Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Chang I'm Alfred Aang are you an apple watch fan do you like watch faces Scott sign has a nice commentary on why Apple needs to create a watch face store and I have two minute an Apple watch and while the watch faces here are nice they're fairly limited and it's kind of it boggles the mind that it's been a couple years now an Apple still hasn't let third-party developers come in and create their own watch faces so I've never had an Apple watch so when I read Scott's commentary I just thought wait that's really weird they don't do that that just seems like something launched and yeah it's available on Android a lot of the the sort of the the fashion brands have created their own smartwatches using Android typically focus on the customization of watch faces making watch faces sort of front and center it's really the only way to customize this timepiece yeah Apple keeps it fairly limited that's really annoying I don't I really don't know why they would do something like that is it so that they can keep it like within their own like ecosystem or something or my guess is they wanted to create a consistent experience and the watch face because it's got access to complications or options for what kind of notifications you get Apple wand to kind of keep everything locked down which I mean that's kind of their bread and butter right like everything's locked down but that they have quality control and quality assurance on that stuff right but yeah they basically don't want their watch face store to have a whole bunch of ugly watch faces hmm so there's early word that the latest beta version of watch OS 4 might support the reporting watch faces and then there's WDC which is less than two weeks from now we might get to see more from watch OS 5 that's weird that they wouldn't want you to have ugly watch faces I mean like I paid for this watch if I want to be ugly like limit there to be ugly I want the right to have an ugly watch face so we want to talk about Mark Zuckerberg who is later on and really just about half an hour is heading or he'll be meeting with the EU to discuss once again Cambridge analytically the whole data breach scandal and really answering more questions from the EU Parliament this whole saga has been very interesting considering that he turned down the UK Parliament and then he originally wanted to turn down the EU Parliament and then through some conversation later he basically said yes I'm going and then this meeting was also supposed to be behind closed doors right and then they like it talked about it again and it was like okay we're gonna livestream this now it really shows that they're like these pressures are mounting for phase absolu birth absolutely and I think the EU in particular I think they're gonna be a little bit more savvy then then our US counterparts I mean they've all this issue I think a lot more closely I think the questions are gonna be more pointed and I think suck is not gonna be able to get off as easily as he did in the US I have a feeling that the hearing in the EU Parliament we've much more focused on GDP are considering that that does come from the EU there'll be more focused on that and privacy issues I don't think it'll be as politically charged as the one in Congress was where they're asking about like you know censorship of political views or anything like that no I think the the folks in the EU will be definitely more laser focused on privacy as the main issue Oh lastly Alfred u euro a story about Intel Microsoft disclosing yet another flaw run through what what is this new thing with Florida so do you remember specter and meltdown from I dearie cuz those names are awesome yeah so that was a security flaw that had to do with Intel chips going all the way back to like the last two decades and not just Intel chips any basically any chip like this affected like Apple like iOS devices and basically anything so like it affected Intel AMD and arm chips and the idea was that there was a security flaw that let an attacker like access parts of your CPU that shouldn't be accessed because for security reasons so they discovered in a new variant back in February but they announced it yesterday when they had the patches available for okay and the idea and this was discovered by Microsoft and Google their project zero team and it was basically uses the same concepts but it's a different variant that accesses a different part of your CPUs memory so the patches for it are available now but they do expect another slowdown of about two to eight percent with that yay awesome all right well that's all the time we have for more of these stories chicken sounds seen it I'm Roger Cheng I'm alfred Aang thanks for listening all right thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast that's a conclusion that's a wrap if you will if we're going to talk about something we've shown the industry that's right so stick around we're gonna take your questions and comments in the chat you can go ahead and send those in now in the meantime let's go ahead and start with one from Matthew - or who we can always count on for great con yeah - I'm not in the iOS ecosystem so I don't have an Apple watch but it doesn't seem like there's any innovations going on and other smartwatches either is my perception true yeah I would say so I think it's kind of lagged a bit I mean Google came out with Android wear now they've shortened it to wear OS I feel like that's the biggest innovations they change the name yeah that you know they have introduced things like watch latest looking on the Android side but the the innovations have definitely been stagnated a bit I think they the last year I think Google spent time trying to invest or trying to partner with different companies it wasn't just you know LG or actually see here the phone makers making these watches is more about Michael Kors and Movado these kinds of fashion brands that were focusing on building watches and they're not necessarily into innovation right they just want to they want to make a good time piece that runs on a fairly stable software so it seemed like it was about kind of getting some of the kinks out and polishing where OS as opposed to making any big innovative leaps yeah I don't know if like there's a lot of space for like massive innovation and in smartwatches in particular I think in the same way that like with iPods there really wasn't like okay it plays music like how many different ways can we more music can we innovate it you know I think they really just want like a really successful product that works I'd I thought the ability to call people on the latest Apple watch is really cool though but like you know from what I understand it doesn't function all that well you have the one that can make calls all right yeah cellular access you were able to make calls before if it was linked to your phone but this one gives you the ability to do it without the phone and I actually don't really separate from my phone so I haven't used that that frequently I would say I mean the biggest innovation that I think everyone is looking for for smartwatches are watches that actually lasts a lot longer than they should or that they did you know as well as watches are a lot less bulky right there's the idea that you could have a watch with the standalone cellular connection still means that it's fairly bulky it doesn't last very long and tell the industry figures out how to get past these problems I think that smartwatches are still gonna be kind of that niche area did you ever have to carry around like a battery pack like for your you know how you have a battery pack for your phone yes no I just don't like attach it to your arm and then it'll go about two days so it's not it's not terribly I don't need to take it off and charge it at night every single day although I tend to just for say so about the battery life of like a razor phone which razor fat is accurate the Motorola oh yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah so I mean it's it's not great but you know I know some of the fitbit phones or fitbit watches run a little bit longer like those the kind of basic Fitbit wearables they go like a whole week right so until we get to that point I feel like people are gonna be still a little reluctant I remember I was really excited about the calling feature though because I remember when they announced I'm just gonna drop my phone and only used like the watch as a phone and then it turned out that it wasn't that great yeah and also just yeah doesn't last that long you don't get all your apps right yeah listen that industry was dead on arrival in my opinion what the watch watch is it's just kind of a lame gimmick and if you can make use of it good for you if you're too lazy to take your phone out of your pocket but otherwise I don't see them contributing much so there was a really interesting story from quartz that came out today about the reporter had been noticing all these different like people using their smart watches and like the service industry so like his waiter yes my watch yeah TSA at the airport I've been noticing about myself too like if I go to like a Salvation Army like all the employees there have like Apple watch security guards had Apple watches and the their explanation was like when you're working a job like this you you're not making your phone exactly so like it's a better way to keep that with like employees at Chipotle or like those types of restaurants were there basically they're on there their feet they're working constantly they they almost always have some sort of SmartWatch yeah it's there that's the only way to stay in touch with people yeah that's interesting all right I'll give you that one let's take some more questions from the chat from scott maya with major developers leaving Apple watch behind Twitter Instagram Amazon etc do you think a watchface store would actually bring back big players or would it be too little too late that's not a question I mean I don't know if it'll actually bring back developers and it may not be developers they could they could create tools that basically hobbyist can be like I think the idea is just getting more people in general investing and creating new Apple watch faces just sort of makes the experience a little bit better for users and it's sort of this flywheel effect right more people create better watch faces it becomes a more attractive product and that attracts more developers or third-party developers to create those watch faces so I don't I think it's it's it's kind of cyclical that way yeah can you get the Goldeneye watch face yet on on your watch because I remember that was like a big reason why like half of my friends wanted SmartWatch that was available for brand right yeah yep yeah no it's not there I mean I got I got Toy Story characters and I got Mickey oh boy yeah what you're saying is you use your watch to entertain your kid oh my god absolutely the one there's one good big item one of the key features I don't have it now the Galaxy S or gear s3 with the rotating bezel that was probably like the the killer app for me cuz my kid would just spin the bezel around as I was changing his diaper yeah it was amazing I was still a standout feature for me all right more question time from Michael Brown the Apple watch is nice I've owned one and its popularity says only two things in my eyes majority of consumers will buy anything Apple market hard and the SmartWatch market is really really bad and I think that's kind of along the lines of my thinking where this is just kind of stale and it started stale and it's only gonna keep getting stale err I mean I would say too sooner said that's pretty accurate like people will just buy Apple products no matter what I guess I'm guilty of that I mean I see more and more Apple watches out there I don't see as many you know Android wear devices move Auto watches LG watches is it because the Apple watch is a lot more recognizable though like maybe they are wearing them but like you can't really no no I you could tell a SmartWatch by just so the fact that the screen is usually dark and I typically Goodkin eyeballing that stuff and I see a lot of Apple watch to your point a lot of folks in the services yeah to use them and and I see them among friends a family but I just I don't see a lot of Apple watch users probably an Android wear users more questions let's take runoff from Griff Master 61 do you think Apple will give developers access to make third-party watch faces at WWDC this year I think that's what Scott Stein's hope before and finally I'm definitely hoping for a little bit more flexibility in customizing how the Apple watch will look cuz it's that's the thing I think Android I think Google got that and they're in their uh their push to kind of make watch faces more of a priority like this is the only way to customize this watch this thing look the same it looks like every other person's watch the watch face is the only way to kind of stand out so is there like a watch face that you have in mind that you want I don't know I just I think I want options okay but the golden I'm a guy I've got four or five different Apple watch faces set that I kind of scroll back and forth on but like I'd like more options hmm yeah I think Goldeneye would be my call definitely that's a good watch face I'm sure your battery life though like the health bar goes down actually that would be pretty amazing yes can you even name another cool looking watch like mint Angier that's right or like didn't the Power Rangers have they always know that well they had the communicators that's what it was but there was one season where the Morpher was on their wrist and not on their belt or something to remember that it might have been Wild Force I'm not sure all right I'm sure I'm just gonna take my cell phone also lost in space they also had had to had it on their watches a loss of space time might have also had lots of space the power interesting yes of course right that we were talking about the Netflix show losses space you have a child you're going to need to learn this not for another decade he's not gonna need to know about power ranges for a long time Dec you know yeah people stopped watching Power Rangers when they're like eight oh really yeah I stuck it yeah I don't know I study you guys are so you guys are still talking about it so clearly it's longer than eight years yes dude I'm 32 I still watch it alright a couple more questions just amount of time to cover a couple more from APEC watch Series three can work as a standalone not very well yeah but it can yeah well there ever be a time when we think the watch will completely replace the phone no no I agree it's I mean it's the screen is too small it's great as a complementary device I don't know what you think I'm hopeful I would really like for it to I like I would really like the technology to be there for me to finally drop my phone because I think that there's like a whole generation of people that are out there that do recognize like phone addiction I guess in the sense of you know I don't want to be attached to my phone all the time so let me put something on my wrist so yeah I would be addicted to my watch not my phone yeah the idea is more so like you're spending less time like you're not boggled down as much like it would be much harder for me to respond to an email like on my watch then the phone and I hope that there's eventually a cultural shift where like we're not expected to be like on all the time and like so but and I hope that the watch like brings us there because when you're on your phone now like you're always expected to be doing stuff like that but like like both of you have just said I think people really like the ability or like read and you know watch videos on their phones too much for them to like just switch their watches all the time like the screen being less it may be broadcast some sort of holographic display and yeah my real future tech stuff there what yeah I mean I was thinking about this yesterday and the day before too because like I was thinking about like when I get home I don't look at my phone or like a computer or anything like for the eight hours that I'm home like oh really yeah I like I was thinking I was like I like I cook and then I like clean the house and I play with my cats and then go sleep that sounds like a really fascinating low rate lawyer yeah yeah so I was like I don't really do anything like I dunno I check my phone but largely because of work otherwise you're right I probably would be watching the expanse or something geeky phone let's back it up real quick let's take a look at this from different semantics taking apart the concept that phone doesn't really mean phone anymore let's look at this as a phone could your watch paired with a pair of wireless earbuds replace your telephoning I mean that's what Apple wants you to do if they're watching like their air pods I mean essentially they take email and social out of the equation screw the screen it couldn't work now largely because of what we talked about battery life is still an issue like if I were just leave my phone home and go out and just use my watch I think it could kind of I mean it could work except for the fact that yeah I would be constantly concerned about battery life I don't like you just and you don't really make phone calls anymore I do make phone calls I'm an old person yeah well people make phone calls yeah and I was just thinking that like I don't I wouldn't want to have to have like a headphones on every time I make a phone call I part of the conveniences like you just put it at your ear but I'm also like I'm aware that this looks kind of dumb I do this all the time hey hello that being said though back on the the serviceworker stuff with smart phones I did remember one time when I was shopping at a goodwill somebody was talking on their like phone there on the phone on me you could hear the conversation yeah it could she had ear pods I remember that was one of the key points to Scott's review I think initial reviews like if you're in the Apple ecosystem all the way we're talking about ear pods Apple watch iPhone like it's a pretty fantastic experience yeah actually it all fits really well it's super integrated the only problems get the buy into all that stuff yeah so and I don't have air pods so I don't I do do one of these things but it kinda reminds me of like Knight Rider and I'm talking to kit so I feel pretty cool about that also I think the fact that like I know we were just talking about like screen size and like watching videos and stuff but I also think people have gotten really attached to the fact that they have a camera everywhere they go now yeah and like yeah until you can take photos with your watch - I don't think and then well the original Samsung gear actually did have a camera built into it and it was super creepy they took it out because it came off as creepy like I remember Scott was reviewing it and he like came into my office and he snapped a photo with his watch and I felt kind of violated was like I guess why what are you doing even if he had done that with a phone I probably would have felt okay with it but the fact that he did with his watch and his wristband he's like something pretty creepy and then they took it out so I don't know if cameras are ever gonna come back to watches because there's some sort of creep factor yeah it's kind of like the Google glass yeah yeah exactly remember when it was weird when people would just shove their phone in your face you know what the hell are you doing they're taking a picture ball what I mean was I think that's still weird I mean I'm not introducing the behavior I'm saying when that was a new thing like people like don't just come up to you and take your photo without like asking or anything really I know that story alright almost out of time let's take one more for Michael Brown what is the key feature on the Apple watch or a SmartWatch that you personally believe makes them a thing to buy I can't myself really name anything that I'd want on my wrist I don't like wearing things on my wrist in general so I've avoided this entire culture subculture I guess the only benefit would be the quick access to weather I'd rather have an echo on my wrist I guess I would say for me I got it for notifications but I found moat the most useful thing is the reminder to stand up once an hour it tells you that yeah if you know if you if you if it'll know if you've been sitting there for nearly an hour I'll remind you to get up and walk that's kind of nice do you do that I do I'm like I get up and walk around like I realized I've been sitting I didn't even have like two hours strained like I need to get up and walk and how often do you use it to tell time have you ever caught yourself like wanting to know Tom and you pull out your phone yes especially the early days it's kind of gone away but because that's like muscle memory it's been years in the making so I have gotten better at turning my wrist and looking at the time now but I really don't I was like I pulled out my phone what am i doing good god okay so this part is like when you go to reach for your phone your watch gets stuck on your pocket watch Brian the time telling feature is clearly not one of the killer features on the watch no okay no all right almost out of time let's switch gears real quick Matthew dacher asks has Intel or AMD made any comments about when Spectre end meltdown will be fixed in the hardware Alfred yeah they said that they're they've released the patches to the vendor so they didn't release two patches themselves so if you have like a Dell computer or something like that they released it to Dell and then it's up to them to send it out the interesting thing with this patch is that it's default it's off by default like oh you'll have to the vendors and you have to choose to turn it on because of like performance impact it's like it's really weird that they're gonna make you choose like okay would you rather have a slower computer or one that's like potentially insecure oh my gosh yeah well people were gonna choose to really be the slow computers coming people are probably gonna choose for it to just be insecure yeah that's kind of sad yeah I mean that's how like that's the thing about security though we're like if it's something that inconveniences you like right people are like more likely they'll say they're concerned about it but you're right though oh yeah behind closed doors you look out I'll take the risk yeah they're like there's so many like bad passwords out there but the idea is like okay I'm not gonna remember this thing with like a million different my passwords one two three four it's very convenient so you know but yeah people most of the times people will like always choose convenience over security which is like a dilemma so does this flaw will this affect future generations of chips or they've kind of that kind of phasing okay yeah so at least there's that newer computers won't have this issue but it seems like a terrible choice so like slow computer or vulnerability to a hack like yeah people are ability to hack so not great all right any last questions up lastly from Josh Boyd let's give him the option how likely is the pixel watch coming out this year oh I don't know I'm you know I was much higher on that last year and I don't know like they've been so quiet on the Smart Watch front recently that I'm a little hesitant to make a call on I mean I think there's a chance I don't know how likely it would be but like you can say that about anything like it is a chance for anything but like that would say so it's a low likelihood for me they were pretty quiet about like the pixel buds sure like I had no clue about and there's like here we go we have this thing so I mean there's like I said it is just because they're quiet doesn't mean that they're not like working on something but it's true yeah totally closed things out we're gonna take a few things into consideration for the wishlist at WWDC buckle up for this apec thinks that maybe we can get a smartphone that runs off you know your body's kinetic energy until you die and then Scott Wyatt says it's Apple so at WWDC they'll have a major announcement of more watchbands and I don't that is wrong actually I know that's half joking but that's totally legit I'm sure it'll be another her mez watchband for $1000 yeah no one will buy and in closing thoughts just want to throw it a couple of quick nice trivias here on this date 1973 Ethernet was invented by Bob Metcalfe also this was the release date of pac-man in 1980 hey look it's ago awesome gobble gobble some balls thank you all right if you'd like to anything you saw or heard here check us 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