Pixelated - Siri Goes Gemini

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Welcome to episode 104 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will hop over the walled garden to discuss Siri AI, changes to Liquid Glass and its ripple effects on Android, and plenty of other WWDC thoughts. Plus, Paris Hilton loves Android and Google releases a fourth QPR1 beta. Sponsored by Bitwarden: Pixelated listeners can get started with Bitwarden's free individual plan by clicking this link. Thanks to Bitwarden for sponsoring! Sponsored by Proton Unlimited: Pixelated listeners can save 30% on an annual subscription to the company’s suite of privacy-friendly services by signing up using our link. Thanks to Proton Unlimited for sponsoring the podcast. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Amazon Music Apple Podcasts Overcast

Welcome to Pixelated episode 104. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, we're peeking into that walled garden just to see what's up with the Apple ecosystem following WWDC and the unveiling of Siri AI. What does Apple seem to be doing now that it has the backing of Google's LLM? We'll discuss. Plus, thoughts on liquid glass versus Material 3 expressive, where exactly Apple feels truly behind the times,

and a look at Android's latest celebrity partner, Paris Hilton. It's all coming up right after a word from our sponsor, Bitwarden. This week's episode of Pixelated is sponsored by Bitwarden, the trusted open source solution for pass key, password, and secrets management. Bitwarden helps you create strong and unique credentials across all your accounts and devices, so you never have to reuse the same passwords everywhere. With end-to-end encryption and secure autofill, BitWurton helps defend against phishing attacks and data breaches,

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That's bitwarden.com slash 9 to5 Mac. Thank you to Bitwarden for sponsoring Pixelated. So I'm begrudgingly going to bring this up because I think it is definitely pertinent to the things that we talk about, especially with regards to AI and stuff. There was a company that is situated very close to Google. they had a developer focused shindig

something on Monday I know nothing about it I probably if it wasn't for you guys giving me the information I probably wouldn't care about it because I know you'll give me all the information I need

You're talking about the Nintendo direct right You're talking about the Nintendo I wish I we could talk about that all week Let's talk a little bit about WWDC WWW and guys I genuinely know nothing about this I have the briefest knowledge of what is going on. I know that it's a developer-focused thing for Apple fans,

but just give me the lowdown. Let's get into it. Let's see how this affects what we talk about here on the, I guess, Google-focused side of the fence. So I guess AI, Siri AI is the big thing out of it. This is their mere cul-per of a 24. They finally got the underlying models down thanks to the partnership with Gemini. and Google, which did get an on-stage mention as powering what Apple calls their foundation models. So under the hood, they now have a solid foundation to do all the AI stuff they wanted to, as announced in 24.

And it's now coming. It is Siri AI is a new name. They just added AI at the end, which could either be for artificial intelligence or Apple intelligence. And yeah, it's that the very high level is they're bringing everything. They're now on par with, I don't know, 24, 25 tech era stuff in that they have a chatbot. I guess one interesting thing is in 24, they were very hesitant to actually make a chat app to make a list where you could see a past conversations with Siri. But now they've all,

they've gone and embraced that. And it's interesting because I found it, I don't hate the idea of you just having an interaction, like with Google Assistant of Old, where you just have one interaction and it goes away. But I guess the thing that's been proven out in the past few years is that people do, like the chat. format.

But as in like consistency, do you think Apple did this for like a privacy side of things? They wanted to do it for a privacy element or is it just something that they kind of was so far behind. They didn't really know. I was going to use a rude British sentiment there. I'd say they're butt from their elbow. Is it kind of a little bit like that or do you think that they've just realized that? And I know that Apple stands will be like, oh, they wait and they wait.

They allow the technology to mature and then they make the best version. of it. I feel like this feels like mega catch-up if you're saying it's like two years of the two years behind potentially from what they initially had. I do want to get back to some of the sentiment that Apple people have, but I think

I just think they didn't get the chat bot thing at the beginning that they were just so hesitant to adopt what everybody else is doing. But anyways, back to a interesting point that you raised. There is a sent them out there among stands, as you say, that Apple was, that they're smart ones for not

spending billions on infrastructure rollout, that they waited until the technology matured, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that is such a revisionist history. Apple, in an ideal world where Apple had the technology right, they would have launched all of this in 24, and they would have been on par with the contemporaries. Like, they don't have this because they were genuinely behind because the underlying technology was so bad in 24 and 25 that they couldn't do the things that they wanted to.

So Apple is not different. They're not immune to the AI thing. They're not immune to where the puck is going. So that just annoys the hell out of me when people say that. Well, it's an argument that I think could make some amount of sense if not for the fact that they did try

to launch something two years ago. Yeah, that's it. If, if 2024 didn't exist, right, Apple Intelligence didn't launch and it didn't lead to a lawsuit, right? Like a class action. Did you buy an iPhone 16 because of Apple Intelligence lawsuit? Then I think you can kind of make that argument a little bit. Or at the very least, the argument is stronger.

But, and then the other thing, you know, on the other side, you want to talk about like their partnership with Google and everything. It's almost too early to try to make some sort of big proclamation that they were smart to not build their own infrastructure because that only... That only makes sense if we're passed up bubble bursting, but there is, like, there hasn't been no bubble burst. You know, I'm not even commenting of whether there is a bubble.

I'm just saying that, like, that thought only... Yeah, you would have to make sense after the fact. Right. Yeah, yeah, pick up in the ashes and try and find the best components. Right. It definitely feels weird, though, doesn't it? Because you've said their will that, like, they had this product that they wanted to scale at a rate which, I mean, if they'd have had two years,

they'd been able to build our Apple intelligence, whatever the hell they called it, at the scale that they wanted, they probably would be on par with the likes of Gemini, Chat, GPT, Claude. Well, maybe not, probably not actually. But I do wonder how much of the, we are the privacy company, it's basically made a rod for their own back a little bit. It's like they couldn't build our AI infrastructure without the inherent risks and, potential legal pitfalls of AI training over time without losing that privacy tag? Yeah. The state of the state of generative AI in 2026 is like as as like anti-Apple as you can probably get because it is sort of based on like it is sort of based on being like early

experimental tech in a way that has to always have like a disclaimer available and and is frequently, you know, there are obviously on device models, but if you are doing anything remotely beyond, and to be honest with you, I think most people don't care about on device models in general. The advantage to them is speed and sort of speed, but mostly security. And if, if the last 20 years of technology has proven anything, it's that most people don't care about their privacy enough for that, that to matter if you're telling them that the, you know, internet connected, not on your device model is significantly fast. and more powerful.

So, so yeah, I mean, I mean, this, this really does, you know, I think, Abner, you said, Mea Kulpala, I do think this sort of feels like them being like, this is what we wanted to do two years ago. And we had to partner with teams, you know, with external teams like Google to do it because we just, our leadership, like, failed. I mean, you can, you can look into the stories of like, you know, the, the AI, dueling AI teams they basically had within Apple that was just like completely falling apart. And it is funny to watch them kind of go back and just.

be like, we're just going to do a, we're just going to kind of do what everybody else already did just a couple years late. I mean, and look, the app looks good. I think it's, they had that, they had to do this, if only just for the history aspect of it, right? Because like, that feels like such an important piece of all of these, these chatbots is that you can jump back into a pre-existing conversation and you won't be able, you wouldn't be able to do that with Siri if they didn't have an app. So it makes sense. As just, you know, I guess they already added the ability to type to Siri. It's just more so a free-flowing conversation now. So, um, yeah. Do you think, do you think this is going to be enough to get people off the web-based applications that we

might use? Like I, I get the impression that the, the biggest benefit is obviously the integration with your phone in ways that I guess Apple will do better than most. Let's be completely honest. I know Google's tried that. Do you think it's going to get people off using Gemini? Because I have on my, as I'm looking over at the side of my desk and you can't see me do that, is my dead battery iPhone 17 has the action button assigned to Gemini Live. And I would be more inclined to use Gemini there than I probably would be on my pixel. So I don't know, go figure with that one. I feel like it's like it makes up for these external applications like Gemini,

like ChatGPT, make up for the fact that Apple intelligence was so far behind. Yeah, that is a good question. It's the power of defaults is hard to ignore. Okay, it's the data in terms of Google One of and tropic of Open AI. People are paying for these by externally. That's what it does look like. People are using these. So I'd wager that, I don't know, for a more casual user maybe, that Siri is, will be the thing.

But yeah, it's... Okay, so not a lot of people have had a chance to use it, but I'm still on the weight list, most people I would say. But from initially, it just looks like it's on par with whatever Gemini's rate is at least. Well, actually, we don't know which one they're based on. It looks on par. So assuming that and it improves at the same. rate as when Google's underlying models get updated, it should be tech on the technical side.

It should be absolutely competent. So I think it goes back to the power of defaults because while I think most people in these days will download something like Gemini or Claude or ChatGPT, etc. the Siri stuff of like basic phone commands, I think that's still intrinsically evolved to Siri. Right. Well, and the other question becomes, and it's one, the three of us really can't answer,

but like how to like, how do iPhone owners adapt to this? Like people who live their lives in the Apple ecosystem and especially in the US where it's even more dominant and it's more, you know, the lock-in of eye message, even in an RCS era still exists. How do people who, you know, to your point, Abner, downloaded the chat GPT app in 2024, downloaded

the Gemini app in 20, you know, later 2024 or whatever, how do they, do they just stop using those tools and go back to this one because it's built into the operating system? They can access it by swiping. Damien, you haven't seen this because you haven't followed this. No. You know, you know on an iPhone, the split between, oh, now I have to pick up my iPhone to be able know this. So if you swipe down from the right, and this is on many, many, many Android devices now, but if you swipe down from the right side of the dynamic island, you get the quick settings

control center. And then if you swipe down from the other side, you get your notifications. They've added a middle swipe under the dynamic island that opens Siri. So we're going to smear the people are going to smear the dynamic island even more than they were going to. Yeah, it's three swipes now. It's three different swipes. And to be fair, I don't, you know, anytime I've been on an iPhone, I don't think I've ever really swiped accidentally from the middle, but it is just so funny to add a third and be like, good luck teaching your parents this. Awesome. But. So I think that's the other value in Apple finally getting yes, finally getting a shit together. So we can see how the implementations of how Apple versus Android, the landscape implements AI. So starting with how you ask. activated. Yeah, they're really reining into the dynamic island as the way to launch Siri, which again, I think the dynamic I think we've talked about this recently, dynamic

island still beats the Android implementations. We'll see what Android Halo brings the table come fall. But yeah, that's how you launch it. It will combine Spotlight and all that. So which unifying search, which pixel hasn't have right now. now again, whatever. But yeah, so wrong button press, hard word, etc. That's all there. You also have the app to go full-screen conversations. It's from that point of view, it's not drastically different from the Gemini overlay or anything like that. I wonder how much this is going to, I mean, you kind of have briefly alluded to it, but not said it, but I'm going to slam dunk it in for you, Abner, because you've set me up.

You've nice sort of layup there for me. It definitely feels like now Apple has played their cards in terms of how they integrate AI, the way that they're going to integrate AI. I wonder, A, how much they've learned from the current implementations that, obviously, Google's been leading the charge with this, especially on smartphones, and how now Google feedbacks feeds that back, I was struggling to say that, feeds that back into their design processes, because we've just seen that Gemini Intelligence demo at a, you know, a, you know, or like preview at Android show.

And to me, that felt like one of the most Apple-like implementations of an assistant Google's really done. So I wonder now how much there's going to be some sort of crossover here. Because obviously we know that Gemini models are going to power this Siri AI. Like, there's definitely going to be more conversation between Google who work on the AI side of things and now this Apple team who are working on their AI side of things. I wonder how much there is potential. you're going to be like almost like ideas that merge or converge into one position.

Like I'm intrigued to see how this plays out in the next couple of years. Yeah, that'll absolutely be. I want to shout out the one thing. Because, okay, so like you, Abner, I have not, I don't have access to these. I don't have access to the beta yet or anything. But so I haven't used Siri yet. So, you know, everything I've gained from it has been hands-ons from people who do have it. And the one thing that has made me excited slash jealous,

slash hoping that Google takes this back to Gemini, and it is a thing that I have been asking for for several, literally several years now. I'm going to read the headline of a Verge article by Jay Peters. Apple's new Siri AI knows when to shut up. It appears that Siri AI, whatever Apple did to modify or customize the underlying Gemini model, on average, based on these early tests that Jay published in this article,

Siri's responses are like significantly shorter than Gemini or, well, chat GPT and especially Gemini, to be honest with you. You know, it's literally one of the questions he asked was, do you love me? Gemini wrote an entire paragraph. I truly, if I read it, it would take 30 seconds. So I'm not going to do it. Siri said, I think you're pretty great.

Like, that is one thing I really like about, where Apple seems to be taking Siri. Now, the rest of it, the rest of the experience might be awful. It might get half of the things. I don't know. But on paper, this is what I've wanted from Gemini is for it to finally learn. And I have tried all the customization stuff. I even asked it.

I was like, did I set you to be short and concise? And it said, yes, you did on a previous date. And so, yeah. So this is one thing I hope that Google takes back. Grab your phone and take a look at your app drawer right now. You've probably found your. relying on these same old apps and services since the Nexus days, and what suited you best back then might not be the right choice in 2026. Luckily, Proton can help bring you into a privacy-first ecosystem built for our modern age.

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slash 9 to 5 Google or by clicking the link in the show notes. That's proton.m.me slash 9 to5 Google. Thanks to Proton for sponsoring Pixelated. So in terms of comparing the OSs, I think the immediate advantage of CVAI is how they can get their third-party ecosystem to adopt. So app actions basically. CVAI appears that it can control more apps, can do more on-device commands using the apps and so on your phone. And historically, Apple has a developer read and adoption on that.

So we'll see how that plays out in the fall in terms of developers updating their apps to support CVAI. but that on paper is something I'm already jealous of. I do, yeah, I wonder why that wasn't such a bigger component in an I.O. Like, I'm surprised there wasn't a big, like, almost, because if you think you're going to do it, you do it at your own developer conference. Obviously, Apple is quite good in that they lay out their entire roadmap in one go, and whether or not they reach the destination is here nor there. They do have a complete, enough, a roadmap ready to go.

I feel like maybe there is probably a little bit of a difference, the way that Google has, Google is responsible for Gemini and the way that Gemini is kind of morphed and it's an amorphous kind of product that can go in every single direction. It is harder to refine. I do wonder if that probably could be a benefit of Apple waiting, actually, that they've allowed Google to forge a path

and that they can say, okay, we're not going to go down this route, we're not going to go down this route, we're only going to stay on this particular pathway because it allows them to be a bit more refined, whereas Google, being the arbiters of Gemini, kind of have to go in every direction all at once. I do wonder, again, it kind of goes back to what I was saying before. I wonder if we'll start to see everyone stealing more ideas from each other a little bit better.

And I do think Apple playing kind of at their full capacity in this AI space is going to be good for everyone because it keeps everybody sharp. And I do wonder if, like, we'll start to see the Chinese OEMs kind of adopt certain things here, try and shoehorn them into their phones using the tools that they have available to them or whatever AI models they want to use on their devices. And I wonder how much, I just wonder how we're going to see Android looking in six months time. So I don't, I kind of, I kind of want to know how this accounts for the shortcuts tool, because it's one of those things I've been very, very jealous of iPhone for five or six years. How does that integrate into this new

So the high level is natural language. You can write out your shortcut conversationally. And the models will take it and make it into a shortcut, which, yes, Android still does not have that. Why do we think that, actually? Is it just the app, the third-party buy-in, the lack of, rather? because on paper, if Google apps, first-party apps, just added full support for that, we would be in a pretty good place.

It's a good question. It is a really good question. I think if I'm going to be honest, I do wonder if Google thinks that Tasker is enough of a, like, kind of a replacement for it. At the same time, I'm like, it's just an easy home run, isn't it? We already have, is it profiles?

What's the thing that, thing called where you can set up certain mini shortcuts for like location and stuff. Can you remember what it's called? Oh, yeah. Do you know what I mean? And we kind of expected that Android 10 era when it was first kind of tease. And now it's like it's in its probably most, I don't know how to describe it. Is it in, is it in, is it in.

Yeah, rules. That's it. I was going to say it's not routine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's something similar. I had the R. So if we have rules and they've been around for a long time and they haven't really developed beyond just the most rudimentary.

Yeah, I would love to have more of rules stuff baked into that. It would be phenomenal, wouldn't it? If you could build your own rules, hey, if anyone out there at Google is listening, part of the Android team, whoever it is, please take that. We're giving you a free idea here. Just get a home run.

Rules would be phenomenal if you could use that natural language with Gemini. And, I mean, anti-gravity does it for you now. Like, it would be so easy for them to set this up. Well, I say something. I'm talking rubbish, but. It's the capabilities. I think it comes down the capability. Because like Will, like you're alluding to, Google Assistant Routines is a big thing that ultimately went nowhere.

And I guess in this modern era, an implementation would be Gemini with like command line interfaces. Again, it goes back to how I think Google's on the, like, compute the use strategy right now is it's building command line. CLI, which is you can, from a terminal-like interface, that's how you access. That's how services interface with the system. There's something called Android MCP, which is one half of the Google strategy for computer use. The other is the one where you, everything gets sent to the cloud. like your Android phone taps, scrolls, and types for you, and that's inherently cloud-based right now.

That is Google's competing strategy versus, like, instead of telling developers like Apple to build in these hooks where the app is used somewhat locally, Google's Android strategy right now is that MCP where apps basically set up a server-type thing, yeah it's it is a weird one how how different differently they see things and obviously the existence of certain functionalities they're that's really differentiate between the two again like I'm intrigued to see where where they both take the ball and run with it and obviously

I still feel yeah I still feel like obviously the fact that Google is the underlying powering system of this I do think there's going to be some conversion or like kind of convergence more so because like I say, there's no way that Apple are not speaking to Google about this what they want from it. And that's going to be relayed somehow. Maybe that's why Apple chose Google in some respects to power their models because they know that they're not going to use it potentially in ways that actually affects their market share in a lot of spaces. Because while Google and Apple compete, I don't think they compete in the same sports. Does that make sense?

It's like nobody's out there switching from Pixel to iPhone on math. Android as a platform. Apple doesn't even have any respect for it, which is by the bye. And every other platform you can use on Apple products anyway. So I feel like maybe that's kind of what we're going to see in the next five to six years. Yeah.

So we have CVAI. We have the chatbot. The other part of it is that Apple shared what Apple intelligence features. They're adding into their first party apps. So like in the Photos app, we have more spatial reframing. We have extend. It's basically generative AI in the Photos app.

I assume that's using some Google image model. In messages, we have stuff like it's easy to add stuff to reminders, add stuff to notes. We basically have Magic Q in the phone app. They call it call contact. So when you're calling an airline, it'll show the, it'll pull the relevant information from like your email or something. Safari tab organization, passwords app can change passwords for you, agentically. There's nothing that Google isn't doing or has tried.

So, and I guess in this first wave, Apple just does need to hit the basics. But from a competition standpoint, everything Apple now, Google has already been doing, Android has already been doing. I wonder if some of it, though, will fall by the wayside because you've mentioned that, is it called context? That sounds so much better than Magic Q. As soon as I heard that, that sounds so much better than Magic Q. I think Magic Q feels like too much of a catch-all,

even though I do think when it works is genuinely really, really impressive. But it's almost like it needs to be more. robust in how it works because I sometimes get like the little pop up for it and I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then I never see it again for like three or four weeks. Whereas I do get the impression that if Apple integrate it, they'll integrate it properly and have it working every single time. But then I guess, I guess these are optimum conditions, aren't they? Maybe it will change. Maybe it will be, maybe it will be like a random. And we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see Apple fans complaining that their Siri AI doesn't work ever or that they don't get.

the right things. I'm intrigued you mentioned generative AI and generative AI in the photos application because that to me screams like it would be completely at odds with how Apple treats camera and camera adjacent systems. Yeah. I don't know. I would love to know. So at the high, their framing around that was it doesn't change the it keeps the moment. They did make a big point about that in the keynote before announcing these speeches that their overall philosophy doesn't sound. It's changed. But then again, they have Image Playground, which is their Pixel Studio competitor, which is going away in Google's front for the Gemini app. I was going to say, that's how far away they are. They haven't canceled it yet. Yeah. They're making a rival to an app

that was launched two years ago when it's called. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure Pixel Studios was lot, Pixel Studios, sorry, not studios. Pixel Studio was launched as an experiment sort of thing anyway, or in preview? Like, am I correct in thinking? I think it was in preview, but it's so hard in the AI. Everything's in preview, verbat, or early access in the AI age. So I never, I'm never, like, thinking these things are going to die off.

But I guess, I guess that's how you should think about them. Because we've seen, like, all of these companies try out experimental apps and then, and then kill them. I mean, like, SORA, right? with open eye. So, you know, it's, it's, um, they love doing that. I mean, Pixel Studio is better as a, as a system integration than an actual application in its own right.

I think I was one of the first people Lord, uh, kind of, uh, telling Google, please put it in Gboard. It makes more sense to be here than it does to mean its own application. I just wonder how like, yeah, is Apple, is Apple, did it were any signs of that? Is, is Apple just keeping everything almost siloed apart from some of this magic cue like functionality or is it in these individual apps? because that definitely feels old per se in the air world. Yeah, it's again, there's nothing, they're not breaking,

nothing stood out to me in terms of, oh, I wish Google would do that on the AI front. So it's, I've been intrigued to see what the fallout with this one is. And was there any mention of device compatibility? Because I know we had a big problem with last time they and how. announced Apple Intelligence that the most recent devices or was it the only the the new release would get it? Is that unchanged? Unchanged. That is basically the compatibility risk for Apple Intelligence is pretty much unchanged with. Oh dear. So it's every M1 Mac and up which not bad. I guess they're moving away from Intel aggressively. I guess that's not really relevant but it's the it's the iPhone 15

Pro and up, which is honestly still pretty modern if we want to take the pixel 8 Pro as an example. Yeah, 100%. That is the AI stuff. We'll see how it'll shake out in the fall when this launches. And yeah, the L. CIEI is launching in beta to Will's point about everything still being in preview. But yeah, that is the main call of this AI. stuff. They announced a dub-dub. They did some refinements on the OS on design on

wicked glass and Will, I think you wanted to take that out of way. Damien, after a year of every Android OEM not named Google copying the liquid glass aesthetic, Apple is adding an opacity slider. Why would they not think to do this to begin with? I don't know. I don't know, but I am so excited for every OEM to follow and add an opacity slider in their next upgrade. All they had to do is to look at my phone, my iPhone 4, iPhone 3, circa 2010 and see that clear liquid glass elements may look good on the home screen, but everywhere else it looks terrible. Like,

and look, I've like, I've, I wouldn't say softened. I guess I've just grown ambivalent towards the aesthetic of liquid glass. It's like, I don't think it's good, but it, it mostly anytime and again, I'm not on Apple devices all the time, like my main computers, Windows, my main phone is Android,

et cetera, et cetera, um, you know, the only, the only time, every, I mean,

every now and then it gets in the way, but for the most part, it's just like this, like aesthetic, I think is kind of ugly that I just, when I have to use it, I have to use it. I did drag my feet on upgrading my Mac,

my MacBook. I think I, I don't think I pushed that until a couple months ago. Because I really don't like how, how liquid glass looks on Mac OS specifically. I think that's where it looks the worst. But yeah, I mean, they're kind of fixing that with an opacity slider, which just brings us back to where we were two years ago,

except now everything looks a little bit more inspired by VisionOS, a platform that also feels increasingly dead. What do you think of a good glass, Damien? Me, I think it's detestable. I think it's disrespectful to people with accessibility concerns. I think that it's, it was, it's almost, okay, so this is my interpretation of how Apple does design. Sometimes Apple will stumble upon a design that is genuinely fantastic. They've had eras where they are, I think they, was it iOS 7?

Genuinely incredible. But at the same time, at the same time. That was controversial iOS 7. More flat icons and stuff, yeah. But then, yeah, I feel like. I remember people like hating some of the aspects of that. You know, I was in college at the time, and I remember that that upgrade rolling out to people, you know, fellow students of mine, it like a lot of, a lot of iPhone owners hated that update.

But this is a thing with iOS 26 and now 27 with liquid glass. It definitely feels like Apple just kind of like flexing muscle. We can do this. We have the development kind of capabilities to do this to make this look refraction. Yeah, we have the hard way to do this. And I just feel like we saw it with Vista and Aero. 20 years ago that like, why give your device a performance hit just to have some arbitrary little reflections which don't add to the experience drastically? And Apple is known for

meticulous kind of attention to detail with this. Yeah, there's a lot of attention to detail, but they could have used that time and effort to build out Apple intelligence and things that actually they've trying to do rather than putting in this stupid reflection system in. And now every other Android OEM is trying to copy it or get a summation of it, I kind of find Google's lean towards this Gaussian blur, which is kind of this halfway house in between refraction and reflection, a little bit galling because it's like you're wanting to throw away one of the best elements of material through expressive and material you before it, which is a truly custom colour-coded system that works for the design I've made. When everything's clear,

it all looks the same, looks like a blurry mess. So I am, I could go on a round. for this for about 45 minutes, to be completely honest with you. But it goes against everything I learned about UX when I was at university. Granted, that was in 2009, 2010 era. And yeah, it's just,

the entire thing is just annoyed me no end because you have one side of the fence saying it's the best thing ever. The other side of the fence, who's on my side of the fence, which is my team in Aircuts, they think, how I think, it just doesn't work.

And Will, I'm 100% with you, I have tried and tried and tried to stop my Macs from updating. And what happened? They restarted and updated all of my... I just got tired of the alert. And I did test it. That's what I was.

I did test it. I think it's awful. I think we need to get away from this. Android needs to be Android and unashamedly so. And Google were doing that and it feels like they're not wanting to do that now. I don't mind if they take inspiration from things. But yeah, it's frustrating when you see Samsung and all these big partners just basically that's just copy that everyone else's homework.

You literally have a fantastic stable system to work from and build out a visually interesting experience that is completely different. People don't want the same. They don't want cheap slop. We're in an era of AI slop. We don't want a UI slop, and that's what's happening. So I guess I'm the odd man out here.

We quit glass. So the thing to Will said there is an opacity so either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's also one in the opposite direction. You have the ability to make it clearer, to make it a bit, to be more translucent. The default they picked is, well, halfway between that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they added a slider to go the opposite direction.

So there are people that like liquid gas. I would, okay, I think the average person, they're fine with it. It's just like, oh, my phone looks different. I didn't hear anybody in my life complain, to be honest. I didn't hear anybody complimented either. It was just like it never happened. It's the next thing. It's the next thing.

That's basically. I think that's where most people, the vast majority of people are. I do think there's, Damiener talking about accessibility concerns. There's absolutely an age divide here with people. And it will hit everybody. Everybody ages.

You will, if you like liquid grass now, once your vision ages, you will like it less. It will become less visible, all that, all that is coming for everyone. But I guess on the opposite end, I do think record grass is cool from an underlying. Those, what Apple is, they have the extra GPUs, they have the extra, their chips have the extra headroom to do these, to do these vision. complex animations. I get a kick out of when you're sliding down the notification center and on your home screen and everything like on the edges, everything reflects.

That to me is a cool thing. And beyond that material, that grass material, I do think minimizing controls is not bad. Just, yeah, minimizing controls. I don't think that's a bad thing inherently. But anyways, to the point is, I think on the app, but on the Android side, nobody is doing that part. They're just doing blur. To them, the grass is just blur. And I think that's just absolutely, that's missing the point.

Like, it's like the dynamic island, like how people miss the point of dynamic island, which is embracing a hardware thing that they could not get rid of, that the sensor, that they, the IR sensor needs to be there. and everybody else is just adding a pill for pills sake. Like Dynamic Iron, I think most people are missing the point with We could grass when they're adopting it on the Android side. But again, like most people think we could grass is fine. I would say that there are people that like wicked grass that is more on the techie audience too, and there are people that hate it.

But overall, I think it's just, I think they're. cool aspects to it. That's, I guess, where I ran on the glass. Yeah, I mean, I say from a, from a technical standpoint, I have a lot of time for it. I just think from a practical standpoint, I just don't get who it benefits. It doesn't benefit anyone. Like, the idea is... Well, it's a modernization. And iOS 7 is, God, how many years old is it before? It's 10 plus years, 15 years old. Hey, hey, hey, hey, we don't have to talk about when I was in college. I don't need to think about when that was. I want to say it was 2014,

I want to say, was iOS 7, right? It is weird, it is weird that this, this was tried in the early 2000s and there was no, there was not enough computing power and it was,

it was absolutely admonished. And now it, now it's old is new again and everyone, there are a lot of people out there loading it. And I think, I used accessibility as a, a component of it. But at the same time,

it's like, one thing I don't like, about how Apple does things in terms of their UI in general is. For desktops, I don't really care because it's functional. But for a mobile phone,

which is kind of a personal thing, I find it very samey. There has been no change. When everyone ends up with, everyone has the same phone. And I think I don't like that aspect of it. And liquid glass just makes that even worse because everything's clear.

It's literally one or two colours in the background and everything becomes the same. And there is no individualism there. And it's like that 1984 thing. I'm like, I feel like the one person, I'm going to have to throw this big, heavy hammer through the screen on an Apple ad to prove that you've literally become

what you claimed you weren't. Like, there's no individualism there. It doesn't make sense to me that a company that claims it to be on about free... Apple's never been about that, that, I mean, the iPhone, so, you know, you can customize an iPhone now more than ever, I would own, right? Like, like, that is true.

They essentially... Well, okay, I'll say this. it is somehow, despite the fact that it is an incredibly obnoxious weight process, it is easier to get truly custom icons on the iPhone over Pixel specifically. Like, I'm not counting custom launchers. Like, if you are sticking with the main launcher, you can do it easier on iOS than you can pixel, not counting Google's AI.

I'm talking stuff like whatever you want it to be, right? Like obviously Apple or Google has those new AI filters. But, you know, I, I, to come, I guess I'm sort of in the middle of you guys, I guess, right? And not to say that Abner is like a full on liquid glass stand or anything like that. But, but that you are, and I see, I see both of your arguments. And for me, you know, at the end of the day, Apple can do whatever Apple wants to do. And I, I really care, right? And like, if they want to, if they want to, well, God, that's the other thing, right?

is that like this is a company at the end of a NARA. Like I don't, we don't know what is next for Apple. This was Tim Cook's last WWDZ. And so like they might, I don't know, maybe John Ternis, right? I've been calling him Mr. Tumnus from Narnia as a joke. So I don't know what his last name is anymore.

Maybe he hates this. Maybe he wants to go in a different direction in a couple of years. Like I don't know. Nobody knows except for him. So, so, you know, putting all of that aside to focus more on the Android side of things. things. My bigger problem, and we don't have to go too big picture on this, is that basically

every company but Google has shown like a complete lack of interest in any amount of software development that isn't AI focused, right? And so it's, you know, I've been using these motor raisers for a while now, and it's, it's so frustrating that a phone that felt so fresh and fun in 2023 and then again in 2024, just a couple years later, feel so stale because they have not evolved the software. Like that's true. Like they haven't evolved the hardware either. But the software is like the real problem where it's like, okay, you want to keep the

same design with this big front display. Give me something new on that big front display, other than the same nine panels you've had since 2023. And these companies refuse to do it, right? There's, there is just absolutely no interest in like making or or even just like rethinking what a software experience should be in between generations, which is. fine if you're going to make any improvements anywhere else. But the problem is now that we have these companies that are making, like,

hardware that is barely, if at all, changed from the previous generation combined with software that is barely if it all changed from the previous generation. And you're like, well, no wonder this starts to feel a little stale when the only new thing on whatever phone you're upgrading is like a liquid glass rip off. And some AI tool, a dynamic eyelid rip off, to your point, Abner. some AI tools made in-house by the brand you're buying that you're not going to use on your one plus 15 or whatever that's it that's like but the experiences oh and the price is $300 more because of the RAM shortage so I don't know like I I really hope we see some

fresh software ideas not even I'm this is not really a critique of Google it's of everybody else ironically it's if you really think about it like doing a news you are by U.S. is so much easier than like doing AI development. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And yet.

And yet. So how would you rate this WWDC in terms of what it, what it has shown Apple's hand, as it were? Is it, was it good bad? It was a very short 75 minute keynote. Short 75 minutes as opposed to a long time. For Apple these days, that's, that is short. Is that short?

Okay. Okay, okay. Well, like, compared to I.O. The dev conference or the dev keynote, the main keynote at I.O., right? Which was roughly two hours, I think. Yeah. Yeah, 75 minutes for a WWDC is, I want to say like 90 minutes is usually what feels right. And in recent years, they've been going a little.

Like, I know that first, that first Apple Intelligence one was longer because I remember getting increasingly annoyed it hadn't ended. Yeah. It's, yeah, it was a short one. they played catch up, and it really comes down to how, what the summer looks like. Yeah. A bit of a shrug on my end, just because it's like, okay, like, you've been talking about this for several years now. Just, you know, let's see what you got.

Well, as we wrap up WWDC, I think, let's turn our attention to something a little bit more fun to end the episode with. Google announced a couple, like, within the last 24 hours, 48 hours, that they're going to team up with, of all people, I don't think she was relevant anymore. No disrespect to you, this is Miss Hilton. Paris Hilton's show. She's going to showcase with Android

and building applications with AI. Like, is this going to be the turning point for, like kind of vibe coding for Android applications? Or is this the most out-of-left-field partnership Google's had in a long, long time? I don't know. It's weird. It's like Motivola was.

the one that first did stuff with that. Yeah. And it's still, there's still a Moto connection here. She's got the, the Razor Fold in that, in that announcement post. Like, that's the phone she's using. So it still is kind of Moto adjacent, which is interesting. Yeah, and then she did the Android Auto thing. So, like, is Paris Hilton, I mean, I don't want to be the first. Android's biggest defender now, like, of all people. And again, this goes back to the whole thing of I was saying about with Apple, that old is new again, like Paris Hilton's new again. And like, I know that she's had a new career as a DJ, but I'm surprised I didn't try and lean into that a little bit more.

This just seems like one of the weirdest collaborations I've ever seen. You think that they've done the things with Steph Curry and Fitbit and Pixel. Like that makes sense because obviously in the US he's a huge star. But this is like, are we clutching at straws here? Or is this because it's a person who wouldn't be associated with coding? Like, I don't know. I guess having vibe coding, that's. I think that's good.

Everybody should vibe code. It really changes the landscape. It really changes. It empowers people genuinely. But I guess the somewhat cynical take is, is it that hard to find people that actually use Android? Hmm. I mean, in her words,

she's been using Android in air quotes for years. But then you could argue that you might have a, I don't know, an in-car. I mean, then again, she's have a driver. So I was about to say, she'll have an in-car entertainment system that might be powered by Android, but she'll have a private driver everywhere. So he might use Android, or she may have seen one in the back of an Uber. But I don't know if that technical, I mean, I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but I can't imagine she's been the kind of person who's been deep,

diving deep into Android beta updates. Well, no, definitely not. It is so interesting that, because I'm sitting here and I'm like, I'm like, what would it take for any of us to, to believe a celebrity that they are an Android user. Do you know what I mean? Because it is interesting that every time one of these companies... Tony Hawk. Is he a big Android? And if you listen to Tony, get in touch.

And Yonnes, the basketball player... There certainly are those people, but it is... It isn't every... You know, this is a very, very long time ago, but like you would have those spokespeople who would post stuff on Twitter and then it would... This was back when you could see what was...

used to, well, but they don't, you can't see what it was, what, what client it was posted from, but you used to see like, I love my new Galaxy S7 posted from Twitter for iOS, right? Like it's, it's, that, that was an era, which I think is probably how we get to this point where we all look at people at celebrities saying they use Android. Um, yeah, go like, but do you? Um, you know, and I think it becomes more, when you're talking about somebody like Paris Hilton, uh, a celebrity out of, out of status and wealth more than any in reality television over over you know like a basketball player like Giannis

it's one of those things where you kind of start to do the thing of like well there's no way Paris Hilton wasn't messaging people and I message right like there's no way Paris Hilton was the green bubble in her group chats and obviously that is we're in a different era now but that era is pretty fresh and so yeah I don't I don't know I guess like at this point I just kind of want to take her word her at her word even though she's obviously paid for this because it doesn't harm me at all to just like imagine paris hilton is like a hard

like she actually really does love her motor razor right like i i that's fun so that's just where i'm at like sure if they want to pay her for this the spokes uh it is it's just it is interesting that they keep expanding her role you know first in motorola and now kind of in android at large maybe it works maybe it works maybe it's one of those things it works but yeah i'm intrigued um We had, I mean, again, I don't think she's going to be out there diving in deep into the Android 17 QPR 1 beta 4, which dropped, which is, I think, if I say so myself, is one of the best segues I've ever done. This was dropped just last night as we're recording this. Nothing huge here. I mean, I guess you could argue that she may be updating because she wants to try that kind of a selfie, selfie cam.

What's it called? Screen reactions. Screen reactions. Screen reactions. I could imagine Paris Hilton being a big screen reactor. Like, this could be a big thing. That was the most notable new edition. It's a small update.

Like, it's nice that this got pushed out way ahead of probably where we were expecting it. So, yeah, if you want to do some Paras Hilton level screen reactions to... Yes, one takeaway. Beta 3 was pretty rough in terms of a baby driver. Beta day in, beta 4 looks fine. It definitely has more stuff than the base 7. update. So if you want to upgrade, it's probably safe. You can, I guess, wait one more month before or see what the stable Android 17 brings first. But otherwise...

We're hopeful that's coming soon, right? We'll hopefully that's coming in the next three, two or three weeks, right? Because we're getting very, very close to the middle of June. But I guess it kind of fits with Google's previous timelines for 16 last year. And I don't know, I'm excited to see that drop and maybe we can get into QPR proper. But yeah, that's basically all we got for you this week, guys. I'm sorry we've done a big Apple-focused episode. And if you are out there celebrating the start of the World Cup, you're a Mexico fan, you're a South Africa fan.

I hope you have a great evening tonight. We were recalling this before the first game in the tournament. I know my two colleagues here are not necessarily as in-depth into the soccer, aka football as I am excited. How do you? German-Bastard. When I hear football, I think American football. rightly so and uh yeah real real quick abner abner uh knicks or spruce

i think nix there we go amazing i got amazing i'm i'm gonna go to brazil that killed abner i just want to say i could see the pain in his face as he was like the new york team i think when they're when they are me this is all i can't pronounce the same like i think he's going to be the star for the foreseeable future but i don't think they have it yet this year like they're head of schedule. They're like really ahead of schedule. The spurs are really ahead of schedule for them being this far. Yeah. I don't know. Is New York need another thing though? I mean, they haven't had it in years, but they have everything else already. So thanks everybody for listening. It's been a long winding episode talking WWDC, AI and

everything else in between. And if you're out there, Paris, drop us a line. We'd love to I'd love to hear from you. Maybe I'll have you as a guest on the future episode. I will absolutely interview Paris Hilton on my podcast. And I look forward to listen to it. Thanks, guys. And I will speak to you soon. Bye-bye.

Bye. 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.