Category: podcast

After a two week podcast hiatus, Jon Westfall and I are back with MobileViews Podcast 259.

1. New Google Podcasts app. Ref: The Verge
2. Google Messages for web. Messages for web
3. Anchor for iPad
4. Anchor record with Friends
5. The cold blue light of modern touchscreens may be aesthetically pleasing, but it poses health problems
6. Jon’s Vacation Tech Report:
   A point-and-shoot camera, preferably with GPS, is still a must, especially at the beach where phones can overheat if not turned off, yet the camera works pretty well turning off and on all the time. Also sometimes you just need manual exposure controls before taking the photo, not after. — (TO) Can’t find point&shoot cameras with GPS anymore (JW): Jason Dunn says you can still find them, but they’re mostly rugged designs. Looks like the Olympus TG-870 or the Nikon Coolpix AW130 or AW300 are your best bets. https://amzn.to/2tVj8UH also looks promising.
   Apple SD Card adapter does fine with photos, but videos can be a frustrating endeavour. MTS files are the devil.
   Apple Watch Series 3 Cellular did an amazing job. Water mode is great, although optional if you forget (like I did once or twice – no way to turn on once water is on your fingers and the touch screen). Nice to feel like you’re still connected even if your phone is off (iMessage at the beach is great, used dictation)
   AirPods worked great paired to my phone and watch. Had to unpair and repair though, about a week before. They’d previously been paired to my apple account for over a year.
   Google Photos is easiest way to share a group of photos, especially with 2 people that are on Android. Even on iPhone it slightly eeks out Apple Photos in my opinion just because it’s unlimited.
   Packable bags FTW – my beach bag could easily be thrown in the wash and then stowed.
   I took all 4 of my primary “devices” (iPhone, iPad, Surface Pro, Macbook Pro) Used 3 of the 4 – which one do you think was left out?
   My bluetooth speaker is antiquated (Jabra Jambox I bought in 2013). Might be time for something louder and smaller/same size.
   Expanding Tech Organizer Bag was great.
7. And Jon’s “Back to School” shopping tip (We’re gonna get close to that time, usually right after 4th of July). Buy Pencil Cases when they go on sale for $0.99 or $0.59 – they’re great for storing little gear inside of drawers.

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

In this podcast, Jon Westfall and I discuss:

1. VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
2. Yahoo Messenger shutting down on July 17
3. NTIA
   Sixty-four percent of Americans used a smartphone in 2017, compared with 53 percent in 2015, and tablet use increased to 32 percent from 29 percent during the same period. The use of wearable devices such as smart watches and fitness bands—still a nascent product category—grew significantly to 8 percent of Americans, from 1 percent two years earlier. Smart TV and TV-connected device use also continued to increase, growing by seven percentage points to 34 percent from 2015 to 2017.

   Laptop use was unchanged at 46 percent of Americans, and desktop computer use continued to slide to 30 percent in 2017—meaning tablet use surpassed desktop computer use for the first time (see Figure 3).

4. The Verge WWDC highlights

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

1. Gmail UI redesign. Like some aspects like ease of seeing which messages have attachments. Still dislike the Google Calendar redesign which requires more clicks & typing to do the same thing as the old UI.
2. WWDC 2018? Meh. Not expecting anything in the consumer products space
3. Google continues ignoring tablets by removing section from Android’s official website

   Hiroshi Lockheimer Google SVP says it was a “bug” duirng a site update

4. Jon’s App of the Week: Unwind Me – cool idea for games that get slower as you play, helping you relax. 99 cents.
5. Geekwire: Investors include Vulcan Capital (Paul Allen), Lux Capital, Google’s GV venture arm, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Amazon’s Alexa Fund.

   CTRL-Labs, makers of a wristband that can pick up signals from the brain and allow users to control a digital device without moving a finger.

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

I’m joined by guest panelists Paul Lawler and Ricky Li for this podcast. In it, we discuss:

1. U. of Hawaii Vog map and Windy.com
2. Rumoured Death of Essential Products, Inc. phone company the phone company started by the cocreator of android
3. FBI tells router users to reboot now to kill malware infecting 500k devices

   “Researchers from Cisco’s Talos security team first disclosed the existence of the malware on Wednesday. The detailed report said the malware infected more than 500,000 devices made by Linksys, Mikrotik, Netgear, QNAP, and TP-Link.”

4. GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

   “Please don’t take us seriously
   This is an example of all the things you can do with Cloudflare Workers and our API. If you like it, please spread the word! But hey, don’t take us seriously. We just wanted to take the drama out from all the GDPR madness out there.”

5. Blocking 500 Million Users Is Easier Than Complying With Europe’s New Rules

Steam still rejected by apple, but apple says there’s a chance.

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

In this podcast, Jon Westfall and I discuss:

1. The Verge: $1200 Red Hydrogen Android phone with “holographic” 3D display. Not lenticular display. Module lets you attach a camera lens with it.
2. Jon’s Evernote Replacement: Joplin is an open-source note taking app that can import ENEX files, and you can synchronize with your own server through WebDAV, as well as External sync services (Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud). Use the trial version of Backupery for Evernote if you have tons of notebooks to automate the backup process. Joplin is in very early versions (1.x) and the mobile implementation has a few bugs related to sync. Also I found you can’t easily import ENEX’s larger than 800MB through the Mac interface. But, to have a searchable, “live” version of Evernote running on my own server, it’s definitely worth looking at.
3. Microsoft to launch smaller, low-cost Surface devices
4. No easy way to charge and listen to music on Android So Apple killed it but you can get adapters for iOS. Android mocked killing it, then they killed it, and there isn’t an easy adapter – probably because of all the variation with USB C.

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

In this podcast, Jon Westfall and I discuss:

1. Mandarin Chinese robo-calls in parts of the US
2. Project Crostini for Chromebooks. Run Linux applications on a Chromebook in a container
3. Google I/O

   Google Assistant on smart displays (similar to Echo Show/Spot)

   New Google Assistant more human sounding voices available now

   Google Duplex – amazing but raising issues of ethics and weaponization

   Android P with gesture navigation

   Google Smart Compose in Gmail – the new Microsoft Clippy?

   Android Things (IOT)

4. Microsoft Build

   Your Phone – sync iPhone or Android to Windows 10 – things MacOS can do now with iPhone but not Android

   Cortanna & Alexa – meh

   Timeline – meh

5. Interesting: With some banks, Apple Pay re-activates very quickly after a credit card is reported stolen.

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.