All About Android 633, 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, it's me, Jason Howell. We've got Ron Richardson, Huyen Tue Dao. Rishi Returns great to have wind back. I give you my review of the Pixel seven A, the mid-tier device that just came out from Google a couple of weeks ago. I definitely have thoughts, so you won't wanna miss that. Also we talk about Android's recent feature drop that happened last week, the Moto, the Motorola Razor Plus, is it Moto Razor Plus, or Motorola Razor Plus. Regardless, we think it's very nice. We play with the generative AI for Google search, which is a lot of fun, assistant killing more features, your feedback, and so much more. Next, on all about Android

Speaker 2 (00:00:44):
Podcasts you love

Huyen Tue Dao (00:00:46):
From people you trust.

Speaker 2 (00:00:48):
This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:00:53):
This is all about Android episode 633, recorded Tuesday, June 6th, 2023, pixel seven a review. Thank you for listening. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners with products and services that will benefit our audience. 99% of our audience listens to most or all of our episodes, so grow your brand with authentic ad reads that always resonate with our audience. Reach out to advertise at Twitter tv and launch your campaign now. Hello and welcome to all about Android, your weekly source, the latest news hardware and asks for the Android Faithful. I'm Jason Howell. And I am Ron Richards.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:01:40):
And I'm Huyen Tue Dao.

Jason Howell (00:01:42):
And on today's show, we are gonna do nothing but talk about Apple's new headset. <Laugh>, you ready? Let's go. It's all Apple VR or AR or whatever they're calling it all the time. Yes. That right there. Don't, don't even put it off. Don't even put it off on the video. Don't get me started on those. The overpriced ski goggles that I, I was saying in, I was saying in our chat during the wwd C presentation that the whole presentation felt like a SNL sketch. It was just felt, felt with gibberish and like Yeah. You know, it just, I had a hard time taking it seriously. But

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:13):
$3,500 doesn't even, I think overprice is under, is under under under underselling.

Jason Howell (00:02:19):
It underselling it. <Laugh> over overpriced is underselling it. <Laugh>. Yeah. You know, possibly, quite literally, if it's too expensive, then it would sell. Yes. So, yeah, I'm cur I mean, I'm curious to see how this whole thing goes, but but I still I still need to know more. I, every year ww d c happens and I realize, like we talk about all kinds of tech on this network, but I'm so focused on Google and Android that ww d c happens. And so occasionally I'll drop in and I'll watch, you know, as it's happening to, to just kind of understand and know what it's all about. But I'll be honest, yesterday I was at the dentist during wwdc, so <laugh> Jason,

Ron Richards (00:03:01):
Do you wanna know? What was so funny? What was so funny, Jason, was that I actually had a call with Renee Richie oh yeah. Yesterday. And and it was like right before the presentation, and one of my staff who follow, who, who also follows and stuff like that was like, oh, weird that we're talking to Renee on WWDC day thinking he'd be all over that, but, and turns out on the call, he is like, yeah, this is the first time since 2009, he wasn't there. So it was mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Yeah, that was, that was pretty funny. But but yeah, but no, very much the same. I do have to say though, for the Android of it all, as we were, as I was watching the, the, the rollout of whatever it's called, the Apple Vision, whatever it is you know, I was like, oh, fabric elements on the visor. <Laugh>. Hmm. Where have I seen that before? Daydream? You know, like, again, once again, there's always a little, a little bit of Android there in the Apple presentation. No, Ron

Huyen Tue Dao (00:03:53):
And Ron, you're, that's just Apple design that is just classic. Sure. High stand the superiority of, I'm sorry, I, I don't, sorry. So I'm gonna take the chip off my shoulder. I'm sorry.

Jason Howell (00:04:04):
Did did Google get out of VR too soon? <Laugh> too soon? Because if they were still in vr, would they be, you know, I don't know. Would they <laugh>, would they be on the same wavelength as what Apple is doing here? I I don't even know what Apple is doing here, to be honest. I, I don't know what this gonna turn into. But anyways gotta at least get that in there on, on the week of ww d c and apple unveiling a major new product that is very untested at this point. You gotta mention it at least once off the top of the show, even on an Android show there, we've done it. Yeah. So, given that we have that out of the way, let's talk about features, Android features. We're gonna jump into the news a little bit later. I've got a review of the Pixel seven A, so a completely different type of hardware <laugh> coming from Google, not hardware that you wear on your face. But before we do that, we have the talk a little bit about the news, and that's coming up right now.

Victor Bognot (00:05:11):
I don't know about you guys, but I, I'm glad to bring back my old templates for VR and stuff. So seeing what this show looks like in

Jason Howell (00:05:19):
Vr. Oh, that's, that's

Ron Richards (00:05:21):
Supposed to be the v the view

Jason Howell (00:05:23):
Yeah. So, okay. So can you do like a, I want, I want to dissect this and see is, is this a resized screen that you're watching the Android news bumper on? You've, you've, Dr. You've done whatever you do with your hands to like resize it to be large while you're sitting in the studio, is that kind of a thought? Yeah. And

Victor Bognot (00:05:41):
Like, you know, when it's in like another room and stuff like that, <laugh>,

Jason Howell (00:05:44):
Or when you see pastor. Yeah. Excuse me. Well, I like that

Ron Richards (00:05:49):
For, for our audio viewers, there was a video view of the Android news bumper within a VR view

Jason Howell (00:05:55):
Of the studio. So it's almost, almost like, it's almost like you're watching our show while wearing the PR goggles. Almost exactly the same thing. <Laugh> Good work. Victor <laugh>. Yeah. I mean, we, we had that for, you know, daydream and all that stuff and, you know, yeah. That, that went somewhere, right? But Yeah. Well, when in the garbage. I'm glad I didn't throw it away. <Laugh>. I, I'm glad I didn't throw away. There you go. I mean, even, even my VR viewer that's made of cardboard. I didn't throw that away. I still have

Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:24):
Card. Oh, no, no. We've tried and

Jason Howell (00:06:25):
It's made of cardboard. It could have been recycled. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> easily. But No, I didn't do that. I still have it. I You can't use it though anymore. Right? Like, I think of the, the app that even, you know, drove those things. I don't think that you can really use it anymore. Right? They I know the day. Yeah. I think they shut it down, right? Yeah. I think it's all shut down. So, anywho, okay, so when you've got the top news story, which let me tell you this, is, these are some features, like we gotta shut things down and talk about this right now. They're so major

Huyen Tue Dao (00:06:57):
Life. You know what? Apple's not the only one who can drop life-changing features this week. Okay. We got, we got some stuff for you, <laugh>. And it's stuff, and it's, some of it's nice mo all of it's nice. It might change your life, it might not. Sure. But you know, we <laugh>, so we we're gonna use to getting pixel you know, pixel feature drops, but this is one of those more generic kind of like Google features on Android drops. Google drops, Android drops. So these aren't features that are specific to Google. Here's just a laundry list of like app updates, Google things third party things that are kind of cool or pretty dang cool. Sorry. Pretty, pretty dang cool. I, I gotta sell it a little bit better so we

Jason Howell (00:07:36):
Can, or, or somewhat cool or cool somewhat or

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:40):
Cool ish. <Laugh> Luke, warm Luke. No, they're

Jason Howell (00:07:44):
Nice. Yeah. They're, they're nicer than Luke Warm. They're nice, they're nicer. They're

Huyen Tue Dao (00:07:47):
Nice than work warm. Well, I mean, if, if you are a parent who has a kid that is learned to read and you want to give them a little bit of Google help with their reading, there is now reading practice as a part of the, you know Google Books application. So reading practice is pretty interesting. It's a large, it's, it's a number set of features that I think is, that is meant to, you know, is for it meant for you and your child to help reading. So they have things like tracking reading positions, whereas, you know, you all are reading it will highlight the text and kind of show you where the place are. If your child gets stuck in a word, you can actually click on that word and hear it like, out loud. And not only that, you can hear it broken down by syllable so that, you know, kids can, can like, get help sounding it out mm-hmm.

(00:08:35):
<Affirmative> and, you know, you can hear sentences for each word to kinda give more context and help kids learn what words are. And like, you know, just all kinds of stuff. You know, and just generally trying to keep like reading sessions like, you know, saved on your Google Books so you can come back to them. And yeah, there's even, like, I, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but there is also practicing challenging words where there's a little mic functionality. I, I dunno how this works, but it is supposed to help kids like practice a difficult word that they come across in their reading. And yeah, so to get started with reading Practice, you can check out the collection of kid-friendly books on Google playbooks. There are some no charge options, but that may implies maybe there are some charge options. And there's also kind of like a wide collection of thousands of others English language books that practice can be enabled on.

(00:09:21):
So yeah, that's, I I, I mean, like, it's, it's, this is generally like a really nice set of features for you to practice reading with your kids on your Android and Nap tab or Android tablets. So to go along with kind of like enhancing tablets, not just tablets, but phone screens. There are three new widgets from Google Finance, Google TV, and Google News. These kind of seem like really, you know, adding on things. I mean, obviously the Pixel tablet is there. Yeah. But these are basically, you know, new upgraded, visually upgraded you know, nice widgets that will give you suggestions from Google tv stock tracking from Google Finance and just daily curated headlines from Google News. So just kind of like new and improved widgets presumably super handy for your Google home display, whatever flavor of that might be.

(00:10:15):
In third party arenas if you have Wear Os and you're a Spotify user, you are in luck because they have released new tiles and watch face shortcuts. So you can tap on your wrist to activate Spotify DJ for a personal mix of your favorite music. You can stream Mm, your favorite podcast. And you can also <laugh> it will from a shortcut, you can also play your current, your current favorite, frequently listened to tunes. So again, for Spotify users a bunch of new functionality on your Wear OS devices. And and I wait, I think I, oh, sorry. Let's see. For Wear Os also there is Google Keep actually I skipped one, sorry. So actually there's a lot of Waro s news. So for my hometown friends in the d mv in the DC area, as well as in the Bay Area, you can now use your waro smartwatches to tap and pay via its Google Wallet integration.

(00:11:18):
So just, if you got that Waro West, you're going through the turns stop boo. You can just, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is is Google play via phone already? I mean, it's been a while since I've commuted via like public transit, but yeah, me too. Presumably phone phone's already. This seems like phone's already enabled, but now's now you're doing this on your watch, yeah's on your watch, so Yeah. So there you go. And also, if you are a Google Keep user wear Os has a new tile for you. So if you have some pinned note like, you know, your shopping list, you can easily swipe through your tiles and get to that shopping list while you're on the go. And if you haven't heard of Emoji Kitchen, you should use it. It's dang crazy and dang awesome. And there's new recipes in the Emoji Kitchen, which are basically these sticker mashups of various emojis. And there's a bunch of a never Emoji kitchen. You too. I use it all the time. They get really frightening sometimes. A little bit cronenberg ask, but it's still funny

Jason Howell (00:12:15):
<Laugh>.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:17):
So if you are someone who likes sharks and dolphins, but have been missing your shark and dolphin mashups in your emoji kitchen, you got that. And finally, and a and a little more seriously if you are a Google one Google one user, you can now pull up a dark web report on either the app or the website. And this allows you to scan for your Gmail address on the dark web. I,

Ron Richards (00:12:42):
This is, by the way, this is like, they're not the, I have several services that have offered dark web, like scanning. Yeah. And it is just the concept horrifies me. It's like, it's, it's, it's akin to get test getting going to a doctor and getting my hearing tested. Like, I don't wanna know.

Jason Howell (00:12:56):
I don't wanna know. I just, I don't

Ron Richards (00:12:57):
Wanna know. I don't wanna know. I just don't wanna know.

Jason Howell (00:12:59):
<Laugh>. No, you know what I think about dark web testing, it's, let me plug this in and not see if my email address is out there on the dark web. Oh gosh. Somewhere it's, no let me see all the places that it's out there. Like how is our email address? Not everywhere at this point, you know what I mean? <Laugh> like, oh

Ron Richards (00:13:19):
Man, I d

Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:20):
Yeah, I, I have some identity you know, identity protection services, I think I probably got 'em free from some kind of like, you know, security leak from some years ago. Yeah. And it does do that too. But this is through Google One, so

Jason Howell (00:13:31):
Right.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:13:32):
If, if you, if, if, if that's something that worries you or you wanna go ahead and be like, Jason to me, brave and see what is actually happening on the third qu <laugh> you, you have it via Google one. Yeah. And there's your <laugh> What's

Ron Richards (00:13:43):
What's creepy is I just went to Google one, to the Google one website to, to set it up just cuz now I'm, I'm curious and you can put in your, it's like asking for your social security number, which is like

Jason Howell (00:13:56):
Go ahead. Trust us. Yeah,

Ron Richards (00:13:58):
We're, yeah, I know, I know. And I, but, and like when you click to add it, it says, what does Google One do with it? What does it impact your credit score? You know, like all this sort of stuff. But it's like, but then like if that info's out there, what can I really do about it? I don't know. But it's, it is neat that you can add it scans for the email address that you're set up for, but you can add nine more. So you can have 10 total email addresses. Is there you like me, where we've got 19 or or 10 emails out there? You might wanna monitor more. I don't think I'm gonna do the social security number for right now. I think that's just the page

Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:30):
Too far. No. Yeah, yeah.

Ron Richards (00:14:32):
Mm.

Jason Howell (00:14:33):
I guess, I guess you just ask yourself, you know, do you trust I'm looking at that right now. Do you trust Google with that information?

Ron Richards (00:14:42):
I mean, I guess, right? I mean, I trust them with everything else.

Jason Howell (00:14:46):
Well, I mean that's, that was gonna be my point. Like what, what does Google not have about me at this point? Like,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:51):
It's, it's like borderline sun costs. Like while I'm all like in for Penny in for, wait, is it in for Penny in for a pound, right? What

Ron Richards (00:14:58):
Is it in for Penny In for a pound?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:14:59):
Yep. Yeah, like that it says more like, like sorry.

Ron Richards (00:15:02):
Well here's, here's something even more creepier is that I said, fine, I'll do it. And so it says confirm your social security number

Jason Howell (00:15:07):
Who says on file address,

Ron Richards (00:15:08):
No. And then it says on file. So they already have

Jason Howell (00:15:11):
It, so, totally. I just noticed that too. I'm like, I can't enter it in here. Oh, right. Cuz they already have it. They don't need it. It's cool. Yeah, we've we've, we've scanned your email and found, founded hiding somewhere in, in your 500,000 emails that archiving for you. So, so you messed up one time and now we know your, your social security number. Okay. Verification successful. I am now getting this whatever it is. Yeah, I'm do

Ron Richards (00:15:41):
I'm doing the same thing. Yeah, I know. I know.

Jason Howell (00:15:44):
Hmm. It only takes a few seconds. It tells me 57 data breaches leaked my info on the dark part. Oh

Ron Richards (00:15:51):
Man. I'm doing it now. 55. 55 data breaches.

Jason Howell (00:15:55):
Oh, I win. You win. I'm less secure than only

Ron Richards (00:16:00):
One, only one result on my social security number, which is nice. And it's zero t T-mobile. Cool.

Jason Howell (00:16:06):
All right.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:07):
I'm doing it. I'm doing it

Jason Howell (00:16:08):
Too. Zero for me. Zero social security number. Heck of a lot of email. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so this is, oh, I see Brazil other info was found in the Dark Bed alongside. Okay, so, so sorry. There's two different places where it does the social security number. One of 'em said zero results. Now I scrolled down and I saw one result and that also was, oh no, payday loan apps. What is that about? Oh

Ron Richards (00:16:37):
Oh.

Jason Howell (00:16:40):
Oh. Yeah. What is that? I don't even understand. That's so it's, wait, none of this information is me.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:16:48):
It told me it didn't have my s s M but it found my s sm something in something <laugh> said.

Ron Richards (00:16:53):
O

Jason Howell (00:16:55):
Oh,

Ron Richards (00:16:55):
This is, this is a, this is a, a

Jason Howell (00:16:57):
Rabbit hole that we've decided to end this show early. We've got some remediation to do. And so I hope you'll understand that our podcast is only 15 minutes today. We got some, I

Ron Richards (00:17:10):
All my info is in, is in a 180 million cell phone leak. <Laugh>, what is that? What was that? What does 180 million cell phone

Jason Howell (00:17:17):
Link leak mean? <Laugh>? Oh my goodness.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:17:21):
Oh yeah. What is that? 180 mil? What is that

Ron Richards (00:17:24):
Looks like 180 million of on information leak

Jason Howell (00:17:28):
<Laugh>. Great. Oh my God,

Ron Richards (00:17:30):
This is fun times.

Jason Howell (00:17:31):
Okay, well I'll go ahead. Leave this tab open. Set it to, yeah, maybe we do that later.

Ron Richards (00:17:36):
Maybe we do. Well actually, this is, this is an, this, this is an interesting segue to the next story, right? Are we ready to talk about this? Yes. Yeah. So Google announced this quarterly Android feature drop last week. Right? We always love a good Android feature drop. And a lot of it wait, that's the last story. Sorry about that. But it <laugh> speaking of Google Wallet in there a big feature is rolling out this month which is support for digital IDs coming to states that support them. So for example, Maryland can use it right now. And it's been, that's been supported on iOS for a while. Arizona, Colorado and Georgia are coming soon. And basically the IDs are stored on a device, but can be managed via my account.google.com if you lose your phone. So if your state has a digital id, you know, you'll be able to, to add that to your Google Wallet or whatever it's called these days. GP goo G Wallet, whatever it is. Yeah. What,

Jason Howell (00:18:28):
What even is it anymore Google Wallet?

Ron Richards (00:18:30):
Sure. also coming to Google Wallet, the ability to scan a photo of a previously unsupported pass card with a barcode for future use. So for example, if you, if your gym has a barcode, but it's not currently in Google Wallet, you can take a picture of it and you can store it within your Google Wallet. Doesn't need to be like on board with Google. It can store health insurance cards and other private passes that are protected with biometrics or pinned, which is very handy cuz my insurance card is beat the hell in my wallet. So that would be nice. And you could save passes from messages directly to Wallet and save company ID and access badges to wallet, which is pretty cool. I mean, if I could get all this stuff that are in cards all on my Google wallet, like I'm already, I'm loving putting my boarding passes in there, you know, like all that sort of stuff. It's getting, it's getting a little more feasible or valuable as an app on my phone. I'm already using it to pay for things at, at, at not just Walgreens anymore, but I do it at the supermarket. I do it, you know bank of America at the, at tm, I just put my phone up to the, at TM and it scans my and it does my card. And so I like it. It's coming together. So yeah, I dig it.

Jason Howell (00:19:34):
I do too. I don't know, I don't know at what point I will ever feel comfortable just leaving my wallet, my actual wallet at home. But I think my thinking around that, like that was always my criticism and like, well, I'm never gonna be so confident that everything's in here, that I'm gonna leave my wallet at home. Maybe I still carry my wallet. I just don't have to pull it out 90% of the time. And that would be nice too. So

Huyen Tue Dao (00:19:58):
Yeah, it's, it's like, yeah, I'm really anxious for this. Colorado has their own system of like, that, that has like a web view or web, kind of like a, you know, like a mobile webpage in an app. So good to provide you your state idea, whether it's licensed or not. But it renders like, but it's really bad. And also it kind of suffers from kind of like, as you would suspect, most state run websites. Sorry. So having Google take it over while again wondering how much data we give Google is, you know, a question that we might ask or not ask these days, but it, it'll look better. Google will do it better. Sorry, state, you're awesome either way, but yeah, looking forward to that.

Jason Howell (00:20:38):
<Laugh>, you're still awesome, Colorado, you're still, all right. Well, there you go. There's some major features that you wear on your face. These are actual features that just exist inside of your phone now or if you live in a couple of those states that we talked about. Anyways we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, I'm gonna give you my thoughts on the Pixel seven A, which I have been using for the last couple of weeks. So I've got thoughts on that. And they may surprise you. How's that for a tease? They probably won't surprise you that much, but you know, you wanna watch because I do have, I do think that it's a little different than previous a series and I'll tell you why. But first wanna tell you a little bit about what we do here at twit.

(00:21:29):
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(00:25:06):
Well, well, well look what we have here. It's a mid-range pixel. Another a series phone coming from Google. Google sent me this device, the Pixel seven A and you know, anyone who watches or listens to this show knows that we are fans on this show. I think year after year we're, yeah, we're pretty big fans of the A series Pixel phones in general. Obviously we love them. We talk about pixel phones all the time. We're always talking about new updates and the new phones and the rumors even and all that kind of stuff. But the Aeries obviously occupies a different category of phone. It's not the the premium top of the line, you know flagship model. But it's kind of, I think the, the, what's interesting about this year's offering is that it's almost that, like, it's really close <laugh>, it's really close to the seven.

(00:26:00):
And I think that's, that's a good thing, but it's also a very confusing thing. And so that's, that's kind of my, my shortened thesis on my time with the seven A. I've spent a couple of weeks with this, have my sim loaded inside of the seven A, so this has been my phone for two weeks now. And so I'll go ahead and pop it out of the case, which Google also sent. This is their like you know, their standard case. They no longer do the fabric cases. Google does these like silicone cases. And I don't know this, this is my second time having them and maybe the first time I used them, I thought they were okay This time, I gotta say it kind of, it kind of bugs me. Like it's super, I realize a case is supposed to help protect your phone, but it's so sticky that <laugh>, it's like, it's like almost like too sticky, like pulling it outta my pocket.

(00:26:51):
I'm always like, my pocket goes inside out cuz it just sticks to the pocket, you know? Anyways, this is not a case review, but that aside, you can get the case if you like that kind of case, but I'm not a huge fan. So we got the seven A here and as you can see, just by looking at it, so Ron, you've got the Pixel seven, right? Your device is a seven, not a seven Pro it's a seven, correct. How close does this look like the seven <laugh>? It looks very close. It's almost identical. Like, like if I had a seven to hold up against this, I think where you'd notice a difference is that the camera bump is not quite as steep. It's a shallower camera bump. There's a reason for that. The camera in here is different from the seven, actually, it's the first time that Google has this particular sensor, this 64 megapixel primary sensor, the first time in any of the Pixel family.

(00:27:41):
It does bend down to 16 megapixels by the way, so you're not getting full 64 megapixel images. But, but what that means is it's a shallower shallower lens. So you end up with this kind of shallower camera bump, which I actually like. I mean the, the trade off there of course is that you can probably get a, a, you know, a nicer piece of hardware out of the thicker camera lens or the thicker camera bump allows for, you know, more camera hardware, larger sensors, that sort of stuff. But, oh, Burke, is that a six? Six A? That's, oh, that's the six A. Oh, interesting. Okay, so Burke brought in his six A. So this is, hold on, let me go ahead and dust off that little camera bump area. Obviously you've had a case on, cuz it's connected a little bit.

(00:28:28):
Wait a minute. Is that, is that a one plus <laugh> kinda looks? No, not quite. This is a, is this like a magnet thing? Yeah, it had a magnet thingy thing. Oh, it's a super, it's a crazy cake. Awesome. So I mean this is, so this is the six A, this is Burke six A, this is the seven A. So this isn't obviously the pixel seven, which is what we're talking about, but you can kind of see there's a lot of similarity. This actually the six A camera bump is even shallower than the seven A. So we've got a, a thicker camera bump on the seven A compared to the six A, which you know, probably has something to do with that. That upgraded 64 megapixel primary sensor in there. But anyways, oh, and it's a little bit, maybe a little bit thinner. Yeah.

(00:29:11):
Anyways, thank you Burke, that's inter, that's always interesting to put them side by side. But design-wise, I mean, yeah, it looks a lot like the pixel six, or sorry, the pixel seven but you do have the plastic back, so if that bothers you, I mean that's just a fact here, but you know, it's a little bit lighter. It doesn't feel cheap in any way. I actually, I think it's a really great trade off. It obviously doesn't help it protect against fingerprints cuz it's covered as you can see, but I always have it in a case anyways, so that, that sort of stuff doesn't bother me. Outside of that, I mean it's really very similar, right? You've got the same tensor G2 processor on the inside. So proce, you know, performance wise you should, and I mostly did get, you know, very comparable performance doing everything that, that I do with a phone.

(00:30:07):
It has eight gigs of Ram 128 gigs of storage. I say mostly because I would get, and I wouldn't even know how to replicate it, but just in regular use, I would get times where I'd open up an app and I'd go to a posting, like say, you know, maybe I'd open up Reddit or whatever and I'd go to a posting and it would take like five or seven seconds to actually populate it. It's like it would go to that page and then it would, it would like pause and then eventually all the texts would appear on the screen. So I don't know if that's the app or what, but I know I got it in a few different apps. What would you think when, when, when facing something like that, does that feel like hearing that in your developer mind, you're like, oh, that sounds like a developer didn't button up this thing in their app, or is that potentially performance on a phone? Well, I guess it could be both, obviously.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:57):
I mean, it, it, it could be both. It's kind hard to tell. Yeah. it kind of depends on like how often it happens. Like what else is going on with your phone, right? Did you start it? I mean, you can always blame us. It's, that's fair.

Jason Howell (00:31:09):
I don't wanna, I don't wanna blame anyone. I just don't know what's at all.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:31:14):
Yeah, it's, it's kind of hard because I, I I, I would say like, to be fair it could be combination factors, but it, and, and it could be like two things together. Like something is a little bit less buttoned up and then with like, maybe slightly less flags should be hardware. Like that's actually, that's a really good point because I think sometimes on to, to, a lot of us tend to test only on flagship because it's easier, right? Because it's easy to say, hey you know, it feels like, like a lot of people, and this is just weird mindset, like a lot of people are in flagship, so it's easier to test on flagships and, and for us it's easier too, right? Because we don't have to deal with performance problems. So it could very well be that as well. People aren't very good at tuning apps and experiences to mid-range. Sorry, I think

Ron Richards (00:31:55):
I, and I, and I think, and I, I think you're absolutely right there wen because I think they're just, it's, this goes back to fragmentation and there's just possibly too many phones, right? Like, that's why, that's why I think a lot of people as awesome, and I speak for this from experience with testing, you know, my own, my own apps. The, when you upload the APK to the Google Play Store mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and then they test it on their side on phones and you'll get a report saying this app, this app doesn't work on a Google, Samsung, whatever it is. Like, you'll get specific phone mentions in the Google Play store, which is really convenient, but you can lean on that because you're just wait, you're just looking for functionality. You're not looking for a performance student, right? Absolutely.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:33):
Hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Trade offs. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:32:37):
You know, it's hard to know. I mean, I I, I throw that out there just to say that I noticed that with this phone where I wasn't noticing it with my Pixel seven pro. And so things like that jump out at me where I'm like, okay, well this is not something that I adapted with over the last six months. I'm now using this phone and I'm noticing these like kind of hiccup moments. And so I don't know who, I don't know what is to blame. I don't know if that's the phone or the app. I mean, technically I've never thought that, sorry. Have you ever thought that maybe you, have you ever thought that maybe you're to blame Jason? Maybe you're the phone. Maybe. Maybe I'm just too fast at opening apps. I'm just user to user slow down as a user. <Laugh> your

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:13):
Eyes just move too fast. Your eyes are like 240 hertz.

Jason Howell (00:33:16):
Like, we need to, I have great expectations of my hardware <laugh>. That's, that's what it is. Fair. So who knows? But I did notice that also notice some some connectivity blips. And here's where I wonder if, because if you remember my one plus 11 5G review, I dinged it about that as well. I, I had moments where my SIM would just, like my, my mobile connectivity would just kind of blank out and for no apparent reason. And the only way that I could restore it was to do a re restart of the phone. I don't ever experience that with my seven pro, but I did with the one plus 11 5g, by the way, one plus is sending me another one so that I can test it, because they didn't have that report for any anyone else. And I was like, okay, send me another one.

(00:34:00):
I really wanna set the record straight and you know, if it's not happening anymore, I wanna say it on the show. So I've got one of those coming to me, so I'll report back on that. But I did experience that with the seven A, so then I'm like, well, maybe it's the sim and or, you know what I mean? But, but if it's the sim then why does it not happen with the seven Pro? These things are so messy. It's like <laugh>, there's no consistency. I don't know what the problem is, but there is a problem and I certainly experienced it a number of times. So that happened here. I haven't seen any other reviewers that are really talking very much about that. I did actually see one review earlier today that mentioned something along those lines, but I don't know how consistent that is to rely on it as like a, well, the phone is just horrible because of this thing, so I'm not even gonna go there.

(00:34:43):
The display 6.1 inch F H d o l h D R display, it does have this is the first a series that has 90 hertz. You do need to go into the settings in order to activate that. It's not on by default. So I think a lot of people get this phone and they'll never know to do that and they'll never experience the 90 hertz. And I think Google does that because of battery. You know, when you got, when you're running at 90 Hertz, you're gonna be churning through a little, a little bit more battery. I didn't find the battery life on this phone to be outstanding. I also didn't find it to be horrible. And with the 90 hertz on, you know, it's kind of like a dynamic 60 to 90 hertz thing. So, you know, it's ramping up smartly at times.

(00:35:26):
And I don't know. I like things to be visually smooth <laugh>, so I put it on. Having said that, I had just had the Reddit app open and I was, and I was doing some scrolling and things were jittering a little bit for me. So, you know, there you go. But I think the display, you know the colors, the brightness and everything is fine. I mean, there was nothing that really jumped out at me as I was using this phone. Like, ugh, this display is horrible. And I have seen other reviewers who said that the display bothered them, but I, I certainly didn't see it. I didn't experience that. Now I mentioned the battery by the way, 43 85 milliamp power battery, obvious, obviously non-renewable. We don't even mention that anymore because when's the last time we saw a removable battery.

(00:36:10):
But like I said, battery performance was fine. Not top of the heap, not bottom of the pile. But it is worth noting that this now has the, the Aeries now has wireless charging, which is awesome. You've got wireless charging. If you've got a pad, you can just set it on it, it will snap into gear. The downside though is, I mean, yes, it's wireless charging, but it's five watt, so it's really slow. Which doesn't matter if you're doing overnight charging, yay, just set it on the pad and you'll wake up and it'll be charged overnight, you know, with the five watt trickle. But if you're looking to do like a fast top up, you're not gonna get it with wireless charging, you're hardly gonna get it with Wired. I, I didn't write it down, but I think it's something like 15 wat wired charging.

(00:36:54):
So it's not really a fast charger in any stretch. What else is there to say? Well, the camera, the Aeries phones and pixels in general just always have really great cameras. Like I said, this is a little different because it's a brand new primary sensor, the 64 megapixel. And I would say the quality is pretty darn you know, it's, it's as expected. I mean, in really great light situations, you get some really fantastic images. I got some really nice low light images. Saw some won wonderfully adorable dogs when we were visiting family in Atlanta. <Laugh> there you go. You know, I think the pixel camera is two things in my, in my experience. One, it is a pretty dependable, good quality. Like no matter the lighting situation, I can usually pull out a pixel phone and this one included and take a picture with it and you know, it's, it's gonna be great quality and just two, like, it's really hard to mess it up.

(00:37:57):
<Laugh>, you can almost always take out your pixel phone and take a shot, like, like I said, in any, in most any condition. And you're probably gonna end up with a pretty great picture. So, so it's kind of good quality and it's hard to, to mess it up. And I think that's what's really appealing about the Pixel family of cameras. Oh, we painted our cabinets this weekend. Apparently we liked the color blue. And let me tell you, that was a, that was a project. Oof. I didn't hard, I didn't have a weekend. I had a painting all weekend. Anyways, there you go. And there's the finished product. Before they were really ugly, roughly. Now, now they're blue and the the blue is really popping in that photo, so I know. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. I was fishing for compliments.

(00:38:38):
Yeah. So, sure. Yeah. that hard work. There we go. Okay. So I think at the end of the day, you know, the Aeries is about value. It has been, remember the Pixel three, A way back win that launched at $399. At the time, the Pixel three, which was the next step up, was $799. So you had a $400 phone that they just launched the three A and then an $800 phone. The next step up probably there were some sales and stuff that brought that down to six, but still it was a couple hundred, two $300. What you have now is you have the seven A at 4 99, so $500, and then you have the Pixel seven at 5 99, $600. So it's a hundred dollars step up. You do have some of these features that we've been waiting for. The higher refresh display, you have the you know, you still have the great camera, you have the wireless charging.

(00:39:30):
That's a feature that every, every year people are like, yeah, but it doesn't have wireless charging. Now it does. But I think as, as much as I do like this phone, I think it's a great phone. It's kind of like the price differential is so close now that it isn't quite as knee jerk as I think it was before when it was a $400 phone and then the next step was $800. There was no question. I mean, you get that three A because you're getting so much of the same experience, you're saving half the cost, now you're saving a hundred and I guess a hundred is a hundred. And you're still getting a lot of really great features. You know, I guess you have to ask yourself like, what are you getting in the seven that you aren't in the seven A, you know, you're getting a, a, you know, 0.2 inches of display and you know, you're still getting that 90 hertz, you're, you're getting a, a few other handful of features. You're getting the glass design on the back instead of plastic. But I think, I think at this point it's kind of diluted a little bit to where it's kind of less obvious, if that makes sense. And I don't know. I'm curious to hear what y'all think.

Ron Richards (00:40:37):
I mean, I, I haven't gotten mine yet. I still need to chase it down, but I, you know, my limited time at Google IO of holding this phone, I was really impressed with the phone feel mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, right? The, just the feel of the phone in terms of like having felt, having felt previous a devices compared to the, you know, to the, the regular or the pro versions and the gap between the phone feel in the, in in this one and the Pixel seven was very thin. Yeah. Like, it, it, it did not feel cheap in any way, shape, or form. No. now, now that doesn't speak to, to the camera quality or the battery or the pro or the performance or stuff like that. But to your point, I, I, you know, it, I do agree that on the price standpoint, if someone's looking for a new phone, seven a versus seven, if they've got the extra money to spare, I'm gonna say go for the seven. But not everybody does have the extra money to spare. Yeah, true. And, and additionally there might be there, there might a hundred is a hundred, there might be trade-in opportunities. There might be, you know, like other ways to get the phone even cheaper. And you still get a really quality mid, mid-range phone in the process. So I think that's still important.

Jason Howell (00:41:45):
That's a good point. If I do a search for Pixel seven and go to the Google store I'm happy you mentioned that. It looks like trade-in right now. So Father's Day get up to $350 back with eligible trade-in. So if you're spending 600 on a Pixel seven and you can get up to 350 back, you're hardly spending anything.

Ron Richards (00:42:07):
Here's, here's a fantastic example. I, so I've enrolled in Google Search Labs and I have the Gene generative AI search results panel Yeah. And my search results. Okay. And so I just typed, all I typed in was seven A deals and I got generative AI results. Here's some deals for the Google Pixel seven, a Amazon $50 off, or a free Amazon fif Amazon gift card for $50 Best Buy, you get a free $50 Best Buy gift card and $50 off for the same day activation. All right. Google Store, you get free Pixel buzz, a and free pixel buzz, a and a limited edition phone case. Come on Google Store, you can do better. At and t you get $2 per month for 36 months with no trade-in required Mint Mobile, you get a hundred dollars off and six months of free data. Verizon is free with select 5G unlimited plans, and T-Mobile is free with a new line or a trade-in. So a hundred is a hundred, but there's a bunch of deals on there that'll be had on that seven A and thank you generative ai.

Jason Howell (00:43:07):
No kidding. That's quite a, that's awesome. It's like I got, I got this research for you. You go ahead and have

Ron Richards (00:43:13):
With her, which is, which is a larger conversation to question about, like why go to webpages anymore,

Jason Howell (00:43:18):
<Laugh>. Yeah. That is a big question. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Okay. Well then you've got a lot of like a deal opportunities to get that price even, even further down then, is what that tells me. Huh. So in which case, I mean, it does become even more of a value. That's, that's really interesting. Thank you for doing that. So there you go. I, yeah, and, and all of this is to say it is not a bad phone. It's a great phone as I expected. I always tend to like the Aeries devices. I'm always kind of impressed by them. They, this is now, you know, the fifth year of the Aeries phone maybe my, my I my impressed is, has lessened because we've gotten so used to it <laugh> and the price has come a little bit closer. But it's a great phone. If that's what you can afford, you're gonna get a, a fantastic device.

(00:44:07):
And, you know, of course you have Google's longer term commitment to updates which is, is nice to have as well. So pixel seven a solid choice, but you know, really, really understand the difference of what you're getting between the seven A and the seven because, you know, you might want that faster wireless charging that you get with the seven that you don't get on the seven A or, you know, these features might be worth a hundred dollars. You, and you might actually be able to get a pretty good deal on a seven right now if you have a trade-in, you know, so take a look for yourself and thank you to Google for sending me this device to review the Pixel seven A. There you go. Let, if you, if you end up getting one and you wanna share your thoughts with us, we would love to hear a AAA at TWI tv.

Ron Richards (00:44:53):
Indeed. So I do love it when manufacturer announcements catch up with the leaks that we've been talking about. That's always nice cause we get stuff confirmed, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and Motorola steps in and announces two new foldables things that we've previously talked about in leaks format the Razor and the Razor Plus. But still these are worth discussing now that they're official. The Razor Plus is coming to the United States on June 23rd, couple weeks for 9 99. And the Razor Plus has a huge cover screen. It's a 3.6 inch O L E D with 144 hertz refresh rate covered by Gorilla Glass Victus and can run most apps on that display is basically like having a tiny, like a, a half height smart smartphone. It's insane. The inner O L E D unfolds to a 6.9 inch, 10 80 p panel with 165 hertz refresh. And this is all running on the Snapdragon eight plus Gen one chip set, and it's got eight gig Ram 256 giga storage 12 megapixel F 1.5 stabilized main camera five wat wireless charging. And it is not resistant to water immersion I P X eight, like the Z flip, but it is IP 52, which is Dustin water repellent. So there you go. Just don't jump into the, into the pool with it.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:46:10):
Don't take it in the shower.

Ron Richards (00:46:12):
Yeah. And the hinge can hold at 90 degrees, so if you wanna use the phone like at a 90 degree perpendicular format, that's fine, but it will not hold at any degree like the Z flip. So if you look at a tilt, the, the, the phone itself don't do that. But, so there it is. Hmm. I love this cover screen. I mean, like, honestly, like we've seen a bunch of little, you know, tinkering with cover screens and smaller versions and things like that, but making it the whole front panel or nearly the whole front panel, that that's pretty cool. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, so mm-hmm.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:46:43):
<Affirmative>, I like that. I think we talked about this in a leak, but it does look like there is a gesture bar, a very tiny gesture bar to the left of the cameras. And I believe that was very specifically mentioned in like our early render we looked at. So yeah, for reals, it's functional. Like, I mean, usability aside on how tiny that is, but it is functional. It looks like you can actually like, search for apps, go back and all kinds of stuff. So that's, that's pretty unique. I think even the oppo flip and the Z folder are kind of more like, you know, abbreviated experiences, you know, just like kind of a subset. Yeah. But wow, like bigger screen and bigger functionality and the hype. I mean, I've been surprised. I've seen a lot of really excited hype around this phone, which is fantastic for Razor because obviously the first time they released the smartphone version of the Razor, it was like, wow, wow, that's cute. But this seems like they actually kind of not just caught up to Samsung but leapt ahead a little bit and did something special. So good on them.

Ron Richards (00:47:40):
And, and you're totally right cuz the screen is bigger, but get that hinge to be at any angle and then they're Pat's

Jason Howell (00:47:47):
A weird one more. Yeah. Like,

Ron Richards (00:47:49):
Like one step forward, like a half step back maybe like

Jason Howell (00:47:52):
<Laugh>, that's a strange, that's a strange one to not have because I, I feel like Samsung has gotten a lot of praise for, for that. Maybe that's just really hard to do. Although it's Motorola like, I'm sure they probably have the r and d to pull that off, but yeah, that was a little weird. Like, why can't you go at any angle? That seems strange to me. Also, maybe there should be like a, a little button that you, that you push on the side when it's open so that you can do the old school slap it shut thing. Ooh. And again, you know, it like removes the resistance. You j you hold down the button and do that and it goes, you're like, yeah, I remember that. Flip it open <laugh>. See I j I just remember really enjoying that. There you go. The satisfying,

Ron Richards (00:48:37):
It was satisfying.

Jason Howell (00:48:38):
It was, it was good job, Motorola. All right, we're gonna take a pause for a moment right before we get into our app news. We're just gonna think really hard about something. Okay, we did it. Let's go to App News. I know that was confusing, but you know, it's essential. Okay. Sometimes you just gotta take a break. You gotta catch up, you know? What you got win? Oh, Google Assistant. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:49:18):
Yeah. So you know how Google has system seemed like it's not getting a lot of love lately at all.

Jason Howell (00:49:25):
Assistants. Like really, we used to be your favorite.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:49:28):
Well, guess what? They're taking more toys away from Google Assistant. Yep. So Google a system is killing support for notes, endless integration with third party apps. If you are using Google Keep though, you get to keep your notes and, and lists. And obviously this is just yet another, you know, dance in this it in in the Google product feature, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Especially with the advent of Bard and AI assistance. Just looks like they're maybe just trying to consolidate stuff. And speaking of consolidating kind of to go with this is of course the fate of reminders. And so to kind to kind of go in hand with the fact that, you know, they're removing third party integration from notes and lists for Google Assistant. If you are still using assistant reminders, it is now time to start migrating to tasks.

(00:50:22):
Now, task is as much, as much as a pan is to kind of feel like, you know, we have all these things that we've used for years and years and they work. Google Task is a bit of an improvement on reminders. It has like a, you know, newer use user interface, user experience and integrates more places. It's going to be a dedicated app that is also going to be integrated into these sidebar of Gmail Drive and Docs, and of course, calendar. So you're gonna get, you know, your reminders and what's, what's a non-task word for task things to do. You're gonna get your things to do in more places, and you will be able to use the familiar prompts of, Hey girl, remind me to do this, or set a reminder to do that. And it will save to Google tasks. And there is a migration process that is in place.

(00:51:12):
So right now, if you create any reminder in Google Assistant, you'll get a little card that says, see reminders in Google tasks. And it will, you know, kind of help you through the process of migrating any of your current existing reminders over to tasks. Alternatively, if you just wanna rip bandaid off, you can go to assistant.google.com/reminder/move and get it done. And to make sure that it stays confusing. Google does note that reminders created in Google Keep won't be turned into tasks. They can stay in keep. So there's <laugh>. Okay. so yes, so

Jason Howell (00:51:46):
Some days this all make sense,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:51:49):
<Laugh>, maybe, maybe we'll, we'll need to like, make a matrix of like functionality Yeah. Things you can, yeah. And just check marks and then just erase and check as possible. But reminders gotta go to tax. You gotta go to keep for your list in your notes, but you can also have reminders there still and take that as you will.

Jason Howell (00:52:08):
Sorry, Google, you know, the thing that you won't be able to do that you could do with reminders that you can't do with tasks that's location based.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:16):
That's right.

Jason Howell (00:52:18):
Yeah. And actually, I, so I activated Google's generative search thing and I forgot that I did it. And I just went in and, and searched Google tasks, location based, and the generative AI answered. Google Tasks doesn't support location based reminders. If you attach a location to a task, the location will be automatically added to the task details field, but you won't receive a notification based on location. That's a bummer because I think a lot of people use those. That seems like, that seems like a, a feature that should really be there and probably will be. And when it is, it'll be touted as like a really big deal. Like, oh, hey, guess what we've done? Whoa, this is how it goes.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:52:56):
Take it away so we can give it back and pretend like it's a new thing.

Jason Howell (00:52:58):
Yes, yes, exactly. And get you all excited about it. Again, <laugh> also, I just wanna say I went to killed by google.com to see if any of this stuff was listed there and it isn't. But I really appreciate the work that they're doing there because Google optimizes at the top of the list and apparently like, apparently this on the site, they now have the ability to like count down or they've probably had this for a long time to count down when in the future it's gonna be not just on this date, but in four months or in five days or whatever. And I just, I appreciate all the different ways that <laugh> that a, a product is listed as about to be killed off to the glue factory in four months. Floating belly up in eight days, done four in two months to be flushed in six days anyways, killed by Google.

(00:53:48):
It's a lot of fun to spend some time there and remember all of the Google things that no longer exist. It's a really long list too. <Laugh>, any who okay, so Google Weather apparently is, there's conflicting thoughts and opinions on what's happening here. So I saw, you know, a lot of people getting really excited about the possibility of, of Google Weather becoming its own app, which in my mind kind of makes sense. Like the way the weather experience has been is it's been integrated into Google search, right? It's part of the search app. So it's not an app that you can launch on its own, all that you can get to it through, you know, like on the Pixel, if you've got your time in your weather area, if you tap the weather that that opens up the weather portion, but it's feeding from the Google search app.

(00:54:45):
Well, nine to five Google did an apk insight and found clues that they thought were pointing to the, the possibility that Google Weather was going to become its own breakout app, an upcoming revamp in fact. And you can kind of see the revamp is this like dual screen, obviously shown on a pixel fold experience that looks very different from the Google weather experience that we're used to seeing right now. The thought according to nine to five Google was that it was going to end up in its own app and wouldn't be tied into the Google search update anymore would kind of, you know, minimize the size potentially of, of everything that's happening in the Google search app. But shortly before the show, our friend Michelle Roman pointed us to a couple of tweets like a thread that he posted earlier today where he posits a few things here.

(00:55:46):
He says, quote, instead of a standalone app you interact with, I think this new app could just be a location-based weather provider for not just the Clock app, but potentially other Google apps down the road. And the new experience would remain part of the Google app. Adding location-based weather directly into Clock or other apps would require requesting location permissions. Having an external provider would avoid that. There's a lot of skepticism and concern lately around apps and location access. So Michelle does not believe that this is gonna be a standalone app, but rather that Google is working on kind of building in an official location-based weather provider into the Google search experience at the benefit of the Google weather experience, but also potentially others. So that's kind of news in and of itself if that's what is to happen. And I'm also reminded that Michelle Roman is very smart

Ron Richards (00:56:44):
<Laugh>. He sure is

Jason Howell (00:56:46):
Confirmed. He looks at these things and like, oh yeah, actually, you know what? I don't think it's that. This is what I think it is. Yeah, so

Ron Richards (00:56:54):
We'll see who's right.

Jason Howell (00:56:55):
We'll, we'll see who totally, we don't know when, we'll see who's right, but someone's right, they're,

Ron Richards (00:56:59):
They're,

Jason Howell (00:57:00):
They're on opposing sides of the field. Which one wins this? My

Ron Richards (00:57:04):
Money's on Michelle. I'm gonna, I'm gonna double down on our guy. So

Jason Howell (00:57:07):
<Laugh>. That's right. We'll find out breaking news, breaking news news. Is there news or is it just breaking news? That Michelle's awesome, huh? Yeah, just that Michelle is smart. Oh, okay. <Laugh> breaking news. That's not breaking news. We knew that all along, Victor. Well, yeah, it just took me a while to find the button. <Laugh>. Okay. I mean, if at the end of the day Michelle just needed a bumper of some sort, I think that's the right bumper to play. So there it goes. Good work though.

Ron Richards (00:57:37):
Well, so earlier in the show I was referring to the generative AI results that I get in search results now that was shown at Google io. And other AI features and benefits that are, are beginning the rollout specifically within, you know, the Android ecosystem image generation feature is rolling out for Google Slides for custom backgrounds and presentations. So if you use Google Slides for your presentations, you can use generative ai. You can click the Help me visualize and then enter a prompt and it'll help create a an image. You can choose the style, whether it's photography, illustration, a flat lay background clip, art, or just none. And Google will generate six to eight designs to start. So that's pretty cool. The Gmail helped me write gets contextual suggestions for replies taken from the previous thread. So for example, the names of the people you're replying to at any times are dates in the thread. So it's re parsing through the conversation and, and, and giving you some prompts to help you write a response back. And of course, the messages magic composed, the Ballyhooed magic composed and messages beta began rolling out over a week ago to beta testers with priority given a Google one subscribers who are not rocking in the corner due to their dark web search results. <Laugh>

Ron Richards (00:58:55):
And, and currently shocking, it only works with RCS messages. So I can count on maybe one hand the number of people I can use this with, but it's there. It's there,

Jason Howell (00:59:05):
But it's there. It's, I say

Ron Richards (00:59:07):
We talked about, we talked, we, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. I, I I find the Gmail email response prompt to be extremely useful and fascinating and actually really, really effective messages is such a short text. Messages are such a short specific thing. Yeah, I I, I, I don't like, other than okay, great, I'll see you when I get there. Or like little prompts like that, which I feel like we already have. I can't imagine using AI for thoughtful responses and text messages seems like an extra step or an extra bit of friction in a, in a context that I don't want any friction. Yeah. But we'll see. So

Jason Howell (00:59:47):
Are you, do you have the Gmail? I do the, the right for me thing, I, I don't know that I have it.

Ron Richards (00:59:55):
I do

Jason Howell (00:59:55):
It. So when did it appear for you?

Ron Richards (00:59:58):
Only in one of my accounts. I signed up for my, my OG gmail account. That, that, that I use, you know, that not, not the, not my Google Workspace accounts. So that might be the difference. So like my right original you know, signed up with Google Gmail account, that's the one I signed up for. And it, it all unlocked it. That's all there. I don't have it for any of my workspace accounts, even though I tried to sign up for it via those accounts. So

Jason Howell (01:00:23):
Yeah, I I don't have it on either of the accounts, I'm pretty sure. Oh, did, did you have to sign up for it in the labs? Like is it found in that labs page? Yep. Oh, okay. Yep, yep. All right. Maybe I overlooked it cuz I have not used that feature yet and I haven't seen it. I'm on the labs page code tips, sge, the search generative experience. I have that the add to sheets make planning easier. Oh, that's, that's not ai. That's not AI turn off. That's not AI go away. No, I don't have it yet. I don't have the ability to do that. I'm super curious. So you have been using it and you like it?

Ron Richards (01:01:00):
I've used it here and there. I played with it, but I'm not, unfortunately, unfortunately I have it in an account that is not my primary email account. <Laugh>. Right,

Jason Howell (01:01:07):
Right.

Ron Richards (01:01:08):
So, so I've played with it, but but not really, you know, gotten not in, in, you know, constant use. So,

Jason Howell (01:01:16):
All right. Well hopefully we all get the opportunity to do that. Cause I'm super curious, I'm very curious to know how much I will use it and in what context and how much, if I'm getting that, that information, how much I'm trimming away from it to add my own voice versus using what it says. You know what I mean?

Ron Richards (01:01:36):
I'm trying to find an email from you that I can respond to. Here it is. Okay, so reply all, help me write thank him for the email

Jason Howell (01:01:51):
<Laugh>. Thank him. Thank him assistant.

Ron Richards (01:01:55):
So yeah, see, this actually didn't do that. Great. It just said hi bracket name. Thank you for your email. I appreciate you reaching out. I look forward to chatting you more with, more with you about bracket topic. Oh my

Jason Howell (01:02:06):
God. Wait, so what does it do with a bracket name and bracket? It doesn't automatically fill that in for you. It didn't, yeah,

Ron Richards (01:02:12):
No, I'm gonna insert it. Or is

Jason Howell (01:02:13):
It highlighting that so that, you know, to replace it?

Ron Richards (01:02:17):
Nope, it just, it just, yeah, it just literally, it literally put it into that went into the email <laugh>, I just put it in Slack for you. Oh dear. This is hi bracket name. Thanks for your email, <laugh>

Jason Howell (01:02:27):
Your, yes. So make sure you changed name to the name you're sending it to. But now

Ron Richards (01:02:32):
Admittedly, I was responding to an email from you that you did not say Jason, like you were forwarding an email. You only wrote one line. There was little, little to Oh, there was there. So, so probably not a a good example. Sorry.

Jason Howell (01:02:44):
Just make sure you don't ever send this email when you use Google to write

Ron Richards (01:02:49):
Things for. Exactly. And that's the thing, once again, these AI things are tools to be used. They're not gonna take over your life because they're stupid, right? Yeah. They're, they're, they, they can, they can glean some information to help give you a, a nudge or a push or whatever, you know. And I do have, I do struggle with generative AI for images because I do worry about the sources and artists appropriation and attribution. Because that mach that that the, the AI brain needs to learn from something. And, and I'm sure Google's doing it responsibly, but other AI sources and other AI models are just ingesting art that's on the web and then regurgitating it out slightly modified. Right? Right. So, you know, generative AI on images is a little murky, but these text prompts I find to be immensely useful. So

Jason Howell (01:03:39):
Interesting. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right. When over to you,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:03:47):
Over to me, and I don't wanna give this too much preamble you know, we're talking about, you know, it's WWC week and there's like, you know, a lot of announcements going on, but if you want something really, really freaking cool that you can get on Android j our very on JR Raphael has something for us. What you got Jr

JR Raphael (01:04:07):
Hey gang, hope everyone is sufficiently recovered from all of the magical and revolutionary stuff coming out of Apple's Annual Adjective Flinging Festival, as I like to think about it, life-changing, life-changing announcements and revelations. I tell you. All right. Seriously, given all the focus on that in the tech world right now, I thought this would be a fine time for us to zoom in on one of the many mobile tech possibilities that's available only here in the land of Android in today's tip. Yeah, it definitely qualifies. So an Android intelligence reader just recently alerted me to this really awesome app I hadn't seen before called Raise to Answer. Raise to Answer is such a smart, just thoughtfully executed idea. I just had to share it with you. The app does one thing and it does it really well. Once you install it, it automatically answers any incoming call for you as soon as you raise your phone to your ear.

(01:05:10):
That's it. Well, okay. It can also automatically decline a call for you when you set your phone if you want, but the raising to answer is the main thing. And really what's most impressive about it, cuz that means there's no need to tap, swipe or do any of the other usual stuff you've gotta do. When a call comes in and you actually wanna answer it, you just lift your phone up to your face the same way you would when you actually start talking. And that's it. Based on that motion and the proximity of your phone to your hefty old noggin, the app will instantly accept the call. And let's just start talking. Raise to Answer is completely free to use without any ads or eyebrow raising permissions. Just install it, set it up once and boom, you'll never even think about it again. Hey, speaking of spectacular things you'll set up once and then enjoy eternally.

(01:06:02):
Are you getting my Android Intelligence newsletter yet? If not, you're really missing out. Subscribers actually saw this tip in their inbox yesterday afternoon as part of a special Monday. Tips Roundup email included a bunch of other off the Beaten path Android efficiency enhancers too, where you can get in on the action and make sure you never miss out on a single juicy googly goody by making your way over to Android intel net slash twit in signing up. Now it's completely free for you. That site again is android intel net slash twit. That's all for today. Now, if you excuse me, I've got that call coming in from Coopertino again. I better take it. It's, it's not going away. Hello? Hey, Tim? Yep. Yep. I can help you set that up on your pixel. I promise I won't tell anyone. I'll see you guys next week. Okay. So open up the Google Play Store. Yep. Google Play Store. <Laugh>. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. I can hold

Jason Howell (01:07:05):
Google. You gotta give,

Ron Richards (01:07:08):
You gotta give him credit for doing a bit. I, I I respect that. He's doing a bit. I like it. Good, good job, JR.

Jason Howell (01:07:14):
Oh, it cracked me up now, but it also cracked me up the first time I watched it. Just that I, I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:19):
Was laughing. I sent,

Jason Howell (01:07:20):
I sent chat a message. I

Huyen Tue Dao (01:07:23):
Sent chat a message like y'all, I'm laughing. It's like 15 seconds in into Jr's video outta Marty laugh.

Jason Howell (01:07:28):
Too funny, he stuck the landing. I I gotta give him credit. He did. Sometimes bits are hard, but he nailed it. Thank you. JR Ray Field, that app, again is called Raise to Answer. And if you were watching the video version, you saw it work because the call did come through and when he raised it up, he didn't do anything extra, it just kind of answered. So that's pretty sweet. Check it out in the Play store. And again, his newsletter can be found@androidintel.net slash twit. Okay, we're gonna check in on some of our feedback from this week. And that's coming up next. AAA TWI TV 3, 4 7. Show a a a. Ron has the first email.

Ron Richards (01:08:12):
I do. I'm very excited because James writes in with kind regards and says, love the show. And I'm just wondering if any of you might have any recommendations for magnetic battery packs that effectively wireless charge a Pixel six Pro. I bought a few random ones and they seem to attach but don't charge properly. And with and without my mag back case. I'm just wondering if any of you have a magnetic battery pack that really works well on Android devices. There seems to be lows for Apple, but I'm struggling to find a good one for Android. Any ideas? And James, we have not used them. <Laugh>, so we we are, we are, we are, we are. We cannot give you a testimonial in any regard, but Jason, I have not, has done, has done, has done some great research as, and Burke has charged in as well too. Burke has, Burke has chimed in as well. So digging in our friends over at Android Police, they recommend the Mofi snap plus juice pack as long as your phone is fitted with a snap adapter 5,000 milliamps that it's normally $50, but on sale on Amazon right now for 27 99.

Jason Howell (01:09:14):
I mean, that's half up basically.

Ron Richards (01:09:16):
So go

Jason Howell (01:09:16):
For Did it, did it now? Now's the time. Yeah, I actually went to Campbell Campbell Camel, which is what I use to, to check Amazon prices. It's a really great site to nice see the history of, of prices on Amazon to see. And this is kind of the lowest it's ever been. And it's only been there for like a couple of weeks. So, so usually it is at $50 and now it's half off. So yeah,

Ron Richards (01:09:36):
So, and that will let you wirelessly wirelessly charge any key device. It's key, right Q UI chi, any key device at 12 lots. Also U S B bbc and all overrun Android Authority. They recommended just last week the anchor, which is a very reputable brand anchor 6 22 magnetic battery with 5,000 milliamp battery and U s BBC for $59. And the anchor 6 33 magnetic battery with 10,000 milliamp battery faster 2020 watt U S BBC and U S B A and that's $80 and both require a MagSafe adapter or magnetic case. So those are two very good choices. A little, a little pricier than the Mofi Snap Plus. But I said that, I teased you that Beca chimed in as well. He's written here in our little document in all caps he signed at Burke. So just so you know, but Burke says wireless charging is 100% dependent on correct rotational orientation of the device and charger slash battery. So if you've gotten some that don't seem to charge properly, it might be because you're not the orientation of the device and charger battery is not in place in a good spot. So thank you Burke and all caps for letting us know there. So yep,

Jason Howell (01:10:48):
There you go. And

Ron Richards (01:10:50):
Good luck. So James, let us right back in. Let us know what you got. Let us know what your experience was, give us a little testimonial, send in a video of of, of it. Show us off what you get. Yeah, I like that. Or our email. Wonder you want, but yeah. Yeah. But keep it short, but keep us posted. Let us know, let us know how this drama plays out.

Jason Howell (01:11:04):
So love it. Hopefully that's helpful and if other people have have suggestions as well, let us know. AAA

Ron Richards (01:11:11):
And I truly wish everybody, I wish I could this on everybody in our audience to understand what it's like to work with Burke because a, a he's the best, but the email, not the email, but his note also included the word wireless and dependent, which was spelled wrong or were also in all caps. And so like, he really like has text communication from Burke is very specific and pointed and clear and I appreciate it. He

Jason Howell (01:11:35):
Wants you to know when he's talking and when he is yelling

Ron Richards (01:11:39):
Exactly. <Laugh> or emphasizing. I don't see he yelling. It's more of an as, more as an emphasis. Yeah. I could hear Burke say wireless and dependent, you know, like really driving those home. So

Jason Howell (01:11:49):
Yeah, that's, thank you. Me too. Also his name. He serves a breaking news bumper when <laugh>. There you go. The, the breaking the, the Burke news bumper

Huyen Tue Dao (01:11:58):
With the Breaking Burke bumper

Jason Howell (01:11:59):
Breaking Burke bumper. There we go. I like that. All right, when you got the next one.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:12:04):
Yeah. And the next one is from Tyler, listening to your discussion regarding the Android 14 unsafe volume notification discussion. While I think this is a good thing in practice as probably the predominant use of Bluetooth use is with headphones. The other day I had this pop up in my car while driving. I have a Bluetooth dongle that plugs into my car's auxiliary jack. I leave my phone volume at full as that gives me the most dynamic range of control with my car. Stereo not loud at all. So my phone is ignorant of the actual volume level present. Maybe there needs to be some info handed back from the br Bluetooth device to shape these notifications per their actual use context. Context. I don't know, would love to hear thoughts. Tyler and I, Tyler I do the exact same dang thing. And I think that's an excellent point. And, and I do it for the exact same reasons because on full volume, I, I still, you still get like that extra, you know, whatever range on top of the car volume. So that's, I didn't think about that. I think that's a great idea. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Jason Howell (01:13:10):
Yeah, I think that's, that's important, right? If, if we're listening into headphones, it's one thing, but if we're listening in our car, absolutely you want that, that full volume to send through the car so you get the dynamic range. If you got it too low and then you turn it up, you're gonna get that noise floor. So, you know, a feature like that can be a big disadvantage if it's used in the wrong, the wrong place, even though it's, it's well-meaning, you know, it's, it's meant to protect your hearing, but in the car less useful. So how do you communicate that either to the app or to the car stereo or whatever, whatever that needs to be. I don't know, but good point, Tyler. Thank you for sending that in. Oh, sorry.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:13:51):
Oh, sorry. And so as a dev, I think there actually is a way to get the Bluetooth like, so with modern APIs, this is just a very cursory look. So I think there is a way on some Android APIs to find out the Bluetooth device class. So this, this probably could be done. I don't have the information on that, but generally speaking that does seem like it should be a thing. So hey Google.

Jason Howell (01:14:14):
Good idea. You

Huyen Tue Dao (01:14:14):
Check to device class. Yeah, great idea.

Jason Howell (01:14:16):
Good idea. Do it, do it Google. All right. And we've got the email of the week right now

(01:14:27):
And we award this to Nick this time around who wrote a lot of words. I'm not gonna lie, and I cut this down, but it's a, but it's an insight into pixel flight. That's what, that's what we can call it. Pixel flight. Or maybe not pixel flight. This is more like Android flight. I Nick says I'm pretty diehard Google, but I've been on Android since the OG Motorola Droid, currently using the Pixel six Pro Pixel Buds Pro and the Pixel watch, I use Nest wifi, have a Nest doorbell, six nest minis and three displays across my house in the past had a Motorola Zoom and Nexus 10 tablets. So I'm just gonna stop it. Holy cow. I'm gonna stop right there and say, okay, all right, you got it. I, I think you've proven your point. You love, you love the Google and the Google hardware.

(01:15:13):
Nick says I was eagerly awaiting the Pixel tablet. I'm disappointed that there doesn't appear to be a stylist. I have a feeling I'll be looking at an iPad in the near future as my tablet needs will be more on the productivity side. But I'm starting to find myself considering a switch to the iPhone. I really like the Pixel watch, but I'm frustrated with some things that have been brought up in the past, like no pocket casts. Why on earth don't routines work with assistant on the watch. I have some home automations set up that use routines like that I trigger like opening my garage and you cannot do it on the watch. I do think that's pretty ridiculous. That should totally be a watch feature. Why is that not Nick says, I mentioned the tablet concerns above which like the watch feel like some things were either half-baked or compromised for some reason.

(01:15:58):
Granted the speaker stand is a cool idea, but if Google really wanted developers to get on board with building apps for big screens so you can multitask, doesn't it seem like you should just aim for productivity as well as just being a family media device? Yeah, I would agree with that. That's important too. And finally, messaging. I'm pretty much the only person in my immediate circle that uses Android. My wife, her whole family colleagues, they're all on iOS. None of them pressure me. But I'm starting to get really frustrated dealing with not getting high quality videos my wife tries to send me of our kids or issues people have when trying to send me messages. Nick says, I know this is primarily Apple's fault for not getting on board with r c s and I've always told myself that I would never switch just because of iMessage, but it's getting close to becoming a reality.

(01:16:44):
I wish Apple would just make an iMessage and write app and even charge for it. They'd make a killing, I'm sure. And what's more is I'm sure that they wouldn't lose customers that already had iPhones. I'd happily pay five or even $10 a month because I know that if I do switch, I will hate the rest of the experience of using an iPhone. But if the next version ends up coming out with u s BBC instead of a lightning port, I may have to suck it up because I'm beginning to get sick of Google putting out unpolished products at premium prices, treating their customers as beta testers, then killing everything good and this stupid messaging debacle. So what do y'all think? I mean, he certainly sets a paints a scene and I can understand his, his criticisms. I mean, I think it's, it's it's built up over time.

Ron Richards (01:17:33):
I will say while you're reading that, I literally was on a text chain with my wife and two of our friends, all three of them are on iOS and one of 'em is at an event and sent a video and nobody can see that because the quality is so crunched <laugh>, and I'm literally writing send it direct to to the other people. Stupid iOS is ruining it cuz it's being sent to me, you know, and right. Like, and, and knows like the blame could be like, oh, it's doing that cuz you're on Android. But I said no, it's doing it because iOS is doing it to, to us, you know, like Yeah. And, but

Jason Howell (01:18:04):
It doesn't but it doesn't matter. It's whatever side you are on Yeah. Is the side. That's right. Cuz that's the phone that I have, right?

Ron Richards (01:18:13):
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:18:14):
And no matter what, it's just a bad experience.

Ron Richards (01:18:17):
I mean, but the thing, the thing is, is that like my wife, my wife is, is on iOS. She's been on iOS for as long as we've been together, which this year will be eight years. And what did I do within two months of dating her? And I said, oh, go download WhatsApp.

Jason Howell (01:18:34):
Mm-Hmm. And that's just how,

Ron Richards (01:18:36):
And that's, and that's what we use. And she sends me high quality photos and videos and I get them every time. Like there are solutions and there are ways to mitigate it. It's, it's funny because like this one text group is like the only one that I haven't really like pulled over to my solution to like, to solve it. Yeah. But like, there are solutions to be had and like, you know, you might have a lot of random people who are texting you once you know new friends or anything like that, that, you know, everyone's scenario is different. But like you can mitigate a lot of the problems with, at least with the messaging side, if you put some effort into it. Not say, not to say that that effort's not being made. I'm, I'm clearly, I'm not suggesting that he's clearly, clearly has Nick really has. But you could solve some of it. I don't know that that, and I'm not, and that, that doesn't argue the rest of his points, but that's just the messaging point itself. So

Jason Howell (01:19:22):
Yeah, I don't know how good of a job I'm gonna be able to do with this, but go ahead and do the breaking news bumper. Cause it ties in with this story. So if you got breaking news, it's time for breaking news. Bump bump. So along with the Apple News of yester yesterday, I wanted to say yester your, because how many opportunities do I get to say your but I don't even know if that matters. Or, or makes any sense. Anyways, I'm, I'm getting distracted. So apparently something they didn't announce on in the keynote is that, and this is in Android authorities words, apple is changing how Android affects iMessage, but not in the ways you want. Apple is taking the Google route and making interoperability better for its own users alone. And so their breakdown of this, mind you, I have not read through this, so I I'm just gonna go by what Android Authority says here.

(01:20:21):
Imessage will handle Android users in group chats a bit differently in iOS 17. Unfortunately, the experience will get better for iPhone users, not Android users. It's possible Apple has more changes in store for future iOS 17 beta rollouts. So I'm curious to know what this does, but I think it ties in directly with what you're talking about. Is my understanding, Ron, is that when an Android user is in a group text message thread, it kind of, it forces everybody into that air quote's broken experience. And it sounds like there's gonna be some changes to iOS sep 17 that that kind of side with <laugh> the iPhone users in the, in the chat and will impact Android users as a result. So if messaging with iOS users from an Android phone is difficult, now it sounds like it's about to get more difficult.

Ron Richards (01:21:18):
Awesome. <laugh> great. Cool.

Jason Howell (01:21:21):
Thanks <laugh>. Great. I want, so,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:28):
I mean, I kind of feel vaguely embarrassed sometimes for Android by how hard Google is pushing the rcs,

Jason Howell (01:21:34):
You know? Yeah, me too. Aggressiveness.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:36):
But, but this kind of stuff. Nevermind, nevermind. I, it makes me feel,

Ron Richards (01:21:43):
It's actually, it's because I'm literally like, this is, I'm live doing it. Like, cuz the, my friend just wrote back to me and said, yeah, Apple's the problem. And I wrote back and said, Hey, they're the ones who are compressing your video, right? <Laugh>, like, like they are, like, it doesn't,

Jason Howell (01:21:56):
And that's exactly it, right? Like whichever side of that of that that battle you're on is the right side depending on, you know, where you are, right? Mm. So text editing, I don't wanna just like read this article, but I'm super curious, like, I wanna know how this is changing. So so apologies. But anyways, everyone should read the article and Android Authority, but it highlights three different elements of this. Text editing thread replies an image and video quality. I'm just gonna skip to that one. Cause that's the one that we're really talking about right now. And if you want the rest read the article says in iOS 16, if an iPhone user sends an image or video to a group chat that involves an Android user, like we were talking about, everyone in the chat sees the same thing. The Android user sees a very compressed file depending on the originals, quality could barely be comprehensible in Iowa 17, this gets slightly fixed for iPhone users.

(01:22:45):
Now images stay uncompressed for iPhone users, videos get compressed slightly. Android users see no changes <laugh>. So we'll still, so, oh, I mean, which I'm I guess I can kind of understand. Of course you're gonna make it, you know, if you have the ability to, you're gonna make it at least good enough for the other people running your hardware. But it's just, it's just a bummer because you know what, rcs would address this. If you built in rcs capability, then everybody would, would get good quality. And instead it's just like, no, you guys don't, but you guys are okay. But maybe it will lessen the hate, the hatred of that Android chatter in the group to not have them reducing the quality for everyone else. So maybe there's that, I don't know. I'm trying, I'm trying to look at this in real time. I don't, does that make sense, <laugh>?

Ron Richards (01:23:40):
Yeah, no, it makes sense. I follow it. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:23:43):
I don't know. I think Jar Jr gotta call Tim back and we gotta

Jason Howell (01:23:45):
Have some Yeah, yeah,

Ron Richards (01:23:47):
Exactly. Yeah, true. If he's on the hotline

Jason Howell (01:23:50):
Jar, you got, you got the direct line to Tim. You, you guys need to figure something out here. We're gonna task you with that anyways. All right. Well, Nick, Lordy, let us know where you end up. Do a follow up when you decide what what you're doing and, and and all that. And we'll look forward to that. And in the meantime, congratulations for your email of the week that had a bonus breaking news bumper in it. Good job. You got two songs. All right. We've reached the end of this episode of all about Android. It's been a lot of fun and when it is great. It has been great to get you back. I'm sorry that you had to miss last week. It was not a fun week for you, but it's great to get you back. Tell people what you want 'em to know about what you're up to.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:24:35):
Yes. So I'm so happy to be back. I was very, very sick last week, yucky, 106 degree fever. But I, I'm, I'm over it. And I think if my brain is not baked, that I am an Android developer and I do tend to talk about Android technical things, and you can find all of those technical talks, video and code on my website randomly typing.com. And otherwise, find me on the interweb at Queen CodeMonkey. I am so happy to be back with y'all. I really missed you last week, especially in, in the, in the Fever 106 Fever Dreams and whatever it was, it was bad. Yeah, but I'm

Jason Howell (01:25:08):
Back. But you made it. It's good to have you back. Thank Youy. And then Ron, what you got to promote.

Ron Richards (01:25:16):
Yes, I've been on a, I've been on some podcasts for you.

(01:25:20):
You should, you should head over to our old friend old friends over at Daley Tech new show. I hopped on to talk with rich and Sarah Lane and Roger Chang about Android of All Things, or they were talking about the io, the, the people leaving Android for iOS survey that we talked about a couple weeks ago. Yeah, we were talking about that. And then we talked to talked a little bit about pinball. I gotta talk about score bit a little bit on there. So it was the last Friday's episode so June 2nd episode of Daily Tech New Show. You can go check it on their podcast are on YouTube. It's out there for you. It was a blast to be on there. Always good to be back on that show. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And if not enough of me, you need to listen to more Head over to i fanboy.com. We're me and the guys we're talking about Return of the Jedi 40th anniversary I saw in the theaters and was excited to talk about the movie and, and reaffirm my love for Return on the Jedi. So go head i amboy.com. You can listen to that episode as well.

Jason Howell (01:26:17):
So I, I love Return of the Jedi. It's, it's got some moments, but

Ron Richards (01:26:22):
Oh, it's perfect. It's a great, it's such a great movie. It is a great movie. So, yeah. It, it has been, it has been far too easy over the years for people to bash it, whether walks or, or the director Richard Markwan or whatever. But like, honestly, the, those, the, the whole Java Palace scene solid fantastic. Is fantastic,

Jason Howell (01:26:39):
Right?

Ron Richards (01:26:40):
The space battles fantastic, the Emperor fantastic. Like, there's so much fantastic in that movie. I just, I love it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So yeah, the,

Jason Howell (01:26:46):
The final scene where they're all standing around smiling and laughing and stuff. Yeah,

Ron Richards (01:26:51):
Well, I, my, my, I'm okay with that. If it's original release in Yub, like I, I, I do take issue with the special edition in, in three specific, three specific spots in the special edition. One is in Java's Palace, getting rid of the original original band song and replacing it with Jedi rocks, which is just awful. Two when Vader stops the Emperor from Killing Luke and they dubbed in him going, no, like episode three. Like, nope, not good. And then lastly, the elimination of Yub Nub in favor of a annoying new ay whimsical celebration song. Nope. Yn Nub for Life.

Jason Howell (01:27:32):
Yup. Nub for Life. <Laugh>, that's gotta be a T-shirt.

Ron Richards (01:27:35):
I'm even good with the Ewoks. Like, Ewoks are great. Like the, some the Ewok scenes are are awesome. It's exactly. So, but yeah,

Jason Howell (01:27:42):
Look, there could be, there could be cute aliens also out there. They don't all have to be menacing, weird looking beasts.

Ron Richards (01:27:49):
Listen, and I, and I talk about it on the podcast, I was six years old when I came out. Like, I remember standing in line in the movie theater, like stuff like that. And like, I didn't walk out of there going, oh my God, Ewoks are so cute, I need a plush of it. Like, no, they was just like, oh, cool. They're just like little, you know, like, it, it was, it, it, it, it's very, once again, much like Android and messaging, it is very easy to dunk on Ewoks and they're actually pretty good. So <laugh>,

Jason Howell (01:28:11):
Are

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:12):
You sure that you should not, you should not judge a book by its cover and you should not underestimate someone cute and fuzzy as being incapable of taking care of themselves.

Ron Richards (01:28:19):
Yep. Exactly. Now that said, they do take some liberties of, of fighting Storm troopers with sticks and rocks a little, maybe a little too far, but I'm gonna go with it because it's sci-fi fantasy

Jason Howell (01:28:28):
<Laugh>, right? So maybe

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:29):
If they were like the e tier storm troopers, you know, like the junior varsity storm troopers. Yeah.

Ron Richards (01:28:34):
<Laugh>. Exactly. What we don't realize is that Storm Troopers actually have very flimsy armor. That's the, that's the, that's what this movie,

Jason Howell (01:28:40):
Their Armor is very tuned for. Very specific

Ron Richards (01:28:43):
Things for laser balls, but not

Jason Howell (01:28:45):
Rocks, the sticks

Ron Richards (01:28:46):
Point, pointy sticks, just those just gets right through there.

Jason Howell (01:28:49):
So <laugh>, that's exactly it. All right. Yeah. Cool.

Ron Richards (01:28:53):
It's a very Toki, a Tolkin esque commentary on technology. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:28:58):
<Laugh>.

(01:29:00):
Good stuff. All right, thank you, Ron. Thank you. Win. Always a pleasure and so much fun to hang out with you guys talking Android each and every week. Thank you to JR for giving us his his Android intelligence and usually an in app form every week, Android intel.net/quit. Thanks to Victor and Burke who might be in here, but it might just be Victor and then Burke. Yeah, it's just me. And then Burke's in another room listening, and we will put in some comment in Slack. But thanks to you both, couldn't do the show without you too. You can find me at Jason Howell on Twitter, Twitter social slash at Jason Howell on Master It, on tech News Weekly every Thursday, TWIT TV slash tnw with Micah Sergeant. And that's about it for, for me. Don't forget about Club Twit. Of course, this is the way that you can support everything that we do here at TWIT directly, and we appreciate when you do that.

(01:29:54):
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(01:30:41):
I can't, I can't, can't believe it's been an already a couple of years, but there we go. As for this show, you can find everything you need to know at Twitter tv slash a a a, including our amazing hero image up at the very top. Every time I look at it, it puts a smile on my face, Twitter tv slash a a a, go there, subscribe. That's the most important thing. Please subscribe. That is the best signal to us and to our sponsors and everyone else who might be sponsors in the future that we are doing something right. So twit tv slash A a a and we hope that you'll subscribe if you haven't already. And that's it. We'll go ahead and end it here. Thank you so much for watching and listening. We'll see you next time on All About Android. Bye everybody. Oh

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