Gadgetory

good morning on Thursday februari 23rd we have a very special edition of the 359 podcast episode 184 and joining us today is Alfred Inge Ben Fox Rubin and Sharon Profis welcome to the show hey thank you for having me glad to have you what are we talking about what are we talking about Alfred your steering the ship today yep and Mobile World Congress here we come big news coming out of Barcelona next week but lots of phones Sharon will actually be going there so she'll be here to tell us all about you know what kind of phones you can expect and what kind of phony news is coming out of there walk walk long and on top of that we're also going to be talking about all sorts of cooking tech because Sharon's been focusing a lot on that recently been doing some really cool videos called counter space so check this out on cnet and also youtube if you like yes and we'll get all that's I'm already hungry yes yeah yeah I should have had breakfast before I never have breakfast before the show that's a problem well no I it's that's why it's so good breakfast is an overriding as you bring any gadgets so the weekend hikes are you doing intermittent fasting what is that I don't I just know I'm doing I don't have money yeah the original intermittent fasting it's where you only eat between like 12 and eight that's that's kind of what i do i mean that's already what I yeah all right all right let's get this party rolling let's get two man bun World Congress and Congress may be all right we'll be back to joining the chat hit us with your questions and comments about that and other things and we'll see you in exactly three minutes and 59 seconds from 32 welcome to the 359 where we talk about about the top tech news of the day and all the other crap we want to throw it I'm Alfred Aang I'm Ben Fox Rubin & I'm Sharon Profis Sharon is joining us all the way from San Francisco as she gets ready to head out to Mobile World Congress next week it's gonna be the Royal Rumble of phones with all stars like LG Nokia and blackberry battling to be the top device next week samsung actually decided to save its galaxy SI for a separate event which is kind of making things interesting because now there's a vacuum for top dog but still if the galaxy s 8 is not there why should people care what I'm kind of sad about related to this is that modular phones were really interesting last year and granted they didn't take off they were kind of a failure particularly the LG g5 I think what is it the Moto there's moto Z was also a modular phone but we're probably going to see a lot of like more of the same phones don't you think oh yeah we're going to see a lot more unibody phones phones that don't let you replace the battery and we may even see fewer phones that let you have an SD card slot there it was interesting last year there were a lot of modular phones like you said and I think that a lot of companies were just trying to do something interesting and different yeah and it turns out that people don't really want that yeah they basically want some version of you know whatever those flagship phones are even if there are a little bit cheaper you know you've got like the slim body iPhone or the s8 and I mean how people don't want to mess with that design I remember seeing the modular phone so it just seemed like too much work i like i want to buy something and then hat it's like magic owner or a restaurant whether i are you cook the food and there's more stuff to lose to one thing though that could be interesting is nokia might be coming back with like a candy bar phone i'm so excited for that what's it gonna look is it gonna be like a smartphone or they're gonna be like a dumb phone with more features no I want it to look exactly like the one I had in middle school I just had like to do the exact same job no LTE just play snake game yeah it's just that's all it does you know I don't have to be on a 24-hour news cycle anymore I can ignore emails right on that is all sorry my phone wasn't connected oh my god this actually sounds like the perfect phone yeah I really hope they do this I mean all these companies that are banking on nostalgia at mwc like why is that actually a selling factor or I think it could be I think that there is a lot of competition we found ourselves in a market where there are two main phone makers and everybody else is kind of just like trying to grasp at something that they think consumers will like and nostalgia especially in the past year think about Pokemon go has been a big selling point so maybe something like a candy bar phone will help set them apart now jumping away from Mobile World Congress I understand Sharon that you are a cooking tech connoisseur I am neither a cooking or a tech connoisseur sure if you can tell me you know what having devices actually make me suck less at cooking yeah so that's that was one of the focuses of counter space is there are more and more devices that kind of bridge the gap between people who suck at cooking but still want to cook at home don't want to spend all their money in restaurants so for example there's the pan telligent pan that connects to a nap and gives you step-by-step instructions based on the sensors in the pan so it knows if you're burning your salmon for example and will tell you to flip it over right that sounds is helpful but it's a hundred and thirty dollars for a pan I I don't really see myself like spending that kind of money on something like that that's true and right now I see it as more of a gift so put that on your gift list okay but it's still too expensive like you said right so it's still the early days of the smart kitchen and we will eventually see that price go down where components like Bluetooth might be a standard in smart kitchen device does that mean I'm gonna have to like charge my frying pan yes oh that's gonna be movable yeah what about um I want to get really quickly to a multi cooker do you think people are gonna buy multi cookers oh yeah i think the multicooker is probably the new version of the slow cooker so it's a pressure cooker slow cooker sous vide machine yogurt maker oatmeal maker all-in-one oh yes and it makes cookie easy well if you want to read more about these check us out at cnet I'm out birding I'm Ben Fox Rubin & I'm Sharon Profis and welcome back best comment in the chat so far Sharon's the best oh sorry guys we've done 184 episodes and no one said that about any of you guys good reason for good reignite the best it can only be one best the YouTube commenters are always right soon charron is the best and thank you for joining us of course all the way from SF guys three minutes and 59 seconds is like crazy fans nothing yeah we were just complaining about yesterday we should never it's time luck inviting Scots dine on the show is usually a problem because I can talk and he does a lot of stuff and three minutes and 59 seconds is not enough time for him to just whatever get whatever is in his brain out into the microphone to explain things about VR different things like that fun fact before I got hired and I was doing research on the 359 at first I thought it was a podcast that came out at three fifty nine o'clock that would have been much easier when I just do that now that's what we meant all along this is the way the air no contest people people want things fast if you want like the slow-cooked version you can be on like the youtube thing that's what we're here for so yeah apologies to our neighbors Giant Bomb who are apparently having a ball right now you can probably hear him in the background right yeah they have maybe we should make extremely loud noises too we're also having fun here funding you if you guys cross subscribe to the Giant Bomb podcast look for us screaming in the background someday right Jacob in the chat has a good question do you guys think innovation for mobile is dead it's been a very long time since there has been a feature that has really been that exciting and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who has that notion but he's got a valid point we have been struggling especially with people like Apple we're like what you guys doing everyone we've definitely talked about that on the past and that's that's a very well noted comment we've answered this like multiple times but the thing just because something is slow doesn't mean that it's dead can't you know I mean it's not like mobile phones are going away yeah i'm talking about aviation right innovation of the phone does somebody will have a newton moments sometime in the near future i would expect well i think that right for long time there you can easily tackle in a vision geez I know right keep it down over there get the broom to not like having siblings next to her um I think that for a long time innovation just meant that the next year the specs on the phone would be a whole lot better and that is actually very easy to accomplish we now know and so the next thing it seems is basically innovating around your own ecosystem right I mean it's I think it's frustrating for a lot of people because you get things like a lack of a headphone jack we're like Oh surprise we now have a new Bluetooth chip that solves that problem that we created and now you need to buy the air pub and I spend more money right I still never thought headphone jacks or a problem I my argument with this is that it's possible that innovation with the phone may never come back while tech companies go and move into new in different directions related to software like you mentioned with ecosystems things like that I've been writing a lot about voice assistance and hey I it'll be interesting to see how those power the phone and like that's where the innovation is going to be where it starts to predict what you need more often different things like that and yeah wow it's very hard to maintain a thud while I'm hearing yelling in the background I'm gonna stop right now only one know what they're playing today Oh God uh iphone 8 or samsung s 8 what do you think is going to be the best buy and that's from Andrew Oh what boys bah come be your head androids I've what's coming to the best buy showroom right right I mean like you basically that's that's almost a troll comment trying to like get us in trouble yeah which-which ecosystem we have to say impartial we are impartial however I am certainly very curious to see what the newest iPhone is gonna be because it's gonna be the 10 year anniversary of being curious I really can't make that call until I've seen both those phones that's kind of a weird question to ask I think I don't but like there's a lot of anticipation for both good question exactly that they're both like iphone has completely slumped in their innovation samsung just had the controversies prob they're both really under the microscope right now so this will be a good race I think that is I tend to people who win are the consumers right right yeah what Alyssa yeah a lot of people are speculating that iphones gonna go you know all out on the 8th because it's their 10th anniversary on this one right yeah what would we say iphone X where the terrible names came up with I think mostly just X X is good I pull of windows and just skip right from seven to ten yeah but like seriously we were talking about this on the podcast and like do we really think that like one of these other phone makers is gonna break through like do you really think that like LG is gonna go very traditional unibody with the g6 yep cheran do you think that like this is gonna be LG's year probably not right Samsung and Apple are still gonna win it out I think we're in a place where not the best LG can do but the most likely scenario in my mind is that LG is able to keep its stake in the market like not let that piece of the pie shrink more than it has so but as far as like 0 LG is the new Samsung I think that will take a while oh yeah that's not good and I really liked how they were experimenting that was a great way to try to win market share but it didn't work you know people did not want modular phones and good for them for trying something different and sometimes it just doesn't work it was a good idea on paper for sure I would have liked to play with that yeah I mean I think at this point the the real race is to see who can have the best phone at it's like cheapest value only because it's you know a lot of people don't want to shell out all that money for Samsung's phone or you know apples foam but they still want like a top quality phone I know like the cost is like the first thing I look for when I'm like shopping for a cell phone and that will that's what was so disappointing about the pixel was that I think people were expecting that perfect you know high quality phone at a decent price cheaper than iphone or samsung phones and so I got amazon fire all over again to a certain extent the fire while this phone is actually good yeah Amazon's done a lot of things right and mobile phones not necessary right but people were expecting I guess I mentioned it because people expected a lower price point but yeah yeah the Google pixel is clearly a much better phone than the fire phone yeah that one's still got my attention for my next upgrade as of now we'll see I personally love that phone i think you know if you want the latest android software and a phone that kind of looks like the iphone then um then it's a great choice i mean and then we also have huawei which is probably the most likely company to release a premium phone at a lower price which will see you yeah hopefully mobile world brent in the chat is a man after my own heart the next innovation has to be around batteries are charging low battery levels cause many people anxiety he ain't lyin we actually just did I has put up a great count down the top-5 of the best batteries and what was it the moto oh shoot help me here probably J or one of the one of the models oh it was a moto x yeah i forgot i'm gonna have to check with him sorry everybody I'm not well rehearsed enough in my own content ok I'd like 23 hours or something like that yeah which is which is really impressive but I think oh how 23 hours ago how much use though like right like that's and that's a in us like a standard I don't know whatever our testings the circumstances were I'm not sure who did that one so I would be interested to see if like let's say like there's a big iphone event tim cook is standing up on stage and he claims that like the iphone is going to last for two days I think people's heads would explode in the theater they would just be like that's amazing like weather so I agree with Brent that's that's a good innovation if it were to happen for the record in that top 5 episode people were contesting where's the iphone where's the iphone 7 iphone 7 lasted for like 60 weeks so I asked got mad and he went did research so he's texting me iphone 7 plus 12 hours 6 minutes why use to prove him wrong yes well that was that was the one of the most disappointing things about the last iphone announcement was that there was no improvement in battery among other thing and that were disappointing yeah i should agree with friend here i mean i think that's why everyone has all that nostalgia for the nokia like cuz it lived forever they're still on today good throw to grata more of a reservoir and they're still active yeah but the battery life on those were incredible i remember charging mine like what like once a month right because it's almost like an e-reader so it doesn't use that in high school playing snake when the teacher was it looking because my last a few days either you even still a few days is incredible oh yeah yeah it's become so normal that you have to carry around extra power and chargers with you it's like I always it's a renaissance for battery may fit like mobile battery manufacturers I'm sure carry an extra battery around it just like that's not the point of me having a phone well if I'm abandoned in the middle of the street looks like I'm screwed you know I just for that just have two phones dildo come on ya have to pose just have two phones what's the what's wrong and again the manufacturers have played you well yes played you like a violin i have i have an android phone and my iphone so you know i love both my kids equally right you're not the kind of guy who leaves that android off until the iphone dies you're screwin with both of them all day there's the defeats the purpose oh my god tell me I'm wrong side of the Giant Bomb guys died what I I'm starting to get worried video are you okay Benny Benny scream loudly at the TV if you're all right hey before we wrap it up Joshua wants to know who's anyone used a new blackberry detect 50 he says it's ridiculously cheap on amazon we haven't guy if Roger were here Roger is getting ready to go to mobile world congress and he is one of our many awesome mobile experts and I'm sure he's had his hands on it have you tried adjourned nope yeah I haven't touched a blackberry sins yeah I was gonna say considering it is not 2007 I have not used a blackberry yeah I mean like I I'm more excited for the nokia phone because it's gonna be an awesome throwback but i don't know maybe BlackBerry's gonna come out with something interesting to people love the qwerty keyboard man they want they gotta stick with that I mean to be fair i had a like really outdated samsung phone that had the keyboard on it um maybe open till like 2013 like because it was just like i wanted that keyboard so bad the best feature of it was being more like text people without like looking down it yes right yeah i would cross the street and just like do that though it was it was American innovation how to bring back tactile response even if you don't have a physical keyboard it's getting there they're getting there yeah that's that's in process with haptic with haptic feedback engine so it's it's not as exact as you would want it to be for a keyboard but that is something that that would be coming on that's that I think that's a word for it is coming but then by that point we'll all be dictating everything all true and also like you know dicked like speech-to-text technologies getting a lot better i'm wandering off like there's gonna be a lot of like alexa play on all these phones oh yeah yeah i mean a lot away the pipe screen sorry Huawei is adding Alexa into one of its phone so yeah that's at least one of them all right well I think that's probably a pretty good place to leave it off for the day that is alive Vinnie as I thank God justice for Vinnie alright let's wrap it up guys thanks for watching again and if you liked what you saw the 359 podcast is available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner google play music I think cnet com to you can yeah of course it's on cnet com check it out there too thanks Sharon thank you see you guys next week you