Speaker 1: The new version of Android is here and it's as
Speaker 1: easy as pie. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This
Speaker 1: is Rich on Tech and yes, back after a short vacation,
Speaker 1: Google released the final version of Android nine, Android P
Speaker 1: as it's called, and they revealed what the PEE stands for,
Speaker 1: which is pie. So what's new. Well, I've been using
Speaker 1: the beta version on my pixel to XL for a
Speaker 1: while now, and the final update actually improved from the
Speaker 1: lagginess myself and others have experienced on this device. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm still sort of disappointed that this phone is not
Speaker 1: even a year old and it still seems slow compared
Speaker 1: to the iPhone ten and other devices. But Android nine
Speaker 1: definitely sped things up just a little bit. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about Android nine. It's not a dramatic change from
Speaker 1: what you're used to, but there are some big differences
Speaker 1: to talk about, especially things under the hood that should
Speaker 1: make life just a little bit easier for starters. Google
Speaker 1: says there is even more artificial intelligence built in, and
Speaker 1: that's pretty clear. Your phone basically learns how you use
Speaker 1: it and adapts accordingly. Two big areas for this battery
Speaker 1: and brightness. We're always trying to squeeze more battery out
Speaker 1: of our devices, and now Android P can help. It
Speaker 1: will notice which apps that you aren't using and it
Speaker 1: will put them into a very deep sleep. This way,
Speaker 1: they don't gobble up your battery in the background, and
Speaker 1: it does this intelligently. When it comes to screen brightness,
Speaker 1: Android P takes an interesting approach. While you've always been
Speaker 1: able to manually override Android's automatic brightness settings, this time
Speaker 1: around your phone kind of takes notice of what you
Speaker 1: do with your brightness. So, for instance, maybe you want
Speaker 1: your phone screen to stay a little bit brighter in
Speaker 1: a dark room. The automatic brightness controls will take this
Speaker 1: into consideration when it does the adjusting the next time around.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? So if you are in a
Speaker 1: dark room a lot and you keep putting the brightness up,
Speaker 1: your phone will start to notice that, and eventually it
Speaker 1: will keep the brightness at a pretty bright level because
Speaker 1: it knows that's the way you like it. It's a little thing,
Speaker 1: but that's pretty smart. Now when it comes to navigating
Speaker 1: your phone, you're gonna notice a very big difference. There
Speaker 1: is only one button now at the bottom of your
Speaker 1: screen instead of three, So most of the time you're
Speaker 1: just going to see a little home button. Then when
Speaker 1: you need it, you're gonna see a back button show up.
Speaker 1: If you want to get to your recent apps, you
Speaker 1: have to swipe up on the home button and then
Speaker 1: all of your apps are now shown as individual cards.
Speaker 1: You can swipe them away like you used to, and
Speaker 1: there also is an option to clear all, which is
Speaker 1: my personal favorite. Just like on the iPhone, you can
Speaker 1: toggle between your last two apps by just swiping at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the screen. That's a nice gesture. Or
Speaker 1: you can press hold and swipe to go between all
Speaker 1: of your recent apps. I know it sounds complicated. It
Speaker 1: takes a little bit of getting used to, but you
Speaker 1: will get used to it and it kind of works.
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of it right now, but
Speaker 1: eventually I'm sure I'll get used to it and forget
Speaker 1: about the old way. You also have the ability to
Speaker 1: split screen your apps, and if you want to get
Speaker 1: to your drawer of all of your apps, that now
Speaker 1: now kind of takes two actions instead of just swiping
Speaker 1: up once. That will now just bring up what Android
Speaker 1: thinks are the apps that you want to use. Next,
Speaker 1: you have to swipe up again to see all of
Speaker 1: your apps. I know it's another thing that you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get used to, but you will eventually. When
Speaker 1: you do swipe up to see all of your apps,
Speaker 1: you will notice a new feature called app actions. These
Speaker 1: are little shortcut buttons dynamically generated based on what Android
Speaker 1: thinks you want to do. Next. You see that theme
Speaker 1: here Android artificial intelligence. They're really trying to predict what
Speaker 1: the user is doing to make things simpler. For instance,
Speaker 1: right now, my app actions show two there's a shortcut
Speaker 1: to play a recent playlist I played on Spotify, or
Speaker 1: another one touch to text my sister who I was
Speaker 1: texting earlier in the morning. Now, I think these are
Speaker 1: too buried to be truly useful. Perhaps if they showed
Speaker 1: up on the home screen they might get more use,
Speaker 1: or even when you swipe up that first time to
Speaker 1: see your suggested apps, if they appeared there, that might
Speaker 1: be a better place for them as well. Cool feature
Speaker 1: I've seen in Action is called smart text selection. This
Speaker 1: builds on what Android used to have, like when you
Speaker 1: select text like an address, and it would say stuff
Speaker 1: like maps. Well, now it's gotten even smarter, so when
Speaker 1: you select text, Android will attempt to understand the context
Speaker 1: of that text and surface an appropriate action in addition
Speaker 1: to the typical cut, copy paste, and web search. So
Speaker 1: if you select a phone number, it will bring up
Speaker 1: an instant action to call that number. If you select
Speaker 1: an address, it will bring up an instant action to
Speaker 1: bring that up in maps, and if you highlight a
Speaker 1: restaurant name, it will bring up an option to open
Speaker 1: it and yelp, which I find very handy. So that's
Speaker 1: really smart, really useful, and I love that feature. Now,
Speaker 1: the feature you might be most interested in isn't actually
Speaker 1: built into Android nine just yet. It's called Digital well Being,
Speaker 1: and you actually have to sign up for it separately
Speaker 1: right now to get the beta on your device. Now
Speaker 1: I've done that, and the insights you get from Digital
Speaker 1: Wellbeing are really interesting. For starters, it will tell you
Speaker 1: how long you've spent on your device. Then it will
Speaker 1: break down how long you've spent into percentages and times
Speaker 1: for individual apps. Then you can drill down even further
Speaker 1: and see how long you've spent on an app every
Speaker 1: day of the week. Yeah, you're gonna be surprised here.
Speaker 1: For instance, yesterday I was on a plane all day.
Speaker 1: I spent five hours and one minute on my phone
Speaker 1: with eighty nine on locks and four hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: six notifications. Who didn't realize I got that many. But
Speaker 1: that includes all your texts and stuff like that. It
Speaker 1: says I spent the most time on YouTube, then Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter, and YouTube was kind of an abnormality yesterday
Speaker 1: because I was watching a lot of YouTube on the plane.
Speaker 1: So I get that. But what can you do with
Speaker 1: all this data? Well, for starters, you can set time
Speaker 1: limits for individual apps, so your phone, once you reach
Speaker 1: that time limit will keep you from using that particular app.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try setting an hour for starters on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Facebook just to see what happens. But once you're
Speaker 1: locked out, you can always override the lockout if you want.
Speaker 1: Other things that Digital well Being does. It turns your
Speaker 1: phone gray scale at night at a time you choose,
Speaker 1: so this helps you wind down for bed. This happened
Speaker 1: to me last night. It made my phone so boring
Speaker 1: because everything was grayscale. I didn't want to look at
Speaker 1: Instagram or anything else, so I guess it kind of worked. Again.
Speaker 1: You can disable this if you don't want it. And
Speaker 1: this is in addition to nightlight. That's the feature that
Speaker 1: kind of turns your screen a yellow hue. It filters
Speaker 1: out blue light so it doesn't keep your brain going. Apparently,
Speaker 1: I use that feature from sunrise to sunset. The grayscale
Speaker 1: feature is in addition to that, you can also have
Speaker 1: digital wellbeing stop visual notifications from appearing on your screen
Speaker 1: during the wind down hours. That's just set. Basically, Google
Speaker 1: is trying to get you to use your phone just
Speaker 1: a little bit less and use it a little bit smarter. Overall,
Speaker 1: Android P is a nice advance for the operating system.
Speaker 1: Nothing too dramatic, but it is helpful in lots of
Speaker 1: little ways. So when will you see it on your phone? Well,
Speaker 1: if you have a pixel, you can get it right now.
Speaker 1: But if you're rocking a pixel, something tells me you've
Speaker 1: already downloaded the new software. So for the rest of you,
Speaker 1: you can get the Android P Beta on select devices
Speaker 1: from Sony, show Me, Nokia, Opo, Vivo OnePlus, and Essential.
Speaker 1: But for the phones from the big manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola,
Speaker 1: and LG, it looks like you're still gonna have to wait.
Speaker 1: Usually it can take a few months for an update
Speaker 1: to hit your handset. Now, speaking of Samsung. I am
Speaker 1: in New York City for the launch of the upcoming
Speaker 1: Galaxy Note nine. I will have full details on that
Speaker 1: device very soon in the podcast, but if you want
Speaker 1: minute by minute updates, follow me on Instagram. There I'm
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech, and on Twitter I'm at Rich DeMuro.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demurro. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.