Gadgetory

you know I'd be better if I didn't miss the new episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians last night I happened with that Kourtney you know she's uh she's pregnant and she's she's a little bit on edge and you know Scott's opening as a restaurant you know I just this is so fun to see all that come together but I guess I'll have to catch it on DVR or I think we should give out your personal email address and the people should just start sending you emails and start sending you spoilers about the next step so they're keeping up with the kardashians yeah I think that's a good recurring idea fine I just thought open them we uh this is an entirely new endeavor for us at at pocket now the podcast five years in the making we're all a little older you know um I think we probably just need a little bit more horsepower on this intro Michael would you would you be so kind would you lend an assist here it would be my pleasure one excellent a podcast five years in the making a few more wrinkles a little more girth around the midsection the stories continue this week we'll be discussing LG's week sales Apple's 3d face and Samsung's slow AI progress plus we'll take a trip down memory lane with a group of people that have worked on this show since its inception make sure your phaser banks are charged and ready for episode two six zero over the PocketNow weekly record a July 6 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern 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 you had dreams of writing for a tech review website ah you brought a tear to my eye thanks for the assist there I'll jump in and I'll take it from here I'm Juan Carlos bag now senior editor pocketnow.com blasting the signal from sunny Southern California and I'm truly honored and really excited to have a killer roster of all-star techies to chat with this week PocketNow editor-in-chief Anton's an edge former editor-in-chief Brandon miniman and mr. Mobil myself Michael Fisher all while plucky podcast producer Jules Wong frantically floods up the holes to keep this sinking ship afloat now Before we jump into tech tomfoolery we do want to take a moment to thank this week's sponsor hello fresh hello fresh is a farm to box and couch to kitchen meal delivery service which aims to make cooking more fun so you can focus on the whole experience not just the finished plate you're going to share with your friends on Instagram each week hellofresh delivers delicious new recipes with step-by-step cooking instructions broken down into six six easy-to-follow steps each meal designed to take around 30 minutes to prepare even for kitchen novices sourcing the freshest ingredients measured to the exact quantities needed this helps reduce food waste and and I actually have to throw a personal shout out because the packaging is phenomenal it's not just one big bucket of food each meal is sort of partitioned into its own individual container and it really does take a lot of the stress off of your meal prep less than $10 per serving you can select between the classic planned vegetarian options and a family box if you have more mouths to feed this week on the menu is a chicken parm salad a Juicy Lucy burger with molten cheese core and a zesty crusted catfish served over cilantro jasmine rice and I'm eagerly awaiting my own break here when we're done with this podcast so I can eat lunch hello fresh employees to full-time dietitians to ensure each meal is nutritionally balanced and now offering a summer fare for the seasons all with produce sourced as close to you as they possibly can they've just introduced breakfast options to get you started right for the most important meal of the day delicious ingredients you'll love to eat simple recipes you'll love to cook hellofresh has a special offer for PocketNow weekly listeners get $30 off your first week of deliveries when you use the promo code pocket now 30 again $30 off your first week when you sign up at hellofresh comm with the promo code pocket now 30 and we thank them for supporting the pocket now weekly now these moment occasions this podcast that we're putting together this week these these announcements tend to happen in cycles I'm going back and listening to the very first episode of this podcast and you guys had a very special announcement to make on Episode one of the pocket high weekly and we have another similar announcement to make on the fifth year anniversary of the pocket now weekly Tony would you like to jump in and let our viewers know what's going on with pocket now developments my pleasure but first of all I have to say if these sponsorships these as wouldn't pay some bills they're don't they're awesome we have not invented the time machine even though I wish we would have and I'm not really sure if I would have would have gone back in time or or in the future but this is a format in which I really feel at home I have no speech I'm just rambling because this is the format where I'm joined by not only colleagues ex colleagues but also friends and we've been doing this for quite a long time and regardless if we are pocket now or mr. mobile or no longer in the business or or new colleagues what binds us is the friendship even though we're meeting probably once or twice per year in strange locations for like five or ten minutes I really feel that I'm I'm at home here and before I go any more sentimental on this we have a huge announcement we've been working like crazy for I cannot tell you how long because I lost track of time on trying to come with a solution to the audience out there which is speaking Spanish and Spanish is a language which is spoken by 27 countries more than 500 million people speak Spanish and if you are one of those people who speak Spanish and you want the latest news reviews editorial everything you've been accustomed to from PocketNow but in your language in espanol now we have PocketNow Spanish for you you can find it at es dot pocketnow.com no ahead we got content already and we're working on getting social media up to speed and everything so if you in Spanish that's where you have to go we're just posed to say that in Spanish because the people that speak Spanish don't know what you just said I wish I wish I could but my other colleague who speaks Spanish is probably jail bull ashamed of the polishing up the last the last minute changes so back to you Juan thank you very much for this you know we're gonna have Jaime on next week on the pocket out weekly to explain that better Brandon because unfortunately the guy with the most Spanish name in this podcast can barely order the burger and fries so yes definitely check that out yes dot pocketnow.com for all of the latest tech news and reviews in espanol and so without like I said I can usually get through about two or three words at a time um without further ado let's let's jump into some news so we can get everyone talking on this thing I didn't know if we would have a new stab or not we haven't been on a live hangout for a while and I'm hoping that I can even make it through the show because I have three different pieces of audio Hardware just getting me audible on this without turning into robot voice but I want to kick things off one of the biggest controversies of the of this last week the oneplus 5 has had a number of sort of critical commentary regarding various aspects of the phone different reviewers have been finding different things to pick out but I think the biggie this week has been the jelly scrolling uh because and we don't know exactly why this has been taking place where as you're flicking through a vertical column it seems text and pieces will start to compress and look a little wobbly let me let me start off with Brandon I because you've been in this game for a while these types of issues seem to echo chamber and resonate in tech communities but it's been my experience that over these last couple years the influence for this kind of tech chatter doesn't seem to impact the consumer impression of these gadgets nearly as as aggressively as it used to yeah I think you're exactly right I mean the the 1+5 is such a good phone and even II in the rare cases where you have that jello effect it's it's kind of tough to pick up unless you're really looking at it the story behind the display cable is funny though you guys know that the the display cable for the displays in the upper right corner and that's where all the kind of camera hang up the camera sensors live if you kind of turn over the phone that's where they are in the upper left corner of the phone and so they couldn't put the display cable up there anymore because they had the dual camera sensors so they just they flipped it upside down and in the kernel they have the display inverted with software which in most cases is perfectly fine and it really doesn't take that much processing for the phone to do and and thus there's no impact but in some cases it causes this jello effect but from the people that I've talked to that have this phone none of them have the effect what about you guys no I didn't tell him I review device I didn't know what people are so I can I can simulate it i I can if and again it seems to be most it's not as pervasive UI it seems to be certain apps time or scroll depending on some piece of code which is affected by this potentially effect I mean this is all still speculation right we don't know exactly what might be causing this on certain review units but we're pointing more towards the one change that is affecting the one plus five being this screen inversion where we had to fit this cable link we had to flip the the display upside down um Michael when we look at the perception of a brand like the perception of a company like oneplus they're trying to sell this you know we're this tiny little upstart we're fighting the big players is this a bigger deal than say benchmark rigging you know in our communities with our fan base we're always looking for something to criticize we're always looking for something to attack it seems and it seems like oneplus has kind of a couple points where our our respective audiences are sort of you know pulling out the pitchforks in the torches yeah and the oneplus audience is certainly you know the target consumer for a oneplus device is certainly going to be or fastidious about trying to figure out whether there is anything wrong with the device at all I don't know the benchmark rating is a totally separate thing I think that that's you know that's that's old for other ball of wax but whether it's that or the the jelly scroll effect which by the way their response to it I think is all kinds of wrong which is that it's intended behavior or something like that I think people if they want a one plus five we're gonna buy one and take their chances and see you know if it has the problem that it has the problem maybe I'll get sorted out because it's it's still a pretty good value but I don't know you know it's like I didn't have the problem because I haven't encountered the problem firsthand it's not something that I'm that that is on my mind all the time we have to remember that Samsung came back from phones that literally ikonn fire right and we're like they're not doing terribly worse for wear this but despite missing partial part of a cycle for it so I'm not concerned about one plusses reputation in the long run especially considering what is it it's four years that they've been around and it messaging has not despite all of us talking about it all the time it's not yet been widely accepted that this whole like we're a feisty upstart and we're gonna make some mistakes is really not at all accurate because they anytime that they're in trouble they can just go across the street to to their corporate parent and get a bag of money and keep on going you know their main well and and Tony I mean like you know to Michael's point me they don't even have to go across the street I mean their offices are in the same building I think I am the least qualified in talking about the 1 + 5 because touch the foam yet but I think I can talk to what I feel if I take a step back and how I perceive the market nowadays I see a shift in paradigm I don't see companies pushing the envelope like they did a couple of years back I think now the entire business is about cutting corners is about trying to keep the price as low as possible opposed to if you're trying to push the envelope your price goes so high that probably people won't afford to buy your phone so in walking that very line between keeping the costs down keeping the phone thing keeping the specs as high as possible it is I think acceptable to make some air quotes mistakes or design decisions which in the end help your product and if that particular flaw is not a deal-breaker I think that we are just picking on a company or on a product just because we have to do it as media in order for our audiences to be as well informed as possible well yeah okay i branded please yeah I was gonna say I think that the biggest perception issue with the 1+5 is this expectation they they created around the camera I mean when you take the box out it says on both sides dual camera clear photos and my in my experience one plus five camera is like the most hidden miss camera I've ever used like literally fifty percent of the shots I try to take come out terribly and so you know when you when you kind of play up the bonus but they're the camera aspect of a phone and then that does not deliver I think that does more damage than a scrolling issue that most people aren't even seeing well and especially because I thought that was also gonna be something really important to talk about was this perception of the company they're making I think in obvious homage to another smartphone manufacturer and some of the options that they're about is very well aware of my recent comparisons between some other manufacturer uh but yeah no I agree I think this is this is what's this is what's gonna be curious to me because I think people who have been following this major company look at a brand like oboe which I think tried to compete by pushing the envelope and really trying to deliver some techie enthusiastic enthusiasts fun features and then made a significant pivot towards a more mass-market approach and I wonder if maybe this might be a transition point for one plus I I don't know can can a brand like this survive only courting enthusiasts and trying to win a price war that can't really be won is it is it time for them to kind of pack that in and start looking at other ways that they can kind of keep margins higher and appeal to a more of a more broad consumer base well making the price increasingly higher so yeah well that's that's I mean that's the problem right if you keep playing it like the tiniest of margins then your company can't really make money off the same group of consumers and I think in that way one plus was quite smart to come in to the game with a $2.99 smartphone when most of its contemporaries were selling for like twice the price because they had a lot of room above that price here to expand upward and yeah every year it's been sort of mentioned that yeah the new oneplus is great but it's more expensive so but it's still a great deal they still have another generation where they can do that again and before you know I was just recently finishing up my review of the Moto Z to play and it's unlocked it's gonna be $4.99 and at that price point it's like well um you know this is debatable but either one plus five is very much in the conversation at that price point so you know they're playing the game right and I still I think they have another years worth of room to play there that is very true well and also I just think the increased competition around that sub $500 price has just gotten so brutal that carry the same novelty but I want to switch gears here I'm talking moving from a company which is sort of you know flattering Apple design to a company that is Apple one of the worst transitions I've ever pulled off in the other podcast I so we've been getting various reports again a little bit of the controversy of what might be surrounding this this company this year you know we we might be looking at Apple dropping the the fingerprint sensor on this next generation of iPhone it looks like Apple is running into some of the same issues that phase that Samsung faced with the Galaxy s8 and they are maybe going to opt for and only face unlock I'm gonna start off with you Tony and looking at security and looking at how we produce consumer friendly products will this be too significant of a change you know we're not only getting rid of the home button but then also this fingerprint security that Apple helped popularize that really made people comfortable about using their phone for things other than just email if if I would have to predict again as objectively as possible I would say that that will or might not happen in the near future because Apple has been pushing the fingerprint scanner touch baby so hard since three or four years when it was first introduced you've got fingerprint scanner for security reasons on your phone you've got it implemented with iOS 11 and its beta it's got it's been interconnected with the App Store with Apple pay with your Mac's with your with your Apple watch so I don't think that they will get rid of it the button maybe maybe they can find a solution in trying to keep the touch ID somewhere on the back or behind the screen but I think that the face scanner or whatever its name will be will come to compliment touch ID which has been proven to work very well for Apple it's fast it's reliable and a lot of people are invested in it yeah like so many other things about Apple it wasn't the first to use this kind of tech but they kind of set a standard for it Brandon can can they can they succeed with so many changes you know we this is probably the the most aggressive refresh of the iPhone line we've ever seen on the iPhone has been very consistently evolving since the original and now it looks like they've saved up a number of tech changes all for one phone we're always a little wary of a first gen product does this feel like Apple is is gonna bite off more than they can chew I feel like they've been working on this for so long and I feel like so many people have been waiting for this for so long I mean I'm thinking about my mother and my father and like my aunt and uncle and my brother is my sister they're all waiting for a big iPhone upgrade they want something that gives them that same feeling the years ago when they took out the 5s or their the five for the first time was a four for the first enticement Cohen's that actually looked different um so there's a lot of pent-up demand for something dramatic and I think it'll be very successful and Tony you were talking about how you know Apple has invested so much in the fingerprint sensor and I agree and if you think about the authentic authentication methods what's the right word for that where you you got it no I was gonna say authentication thank you guys are like dictionary if you look at all the authentication methods face unlock iris scanning fingerprint scanning toe scanning whatever else there is the most convenient by far is fingerprint scanning because you don't have to look at your phone you could be in any circumstance you could be in your pocket while you do it you could be paying for something face unlock if it's an it's the only authentication method is so inconvenient I can't imagine I'm Apple putting all their weight behind something imagine checking out it at a store and you have to sit there and go like that even if it's really fast its it's not like a fingerprint so um I can't see them leaving a fingerprint before we head back to Michael or we had to Michael just one note on what you said I have the complete opposite experience with my friends and family and everybody who's using an iPhone for the life in them they wouldn't want the iPhone to change because they're so used to it nobody would ever consider using an Android even though I've got examples from my personal inner circle the Galaxy s8 looks a lot better than the iPhone but they just wouldn't switch because they're so used to those icons being there they're so used to those buttons being there they're so used to that phone doing what they know how to make that phone to do that they just are I don't know hesitancy you accept the change if that makes sense well and actually that's the question I wanted to throw to Michael is we have an established understanding of how an iPhone works I mean even for adding things like force pressing into the screen if you were to take someone with an original iPhone and give them an iPhone 7 plus there wouldn't be much relearning for them to navigate that phone with with these potential changes coming down for the iPhone 8 will Apple be able to move the needle on some of these new technologies I think yes but I think only if they're able to introduce it in a supplementary way I agree with Tony and Brandon both there's it seems highly improbable to me that Apple would ditch the fingerprint scanner entirely because of what Tony is talking about like people are used to this paradigm and what Brandon's talking about it's a much more convenient way to unlock your phone than face unlock even when face unlock works very swiftly as it has on the s8 and in most conditions yeah I mean so I think that 3d touch is a good example one because I don't think a lot of people use it still to this day but Apple continues to hone it and right I'm you know there's we're gonna probably see some some more developments there I think it has to be able why is it doing that just too long so that's been my biggest problem is is when you look at a tech like 3d touch there's a problem of conveyance yeah right there's very little to alert the user that there is an additional function on this icon if they force press it versus just sort of a standard long press but when a major marketing point on something like 3d face unlock is put through the juggernaut of Apple marketing I feel like there's the potential here for them to do better with this than what Samsung was able to do to raise awareness on something like iris scanning yeah I think that's certainly true but I still think though that there's you know what did you say before I mean I'd the apples apples main aim main strategy is to take an existing technology and implement it better right and I just I think it's a it would be uncharacteristically bold and rather risky of Apple to discontinue the fingerprint scanner on a device with this new authentication technology I don't I would be very surprised no I I agree there I I worry that with so many different changes the change in the display the change in not having sort of that circle home button location down at the bottom that they do stand to alienate a few customers like I look at grandmother in her iPad and she understands how everything and ecosystem works based on this home button so I definitely share some concerns now a company that has been very conservative in tech updates switching gears to a company that's very aggressive in tech updates we have some noise you know some some some rumors or some discussion that Samsung might also be trying to join the AI speaker game positioning bixby for a different kind of usage or audience but at the same time that development on bixby communicating with Westerners who speak English that that voice translation is taking its time Michael you're already rubbing your temples I feel like you have something to say like I I remember sitting there and when when Samsung was talking about the essay that Bixby at the s8 announcement and there literally said it's gonna replace everything that you need to touch your phone for you'll be able to use your voice for and I remember sitting there being like this is a massive over-promised and they cannot help but under deliver on this but the degree to which Samsung has under delivered with victory in the West is rather staggering and I think if the s8 were not such a great phone in every other respect almost yeah they begin a lot more heat for it because they'd certainly deserve it and now they're gonna they're gonna expand the product line with more hardware that running software that cannot help but be it will fit ill-suited to to the purpose because it doesn't have a lot of data because it doesn't work that well because it's not in many markets because a lot of people are not using generative nonsense no no I wish this would never I wish this wouldn't come out well and Brandon it's been my hypothesis that I don't feel like any companies really noise nailed the Star Trek style voice Butler assistant or anything like that so I feel there's still room for a player to come in and really shake things up but I kind of feel like Samsung on a number of their first-party in-house solutions that they're more often likely to reinvent the wheel as opposed to really push the boundaries on what this tech can do yeah I mean they have to go they have to follow everyone that's before them because like Michael said they don't have access to the data I am so excited about you know it's so funny because if you were to go back in time yeah the 90s and you would say like what's the new tech thing coming no one could predict the internet would take over like it did and then if you went to like the year 2000 no one could predict that the phone would would be as pervasive as it is and then if you went to like 2010 mean no one could predict this idea of ambient computing and how like you don't need to stare at a screen all the time to perform so many computing tasks and so I've got an Amazon echo in almost every room and and and you know I'm really that echo thing like I I kind of wish I could get a Google insistent but I just couldn't justify it my wife would yell at me and then to have a home pod plus a Bigsby speaker plus Microsoft still hasn't come out with their thing yet I mean you know they're coming out with a tremendous competitor to all worse is their competitor the Xbox like is that they're their living room assault on on this type of product you know we have basically you know it's hilarious so we have a PlayStation 4 because my wife did not want to connect listening to everything in the living room and we're surrounded by always-on microphones right that's just sort of like from our phones tablets everything like that actually let me let me shift that over to Tony who do you think could potentially shake up this market right now it seems like the current fight is between Alexa and Google assistant you know my feelings like I would love to see IBM deliver a consumer facing solution for Watson you know I guess a company that could really push the boundaries on what we can do with voice control but it seems really unlikely that they're interested in that part of the market why my friend you've managed to find the only person in the room who has never used any of these because they're not available in my region though on a theoretical note Google home is not available here Amazon Alexa is not available here nothing is available here I'm not even the the Apple whatever home pod will not be available here I do have a Western first world problem that we're complaining about bixby not being translated no but I think at the theoretical level there's no way for a company to win under the current circumstances because all of these products basically do everything that the other product is doing so if I were to pick a winner I would say that the winner company will be the company who will make things either differently or will make new things and I don't know what that new thing - because you can order a cab order a pizza go to the movies shop online you can basically talk to a personal home assistant like you would be talking to a normal person so I think that since they all do the same it will come down to the cost and who does it a little bit better because I don't see these products doing anything new or anything that they don't already do well and I feel like there are so many of these baby steps I think smartwatches were a perfect example of a tech that wasn't going to ever be super long-lived kind of like Bluetooth headsets back in the day you know everyone had a bluetooth now very few people I mean you see more cabled headphones in my neck of the woods which is really disconcerting when you see people driving with their headphones but we keep getting these little glimpses Tony holds up his Plantronics yeah I had one of those too and I forget what they were not like the Flamingo or something like that sorry just lost my train of thought uh but we keep getting these little glimpses you know Google totally flopping with Google glass rumors of Apple pushing back some kind of heads up display till potentially 2019 if it's ever delivered and yet we kind of keep all then circling on something that shows some minor consumer success in the short term and then that tech burns itself out smartwatches make a little bit of a blip the Apple watch comes out sales spiked and now they're kind of done do do we think that that's maybe where the opportunity lies the the company that's willing to take a bigger risk on being first potentially losing the market to other companies that follow but then we actually do get something truly new or are we kind of done is this we're not going to stay for a while it's not enough for it to be new it also has to be useful because you can come up with a lot of features like Bixby on the Galaxy s8 if it doesn't work it's not useful for me I'm not going to use it even if it would be available so let's say if Amazon Google or Apple or Microsoft or you name it we'll probably come up with something who would I don't know rub your feet if it's not useful for me it'll not be a winning product yeah Brandon oh sorry Brooke real quick I want to throw this one done Brandon because I kind of cut him off before he was finishing up his point there but Brandon do you think that this is maybe evidence that were quickly approaching the post smartphone world like we now currently live in the post desktop and laptop world where we're trying to find these other market segments that expand on data and services beyond just the glowing rectangle that fits in our pocket okay can I make a little bit of a prediction of where this is all going yes please and I'm gonna put money on it hold on okay I gotta call my bookie so this might not come out right but but okay so and this probably only makes sense if you actually use these products in your life these ambient computing devices so the first stage of these ambient computing devices is to say it's the audio response you ask it a question it answers or you ask it to do something digital right so we can play a song or it can unlock your front door if you have to connect it or turn on your lights or whatever the next step of that is what we're seeing now with the echo show where it can actually show you things so you could say like you know show me the front door camera or like show me all the different variations of the color red or whatever like that what comes after that I this is a this is a question that I think I have the answer to but and Tony you kind of hinted at it what what is like the ultimate manifestation of ambient computing after it can say things to you and show you things then it can do things for you do things for you and that and that will manifest itself in a robotic form and I really believe that the way that this is going is that imagine Amazon in the future open sourcing their Alexa platforms so that you could create a robot that would interface with all of their ability to understand language and to show you things so developers could make a robot that could make your bed or create as you said Tony rub your feet or could do the dishes it's not that hard to have a robot do the dishes in fact you know you guys might remember hearing yes exactly and and like if you have the physical manifestation of Alexa and it can hear you and it can move its limbs and it can act like a human being then it can do things for you and I think in not too far into the future it might start with very limited use case robots but in the future we'll have these programmable rep robots where developers can add skills to it like real skills to make your bed or take out your trash or do whatever you want you guys ever watch to show humans on AMC yes I knew you would have a good media reference you wouldn't let me down there so is this is this kind of where we're arriving Michael is the this the confluence of expanding on services and data better interoperability I think what's kind of funny is watching Google come full circle around to where the original iPhone was with web apps now we have these sort of persistent web plugins that developers can kind of put into web browsers for us instead of downloading the full app is the next step literally taking these things out of our hands as you know walking meat bags and handing them over to robots and Butler's and androids are basically I want to know in my lifetime will I have a command their data that can do all my chores for me well if you do I certainly hope you don't go the Bruce Maddox rude and try to try to strip them in his voice you know I think it's important to understand that he won't be yours no I it's quite an interesting picture of our eminent robot future I hadn't thought I really hadn't thought about that and I but I can't see any other way that it was that it would develop and that immensely exciting to me I just hope I get to see you to my life and we'll have to create a whole other podcast to talk about the ethical concerns of having artificially intelligent potentially self-aware systems that are basically are still practicing law I want to switch gears to something that I actually find to be this was this was actually sort of a disappointing news story for me this this year I feel a number of smartphone companies are are finding some really great traction in revamping their product lines fresh new takes on design on aesthetics without necessarily walking away from some of the core techy audience and we've got some sales numbers here now for phones like the LG G 6 the the iPhone found a little bit more of a resurgence the iPhone 7 Galaxy s8 is selling well though Samsung's numbers are still lower because of the note 7 but it was the LG G 6 that really did disappoint me that it seemed like it was just too early that consumers played the waiting game the Galaxy s8 was right around the corner LG didn't make enough of being first for 2017 in many markets and that seems to be affecting their overall sales that they're they're sort of produced under under producing right now Tony I mean especially because I finally think I found a phone that you can talk about because you have spent some time with it um what are your thoughts did consumers miss out on an underrated phone or were they right to hold off I think I look at other options I think that them there are two mistakes and both our mistakes have LG did the first mistake is it's not about who's first or who's second because if it was about that HTC would be the top of the charts because they're all the last large something with the you 11 no I think that the first mistake LG did was not invest enough dollars in marketing the LBG six which is a great phone now I'm not sure about the US but here in my region the most ads I see are about the Galaxy s8 and second comes the huawei p10 the second biggest mistake or the second mistake I think that made people hold off on the g6 is again that particular fragmentation who only talked about in one of your videos where the Korean LG g6 with the 64 Giga storage with the wireless charging with the Wi-Fi that is available in Korea and it's not available in Europe or in the US so if I'm in Europe or in the u.s. of course I'm not gonna buy something which is so much lower than its own sibling not to mention the competition so I think these two combined led to a story which doesn't surprise me at all LG's got a great phone but I think that they failed at at giving it its full potential well and Michael you and I both recently went back to putting our personal Sims into LG G sixes for a period of time I don't know if you're still using the g6 I I took mine for a zoo trip and it was actually the perfect camera phone for chasing around a toddler I got this amazing like her meeting a baby chimpanzee between the glass and it was this photo burst that I don't know I could have pulled off with another phone I just like right time right place camera app actually fired up quickly from the first time so what what are your thoughts just like you know kind of coming back revisiting it we've gotten over the initial sort of honeymoon period of S eights and you Elevens does this still have a place in the conversation or did LG stumble too much in diversifying the g6 and under advertising it I feel like I've been asked a lot about the g6 on Twitter from from people who know to ask about the g6 because their phone phone geeks right and a lot of those questions are in the context of should I buy the 1 + 5 or the or the six cuz that seems to be the question a lot of phone geeks trash themselves by contrast I was just at a 4th of July barbecue where I was asked by a couple normal people what phone to get net next and the g6 entered the conversation with those people who I knew were interested in photography they had never heard of it and it took me showing them some of my Instagram feed because I I think I'm like you wanna I've actually always kept it since its release it's always been on a second pocket because I can't get away from that wide-angle camera I think it's just yeah oh my god for a for an untrained photographer such as myself I mean that's the shortcut to make it a dramatic awesome looking photo that makes it look like you know what you're doing you know it's like yeah totally it's really cool so it deserves a place in the conversation I think is the way I would put it you couple that with I mean listen it's not a sexy as a essayed it's you know the hardware sort of looks like a reference design a little bit but it's it's rugged it's it's more rugged and then the essay it is the software you you know a custom launcher fixes a lot of the software problems and other and it's got in my market it's got wireless charging rhino it's it's got some stuff going for it and it's freakin cheap now at 500 bucks on t-mobile so it deserves to be in the conversation without advertising it's it has as much chance as any other phone that doesn't get advertised you know it'll disappear and LG will move on to the next thing and unless they advertise that that'll disappear too it's very frustrating because I think with what you said that it has as much chance as any other phone without advertising and I think that this is where we the media or the consumers somehow had too big of an expectation for this phone mm-hmm wasn't wanted I'm sorry one no no no please please please we wanted to be caught up in this you know what would it with the resurrection stud not the resurrection story different things we we were I think we're speaking personally I was caught up in this redemption story of a company that made an OK phone last year that was just it sold so poorly that it damaged the company and in a lot of ways to see them come back and really make something quite compelling on a lot of levels was encouraging but but if you remember we we we've been wishing for LG to find its place since the G flex of course yeah well and and Brandon did I kind of feel like LG's strategy places way too much pressure on those of us who talk about gadgets online to pick up a huge part of the education for consumers again at the top of the show we were talking about like our you know we don't have quite the same influence over the market as we once did whereas you take a look at a company like Samsung and not only are they plastering advertising everywhere they're also bringing YouTube reviews to television commercials alright where LG can't even get a carrier deal that will feature their phone for a 15-second spot that no one's gonna watch anyway do you think that there's a way for them recover in this market when the problem doesn't seem to be the quality of the phone it seems to be a problem of Education yeah it's a problem of Education and we used to talk about how you know HTC would have yeah they had some bad years but they had some good years really really good years like the the original and seven with the bottom speakers of anyone ever or maybe back then in the day was and like they just didn't advertise it at all and I think I think a big problem that LG has is that they've decided that they are going to be the first to release a phone in the beginning of the year you know after the laws the holidays all the phones are out in January February and then the springtime comes then there's LG with their phone and it's really cool for like a month or two and especially this year because it assured in the first wave of these bezel-less phones that we're seeing this year or bezel lists all renessa phones but like right away you get the s8 boom and then you get the the new HTC boom and then the 1+5 boom and then right around the corners then the no date and it's just like it's over it's over before it began one or two months of exclusive newness is just not enough especially if you're not going to advertise it do you think it would have stood a chance or or things would have played out differently if say LG g6 came after the s8 I think they would even lower I think it would be yeah I think history teaches that makes no difference because the g3 and g4 launched in that window now they didn't I mean they may have done better comparatively but they didn't do very well yeah I think the g4 was probably the closest LG has been to really executing a foam launch well and working with a couple carriers just to show the phone that it existed to other consumers and they had a talking point about leatherbacks and I had questions from family and friends like oh that's kind of cool that's something unique in the same way that Motorola's Moto maker there was a little spark of interest but then pretty much everyone went back to iPhones as always but again I feel like without the pervasive awareness at the consumer level your brand cannot transition into being a lifestyle element like an iPhone is something you leave the house with with your wallet and keys like it's that important it's a fashion accessory and and it helps inform what your style is and I think LG finally delivered a phone that could compliment someone's style if that's the right fit for you the g6 is a stunning phone but no one knows about it so no one's gonna buy it I want to blitz through we've got three more quick talking points which I just thought were kind of funny that these are companies popping back up in the news since we were you know we're talking about like looking back at you know sort of PocketNow classic we got a confirmation it was in my Twitter feed this morning that Zeiss is confirmed to be working with hmd for new Nokia flagships do you think we're gonna get another super 41 megapixel shooter is this all gonna be smaller dual cameras and zooms and stuff like that can I ask a question about that yes you can Zeiss so you're the expert here it is ice only did the the lens technology right they didn't do anything with regard to the sensor or the OAS or any of that stuff the sensor I had an interview I think it was the 2014 or 2013 MWC it was I think back in the day of the pure view one the initial peer review and they had at the Nokia booth back then they had people from size actually talking about the technology and I specifically asked them whether it's only about the lens and the story is pretty much the same as it is with with Huawei and like they are also invested in fine tuning that particular algorithm of outputting the final product so it's not just the lens it's not the sensor and its entirety but it's the processing of the image that's exciting to me I think my only my only piece of maybe worthwhile input is that we will have to wait and see what the results are from this whatever this mystery device will will be or family of devices because as we know as we saw from the Hasselblad moto Z collaboration yeah a name does not make a great picture yeah have your name on that as we've learned in 2016 software is the future of cameras you can take a phone without oh I yes and the results are just unbelievably spectacular and maybe only the best tech companies in the world can do this talk about the peers now but well until you shoot video with the pixel intimate light and then you get those shaky long shutter speed Jaggi blurry halo ring flash so I just want to briefly hit on this one because I think this is hilarious and we don't need to spend a lot of time on it but just not even I'm not even gonna comment on this one so uh sailfish OS is currently in development on the sony xperia x and the headline for that i could not be less excited about anything happening with the xperia x and I could even less excited about anything happening with sailfish OS is this any way for a company to apologize for that terrible crowdfunding tablet debacle nothing not even that because correct me if I'm wrong Michael but you and I were among the biggest fans and advocates for Yola since its announcement do you still have your Yolo t-shirt I still do I still have both of them so I think that this is just a textbook example on how to screw things up you know and to be out to be fair to Yola I think the deck was stacked against sailfish to begin with there it was too late for a new for a new platform at that point even when blackberry launched after that it was too late for that you know they came into the game too late they had some great ideas I would love to use this I have no reason to use this and it's it's a shame I miss new platforms and new exciting platforms but and and and and it looks to me that you are speaking about Yola but while you were talking about Yola my mind just ran off and I thought about next bit yeah but they succeeded they like they Silicon Valley succeeded because they got acquired so investors are happy because at least money exchanged hands lassally me just wrap this one up we've got a a mais you pro 7 which is reviving an idea of having a rear display a tiny little this display that sits below the camera module again I thought this one was quirky fun to bring up with you guys because for the years that we've been covering technology we flirted with these gimmicky Hardware concepts you know again the second phone display is that the ticker display at the top of a v20 is it the ticker display at the bottom of I forget what Samsung it was that had that do you have to lead something on the back of your phone someone was criticizing my 1+5 coverage because I don't ever look at the back of my own phone so I don't care if it looks like an iPhone and I go okay fair play that's actually a really well argued counterpoint plus you have a Yoda phone yeah this pro 7 and it's got like this tiny little LED or LCD display under these cameras is this what smartphone fans have been missing that they didn't even know they needed no I haven't used the yotaphone but I have to there's so many situations where like you want to put a list on the on your phone you don't have to pound display and just to have it very readable form or just just be nice to have the back of the phone be used for something I mean I agree no and yotaphone does it elegantly I think in that it uses a ink which is a different display technology optimized for different use cases and we could go on about that for a long time this seems to me to be something fun and I'm glad manufacturers are still playing with alternate concepts but I know I don't think this is bound to catch on anytime soon the pictures of the phone and the actual display is just a small part of the phone's back it looks like you're placing a very small phone on the back of a bigger phone and it's offset to the left and it even from a design perspective I don't think it has any chance of standing tall and in this market the only thing that could be kind nice about having an active display back there is how how much I hate trying to review selfie cameras the front-facing cameras on phones because I think they're all at best may be adequate but usually terrible I've gotten really good at the rear camera blind selfie just holding up a phone and kind of clicking a few shots we we had a Phillipe Kahn the inventor of the smartphone the the not the smartphone of the phone the camera phone and from those early days we used to put mirrors on the back of a phone and then I reviewed the you 11 and the you 11 is the easiest time I've ever had in taking a rear camera blind selfie it could be kind of nice right reviewed chrome mirror back to z5 premium from Sony and that is the ultimate selfie phone with the back camera oh yeah what what about the or the UM the oh the Z say what that is it's prettier in its this is the black one it's very reflective so yeah a lot of phones are like unintentionally doing that I guess well one if you if you wouldn't crap all over smart watches all the time you can use smart watches of you under the time it was because I love smart watches but that's one of my least favorite uses is because then it goes over Bluetooth and I have to use a custom camera app and I know it's total garbage no it's so bad we're like you know for people that like got really good at shooting with GoPros right you know someone who's like really good at vlogging on a GoPro you just sort of get a feel for where's the camera sensor right about there yep good knuckle GoPro shoots everything I mean you can you could be well fair enough I may be a so I'm against Riv a little spoiled by that LGG six wide camera um we're gonna shift gears here I I have a couple tweets that Jules has been sending in using the p-n weekly hashtag on Twitter let me scroll down just kind of circling back to that LG conversation from bench Arian 90 is it a good idea to keep the V 20 around for another year do you think that last year's tank of an LG can still compete towards the end of this calendar year that's a good question I didn't play with the b20 so I will recuse myself from commentary I thought not in from Tony you seem to think like it can still hold up yes I would definitely think that the b20 is still a phone to keep and to use until full 2018 when the v40 is gonna come out unless they kill the V lineup altogether because not only it's a tank and it's indestructible don't drop it you're gonna break some tiles but it's it's really it's really what what the g5 should have been and yeah blocks TLDR I think of me 20 is still a phone to consider if you can't afford it and if you like big thumbs your brain in any thoughts did not use it so I'm not sure you're nervous I'm blonde no I'm a big fan boy so the V 20 and the mate 9 are the two phones that I think have found the most rotation which is shocking for me because I hate phablets and the two biggest phones of last year the phones that I keep coming back to but for me I think 2016 phones are aging so much better than 20:15 phones were that if you're rocking the qualcomm 820 I don't see a lot of software on the horizon that's really gonna tax that phone and make it unusable I don't see many companies really trying to push the boundaries on things like AR or VR or anything like that that's gonna make you feel like that phone can't hang so really it's just gonna come down to software support we know LG's a little lame there but the hardware is so good that it kind of makes up for some of those issues we have a comment here from at official AWS if Apple takes away touch ID I don't think people will buy the new iPhone they've got it in the MacBook they can't drop it now I think the new iPhone is gonna sell like crazy just because it's so fresh I don't think it'll matter I mean like I think Apple could take away touch ID and the phone is still gonna set records for sales but then people will grumble after the fact and then just sort of get used to use their following I don't think that one feature is really gonna impact sales but I think adding to what you just said I think it's it's not comparable to when Apple just simply decided to ditch the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack because in that particular case there was not an ecosystem built upon it and there was not and the bank wasn't so big now in terms of the touch ID aside from the fact that the Macs have it and basically everything security related which matters on the ecosystem in the ecosystem is based on it a lot of developers will be also affected by such a decision and I don't think Apple will shoot themselves in the foot because yes they might sell the same amount number of iPhone eights or whatever its name will be but in terms of revenue from other sources from the App Store from everything else will drop and I don't think that that's gonna be a smart business decision now we know Apple's big growth recently has been in moving services over that they're showing consistent growth on Apple music and payment transactions that's gotta be a growing business for them especially now that with iOS 11 you'll be able to just send money through the messages application with just a type touch of the touch ID again like man I'm shocked that that's a big deal but then I realize like oh no iPhone users really haven't been playing what stuff that natively on iOS I just want to wrap this up this is one for everybody here from at fat produce hashtag PN weekly what devices are you looking forward to the most this year so wrapping up 2017 what what's what's striking your fancy what phones are you most looking for let me start first it's gonna be a short answer for me I was actually going to start off with Tony accident yes the iPhone 8 is exciting the no 8 is exciting yes 8 is an exceptional device they're all exciting to use to own to wait for their launch but fast forward today would be December 31st I think I am personally the most excited about the BlackBerry key one I think that that's bone just made my ear wow I've been using it for like a month or so and I just can't go anywhere without it why might over over on the side I can't reach it I love it why because back memories from from you know that muscle memory that that just when I started off this podcast it feels like coming home I was in my early years of being a sales manager for a corporation which equipped us with BlackBerry's for me it's getting back there and and in the particular case of the key one I just I know I can go away for the weekend without taking my charger with me because that thing is solid for me for three days totally I just randon I I feel we should go to you next cuz it didn't seem like you were loving the key one and WTF why the face no well so the phone I'm most looking forward to is the new iPhone and for one reason mainly and that's have you guys played with 120 Hertz refresh rate on the new iPad pros yeah it's I have not it's um it's something you have crazy mutant eyeballs I can see those eyeballs has to do with responsiveness and do you guys remember when we went from 30 Hertz to 6 he hurts in you know iPhones been 60-hertz are very long time but Android before project butter was not sixty Hertz and dramatically changed the way that you use her phone because everything was so fluid and smooth and to go to 120 Hertz I don't think there's any returns after that but I think when we see 120 Hertz on the new iPhone Android is gonna be coming out you know maybe the next version of Android cuz it's got to come from the operating system presumably yeah I think we're in for a soft word yeah definitely yeah I think that's gonna be awesome and that's gonna make our devices feel like they're just gonna be so smooth it's gonna be bullet we're gonna finally play well its imprimatur life yes yes it will you don't know Tony what what what phone are you because you know I think you're joining me and Tony on our appreciation for the key one this year what phone are you are you looking forward to what do you see coming down the pipe that's really gonna strike your fancy um it's a question I hadn't actually considered this here which is crazy because it's late in the year but I'm always excited to see what the next note is going to be but I I have to say the the v30 holds holds a high place up there this year I've never liked the veal I'm frankly I thought the v10 was an ugly monstrosity and the v20 was sort of dull which was a greater sin I'm talking about aesthetically but having used the g6 for long enough now to see what what LG can do in terms of a of the camera was particularly with a wide-angle camera I would be very excited to see what an improved version of that optics package looks like and Michael Eve you've used the Priven you've used the Dell Venue Pro the slider phones would you back to sliding up just to unveil a secondary screen I totally would I wish that be 35 I would but of course it's not gonna be that it's gonna be another boring brick and whatever but I just wanna see what they do with the cameras that's that's what I'm most apprehensive about is for me the V Series has always meant survivability bringing sort of like almost galaxy active specs which we haven't heard any word that those are always my favorite campsite phones yeah an s8 active I would be very curious to see what Samsung would do there because I don't know that you can make a rugged phone with that much of a curve to the zoom Ford Tony that's never gonna happen um so I'm most apprehensive about the V 30 if they introduced a slider because I feel like that's gonna complicate the hardware enough to reduce the certifications on water and drop resistance but for me the phone I'm I'm kind of most curious to see how they might follow it up is Huawei with the next mate again the main tonight completely took me by surprise last year in how much I ended up using that phone there do a processor refresh and the ki-rin I don't think gets enough conversation here in the states where it was well ahead of the Qualcomm curve if you bought the mate in in Europe at launch you were a good six months ahead of Qualcomm 8:35 performance so I'm really curious to see what they can do because they keep I think they keep finding these spikes of interest and then they sort of settle into a lull and then honor sort of takes away some of the conversation from the P series and I don't know that they've really nailed down their strategy for what phone is supposed to occupy which niche but the mate has sort of consistently delivered what it promises it can do and so I'd be curious to see if they can keep that that consistency going with that line the most interesting promise I think they made that I that I would like to see if it's delivered is that born fast remain fast thing where they did those optimizations supposedly to the kernel into the software to make sure it doesn't bog down over time and I think that's like I'd like to see one in two years and see how it's running there's one that's actively used for two years I can say the the launch device I got nine months ago is faring very well again this is a phone that I use almost every day mostly again which kind of silly is it's sort of my campaign platform it's the phone that was running marvel future fight the best so I've got it currently right here grinding missions in the background as we're doing this podcast so I don't have to do all the grindy stuff um but I don't know how techie how real like what real technology is actually working back there but it does seem to be doing something better than some of the experiences like I've had with like a one year old galaxy my wife's f7 is a mess and has been for a while but she kind of refuses to wipe it out because it's a pain to move files around and back up photos that weren't up on Google photos and all that I I don't foresee the same kinds of issues with my mate but again I can't speak to whether or not that's the placebo effect they said they're doing better garbage collection and maybe it's just some software patch to dump the cache every week or something like that but I have been impressed so far so we'll see if that continues um guys I want to spend a little time uh sort of just taking a quick look back since I have you all in the same hangout here and and I know we're already running a little long in this podcast but I kind of feel like this is the appropriate conversation to jump into since this is the fifth anniversary of the weekly episode two six zero five years of potty so crazy um Jules has a little audio clip here too which is kind of which is kind of crazy because I don't think many in our current audience will remember that there was a podcast before the PocketNow weekly called the pocket cast and he wants to play a little bit of it so that you guys can hear just you know where where we've come from terrible we were yes come to the first-ever PocketNow podcast we're calling this the pocket cast we've never done a podcast before even though we've gotten a lot of requests for them over the years we wanted to do a podcast and a little bit of a different way than what you see out there so the format this will take is sort of a raw unedited conversation between two smart phone geeks and it will vary from week to week probably in the form of one PocketNow editor to another PocketNow editor this week we're gonna start out with Evan glass he's the managing editor now and Evan say hi January 30th 2011 that's hilarious cuz I someone who is absolutely terrible in introducing people and wrapping up podcasts I know that pain so well so this guest is on a hello guest you know this this format and and I have some appreciation for what Michael you do and want when you read these these shows it's it's very difficult to get the cadence right to get the feel right and it gives you a real appreciation for like interviewers like the people you see on TV like Charlie Rose or or like even the late night guys and how how good they are at asking the right questions waiting the right amount of time it's very nuanced very difficult I think for me for me because all of us have at one point hosted at least one podcast half of the success of a good host is the co-host and it all comes down to the chemistry those people have and the thoughts they're just throwing at each other and if that manages or turns out to be a natural conversation just like chemistry then then that's the recipe for success yeah I did completely agree that that that is like the one crucial component that has to be there with if that's there you can stumble on other stuff you can deal with dumb technical crap that pops up every freaking week because you use Google Hangouts but like if the core chemistry of the host is there it's it can be a magical thing now I love you Jules you've been keeping me from completely nuking my PC because of all of the crap we've been going through so I kind of wanted to get sort of a look back a little reminiscing if you will when we when you guys moved from the pocket cast to the pocket now weekly how did that come about what makes our let me start to let Michael finish because in between in between the pocket cast and the pocket now weekly read which was I got notes on July 12 2012 PocketNow has hired michael fisher i got an email from brandon or maybe it was the other way around that hey there's this guy here who sent in a resume who would like to work for us so long story short we hired him and Michael and I were talking about the podcast and I told him that we failed miserably at our first iteration and he said he would love to reboot the podcast to bring it in a new format with a new paradigm and I told him that I care so little about the podcast that if he wants to handle it from A to Z whatever he wants with it I just don't want to hear about it anymore and here's where Michael comes in you know that's that's exactly right I got a name I remember I was on a train and I got an email from Tony in in typical Anton fashion which was out of the blue I didn't know it was coming we had talked about the podcast weeks before and he says okay this is this is what will happen we will do a podcast you will host it it will be called the pocket that we click we will have the first episode soon there's no fluff at all it just and it was you know we've figured out a platform we got things together Brandon had rather copious notes I think with regard to like format and suggestions which were very helpful because if it were me I would just be rapping back and forth but Brandon wanted to do a segment I guess I'll let you two talk about talk about your particular segments Brandon but I was just so happy to kind of spearhead this initiative because for me podcast listening to tech people talk about podcasts listening to talk on a podcast listen to listening to phone nerds geek out and be free outside the confines of a written format or a video format just rapping a little bit I mean that's what hooked me I would listen to podcast for years before I even got into this business and so it was very exciting to actually start one even if Brandon made me do stuff that I hated well and what kind of stuff was at Brandon so you know we had this um you know we even get so frustrated about certain things in the smartphone world like HTC making a camera with 4 megapixels and saying that it was ok megapixels don't matter and yet 4 megapixels is not even enough resolution to really zoom in at all let alone look at the picture on like a iPad Retina display just it's just not full resolution and so we would like do these these things where we pretend or HTC executives and like a boardroom or something and we'd have this like asinine conversation about like how we're going to screw over people that want megapixel and everybody everybody loved this this role-playing so much that we we actually did in this format of the three of us Michael Brandon and myself for for almost a season until I received a email from Michael which sounded just like the email I sent him we're in the interim brandon has left pocket now I took over as editor-in-chief and Michael informed me that as of I don't know the next episode we're gonna go live with video and I said absolutely not he said it's my baby we're doing it that's right right that was the hundredth episode when we had that switch over well and actually I think jobs before hangouts was HD yeah well I mean it's still like 720p um but Jules I think you've got a clip of from episode 101 talking about that transition oh god I'm your host Michael Fisher editorial director of PocketNow from Boston Massachusetts your first officer today hailing from the one and only super Carolina is senior editor Taylor Martin hey man what's up I have to say before we go any further I'm not gonna like this video video podcast because it means that I have to pay attention I have to be present and here and look at the screen now don't worry you you don't have to do that because right now you're hidden behind my intro script which everyone can see I'm reading which is another reason I don't like videos I'm with you but let's we'll talk about that in a second we also have other people on the air and the music's running out even though you can't hear it right now chief news editors Stephen shank from New Jersey the pocket mountain news desk head hey man welcome aboard I had to share jealous frustrations I'd like to spend the weekly basically staring on my window watching chipmunks play and you've taken that away from me yeah most of the audio weekly the last hundred episodes kind of like oh god yeah that was a rocky transition wasn't it you'd hear that distortion because we were you we had like 10 episodes of technical broth it's a wonder anyone came with us for those two months where we were struggling with stuff well you know you guys managed to land our viewers have heard me complain about this so much you guys managed to at least land a system because when I came on it was a pretty well-oiled machine and it seemed like a couple months after I joined that Google changed something almost every week on us after that which was throwing a new wrench in the gears here or breaking something that we used to count on there to the point where we've we've gone pre-recorded for the last couple months this is the first time we wanted we wanted to have everything in place so that we could bring you guys back on live so this is the first live broadcast we've done in months just to sort out all of them ridiculous problems that we've been that we've been facing but not not to again for our audience with with my technical issues the only thing I wanted to bring up is that the the PocketNow weekly under under this tutelage was also an award-winning podcast that the stitcher awards back in the day actually did feature and oh right here with me this 2013 stitch rewards best I'm not even sure why why that isn't at the company headquarters because I'm getting it off the shelf in there and I'm like I bet you Tony's gonna tell me to say sitting right next dear to my Glenn but you know I decided when I was sending one of my many boxes to Tony I was like I'm gonna keep this and see if he knows it keep it managed it's it's it's only work but it's mostly your baby so well thank you but also in keeping the the memory train rolling I think you also have something for the stitcher Awards to Rachel alongside great great great podcasts like like twits this week in tech The Verge casts and how stuff works tech stuff we we won we won best tech podcast of 2013 and it is all thanks to you thank you everyone applause gentlemen an old fashioned this is for you listeners not for us we really really really do appreciate it we were what was it the same day we did the podcast last week it was we had ran last week and then like that night the award ceremony happened right yeah I think so yeah so I wish I could have announced the last week this is like week old news at this point but it's great stuff we made a post about it so we just wanted to say on the air here thank you to everyone who voted for us and I promise as soon as we our trophy comes in I will put it on the Instagram I can see I think this fire truck was here for a cat nut tree or something no idea it was probably some sirens he thought we could hear but we couldn't but yeah that was that was quite a surprise I remember I remember talking to the stitcher folks who at that time we're in San Francisco they probably still are and I was like they were like will you come to our awards dinner I'm like I don't know if I can Francisco just for the reward hey Tony can we like no and the people replied from stitcher and they were like we really think you should come out it would be worth it to you and I'm like Tony I don't know if this means it yes so it was it was great I like that it was um based on audience voting that felt really nice it felt like we achieved something good times now I certainly think something definitely has been achieved that I gotta say it's been it's my privilege it's been my honor to kind of continue these discussions and and hopefully return these discussions to the real time this question that you guys started years and years ago I get to say that because it is five years ago that that all of this is that this was put up and and to hear the intro I feel from that very first episode talking about the history that PocketNow had before the podcast that this is this is a story that was a decade in the making as the internet evolved to produce this kind of streaming media Brandon just to kind of take it back to you you know in in looking at where where all this stuff is gone the popularity of podcasts today a stand-up comedian can like draw in millions of listeners in a way that even a radio can't touch now in reaching out to a specific audience I mean you guys were on the bleeding edge of that you guys were were well ahead of the curve for people producing their own content like that it's got to be really exciting to see where this this this media monster has gone since then democratizing the ability to share a story with your audience and to know that you were a part of helping to produce that you're talking about podcasting or videos well I mean the podcasting I mean you know so I mean video streaming is definitely something that's kind of fun but I you know it's someone who lives in Southern California you for us for me to drive around and not want to you know road rage and every person who cuts me off in traffic it's been podcasting I don't even use the satellite radio in my car I don't listen to much music anymore my unfortunately my toddler daughter is just inundated with tech and politics driving around she's gonna be very well informed I think I think we were actually a little later than we should have been I mean there's so many years of discussion and back and forth until Tony decided that it was just gonna make it happen and Michael was gonna make it happen and you know there you know I think well before that we were talking about doing some sort of podcast and and you know that that was around the time when we started to do video as well which was new and totally different and weird and really no one was doing it and the quality was awful and YouTube was in HD and to upload a video would take forever but um it's just it's been cool it's especially cool for the guys that aren't associated with big sites or don't have a lot of money that they can fire up a camera or fire up a microphone for super cheap and they can create and get distribution far beyond what could have been possible just just not too long ago and so like so so my favorite part of that is that the quality everybody's quality keeps going up because of that and that's just really nice to see yeah definitely the approachability of that is is kind of incredible to have witnessed like you know I I came into tech and discussion on message boards on ARPANET like if you would if you would ask me about like what the internet would have been I never in a million years have predicted that this is where we would have ended up you know from sort of military hosted servers with message boards to the ability to have this real-time conversation with you guys which i think is only fitting to to maybe wrap up this discussion is uh what is the future hold for you fine gentlemen Brandon what what are you working on what where do you see this taking you you're obviously still very passionate about technology and the consumer experience and and relating that to people telling that story to people yeah well for the last I guess almost six or seven years I've worked in eckstein developers and you know over there we've been doing you know the technical stuff and the enthusiast stuff and one of the things we're always trying to figure out is sort of what happens after that because what used to be an enthusiast market is now a mass market everyone has a smartphone and and so that begs the question like what new cool things can we do with our phones like we have access to all these apps and you know at the end of the day it's kind of like you know I I use my Twitter client it's my facebook you know I you know you snapchat and dialer and all that stuff but there's there hasn't been anything new and even if you create software from the very beginning and you create a customer um innovation is also stagnated there and so we're trying to figure out how we can use something a little different and so that's kind of what I've been working on but actually I had a question for you guys that is someone relate to this so you know phones have come a really long way you know in 2017 I think all of us have phones in our pocket that can take incredible pictures better pictures then you know we would ever thought possible I think possible except for a DSLR we've got batteries that last the entire day morning till night in almost every case we've got screens so crisp and clear that we cannot see pixels even I cannot see pixels but what's the but right what what is missing like if you were to rewind five years ago and saying mm something would have all these phones taken but what what's what's missing what is leaving you to what more do you want out of your phone what's the missing piece can I start yes well these Tony jump in I'm not sure whether this answer is coming from me as a consumer ultimately because I am also a consumer or it's coming from me being in this business for too long I'm not saying I'm burnt out I'm just saying that I've been doing this for so long so my answer is what's missing for me in in a smartphone in in this particular area is the feeling the sentiment the chicken bumps I got when I bought my first fell I'm unboxing phones a lot less than you guys and it's just another phone I'm missing that that sentiment when it meant something for me when that was my phone and my phone alone and I loved it I think it's what I'm missing is that these pieces of tech which are already in the hands of everybody are not making me feel the way I felt back then and I think that that's for me it comes down to that that's good you know a lot of agreement there Michael yeah that's I don't think you and I have ever agreed as heartily on something that's I'm completely with you and some of it is because of the the you know broadening and the the commoditization of the the smartphone as something that everyone has and they're just bound to be less special over time but for me to sort of build on that idea we had it we had that special feeling we had that customization it not to be the Moto fanboy that you all know I am but like in 2014 when moto maker came out and the Moto X was like you can have a wood back you can have a fabric back you can have a leather back you can have a plastic back you can have it in any color you can put your name on it you can put your name on the splash screen you can all of that I missed that so keenly and it has not been recaptured by the Moto Z which with its slap on mods because that feels like putting on a case when you ordered the phone from the factory made to your specifications and every time you picked it up it not only looked the way you wanted it to but it felt in my case with that leather back just felt like your phone I mean that that was the height the zenith at the peak for me and I don't I I would like to get back there somehow so I I'm for mine and I'm gonna be really careful in how I try and express this idea because it's it's an idea that I think is very easily misunderstood do not through to because of the audience but because of my inability to articulate it and my inability to say the word inability for me because I agree with you guys you know that that's feeling of something special or that feeling of something new when geek became chic when geeks won and in these products became more consumer-oriented it's the same feeling I had back in the early days of me using Apple that those companies start walking away from me not that I'm suddenly less interested in their products that these devices are less focused for me I kind of hope that what comes next for phones will be the ability to use our phones less but more effectively this for us to start solving some of the social etiquette problems of using our phones not just in the company of other human beings but then also to help reduce the issues of problems with things like distracted driving coming back to see exactly you know like all those gimmicks that we have to do to to still incorporate data we're not gonna put that genie back in its bottle where we're all just gonna put our phones away and everyone's just gonna be happy 1950s eating at a restaurant and and only interacting with each other but the company that will win the the post smartphone world is the company that can help us more organically transition into being data aware but also socially aware and socially conscious um I don't feel it's gonna be truly solved until we have self-driving cars but to say that we can't address those problems along the way I feel is reductive I feel as an insult to the tech community and there are so many amazing companies that are starting to work on this problem in earnest that I hope that's the next phase that we see our phones are crazy powerful we're starting to dip our toe into augmented reality better audio communication better Auto audio services it would be nice if I could realize the vision of something like Bixby or IBM Watson or Google assistant where I could do even more of this without occupying all of my senses - taste in operating this device that I really hope is the next phase and what we will walk into that that will make me excited really truly excited to be talking about mobile technology again have you uh have you seen the movie her it's just absolutely yes yes I mean that that's that's not even like that you know everybody having their own operating system that that knows more about you than you know about yourself because it has read every one of your emails every one of your texts it knows what's in every one of your pictures it knows what your your your spouse's favorite kind of ice cream is when your anniversary is and you just you just exist with this all-knowing thing and it's entirely personalized for you and every time Google says we want to make a Google for everyone that's what I think about and that's what I hope we'll have with the robots because the robots have to but I don't want to live in a future without robots I'm with you okay yes but I was gonna say not to answer I guess my own question the the but for me is that I still buy like all the phones because it's in my blood and and I get so excited I always happens to me is that you know there's the first 24 hours or oh this is cool oh this phone has a 4k screen wow I can watch 4k video is in the phone's battery life goes to zero in my hand game gets burn but then after that I am staring at a phone screen that has exactly the same icons in exactly the same place as the phone when I had last year and the phone the year before that and the way that I am you I use my phone with the exception of things like Google photos which lets me finally search all my photos with English or like you know like well case should be services like uber and all that so I used my phone almost exactly the way I used two years ago and this the hardware's changing a little bit battery left a little bit better in it they're faster everything but like you just feel there's too much sameness and I I don't know if it's just me do you guys feel that way not just you it's every time I set up a new phone and I put the social folder in the Google folder and my calendar widget all in the same spot I'm like there's there's probably a better way to do this I'm just falling back into the habitual cycle of you know of lock-in taking that even further I start getting paranoid and acting out if a particular icon or folder on my new phone is not exactly where I left it on the old phone cuz I'm browsing like crazy for it that I can't find it I had to reshoot for one of our recent comparison videos because my Chrome and Gmail icons were reversed on the bottom and I couldn't let it go that's dedication I was like it wouldn't have mattered to the audience it was like this this is killing me I need to reshoot these it was pretty rough so no I definitely feel that because there's a part of it to where we face concerns that the general consumer doesn't when they get a new phone and maybe it's been a year or maybe it's been three years as we're seeing the industry trend towards holding on to our phones longer they're probably consumers out there are probably more willing to take risks than we are we have to get through a review so efficiently now and with such high production value that if I can't operate the phone through muscle memory on day one it takes me a lot longer to get into the vibe of what it is I'm gonna talk about with that phone so again my setup process again like you guys - it's like it's got to be exact it's got to be the same and I never really give things like edgesense a fair shake because that doesn't change that that actually gets in the way of how I normally use a phone just so I can get through like the camera review process or something which is so funny but you know it's a fun exercise go ahead run okay I was gonna say a fun exercise I recently did this you know third-party launchers like you save your setup and restore it to exactly how it looks before a fun exercise is to think about exactly how you use your phone and to say okay I use the Amazon app a lot but it's on the second page I wish I could put it on the first page but I can't put on the first page because that would make it look cluttered what if I change the homescreen grid what if I made the icons a little bit smaller what if I use some folders or use some of you know action launcher or Nova launchers you know press and hold functionality gestures there's so much stuff you can do and to sit there for like an hour one day and rethink how you use your phone and the stuff you want to access quickly you can come out with a pretty compelling new homescreen experience and they you can carry that from phone to phone if you're just gonna backup and restore your settings so that's why you buy the BlackBerry key one you just map an app to it to every each everybody yeah actually it was the BlackBerry key line that helped me so so over the course of reviewing these products I've gone from being that guy who had all seven Galaxy home screens full of widgets oh my god to the BlackBerry key one got me down to two home screens and now that's the home screen setup that I'm gonna be moving for people and for next year is I want one home screen oh yeah I don't want to I put home and I don't want to have to swipe left or right I want everything right there whenever it went Anton showed me his Android setup for the first time I was not like a Nexus 7 and I was like Tony where's all your apps I don't even think you had a clock widget on there it was great yeah minimalistic like that liked it so I'm gonna try and join you by next year Tony but Michael I so what what what is the future hold for not just for you but I mean also for the kind of coverage that you're hoping to produce and we can kind of attack that you hope to see and you know where do we go from here it's been fun where do we go for the next five years of podcasts yeah right well you know doing this and guesting on other podcasts has reminded me how much I missed actual podcast and I'm really glad I will I will forget to say this at the end of the show so I'll just say now like I'm really glad that this show has gone on you know in my absence and thank you for your excellent stewardship Quan and Jules and Tony and everybody because it's really awesome that it's still here and you guys are still doing in many ways better work than than I was doing analytically at least and like I I would like to do podcasting again I would like to do other forms again but I have to say it has been really nice to just focus on video Brandon you were talking about getting and getting an early start on video and it seems like every every week I get three or four emails from new aspiring YouTube tech vloggers who want to do this kind of thing and now it's so crowded it's unbelievably difficult I feel to break in and the only people have seen start in the past year and actually sort of make start to make a name for themselves have done it really really unconventionally and I want to drop any specifics but there's yeah there's some funny funny stuff ethic so so III don't know I've not ever been terribly good at predicting the future I sort of like getting what's here now evaluating it in the context of what has come before but it has been an awful lot of fun to broaden into other aspects of mobility I will tell you it's a lot of fun to drive an electric car that's something I never thought I really was in that test drive oh my god yeah and and also I you know we gave smartwatches a little bit of shade I don't think the idea of a personal area network is totally dead I think that we will right now I think every day I wear I wear three different pieces of tech I've got the Smart Watch usually Fitness band and my public transit pass ring and I think that will be light going forward I think we're gonna start seeing more of the smart shoes stuff and probably a smart belt if any of the Kickstarter project you know what I mean like III think that the smart phone will continue to be the hub but we will have increasingly specialized accessories until you know we are Borg I really hope we don't have Lucas belts because can you imagine saying oh jeez I forgot to charge my belt no I want it I want it bring it there was a Kickstarter that didn't that didn't go through that was just a compass belly oh all it did was like oh we're north wise and I just like you know the idea of geolocation always be aware of directional cardinal directions like that's kind of cool I want that I guess so potential there's always know what direction I'm facing I'm very magnets it's a little tricky in the valley like you start getting into some of those neighborhoods and like Google Maps says like you know and so many miles go east and you're like what landmark is supposed to point me towards east on a road that runs diagonal just okay far from the ocean that's the answer just live close to the ocean entirely and and Tony I mean we kind of plugged the future of pocket now especially sort of broadening broadening out to other to another language pocket now Spanish but what do you see I'm hoping a part of that answer is remaining keeping me employed let me start off with with the general I think that we are heading towards an era era where as much as I fight it and as much as a lot of people fight it out there our lives will be completely completely connected from your home gear appliances to your car to your everything whether we like it or not it's going to happen what I can do is that I'm going to probably be the last person who will be driving a car which actually makes noise when you will probably all be floating or driving electrics I'm gonna Rev my flat-six 9,000 rpms but no seriously this is where we like that one smoker in the non-smoking restaurant yes this is where we're headed at and all of the efforts the companies are putting into their products and services are going that are pointing in that direction now correlating that with all the things which are happening around the world with people doing bad things to other people and other people controlling all of the other people to save other people I think that that's also inevitable and at one point we'll have to learn to deal with it and live with it whether we like it or not so that's the future I'm seeing for the industry as far as PocketNow is concerned I think I took a couple of steps back from creating content when I took over from from Brendan as the editor-in-chief because I've got so many things to handle that it left me no time for creating content I occasionally jump in when the help is needed but I prefer staying in in the background and trying to create the conditions for you guys whether it was for you might go back in the past or it's for you or for Haman to shine to speak to talk to educate I'm the kind of person who creates the the right set up for you guys to do your jobs and I think that I'm good at that and that's where I see myself and that's what I see myself doing in the future and yes you'll still be employed one Oh excellent good like [Laughter] jewels just piped in in our chat asimov Dinesh I like that I like azimoff that's good um I like people says funny stuff funny nobody knows it's just just for us see that's that's why you always need a everyone should have a jewels copilot everything you've been keeping the show running like that but folks there you have it the fifth year anniversary of the pocket Met Wheatley has come and gone this show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where Brandon is at Brandon minimun Michael is at V mr. Mobile Tony is Anton Dinesh Jules is at Point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on Twitter Instagram Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com were basically everywhere shows like this cannot exist without your support me taking just a brief moment to say a huge thank you for the audience that has supported the show prior to me and then with me and then also through some of our teething pains and trying to get this back up and running especially for the live broadcast we wanted to make sure everything was working as seamlessly as we could for this anniversary show but since the show can't exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews on iTunes stitcher Google Play and wherever podcast reviews can be left once again we want to thank this week's sponsor hellofresh they're helping us keep the lights on and our stomachs full but ultimately there wouldn't be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air since 2000 the PocketNow weekly we'll be back next week with all kinds of delicious technology goodness so make sure you know we really wanted to use what we learned in schools so we moved out to LA it's work in the entertainment industry and I started at a talent agency a voice-over talent agency and then over into casting so I've been a voiceover casting director for the last four or five years which leads me like a critical question one why does not know you five years ago we've been talking online for all