All About Android Episode 563 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 just me, Jason Howell Ron and Huyen and Flo are out, but we have Mateo Doni joining me. It's been a while. So it's great to have him on. We talk about tablets because the big story this week has been that apparently Google's getting more serious about tablets, Android tablets. Again, we'll see what that actually means. Also, Android Auto is getting a cool walk facelift. Once you hear the story, you'll understand what that means. Mateo shows off the cha me 11 T pro 5G. The real me GT Neo 2 and the Samsung S21 Fe in yes, the hardware shack, cuz that's back and a whole lot more, including your email next on All About Android

... (00:00:47):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Jason Howell (00:00:54):
This episode of All About Android is brought to you by streak. Whether you're tracking sales, fundraising, hiring or support is streak is a CRM that will help you stay on top of all your processes directly inside Gmail. Get 20% off your first year of their pro plan. Their most popular option by going to streak.com/aa. Hello, welcome to All About Android episode 563 recorded on Tuesday, February 1st, 2022, your weekly sourceful latest news hardware and apps for the Android. Faithful. I'm Jason Howell not joined today by Ron Richards. No, no, not joined today by when also not joined today by flow, but yes, finally the return of Mateo. Hey, what's up Mateo?

Mateo Donni (00:01:45):
All great. Thanks for having me back on All About Android. It's always a pleasure.

Jason Howell (00:01:49):
<Laugh> yeah. It's it's been a little while and, and, and the first, oh, wow. Oh yeah. By the way, Victor prepped this for you. Happy birthday, Matt Mateo, because your birthday was a few days ago, right?

Mateo Donni (00:01:59):
It was. Yes. so this is a fantastic present. Thank you, Victor. And thank you team TWI, having goats, donuts, cakes and banana for scale is perfect.

Jason Howell (00:02:10):
<Laugh> yeah. Perfect. There you go. See it, it ropes it all in. And I, and I think at this point I've realized that let's say one to 1.5% of Victor's job here at TWI is creating a personalized bumpers and graphics for you for when you're on. So, you know, it's, he's not overdoing it. It's just a small part of his job, but it exists somewhere in his job description. That's a good thing to know. <Laugh>

Mateo Donni (00:02:35):
Thank you. And thanks to, to Leo and Lisa for making this possible. Honestly, this is true art spiritual in Julie ages.

Jason Howell (00:02:44):
Yes. Chef's kiss Mateo of course, frequent visitor to the show has not been on a little while, but I should say chief mobile opinion at tech travel geeks. And it was primarily YouTube, right? Youtube.Com/Tech travel geeks.

Mateo Donni (00:03:00):
Yes. we do also have a website and a few other social channels, but we're focusing on YouTube. That's where we get a lot of engagement and it's also a platform we think we can give a coverage of gadgets and accessories. We think make the travel experience better. And obviously Android is the most versatile of platforms for people who travel in our opinion.

Jason Howell (00:03:24):
Indeed. Sometimes you're even gonna find Android like embedded in the the entertainment systems on the airplanes and stuff like that. That's how that's how versatile it is. Although, well, I guess more people are traveling now, but you know, the last couple years hasn't been really great for travel, <laugh>

Mateo Donni (00:03:41):
It? It hasn't. But the good thing is that the aircraft that a lot of people travel on have been renewed. They've got rid of the old ones, the clunky ones, and you have new ones with new infotainment systems, new onboard wifi. And so Android is really quite well used in the those context.

Jason Howell (00:04:01):
Yeah. Right on. Cool. Well, it's great to get you back and I'm psyched that we get to have just like a show with just you and I traveling through the world of Android news and we're gonna start our travels, not with the news bumper, but we're gonna start it with the breaking news bumper. I don't know if perk was prepared for this, but here we go. Oh, nice little throwback. Okay. We'll go ahead and take that one. It's that's that was actually really refreshing to see that old bumper just before Showtime, I saw alphabet, of course this did happen actually earlier than show then just before Showtime, I just noticed it right before Showtime alphabet had their earnings today. And you know, as relates to this show, Sunar Pacha talked about a little bit about the pixel and primarily the pixel six and how it's doing.

Jason Howell (00:04:55):
And Sunar said in Q4, we set an all time quarterly sales record for pixel. This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply chain environment. So sounds like Google's pretty happy with how the pixel six is selling Mateo is this is if, if this is the case, is it because the pixel six is a great phone is because Google is better at marketing it. What do you think would be behind go or maybe they have better partnerships they're in more stores. What do you think is the driver behind the pixel six being so successful in Google's estimation?

Mateo Donni (00:05:37):
I, I think it's a mix of everything we said there, but in particular I think the, the key thing is that Google is now, now has a mature brand with the pixel line of smartphones. And they've got the all important deals with the carriers. So for example, my chief aperture officer at tech travel geeks, blue cash, and myself both got Google pixel six pros. We bought them outright. But my understanding is that here in the UK, the majority of people are getting them as part of their phone contract. And there are some very, very good deals out there. Not only that they were doing some really good deals for preorders in the UK, where if you preordered your Google pixel six or pixel six pro, you could get a free pair of BS headphones. And so that was a really big incentive to people here in the UK to preorder the Google pixel six pro. And not only that after years of let's it, this way, the, the more enthusiast markets banging on about how great pixel cameras are and how good the phones are. I think Google has built up that mind share that has enabled them to then make the most of the rest of their marketing spend. And people are more aware of the pixel brand and they, they, they identify it with it, with it at the point.

Jason Howell (00:06:59):
Yeah. Or at least they, they understand that it exists and they understand that there is some strength to the pixel line. You know, even people that I've talked to in my family, you know, that are only tan, like tangentially aware that a pixel phone even exists will, you know, would say, oh, but I here, it takes really great pictures, you know, that sort of thing. And that's, that works to Google's favor. Yeah. I'll be curious to see how, how this plays out. I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, pixels sell nothing close to what the biggest names in smartphones are selling, right? So this is kinda like, this is big deal for Google compared to Google, but Google compared to Samsung still pretty, pretty minor. Right. Pretty poultry by comparison.

Mateo Donni (00:07:46):
Definitely. And go from a global perspective. It's important to remember that pixel is only available in certain markets. Yeah. there's a whole part of the world where you just can't buy a pixel and if you do import one, it becomes, some becomes very, very expensive to do so.

Jason Howell (00:08:02):
Right. Yeah. Very, very good point. So so yay. I, and I don't know that this necessarily means the pixel six is the best selling pixel phone of all time. At least not yet. It's still early. But's a good start. Definitely a good start. So we'll see how that rounds out, how that shapes up. All right. With that little Amoo boost, let's get into the actual news right now.

Speaker 4 (00:08:29):
Well, since Ron's not here tore to critique my Android news bumper, I'm just gonna toss it and tossing it.

Jason Howell (00:08:39):
You should be very happy, happy that Ron's not, Ron's not here to critique your bumper. I thought that was okay. I thought that was a good one. I'd give you a success. I think that was

Mateo Donni (00:08:46):
Good job. That that was a good one. The, it does take a bit of the enjoyment away without hearing Ron's eyes rolling and seeing

Jason Howell (00:08:54):
Him SI. Yeah. You can hear those eyeballs swish from one side to the other. I definitely the agreed on that, like before the show. Yes, absolutely. <Laugh> right on. All right. So top story isn't well, I, yeah, I guess it's newsy, but this is a topic that like, you're gonna, I'm gonna introduce it. Gonna be like really we're here again, Google and its ambitions with tablets is the top story. You know, obviously we talked about TA you know, Google and tablets and their kind of their successes, but probably more importantly, their failures over the years. But we're starting to see multiple clues that show at Google might be getting even might be getting interested again, who knows what that leads to. I would say a lot of people aren't very optimistic about where that leads. It might just be a little too late, you know, by comparison to things like the iPad, but we've got some clues Android, 12 L we already know this is the next version of Android.

Jason Howell (00:09:54):
It's, it's kind of a step up version for Android 12, which is already out Android 12 L from my understanding has been really designed for larger screen devices, but almost, you know, more specifically to foldable devices, but the beauty there is when you unfold a device. Sure. There's the foldable aspects that the OS has to adhere to, but then you end up a, the really large screen. So maybe there's more incentive to go back in there with Android and kind of make the changes to make it work, not only on the foldable, but also on the unfolded large screen. And that translates over to tablets. So we already know, you know, Google's been working hard on that beta tests. The beta versions of Android, 12 L are out there. We're kind of, you know, waiting for the official release of that. The nine to five Google spotted a job listing for a senior engineer manager in, in the Android tablet app experience group.

Jason Howell (00:10:48):
And the, the listing itself says, we believe that the future of computing is shifting towards more powerful and capable tablets. That right. There is a big statement coming from Google, who has really been very wishy-washy with tablets. It also says we're working to deliver the next chapter computing and input by launching seamless support across our platforms and hero experiences that unlock new and better ways of being productive and creative, you know, that could have to do with Chrome O OS you know, and, and how it interacts with, with Android that could have to do with foldables that could also have to do with tablets, which is what this job listing was for. And a friend of the show JRE field from computer world also spotted that rich minor, who is a co-founder of Android. One of the co-founders of Android has for the last, you know, number of years, been busy in Google ventures and other educational projects at Google, but returned to the Android division as of March, 2021.

Jason Howell (00:11:49):
And might actually have some sort of involvement with this kind of like new revitalized push in, in tablets, you know, and, and we've seen some of the, these kind of developments we've talked on the show about kids space, which is like an Android tablet. You know, play is like an official Android version of like a kid's zone that sometimes you buy other, you know, other manufacturers, tablets, and they've created these kind of like siloed kid areas. So, you know, Android has that entertainment space is another one I'm curious to know though, like, how do you feel about Google? Get caring about tablets again, do you think this is do you think this leads to a world where Android tablets can actually finally kind of prove themselves as something that people want? Or are we too far past this? I mean, I feel like this is a, this is a late, this is a really late to learn any lessons about this, cuz we've already kind of made up our minds.

Mateo Donni (00:12:48):
I think it's, there's two ways of looking at this. The first one is from a development standpoint, Google has been a bit fragmented internally about what they thought tablets were. We saw their early efforts with up to the nexus nine. The tablet experience at Google was okay, but it never really sold well, it was never really sold well to their hardware partner in the open handset Alliance. So they didn't really do very well then. And then there seems to have been a shift of effort towards ChromeOS and things like the Lenova Chromebook tablet or the Chromebook duet tablet form factor and product package. So Google has really let the Androids, the actual Android tablet ecosystem go and companies like Lenova have stepped in and filled that gap that Google really didn't care about that much, but more importantly, Amazon have really just killed it in the last couple of years with the Amazon fire tablets from, from what I see a lot of markets in Europe and the us and Canada have done very well with fire tablets.

Mateo Donni (00:14:06):
And especially during the pandemic when people were homeschooling it, people really couldn't afford to spend a lot of money on a fruity tablet from apple. And they ended up buying the whole family Androids tablets, which were in fact Amazon fire tablets. So mm-hmm, <affirmative> Google is at this point at a risk of completely losing control of the tablet ecosystem and forks of Android or their OEMs ODMs are going to do very well with it. So they, I see, think they need to put a bit of effort back into it and reign in this sort of sprawling ecosystem. They have little control over and they can't get their services on, for example, on the Amazon tablets, it's quite difficult as a user to get the Google services side loaded. And for most users they'll never have them apart from within the Amazon web browser.

Mateo Donni (00:14:56):
So I think what Google need to do is obviously improve their tablet ecosystem, but also maybe re architecture it from the ground up so that they can regain control of it and get Google services and all their media services on it. Because at the moment they're at risk of losing out on that whole market segment, that whole computing experience where others have stepped in to fill the gap. Yeah. So it will be interesting to see, obviously if they're hiring now for a senior engineering manager for, for the tablet experience, it'll be at least 18 months before we see some tangible results from this hiring process. It's not something that you do overnight. They have to re-engineer things from the ground up, or they already have a roadmap, but it needs to be implemented.

Jason Howell (00:15:48):
Yeah, that's, that's one of the questions that I had because it look, you know, the kids space, entertainment space, these are kind of tablet forward kind of changes to Android that that, that happened like a year ago. You know what I mean? So there were, there was some action here, some movement here, at least in that regard, and then Android 12 L you know, it it's about larger screen devices. That's already in motion, but I think you're right. This is probably a little ways out. I was trying to do some quick searches to see like, of all the rumors that we've been hearing about and everything, I think a pixel tablet is not a rumor that I've really noticed or paid close a and two, but I did a quick search and yeah, it looks like there's, there was a patent last June that kind of points to the idea of a Google pixel tablet of some sort.

Jason Howell (00:16:44):
And I, I haven't really dug into this to really understand, like what sets it apart. What's different, what specific about it. But if Google's putting its efforts into revitalizing its, its tablet side of its business, I mean, you kind of imagine that there would be a pixel tablet at some point, especially if they're coming out with a watch at some point, which we've heard a lot about, especially if they're coming out with, you know, a foldable like we've heard about as well. So heck there could be all sorts of pixel devices and that, that might Google's, you know, something Google's really working towards. We want a family of all different, you know, device types. And this would fall into that category who knows.

Mateo Donni (00:17:22):
Well, back in the day, we're now talking about six, seven years ago, Google used to sell itself as build yourself, your apps once and make them scalable to all screen sizes. Yeah. Whether that's phones, tablets, and TV screens. I think that they essentially gave up on that after a while. Most of the larger developers were used to having a slightly different release for iPads. So they said, why not do the same for Android, have one release for phones, one release for tablets. And sadly it never really took off the whole scalability of Android. As in having one paradigm for your user experience that would scale seamlessly never really happens for most apps. I believe that they're doing a possible job on ChromeOS with the Android runtime on there and having placed the play store there. They've kept that alive barely, but things really need, they really bring others on boards to give good experiences and take back that experience that companies like Amazon have really won in. There, there are so many people using Amazon tablets. Now, I, I wouldn't be surprised to see there are more people using Amazon tablets than Android tablets in some markets.

Jason Howell (00:18:49):
I'd be curious to, to know that, you know, know that stat as well. Very curious. Well that is that that's kind of the discussion that I've seen bubbling up a lot is around tablets, but this also just happened as well. Been hearing a little bit here and there about iMessage reactions coming Google messages. We've talked about it on the show a number of times, you know, I think it was we first learned about this back in November, thanks to some APK tear downs. And then it's just been a matter of like, all right, am so seriously. When is this happening? Because I am so sick of getting so and so, you know, the, the text readout of what a reaction was to my to my SMS message from an iPhone, instead of, you know, it just looks GY and, and wrong.

Jason Howell (00:19:35):
And apparently it's finally rolling out if you are on the beta version, I have it on my phone, but I haven't received any messages from from any iMessage devices, but I have the setting. So, and, and maybe I have the setting and well, I do have the setting and I have it on, on, but maybe it doesn't work. Cause I know some people even have the setting and it's still not showing in their messages. You know, they're still getting the text read out, but if you want a higher likelihood of actually getting this feature in Google messages, you should get on the beta track. And you'll get it as soon as anybody you go into settings advanced and you can see a, a toggle for show iPhones reaction as emoji. And yeah. So there you go. And you know, some people are gonna say, yeah, well this only really matters in the us cuz no one else is using SMS, but you know what, that's true. <Laugh>, that's very true. What do you, how do you feel about this?

Mateo Donni (00:20:30):
I just, as you said I think this is a very US-centric problem that Google or salt are trying to solve. This wouldn't be happening without some, some form of collaboration with apple, which I hope we see more of going forward. What I will say is that in Europe, iMessage is not really that big of a thing. Obviously apple don't have as big a market share in Europe just because of price sensitivity. But most people are using third party services like Facebook's messengers app WhatsApp and telegram. So this is really not a problem in Europe and not a, a big issue in that respect.

Jason Howell (00:21:13):
Well, I know that if Ron was on right now and probably win and probably flow, actually they'd all be like giving a big thumbs up because yeah, here in the us, we just, we can't shake our addiction to SMS apparently. And so anything that makes it just a, if we got, if we gotta be on SMS, anything that makes it just a little bit, you know, suck a little bit less, that that is great. I don't know what it's gonna take here in the us for everybody to do what everybody's done in other regions, which is to use an entirely different messaging platform in mass. You know what I mean? It's just not happening here as, as easily.

Mateo Donni (00:21:47):
I find it really amusing because now this is quite scary. It's about 15 years ago. It was, the us was just catching up to Europe when it came to SMS. Yeah, I remember that the, the, it was a, there was a significant lag between people using GSM phones in Europe and using SMS, which initially were absolutely free to then hitting the carriers in the us and becoming a thing. So we'll, we'll see how this plays out. I hope that we get to a place where everyone's using a, some form of online messenger, a database messenger, and there's interchanges between platform just the same way as we're seeing iPhone reactions and iMessage reactions coming into the Google messages app. Yeah. So fingers crossed. This will take years, but once 

Jason Howell (00:22:43):
15 years from now we'll finally be caught up <laugh>

Mateo Donni (00:22:46):
Yes. And, and by then we'll, we'll have some form of, of everything on the blockchain or whatever the buzz that is in 15 years time.

Jason Howell (00:22:54):
Yeah. I mean, our phones will be embedded in our eyeballs or something, something like that. Maybe maybe longer than 15 years, 15

Mateo Donni (00:23:02):
Years. Wait, are you making a joke? Are you making a joke about iPhones? 

Jason Howell (00:23:08):
No, but that's pretty perfect. The new iPhone from apple, like literally it's in your eye. <Laugh> I could see it. Ah, anyways Android autos getting a facelift. Yeah. Okay, good. I knew of all people. You would appreciate my, my dorky dad, dad, Joe auto is getting a facelift codenamed. Cool walk. Actually this article written by someone known fondly on this show is Florence ion at Gizmoto. This is care of a post actually like the initial post was on Android world.it, which is an Italian Android site. So if you go there, prepare not to easily read it unless you speak and read Italian, which I believe you do. Right. Matt Mateo. Am I, am I wrong on

Mateo Donni (00:23:57):
That? I do. Yes. yeah. Okay. I I'm quite lucky in that. I, I went to high school in Italy, so yes, I I'm quite comfortable with Italian.

Jason Howell (00:24:05):
So, so if you're Mateo go to Android world.it and don't, don't use Google's automatic translation of the <laugh> of everything on the page like I did anyways. What does it include if you're getting this new Android and this, and we're talking, not an app, we're not talking about Android auto app, right? That's been essentially deprecated at the point, we're talking about if you have a car that has Android auto running in it and it gets this upcoming update, which is not live yet. So this is still very firmly in the kind of leak sphere. Changes, include a status. The status bar is going to disappear the status bar, the way you're used to seeing it will disappear. And the wifi cell signal battery indicator and clock actually appear in the bottom right corner, which to my eyes kind of makes me think of like, I don't know, kinda like a, a desktop OS of some sort or, or like a Chrome Chrome OS or I don't know, it kinda looks a little old school to me, but but I haven't used Android auto enough to, to know whether this is a, a better or a worse solution.

Jason Howell (00:25:11):
I'm, I'm not really quite sure there's also a dedicated button for showing the side panel. That's gonna go away instead. And I don't like this, so I wonder how it's gonna work when it finally releases a long press of the home button. And something tells me that like the worst thing in the world, like a it's one thing when I'm driving to actually have to, to use a touch screen. I think we've all got kind of gotten more used to it than when, within, when it happened, because we were used to these tactile buttons that you push it and you know, that it goes in and there's a squished factor to it and it registers the command or whatever. Then we got used to touchscreen where everything feels the same and you kind of have to be more, pay more attention to it in order to know that you're touching the right place, but then tapping and holding long, pressing on a home button when you're driving. That just, that just doesn't work for me. I don't know. Like that just seems like it's gonna CR require more attention, right? Like that almost seems like I need to look there and keep my finger in the, I don't know, maybe, maybe I'm being too picky, but what do you think about that? That seems like a, a disaster to me.

Mateo Donni (00:26:16):
I think it's a disaster, but obviously this is a limited leak. My, yes, totally as assumption. My, my assumption is here that there will be some sort of mandatory fi button on the steering wheel as many Android auto cars have. For example, I, during the pandemic, my partner, Candace and I purchased a car, and one of the discriminatory factors that we had in our car choice was, does it have Android auto? And ultimately we went for a little Fiat 500 hybrid, which has a seven inch touch screen with Android auto, from my view of what these these, this user interface refresh does, is it makes everything more accessible from a driver's point of view. So having that big microphone button at the bottom makes it easier to reach and tap. And a, as I said, I'm making a guess here.

Mateo Donni (00:27:15):
My assumption is that it will be with some sort of, if you have to long press on a screen without tactile feedback, there must be sort of button to do that as well. I hopefully I am a very boring driver. I do my best to be very safe. And the whole thing about driving is you need to be aware of what's happening on the road. You need to keep your eyes on the road. So if you don't have that tactile feedback and it has be a physical, tactile feedback, because there may be other sound in the background there be other noise from

Jason Howell (00:27:49):
The roads there may vibrations in the car. Yeah, exactly.

Mateo Donni (00:27:53):
You need to have that. And so I think the, what we're seeing now is just a limited leak. I hope we'll see more of this soon and hopefully of the existing cars with Android auto get the update. So it's a good thing. Yeah. One of my pet peeves about Android auto in the Fiat 500 is that for some notifications, you get the toast notification in the top part of the screen. And so you need to actually reach up for it. It's, it's not great in that respect, I would like to see more of the physical buttons and the way I use Android auto, it's all use the, the voice button, trigger the assistant and get the assistant to do everything. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:28:42):
Okay. Well then you'll appreciate that these side pan that was hidden before, whatever will actually show assistant cards when the space allows. So that's good. There's one other thing that I got a call out here. They're also testing a cast button, which according to the leak, they're still kind of uncertain as to what it does. Exactly. I mean, we know what casting is in the Google, you know, kind of ecosystem stem it's, it's basically taking what's on one screen and sending it to another, or sending a link from, you know, for, for the, the screen or, or app that you're using to another device so that it can pull it up. That sort of thing. So if there is casting available to take like your phone UI and cast it onto the display in the car, oh, that has some upsides. It also has some downsides <laugh> I can totally see, see somebody casting their YouTube video to that screen. You know, probably not a good IM sure. There driving,

Mateo Donni (00:29:40):
But looking at the way the automotive industry is going and how heavily a lot of governments, especially in Europe are incentivizing electric vehicles. I think there's a serious problem here that needs to be solved. People are going to often be sitting in their car for about an hour and hour and a half at a time charging their car at a charging station. And if the car is stationary with its parking mode on, if you're in an well, there you go. Yeah. you may want to sit there and watch your YouTube videos catch up on All About Android past you you're charging your car at the station. Yeah. So I think there's, there's a use case for this much the same way I, as when in the current Android order, your car is stationary and you're searching for something in maps. You have the option of a keyboard, the moment the wheels start turning that option gets taken away and you can only

Jason Howell (00:30:34):
Use voice. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. Is it, is it context aware to know that, oh, you're parked and you're the gear is in, you know, neutral or park, you know, as opposed to in drive or whatever. Cuz I mean, even in my, my dumb vehicle downstairs, it knows when I'm in, in drive and certain. And so when a text message comes in on that interface, which is not Android auto or CarPlay, but when it comes in, if it knows that I'm in drive, I I can and not interact with it on the screen. I cannot, you know, do certain things. I can only listen to it. So yeah, you're right. It's probably context to where and that

Mateo Donni (00:31:10):
Would, that would, yeah. It's probably context to where and let's face it things like YouTube music, you can cast just audio to the car. So if, for example, someone's in the back and they have the downloaded content that they're maybe wanting to listen to when there's no phone reception, they can cast that content to the, the car in audio format.

Jason Howell (00:31:31):
There we go. Cool. All right. So not, not as bad as I once feared big surprise. I saw that and I was like, wait a minute. No, but it's probably better. And, and like, like we, we said, this is early, you know, this is not like a, the release version or anything. So we'll see how that all turns out. All right, let's take a break and thank the sponsor. And then we will get into, well, this is a hardware heavy show from, from this point on out we've got Mateo's hardware shack coming up next, but first this episode of all rate is brought to you by streak. Now as a startup founder, if you're a founder or entrepreneur, you know what it's like running your business from your inbox. So many people do, whether you're tracking sales, fundraising, hiring, maybe offering support streak is a CRM that will help you stay on top of all of your processes direct inside of Gmail.

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Jason Howell (00:33:22):
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Jason Howell (00:34:46):
It's been a while, although, although I, I have to say it's, it's not been a while since we've seen that bumper, cuz every once in a while, Burke likes to troll Ron with it. So, and then that happens. Yeah, there it is. It is that one's a little bit harder to decipher for audio listeners cuz they think it's just the hardware bumper, but no it's a goat themed hardware bumper. So Matt Mateo, you've got three different devices that you told me about prior to the show and we've got 15 solid minutes that breaks down to about five minutes per device. I'm really curious to hear what you have to say about these these in particular, cuz at least a couple of these I've been really curious about. So which one do you wanna start with?

Mateo Donni (00:35:28):
Let's start off with the one, which would pretty much charge more than half the battery in the 15 minutes we've got to talk about, about phones. So that's the Shami 11 T pro 5g. So it, the T series of ShowMe devices are the ones which essentially are released six months after or approximately half a year after the original flagship series from SHA. So the 11 T pro takes all the good bits of the 11 series. Flagship devices makes a few cuts in terms of specifications and then gives you a really capable smartphone at a very affordable price. So the 11 T pro 5g is a device which comes in at around about 650 pound Sterling, which is less than $800, but it's a device that comes with a flagship Qualcomm chipset. It's the Snapdragon 8 88, plenty of Ram and storage. In my case, I have eight gigabytes of Ram and 250 gig, six gigabytes of storage.

Mateo Donni (00:36:39):
Sadly there's no expandable storage, there's no courage port or 3.5 millimeter audio Jack. But what it does have is a curved glass back and a flat front screen with just some minor covers at the side. I really like this phone. I really like its predecessor in 2020, the Shami me 10 T pro 5g when they still use the me branding because you were getting at the time, the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon chip set and no nonsense physical design and ergonomically, very usable with a decent camera. Sadly the 11 E 5g makes a bit of a cut there. You don't get optical image stabilization in the 50 megapixel sensor, but a sorry, 108 megapixel sensor. It's a, it's the one of the big ones, but overall really good camera. It has an ultra wide camera as well, as well as a Teleo. So really great device all around with amazing battery life.

Mateo Donni (00:37:43):
So in my use thanks to normal use and not going out and about much, I get a solid two days use out of this device. It's a 5,000 million per battery, which is quick charge, but I think it's ultra far us charging by SHA me's branding, which means it's 120 Watts charging. That means you can fully charge this phone in 28 minutes from flat. So really impressive all around device, very affordable. And if you can get it on a deal from a network or one of their flash sales that happened quite often around Europe and Asia, I would say jump on it. It is a fantastic device and Shami have been really good at updating their softer recently. So me UI, the Android distribution that Shami have is currently on Android 11 MEI 12.5, but this will soon be updated to Android 13 or 12 L whatever the, the name will be. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> because CHMI is a one handset Alliance partner and Google have been working very closely with them. So the CHMI 11 T pro 5g fantastic device is just let down a little, you don't get the full flagship experience because of that camera. That camera issue in my view, not having the op optical image stabilization just makes it not good enough to compete with, for example, the Google pixel six pro or other devices in that price range. And

Jason Howell (00:39:15):
That's for stills that you're talking about, right? Cause they, they call out on their site. All of these like camera features that are designed, you know, to they call it one, click AI cinema or whatever, at least that's the marketing that they have kind of touting the fact that the video capabilities of this along with their AI can do some really cool cinematic. This that's different from, from what, what you're complaining about.

Mateo Donni (00:39:41):
Yes, my, my complaints are about the stills that are just not, I would expect of, of a device in this price C because of that 108 megapixel sensor they crop and the electronic image stabilization for video is very, very good. There's lots of great features within me UI in terms of photo editing, but also video editing and being able to do funny things like taking multiple video clips and merging them so that you can, for example, clone yourself and things like that. It's a really good video camera. I think it's held back by the fact that it doesn't have expandable storage. So if you're wanting to create content and, and you're recording in 4k at 60 frames per second, you may be slightly limited in, in that. So it's a great all round device. I think it, they had to make some trade offs to bring the price.

Mateo Donni (00:40:38):
I'm very happy with it. It's just not as good as other devices in the same price category in my view especially when you have competition from a company like real me, which is a, a sibling brand of op who have the real me GT Neo two, this is a slightly more affordable device. It comes in at around about two thirds of the price of the me 11 T pro. And in terms of form factor is very, very similar, but it has a little bit of a smaller screen. It's a little bit lighter. And instead of having the Qualcomm snap, dragon 8 88 chip set, so the super flagship one, it has a dragon eight 70 chip set, which is a slightly bigger transistor size, but for most users, unless you're going to be doing some serious video editing on it it makes no difference at all.

Mateo Donni (00:41:32):
You get a great overall experience. So the GT two Neo obviously is running real me's own Android distribution, which is very similar to color OS from oppo. It's, it's a great overall experience. It's very close to the Google experience, but we had some minor tweaks and a lot of extra features in terms of operating system applications and photo editing. In terms of camera, there is quite a big step down com compared to the Shami 11 T pro 5g. In this case, you're looking at a 64 megapixel camera with again, no optical image stabilization. You also get an eight megapixel ultra wide camera, which I really like on this device. Sadly, they decided to put another sticker camera on it. It has a two megapixel macro camera, which I just can't get to work properly. Everything seems to be a bit fuzzy. Maybe it's be but I think these two, two megapixel micro cameras are pretty useless at this point.

Mateo Donni (00:42:42):
The, the real me is a great overall experience for a smartphone and very affordable around about 400 pounds. So you're getting a lot of smartphone here. Again, you get a 5,000 and really empower battery, which if you're not going out and about a lot is a two day battery life, even with some gaming and games like call of duty, mobile or PUBG. So great overall smartphone. There's nothing to shout out about too much about. It is just a really good experience for an affordable price. So real meat I think is an up and coming brand. They differentiate themselves from their parent company siblings like Viva oppo with a bit of a targeting towards a more youthful and price sensitive segment of the market. I think that it, the next few years, we'll see them step in and take some market share that used to belong to for example, honor hus old brand and potentially also Motorola.

Mateo Donni (00:43:48):
I think they're going to step into Motorola's more premiums segment of the market, especially in places like south America. So we've covered these two, let's go back to what is I'm sure in the us going to be a great success as it is here in Europe. It's in the same price range as the Shami 11 T pro. It is the Samsung galaxy S 21 Fe F E in Samsung's product portfolio stands for fan edition. Now in late 2020, the Samsung released the S 20 F Fe, which was a great smartphone, essentially. It took the same formula that we were discussing earlier that Chami uses it six months after its main flagship cuts. A few corners makes a very compelling package for a very affordable price for what you're getting. And

Jason Howell (00:44:48):
That was at the top. A lot of people's lists for last year, as far as the hardware was concerned, which is surprising for a device that was like literally designed to be a step down from the flagship. You know,

Mateo Donni (00:45:00):
It is because you get so much value from it and they're cutting corners in all the right places. I quite like that. What Samsung call it's the plastic backs on these phones because I'm less afraid to drop it. It's lighter and it looks quite cool. This is the olive green version that I have. I really, really like the overall design. So you get something very similar to what you get on the S 20 a standard smartphone, but for a fraction of the price at launch. But it's important to remember that the S 20 has been on the market for six months. You may already be able to get a deal on that flagship mm-hmm <affirmative> at a lower price than the S 21 Fe the screen on the Samsung S 21 Fe is fantastic. It is a really punchy, nice amide screen on paper.

Mateo Donni (00:45:57):
It's pretty similar to the one we saw on the me, 11 T pro, sorry, shall me 11 T pro 5g. It's an Amy screen. It's 20 to nine aspect ratio. It's full HD plus, but the Samsung one is in my experience a much better rounded screen. It has punchier colors. It just feels like a nicer phone to use. It is also smaller. So it's a 6.4 inch screen at 20 to nine aspect ratio, which makes it overall a nicer phone to hold in my opinion. But that's a very subject thing. If you want a bigger screen, a bigger phone, the SHA might be the one to go for, but this S 21 I fee overall has a bit of a tighter, more put together operating system with what is now one UI four. But those of us who have been through the, the touch with wars of early 2014, know that this is in reality, one w for or one w for as, as I like to call it, it is Samsung's Android distribution.

Mateo Donni (00:47:04):
It has a lot of preloaded apps and services from Samsung. Samsung are obviously trying to get into the services market. And this is a very good device, which I think is a bit let down by Samsung's overbearing software, which really tries to sell you Samsung services. The screen is great. The battery life is, is very good, but in certain situations, I found it to, to drain a little bit faster than its competition at this point in time, I just got the latest update to one UI four. I'll see how that performs in the coming weeks, but we'll have a full review in the tech travel geeks, YouTube channel, and a lot of store videos focusing on the cameras because Samsung have put a 12 megapixel camera in this device, which is very similar on paper to the one in the S 20 F Fe.

Mateo Donni (00:48:00):
And I really want to compare the S 20 F Fe to the S 21 Fe camera, because on paper, they may look the same. I think there may be some different and how the software handles images. I like the S 20 F E so much. I give it to my partner Candace she's using that phone at the moment. So I have easy access to it for, for doing some comparisons. Sadly, there's a one thing that, that the S 21 fie loses. That's expandable storage. That's usually a selling point for Samsung devices with this one. We lose it.

Jason Howell (00:48:36):
Yeah. Yep. Goodbye. I mean, so many devices, you know, that's, that's one of those chopping block features that I feel like it just gets cycled out. Year after year, we see less and less devices allowing for that. I was just doing some price. So the S 21 on Samsung site is $800. That gets you 128 gigs of storage. The S 21 fan edition is 770. So three $30 less, but you also get more storage on that 256 gigs. If you had to pick between those two, the, the truth, just the flat line S 21 versus the S 21 van edition. Which one would you pick?

Mateo Donni (00:49:13):
I would definitely pick the S 21 F E it's a slightly newer device. I think it's a ergonomically. It feels better to hold. Maybe it's the back. Maybe it's just the, the way it's shaped. I find it better to use than the S 21 <affirmative> but that's a very personal opinion, for sure. I would say if you're, if you're shopping around for a phone and looking to decide, get a chance and go into a Samsung store, go into your carrier store, try and hold the device in your hand and get a feel for it because it's amazing how little things can make a big difference. And always as I recommend, make sure you have a case on them, despite it being made out of plastic or plastic I recommend you have a case on it and the case itself will change the ergonomics and the way you hold and use your phone. It's, it's a very subtle thing, but I think it's important. And I'm an advocate for accessorizing your, your, your smartphone and more importantly, supporting big market dial.

Jason Howell (00:50:20):
Yes. Yes. Big Mo dial. This is the year big tech is out. Big market dial is in so that's cool.

Mateo Donni (00:50:30):
That's my hardware shack. It's a selection of three devices, which aren't in the flagship category. It's the sub flagship category, which I think is a really good value proposition. You get a lot for, not a lot, lot of money.

Jason Howell (00:50:44):
Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Continue speaking. You know, this has been the last two or three years that we've seen this kind of like middle, middle range, the step down from the flagship become incredibly competitive and just be, become something that's not a bad word. Right. Like, I feel like for so long, oh, it's midrange. Oh man. I would never want a midrange, you know, and now, I mean, man, the devices in this category, they do everything you'd need to need a phone to do. Right. And, but if you have the money and you're willing to kind of step up, you have that option too. It's just in a lot of ways, like it's totally unnecessary now. So really

Mateo Donni (00:51:22):
Great stuff I took. I totally agree. But in some markets for some people having status symbol of the biggest Beck best thing out there, yeah. It's still an important factor and I'm sure a lot of these brands recognize that, but the one they can make a lot more money on is in better margins. Is this sort of premium mid range segment. Yep.

Jason Howell (00:51:45):
Yep. Indeed.

Speaker 5 (00:51:47):
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Jason Howell (00:52:17):
All right. Well, our hardware talk is not over coming up next. We're going to go into a traditional more traditional hardware block.

Mateo Donni (00:52:33):
Thank you for

Jason Howell (00:52:34):
The goats traditional in the sense that you heard that music, but there's still goats involved. One plus 10 pro. So it's getting some early hands on attention. It is already available in China. No launch dates, still at least here for the us and other markets. I don't know exactly when it's gonna come out in other markets, but the OnePlus 10 pro has been hitting the hands of some folks, including, you know, M K B H D has, has put up a review and everything. Some of the things that they call out, very different design approach, as you saw from the, from the image here based on, you know, compared to previous OnePlus flagship devices has that kind of like wraparound camera module feel that the S 21 kind of had, but it's definitely a larger module, goes deeper into the middle of the, of the device.

Jason Howell (00:53:28):
The in display fingerprint sensor. So one of the big complaints on the previous series pro series was that the sensor was too far down and like ergonomics, like that can get kind of annoying. I mean, eventually you get used to it, but apparently on this device, that sensor has moved up further into the body of the device. So hopefully makes it just a little bit easier to use. And then it also pointed out a really ultra wide, like a super ultra wide fish eye lens, 150 degrees field of view, which sounds interesting from a creativity standpoint. So yeah, I'm curious, always curious about OnePlus flagship devices. Oh, oh, by the way, I should also mention there's a report from 91 mobiles suggesting that the global version of the device might actually still ship with oxygen OS 12 and not the unified OS, the oxygen and, and color OS unified OS, which has been very controversial.

Jason Howell (00:54:30):
Oneplus has kind of transition into embracing color OS instead of its oxygen OS. So I don't know. How, like, how excited are you about, you know, the new things that OnePlus is up to this new device? We we've talked in last year at the end. I think the year end show we talked about how kind of like the energy around OnePlus and the enthusiast category seems to have tapered off a little bit in the last year, let's say year, year and a half. I'm curious to know what you think about the 10 pro and how you feel about that.

Mateo Donni (00:55:02):
The 10 pro looks like a really interesting smartphone. I'm not how it's going to be priced in Europe and the us, but if it's priced at the right point, similar to what we saw with the Shami 11 T pro with the S 21 Fe you'll, it will, I'm sure it will do very, very well. One plus has built up its brand. It's made the deals of the carriers of the last few years become more of a consumer recognized brand. Sadly, I think they've Del diluted their Goodwill, that they build up with the enthusiast communities, their nod series, and especially the low end nods of devices really dented I think their credibility especially when it comes of software updates and security updates. I'm I personally am very worried about that. Hopefully this pro or 10 pro series of devices will be well looked after in that respect, but if op or anything to go by I'm I'm not so sure I'm, I'll, I'm confident it will do well. I really like the look of that camera module and what they're doing with the cameras. They're doing something different again, which is always good to see mm-hmm <affirmative> that re wide wides fisheye lens is interesting to me. I wonder how many people who run Airbnbs will get that phone just to make face look bigger.

Jason Howell (00:56:29):
Yeah, no kidding. That's kind of like the perfect camera for something like that. <Laugh>

Mateo Donni (00:56:33):
But yet, but all joking aside, hassle blood is a really big, important brand. Obviously they were bought by a Chinese conglomerate a few years ago, and they now use Hasad branding on DGI drones on OnePlus smartphones and other smartphone. I'm not sure how much of actual hassle blood is involved in this or how much it, it is a marketing exercise similar to what we saw with Huawei and like a few years ago in their, the flagship Huawei smartphone, I'm sure there's some sort of collaboration. I'm not sure how deep it is. Maybe this is just sort of building that brand awareness, which in, especially in Southeast Asia, China is very, very important having a premium bra brand like Hasselblads on your device suddenly makes it more attractive to a lot of people. But I'm sure that there's some collaboration going on. Not sure how much of it there and how much of it's just the sticker.

Jason Howell (00:57:42):
Yeah, that's been my that's one. I'm my big questions too. I mean, O obviously with a camera, the most important thing is, okay, great. So this is a, this is a new camera system. It's got Hasad on it. How are the pictures <laugh> like at the end of the day, does it improve the picture quality? Do, do pictures look better? And I mean, I, I remember being pretty happy with what picture I got out of the, the OnePlus nine pro and the Hasad camera, you know, tech embedded on that phone, but I, but I wouldn't say that, like, at the end of the day, I was like, holy cow, this changes everything, you know one thing I will give the Hasad partnership and it's probably the, the shallowest kind of compliment that you could give, like a camera, you know, an updated camera system on a phone is that it looks really cool, right?

Jason Howell (00:58:31):
Like it's got a very kind of like, it, it has a certain aesthetic to it that the way that they're embedding these hassle blood cameras into the device. So, you know, if, if the pictures are a step up, they're, they're reasonable step up and then it looks different. Like, you know, with that Hasad lettering, you know lettering E blazant on it, but then the camera kind of tech, and I would probably say the camera tech on the nine pro kind of wow, wowed me a little bit more than the looks of it on the 10 pro. But that, that certainly does something for the OnePlus brand, right. To say like, oh, never are doing some pretty cool things from a design perspective around the camera. So, but that doesn't go very good.

Mateo Donni (00:59:11):
I, I think that the important thing here is if that unified operating system with color OS and collaboration within the parent company comes across vivo and more importantly, oppo have some really good chops when it comes to camera softer and the computational photography side side of things. I was really impressed with the op Reno series of devices, which are a little bit more affordable, but took and still take really good pictures. So they're already good on there if they can build on that, I'm sure we'll be pleasantly surprised by what the 1 10, 1 plus 10 pro can do, but we, until we actually get it in our hands and a few software updates after lunch, we can't say for, for sure, especially with this sort of uncertainty around the unified operating system which is hydrogens the, the operating system for China oxygen OS, the one used globally outside of China and whatever the unified one with color is as in colored di hydrogen and monoxide operating system. We'll see what, where that takes us, but I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic, but I don't want to commit commit to this just yet until I've got my hands on with

Jason Howell (01:00:34):
It. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. And agreed. Well what about this shall me announced launched in a four red me note 11 device there's, it's actually a series of devices, three different devices. The note 11, the red me note 11 S and the 11 pro I'm not gonna rattle off all the specs of all of them, but essentially quad camera systems ranging from a 50 megapixel main to 108 megapixel main between three device is the system on a chip, you know, ranging anywhere from a snap and six 80 on the lower end to a media tech Hilo, G 96 to a snap 6 95, depending on which device you're getting. And then all devices ship. Unfortunately they ship with Android 11 with no real word on what their plans are for Android 12, but pricing wise looking somewhere around the $179, $329, right in that range for these devices. So these are very affordable. What have you had much experience with the readme note series and what do you think about this?

Mateo Donni (01:01:39):
Yes. the red me note series is extremely pop. People are in Asian Europe. It is probably one of the fastest growing market segments for Shami as they move into Europe. And for the last few years I've been reviewing the readme notes series. Readme is the sort of like budget, better value brand of the show. Me portfolio, it's read me by SHA me. And for, as I said, for the last few years, I've been reviewing their devices. Last year, the read me notes 10 was a fantastic device. Again, in that $150 price range, you got a lot of, of smartphone, a lot of a very fast charging battery, 33, what charge what charging, which at the time flagship phones had and a gorgeous amyloid screen that's things that is, were unthinkable in that price category until recently mm-hmm.

Mateo Donni (01:02:43):
So Shami have delivered on this. Our chief aperture officer Lu has actually just had his Shami read Shami, read me notes, 11 basic model delivered to him today. And he's currently filming our unboxing and first impressions video as I'm on All About Android. So that will be on tech travel geek soon. But the first impression he told me earlier was that the industrial design of this has changed drastically. It's a bit like the departure there was between the iPhone 11, which had curved edges and the iPhone 12 has gone sharp edges and it feels significantly different, but again, you're in a, for $179. You're getting yeah, an AMED screen, you're getting a decent Snapdragon chip set that can play games and do everything everyone needs. And it's a very capable device, which is also expandable with microSD so well done to SHA me because bringing that sort of product to that price category is not an easy feat. And if it's anything like previous years, they have a winner on their hands, especially in Thai, when there's a bit more uncertainty economically, globally, and people are becoming more price sensitive. You don't need a super flagship if $179 smartphone can do a hundred percent of what you need. Why not go for one of those for a while?

Jason Howell (01:04:17):
That's crazy, $179 for an amla, 120, he Herz display for 180, 108 megapixel camera system, you know, potentially, although that one's probably gonna cost a little bit more, right? I think your, your introductory $179 price is probably the 50 megapixel main. But even though it's just, it's crazy, the value that you get outta some of these phones, it kind of blows me away that you can that little and get that much.

Mateo Donni (01:04:44):
It's, it's why SHA me are growing so rapidly globally is they've hit that sweet spot of seems that way value for money. And they know that they're going to make money on the ancillaries. So the accessories, but more importantly, the services on the smartphone SHA me. You make a lot of money out of selling themes and ringtones. It's. It is crazy how they operate. Yeah, no kidding. More importantly, it's crazy how many people spend money on, on smartphone themes? <Laugh>

Jason Howell (01:05:17):
That's true. I, you know, that's just something that I'm not even clued into, but apparently they're, they're making a killing off that too. Smart, smart company. You know, it's, I wonder if someday they're gonna bring that to, to the us

Mateo Donni (01:05:30):
Th th well, sadly, you can't get them at the moment and they don't have any plans to, to come to the us just yet. Never seem to, but I, I like to think of smartphone themes as in its softer Mo dial. That's the same thing. <Laugh>,

Jason Howell (01:05:48):
That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. And then finally the pixel for a, yes, this little guy right here is this little device right here. It feels so tiny. The mid range device, if you remember, it was delayed when it was released, right. It was coming, came out in 2020, it was delayed to late summer. Thanks to, I'll give you three guesses, but I'll tell you right now, it's, COVID is no longer listed on the Google store. This was the $350 kind of low cost pixel device that I thought was just a fantastic device. I mean, is still a fantastic device. I mean, the value, you know, that you got out of these Aeries devices has been just crazy. And this was kind of one of the examples of it. The, and also by the way, notable that it's the last Aeries device to get a wide release, at least up until now, the five, a 5g that came out last year was limited to a handful of markets this time, you know? Yes. Related to COVID, but related to the supply chain <laugh>, which is kind of also related to COVID. So, yeah, I, I don't know. I don't, I'm sure if you look around, you can still get the pixel for a, if you, if you would like to, and you're probably gonna pay less than $350 for it, but you're not gonna find it in the Google store, not anymore. What did you think of the, for a,

Mateo Donni (01:07:14):
I, I love the device. It was refreshing to have a relatively smaller ice but more importantly to have the Google experience. And despite it only having one camera, it was the pixel 12 megapixel camera with Google's computational photography. It is a fantastic device even to this day. And I really liked my Google pixel for a sad to see that particular device sunset, because I think that was the pinnacle of the square camera on the pixel series. We had the pixel for the, the pixel four XL where a bit of, bit of a wobble that were, they weren't great products in, in, in hindsight the pixel foray took that industrial design packaged it, everything up nicely in the midrange. And I think opened up the pixel market to a lot of people, people who previously would've considered a pixel pixel smartphone were introduced to the pixel foray. They bought one, they got on board. And I wouldn't be surprised to see that in the years to come people who had a pixel foray will upgrade to another pixel phone. That's probably circling back to what we're seeing at the beginning of the show why Google has had a really good fourth quarter with the pixel sales is this is the knock on effect of the three, a series and the foray doing so well

Jason Howell (01:08:46):
In my, yeah, that's a, that's a really good point, right? Someone's someone gets their introduction introduction into the pixel family at this low cost of I a couple of years ago now, or two years later the device, you know, people are starting to feel like, okay, I'm ready to ready to upgrade. And they're already exposed to the pixel aesthetic. Yeah. I think there's probably something to that. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Yeah.

Mateo Donni (01:09:11):
And within the enthusiastic or developer side of things a lot of people I know, and, and I did this myself, the pixel foray was where I was running the, the developer previews of Android 12 over the summer. This was my test device to see what things looked like on Android 12. And it's a perfect test device because you know that this is not going to be your main phone. So you can put it down when you finished your work, but it still gives you access to that developer preview before any other device.

Jason Howell (01:09:44):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah, no question. Well, all right then. So that's our hardware heavy double, double feature up next, we're gonna take some of your emails. We're gonna read some of your emails, AAA twit TV 3, 4, 7, show AA. If you wanna leave us a voice voicemail, you can do that or, you know, send us an email, like all three of today's feedback emails were done. Ryan wrote in to say, Hey, yo, AA. I was listening to material with flow and friend of the show, Andy and ACO. We need to have Andy back. They were not loving the presumed name of the folding pixel, the pixel notepad. I agree. And think I have a better name for the device. How about drum roll, please? The mega pixel who wouldn't want a mega pixel I'd run much or rather have a mega pixel than a notepad. What do you think? I think that's a cool, cool application of the name. Sure. Why not? It's it's it's cheeky. There we go. But I mean, it's, it's probably true, right? Like it, it would be the, the mega list of pixels. If, if the foldable device came out with that name, what do you think? <Laugh>

Mateo Donni (01:10:57):
Definitely, I, I really like the, the idea of a mega pixel. I think obviously I'm a bit of a silly person, so I'll take this a step further and with a bit of license or unlicensed use of Juan Carlos Bagnas brand, I would call it, just call it mega pickle. Especially if it's a, a, a rollable version of the, the pixel smartphone instead of a foldable if it's rollable pickle shaped so it could actually be shaped like a pickle and just think of the amazing cases you can buy. You'll be able to buy an Ali express for your, your mega pickle smartphone.

Jason Howell (01:11:38):
<Laugh> yeah. That's what we need. We, we don't just need foldable devices. We need total like redesign of, of design entirely. Yeah. TA tasteable design. This is, this is what we need in smartphones. We need smart that every once in a while, when we're hungry, we can eat them. And you know, you never know when you're gonna be stranded somewhere and you need to eat your phone. And if it's, if it tastes like a pickle, then maybe, maybe it's a good idea. It's, it's probably a horrible idea actually. But I like it.

Mateo Donni (01:12:09):
I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic about a future of where an instead of having a foldable phone, that is just a slab that folds into, we walk around with rolls a bit like the, the Romans used to walk around with scrolls under their arm. Yes. Right.

Jason Howell (01:12:26):
<Laugh> you have

Mateo Donni (01:12:27):
You, it's a proper scroll. And then you have a massive screen that you can interact with if needed, or if not, it's just a, a nice little rule with <laugh> with a different, very different user interface. Yes. It it'll be interesting to see how this rollable screen technology works out.

Jason Howell (01:12:45):
Yes. The scroll, the Android scroll could happen. Probably not, but could happen. Yanic from Montreal in to say on the January 18th episode, you mentioned that the Android 12 L beta was limited beta that had to be downloaded and flashed. He says I was signed up for the Android 12 beta on my pixel four a and thought I was done when the official release came out. But to my surprise, my phone came up with the 12 L beta. I decided to install thinking it would not change much on my regular sized phone. The first beta of 12 L was somewhat buggy with lock screen elements in wrong positions and occasional Bluetooth issues. When I switch playback from one app to another killing, all apps usually resolves the issue. The second beta is better in terms of layout, but still has the blue Bluetooth issues. I'm pretty sure that getting off the beta track at this time would require a phone reset.

Jason Howell (01:13:41):
So I'm staying on until the final 12 L is out then making sure I get off the beta program to get some stability back. I wonder if I really should have been offered it after your comments about its limited distribution. And I do remember Y that when we were talking about 12 L like I tried to make that point apparent, but, you know, maybe I didn't drive it home, that if you stay on the beta track, you would continue to, to opt into the beta for 12 L. I also, you know, wasn't aware of how buggy it would have been. I actually haven't checked out 12 L this is kind of one of the first beta versions that I haven't really participated in because I've been trying to just get comfortable with 12 as it is. Maybe I'll opt on the next version, you know, prior to release, but I don't know. Have you checked out 12 L at all?

Mateo Donni (01:14:35):
No, I haven't. I'm going through a very gentle transition from the Google pixel five to the Google pixel six pro. And that's mainly because I really like the smaller form factor such as the Google pixel four and the, the five. And I'm still getting used to the curve screen on the pixel six pro and the bigger screen. So I'm sticking with production, I'm sticking with the, the, the actual release. But from what I've heard from friends who are on 12 L it's not ready for your main own. So I'm in a lucky position where I have more than one device. And if I wanted to, I could run it on a separate one. I always recommend, if you want to check out the latest version of Android, don't do it with your main phone, especially because sometimes things like emergency calls may not always work. And more importantly Chris to collapse like email or two factor authentication can break down

Jason Howell (01:15:36):
At the end of the day, it's a beta and it's a beta that's, it's really designed for developers to, you know, make sure their apps are working to find bugs. Right. the software is just really not. The beta software is just really not designed to be a daily driver for any random person, even though, you know, I will fully admit, like I still hop on that train partially because I feel like doing this show, like I wanna have, I wanna be exposed to all the things. And sometimes I'm fine with rolling the dice and like, you know what, this might totally hose my, my daily driver. That'll be part of the story, you know, roll the dice and see how it goes. Not recommending that to anybody else. I make sure that I'm protected and backed up in everything when I do that. But so yeah, don't, don't ever opt into the beta and just assume everything's gonna be perfect and, and work, you know, flawlessly because that's just not how it works, expect bugs.

Mateo Donni (01:16:33):
I would say that's very sound advice, but I will also have to say that those of us who've been around for a while have been a bit spoiled by Google, because how long was Gmail in beta when it was essentially a finished product? There's a lot of betas out there which are essentially perfectly good for daily use but potentially could have issues. Whereas with these Android developer previews and beta channels, I think that's much more wobbly <laugh> yeah,

Jason Howell (01:17:06):
Yeah, indeed. Wobbly, indeed. All right. And finally, we are at the portion of our show where we anointed to the email of the work.

Jason Howell (01:17:17):
Yes, it feels good to be the email of the week is what Scott, the geek is saying to himself right now, Scott, you wrote in and said, I think you need to, to keep in mind a fundamental aspect of any folding phone. And by the way, Scott is referring to a conversation that we had, I believe on last week's show, just about the, kind of like the inherent design of foldable phones, how cool it is. But, you know, they take up a lot of space in your pocket. And we were just kind of talking through that. Randomly says, although the manufacturer can put this circuit board inside one side and the battery inside the other, no matter how you do it once the phone is folded, that total thickness must contain two layers of display and two layers of backing material. Just the nature of any material once folded the only two options you are then left with are either a, a very thick end product, the current state of things, or be a device that feels normal thickness folded, but once unfolded is dangerously thin and fragile.

Jason Howell (01:18:18):
And were you simultaneously complaining in this episode, how easy it is to break phones, even at their current thickness? One way around this is to ditch folding and do more with UN as we've seen in a few concept models, but no doubt, we're going to continue to see manufacturers stubbornly pursue folding devices, which inevitably will suffer from problem a or problem B because they have to good on you for pointing that out. Scott and yeah, I mean, I agree like there's physically, there's only so much that we can do to, you know, like we we've talked many times on the phone about this like mythical sci-fi device that I, I think maybe Ron saw on the expanse, or I can't remember which show it was that he always refers to, that's like a, a plate of glass, you know, is it the, or Westworld it's Westworld too, or west old.

Jason Howell (01:19:11):
Right. Right. And I mean, if science fiction tells us anything, it's that given a long enough time horizon, we'll probably get to a point to where we're able to realize that to some degree, but we're definitely not there right now, not with current technology. And I don't know what it's gonna take to get there. So we're left with deal with today's physics problems, you know, based on the materials that we're using right now. So there, there really is no way to have your cake and eat it too. What do you think about that, Matt Mateo? What are your

Mateo Donni (01:19:41):
Thoughts? I, I totally agree. So I'm, I'm a big fan of the idea of scrolls or, or rollable screens. The in I've had recently Whil, I was moving home and doing a lot of DIY is your tape measures. If you think about how they roll and how they're sort of semi rigid in use, if you could just have a wider version of a tape measure with your smartphone in it, I think that would be a, a great user paradigm that gives you the, then the option to widen it or close it as much as needed. So if you just need a, a narrow phone to make phone calls, you can do that. But if you need a big tablet, you can rule it out even further <affirmative>. So, and hopefully that's where technology goes and

Jason Howell (01:20:29):
Hopefully you can roll back up a lot slower.

Mateo Donni (01:20:35):
Well, I don't know, could be whole part. Yeah. That's part you mean

Jason Howell (01:20:40):
I spring load your, yeah. You don't want it to just slap right back and cut your hand in the process and slap your face. That's true. That's very true. Yeah. I mean, I don't,

Mateo Donni (01:20:48):
That's just my that's just my off the rails thoughts after having pleas and pretended that my tape measure is light Saer

Jason Howell (01:20:56):
<Laugh> haven't we all, have you ever cut yourself with a tape measure? Had it, had it like go back really fast and I've, I've had it basically it amounts to like a paper cut, but it's like a tape measure. Cut. It's not just the friction of it just goes, oh man, that, that is painful. Yeah. Not fun. Don't want that from a,

Mateo Donni (01:21:14):
I learned, I learned that as a kid now I'm, I'm a bit more careful, but still it's it is a like saber <laugh>.

Jason Howell (01:21:23):
Yes, it is really with, let's just cut to the chase. It actually is one. So don't, don't add us thank you, Scott so much for emailing in to triple H twit TV and being our email of the week. You're awesome

Mateo Donni (01:21:40):
Email. And the week I need to see if Scott, the geek is in any way related to tech travel geeks. It seems we have a similar final

Jason Howell (01:21:49):
Words. The last name is the same. So you you're all descendants from the same family tree, the same technology tree. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Wouldn't be surprised at all. Alright, well, we've reached the end of this episode of all that Android and Mateo. It is always awesome to get you on the show and I'm just, I'm, I'm really happy that I got to kinda hang out with you solo for a change. It was great to have you on today. Thank you.

Mateo Donni (01:22:15):
Great. Thank thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure being on and thanks to Victor and Burke and the whole team for making the goats happen. It's always a pleasure

Jason Howell (01:22:24):
<Laugh> oh yeah, of course. They, they wouldn't miss the opportunity to be honest. It's Ron, who might, who might try and sabotage that, but he's not here today, so he couldn't do it. So this is the opportunity that you have to kind of let people know what you're working on. You've kind of talked about it a little bit, but tech travel geeks, what do you want people to know?

Mateo Donni (01:22:42):
Yeah, so tech travel geeks, it's myself and our chief aperture officer Lu. We cover consumer electronic gadgets apps services that we think make the travel experience better. Technology does make travel better, and we think that all these gadgets and things are worthy of coverage on our YouTube channel the, which is youtube.com/tech travel geeks, all one word. So, yeah, we're we do a lot of smartphone coverage travel is involves a lot of communication nowadays having access to the internet and translation tools on your smartphones really does make travel better. If you're lucky enough to do that at the moment. And we look for, look forward to how this is going to evolve in the years to come. So, yeah, it's great to great to be in a lucky position where we can do this sort of coverage. And we've got an awesome audience, which is growing and it's surprising how well we've done in less than four years at this point. So we're, we're really enjoying the, the interaction with the, with the audience, but as always, I'm a, a great listener of TWIs shows. And also I subscribe to, to the club TWIs, which is a great service, especially for that discord chat functionality.

Jason Howell (01:24:08):
You're doing my job for me. Thank you, Mateo. I appreciate it.

Mateo Donni (01:24:12):
But yep. I I'm, I I'm, I'm a net promoter of club to as one of the, hopefully one of the first people to have signed up <laugh>

Jason Howell (01:24:20):
Yeah. Nearly one of the first that's true. Well, thank you, Matt Mateo, always a pleasure. We will get you soon with the rest of the crew. One of these days coming up here totally. Oh, well, yeah, we might as well just say real quick since since Mateo mentioned it club TWI, twi.tv/club TWI add free subscription tier of course. So all of our shows with no ads, including this one, you wouldn't hear this ad. If you if you are a member of club TWI, you also get an exclusive TWI plus podcast feed, which we put a bunch of extra content in there. Aunt Pruitt is killing it as kind of the community manager. He's doing all sorts of AMAs and extra content. We've got extra shows that are appearing there first. So yeah, a lot to look forward to there. And then of course, the discord that Mateo mentioned which is just a whole, you know, bucket of fun.

Jason Howell (01:25:08):
There's, there's always a lot of people in there pitching in, and it's just a good time. So seven bucks per month, TWI do TV slash club TWI big thanks to Victor for making this show happen behind the scenes and publishing it, big things to Burke. Who's at the studio, making this show happen in the first place. If you wanna find me, you can find me on Twitter at Jason Howell or, you know, all over the Twitter network. In fact, tomorrow February 2nd, I am filling in for Leo who is away in Carmel on a much needed vacation. So I'll be filling in on this week, Google. So we'll talk more about Google tomorrow afternoon. And then of course, Thursdays, I do tech news weekly with Micah Sergeant. So look for that. I also wanna mention real quick. It is TWI audience survey time.

Jason Howell (01:25:54):
We do this at the beginning of every year. It's just an opportunity for you as a TWI listener or viewer to kind of share as much or as little as you want to about what we're doing, who you are, you know, this, isn't the kind of thing where we're tracking you or anything. This is all completely optional. And it's ultimately so that we can make your listening experience better than it already is. We wanna give you exactly what you're looking for. And so, you know, whatever you can share, we approve only a few minutes go to twit TV slash survey 22 twit TV slash survey 22. And we appreciate when you do that, thank you so much, but that is it for this week's episode. Things will return more well more normal next week. When is back, Ron is still out. He's, he's taking a couple of weeks off, so good on Ron. So you won't see him next week, but it'll be me and win. And we might even have a guest along with us. We publish every Tuesday evening at twit TV slash AA. So go there subscribe. And you won't miss a single episode anymore. Thank you so much for watching listening. We'll see you next time on All About Android. Bye everybody. Bye.

Ant Pruitt (01:27:04):
Did you spend a lot of money on your brand new smartphone? And then you look at the pictures on Facebook and Instagram and you're like, what in the world happened to that photo? Yes, you have. I know it happens to all of us. Well, you need to check out my show hands on photography, where I'm going to walk you through simple tip, some tricks that are gonna help make you get the most out of your smartphone camera or your DSLR or mirrorless, whatever you have. And those shots are gonna look so much better. I promise you, so make sure you're tuning into TWI TV slash hop for hands on photography to find out more.