Android's Intelligence Era - A Conversation with Sameer Samat - Android Faithful #149

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:06]Faithful.

[00:00:12]Well, hello and welcome to a very special early edition of Android Faithful. We're your weekly source of news, hardware, app, software, operating system, and everything you need to know coming out of the Android show. I'm your co-host, Ron Richards, and with me as always, >> Jason Howell. How you doing, Ron? How you doing, Android folks?

[00:00:32]>> We're here.

[00:00:32]>> The Android Show. We are the Android Show.

[00:00:35]>> We We're a Android show, but Google's stealing a little bit of our thunder this week. Yeah. So, if you uh followed us on social media or if you're one of our loyal patrons or how or if you listened to the show last week, you knew this week's going to be a little different. Um so, Google rolled out their preio announcements as they pertain to Android with their own little Android show. Uh the Android show is streaming now on YouTube uh that you can go watch it over at uh youtube.com/android uh the Android show IO edition. Um and they've got a whole whole bunch of awesome announcements. Um and so here we are released the show a little early for you today so that we could talk about those announcements. Um and Jason and Jason there's a lot in there to to talk about, right? Um, >> yeah. I mean, >> what what we're looking at right now and kind of how they are are referring to this moment is that there's kind of a bit of a I don't know, a bit of a a sea change for Android from what what is it?

[00:01:37]It's an intelligence system instead of an operating system.

[00:01:39]>> This is this is what you call in the industry a strategic shift.

[00:01:43]>> Yes.

[00:01:44]>> So, so this is a moment in time where Android is no longer an operating system. It's an intelligence system. Um I feel like we've heard intelligence system other places. I feel it's a little bit of a catchphrase, but yeah, >> possibly. So, yeah.

[00:01:56]>> Yeah. But but essentially they they you know they they are um referring to they're evolving Gemini to Gemini intelligence and it's kind of really the umbrella that's kind of catching everything as Gemini goes deeper into Android. Um, and I I gotta admit like this isn't this this didn't feel like marketing spin or just, you know, like throwing on a bunch of cool stuff and just saying, "Oh, this is how AI is."

[00:02:23]And the the way they positioned it, I thought it was really interesting is that they are evolving the way Gemini is integrated into Android so that as we use our devices, they're leveraging what Gemini can do to make the things we do on our phones easier and more efficient.

[00:02:41]and that kind that arithmetic adds up for me. I don't know about you, but um you know, so some some of the stuff that they spotlighted in it um the idea of of you know, multi-step app automation um so that you know that the Gemini can kind of connect actions across multiple apps, you know, of course they love the idea of you know you know um booking travel. That's always the one. Going to Expedia and and and and being able to, you know, book a vacation, which you know, gives me the heebie-jebies, but um right. Um or, you know, or you know, basically being able, you know, um uh the they create a new create my widget where you can create your own widget uh to keep track of something that you want uh to keep track of on your phone. Um uh they have uh go back. Yeah, they they have >> Yeah, we're Yeah, sorry. autofill using using uh using Gemini to autofill forms, right? Because nobody nobody likes to, you know, fill out forms. Um yeah, here's you were looking for that.

[00:03:40]>> Who wants to spend their time filling out forms when LLMs are just are are just as good at it.

[00:03:45]>> Um you can you can create a widget to keep track of something that you want to do if you want to keep track how many days it is till your vacation.

[00:03:50]>> I love that. That's super cool. It is one of those things I'm like, how many times am I going to actually do it?

[00:03:56]Remains to be seen. But that's pretty sweet. Used to have, you know, install a third party uh service in order to do that. So, >> but one of the coolest things they added, which is, you know, might have the same kind of legs as Nano Banana, um uh uh Rambler, which is a new interface within Gboard, which allows you to uh not just dictate into Gboard, but actually uh what's the best way of putting it? Kind of >> ramble. Ramble on. Yes, this is how this is how I talk to AI. This is exactly how I do it. I don't edit myself. I just ramble. You know, kind of natural language talking to the AI. So, if you're responding to a text message, be like, "Yeah, great. Let's go. I'll meet you at 3:00." "No, wait, no, I can't meet at 3. Let's meet at 4." And then the final text that goes to the person says, "Okay, great. I'll meet you at 4."

[00:04:46]>> Right?

[00:04:47]>> And and it and it removes the ums and false starts and things like that. And it also supports multilang multi- language, which is awesome. So, um that's pretty cool. Um, >> so that's happening. Uh, Gemini and Chrome on Android is coming in late June. That's huge. Um, the but the big big news is the uh we finally get the the laptop uh that we know is that was rumored the they announced the Google book. Um, which >> is this aluminium? Is this this is aluminium OS?

[00:05:17]>> This has got to be aluminium. I we it's got to be, right? Yeah. Um, but so this is the uh you know the successor to the Chromebook. um you know built from the ground up um with Gemini uh intelligence uh integrated into it. Um it's integrated directly with Android. You can cast Android apps from your phone to the to the laptop. You can access your file system directly from it. Um it's there's no emulation by the way running Android apps. You just have full access to the Google Play Store. Um, you know, you can they call it quick quick access that allows you to browse your phone files directly from the laptop without file transfers. Like this is really it's really cool. Um, >> getting hamina hamina is what >> but it's not replacing chrome Chromebooks will still exist for educational markets like it's not you know like we're going to have the two categories still exist for a while. I don't know. It's it's >> this is like the upper tier. The upper tier is and it's not Chrome OS necessarily. Yeah.

[00:06:16]>> Yeah. I love it. I I would love to play around with this and kind of see what the experience is like.

[00:06:20]>> Yeah. So, they they announced a whole bunch of stuff for Android Auto. They announced um more stuff about um uh Quick Share with Apple and and uh uh and uh wireless uh iOS to Android migration, which is crazy. Um so, they announced a whole bunch of stuff in the Android show. Um but this is what's going to happen on our show now. Um, we're going to talk in way more detail about that on Android Faithful After Hours. Um, which is going to live stream tonight, Tuesday at 8:00 PM Eastern. Um, we're also going to release that to everybody. Um, usually that show is just dedicated to patrons um on patreon.com/android faithful. Patrons, you're also going to get it first. Um, so if you want to, if you're listening to this before Tuesday at 8:00 Eastern, um, you can go watch it on YouTube in the live stream. We're going to do that live. Um, we're also going to take all of your questions. So, if you're listening to this right after the Android show comes out, before that live stream happens in that like 6 hour or 8 hour chunk of time, send us your questions to contact androidfaithful.com or you can watch live and ask questions live. Um, you can watch that live stream. Patrons, you'll get the recording afterwards. But then a couple of days later, we're going to release it on the feed uh for everybody else in the feed so you guys can hear what the after hour show is like. Um, so if you want to hear us talk in more detail about these features with flow, um, and I think when when might come. Uh, but we'll see.

[00:07:44]We're going to try to get every all the whole gang together to talk about it.

[00:07:47]But we got something special for you right now, don't we, Jason?

[00:07:51]>> Yes, we do. The return of friend to the show, Samir Samat, who is president of the Android ecosystem. So, you know, kind of a big deal. It's been a couple of years since he was on this show, and uh, so it's great to have him back. We actually had a a killer conversation with him which you were about to enjoy.

[00:08:09]Um of course we talk about AI, we talk about Gemini, you know that is a big part of the announcement but even he you know even Samir is um you know kind of addressed with us. I think this was kind of after we were done recording just this idea that like the AI is not everything and sometimes people do get you know do want to hear about things like the sideloading you know aspect of Android and everything that's happened there and share and >> and and we get into it so listen to this entire interview because at the end of it he he weighs in on sideloading right and he weighs in on some other topics so we talk all about the stuff that was announced in the Android show we talk a lot about Gemini we talk about the Google books Um, but it's a Samir is awesome. It's so great that he gave us some time, you know, on a very very busy day, a very busy schedule coming out of these announcements. Um, but he knows how dedicated the Android faithful audience is and uh knows that we and knows that we had questions coming out of this. There's a lot of stuff that we were very curious about. Um, and and as usual, we are not afraid to ask the hard questions and he was a real a real sport giving us some some really really thoughtful and good answers. So, um, we're super excited to welcome Samir Samat back to Android Faithful. So uh enjoy this uh very very lengthy interview and thank you Samir for joining the show again. So roll it and we are so delighted to welcome back to the show friend of the show Mr. Samir Samat, president of the Android ecosystem. Samir, it's been too long.

[00:09:36]Welcome back.

[00:09:37]>> Thank you. You all look great. Nice to see you again.

[00:09:41]>> Good to see you as well.

[00:09:42]>> You look as well.

[00:09:45]Last time we were all together in a conference room in a very cramped conference room in Mountain View. Um, this time here we are, we're a week out from Google IO because you guys had a very big day today. Um, the Android show IO edition hit the airwaves and you guys made a ton of announcements. Um, so we're super excited that you had some time for us today to talk about those announcements. Um, and so we're just going to get right into it. Um this year's Android show was pitched as one of the biggest in years and as you know as we all absorbed all the information coming out of it uh the throughine from it was clearly that Gemini is going deeper into Android. Um and I was super curious from you and I wanted to ask you to make the case for us um why is this moment in time an inflection point? Um one of the things that was talked about in the Android show was that uh you guys are evolving Android from an operating system to an intelligent system. Um, so h why is that the case and not just another instance of here are some more AIdriven features that are being added to Android?

[00:10:47]>> Yeah, that's a great question. Um, there's so much that's happened in the set of announcements. So maybe if I back up for a second, I think that the way I would think about computing for the last 30 or 40 years is really it's all designed to put you or I in the position of a micromanager of the system. Um we have to really come up with the thought in our mind of what are we trying to get done? Like what do you want to try to accomplish today with this machine? And then you need to translate that to a series of taps on a phone or clicks on a computer that help you get that done. And those are all very uh you've had to reason all that stuff out, right? And you even have like, you know, classes you go to on how to how to properly use this software or that software, you know, like so we have to teach ourselves how to speak computer ease, if you will. Uh puts you in that micromanager role. I think that the difference in the future with some of the new technology that's available, AI capabilities, is you're really moving to a world where you can talk about your intention, what you want to have the machine accomplish for you, and it can go ahead and get that done for you. And that's a ginormous shift, right? That's a big change in computing that we don't see perhaps um for several decades at a time. And that's really the kind of shift that's what we mean when we talk about an operating system to an intelligence system. And that's a multi-year journey to make that happen.

[00:12:14]But it talk but as we absorbed that internally and we really understood the profound change that that will mean for computing we came to the realization that like every aspect of the system needs to be rebuilt. Um and you know we we announced many examples of that um beginning in the Android show.

[00:12:32]>> Yeah indeed. And listening to what you were just saying there um just kind of reminded me of like just this weekend I was sitting down with my wife and we were kind of going over some AI you know things on how she can integrate it into her business more and it had me realize that like from a exposure standpoint the everyday user people are getting more and more used to using these tools and on their mobile phones and and whatever but it's still taken them some time to get over the hump from, oh, I don't talk to my technology to, oh yeah, actually that's my preferred method. Like, I know for me, I'm super used to talking to my technology now. And for her, that's the hump that she has to get over now. Um, and some of these, you know, some of these features that you're you're building in are kind of flexing on this.

[00:13:21]You know what? Think about using your smartphone for even more. You've got Rambler, which I love the name by the way. Uh, Gemini autofilling forms, custom widgets, which I think is a really cool feature. Um, pause point, which I guess is more about doing less explicitly, and then, uh, 3D emojis kind of like slowing down and being more expressive and impactful, um, rather than just being more efficient. So I guess my question for you with all that is how how do you and your team think about the balance and how this works for the wide variety of users that are using these platforms? Some of them more comfortable with pieces versus the others. What's your take on that?

[00:14:03]>> That's a good question. Um so the way we think about it a little bit is we want to make sure that everything we do with technology is intentional. Um and when we build features, we don't want to build them for the sake of technology, right? We want to make sure that there's a purpose, there's a reason, and um it's all in service of like making the user experience actually better. We want people to talk about the user experience, the thing that it helps them solve or why it's delightful to them.

[00:14:28]There's a set of us maybe, you know, here and and others like us that want to talk about the technology underneath.

[00:14:34]But I think for most people, they just want it to help them accomplish more, you know, and that's when it becomes a really special experience. And so for each of the things that we've implemented with Gemini Intelligence, the things we've announced, Rambler, which is a reinvention, I think of the way you can interact with your keyboard, which I'll explain in just a second. But each of those things is really trying to be use caseled. How does this actually help you solve a real problem that you have? And yeah, there's some great tech on the back end of that, but it's not AI for AI's sake. And I think that's a really important thing um for Rambler.

[00:15:09]just because I'm really excited about it if you don't mind me talking about it for a second. Um, you know, the idea here is I I was just speaking about how it's really a a change in computing and um and and the keyboard also is being reinvented and you know with if you think about the keyboard today, what is it? You have the concept in your mind of what you want to write and you literally translate that into a bunch of taps to get your message to be formatted exactly the way that your your mind had it. In with Rambler, you can press this mic button and instead of doing dictation with all your ums and your a's and affectations, you just speak, you do a brain dump, as I like to say about to it, and then you ramble, thus the name.

[00:15:49]Um, and it will actually take all that and formulate it into a concise message that you would actually want to send.

[00:15:57]And so, you know, you might be talking along and say, "Hey, you know, can you meet me at this time?" No, no, wait.

[00:16:02]Okay. No, I have a doctor's appointment at that time. Okay, wait. Let's meet at this time instead. And and oh yeah, make sure you do this before you get there.

[00:16:10]And instead of like a long dictated three paragraphs of text, you're just going to get a nice single sentence.

[00:16:15]Meet me tomorrow at this time. Uh and I'll see you there, you know. And so that's pretty awesome. And that gives you give your intention to the machine and it figures out how to write this nice message for you. It's a small thing, but we think it's a pretty big deal. It's it's that it's that idea of the conversation you're having with the technology because you're right when you are processing your own thoughts you do as you're doing it you realize oh wait no I can't do that and you correct yourself and I've never been one like I I've never been one to hold the phone and do the dictation and I I don't do that at all. I do always do the typing and when you do the typing you do that thought and then you back up and erase it or whatever. When I saw the Rambler demo, I was like, "Oh, okay. Maybe now this is a world where I can start doing dictation because it is actually interpreting my my train of thought, right? That that is really kind of cool.

[00:17:05]I want to try it and see how it works because again, it's a the the curated demo is always a little like let me see it. Let you know, you know, walk the walk before, you know, do it." But if it does do as you guys are demoing it, this could be pretty pretty uh meaningful, I think. So, >> yeah, I think I definitely think you should try it. I think one thing I found is that um my my kids for example um who are um still uh one's a teenager, one's one's not quite a teenager yet. Um they use voice a lot, you know, and and I was surprised at how much they speak to their devices. And um we actually see this is very common. Uh they're not special in that way. They they they're very very similar to other kids their age. And then in a number of countries around the world actually, it's very common for um adults even to use to use voice. And so I I I get your point about voice. It's it's you know it's like something that not everyone does. Um but I do think there's a lot of users that that do that. Um I think in in um in dictation, for example, with the microphone, we have um uh you know, hundreds of millions of users um uh every week that are using the mic for Gboard, you know, to to do. So it's a lot of people. And and one of the really cool things about Rambler is it's multilingual. So you can do what's called code switching. you can move between different languages pretty seamlessly. So, uh you could be speaking, you know, sometimes there's um many folks who are multilingual, they'll they'll actually speak in both languages kind of going back and forth and Ramler can totally handle that for you. Um which is which is really neat. So, I'm excited for you to try it. You'll have to let me know what you think.

[00:18:38]>> Awesome.

[00:18:40]>> Okay. Uh, you know, thinking about all this is making me think about how not every Android phone is going to be, you know, with all of these new features that are coming. Uh, at the same time, we've kind of been seeing that with the flagship launches, the Pixel 10, the Samsung Galaxy S26, they have something very special about them for Gemini that's kind of only only on the flagships at the very beginning. I'm kind of wondering um do you do you think this maybe creates a little bit of a tiered experience for some folks? Like are we looking at a premium AI tier and then everybody else? And like what are some of the conversations with other OEMs who maybe aren't getting this kind of exclusive?

[00:19:25]>> Yeah. No, I appreciate appreciate the question with with Gemini. I mean, we have Gemini rolled out on billions of Android devices, um high-end devices, mid-tier devices, and and and more. And um well like a lot of users there's I think there's over like 650 670 million users that are using Android on um using Gemini on mobile devices um you know you know every day every month.

[00:19:49]So it's it there's a lot um and so when we ever we build a new feature what we're trying to make sure of and and especially as we build a capability set like Gemini Intelligence we really want to make sure that we make a consumer promise and then we deliver on that promise. And so we do pick flagship devices for Gemini Intelligence to start with because we know they've got the right hardware. We know they've got the right amount of memory and and processor and and and and all that to help us build the right consumer experiences over time. Not just today, but also going forward. Um today, um you know, my belief is that uh that a lot of these CA capabilities and functionality will be hybrid. You know, there'll be some parts that run in the cloud, there'll be some parts that run on the device. Um, and you know over time for latency reasons, for privacy reasons, for a bunch of other reasons, you may want to move more of those things to the device. You want to have the capability on that device to do that. But as we make consumer features more efficient, as we find new ways of doing things, we are finding ways to roll out those that functionality to other devices as well.

[00:20:53]Um, you know, one example of that is scam detection. You know, we initially started just on flagships and then we've been rolling it out with smaller more ca um you know, smaller models that are more capable of running on device for other different types of phones and so we do tend to waterfall things in that way and we'll keep doing that.

[00:21:12]>> Got it. Got it. Very cool. Well, so one of the um one of the other big kind of wow demos coming out of the Android show was you know the move to agentic process processes within Gemini. We've seen a lot of movement in the AI space with you know kind of uh you know other kind of AI services you know you know we'll do tasks for you and we'll be able to you know you know you just tell it to do something and we'll go off and do the task um and now we see you guys kind of getting in that into that space um mechanically I wanted to ask you know with Gemini moving in there with the um multi-step automation um what is exactly happening with Gemini doing that um is Door Dash Uber and other apps like that uh formal partners or is Gemini navigating those interfaces on the user's behalf like under the hood how does that work because I that's the kind of thing that I think a lot of users might be you know might be kind of a little cautious before going down that path because they want to understand exactly how it works >> yeah totally um so with Gemini automating apps let me you know just taking a step back the goal is to save you time right so if the goal is to be able to give it give the your your personal assistant a task to get done.

[00:22:24]Like my one of my favorite demos that I've shown people is that I have this list um of of uh folks who are coming to a barbecue and it lists out their name uh how many people are coming in their party, their dietary restrictions, and then I ask Gemini to, you know, make a grocery list for the barbecue for this um for this list of people. And it does that. and figures out how many, you know, veggie burgers you need and how many buns you need and all the things.

[00:22:50]And then I ask it to go to Instacart and put all that in my Safeway cart for me, right? And um and that that just saves me time. It's a nice nice nice time saver. Um so how's that happening? I think is what is what you're asking. And are we working with those partners on it? So, and right now the partners that we do have this working on that we announced with with this when we did the preview with the S26, we are working with those partners primarily because we wanted to make sure we had a good conversation with them about this. We didn't want them to be surprised, but we also wanted to work with them to make sure it worked really well. Um, however, you know, this functionality over time, I think is the goal of it is to be able to work on any app and um and and that's that's really important. So we do want to expand it to work on many many more types of apps than just the the handful that we've announced. Um and so it won't always be the case that you know the the developer if you will has um has you know seen the functionality or what have you because it's really trying to be your personal assistant navigating the app on your behalf. And so it does that technically by um when you know when you give Gemini a a request it makes a plan um and you know it reasons through that plan and then it uh launches the app using an Android capability which allows the app to be run in a separate window um so effectively that um you you can watch it at any time but you can also minimize it and it goes up into your status bar um so that it doesn't have to be in your way. So, it's it's actually running that app on your device um but in a virtual window that you don't have to be observing the whole time and thus you can use your phone for other things, but you can always tap on it and see what it's doing and literally watch it um take the next step. You can take control of it at any time. It's also designed that when it gets to the transaction point, when it's like ready to make that transaction, it's designed and trained to come and fetch you and say, "Hey, I'm done." Um and uh I want you to look over this. and then you can actually hit uh purchase or or order or whatever the the the the point may be.

[00:24:53]So, it keeps you in control.

[00:24:55]>> This is this is the kind of stuff that makes my wife's head explode. But uh yeah, I'm I'm down with it. It definitely makes her go, "Ah, it's weird robots." But yeah, it's cool.

[00:25:03]>> Yeah, it it is it is weird. And when you haven't done it, it's weird. And then the more you kind of dip your toes in, the more you kind of find your you bump up against your comfort level, >> you know? At least that's been my that's been my journey. And now I'm doing more of this. I have a couple of questions along this along this line that I would love to ask you. First first of all has to do with kind of responsibility when it comes to agentic actions on our behalf. You know, um there's there's this kind of question right now around like if an agent is doing something and makes a mistake like who does that fall onto? Does that you know is that the responsibility or the let's say the fault of the technology itself because it was the one that that carried out that action or is it the responsibility of the user because the because that's acting on behalf of me the user and um you know and I wonder how that interplays here if you know we ask Gemini to um go find concert tickets for us and maybe it secures the wrong seats.

[00:26:02]I mean, granted, at the end of the day, we're the one that makes that final push to pull the trigger on the purchase, but um how does Google see this? I'm super curious if Google has kind of an opinion or uh insight on that.

[00:26:15]>> Well, this is a big discussion right now, right? Um you know, in the in the world, I think, and and I think we are going to see more of these kinds of experiences. And so, I do want to emphasize one thing that you said because it's an important part of our our product strategy here is we we wanted to keep you as the user in control. So, the way that this works today with uh on Android with Gemini is it doesn't complete the transaction for you. It will actually ask you questions as followup if there's something that's unclear because sometimes, you know, I give unclear instructions to to it and it's like, okay, wait, I don't you know, the concert you asked for, like, is it the one at 4:30 or the one at 7:30 that day because they're playing twice that day, you know, like it, you know, that kind of thing. It'll ask you. But then um the second thing is it it always brings you back to the confirmation screen and you need to look over that and complete the purchase. And I think that's really important because right now, you know, I think a as you said for comfort, you know, I want that, you know, um and then B, you know, because they're they're it's really important that um we also get that clear signal from the from the user like is that is this working well for me, you know, and um in terms of the liability issue, you know, I think that's going to be a big debate for for a long time. I think there's multiple ways to see it, you know, and and um we have this confirmation step, etc., But, you know, I think probably there's some others out there that don't like I know there's like OpenC for example, which will just do stuff for you. Um, you know, and I think there's two debates, right? Like there are two sides to the debate, probably more than two sides because it's the internet. But, um, one side of it is like one side of it is like, well, you know, yeah, that's this piece of technology and it's and the the creator of the technology is responsible. The other side of it is like this is your personal assistant and it's like you handing your phone to to your personal assistant and giving them instructions and then if they don't if they don't do a good job, you know, whose fault is that? Is that yours? Is that theirs?

[00:28:04]It's your personal assistant. So, it's like kind of a head exploding topic at the moment. Um, I think we're going to proceed with some from an Android perspective with some caution around this. Not like from a legal standpoint only, you know. I think also from the standpoint of just like what users want, you know, and I think what they want right now is, you know, they they want some I think the innovation around this comes in the form of remember you all have been around Android long enough.

[00:28:27]We've had different iterations of how we introduce permissions for apps, you know, and our the current iteration is like runtime permissions and then certain permissions are sensitive permissions where you have to go to certain menus and you have to flip certain things. That's that's a a state we arrived at through a lot of experience figuring out how to make sure users are safe, but the safeties aren't so overbearing that you can't enjoy the capabilities of the technology and you got to find that balance and and I think that's how we're going to iterate our way through this as well.

[00:28:58]>> Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Um, also kind of related to this but in a different let's say part of the area of the room. Um about a year ago, you and I spoke uh in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress and we were talking a little bit.

[00:29:12]>> You don't have to rub it in, Jason, that you're at Barcelona. Okay.

[00:29:14]>> Oh, and oh, by the way, Ron, by the way, Ron, we uh I had some hem on while I was there. Just thought you had to mention it.

[00:29:20]>> Just just throwing that out there for no uh reason. Um part of our conversation was about this kind of like this the on the near-term horizon where agentic actions are coming to the smartphone and kind of what that means for apps as we know it. because you know a lot of uh app developers are like wait a minute these agents can do carry out a lot of these actions they don't necessarily need an app in order to do it now we have uh rumors anyways at least at least at this point that chat GPT might have you know openi might be developing a chatpt smartphone that really kind of leans into agentic action as like the primary of how that operates again that's a rumor who knows how that's going to hand pan out but if agents are handling the transaction you know, they're doing the search, they're making some of the decisions along with us.

[00:30:08]What is I'm curious to hear your take a year later on what the app is at that point as this has developed and as we can see with some of the announcements that you have here that that agentic um piece is kind of integrating itself into Android more. Um what what what is your take on that uh one year later as far as where things stand and where they're headed there?

[00:30:32]If we look at form factors beyond the phone for a minute, I think it's a little easier to start there and then move back to the phone because the phone we have so much muscle memory in our brains around how a phone should work because they've been around for a while now. But if we take for example and you have a smart speaker in your house or you have a pair of glasses that are intelligent eyewear, right? Um and you want to ask it either one of those two devices or your car, right? Hey, like order me my regular at the coffee shop or make you know make sure that the the the following things are are are taken care of um in your IoT house or whatever some action you want performed, right? Um, we can all understand there that that needs to be done in a way that, you know, you're not going to have the benefit of all the screen real estate you have on the phone or the attention. You might be driving um you might be on to the next thing, you know, if you're if you're um out and about with um just your watch or glasses or what have you. And so I think as these form factors become more and more popular, it's very natural that developers are going to want to participate in the economy that comes from all of that. They're going to want to participate and make their app the the service of choice in those different places. So I think there's already a movement from the developers I talked to anyway to figure this out, how they should participate in all of that because they see that coming. Um, and I think many companies, you mentioned one, but many companies will build, you know, so-called AI first devices, you know, which is not my favorite name for devices by the way, but I think that's how the kind of generally the world is talking about them where like they it's like these kinds of interfaces where you have to figure that out as a developer.

[00:32:23]Um, so I think that's all coming um in a in a way that will be, you know, consumers will appreciate it because they're like, "Yeah, this is the way I could interact with those services on these devices." when you come to the phone, I think it's a richer surface or the laptop. It's a richer surface. You have more screen real estate. You have more UI capabilities, uh, more input capabilities. Um, and there I think the the the chapter hasn't been written yet on like what the future of apps will be.

[00:32:50]Um, I do think apps, as we talked about before in Barcelona, just to rub it in further, >> yeah, with or without Ham. Great.

[00:32:57]Thanks, Samir. Thanks.

[00:32:59]Um but as we talked about in Barcelona um you know I I think apps are important. I think apps are not just a functional like piece of code. I think they represent a relationship that you have with a service. um you know and you know even though you know if I take the shopping world I think some people would have said a long time ago that you know um there'll just be one store and you'll order from that store and um and and everything will come through it and everyone else will just plug into it and to a certain extent Amazon has been successful with mark with their marketplace and they've made that experience work but actually there's way more e-commerce and way more commerce that happens outside of Amazon than in Amazon. on, you know, >> um, and so I I think that people want to interact with brands. They want to interact. They want to have an experience from them. And sometimes it's not enough to just say, you know, get this thing done.

[00:33:52]>> Those cases are transactions. And I think developers want to have more transactions, right? But it's really like where they can add a lot more value. They want to have a conversation with you. They want to help you solve a problem. they want to do and it's like not as easy um to manifest all that through automation, you know, because it's like a back and forth thing. So, I think some of these apps will have agents too um of their own that need to be, you know, shown to you through your personal assistant or or otherwise. So, I I think all that's still going to evolve and it'll be a very interesting space.

[00:34:26]>> Okay. This is very related to what you were just talking about. So, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, the AI of it all. You spoke at the beginning of our interview uh about how you want to help people not have to be like the micromanager of the system. However, I have to push back a little bit because the way that the apps are now, you do it feels like you do have to manage them from the inside before Gemini will do what you want it to do, for instance.

[00:34:53]Um, so you know, if the goal is to shift Android from this from just a traditional OS to an intelligence system that gets stuff done, is there still going to be all this deep third party app linking that's going to be uh required to get those things done? How are you going to incentivize the developers to sort of open up those mundane tasks to Gemini uh so that all the elements of the ecosystem can come together and sort of execute on that vision rather than just here are our three partners.

[00:35:25]>> Yeah, that's right. I mean I think um I think that you know one thing is like with app automation you know we do have um it's like a primitive capability meaning primitive meaning baseline capability >> um where you know it can open up an app and it's it's literally navigating the app by looking at it and using Gemini's multimodal reasoning capabilities to navigate and tap the buttons in the way that you would or way that a human would. And so that doesn't require any effort from the developer, but of course isn't as optimal as for example doing um for apps to build app actions and and um or other APIs like you know an MCP integration or what have you. And um that's going to be faster. It's going to be um it's going to be more efficient.

[00:36:10]Um and what I think is important there is we want to work with developers because we want this to be good business for them. like it has to be good business for them otherwise ultimately it won't >> work as well >> and um and I think those kinds of integrations are really interesting because they can be two-way in a way that's very different than just navigating the app for you with with like taps um you know for example if you're in some kind of commerce app um and you had an app function for it you might be requesting to order this thing but if it's a two-way kind of conversation with APIs it could say oh by the way I want to recommend back to the user these things that we have on special today. Can you render them render this for them and like ask if they want to add these things to their cart? Um, do they do they want to prioritize to delivery cuz you know I have a different way of doing I have a different way of doing that. It costs a little bit extra but I think I can get it to them in less than you know 20 minutes. Like can you show that to them?

[00:37:05]And so that back and forth is much easier to do when the developer can express their point of view through those API integrations. And so I think we want to find a way to make sure that it's really good business for them. And I think those integrations will ultimately be um a great incentive because they'll see that hopefully that that's a great way for them to um have a two-way conversation and and we we want that. So I think that's part of the way it'll evolve.

[00:37:30]>> Okay, >> cool. Excellent.

[00:37:32]>> Thank you. So all this AI stuff and I know that there's so much more that that that we've got to get to before we we lose you Samir, but I got to we whenever Apple's in the mix, we got to ask the question and I know a lot of our audience is always we we it's we got a bingo card. Um but so we've seen in the last you know last couple years between you know the whole RCS thing and now we've seen Quick Share now works with AirDrop and you know you've worked directly with Apple on iOS to Android transfers including eim. Um, so like after years and years of friction, we were just curious like how did all this come about? Um, you know, this kind of cooperation or like this interoperability with a with Apple devices, you know, was it has it come from the regulatory pressure from places like the EU or is this actually the result of, you know, genuine cooperation happening within the valley? Um, and maybe I'm a little, you know, like I cooperation, >> pardon my skeptic skepticalness of this of that, but just curious like, you know, this is something I never thought would see we'd see the light of day happening, but here we are where, you know, interoperability seems closer than ever and just curious how how that's happening from the Google perspective.

[00:38:37]So, >> a few things to say about that. Um, one, I think the credit for any progress that's made here belongs to you all. um other other fans, other journalists um and and and and also Apple users um if I may. I think all of you speaking out on how it's 2026 and I should be able to choose any technology I want and it should work independent of what phone I have or what ecosystem I'm living in or whatever. that in the end of the day is the pressure that makes the most difference across the board. Um, and so thank you for and continue to do that because even though we've made progress, there's a lot more progress to be made if we're honest about it and um, you know, there's there's a lot of things that we we really should make easier and we we would love to. the direct conversations that we've had with with Apple on this have been um have been, you know, very very positive where we where we have had them. Um just yesterday, for example, we announced that um end toend encryption for RCS between iPhones and Android devices is starting to roll out. Um that has been a long time in the making. Um really pleased to see that. I think that's a great thing for consumers. Um and and you know, we've worked together with Apple on that. Some other things, you know, we we we weren't necessarily able to work with Apple on, but we found a way to to do ourselves, like um like airdrop interoperability. Um that was something that, you know, we we took on ourselves. Um but, you know, we're just going to keep pushing on all these things because we hear from you, from consumers that this is what they want.

[00:40:17]They want stuff to work across ecosystems and they want it to be really smooth and seamless and um we want to try to deliver that. Well, being quiet is one thing I'm incapable of being. So, we will continue to keep talking about it. So, that's for sure.

[00:40:32]>> That's great.

[00:40:35]>> Okay, I want to switch gears to the really big news that everybody has really been anticipating. Okay, that's the introduction of the Google book.

[00:40:44]>> So, yes, >> what does I'm personally, Listen, I'm going to just say it. personally excited because I am a fan of the Chromebook, but it makes me wonder like what's going to happen between the Chromebook, Chrome OS, now I have this Google book to kind of anticipate. Uh it feels to me like two laptop operating systems. How how are you guys going to communicate that to consumers? How are you going to communicate it to me which laptop to be on?

[00:41:11]>> Okay. Um yeah, it's a great question.

[00:41:13]Um, so first of all, we're really excited about Google Book uh being announced. You know, we have a lineup of partners for the fall that are building laptops um that will be Google Books. Um and we have a lot more to share there uh you know, later in the year when we can walk everyone through the entire experience. But um your question I think was also about Chrome OS. Um we've been really happy with Chrome OS. It's been super successful um in a number of places. For example, in education in the education market in the US, I think over 60% of the education market in the US, uh schools and what have you are um are on Chromebooks. Um and that's awesome.

[00:41:55]You know, I think there's a number of reasons for that. You know, Chromebooks are have a really low total cost of ownership because they're easy to maintain. They don't have the same security vulnerabilities and and problems that, you know, some other laptops have. They have multi-user signin. super seamlessly so kids can move them between um each other really easily and um and they have a bunch of features that help the teacher stay in control of the classroom um if everybody's using a Chromebook to get their work done. Um so they're a great solution. They're not going anywhere.

[00:42:26]They're going to we're going to continue to innovate on on on Chrome OS. Um but it will be focused on those segments where they've been it's been really strong. Um, in fact, one cool thing we just did, if you didn't see it, is we have this Chrome OS Flex um dongle. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's >> Oh, I know all about it.

[00:42:44]>> Yeah. So, it's So, for for your for your listeners who may not know, it's like a USB um dongle, and you can plug it into a supported um uh uh laptop, a Windows laptop, for example, that maybe the Windows laptop is out of support. Maybe it was Windows 10, but the but the laptop and its configuration is on the list of supported Chrome OS Flex, you know, uh devices. You can plug it in and with it'll um convert your your machine to a to a Chromebook. Um and so now you've got Chrome OS on there. And that thing sold out like overnight. Um and so we got to get more of them in stock.

[00:43:18]We're working on it.

[00:43:20]>> Um but I'm excited about Chrome OS in the future there. Um for for Google Book, what we've also seen is that Android users are really excited about having a more premium set of laptops that are able to interoperate with their Android phone in a super seamless way.

[00:43:39]See all the apps that are running on that that you have on your Android phone and launch them right on your desktop.

[00:43:44]um be able to do seamless file sharing, not even with quick share, but like have a fused file system where like you just have to click a button and you can see all the pictures that you know were were taken on your phone. Um you know the uh the ability to resume tasks like I'm on my browser on the phone and now I switch to my laptop or vice versa and you just immediately pick up where you left off.

[00:44:03]There's a lot of need for that and a lot of like outcry for that. So what we've done is what we've built is we we learned a lot with CH OS's user experience and of course with the with with the basis of Android underneath.

[00:44:13]We've combined those two things together into an experience that um I think will really give the Android user what they're looking for there and with a form factor that you know beautiful hardware, great specs um and a range of price points ultimately um that make you feel like you know the laptop this is the laptop for you. comes with so it's Android compatible so it comes with the Play Store and all the apps there come will come with a great you know Chrome browser um and I I couldn't be more excited for you all to try it out >> I mean it's it's really cool I mean it's a big swing but you know the the Android integration with the Google book and all the the Gemini integration and all the cool stuff you got under the hood but I do got to admit when it comes to big swings I didn't expect a new cursor to be an element of the Google book um and and the and the amount of attention that you guys applied to the magic cursor and the design of it and the integration of of Gemini in terms of what it can do within you know the the element of AI with within the cursor you know tell me did you and the team generally consider it a risk to mess with the cursor considering that that is probably one of the most muscle memored interface elements in all of computers for like for like 40 50 years I mean when you think about cursors it is something I mean I'm Gen X kid you know, I grew up, you know, in front of, you know, in front of a early early Mac, you know, early early 80s, right? The cursor is as old as I I'm probably older than I am.

[00:45:41]It's it's probably a again a big swing to go after it. So, like what was the thought process there?

[00:45:47]>> Yeah, actually, I should make a t-shirt.

[00:45:49]Don't mess with the cursor. That's a great one. That's exactly what I >> Yeah, that's exactly what I said to the team initially. You know, I said like this this cursor is um I'm nervous about what you're doing here. That's what I said initially to them. But um as I started using it and as they've iterated and refined it, I have to say it's pretty awesome. And let me just for your listeners, let me just give the the concept here. So Gemini intelligence is kind of how we infuse the capabilities of of of um Google Gemini into um both phones but also now into um Google books. And you know, I think it's really an opportunity to bring innovation back to the to to the laptop, you know, which you know, is a great form factor. It's actually getting more popular now with with with all this, you know, AI stuff because you can do more with um on your laptop with with it than than you can on other form factors. You have more real estate. Um and the you know the the cursor is one part of how we're bringing this capability to life. So you you you shake the cursor um and we we've really fine-tuned that so it doesn't false. Um, but you shake the cursor, it lights up, and then what you can do is you can tap on things that are on in your different windows to build context for the question that you want to ask Gemini.

[00:47:05]And what we've learned about these AI agents is that context is obviously critical to getting awesome answers. And when you give them great context, you will you can be amazed. At least I am very amazed, right? But just like any just like anything else, if you don't have a lot of context, it's hard to give you good answers. So, how do you drop the friction required to get context into the system? With circle to search on phones, we effectively did that for visual search, right? You just have to circle something. You don't have to describe the object. You don't have to do any of that. With with with the pointer approach here, it it acts in a similar way. Instead of downloading like if like one of the examples we gave you want to redecorate a room and in your photos you've got a picture of the room on a website you've got a picture of the baby crib on another on another website tab you've got a picture of the wallpaper on another you've got a picture of a carpet. What do you have to do today to get a sample get an image generated of all those things together.

[00:48:03]You got to go download each of those things. You got to save them to your file system. Then you got to go to your your your agent of choice. Then you got to upload those things. And you got to write your prompt. Right? That's a lot of friction to get what should be as simple as wiggle a mouse, get the cursor to light up, tap tap tap tap on the images, write your query, done. And it and it does it for you, right? That's what we're trying to do here. And I think it's pretty it's it's it's pretty cool. I I can't wait for you to try it as well.

[00:48:32]>> I'm I'm looking forward. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm excited. It's pretty cool. I as a as someone who has been using um yes Chromebooks for a very long time, but also the Pixelbooks like God, I have my Pixel my my a you know years old Pixel um you know laptop here and I always had people asking me like why would you want a Chromebook that's like an expensive Chromebook? And I was like, dude, it's just it's there's something about that experience like it doesn't just because it's a browser doesn't mean it can't have a a luxury experience and that's kind of what I feel is revitalized with um with this news. So I appreciate that you guys have that. Um so that's really cool. I know we've got we're running up against the time uh for you Samir. One last question before we get you out of here. um Android faithful audience, you know, we're passionate, we're deeply invested in uh the Android ecosystem and this is an opportunity for you. Um, what would you want to say directly to the person who's been an Android user for more than 10 years, you know, probably been listening to Android Faithful and all about Android for about as long and is watching all of this change happen at this, you know, tying back to the beginning of the interview, this kind of inflection point for Android. What What would you want to say to them?

[00:49:49]>> Yeah, thanks. First, uh, I want to thank your audience for being Android faithful for so long. Um, honestly I I um it's such an amazing community and um you all engage with me on variety of different forms of social media or LinkedIn or lots of places and you know you you're not shy and I appreciate that and I and you know keep the feedback coming. We really do read it all. Um we really do read it all. We try to obsess about the things that are that the Android fans really care a lot about. Um and you know sometimes um we we we do change our plans as a result of hearing what people are really excited about. Um, and and so one of the things I do want to say to you all is while we're talking a lot about Gemini intelligence and AI capabilities and what have you, there's also an entire section of the Android show um that is purely focused on things that you're struggling with every day um you know and improving the quality of the experience for nonAI related things.

[00:50:46]We think that's like critical critical. So, the quality of the experience, the battery life, the amount of jank that you see, things like how do my social media pics show up when I upload them to Instagram? What's the quality of that going to look like? How do I make sure that digital well-being improves and I can control better how I spend my time on my phone? You know, there's a lot of things that I would say the Android faithful have asked for over time just to make their everyday experience better. And we prioritize that as priority zero kind of stuff. Um that is what we spend most of our time on. Um and we because we know it matters so much um for ourselves frankly we're all users too but for everyone else and I just wanted to convey that we didn't talk about it as much here but it actually is the majority of our focus.

[00:51:36]Well, that that kind of echoes last time we spoke to Matthew McCulla actually, we gave him a little bit of a hard time because the past I want to say year, year and a half, maybe going on two years now. you guys have been relentless and like honestly Samir, we're exhausted because like the amount of stuff we've been covering coming out of uh Android on the operating system side and like all this all the updates and all the I mean like honestly like in addition to the Android show last week QPR beta 2 came out like it's just it has been one and like and honestly to hear you say that it is clear that the feedback loop is happening but from us the end users to you guys you're hearing it and the changes and the improvements the iter I mean like Google's always been an iterative company, but like I think the explosion of work that's been done in the last two years alone, I mean by by our sheer level of exhaustion doing this show is a byproduct of that because of what we're covering. I don't think it's been there's been a hasn't been a quiet point in a while and that's a good thing even though we're tired. So, thank you.

[00:52:35]>> Okay. Well, I'm I'm sorry that we made you that we made you tired. I don't know that that's a feature, but but I am happy that I am happy that you're covering it all and that you're seeing the pace. Yeah, the team really and I have give give our team's leadership so much credit for this. You know, they're really trying to make sure that we get the um the best out to to our users as quickly as possible. Um and and and we do really take in a lot of feedback and you know, I know some of your us your your cons you know, users are also concerned about things like sideloading.

[00:53:05]you know, we um we we and I maybe I'll address this briefly even though you didn't ask for it just because I think it is important to the to to your user base since you asked me to address them directly. Um so I've said before many actually many times that sideloading is not going anywhere although you know we do have three billion plus users around the world and we do hear a lot from them um that uh they they are having issues on their device um that uh that are making them less safe and less secure.

[00:53:33]Um you know a lot of people do get um tricked into installing software that is not safe. Um and it's a very common thing in a number of places in the world. Um where uh and people often Android is their their Android phone is like their only computer and they have their whole life on that. Uh and so when that gets compromised it it really isn't like an inconvenience. It's kind of like detrimental, you know, and it's really really important we take that seriously.

[00:54:00]It's kind of like a a serious subject.

[00:54:03]So we are trying to make sideloading safe. We want sideloading to be there, but we want it to be safe. And so we made some changes. I know some of them were controversial. We got a bunch of feedback. We we announced them with a year head start because we said like we want to make these changes. We're going to make these changes. What is your feedback? And the community gave us their feedback. U we made some improvements like we added specific developer accounts that reduced the friction dram tremendously. We added a a um a failsafe option where if you still want to sideloadad something even though it doesn't pass the checks that we would highly highly recommend that it passes before you sideloadad it, you can do it.

[00:54:37]You just have to flip your device into that mode. Um you know, and a lot of that comes from the community, you know, like we want it we hearing the community. This is when when we talk about Android being open, one of the things that's really important for people to understand because I don't think they're totally used to companies acting like this these days um is we'll often say what we intend to do, right?

[00:54:58]And we give a lot of lead time and and we say we want feedback. And I know some people say that and they're like, "Yeah, whatever. They don't want feedback. They just say that." And then that's that's not what we're saying. We actually want the feedback and we get the feedback and that's part of how we iterate on things.

[00:55:14]um is, you know, we ingest that, we make it better. Um, and when we say it's open, we're also open to feedback and we get plenty of it. And that's just a different way of operating than maybe some other companies out there that build mobile stuff.

[00:55:27]>> And that's one of the things that I love about Android is the accessibility of the platform, of the people creating it, the whole loop. I've always felt that about Android that it's it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like podcasters and and online media and everything compared to old school media.

[00:55:43]There's an accessibility that exists now that didn't used to exist and that the same is true about the smartphone that at least all the people listening and enjoying this podcast for as long as they have that they're clued into and they're tapped into. So, thank you for making it so accessible like that.

[00:55:58]>> It's awesome.

[00:55:58]>> Thank you all for the time and thanks for caring about Android. Um, and I hope to see you all soon.

[00:56:03]>> Yeah, hopefully next week.

[00:56:05]>> We'll see you in Mountain View. We're looking forward to it. We'll we'll definitely be there. So, >> thank you. Thanks, Samir. Congrats.

[00:56:10]Congrats on everything with the Android show and we'll see you next week.

[00:56:13]>> All right, that was Samir Samad on once again getting the opportunity to talk with him. Of course, we're going to see him in another week when we're at uh Google IO, >> you know, cuz we're old pals at this point basically, you know, go down to the pool hall. No, actually, I've never shot pool with Samir, though I would.

[00:56:29]Samir, if you >> We didn't We were pressed for time because he had such a tight schedule. We didn't acknowledge it during the interview, but just a little appreciation and hat tip to Samir for the uh Android plushy uh sitting behind him. Um it's always good to see a plush uh >> I mean finally we get to see the plush Android again. We don't have Michelle around anymore to throw his his plushy androids in our face. You've got yours somewhere. It's it's always hidden.

[00:56:56]>> My kids always want to play with it.

[00:56:57]That's all right.

[00:56:58]>> All right. All right. There he is. So we hope you we hope you enjoyed the interview. We are going to take a quick break. When we come back on the other side of the break, we are going to do some news roundup because we do have a few items and then we'll get you out of here. So, hang tight. That's coming up next.

[00:57:14]>> So, the Android show wasn't the only thing that happened this week, believe it or not. Um although it did get quiet.

[00:57:19]It did get quiet. So, you could tell that kind of everybody kind of settled down, but kind of Google didn't even quiet themselves. I even >> Yeah, this is this is really interesting. I'm trying to pull up the link so that I have something to show here. So, okay, what are we actually talking about? Let's see here. Boop.

[00:57:37]Okay, I can finally show it. Google announced um a new fitness tracker, new Fitbit Air. So, >> we we talked about this last week that it was rumored that it was coming or or Yeah, I think it was last week. Yep. And you can see on this article, this Verge article, it is a screenless device >> um going directly against, you know, Whoop as we mentioned last week, but now we kind of have official details. $99 shipping May 26th. There is $129 special edition. So if you uh feel like being special and paying the price for it, there you go. Um it is 25% smaller than the Fitbit Lux, 50% smaller than the Inspire 3, and uh pretty darn light. 5.2 2 g without the band. And uh yeah, I mean it, you know, like with these things, they're they're doing a good job of making them look kind of like style pieces, you know, just like a little colorful armband that also tracks health things. So that's cool. 7-day battery, 5 minute charge, uh gets you a full day.

[00:58:37]So very fast charge on the device.

[00:58:39]Really nice. And it does, you know, track heart rate, uh, SPBO2, HRV, sleep stages, AIB detection, steps, active zone minutes, uh, whole lot of fitness, uh, capabilities there. But you might notice that the data here uh, lives inside of a newly rebranded Google Health app. This is formerly the Fitbit app, now Google Health. Um, yes, there is Gemini under the core, uh, which provides the AI coaching, that sort of thing. You get three months of Google Health Premium if you purchase the Fitbit Air. So, they throw that in for you. That's nice. Um, the app rebrand goes live, no coincidence, on the same day as Google IO, so May 19th. So, that's going to kick into gear. And uh you know they've restructured I think some of the Fitbit um premium prices.

[00:59:36]Actually I don't know if they changed the prices but I know they renamed it.

[00:59:39]Instead of Fitbit Premium it's now Google Health Premium and still $79.99 a year. No that does change. Okay. So it was $79.99 that's bumped up to $99.99.

[00:59:51]So 100 bucks a year, $10 a month. Um, and then, you know, as as far as other things that happen related to this, Google Fit gets absorbed, shuts down in the move. So, it's kind of making its way into here. So, there you go. Some changes. I think some Fitbit folks out there were like, uh, felt a little whiplash.

[01:00:12]>> Well, I got I got to give credit I and I do got to give credit where credit's due over at Android Authority. I did get a laugh out loud at um the their headline, look at how they massac massacred my boy. Google is killing these Fitbit app features. Um, and that's that's a reference from The Godfather. Um, after James Khan's character is gunned down.

[01:00:33]Marlon Brando says, "Look how they massacred my boy." Um, but they outlined all of the features that are missing from the Fitbit app in the Google Health app. Which all this this always happens whenever there's a app migration or a new version kind of bug. you're going to you're going to have like and it's always like and there's a and it's a combination of what user testing they've done in terms of what you know features they want to carry over to new version what is actually being used by users what isn't being used by users and what direction they want to take the new platform in um there's going to be Fitbit loyalists who are who are probably epileptic right now app apoplelectic right now in in terms of appoplecttic um in terms of the features that they love are gone and the app that they love is gone on. There's nothing worse than when this this sort of thing happens. But you've got to hope that whatever Google has up their sleeve or up their, you know, workout clothes. Um, it's going to, you know, take you to a better solution. I mean, I'm one of like the last people on earth using Google Fit. So, like I'm like, oh man, what, you know, like, you know, like my entire my entire fitness ecosystem is built around using the Adidas running app and then having that data go into Google Fit. I don't know why. Just cuz I set it up 10 years ago. might as well.

[01:01:48]>> Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, I don't know.

[01:01:49]Right. But I got all but I've got years and years and years and years of data in there. So, what's going to happen? I mean, now it's all it's not necess it's all going into Health Connect, which I assume is going to go in, you know, but uh whatever. I don't care. Um >> yeah, >> you know, and and like you said, features not not making the switch. Um, for those of you wondering what those might be, sleep profile, a monthly sleep animals, something I wasn't aware of, badges, social groups, community feed, direct messages, leaderboard updates, no small kind of list, uh, blood glucose tracking. God, I can't say that. Blood glucose. There we go. Uh, tracking, no life scan device connections, symptoms tracking, reminders.

[01:02:32]Dang, there's a lot missing here. Maybe they just all get added in after the fact, you know, piece by piece once again.

[01:02:38]>> Or but but but if you look at that list though, it's the stuff that I mean some of the social stuff is like yeah what leaderboards messaging like do you need direct messaging in your health app?

[01:02:49]like I probably not right >> that stuff that stuff I don't expect to ever come back right but like some of the some of the other stuff like the blood glucose monitoring like those are product decisions about the direction they're going to take whatever this new health vertical is going to be in and if they don't have the devices or they they don't have the plan to monitor that stuff then why does it need to be in the app right so it could be it could be an indicator of what the direction of what this new approach to health is going to be right.

[01:03:20]>> So, >> um, and totally unrelated to all of this, you said the word apoplelectic, which uh, forced me to search it cuz I was like, I I've heard that word, but could I tell you what the definition is?

[01:03:31]Someone who is or seems likely to become uncontrollably enraged, which makes me think someone looking for a podcast, a nice podcast name where you just hate on apps or you hate the app ecosystem, appleic would be a perfect solution. But don't do that podcast. It's hard to pronounce and it's not a very good word spelling from a branding standpoint.

[01:03:52]>> People would come up from a million different ways.

[01:03:55]>> But it was the right usage of the word for people reacting to the killing of their favorite fitness app.

[01:03:59]>> I Hey, I give you 10 points.

[01:04:00]>> Yeah. So, if you are out there in the world and you are a Fitbit app loyalist and you're upset by this, write in. Let us know at contactfaithful.com. We want to know your experience and what you think. But reserve judgment until next week because obviously it's timed with Google IO. I got to assume next week at Google IO we're going to hear more about the fitness platform and what their plans are and all this sort of stuff.

[01:04:25]>> I can only assume we don't know but we'll >> there will be a zone at Google IO where we can go and interact with all this stuff if you know but I guess >> but not not monitor my blood glucose. So >> definitely not that unless you get the back the the like special room >> Yeah. access where they're like and then in the future you you aren't recording, right? Okay. In the future.

[01:04:47]>> So, we'll see. All right. Well, that was the big hardware news for the last week.

[01:04:50]Um, uh, in addition to the Google book.

[01:04:53]Um, but, uh, if anything else comes up, uh, that we haven't covered, we'll talk about it after hours again live stream tonight at 8, 800 PM Eastern, um, on youtube.com/deltechneow and twitch.tv/deltechnewshow.

[01:05:08]Um, but with that, we are going to hop over to apps. Um, or are we taking another break? I forget. Where we Where is our >> No, no, no. We're going over to apps.

[01:05:18]>> We're going over apps. We're going over apps.

[01:05:20]>> Well, Google won't stop at all. Um, because also last week, even though it's a uh, you know, a week and a half out from uh, Google IO, Android 17 QPR1 beta 2 got released. Um, and I know I know we all get excited whenever these Android 17 releases happen. Um, but we're at the point now where they're just they're very minor release notes on the Android developers website and this sort of thing. Um, but thankfully our friends over at 95 Google and Android Authority are all over it. Um, Android 17 QPR1 beta 2, just a slew of bug fixes. Um, >> oh, look at that beautiful slew.

[01:05:58]>> I know. Yeah. But over at 95 Google, they did they did pick up on some new stuff that was is snuck in there and they have screenshots. Um, so the privacy dashboard uh under the the activity monitor now also shows AI assistant activity. Um, which is nice to kind of get a sense of what activity is happening by the AI assistant. Um, gives you a little insight there. Um, okay.

[01:06:23]>> Hold the phone. There's a new icon for editing quick settings. Um, they >> Oh my good, look at that icon. It's beautiful.

[01:06:30]>> So, the icon used to just be a little pencil and now it's three squares and a pencil. So, >> they shrunk the pencil and brought you a few squares.

[01:06:39]>> Yep. Um, and also they tweaked the dot that appears on apps to show that there's a notification. It used to be just a solid dot, but now it's a dot with a white outline around it.

[01:06:53]>> Oh my. It's It's a million times better, right?

[01:06:56]>> A little white ring around it.

[01:06:57]>> This could be the only change that they made to the operating system. A full full point even. And uh this this would make me happy.

[01:07:05]>> Yeah. But they fixed a lot of bugs and and this is what you're going to see uh as they get closer and closer to Android 17's uh release, which we are all uh anxiously awaiting. So, >> man, I'm just going to go back and park on this app notification dot that got a tweaked cuz that is the this is Yeah, this is why we don't spend much time on these betas cuz really you got to care.

[01:07:29]>> It's good to know they're coming >> on a deep deep level. You got to you got to care about that white outline. Um, but I saw an update on threads uh last weekend, I think, or maybe it was last Friday, from uh Michelle Raman, uh former friend of the show. Maybe we stopped calling him friend of the show.

[01:07:48]>> No, he'll always be a friend of the show.

[01:07:50]>> Okay. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[01:07:51]Um, anyways, he he, as you know, works at Google now and he apparently knew that Google was about to release Snapseed 4.0 for Android. That's right.

[01:08:01]Snapseed still around. God, you remember when everybody was like Snapseed crazy?

[01:08:06]I was Snapseed crazy.

[01:08:07]>> You were You were big Snap, you were a big Snapseed uh proponent.

[01:08:10]>> Yeah, I don't have it installed anymore.

[01:08:13]You know, a lot of the apps that you would use this for already have this stuff baked in now, right? Like in the social media apps, a lot of times they have like filters and stuff like that, but this is arguably this is very much more um more flexible and functional.

[01:08:27]But um 4.0 out, iOS actually got the 4.0 know update back in February. So, this is one of those situations where Android is the lagard, but it's finally coming uh coming out now. There's a new Snapseed camera mode with uh full pro controls. So, you know, you can do ISO control. Oh, there's no screenshots here. Okay, fine. I'll leave it here. Um full ISO control, shutter speed, focus, all that kind of stuff inside of Snapseed. Um, you've got film looks and actually the cool thing about that is that you can apply it in real time. So you you know sometimes you have to like apply it and then wait and see what it looks like and now it's it can be applied in real time while you're shooting. Um, and then even if you apply it while shooting, you can still adjust it after the shot. So that's kind of cool. Um, some film filters, you know, Fujifilm, Kodak, blah blah bunch of models that you probably are familiar with to get the that look that they have. um smart masking, batch editing, and still completely free, which is interesting. I'd say that's pretty notable. No ads, no subscription, no watermarks. This is just a a really kick butt uh camera editing app that is absolutely free.

[01:09:39]>> That's pretty great.

[01:09:41]>> That's pretty good.

[01:09:42]>> Yeah, >> pretty sweet.

[01:09:44]um >> you don't you don't see you don't see an app and and there's so much um so much love for this uh this app and and as I was browsing and I saw everyone kind of talking about it um I haven't seen this much kind of reaction to an app in a while um so yeah so it's great you know like you know like when you see you know the wait is over and it's back and all this sort of stuff you know like it's nice to see that so >> yeah probably there was some builtup anticipation because iOS did get it back in February. So, it was like, "All right, we're waiting. When is the Android version going to come?" So, here we are.

[01:10:20]>> Yeah. So, >> very cool.

[01:10:22]>> Good stuff.

[01:10:23]>> Snapseed is Google, right? It is a Google app, right?

[01:10:26]>> Yeah. No, it is, right? Yeah. Yeah. Why would >> Google launches Snapseed 4.0 for? Yeah, it's Google. Google rolls out. All the headlines say Google Google. So, >> Google Google.

[01:10:36]>> Let's see. Snapseed 4.0 from Google LLC.

[01:10:39]There it is. 100 million downloads.

[01:10:42]one 1.74 million reviews and has a 3.9.

[01:10:47]>> That's weird.

[01:10:48]>> Kind of a big deal.

[01:10:50]>> Yeah. You'd think it would have a higher rating though. So, >> um I don't know. People give a no star and a low star for >> Yeah.

[01:10:59]>> any sort of >> for not being updated. That's probably what it was. That what it was. Yeah. So, yeah. Oh, well.

[01:11:04]>> Some people give the low star review and then give it a or give it a low star rating and then give it an amazing review. And I'm always like, "What?

[01:11:11]>> What? What on earth? I don't understand."

[01:11:14]>> Anyways, that's Snapseed 4.0.

[01:11:16]>> There it is. All right. Go get it. So, all right. Well, that puts us at the end of this week's show. Uh, we hope everybody enjoyed our chat with Samir.

[01:11:25]Um, Samir Samat. We thank Samir for his time. We thank everybody at Google that helped us uh make that happen. Um, and don't forget, um, if you are listening to this to tune in in a few hours, uh, to our live stream, to tune in to a very special free edition of the Android Faithful after hours. Um, and if you missed it, if you're listening to this on the blog post, go back to YouTube, you can go watch it. Um, you can watch the replay of the after hours. Um, or you can pick it up on the feed in a couple of days. Um, because we want to share with everybody. But most importantly, if you got questions about the Android show and you got the questions about the stuff that they announced uh today, send them in at contract and contact not contract. We're not signing any contracts. Um at contact androidfaithful.com. We want to answer as many questions as we can on um on uh after hours this week. And if we don't get to your questions this week, we will answer them probably not next week because we're going to be at Google IO, but the week after. Um but we want to get as much community kind of feedback about this new direction of Android. Um, and that's a good scheduling note because we are gonna be we are going to be at Google IO next week. Um, and we're going to do our darnest to get the show out. Um, we aren't going to be live on the live stream next week also due to Google IO. Um, so but keep an eye on our social media and if you're in our Discord or on Patreon, uh, we'll keep you posted on all that fun stuff there.

[01:12:44]Um, but until we're together in person again, Jason, uh, why don't you let people know where you can be found and what's going on in your world? Yeah, got lots of things going on in my world. Go to linktree.com/jasonhow and you can see links to all the things that I have going on because that's just easier than uh pointing you to one thing. See so many things.

[01:13:05]linktree.com/aznow.

[01:13:07]We'll go there.

[01:13:07]>> Look at your smile your smiling face on your yellow.

[01:13:10]>> Ah, look at me. Boo boo.

[01:13:13]And finally me, you head over to um I'm on social media out in the world uh usually at Ronxo. most active these days over at Threads. Um, most recently you see my review of Sheep Detectives, which I saw over the weekend. Two thumbs up.

[01:13:26]Strongly recommend. It was fantastic.

[01:13:28]Um, good movie. Um, >> oh, I heard about that movie. I don't know how many months ago I saw a trailer. I was like, what?

[01:13:35]>> It's very good. It's very, very good.

[01:13:37]Um, fun for the whole family. So, okay.

[01:13:40]And and it's it's yet another uh one of my favorite movie genres are quirky Hugh Jackman films. and it it it goes right into that uh into that collection. So >> nice. Yes. So, all right. Well, uh that's going to wrap it up for this week's special edition of Android Faithful. We again we hope you enjoyed the interview with Samir Spot and uh we'll be back next week from Mountain View uh from uh on the Google IO event space. Um and until that next time, lots of Android to digest. We want to hear from you. Email us. Let us know what you think. See you next time. Oh, can I do it? Can I do it?

[01:14:20]Android