I'm not an angry person, I promise. Ignore the holes in the wall right next to it. Yeah, I mean, that was fine. Like the drive wall that I don't know how that got there. Yeah, it was my cat. I just threw my cat against the wall and it somehow made a dent in the wall. Hello and welcome to the first video. And we're pleased podcast in many years. My name is Daniel Bader. My name is Will Sattelberg. Yes, it is. This week on the show, Pixel 9 follow-ups. We have one week later impressions of our Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL reviews. We didn't get to Gemini last week. It ended up being a longer show and we said we'd keep it for this week. So we're going to talk about that. We saw the Pixel 9A in an initial leak and I don't know if it's real. I'll just. Yeah, I want to talk about this. Yeah. We know when Android 15 is coming out and it's not anytime soon. So that's a thing that's happening. But my hot take stands from last week and I actually think this is a good thing. And your fold six is going to melt if you charge your. We'll just end on that. All right, let's start with the pixels. So Will, you followed up your two, three day review because Google didn't give you much time. It was longer than three days, but not by. Not by as much as they gave us. I don't know, five days before, six days before the embargo to review the phones, you decided to do an initial review and then take the phone to a wedding, which sounded lovely and then do a follow up early this week. So you now have submitted your final review. It's nine out of 10. What is your kind of longer term takeaway of the Pixel 9 Pro? Yeah, honestly, my thoughts didn't really change much. It was like most of what I said, like remained very lee unchanged. I wrote a little bit more about performance. I wrote a little bit more about the modem. The wedding was at a campgrounds like an hour outside of New York City where there was at least by like where we were like sleeping. There was it was a complete dead zone and the Pixel 9 Pro did not have reception, but no phone had reception and it gained reception back as quickly as every other phone as we were like hiking up hills or whatever. So like, I feel fairly confident that that modem is it's not class leading, but probably solid. I took more photos. I still think photos are impressive. I have a full video comparison coming soon that I want to shoot with the iPhone, Pixel 9 Pro and the fold, which we will talk about in the coming weeks. I tested the panorama mode, which I think is like pretty impressive. I think it makes some really nice shots, like certainly the best panoramas I've seen in a decade, right? Like, I feel like those modes just were untouched after 2014 and it looks good. You can get some really impressive shots out of it that do not look like four photos stitched together. And battery life continues to like really impress me. If anything, it's gotten better. I think I had a day where I was at like six and a half hours or almost seven hours of screen on time and still had like 10% left. Like, it's great. I was hoping to come back here with like more of a specific take of like, I hadn't realized this, but now I do. But like, generally speaking, it's just kind of as good of a phone as I thought it was. I haven't run into any of the issues that have popped up on Reddit over the last week as happens anytime there's a new Pixel. Although I would say that like this one feels fairly quiet compared to most Pixel launches. It seems like the one or two issues people have noticed are small and minor and mostly come from the fact that Pixel owners are very specific about their devices. Like, we'll notice the stuff and complain about it more than like your average Samsung ecosystem user. I would also I would I would go even further than that were early days, right? But the phone has been available for at least a week now. Most people got them on the 22nd, if not a few days before that. So regular folks have been using this phone. There is no gate here like I would say the only thing that has been reported and we'll talk about this in a minute is some weirdness around wireless charging on the Pixel 9 Pro XL as well as some camera tilt issues on the telephoto on the XL and that's software. That's not hardware. So that will be fixed. I've not had any major bugs on my phones. I have a there are a couple of weird things that I've noticed, but I would say that they are as minor as any phone release that I've come across in recent memory. Yeah. And to that point, I guess our own Matt Schultz bought a Pixel 9 and I know he had transfer issues, which is one of my hang ups with pixels is that sometimes you transfer from an older phone at it, which is but I don't I didn't have any of that. I mean, I didn't have any of it either. Yeah. So there's a new feature with the Pixel 9's where you can basically create a Delta copy so that you can bring newer information from an old phone as long as that was the phone that you initially used to do the transfer. So I had a Pixel 9 and a Pixel 9 Pro XL and I was using the Pixel 9 for a couple of days, had photos, SMS, a few other things, new apps that I downloaded. You can bring that over even after you've set up the new phone. And I think that is a remarkably useful tool. And again, like, I haven't seen any other complaints about Pixel transfers. Not like I'm not trying to disqualify Matt's experience. It does suck that that happened. Although he did point out that I think it came from a it wasn't from like another Pixel or Samsung phone or something. I'm trying to remember what device he moved it from. It could have been it was some gaming phone. It could have been an issue with that too. But generally speaking, like I have very little to complain about and feel excited to use it. Like I still feel excited two weeks in or whatever to pick it up and like mess around with this device in a way that I don't think I felt about the like maybe maybe about the April. Certainly not about the seven pro I think because it became pretty quickly apparent that that phone had like heat issues. Yeah. And with this one, it's just a rock solid experience at least right now. Like we'll see how Google handles software updates, but it just works in a way that we haven't seen on pixel in a few generations. And that's yeah, I agree. And I will say that I still feel like these are the best Android phones I've ever used. And yeah, I don't say that lightly. Like I really don't. I I'm sort of still like you waiting for the other shooter drop and right and right. That's the problem. I don't feel confident in being like and now smooth sailing from here because I don't know what November is going to bring. I don't know what February is going to bring like that was part of what I wrote about before the review was like the embargoes for these are lifted. I can be like part of why I wrote a feature a few days ahead of the review to be like keep in mind that I find the pixel recommendation experience very frustrating is because I knew I was about to write like a very glowing review of this phone. And at the same time I didn't want to spend the entire review, caveatting it being like, but just remember that like six months from now they might roll out of an update that like bugs everything up like I hope that doesn't happen. And I have not taken my eye off that ball like I want to like watch this phone grow over the next six to 12 months to be like how are the updates on this going right like I'm going to rush to update this phone in a way I haven't in a while. It's purely because I think it's so good now that if I or someone else does get hit with like a widespread bug that requires like pushing commands to it to fix it like I want to know about that and I want to like update our recommendations for this phone. You know it's interesting right because I remember I think it was one UI six when Android 14 rolled out for the Galaxy series late last year. There were a lot of people upset by many of those changes and it wasn't so much that they were. Intractable bugs but it was more like Samsung made some they they deprecated a bunch of menus they made some changes to a bunch of features that were kind of pro level or like long time user features and they move them around and it's always like that with Samsung where you have a company that takes its time. Relatively speaking right they're still pretty fast about releasing new platform updates but they take their time but they're not doing it anymore to overhaul the experience every year. And with the pixel it always felt like somehow they were just in over their heads either the QC was not on point or they were trying to do too much with too many devices at once. But there is always this feeling that one branch of one device would go haywire every year. So we can talk a bit about this move to I would not say delay Android 15 because it will be about a year since Android 14 when it launches in October but we now have confirmation that Android 15 will launch in October. It looks like what Google is going to do is they're going to upload Android 15 to a OSP a month or so before the pixel OTAs are released giving developers time to play with the final builds giving OEMs time to use the source to base their Android versions on 15 so that it's getting them out sooner but I think what's really interesting about this is it is a. Confirmation or at least an acquiescence to the idea that the pixel is now just another OEM or another brand at sort of an Android company an Android hardware company that uses Android right. And because that relationship has always felt inextricable that day and date you get a pixel OTA this you know more or less every year the same day that the source code is uploaded to a OSP. We feel like the pixel is basically a nexus and that hasn't been true for a long time Google has treated the pixel differently it releases point one updates months or two months later. Sometimes in order to give new features or whatever but like this is Google making a very line in the sand decision to say our hardware was ready when it was ready. The software wasn't we're going to sonos our way to disaster so let's and I really want to turn this into a verb by the way so I'm going to make an effort to make sonos into a verb based on how terrible the app is but that's later we'll talk about that. But this is I think a really good decision right I don't think I'm missing any I have Android 15 on my pixel a pro. I don't really notice the difference to be honest and because I don't think Google thought there would be a demonstrable difference it didn't want to rush anything so yeah I stand by my decision that launching the pixel lines with Android 14 was actually the right move and a good decision in the long run. Yeah it's fascinating that this is this separation is coming six months or so after five months I guess after who combined it's Android and hardware teams right and there was a lot of cry out of like this mean that like the firewall that has supposedly existed between. Pixel and Android is like no longer there and Google as the company and also Rick Osterlo were quick to be like no it's still there like it and if anything like this makes it feel like that firewall is stronger now that it was previously. If pixel is no longer being treated as like the place where Android updates launch it's just. It's like Samsung if Samsung had released a phone in August it would have launched with Android 14 Google released a phone a pixel phone in August it launched with. Android 14 because Android 15 is not ready yet it will this device will get Android 15 when it's ready and yeah I don't know I think that's fascinating I think the pixel stands are not happy about this because they bought a new phone with old software but the reality is that Android usually comes out in the September October time period anyway. So that's not this is kind of normal I hate this like you did buy a phone with new software there are lots of new things on here that are not on other pixels like that's anything it's it's more meaningful like if if this had launched in October but let's go back a year right like. Yes the the Android 14 update arrived the same day as the pixel 8 and 8 pro announcement and it rolled out to the pixel 7 if anything like the pixel 7 had it before you could buy a pixel 8. That doesn't like the things that you probably cared about as a pixel user did not come to the pixel 7 for like a few months after that stuff was all in the pixel 8 of launch as like a timed exclusive or however you want to refer to it like. I think it's I think we need to move past like you know I'm not saying there are not meaningful changes in a new OS build of Android but this is not like. Android is in a very different spot than iOS in this case we're like the new features that like iPhone owners want come out with every iOS upgrade right like that is how Apple ships new apps right like if you were excited about getting a calculator. On your iPad but when they unveiled that at WWDC earlier this summer you needed to go get the like data or wait until like iPad OS 18 is ready and in a few weeks or whatever. That's not true with with Google right like they do most of the stuff through like play system like architecture right like that it's all pushed out through the play store. And that can be frustrating in its own right because a lot of that stuff comes through server side updates you just have to wait until it's your phone. But like those are the changes that people care about right like unless you're really in the weeds and there's nothing wrong with that but like if you really like I'm so excited for like this security or privacy change like that's fine I get it but like it will arrive on your phone at some point like you will get it and I do not think that like. My review would be any different if this had shipped with Android 15 and and private space it's called private space right now yeah private space like I think that would be a good addition but like. It does not it did not impact how I thought about this phone. It has arrived when it arrives yeah you know the other thing to that I find. Important to say because I've been going back and forth between this phone and the motor roller raiser 2024 the razor plus the one plus open like I've been playing with every Android phone I had the full 6 for a bit. The pixel experience regardless of the platform feels different than any other piece of software. It's true it's like you can argue with me all you want but the realities that Android works differently you can choose you can have a personal preference that one you eyes better or color OS is better or God forbid whatever runs on Motorola's phones are better but. This is a different experience it feels different and that comes with the understanding that Google has opinions right everybody talks about Google having opinions about color science and. How it's cameras shoot photos and videos but Google has a an opinion about Android to and it's getting further and further away from what we used to call like stock Android or a OSP Android not to mention the fact that if you compile. Android today from the source it looks nothing like this it doesn't work and it's barely an operating system so. That certainly is barely a modern operating system it feels like you booted a phone from like 2016 exactly exactly so. I mean it doesn't even come with a camera app anymore because that's not proprietary right like it just it's just bare bones as it gets so. The thing that I think people have to realize when they buy a pixel phone they're still buying. A phone with a particular Android experience that has been curated not by the engineers on the Android team but by the. UX people on the pixel team and personally I think it's the best experience by a wide margin but you can disagree with that and that's why Android is beautiful and. Has it sort of loyalists but yeah I just think that the fact that it's not running Android 15 in my opinion makes no difference to how much I appreciate these phones to things okay so first of all. This piece is old I I would have to look for it on the site it's old enough that I ran wrote it like it's a very old piece but I think it's still relevant and it's that more than ever Google needs to name it's like pixel experience. It's skin needs a name this is a thing that's true when I wrote it and it's true now like I don't fully understand why like Google does not want to like give it a name when every other OEM does. But I think that would make the confusion around why did this not ship with Android 15 what is stock Android anymore I think a lot of that would be alleviated if like this was not just like. Talked about in a way where you have to like try to guess what the name is you have to be like pixel experience and capitalize the EU or. Like whatever right like I think it just needs it is so different from what Android. As a stock operating system is that I I think it's like time to call it something Gemini UI I don't know like give it something right like. I do think that would help this confusion a lot and like maybe kind of relieve some of the like enthusiast complaints surrounding like what is or is not Google software. Oh I give it a year before they rebrand Android Gemini OS and then and then it launches exclusively on the pixel and then our lives are terrible so yeah no I think you're probably right. I hope but I guess yeah why not give Gemini six meaning or whatever the only other thing I wanted to say because I think this is fascinating is that Maddie my partner told me at the wedding when I was like I think I was taking photos with it I was like talking about having reviewed the phone. That this is like the first Android phone and probably and I guess sent she got an iPhone that she would consider switching to she's not going to like to be very clear like anyone. Is just too built into the eco the ecosystem there and at this point but I do think it's really interesting that she like I had given it to her to like play around with and like she was like yeah like if I was going to switch to an Android phone like I could see switching to this one she really liked the photos I was getting from it like I think. Every time I showed her a shot that I had taken she was like that looks really good and like that's not true with a lot of the other phones I review like that's not true Samsung phones which we've complained about. I mean Google is on the record being like our main target here like who we want to compete with. Is Apple we don't think of it as like Samsung it's not like Samsung people are not coming to us it's like we're trying to get apple people to come to us and like. I do think it's working to a certain extent at the very least in the mindset space of like yeah if I ever don't like an iPhone or if I have a bad experience maybe I will try this thing. And like I think rcs will only help that when when that launches in the iPhone in a widespread manner in a month not even two weeks but yeah I just thought that was fascinating. Two things one is I attempted to do the same with my wife 12 years 13 years ago so she had an iPhone for that she bought in 2010 and it died in early to mid 2011 can remember exactly when I think she dropped it broke. So I didn't have another iPhone for her right I just got into this industry I didn't have a review and it's then for iPhones. And I was an Android user so I had a an HTC sensation this if you recall was an all metal phone it was HTC's flagship of 2011 it I think was still is still one of their nicest devices. And back then HTC since was considered sort of squinted hard enough closer to iOS than any other Android skin right I think HTC's design sensibility lent it some earned comparison to iOS at the time right and this was this was like scumorphic iOS this was pre iOS 7. Right this is like Scott for stalls peak basically and she hated it like straight up hated it it was the one of the worst decisions or like experiments that I've ever done because not only did she hate the software but she hated the hardware she found it big the irony is that she found the phone too big because it had a 4.3 inch display was massive compared to the iPhone 4. But she just never got used to Android didn't like the experience so we went out and bought her an iPhone 4 again and that was that so. I think and this is born out in almost every review title this is the iPhone of Android for real this time like Google has made a decision to not only try to meet Apple and Samsung on a hardware quality level and a harder design level but I think. Where Android 14 is right now if you discount the third party apps that are still not up to par with iOS equivalents the Android experience in the first party app experience is equivalent to iOS 17. Yeah I fully agree and I do think that that might bother some like true Android enthusiasts or old school enthusiasts right it does feel locked down in a way that like modern iOS it's closer to modern iOS that it is to. Like where Android was a decade ago right like if you compare what you can customize on here to what you can customize on any Samsung phone anyone you iPhone it it is like night and day right like there there are far more options I mean sure you can throw a custom launcher on here but even just like in the one you I'm on sure. There are far more options to like tweak things and have menus coming in from the side of the phone and gestures and all this stuff right and that's even before you get into like. Good luck which opens up a world of possibilities that I don't feel particularly. Like a world about it to me I it's not my not my favorite but I know people love it versus this which which I feel is like a very modern I heart galaxy foldable. Yeah you do you heart galaxy foldable. It's a I I'm glad that like those two options exist I guess for me it's it's a much more enjoyable time on the whole to use Google's pixel experience. Compared to one you I like I fully understand why some people prefer what Samsung offers but like. If there were just like one or two more like really small customization tweaks and I think I wrote about this in my review of like. Google should just open up icon pack support like I think I would stop complaining about dynamic. The problems this is a nice experience you will have a nice time here on the stock pixel launcher and it will deliver you everything you want nothing you don't and like. In a modern smartphone way like that's what I want I don't want to spend like. Two hours like messing with my device every night to be like I can tweak this perfect in the way that I did in 2012 and 13 and 14 mostly because of like my age and where I am and my life right but also just like I don't think most people want that I think most people at this point see. Phones as utilities more than toys and like there is something nice about being like this just works when I turn it on I don't need to spend 45 minutes in settings various settings menus digging around for. The thing I want to turn on or off and that's a very Apple way of thinking about it and I think Google has found the right balance between what Android offers and what Apple promises if that makes sense. Yes I will caveat my response by saying what you said is true. I think it applies to Android the way Android was maybe five six seven years ago. If only because first of all when the US government accused Apple of having an iPhone monopoly as well as the recent search monopoly lawsuit. A lot of what was brought up is this idea of default behavior right and how most people the vast majority of people do not touch any settings on a phone once they set it up. And when you look at somebody with a Samsung phone and they're using the bottom row of buttons instead of gestures because that's the default on a new Samsung phone. And you just like gawk and amazement that anybody would choose to do that or you realize that like the Samsung default app suite is probably the most used app suite on a Samsung phone because they're forcing you to use it. Like these are all things that I think have reinforced just how different the Samsung Android experiences from the Google one from the OnePlus or Oppo one from Motorola etc. Obviously good lock is available obviously like you can tweak your Samsung phone to your heart's extent but for the most part what you see is what you get and most people will just leave it as is. So when you say that the pixel is more locked down, I wouldn't say it's locked down. The lock is probably the wrong word like that hair down I guess right like it's I think there are less true. There are less options is my hair back. Yeah exactly it's a bit more streamlined. Yes. And I'm not trying to be euphemistic I'm just trying to be like I'm trying to put it into the context of like iOS is no longer streamlined or minimalist right like you could not even say that of iOS 17. Nevermind upcoming iOS 18. I think it speaks to the fact that the streamlined version of Android you get on Google in my opinion is better than the streamlined version of Android you get on any other set on any other phone. But I think it's also important to talk about Taylor's article here because it ties into Gemini and how we feel about this right so what I said in my review was that it's no accident. I didn't mention AI until like two thirds of the way down. And even then I was like don't buy this phone because of AI by in spite of it. And I think that stands to reason it's absolutely true. Even though I've used Gemini a lot even though I like the pixel screenshots app even though the pixel studio app is an absolute disaster that you should never never touch even though reimagine could potentially destroy democracy. It's still I don't think a feature that you need to really pay too much attention to if you don't want to. But like it's important to say that the core pixel experience is still very good and Google forcing AI bloatware on you is undermining that experience and both things are true. So let's talk about this because Taylor wrote a very impassioned editorial about how the AI bloatware era is here. And it's not just Google right Samsung Apple they're all part of it Motorola one plus they're all bringing generative AI in some form to their devices but I think with Google it's the most explicit version of it yet. Not only because they are system apps that you cannot even uninstall but because Gemini is becoming increasingly tied into the operating system on a pixel in a way that it's not on any other Android phone. And I think it all kind of bears the question of is this an encroachment of your like the basic usage model of a smartphone today. I think Google wants you to think of I mean you made the Gemini OS joke but like I do think Google at least when you're buying a pixel wants you to think of like Android and pixel as like an AI first experience which is why these apps can be disabled but not removed. So I think Gemini is part of the onboarding experience and not I don't think it's a mention it's it's where they are as a company at least right now. And it's where they want you to think about I mean the entire marketing campaign for these phones is centered around AI and then like kind of the camera but mostly the camera in terms of how it works with AI so it's also an extension of that. And as much as I agree with Taylor that the AI bloatware era is here and we are living in it and that I do not think he's wrong to consider something like pixel studio bloatware when it cannot be uninstalled. Like that is the Google that's a feature not a bug right like it's what they want you to think of the phone. It's why I spent so much like in kind of a counter example of you like spent so much time in my review talking about software and the AI apps that are here. At least most of them there are so many that it's like truly difficult to try to like fit all of that into one article. Yeah like they want this to be a phone that you think of as an extension of Gemini more than an extension of Android. Yeah I'm not saying that I didn't write about it in order to make it less impactful or important. It's that at least on this phone it's relatively easy to ignore or disable it or use it in a way that is not going to meaningfully impact your day to day. And as I've also said like core Gemini is actually a better experience for the most part on the pixel nine then assistant. So that one to one replacement has not upset me whatsoever because most assistant functionality has been built into Gemini. Or call on assistant. Yeah exactly it's like the symbiote that is like living inside Gemini. It's the venom to know maybe maybe it's Gemini's venom and assistant is what's his name Brock. Tom Hardy. No it's the it's the name. Yeah no Brock. Yeah sure. My fake comics fan. I'm definitely not sorry Eddie Brock. Eddie Brock. I'm not a comics fan. I'm also a huge like OG Spider-Man fan so that that's the only claim that I can make. But not from the comic books it's from the 90s cartoon. Anyway. I don't know I was I was like three years old and I got nothing. Don't don't start with me can't I cannot I'm going to a 40th birthday in like a week and I'm all my friends are turning 40. The thing that I don't like about what Google is doing here and why I think Taylor's opinion is is important is that let's use a couple of examples right the fact that you cannot delete pixel studio or pixels. Screen shots from the operating system you can disable them. So they do disappear but like the file still there they can be re enabled. You can't truly get rid of it unless you root your phone. That's annoying right that is just from a bloatware perspective. This is Google saying hey we don't allow carriers to pre install apps but like we'll do we'll do whatever we want because we own the platform. And it's interesting right because like we could say the same about Google meet I don't use Google meet right it's pre installed on our phone I don't use Google chat it's pre installed on the phone. But it feels more gross in a way when it's some sort of like third party AI app that has nothing to do with the operating system. Well I think this comes down to the public sentiment on AI apps and in particular anything that has to do with AI image generation which is that like and I think this happened really quickly. The tides have turned on AI image generating. I don't think people think of these as cool features they want on their phone. I think they might think of Gemini the voice assistant as a cool feature right like I think they might they might even think of screenshots as a as a cool feature right if they if they use it. But I do think that like largely speaking if you found the average American Android user they'd be like I don't really like it like I either don't use it or I tried it and I didn't like it or like I don't particularly like generating images. I don't think most people see it as a selling point which is why it's so fascinating that like all of these companies have done AI image generation to some level including Apple right like Apple is about to ship this later this year. Image playground right and I just it's fascinating that like the appetite is not there for the stuff but might be there for like smaller AI tools that are more aimed at helping you with little tasks than adding needles to a photo with reimagined so that it can look like your friend is like abusing drugs. And I certainly don't think with like how unrestricted Google was with its guardrails for both, well for anything powered by imagine three, which which is which, you know, is certainly like they are very proud of it it is going to continue to come to your applications and I think the decision they made that they confirmed with Joe marring a digital trends to basically not put up super stringent guardrails on this stuff and have it be a like personal responsibility thing is like the wrong decision if they're trying to sell people on this not like granted if they put a lot of restrictions on it. No one would use it because the people who want it would try it feel frustrated that every time they try a prompt it says they can't do it and then not use the app but like I still think that's probably a better outcome for society at large. I am not quite as doomer pill as other people in our industry are in terms of like this is going to break the internet no one can trust images anymore, largely because like the pixel user base is so small in comparison to like apple but like we'll see how apples image playground works and where this type of software goes from here but like I do think if the tech industry wants image generation to be a part of their phones moving forward, it needs to be with guardrails and I think that it's only a matter of time until these applications go away I think I think the public attitude towards these is going to end up kind of killing them not in the near future but probably in the next few years. Okay, I disagree, I disagree very much I just think I think they're going to go unused and I think they're going to be expensive for these companies to maintain and to run and to generate every prompt. And I think that like at a certain point companies will throw the towel in on the stuff and I think we will see like, I don't think screenshots will be generate or sunsetted but I could see in five years that like pixel studio is not on the pixel, whatever that would be 14. I don't agree with that if only because like the cost to generate anything using tokens will go down over time are we seeing it go down though well I mean to be to be honest hasn't yet when it's on your device when it's a local model. But it's not right now it's not at the moment, although nothing image related is is local at the moment on the pixel, right, but Gemini nano is multimodal. Yes, but if you turn I did this this week if you if you put your phone and airplane mode and try to use pixel studio you'll get a like you're not connected to the Internet. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying like it uses image, but eventually I see a time maybe even as soon as next year when Gemini nano is updated to include these image prompt models, and that will lower the cost by an order of magnitude. But I also think the reason people are saying what they're saying about this versus when Samsung released sketch to image on on the Galaxy series is that most people can't really draw a syringe and a crack pipe very easily. Whereas when you can manipulate a prompt with words and generate images that way that will always be the lowest hanging fruit. And what is interesting to me is Google believes that its guardrails are stringent enough, and that it has such a limited moral obligation to limit what this thing generates. I'm just genuinely surprised that it's gone in this direction based on the regulatory scrutiny that it is up against, especially because open AI seems to be under even more regulatory scrutiny, even though it hasn't been. There's no law that's forcing open AI to change behavior yet, but I think that will change there was an AI protections law that recently passed the Senate in California. It's possible that Congress will pass a law that will affect the entire country the EU is very, very strict on ensuring image generation is kept in a relatively innocuous. And yet Google seems to be saying, we need to build the feature first and then wait for regulations to catch up and then we're going to rein it in a little bit with a bit more of an official guardrail or increase moderation. But I also think Google sees what Metas doing with its open source models and saying, whatever happens to our closed source models, whatever we decide to do with Gemini, it doesn't matter. Because in a couple of years, you're going to download an AI generation tool off the Play Store that uses Metas open source, what's it called Lambda? It's going to use like llama 5, which is open source, it will be able to do the exact same thing for free, because the app is ad supported. And Google's saying, what's the difference? We're just giving this option to you, we're actually giving you guardrails so that you can't show will murdering Daniel or whatever, and it will say no. Okay, the only real guardrail in it right now is no humans, and that has nothing to do with we don't want to see me murder you or vice versa. It has everything to do with the fact that they had the controversy earlier this year, where you would say generate a Nazi and it would generate a black Nazi like every time. And so that's actually changing this week because image in three, which got launched a couple of weeks ago, is now allowing in small numbers people to generate humans again. So this will come to Pixel Studio because it's based on the same core tech. So I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm saying what I find so interesting is that Google is absenting itself from any moral or ethical obligation here, not because I think the company believes it is doing the right thing. But because it's competition is doing the same thing, and it feels like it has no choice, or it will be left behind. And I would say a lot of people inside Google probably feel like they can go further. I mean, listen to Rick Osterlo, right? He, and we'll talk about this when we talk to Michael, this is a sneak peek, but we're talking to Michael Fisher next week on the podcast. I wonder about what? And he interviewed Rick Osterlo at the made by Google event and asked a lot of these very, very important questions. And the sheer bravura that Rick talked about, Gemini, an AI in general, like changing the face of the earth. They are steamrolling through the implications here in a way that I think like the doom pilling around the reimagine prompt is not about reimagine, which is tucked away in the Google Photos app on one phone right now. But it's the what happens next year when they bring magic editor reimagine to all Android phones and then eventually to all Google one customers. And then what's next, right? They make a free version of it that's available to everybody all the time. Open eyes is the same thing. And Tropic does the same thing. Apple does the same thing. Samsung does the same thing. And eventually you just have text prompts that generate images on any screen anywhere you want. And that feels a little do me to me because then you get into the point of, it's not that I can't trust a pixel photo or anything. It's like, I just can't trust anything I see because it's the subtle things, right? And they're doing subtle pretty well already. My skepticism mostly comes from the fact that I do find that like, I think public opinion has already soured on these tools and I think it will continue to sour. I do not think the tools getting better are going to make people think like, yes, this is what I brought up, add me to several people at the wedding weekend. And all of them, and this is so fascinating to me, Daniel, because you and I talked a lot about knee jerk reactions to add me and whether or not it's real. And all of them kind of expressed the, I don't want to use that kind of thing. And I was like, why? And they were like, it's not real. And I was so taken aback by this because I think it's a cool feature that solves an actual problem. And I think I brought it up to like four or five people and all of them were like, well, no, but like the image, I would rather just hand my phone to someone. And I was like, but this does that for you without you having to like find a stranger and they were like, yeah, but like, it didn't happen. It didn't happen. And I'm like, but you're both like, if you and I do this, we're both here right now. And they were like, doesn't matter. And I was like, what if we, I true, I said this, I was like, what if we pose for a photo that isn't taken together in real life right now. And then we use add me to make that exact photo. So then it did happen. And it still was like, no, it didn't happen. It's not a real photo. And I feel like that is a force that is going to keep image generation tools from ever hitting a mainstream, your parents use this type of adoption combined with the looming threat of regulation. You know, maybe I'm going too far by saying this app will be removed in five generations or whatever, but I don't think the appetite is there for this stuff and combined with the EU will certainly act on the stuff, the US government, I have less faith in. But I do think that like a lot of the stuff will have to be like either paired back or put on with guardrails at a certain point, it will be functionally useless no matter how impressive it is no matter how widespread it is. I do not think we will get ever get to the point where you really do have to question every single image on social media. I think whether it's even just the addition of like a legal statute that says every AI edited image has to have a piece of metadata in it that says it was edited by AI or whatever, like, I don't think we will ever get there largely because I don't think the public likes this stuff. So, again, like I disagree, I think sure, and I have no way of knowing like who knows what the Internet looks like in five years like, like it might just be a hundred percent AI generated images of Donald Trump who has taken over. Yeah, no, I don't want to go down that again, like, I don't think the vast majority, like I think what it comes down to is the difficulty threshold, right? Like, I think there's still a massive chasm between content creators and like the average person who posts something to their Instagram story or feed, and the vast majority of those people have decided that they don't want to augment their photos in any way, they just want them to be real and unaltered. I mean, I think we talked about this last week where like there's a push of some kind of camera makers to remove a lot of those effects to make it straight out of the sensor kind of thing, even if the photos look like ass. And that's okay, like I respect that, but I think we're also missing a big portion of the population when we talk about this. So I listened to a really interesting conversation on the hard fork podcast this week with Sheriff Frankel at the New York Times who did a lot of reporting on how governments and government campaigns are using AI to just do a whole bunch of stuff, right? Like Jen AI to write campaign emails that are more personalized all the way to like content creators using AI to blanket Facebook with political photos and videos that are largely fake and extremely misleading and in countries where that is not really regulated. It's, it's just a free for all and you can do whatever the frig you want because meta has said that it will not moderate Facebook's political ads. So you can basically great say whatever you want and pay for that to be distributed as widely as you want and Facebook will not intervene. So countries like India, many other places in Asia are just like adopting AI at a huge rate and it's a very different feeling to what it's like here in North America. And I think with a company like Google and Apple, which is a broadly global company that makes products for almost every market and if you look at Apple in particular. It's trying to gain back market share at lost in China to companies like Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei. I think a lot of these AI tools that are being forced on users. While they have the sheen of being sort of North American optimized, I really think that the adoption is going to explode in the East. And I think that's really interesting, right? That Samsung is bigger in many European and Asian countries. Apple is not and it needs to get there and Google is just like a non player anywhere in hardware in those places. So how do you spur adoption? Well, you give the folks what they want and you give them exclusive features. So, I don't know, I mean, that's kind of what I'm thinking. I don't, I think at like an objective level, these are just not great tools yet. Like, I don't, it's just like as a tool to create images, they're not good. They don't work. It's a party trick. A party trick. Like, even reimagine which like you can make some shocking images out of like even reimagine as a party trick. These are nothing that you are going to find ways to build into your daily life, which is my whole point, which is that like, I think if these companies want AI to succeed without the government breathing down their necks at every level without all of this regulation, like they are smarter to get out of the image generation game or at the very least, like, you know, it is a thing that is being pushed forward for stockholders, not for end users, in my opinion. And public sentiment is going to sour on AI as a whole because people don't like image generation. Even if they like other AI tools, which is where my thinking is coming from, is that like, I think this sort of stuff is going to harm how people think about what LLMs can do for them, LLM-powered tools can do for them. But I don't know, but to your point, like, there's nothing you can't make anything flashier, I guess video, I guess video generation, but like outside of image, like, that is the flashiest thing you can make, right? Like, so I do understand the point of like, we need to market something, like, it's hard to market this, like, niche time-saving tool. Like, how do you, I think it's neat that I can ask Gemini to add a shopping list of ingredients to Google Keep for a chicken parm recipe, and it'll do it. Like, I think that's neat, I don't know how well that fits into an advertisement that you're going to show in the middle of a football game. So, like, I get where all of this is coming from, and I don't really know where all of this happens. Like, there are so many variables at play that it is impossible to predict what these tools look like in five years outside of like, they will get better if they just keep evolving at the pace they're evolving at, but I look forward to seeing where we are in five years. Maybe it's very bad. It might be very bad, who knows? I think we'll be using the book's pama five in five years. Everybody is just on eink. Strangely, we've all switched the foldables. It finally took off. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so side note, when I finished my Pixel 9 Pro XL review, I put my sim in the razor plus for like four days. And this is the first flip phone that I have enjoyed using. And there are so many things I like about this phone, like so many interesting things that Motorola is doing. You're butt coming? I feel like there's a butt. Oh, there's a huge butt. It's the baby got back of butts. And I just can't, I cannot, I can't do it. So, I loved being able to do a lot with the front screen. Yeah, but I don't think it is a sufficient enough trade off for the lower quality phone experience you get when you open it. And there are cool things you can do when you sit it down on it, on a table, you know, the camcorder mode is awesome. I thought the camera itself is way better than I expected. But, yeah, I mean, it's a little bit too narrow for me. And it's very tall. It's very tall and very narrow. It's a little ungainly. And like, there's just a few weird things that Motorola did to the software that I don't, I just cannot get over. But it's so close to being that like ideal flip phone form factor that I just, I really tried to make it work. And I think I will occasionally go back to it. But it made, it was the first time I've really appreciated the flip form factor. And I can see why people are really into it. Yeah, it's a good phone. I agree with you that I think it's biggest shortcoming is Motorola software. I don't even mean that in like a software support way. I think that like, I don't love what Motorola did to Android 14. I think it's like, a lot of it is like change for the sake of change. A lot of it is like half thought out customizations that I don't particularly find useful or even just like good looking, which is frustrating because like, I think there's an incredible phone somewhere in there that I think is pulled down to like nearly very good by, yeah, the software experience and, and the fact that as you said, it's, and this is a problem. This is like an unfixable problem with like the form factor unless you don't make it look like a classic clamshell phone. But like when the shape of that device is going to lead to ultra tall 6.9 inch screens every time, that's just the shape of the phone. Well, that's not true necessarily. So I also have an Oppo find N3 flip. Is it more square? It's more square. So it's, it's, but that's what I mean. Yeah, if you're trying to keep that, yeah, but that that's that stereotypical, like, remember the razor from two decades ago, like that's, they certainly want you to think of that with the current shape they're using. Like, I think they should maybe make it more square. I think that would actually be a huge leap forward in terms of ergonomics, but like I understand why it's not there right now. It's, it's a matter of millimeters, right? We're talking the Oppo is two millimeters wider than the Motorola, but it makes a big difference when you're typing. It's almost that equivalent of the fold sixes outer display is a couple millimeters wider than the previous generations, and it does make a difference. This would benefit from that. And I think Motorola should make that decision next year, just slightly tweak the aspect ratio and, and, and like make it several millimeters shorter and just keep the form factor largely unchanged beyond that. But even then, there were, I just had issues with like the glass. I don't like the glass that they use on the inner, inner display. Like, or whatever it is, the, the screen protector just doesn't feel as high quality as it does on, say, like the OnePlus open or the Galaxy Z folds. Like, there's something about it that feels more squishy. And then there's a build quality issue on the back of the phone. If I'm in a quiet room and I'm just like holding it, I hear it creaking. Like, I can push, I can push the back of the phone and it creaks. And I'm like, there's nothing between this plastic back plate and the battery there, like nothing. So if I were to just pry that off, it's gone. Like, there's no, I just don't, I don't like this. It just feels a little cheap compared to some of the other phones that I've used with that form factor. But anyway, I mean, it's for a thousand dollars or whatever the cost is. I think it's the best of all of the flip phones right now, but it's not quite where it should be. Let me, let me pitch you this. They keep the razor, right? They add a second flip phone form factor to their portfolio. And they, they come out in stage next year and they're like, we're excited to show you what we've been cooking in the lab. We're bringing back the Motorola flip out for a modern age. That's right. Oh, my God, I love this phone. This was one of the first Android phones I ever used ever. It just got so dark in my office. I don't have a light on and the sun went behind a cloud and it is visible. And now that we're doing video, you can see it is visibly dark. Yeah, you're very cool. It's like, it's like made, made your background blue. Okay, so we're so far over where we should be by this time. You know, we're doing fine. This is perfect time management on our, on our, we. Okay, let's, let's just run through the rest of them super quickly. Okay, so yeah, we have not, I just want everyone to know we have not moved out of the first block of our. And we have three blocks. Three blocks. Which we're definitely not going to get to. So Google was sued by Yelp. Yelp hates Google. I don't think there's much more that we need to say about this. It's basically a lawsuit that is reinforcing what the company has said for over a decade that. Google and Yelp used to be partners. Google then decided to steal Yelp's content and integrated into Google search and the kind of local search that Google eventually built into Google maps. And then Yelp was apparently just pushed way down on, on search itself so that Google's own local listings would be preferenced over Yelp. There's been a lot of discovery and evidence about it to, to, to back this up. Google has denied that by saying that it's algorithm does not make those kinds of editorial decisions. But that's probably not true. I'm very interested to see what happens here, especially since we're still awaiting the judges remedies for the antitrust lawsuit that Google lost earlier this month. Telegram's CEO was arrested in France this week, basically accused of enabling illegal content on Telegram, in particular the spread of illegal child pornography. And the company is up in arms about this many free speech advocates are up in arms about how you can't really hold a CEO accountable for what happens on its closed platform. And I think this is a really interesting story that goes into kind of the habits cake and eat it to approach that Telegram is trying to take. Telegram is as much a social network as it is a messaging app. It is both of those things. It's not end to end encrypted by default, like signal or WhatsApp. And you can only do and end encryption with like one person, you can't do it in a group chat. Yeah. And it's gained a reputation for basically harboring criminals, terrorists, people that want to do bad things. Telegram has refused most of the time to adhere to police requests for access to that data, which they can access. So the irony here is that, unlike iMessage or WhatsApp or signal, which cannot be accessed externally at all, there is no backdoor into that. There is a backdoor into Telegram. The governments are mad. The telegram is not giving them access to that information. I think that's what makes this a tricky conversation, right? Because like if you are going to get mad at Telegram and the people in charge of Telegram about this and their policy, I can rate it from their FAQ right now. All telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them. If you are going to get mad about that, about them not acting on the fact that there is sex abuse material on the platform, which there is, then you also need to get mad at like signal for having, like it is undoubtedly on other platforms. It's just that those platforms like signal are end to end encrypted. So there's nothing the company can do anyway. Yes. It's tricky. There's two main criticisms. One is that because of the way that telegram treats large groups, it should be moderated, right? That they are essentially like discord or even Twitter, public rooms that should have moderation, right? And telegram does not enforce moderation. There is no real mechanism for moderation in those channels. They're all self moderated. And as a result, he's being accused of willfully just letting these bad actors propagate on the network. And then there's the personal stuff around how he himself has refused to cooperate with police requests for information and that he has flouted many governments requests for access to metadata around criminal activity. So I'm both sympathetic and not sympathetic to him, because as a CEO, I agree, like you cannot be necessarily held responsible for what happens on your platform. I mean, that is one of the mainstays of the open internet. Right. A section 230 of the... I always forget. It's the Digital Communications Decency Act. Basically, it ignores the platforms from being sued for the content that is posted there. But telegram is a private company. It's ostensibly a private network, and it markets itself as a chat app, but it really is an open platform. Plus, Dura of himself is not a US citizen. He's a French citizen, a dual citizen, I think France and Russia. So it's all very complicated. And it doesn't help that he's like a free speech crypto bro that like regularly goes in public and says like, I will not be silenced. So, yeah, we'll see what happens there. He's still in custody, but he hasn't, he has been charged, but they're not sure what the next steps are. So as of as of today when we recording, he's still in France. He can't leave France. Yeah. As of as of Wednesday night. Okay. So that's that the iPhone 16 will be announced on September 9th along with the Apple Watch 10 or series 10 and maybe new AirPods to new AirPods. Two new AirPods models on no new pro model. No, no new iPads, right? I don't think or MacBooks. Probably not at this event. The iPad mini continues to float around in the ether as a potential minor upgrade, but I don't. I'm I'm I'm that almost like the rumors for that feel so slim that my gut says it's going to be like a press release in October. It's not going to be an event for the mini, but I don't think the mini will justify an event, but maybe like. New iPads themselves, if they do more iPad updates, but I don't know for rumor to get anything else true because they just updated the pro and the air to. And they dropped the price of the 10th gen. Yeah. So I just I don't know like I feels like they've addressed the rest of the lineup. So it just if it really is just like it's got a better processor that isn't four years old, like. It might just be a press release. So that's that we'll cover that on the on AP. And then the second this the last two things are very funny so Samsung has said that damage to the paint finish on the Z fold and Z flip series is coming from third party chargers that are heating up the paint around the USB. See port too much. This is very interesting, because there are supposed to be protections in place to prevent this from happening at the USBC port level. But I don't know maybe the mitigations are not good enough. It has to do with chargers that are not properly grounded as well. Yeah, okay. This is not a problem that has affected other phones, at least to the degree where it hits a new cycle. So to me, it's like, I don't know, I've had complaints about the fit and finish and the general quality control on Samsung phones this year. And to me, this echoes those complaints more than it does like a problem with ungrounded outlets or or fast third party chargers. I struggle to side with Samsung on this, especially when it's like, if you are so concerned about people using fast third party chargers, then I don't know, throw one in the box with this $1,800 phone. I don't know. And then in the pettiest piece of news of the week, honor put a very, very small troll on every single honor magic. It's not every, not every Magic 3. It's a marketing campaign. Oh, it's a marketing campaign. If they only did it. Yeah, it's not on all of them. I didn't. They should do it on all of them. Yeah. But this is extremely stupid. Basically. Let me read it. It's worth, it's not too super long. Let me read it. This is printed extremely small on the hinge of the Magic 3. Dear Samsung Galaxy Z Fold owners, we're sorry. We know you were excited to buy a phone that folds in half and fits in your pocket awkwardly. You will promise the future, a technical marvel, a world of boundless multitasking and performance. And now you're probably looking at the new Honor Magic V3 and feeling a little betrayed. Size matters and we feel your pain. Like being tipped for a gold medal and then coming last in the race, the knowledge that a thinner, lighter and more durable Foldable exists is enough to make anyone question their choices. We get it. You were an early adopter, a pioneer bravely venturing into the uncharted territory of Foldable screens with questionable durability. You deserve better. In fact, you deserve a gold medal. And all seriousness, we at Honor are committed to pushing the boundaries of technology and bringing you the best possible Foldable experience. We're just saying, it's okay to feel let down. We'd feel the same way. I mean, this should be on every Honor Magic V3. It should. This is a good job, Honor. I want this marketing in turn to be hired full time. I agree with this, to be honest with you, I think Samsung has fully stopped and we talked about it. Has stopped pushing forward on their Foldables in a way that I, in my opinion, they're like sort of in the last place as far as like design goes. And it's right for a company like Honor anyone to call them out. We'll talk a lot more about Foldables next week, but I think they are currently and also ran in a category that they created effectively. To be fair, Honor is a nothing company. They are. This phone doesn't matter outside of China and Europe eventually and even then. But I think it's right for Honor, a company that is not that is the Magic V3, 9.5 millimeters. Yeah, it's definitely a thinner device. It's almost three millimeters thinner and this is not the first time, like the first generation of that. Well, I mean, basically every Foldable is thinner than the Z Fold at this point. Yeah, you're right, because the Open is 11.7. I can't think of a thicker, I can't think of anything thicker than 12.1. So, yeah, Samsung is the bulkiest folding phone. Well, that is disappointing and I'm sure you for Honor Magic V3 will find it very satisfying. It's still good. I think it's great. It's not, but it's okay. I applaud the tenacity of that one marketing in turn. All right, that's our show. Send us your feedback podcast at androidplease.com. We love hearing from you. Next week, as I said, we will have a special guest, Michael Fisher, here to talk about something that might resemble the Z Fold 6 and the Honor V3. You can probably figure that out. In the meantime, let us know what your thoughts are on the latest Foldables. Let us know what you think about the Pixel 9s in general, what you think of Android 15 being delayed. And of all of the lawsuits that are going around as well as what's happening at Telegram. We just love getting your email. So, let us know also what you think of the video pod. Does this help? Do you like it? Do you not like it? Would you want to see more or less? I don't know. Do you want to see Will with a slightly warmer, better quality lighting situation? Maybe we should get you a... My lighting warm back up when the sun came back out. It's fine. It's fine. I mean, you need kitty ears as well. I need kitty ears. That's true. And people will have to watch the podcast in order to know what that is. So, maybe you can... There's going to be a jumping off point. Can I expense new headphones that have the kitty ears built in? You can? Yeah, absolutely. I can send you my daughter's headphones. They're $29.99 at that point. I don't want to take your daughter's headphones. No, no, not hers. But you can buy your own. Oh, sure. Okay, okay. I was going to say, I feel like she's using those. They're, like, kids' kids' zone or something. It's, like, I banana. It's one of those companies. I'll be in... Did you buy them in Toronto? 'Cause, like, I'll be there next week. Next weekend. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you could get the I banana. Whatever some pink. That's by Canada. I don't know. I'm going to TIFF. Did I tell you this? I'm going to see a TIFF. I'm screening a TIFF. I'm seeing Knightfish. I'm excited. Oh, nice. I'm excited for you. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you when you're here. Hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah, well, we can talk about that. But, yeah. This was a... I have no idea how long this episode was. This was a three-hour podcast. It feels like. It's not in the middle of it. No issues during this podcast at all whatsoever. No, the editing, the magic of editing will make it clear that there were no issues here. All right. That's our show. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Bye. Look, they're... My lighting. Gone. Sun went behind a cloud. Now it's blue again. Now I'm blue again. I'm blue again. I'm blue again. I'm blue again. I'm blue again. (chimes)
