"View in Your Space" Not Working on Your Android?

This is not a primer or How-To about Google 3D Animals. There are a lot of excellent articles on the web for that. As the title hopes to convey, and the reason I think you have found your way here here, it is a post meant to help those who want to get a tiger into their bedrooms using their Android phone, can see the tiger in 3D, but cannot see that tantalizing but elusive “view in your space” button. Your tiger is in 3D, it moves around, you can see it from the top, from the bottom, from the side… Hell it even growls, but you can get no further.

Sound about right? And you're starting to get the feeling that the Gadget Gods are conspiring to make you feel bad? Because you keep reading, and hearing, that there's a "view in your space" button just below the tiger, and yet, time and time again, the picture below is what you see?

Well, hopefully, this post can help provide, if not resolution, then at least some clarity.

First and foremost, and maybe you don’t want to hear this, you need a supported phone. If you have a very old phone, well, chances are it’s not supported, and when you google “tiger” you will not even be able to see “view in 3D” button. If you realize that you’re in this group of people, find comfort in the knowledge that it is at least a better place to be than the next group of people: those with relatively new, but unsupported, phones. I myself use a Huawei Nova 5T, and it is not supported. I can see the “view in 3D” button, I can even actually see the tiger in 3D, but that is as far as I can get; and believe me it’s a cruel place to be in. At least the first group of people have the luxury of certainty. The people in my group don’t. We seem just a step away, some undiscovered tweak away from the promised land. But we never seem to get there. I spent hours trying to get it to work, but eventually failed; and worse, up to this moment I am still not entirely sure that it can’t work, and there is cruelty in that uncertainty.

So before anything else, check to see if you have a supported phone. A very good resource can be found here. Or, a more direct way of knowing whether or not your Android phone is supported is to go into the Play Store and search for “Google Play Services for AR”. If your phone isn’t supported, chances are you cannot even find it. Or you might find it, with an accompanying message that it cannot be installed on your device. Now, those of you who are pretty tech-savvy might be thinking that you’ll just go to a site like APKMirror, download this “Google Play Services for AR” (hereafter to be referred to as “GPSoAR”) and sideload it onto your phone. You can certainly try, and I suspect that it might actually work on some devices, but on my Nova 5T it did not. It actually installed fine, but any attempt by the phone to use it would end in a crash.

If you find GPSoAR on the Play Store with buttons to either “open” or “update” or “uninstall” then you’re in luck. That means it’s already on your phone, as it should be on a supported phone. However, if you see the “update” button that means there is already a newer version available and you should update the app. This is not negotiable, update if the option is available. No need to open, that is done automatically when the right time comes.

Next, check your Android version, it should be 7.0 or higher. If you find that GPSoAR is already on your phone in the previous step, then I see no reason how your version of Android can be lower than 7, but check anyway, and run system update if for some reason, it isn’t.

After going through these two steps, then you have determined if your phone is capable, but even if it is, you might still be unable to see the “view in your space” button, and that means there is more work to be done.

Step 3: Go into the Play Store and look for both the Google app and the Chrome app. These should already be on any Android device, but you need to update these to the latest versions. So, just like you did for GPSoAR, look for these two apps in the Play Store and see if the “update” button shows up on either. If yes, you know what to do.

Step 4: Go into settings, look for the two apps listed in step 3, and check their permissions. Both must have permission to use your camera.

Step 5: Lastly, still in settings for the two same apps, go into storage and clear the cache for both.

You are likely thinking that steps 3 and 5 are frivolous and probably unnecessary. You might well be correct about step 5, but I cannot overemphasize the importance of step 3.

After you have done all these, try again to see if you can now see the “view in your space” button.

You're welcome.

Paymaya, the Concept

What is Paymaya? I'd like to try and provide a conceptual answer to that question. As a proud member of Gen X (1965-1979), I consider my generation to be the last that provides conceptual answers to questions. Not to generalize too much, but it certainly seems like, to me at least, that when you ask a millennial (Gen. Y 1980-1994) a question of what something is, he/she will generally reply not with what it is, but rather with what it can do.

What is Paymaya?
Gen Y answer: You can use it to pay for things at any establishment that accepts Paymaya.

Ask a Gen Z'er (1995-2015) the same question on the other hand, and you are bound to get the most basic of replies.

What is Paymaya? Gen Z answer: App siya.

If you're lucky and the Gen Z'er hasn't gone back to playing Mobile Legends, you might get snippets of how to get the App to work, but rarely, it seems, information about what the app is, in concept.

 I haven't figured out why there seems to be this difference across generations. And mind you, I am definitely  not implying that there is a difference in intelligence. Your average Gen Z'er for instance, has so much information in his brain that I suspect he answers the question like that precisely because he couldn't decide where to start and thus ended up defaulting to "app sya.."

I guess it is somewhat related to the differences in the way life presented itself to these different generations, which in turn, led to differences in how we view the world and process and thus exchange information. But exactly how, I don't know. For all I know, it is perhaps not a difference in generations but a difference in age. Maybe answering questions in conceptual terms is something that kicks in at say, 36 years of age. Maybe this is the only reason Gens Y and Z still don't seem to answer questions in conceptual terms, I don't know. So, for today at least, I am sticking to talking about Paymaya.

 At its core, Paymaya is a digital wallet which allows money transfers to other Paymaya users. If you are a Paymaya user, you can convert your cash into digital form and store it as credits on the Paymaya app which resides on your phone. From this app you can then send credits to other Paymaya users, who can either choose to keep them as credits on their phone or exchange them back into hard currency.

Sample of QR Code

In its purest form, a Paymaya payment from a user to a commercial establishment is essentially such a money transfer. The commercial establishment is also a Paymaya account-holder, although they have a business account instead of a personal one (a minor detail for purposes of our discussion) and when you pay them you are essentially sending money from your account to theirs. The way you tell your app that it is their account you want to send money to (and not some other establishment's) is by inputing their account number (often a cellphone number) into your app - and the shortcut to this is scanning their unique QR code.

That's it. At its core that's what Paymaya (and GCash for that matter) is.

 But like any commercial products, there are of course, bells and whistles. It's these bells and whistles that often make things seem more complicated than they really are - especially if we delve into the bells and whistles before taking the time to understand the central concept behind the product.

For a digital wallet to really be useful in everyday life, it must also serve as a payment solution. That is, there must be an easy way for you to pay for things in everyday life with credits from your digital wallet. With Paymaya for instance, the basic way to pay is to send money from your account to the account of the commercial establishment from which you purchased something. But as we've mentioned before, this can only be done if the commercial establishment or vendor is also a Paymaya account-holder. To make Paymaya more useful, the people behind it needed to give users the ability to pay even vendors who were not Paymaya account-holders. Enter the Paymaya debit card. The Paymaya debit card is an add-on to the basic Paymaya account. You can easily buy one from Paymaya or its distributors, and it will be accepted anywhere that VISA or Mastercard is accepted (it's your choice which one to have, or both if you buy multiple cards.) You can then link the card/s to your account and your payments will flow as digital credits on your phone, through the debit card, to the vendor who accepts either VISA or Mastercard. Each debit card costs around P200 (I'm not sure exactly) and you can link more than one card.

 Each Paymaya account also has a virtual card which you can choose to activate. With a virtual card you have card details (i.e. card number, expiry date, security code) but no physical card. The virtual card will be powered by either VISA or Mastercard. The user doesn't get to choose which of the two as this depends, I believe, on the network his phone is on. The advantage of the virtual card is that it's free. The disadvantage is that while it can be used for online purchases, most brick-and-mortar establishments will require a physical card. So in short, if you expect to be using your Paymaya account purely for online payments, then a virtual card is sufficient; but to be able to use your Paymaya accounts in physical establishments (especially for non-Paymaya vendors), you will need to buy a physical Paymaya debit card and link it to your account. Once you have a physical card, then the virtual card becomes redundant and unnecessary, though you are perfectly free to keep using it of course.

I should also add that while setting up the most basic Paymaya account takes, quite literally, less than five minutes, once you want a card - be it a virtual or physical card - you will need to verify your account by sending in more identification information. To make sure you are a living, breathing person, Paymaya will also require you to take a video selfie (I kid you not) at this stage. Video selfie, not photo selfie. All in all, these are still manageable minor inconveniences in exchange for a fairly complete digital-wallet-and-payment system.

As a way to recap the things we've gone through, let's take a look at a real world situation that I personally find interesting.

When you go to McDonald's and one of its NXTGEN ordering kiosks, you will almost always see "Paymaya" prominently displayed on the payment interface of the kiosk. And yet, McDonald's is actually not a Paymaya vendor in the truest sense of the word - at least not currently, and at least not in the way I see it. For me, a "true" Paymaya vendor lets you send money from your Paymaya account into theirs, and they have a QR code to identify their account - and at this point in time McDonald's does not. While it is true that the McDonald's kiosks allow you to pay using a Paymaya debit card, it also allows all other debit/credit cards that use the VISA/Mastercard systems. So, the more correct description, currently, is that McDonald's accepts all VISA/Mastercard cards, and that includes those that are linked to / funded by Paymaya accounts. So, I find it very interesting why the Paymaya logo is so prominently displayed at those kiosks, perhaps McDonald's and Paymaya have grand plans that just haven't been launched yet.

UPDATE December 12, 2019 : So, indeed, the scan-QR-to-pay facility has been enabled in McDonald's stores. I thought it was probably coming given how prominently the Paymaya logo had been displayed on the payment terminals attached to the ordering kiosks -

Another question I used to have is why these telecommunications companies like Globe and Smart ventured into the payments space. At first glance it seems like a business quite different from their core businesses of providing telecommunications services. I was even more intrigued when I learned that the payment services did not even require you to use the sister-company as your telecom provider - i.e. you can open a Paymaya account with a Globe number and a GCash account with a Smart number. Then at some point I realized that if these telecommunications companies can nudge us towards a world where our wallets come to reside within  our phones, and thus make our phones even more indispensable parts of our lives, then it can only mean good things for them over the long haul because their market expands. It's true marketing in a way - to create sales and revenues not by pushing things down consumers' throats but by creating a world where consumers have greater and greater need, whether real or imagined, for the core products you provide. Pretty cool actually.

The Pitfalls of Wazing in Manila

Waze is incredibly useful. I have to admit that through the use of the app, I've discovered dozens of routes previously unbeknownst to me even as a lifelong resident of Metro Manila. Furthermore, knowing my ETA really takes away one form of stress from my commute.

That said, through the years of using the app, I've learned to be watchful of certain pitfalls. Now mind you, these pitfalls are probably not unique to the use of Waze in Manila. I do think however, that because of the nature of Metro Manila roads and traffic, these pitfalls do tend to be more pronounced in Metro Manila.

PITFALL #1 : The Scrimper Pitfall

Ever tried to scrimp when buying something, only to realize soon thereafter that the inferior quality of that thing you bought actually cost you more, sometimes in other ways, over the long run? The Waze equivalent of this is when it gets us to follow highly complex routes through small, crowded streets because it is perhaps 11 minutes faster than the route that mostly uses the major thoroughfares.

These complex routes can be costly in a number of ways: First, when we're using these complex routes for the first time, through crowded streets with many permanent and semi-permanent obstructions, we probably take a longer time to navigate the route compared with what the data on the app suggests - the data having been compiled from the journeys of Waze users who are likely much more familiar with those narrow streets. Second, for me, the stress from your commute is a very real cost, and obviously a complex route is a much more stressful drive than a more straightforward one. Then finally, the increased probability of scrapes, bumps, and even road scams is also a very real cost.

Whenever I share this observation with other Waze users, especially more casual users, they will usually point out that you're given three options and it is your choice whether to use the fast-but-complex route. This is somewhat true, but, there are also many instances that all three routes given will contain the same complex section of a route and are just variations off of that core section.

I have long felt that there's an elegant solution to this which would not be too difficult for Waze to implement if it were so inclined. Waze can ask for user preference on the complexity-vs.-speed tradeoff and incorporate these preferences into a decision on which routes to recommend to a specific user. Specifically, it can ask the user to define how much complexity he is willing to accept to get to his destination 5 minutes faster. As a stand-in for complexity, the number of turns can be used. i.e. how many additional turns are you willing to make to save five minutes of travel time? On one end of the spectrum you'd have the user who much prefers straightforward drives and would not want to make even one additional turn to save five minutes. On the other end you'd have the user who values speed above all else and is indifferent to the number of additional turns, just as long as he can arrive earlier. Waze can have some kind of slider bar for the user to fine tune the exact level of preference between these two extremes.

For all I know, maybe Waze already has the algorithms to detect user route preferences by mining the data from all of his previous drives, and maybe the reason I do not sense this ability in Waze is because I've never ever bothered to set up an account and sign in. Serves me right then eh? For not being an upstanding member of the Waze community.

PITFALL #2 : The Siren Pitfall

In Greek Mythology a Siren is a partly human creature of the ocean, a temptress who would lure mariners to their destruction with the seductive sound of singing. On days of extremely bad traffic that Metro Manilans have come to refer to as "Carmageddon" in equal parts humor, affection, and resignation; sirens come in the form of little known routes that suddenly pop up and promise travel time half of the more well-known routes. Alas, invariably, these routes rely on very narrow streets through densely populated areas (it's those narrow streets again), and the moment Waze recommends these routes the ensuing rush to them cause gridlock at the narrow streets. There are few worse feelings in the world than to be stuck in traffic on a narrow road and to repeatedly hear Waze chiming to inform you that your ETA has been pushed back because "traffic is building up".


PITFALL #3 : The Right Love at the Wrong Time Pitfall

Metro Manila is a very dense metropolis whose streets are particularly susceptible to periodic "rushes" of traffic. For instance, traffic on roads around schools and churches will usually get quite heavy in the thirty minutes right after classes or mass ends. There are times when Waze, with the best of intentions, recommends a route that is great at the time you start your journey, but which, unfortunately, brings you to an area that experiences the aforementioned periodic rushes just around the time that these rushes are about to be experienced. Sometimes this can be quite costly in that you are already committed to that route and have no realistic option to circumvent the problematic pocket. I think a somewhat more predictive intelligence can, and probably will, be one of the next steps in the evolution of navigation apps. To the extent that there is a predictable pattern to traffic buildup, an app like Waze ought to be be able to, and probably will, mine the data they have and proactively keep you away from a route wherein a buildup is expected at sometime along the route just as you will get to the area. But I don't think we're quite there yet.

The improvements we discussed, while definitely doable, may not be high on the priorities of Waze developers if these are not deemed to be indispensable in Waze's core markets, of which the Philippines is probably but a small part, if at all. So, it's not entirely silly when we hear people saying that with Metro Manila traffic, pati Waze nasira ang ulo.