Pixelated - At the Next Denny's, Turn Left

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Welcome to episode 92 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Damien and Will break down all of the changes coming to Google Maps, including a fresh 3D look and a Gemini-powered Ask Maps tool. They also break down recent reports that Motorola dominates 50% of the North American foldables market, asking what the brand can do to stay on top, before wrapping up with some kernel changes coming to Android that should make your current phone just a little more efficient. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Sponsored by Proton Unlimited: Pixelated listeners can save 30% on an annual subscription by signing up for Proton Unlimited using this link. Thanks to Proton Unlimited for sponsoring this week's episode. Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google Maps changes 23:35 - Motorola foldable marketshare 43:09 - Android's efficiency improvements 48:41 - Wrap-up Hosts Will Sattelberg Damien Wilde Read more ‘Immersive Navigation’ is the biggest Google Maps driving update in a decade Google Maps rolling out conversational ‘Ask Maps’ chat Motorola holds 50% of the US foldable market ahead of Razr Fold launch, IDC says Google is making Android phones faster and improving battery life with this change Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer. And for even more Android discussion, dive into the official 9to5Google forums!

Switching your apps and services is about as much fun as switching banks, especially when you don't have any issues with your current providers to begin with. But Proton is worth switching for. With a privacy-first ecosystem of services available on practically every platform, Proton offers email, calendar, file storage, VPN, password management, and document editing. Built with class-leading end-to-end encryption, Proton services are fast, intuitive, and secure. And if you're worried about switching, Proton has export tools that bring over your emails, files, and passwords, and just a few clicks. For Pixelated listeners, Proton is offering 30% off an annual subscription to Proton Unlimited. Just visit Proton.me. slash 9 to 5 Google or click the link in the show notes to learn more.

That's Proton.com.me slash 9 to5 Google. Welcome to Pixelated Episode 92. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Damien and I break down all of the changes coming to Google Maps. from a complete visual overhaul to an all-new Gemini-powered Ask Maps feature. As Google said itself, it's the biggest update maps has seen in over a decade, which makes it a pretty big deal. Then we break down a new report that finds Motorola holds a whopping 50% of the North American foldable market,

before finally wrapping up with some throwback efficiency changes coming to Android. It all starts right now. So this feels a bit weird being back in the air quote. podcast studio after a few weeks away. A few things have happened since I've been at MWC and some of taking care of some other things. The biggest will is, well, Google's decided are going to shake up Google Maps

for the first time in around about a decade. And I mean, let's get into these visuals because I think these are the things that stand out straight away and we have some thoughts. Yeah, it's weird. I guess I had not really realized that like, you know, outside of some minor visual adjustments

over the last 10 years that Google Maps is not that far off. from it was in 2016, which is crazy to think. It's not really like a complete overhaul here either in terms of the raw UI. You still have, you know, navigation on top. You have your controls on the bottom, you know, your compass and your search and your sound controls and hazard alerts on the side and so on. It's really the maps themselves that look completely new with a 3D view that I would say is like 50%

inspired by like some of the recent Apple Maps updates and 50% maybe even more than 50% inspired by Waze Google's other Maps app which is not wise and I will make that mistake by the way during this conversation I will say wise my brain cannot it's one it's a one letter difference my brain will never separate them ways it just like we were actually talking about this in the pre-show that the the blue line the new line for for navigation when you are in like free flowing traffic, not in slower traffic when the line turns yellow or red, is the exact color that Waze uses,

which is, which was not, to my knowledge there before, I am, I haven't used navigation on my phone in a long time outside of walking, but, you know, I use, I use Android Auto, but. That is so shocking that you haven't done that, but you- I just always, I've had Android Auto for, for, 2019, like, yeah, it's just, I can't even remember last time I was in a car, I drove a car that didn't have Android auto support, even rentals.

I don't remember. It definitely feels like you said, I mean, I haven't, I don't have an extensive experience with Ways, but it feels, I mean, does it look cartoonish? Does it look a little bit too, and I don't want to say unprofessional, because that's no way to describe it. It feels like the most cartoonish way to show maps directions. Which is kind of Ways' whole thing, right? So like Ways is built around, well, it's built around the community. navigation aspect of it, right? Like, that was kind of how ways, that was Wayses bread and butter

before they were bought out by Google. And then these days, I would say, and even stretching before that, their other thing is like, they've had guest voices, right? So you could have like cookie monster do your navigation, right? Like stuff like that.

Or even, I think you could even make like custom voices with like your own voice or somebody else's voice. Yeah. And then, and then like these little, like you could change your like icon, right? Like these very like fun, little customization tweaks that are like silly, but if you have kids or whatever, you're just

a free spirit, man, like, you can have like a more fun, uh, you know, look to your navigation. The, what we're seeing here, not so much with the 3D elements. I think that's kind of more of a, of an Apple Maps aesthetic that it's taking. And that's not the first time we've seen Google Maps take from recent Apple Maps aesthetics. Uh, it's, it's the lines, it's the, it's the navigation lines, and it's this car icon that has replaced the, like... Yeah, it looks so weird, doesn't it? That's a most jarring aspect. It's very, very, very, see, almost did it, weighs. It's very, very ways. Which is...

And the car's very, very wide as well, actually, in the view, instead of the arrow. Like, it's kind of weird. That kind of is a bit confusing. I do wonder if people are going to be happy about that, because I do think with the arrow, it's like, okay, I'm pointing this direction. It makes sense. Maybe there's a way to change it. I can't see anything in the, in the original notes from Google about being able to change the iPhone. Yeah, if they're kind of taking elements from from ways, I wouldn't be

surprised if that setting is not there now, we eventually get it. You know what I mean? But it's very weird. I am so excited for when I get this update, because I assume this icon will also be an Android auto. I'm very excited. Yeah, it is. It is. Okay, perfect. You know,

when I inevitably park in a parking garage where the GPS signal is perhaps not great and I just watch this little car. just spin out of control and teleport to different parts of the building. It's going to happen. Well, at least with it, I don't doubt that it will. I mean, on that, actually, I had some, this is completely side note, and I'm sorry for

sidetracking this. I had some issues with my S-26 GPS while I was in MDBC, just constantly losing connection. And I imagine that this would have looked insane having the car or the person or whatever it is, just warp around the map. So, yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that. But in terms of like the 3D view, this feels like something that probably should have been done four or five years ago. I don't know why it's taking Google so long to do this, because their 3D maps are pretty

darn accurate. They've had this for street view and other functions. But I guess for the, sadly, the only downside is this US only for now rollout over the next few weeks and few months. I guess maybe they'll change some things for each individual region because obviously there are some changes here that makes sense for US roads and the way that US roads are very different from a lot of Europe in particular. I like the fact that they've gone down this route of, it almost shows you the exact path to go to take in certain junctions and like, I guess, big, like, four-way

traffic intersections. Like, that's always felt a little bit, I guess, with Google Maps as it is currently for me, for me, and it will be for a little bit longer for those of us in Europe. sometimes it can be a bit confusing whereby you enter this big junction and you're like, oh, where the hell of though I go now? Like it's just an arrow. It's like a left arrow instead of a slightly curve. There's more curvature in these. So I guess if that's been taken from ways, that's kind of a cool thing to have.

It's a nice thing to have. It makes it safer while you're driving. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking now. No, no. I agree with you on certain elements of it. There's a highway entrance, exit ramp intersection, not. and not super like maybe 10 minutes from my house that is um i i guess now that i've taken it a bunch

of times it's it's less confusing but the first few times uh that i i used it after we moved to this this part of buffalo it was like it is it is a confusing intersection where the ramp is also right after a different like right turn and so if you are just like looking at navigation it's unclear as to where you should turn and i think i think a lot of that could be solved by something like this where it's sort of showing you the 3D elements of like, not that road, it's this like slightly diagonal, like entrance ramp that looks like it's spitting off the other road, which is a confusing thing to explain, but, you know. I was about to say, that kind of, I guess it gets to the point that we as humans don't necessarily,

there's like certain ways in which we, we're going to use ways a lot, no pun intended, that we interpret information for directions. And I kind of like the fact that obviously just the visuals alone and are only part of the puzzle with this. So if anyone's wondering why the hell we're talking about the visuals, it's the thing that you see the most, obviously.

But they're going to be, Google's saying that they have a more natural voice guidance language model used here, which is powered by Gemini. So you might get something, and I think in their example, it says go past this exit and take the next one for Illinois 43 South,

which to me definitely makes a lot more sense than take the second left. in certain instances. Like sometimes taking the second left does make sense. I actually had one of those over the weekend. Okay. Which like, it stuck in my brain because I was like, I don't remember. I had a, it was like a, it was an A and B exit, right?

So it's like their right neck, the rate one after another. And I went to take the first one and like, right as Maddie tried to stop me and be like, it's the next one. The map also was like, it was like, it was like. like, go past this exit and take the next exit, which I had not, which like language I had not heard it used before, which was very helpful. Like, I don't know if that was, like, I think that was not anything. I think that was just like a rare, it was a highway I'm not usually on.

And so maybe it was just like a rare little glimpse of what this is going to feel a little bit more like. Yeah, because it has been in the pipeline for a while. Yeah. I think Google is using Gemini for some more spatial understanding. They've been working on that for a little while. but they say that the models used to analyze fresh real-world imagery from street view and aerial photos

to give you an accurate view of things along your route like landmarks and medians. I mean, that's a big bit of spiel, as it were, definite marketing speak. But if that works for every, if that works in every situation, I do genuinely think Gemini can be good at breaking down the information that you would,

I guess when you're driving, you're so focused on, am I going to, do I need to break? Is this car behind me going to like, You know, rear end me. Do I need to make sure that I'm in this lane? Like, I do genuinely think sometimes having maps just giving you key info can be a little bit stressful. I think having a almost reassuring voice, like when you, I guess when you have a passenger in the car, like, and you talk them through the route, it's less stressful. So if Gemini can even replicate 10% of that, I think that will be so much better than what Maps is doing right now.

Yeah. Yeah, my hope, I guess. So I mostly drive with voice navigation disabled, right? Like I... Okay. You're crazy. I can't deal with that. Why the hell are you doing that to yourself?

Well, usually even when I'm... When I type in a destination, I tend to know, unless I'm going on like a vacation or something. I tend to know where I'm going. And so it's more there for like, you know, traffic alerts or, you know, police alert. if there's a speed trap ahead and so on. What will inevitably happen is that I will get cocky and I will be like, and I never need to turn it on. And then I will drive somewhere that is new to me.

I mean, this just happened a couple weeks ago. I drove to, I drove with a friend out to Rochester, which is about, it's a different city in New York State, about 70, 75 minutes away. So it's not super far to drive out there to do something for the day. and we drove out and I was I was ranting at him at my friend about something and we were kind of going back and forth and I just completely blew by my exit which wasn't like the end of the world like it was an exit to get on a different highway the highway I was on also had like three more exits where I could get off so it added like I think it added like eight minutes because of the it was just not the most efficient it was no longer the most efficient route Yeah. But, but, like, it wasn't the end of the world. I noticed it, like, a minute after we passed and I was like, oh, right, I was supposed to get off back there. Oh, well. But, like, part of why I keep voice navigation off isn't just like, I know I tend to know where I'm going. It's also that I find that sometimes the navigation is a little too, a little too much or a little too, especially if you have a bunch of different stops, right? You know, if you're on a highway for, for two hours, it's going to, it's not going to come back until an hour 50 later. when you're starting to come up.

Exactly. But if you're doing a lot of like city driving, a lot of side streets and you want to listen to a podcast or even like you're trying to pay attention to the music, like, it can be really annoying to have those constant interruptions, to me at least. I would like this more natural voice guidance elements, but I'm also hoping that there is a way to like, and I don't think this will be here at launch, but I would love to see, you know, some like gradual tuning. Like, let me tune how much Gemini is talking to me in maps

Because I would probably keep it on more often If it was shorter or less interruptions. Do you know what I mean? Like, if it's give me the information And then like get out of my way, basically. Yeah, I agree with you. It's kind of one of those things that were, where like if you drive for a long time down one road

And you don't have any direction. So I sometimes get shocked by Google Maps Just shouting at me. Kind of like you need to turn off at this. exit. I think, well, Google is saying that you should get more previews of where you need to go. It will give you a bit more of an insight of to the journey. And when you start doing the directions, you should get like a preview of your destination. You might get recommendations to park. You might even get an image from Google Street View to be, to give you the, I guess,

get the confidence that even if you don't follow it as accurately as to the letter every single time, you kind of got an idea of where you are going to end up as opposed to a dot on a map that doesn't really mean much to your brain. You can like, oh, there's a visual, oh, there is, I don't know, there's a, there's a Denny's, there's a Taco Bell, like here in the UK, you might have a Greggs, which is, or something like that, or Tesco, like, you can see. Is that all America is to you, Damien, just Denny's in Taco Bell? Because you're right, but I don't like hearing it. But yeah, you get what I mean, like, especially in unfamiliar surroundings.

It's one of those things where, like, sometimes having that reassurance that you know you, this is what the destination is going to look like when you make you, I think that is kind of less, I guess, I don't want to say automated, but that's the only way I can think about it. It's less robotic in the sense that Google Maps as it is now is fantastic for directions, arguably the best. I don't know how good Apple Maps is now, but sometimes it does definitely feel like it will get you 99.9% of the way there, but it's not going to show you the door to enter or the specific parking space to find or where the actual entrance is to the location. It will just get you

at a close approximation and then you have to work it out for yourself. That in and of itself could be game changing for a lot of people rather than having to use Uber to just be like get in the parking space and you get an Uber to the door because you don't know where you're going. I would love to see Google try to leverage you know, they're, they're Gemini, the LLM to better predict or even like, like, okay, there's, there's a, a single screen like art house theater, not like in, not quite in my neighborhood, but not super far away either in Buffalo. And, um, it's on like one of the main roads, main, like shopping entertainment roads in Buffalo, right? And it's very, it's a very walkable

neighborhood. It's where, uh, you still live over like my apartment was right off the street, uh, few years ago. But in terms of parking, it doesn't have like a parking lot, right? Because this building is 110 years old or something like that, roughly, right? Like they are, oh, it's over 100 years old. And so if you want to park, you kind of have to like just park on some of like the residential side streets that are filled with the sort of duplexes of which one I used to live in. Right.

And I would love if Google was able to be like, hey, using, you know, Google reviews and Yelp reviews and geographical knowledge of the neighborhood. We know that this this theater does not have a parking lot and all there is is there's parking on this street but it fills up very quickly.

So we'd actually like to suggest to you that you go to this side street and look for parking there because it's a point two mile, you know, it's a five minute walk but you'll have no problem finding parking. Like I would really like I hope that is something that they are

working on. And it sounds like this is the groundwork for that. But we're not quite there yet. But like if anybody from Google is listening, free idea for you if you have not had it already. I think that would be, I think anybody who lives in any kind of metropolitan area would probably appreciate being told like, this place doesn't have parking, but you will probably find parking nearby at this place. Do you want to just navigate there instead? Yeah, I agree with you. That's kind of the, I guess that probably has got to be Google's end goal. It has to be. Because that's what this sounds like it's trying to build up to be, to be like, we are going to give you a smarter way to get to where you're going.

Yeah, I mean, this ties in as well to there's a Ask Maps conversational feature, which is also rolling out in the US. And I think you can do more contextual things there. I think one of the examples they've said is my phone, when your phones die in, you're like, where can I go charge it? Exactly. Without having to wait for a long line for coffee, which is a very long-winded way to ask a question. I think those are the kind of things that Google has a catalogue of this information. And once they start tying this all together and Gem and I is able to truly tie into it, I think that's where it can surpass all of the other services. And I think Maps is such a good, I say good, it's such an integral part of people's lives.

Anything where we see these changes and makes it our life easier potentially or more convenient or gives us information that we don't have to then go for and search. Like your example of trying to find somewhere to park near an old movie theater is fantastic because you kind of have you can't have four or five different information sources that you're consolidating into one and saving that time and stress. Like I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure like me, you sometimes go through phases well, oh, we need to get in time for this showing of this film, whatever it is. And you haven't done the pre-research.

Like I don't want to do the pre-research. So you end up just going to the out of town, I guess, I don't know what it. would be in the US, but I guess he goes to the shopping mall where there's the cinema, theater, the parking's easy, it's convenient, whereas you could have gone to this really cool place that's an independent, spend your money. And yeah, I feel like there's, there's elements there that probably have a knock on effect with Google Maps. I'm excited to see this one roll out. It's a shame that Ask Maps is only limited to US in India for now. It is going to Android and iOS and it will come to a desktop soon, whereas immersive navigation is just

going to be limited to the US for a little while. So, you will be able to use it on iOS, Android. I think it's going to work with CarPlay, which... Yes, yeah, they have a CarPlay. They actually don't have an Android Auto demo. They have a CarPlay demo, which is... That demo is one of the only red flags I have for this redesign, which is that if more so than the phone demos,

the way the camera is like swinging around these buildings, and this is probably more of a Manhattan problem, which is what this demo is showing. I believe this is, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't. I cannot give any insight. It's showing someone pulling onto Fifth Avenue

and my brain just associates Fifth Avenue with New York, but maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, I don't live there, so I'm not going to try to pretend otherwise. But the way the camera's swinging, like it's just a lot of motion that I could see being distracting while you're driving. It might just be something your eyes get used to,

but that was the only red flag where I'm like, that is a dramatic curve. that you are showing me while I'm trying to get off the highway. Well, I mean, it definitely feels as though Google has paid attention, though, to certain animations. This might be sped up for marketing purposes, I guess, press purposes. But it definitely feels like there's more attention being paid to the animation.

So at least when you're in the vehicle, it does look like the car is moving at a relative speed as opposed to just a line where sometimes things will just jump up on you if your GPS is not as good. So hopefully that's all the telemetry data, Gem and I and everything else in between can really really enhance the experience of driving because I think Google and Maps

has been so an intact such an integral part of of day to day life that it's almost any changes that they make could have a negative knock on effect and to that end and we can maybe end on this but my other piece of advice for Google on the on the Ask Maps aspect so they have right now it is a chip

below the main Google Maps search bar when you get the feature it's like alongside like home and restaurants and gas stations. It is like a new chip that you can tap to open the Ask Maps menu. Keep it that way, Google. Do not combine this with your like generic search here like bar. Because we saw, I mean, this literally this week, Google, the Google Photos team, like once again had to go back to their search tools and change how like AI search uses

because we are almost two years into, we're a year and a half. into this having rolled out and they are they still can't quite get it right for people to feel like they are finding photos fast enough with AI so it's now now they just have a toggle that you can switch on and off in in Google photos I don't don't do that to maps keep it separate like this like learn from photos the these things do not need to replace each other there is still a and extend that to Google search too there is a place for traditional search engines traditional search fields, I think, and I think the feedback that Google Photos has seen proves that. 100%. I'm excited to see this one. I'm excited to see how people react to it. Obviously,

I probably will have to wait the better part of the year to get this myself. Well, that's what you get for that Taco Bell Denny's quip, David. They've, they've scolded me specifically for making that jive. Hey, I have nothing against, nothing. against either establishment. Oh, no, like I said, you're right. I just don't want you to say it. Well, I think there's another thing that needs to be said is that recently we've seen a report that Motorola is kind of,

I don't know if they've made the claims recently. The IDC representatives came out and claimed that Motorola, this is kind of a shock thing to us, is that they now hold 50% of the US foldable market. To me, that seems ridiculously high. Yeah, I mean, I don't, so what I can say is that I don't remember if Motorola has given this specific numbers, but in briefings I've had with Motorola ahead of multiple Razor announcements, actually. I think the last two Razor announcements, they have gone out of their way to say they are the largest foldable brand in the U.S. I don't think they've ever given a number.

I might be wrong there. So this is kind of our first inkling of where they are in terms of U.S. foldables. But yeah, I mean, the IDC in a hands-on with the razor fold filmed during Mobile World Congress said that 50% market share in the U.S., 55% in Latin America, 13% in Europe and global is about 14%. And that's crazy when you consider that's just on clamshell razors. Like that they have not, I mean, they have the fold coming, but they have not made like a big screen. When you think about foldables,

you think about this sort of device before this year. I think that speaks a lot to how successful they've been with making the razor in appealing affordable lineup of smartphones. It's more insane

the number. But I guess when we start to lay it all out and start to look at it, how many clam shell phones are actually sold in the US in terms of like Android space at the moment there's Apple. doesn't have one.

Right. It's just the flip. Samsung and Razor. Yeah. Samsung and Motorola, sorry. So when we put it like that, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Yeah. It starts to add up.

That means that people are going to Motorola for a specific reason. If you, like if you say, it could genuinely be the affordability. Yeah. I think the hardware is quite good. I actually think it's more appealing than the flip, than the galaxy flip. So I mean, I could understand if you're going, if you're going into a store and you're like, okay, you're really, really impressed by a clamshell firm? Yeah.

Does the Motorola Razor have a larger outer display than the flip this time? It did before the flip seven now, I think, basically matches it, but before with the older folder style, yeah, I think it was even before Razor went full expansion to four inches, I think it was 3.6 versus 3.4. It was a very, like, slight. So, like, even, even on the on the more affordable razor uh which which has that like little bezel uh slice that the other ones don't it's still um like it's still larger than than all but the flip seven screen but like i mean even if it's only a two horse race in the u.s that's still good to be 50-50 neck and like i mean this is this is all foldables this isn't just clamshell so this includes okay

yeah this includes the fold seven that makes it even more impressive actually No, so I, my theory is it's, is, is, it's twofold. I think it's the Razor, Motorola has built the Razor brand back on being about like fun colors and partnerships and. Yes. And creative uses of materials, right? Like they've done that like wooden, wood-esque razor. Um, I, I think that genuinely matters. I think people like stuff that looks fun, especially if you are trying to,

woo over like disgruntled or bored iPhone people making something that looks like the device they had 20 years ago but is like fun and flashy and fashionable. The three Fs I say. I think matters. And then on the, but I, the biggest thing to me is that Motorola has sold for three generations now. So we don't know what's coming up next. But for three, you know, 20, 3, 4, 5 has sold an entry.

level $700 razor that is routinely on sale for 500. And I would say, I can't comment too much on the 2020 one. I didn't use it. It had, it still had that little ticker display. It did not have like a fully fledged outer screen. But the, I did review the 2020, four one. And I think I checked out the 2025 one, but did not write the review. And my takeaway from both of those phones is that they were the ones, they were better than

the flagships. Like I really, really liked that 2024 razor, like basic razor, which had much better battery life than the flagship it was being sold next to because it had a weaker chip. But it had a chip that was good enough for like daily anything you wanted to do, casual games, TikTok, all of that stuff ran perfect, like totally fine. Like it didn't, you didn't feel a stutter in that stuff. And the build of these razors, these ultra-tall 6.9-inch screens means they're not great for gaming anyway. So if you're buying it, you probably don't care about something about these like AAA mobile games. So you're probably fine just getting the cheap one. The cameras are worse, but they're not great on the flagship anyway.

So you're not sacrificing that much in terms of visual quality. I thought the same thing about last years, which was just that like, you know, the, the $1,000 razor plus was kind of a dud because it was essentially unchanged and you could get the previous years for cheaper. The $1,300 Razor Ultra was the flagship people had been asking for, but to what I just said, I had difficulty finding what to do with all that horsepower in this design, right, in like a device that is shaped like this versus the cheaper razor, which was like half the price but got you like 70, 80% of the way there. And like, you know, did all of the daily stuff you needed to do.

But again, you were cutting the price from $1,300 to $700 and that was at full price. Like, that cheap razor is constantly like $600 on like Prime Day. I think that shows that like these companies need to start thinking about how to bring foldable prices down. I think if you want to make this category, like the next thing for people, for lots of people to buy, you need to bring it down from $2,000. I'm not saying it needs to be a grand for these larger foldables in your techno style, right? But if we can get these down to like $13, $1,400. Now I'm saying this in the face of a RAM crisis that is going to make this impossible.

But market forces are basically against us, aren't they? Exactly. And like, who knows what Motorola does with that? their cheap razor this year and we might see $200 price increases. I have no idea. But I think that shows the success of foldables really does. It is the number one thing holding people back from adopting foldables at a higher rate than there right now is price. Yeah. I think with pricing, it's a kind of situation whereby you get one really cool feature, which is the foldable aspect. Yeah. But you don't, you get, I mean, let's be completely honest, you get 60% of the phone.

Exactly. So you don't get the space, the space or lack thereof, if I can even say that, is the fact that you don't necessarily get the best cameras. I suppose it's kind of damning on Google and Samsung that they're, I mean, they are the top of the line in terms of the foldables, the book style foldables that we have on the market. it's interesting to see that the flip is the one that resonates with people. I'm kind of shocked at that. Because if you were to listen to the kind of people who hopefully listen to his podcast,

if you're a foldable person or like myself, the book style is where we all think it's going to go. We want the Galaxy Triumpho because we want a tablet that is also a phone. But the sales figures, and likely a lot of his own-to-pricing and positioning, is in flips. Like I see more Galaxy Z or Z for the American audience out there flips in my day to day than I've ever seen of Zedfold or Z fold

like it just you just do not see them unless it's someone who you know is really tech inclined the average and I hate the term the average person but like the mum's and dads the grandparents I think it's like the antiphone the aunt phone the antiphon not the not a phone for your aunt I think Americans would say it's people like them who want they want

want like a little clutch bag and they throw it in there. I see it on the, I see it on public transport all the time here in the UK. But these big foldables are kind of a bit unwieldy for people. 100%. You're not going to work for you. So motorroller's tapped into that. It's a bit weird.

I mean, it makes sense that they're going to do a book style foldable and it's going to have an exorbitant price tag. Although it looks gorgeous in person. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to think that the flip has, it's been proof.

The market is effectively saying, that we want cheap foldables, we want cheap flip phones, or Motorola is doing that in droves in the US. I think that's fantastic. I also think the razor specifically, the flip seven to a lesser extent, but the razor specifically does a really good job in immediately selling itself to you, right?

Like you pick it up and you're like, oh, I get it. It's a small, you know, it's bulkier, sure, and I hope whatever they ship this year is slimmer, because those, I think the razor ultra is like 15 and a half millimeters and we need to get we need to start getting these down again um but but like you're like I get it it's a much smaller footprint so to your point anybody who carries like a clutch or any kind of like smaller purse um or even like fanny packs like anything like that is is immediately like okay I understand where this is coming from even even pockets if you if you wear pants that have

routinely small pockets yeah sure because women do yeah sadly women's clothes don't have deep So I think that maybe like there is a, there is a, I guess it's a, it is a sexist element of the way our clothes are available, but in tech it means that there is someone has kind of tapped into that, either rightly or wrongly. Yeah. And maybe that's where, maybe that's where I would love to know the demographics. I would be intrigued in other demographics. Well, the other thing I think is that the razor, the other aspect of the razor that sells

immediately is the cover screen. When you use it, you're like, oh, it's just like a little version of the big screen so that if I just have to do something really quick on my phone, I just do it here. Like, I just like, I just check the status of my Uber here and I don't have to like open the phone or unlock the phone. Open the phone and have to mess around. Anything like that. Is Samsung still doing that? Is Samsung still doing that stupid thing of trying to make it widget friendly, which doesn't make sense. You want to use the phone from the outskirts.

It's a little easier to get those apps, but it's not, it's not Razor easy. it's Razor has built the experience into the phone. Like it is, it is a key part of using that device is just opening apps on that screen. And in, you know, counter to that, I don't think book style foldables do a really good job in immediately selling,

uh, their, like why you should buy one because you pick it up and you're like, okay, so this is double my last phone probably, I guess, right? Like this is, this is, yeah, it can be way more than double if in some cases. If I'm coming from a flagship, let's say I spent $1,000, right?

And now I'm looking to jump up to the flip or the fold seven. That's $2,000. The things that you're going, you're going to try to immediately sell to me. Right? So like the camera's out the door. I probably have a better camera. You know, I at least have an equal camera to whatever is on the fold seven. So that's set that aside.

You know, it's got this like normal outer screen now, but like I'm coming from a phone with with this sort of display. So that's not really a selling point. And then the inner screen is obviously the big thing, but I don't think, and I think that's why we're seeing this move towards wide foldables other than the fact that Apple is rumored to be doing one, is that it is these one-by-one-ish screens do not immediately sell what they're good at doing. Like, it's like, oh, well, like, your browser's bigger. It's like, I don't think most normal people care about that. I mean, it's still a mobile website, isn't it? Exactly.

I think that's a problem. I think I agree with you. I think maybe that's where Motto and without knowing that, obviously, we're spitballing. We're trying to break it down. Clearly, Motorola has tapped into something that other companies haven't done. And I do wonder how much Samsung will be looking at this. And even if I don't know if their analysts will be looking at it and seeing that, they'll have an idea of sales figures.

And if Motorola are claiming this and another third party company is almost corroborating this information, then clearly I would be worried. If I'm Samsung and I'm making a flip and it's the same one again, I think we need another Fold 7 moment because if all seven is good. And I think it's, I do think it does suffer from a lot of the problems that we've had with Bookstar foldables anyway. Like you say,

that one by one means you're just going to run two applications together. It's really all it's made for. It's not even really any better. Like if you're coming, let's say you're coming from a Galaxy S23 Ultra, okay? Like a three year old phone you paid $12, $1,300 for three years ago. You're like,

old seven this time. And you look at it and you're like, well, okay, I watch, I, I, I, you know, I travel a lot. Like, I want to watch movies on planes. Like, is that good for this? And you're like, yeah, like, the picture's like, kind of like, like, like five to 10 percent larger than what's on your ultra, but considering the size of screen, you would expect it to be bigger. And you're like, oh, that happens a lot. What about games? Uh, they don't, they don't all scale great. They don't work in one by one. Exactly. It's like all of these things, like, I, I remember, I don't remember it was the pixel nine pro fold I think where I was like at the same time I was reviewing this I had gotten super deep into bolatro and I was like this is going to be a killer bolotro experience

and it's not it plays them like it's got borders yeah it's not like what I wanted to be versus when I put balatro on the outer screen of the razor which is not a great experience but was novel enough that I did play an entire round nice and so I think when you you're looking at these trade-offs, it's like because the razor sells and the flips to a lesser extent, the razor sells this, a different experience at the same price of the phone that you were otherwise considering, like if you're between that and a pixel 10 pro, right? Like they're roughly the same price. That's not true on the foldable side. These foldables, these book-style foldables need to sell why you are paying $1,000 more. And I don't think they do

right now unless you are like a real, you know, road warrior sicko and you're carrying around a mobile keyboard. And yes, Michael Fisher, I am talking about you. So I'm a little stumped. It's the razor fold to tie this all together has me a little stump. We have both had minimal hands on time with it, correct? Literally five minutes. Yeah, about the same. Literally five minutes. So I use it, CS, you used it at Mobile World Congress. It eliminates all of the things I just, that I think have helped the razor do, which is, it's expensive.

It's, uh, we don't know US pricing yet, but like 2000 seems like, like a really fair assumption. Uh, it doesn't come in fun colors. It comes in like a,

a blue that is pretty black. It's like very, very dark blue and white. And the blue is also carbon fiber, which is, I don't know, but it's 2026. Let's move on.

Um, and, and so it's just like, it eliminates these things that I think have made the razor. are successful, which leave me a little stumped beyond just like they feel like they need to bring this to market. And maybe they're reasonable about what success level this will have, but I don't think it's going to help them add to that 50%. I think they need to be more worried about the Apple coming later this year. And maybe this is a counter to that, but that's, I don't know.

I really think they should keep going all in on these clamshells and making them better and thinner and giving them better cameras when they can. And because it's clearly, working. 100%. I think, yeah, I definitely think that with Motto, they found this gap in the market, which is really difficult to get footholding in any space in Android, especially in the US. Just, I mean, at the risk of telling them to double down, double down. Yeah.

Double down, make this your stand. You've had difficulty getting into this space for a long time. You've managed to found, I mean, especially because the first razor was not received very well, the first reboot of the razor. now they have a fantastic product portfolio that continues to make sales. Like those, I mean, even just outside of the US, they're doing very well in Latin America. They reckon about 13% of Europe, that's nothing to be ashamed of. They're doing good numbers, 14% of the total global foldable market share.

Granted, a lot of those will probably be kind of leaning towards China and the Chinese brands that do some insane pricing. I think that's fantastic for Motorola to do that. but long may that continue. I guess the jury is out on what's going to happen with the book style foldable, but we'll have to wait and see.

Thank you for letting me just rant at you for 10 minutes about this. I clearly have a lot of thoughts. Yes. Well, hopefully if you get the opportunity to get hands on it, I'll listen to you rant about the book style foldable in the coming weeks. I just like, I think I'm just over the one by one screen ratio.

Like I think that's really, I really, really liked it on the One Plus Open. Like because it was novel. We had not seen that before, at least in the U.S., right? Like, I understand that that was pulling from an oboe, et cetera, et cetera. But, like, in the U.S., we had up to that point, the, you know, galaxy fold lineup, which was, which were taller, not even just the outer screen, but, like, the entire experience was, like, taller.

And then we had the O.G. pixel fold, which was wide, and that's the direction we seem to be heading back towards. And I actually, like, I had a lot of issues of the pixel fold. The design was not one of them. I liked that it was wider. Like, I liked that entire design. And I was really frustrated. And I wrote something at Android Pleas at the time when the Pixel 9 profile first leaked,

that I didn't want all of these companies to just go down the one plus open route and make all of their foldables look the same. And this is exactly why, because it was like, it was obvious to me that, like, different screen sizes are going to work differently for different people. and just like chasing the one design that they thought all worked well like I don't know it just made every folder

will feel less special yeah and I think that's why yeah I think that's why Motto's probably getting success or probably distilled it down that's a really good way to kind of to close that book as it were pun intended I want to finish you one I finish with one little bit of interesting information

that we that came out of the last 24 hours is it Google Google's actually working on potentially improving all of our lives, they're going to make our Android phones faster and improve battery life with a kernel level change. I mean, that sounds, to me, that's so abstract. It doesn't make much sense. I have to tell you, Damien, I did the calendar. Do you know the calendar meme, the 1984 camera meme? That was me doing this, but for 2016. I was like, is this, are we doing Marslow again? Like, what are we, what is this? Well, I mean, I think it's one of those things

that everybody, anyone can attest to this, battery life and performance are two. They're key considerations at any device that you buy. I think Android has, well, historically suffered a lot with battery life. We don't necessarily have, optimization has always been key. We've talked about it. When you get a phone, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks for it to get around to learning your habits to then giving you the best battery life. Hopefully that's something that's constantly worked on. It looks like that Google is taking this seriously. So the Android, a portion of the Android team announced some changes. I'm not going to give you the completely not a jargon that doesn't make any sense to you. I had to ask Gemini to simplify this three or four times

because I still couldn't get my head around it. Gemini has said that it's kind of like a GPS for its own brain, your phone offensive, which kind of makes sense. We talked about GPS at the top of the top of the pod. We're going back to GPS as an analogy here. So this is what they call an auto FDO upgrade. So effectively, they're making changes at the kernel so that any applications that running your phone should run a little bit quicker because they've derived real world data from them and being able to make certain tasks faster, more optimized, that kind of thing. So it knows effectively the fastest route to do those most important things.

Think scrolling, opening applications, switching applications, switching screens, that kind of stuff. So, I mean, applications that you maybe haven't opened in a long time, they could open up to 4% quicker with this change. I mean, I don't even know if this is actually rolling out right now. We'll have to check that in a moment. You should get less lag because effectively your phone isn't like constantly having to run these small processes all the time, which is great for smoothness,

responsiveness, all that kind of jazz. And then because the processor itself is potentially taking like shortcuts to get to these areas should increase the battery life, which I think is, the big ticket thing here. Yeah. Like, as your phone gets older, there's a lot more stress because obviously you're running different APIs, the performance of the CPU hasn't improved because it hasn't been optimized as much. Bachelor life is going to degrade. I think anything that means that the version of Android that you're running on your phone means it improves battery life or at least

keeps it in stasis is going to be good in the long term. Like, to me, this is the kind of stuff that, it's not big ticket items, but it kind of makes sense. I don't know. Google needs to improve the messaging on this because it's like I say it's taken me three or four runs through Gemini to kind of understand it properly. But like when is Google not talking about this kind of stuff at the same time? Like when are they not talking about battery life improvements? But usually it's on the CPU itself, the hardware. We're relying on hardware too much. And Google's also been key with optimizations for their own versions of Android for Pixel. It's nice to see that this could potentially benefit everyone in the coming, in the coming months. Like, they're saying that

these changes are coming with the latest Android kernel version. So that's Android 16, 6.12, and Android 15, 6.6.6.6. And Android 17, 6.18, which is long into the future. Like, anything, anything that can be done like this to improve the life of everyone who uses Android, I think is a good thing, like, at the end of the day. Yeah. No, I, I think this is like, This is a notable. It's just, it's so funny that this is very like old school Android in a way. You know what I mean?

Like it is, it's something I would have expected 10 years. And that's not to say that there aren't improvements that can be made. Like I, you know, in addition to batteries just getting bigger and more efficient. And then, you know,

the move to silicon carbon. I think it also makes sense to just continue to make these little optimizations that cut things by two, three, four percent where maybe you don't, you don't, what is it? don't, you didn't notice it, but your brain did, right? Like, from the blanket reviews,

speaking of 2016, um, you know, like, yeah, I, I, I think this is just like a good change. It's just so funny that it's such like a technical blog post. I agree with you. It's like, I have to just, like, try to break this down word by word. Yeah, it's, I don't know why Google does this. Google sometimes does this where they either have something that's very jargon heavy. Yeah. And they could, to be fair, they could have got a press release out and said, Gemini is going to fix your, fix the performance of your phone. And I probably would have been like, yeah, that's fine. I don't need to know any more than that.

But this is quite interesting in some ways that they've gone into the deep level for this stuff because clearly people care about it. And Android is very much a case of optimizations upon optimizations upon optimizations have led us to where we are now. And it's great to see that they're continuing to do that. So yes, hopefully in the next few months, in next few weeks,

you will have a phone that is slightly faster, slightly better battery life. And I don't think you can ask any more than that. But yeah, I think that kind of covers everything that we wanted to cover this week. It's nice to be back. It's nice to be back in the podcast. It's nice to have you back. I need different people to just rant at for 20 hours.

You need to talk out for an hour nearly. Yeah, just want to say thanks guys for listening. We will be back to normal. Hopefully the trio will be back in their full power in the next couple of weeks. and yeah, stay, just stay healthy. Stay healthy, guys. It's one of those things when you're traveling around the world.

You notice how people can get sick very very easily and traveling around the world has led me to believe that you need to make sure that you drink plenty of water and you get good and night's sleep and you will feel better. So, yes, thanks for joining me, Will, and I'll speak to you soon. Thanks, man, bye. Thanks for listening to Pixelated, a 9-to-5 Google podcast.

If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.