All About Android 631, 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 on all about Android. We've got some great interviews lined up for you in just a few minutes here. It's me, Jason Howell, Ron Richards, Huyen Tue Dao, and Mishaal Rahman. And if you thought that was a jam packed cast, well we've got two more to add to the cast. We've got Matthew McCullough and Jamal Eason, both from Google's Android development team talking all about the developer story around Android 14, around studio botch and the developer tools and how AI is integrating with those developer tools. Some really excellent stuff. And that's just the first half of the episode. And then we get into Mishaal's news corner. We talk about pixel loyalty. Is it fading? There's a report that seems to say that it does, that it is Ron takes issue with it. And so much more. It's a jam packed episode. Don't go anywhere. All about Android is next.

Ron Richards (00:00:57):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:01:06):
This is all about Android, episode 631, recorded Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023, talking developer tools with Google. This episode of all about Android is brought to you by Fast Mail, reclaim your privacy, boost productivity, and make email yours with fast mail. Try it now free for 30 days@fastmail.com slash twi and by HPE GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at CDW who can help you consolidate and manage all your data in one flexible edge to cloud platform to scale and innovate. Learn more at cdw.com/hpe. Hello and welcome to all about Android, your weekly source, the latest news, hardware and apps for the Android Faithful. And we've got a special episode for you today. I'm Jason Howell.

Ron Richards (00:02:00):
And I'm Ron Richards. And I'm Huyen Tue Dao

Jason Howell (00:02:05):
That's right. You Mishaal as well. And I'm, and I'm Mishaal Rahman <laugh>. You're like, do I do the intro sometimes? Do I get the

Ron Richards (00:02:11):
Intro? <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:02:12):
<Laugh>? Am I the only guest today? Well, you know what, Mishaal, it turns out you're not the only guest today. You are being joined by two from Google. Actually, we are spoiled. We were talking in the pre-show about how spoiled we are because we have Matthew McCullough VP of Product Management from the Android developer team joining us. Matthew, thank you so much for being with us today.

Matthew McCullough (00:02:37):
It's a pleasure. Anytime I get to talk about technology, software developers and Android in an intersection, it is a great day,

Jason Howell (00:02:44):
Great day indeed. We've been looking forward to this day, so thank you for being here. Also, like we're not done. Also joining us is Jamal Eason, the Director of Product management from the Android developer team. It is really great to have here too, Jamal, thank you.

Jamal Eason (00:03:01):
Yeah, also excited to be here. Really excited about Android and talk about developers and so it's great. Good to have this conversation.

Jason Howell (00:03:09):
Indeed, it is. We had a wonderful conversation on Google io day post, the main keynote. I imagine actually part of our interview was happening while the two of you were probably on stage for the developer keynote. So I apologize I missed the developer keynote live because we were doing an interview with Dave Burke and Samir Samat that was in our feeds a couple of weeks ago. But Google is, has just been amazing because we, you know, they gave us your time. So we have you for 45 minutes today and we are super excited about that. So thank you for carving out some time for us. And this is just really an opportunity to dive into kind of the current efforts with Android 14, some of the developer tools, ai of course. I mean, we we're gonna go down a whole bunch of avenues, hopefully cover a lot of ground today. But I thought maybe we should start with a little bit of an explanation, a little bit of insight into you both and kind of Jamal, we'll, we'll start with you, explain your role with Android and how that's kind of evolved over the years to where you are. And then we'll circle back to you Matthew with the same question.

Jamal Eason (00:04:21):
Yeah. So, you know I actually used to work in a number of different curves before, before Google, but interesting, right before Google actually worked at Intel building Android smartphones. And then I joined, joined Google to work on developer tools. And back then it was about in 2014, so it was a very small team working on developer tools. And we had just moved to the intelligent platform. And so my role is to help identify all the, the opportunities that we can help make developers lines easier, define those mix requirements, and then work with the, the designer team to help design those features. And then we a wonderful engineering team that helps create and build those things. And so over the years we've added and expanded the team and added functionality, but my job is to really make the lives of developers easier, and that's really excites me every day.

Jason Howell (00:05:09):
Nice, nice. And so many of the tools, you know, that, that we heard about this year, <laugh>, the what was it? The Studio bot primarily is the one that comes to mind I imagine is entirely that, right? Making the, the lives of developers just a little bit easier. Matthew, what about you? What's, how is your role with the Android team evolved over the years?

Matthew McCullough (00:05:32):
Well, I am on day 316 in my role here at Google, but I've got a much higher integer count than that on, on developer tools. I started my career working on some build scripts, CI systems, and the c and c plus plus and assembler space. And we're a long way from, from that these days. And spent a little bit over a decade working on tools at GitHub. And the thing that I really just value is giving leverage to developers because they have so many ideas that anything I can do to help them bring those to market more quickly, ultimately means I get my hands as lot as a lot of other consumers do in that cold tech sooner.

Jason Howell (00:06:13):
Right on. Well, this, that's what this episode is really all about, kind of talking about this cool technology that's here for developers. And thankfully we have, because I'm not a developer, Ron, as far as I know, is not a developer unless he's doing it on the side.

Ron Richards (00:06:30):
I'm a developer, I'm a, I'm a dangerous developer. I

Jason Howell (00:06:33):
Know enough just to break things, just to break things to get in trouble, <laugh>, but we have actual developer minds here with wins with Dow and Mishaal Rahman, who does a lot of digging around in the code and you know, finding a little hidden things. So we're happy to have them on board for you guys, cuz they're probably gonna be the ones that are gonna ask the things that really appeal to the developers who are indeed, you know, fans of this show. So when it looks like you might have a question to start things off, so why don't you fire away?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:05):
Well, I wanted to geek out first, just first because for our audience who happened to not be Andrew developers just to call it Jay, I've, I think, I feel like so many Dev fans de developer of the developer fan or always excited to see Jay come on stage because again, as he said, he works in developer tools. And so over the years, I, I, I think I genuinely feel, and I can say without like, you know, exaggerating too much that some of our favorite things are things that Jay and also to Nobi on the tools team, you know, present. Because again, it's tools for us. So I feel like we're, I don't know, I I'm just really happy to get to get some time with uj and Matthew. I, I, I think I first met you last year at a d s I know you're newer to the Android team, but you know, we've already seen, you know you a lot and, and, and your good work. So I'm just happy to be here and with y'all, so that's just awesome. And I'm gonna stop fangirling and geeking out for a second <laugh>. But I, I, so what I thought is really

Matthew McCullough (00:07:59):
Interesting is that about developers, it's awesome. Let's keep listening. <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (00:08:04):
Well, I think that's a really cool, I I wanted to lean into a question because, you know you know, as a developer, I, so I, this sounds like a simple statement, but I, you know, I developed a Android, right? I, I developed the Android platform and you know, we had chat Haass, you know, we got to interview Chat Haas last year. And some of the other people that, you know, we had on the sh before like Florina Muk, Nick Butcher, they, they work kind of on the platform side. They work on the thing that developers like code in, if that makes sense. But y'all work on developer tools and I kind of wonder like, how do you think your perspective and your approach to your day-to-day job as developer tools, people differ from, you know, the other folks that we've talked to where they work on the platforms, the s STKs, is there, is there like a, I guess cuz your audience is different, right? Like how, how does that, how do you, how do you view like your goal and your, and how you interact with us on a day-to-day basis and, and over the year,

Jamal Eason (00:09:01):
Lets start there. One thing i i I truly value is like, you know, the, our audience is developers. They spend all their time in inner city and developer tools. You know, I love a lot of other Google products, but you know, if you use Google Maps, it's a very transactional look for location when you move off at the next thing. But here we have developers spend like hours, hours there. So I think about any, any, any incremental or big change we're making can have positive or negative impacts on developers. So we're kind of very thoughtful about how do we reach out to developers either, you know, via surveys or individual developers to really make very, very thoughtful decisions because like we're, you know, helping enable developers like Hood or their careers it's kind of a unique position in Google where you have that sort of like very intimate conversation with developers. So I think that's how I approach it a little differently, where it's like, it's not like some users like developer. And, and what's cool about developers is that whenever you launch something probably within five minutes on what are our social media platform, they'll let you know you don't like it.

(00:10:02):
Developers, I is pretty awesome. Respons <affirmative>,

Matthew McCullough (00:10:10):
Yeah, I think what I'd add to that is I, I try to use an investment philosophy for life too, which is like, where can you get a half percent or a 1% or a 2% gain? Which, you know, individually doesn't, doesn't seem like a whole lot, but if you can collect a whole bunch of those you can make a real difference. And so I think, you know, we have so many surfaces in the tools that we bring to Android developers that if it's around debugging, if it's around color coding and logging, if it's, you know, through Studio Bot and we keep adding these 1%, 2%, 3% gains. And then I add to what Jamal said about, you know, how many hours are spent inside this tooling accomplishing the core job. It, it makes a huge difference. So we're constantly on the look for the ways to make small differences that accumulate.

Mishaal Rahman (00:10:58):
So I know this is obviously hot, you know, on all of our minds, especially with how much it was brought up at IO and you just brought it up yourself, Matthew ai. I kind of want to pick your brain on how you, the, the two of you feel about ai, like, will it make our jobs obsolete? Can you basically comment on your team's perspective on AI in regards to, you know, it being part of the user's experience as well as the developer's experience. Like, will it like actually eventually make our jobs obsolete? Will it improve our lives, et cetera?

Matthew McCullough (00:11:31):
Jay is the Jay is the owner of Studio Bots, so I'm gonna actually get to, to fanboy just a little bit a bunch on here. But it's super awesome to get to work with, with him as he leads and, and owns a lot of that effort. But I'll just kick us off with a small statement to say that I'm most optimistic about the positive impact that it can have when the user is in the loop. Because when I think about a developer, the thing that we're asking for, the thing that I'm most excited about for developers is letting them express their intent for what they wanna create for users and experience a, a flow connection and ability to create or communicate and to do that more rapidly. And so anytime that we can accelerate their own ideas, I'm excited. So Jay, I'll I'll use that as a tee up and pass to you.

Jamal Eason (00:12:16):
Yeah, so I, I think there's a lot of excitement around AI and I'm, you know, you know, honestly in the dev tools team, we've been talking about AI for a, a bit of time, a couple years and just find the right moment. Cuz it's like, there's just, there's early advancements, a lot of r and d across obviously in Google. But you know, even all the great excitement there, I think there's, there's definitely the role of the developer is I think even more important where they need to sort of, as Matthew sort of described, provide the intent. There's a lot of boil play code we agree that you have to create, but there's, you have to sort of craft it and create it and sort of having that, that that global view where you have to ask the right questions. And so mentioning Bot, so see Bot, you know, we we started that really in earnest like probably mid-summer, summer last year.

(00:12:59):
We had a number of r and d teams reach out to us and we have been doing a lot of sort of ideation about like, what should we do to make it very, very, very valuable. And we iterate a few times honestly. But, you know, in that exploration we kind of thought about like what's gonna be most valuable to those to accelerate their, their work, not necessarily replace them. Because again, even with general AI we're doing right now for Student Bot, it's about asking the right questions, having the right context and we're at the point where let's say, Hey, make, make a social media app and press, you know, go like, I'm not there yet. So, so we have a lot of, lot of work to do, but I think it's been a, an accelerant, a very exciting space for, for developers.

Jason Howell (00:13:35):
So we're talking a little bit about what what Studio Bot can do for developers and that it's an AI tool, but what exactly is Studio Bot? You know, it's the easy thing is to you know, because it's AI and because it's Google and you know, this generative AI thing is fresh on everybody's minds. We've got chat G P T over here, we've got Google with its Bard and everything. So some people are probably maybe maybe outside of the developer community, which I am, I'm firmly part of, but somebody, it would be easy to look at and be like, oh, this is like Bard, but for coding how would you explain the utility of Studio Bot? And and is this something that your, in your feedback, in your interaction with developers that developers were asking for, we want a system that we can plug, you know, put in a problem and get a solution in the, in the form of code and hence studio bots. So I guess explain a little bit about what it is and then a little bit further into that.

Jamal Eason (00:14:34):
Yeah, and you kinda step back developer, it's, it's, it's actually more than this, like typing and studio, it's a mixture of Googling stuff. There's like workflow finding code samples, like asking all these little questions. Even the most advanced developer, it's like, Hey, I don't remember this. Like, one little question, how does one little task, right? Lemme just look on the search, right? So this sort of like assisted like development is sort of the, the, the key use case we're looking at for bot where it's about, Hey, how do I kind of accelerate my understanding or where would my, might take me a couple minutes of searching or kind of connecting things. We can do things in context. So what's different than just, you know, you know, you mentioned Bart Sabar, you know internally have a number of teams doing a lot of great work on, on on large those models, but specifically for, for studio bots about how do we integrate sort of the best of studio and development with some of the power of the large code models.

(00:15:22):
And so for instance okay, the demo at IO where it's like we can recognize not just as a, at its like text, we can recognize code, we can recognize dependencies and imports. Many times you find a code up online, it's like, well, how do I get this into my project? Like, how do I find the right dependencies and it's not gonna build, how's not gonna compile? We thought about those things or things like, Hey, I have a crash or a error log in my project. Well, you know, instead of googling for that, we can identify the problem in a quick action for that. So on top of sort of the response, we're adding all these, you know, efficiencies to this and we did a video actually with at, i, we didn't do, we did this on stage, we did it during the iOS technical session.

(00:15:59):
We have these quick actions inside the, inside the PRO program. So it's like, hey, you know, debug this lines, you can actually do a quick action on Superbox the button line. Hey, why don't you copy and paste this line from the the log cat, my, my, my id. All these actions are sort of additive, sort of accelerants to development. So again, long answer your que answer to your question. I think it's to help accelerate development built upon this launching models, which provides a lot of that. We can add that sort of quick actions inside of Andrew Studio.

Mishaal Rahman (00:16:28):
Yeah, thanks for the comprehensive answer there. Oh, go ahead Matthew.

Matthew McCullough (00:16:32):
She can say as a reminder, there's like, there's several different dimensions though. You know, so often we get like the headline of generate code generate app, and I just wanted to like put a yellow highlighter on something that Jamal said here for a minute is, there's so much of the developer experience that is explain this, why is this happening? What have I missed? And, and those elements being helpful in those is actually I think a pretty unique take that we've got on this. We, we essentially wanna be helpful is you heard in the, in this stage presentation wanna be helpful in all dimensions of software development, not just in the pure generation of codes. We're thinking about a pretty broad lens on this.

Mishaal Rahman (00:17:09):
Hmm. So based on everything, you know, both of you said about Tobi bot, it sounds incredibly helpful and you know, it'll definitely be a useful tool in the developer's arsenal, but I want to know, what do you have to say to developers or companies that you know are developing Android apps, but they may not like that, you know, they're, this is built into Android studio cuz I don't know if you've seen the news, but some companies like Apple, Samsung for example, have barred their, their developers from using AI tools like Chat G P T, because, you know, they're afraid of their secrets being leaked and being enveloped into the model. So like, what do you say to developers who may similarly be skeptical of tools like Studio Bot?

Jamal Eason (00:17:52):
Good question. So, you know, honestly, we, we, we explored cocom completion. That's one of those ideas we, we thought about. The, one of the reasons why we pivot towards sort of chat interface for to bot is cause of this, this reason. We know that, you know, obviously if you're doing like a small project, you know, you're kind of more at little free flowing. But from our serious developers, there's a lot of concerns for enterprise security and code. And so really you know, we don't send your source code to Google, right? It's really the chat between the studio bot, which you type in and you back. And we kind of detail this in our, in our documentation, but this, this is kind of a wall of source separation where it's you know, you have control of what you share. So I think a lot of the code suggestion things do require source code access, which, which can be scary for a lot of companies and sure appreciate that. So that's, that's kind of our philosophy. And then, you know, we're, we're just the beginning of, of this work, so we're, we're keeping that in mind. Cause we definitely want this for all developers of experience and not just for like your side projects. You know, we went up for professional developers and that is definitely a key concern for a lot of those developers, but how do we actually add it in, in a, in a comfortable way for your own security, for your source code?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:54):
Hmm. Yeah. And I guess I, I, so kind of, kind of kind of maybe piggybacking off of the idea of like insur like insecurity about security as you intimated, sometimes devs can be pretty opinionated and I think a <laugh> owning it here. And I think a lot of times with things that are like assistance and I, I, I have to admit to this myself sometimes, like the gut reaction, especially for maybe senior devs is a little bit cynical. Like, oh, and like, you know, is this I didn't say this but I, you know, you kind of get a reaction of like, well, I don't need this. I can type it myself. Or what is this just clippy? And I, I personally don't feel that way, but I'd like to give you like a chance to maybe elevator pitch it. Like, regardless of whether someone is an entry level Android dev or someone who's senior been who's been doing Android for 10 years, what do you, what would your elevator pitch then to be as like, Hey, try Studio Bot. Don't just dismiss it cuz you think you, you, you feel like you can do it better by yourself. Like what, what would your pitch be

Jamal Eason (00:19:57):
Wanna talk about first?

Matthew McCullough (00:20:00):
Sure. whether you're, you're just starting out or whether you're 10 years in the surface area keeps expanding to the point that it's almost impossible for humans to have it memorized. We find the answers to those things either through a friend, a colleague, sibling, our desk in our chair to the right, or looking on common sites, you know, GitHub stack overflow or using a traditional Google search. We think that by bringing the ability to find the answers you're looking for in this ever increasing surface and a quicker and in context, staying in the flow way respects what we know of developers, keep me in the tool, keep me in the flow, keep me with my momentum, and still respecting the fact that there's a lot left to learn. We're constantly releasing, as we even talked about the surface area of just the, the developer tools, the, the surfaces and the platform itself and the developer tools just even at io, that's a lot to learn just, you know, 10 days ago at this point in time. And we think we can make that a little bit easier and lighten the load by having a never tiring assistant at your fingertips.

Jason Howell (00:21:03):
<Laugh>, and before we go to a quick break, just one last quick question. What is, what has the feedback been since the introduction of Studio Bot that you've been hearing? Is there a resounding like, you know what, this is actually really cool. What are people saying? What are devs telling you?

Jamal Eason (00:21:22):
Two, two things. So we did launch at only in US and we have a lot of folks around the world, so like a lot of disappointed folks like, hey, wanna run the world? So we're, we're thinking about that, right? For sure. <Laugh> and there were two as I mentioned, probably for 10 times in the blog post, it's early on, so we definitely know quality is gonna be improved, but I think a lot of filters really excited that we're working on this. And the, they're seeing some of the impacts there. So I think those are the two things, sort of like the momentum's exciting, but then it's not globally yet. And we're gonna, we're gonna get there,

Jason Howell (00:21:50):
We're gonna get there. Hang tight, everybody. Speaking of hang tight, we've got more of this interview coming up but we do have to take a break. So let's take a pause and thank the sponsor of this episode of All about Android. And this episode of All About Android is brought to you by Fast Mail. You know, it's all about making email work for you, right? We all get email <laugh>, we want it to work for us. That's what fast mail's all about. You can customize your workflow with colors, custom swipes, night mode, and so much more that's just kind of scratching the surface. Fast Mail now has quick settings and you can do a lot from the quick settings. From the quick Settings menu. You can actually choose a new theme. You can switch between that light mode and that dark mode that I was talking about.

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Ron Richards (00:26:05):
Are you sure you don't wanna talk more about ai? I mean the, the keynote, the keynotes talked about it a lot. I feel, I feel like it, it's requisite, right? Get it in a hundred more mentions or so, right? No, no actually, guys, one of the, one of the things that we talk about a lot on the show that we've talked about at least since like Android 12 L or 12 l as we like to call it affectionately but this, you know, embracing of large screens and new form factors that that has been seated out through Android for the past, you know, couple of years. And it seems to be culminating now with the Google Pixel fold and the Google Pixel tablet coming out. We've talked a lot about on here on the show about kind of the chicken and the egg problem when it comes specifically to, but then also, you know, kind of larger screens and larger formats because it's kind of like developers won't spend the time to develop for the larger screens unless their users using the hardware, but the users won't buy the hardware unless there are apps that take advantage of the form factor.

(00:26:56):
And you could see how that kind of cycle goes through. Sure. I would love to hear from your guys' perspective if you've seen, have you seen a change in interest with developers and partners as a whole? I mean, Matthew, I'd love to hear from your perspective, how, how the large screen inform factor embracing is going on your guys' side.

Matthew McCullough (00:27:12):
Yeah, I'll, I'll kick us off, but I'd love to hear from both of us. I think one of the things is, you know, I've got a, I've got a fold over here on my desk and I'm a convert. I, I don't think you could ever get me to switch back at this point. If you asked me, you know, in a, in a pop quiz today unaffiliated with my employment with Google, could I switch back from foldable? It would be hard once you have that real estate, it's pretty impressive. But I'm a single individual experiencing this. And I think part of our job, both consumer and developer alike, you talked about this flywheel, is to get many people having that same experience where they're like, yes, this is the future of, of form factors. Now that also goes to tablets. And I think one of the things you mentioned 12 l when you think 12 L 13, 14, that gives us three versions of the operating system now in which we've really proven the amount of investment, the number of people sheer thousands of hours that we're putting into making that experience great at the platform level.

(00:28:07):
And, you know, we talked about developers, whether they're new or experienced, they're constantly looking for signals on what's stable, what looks like the future, what is getting the investment. And I think that this offers a really potent signal, three major versions of the operating system in sequence with very significant investments, both at the platform and the developer tools level to support foldables, flippable and, and large screens like tablets. So let me pause there. I'll take it in bite-size pieces. Jamal over to you for some ads.

Jamal Eason (00:28:41):
Yeah, I think, you know, I I I, I remember when Honeycomb watched some initial, initial tablet and I agree, you know, tablet, tablet has been tricky, tricky for developers cuz I agree this is, this is return on investment aspect to it. The development with Matthew mentioned, you know, what we've done differently in in past years, instead of just doing just the device by itself, we've been very thoughtful to some developer experience. How do you lower that cost of development by launching certain new set of job pack libraries, new develop new emulators, new tools, testing tools available to, to make it easier in maintenance. Cause you hear a lot of these times like, hey, you know, we have all these, you know, the, you know, considerations we gotta do. How do you make our lives easier? So I think with the Intes tools, libraries and, and emulators and inte tools, I think it does make that a story easier.

(00:29:23):
And, you know, to and last point, as Matthew mentioned in the keynote, he talked about Google apps themselves. We launched what, 40, 40 plus apps ourselves, you know, converted themselves over to tablet apps. Yeah, so, so I think, I think we're just trying to set the center ourselves because, you know, you know, it's, it's odd for us to say, Hey, work and doing our own work. We, we made the effort ourselves to kind of show like what it looks like to have great experiences. And by the way, I'm actually using a Pixel tablet for this call, so I'm using on the device. So no

Ron Richards (00:29:52):
Way. Gotta say on the, on the side, Matthew had us all geeking out on our little private chat behind the scenes, like, he's got a fold and Jamal got a tablet, you guys are living the dream. Like, seriously, you're jealous living the pixel dream <laugh>

Mishaal Rahman (00:30:15):
With

Matthew McCullough (00:30:15):
Only one inception. I took one of the first calls about Studio Bot when we knew we could make it a reality from a lobby of a Google building that I just biked over to by flipping over my first prototype of the fold. So I don't know what kind of level of inception that is, but it's, it's some form of that. So it all ties together.

Mishaal Rahman (00:30:36):
So while we're talking and geeking about, about the fold, I wanted to return to something you said about how you've been improving the experience, you know, over the years with 12 L 13 and 14, you know, the experience as you mentioned has gotten better. But I wanted to ask you, like, can you talk specifically about, you know, the unique opportunities that developers can use? Like what, what have you actually added to the OS and the APIs and the libraries, et cetera, that developers can use to build better foldable apps or apps for foldable devices?

Jamal Eason (00:31:09):
Well, two things that come to mind. So I don't, I'm not gonna show the demo during the, the, the call here, but you know, we added the stability, the take advantage of dual screen apps. And so you can have your, you know, Google Docs one side and you have your, you know, Google keep another side. You can sort of go back and forth between them and then remembers the state so you can remember, hey, I wanna go back to this dual state back and forth. Another cool thing is this building task bar, and this, this kind of leaning into this productivity aspect. When I have a larger screen, I wanna do more stuff. So developers can say, Hey, I wanna, you know, you know, have this multimodal screen aspect, not assuming the a the phone is always in a horizontal mode. I can have like a landscape mode or a fold mode. So you gotta APIs again, the, the detect, the, the different orientation. So one cool thing I like a lot is the YouTube where like as a table talk mode, I can sort of interact with content on the bottom look the video on top. So these are sort of just nice sort of APIs added to make it you know, a more experience for consumers. I dunno, mapping anything to add that.

Matthew McCullough (00:32:05):
Yeah, I, I think it goes from everything from making it easy where we've got overrides at the at the OS itself. And so that makes it a little bit easier for some of the apps to come along for the journey and kind of bootstrap this, you, you talked about fly wheels and I think that's important. You've gotta, you've gotta have enough value that people are using it there to wanna improve it, to get a little bit of excitement to see some user base on it. So we've tried to do that by doing some of that lift for developers through some of the resizing. But then we've also offered affordances at the developer tools and toolkits level for things like nav and the ability to have adaptive layouts, which you saw is an, an early release for that. So we're thinking about, we're trying to interview developers, make sure that we speak to developers on the ground and say like, what would help you make this an easier yes and then to build the thing that would make that yes easy for them. So we're, we're very focused on, on listening to developers and saying what they need, not just inventing kind of an a laboratory kinda approach.

Jason Howell (00:33:09):
I think my question, just as a quick follow up, cuz I mean those are, there's a lot of features that make, you know, that Android has added over the last couple of years to make it friendly for these larger form factors and these apps to kind of integrate with them. My curiosity has to do with your connection with the developers themselves. Is there a one, is there a feature that you're surprised is not being utilized more because it does really wonderful things that developers aren't quite taking advantage of and maybe at some point they're, they're all gonna realize like, oh wow, actually this was the secret sauce and this is what we need to do to make our app better. But with so many of these features, is there that one feature that you're like, look at, you're like, man, which this, this should be like in every single app. Why is it not yet?

Matthew McCullough (00:33:59):
Jason, I'll, I'll take a first. I think this is a, a both this like favorite flavor of ice cream kind of answer, but but you said one and that's really tough. I like shortlist, but you know, I, I think Paul's kit is, is something that's okay, that's important to me here because we're, we're starting to build this record. I'm, I'm a big sleep tracker, you know, heart rate. I'm, I'm not like any kind of intense ultra athlete, but I really care about looking at these stats and seeing how they change over time as I get deeper into my forties. And like, it's, this is something that I really want any application that is using sensors on the handsets, on the wearables and the like, to start thinking about, to kind of create an aggregate picture of somebody's full, full health. And the reason that I think that, you know, it hasn't been yet is when you look at a single data point alone, okay, you, you, you did a biker run or something else.

(00:34:47):
That app is is thinking app, app-centric. But what I'd like to kind of appeal to any developers listening here that work in that space is you actually make the value of what you collect record graph show in your app greater by piling it in to this fuller picture that the other applications that the user has chosen to put in their portfolio and on their device aggregate. So, so think of this as one plus one equals three kind of mindset. So for me, healthcare coming to the US and to the platform level is, is that one? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Jamal over to you.

Jamal Eason (00:35:21):
So, so maybe more obvious for the this, the more pro developers, but I think we've been leaning a lot into compose and one of the hurdles for developers, like, we have all this code that's like XML and it's, it's, it's hindering us. We find that both, you know, e even develops a refactor to use Jet Beck and Pose has lowered his adoption barrier. So I would sort of double down on like, we haven't used Jet and Pose and, you know, looking for ways to get acceleration to other form factors. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this is a way to lower that, that that the costs, because now instead of doing all these sort of you know, with with with the previous APIs, we'd have to have like different dimensions per screen size. And now since we have a more declarative model, we can say, hey, well if it's like a generally this, this category of screen size do this particular particular behavior. So I've seen a lot of like older like best practices on safo, like, oh, use this older APIs. Like, no, no, no, we have a new thing. Use a new thing and it'll make it life much easier. And we launched this Matthew Win in 12 L and it's taken a few releases to get this job there. But I think doing that we actually lowered this costs and for development and, and make it easy even more funer to develop for, for her Android by using this new of APIs.

Jason Howell (00:36:32):
And unknowingly of course, or maybe you're a huge fan of the show and you knew this, but we do play a jet pack composed drinking game on this show anytime it's mentioned. No, we don't actually do that. But if, if we did drink on the show, we probably would, because Win is a huge fan of Jet Pack would be much different. It would be a much different tone show. If you drink

Huyen Tue Dao (00:36:53):
It wouldn't be very good for our health stats on phone. Cause I love talking about it. And I get, every chance I get to, every chance I get to say composed, I say composed, I've said it twice already, there we go, drink. But that's a really good, that's drink drink. But that's a really good segue and and I think it's so fascinating as a developer, you know, I think we're coming up on 15 year anniversary of the release of the G one, is it 15 years now? And, and as a developer, I, I think I started, yeah, it's a long time. It's, it's cool because I've been developing, I think since about gingerbread, maybe eclair somewhere around there I don't remember anymore. And, you know, Jack Pack and Post feels like, you know, especially as a developer kind of, you know, part of this really interesting wave that, I mean just arbitrarily for me kind of started a little bit with like Lollipop and then we got this bigger wave with Kotlin and now we have like, you know, the Jet Pack libraries, which is for our audience, just a bunch of libraries that kind of like help us do things better in different kind of like facets of, you know, the application to kind of big changes like Project Mainline and like Jeck and Pose, like adopting Kotlin already said that.

(00:37:59):
And the, and you know, I, I know that the team has kind of formed this idea of modern and or development mad and it just feels like there's a lot of stuff going on just day to day, like e from big things to small things from like the photo picker to, you know, like share sheet changes in 14 to kind of, again, these more like wide sweeping changes in developable developable tools like, you know, studio Bot and I, I think it's kind of easy to hear like, you know, modern Android development and kind of not even as a developer and not be quite sure what that means. And, and even more so especially when taking that home to product to managers, they kinda wanna know like, okay, you wanna adopt all these new fancy things, why and what for? Right. So I was wondering if you both could comment on what modern Android means to you all on the actual Android team and you know, like how do you, you know, I guess how do you go about like road mapping and prioritizing all these kind of like, new things and, you know, things that I guess you could say that you're fixing partly because of us, like things like, you know, predictive back and, and again, like the photo picker and for foreground services, like how do you like balance and prioritize and like plan, you know, <laugh> new features and improvements for the platform?

Jamal Eason (00:39:15):
Yeah. I can, I can, I can start. So I think, you know, when we started at moderator development first there was a, there's a state of the world where we were not opinionated. It's like, here's, here's, here's a collection of things to do. And depending on your situation, choose your own adventure. And I, I know that costs, you know, you know, a lot of flex for those who like flexibility that was started relieving, but for those who wanted a kind of fast accelerated path development that was frustrating. So for me it's about having a opinionated set of guidance tools and libraries that allows you to kind of be successful on Android as a platform for your business in your, in your application. And so it's, it's evolving, right? So, you know, and we first launched Play Kotlin as a modern language, you know, Java language is great, but then, you know, modern modern APIs are easiest, little more succinct with Kotlin.

(00:40:07):
And then we start looking at sort of the trip by composed libraries about <inaudible>, collabos in general, about making it more opinionated how you got a database instead of having four ways to do it, here's like the best way to do it. So it sort about having more of this opinionated approach is how we think about it. And you know, each year we kind of re-look at that and saying like, here's the best practice we have for Android and making sure we're thoughtful about not creating lot of churn. For me, there's, there's, there's also a lot of excitement obviously with new consumer features, but I understand as a developer it's like, Hey, look, I got a hundred things I gotta do on my checklist. Like, we can't do all the things right? So let's, let's be like thoughtful and very like, long-term looking about like, how do we introduce something that's gonna be long lasting as much as possible and not create like a churn every single six months.

(00:40:50):
Cause that's not gonna be very sustainable for developers. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then part to your question, how do you think about planning? Relate to my last comment. You know, we, we were really thoughtful about like, where do we put a feature, right? Should this go inside of like an an OS specific feature should go into the library, should go in Google play services. Those have all have different tradeoffs about how they're supported by developers. And you know, honestly it's there's a lot of lot of different app situations and so it's, we, we, okay, we're all not always perfect, but we think try to find the best approach by seeking people from developers. You know, many times we're having conversations with partners or even the small developers to kind of get that insights because, you know, once we launch something, it's hard to kind of take it back. So we are, are thoughtful so that we're making easier for adoption over the long term. I'll pause there. Matthew, anything to add to that?

Matthew McCullough (00:41:39):
Just a, a couple of things. I think when you have 3 billion active users or more decisions become very nuanced. All of the decisions become nuanced because you're not gonna be able to just flip a light switch. They're not binary decisions anymore. You know, let's, let's get all 3 billion folks on something. So then when you take the developer mindset, you're thinking, well, how can we help them bring what they want to create or improve to, to as many folks as possible? And we have these choices, you know, the platform level play services as a distribution or, or a library. And so that's one of the angles. How do we help them reach the largest audience with the thing that they want to, to bring to bear? And the second to this is, you know, also kind of this lens of how do we declare at any given point in time what the best practices are while remembering that we still have a duty, a responsibility to support, you know, developers and code bases that were created a couple years ago. Those code bases will live on, you know, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 years in some cases. So modern Android development for us allows us to label the set of tools and techniques that we think are cutting edge and to declare what we think the the path to the future is, while offering respectfully that we still have to maintain a lot of the tools that have come in the past and found their way into databases that are well established. Jamal, just a, a quick check. Anything to, you know, polish or refine on that?

Jamal Eason (00:43:05):
That was great. Yeah.

Ron Richards (00:43:08):
Excellent, excellent. It was indeed. Great. So one of the, as we were winding down on our time here, we wanted to pick your brain because we did find it fascinating at Google io, at least during the main keynote. I know, you know, kind, I came up more during developer keynote, but in the main keynote there was very little discussion of new version of Android that's on, that's that's, you know, on, on on deck that come out very soon. Would love to hear from both of you what are your favorite features of Android 14, or what are you excited about with Android 14 as it's coming out soon? Jamal, I'd love to hear from you first.

Jamal Eason (00:43:41):
Yeah, so I'm big into photography. So we launched HD four images. So I have a, you know, nice h r television and I look at like the videos and so we adding, adding that to the Android, but we did it in a kind of unique way. We had it built on top of jpeg so it's backwards compatible as much as possible. So it's not sort of only works the new version. That's pretty cool. And then another thing we gotta to demo, obviously you talked mentioned Dave Burke. The, the new AI parallel apps wallpaper are pretty cool. I mentioned have kids and so it's cool having like the kind of have them on the wallpaper and they can see themselves. And so it's, it's cool having this unique way to kind of personalize your phone if you're looking at all the time. But now you can kind of do some kind of cool things that were, you know, not possible, not a few years ago, but I can do it, do it in real time. A few quick taps and you have a nice personalized sort of cool experience in your, in your, in your phone that you can adapt and change as you take cool photos with your devices. Those are my top two Matthew,

Matthew McCullough (00:44:37):
I'm I I'm gonna cheat and and pull two, but they're in the same vector, so I promise it's not much of a cheat for this. We do need some assistive hearing devices and in our greater family units. And so hearing a control and improvement there is, is always a, a really lovely investment that is that is a challenging space to get those devices to work because, you know, the user pool is not as large as say you know, pixel buds or something like that from a test pool. So it's always great when the investment is there making that more usable and more accessible. So that's great. And the second element you know, comes with an expanded set of family members. You know, many of us say that US holidays are the time that we go to repair our folks' computers and mobile devices, <laugh>, get them up patch them.

(00:45:20):
And third party support for Passkey is actually has me excited to kind of reduce that surface. Cuz we usually use the password sweep. You know, I, I guess I'm saying this out to the world, but you know, you get the ones off the yellow sticky notes from family members who are like, yes, there was just one more. I know I'm supposed to keep it in a password manager, but that was the one by the phone that I had to set up for financial institution <laugh>, you help sweep those and move them back in. So anything that we can do to make, you know, better security, easy to make that the default to just make it friendly, welcoming, accessible, you know, that path as opposed to to writing it on the post-it note near the telephone. Means my US holidays are gonna be less about tech support and more about great meals with people. <Laugh>.

Jason Howell (00:46:02):
I think we can all identify with that <laugh>. Yeah, good motivation. Very good motivation. <Laugh>. Yeah. Good. Me very much.

Mishaal Rahman (00:46:07):
<Laugh>. I always find it so interesting how, like we talk about what are your top features, your favorite features in the new Android release. And like me, everyone asks me, what are your favorite features? What, what should we look forward to? And I'm just like, my brain melts outta my side because just so much happening and every new Android release, I'm like, where do you even start? How do you, how do you pick like the top features? I just don't know because there's too much to talk about. And so it's like, it's, it's wild. You know, when people pick out their top five favorite features, they're not even scratching the surface of how much work is done by the Android team, by, you know, all of you at Google on every new operating system. It's, it's just insane to think about.

Jason Howell (00:46:47):
Yeah, that's a real, really good perspective and a really great way for us to say thank you for all the work that you do. You do a lot of hard work, you and your team and you know, being in touch with the developers out there, helping them, helping folks like win <laugh> have an easier time doing their job, right. And creating great apps. And I mean, we do this show because we are fans of the platform and we have you on because you are responsible for that. So we really appreciate your time. Jamal Eason, Matthew McCullough, both from Google. We're just spoiled to get you on for 45 minutes to talk to us about everything that you do. So to both of you, thank you Jamal, really appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you. No problem. Yeah, and Matthew it's, it's been a pleasure to meet you and thanks for coming on and sharing your thoughts on, on Andrea development with us, Matthew.

Matthew McCullough (00:47:43):
Likewise, it's been a privilege to represent the work of, of thousands of people today who are supporting and bringing this to life inside Google.

Jason Howell (00:47:51):
There you go. That's what it's all about. And we're happy to be here for any time you want to wanna share that side of the story with us, we'd love to have you back. So both of you thank you again, really appreciate it. And yeah, all the best on Android 14 and beyond. We'll talk with both of you soon. Thank you guys.

Matthew McCullough (00:48:10):
Thanks.

Jason Howell (00:48:11):
All right, bye to you both. Okay, well that was a lot of fun.

Ron Richards (00:48:16):
That was great. I mean, that

Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:17):
Was awesome.

Ron Richards (00:48:18):
Anytime, anytime we get to talk to folks from Google. We know it's gonna be good because they're bringing, you know, all that experience and all that exposure to this stuff. But to, you know when Mishaal, to hear you guys get to geek out with the folks who were like that, I was having fun just listening in the beginning there, <laugh>. So it was, yeah. And

Huyen Tue Dao (00:48:34):
It's, it's so funny cuz I feel like you know, especially with like Jay and developer tools mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it, it's kind of hard to like kind of quantify or like explain to you like, why this matters so much. Because as, as a consumer, I get it. Like it's all about like, okay, fixing a lot of it is like, hey, like there are very real bugs and crashes or usability things like, like there's specific things that like just translate from, like we have problems to it, to our us will have problems to it. Mm-Hmm. But the, the work that, that the developer tools people or developer tools developers do is really, I think unsung and, and very difficult. Cuz as I mentioned, even like, developers can be a little cynical about the different, you know, ways because everyone works differently. So everyone has opinions about how they work.

Jason Howell (00:49:16):
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:49:17):
Done. Yeah. So it, it, it's really interesting to see like how they like, especially like the work that the developer tool team said, it, it's kind of crazy because it's hard to explain to a user, hey, like legit, like, studio bot will, will, will make productivity like so much better. And like, I know, and it, it's hard to kind of connect that to your app is gonna be better. It's going to like crash less or you'll get this cool feature, or, hey, you'll get to actually have cute animations in your app. And it's, it's, it's is is not as direct, but it's so important. And I think even as developers, we forget to appreciate that. So anyway, yes, that's

Jason Howell (00:49:51):
All

Huyen Tue Dao (00:49:51):
Important. Easy, overlooked important and yeah. Yeah. So

Jason Howell (00:49:54):
Yeah, indeed. Right on. All right, well that's fun. But we should also say that there has been a week full of Android News <laugh>, and we're gonna get to that in a moment. That's right, Uhhuh. Yeah.

Ron Richards (00:50:07):
The train doesn't stop. But first we're gonna take a pause and we're gonna thank HPE GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at C D W for sponsoring this episode of all about Android. And listen, the people at CDW understand that your organization needs simple management over its big data. But with workloads remaining on-prem due to legacy, it can feel challenging to organize and optimize your data. And that's where C D W can help your organization. By consolidating and managing all your data in one flexible, unified experience with the HPE GreenLake Edge to Cloud platform, the experience you'll get with HPE GreenLake is unique because no matter where your data or applications live, you can free up energy and resources with automated processes and streamline management. And we can all use a little more streamlined things. Right? I know I can. Geez. So not only that, HPE GreenLake creates a seamless cloud experience among multiple data environments thanks to the ASA service model that meets your remote workforce at the edge. And with unrivaled scalability, you'll see an instant increase in capacity, allowing for greater flexibility and accelerated business growth. So your team can tackle bigger priorities like innovation, which you should be doing innovate. Go do it. So when it comes to streamline management, HPE e makes data transformation possible. C d w makes it powerful. Learn more at cdw.com/hpe. That's cdw.com/hpe and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of all about Android.

Jason Howell (00:51:32):
All right. All right. So why don't we get into the news then. Victor, I don't know if you're ready to hit the button because I realize it's in a different part of the show, but if you are ready, go ahead and throw that news bumper into action. Let's hear what you got. I am totally not ready because my mind is exploding from all this information. <Laugh>, let's just be honest, let's just be real here. That, that interview was awesome. That Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun news. Oh, we're just so lucky. I love it. I love being able to talk to the folks at Google. Okay, so we talked about this a few weeks ago. What was it like two or three weeks ago? We doubted it would happen. It looks like we were right at least reportedly, you know, according to sources, and I'll throw that in air quotes, but Samsung has reportedly suspended its review into whether it should switch to Microsoft's, Bing that Bing with the AI chat assistance in lieu of Google search on its devices.

(00:52:35):
This is according to Wall Street Journal has the follow up. That was the original story with the New York Times, I believe is Wall Street Journal with their follow up. Google, Microsoft, Samsung, all declined comment on this, but sources shared that Samsung's review was focused, and I didn't realize this at the time, on its own branded internet app. So anyone who has a Samsung device knows probably that kind of like out of the box. The phone has Samsung's internet app. I, I don't know if like I always end up using Chrome. I think most people probably end up using Chrome mm-hmm. <Affirmative> or something else. Yeah. Or something else. Right. And but, but Samsung, you know, has for many, many years included its own internet app. And my misunderstanding on this and, and you know, it's not my fault, I just don't know that it was necessarily reported originally, but it is now that what Samsung was looking at or, or it could just be the way it's being spun now, but that Samsung was looking into what its own branded internet app would default to.

(00:53:34):
Would that app that not nearly as many people are using, would that app default search to Microsoft's being search? And I mean the, the, the question that we ran into when we talked about this a couple of weeks ago was, well this, you know, this just isn't gonna happen. Because if Samsung decides to change the search on the device, then they're going against the agreements that they've made with Google and they would essentially not be granted access to Google's suite of tools, which is what everybody that's using Android, at least here in the us wants to see on their devices. Would this, Mishaal, I'm curious to know if you, if you have any any knowledge of, of this on a deeper level. But if Samsung was saying no on the device itself, it still accesses Google search. But in our browser, our browser, it accesses bing. Would that go counter to the agreement that Google made? I'm curious about that kind of like little differentiation loophole. It sounds like a loophole. Yeah, it might be a loophole.

Mishaal Rahman (00:54:40):
<Laugh>. Yeah. In the earlier reporting it was kind of ambiguous. Yeah. What, you know, the legacy media meant when they said default search. You know, a lot of you know us who have been following Android for a lot long time and like, you know, are intimate, familiar with all these agreements and whatnot. We're kind of wondering, like, as you said, Jason, would Samsung even be allowed to change the default search experience, you know, across the search bar on the home screen? Whether you able to change the default assistant app away from Google Assistant, you know and now it seems like the clarification is that Samsung was contemplating only changing the default search experience in their own Samsung internet app. Their internet browser app. And as far as I know, that would be allowed because Samsung devices still also ship with Chrome pre-installed, you know, in the markets where they ship Google apps.

(00:55:28):
And as long as Chrome is the default browser Chrome itself, you know, has Google search as the default search experience. Hmm. But if a user chose to use Samsung Internet and Samsung chose to use Bing as a default search experience on that app in Samsung internet, then I think that would be allowed. You know? Yeah. As long as they, as long as they continue to ship the Google app and the Chrome app, you know, alongside those and made those a default and I think what was reported would've been allowed. But as you can see, like they clearly have shelved those plans or I mean, they reportedly have shelved those plans <laugh>. Cause all of this is still, you know, see done in secrecy, you know, back somewhere in Korea in some office, meet some meeting room.

Jason Howell (00:56:10):
And we don't even know if, if what were the, the kind of confusing thing we're talking about right now wasn't kind of part of like there's a cynical part of me that's like, oh, that's a really interesting way to spin it. So no, we weren't thinking about changing. It was just in our browser. It's like, okay, really this much, you know, this much of a to-do for, for just that. But apparently they haven't even, I mean, the sources say the option is not entirely out of the question somewhere in the future. So leaving the door a Aja <laugh> to say, Google, just don't you tick us off because somewhere down the line we might actually do this, but not now. It's okay. I don't know. I don't know what to think about this the whole time. The the any, you know, from, from almost the first time I heard this, it sounded, it felt ridiculous to me. I could not see Samsung putting everything on the line to say, you know what, we're going super anti Google from this day forward. Like, they're just too enmeshed with each other. I suppose it's possible, but I just don't see it.

Mishaal Rahman (00:57:10):
Yeah. I I don't know if, like, this is something I noticed the other day, but like Microsoft has came kind of looking, they're kind of looking desperate to push Bing on Android. Like I just happened to search up Bing in the Google Play store and they renamed the entire app to Bing chat with AI and G P T four and like the description says Access chat, G P T and chat and G PT four for free. Oh yes. Mishaal,

Ron Richards (00:57:32):
Look at

Mishaal Rahman (00:57:32):
That keyword stuff.

Jason Howell (00:57:34):
Oh yeah.

Ron Richards (00:57:35):
Well I, it's funny you say that cuz first Mishaal, you could have ended your sentence with Microsoft as desperate to push Bing period <laugh>. Right? Like, and that's been the story as long as Bing has existed. But also when you talk about keyword stuffing, I was laughing cuz today I don't think we're touching on it cuz it's kind of more broad. But today was the day that H B O Max rebranded to Max and and it was the Bizarrest rollout because like when other, like when other streaming apps have changed, you just updated the app and it changed. But for HBO O Max for some reason, you had to install a new app and I had to transfer my subscription. It was all pain in the butt. But when I went to go find the new app, the title of the app is Max Colon Watch hbo. Right. Which is, oh, it's so what, why did you change the name then? Like, it's so, like, I, you know, I'm kidding. The, the keyword word stuffing, like there being chat with AI and GT four is like, it is really de like a certain number of characters and the desperation to happen within those characters is so apparent

Jason Howell (00:58:30):
And yeah. So, mm. <Laugh> all right. So we don't think this is gonna happen. Or at least I don't, I I really don't think that it, that I will Yeah. I don't think happen even down the line unless, unless something major ships, I mean, it would be a really big deal, but I doubt it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:58:50):
Well, but do you know who is likely to switch who to someone different? Pixel users, apparently. Oh. Oh, ww that wasn't my, that wasn't my best segue. It actually kinda

Jason Howell (00:59:00):
Mean fun. The w w actually, I think that's a pretty good segue. The Wamp WMP is Pixel is is Google Pixel. Yeah. Period.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:07):
Is Google Pixel. Yeah. Wmp. Because there is a new global consumer survey from SATA that asked a very, well, it's a very complicated question with some very interesting answers. And that question was how likely are you to change your smartphone brand at the next possible occasion? So not to barely lead at all, but Google Consu Google users, users saw only 26% of users were unlikely to switch, whereas 57% were very likely to switch uch.

Ron Richards (00:59:44):
That is a <laugh>.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:59:45):
That is really good. That's, yeah, that's a lot. That's not a lot,

Ron Richards (00:59:49):
Lot. That's really bad. But I was thinking, I, I was thinking a lot about this though because I, there's a dimension to this that doesn't clarify how long they've been Pixel users, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, right? Yeah. And so, and I feel like a lot of Pixel users tend to be, I was on Samsung, I'm curious, let me go check out Pixel. And they're probably more likely to jump. Whereas if you've built up a brand Affinity, you're less likely to jump after a couple version of phones. I don't know that's, that, that,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:00:13):
No, but that, that's a great point, Ron, because if you look at the other side, so if you, if we look at the other kind of two big names in the room, right? Samsung and Apple. So between Samsung and Apple, if you asked who was very unlikely to switch, so 44 to 49% of Samsung and Apple users are unlikely to switch. But in terms of people that are using Samsung and Apple that are very likely to switch, that's 37%. That's still a huge number. So as you're saying, there's another side of the story, because while you got like, let's say like 40% of people, 45% of people willing to stay at loyal to Samsung, there's still like a significant portion of people on these brands like Luta Switch. So that seems to kind of back up your kind of like what, what you're saying in that there might be some people that just, that like maybe people like us that are just, they like technology and they tend

Ron Richards (01:00:59):
To, they're ready to jump. Yeah, exactly. Ready to with the new shiny thing or that sort of thing. And like, and yeah, I don't know. I feel like this often, this sort of, this sort of stuff can often be skewed in the questions. And I think the Pixel customer that's true, is a unique customer. I think that they are still building up that brand loyalty of that Samsung has. Or like, I buy every Galaxy, you know, I buy every version of it because I'm, I'm loyal to it. They really, I mean, they're on the right track. If you asked me, I think the, the Pixel seven, the Pixel six are all great progression. And if somebody got on board, they would easily, you know, you know, jump and continue onto it. But I, they, they, they haven't done, I mean, how long has Samsung been doing it? Like the Pixel hasn't put in the time yet. So Pixel one

Mishaal Rahman (01:01:39):
Of the thing I also, oh yeah,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:01:40):
Go Mishaal.

Mishaal Rahman (01:01:41):
All right. I just wanted to see, like in this data doesn't really show you, you know, the breakdown of like what device was the person they were asking actually using like Yeah. Did, were the Pixel users primarily comprised of Aeries users, like, you know, budget mid-range users mm-hmm. Versus Good point, the flagship devices, you know, I think someone with a flagship device is more likely to stick to that brand. Just this is, I'm not basing it off of any data, but like I think if you have, you know, the premium tier S 23 Ultra, you're more likely to buy the next premium tier S series device versus, you know, switching brands. Yep. Where whereas, you know, if you have a budget Galaxy, Aeries phone, you probably aren't that to the Samsung brand.

Jason Howell (01:02:21):
Well, what's interesting to me though, is we talk so highly as fans of Pixel devices, we talk so highly about the mid-range pixels, one of which I'm going to show off a little bit later in the show. I mean, I can hold it up, it's the seven A, but so why so if that's true, and they're, they're, I, from my understanding, the Aeries sells more devices than any of their other families. So lots of people who own pixels own the Aeries. If this is true, if this is actually representative of, of the Pixel population, why are they using the Aeries a supposedly really great phone and not upgrading to the flagship Pixel, but instead going, actually, I don't like this, I'm jumping ship, I'm going to Apple, or I'm going to Samsung. What, what is missing there? I'm, I'm super curious cuz like, I use these phones and I like them, but are what, what are, what is the experience from other people that is souring them on the brand? I don't know that we have the answer, but I

Ron Richards (01:03:24):
Don't know we have the answer to, but I also think you're making an assumption that is souring them onto the brand. I mean, I think, I think there's a difference between, I I, there's a difference between I'm sour on the brand and I'm likely, and I'm likely to switch to another brand that that's a big jump. You know, it could, it could be that, you know, like the, the, the host of reasons why someone would be open to switching to another brand for a phone could be, I like the camera. Like it could be feature based stuff like that. It might necessarily be souring on the brand, I don't know. But if it's a

Jason Howell (01:03:51):
Large number, then there's gotta be something behind it. You know what I mean? That is a good

Mishaal Rahman (01:03:54):
Point, Jason. Like you mentioned the reason someone might have bought a PI Pixel, a series fund, for example, if their reason was it has great value for money, for example mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, then maybe next year they found a Samsung device that offers them even better value for money. So they might jump ship because they didn't care about the brand in the first place. They just wanted the best bang for their buck. Whereas, you know, if someone's buying the, the highest tier, you know, iPhone out there, then I guess value for money is not necessarily the top of their list because obviously Right. The diminishing returns, you know, the more you spend. So I think that the reason why they purchase the phone in the first place is definitely very important in considering, you know, why they may or may not be loyal to that brand.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:34):
I mean, small data point of one person, but I hated Samsung just as a principal and developer, and now I have two Samsung. I, I had no reason to switch off Pixel and every reason to dislike Samsung and now I've got twice as expensive. So, but,

Ron Richards (01:04:49):
But that, but that's the, but, but there's the example is that you were interested in Samsung because they had a foldable and Pixel didn't

Huyen Tue Dao (01:04:54):
Yes. And they didn't. Right. And they and I, yeah,

Ron Richards (01:04:57):
Sorry. Yeah. So, so like that, that there's a reason, like there's also like Samsung and One Plus and stuff like that have more options up and down the ladder of, of devices where Google has two, right. A flagship and a mid-range. Right now they have a foldable, right? They're expanding the product line. They didn't have any tablets, not for nothing. Maybe that's, there's something there too, but mm-hmm. <Affirmative> I don't know. There's just so, so many different variables and none of the manufacturers are one to one to one. And I just feel like, you know, a lot of people really want Google Pixel to fail, and that's oftentimes these get positioned in that way. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:05:32):
I also want to push back a little bit on these. Google hasn't been doing this very long. Pixel one came out in 2017, not for nothing, but that's a pretty decent number of years that Google, that's

Ron Richards (01:05:42):
Five years. How long have, how long has Samsung been put down Galaxies?

Jason Howell (01:05:45):
Well, I mean, when you compare them to each other, yeah, they're different ballgame for sure. Samsung's been around much longer than Pixel, but Pixel, yeah, it's about six years. Like that's a, that's a solid amount of time for a company of Google's like level, you know what I mean? They're Yeah. Playing

Ron Richards (01:06:00):
On. But Jason, how many, how many, how many of those seven iterations of Pixel have been available in carrier stores and not, and, and not just on the Google store. Yeah, that's true. Right? How many years of that did we deal with that? Right? That's true. Like, like goo Google almost, you know, Google suffers from so many own goals when it comes to that. We're like, Hey, we're gonna make a phone. You can only get it through our store.

Jason Howell (01:06:18):
Yes. Okay. We

Ron Richards (01:06:20):
Complete. Yeah, exactly. Interaction like, oh, oh, we've got a new phone and now you can get it in this carrier, but not that carrier. Like, like it, it's, it's hard like navigating this hardware thing where, where Samsung has been everything to everybody, you know, you get it at Verizon, T-Mobile doesn't matter, you know, cricket, it doesn't matter where you shoot up. You can get a, you can get a Samsung phone. So

Jason Howell (01:06:38):
True. That cool. Yeah. Well, I love the I love the, the, the debate in into this, because I think you're right, Ron, that you know, reports like this happen and it's very easy to make, make assumptions on what it actually means. We don't know the system that was used behind the scenes to come up with the data. There's a lot of unanswered questions, but I also have known a lot of people that have tried pixels, and some of them are unsatisfied for different reasons, and some of them love them. So, you know, there's, I think there's, I think there's truth, and then there's also not truth to be found in that. I don't,

Ron Richards (01:07:14):
I don't, I don't disagree. I don't disagree. So, yeah.

(01:07:19):
All right, well, cool. Well, moving on real quickly, just something that I saw that popped up in there, Mishaal, you're probably know about this already and all over it, but apparently there's a Gboard redesign coming from Google for the Google keyboard if you use Gboard. We're waiting for that to come out. But the folks over at nine to five, Google did a little bit of an apk as they call apk Insight and dug into it and have got a little more details about this new resize function, which will make it easier to resize the keyboard keyboard in your own personal interface, which is something that is an insane pain in my butt pain with

Jason Howell (01:07:53):
Using keyboard.

Ron Richards (01:07:54):
Yes. And then the number of times I inadvertently change the size of the keyboard or

Jason Howell (01:07:59):
Move it, you're tackling,

Ron Richards (01:08:01):
Oh my God, tap tackling line

Jason Howell (01:08:02):
Your thumbs, and then suddenly the keyboard turns small. I'm like, what? I didn't push that button. Where was the button? Even? I don't even know where the button was. I'm so

Ron Richards (01:08:10):
Glad to hear that. I'm not the only one that suffers from this.

Jason Howell (01:08:12):
I hate it every day. Sorry. Oh, wow. Almost unanimous. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:08:17):
Yeah. I was for the audio stream, just, I was making faces like, if feel, feel free to watch the video stream for all of Win's faces, because as, as Ron was talking, I was like, yes. So it, it's, it's, it's ridiculous how, why that's a thing. Yeah,

Jason Howell (01:08:30):
Yeah, yeah. That it took this long, because I've been dealing with that for, I don't know how Ill and Burke in, in our Slack also saying, same here. Yeah. So it's a thing that we all suffer from. Apparently Gboard getting an update that will hopefully make it better, hopefully

Ron Richards (01:08:46):
Long overdue. So glad to see it. So we'll just, they just gotta roll it out. Let's see how it comes. So Mishaal, were you aware of this? Is this old news to you, or are you just like, whatever,

Mishaal Rahman (01:08:54):
I mean, I saw like another report a couple of weeks back. You

Ron Richards (01:08:57):
Didn't, but you didn't find this in an a PK Teardown.

Mishaal Rahman (01:09:00):
No, I didn't. I mean, I don't, I don't really do that anymore for like, I, knowing I'm all into just Android now. <Laugh>,

Ron Richards (01:09:07):
I'm teasing you. I

Mishaal Rahman (01:09:08):
Got enough of my plate with how big Android is. Yeah,

Ron Richards (01:09:10):
There's a lot. There's a lot to tear. Yeah. There's a lot to tear down in there. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:09:13):
You've got enough on your plate writing the practically unofficial man manual for every version of Android, it seems. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Ron Richards (01:09:23):
Well, now's our wonderful time to take a break in here from our good friend Jr, who's got a tip of the week for us. That is it's a tip about apps. So, JR Raphael, let's hear, let's hear what you got.

JR Raphael (01:09:37):
Hey. Hey. Happy final full week of May to ye. So Memorial Day weekend is right around the corner from us now somehow it's always a, a huge time for sales and shopping and all that sort of stuff here in the us. So with that in mind today, I wanna introduce you to, or maybe even just remind you about a really cool tool that'll help you save some serious cash here in the land. Oh, googly Matters. And as an added bonus, it'll also help you discover all sorts of awesome new stuff. The tool of which we speak is a brilliant little service called App Sales. And it's just such a smart thing to keep around on your phone once you install it. App sales watches the Play store for you like a hawk. And it lets you know when any significant sales on standout apps become available.

(01:10:31):
You can browse through a huge list of all current app sales in the Play store, or if you're looking for something specific, you can also filter down by categories or keywords or ratings. You can even narrow down the field to show only premium apps that are available completely free as part of some short-term promotion. Oh, and here's one really cool twist. You can also create your own custom watch list for pay-to-play apps that you're especially eager to snag as soon as their prices drop. App Sales will then keep an eye on those specific titles for you and alert you whenever a sale starts. App Sales itself is free with an optional $1 a month or $2 a year upgrade. Not bad <laugh>. That eliminates some ads throughout its interface. And as for the ever important subject of privacy, the service doesn't require any unusual permissions and is privacy policy doesn't have anything, especially eyebrow raising either.

(01:11:29):
We'll drop a link into this week's show knows for you. And if you like learning about sweet new money savings stuff like this, don't forget to gallop your way over to sign up for my free Android Intelligence newsletter. It brings you three new things to try every Friday, including lots of stuff you won't see anywhere else. Just head over to android intel.net/twit to get started and get a trio of special bonus tips this very second. That site, again is android intel net slash twit. A very happy holiday weekend to everyone who's celebrating it. I'll see you right back here next week.

Jason Howell (01:12:06):
Yeah, JR bringing it, I remember app sales, I remember, gosh, does that doc still exist? That, that listed all of the apps that we had in the, in the arena? Probably. We don't need to go digging for it, but I'm pretty certain that app sales was in there once upon a time and I definitely used it cuz I'm a, I'm a sucker for waiting for the price to drop on something and then jumping right on it. So, can't hear you Ron. I think you might be muted.

Ron Richards (01:12:36):
Oh, I was muted. Sorry. I was muted. Yes. yes, it was good. It was good. I remember Rap Cells <laugh> as well. <Laugh>, I was agreeing with you wholeheartedly. All right. All

Jason Howell (01:12:45):
Right. I just wanna be sure we heard from you too. <Laugh> JR Rayfield, thank you so much. Android Intelligence. If you want to subscribe to that newsletter, it is android intel.net/twit. Go there, subscribe, you'll love it. Oh, also, I wanna just make, make a mention real quick. I meant to mention this while we were talking about the story, but I'm super curious to hear what people how people feel about that story. The, the Pixel owners loyalty thing. So if you have thoughts on this send us an email, AAA Twitter tv. Yeah. You, you could also leave us a voicemail 3 47 show a a a and we'll play it in the show. But I'm curious to know from people who either have pixel phones or pixel devices or had and switched, like what is your reason? What is your rationale for that? And then we can, you know, kind of fill the conversation with some actual, like, decisions made by people that fit into this this story. I'm super curious what y'all think. So coming up next, we've got more news actually. So speaking of feedback, we won't have a feedback section today. There was just too much news. In fact, I'm calling it, for the most part, it's, it's Mishaal's Android 14 news corner and some hardware

Ron Richards (01:14:01):
<Laugh>. We might need a bumper for that now. We might

Jason Howell (01:14:03):
Need

Ron Richards (01:14:04):
Some goats and make it

Jason Howell (01:14:05):
Perfect. There we go. And a little shack or something like that that's coming up next.

(01:14:11):
You just had to get that in there. You're like, if it's not gonna be played, we might as well play it. All right. Well, that sound normally signals something entirely different, but today it signals Mishaal's Android 14 news corner because as you were talking, just a few. There you go. <Laugh>. Okay. I like this. Actually, this works for me now that I think about it. <Laugh> Mishaal, you had a lot of of things that you put out on Twitter about Android 14 this week. So tell us a little bit about some of these little tidbits that we should look forward to when Android 14 hits our devices.

Mishaal Rahman (01:14:47):
Yeah, so none of these are, you know, highlight features of Android 14 that you would see in a, in a blog post or anything, but they're definitely something to look for forward to. So the first one is a new save app pair feature that is still in development. It's not functional yet, but what I spotted is a new flag that's in the launcher app on Android 14, beta two. And when you enable this hidden developer flag and then you open the recent overview and you have two apps in split screen mode you'll have an option to save an app pair. So this probably will do what exactly what you think it does. It lets you save that pair of apps that are split screened that you can show you that you can quickly launch them later on at any time. So if you have a Samsung device with one UI or you have a Microsoft Duo those devices have this feature very similar.

(01:15:37):
You just save that pair of apps to launch at any time in split screen mode. So if you multitask it very frequently, you'll probably look forward to that. The next feature is something very useful if you'd like to record your screen a lot and then share it. But you don't want any of your status bar elements, your icons, your notifications appearing on screen to appear in the resulting video. So if you if that describes you, then this partial screen sharing feature might be right up your alley. So this feature will let you choose a specific app to record, and then once you record that app, only the app contents will be saved in the recording. So none of your satisfier icons, no heads up notifications will appear, just whatever you're doing in that app. And so even if you navigate away from the app the screen contents will be black, so like nothing will be recorded. But then when you go back to the app, the re recording will zoom and then you'll see whatever is in that app. So it's very useful if you only want to record the contents of a single app and nothing else. Oh,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:16:39):
Goodness. Sorry, I that's great. I, I've, I've, sorry, I've, sorry. I've spent many, many hours of my life having to cut out a personal message or something when I'm recording. Yes. Sorry, that, yeah, sorry. Yes, yes. Yay.

Mishaal Rahman (01:16:51):
Yeah, it'll definitely be very useful for, especially for like tech reviewers and journalists and developers. You too. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:16:57):
Yeah, I like that a lot. Sorry.

Mishaal Rahman (01:17:00):
The next one is more aimed at large screen devices where you attach a physical keyboard to it. So right now, Android 14, or Android 13, sorry. If you attach a physical keyboard and you go to the physical keyboard settings, you'll notice that there are list of keyboard shortcuts, but there's only like 13 of them and they're not very useful. But right now on Android 14, beta two, Google has updated that list to include a whole bunch of more available shortcuts. So things like showing and hiding the task bar. Oh, wow. Opening the notes app for a quick memo, changing apps going back, there's just like so many different combinations. I think a total of 39 different shortcuts. So it's clear that Google is improving the Android experience for users who use keyboards. And, you know, your, you dock your tablet into a docking station with a keyboard, you know, there's no keyboard accessory announced for the pixel tablet, but there are a whole bunch of other tablets that have keyboard accessories available for them. Samsung one plus for example mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So if you use a keyboard with your Android tablet and you want to use it, you know, for actual productivity purposes, then this'll be something to look forward to. That's

Jason Howell (01:18:04):
Huge. I mean, you know power users, you know, who would actually want to, you know, use a keyboard attachment and everything. They're looking for features like this because that's what they have on a real laptop or a real desktop. And, you know, in order for them to consider these things, they wanna be able to move at the same speed and all that stuff. So I think that's a biggie. That's pretty cool.

Mishaal Rahman (01:18:29):
And the next one is more about an accessibility feature. So if you, I mean, how many people don't listen to music on their phones, but I'm guessing a lot of people probably aren't aware of how damaging the music they're listening to can be, you know, for their long-term hearing. You know, safety. So if you listen to music for an excessive period of time, you know, at, at really loud volumes, then Android will eventually kick in and tell you, Hey, you should probably lower the volume of this otherwise you might get hearing damage or, or should come in and say,

Jason Howell (01:19:03):
You, you might wanna get your ears

Mishaal Rahman (01:19:05):
Checked. <Laugh>. Yeah. Feels like what

Jason Howell (01:19:07):
They shouldn't do, right? Hey, yeah.

Mishaal Rahman (01:19:10):
So Android for a couple of years now, has actually had this, a similar warning to where if you try to raise the volume while a headphones is connected, it'll say are you sure you wanna raise your volume above this, this limit? Doing so may damage your hearing? So that safe volume limit has existed for a long time. It's on pretty much every Android phone. I think it's even required in the eu. But this new feature in Android 14 is basically saying like, once you've gone past that limit, and just like, this is more proactive. So like, it's, it's listening for sound doses. So like, it's listening, like, is the music that you're playing actually exceeding a certain volume threshold? And how often is exceeding it? Is it exceeding it too often in a one week period? And then if that happens, it'll tell you, you should probably lower the volume or, you know, you might damage your hearing in the long term.

Jason Howell (01:19:56):
That's cool. I, I like that that's there. I could see this annoying some people being like, how bad. You know what I mean? Like, and those are probably the people that it most, but <laugh> <laugh>. But I could see someone just being like, Hey, quit, quit warning me of this. So I imagine there would be a way to turn that off. I'm, I'm expecting that there would be, but

Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:19):
Don't tell me what Jim's gonna to it louder. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:20:21):
Sorry. Don't tell me what to do. I said, don't tell me what to do. Yeah.

Mishaal Rahman (01:20:26):
<Laugh>. And the final item on my list today is something that wasn't discovered by me, but by friend of the channel nail Ov, who is the author of the Google News Telegram group who breaks a lot of news on Google apps and Android, you know all the time. So this new change is something that is very familiar if you're used to iOS. So now on Android 14, beta two, if you long press on any text or image and you drag it, you're now able to use system navigation to go to another app and then insert that text or image into it. Yes,

Jason Howell (01:21:04):
Please. On previous,

Mishaal Rahman (01:21:05):
On previous versions, now you weren't able to navigate between apps while you were dragging, while you were trying to drag and drop something. You ha you either had to have it already in open and split screen, or you couldn't do it at all. So this will open up the, you know, the multitasking abilities by not limiting you to having have both apps already open in split screen road. Now you can just, you know, drag hold something and then go home, open whatever app you want, and then drop it in. Wow.

Jason Howell (01:21:33):
So, so,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:33):
So does it exciting, like give you, does it give you like a few seconds, like after you, like, as you're, so you, you start the drag and drop, and so does it give you a few seconds to like, you know, switch, like to input the other gesture and it just

Mishaal Rahman (01:21:44):
Kinda, you actually, yeah. You gotta, you gotta hold it down with one finger. Like, whatever's, whatever's dragging the icon, you gotta hold it down. It's a little awkward on a phone. I, in my opinion, like you, you're holding the text down and then you with another finger, you go home and then you open

Jason Howell (01:21:58):
The other app. Oh, interesting. Well, I mean, ooh, it's better than not having the option.

Mishaal Rahman (01:22:04):
I think this would actually be more useful on like a tablets on tablet when you mouse board

Jason Howell (01:22:08):
I'm the tablet. Yeah,

Mishaal Rahman (01:22:10):
Yeah. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:22:11):
Feature, in my opinion. But I'm happy that it's not a, a feature that they only allow for on the tablet and that they didn't on the phone because it's not quite set up the same way, you know, to, to make it, I mean, it's, it seems very usable on the phone, even if it is with a two-hand thing, which you wouldn't maybe normally do unless you're like typing on a keyboard or whatever. But you get used to it. I love that, that that's a feature, because I've definitely been in a position to want to do that sort of thing, and like, why can't I do this? Why can't I drag this image, like the, this image that's here and drag it right into the other thing? Why do I have to like, save it to my device and then go into the other thing and attach and pull it in and like, I just want to move it over, just do the thing with it. <Laugh>. Just, just do it. Just do the thing. Just do the thing. That's all I'm asking for. Don't you know the thing that I want you do it,

Mishaal Rahman (01:23:01):
Do it <laugh>.

Jason Howell (01:23:02):
I'm not asking for too much dreams. Just do the thing. Dreams, just do it. <Laugh>. That's cool. Excellent. And that, my friends was Mishaal's Android. 14 news cor. There we go. Okay. <laugh>, even when we don't have feedback, we have an opportunity to play the email, the week theme. Okay, there we go. Yeah, <laugh>, I love it because what you didn't hear was, was Victor in the background? Go, Ooh. I, I I thought that was the last time. So I, I know the stream deck around the corner from the, the desk. I was like, ok, I'm not gonna use you anymore. And then

Ron Richards (01:23:49):
I was

Jason Howell (01:23:50):
Like, oh man, it hurts. It just cracks me up when I hear those little reactions, <laugh>. And I know you don't hear them, but it's just hilarious. Often in the distance. Oh, it's like a panicked. A panicked sigh. Ah, thank you, Victor. Okay, so real quick before we end this show not gonna spend too much time on this, but I do have a little hardware to preview. Ooh. It's weird that these things happen, like all, like, not at all, and then all at once. But I have here the pixel seven A and it looks like I just got a text message, so you don't get to see that. But I do have the Pixel seven A, they sent me a case for it, you know, it's that like rubberized kind of case, which I actually don't mind the, the rubberized case, although, although I did pull out one of my older pixels the other day and add the fabric case on it, I was like, oh, yeah, I really liked the fabric case. Oh,

Ron Richards (01:24:43):
The fabric, yeah.

Jason Howell (01:24:44):
Case

Ron Richards (01:24:45):
Had some good, had some good conversations about Google and fabric stuff at IO with some folks at Google about like, the main flow. We're talking to them about the Daydream and then the, the home hub and just like the, they had a thing with

Jason Howell (01:24:58):
Pro cons for a while.

Ron Richards (01:25:00):
The pros and cons of the fabric choice flow was lame. Flow was lamenting, spilling baby's milk on a device. Ooh. And it really never come in quite out all the way. Yeah. It's like, that's the problem.

Jason Howell (01:25:11):
Wow. Fabric does have, yeah. And you can't quite throw your phone into the dishwasher. I guess you could throw the, you know, or the, the washer dryer, whatever, to, to clean it up. Anyways, this is the Pixel seven A. My plan is to review this in two weeks. I've moved my sim over into it. I mean, I imagine I'm going to like it. I mean, actually I have to say the, the, the feel of the camera bar, it feels really nice. Like it's very satisfying to scrape <laugh> with my fingernails. Maybe not with like, something that would actually scratch it, but like, I find myself doing this a lot for some reason. I don't know. Fidgeting, I guess. So I've got the Pixel seven A sounds like you might get that at some point. Ron. I don't know if you're gonna get it. I'm

Ron Richards (01:25:55):
Hoping Cross my finger. I would love to, hope, I would love to get, I'd love to Even a test drive. Yeah, that's for sure. I know I was talking to somebody at Google about it, so we'll see. Oh, oh, cool. But

Jason Howell (01:26:03):
Yeah, so excellent. Well, so I've got the seven a I'm gonna give that a review. And then this thing that you saw hiding down here, this is the one plus pad. So, Ooh, right now? Yeah, with the, like the, the little round, the what little, the large round camera bump up at the top. This is the pixel pad with the keyboard accessory. So you know, that snaps in right there and, and everything. So I've got it all set up. And I mean, you know, I know that Ron Amadio had a thing with the, with the display, but I gotta say, like, I'm looking at the display, it looks pretty good. I gotta, I gotta reread through his complaints and see what it was exactly. I think it had something to do with scrolling or something like that.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:26:46):
Yeah, he said that the scrolling was sticky. He, he did the, he did the GPU profiler thing and it said, look, seemed like the, actually you should turn that on there and see if you could get Ron graphs.

Jason Howell (01:26:56):
Oh, how do I do that?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:26:59):
You have to go. That's it's developer

Jason Howell (01:27:01):
Options.

Mishaal Rahman (01:27:01):
Yeah. Developer options. Yeah. But he was like, he was showing off the, the, the graph in YouTube and like how it was clearly stuttery because it wasn't hitting the target frame rate. And like I think it's probably really noticeable if you turn it on, but that it's up to, you know, the actual user if you're using it. Does it look like it's laggy as you're using it? It's obviously not gonna come through very obviously in like a video feed, but like, you know, if Jason's using the YouTube app, for example, <laugh> getting

Jason Howell (01:27:29):
Distracted. I got distracted.

Mishaal Rahman (01:27:30):
Try to unlock the Easter egg. You gotta dial it all the way to, to one o'clock. Okay.

Jason Howell (01:27:34):
Oh, one o'clock

Huyen Tue Dao (01:27:36):
By one o'clock. Okay. Oh, 13. Sorry. We've

Jason Howell (01:27:38):
Got, got time. Why not? Okay, so I gotta go all the way to one o'clock. What, what do I gotta do?

Mishaal Rahman (01:27:43):
One, 1:00 PM one o'clock. Yep.

Jason Howell (01:27:46):
There we go. And

Mishaal Rahman (01:27:48):
Long press on the bubbles. Wait, on the, on the outside.

Jason Howell (01:27:52):
There

Mishaal Rahman (01:27:52):
You go.

Jason Howell (01:27:53):
Wow, this is amazing. Oh, they should do a wallpaper with emoji. Oh yeah, that's right. They are <laugh>. Okay, so I'm feeling really silly suddenly even asking this, but it's been a while since I activated developer settings. What is the thing that I tap a million times? It's

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:09):
The b the build, the builds

Mishaal Rahman (01:28:11):
Build number seven times. Yeah,

Jason Howell (01:28:13):
The build number. I gotta find like where Build number is

Mishaal Rahman (01:28:16):
Probably like under, under Android. Version. Version.

Jason Howell (01:28:19):
Version. There it is. Okay. Okay. I will pull this away because I don't need to, it's like I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:26):
Averted my

Jason Howell (01:28:26):
Eyes. Okay. Did you, you're the only person watching this that averted their eyes so that you wouldn't see my password. Okay, so here I am and I've got developer, let's see here. Where would it be? Would it be Google? No, it definitely wouldn't be there. Sit additional settings, developer options. There we go. There we go. Okay, so what was the, what was the thing

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:50):
Called? GPU rendering? Is that

Mishaal Rahman (01:28:51):
Profile GPU something? Yeah, GP

Jason Howell (01:28:54):
Profile,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:54):
Which is for gpu. Not deep, is it? It's not debug layers. It's

Jason Howell (01:29:01):
This is really exciting. I know, but I, this is, this is a live test of something. Debug, gpu Overdraw.

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:07):
No, no, no, no, no. A little bit down

Jason Howell (01:29:10):
<Laugh>. Well that is

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:14):
No profile. GPU running. Go down, go down. Yeah. Had it

Jason Howell (01:29:17):
Go

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:17):
Down. Go down. Profile gpu.

Jason Howell (01:29:18):
There it is. There it is. Okay. <laugh>. Nothing better than telling someone where to go on screen. As bars. As bars.

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:25):
There you go on screen as bars. Oh, all right. Okay. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:29:29):
Okay. So now, ooh, that's fancy. I've never seen this mode in action before. So when I go to YouTube, ideally

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:36):
Everything should be below the bottom most green bar, I think for it to reach, I think it's a 1 44 hertz display, right?

Jason Howell (01:29:43):
I believe it is, yes.

Mishaal Rahman (01:29:46):
Yeah, you can see it's clearly like it's stuttering, it's missing the target frame, right? A lot. But now, like, whether or not that's actually noticeably laggy to you in person is another story. Like, does it look like it's stuttery?

Jason Howell (01:29:58):
No, not necessarily. When I opened up YouTube earlier, like that was one of the first things I did is I opened up YouTube and started like, you know, scrolling through. And I mean, if, if I wanted to look really critically, is it like buttery smooth? It's not, but it's not super choppy either. Like it's it seems to be okay to me. So interesting. Well, there you go. There you go. There's the feature inaction and these, oh, that looks good. Hey, that looks all right, <laugh>. Anyways, there we go. Now I gotta turn that off and I will, anyways, I will do that before I review the one plus pad, which I will do, I think next week, cuz I have to have this back to them by the end of the month. So I have, you gotta hurry on that. Then, short period of time, it's actually good timing because I'm going to Atlanta here in a couple of days and I'm gonna be there through the weekend, so I'm gonna get a lot of airplane time with the tablet there and back.

(01:31:00):
And so yeah, I'll put it through my paces anyways and give you a, a review on my time with it next week and we'll go from there. But that's the one plus Pad and the Pixel seven A and we have reached the end of this episode and it has been a heck of a lot of fun. Once again, just wanna really quickly thank Matthew McCullough and Jamal Eason for joining us and talking all about the developer's story of Android 14 and everything going on with Studio Bot and all the other things in the world of Android development. Love that Google gives us the ability to check in with folks like them. So thank you Google, we appreciate it. Thank you, Mishaal, for being here on this episode and for offering your expertise and your questions and insight. What do you wanna leave people with today?

Mishaal Rahman (01:31:53):
Well, as always, if you want to follow me to find out what's happening in Android, and especially as you saw today, Android you can find me on Twitter, on Reddit, on Mastodon, et cetera, using the handle at Mishaal Rahman, pretty much most of the social media platforms it's the same handle.

Jason Howell (01:32:11):
You can find Mishaal on the internet. <Laugh>, everywhere you go, there's Mishaal. Thank you Mishaal. Really great hanging out with you tonight. Thank you win for, I I should say Winn and Mishaal did a lot of the heavy lifting on prep for the interview. Bravo, Bravo. So thank you both. I really appreciate it and you guys did a fantastic job. So thank you and thank you, Henry. What do you wanna leave people with or

Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:38):
Why am I thanking you for You're welcome. Thank you. There you go. Yeah,

Jason Howell (01:32:41):
I just take it. Just take it.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:43):
Thank you. I am an Android developer. It's true. You can find technical content that I do my website randomly typing.com, and you can usually find me on the interwebs at queen CodeMonkey wherever that might be.

Jason Howell (01:33:02):
You can find win on the internet.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:33:04):
On the

Jason Howell (01:33:05):
Internet. Apparently we can all be found on the internet. Same for you, Ron. You can be found on the internet,

Ron Richards (01:33:10):
How I can be found on the internet. I'm often, I'm often chained to this chair for 10 hours a day, <laugh> on the internet. You can follow me. But oddly enough I don't post as much. But yeah, follow me over on Twitter and on Instagram. I'm at rono. I'm also on Blue Sky. I'm on Macon, but I'm not active there either, but I try to, I just go in, I pop in, I read, and I might post something, but yeah, I just spent all my time preparing for the show every week. So that's

Jason Howell (01:33:35):
All, that's all you do, <laugh>, every single waking hour. Yep. Thank you Ron. Thank you everybody. Thank you JR for your awesome Android intelligence tips, Android, intel.net/twit. It was one last reminder there for his newsletter. Thank you, Burke. Thank you to Victor. John was in here earlier helping out. Thank you to John. I mean, we have so many people help us do this show each and every week. We could not do it without them, so thank you all. Appreciate you. You're welcome. Yay. you can find me on the internet as well, although I'm really not very active on the socials these days, <laugh>. But at Jason Howell, Jason Howell twit social slash at Jason Howell on Mastodon yeah, that's, that's really all you need to know. If you're on the Discord, which you know, the Club Twit Discord, hey, why don't we talk about that Twit TV slash Club twit.

(01:34:28):
That's where I spend time. Often I'm in the discord hanging outs, and that's one of the things you get if you are a Club Twit member. $7 a month gets you access to that discord, which is a lot of fun in and of itself. But that's not even, that wasn't even like the premier feature. The premier feature of Club Twit was ad free shows all of our shows with no ads. And then over time we started adding more shows that you get on the Twit plus feed, which is an exclusive feed that you get access to as a Club TWI member. And so we have, you know, hands on Mac, hands on Windows home theater geeks just launched what's untitled Linox Show, Stacy's Book Club, all, all these like extra interviews. There was an interview with Victor not too long ago.

(01:35:16):
I mean, lots of stuff that you don't get outside of the club. Twit TV slash club twit, you're supporting us directly when you do that. And let me tell you, that goes a long way, especially right now, $7 a month. Thank you so much in advance Twit TV slash club twit. But that's it for this week's episode. You can always find our show at Twitter tv slash a a a, but I want to emphasize the importance of subscribing to your favorite podcasts. It's really important. It sends signals to the people who support us through sponsorships and stuff. So subscribe to our episodes, subscribe to our show, and get it automatically. All that information can be found at twit tv slash a a a. And that's really about it. Thank you so much for watching and listening. We'll see you next time on All About Android. Bye everybody.

Ant Pruitt (01:36:13):
Hey, what's going on everybody? I am Ant Pruitt and I am 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 ISO 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 better by changing the lights around you. I got you covered on that too. So check us out each and every Thursday here on the network. Go to twit tv slash hop and subscribe today.