All About Android 603, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Ron Richards (00:00:00):
Tonight on all about Android. We celebrate 15 years of Android by exploring rumors of the next Snapdragon processor and Samsung Galaxy S 23 phones. I've got a review of the Nothing Ear Stick earbuds and we discuss the future of mobile gaming on your PC? with Google Play Games? Sure. Oh and Amazon Photos has an app who knew? all this And more on All About Android!

(00:00:32):
This is all about Android. Episode 603. Recorded Tuesday, November 8th, 2022. Where's my G phone? 15 years of Android.

(00:00:42):
This episode of all about Android is brought to you by Rocket Money, formally known as True Bill, are you wasting money on subscriptions? Cancel your unnecessary subscriptions right now at Rocketmoney.com/android. Seriously, it could save you hundreds per year and by ITProtv. Join a community of IT learners who access 5,800 hours of IT skills and training courses and interact with each other in subject matter experts to better themselves, their organizations and their careers. Get 30% off when you sign up at itpro.tv/allaboutandroid and use code AAA30 at checkout. And by Kollide. Kollide is an endpoint security solution that gives IT teams a single dashboard for all devices regardless of their operating system. Visit kollide.com/aaa to learn more and activate a free 14 day trial today. No credit card required. Welcome to all about Android, your weekly source for the latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. I'm Ron Richards

Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:39):
And I'm Huyen Tue Dao.

Ron Richards (00:01:41):
And we may not have a Jason this week, but we do have a Mishaal. Mishaal Rahman from Esper. How you doing sir?

Mishaal Rahman (00:01:47):
Glad to be back on a very important night that we won't be talking about for the rest of the show.

Ron Richards (00:01:52):
Yes, as part of the all, Well first off, congratulations Mishaal, cuz you get to be in the chair for episode 603, which is the only time we'll do 603 episodes is a milestone. So good job. But also we continue our All About Android tradition of broadcasting on a Tuesday evening on an important night in America. And ignoring the fact that it's all happening while we're doing the show. So <laugh> now,

Mishaal Rahman (00:02:18):
Biannual tradition.

Ron Richards (00:02:20):
Yeah, exactly. Cuz you were on the show in 2020 at the last election. Not, well, two years ago election. Cuz there was an election day last year. It just wasn't as important. But they're all important. Go vote, make sure you go vote everybody vote. Huyen did you vote?

Mishaal Rahman (00:02:34):
I did. Might be a little too late for that

Ron Richards (00:02:36):
<laugh>. Yeah, right. It is too late though. Well no ballot polls are still, It's eight 20 here in New York. You still got 40 minutes as we found out. Okay. <laugh> True. Alright, cool. Well so we got a mixed bag of show for you this evening, but first we thought we'd check in on a Pixel Watch gate for the latest. So Huyen, why don't you tell everyone what the latest with your journey with the Pixel Watch has been?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:01):
Yes. Hi everyone. So I remember last week when I was complaining that I couldn't get my Pixel Watch to pair with my Samsung Z fold four for anything. I tried pairing it with the Pixel Pro seven than I had and it worked flawlessly. It took less than a minute. <laugh>, there was nothing. It has worked, It just worked and I should be happier. But in fact when it paired so effortlessly, I was even more annoyed. I've been so annoyed in fact that I kind of decided at a protest I would not switch over to the Pixel Pro seven as my daily driver or use a Pixel watch. So I am shirking my duties as a host, but I am standing up for my rights as a consumer that this is not a great experience. And actually I think Andrew on Twitter also echoed similarly. Andrew was trying to pair the Samsung S 22 with a Pixel watch and they didn't actually didn't have any luck either. So I don't know, that's two data points out of how many Samsung users that might be using a Pixel watch. But that's where I'm at. I'm, I'm protesting. So Pixel Watch Gate continues maybe

Ron Richards (00:04:11):
Next week. That is incredibly frustrating. But also it seems oddly like oh it works for the Pixel. Of course it would.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:19):
Of course it would. Yeah.

Ron Richards (00:04:20):
Yeah. So my update in Pixel Watch Gate is I just got the confirmation that they received my return last week and I was getting my credit applied. And we have parted, we have amicably decided to part ways to end our relationship, a consensual ending of the relationship between me and the Pixel Watch. So no more Pixel watch Adventure for me. I'm out.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:41):
But it was amicable.

Ron Richards (00:04:43):
It was amicable. But I did get my Pixel 7. So it's nice and white and I'll talk about that a little more in hardware. So I couldn't even wait to see if the Pixel Watch worked better with the Pixel 7 than the Pixel 6. I just didn't want, it was not, here's the thing, it wasn't about the watch or it wasn't about the phone, it was about, and I gave them my feedback where I returned it. They said, Why are you returning it? I said, The lack of a decent podcast app, this is why you lost me. So if Google podcast was on there, their native app, then maybe it would've worked a little better. But who knows? Mishaal, where are you with the Pixel watch?

Mishaal Rahman (00:05:21):
I was debating getting it waiting for reviews because I know the 24 hour battery life was the one thing I was really unsure if I could deal with. And I'm kind of leaning towards holding out and probably waiting for a gen two at this point. I think I want something that lasts longer than a day.

Ron Richards (00:05:38):
And the thing was, as we talked about, I don't know if you watched the show or the shows you're not on, but people did write in about how to turn off the always on display, turn off the assistant. There's all this stuff you can do to make the battery last longer. But even then it's still, I ran 10 miles with it and it barely made it. So that was two hours of being out running. So anyway so there you go. There's the pixel watch gate update. A little teaser before we jump into the news, which is up next. So Burke, take it away

Burke McQuinn (00:06:15):
And it's called, it would take me to the moon I think help spring calls it would turn into under pants, it would go super duper fast. It would get me anything I want.

Ron Richards (00:06:32):
He's the smart one. Yep, he wins. So for our audio listeners, what you just heard, our video listeners that you just saw was the video that was released 15 years ago three days ago. So November 5th, 2007 when amidst, amidst a lot of rumors that Google was releasing a phone they actually announced that they weren't releasing a phone, rather they were releasing an operating system and this is when they announced Android was going to be dropped into the world. And that video was, if I had a magic phone where they asked a bunch of kids what would the phone do? Ironically the video which looks to have been shot in four three aspect ratio, which shows you how far we've come in 15 years <laugh>. But yeah, so what you had was November 5th, 2007 really being the birth of Android and Rich Miner popped over on Twitter the other day to say happy 15th anniversary Android.

(00:07:30):
And said November 5th, 2007, Google announced something bigger than a single phone. We announced the Android operating system now serving over 3 billion users, making it the most popular OS ever. So happy birthday Android. Congratulations. Android. 15 years insane. This show is 11 years old, so we're a little behind, but I'm trying to, And the G one was really the first moment I got Android the first time I ever interacted with the operating system in any meaningful way, shape or form. And that came out, When did that come out? That came out on 2008. Right? That was in T-Mobile g G one came out. So yeah, think so. Yeah, a year later. So there it is. Do you guys remember the first time you ever used Android?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:25):
I do. I actually heard, No, you go ahead. You go first Mishaal.

Mishaal Rahman (00:08:29):
Yeah, I started with the HTC Evo 4g. I remember watching videos in high school of there was like, oh this one viral. It's really childish and silly now. But back then it was really, really funny to all the high schoolers that I knew, it was comparing the iPhone and the Evo 4G and I think the Evo 4G was the first true iPhone competitor from the Android side in terms of flagship specifications. And that was my first real foray into Android and actually liking the hardware and operating system behind it.

Ron Richards (00:09:04):
Yeah. What about you Huyen what was your first?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:09:07):
So I actually heard about Android and started developing for it before I even had a phone because my husband actually got in on that beta, if you read the blog course, they kind of mentioned that soon after we're gonna get a developer preview or something or like that. And he actually got in on that and then he doesn't like me telling the story <laugh> but when we started dating, one of the first things we started talking about with Android, cuz he was really excited about this mobile platform. And so as a dating activity, he was trying to teach me how to do Android development. I was still a little resistant. I think back then I was still using my Blackberry. The one with the touch screen that had that pivot point, I forget now what it was called. That was my first real smartphone. But there was a Blackberry, it was a touch screen that was a clickable. And then I wanted to get serious about Android development. So I think my first one was the Motorola Droid love that, which has a keyboard, which that little one of the girls in that video definitely said they should have a keyboard. In fact, actually that was your variety of food delivery apps. You can have it make you a sandwich or at least you can have a restaurant make you a sandwich and give it to you so you can

Ron Richards (00:10:10):
Order one at least, right? Well

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:11):
You can order one. And it really, it's really funny actually, when I started doing Android development, I really loved it. And then I had to switch to iOS for a bit because I was a freelancer and I had to eat and there wasn't that many Android jobs. But I think to be perfectly frank, there were times where I didn't have a job for a gig for a couple months and no bs. One of the things that made me helpful that Andrew was gonna make it was this show. I remember I, I've told the story before, but I knew of Jason before it buzz out loud and I, in my existential career crisis, I kind of lost track a little bit of podcasts and stuff just trying to find a job. But I remember when one of my first Android gigs wrapped up and I think I was moving on between iOS and occasionally thinking about Android. I remember hearing, Oh Jason Houser's an Android podcast. Well someone likes Android, so maybe if I just stick with this, more jobs will come and it happens. And now I'm on this show, which is really awesome. Manifesting I believe the kids say. So that's been my history with Android. It actually started with developing before I even had a phone. Not, it is not that those early attempts were successful, but yeah, happy birthday. Definitely been a lot to my life. <laugh>.

Ron Richards (00:11:22):
Yeah, for me, like I said, it was the G one I, I'll never forget, I was in San Francisco and I was met a friend for a drink and he had just gotten the G one. It had come out like a week earlier or a few days earlier and he was showing me the phone over drinks and I walked from the bar directly to the T-Mobile store in San Francisco, the one on market. And third, I think if San Francisco, it's on the corner you go right by it when you're on the street car, that's what thing, dangerous. I just walked right into that one and put my credit card down. I said, give me the phone. And just from that point on I was hooked and delighted to be invited onto all band Android in the same way you were when just 11 years ago <affirmative> and been doing this ever since. So thank you Google for giving us a reason for the show to exist, right? <laugh> and me a career. Yeah, exactly. New a career, Mishaal, a career, et cetera. Same here. And so to celebrate that we're gonna do what we do best and try to unpack some confusion in the Android hardware space. Mishaal, why don't you tell us what's going on about Snapchat jargon eight <laugh>.

Mishaal Rahman (00:12:29):
All right, so for those of you don't know, next week will be Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit. It's an annual event where they unveil their latest Snapdragon products and this year we're expected to see the Snapdragon eight gen two. So this is a continuation of the Snapdragon eight series. Last year they unveiled the Snapdragon eight gen one, then in the middle of the year, the eight gen eight plus gen one, very confusing naming. And this time they're going to announce the Snapchat and eight gen two and some specifications have leak courtesy of a developer, Polish developer by the name of Cuba Kowski. I apologize my friend for if I butchered your name there but he has revealed some key specifications of this product including the CPU configuration. By that I mean which CPU cores will be in how many of each will be there. So he says that there's gonna be one Cortex x three for Cortex, a seven fifteens and three a five tens.

(00:13:39):
And this is a different configuration than what was previously leaked a couple of months back. So he's clarifying this discrepancy on Twitter by saying that they, they had this previous design but now they switched to this new layout and he also shared some additional details about the support for 32 bit code, which we'll be talking about in a bit. This product supposedly will still support 32 bit apps. Some of the CPUs will support 32 bits although not all of them will. We're starting to see more and more silicon from Qualcomm, media tech, et cetera, launch without support for 32 bit applications. But this one will have a few cores that still support that. And he also mentioned that there's going to be, instead of three cores that are dedicated to the highest performance layout, the highest performance configuration, that's gonna be four of them. So four big or gold cores is what they call them.

(00:14:41):
And that's going to look really good in benchmarks like geek bench, et cetera supposedly. And then there's also some other things. One of them is AV one hardware decoding support. So AV one for those you don't know is a media code that is very efficient and is becoming more and more popular among streaming services. So it's used on YouTube for many of their high end videos, 4K eight K. And Netflix is also using AV one to encode many of their videos. And so if you want to actually play back the videos that those streaming services have, your device needs to have support for decoding that content in AV one. And thus far Qualcomm snap tracking devices have not had hardware support for decoding that. So starting with H Gen two, they supposedly will start having that support. And yeah, that's pretty much what coa shared on Twitter about the product. We're gonna see the full details next week at the Snapdragon Tech summit. So of course once that happens we'll probably talk about a lot more about this product. Then

Ron Richards (00:15:46):
Where is the tech summit this year? Again?

Mishaal Rahman (00:15:50):
It's somewhere in Hawaii. I

Ron Richards (00:15:52):
Dunno, I gonna say this is the one where they fly all the nerves out to Hawaii, isn't it? That's what I was wondering, right?

Mishaal Rahman (00:15:59):
Yes it is. I miss going there. I didn't get to go to the last one. That was after I had left Xda. But yeah, it used to be in Maui at the Grand Wile Resort. It was very, very nice

Ron Richards (00:16:12):
<laugh>. I remember seeing friends of the show yourself included in others posting from Hawaii and all and Snapp and I'm like, wow, snap Qualcomm, good job. Fly people out to Hawaii to talk about your chips and things like that. But so at least in terms of this whole clarification that happened with it is it better is what's the feeling on it if this is all rumored to be true, is that settle any fears or is it make the gen two something to worry about in your opinion at least?

Mishaal Rahman (00:16:45):
Well so from what I remember there was the previous configuration included some of the last generation seven series cortex, so the A seven 10, whereas I believe Cuba mentions that this configuration includes a seven 15, so the newer model. So it's actually better.

Ron Richards (00:17:05):
Okay, cool. Well I guess we'll find out when everybody reports back from Hawaii, won't we? So <laugh>, well speaking of Qualcomm there's some activity with Qualcomm and Samsung. Why don't you tell us about what the rumors are swirling around the next Samsung phones <laugh>?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:29):
I was muted, sorry. So I was gonna say that rumors are indeed swirling and usually around earnings calls they swirl a bit like more vigorously like a Whirlpool. Samsung just had their Q4 earnings call and during that call the CEO of Samsung confirmed or not, didn't really confirmed but said that kind of in following stories that we've had previously about Samsung seeming to abandon the EXOS chip due to performance concerns that it looks like they might be moving towards a greater share of shipped units having Qualcomm as opposed to the mix before of Qualcomm and in-house EXOS chips. Well during that Q4 call where they kind of look forward to Q1 2023, the CEO Samsung stated that the Samsung S 23 series will have a global share or that Qualcomm will make up a global share of the ship shipping with the S 23 series, which I guess we're going to take and assume and soon to mean that Samsung S 23 series will only be using the Snap Dragon chip sets and there is some reports that the Samsung, Samsung S 23 series has already passed Geek Bench exclusively with the Snap Dragon eight gen two.

(00:18:41):
So we already know they haven't really been happy in-house with the EXO performance. So this kind of just makes a lot of sense. They haven't really confirmed it, confirmed it, confirmed it. Just more talking around it and business speak about global shares of Qualcomm versus other things. So it does look like though around February, 2023, we'll find out for sure whether this will be just straight up all Snapdragon all the time or whether there will still be an EXOS release somewhere for the S 23 series. But there you go. I think it just kind of falls what we've been seeing. Bye bye exos. Hello Snapdragon and maybe eventually Samsung will get their own chips out again.

Ron Richards (00:19:23):
Well yeah and I mean apparently the having 100% of the line being all the same chip set I suppose gives consistency. I mean it matches Google and everything being on Tensor and Apple, everything being on their own chip. Yes, it's not their own, but at least it's consistency, right? I

Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:40):
Guess. Yeah, I don't know. I wonder there's also a logistic issue too. I mean I know nothing about hardware manufacturing, especially with mobile phones, but I don't know if it was is, I mean it sounds a little more logistically complicated to have your own chip set and a different company's chip set sits manufacturing involving two different chip sets with the same model phones. So I don't know, maybe everyone's tightening their belts, maybe this is also just makes sense. The performance is not great so why not just ship out with the snap drag and H Gen two? Cuz we all know everyone seems to really the performance of the Snapdragon eight gen one, so might just be kind of a safe bet. I don't know. Mishaal, what do you think?

Mishaal Rahman (00:20:20):
Yeah, I think we've seen at least among the internet and according to some Korean outlets, there's been a lot of criticism and complaints from users about the performance of the chips versus the Snapdragon chips in previous generation Galaxys models. So I think having this parody between variants sold across the world previously, Europe almost exclusively got the EXOS models. And so when you compare the performance and the consistent performance, so performance over time these Snap dragons tend to fare better than the EXOS counterparts. And also of course because they're different chips that they also have different modems. So Exos, they have their own modems Qualcomm, they have their own Snapdragon modems and in general I think that they also perform very differently.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:08):
What do you think the advantage of is anyway of having just the of your own in-house chip mean? Is it just the control? Is it the kind of, I guess factor of hey Apple has their own silicon Google has their own silicon. Is it just a thing the cold kids are doing? What mean, why go through the complication of having two different chip sets and as you say, other components like the modem being different?

Mishaal Rahman (00:21:30):
Well I think in one part, as you mentioned, it's hedging your bets when you're a company as big as Samsung, you know, don't want to just give up full control of everything inside your smartphone to another company. Samsung, they have their own semiconductor manufacturing and design subsidiary. And so having that business, if they were able to be the top tier chip design company then they would start licensing that out. And they have in the past licensed their own designs out to other companies. And the second part of it is that they have to spend less if they're using their own in-house chips, because if they're using Qualcomm chips, they have to pay a lot of licensing fees to Qualcomm because Qualcomm modems, Qualcomm patents, all their codex, all this stuff, it becomes expensive.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:22:21):
Well I guess we'll just have to see whether they pop up where, whether OSE or ose, the next generation pops up eventually for Samsung. But yeah, we'll just have to wait until February, 2023 to see. Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:22:33):
We're waiting on that announcement that it's actually happening in February room for the first week of February and then we'll see how if it happens, and B, how much of a big deal Samsung makes about it. <affirmative>, which will be interesting to see of course. So stay tuned until February for that. So that was a great little taste of hardware. We've got some more hardware coming up including my, I'm very excited to give a review to you guys of some new headphones that I've gotten, some new earbuds but you're gonna have to stay tuned for that cuz first we're gonna thank our first sponsor cuz this episode of all about Android is brought to you by Rocket Money. And listen, are you wasted money on subscriptions? 80% of people have subscriptions they forgot about maybe for you it's an unused Amazon Prime account or a Hulu account that never gets streamed.

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(00:24:59):
All right, so as I said, I'm super excited to share with you because I, I don't know if we mentioned it on the show or before the show previous Lens, but I ordered the nothing eart stick. Remember we talked about this a couple weeks ago and nothing had announced that they were gonna release their next product, the Eart stick after seeing that it was a wireless Bluetooth earbud solution, meaning not in ear, which is longtime listeners of the show. No, I don't like things in my ear. I was like, I'm gonna give it a shot. And let me tell you, it has been an experience and a journey. First off, it comes in this package. So our video viewers, we can see this is, it's hard to see at the light and stuff like that, but it's this nice white box with some detail and that sort of thing.

(00:25:44):
But what happens is that there were two little tabs on the side that opened each side up like that and on one side slid out this little cylinder, which in it contained the cable USBC cable as well as all the manuals and stuff. So it's this little cylinder kind of thing. And then out the other side was the actual eart stick itself, which comes in this what could only be described as a lip sticky kind of container. I'm trying to, There we go. Cause it gets, it's all white. There we go. Get some contrast there for the video of yours. So what you've got is you've got the eart sticks there, they're contained in this plastic case and as I rotate it around, you can see this side, there's an opening and it says in very small dot pitch letters, nothing. And then there you go.

(00:26:45):
Thank you Burke. And then on this side there is, that's the USBC plug to charge it. And so this is both the case to hold the earbuds as well as their charging mechanism. And this is so cool. So here it is, I'm gonna turn it. And so audio viewers, I'm holding the case forward the camera and I'm rotating it. So then what happens is, oh now the earbuds are available through the little window, right? I'm gonna do that again. I'll just go boo. So there's no hinge mechanism, there's, there's no hinge mechanism. So it's all rotating. It's all rotating. And so it opens up and take 'em both out. The right one is the noted by a little red dot and the left one is the noted by a little white dot. And as you can see they are not in ear headphones, they are earbuds. They have a nice long kind of the microphone and tap area to control it.

(00:27:44):
So the packaging and everything that comes with it is just out of this world. And I was gonna say well designed, I don't know, you take your pick try 'em out. It uses Androids fast pairing technology. So all I did was put this case next to the phone and all of a sudden a little window on the phone opened up and said Nothing. You're stick pair. And I said yes and it would bing and it just worked. I didn't have to go into the Bluetooth menu on settings, I didn't have to pair do a code or anything like that. It literally worked within seconds similar to how your pixel watch paired with your pixel when Uhhuh. But note that this is not made by Google, it's made by nothing, right? So there is a whole pairing process. If you're pairing with an iOS phone, why would you do that or another, some other device.

(00:28:39):
But for Android it just worked with a tap of the button. It then prompted me to download the nothing the companion app, which I did and I had shared some screenshots if you wanna pull them up. But the companion app gives you great it tells you exactly what the battery percentage on each earbud is and then allows you to, if you tap on equalizer, which is the next screen, you can actually adjust the equalizer for the earbuds. And there are three preconfigured modes balanced, which is a balance between base treble and mid. And in the screenshot here you can see the circle and this kind of blob of where the audio is. And then if you go to the next screen, you can see if you went to more base, you could see how it favors the base side of the equation. And then if you tap more, treble does the same thing for treble but you can also do it manually.

(00:29:35):
And what you're able to do is you're able to move these dots around these three kind of points between the base mid and treble to make the sound equalizer how you want it to be. Really, really cool, really great, really great design, really great intuitiveness in terms of the product. How do they sound? They sound a hell of a lot better than the other earbuds I've been using. Those next togo's that I got for $60 really rich full sound the tap controls were easy to use. They take you through a little demo through the companion app and then you could also reconfigure them through the app if you wanna change what the taps are and things like that. I don't know, I'm super happy with these. I've had 'em for about two days now and they pair real quickly. Everything sounds great. They charge really, really nicely in all the experience has been fantastic and I've been excited for nothing because I what they're doing and we've been a little, I think hard on them with the release of the phone one and only works in Europe and the LEDs and stuff like that. But this is a cool product and whether you have their phone or not, it works no matter what, if you have an Android phone, you're looking for $99 wireless earbuds that aren't in air. It's a great solution. So I give it thumbs up. Holy

Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:55):
Crap.

Ron Richards (00:30:56):
Yeah, see now middle. I haven't gone for a run with them yet. So we'll see how well they hold in my ear when I'm out there running. But so far and I'm going into the city in a couple of days so we'll see how they fare on the subway and all that sort of stuff. But right now it is, I'm very, very happy. It is the exact opposite experience of the pixel watch that I had and that I was happy with the purchase, the onboarding and getting everything all set up and working was delightful. And the product itself just works and sounds great as it's supposed to. So I'm really happy. I now have permanent earbuds so I'm excited.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:31:28):
I still find it hilarious that every time so that you have to say something excited about nothing. I have to think for a second. Did you mean you're really excited or Oh because the company's nothing, You're not saying you're not excited, you're excited for nothing. To be perfectly honest, I'm really excited watching you or watching you kind of geek up out about these. Cause I think the expectations and the style and the kind of mission statement of nothing really feels actually kind of, well I mean I feel like it's well manifested in this product. I like the kind of not standard. I feel like ever since the AirPods came out, everybody's got the same kind of delightful but also kind of a lighter style hinge that snaps in. I love that this doesn't really have that hinge, it's kind of going at a different way of both holding and display. I mean it also displays them, they're pretty sexy. And so to have the case be functional don't not have any mechanical parts and still be a charging kind of display case, I love it. The nothing aesthetic is definitely there. You can totally see it with all the pixel dot text and the red and white aesthetic. I kinda wanna be there Ron. Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:32:34):
Well I gotta tell you the coolest thing also is that when you are using the earbuds, when you're using it, when they're paired and they're working in the top portion of the screen on the pixel where it says the date and whatever it says mm-hmm <affirmative> the battery percentage for both earbuds and the case. Love it. How cool is that cuz you think of that's the thing is that I want to know whether I need to charge the case or not because that's a portion of it as well. And just subtly putting those three battery levels on the home screen in the, Cuz my other earbuds, it just says connected. That's all it is. It's just like headphones connected. It's an on off state. But to give me actual information that I can use and I know whether if I need to charge either the earbuds or the case next when I take 'em off that that's helpful intuitive use. So again the price is $99. I strongly recommend them good price great build quality, great sound quality. Yeah, I know we're a little skeptical of nothing but they came through in this one for me at least. I don't know Mishaal, you were skeptical of nothing if I remember correctly. Are you still skeptical?

Mishaal Rahman (00:33:41):
I mean no, they've proven themselves, they can design really excellent earbuds as you, you're glowing endorsement shows, these are really great products. Although I do wanna mention the price $99 the original, the first generation, nothing ear one. Those originally cost $99 also and now they've been bumped up to 1 49. So if you really like what you've heard from Ron's endorsement of the nothing eart stick and you want to get them, you should probably consider getting them soon or who knows, they might bump up to 1 29 or 1 39 in the next few weeks.

Ron Richards (00:34:14):
I feel like this a subtle jab at them for jacking up the price on the first release, wasn't it? Or

Mishaal Rahman (00:34:19):
That was a pretty hefty price rate. It

Ron Richards (00:34:21):
Was a 50, it was like 50%. Yeah, we talked about that when it happened and they cited rising costs and all that sort of stuff, which is, I mean hard to argue. Fair. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. But

Mishaal Rahman (00:34:34):
Still that's a tough pill to swallow.

Ron Richards (00:34:37):
Yeah, that's true. It is. But yeah, so get it while you can when $99, I ordered it and I ordered it the day they announced it and honestly it came super quickly. I was surprised at how quickly I got it and yeah, I'm happy with it. So 99 bucks, go check it out, thumbs up for me on the nothing eart stick oddly named things. But what's so excited? I feel like I've got nothing but new things all around me because in addition to getting nothing eart stick, like I said at the top of the show I got Pixel 7 so I've been using the Pixel 7, this is the worst. And I feel like both of you could probably relate to this. So I just got back from Florida yesterday. I was in Florida from Friday to Monday and the Pixel 7 arrived Thursday night before my trip.

(00:35:24):
Oh no. Part of the reason why I went was I was going down to Disney World to go run the half marathon race that they do and I was like okay, let me see, do I want to switch to a new phone and change my entire setup and everything right before a three hour event that I need my phone for, right? Cause I listen to music while I run and my running tracker and all stuff like that. I'm like I made the decision to leave the phone at home and just stay with the Pixel six and not change any of my environment so that I could get through the race which turned out to be the right call cause I was able to finish it and all that's fun stuff. So I just set it up last night and I've just been starting to play with it through today but so far I'm digging it. I like the field, I like the feel of it. I can't really speak much to the use of it cause I haven't even been outside the house with it as of yet. But I'm excited to dive in more about it and I think Jason's getting his as well. So we'll talk more in kind of detail about it. But Mishaal, there's a lot of talk from Google about the 64 bit aspect of it all. What can you tell us about the Pixel 7 being the first 64 bit only Android phone?

Mishaal Rahman (00:36:33):
So it's kind of surprising discovery actually prior, as soon as the Pixel 7 launched, nobody knew about this particular aspect of the device that it only supports running 64 bit apps. Because if you look at the specifications of the tensor G2 chip that's powering the Pixel 7 series, it has CPUs that are all capable of running 32 bit applications, but Google intentionally disabled support for actually running 32 bit apps at the OS level. They did this they didn't really specify exactly why they did this with the Pixel 7, but I'm guessing they just wanna get a head start because this will eventually become the norm for flagship devices with Android 14 and beyond. So it does have some memory and security benefits such as they mentioned those in the blog posts. They're kind of tough to explain here, but there are actual tangible benefits to dropping support for 32 bit applications and it's not doing this will all of a sudden means that you won't be able to run any of your favorite apps anymore.

(00:37:36):
Google has required developers to upload 64 bit capable applications for years now. So the vast majority of apps, probably like 99 plus percent of applications on Google play will run just fine on your Pixel 7. But if you are the kind of person who has, if you have that one app from 2012 that you just love to side load and you still use on day to day basis such as Flay Bird, which is the go to app everyone's been using to demonstrate it. If you like Flay Bird, you're gonna have to find a clone because Flay Bird will not run on the Pixel 7.

Ron Richards (00:38:19):
I'm gonna mute, sorry. Wow, <laugh> trying to remember the last time I played Bird and that would actually be something that I would think about. I haven't thought about that in a while, but there are apps that do linger on that. I think we're gonna find out which apps have that legacy in the app store because they're gonna be deprecated or made obsolete by this change, right?

Mishaal Rahman (00:38:44):
Yeah, I mean I know a few apps one prominent example was the Pebble app. So Pebble that there are people who still use their Pebble watches and they found out that they couldn't install the Pebble application on the Pixel 7. So Google actually did something surprising actually since Pebble was acquired I believe by Fitbit, is that right? And then Google acquired Fitbit. So now Google owns what was left over from Pebble through Fitbit and so they actually had the signing key use to sign the Pebble app. So what Google did is they released the new version of the Pebble app just adding support for 64 bit devices. And so you can download this new version of the Pebble app from a third party site called rebel.io I believe. And that is compatible with the Pixel 7 and it includes I believe a Google fit support. Whereas if you tried to install it previously, it didn't include that at all if you didn't include it if you tried to install a version that wasn't signed by Google.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:49):
So just to clarify, it's not necessarily that if you have an app that you've been using for the last 10 years that it's not gonna work anymore because actually devs have been major support both 32 bit and support bit. It's literally if someone has not updated their app and so have not been forced to do such a thing when you're gonna run into trouble. Is that right?

Mishaal Rahman (00:40:06):
Right. So it's mostly old apps that haven't been updated in years. I'm talking about 2015 and earlier. There's a couple of apps. You're not gonna find 'em on Google Play, right? You're not gonna find 'em on Google Play, that's the thing, right? Cause

Ron Richards (00:40:20):
They're not

Mishaal Rahman (00:40:21):
Allowed,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:21):
Right? Yeah, they're not

Mishaal Rahman (00:40:22):
Allowed. Right. And so if you've seen the last updated date on Google Play and it's sometime within the last few years, it's gonna work on your Pixel 7. There's a few rare exceptions like the Google Play console app, which was people made fun of because Pixel 7 is the developer, the Google device, but the Google Play console app didn't work on the Pixel 7 at launch, but then they went and they updated it to support it so that that's been fixed. But yeah, you don't have to worry about app support on the Pixel 7. It's not, it's a non-issue.

Ron Richards (00:40:55):
Right, right. So there it is. The 64 bit dynasty starts now with the Pixel 7. There it is. So I will be curious to see what apps do come out of the woodwork of people saying, oh it doesn't work anymore. But if they're not supporting the Google Play store, you only have yourself to blame or to <laugh>,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:14):
Right?

Ron Richards (00:41:16):
Anyway.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:17):
Or your devs, I mean blame us sometimes. It's not often our fault, so blame us.

Ron Richards (00:41:22):
Okay, fair used to it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:24):
<laugh>.

Ron Richards (00:41:24):
So if I was looking for a cheap foldable, are there new options out there for me? Or

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:31):
If you are able to get a Huawei phone Huawei is actually releasing one of the cheapest foldables yet they have recently announced November 2nd. The pocket S, which is a cheaper version of the order existing P 50 pocket, is basically a cheaper slightly downgraded version of it. So if you aren't familiar with the pocket or the sorry p P 50 pocket, the pocket S is a slam shell clamp, shell style foldable kind of ala the Samsung Z flip line. But rather than having say a full horizontal bar on the outside as an outer screen or something similar, it actually has a circular display about a 1.04 inch ole circula display, which is about the same diameter as the camera and sits, well I guess above or below the camera depending on which way you're holding the phone, which is really kind of different. We're kind of used to the exterior screen of our current fold rules being either the full screen, the fold or the little nice little status bar of the flip.

(00:42:33):
This is a little bit different. It's kind of more just this little tiny little round status window that blends in with the back camera unit. And in terms of the inside screen on the inside screen, unit 6.9 O LED 120 hertz refresh rate screen. The HN itself apparently is of, has made graphite sheet and claims the 400,000 times worth of opens and closes in terms of dur durability of the hinge, which we know is a thing for foldables. I'm waiting for the sad day when my Z fold four gets a bubble or a hinge issue. But with the Huawei pocket six you look have about 400,000 open and closes to look forward to. So in terms of the other things on the inside it does t a snap dragon 77 8 G, which is a downgrade from the P 50 pocket and it only has LTE connectivity, no 5g.

(00:43:24):
There is though a decently sized 4,000 mil amp battery with 40 wat fast charging. And the cameras are actually pretty decent. The selfie camera on the inside is a 10.7 megapixel punch camera, same sensor as again it's predecessor, the P 50 and the main camera unit, which again is sitting right above the circular display is a 40 megapixel main camera with R Y Y B sensor and a F 1.8 lens and a 13 megapixel ultra wide angle. I think it's really hard not to compare this to blow for blow with the Samsung flip because I mean the Samsung is the flip clam shell type phone that we can get here in the states and HU is kind of like a competitor. And so if you're curious off about how it compares, the cameras on the flip are kind of a bit smaller sensors than the ones on the pocket S, but the flip does beat it out in some of the other innards, like the flip is rock and a Snapdragon eight plus gen one.

(00:44:22):
So a lot better processor but it has a smaller battery at 3,700 m a. So it's kind of interesting where the compromises for this foldable R in regards to kind of specs and pricing. And in regards to pricing, if you could buy this in the US, which you cannot it would cost you about 820 USD for 828 gigabyte storage variant and up to 800 and oh whoops, I wrote down the same number twice. I believe it's like eight 70, I think it's eight, what is it? It's eight, it's like eight 60 or eight 70 for a 2 56 gigabyte version as well. And just to compare with that, the Z flip Z flip floor, the flip four is about 7 25 SD 7 85 s d without trade in. So again, kind of like pros and cons but it is another foldable, it is a more affordable foldable and I do like that the design is a bit different. I don't know Ron, if you could get this, would you?

Ron Richards (00:45:20):
I gotta say I like the little circle display. I think that's pretty cool. I like innovation, I like making subtle changes to make your device stand out. I finally got to see the galaxy fold or the galaxy flip in the wild in real life and see the little display and stuff like that. And I love that idea of using that space in a functional kind of way when it's folded. And so I like this approach. Good on Huawei. I mean think this is definitely an intriguing device that I would definitely consider if I was in the market for this sort of flippable phone. Mishaal, what do you think of it?

Mishaal Rahman (00:45:57):
I think what's more interesting about this is just seeing this product exist in the first place after what's happened to Huawei. I know we said we're not going into politics, but it's impossible to avoid politics when you're involving what happened to Huawei and the us the export ban, which is literally crippled their smartphone business, this thing only supports LTE and that's only because they are literally not allowed to be given 5G capable modems. And this thing doesn't have Google mobile services. It's not just because it's only sold in China. Even if they were able to sell this in Europe or the US it wouldn't have Google apps installed. So this is a really good looking hardware as you mentioned, all those perks of it, it looks like a viable competitor to the Galaxy Z flip. And in an alternate world it might have been on store shelves in the US somewhere, but because of those export bands, it's only available in China and it's heavily it doesn't live up to what it could have been,

Ron Richards (00:46:59):
Which is always, it

Huyen Tue Dao (00:47:00):
Is an option.

Ron Richards (00:47:01):
It is an option. Yes, it's good to have options. I was say, yeah, the potential aspect is always the thing that you worry about, but it's nice to have those options. Yeah,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:47:10):
And just to correct myself it is eight, sorry. So the higher end storage 2 56 gig gig version is 890 sd. So again, still kind of overall more expensive than the flip, but I don't, Yeah, I mean just think it's, it's a very decent competitor in, as you stated Mishaal, it kind of splintered market globally speaking. So yeah, I, I'd love to see more cool designs and just more pushing more the bounds of what Foldables could be. Cuz I mean I know we're waiting for the next iteration of the Motorola razor cuz the first one was a little bit too nostalgic and they basically then copied the, I think they're covered it where they're more or less really copying the flip forward or the flip design from Samsung. So I don't know mean if it works, it works and then you do what works. But it would be nice to see what else you can do with this kind of idea of a transforming phone. So we'll wait and see

Ron Richards (00:48:05):
Now you've got me thinking about a transforming phone and I want it to be much more than that. I wanted to turn into a little robot that can go do things for me and then turn back into a phone

Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:13):
Made make you a sandwich. <laugh>,

Ron Richards (00:48:15):
But make me a sandwich. There it is. But I was gonna say kinda like shockwaves, the little cassettes that went inside Shockwaves. Yes. Transformers. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah that would be cool. Oh, to dream what the future of foldables could be, right? We'll find out. Yeah. Well while you're dreaming about the future of foldables we're gonna take a moment to thank our next sponsor cuz this episode of all about Android is brought to you by IT pro tv. And whether you're new to the IT field or a seasoned pro IT pro TVs online IT training courses can change your life. Trust me, it's true. They offer virtual learning solutions for everyone. You want IT training videos, they got 'em. Every vendor and skill you need to start or advance your IT career. They're done in a talk show style format and keeps you interested and excited to learn it.

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(00:51:18):
All right, Win. Tell us all about play games.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:21):
Yeah, so we're gonna check back in with the launch of Google, the Beta rather of Google Play games for pc. We've been talking about this off and on for the last year since Google first kind of teased the idea of having your Google Play games on your PC back during last year's 2021 video game awards. So they kind of released a beta first in a march but only in South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. And of course was a very kind of selective catalog, mostly of games that were both produced and very popular in those regions. And over the summer they kind of widened the beta to other APAC countries like Thailand and Australia. Well if you were just Hanking to play your favorite Google Play games on your PC and you live in the Western Hemisphere, quite a few of us do. You might be in luck because last week the beta was opened up to even more countries.

(00:52:11):
And so if you are in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the us as we all are here you cannot participate with no wait list in the Google Play games for PC beta. We've talked about the requirements before, but just to reiterate, if you wanna take part, you need a PC with at least Windows 10 an SSD with at least 10 gigabytes of storage, eight gigabytes of RAM and Intel UHD graphic, six 30 GPU or batter. If you're that kind of person who has a monster 30 90 or something in your machine, that's cool. You need at least four CPU physical four physical CPU cores. And because of it being an Android thing and virtualization, you will need a Windows admin account and hardware virtualization turned on. And along with broadening the areas in which Google Play games for PC is available, they've also widened and are continuing to widen the games catalog to include games like 1945, Air Force, Blade Idol Cookie Run Kingdom, and Ebony The King's Return.

(00:53:21):
I play none of these games, but if you are and you're excited to play them on your pc, y'all can go ahead and go for it. There are no usage figures so far to see how the demand and the uptake of this beta is kind of matching, I guess, the expectation for it. But Google has cited it. Lots of people are asking for and excited and so now they've broadened the beta. And if anyone goes out and tries it please feel free to write us some feedback. I'm kind of curious, but I don't know. I feel this is a little weird. I, I'm kind of taking my gaming in the opposite direction. I, I'm playing games that normally I pay on my PC on my new steam deck and I should gotten the Logitech T Cloud. But I mean feel like I'm going the opposite way where I'm going from the PC to a handheld. Where is this kind of going the opposite direction? Don't kind of curious what the actual take up of this would be and whether it's regional, whether it's just maybe game genre or something. I don't know either of y'all interested in playing mobile game on your PCs if you have PCs <laugh>.

Mishaal Rahman (00:54:22):
So me personally, absolutely not. I have no interest <laugh>. But I do know, to answer your question, it's gonna be regional. The support. I know for a fact that there are people who actually play their games that they hook up their phones to a external monitor or they download one of those popular emulators BlueStacks. Sure you've heard of that before, to play some of their games on their pc. But now Google's getting into that business and directly partnering with game developers to provide native versions of their games for X 86 PCs. And so that added benefit, they're also encouraging developers to update their game so that they support keyboard and mouse input, controller input, all these things that are not just beneficial for PC gamers, but also for maybe Chromebooks. If you're running these games on a Chromebook or maybe on other platforms, you can see they're intentionally pitching it just a way to play games across platforms. And what better way to do that than by having them kill three birds with one stone, having them support <laugh>, all these different platforms.

Ron Richards (00:55:25):
I, I do think that the cross platform support is interesting and I do like how, and I'm with you in my gaming, so I'm a specter of my former gaming self. I just don't have the time <affirmative> or the inclination. I don't even have, I mean, have a Mac Mini, I don't even have technically a PC anymore. But I will say, and again, I'm partially biased because I do work for the company, but I've been playing the Marvel Snap Card game on my phone nonstop since it came out cuz it's a blast. And I also, I love the fact that I switched phones, but because I synced it with my Google account, all my stats, all my, everything's the same on the new phone like that. The whole kind of cloud managing your account, I know that's old news, but it's really great when it works.

(00:56:11):
But I know they release the game both on mobile but also for PC because there is a contingent of people who prefer to play there. <affirmative>, why limit the audience to just people on their mobile devices and people wanna play on their pc. Great. Give 'em a way to do it. That said give me any five minutes or an hour of free time. I'm gonna go to my PC and play the new Monkey Island game. That came out finally that I've been waiting for years. And that's not something I would wanna experience on a phone and something I'd wanna experience on a pc. So I do think there's something to be said for the game design being designed for the platform that it's meant to be on a mobile game versus a PC game. But I, I'd give it a shot, but I don't know. I'm definitely not the target audience for this at all. So <laugh>,

Mishaal Rahman (00:57:00):
One thing I do think is inter, Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, go first. I think it's technically interesting. I don't have any interest in, as I said, running mobile games on my pc. But I would like to run a few Android apps on my pc. So one of the most prominent ones being the Google Home app, <affirmative>, I think the new Google Home Web interface for monitoring your cameras and stuff. But what if I'm sitting on my laptop, my Windows laptop, and I want to control maybe the light in my bedroom or something, Just a random example. Sure. I could shout the no word that I won't shout cause I don't wanna trigger it at your home. Or I could pull out my phone, but what if I'm just too lazy or I don't have my phone next to me and I want to use it on my pc.

(00:57:41):
There's no way to do that. There is a way with the new Windows subsystem for Android, but that's all Microsoft and Amazon, it's not led by Google. There's no Google Play or officially provided application on Windows pc and through this system image and all the architecture they built for Google Play games for pc, Google could do that. I've taken a look at the image that they have and they intentionally locked it down. There is a mechanism in place, There's a full Android OS that's running behind this thing. You can access the settings app, you can see there's a Google Chrome app installed. You can actually launch Google Chrome through this Google Play game through pc. This image that you're running in a virtual machine, you can't actually do anything with it because they've gotten rid of a lot of the underlying things that you need to even have apps communicate with each other or open a file browser to install apps. There's all that mechanisms thrown away. So Google could use this and expand support. They could open up a Google Play store and let you download Google Home or whatever other app you wanted, but they're going this Google, this gaming route, which I believe is probably just way more lucrative for them. And who knows, maybe they might open this up in the future. I sure hope they do something to compete with Windows or Microsoft than Amazon

Ron Richards (00:59:04):
For sure.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:05):
And from the gaming side, I'm kind of like, this is just me talking to my butt. I know nothing or I know not as much about this, but I still am quite a fan of e-sports and e gaming. And that is kind of taking the idea of a PC game and then playing a to style. And I think what's the interesting about that is that usually when you play in an eSports tournament, the setup is provided for you. Cuz then everyone has an equal base kind of all playing on the same machines. Nobody has hacks or some banging. Some person doesn't have a banging gaming car, well the next person has a broke one. So I kind of wonder if there's something that we're not saying because we don't live in a region where the kind of mobile gaming culture is a bit, I mean it's strong, but it's maybe more casual. Always my impression of American mobile gaming culture is a bit more casual like I was saying about my mom playing Candy Crush and things like that. Whereas the gaming culture, especially in the APAC regions a little bit more serious, there's a lot more prevalence of maybe professional gaming and a lot of these games that again have been released already on Google Play games for PC are APAC games. And I just wonder whether there's maybe an interesting bridge there for number one, a social aspect. Because again, internet cafes, PC bombs, things like that.

Ron Richards (01:00:18):
I was just gonna say the internet cafe element of it, which is huge over there, not as big here,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:26):
<affirmative>. And then maybe just even taking that maybe one day, again, having it run on PCs would be advantageous if you wanted to have professional tournaments where everyone has to plan the same hard and stuff like that. That's kind of taking it three or four steps ahead. But I would love to see where this goes. Again, this is just very, I think my very American perspective is kind of putting little blinders on where I see this going. But I mean it might be fun to see what this takes. And also just again, as y'all said, using apps. I'm a pc.

Ron Richards (01:00:55):
Yep. <laugh>. Well, speaking of apps, I know we often talk a lot about Google and everything's doing, and it's very focused on Google. Google all the time with Android. But sometimes we forget that similar services or other companies are out there doing stuff including Amazon. And Amazon does have a suite of cloud-based services that many people use, including Amazon photos. So we thought it was important to mention the fact that the Amazon Photos app has actually finally been redesigned. They updated the Amazon Photos app for iOS about a year ago. And so this redesigned for Android catches up to that fact and gives a parody across both platforms. And the new version of the app makes it easier to navigate as well as the share videos and photos photos and videos with users and basically bringing it up to the modern age. So if you use Amazon photos, you got a new app to play with and have fun sharing your photos. There you go. I don't know anyone who uses Amazon photos for this service at all, but maybe there is real

Huyen Tue Dao (01:01:58):
Talk. Seeing this article in the rundown is the first time I heard of Amazon Photos, I'm so sorry, <laugh> the first time I ever heard of it. Oh

Ron Richards (01:02:06):
Good here. <laugh>. Okay.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:02:08):
It's not just me then. Okay, right on.

Ron Richards (01:02:11):
I knew it existed, but from us talking about it, but I've never, I'm a Prime member and I don't even use it. But what you gonna say, Sean? I mean it is kind of

Mishaal Rahman (01:02:19):
Tempting for prime users. You get unlimited storage after Google Photos decided to cap it to 15 gigabytes for every regular account. I was tempted, maybe I should switch to Amazon photos, but then like, nah, that's not worth it. I don't wanna go through that process. I'll just pay the $2 or whatever it is a month for Google one.

Ron Richards (01:02:39):
But there are people out there clearly who are dialed into the Amazon ecosystem, so they should get an updated app. So there it is. So cool. All right, so Mishaal, tell us all about Linux VMs on pixels <laugh>.

Mishaal Rahman (01:02:57):
Oh boy. So one of the more intriguing under the hood aspects of Android 13 is this new android virtualization framework. So without getting into the nitty gritty aspects, because it gets really, really complicated Google has decided to standardize the way virtualization works in Android. And they're using a lot of tools that are, if you're like a Linux developer, if you're familiar with virtualization containers Docker, et cetera, you might have heard of this stuff before. And they have this framework in place and they're using it for this very esoteric, obscure system level app optimization thing. They're calling it isolated compilation, but that's boring. If you saw back in, I believe a few months ago, a developer by the name of K Dragon or on Twitter, he posted a tweet showing that he got Windows 11 running on his Pixel six pro. And that took the tech media world By storm, I mean of course it would like Windows 11 on your phone.

(01:03:59):
That's pretty crazy. So now if you wanted to actually go through and replicate that process, it was quite involved because you had to first of all unlock the boot loader, which is modifying the software on your phone. You had to achieve route access, you had to run a lot of command line commands to actually do this process to actually boot Linux and then Windows in a virtual machine. Now what KRA has released is an app that takes care of that for you. If you have a supported device, which is a Pixel six series or a Pixel 7 series device, you can use his application to two boot a Linux VM on your device. And yeah, I, I tried it out myself, It works just as it described. I have a Pixel six pro, I fired up in a Buntu vm installed that Neo effe application, which displays that very pretty logo and tells you your kernel version of your uptime, whatever. And it works just as described. I don't have any plans to do anything with it. As I've said, I have a Windows PC or that can do all this and more for me. So why would I do anything for my phone? But if you're the kind of person who likes tinker around with your phone, maybe you have a backup phone backup pixel six after upgrading to a Pixel 7 and you want to maybe run some Linux, run a Linux server off it or something. I don't know. This might be interesting to you.

Ron Richards (01:05:28):
Fascinating. I mean, I feel like this is something Jason would've been all over a couple of years ago cuz he was always doing this sort of stuff. Maybe we can get him to do that on his old Pixel six. Now he got the seven

Huyen Tue Dao (01:05:39):
<laugh>.

Mishaal Rahman (01:05:40):
I mean, to be honest, with the direction with how powerful phones have become, we've always wanted our phones to be the all in one computing platform. So imagine if the pixels, pixels devices, if they supported display output. So if you could actually plug them into a monitor and have your phone screen mirrored onto a monitor, what if you could boot into a buntu and you have a full development platform at your fingertips without running a remote desktop?

Ron Richards (01:06:07):
Right up halfway through that statement you were describing Samsung decks.

Mishaal Rahman (01:06:12):
Exactly. But Samsung decks is at its core still Android. They did experiment with Linux on decks, but it was heavily there was a lot of limitations with it because of the fact that it wasn't the kernel whatever, without getting into the details.

Ron Richards (01:06:26):
But that scenario you outlined is something that we are is possible in this world to have can do USBC out to a display port or to an ht, you can get a dongle, you can make your phone purely the only computer you use. And now this helps you get even closer to it for Linux use, which is very, very cool. Awesome.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:51):
I really like this a lot. I mean it's increasingly so many parts of the world. Your phone is your only computing device of any kind. And this is kind of, again, I'm gonna go off on a weird tangent where I'm kind of associating a couple things that the story wasn't about. But something has come up a lot in android dev circles lately has been kind of cloud IDE just because not every developer in the world has a Mac or a laptop that has enough computing power to run a full ide. And this is kind of again, taking it a little bit far, but again, the idea that there is a need out there for strong computing, for being able to use a device that's powerful, but you have in limited resources for whatever reason. I don't know, this is not the most user friendly thing. It's not like someone can just pick this up off if a non-technical person could pick this up and do this easily. But I do like the idea this is possible and that there's a way to kind of multipurpose your computing device, which again, for many people is your only computing computing device and your only way of getting it on the internet and getting connected. So I love it. I mean, there's a computer in there, let's throw some clinics on. So, or

Ron Richards (01:07:52):
Pretty cool. Very, very cool. So if you're into it, go check out it, check over it on Patreon and support the guy, right that that's the best way to show to support your devs. We haven't said that in a while. Support your devs and support your devs and jump on with a cool project. Awesome. Well, speaking of cool projects, our good friend JR Rafaels back with a great Android intelligent tip for us around one of my favorite topics, widgets. So let's hear what jr's got to say.

JR Raphael (01:08:20):
All right, today I wanna talk widgets and specifically I wanna introduce you to a cool new clock widget that I've really been digging on my own personal Pixel 7 pro as of late. It's a nice little step up from the stock clock widget options that Google gives you out of the box on Android. It'll make a pretty sweet upgrade for whatever phone you happen to be holding. So here it is. The widget of which we speak is a little something, something called Android 12 clock widgets creative name. I know, right? Don't let that name fool you though. This widget will actually work on any device regardless of what Android version it's running. In fact, that's part of what makes it so special. The widget brings a taste of Google's wildly impressive material. You theming system onto any phone. That means whatever clocks you create with it can automatically adjust their coloring to match your current wallpaper at any given moment and every time you change it.

(01:09:15):
And they give you way more choice in customization potential than Google's own default Android clock app widgets, along with plenty of spiffy little extras too. So for me, I wanted a home screen clock that's big, easy to see, and yet still simple, minimal. And with that sweet googly home screen theming matches, it's really tough to give up once you get used to having that present. But that's me. What's especially cool about this thing is the amount of customization and control it gives you the main widget setup screen lets you do all sorts of cool stuff. You can pick what app you wanna have open when you tap the widget. You can add in multiple time zones for a dual or even triple city world clock effect. Let's see what else. You can set your clock up to show extra info like your next alarm or the date and any format you like.

(01:10:02):
And you can set up that dynamite dynamic themeing effect. Or if you'd rather pick from any static color pattern that you prefer, tons of different design shapes and theme options, it's all right there. You can pick whatever you like. I'm telling you, this thing is awesome. And no matter what type of phone you're carrying or what sort of style you're into, it'll bring a jolly jolt, refreshing energy right into your digital domain. Android 12 clock widgets is free to download those. Some of its more advanced options. Do require a one time payment, just a dollar and change to bump yourself up to the premium version. No shady permissions or data use or anything like that. Just a simple but spectacular little upgrade for your phone. One that couldn't be much easier to bring into your life. And hey, speaking of easy life upgrades, if you like finding fun stuff for your phone like this as much as I do, be sure to sign up for my Android Intelligence newsletter. It'll give you a three new things to try in your inbox every Friday along with three things to know and lots of other worthwhile info. Just head over to androidintel.net/twit to get started and get a trio of bonus tips on whatever subject you want this minute too. That site again is android intel.net/twi. I'll see you there and I'll see you right back here next week.

Ron Richards (01:11:22):
How about that? Talk about a powerful, I mean, I know we joke, you joke about widgets, but this is just like, that's a power app right here, right?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:31):
Love it. Customization party. And yeah, this is totally in the spirit of Android backboarding stuff. And then just giving it high levels of functionality for everybody. I love this so much, So much for Android

Ron Richards (01:11:45):
And hats off to JR for who's always got a great t-shirt, his t-shirt game is strong.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:50):
Dude, I want that. I wanted to reach into the screen and not awkwardly just rip the t-shirt off. Not awkwardly. That just sounds

Ron Richards (01:11:58):
Awkward in general.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:59):
Yeah, but I love that. Dang. Maybe we could just, Is

Ron Richards (01:12:03):
It like a phone number thing? Yeah, it's like, yes. Phone number format, but I'm not. Yeah, right. I agree. Very cool. So right in, if you can figure out the, what the phone number on his shirt actually is, call it. But <laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:18):
<laugh>,

Ron Richards (01:12:19):
That's pretty cool. Good stuff. Well thank you JR. And definitely everybody should go over and subscribe to his newsletter. Great stuff. He's truly a gift. So with that, we're gonna get some of your feedback. We're here from you Android community, our favorite people. But first we're gonna give a quick shout out and thank you to our final sponsor of the evening cuz this episode of Android is also brought to you by Kollide. And listen, the challenge with device security has always been that it's difficult to scale. The bigger you are, the more edge cases you introduce and the easier it is for significant issues to escape. Your notice when remote work took over, that challenge got exponentially harder. Whether you're a fast growing startup that needs to graduate from managing device inventory and Google Sheets, or an enterprise trying to speed up service desk issues, you need visibility into your fleet of devices in order to meet security goals and keep everything running smoothly.

(01:13:11):
But how do you achieve that visibility? When your design team uses Max and accounting is on Windows and your most talented developers are on Linux? Well, you get Kollide. Kollide is an endpoint security solution that gives IT teams a single dashboard for all devices regardless of their operating system. Kollide can answer questions, MDMs can't. Questions like do you have production data being stored on devices or all your developers ss hts, encrypted, and a host of other data points that you'd have to write a custom shell script in order to learn about. Take a moment and think about it. If a Linux vulnerability is exposed tomorrow, how will you figure out how many machines are at risk? You file a ticket with a team that manages your MDM and wait days to get a report back, send a mass email and hope that the Linux users open it with Kollide.

(01:13:55):
You have realtime access to your fleets data and instead of installing intrusive agents or locking down devices, kaly takes a user focused approach that communicates security recommendations to your employees directly on Slack. You can answer every question you have about your fleet without intruding on your workforce. Just visit kaly.com/aa to find out how. If you follow that link, they'll hook you up with a goody bag, including a t-shirt just for activating a free trial. That's K O l id e.com/aa. And we thank Kaly for being an awesome service and sponsoring this episode. Thank you Ka, we appreciate it. And with that, it's time to hear from you the all about Android community. As always, you can write in@aaatwi.tv, that's aa twi.tv, and many of you did. And we're gonna hear from you now when you've got the first one.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:14:45):
Yes. And so if you did not get enough Pixel watch talk, we got some more for you. And our first feedback of the week comes from Derek in Illinois. Listening to all of the recent emails regarding the Pixel watch, I want to highlight an ecosystem fail that I find frustrating. Overall, I've loved the Pixel Watch, while the battery live isn't the best out of all wear o s devices, I've had seven in total. The performance of the UI and being able to use the apps without frustration is by far the best. When Google announced the Pixel Watch and said Battery life was only up to 24 hours, I wasn't worried about losing sleep tracking because I don't like to sleep with a watch on and instead have a Google Nest V2 with sleep tracking as my alarm clock. I thought this would be perfect. I can take off the watch to charge while I sleep and continue to get Fitbit integrated sleep data provided by the Nest hub.

(01:15:38):
Once I got the watch and set, once I got the watch and set up Fitbit and I went on my Nest hub B2 and changed the health tracking app from Google fit to Fitbit before I went to bed, I made sure that my Nest hub gave the little icon that let, that lets you know sleep tracking was detecting you. But in the morning there was no sleep data in Fitbit and I could not find a way and find any way to get my desktop to tell me how my sleep went. After digging around, I discovered that even though I switched the health app on my Nest, the sleep data that was getting tracked was going into Google Fit and not being shared with Fitbit. It turns out there is no formal way of having the Nest V2 send your sleep data to Fitbit. The Nest V2 website still claims that the sleep tracking will eventually require you to have a Fitbit premium membership. How can they require Fitbit premium when you can't even get the data into Fitbit? Thanks for letting me rant, Derek. Yeah. Yes, dude. <laugh>,

Ron Richards (01:16:40):
That

Huyen Tue Dao (01:16:41):
Is I, That's a lot. That's a lot. And that's, that's really disappointing that they don't integrate. But I'm not surprised and I don't say that out of necessarily sympathy. It is a difficult technical CH challenge, I think to kind of have all these different data streams and ways of tracking things integrate. But they keep, I mean, they've been tying this Fitbit integration for a long time now. And again, same story with Google, kind of all kinds of different products doing the same thing and they don't work together. You just gotta pick. Although at some point they won't let you pick and you have to use Fitbit, but apparently that doesn't help Derek right now. Thanks Google.

Ron Richards (01:17:21):
Thanks Google. I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:23):
Dunno. Thanks Google. Yeah,

Ron Richards (01:17:24):
I don't know. I dunno what to solve for the this is, or if there is one. I think you just found one of those crazy moments, right? <laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:32):
Disparate products doing the same thing, overlap, cannibalizing each other's functionality, all these unsexy things. Sorry Derek.

Ron Richards (01:17:39):
Yep. All right. Well our next email comes from Matt from the UK who has a clever hack and a tip for you. Pixel watch owners out there complaining about the battery life. Matt in the UK says, I discovered that if you hold the crown button for a few seconds, then hit power off. You get almost indefinite battery life. Simply boot up again when you wanna check the time, then repeat the process when you're done. Hopes this helps someone thumbs up emoji. Thanks Matt, for the ever helpful tip on how to manage your battery on your Pixel watch. I really, that's

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:14):
Android intelligence

Ron Richards (01:18:15):
<laugh>. This email should be printed on a T-shirt, I feel like. Yeah,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:18):
So,

Ron Richards (01:18:20):
Oh

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:20):
My

Ron Richards (01:18:20):
Goodness. Tried turning it off and not turning it back on again.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:24):
<laugh>. Oh,

Ron Richards (01:18:24):
There you go. It's the

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:25):
IT crowd. That's the typical IT device. Just turn it off, Go for a walk.

Ron Richards (01:18:31):
Yep.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:32):
You enjoy life and there you go. Life is so much better.

Ron Richards (01:18:35):
I did have to say I did without irony. Over the weekend, I was outta town and my wife was home with my kids and they wanted to play the pinball machines in the garage. And one of the machines is a from the eighties and it's solid state hardware, whatever, and she turned it on, said it wasn't working and I literally texted back, I'm like, Did you turn it off and then turn it back on again? <laugh>. And then she did. And sure enough, that worked. So there is, it is based in truth the Turn it off, turn it back on again. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, <laugh>. Oh sure. Yeah. Alright. And when you get the honors.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:06):
All right, well it is time for the email of the week, <laugh>. There we go. Okay, let's do it one more time. I think with the email, the week deserves one more shot. Let me just this one more time fan. More fanfare, more Trump is. All right. Yeah. And now it is time for

(01:19:29):
The email of the week and the email of the week comes from Joe, Pats from Pittsburgh, pa, and we talk about watches. So Joe writes us saying, I got the Tick Watch Pro back in July, 2019 and truly loved it. I ended up cracking the face about a year ago, but since it worked, I decided to hold off for the Pixel Watch. When I got the Pixel watch, I had trouble connecting it to my Pixel 7. I thought it was crazy that it required another app. After about a week of wearing it, I decided I didn't like it. You have all mentioned the battery life is abysmal. I didn't wanna deal with Fitbit and it was annoying how he kept asking me to download it. Didn't expect the smaller face to be so off putting. Either I returned it and ordered the Tick Watch Pro three, which connected directly to Wear Os. I don't understand why the second screen isn't more popular, but that is one of my favorite features of the Tick Watch. Love the show. Thank you. Right. And more love for the Tick Watch. And I mean, there's just so many good wearables out there that have incredible battery life that just readily integrate with either Wear OS or With Mean with Android and with iOS A I don't know why, unfortunately why this is the conversation we're having to have post pixel watch launch, but I mean, I don't know.

Mishaal Rahman (01:20:49):
You're a theme, so I'm not wearing it. Yeah, I'm not wearing it right now. But that tick Watch Pro for you, that is my daily driver. Smart. Is it at the moment? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. As you mentioned, that dual screen, that really helps you keep it running for longer than a day.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:06):
So, sorry, so just because I don't have it, So the dual screen is, what is that? My bad

Mishaal Rahman (01:21:12):
I don't know the technology of the dual screen, but basically there's a second screen that's not Olet or lcd, but it's much more low power. So whenever you stop using it for a few seconds, it switches to the low screen to show you the time and other static information. And that extends a battery life by a whole lot.

Ron Richards (01:21:30):
It's a way to balance out the smart watch features, but keep the battery going longer. It is a clever solution. Right.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:40):
Oh, so that's an always on display, but actually done in efficient way. Yes, that's right. The way it's supposed to. It should be done with a low energy. Yes. Oh, that makes so much sense. I like it. Let's see, Guys want another Pixel watch?

Ron Richards (01:21:53):
Yep. Cool. Yeah, I keep hearing more and more people talking about the Tick Watch and Raven and loving it, but yeah, I don't know. I tried with the Pixel watch, I just can't get into a wearable thing. Yeah, maybe another day. Who knows? We'll see. All right. Well that's gonna wrap it up for this week's all about Android. Not a crazy news week. We're in a bit of the doldrums here as we're getting ready for the holidays and that sort of thing. But hopefully more news will be coming out as the rumor mills start picking up speed, which they did a little this week with Samsung and Snap drag and all that fun stuff. So until then Mishaal, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you online?

Mishaal Rahman (01:22:35):
Thanks, Ron. So if you wanna follow me online, you can find me at Twitter for the time being @MishaalRahman. But if you wanna find the company that I work for, esper.io, we're a company that specializes in managing fleets of devices like kiosks and digital signage. So if you have a business that relies on managing lots of different devices across lots of different locations, stadiums, et cetera, come check us out@esper.io or follow me if you wanna find out about what's coming

Ron Richards (01:23:04):
In Android. Excellent. That's a good follow for sure. You're one of the better ones out there. Mishaal, we thank you for joining us this week and we'll see how long for my voice cuts out. Where can everyone find you online? <laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:23:20):
Also for now, you can find me at Twitter @QueenCodeMonkey maybe in a more long term solution. Maybe you can find me also @QueenCodeMonkey on Instagram, and you can find me now at Queen and Code monkey@macon.social. So that's a new thing. And you can find my kind of previous and Android technical talks code and videos@randomlytyping.com.

Ron Richards (01:23:48):
Right on. And you can find me on Instagram and Twitter, and I think I'm on me also, but I don't check it but just at Rono. There it is. And you can follow our good friend j Rafael by going over to Android Intelligence and signing up for his newsletter. Always great to hear from him. And a big thank you to Victor and to Burke behind the scenes for making the show happen and always thankful for the two of them getting the stuff done. And hey, the listener of all about Android or watcher you should check out Club Twi if you haven't already. Club Twit is our ad free subscription tier. You get all the great TWI shows with no ads, and you also get exclusive TWI plus podcast feed with tons of extra content and a member's only Discord. That's where the fun happens. And this is just seven bucks a month.

(01:24:39):
Or you can pay for a full year of $84. Go to twi twi.tv/club twit. Yeah, if you love your Twit podcast, you can get 'em all. Join club Twi. You wanna be there, so check it all out. So that's gonna wrap it up for this week. All about Android comes out every Tuesday evening. You can watch it live as well over at twit.tv/live. Subscribe to the show at twit.tv/aa. You can call and leave us a voicemail, 3 4 7 show aa. Or as always, you can email us@aatwi.tv. We'd love to hear from you. Tune in next week. Hopefully Jason will be back. Mishaal won't be here. I'll be here. When will you be here next week? Hope

Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:21):
So. I think I'll be here. Yay.

Ron Richards (01:25:22):
Right. I know Burke will be here. Cause Burke is always here. Oh yeah, sadly. So <laugh>. Until then, we'll see you next time on All About Android. So long I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:39):
<laugh>.

Speaker 7 (01:25:41):
If you are looking for a midweek update on the week's tech news, I gotta tell you, you gotta check out Tech News Weekly. See, it's all kind of built in there with the title. You get to learn about the news in tech that matters. Every Thursday, Jason Howell and I talk to the people making and breaking the tech news, get their insights and their interesting stories. It's a great show to check out. twit.tv/tnw