Why Bother with the Pixel 10a?

Cold open energy: I’m still a former A‑series guy, but this year the base Pixel has to step up.

What’s up, internet—welcome back to Waveform with Marquez, Andrew, and David. We’ve got Pixel 10A first impressions, a surprise March Apple event, a Ring reversal, Apple Podcasts adding video, and a game from Adam—and yes, please subscribe so we’re well past that hype threshold.

Quick new opener: a five‑minute gripe called “did anyone test this?” Mine is Slack’s emoji picker on mobile—the heart tab is full of symbols like ATM and biohazard and somehow not a single heart, while desktop shows a peace sign tab that actually makes sense.

I’ll pile on: metal watch bands keep yanking arm hair—classic look, constant pinch.

Internet update: service came back Wednesday.

Then an Xfinity tech called from my driveway to fix sagging telephone lines that weren’t even theirs, did the work, and gave me his cell because the 1‑800 line is a maze; meanwhile a Comcast business rep emailed me to pitch services right after last week’s outage saga, so I politely said absolutely not.

Ring’s Super Bowl lost‑dog feature blew up fast, and a day later they backed off the Flock partnership after people canceled in droves; the founder has long pushed an all‑seeing camera network to drive crime toward zero, but the ad made the surveillance vibe impossible to ignore.

It’s wild that made it to air—some folks did think, hey, it finds dogs, but the math looked silly and the use case felt like a friendly wrapper on something much creepier.

On the Android side, Google’s AirDrop‑style sharing is expanding—but only to Pixel 9 devices so far, not broader Android, which is a letdown.

AirDrop in our studio is fine for small files, then chokes on big ones and the target list jumps just as you tap, which is maddening; please fix that, Apple.

Shoutout to Rufus for getting us to try Blip; it’s actually great for moving Android review footage to Macs, which for our niche is a lifesaver.

Pixel 10A time: it’s almost a clone of 9A—same chip, RAM, cameras, and price—with tiny tweaks like a fully flush camera bar, slightly slimmer bezels, a display that’s about ten percent brighter, faster wired charging if you buy the pricier brick, and a bump to ten‑watt wireless.

No magnets for the new accessory system, no storage bump, no new silicon—feels like a checkbox launch, and the reviewer guide’s charging language is so vague I expect day‑one confusion.

I get that A‑series buyers want Pixel software more than raw specs, but if you’re shipping a near‑repeat, at least add one delightful perk.

Google’s endgame is a Gemini‑first phone anyway; expect the next wave to tout more AI accelerators, and we’ll hear loads at I/O on May nineteenth and twentieth.

Trivia break: the first Pixel A—the 3a—was made by which big OEM? Answers later.

Event season: Samsung’s “next AI phone” tease sure sounds like S26 refinements, while Apple’s March fourth showcase is rumored to include a lower‑cost, colorful MacBook with an A‑series chip around seven hundred dollars.

That would target education hard, undercut Chromebooks on experience, and sit below Air—most people don’t need M‑class horsepower for schoolwork.

It’s basically reviving the 12‑inch MacBook idea the old Intel chips couldn’t pull off; Apple Silicon finally makes the tiny‑but‑usable dream real, and honestly Mac Pro feels sidelined as a Mac Studio with faster external storage now covers most needs.

We’re also hearing about M5‑class MacBook Pros and a refreshed Studio Display with higher refresh and better HDR driven by a newer onboard chip.

Apple’s monitors are in a weird spot—both stuck at 60 hertz at premium prices—so a smoother Studio Display would finally match the market.

Apple Podcasts now supports video with streaming and offline, plus dynamic video ads, but we can’t publish there yet because our network uses Megaphone, which isn’t supported at launch.

We’re split between podcast and YouTube channel, so if views shift away from YouTube we lose revenue and discovery; competition between Apple, Spotify, and YouTube is good, but we have to protect the business.

Podcast ad tech still lags, so we’ll wait for clearer monetization and partner support before flipping the video switch.

Game time: Two Truths and a Lie about the Pixel 10 Pro—two screen sizes, seven years of new features, and a free year of Google AI Pro—pick the fake; we’re leaning toward the update promise being fuzzier than it sounds.

I love that we basically pushed Google into seven years of updates. That’s rare in tech, even if Apple tossed an ancient iPhone a security patch a decade later.

All right, greatest consumer product ever: iPhone 12 mini. Did it top eighty five percent screen-to-body, was it the oldest iPhone fully on iOS twenty six, and was it in the first ceramic shield batch? Pick the lie.

Ceramic shield started with the twelve series, so that tracks. The oldest fully supported iPhone is the eleven. And the mini’s ratio clears eighty five percent by a hair. We overthought it, but that was the move.

Oculus Rift S next: co-made with Lenovo, OLED at eighty hertz, and software-only IPD. What’s wrong? It was actually an LCD, not OLED. We got distracted debating refresh and missed the obvious.

Lightning round: cucumber, orca, barbecue emojis. No barbecue. Orca exists in Unicode but isn’t on iOS yet. The cucumber is real, and a pickle is slated in the next emoji wave.

Android Honeycomb time: famous for Holo UI, debuted on Galaxy Nexus, introduced recent apps. The Galaxy Nexus debut is the lie. Honeycomb launched on tablets like the Motorola Xoom.

Final Cut Pro lore: KeyGrip origins at Macromedia, Apple acquired it in two thousand one, and you can hold tilde to kill the magnetic timeline. We called out that tilde only toggles snapping, not the whole magnetic timeline. You gave us the point on phrasing, then admitted the actual fib was the year.

iPhone 7: colors, storage, A10 Fusion. We argued colors versus storage tiers and got lost in jet black nostalgia. No clean resolution on that one.

Plot twist category: me. Two QWERTY phones, three iPhones before the home button died, and one T9 phone. They called T9 as the lie, and they were right. I never owned a T9 device.

Microsoft: first modern store in Scottsdale, Bing rebranded from Live Search, Groove Music still alive. After a prototype-store caveat, you leaned on Live Search being the shaky bit and we gave you that one.

Final round: New Jersey. First recorded baseball game in Hoboken, Atlantic City streets in Monopoly, and a Paterson spoon museum with five thousand six hundred spoons. You picked spoons, and won on a technicality—the museum is real but lists just over five thousand four hundred. That four-point swing beat the hosts.

Breaking news: leaked Ring emails hype Search Party from finding dogs to possibly zeroing out neighborhood crime. Big claims. We’re keeping a healthy dose of skepticism.

Trivia time. Who manufactured the first A-series Pixel, the 3a? Not HTC or LG. It was Foxconn. No points.

One more: Ring’s original name. Doorbot, Hambell, or Stoopwatchr. The answer was Doorbot, and we all whiffed it.

Thanks for listening, for the likes, and the ratings. We’ll be back after the Samsung event and then the next one after that, where nothing new will be announced.

New Nothing is in two weeks, and nothing new is next week. Nailed it.

Waveform is produced by Adam Molina and Ellis… you know who you are. These are facts. No.