SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
One UI 7.0 Beta Q&A, Galaxy XR Unveiled + S25 Ultra Takes Shape
As we prepare for the holiday season, we dive into the future of Android XR technology and its potential to transform how we interact with digital content. With contributions from tech giants like Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm, the development of an Android XR ecosystem promises to redefine media consumption. We discuss the challenges of pricing in the XR industry and the influence of companies like Apple, examining what makes an XR device appealing to consumers and where the sweet spot in pricing might lie.
We also answer tons of questions on the One UI 7.0 beta that we received on socials. If you have a question for next weeks episode, make sure to get in touch!
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Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com
Welcome back everybody. This is episode number 24 of the Sammy Guru podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me, as always, my co-host, torrey Torrey, say hi, hey, how's it going? We're in here on a Sunday, yeah, we are. Yeah, just grinding it out on our weekend A little bit before the football, so we're not going to miss too much football. The Steelers are playing a big game today. They've got the Eagles. They're going to the Eagles me and Nicole are excited about that. It's two teams that are division leaders right now. Steelers are really good this year, 10 and three. Eagles, I think, are 11 and two just powerhouses clashing in that. So can't wait to check that out. But we're back to where. How's your week? I know you got your last week coming up here at the high school teaching.
Speaker 2:Well, not even a full week. I got two, let's see three half days. You know they always got to throw in the holiday party on one of the half days, so I guess that's not really a half day and one full day. And then, yeah, thursday's done. I just got to get these grades in. But yeah, friday will be my first day not working. But that's also Sammy's birthday, so I'll be busy with Sammy on that day.
Speaker 1:But that'll at least be a little more fun, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes and working, teaching and all that kind of stuff. Yep, yeah. So I think I'm planning to probably. I mean, I'm going to work this full week and then next week I'm going to take off, probably most of the week. Potentially I might come back on Friday and do some work, but my goal is to make a bunch of videos this week so I can release them the following week. I don't ever release anything on Christmas and Christmas Eve because a lot of people don't watch as much YouTube content.
Speaker 1:Those days Like the day after Christmas, though, you want to have a video, because a lot of people are watching stuff because they're still off but they're not necessarily doing stuff with family. So I'll probably have some content. One, ui 7, beta number 2, the update the first update to the beta is supposed to come out tomorrow. So I have a lot of videos I can make on that, probably all at one time, and we'll get into more of that later in the show, but that'll probably be working on that. Otherwise, we've got a bunch of fun stuff we're going to do. We're going to go see Zoo Lights at the Phoenix Zoo. They have some really cool lights there. There's a thing at Peoria called Candy Cane Lane where they do vendors and like food trucks and like little craft stations for the kids. It's at the Peoria Sports Complex. You know that.
Speaker 1:AAA baseball stadium where they do spring training. It's up there.
Speaker 2:Do you know what day it is?
Speaker 1:It's coming Friday and then Saturday.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, All right cool.
Speaker 1:So it's a night, it's late, it's like 5 to 10 pm. Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 2:They do it for two days. Yeah, the clue may hit up the Saturday one. Sammy's been wanting to do some Christmas type stuff, oh yeah. Well, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we might end up going both days. They have the crew entertainment, these people who come for jonathan. I love that. Yeah, that's his favorite thing. Last year we went the first day and then he wanted to come back the second day because he was so excited about the uh, the dinosaur crew that was there, uh. Otherwise, yeah, just kind of winding down, not a lot of tech news this time of year, except in my email inbox. I'm getting like 5 000 emails a day from people about cs pitches like this If you're a tech reporter, media, youtuber, people just send you nonstop pitches if they know you're going to CES. Once you register, it's like from November, like from Thanksgiving, all the way until the time CES starts, which is like on January 5th. People are emailing you all the way up to like Christmas Eve because they're like we've got to get them before holidays because otherwise we won't be able to really get in touch with them until they arrive at CES. So we need to book people's time.
Speaker 1:They want you to come check out their booths, you know, cover their product and all that stuff. I got a few things I'll be doing at CES. If anyone's coming to CES who listens to the show, I'm going to have some cases from our new case brand that I'll be able to give out. I'll actually have some vouchers. I'm not going to bring the physical case because I don't know what kind of phones people have. That wouldn't make sense to just give you a case that doesn't go to your phone. I'll have some vouchers that you can get a free case to try out the cases on our website. I don't really know how many I'm going to bring yet, but if you find me on the show floor, you find me at a media event Um, if you're there and find me and you could get one, a lot of brands do this where it's like find me and you can get something.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to try doing that this year. So I'll be bringing that to CES. I don't have any other brand commitments that I'm going to cover because I mean they got to be promoting our new case brand. Uh, and then making some like press contacts for Sammymy guru. I don't think I really plan to make content on like accessories and stuff which I've done in the past. Um, just because I usually don't need the funding anyway to go, because I get a free hotel in vegas, because me and nicole play at mgm a lot, so I don't pay a lot for the travel. So a lot of people need stipends to like and vegas is right here, so it's not like I'm paying a lot of money for fly there.
Speaker 1:I just drive so people are like in the east coast, they need funding, like they want brands to pay for them travel and all that, but not a huge deal. So I will have cs coverage though, if you guys are interested, live stream and stuff like that samsung will have a press event. They've called it ai for all or something like that. It's gonna be a home like smart home ai integration show Usually not a lot of smartphones and stuff, like I said last week at CES, but they will have a press conference and I will cover it, like I'll live tweet it and stuff like that. So if you guys are interested in checking out Samsung's stuff at CES, if you like smart home, we'll be there and we'll be covering it, writing stuff up. Anyway, let's jump into the news. So last week we got some feedback. A lot of people were saying they like the one ui7 stuff, but they still wanted some of the regular other news that we usually cover. So I said, okay, we'll try to give the people what they want oh yeah and split the difference.
Speaker 1:So here in the first part of the show it's first like 30 minutes or whatever we'll do some regular other news, then the half we'll jump into all the questions I got about One UI 7. Because we asked for questions, A lot of people posted them over on X and I did get a lot throughout the week, so we've probably got like 10 to 12 questions we can go through in depth. And then right now let's jump into some regular news though. First thing, I mean there's going to be some One UI 7 news, probably in the news, because there's a lot of news about One UI 7. So no promises there. First thing is a lot of people have been asking when the beta 2 or the beta for the S23 will arrive. The answer to both of those is one beta 2 is supposed to come tomorrow. So we're recording this on Sunday. I'll probably post it on Tuesday, so it'll be yesterday by the time I post it.
Speaker 1:Right now it's tomorrow, but by the time you're listening to it it'll have been yesterday. The beta 2 should have rolled out, hopefully, which is also supposed to bring the first beta release to india and some other countries. So usually it's kind of weird they release it first, like in in the S, germany and all those places, and then they later release it in other countries, and the second beta release in the US is the first one in the other countries. So, like for India, they didn't get official first beta, so their first beta will be the second US beta, most likely. So that's what's going on there.
Speaker 1:Galaxy S23 series. I don't really have a lot of great news. It looks like it could be early January before you guys get the beta, because some forums have opened but there haven't been a lot of test builds or anything, and also because of the holidays in the middle, it's not likely that they're going to push it. If they don't push it this week, they're not going to push it the following week because that's Christmas, and they're probably not going to push it the following week because that's New Year's and New Year's is a big deal, like in Korea and Asia, so they celebrate that. They're not going to probably push it that week either, so they don't probably be the following week. So maybe that week of CES, actually January 5th or 6th or whatever that starts that Monday, that could be the week that you end up seeing it for the S23. And then the S22 will probably be right after that.
Speaker 1:If you decide you want to get in Tori or you just want to wait for the S25. What did you think you were talking last week about? Just waiting for the S25. What do you think?
Speaker 2:about that. Oh yeah, yeah, I think I'm just going to wait for the S25.
Speaker 1:Just experience, one of the S7?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I, as TMRO attendant, I just think it's just nice to have a really cool, nice device and then to just have that nice software update on it. I think that'll be.
Speaker 1:And I do think that they did intend it for a device that has rounded corners, which the S24 Ultra doesn't. The S25 Ultra, we know, does have the rounded corners. I installed the beta on my S24 Plus, which has rounded corners, and it looks a little bit nicer on the Animations the opening and closing animations. So I think they did Really intend it for it to be a device One UI 7 to run on a device that has those Rounded corners. Samsung is releasing bigger Sizes of the Galaxy Ring. So if your finger was a little too Big for any of those Galaxy Ring Sizes, they're releasing two new sizes. I think it's 15 and 16. Yeah, oh, 14 and 15. Size 14 will weigh 3.2 grams and feature a 23 millimeter inner diameter, and size 15 will be 3.2 grams with a 23.8 millimeter inner diameter. So they increasing the size in terms of you know, the diameter, but they're not increasing the weight, which is good Cause obviously you don't want a super heavy ring on your finger, cause it's, you know, something you're going to have on all day.
Speaker 1:It seems like they didn't really increase the weight on any of them, cause the other size rings are all around the same weight, so that's good. I mean, it's a pretty light piece so I wouldn't worry too much about it. But if you're worried about this because you couldn't get one, because your finger's just too big, then you could go ahead and get one. I also want to mention that we had covered some things, a couple of key things about the Galaxy Ring before, that I never mentioned on the podcast.
Speaker 1:The Galaxy Ring is actually possible. If you have certain hsa plans through your insurance you know health savings plans. Through your insurance, they'll actually pay for the galaxy ring and so you could get it for no out-of-pocket cost. If you already pay for an hsa plan, you could get it basically using that and you don't have to pay any additional money. It's covered. Samsung has got it certified to be covered with a bunch of different insurance companies, so you can look into that if you're interested. And then also, samsung finally started the trade-in program for the Galaxy Ring, so now you can trade in an old smartwatch or ring and get like $150 off the Galaxy Ring. But I would say, you know, it's a good thing to buy it as a Christmas gift or something like that. Or if you want one, you could tell someone hey, that'd be a cool Christmas gift for me. You know, I don't know if that's really the right etiquette.
Speaker 2:You know, if you know the person well enough, you know whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1:But I would say, maybe after Christmas, though I wouldn't buy one for yourself, because then we're getting into the point where it's almost time to start thinking about Galaxy Ring 2. Yeah, and we've already heard that the Galaxy Ring 2 is probably coming next summer at Unpacked for the foldable launch. So I mean, I wouldn't buy one after Christmas, to be honest, because then we're looking at the halfway cycle and considering you know that this is a product where we'd already talked about in the podcast before the Galaxy Ring is like, it's not repairable. So once it reaches its maximum charge cycles, which is like two or three, like three years, I think it was two and a half or three years at that point, Bixby's in the background trying to tell me what the Galaxy Ring is.
Speaker 1:Hey, you need to calm down over there, you know this new B on the Onei7 is a little more sensitive than the old. Yeah, the old b, the new b, is not the same as the old b it is not um and uh anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wouldn't buy one after christmas. If you get as a christmas gift, great, but the battery is not replaceable and it eventually becomes e-waste after like three years. So probably something that you want to wait for the next version because there could be some huge upgrades. We talked about like they could improve the pinch gestures to work with other apps. What if we get? What if we get, the tap to pay with the ring? What if we get the nfc payments? That's what we really want, so we can go in and just be like a wizard, be like paying with our ring. We want that, um. So if you want that wizardry me and tori actually saw lord of the ring speaking of wizardry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we animated lord of the rings over the weekend.
Speaker 1:But if you want some wizardry that's why it's on my mind if you want that wizardry functionality, you want to wait for galaxy ring 2, which will probably be in july. So, uh, what else we got? We got a bunch of galaxy s25 ultra news. We've already seen and talked about the different color options, but we saw some leaks of the actual colors and you can actually see right there, tori, this render. This is the Titanium White Silver which is going to be the official name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, white Silver is the name. It's a word, but alright, samsung's just making words up now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are. They're like oh it's not white.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's not white, it's not silver, it's white silver. Yeah, why not? They're like, why not, let's just call it white silver? People won't know we're samsung, we do whatever we want. Uh, and then it also leaked in the blue color, which, if I scroll down a little minute, I'll show you that one too. The blue color looks nice too, but I still want to see an actual, true to life render of that jade green titanium yes, titanium green whatever, I want to see that because I might be interested.
Speaker 1:Depending on the green, green is kind of a weird color because I see it too often if it's weird, you don't see it and it's also like you could do it well or you could do it really bad, like it could be a terrible looking green, because it'd be like a puke green.
Speaker 2:No one wants that it could be like a sparkly emerald green.
Speaker 1:Lots of people want that.
Speaker 1:That's what it sounds like yeah um, green is a color where it's like if you do it correctly everybody's gonna want it, but if you do it poorly no one's gonna buy that skew. So we'll have to wait and see, because I I have to reserve judgment until I see it. Green's not something I can just be like I'm gonna buy. I own the neon green s23 ultra. Did you see the neon green s23 Ultra? No, I have not. They had like a neon green. They called it yellow, but it was really a neon.
Speaker 2:It was like a really bright. They're kind of off on these colors, you know. Yeah, they do some weird stuff With the naming Unlike yeah, unlike yeah.
Speaker 1:And also the Samsung exclusive like red version that they had for a few years was basically like a pink. It wasn like a pink it wasn't really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like or sometimes it's like a burgundy yeah it's never quite, and they also like go all over the place with the color palettes, like that's the one thing I mean. I guess that's good, because people are like we want options and we do. Yeah, like apple would never do that, they would never make a neon green version of the pro iphone. Like of the base model iphones, they do a lot of colors, but for the expensive model it's always like very muted. It's like silver, black, gold, blue, that's it. You don't have any other options. It's navy blue, some dark, muted colors, but samsung they're like okay, one year we're going to do some muted colors, the next year here's some neon green. Why don't you have this orange phone? This one I have right here is orange.
Speaker 2:This is the orange oh, yeah, yeah, which I like. You know, I I like having that variety of like colors. It kind of makes it pop, brings some personality. So if you're someone who likes more vibrant colors.
Speaker 1:You've got some hope Because maybe next year, even if this year they went with the more muted palette, maybe next year they're going to bring on neon pink. Who knows, you never know. Samsung doesn't know what they're going to do. They're a little bipolar with the color choices. But we like it, we appreciate it. It. Uh. One ui7 beta has compatibility issues in android auto. Um, this is a question that someone asked. Well, I'll elaborate on this more in the second half too. Um, android auto is a disaster with one ui7 beta. Battery life is good on one ui7 beta, except for android auto, especially if you have a wireless android auto, which I use yeah, I drove here from peoria.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's about 35 minutes away from the office. Well, today about not today about 28 minutes, because it's the weekend and I drained 21% of my battery just driving here on the wireless Android One UI 7 has a bug. Obviously it doesn't work. It's a beta, so that's expected, but this is one of the few bugs that's really annoying the Android Auto. It drains the battery like crazy.
Speaker 1:I feel like they need to, I mean like it's bad already though for you it probably drains too, because on one ui 6.1.1 I still saw battery drain, not 20. I used to get maybe my commute I'd lose 10 you probably noticed this too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, same, you know, and I and I just keep it on like the little wireless of, like a little wireless charger yeah, on the car.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it can't even keep up with the wireless charger.
Speaker 2:No, it just kind of maintains it like like with wherever it is. But I mean for a lot of people who I I mean because, like, at least here in phoenix, like no one really lives in phoenix all the time, you know most people live in these sprawled out places yeah who lives in phoenix.
Speaker 1:People are like phoenix is such a big city. I'm like, is it? Yeah, it's just got like a few buildings in it.
Speaker 2:The rest of it's the suburbs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the rest of it's the suburbs, it's like who lives here. I don't know. People live in Peoria Mesa.
Speaker 1:Chandler Gilbert Tempe.
Speaker 2:Glendale. That's where most people live.
Speaker 1:There are like 10 suburbs here that all have 500,000 people or more.
Speaker 2:We have like so many suburbs that are like bigger than a lot of major cities. Yes, mesa itself is like one of the largest cities in the us.
Speaker 1:It's a suburb of phoenix, so, yeah, I think it's got like 1.8 million people or something crazy. Um, phoenix is like the home of the suburb, so yeah, it is even though our office here is sammy grew is in phoenix. You know, tori, and I don't live in phoenix. We, we drive, we drive here because all the business stuff is downtown yeah, it is a lot of the commercial real estate.
Speaker 1:Like, if you want to lease an office, you can lease one in the suburbs, but it's a lot more expensive because of course people want to people who work like me, who own their own business they would love to have an office right next to their house, so that's more prime real estate, but a lot more of the commercial offices are downtown. Um, what else we got? Oh, the big news. I forgot about this. The huge news Samsung officially announced with Google. Remember, we've been talking about the XR headset.
Speaker 2:They finally announced it.
Speaker 1:Now it's not releasing until late 2025. So you can't buy it for like a year, but they announced it and they unveiled it, and some people are not too, not too happy that at least the headset itself looks like the Apple vision pro. Let me go back to the thumbnail, so you can see it here.
Speaker 2:it is right there. Yeah, it does. It does kind of.
Speaker 1:It kind of looks like the Apple Vision Pro a little bit.
Speaker 2:I wish they would have went. That you know, because you know like when you look at Sony's you know headset vision like or XR headset like it looks like really cool and like futuristic and I feel like that would be more the vibe yeah, so also, though, they did release.
Speaker 1:Oh, so, one other thing they released the glasses as well. So they're going to have glasses and or they announced the glasses, they're going to have glasses and they're going to have the headset, so they got both coming. Um, it's going to be very interesting because it's a huge partnership between google, samsung and qualcomm and, uh, they're trying to put a lot of pressure, obviously, on apple and meta and Meta people who already have, you know kind of the big players that are in XR, vr and all that stuff. Gemini AI is going to power the Android XR ecosystem. It's going to be a digital assistant that will let you get information in real time while you're in the headset. You can use YouTube and Maps in real time as well. Integrated perfectly, it can convert 2D photos and videos into 3D experiences, so you can put a 2D photo in there and you can be like you jumped into the photo. That sounds like a cool feature, right? That's one of the features that jumped out to me when I saw the presentation. I would really like to see that, and I think a lot of people could use that application, find applications for that in business, and they also have the smart glasses in the pipeline as well, in addition to the XR headset. So we know the headset's coming and we know that there could be glasses as well. Neither of them are going to launch until late 2025.
Speaker 1:Sumit wrote the article and he said maybe at CES we will see some information for what they plan to do for releasing the XR firmly. I don't know about that because CES is only a few weeks away, but maybe I would like that if they had like some more info about the headset, because that's more like in my interests than talking about smart appliances. Hey, I like appliances, but not really as exciting as this product category. So, yeah, yeah, it's called android xr and, uh, it was, you know, a huge collaboration between google and samsung. There's not really a ton to say about it right now because we don't have the physical hardware. We saw preview, we saw what google kind of showed that people could do, but I don't know. I think it's pretty exciting. I think the feature about being able to like have a 2d photo and jump into that as a virtual experience sounds exciting. What do you think about that? Tori?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, no, uh, uh, I think that's gonna be a really cool feature, like, uh, I and I was just kind of thinking well, I know, because I know we talked about it before on the show um, like, will we be able to or will we be seeing people like at coffee shops, you know? Know, with this on, with all the features that it's going to have, it looks like it's also going to have good use for like in-home stuff, maybe, like for, you know, business owners and stuff like that for productivity, you know, outside of the luxurious stuff. But I actually can kind of start to see, like, maybe in the future, uh, people actually kind of using this. But uh, I just kind of have the view that it's probably going to be a luxury item for, yeah, I still don't see people using these in public yeah, no, yeah, I see more of like a home use.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and you know I I still think the real wheelhouse niche of these is for entertainment purposes and maybe some specific business purposes. But they really want to push, like at least Apple did and Apple's kind of already admitted the vision pros kind of a failure because they've kind of discontinued plans to make a full sequel. They're going to go a different direction, a lower cost direction, which makes sense, because it's 3,500 bucks is insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I every, every YouTuber I know who bought one. I've seen them selling them or they say they're just sitting in their closet collecting dust. I mean, I I didn't buy one, thankfully. But um, I think the real niche here is gaming we talked about before. Um, some like applications for entertainment, like travel, like if you want to go to a place that you can't afford to go, like it can make you feel like you're there.
Speaker 1:And this idea of taking a 2d photo of me on the jump into it's interesting Cause. Like someone sends you a photo, like here's a photo of me on my trip to Rome and like I can jump in that and like look around like I was actually there. That's a really cool application and like I would use that probably I'm not gonna say daily, but maybe every other couple of days I could people send me interesting photos and it would be quite a cool to experience what you know other people are experiencing. I think that would be a cool feature. And then the gaming. Obviously gaming is a huge niche, like, and also watching YouTube, watching YouTube.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and in the immersive version of YouTube in XR which Google also really touted I think is really cool. But you know they didn't really lean super hard into what Apple was leaning into Like, oh, you can compose your documents and do like your programming for, like Python, and I don't want to do that. I just don't. I'd rather do it on my MacBook. And it looks like everybody else agrees. That's why Vision Pro didn't sell at $3,500, right Is that people don't want to necessarily do all their productivity in XR as well.
Speaker 1:People want it to be an entertainment device, which means it also can't cost a crazy amount of money. Because if it's not your productivity, it's easier to say oh well, I'm going to buy this MacBook for $2,500 because what I do for a job requires that computing power and I can also use it for entertainment. But the main reason I'm able to justify the $2,500 is because I use it for a job requires that computing power and I can also use it for entertainment. But the main reason I'm able to justify the $2,500 is because I use it for a job which makes me money and so I need it. But if I'm spending $3,500 on the Vision Pro and it's like, oh, I'm just going to use it for some gaming and YouTube or, you know, looking at pictures. I'm going to pay $3,500 for that. Even people who are super rich probably were like they might've bought it and then they sold it Cause they're like well, why would I want to keep this when I just I have my Mac, I have my iPhone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right so it didn't make a lot of sense. The real question is and they didn't mention this in the I need to know the price yeah, I mean too.
Speaker 2:I think there's gonna be like that's key there I they could really make it to where it's like sure it's gonna be a luxury item, you know, but like they'll kind of capitalize themselves and, and you know, I just kind of look at like, um, how well vr headsets have been able to sell and like just the gaming industry, it hasn't been, you know, a huge push. Like I still see tons and tons of like VR headsets for gaming still on shelves and not very many people are buying them. So I feel like it's going to need to be a kind of like a everyday or not like everyday, but like you know, just all those cool features that you're mentioning, plus a really good price tag that I think will get people and maybe get some demos or some some good advertising, because you know, samsung, that they're not always advertising everything that I think they yeah, I think google helped them advertise the first one because they're obviously the first partner.
Speaker 1:other companies may make android xr, but just like anything with android, samsung is the first one because they're obviously the first partner. Other companies may make Android XR, but just like anything with Android, samsung is the most important because they're the largest by far. Oh yeah, google will probably make their own XR too, but it won't sell as many units as Samsung, obviously. Yeah, probably not. I personally think anything more than $1,000, it's dead on arrival.
Speaker 2:What do you think? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Anything more than $1 thousand, like up to a thousand if it's really good and some of these google specific ecosystem features work. Maybe some people pay a thousand for it. But I think the sweet spot is maybe somewhere, because it's got google services a little more expensive than the meta quest, which I think is it 500. Yeah 500 yeah I think 600 to 800 is the sweet spot.
Speaker 2:I this I would like to see a $600 price tag. I think that's doable. People would be interested in you know as an average consumer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because then it's in the territory of like. I don't have to justify it by saying, oh, I'm going to do productivity on it. 600 is like enough. I mean, obviously this is not true for everybody, because some people 600 is a lot of money. But if you're an adult and you're sort of in the middle class tax bracket, you can spend $600, you know on a lot on an entertainment device occasionally.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if this does a lot of stuff that you're interested in, you don't have to justify it like, oh, I'm going to use this for work, like you do. If it's 25, $3,500, you can say I'm just going to use this for movies and games and whatever, and you'll like it, and kids, kids like it too. Kids do like it. Although I'm very concerned about letting young kids use VR, cause I think it's really bad on their mental development. That's a whole different story. I probably won't let Jonathan use VR or XR anything for quite a while, just cause I feel like there's a lot of research showing that like they're not fully developed with their concept of real reality, and then you're letting them use augmented reality and that just might not be good in the long run. But that's a different story.
Speaker 1:What else we got? Let's see Pixel screenshots. They're adding more features and it's making Galaxy users upset because we don't have pixel screenshots. That's Google's app that launched on the pixels which automatically categorizes your screenshots and gives you information, summaries of those AI summaries of your screenshots. They're not going to have integration with Circle to Search and a bunch of other Google apps, and so people are like Google. Why don't you bring that to other Android phones, mainly Galaxy, but for now it's a pixel exclusive. They're trying to sell phones with that strategy, so hey.
Speaker 2:Can't hate on that. They gotta have something to sell some phones, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That's important. Oneui7's AI notification summary isn't here. It's been delayed. So this is a piece of OneUI7 news that a lot of people were asking about when are the notification summaries? And the question is they are not in any of the current beta builds. I talked to a renowned leaker, chun Bai on X and I follow each other and I tweeted him and I said, hey, where's my notification summaries, bro? And he's like, oh sorry, they've been removed from the internal builds, probably not coming until the S25 launch.
Speaker 1:So if you're hoping to test AI notification summaries on the beta, probably ought to look. Looks like those are going to be saved for the S25, so Tori will get to experience them and we're all going to be experiencing them with him, because we probably won't be able to test it on the beta. So, to remind you, this is like the Apple feature on iOS 18. With Apple Intelligence, you can set it so that Galaxy Eye will summarize your notification bundles and tell you what's going on. You can set it so that Galaxy Eye will summarize your notification bundles and tell you what's going on.
Speaker 1:Me and Tori highlighted some of the issues with this a while back on the podcast because on Halloween I was using one of my iPhones and it was telling me that the cops were at my door and it was just some kids dressed up like police officers, so it could be a little scary. So if you turn this on, just be aware that you might get scared a little bit by what it tells you. The one lady who was talking to her mother and she said that she went on a hike, it almost killed her and then the AI notification said nearly committed suicide.
Speaker 1:And that's not necessarily good. You don't want that. You don't want to see that when you unlock your phone. That is a little scary, like uh-oh, my mother nearly committed suicide, what? And it just turned out she just went on a hike. So you know, ai notification, somebody got a little work to do, but Galaxy should be a little better, hopefully, because Samsung's been doing AI a little longer than Apple.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they also have a partnership with Google and Google's very good at AI. So I'm hopeful that Samsung will, you know, get that going a little bit better. Let's see what else. Oh, magnetic cases for the Galaxy S25. So let's see what else. Oh, magnetic cases for the Galaxy S25. So there's some news that the Galaxy S25 could support Qi 2 wireless charging, which means it could support the same thing that Apple phones have, which is the magnetic accessories on the back, the MagSafe that Apple has. And so Samsung there's some evidence that they have magnetic cases in the lineup for the Galaxy S25 series, where you can have magnetic wallet attachments and battery attachments on the back, which is cool.
Speaker 1:People been asking about this for a while. The only concern I have, which some other people shared on x as well, is that the s pen typically doesn't work if you have a magnetic case on. There's only some cases that work with the s pen. If they're magnetic, the s pen, like it, won't pick up the pen, it'll skip when you're writing. So the question is, how are they going to implement the s-pen so that the magnetic, you know, doesn't interfere with your s-pen writing?
Speaker 1:There are cases that have done it. So samsung could obviously do this. The mag back case which I've actually had. I've worked with them for a few years now they're sponsors on the channel. They have a case which actually does allow you to do MagSafe with your Galaxy phone and it doesn't interfere with the S Pen. So Samsung can figure it out. But the question is they're going to have to make some changes to how they implement this in order for it to not impact the S Pen. So I don't know, tori, what do you think about that? Magsafe accessories would you be interested in getting a magnetic wallet or battery attachment or any other type of attachment for your phone?
Speaker 2:uh, so, like for me personally, uh, I really do like you know the classical, uh, you know wallet, uh, but you know I know a lot of friends who do like it and that would be something where like again, uh, if they wanted to or if they were interested in coming to samsung, that would be something that they would do and probably give up on their Apple phones. You know, like I don't know, I have a lot of friends who are interested in that stuff and they really like, especially girls, girls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, ladies like it.
Speaker 2:A lot of my female friends. They like to have all the wallet and stuff in one spot on their phone. The ladies love the accessories.
Speaker 1:You got to accessorize, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you do, you do.
Speaker 1:You can't go out without accessorizing. So yeah, I think this is another step where it's like Samsung's doing a lot of things where people are. You know, we talked to Max Weinbach when he was on the show about the fact that he doesn't think Samsung can poach people from Apple, but they're actively trying, because everything they've done in the last year is basically trying to make it so that if people wanted to, you know whether they do or not, because his thesis was they probably won't. They're trying to make it easier for people to be like OK, I see that cool Samsung tech. What about the MagSafe cases? Well, we got them now. What about the smooth animations and the nice looking software with the blur and all that? Well, one ui7 has that now.
Speaker 1:What about my apple watch that has all these various functions? Well, the apple watch, the galaxy watch ultra has that now. What about my airpods that have the stem design that looks super familiar? Well, the bud 3 pro look just like that now. All these things they're doing.
Speaker 1:It's like they're still trying to be uniquely samsung, but they're saying if someone was looking at some cool Samsung stuff like a foldable, or they wanted to get into the, you know the camera tech that Samsung has, that Apple doesn't. They're saying, oh well, let's make it a little easier, like, if they want to do it, let's just give them a little push so that there's no barriers. Right, like, and also with quick share, which is actually one of the next things I'm going to talk about, android is making it so that they can basically have their own version of airdrop. So if you miss airdrop, like, okay, well, that's done, that's taken care of. And now rcs works with the iphones, because google and samsung pushed the government to force apple to do it. So you say, okay, well, now you can get all your text reactions and read receipts and stuff.
Speaker 1:If you move to your android phone and you still don't get the full experience of iMessage, but you get a lot of it. So all these things over time, like they're removing those barriers of like how hard it was to switch because Apple has all this great ecosystem. Samsung and Google are creating their own ecosystem, which I think is pretty competitive. There's still a couple of things missing, like if you want to move to Samsung or Android and you still like to have a tablet, most Samsung Android tablets are not going to be as good as the iPad. That's just a fact. This is a Samsung show. I love Samsung, but the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra one, it's just too big.
Speaker 1:And two there are very few Android apps optimized for tablets, because Samsung and Google just don't push tablets as hard as Apple does. So if you're moving over to your Android phone, your Samsung, you probably got to miss a tablet if you use one regularly, or you can just do what I do. Honestly, I've said it before on the show, I use Android everything for my phones but I use an iPad as my main daily tablet. The Tab S10 Ultra I use all the time it sits on my desk, but I mainly use it for watching media and multitasking and like helping me drag and drop windows while I'm working on various stuff for youtube. I do not use it as the tablet I carry with me on the go, though, because it's 15 inches almost. I mean I'm not going to carry that on the go. I have my ipad mini and my 11 inch ipad pro. They're a lot smaller and lighter and I already have a bunch of stuff in my bag. So, but hey, that's an option, move over to galaxy for your phone. You can still have an ipad. You know, no judgment, I do it. So it's a big deal.
Speaker 1:Uh, galaxy s24 ultra won the smartphone of the year. How about this right here? Some great news here from the nag awards 2024. Nag magazine, which is a very reputable source in mobile, recognize the s24 ultra in the fold six for their exceptional performance. We've got to go ahead and take a victory lap on that. Samsung fans, we're taking a victory lap, we're running, we're saying we're running, we're running, we're running, we like it. So how about that? S24 Ultra is a great phone. I'm kind of surprised it won phone of the year, considering that it had some of these issues, like the grainy display issue, which we talked about before.
Speaker 1:And then also, samsung never really improved the zoom on the camera from the launch. That's going to be one of the big things I'll be looking at when I review the S35 Ultra. Did they fix the grainy display and did they improve the zoom Cause last year they removed the native 10 X zoom telephoto and then they were like, oh, the five X zoom is going to be so good, and it wasn't. It was pretty much garbage and they never improved it to any of the software updates. I think that's a huge letdown. Is that something that most average consumers are going to criticize? Probably not.
Speaker 1:But if you spend $1,400, whatever on a phone, you should get those little things fixed, even if you don't really know or care about them. That's why I'm here and why all the people who cover this news niche are here. We're trying to help the consumers get the best possible out of their phones and if we don't push Samsung and say stuff, then they'll just never do it. So a lot of the average consumers are like, well, we don't care too much about it's okay, but you would always like it to be better. And if no one's saying, hey, it should be better, then you're not going to get any better. So we try to push them. I'm not against it winning phone of the year. I'm just a little surprised because there were some nagging issues that they have. But what do you think, tory, about the phone of the year?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, no, uh, again, with my very limited uh use of the s24 ultra, um, I mean it does look like a very solid container phone. I mean, just looking at all the features, uh that it has, um, you know, leading up to it, I just think it's a great built phone and I think they can springboard off into the S25. And again, it just kind of shows that, even though you're running up against Apple, since they do release the same phone just about every single year, every year, every year, know apple, uh, since they do release the same phone just about every single year, every year, every year, uh, you know, I, I feel like it just leaves the door for samsung to really hit home every year but next year it comes in a lighter shade of pink yes and potentially they might even name the silver color something different yes, potentially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I, I, I, I didn't get, I didn't get with all the phones that are out right now.
Speaker 1:Uh, s24 ultra is definitely the the phone yeah, I mean I'm happy they won, don't get me wrong, we're happy about it. It's just I'm a little surprised considering some of the other pieces, um, that were out there and some of the little small nagging things they have. But hey, I'm all about the S24 Ultra. I mean it's the phone I use pretty much all year. I mean, I switch back and forth because I'm always testing stuff, but this is the phone I always come back to.
Speaker 1:Now a lot of people do ask me am I still using the Z Fold Special Edition now that I moved to 7.0? And I am. I have it. I still love it table, I carry both. And uh, yes, I am very sad when I power on the z fold special edition and it has one ui 6.1.1 because I'm like where's my 7.0, where's my vertical app drawer? And it doesn't have it yet. So that does make me a little sad.
Speaker 1:But then I open up this big giant screen and it's just absolutely gorgeous and it's so much nicer than, I mean, my z fold 6. I haven't turned that on since I got the special edition because this thing is just so nice. This screen is massive and this is my new everyday foldable. I love this thing. So I'm not going to stop carrying this. I have no plans to sell it. We made plenty. We made more than we paid for it back off the content. So there's no reason to sell it, and I like it until I get the Z Fold 7, and hopefully the Z Fold 7 will be basically the special edition and then maybe I'll sell it.
Speaker 2:Then that's what I'm really hoping for. I really hope they do that. I really hope they just essentially, are you going to?
Speaker 1:geta Z Flip 7?. Sorry, because you said you were thinking about slipping to the flip, but oh no, you're going to get the S25 Ultra.
Speaker 2:You've decided yeah.
Speaker 1:You're going to stay with the candy bar phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I like that candy bar. The candy bar, we like it.
Speaker 1:Candy bars are so tasty. You know what I mean. Quickshare, which I was talking about, basically the Android version of AirDrop, google and Samsung. They merged QuickShare and AirByshare, so now Samsung's version, which is QuickShare, is on all Android phones, not just Samsung. So if you have a Pixel, you also have QuickShare, which was made by Samsung. Google and Samsung kind of integrated them and they decided Google said hey, samsung, what you're doing is better than what we're doing, so we're going to take your stuff and we're going to use it across all of Android. And Samsung said okay, cool, well, we're going to go ahead and take Google Messages and just use that and replace Samsung Messages with what you're doing. So they're just taking stuff from each other. But QuickShare now allows QR code sharing on Android everywhere. Galaxy phones have had this for a long time, where you can just pull up a QR code and give it to your friend and say scan this and you can get the file.
Speaker 1:Now any Android phone you can do this. So if you have a Pixel, you can now use QuickShare and you can send someone a QR code and boom, they'll be able to scan it and get the file. Now it does work differently, though, on regular and other Androids, not Galaxy. On Galaxy phones, the file gets uploaded to the Samsung cloud first and then the person downloads, scans the QR code. It downloads it from the Samsung cloud. With the Android version which you could debate might be better or worse it directly connects to your device and then sends it over direct connection. So there's pros and cons. Right, with the Samsung one, you can give anyone the QR code, not just someone nearby, and they can easily get it. But obviously with the Google version that's on the Pixel and other Androids you need to scan the QR code, you need to be there right, because I mean, otherwise they can't really, because it has to be in range to do the direct connection.
Speaker 1:Now, I haven't actually tested. If you send this to someone, I don't think it will. If you send it to someone who's far away, you can't get it because obviously it's not uploading to the cloud first. The Samsung version also gives you a link you can copy and paste into a text conversation and a person can click the link and download the file from the cloud too, which is really cool. I think a lot of people think it would be nice if Google would do this, but then Google would have to host this on their own cloud services. Samsung hosts this on their cloud services. It's kind of built into their monthly cost. It obviously costs money to host all these QuickShare files, because you've got hundreds of millions of people using Samsung devices. This is not free. This is costing them money, so Google would have to be willing to do that. I don't really know Do you use QuickShare Tori at all?
Speaker 2:on your phone. No, no, actually, I haven't ever used it.
Speaker 1:You don't. You never use QuickShare.
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 1:So basically, what you can do is, well, if you just have a picture like this one, tap the little share icon at the bottom in your gallery and see this thing that says Quick Share. If you tap on this thing that says Quick Share, it'll show you a bunch of other devices you can share to. Now, these are all my devices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you have someone who's further away see it's got my, give you this qr code, someone can scan it, and then there's a link down here. You can copy the link, paste it and they can download it.
Speaker 2:So you can still, you can still use this with your girlfriend.
Speaker 1:If you wanted to send her a file that's like a large file that you couldn't send you know you didn't want to upload yourself you could send her a link and then she could download it once she's back on wi-fi. Oh, that's cool, so it's kind of a nice feature. It works great, of course, much better if you have two people who are together who have the same type of phone. If you both have Galaxies, it works great. Me and Nicole both have Galaxies, so we use it all the time. At home we have a large video that one of us took of the kids and the other person doesn't have it. We have our Google Photos syncs so it auto uploads stuff of the kids. But if we take one somewhere else and we want to get it to them, get it to the person. Quickshare does it like instantly.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's cool If you both have.
Speaker 1:Galaxies. It's definitely a little bit easier, but you can still use it with other ones as well. Last story which I want to talk about I'm trying to find where that last story is, and that is this one right here the galaxy s25 series storage options leaked um for the s25 plus, s25 and s25 ultra. Um, you've got, of course, the same colors we reported before. The four colors are standard. Colors of the ultra are titanium white, silver, titanium silver blue, titanium gray, titanium black remember, the greed is going to be samsung color, so that one is not part of the standard ones. Those have not fully leaked out the final names. We just kind of know what they're going to look like.
Speaker 1:The storage configurations are going to be 128 and 256 for the S25, 256 and 512 for the S25 Plus, and 256, 512, and 1 terabyte for the S25 Ultra, and 256, 512, and 1 terabyte for the S25 Ultra. I'm a little disappointed, honestly, that the S25 base model has a 128 option and not a 512. People need more than 128 storage these days because this is not enough with all the photos and videos you take. Even if you don't download many apps, if you take a lot of photos and videos, you're going to use up a lot of that storage. I mean, I use a ton because I create video content for a living, so I take a lot of stuff with my phones, b-roll and stuff. I always need at least a 512, but usually a one terabyte.
Speaker 1:If it's my main phone, this is a one terabyte. So the Ultra is the only one that has one terabyte. So if you want one terabyte in the S25 Plus, you can't get. It Doesn't say what the Galaxy S25 Slim is going to have. Plus, you can't get. It Doesn't say what the Galaxy S25 Slim is going to have. I don't even think the Slim is going to come with the other phones in January 22nd. Of course, as we know, that's when the phones are releasing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:January 22nd.
Speaker 1:But then like, where do you think the Slim may actually release? Then I think maybe it's going to be in between the regular S launch and then the Fold launch, which is in July. So I'm going to say like April, march.
Speaker 2:April.
Speaker 1:That's usually when Google puts out their A-series phone for the Pixel 2 because it's in between their launches, so usually in the middle of other two launches is a good idea. I still don't know how that's going to cannibalize the sales. We have no idea what the colors are going to be for that yet, or the storage. It'll be very interesting That'll be an interesting product to see how that performs. I really am not sure how well that product can possibly do, but it'll be very interesting to see. What storage variant do you have on the S22 Ultra? Tori Is it 256?
Speaker 1:Actually, I don't know, you don't know, yeah, no, no, no, I just know I have the S22.
Speaker 2:Ultra, do you find yourself running out of storage on your phone? No, no, no, no, no, not at all Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious too, like, if you guys listen to the show, what storage configuration do you have on your Galaxy device? Because I feel like I use it just a lot, because obviously I take a lot of video and obviously if you have kids too, you're going to have taken a lot of photos, so that's going to take a lot of storage. I take tons of photos of my son, so I also probably use a lot for that. I mean, I upload stuff to the cloud, but that's probably the reason. Are you taking a look? Yeah, I bet it's 256, because I think that was the base model is the 256. So I'm thinking you probably have that, unless you bought it from the carrier right. Probably 256, but let's find out.
Speaker 2:It's suspenseful right now.
Speaker 1:If you go to device care you can find it. It's right here. So go to settings and scroll down to where it says device care and it says storage. Scroll down to where it says device care and it says storage. Oh no, you got the 512. Tori's rocking the 512. That's why he never worried about storage. He's got the 512 on deck right here. He's using 131.5 gigs out of 512. So he's only using 25%. Let's take a look at mine.
Speaker 2:And I've had this one literally since it came out.
Speaker 1:Let me see mine real quick. I'm using my storage 393 out of 512, 78% of the storage is used, so this one's a 512. I think I bought one one terabyte and one 512 cause I couldn't get, I don't think, the, if I remember right. I don't know if they offer the Samsung exclusive colors in the one terabyte. We'll see. Hopefully they do this year, cause I was thinking about getting that green one, if it happens. So anyway, we're going long today, that's okay. We're going to come back in the second half of the show talk about these One UI 7 beta questions, because we've got quite a few that I want to go through. I didn't write them down, so I'm just going to hopefully remember them, or I'm going to look on X.
Speaker 1:We'll try to figure it out during the break, but of course, as usual, before we do that, we've got to pay the bills. This week yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna take a moment to hear from the sponsor of today's podcast, sammy guru. This episode of the sammy guru podcast is brought to you by sammy guru. That's right. We sponsored our own podcast this week and we did that because I want to remind you guys, if you're going to be ordering a galaxy s25 device this january 2025, to make sure you sign up for our mystery box program on our website at sammygurucom slash pre-order. Yes, you can get a free case cleaning kit, desktop phone stand, other randomly inserted goodies like Amazon gift cards, Google Play credit. We have a golden and platinum ticket where you can actually get the device you purchased for free. We'll pay you back the cost of the device. It's an amazing program. All you have to do is use our Samsung affiliate link to place your order. On launch day we send out a text message or an email. You can put in your phone number or your email or both on our signup page and once you do that, we cover the cost of shipping, the cost of the products, all that good stuff. You pay nothing additional to get in on the mystery box program. It's a great way for us to give back to our listeners, to our viewers to our readers on the website and then also continue funding the site as well, because we do make a little from that affiliate income. Keep bringing you guys great Samsung coverage. If you want to check it out, go to samigurucom slash preorder and I hope you guys really enjoy your Galaxy S25 device. All right, welcome back everybody.
Speaker 1:Here's the second half of the show. We're going to talk a little bit about One UI 7.0 beta that old beta Q&A. Quite a few questions people shot my way over on X, and I've remembered most of them because I've either wrote about them in an article or I made a video about them. So the first one I'll just start with. Someone was asking me about the fonts, and do the system fonts apply in all of your apps? The answer to that is no.
Speaker 1:Samsung has had this issue for a while, where some of their third party, some of first-party fonts the Samsung fonts. If you set a custom font like Samsung Sans on your phone, it doesn't apply, like in Twitter or Gmail or your other applications only in the Samsung first-party apps, and that's still the case. I do want to let people know, though, that this is not necessarily all Samsung's issue. Some of them there are some that could be themed. I think Samsung is probably doing something incorrectly or they just don't care about theming all the apps with the fonts. But Android makes it so that developers can force you to use their own font instead of the one chosen by the OS. So Android kind of forces that. And for Samsung uses Android, so they don't have all the control here. But yes, there are some places where it could be done that they still haven't. Like Google apps, I think you can like certain other Android phones, like the font persists throughout the UI. Do you use a different font on your Samsung or do you use a standard font?
Speaker 2:I just use the standard font, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think most people probably do, but you know standard font. I think most people probably do. Some people like to customize. I think the ladies like to customize their font sometimes too, though.
Speaker 2:Especially the ladies who get the.
Speaker 1:Samsung, because that's something on iOS you can't really do. There's not as much customization available with fonts. That's not fixed just yet. The next question that someone was asking me about One UI 7 is about battery life. I'll talk about that. I talked about it slightly earlier. It's fantastic with one key exception and that's the Android Auto.
Speaker 1:If you use wireless Android Auto, you're going to have to charge your phone like once or twice a day because your commute in the morning is going to drain 20% to 25% of your battery, depending on how long it is. Here in Phoenix you usually have a long commute and then on the way home it's going to drain 20 to 25% of your battery. So I've been getting home, if I don't charge in the day, with like 10% battery or 5% almost dead, because I took 40% driving to and from the office. If it wasn't for that, the battery life seems to be better than 6.1.1,. But it has huge heating issues on Android Auto Wireless. It is really hot and the battery drains like crazy.
Speaker 1:So I think samsung obviously this is a bug. They will fix it. It's not like it's going to be there in the final release. So I would say you should be optimistic because it seems like during the day when I'm doing anything that's not android auto wireless, it's working great and I don't lose a lot of battery on standby either. I can leave the phone sitting for a while as long as it's just in the office and it's working fine, and I've used it mixed of usage on lte and wireless and wi-fi works pretty good. How many hours battery life do you get on your s22 ultra towards the screen on time?
Speaker 2:um, let's see. So, like I normally charge it to 100, like in the morning I leave the house around uh, probably around like six, and so by the time I get home you know, because if it's a Monday, wednesday commuting about 40 minutes to the school, then I'm not really on my phone so much and then about 30 minutes to the community college and then about a 40-minute drive back home. So by the time I get back it's probably about 25%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're using Android Auto a lot too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But Tori's probably also not using his phone a lot during the day for screen on time because he's a teacher.
Speaker 1:That's what people didn't understand too Before I became a full-time content creator. They would always ask me to share my battery life stats. I'm like, well, they're not really that indicative of other people's, because a lot of people who have other office jobs and stuff they can be on their phone like in between doing stuff when I'm teaching. I really can't yeah Like I can't pick up my phone in the middle of a lecture and be like, oh, let me check out some stuff.
Speaker 2:Let me send out some tweets, because you can't really tell the students that they shouldn't have their phones.
Speaker 1:if you're taking out your phone and tweeting, yeah.
Speaker 2:Why am I paying all this money?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was doing, you know, obviously, yeah, I was doing my social media job too while I was teaching, but I couldn't be doing that in the middle of teaching because that would be a little suspect there. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never did that.
Speaker 1:So my battery life always seemed like it was really great because and I told people this it was kind of inflated because I wouldn't be on my phone. There wouldn't be a my phone a lot at night either. Now I still drain my battery because now I'm working in the day full time doing this, so I'm on the phone all day because it's my job. I do stuff on the phone, but I mean at night and stuff. I probably use my phone way less than the average person. Because I have two young kids and they take up all of your time not 99 of it, 100 of it. So until they go to sleep I'm not looking at my phone really at all for the most part. Um, because you know, having a nine month old and a four and a half year old is two completely different ages and they both have completely different needs. So you're going to spend all your time because when one of them is needs a diaper change, the other one wants to play with you and and you've got to juggle. It's not easy. So that's why my battery life was always a little skewed.
Speaker 1:There's some people out there who probably use their phone like me, but that's also why I don't like making People ask me why don't you make a lot of battery life reviews on YouTube? Because battery life is completely subjective. There is no one answer. People make these videos, Like people make these videos.
Speaker 1:I've made battery life videos before and they do okay, I guess, in search in terms of, like you know, clickbait keyword optimization, but they're not very. You know, they're not very genuine, because my battery life and your battery life, they could be the same phone. We could even have the same Wi-Fi and 5G usage, but we might have completely different usage patterns because we have different jobs, different lifestyles. I spend a different amount of time, you know, on the phone, different apps. You can do certain tests that give you an idea, but you know signal strength is different in different cities. There's like a million factors that impact your battery life. Someone says someone says like, oh, the battery life is this. They're just saying, okay, if I put it in a room on wifi and I leave it and I do turn on a video and let it play, this is how long it lasts. No one does that in real life, though.
Speaker 2:So how is that a good test?
Speaker 1:And even if I'm watching a video, usually I'm doing other stuff in between it. So even the video test people are like do a YouTube video play test, just leave it and see how long it takes, why no one's doing that. Like that's not a realistic indication of your battery life when you get the phone. So that's just my thought.
Speaker 1:I've done some other battery tests over time. One that I really like to do is, like when I log my battery usage, I have like a spreadsheet and then like I look at the percentage like every hour and log where it's at so I can see, like how it drains throughout the day and then I can match that to the different app activities and see what was draining it. I think that's a little more scientific way of doing it versus just like letting it play on a video test or whatever, and I kind of like that. But there's still a lot of factors because, like, my signal strength on my carrier is different than yours and your city, so that drains battery a lot. Like if you have bad signal strength, your battery will be awful because it will be constantly trying to find the cell network and that drains more battery than almost anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know it's very subjective. But people always want to know about the battery life.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think, like as a you know, average phone user, it seems to be universally what people care about is okay. How often will I need to charge my phone throughout the day?
Speaker 1:People love to care about battery life.
Speaker 2:Everybody cares about that gravity towards that, uh, and you know, and so I I think that's just probably where, like, a lot of it stems from. Um, yeah, literally like the first thing everyone asks how's the battery life?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, it's definitely. It's not just enthusiasts, it's also average. People find my channel and they when the new phone comes out, because I always do a ton of content for the new phones and get the galaxy s20 ultra the. You know, I posted a video with my initial impressions and unboxing like how's the battery life? I'm like I only had it for 12 hours how would I know?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. I just took it out of the box like I have no idea how the battery life is. It could be good, it could be bad, it could be mediocre. Oh, they're banging on some stuff here. Oh yeah, they're doing a little construction here at the office on a sunday.
Speaker 1:They're like we're going to ruin this podcast one way or another, these guys decided to come in on Sunday so they could avoid all the other congestion around the office building and bang away on some stuff. I think they're doing construction in the bathroom or something. Anyway, next question that someone was asking about are the animations, and so I talk about the animations in a lot of shorts that I made. Everybody loves the animations, the enthusiasts. They're a lot better. There's some things that could be fixed. One animation I love is how the apps pop out of the suggested. This is the suggested apps widget Watch this.
Speaker 2:Pops out. Look how it goes back in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that Look how it goes in smooth right back into the widget box. The app just disappears into the box.
Speaker 2:I really like that. That's a gorgeous animation.
Speaker 1:Even if you don't like animations, you're going to like that one. The opening and closing app animation is fine. People want you to do this at super rate of speed to see the animations, and they can be improved. There's definitely a little bit of a weird. It has like square. I think this is another reason, though. Look at this story. You see how, like when the animation goes in, you see how this thing, like, the corners are getting a little more sharp, because this is a sharp. This s24 ultra has sharper corners. I think this is why it was made for, like, a rounded corner device, because if you look at it, look at this, the corners get progressively more, yeah, uh, smoothed out as it goes as it disappears back into the app icon, so that's why I think it looks a little more beautiful on the s24 plus.
Speaker 1:Um, that's definitely something that could be fixed. Um, if you look at the lock screen, I think they could make the wallpaper blurred a little bit more so that you could see the notifications a little better yeah that's called the frosted glass effect.
Speaker 1:Ice universe said they should implement this. A lot of people gave this feedback and I do agree with that. Um, one thing that definitely needs some work in terms of like how they've implemented some of the various aspects of one ui7 is the now bar. So when you use the now bar, bixby is supposed to work with the now. But stop that. Bixby is supposed to work with the now bar, but it doesn't. It's listed in the settings. So if you go and like set a timer, let's set a timer, and so here's my now bar. You see right down there. And so then if I call Bixby, hey, bixby, bixby it appears down here over top of the now bar.
Speaker 1:It doesn't pop out of the now bar. It's supposed to actually pop out of the now bar according to, like, what Samsung's saying, but it doesn't. It just lives right on top of it. So a lot of people don't like that. I think they could make an animation that looks cool so that Bixby pops in and out.
Speaker 1:And another thing that doesn't work really well with the now bar is supposed to is Google Maps. Google Maps is supposed to, like, give you direction info in the now bar, but if you turn on google maps and you like do directions. So if I go into google maps I tried this the other day like, let's say, I'm going to go to the smithsonian museum, I'm going to drive there today directions it's going to be a long drive, uh, and so then I'm going to start from here and then we're going to get some directions and we're going to drive all the way to washington dc and it will give you your little live activity that Google Maps always has. But it's supposed to give you your directions on the now bar. It's going to be closed when I get there, what? Uh, it's supposed to live down here, but it doesn't see how. It just gives you the persistent notification. This is supposed to be on the now bar but it's not yet.
Speaker 1:So that's broken. They really need to fix that, because Google Maps is like one of the integrations I would want the most on the now bar.
Speaker 2:I would think oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:It seems like that would be one of the most useful, and it's one that I think people kind of come to expect. The other one that I really want that's not there, but Samsung hasn't said that they're going to do it, but I feel like it has to be done is sports scores.
Speaker 1:The sports scores on the now bar oh yeah, you can pin your live scores because apple allows them the dynamic island that has to be there. That's a feature that we need, because, sam, I put that in the beta feedback, like that's got to be on the now bar especially too, with like sports betting and stuff.
Speaker 2:Like I know so many people who exactly I got. I got some bets on the game today. I need to be checking my parlays right now, you know I need to know if my parlays are hitting yes, I gotta check, got to check the parlays find out if they're hitting right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, DraftKings should make their own now bar integration. I said that on X too, so you can actually see. You can flip through, you can swipe your now bar and see which of your parlays how close they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because DraftKings has progress in their app so you can see the like progress.
Speaker 2:bar DraftKings should do that.
Speaker 1:Although, are they going to build it for the? Now they should. I mean, galaxy is a very big. You know it's the second largest in the US behind the iPhone. They should consider building that integration. I don't know if they have something like that for the dynamic island, because I rarely use my iPhone, but it is certainly something I think they should consider.
Speaker 1:Samsung rolled out the beta survey to beta testers and I was going to go over a few of the questions that they asked inside the survey because I'd filled out the survey. They asked about the improved lock screen. They basically asked you if you're completely satisfied, somewhat satisfied, mostly satisfied, neutral, somewhat dissatisfied, mostly dissatisfied or completely dissatisfied? Um, they asked about the lock screen. They asked about the new call recording feature. Um, they got, they wanted feedback on a lot of stuff. I filled it out all very detailed. Um, the quick settings of the camera. I mean they had stuff that they wanted. You know kind of all opinions on all these things, trying to see what some of the other ones were. They had the quick settings panel, how it's combined.
Speaker 1:They asked for feedback about the new Bixby they asked for feedback about and there she is again, she's going off in the background about the new routine share feature, and this is actually one that I didn't notice. I was covering all these changes. I didn't notice this change until I took the survey. You can now share your routines on your galaxy phone in one ui7. You couldn't do this before. If you create a custom routine in the routine settings where it can like what I have routines for, like various things like driving. When I get in my car, it automatically detects my car's network in bluetooth and it turns on do not disturb, sends a message to my wife saying that I'm on my way and does a couple of other things that I have to do, and so, if you create these custom routines, you can share them with their users, which is really cool for me because I'm thinking now I can create cool routines and share them with our audience. They can use them like our Sammy guru readers and viewers on YouTube and everything, so I'll probably do that.
Speaker 1:This is a new feature that came with one UI seven that I actually didn't know until I took the beta feedback survey that Samsung sent out. Um, what else? What other questions have you asked about the? Oh, someone asked some questions about the landscape layout. We talked about landscape last week, whether or not you can edit your app icons in landscape layout. You used to be able to do this on one UI, six dot one. The answer is no. If you try to move the icons, it says can't edit your home screen.
Speaker 1:Sorry, have a nice day. So that's something they removed in One UI 7, but they did that for a reason because they changed the way the aspect ratio and the icons look on the home screen for the landscape layout, which makes it look better. We talked about that last week. That's why they did it. They don't want you moving stuff around because that messed up all those aspect ratio and where everything is. Basically, your landscape view is locked once you rotate it. If you want to edit it, you've got to go back to portrait. But I'm perfectly okay with this because, like I said, they did this for the greater good. At the end of the day, you're getting a better landscape view because of this.
Speaker 1:Someone was asking about the vertical app drawer. There's this weird secured by Knox text down here. We talked about that. They said do you think Samsung's going to remove this in the stable version? And we got an answer. Samsung actually responded to us and some other people in the beta forums their support. They will be removing that in the stable version. So that's just there for the beta. Why it's there, no one knows. They didn't say why they put that there, but it will be removed when you get the stable version. So you won't see that. I don't know if they're planning to make some changes to how the horizontal app drawer works, but we'll certainly figure that out.
Speaker 1:Someone was asking me about app archiving in One UI 7, which is a new Android 15 feature. Does it have Android? Does it have app archiving? It does. App archiving basically allows you to offload an application to basically back to the Play Store so it doesn't take up storage on your device. So if you have something you're not using, you can archive it and then you get all that storage back. So let's say you have a big game that you don't play that much. You could archive it. When you're not playing it. You could reclaim like half a gigabyte of storage if you needed it. It does work.
Speaker 1:However, it only works in like certain apps and not nearly all of them. It's hit or miss. So I think it's not fully implemented, because on my Pixel because Google implemented this Android 15, it's an Android 15 stock feature it works perfect on the Pixel with every app you've downloaded from the Play Store. On this one, not so much. So I think Samsung still has to finish implementing this. It's not supposed to work with sideloaded apps or third-party app stores, so it's only going to work with your Galaxy Store apps and your Play Store apps, but it should work with both of those once the stable version rolls out. So that's another something people were asking about. I don't know, tori, would you ever use app archiving? Do you have any apps that are big enough that you would really care about archiving them?
Speaker 2:I don't, but I know a lot of people would and again, I think it's just because I'm not on my phone very much, like I say, eight months out of the year consistently. But I do know that that's a big deal for a lot of people who, um, are probably either using social media mostly and then, like, probably game every now and again. Uh, so I I think that's a very good welcome feature, um for users yeah, definitely I agree.
Speaker 1:Uh, someone else was asking about, um, the dark mode icons. We talked about this too last week at iOS. Now Apple made it so that your icons turn like black when you turn on dark mode. Samsung did not do that in one UI seven. Will they in the later versions? It's been rumored that they will, but I don't know. It does still tent your icons ever so slightly when you do dark mode, like you can see this story Dark mode is off. Look at the play store icon and if I turn dark mode on right here, you'll notice the icons get a little darker.
Speaker 1:You can definitely see the white on the Play Store icon is much brighter when you have light mode on, but they don't turn the icons completely black or anything like that. Like iOS has automatic theming, my personal take on this is I don't really need it, because in Android you can already make a custom icon pack and put it on your phone from the Play Store.
Speaker 1:You can put any icons back you want instantly. Can't do that on iOS, so Apple kind of needed some kind of customization for the icons. We don't really need Samsung. It would be nice if they would make it, I guess, easier to customize icons, but I feel like it's not really needed. Someone asked me about how the quick settings panel looks with the color theming and if you look here you can see I theme mine using the color palette with blue and orange. Um, it looks nice.
Speaker 1:I made a youtube short about this. If you guys want to see it visually. It does not theme your notifications in the blue and orange, the color palette colors. Someone wanted to know about about that. That does not happen. So no worries, I know a lot of people don't want that. That is probably something you'll be able to do with Theme Park, the Good Lock module, so you'll be able to go in and change that. I'm actually going to make a video. Theme Park does work with One UI 7. People are asking about that as well. Which Good Lock modules work with One UI 7? Theme Park works. Regist registar works. Some of them are unplugged. That's pretty common. We'll definitely get a good lock update sometime in 2025. That will make all of them work with one ui7, but not all of them are working presently. What do you think about the quick settings look? Does it look pretty nicely themed here?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, uh, I think it looks really nice and sleek, you know, uh, compared to what I see every day on, like the S22.
Speaker 1:Check this out, though you expand the quick settings all the way down, oh that is cool. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:They kind of fall off the page, though I kind of wish they would make it so that it's easier to you know get them back up. We might have mentioned that last week too. Someone was asking about you know, because you have to scroll back up like this. I think we talked about that last week and I think we prefer a little better, more elegant solution there. But I think there's a lot they can probably do. The now bar animations could also use some work. When you tap on them, they expand. They're not bad. There's nothing wrong with them On the lock screen. If you have one of the new toggles there, like the action toggles, like I have, do not disturb. When do not disturb is turned on, it fills the toggle in, just like it does in the quick settings. So, like you see here, if I turn do not disturb off, you see how this is not filled in anymore. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Now it's transparent. That's new. And also you don't have to unlock your phone to enable. Do not disturb you, just swipe it and then it comes right in animation too.
Speaker 1:People were asking if you needed to unlock to do an action just like you do to open an app, and the answer is no, you don't have to do that. Overall, very happy with One UI 7. I like the way it looks. I like the way it operates. I think the animations could use some fine tuning. As we talked about, they got to fix that wireless Android auto bug. That's 20%. It's too much for the commute. 10% maybe is okay, but that's still a lot. I wish Google and Samsung would optimize that a little better. But I mean I can handle 10%. I mean I can't handle 20% there and 20% back.
Speaker 1:That's 40% a day, yeah 40% a day on my commute. That's too much, yeah, but hopefully they can pin that down. I'm sure Beta 2 is going to introduce some new features. They're rumored to get that audio eraser feature that will allow you to erase audio from video. That'd be really cool. So basically, you'll be able to take a video and you'll be able to just erase a certain portion of audio using AI. I think that'd be a feature people would use for their videos. I would certainly use it because I create content for a living. I'd be able to erase any audio that I don't want using AI. That'd be easier than having to transfer it to a Premiere Pro. On my computer you can already do that on desktop class operating system video software, but on your phone with Galaxy Eye, just tap one button. That'd be really nice. You could get rid of unwanted audio in your B-roll. Overall, I'm very happy with it.
Speaker 1:I've made tons of videos. We have a full article showing all the changes. I made a video about all the small little things that are missing. They removed transparency from the pop-up windows. They removed the Finder icon from the recent apps menu. They are removing the ability to download edge panels from the Galaxy Store. You can still use the ones you have, but can't download more of them. There's a lot of tiny little things they're moving that are going to make people angry, so I'll drop it in the show notes. If you want to go, check out my video so you can see which of those things are going to infuriate you, let me know. I've already reported all of them to the beta feedback to just say these things are no longer there.
Speaker 2:Some of them they may have intended to remove, so they'll say, oh well we meant to take it out, so that's just sorry about your damn luck, but they might say oh, we didn't really mean to take that out.
Speaker 1:It's going to be added back.
Speaker 1:So yeah we'll get some answers. I already documented all of it, so people are wondering about that. Otherwise, next week we'll be back, maybe kind of a short show next week, we'll see because it's going to be right for christmas show. But we'll definitely cover some, some Samsung news, at least. If the beta 2 comes out and has big changes. We'll talk more about that too, because people there are people who love I'm trying to ride both sides. People want the regular standard format, people want the One UI 7, you know. Just you know going on about it, we did a whole show on it last week. But we will continue to cover it as the beta evolves, especially if there's new big features to talk about. If they put the audio eraser, I'll try that and I'll talk about that. Anything else, tori, I mean I do want to mention we have some great deal roundups on the website as well.
Speaker 1:Our favorite holiday deals. I would say three great stocking stuffers if you're looking for stocking stuffers for your family. One if you have a Galaxy Z Flip 6, they got some great NFL cases that give you your team's logo on the very front of the cover display. I just bought one for the Steelers. I was really excited about getting it and I think I might enjoy a tasty cookie with it while I enjoy it on my Z Flip 6.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Just have a. You know it's the season for cookies.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:And have a chocolate chip cookie with some milk while I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Seven days of cookies.
Speaker 1:Seven days worth of cookies. Yeah, seven days worth of cookies, yeah, seven days of Christmas. That's what we say. So there's that, and then also the Buds 3 Pro. You know, if you like someone a little bit more, you could buy some Buds 3 Pro from them. They're on sale for like $189.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they went on sale for below $200. That's what I'm saying Go out there and just smash those Buds.
Speaker 1:3 Pro right up.
Speaker 2:Get them. Did you Wait until Christmas? Someone might get you something. I know, I know, I know. Let Sammy know you never know.
Speaker 1:So Tori might get some Buds 3 Pro and then you know if you really really like someone like if you really like them. They got great deals on the Galaxy Watch Ultra right now too, and the regular Galaxy Watch 7, which is a little bit cheaper if you want someone who doesn't have such a massive wrist, because it's massive. The Galaxy Watch Ultra is big.
Speaker 2:So don't buy it like.
Speaker 1:I won't recommend buying it for your wife or your girlfriend because they're not going to. Probably most likely most women are not going to want to wear that big of a watch, but the Galaxy Watch 7 is perfect. Nicole has one. I think she has a 40 millimeter. I bought her. She wears it every day. That's on sale also for below 200 bucks. So that's a great up of a bunch of accessories on the website which I'll put in the show notes that Samit wrote an article about best accessory gifts. You can check that out, like battery packs, cases and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:People have been asking too about when our case brand's opening soon. We're almost done with the website, been delayed a little more than I wanted, but it's going to definitely be up with pre-orders for the Galaxy S25 Ultra before January, so you'll be able to pre-order your Galaxy S25 Ultra before January. So you'll be able to pre-order your Galaxy S25 Ultra cases and S25 and S25 Plus and we'll be able to get those you know made for you sent out around launch time. We're gonna have a lot of exclusive designs that are specific to the S25 series, so if you guys wanna like, match the color of your phone to your case we're gonna have cases that match the colors of the S25 series, which I know a lot of people like that, and all the cases come with a premium wallpaper pack 120 plus premium wallpapers you can use on your device.
Speaker 1:Every single design that we're using on the cases will be added to the wallpaper pack over time. So you not only do you get the wallpaper pack now, any new cases we release we will update, we'll give you access to our Google file, our Google Drive file, with those wallpapers. Any new cases we make, you'll get those wallpapers that match those designs too. So eventually you could end up having 300, 400, 500 wallpapers over the next year in addition to your cases. So you'll get that extra value. Anyway, that's about it, tori. Anything else you want to add before we go? No, I think this week maybe we'll just both do it and since the holidays.
Speaker 1:It's all about the season for season for again being, you know, caring, and all that We'll say remind you this week to keep expanding your galaxies.