Gadgetory

this week's episode of the packet at weekly brought to you by stitcher premium hey listeners if you haven't joined stitcher premium yet now's the perfect time stretcher premium gets you completely add free episodes of hundreds of shows like comedy bang bang WTF with Marc Maron and how did this get made you also get 21,000 hours of exclusive content new exclusive originals like Marvel's Wolverine and ISA Ray's fruit are launching every week for stitcher premium members if you love podcasts you are missing out when you listen to ad free episodes in stitcher premium your favorite podcasters get paid help support your favorite shows and join stitcher premium today for a free month of listening go to stitcher premium calm and use promo code pocket again stitcher premium com promo code pocket and we thank them for supporting the p-n weekly and we are live the LG G 7 thank you is finally a real thing that people can poke with their fingers the ups and downs of launching a phone has LG ironed out their issues here rejoining the flagship phone market also Verizon and Samsung strike a deal on including more value-added software on galaxy handsets xiaomi had a big news week launching their IPO and we hash out the potential consumer pitfalls looking at the Sprint and t-mobile merger we've got a lot to talk about so make sure you are charged and ready for episode three zero three of the pocket now weekly may the fourth be with you recorded a little bit earlier ten thirty five and the Pacific time this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets that make our lives mobile smartphones tablets and wearables it's all the stuff you wished existed when you were a kid and pop culture puns didn't have quite enough power to become full-blown social media holidays I'm one close back now contributing editor at pocketnow.com joined as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong on the East Coast how's it going sir all the power to y'all for celebrating Disney at its best and at its most profitable so I'm very happy for you and I we may be noticing if you're watching the live stream or you might not be noticing if you're listening to the version of the podcast we're joined by a third this week mr. Nick gray how's it going sir it is going excellent I can't complain well yeah you can't because Disney is listening that's that's gonna be I think the theme for everything we had a little conversation off air just before we got started like I don't know if you guys caught this it's just the little pop-culture reference but the the Star Wars congratulating Marvel tweet you know passing the lightsaber from raised hands to iron man's glove just good job Disney on breaking the box office sales that Disney created Disney so good metaphor doesn't have to revolve around the lightsaber and also like your Star Wars baguette infinity Wars like is our best pieces of media do they revolve around Wars like is this something just always oh well well here's $5 go and see a star war alright we should probably jump it we've got we actually do have a really heavy news week this week and and as some some big gadget news again that all of the early indecision of LG at the beginning of the year will they won't they the t's of whether or not they were gonna join the the smartphone flagship market this year we finally have a device from them but sort of an odd time but um we should probably jump in kind of run down through some of our headlines and Jules how should people get in touch with us if they ask to want to join the conversation and if you want to get in touch with us and talk with us well we're broadcasting live at 1:30 on the East Coast fourth of May you can tune in via Twitter with the hashtag can weekly we write in your comments your questions and whatever especially as we talk about some of the new items up for grabs here the LG g7 being one of them and if you can't make it here live if you can't write in it immediately then you can do so on email we check the mailbag every end of the month and the address to send all your queries to is podcast at pocketnow.com gorgeous yes indeed deal alright so we had a number of headlines we we have some hands-on content to take a look at LG g7 thank you more screen more AI Jules what are what are we taking a look at with with this one Oh standard 2018 kind of thing going on with the Android flagships snapdragon 845 four gigs of ram unfortunately that's the only thing that we get here the only sq in the u.s. because six gigs of ram is available below me in certain countries Korea we also have a couple of specific features to this phone so we have the display this is a well first of all the display technology which is the super-bright display basically adds the a white pixel to the RGB W sub pixel structure that's said to get up to a thousand nits which is pretty impressive and we'll talk about more about the display technology debate that's going on here in just a moment there's also a whole bunch of conversation about the notch and chin that has been played out over and over again one thing that has really put the mass of this phone there whatever you consider dead space of this phone to use is the boombox speakers they say that LG says that it has a ten times larger than usual resonance chamber within the device and that provides for a net effect of about six decibels when you're playing out from those front-facing speakers which although is a good thing you're stealing that from HTC boomsound that's very nice it's taut the display also is taller than usual instead of 2 by 1 or 18 by 9 you're now adding 1.5 points to that thing which I don't know it's eventually will have lightsabers in our hands that definitely felt like the arms race against Samsung so if you're high by nine will be nineteen point five by nine we we hate reducing fractions at LG where it should be a two by one this way there are things more complicated it's like 13 by 6 though so I mean if you want it if you want to do that unsexy thing audio - you know we are talking about quad acts that's carried over from the V Series and the 7.1 surround sound so that's pretty special of course you got the standard waterproofing and dust proofing and drop proofing also from the V series of V 30 and just a whole bunch of stuff um I will note that as we've pointed out before dual camera system LG likes to use this via general telephone or like a you know angle camera and then there's the wider angle camera and we've seen that drop in the field of view the g5 had its widest at 135 degrees the g6 went down to 120 but all of the while we saw the resolution increase from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels 13 megapixels on the V and now we're seeing equal parity 60 megapixels on the main camera 60 megapixels and why it's angle sensor but at a field of view of only 107 degrees so pointed to talk about here I want to start off with them just your first assessments here Nick and tell me more of just the your impression so far my impressions I now to caveat this I have not touched the phone I have not used the phone but I am honestly just underwhelmed by it all and a lot of it goes back to just the phone's design in general I mean when you look at LG what they've done over the years they started to move in a different direction and then came a little bit further back last year with the g6 and now I look at the phone and I think it's one of their mid-range devices it doesn't scream hi I'm a high tech flagship device that you should buy me when you compare that to you know a samsung phone or the latest Huawei phone it just doesn't scream you know this is the phone that you need to buy and Juan Carlos I mean well here's the thing in the pocket now we had two people sent out to the events that LG has held one of them are editor-in-chief Anton Dean Hodge was in Korea for the big tour that everyone that LG gave him the whole press corps - and then there was humming Rivera at the New York launch event itself doing an hour hands-on video from there so lots of debt that they could give but just from an external point because I think they've talked themselves out this week what what are your general impressions here well this is this is a tough a tough marketplace for LG I I kind of got the feeling like 2017 marked a more radical change in terms of screen aspect ratios so that felt like we were getting fresher devices even though the overall usage for most manufacturers didn't change substantially from 2016 to 2017 it just we got longer screens now I think every manufacturer is refining what a longer taller smart show smartphone should feel like so I mean - next point I mean I kind of agree but I kind of agree across the board with most manufacturers a Galaxy S 9 feels like a refined Galaxy s8 not like some fresh new aggressive take on what on how we should use our smartphones I think LG McGann battling from this underdog position is facing some of those same challenges how do you make noise how do you engage with the consumer how do you really get the point across that there's something interesting to offer here and I'll be really curious to see how that affects their advertising it more than anything else I think the biggest complaint I still have facing LG products is rarely the product itself it's often how LG leads the discussion on what their phone has to offer so you're gonna pick up this phone and it's gonna look kind of like a Samsung it's gonna look kind of like a Huawei what makes it stand out what sets it apart and I'll be very curious to see if they can get ahead of that messaging rather than letting enthusiasts lead the discussion where they're going to I feel sort of do a disservice to what this phone might contribute you know like well it's kind of like this and it's kind of like that but I really haven't used it because I like my Samsung and then that's gonna be the review even if they contribute some sort of traditional advertising marketing campaign to all this they have very decent features in terms of just bringing on more sound more media into the deals and I'll be cured and they sum that up in in an ad you know like Apple will go out there and make a commercial for the iPhone on one feature something new water resistance comes to the iPhone we get a killer commercial focused on just that and I I'm concerned and I'm doubtful that LG can carry part of that discussion because that's a delineating feature the headphone jack is going to be a delineating feature those things matter to consumers in their daily usage of the phone but are we just gonna see a bunch of feel-good millennial aspirational commercials like do what you do because it's so passionate in your youth culture young and if that's what we see then LG's gonna fail because they can't out Samsung Samsung their Samsung can come up with all this feel-good e advertising because they spend over a billion dollars a year just on advertising alone if LG even scratched that quantity of advertising I don't think we'd be having this kind of conversation of them having difficulties reaching some of their consumers it's already yeah go ahead to that point though it's you know Samsung is so far ahead and Apple is so far ahead and LG their phone isn't that dramatically different from last year's phone as Samsung's phone isn't dramatically different from last year's phone but the level at which they start is dramatically different like the design of the Galaxy s8 was dramatically better than that of the g6 and so if you start on the same not not the same playing field but similar playing fields and saying okay we're going to steps up Sam Samsung's two steps up is you know 15 rungs up but LG's two steps ups is seven oh I don't know that I'd completely agree with that disparity I mean III think no it's it's not that that far of a disparity but when you look at something that has a lot of appeal from a visual standpoint even though you know Samsung's phone didn't look a lot different this year LG's just took you know a slightly different turn and it honestly I think it doesn't look as good as last year's device and for me that's that's a step in the wrong direction they need to make it look better one of the things that I think is kind of curious is when we look at some of their design influence on the last generate the V 30 the V 30 I think beat Apple to the iPhone 10 with a better version of what that design language could look like but we still didn't see LG give that phone the push where it could have been put up in carrier stores it could have been on Best Buy kiosks and it could have been shown off in ads outside of the Olympics we saw some commercials for it with the Olympics where you had a bunch of really young people talking to camera and then the phone would kind of pop up at the end of the commercial those types of things that's also why because to your point one of the things that LG is a brand I think is most sensitive about would be things like QA consistency of manufacturing some of their back-end support when consumers have problems but that's absolutely why I think they should be focused on differentiators right so so given that there is a perception of Samsung being so much further ahead than the rest of the Android Marketplace how do you close that gap you don't close that gap by talking about your phone in a general all-rounder sense you say objectively without debate without you know there there is no question we have the best headphone audio on any device that you can put in your pocket you make an entire commercial just about that and that sets up a certain idea in consumers minds I think that some of the stuff that worked for the g4 you know like that year I would say Samsung probably had the better all-round her phone but the camera experience on the g4 was a step ahead of what everyone else was doing outside a like Windows Phone for the time and and how do you recapture some of that conversation today it's not by you know putting out like limping into the market in May quietly sort of handing this phone over to reviewers because we don't have the the power to expose general consumers to this stuff like we did ten years ago and then being at because this is also the big fear is LG gonna be absent from the conversation for six weeks two months while we wait to see where this phone is actually gonna chef well they announced it we're yeah we're bringing all these tangents out to HTC which has had pretty much the same issues in terms of getting the word out in terms of making sure that people know the features that they have to offer and well carrier situation obviously we're at a point where LG is the fourth biggest manufacturer in the United States terms of smartphones and it's just well I'm not sure that they had the reach but most of that reach is in the prepaid market where they're having like these k's and fees are early a little tiny things and not the main g's and Vees so this are they still already have a very low base in terms of their flagship usership and it's just not they're not working it's not working for them well and I think it comes down to LG really doesn't have a strategy that they're trying to deliver if you look at Samsung there's a clear well you know beaten down path that they are going after people who are willing to spend a lot of money on their devices they're going after Apple they're going after the high end of the market and as you said most of the devices that are sold in the US are these cheaper LG phones so even though they're number four in the US that doesn't mean that people are walking into you know any of the carrier stores and saying I want the newest LG phone it's in what is the cheapest phone I can buy sorry sorry sorry to jump in on that that's actually one of the things that I wanted to get your your opinion on so much of the American market is built on this carrier relationship and do we think that LG can make a name for this product in North America when it's looking like 18 t is is probably just gonna pass on this phone entirely and and follow up with LG depending on what they do with a future V Series phone closer to the end of summer or closer to the end of the year maybe around the iPhone launch how do you think that affects the consumer conversation when you know you don't like one of the most primary resources we have is walking into a carrier store seeing the displays and poking at the phones there I think that's how a lot of people are educated about what their options are and now here's the second largest carrier just walking away well and that's the thing here in the US I would say I don't have the numbers but I would say 90% of smart phones are still purchased through your service provider store or website which is really a sad thing because there are so many other options out there that aren't available through those outlets that it's practically you know like you're shooting yourself in the foot if you want something that's different from anyone else and that's how it is in Europe you just go anywhere you buy your phone very few people actually go into their service providers store to buy their device they go to a general consumer electronic retailer like Best Buy or just a corner shop like everybody's selling smart phones everywhere like every time I'm you guys have been over to Europe it's you know there's the markets completely different and your service provider doesn't dictate what you use and here in the States even though you can buy unlock devices now every device is bought without you know a two-year contract unless you're doing those payment plans even though that's the case everyone's still relying on their service provider and having them dictate to them what they're going to buy so AT&T customers can still buy the LGG g7 they just need to go find it online go to Amazon go to LG's website and buy it they just can't buy it from AT&T and the sad part is that's going to have a big big impact because AT&T what has I mean 9% of the US customers and 29% of US customers aren't gonna have the option well they do have the option they just will not know that they can buy something I think it's gonna be exceedingly rare that 18 t customers are gonna be walking around with this phone when it's not branded and in a carry on a carrier shelf especially what the future strategy is going forward and we've seen leaks today of an ATT branded V 35 thank you that is going to be on the network supposedly in the summer and then there's the question of whether it will carry the v40 as well like this kind of interruption in the the release well in this sense oh sorry Jules I will drop out right there to know the joys of trying to have a conversation on hangouts like this is what I'm really curious for you guys to is the timing on this phone is so awkward what do you guys think this is gonna mean for a launch strategy on a next-gen V cuz we're still overlapping the v35 this phone already feels like a lot of what we would see in a V 40 you know again they're bridging the G in the V Series they're getting closer and closer and closer to each other on every strategy could this just mean like they're gonna go with a bigger screen but and a slightly larger battery and then that's gonna be what the v40 is or do you think that we're gonna see a bigger change more substantial change for their next major phablet entry into this market I mean I've never been a huge fan of the V Series besides for the camera capabilities I don't think that there's much that they can do I mean this phone's coming out so late in the market or so late in the year that you have essentially three to four months before the V device is supposed to drop and that's not enough time to get something that's substantially different or substantially better this I mean looking at the specs the g7 is top-of-the-line device the only thing that's really missing is a real selling point as to why you should buy this over any other phone that has the same specs for me that only selling point is the wide-angle camera I love the wide-angle camera that these phones have and LG has been honestly I think they're the only ones that have the second camera that has the wider wider lens when everyone else is going through that 2x telephoto zoom and I think it offers an experience that you can't get anywhere else and if they can find a way to make that better on the next V series offer something different maybe copy what you know why always doing at a third sensor on there another lens and you know to give the wide-angle the ultra wide and then the telephoto who knows I still think that there's an opportunity to talk about sound I mean we're we're hearing those rumors that the next you know iPhone isn't even gonna have a headphone dongle in the box and yet here's here's LG sporting a really high quality really high quality competitive against some of my favourite portable you know high quality audio player chips it's a huge opportunity that I think they're just throwing away you know so many people walk around with headphones in their ears all day don't you deserve the best if you're listening to audio all day long for your ears don't your ears deserve the luxury under 600 Hertz and also like commercials for them right now while we're doing the podcast this is a pout moment the sake of the thinkyou branding I'm pretty happy that they're taking a Google assistant I'm not sure it was still about this whole hardware key situation where you have to press the button in order to get the thing and it's to like and that's your only option for the button you can't you can't you get way too cranky about this especially with the Bigsby button what what are your thoughts on AI assistants in general like were you not using your assistant because you didn't have a button - click - use your assistant I use Google assistant all the time I just did a video for my own YouTube channel of top 10 tips for the galaxy s 9 and tip number 1 how to disable Bixby the hottest tip most views but very good like especially now that we've been training consumers on smart speakers that the killer app is gonna be voice controls not not a tactile button which is confused with a power button on your fingertips because these things are so well that's also coming to the the super far field mic recognition that they'll put on apparently they're gonna treat it like a smart speaker or something so I mean they're tackling it from both angles but I don't know it's just a 1 be the better one and the other one just shove it to the side I don't know like as far as like a dedicated button for it I am I'm not a fan I mean if a voice assistant is supposed to be a voice assistant you should be activating it with your voice as well I used the pixel 2 as my main device and you know it has its toll the squeeze functionality from the HTC u 11 and I I don't know I'd never use the squeeze functionality ever I used it on the U 11 because I could reprogram it to something else but I do not use it for my Google assistant yeah I spend so much time in a car cradle like reach reaching up to push a button or squeeze the phone when it's already being clamped any appeal to me you gotta raise that power threshold and whatnot a couple more comments from the YouTube chat here Ulysses Ramirez g7 is behind because the marketing from say Samsung or Apple is ten times more prevalent and therefore more known and just a whole bunch of other common it's what most people don't understand is that just making a good device with great features isn't enough you need great marketing skill and above all good after sales service or Samsung and Apple Excel for Roshan sha Shan so keep those comments coming in we'll be continuing to read those throughout the show and by the way I should correct myself your boombox speaker ism is still the mono bottom firing thing I apologize for mentoring that was a front fire it was actually bonfire so we'll take that into mind and maybe that will affect your decisions but it's the latter Oh No we'll move on from that though well more to talk about in the reviews and whatnot let's talk about the news here we're gonna go one by one in sort of a quick-fire fashion I'm just gonna introduce I'm going to set up the story one of you can pass on over to another person and then we'll spike it over the net and then we'll score well I think that's how it works really Top Gun of you Jules I don't Dead or Alive you do not want to see jiggle physics on I'm definitely rocking a dad bod right now yeah there we go let's start off with the LG watch timepiece which is supposedly one of the first LG watch that we'll be featuring where os last year we had a couple of Android wear and then we have the branding change so this apparently will be a model that will fit between the LG watch sport and LG watch style a lot of the same specs but just a better display a little by a little bit better ram and it will have the ability to be a hybrid SmartWatch being that it has mechanical a mechanical watch face so you can keep time and then there's obviously the screen for the smart stuff now supposedly this was supposed to be a release that was set for this week but apparently we we just haven't seen anything about this so in regards to all that neck where do you think where iOS is that at this point I think where OS is desperately lost which makes me really sad I'm a big fan of smartwatches I I've used them for years I still have my pebble I just think Google needs to have a clearer picture as to what the development for this category is and where they want to take it I don't necessarily think we should need a pixel watch to kind of define that but if if everyone else seems lost along the way and doesn't know how to bring something new to the table maybe at this point we should just all give up right this doesn't even feel like a Nexus kind of a project that yeah Juan Carlos has something to say with this news oh no I'm just agreeing wholeheartedly so cranky about where OS and the recent changes that like notifications have gotten worse performance has gotten worse I phone connectivity has gotten worse this is a we've taken so many steps backwards from the pebble that yeah III would be recommending an iOS strategy for people who were really thinking that a SmartWatch would be a good fit for them or I mean I guess a close second would be Tizen get yourself a galaxy phone get yourself a gear SmartWatch and I think it's too fiddly but it's better supported better iterated and better hardware than what you currently get in where OS land at the moment and so just to let you guys know my brother came to me asking for SmartWatch recommendations and he's not a SmartWatch kind of guy and he was saying oh I want notifications I want this I want that I was like no I honestly right now what I would recommend is a hybrid SmartWatch get a whiffing x' you know something like that or any of the fossil smartwatches that just vibrate and count your steps throughout the day yeah exactly it's beautiful it looks like a lot which I love watches and it does the basic things that you need you know no one needs to read a text message I mean if you do that's fine but you know for 99% of the people I think that I read smartwatches oh yeah opposite watch fans where I don't have to charge that every night yeah indeed indeed that's what that's why I used my pebble Joe yep one thing I'm glad this week also from the news is that Nokia sold Withings back to its original co-founder let's play ping pong with health it's so yeah it's it's that's but no no he is trying to consolidate I think it's it's to battle against Qualcomm and one night and it's a weakened state but in you know in terms of that at least they didn't poll a Microsoft and basically just took a whole bunch of people from Espoo and to Lin and then dump them into the unemployment line after not too far though I mean with the market does not respond well to that kind of unsureness insecurity you know what what label what brand the Nokia name still has a ton of respect but then they're dumping this whole division Withings didn't have quite the same visibility so it's not as bad as Microsoft what happened with not still like this is not a good luck for this market you know if a company like Nokia and Withings working together can't inspire some consumer traction on health fitness gadgets something that should be blowing up right now then that's a scary idea I think for the entire market the entire set on your wrist though don't have a blow-up on your wrist because that would be bad let's move on to read the camera company that makes those fancy smancy 4k 8 K 12 K cameras that bet cinematographers use and let's talk about the hydrogen one for a second there first Android smartphone that they have absolutely no idea whatsoever what we are doing in terms of developing that's that's from coming from a Jim Jannard who runs red and he's had to announce a further delay first it was gonna be quarter wanted this year now it's gonna name was summer and now it's gonna be we're pushing lay August we're questioning that that fall barrier here and all this is to well first of all is to incorporate a four view camera function in the base device because we're talking about this modular set up here that is supposed to be able to record holographic images via the four view recording method they had they acquired him some technology from a company called Leia speaking of Star Wars Leia and yeah the like this is that's great but also in showing off Jim Jannard greenness to this industry he also hopes to hit up a few carriers and make sure that there's a simultaneous release now I'm not sure if maybe he's hoping to you know get this all international and maybe just achieve one carrier on each country or maybe he's aiming for multiple carriers in each country like this that process is pretty darn hard so I mean I mean it's it's all great for him I have complete faith that he'll be able to serve his very niche population of very elite cinematographers in this but oh no horn Carlos you have more Hollywood side perspective on this what's your take well this is I think this is a a misstep in over-promising and under-delivering they don't read does not have any relationship or any reputation or any presence in smartphones so that works for them in some regard in that expectations can be managed that way but I ultimately think it's gonna hurt them in the long run because you can't you can't filter out updates to phones the same way that you work on red as a camera system with different modules with different sensors with different rails with different battery packs different things like you can add augment change and develop that over time and red was a disruptor in that space for how little respect was given digital photography when they came out trying to do something like that in smartphones where we're at peak smartphone I mean think of the conversations we've been having about LG and HTC and even to a to a lesser degree Samsung and Apple the smartphone hasn't changed a whole lot over the last couple generations of smartphone we've reached peak smartphone the the act of picking up a glowing rectangle and pushing a square and getting an app is kinda about as good as we can make it with the current metaphor we use for data and services so Reds walking into a mature market here which i think is also going to be another strike against them if they come out with something that's that doesn't profoundly change how we interact with mobile content with smartphone cameras with multimedia that that that's a completely different challenge and I don't believe they've got the team and the resources to really join that challenge to really meet that challenge and Nick I'm gonna put you up for the next story here or with Samsung and Verizon partnering up with this crazy bloatware kind of deal going on so Verizon's o'the subsidiary which runs all of its media properties such as Yahoo Sports and Yahoo News and what go 90 and whatever they basically teamed up so that both assets are now providing contents for Bixby home on the galaxy s 9u obviously s 9 plus and all this content it's gonna be coming in well just stories on the feed and also increased installed apps with Verizon so how much hate can we put on this or excuse me pre-installed on just yeah galaxy s 9 I just want to make clear I don't think there should be that much hate installed on it like if you look at the breadth of the content that's available through oh I know we like to hate on it because it's owned by Verizon but when it was on its own it's a good source of content I mean you you look at all the outlets that are listed under it but then again I don't like Bixby I I can tell you I can show you how to disable Bixby home on your Android there was a video that we could run there's only a video traveler I eye every time that I opened Bixby home is by accident and I don't think that there is a substantial number of people who open Bixby home on purpose to go find content that's available on Bixby home I mean correct me if I'm wrong I have either of you ever opened up Bixby home to find something useful there no the only times I've used Bixby is when I need to show it off in a review and and there are so many good ideas in there especially like creating macros I think some of that stuff is cool but again smartphones do what they do and I haven't been won over that this is a new way for me to use my phone yeah what's a galaxy s 9 I I've never held it actually I have but I don't own one so so but more I do do we have with a company like Verizon leveraging their content their multimedia at what point do we get to say as consumers that we have control over the ridiculously expensive pocket computers that we purchase you know when when even on a every now and then I'll run into an unlocked phone that had facebook pre-installed and I can only disable it I can't uninstall and on an unlocked phone that's unacceptable that is not okay but now we've got these carrier branded experiments where because of or you know the same thing we can also make the same criticism of Samsung and Microsoft where you go in you got a Galaxy Note from a Microsoft Store and it's gonna have a bunch of Microsoft apps and services pre-installed pre-installed on it I mean you do you own your device I mean yes you do own your device you can turn the feature off you can not use it my question is though like is it exclusive content from oath or are they simply one of others who are feeding the news feeds and other things like that for a big spiel the premier content partner premier spelled as in the first so I mean it could be that you know there are more sources for more regional so I'm not thinking that yes you're gonna get content from oaths and a lot of their properties but it's not like they are the only ones and you know it's not like CNN is now you're only News Channel ever so I don't want to defend Verizon and their decisions but I think a lot of people are over playing this as something that's dramatically bad for people everyone pays money to get their content distributed Verizon owns oath they're trying to get their content distributed I mean if PocketNow had the money and could fill up Bixby home with pocket now news I'm sure we would too right we've come I got the marketing budget for that yeah we didn't certainly do right so yeah it's it'd be an interesting query to watch for well we'll keep a watch on that for you let's talk about Qualcomm here and I know this is kind of a we're getting into the weeds somewhat bow make it somewhat more simple or more interesting for you guys so let's talk about licensing rates the company just announced that they now have to patent bundles that they're they'll be selling 200 Am's from now on most OEMs at least so they have the complete package of all the stuff that they have all the IP for 5% of unit revenues or they have the standard essentials patents package which basically covers their breaded month butter 3G 4G connectivity perhaps you know the cellular side of things and that would be only for 3.25% and this was all based off of the settlements they had to make in China back a couple years ago so we're talking about if we're talking they also load the cap to on how much of that license fee applies to eat the price of each phone so they used to meet the first $500 on the phone that's gonna be the first $400 of a fan so what who was basically if you had a flagship phone from like 2017 you'd be paying $25 a piece just to you know get the Qualcomm stuff on it and now maybe if you have a flagship phone but you just want the essentials you'll be paying $13 but remember Qualcomm is not just about modems they're about a whole bunch of things audio codecs for one I would see just a whole bunch of things and with some of those features like AI mirror processing and all that those are those features are being included into more and more flagships as we go along in time so does this is this a really make sense that a move that makes sense excuse me if you were an OEM what would you what would be your strategy neck well I I would love to know what the number was a beforehand I know they've they've kind of simplified it but I think before they were actually charging even more which seems kind of outrageous so it's personally I love the idea of you can patent an idea you can make some money off of it but I mean Qualcomm why should they get paid that much money for every smartphone that's made and why is it off of a percentage of the price like it if it should be a set licensing fee like you have a phone that has a 3G 4G 5g modem and you we get ten bucks for that you know it shouldn't be oh because your phone sells for X amount of dollars we make more money off of it those those percentages like from a business standpoint they make total sense for Qualcomm but from a logic standpoint like why almost from a monopoly standpoint they make sense for Qualcomm yeah yeah well I think that's one of the reasons why I don't know the US government and their stance on Huawei is so strict like Huawei does not use Qualcomm processors in their phones they use their own processors and Qualcomm doesn't get a dime from Huawei everyone else is paying up the y and you know it's and it's it's really feel I it's frustrating because I think Wacom could be making a really disruptive move here knowing the current state of Intel in this space you know we for the desktop side we've been seeing them struggle to break ten meters on their more recent process shift AMD is coming up some heavy hitting gear we've been seeing so many moves towards mobile chipsets starting to make their way into more desktop and laptop sphere products you know Windows 10 on arm is a perfect example of work welcome could really hurt Intel in the mid-range in the entry-level in the mid-range and they're not going to do it with this sort of halfway move you know same same licensing structure same deal same collection of patents and technologies so it's a little bit better we'll see a little bit more traction a few more manufacturers might take risks on a couple different products but I don't think this is gonna significantly move the needle on how companies are currently doing business we'll call what's welcome I think Apple is still looking on how they can get out of any relationship with Qualcomm tech well and I'd like to remind everybody that Qualcomm makes the majority of its money from licensing its patents even though it's chips are the most popular chips and smartphones you can't go anywhere without finding a smartphone that's powered by a Qualcomm chip they make most of their money and probably 85% of their profits from patent licensing but although that number has been depressed with the ongoing lawsuits with Apple true true but just to put it in perspective everyone's talking about their chips all the time their chips all the time but that's not where Qualcomm makes its money at all like they could shut down their chip business and still be a patent licensing business for the next 50 years and fire 95% of their workforce and it would be a very successful company and that's how much money and sway they have over the industry with their patents it's like the 1998 version of Godzilla where there wasn't a name to talk about chips it was all just about fish like that's a lot of fish anyway so let's talk about Apple let's make that full pivot here Apple released its earnings and all in all everyone seems a little surprised lo they've been talking about the iPhone 10 being a disappointment with sale cut in parts orders and shits and whatnot and well Tim Cook says no iPhone 10 was the bestseller week after week in the first quarter and it seems like we have some proof of that Strategy Analytics sees that in within the first quarter this year 16 million units shipped and you combine that with the iPhone 8 iPhone 8 plus and even the iPhone 7 which take up the first four slots of their chart here that's a pretty monstrance total where we have like 40 million just from those models alone and now it's a little surprising to me that they still got an average sales price of seven hundred twenty eight dollars which is only twenty eight dollars more then an iPhone eight base model price so that's a little surprising to me which like that that stuff does just doesn't leave the mind like that like you it really makes me skeptical tip skis be skeptical about what's going on here for me it's always fun to see how analysts get things wrong order after quarter after quarter especially when it comes to Apple I'm just gonna leave it at that I mean there's so many things that they could get right and get wrong but every quarter everyone's always surprised no completely agree it's it's it's hilarious watching people make stock you know significant stock moves on speculation about this company when we can't fault that there are money-making juggernaut and even for some of these phones maybe not performing like some people thought they should have it doesn't mean that this company wasn't still making a ridiculously obscene amount of amounts of money purchase over purchase indeed and one of those people that were that was making money off of every move that Apple made or supposedly made or may have made well as KPI security is apples apples apples analysts maangchi quo who has left the firm to pursue ventures perhaps in China perhaps in other fields so what do you say goodbye good riddance good luck yeah don't care don't care and I don't all right let's move on working really hard to try and have an opinion on this and it's just not happening everyone made a big deal that like all the people like columns are like oh maangchi quo he's such a visionary and he has all these great access points and whatnot and and yeah that's not really good you know a conversation piece is not really the thing here but hey I mean maybe renamed Richie would make a big point about it I don't know let's talk about Xiaomi here we have a couple of big debate topics and apparently topics that Nick gray here our friend has contributed editorials to on pocketnow.com if you have the rundown handy and if not well you can just click on to pocketnow.com podcast section should have the links for you over there let's talk about Jeremy though this week they launched into an IPO they finally put the papers in in Hong Kong supposedly it's gonna be ten billion dollars they're gonna be valued near or at a hundred billion dollars which would be big for them they're expanding into Europe with the new partnership the three network and they have more Android one phones that are being planned out so all this is being in the contacts that they're gonna have a hundred million smartphone shipments this year they say and that they're going to reach the u.s. either late this year or early next so what is the tackle that you're taking here Nick in terms of what you're saying for me it's people don't realize that Xiaomi is just not a smartphone maker I mean originally you could easily compare them to an HTC Oppo and some other manufacturers that just push out smartphones but the companies expanded so much over the last couple years if you go to their website they have close to 900 or more different products that they sell and to be fair they don't manufacture all those products actually show me doesn't manufacture any of their own products but they they partner with smaller Chinese brands and rebrand their products to put Xiaomi on them and then push them out the door but their breadth of devices and categories that they cover is just astounding and Xiaomi moving into Europe and possibly the u.s. actually means we get more than just smartphones we get everything like they make drones they make webcams they make mirrorless cameras they make they make electric scooters electric bikes pretty much anything that has to do with technology and their real goal is to take on the bigger players like Samsung and LG and not just be secluded to the smartphone space and you're also making a good point here that they've partnered with big retailers students not just carriers we're talking about what fortress big chain in Asia and Europe Superdrug Cuidad and ck Hutchison and as well so definitely in terms of getting not just phones but also all those products be it you know air purifiers or whatnot that's pretty important as well well and you're not just gonna you know someone a company announces that they're coming to a specific market and all they really do is flip the switch on the domain name and say hey you can buy things from our website now no they're actually doing a retail push and for some of you who don't know Xiaomi actually has retail stores of their own they opened a store in Barcelona late last year they're working on a store that's gonna be opening up in Paris I believe next month and so they're and a lot of their stores are pseudo Apple stores the the feeling that you get when you walk inside is like you walked into an Apple store but it's it's one of those things where it's a manufacturer that's trying to enter a new market but that manufacturer isn't looking for ridiculously high profit margins like an apple or a Samsung there when they announced the phone last week their CEO went up on stage and promised that they're capping their profits after tax at five percent which is ridiculously crazy when you think that Apple is making 45 percent profit on every single iPhone that it sells Xiaomi is doing the same thing only asking for five percent profit well and of course taxes and and operating expenses of whatnot yeah it's already a hard business to be in but especially now when they file their IPO they have a lot of investors backing into them and they have more of a profit motive to serve like and especially considering that these are Western banks not just charge not Chinese banks at all Western banks that have the capitalist mind of just be able to just go at it and make sure that they make these a certain margin so that's they're walking a difficult tightrope here and we had a couple of its co-founders leave the company just before this IPO was filed so all I'm saying right here is that the road ahead for them is gonna be even more difficult they're gonna have to battle growth and their mission what they are as just a basic brand so it's a it'll be interesting to see well I just wanted to make sure that things were not frozen because I it was there was a front moment there where I was like oh everything is not there silence only thing I have to add to this because I mean we've got a couple there there stories about will we see new Android one phones on the rundown what the global strategies are looking like they want to ship a hundred million smartphones in 2018 but to Nick's overall point again I really want to stress to people the waning power of the smartphone over a lot of these manufacturers zsa me is looking at being a full-on lifestyle gadget consumer electronics brand it's not hinged completely on these smartphone sales and when we criticize a company like LG for example it's they have an entire portfolio of products outside the realm of the smartphone and I feel like for a lot of these manufacturers the smartphone is becoming a less less desirable companion device for some of these other these other these other moneymakers appliances kitchen tax stuff like from superstar fresh here on the YouTube chat Shammi makes one awesome Android skin I'll give them then they're also expanding into our services as well they've been that's where they've been running ads and making most of their money too so that's one of the things people though though how the company got started was their Android skin the me UI was how they got started they started with software I think it was two and a half three years before they released their first phone and people were on XDA developers flashing me you eye-to-eye I flashed it to my g2 you know way back in the day and I mean they they're really good at software yes it's not pure stock Android but they had a lot of ideas that are now part of the you know the base version of Android that they implemented two to three years before you all did so keep that in mind and also they are making noise there are the rumors about them joining forces on Android one so not only are they are they really savvy at creating their own software I think they're recognizing the potential of well there are going to be a certain class of consumers who are gonna want this notion of purity they're working the world outside of China that wants that I think breathing this is such a great show most looking forward to before we completely lose connection and I think Nicky you'll probably need to be getting need to be going soon we should probably talk out Sprint and t-mobile probably one of the most well joined an aggressive conversations I think I've ever been included on on Twitter was this debate over competition in a marketplace mergers and acquisitions resulting in job loss a lot of people had very passionate and you know very lengthy replies to be joined which of course Twitter is the best platform to once conversations but um at least now your tweets can be a little bit longer well it well then also it was it was it was crazy trying to follow the threat of this debate between five or six larger you know like high name I made Iveta and mr. mobile all having this conversation together but then you would see people replying with those stacked tweets you know you can make a chain of tweets now and like then someone would reply to like tweet three of this chain and I think this is impossible I I can't even I can't even follow but I just want to get like the bots Nick uh you know t-mobile and Sprint third and fourth-place carriers respectively joining forces becoming you know a three tier media landscape for most American consumers in the smartphone space what are your thoughts what are your feelings on this the the pros and cons of these two joining forces as a business major and having worked in the corporate world for years I would say that you know losing a competitor is one of the worst things for the marketplace it's you know consumers should be worried prices will go up but then you look at what t-mobile has done over the last three to four years and forced the other carriers to submit to their demands by offering unlimited data at bundling other services with you know the basic plans cutting out you know cutting down prices including taxes and what you're actually paying rather than saying you're paying $40 plus taxes you know $40 is you know exactly what you're gonna be paying this whoa from Deutsche Telekom this was coming from one person they this is coming from John ledger I mean he he wanted to disrupt the industry like no one did and honestly I think if this merger goes through he will be emboldened to take it further I mean I I'm a t-mobile customer I've been a key Mobile customer since I don't know at least a decade and I've I've always liked rooting for the little guy you know t-mobile wasn't you know the best service that you could get they didn't have the best phones ever but they always offered something unique and I don't think that's gonna change if t-mobile and Sprint merge I think the company's gonna be emboldened and they'll still be the smallest of the three carriers there'll be a couple million behind AT&T and you know maybe eight or nine million behind Verizon but if at that point you just got you know you moved up the scale and eliminated your smaller competitor essentially I think if you're that close to the top I would say they're gonna push to be number one and that's gonna mean more disruption in the industry in terms of YouTube chat here due to bang brasov itch nice name they're talking about their network technologies CDMA and GSM combining amazing also is in Google five based on both sweet and t-mobile networks well Google Phi correct you they're both uses both as well as us earlier and they have a whole bunch of other partners but more than that it's CDMA and GSM t-mobile had to go through that transition to back in 2012 when they acquired mutual MetroPCS they had CDMA they have to shut it down and determine imagine sprint towers will will soon be cannibalized for 5g and team oh yeah totally and they'll be equipping some of the old it will be mostly t-mobile but they'll be equipping some of the old Sprint towers with proper radios as well 14 from use it properly yes I like that operate for proper radios that sprint cheap radios hmm so but there's there's definitely a good shift in the pure LTE is coming soon so that's a something that we can all look forward to what are the concerns that people have been continually bringing up is that with this lack of competition or less competition there is less of an incentive to price low Sprint t-mobile have been the cut rates competitors here but in the end they've been trying to target 18 Verizon customers who have been paying high prices I don't see too much of an incentive to raise prices at this point and at least for the short term there is come some concern about prepaid because between their brands MetroPCS boost mobile version mobile they own 54% of the market and that would be something of concern if the Department of Justice looks at this and says okay should we treat postpaid and prepaid as separate things and if so what are you going to do about this prepaid situation right now because from what we've heard from the company they're they want to keep a postpaid and prepay it all together so this is gonna be interesting and if they raise prices on prepaid where you know the majority of households make less than $75,000 a year where do they go and where do MVNOs go because a lot of those people a lot of those carriers buy wholesale access from Sprint or t-mobile because they are the most affordable offers of that there's the the the ripple effects here are quite wide like Nick your perspective on this I think would be appreciated too because when we're talking about the big three I completely agree with your assessment that will probably see t-mobile aggressively trying to take down 18 t being the number one I think would be a huge coup for them but how far should we be taking our concerns on MVA knows the prepaid market you know in an outlet like freedompop where two million of their subscribers are making less than $40,000 a year something where we've kind of democratized cell phone usage through leasing air on these major networks but for smaller players to be able to compete via price um you know I've I've used MVA knows over the years and you know you always get almost the exact service you would get from the regular service providers you know you have slightly slower data but you get the better prices and that's always the the appeal of going with an MVNO rather than you know an AT&T t-mobile or Sprint or Verizon but I don't think that Envia knows will be going away anytime soon or the pricing for MVA knows is gonna go up the the the benefit that you know t-mobile Sprint and anyone else has from leasing their spectrum out to these MVA knows is that they're getting customers they're getting paid and they're not doing any work it's essentially free money by having somebody live in your basement that for in basement that you don't work you know your your perspective like I don't think they would want to do anything to disrupt that model but what I'm concerned about is the regulatory perspective you know someone who's looking from the outside of this business deal and sees these two companies occupy over half of this this prepaid market is that something that should give investors pause over really trying to push this merger through like should we be concerned that this could be the hang-up which might slow down Sprint t-mobile joining forces I don't I mean I from a regulatory perspective I don't think that's gonna be a big issue at all I mean the only reason why the NBA knows are going on Sprint and t-mobile networks is because they're offering the better rates it's not that they have a competitive advantage over Verizon or AT&T I mean they might from an infrastructure back end because they've worked with MVA knows so much over the last couple years that they have a better setup for it but the only reason for that is that they've been more competitive so if anything if Verizon and AT&T want to get more into that game we might see more competition and even you know a broadening of that MVNO marketplace because of that because now it puts you know as you said that big chunk of that MVNO clientele straight on the new t-mobile and Verizon and AT&T just don't have anything to compete with that indeed so a couple work on from a peon weekly hashtag here and they're both room David but teesta de Silva here Xiaomi is already in Europe they have brand stores even which we've made the point of but again they're kind of expanding a little slower than what a retail partnership would do so just because the UK and Germany were rid of them doesn't mean they weren't around Europe is a continent with a ton of countries you know and then with there's more pertinent comment to a Sprint t-mobile the sooner Verizon is left as the only CDMA network the better for Americans they'll then eventually have to upgrade to GSM like the rest of the world that's quite the that's quite the comment you're making about upgrades here in Korea at over the Korea DMA as Oh Adams will be less and less likely be willing to waste money putting CDMA on phones or he's even chipset manufacturers putting a CDMA on phones but again LTE pure LT come on come on people and especially with 5g which is gonna look backwards compatible with Jools flipping out about CDMA wireless technology probably 2005 why are we talking about new technology called widen max bye max yeah it's taking the world by storm it's the way of the future I for G it's all about my epic we should we should probably put a pin in it Nick where can can people follow your exploits you're doing some crazy lifestyle technology experimentation and where can people find more information on your your exploits um a little bit everywhere as well on said I am doing something weird and strange I'm living full-time and a 30-foot travel trailer traveling the country at the same time trying to grow my youtube channel high-tech traveler if you want to check that out but best way to follow me is typically on Twitter or to get a hold of me at nick m gray but I've also been doing some editorial content here at PocketNow so I typically have two articles coming up every week if you haven't seen them click over on the editorial tab up top and let me know what you think leave me a comment argue with me come at me bro well thank you for joining us on the show and we definitely have to have you back on soon and one of the things I definitely want to talk to you about especially in pocket now's mission are some of the some of the successes and some of the failures of you hittin the road and utilizing and using some of this gear we we talked about it so hypothetically that I think it would be nice to shine a light on man this is what it really looks like when we rely on this stuff above and beyond so we definitely have to have you back on soon definitely looking forward to it definitely so folks there you have it another episode of the pocket now weekly has come and gone the show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter once again Nick is at Nick M gray Jules is at point jewels and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web all over the socials the youtubes and our home site pocketnow.com if you're speaking in Spanish you need to check out es pocketnow.com shows like this cannot 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