Gadgetory

good morning on Monday November 20th its episode 319 of the 359 podcast you know me on BVG shout out the soul shoutout to Dallas shoutout to Malta to all of our international listeners here and beyond your host today include Alfred Eng and Ben Fox Ruben way to go I know there'd be this many people watching the show can I can I can I still back out of this or not yeah yeah you can leave I can just do it on my own are you holding your CNET award so yeah they gave then we should places we just lost everybody anyway so today on the podcast we're gonna be talking about the home pod that's apples $350 smart speaker was expected to be available for the holiday season unfortunately Apple delayed it they said that on Friday we're also talking about the Google pixel buds which apparently offer real-time eight died they're kind of a dental dud pixel duds they did get some noises they did get some poor reviews we'll go over some of the info from David car noise review that just recently published as always send in your questions and comments bujji we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show let's make podcast history shut up here we go hang out we'll see in the chat three minutes in 59 seconds from 3 - welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred hang interested in buying apple's new home pod smart speaker for the holidays well you're out of luck apple on friday said it's delaying the release of the device up until next year to me this is a pretty big mess as far as I'm concerned the Apple Apple was late already - the smart speaker World Series isn't that good to begin with they really needed something like this to try to engage people in their smarts bigger and now they're just saying all right we're gonna see it next year yeah well I figured if you're going to be late you might as well just continue being late to make sure you have the best product out there you know I think it's much better than you know rushing out and yeah here it is you know even though it's not as good as it could be and I think you know there's a lot of people who are willing to wait for Apple o total already been waiting for like two three years now so what's another year I mean that does remind me of an old saying of mine where if you're gonna be mitten if you're gonna be late you might as well already be very very late yes which is like okay fine but I don't know you do you find this at at least remotely embarrassing for the company I mean like you you have you're supposed to have a product launch for the holiday season this is a major tech company they should have stuck this lame yeah I don't know I don't think Apple actually needs the holiday season I mean think about when they release their phones and their laptops and those seem to do just fine without the holiday well they do they do especially with the phones they do release them around September as people get started until the holiday season but you know you're right yeah but maybe they don't come out during the great Presidents Day sales or you know they don't do a lot of sales to begin with so you know that's that or today is a great holiday president next up CNET's own David Carr no I reviewed the new Google pixel buds a pair of one $59 Bluetooth earbuds that can translate speech in real time unfortunately the translation feature is only available for pixel phone owners and David said it isn't really that different than the existing Google Translate app apparently there were a lot of reviews there were a lot NASA yeah a lot of people did not like the pixel buds which brings me back to the home pot point would you rather have something rushed to market and not work as well and be eviscerated or would you rather just be a year late and have it be somewhat decent I don't actually don't know if the home pot will be decent but that's what I'm assuming they're waiting it for I think the problem that I have with the Google pixel buds is is that this is a problem of very high expectations when Google first announced these things everybody was talking about how this was like Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy Babel Fish I'm just gonna stick them in your ear and all of a sudden you're gonna understand Chinese or Spanish never say I was definitely one of those chumps that when I saw the announcement I think this is incredible I'm gonna get this my parents there's this is gonna change everything any issues with translations or anything like turns out that is not the case it actually doesn't translate in real-time it kind of it's basically like the listening from your phone like the Translate app yeah so it's only as good as Google Translate is at which it's basically a shortcut yeah it's a shortcut for the Google Translate app and the entire quote unquote killer feature of this thing isn't that different it's not even that great of Bluetooth you know headsets were begin with that's definitely disappointing considering that they're charging a hundred and sixty dollars for it and it always appeared like really bulky to me I mean it has like a touchscreen feature on it but it said David described them as like they look like like Mentos breath fresheners that you just kind of like stick in your ear and they stay there so not really something that I would be too excited about but hopefully they come up with something more similar to the Babel Fish at some point either way if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening all right everybody thanks for joining us for the recording of the podcast I'm gonna go ahead and start delving through the chat for really great comments and questions to keep the conversation going so go ahead and submit those at your leisure until then when do we think do we have a date for the home pod I think they said early 2018 what's interesting about no month the residence day baby they what's interesting was that they initially settled a December although right they initially said December but they never actually provided like a clear date so for them to announce that they were punting on this makes sense cuz it's just before Black Friday Cyber Monday and maybe they were hoping to at least have an announcement ready to yeah hey you had that three hundred fifty dollars that you had sitting around why don't you hold on to it for another couple of weeks and we'll have the home pod ready for you yeah now that I'm thinking about it maybe like this isn't that much of a big deal to me per se because I haven't been looking forward to the home pod I imagine that if Nintendo had like delayed like Super Mario Odyssey or something I'd be really disappointed Oh totally yes so I imagine I'm just gonna put myself in the shoes of an Apple fan and assume that this is their Super Mario Odyssey I think the thing is is that I cover smart speakers and missing the launch of your first smart speaker for the holiday to me does seem like a big deal but I do appreciate the points that you were making where you were like look Apple has an extremely loyal fan base and they're gonna buy this product regardless whether it's a couple months later whatever and if they if they nail the execution and people really like it and they are actually willing to pay 350 which I'm still wondering if they are nobody's gonna remember this delay that's that's another did they did they ever specify why they were doing as if they're like more is it because I remember seeing something else saying there was like a lack of like supply or stock no that wasn't that wasn't it I can actually read like the actual announcement but either way to answer the initial question early 2018 which generally could mean January or if you were gonna look at this from a very broad perspective it could be as late as June because early 2018 could mean the first six months of 2018 I think they intentionally kept it vague so they would give her give themselves as much time as possible it sounds about right and from what I'm gathering from the chat from James favor what would you rather have a not finished product or wait four more months I know what I want I'd wait decipher I'd rather a product be late and finished than on time and feel like a beta and Danny Green I've waited months to get kickstart a Kickstarter items why not a home pod yeah that's fine but Kickstarter items are from much smaller companies and generally their execution is very different than what I would expect from a company like Apple which is a mastering Giant and they're the most valued company in the world they're the ones that set their own deadlines they're the ones that said that it would actually be available in December so I I do see this personally as an embarrassment for the company and people should just like factor that in and you know see that as a consideration yeah I don't I think this is egg on their face I don't really think it affects you know people who are looking forward to buy it that much I mean they're gonna weigh like a couple tree wants for it but I think they're gonna get a finished product and in the end well for months and in the grand scheme of things you know I I hear you so let me let me read the quote from Apple from Friday we can't wait for people to experience home pod they can toast apples break through wireless speaker for the home but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers and that's basic oh and and we'll start shipping in the US UK and Australia in early 2018 short sweet and it basically explanation of why it's it sounded more like it's not ready we still have to work out a couple bugs as opposed to we have we don't have enough supply or anything like that so I wonder what the bugs are maybe they only tested it with like Johnny Ives and like you can only have his voice activation I mean there's a theory that this is Siri related but I don't really have like much of I had to hang on on that but Siri isn't that good and to actually make something that cost three hundred and fifty dollars and is voice-activated and the voice assistant is has been half-baked for a long time maybe they're working on yeah but they're not they're not exactly marketing this on there on the assistant though right they're working around like these are really good speakers even in there like apology they're saying you know our breakthrough wireless speaker for the home not our smart speaker or smartest sister because they're basically saying these are really good speakers series on it you're right yeah and that's because they obviously recognize that Siri is subpar yeah to the others my microphone hey continuing on this was a professional show by the way continuing on with the conversation the dash says delays are becoming an annual feature of Apple right followed on my James favor it sounds like it is becoming a trend earpods last year now the home pod that's a joint that's true with the air pods there's also an isolated thing or is this what tech is doing now because they're trying to cram too much into too little time well wasn't the issue of the airport that's actually that they didn't have that much like they had to increase the stock of it Oh was that actual I mean it was also it was delayed as well but I I never knew if it was a software issue or like they just needed it to make even more of them look an argument could also be made that the iPhone 10 was quote-unquote delayed because they launched it after the iPhone 8 the thing is is that Apple was the one that established those deadlines so traditionally all of the iPhones tend to come out at the same time but it's it's apples song that we're all dancing to so if they want to say hey it's coming out two months later then yeah the other ones then at least they're they're establishing expectations properly I mean like another one to throw out there as far as a an embarrassing delays Amazon go which is their cache earless store they had this big to-do about it last holiday season they said that one was gonna be ready in 2017 and we're still waiting for it they still got time they're still got like a month yeah no no they said early 2017 it's still early it's early 2017 we still have we still have a little bit more time but yeah III appreciate what you're saying as far as you know everybody wants to be wowed and maybe they're cramming too much into it it reminds me of the the Galaxy Note 7 situation where they did a little too much was it the note 6 what was it even called what are you talking about the fire phone the phone from Amazon mmm forget it next question I just like this comment from Chris gamer he says remember what happened to the first speaker Apple made no I don't recall that notes I think you're referring to Chris please clarify the jobs say about that very funny ouch holy crap bees the first Apple speaker oh my god I'm moving on uh-huh Watson if this is just a speaker why aren't apples why isn't Apple releasing it as part of beats since they own that company good question that's a really good question yeah question iPad about the air pods it's the same question a lot of people have been having about beets in general is that what what is beets why are they using beets like why did they even spend billions of dollars on beets if they're not actually going to be utilizing its IP that much or promoting beets as a company so it's it seems as though they're trying to fold beets into apple proper and that's that's their long-term goal sounds like it and apologies that was Chris Garner not Chris gamer apparently I can't read anymore razor 2048 why is a home pod so expensive for the price you can get a decent smartphone you can connect to some speakers home pod is more expand then the LGV 20 for chrissake my theory is that it because Apple is selling it hey that's a big point shocking another another theory about home pod that I heard from one I know list I talked to on Friday was that the smart speaker market in general got away from Apple they realized that with the Google home Mini and the Amazon echo Todd both of those are priced at around 50 bucks selling one for $350 which is seven times that price maybe they realized that it just wasn't a big enough market so is there a possibility that they're going to introduce a different or smaller one along with the home pod I mean like we could hope so but that's on Apple the home pod Nano right the home hard shuffle the home pod shuffle that's actually a really good one and have it be at a price point only does a little bit more reason it only does random commands no matter what you tell ya you know you ask oh you want it just comes up with the weather is look the argument is is that you if you're gonna be spending that much money especially if you're gonna be spending like $700 because you want two of them you want it to like fill a big room like a living room maybe you want to go to you know something like a Bose or something like that yeah which which they're known for audio I mean post the Apple which is known for a lot of things that's the thing the audio files I already know what course they're going down here but Apple's big sell point is that audio fidelity that they've got more bass or whatever better sound out of the speaker so on that note mark chung-yong the issue is what's the value proposition of the home pod beyond the music first direction versus a more robust a voice assistant with key partnerships and richer feature sets I eat echo Google home so on I couldn't agree more they're gonna make knowledge that the speakers are give you a much richer experience I'm serious they're gonna say that these therapies are richer if you spend the happier fortune honor and share right but like what's what they're saying that these speakers yeah but like you said you know you probably just buy a really good speaker for cheaper than that yeah and echo exactly exactly that's that's what I'm sure a lot of people are already doing right now and that's why you know from from the way that I've been seeing it Amazon is getting like just this close to actually how you like the Kleenex of smart I will tell you this though is I don't know how much you value your privacy but as far as like between the three like smart speakers out there I would probably argue that Apple's home provides the most privacy with a Siri right like they're not you're not they sell it to advertisers or anything like that and no one else uses it so going back to that comments are what's a value proposition I guess if you're willing to spend that kind of money and you really value your privacy which sometimes those things do actually work pretty well together you would have a market for the the home pod I'm struggling to actually see that that is a pretty big market but again this is Apple so there are a lot of people that are going to be interested because there are Apple loyalists and they love Apple and it's a pretty product sir and joy if home pod gets good reception we'll other smart speakers get pricier in their next iterations just like the oneplus phones also good question there's the Google home max that's already selling for $400 so we already are gonna get an opportunity to see during this holiday season whether people are willing to spend that kind of money on a smart speaker I would probably say from seeing sales of echo speakers the echo dot has been by far the best seller so far as it's cheap cheap stuff right only knew the minis probably gonna outsell all the other home product and you can put it in multiple places around your home like even if you have like a relatively small home unless it's a studio maybe you want to fit a home Mini or an echo dot in you know multiple locations and not break your budget doing if anything they should start making smart speakers that double as like other things in your home like imagine it's like a toilet paper holder but it's like to echo dots just I actually like that idea so I like to see like a really trap and then smart City it's so cheap you just throw it out after you catch a roach so let's talk about how these speakers get worked into other situations like razer 2048 brings up they should give the home pod build it into an amp for like 2.1 speaker setup if user wants to use their own large speakers and then decipher follow that up saying i believe they're going to market the home pod is a great accessory for the Apple TV do we think that'll get built into an Apple TV natively any other devices in your home that's an interesting idea so basically you buy a home pod that's also an Apple TV or an Apple TV that has full home pod capabilities built into it I mean that is certainly a possibility I hadn't considered that idea so Bravo to the commenters for coming up with that idea I don't know no no I mean that's just a great place to think though it's the problem is is that like look if they're not getting traction on a 350 dollar smart speaker what is gonna cause them to then expand that line it's just it doesn't seem logical hey you know plus they spit they make almost all their money or they make 2/3 of their revenue off of the iPhone so that's that's their baby that's the thing that they really care about yeah couple more home pod questions and then we're gonna talk about the buds James favor has been announced that other online streaming services might work with home pod or is it just Apple music and related Kevin Shaw to any other smart speakers hook into Apple music directly those are good questions I don't actually know the answer is off the top of my heart I know that the echo does not hook into Apple music I know the echo works with Spotify yes but you have to like set up your account for it so we can Alfred can look this stuff up and then we'll get back to that question and event until then James favor also asks what do you say is better the Apple or Google earphones I mean right now they haven't used either of them but I think right now it's our everywhere there's I see that stuff like on the train like every time I come in but if I remember correctly as of right now the higher ratings stand standard on CNET from our reviewers the air pods do come out a little bit ahead from the pixel buds you want to spot check me on that all the time if they're competing as like headsets most reviewers will give the advantage to the air pod it also has longer battery life and it charges faster and it kind of just looks better it's not like you don't have to submit that's too subjective people thought it was weird if yeah but like the like the but like pixel buttons they liked our review said it's like they could look like Mentos like they're mint and then I mean the air pod doesn't that much better it looks like the head of a like a toothbrush like that you chopped off when you put on your ears but it's it's not mentos they have Mentos a toothbrush uh-huh okay so the air pods do have a better rating on CNET they get four stars the pixel buds get three stars but david karna mentions in his review that from from purely a sound perspective taking out the whole realtime translation part they're they're fairly comparable yeah and and he's an audio guy so he's gonna notice a lot of different things right his weird like turn around he's not focusing so much on the bells and whistles i i've been listening to the ear buds that come free with your iphone for years and it doesn't bother me that much but they're perfectly fine right from an audiophile standpoint yeah they're not the best out there but they're they're pretty good in the vise and i'm not willing to spend a hundred and sixty dollars all right no more no no I'm talking about the ones that come free oh oh but then I own so you don't have to pain anymore yeah yeah you don't have to spend any additional money and you know I don't really need to switch to bluetooth yeah so like I'm not really a customer for that but you know also Apple music is available for the home assistant but you need to do it through like your iOS device like you have to stream it through your iPhone or your iPad you can't just say like play whatever on Apple music cuz naturally on the Google home assistant they're building in Google Play yep as Amazon built-in Prime yep and etc etcetera it's very hard to keep up with this stuff - it's all like cloud enabled software so you know today it's one thing and you know they they're constantly adding new features to this stuff what I really want to do is I want to get one of each and race them mm-hmm like get away to like three people standing in front of the three major home speakers when they're all available and shout out commands and see who responds first along a long list of functions so in general we've found so far that the Google assistant has been the best and responds best to questions especially trivia stuff also doesn't have more response to colloquial kind of speech yeah yeah it's and it's a little bit more patient I'm human actually don't like my Google home because of that though because it sometimes it gives me like too much stuff yeah we've talked about this I'm like I don't care it needs to be fast yeah that's if it's in voice it needs to be fast by Alexa tends to win with like more smart home partnerships and there are a lot more skills there are like 25,000 skills with Alexa so between the two of them you'd probably be happy with either one the problem is with like Siri Cortana those tend to do a lot worse than those two other I did a comparison at home the other day I'm pretty I I'm pretty confident to me at least the Google home many like sounds better than the echo dot like just oh yeah there's on their own I would think so yeah I'm for the same price like I would definitely side of the home assistant Mini on this one yeah yeah I mean like Apple was earlier to them sorry Amazon was earlier to the market so you would have to consciously get rid of your echos at this point if you're already an echo house household as opposed to like a Google household so as our few people are trickling in a little bit late let's just revisit since we're at the tail end of the show anyways about the pixel buds again and the criticisms that are coming across with them we've decided that not we but those the powers-that-be have decided that sonically totally comparable design wise subjective but the thing is there sell point the translator is a bit of a miss because as you said it's a oversold it yeah you thought it was gonna be this magic would you compare to Hitchhiker's can i bowl fish yeah the Babel Fish and it's not that at all it's just a native bill translator yeah it's a glorified translator into its but get it read to you and your earbuds but no other bugs have that at all out there nope true but you also but you could also just pull your phone out and read it instead and you also only it only works with pixel phones at this point so Google is trying to get people to buy pixel phones and get you into like a pixel ecosystem they're trying to develop so the tech ecosystem yeah and so that's to me that's kind of frustrating you're gonna spend 160 dollars on this thing if you're already an Android customer there's like sorry not good enough right you're gonna have to buy a fix it you're cool you're cool not you screw you all right so before we go there's a great commentary in the chat from intrepid chronics who says I wish you could give these smart speakers their own names I hate seeing Siri or Alexa or etc etc sorry for everybody who's triggered what would you name your speaker if you had carte blanche you what you mean like like other than echo like Karl you name it Karl you mean like from The Walking Dead like that would that would be kind of fun Karl no I mean if you had a chance if you could rename because the the echo is you know who or computer or you know whatever what if or Amazon or Amazon yeah what if like Amazon and all these smart speaker companies partnered up with the people that invented clap on lights no the clapper and then I could just you just clap it and say stuff waste of time no that would be nice if you can if you could just name it anything I think that would be helpful I'm asking what would you name it I can't James favor says c-3po c-3po sounds like fun but I like get really boring after all so like on the echo like there's a three options that you have oh man boy says Shaniqua there's there's like echo Alexa Amazon and then computer right I think like computers the worst one because it has the most syllables and I like to keep it to echo cuz it has the least its start but it feels very cool I'll say that I like I had to have the one in my living room be computer because the are others are like really close and I like though here I pick it up so I call a computer a lot and it's like super fun Earl Grey sometimes I don't even need anything I'm just like computer how's your day mr. Tibbs says Jeeves decipher says Samantha or Sam from the movie her nice I think I mom would you how's the weather I think I would personally lean in favor of referencing one of my favorite television shows of all time and that is I'd call in dingus okay there is some there is a value to like having to word thing like hey Google or okay Siri or whatever hey Siri yeah like Daddy okay you're smart assistant daddy this is getting super weird okay but you're less likely to say something like hey Google randomly in a conversation but anytime I'm like talking broadly about Alexa because I talk a lot about Alexa at home since I write so much about it I invariably like one of the echoes will go off and be like sorry what's up I'd be funny then how's it go if they learn to ignore you because you say their name too much yeah one would hope so I noticed that it started to get a little bit better where if it's in the middle of like a sentence that it like turns itself on but then it's like oh you're not talking about me Channing says Oracle from Batman I love that reference Kris garner says go-go-gadget I would probably say one of the reasons Amazon doesn't do this quite yet is that they don't want people barking curse words yeah they're at the echo and then like loading them on YouTube or something and be like hey your response to like this curse word you know so I think they are trying to limit it for potentially for that reason they're fine crushed my dreams anyways - everybody suggesting hell Hal 9000 from Space Odyssey - have you learned nothing good one though I don't know with how I mean like nobody in my house is named Hal so that I thought that one might actually work fine yeah I'm solely against that anyways we are out of time so thanks everybody for joining us Ben you want to take us out yeah yeah yeah this was a lot of fun thanks everybody for joining the 359 is available on iTunes tun and stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner Google Play Music and of course cnet.com thanks everybody for joining it's gonna be a short week this week so enjoy the holidays and we will see you again tomorrow thanks everybody