Gadgetory

today's 3:59 is sponsored by player unknowns battleground mobile app G mobile is an on-the-go Battle Royale at its greatest with i popping graphics super smooth gameplay and a variety of exciting play modes download the official mobile version of pub G for free go to your Android or iOS App Store and type P ubg mobile and collect a special reward using the promo code hol ZBZ x9 C code also listed in the episode description play now remember remember the 5th of November and that's the only amount of that poem that I can recall because I am NOT a guy Fawkes enthusiast good morning everybody and welcome to the 359 podcast where Napa so 484 on Monday November 5th and we're gonna be talking about the iPad today go figure here you go we got Ben we got Alfred we got Scott thanks I'm glad somebody remembered it was Guy Fawkes Day oh you mean anonymous day it's anonymous I love you for Vendetta yeah I forgot it was that but we did not remember so I remember so we've got Scott bag yeah Scott thanks very much for coming again and he's got the iPad pro with him and we were joking around before the podcast started that this is probably the most expensive thing that's here around this table including us so either way we'll get into the iPad pro we're also gonna be talking about election scams so do remember to vote tomorrow and send in your questions and comments we'll get to as many as we can at the end of the podcast and let's get to it all right chickity-check it we'll see you back in the chat in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3e - welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Al Franken I'm Scott Stein Scott just published his review of the new iPad pro it's got a new pencil a new design and new face ID but it's also got a new price tag yes does this thing is expensive it goes up to 1899 but that's for all the specs and all the trimmings starts at $7.99 for the 11 inch I looked at the twelve point nine inch version and I've been living with it for a little less than a week do you like it is it a so I think what I'm especially interested in is is it a computer replacement is it gonna replace a personal computer yeah what is it laughs no I don't think it's a very good laptop replacement because if you're looking for a trackpad support or Mouse support it doesn't have that still and it doesn't have the sort of web experience that the browser experience that you might expect that's on a Chromebook even that allows for deeper web tools but if you don't care about that if you have already been using an iPad or know what an iPad pro is bring to the table last your similar idea in the software/hardware super blazing fast and I think the design of it is really nicely refined but that's kind of an Apple trend of this year larger screens more refined higher price yeah good grief the other thing that's like the most Apple II thing about this is that they came out with a new pencil that doesn't work with the old iPad yeah only works with this one yep so you have to buy a new pencil and it's a hundred and thirty dollars it's $130 so just a lot now the thing is if you've never gotten one of these before and you get this now the pencil charges and and works much more seamlessly it's great to have that it's kind of like earpods nice instant available for you much better than that stabbing out the back but you have to buy a whole new one and I'd have any adapter for the old one is crazy okay but okay we're kind of focusing on some of the less enjoyable parts of this do you like using it was it fun to you know kind of draw with with the pencil there are a lot of nice improvements uh well you know when you're using it for what an iPad is for like all those aren't graphics everyday like a web browsing even writing I really like it and I've traveled with an iPad a lot too is I think to take notes with or just use on the train and for the amount of apps it has and for all that stuff but what I don't like is when you have to start editing or if to start doing anything that gets more mission-critical which was the idea of Pro that part you can't take it with you I don't think and file an entire story without a lot of headaches so that part I don't like but I did like the speed of it I like the design refinement I like there's more screen and less size I wish you didn't cost more yeah yeah no kidding so we've also got even more election scams we've got Alfred here to talk about them this one is targeting vote for one one org tell us yeah so vote for one one org is a voter information website you can find out where to register to vote what candidates you in your district stand for and what's on the ballot generally John Oliver had promoted on a show last week tonight on October 28th and I got a two thousand percent spike in traffic after that little promo and it two days after he promoted scammers set up a website called vote for one 1.com which is a common mistake that people would make you know people are going on comm websites and this website basically ran a online technical support scam which is if you ever go on a website it tells you like hey you've been infected with a virus please call this number to get it removed and then you know they essentially put a virus on your computer if you do call that number and then you ask that you they ask you to pay them to get rid of it it's a very common scheme but now they're using you know curiosity around the midterm elections to basically use it as a watering hole type of attack where they know a lot of people are gonna be looking for these election updates and things like that and they're using that to their advantage with a fake website do do we know if there are now more or less midterm related hacks or scams going on nowadays then maybe four years ago I mean it's unclear because anytime somebody gets hacked it's not like there's somebody going out there saying hey we did this or anything like that but we do know that there have been they're more vigilant about it and there are a lot of examples about this so Microsoft in August talked about how they had gotten rid of these websites that were basically doing the same thing but they might have been for a lot more malicious purposes because so while the fake vote for 1.com website was more for financial gains the Russian websites that Microsoft had taken out more specifically like politically motivated hmm great if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred hang i'm scott stein thanks for listening all right thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast and Thank You Alfred for pointing out that the forum 1.com is a virus because I was about ready to go there to cut away for b-roll sake just to demonstrate another say so it's not there's no malware on it there's no virus on that page but you'll get a pop-up that basically says like hey you have a virus you know click here to basically save you a computer it's it's scared where but it does point to this whole frustration of you know trying to get voter information or something like that and then finding a page like this instead it's just and it's just such easy like low-hanging fruit yeah that a lot of people as you said just wouldn't go to the dot org as you know more fluidly as you know vote 401 org yo yeah good good to mention that and by the way eat for the boat either way thanks for the close save I really appreciate that nice so the good questions are piling on in right now so let's go ahead and swing on over to Scott and we'll talk a little bit more about what people want to find out about this fancy new iPad pro Kevin Jones says I've heard the twelve point nine inch is about the size of a piece of paper I guess that's technically a little bit larger right real life-size comparison for an 11 inch what do you think Scott um yeah that's pretty close I mean if you hold it up to a piece of paper it's obviously thicker than that but the 12.9 is a lot smaller you can see in the review the comparison photos it's still not small enough for me to carry around easily in a small bag but you know compare it to say you know the MacBook MacBook Air 13 it's bigger what's taller but it's in that it's more like in that range but it's a it's an almost 13 inch screen it's just that there's no more before it was really large and here let's let's let's here's a piece of paper there we go why even try this what's very yeah we're very techy here look at that exactly it's worth I really had to go digging I don't have a lot of paper around here go figure thank you so there you go it's almost exactly a piece of paper yeah it's almost exactly so if you like paper if you like a sheet of paper turn the turn back up Scott turn it back up show them side-by-side again yeah and then yeah right on there you go it's 1.39 pounds I believe so it's uh it's fine to hold in one hand it's a little heavy but it's doable that you could never do that on the 12.9 without feeling kind of absurd I still prefer the 11 inch the reviewnit I got is the twelve point nine inch because it's a little more compact because it's a little more compact and they now fit a little more screen size and they're in a cost less so I just feel like what would you need the extra screen size for it's like the max I'm not really into just paying for a little more screen size just to pay for a little more screen size oh that would like it if you did sure I mean I've always liked the more compact computers so I and plus like it's not like you can really expand the desktop on iOS at any really meaningful way other than to split screen apps so I don't think it's the same as having a 15 inch laptop versus a 13 mm you just have apps that are kind of bigger and you can see a little more text on the page and more canvas size obviously but that's if you're if you're a sketch artist and you want to make the most of it and sure you're gonna get that one good question next up coming from Matthew doctor looks great but why so expensive didn't Apple one year ago say how good things were because the iPad grad and not the pro was the same price as last year yeah well you know you look at like the thing they did earlier in the year with the nine point seven inch iPad that you know going into Black Friday that's a really affordable pick and I feel like that is more than ever the choice it's kind of apples saying that they're having a real split between things like that and these higher-end more expensive devices maybe the idea is like some trickle down that like you know your that's the iPhone 10 are in some ways that like oh we're gonna give you some of these features shave the price but leave some stuff off it wouldn't surprise me down the road that that's like that but you're paying a premium now and if this thing replaced your laptop your regular computer sure but it doesn't it could with USB see we haven't even gotten into that u.s. PC is a is a frustrating thing right now on the iPad because iOS doesn't support it individual apps will I don't mean doesn't support it in the sense that you won't be able to do the cool multifaceted things you might think you can do with us BC it's very much a practice also just based on apples earnings call from last week it seems to me that's the model they're going toward now where it's basically we're gonna be selling less products but we're gonna be making more money by like charging a lot more for these these items I'm absolutely their budget iPhone is now a $250 more than the cheapest iPhone one and their budget laptop their new budget laptop which is the air is now twelve hundred dollars or is more expensive yeah these are things that are happening it's very much lore buying this yes like I think they made that bet with the iPhone 10 being $1000 back at a time when everyone thought that was a crazy price yeah and now everything from Apple is just a lot more expensive because that bet is paid off for them I blame everybody that bought into it so yeah and on top of that what's interesting is is that they're significantly expanding their services model too so not only do you buy this product but then they're like things like Apple music you continue to pay for it as you as you own it so for folks that are big fans of Apple they're gonna like these products this is there's there's an obvious reason why they're doing this they know that if they charge a couple hundred more dollars people are still gonna buy it they still really like these products so as much as we complain about it and say wow that's that's a lot of money it's they obviously understand that there's there's very much market for this stuff yeah and same time they're still selling last year's iPad pro just 650 650 dollars for the 10.5 that's kind of their budget that's not a budget pick but I mean I really like that model anyhow I I'm a little uncertain where I land with this now because the pencils are different etc but I'd much more lean towards paying less for an iPad than more until it can unleash all the things that it's supposed to be doing I have a really dumb question how's the camera there is a camera photos in the video no it's fine it's fine it basically is the iPhone 10 our camera for rear - the portrait mode and - optical image stabilization so that's pretty damn good for a tablet but who needs that I guess for AR can help the front-facing one is again face ID true depth so your portrait mode your momochi an emoji all that you've got all that I will got all I will say this if you bring a nearly $2,000 iPad pro to a concert to take a photo with it and then it deserves to be broken that's yes I'm just like I mean like it's pretty big and I'm just thinking about somebody holding this up like a concert well there are people who might use it for work purposes or like you know as Apple will talk about shooting video if they want to shoot and then edit and that's not as absurd as you'd think if you were thinking about something where you were trying to do something quick for a place you're trying to assemble a video for to talk about something or design something whatever but it's a little overkill you know it's not it's not the use case for it I'd much rather have some really awesome accessories that turned it into the laptop I need yeah yeah a super high end camera you know some Schmucks gonna show up to a concert with that thing like Alfred said and fair fair warning if you're that person and I see you we're at the same show it's getting pizza so yeah I wish Apple would just go ahead and nerf the camera on that thing that's a good sign I want to say that what if you wore it around your neck like that like flava flav yeah man 2018 I totally was gonna say that too yeah so you should shoot your videos that way that's that's not terrible so I think yeah sure it's good that it look it's better than not having it but again that's not a thing that I would look to as a as a key thing plus let's say somehow the performance on this based on benchmark test because there are not a lot of optimized apps is super crazy fast but if you're going off of benchmarks it is in the realm of the 2017 MacBook Pro or the 2018 razor blade like you said the it's running on iOS so it's not getting like that and like exactly exactly and last year's was already plenty fast there at the point where the speed is not the issue I didn't look at last year's and go if only it were faster I'll say yeah other way to go for a more flex out of a dumb question but like what will you possibly be doing on an iPad that like you would need it to be that fast I mean the like video editing maybe that is that week's night so a lot of people would love to be able to take that on the road a lot of our viewers and listeners also work in the same media editing field and they have mentioned like that'd be great if I could put that on my lap here's the problem you know Apple still has not made Final Cut Pro X and there's premiere which I haven't played around with yet there's iMovie which is very limited yeah and it doesn't as our video editing team said when I said well I guess I can use my mouse and I said no you can't and I doesn't support a mouse you have to use touchscreen from what I understand it also doesn't support external hard drives or anything like that no it's not so what so then exactly for pro for pros what what can you possibly do you could import but then your stand that's where they're selling you up on this one terabyte storage but but that's the thing as USB see easily supports that that's the frustration is that we didn't get into that but I want to get into USB see in its limitations that's one thing it doesn't do it doesn't they don't have any sort of real Docs mm-hmm look at the Nintendo switch even that does more interesting things with you see there's a possibility here that they've opened with USB see but have not fully follow through I want to get back to the questions by the way Brian let's kick it back to you yeah yeah let's get back into the questions all right shout out to those of you pointing out that we have a white excuse me a white sheet of paper for what it's worth the proper term is legal size paper but they're asking if we need to get a sheet of a4 in here for Europeans to compare it to will work right on that from Bill yes imported European paper lead a legal finest legal size from Bill in your experience how reactive are connected accessories like the stylus and keyboards is there a lot of latency sure no everything that connects feels good the keyboard is fast the keys are good the sturdiness sir is about to burps happen get a roll with them so this of course it's not oh it's because it's not by the way this all connects via magnets which can detach as easily as they can attach how do they work and the only work in one see I had it flipped around sorry about that so won't work the other way there's a good little lesson about the accessories I wouldn't trust this case in a drop let's put it that way because the edges are rocks are we doing a drop test for the for the pros they didn't even make any claims about durability in a drop I mean where do a Macbook drop test but yeah we could this will break if you drop it that's what's gonna happen to a Mac Mini a lot that's a lot of glass so yeah the keyboard is sturdy its decent for lap typing it's not great but it's better than it used to be the pencil is the same latency and pressure sensitivity as last year so you're not gaining anything in terms of the actual stylus it's all about that double tap which which opens up one function per app so it's super limited and apps other than notes don't really have it yet procreate will but it's like a one you know between pencil and eraser kind of things so don't expect this is gonna like bring up magic menus or be super customizable the charging thing is as simple as this there was no damn place to charge it or plug it in easily before it would roll away now like air pods it's always charged it's there that's pretty much it so it's nice to have that it doesn't really change the equation on that but I just want to have more types of accessories but the ones that connect work really well next question coming back from Matthew dad sure does this mean that USBC is the future of all Apple devices oh good good question yeah I think it should be I think also bapple is developing well it's not gonna happen do i I mean you think they're gonna get rid of lightening on on the iPhone leggings pretty old I think that if they start moving towards wireless charging then if they do have air power at all I mean that that format might matter more to them okay I can see that I'm curious why they went with USB see for the iPad pro but not the iPhone 10 R or 10 right because I think that there's a business model attached to maintaining what they didn't do it for this is why I think there's been enough model is another demand yelling here taking it seriously and saying we need do you think that the next iPhone will have a USBC there's a chance I think this is the question is this does Apple ever see the iPhone look you have things like the Samsung dec stock or other things that are proposed phones as computers phones are certainly is powerful enough you could do the same thing you could dock it and use it why not I think you're looking at it too much from a practical perspective I think that it I think an Apple perspective but I think from Annapolis perspective they make a lot of money licensing lightning because they own lightning as an input output so they're going to maintain lightning as long as they possibly can USB C is more an industry standard I don't know why anybody specific oh I don't think it's likely for next year but if they cat some point I mean look the pencil charge via lightning and their answer was not just get rid of lightning but change the pencils so those things happen those things happen they make bold changes not always the ones you want certainly but I think that USB see here is a great step forward but can I just say one thing about how it works which is that if you plug it into a monitor etc it mirrors it it doesn't show a second screen it'll show second screens for individual apps if the app unlocks it and right now there really aren't that many that do it but up to 5k and it will support the charges things I get charged a pixel a charged a switch so it does reverse charging that's cool it's nice you can buy third-party dongles and headphone adapters USB C headphones worked fine adaptors like that worked fine so it means you may have to mean have to buy as many specialized things but your mileage is gonna vary like it's not you're gonna plug in a hard drive you can't do it that way and you can't there was no dock that allows you to really use it with like a mouse there's nothing no support for that and to me that's what USB C is all about hmm yeah maybe in future years or future updates but I think totally would well it could very likely be next year in which case maybe this iPad is your doorway to when that arrives but the better thing would be to just wait to buy it until that arrives why would you buy on potential and wait a whole year to see if it gets there or not yeah by the way if you have the patience good question Dutch let's talk a little bit more about the pencil you say there's no other additional functionality to it besides that kind of programmed in shortcut you can't use it in like a PowerPoint presentation to jump around in slides any other options like that every app apparently has the ability to take advantage of the to tap condemn thing what I've implemented from everything that I've understood to this point it's for one function so it means that you could potentially make a PowerPoint thing and if that DoubleTap you just set it to whatever you wanted and in the menu and you said I want it to be advanced slide but I don't think you would be able to do more than that it's like triple tap could do something or or a slide or anything else it's just a double tap function this is a capacitive sensor so it sounds like in the future why it's like earpods why couldn't you unlock that for more functions but right now it does sound very limited by design probably because they don't they don't want people to activate things and maybe screw up things like suddenly oh I there was a density oh maybe people would erase something or activate something I don't know but just don't expect a ton with that maybe some apps will use it right now I you have to wait for people to activate it no no I OS support fret it's like you're gonna double tap and bring up like a menu in iOS speaking of here's a really really fantastic question from cross and shoot why doesn't Apple go all-in on the iPad and make a dedicated OS just for that tablet yes please why not it's a great interesting it should it should be like what Google tried doing with Android and like their tablet OS and now it's just like Chrome OS and they don't really know what they're doing with addy there's the pixel slated yeah yeah which is like just something it's coming out soon just like that that's Apple could has the ability to just make a new OS and ecosystem and and say deal with it and people support it I think as long as the apps stay the same I think that the OS on the iPad is due for a very big change like it needs to have nothing to do with the iPhone I completely agree with you there's no reason why I need a grid of apps I need to see a desktop I need to see customization I want to see Windows with that much power why isn't that being taken advantage of so no it's a good question I think that is where Apple's gonna go the question is how fast are they gonna be able to get there and at some point the Mac you know the Mac and iPad are not fusing but yet they're gonna share some common app language with marzipan marzipan and at some point they're gonna I would just say they're gonna get there because that's the destiny of it is to have some some element of fusion yeah it seems like they keep getting closer to it right each year it's like it's like the computing power for this as you keep saying is very much there but it isn't being taken fully advantage of yes it's like the future Mac will have some element that resembles this iPad and at some point the division will be meaningless but we're still in the split now and you're I don't like the choice that has to be made between the Mac and the iPad for these prices it's very frustrating because you're like what do I get and it is not an easy choice that Apple doesn't make it easy and I would you say this is not a it's not a MacBook replacement it's not gonna do anything more than it did before in that regard okay we only have a couple minutes left so let's go ahead and take one more question on the iPad Tony wants to know what you think of the 64 gigs on the entry-level Pro is that enough it's it's oh it's alright I mean I I think it's it's I would rather 128 on the twelve point nine or something like it really should be 128 but then like would that mean another price job once way it feels like the acceptable amount by the way there is no 128 on this iPad you will go from 64 to 256 to 512 to one terabyte so 256 is a lot for unless you're using it I mean if you're storing and editing files and stuff you go no that's not a lot but it's like that's an acceptable amount but every price leap is not a hundred dollars it's like 150 or something it's like so you'll go right into the thousand dollar range if you go one storage tear up and 64 feels pretty bare-bones for a device this powerful not only that that's not expandable you cannot add to it no very important point it's it's crazy bare-bones I mean if you're doing the whole idea of the iPad pro is you're working on you know they're talking about Photoshop and huge tiles and like big big massive or for 64 gigs it's just not gonna work 64 gigs doesn't really work for a phone nice day 64 gigs is like cloud storage and you're watching movies and playing some games which is not the market not supposed to be the market for the iPad pro hmm that was that's too casual for what they are claiming that's also extremely small if you're Tron it so you know how they talked about how the you know these graphics for NBA 2k like 18 to K 19 are incredible and you're gonna want to play it on that but like other games like take up huge file space like Super Smash Brothers ultimate is supposed to be like 15 gigs on the switch and like that's why that's why they tell you to get like a micro SD card for something like that obviously that's not really available for the iPad pro so if they're trying to talk it up as if this like amazing gaming rig you're not gonna get that on the 64 gig version of it right file sizes couldn't happen that's the limitation there think you've really talked me out of buying this thing not that are you ever on the frickin market for it but it seems not not worth the price to me like our rating by the way is still TBD and that's because I've been trying to figure out some of the weirdness with USBC over the weekend we didn't have that much time with it less than the normal time frame and we're trying to figure out that and wait for a few more optimized apps that really aren't that many at this point that make the most of the a 12x so but I would say exactly that the the hopefully it's pretty clear that if you were thinking about an iPad pro and you don't mind paying up a little bit more this is a nicer iPad pro than last year's but it's not a transformative iPad pro is it like $200 nicer uh if you're in for the whole thing and you are planning to live with this for like five years yeah maybe because I feel like the USBC down the road might be one of those things you really regret not making the move to but I it's really hard to say that at this point with that Apple having made the move in iOS that's why I feel like that the smarter move is to hold off if you could and just kind of feel it out as the Year next to your approaches doesn't like a great answer but that's the problem with with evolutionary tech that kind of takes those like one step at a time things this doesn't feel like I really wanted this to debut with the transformative USBC accessories that would make you go what crap that's cool and again it took about the $300 switch but they did it because that was the that's the appeal the switch was like oh cool it's a console a cool to handheld they did it and this does not transform from a desktop to a portable experience at this point in a way that you would want to use alright you heard it here folks I just want to use me Nintendo Nintendo needs to get into a tablet or a prototype I mean the switch is kind of like that switch from Apple's on to something with these directions like it's a good it is a good direction it just needs it's the right direction it's just not the full journey and that's the part that's frustrating all right we got time for one more let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room about the four one one scandal so syringe Roy dad sure while wallet are wallop why did not anyone like who dropped the ball at formal one about defensive domain purchasing Alfred um I reached out to them about this actually I haven't heard back yet but I mean that that is definitely something that people should watch out for you know registering different URLs but keep in mind vote for one one org is pretty much like run by volunteers and it's not a government organization or anything like that exactly not yeah so I you know having the resources to do that and then checking like if it wasn't vote for one comma I was taken there's like dot code there's always like different another one - yeah - I mean it takes a lot to protect against that and I'm not saying that like it's impossible to protect against but considering the amount of resources that vote for one dot org like really has you know it's it's pretty it's pretty difficult like considering those resources so I don't think anyone really dropped the ball here but you know CloudFlare did respond to it because they were one of the hosts for the page that it redirected to you too and they they took down the malicious page so that's at least good news on that and that you know a company that does have the resources is addressing this very well said long story short I've worked in the not-for-profit space myself years ago and it is a pain in the butt to try to really account for all the things you can really account for when you have a lot more resources under your belt and that you can strive for and when you have you know basically a fixed income to work with you're not gonna be able to get away with and plan for as many insurance policies basically don't be a jerk you know other people so yeah we'll see how that pans out in our modern eco sphere so yeah we are out of time then thanks everybody for joining us a happy guy Fox day remember to go vote tomorrow whatever you're voting for wherever you're voting and also I just realized today is worldwide Dungeons & Dragons day so for all of you dwarves and paladin's out there see you on the board yeah bring your iPad pro that's the new dungeon master set up yeah okay am i wrapping you're on Ben okay 359 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course cnet.com thank you so much as always for coming in and showing us all these fancy pants probably for giving us this iPad pro but yeah really yeah we get to keep it the 359 gets it now but anyway we'll see you again tomorrow back thank you very much one last thank you to our sponsor pub G Mobile for taking care of us so last week and hopefully everybody can go check out the link to some download 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