Android
operating system created by Google for use on mobile devices
Episodes
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#5526: Can a Phone Bond Two Cellular Links?Android can bond Wi-Fi and cellular — but two cellular data paths at once? That's where the hardware and the OS both say no.Main topic -
#5525: Why Does an eSIM Adapter Need a Card Reader?Your Android phone can already read and write an eSIM adapter card. So why does the company still sell a $15 USB reader?Main topic -
#5485: Fine-Tuning Parakeet for Hebrew and Your Own JargonNVIDIA's Parakeet beats Whisper on Android — but can you teach it Hebrew, or just your own jargon? Two answers, one much happier.Main topic -
#5464: Your Keyboard's Hidden Data ProblemYour keyboard knows your email address, your phrases, your habits — and you can't take any of it with you.Main topic -
#5422: Switching Android Keyboards Without the Tap DanceOne listener wants a one-tap jump between his Parakeet voice keyboard and his typing keyboard. Android says no — unless you know the trick.Main topic -
#5420: How Keyboard Middleware Actually WorksA keyboard isn't one thing — it's a stack. Here's how input methods, composition buffers, and hooks really work on Linux, Android, and Windows.Main topic -
#5417: Can You Version-Control Your Android Apps?Android Developer Verification enforcement just started. Can you define your installed app list as code — and what breaks if you try?Main topic -
#5415: Inside F-Droid: Repos, Front Ends, and Sideloading SafelyHow F-Droid's repository model works, why it has five front ends, and what actually keeps sideloaded APKs safe.Main topic -
#5388: Android's Split Keyboard and Voice Input ProblemAndroid separates keyboards from speech engines by design. Most apps weld them back together.Main topic -
#5384: Android ASR Runtimes: LiteRT, ExecuTorch, and Why Your Phone Has No VRAMWhy does your phone have no VRAM number? A tour of Android's runtime layer and what it takes to run ASR locally.Main topic -
#5383: Android's Open Core, Closed GovernanceAndroid's code is open, but its roadmap isn't. What happens when Google changes the core and developers just have to cope?Main topic -
#5380: Zero-Click: When Your OS Opens Files For YouYour file manager parses downloads before you touch them. Here's what that means for your security — and what you can actually do about it.Main topic -
#5160: Bluetooth Peripherals on One Android PhoneHow many Bluetooth devices can one Android phone juggle? The seven-device limit is a stack artifact — profiles matter more.Main topic -
#5814: Who Remembers Where You Left Off?mpv remembers. MPRIS, GstPlay, and Media3 don't. There's no standard for playback history. -
#5748: What's Actually Inside an eSIM AdapterAn eSIM adapter isn't a converter — it's a eUICC chip in a SIM shell. Here's the silicon, the certificates, and the open source tools underneath. -
#5681: Why Your Volume Knob Can't Find the Right SpotYour phone has 15 volume steps. More steps won't fix the real problem — and the math explains why. -
#5544: Open Source Wi-Fi Controllers: Why Mixing AP Vendors Is So HardOpenWISP, OpenSOHO, DAWN, TIP OpenWiFi, FreeSDN — six real projects, one shared wall: closed firmware. -
#5528: What Your eSIM Manager Is Actually DoingThose log lines during eSIM setup aren't noise — they're the GSMA provisioning spec running in the open. -
#5512: The Passenger Seat Never Got an Instrument PanelDedicated front-passenger screens exist across luxury cars — but they're built for TikTok, not for the co-pilot job. Here's why. -
#5469: Open Source's New Map: India, Croatia, EthiopiaOne in three new GitHub developers now comes from a country outside 2020's top ten. What that shift means for open source. -
#5460: Four Small Models, One Android Phone: Does It Actually Work?A chained on-device dictation pipeline — VAD, ASR, cleanup — and why "it feels smooth" isn't the same as knowing it works. -
#5456: Parakeet vs Whisper: Picking a Phone ASR ModelWhy Whisper loses on Android, why Parakeet v2 beat v3, and how to benchmark speech-to-text without any tooling. -
#5434: When Local AI Tools Phone HomeLocal AI tools shouldn't need the network. So why is your on-device writing assistant uploading 40MB at 3am? -
#5390: Chaining Small Models for Dictation CleanupDaniel's Android dictation fork won't render "three point five" as a decimal. How many models does cleanup actually need? -
#5387: Who Decides What Your Keyboard Knows?Your keyboard's word list was probably frozen in 2014. Here's who maintains the open-source dictionaries — and why Gboard's stays fresh. -
#5376: Why a Zello Pager Wearable Doesn't Exist YetPagers blink until acknowledged. Zello beeps until you tap. But nobody's shipped the wearable that bridges them. -
#5319: Focus Stacking Without the Phone App GuessworkYour phone app wants three shots. The optics want three hundred. Here's how to actually stack macro focus. -
#5281: Why Your Cheap Phone Plan Feels BrokenSame phone, same spot, same 5G bars — so why does a cheap carrier crawl? It's not the signal. -
#5253: Zeroization: Wiping Keys, Not DataDestroying a 256-bit key takes milliseconds. Overwriting a terabyte takes hours. That gap is the whole story. -
#5245: Training a Model on 100 Phone PhotosOne drawer of screws, a hundred phone photos, and a schema. When does a small custom model beat a fine-tuned VLM? -
#5232: Zello, PTT Buttons, and the Kitchen Intercom QuestionWhy your Bluetooth speaker ignores Zello's push-to-talk — and what to buy instead for a hands-full, phone-off fallback. -
#5220: Malware vs. Virus: What's Actually Attacking Your MachineEvery virus is malware, but not every malware is a virus — and that distinction explains why your antivirus keeps missing things. -
#5166: Why Your Baby Tracker Can't Log Oxygen SaturationBaby apps have templates for everything — except the metrics you actually need. The custom tracking framework exists. It just never shipped. -
#5467: Small Models, Big Schemas: When JSON Constraints BackfireSmall models plus strict JSON schemas should be a safe bet. A 15,000-generation study found the opposite. -
#5458: Two Linuses and the Fun in TechnologyWhat Linus Tech Tips and Linus Torvalds each model about play, mastery, and keeping tech fun as AI eats the tedious parts. -
#5396: Teaching a Small Model to Stop Spelling Out NumbersYour ASR pipeline is fine until someone dictates "three point two" and gets "three point two" spelled out. Here's how inverse text normalization ac... -
#5364: The Emergency Note You Hope You Never NeedPenicillin in Bangkok, paracetamol in London, Adderall at customs. What actually goes in the note on your phone?