0:00 – Mishaal Rahman: Is Google killing Android by restricting sideloading?
0:03 – C. Scott Brown: And should Google have been forced to sell off Android to a competitor?
0:08 – Mishaal Rahman: I’m Mishaal Rahman.
0:09 – C. Scott Brown: And I’m C. Scott Brown, and this is the Authority Insights podcast where we break down the latest news and leaks surrounding the Android operating system.
0:18 – Mishaal Rahman: Now, before we dive into the stories for this week, just a little bit of insider baseball. If you’re wondering why there wasn’t an episode last week, I was actually on vacation. I forgot to inform you guys on episode 3. My bad. First time like handling a podcast on, you know, doing all the post-production and stuff like that. But next time we do have a break, we will let you know ahead of time. Or if you want to know like in real time, just follow us on social media. But in any case, like we’re going to be doing things a little bit differently this week because in lieu of actually covering, you know, some of the Authority Insights posts that we’ve been doing every week, we figured it might be worth talking about some of the bigger news stories because there were some massive Android related news stories dropped last week and also this week, like, they’re way too big for us to ignore. And also we do feel like we have some, you know, special insights to offer on these stories. And to compensate for that, we will also cover a third story that will be exclusive to the podcast. So like, I have not talked about this anywhere else. There’s no article on it. We have never mentioned it in any tweet or anything else. This is the first time we’re ever going to be revealing this little bit of information. So stay tuned for that. But the first story I wanted to highlight is something that kind of took the Internet by storm last week and it’s kind of funny because like Google dropped this on me on I was like it was Sunday night, like literally at like 10:00 P.M. I got an email from my PR contact at Google saying, “Hey, we got something we’re going to announce tomorrow morning.” I was in the middle of playing a game of REPO. It’s this game on Steam with my friends. And I got this message from him like, “Yeah, what’s up? What is it?” And they said, okay, you agree to the embargo, we’ll send you the stuff in the morning. And this was, mind you, I was going on vacation last week. So they sent me all this stuff hours before my flight. And I’m like, oh my god, this is huge. I have to cover this. So, what exactly did Google announce? Well, a huge announcement. Starting September 2026 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, users will only be able to install apps from developers whose identities have been explicitly verified by Google, even if those apps are coming from outside of the Google Play Store. And then starting in 2027, this restriction will globally roll out. Now, before I dive deeper into the actual implications and what’s changing, Scott, like, what did you see that in terms of the reaction to this story, this news that Google put out?
2:56 – C. Scott Brown: So, it was obviously a big deal on all the Android things that I normally would look at, you know, including the comments on Android Authority articles and stuff like that. But honestly, the most negative loud reaction that I saw was from the emulation community. They are flipping out. Like they were flipping out when it happened. They’re still flipping out right now talking about the death of Android, talking about how, you know, they’re not going to buy Android phones anymore because they’re so against this move. And, you know, they’re upset because a lot of them sideload apps from outside of the Play Store. And a lot of those apps are made by people who don’t want, you know, don’t want their name out there because they’re creating something that is legally gray. I think most courts would agree that emulators are legal, but 99% of the time, emulators are used to play pirated content. So, you know, with the stuff going on with Yuzu and other Nintendo Switch emulators, I think a lot of people, a lot of developers of emulators are scared, rightly so. And now they come out with this news and they’re really upset. So that was the loudest news, you know, the loudest reaction that I saw for sure.
4:17 – Mishaal Rahman: Right. So what exactly are developers and users scared of? Well, to be more precise, what exactly Google announced is that they will begin verifying the identity of developers, but they won’t be checking the contents of apps or their origin. But, you know, verifying the identity is itself enough to scare a lot of developers away who don’t want to say, they don’t want to upload their personal information to Google. They don’t want to submit their name, their address, their email address or their phone number to Google because then Google has that information on store and they can tie that to a specific application. So if you’re doing something that’s kind of in the gray area, you know, you don’t want that tied to your information, you want to remain anonymous, but Google will no longer allow that to happen starting next year. And although one distinction should be made, at least in terms of anonymity, your personal information that you submit to Google through this new Android Developer Console, it won’t be shown to users like it is on the Google Play Store if you download an app from there. But still, Google will have this information on store. They will know who you are when you submit an application for distribution even if it’s not through the Play Store.
5:23 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, I can just imagine developers, you know, who once again who are making applications that maybe they don’t want Google to know about. That doesn’t make them feel any better that it’s not publicly listed on the Play Store. Like they, you know, they know that Google knows and, you know, Google has zero incentive to protect that developer, especially if they’re doing stuff outside of the Play Store. As far as Google’s concerned, they’re in the wild West. So, yeah, I mean, I can understand why they would be hesitant to want to give Google this information.
6:00 – Mishaal Rahman: Right. I mean like imagine a scenario where, you know, Google, if a journalist is asking to unmask the identity of a developer distributing an app, right? They’re not going to do it. But if say a powerful government asked them, them, like demands this information, is Google going to say no? Are they going to stand down and say, okay, we’re not going to release this information to you? Even if the government threatens to say, okay, we’re going to ban Google services instead, like are they going to say no in that situation? I don’t think they would, right? So there is a risk there. If you’re doing something that could be potentially controversial in a certain region, you know, that your identity could be unmasked whereas previously you could basically be completely anonymous by distributing by creating and then distributing an app online.
6:48 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, and obviously I brought up I brought up emulation and that’s, you know, that’s its thing, but you know, it could be something that’s a little bit more has a little more weight to it. It could be somebody creates an app for helping a certain subgroup of people, you know, get whatever, some sort of, you know, protection from the government or protection from the military, you know, whatever. Something that is clearly breaking a law of a different country but for good reasons. Even then, like Google has zero incentive to protect those people. So yeah, I can understand why a lot of people would feel that this is a fundamental, you know, like a backslide of the Android operating system. What was once completely open and free and you could do whatever you want pretty much is now closed off. And I can understand why people are really upset about that.
7:43 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. And you know, a lot of people are skeptical of any argument that big tech companies make when they say they’re doing something for safety and security reasons, right? We’ve seen like Apple for example, they have for years argued that, oh, we can’t open up our NFC chip to third-party payment providers because it will degrade the security of the iPhone platform. You know, like a lot of tech companies, they love to hide behind security and privacy as an excuse to basically lock down their hardware. And I understand why people might be skeptical of Google for the same reason, right? Like you might Google is saying they’re doing this for security and privacy reasons, you know, in their blog post announcing it, they said that over 50% of or over 50 times more malware is found from internet side-loaded sources versus from the Google Play Store. And that could very well be true because like I’ve been covering Android for a while. It seems like every week there’s always some new strain of malware online. And every time you look into the blog post announcing it from some like antivirus provider, it’s always, oh, user downloaded an application that was distributed through Telegram or something, right? It’s usually side-loading is the reason. There are of course situations where people get malware from apps distributed on the Google Play Store, but like every time like the most times I hear about it, it’s usually through side loading. So I understand there is a legit you know, reason for Google to do this. Now it depends on where on the sliding scale do you believe, like how much do you attribute Google’s reasoning to being legitimately security and privacy versus an anti-competitive nature. Like is it like a 50/50, you believe Google versus you 50% chance they have an ulterior motive or is it like 80/20? It really depends on how much you believe their ulterior motives, if they do have one, are factoring into their decision for this move.
9:30 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, and I think that, you know, because you have a quote in our notes here from Sameet Samat about him saying that that side loading is fundamental to this. So he says “Sideloading is fundamental to Android, and it’s not going anywhere. As we said in our blog, our new developer identity requirements are designed to protect users and developers from bad actors, not to limit choice. We want to make sure that if you download an app from a developer, regardless of where you get it, it’s actually from them. That’s it.” And I get it, you know? I get it. But at the same time, I also get why people don’t like this at all. It’s a weird situation. Usually when in situations like this, I can see both sides, but I vehemently agree with one of them. Like that’s typically how it goes when a big change for Android or smartphones or whatever happens in general. Like usually I’m like, okay, I can see where both people are coming from, but I’m definitely on this person’s side. This is I I’m like right down the middle. Like I’m like, I get it and I get it and I don’t know which one, you know, it’s tough.
10:46 – Mishaal Rahman: For me, like I’ve been getting a lot of comments from people who are like, oh, how do you what do you think of this? How is it really going to go down? Or like people are like, oh, why are you shilling for Google in my headline. Now, okay, give me a break. Like I mentioned earlier today, I literally published that article hours before I left on vacation. I didn’t know how big that story would go. I didn’t know how much it would blow up on the internet and how many reactions there would be. And also, I’ve actually been waiting to see exactly how Google is going to be implementing this before I actually decide, you know, whether this is an actual bad decision or not, you know? Like I’m not going to immediately assume that it’s going to be completely locked down, you can’t side load anything even more, even if you’re a developer, you can’t install your own applications, there’s not going to be any way whatsoever to bypass it, you know, if you’re a power user. I want to wait and see exactly what Google is going to be doing and how they’re implementing it and if there’s going to be a way for power users to get around it because I think that’s going to be really important. Because you know, there are like Google has been progressively implementing more and more restrictions on side loading and it is making it slightly more annoying, you know, but like it’s still possible. They haven’t fully gotten rid of it. And to be honest, if they wanted to have gotten rid of it, they could have done this ages ago because the Google Play Protect, it already has all the privileges that it needs on almost every Android phone to completely block side loading. But they still allow you to turn it off. Like I’ve always wondered why does Google even give you the option to turn off Play Protect? They could have just taken that away entirely. But if you don’t want to, like if you don’t like Play Protect, you don’t trust it, you think you’re safe without it, you can just go and turn it off. You don’t have to use it. So that’s what I’m waiting for. I’m waiting to see exactly how this is going to be implemented on the Android side of things and whether or not there’s going to be some kind of way to turn it off.
12:32 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, I wish everybody had that viewpoint because like I said, I’m seeing a lot of pitch forks. I’m seeing a lot of angry mob activity in response to this, but yeah, I mean, we’ve got until 2027, that’s a long time and a lot can change between now and then, you know. It wouldn’t be the first time in Google history that Google said, we’re going to do X and then kicked the can down the road and said, we’re going to do that, you know, a year later than we said we would and then just not done it. Like it’s happened. So, let’s just let it roll, I guess.
13:11 – Mishaal Rahman: And that is a long time for things to change, but as far as I know, I did learn new information recently according to some sources that Google apparently won’t be baking these restrictions. At least they won’t be enforced by Google Play Protect. Instead, they’ll be enforced through a new system application called the Android Developer Verifier app. And if you want to learn more about what I think this app will do and why it’s important that it’s being made into a separate app, go read the latest edition of the Authority Insights Newsletter where I talk more in detail about what I know so far about the Android Developer Verifier app. Now, moving on to our next story, this was also a bombshell. It wasn’t a surprise drop on us, unlike the side loading story. It’s actually been something we’ve been expecting for a while because Google has been in hot water with the US government and they lost a case and we knew that there was going to be a hearing on the remedies for what will happen to them in the case. We just didn’t know what those remedies would be. So we were kind of like holding our breath. Is Google going to completely lose Android or will they hold on to Android? Or will they lose Chrome or will they hold on to Chrome? So for a bit of context, this is following a long-term story, the US v. Google federal anti-trust case that the Department of Justice in the United States brought against Google in October of 2020. The DOJ accused Google of holding an illegal monopoly in the search engine and search advertising markets. Specifically they were arguing that okay, Google’s multi-billion dollar plus payments to Apple and its use of Google Mobile Services, you know, all those Google applications you find on Android devices, they’re a requirement for OEMs like Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, etc to preload Google search, Chrome and Gemini. The DOJ was arguing that requiring those apps to be pre-loaded if OEMs wanted to get the Google Play Store and Google Play Services was an example of Google exerting monopolistic behavior. It was a way of Google maintaining its search monopoly. In August of 2024, the federal judge who was overseeing the case agreed with the DOJ and they did rule that Google held a monopoly on its search engine tech. And then the next move came where the DOJ made several proposals. They said here’s what we want to happen to Google because you found them to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. So some of the wildest proposals, some of the most, you know, the dramatic proposals that they required that they asked the judge to impose were they were asking the judge to force Google to divest Chrome as well as Android. Basically, get rid of Chrome and Android from their arsenal. They would no longer own either, which would be a huge deal because they are the primary developer. They have been for decades and it’s debatable whether any other company would be even able to take up the mantle. But earlier this week, we finally got word on what the judge wants to happen and they threw out those requests. The judge said the DOJ overreached and they will not be requiring Google to divest either Chrome or Android. And they also won’t have to show a choice screen to users in the United States unlike in Europe. So before I dive into the specifics of this case, Scott, I wanted to kind of hear your immediate reactions to this decision.
16:47 – C. Scott Brown: I was astonished by this outcome. I thought that the repeated losses Google had in the Epic trial was going to influence this. I thought Google was going to continue on its losing streak and they were going to get hit hard. I didn’t think they were going to have to sell Android and Chrome. Like you said, I don’t think anyone could take it. Like I don’t know of a company that could come in, take those properties away from Google and successfully run them without literally destroying everything that is built around them. I just can’t see that happening. So I was sure that wasn’t going to happen, but I thought they were going to get hit much harder than this. And because and just as a refresh, Epic Games sued Google for numerous reasons, but basically because Google tries to control the Play Store too much and take Epic says that Google takes too much money off the top of all the income that people generate and also says that Google forces companies to only use the Play Store if you want a game to be on the Android operating system and therefore Google basically holds the keys and collects rent at the door and Epic was like this is not fair. And Google lost that one big time and that’s going to require them to make a lot of changes to the way the Play Store operates from a financial perspective and also with its agreements with the developers. So that all happened and when that all happened, I was like, okay, and then this was coming up and I was like, oh no, like this could be really, really bad for Google. So when this happened, I was like, oh, yeah, okay, Google, you just like they made it right through. So yeah, so I was surprised. I thought it was going to be worse.
18:27 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah, I mean, honestly, if you read the DOJ press release and also the Google press release, it makes it sound like Google lost, you know, like the DOJ’s basically bragging about significant remedies that it won against Google. Basically, they got the judge to agree that Google needs to share some of its search data with its rivals. And then Google was also saying, okay, we disagree with this decision. We don’t want to share our search data and we will potentially appeal. They’re going to evaluate their decisions and see if they want to appeal. But like from what I could tell, I think pretty much most people agree this was a resounding victory for Google. Like considering the alternative was losing Chrome and Android, which would have been absolutely devastating to them, considering how much money they make off of both by holding the market share on them. I yeah, I think it was a huge victory for Google not being having to sell off either. And not only that, they don’t have to sell off either, but they can continue to pay Apple. They can continue to pay Firefox or Mozilla, right? Like without Google’s payments to Mozilla, I’m pretty sure that company would go under. They get so much the vast majority of their funding is literally just from Google paying them to keep Search the default. So, that’s a huge deal, the fact that those payments were kept in place. And the funny thing is, I was actually arguing with a couple of people just discussing this, like it seems that one of the reasons why the judge actually cited and allowed Google to continue to make these payments is that because there’s so much more competition nowadays. Like if this case would have been tried five years ago before ChatGPT before everyone was on the AI craze, I think Google would have lost much more resoundingly. But because of the rise of ChatGPT and because of all the competition that it has invoked, that’s a huge reason why Google didn’t lose nearly as badly as they could have. I and why I think they actually won. Like even if you read the court filings too, like the judge actually brings this up. Like the judge was saying, okay, since ChatGPT’s rise and the rise of generative AI and LLMs, tech companies have been pouring billions of dollars into these AI startups, whereas in the past they wouldn’t even dream of trying to compete with Google. They wouldn’t even bother because it was such a daunting task. But now there’s a real threat to Google with these LLMs potentially taking on Google search. So like to quote the judge, they said, “these companies already are in a better position, both financially and technologically, to compete with Google than any traditional search company has been in decades (except perhaps Microsoft). These new realities give the court hope that Google will not simply outbid competitors for distribution if superior products emerge.” So basically they’re saying that, you know, Google can’t rest on its laurels anymore. It has to actually make a better product if it wants to compete. It can’t just continue to forever pay Apple and Mozilla to pre-load Google because eventually, maybe those companies will decide, okay, we don’t want Google anymore. We will decide we’re going to use ChatGPT because it’s just simply better. We don’t need your money anymore, right? That is a very real possibility. We’re seeing so many discussions with Apple where Apple’s trying to decide which AI provider they are going to use. And we already see with Apple Intelligence, they’re not even using Gemini. Like they’re in discussions to use Gemini, but they’re not using it right now as their general AI search provider. They’re using ChatGPT, which is a big deal.
21:47 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, and I think that I think that the judge is right. Like I think that this is the scariest time for Google as far as its cash cow Search and obviously the advertising the advertisements that appear in Search. This is the moment that it finally, you know, I can’t remember if it wasn’t last year, but probably the year before where Sundar called at the end of the year and I think he actually called it like a code red. He called a meeting of all the top brass at Google and was like, “we are in big trouble and we need to figure this out. And that was when we got Bard within like a few weeks after the code red thing, they were just like, put Bard out. Like, we got to do this. And then Bard quickly became Gemini and it was just like a roller coaster. We had no idea where they were going and I don’t think Google knew where it was going either. I think they were just like, we just need to do something now to put our, you know, to draw a line in the sand so that we just don’t get overtaken. So yeah, the judge is right. Like this is the first time in decades that Google has ever been threatened. And so I agree. I think that the judge did the right thing here. They get to keep Chrome, they get to keep Android and basically like they just shoed them out the door like, good luck, kids. Like, you know, have fun, you know, hopefully you don’t get totally overtaken by these other companies because it’s not just it’s not just OpenAI, you know, you’ve got Perplexity in there too. You’ve got a bunch of competitors that are going to come in and yeah, it’s Google’s doing great. Like, no question. Gemini is slamming. It’s a slam dunk in a lot of ways. But yeah, it’s definitely not just Google coasting along watching money pour in from advertisements anymore. It’s scary for them.
23:36 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. I mean, I think personally if Google were forced to sell off Chrome and Android, that would have been lights out, like put Gemini six feet under right now, like or 12 feet under, whatever the term is, because they depend so much on that distribution, coast along the distribution with Gemini with with Chrome and Android for getting Gemini in front of users. Like, Gemini is doing a very good job at appealing to users, but if you were to say like, okay, what is the AI everyone thinks of when they think of AI nowadays? It’s ChatGPT. Like, my friends, my dad even, like whenever he’s talking about AI, I tell him, oh, I use Gemini. It was like, oh, you mean ChatGPT? Like he didn’t even know what they don’t even know what Gemini is. They just know ChatGPT. It’s like the default AI for people. It is so ubiquitous. I think it’s still like an order of magnitude like 10 times more popular than Gemini. It’s crazy how popular it is.
24:29 – C. Scott Brown: You know what you know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of the early days of Android where people still to this day call Android phones Galaxies. Like you can go somewhere, you can go somewhere they’ll be like, do you have a do you have an iPhone or do you have a Galaxy? And it’s just like that still to this day happens. It’s crazy. Once you get in, you’re in. And it’s like, yeah, ChatGPT is in.
24:53 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. And which is funny because like, you know, the judge was worried that if they were forced to if Google was forced to sell off Chrome and Android, that they didn’t want to actively hinder Google’s chances at competing in the generative AI race. But I do feel that Google’s position right now, the fact that it owns Chrome and Android gives it a huge advantage over other companies that are trying to compete in this space, you know, like we have companies like Perplexity, who have been complaining, you know, they want to make default search distribution deals, but they can’t because companies like, you know, Google is requiring them to pre-load Google Search, which in turn allows them to have Gemini on almost every Android device. So at the same time, it’s kind of hard. Like the judge doesn’t want to destroy Google’s chances at competing in the generative AI space by forcing them to divest Chrome and Android. But at the same time, these two products give Google what I would argue is a huge advantage in these two spaces. But I don’t think I definitely don’t think this is something that assures Google’s victory in this race. Like there’s still the possibility that new hardware could plant smartphones entirely. I personally doubt that. The OpenAI makers, you know, they’re working on some smartphone companion and maybe who knows, maybe we’ll all be walking around with smart glasses someday that replace our phones. I personally doubt that. I still think smartphones are here for at least another decade.
26:18 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah, no, the Rabbit R1 did not make a dent.
26:25 – Mishaal Rahman: All right. So moving on to our final story. So this is again, I don’t have any particular story a link to show right now because this is exclusive to the podcast. You’re hearing it for the first time on the Authority Insights podcast. So the story is that Google was once considering using Gemini to power search in the Android Settings app. So, according to my sources, sometime last year, I don’t know when they started and when they potentially stopped or if they’re still developing this feature, but Google was working on using Gemini to power through the search whenever you open the Settings app on your Pixel phone and you type in something to search. They were considering using Gemini to power and locate items in the search screen. So currently the way that search works on your Android phone, on your Pixel phone is that Google is basically set up a boatload of keywords that relate to specific entries in the settings app. So for example, if you try to search for dark mode settings, right? You have a number of keywords you can type that will cause the dark mode setting to appear in the search results. You can type theme, you can type light, you can type dark, mode, light sensitivity, photophobia, make darker, darken, dark mode or migraine. But what if you get a headache from how bright your phone gets and you just type in, I have a headache, how do I make my phone more comfortable, right? The words comfort and headache don’t appear in that list of keywords, so dark mode won’t appear as an option. This is kind of a limiting aspect of search, which is why Google wanted to they were testing working on using Gemini to basically handle search in a more natural approach, like using natural language will allow you to search for things. You could do things like how do I enhance my phone’s battery or where is the option to twist cameras to where is the option to switch cameras with a twist, you know, the double twist, the chop feature on Pixel phones or how do I turn off Ultra-Wideband? Now, as far as I know, Google was working on this over a year ago. I don’t know what the progress is on this feature or if they’re still developing it or if it’s coming in like a future Pixel Drop, but it’s been a while since I heard about it, so I think maybe they abandoned it. But since I heard about it, it is interesting actually to note that this feature actually kind of did launch on the Galaxy S25 and Scott, you actually did a YouTube Short on it. So why don’t you kind of explain if you remember doing this short by the way, how this feature works.
28:57 – C. Scott Brown: So yeah, so on Galaxy phones, they have a search function built in. It’s powered by Galaxy AI and so you can go into settings and you can just say whatever it is that you’re trying to do. And through the power of Galaxy AI, it’ll interpret what you’re trying to say and point you to the right setting. So you don’t need to know about gesture navigation. For example, gesture navigation is in my opinion the far superior way to use your Android phone, but some people do prefer the buttons. And so if you are, you know, a typical Android user, you’re not somebody who listens to podcasts like this or visits places like Android Authority, you don’t know what gesture navigation is. You’ve never heard the term gesture navigation in your life. So you wouldn’t know to go into Android settings and type in gesture navigation. But you could go in and say, I wish there were buttons instead of the bar on the bottom of the screen. AI could interpret that and point you in the right direction to the settings. So even though you’re not, you know, you might not be using the specific keywords directly related to those settings, it’ll still figure out and determine, I know what you’re looking for, here you go. And it’s a great feature. I am wholly on board for it because there are a lot of people out there, you know, we tend to forget people like you and me and people who listen to podcasts like this, we tend to forget that we’re the weird ones, you know, Like we tend to forget that we know a lot about our phones that most people do not know. And for those people, it is the idea of being able to go into a search thing and be like, my phone hurts my eyes like and get an AI thing being like, do you want to turn on dark mode? Like, do you want to turn down the brightness? You know, like those that’s really helpful. I was all for it until I first used it and realized that it was completely unconnected to anything else on the phone. So in other words, this is a special search bar that only appears in Android Settings on these Galaxy phones. And that caused me to pause for a second because then I’m like, okay, what are we going to do? Are we going to have a search bar in the photo gallery, a search bar in the Settings page, a search bar in your text messages and they’re all going to be powered by different AIs. Like that’s chaos. Like that sets a terrible precedent of where this feature could go because you know, what’ll happen is is and I know this would happen is, you know, my dad would hold down the side key and Gemini would pop up on the bottom and my dad would say, I wish the buttons came back on my phone and Gemini is not going to know what the hell he’s talking about and it’s not going to take him to the settings page. It’s not and I was just like, no, this is bad. Like, so I love the idea, hated the idea that it wasn’t all related to, you know, just general Gemini. It was a special text box. And to this day, that’s how Galaxy phones have it. They have a special settings, a special search in settings and a special search in the gallery that are completely unconnected to all other Galaxy AI features. And I actually wrote an article about how I think this is a really bad idea. Maybe Google read my article and was like, oh, wait, wait no, I’m not sure that did not happen.
32:21 – Mishaal Rahman: That’s a good point. It is kind of weird how disconnected everything is. You got search bars and so many different apps and they all work differently. You just want one universal search bar or one universal AI system that can do everything on your phone. That’s kind of what I’m hoping Gemini will be eventually with the App Functions capabilities, you know, allowing apps to expose what they can do. Maybe Google if you’re listening, you can have the settings app expose all this stuff to Gemini and then users could just ask Gemini to do whatever you want or you could just have it built into the Pixel Launcher’s universal search bar. So you could have all that there. So they don’t have to specifically remember they have to open the search bar in the settings app to do that. They could just do it from anywhere, right? I think that would be a neat way to solve that issue.
33:08 – C. Scott Brown: Yeah. I love that idea.
33:10 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. I think another issue with this is that yeah, it’s just that a lot of users don’t really know what their phones can do and they might not even know exactly how they would go about searching it. So even if an AI was trained on everything that that can happen in the settings, like all the features that are available, I think it might be difficult for it to surface certain recommendations, certain certain things, but it would definitely be a lot better than than the system we have right now, which is a whole bunch of random keywords that are tied to specific items in settings and if you don’t hit the specific keyword that is tied to that settings item, then your your item won’t show up at all when you search for it. So hopefully this maybe they just like temporarily put it on hold and they’re just working on making it better, but seeing that Samsung launched it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google eventually does something similar and launches it on their own. Who knows? Maybe in a future Pixel Drop.
34:08 – C. Scott Brown: It could be the opposite though because Samsung and Google do work very closely on Android development. You know, there’s a lot of cribbing that happens for both. You know, Samsung saying, oh, that’s a really good idea, we should put that into One UI and then Google being like, that’s a really good idea, we should put that in Android. It could be that that you know, that Samsung did their iteration of this in the Settings app and then Google talked to them was like, how’s that going? And they were like, yeah, people aren’t using it, you know. And then maybe Google’s like, all right, I guess we don’t need to do that. I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just saying that’s a plausible explanation for why Google’s kind of gone dark on this, but who knows, maybe it’ll come sometime in the future. Yeah. I’m like I said, I’m all for the concept. I just think it should not be locked away to just the Settings page. It should be something that is integrated directly into Gemini. And I can’t really imagine that being like a security problem or anything. Like all you’re really doing is pointing the user to a particular spot on their phone. Like I can’t imagine why it would be, you know, a problem for Gemini to be exposed to those settings functions, but I don’t know, maybe Google would be worried about that. But yeah, this is a really interesting like I’m really excited about this because to me, this is really an interesting thing that affects the end user in a profound way and I’m really excited that we’ve decided to do this here on this podcast. It’s it’s pretty cool.
35:31 – Mishaal Rahman: Yeah. I mean, hopefully I’ll have more stories like this because Lord knows my backlog is never ending and I have so many exciting things to talk about. I just got to find the right time. Is today the right day to write about this or should I save this for the next podcast? Or should I save this for the next newsletter? Like I got so much more to tell you about, but for today, that’s everything we’ve got for you on this week’s edition of the Authority Insights podcast. You can find all the links of the stories we talked about in the show notes and you can find more amazing stories to read over on androidauthority.com.
36:02 – C. Scott Brown: Thanks for listening to the Authority Insights podcast. We publish every week on YouTube, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. You can follow us everywhere on social media at Android Authority and you can follow me personally on Instagram, Bluesky and my own YouTube channel at C. Scott Brown.