Gadgetory

Samsung has taken the curtains off the Galaxy Note 9 and Apple has hit a trillion dollars in its valuation that's right a trillion a trillion dollars yes that's all coming up and more on the scene at UK podcast episode 542 for Saturday the 11th of August hello and welcome to the show and joining me this week is a drew stern hi drew hi Andy you're feeling great on you amazing absolutely turf not fully healthy not full of cold and flu not in the slightest you feeling good your your voice doesn't sound but no you're not you're not gonna be sneezing and I'm living my best life that's good I'm glad that you've waited till we have the hottest summer in a long time to have a cold oh yeah but it's a common misconception that a call there's actually related to temperature all right captain I know about the body the human the human body for unrelated issues I'm no good it's totally unrelated issue that's fine I mean I can would it would it help if I wiped wine to in sympathy and then at least it's both of those yeah I know i mighta my you something else usually my shirt sleeve all my jeans or something I'm that's gonna be soaked we are gonna kick off we're talking about the Galaxy Note 9 and we talked about this quite a lot in the last podcast you weren't on it but trust me that we did but this week Samsung has actually officially taken the curtains off now I say this week the podcast is going out on Saturday which is when you will all be actually seeing it the launch event is on the Thursday but we're recording this on a Wednesday morning so officially right now it hasn't come out but so you the listener slash watcher know more about this than we do well no we don't know there no more and we've had our briefings with Samsung so we know about the phone we will usually hear about these things in advance so we can prepare our content to go live at the point where it becomes official as pretty much how the entire until we works gonna covertly talk about stuff we're not allowed to know even though we are going to be talking about everything about the phone now but it's fine because as I say this is going to miss will be on Saturday and it's it will be out and it's public knowledge then so there's a little little behind the scene it's like streaking in your bedroom it's exactly like which I do all the time and I broadcast it because odd anyway I mean we could be talking out this and putting this out now because it's being one of those launches where it's been leaked all over the place and in fact Samsung itself leaked its own phone with this whole advertising spread about the phone showing it called it the Galaxy Note nine so even before it was announced we know that it's called the note 9 we know that it looks basically identical to the previous note which we expected anyway I'm not a lot of not a lot of big changes there which will come unto so it there's no surprises for this even even before we've had the launch there's there are no surprises which is pretty typical with a lot of phones but for it to come like for a big high-profile leak from Samsung themselves is a little bit silly I don't quite know what happens there but I'm gonna talk you through some of the major specs of the phone room and I'm gonna see if any of these excite you I can see you have got an iPhone oh I do yeah although it looks like an iPhone 7 7 you know great so the note 9 is gonna have a six point four inch he's going to let that you're gonna let that one slide my little job at your phone yeah yeah all right that's fine yeah you are ill normally you'd have hit back with no let me tell you why it's still great but no I honestly I don't care and no my phone is is is as up-to-date as I need it to be and the hardware differences are not enough for me to make the jump and as long as the iOS is up-to-date well you know that's actually the point that were going to come onto shortly so gonna take you through some of these specs six point four inch screen 2560 1440 resolution so it's big screen high resolution as you'd expect for Note series it's got dual rear camera both have got optical image stabilization and it's got the dual aperture main camera that we've seen on the galaxy s 9 which is kind of I've used it and it's it's fine it doesn't make a huge difference in low like and at their point is always a bit slow like master of photography it's a more the better cameras for low-light the best is still Hawaii p20 Pro that thing I took out and I'm genuinely astounded at what that phone can do in low-light so if that's your thing you still need to be looking at faraway for this it's got an 8 megapixel front camera a big four thousand milliamp battery which has got their safety check so it doesn't explode milliamp-hour milliamp an hour battery Snapdragon 805 so top specs all around huge mat storage and RAM fingerprint reader on the back and it's ip68 water and dust resistant including the S Pen and it also has a headphone jack which is which is good Samsung has stuck with sticking the headphone jack on the s9 whereas most of its Android rivals and of course Apple have ditched that jack some interesting things though with it it's got water and like a combination of water and carbon fiber cooling within the phone which is which is which is pretty neat okay and that's largely for water cooling water cooling apparently now unless I'm sort of getting this wrong and this may be one of those things that kind of after we have the launch people are gonna be commenting with like what are you talking about this complex is not what it is but as I understand it right now as at the point of recording there is a was sort of inter and carbon-fibre cooling system within the phone to cool it for very intense things ie gaming do they refer to as water cooling or liquid cooling well at the moment I've got the word water now presumably liquid of some kind but I don't I don't know okay certainly what that liquid is because I know obviously when you have like when you have liquid cooled desktop PCs it's typically not water it's a type of coolant like similar to what you would have in a car or something you know some water doesn't actually transmit heat very well very well so what are cooled engines on a car for example require radiator the radiator actually facilitates the heat evaporating and the water just transports it if you were actually in a limited size like that I would imagine any fans with no fans i imagine that they're using a some kind of of gel or liquid that yeah can move away yeah but you do require movement of that liquid for it to make sense which indicates a pump arts yeah yeah so I'd like to hear more about this yeah I'd like to know more at the moment unfortunately you know as we said we are recording miss early so it's gonna eat it means that there are some of these details that I I don't have a lot more information on but that is interesting and it's really designed for for keeping it cool for really intense things which includes gaming and which is important for this phone because this is going to be the first Android phone which will have fortnight launching on it now fortnight drew you probably are aware of is the world's most popular game at the moment it's an absolute sensation there are it is insanely popular the big battle royale game and so far that hasn't been on Android and I believe it is on iOS as is player unknown battlegrounds but it's going to be launching exclusively with some of Samsung's most recent phones including the s9 I believe and the and the note 9 of course exclusively from the 9th of August which which means it's out now so if you do have a galaxy s 9s time plus s eight and a seven do go and have a look in the samsung game store because I believe that is where you'll find fortnight's so that's kind of that's kind of neat that they've done this this tie-in to try and get a little bit of excitement around it and but I am your eye I'm very interesting know how this cooling system well yeah and whether actually does work because I think that is one of the issues they had with the battery on the note 7 is that it basically it tried to charge too quickly and expanded and got too hot there are all kinds of different reasons why they gave for it so I think maybe this is part of that that you can really kind of ramp up with that power because often in gaming PC's you will have water cooling in order to do what's called overclocking of your processor where it goes more it puts out more power than it's normally supposed to but in doing so it gets extremely hot so you need to really really really cool it by using liquid and lots and lots of fans and sometimes huge box of ice but only if you're kind of weird so some of the other cool other cool features which we talked about last time and that we've now got confirmed the s-pen that's a little stylus that comes in in the note does is now sort of Bluetooth compatible and it you can actually use it for their various things including you can control like PowerPoint slides if you're using your note professionally because again something are really targeting this phone as like a very high-end professional tools there's lots of talk about its compatibility with well this with contracting PowerPoint and the whole decks system where you can plug it this phone into an HDMI monitor and use it as a use it as a fully-fledged desktop PC if you want to you can also use the s-pen to use your camera so if you want to set your camera up on a tripod or you don't use it for taking a selfie you can click the the pen and use that to take the photo which could be kind of neat I mean for me it's probably not something I would use very often if at all it's it's not you know it's not a dissimilar function to you how I can use my Apple watch to take a photo using my iPhone if I want to put my iPhone on a tripod but never I don't think no I don't think I've ever used it I think I used it once when I the only time I used it was actually to see the image on the phone on my watch when I was using my phone to record video of me on a phone mount inside a car so I was pointing at me but because of the angle that when I was mounting the phone I couldn't see how it was framed I couldn't see whether I was a shot or not so I basically I used the screen on my watch to see he's off I use my I used the screen of my watch to see how he was being framed so I could do it that way but obviously you can't do that with the s-pen you can just use it to take the picture so whether that is important or not I don't know but what I kind of want to get from you and even from me is like do you think this is in any way exciting this phone in general honestly I think there's a bit of a dual aiming of purpose because on the one side if they're saying oh I know you've got this little pen that you can use as you're advancing your PowerPoint presentation and plug into an HDMI monitor so on that really big business meeting that you've got coming up yeah we can you this will plug in seamlessly and it will look cool and you'll feel cool yeah efficiency yeah also fortnight yeah which is it is a completely different audience serious for those business people who have got out of that big business I need to go and take an emergency food and then one is why did you have to factor that it moves wanted to go off and relax somewhere no I needed to could understand where you play pub G and [Laughter] listening to if you look at that he's been listening to literally everything I've just said including go and have an emergency poo okay thank you upper watch I don't think that Cirie's going to have a very unbiased opinion about the note no I think it may say no have you considered the iPhone yeah no my only thought on that is that if you had a big business meeting then maybe you're really nervous and I'm like kind of everything's up in the air and you probably don't feel like having one before the meeting because you're too nervous but then afterwards everything just comes floating out and that is where you'd want to sit down for a good 45 minutes and play for night so maybe other sort of a snapshot into your mentality then is an actual campaign for fighting this I'd like to think that I am the everyman drew and I would do that then surely lots of other people would so that's but I completely agree you know that is that is you know the case but then it's not just the note that's getting for tonight exclusively it is the other no but Samsung phone you're talking about having an advanced cooling system just specifically designed to cope with things like gaming it could also be fair and firm like CAD applications and things like that which people do use you know yeah but and that's kind of one of the one of the benefits from the stylus that you can sort of do quite advanced things if you're on business on building sites and you need to sort of use these quite demanding applications that you can that you can do that and and again like would take up a lot of processing power and particularly if you are using the note as a desktop PC plugged in using the deck system you've got a mouse and keyboard attached and you are doing sometimes quite demanding work on that because the apps that you can get now for your phone or desktop class and so you kind of going to need to have desktop that's processing and therefore cooling so I think it is gonna be interesting to see what you can use this phone for but the thing that that I think is going to be difficult for Samsung with this phone is that it looks identical to the previous one everything which is not necessarily bad because the last phone was good-looking and stuff but it's there's been no physical change and that was the case with the s9 looking the same as the s8 and sales of the s9 have been something themselves had described them as slow and in fact Samsung has lost quite a significant market share in the mobile world because of those slow sales like people just haven't been that interested and analysts have been saying that that is that the reason we people haven't been that excited about these phones is because there is no major upgrade there's no reason for people who have got the SI and even the s7 to be thinking ok I'm going to upgrade and get this this new phone there's no visual change to be excited about yeah there's a bit of a yeah the camera with its dual aperture thing was pretty much the the main upgrade and even that isn't that big a deal yeah it had a slow-motion camera but there are other phones that have got that including like Sony's phone which even does a high-res higher resolution so there's no big exciting feature for people to latch on to and to think that is now the phone I want to get and isn't that the same how Apple's done it in alternate years where we've had the the model and then the s where it's very superficial if any changes to the exterior whatsoever and it's alternate years where you see a big design leap forward it does tend to be that's right and and Samsung and Apple have been abs of criticized on some years for repeating design language too often and therefore not seeing like a interesting thing but but analysts have and missus analyst speaking not just me they do often see Apple as its own beast within you know within the industry in that it is one of those companies that can kind of chernow minor upgrades or something and it will still sell extremely well and the iPhone X has sold extremely well despite its very high price and other companies have tried to put high prices and phones and they haven't they've been criticized very widely for being too expensive and the arguments are well apples phones are expensive doesn't really work because Apple can do that and and that is what the what the market has shown so it's it's I the argument from from these analysts and from the market generally it has really been that well actually no Samson can't really get away with kind of repeating the same thing too many years in a row you know one year and then the next fine but the note hasn't really seen as a big a big change and it's it's largely just sort of here's some new tech great tech and you know this tech is all the best tech you can pretty much get in a phone yeah but it's not really it's there's not one thing that's making anyone go oh yes that is the interesting thing I want that's the thing that's gonna make me I don't think having using your S Pen to be able to move through PowerPoint slides is completely not easy to you just once maybe no it's not an exciting feature if you are a professional who does PowerPoint presentations I guarantee you you've already got that down you've got your work that you like to use and you're gonna stick to it you're not gonna change it just because you've got a new phone because you don't want to go into that first meeting be using it for the first time yeah you'd have to take a home and practice and why change it if you've already got something that you're you can rely on so it is it is a novel absolutely and it is a bit and I also suspect that some of those people I mean maybe some things in their research research and they know people do want this but I don't know really how many people are doing powerpoints directly from their phone powerpoints are so 2007 yeah but it is interesting to see kind of how something is playing than now and it's gonna be very interesting to see what it does with the next s phone the s10 or whatever it goes for and would expect to be around a February time because it was this week or last week the Apple hit evaluation of a trillion dollars so apples is going quick-fire how many zeros in a trillion well I did because I've got it here and I counted them and I can to them before we came on to speed because you go how many zeros in a trillion go yeah it's 12 it's a ridiculous number it's a million millions isn't it's a million millions yeah absolutely bonkers amount of money and but basically what happens or stock hit 207 dollars and five cents a share and that's because and it had four billion eight hundred twenty-nine million nine hundred six thousand shares so each each of those shares had to hit two hundred and seven dollars to be worth a trillion dollars overall which did happen it close on Thursday the last Thursday's trading session closed at two hundred seven dollars and thirty nine cents which makes it the first US public company to hit that level which is a big deal Tim Cook said in a memo to Apple employees equal the valuation a significant milestone that added that it wasn't the most important measure of the company's success financial returns are simply the result of Apple's innovation putting our products and customers first and always staying true to our values and went on to talk about Steve saying that Steve founded Steve founded Apple on the belief that the power of human creativity can solve even the biggest challenges and that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do which is just quite nice which Steve is he talking about will Steve Jobs where's to Steve's he started Apple I'm assuming he meant Steve Jobs so I think we can all assume he meant Steve Jobs he may well have said Steve Jobs I'm being facetious yes yeah sure he did so that that's interesting that you know Apple has had its success with the iPhone X being so expensive and it's expected to announce 3 new iPhones in this September will have a possibility of a considerably larger version of the iPhone X and another probably iPad yes on another that's significantly less expensive so they've tried that before though it has that ever really worked and five slight with the 5c yeah the cheaper plastic ones you know I don't know I mean they don't have a new 5c at the moment so you'd guess it no it didn't work but man I saw a lot of those things out in a while like I did see they seemed to sell as far as I could see from my own eyes incredibly well I mean Apple doesn't give that specific figures on how well things are selling so in fact they didn't continue that trend of lower priced models seems to suggest that it wasn't as successful well I mean they've sort of replaced it with the iPhone se which is the basically is the iPhone 5 the regular 5 the metal one but with updated specs and we do have you know so we and they have continued to update the iPhone se so that is there if you want an affordable iPhone you go for the SE that's what you get for de Bourgh yeah it's affordable compared to the other ones it's certainly when you come to pend over $1000 and everything else everything else yeah but it's yeah and that's a good thing it's also the phone I often tell people to go for when they say oh yeah I really want an iPhone but want a smaller one I don't want something that's so big because it is still this exactly the same footprint as the iPhone 5 which are which is now when you hold it feels really small any small yeah fours and fives now at the time felt like oh this is a good size getting there you look to you know oh man yeah I miss that extra inch yeah it's it's bonkers and particularly I mean that's the case with what's gonna be within note 9 cuz that's six point four inches I remember when the first note launched and how big was Galaxy Note size well I shouldn't know you'd think I know that up top of my head yeah these the first notes Galaxy Note series blah blah blah galaxy notes the first one 5.3 inch yeah which is smaller than almost every flagship phone at the moment yeah and at the time that was laughably huge and people made videos with like people using them and public transport holding to their head looking like idioms really exactly yeah were these massive massive phones and and now we've got six point four inch things and it's and that seems normal like we don't really bat an eyelid at this I mean yeah okay fine it's still a big phone and so here we've got the pixel to excel and that is again it's a big phone but it doesn't look silly anymore in the way it once did it's weird how trends for that kind of thing change I mean I remember when phones were getting smaller and smaller smaller smaller to the point where they're all over them yeah because the screens didn't need to have much functionality this was before most of them are even color anyway they weren't certainly weren't used for imaging or multi multi MMS is so you could make them small small was cool small it's functional yeah and then when you start getting sportful ones obviously bigger actually has a use as a practicality definitely and now it's pretty much what size do you want because you can tile in exactly the kind of size that you want in a phone if you want one that's that size yeah and most of even the companies if you want a particular phone they do tend to offer two versions with Samsung you got the s9 yes time plus iphone you've got eight eight plus and then ten if you want if you want that's Kwame P 20 pro or P 20 you know I think you know pixel pixel and pics like cell yeah so I think pretty much across the board any brand you want there is that choice which is good I mean you still had you still got a smaller phone you've got the seven not even platter so now and that is fine that's fine for you I've got the larger Apple watch the 7 iPhone and iPad Mini a regular iPad and iPad pro I feel like I've got enough ranges of screens from my Apple devices I didn't need the slightly larger phone to go between my iPhone and my iPad Mini you're responsible for quite a significant chunk of that one trillion dollar budget line on you if you've got all the hosts I would hate to think how much money I've passed to the Apple corporate do you have you the home pod I do not know so actually because I would want to mention because I've recently got I guess I had the home Bob when it first came out and they I've recently got a second one because when they learnt updated iOS to include airplay too you can have a stereo pair and it's amazing like it really it sounds so good having because the sound from the home pod already is really considering its it's you know it's the size of I don't know what's that what's that size 10 inches so 12 inches is that you know tall it's not very big it's a small speaker it puts out one hell of a good sound yeah you put it on the floor in your living room it gives really good amazing bass go how much does that cost us I throw individuate and two of them sticks your 11770 700 quid yeah for 700 quid what can you get in terms of amp and speakers that you could plug into like an Amazon echo not that much I wouldn't think you can get so you could get a pretty serious speakers and a good amp take optical out from yeah but then yeah but you talking about everything's got to be in the UK and now optical an you gotta get right cables and you gotta do this you gotta connect to this and will it become possible with this thing and all that stuff that kind of yeah when you have the Apple thing you know I've just got two plugged in and then I just airplay from my phone and it puts it to both and I've got one in one corner with my living room and one in the other corner both on the floor so that because I'm it's hardwood floor so the base fires into the floor and just below no no no I'm regretful okay my name is above me a noisy as hell and I hate them absolutely they do my head in just want to get that there and guess they watch stop it just stop there's a very passive-aggressive you can knock on the door as this is a whole other issue we're getting into but yeah the sound is great from these two speakers and obviously then you kind of have the multi room if you want but I like having them in one room and just solve really sort of pumping up that sound it I mean do you not see those being some irony in spending a lot of money on high quality speakers and then streaming order to audio to them over Bluetooth well this airplay and was ear place so it's deep but it's over the Wi-Fi it's over CD quality is it you know the quality that you can get across it because it's not bluetooth I guess you're right it's also I think recent Bluetooth like they they are I don't know exactly what bitrate you can it can put out but it's it's pretty much up there with I mean you know fine if you're talking audiophile levels where you've got 200 pound of foot cabling and you're using it at like mastered level lossless quality then probably into a pair of 20 grand speakers then fine maybe you can tell the difference but I think from for $0.99 to be all home audio needs I don't think you can tell any difference i bluetooth is really good I mean you use bluetooth headphones there I do yeah if I use that let's maybe given that for more money there and I don't like that the air pods but only because they don't stay in my ear that I think is the number one complaint people have about them because there's no variant in what size they are they either do or they don't and if they fit in your ear they're they're great yes and if they don't well then they're terrible and it's battery which is a shame because they'd be the ideal headphones for jogging as they're so small and light but I I mean I when I don't know I don't charge now even even a brisk walk which I do a lot of they fell out and I had not diesel but I had a different pair which I won't name but and they also didn't have a very good fit and they one of them fell out and then went down a drain so because they are individual and I was I was really worried about that with the with the air pods and I was quite proud of this I got the first batch that came to the UK yeah so before it before anyone else did I got the the first six I got in there early and touchwood I've never fallen out of my ears and I've got the same pair that I've had since they first launched what eighteen months ago I'm fishing around my pockets because I use there we go the jaybird freedoms which I've talked about the podcast before I won't go into I had a pair of J boats which I loved yeah these are really really good I love the sand on these things and although I have managed to tangle them hideously in my pocket see that already is a reason for the year but it's easy and they just hang round my neck like that they're so easy so simple so lightweight but sound is decent I get about five six hours of battery life and they charge in about half an hour forty minutes maybe or so and because they've they are connected by the cable they can hang around my neck and if one falls out it just goes here didn't fall to the ground which I wouldn't one like so thanks for running I wouldn't want to use anything that isn't connected by a neck band to some degree no I completely agree but I I don't know whether whoever have modelled the ears that they built the ear pods on has remarkably similar ears to me because they say perfectly flush down my face they say it's snug without being too tight and they never fall out but I know loads of people I you see them sometimes on the tube where people they have them almost sticking out like this yeah yeah Rams the masonite side their skull I'm gonna spend all this money on these headphones I'm gonna use them I don't care if it looks silly if it hurts well you can get and there are companies now that offer like mouldings that you can put on them that that's only if they're too small for your ear if they're already too big to fit in your ear mouldings not gonna help you get it you know although maybe there's ones that you know they have like if if you have a moulding that also had like a flange tip so that that's no it's proud they've been designed to sit inside your ear in a certain way because now they're going to be sat flush out and it's one of those rumoured when they update them for the next the next pair that they will have molded any tips rather than just the standard but molded to who's you well maybe maybe it'll be maybe it'll be changeable that doesn't sound very Apple does it and we have got a little bit off topic as we're talking about Apple generally but but it goes to show how many different products they put out there they're all kind of tie into not only a an ecosystem that people like to stick with him but also a lifestyle there that people like live up to that goes beyond the quality of the product really is it's more of a fashion statement than anything a totally yes yeah and they tap into that more than any other technology absolutely yeah there is there is a there is a certain feel that people have about sort of having like the latest iPhone out in public and using it on the tube and having the air pods end and beat the people don't have its the before latest Huawei from yeah and which is a shame because hallways but p20 Pro is brilliant it's a great great great phone but no one would really care about seeing it apart from its cool color scheme but if you've got it in a case and no one no one's going to look at that phone and go oh what's that's really interesting what have you got there yeah third-party shops that carriers or foreign shops aren't going to have posters of that phone outside when they can have posters of the latest iPhone and the deals that go along with yeah you know it doesn't bring boots in the door yeah yes the s9 is is the closest that you'll get to that but even then Samsung has as we said it found that the sales have really slowed of his phone he's taking a market share here and it's going to need to do something pretty interesting because I think how the note cells will be interesting to see because it hasn't really done much of an upgrade it's it is if you've got a no AIDS absolutely there's no reason to upgrade if you've got a note 7 send it back because you should have done already I think they've I think they have actually get out of the house yeah now run from it yeah just hurl it into the nearest river you can't fly with it you can't take it again but like just owning one feels like an offensive act put them out I think they brick them so I think like I don't I think if you've got them I don't know if you can still use them let me know if that is different if there's anyone who listen to the podcast who does still have the note 7 and you're using it let us know and yeah more importantly let us know why because you could have sent it back and had a replacement so you don't you don't fly as much as I try not to ever fly I fly a huge amount but you may or may not be aware of this the paranoia about that phonon flight yes so long that is the only time I've ever heard a specific piece of hardware name checked all right if you have this phone yeah take it out do not fly we fly with this phone yeah yeah just they're not even paranoid just the concern and the the the bad press that that got I mean I don't know how much for that echoes through time and how much people are just shying away from something I'm amazed they didn't discontinue the lines name and very least I actually am as well and but I think they handled it very well is intermittent into detail but Samsung did a good job of managing that situation they were very very transparent about how widespread the problem was they talked they talked openly about how they were trying to combat this how they were doing the reason to finding exactly what's going on because they didn't know what first like we didn't know what had happened they were trying to contact the people who had had these fires to get their handsets to study them to see what it is it happened because until they kind of break them down and do the post-mortems they can't find out what part has gone wrong it's not like they know in advance they don't make the phone and go oh yeah it's probably gonna catch fire for this reason but thought it will put it out anyway because you know something can't afford to make those sorts of like risks so it needs to kind of work out what it is that's happened and it turned out that it was like the issue with fast charge into battery but it handled it well it did the recalls did everything that it should I think as a result it sort of mitigated the overall damage to the Samsung brand name and the no brand name yeah but the note that the Samsung brand name was important for them to make sure that that the brand name wasn't tainted but they could have just changed the name of the line I mean did they still feel they had so much goodwill prior to the note 7 we're keeping it was a good idea I mean it's not even that it's that good a name I think I think the other thing is what would be the point because everyone knows that whatever phone it is is just the replacement of the No and would immediately be discussed in all the media as here's the replacement to the note line though that would have lasted one cycle of I think this we're still talking about it now even though it was too generous we are but I think general but a lot of the a lot of a discussion probably won't be and I think maybe the next generation of a note Ted probably won't be talked about at all because they're now AIT's been fine 109 presumably will be fine so we'll see how it goes but we are talking about mobile alerts which is good because it's very mobile focus show this week and because the other thing that's happened is that Android pi it's a new version of Android Android version 9 pi is officially rolling out two devices now starting of course with Google's own line of pixel phones which is why I have the pixel to excel here because I have been trying to update this one at the moment it's got so many cuz I haven't turned this on basically since it came out because we did a couple of camera tests and I didn't review this phone so I haven't really had to use it so it's got to do all these other updates first so right now I can't say for certain whether it's on my pixel excel but I have this morning texted two of my friends who have pixels and their first gen pixels both of whom confirmed that the update is available for them on their UK handset so presumably then it has gone out and if you do have a pixel phone in the UK or pixel to then do have a look because it will be out but it does have a bunch of updates which I want to kind of talk about some of the more important updates on it and the first thing is it has this apparently much better adaptive battery feature that you that learns the apps that you use over time to prioritize resources for them so it knows that you know if you if you always are going in and out of Gmail and whatsapp but those are the things that you will need to prioritize sort of having like push email art and all this sort stuff the apps that you hardly ever use basically will ignore them until you open them so it's trying to really cleverly use background tasks for you you know the processing power and therefore battery life which is something that they've talked about before and other phones have apparently you've had similar features and a while had a feature that apparently does similar things but none of them have really seemed to make that bigger deal largely because with every generation they put in more demanding processors more demands on the battery so overall if that smart software makes any difference its negated by more power-hungry other things so overall we still have smartphones which every single one if you use them normally you will have to charge every night because that's just how you use a smartphone you might get into the next morning you may be able to sort of if you go out on a Saturday night and stay at your mates and you don't charge your phone you may have enough power to listen to music on your bus ride home but then you'll need to put it on charge yeah but that's pretty much it so that's I'm gonna look forward to seeing how that really works so dynamically switching off things like background refresh on the apps that it deems that you haven't been using as much as but but the whole point of something with back on refresh is that it provides don't necessarily background refresh it right it's more just about how it's using and again you know that we could probably talk for hours about like you know if we got the technical detail on this it's not it's not stopping things like you know if you've got I don't know you use a messaging service like the viber which maybe you've got two people you talk to on it but you only ever use whatsapp until you've you've opened viber once in the last month and so it will deem that low priority I think the idea is that you will still get push notifications if something happens but it's it changed the interval like the monitoring interval quite possibly or I don't know how exactly it will do that but Google will probably be able to do a lot more but that's the kind of the idea behind it and things like I don't know maybe like Auto updates on games out I don't know like it's one of those things that we kind of need to use it a lot now it's out to really kind of get a handle on how that works and where that makes much difference but some of the things we've got navigation gestures so instead of having on Android you have the home button and then you have a back button and you have a multitasking button that is now a just one dot like a little pill shape dot and you sort of you can swipe left to go back you can swipe right to open your mouth asking you can swipe down or up I think to to go home a little bit similar to I'm how we've got with the iPhone 10 with no home button so you've got a swipe to use gestures to get around that will be optional if you do want to have your usual things that you can put those on notifications will have the ability to show images in the notification previews instead of just text or which hopefully will make your notification just that bit more useful although that is a feature that developers will have to build into their own apps so you may not see it straight away and there's a proper Do Not Disturb tool that can block calls and notifications and even stop the screen lighting up at all while you've got it on so if you really want to kind of have some phone downtime then you can do that the software has a new look overall generally so like rounded corners and notifications quick settings panel that's changed there's a better text selecting box that when you try and select text it will actually give a magnification box which we've had on iOS it's finally something that we've got on on Android we've also got vertical stacking about previews when you're going to the multitasking wheel against like iPhone and various changes like their settings menu and we've got things like actions where when you see the apps in the app tray if it's a certain action that you always do you will see that suggested underneath so you can automatically launch into that action so say it's composed message or maybe compose message or even I think one of the examples that we've written about if you want to open slack and go to a certain messaging channel straightaway that you can automatically go into that channel and and and new things like different new way of doing like screenshots it'll automatically allow you to edit them on the go so it's again you know we're not talking huge upgrades if there's no particular tool or particular thing but overhauls the interfaces lots of just neat little tweaks and they're up there are plenty of other behind-the-scenes query system of the particular ones that I've picked out but I think just makes it that bit neater to use I already am a big fan of Android I do use on my second phone as well as he's my iPhone and I think it's much better these days than it was even just a couple of years ago they've made some good tweaks it makes it a much nicer tool to use and it's much easier to use Buggles efforts to make stock Android very user-friendly I think have been great and so when I've suggested to people who when have asked about ok I got someone who's not very tech friendly maybe he's an older relative that actually some of any phone was running stock Android is often a really good one to go for because it is much more stripped back and easy to use but of course then you've still got the case there manufacturers themselves are putting quite complicated skins over the top I think the worst one for me is still Sony they do a lot to Android and it makes it a bit clunky to use any mean also means that they probably their phones probably won't get Android 9pi for a while because they've got to do somewhere to work to it in order to make it roll out Sampson often does quite a lot too but Annie and it was the worst offender for making their phones insanely so completely where so much bloat West so much s note s voice s things all this stuff I think it was the s Galaxy s5 which was the worst offender for this and we really slammed it Iceland in particular for just being so insanely complicated that every you expect a tool to be here and it's not it's hidden away in some submenu somewhere else and it's a nightmare to get around everything takes about five or six more clicks and it should do they really kind of learned from that and made - made big efforts to simplify the experience I think that so much is dripping down to raw Android which by no means how they've gone to raw Android it's still there's a lot of things that are very customizable and there are they had the phone that has a lot of tools you know they have all the different ways of doing it and they've got those you know particularly on the note line as well you've got so many other features you've got the note panel for that you could sort of pull in on the right-hand side of a screen with the with the with the face dots and all this that way you can automatically have favorite contacts saved so you can quickly do things I guess you can appreciate the extra additions to the raw Android platform when they are Hardware specific and optimize the tools that the physical tools that you have here yeah rather than just bloating out with default brand based software yeah absolutely you know if there if there's got a particular hardware thing then then that makes the use of that tool than fine but did not used to be the case with Samsung they are solve using things a little bit more important there but I think this is interesting when you obviously as we talked about you are quite an Apple user I'm not gonna say fanboy because I think that generally you are I'm agnostic I've I've switched back and forth in the past and I just happened to have stuck with iOS for the last five or six years is there anything that would make you switch honestly talking about kind of like the walled garden like once you're in and you're using the cooperation between hardware devices so without even really noticing how I rely on the fact that my notes sync across my devices and then yeah I can find every device from every other device you've got quite a lot of smart home stuff too yeah so is that that's linked with um so I don't use home care as much I it's kind of a loose Association so I use I used just a built-in app so I have I think of about 50 Philips hue bulbs around my home not 50 now yeah I just go home or for the garden they expensive yeah it's pretty pricey and that can be controlled through my Amazon echo as well so I can post commands that that's happened to that so it's kind of a loose Association of do you say echo or nobody's Alexa Alexa we've judged it dry mouth mode and then everything sort of goes like I've read I've changed it so I can say I can say echo in the night and it turns out father oh yeah it just makes it feel a little bit more human the so yeah I don't obviously Appledore do every kind of smart device so they don't do like a smart home doorbell so I've got that that ties in to different devices so there's there's a couple of different smart networks that are used but everything does play together relatively nicely an apple if Apple did versions of those products I'd maybe consider them but at the moment the the as far as my phone is concerned because there's so much excuse me because there's so much ties into your day-to-day work and communication having that sync with like my photos syncing with my other iOS devices yeah I can get my my photos I take on my iPhone up here on my on my Mac seamlessly I wouldn't now want to take one of my devices out of that so that's the same reason that I wouldn't consider a Windows laptop it's same reason I wouldn't at moment consider an Android phone I mean that and that's part of this big steel trap that you find yourself in yeah absolutely because you that you're not stuck within it but leaving it on one of those fronts would be so inconvenient you'd have to change all your devices at once which would be prohibitively expensive so every time you update one it just seems like they yes there is a great Andrew alternative available but even though it might not have all the latest little features and not that the best hardware it just it would make such a big part of what I do on a day to day basis too difficult and and slightly more tricky that it's just easier for me to stick in this yeah I think that's the case for a lot of people once you bought warn you and you buy the other and you know then like I've got Apple TV so I want to you know an Apple watch which I like having I like having an Apple watch I don't use a lot of things but notifications is great and so I don't really want to I can't really switch out yeah I'm a second phone in is always an Android phone and is usually something that I'm like reviewing or long-term testings at the moment I'm using the s9 + still and so I'm making sure I'm always using Android phones but they are off today on my second phone they're not the phone that I absolutely rely on all the time and I think I probably case for a lot of people but definitely is something that I am interested in hearing about and so if you do have a particular allegiance and for a particular reason other than you've just spent a lot of money on iOS apps then we'll be good to hear about and another thing of course is that you invest in terms of how to spend exactly although the apps like I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds I particularly lot of the games yeah I'm playing on like my iPad when I spend like 15 quid every time Square Enix launches a new Final Fantasy on iOS and I immediately buy it despite the fact that I bought it ten times on different platforms before that still waiting on Final Fantasy 8 though still no sign of they've done seven they've done nine which a great games no question but Final Fantasy a is I think my favorite final fantasy game and they still haven't brought that out so I'm furious they need to do that anyway that's another I've never played a Final Fantasy game and that's where we end so I can go and kill drew because I'm not a nerd well that is time to wrap up do let us know if you have any thoughts on any other topics today on your thoughts on the galaxy no 9 whether you think that Samsung has done enough to stay ahead of the competition and whether you think Apple's valuation of a trillion dollars is if it's really earns it I would say I mean it's got it so you must advance it it's it has that value because people are willing to pay that money for shares yeah true what do you tell about what you're up to well as all I mean up as always we're on the the core affection channels and if in fact you're listening to this as a podcast I recommend that you listen to our new core fiction podcast if you are yeah of course if you are interested in the world of cars and specifically anything that's fast expensive exciting or it's just you know playing fun wherever you get your podcast to search for car fiction for the love of cars podcast audio or video is audio podcast that goes out every week on iTunes stitcher Google wherever you get your podcast from ever having me as a guest on yours that's fine no add you on mine many times yep but I would argue that probably know more about technology than you do about cars I know how to drive cars yes it's or thought of I so I sort of know how to drive cars okay well as soon as you form an opinion about the new Milan red hypercar out of Austria or anything like that let me know and we'll have music is that is that a thing yes it's I'm thinking of a poor 17 Cayman GTS s afternoon yep so there's a lovely car there you go is it yeah very nice it's red yeah it's got black rims on it do you know what engine it has it's got a four-cylinder it does yeah something some things no I don't I don't know what engine it's got so no boxer engine isn't it yeah if you do know a little bit more especially not definitely put it though specifically put that one in mine I'm definitely like no but I recommend that if you're if you're interested in cars then there the car fiction for the love of cars podcast is a brilliant place to go and that is where in fact I'm gonna be trying to record one for this sadly the last week's episode was that was a brilliant one with some conversation about tits and other birds of course okay thank you for that I'm assuming you've got other videos instead of coming up you just been out you just got someone on the DBS yes there's a great one coming out on the by the time that you are listening or watching to this the BMW i8 roadster which are Henry cachepot was out driving which is as you are aware we've driven the coupe a version together on earth on a trip is a BMW supercar hybrids that is great and it looks amazing as a roadster which is a great feature on there and there's a yeah fare a few other things are there but that would be probably the one I'd recommend to check out cool and then I mean I'm next week I will be heading off to Gamescom the European gaming conference to find out what's going on there and actually I mean III is the big deal so we kind of keeping our keeping our ear to the ground for some of the more exciting launches against come so do you keep your eye on that and following that then will there will be a fir which should be an exciting time for tech launches and then the end of September we'll be doing Paris Motor Show so plenty also known as the beginning of October beginning of October well the end of September is the Vino time we're literally going in October I was there I thought we went okay go rocktober first I need an assistant to sort out my schedules yes so keep your eyes on CNET for that you can email a podcast with seen at UK podcast at CBS i com you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram with at battery HQ and it can be the thing we've Drew with at Drew Stern sternness belt ste a are you've learned yeah it's it's in people if you had to guess it no one would guess it right it's a weird spelling that's probably how I'd spell it yeah but that's because you've known me for like ten years yes my name is that is part of it thanks very much true and we will hopefully be back with episode in two weeks time but which will probably be our pre e first show or briefer pre first show which I won't be here for but hopefully I can hand the reins over to rich and Katie who will be able to take you through everything you need to know about the upcoming tech show and an Andrew I think it's time to end so thank you so much for joining us and we will see you all next time