Gadgetory

and good morning everyone it's Wednesday January 24th I'm BVG it's episode 340 friggin four of the 359 podcast and today we've got our host of Roger Chang and special guest what's his name Scott storm Scott storms way cooler he's brand new today Scott storm he's brand new to the staff welcome to season aboard I'm our new weather reporter weather tech good to see you I would loosen the weather tech weird if you send chance of what that's all right that's what we've got a limited time today that's why we're starting a little early so let's yeah stop screwing around I think it's Scott screwing around ah Roger what's on the dock right so we're gonna be talking with god Scott on specifically to talk about Apple's new iOS 11.3 update when I'm talking about advancements to or enhancements to a arkad the whole dreaded battered a slowdown controversy over the holidays Apple has a fix for it but it's not coming for a while we don't actually know when it's coming and then lastly Scott wrote a nice piece on virtual reality finally cutting the cords and we're gonna talk about what that actually means and whether or not you know it finally gets some mainstream attention yeah but with that as always if you have any questions live in the comments section pick out the best answer them in three minutes and 59 seconds standby and 3 - welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Cheng and I'm Scott Stein Apple got into hot water over feature that slowed down your iPhone to prevent prompt with an older battery discovered the discovery which led to massive consumer backlash and anger now apples teasing a fix for this feature you so be able to turn off this battery management system how big a deal is this Scott it's really big because the battery issues over the over the past year were a big problem people were concerned about their batteries functioning and also older batteries slowing down which Apple admitted to slowing down your the speed of your older phones right and now it sounds like the new update is gonna allow you to basically have the option of not slowing down your phone or giving you maybe more diagnostic feedback right and we need to replace your battery we don't know how how well this is gonna work but it's gonna be in the next version yeah so it's part of a broader announcement of iOS 11 0.3 which is coming in the spring although this battery fix isn't coming right away they do sort of tease that it's coming in a beta later so it's we're not sure one is actually gonna show up right but TBD also one of the big updates to iOS 11:23 are some new AR tricks including the ability to recognize walls offer crisper graphics and just overall be more responsive now you've tried AR kid extensively Scott what what do you think of these improvements I mean do you think beyond it being kind of gimmicky and cool and how useful is this stuff I think it's great because going back to like what Google did with tango as experimenting with AR there's a lot more sensation of boundaries and rooms and then they are needs to do and apples actually was kind of doing a few tricks where it just recognized the floor and more advanced stuff was not there now recognizing walls it means you could like bounce things off the walls it also means that you could recognize walls and put things on them more interact with them to sort of have like magic posters that would activate chart if kids got to see some of that in action and in high resolution because actually if you capture the footage from that it's it's it's not like right yeah it's pretty like it's pretty low res how important is it to have like with virtuality obviously you need to have sharp images because you've got images right there but whatever they are do you really need that crisp graphics does it make a difference you will eventually on a phone you get away with it but eventually let's say we're talking to her towards glasses okay you know adventure you know if you want to build towards augmented reality really becoming good at sensing things which is half of the equation that's what a our kid is solely building up to maybe the other half is the way to display it into your eyes gotcha alright to be continued we don't you know yeah no totally stuff is all totally mystery it's all early and there's a lot going on with it now next up is virtual reality you were a great piece on how high-end VR systems are finally gonna cut the cord this year and those cords are pretty damn annoying but yeah how big of a deal is this and is this gonna lead to mainstream adoption of your well the biggest problem with VR there are a number of them wine is that you know as many people said it closes you off and then you've got these cables especially with PC stuff or you have to have extra sensors or you know the price so I've had a watt has a wireless setup that's coming out later this year I tried it you still have to put in room sensors but it's not to be wireless but you still have a battery pack you still yeah I'm gonna try the same system and it's how we're to have this thing hooked here because I feel like if I flung around too quickly we just fly off and yeah kind of you know and a big antenna on your head but and then the other part are more self-contained mobile headsets like the daydream hmm so from a Lenovo oculus go is coming eventually this will all be built in I think that's probably the way it's going to go but again you're gonna have to buy specialized hardware versus putting in your phone and I'll cos go the standalone stuff from Google that doesn't require high-end PC right no and that stuff is all self-contained and that's basically the way it could companies want it to go just eventually get rid of the PC altogether just buy one piece of hardware but then how offer you gonna upgrade that hardware right and also being it right now I don't think we're quite at that capability I processor speed and all that stuff isn't quite is it enough that we can actually jam pack all the stuff into a standalone VR headset no and that's why you look at processors like Qualcomm is getting more efficient at trying to do that oculus has plans for that Wireless Santa Cruz concept to basically sell be self-contained but we haven't really heard much more about that yet so it's a dream but as processors get more compact it's it's it's probably the way things are gonna go vive is exploring mobile only overseas yeah I know um and and not doing that now because I think the goal is for the mobile to catch up to be more PC level speeds got it all right well for these stories and more chicken sounds seen it I'm Roger Jang I'm Scott Stein thanks for listening nice job we're still on skype so you say that the VR closes us off I say maybe it frees your mind nothing it's true well actually it's a matrix reference oh I wish I was like trying it I was like I'm so bad that he made escorts oh one more man I'm gonna go ahead and say it better than the matrix ooh about 13th floor commercial I don't remember 30 I don't remember it yeah you know it's better than the matrix what eXistenZ I'm seeing that either watch eXistenZ I'm the only one who likes existence that's a chronic course it is it's a it's I think it has a lot of weird stuff in it it also deals a lot with like gaming live-action gaming culture I think it's I think it's more forward-thinking metrics I actually haven't seen it I will check it out though check it out you'll probably know the second Kornberg reference you've made like in the last hour it's Colonel Berg day it's also Elton John be I'm going to check out that's true speaking of AR right yeah our little mystery event I'm going at 12:30 that's being live strain Elton John's website there's an Elton John event I don't know if Elton John will actually be there I really hope he's gonna be there yeah it's I've been told to be prepared to see Elton John is you've never seen him before in some new and exciting way and it's ad really means it sounds like we're supposed to be there like now I am supposed to be the chicken isn't know it's in 28 minutes we're good blocks away second time but it is so simultaneously and tweeted by the account in Kings Cross station in London which I did not get a chance to see to see take a breath there was a player piano set up there where if you stood in front of a display you could then see that 70s augmented reality Elton John seemed to be playing at the piano Oh like a little hologram like an AR KITT thing alright and it was a selfie thing so people a lot of people took selfies I talked to one Twitter user who I talked about in the story who nicely told me about what it was like and let me use a couple of the photos for the story so that was there and they were handing out Google cardboard little things advertising the event to watch it I guess oh so it is a VR thing so it is VR okay and we were not sure what it was gonna be like what degree and apparently YouTube employees were there so is it related to Google YouTube is that one part of it maybe that maybe um my guess would be talking about some Vegas II event with Holograms yeah and then if you're following it remotely something like you to be with the re 60 video yeah it's some new way to follow him in VR all right what what questions do we got Adobe into the chat first of all shout out to Wilton Wilson from Jamaica we got a new international listener then our old buddy Michael Brown says I'm sure we'll get a WWDC predictions episode but what are some announcements we'd like to see a wd / early for that is that's a good question that but it's really not that's good right very fast Google I come up very fast yeah okay just got announced the year just goes by in a flash and I'm preparing for the next year and I know where ICS all over and then I came to 20 fire always thinking about this stuff I am thinking about it so my thoughts right now for a quick answer would be I just think about last year and things I still want to see we talk about health I mean Apple has an eleven point three more health medical record type stuff I think they're gonna talk a lot about more connected medical tech and health tech Apple watch needs work with continuing to push coaching and that type of stuff maybe they'll get into more heart heart rate accuracy also I'd really want to see a damn watch face store because there's never been one yeah well overdue and I think it would make it would be the best thing for the wall they ever come out with a round watch I'm just waiting for a round now I mean I think you're I think you're onto something but then they have to redesign all the apps I know I know just they're gonna do it in like a few years and and make it like it was the first one you know SmartWatch that's route a rats made by a burst round watch in history whatever with the rotating bezel yeah all the Samsung oh really you know it but also this one has an alarm right there'll be some new twist i alarm I do think that that's it for that iPad I was disappointed by iPad overall last year even though I think the pro got better I want to see it step up to become much more of a computer including connected accessories including really pushing it forward like if it's gonna be your computer I know it can be a computer now but it's not it's still missing some of the key things that I need on a daily basis and I hope they focus much more on that Mac I do not know I feel like Mac at this point feels like it's a dying off vestigial tail yeah just because they're not advancing you'll buy them I mean it's still buy them very healthy business doesn't seem like they're ever intending to put touch into Mac right they'd sooner evolve the iPad into a math either way for iOS to get patch up yeah yeah or make a hybrid thing and then iPhone I mean I think whatever the ten started they need to continue yeah the ten is the big step so now it's about what do you do with those cameras in the front maybe you had depth sensing and they're not gonna talk about depth sensing in the back a our VR because last year Apple talked about VR with its max they're in the game with VR so I'm and they talked about at WWDC so that could be a thing all right I don't know and smart home there you hide while you're on the topic Matthew dad sure wants to know if there's going to be an update to the iPad Mini I think I think that face says it all I think yeah I love the iPad Mini when it first came out I don't think so I think it's it's fading yeah yeah iPad Mini 4 was the last one although you can imagine that with you know the like the iPhone 10 design they could shrink down the normal iPad bezel they could doing the whole face ID thing I mean they there are ways to shrink it down so it's close to the physical size of an iPad Mini but yeah I agree I don't think the iPad Mini is actually gonna get a real update I don't think they care too much about that line anymore it's true it's a shame because it's it's good for kids and that brings up one final thing about WotC kids not coding and programming but there were a lot of talk about how Apple isn't attend enough to user accounts and kid yes yeah yeah yeah and I think they're well overdue and getting Google's done this for a while now they have um yeah so you got my kid devices like help people out here like you know come up with better kid accounts yeah especially they want kids to be using these in school and at home and programming like we use one Apple ID I guess there's family accounts too but they're hard to set up brand it's all kind of a mess right now as far as that goes so I think that could be addressed question from imagine soggy does a touchscreen really matter on a Mac unless you're transitioning it into a tablet and really doesn't matter too much I mean I think that's the thing like we kind of want the best both worlds are there a lot of great pcs that our computers as well as tablets it's actually they fold down I mean yeah I'd love to see some some innovation from Apple on that end and it's not I don't think it's and/or it's like it's both differents different cases for different uses right like I want a tablet for casual reading but I want the full computer experience if I'm typing or doing some publishing or you know dealing with our CMS but it'd be nice to have the option right now there really isn't that option it's just it's just the Mac with no touch it doesn't matter until you need it and then it matters so like and kids naturally want to touch screens it's like there's yeah normal I know the thing that just have the keyboard is pretty unnatural fur for anyone under what 18 at this point yeah I mean what's a keyboard there you go and yeah what's the back to the future to reference use your hands where's Alfred when you need him seriously yeah we're low on Millennials the at least in this room is out looking around this office for that that's true in the in this current room in my in my body yes alone is you know you know what the thing that really indicates they need touch the touch bar that was like a flag to me yeah Apple knows that touch on a Mac will be useful but they're trying to kind of paste together kind of had your bet on that I think that's why a lot of reasons why it didn't work for a lot of people is that it's not the same thing because you're very limited yeah but touch is useful like you know to be able to pull up options quickly you can do a lot of things faster on an iPad or iPhone versus a Mac and there are some things you do more efficiently on a Mac which is why I want a hybrid ya want the iPad laptop or just two different options as a consumer yes I mean the all-in-one is an outdated model people have different purposes for different devices even if the devices are rather uniform well that's the thing though I I disagree I think the they're not all in ones that there are basically laptops that can transform into right whatever device you need at the time whether turns into a tablet flips into a tablet when you need it I Swiss Army knife they just need to they need to Apple drop your Ike invention take a note from the switch and other things like modular the iPad should become a laptop when you need it not just through a floppy keyboard you should be able to go get get a bass if you want to get one and then instantly goes into Mac mode shouldn't be hard eventually to get there look a little bit hard I'm I'm not an engineer and I'm like it shouldn't be hard but the processors are at the point where they're at the speeds yes Mac but there were they're running off different architectures right now they are other verses x86 so that there's rumors about that drifting into arm drifting animatics there's been rumors about that for a while yeah they just I don't know if it's technically you're right I think it's feasible but I feel like Apple is unwilling to make that move it's a big move it's a it's a giant move but I think considering the Mac you can move huge move to make it a subset of iOS would piss off a lot of people who use Mac's but I think that's more of what the use case is in the future sure to go into Mac mode that's what I want to see I don't want them to fuse and become like a David Cronenberg know what fly there we go you have two different I don't want brundlefly well I mean trying to process that image in my head you need an iPad the wouldn't that just work with an iPhone when the idea like you just dock your iPhone and that becomes the Mac I mean yeah your speeds are all the same look at CES those phones with PC things yeah we saw the razor one right you got your phone into a laptop and it becomes the brain like Motorola tried this several years ago like eight or nine years tricks but the Atrix did not work out so well because process B's weren't there yet but and the razor one was like it's fast combined lot faster yeah I think again it sounds silly until I think if I were out somewhere and like it CES and I need to file a story and if I could just like have a keyboard and somehow my iPhone some magic device maybe maybe it's a laptop with a doc you put it in but like if I could just file something with that and maybe it's too weird and cumbersome but yeah yes I would find that helpful in theory in practice and what is that device yeah brand-new seated employee Scott Stein with lofty dreams more than yeah it's so funny you bring up and start going down that that path there because a dog great screen name it's asking if you think a Samsung is going to do something or if Apple's gonna do something like the Dex doc like Samsung I would love to see that I don't think it's gonna happen they seem to want to keep those two worlds separate and you know it's like if you want to do like proper computing you get a Mac if you want your sort of more casual experience you've got an iPhone you got an eye kind of bridges it but not really and I like the Dex I like the principle the Dex I don't know if like I found it particularly that useful yet but it really is a matter of like getting the right apps and just yeah you know having it be more useful but it's just I like the idea of it I reviewed the Dex last year and I was pleasantly surprised because it again I agree you have to bring a monitor bring your own monitor um it's sort of not used to a laptop setup and now you have to set up on desktop but it's cool and if you work in Google Docs and drive and stuff it worked you're pretty golden yeah so again maybe I just maybe goes back to that fantasy of Mak mode like if they had a lite version of like a computing environment that wasn't forcing you into an iOS II thing such thing was what I find annoying a little more mouse-driven touch pad you could get into those things they've been avoiding then you could then you could maybe have a phone be part of it or an iPad I think will be really helpful for like anyone who needs to use a computer like schools mmm I just think it expands it would help them expand the footprint where it's like maybe that's the new Mac Mini where it's like you have this light Mac environment that allows people to use a computer but not have to jump through the iOS hoops as long as some third-party creative out there develops a skin that makes it resemble sound away from the Transformers I'm in we have just a few more minutes left let's slam through some more questions Louise what would it take for Apple to surpass the camera quality on the Google pixel - how do you think the red phone will do against both of these mmm good questions punt I have no idea I well I'm not a camera tech expert really I follow cameras a lot because of phones but in terms of like you know the advances between all of them I mean I think what Google is doing is you know they're writing the best advance of like using computer advances in photography and and they're do they're doing a better job at at low-light I think it's gonna be a leapfrog rollies come yeah I don't think at this point the hardware even matters as much as really the megapixel count doesn't matter as much anymore it's like I feel like if there's a race behind the scenes with the software side yeah both optimizing for right now Google has the edge with all those different words they like to use yeah but they definitely have the edge when it comes to the chemical it's not a huge edge I mean most people can't see it that's a super close race and sometimes between you see these tests between like even Samsung and Apple and Google certain things edge out with one other terrible photographer like it doesn't really matter what phone camera you have it's probably gonna suck so you know it's it's it's a little bit more than just quality but I think there is a bit of an arms race and a lot of it is I think software driven as to who can optimize their camera better that sort of wars come down to yeah like Google's taking the crown last two years so yeah it'll be great the red phone were I had some great new advancing camera technology like all this I was reading about it the last day or two didn't seem to mention the camera much I was like everything else and so that made me a little concerned because I felt like the RET whole thing about red is the camera oh yeah I'm in lead I know like idea of the red cam I don't know that much about it yeah folded that closely because it's for me it's like a niche product but people aren't gonna buy this thing it's that holographic display yeah like what is that a 3ds like what is that what are we what are we talking Amazon fire phone all over again it is alright we are running down the clock here let's squeeze out a few more syringe Oh in the future can we see a Nintendo lab oh like DIY setup but with a VR headset instead of the switch ah I tweeted a picture of enjoy you were like on fire with your questions good last three days have been like solid I put my switching in Google cardboard and put out a photo that was like lab Oh 2.0 um I think you maybe it could be onto something like I seems like a no-brainer to me yeah yeah Nintendo I think what's most things about lab well we talking to this for a while and today was the day that my son actually got sad about throwing out cardboard this morning and I thought okay kids like cardboard this is smart smart marketing move every kids played in a refrigerator box made a for it something a frickin love cardboard so Nintendo I think is also doing a bit of a clever hedge where the their producers talk to them before it talked about new ways to play and instead of buying a whole new accessory that's plastic this is kind of like in between words you're getting whole new accessories but they're kind of temporary but they're also for a while it's genius I thought yes and it made me almost want to go but I want the cardboard more than this yes right just for the imaginations like getting a new my Lego is my wife would actually appreciate the process of making one of these things even more than the actual games like she just loves you know folding an origami like yeah I mean I grew up with a rector sets Lincoln Logs connection that's kind of becomes like a kind of a stem kit like I think its own experience in building the actual accessory yeah tactile toys again wild thought I know so I think it's exciting for that I'm worried about the stuff breaking of course but I think it also allows them to kind of experiment without having to fully commit so then yeah you could have a VR headset without being like we're making a VR headset but it's like a project kit yep so totally I think you know why not an app and Apple Nintendo has done a are for years the 3ds was one of the very first AR game systems where you could put down those cards and play all sorts of games so so was Elton gage yeah although the switch doesn't have a switch doesn't have a camera Touche heywhy minute left exactly one minute left rapid-fire Matthew dad sure in the wake of the fixes for spectre and the meltdowns slowing down of desktops and laptops doesn't that put the iPhone slowdown in perspective uh well I mean those it's important oh those arms were also affected to the percentage of yeah arm ships were also yeah so it's I feel like that's capsule dogs there cuz that's like apples and oranges apples an orange I didn't want to use the apples and oranges reference but uh how long have that trademarked probably about the pain like five cents now crap there goes our budget for this yeah but I feel like it's those are two different things I mean one was apples specifically addressing the broader anniversary issue of battery slowdown and battery deterioration this other one is a flaw that was found in other phones and on PCs that's hard to come I feel like it's hard to compare those two yeah I think they're I think they're pretty different and apples is more of a customer service type thing yeah I think it's like you know this is about how long is a battery gonna last for your phone how much heads up replacing that battery it's all self-contained in one experience it's not it's yeah that that's pretty different alright we are out of time but one last final thought Michael Brown wants to know if you were all to give Apple a grade for 2017 what would you give Apple teacher professor professor technology I don't want to give him a grade there are a lot of ups and downs I thought the iPhone X was I mean it did well where water was it was that's it was the necessary step up and then there's a home Padre you know I like the AR advancing just a are in a big way be able to do it on phones and they really kicked feel like a that first year it wasn't like they didn't hit it out of the park but they had it was a significant year for Apple in many ways just they had a couple of stumbles my first grade that comes to mind is B+ but yeah I'd give him a solid passing b- but willing to let them make it up over summer school there you go yeah the whole pot is the the big like TBD as to whether or not it was a really successful year I think the I think they leaned plus because like at the end of the year they missed that assignment due date yeah I did look at the end of the year they redesigned the iPhone in a way that price aside a lot of people have been waiting for yeah and were generally pretty satisfied with so that think about how many years we've been waiting for a new design and we go what sounds the same right so that's that's positive I mean there's nothing that was like a failure but I feel that there wasn't a lot of fantastic not a lot of fanfare either no not a lot of fantastic advancement and a lot of things think I've said this over and over but like and there's not when they talk about products they don't say it this way but some things did feel more iterative well you know it's like the new version of blank and that's what happens but that's why a are is one of the more singular things of the year because it is a new territory yeah and I think that actually lingers is one of the most interesting things well said well said I think we're gonna see a lot more from this new guy Scott as we're around ours that's 2018 Flav you know but we are out of time Scott you got to run out the door cuz you're heading out John also a 30% chance of sunshine and fun yeah if you like to anything you saw or heard here check us out on SEANET our podcast is also available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music and the amazon echo see you all tomorrow take care everyone thanks for joining us thanks you