Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Chang I'm Ben Fox ribbon apple Post is fiscal third quarter results tonight and we're actually just looking for clues about the next iPhone I could I don't really care about the results and if that just us not because we're seeing that even Wall Street doesn't really care that much ultimately this is that weird period you know it's after the last iPhone launches before the next one's about to launch so everyone's sort of like this is the kind of dead period for Apple mm-hmm what we're really looking for our potential hints on the conference call you know apples typically mum when it comes to new products but you know Tim Cook and and some of their executives have dropped hints in the past so we're hoping we make some sort of confirmation that you know we're looking at three new iPhones potentially so the expectation would be that like you know the CEO would say something along the lines off we're really excited about our future roadmap or we're really excited about like I don't know sometimes he even mentions Lee virtual-reality you're right he drops you talked about VR talks about a are he you know he might drop a hint about how many iPhones are how many new products we might see it's a bit of a wishful thinking thing but who knows yeah Nintendo meanwhile continues to rake in the dough thanks to its switch in 3ds unit while unit sales slipped for the switch just just barely video game sales rose 121 percent over a year ago I wish we had Alfre here to talk about smash and his love for smash but clearly the switch is still it's still got a lot of momentum behind it look the switch is ahead and it's one of those products that doesn't really seem to make sense on paper or even when you look at it the first time Nintendo lab oh when I first heard about it I was like this is a stupid idea and they've proved me wrong lab oh by the way has sold 1.3 nine million units it was so-so my cardboard its cardboard that you fold my nephew has lab oh and it's kind of addictive and it's kind of fun and they make it really like goofy and enjoyable and Nintendo has obviously done a really good job of differentiating in the market for decades by being goofy ER and more fun whereas like Microsoft and Sony their games are like so many of them are dark shooter game look there are hardcore games that the graphics are better the experience is more immersive they're definitely for hardcore gamers the switch has appealed to a broader base just like the original we did really appeal to a broader base of users the idea of going mobile which we kind of laughed at initially is actually pretty smart like he seed tons of people in the subway in the Train yeah plenty we say yeah and it's way more effective than Super Mario run which was like the other mobile effort right I played that for a while and wasn't that into it you mean Super Mario run anyway lastly movie pass just got a little bit worse the company announced today that would raise its $9.99 monthly fee to 1495 as well as limit access to new major release movies during the first two weeks of the run that makes this thing pretty worthless right no that's not that bad what do you wait so if you I mean like Mission Impossible came out this past weekend you couldn't watch it you're limited you you'd have to wait two weeks before you could actually watch the film I guess I'm not at all surprised no no the whole setup was too good to be true I knew there was a shoe that was gonna drop at some point right it's just like I I think they were alike losing money so quickly yeah they're they're basically their business model a lot them to lose more money as they grew customers it's like the opposite of what you should be doing yeah they're like they're like oh movie industry you guys are so stodgy and old we figured out a brilliant way that just give things away for free that's literally the plot of an episode of Silicon Valley yeah like their Pizza app thing they were losing money on that but they were growing customers so it's all good I think people still love movie pass maybe less oh now so we'll see if the cult excitement for them I have to imagine people are gonna want to log off with movie pass at this point so and again the AMC offers its own alternative now so if nothing else at least movie pass spurred the movie industry to or the theater industry to make some changes yeah I have more the story should sound CNET I'm Roger Chang I'm Ben Fox Ruben I feel sitting all right as always thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the 359 audio podcast for one it's Mario all right thank you you know what guys don't change me it's a cyber bullying Mario's it's not cyber bullying when I'm in the same room as you okay that's true so so technically in the same room we had to look it was kind of business it don't ruin the illusion for everybody out there watching sorry so it's time to go ahead and submit questions in comics about today's stories and topics at hand I just love that you made the comment earlier that oh what did you say about Nintendo and like the switch sounding like a bad idea on paper yes and then their answer was like okay here's a bunch of paper here's cardboard yes sorry boys pay for this cardboard play videogames with it yeah no but it's it's I've spent a little bit of time with Nintendo Lab oh I played like this like fishing game fishing game yes someone who spends well not as much anymore spend time you know with model kits and things like that like I appreciated that the fact that you can you take this cardboard could fold you actually construct your own video game accessory that was kind of cool like so yeah it was it seemed like a ridiculous idea for labo in particular but like the more I thought about it more like this is actually really brilliant yeah it's just for Nintendo and and not to be like too much of a debbie downer on this one is is that the Wii U was another one of these concepts that was different and interesting but didn't work so the switch is a success obviously the 3ds has continued to do well but Nintendo has to keep finding ways to innovate because it kind of represents a different part of the video game market so what comes next is gonna be the big question for them but ultimately right now they're sending very pretty yeah I think the what comes next question they have sometimes with this answer it because the switch has some decent runway while and so and they just you know what they did with good games right the the first year of games is probably like one of the best video game lineups yeah first year video game I was ever for a console yeah they had Odyssey right had the wild yeah the Zelda game the Zelda game I was afraid of mispronouncing the Zelda game too I'm like all right it's all de Zelda I'm from Philly oh but going back to what you were asking me earlier about movie past yeah I don't have a movie pass by movie passes one of those interesting things where if you have a card you like to show it off like one of our interns says yeah one of our interns got a venmo debit card and it's one of those things where they know a few people have it yeah yeah so a few people have it that they're like check it out you sure like having a be watchin you sure they weren't just showing to you cuz you're like the e-commerce to them oh god that might be one of the reasons but either way I think movie paths like I'd be really surprised if the internet came up to me it was like hey check out my venmo delicacy if it happens after the show I'm not sure anyway let's get to questions yes Ryan with any questions how about we talked about Nintendo first just since it's all fresh in our memories I'm a Nintendo switch guy I'm a late adopter but I received one as a gift earlier this year I absolutely love it it makes my otherwise miserable commute go lightning fast so I am stoked to see that it's doing well it's I mean it makes us all forget about the Wii U was a good thing let's talk to while syringe Joyce says since Alfred is absent is there any hype for Dragon Ball Fighters e coming to the switch in September it's got to be the next headline I myself have seen a lot of pre-emptive buzz from some of my favorite gaming YouTube channels floating around out there Roger you and I have talked about anime a lot in the past are you a Dragonball Z guy uh yeah I mean I I watched it when I was younger I totally played the game once with Joey and he killed me so I found the game a little too maybe I'm just getting old but the game was like way too fast pace and frenetic for me I couldn't really figure yeah what was going on as I was getting my butt kicked also I think it was on a play station control and I'm an Xbox guy so it was kind of hard - this is pretty funny games wrapped around a controller it was I kind of felt like it was very similar to like Street Fighter in like the way the character and I do like I mean I appreciate because I recognize most of the characters aside from the the new super anime I did appreciate like how many characters they jammed into that game it was kind and they all they seemed to play differently yes I don't know it's hard for me to really figure it out since again I was just choose again but I I played Alfred and oh geez yeah I can't do that yeah he absolutely crushed me if you win you play Alfred he just sorta have to like I would probably request that he have a blindfold on or something some sort of handicap cuz he would destroy me no he eventually felt bad for me because I was crying very good at pity this is one of my strong suits but yeah I'm I'm not I'm not personally looking forward to Dragon Ball Z firefighter Z on the switch just because it's been out there but I'm sure there are a lot of folks who are so kudos to you Matthew Dodgers asking if he should invest in Nintendo once again first time since game cube that's exactly how it went for me I loved my Gamecube still do still somehow kickin and everyone in the chats telling that you're good ass which I would agree with that I am no authority to endorse this is not some kind of paid sponsorship it's literally the only thing that keeps me sane in the morning before I have to come and do this hellhole let's speculate though what do we ever think Nintendo is gonna go for K that's one thing for it's like very serious gamers it's that to hold up yeah yeah it's I mean they don't have to right now I feel like they've they've had they've they're on this like incredibly strong run and they haven't needed to go on they haven't needed to like hit the same marks as all the other console makers in terms of like graphics and sound so 4k I don't I'm assuming they'll get to eventually but it's it's not a priority yeah at this point it doesn't really lean into their strong suits which is you know stuff that's cartoony like I haven't spent that much time with breath of the wild and like that one looks a lot nicer than Odyssey Odyssey is disregarded it doesn't need four camo exactly it's a gorgeous game regardless I'm knee-deep in breath of the wild right now myself and I'm so far I'm totally addicted and I was never a big zelda game or growing up so that's a that's a gift for me from CERN joy which company's financial report was more on the positive and shows that has reemerged in competitiveness nintendo or AMD oh did you see these results no I haven't seen AMD's results specifically but serene joy is right that AMD was basically left 4 dead years ago and then has somehow been able to resurrect itself amid like you know just basically a surge in chips in general they also benefit from all the the cryptocurrency modules that more in video I'm not sure but like anybody that does GPUs right now like is getting an upswing for a variety of reasons crypto cookie I know Intel had been sort of you know they were dominant and they had like the the superior process for a long time but last couple years AMD has had some fairly stellar products right they've done much better and yeah they were they were just kind of like flagging and limping along and it's been interesting to see how they've really like surged ahead I mean like I don't cover chips anymore but they were a real non play or three years ago when I was covering chips oh yeah meanwhile Qualcomm not doing so great but in terms of I mean I can't speak for Amy's results I will say like Nintendo's results were strong and shows that still has a lot of momentum there's they won over a lot of I think both old and new users or fans with the switch come in from mark dybul I'm glad durability is a focus nowadays paying $1,000 for a super-thin technology is just so doable its thickness with a $20 case just as an appealing I'm with you 110 percent and I think most everybody's with you 110% on that we'll see if they ever figure out the batteries but for now yeah it's nice seeing so much effort being put into Gorilla Glass and being that that is from my stomping grounds it's kind of nice to see the Commerce come out of there too Oh morning Gordon yawning it old Goodell Corning yeah the whole like smudge-proof super-strong glass thing I mean they're still like not unbreak them and there you can still break them but yes it's nice to see that that's just this show is like reminding me of my old beat-up recording and yeah but yeah like the recording folks have a lot of you know very important documents and and studies to show like hey this is this is how much stronger our classes and this is how much work we put into it but literally any Corning story that I ever wrote the comments would get overwhelmed by people being like yeah well my phone broke yeah morning Gorilla Glass stinks so like it's not invincible and somebody will eventually drop their phone and break it so yes still be careful here's another one from sprack 'full who says they're hoping that they're going to do something soon with the Mac air can't afford the pro at least upgrade the processor we we've been talking about this since the last air came out I don't know why Apple's not answering the call on this one I know we're supposed to be talking about the phone but this isn't not related what the hell Apple where's our next air yeah well I don't they they still sell them that's the thing like they're they're still people are still buying Mac heirs without any upgrade so I feel like they they're busy kind of pushing folks to the higher-end models that are upgraded but you know if you have if you want one you can still buy like it's it's such a low priority for them like they're you know they've talked about the Mac Pro upgrades they've done obviously the MacBook upgrades but the error is just it's like frustratingly just there and I don't think it'll eventually happen it's really the last thing that Apple did really really well and they don't need to replace right away but it couldn't hurt him either well that's the thing like it costs money to redesign or to add or upgrade parts and if they can self-existing one that's like definitely way way too old and continue to generate the same profits that they're generating like one day right like people were so buying them if they're not there buying the more expensive mac books which are higher margins anyways so I think ultimately it's a business case they it's just not a priority like it's yeah you put over you bring up a good point to is that with older parts for the macbook air even though it's a cheaper device they get better profitability and if they upgraded it added some new parts into it just you know even a holy bunny even put money into R&D right like they're they're clearly not putting that much money into the air research yeah I hadn't thought about that you're right that it's it's ultimately that's a dollars and cents type of thing they look at it and say we can make money off of this product at $999 but if we upgraded you know we would make less it was yeah poor guys and you know really apples hurting these days yeah they should they deserve anything like that either by generates 160 percent of this revenue I think and then a bulk of the rest of the revenues coming from services and like the Mac and the the whole computer line accessories it's a lot smaller now than it was in the past so it's just it's not a priority that's not where they're putting their resources yeah the other point too is is that with the iPhone 10 there were so many concerns going into last quarter that the iPhone 10 wasn't gonna do well there were all these like you know signals and flags from suppliers and then ultimately they still ended up doing really really well so well I mean really really well is I think a subjective term cuz I think people were expecting they kept using the term supercycle right everyone was gonna go and upgrade to this new iPhone 10 and that that didn't happen like the results were good but they weren't I think as amazing as people were expecting hmm and so I think we're gonna see it more the same like they look they their results are so killer they sold like 50 plus million iPhones last quarter you probably see a similar number this quarter in those are numbers that any other company would kill to have but for Apple they kind of live on this different standard mmm-hmm Roger you're rocking the iPhone 10 right I I am what has been your takeaway from it we're over a year into it right has it been that long I've come it's been about half year okay yeah I came out in November I believe I think I got mine late November working at Cena is a black hole I have no idea so what is your takeaway then so far and what do we speculate maybe is the the things are they're going to learn from the iPhone 10 and the iPhone 8 but mostly the iPhone 10 that's going to push forward what the velence do we think we're going to see and what the hell are we going to call the next one iPhone x1 oh god please don't X - 1 don't like a final fantasy type naming scheme X - 2 I don't know anyways horrible I don't know what they're gonna call it in terms of what I'd like to see I mean I would say the the facial recognition thing isn't isn't super reliable it's far less reliable than touch ID was in terms of like getting getting you on to the home screen faster when it works it works fine but it doesn't work all the time it doesn't work when you're like horizontal mode there's there's certain things that you can do like with touch screen you just you can touch it when you're when your phone's in the pocket pull it out of your pocket the majority at the home screen I mean it's not gonna happen at least this year but I'd love to see them bring back the fingerprint reader in the display you know I was down in San Diego a couple weeks ago to look at their in display fingerprint reader worked incredibly well and it's integrated welcome its Qualcomm's I also I also took a look at these so the optical one that that's in the Huawei Porsche mate phone that worked pretty well - and and doesn't take away from the need to have like bezel or anything so I'd love to see that it's not gonna happen I know it's not gonna happen but I would love to see the fingerprint reader come back as just a second alternative because the facial ID thing face ID doesn't work as consistently like as I would like that being said how soon do you expect to see it and like an Android phone cuz like they're already in Android phones okay so it is in the hallway what about like a flex huawei sorry Huawei what about what about like a flagship Samsung phone so the the technology that I saw a Qualcomm two weeks ago you should check out the story look the link in the YouTube posts that is most likely going to end up in the the Samsung Galaxy S 10 Samsung has declined to comment Qualcomm won't comment on it but it seems very very likely the CEO the mobile CEO of Samsung has hinted at what's known as ultrasonic technology for a fingerprint reader and that's the technology that Qualcomm was was showing off when I was down San Diego two weeks ago so if we were to see that happen that would be in March yeah which is usually when they release it yeah we're March ok yep all right so lightning round you say February or March what about this September are we gonna see anything to September I mean we'll definitely see something from Apple in terms of iPhone in just a few I think next week we're gonna see if the Galaxy Note 9 so we'll have a lineup a fairly big phones coming out in terms of like fingerprint reader stuff that's that's probably next year but well I'm sure we'll see some innovations from Apple also they probably expecting to see the pixel 3 right that's right sometimes right time in September or October wow that feels like it hasn't been very long since the two came out I know of course none of them have much of a turnover anymore bring back the headphone jack it's not happening Google all right lightning round so you say you like the facial recognition is that or you you struggle with your fake facial recognition is it because it is flawed or is it just difficult to adapt to no it's I think it's sometimes just it doesn't it won't read you correctly whether it's dark or your face is scrunched like I noticed when I'm in bed laying down and it doesn't really read my face for some reason when I'm my face is and scrunched up against my in my chest again if you're looking at your phone in horizontal mode or in a port landscape mode it won't read your face you have to be in landscape or tread mode for it to work you know with touch ID you just as long as you touch that one spot you are good to go so I felt like there were a lot less rejections with touch ID and so if nothing else if they improve face ID so it's a little bit more folks a little bit more accurate and reads a little bit better I'd be pretty happy with that right and this is a first-generation is face-i and the first touch ID was not great like it was not as reliable as it is now it got better over subsequent generations I can only hope the same for face ID but the elephant in the room the essential question we often ask is it better than a face I'm not gonna touch that what can I answer that yeah what what Brian what the hell man what that's what they marketed it as hey I guess no seriously you've seen the damn thing the the the oh shoot now I forgot the maker hang on talk amongst yourselves I gotta look this up hey that's it how are you I'm great I'm busy Oh see around this question have either of you guys used movie pass oh we're switching switching subjects really quickly well no I haven't no I was tempted to get it early on but like it happened when I like they launched when my kid was fairly young we weren't going to movies we weren't doing anything so it just didn't seem like it make sense to me like that deal back then now would be great now them because it'll be older and we can go a little bit more but now the deal is like not so great anymore it's not that attractive I have 15 bucks and like you can't watch the movies you want to watch for the first two weeks I have some co-workers that have it that like sit behind me and then showed you the card like here's yeah yeah yeah check it out I get that I'm a card-carrying movie pass person another way the way they talk about it there they're acting like it's like a going-out-of-business sale where they try to load up on as many movies as they can because they know like this door is closing very very right and then the whole like I know the when they start restricting repeat viewings that was a really big blow because I mean I remember our colleague Restivo was talking about how like he'd be able to watch multiple movies over like he watched one movie that he'd like over and over again and it would just be a thing like because he it was free so he would just go how is it sustainable you're paying $10 a month it's not sustainable that's what happened one movie ticket is more than $10 a month like it's too good to be true and good for them for generating a lot of excitement and interest in the market but like it's not a business model no like I said if else they they pushed AMC to come out with something similar and so much more limited much more limited and I think a little bit more expensive but it's still a decent deal relative to just for folks who really want to watch movies on a you know hire frequent basis like it's so they at least change the industry if if they don't actually survive at least they've left their mark its and I totally appreciate the fact that like movie ticket prices have just been creeping up yep forever you know back in my day movie was a nickel it was actually like a hundred years old the truth is that I with with like a high school student ID I would be able to get like five dollar movies which yeah right you know so now now remember we had dollar theaters actually I think they showed like older movies I'm so old we're talking about this how are we talking we're talking about how much movies cause it sounds like well this was like a Chinese real movie theater and it ran movies that were like three weeks four weeks old I just feel like talking about how much movies cost when you were younger is like my ultimate yeah right right did you figure out what you're looking for yeah I think that's the Oppo find X I don't know why I couldn't remember the name cuz the last one was that fine seven but it's this thing you remember they came up with their own facial recognition and then they decided that they were going to call it Oh face sorry I missed that yeah I thought you were you know that's right those lost in translation things that you know it's a Chinese company it's a phone that's marketed towards the Chinese market you know they they don't have I mean I don't think they're familiar with Oh face well it is like and that's from a movie from back in the day and that phone is not yeah it's not market in the US like you can't buy an oppo phone here so well done man I thought you were making a reference to that to office yeah the office space and I just didn't want to touch that no no no no there was actually like a technological story I think ayahs is working on like top 5 about like worst names in tech I gotta go tell them oh hey well I think I think I as is aware of Oh face mm-hmm okay before we wrap it up for the day from Sur enjoy one more time do you think the switch started a new chapter in mobile gaming now the razor phone and the asus rog phone have come out and games like pub g and all the mobile stuff the free-to-play yeah buy your way up the chain kind of games battle royale games do we think this is kind of a new so what do we now like the Bronze Age for different markets I don't know like pub G and fortnight I've been phenomenally successful on on thumb I still feel like there is that difference between the switch and one true mobile gaming the switch it's two hands it's a full commitment you're you're into a like a long-running game right like like like breath a wild right you're committed mobile gaming is still like it's super casual it's you know the game plays designed to last like a minute it's really built for like short attention spans I feel like there are two different things it's not this doesn't strike me as like a different age of mobile gaming I think this is just there's more of it and it's it's I don't know it's hard for me to explain switches like this anomaly I don't think it's like it doesn't is it foreshadows some new way of gaming i think it's its own thing a successful thing just like the wii was but not not a harbinger of like how will change the way we we play a games remotely I think when it comes to mobile gaming its its its own thing it's a quick snackable experience I I agree with everything you just said but on top of that I would say that I like what asus and was the other company razor razor what they're trying to do where they're trying to create specialized phones they look different I really like how the ROG looks yeah but does anyone actually own those phones see that's the problem but at the same time it's like everybody always complains about their needs to be more selection all these phones look the same they're all kind of blending into each other this was at least in Italy do something different that there needs to be more selection but people don't buy from fill true that's the dilemma for a long time rights like we complained that there's only like one or two options and there aren't enough there's not enough differentiation but we all gravitate towards one or two phones I would typically buy an Apple or Samsung or for some folks like a pixel phone you know and then there's a there's sort of there is selection when it comes to budget phones there's a bunch of budget phones out there but no one really cares about them then the the moment someone steps out and like builds a razor phone that's built for gaming you know people don't buy it yeah so yeah if you're really and I don't yeah like I said I don't think it's the like the razor phone doesn't isn't a sign of things to come or some Golden Age of mobile gaming you know it helps with the mobile game experience but people aren't buying that phone so it doesn't really you know it doesn't hit that anything that's a good point yeah if you're really into gaming maybe you're gonna take that money and put it toward like a second console gaming laptop a gaming laptop or I mean if you're a hardcore in the gaming yeah you're building a PC you're putting the money into the graphics card in the processing you're building out three monitor array you know but as far as gaming is getting gaming continuing to get more and more into the commonplace into the the casual hands you know the Nintendo switch and the mobile gaming market I think we're at least going to see an uptick in the trend of the Battle Royale type games as everybody and their brother is starting to put those out right now from fortnight and it's said well is core to note you know he mentioned you know the Asus phone and the razor phone those are our Android devices you can't play for and I on those phones mmm fortnight is only available in iOS right now and there are some rumors that the Samsung Galaxy Note now I might be the first one to get fortnight but right now it's not an experience on on Android so for those kind of hardcore gamers like folks who want to play for Knight right now they have to use an iPhone or you know PC or Playstation or whatever but they can't use an Android phone hmm all right well I think we are out of time in fact you probably went longer than the rail late but it's okay we're back good conversation we are back and thanks everybody for joining us we're going to wrap it up for the day we'll be back tomorrow you want to take us on out of here yep the 359 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher Feedburner Google Play Music and the Amazon Alexa and of course Tina calm you know calm see y'all tomorrow tomorrow you