August 8, 2018 • 7 mins
Google has released the final version of Android 9 Pie to the Pixel. Learn how the built in Artificial Intelligence will help you conserve battery life and get things done faster. Plus, how a new feature called Digital Wellbeing can help you understand the time you spend on your phone, limit distracting app use and help you wind down for the night.Android 9 Piehttps://blog.google/products/android/introducing-android-9-pie/Digital Wellbeinghttps://www.blog.google/products/pixel/try-out-digital-wellbeing-find-your-own-balance-pixel/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontechEasy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The new version of Android is here and it's as
easy as pie. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This
is Rich on Tech and yes, back after a short vacation,
Google released the final version of Android nine, Android P
as it's called, and they revealed what the PEE stands for,
which is pie. So what's new. Well, I've been using
(00:25):
the beta version on my pixel to XL for a
while now, and the final update actually improved from the
lagginess myself and others have experienced on this device. Now.
I'm still sort of disappointed that this phone is not
even a year old and it still seems slow compared
to the iPhone ten and other devices. But Android nine
definitely sped things up just a little bit. So let's
(00:47):
talk about Android nine. It's not a dramatic change from
what you're used to, but there are some big differences
to talk about, especially things under the hood that should
make life just a little bit easier for starters. Google
says there is even more artificial intelligence built in, and
that's pretty clear. Your phone basically learns how you use
it and adapts accordingly. Two big areas for this battery
(01:09):
and brightness. We're always trying to squeeze more battery out
of our devices, and now Android P can help. It
will notice which apps that you aren't using and it
will put them into a very deep sleep. This way,
they don't gobble up your battery in the background, and
it does this intelligently. When it comes to screen brightness,
Android P takes an interesting approach. While you've always been
(01:30):
able to manually override Android's automatic brightness settings, this time
around your phone kind of takes notice of what you
do with your brightness. So, for instance, maybe you want
your phone screen to stay a little bit brighter in
a dark room. The automatic brightness controls will take this
into consideration when it does the adjusting the next time around.
Does that make sense? So if you are in a
(01:51):
dark room a lot and you keep putting the brightness up,
your phone will start to notice that, and eventually it
will keep the brightness at a pretty bright level because
it knows that's the way you like it. It's a little thing,
but that's pretty smart. Now when it comes to navigating
your phone, you're gonna notice a very big difference. There
is only one button now at the bottom of your
screen instead of three, So most of the time you're
(02:13):
just going to see a little home button. Then when
you need it, you're gonna see a back button show up.
If you want to get to your recent apps, you
have to swipe up on the home button and then
all of your apps are now shown as individual cards.
You can swipe them away like you used to, and
there also is an option to clear all, which is
my personal favorite. Just like on the iPhone, you can
(02:34):
toggle between your last two apps by just swiping at
the bottom of the screen. That's a nice gesture. Or
you can press hold and swipe to go between all
of your recent apps. I know it sounds complicated. It
takes a little bit of getting used to, but you
will get used to it and it kind of works.
I'm not a huge fan of it right now, but
eventually I'm sure I'll get used to it and forget
about the old way. You also have the ability to
(02:54):
split screen your apps, and if you want to get
to your drawer of all of your apps, that now
now kind of takes two actions instead of just swiping
up once. That will now just bring up what Android
thinks are the apps that you want to use. Next,
you have to swipe up again to see all of
your apps. I know it's another thing that you're gonna
have to get used to, but you will eventually. When
(03:16):
you do swipe up to see all of your apps,
you will notice a new feature called app actions. These
are little shortcut buttons dynamically generated based on what Android
thinks you want to do. Next. You see that theme
here Android artificial intelligence. They're really trying to predict what
the user is doing to make things simpler. For instance,
right now, my app actions show two there's a shortcut
(03:38):
to play a recent playlist I played on Spotify, or
another one touch to text my sister who I was
texting earlier in the morning. Now, I think these are
too buried to be truly useful. Perhaps if they showed
up on the home screen they might get more use,
or even when you swipe up that first time to
see your suggested apps, if they appeared there, that might
be a better place for them as well. Cool feature
(04:00):
I've seen in Action is called smart text selection. This
builds on what Android used to have, like when you
select text like an address, and it would say stuff
like maps. Well, now it's gotten even smarter, so when
you select text, Android will attempt to understand the context
of that text and surface an appropriate action in addition
to the typical cut, copy paste, and web search. So
(04:21):
if you select a phone number, it will bring up
an instant action to call that number. If you select
an address, it will bring up an instant action to
bring that up in maps, and if you highlight a
restaurant name, it will bring up an option to open
it and yelp, which I find very handy. So that's
really smart, really useful, and I love that feature. Now,
the feature you might be most interested in isn't actually
(04:43):
built into Android nine just yet. It's called Digital well Being,
and you actually have to sign up for it separately
right now to get the beta on your device. Now
I've done that, and the insights you get from Digital
Wellbeing are really interesting. For starters, it will tell you
how long you've spent on your device. Then it will
break down how long you've spent into percentages and times
(05:04):
for individual apps. Then you can drill down even further
and see how long you've spent on an app every
day of the week. Yeah, you're gonna be surprised here.
For instance, yesterday I was on a plane all day.
I spent five hours and one minute on my phone
with eighty nine on locks and four hundred and eighty
six notifications. Who didn't realize I got that many. But
that includes all your texts and stuff like that. It
(05:26):
says I spent the most time on YouTube, then Instagram
and Twitter, and YouTube was kind of an abnormality yesterday
because I was watching a lot of YouTube on the plane.
So I get that. But what can you do with
all this data? Well, for starters, you can set time
limits for individual apps, so your phone, once you reach
that time limit will keep you from using that particular app.
I'm gonna try setting an hour for starters on Instagram
(05:48):
and Facebook just to see what happens. But once you're
locked out, you can always override the lockout if you want.
Other things that Digital well Being does. It turns your
phone gray scale at night at a time you choose,
so this helps you wind down for bed. This happened
to me last night. It made my phone so boring
because everything was grayscale. I didn't want to look at
Instagram or anything else, so I guess it kind of worked. Again.
(06:10):
You can disable this if you don't want it. And
this is in addition to nightlight. That's the feature that
kind of turns your screen a yellow hue. It filters
out blue light so it doesn't keep your brain going. Apparently,
I use that feature from sunrise to sunset. The grayscale
feature is in addition to that, you can also have
digital wellbeing stop visual notifications from appearing on your screen
(06:31):
during the wind down hours. That's just set. Basically, Google
is trying to get you to use your phone just
a little bit less and use it a little bit smarter. Overall,
Android P is a nice advance for the operating system.
Nothing too dramatic, but it is helpful in lots of
little ways. So when will you see it on your phone? Well,
if you have a pixel, you can get it right now.
But if you're rocking a pixel, something tells me you've
(06:52):
already downloaded the new software. So for the rest of you,
you can get the Android P Beta on select devices
from Sony, show Me, Nokia, Opo, Vivo OnePlus, and Essential.
But for the phones from the big manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola,
and LG, it looks like you're still gonna have to wait.
Usually it can take a few months for an update
(07:13):
to hit your handset. Now, speaking of Samsung. I am
in New York City for the launch of the upcoming
Galaxy Note nine. I will have full details on that
device very soon in the podcast, but if you want
minute by minute updates, follow me on Instagram. There I'm
Rich on Tech, and on Twitter I'm at Rich DeMuro.
Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demurro. I'll talk
(07:34):
to you real soon.
The new version of Android is here and it's as
easy as pie. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This
is Rich on Tech and yes, back after a short vacation,
Google released the final version of Android nine, Android P
as it's called, and they revealed what the PEE stands for,
which is pie. So what's new. Well, I've been using
(00:25):
the beta version on my pixel to XL for a
while now, and the final update actually improved from the
lagginess myself and others have experienced on this device. Now.
I'm still sort of disappointed that this phone is not
even a year old and it still seems slow compared
to the iPhone ten and other devices. But Android nine
definitely sped things up just a little bit. So let's
(00:47):
talk about Android nine. It's not a dramatic change from
what you're used to, but there are some big differences
to talk about, especially things under the hood that should
make life just a little bit easier for starters. Google
says there is even more artificial intelligence built in, and
that's pretty clear. Your phone basically learns how you use
it and adapts accordingly. Two big areas for this battery
(01:09):
and brightness. We're always trying to squeeze more battery out
of our devices, and now Android P can help. It
will notice which apps that you aren't using and it
will put them into a very deep sleep. This way,
they don't gobble up your battery in the background, and
it does this intelligently. When it comes to screen brightness,
Android P takes an interesting approach. While you've always been
(01:30):
able to manually override Android's automatic brightness settings, this time
around your phone kind of takes notice of what you
do with your brightness. So, for instance, maybe you want
your phone screen to stay a little bit brighter in
a dark room. The automatic brightness controls will take this
into consideration when it does the adjusting the next time around.
Does that make sense? So if you are in a
(01:51):
dark room a lot and you keep putting the brightness up,
your phone will start to notice that, and eventually it
will keep the brightness at a pretty bright level because
it knows that's the way you like it. It's a little thing,
but that's pretty smart. Now when it comes to navigating
your phone, you're gonna notice a very big difference. There
is only one button now at the bottom of your
screen instead of three, So most of the time you're
(02:13):
just going to see a little home button. Then when
you need it, you're gonna see a back button show up.
If you want to get to your recent apps, you
have to swipe up on the home button and then
all of your apps are now shown as individual cards.
You can swipe them away like you used to, and
there also is an option to clear all, which is
my personal favorite. Just like on the iPhone, you can
(02:34):
toggle between your last two apps by just swiping at
the bottom of the screen. That's a nice gesture. Or
you can press hold and swipe to go between all
of your recent apps. I know it sounds complicated. It
takes a little bit of getting used to, but you
will get used to it and it kind of works.
I'm not a huge fan of it right now, but
eventually I'm sure I'll get used to it and forget
about the old way. You also have the ability to
(02:54):
split screen your apps, and if you want to get
to your drawer of all of your apps, that now
now kind of takes two actions instead of just swiping
up once. That will now just bring up what Android
thinks are the apps that you want to use. Next,
you have to swipe up again to see all of
your apps. I know it's another thing that you're gonna
have to get used to, but you will eventually. When
(03:16):
you do swipe up to see all of your apps,
you will notice a new feature called app actions. These
are little shortcut buttons dynamically generated based on what Android
thinks you want to do. Next. You see that theme
here Android artificial intelligence. They're really trying to predict what
the user is doing to make things simpler. For instance,
right now, my app actions show two there's a shortcut
(03:38):
to play a recent playlist I played on Spotify, or
another one touch to text my sister who I was
texting earlier in the morning. Now, I think these are
too buried to be truly useful. Perhaps if they showed
up on the home screen they might get more use,
or even when you swipe up that first time to
see your suggested apps, if they appeared there, that might
be a better place for them as well. Cool feature
(04:00):
I've seen in Action is called smart text selection. This
builds on what Android used to have, like when you
select text like an address, and it would say stuff
like maps. Well, now it's gotten even smarter, so when
you select text, Android will attempt to understand the context
of that text and surface an appropriate action in addition
to the typical cut, copy paste, and web search. So
(04:21):
if you select a phone number, it will bring up
an instant action to call that number. If you select
an address, it will bring up an instant action to
bring that up in maps, and if you highlight a
restaurant name, it will bring up an option to open
it and yelp, which I find very handy. So that's
really smart, really useful, and I love that feature. Now,
the feature you might be most interested in isn't actually
(04:43):
built into Android nine just yet. It's called Digital well Being,
and you actually have to sign up for it separately
right now to get the beta on your device. Now
I've done that, and the insights you get from Digital
Wellbeing are really interesting. For starters, it will tell you
how long you've spent on your device. Then it will
break down how long you've spent into percentages and times
(05:04):
for individual apps. Then you can drill down even further
and see how long you've spent on an app every
day of the week. Yeah, you're gonna be surprised here.
For instance, yesterday I was on a plane all day.
I spent five hours and one minute on my phone
with eighty nine on locks and four hundred and eighty
six notifications. Who didn't realize I got that many. But
that includes all your texts and stuff like that. It
(05:26):
says I spent the most time on YouTube, then Instagram
and Twitter, and YouTube was kind of an abnormality yesterday
because I was watching a lot of YouTube on the plane.
So I get that. But what can you do with
all this data? Well, for starters, you can set time
limits for individual apps, so your phone, once you reach
that time limit will keep you from using that particular app.
I'm gonna try setting an hour for starters on Instagram
(05:48):
and Facebook just to see what happens. But once you're
locked out, you can always override the lockout if you want.
Other things that Digital well Being does. It turns your
phone gray scale at night at a time you choose,
so this helps you wind down for bed. This happened
to me last night. It made my phone so boring
because everything was grayscale. I didn't want to look at
Instagram or anything else, so I guess it kind of worked. Again.
(06:10):
You can disable this if you don't want it. And
this is in addition to nightlight. That's the feature that
kind of turns your screen a yellow hue. It filters
out blue light so it doesn't keep your brain going. Apparently,
I use that feature from sunrise to sunset. The grayscale
feature is in addition to that, you can also have
digital wellbeing stop visual notifications from appearing on your screen
(06:31):
during the wind down hours. That's just set. Basically, Google
is trying to get you to use your phone just
a little bit less and use it a little bit smarter. Overall,
Android P is a nice advance for the operating system.
Nothing too dramatic, but it is helpful in lots of
little ways. So when will you see it on your phone? Well,
if you have a pixel, you can get it right now.
But if you're rocking a pixel, something tells me you've
(06:52):
already downloaded the new software. So for the rest of you,
you can get the Android P Beta on select devices
from Sony, show Me, Nokia, Opo, Vivo OnePlus, and Essential.
But for the phones from the big manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola,
and LG, it looks like you're still gonna have to wait.
Usually it can take a few months for an update
(07:13):
to hit your handset. Now, speaking of Samsung. I am
in New York City for the launch of the upcoming
Galaxy Note nine. I will have full details on that
device very soon in the podcast, but if you want
minute by minute updates, follow me on Instagram. There I'm
Rich on Tech, and on Twitter I'm at Rich DeMuro.
Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demurro. I'll talk
(07:34):
to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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