Gadgetory

hey welcome to good morning everybody thanks for joining us for the recording of the 359 podcast seen its daily live news podcast right here on YouTube livestream and periscope as always it's episode 498 on Tuesday December 4th and before we get into the show I have a pop quiz for Ben and Raj or Ben and Roger do you know what Sin City is yes yeah okay do you know what dense city is dense city yep like density of mass over volume yeah yeah I know what density is oh oh god yes yeah mass over volume you killed my joke no that was the joke sorry all right sorry once again we fail good job good job yeah okay all right it's time for me to introduce what we're gonna be talking about on the show more 5g because what what there's even more 5g to talk about this one related to the iPhone I hope right about that he's very psyched also I got a chance to write about rings neighbor's app which definitely like put a bit of a scare in me over all the alleged crime crimes that are going on in my neighborhood anyway I'm happy to be living in an apartment yeah but well get to all of that in the podcast send in your questions and comments about 5g home security tools we'll talk all about that stuff after 3 minutes and 59 seconds so let's get to the podcast from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Roger Tsien apple plans to wait until 2020 to start selling a 5g powered iPhone that's according to a story from bloomberg yesterday which supports previous reports and apples typical strategy when a new network gets deployed so Roger the first question I have is why would Apple wanna wait until 2020 if you know what is it Samsung's already making noise about yep creating 5g phones for I think it's Verizon and AT&T next year what's what's the benefit for them the benefit is I mean this is the standard Apple playbook right they don't like to jump in and need new technology quickly they did this with wireless charging with Apple mobile payments they basically wait for the technology to mature until more people have it or comfortable with the idea make sure although the wrinkles have been ironed out and then they jump in they did this with 3G they did a 4G they were always about a year behind year and a half behind I'd argue this time around with 5g being as given to the excitement level 5g is so high there's a lot of interest in it you know it may not be the best move for Apple to to wait this long but you know you've got to wake the cycles right like late 2019 if they're missing out that then you've got to wait till like 2024 5g iPhone you know it's again Apple you know Apple is Apple right do you think so do you think that competitors would actually be able to steal customers away from them because of this like because I'm wondering if 5g is really gonna be much of a thing next year anyway no that is a fantastic question I think 29 29 teen is one 5g kicks-off but it won't be broadly available you're right it'll be in you know a handful of cities a dozen cities here and there and even within those cities just a few neighborhoods it's gonna take a while for 5u to ramp up so Apple can make the argument that you know it's still not around it's not broadly available why are we gonna you know invest in it now the character that is there's this whole 5g ecosystem moving towards upgrading everything networks devices and Apple does risk falling behind given that all these other companies are gonna be a year or two more experienced in dealing with the issues with 5g we talked yesterday about how 5g wasn't gonna be perfect from the get-go but in order to make it in order to improve the service you've got actually get it out there and so Apple is gonna be starting a little bit and we started late but they're also gonna be starting kind of fresh whereas everyone else will have a bunch of years of 5g work under their dome yeah unfortunately I think Apple continues to benefit from the fact that they control their own iOS ecosystem so you'd have to get somebody that's really excited about 5g to actually jump ship and unfortunately I think you know Samsung and all the other competitors know that so we'll see if they actually really yeah the the geekiest of geeks who are into 5g might make the move but for most people you're right they're probably gonna stick to their iOS ecosystem yeah so next I wrote about neighbors the neighbors app from ring which is Amazon smart home company the app is part of a new crop of social network like neighborhood watch apps what was interesting to me about this was I got a chance to like see some of the alleged crimes that were going on in my neighborhood yeah there was like a some some folks that were apparently trying to like break into a car somebody was vandalizing and outside street light I mean like I live in a quiet neighborhood in New Jersey and what's what's obvious me is the benefits for companies like ring for having something like this because it could convince more people to buy and their products basically like free advertising right like check out all the crimes of your neighborhood you really upgrade to a ring system so I talked to an analyst about this and he said that you have to draw a very careful line if your ring for this kind of thing yeah you want to create a neighborhood watch app that actually has benefits for the neighborhood and you don't want it just make it look like an advertisement because then it's just cynical and people aren't gonna buy into it but so far that's confessing this is sort of like it's almost like a social feed yes and it's pretty entertaining I mean like that's the thing is that you know if you get sick of like Facebook or like checking out like your other feeds you go on like the neighbor's feed and you're like oh my god I can't believe that's happening so that's sure and all that stuff I mean people love watching these kinds of videos they you've got direct feed to them I got I got a little obsessed with it but either way if you want to read more about these stories check them out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm dr. Jenn thanks for listening thanks for joining us and sitting around while we ramble off about 5g which is the least visually interesting thing you can put to screen I mean I can show some spectrum ways or something or I could I could do the wave yeah do the wave that's five G it's gonna be a meme soon oh yeah that's exactly what I'm gonna do though cuz I'm tired of you guys talking about five g's having nothing to show for the sake of b-roll so as like a producer it's the lamest thing so I'm consumer it's the coolest thing as a producer it's the lamest thing so I'm gonna hire an interpretive dance trip yes to tell them it's true I mean it's cool to talk about until it gets rolled out and then people are so clearly gonna complain right about the spotty coverage and I yeah if they can seamlessly transition you from 5g to 4G within whatever city you are would have been whatever neighbor you know that'll make it a little bit easier but at the same time it's it's a lot of big promises quick plug for Shara and chart tip Ken and Jessica dual core they're out in Maui tough job they're out in Maui right now Qualcomm in a few hours is about to kick off the the first keynote of their Snapdragon text summit where eventually either today or tomorrow they will actually have test devices that will run on mock flat nut mock but sort of specialized like sandbox 5g networks so they'll actually get to try out what that connection speeds like what the experience is like you know I've had a chance to try it like I was in Brussels headquarters few years back I wrote around on a van in a very creepy looking dark van that showed what the network speeds were like and so yes Brian to your point this is not the most visually exciting technology but seeing the speed seeing the the throughput there I mean that is pretty exciting going back to Qualcomm by the way yeah one of the elements of this Apple iPhone storyline relates to Qualcomm right that they're having this I think Apple sued them right yeah well they're they're basically suing each other at this point Apple I think refused to pay Qualcomm for all the patents involved arguing that allow the technology Apple has developed and Qualcomm didn't and they didn't want to pay for all the technology that is part of the the royalty agreement Qualcomm is sued there they're I think they're kind of in this whole lawsuit counter lawsuit situation now but as a result Apple is kind of pulled away from Qualcomm as a supplier of modems yeah using instead Intel and Intel has traditionally been a little bit behind when it comes to modem technology that's why you're seeing all these companies kind of jump forward now with 5g next year an Apple while Apple traditionally waited before embracing what else acknowledges it definitely is a factor that they don't have Qualcomm to to lean on anymore they've got they basically have just Intel and Intel has generally been a little bit behind yeah it's actually been impressive to me I used to cover chips and it's been impressive to me how much Intel has been able to catch up yeah they were so far behind Qualcomm for what when I was covering Intel and Qualcomm like three years ago that the idea of them getting the iPhone account was almost laughable yeah and they've they've definitely stepped up considerably but this is Qualcomm's bread-and-butter Qualcomm is a wireless chip company so it's it goes back to what I said during the podcast it's really obvious that Apple is at a slight disadvantage here because they're only using Intel however it just doesn't seem likely that they would actually pay the price for that like as far as losing consumers it's still from a consumer perspective folks aren't really gonna notice or they're not gonna care as much especially like in 2019 when 5g is really just getting yeah I would say like with I remember with LTE there was a lot of attention a lot of marketing hype when it launched and you know right at the time the iPhone base it didn't have 4G and it's fine with that I don't know I feel like the excitement level for 5 G's a lot higher maybe I'm just close to it or too close it's definitely notable because that that's what they're promising they're like this is gonna be like 4G on Mars on steroids or something I don't know like they're really like playing it up a lot so we'll see mm-hmm what do we got Brian all right let's jump into the chat take some questions let's go ahead and talk about well let's keep talking about 5g I guess Darrius says I feel like the consumer market is not ready for 5g technology especially on mobile phones as a follow-up to that our wallop asks what exactly is the difference on phones between 4G and 5g so let's break it down Commission consumer style fantastic question well the difference largely in your phone will be speed and what's known as latency or the the lag time between you know when you enter search and when the response gets back speeds are supposed to be I mean depending on how what kind of five you network and there are multiple versions not to overcomplicate things but if you're on one of those millimeter wave spectrum networks that is speeds that are like a hundred times faster than what you're gonna get right now you know very similar actually even faster than you know Google Fiber was back in the day so like 10 to 20 gig connection which was a physical connection yeah and Google Fiber was you know one gigabyte connection and that was a physical fiber line that that brought it in yeah I can see why people get excited yeah like latency like that that's important for things like if you're playing for tonight you know being able to like hit the being able to fire your gun and have that responsiveness have that gonna actually fire in real time there's always a lag right now with mobile networks but with with live G that lag gets diminished significantly so those are some of the main benefits so as far as 5g on and iPhone goes daddy says only if it's under 500 bucks ah sorry man that ain't happened that's not a thing I don't even think Samsung is gonna do that if they've got like some of the earliest 5g Saint stat just being sarcastic I know I know it's the idea here is is that they're gonna charge you a lot of money for those earliest faulty phones yeah I would say the early 4G LTE phones weren't super expensive you know they were pretty moderate price a lot of them though we're like purpose-built for LTE like the HTC Thunderbolt was the one I always remember cuz I had that one it wasn't a great phone you know battery was terrible dropped off the network really quickly it was not a good experience great next up let's talk to you day who's asking can we see the iPhone equipped at 5g as early as next year now definitely not we were just covering that as the primary story I think Intel is feeling the pressure from Qualcomm and AMD which is a good thing and that's from conga locks as a follow up Timothy says will AMD compete with Intel in the cellular modem Justin oh sure I'm guessing no I don't think they do any modem to this goes back to again I know AMD has definitely been pressuring intel on the processor side has had some really good advancements with their chips and I think Intel stuffing feeling the heat but that's on the processor side I'm not aware of AMD doing any cellular radio technology though you're talking about mobile processors I didn't even know any PC process oh I gotcha yeah I'm just saying like from a modem perspective I don't think they do a lot of work in that area yeah I don't think so either I don't cover AMD regularly so I apologize if I'm wrong but I'm not aware of like any cellular technology that they've been working on so what exactly is the 5g spectrum frequency there depends on who you ask there's a there's a ton initially there was known as millimeter wave spectrum basically if we're basically running on our current networks are on things like 700 megahertz 800 megahertz millimeter wave is more like 20 gigahertz so that that higher frequency means a fatter pipe for more capacity it means lower shorter range to when you've got that kind of high frequency you need to build more cell towers because the range isn't that long but they basically have pushed it all the way pushed down the definition of 5g so that basically any spectrum can use 5g and it comes down to responsiveness and and a more moderate speed boost so if you're using 700 megahertz spectrum for 5g it's not going to be as fast as that 28 gigahertz but it will be faster than 4G just not that much faster which one is better for punching through walls is it the lower frequencies so 700 600 that the Lord is the better it is to get through walls and across great distances mmm yeah 28 32 gigahertz that kind of super high millimeter wave spectrum is really finicky even like a leaf would disturb it yeah like yeah your connection gets distorted mmm so yeah here's one from Storm King how much more with a 5g phone cost than a current flagship that's still to be determined I think and have to keep on par with current prices whether they yeah like a thousand dollar phone probably since that's where where we are now that's where we are now I'm not sure if it's gonna be more like significantly more expensive but maybe a slight premium I I mean look how much more expensive could the iPhone guide I granted those are my famous last words I suppose but like in 2020 a 5g they've gotten more expensive right but like they're not gonna sell it for two grand right not yet I can't wait for this video to get played two years from now there you go yeah so but the market is there there is a ceiling to that market I agree with you that it's gonna be at least a thousand dollars because these are all gonna be flagship phones yeah 5g isn't really gonna trickle down until like the lower tiers until I would think later years 2020 at least yeah yeah so yeah you're gonna be paying at least a thousand bucks I would say yeah I mean I can imagine like an lg phone coming out for like 800 bucks 700 bucks yeah so I mean it's not gonna be all really priced but they're definitely on the higher end of the spectrum would you recommend to anybody that you know to like not wait like you would probably say wait until 2020 anyway for four or five do a 5g phone yeah um it depends on where he lives like if you happen to be in one of those 5g markets it might be worth checking out and especially if you were already gonna buy a Samsung phone or buy a I don't know like an lg phone or oneplus zone I take that back one plus I think they're only 5g phone there 5g phone will be in in Europe not in the US so just Samsung I guess okay who do we think is going to be the first one to the budget 5g front line that's okay that's that's from you that's a good question my guess would be LG or Samsung not Motorola maybe I just think that Samsung's you have more resources to play with I think it'd be a smart move for Motorola to get aggressive on that cuz we're not doing so hot well yeah but you've already tempered in that play around there they're busy makin phones that we had in the 90s early 2000 making mods yeah mods so that's how they're getting the 5g almost first I think because they've got a mod to their existing motor phones that you can plug in and it gets loved gee that sounds like cheating but okay okay good sure all right so let's go ahead and talk about the dangers and power now we've brushed on this before as we've covered this topic a thousand times Mario's concerned if 5g might be too powerful tell truth vision TV says will 5g in fact powerful enough to penetrate buildings Raz is asking if it could be deadly and references these cited events in the Netherlands and in California where allegedly 5g was killing wildlife which was debunked which was debunked and we actually covered this on yesterday's episode about that because I was almost like oh my god yeah in terms of the the power question that goes back to what we're talking about with with spectrum and what kind of spectrum is being used you know these carriers are looking to combine different bands of spectrums so you have the lower frequency stuff go through the walls the higher frequency stuff will probably be more useful outdoors particularly in packed metro areas where they can you know they don't have as much problem stringing together a bunch of small cells and cell towers to broadcast all that they're gonna have some issues out in suburbs like I live in suburbs where people are a little bit more adverse to having so many small cells all around them so I think that's gonna be one of the big hooks of big hang-ups between that and in rural areas that's still gonna be a problem I mean I know t-mobile and Sprint have talked about the benefits of 5g for rural America I'm still pretty skeptical about whether or not they'll actually get some of that coverage out there given the expense of stringing together this network but yeah again in terms of power the health question I know we've fielded that pretty much every time we've talked about 5g we don't have any conclusive evidence either way so like I don't really want to comment too much about it big response yeah oh I am I do acknowledge that there's definitely concern out there but we just there there isn't any evidence right now one way or the other my two cents on that is they've taken such sweet time going over this delving and testing it that there's no way in hell that that's going to seep through the cracks like safety tests have to be at the top of the list at least I would certainly hope so yes I can't they do validate or qualify that in any way shape or form but after how long it's taken for them to develop this network they must have spent significant amount of time testing that right I'm sure safety is a factor I don't know if it's the factor I you know I would hope that the FCC other organizations are testing this as well and it's not just on the the carriers good response I never thought I would be the cautious optimist in this group all right one more quick one on 5g from our buddy Carlos are we still going to get traffic connections online with 5g when it's not in rush-hour traffic can actually what I'm not really sure what he's referring to to be honest traffic connections no everything will be perfect with 5g Oh God except it'll kill wildlife I think he's concerned with maybe the bandwidth getting restricted with the smart cars utilizing so much of the of the files got it so yeah there's that's a great question five to one of the good things about five g's sort of the ability to partition off connections like it'll know you're a smartphone user and you don't necessarily need like the full ten gigs of connection particularly if you're just browsing the internet if you want video they'll probably kick up the the bandwidth a bit but it'll also be smart enough to know that like the the low-power sensors in office buildings will require a buncha slower connection or a self-driving car will need a more persistent connection doesn't necessarily fast it has to be consistent it has to be extremely responsive and so 5g can actually customize connections to different devices based on their their needs and so again that's one of the benefits that is some more a lot more customizable than networks in the past fascinating all right I said there were last five G question but here's a really really good one from Timothy will current plans be grandfathered in when five G rolls out question attest a question I would say early on yes I don't think I think it'll be I don't think there'll be a 5g premium plan I know Sprint's former CEO Marcelo Clara hinted that that would be a premium service but everyone else I've talked to is said that no this is just gonna be kind of pushed into your existing plan I don't think you're gonna pay a 5g premium at least up front you know we didn't see that with LTE and with LT you just sort of jumped on and that was great you did see later on once like more people jumped on and they started hitting capacity issues they started changing the business model and that might happen 5g down the line but right now I imagine early days it's gonna be kind of experimental they're gonna want people on anyway so they're not gonna put up too many barriers for that right but it does it does beg the question about unlimited plans which have gotten really really popular on 4G networks yes I do wonder 5g it's like the limited amount of 5g would be able to handle an unlimited plan but from what you're telling us about 5g it's able to manage a ton of capacity yeah yeah I mean especially the higher frequency spectrum can handle that that extra actually those extra demands from consumers and given that it's it's a small coverage not gonna be a lot of people on it for like the first year it should be great it's like an open highway wherever you can get it nice we're out of time but shout out to Matthew Dasher says ring neighborhoods posted a picture of the kid that stole a package from his porch we'll keep our fingers crossed for you that law enforcement does intervene and catch that punk Michael Brown is asking where can you find this ring social network I want to check it out I'll post the link as always in the description when the show posts for on-demand so you can find that you got a like build into that ecosystem before we go serene joy says Ben Fox Ruben make yourself useful and come up with the craziest 5g iPhone name ooh oh wow I well look I wasn't installed before so I I think it's it's tiny my Wow okay all right here we go brain juices flowing the iPhone 5 g q x 11 super smash ultra good I like that okay that was a nice touch I was trying that class stood up all right take a sign out of here okay all right I'll do it 3:59 is available in iTunes tune ins that your Feedburner google play music google podcasts the amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks everybody for watching and sending in your questions and we'll be talking more about 5g for the rest of our lives all right see y'all tomorrow you