All About Android 612, 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.
Jason Howell (00:00:00):
Coming up next. It's All About Android with me, Jason Howell, Ron Richards, and Huyen Tue Dao for her first episode of the year. And we actually realized, hey, she's been on a full year. So there's a little bit of celebration about that, but we also talk about the Consumer Electronics Show for pretty much the entire episode. Cause there was a lot of Android news from the show. Motorola's Think Phone kinda leaning heavily into the Thinkpad vibes there. Google has a present, had a presence rather, at CES, though there were no roller coasters. Satellite connectivity coming to Android courtesy of Qualcomm Nothing Phone(1) makes its US debut for beta testers only. Plus your feedback and so much more. Coming up next on All About Android
(00:00:56):
This is All About Android episode 612, recorded Tuesday, January 10th, 2023, CES 2023. This episode of All About Android is brought to you by Tanium. Tanium Unites operations and security teams with a single platform that identifies where all your IT data is. Patches every device you own in seconds and implements critical security controls all from a single pane of glass. Are you ready to protect your organization from cyber threats? Learn more at tanium.com/twit. It is time for the TWiT audience survey. That's right. This is our annual survey that helps us understand our audience. That's you. So we can, you know, hopefully make your listening experience even better. It's only gonna take you a couple of minutes. We really appreciate if you do so. So go to twit.tv/survey23 and you can take that and please don't wait. The last day to take the survey is January 31st. Thanks in advance. Hello. Welcome to All About Android. This is your weekly source for latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. I'm Jason Howell.
Ron Richards (00:02:02):
And I am Ron Richards. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:06):
And I and Huyen Wit Whoa.
Jason Howell (00:02:08):
<Laugh>. No, you are always is my name <laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:11):
I'm Huyen Tue Dao. And I have a name and internet this week. <Laugh>. So a win at life. My God.
Jason Howell (00:02:17):
You know, excuse
Ron Richards (00:02:18):
Me. Not, not only that Huyen, but we are celebrating a one year of you on the show as a full-time co-host.
Jason Howell (00:02:25):
That's true.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:26):
Woo belatedly. I, I really
Ron Richards (00:02:29):
Appreciate it. Yeah. Belatedly. But we could, we could celebrate the whole month. It's okay. It's your, it's your time.
Jason Howell (00:02:32):
<Laugh>. Woo. I love it. I mean, January is is the month of your birthday I learned in pre-show. It is probably not for the first time. I apologize. You've probably mentioned that before and I acted like I was surprised. But so that means January is the month of you and the month of you on All About Android. It's amazing.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:51):
Oh, I love it. My, my what? My enver, my, my Twitter. No twi Twitversary?
Ron Richards (00:02:56):
Twitversary.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:57):
Twitversary
Jason Howell (00:02:59):
Twitversary. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:03:00):
Yeah. And so in honor of that, when you were gonna do every story on the show tonight.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:04):
Oh,
Jason Howell (00:03:05):
Is it in honor of that? We're gonna send you to Las Vegas for the Consumer electronic show. You're gonna cover the show. You're
Ron Richards (00:03:12):
Recording from Vegas, right? <Laugh>?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:14):
Yes. Vegas. Right, right now, just ignore the fact that I have the usual like office setup. It's, I'm totally in Vegas right now.
Jason Howell (00:03:21):
No, that's, that's your mobile rig. That's, you're in the Yes. Your hotel room at the Venetian right now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you wouldn't dare do this show without the same backdrop that you normally have. You, you taken stuff very
Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:32):
Seriously. Yeah, it's important. Cause this is important.
Jason Howell (00:03:35):
<Laugh>. Okay. For the record, none of us went to Vegas. None of us were there for the Consumer Electronics Show. And I'm am guessing none of us are disappointed about that fact.
Ron Richards (00:03:46):
I will. There was one moment on Instagram where I saw something, I think Flo posted, or maybe Michael Fisher or somebody posted. And for like a glimmer of a moment, I'm like, oh, I'd like to have a meal at a restaurant in Vegas. Like, I had a little, a little, like a, a little nostalgic memory of eating, eating at the Cosmopolitan, or like, or wherever it might be. And then by the way, there's a one of, there's a legendary tiki bar in Vegas. If you're ever there Frankie's it's just awesome. But you surprised
Jason Howell (00:04:16):
If there wasn't?
Ron Richards (00:04:18):
I do. I do not, I do not regret not being in Vegas for ces, thankfully. I mean,
Jason Howell (00:04:22):
There's always, like, when I think of c s there's blips of CES that I miss. Like, you know, cuz there were a number of years when I was working at cnet, especially in early twit days, where CES was just a given. It was just like, okay, after holidays, like I know that I'm going to Vegas, we're doing our coverage, and it's not like I had a horrible time in Vegas. It's just, it's a slog. It's a constant, it's tough. Yeah. And, and you're, you're constantly, you know, moving out to do this shoot, okay, you gotta run across the hall over to there to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you work your tail off and then at the very end, you're paid with some sort of illness that you, you know, <laugh> come home and you feel awful.
Ron Richards (00:05:04):
Well, not, not to, not to like, you know, dwell on a negative topic, but if I do, I do remember reading an article about the origin of the jump of Covid from China to the United States. And it was isolated to ces.
Jason Howell (00:05:16):
Right? I remember. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It was, it was a lot of, yeah, a lot of a lot of question marks around like, well, wait a minute, because that was kind of before people were really testing and, and knowing Yeah. With any certainty. But there was still kind of a question at that, that was early enough, but late enough where it was still a question like I'm going here. I don't, I hope I don't catch something. You know, it was like everybody knew of this thing called Covid, but we didn't really know what we were in store for. And so, yeah. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't go that year either. But have you ever been, when, have you ever gone to the Consumer Electronics show?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:05:52):
No. I just remember, you know, again, like when you were at CNET and, and like, that was kind of my main way of, of consuming it. So it was kind of a yearly thing, but it's always been as a kind of like observer from the interwebs. So I've never been, and I don't know when I would ever be comfortable going to a large kind of like consumer trade show ever these days. Yeah. especially since, you know, we don't know what the scene and see, you know, like you said, the scene and, and CES was maybe at some point. Yeah, no, I, I like watching though. But hearing you <laugh> hearing you go there as part of like, you know, the industry and as part of your job sounds kind of like tiring actually.
Ron Richards (00:06:35):
The best way to go. I did go, I did go one year when I wasn't on the press media side of things. I went the, the, the one year that I, that I worked for that IOT company and was there as a, as a company, as a manufacturer, and it was networking stuff like that. It was Jason. It was much easier.
Jason Howell (00:06:54):
Different. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:06:55):
Right. Much different. Yeah. Yeah. Because you don't, you don't have to scramble to look at everything. You, you, you know, you set meetings and of course it's a hustle and you wanna go to this thing, you gotta participate in this thing. It's still like, but it wasn't, it wasn't as exhausting as it was being a media side where you're trying to be everywhere at once and cover everything that you can. Like we did, you know, like you did the, through your career, like I did when I was at Revision3. Like, it was just, you know, it was definitely a different experience, that's for sure. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:07:19):
So, yeah. And different experience, but also sprinkled with a lot of really fun things, you know, saw Oh, for sure. Saw really great people going out for, you know, a af when the work is done, being able to go out and get some drinks with people that you only see online, and then now you're there and face-to-face and those kind of moments, you know, that, that's the kind of stuff I miss. It's the same thing about Google io, you know, and not going for however many years at this point. Hopefully maybe that changes this year, but we will certainly find out. But before we get into this show that is absolutely filled with consumer electronics show news, we've got Burke. I don't know if your finger is ready for it. We've got some breaking news. That's right. Oh, yeah.
Ron Richards (00:08:03):
It's been, is this the first, this is the first breaking news of 2023.
Jason Howell (00:08:06):
That's right. I believe it's celebrated. And it, and I'll give you three, three guesses what it might be, because around the first of every year, this moment happens, and big surprise, it happened again. Samsung has announced their next Galaxy unpacked event. Woo. It's February 1st. It's a Wednesday. It's gonna happen at 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern in downtown San Francisco. I missed that detail. So it's gonna be in our neck of the woods. It's gonna be live streamed on YouTube and on Samsung's website. We talked about it earlier today in our editorial meeting. We'll be doing live coverage. So I think it's gonna be me and Leo we'll keep you posted on how that, how that transpires if that changes or whatever. But I mean, what are we expecting other than what we always get from Samsung this time of year, which is the next Galaxy S series phone, which this time around would be the 23. So there you go. And a 23 with a stylist on the, on the top tier, you know, so, yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm trying to see if maybe there's any potential of any surprises outside of that. And I'm not really seeing anything. If you've got a Samsung phone, you can expect that you'll be able to trade it up and get a lot of value. Usually Samsung's pretty good about that. So if you are a Samsung fan, your time has come
Ron Richards (00:09:32):
<Laugh>. So that time of year,
Jason Howell (00:09:34):
That time, and speaking of that time of year, it's like, like we spent like 10 minutes talking about it's consumer electronic showtime. So why don't we get into the news and start rolling.
Burke (00:09:49):
And, you know, I mentioned that I hoped the Samsung event was an opera. What I didn't mention was, I hope it's a rock opera.
Jason Howell (00:09:56):
Rock opera. Ooh. Yeah, there you go. In our meeting, Burke mentioned opera as being kind of like the next frontier for Samsung's event. Samsung hasn't been doing the whole like, flashy theme kind of themed thing. They, I maybe they've learned their lesson. I mean, it's been a number of years since they've done that at this point.
Ron Richards (00:10:15):
I was gonna say probably because it was may possibly close to 10 years since they did the Broadway performance. And we're still talking about it, <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:10:22):
And so like,
Ron Richards (00:10:23):
My, my argument would be that that would be a reason to do it again or to do something similar to get to at least to move on from that. But I could see why they wouldn't want to go back to that
Jason Howell (00:10:31):
One. No, it's cool. It was just, yeah, cringey. It was fun. Yes.
Ron Richards (00:10:36):
<Laugh>. But, so C CES was busy last week for our friends, like Florence Ion who was there and other folks who were there. But it's busy for us after ces because now we gotta recap everything that came out. So this is gonna be the All About Androids c e s edition a week later. And of course, first up is Google, who has been attending CES for several years now. Do you remember the year they had a rollercoaster? Jason? Do you remember
Jason Howell (00:10:59):
That? I, yes, I've, I do remember that actually. People
Ron Richards (00:11:02):
Do that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Exactly. Well, so they did have a visible presence at CS this year and also released some news which is always great. So first up, they shared some statistics that you may find boring or interesting up to you. But since 2017 they revealed that fast payer has facilitated 320 million connections. Which I don't know how they actually count that. How do you
Jason Howell (00:11:24):
But yeah, yeah, that's a good
Ron Richards (00:11:26):
Question. Yeah. Anyway, but additionally, nearby Share is now available on 3 billion devices, which is pretty amazing. And CAST is supported by more than 3000 apps, which feels low to me, but Okay. And since May, 2021, there are three times as many Active Wear OS devices which is good for them. They don't, they don't state good for them. What, what the number was, you know, like there could have been, yeah, there could have been 50 and now there's 150, but still Totally. Yeah. there's 150 million monthly active Android TV OS devices which is fascinating. And seven brands offer cars with Google built in. So they're just, you know, that, that, that little smattering of statistics and data really gives you a quick snapshot of the depth and breadth of Google in consumer electronics. Right. Because between Fast Pair is, you know, other, you know you know, other accessories working with Android phones, right? Fast Pair
Jason Howell (00:12:25):
Is great nearby, I love Fast Pair.
Ron Richards (00:12:26):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Nearby Share is devices connecting each other, showing that connectivity. Right? Cast is apps to tv, the living room, that whole kind of experience, right? Android TV os device is the living room experience, right? The Wear Os device is the whole world of wearables and all that sort of stuff. You know, then of course, cars and automotive is a huge thing. So when you look at what is at cs, they curated this, these statistics to show why Google is there, which I think is smart and, and, and interesting
Jason Howell (00:12:55):
At the same time. It's just like, here's a big number. Here's, here's another thing that we do, followed by a big number. I don't know, it's like, as I was like compiling this list, I was kind of like, God, I, I care very little about this cuz like, the number is, it's, it's so esoteric. Like, okay, 3 billion devices, that's a lot of devices. But, you know, like, what do I compare that to? I don't even know, you know, <laugh> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, right? So, anyways, maybe I'm a little jaded, but I'm like, okay, cool. Big numbers, thanks.
Ron Richards (00:13:24):
Yeah. Well, I mean, they wanna show, I mean, they, they
Jason Howell (00:13:26):
They wanna show off big
Ron Richards (00:13:27):
Yeah. They wanna show off, which I understand. Yeah. but that last stat, which is a low number, but seven brands offering cars that Google built in is a nice lead into the fact that actually flow over at Gizmoto had a great piece covering the Android auto refresh that is happening. And it's rolling out n mass and media handoff is coming soon. So that's moving audio from the device device depending on where you are starting with Spotify Connect. But so a lot of the Android auto makeover, a lot of really cool in dash in steering wheel, kind of in, in, you know, screen. You know, you always see the crazy stuff at ces. Yeah. You know, like the, the, the stuff that you won't see actually in products for several years, but <laugh>
Jason Howell (00:14:11):
You, you some you'll never see.
Ron Richards (00:14:13):
Yeah, exactly. But you're seeing, you know, how the, the what the long term play, working with car manufacturers, with Android Auto and integrating Google even deeper into cars which is really, really interesting. So, but I do like the idea of the uninterrupted listening aspect across the devices, because I gotta say that is one of, you know, going from my desktop to my phone to my car, and then like having to press pause and pick it back up again. All that sort of stuff. If you could, if they can seamlessly transfer what you're listening to, depending on what device you're connected to at any point in time, that would be very, very cool. And one of those things that they, I think that they would explain and tout in a blog post or in an IO display, that would never actually work well for me in practice. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> much like most of my interactions with Google Home these days, <laugh>, but Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:15:01):
Well,
Ron Richards (00:15:02):
But still they're trying. So
Jason Howell (00:15:04):
I mean, you know, and they mention Spotify and Spotify Connect as part of, you know, part of this. And like, I have direct experience with that actually working and being kind of cool. Right? Like, I've got an hand Android phone. We, we did buy a Tesla last year before all of the Elon Musk stuff happened. Ask me if I, if we'd buy a Tesla now, we would make a much different choice. But hey, it's the car we bought when we did. And the car is great, by the way, but we enjoy the car. We just don't enjoy all the stuff happening behind the scenes anyways, the point of my story is like, when I have something on my phone that I'm playing through Spotify, say I'm listening to it in headphones or out or in the house or whatever, and then I get in the car the, the Tesla kind of interface has Spotify built into it, and so it kind of logs in, you know, it detects like, this driver just sat down, therefore log into this driver's Spotify account.
(00:15:57):
And the second it does that, it immediately picks up playing whatever I was listening to on my phone. And, and it does work. And it's actually really cool when it, because I, I keep ex, I keep expecting to have to do the, the extra two to three things to get the thing that I was listening to earlier. You know, like navigate to it and play or whatever, but it just hands it off. And so if that's kind of the comparison and that happens throughout the home in different ways, that's pretty awesome. If it happens, if it works seamlessly, you know, the way you expect it to.
Ron Richards (00:16:27):
Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:16:28):
Yeah. I
Ron Richards (00:16:29):
Like that. So, we'll, we'll see. But kudos to flow for covering all the Android auto stuff at cs pretty awesome.
Jason Howell (00:16:34):
The world famous Florence ion Yeah. At Consumer Electronic
Ron Richards (00:16:38):
Show. And I'm disappointed that there was no weird rollercoaster or thing at the Google booth or anything like that, but they, you know, not surprising.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:46):
So what, what is, so, I mean, especially like journalists, what I mean, I I I, as a developer and as a consumer, I see that like, oh, that's cute. Does that, I mean, is that just part of the spectacle? Is that just like table stakes for Okay.
Jason Howell (00:16:59):
What the rollercoaster thing used
Ron Richards (00:17:00):
To be? Rollercoaster used to be stupid.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:02):
Yeah. I mean, I'm, maybe I'm being very judgmental, but like, the, the spectacle, like, does that do well Yeah. Pre, is that just more like,
Jason Howell (00:17:08):
I'm gonna pre pre
Ron Richards (00:17:10):
Pandemic?
Jason Howell (00:17:10):
That was, was, yeah. I'm pasting a link to the right of the top link of that Google at CES thing. It's a CN BBC link, and it, and it gives a walkthrough. This was from 2019 Holy. Where Google had a rollercoaster <laugh>, which
Ron Richards (00:17:24):
Is the, which is the year before the pandemic.
Jason Howell (00:17:26):
Right, right, right. Exactly. Kinda
Ron Richards (00:17:28):
Like, and Jason, I I will, I will cite you know, our good friend Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont and, and you know, the buzz out Loud days which I believe came from Buzz out la but when they, they dubbed it Spectacle Fest, isn't that, isn't that a, isn't that an old b o l term that came
Jason Howell (00:17:43):
Out of it spec where Spectacle Fest is definitely an old b o L term. Yeah. Was that related to kind of like what Consumer electronics show
Ron Richards (00:17:50):
Directly? Pretty sure that was the origin. I think it was a combination of like, talking about E three and c s and all, like the, the, the increasing, you know, and as you put it, table stakes in terms of Yeah. How more outlandish can your, your booth be. And the purpose of it would be to get people talking about your brand. Right? Yeah. And, and, and, and in association with talking about the ridiculous Google Assistant rollercoaster ride <laugh> that, you know, my, it, it had everyone talking about Google and talking about Google Assistant, right. So
Jason Howell (00:18:21):
What, and it's so funny watching this right now, like in the years it's 2023, where all these tech companies are laying off and, and cutting budgets and everything, and just looking and just going, wow. You know, just three years ago agreed
Ron Richards (00:18:33):
At
Jason Howell (00:18:33):
This, you had a surplus. Obviously it's
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:36):
<Laugh>, they made like it's a small world. Like it's a small, it's a Google
Jason Howell (00:18:39):
World. Yes, exactly. It's,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:41):
And,
Ron Richards (00:18:41):
But it's better than, but to that, but to that point, but, but to that point, when it's a small world came from the World's Fair in 1964, which which was a, which was a, i i, I believe it's a small world, was unicef and Pepsi, like, like sponsored kind of like company pavilions, like Ford Motors had a big, like, that's a lot of the work that Disney did was, you know, at the world's Fair to build these attractions for people to talk about the ro the brands. Right. So it's not a, it's, it's not a, it's an old, it's an, it's an old's thing that's
Jason Howell (00:19:12):
Happened. Yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:12):
Yeah. Oh, that is, that is very apt. Do you think, do you think, like these days, especially like kind of post pandemic, that there's a balance between wanting to, and I imagine also that if you're working hard and you're hustling to do, you know, the, you know, journalist and, and media work at cs that, you know, getting on the rollercoaster and having a good time might just keep you in a good mood, or Yeah. Might just keep you interested. But I wonder what's the balance now? Because this, this, yeah, this feels a little this feels extra Oh, very extra in the today time. So I wonder what the strategy will be going forward for this to kind of keep, as you said, the, the hype and like maybe like the good, I don't know perspective or the, the kind of positive like attitude when kind of, you know, covering a big event like this and also just being like real <laugh>, you know what I mean? And not too, can I insane.
Jason Howell (00:20:02):
I'd like to point out that calling it a roller coaster really is a very
Ron Richards (00:20:06):
Far stretched, it's not a roller coaster. You're right. It's a ride. It's just, it's, it's more of a dark in, in Disney carland. This is a dark ride. Yes. So Yes.
Jason Howell (00:20:13):
Yes. Is that what they call it? A dark ride?
Ron Richards (00:20:15):
Yeah. Like, like a haunted mansion and small world or dark rides. Oh. So like they, where you get in, get
Jason Howell (00:20:22):
Sinister when you call it a dark ride.
Ron Richards (00:20:24):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Because it's dark. That's why. So, but yeah, so
Jason Howell (00:20:29):
Interesting. Well, I mean, this is, none of this is to say that Google didn't do things, you know, didn't have some sort of a presence this year, right? When they
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:39):
Oh, yes. <Laugh>. Oh, yes. And
Jason Howell (00:20:41):
They didn't have a rollercoaster or whatever you wanna call it, but
Huyen Tue Dao (00:20:44):
No, but they got people, I mean, I, I feel like, like maybe in 2023, as we are all this kind of, you know, maybe starting to peek back out into the real world, we've kind of come out of a phase of two to three years of everybody trying to figure out, you know, how to exist and socialize online. And I don't know, I, I feel like I've gotten into internet drama, you know, like this creator did something with about this creator and all that kind of stuff. And that's kind of just been like, you know, my little tabloid trash kind of entertainment. And I don't know, I don't really think this is what Google's going for, but, you know, Google, it may be to kind of appeal to like the young and, and at home among us, not, that's not counting me. I'm be 40 next week.
(00:21:21):
Woo. has started, has kind of kept their internet drama going. So we talked a lot about Google's insistence and public, you know, I guess public drama that they've been continuing with Apple over rcs. Well with this kind of like big return to ces, Google decided to keep that internet Dr. Drama train going with Apple with a couple of very large ads in an effort to help Apple hashtag get the message. Now, this is, again, all in the vein of trying to convince Apple to adopt rcs. So there was a couple of large billboards, which one of them was kind of interesting. It was kinda like a mock d like mock direct messages between Apple and Google and saying, Hey, like, you should really help people fix the quote pixelated photos and videos. And they even, and they even flash like a bunch of codes that would like help with that.
(00:22:11):
So kind of Google as part of the spectacle to get people talking it. I mean, rightfully, no, sweetie, I'm not talking to you. Sorry, I should, I need to disable her when we're doing the show. But <laugh>, you know, and maybe in the vein of, again, kind of keeping the subject of rcs in the public consciousness, they put out a couple of very large ads. And yeah, like just calling out, Google's still calling it Apple at cs and a couple big billboards about hashtag to get the message about rcs. So, and then of course they did have a booth, and if you're curious about what it looked like, it was not as nearly fantastic as having a dark ride. But it definitely was super bug droid. So if you, like me, can only, you know, view ces like kind of vicariously through media coverage, but you still kind of wanna know what it might be like to visit the Android booth over at CES nine to five.
(00:23:03):
Google did a very thorough walkthrough so you can kind of see like the fun stuff and, and yeah, it definitely feels like Android. Like there, there's plenty of bug juries, there's plenty of like the, the Android Green, and there are a lot of like, fun looking demos and, and kind of you know, boo to kind of promote and kind of demo a lot of the things that Ron just mentioned. So if you're just curious and you just wanna kind of live the moment as if you were at CES and got to go go to nine to five Google and check out their booth door there's like a slot machine. There's like a big old bug droid swing, and there's a lot of like, you know, little cute ways of d of Android kind of showing this interconnected
Ron Richards (00:23:45):
Android
Jason Howell (00:23:45):
Everywhere world that they're going for. So, and everybody that worked there, they were wearing white, like plushy jackets, all, all the same kind of Yeah. Fleece jackets. There we go. And white hats. They were very coordinated. <Laugh> very coordinated. Yeah. It was, it's not as much of a spectacle as a rollercoaster or, or a dark train or whatever it's called. Dark Dark Ride. Dark Rock
Ron Richards (00:24:09):
Ride, dark Ride, dark Ride
Jason Howell (00:24:11):
<Laugh>, the Dark Train <laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:24:14):
That sounds like an Azzie record.
Jason Howell (00:24:16):
<Laugh> a horror movie or something. Yeah, A Roses song. Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:24:22):
Yeah, yeah. There you go. What A night train. There
Jason Howell (00:24:25):
We go. That night. Train. Oh, okay. <Laugh>. Yeah. Bug droid. See, why don't we have that in the studio? A a bug droid. That's
Ron Richards (00:24:34):
Pretty cool.
Jason Howell (00:24:34):
Swinging chair. That's what, that's what we need. Oh, they made them wear white G Oh, wait, no they didn't. Yeah, they did. They, they're gloves. Glove gloves. A little weird. Everybody's kind wearing,
Ron Richards (00:24:43):
Well, I guess Covid, right? I
Jason Howell (00:24:45):
Don't know. Uhhuh thing, or Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:24:46):
I don't know. They're not wearing masks though. It's weird. Yeah, they're not wearing masks. Vegas.
Jason Howell (00:24:50):
Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:24:51):
It's weird. That is weird.
Jason Howell (00:24:53):
Did it does sound like attendance was was not high. Stacy Higginbotham from this week in Google, she was not on Twig last week because she was at ces, so she was on TWIT this weekend, and they talked extensively about, you know, kind of what she saw while she was at cs. And she just said it was really ki like a site to behold compared to previous years where there are people just everywhere and you can't escape people. And this, this year it, it was just very empty by comparison, so. Well,
Ron Richards (00:25:22):
That's good. That's, that's, I guess that's re a relief, right? That's good to hear
Jason Howell (00:25:26):
A relief if you don't like crowds. Maybe not a relief if you're throwing these things and you wanna attract people in
Ron Richards (00:25:31):
Way
Jason Howell (00:25:31):
True. A consumer electronic show to continue. I'll be curious to see like, is this just the new kind of thing for the ces, you know? Yeah,
Ron Richards (00:25:39):
Yeah. Cause keep in mind, the people would do ces charge people to go, like, that's how they pay for it. So like, it is still a business, so Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:25:46):
Scooter hacks put in chat something that ces the, you know, CS group or whatever, whatever, the consumer electronics, blah, blah, I don't know what they're called put out and said ended January 8th with a total attendant attendee count of more than 115,000 they say, exceeding even the most optimistic projections of the Consumer Technology Association. What was
Ron Richards (00:26:12):
PR attendance
Jason Howell (00:26:13):
Before Covid? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
Ron Richards (00:26:15):
Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:26:16):
Yeah, it's a good question. Be like, like 4, 5, 6 times that
Ron Richards (00:26:19):
I'm sure. Let's see. Let's see. Attendance 2019 182,000.
Jason Howell (00:26:27):
Okay. That's a big, so, oh, okay. Big drop.
Ron Richards (00:26:31):
And I'm, I'm, but I'm not, I'm also not surprised that it's a hundred thousand because like, oh, not either, you know, like we're seeing, you know, like we, you know, in my, you know, my comic book world, you know, we, you know, it's been last year was the, the, the return to Comic-Con in San Diego and both in New York, and both those drew over a hundred thousand people. So like, people still going.
Jason Howell (00:26:48):
Yeah. So it's, well, we have just a little bit more news before we take a quick break here. Qualcom put out an announcement during CES that satellite connectivity is gonna arrive on Android devices later this year. Qualcomm's kind of version of this called Snapdragon satellite. They're working with a company, a satellite network provider called Iridium to pull this off, capable of two-way messaging. Maxi maximum of 140 characters via SMS or over the top messaging services like WhatsApp. Smartphones will of course have it to be running the Snapdragon eight gen two. They will be the first in line to use Snapdragon satellite. So that, that would mean then that, you know, Google's very own Pixel devices would not support this. So it'll be interesting to see if this becomes a thing that, that Google champions, because as we, as you may or may not know, apple, you know, has this now satellite connectivity on their current iPhones and <laugh> from this day forward, future iPhones will have it too. So, you know, that kind of puts this in that kind of area of, oh, we're Apple's competing here and, and they have this solution and we do not. Now Google's in a position where, you know, snap Dragon phones will have it. What's Google gonna do? They're gonna have to do something along these lines, and I'm sure they will. But, but that's, that remains to be seen. Haven't heard about that yet.
(00:28:24):
Yeah. Cool. That landed <laugh>, that's a big
Ron Richards (00:28:27):
Phone <laugh>. That's a big, it is a big device there. <Laugh>, what is that? Or a very small hand. So for our audio, audio listeners, somebody holding the prototype device in it, and it, and it is like, I mean, that looks like the size of like a, of a tablet, like a, a seven inch tablet. It looks bigger.
Jason Howell (00:28:42):
It looks like a Nexus seven all almost. Yeah. You know, it's kinda like next to seven size.
Ron Richards (00:28:47):
It looks next to seven size. Yeah, for sure. For reference. Yeah. That's fascinating.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:28:51):
And what are those connectors at the bottom? Yeah, the, the 10, 11, 12, 13, like little, almost
Jason Howell (00:28:56):
Early understand what I'm looking at, but
Ron Richards (00:28:58):
Well, they sh the front of that device I think is probably this. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:29:05):
Yeah. Oh,
Ron Richards (00:29:05):
Oh, I see. And that looks like an XO seven. Yeah, so, oh, I
Jason Howell (00:29:09):
See. So that's the device. It
Ron Richards (00:29:10):
Can't be an XO seven, could it? No, it looks like an XO seven. No, I'm not saying it is an XO seven, but it, in terms of dimensions and size in the hand, it looks a Right, it looks larger, larger than a, a Pixel Pro, right? It's smaller than a 10 inch
Jason Howell (00:29:26):
Tablets. Flo wrote this article for gizmoto. She went out on ki into the desert where they took journalists to kind of demonstrate this, and it was a very controlled and, you know, thing with their, their device. And I don't even think that Flo got hands on time with it to get a sense of it. It was very much, you know, we show you kind of what things can be <laugh>. So yeah, the device that you're looking at is obviously not a consumer device. It was just meant to kinda show the technology and what we can all expect someday on our smartphone. So there you go. All right, let's TA and, and that icon right there that the guy's pointing at, see it right there. That thing or that sensor or whatever. Okay. Coming up, we've got some hardware news check in on so much in fact that it spans two blocks that's coming up.
(00:30:16):
But first, this episode of All About Android is brought to you by Tanium. The industry's approach to cybersecurity, well, it's fundamentally flawed. IT management security point tools offer only a small piece of the solution that's actually needed to protect your environment. And many of them promise that they can stop all breaches when they simply cannot. Making decisions based on stale data and trying to defend your critical assets from cyber attacks with tools that don't talk to each other. That's no way for IT teams to navigate today's attack surface. So it's time for a different approach. Tanium says it's time for a convergence of tools, endpoints, and IT operations and security. They have solutions for government entities for education, financial services, retail, healthcare, and you can trust their solutions for every workflow that relies on endpoint data. So you can track down every IT asset that you own instantaneously really fantastic asset discovery and inventory.
(00:31:17):
You can find and fixed vulnerabilities at scale in seconds with their risk and compliance management tools. Hunting for sophisticated adversaries in real time that's possible. Automating operations from discovery to management with their client management tools. And then indexing and monitoring sensitive data globally within seconds because you have access to the sensitive data monitoring tools as well. Tanium protects organizations where other endpoint management and security providers have failed. There's a single platform that you get with Tanium, and that actually helps you identify where all your data is across your entire IT estate. It patches every device you own in seconds, implements critical security controls, all from a single pane of glass, so you aren't going a million different places to, to solve these problems. Kevin Bush, the vice president of IT at Ring Power Core says Tanium brings visibility to one screen for our whole team.
(00:32:15):
And if you don't have that kind of visibility, you're not gonna be able to sleep at night. So take it from Kevin, check out Tanium, with real realtime data comes realtime impact. If you're ready to unite operations and security teams with a single source of truth and confidently protect your organization from cyber threats while it's time you met Tanium and you can learn more, you can meet Tanium for yourself and learn more at tanium.com/twit. T A N I U m. That's tanium.com/twit. And we thank Tanium for their support of All About Android. All right, buckle up. We got a lot of hardware coming at you. Start right now.
Ron Richards (00:32:57):
Whoa,
Speaker 5 (00:32:59):
<Laugh>,
Jason Howell (00:33:04):
If I had hardware, I'd throw it at you right now. It's just
Ron Richards (00:33:07):
<Laugh> <laugh>.
Jason Howell (00:33:10):
So when you've got the first one.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:13):
Yeah. And we're taking it up to 11 already with the one plus 11, which is launching officially in China. And this is the one plus 11 no pro branding needed because it has got some pro specs. The one plus 11 is coming out with a six point 60, sorry, 6.67 inch, 120 hertz, two K amela display, that juicy snap, dragon eight gin, two chip 16 gigabytes of Ram, a 5,000 Milliam battery and 100 wat charging. And OnePlus is continuing it's partnership with Hasselblad and they've got a really kind of sexy, you know triple, triple camera array that kind of wraps around. Yeah. And with that really for the fancy Hasselblad branding it's, it's just many pic megapixels of cameras. There's like a 50 megapixel camera, 40 megapixel camera, and I don't know, another large mega well how there's too many
Jason Howell (00:34:06):
Mega mega megapixels,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:08):
Mega big pixels, mega 50, 40 and 32 megapixel cameras on that
Jason Howell (00:34:11):
16 on the front.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:13):
Just so many like your
Jason Howell (00:34:15):
Megapixels. This phone has so many megapixels for
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:17):
You. So many mm-hmm.
Ron Richards (00:34:18):
<Affirmative>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:19):
I so many. I
Ron Richards (00:34:20):
Like the look of, I like the look of this phone though. It's good. I know. It's good. What do you guys think of the, the, the sundial on the back?
Jason Howell (00:34:27):
I,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:34:27):
I love it.
Jason Howell (00:34:28):
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not offensive to look at. I, I like it
Ron Richards (00:34:33):
<Laugh>. Look,
Jason Howell (00:34:34):
What, what I worry about though is the tabletop thing, right? Like, I'm getting really used to the fact that this camera band on my pixel, you know, extends all the way across. So I don't have that weird little wobble effect when it's on a table and, and everything. And, and when I look at that, that's the main thing I think of is like, I'm sure the cameras are great and it actually is very pleasing to look at, but you know, it's gonna have a weird wobble. It's just gonna have a wobble. A weird
Ron Richards (00:34:58):
Wobble.
Jason Howell (00:34:59):
Yeah, a weird table wobble.
Ron Richards (00:35:02):
It's like a, like a table at a restaurant where the one leg Yes. And they've got like that, you know, matchbooks underneath it or whatever
Jason Howell (00:35:08):
With a, with a phone. Like, you know, in the, in the case of the phone like this, it's not the end of the world. Like maybe that's, you know, nitpicking or whatever, but there are certain people that's gonna bug every time it happens. And I'm just kind of one of them. I, that kind of stuff bugs me.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:22):
So it sounds like a good business for like level leveling, leveling cases. Yeah. I guess most cases do that anyway, but maybe there's gonna be like a little extra, little extra silicon or like whatever material is your case of choice on the other side.
Jason Howell (00:35:37):
Yeah, exactly. They'll fill it in so that it so that it's flush on the back probably if you get a case for these, I'm sure you'll see a lot of that.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:45):
Tpu. Thank you. Brick. Yes. I was thinking of tpu.
Jason Howell (00:35:47):
Yes. Tpu, yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, but yeah. Nice colors. And it looks like they've at least in this promotional image, you know, they've matched the, this like, I dunno, is that a green or a, a teal or,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:35:58):
I think it's green. It comes in two colors of black and a green. So I can only guess that would be green.
Jason Howell (00:36:02):
They match it with the buds, with the one plus buds attractive.
Ron Richards (00:36:05):
Very. I li I like, I mean the, I mean I, I, I'm a, I might be a sucker for marketing materials, <laugh>,
Jason Howell (00:36:10):
But you
Ron Richards (00:36:11):
Know, the, like, you know, for audio listeners it's a very attractive shot of the phone and the earbuds all in the same color and it's like mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it is you know, it, it, I'm after, after, I don't wanna say lying dormant for a while cause one plus has been around, but not really that notable or whatever. I'm, so, I'm impressed.
Jason Howell (00:36:29):
I mean, they, they, they have a track record with nailing the design aspect, in my opinion. Yes. At least, at least from, from my taste. I, I always feel like they do a really great job with design.
Ron Richards (00:36:40):
Right. That's
Jason Howell (00:36:42):
Carried
Ron Richards (00:36:42):
Them and think it's safe to say. And they have been struggling post Carl Pay departure mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Right. Which is another thing that I feel like we've been talking about them. Like the context of One Plus has been post Carl Pay, but he left now a while ago. Right. <laugh>. Yeah. So like, you know, but there was also like that and like the, the kind of getting even cozier with Oppo, right. And like the kind of the merging of the two. Right. And so like, I feel like one plus has been going through not an identity crisis, but a little bit of growing pains maybe. Yeah. And maybe they're coming out of
Jason Howell (00:37:11):
It. Yeah. So, yeah.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:12):
Yeah. And this post hold on, this Postpay Plus will be available in more regions outside of China later this year. So if you're interested you might might, might get your hands on that. I was trying to Postpay Plus post.
Jason Howell (00:37:25):
Does Postpay plus try and say that Postpay plus 10 times?
Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:29):
Yeah, no, it,
Jason Howell (00:37:30):
You'll stumble.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:31):
I tried. Yeah, it does just, I fell on my face linguistically. So
Jason Howell (00:37:36):
<Laugh> does look nice though.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:39):
Super
Ron Richards (00:37:40):
Nice. Sure does.
Jason Howell (00:37:41):
Very stylish looking
Ron Richards (00:37:43):
Well, speaking of Carl Pay. Yeah. we got a little bit of nothing in the news today. I dunno about you, but I, I was very excited when I got a email in my inbox from the fine folks and nothing letting me know that the nothing phone one was coming to the us which is fascinating cause it's something we winning for, but hold on. Not quite there yet. It's actually coming in the form of a $299 membership to their beta program, which is fascinating. W by signing up, by si by, you know, I I as well as you, if you sign up for the mailing list, were invited to join their beta program for just $299. And as part of signing up for that beta program, you would get a, the black version of the nothing phone one with the white glyphs.
(00:38:32):
And it would be running nothing os 1.5 and Android 13. But doing so right, put you into this beta program and where they are, there's a very extensive FAQ on the page if you go to nothing's website where you could sign up for this, where they pretty much anticipate every question that I might have had. I don't know about you Jason Huy, I don't know if you guys have the same questions, but very, very extensive. And they do, you know, kind of buyer b beware, warn you that says the phone ones distributed are for testing purposes. Whilst these are final models, the device may not work with all US carriers since this is a beta version of the software users may experience some limitations. And those limitations I found were really interesting in that they, they, they basically specified like, well what does that mean?
(00:39:22):
And it means that like Google Wallet might not work Netflix might not work, YouTube might not work because the whole purpose of this is to test their OS and Android 13 with US carriers. And you are signing up to be one of those people to give them feedback and help test with it. So hmm. What is really, really interesting is that you would think that in a, you know, you're signing up for a membership and you're signing up for a beta and they're gonna give you a phone. Well, the beta program's gonna end. You have to return the device. No, basically the phone is yours. So essentially by buying into this beta membership, you're buying the nothing phone one for $300, which I, I feel like is under sale price, right? Wasn't it selling it much higher?
Jason Howell (00:40:06):
Well, yeah. What was the original selling price?
Ron Richards (00:40:09):
Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:40:11):
Was it more than
Ron Richards (00:40:11):
That? I feel like it was like North, it was like around 500 or so. But you, you, so what you're getting is you're getting the phone one black with, with eight eight gig of memory and 122 gig, 128 gig of storage. So it's the lower end side of the device. And you also get as they say, an opportunity to claim a nothing community black dot.
Jason Howell (00:40:34):
A black dot was a black dot.
Ron Richards (00:40:36):
You might ask, what is a black dot? Yes, I do. And, and, and I'm reading directly for their website. A black.is an n is an N F t oh a A token that is part of nothing's official web three project, nothing Community Dots. These tokens have been gifted to our earliest supporters, can be used to unlock exclusive spaces on our Discord server. Learn more about black.here and you can go to dots.nothing.tech for all the information about their black.community dots and that sort of thing. And you get one black dot for forgetting this. Yeah. And so you would think also what what I think is also really interesting is that you would think that they're, they're not positioning this as around like buy the nothing one phone in the US and like as part of this beta program, but they're positioning it like as a membership, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So then another question, which is a question I had, which is, does my membership give me access to other new beta products? You know, cuz here I'm, I'm buying this membership to your beta program and their answer is no. This is strictly for the phone one. So,
Jason Howell (00:41:43):
So, okay. The one question, and I'm, I'm looking through the q and a and also researching what it sold for initially. So initially it's sold for roughly around $460 converted with a conversion. So, okay. Yeah. This is definitely less. But so usually what we've seen with betas on Android phones is that it's beta until it's not anymore, and then it comes outta beta, right? Will this ever come outta beta or is it just eternally beta <laugh>?
Ron Richards (00:42:11):
Right? Yes. Good question. I mean, it sounds like I, I I feel like I read somewhere that the beta program was running between now and June.
Jason Howell (00:42:18):
Oh, and then at the end on the other side of that. Yeah, because cuz once you get on the other side of that, then you've got, you know, cleared software that Yep. You, you would, I would imagine get your nf your your wallet support, you know, get your Netflix and d r m you know, cleared and, and everything. So yeah, I, I don't know. I guess you gotta be, you gotta be a real fan to, to sacrifice like six months. Well,
Ron Richards (00:42:46):
Either a real fan or you wanna, here it says, how long does this program last? But nothing Beta membership program will run until thir until June 30th.
Jason Howell (00:42:53):
Okay. Okay, good.
Ron Richards (00:42:54):
Yeah. And I would've been,
Jason Howell (00:42:55):
There's surprise if it was like eternal beta forever.
Ron Richards (00:42:58):
No, but so there's a def define, there's a defined thing. They also specify what carriers it supports. So they say, so they c DM A is not supported, which is not surprising, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So for at and t it's supported on the LTE bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 17, 26 66, 5G not supported, right? On T-Mobile LTE bands are supported. Five, two 5G bands are supported. And on Verizon, you know, LTE bands are supported. No 5g, so like no 5g. Yeah. If you're an t Verizon, you get this, you won't get 5g, right. You'll just be on lte and it seems like a limited series of bands. Yeah. and and T-Mobile, you'll get a little bit of 5g, right? So like, clearly there's
Jason Howell (00:43:43):
A little bit of
Ron Richards (00:43:44):
5G. Just a little bit, just a little bit
Jason Howell (00:43:45):
Just a case. 5G, a crumble of 5G
Ron Richards (00:43:48):
<Laugh> pilot. So clearly there. So yeah, a velvet crumble. So clearly there's a you know, there's a little bit of you know, there's a little bit of, you know, they, they're testing the waters here and I, I, you know, like I I, I will be honest, I thought about it because 2 99, that's not a ton of money. I love my eart sticks, right? I want to fe I wanna see what the, the build quality on the phone is and all that sort of stuff. But when I got to like, some apps might work, not work. Yeah. Like Google Wallet and YouTube, like things I use on a daily basis, I'm like, oh, am I willing to risk that? Yeah, that's hard. But this is, at least this is a precursor to the US market, right? And, and clearly like this is, this is an approach. Let's just say this is an approach <laugh>, whether or not you want to judge about the N F T and the black dot and all that nonsense, that's something that's already established. Like, it's not like they made this for the membership program. Like they're already doing that block.black dot nonsense already. So this is, so I'm not, so I'm willing to look past that. Like, if you don't want the N F T, don't claim it, you don't need it, you know? Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But yeah, interesting, interesting choice here. Nothing.
Jason Howell (00:44:50):
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, indeed. Let us know if you decide to buy it and what you think of your black dot once you get it. AAA tv,
Ron Richards (00:45:01):
I'm still on the fence. I'm still, I mean, like I might, you know, a moment of weakness, I just might pull the trigger just to get my hands on that phone.
Jason Howell (00:45:07):
300 bucks isn't, isn't bad. Pretty inexpensive. <Laugh> Samsung, we talked about them a little bit earlier in regards to the unpacked event, but Samsung had some a presence, or at least announcements from ces, namely the A 14 series. So this is Samsung's kind of low end device, right? Nine to five. Google compares this to one plus, which we'll talk about in a second, but $199 for this device in the us 6.6 inch FHD plus display, 90 hertz L C D Android, 13 5,000 milli amp hour battery, 15 watt fast charging. It has a media tech density, 700 inside four gigs of Ram 64 gigs of storage. Yes, it has that micro SD card slot if you want some expanded storage, you can do that there. The triple camera array, as you can see on the back. Pretty kind of basic approach.
(00:46:04):
But the interesting thing here is, unlike other low end devices, Samsung is promising four years of security updates for this device. That's two years of Major OS updates. And up to four years of security, which for a low end device, like usually with these low end devices, you know, you're lucky to get one, maybe two, you know, it's just the hardware is, has less legs to it, right? Like, it's actually kind of interesting for to hear four years. Cause I'm like, okay, how's this hardware gonna be doing in four years? Like, you get, it's getting updates, is the phone gonna be, you know, us like as usable as, you know, a user might want it to be one plus Nord and 300 by comparison promised one Major OS update and launched last year aversion behind. So basically that up that os update's gonna catch that device up to where we're at now with, with an Android 13. So I think that's pretty good stuff from Samsung. You know, again mm-hmm. <Affirmative> kind of making a device what they're, what it seems that Samsung is doing is showing more of a commitment to the update cycle and not just on the premium phones. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good example to set for other manufacturers, whether they follow that. Yeah, absolutely.
Ron Richards (00:47:29):
But agreed.
Jason Howell (00:47:30):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So the Galaxy a 14, 190 $9. There you go. All right. Coming up next, we've got, well more hardware that's up next. All right. Motorola at let's see here at CES announced 30 years of the Lenovo think pad. Oh, either of you used a think pad at, at any time in your history of
Ron Richards (00:48:00):
Computing? Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. That was one time. Yeah. Early two, early two thousands. Pre moving to San Francisco, working for a hotel company. I was on a Lenovo think pad. It might have been B back when it was an IBM think pad. Ibm,
Jason Howell (00:48:15):
I think. Yeah. Last
Ron Richards (00:48:16):
One was ibm.
Jason Howell (00:48:17):
Yeah. Right.
Ron Richards (00:48:18):
Well, and I do remember it was a highly sought after laptop when you got your computer from it. You wanted one of those. Yes. And not
Jason Howell (00:48:24):
Cheap either. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, totally. Remember the hotness, the little, the little red nub in the middle of the keyboard? Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Yeah. When I was actually, when I was working at cnet, that was the laptop that they ended up giving me. And I thought it was so cool that I had that laptop. And so apparently think pads have been around for 30 years now, who would've funk? And now Motorola is releasing the Think phone. So they're kind of, you know, doing this like collaborative thing to give you serious think pad vibes. Android 13, four years of updates, Snapdragon eight plus Gen one chip eight gigs or 12 gigs of ram, you know, storage options up to 512 gigs, a 6.6 inch PO LED display, 5,000 million amp power battery, 68 watt wired charging, and 15 Wat wireless. But it's built, you know, be because of the, the relationship between ThinkPad and, and the Think phone. It's built to work with ThinkPad laptops kind of in a, in a cohesive way. So, you know, it has a, a red key on the side. It's a multi-function button that you can customize, but it also has this, this feature called Think to Think, which allows for Yeah, totally. Looks like a think pattern in a phone.
Ron Richards (00:49:39):
Look at that. It does. It really does.
Jason Howell (00:49:41):
<Laugh> it. I kind of like that. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:49:44):
It's a little retro feel,
Jason Howell (00:49:45):
Right? No, totally. Totally. I mean, 30 years is working for 'em, but, you know, might as well. It has so this think to think has unified clipboard notifications, sync across devices file drops across devices a couple of other features, but it also allows for the think phone to be a wireless webcam for the Think pad. That's kind of neat. That's what we're showing right here. That's what Burke just pulled up.
Ron Richards (00:50:10):
Yeah. So for audio viewers, it's a sh it's a setup of a think pad with the think phone next to it. And with a mount. Yeah, yeah. With a little, with a little. Is that like a cradle or a stand or whatever that goes into it? Yeah. So it's a wireless, fun, fat. I mean, what I find fascinating about this is I didn't know the think pad was still a thing even at all.
Jason Howell (00:50:31):
Oh, yeah, yeah. Think pad's still thinking, still plug,
Ron Richards (00:50:35):
Plugging along. Think <laugh> still thinking,
Jason Howell (00:50:37):
It's still thinking. It hasn't decided, but it's still thinking
Ron Richards (00:50:42):
<Laugh>
Jason Howell (00:50:43):
No pricing yet. On the ThinkPad or on, sorry, on the think phone. But I, I don't know. I think it's, you know, I think that's kind of smart. I actually, as, as I'm kind of thinking about it now, I'm kind of surprised they didn't do this sooner. Has there ever been a ThinkPad influenced phone? Like it's kind of weird that it took this long.
Ron Richards (00:51:05):
Yeah. It's kind of like, who didn't put the, who didn't put one-on-one together at Lenovo <laugh>? Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:51:12):
Opportunity.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:13):
Oh, you've got the little red, little red power button too. Right. Kind of call back to that eraser mouth. So, totally. I just feel like it branding.
Jason Howell (00:51:19):
It's too bad it doesn't have the red nub. It, you know, look like the Nexus the Nexus one. How
Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:25):
Did that, the red the
Ron Richards (00:51:26):
Bottom happen?
Jason Howell (00:51:29):
It's
Burke (00:51:29):
Called promotion.
Ron Richards (00:51:30):
Well, no. Well, so, so, right.
Jason Howell (00:51:32):
According to like, they
Burke (00:51:33):
Should have been promoting their brand. It's a theme. That's all it is.
Ron Richards (00:51:35):
Like, yeah. So, so what's interesting to this is that like, I'm looking, I'm, I just quickly did the quick Google or whatever, but like, Lenovo made phones until 2015. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> when, you know, then, then the mo the whole Motorola thing happened and they stopped making Lenovo phones to focus on Motorola phones. Motorola, right, right. Yeah. So like, you, you here, you're in a situation where it's, it's, you know, like they bought an established brand Right. And just, and, and said, okay, Lenovo's gonna be this except I Lenovo tablet. Right. Like, they're still, they still were active in the Android world. It's so funny how the, like, this seems like the most obvious thing to do. Yeah. And it took the 2013 to happen.
Jason Howell (00:52:14):
Yeah. 2023.
Ron Richards (00:52:16):
Do you remember the la do you remember the, do you remember the LA phone? Jason?
Jason Howell (00:52:20):
The LA phone. I remember the name. Name. What was the la phone
Ron Richards (00:52:23):
That was the Lenovo phone. Oh,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:26):
<Laugh>. That's good. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:52:29):
I forgot about that.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:30):
Maybe some
Jason Howell (00:52:31):
Motorola Echo. No, that's different.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:34):
Le Leco. Leco.
Jason Howell (00:52:35):
That's different.
Ron Richards (00:52:36):
That was Le Echo. Yeah. Do you remember that? That
Jason Howell (00:52:38):
I've never
Burke (00:52:39):
Heard of a Lafon before.
Ron Richards (00:52:40):
The Lafon as Lenovo smartphones were called in China, offered at a low price point in the Chinese market. The Lafon by not France from, yeah, I was, was
Jason Howell (00:52:49):
New phone.
Ron Richards (00:52:50):
Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:52:51):
Yeah. Oh, one thing I didn't mention about this is it's highly durable. Like it has a high durability rating. Mill. Mill specs. That's brilliant. Eight 10.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:00):
Eight As as a think pad phone.
Ron Richards (00:53:02):
That's easy for better.
Jason Howell (00:53:03):
Yeah. So yeah. Good on. Yeah. Motorola, I like it. Is it made up
Burke (00:53:07):
Real carbon fiber or it just
Jason Howell (00:53:09):
Look like this? Yeah, good question. <Laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:11):
He's a razor. I
Jason Howell (00:53:12):
Was Ray, just gonna say it kind of has that kinda like old school razor quality. Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:16):
Yeah, yeah. Some, someone at Motorola is just feeling the nostalgia and thinking, right, you know what, maybe there's like a seven year cycle with phones or with tech or something that, you know, why don't we bring back brands that people like, and maybe people in our bracket are like, yeah, you know, I really like that thing. I bet a new version of that thing would, would, would sell hot, like hot cakes,
Jason Howell (00:53:37):
<Laugh>.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:38):
But I'm more excited about the think pad than the razor <laugh>. And I have one.
Jason Howell (00:53:41):
Yeah. Which I don't
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:43):
Use.
Jason Howell (00:53:44):
Wawa.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:45):
Wawa.
Jason Howell (00:53:47):
All right. Well that's the exciting hardware for this block when you get the not exciting hardware
Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:52):
For this block. Well, I mean, you know, if you were excited by budget phones, then yeah. Chinese manufacturer TCL has launched some new phones for you and I, I mean, it is impressive how affordable these phones are. So TCL has released several in their 40 series. They've, you've got the TCL 40 R 5g, which unsurprisingly has 5G and is launching in Europe at a price of about 219 U S D other regions at a later date. They've got the TCL 40 s SE with a 6.75 inch 90 horse display at $169 launching in Europe in q1, other regions at a later date. And the TCL 48 4, no, 4 0 8 which is targeted specifically at Europe and Asia. So two hundred nineteen, one sixty nine, a hundred twenty nine s d. These are very, very affordable phones. Very. And to go with those, you got the TCL tab eight LE and eight inch tablet, which, you know, not shabby H HD display, quad cord chip 48, like, it's like a very decent tablet for 1 59 launching in the US later this month. And Okay. So, I mean, if you're really looking for a budget phone, TCLs got some options for you. But if you're more of a TV person, TCL has also unveiled a number of Google tbs. And someone maybe just TCL is calling them the biggest Google TV brand globally. I couldn't who said that, but tcl, was it TCL that said that
Jason Howell (00:55:26):
<Laugh> tcl, this TCL definitely said that. Yeah. I don't know.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:55:28):
They definitely said that. I'm not, I couldn't find out who else said that.
Jason Howell (00:55:31):
Can we send our reporters out on the field to confirm this, please? <Laugh>. I mean, it makes, sends TCL makes a lot of TVs. They, they're really popular brand at this point as far as say, budget, you know, big, big scale TVs. So I wouldn't be surprised if that's true.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:55:48):
Yeah. And, and they've updated both their ser s and Q series, all of which support a Bezos design. You can see it there on the video stream, really. I mean, very, very decent looking phones and in or phones. So not phones. Their TVs very decent looking TVs, Bezos. The S series has, you know, a lot of like good standard tepees with HD 4k ranging in sizes from like 32 to 43 to 85 inch. The Q series has a lot of like, kind of like the extra little accuc malls aim towards things like, you know, imax game acceleration super bright display. So if you are in the market for a Google tv, you might consider the, what do they call themselves again? The top Google TV brand globally as they have just updated their lines. So there you go. S series and Q series there. Take it from tcl. Oh, <laugh>.
Ron Richards (00:56:40):
Hey, if, who's to, who's to argue if they wanna declare themselves the top? I mean, they call themselves the biggest first. Maybe the T in TCL stands for top. So there you go.
Jason Howell (00:56:50):
<Laugh>. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>.
Ron Richards (00:56:52):
I do like a Bezos tv. Those things look sexy.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:56:54):
They are pretty nice. Yeah.
Ron Richards (00:56:56):
Yeah. Very. I do, one of the things going back to like, things that we like about CES is that, and, and Jason, you, you probably recall this from your time walking the floor, is the race for the company with the biggest tv
Jason Howell (00:57:08):
Yo. Yeah. Every year <laugh>, it's always, they're, they're one upping each other every single
Ron Richards (00:57:13):
Year. Yeah. Who has the bi the bi, the bigger, you know, kind of crazy TV that you'll never be able to buy or afford. The biggest, they'll never be the manufacturer. Tv.
Jason Howell (00:57:21):
TV with the best 3d.
Ron Richards (00:57:24):
And we really kind of, we kind of, I mean, we, we got limited time on the show, like, you know, and, and like, we can't talk about everything. But like, to give you a little behind the scenes, there's a lot of back, you know, kind of back office chatter in our, in our slack about All About Android making fun of awkward VR setups at cs. We saw a lot of awkward vr going on. But I, I feel like Jason, we need, like, in the next week, we need to dig in to like see what weird Android stuff was at the show. Like, cuz I, I didn't see a lot of prototype. Yeah. Rollable foldable. Like usually you, there's usually there's some company with some bazaar, origami, foldable that we're gonna see someday. That totally, I didn't see, I didn't see that really pop this year. And I, they had to have been there. I hope they were there. We just gotta find What
Jason Howell (00:58:07):
About that feedback thing?
Ron Richards (00:58:09):
Well, the feedback was the VR thing. That was the awkward, there was a awkward VR thing, but
Jason Howell (00:58:14):
That was the thing that goes over the, the mouth. So
Ron Richards (00:58:17):
That, that you
Jason Howell (00:58:17):
Can talk in vr, but not everybody in the room hears you. It's like, it contains most your words into it. The most awkward thing I've ever seen. Sad
Ron Richards (00:58:26):
So bad. It was so, so bad.
Huyen Tue Dao (00:58:27):
But if you're using VR in a room with other people, I mean, that's just, I mean, if they're not participating, that's just awkward in general. <Laugh>, like in what situation are you in a room using vr? And they're strange. Like, are you on the bus? Are <laugh> you? Like, what, what, in what situation do you not want anyone to hear you speaking? Yeah. To the, to whatever VR experience your, your experience in. I don't know. But it was very funny. Very
Ron Richards (00:58:50):
Strange. Yeah. So, so maybe, maybe. And I don't know what, well Jason, you're, you're off next week, so so maybe I'll take this task, but we'll, we'll do a little follow up CES and we'll do some research as to like the prototypes that are out there. Well, you know, they had to have been there. They had to flow.
Jason Howell (00:59:03):
Flo was on next week. She was
Ron Richards (00:59:05):
Oh, that'll be great. Yeah.
Jason Howell (00:59:06):
Yeah. So, so yeah, there's a, I I would be curious to know what she father to that question, because well, yeah, yeah, exactly. You're right, you're right. Flo and Father Robert, were both at cs. They're both on next week.
Ron Richards (00:59:19):
So there, there's a, there's a tease. There's
Jason Howell (00:59:21):
Probably a reason why we haven't seen a lot of this. I, I mean, I'm guessing that the, the you know, just CES in general is just not the same show that it was a couple years ago. A little dudy. You saw a lot of that stuff.
Ron Richards (00:59:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I was just searching for it and I went to the PC mag website and then my processor fans started going, cuz so many dumb ads. Loaded
Jason Howell (00:59:40):
<Laugh> that'll teach you mm-hmm. Cheese.
Ron Richards (00:59:44):
So, yeah. But anyway, so that's a tease for next week. Father Robert will be here. Flo will be here. We'll talk about weird CS stuff and, and get other thoughts they have from ces. But that's gonna wrap it up for hardware this week. Up next Mr. Jr. Raphael, our, our esteemed member of the team here is back with another great Android intelligence tip. And this time if you like tracking things and you like ai, you're gonna love this tip. So take it away, Jr.
JR Raphael (01:00:14):
Good day one and all. All right. So it's January. We've got a whole new year ahead of us. And I don't know about you, but for me, this is always a perfect time to just step back, really reassess all the strategies you rely on for seeing on top of stuff in your day-to-day life. I'm not talking about like resolutions, these sorts of meaningless, overly ambitious promises people love to make this time of year and then promptly forget about two minutes later. I'm talking about realistic objectives, things you're actually likely to keep up with and continue focusing on even after these first few weeks of January. Fly by. Google actually had a pretty nice if slightly simple system for tracking those sorts of goals right? Within its Google Calendar app. But well, you know, Google being Google it killed that feature off right before the holidays late last year, I guess you could say.
(01:01:06):
It gave up on its goal of helping us track goals. Yeah, thanks Google. Fear not though, cause I've got a great replacement for you. It's a crafty little app that connects directly with your existing Android calendar set up and makes managing any and all goals as easy as can be. Allow me to introduce you to a saucy little, something called Goalie. It's not about soccer either. Goalie picks up right where the abandoned Google Calendar goals feature left off gives you a really nice thoughtful framework for think it through all the ongoing stuff in your life, whatever it is that you've got that you wanna accomplish. Now these are tasks per se, like one time random chores. They're broader, ongoing things that you wanna keep doing on a regular basis. You know, like working out, reading, meditating, maybe even just planning your day. Now let me give you three specific reasons for why I really like Goalie for keeping track of all that sort of stuff.
(01:02:03):
Number one, it gives you a super simple setup for creating new goals and deciding how often you want 'em to show up in your calendar. Maybe once a day, twice a week, whatever the case might be. Number two, it lets you decide exactly what time of day you want those goals to appear in your agenda or keep it open-ended and let 'em just get squeezed in wherever you've got the space. And number three, my favorite part, it automatically inserts your goals into your Google Calendar agenda for you based on all the parameters you pick. No thought, no effort, no extra app to have to keep checking in on over time. Now Goalie can give you its own notifications if you want to remind you about upcoming goals to check in and see how you're coming along, that sort of stuff. It can even keep track of your progress and show you some pretty neat stats about how well you're doing at keeping up with your goals if you want to go that route.
(01:02:56):
But it's that native Google Calendar integration that really makes goalie an exceptional tool and a perfect replacement for Google's own killed off calendar goal system. It's honestly just like a better version of that same thing. It's a really, really nice upgrade for any existing Android calendar setup. Goalie's free to use with an optional upgrade to eliminate ads, get rid of some limitations and add in a few extra options if you're so inclined. No funky permissions or data collection or anything like that. We'll drop a link to the app's Play store page into this week's show notes for you so you can check it out and see what you think. And hey, here's a goal this easy to achieve. You can learn three new and useful tips for your favorite googly gadgets every single week by signing up for my Android Intelligence newsletter. It's completely for you, for you. Just head over to android intel.net/twit if you haven't already. You get your first issue and a trio of bonus tips this very moment. That site, again is android intel.net/twit. Hey, it's always a treat to catch up and hang out with you all here in Twit Land. I'll see you in the newsletter and I'll see you right back here next week.
Jason Howell (01:04:04):
Nice. I, it's a cool one. I can say that I mm-hmm <affirmative>, I don't know that I ever used the goals feature of camera when it was integrated in there. That was one of those features that I think I probably saw in there a handful of times. And I'm like, oh, that's, that'd be interesting. But I just never thought to use it. I don't know. Sounds like you didn't wrong. What about you? When
Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:25):
I never did. But I do like this kind of functionality to do is used to have like streaks, like, man, I don't know when it was. So, and I, I, I'm the kind of person that responds well to gamification or even just like saying, hey, like here's the thing. Like I, I, I, I'm generally the gun person responsible to that, so I'm probably gonna install goalie cuz I like it. And of course it is January of a new year. Perfect time. Excellent recommendation for, I like how it,
Ron Richards (01:04:51):
How it's like one of those Web two oh e kind of name like goalie, but like you say it like goalie, like a soccer goalie. Like yeah, that's Goal
Jason Howell (01:04:59):
Goalie. You hit your goal <laugh>. Yeah. You could celebrate every time you, you actually make it <laugh>. Thank you. JR JR R Ffl or R ray feel actually. Thank you JR. We love the, the tips that you send the best to us best and each and every week. So keep it up. Thank you. Up next, we've got some of your feedback. That's up next. AAA TWIT TV 3 47 Show a a a and when you have the first email to read.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:05:31):
Yes. And the first email is from Ian Winkler who has a little question about Wear Os. I have a question about Wear Os. I've had an Android brand smartwatch for a long time. I had the Mota 360 Fossil Sport and now the Samsung Galaxy four. One of the features I used a lot was the remind me notification linked to a place. For example, I would activate the Google Assistant and say, remind me when I get home to take out the garbage or something similar. Sure enough, when I got home, my mo my watch would alert me to take out the garbage. Recently when I tried to make a location-based reminder, I got the message that this feature was no longer available. Any idea why or any idea for a workaround listener since episode one? Maybe
Jason Howell (01:06:18):
Zero. Maybe zero.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:19):
Maybe
Jason Howell (01:06:20):
Zero maybe. Wow. Ian can't commit. Maybe I,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:06:22):
Ian <laugh>. I feel
Ron Richards (01:06:23):
Like I've seen Ian Ian's name before in the past, in the past decade. So thank you for listening. So yeah, <laugh>,
Jason Howell (01:06:30):
I mean, I don't know that we know why it was removed, but it is a bummer because yeah, once upon a time, that was like an amazing feature, right? That was like a towable pr Google probably wrote one of their little blog posts things about it, you know, now you consider, you know, tag a a reminder to homes so when you get home you'll take out the trash and that seems incredibly useful. I was plugging around and I realized that you can still do this in Google Keep. I don't know how that integrates with your wearable though. But I know in Google Keep you can create a location based reminder attached to a note. So that is still possible in that fashion, but I don't think it's possible anymore in Google's assistant settings or anything like that. And, you know, so then that seems to tie into the watch and why you can't find it there. And who knows why Google just sometimes likes to kill its darlings, I guess.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:29):
Yeah, I think wrong. They sure do wrote about this in June and he did mention that Google Routines is still location based, but it's like a routine. It's, it's really meant for like the whole smart home integration. And I tried it myself. It's not, it is not as simple and as straight, don't you just, it, it, so we've been talking about how Google is like integrating all the things and like ambient computing and Android ev Android everywhere and how everything integrates. But something as simple and straightforward as a location based reminder just gets really difficult and heavy when you try to do it with some of this new stuff. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I will say though, that something that does work, and it does have a really great Wear os app is Todoist. I, I, I didn't have it set up. Yes, but Todoist does allow you to do location-based reminders for a task. And they do have, apparently, as we've heard many times in the last Calen or year that they have a great S app. So it's something to try. I don't, I honestly, I didn't have time to try it with my watch. But yeah, if you don't mind to-do us or if you're already using to-do list, that could be an option as well.
Ron Richards (01:08:32):
So that was one of the, one of the, like, the things I was most excited about the Waro s watch before I returned it was the Todoist app and like getting back into Do Todoist and then I returned the watch and I didn't get into Todoist, but but yes, I, I agree that is a cool thing
Jason Howell (01:08:48):
There. We, there we go. June, 2022, Google is killing location based reminders, family reminders also going away according to Ron Amadio at ours. Technica, yeah. Maybe someday. We'll, we'll convince Ron to come back on the show. It has been literally, it's been a while, years since he's been on. And I miss him. Miss Snark, he's one of those, he's one of the, the peeps, the people that I see at Google io that I'm always like, happy to see there. Cuz you know, it, it's one of those ex those examples of people that, like you see online all the time and then you see them in person and they're just really cool and you just kind of hang out. And that's why Google io is awesome. So this is, this is my short essay on why I can't wait for Google IO to return to normal.
Ron Richards (01:09:33):
I will say after one of the, one of the things of doing this show for as long as we have and knowing folks like Ron and, and Jr and, and all the other great, you know, the, the awesome folks that we had on the show and the awesome folks that we, we read all their work flow included, stuff like that. It is interesting to see Ron's cynicism or starkness kind of like turn a corner these past few years in terms of just like, and the thing is like, and I, I give him, I I and I, you know, I love following on Twitter and he, and he, he's, he's one of those people who tells it like he sees it and I really respect that, but mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it's sometimes Borders on Old Man, get off my lawn Google. Like, you know, like, kind of like
(01:10:13):
but, but most of the time he is in, he's, he's, he's dead on with it. And then that's why I really like that he's not afraid to share, you know, he's not afraid to say whatever, either what everyone else is thinking or give it that perspective or that reality check and go, well wait, hold on, let's not, let's not fall for the hype spin here. This is what's really going on. And I, I like that as a presence, as as a voice in our industry. So yeah, runs, runs a good egg. I really like him. Yeah.
Jason Howell (01:10:36):
I mm-hmm. Agreed. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I agreed. I wonder if he like felt his, his ears tingling. He was like, yeah,
Ron Richards (01:10:42):
Maybe
Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:43):
<Laugh> what's
Ron Richards (01:10:43):
Going on? He's, he's one of the stuff going on right now. He's one of the, he's he's one of the he's one of the council of Ron, so
Jason Howell (01:10:49):
That's true. All Rons are cool. <Laugh>. Yeah,
(01:10:51):
There you go. Yeah. Jeremy wrote in to say, depending on how MagSafe is implemented in the new spec and by the Android manufacturers, it could speed up charging with the phone and charger communicating to get the best charging rate. If the phone knows it is connected properly to a MagSafe charger, it can get a higher wattage charge being lined up correctly with the coil allows that type of change. Hmm. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. Right? Like, is is, I mean, is that true? Like, I'm trying to think of like my normal wireless charging pad. I know that I've experienced, I put the phone on and it, you know, there are the times where I, I luck into it and it lines up perfectly and it lights up and it starts charging. There are also those unfortunate times where I put it on and I realized the next morning that it wasn't lined up properly and it didn't charge. Is there a halfway, like, is there like, oh, it connects and it gets half as much wattage. So is this
Burke (01:11:51):
Accurate? It's kind of close or like nothing or on,
Jason Howell (01:11:54):
Yeah. So is this, so that's, that's, I I think my question is, yeah, is this possible? Can you get like less or more
Burke (01:12:00):
Or? Well, like, I think they do have like the ha they can be like 90 degree angle, so you can kind of line it up like at a 90, you know, accident or the wrong, you know. Yeah, exactly. Like either which might
Jason Howell (01:12:12):
Change like polarity or something and
Burke (01:12:14):
No, I mean, you just like it. Yes. You, the coils have to be in alignment and the MagSafe thing will just make it perfect. Right? You can, you just, just snaps on. It works.
Jason Howell (01:12:24):
So, so maybe, yeah, I'm, I'm trying to understand how how it snapping into correct place has the potential to make it a faster charge. Like I, I guess I would see those two things lining up. Like I can see how it makes
Burke (01:12:41):
You charge. Cause you can get a partial charge if you're close, you know? Yeah. But you know,
Jason Howell (01:12:48):
It's something to think about.
Burke (01:12:49):
I, I don't do wireless charging, but I do know that that's the way it works, at least.
Jason Howell (01:12:53):
And I mean they, you know, even they were they mentioned in that the article, I can't remember the article where the article was from that we talked about this last week. It was XTA, but even they said like somewhere down the line, you know, they want, they want to just first get this out and then they will increase the speeds over time. 15 watts of wireless charging is not very fast. It's, that's kind of like a,
Burke (01:13:15):
It's like nothing compared to Wired.
Jason Howell (01:13:16):
Yep. Oh, definitely nothing compared to Wired, but also compared to just like the last couple of years of advancements around mm-hmm. <Affirmative> wired wireless charging speeds really getting to a really impressive point. 15 watts seems like a trickle, but if it's an overnight charge, who cares? You know? So it just really depends on where it is, I suppose. So thank you for sending in that compelling email. Jeremy, appreciate it sent from your iPhone. Mini purple of course, says Jeremy, so there you go.
Ron Richards (01:13:48):
I do like, I do, and that is a testament to the fact that there is a percentage of our listeners who are iOS users and we salute.
Jason Howell (01:13:55):
Certainly there are, and we salute.
Ron Richards (01:13:57):
Totally. I, you know, and I, I re I respect that as well. You know, you want to be clued into what's going on in the tech space and no judgment on what phone you use. It's
Jason Howell (01:14:04):
Okay. No judgment.
Ron Richards (01:14:05):
Absolutely. Yeah. No judgment. That brings us to our esteemed email of the week. It
Jason Howell (01:14:13):
Was the
Ron Richards (01:14:13):
Week. There it is. This is actually an email that came into my personal email I forwarded to Jason. I was like, oh, we should bring it up. Following up on a conversation from last week. This week's email of the week sender is Scott who wrote in and picked up the conversation about auth two FA that we had around the last pa, last past Data Breach. And Scott says your comment about having switched to Google Authenticator, maybe wanna pass along a bit of advice, use something else. The issue with Google Authenticator is that unlike other Google data, it is not backed up to your Google account. So if you lose your phone and you haven't been keeping copies of your backup codes for every website, you'll be locked out of those accounts. Ask me how I know parenthesis. It took months of fighting to get back into my accounts, but I'm still permanently locked outta my Reddit account forever, since they've no contingency process to prove your identity.
(01:15:06):
I have switched to Athe, which does have a backup feature, but I also now keep a master document of all my backup codes and a Fire Safe as well. And Scott, this is a great bit of advice following up from that two f a conversation that we had. If you do use Google Authenticator this is absolutely true, and I, I should have mentioned it last week in terms of using it. I do keep a copy of my backup codes just in case for this same, very same reason. I, I think it's, and this is up for debate and Jason Wyn, I'd love to hear what you think, but like, part of me, the use of authe which does have a backup feature, like having those authenticator codes available somewhere else. Slightly worries. You know, like, I like, I like the fact that authenticators isolated to the phone because I know the phone is on my person and, and only I can access it and that, but that is taking the assumption that I don't lose my phone, which actually could happen, right?
(01:16:02):
It totally could happen. You don't wanna be locked out of your accounts, so you do wanna make sure that you have those backup codes printed or check out, ay, or there are other two f a you know, potential, you know, potential applications that you can use Okta, you know, like there's other ones that are out there, but I do use Athe for my Twitch account, and so I'm familiar with Athe, but I have it, everything else in Authenticator. So the Twitch account is for work, so that's why I sent through
Jason Howell (01:16:28):
Aui. Oh, okay. I was gonna say like, why, why have different,
Ron Richards (01:16:31):
Right? No, I'm not, I didn't personally split mine. Yeah. But the work Twitch account is un athie, so, got
Jason Howell (01:16:36):
It. Yeah. I use athe. I, it doesn't bother me that it's, that it's backed up somewhere. Yeah, I mean, you're, it sounds like you, you know enough about Google Authenticator to know what you need to do to be sure of the fact that, that you're okay if you lose your phone. Exactly. Which is the total, you know, concern. That was part of the reason why I ended up going with Oy is, you know, I just didn't want to <laugh> didn't wanna deal with it. I don't know. Yeah. So much with security is like, you can never be 100% secured. So what kind of looseness do you feel comfortable with? And yeah, you came to this for me, I was like, eh, oys, I'm, I'm pretty certain I'll be okay. You know, so Yeah, I just
Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:16):
Went with ay. Yeah, it's like that trade off of, okay. So I, I don't have, you know, like if you're suspicious of syncing and backup, then certainly, I don't know, like UBI key or just not doing TF in Tooth. Yeah. Which doesn't really seem like an option, but yeah, I use Oy as well. I had used Duo for my old work. I've used Octa. I have to use Octa for my new work. I have personally chosen othe because for same reason, like backup is nice. That's my compromise. So that I, but I am, I'm thus, because everything now is, well, is it weird that I'm, we're like revealing like our personal <laugh>? I don't, yeah,
Jason Howell (01:17:48):
I dunno. Personal security. So like, are we just
Huyen Tue Dao (01:17:50):
Being fool right now? But yeah, that's, I mean that's the thing though. It's making me more, the fact that Oy does have backup and is easier to use for me makes it so that yeah. Sure. I'll, I'll two A all the things now until we get past keys. Like, so Yeah, it's like trade offs and personal Yeah. Like level of comfort and risk. So yeah, I'm all for
Jason Howell (01:18:08):
Rossie. Yep. Yep. See, you can even get the email of the week just by emailing Ron.
Ron Richards (01:18:15):
Yeah,
Huyen Tue Dao (01:18:16):
<Laugh>
Ron Richards (01:18:17):
And kudos to Scott for tracking me down. So good job there. So <laugh>. But yes congratulations Scott. You are the email of the week with a warning around Google Authenticator. So good follow up. Very good.
Jason Howell (01:18:29):
Thank you for sending that, Scott. I'm happy to get you in the show. Love. And thanks to everyone for watching and listening each and every week. This is not the only consumer electronic show content you'll hear from us, because like we said, next week I'm gonna be out, wind's gonna be out. So we're gonna have flow on the show with Ron and also the triumphant return of Father Robert Baller, who, unless anything changes is gonna be sitting right here in the studio, super bummed to miss, miss him. But it's just the way the schedule's all coincided. But so I'm sure you guys are gonna spend some time talking about consumer electronic show from the firsthand perspective.
Ron Richards (01:19:12):
I'm excited
Jason Howell (01:19:13):
With them. So,
Ron Richards (01:19:14):
Yep. Got, I'm ho Let's pray. Let's pray. It's a slow news week. <Laugh> <laugh>.
Jason Howell (01:19:20):
Yeah, and I mean, we have tons of really great email this week. So, you know, there's a, there's an extra tab in the rundown, Ron that has some extra emails if you need some. There is extra options. We've got 'em all all backing up there. When, what do you wanna lead people with? What do you want people to know?
Huyen Tue Dao (01:19:37):
It's been a wonderful year here, being a co-host on aaa. And I was sad to miss y'all last week, but I, my internet service Predator went down. Yep. so there's a, and then next week I'm Jordan 40, so I'm gonna be at home celebrating with my fan, but I will be back after that. And yes, you can find Android related stuff. I do usually have the development variety on my website, randomly typing.com, and you can find me places at Queen CodeMonkey if you're on Macedon, I'm at Queen codemonkey@macedon.social. I'm still figuring out if that's where I'm gonna live, or like, it's a weird, it's, it's a weird situation right now for all of us. But yeah. Yeah, find me in these places. Queen Code Monkeys, probably
Jason Howell (01:20:18):
Me. Right on. Thank you. Win and in advance. Happy birthday. The big birthday, the big one. Big ones. It's one of the big ones. At least that's what they say. For me, it was kinda like, oh, whatever. Just another birthday.
Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:29):
Yeah, I'm kind of, I'm kind of there too. Like I, I, I was thinking when I was 30, I would really flip out at 40, but I'm actually feeling okay. You know? Yeah.
Jason Howell (01:20:37):
So. Good, good, good. Well, thank you. And yeah, happy year. What about you, Ron?
Ron Richards (01:20:44):
Yeah, just, I'm happy that I'm here too. I'm happy who is here. I'm happy everyone's here. Excited for another year of All About Android. But yeah, follow me over on Twitter and Instagram and on Mastodon Ron xo, you can track me down, just, I'm the only Ron XO out there, so you can find it. And go check out Corbit if you're in the pinball, it's in the app is in the Google Play Store. You can keep track of your scores, earn achievements, challenge your friends, find places to play pinball, super cool. And check it all out at Score. But.Io where we have a little device that goes inside pinball machines. We're working on a big app update. It's gonna be coming out in the next week or so. And let's talk more about that when it comes out. But yeah, hard developing apps is hard, as we all know, of course, learn. So yeah.
Jason Howell (01:21:27):
Not just developing apps, developing hardware and apps.
Ron Richards (01:21:31):
Well, we did that. I mean, like, the hardware's kind of like, like we, we got through that hump. The big problem now is not problem, but the big challenge now is just like the app needs work and we've got all this work to do, and, you know, that sort of thing. So, yeah. But it, it's all hard no matter what. It's all hard.
Jason Howell (01:21:44):
Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. I have huge amount of respect for, for you being able to pull that off. I just, that's crazy. I'm so not coordinated enough to, to make that happen. <Laugh> let's see here. Big thanks to JR Rayfield, once again, Android intelligence. I'll be doing great things over there, and so happy to have him on board here. Big thanks to Victor behind the scenes, as well as Burke behind the scenes, but also in front of the mic from time to time, as you heard today. So we couldn't do the show without either of you. So thank you for that. You can find me, you can see in my, in my lower third Twit social slash Jason Howell. You can still find me on Twitter. I'm just, I'm just way less way less interacting with Twitter these days. I, I think I open it like maybe once a day at this point, <laugh>, and I'm okay with it. So you, you know, I'm just having a lot more fun on ma on right now. So Twitter social slash at Jason, hell,
Ron Richards (01:22:39):
Did you see the, I saw Paul Throw wrote, and there was an article in The Guardian, but like comparing the, like there was the huge run to Mastodon when all the Twitter nonsenses happened November and December, but then like Mastodons numbers drop like 25%.
Jason Howell (01:22:52):
Oh, did
Ron Richards (01:22:53):
They in the past month? Yeah, exactly. <Laugh>. Yeah, so, which is fine. I mean, like, I'm, you're gonna see all those things. It, there's nothing like, I know so many great communities, so many great people, there are millions of people on Mastodon. If you like it, go for it. But are it just funny in the, in the macro sense of it, where like, is this gonna replace Twitter? It's like, no,
Jason Howell (01:23:09):
It's not going to. Yeah. I, yeah, for me, I don't know that it necessarily, like I have this grand vision that Mastodon ultimately replaces Twitter, but I like the kind of focused, the focused nature of it. It is just this, this sea Google Plus of everything. Google Plus very little cool. It kind of is like that. Yeah. So it's kind of nice for a change. It's a, it's refreshing. Is is what I'm enjoying about it. So, yep. So yeah, so there's that. Club Twit, of course, if you like our shows and you want to support us, you know, the, you'll probably notice on a lot of our shows right now, sponsorships are down and it's just kind of the state of, of podcasting right now. The state of, you know, the, the economy right now is just very wacky and, and weird and it's impacting podcasting and sponsorships and everything.
(01:23:57):
So we have clubbed wit, you know, we launched this. Not any, you know, not, it's not like we launched this as a result of the current economy, but we're certainly happy that we have it because it gives you the opportunity to support us directly. And it's really helping us out. So twit.tv/club twit, you'll get all of our shows with no ads. That's a bonus. You get exclusive twit plus podcast feed content, Stacy's book Club, hands on Windows, hands on Mac. You get all of this extra content pre and post shows stuff put into a feed. So you don't, you don't, you don't miss that stuff. You get Members Only Discord. Just a lot of fun perks that we give to club members. Twit tv slash club twi $7 a month. And when you do that, it supports us directly and we can't thank you enough. So thank you for that. But that is it for the, the news this week. Find our show All About Android at twit tv slash a a a. You can find all the ways to subscribe there. And yeah, I think that's all the news that's fit to podcast. We'll see you next Tuesday on All About Android. Bye everybody.
Speaker 7 (01:25:09):
Hey, what's going on everybody? I am an pert and I'm the host of Hands-On Photography here on twit tv. I know you got yourself a fancy smartphone. You got yourself a fancy camera, but your pictures are still lacking. Can't quite figure out what the heck shutter speed means. Watch my show. I got you covered. Want to know more about just the I is o and Exposure Triangle in general? Yeah, I got you covered. Or if you got all of that down, you want to get into lighting, you know, making things look like a change in the lights around you. I got you covered on that too. So check us out each and every Thursday here in the network. Go to twit tv slash hop and subscribe today
