“The Biggest Android Update Ever”

All right, so Google themselves hyped up this week's pre-I/O Android Show as the biggest updates to Android... ever, which is a really high bar to set. But they then went on to announce a bunch of stuff from Android 17...

to a new Android Auto to Google Books, not to be confused with Google Books. So I'm gonna show you what's good, what's new, what's... meh, and what's a bit overhyped, I think. So I'm gonna start with Android 17, just because every

year, you know, updates to Android get smaller and smaller and more incremental. So I was really curious to see what they were gonna get so hyped about this year. It's not a visual redesign, but there are some added

features and then there's some Gemini stuff sprinkled on top. And spoiler alert, that's the stuff that they're so hyped about. That's the stuff that makes them say it's the biggest Android update ever.

I have some thoughts. We'll get to that. But a couple neat things in Android, the Gemini interface is redesigned to look a little different, a little sparklier, but also briefly very blurred around the edges before it

sharpens up. But it also says, "Concept UI. Subject to change..." So I guess I shouldn't go too hard on this just yet. Autofill will expand to be better by including information that

it can parse from other Google services like Gmail, Wallet, Photos, etc. So it can already... put in your name and address and the classic stuff, phone number when it fills out forms.

But let's say you're filling out a weird form that also is asking for your passport number for some reason. Well, if you have a photo of your passport in Google Photos, it can actually pull that out and automatically paste it in there without you having to go to

Photos, find the picture, and then go back and forth. So that's nice. And then there's also some new creator tools to be built directly into Android, like more image processing compatibility, so that it matches what we see coming from iPhones and

cutting you out and letting you talk over whatever's on your screen, which is a super popular format that we've seen all over Instagram and TikTok. So you can do that now... built into Android.

But then they also showed us this new smart enhance for photos and videos, I believe... that can, in their own words, reveal breathtaking detail... and clarity that you didn't even know could be there. And then they showed a before and after, going from

this... to this. And Jesus Christ, just no, no, no. This. It looks worse!

I'm telling you, it looks worse. I know it's brighter... and people typically like a brighter image in a side-by-side. And I know there's technically more detail... in the shadows and probably in the highlights too, but

now... you're creating this like flat, featureless image without a hint of contrast or shadows or anything. It's just, it looks worse. This is exactly what I was talking about in literally

my last video about smartphone cameras and image processing. I'll link it below the like button. If you haven't already seen it, you can go watch it. This is what I'm talking about.

But then there's this new feature. There's this new digital wellbeing feature called... Pause Point and it's actually kind of interesting. So you know the digital wellbeing stuff. Obviously you've probably heard of screen time.