Gadgetory

and good morning and welcome back to another episode of the 359 podcast is episode 181 on Thursday februari 16 and we have a packed house with Ben Fox Rubin Roger Cheng and I is Akhtar good morning guys morning calling all trolls calling all trolls yeah we knew you guys couldn't resist that headline like will accept all your one word answers and obscenities the comment section but one word obscenities extra points yeah let care to elaborate on what we're talking about so yeah we'll be talking about our cnet's inside story of on the Google pixel what sort of work that went into building this phone you know their very first their own phone as opposed to the the Nexus partnership we'll also be talking about the merits of verizon by yahoo seems like the deal is still on renegotiated though so it's a they got a bit of a haircut of 300 million to a 250 or 300 250 to 300 as much as 300 million discount to a four point that people point eight billion dollar deal what point is right so you know that's that's pretty cheap not that's not a money I thought I'd no no that's not as big a discount as I thought it would get and what will go to a bit more and then lastly we'll talk with ban about his Q&A with CEO of ebay and who actually still uses eBay yes mostly us yelling it been yeah Ben what spice wait the way we read about that the podcast is for yes that's why we created the virus in the first place as always if you have any questions about any of these topics leave them in the comments section Brian will pick out the best will answer them in about three minutes 59 seconds all right hanging out for four minutes of yelling at ben's starting in three yes 21 welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top tecna's of the day you don't have a crap we want to throw in I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox Rubin & I'm I as the wolf akhtar whoo are you an android fan it's our chances you've been coveting the Google pixel or you own the Google pixel our own Lynn law has the inside story behind them making the phone and it's interesting to see the details i won the device but granted let's face it it's it's basically another iphone but I have to ask is the pixel better than the iphone is the best android out there it's a what better yes it's better than the iphone simply because it kept the headphone jack there some reason I think it's better than an iphone 6 is running Android and actually it's much better version of Android than any other Android have used because it's really really clean I like Samsung phones yeah but they skinned it way too heavily I I spent a considerable amount of time with a pixel I own an iPhone I've Sam I'm really liking pixel I'm not an android fan and I really like using the pixel I've gone back to my my samsung phone recently and it's like uh it's so close why all the settings all wrong no it's so laggy this is another thing I like about the pixel that would make it better than the iphone it's it's minor but it's so they did this clever little thing with the design where they actually made it slightly wet shaped to avoid having the camera I didn't even realize his wedge shaped like a dry go back and look my phone like oh all right so you just barely notice i paid for a pixel my own money so i knew had a wedge shape and i did they didn't want that little camera bumping like it's a neat little feature it's that's a really good yeah it's the smart way to get rid of that bump which admittedly is one of the more annoying aspects of that iphone right now just having like cut Clank on your table back and forth rocking your table Steve Jobs would have never agreed i've accepted to us this is just that he would have described it as Holy ridiculous okay jobs and iphones have been over since the for let that go let it go alright there's a song about it let it all right all right you know next up verizon's reportedly agreed to a renegotiated deal to buy yahoo now the discount of potentially up to three hundred million dollars what you think I mean why is verizon so eager to buy yahoo which is the victim of the two largest acts in history and really at this point is kind of a a tainted asset right god that's a that's a good question we've wondered that many times on the podcast and I'm still wondering that they get a lot of traffic on yahoo but it's pretty cheap traffic so maybe a verizon compiles it with AOL they could make it into something a little bit stronger but it's still a little bit hard on I'm saying there look looking at from the verizon point of view their eager to find a new revenue stream right there have been trying to find you business they're looking at the wireless business it's not doing that great t-mobile Sprint eating their lunch at this point so I thought with Yahoo though the point was louder advertising technology was decent and that's what they were going to use with their properties including where I was a combination of the advertising technology yes which would be merged with AOL but also the billion eyeballs that they would get from buying the young properties which yahoo still has my argument has always been like the yahoo users are not the Millennials that verizon wants i know they're definitely older legacy users so i think i'm locking people to locking people better we're talking about the discounted works out to be about five percent five percent is a minor thing you get back like an Amazon her surprise me kudos to Yahoo's negotiating team for like getting that deal because like they must be high-fiving each other all happy percent goes alright lastly been you talked with the CEO of ebay Devin wenig at the future of Commerce what juicy tidbits did he drop yeah he said that ebay does not have Tom Brady's missing Jersey which I was pretty sad to hear about no and he also mentioned he's not personally looking for Tom Brady's Jersey which I was shocked I know he should be that she should be priority super I told him to his face that's super important and the CEO of ebay should be looking into it and so you might we do not kidding this is in the article I thought he was kidding around like no way he really did ask about tumblr and we joked we joked about who uses ebay apparently he uses ebay for everything yes he buys his toothpaste garbage bags everything on ebay and he says he gets amazing service which granted he admitted the CEO of ebay would say something like that and lastly what is what was one aspect of ebay like you're most excited about from your QA from my Q&A oh so one of the one of the things that i thought was really exciting about it was you could basically just take a picture of anything and ebay could immediately tell you how much it could be worth this is a feature that might be coming you know three years from now not now all right more of these stories check us out at cnet I'm Roger Cheng I'm bed Fox Rubin I is the wolf actor thank you for listening all right that was fairly impressive how much you just crammed into four minutes yeah great so you went a little over through me before sir I don't sorry sorry you're right i wanted i didn't see the clock it was like oh why do I want to get something else in there about AI and that's that stuff yeah I thought those interesting it is cool you just basically could take a picture he said that like you go into your garage you could just take a picture of everything in your garage and ebay will tell you how much it's priced because one of the fun things about ebay he claims is that literally everything in the world has been sold on eBay yeah Ezra Sonny may either once or multiple choice and they'll be able to tell it about when I've market organs black market organs have definitely been sold on ebay along with Souls and what else I thought the idea was that camels I've been sold how much was just kidding no absolutely not i would be such a Souls disclaimer those were jokes ebay camera app like Rogers worth $85 yeah like that we live that's why it's actually more than I think my god yeah so that was that was one interesting thing as far as like what they're doing on image recognition the other thing that he also said was like using a I to like target things so that you could have like a more personalized experience on ebay ebay is not the only one doing this amazon and you know plenty of other e-commerce guys three years work i'm actually surprised when the timing i figured that would be coming sooner than he said it was it was a vague timeline but magic amazon will have something like this in the works yes by next year well like a drone will fly in take off like she would tell you like yes by the way it's worth so much so money mmm hey guys we have some really surprising results in the chat today it's super polarized way here shocked sleigh hero says the iphone 7 plus is the best phone release in recent history and shall not be questioned wow i love i love the definitive answers all right baby cakes and probably about 37 others say the iphone is garbage alright that's that what's expected um it says pixel is son of iphone well yeah so you make that point the pixel looks a lot like the iphone I mean write down a little antenna line that kind of their sessions there's their success is you know based on you know basically standing on the iphone shoulders i would i would say it's comma hybrid of of an iphone and also some HTC's on legacy little bug icons right well so well know if you can argue the reverse actually the one m8 that was a design that the ipad took exactly and then popularized yeah they're like now like it won't forgot about that right yeah so i think what's the pixel gets a larger screen and the small it's the bezels on those things that really make it that big chin as you have like a button and there's a for the earpiece another big bezel once that gets smaller that that comparison to go away but then again the iphone could look like who knows what right end of the year well yeah like that yeah one thing that i'm kind of curious about with the pixel and I think maybe some other android phones have this why is the headphone jack on the top as opposed to the bottom of the phone you know it was on the top because they used to be hi what different okay yes what difference does it make yes and I've got it like over the phone behind like isn't it easy it's about the pocket pull yeah it's about the pocket pull thank you very much cuz you're gonna explain to this and then you're not gonna rotate in your hand and shove bagging you're gonna turn the thing with an iphone i rotate my phone and put it I got it you answer my question that's a lot of sense for the package for the pocket but the 3 4 and 5 i'll head on the top yes still right yeah they had basically turned around us out i think is there to make room for the camera yeah it might have found it annoying but what you just explained with the pocket makes a lot of said there was rehired I don't yes well I had to today cuz my battery ran out of my headphones I carried two pairs of Bluetooth and a wired headset just in case I need it Oh what my 20-minute commute right I try to gain something to light oh no I'm actually I know I had the worst can because my iphone was dead my galaxy s edge or s6 edge died in about 30 minutes cuz it only lasts about three mins now yeah I hate that phone so much actually whatever okay so what's everybody running right now what does everybody got their pocket at this moment just so we can clear that Kleenex what that's it i forgot hit brie my phone i want to focus all my attention rhetorically speaking rhetorically i got iphone 6 i'm still on the iphone 7 iphone 7 plus I've got a regular pixel not the Excel and I've got the galaxy s6 edge which I hate so high roller nice my daily driver is the pixel that's what I use all the time how much do you like it I really loves it it's this why i use the thing i don't i'm pixel launcher I really don't care for I like that yeah i use nova launcher instead by like google assistant that thing i use far too often and it's gotten dumber in the past two months and i'm not sure why I'm like when is this thing and it's like here's a results that you're supposed to tell me when that's the point that's supposed to point to of like this machine learning an AI stuff is supposed to get smarter with dime I'm not sure that is it's got amazing it's basically just gone the movie maybe got drunk or something during the weekend and I'm like why are you not this is not right anymore so I'd like I took a screenshot i will say that that's tab to the left that once I page it's super handy yeah you basically swipe to one side you get like all the data you need the thing that drives me crazy at the pics and launcher is that when you make a folder the circular folder is slightly larger than other icons and you can't do a damn thing about it huh I won't want it you're getting specific what is if you don't taking if you come at design and also room and you have like a couple you know well that will have Lynn go back and ask Google about a couple icons going across when you have this one Balbus icon and just staring at you after a while you're like that can't be or you can make them all circles um no you can't now that pic some laundry can't customize anything on the fix and launcher you gotta get a different launcher to do that that's why I'm using nova launcher because I couldn't stand staring at this overly large circle horrible are you listening Google yeah everyone the poor little boy that's a good thing wow they really like they not have wheels really intro we've really touched a nerve here this is easy man if you're gonna do it do it right you're gonna be big on design be good on design so another gripe out to pixel however is a Matthew in the chat says he's still running a nexus 5x he's dreading its eventual demise the only thing that prevents him from getting a pixel right away it's the price tag yeah yeah is that I see phone I mean they really wanted to compete against the other super phones you know that no Lynn mentioned that they kind of wanted to find this Goldilocks type they were you know kind of perfect in terms of be a premium foam but also kind of be able to kill bears well no bears were killed in that story that's what you think all right and also appeal to their longtime fans I think they kind of rubbed some their longtime fans the wrong way because yeah there you they were used to the Nexus being kind of affordable but awesome phone this was an awesome phone but also much more expensive than before that's fine they dis annoyed the really hardcore base where they wanted to get everybody else right that's essentially what they did so they pissed off them well they didn't get everyone else they only got most super Eisen customer right to the tryna stick that's also they were saying they were verizon exclusive but not really which is a weird thing with it yeah as you can get in verizon stores but you weren't on any anyone to get it on on-site but let's face it most people don't do that most people don't buy unless they're a hard core android user they're not buying their phone directly from google hard droid aunt hardcore android user sharif in the chess all about the freedom of android that's great but unfortunately for most people they don't understand or even want that freedom they go to their store they go to their carrier stores they want their advice on what phone to get they like listen to the salespeople yep so my question we were talking about this before the podcast what are your expectations as far as like how much market share pixel is going to get especially because of what's happened with Samsung I mean I think they definitely benefited from Samsung was note 7 debacle well I mean it was kinda this kind of vacuum there for that high-profile a competitive android phone the pixel definitely filled it I don't mean I can't wonder whether the verizon deal bolstered their prospects by kind of raising his profile but limited the but also limited the market because most people thought because of all that advertising well I can't buy cuz I'm on t-mobile or sprint or eet so I kind of go back and forth on that I mean obviously it's done well it's I think it's so very well at verizon like it's been sold out i think the blue the large blue phone has been out of stock for a long time oh honey just came back on rogers the canadian wireless carriers so not yours not not my carrier unfortunately he has a side business yes i really i really have to that was my side business i would not be talking to you I really have to appreciate foo lose comment in the chat he says if you have to compare every phone with the iphone i think you answered what phone is supreme really oh I know I like that works I like to comment but dont troll are I like your comment said it's the matter really it's like you know you can compare like 0 to 60 times on cars all the time and you can have the best one that doesn't mean that that one is the one for everyone okay the iphones really good for lots of people though i calling it the benchmark phones pretty good it's true the combat insult when the company does the software makes the hardware apples been doing that for a long time that Google's doing the same thing right Microsoft does it with the with the computers with actual computers at this point so yeah you have to compare this we have been doing this too long yeah yeah but that's the false argument because if we were talking about the samsung phone on LG phone we'd still be stacking it next guy phone and they don't control the software here we go ryan in the chat wants to know if anybody's experienced the dnd issues with the pixel no oh whoa do not disturb issues either what is that in reference to I'm assuming doesn't work i mean we're Oh everything works fine for me yeah I haven't had it like my calls going through during the do not disturb her Ryan elaborate or elaborate like no issues with this phone other than like yeah you turn up the volume way too much and it's gonna distort to like that terrible it's a defect I'm like it's just a crappy speaker ooh like I my own issue and it's really just it's a total first world problems because I've multiple phones they all three different charges for that micro USB USB see and lightning so I like the first ride constantly looking for the wrong charges without looking for that actually it's multi-headed to charge me I don't buy that I want to spend money okay then cheap I as is there a fatal flaw well okay maybe not fatal but like is there a specific flaw that you see with the pixel that you'd like to see them improve in the next one design yes the design it's so pedestrian and so boring they need to really do something about that well the other side is it won't really take a huge market share until it's on every carrier in every store and they can market it the same way kind of like Samsung had to do the same thing I think we're like it was the galaxy something or other different names different carriers when google's behind the marketing they say it's available on all four carriers basically available everywhere right as soon as they could save that once accessing and the design is cuz i think this one is almost like a like a little tester like okay look at it not that great does it design but as hard works really good it's fast it's speedy it's light there's a lot of things about it that make it a better phone than a lot of other phones but it's when they decide to turn on the the actual design choptank we're really gonna try for something crazy that Robbie felt maybe pixel to pixel three ya know you can see they definitely got to play it safe there speaking of design Christian vouches for the screen as he has says that he has many friends who have had iphones with cracked screens he's been running android his entire smartphone career has not correct a screen yet is he not I was just lucky yeah so that might just be pure luck probably just jinx yourself not my android s3 broke twice yeah I've never cracked any screens so I'm maybe I'm just really dan I just kicked myself same same but I've also maxtor says he's running the note 7 wait do I smell smoke ah yes I can't resist come on you were actually I mean if you actually had note 7 like kudos to you for keeping it at this point isn't it bricked it's completely yeah yeah like you can't use that phone anymore like that but i would i would feel bad that I couldn't keep a phone like a note 7 just cuz to have it as a as a sort of a speaking of yay not to turn on ibly I wouldn't use it i wouldn't power it on you know it's a collector's item it's a collector's item like a decade from now you can wait is it illegal to sell that phone yes because it's recalled officially recalled all right oh my god i didn't i have you recalled it it's like you can you shouldn't yeah you could actually get in trouble selling imitation 17 as long as you say that all your invitation it quick I had a dummy units counterfeit notes Evan do we know when the pixels coming to Sweden no II don't know sorry nope hey google google meister announcements kind of ran hazard lee in terms of market launch true though but it's it is a good point that like I think the pixel has had at least enough momentum that maybe it is going to find its way into more markets definitely I think it was initially it was a supply supply we're gonna get enough phone to the key markets and I think they're slowly expanding yeah uh Kim all is asking is anyone seen or heard about the nokia 3310 come back oh I've heard I've heard um part of it yeah I'm back I mean we don't know we don't confirmation Mobile World Congress is coming up in a little bit more than a week so Matt wait Mac says I hope they make snake but in 3d oh dude that's it he's joking about that but I kind of want that I would be awesome I would play it ya know that there are heavy rumors of you know alongside the throw typical android smartphones nokia android smartphones we're gonna get like a classic throwback retro feature phone which is awesome i love that yeah they're keeping the same but it wasn't it no i don't know i don't get a dumb version of android on there like a really stripped-down version they should at least upgrade the software for God's eggs all right Ryan got back to us he says android we're putting the device in to do not disturb also device goes into dnd during phone calls once off the call and dnd does not turn off i have not heard about it that sounds like a pain in the ass sounds like a pretty isolated yeah haven't you specifically for another I don't have an Android wear device well yes that means you have an Android away or watch which is yeah like nobody and then you got it like be on a phone call which is like who's on a phone call ever I'm group so I was on the phone this morning Josh you don't we're like a cell no like a reporter you don't count yeah but i also have trial regular people no i don't talk to my kid of the phone that but you have to do some family stuff true yes you can find your kids you drop your nest cam you can i do spy on like you don't even call anybody it's very unusual thing I talk to other people besides my family manages I'm just sounds kind of crappy those you're actually flowing like oh yeah by the way I didn't call back because it was a dnd but now you have a good excuse no no I think the dnd turned doesn't turn back on the deal or turns off and it just it doesn't turn back off the dnd does not turn off oh oh that's yeah that's worse that's way worse get that checked out I'm probably time to trade in yeah it sounds like a mechanical flaw in an isolated incident they should probably just cover that on warranty on if you raised have you raised the issue up with the manufacturer or anything it's kind of the problem with google I've definitely not heard about that with anybody buying pixel phone directly from Google like your customer service options are like not not good well I mean I mean yeah you can call Google but it's not like you can go to a store Billy well I just fixed right but they should cover this directly like a software how long have you had it sounds like yeah does sound like a software issue oh yeah blacktop studios has got a good one what about app availability has andrew would close the gap with that in recent years or will the popularity of the pixel fuel it Greg that is a good question i think that apple still has an edge when it comes to the app market like in terms of sheer number no one but the numbers don't matter anymore they're like it's got a million versus like 900,000 or whatever the numbers out there huge the problem is getting those marquee apps they show up on iphone first still super mario run like pokemon go they all showed up on iphone first and then they went to android and that's still that's still initiate a lot of developers they see like more money is being made on App Store versus Android or google play right there for people willing to spend money the more affluent generally so and that's because a wider base of Android phones ranges from super high-end to really really really low in and so that's it's a it's much more crazy up and down market than iphone which has more of a consistent you know they're they're more consistently they have more disposable income right despite the fact that in the US i think it's a 50-50 split between iOS and Android right uh no I think iOS is it's ahead significantly more so yeah but if you again if you look at sort of the the base of users who are willing to spend money on absolute and what about it's like much it's much higher percentage on iphone oh yeah totally ash wants to know which android would you each recommend for the ultimate customizable experience which what as far as android being the more customizable OS iOS not sorry no iOS operating system what's the best android phone to get to obtain that not a samsung me i would that'd modular say the picky at the lego phone it's a might be the easiest way takes hold yeah cuz it's like the cleanest version event it's pure still play versions of those things were called as long as it doesn't have a giant skin on it that's really or you could put make clockworkmod is done no isn't it they're gone I don't even know idea it is ok nevermind I signage it might sorry oh yes okay cyanogen uh why I have the oneplus phones actually yeah but that's even that's a little different so yeah but they get home some of those phones come with you know the whole bootloader unlocked right so yes if you find one of those you can put on a basic stock version of Android then you put the stock apps on yourself which is a little bit more difficult they're not asking about stock apps let us about customizing so I might be able to customize it you can you can do that yeah as long as you can root the phone right go for it Ryan that got back to us he says google says they know about the issue and they're working on a solution according to the tech services department yeah that's about you know more about it than we do at this point so sorry yeah I've never encountered that problem it's a it is a highly unusual one ya Shah has a quick iphone question how many minutes can the iphone 7 plus stand under water I think was 30 ready I think but that's it how deep it was like five meters yeah was that asteroid you know so i probably wouldn't press my luck I wouldn't like wait till 30 minutes like all right up dud like it's really better if you like if it water splashes on it if you drop in you know you don't have to immediately have a mild aneurysm right you just pull it out but like I wouldn't keep the I wouldn't keep it submerged for that long like it's just that's still risky yeah I wouldn't go down that road yeah by choice if you're going going swimming you don't need your phone now enjoy the experience leave it at home what would you do if you had a phone with you while you swim what photos but just get a GoPro just can't predict Oh Pro right the waterproof house and get a GoPro will be better anyway you're gonna miss your important slack updates going underwater to watch knit I actually go under water to avoid place like oh alright that was a really good show guys yeah and thank you to everybody for joining us that was a fun discussion good interaction that's a good way to close out the week that's right we'll see y'all Monday if you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out on cnet our podcast is also available in itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music see you guys on Monday later came out tuesday closed tuesday we have a long live a long weekend ahead of us we are on our own no no you aren't but we are oh alright have a good weekend everyone and on 3 2 1 0