00:00 – Mishaal Rahman: Samsung might be killing the Galaxy S26, well, at least the base model.
00:05 – C. Scott Brown: And Google may want you to ditch your MacBook for an Android PC, eventually.
00:09 – Mishaal Rahman: I’m Mishaal Rahman.
00:11 – C. Scott Brown: And I’m C. Scott Brown and this is the Authority Insights Podcast where we break down the latest news and leaks surrounding the Android operating system.
00:21 – Mishaal Rahman: Now, when I heard that Samsung was going to be shaking up its flagship Galaxy S lineup, I got a bit excited and also a little worried at the same time. I’m excited because I’ve always felt the base model’s always been a little underwhelming compared to the other devices. But I’m a little worried that they might be doing a price hike on us next year.
00:38 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, if there is a price hike, I’m worried about how expensive it’s going to be to just have the tech basics in your life. If we’re already spending over a grand on a new phone that’s supposed to last us seven years, why do we need to shell out so much money for a separate PC?
00:55 – Mishaal Rahman: That’s a great point. I mean, I’ve always felt that we’re well past the point where phones have lacked the power that’s necessary to be your all-in-one device. I’ve been wanting to talk about these topics for a while and since our articles went live earlier this week on Android Authority, let’s just dive right in. So our first story comes from my colleagues, Adamya Sharma and Assemble Debug who wrote an exclusive that the Galaxy S26 series could represent a major shakeup in Samsung’s flagship device lineup. So, we’ve always had these three models in the Galaxy S series, since the S20 series actually. We had the base S20, the S20 Plus, and the S20 Ultra. We’ve had that since the S20, we had the S21, S22, 23, 24, 25, but the 26 might be having some differences. Can you tell us a bit about what they reported, Scott?
01:53 – C. Scott Brown: Well, first, we did get a slight curve ball this year with the Galaxy S25 Edge. So that was the first time that we had seen a phone within the Galaxy S lineup that we had never seen before. So the rumors were that Samsung was going to replace the plus model with the Edge. And we kind of thought that that wasn’t going to happen because the Edge hasn’t been doing that well critically and commercially. But this evidence that we found seems to suggest that it is going to do that. And so basically we went through the code of the latest one of the one of the latest One UI beta leaks. and yeah, we saw no mention of the plus but saw a mention of the Edge. So that was the first thing that was kind of like, well that’s interesting, why isn’t the plus in here? And then we also didn’t see a listing for the vanilla model. So the Galaxy S26 also made no appearance, but we did see a listing for a Galaxy S26 Pro, which we’ve never seen before. That’s a name that we’ve never associated with the Galaxy S line. So yeah, this was our first bit of evidence that made us sort of perk up and be like, wait a minute, like is Samsung just leaving these devices out for now or does this mean that we’re not getting those devices? And then we got more information, which you can talk about a bit.
03:24 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. So I mean like we instead of the base model, instead of the Plus, we found evidence that there’s a Pro, an Edge, and an Ultra. And you know, that’s a big deal because it represents something beyond potentially just a rebranding because you don’t just take a base device that’s without any monikers like a Plus or an Ultra or a Pro and then slap a Pro label onto it without making changes, right? I mean at least we’re assuming they’re adding the Pro moniker to the base model and actually adding some pro-level upgrades. Maybe we’ll get like a 5X telephoto in the base model or the new base model is what they’re going to be calling it, or maybe they’ll finally add ultra-wideband, which has been a notable omission in the base model for many generations now. I’ve always felt like the base model, it was always the more compact phone in the Galaxy S lineup, but it’s always lacked a couple of things that just kind of made it felt like the redheaded step child of the Galaxy S series. But now making it pro kind of signifies that they’ll actually make it a worthwhile pro-level device on par with the rest of the devices. But at the same time, what’s going to happen with the plus? The fact that the plus was basically just an upsized version of the base model with a couple of the ultra features. The fact that we’re no longer having a dedicated Plus model kind of suggests Samsung is going to be maybe expanding the base model size? Are we going to have a compact model anymore? Do you consider the Edge a compact model because the Edge does have a pretty big display even though it is much thinner and lighter. What do you think about that?
05:02 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah. When I first held the edge, I was absolutely astonished by how thin it was. Like, I think that’s the first thing that everyone says. They hold it in their hand and they say, wow, this is way thinner and way lighter than I ever expected. But it is not by any stretch of the imagination a compact phone. It is still just as wide and tall as the plus. In fact, I believe the screen size is exactly the same. I believe it’s literally the same exact screen. So, yeah, so I do not consider it a compact phone. For me, a compact phone has to be under 6.4 inches or preferably 6.3. That’s to me like a good Golock zone where it’s like, okay, this feels small, and it feels easy to use one-handed, but it doesn’t feel too small. It doesn’t feel minuscule like the iPhone Mini series that from a few years back that were like those were really small. But this I feel like that’s the nice zone. So, so yeah, I mean, if Samsung does release a Pro that is smaller than the Edge in both height and width, then yeah, I would consider that to possibly be a potential compact entry. What’ll be weird though, is without the plus model, I mean, I guess it’s possible that Samsung has a way to bring a telephoto lens to the edge, which the current S25 Edge does not have. If Samsung is able to bring a telephoto lens to the edge of the 26 Edge, and then also have a more compact version that has the same camera system, a 200 megapixel main, a pretty good ultra wide, and then a pretty good telephoto, then now we’re talking cohesive. Now it makes sense, you know? But if Samsung is going to have a pro model that’s a compact phone that has a telephoto and a primary camera that’s really good and all that stuff, and then an edge that’s more expensive that doesn’t have a telephoto. Now it’s just chaos. Like then I’ll just be like, how are you going to sell these phones? How are you going to convince somebody to spend $1,100 on a phone that doesn’t have a telephoto lens and then also sell them, you know, a sub $1,000 phone that does have one. It it’s I don’t know. So I’m really curious to see how Samsung’s going to pull this off. But, yeah, but one thing that I should note is that the plus model historically has always been the weakest seller. The Ultra is always been the best seller, selling by you know, outselling the other two by twice as much. And then the smaller model is usually in second and then the Plus is further behind in third. So if any model is going to go, it should be the Plus model, but what Samsung is going to put in its place is the real question here.
07:46 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. And I’m kind of curious where the FE model will fit into this, because you know, historically that’s always been their more budget focused model in the lineup, but it’s always launched at a different time than the rest of the device lineup. Like the S25 FE hasn’t even launched yet, right?
08:03 – C. Scott Brown: No.
08:03 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah, and they just announced today, I believe during their earnings report that they’re going to be launching that sometime this year. So, what’s going to happen with the FE series? Like is that still going to be a factor next year and going on?
08:17 – C. Scott Brown: I guess, I don’t obviously Samsung’s going to release an S25 FE, but if it doesn’t launch with the lineup, I don’t know, it’s it’s it’s really interesting because like, I mean if you look at Apple and you look at Google and you look at a bunch of other Samsung competitors, you know, they they give you a standard option. They give you the base model and then they give you upgrades on top of those base models. And so if Samsung is going to use the FE as the quote-unquote base model, but that FE comes out after the main lineup, I mean, that just seems backwards. That just seems like putting the cart in front of the horse. Granted, it’s not out of the question. I do know that there are some Chinese phones that come out where the Pro and the Ultra come out before the standard model, so it’s not something we had never seen before, but it would certainly be something we’ve never seen from Samsung before. And Samsung being the top player, the number one smartphone brand in the world, that’s a bold move. So yeah, it’s weird. I’m very interested in how Samsung’s going to pull this off.
09:22 – Mishaal Rahman: So this, we’ve talked about the changes with the base and the plus because obviously those are being radically changed to the pro and the edge respectively. But the Ultra, you know, we’re still going to get an Ultra, but do you think there’s going to be any big changes with that model?
09:36 – C. Scott Brown: I think that it may not be the S26, it may end up being the S27, but I think at some point in the next two years, Samsung is going to eliminate the S Pen from the Ultra.
09:46 – Mishaal Rahman: Yes, yes. I’ve been saying that. I’m like, it’s long overdue. I’m sorry S Pen fans.
09:51 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah. And I know that if there are any Samsung fans listening to this, they’re going to start screaming at their speakers or their TV or whatever, but yeah, I you know, the S Pen is a block. It’s preventing Samsung from innovating. You know, if you’ve just just just from a if you step back and look at the smartphone industry and like how smartphones are made, the S Pen is preventing Samsung from innovating because they have to work around it. And if you have a factory that’s made to build smartphones, the best way to build smartphones is to make it as streamlined as possible. You want each phone to be relatively similar so that one piece of equipment can create multiple different styles of phones. And with the Galaxy S25 Ultra or sorry, well any Ultra phone that exists today, you can’t, you have to have like a dedicated factory just to build those because it’s so, you know, it’s so different from literally every phone on the market today. So yeah, that is blocking Samsung. People, you know, Samsung fans who say Samsung is dried up, like they haven’t innovated in years or whatever. And then simultaneously say, I would never buy a Samsung phone without an S Pen. Those are two contradictory statements. Like the S Pen has to go if Samsung is going to make the Ultra into something different and better than it is today. And, you know, there’s mounting levels of evidence for this, removing the digitizer layer from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 so that you can’t use the S Pen on it. Uh, you know, uh, removing Bluetooth connectivity from the S Pen inside the Galaxy S25 Ultra. There’s lots of evidence to suggest that Samsung is slowly weaning its fans away from the S Pen so that when it does announce, you know, we’re getting rid of it, the backlash won’t be nearly as much. That’s my theory anyways.
11:36 – Mishaal Rahman: No, I mean, I totally, totally agree. Like just look how much space this takes up internally, right? Like surely they could slightly fit a slightly bigger battery, reduce the thickness just a little bit. You know, all these changes they made with the fold. In all honestly the S Pen on the Fold, in my opinion, has always felt tacked on just with the way you have to get this super awkward bulky case attached to it just to have the S Pen residing somewhere even near the phone. But if you’re an S Pen fan, the tablets will definitely still have them because like that’s where it makes the most sense. Almost every high-end premium tablet has pen support and I doubt they’ll ever kill off pen support on their tab line. So you can at least rest assured it’ll survive in some form. I just don’t think it’s going to be sticking around on the S series for very long.
12:21 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, and for the small, you know, 1% of Samsung users who are literally addicted to the S Pen, they would not give it up ever. You just have to do what the Fold does now or or the Galaxy Z Fold 6, I should say anyway, where you have a case that has an S Pen in it and you can use it as much as you want. But I think that the days of an S Pen built into an Ultra are either over or nearly over.
12:47 – Mishaal Rahman: And another feature that I really want to see Samsung go full force in and implementing is the Linux terminal, which I published an article earlier this week that kind of talks about why I think the Google Linux terminal that they introduced into the Android will play a huge part in transforming Android into a proper desktop operating system. So, just a little bit of context.
13:08 – C. Scott Brown: So I’m going to need your help here. Like I need to know. I am not a Linux guy. I am a Windows guy. I need some explanation here. So, so start at the beginning, explain like I’m five.
13:19 – Mishaal Rahman: Don’t get me wrong, I’m also a Windows guy, right? So I but I’m approaching this from like an academic, interesting perspective because like I want to see what it will looks like when Android becomes a desktop OS. And why do I think the Linux terminal will play a big role in making that a possibility is just because of what it’s capable of doing. So the Linux terminal, for those who you don’t know, this is a basically it’s an app that Google introduced in the March 2025 Pixel feature drop. And it basically it allows you to run a full-fledged Linux distribution, called Debian in a virtual machine on your Android device. So those of you who might be aware that Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, like many other Linux distributions are as well. However, you can’t, there’s a lot of apps that are built for Linux distributions that you can’t run on Android devices because even though they share the same underlying kernel, but the way that Android implements and supports a lot of these applications is there’s this incompatibility that allows them to run on between the platforms. So you have an application that’s built for standard Linux distributions, it might not run without recompiling it to allow it to run on Android. And so this basically this virtual machine allows you to run a full-fledged Linux build on your Android device allowing you to access a lot of these Linux applications without having to remake them, which would be a big burden on developers. And the reason you might want to do that is because there’s a lot of applications that just aren’t available on Android at all and might never be without this kind of compatibility layer. So for example, those of you who have a Steam deck, I think you have a Steam deck, right, Scott?
15:03 – C. Scott Brown: I don’t have a Steam Deck, but I’ve used one and I’ve also reviewed the the Valve OS version, not Valve OS, Steam OS version of the Lenovo, what was it called? Legion, Legion Go S. Yes, the Legion Go S. I reviewed that.
15:19 – Mishaal Rahman: Steam OS. Those of you who are familiar with the Steam deck or Steam OS might know that it is running Linux, right? But you’re able to play a lot of Windows games on it, like games that are built for Windows PCs. That is possible because Valve helped develop a compatibility layer called Proton that allows games that are built for Windows to be basically translated and run in real time on Linux PCs. So theoretically, if Android devices were able to run the full-fledged builds of Linux, you might also be able to gain access to that Proton compatibility layer and also run full-fledged Windows games. Now, there’s a little there’s a small caveat to that, which I’ll get back to in a little bit, but it is worth noting that this is not really like a theoretical capability. Like if you have a Chromebook, for example, Steam on Chromebooks uses the exact same setup. When you install Steam on your Chromebook, it installs a Linux virtual machine on your device and it uses that same Proton compatibility layer to run Windows games on your Chromebook. Now, there’s a little complication with the Android side of things with the fact that most Android devices don’t have X86 CPUs, they have ARM CPUs, which is completely different architecture. So you can’t just straight up run the existing version of Proton. It would require a lot of reworking. There are rumors that Valve is working on that and which is like, you know, totally outside of this scope of discussion, but you know, it’s something to look forward to. Like in the future, maybe five years from now, we’ll have full-fledged Windows games running natively on through translation on Android devices. And at the same time in five years from now, we might even be able to develop Android apps from an Android device because right now if you want to make an Android app, you’re a developer, you got to buy a MacBook, you have to buy a Linux PC or you got to buy a Windows PC. You can’t buy an Android phone or an Android PC because there are no Android PCs and develop an Android app on it. But Google wants to change that. They want you to be able to do everything that you can do right now from your MacBook or from your Windows PC right on an Android phone or an Android PC. So that’s kind of what they’re doing.
17:33 – C. Scott Brown: So theoretically this would eliminate the need for you to have multiple devices. You know, you could have a smartphone that, you know, cost $1200, $1000, whatever the case may be, and then, you know, some sort of system for connecting it to a laptop shell or a desktop, you know, monitor and mouse and keyboard, whatever system you have, and then just that would be it. Like you wouldn’t have to have, you know, you wouldn’t have to buy a smartphone every five years and a laptop every five years, you would just have this one device that would just do everything for you.
18:06 – Mishaal Rahman: I think that would be neat, but I don’t think that’s exactly what Google has planned. Like it’s true that a lot of people are seeing this desktop stuff that Google’s working on in Android 16 and like, oh, Google wants you to replace your laptop with an Android phone. It is true that they’re working on making desktop windowing better and as you can see in this article, they want you to be able to run full-fledged Linux apps. But the end goal is to actually have Android become a proper desktop operating system. so you can have laptops running Android natively. So instead of Mac OS, Windows laptops, you’ll have Android laptops. and then these capabilities make a lot more sense on laptops and on devices with bigger integrated displays. Because you know on Android phones.
18:51 – C. Scott Brown: What would this mean for Chrome OS though?
18:54 – Mishaal Rahman: Chrome OS, that’s interesting because Google right now develops two separate operating systems, but that’s pretty inefficient. So, last year we reported that Google wants to merge Chrome OS and Android into a single platform. And then just earlier this month, a Google just went out and said it that we’re planning on combining them into a single platform. So, I actually think this Linux, this all this work that Google’s doing on this Linux platform underneath the hood is actually in preparation for that merger. Because as I mentioned earlier, you have Steam support on Chromebooks and that is done through their Linux VM under the hood. and Chromebooks can also run Android Studio and that is also accomplished through the Linux virtualization capabilities of Chrome OS. So, a lot of this stuff we’re seeing, this these new capabilities in Android, the Linux terminal, the desktop Chrome, all these efforts are what I think is Google working towards combining Chrome OS and Android.
19:50 – C. Scott Brown: So what kind of timeline do you think we’re on for this? Like that that I feel is the big missing link, the big missing question.
19:58 – Mishaal Rahman: I think from from me, my personal timeline from what I’m seeing is like, how good do I think it is? How soon do I think I can actually use this as my daily driver? I think we’re still several years away from it ever replacing windows for me. But, I’ve heard some pretty remarkable timelines, like maybe even potentially next year we might get like a soft reveal of what Google’s working on. That’s fast. Like that’s much earlier than I expected. Like what it was actually mentioned in a Wired article shortly after Google I/O, they mentioned like, oh, stay tuned, we might have something to show you next year. So maybe we’ll see something announced. Like I doubt they will launch full-fledged PCs next year. Like I I doubt that’s going to happen, but I think they’ll at least start talking about it. Kind of like how they started talking about Android XR at December of last year, even though we don’t have any XR devices on the market yet, I think that’s how we might get that kind of announcement.
20:54 – C. Scott Brown: Okay. So what can we do right now? Like, you know, like where are we in this journey if if it’s, you know, a year from now we’re going to see actual announcement.
21:05 – Mishaal Rahman: So we’re actually much further along than I thought we were. Like, right now, if you install the second Android Canary build on your Pixel phone, you can actually run a full-fledged desktop version of Chromium complete with extension support, the desktop rendering engine. So, you know, those of us who work on like custom WordPress behind the scenes know how painful it is to try using that with mobile Chrome. Finally, you can get the full desktop Chrome working. You can also have full-fledged desk Linux apps like GIMP, which is an image editor. You can also get Libre Office, which is a full-fledged desktop suite. There’s a lot of Linux apps, only apps that you can get running right now. There’s of course, it’s not going to be bug-free. You’re going to have some issues installing some things and getting things running because of the fact that most Pixel devices run arm CPUs, but it runs surprisingly well right now considering they’ve only been working on it for a couple of months now.
22:06 – C. Scott Brown: What what so, you know, just just just from an industry perspective, when Qualcomm, you know, and Microsoft really really pushed hard with the launch of the new uh Snapdragon-based PCs uh and Windows on Arm kind of like making a comeback of sorts. Um, you know, that that was a huge push behind both Qualcomm and Microsoft and still I think that Windows on Arm is not nearly as there as it needs to be to make it a viable thing for most people. Most people are still going to want an X86 laptop of some kind. Um, do you think that Google can do it? Do you think that now Google’s sort of stepping in the ring and being like, we want arm powered laptops or computers or systems of some kind running on Linux, uh, you know, is that going to be another big push or or or is the deck stacked against them?
22:59 – Mishaal Rahman: Well, the deck was always against Qualcomm and Microsoft’s initiative because, you know, they had to convince developers to port their applications to a new platform, Windows on Arm, because most legacy applications are already built for X86. Personally, I do own a Windows on arm laptop and I do think they’ve made a lot of progress on that front. But Google on the other hand, they’re coming from the opposite direction. There’s already a ton of applications built for arm-based Android devices. So if you have arm-based Android PCs, a lot of that software will just run without any issue. The only challenge will be, of course, developers have to adapt their applications so it actually looks nice on a larger display. And as we’ve seen with Google’s tablet efforts, that’s a that’s a long challenge that they’ve had to they still have yet to overcome fully.
23:48 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, well, I feel like, you know, maybe AI is going to help with that, you know, maybe somebody could just ask an AI to can you make my app look better in large screens, please?
23:59 – Mishaal Rahman: I don’t know if you can ask an AI to do that, but you might be able to ask an AI to help read your screen and just help you throughout your day with whatever you want to do. So earlier this week we published an article talking about Google’s Magic Q feature for the Pixel series that will be able to read your screen to provide helpful suggestions whenever you need it. So this follows on a rumor that we heard actually Camilla Wajikowska, apologies if I said that wrong, who for Android Authority published an article talking about the long rumored pixel sense feature, which basically it’s an on-device AI assistant. It’s not like a true assistant like assistant or Gemini, but it’s basically going to be reading things that you’re doing, pulling information from your applications and then proactively suggesting things to do throughout the day. And then later on we learned that this might be launched under the name Magic Q. and right now, like these rumors came from leaked applications, leaked firmware and things like that. Like there was no concrete public facing evidence that we could find. until I started digging into the second Canary build and I discovered some strings that kind of directly corroborate these leaks suggesting that Google’s working on a magic Q feature. So, what exactly is the magic Q going to be able to do? Like, when we looked at the strings, basically the assistant would be able to collect app usage data, it’ll be able to read your screen, it’ll be able to like pull data from certain Google applications and then it can offer you personalized suggestions. So for example, if a friend asks for your flight number in a chat, Magic Q can find it from your Gmail. So things like that. It’ll like, you know, you get a message from your friend, it’ll detect that they’re asking for your flight number. Magic Q will have recognized that, oh, you have that flight number saved in your Gmail. It’ll pull it up and then you can probably instantly copy, paste and insert that into your message thread.
26:02 – C. Scott Brown: I can already hear privacy uh nuts just just screaming, screaming right now because this sounds very invasive.
26:11 – Mishaal Rahman: True, it does. Yeah, it does sound a little scary. It is worth noting that Google, at least according to the leaks, have mentioned that this will be working on device. So there hasn’t been any confirmation about how it works, but if we think back to with the Pixel 9 launch, when they introduced the multimodal Gemini Nano model, that allows it to basically read and analyze images. And that’s what powers the Pixel screenshot feature. When you take a screenshot, it reads that and then it automatically detects what’s in it and then it categorizes it. Maybe with the Pixel 10 and maybe with this upgraded Tensor G5, maybe it can do that more often. Maybe it can continuously analyze what’s going on on your screen. Maybe it’s constantly taking screenshots and basically detecting what’s going on and then it can detect that and then pull in information that you’ve already given it through your Gemini app access and then proactively suggest information. So maybe that’s what it’s doing because like I think that would be one way for it to run completely on device and privately because if it’s doing it through Gemini Nano, that runs entirely on device using the private compute core of your Android device.
27:17 – C. Scott Brown: So this is really cool, but you know, from a technological standpoint, this sounds really interesting, like the idea that your phone can help you proactively do things. Like that’s really cool. My question is as a smartphone consumer, how is Google going to sell this? Like how is Google going to explain what this does to a person, you know, like my dad, who is just going to be like, what, my phone is listening to me and it’s going to tell me that I should check my email. Like I I I think that Google has an uphill mountain to climb to make this something that is marketable.
27:54 – Mishaal Rahman: I think one of the strengths of a lot of the Pixel AI features is they don’t really have to explain many things. Like a lot of their features are kind of like set and forget. You enable it once and it comes up later, it’s helpful and it works for you. kind of like Now Playing, right? Like you don’t proactively go out and use Now Playing. You just set it and then later on throughout the day you hear a song, you turn your phone on and you just have the song lyric, the song name at the bottom of your lock screen. It’s just a very helpful feature that’s in the background. And I think that’s probably what this feature is going to be like. You know, you’re just going throughout your day, you’re just using Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, messages, you know, like you normally do. And then all of a sudden, you get a message from your friend that asks for your flight number and then you’ll get this queue that says, hey, you want to insert this flight details from your Gmail? You’ll be like, oh, that’s neat. Let me just insert that, right? I don’t think this is something a lot of users will have to actively think about. It’s just going to be something that’s like, oh, I didn’t know my phone could do that. That’s awesome.
28:53 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, you’re right. I think that this that’s something that Google excels at is keeping everything running sort of in the background and you don’t even know it’s there. But on the flip side, I just made a video uh for my C. Scott Brown YouTube channel uh going over my favorite pixel features that don’t, you know, that they’re kind of hidden that Google doesn’t really promote that well. And an overwhelming number of comments are people saying like, I didn’t know that Now Playing existed. I didn’t know that um that you know, the select screen in the overview menu existed. I’ve been taking screenshots and cropping my screenshots for years now. I didn’t know that I could just tap on the thing in the overview menu. So I feel like Google does need to have some sort of way to explain this, but you’re right, this might be a situation where it just sort of is like, this is a really cool feature guys when you set up your phone for the first time, big alert says, this is really cool, turn this on. People turn it on and then it’s just good, like it just gets better as they go. Um, so yeah, it might be one of those situations.
29:55 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah, they’re probably going to struggle with getting people to be aware of it. I think they have been introducing people to a lot of their AI features through the setup wizard. But I don’t know, like I don’t know what the average person does, what they’re thinking when they’re setting up their phone. They’re probably just like, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. Let me get to my home screen, let me get to my messages, let me install my apps as quickly as possible. They don’t really read it. It feels like it’s even worse for us tech reviewers because we’re like, we’re so done looking through the setup wizard. We just try to get to the home screen to do our benchmarks and install our stuff as soon as possible.
30:24 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, man, it’s just like every time. And yeah, so if that screen gets longer, if that section if there’s more screen. Oh my god, it’s gonna be even worse. But obviously, we’re the minority and we shouldn’t complain. Like we have wonderful jobs. We get to test out this stuff before people do. But uh, but yeah, no, that an extra screen there is going to be that’s prime real estate that Google’s not going to mess with too often.
30:47 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. Yeah. I mean hopefully they use that space to educate people about features we really want them to turn on like find up. Please everyone, turn on find up, enable that find everywhere option so we can finally make find up better.
31:01 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, seriously, like Google is already way behind the curve uh with Apple in regards to like the find my system that Apple has. Uh and so yeah, like people not really engaging much with the system that Google has created is only going to make it more difficult for Google to be successful in combating that. But um but yeah, so I mean with Magic Cue, like I don’t know, like to me this sounds a little bit like agentic AI. Like obviously it’s not a specific thing with agentic AI, but it sounds similar to that. Could this be like a stepping stone maybe to that being something that we use regularly on a pixel phone or or an Android phone in general?
31:46 – Mishaal Rahman: I don’t really consider this agentic AI. Agentic AI is more you proactively ask it to do a task and it does it for you. I think we’re already getting some of that kind of agentic AI capabilities in Chrome, in Gemini. Um, we might see some of that stuff maybe on the pixel, maybe they’ll announce some on device capabilities because I mean, I don’t see why not? why it wouldn’t work in theory. We saw it Google I/O. There was actually a demo of an agentic Project Astra running on like a Pixel phone where it asked Gemini to do stuff and it would actually open apps. It would scroll a PDF and find something. So I think that is something that we might get in the future. I just don’t know if Magic Cue is a part of that.
32:26 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, what I mean is it sounds like Magic Cue is like a stepping stone. Oh yeah yeah yeah. It’s like it’s like this is something where it’s like, you know, uh the AI is doing something for you. Obviously this is something where the AI is determining whether or not to do it for you instead of you asking and saying, please go to this website and get this, you know, restaurant reservation made for me without me having to lift a finger. But yeah, but I think that this seems like a stepping stone kind of situation, maybe to get people more used to the idea of AI kind of interjecting and doing something for them that is helpful. Like obviously, you know, there are a lot of people out there probably listening to this that hate AI. You know, they hate talking about AI. They’re so sick of AI being injected and everything. And I’m sick of it too. As a person who gets, you know, 100 emails a day from companies pitching themselves so we can write about them and they have AI in their names that makes no sense. Like, you know, we’re a pet feeder AI. It’s like, what? Why is AI in your name? Uh you know, I’m sick of it too, but at the same time, like there are lots of cool use cases that could present itself that could be genuinely beneficial for users. And I think that, you know, Magic Cue on paper, the way that we’re hearing it right now doesn’t sound like revolutionary in any way, but it does sort of represent the idea that here is AI doing something proactively that’s helpful for you, um that makes your life easier and, you know, gets gets things done faster and all that. So I like things like this. I like AI when it comes in a package where I’m like, oh, this actually makes sense to me. It’s not just like, you know, just AI for the sake of AI to make sure that our shareholders don’t stop funding us.
34:13 – Mishaal Rahman: Agreed. Agreed, agreed. I’m totally tired of AI too. I’m just like, just ignore this giant Gemini logo I’m wearing on my t-shirt right here.
34:25 – Mishaal Rahman: thanks to everyone for listening. That’s everything we’ve got for you this week. You can find links to all the stories mentioned in this episode in the show notes and you can find more amazing stories over on Android authority.com.
34:37 – C. Scott Brown: Uh thanks for listening to this Android Authority Insights podcast. Uh we publish every week on YouTube, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. You can follow us everywhere on social media at Android Authority and you can follow me personally on Instagram, Blue Sky, and my own YouTube channel at C. Scott Brown.
34:55 – Mishaal Rahman: As for me, I’m on most social media platforms posting day in and day out about Android. If you want to keep up with the latest in Android, go to my link tree and find me on the platform that you like best. Thanks for listening.
