Pixelated - There's an App for That

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Welcome to episode 96 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Damien, Abner, and Will talk through Google's new native Gemini app for Mac and wonder why now, and why we don't see more standalone applications from the company. They also dive into new reports surrounding Google's portion of the foldable market — and the risk Apple holds against it — before finishing up with YouTube's new workaround for disabling Shorts. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast 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. Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google's new Gemini app 15:41 - Google's foldable market share 34:13 - YouTube Shorts 40:58 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Google launches native Gemini app for Mac Google Pixel makes up 5% of foldables in North America – Apple will hit nearly 50% YouTube Shorts are a lot easier to ignore with this new setting [Gallery] 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!

Welcome to Pixelated episode 96. I'm your host, Will Satterberg. This week, Damien Abner and I talk about Google's new dedicated Gemini app for Mac. Why is Google looking to return to standalone apps now? And what does it mean for the company moving forward? We also discuss Google's foldable market share ahead of Apple seemingly set to enter the market later this year before ending on YouTube's new mobile app update that finally allows you to disable shorts. Sort of.

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Thanks to Proton for sponsoring Pixel needed. So Gemini is now on Mac as a native application and I've literally just installed it. I don't know the difference yet between it and the website, but I'm guessing it's going to be better in a native application or am I being a bit kind of preempting something here? So it's better in that there are some nice shortcuts to launch it on Mac's option space and it gives you this floating pill

which is basically the next web UI and the next mobile UI. They crammed everything into one bar as we're talking about previously. What's interesting from zooming out is that Google is making native desktop applications after years, no, decades of embracing progressive web apps. It's another broader point is that the Gemini is era, this AI era, is really shaking a lot of things up about Google's conventions in terms of they are now making desktop native apps or some things. So that's a new thing. But in terms of what I'm really finding interesting right now is that there's this and then there's the one in Chrome. There's the full Gemini integration in Chrome.

And this is full Gemini for Mac integration. The app, it's so, it's two of everything. in classic Google fashion. I'm guessing for the non-Mac users out there, what you want to know here is that this is a completely different experience to how you would, well, it's not completely different. From what I can tell already, it's a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined version

than the way you would go to jemini.gov.com. I hope that this will mean further integration within your day-to-day usage as Gemini progresses as an application. But it is interesting to see Google doing this for the first time in a while. Zadabner, it's kind of the web app has been the way forward and it's the way to get people using stuff.

There's obviously Chrome, which is the main desktop thing that people download. I think second would P Google Drive desktop, which is weird with the app. But yeah, this is, it is fully native. It has liquid grass elements. I think it does it nicely in terms of as much as you can with that. there's a floating mini chat UI or you can go to a full window so that's nice

I guess at the high level there is the main advantage of a native app right now is that you can share windows it's that added context of you can share your current window you have to enable accessibility settings whatever and then you can select whatever

app you have open and then Gemini will use it as context for your prompt. That's the main advantage right now. So it's a bit like the mobile apps, or the Android app. I mean, it feels ridiculously responsive. And I think that's one of the main benefits.

And this is one of the main things that I think makes sense in this format. If you're going to get people using it, I would imagine a lot of people who are, and I don't, trying to put this politically, who are not happy with Siri, probably would be better off with,

this option on their Mac. I can already see myself using this as someone who uses Gemini here and there on a day-to-day and querying things, like maybe fixing things I've done. I just need to make sure it's part of my routine.

I've literally just installed it before we start recording the podcast. So I need to make sure that this is pinned to my dock. I don't like the color actually. I don't like the color of the icon on the dock. It's gray.

The background is very weird. It's gray instead of white. It's, I don't know what they're doing there. But I like the simplification of it. There's no extra information like chat. You can view your chat logs. Is that what it's called?

Officially chat logs your previous chats. Yeah, side panel. And it's super streamlined. It looks really, really good. And I do wonder how much of this might start crossing over to the web application. If we're going to see Google almost reverse design the web app. Like, I don't know. Well, I wonder if the other reason you would do this is kind of to, it gives Gemini, like,

an added level of importance, I guess, is what I would say, right? Like, it's like web apps and websites. Like, I feel like outside of your phone, people mostly interact with Gemini, like, in a web browser and a tab. And I do think there is an argument to be made that by making it an application, you make it feel a little bit more mature, a little bit more of a destination, a tool for you to use, right, that sits in your dock next to. you know, depending on your workflow, Photoshop or, or, you know, we're talking Mac, but Steam, right?

Like, you can play games on a Mac. Right? Like, it makes it feel a little bit more of like a, like, oh, yes, when I get my, when I open my laptop in the morning, I have, I open my applications and one of them is Gemini. Just keep that open all the time as opposed to being like, oh, it's, it's in Chrome. It makes it feel more than just a chatbot in a way. even if it is still just the Gemini experience, largely speaking, that you're used to. I think that's going to be huge.

I think that's going to be huge if they can get this onto more. I mean, I'm right in thinking, correct me from wrong, there's no Windows equivalent to this yet. No Windows, but I feel like the light thing is on the wall in terms of, yes, it comes to every platform. And the other context there is that the AI, the Google search team, they made a Google app for Windows, which just went launched and stable the day before this. So again, another side

of Google making desktop apps. But again, I'd expect this to be everywhere. Google should rush a Windows port of this, in my opinion. I mean, don't break it or whatever, but make it a priority because I feel like the press around co-pilot is so bad that just making a Gemini app.

I mean, similar to your Siri comparison, Damien, like the second, you have a Gemini app on Windows. It's like, oh, well, that, that is more useful than co-pilot. I'd rather use that. I, my, um, co-pilot this week installed itself on my, you know, custom-built Windows desktop. I've never uninstalled something so fast.

I was, when I right-click on something and saw the co-pilot option all of a sudden, I was so annoyed. This is why you need to move to Linux. If you're going to be building your PC, you're into Linux. It's that damn creative, creative cloud. Like, you get me better Linux. compatibility with that. I can definitely foresee this being a

gateway into a lot of people like using Gemini on a day-to-day basis more regularly. Like I think that having a native application on your desktop feels it's, I don't know if it's proactive, but when you, like you said, you gave the good example there, Willis, if you open up your laptop or you power on your Mac again after a period of time and it auto launches

and you have all of your windows open, I struggle sometimes where I'll have multiple Chrome browser tabs open. I could potentially have 100 before like the end of the day. Then I have to go and close them all. Sometimes I will close Gemini. But I think with the native application, I can just minimize it and then return to my conversations. I think that is, it's continuity, continuity across the web, my phone, my Mac.

Yeah. I was about to say Windows PC, I don't even have one, but my Windows PC, my Linux PC. I think that is genuinely, it doesn't seem huge on face value, but it probably is going to be in the long term, right? Yeah, I live across platform life, right? Like I have a MacBook and a Windows desktop. And I, regardless of the platform, you know, whether it's a task bar on Windows or my dock on Mac, like the applications that live in there, right, like permanently are, I think about, far more often than like bookmarks or pinned tabs in Chrome or even the Gemini icon in Chrome.

Like that stuff fades away so fast because of how I use the web and how I think a lot of us use the web, maybe not. You know, I mean, I mean, we're like professionals in a way, right? Like a lot of our jobs are done in web browsers. But even if you're just like a normal consumer who like comes home and opens their laptop and checks their email and checks Facebook and Instagram and then closes the laptop and goes to bed, like you think about that web browser in a different way than you do whatever is down in your task bar or in your dock like i just think it it it draws your eye to it to be like oh right

like i have jemini right here in a larger bigger icon with its own window as opposed to like oh yeah i can open that tab or i can click that little tiny icon in the corner next to you know nothing in chrome like i it's a smart play by by google to embrace a dedicated app here. I think there's no downside. Yeah, I think there's a few other areas where I think that this kind of like, they were going to do this for a period of time anyway. I know that I've been using anti-gravity for a little bit, and I think that felt like a really good way to do things rather than doing everything in the

browser. If anybody out there has used Google AI Studio as good as it can be, sometimes you do want an eighth application because you just want to, I guess it's hyper-focus. I think sometimes Because navigating between browser tabs is cumbersome, and this is a really clean way of doing it. I can definitely foresee this being good for analyzing things like documents, because you can just drag them straight into this window, probably much more easily and more cleanly than using the upload option in a web browser. And yes, I know that it can handle the drag and drop a little bit better than some other services. But I just think this native way of doing things is it makes a lot sense. does kind of raise a bit of questions of like,

why can't we get some more native applications like YouTube music, all these other options? I mean, the web wrappers are fine, but this probably does prove that if Google's biggest product moving forward is Gemini, which it's undoubtedly is, then all of your other massive products probably need this as well. So maybe somebody out there's listening thinking we might do this, and I'm all ears.

I want to see this. Maybe this is too big picture, but I've always thought that the move to exclusively, progressive web apps was a was a mistake. I'm fine with a web wrapper for some things and and you know, Chrome's ability to, you know, install a web page as an app. It comes in handy every now and then. Like, I like that experience. But at the same time, yeah, I think I would probably use at least a handful of dedicated Google apps across their various services. Like I, I like having windows that exist in their own thing, you know, as opposed to

to the truly mountain of pinned tabs I have where I'm like, I'll get back to that later. I would rather, or like, I need this, you know, I have like, I have three pinned Gmail tabs for different inboxes. Put that in a Gmail app, like a dedicated

email app that I could, you know, I don't have to keep that clutter in my browser. I would love that. Yeah. But, you know, yeah. So looking forward, I think that the next thing on the roadmap is computer control. Like we, kind of have on Android right now. I think it is doing computer control on a desktop is probably

a bit more. Maybe you can do stuff, more stuff locally or whatever, but I think that is, this is why we have that app. This is setting the stage for those more advanced capabilities. Right now, it is basically just the web app plus the ability. to share context, but it's, you can see, you can clearly see what's coming next. I think the timing is good as well, because obviously we know that Google and Apple are almost in bed together with the serious situation. Getting Gemini out there on Max now and getting people familiar with it might mean that in a few months time or maybe whenever the, whenever whatever happens with Gemini and

Syria, whatever it is. And that feels like for sure a WWDC conversation. This gets ahead of that, and I think there is opportunities where Google, I mean, Google could definitely mention something at I.O. And be like, oh, okay, we now have these dedicated applications for your Windows PC and your Mac. And, hey, now you can do, I don't know, like file organization or something. Even something simple that would save me a lot of time. But yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes because anytime we see a native application from Google, it tends to be on Android, doesn't it? So breaking free of that, coming onto Mac, it's interesting Mac was first,

but I guess that's where a lot of younger, the younger audience are using desktops and laptops now. So yeah, it doesn't strike me as anything particularly insane, as it maybe would have done 10 years ago when the user base was so much smaller. But I think now we've probably reached that point where it's probably 50-50 with a lot of people, right, using Mac for day-to-day and work operations. Yeah. Okay, Gemini on desktop, fantastic, we're going to get into it. If you have any experiences of that, let us know as well.

Drop me an email, drop me anything on socials. I'm intrigued to see how people are using it. But it can lead us to some more points of how Gemini can increase its user install base. But good news on terms of Google's other hardware front, pixel now makes up 5% of foldables in the US. But there also is another looming aspect. We mentioned Siri there briefly. Apple is potentially on the horizon with their own. foldable. It looks like they will absolutely obliterate everyone in the foldable space. But right now,

Google is hanging in there with about 5% of every single foldable, well, the foldable market in the US. I think that's pretty darn good, considering it's a small slice of the pie. I'm not surprised that it's, five percent feels large and small at the same time, right? where it's, it kind of factors into that Motorola thing. Like, you know, we've, we've talked about Motorola having like, you know, 50% of the foldable market. This has it at, at 44, which is like exactly how much Google would, you know, it would take away essentially. I don't think that's one to one. But, you know, yeah, I wonder if.

I've never seen the pixel fold in public. Well, just mine. Just mine and your guys is. No, I definitely have it. And I think part of that is that, you know, Samsung really dominates the conversation on book style foldables. And I would say Motorola dominates it on on clamshells because up until, you know, like in a month or so, they're, you know, whenever the razor fold launches,

they are 100% dedicated to clamshells. So they can, that's all their attention. You know, Google does advertise the pixel 10 pro fold that this is not a, a S-25 edge situation where I'm like, yeah, no wonder it failed. Samsung, I never saw you try to advertise it. They have those ads with

with Steph Curry, right? Because Google has such a close partnership with him now and they have the ads about like, oh, I have such a routine, but I've changed my phone. And I think it's a good ad. I wonder if this is kind of a thing where, like, Google is a little late to getting into foldables, right?

Like, it's only been three. years. It was 2023 was the first pixel fold and then two of them have looked essentially identical. One of them was completely different and not great. And then the other two have been the same design like one year after another, which is fine. But I would have, you know, I said this at the time. I would have liked to see Google rapidly innovating a little bit faster than they did. I didn't feel like they had earned a stopgap with the pixel 10 profile that I, we don't really expect anything different with the 11th. Like I, I don't think they were, it was. was time to slow down because of the threat of Apple, right?

Like I think Samsung, I think the Fold 7 was in part a reaction to, you know, Chinese, uh, their Chinese rivals. But at the same time also a reaction to them knowing that like Apple is coming with this foldable like this is this is happening. We need to get to a point where our devices are, uh, as flashy and as eye grabbing and, and dominate the conversation, uh, so that when Apple's appears, like, they we we have a like distinct identity and rival to this device i'm i'm not surprised to see that like you know google takes a small hit in these projections samsung takes a massive hit in these projections

which i think is funny but but google probably would too because i i i bet there are people who probably bought it as a stopgap of like well i don't really like samsung phones and maybe i'll switch to to the iphone the foldable iPhone when that launches i don't know like i i i i just I guess this is a lot of rambling for me to say, I don't, I wish Google had not, I think Google could have had a larger portion of the market had they not just kind of been like, with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, like,

okay, we've got our design, three generations, we're good to go. We'll see it with the 12. Like, foldables are moving fast. Like, it hasn't been a decade. Like, you've got to keep speed on this. Yeah, I think it's weird. One thing I find really odd is that this is, the information's come from counterpoint research.

and it's almost like a, it is a predictive measure, and they claim that Apple will potentially take 46% of the US market. So it's still a prediction at the end of the day. I do genuinely think price point is going to be the biggest stumbling block here. If Apple goes in, I think they probably, because of brand awareness and I'm going to say fierce brand loyalty, I would have been a little bit less, I guess, kind to some of the Apple fans out there, if we were talking off air,

but I think there's a lot of people who would be willing to pay, say, a $500, $600, $500, $500, $600, $600, $600,000, on, say, the Z-fold Z-Fold 7. I think Apple fans would be happy to pay that premium because it's an Apple product and there's a shiny Apple logo on it. I don't necessarily think that if they go that much higher, that it will shift as many units. I think that the Vision Pro has kind of proven that Apple can width, with certain products. They have to make sure it,

how does this affect their iPad sales? Does iPad, how are they distinguishing it from the iPad? Does iOS get a major changes to make, to make more of the foldable size? I think there are a lot more question marks here and counterpoint have just said,

yep, okay, they're going to dominate. I don't necessarily see where this has come from in that respect, but I do agree that it probably will take a big portion of the market. I just don't think, I don't think it'll go 50-50, personally. I'll play the role of Apple Shill.

Okay. But I'll do it. First of all, the foldable market is pretty small. I actually don't think it's that difficult to guess that Apple would take 46% of a market that is like, it's not huge, right? Like, I think that's probably looking at the split between iPhone and Android writ large in the U.S. and in North America and kind of just being like, well, we can sort of just apply that ratio directly to foldables in a similar way.

Like 46% is their estimate. That's not that far off from my memory of like basically what the iPhone holds in general in North America, I believe. I think it's more, isn't it? That's why I don't understand it. I think they're above 50% now, but it's not that far off. The other thing on price, and the reason I don't think this is super far off, I actually don't, I expect the foldable iPhone to be too grand.

Like unless something really weird happens with RAM or the iPhone lineup, Apple is the the Apple tax factor is kind of dead right like in a world where Apple selling the best value laptop you can buy and we and the iPhone 17 came out last year and we all went like Google really should have bumped the the pixel 10 up to 256 to better compete with the iPhone that launched

right after it and so on and so on like this actually the current state of of Apple is a company that is not, you know, Vision Pro notwithstanding. And certainly you can make an argument that there is, that hardware is high end. It's just that like the price is ridiculous to the point where, we're no, it will never be able to gather like a foothold. And it's a niche of a niche of a niche. The foldable iPhone is going to just be a niche. One, one niche level down. One niche down. Right. And I don't think it's, you know, you factor in the fact that like Apple users do, like on average have more disposable income and you factor in that that thing is going to be in

every carrier store easily every apple store every best buy i i and and it's got the word iphone in it i do i do think that thing is going to be a massive hit as long as it's yeah i i agree it's if it does hit 2,500 it's a different conversation but it's two grand i i think people are going to buy that thing in the ipad apple has cannibalized iPad sales in the past. Like they kind of don't, that's its own thing. If they cannibalize iPad sales

for their iPhone, for their more expensive iPhone, I don't think they care. I don't know. I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit more conservative with it, I think, in terms of,

I think the fact that the iPad Air has proven that just because it is, it does something very well, and it is a fantastic piece of hardware, I think the iPad Air is, is impressive.

It still hasn't sold in Apple, numbers, I would not be surprised if the Apple foldable does have something like that up its sleeve, if that makes sense. Like it could wow, but also doesn't capture the attention of the general public, the kind of people who would be willing to spend that. Like I just think that the price differential when you can get the iPhone 17, which is probably going to be the biggest selling individual phone of the year, and then probably the next two years

once it starts being discounted, more people will buy the base iPhone 17, which is fantastic value for money and then a MacBook Neo or something like that. If they're going to go all in, which most people do. I agree. I think before, I think this, I think there's a lot less, there's a lot more riding on this as a product. I think it can, it could make Apple look a bit silly. Not silly, that's ridiculous to say, but it could be a silly product in Apple's lineup. It's just one of those ones to have a little bit like the Vision Pro. It's like we've done it, but now we kind of have to continue with it. We have to, we have to deliver on what on our

promises. That's why I feel about it. But, I mean, I mean, turning it back to Pixel, I think, as you said, it's a niche of a niche. I mean, the Pixel is a niche product anyway. When we started to see growth, for Google to even have three to five percent of the market, potentially three at the end of the year, or whenever this prediction comes true or false, that's still pretty down good for a product that was in the 0% global sales figures for a long time, that Google is getting to single digit market share to potentially be, close, I mean, it's not close, is it?

Five is half of that double digit? If that continues, that's good, is it not? I feel like, I don't know, there's probably more at play here in terms of like Google's long-term ambitions. What do we, oh, for open this up to both of you, what do we think would help Google, you know, avoid any, any market shrinkage from Apple beyond what, you know, there's a little bit that's out of their control.

there, but like, what would you want, let's say we haven't seen leaks of the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, like, let's say that's a mystery, what would you want to see in that phone that you think would help compete, or even, even a generation later, help compete against whatever Apple's going to launch? Do you think return to a passport style, Abner? Because I know, I can see your cogs ticking away. I think you're a passport fan like I am. I think your OG pixel fold was fantastic. I think from a hardware perspective, it needs to be thinner. It's just everybody got thinner and Google hasn't yet. I agree.

And it looks like it's not for another year at least. So I think that and weight, which is, I'm surprised that people are fine carrying these heavy things, honestly. That's, I'm really surprised that adoption hasn't, that hasn't hampered adoption. I think it's, just real quick on the weight. My theory is that it's a, it's a frog, it's a frog in a pot of boiling water situation, where the people who probably gravitated to foldables came from the biggest slab phones

they could buy at the time. And so they were already getting used to these heavier weights. So I think maybe they just, you know, if you went from, you know, pixel 6 to 8 pro to this isn't work. But 9xl to 10 pro fold. Like you can feed, you don't, everything's a little bit heavier, but you're not jumping from like S-2670 grams to,

250 whatever grams on the pixel 10 pro fold right like that you're going to notice but if you're just leveling up 20 grams every time you get a new device maybe you just don't notice it so in terms of the passport form factor i so i have a 10 pro fold i have the original pixel fold i i can count on one hand how many times i folded my 10 pro fold i'm using it as a tablet because because that well that's more of a me thing because the pixel tablet is old but I am using it as just a tabbit and it's fine. I do think for productivity

yeah, watching video, I know everybody has pointed this out, but watching video on that fold is ridiculous on that squareish screen. I do again, I bought

a 10 per fold but at the same time like post the passport form fact of the original I've kind of been on Google's ambition, on Google's efforts, because they clearly had a unique idea going ahead and go at the start, and it feels like they but opted for

Sam, why did they do that? They saw Samsung, they saw where the rest of the industry was going. I don't have a good answer for that. It was like, it happened all at the same time where it was like, the, you know, 2023, the pixel fold comes out in the summer. I would say it gets pretty mixed reviews. I would say like large, the word on that phone was pretty like six or seven out of ten, largely speaking.

And then a few months later, you get the One Plus Open, which I understand is niche, but in this industry, and when we're talking foldables, like these companies are paying attention, that gets a lot of, you know,

surprise, positive reactions. That's not quick enough, I would say, for Google to turn around and like, sort of copy, not right, but like certainly take inspiration from the opens design because the jump from

the original fold to the nine pro fold is like, oh, that's, you saw, you saw the one plus open, I guess. I don't know if they just like maybe they were trying out like some of like the, the international, the Chinese foldables and had something with this form factor and we're like, oh, we actually like this more. Let's go in this direction. I, because it was the same summer, same, you know, 2024 is the same year that like Samsung started to in a more wider, square direction with their foldables,

starting with the, with the fold six that led into the SE and the seven. I, it was a weird level of like market consolidation where everybody decided, we're just going to do the same hardware design, largely speaking for these phones. I never, I,

I remember when the 10 pro fold, or the nine pro fold leaked, I like rant, or I ranted about it. I was like, you guys do not need to all, like, we're not even half a decade at the time.

into foldables being on the market, you do not all have to convalesce into one design. Like it will be good for you to have multiple options on the market. And two years later, we're looking at Samsung launching a wide foldable for it and all it took was Apple rumors to do it. But like, good, this is what this should be. They don't all have to be the equivalent of tall slabs

on the other side. You can have different designs for different use cases. Yeah, I think I do genuinely think that this is going to be a catalyst. for, I mean, it's proven if Samsung are doing that, that this phone factor does, like you say, I don't think it needs to be a traditional phone at the front. I think a lot of people were hyperfixated on that,

and Google and Oppo before them, it was the Oppo Find End that trailblazed a little bit with that passport style, and Google kind of, I don't know, I'm guessing they would have worked separately and done it. I think they were a little bit wider, and the design was a little bit more, I would say a little bit more refined in some respects. I do wonder what's going to happen now.

I think that in terms of going back to the sales figures and potential market share, I think once Apple releases a foldable, there will be a, I'm going to call it a public awakening. There's a lot of the people who don't necessarily follow tech, like to the endth degree, that don't necessarily know or see the value in a foldable device. There are going to be people who therefore look at foldables potentially at discount. maybe they think I don't like I know lots of people myself who especially here in the UK I don't know if it's prevalent in the US who are anti I don't want to buy an iPhone so they look for the next best thing i.e. something that does something similar but fits within their realm

of acceptance be that Android running it would have been Windows for back in the day like I do think there is enough people out there who may be pushed to to an Android foldable so again I think that kind of plays into the back of mind of like I don't necessarily I really see these sales figures panning out, but I'm ready to be proven wrong. I think it's flipped in North America, though. And I don't know, Abner, chime in if your experience is different,

but when I'm testing or using a foldable, I've had a lot of people, a lot of iPhone owners specifically be like, oh, like I would love that. Or, oh, that's so cool. Like, or like, oh, yeah, like that would actually be really fun to switch to, but they never do.

And I wonder if there is, if they're secretly quietly, maybe not even, maybe subconsciously being like in the second Apple launch is one of those. I'm going to be tempted. Like I wonder if there is pent up demand from half a decade of iPhone users seeing the nerd in their friend group with a foldable height. That's me. You know, carry this thing around and be like, man, that thing is cool.

But I don't want to switch off iOS in the second Apple launches one. It's like two grand on a carrier plan over 36 months. Sure. I buy the pro max anyway. Go for it. Like I think that's a possibility. Yeah, I think that probably is how it plays out. Actually, now you've played out that little scenario. It's to me in real time.

That's a North American thing, I would say, but it's certainly, I think I, you know, that's my experience with it. Yeah, I think, well, the jury's out, and I'm excited to see what happens with it. We always want to see new hardware and Apple entering the market. It's always a good thing. But let's talk about something completely different, something that is completely at odds with hardware. This is the news that it's now going to be easy for. for us. Finally, and where, I don't know if Abner is, Abner has never made his feelings clear on this.

I'm not a short form media fan unless it's memes. I don't enjoy watching them. I don't like the, I don't like they've been force fed down my throat with YouTube as someone who's on YouTube for potentially 14 hours a day, some days, maybe longer. And the news that we will be able to effectively distance ourselves from shorts, to me is fantastic news.

I like this. This is amazing. I don't know how you guys feel about it. Do you like the idea that potential would be able to almost eliminate shorts, turn them off, get them, get rid of them. It's a little bit of weird work around. I wish we had a flat out toggle, but I guess we'll...

Close enough. Yeah, yeah. Abner, do you have strong thoughts on shorts? I don't watch them, but... To not go into a land or whatever, I just think context collapse is a thing we should all be fearful of. But it's, yeah, it's, I don't know, short, it's, I can recognize that I am too old for something. So I'm very cognizant of that.

So it's probably that's what it is. You're the youngest of the three of us on this podcast. I just want to point that out. Yeah, by substantial margin, I might add. Yeah, I mean, I am an old man yelling at cloud or yelling at shorts, as it were, yelling at scrollable media. So the fact that you don't like it is, or don't necessarily engage with shorts is not a good sign.

But I think, I don't know, it is weird how, as someone who grew up with the early form of YouTube, where you would have to go out of your way to consume something, like, and it was short form, because obviously the tools that were available, If you watched longer than a five-minute video in 2005 through about 2000, and I want to say, 2008, that was insane to get longer. I mean, YouTube had had time caps. Yeah, yeah. Forget that.

But they're in the, in the world of four-hour video essays. But, like, it was news when YouTube, like, raised their video limit to, like, an hour or whatever. And then certainly when they raised it to 10. Like, I remember that news cycle. Like, yeah, it's easy to forget now with YouTube being the, you know, dominant. I mean, it was a dominant player then, but now it is, like, a. a like, if you're not on Netflix or Fortnite, you're probably on YouTube sort of situation, right? Like, yeah, it's massive.

So just to kind of clear up what this change is, there is a Google did an, sorry, YouTube did announce that you'll get new timer tools. This was way back in October at the end of last year. Now what you'll be able to do is you'll have these timer tools to effectively limit yourself to being able to view short. you can set this to zero. It's rolled out pretty widely, I think, for family members, and I think you can do it manually yourself if you're just an individual.

Effectively, if you put this to zero, shorts will not appear. It will just show your home form, at home feed, sorry, I was going to say home form, but I don't know what that means. And you can just continue as normal on your mobile phone or you foldable, your pixel fold, consuming media in that one-by-one grid, really not enjoying yourself. And yeah, you can effectively be disabled which to me is probably the hackiest,

feasible, like almost non-solution workaround that I think Google has given us for anything for a long, long time. Like this feels like, just give me a toggle to just say, no. I mean, they don't want, I mean, there's a reason that if you close the app when the shorts is open,

when the shorts tab is open, it's going to, like, the YouTube app doesn't open, on your subscriptions feed if that's what you're in when you close the app, but it will open on shorts and it will auto play a short. Like it will do that. And and they want you in like they don't want you to use this. Like, but they also, I think, uh, probably see the reaction, uh, that that companies like like meta have gotten over especially like specifically legally recently that they're like, we need to put in, uh, we can, you know, time, management tools specifically kind of for teenagers, but really for anybody who wants, we'll open them up to all accounts. But like that feels like what this is actually about, but, but it, the benefit comes that you can basically, quote, unquote, turn off shorts as a result. I don't think it's going to make much of an effect. I think because the way it's

scurled away, it's one of those tools. I think it's very easy to bypass for a lot of people. And even for young, I mean, I'm sure there will be somebody making a YouTube short on how to bypass this so that young people can just bypass it. But that doesn't discount. There is some good short form media out there. Go check out our YouTube channel where Jordan is doing fantastically short. So I think he's doing some of the best on the platform. But yeah.

Yeah. I want to say like just because short form content is not my thing or our thing, like that doesn't mean like, you know, my fiancee will show me like a TikTok she's seen that I think it's funny. It's just I've never been like this is not like me being like, sick of TikTok and sick of reels. Like I wasn't a Vine guy. Vine came out when I was in,

Vine should have been my thing, right? Like I was in high school when that came out, like at its peak of popularity. I was not, I didn't care. I never cared about Vine. I spent a little bit of time during like the pandemic on TikTok because nobody else,

what else were we going to do? But like that was sort of, that's my experience. Like if I'm going to, if I'm going to scroll mindlessly on my phone, it's usually on like a Twitter esk app. Yeah, the problem is we all grew up on Twitter, tech Twitter, whatever. That is our

idea of social media. You can be so good at like doing something else and scoring to Twitter and being, like consuming mass amounts of information. That is not to say that the young people today, they can multitask on shorts and TikTok, and it is honesty, an art form how they do it. It's a skill, honesty. Yeah, I think a lot of nuances lost in shorts. That's my final say on YouTube shorts and short form in general.

Give me a four-hour video essay any day of the week. And maybe one day I'll make a four-hour video essay and maybe I will get one view on it. And that would make my day. But yeah, I just want to say any short-form haters out there, go check out. We will leave a link in the show notes on how to go ahead and enable, disable that. It might be useful for families out there.

If you've got young children, this might help them stop being glued to one specific application. that application being YouTube on YouTube shorts. But yeah, just want to say thanks, guys, for joining me. This has been a bit of a whirlwind, a bit of a random one, bit of all over the map in terms of Google's product portfolio. But I don't think we'd have it any other way. Thanks for joining me, and I'll speak to you very, very soon.

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 share. show with friends or on social media.