know, like... Well, totally. Yeah, you can put your messaging apps on there. You could do VoIP, you know, if you wanted to kind of use it like a smartphone. It has a good camera on the back, which I mean... It's Jason. Is the Google Apps official or did you have to go through like a whitelist process? Because when I... No, no, no, no, it's official. It's on this? Okay. Yeah, it's because out of the box. It's usually the devices you have to do, you have to like do some, you have to like go to settings and then enable it. Like it's not actually there out of the box. You have to like add your ID to a whitelist. No, no, not at all. Although when you set up, when I set up the device, and I kind of show it in the video, through the kind of standard Android setup process, there is no enter your Google account, even though it's running on Android. There was none of that in the beginning. It's like you do a few of the books, Palma specific kind of setup things, and then it takes you to your legitimate Android home screen. And there's a Play Store icon down there. When I tapped that, it said sign into your Google account. And I did and poof, I had access. I installed Libby, and then I was able to get access to my library, you know, check out information through Libby on this device. And, you know, I've installed Google Drive, Google Docs. I think those would be really good on a device like this. It's a really interesting fusion of a couple of different things, and, you know, in this particular form factor. Like Monopoly Oreos? Kind of, yeah. It's kind of this very similar fusion with the Monopoly Oreos or to an Android faithful Monopoly. Yeah, faithful Monopoly game. Yeah, so. Anyway, anyone who wants to watch the unboxing on the eventual review, yellowgoldstudios.com will take you right to my YouTube channel. Another killer video came out. Jason's videos are so good, y'all. Just way too good. Thanks. It's ridiculous. I'm having fun with them, but I'm pushing the limits of my computer, so I have to upgrade my computer. Turns out editing video in 4K requires a lot of resources. Oh, it's awful. Who knew? I used to, three years ago when I was doing like 4K interviews of Android folks, just scrubbing through 4K with like, what hat, why, what did I do this to myself? Yes. Yeah, it's been a little choppy. Hey there, Burke. Oh, the Twit Studio asks, so how much money is this thing? And that's actually a pretty important little detail. Thank you for reminding me. It's $280. $280 for a smartphone-sized e-reader. There you go. It's a well-priced, low-end, mid-range phone. Yeah. Especially for the flexibility. Like, I mean, I know, I don't, I forget how much my Kindle was, but for the flexibility of something that has like a proper OS on it, I can do just whatever the proprietary manufacturer lets you do, that's kind of cool, y'all. That is really cool. I mean, that really opens up a lot of opportunities on this. Like, I'm kind of thinking like, I don't really, like I said, read a lot of books, but I do find myself managing a lot of like docs with information that I want to have within arms reach at times, like when I'm writing music, you know, I have, I have like a doc full of these like tips and inspirational ideas and everything like that. But it breaks me out of that inspirational moment when I have to like open a browser, log into the Google Drive, find the doc, scroll on the screen or whatever. I'd much rather pull this out and just be like, oh yeah, there it is. Okay, cool. You know, use it almost like a reference manual. And so that's one of the things that we're going to play around with it. Yeah, so. So anyways, the book's Palma. Trick it out. All right. And with that, we've got, we've got some apps. Are we, are we ready for this, you guys? Right. I think so. It's a big moment. Just play the thing. Oh yeah. Oh God. Everyone get down, get ready. It's the big moment. Normally Burke's here to do this, but. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. I tried. Our very first bumper for Android Faithful to denote the fact that we've got some breaking news. That was loud. You might need to play that again. We might need to do that again, everyone. I'm sorry. I don't know, Michelle's plucking his ears. I think maybe it was a little too loud. I'm fairly happy with my 10 minutes of work. You did a great job, Rob. You did a really great job. It's amazing what you can do with royalty-free stock video and audio. But yeah, Michelle, you've got some exclusive news for us tonight, right? I don't want to oversell it too much. I do. I do. Oh, it's too late, man. We're overselling this sucker. Do you want us to play the bumper again, Michelle? No. Because we can't. No. Okay, we've only played it three times now. Okay. So basically I have an update on what's happening with Google's Find My Device Network. I don't have, like I'm straight up upfront, I don't have information on a launch date, so please don't ask me that. But I did learn something important while speaking with Google's folks people last week. So for a bit of context, Google announced it's Find My Device Network at Google IO 2023 last May. The TLDR is that it's basically Android's equivalent of Apple's Find My Network. Google's creating a network of billions of Android devices that can ping and locate one another and several tracker tag makers have already pledged to release products that are compatible with Google's network. So the problem is that in late July of last year, Google announced that they were delaying the launch of the Find My Device Network so that they could give time for Apple to implement unwanted tracker detection in iOS. The reason is that if Google were to release its Find My Device Network before Apple implemented unwanted tracker detection in iOS, then it would create an avenue for stalkers to track iPhone users by placing a Find My Device Network compatible tracker tag on them and then tracking them using an Android phone. The iPhone user would have no way to detect that an unwanted tracker is traveling with them unless they were to also own an Android phone and how many iPhone users also have Android phones. Apple is going to implement unwanted tracker detection in iOS, but it's going to be released. It's going to be based on the detecting unwanted location tracker specification that Google said in their July blog post they were working with Apple to quote, help finalize the joint unwanted tracker specification by the end of this year, this year being end of 2023. And then back in December, I spotted that a draft version of the DULT or the Device Unwanted Location Tracker Specification was uploaded to the IETF or the Internet Engineering Task Force, which is the body that oversees the creation of internet standards. Notably, this was still an internet draft. This was version 01 of the document. It still has a long way to go before it becomes a published internet standard. There's a lot of meetings that have to be done that involves more than just Google and Apple. There's also other irrelevant industry stakeholders from like domestic violence groups, tracker tag makers, other accessory makers, et cetera. And then after all these meetings, a working group has to be formed, which actually just happened on March 1st of this year. This working group hammers out details of concerns and then they submit a request for comments or RFC document and then over time, this RFC document goes through a maturation process until it becomes a proper internet standard. This whole process of something becoming internet standard is very involved and it's actually documented thoroughly in its own internet standard document, RFC 2026. Now the reason I've been rambling about this whole process is because when Google announced they were delaying the Find My Device Network because they were waiting on Apple, it wasn't exactly clear what Apple was waiting for before they were to implement Unwanted Tracker Detection into iOS, which remember is what's holding up to Find My Device Network's launch in the first place. If Apple is waiting for DULT to become a proper internet standard, then that's going to be a problem because that's going to take quite a while to happen. In fact, one of the milestones for the DULT working group is to quote, submit a standards document defining the protocol to detect and interact with unwanted tracker accessories for publication by July 2025. Yes, they have a deadline that's a whole year in three months from now to submit this document. Fortunately, I was concerned about this deadline being, okay, we got to wait until then for them to finalize it and then Apple is going to release their Unwanted Tracker specification implementation and then Google release, Find My Device Network. Like do we have to wait until the end of 2025 for this? I contacted Google and they confirmed to me that what Apple was actually waiting on was quote, a production implementation of the specification for unwanted tracking alerts and that this quote, production implementation is actually the version 01 draft document that was uploaded in December and that this production implementation is what will be supported across future versions of iOS and Android. So Google reiterated to me that the iterations on the standard that the IETF working group will make is not impacting their release timeline. So I don't know for sure when the Find My Device Network will launch because Apple has not said anything about their own timeline. I do at least know that they're not waiting for the IETF and that they've had what they needed since December of last year. So the ball is in Apple's court. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. There we go. Oh, did you, did you drop that in a second? Jason, I feel bad for you in the post edit, every time we play it. Yeah, I know, every time I play that I realize it's something I'm gonna have to manage. I don't have to work in there. But this continues the Android faithful drinking game of not only satellite phones, but the Find My Device Network, Michelle, that you've been tracking. I feel like since we started the show and like we knew that it was Apple holding up the game, but now, you know, like clearly, as you say, Michelle, the ball is in Apple's court, right? And so while this seems like progress, do you feel like you're any step closer to this ever becoming a reality? I sure doesn't seem like it, right? Well, from what it sounds like, at least there was basically an undetermined time. Like we had no idea when Apple's actually gonna start working on their unwanted tracker alert specification or the implementation on the specification. But now that we have an idea that, you know, this production version was implemented in December, that means Apple has had almost four months now since December, I mean, to start working on this. So who knows when they're gonna release it? Like they could still take another couple of months, but at least we know we don't have to wait till the end of 2025. Right, phew, all right, cool. Progress on 5 My Device Network. It's about time. Mm-hmm. Dun, dun, dun, dun. All right, goodness. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. I'm not gonna play it. I feel like as much as Michelle's on the 5 My Device Network, when you're on the Google Wallet network, not network, 5 My Device Beat, you're on the Google Wallet Beat. That's okay. I'm just a little cheating a little bit because Michelle, you talked about this on Friday on Twix, but basically Google Wallet has announced that movie tickets and boarding passes will automatically be added to your wallet once you receive confirmation emails in Gmail. This feature is live for certain partners. So Michelle, is this, is it definitely work for AMC? Cause I know you posted a, and I'm so jealous you saw Godzilla-1. I meant to see that, I missed it. But is that, are you, were you able to see that? Sorry, I know my, he just sold us, he had to fix his headphones too, and I'm like talking to him, I'm making it difficult. Did you actually see this working for AMC theaters, for example, as like a- No, that was just an example. But if you scroll down, someone replied to me showing that they did get a movie pass added to them by email, one of the replies showed a call. Yeah, so, yeah, once that kind of, it feels like a long time coming, just because I know for me, I think you're scrolling through all of them. Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of very random browsing Twitter, random stuff down here. It didn't really, yeah, anyway. I mean, it makes a lot of sense because one of the things that we can give Google Adcrit for is just the Gmail integration with Android and having calendar events and all kinds of things just automatically added. And maybe this means that, oh gosh, knock on wood, the wallet might become a fully featured, fully baked thing at some point that doesn't change on us in the next two years. But hey, now that I say that- Well, so this is a great topic question because I got into a mini, not argument, but heated conversation with my wife, who is very much the opposite of me slash us, right? And I was, there was an article in the New York Times, I think that was about how Gen Z thinks regular wallets aren't cool and everything should be a digital wallet and blah, blah, and my wife made, and I laughed because I've been trying to get my wife to get, she has an iPhone to get Apple Pay going just to make us go through the subway faster. Yes, here it is, yes, the New York Times, wallets aren't cool, go digital. And so I've been getting on her to just, so instead of needing to carry a metro car, just use your phone to tap in to go the subway, it's so much easier. And so we were talking about this article and she's like, that all sounds great until your battery dies, right? And she's like, don't people realize that what happens if you're out and about and you lose your phone or the battery dies, whatever? And my retort was like, well, people who know how to use their devices don't let that happen because we carry a battery or we carry a plug or you go charge up or anything like that. But that's a reality for the masses and that dependency on a digital wallet means dependency on the device and that the device is always there for you fully charged or not. And right now it's probably a risk because how many phones can last a full day of use? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking as someone who lost his wallet last Wednesday and it hasn't turned up, I keep waiting for it to turn up, you know, usually, cause this is not the first time that I've done it. I'm horrible with my wallet, but it's usually when I officially give up on looking that I find it in the most obvious place and that hasn't happened. So I may have truly actually lost it. So I wish that I had everything loaded in my digital wallet. I have some of my stuff in there, but not everything. And so I didn't do the right preparation apparently. Yeah. And I guess, I mean, this is a very much like I travel a bit kind of problem, but even if a country does support TAP2Pay, it may not support TAP2Pay on a visiting phone, for example, Japan already has like TAP2Pay. Japan's public transit system is freaking amazing. But as a foreign traveler, I am still reliant on paper tickets. And of course everyone just like, well, and speaker cards. They do have, but they have IC cards, still a physical object though. And they do have TAP2Pay working, but I think it only is on Japanese phones and only on Apple. So it's kind of things like until it's kind of like reality, I don't know, physical objects are just the same for everybody, right? Like the way Adams and physical object work is just universal. Whereas the digital side of it hasn't become universally yet because of engineering and software and yada yada and things being different, and systems being different. So I don't know, I'm gonna still be old and carry my wallet just in case, but I don't know. And I am afraid of the day that I don't have my wallet. And I, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, as much as the concern of losing your wallet versus your phone battery dying, I guess those are equal kind of instances. And it's how good of a human being you are to avoid that from happening. That's very, very. I just think it was interesting. A horrible human being apparently because I'll off my wallet with a lot of stuff in it. I'm horrible. I embrace the movie tickets in the wallets because I can't stand the dang Fandango app and it's a pain in the butt. I don't want to see ads just to get to my movie ticket. So yeah, so yeah. Anyway, all right, we're running long, let's move on. So you can email us at contactantandroidfaithful.com if you would like to see Android Faithful Monopoly or if you have questions or follow-ups on the show. We love to hear from you. And let me tell you, we went on an emotional journey with Robert Fremering from last week from his difficulties with routines in Google Assistant. We had many people writing in, people looking into what happened and kind of what the situation was. And I'm happy to take you on this journey right now. Our first email came in from Timothy Carter who said, and this is referring to last week's episode, Robert wrote in and said that routines were gone from his clock app on his Google Pixel phone. And we wondered if it had something to do with Gemini's rollout. Timothy wrote in and said, I installed Gemini and noticed that routines were gone. I uninstalled Gemini, which for some reason I had to do twice and the assistant routines came back. I think the uninstalled glitch might have been needing to change the default assistant to something other than Gemini before the uninstall. I'm on a Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel Watch 2, signed Timothy Carter. I think you're correct. You needed to uninstall Gemini twice because there's the Gemini app and then there's the Gemini afication of the assistant app, right? I think that had to do with it because when I installed Gemini, I did run through like, I felt like I had to do it twice, but yeah, so there it is. But I do agree with you. I think that you still need to go in and change your default assistant back to Google Assistant. But that takes us to our next email, which comes in from Hilton, Hilton Young who said, what up AFM? I watched this week's show and in the email segment, you had someone asked about Google Assistant alarm routines going away. I had the same issue and was just about to contact Google. I had my routine set to turn on my lights and give me the weather forecast and play the latest episode of a podcast when the alarm goes off. Side note, I hope it's our podcast. Our podcast, yeah, exactly. But he said, last week it stopped working, but I didn't make the connection to it being at the same time I installed Gemini. Thanks to you, I went on Reddit and found this easy fix. Go to settings, then apps, then assistant, then digital assistants from Google and toggle back to Google Assistant and there the routine options come back. Guess I won't be trying out Gemini after all. It's sad how often Google kills off features, a lot of people use when they kill off products in favor of the next good thing. Shame on Google. And that comes from Hilton T. Young. Thank you, Hilton. And then finally, Robert sent us a message via Patreon, the original poster for original writer from last week. So thank you. I got routines back in my clock app. I have not installed Gemini. Interesting. I tried Ron's suggestion of clearing the cash and data in the clock app and routines came back. If I snooze my alarms in my sleep, the lights will now wake me. It's almost the app version of turn it off and turn it back on again. Pretty much. Very much. What a wonderful journey. I was 99% sure it was Gemini related, but he didn't install Gemini, but who knows, it worked. But if you're having this problem, there's several options for you to deal with, but we've success. I love that we have success here. Yay. Thank you, Robert. And thank you, everyone, for writing in. When you got the next one. I got the next one. Yet more, let me see. More about assistants. This one is from Michael J. Hi, Android faithful team. I'm currently dailying a Z Fold 5 and while I do not have circle to search, Google Assistant at least on my device has a very similar feature. If I initiate assistant, I have it mapped to back tap. There's a button that says search screen. If I tap that, it takes a screenshot, go straight into Google lens and searches for the most prominent object on the screen. If it didn't pick the right object, I just tap on the correct thing. No need to circle anything. Is this not almost exactly what circle to search does? Do you guys not have this button on your devices? I'm very curious because I keep hearing people begging for circle to search, but no one is talking about this already existing feature. I love your show. Please keep up the good work. Thanks, Michael J. Atlanta, Georgia. And he did provide some screenshots to give some context in the next slide there, Jason. Oh, it's in the slide. Oh, gotcha. So Michael provided these where he shows an actually working triggers assistant and then you see the search screen button on the assistant window, and then it pulls up Google lens. So Michael, I did, so I was actually warming up my Xevo 5 just so that I could see it, but I tried it anyway on my Pixel Fold, and I will say that, yes, I technically have it, but it's really inconsistent. So what happened for me is that I have now learned of the drag up from the bottom left diagonal to launch assistant. Now my problem is I did see search screen a couple times, but it's not every single time. And even if I didn't even scroll or do anything, to change the content on my screen, so if you're on the video, if you're a video viewer, you can kind of see it now. I was cruising around YouTube, looking at some of the best channels on YouTube, and every time I brought up Google Assistant via the diagonal from the bottom corner gesture, it was really, it was like a, I don't know, it was like luck whether I actually got the search screen or not. And again, I wasn't really doing anything to the visible content. Sometimes the translate button would show up, and sometimes not. I even, yeah, and I even when, I even went when Google Assistant asked how I can help, I didn't turn around. I literally said search screen, and it sent me to the display settings. So, Michael. So we're watching this. So when you made a great screen capture of this whole experience, and I just watched you like nine times do the same gesture, and finally it had search the screen come up. But then even when it came up that one time, the next time it might show up, it might not. So it's entirely, and then if you're watching my screen cap, also Assistant was like, hey, do you have one minute to let us know how we're doing? And I was like, not right now. You don't want to hear from me right now. But yeah, so yeah, if you're watching, you can see that I did have it, but just not consistently. And maybe Michael, that's the problem is that maybe folks were like me and we have it, but we're just not finding it. And they don't, what is the trigger that Google Assistant is looking for to actually enable this? No beep clue. I just hit 10 minutes. It's not even enabled. There's not even a search screen button if you use Gemini. You can attach a screenshot of the current screen to ask it something for that's way slower than just doing the circle, the search gesture or the search screen button. Yeah, it was a good feature when it actually showed up at work as Michael suggested, but it now, it made me feel like, is this an abandoned feature now like for Circle of the Search for Gemini? Like, oh, hey, it's in there somewhere. Sometimes it works and we just now don't have any impetus to fix the triggering of it because all this other stuff we have. The inconsistency just baffles me. Yeah. And it worked really well. Like Michael said, it usually picked the most prominent thing and it was very easy to switch to something else on the screen. I don't get it. I feel like at some point I've used that. I don't know that I realized that you could pick another thing on the screen to do the search, but I don't know. Been a long time since I saw that feature. But yeah, Michael, thank you for writing us, drawing our attention to it. And honestly for me, just pulling, personally putting fuel in the fire of like, God, this is such a mess right now, y'all. But I'm hoping it works for you consistently. I mean, let us know, is it consistent for you? Because I'm obviously having issues. Does it, do you ever have it work as inconsistently as for me or is it just solid? Maybe it's a Samsung versus Pixel thing. Yay, fragmentation again. But anyway, thanks for really engaging and good discussion topic, Michael. Thank you, Michael. By the way, I still don't have a circle of search on my phone. Weird. That is so weird. So weird. I don't get why you don't. They're listening and they're mad at us for it. They like us. They do. That's strange. Maybe the left hand likes us and the right hand's like, eh. Yeah. Raising that middle finger. That's very strange. I'm checking to make sure I'm up to date on everything and I am. It's like, yeah. While Ron checks into that, I'm going to check into Chuck in Thousand Oaks, California. Chuck wrote in to say I use the Google Message app on my Galaxy S22 Ultra. My daughter uses the Samsung Message app on her Galaxy S22 Ultra. She can send me messages just fine. However, when I send her messages, she doesn't get them. They go into the ether. After some experimentation, I figured out that if I tell the Google Message app on my phone to only send to her via SMS and not RCS, she will get my messages. Well, that's not a good solution. She'd have to tell all of her contacts to turn off RCS when sending her messages. So she moved to using the Google Message app, which she hates. I tend to agree. The Google Message app is Spartan and very basic. I've grown used to it, but she just hates it. The Samsung Message app allows her to color code messages differently for different people. It allows a wallpaper. It allows different fonts. It's light years ahead of Google's Google's Message app. Now, every time I see her, she grumbles about Google messages. I take the hit on this like it's my fault. Do you see any solution to this? She has the latest Samsung Messenger and it appears that it should accept RCS messages, but it just doesn't. Is this the way of the world now? My understanding is that the Samsung Message app does not support Google's implementation of RCS. And actually back in 2022, Samsung, the news was that Samsung was switching its default messaging app in the US to Google Messages because Google Messages had, I mean, I'm assuming anyways, I can't remember the because, but I'm assuming it has something to do with RCS, Google's RCS, which is kind of the one that by and large we're seeing on Android. My understanding is that there are no third party messaging services that use that same RCS. And so if you want to communicate via Google's implementation of RCS, which is what the majority of Android users that are using RCS have, then you need to use Android Messages for better or for worse. That's my understanding of it anyways. And this is coming from someone who has had many, many issues with Android Messages, continues to frustrate me because I'd say about 50% of the time, my messages fail on RCS if I'm sending to like a group message situation or whatever. And it's just really irritating to me. But there's no other way. Like sometimes I'll switch it over to Textra just to get a message to go through. And there is no RCS there, it's just straight SMS. It's totally weird. I don't know. Fascinating. Anyways, I know it's not like that for everyone, but it is for me like consistently. This is the real concern about the whole RCS world. I mean, like what you've got is like, you've got to be using the same protocol for them to talk. Yeah, right. And it's interesting because I have a friend who I know is on a Samsung phone and he's one of the people who I see the little RCS lock, but we're both using Google Messages. Right. So, yep. Yeah. And it'll be really interesting, I think, once Apple does what it's gonna do with RCS next year to see how the interoperable, like does it address interoperability between obviously iPhones and Android devices? Like, you know, to what extent does it improve the scenario? Cause I don't think it's gonna take care of everything, but it will probably improve things. But then will it also force, like Android Messages to, I don't know, work differently so that issues like this don't crop up. You know what I mean? Does it force changes in other ways when a player like Apple starts playing in the same sandbox? I don't know. It'll be interesting to see it. It does feel like that this- The way it's supposed to work is that two devices, two chat apps that support the RCS universal profile will have access to all the features that are in the RCS universal profile. But a lot of the things that Google's added on top- Is their own thing. The RCS universal profile will only be available if both users are using the Google Messages app and are connecting to Google's GIBE servers. So then in that case, if I'm using Android Messages and it's got Google's kind of version of RCS, but I'm talking with someone who's on universal, it will only light up or activate the features of the universal profile between those two things. Which means it's gotta be graceful in how it switches from kind of one version of itself to another. And that doesn't give me a lot of hope because I don't feel like it's very graceful between how it switches from RCS to SMS right now. But again, my issues might be very isolated to just me and I cannot for the life of me figure it out. And it's a continual issue. Do you all have pretty reasonable success with RCS on your device? I haven't. I mean, now I'm worried that I haven't and I'm not noticing it, right? But like I'm using Google Messages- Well, I definitely notice it. I'm using Google Messages and I'm interacting in group text with people not on RCS. I'm not in any group text with, I don't know. Like I gotta look, like, cause it seemed, cause like Jason, what is the instance where that happens to you? Is it just texting with anybody or is it? Yeah, like it happened between my wife's phone and I earlier today where like I send, often it has to do with some sort of media attached to my message, but not always. Sometimes it's just straight text, or a straight text message that I'm sending via RCS. But I will hit send and I'll get the little clock thing. And when I tap on it, it's like it's, it's trying and trying and trying and it never actually completes. It never completes. I could even reset the, like, like, you know, do the swipe up gesture to like dismiss the app and then relaunch it and it'll still be doing the thing. There's no way for me to like stop it. And it's almost like it's locked in that state. And sometimes my RCS messages will work beautifully between people or if it's a group message situation, that often triggers it. Going back to our conversation earlier about carriers, that sounds like a network issue. I don't know. That's what I'm wondering. I'm like, okay, well, is this like? I never have that. I've never, like the only time that happens is when I'm in a situation where I don't have a ton of signal. Like when I'm trying to send that last text before I take off on the plane or whatever it might be, right? Like that's the only time I've ever run into that kind of scenario where you get the little clock and it doesn't go through, it doesn't send. Like, I've never seen that. It's so frustrating. And I thought that it was just on the pixel. So when I moved my SIM over to the OnePlus Open, I experienced it over there too. So, you know, it could be my network. It could be tied to my SIM. Like maybe I need a new SIM. Maybe the SIM card at the problem. I honestly don't know. Well, I only have exactly two people that I message via RCS on my phone. Everyone else is on signal that I talk to frequently. One of the people that I message on RCS is Shannon Morse. So I'll have to ask her what her daily driver is. And I'll ask my other friend who is the only other person apart from, you know, faithful and tech nerds like us who have actually used RCS with us, Kim, what his phone is. But I haven't had any problems, but I have a, you know, but my data set is two people. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's frustrating. Wild. Anyways. So, yes. There you go, Chuck. I don't know that that really answers the answer. Yeah, you're looking for a commissuration. I mean, I mean, I think it answered. I think we're pretty certain that there isn't a whole lot that you can do where that's concerned. It's not like, I don't think that Samsung's messaging app, in other words, is compatible with Google's, Google's RCS. I just don't think that's the case. And that's why they have Android messages as the default. So I don't know what to tell you on that one. It's frustrating though. I feel you. Sure is. All right. Yeah. Lots of feedback. Email us at contract.androidfaithful.com and we can commiserate with your problems. Yeah. Yeah. No. All right. All right. That's going to wrap up the show. What a fun time this was. It ended up being a long one. Lots going on in the world. Jason, why don't you lead us off? Where can folks find you? Just go to yellowgoldstudios.com. That's a short, that's a URL that takes you directly to my YouTube channel, which apparently I'm doing a lot of posting of videos on YouTube these days. Apparently that's my business strategy. We'll see how it works out. But if you support me there, then it has more likelihood of working out. So go there or go to patreon.com slash Jason Howell. That's another way you can support me. Thank you. Cool. Right on. All right. And Michelle, where in the world is Michelle these days? Twix, Macedon, Threads, Reddit, et cetera, et cetera at Michelle Ramon, either at Michelle Ramon with no underscore in between or on Threads and Instagram with an underscore in between. If you wanna follow me on all the social media platforms. If you do, you'll find me talking a lot about Android. Lately I've been doing a lot more articles, like kind of deep dives into new features and there's a lot more of that coming because there's so much left to discover and left to write about when it comes to the Android 14 and Android 15, DPs and QPR betas and et cetera. So if you wanna support that work you can go to patreon.com slash Michelle Ramon to throw me some extra donations if you wanna support and see more of that work coming because there's a lot that's gonna be happening in the coming weeks as Google releases new betas. Keeping you very busy, that's for sure. Yes indeed. I don't know how you do it all, man. Thank you for your service. All right, Wynn, where folks find you? Yeah, I'm a Android dev, I talk about Android stuff. You can find my Android stuff on randomlytyping.com You can find me on the social networks but really just Instagram, I'm really sorry. At Queen Code Monkey, I did wanna shout out though that I am on threads and I'm not very active but I did wanted to shout out Android Ally which was suggested or brought to my attention by a long time listener of the show including the old show who goes by the handle Blind Android and who does actually themselves a lot of work in terms of user groups for blind and low vision Android users and keeps inviting me to their groups and it's just not a good time for me but yeah, Android Ally is some really good work. It's a plug-in for our development environment where you can easily adjust things and talk back which is the screen reader for Android a really important accessibility tool. And so I don't talk about this specifically, a lot of great Android devs do talk about accessibility but I don't know, I just wanted to plug it because it's doing really good work because doing accessibility testing is not done nearly enough in the Android developer space unfortunately, so thank you at Blind Android and thank you Quinton Balden for doing the good work for accessibility for the Android space. That's where I'm at. That's so cool. Awesome, well thank you for sharing that. I love seeing cool stuff like that. And finally, you can follow me over on social media I'm at Ron XO everywhere and I'm headed to Dallas this weekend to attend the annual Texas Pinball Festival so I thought it'd be a good time to remind everybody that hey, if you like pinball check out the app that I work on with me and some awesome folks called Scorbit available in the Google Play Store. Leave a review if you liked it, check it out. It's a great way to track your scores. We've got achievements, you can find places to play pinball it's really cool and we've got some cool stuff planned and coming hopefully this year from Scorbit so get on board and if you're gonna be in Texas at the Texas Pinball Festival, find me, say hi I'll be there in a Scorbit hoodie so you can hopefully see me. Every, whenever I go to one of these events I invariably run into somebody which is a lot of fun. Did I mention on the show a couple of weeks ago when I took my kids to the Jurassic Quest there was like a dinosaur traveling exhibit that came to the Coliseum here on Long Island and I'm waiting in line for put my kid on the dinosaur themed bouncy house and the guy standing next to me he's like, are you Ron from all about Android? I was like, yes I am. He's like, oh, very nice guy and he didn't know about Android faithful so I pulled a pocket cat show it to him and got him to subscribe and so if you're listening to this if you're the dude I met at Jurassic Quest high five that was a fun time. We're getting people all over the world to subscribe one person at a time. Hey, I thought you'd do it, man. But I love seeing people in person and it's fantastic so we're looking forward to it so. It's fun when it happens. All right, cool, well that's gonna wrap up this show so thank you everyone for watching, listening and don't forget we live stream the show every Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific you can watch live at youtube.com slash daily tech news show or on Twitch at twitch.tv slash good day internet and then the podcast releases every Tuesday evening you can find everything you need at androidfaithful.com links to subscribe all the fun stuff there links to the Patreon it's all there links to email us find us there androidfaithful.com that is our home on the internet and until next week we'll stand by because we are the Android faithful. Take care. Very faithful. So faithful. Chase even. Like I say, despite the live stream snafu that was one of our, that was a really good show everybody I'm really proud of you. Michelle, I gotta. The biggest breaking news, Karen, Michelle. We're speculating that you did not have the stream yard screen open when you were doing your breaking news, did you? Oh no, I did. Oh, so you saw, so you, you don't face the show. I don't even know. Don't face. Bravo. It's like you guys are trolling or something. You're just like, oh my God, there's just so much going on on the screen. All the favorite. Michelle, are you going to take this and then write an article about this? Somewhere or post about it or? That's a good idea actually. You should. And then embed the show. I'm going to do that. Marketing. Marketing. Marching, merchandising, merchandising. Should we do the titles? Let's do it. Yeah, we should do the titles. What is it? It is a F dot show bot. Don't. That took me by surprise. Because right when I hit enter on the webpage, that happened all of a sudden. Wow, so Jason, I wonder a better way might be instead of doing the full screen, just add it to the stage. And it's just playing in the back of the stage. Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. Like it really doesn't. Does it need to be full full screen? No, it doesn't need to be full full screen. Can you turn the volume down on it because it is like really loud? Yeah, I had been. Yeah, it is very loud. Well, that's the whole point. It's got to get your attention. That's breaking news. I'm a little worried folks are going to destroy your ears. I mean, it doesn't hurt. It's not loud enough, all right. Ron, your ears are made of steel by now. I know they're not. They are they are they are they are a sad, barely functional organ after years of music. Sean asks, does Jason and Ron still do all about Android? Sean, you're watching it. This is it. It's just not called all about Android anymore. It's called Android faithful. Sean, you got a lot of catching up to do, buddy. But it's great to have you here in June. Twit decided to end all about Android, which is their product of work. We're cool with it. But then we decided that we like to keep doing it. So we Sean on Twitch, by the way, not Sean on YouTube. Yeah, there are multiple Sean's. OK, so I know it's not you that Sean. So Android, Android faithful is the new all about Android. They're Sean. So there you go. All right, let's do titles. OK, so at the top. With just three votes, the top two feature, Hokey Pokey. Feel like we've had a Hokey Pokey in title. We've done that before. When said that before, so it was I think that's that's out because we've done it before. Google Assistant is consistently inconsistent. Google Assistant colon consistently inconsistent. That's pretty good. That is good. It's got a nice ring when you say it out loud. It's hard to say, actually. Assistant colon consistently inconsistent. It could just be that. Assistant consistent Android, Cronkite's breaking news. Android, Cronkite, Cronkite. Android, Cronkite. Android faithful monopoly. Let's go. Let's go. Oh, Apple makes a great weight. Find my Android by Apple. My Android. Breaking news. Circle to beep. Shareholder value. Circle to beep. Slam that on X. Thank you. Shame on Google. Shame on Google. Google, is it me or you? The turn of the routine. I like the inconsistent assistant one. Yeah, assistant. Assistant consistently inconsistent. Or it could be Google. Inconsistent. It's hard to say. Inconsistent assistant. Could just be that. Inconsistent. Inconsistent assistant. Yeah, yeah. Or a consistent one. Inconsistent assistant. In the spirit of Clinton's title. Yes. Consistently inconsistent. Some variation of that will happen. OK, so let's see here. Consistently inconsistent. Oh, my goodness. When you say it like that. Consistently inconsistent assistant. Oh, boy. The good thing we don't read the show. Episode title for like a billboard or anything. That would be consistently difficult. Can I take a moment to plug something that that's not Android based, but just internet based? Yeah, of course. If you pull down a lot of images from the from the internet and need to use them and you actually pull down a web P file. Uh huh. It's happened. This site cloud convert is fantastic. Oh, yes. You upload your the web P and it converts it to to JPEG or whatever format you want or all that sort of stuff. It's fantastic. You can convert it to. And just right click and you convert the web P to JPEG or P and G. What is that? Um, save images type. Save images type. Wait, where are you in Chrome? Yeah, it's a Chrome extension. All it does is saves an image as a PNG or JPEG if it's a web P. Oh, so it's a Chrome extension. What's it called? Save image as type. Let me see if I can see. There it is. I found it. OK, let me pull it up. Um, well, this is getting installed. All right, well, are you finding those? I run into this all the time. I run into web piece all the time. Yeah, web piece recommended image standard on Android now because it when you're doing Android development because for like assets like that are get bundled in the APK because it's just it's it's it's a loss. It's a lossy format that's just really compact and high fidelity. So I deal with web piece more often than I like to it's a good format. It's just like most. Yeah, I've used cloud convert to because everybody renders it properly. I mean, you can't you can't like the old school like me old old man Internet open up the file and Photoshop exported to the format you want or whatever. But like first web piece don't open in Photoshop, right? And so it's like, yeah, yeah. Did they open and find a preview on Mac? I don't remember. Well, I just installed this. I just installed this. What's more called extension extension. So thank you, Michelle. I'll be using that from here on out. Save images type. That's so cool. I just did it. That's awesome. Yeah, I shall save the day again. All right. I'll always any time we're talking about extensions and and like different file types, I'll always stand FFM peg. Any time you want to do any anything dealing with videos or converting gifts or anything or GIFs, however you want to pronounce it. FFM command line FFM peg. Yep. I really need, as I said in our chat earlier, I really need to get in touch with Jeff Kosmicki and get that get our real bumpers going. I was proud of myself that I took my vision of what I wanted was I wanted a breaking news bumper and a little Android had the popped up and Jason going Android. And I did that in possibly six minutes. So and you did it. I did it. I did it. All right, all right. Well, it is late for everyone. I guess. Good show. Good time. Can I hit the red button now? I think you can hit the red button now. So not right before we start the show like I did earlier. Thanks, everybody for watching. Have a great week, y'all. Bye. Thank you. I see y'all later.