merge-conflict-postproduction-for-recording-32-run-at-2024-08-07-031727-utc-mp3-
===

[00:00:00] James: Welcome back everyone to Merge Conflict, your weekly developer podcast with me, as always, my best friend in the entire world, Frank Krueger. How's it going, buddy? 

[00:00:07] Frank: Oh, it's going great, but I'm not with you because I am not in beautiful purple space. James, I hope you're all watching the video. I know. Thank you all podcast listeners, but James is in purple space and I am intrigued.

James, James, how's it going over in purple space? 

[00:00:24] James: Purple space is good. I don't know how to change the colors of the bars or else I would change them to something else that's not purple, but I am, uh, in studio, uh, today after hours in studio on the Microsoft campus. Just because I'm over on the side of the water and I said I'm going to record some podcasts and use the fancy equipment and they just recently reset up this room to do like on demand recordings and stuff.

So I was in here recording some videos earlier today for the NET YouTube and I was at VS Live which is on campus, a developer conference, did a NET MAUI talk this morning just so they asked the experts and I was like, you know, it'd be great is continuing to talk even more throughout the day and do a podcast that is going to come on a few weeks with my good friend Ben Rees, who just released a brand new board game.

We're talking all about that stuff. And we're talking to you and in purple space is good. I'm drinking some talking rain, which is the original OG sparkling water from 30 years ago, which is Microsoft. Staple. Was it here when you worked here? I have to imagine. 

[00:01:25] Frank: Oh yeah. It's, it's very important that you drink.

It's not Microsoft branded, but forever in my mind, there are a few brands that will forever be, uh, Microsoft related. Also, I have a Windows Vista. Talking rain. So, you know, I 

[00:01:43] James: love that. Yeah, no, uh, it's good. I'm really excited. So if I sound a little bit different, I have a very fancy, uh, sure. Uh, SM seven B I think that's the fancy Mike.

That's the, that's the one. 

[00:01:55] Frank: I mean, you look like you should be a musician. You're rocking the Hawaiian shirt. You're in purple world. I mean, it's a whole new James. It was 

[00:02:03] James: Maui day. net purple, Maui. happening here. Yes. Um, something fascinating, uh, has been happening and we've talked a little bit about it in the past, which is, uh, the device form that is in everybody's home.

And I'm not talking about a phone. I'm not talking about a doorbell. I'm not talking about a sauna. I'm talking about the television, Frank, the TV, the T, the television, uh, that's in everyone's home. And Specifically, there's been a lot of news, not from our good friends at Apple, but friends, our friends over at Google.

And they've gone through about 8, 000 iterations of, uh, something connected to the TV. And you just told me that they, uh, killed something 

[00:02:53] Frank: and 

[00:02:53] James: created something new. Is that what happened? 

[00:02:56] Frank: Yeah, it's a, it's a sad day, I think, because although, yes, there's a million devices, everyone knows of this one device, the Chromecast.

It's the device we absolutely never talk about on this show, James. I mean, we barely talk about Apple TV, um, but yeah, I mean, this device is in everyone's home. I think we don't talk about it because as app developers, no one's found a way to make any money if you're not, like, NBC or HBO or anyone. I'm sure they're making money.

No one's quite figured out how to make money in this new, uh, streaming world. But one of the original devices, one of the great devices, Chromecast, um, I owned one. I used it cause I had Android friends and they're like, I want to share a video and I'm like, well, I'll get you a whole separate device so you can share your videos on my TV.

[00:03:42] James: Yeah. 

[00:03:43] Frank: The Chromecast, James, is end of lifed. Dead. Uh, buried. What do we say? Uh, how, uh, the channel has been switched. Those, those bars that come on at night, the programming is no longer active. 

[00:03:57] James: It's all just fuzz. It's just, uh, it's just a snow fuzz. Uh, it's really fascinating because, you know, uh, Google, uh, Chromecast went, I think it is now Google Cast, right?

And, and the cool part about Chromecast to me was when they created an SDK for, iOS as well. So you could, for example, have a Chromecast little dongle and from an iOS or an Android device, if the app supported, you could say, hey, start playing this on the TV. And then eventually you could do it on a smart display for music and all these other things that were out there.

But they, they actually had, uh, Google TV and then they had, uh, Chromecast and they had Android TV, uh, and I actually had an NVIDIA Shield, uh, which, uh, had, uh, an X1 processor, I think, in it, uh, and I used that under my TV for a long time, which also had Chromecast built into it, right? So you could have apps and do this other stuff.

So Chromecast is gone. They haven't made an Android TV device in a long time. What, what is, what is out there now? 

[00:05:01] Frank: Well. Well, let's start with what's out there is Google pushed really hard to integrate Chromecast into other manufacturers TVs. So I think that there's, and I forget which brands actually did this, um, but there's a lot of TVs out there with some version of Chromecast, the software.

So it's important to have the distinction. It's Chromecast, the hardware that has been end of life to here, or. Killed. I don't know, whatever the Silicon Valley term is these days. Sunset. Um, so the hardware, they're just going to keep selling out whatever stocks they have, and then they're gone forever.

Which, hilariously enough, my Chromecast, I think I have like a Gen 1 or Gen 2. It's been working just fine for the last 15 years, and I think I still use it. So, everyone, if you can find a cheap Chromecast out there, I'm sure it's going to keep working in some form or another, you know? Yeah. and support. You know, you mentioned the SDK.

I never actually downloaded the SDK or integrated it into any of my apps, but I feel like Google was using some pretty straightforward protocols, because I know a lot of apps were, unless the SDK was just that easy to use, but I think they were just using a lot of straightforward protocols. Anyway, um, as you said, um, what's really happened here is Google's marketing and branding has changed, and all that stuff, and their strategy of Not trying to manufacture cheap little devices anymore.

They are instead switching to manufacturing expensive devices. Well, they're not. Yeah, cool. What a world we live in. Inflation, y'all. So instead of what, 20 devices, now you can go buy a Google TV Streamer TV Plus Pro 

[00:06:50] James: for I believe 100. So the branding, ah, 

[00:06:54] Frank: you know what was cool was like, this was the argument against the Apple tv.

'cause the Apple TV was always like a hundred or 150 bucks. Yeah. But you could get a Chromecast, uh, for like 20 bucks. Free. For free. You could get a fire free for free. Yeah. You could get a fire TV for like 20 bucks, like a little dongle. Jam it into the back of your tv, give it some electricity somehow.

And there you go. You got internet tv. Well, it's baked into a lot of TVs now, but it is sad. Those, those little dongles, like, man, we're going to have landfills full of them.

[00:07:26] James: So we, interestingly enough, we have the Apple TV. We also have a Roku TV, a little small one that that's around. It's actually kind of cool. Again, there's no dongles in there, but this is fancy, like Google TV streaming. Now this is running Android TV. So the Google TV streamer running Android TV. Um, which I'm assuming you can also Google cast stuff too as well.

So this is going to have a full UI on it. So it's kind of reminiscent of the Android TV that I purchased a long time ago, the NVIDIA Shield that ran Android TV and then also the TVs that have Android TV. So this is kind of a competitor in a way. to the Apple TV, um, kind of back at it. Um, but why is this needed?

You know what I mean? If we had Google cast, like what is going on here? Like, why, why would I, what's what's going on? What's happening? 

[00:08:18] Frank: I don't know. If I put on my tin foil, that's not the right, I need a diviner, diviner hat. You know, if I can predict the future, a diviner hat. Is that a thing? Someone please make me a diviner hat.

Um, I think all the companies just want to have a hub. They want that home server. Remember Microsoft Home Server? Uh, the, uh, Amazon family of Dingus devices, the Echo devices, they, they've made great penetration into the home. Um, a lot of people have them. Google has their own, uh, home assistants. Apple has their own home assistants.

But what you see, and even in this announcement for the death of the Chromecast was they're like, Due to AI. Ding. AI killed something else. Due to AI, we can't sell you this 20 device anymore. We must sell you a 100 device. So I, my guess is, my diviner, diviner hat, um, says that they just want to be a hub.

They, they, they want you IOTing into it. They want to be kind of the central server. They want you talking to them. To it eventually. And now they want you watching your Game of Thrones through it kind of stuff. Yeah. Got it. That, that's all I got you. You got anything better? 'cause other than, you know, a hundred dollars, make more money than $20 , what else are you gonna do here?

[00:09:41] James: Well, the interesting part that you said is ai. So to me it seems like, okay, they want. to do more on device processing of things to do something. I don't know exactly what you need to do with it, but the IOT connectivity thing is fascinating. The hub aspect of it is like talking to things, doing things like my Apple TV is also a matter or thread hub thingy.

I upgraded to that. It is HomeKit, so it is HomeKit enabled. You can connect devices to it. It's the processor of it, which is really neat. Like, in fact, you know, you could use the HomeKit video if you had a smart camera, video camera, and it can process events. Like if it's an animal or if it's a human, and it can securely store stuff.

Now, this isn't going to securely store stuff because it has 32 gigs of storage and only four gigs of memory, which is very fascinating. But it is also a matter of, Connected device and also a thread border router, which if you don't know what those means, the entire matter and thread shenanigans is super complicated.

The routers, it makes no sense. The one matter device I have no longer works. Um, I was like, 

[00:10:46] Frank: I'm going to try 

[00:10:46] James: this. This is going to be so much fun. 

[00:10:48] Frank: James, did you check the thread? Did the thread break? I mean, that would make the matter not mass anymore. 

[00:10:58] James: I upgraded my Apple TV so it can support this. And then my, um, you know, the, uh, hexagons that I have on my wall, the nano leaf things.

Those are like, Hey, do you, this is what it said. I swear to you. I said, do you want your, uh, Nanoleaf elements to be faster, more responsive, uh, and more secure upgrade to matter or something? I was like, sure. I clicked a button. Now it'll never turn on and it never turns off and it won't connect to anything at all.

And I don't, I, I it's like, is it even connected to wifi? I don't even know what's happening right now. Um, That's my MatterThread experience that was supposed to solve IoT problems, but apparently they want, they want to be part of that ecosystem because, you know, I think with a Google Home, right, it's just like, you know, HomeKit and, and, and Apple Home and stuff like that.

It wants to integrate into this. So it sounds like they want a proper set top box to be that hub that you're talking to, that you're threading with, that you're mattering with, and that you're clicking around on, on your television as well. The question is like, is this a space that. Consumers should care about, and also is this a space that us as app developers should care about?

Because as you said, you haven't even installed the SDK. I haven't even done a tvOS application at all. Like, I don't know if this is a space for us. Who is it for? Um, And how do we even use it in our normal lives? You know what I mean? 

[00:12:31] Frank: Uh, precisely. In fact, I brought this story up to you. I was like, Oh, here's just this funny thing.

I didn't think we'd actually talk about, but then I just started realizing I had a bunch of questions about it. James, could you, could you just, let's back up for a moment. Can you tell me, what the heck is Android TV? How long has it been out for? Um, does it exist? Has it been sunset yet? Can you just tell me a tiny little bit, anything about Apple TV?

Because I brought this story to you, but I am woefully ignorant in the Android Google world. 

[00:13:02] James: So, uh, Android TV celebrated its 10th year. Uh, wow. Congrats. Congrats. Uh, so it has been obviously in the NVIDIA Shield, it's been on TVs that are out there from Sony, Panasonic, um, it actually started with like the Nexus player, uh, which was like the orb thing basically, I think if I remember it being correct or yeah, if I remember I was out there.

I don't recall an orb thing. Yeah. And I think that was the one that was there, but basically it's been around for a long, long time. It's on version 14 that was just released in May. Uh, that's out there. Um, and yeah, it's been around for 10 years. It released, uh, in on June 25th, 2014, which is also, uh, my birthday.

So that's pretty cool. 10 years ago. Thank you. Um, so that was kind of cool. And yeah, it's iterated, uh, through the years. I think it. It modified between this, like, Google TV and Android TV. Um, they've rebranded it as Google TV, um, at some point. But now this is obviously the Google TV streamer. But it, the Google TV runs Android, uh, TV.

So just synonymous to the Apple TV runs tvOS. The Google TV runs Android TV, which makes sense. 

[00:14:27] Frank: Totally, totally. The alphabet company. makes a search engine called Google and an operating system called Android. And the search engine and the operating system had a baby and made Google TV Android TV.

Exactly. Yep. Yep. Okay. Got it. Um, So Google TV Streamer is the new device, but it sounds like a lot of TVs out there are running Android TV already. 

[00:14:54] James: And it runs Android apps, right? So specifically, you create Android apps, you submit your apps to Google, and you have access to Android APIs. The difference is that there's a UI library specifically for Televisions, right?

Uh, that you create for that 10 foot view. Uh, that's out there as they would call it. Uh, the, the, the sitting on your couch way back is different interactions. So the UI elements, uh, and the grid system are optimized for televisions and controller inputs and things like that. So similar to tvOS. So very, very similar, uh, in the exact same way.

Now, 

[00:15:31] Frank: is it as annoying as tvOS is kind of funny because you can still use UIKit, but it's um, I wanted to say a dumbed down version of UIKit, but I won't. It's the 10 foot, whatever, 20 foot experience you just said, so a lot of the controls don't work the way you expect. For example, uh, Apple has a wonderful multi platform template.

When you say file new app, you can do a multi platform, which includes a tvOS app. A tvOS app is Unusable. It's, it's so hard to write, uh, tvOS UIs to be, nothing works the way you expect it. And you have to do a lot of testing. Now, there are two ways to do it. You can use the UI kit version that's heavily changed, or you can use tvML.

It's complicated. Uh, have you given a shot? at writing an Android TV app at all? Have you, you must have done a demo on stage. You've demoed everything on stage. 

[00:16:28] James: Uh, so, okay. So, okay. So, so my lineage with, uh, Android and televisions goes back to my original job in Seattle, uh, when I worked at Seton, we actually created an Android set top box that was not running Android TV because Android TV was not out yet.

Uh, did not exist. This was pre that. Um, we actually. put the open source android project on it. I then developed a custom launcher that, uh, in java that was installed on the device that would create a grid system that was navigable via a TV remote with IR input because the TV remote is just sort of, uh, like a mouse or a click wheel or whatever, however Android is built.

So it had all those up, down, left, right things to navigate. I would move things around. And then I created an app store. That you could install APKs in this launcher, but the main launcher was actually just jump points to a Xamarin app that was loaded onto this that would display, um, as a DVR, uh, device that would display the grid guide and your recent recordings and all this stuff.

The problem with that was that that was standard Android user interface, which means. I was really trying to shoehorn in a 10 foot view into this UI kit, um, that's not UI kit, but the Android widget system that was not really made for it, which means I had to do a lot of manual work for what was highlighted, what's the visual representation, what does it look like to click on things, or have things highlighted, very atypical.

Compared to the Android TV. So since then I have played around with Android TV a little bit, but probably similar to what you have done, which is file new project, do a thing, but in Android Studio or Eclipse at the time or, uh, the, in Android Studio. Now you can create a new uh, uh, androidTV app. and then it gives you the UI for it so it is more of a standalone separate thing at least the last time I played with it anyone could write in let us know if things have changed but at least that was my experience as you are really creating a Completely separate TV app with it there.

Now you still can access all of the normal widgets. It's really just a UI library on top of it that you're accessing from, uh, uh, Android X and compose things. But, um, at least from my knowledge, that was really what you were to focus on. But you still had activities and fragments and the core development of it was very much the same.

[00:19:17] Frank: Uh, okay. Pretty similar to TV OS then, um, sounded like it's a little easier, to be honest. , I, I think that's why, um, these TV platforms still matter to me a bit. Because you mentioned Roku earlier. I have a Roku. Uh, I actually have the box. The dongle, not the tv. Most people have Roku TVs these days. Yeah. But, um, that box is still 60 bucks, I think I paid, like it, it's gone up.

It used to be a 20 box. I think there used to be a very cheap Roku. Um, but you can't write apps for it. Uh, I also have an LG TV, which has webOS, which I think is actually a really fantastic TV OS. I think they really knocked it out of the park. But I can't write apps for it, so it doesn't matter. So that leaves me, Google and Apple.

Cause, you know, I'm sorry Samsung, I'm sure I can do something with Samsung, I'm very sorry, I don't know how. That leaves me with Google and Apple. And so those are the ones I care about. It's a little sad that, um, they're both, I don't know, can you even get a 100 Apple TV these days? I don't even think you can.

Um, so, sounds like it's a 100 starting price for this, uh, Google TV streamer, and then, what, 150, I think, for an Apple TV. 

[00:20:38] James: I'm looking. We have the Apple TV 4K, which is the only one that exists, and that device is 100 and 30 or 140. Yeah. Okay. 

[00:20:50] Frank: So, okay. They're, they're staying competitive and Google's keeping it cheaper, at least, but it is sad, uh, the day of the lightweight little device.

That's really just a wifi, uh, HDMI port. Like I said, in the beginning, I think they're just going to become a little bit of landfill because, uh, the big programmable devices are coming up. Still a good thing. You know what I did notice though? There's still no like decent web browser. on any of these TV devices.

It's a little weird. I think the web is still closed off from the TV world. 

[00:21:26] James: It's true. You know, in fact, uh, in that regard, it's reminiscent of video game consoles, right? Like video game consoles are a much more expensive dongle that you plug to your TV that does much more powerful things, but they have this 10 foot view that's super optimized for this experience.

And for the Nintendo switch, it's both like optimized for touch and for the TV, which is very fascinating to think about how Nintendo created and. and develop this entire operating system that is both a tablet but hooks up to your TV and then you have a game playing controller with it. There's not very many devices that do that, so, uh, very fascinating to think about that.

Um, but, you know, this device is in a lot of people's homes as far as like the television itself, which means for a lot of us, we might not actually be thinking about the TV as a, an actual target. And yet it might be an optimal target for our application. In fact, if I look at a application such as MyCadence, uh, that I put out into the world, which is a number on a screen, it could, for all intents and purposes, Actually be on the television.

I decided not to put it on the TV because my assumption is if you have your spin bike in front of your television, you're probably watching some workout class that's on there and you want it to be there, but the problem with the TV is it's even more restrictive in a way than our phones and our tablets, right?

It's like, there's, there's not an, it's not intuitive way of running things side by side or overlapping thing. It's the, probably to me. Besides the watch, the most restrictive thing that we can develop for today, which for better or worse is fascinating to me. Like the, I'm 

[00:23:16] Frank: sorry, I have to interrupt you because you just triggered me because it drives me a little bit nuts.

Like we complain all the time about the poor multitasking ability of the iPad. Um, But at least you can put three apps up side by side on an iPad. Here's this, you know, everyone's got 50 inch plus TVs these days running at 4k. And you can only run one app at the same time. Like, what? For reference, I used to have a 14 inch monitor when I was a kid.

This TV could have like 20 of those on it. If they want it. Yeah. Or I did my math poorly there, but y'all get the point. Um, it's, it's a little bit. It's a lot ridiculous. Um, I was about to go into like some app ideas I've been having for the TV, but you nailed it. Like one app I would love to have is just bring up my Twitter and just scroll my Twitter for me so I don't have to.

But yes, I also want to be watching a little bit of YouTube on the side or something like that because it is a TV. Put a video on it. But, you know, where's my Back to the Future 2 TV with like six split screens and picture in picture and all that stuff? And don't actually do picture in picture because they did picture in picture on the iPad and it's terrible.

Multitasking. Yes, James, you triggered me. Why doesn't the TV have multitasking? 

[00:24:37] James: That's, to me, the biggest hindrance of actually us creating more applications on it is, is the reason it doesn't do it. In my personal opinion, I could be wrong. I could ask Google or Apple is, is, uh, the, the interaction, the actual, no, it's the human, the human, the human interaction.

We are restricted by the input device, the input device on a. A desktop being the mouse or the trackpad, and the windowing system is very natural. The interaction system of using an iPad or an iOS device, or even doing split screen on it is relatively interactive because we have a finger, we have a thing on here, the thing with the television, you don't have any of that.

The closest thing we had that was the Nintendo Wii with the pointer that you can move around and do stuff. And you couldn't actually do multitasking on that, but it would, You could do a lot more. You could scroll. You could do stuff. I think it actually did have a web browser, by the way. It may have had one.

[00:25:38] Frank: And let me interject that LGTV stole that. They didn't steal the technology, obviously. They implemented the same technology where the remote actually puts a cursor up on your screen. And the tracking is great. Excellent. Yeah, to the point where it's very easy to click things and do all that. So yes, your argument stands.

I get it. Um, I think we fall back on the Oh, our first bad TV UI was hard to use. Therefore, you can't multitask. Like, I don't know, throw it out there. Let's let's work at multitasking TV interfaces for 10 years. I bet you there's a way to do it. You know, Apple didn't invent, uh, pull to refresh, you know, it's, yeah.

They don't have every good idea. You just got to put it out there. Give us multitasking and we'll figure out how to make it usable. 

[00:26:28] James: I am. I'm wondering if it's a chicken and the egg situation, right? Like, and again, I would love to interview someone that works on those teams because how much energy and effort do you put into the SDK, into these advanced scenarios versus what people actually want to do on their device?

Like, have they found That really, and to Google to this point for this Google TV streamer, have they found that people just want to endlessly scroll and click on a controller down, down over, over through Netflix to figure out what they're going to watch and hit go on it because we don't see many devices at all with, you know, things that you're moving or clicking or using it as a screen, we have advanced so little in the space of television input that even.

I don't even use the Apple TV remote, the little one with the little trackpad thing. I actually use a Logitech Harmony and I just have up, down, left, right. You know, I'm old school. I just do that. Cause I also need to turn on like eight things in my house. I need to make sure the Apple TV is on, the TV is in the right thing.

The TV is in the right input, turn on the soundbar, like make sure everything's happening, do all the things, but. I think that's what's really fascinating is we are so ingrained into the grid system, right? Because we think even in a satellite or cable set top box, it really only does one thing. It brings up a grid guide and you up, down, left, right, and you, you know, skip over stuff.

We're so entrenched into like, this is all it can do is. It's limited to that. And this, like the thing with the TVs, what you're saying is like, they are the, one of the biggest electronic input devices we have. It's bigger than a computer. It's bigger than our phones and our tablets. They're ginormous. They are a huge, huge play field that is possible.

And yet, they can do one thing. They display one video, one image, one thing at a time. And as app developers, it, It doesn't encourage me to want to do this. And a good example is like, we have, I have a few home kit security cameras and it's not like I can be watching Netflix and then have the security camera.

I was like, imagine you heard a noise outside, you turn on the camera, you make sure, Oh, I don't know, but sure. Wouldn't it be just nice to have that on the bottom, right? Or something like that? Nope. Can't do that. That's impossible. 

[00:28:51] Frank: Especially not, you can't mix the audio channels. Apple would never allow that.

The iPad to this day, you can't play two videos together. You can write a website and play two videos together, but can you have two apps play videos together? No. It's a weird thing. That's why I don't fully buy the interaction argument. Like, it's just, I don't know, it's a weird decision, and I think we're stuck with it for historical reasons.

This, um, this modality of the TV, that it's like you're in a purely passive environment or not. Like, I think, especially with the younger generation growing up with tablets, I think they're going to demand A more, uh, versatile environment. Let's call it. It has to, it has to. Cause it's silly to have like, so the Olympics are on, not to date this episode, but, uh, I've been trying to watch the Olympics and I don't really get broadcasted.

So I've been having to try all the IPTV apps. And so TV has been a little bit on my mind. Uh, I have currently downloaded three apps extra in addition to all the TV watching apps that I already have in order to attempt to watch the, uh, uh, Olympiacs. Do you know that NBC has an app called Peacock? I don't think anyone subscribed, but, uh, I downloaded it.

They wanted me to buy it. I said, nope, not doing that. Uh, NBC also has like some kind of TV app. That's good. Separate from Peacock. Don't fully understand the brand synergy there. Uh, but that doesn't have Olympics. That just has little Fun little montages and, uh, inspirational emotional stories about Olympic athlete players.

No, James, what you need is the NBC Sports app. Oh, got it. That's, that's the app. That's the app. And it comes with 30 minutes of free time. So 30 minutes a week. I can watch the Olympics. So you have to sign up for NBC sports, I guess. So I was feeling a little dejected at this point. And I'm like, the app, the app ecosystem has failed me.

I can't watch the Olympics. And then, and then I saw this beautiful app from India. Forget what it's called, but let's just call it Joy Entertainment. It looked great. They said, Olympics, watch Olympics anytime. I want to say the first thing out of all these apps I've downloaded so far, they all had the exact same user interface.

Now, NBC won't be ashamed, by the way, guys, uh, and boys and girls, both, uh, low resolution graphics do not fly in 2024. Anyway, I downloaded this new app from India. I'm all excited. I am going to get the Indian version of the Olympics. And immediately, uh, you had to sign in and create an account and their website didn't work.

So I couldn't. Even I was going to create an account. I was all ready to watch the Olympics. I was so excited and their website failed. So that's my report on the current state of IPTV streaming. It's going great. 

[00:31:47] James: It's super fascinating because you know, Apple and, and the, the different services have done all this work for like solving.

TV, as far as logging in, like, you know, you scan a QR code, you enter a code, you, you log in on your phone and then it like magically knows you just never, you don't want to do any input. Like you do this thing, do that thing. Entering text on a TV is terrible. And like, yeah, we have like phone bias and like, even though you can hover over a field and your iPhone's like, do you want to type right now?

It's like, I gotta pull out my phone. I gotta do a thing. It's like, they really haven't solved a lot of these, these fundamental issues of just using this device to what you're saying. And it's actually one of the most fascinating. Experiences to what you said is like almost every app that I have on my TV.

The first thing you got to do is sign it. Like you can't do anything. There it's, it's everything. Sign in, sign in, do that thing. And the sign in and sign up and do this other thing. And it's like, it is a consumption device and I guess that's what we want. I don't, I don't know. Or is that just what is restrictive and you're right.

Every single thing looks and feels exactly the same for better or worse. You know, um, that's out there. Uh, when. When Hulu works a little bit different than Netflix versus a little bit different from Apple TV, like there's something to be said that you got to go now learn three different user interfaces just to watch a show, right?

Especially like for me, I watch a lot of things with captions and I'm changing channels and they all work a little bit different. And so I feel, I feel as though, well, they do look a little bit the same. They're actually fundamentally like very different. I think it's actually a. Kind of a detriment in a way to the TV.

[00:33:23] Frank: Well, yeah. And, uh, you kept saying the grid because, uh, well, the, the, the grid we're all the most familiar with, I think it's the thumbnail grid where you're actually trying to pick a video or something, but. In our current user interface system, what do you get? You get tab bar on the left, where you get to choose five ish different sections of the app.

And each of those tabs brings you into a grid view. It's a very sedate interface. Boring, overly generalized user interface, tabs and grids of videos. And you see the people trying to differentiate themselves like, uh, I don't know, like HBO will have my stuff and they used to have genres, but then they figured out, oh, we can't list out 20 genres.

No one wants to click through 20 genres. So what do they do now? They just have an icon every single video and you're like, well. Thanks. I guess I'll scroll through 100, 000 icons here. Um, yeah, so you made an argument for, um, the 10 foot experience and keeping that user interface simple and straight. And I love how this episode is just all over the place.

We always get to talk into UX. I think we have settled into a very bad local minima of five categories and then icons. And all these apps just do it because that's how the template is set up. Um, yeah, we need, we need a little bit of a TV UI revolution. 

[00:34:53] James: The question is, is that AI? Is that why Google had to create the Google TV streamer?

Because it needs the AI. I need AI. How much AI do I need in my TV? 

[00:35:04] Frank: James, I love AI. You know me, I've been promoting AI since 2017. No, AI cannot help here. This is a humane, human studies thing and we're failing both on the engineering side and as the humans being studied, we're failing on both sides. 

[00:35:22] James: We need some hits, some human interface design guidelines.

Let's get this going. Um, I totally agree. I think it's fascinating. I think for me as a developer, developing and wanting to develop apps are some things I'm interested in doing. However, I feel like there are these huge hurdles, uh, to get over. Now we're, you know, Olympics. I'll say some hurdles. Um, uh, and, uh, I can't vault my way onto the TV.

Uh, but anyways, so, uh, the thing that's a metaphor into place. Okay. Um, so the huge. Like you said, is the graphics work that needs to be done, like the design, the image, the visualization on this, it needs to be pretty high res that's out there, um, and then also the interaction, right? So me actually figuring out the control scheme to get things in there.

I think if I go into the TV space, I'm going to, Look and feel like a, you know, app that I'm normal on my phone. So I think that's a challenge I would love to learn to get over to actually make the design, the human interface design work really well on TV. But I think the other thing I battle with is, uh, me as an app developer, the apps that I create.

that maybe are going to go on the the the or on the tv would actually be pretty limited by the fact of, you know, um the restrictions of what the tv has and i know also that when it comes to televisions and having something static on the screen and how these tvs are set up you want things always to be moving and changing and as well and i struggle with that.

So to me, there's a. It seems odd that actually the television has a reduced scope of what actually you will use for your user interface. And yet, it seems like the biggest challenge for me to go into. 

[00:37:14] Frank: Yeah, yeah. Um, I, as, keep, I hate saying as app developers, but as app developers, we're used to Interactive apps.

So a dialogue with the user. I present a little info. They gave me a little info. I present a little more info. They give me a little more info. That's not TV. TV is entertain me. I'm tired. I had a long day. Put me to sleep, entertain me, do something to me. Um, and that's a whole different design space and, um, requires a bit of different skills.

It's not Xamarin like game development. Game development is the other end of the spectrum, purely interactive or, you know, 80 percent interactive. Um, it is fun to think about on those terms though. And yeah, I mean, now with the depth of Chromecast and the birth of the 10 year anniversary of Android TV, maybe I should take a look at it now that it's a decade old, maybe I should take a look.

[00:38:14] James: Well, give it a go. And if you are building TV apps, we would be super interested. So definitely right into the show, head over to MergeConflict. fm, hit the contact button. And also if you're on YouTube, youtube. com forward slash at MergeConflict. fm, you can leave a comment on this episode. You can see Frank and I talking and, uh, we read those comments every single week.

So that's it. Um, maybe I'll. Play around with it more. I, now that, now that I have Visual Studio code set up and then I also have Android Studio installed, like maybe now, like I will actually go in and play around with it a little bit and, and check out what's happening over there. See what's changed. I bet it's exactly the same.

I feel like nothing's changed. 

[00:38:53] Frank: Well, maybe they showed some kind of judo or other Olympic sport reference and improved it. 

[00:39:01] James: Oh, we'll see. All right. All right, Frank. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's Merge Conflict. So until next time, I'm James Montemagno. And I'm Frank Krueger. Thanks for watching and listening.

Peace.