Gadgetory

hey welcome and good morning it is Wednesday August first it's episode 435 of the 359 podcast and today's episode is being sponsored by USB technology the USB implementers forum reminds consumers that us USB if' logos are displayed on certified USB products so the next time you're shopping for a reliable USB charger cable or device look for the logos get the whole story at enabling USB org and now here are your hosts Ben Fox Rubin and Alfred Inc good morning guys hey what's up so professional now I know you're a real pro dude well well done I've done this for a minute I feel like I can't curse anymore on this show I really shouldn't you really shouldn't you did it like it's so willingly when Katz Meyer was in here earlier he did it first like what am I supposed yeah open yeah and or exactly sound like my kids anyway today we're gonna be talking about Apple earnings which were announced yesterday as expected things were really really good for Apple we'll try to break it down a little bit more and give you guys a little bit more insights about it you're gonna say so has a lot of money and now they have many more they're they're gonna continue to exist for a little while longer and then the rest of the show we're gonna focus on Facebook they took down an influencer campaign ahead of the midterm elections well yesterday and they also announced some ways to limit your screen time today so we'll get through all that stuff but anyway sending your questions and comments BVG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show and let's get to the podcast we'll see you guys in the chat in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Eng Apple reported stronger iPhone sales in its latest quarter but it seems the bigger news is the tech giant's transformation into a services company services revenue jumped 31% for the quarter as more people used Apple pay Apple Care and iCloud this could mean that Apple won't really care if you regularly upgrade your phone because you'll be paying them anyways I mean I think they should care if you regularly update your phone though that's where like all those security features come in yeah okay fine I think they know they would want to care about that but yeah I think most of them revenue coming from that it was a bit of a shock to me just because I thought most of it would come from its hardware so most of it does come from hardware but this was the biggest growth area by far other than other products which includes like the air pods and the home pod I was gonna as that's a much much smaller section so the home pod doing I mean like they said apparently Tim Cook was like very bullish on literally everything but you know as with other tech companies it doesn't get into a lot of specifics so that's that's a bit of an issue one of the other things that's that we're really waiting to see is is that they're expected to come out in September with three count them three new iPhone case three and their average selling prices on their iPhones is up because the iPhone 10 is 999 dollars the larger iPhone 10 that is expected to come out in September will be $100 more than that so just keep giving them your money yeah but I think that you know originally when they first announced the price of the iPhone 10 I just thought who is going to buy that that's not gonna sell at all and Here I am extremely wrong right because that that is a big reason why like their revenues have been soaring yeah I jump ship and I switch the same song but apparently I am an extreme outlier because everybody else just willingly handed over their money anyway next up Facebook said it took down a coordinated quote influencer campaign ahead of the midterms 32 accounts and pages were removed alfrid that doesn't really sound like a lot to me I mean it's it's not a lot when you consider it's only these accounts but if you think about like how many account how many other people follow these pages their Facebook had said that in total 290 thousand accounts followed at least one of these pages which is that's a large amount of people and then they like these 32 counts were you know responsible for about 30 real-life events that had taken place where people showed up to and like protests and counter protested when this was something that was not like done genuinely which is exactly the same playbook that the internet research agency did which was the Russian troll farm now that's the exact same playbook that they had it was you know post this really divisive comp contact content whether or not it's from the left or the right political view the whole idea is to sow chaos and you know have people not trust the political system and just generally be angry with each other that being said even though it's the same playbook as what Russian trolls did it's still unclear whether or not they were the same ones that were behind it but it is clear that you know this managed to slip through even though Facebook implemented all these measures to basically stop that from happening so they're catching on to Facebook's tricks and kind of getting around it again and more of a cat-and-mouse game cat and mouse game continues last up Facebook and Instagram which is owned by Facebook unveiled new features today to help people limit their screen time on both apps there's a dashboard that helps you track how much time you've spent on either app and alerts that tell you if you've gone over your set time limit is this something that you think you would use as an adult no but I think this is more for parents that I don't think you're right kids no I think that if I've read this on myself I can just turn it off that's correct but I think that like people do need like a light nudge sometimes to say like hey you've had your face in your phone I mean I might be a different case just cuz I don't use social media that much like on my own anyway so and I don't need an app to tell me not to use it I just don't use it but I can understand if somebody else who is weaker than me might not ouch feel that way well everybody remember to follow me on in to Graham such sweet thirst from Ben Fox Ruben if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm offering thanks for listening okay thanks everybody it takes me a minute to do these things back here I'm pushing a lot of buttons I know I know a lot so as always it's the end of the show for the recording of the audio podcast and now we'd like you to go ahead and chime in with your comments and questions so that we can continue the conversation about the topics at hand wow that was thrown some pretty harsh shade Alfred the weak side weaker than you I'm very powerful that's not throwing shade at like other people for being on social media like I'm not saying that they're weak it's just I'm extremely powerful he's a strong man so I get like over 9000 yeah muscle most people would be weaker than me so it's not like but I think you're wrong about the fact that like so parental controls have existed for certain types of devices I think Amazon has done a really good job with them on tablets yeah for a while but what's happening now is that whether you agree with the concept or not the concept of phone addiction is much more prevalent than it used to be and you know just the argument that people check their phone dozens and dozens of times a day yeah I think it's good that they allow that option for it you know what's really funny is that you need to have the app to do it which is basically download our app on your phone because you can browse Facebook and you can browse Instagram without needing the app I use this app to use apps less that's what I do I thought that's an interesting point I go on Facebook on my phone but I only use like the web browser for it and because I don't have the app I don't get notifications for it all the time I don't get like pinged all the time about that I'm not inclined to just go and click on it so it's kind of like hey here's this thing to help you use us less but you can only use this thing that makes you use it more to access it it is it is so sense to me it is obviously interesting and/or ironic that the concept being pushed as far as limiting your screen time is being presented by the folks that actually created the problem in the first place so they're obviously trying to create a certain level of like positive PR about it who knows if people are actually going to use this feature right it's like if Marlboro like came out with like nicotine patches or like slim cigarettes you know like the like they did do that you know like those where they were like there's less there's less the Catena and tobacco in these they're less addictive because they're slightly thinner so they yeah the other thing I wanted to mention in the show in May Google also came out with similar controls for its next version of Android and yeah and also expect to see this kind of thing in the next version of iOS iOS 12 so it's not just Facebook that's moving in this dorm that makes sense to me though because like that's on your phone like on its hardware and you can do that for every app it's not like like you can do that for a snapchat you can do that for Google you can do that for YouTube funnily enough all of them in their demos of it always used Facebook and Instagram because I think they recognized that that's where a lot of this like really bored yes but not all the time Google did do it for YouTube though which is where I waste most of my time as because I like to be a you know be a part of the community with our viewers and watch all the crappy videos that are on YouTube as well nice thirst yeah job follow me on YouTube cool that's at sea net let's get to questions and don't forget to smash that like button here's a great question from our wallet did Facebook tell its fans about the pages that they removed so that they would know that they were being influenced by a shady coordinated campaign oh that's a fantastic point it's a good question a did that for the first instance they did that for the first batch that they had deleted with the IRA accounts they it's unclear if they've done that for these 38 accounts that have been deleted 32 - sorry yeah I mean some of them are in our story like for instance black elevation resistors and mindful being as as stolen warriors so it's not like they're hiding the fact of like what the pages were called but it is a good point as far as like anybody that did start liking these pages they probably should have alerted folks and said like hey this was this is part of an influencer campaign they get you to vote for I don't know Mickey Mouse or something yeah but I'm not sure if they've told people that have seen these posts yet only because you know they they barely even informed like congressional members even I I spoke with Senator Mark Warner office who said like they had only reached out to them yesterday like the day before they made the announcement mhm others knew like a week before like the DHS knew like a few days ago and they apparently their Facebook it's been working for the FBI on this but I don't know if they've like actually reached out to people that saw this content yet so one other thing I also wanted to ask you doing the podcast was is this good news that they announced this these takedowns of the influence campaign does it mean that they're on top of their game ahead of the midterms or is the opposite I've seen some takes on this you know in the sense of oh they're being more proactive now like actively calling this out and letting people know about it before like journalists or congressional members find out about it and it is interesting so in the last one the last you know misinformation campaign that was like something like about that was like millions of people that had seen it whereas this one is like a much smaller scale with like 290 thousand which is still a large number but compared to what like right last like three year influencer campaign was like you know not that much so I think if Facebook wanted to they probably could have swept this under the rug but I think that they are trying to make amends with all the mistakes that they've made in the past you know you've seen from their earnings with Mark Zuckerberg where he talks about you know we're applying all these fixes and we're working hard to earn your trust back and stuff that you know they are trying to be as transparent about this as possible is interesting though that they are being trend parent about this an election content but not so much like their policy on misinformation and other things that also hurt their bottom line geez I wonder what you mean so let's swing into a question from Josh Boyd and well more of a comment than a question it's not immediately related to what you're talking about but I don't think they're dissimilar in any way shape or form I like how tech companies are advocating to use their products less I feel like these are just PR moves to help with their images could this be applied as well to this sudden activism from Facebook to try to clean up the mess that has come out of their lack of quality control historically every move from a major company is a PR move like that's I wouldn't disagree with that yes uh-huh mark it down in the chat sounds well got along today sounds rather blunt but I don't think that's completely wrong at all yeah I feel like everything a company does is to make itself look better and you know if they if they keep touting it then you know oh look at all these like things we're doing that like no one actually uses like yeah III think I don't think a lot of people are gonna use this like time limiter tool that Facebook is rolling out I think parents might roll them out for their kids but the thing is is that on an iPhone and on Android phones that makes sense because you have like parental tools to like manage like stuff stuff right you don't really do that on a social media account you like if might if like your kid had like a Facebook account like that kid would only have access to that Facebook account you wouldn't be able to be like oh let me manage your Facebook and see what messages you're seeing or anything like that you mean you can technically do that on Facebook mess with your kids which is another bag of worms that I won't get into but I think the idea like this is something that like you would have to manage yourself on other devices like you had you can have parental controls on it you can even do that with Nintendo switch like they have the parental controls tool on that but on like Facebook and Instagram like that's your own account like you can't like pair it with another account where like your parents would have access to it so like you're gonna be the ones to do that I mean I guess as a parent you could tell you a kid like give me your phone I'm like changing the limiter on that see if I follow you the point is is that there's no accountability yeah because just change the limiter change because it's your account I got you right this is different it's it's so the one that I know the best about because I cover Amazon are their tablets and the parents set those and when you're done with those time limits you're done yeah you know you basically have to let go and bug mom and dad because that's hard ways to do well not only that but like the kid does not have the password to like actually like login to the parental congest and change it so and if it's only app based like what's to say like that it'll also function like when you're on desktop which I don't know how many people still use like computers but whatever what's the computer yeah yeah get out iPad I can't help but think I've got a really annoying cat that has zero portion control so I got one of those time to automatic feeders and the concept in my head is just like yes there's a time to automatic feeder to try to help portion out the food for the cat but I also let the cat try to refill it like there's no point in this is that a weird analogy I guess the cat refill its own food I don't know that that's in my head like the cat has full access to the big bag but then there's like the timer out there so like the point of this that I guess the point I'm trying to make is this limiter thing is kind of like a total bunk unless you give a third party yeah yeah that that makes the most sense Wow there's actually a feature that we could develop ourselves where it's like we would call it like Alfred does it where if you hit a certain time limit Alfred will come to your office and slap the phone out of your hand and say you're done for the day and that's that's the accountability that we're looking for I often do that with people in our office and they're not really appreciated oh we really like that's really helpful and it really helps me reduce my screen time so thank you very much for that coming in from Josh Boyd a again he says digital wellness will be the 2018 tech industry buzzword I don't think he's wrong let's go ahead and take one from Rikki be is interesting do we find it shady that Facebook released all this found false data for the accounts after their stock plummeted mmm I think they're looking for a win that's obvious and if they could spin this in a positive way then good for them so I'm I I just don't know how to take it like like look at it because in some ways it does present them as being proactive but in another ways as Alfred said it's it's a cat-and-mouse game and it shows that an influencer campaign was able to like trickle through anyway I'm not sure of their stock really affected this that much I mean I don't think they thought you know Oh or investors are worried about the US let's put out those news that there's even more like disapprobation going on yeah I don't know like I don't think that that like their stock like drop was was an influence in this if anything you know it would have made their stock worse but I don't know like I don't think I don't think like this announcement like really did anything for them like money-wise it didn't really impact the stock that much because after the stock took like a giant nosedive it's basically been like flattish for the past couple days because I don't know investors just are not ready to jump back into Facebook because the stock like caved so badly so you might be right that this piece of news doesn't really impact things one way or another related to the stock nothing matters is is the moral of this story thank you on the flip side of the coin do we feel like Facebook is just getting kicked while it's down after they lost a ton of market value like kicked by whom by us I guess in general by the audience or possibly by well I guess any sort of critic whether it be governmental or company or they've had a really lousy year and I think a lot of it is really justified like they are getting kicked while they're down but they've also screwed up a lot in a variety of ways like whether it's through influence campaigns having lousy financials that pisses off walls it's being kicked while it's down though because that implies there's an active like measured going against it I think it's been years of Facebook failing to prepare and like everything is falling down on them now yeah I think they can and look they're still one of the biggest companies in the world they're still ridiculously profitable Mark Zuckerberg you know he lost like something like 16 billion dollars in one day after the stock tanked I think he's still worth I wish I remember either way he's worth still tens of billions of dollars he's gonna be just fine so even with a really bad year with how much they've actually cratered and done poorly there they're still in a very strong position and they're not going anywhere yeah I'm sure they're all crying in their pools of money right I guess what you're trying to tell me is I should probably get that money back I donated to the fake Mark Zuckerberg Kickstarter yes okay yes please do I'm gonna look up how much marks me money is how much mark money mark dollar since dr. Pressler has Hucker books there hasn't been like into oceans like 11 type of movie but like trying to steal from like a tech billionaire instead I haven't seen the new ocean's 8 okay so so I did think I thought he might be worth seventy billion dollars but after losing that much money I didn't think it was possible I'm looking at the Bloomberg billionaires index and yeah he's the sixth richest person in the world and he's worth seventy billion dollars so poor guy canapé okay six No see this is why the chats good we like having your guys's feedback outside perspectives and makes us think more critically about the coverage we try to deliver to you so as always thank you and while we're at it let's give a shout out to Val who's joining us live for the first time long time watcher first time in the chat what's up Val let's talk Apple cuz we have to swing it back over to the iPhone we got some feedback from guys like Mike Shaw who says I've had the ten I keep wanting to call it the X I'm sorry for two weeks now I love it the cameras amazing mimo ng an emoji is like dictating text with added fun great if you're into ENFP also off-color Emerald Network says I have the iPhone 10 - and it's amazing my classmate has a galaxy s 9 and the 10 still beats it in speed and the camera keep sending us your feedback we want to hear more about about your personal experiences with the iPhone 10 if you have it and possibly what you're looking forward to the Apple might be bringing to the table in the near future here's a question from Drew Nelson is Apple really a services company like Microsoft is it seems unlikely that's a unique perspective we haven't talked about yet it's it's more just to clarify it's more that it's moving in that direction like for instance services were up 31% this past quarter but there's still 10 billion dollars in revenue compared to iPhone sales which were about thirty billion dollars so the fact is is that Wall Street and a lot of business folks are paying attention to the fact that services revenue are growing so quickly that this massive tech giant is kind of in the middle of this really big transformation and that's kind of what I wanted to touch upon there's still very much a devices company but where they're headed in the next couple of years could be really interesting and it could also really highlight how they sell to you where they package one device but then they package it with like a bunch of different subscriptions and that's how they continue to make their money and you know make like figure it figure out like okay we're gonna sell you an iPhone for let's say a thousand dollars but then you're gonna have all these subscriptions tacked on we're we're just gonna make more money off of you as you own the iPhone from Ricky B do y'all think the slower data speed on the iPhone with the Intel chips will affect any of their sales or people's perception of them great question I mean unless it's a like noticeable slowdown I don't think so like even if they changed the chips and they just matched the same speed as everyone else's like I think the advantages of the iPhone or iOS for a lot of people are you know it's security the camera and just being a little show off that you have an iPhone I genuinely think that the Intel chips are already in a bunch of iPhone devices this year I believe they're in AT&T and t-mobile but don't don't like take that to the bank but either way people don't really complain that much about them and it obviously isn't harming iPhone sales so the fact that they're moving or they're expected to move completely in the direction of Intel there's a little bit of risk there bud they already tested it out here and it seems going fine like unless it's completely noticeable I don't think it's gonna change a thing Intel is definitely slower than Qualcomm but it's kind of as you saying like the point is is that like how much are people really gonna notice the difference probably not that many unless you're like a really heavy power user the only difference we're gonna notice is if the actual Intel chips shave that Qualcomm dollars off the bottom-line price on these phones which knowing Apple I'm gonna guess it well actually and it cost more now so just just because you said that I really hope they bring back the Intel commercials though with like the the people and the bunny suits that are dancing around and like the do you remember those you sure that wasn't like a Showtime thing that you saw like really late at night are we sure alfred was alive when those came out okay both both of those comments we're pretty good I have no response all right we're getting down to the wire let's take another question from Mike Shaw do some people think the 6.1 LCD iPhone quote-unquote iPhone 9 will outsell the other new iPhones what do we think it seems the iPhone 10 is the bestseller and it has been so I would expect that the like the most expensive ones will continue to be the top sellers baffling to me but I guess the idea is that like why would I buy the iPhone 8 for like what like seven eight hundred dollars somewhere when I can just pay the extra 200 for this thing that's like way better you know I mean like if you really show yeah is it really better though if you're already paying that much for it though why not just like give a little bit more for something that thing that you is exactly what Apple wants you yes you can came for bragging rights without any foundation I disagree with this and I I think there isn't gotta be decent amount of foundation plus like I think it's very important to show people that you have more money than them or you're more powerful than them in terms of influence or social status I'm verified on Twitter by the way I just said moly knows yeah seem to be I bring this up at every party that I go to no one likes talking to me but you know what I don't need to talk to them I'm verified on Twitter I don't I don't need them good job I also have an iPhone 10 I don't but I did I tell it I'd be awesome can you get me verified on Twitter I'll try to I'll try to see where I can do something there's something weird going on with Twitter verifications right now I'm sorry oh we got we got verified before like things went south if anything it's cool to not be verified now did you say so I do say so okay one more question before we call it a day from our wall up one more time will Apple ever give us touch ID back one of the reasons I'm still rocking an iPhone 6s for one bless your heart because that's the phone my girlfriend has and that thing is just circling the drain so it the fact that you've kept that alive is impressive I'm still using a 5s just because I don't want to get an se I think that there is a race right now though to try to get touch ID or fingerprint ID stuff like underneath the screen itself so that you don't need the physical button for it if there's any way that it comes back it most likely it'll be in that form we talk to we touch upon this yesterday a bit and it seems likely that if you are really interested in like an inch screen fingerprint ID you're much more likely to get it in a Samsung phone like a Samsung flagship phone as opposed to an Apple phone it seems that Apple is moving in the direction of face ID and may not actually go back to touch ID which is unfortunate but I would at least be a little bit surprised if they decided to like push back and do touch ID and face ID well the thing is one phone like that wouldn't really make a lot of sense based ideas like something you can only use like on the 10 right now though mm-hmm so I mean unless every phone is gonna have all those like AR features on its front facing camera I don't know I mean maybe that's the route that they're trying to go at though it seems that way I mean like that's why they would have like three different iPhones three different iPhone tens this like next upcoming year and no I have no idea what the hell they're gonna call them whether it's like the iPhone 10 Mini iPhone 10 plus and I don't know iPhone 10 point oh I'd be okay with an iPhone Mini okay just give me a small phone I don't need this like taking up so much space in my pocket all right one more question came in under the buzzer from Matthew - er can we please get rid of notches Oh No with notches didn't you hear the comment Stach people love their iPhones they love the iPhone 10 thing about I think we should have more notches like some notches on the side at the bottom - it's either gonna be that it's either gonna be that or it's gonna get to the headphone argument that like some one day Apple is going to backpedal get rid of the notch and they're gonna get praise for being courageous again I mean they'll get praise no matter what they do that's our this is a pretty funny Apple bashing I mean I'm enjoying myself well I wish we could keep it stretched on for the entire day however we do have to go thanks for joining us and thanks to our new sponsor USB and Ben you want to go ahead and take us on out of here yeah I'm gonna do a little like self self aggrandizing whatever it's so it's actually my wife doesn't watch this show but in case she actually catches this it's our eighth year anniversary look look right down right down the barrel been so happy happy Anniversary honey it's been eight wonderful years but if you want to watch this show the 3:59 podcast is available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks everybody for watching later folks see you tomorrow you