Tech Brew Ride Home - (Bonus) Pixel Review

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

If my reviews don't float your boat, here are some more detailed ones: Pixel 8 and 8 Pro review: in Google we trust? (The Verge) Google Pixel Watch 2 review: better battery, better watch (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another weekend bonus episode of the TechMeme Ride Home, the review edition, I guess. I'm Brian McCullough. As I mentioned, Google was generous enough to give me a phone and a watch to review when I covered the Pixel event last week. So, I mean, if they do something like that, then I kind of don't need to read other reviews to you. Having said that, I do realize that gadget reviewing is a skill that I haven't really exercised over my career. So I probably am not that great at it. want to look in the show notes, I hope to remember to link to reviews from the verge of both things we're about to talk about. A caveat I want to give up top is, obviously, I'm someone coming from the Apple ecosystem. I do like to get my hands on an Android phone every couple of years,

just so that I can be conversant with things on the other side of the Great Divide. But you should clearly understand I'm coming at this from an iOS and iPhone user's perspective, which is why, after I give you my review, the second half of this episode will be me talking to a regular Android user to sort of square the perspectives. First up for the reviews, let's do the phone, the Pixel 8 Pro. I picked the pro when Google offered me the option because this is the phone that they say will eventually be able to run their AI models natively on device. So I wanted to have that option to test that out in the future whenever they make it possible. Here's another caveat, though. I've never been a big phone guy. By big phone, I mean like the larger phones. I've never gone for

the iPhone Maxes, which is why I was surprised by how much I like the size of the Pixel 8 Pro. In the hand, it's actually noticeably lighter than my iPhone 14 Pro, not 14 Pro Max, the smaller, bigger phone. I've not felt the new supposedly lighter iPhone Max 15s as comparison with, what is it, titanium that they have, but the Pixel 8 Pro feels so good in my hand, it's almost making me think about, maybe I should get the bigger phone the next time I upgrade my iPhone. Obviously, the advantage of the bigger phone is all about having that additional screen real estate. And if a big phone is big but not heavy, I'd be willing to jump at that additional screen size. It also wasn't as overweening in my pockets. I always see people putting their big phones in their back pockets, which I never want to do.

Though I have not been wearing jeans as much yet this autumn, I've switched over to those Lulu Lemon Slacks that everybody raves about now. Wonder if that has something to do with it not seeming so huge in my pocket. I might have to force myself to try jeans pockets for a few days to be sure. Speaking of the screen real estate, it's huge on the Pixel 8 Pro. It's gorgeous. It's also bright as all get out. Yes, you can use it in direct sunlight, though you have to, of course, force the brightness in settings if you want it. Also, if you want that 120 hertz maximum refresh rate on the screen. You got to enable that in settings too. Little pro tip from me. Another caveat, I haven't had a pixel phone since before the pandemic, so I missed out on all of the recent experiments

with curved displays. This is gone on the pixel 8 lineup. It's a completely flat screen, which I hear is a good thing. Might also be why it's nicer to hold in the hand. What's not nice is the aluminum on the frame. Chris Messina was with me at the AI conference this past week, and when I showed him the phone, he was like, why is it so scuffed up? The aluminum gets nicks and scratches right away along with fingerprints, although apparently the eight doesn't have this, so take that into consideration if you're trying to decide between the pro and the regular eight. One big thing that I do love coming from the iPhone side, I love the Jordie LaForge-style camera bar on the back, like love it. It's so annoying on iPhones and iPads the way the Apple camera bump,

the mesa or whatever it is, makes it basically impossible. to set the phone down in any sort of stable way if you want to, you know, type on it on a flat table or something. The pixel camera bar gives you that. Plus, it also gives you a little ridge to rest your fingers on when you're holding the phone, which is surprisingly nice. One more hardware thing, it has a temperature sensor, which, you know, I don't know. And most reviewers seem to be like, I don't know. Like, okay, here's how hot your cup of coffee is, which great, what am I supposed to do with that. They claim that eventually you'll be able to take a person's temperature with it, but until then, it's also not as cool as it could be, even as a gimmick, because you get like a one-shot attempt

at temperature taking, almost like you're taking a photo, like snap, and that's it. It would be cooler if it gave you a continuous temperature reading as you waved the thing around. Like, here's how hot your coffee is, here's the temperature of the table it's sitting on, and that book, and then here's your brother's arm, but no, it doesn't do that. On to the software by which I may mainly going to talk about camera stuff. For example, best take is amazing, especially if you have kids. Taking a family portrait, one kid is always not smiling with all of their heart, as you know. But now you can take a burst of photos and pick the best smile and replace the one person that was blinking or whatever. It's not seamless. If you look too hard at a picture, you might not see the heads lining up with the necks exactly.

But it's good enough that you'll probably use it. Magic Editor is amazing. You have to do this in Google photos after you shoot, just like you do with Best Take. But let's say you take a photo of your kid jumping in the air. You can go in later and just with your finger move that kid up, I don't know, six feet so that it looks like they're taking off Superman style. That sounds gimmicky, but imagine you take a beautiful sunset photo and you love it. You want to frame it. You just wish that rando stranger hadn't walked into the frame. Well, you can take them out.

Again, just with your finger. The AI fills in the background for you. I feel like this is going to be table stakes as a sort of feature that every smartphone camera system is going to need to have in the near future. And Audio Magic Eraser for video is something that should absolutely become table stakes, because it's amazing. As you're taking video, the system is somehow able to separate various noises into various channels. So if I'm walking down 8th Avenue, there's loud traffic noises, the AI separates all of the noise in the video into channel so you can take out the certain noises that you don't want automatically. Here's an audio clip from a video I took on the loud streets of Brooklyn. See if you can hear the difference.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon. That is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon that is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she. And I didn't have to do any heavy lifting to edit that.

I just went into the edit audio settings on the video. As for pictures in terms of quality, I mean, they're fine. I'm not technical enough to go into the differences, but from my non-professional iPhone photos still look superior, but that could be recency bias, familiarity bias. About Android itself, I mean, it's pretty great. There's not really at this point a lot of muscle memory that you have to do or reconfigure your brain at this point to switch between OSs. They're not exactly the same, but everything's generally intuitively similar.

The stuff that I really want to try out on this thing is the new Google Assistant with Bard, but that's not available yet. and that actually gets into something that we'll probably talk more about in the second half of this episode. To make Android really work for you, you probably got to go all in with the entire Google ecosystem, right? Google Photos, share all of your g-mails, the whole shebang. If I were to not do that, would I not see the way Bard potentially revolutionizes assistant in the future? That's the whole thing with Android full stop, though. You've got to give Google everything, all your stuff, all your data, or you're really not going to get

all of the optimizations, all of the full, you know, magic that the Android system can do for you. Finally, I'll just touch on the watch because I didn't test it as much, so high-level stuff here. Battery life on the watch was good, all-day battery life, which is apparently something the Gen 1 Pixel Watch definitely lacked, apparently. I have a hell of a time getting the bands on and off, like five minutes of struggle every time. Now, Apple Watch's band release mechanism, It ain't great, but at least for me, the bands on the pixel watch are diabolical. I really like the rounded screen. It looks more like a watch should on your wrist. The screen is bright. Apps are useful. Though I do want to note it's really small looking on my watch, which again could be

recently bias. But, you know, it kind of feels like a toy watch, especially if you're a man, if you're a larger man. And frankly, you know, smaller body types might actually enjoy that. female users, they might be genuinely enthusiastic about not having a giant brick on your wrist. But the real reason I didn't get to test the watch more was that you need full Fitbit integration to get all the features. And that just got set up yesterday by Google. Which actually brings up another interesting point. No going into this. If you buy a Pixel Watch, you're only getting half the experience unless you sign up for the $10 a month Fitbit premium or whatever subscription. I mean, people do that all the time with their Fitbits and aura rings, but coming from an Apple Watch where,

unless I do Apple Fitness or something like that, I don't need to pay a monthly subscription. So again, factor that into your consideration of if you can afford or want to afford the Pixel Watch. There you go. A review of the Pixel experience from a non-Pixel user. If I were an Android user, pixels are the only way I'd go because I hate what OEMs do with their weird crafted versions of Android. I want the pure thing, baby. And as for the watch, I think I'll stick with the Apple Watch happily, but the pixel seems to be inching closer to parody. Now, in the second half of this episode, let's talk about this more with someone from the other

side of the Great Divide, a genuine Android user, my cousin Kev. Cousin Kev, long time, no talk. Well, not really. We talk online a lot, but... Yeah. Yeah. Do you really listen all the time? Yeah, I listen every day on the way home from work. So it's almost perfect. I live, it's about a 20-minute drive home. Well, that works.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, then the real question is, were you excited for the new pixels? Did you order one? I did. I pre-ordered right away. I was very excited. I had the 6 Pro up until this morning.

So, yeah, I had the Pixel 6 Pro. Prior to that, I had the Pixel 3A. Those were the first pixels that I had. Have you ever done like Android? Like Samsung or like what's your Android sort of experience? So I had the Google G1. which was the OG the first

yeah that was the the first Android phone I got that right when it came out you know it's really funny is just a quick aside my dad worked for Team mobile at the time

and I told him I said there's this new operating system coming out that for phones that Google's coming out with I think it's going to be a big deal I was like I really think this is going to be like the next thing because I

The iPhone was out at the time, right? Right, right, because the first Google phone came out. I'm remembering, like, let's say, six to eight months afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn't talk about for a while. There was talks of the Google phone for a couple years before that. Well, maybe.

You know what? Maybe I got to go back and do research on that. But also, your dad worked at Motorola for years, too, right? Yeah, worked in Motorola for years. and then fixing computers, that obviously wasn't that much of a thing anymore. So he transitioned to working and sell equipment. So he worked on sell equipment forever until he retired. But you know what it was?

I remember what it was. So there was the Google phone, which was going to be a thing. It was Google had bought Android. There were some versions of it that were kind of floating around out there that I think people were playing with. because it was all open source. But it wasn't supposed to be touch-centric. And then the iPhone came out. And then they quickly pivoted to make it more.

So, okay, HTC Dream. Yes. Was T-Mobile. The T-Mobile G-1 announced on September 23rd, 2008. And it was a slider that I'm looking at. So it had like physical keys sort of like a, Blackberry style. I think I have it here.

Kevin's going to look for it right now. I might. I don't want to look. I have a drawer here that's got a bunch of other phones and I swear. Yeah. We call it our museum of tech in my house. Okay. So you're so Android O.G. You had the very first one. I did. I had the first one, which was HTC. I think the next few that I had were HTC. And, you know, I don't know if you remember. but those phones were rock solid. I mean,

those things were, they were made up metal. You could, you know, you couldn't break those things. I did. I think I transitioned. My first Samsung was the Note 2.

Mm. And then from there, I was Samsung until I got the Pixel 3A. Okay. And that was kind of the first. I was always a flagship phone guy. Yeah. It helped,

again, my dad working for T-Mobile, we got the phones for, you know, almost nothing. So they had a very good deal at the time. So I was always, you know, had the flagship when it came out. But he retired. I had to buy my own phones. And that's when I got the 3A. That's when I went to a budget phone.

And then from that to a, you know, to the six pro. And now as of about six hours ago, the eight pro. Do you got it today? And you got the pro too. Like that's the one it's over here right now. So have you got to play around with that at all? I'm waving. I have.

Yeah. I mean, you know, the first couple of hours were just transitioning everything. Right. Of course. Yeah. You know, is always a pain. All right. So let's do this.

Let's do this first because you read my review, which I haven't even recorded yet, but I sent you my script for it. But I fucking love the, I love the camera. I love the Jordy LaForge thing. Like that's entirely useful. I love how light it is. I love like it's like again, if I were in the Android ecosystem, I would only do pixels.

Is that where you're at these days? I mean, I've seen some sexy as hell Samsung things, but like where do you come down in terms of like, in the Android ecosystem, what's the best phone for you? You know, I would say now it's the pixel. And there's a couple of things with the camera bar that you mentioned that, one, and you allude to this in your review, you know, you can set it down on the phone or on the table and it doesn't have the wobble because it's symmetric. You know, the bar goes along across the top, which is, you know, is one of those things that in the scheme of things, how much does it matter? But it's one of those annoyances that you get rid of.

the other thing it is that the placement of it's nice it does kind of catch your it's a place to kind of rest your your finger a little bit yeah yeah um to give you a little bit better grip people have those those cases where they have like the little thing on the like the circular thing and that's to hold it and like you yeah it's built into the phone there yeah yeah the other thing and i think this is something that um it probably was intentional but uh you you you notice them like it's it's got the apple obviously you you see an iPhone And it's very, as soon as you see one, you know it's an iPhone, right? Well, as soon as you see one of these, you know exactly what it is.

And you can see it from a mile away. So it's so unique in its view. You look at a Samsung and, you know, Samsung has 10 different models they release every year. But even then, you know, you got the, you know, the Motorola's and, you know, Asus and then, you know, the Walways and all of them. and they all look so similar that, you know, when you see a pixel now, you know what it is right away. That's a good point.

Did you have the previous ones that had the curved glass where people were talking about like how that sucked and like this feels so good in the hand is what I said in the review. It does. It does. I actually, the first

one I had that had the curved glass was the Samsung Galaxy 7, I think it was. It was the first one that I had that had the Kirk Glass. And I thought, at the time I loved it, it definitely has a, when bezels were so much bigger, it looked. It was easier.

Much nicer. Yeah. And it looked so much nicer because it made the screen look like it went edge to edge. What I would, in my experience, it made them so much easier to break though. Yeah. And so much harder to put like a real good screen. protector on. You eventually could, but for a while, you couldn't get like a timber glass screen protector. So I'm, I love that they got rid of the curve screen. I learned to hate it. And so I was

very happy when I heard that that was going away. Okay. So your, your pixel fam, you're also Pixel Watch fam. Is this your first Pixel Watch? This is my first picture watch. I had, I mean, I've had Fitbits. Okay. And this one is replacing the Galaxy watch five, which I did like. I mean, there wasn't anything wrong with it, but, you know, there's something to say for sticking with, you'll definitely appreciate this for sticking with an ecosystem and having everything just kind of meant to, you know, built to work together. We're about to get into that. All right. Let me, let me give you my, my history with phones, which is, you know, like, you know, literally going back to Nokia's, then to the,

the the Motorola razor and I had in because I couldn't bring myself to to be a Blackberry person I actually had a blackjack I don't know if you knew that one it was a it was made by Windows or somebody but it had a physical keyboard yeah that was the last phone I had before the iPhone but okay so and and we'll get into you trying to convince me to come over to the Android side but when when Android came out because I can remember going to San Francisco around that time when it came out. And, you know, even me getting into podcasting was like listening to before there was the verge, was it in gadget that they were at or, um, I guess I don't know, it was a gadget, right? So like

Nilai and Josh Topolski and all those folks. And, and that's what got me into podcasting is listening to them talk about like the Android fragmentation of it. Yeah. Right. Where so, which again, And as I said in the review, like, if I were going to do Android, I'd only do Pixel for the pure Android without all the crept, without all the OEMs doing whatever they're going to do to it. But that's when I made that choice, I think I transitioned to a Mac at that point or whatever. But it was mainly like I was hearing that like, yes, this Android thing is happening and there's a million different players and they're doing a million different things. And it's like, no, I want to do something that is simple. So did you have to endure that sort of like the Android could be crazy and unreliable because the OEMs were doing all sorts of stuff?

Absolutely. And I think that that's a, you know, it's sort of a necessary evil in some sense. because if you think about iPhones, you know, if you want an iPhone, it's, or if you want to use iOS, you have to have an iPhone and it's made by Apple and you have, you know, a couple of choices. If, and so there's obviously benefits to that. They control the entire market. So, you know, they can dictate what releases come out and what, what hardware support it and all that. Right, because let me, let me, let me, just for the listeners, let's say it's, it's 2010, even 2012, like if you buy a certain Android phone, it could like the next Android version, your, your OEM might not support it or like you could be stuck on certain hardware devices and like, yeah. You might not get it. You might not get the next, or if you get it, it might be six months or, you know, a year or, you know, and so yeah, that was definitely.

a headache. And, you know, companies like Samsung have always been pretty good about eventually coming out with the releases. I mean, obviously, they've gotten much better. That is one of the reasons when I went to Pixel was because I knew I was going to get the update right away. And now you've got seven years of updates, which did I even put that in the review? I need to add that. I don't think you did, but I need to. I need to, yeah. You know what? I'm never going to. have a phone for seven years. No, us normal folks, well, no, no, I was going to say, us geeks won't have a phone that long. But that makes a lot of sense for like the long tail of the market.

Well, and yeah. And the other thing is if you think about it, like hand on a phone down to your kids. You know, like I've got, you know, my youngest is 11 and he's in middle school now. So we kind of had to get him a phone because he gets home before we do on the bus. And, and that's a struggle. He's got my 3A, my pixel 3A, but it's not technically supported anymore. So it's not getting updates. So in that sense, yes, being able to pass the phone down to somebody who, you know, I don't care if they break it.

That's great. But yeah, I'm never going to have, I would spice to say most people are never going to have a phone for seven years. There is a, I think I've said this on the show. There is in the industry a sense that the, if the, if the, if the. upgrade cycle was two to three years. It is moving down the chain to like three or four, four to five. So like it's a smart move by Google. I don't know that this is something. But but but what we've said a million times on the show is at this point, phones aren't that different. So it could be a smart move where it's just like like a tablet. Like phones probably could be tablets at this point where you buy a tablet and you. You buy a tablet and you. don't need another one for five to 10 years, you know? Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right.

It definitely is, I mean, look, they also did it. They were getting pressure to do it for some time, too. You know, Samsung had, was it four or five years that they announced, Apple announced that they were going to support for four or five years. So it was, and it's obviously worked. They've gotten tons of positive reactions from announcing that they would support it for for seven years. Right, because the iPhone 10 is the one that recently went off support for Apple.

Yeah. So that's five years. So that's interesting comparison. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's, you know, if nothing else from a marketing standpoint, it's genius to do. But yeah, you know, like I said, to be able to keep the phone as even if you're keeping as a spare or a backup or something like that, just being, knowing that it's still going to work and still will be supported as, is, you know, good.

There's nothing that can't be bad. That's a great thing. So let me, so you've been with Pixel for a few years. Like, do you agree with the sentiment that I said in the review, which is if I am, if I ever go to the Android side, I'm only going to do Pixel is that, I mean, you know, look, Samsung makes some great stuff. But like, do you like that concept of it being pure Android? Is that a pull for you?

I want to correct you a little bit. Okay. When they move from, when they move to the Pixel, pixel line, it's not your Android anymore. Why not? They have their own skin on it. So, you know, pure Android is, what do they call it? AOSP, it's like the Android open source project.

It's not that anymore. Well, look at it. But I mean, shit, Kev, like you're so, this is why you're on. You're so deeper in the weeds that I had no idea that's true. And how many things are pixel exclusive, right? So if it's pixel exclusive, it's not, then it can't be pure Android. pure Android. Oh, I get it. They did that when they went to the pixel line. Um, when they came off Nexus, the Nexus phones were, were pure. Now, it's the closest to pure that you're going to get.

Um, they definitely, it's, it's the skin that's on it is very minimal. Um, the launcher is, they call it pixel launcher. So it has its own launch, which is basically the skin of it. Is that related to the fact that it's the tensor chips in there is like that? No, they did that before. So when they came out with the pixel, you know, the pixel one, which the the tensor chip wasn't until the six, that's when they moved from the nexus line, which is what they used to call their line to the pixel line, that's when they started to try to do a differentiation on them. Now, again, it's the closest two, and it's the one that's always going to get the upgrade right away. And, you know, so in that sense, yes, I personally think that.

that now, now that their phones are more flagship level, that it seems stupid to go with anything else, with any other manufacturer. Now, you know, if you want a stylus with it, then you're or a foldable, yeah. Well, they've got the pixel fold. That's right. Yeah. But if you want a stylus or you want, you know, some other type of form factor, you know, the flip, the Samsung has the flip foldable instead of like the Z foldable. But so there's, there are reasons to. to go with something else, but in my mind, I'm going to stick with pixels for the time being. All right, let's get to the real meat of this here.

Why do you hate Apple? It's like, when did you stop beating your wife? Why do you hate Apple or iOS? All right, so very quickly, I'm in IT, I've been in IT for a while, you know, been a system administrator for a while, I'm a director of IT now, But I say that because I like to be able to customize things the way that I wanted to.

I want to make, you know, I want to be able to play with it. If I want to be able to do something, I want to know that there's 10 different ways that I can do it. With that does come some complexity. So I will straight out say that Android is not for everybody. You know, I have two brothers who are not really tech savvy at all. they have iPhones and I tell them, no, just stick with it. It works. It's simple. But for me, I like to be able to have options and, you know, Apple doesn't really give you a lot of options. Okay, let me let me let me step right there because, you know, when you and I were growing up,

you know, I was a PC kid and I was a PC kid because on DOS you could do crazy shit, like download or get pirated, not download, because there was no downloading in 1988, but you could get pirated copies of various games that you wanted to play. Like that was always the thing is like you would go into Babbage's and there would be a whole wall of PC games and there were a tiny little corner of Mac games. But also it was like, I learned to command line do stuff on DOS machines and then eventually Windows machines or whatever. In this current environment, when you say what you just said, which is you want to control your

stuff, I get you that Apple locks stuff down. And I'm going to counter argument this later. But is that really functionally true? Like what can you do with your Android that I can't do with my iPhone that I would want to do? Put icons in a folder on your... but but that's but okay or like um like uh you know um having widgets that can actually okay but that's them limiting what i can do it's almost like i'm talking about almost like the 1980s version of

this which is i don't really want to sideload stuff like what would i wait you're saying what would you want to do what would you want to do you see what i'm saying like if You're almost saying it in an 80s kid sort of way. Like, I prefer Android because I can hack it. But what are you hacking your phone to do? You know, I was always, I always rooted my phone. That was always the first thing I did when I got it, which is, you know, hacking it.

Hacking it later. So you can put its own, you know, I always had a different ROM on there. You know, I always did that. I haven't done that in forever straight, quite frankly, because I don't have time to anymore. That's right. I've got kids that keep me busy. So, but it's just, it's, it's the, I guess what I, what I, what I, what I, the way that I look at at Apple is that for me, I don't want to be told so much what I can and can't do with my device.

Yeah. And look, yes, there are definitely things that I can't do with, with it now. But there's a whole lot more that I could do with an Android phone that I could do with an iPhone. I could very easily side load apps. I don't have to root it to be able to side load apps. I want you to understand that I'm philosophically with you in so many ways in my life, in the sense that like even when I came back from San Francisco last night, like I went and got a cab instead of calling an Uber.

Like I don't like, I'm not a joiner. I'm not a like go with what everybody uses. So like I get it. And as we said, as a kid. kid. I was a PC kid, not a Mac kid. But let's say it was 2005 that I went over to the Apple ecosystem. So that was before the iPhone. And then I just, and this is getting into the whole not just iOS versus Android, but like Apple versus whatever, right? When I moved over to the Apple ecosystem, I've never felt even a twinge of regret.

Like, all the stuff just works, and we'll get into later, like, lock in in ecosystems and things like that. But like, as much as I've seen sexy-ass phones, and believe me, I am susceptible to sexy gadgets, right? And I have a Samsung laptop here that's a Windows laptop like I love great gadgets right yeah there's nothing that has ever really been enough to be like you know maybe I should cheat have you have you used have you've obviously used max and and iPhones that you even counted them I mean yeah for in my in my career I right yes had to in cases person person No, but yes, plenty of times where I had to manage.

Okay, so I didn't actually frame a question there. So let me try to do that. All right. What is the thing that I'm missing by being in this Mac iOS ecosystem that you're like, Brian, you're a tech guy, you're missing out on this whole world that you could be having over here? Let me put it. Let me kind of, let me put it this way. And this is as much a compliment through Apple as anything else.

But with Android devices, you have multiple manufacturers, multiple companies that are competing. Right. So, you know, Google is competing with Samsung, is competing with Motorola, is competing with Asus, is competing with Wale. So they have to better each other. Good point. And, you know, this is the joke I always make to you whenever they have a thing. Like, oh, Andrews had that for five years. Whatever.

And, and, but this is what Apple does. Apple waits. There's new technology. There's a new feature, gadget, whatever that, that's out. And Apple waits until it's perfected. And then they release it. And that's great. I mean, there's something to say to that.

But, you know, there's, that means that I get to play with it two or three years before you. You know what I mean? And it may not be perfect. It may be buggy. It may not be great. It may be, you know, it may be a little bit too early. But I like to the, that's the fun that I get. And you know, because I say on the show all the time, I want, I don't like just the slab of glass. I want experimentation with these gadgets. I love that stuff. But there was a review. It might have been from the verge or somebody for the pixel where they were talking about the whole Android ecosystem thing. And they're like, that's what's great. It's almost what you just. said, it's, it's, that's what's great about Android is that all of these OEMs, it's the, um, Jurassic Park thing like is, um, they, what does he say? They didn't, they should have done it or they, what's, what's the phrase? Just because something like just because they could doesn't mean they should. Right. Exactly. So every OEM, every cycle does three or four things where it's like, yeah, that's a crazy idea. Like this stupid. sensor on this thing.

Right? And it's like, I appreciate that. But then as somebody that, I'm almost contradicting myself because I want experimentation, I want foldable phones, I want different form factors, but it is what you just said was that Apple does it three years or five years later once it's been proven. They don't do crazy shit. They don't experiment. And there's a comfort in that to certain people.

I mean, and like I said, that's for some people, that's perfect. And that's great. You know that I will say that for the most part, you know, you know that if you buy an Apple product, it's going to just work. Like, it's going to do. Everything is going to work. It's going to work well. You know, obviously there's exceptions. The whole you're holding your phone wrong thing from Antenna Gate is just still drives me crazy.

But, but you know what I mean? Like for the most part, the features that they come out with are going to work and they're going to work well. But what are you missing out on? I mean, have you played with this magic editor? Yes. That's incredible. That is amazing, the things that you can do with that. And it's not perfect.

I mean, I can zoom in. I can see more things, you know, but just looking at it on the screen, it's unreal what you can do with it. And, you know, the, you talk about the, and I don't remember what they're calling it, the best shot or best take. Like, there's real use cases for that. It's not just that it's neat. Like, with kids, I will use that all the time. I am with you in the sense that in a marketplace, that's where innovation happens because people have to come up with crazy shit and throw it against the wall and see what sticks. And so, right, if it was only iOS, you wouldn't get that.

You'd only have innovation from like Chinese OEMs or something like that. I do get that. I just, I guess, like, okay, so I said in the review, like the magic eraser, but more the magic sound for the video, I can't remember. Again, I don't. Audio magic eraser, yeah. Audio magic eraser. Like, that's going to be table stakes.

So again, what you're going to say next year or two years from now is like, yeah, that was on the pixel two years ago. And that's fine. But like, number one, I'm saying I love that Android exists because I want these innovations to happen. That's how the free market works. That's how a marketplace works is that you have competition. And so you have to one up the competition. But there's never been anything in what did we say? Android, the first Android phone was 2008.

There's not been anything in that time that was like, oh, I got to go over there because that's so different, except for the foldable stuff. And I'm sure Apple will do a foldable in 2025, but I'd really love a foldable. But there's just been nothing that's big enough to make me go over there. Well, is that because you haven't experienced it, though? magic, magic editor and audio magic eraser are new with the April. Okay. Magic eraser came out with the six.

And that is, and that's basically the ability just to remove something from a picture. I have used that all the time. Really? For two years. I have used that so much to take, you know, take people out of backgrounds or, you know, if you take a picture and there's like a light post that just looks at up, or, you know, light post is fine. if it's like power lines or something.

Yeah, yeah. Or like one of the examples in the reviews was, is like you take a picture of your two kids against a fence and they're this far apart. And then you can just with your finger, move them close together. And it looks like that. Yeah, and that's what you could do now.

But for the last couple of years they've had where you could just take, you know, if there was someone in the background. Some crazy lady in the background, get her out of that. Yeah. Yeah. So like that, I couldn't give that up. Now actually. And we should say,

again, for people that are coming from iOS, like this is not like you have to go in and do Photoshop style stuff. It's literally, you tap it at gone. Yeah. So go up with your finger. It's gone. Here's the here's the biggest thing that I could not do without right now. The one thing that is like, I could not move to an iPhone or in this case, really even something other than a pixel because I would lose my mind if I didn't have. And that's the call screening. The number of phone calls that I get and it's just, you know, everybody trying to sell something. is, is, I probably get 10, 15 calls a day from people trying to sell me something. My phone doesn't, doesn't ring anymore.

Or if it does, I get to look at it. Is that the Google Assistant AI? Yeah, I can read on the screen. So if it's not a number that I have in my contacts, the Google Assistant answers it. And it says, you know, basically, hey, this is this person is using Google Assistant to screen this call. Please tell them, you know, who you are and why you're calling. and it will, I'll sit there and look at my phone and it will, it will put in text as they're, as they're speaking, so what it is. And I can either decide to answer it. I can, now, this is something they're expanding on,

which is one of these coming soon things, which it sucks, but that's a different story. But, or I can say, you know, I can press a button and the assistant will say, you know, please remove this person from your, And by the way, at the event, like, they're talking about how, like, they're going to have Bard be the agent that will screen those calls for you, answer on behalf of Kevin and say, and then come back to Kevin and say, hey, this is what this call said. Do you want to whatever? Yeah. Yeah. Let's come back to that for a second. I've had the ability on my Apple watch, which apparently the pixel watch just gained. Like, every time I get a call, it's, It comes up on my watch and I can screen it and it says, likely spam and I can just go like that and it goes away. I don't know. Is this your first time with a pixel watch? It's my first time with a pixel watch. Yeah.

Yeah. The phone has, they've also done where it'll show likely spam. But I think that's more like a, I think that's more from the carrier side than really from the iOS or Android. But yeah, but the ability or, you know, because here's a thing. Just because it's a number I don't recognize doesn't mean it's not something. important. So this way I can, you know, it can tell me that, oh, hey, this is whatever from your, you know, from your doctor confirming an appointment or something like that. Yeah. And by the way, there's a bunch of caveats in the reviews that are not mine, which I'll hopefully remember to

link to when I post this, where all the reviews talk about, there's a bunch of stuff that Google has promised that's going to come out in a couple months or something like that, where they're going to add barred and make, like the promise of the current picture. line up is that it's the promise of AI. What if a bard or a hey Google or an Alexa or a what if those were good? And so like that's what they're promising. And that's why I got the pro is I want to be able to load the full LLM onto it or whatever. However this is going to work. That's why I asked for that one. So I mean, we could be talking about something right now where we could be reaching, wait, was that, did Google just do that?

You probably woke it up. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so we might have to come back to this like in the spring or something because maybe what Google promised in that event is going to be something that will be sort of transformational. Yeah, it really, you know, they're definitely setting it up for that. I absolutely hate that the whole announcing things that will come later. Like to me, that's what the IEO conference and that's what WWBC is for.

That's where you can talk about things you're working on. If that's a hardware event, just talk about what exists. Like, you know, that's, but that's nice. Yeah, everybody's hustling right now to bring their stupid AI stuff to market. it. Okay, let me, let's bring this sort of to a landing in the sense of make a pitch to me, you made a pitch to me that I should go to Android because I would have more control over my lifestyle. However, my counter argument is that would only work, and also, by the way, things like Bard and Google Assistant only work if I give Google everything. Now, I'm on the

on Gmail for everything, okay? Yep. But I lie, like with Apple, I don't have to do that. Like, I lie to Gmail about my home address, okay? Yeah. And I lie to Apple about my home address. So like, if in the future, all of, this is ecosystem lock-in, if Android works the best, you have to give yourself to Google. You have to bow down and you have to to be like I am going to run everything through you, which again, this is later the ecosystem lock-in, like I would have to change a lot of things of my life. Yeah. Do you, I know that Apple being privacy focused is a lot of marketing hype, but at the same time, they do not make their money on ads. I'm actually really glad you brought that up.

And it's all right, I want to make a couple of points with that. Great. One, if you don't think that Apple is collecting all of the same data on you. They're collecting it, but as far as I know, they're not yet monetizing it to a huge. Yeah, they're not monetizing it. They're not sharing it. And that's the whole, their whole privacy thing means we're not going to let other people collect your information. We're just going to do it ourselves. And if you think that they're not going to use that, you've been talking the last few days about them potentially or sometime in the future, maybe in a search engine. Of course, that's, that's where they're going to get their data from. So, here's, you're going to.

Here's my thought on it. Everybody, all of those companies are collecting every single data point on you that they can. I would almost say that maybe Google is being more upfront about it. You could possibly go that angle. But here's the thing. If, you know, let's not be naive. Yeah, Google knows everything about all of us, right? And that's where they're making their money.

if they're going to know everything about me, not that I'm okay with it, but I want it to work in my advantage at least. I want to reap the benefit to that too. And if Bard, which the stuff that they're promising that it'll come soon, that Bard will almost be my personal assistant because it knows my emails,

it knows my schedule, it knows where I was. Like, if you're going to know that information, already, then give me the benefit. Then Google is ahead of the game because Google would have more of that information. Like Apple does not have all of my eight email addresses. Apple does not have like I still use Google Maps. So like I even think I was converted to that five or six years ago where it's like when

Google first started to make the pitch of it, it'll be ambient computing. It'll be computing in the background. I get that. And you know what? You're right. That's a very convincing argument to me because, like, in the end, what are we talking about? Like, eventually our cars are going to be, you know, data collection things like Amazon's putting everything in our house. Like if Kellogg's, the bottom line is, is once everything went digital, it's impossible, not. not to know what your customers do with the product. If Kellogg's could know when you empty that box or how much milk you put into it, believe me, they would want that data because everybody wants the data

of how the product these use and yeah, right. So maybe like I said on the show this week, like maybe let's just make peace with the fact that there is IRL and online. It doesn't matter. It's all everything at this point. I mean, you're not, you'd have to be completely off the grid to really not have this data collected on you.

It's gonna happen. Now, I'm not, believe me, I'm not saying like, we should all be okay with it and just give them free range. Like no, there needs to be, it's ridiculous how much every, you said cars will eventually be data points. They are. They absolutely are. If you have a Tesla,

They know everything. And by the way, all of them, the Fords, the Arivians, all the new cars, like they are literally data hogs. I think I've done that on the show too. Yeah. Absolutely. And again, I'm not saying that we should be okay with it. But if it's going to happen, if it's inevitable, let me benefit from it as well. And I think it is inevitable. And like the this is not a political argument in the sense that like, oh, I can't believe that this is the world we live in where it's a panopticom. But it's. impossible. You know my mom. She has that phrase that like the that in the modern era what it is is it's impossible not to know anything. It's impossible not to know where my kid is right now. It's impossible not to know like it's it it is the whole planet earth now is is becoming a thing where it's impossible not to know eventually you would want when you know that the light outside my window has gone out. You would want the city to know that instantly so they could replace it. Like the ability to know things is what the digital era is. So there's parts of me that are like, I, I grieve for the like the scarcity and like the anonymity and things like that. But also like,

how are you going to stop it, right? So I am with you in the sense that Google is a better, they know it's not just Gmail they know my search history they know who I am and so they would be better suited to give me a future AI bot that knows Brian than Apple does right now absolutely absolutely and you know if I there was the during the the keynote they talked about one of the things and again this is one of those coming later things but it was the the example that they used was, you know, on the Google watch, the Pixel Watch with the Fitbit integration, if you had a run and your, you know, your time was, was lower than your average. Right.

And you could ask it. Yes. Why was my time lower? And it can reference, well, you know, you haven't been sleeping very good lately. Yeah, yeah. Like, look, the fact that they know all that is it scary? Absolutely. But if you can give that back to me in a way.

it's beneficial to me. Like, yeah, absolutely. Last philosophical question is not even philosophical, but this is like the lock-in thing. So like the reason I can't at this point without a lot of pain go to Android is because like my kids have iPads, you know? And like if I was,

a single person or without kids or whatever. Like my whole household and then my, you know, my work and things like that are on Max. Do your kids have tablets and phones and things like that? Yeah. Yeah, they've got Android tablets and Android phones. Okay. All right. So you're locked in.

Absolutely. And I'm locked in. And I think I, again, naivity. I think I realized that for the first time or really realized that for the first time a few months ago. And I told you this when we first start talking about doing this. I think for the first time ever, the iPhone 15 Max Pro was, I looked at that with, you know, with some, some stars in my eyes a little bit for the first time ever. I was like, wow, this, like, this thing looks nice. And I, the, some of the camera functionality was great.

And for a brief second, I was a little bit envious. But then I realized, like, I couldn't because, you know, I'd have to get an Apple watch. And I'd have to get Apple TV. Right, right, right. And I'd have to, my kids would have to get iPhones. And, yeah, exactly what you were saying. So I don't think it's as, maybe it's just me, but I didn't think it was as obvious. you know, there's definitely ecosystem lock-in with-

I think if you have a family, that's when they've got you. Because once you're committed to whatever device, again, you're saying you're handing down things to your children like clothing. Like that's when they have you. Because in a way you could argue that like you could still for your work, work in a PC environment, but exists in your, in your family at an iOS environment. Yeah.

But like you, what do it would take to transition? Yeah. Yeah. Is too much. It is really. So I, yeah, I think that people are as locked in to the Android ecosystem as, as they could be with in the Apple ecosystem, Apple ecosystem.

Yeah. Um, well, that's how it's always been back to, um, Yeah. PC and, and well, in the earliest days, it was like, you know, Commodore 64 versus whatever, but okay. All right, Kev, I appreciate this. Do you want to shout anything out? How are the Bengals doing this year? You know, it was a rough start. Their last week, they looked good and we'll see if that continues. but yeah it's i i felt like uh you know for for how many years that i've been in bangles fan uh it's you know we endured so much and then we got this big uh glimpse of what it's like on the other side the province land yeah yeah and for a few weeks i felt like that was being ripped out from

ripped back away from us but i think uh i think we're going to be all right i'm cautiously optimistic at this point well i still have uh what was it the 87 team the egygy shuffle team yeah Yeah, 8788. Only because of you guys back there, my family back in the Sincerea area. But I'm so far out of the NFL. I can't speak intelligently about anything. Don't worry about it. Kevin, thanks so much for doing this because my review is clearly coming from a place of,

hey, I'm a tourist in this Android ecosystem. So thanks for. And you know what? That might even be that's great too, because, you know, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're not looking at it with a, uh, a positive bias. Or a fanboy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and, uh, it's, it's valuable to me to do it every few years. And I hadn't done it since the pandemic. I always do it every few years to like get an Android device and, and play with it. And I have the Windows laptops and things like that. So yeah, I try to dip my toe in just to know, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but before too long, we're going to have you on it. You're going to get me. You're going to convert me. Okay. I hope to see you soon in person. Thanks for doing this, Kev. Absolutely. I appreciate it.