All About Android Episode 559 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, Ron Richards, Huyen Tue Dao. And you don't wanna miss this one. We've got a big announcement right at the top. After that, we get into tons of really chunky news this week. My goodness, this, this episode has a lot of news to discuss. We've got Sonos who beat Google. And now as a result, some of your devices that you own are going to change. So look out for that round. We round out Google's appearance at CES virtual appearance at CES 2022, and some of the features that they rolled out there. More details about Android, 13 field, a little early, but that's where we're at right now. Motorola has an AA wireless competitor. Ron tells you all about more on Apple's iMessage strategy and a huge discussion around the incentives for developers who are creating apps in the email block. Plus a few more emails, all that more coming up next on all about Android

... (00:00:59):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:01:06):
This episode of All About Android is brought to you by ITProTV. Are you looking to break into the world of it? Get the introduction you need with it. Pro TV, visit it pro.tv/all about Android for an additional 30% off all subscriptions for the lifetime of your active subscription. When you use code AA 30 at checkout. Hello. Welcome to all about Android episode 559 recorded on Tuesday, January 11th, 2022, your weekly sourceful latest news hardware and apps for the Android. Faithful. I'm Jason, how and

Ron Richards (00:01:44):
I'm Ron Richards.

Jason Howell (00:01:46):
And today is a special day. It really is special

Ron Richards (00:01:49):
Day. I'm very excited. 2022 is full of surprises, right, Jason

Jason Howell (00:01:55):
It really is. This year it's is full of surprises. We're starting this show off with a big surprise. We are welcoming, not our guest, but our new co-host on this show Huyen Tue Dao. Welcome to the show! Welcome to All About Android family!

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:12):
I'm so excited. Hi everybody. Your, your friendly neighborhood dev is coming to stay for a little while, so

Jason Howell (00:02:17):
That's right. Yay. It's great to have you on board. Yeah. We're so excited to have you here and been just like waiting to announce and now we get to announce it. So it's just really great to have you on board.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:02:31):
It's awesome. Yes. I told the story the first time I came on, but basically the first podcast that I ever fell in love with and got me to podcasting was buzz out loud. And Jason was the producer on that. So yeah, so like just, just the full circle is really awesome. So this is, I'm really excited and thank y'all for having me on a slightly more regular basis. <Laugh> yeah,

Ron Richards (00:02:55):
So we're super excited. So, so you're gonna join Jason, me and Flo in the mix, right. As, as we, we talked last week, as flow is gonna, you know, kind of on a, on a monthly schedule or show, and it's gonna be great to get the, your perspective and already we've loved having you on the show and can't wait to, you know, to have you talk to guests the way Jason and I talk to you and we first had you on the show, right? So that's,

Jason Howell (00:03:20):
I mean, you know, it's, it's really, it's kind of the same thing that happened with flow. I mean, it's just the, it's the arc of the show, right? It's like once, once a guest and then kind of moves into the position of like talking with the guests is it's gotta be weird on the, on the other side, you know, when, when that transition happens, but ultimately what we realized we really want wanted, cuz cuz we, you know, we've been talking with flow for a little while about her kind of peeling back and everything and kind of thinking about the direction of the show and where we wanna take it and what we can kind of do. If flow is stepping back, you know, what, what do we have the opportunity to do here? And we know time and time again, folks who write in who, you know, are waiting in chat, people really respond well when we have not only content that that has to do with the development side of Android. But also when we have someone who can actually talk about this stuff from a better perspective than I know I'm capable of, which is purely on the outside looking in. And of course when you're, you're super accomplished in the world of Android development as well as everything else, right? Like someone who's who's co-hosting on a show like this really needs to kind of be care about it all and you do. And so it's just really great. <Laugh> worked out

Ron Richards (00:04:33):
Perfectly. Oh and, and we're just, and we're just gonna gush and embarrass you as much as we can at the time of the show and tell you how so we have no,

Jason Howell (00:04:40):
We have no news in today's show for the next hour and a half. We're just gonna talk about how awesome win is. Okay. Not offer

Ron Richards (00:04:48):
At all all the time. Really. It's just, it's really gonna be like, this is your life win. It's gonna be like, we're gonna start or yeah. <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (00:04:54):
Oh gosh. If my elementary school like teacher starts like knocking on my door, I'm just sorry,

Ron Richards (00:04:59):
Just like this. I gotta say what we wanna welcome a surprise guest.

Jason Howell (00:05:06):
Love it. Love it. No. So it's so great to have you here and, and yes, definitely wanna also reiterate awesome. That flow still is, you know, able to find time for the show. So you're not losing flow like flow mentioned last week. She will be on. Yeah, I think once a month is kind of, of her rotation and, and we'll be kind doing that on a monthly basis, picking the day and everything like that. So, and it's, and it's gonna be fun.

Ron Richards (00:05:27):
It's gonna be, it's gonna be fun to have all four of us together. There'll be times where I can't make it and flow and win. And Jason, you guys can do it or vice versa and all that sort of stuff. So like it just, I think it just really, I'm excited about just the, the, the, the mix and the cut conversations that we're gonna have this year. I can't wait so welcome when indeed we probably should move on with the show, despite the let's do it, the shining of your shoes. So

Jason Howell (00:05:53):
<Laugh> all right. All right. Well, we will we've got a lot to talk about this week. Starting with some news that has to do with CES and a whole lot more. So Burke, take us there.

Speaker 4 (00:06:06):
Jason, were there any unbreakable phones this year? Let's CES.

Jason Howell (00:06:10):
Oh, that's a good question. If there were, there was no Burke there to stomp on them with his boots and show how breakable the unbreakable phone actually is. <Laugh> unfortunately, that would've been great. Do you have video of this and okay, come on Burke. You can stomp on that phone, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:06:30):
Little jerk. Okay. Burke's going for a Burkes. Got motorcycle boots on it's a three year comprehensive guarantee. So if you award a break, it come as possible. Then we'll give you a free phone. Oh my God. <Laugh> it. It, the answer is what do you think? Come on buddy. Like, Nope. We'll see. It's

Jason Howell (00:06:48):
Dead. It's dead. <Laugh>

Speaker 5 (00:06:52):
Now my gosh. I think he broke it. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:06:57):
I, I love it. Oh, bad. That's so great. So it was a CIA CES. It was C T I a wireless. We right. That's a different conference. That's right. Not

Speaker 4 (00:07:06):
Even okay. It was a stretch. Just squeezing this in. So

Jason Howell (00:07:09):
Still I'm happy that you replayed that. But the question that I have is Victor

Speaker 4 (00:07:13):
Deserves the credit.

Jason Howell (00:07:16):
Define that. Oh, perfect.

Speaker 4 (00:07:17):
He writes my script to whenever possible.

Jason Howell (00:07:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know this. There's nothing original coming outta your mouth. But the question I have is they said in the setup there, if you break it, you get a phone. Did you get a phone?

Speaker 4 (00:07:30):
I didn't want, no, I didn't even ask why, but I want the phone. I just broke it. I unbreakable phone. That's not unbreakable.

Jason Howell (00:07:38):
Someone offers you a phone. I mean,

Speaker 4 (00:07:40):
No, I was, I was a little embarrassed for the guy.

Jason Howell (00:07:44):
Yeah. Cause I would be too. Yeah. What, what, what an uncomfortable position to be in like, but I mean, he

Speaker 4 (00:07:49):
Put himself there, you know, true unbreakable phone.

Jason Howell (00:07:53):
I mean, it's their company. Exactly. At least, at least you were able to show that phone for all. It was actually, you know, actually worth <laugh> anyway was waterproof

Speaker 4 (00:08:05):
Too. At some point

Jason Howell (00:08:07):
They claim <laugh>. Yes. Anyways. All right. Let's let's talk about the news. I love that clip. Thank you for putting that in Victor. Thank you for playing at Burke. Super funny consumer electronic show. So we talked last week. I mean, I guess there were some, some bits and pieces about CEO. It was early. It

Ron Richards (00:08:25):
Was, it was just getting started. There had nothing had really, really broken at that point, but this is the real fun with CES now that

Jason Howell (00:08:32):
Has passed. Right? I mean, yeah, exactly. And now it's in the rear view mirror and Google actually had a, a whole slew of announcements timed with the consumer electronic show of those announcements broadening out support for fast pair. Fast pair is the function that, you know, if you've got a pixel buds and I think some other headphones do this and you open the pixel buds next to your phone. Your phone will recognize that they haven't been paired and it'll say, Hey, do you wanna pair these to your phone? It makes it really easy. Instead of you having to go into your Bluetooth settings and start the pair and, you know, put your headphones into a certain mode that can be kind of painful fast pair makes it easy. Well, Google has announced that they're bringing fast pair to a whole bunch of other device types like Chromebooks windows PCs, I think through an app Google TV, Android TV, and matter compatible smart home devices.

Jason Howell (00:09:26):
You're still gonna need headphones that actually support fast pairs. So that's, you know, pixel buds job or elite threes just as a few examples. But that pairing process would be a lot faster. So yeah, it's not revolutionary news, but it's still nice. I know it's convenient and no doubt when I've used it on a phone, it's really nice. When it does that windows PCs are going to be getting nearby, share. This is kind of tied into this, you know, similar functionality. I, I think it uses, you know, kind of it's also using the Bluetooth protocol in order to do do this, but you'll be able to share, share files from your Android device to your windows, PC in a nearby share sort of way, the way that you can do it through two different Android devices. And I don't know about you guys, I don't ever use nearby share. When do you ever use nearby? Is this a, like a, a, a function that, that ever finds a way in your life to get used?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:22):
Nope. Nope. And I've been on projects where we added it. Like I think when nearby first came out a couple of the products I was on added it because, oh, maybe it'd be cool to find like a fellow yet. No, we removed it like pretty much most projects I've been on, they kind of either have just fallen by the wayside and got hidden or just so I have no idea. Like

Jason Howell (00:10:40):
Yeah, when you choose to re remove it is that because you've like, literally you're, you're, you're finding through your own metrics that like, no one's even activating or using that feature at all. It's like, why support it?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:10:53):
Yeah. That's usually it. And usually things like this, especially things where you're talking to another piece of hardware to another, another customer, because of maybe like bugs from like, you know, the fact that hardware talking to each other is actually inherently hard or like security or just something changes. It's like, it's not like nothing. It's not like once you, you know, implement something, that's it you're done forever. There's always gonna be upkeep. And if like two people are using and it costs like us, like two people's development time to like fix it and keep it up to date then. Yeah. It's, it is mostly metrics. Like I, I guess if, if we kind of have like something very specific or if we feel like it's not gonna be like a maintenance cost, which rarely that's the case. Usually it's not really like a, let it fly and, and kind of go off into other eyes. And it's never really like that metrics. It's all about the numbers, unfortunately, for, for things like this. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:11:42):
Well, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, if you have the data that backs it up that says, Hey look, all of our users, you know, 0.05% of them have ever used this feature. And like, you know, like you illustrate, that's actually a really great way to visualize it. If you've got two people using it. And two people maintaining that, you know, using, using their work hours in order to maintain that feature, like, it absolutely makes zero sense to keep it in there. So but you know, Google's broadening support. So who knows, maybe we haven't maybe like you like QR, oh, sorry.

Ron Richards (00:12:14):
You, you have to assume like, like QR codes, you gotta assume somebody's using it.

Jason Howell (00:12:18):
Yeah, totally, totally. Right. Totally. Like,

Ron Richards (00:12:19):
Like why would they expend the resources and the time to add it? If no one is using it? I, I know I don't use my phone and my Android device with files. Like, like the way, like I, maybe I I'm alone or something. Yeah. The way, yeah. Like I don't store documents on my phone. Like my phone is at best the triage device. And if I need to review a document on my phone, it's transitory, it's quickly a look and then move to the computer. Like I've never been in a spot where I have the important presentation on my phone and I need to nearby share it to the computer. Like, no, like that's not how it works, but maybe, maybe somebody does. So

Huyen Tue Dao (00:12:55):
I'm actually kinda interested this, like, so for people that follow me, I post too many videos of like workouts. Like I, I just like making videos, that's kind of one of my things. And like, I, I lately to kind of keep in practice, I've like recorded like some workouts, or like when I do a dance class, I record the routine, but I edit on my windows machine. So I actually think that's kind of an interesting workflow for content and creators where you might not wanna necessarily edit, edit a video on your phone. If you're maybe doing something little bit longer form, or you wanna kind of do something fancy or add some just to it with after effects or whatever, but you really don't wanna edit on the phone. Then now you can kind of go out there, use our kind of like brilliant cameras and VI and kind of video taking devices that we have now on our phones and be able to kind of very quickly go home and like, do your TikTok, Instagram, the other things the kids are doing kind of thing and go viral things. I think actually that's kind of an interesting use case and I probably will be using that because right now I'm like uploading to photos and then downloading, you know,

Ron Richards (00:13:50):
Dropbox. And then that's the point I was, I was just gonna make like Burke in our, behind, in, in our, or behind the scenes chat just said, you know, that he, you know, he emails, files to himself, which then made me realize that, that, that not only, not only that, but I, I slack things to myself. Like I'll, I'll be on the desktop and I'll pull a document into slack and get on my phone and pull it down or vice versa. So maybe we should be using nearby chain.

Jason Howell (00:14:13):
<Laugh> right. It's a, it's a real, really good point, cuz I'm totally guilty of doing those things too. And I'm like, there's gotta be a better way. Oh wait. There is it's nearby share, but we're just,

Ron Richards (00:14:22):
We're being snarky and making fun of it. So like, yes. Cool. That's

Jason Howell (00:14:25):
What we do. Yeah, totally real cool. And let's make fun of this. Android automotive is getting YouTube. That's something to make fun of. Although the, thankfully it only works while part somebody's yelling at us right now being like, not thankfully that makes it pointless, but you know, for safety reasons, like it's good that you know, that you can't put a big YouTube video on your, on your in dash screen while you're driving. Right. They're saying like if you're waiting somewhere waiting for someone, you can use that, fill that time by watching a YouTube video, you know, something like that getting more control over your car. So your assistant can do things more integrated with the car. Like, you know, for example, the, the example that I read was warming up your car with a command from inside, which would actually be really nice. I would love that if my car was capable of doing that, I would totally use that.

Ron Richards (00:15:17):
Use that all I gotta admit. I gotta admit that it's not Android auto, but like my, my car has an app that I can start the car from inside the house. Yeah. Which is, which is a, a ANMA like remote start, which isn't new to cars and stuff like that. No. On these 18 degree days here in New York it is, it is very handy to warm the car up for 10 minutes before I even go outside. So

Jason Howell (00:15:40):
Yeah. That's heck yeah. I wish I had that. Of course my it's not degrees

Ron Richards (00:15:44):
Know outside, but I was gonna say on those, on those 60 degree days in Cal oh police,

Jason Howell (00:15:49):
Hey, it's been getting to freezing the last, you know, a few weeks. It's been like 32 overnight

Ron Richards (00:15:54):
18 degrees. I'm literally checking right now. It is 18 degrees outside right now. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:16:00):
There's different shades of cold, but cold is cold please. It's not that cold

Ron Richards (00:16:04):
Here. Come on. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:16:07):
Yeah. You're not subzero. Tell me, I'm sure someone out there is even telling us right now. You think that's cold?

Ron Richards (00:16:14):
I live in, I live in that Antarctica. <Laugh> exactly

Jason Howell (00:16:18):
Welcome to our listeners in Antarctica. Automatic Bluetooth, audio switching between devices. So if you're wearing headphones and you're like watching a movie on your tablet or your phone, and then you receive a call on your well on another device. So you're watching a movie on your tablet and a call comes through on your phone. There would be an automatic switching capability so that the audio would instantly transmit over to the phone so that you could take the call. And when the call's done, boom, back to the tablet, get the audio fed through. So that's kind of neat. And then finally, and I think this is actually really cool and surprised that it hasn't been so far, but where OS is gonna be able to unlock Chromebooks and phones or tablets when the wearables unlocked itself and near the device. So if you're wearing a watch and it's unlocked and it's on you you know, it's, it's, I mean, it's an extension of smart connect, which I kind of thought that already existed between the watch and the phone, but I guess it didn't because I read the story, but I mean, I have thought about like, why can't this unlock my pixel book?

Jason Howell (00:17:22):
And apparently that's, that's in the works. So that's Google at CES making some announcements. It's almost like a CES themed feature drop for everyone. <Laugh>, you know, a bunch of, bunch of random little bits, but some cool stuff in there.

Ron Richards (00:17:38):
Yeah. I like it. It's, it's fascinating that they feel the need to do something at CES. I mean, like this has been a couple years now, even before the pandemic, remember they had the booth with the experience with the rollercoaster and all that sort of stuff, you know, like, like, like that Google is prioritizing CES. I find very interesting. So

Jason Howell (00:17:54):
Yeah, I guess, I guess being present in all the different points, right. All the different opportunities and CES is just another opportunity to say, oh, by the way, we have more cool stuff. Yeah. But can you believe it when Android 13 apparently right around the corner

Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:13):
<Laugh> yeah. So I feel like we just started talking, we were just finished talking about Android 12 and Android 13, still a little bit ways away, but we do have some idea of what might be in it. What's new is what's old is new again, what's new is new and some things just get a little bit of Polish as kind of, as in like a theme re recent recently. So Android 13 is going to make QR code scanning a little bit easier for you. Looks like in the next release of Android, we're gonna get a couple different ways of quick accessing or shortcuts to your QR QR scanner, rather than having to open up a camera app and then hope that it reads a QR code. Looks like we're gonna have at least a quick settings tile, which is really awesome.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:18:53):
Kind of in the same vein as like your flashlight or, you know, do not disturb mode being, being accessible from the notification drawer. And it also looks like we're gonna get some kind of QR shortcut from the lock screen. Although it seems like we're not quite sure what it might look like yet. Maybe it's like hitting the pop our button. Maybe it's just kind of a lock screen element. And whether that kind of just opens up the kind of lock screen, like the camera app, like like immediately or, or what's that gonna like, we don't know yet, but it seems like who our codes have finally come into their own. I told my husband about this and he's really excited. I know, like, I, I kind of remember when I first got into conferences was kind of when you could like, create your own QR code with like your name <laugh> and like your contact information and you generate that and you like take it with you. And some people like had it on business cards, so, and it kind of became like, you know, a novelty and that kind of thing. But now with us not really wanting to touch things or have like kind of objects around with information when things could just be, you know, more environmentally friendly, more hygienic by just be a QR code Google saying, right. We'll make it a little easier for you. My husband's really excited.

Ron Richards (00:19:57):
Yeah. The, if I did not have on my bingo card, the, the winner of the pandemic would be QR codes <laugh>. But, but, but here, but here we are. And it's fascinating because it's like, I honestly, in, in my various date jobs, QR codes are coming up more and more every day. We're using 'em for various different things in different places and different spots actually like with score it, we have a way where you can print out a QR code for the pinball machine and just scan it with the app to tell the, tell the app that you're playing that game. Like the, it, it it's, everyone has a phone, the QR codes, it just works. So the technology just actually works. And I, I thought of it recently because I was watching, oh, I was watching apple TV plus on my Google Google TV Chromecast, which I still find C hysterical, but, but I needed to, it logged me out.

Ron Richards (00:20:49):
I needed to re-log in, and the login feature was to scan a Q, was it apple TV plus? Or was it, or I logged in to Samsung to the art store for the frame. Anyway, I was doing something on the TV, but the login thing was scan this QR code. And then it sent me to a webpage on my phone that I logged in on the phone. And then it told the TV I was logged in. Right. So like, it it's becoming ubiquitous. And I gotta be honest, the more I use QR codes, the more annoying it is to use the camera and have to line it up just the right way and then get the very, very tiny pill with the link to open it up. Right. Like, I'm shock if

Jason Howell (00:21:22):
It recognizes it at all. I feel like I've had so many opportunities to use the Q the camera to QR code and I shine it on it and I shine it on it and nothing I'm like, okay, well, it's not recognizing it for some reason. Am I doing something wrong? You know, it's like questioning it. So, yeah.

Ron Richards (00:21:37):
Yeah. So, yeah. Good to see who knew that QR codes would be our friends. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:21:42):
Right. I mean, you know, like apparently they've been big in Japan, which I'm sorry I use that phrase, but apparently they have, and I think it's just, it was just like time, right. It was just time <laugh>. Yes. It kinda like other things in here, like even talk about like nearby the nearby share and even things like, sort of like Android auto, where yeah. Like they Google releases these things early. They don't quite quite get pick, but then they stick around, they stick around, they like make maybe the implementations better. They make it easier or to develop, they, it just, or it just becomes time, like necessity is the mother and invention. Maybe like just necessity is the mother of adoption in this case as well. Yeah. So,

Jason Howell (00:22:17):
Yeah. Right. I mean, it really was in, in many ways, you know, the right kind of technology for the time right now where people don't wanna be touching or, you know, I haven't wanted to touch things for a lot, couple of years. It's a, a great kind of no contact way to do that. So,

Ron Richards (00:22:33):
Well, clearly 20, 22 is the year of the QR code, so yeah, just get ready. So totally cause the 20, 22 is the year of the tablets and the QR code. There it is.

Jason Howell (00:22:42):
And the metaverse it'll be metaverse and QR code and the metaverse

Ron Richards (00:22:46):
Oh God, I was in a meeting this week about metaverse you, yeah. God, you don't even know what I saw. Right. Well, moving it on. It's not

Jason Howell (00:22:56):
The, we have a little bit more with a little more,

Ron Richards (00:22:58):
Oh, do we have a little more, oh, we do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. My

Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:01):
Bad. So just wrapping up with a little more Polish from Android 13 something that came around that came from Android 10, but is continuing to get some Polish is the output picker. This is where you can kind of see kind of like any devices that you can output media to. It's just getting a fresh coat of paint kind of aligning a little bit more with some of the big UI changes we saw at Android 12 and something that's really new, new, new, new, new is the tap to transfer feature for moving media playback between devices, which I'm really excited about. You know, if, yeah, like if, if you're kind of like us, like we are a little overly connected, we have a nest on our kitchen counter. We have, you know, like a Google or sorry, Chromecast enabled like TV on every floor.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:23:42):
And you know, we like, don't try, we try not to stay in one place. So having to, you know, kind of manly disconnect and reconnect between all these, these, these different media playback devices is kind of annoying and kind of in the vein of making things better, faster, less frictiony Android 13 may have a type of transfer feature where it seems like you can just very easily move playback between your different devices without having to disconnect to restart the whole process again. So yeah, it looks like some Polish coming to Android 13, we hope, and it looks like it is going to have what is a chip notification. If you notice in Android 12, when you're on a call and you see kind of up in the status area, a little chip letting you know that you're on a call or that your camera's on, et cetera, et cetera, looks like that. It might, it might take the form of a chip notification that lets you kind to easily switch things back and forth, but we'll see. So just too soon to say for sure yet, but hopefully some good Telon, Telon frictionless like smoothing of our Android experiences.

Jason Howell (00:24:36):
Telon te which, I mean, which you have to imagine with Android 12 being the big visual refresh, you know, you're probably not gonna get a whole lot of like major your visual change in Android 13. It probably is gonna be exactly that kind of like a smoothening out of, of what was begun with Android 12. But I think a tap to transfer feature. Like I'm trying to think how often I would use it or when I would use it, but that seems like a really useful feature. If I had two devices just be like, yeah, take this thing. That's playing on my phone right now, boo. And play it, you know, and have it just transfer without me having to like open up an interface and like, you know, point on a, on a selector and say, yes, play it on this device anyway, that we can kind of make our devices kind of talk to each other in, in very intentional ways. I'm all for it. So yeah. Yeah.

Ron Richards (00:25:23):
Sounds good. Yeah. but now it might get a little more complicated though, at least with those speaker devices. So yeah, so I felt like my feed blew up the it was yesterday in fact. Yeah. Because a as we, as we all may know, Google and Sonos has been in a trade court battle and Sonos just won. And the ruling that was handed down was that Google infringed on Sonos is pat patents. And these are patents related to Google's casting capabilities and how it handles multiroom audio. So there you go directly tied to what we're just talking about from the new, from the New York times, the Sonos claim that Google got a got a look at how their system worked back in 2013, when the company was pitching to integrate with Google play music. And it believes Google quote blatantly and knowingly copied Sonos when it made the Google home speaker.

Ron Richards (00:26:12):
And this, this lawsuit's been going on for, for over two years. And the result is that Google can't import its own products manufactured overseas, that infringe on those patents. So this includes the Google home nest speakers, pixel devices and Chromecast devices says it's been developing its own alternative technology since the lawsuit was originally brought. And so what this means for you, if you have one of those devices, functionally, it means that speaker groups won't be volume controlled together anymore. You'll have to be done on a per speaker basis. So if you have a, you know, you know, I have all my Google homes linked as you know, all speakers and I can have the same thing playing in one and have the same volume no longer, you have to adjust the volume individually on each device. Which also seems annoying. But I, I know we don't like Louis CK anymore, but the, the, the, the old CK joke about the person complaining about the internet, internet, not working in a plane, it's like, yeah. Right. It's you like, like, like we have these speakers that stream music. Yes. You have to adjust the volume individually. It'll be fine. You know, like let's, let's, let's see the forest for the trees, but still

Huyen Tue Dao (00:27:19):
It's more problems. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:27:21):
But at the, at the same time, if you you've got two nest audio speakers, right. That's like the step down from the Google the, the, what was it? The, the highest, highest end Google home speaker? I can't remember what, what they called it, but the really nice speakers they can be. Well, I think all Google home and nest audio speakers can do this, but you can set 'em up as a stereo pair right now, what I wonder is if I have a stereo pair, like, you know, this is my left, this is my right. And they're coming into my app. Will I really have to adjust the left and the right individually from each other? Yeah. And if so, please, dear God. Make that an easy, like thing to like, I could just, I just think that's gonna be really annoying as an audio file. Well, that's super annoying to not have them linked and unified. It's just, yeah. That's I realize it's maybe a first world problem, but it's also kind of dumb because like, I've never seen a stereo that, you know, that you have both speakers controlled individually, or, and if you do, there's some way to unite the, the control so that they travel together because who wants the left speaker to be 70% the right speaker to be 40% like that always just sounds weird.

Ron Richards (00:28:30):
Yeah. No, you're not wrong. Also quick props to to Florence eye and to flow for writing the article in Gizmoto that we referenced in this story, so good job flow. But but yeah, I mean, it, it shows the value of patents and Sonos was there first developed the technology, got the patent. Yeah. And defended it, you know, and like, and Google, you know, this is honestly, this is a David and Goliath story and Google lost. So yeah. It fascinating.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:28:57):
I ah, it's,

Jason Howell (00:28:59):
You know, it, yeah, go

Huyen Tue Dao (00:29:01):
For it. Sorry. No, I just, I, I feel like especially, so my background, I actually started off thinking I was gonna be a hardware person, I being a software person. So I think that, okay, so I'm all happy for like kind of a smaller company to not get pushed around by bigger company. I think I'll speak for myself on this, that I have a lot of issues with the way that patents are used for software in particular. I remember being very off kind of back in the day when, you know, apple could patent a rectangular device with rounded corners. And of course there was a big case with Google versus Oracle recently and kind of, you know, I guess it's kind of easy to rail on the trademark slash ate slash patent system in this country. And that it's kind of overreaching.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:29:44):
It there's plenty of, you know I forgot what the term is for companies that just, you know, buy up, you know, these trademarks and patents, just to Sue people, tra patent controls, trolls. Yeah. Patent trolls. Yeah. And so I, I, I'm all small companies not getting pushed around, but I, I also feel like this is one of those things where like, like, like you were saying, Jason, it's kind of obvious. It, it seems like cuz like the whole thing with like patents and trademarks is to, is to protect ideas that are not obvious. Right. And to protect like kind of novel things. And if you ask me having, if, if you just take the idea that you can, you know, broadcast music via Bluetooth or whatever, to, from one device to some speakers, you have more of them, it seems like an obvious idea that you'd want them to be the same volume.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:30:30):
So I, I, I don't, I, I don't wanna like, you know, demonize Sonos for having these patents at all. I just feel like it's, it's, it always kind of feels a little bit funny when, you know, and, and not necessarily we're just first will complaining, but that there is something a little bit odd about things that seem very obvious and that we use consumers just kind of have to like, oh, why can't I change my Chrome CA like, why can't I change my like connected device volume, like easily in a way that seems kind of obvious. I dunno, I, this, sorry, patents kind of just is one of those like hot button things where just like, ah, like, why is it like this? Like yeah, yeah. Seems so

Jason Howell (00:31:03):
Why I felt a similar way about the the feature that I think that was definitely on iPhone first, which was like, it, it, you know, if you got a message with a phone number, it would recognize that it's a phone number and it would make it a hyperlink that you could then tap and, and call. And I realized somebody had to do that first, right? Like apple, from my understanding apple design that recognition first and said, Hey, we should make it easier for someone to call that or to email that, that address or whatever. But when you really think about the concept, like, it seems so obvious. Right. And maybe it only seems obvious now because we have it. And I guess that's probably the question, but why, why would I not want to be able to quickly call the, the phone number that was just texted to me?

Jason Howell (00:31:44):
And so to not be able to have that in an OS, because apple did it first and patented it, like, it kind of feels very similar to that. I think you, I think your point is absolutely spot on. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, maybe there's something about the way that Google implemented the volume change that maybe it's not the fact that it's a, like a group volume change, but rather a way that they implemented it, that that matches the way Sonos presented to them as doing it. And they'll come up with their own system that still does it, but does it differently in some way, shape or form, and maybe we won't even see, well, like we won't even see as users exactly how that's done cuz the change is behind the scenes. I don't, I don't know how that's gonna work out. No, no, I think that

Huyen Tue Dao (00:32:24):
It's a real valid point though in that again. I think traditionally when I think of patent patents, like especially like kind of growing up in kind of engineering school like patents of often, like I, I always think of patent as like something that protects a process that protects something physical, something like out of novel, like the way that you're doing something is faster, better, different than anyone else has done it. And I, I know that's probably just my personal perspective on what patents are, but I, and I think that's very valid. Like if Sonos has a very interesting way of like architecting something that is not obvious, but that gives you, you know, like, like lightning fast connection or if they're able to make it super reliable because the way that they implement it and the way that they structure something is not obvious.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:33:03):
Yeah. That is worthy of that. That's for sure. So it, it is a spectrum. I feel like, yeah. Rounded, rounded corners is on this end of the spectrum and then you know how to efficiently like, and like maybe like securely, I don't know, like synchronize volumes, like know without like with only to, or with, with only wifi, like it's a spectrum and I think it's fair. I'm not, I'm not saying like it's not a totally like invalid pattern or, or not. It's just, it's awe it's, it's a weird spectrum. It's always gonna be disagreements on what is valid and what

Jason Howell (00:33:31):
Is not totally no question. Yep. Yep. Right. Well that's the news and, well, that's the top news anyways. We've got hard work coming up, but let's take a break and thank the sponsor of this episode. This episode of all about enter is brought to you by it pro TV. If you're tuning into this show tuning in, on, on the, the tune in dial you may have more than a passing interest in technology and specifically in it, but it's new to you and you're not sure where to get started per apps. Well, now you don't have to worry about where to start because we're, we're gonna tell you where to go. That's it pro TV go straight there. It pro TV has the knowledge and certificates that you need to break into the it world while being desirable to future employers. This is how you get your it job right here.

Jason Howell (00:34:18):
January's theme at it. Prot is all out getting started in it. So you're gonna have a great start to the new year. There's a free weekend coming up it's January 15th and 16th. It's the end of this week, actually. So if you just wanna dip your toes into it, you can check out the following free courses, comp Tia ITF plus and comp Tia. A plus will be a course that checkout Linux essentials Microsoft 365 fundamentals. That's Ms. 900. There's gonna be a hands on PC build from the bench. That sounds super interesting. Cisco CCT routing and switching, that's a hundred dash four 90 and apple certified support professional Mac OS 11 that's AC S P Mac S 11. Just a ton of free, excellent content that you can check out this weekend. That's January 15th and 16th for free. And if you're worried about you know, that maybe learning it can be boring while it pro TV is anything, but they have enthusiastic entertainers that actually make it interesting entertaining, even fun because they enjoy it.

Jason Howell (00:35:26):
And that that enjoyment comes through and how they present it. If you prefer shorter formats courses are in 20 to 30 minute increments, just the right length. If you happen to have at a short attention span, or maybe you have a tight schedule, this is gonna fit in perfectly. They have seven studios and film Monday through Friday, they have the most up to date content with every vendor and skill and their courses go from the studio to the course library in just 24. So super quick turnaround. They make sure that you're prepared for your exams with their virtual labs and practice tests. So it's not just content that you're watching. You're also engaging with that content. It pro TV has wonderful monthly webinars on January 13th. That's just a few days from now this Thursday they're gonna be discussed some cloud computing, confidential, the secrets to leveraging the cloud in your organization.

Jason Howell (00:36:23):
Just tons of awesome stuff. You know, they've, they've got the, the live streams. They've got the, the the virtual labs and the practice tests. They've got the webinars. If you're looking to break into the world of it, get the introduction you need with it, protein, visit it pro.tv/all about Android. You'll get an additional 30% off all consumer subscriptions and that's for the lifetime of your active subscription. You just wanna make sure that you use the code AA 30, that's it pro.tv/all about Android. Make sure and use that code. I just said, AA, a you'll get an additional 30% off for the lifetime of your active subscription. It pro TV build or expand your it career and enjoy the journey. They're doing awesome stuff over there. So check it out. It pro.tv slash all about Android. All right. And with that, it's time to jump into some hard news. Let's do it. See, normally Ron would get this one because it's, it's, it's funky funky stuff, but there's another one in hardware that Ron would also get so true. I can't have the all that's true. <Laugh> that's true. And when, as the foldables experience, so go for it with

Huyen Tue Dao (00:37:42):
All right. Well, you gotta share Ron cuz you know, gotta share some time, so that's fine. That's fine. I'll share <laugh> so <laugh> we already know that Samsung has been kind of doing gangbusters in the large cream fold devices with our folds and our flips. And I think quite a few of us are folders and flippers on this, on this podcast. Well at CES 2022, we've got a co they've got a couple more forum factors for us that that are pretty interesting. So I, I guess I'll try to describe it as best I can for the podcast only folks. But what I think is interesting about these four Samsung kind of proto concepts prototypes, or kind of, if you like, think, for example, of, of the fold where it has like two screens, like the front screen and then kind of the middle screen, this kind of some of these concepts kind of try to move away from that. So the first one is the fold S and S because it actually kind of folded that in an S shape. So if you think kinda like maybe like a pamphlet, so rather than having say a screen on the front and then a separate kind of like fold out screen, kind of like within, this is all just one screen and the way that this S fold works

Ron Richards (00:38:53):
Is so cool

Huyen Tue Dao (00:38:54):
Is just like a pamphlet so that when it's folded the first third, or, or what, what have you becomes the front panel of as opposed to having a separate screen? So that's the S the flex S there's also the flex G which kind of, if you think more like maybe, I don't know, like a menu at a fancy restaurant where the content is inside, and then you have kind of like the two side of the device kind of folding inwards one over the other. This is a little bit different. You can actually have your large screen, but have the screen more protected from scratches, bumps and bruises and drops. There is also the flex. What was it? Flex slide, which I was really excited about. I think there was like, we were, were you all talking about like the Dr. The O D Dr.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:39:36):
Last last week? Yeah. Yeah. and this is kind of maybe like, gave me a little bit of flex or droid droid slide, or droid the droid old droid Android phone vibes, where you kind of have a little bit of a extra bit sliding out, but really it actually, I think, and it was kind of hard for me to see the video. It actually looks like rather than have a screen that folds, which, you know, if you're kind of someone who has a fold like a, the, the current fold three, there's kind of this increasing going on, you know, you can kind of see where like the two has with the screen fold out. This looks to be more like a kind of almost like if you think of like a conveyor belt or maybe like the, the tracks on a tank, the way that they kind of roll out like that, or a bicycle change.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:40:17):
Yeah. It seems that the screen is rolling up and kind of staying like, kind of in a more circular role and then being able to be expanded out as you slide it out. So there's, there's gonna be no crease, hopefully. And then finally, just like with the galaxy note, making, making things bigger and better, there's also the flex note, which is basically taking something like a flip or kind of the other that are kind of like mono screens that kind of fold in and just taking it to laptop size form factors. So, which is crazy,

Ron Richards (00:40:48):
Which is like, it's like the surface, it's like the surface duo, but bigger. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a laptop, it's a laptop with, instead of a keyboard it's display, like that's crazy. Or it's like a foldable iPad pro.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:41:01):
Yeah. I, I think actually the, the flex S is, is pretty amazing actually like the, just the technology. Yeah. I gotta

Ron Richards (00:41:08):
Tell you all of these take foldable to like the next level and like Bravo, Samsung, because like here we are looking like all the stuff we've seen at foldables. I mean, like, I feel, we said 20, 21 was like a breakthrough year for foldables where like Samsung finally shipped affordable foldable phones that people wanted. Right. These are like next gen stuff. And let me tell you everyone listening to the show, if you're listening to an audio podcast right now, that's great. When you get on your computer, go look on your phone, find the video version of this, of this episode and watch the videos that Burke is rolling as we're talking about them. So you can see these demos or go find the demos online. You have to see these to believe them. And I just, and this is why I love foldables because they're so bananas, right? Like this full, like this, this, this flex note is enormous. Like, and, but then you gotta wonder what is the cost gonna be on this, right. Oh my goodness.

Jason Howell (00:41:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And the flex note is actually cooler than a very large what was the surface duo? Because the surface duo was actually two screens with a hinge in the middle. It wasn't a full, like a single screen that takes the entire space. Right. And this is exactly that, but laptop size. So that's, that's E even cooler. And I should also point out TCL. We've talked about TCL in the past. And very recently, you know, back in December, they were showing off some of their concepts, which a lot of them are very similar to what Samsung showing here, which just goes to show that this is, this is R and D that's happening. And, you know, not just with one company like, oh, let's see what kind of cool, you know, interesting, weird things that we can do to push the, push the envelope.

Jason Howell (00:42:44):
They're all working in a similar direction here, which means, you know, the very large laptop that folds and it's a single screen. Like we're probably gonna see that at some point. That would be my guess. I mean, I don't know that for certain, but if they're all kind of working in that direction, the rollable, you know, we, we saw the kind of scroll, I think now we've, we've talked on this show about three different manufacturers that are testing concepts there, so someone's gonna bring that to market. Yeah. So yeah, these things will end up going from a curiosity and, you know, a, a pushing the boundary sort of device into, Hey, we've got a product and you can actually buy it now. And it'll be cur, I'll be curious to see which one kind of wins out. If, if one does, you know,

Ron Richards (00:43:27):
I love this stuff, I love this stuff so much. And I love that Samsung is not the only people doing it. <Laugh> 

Jason Howell (00:43:33):
Yeah, there's

Huyen Tue Dao (00:43:33):
The the oppo, like I, I guess, and I think it's kind of, I, I love the idea that they're playing with what will work for people. So, you know, like, I, I think the Galax, the, the fold S is very fascinating just because of that kind of really interesting idea of like, it's the same screen, but like kind of the different form factors, but then, yeah, the G seems very practical. Like if you're, if you're kind of someone who is commuting a lot or telecommuting a lot, and you need your large screen, but you worry about a very, what is likely a very expensive device getting damaged, then you can kind of, kind of prioritize protection and, you know, for, and, and like, I'm kind of curious to see whether, honestly, it'll just be like RO rollable rollable foldables roll foldable roll foldables

Ron Richards (00:44:10):
Ruff. Rollable rollable rolling on the folds ruffles holes,

Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:17):
Ruff bulls don't have ridges or don't have creases <laugh>

Ron Richards (00:44:19):
There we go. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (00:44:22):
Ruffs don't have uses.

Ron Richards (00:44:23):
Wow. There you go. When you're getting right to like, just giving marketing tips. Yes. You do this all the time. And so you're fitting right in. This is excellent. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:44:31):
That's be interesting if, if maybe that is what the thing is, because I, I think I've talked a couple other deaf friends that have the fold and yeah. The crease, I, I guess your Mo might vary in whether you start to like your brain starts to kind of paint over it and whether that's what people care about. So, but yeah, just seeing all these different, like varieties and flavors and seeing what wins out, I think this is, you know, where we're getting to we've we've got like over the hump of, okay. Foldables can be a thing. People will buy them. Yeah. Yep. Now it's like, okay, what specifically are, are people gonna buy in the future or is it gonna be like phones today where we have like three or four different ones? And whether you are enterprise user, a tele commuter, whether you're just someone at home, like maybe you'll have just your pick of how you wanna fold it.

Jason Howell (00:45:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. It's a, it's a cool direction for everything to go. And it's gonna keep gonna keep Ron happy. I think. Sounds like it's gonna keep you happy too, when <laugh>, ah, so cool.

Ron Richards (00:45:21):
I mean, so, so cool. But there's more right. There's not, it's not just that, right. We have some something else, right. With the TCS. Well, the op

Jason Howell (00:45:30):
Well, no, I, I, I just put that in that, that was just more along my, my kind of point that I made, you know, that they're all working that direction. That that's actually oldish oldish news. That was from December. Yeah. That TCL was showing off their own kind of concepts as well. But yeah, they're all kind of in that direction. Cool

Ron Richards (00:45:47):
Stuff. I love the stuff, the crazier, the better, I want crazy phones. But in anyway so it's, it's, I, I, onto our next story we've seen in software, like an independent developer or like scrappy folks come up with an idea and we've seen like, Google go, oh, that's cool. We're gonna put that in the next version of, of Android. Right. We've seen that happen all the time. Right. we don't often see it in hardware though, but it seems to happening. You might remember last year. I, I, I purchased off Indigogo and, and, and did my review of the AA wireless, which is a wireless adapter for Android auto for car, you know, for cars. So you don't need to have your phone plugged in in order to ACC activate Android auto. Well, Motorola's getting in on the game.

Ron Richards (00:46:33):
They actually have developed their own hardware to SI solve wireless connectivity for Android auto. It's called the Motorola ma one, and it sells for $90. And it's basically like a black puck design that actually looks a lot like a Chromecast dongle. But it plugs in and gives you wireless connectivity for your phone in your car. And it's available January to 28th. I did not predict Motorola coming up with one of these little devices cause it really feels like a hobbyist kind of niche kind of thing, but maybe Motorola sees it. Maybe not. They see the success, they see the success that AA wireless and some of there, it feels like there were all of a sudden there was a bunch of these on the market in the marketplace, like there was two or three options that came out after a wireless. And now Motorola is out there for 90 bucks and probably they have the supply chain and the distribution. Like you could see this being sold in best buy.

Jason Howell (00:47:21):
So yeah, totally. I mean, the design on this, you know, is, is way different looking than the AA wireless, which kinda well I'm, I'm trying to pull up the AA wireless. I know I saw like a, yeah, it's the AA wireless is a little square, kind of has a little bit of a more generic look. The Motorola one definitely has more stylized kind of like sleek, compact sort of design to it. You are the one the, that has this has the AA wireless in your car and you use it bur Ron, <laugh> sorry. I almost called you Burke. Maybe Burke has it too. I don't know. But Ron, would you, I don't consider no, he doesn't. There we go. Would you consider getting Motorolas like, is there any reason that you would, you would consider getting Motorolas over? A wireless anything that Motorola could include that AA wireless doesn't do. You'd be like, you know what? That makes it worth it.

Ron Richards (00:48:17):
No, cuz it just wor I mean like what is it offering other than just the wireless connection? Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:48:22):
Well, I mean, if one thing it could could do is, is multi-user I know that multi-user was a challenge on a, a wire and I don't, I don't even know that, you know, this, they haven't mentioned anything in Motorolas marketing that this solves that. But,

Ron Richards (00:48:37):
But, but I also don't, but that's not a problem for me. I mean, yeah. It's not a, a, you maybe the, the industrial design of Motorolas is a little nicer, but like a wireless cost me 85 bucks mm-hmm <affirmative> and Motorola, like wise, Motorola is $5 more, right. <Laugh> like, I don't know, like functionality wise, it functionality wise. It is a very simple device. Yeah. Plug it in, make a wireless connection, maybe the app and like the way it all works could be a little more smooth. But like once I got a wireless working, I haven't had a problem with it since I don't see touch it. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:49:14):
Interesting. That's just me. Motorola sees the market there apparently.

Ron Richards (00:49:18):
Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, cause there's a bunch of people dunno a wireless exist.

Jason Howell (00:49:22):
Right. Well, that's true. Right. You really gotta know a lot of people are seeing this for the first time going, oh, I've wanted to do that. I had, this is great. We couldn't finally do that. It's like, well, you could, it's just, it was a, it was an Indigogo it wasn't a Motorola product.

Ron Richards (00:49:40):
Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:49:42):
And then finally, well, we kind of talked about this a little bit last week, but I realized, you know, thanks to an email. We didn't really talk much about the phone itself and the spec and everything, but we talked a little bit about OnePlus 10 pro about, you know, they were, they were dribbling out some, they were doing kind of like a, a drip tease of the new phone as OnePlus does with their marketing. Well, it's official now. We have all the information and they've made the announcement 6.7 inch, oh, lead 120 refreshed. And of course that's a dynamic refresh. So it depends on the content on the screen where that lands, it's got a snap and eight gen one, that's the most UpToDate current snap processor. This could be one of the first phones with that processor. I'm not entirely certain on that, but I think we're kind of at that stage where this is probably, if it's not the first, it's definitely one of the first also snap and X 65 modem inside this supports up to 10 gigabits per second.

Jason Howell (00:50:40):
Speeds. If you're lucky to find, you know mobile internet that offers speeds of <laugh> of, you know, that fast similar to last year's one plus nine pro it has a 12 gig LP DDR five Ram. It has 256 gigs of UFS. 3.1 storage also happens to have last year's rear camera set up, which is the hassle blood kind of triple camera set up. I think it's the triple camera set up anyways at the front camera is upgraded. So it was 16 megapixels. Now it's a 32 megapixel selfie camera. But they also added in some and you can see there kind of a really cool, kind of like different style of design, kind of like the camera bump is like bleeding over the edge and looking out, and we've seen Samsung do this a little bit with their phones recently.

Jason Howell (00:51:29):
But they've, they've added in some interesting, as far as the cameras are concerned, some new software features the camera can shoot in 12 bit raw plus. So if you, you know, wanna get that super like pristine photo capability, at least as pristine as the cameras will allow you to that's one way to do it also has a new movie mode, which basically brings pro controls into video like ISO shutter, white balance. You can adjust all these on the fly while you're recording, which is nice. 5,000 million, a hour battery, 80 Watts, wired charging, 80 Watts is gonna charge your device from zero to full in 32 minutes. So basically a half an hour, and you're good to go. And like we said, last week, releasing first in China on the 13th. So that's this Thursday in a couple of days, they didn't name a price.

Jason Howell (00:52:23):
So we don't have a price on this, but I'm guessing, you know, this is, this is their pro series. It's probably gonna be similar to, to everything before, which I wanna say off the top of my head is somewhere in the 800 to $900 price range. That's what like total guess. But they are re they are releasing first in China and they say a global release will happen later in the year. So, you know, I, I, I have to imagine this is supply chain stuff and leasing in China allows them to kind of have their release, be close to where the supply actually is. You know, that's, again, that's just a guess, but one plus 10 pro, if you like one plus there's your big upgrade coming soon or in a couple of days if you're in China, but definitely gonna have to wait if you're not. So, so interest excited, man. How do you guys feel <laugh> interest, interest, interest <laugh> yeah. From interest. Yeah. Am interest

Huyen Tue Dao (00:53:26):
Think, oh, I I'm interested. I, I like, so I've kind of been watching a lot of like I guess, so kind of in like me trying to attempt to be like a con creator and like do YouTube stuff, I kind of watched a lot of like, you know, oh, here's your recommended gear and something that is kind of just really common and obvious right now is like, Hey, your phone can your camera. And so something like the 1, 1 10 pro, which has like the nice hassle bad name, which is kind of like, you know, a nice, you know, fun, well known name and like kind of like photography and videography, and also being able to do 10 bit raw. I, I like this a lot. Was it? I feel like it was like, was it like show me or someone else last year? And, and obviously like apple and, and the iPhones have kind of touted the site idea of you can film movies on your phone now.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:07):
And I think this aligns very well with that, especially, you know, especially now when everything is, is kind of like ad hoc, like ad hoc, a home TikTok, YouTube, all the things. I, I really like this. I really like this a lot. It, it feels, it feels cool. And I there's so much that you can do with those kind of specs. I'm kind how, like how much storage you have, because that 10 bit bra that, that feels like you're gonna just like, you're just gotta fill up that phone real fast. Maybe you, it share, you need that nearby share. There

Jason Howell (00:54:36):
You go. Tieing it. Back it back around.

Huyen Tue Dao (00:54:39):
It might just like half an hour to transfer maybe to your network depending. But I, I, I don't know. I really like it, it feels, I, I like that. I, I like that. I might pick one up. I, I think it looks cool. And I like the idea that it could be just really a very like video. I don't think it that's what they're intending, but I like that idea. I, when you said 10 bit, I'm like, Ooh, 10 bit. Really?

Jason Howell (00:55:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So, and your current phone, I'm trying to remember, is it the Z fold three? Is that, is that your phone right now?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:55:08):
That's my work phone. I have a six, six, these six, these six pros. Wait, the pixel six pro as my, my, my personal daily driver. Okay. So

Jason Howell (00:55:18):
Have you had a OnePlus phone as your, as your daily driver in the past?

Huyen Tue Dao (00:55:23):
I have not. My husband has so sorry. Yeah. My husband is like an, and like I saw, we used to use his device. I used to abduct his device for testing back in the day kind of rounded, like the one, the first one plus and the one plus two time, the second one plus time. And I think we always liked the phone. I think we really had really we're very positive on the company. I just haven't bought one in a while cuz I feel like especially being an Android to have, I tend to, because all I hear about is like Google stuff all the time. I tend to get very fixated on pixels. Yeah, yeah. And, and a secondary Samsung because you know, again, the second kind of like the, the largest like OEM for Android, but you know, one plus has always been super interesting and I think a really good alternative to, you know, the other big two to three OEMs, so excited.

Jason Howell (00:56:06):
Yeah, indeed. I was pulling up the OnePlus two, remembering the design you know, just, I, I had forgotten what it, what it looked like. I had the OnePlus one somewhere. I think it's actually at work in my, in my own kind of hall of fame display in my office. Which I, I think the one plus one was a pretty classic phone. Yeah, they they've put out some really great hardware and you know, I, I think last week we were kind of holding them to, I don't know that we were holding them to task. We were just reflecting on the fact that like the, the kind of the novelty around OnePlus has kind of faded a little bit. And as they've, as they've moved more into mainstream into the mainstream market, some of what some of the magic that OnePlus has had has, has kind of faded a little bit, but that doesn't mean they're not producing good phones. I thought the OnePlus nine pro was actually a pretty solid phone and I'm sure the OnePlus 10 pro will be two. It's just not as much of an enthusiast brand as it used to be. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but you know, that's kind of by design, I think that's kind of what they're going for. Right. They really, they, I I'm sure the folks at OnePlus would love for that company to be another Samsung to be, have to have that reach. Yeah. What man phone manufacturer wouldn't want that, that means success. Right. You know?

Ron Richards (00:57:23):
Right. And it boils down to shareholder or investor happiness. Right. Which is mm-hmm <affirmative>, which is reaching as many users and customers as possible. Right. Like that is the goal like, like, like this, no, I mean, don't get me wrong. You might see some Zel, not zealot, but some sort of, you know, like inspired tech Ary. Who's like, we're making it for the right reasons and for design and it makes something elegant. It's not for everyone. But at the end of the day, it comes down to who's writing the checks and you gotta make them happy and you make them happy with profits. Right. And that means sales. So no one can get around that, especially in the hardware game at all. So.

Jason Howell (00:58:00):
True. Very fair. That's super true.

Ron Richards (00:58:03):
Super true. I mean it's, and that's the harsh truth of technology fueled by capitalism. Unfortunately, <laugh> very much, I can't believe, I can't believe I'm so anti capitalism as I'm getting older, it's like, it's so crazy. But, but it really, it real, I mean, and we're gonna talk about it in the next, in the next block, but it really stifles innovation and it becomes you know, it, it becomes consumer hostile, so

Jason Howell (00:58:26):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well then that's, that's quite a tease ahead up next. We're gonna check out some apps and we are gonna talk about one example of what Ron is setting up. That's next in apps.

Speaker 6 (00:58:38):
Thanks for listening to TWI podcasts. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners who have services and products that will benefit at our audience. Do you want customized host red ads that stand out then the TWI network is the perfect place for your next advertising campaign. TWI ads are original specialized in all shows include video, which means we can show off products, websites, and customized videos visit twi.tv/advertise and launch a tailored campaign today. That's twi.tv/advertise.

Ron Richards (00:59:14):
So I gotta tell you if, if I see this GD wall street journal article about teens dreading the green text bubble, one more time. If another person sends it to me or it came up in my feed nonstop, or honestly like there's a, you know, tantamount of world war II going on in the WhatsApp chat with my in-laws where I'm one of, of two Android users is myself. And then my wife's aunt also has an Android phone and everyone else is on iOS. And I moved everybody to WhatsApp so we can all be on the same thing. And my wife's cousin has been railing since seeing this article and it just it's it's fascinating, but it drives me crazy. But basically, you know, the net net of it is the wall wall street journal did this really, really good piece diving into the, the psychology that is driving teens to want iPhones because they don't want to be ostracized as the green text bubble in a group chat.

Ron Richards (01:00:14):
And you know, and while I, you know, I, I don't have teenagers yet. I have three year olds, so I'm not there yet. I've heard, and Jason, I dunno if you've heard at this with your oldest as of yet, or if she's, if she's, you know, still too young. I hope so, but I've heard from my sister who has, you know teenage girls that like the chat politics on their phones is like real. And like, if you're not on iOS, you're, you're not cool. And like all this nonsense. And what's great about, what's interesting about the wall street journal article is what I found was that they dove into some of the stuff that came out once again from the epic games lawsuit with apple in discovery it came out that several emails I'm gonna read these for, you know, kind of, you know, verbatim.

Ron Richards (01:01:00):
So we have to say, but Craig fedi, Apple's chief software executive in 2013 wrote in absence of a strategy to become the primary messaging service for the bulk of cell phone users. I'm concerned. The iMessage on Android was simply served to remove an obstacle to iPhone families, giving their kids Android phones. And then three years later in 2016, Phil HIL, Phil HIL, who is the marketing chief of apple at the time emailed Tim cook. And, and another email said moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us. And another app, former apple executive said an email iMessage amounts to serious lock in. So apple knows well what they're doing here and what the, what the, the motivation is here. And the, and the, the sad sick thing is that it worked and it's working and it's just so disturbing.

Ron Richards (01:01:52):
And yeah, if for a video Watchers, you can see the, the graph that's in there in terms of the, the skew and ages between apple phones basically, you know, skyrocketing, you know, younger 18 to 24 and probably even even younger than 18 now which is also ridiculous considering how much they cost. And you know, that adoption rate is just ridiculous. And a lot of it is driven by, you know, there's a whole section of the wall street journal article. That's the, the subhead is never date a green text, right. Which is just like U unbelievable. And what I thought was interesting coming out of it coming outta that article, of course, you know, Hiroshi Lockheimer friend of the show chimed in and, and had a series of tweets and, and kind of talked about it and being made the, the point blank statement, which I fully support, which I applaud Hiroshi here.

Ron Richards (01:02:43):
He says, we're not asking apple to make iMessage available on Android. We're asking apple to support the industry standard for modern messaging RCS in iMessage, just as he support the older SMS MMS standards. And he says, why is that important, cuz phone number based message is the fallback that we all know will work. And he's absolutely right. And there's a long thread that he did on January 10th that I encourage everybody to go read a on Twitter that he wrote about it, but here apple in to support their sales and their profits to benefit their shareholders have created something that, that drive lock in and then has created a segregation of level that is negatively affecting our children period. Like that's, what's hap like that we are training our children to ostracize someone who is different than them.

Jason Howell (01:03:32):
Yeah, that's true. That's a really good point. I, you know, I, I do have young kids but they are not, they are not of, they're not encountering this yet. Yeah. I mean, you know, neither of them have phones, right? Like I have one daughter who's almost nine and one daughter, who's almost 12. Neither of them have phones. Our plan, our plan has been that they don't really get phones until they're in like the ninth grade and they're fine with it and we're fine with it. And, but I don't know, I don't know what this turns out to be, cuz I think more and more their friends are starting to get phones. You know, my daughters call their tablets iPads, but they're not iPads, they're Android tablets, but like they don't know the difference. They don't, they don't really care about the difference they do the thing, you know, they just think of iPad as like a tablet.

Jason Howell (01:04:19):
So maybe this will crop up some point, but I think there was a max Reinbeck also a friend of the show did a video that Hiroshi kinda linked to in one of his, in, in one of his you know, tweets in the tweet storm where he basically points out like this is a, I mean, this is basically, this is apple making a decision to draw the line, be, you know, and, and not allow for a new standard to become ubiquitous. Essentially it it's essentially apple saying we are going to make the quality of life for not just Android users, but also iOS users lower because of that lock in perspective, right. Imessage is a differentiator or at least it was, but now we have RCS, which RCS mimics, you know, slash, you know, basically does most of what iMessage does as well. It just happens to be a replacement for SMS or an upgrade to SMS. And for everyone else, that's what it is except for apple. And the re the reason is because, you know, Apple's not gonna shareholder value shareholder value. Right. Like they have that lock in and that that's just crummy. Yeah. It's, it's, it's super unfortunate.

Ron Richards (01:05:42):
Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:05:45):
I don't know. I don't know.

Ron Richards (01:05:46):
It's just, it's, it, it, I mean, I could rant and I mean, like I could rant about it. I mean, I know we've spent years ranting about RCS and ranting about messaging and all this sort of stuff, but like this, like reading this wall street journal article and, and seeing this and seeing it in play in my own family and friends and stuff like that, you know, like I've got social friends who, who, who be like green bubble, you know, like that sort of thing. And it's just like it, I, I find it completely sickening, completely sickening. So yeah. It's just this, yeah.

Jason Howell (01:06:14):
Stupid out. It's the system, the system, you know, is designed in such a way that yeah. Yeah. It's easy to interpret that and, and yeah. But yeah, that's just, I think that's, that's by design and yeah. Unfortunately I don't know. I like at a, at a certain point is apple compelled to support a standard, right. This, I don't know. I don't know if at a certain point, if everybody else is, is not using SMS, but is using RCS because it is the next SMS, but except apple is, you know, is not supporting it like our, but this, this is an probably

Ron Richards (01:06:53):
To do that. This, this is an Apple's DNA though. Any of us, all of us have read and watched and done and absorbed everything we can about the history of technology. Right. And what was the, the origin of apple, thanks to Steve jobs was a closed architecture, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> at the time of, at the time of, of interoperability and standards and like, you know, slot design card, slot designs and things like that, that would work across different things. He said, no, it's only gonna work for us that, you know, may you know, I can't tell you the years I spent, I spent my teen years working in a computer repair store and like the expense that was spent on the stupid tool to actually open a Mac, those original rectangle max, you couldn't open it with a regular screwdriver. You had to spend hundreds of dollars to get this, the tool to do it.

Ron Richards (01:07:40):
Right. Like the, the limiting factor that apple went to at that point in time. And then even now, not even RCS, but it's going on with Thunderbolt and USBC mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. Right. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same. I I'm I'm, I'm like, I can't tell you the number of times, I've tried to stop myself from cursing on the show right now, but it's the same crap. It's the same playbook. And you would, that you would think that given so much of Apple's success when Steve jobs return was on the back of universal standards, like USB, like MP3, like, you know what I mean? Like all this stuff, like everything that apple is is, is successful for now was built on the shoulders of a shared, you know, kind of a standard that went across. And then they brought the iPhone and closed the app store and did this iMessage crap and like created this, this thing again.

Ron Richards (01:08:31):
And they've done a very good job for a marketing standpoint by making something super tangible and super wanted or lusted after. Right. I mean, it's genius as some, as someone who works at marketing and, and, and has business experience, like, I give them tons of respect for the campaigns and all that sort of stuff that they've done, but they've all now for the past 15 years, brainwashed of people and have created what is tantamount to society, like encouraging discrimination in society, which I, we, which we know for a fact is not along Steve jobs deals and like, or all the, like all the stuff, you know, everyone should have a computer education, all this sort of stuff. And yet you create a world where literally people are ostracizing because of the color of their texts. Right. I feel like it's a star Trek episode.

Ron Richards (01:09:20):
Like it's the, it's the black and white star Trek episode all over again. It's like, it's crazy. A black mirror episode. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Just crazy of black fact and the fact, and the fact that the fact that, so, and I'm sorry, I'm ranting here, but the fact that so many, any people in, in, in our society, amongst our friends, amongst our family, whatever, laugh it off and go along with it is even more sickening. Like not seeing that, like, that's what that's, what's really disappointing. Like I straight up called my cousin a bully. I'm like, I can't believe you're bullying your aunt into having to change her phone because you don't like her chat, bubble color, like it's unbeliev. Right. Right. I dunno. It's, it's really dangerous.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:00):
I I've actually personally and like, I, you know, I, I totally agree with everything you said wrong. And I mean, like, and if you just, if you all want like a data point, I personally have, like, it's not even just teams. It's even just like grown people. I've like, I, my husband and I were literally sitting at a restaurant and overheard one person, like more or less bullying their like lunch mate over the fact that they had an Android phone and they had an iOS. And of course, like there wasn't a discussion. It was just like he was bullying her. Like I, and there was no discussion about pluses unconscious. Like, no, it sucks. That was literally what he said. And even me as an Android dev, I wouldn't say I've gotten bullied, but I've definitely had people tell to my face, oh, well, Android sucks or something, or iOS is better, like to my face knowing that's what I do for a living.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:10:42):
Or even just like, when I wasn't even part of the conversation, I'd be like at classes. And, you know, sometimes we pull out our phones to like, you know, record people and things like that. I, I would have people just like, oh, I, I, oh, I'm an Android, Deb. This is like, what I do, like kind of explaining, oh, you know what? I almost feel like I have to apologize for having the Android phone. Like, like, and that's something I, I shouldn't have to do, but it is definitely a feeling where I'm the one person in Android phone and, and like, yeah, I've, I've, I felt pressure to say, oh, it's because I'm an Android, Deb. I'm sorry. Which is absolutely BS <laugh>. But I mean, the social pressure is real and it's there. I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think we're making anything up. I don't think we're you know overblowing anything it's, it's real. And I think, yeah, I, I, yeah. Anyway, preach.

Ron Richards (01:11:27):
Yeah. I mean, and it's, it's, it really is sad because it like reminds me of the crap I get, I have a debit card with the, with the Mets logo on it. Cause I'm a Mets fan. And like here on long island, I'll take it out at the supermarket and someone behind me like, oh no, Wonder's taken so long. It's a Mets fan. You know, like, and it's the, the tribalism and the, the, the inherent you know, like pitting us against each other for things we believe in or ways we look or things like that within our, within human nature, that scares the crap outta me, cuz this is like, I, I know. And I know that it's, it's, it's hyperbolic, but it's tantamount to racism, you know, like that that's, this is now I understand how racist exists in the world because they think so justified in their belief that their color is right. And it just, it, it makes me wanna vomit it just right. Yeah.

Jason Howell (01:12:19):
So, and, and actually has, yeah. Real, real world consequences, you know, outside of just, it hurt my feelings, you know? Yeah, yeah. For

Ron Richards (01:12:26):
Sure. Yeah. So

Jason Howell (01:12:27):
Yeah. Preach Ron good stuff. That is what we had. Cause really we didn't need anything else. I think that, that, that was well done, sir. I need,

Ron Richards (01:12:39):
I need a nap now. <Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:12:41):
You can nap in a second coming up next. We're gonna check out some email. That's up next, triple a twit TV, 3, 4, 7, show a eight, a Ron, you don't get to nap yet. Cuz you got the first email

Ron Richards (01:12:56):
<Laugh> hopefully this, this will, this will give me some more faith in humanity. So Chris Christopher writes in and says, I recently got a quest two. And while listening to your recent conversation about the hall of fame, I realized it'll be awesome. If some developer made the Android hall of fame into a VR experience, having as sort of devices that can be held and looked at in three D or put on literal pedestals would make me actually get the feel for the devices I haven't seen in person. Luckily I have a few good and bad phones, including the H E C one M seven with a purple damage camera, the nexus six P with a bad battery problem. The pixel two XL and a 2015 shield TV. And my wife had the nexus five X that died of a bad USB port and a Modo X four that died of a boot loop. I'm wondering if anyone has had a VR phone museum idea also, do you know of any good APKs that would side load? Well on the quest <laugh> so, so if I've had little success with standard Android apps, I like to just slid that one right in, well, Christopher, I love, I love your idea of a virtual a virtual Android hall of fame. That would be awesome.

Jason Howell (01:13:54):
That would be so cool. I'd love that

Ron Richards (01:13:56):
Idea. It'd be very cool. Cause then you can compare the sizes, look at 'em stuff like that. I thought once I was reading this, I thought you were gonna suggest cardboard get put into the Android hall of fame because that probably to the state was like the best VR, you know, like low cost VR experience at Android. And I would, I would, I would PO it that cardboard does deserve it at least an exhibit about that experiment. But this is so cool. So if someone's a VR developer out there and wants to make it get in touch, we'll love to work with you to do it. I don't have a quest. I, I haven't played VR that much, so I don't know of any good APKs that side load onto it.

Jason Howell (01:14:32):
But I do have a quest. I have not loaded any APKs on my, on my quest. I just, I don't even think to do that with that headset kinda can't be honest. They they sort of locked down the OS, especially. Oh, did they with the more updates? I mean, there are things, but I remember hearing about it, but I never tried it. It's not, it's not right yet. Yeah. Huh. I, I, I mean, I kind of, I don't know how I personally would need an, a Android app in, in VR space. Like just, it's not an application that, or, you know, this is not something that really makes a whole lot of sense to my use case, which is not to say that there isn't, I just haven't thought, wait

Ron Richards (01:15:10):
A minute, what is this? And I know not, I just, I just literally just Googled side load, whatever, but there's side quest is an Android app that can side load VR games. Yeah,

Jason Howell (01:15:20):
Yeah, yeah. There, there are ways to, yeah, there are ways to, to side load yeah. Yes. Side quest does exactly that. My, maybe I misunderstanding what he was saying when he said APKs is he talking about bringing Android apps into VR? Got it. And that, I don't know, but side quests is a way it's, it's like an alternative those of 2d apps, like when you're not. Yeah, yeah. Right. But yes, side quest exists. I've actually not tried that out. I keep meaning to do it because there's some really cool development happening there where they're integrated making apps that are integrating with a hand tracking. And you don't have to side load, do some really cool stuff. You don't have to side load it anymore. You just kinda had to install it separately. And now it's actually it's a separate all integrated it's store, but you can actually get to the apps without having to do a lot of hoopla like you did previously. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So I need to check that out and you know what, this is all relevant because the Oculus quest is running on Android. So just saying, it's not like we've went off on a, on too much of a tangent anyway. <Laugh> do you have a, do you, have you checked out the VR when like, are, are you at all in, on that game at all?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:16:31):
Yeah, I, I used to really like, and I, I, yes, I love the, a cardboard. I, I kind of love any kind of low tech tech, low, low, like low resource, like innovative tech that kind of brings things to more people like VR. I, I get motion sick, real bad, real bad. Yeah. Real bad. So understand. I, I tend to stay away from it. I love it. I, I love it as a technology. I love like the, kind of like the promise of VR, especially for things like say education especially in kind of these kind of times where it's kind of hard to go out and see like people and real things. So I'm always like positive on it, but personally I'm not also, I've had some very embarrassing experiences with keep talking and no one explodes with a VR headset. I, it was amazing. I made people laugh unintentionally, but you know, so I I'm all for it. And I, I, yeah, definitely. I'm still on the cardboard. I think that's about my level of like immersion that my body can handle.

Jason Howell (01:17:21):
Yeah. but yeah, I understand. I understand it can get a little queasy to me sometimes too, but I just think it's all so cool. I I've kind of forced my way through it. Get beyond it. The more I've done it, the easier it gets for, for me to stomach in certain ways. So it's taken some time anyways. Thank you for writing in Christopher. We also have an email from Nick who says I had my pixel six on the wireless stand and was on a conference call with a colleague. I suddenly heard my own ring. Firstly, I thought it was someone phoning me as I had not initiated a call, but then the call was answered and a voicemail started to talk for some reason. My phone had called some restaurant in Queens, New York, odd as I'm actually in London, UK having checked my assistant log.

Jason Howell (01:18:05):
I can see that it somehow recognized the phrase call with and how interpreted this to then call a restaurant in the us. <Laugh> surely it should not do that. I did not even mention the restaurant to call. So how did it randomly call this restaurant as you can see from my assistant log and he included a screenshot there seems to be a lot of attempts at understanding my conversation. I think there is a feature on the phone that says assistant is on when, on the stand and the phone is locked. So I need to look at the setting and stop this from happening. Any thoughts on the best setup here for Google assistant to stop this happening? When on the pixel stand, you know, I could have swore that there was a way to deactivate assistant when it's docked on the pixel stand. I could not find that method.

Jason Howell (01:18:49):
I thought there was an feature. I searched it online. I searched it in my settings. Last, I came up empty. I even went as far as to disable assistant on lock screen that setting, cuz I was like, well, when I dock it, it's on a lock screen. It gives me that little assistant bubble down at the bottom telling me that it's like listening. Maybe if I disable assistant on lock screen, it won't do that. But sure enough, once I docked it, it still did it. So apparently not unless you know, somebody out there actually knows. And if you do AAA twit TV, let us know. But I don't know. I feel like you should be able to do that because at least someone out there is gonna want to never use assistant and that would keep them from buying the pixel stand.

Jason Howell (01:19:33):
But maybe, maybe so maybe, maybe it's just like, if you're getting the pixel stand, you're all in on assistant, we don't care. And that seems to be the case right now. So I don't know that I have a really good solution for you, Nick. Unfortunately I tried came up empty. And I don't think that this necessarily has, has to do with the calling 9 1, 1 thing that they're probably almost certainly completely unrelated, but I have definitely. And I'm sure you two have as well. I've seen some really interesting, you know, commands being registered through assistant when I had absolutely nothing of the sort and you know, coming outta my mouth, like I never said call with, but it happened anyways and it interpreted something totally randomly and something weird happened, happens with assistant. I'm sure you guys have experienced that. Yeah. I'm not alone. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's like just a fact of assistant. So unfortunately, well there you go, Nick. I hope that's helpful in some way. I mean, it's not helpful, but it's helpful to at least know that it's not possible. That's my guess.

Jason Howell (01:20:42):
All right. And in, in honor of your first time episode, when you get the honors of this next block.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:20:53):
Oh gosh, I got the email the week. That's exciting. All right. <Laugh> and I, I kind of feel like I kind of feel like a <laugh> a little bit of method acting here I suppose, but okay. Let's let's, let's, let's jump into it. Let's jump into the email of the week. Let's see here. All right. All right. All right. 35 years system programmer and game developer. I believe in supporting the software I use, I am sick for flipping subscriptions, charge what you want for the software period. Then charge for an update. If you need to and allow me the user to decide if it's worth it, or I want to move along to another software package. Subscriptions are annoying. Subscriptions are tedious to keep up with, and it's not just a matter of just one cup of coffee or a movie when you have 10 plus apps and they're all wanting from $4 to $10 a month subscription, then Adobe has subscription subscriptions.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:21:50):
And then Microsoft has the subscriptions stop with the subscriptions. Ron doesn't even talk about paying for more than a year, every month for software that never gets updates or gets pathetic updates or someone just disappeared without notice because the OS has passed it up. And in fact, the has been abandoned for a long time. The guy has just been taking your money, just stop with the support, your dev, just set a price for the software and charge that if your software costs too much to support after you sold it, Ron, then you aren't charging enough. And if it won't sell for what you have to charge, then maybe you need to develop something else. Brad,

Jason Howell (01:22:29):
Thank you. Well, why am I getting singled out here in the email of the week? <Laugh>

Huyen Tue Dao (01:22:36):
Congratulations.

Jason Howell (01:22:40):
It's all about you, Ron. It's about you. Yeah. This, this has to do with the conversation that we had last week and I'm trying, you know, I I'm sure you had some, some arguments about it that apparently Brett has, has latched onto, but the point that Brett is making is there's too many dang subscriptions. I, I think, I think one point that I pull outta here that I think is, is definitely worth, worth, considering worth discussing is the idea that if an app is worth something, charge what it's worth, don't put it on, on a recurring subscription basis as a, like, as a developer, I guess. How, how does that sit with you? Because I know there are reasons that that a subscription makes sense, right? There's costs recurring costs that have to be covered. But there are also probably developers. I'm sure there are developers that have a subscription when there aren't those recurring costs. So I, what do you think about that one?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:23:38):
I mean, this, I have many feelings about this, so I, I do understand Brett. I, I do understand like your, the first duration with subscriptions subscriptions can be consumer unfriendly. They can be overpriced and yes, there are some devs that are not so great and they give slow missing updates, or just leave you with bugs and still charge you. I, I, I'm very sympathetic to all that. The question of how much someone's time is worth is a complicated one. And it, it, it, it's what we're talking about, basically. How much do you think someone's time is worth and right. I, it, it, it is. So, you know, like I, where do I start with this? Yeah. It's the question of how much is your time worth? And I think for a large company, that might be an easier question to answer. That might be an easier question to be able to find easier answers for, if you're talking for smaller shops, if you're talking to an individual person, how do you ask them what their time is worth?

Huyen Tue Dao (01:24:30):
Do you say, okay, I work 50, you know, I, I maybe I'll chart like say I think a good rate's $50 an hour. How many hours did I spend on this? And, you know, that's, that's kind of like a nice mechanical mathematical way of doing it, but there so many things that I think, especially when you start out in dev that you don't realize you need that costs will incur that things happen and you are you're. And, and like, and like another thing is like, it it's hard. So I, I, if you, if I made your nap today, I, I, and I took me say, let's say it took me six months to do it. And I, I guess, okay, so maybe I make something like, I don't know 

Jason Howell (01:25:15):
Flashlight app, no, I'm just flashlight app. There you go. Flashlight app, QR code reader, QR code reader, QR code reader. There we go.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:25:22):
And, and it takes me like, you know, and it takes me say a couple months to do it right. Let's do QR code reader. Cuz I feel like Q code reader, it takes me like two months to get it right. And I could try to like add up the number of hours that I spent working on it and divide by some number. That's not a guarantee that you're gonna get that number of people. Like for one thing, you know, we're in 10, 12, however many years of mobile space, there are a million apps that do probably like it used to be fun to as an app developer, think of what your million dollar app idea is in 2022, we're in now, someone's probably already thought of it.

Jason Howell (01:25:59):
And so, and a lot of someones have, have already thought

Huyen Tue Dao (01:26:02):
And a lot of someones have thought about it. And a lot of someones are either just putting out apps for free because they're just trying to exercise skills or maybe promote something else. They maybe have ads as, as a way of like drawing money and you know, there's a lot of different like kind of strategies around apps. Do you just roll an app every three minutes regardless of whether the are wants that or not, which I really dislike or do you like offer in that sense of pre a, a premium experience where they can pay to get rid of ads or do you just not have ads and have a subscription? And when you are putting your, when you're putting an app out there to make money to make, to monetize you're competing. So not just with other apps, their quality, their particular implementation or perspective on what you're doing.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:26:47):
You're also competing on how other people monetize. And so, yes, I feel like maybe I spent two months on my QR code app and maybe like for what I feel I put into it. And if I expect say, if I hope, if I hope like a thousand people download my app app, do I, what, what do I charge to make up for? Like the two months of my time, do I charge them $2 and make 2000 bucks? Do I charge them like maybe $10,000 and get whatever the math on that is and kinda like make, you know, more of a living on that. I'm sorry, the math doesn't add up. So it, it, it's not just, it, it it's, it's a very hard equation. There's no winning there. Yeah. Like the problem with charging once and then saying, you know, charging more for updates later is manyfold.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:27:31):
So on the Google play store, for example you can, you can charge or you can make your app free. If you decide to change at any point, you cannot, you can't change your free app to a paid app later. It basically becomes a new app. And that becomes a problem of, well, it's a different app. So your metrics are gonna be different. Your marketing might be different, you know, like all these kind of like things that are attached to that old app and become invalidated. And once you charge for an app, you can certainly raise the price, but the people that have already paid it paid for that app have paid for it. So there's no getting extra money from people, app updates are free. And then, yeah, there's, there's gonna be costs. So not even just like say you're the time that you spend on it.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:10):
So I, I actually have several friends who have full-time job, but also have side side gigs. And, you know, they all, all of them that have subs, subs, use subscription to offer a way to compensate them for their work. Kind of as an alternative to ads, you know, kind of side, well, there's more than just kind of writing. So like, yeah, there's a time that you spend writing an app, but if you are an app that needs like storage, like AWS, that you, you need some kind of like server support, like maybe, you know, you do some kind of clouds thinking, maybe you kind of tap some other API that's, that's gonna cost something and that's a recurring cost and that's a very common recurring cost, you know, like a flashlight app or a, I always think of fart apps. Cause I feel like it was like the first apps I heard about.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:28:51):
Yeah. I forgot about far apps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like kind of going back to the old days, like things like that are SOTA will not have these recurring costs, so sure. You could say I spent this amount of amount of my life. It probably won't need updates maybe so I can charge this flat rate, but if you are kind of any kind of app that needs to compete with things that are increasingly interconnected that are increasingly cloud backed, it is really hard to not have these recurring costs like for anyway. Sorry. Yeah. It's just, it's it's I, I could go on for this forever, please continue. Well, yeah.

Ron Richards (01:29:21):
And, and you're totally, and you're totally on the right track and like, and like, and you know, he singled me out. I don't know what he's referring to that I referenced or whatnot, but the thing is, is that like not to go back to apple bashing, but like apple in the creation of iOS and the iPhone and the app store ecosystem basically devalued the price of apps for all developers. And then that, that eed over into Android when Android launch had happened. So you tell me how many, if you see an app in the Google play store, that's 48, 48, 99. Are you gonna buy it? No, because nobody values the apps they they're installing. Right. Right. 2 99 a month, 2 99 a month is a little more palatable. And you, you know, and if it's an app, I use that. I, I consistently get feel I value and I'm okay.

Ron Richards (01:30:06):
You know, paying for it and doing it and stuff like that. Then I'm fine paying the 2 99 a month because I'm not gonna pay 50 bucks the way we remember, we used to, I used to spend $75 on computer games when they came out. Right. And I play 'em and finish 'em and be done with it. Like the thing was software was a, and like clearly you had have 35 years of experience. You're a game developer, you know what I'm talking about? You would get a box with 10 discs and you would play that game. And you'd fantastic. And when you're done, you put it on the shelf, that's the software doesn't exist. Now software exists in the cloud there to your point that there are you know, infrastructure costs that are recurring ongoing costs. I have an app like that I maintain and is part of my business and we provide it for free because we want users to do, but we've also created a piece of hardware that plugs into a cloud service and we charge a monthly subscription or a yearly subscription Absolut because, because guess what, the more you use it, the more it, those charges exist for us, we have to cover our costs somehow.

Ron Richards (01:31:01):
Right. And so I, I don't know. I just don't think it's, I, I, I, I get the, the idea of charge something for your, your software. I totally get that. And if I'm buying, you know, like, you know, but, but I was just gonna say, if I'm buying Photoshop, then I get spending $500 for a great piece of software that enables me to do so much more, but even Adobe moved to subscription service. Yeah. So like, you know, I don't know, man, I don't know. I like, I, I get, I get the argument, but I think it's outdated. I think that, I think that society and everything has moved on and also the app app infrastructure marketplace is so devalued. You know, and I just did a quick search for expensive Android apps. And there's an Android here. I'll put it in the, in the chat, there's Android authority article that lays out the 10, most expensive Android apps and games.

Ron Richards (01:31:49):
But you know, it's things like Creston, which is the smart home system. If you're, if you're familiar with smart homes and stuff like that, crest on the whole system could, you know, that says here, it could cost up to $10,000, the app costs $99 to use. Like that's insane. Right. You know, direct TV's app is, is, you know, you know, could be up to $129 a month. Right. you for, for direct TV. Yeah. But for the service. Yeah. But then here, you see Dr. Webb security space, you know, antivirus app that they're charging for $89. Right. Like, so some people are doing it, they're offering it how successful they are, who knows. But like, I know for me I'm,

Jason Howell (01:32:29):
Besides that. Yeah.

Ron Richards (01:32:30):
<Laugh> exactly like, like I I'm, I'm I'm I have a harder time swallowing, any sort of app, whether one time purchase or subscription that is more than, and seven to 10 bucks, you know, like mm-hmm <affirmative> and that's just the fact of it. So

Huyen Tue Dao (01:32:44):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think something about, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, go. No. And I, I think something, especially with subscription, I think, you know, especially, and as I mentioned these days, it's really hard to get your foot in the door into, into being, being as successful, you know, app developer, especially if you're small and independent big companies. Yeah. Like it's kind of par for the course, most of 'em are free anyway, because as you mentioned, Ron, they have other in income streams that are off this cost. So that makes sense, you know, and they, and they can charge like a small fixed rate with subscriptions. And I, you know, as I get like, I'm annoy as subscriptions too. Sometimes they're paying the butt. Sometimes they are kind of, I wouldn't say predatory, but just kind of, you know, they're very, they're very sticky at times.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:33:24):
And it's hard to have like some, a lot of places don't have trials where you can kind of test something out. But at the same time, I think a subscription is a good compromise in, okay, you, you, maybe I see an app that I might like, it's $9. I download it. I don't like it. And, and yet to some extent you do have kind of return periods and things like that, but maybe ultimately that $9 if I use it for like a month and a half, wasn't worth it, but with a subscription, I can always stop and start again. When I please, I know that's overly simplifying it because it's a lot more of a pain in the butt than that. But I do think it's, it's a way of people being able to compete with other apps that are either free or as you said, low priced, rightly or wrongly.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:34:03):
I sometimes think the latter and that it still gives people freedom and like kind of you know, there's a right to say, okay, I will continue you, you continue to bring value. So I continue to give value to you or give you compensation for that as well. And I, I, I know that they're annoying, but especially if they're kind of like earnest, if they priced well and, and that you're not, and they don't ex you know, you don't ask a user to call you <laugh> to cancel your subscription or something like that. I think it's an option. And I think it's an option that is one of the only ones that, that people might find viable might, might find like palatable for their users in, for their consumers. So I think it's a tool for their business. Yeah, exactly. Right.

Jason Howell (01:34:44):
Yeah. I can, I can't continue doing what I'm doing if I'm not making this, this money to support the infrastructure, to support my time, whatever. One of the, one of the things that kind of came to to my mind is, you know, even for the indie developers, like the one person team, let's say that might create an app, you know, and you might say, well, it's just one person. Like what, what do they have to support, you know, with a, with 2 99 or whatever, it kind of reminds me of like the Paton model, right? Like in, in many other avenues, we find someone who we think is creating good music or creating good YouTube content or whatever. And we find value in that enough to say, Hey, I like what you are doing. So, you know, maybe in this case you don't necessarily need to pay for the app.

Jason Howell (01:35:30):
Maybe, maybe this case you're just supporting, well, I mean, going back to the, the mantra, right? Supporting your dev, you're saying this is a dev who's creating really great work, and I wanna reward this dev for that great work. And I'm willing to give this dev $2 a month. Just because I think what they're doing is really cool. And maybe it just, maybe it's a mind shift mindset shift at the same time. There are people who will never, who will, you know, they're gonna be kicking and screaming, the idea of paying more in, in monthly subscriptions. And yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Can't please everybody.

Ron Richards (01:36:03):
Yeah. And like, and I don't see how you can say, you're not your anti a revenue stream to support devs. Like I just don't see how you can say it. Like, like, you know, like I, I believe that good work should be say in whichever format, the developer or the business, or whatever decides to give in the confines of the marketplace. And right now the marketplace is the app store ecosystem and that's how it works. So, yeah. Yeah.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:36:30):
Yeah. I mean, I'm biased, I'm, I'm a Devon I like to eat, but I, I don't mean to simplify it or, or kind of be so fulfill about it, but I mean, it should eat it's no, I should. I it's good. And it's true. And I, I just like to also emphasize, especially for mobile in particular and talking about apps in particular I, I know again, we gave, we gave some very simple examples, but there's always gonna be a chance that, you know, especially, especially the, the industry and the tech sphere, that mobile is everything moves forward. Certainly you're gonna have people that use the same phone for like eight years if they can. But in general, I think, I think the average is that people are going to update their phones two to three to four years. Google is gonna update your update, your OS, whether you like it or not.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:12):
And I think as a dev, there is some re I do feel personally some ethical responsibility to bill of software that works, that serves people that are like, you know, if they're paying me or just in general, I, I have an ethical responsibility to do my best job to, to write something that serves people, especially if they're paying me for it. Now there's a conflict there that if you pay me once and, you know, say that we kind of come into a net zero where I've felt like you've paid me, what I, you know, deserved to do that initial, like implementation what happens in like five years when, you know, and this has happened, Andrew pushes some kind of breaking OS change or some kind of security incident happens. And you have to kind of, of update some protocol in your, in your application.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:37:58):
What, what do I need to do? What, what can I do then? What if it takes me like a month, two months to fix that? What if it takes me, you know, require like licensing something or, or having to switch something out and you've already kind of paid me what we've agreed initially that you, you know, like, you know, owed me, I guess. It, it's never going to be as simple as like, okay, all one and done. There's always gonna be something more. Totally. Especially if you want your app to, especially if it's an app that continues to provide value and you want it to continue, continue to be valuable, to be useful, to be up to date, to be safe security wise, it's just gonna incur costs. And like, so I know subscriptions suck, but sometimes especially for again, small and independent developers, it's kind of the best way to kind of continue.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:38:43):
In incentivizing sounds a little bit cold, but yeah, just allowing people to keep doing these things. Like, I, I think a lot of us enjoy what we do, we need to eat and we need to kind of like, you know, make up for this time or pay for like the server band, whatever, like storage cover all we need to cover costs. Like, I would love it if I could just make my apps for free and then have someone else put the bill for like all these other kind of like auxiliary accompanying costs. I really would. But it doesn't work like that.

Jason Howell (01:39:10):
So yeah. It's not realistic. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. See, Brett, you for sending in your email as fantastic as it was the email of the week but an email of the

Ron Richards (01:39:24):
Week, what a first email of the week for him. So exactly welcome.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:39:29):
I thought I

Jason Howell (01:39:30):
Like, Ooh, dang, here we go. It's like, like you said before the show right out the frying pan into the fire,

Huyen Tue Dao (01:39:36):
A nice, easy chill. One to start. Yeah. You

Jason Howell (01:39:39):
Knows. No big deal. Just hit it outta the park. You know, listen, they'll, they'll

Ron Richards (01:39:43):
Be fun. You know, lighthearted ones to come. I promise you so

Jason Howell (01:39:47):
Indeed, indeed. But that was, that was a really great conversation. We have reached the end of this episode, always a lot of fun do this and even more fun now because we have a new member of the family when awesome. Having you on board. Thank you so much for hopping on tonight and going forward. I should, I should mention that you're actually not gonna be on the show next week. We realize you're starting, but you're not gonna be on the show next week because can, can I say it? Yes. You can say it. It's your birthday. If my, your

Huyen Tue Dao (01:40:18):
It's like exactly my birthday, my birthday's the 18th. So I was like, Jay, I can do the 11th, but, but can I not do the next week? Not that I would once spend my birthday with all y'all, but I'll probably like take time off and, you know, spend time with my husband. But yeah, no, I really appreciate it. I'm really excited to be here. I've been a long time been on the show. And so again, this is all just wonderfully full circle and I, I love, I, I love Android. Deving it. And talking about it and using it. So this is just, this is ACEs, so

Jason Howell (01:40:44):
Right on, well, thank you. You fit right in. It's so great to have you here. If people wanna, you know, yeah. This is your opportunity to basically tease or, or promote anything that you happen to have going on. So go for it.

Huyen Tue Dao (01:40:56):
Yeah. So I am an Android developer. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at queen code monkey. My apologies for like a really long handle and my kind of website is randomly typing.com. I promise, promise that I do actually generate quite a bit of contents up about kind of like dev life different things that kind of I'm doing and other people that I know are doing. So please stay tuned. I swear. There's gonna be stuff there.

Jason Howell (01:41:21):
<Laugh> right on. Thank you again when and happy birthday in advance. Thank you. <Laugh> Ron, what about you? What you got? I

Ron Richards (01:41:30):
Am a huge supporter of taking your birthday off. You should not lift a finger on your birthday and just indulge in celebration of life. So definitely enjoy. But yeah, not much. Just follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at Rono. And go check out Gobi in the Google play store for free mind you free app to, to if you like pinball, you definitely wanna check out score bit and check out everything we have at score butt. And yeah, just be good to one another and listen, don't discriminate on on chat, bubble color. So that's the message.

Jason Howell (01:42:01):
There you go. Thank you, Ron. Big, thanks to Burke at the studio for doing everything to bring you this show live and in real time and switching the show and all that, and also big thanks to Victor behind the scenes for taking the, at recording that Burke made and turning it into a podcast so you can listen to it and watch it at your leisure. You can find me on Twitter at Jason Howell. You know, I also do a show with Mike Sergeant here on the Twitter network, TWI TV slash TNW that's tech news weekly. We do lots of fun interviews there. So we got something in the works for this Thursday and club TWI. That's the other thing, twi.tv/club TWI, that's our ad free subscription tier. So if you wanna get all our shows, but you wanna get 'em with no ads in them.

Jason Howell (01:42:46):
And that includes this ad that I'm reading right now then that's what you need club TWI. You can get it at TWI twi.tv/up to it. You'll also get an access to an exclusive TWI plus podcast feed. Aunt Pruit is killing it, man. He's, he's doing all sorts of unique special content that only club TWI members have access to. So there's some extra incentives there. And then you also get access to a member's only discord, seven bucks per month. You to happen to be helping out the company. We really appreciate it. Twi.Tv/Club TWI. That is it for this week's episode of all about Android. Thank you so much for joining us as always. We do this show every Tuesday evening twi.tv/aa is the show page on the web. That's where you can go to subscribe to this show and then you don't have to worry about seeking it out. It'll just appear on your device like magic. But that is it for this week. We'll see you next time. Not all about Andrew. Bye everybody.

Ron Richards (01:43:49):
Hey, you don't have to wait till the weekend to

Speaker 7 (01:43:51):
Get the tech news. You need join Jason Howell and myself, Micah Sergeant for tech news weekly, where we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news.