TWIT 847: Numb to Dongletown

Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…

What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

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Scared the c out of me, when I woke up and TWiT was waiting for me! I though I’d slept 2 days! :rofl::rofl:

Great show, as usual. Good selection of guests.

One thing about the headphone socket, I haven’t had a phone with a headphone socket since 2017. To be honest, I haven’t missed it.

I still have a USB-C to headphone adapter, but I haven’t used it since 2018.

I wear headphones when out walking the dog; the cable gets in the way and it’s always tangling itself up with the dog’s lead.

I wear headphones when working out at the gym. The phone falls out of my pocket, so I just leave it on the table in the centre of the room and listen to my audio books over Bluetooth. (I world guess, around 80% of those in the gym who listen to their own audio so the same.)

I wear headphones when vacuuming, again the dangling cables keep getting caught up.

The rest of the time, I listen through the loudspeakers or Bluetooth in the car.

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I know he was on last week, but I think Oh Doctah would have made a great addition to the panel.

I’ve not had any issues with the reliability of Android 12, but I agree the interface needs more work. It’s just so wasteful with space. Not a problem to have a setting to adjust the size of screen elements, but why is everything so large by default? Toggles for example at the top of the screen. I have 6 I regularly use I can access easily. With 12 that’s now only 4.

Pleased to see it looks like this is a Pixel-only feature. One UI 4, ColorOS 12 etc. all look more conventional.

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I doubt I’ll get Android 12 on my Galaxy S20+ before I replace it - waiting for my new iPhone to arrive (scheduled for end of November) and judging by previous Samsung update cycles, I expect Android 12 will take longer than that.

That said, I received the November 1st security update for Android 11 on 31st October!

And, to be honest, I am more interested in getting the security updates than I am in getting the new version. The security updates are critical to the security of the device, the version upgrade a nice-to-have.

Other stuff…

Yeah, Samsung is great with updates at the moment. They often get the monthly out before the Pixels. Even my watch got its monthly update yesterday.

I haven’t used wired headphones with a phone since an iPhone 5c. Wired for sitting in an armchair listening to music, yes, but not when mobile.

Stadia is a hit with me, but I’m that odd person who is a very occasional gamer, but is only interested in AAA games. So a subscription I can turn on and off works for me. I have no interest/room for dedicated hardware.

Isn’t this Facebook name change being overblown? Convenient timing, yes, but it’s the same as Google/Alphabet. The parent company is being given a name to separate it from its first product. The Facebook app/service will still retain that name I assume?

I have found wireless headphones to be perhaps the most transformative bit of kit from the last few years. I listen to stuff on my phone all the time, and was routinely annoyed many times every day by having the stupid cord get tangled or worse, having it get stuck on something and yank an earbud out. That yanking was like someone slapping me in the head every. single. time. I would never go back to a wired headset except for when I am stationary at my desk and sound quality is more important. But I’ve even taking to using AirPods and my iPad for some internal calls that might overlap with lunch time or other chores, where I’m not presenting-- and it has been a small, but notable improvement in quality of life.

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We should try to make a “better Facebook”.

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That’s such a funny story. If it makes you feel better, I woke up today thinking about TWiET. I think it’s because I didn’t TD it Friday like I normally would.

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Got to say, in something like 15 years of listening, this episode was only the second time I’ve had an immediate reaction of disgust to an ad (this time the one related to Bitcoin, the previous time was when there was an Uber ad that, in the audio version, wasn’t obviously an ad until far too long in to it). I’ve found there to sometimes be a bit of a weird disconnect in the past between talking about how climate change is important, but then in a later episode talking about NFTs with little/no mention of the massive resource waste associated with them as if that conversation never happened on a previous episode (…or running an ad for a podcast about them), but that I can overlook to some extent, even if it rubs me the wrong way. Taking money to directly promote the use of a technology that’s very well documented as contributing to killing the planet for no actual benefit, especially just before COP26, though? I really did not like that and it’s certainly damaged TWiT’s reputation for me, personally.

I don’t like being a complainer, and I do enjoy listening to the show (or I wouldn’t’ve done it every week for so long), but please reconsider this in future.

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