Alphabet Scoop 113: Android 12 so far

Seth Kurkowski | Feb 26 2021 - 10:08 am PT

This week 9to5Google’s Abner Li, Ben Schoon, and Kyle Bradshaw discuss the changes seen in the developer preview of Android 12. Changes to notifications, what new settings there are, new gestures that are in, and those that are coming.

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Transcription

Abner Li: And welcome to alphabet scoop episode one theme. This week, we are discussing everything. The thing about Android 12, which launched last as they unexpected which is a day or eight compared to the past five years or so. But we had a week to live with Android 12 and. We’ve we we’ve dived a lot into it.

Android 12 Developer Preview launches

[00:00:31] So just to get, to get out of the way, this is starting with a developer preview, there will be three of them followed by full betas and then the before final release, but Android 12 live now, as it is every year is just for developers. And this year Google with. And like 12, what for developers? They want to give them new tools for building great experiences for users.

[00:01:03] That’s the official quote. And we’re definitely seeing that in notifications, for example, that may have been completely redesigned with bigger icons, the, a bit more friendly. Google has the, we arranged everything again. And. I think for the most part it’s well, in the case of the media player, I like how they went back to enlarging the cover art after shrinking at this with Android, you Evan.

[00:01:35] So there’s some nice peaks, all lounge. We won’t get to appreciate any of the changes until active app has stopped updating the apps, but so far so good.

[00:01:47] Kyle Bradshaw: I don’t know though. It seems interesting with the, that this that they’re talking about tools to give to developers for, for great experiences.

[00:01:54] And it just doesn’t feel like that’s the, that’s not what I would describe as what we’ve seen with Android 12 so far, that seems to be the promise of Android 12, but it doesn’t feel like what we’ve seen so far. None of the, the headline changes to Android 12 feel. Like their developer empowering or, or experience driving,

[00:02:17] Abner Li: you know, I can see that, but I, I think in some ways what they mean about when they get in the case of notifications, it’s I think putting the app, I caught, like there, it’s kind of a big deal.

[00:02:33] And in terms of that, the conveying that you’re doing with an individual. Either, the notifications always felt a part of the system, but there’s a level of theming here that that’s, I don’t know, empowers the developer to make it more of their own experience.

[00:02:53] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. I can see that, especially with, by comparison to Android 11, which kind of lumped social apps together into that conversation’s view.

[00:03:02] I feel blank Android 12. With the way that it, you know, as you’re saying, put the, the app icon on the side, it brings back that level of the division between apps. Like sometimes I’d, I’d get confused. What apps different notifications are, even from when I’m looking at the conversations view on Android 11,

[00:03:25] Abner Li: but at the same time, It’s I hope, well, it being able to put your own spin on something within limits is better than a wild West approach that pot, but it’d be fine the early days of the platform, but I hope it keeps it.

Notification redesign

[00:03:44] I hope this free, this free expression that Google’s allowing apps and Android 12 notifications is still within limits. Yeah. So notifications, how, how either of you like this year is innovation on a lock on media notifications?

[00:04:05] Ben Schoon: It looks visually a little bit nicer. It’s minor, but it’s nice.

[00:04:10] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah.

[00:04:12] Iteration is all it needed. It, it, it was already kind of a revolution as it were last time. This was, it was nice to just have a new iteration this year.

[00:04:21] Abner Li: Hmm. I don’t know. They always change it from . That’s like They always change it. Yeah.

[00:04:29] Ben Schoon: It’s not an Android release without a tweak to media and a tweak to notification.

Camera and mic privacy toggles

[00:04:36] Abner Li: That’s fair. That’s, that’s pretty true. So, yeah. That’s notifications and I think another big tentpole that we’re starting to see is privacy with privacy toggles to block the kava and microphone. In practice. I, okay. So there’s the urban myth, I guess, of people thinking that Facebook is listening to them, but Instagram is listening to them to serve.

[00:05:06] And to be

[00:05:07] Ben Schoon: fair, seems like it’s happening even though it’s not.

[00:05:12] Abner Li: It’s perfect. It’s those moments. There has to be some. Psychological explanation to why those moments feel so, so visible, but yeah, and, and I doubt that Google is going to be that explicit that he’s privacy toggles. Meant to mitigate that, but I like the idea of these toggles, especially with the microphone also that also than the Metabo.

[00:05:40] Ben Schoon: Yeah. It just, it feels like a kill switch, which, you know, we’ve seen on a lot of laptops have like a physical switch to cut off the camera either with a privacy cover or with a it just cuts off the software. I mean, like one of the things I liked about it was there’s been a lot of times where I’ve been tied into like a video conference from my phone and it’s a time I really don’t want to be seen this.

[00:06:02] I’m always worried. Like I’m always checking, make sure I’m muted, make sure I’m that the camera’s off, but it’d be nice to just hit a toggle and make sure that that definitely can’t happen. So. I think it’s, it’s nice. It’s a good,

[00:06:15] Abner Li: yeah. So yeah, privacy. I’m sure we’ll see more of that. Going forward and that’s, I think there, there are quite a handful of user facing changes that are all of the UI and develop a pre-vis one.

Emojis and text on screenshots

[00:06:29]Mockup got a nice with a boost. You can now add emoji and tax a screenshots while it’s also available. Not just a screenshot. So I think this is, it would be more comprehensive editor. What does Samsung do? Could they keep the mock up tool or do they have their own custom thing that they have their

[00:06:48] Ben Schoon: own?

[00:06:50] Yeah. They have their own, which is optimized for the S pen and stuff. Frankly, it’s a lot better, but it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s, it’s a negative, like negligible difference. It doesn’t really matter. They both, they both get the job done. I think I just like, Samsung’s a little bit more.

New ‘Reduce Bring Colors” feature

[00:07:10] Abner Li: Hmm. Gotcha. What does reduce blight colors do in terms of how’s it actuary? Is it make a big impact?

[00:07:18] Ben Schoon: Feels like it does nothing. Like I was messing around with it. Basically the idea is to cut down on the screen. Brightness really quickly is basically the best way I can describe it. It’s an accessibility shortcut, which means that you can have it triggered by either pressing the two volume buttons or swiping up from the bottom with two fingers.

[00:07:38]So really it’d just be, it’d be a good way to cut down on a bright image if you’re sensitive to bright images without without having to constantly have your screen brightness low. So like, let’s say, you know, you’re on your phone in dark mode, you use dark apps. So it doesn’t bother you, but you might open up a video or an article and it’s bright white.

[00:08:00] This just would let you quickly tap a button. And the brightness goes down by a preset percentage. That’s the utility I see in it so far, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Yeah, it’s, it’s an accessibility feature. It’s not going to be for everybody, but it will be useful for those who do, who do need it.

[00:08:18] Abner Li: Gotcha. So navigation gestures working instantly in full screen apps. I’ve tried test this on YouTube, but since YouTube has that polls, that you can hide the full screen player by swiping down. It’s not as noticeable, so it’s just useful.

Fullscreen navigation gestures

[00:08:36] Ben Schoon: So it seems like this one is basically opt-in. It’s not. From what I gather, this is like, if developers implemented navigation gestures the right way, what this does is if something is in full screen, you swipe once and the gesture kicks in.

[00:08:55] If they did not, or if they changed it, however they needed to change it then it will. It’ll act like it normally does. You have to swipe once to reenable gestures and then again, to perform that gesture, but in Google photos, which is the best example if you’re viewing a photo in complete, full screen, you swipe once to go back and it does it, you swipe wants to go home and it does it I’m kind of glad.

[00:09:19] It seems like it’s opt-in because this could suck in video games.

[00:09:25] Kyle Bradshaw: Hmm. Yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of scenarios where it would be very bad. Like you’d have to even photos. It’s very tricky to way the implemented, because you may be just trying to swipe from one photo to another, and then you just back out and you’re in the gallery view again.

[00:09:39] Yeah.

[00:09:40] Abner Li: Not the biggest deal in the world, of

[00:09:42] Kyle Bradshaw: course, but it still could be frustrating.

[00:09:46] Ben Schoon: It’ll be good. In some, some places it’ll be really bad in others, which is. Like I said, it’s good that this is, it looks like it’s optic. Yeah.

New dark theme on Pixels

[00:09:57] Abner Li: So, so yeah, those like what I would call the user facing changes that add a lot of nice. Well, usability, fat for end-users, but some of the biggest stuff is not quite here yet, but we’re starting to get peaks of the, what Android 12, the final design will be. And I would say that we start to see that in the pixels, doc theme is no longer an AML that black it’s.

[00:10:31] It’s almost a kind of bluish gray bluish

[00:10:36] Ben Schoon: it’s that GRI that they use in most of their apps,

[00:10:40] Abner Li: it really comes off as booth to me. I’m not sure why I think that, but yeah,

[00:10:45] Ben Schoon: it doesn’t to me, but I like it. I don’t like Emma lit black.

[00:10:50] Abner Li: No, I feel ammo at black. It makes sense to me. Why is the system of color and.

[00:10:57] Aye. That’s in regular doc theme apps. I prefer the light gray that Google ops were everywhere, but like in the one place, I think ammo and drag is acceptable. Is the system any part of the system touches?

[00:11:14] Ben Schoon: I can agree with that. I didn’t like, I didn’t mind it in the system settings, but if I have the choice, I’m going to pick the light gray.

[00:11:22] Abner Li: Hmm. Yeah. That opens us up to a big redesign, which again, since e-vapor previews adjust developers getting the app. So I’m giving feedback to Google though. The whole big consumer changes that you would expect sometime in may. They’re not here yet, but we have been. Able to get some books at it.

[00:11:50] And first there’s the regular settings app, which has been tweaked with this new search oval search bar and separated avatar icon top left corner. But the, the big change here is something with Kyle you’re able to activate.

Wallpaper-based theming

[00:12:08]Kyle Bradshaw: So yeah, well, we were able or what’s, what’s been able to happen. The community found a way to to create a theme that is applied across the system.

[00:12:19]Something that we had detailed ahead of time, ahead of the release, but wasn’t by default in the Android 12 release, but they. And you’re able to just add a, a color, basically just a, a single color, like an orange or orange purple and green are some of the examples that were shown off by a community member.

[00:12:38] K dragon.

[00:12:39]Abner Li: But what

[00:12:40] Kyle Bradshaw: it does, is it Bri colors? Quite literally everything, like, as you were saying, the, you know, how the MLS black looks kind of blue that’s that’s that seems to be because the default color of Android 12, or at least of the pixel variant of Android 12 is. This blue color. So when you put on an orange or you put on a purple theme, suddenly that is now a, a dark purple instead of a dark blue, a dark orange.

[00:13:09] So it’s a, it’s an interesting shift that I’m intrigued to see how Google. Or what colors Google themselves decides to choose. We all we’ve seen are guesses that people have created. We don’t know what color Google’s going to use necessarily.

[00:13:29] Abner Li: And again, there’s no UI for it, so to speak, but. What do we think that, okay, so light now, if you long press on the on the pixel Anja, you got the styles and wallpaper section, do we think that’s what Google is going to the customization of these themes? Again?

[00:13:49] Kyle Bradshaw: I’m not so sure to be honest, just if only because that particular UI, as part of the pixel launcher, as it were, where this seems to be something more broader for, for Android 12, rather than something, just for the pixel line.

[00:14:03] So it might just live somewhere in the settings app.

Settings app revamp

[00:14:08] Abner Li: Hmm. Okay. And that’s, that’s the, the wallpaper based theming that again, like you said, we spot that the head of the race, but there’s something way more substantial in the settings app. A peek at the new design language. Isn’t that?

[00:14:28] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. So the, with some enabling, we were able to.

[00:14:36] Turn on something called a silky home is basically what’s what has been kind of referred to it. It seems to be this, this complete material redesign of the settings app, bringing it to like the, the search bar at the top has been redesigned and, and The all of the items are thicker and more spaced out.

[00:15:01] And they, they kinda edit this one UI like touch where you have a heading that is taking up the top. Third of the screens that you have, the rest of the screen is reachable by your thumb. It’s a. It’s an interesting, it’s an interesting shift and seems to be like we might be moving forward from the material theme redesigns of a couple of years ago.

[00:15:30] Abner Li: Hmm. That’s so the theorial theming was born out of the appeal design, which was Google’s foundation of their modern design language out of material design, not allowing enough customization. And the idea that Mateo theming is that the theme allowed people to. About third party developers to put more of their style and such into the apps are doing so it’s I think what the, this so usability, if, from what we can see with the Samsung one UI style pop thirds, Heather It’s usability.

[00:16:16]Reachability which ties directly to a one-handed mode. But I I’m curious what else defines T-Mobile next as it’s being called by some people, I mean, document in early documentation.

[00:16:32] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s hard to say. I mean, I would think that the theming and the the. The the reachability is, are the, are the two, the two core aspects that they’ve talked about so far, but to tie it back to what we were saying earlier, these seem like major points in Android 12, and they aren’t included for for developers to, or they weren’t publicly mentioned for developers to start thinking about it ahead of time.

[00:17:02] It’s weird to me.

One-handed mode

[00:17:03] Abner Li: Hmm. Maybe you could see that thing. The. The next two, develop previews rather than waiting for the beta. So that could be something that like, cause we mentioned one hand at mode a bit earlier, but we’ve been able to use it. Have how you liking it, honestly it,

[00:17:21]Kyle Bradshaw: It’s it’s it’s it’s not really for me.

[00:17:23] I haven’t, I don’t. It’s mostly because I got the pixel five because it can reach everything with my thumb. It’s not really for me, but there, I know that there are people who will make good use of this and it’s for those people that this was designed. But I think also that it might just be like a, a stop gap as it were for those apps that don’t implement the reach of the implement their own version of reachability.

[00:17:53] Abner Li: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. One habit. Yeah. It’s, it’s something else. It’s something that Apple did the visionary reachability but this one handed mode seems, I know it seems to wait for Google to add this feature, to make this a stock feature of Android. It just seems like in terms of catching up trends, if anything, I would think people have gotten used to these super watch phones.

[00:18:23] And that there’s no longer a demand for it. So to speak.

[00:18:29] Kyle Bradshaw: I mean, I will say I like the implementation that they did rather than some of the ones that I’ve used in the past, like the LG V 20, which was definitely a massive phone for its time. They would bring, it would just shrink the whole screen down into into a movable pop-up window, which

[00:18:48] Ben Schoon: is still super common.

[00:18:51] I don’t like it. I have, I think most Android manufacturers still do. I think Samsung still does that. Ooh, I like it. Yeah, no, I agree.

[00:18:59] Kyle Bradshaw: I hate that. I, I would much rather take Google’s version, which is basically stealing Apple’s version to I’ll take that any day. That’s just shrink, just shrink it down vertically.

[00:19:13] Bring it closer to my thumb.

[00:19:14] Ben Schoon: I agree. But I’ve also never used it on an iPhone cause I hated it the way, like I never found the utility in it.

[00:19:24] Abner Li: Do you have a pro max?

[00:19:27] Ben Schoon: No, I’m just saying I’ve never, okay. I’ve never found it more convenient to perform the gesture, to do a reachability thing than to just move the phone in my hand.

[00:19:36] Like, I’ve just, I’ve never found that more useful. I’m sure some people do. I just, I’ve never found it more useful and yes, I had an iPhone six plus at the time.

[00:19:46]Abner Li: That, that, that definitely needed it. Yeah. It’s I agree with that. There’s it’s a more elegant solution rather than like blocking it. And then not being able to access that, putting shrinking your screen and putting massive black borders everywhere.

[00:20:04] That’s just seems like you’re not that, that bags like you should’ve just gotten a small phone rather than adapt that time to adapt this big phone too. To smile and make it work with a smart display virtual display.

[00:20:21] Ben Schoon: I mean, I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I really do like how a Samsung handled in one UI and which, you know, Google’s kind of adopting where it’s just, you know, in certain menus, the, you can scroll down.

[00:20:36] From the bottom and then everything comes down and the title just gets bigger. It’s kind of a waste of space, but it’s also really useful.

Lockscreen prepares for redesign

[00:20:45] Abner Li: Yeah. And again, that’s useful. Usefulness theme is without a doubt, echoing 12 Amarillo 12. This is well besides one handed mode in terms of block, screen lock screen with XY at recent pixel devices.

[00:21:02] And. Basically AOD customization, or have we have, I don’t think we’ve have seen what this rearranged a lock screen looks like on the AOD. Right? We have seen it on, on the AOD. Yeah. So it translates over. Nice.

[00:21:19] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. It’s it’s really It’s gorgeous. Actually, I really like it. I just hope that we get to see some more of those clocks that we missed from.

[00:21:28]What was that Android 10 that into

[00:21:31] Ben Schoon: this 10 or nine? It feels like forever ago.

[00:21:34] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. Well, one of the past Android betas had the, all these clocks and I, I still like the one where it’s like, It spells out in words it’s 10, 15.

[00:21:45] Ben Schoon: Oh, that was the best one. I loved that.

[00:21:48] Abner Li: Yeah. That’s basically a desktop call.

[00:21:52] Quite nice that

[00:21:55] Ben Schoon: I don’t

[00:21:55] Kyle Bradshaw: remember. I think I

[00:21:57] Abner Li: just wanted to text on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Samsung has always allowed a great, the level of customization of the AOD.

[00:22:07] Ben Schoon: You can put a GIF on your LD.

[00:22:10] Abner Li: Yes, you can. I believe you can put a full calendar like before the one day calendar. Yeah. The balance between like the full feature set and being able to customize it and simpleness, which I think I’m AOL and always on the space should be first and foremost, that’s going to be an interesting balance, but it reminds me of.

[00:22:36]Nexus seven days when you had a walk screen widgets, even though

[00:22:41] Ben Schoon: I do

[00:22:43] Abner Li: love them. Yeah. That, that, and the concept of widgets have went away, but you kind of be nice to those clocks to just widgets. And the VAP was could pill, small pioneers topics, experiences.

[00:23:00] Kyle Bradshaw: That was part of the joy of Android. And way back then that was, those were like one of the selling features, at least in my, in my book.

[00:23:07] I, I love

Scrolling screenshots are coming

[00:23:08] Abner Li: that. Yeah. That was delightful. So, yeah. Let’s see what other use of things all day? Squalling screenshots, which, okay. I know everybody wants that, but sell, sell it to me. Why do I want this feature? Because you don’t, you end up like cutting it in half anyways to like.

[00:23:33] Ben Schoon: The, where I’ve always found it useful is in, you know, sometimes you just want to send one screenshot, but it’s like, it just cuts off a little bit of information.

[00:23:41]Like I don’t think it’s useful to just take this infinitely long screenshot cause you can’t share it like usefully, especially if you’re trying to share it with someone like who’s looking to view it on their computer, it’s impossible to read, but it’s nice to just be able to, if you need to get a little more information, you have that ability.

[00:24:01] I think it’s definitely been, over-hyped but it is useful. I use it all the time on my full two and my S 21. I use it all the time on Samsung phones. And on that note, Samsung does this way better than Google. It’s probably just because it’s early, but in its current state scrolling screenshots natively work.

[00:24:24] So they’re not nearly as good there. The animations are super choppy and like in Twitter, for example, if you do a scrolling screenshot, you have floating action button, just like five times.

[00:24:34]

[00:24:34] I hope it gets cleaned up in time, but just because of how rough it is right now, I’m not fully confident in that.

[00:24:44] Or at least in the, the other problem is it’s not consistent yet. Like I could take a scrolling screenshot in the settings menu and in Twitter, but I couldn’t do it in like Google discover and that’s just kind of weird. So yeah, I hope they clean it up and just honestly, if they just took Samsungs and threw it into native Android, it would work out great.

[00:25:06] I don’t know why Google has this opinion that just. For some fundamental reason, it can’t work as Samsung has said. I mean, it’s basically what they’ve said is that the way that third parties have done it isn’t right. Whatever the case, I’m glad it’s coming. It’s really rough right now though.

[00:25:25] Abner Li: Speaking of laugh, the new screenshot notification, which is the most minor thing in the world. But the fact that they removed the X-Box and you have to swipe away is the, was it’s the, I agree was

[00:25:41] Kyle Bradshaw: sporadic though. Some people will still have the ax. I

[00:25:44] Ben Schoon: do. I still have it.

[00:25:46] Kyle Bradshaw: And then it’ll, it’ll show up and then they’ll disappear.

[00:25:48] I find like different times where it takes screenshots it’s there. And then other times it’s not.

[00:25:53] Abner Li: And then, okay, so basically, so when the screenshot notification makes sense, tiny owl, where you have the screenshot on the left and on the bottom edge, you have the song strip to either share or edit. Now you have to swipe to the left, to get with a bit previously you had a tiny X button, which again was small as a tiny touch target, but compared to the left.

[00:26:17]The swiping to the left and you can’t swipe to the light for that reason you

[00:26:22] Kyle Bradshaw: can swipe to the right. It just doesn’t do anything. It moves, it moves under your touch and then it just goes right back.

[00:26:31] Ben Schoon: Yeah. Yeah. I, I hope they keep the X because that is one of my problems with I’m going to go back to Samsung team, the screenshot on a Samsung You just get the bar, come across your screen and there’s no obvious way to get rid of it, which is really frustrating if you don’t plan on doing anything with the screenshot.

Pixel 5 readies for ‘Double tap’ gesture

[00:26:49] Abner Li: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s a minor tech and I guess another. Upcoming feature is Columbus Kyle the Columbus, the double tap, just the quick pop pop.

[00:27:06] Kyle Bradshaw: So as we’ve talked many a time before

[00:27:09] Abner Li: indeed

[00:27:11] Kyle Bradshaw: pixels are going to get this double tap where you just, just like the iPhones have, but you can say Google came up with the first.

[00:27:18] Or you, maybe you can’t, I don’t know, you can tap the back of the phone twice and it does something, at least it’s supposed to the default action is going to be the assistant, which is a good replacement on the the pixel five and four, a and four eight 5g. And w. 48 5g XL, wood and knuckles. Yeah,

[00:27:40] Abner Li: you just,

[00:27:42] Kyle Bradshaw: you give a quick double tap to fill up the assistant because if you don’t have the squeeze gesture anymore, the, the active edge.

[00:27:47] So you just double tap open up the assistant rather than doing that swipe gesture from the corner. But it’s, it’s the codes there, but, and the UI is there, but giving the double-tap does not work no matter what we trying.

[00:28:05] Abner Li: So yeah, this is without a doubt, the pixel one it’s hardware exclusive, and there’ll be undoubtedly limited to the pixel experience.

[00:28:15] Google does. Yeah. It’s about them, adding them next to the button, allow it Sony loves to do and Samsung creasing and has Nokia. Yeah. Yeah. That’s like Berry,

[00:28:33] Ben Schoon: but Hey, they had a dedicated

[00:28:34] Abner Li: button. All the Mt. Dedicated buttons. And, but yeah, this is more elegant tuition, but I know speaking from the iOS side, I don’t think it’s taken people like craze.

[00:28:48] It’s not, I thought it would be a more of a bigger thing like now, or like a more like a hit, hidden feature to add more functionality, AFL, I guess not Audrey.

[00:29:01] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah. Google made a mistake by getting rid of the active edge. I’ll say it to the day I

[00:29:05] Abner Li: die. I agree. Why do you know

[00:29:08] Ben Schoon: both of you? It was great. It was great if you like, if you didn’t like it, just turn it off and shush.

[00:29:16] I know, honestly, I just, I just wish. More than anything more than squeezes and back taps and all this stuff. Just give me Motorola’s classic gestures on every phone and be done with it. Absolutely familiar,

[00:29:31] Abner Li: but

[00:29:33] Ben Schoon: they were perfection and no one can tell me otherwise, and I want them on everything.

[00:29:39] Abner Li: Before I explain what the Motorola does.

[00:29:43] I’m not going to throw at you. Sidetrack me to defending myself on my active edge is a very awkward idea. For one thing. So the sensors for active edge, that pressure that’s the pressure, right? They detect based on the, based on the size of the phone, they Is that how much pressure you’re applying and inherently as you squeeze something it breaks.

[00:30:07] Why do you want to use your phone? Why does using your phone feel like you’re breaking it? Because on an infinite timescale, squeezing something reads the breaking it. And I don’t know. I, you want that to be a feature? It feels awkward. If it’s a,

[00:30:25] Kyle Bradshaw: if it’s a metal or glass phone it’s not going to break. It’s fine.

[00:30:31] And if anything, what you’re feeling the haptics kick in, it’s not like the phone’s breaking.

[00:30:37] Ben Schoon: Yeah. I mean, I get where you’re I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t know. It also to me, if I like haptics, not haptics tactile experiences and a squeeze is not the same as like a button, but it does have a tactile component to it, especially because of the haptics.

[00:30:58]

[00:30:58] Kyle Bradshaw: Yeah, that was the haptics I’ve ever enjoyed.

[00:31:01] Ben Schoon: Yeah. I, I, I like it. It’s but it’s fine. Like I said, if you like it you’ll like it. If you don’t just turn off that it could have stuck around. No problem.

[00:31:12] Abner Li: Fundamentally it’s this tasteful, but anyways, what I hope to Lola has gestures.

[00:31:20] Ben Schoon: Yeah. And then we’ll talk about them for awhile.

[00:31:23] Basically.

[00:31:27] Abner Li: You will be treated to an extended treat us after this podcast on the multiple boy. Yeah, we’ll see. Anyways. So Motorola what are they called? Moto actions. I think they’re called the underlying name is motto actions. Anyways, you could double post your phone to watch the cat to watch the camera. How do you,

[00:31:48] Kyle Bradshaw: how do you twist

[00:31:51] Abner Li: twist your do you need is

[00:31:53] Ben Schoon: definitely an action that you had to get used to, but it was like if you twisted it kind of like if the two corners of the foam two diagonal corners were the axis, you would twist it that way.

[00:32:06]And it would. Kicking the camera.

[00:32:09] Abner Li: So actually this is available in Google camera right now. selfie and the front facing

[00:32:16] Ben Schoon: camera. Oh, you got me really excited for a second. Yep.

[00:32:20] Kyle Bradshaw: I’ve never gotten that gesture to work with once never.

[00:32:24] Ben Schoon: Okay. So hold your phone on an axis and it’ll do it.

[00:32:29] Kyle Bradshaw: I will try. It’s fun.

[00:32:31] You keep describing, but I, I will, I will sit here. Okay. Okay. I got it to work.

[00:32:35] Abner Li: That’s good.

[00:32:37] Ben Schoon: Eats it. You say, Oh, but if you, if, if it was the, to wash to the camera, you would use it all the time. It’s so good. Fair.

[00:32:46] Kyle Bradshaw: If it works

[00:32:47] Ben Schoon: consistently fine, but it does. I don’t get how, what a role I had them. Perfect. They always worked.

[00:32:56] Abner Li: It always worked. There’s no doubt about that, but chopping yes, you

[00:33:04] Ben Schoon: could chop twice to get to the flashlight and that was fantastic.

[00:33:08] Abner Li: What is it? Just those two.

[00:33:11] Ben Schoon: Those were the two most useful, there were more like you could like the waves to get to your always on display.

[00:33:17] Abner Li: Oh, that, Oh, I missed that so

[00:33:20] Ben Schoon: much.

[00:33:21] Which, I mean, they, I liked that, but it was weird just because they had like little IRS sensors, which looked really weird in the time of white bezels, which I still can’t. Yeah. I’ll never forgive them for doing that. And

[00:33:32] Abner Li: all these things here. So, yeah, there’s no point in

[00:33:36] Ben Schoon: that. Yeah, they had, they had a few more, but those were the two like really, really useful ones.

[00:33:41] And I just, I wish they were on every phone and that’s a complete just side ramp, but I, I, I love those. I miss

[00:33:49] Abner Li: those. Yeah. And it’s ironic that it’s white now, that only thing is that Google owned Motorola for a few years. They could have honestly swiped the idea and kept to themselves into Android, but they didn’t do that for that reason.

[00:34:07] And it’s a, it was a very, just a clever way of doing more of unique, uniquely launching things. But. That’s history. I

[00:34:19] Ben Schoon: mean, really think about it. They were, they got that right in 2013.

[00:34:24] Abner Li: It’s incredible. It’s been

[00:34:26] Ben Schoon: eight years and they, and no one has copied them.

[00:34:30] Abner Li: Do you think it’s patented? I

[00:34:31] Ben Schoon: doubt it,

[00:34:33] Kyle Bradshaw: but if it was then Google could have kept it in the, when selling Motorola.

[00:34:38] I think that’s what Ben’s getting now.

[00:34:41] Ben Schoon: I don’t know it’s I wish they, those were still around. That was way off topic. Why often

[00:34:49] Abner Li: a bit off topic, but yeah. So that’s Columbus. Yeah, it was Columbus and we’ll see,

[00:34:56] Ben Schoon: that was Columbus and the better version of Columbus.

Android TV 12 preview

[00:35:03] Abner Li: Oh man. But, yeah. So let’s see other things that have happened very briefly. Android TV, 12 I’ll

[00:35:12] Ben Schoon: S I’ll spoil my own posts. That’s going up tomorrow. It’s nothing. There’s nothing changed. There’s a, but we did realize that because, because we sideloaded enter a TV 12 which was briefly broken, but is now fixed.

[00:35:24]That Google TV has a basic mode, which just turns off all the smart features and has meant for like panels that ship with Google TV. It’s really cool. It’s not exclusive to Android 12 though, which is good. But yeah, user-facing features there’s nothing because. Android updates don’t really matter for TVs because everything’s all the important stuff is like play services and app updates.

[00:35:48] Abner Li: Yeah, I think our stack, because lot other day he had, he had the brilliant, he made, he, he made. Okay. Basically his point was Google. Should divorce, Android versions from Android TV and definitely well less

[00:36:04] Ben Schoon: 100%

[00:36:05] Abner Li: agree. However many years old, I now. Oh

[00:36:08] Kyle Bradshaw: yeah. We’ve we’ve that that’s already happened with wireless.

[00:36:11] It’s been on Android now this whole time.

[00:36:13] Ben Schoon: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Cause they, it doesn’t even show it in the settings, but Android TV and Google TV, they do show it on the settings and yeah, it, it’s not important. Like I w w I was putting together something today on, you know, why it doesn’t matter. And like Android eight was obviously a big deal because it introduced the whole new UI and way of working.

[00:36:33] You go to Android nine, like the biggest change was the redesign settings menu. And then Android 10 and Android 11, everything was in the background. There were no user facing changes that were like actually important

[00:36:47] Kyle Bradshaw: and Andrews changes. Google TV. Yeah.

[00:36:50] Ben Schoon: But that’s that it works on Android 10. That’s what the Chrome cast ships with.

[00:36:54] There’s just, there’s nothing. Nothing in Android TV is actually like tied to the version except for platform specific things. And most of the time, those don’t matter for Android TVs.

[00:37:10] Abner Li: This isn’t a diversion, but if you think about it well as an Android TV, in terms of how you can update. Components the lector and the price store to make a big impact and the features and stuff that really was the precursor to mainline.

[00:37:26] If you think about it, it’s that doesn’t well, S was definitely first to that model and the wearable platform doesn’t get enough credit for that. Of course they didn’t do anything. That’s true. Nothing to see here. Not think Dawn date. Yeah.

[00:37:48] Ben Schoon: The one thing I will say that Android TV 12 though, which is like the actual important thing is okay.

[00:37:53] It got it’s preview the same day as phones and that’s never happened before. So it’s a really good sign that Google is finally going to actually take updates, not necessarily major platform updates, but just updates in general, more seriously on Android DV. And another good sign of that is that the for the preview builds for the ADT three are.

[00:38:16] They include this month security patch, which again, never happened before last. I think the Android 11 public build for ADT three that came out last year. It came out in September and I’m pretty sure it had like a July watch on it. They’ve never been and up to date. Like I think even the Chromecast I think is like a month out of date right now.

[00:38:40] Two months. It’s yeah. It’s. I think it’s just, it’s a good sign that they’re finally gonna take this stuff seriously. Which is great.

[00:38:48] Abner Li: Yeah. So yeah, that’s Android TV. I’m sure. Over the coming months or have we’ll learn more, what the focus of Android 12 for Android TV is, but to wrap up today is so we all have outgo 12 installed.

[00:39:06]It’s surprisingly stable speaking from all my experiences. Well, Ben, you definitely

[00:39:13] Ben Schoon: the biggest issue I had as well. Yeah. So we’ve, we have an article that kind of goes over everything that we’ve noticed so far, it is pretty stable. The biggest thing I had issues with was biometrics my fingerprint sensors, not reliable.

[00:39:27]Two part, I think part of that is due to some of the stuff we enabled, but Damien was having the same issues where. The fingerprint sensor, just wasn’t listening when you tried to use it on the lock screen. And I’ve seen reports of like apps crashing and stuff, but it’s, you know, for a first preview it’s pretty stable.

[00:39:42]But I think it was the same. It was the same thing last year. And the second one broke everything.

[00:39:47] Abner Li: So. And to qualify that Damian you then, and I we’re on pixel fois and pixel fives on the pixel three XL, Kyle.

[00:39:58] Ben Schoon: It’s, it’s interesting. It doesn’t

[00:40:01] Kyle Bradshaw: inconsistent. I would say the stable, stable, but just, it just doesn’t feel the pixel three Axl with its with its center notch just doesn’t or the pixel, the pixel three XL just doesn’t.

[00:40:14] The center notch just doesn’t feel right here like it did before. I don’t know, like a, the power menu is behind the notch. There’s there’s just little, little details. It just tells you or feels to me like this phone wasn’t really considered. Is for stability though. It’s been fine. It hasn’t really crashed.

[00:40:35] It’s been okay.

[00:40:37] Abner Li: Yeah. And of course, a major takeaway is if you use Google pay, do not install this because Google pay or not work and you won’t be having a good time, but yeah, Android 12. The madness has begun. We’re in it for a few months, definitely into the summer. Yeah. Thank you everyone for joining us about on this episode of alphabet scoop, we record every Thursdays.

[00:41:09] And publish Friday mornings. You can find us on all your favorite podcasting platforms, such as Google podcasts, pocket, CAS, iTunes, Apple podcasts, and you can even Western on our site@ninefivegoogle.com. If you wish, thank you for tuning in and thank you to Kyle and Ben for joining me. Hopefully we’ll see you all next week.

[00:41:31] Bye.

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