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Google I/O and the Productivity News This Week
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In this Cast | Google I/O
Art Gelwicks, a productivity and collaboration consultant, blogger at Gelwickstech.com, and host of the Being Productive podcast, CrossPlatform podcast, as well as ProductivityCast Podcast.
Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
Why a Remote Workspace Will Set You Up For Career Success
How to Create a Productive Remote Work Schedule
How to Create a Work Wellbeing Plan
The Top Tech Essentials You Should Take on a Business Trip
Apple Google and Microsoft will soon implement passwordless sign-in on all major platforms
Google Kills Headphone Jack in Latest Pixel 6A Just Months After Parodying Apple
Amazon working on a new Kindle with Note Taking Functionality
Business & Finance Segment
Remarkable raises new round of funding with $1B valuation
E-Ink iPad Rival ‘reMarkable’ Sells More Than 1 Million Devices
Featured Story of the Week
New Chromebook features announced at Google I/O 2022
All the New Android Features Announced at Google I/O
Wear OS is finally getting a Google Home app for smart home controls [Video]
Revamped Google Wallet officially revealed Pay gets Virtual Cards for better checkout protection
Google sends Apple a direct message about iMessage at IO
Android tablets might finally get that iPad-beating update
Google I/O Highlights for Apple Users: Sneak Peek at Pixel 7, Pixel Watch, More
Google could soon introduce a seamless cross-device experience
Announcements
🚩 Introducing: Card Tracking!!! Postable
Help MeisterTask Improve. Take Our User Survey!
Find Out if You’re Part of Apple’s $14.8 Million iCloud Settlement – CNET
Microsoft Build May 24 to 26
Other News
Productivity Boosters: My Top Five Developer Tools Worth The Money
Googles changing its performance reviews to waste less time
How to track your menstrual cycles on a smartwatch
Google Keep is getting ready to add text formatting almost a decade after launch
The new Lenovo Duet 3 is available on Lenovo’s website
Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 145 With Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements
Apple’s Merger of ‘iCloud Documents and Data’ Into iCloud Drive Now Complete
Ulysses 26 brings modernized WordPress integration and more blogging tools
Ulysses Gains Permanently Visible Writing Stat Counter and Optimized Publishing Flow
Testing Out Apple’s Self Repair Program With an iPhone 12 Mini Battery Fix
Apple Cash replaces Discover with Visa for new virtual debit card accounts
The 8 Best Remote Work Tools to Boost Your Productivity
Its not as bad as you think it is
Self-Help Is Important. Other-Help Is Too.
3 More Productivity Tips I Learned Working at Google You Should Already Be Using
Overwhelmed at work? This approach always works for me.
Upskilling: Four Simple Steps Toward Upgrading Your Work
Top 10 Stressors in Life (And How to Cope with Them)
Hanvon N10 e-note device with 10.3-inch E Ink display announced
You can no longer buy Kindle eBooks on Android
How to Delete Your Autofill Passwords in Chrome (and Move to Something More Secure)
Raw Text Transcript | Google I/O
Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).
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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:03
Hello, personal productivity enthusiast and community Welcome to Anything But Idle the productivity news podcast. Today’s show is brought to you by co working space by personal productivity club. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:15
And I’m Augusto Pinaud.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:16
We’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is episode 106 for May 16 2022, and we’re going to be reacting to Google’s i o conference, their developer conference that happened last week. And of course, the productivity and technology news this week. But in order to do that, we’ve actually brought a guest to the show someone you know, and someone we know really well, that is art Gelwicks. He is the productivity and collaboration consultant and blogger behind Gelwicks tech.com. He’s the host of the being productive podcast, and the Cross Platform podcast with, of course, the Cousteau. And he joins us on ProductivityCast podcast each week. Welcome to the show,
Art Gelwicks 0:59
aren’t you? You know what that intro? It sounds like? I don’t actually do any work. I’m doing everything else but work. I’m not sure how that comes across. Thanks for having me, guys. I love this time of year when everybody’s having their big events. And it’s an opportunity for us to get together and talk about the things that they did and the things that we wish they did.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:19
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve got we’ve got Oh, yo and then we’ve got build. And then we’ve got Apple’s WWDC, this is the season for all of all of it. So let’s let’s get into it, then. Of course, you all know that each week we read and review and discuss the productivity and technology news headlines of the week. And to start us off, we do some productivity articles in the front matter of the podcast. So Gousto, what’s our first article this week?
Augusto Pinaud 1:46
Well, the first article this week is from life hack knees, while remote workspace will set up for career success. And the article talks about, okay, think about what did you need on this space and say, share with people you know, don’t think you need the office, then you may have the luxury of the office, you may not have the luxury of the office. Regardless of that, you need to work into how to make that space work for you. And that’s what the article is about how can you create focus attention? How can you eliminate, you know, distractions? How can you put boundaries? How can you unleash creativity and other things. And so I was reading this article, I wrote me a client of mine, who at the beginning of the pandemic, he was used to work with whiteboards all over his office. And he was going crazy when he got home. And then we went to Amazon and bought blood markers, because he was against a big window. So he began using the Windows on his office as whiteboards with the caveat that every night he needed to clean it up to keep himself alive for the next morning. So his wife didn’t kill. But that’s all the problem. He didn’t mind the cleaning up. That was not the issue. What he was was he was sitting on the living room and didn’t have that tool that was important for his productivity. So what you guys said to others about this,
Art Gelwicks 3:24
it’s it’s a tough situation for some, I mean, we’ve talked about this now for going on what three years through this mess. Getting yourself to a point where you’re comfortable, being able to work in an environment that wasn’t provided for you, I think is the biggest challenge, taking personal ownership of your space, finding ways to adapt it and also giving yourself permission to change it, not to go scrolling through Instagram and find all the best examples of home workspaces. You got to realize those are one, they’re probably fake, too, they’re not going to work for you, you’re gonna have to tune in, find something yourself, I have changed my office, I don’t know how many times and matter of fact, to me, it’s a cathartic, cathartic, it’s a good experience, I’m not even going to try that word three times. It’s a good experience, because it gives me an opportunity to kind of mentally reset, I did it earlier this week and reset up my desk. That’s an interesting dynamic when you carry it to a career situation. Because now you’re not dependent on a predefined set of rules. You’re able to hone a skill set where you can adapt to whatever the environment is, and still become productive. And I think working from home and working remotely. These are two of those categories where this really comes into play.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:48
I think I agree with a lot of what art says in terms of the fact that, you know, we need to experiment more with our working spaces no matter where we are, whether that’s in an office or traveling between office and an end to home office and working from home or working from any other location, I think it just takes some experimentation and getting to know your working workflows and developing good systems around them. So but I like the article, I recommend to folks for you check it out, when you do look at the show notes, because it just has you kind of go through the different senses and different spaces in your world and making sure that you’ve got yourself set up while they’re okay, onward to our next article this week of Gousto.
Augusto Pinaud 5:31
So how to create a productive work schedule, and it comes, you know, it takes more than the space, the actual schedule and how to work distractions during that time, you know, and he shows an example talks about a couple of applications, one of them called Cold Turkey that I haven’t used cold turkey, but I’m assuming is similar to rescue time where you can now tell, okay, during this time block, these kind of things, and he talks about using Trello for creating what he called Rolling task lists you what is going to be the things that you are going to be paying attention. And on on my case, I work on the iPad that my main machine and the iPad introduced. Same for the Mac, this focus can focus you can go and said, You know, I want these kind of alerts. And you can really customize what kind of alerts what can make alert, what can make noise or cannot make noise. And it doesn’t block you as cold turkey or or Rescue Time do it. But it is a great tool, if you take the time to define those things to open that and said, You know what, I am doing this right now, this kind of work. And these are the kinds of things I want to be fenced off. So that way I can get that focused on I can work much more effective.
Art Gelwicks 7:06
Yeah, I found I’ve split my day up, we’ve been talking about this actually in cross platform to I’ve really taken to heart splitting my day into two things, basically four hours of quote, billable productive work and four hours of business development work. What has changed my mind a little bit about that is that it doesn’t have to be a contiguous four hours of time. So for example, I can go through a four hour morning, get that part done, and then maybe split up the business development work, couple periods during the course of the day in are mixed with the other activities that I need to do. That’s the benefit of where I’m working from and what I’m doing, I, I would be remiss to not take advantage of that. So looking at the structure, thinking about how I work thinking about the way mentally I get in and out of things, and then allowing my schedule to wrap around that it’s made all the difference in the world and getting production done. And it really feels funny, when I break those rules, when I don’t give myself the opportunity to work with the way that I want to work rather than compelling myself to do it some other structure.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:16
Yeah, I think the article was was pretty spot on in terms of being able to define the work you’re going to do, and then working out a plan for how you’re going to break that work up so that it’s not one overwhelming list. And again, most people are different, you know, like the way in which I do it in a GTD context, it’s probably going to be very different than the way in which a goose was going to do it, and going to be even more different than the way in which art is doing it. So it’s just you’re getting used to how you don’t overwhelm yourself with a with many, many things on your list, you know, I’ve hundreds of of tasks in my system, I can’t do them all today. So I need to figure out a mechanism for being able to, you know, trickle them, you know, sprinkle them throughout the week so that it’s the best time for me to do those things both from a bio you know, Primetime perspective, but also then figuring out when it’s going to be the best context for me to do that based on the resources available to me at that time.
Augusto Pinaud 9:13
And our next doctor goal it was a very interesting article because it came from the same make use of but it was how to create a work well being plan and even though it was not the whole intention of the article, I thought it would match very well with that because as part of this remote and working remotely and being remotely and all that. I have not seen a lot of people thinking about this well being okay, what is going to be my strategy in all this, Greg, now you make the space productive, you figured out how to work better, but what is that wellbeing plan? Did you have that documented somewhere? Did you really know or it happened randomly or do not happen at all. And what it is the article was, you know, very good into go into that how to do it? And what’s more thinking into, you know, working for an office, maybe. But it’s a create a template, you know, what do you want to, you know, keep yourself well at work, what you’re going to do and all that and talk about concrete awards talks. But what for me was key in the article was the have you consider as a remote worker this wellbeing plan and what that means for you, and that was very, very interesting for me.
Art Gelwicks 10:41
Now, I think we’re still struggling with the whole concept of well being integrated as part of the work that you do. It still has a touchy feely kind of sentiment to it, I think, in many cases, and people don’t recognize that that is a critical part of doing quality work, is making sure that you’re at your peak at any given time, or at least not in a valley. And failure to do things like take care of your personal well being and work that in as a conscious effort means that you don’t reap any of those benefits, it’s the same thing when when people talk about going to the gym, you have to plan to go to the gym, you have to put it on your schedule, you have to make that part of the, it’s the same same type of situation, if that well being is going for a walk, if that well being is sitting and reading a book, if that well being is having a cup of tea, it doesn’t matter. It has that same psychological and physiological reaction within your system to kind of reset yourself a little bit.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:44
Sorry, no, no, I was gonna go ahead.
Augusto Pinaud 11:47
I didn’t say and I recommend people to make that list in order, okay, what is what gives you the biggest bang for your buck? And, and go, you know, what, to whatever. Okay, it is a well being but you know, really, I get little out of this, or I need to be uncertain conditions to get this because the problem is when you get there, and you need that wellbeing checkup, your brain cannot figure it out what will be that well being, but a checklist can so take some time to create that checklist, you know, it’s reading, you know, it’s walking around the blog, it’s having that cup of tea, whatever it is, and put it Norther what is what gives me the biggest benefit versus on the bottom of the list what but it will allows you to look at and read of them and say, You know what? Yeah, watching the Wii, it’s not my thing. But it is right now, what mentally caught my attention. And that will give you a bigger benefit.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 12:46
Yeah, I wanted to just put an appendix to this, which is for people to understand that that well being is a little bit different than reward or positive reinforcement here, well being is that you deserve to feel well, no matter what, right you deserve to be. And a lot of people don’t feel like that in this world, because of various systemic problems. And when I talk about productivity, I frequently talk about reward and positive reinforcement, do not conflate those two, this wellbeing plan is for you to be able to take care of yourself to be there 100%, you know, or whatever the the right amount of normative, you being fully present is. And if you want to be able to excel beyond that, that’s where reward and positive reinforcement helped to be able to accelerate, it becomes an accelerant becomes an enabler of more productivity. But don’t consider well being somehow a reward or positive reinforcement. It should be the baseline. And I think a lot of people mistake that for for that premise.
Art Gelwicks 13:45
The one thing I would throw out there is make sure you recognize or you take note of when you’re not well, when you feel like you’re not well, and I don’t mean from a health perspective, I mean, just not right. And make that the priority, then. I mean, I’ll admit to it yesterday for me was a a not well, day, it just was not. And I didn’t do any work. I did other things change the direction entirely because I needed that mental reset, and today has been highly productive because I took a little time to reset and to what’s the old phrase sharpen the saw. That’s, that’s what I needed to do. I needed to do a little care and maintenance on on my brain. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:28
rest is different than rejuvenation and many times people mistake the one for the other, they conflate the two, so totally there. Okay, on to our next story.
Augusto Pinaud 14:38
Our next story is the top tech essentials that should be taken into a business trip. And the reason I bring this article is because well people is beginning to travel and people is beginning to go, you know going back to the office and hotel in and going two days a week and the movement is starting to happen. So this is not a goal. Bring a couple of them and that I thought may be interesting to check, you know, one is connectivity devices, you know, what is a portable hotspot, you know, or connected to your phone or how you’re going to have, you know, connection obviously talks about streaming devices. Yeah, you’re going to go to a hotel, you know, what did you bring in so you can watch TV if that’s what in what rejuvenate you, you know, the power accessories, you know, do you have the travel adapters, the power banks, the audio and funny enough, I bought my audio the other day I have the old Bose because mostly they are indestructible? At least mine are apparently. And but they all both were at the cable that’s that’s how they came. I don’t know minds are 2003 or that all okay, 2004 or something. And I found an adapter that you can connect and then you can turn them now into Bluetooth headset. Okay, but as quality sound as the soundproof door incredible. Now with that adapter, I can even get the other part. So what are the things that you are going to start traveling with water? Because for good or for bad, we need to take into consideration that your work style and habits change. That’s a fact. Okay, the last two years force you to change. Now you have two options, you can go back or try to go back to what you had before, if you remember what it was. Or you can try to bring that new workstyle to wherever you’re going. And that makes you think, or it should make you think what did you need?
Art Gelwicks 16:49
For me, it’s actually two straightforward items. Everything else is kind of secondary to these one, my Galaxy button earbuds. They’re coming, because and we’ll talk about Google’s buds later. Because they have the two features that I think that are most critical in those business environments, one ambient sound sound pass through. And second, Active Noise Cancelling those two sides of that coin, make them just a mandatory addition. The other thing is my international travel adapter. It’s a little block, I’ve talked about it in the past, it’s a little block that has four USB ports on it, it’ll do a regular pass through and it’s small, it goes right in the bag, and I guarantee I can plug in anything I need to. Those are the types of things we used to. We used to take a lot lot of crap around with us our bags ago. So you’ve talked about this your 85 pound backpack or whatever. That’s the type. Yeah, okay. 65. That’s the type of thing where I think we’ve we’ve gotten to the point where safety, I don’t need all that stuff. How light? Can I make it? How small and efficient can I make it?
Augusto Pinaud 17:57
There are two things. One is not how efficient can I make it without a doubt, but also the technology have improved to to that level? Okay, I don’t need any more, you know, I I can get my iPad and walk into an Apple store, get a new iPad, and he will have everything that I have in this one. Pretty fast. Okay, that was not the case. Okay, if your laptop die, you know, 15 years ago, five years ago, you were in trouble. Now that has changed. There’s so much information in the cloud, you can do a scanning, it’s so much things with your phone that you could not do, you know, five years ago, maybe 10 years ago. So I think also that has made that bag smaller and smaller.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 18:44
Yeah, I mean, USBC alone has reduced so many cables. And all I have to say is as soon as my legacy iPad gets swapped out for the next M one iPad Air, all USB,
Art Gelwicks 18:59
I carry one charger, my USB C charger for my for my laptop, will charge my laptop, my tablet, my phone, my air pods, my Chromebook, everything is that right there. Anybody who had to carry one of the old Dell bricks, knows what this is, how good of a thing this actually is.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:21
Yeah, it’s phenomenal. I mean, I really, really love having all USBC now across all the devices, except for that last one device, and it’s okay because you know, it goes into the power brick and I’ve got the extra, you know, iPad cable. I will note though, for everybody. This is one of those things where if you’ve had a checklist, and you’ve been using it for a while, now’s the time to kick your tires on that checklist to review it. If you have never had a checklist before. Now’s the time to create it. There’s so many different applications that allow you to create a checklist so that you can have it and then you can just go back to it and refer to to an over and over again. And this covers, not just the things that were covered in the list. I mean, this covered several different things. But remember health and medical, you know, checklist, what are you going to what are you going to carry in terms of clothing. And this might be the time to purchase clothing that allows you to have maybe multiple layers so that you don’t have to carry as much clothing. I bought these new, I think they’re called evolution pants, and they are super light. And when I put them on for the first time, I thought, am I still wearing pants? Were just so light that, you know, they’re like thin, they pack really well, you know, so like, just just a little upgrade like that. It allows me to be able to, you know, throw it in, I can throw it in the wash, I can take it down to a laundromat and wash it a couple times on a on a longer trip. You know, like those are things that just you don’t think about when you’re in the mixed in when you’re on a trip. But before you get there, you can really think it through and say okay, well, okay, maybe I need three pairs of pants instead of seven pairs of pants, things of that nature. Now’s the time to think that through before you start going back to travel, I know I’m going to be back on the road very soon. And I’m going through that travel checklist and saying, Okay, I no longer carry that stuff. Do I need to carry three sets of SIM cards? No, I don’t need to carry three sets of SIM cards. But in years past, I would have carried those things because I just felt the need to be prepared. And now with all of the various restrictions and all of the needs to be able to travel lighter. Just consider that as you go through your travel checklist.
Art Gelwicks 21:27
I think that should be the unofficial show title. Am I still wearing pants? We’re just gonna go with that. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:35
Alright, with that, you
Augusto Pinaud 21:37
know, you make me You make me pull my list. And before we go into the break, and mine is still says CD for the rental car. This is really depressing. Oh, there you go.
Art Gelwicks 21:47
Well, you’re not carrying that Bon Jovi cassette with you anyway,
Augusto Pinaud 21:51
don’t carry them. Well, but at least it’s like a CD, not a cassette. But yes, the two person has played for iPad, it doesn’t apply anymore.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 22:03
Yeah, my travel checklist is pretty extensive. And I know that I’m going to need to pare it down, as I’ve been just going through in my head, what I’m going to need to pare down, but I’ve also bought a couple of really new, like I bought a turtle, it’s not a neck pillow I used to carry like a full neck pillow for for flights. And now I have this device that kind of like you just it’s called a turtle something or other, which just basically it’s like a scarf. And it holds your head up in such a way that you can actually sleep upright, really, really innovative concept. And I’ve used it now a couple of times at home just thinking Let me check it out and see if it’ll work. And remarkably, it’s going to reduce, you know, like that big bulky thing that I’ve had to carry around let’s see kind of look silly, you know, with it wrapped around your, your suitcase or whatever. Now I don’t need it. Because I have this much smaller thing, it slides right into my carry on and into my personal bag that I carry on to the onto the plane or onto the train. And now you don’t need that stuff. So just look at the various technologies that are out there that are low tech, I mean, it’s very low tech, it’s a scarf with a some kind of rigid board. It’s just outside of arm reach, otherwise I would grab during the break and but it’s really, really nice and like now they have the space blankets that are really thin. So you can if you if you really get cold on some of the planes, you can carry a blanket, you know, like think through all of those things. And maybe a more comfortable and 95 Mask if you want to still be masking or they’re still requiring a mandating masking on the planes, you want to make sure you get a comfortable one. Like those things are really important right now. And I know that not everybody watching or listening is going back on the road. But I know a lot of you probably are. And so it’s good to kind of keep that in mind. With that we’re going to take a break now for a word from our sponsor, which of course is co working space by personal productivity club. When we get back we’re gonna go through the tech stories really quickly so that we can get on to the Google IO reactions, and so we will see you after the break.
Sponsor Voice Over 24:00
Well, working in person may be normal for you. It’s unlikely your co workers are as interested in being productive as you are, or working remotely or from home can be isolating and there’s something powerful about being with productive people, even virtually that helps you be more engaged. If a flavor of these sounds familiar, co working space by personal productivity club is for you. co working space is a virtual work community designed to help members be more effective and efficient in their work and personal lives. At its core. We provide goal tracking and host focused action sessions throughout the week for accountability and camaraderie. Visit anything but idle.com forward slash co working to learn more CO working space lives inside personal productivity club, a digital community for personal productivity enthusiast so you can find people who use methods and tools you do to again head over Were to anything but idle.com forward slash co working to see how co working space can help you be more productive. And now back to our show.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 25:11
Welcome back everybody to Anything But Idle on Ray Sidney-Smith joined, of course, with acoustic pinout, and our guest this evening art Gelwicks. Hi, art. Thanks. So we are back for the second half of our show. And with that, we’re gonna go into our tech articles, we’ll cover some business and finance announcements and then get into our discussions on reactions to the Google IO developer conference that happened last week. Gousto, what’s our first tech article this week?
Augusto Pinaud 25:37
Apple, Google and Microsoft will soon implement password less for all major platforms. And what is exciting about that is companies are getting together into trying to get this into finally igreen to play nice.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 26:01
Alright, so I have a lot of thoughts about this. I’m very, very brief. And then
Augusto Pinaud 26:05
that is a result of my introduction with so brief, because I knew that.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 26:09
So first and foremost, there have been a lot of people who have attempted to solve this problem over the years. And, and I’m an acolyte of Steve Gibson, who is a longtime technologist, and he developed something called squirrel SQ RL. And it is a complete solving of this problem, and why the three major tech companies couldn’t just like they did with matter, which is the IoT based solution to all of this connectivity, why they couldn’t have adopted a solution that actually will fundamentally work is beside like, it’s just like, outside of my realm of understanding that being the case, this is a positive move in the right direction, so that 90% of the time, maybe even 95% of the time for Windows users, you will no longer be utilizing a password to be able to access your systems. So that’s my those are my brief thoughts on the matter, because, because then we’ll we’ll spend the next three hours talking about this. But I’m just a little annoyed that there are there are such better solutions to this problem. And they are they are shortchanging the ability to really conquer the removal of the password. And just so you know, I’m also under no false pretense that the password is ever going away, will always have passwords, but to remove them in in most cases, is a really powerful concept.
Art Gelwicks 27:27
I like the idea. I’m really dubious of the execution. I mean, I’ll be honest, people are going to people have struggled, struggled with two factor authentication for quite some time. There’s a lot of downsides to it, whatever these this implementation is, it’s changing something that has been a standard process for ever. So yeah, I applaud them for trying to make it simple. Most people do that by reading 1234 on a sticky note and putting it under their keyboard. So we kind of have to look and see how’s this going to work? So like I said, I I hold judgment until I see the execution. Now that said, I use Microsoft authenticator. I use LastPass authenticator. I use Google’s authenticator. So I’m not saying it’s not good. I’m not saying it doesn’t work. I still not sure, though, that it’s ready for primetime for mass audiences.
Augusto Pinaud 28:26
And that is a big, big thing. I don’t know if it’s jet there for masses, we will see.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 28:34
The bigger problem is that, you know, as soon as you enter in into enterprise, you have things like Okta, and you have other permission systems that get
Art Gelwicks 28:44
RSA tokens and things like that, that are really those and those are entrenched, I think that’s what often people will, will forget. In corporate environments, you’re dealing with an entirely different scale of sale. I mean, Microsoft and Apple and Google want to come in and say, oh, yeah, use our stuff. But you have somebody selling RSA tokens for 25,000 people, they’re they’re entrenched, those mechanisms are there, they’re on the desktop levels. That’s a lot of conversion work. And there has to be a lot of upside for it. So I think adoption is going to take a long time.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:17
Yeah, the switching cost is so high in a lot of these organizations, you think a bank in in Treasury services where they are using high level security and one time, you know, code, you know, fobs and whatnot, all of that costs money. And companies are not just going to easily switch on a dime to these kinds of systems, even if they’re only software based, just because of all of the hiccups that come along the way and all it requires is for the software to glitch one day and then for everyone to be locked out. And you know, and then it becomes that much more of a cost factor to the to the organization’s people don’t fix what isn’t broken most of the time. And yeah, so I’m not I’m not particularly you know, but bullish on this?
Art Gelwicks 30:01
Yeah, I don’t think it’s a it’s an either or situation too. I think you’re gonna see composites of this. And we’ll just we’ll just see how it plays out. But we all know passwords are a problem. They need to be fixed. Lather rinse, repeat for next year,
Augusto Pinaud 30:15
or next article. I’m going to change the title because it should says it should be written, you know, just after months of mocking Apple, Google decide to kill the headphone jack.
Art Gelwicks 30:27
Okay. This is not new. Of course,
Augusto Pinaud 30:30
he’s not new. But what is new is Samsung did the same. There’s you know, people get over it. You know, ah,
Art Gelwicks 30:39
such drama. It’s a hole in the phone. Yes, I love I loved my headphones. I love my headphone jack. And for if anybody cares. I’m still in using wired headphones for this right now. Because there’s a little hole on the side of my laptop that makes it work really well. That said, on my phone, I use Bluetooth. Why? Cuz there’s no hole in the phone anymore. They took it away. So yes, it was a terrible thing. But honestly, guys, get over it.
Augusto Pinaud 31:13
Let’s go to the more
Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:14
Oh, sorry. No, no, no, I promised folks that after the break, I would show them the toy. Yeah, this is the turtle. And like, as I said, it’s T our TL turtle. And so it’s this scarf. And so there’s like this brace, and it goes up against your neck, it has a little cheat sheet. And you just basically, you know, put it here and then wrap it around, and then it fixes and now you’re able to just rest. And I have to say it has been really, really effective. I thought this is not I looked at it when it came out of the box. And I thought this is not going to work. And remarkably though I was I’ve been really impressed with its ability to work, at least so far on a couple of trips. And so I just wanted to
Art Gelwicks 31:57
that’s great. If it means you don’t have to carry around something that looks like an inflatable toilet seat cover. I mean, come on.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:03
Exactly. Right. Right and mines, mines pretty like the one that I have. That’s like it’s memory foam. It’s really comfortable. But it’s huge. So anyway, moving on to our next
Augusto Pinaud 32:16
our next story, I am excited about it, it is Amazon working into a new Kindle with no couple bills and I we have been showing about eating and technology and devices and all that. But there is apparently two possible names for this. One is the Kindle scribble or the Kindle passage. What is exciting for me is and we will talk about remarkable in a bit and iPad and and we have talked about pen writing. I believe that Amazon finally taking the plunge, it is the one of the indications that we are getting very, very close to masses, or to mass adoption into the handwriting and ink devices and emails and all this. So I am very, very excited about this news.
Art Gelwicks 33:12
Might be the grumpy guy again.
Augusto Pinaud 33:14
You can always be the grumpy guy. Yeah,
Art Gelwicks 33:16
I’m good at it. This is Amazon finally realizing that nobody wants to do productivity on a Kindle. Anybody who has ever tried to get a Kindle and tried to do anything productive on it has just did it for like 20 minutes and like forget this. They’re great for videos. They’re great for other you know, reading books and things like that. They may be good at E Ink. But Gousto you and I have talked about this ad nauseam on cross platform, there is a very fine threshold of good E Ink and terrible E Ink. And it’s really easy to fall on that second side. And unfortunately, he’d say it Amazon’s track record on this kind of stuff has not led me to believe that we are going to fall on the incredibly going
Augusto Pinaud 34:00
to be helpful and I’m writing my credit card. He’s ready to order one just to test
Art Gelwicks 34:04
I would love I would love to be proven wrong on this one. But I’m not going to worry myself too much. I want to see the operating system though. I want to see what operating system they decide to go with and how they decide to handle this because we know Kindles run Android. So are they going to go buy an Android app company that does E Ink I could see somebody like a squid or a Niebo or something like that getting acquired by Amazon and then deploying that as the technology if they want to get in quick I don’t know we’ll see.
Augusto Pinaud 34:38
But that but that’s opens to a lot of great possibilities.
Art Gelwicks 34:43
If they want to do it right go ahead I’m
Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:44
sorry. No, no who owns jot now remember, remember job from the PDA days? The palm day?
Art Gelwicks 34:53
Yeah, they’re gonna they’re gonna issue Kindles that only support graffiti.
Augusto Pinaud 34:58
I used to be very Fast
Art Gelwicks 35:01
I saw was I used to love it. I thought it was great. You know now kids, they would look at it and go wow, you could write hieroglyphics. Here’s the thing, and I’m just gonna throw this out there Amazon if you’re listening because I know you are when you bring out this Kindle for E inking, the screen must be a matte surface screen from day one do not make a glossy, make it a matte one.
Augusto Pinaud 35:26
Yes, I agree with you there.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 35:28
There are so many things here. One, I agree with you, our execution is going to be poor on this. Kindles are a one trick pony, you know, adding the audiobook functionality to it gave you a poor listening experience, you know, adding the the additional peripherals that they’ve done with it have been atrocious. I love my Kindle, right. But I do not want it to do anything other than displaying pages, as I read is a single purpose device for me. And it is for 99.9% of users. They don’t want additional functionality. And quite honestly, when you try to do it, it’s slow and clunky. So, you know, I have I’ve wanted the Kindle three G’s, you know, the Kindle Touch three G’s, you know, it has a built in browser, and, you know, internet access, you know, it’s got a SIM card in there. Yeah, I mean, the the browser was terrible. And you know, it always stayed a beta feature. Yeah, it should have been listed as alpha, you know, but, you know, I enjoyed having the ability to bring new books, you know, I’m sitting on the tarmac, or sitting on a delay for a flight, I can just download another book and keep going. That’s all really well. and wonderful things that facilitate the reading experience are great. Let me highlight and annotate my notes maybe more fluidly. But a continuing a completely different note taking experience just detracts from my overall reading enjoyment. So I just don’t see this being a huge seller. One, it’s not a feature that people are looking for. It’s a it’s a feature they want people to be, you know, they want to push into people’s hands and say, Oh, look what we’re doing. Not particularly interested in that myself. So we’ll see what happens. I’m always open to being wrong. We’ll see what happens. All right. Yeah, onto
Art Gelwicks 37:13
our Amazon’s had just one thing, Amazon’s had one job books, read the books, serve the books, that’s good. I want to figure out who you have to take off at Amazon to wind up on the Kindle development team. Because that, to me sounds like a dead end area. God loves them. I think they’re great. Keep going, guys, but sorry for this. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 37:35
while they make these weird choices, you know, especially with the KDP. And I’m sure that all of this has thoughtful, you know people behind the choices, but from a consumer perspective, and also from a small business perspective, they just seem obtuse that they make some of these choices when when it comes from KDP. And then on the Kindle side, last week, we talked about the fact that Kindle decided to shut off on the Android your ability to purchase Kindle ebooks, you know, like, such ridiculousness over over petty squabbles between the, whether it’s OEMs, or the operating systems, like, where’s customer focus, like consumer focused, like you should be focused on making my experience pleasurable, not anything else. And now that I have to go to a different device in order to buy a Kindle, when I’m sitting on my phone in the Kindle app, just seems such a weird, wrong feeling to the to the consumer. And that that’s where I feel like, okay, I see these changes happening in KDP. I see these, for those of you who are not aware KDP is the Kindle Direct Publishing platform for people who are publishing materials onto Kindle magazines, books, and so on and so forth. And I just, I see those changes, and I’m like, what’s going on behind the scenes there, guys, and gals and others, you know, it’s just really, really weird. Okay, so onto our next story.
Augusto Pinaud 38:59
Well, our next story is an apple pattern that suggests that the future of the iPad could transform into a MacOS style. So I was reading the article and thinking on what the Chromebook was Android do that is very interesting. That will be an interesting thing to be able to put, connect the key word, connect the mouse and get a more Mac, especially now that the high end at least all the iPads are sharing the same structure that a Mac does. So that may be interesting. Hopefully, Apple learn something out of Google from this experience.
Art Gelwicks 39:36
Okay, this is Apple decks. Just delayed I will be awesome to this. This is apple decks. Samsung’s already there. Welcome to the party, guys.
Unknown 39:47
What up?
Art Gelwicks 39:48
I can’t figure it out either. So nobody’s gonna figure it out. No. I’ve got I mean, I like I love the idea. I mean, the Apple has been pushing this idea of an iPad being a laptop placement forever. I think it’s a great idea. There’s a lot and especially the hardware has gotten to the point now where it is fully, fully capable with the new chips and everything, no question about it. It’s about time that their operating system in the software catches up with that, and takes advantage of that, that platform that they’ve spent so much time developing.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:21
On the heels of what you’re talking about, though, aren’t, you know, one of the things that I’m noticing, as Apple continues to develop is that they’re bringing more of the iPad features to the Mac OS operating system. And, and now this patent is kind of, oh, well, we’re bringing more Mac OS to the iPad. And I have a little bit of, of a feeling of contradictory thought here. And one is that it’s just Apple, making both operating systems a little bit more integrated, which makes a lot of sense. The other is that they may just be tossing people off the trail. Because you know, Apple is want to do that, where they’re, they’re one they want to basically protect themselves, and nobody else does, what they’re what they’re doing. But the other is that they’re just throwing people off their scent, because they’re going more and more that what they have done so far is putting more of the of the iPad OS and iOS features into the Mac OS environment. And I believe they will continue to do that. And so for them to go the opposite direction seems a little bit weird, especially since it’s not a particularly good experience to take the desktop operating system and put it on to the mobile experience, even on the largest of the of the iPads, the iPad Pros, I think I think a lot of those features become diluted and a little bit more cumbersome to use. This really
Art Gelwicks 41:33
has the same vibe to me that Android and Chrome OS, Chrome OS battle each other, wanting one wanting to be the other, you hear the arguments, I want a Chrome OS tablet, I’d love to have a Chrome OS phone, I wouldn’t good proper iOS or Android laptop, everybody’s trying to be what the other one is. And when it’s the same company doing it on both sides of the fence, they just they seem to struggle, Microsoft had the same challenges too. So I’m curious to see what Apple does with this, because they have to consume some of their own sales to make this type of thing happen. Somebody was going to buy a Mac, you know, a MacBook may not do that. Now, if they’ve got a high end iPad Pro, and they have the right accessories, why would they go make that other purchase? So I’m sure in the long run, they’re not going to lose any money from it. But
Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:23
yeah, we talked about the 2018 2019. Fuchsia, and, you know, and so we have fuchsia, now in the in the mean, flooding in the world, we have, we have them on the nest hubs, you know, they’re running, you know, a bunch of nest devices. And yet, we have not seen the bridge between Android and Chrome OS, you know, slim at all. I mean, when we get to Google IO, you can see that they’ve taken phone hub as the solution for bridging the gap, as opposed to utilizing the Android app based ecosystem to synchronize your application. So there must be some, you know, difficulty in terms of infrastructure to make that all happen. Microsoft has been slow with Windows bringing more and more of the Android apps to the desktop. So you know, like, this is a real challenge for everyone. And there is no I think right solution for everyone. But the operating system, developers need to come to some happy medium across the board in terms of how this is all going to work out for everybody. All right, so we have reached the end of our tech stories. And we’re moving right into our business and finance segment. Good. So you want to run through those really quickly. And then we’ll get into our featured story this week.
Augusto Pinaud 43:33
Yeah, this week, we have really one news. And here’s the remarkable raise around a funding of a $1 billion valuation after they sold the device number 1 million. And remarkable is doing very well on what they wanted to do. I still don’t like the fact that they’re completely closed. I think you need to belong to Google store or Apple Store. I don’t care which side of the fence but I want the apps, I want the opportunity to integrate with my other technologies, you know, and as we discussed in cross platform, buying a bucket that doesn’t connect with anything is not going to be a device that I am interested in.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 44:15
I’ll play devil’s advocate here, though, just for the fun of it, which is to say that, you know, this is a I forget if they’re Finnish or if they’re Swedish, but they’re they’re basically adhering to, I think a good kind of GDPR compliant perspective, which is, let’s not put anything in either of the app stores, that’s going to cause us to have to deal with any of those issues that they’re currently dealing with right now. And by being exclusive in that space. And I mean, exclusionary not exclusive as being the only one by being exclusionary in that space. They’re actually shielding themselves for growth. And we can see that it’s happened because there are lots of privacy conscious folks out there. And or even if they’re, even if it’s privacy Get her right. There’s a lot of people out there, oh, I’m privacy conscious I want I care about data privacy, I do care about data security. Remember, you know, the average lifespan of human beings like 80 something years, right? Maybe a little bit less than that. But you know, whatever. Your data privacy, as much as I care about cybersecurity, data security, privacy, and so and so forth, we all have to take some calculated risks as as it comes to these things. And a lot of people present themselves as being more privacy secure than they really are or privacy aware than they are. And so I think, I think they’re, they’re dancing on a fine line, and doing it pretty well. So far, I have a lot of clients who have now bought remarkable tablets, and are pretty damn pleased with the experience, I still want connectivity to Evernote, as you can imagine, you know, but I don’t think they’re going to do it, right. Like they’re much more inclined to use their own silo have these integrations that you pay for through their Kinect subscription, and they’re gonna make their money right off a very exclusive group of people. And you could, you know, you got a million tablets with people spending, you know, several $100 on that plus the peripherals that they provide. And then this $10, or whatever, a month subscription plan on top of that for the Connect service. So they’re going to do just fine in that niche that they don’t need to pander to the larger audience. And that’s my, that’s my devil’s advocate view here. I’m curious if it’ll pan out for them. But this new round of funding, bringing them up to a $1 billion valuation is a pretty strong indication that they’re on the right track.
Art Gelwicks 46:31
Yeah, I think you’re on target with that. This is the type of product that has a built in audience to it. It has a specific use case. And they’re not trying to be everything to everybody. So that means that they don’t have to worry about all backward compatibility, cross compatibility, things like that, if you want to break the bonds of the ecosystem, you’re gonna pay to do it. So I look at something like the remarkable it’s going to be another product that probably has a lifespan probably does well for for a period of time. But at some point, somebody’s going to it’s going to hit that threshold, we see this all the time, it’s going to hit a threshold of adoption, where enough have sold, where other companies will now try to come in into that exact same space, try to undercut and that to me will be the defining factor as to whether or not remarkable can survive over time is can they handle competition, because for all intents and purposes, they really don’t have any competition in this particular space right now?
Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:34
Absolutely. Okay. On from our business and finance segment to our featured story this week, which is just a bunch of stories mash together, because Google IO, as I noted, at the top of the show happened, which is their developer conference, they had two keynotes. The first keynote was more generalized for the general population, their second keynote was very focused on developers. So if you don’t know what Kotler is, or you know, any of the other application programming languages that are out there, your eyes would glaze over during such a keynote. But we’re going to cover the highlights that we kind of thought of, you know, and pointed out kind of jumped out to us during Google IO. And and we’ll kind of go from there. What were your biggest takeaways from Google I O this year, other than the fact that there was a live audience in the amphitheater, which is really nice.
Augusto Pinaud 48:24
You know, what I what for me was, was, you know, Google is, to a certain extent, follow the apple playbook. And we can argue there is a Samsung one, but it’s, you know, at the end doesn’t matter. They are trying to make you understand that if you buy Google, your phone, your tablet, your machine, you will be able to play simpatico. And that’s something that Apple start and I have always said, it is incredibly powerful, it is incredible powerful, that I grab an iPad, or I grab my Mac, or I grab a phone, and everything is there, and everything is easy, and everything is friendly. And that seems to be a theme that they pick into this year. Okay, we are going to try to really integrate that. And Samsung did it in a great way. And, you know, if you grab their laptop, or their tablet or their phone, you get all that Samsung ecosystem. So that for me, is the good news of the event.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 49:31
The only umbrage I take with that statement of Gousto is that if you pick up a Samsung device, and you pick up another Samsung device, and you pick up another Samsung device, they all look the same. They all feel the same. And did anybody see that pixel tablet? That thing with the big white bezels? Like,
Art Gelwicks 49:47
oh, I was gonna stinking, don’t even get me started on that thing. We’ll come to it. Because I had a very visceral reaction when I saw that. So I think white bezels My reaction to all this was, you know, the vaunted Google innovation. My first reaction was, huh, I just, I just completely yawn. I’m sorry, I know, it sounded like a yak. But it bored me out of my mind. The only things that were remotely innovative, we saw we got a tiny sneak peek of the pixel sevens. And that’s fine. But even that didn’t didn’t break any new ground for me. We saw the watch. Okay, I’ve seen it before. I literally, I think we’ve seen it before. I don’t think they’ll admit to it. But I think we have, I was disappointed. And I don’t say that often about Google. I mean, I’m always I’m a bit of a fanboy. But I think this kind of felt like them mailing it in. And it’s not even so much about the hardware is the fact that a lot of the stuff was, you’ll see it later, you’ll see it in the fall, it’s come later on, it’s there wasn’t a lot of meat to this. And the things that they did put out on the table were either they should have had them already, or giant white bezel. So it’s like the heck is this.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 51:12
So I’ll give them a little bit of deference only for the fact that a lot of what they wanted to do has been stymied by the pandemic and supply chain issues. So I can absolutely see that they wanted probably to get out the gate with all of these devices at this event, they probably wanted to put out some new nest hardware as well. But they could not because of not being able to get access to chips and some of the other parts or give them like 2% deference. The rest of it, I have to I have to agree art, it was a snooze fest. I mean, like the the performative quality to them on stage, maybe it was just the energy from the lack of a room and being in an amphitheater, and you could kind of see that they were outdoors, and there’s a little bit of wind going on, and it wasn’t perfect. Man, I just and like I love the diversity on stage, just like with Samsung, you know, they really worked on on bringing a diverse set of people to present the material, you know, wasn’t the same old faces, these are bringing the actual project product managers and people who were there heading up these divisions to be able to talk about their products. I expected some dynamism. And it was just tough, right. And so I watched the full length version. And then I watched the the 18 Minute cut that I think the verge did, or whatever else. I was like, Oh, I got to put the verge cut on on to x just to be able to not fall asleep. So you know, it just needed a little bit more energy.
Augusto Pinaud 52:35
But I’m going to say that Samsung has been getting better and better and better. But it because if we go to the Samsung events, maybe four or five events back, okay, I remember having the same reaction was like, you know, I watch it and open my eyes like this, I could end up and like you said The Verge 18 minute thing was too long. So I want to give them a pass on that one. And I hope that with the changes they’re trying to implement, they’re going to also improve over time because it was a different shell it was, again, it was they pull the Samsung playbook and try to copy the show. And well, that’s when you can when you copy the show,
Art Gelwicks 53:23
you could tell that this was the first time that they had tried to introduce the concept of an ecosystem. They the product line is set up to do that. Now they’re thinking the only thing they’re missing is a computer. But you The analogy I came to in my head is if you imagine back in high school or back in school picking teams for dodgeball. Apple and Samsung are the two first picked. They’re polish. They’re good. There’s I’m sorry, but Google’s the kid who’s standing against the wall last picked. I mean, he showed up to play who showed up to play you’re just going to all we got Google. Okay. That’s that’s kind of the vibe. You’re right. Right. i It felt flat. It felt it just they really needed to step it up. And I’m hoping they take lessons from what they’ve done. And the reaction that I’ve seen across the board from people and say, Okay, maybe we need to pump this up a notch.
Augusto Pinaud 54:21
And I think they will and I think I’m not that Google guide so but he’s it is difficult when you begin I remember when Apple beginning to grading like that. People make fun of Apple wants to travel this and I was like, Oh, this is so cool. Well,
Art Gelwicks 54:39
you mean you’re taking a headphone jack out? No,
Augusto Pinaud 54:41
it was or not including the power of break. Oh, there
Art Gelwicks 54:47
you go. Even better. But,
Augusto Pinaud 54:49
but the reality is the concept. It’s moving in the right direction. The show was terrible. But what they try If you take the show away, what they are trying to do and the change they’re trying to implement, I think it’s going to be great for Samsung and great for Apple. Because the moment everybody tries to integrate, everybody will need to raise because now we’re going to have a creative battle on how we make this better, instead of what we have been having over the years,
Art Gelwicks 55:24
well, and I think you’re right on this, and I will reserve some of my criticism for Google for this. They are now the third player in this mix, officially, they’ve always been a kind of also ran, hey, we kind of have something here. Now they want a seat at the table, they’re they’re part of the one to three thing, you know, they’ve got the watch, they’ve got the phone, they’ve got the laptop, they’ve got all the pieces to be a viable option. Whether they’re an equal option is an entirely different conversation. But they are a viable option. They have a seat at the table now. So the question is, can they take that and drive that further, without taking off Samsung, I’ll be curious to see that. There’s a
Raymond Sidney-Smith 56:09
number of things that I wanted to just kind of point out here, and I’ll stop, you know, shitting on Google here, what they shouldn’t shouldn’t do. But I will note that there was a very clear lack of talking about Chrome and talking about Chrome OS in the entire keynote. And they knew that they couldn’t really talk about those things, because they do have to mediate their conversation between who Google is, Google is a data company that sells ads. And, and then on top of that, they have this front end, kind of very, you know, pleasure seeking, consumer friendly, you know, pixel and nest brand that they are pushing in front of the audience. And, you know, there are those of us who who love it. I’m a Google Small Business Advisor. I’m a Google Chrome product expert, I love Google. But I’m not unwilling to challenge them on on things. And as a chrome product expert, I was really, you know, kind of annoyed, because they’ve done a lot of really amazing things with Chrome this year. And they chose to take give it a backseat. But I also recognize that they’re actually trying to, to, it’s a bit palliative to their OEMs, right, because if they go out there, and they’ve got all this hardware that they’re putting out there, those are competition there with their partners. So they need to make sure that they balance that out really, really well. So I understand where they’re coming from, it doesn’t make me as a consumer, less frustrated with the snooze fest, because it could have been a lot more dynamic. And a lot of what they talked about, though, even from the general keynote stage, were like, lots of under the hood, things that I think could have been just better presented. You know, it’s like last IO where they were, you know, with him talking to Pluto, you know, it’s just like, we’re talking about lambda. And like, just come on, you have an entire team of people who could just make this more fun. Like Google’s whole premise is to be fun, right? You’ve got, you know, like, you’ve got the whole Googleplex and the fun concept, and then you get up there and you do the most unfun things, you know, and so I just really, I want Google to do better in this regard. And so I just
Art Gelwicks 58:21
realized it felt like a Microsoft hardware launch event. It really did. And I know that I’m sorry, guys, I know that’s a shot. But it’s it felt like an early days Microsoft hardware launch event, and specifically, because of what you’re saying, though, Ray, tiptoeing around there, OEMs not wanting to upset, you know, their primary income sources. You got to play both sides of the fence on that. So,
Augusto Pinaud 58:48
yeah, well, maybe that’s the cherry they’re trying to take him or not take Apple or Samsung, but Microsoft chair, who does?
Raymond Sidney-Smith 58:55
The fun not gonna be difficult to nowadays? I mean, you know, but so, so let’s talk about highlights. What’s the most important thing that came out of Google IO for you, and then we can we can kind of talk about any final pieces as we come come to a close here. So I’m gonna I’m gonna go first, just because I want to, I want to talk about this, which is the pixel watch. I’m I’m so glad that they finally announced it. I’m also slightly annoyed that it’s going to be a while yet before we actually see it. And but I was I was really pleased with the announcement. One is that it’s now real, right? Because it hasn’t been only rumor, rumor, rumor and lots of rumor mill, it’s great to actually see the device on stage on people’s wrists, which means that they have these these devices in some level of of test manufacturing. And the things that really stood out for me was the tight integration of the pixel brand within the watch. And again, I just cannot highly criticize Samsung enough for sticking me with Bixby and and not giving me access to my own Google data through through the assistant. And so that, you know, I want to be able to say, hey, gee, and go from there, I do not like being locked into an ecosystem, when I’ve paid you several $100, to put something on my wrist that you’re collecting all of this data about, and, and I just, it really frustrates me. So I know, they said, there, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. But you’ve been telling me it’s coming for a little too long. You know, I had, I had a Google Assistant, built into my Huawei Watch back in whatever, you know, ancient times. So it’s not like it can’t be done, I will know, the Google Maps offline feature in the pixel watch, really entices me being able to disconnect, you know, from your phone and continue to get the directions on your watch as you’re traveling. That’s a real seller. For me, I think that’s a really great feature. I know, it’s available already in certain parts of the ecosystem within Where is but this was, it was a really nice kind of highlight Google Home integration and being able to access and control your devices with a much more streamlined perspective. And then finally, like, you know, the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room, which is Fitbit and saying, Hey, we’re gonna start integrating Fitbit into our device. Because it makes so much sense. Google owns Fitbit, they have this, you know, this kind of veil between the two brands. And I see this as the first step toward integrating those pieces. And understanding that Fitbit owners when they first bought them, were very upset that you know, they were going to somehow be inculcated in the Google world, they needed to ameliorate them over time. And now they have, you know, I’ve got several fits around here. I’ve used Fitbit Fitbit for many years. But you know, in deference to Google Fit, I’ve just stopped using the Fitbit. But you know, the lots of different Fitbit devices out there. And they need to start integrating them under the pixel and the nest brand. And this is that first chink in the dike, where they are starting to show that they can do this and make it and make it seamless for the users. I’m really looking forward to the Apple Watch. And I will absolutely be getting one as soon as they announced it. And this Samsung Galaxy watch four will will be going on eBay. Do you want to call him
Augusto Pinaud 1:02:12
out on that? For the record that he said he’s looking forward to the Apple Watch? It’d be really, really
Art Gelwicks 1:02:20
the Freudian slip, we’re not letting you off the hook with that. Okay, so so I’m going to jump on. Yeah, well, uh, Gousto does his happy dance on camera, I’m going to jump on the other side of this fence. The pixel watch, there is nothing compelling me to buy that. Now I have a galaxy watch. Is it the perfect device? Absolutely not. It has all kinds of issues. However, that pixel watch is a design that’s been out for three years, four years, it looks exactly like an old Galaxy active. It’s using a chip from 2018. There is there is nothing from a design. Well, believe me, it’s okay. It is not something I am impressed with by any stretch to me this with all the time and all the talk that’s been about this. This is literally them showing up with like a C minus paper. Um,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:03:17
yeah, but then again, but again, you have a Samsung phone, you have a Samsung watch, they integrate really well together. I do not have that experience, right. I’ve got I’ve got Pixel phones, and carrying them between the Samsung and the pixel.
Art Gelwicks 1:03:31
Oh, I had I had a Samsung with a pixel for a while. And you’re right. It wasn’t perfect. And partially, the problem I had before is because it was Tizen tagged with Android. Now, that’s not the underlying case. Now there is equity of operating system, which means is the pixel watch superior to a fossil watch. Because a fossil watch is much more stylish, and we have to admit that watches are as much a fashion accessory as they are a functional device. I just think yeah, this is their one Oh, version. Great. I’m glad you got it out in the market. You better step it up for two. Yeah,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:04:14
I’m really I’m hoping the processor is better notwithstanding though they’ve made lots of optimizations to where OS I imagine that if I had were less on my original Huawei Watch, you know, it would probably run pretty well. You know, like that was a the the functionality of Wero s within really great hardware, I think would be would be fine today. The I think you’re right. It is a classic design, so to speak. But yeah, but they weren’t gonna go they weren’t gonna go after Apple’s design aesthetic. And I think it’s actually makes a lot of sense for it to be that I’m mostly concerned about that dome shape on like, how do you put a screen protector on that I have a screen protector on my Samsung. Watch. I’m a little bit concerned about that, so we have to figure that piece out. And that ginormous crown? Like, yeah,
Art Gelwicks 1:05:07
that’s I, I’ve had analog watches where that’s been a problem. And I worry that about that crown,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:05:14
yeah, I’m worried I’m gonna knock it off or something like that, but we’ll we’ll see. But I’m willing to test it out and, and give it give it a go purely because if it has the same kind of pixel launcher, type, you know, selective features that are available to me connected to the Pixel phone, I’m, I’m much more inclined to to have that kind of seamless integration between the two. So I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But you know, if it’s, if it’s not going to be a great watch in the in gen one, then they’ve got to be really concerned about whether people will be willing to buy into gen two.
Art Gelwicks 1:05:46
I think. And this is something I’ve always speculated Google needed to bring up the Google pocket watch. Four times the screen size, it slips in the little pocket on the jeans, huge battery in it, it’s got your Wi Fi, it’s got your LTE, you got plenty of space there. You can put your hand or your assistant in it. Why does it have to be strapped to your wrist?
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:06:08
And then they can then in the Google store, they can add a top hat and cane?
Art Gelwicks 1:06:11
Exactly why not? It can be sponsored by Mr. Peanut. Yeah.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:06:16
All right. Well, what what was the biggest highlight for you in the show?
Art Gelwicks 1:06:21
Oh, it I struggled a little bit. I did like seeing the new pixel seven physical design. To me, it’s very reminiscent of all admitted the original iPhone, that nice curvy edge to it, that big old bar on the back where the cameras are. That’s nice. That’s become the signature aesthetic for Google with those phones. We won’t see anything else about those until they start leaking it probably mid summer
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:06:47
bugs for them?
Art Gelwicks 1:06:48
It does it does. It makes you can look at that phone. And this is again, the type of thing that Google finally did right with the phones is you can look at it from the back when somebody else is using it. No, that’s a pixel saying what you have with an apple, you know, that’s an apple, or that’s a Samsung, that visual differentiation makes all the difference from a branding perspective. The biggest thing for me, it’s it’s ridiculous. Chrome OS version 101, that when you power it up, the screen is not white, it is black. So it does not blind you when you start it up. Those types of little continuous improvements to me are huge. And I love to see those kinds of improvements. From a hardware perspective. Again, it’s one of those things that’s like it was about time, the Google the new Google buds coming out with active noise canceling and pass through audio. It’s about time that is based on the experience I’ve had with my Samsung ones. Absolutely, that would be worth it. And there is one little interesting nuance about those. They use bone conduction technology in the earbuds to detect when you’re talking, instead of using the microphone to recognize and then flip it over there picking up the vibration through your skull, which I think is going to be it’s a great way to do it. You know, we’re all aftershocks fans, and that bone conducting technology is just fantastic. If you’re using this stuff from from an otherwise, you know, innovation standpoint, the only thing I really wanted, I’ll admit, are the glasses. I thought the glasses were cool. Probably because they looked like my glasses. But I thought that idea of taking Google Glass to where it should have been not necessarily as a recording vise or anything else. But that being live translation was really compelling to me. I thought that was a really interesting storyline. Now granted, it’s simulated, but still, I think the technology is there. I think we’re at that point where we should be able to do that type of thing. I’m going to touch okay, you said what I liked. Let’s talk about what I wasn’t a fan of that tablet. Okay, we talked about that tablet. We really good. We all just admit that that’s a Google nest with no stand that they just used that screen, slapped a skinny back on and said, Hey, we have a tablet.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:09:19
I hope that is I hope that is like the pre alpha version. And they just had to show something, because it’s not coming out to 2023 Anyway, but such a terrible, terrible design. Terrible.
Art Gelwicks 1:09:31
I understand what they were thinking. I literally went and dug well. Yeah, I dug out a 2014 iPad and it had smaller bezels it just boggles my mind how some some of this stuff gets through the design phases. And maybe it’s just that because Google’s such an engineering company in such a data company that some of this stuff still eludes them. Know that. You’re not buying that.
Augusto Pinaud 1:09:57
No, no, I’m not. I’m sorry. They’re is no excuse for that thing I made by the Okay, we need to show something on the screen and this, okay, show this. But no, they
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:10:11
need to be a black bezel. I mean, think of it when the screen is off and you see that really stark outside bezel, and then you turn on a show. So you pull up Netflix, and you’ve got this big white border around, you want that to blend into the background while you’re watching a show. You don’t want to feel like you’re watching a little tiny television, you want you want this show to pop out to you, you want the screen to light up and give you an experience. And it’s anything but that. And so I just don’t think they I don’t think they have that. Right? They’ve got to figure out that design.
Art Gelwicks 1:10:42
I get why they’re doing it, though. And this is what bothers me is that I almost understand it. Because it looks like the Google nest. It looks like the other devices they’re putting around in your house. But it’s it’s following a brand new aesthetic. But it just guys, it’s not one you need to follow. This was
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:11:00
they could they could take that they could take that pixel tablet, and they could make it designed after the seven and seven Pro and give it that kind of body. And that would be sexy as hell. I mean, you know, that would be great for oh, yeah, sure design perspective. You know what I mean? Like, that’s what I’m looking for them to do, give me that big ol bar on the back, you know, just just make it a big ol thing on the side or whatever. But it’s going to it’s now going to be this beautiful device, it would challenge the tab series, like you’d really feel like the Galaxy Tab and
Augusto Pinaud 1:11:35
any Samsung device was done. But you
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:11:37
know, no, I mean, not what the innards but I mean, you know just what the design aesthetic you want it to you want it to feel premium. And what they’ve done is they’ve made it look like a cheap plastic toy. They look like they look like the Nexus sevens, which I loved. By the way, I love the Nexus seven, but still have minor drawer. Yeah, absolutely brilliant device. But they just, they made it look cheap. They made it look like some, you know, like a knockoff that you bought in Shenzen. And you just brought home, you know, as a throwaway toy, they really need to make it feel premium, and they’ve got to compete
Augusto Pinaud 1:12:06
in with them with the Kindles.
Art Gelwicks 1:12:10
I looked, I looked at that bezel and I expected to see a switch on the back that turned it into a giant ring light. That’s kind of where my mind went right away. There’s a feature there, that must be it.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:12:22
If that had that functionality? I would be I would
Art Gelwicks 1:12:24
and you know what they could sell that there would be an audience for that. Absolutely. But even that kind of went. So I just thought I’ll touch on
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:12:33
that I’ll touch on the air glasses since you brought it up. I think that was a really, really smart move on their on their behalf. I know they got some flack for it in the media. But the concerns, of course are going to be doesn’t have a camera or does it have sensors in the in the glasses. You know, Google Glass has continued to be very, very well sold in the enterprise environment. This is this a really, really great product in the enterprise environment, in manufacturing and field service representatives and so on and so forth. Field service technicians out there doing stuff and having that heads up display in a glasses format is really, really good. Now, bringing this to the consumer market, I think they absolutely need to go where other companies have gone by partnering with, you know, they, I guess they need to suck up to exotica or one of the other companies, they’re to have some really good fashion frames there, they need a good designer to come out and do some stuff there. I thought the frames looked fine. But they certainly could have a wider variety of options for different face sizes, different different styles. And and then I think that it gave me just a few more features, right, just like with the watch and being able to just have directions in an offline mode. So I could be walking around and just have a heads up display and know where I was going. I’m always lost. I’m geographically challenged. And so the ability to just have glasses on and perch and be like, Hey, you’re walking in the wrong direction. You know, you walk in downtown instead of Uptown, right? Maybe you should turn around, you know, and I could just like gently act like I was turning around, you know, look like an idiot on the sidewalk. That would be really great for me. I don’t know what they’re going to do about bone conduction and being able to give you the ability to listen to audio feedback and those kinds of things in circumstances where the heads up display is going to be distracting. I think they need to be able to figure that piece out. But you know, I think it’s I think it’s a good move. It’s the right time. I think Google Glass was ahead of its time. It also had a lot of problems aesthetically for audiences but now people are are comfortable Mehta had those Ray Ban glasses and those sold really well for for Mehta, it’s not in everybody’s hands and not everybody’s using it but there are a number of people snap with their with their glasses came out with with their own glasses frames. So this is starting to become a thing that people are becoming more comfortable with. This is the right time for them. And they also wanted to beat Apple to the to the table and that’s really easy to do. Apple will do it beautifully but But I think Google does a great job. And alphabet generally does a great job of putting out innovative products. And we know that they, they did that with Google last, this is the next iteration of it. And I think it was the right smart time to do so. Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. No, good. So what was your favorite thing out of today’s out of the Google it out?
Augusto Pinaud 1:15:18
You know, for me, for me, the product was really nothing I’m getting I am not Google Earth. For me. The big thing, as I said at the beginning, was the integration or the idea of integration. And the idea that now we may bring to people, three options, you know, move to the Apple ecosystem, move to the Samsung ecosystem, or move to the Google ecosystem, and you will be able to have a consistent experience. And I think that’s a win.
Art Gelwicks 1:15:49
Yeah, I just want to touch real fast back on the glasses piece, because I think Google did some foreshadowing in their Android part. And specifically in the Google search part of the presentation, that I think the dots start to connect to. So it’s, for me, it’s three things with the glasses, one, there’s a couple of companies out there that have basically like magnetic clip on fronts for their glasses frame, so you can change the visual styling, I think that would be a perfect partnership for this, that you can completely customize whatever. Second, if there is a camera, it needs to have like a little light up.in The temple, clear that problem out right away, let it be obnoxious, let people but where I think this really breaks things open, Google introduced as part of their search discussion, multi image search, being able to start, let’s say, for example, at a grocery store shelf, pan along that shelf. And while you’re doing that, in real time, it is recognizing the product labels and providing you back that VR type of information that would be incredibly compelling with this, these types of devices. And I think when we when we go back to Google lens, or Google Glass, rather, Google Glass was, what 10 years ago, if this little tiny, funky looking thing, this design aesthetic they have again, because they look like my glasses, they just fit, they’re comfortable, people are used to seeing them, it’s not going to throw people off, you just have to be they people will freak out. Because they will think that there’s a camera in Google Glass, you’ll look like a cyborg, it was kind of a given that you had something weird there. So this is a different conversation, I think,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:17:26
yeah, and it didn’t have the notification, you know, that you were being recorded concept, it was there was a lot of lot of things that that were, you know, off there, I do like the throwback to to Apple here, they they did bring, copy and paste between devices. Finally to to your clipboard, between the really interesting thing is though, you know, you’re dealing with multiple operating systems and being able to copy something and, you know, to your clipboard and paste it to another device, you know, that’s a little less, you know, a little more difficult than, you know, then between two operating systems built or three operating systems technically built by the same company, you know, here goes Google really patch working together, you know, the all of the pieces to make the copy and paste between devices happening. So I give them kudos there. I’m really excited about phone hub and seeing more that that ability to just stream your screen to phone hubs. So you can actually see the application in that, in that view on Chrome OS, I think I really liked that. One, once, you know, derivation off to the developer conference keynote, they they noted that flutter three was was announced. And now you can basically develop for six platforms out the box using using flutter. And and so with the combination of Android Studio and flutter, and all that they’re doing with Jetpack compose, I really give Google kudos to being cross platform at its core. And that helps them write, you know, empowering developers. But I found that to be from a productivity perspective, for those who are developers out there, it really gives a compelling case for being able to go over to Google and to utilize flutter in a way that just streamlines your entire ecosystem. And even if you’ve written all of your applications for other platforms, just deciding to, you know, support it until you’ve built flutter up from the ground up so that you can just have more operating systems supported, like think of the productivity there for a developer being able to put one codebase together and for to just look beautifully across all of the devices and jetpack compose as well as androids ability to do multi view, you know, previews, you know, so you can see big screen, small screen watch screen all in one view and Android Studio, just some really good they’ve been really thinking about how to develop better. Make sense, because Google is an engineering company underneath the hood, and they just do such a really great job. With it all. I just wanted to give them kudos in that regard.
Art Gelwicks 1:19:59
We all know cross platform is the most important thing. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:20:05
pun intended. Any final and closing thoughts around Google IO gentlemen? I
Art Gelwicks 1:20:14
step it up guys, your phone this one, and we’ll give you a pass on this do better.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:20:20
I think I think the developer conference keynote was better for me, which is sad. All right. So against that, we have some announcements before we go below
Augusto Pinaud 1:20:30
announcements, one is possible possible now will allow you to track your carts where you send and if you’re not familiar with possible, basically, you can do the cards, they will print it, you can type the message, and they will mail it for you. And they can even allow you to use like cursive font, you can do what your mother used to do with all those cards, but in the web, and pretty fast. And it’s an interesting concept. The second announcement is was hey, you guys, remember, hey, from long time ago, well, now if you get a ton of attachments, you can download them all at once into clicks, that is a new feature they bring. That is very nice, especially if you receive a bunch of them. The third announcement we have is Mr. Tag wants to task sorry, wants to improve. So they have a new survey. And they’re asking for people to go. So if you are a user or not, go and give them feedback, go check what they are, because you may not be a user, but you might be able to tell them what you like about the competition. And what they use. Second, related to Google IO is to do is decide that they’re going to come with their app for their where we’re OS. And they show and showcase a little bit of it. The next one is there is a settlement is a 14 point 8 million settlement for Apple if you were a user of Ike Cloud Plus. And you can find out how you can if you’re part of that settlement. And the final announcement is made 24 to 26. Microsoft built is in here, we will discuss this next week. And we invite art to come and discuss with us and we hope is more or better than
Art Gelwicks 1:22:24
Google. I’m gonna beat on them as much as I bet beat on Google because that’s
Augusto Pinaud 1:22:28
we are not I just hope it’s bad. That’s
Art Gelwicks 1:22:30
only fair. So I have high expectations for build this year on warranty. I’ve set
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:22:37
my expectations very low for build. So I’m hoping that I just come out even either way, as usual.
Augusto Pinaud 1:22:44
is pretty low for Bill.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:22:47
Thank you art for coming on the show. And as always, we’ll see you next week of course. But how can folks learn more about you and what you’ve got going on around?
Art Gelwicks 1:22:56
My pleasure? I’m so happy to be here anytime you guys invite me over. Best thing to do find me over at Gelwicks tech.com I have parked everything there. All audio, video, everything merch, you name it. I got all kinds of stuff there now. So come visit me. Come hang out. We’ll chat and who knows you might learn something.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:23:16
Fantastic. Wonderful. So head over Gelwicks Tech and Gelwicks tech.com. And of course we will see you next week art for Anything But Idle. Thank
Unknown 1:23:24
you. Thanks, guys already
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:23:27
Gousto we have made it through the Google I O reactions episode for 2022 Thank you so much for putting together the show each and every week. It
Augusto Pinaud 1:23:36
is my pleasure. You know, this one could have been resuming one emoticon, you know, the sad crying face but okay.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:23:45
All right. And with that we’ve covered the productivity and related technology news this week. If you go to anything but idle.com, you’ll find our show notes. Those show notes include a whole litany of things. They include all of the stories we discussed today. They include the extra stories we didn’t cover today. And it includes a text transcript, both that’s readable on the page, just click on that read more Lincoln and expand so that you can read it on page. You can also click the download link below below that and that will download a PDF that you can read offline or you know, view offline, annotate offline in notability, or good notes or whatever else you use. If you look at the show notes, and if there’s something missing, then feel free to comment on the episode and let us know. You can also tweet or DM us at Anything But Idle on Twitter. You can contact us through our contact form on the website by going to anything but idle.com forward slash contact. And yeah, and you can do the same for questions and comments. We’re always happy to interact with you all. The best way to of course interact with us though, is to head over to personal productivity club where we have a community space. If you go to anything but idle.com forward slash community. You’ll be taken directly to join the podcast group that we have there inside of personal productivity As you’ll see, we post each episode. And you’ll be able to ask questions interact over the news of the week, and so on so forth. They’re with us. So we really invite you to join us over there in the community. All right, if this is your first time watching the live stream, feel free to click the subscribe button, click the thumbs up icon to help us broadcast this to more people always good to get the kudos. But it just really helps us find new listeners and bring new listeners into the fold. If you’re listening to the podcast, feel free to leave a rating and review and whatever podcast app of choice you’re using. And we really appreciate the feedback. We appreciate the compliments of course, but we really do enjoy the feedback that we get from all of you. And so thank you for doing that. With that. We will see you all next time on Anything But Idle here’s to your productive life.
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Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.