Gadgetory

it's Google's week we're talking about cameras and pixel books and talking speakers and of course a pair of new phones for her software and services company there was a lot of hardware discussed from Google this week we've got a lot to talk about so make sure you're charged and ready for episode two seven three of the PocketNow weekly recorded October 6th at noon pacific time this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets that make our lives mobile smartphones tablets and wearables it's all the stuff you wish did you wished existed when you were a kid and on the schoolyard the only number that beat a googolplex was infinity plus one that's true story you get into that I don't know was that just me you would have fights to billion and then it'd be like a googolplex and then you'd say infinity plus one and that was like the triple dog dare I'm point Carlos back now senior editor pocketnow.com blasting the signal from sunny Southern California in the gadget lab joined virtually as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong out on the east coast has a going buddy boy I mean cops and robbers was my thing as a kid and that was pretty much the extent of it maybe a little bit of kickball but nothing to that really extreme there was a terrible ad show called masks or masks where it was like this ripoff of transformers so you would have a car and then the doors would open DeLorean style and it would turn into a plane there was like a semi that would turn into like this command center and like shoot things I have no idea and like we would actually I remember I was it I think I was in the first grader in kindergarten we would actually reenact the vehicles so like I would write I would pretend I was a car and then I would just throw my arms up and then I was the airplane and we'd fly around and shoot each other because we were all too broke to afford transformers like the real ones I thought that was a whole minute before you've actually introduced people watching right now like why is he being so silent on the second I'm just trying to be respectful I mean somebody else's place right so in the gadget lab I am I'm proud to introduce the man the myth the legend mr. Joshua Vergara hey what's going on going buddy handshake here we were thinking about trying to do our fusion thing here yeah I think I'm cropped a little tight no it's all Google mm-hmm it's I mean this is all we're talking about this podcast and I'm super happy to be like number one on the west side of LA for the first time in like forever because I never I never come out here but also because the the if there was any reason for me to come out here be you thank you sir thank you for having me in your lovely place oh what a lovely bromance going on around here yeah I mean you know it's the sort of quintessential Southern California thing where it took us like two years to realize that we actually lived within driving distance yeah and it took us maybe like another year before we actually hung out which is funny because driving distance means 90 minutes or less I mean like my box has been getting bigger but if you live outside of a certain box then you just you might as well be living in like Siberia yeah I mean some people have it boxes eight miles or seven miles of you like you you can't you can't describe distance that's that's not the hook in Southern California it's how long will it take me to get there yeah and if you live more than two hours away then you're you're off the map that's that's just not a thing exactly San Diego from Elias just about as far as I would go to see any one person I liked exactly I mean I have to really like that person but um you know to avoid this becoming just like an episode of California reports I'm John have you get off the 101 and take the 110 we actually have some real tech news for you guys this week especially with the the Google announcements set so I mean that what you just did right there for people listening was he kind of had this hand rubbing head down the gesture which I kind of feel I'm getting ready there's been a little of that posture for a lot of people with some of these in and it feels like this was a bit more of a mixed reaction what Google talked about this I agree with that but mine is more like I'm getting ready because what I expected out of the event turned out to be so much more you know because you go there expecting the funds exactly and then there was just so much else to look at yeah and I don't I don't prescribe too late to leaks right I don't like looking at them before any events and I actually just don't have the habit of doing that I don't even enjoy watching movie trailers yeah I just I didn't look at any of the leaks or any of the any of the stuff that came out I was aware of them right I just don't have the habit of looking at them leading up to an event so on I'm at the event I was like many of the people in the audience who audibly did you watch the live stream yeah I was I was just like people were audibly gasping yeah yes so I mean there was this one really crappy actually before we do that Jules would you be so kind as to explain to viewers how they can join this conversation I kind of feel like Josh and I might steamroller over part of the normal structure of our pop really I'm just here to watch you guys I'm not even supposed to be talking at this point but in all actuality we do want you to participate as a viewer as a listener as whoever that you happen ap today with the hashtag PN weekly on Twitter also you might want to hashtag made by Google so that we know that you're actually tuning in and participating in our fun here with the Google event this week also if you are well you can't be here live sometimes that happens we understand that talk to us via email at podcast at pocketnow.com we'll get to that question eventually but for those of you live right now it's hashtag P and weekly on Twitter that is the best place that we'll be able to see your comments and questions so let's let's jump in immediately I mean I almost feel like we need to just get these out of the way with the most expected part of the presentation the pixel two and the pixel two XL going again with a big little phone distribution that I was going I was actually complaining during the event because they weren't the first thing they talked about yeah yeah I'm so you said every other launch or they're all like oh and also we have ups well and there was me because you were saying there was there was probably a different sense of the people being in the room actually there was this one really crappy Twitter comment that I was reading through while watching the livestream like oh and the people that are actually there laying it on so thick like they're so excited and you're like but you're there I mean like I might have criticisms of the note 8 but when I'm actually at the event there is there's a buzz there's an excitement there's an energy to being a part of that that that that display as small as it might be you're still being a part of history exactly yeah so we might not be we might not it might not be the Gettysburg Address but it's something that we are happy to be a exactly and and for the people who are at the Gettysburg Address oMG they were just laying it on so that PFT I so pixel pixel pixel to pixel to and pixel to excel um the original pixel I feel set a very high bar from a company that still hasn't quite proven itself as a consumer just distributor or manufacturer of smartphones we have this great relationship in the techie space the Nexus phones we kind of have an understanding of what Google can bring to the table my hypothesis is always consumers won't take a brand seriously until it's been around for about three years okay the second year kind of building on the success of the last phone what was your reaction being there seeing what they had the display for the phones the little pixels the big pics okay yeah I it was everything that I was expecting it to be based upon how the pixel was handled last year like you said big little and I was laughing of some of those comments because I thought they were a bit obtuse to say on stage and then you finally get the phones in your hands and you're like now that wasn't true you you don't want to have features or specs that are different between one or the other right except if it's quad HD screen a big battery or anything like that um the phone's turned out kind of I don't know there's so many mixed reactions like lawn over at Andrew Authority he doesn't like how they look right I adore how they look I think they look wonderful there they looked compared to every other phone and that's the number one thing that we need right now yeah so our specifications go that's exactly everything that we were that we would want them to be Snapdragon 835 four gigabytes of RAM a good store good not great storage options right without an SD card slot and I know that the main thing people are gonna be talking about they already are is that lack of a headphone check totally yeah but as as far as how they presented it it kind of falls in line with how a lot of companies have been doing it recently or they don't focus on the specifications as much totally seeing the experience exactly and a few people were complaining I remember they said that what are going to be those features on the pixel this year that end up making it onto every other phone so that the pixel is no longer special right because Google assistant I remember being really mad when Google assistant made it onto the first non pixel phone and I was like so what's the point the pixel that and as they were presenting yeah as they were presenting the phones I realized there were a couple of things Google photos still included yeah yeah then there was another they always on display always always checking to see if there's music playing and it will tell you what a nice and a nice low perk and aside from that having the portrait mode done by the computational data in the in the camp yeah also I have a lot of thoughts on that but I'm just gonna I'm just kind of over viewing what will ease in yeah overall I'm really happy with what I saw okay and I would very much I'm actually a big proponent of the pixel line because every now and then like s phone reviewers and I have to have to preface that I don't look at these things all the time as just a general consumer right because it's hard to yeah it's it's really easy to lose perspective you've seen the bookshelf yeah exactly I have a drawer where's every phone there's no way to be a consumer when this stuff is so accessible it's not getting as a consumer I will say that as long as you actually get eyeballs on this phone yeah then yeah it'll look pretty enticing it's made by Google and I'm sure all of the all of the different ads and ad campaigns are going to be all over the place in places like New York in San Francisco it's a genius hashtag yeah exactly but as a phone reviewer the reason why I love the pixel is because it's a breath of fresh air from all of the other phones that try way too hard while Google is there saying hey we know that our experience is good you're going to have a good time with it so here's what we made I mean I I think you know it's been put out there or something maybe not derogative but you know there's always kind of a snide wink to it but the Google iPhone you know again it's focused on a certain streamlined consumer accessibility yeah and what I'm really hoping because again I haven't spent any time actually handling one is that Google can do what Apple has succeeded with up until the iPhone 10 yeah in not making users have to relearn parts of the UI that's true so even even like one of my biggest criticisms of a company like Samsung has changed for change sake where if I pick up a galaxy s7 and I liked how that was laid out there's no guarantee that my menus won't be completely different when I pick up a galaxy yes yeah like the next phone I like the curve suddenly went up again exactly or just you know where things move around in the camera app yeah so between the s8 and the note 8 they have prioritized different things in the camera app there's no way to get a feel for what Samsung is whereas like the iPhone camera app hasn't changed ever right like I could give someone on a 3GS and iPhone 8 plus and there would be almost no learning curve yeah exactly so that to me so we're talking about the change of interface are we talking about the Google button on top I'm gonna talk about the home button of the home screen and the Google Waze is that was new and for the pixel launcher I was on the top left now it's moved down to the bottom we see it's changes like that I think are concerning but but it's more does Google think that they can achieve a consistency of UI you know you have so many different apps that like something will never exist when you have all of these other companies who have their own versions oh is it isn't that the point if a nexus or a pixel is gonna say like this is our vision for it so when you have all like you know encouraging more people to actually you know they it's a bar it means that you can type text on it as opposed to a button where it's just like oh that doesn't signal enemy's the things so I'm not sure if that had to do and then that's a big problem with say like 3d touch on an iPhone there's no conveyance I mean when you're talking about something like conveyance we understand a bar but do people do people who are using the new pixels no to hold the home button exactly you know which is what I think the squeeze is actually kind of a good idea just because I guess I'm a button you're like I want a shouter button that could then be a root program I don't know yeah I'm totally I mean come on my favorite phone is the key one for God but having the having the squeeze function there as long as the documentation in the box yeah makes it clear that squeeze the phone and all of a sudden Google's there at your beck and call I'm sure a lot of people are gonna have that workflow where they take the phone out squeeze in there eating it before they're even looking at the screen and that's that's been like my big problem with things like iris or face scanning it's like there's an extra action that has to happen before I can actually get into the phone however I want to circle back to something that you were talking about not to get too into the specs because Google didn't care about this back yeah they didn't but I did find it kind of it made me a little apprehensive because I'll be reviewing the smaller pixel Jaime is gonna be getting the pixel excel could actually really happy about this because I'm not the biggest fan of super large phones but the color the color of the excel the Panda oh I definitely want the two-tone I would love to have that phone on the smaller yeah I was a big old root boy in high school you know when you have the blue old pixel here mmm the blue of the new pixel I don't I don't like it I don't like it at all it's like it's like a bad sherbert you know what I mean no I mean it's kind of loose the baby establish you have to say it with a shrug yeah this is this is a declarative statement this is really blue yeah even yeah even Google knows that's kind of what a bold statement but but the thing that's concerning me about the smaller pixel are those differences on things like the screen I think Samsung and LG have made excellent arguments for why even a smaller phone should be moving to a two by one aspect ratio and Google is being tasked with trying to be the Vanguard for Android not for galaxies not for LG V's not for skins not for anything else this is this is Android their take on Android and part of that is gonna be what does your phone do with a taller aspect ratio which you'll have on the XL but you're not gonna have on the smaller pixel I somehow feel like the smaller the smaller I was at the smaller XL the M I've almost feel like the regular pixel is going to be used or rather and again it all comes down to how Google presents these phones in their ads and everything like that the smaller pixel is definitely made for people who just want to have that experience mmm simple experience while the xle is for the experimenters the cutting-edge people which is kind of like what the iPhone 8 in the A+ are because you want to have those dual cameras you want to have a little bit extra but in Google's sense like they're kind of eking towards that you know they're not they're not gonna put dual cameras or they're not going to put different features on one over the other but if you get the excel you're gonna get a little bit of pillar box saying you're gonna get elements that are different now I mean because we always get these questions even though I find the question of worth it 'no skeins of toxic to a lot of discussions but we're talking a $200 price difference between the two phones and is that really is that it sort of really absorbed by just the taller screen and the larger but not at all i was recently asked are there any phones out there that are not worth your money and i pretty much said the noting if i was going if i was going to pay for a phone outright without any like sleuthing of trading my phone right paying total price for that doesn't make sense to me no and i'm very inclined to say maybe the excel is also there but it's creeping up it's creeping up is creeping up but i still want it that's the difference like you know III don't get me wrong the note is a great device right but i want actually want the pics like so yeah you know so paying that price it's not quite as bad in my opinion because there's also just nothing else in Google's line up I mean it's silly to think that a galaxy s 8 plus is something of a consolation prize if you were really shopping the note but the trade-off is do you need the s-pen and a lot of people will say you know I'm probably not gonna use that you have an option yeah you have an option to save yourself some cash even like again if you were saying you just wanted to buy it outright where else the pixel XL doesn't and the the consolation prize would be buying the first-generation pixel or something like which is cheaper now yeah it's not it's not a bet as someone asked me like should I get the original pixel now that it's like was it $100 less now yeah like I was like yeah that's not a bad idea let me like the 820 is gonna age I think a lot better but you know it's the discussion I just really wish they'd kept really blue yeah um it's the discussion on I get the other names of their colors also like I'm not okay not gonna get weird on this podcast but you know so little weird it's just black and clearly white are not what you want in today's political climate anyway and for the two-tone being like a Michael Jackson song yeah okay alright but but it seems to me like one of the arguments and it's not a decisive argument but one of the arguments against buying in the older pixel would be how on the pulse do you want to be with new software and services and and that does seem to be the deciding factor for we're looking at machine learning algorithms AI for your camera the original pixels no slouch that's phenomenal image processing but they're talking about taking depth mapping to an entirely new level you know portrait mode without dual cameras and I'm really curious to see if they can pull off that kind of image processing on the fly yeah well we were talking this is slightly off tangent but we were talking about taking shots every time of the term AI or machine learning came up if you would have died we would have died you would have basically would have died and it was during the camera that I feel like I heard that more than any other part of the of the presentation mm-hm and I'm curious what you would say being you know a resident camera expert so she spoke on camera advocate I should say right now how computational photography could change the game because I had a lot of I will say negative um you know one of our one of our friends from from across the pond or across the Pacific I should say he said was a she and I actually arguing that computation I was arguing that computational photography takes away from this craft that I've learned over the last okay decade because now we're putting it into a smartphone that oh we're using everyone else's photos in perpetuity yeah in order to make it so that your photo is the best hello screw the fact that I'm like oh I know my settings I know the triangle I have light you know so and I can't I I there's also this phenomenon that I realized I did after the event where the same Apple bias that I was advocating against we're saying that I kind of hated yeah I was having for google okay so for a while did I was like oh that's cool like portrait mode on the front-facing camera using computational data that's a lot like what the iPhone is doing but I'm more I'm more supportive of the way Google is using it okay you know but I'm still I still hate that this is where photography is going so I'll write or what you think so I I agree to a point that there is something that feels feels like sort of a bad shortcut yeah you know for making our photos more photographic and and I'm in the same boat I mean I've got multiple just interchangeable lenses by the way my little it's a great micro four-thirds your this podcast not sponsored by Kodak but but should be sponsored by Lucroy number whom on the table a little mini-fridge in here but um so I feel one of the things that's really difficult to rein in with computational processing of imagery is right now and this won't be true forever at some point it won't matter what sensor you capture an image from it's going to be run through a software processing chain but the user might create or that another company might create for the user to make the photos what look pretty with the good colors but right now there's still an unpredictability to it um there's still a lack of finesse I mean if you've ever shot on razor sharp ridiculously shallow depth-of-field glass you know III rented a 50 millimeter f1 point Oh from my old Canon I was just regular I mean that that it's a coffee can on the front of your front your camera and the way that you're you're sort of tightrope walking with your photography absolutely to get what you want in focus you know the difference between this and this means your eyes are just out of focus it's like you know that you can't get to that yet with computational photography with computational image processing but even then like the the fake bouquet effects and all that you know to to the trained eye it's egregiously bad like yeah and well and and it's it's acceptable but it's but it's the same thing that we've constantly run into where if I take an amazing portrait of you and you share it on Instagram it's still not gonna look great um but there is something that you can point to very readily and very easily um very readily and very easily when you take a portrait from these zoom sensors on the iPhone and Samsung on the note where it's a lower quality sensor it doesn't look as good especially when you compare it to like the dual sensor effect from Huawei because it's using just normal sensors there's an image degradation there's an image blurriness it's softer it doesn't look great yeah and then I think the the user because we're sharing so many images if you're just flipping through Instagram no one's gonna care yeah the people that are actually looking can tell the difference between an amazingly crafted portrait and something that you took from your phone so I think we're still a generation away and there's still some things we can't get away from when it comes to hardware and a true photographers workflow mm-hm but at some point we're just all gonna have to make that switch I mean it's the same thing um we've got a couple tweets here that I want to get to okay from Russell Santos this is another thing that I think kind of fits into that there I feel like we're analog kindred spirits to a degree and Russell's reason why I use the v30 and I love using the manual mode on the v.34 both video and photo and one of the other benefits of the v30 is an audiophile grade headphone jack which muscles asking about pixel users will be rocking the dongle do you feel that older USBC 2 3.5 millimeter dongles from lekha and Motorola will work who let go whoa I mean like I can't see how they could I they should work just as a pass-through I don't think they will you don't think they want I don't think they will because part of the problem is there is no USB audio SPAC there is no spec on Android fine just kind of like on an iPhone I can plug in my focus right audio interface and the iPhone knows what to do with it because it's just USB audio but aren't they just passed through though like that like the phone doesn't have to have in their proprietary really yeah that I didn't know yeah so if you take an HTC adapter it's a USB C plug mm-hm and you plug it into anything else USB nothing happens the pins are just crazy for that and I think that's why doing this is what with me but made for Google so it's like made for iPhone may for a pad Apple has its own program where it shares resources tools whatnot and in return the manufacturers than the accessory manufacturers get licensing like there's been talk that Google they've been really up in the ante on USB C in their Android compatibility requirements and with this they have more leeway they have more power in order to push that through now whether or not this will extend to further Android o Am's or like there's talk we can discuss that later point but I think just as a Google for Google pitch this should really help us out here yeah I'm hoping it seems like yeah I was gonna say do you think Google is just trying to get ahead of what will become the standard for such proprietor for such accessories and you know what's frustrating is that we didn't need to be in this place of course not yeah I mean there's a if we're utilizing a Linux kernel we should be able to use just a regular USB audio i/o yeah driver but I will say that Google has been at the forefront of making USB see more than just another way of plugging something oh that's true and and when it comes to something like Mass Storage they've been doing great yeah what I enjoy so and charging yeah absolutely because the if you notice the pixel and the pixel to no talk of quick charge no talk at all why because and I'm a huge proponent of this now how our delivery yeah use power delivery people because in order to make us be a charge something fast yeah I'm Qualcomm has had to do some you know some experimentation some sleuthing and that is when you have battery problems yeah yeah problems and dangerous meanwhile the USBC standard itself was made for high currents 27 watts whatever the whatever the case may be right and the reason why I know about this is because I have a Nintendo switch once I learned like what charger what power bank I needed yeah whole world opened up I was like power delivery is awaited yeah no that's like that's the point when we're talking about you know the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack is a standard yes because of its life you know the phone Oh Jack was invented in the early 1900s maybe the late 1800s USBC has a spec for power delivery yes that should be a standard that we can all utilize and every Android phone this year has had it yes and so my problem with USB see audio is let's say Google has the muscle in the cloud to create they're made by Google audio licensing platform it's not a standard yeah and I don't know does that mean that if I invest in an adapter that's made by HTC I I will not trust a cabled audio connector until I can seamlessly unplug my phone plug it into my laptop and transfer to that as an audio source I should be I should be more I should be angrier about this I really should be because I was when Apple did well in the convenience I mean the argument is a lot of people are gonna move over to bluetooth I have an insane collection of bluetooth headphones I get that saying but there are still times and I'm so happy you pulled up the V 30 I had to send my prototype back so I'm waiting to get my next oh yeah 30 so that we can actually finish our V 30 coverage exactly a production unit should be coming in soon but when I plug in my super expensive Senate Sennheiser's that phone properly drives them to a degree that bests even and standalone high-quality audio even these EKGs that I have in my head yeah right now that came with the essays oh they're actually Samsung earbuds with AKG labels on them fair but this is Samsung Samsung PR rep was very upset oh really hold them AKG buds okay and so I have to correct that every single time so correct this is just a branding exercise apparently I can let it go I can let it go so well correctly I am using the earphones right now that came with the Samsung Galaxy s8 but they are driven beautifully by the visa oh yeah they're so good the amp on it that is actually really punching what the drivers in those earbuds so like I was saying a second ago I I should be angrier about this especially considering I was so upset I called it the audacity of the audacity of Silicon Valley you just basically say Oh a century of audio history yeah gone we don't care about it anymore because we're courageous yeah exactly only in San Francisco Bay could anything be called courageous but anyway so I am upset about it and you know like I said just as people have the Apple bias I apparently have the pixel bias and that's very yeah and but I I'm going to go on record right now on this podcast and say that I am upset about it even though it wasn't quite as visceral as it was so because I I totally accept that at some point the 3.5 millimeter jack is gonna go away hmm that's not really I mean because if you if you check out my pixel reactions video there ton of comments who a good just get over it get over it man just the future like the future can't arrive until something replaces it yeah and what we have right now is horrific ly insufficient like to replace what is an amazing accepted standard yes for transferring audio that not that much bigger than a USB see and still has not been best in equality yes because anyone who's investing in building a DAC into a pair of headphones stops at 24-bit 96k audio which this phone I mean it's it's overkill yeah but the V 30 will produce frequencies of sound that dogs cannot hear it's so far ahead of the curve and if you and when you experience it you cuz like it's easy to say oh I don't really care about that when you haven't experienced a total it's really easy it's really hard to go back when you get used to what it can do that's why yeah I cleaned clung I clung to the HTC ten for as long as I possibly could it was fantastic yeah so that's also like you know I've got my v10 and B 20s like in reserve also cuz like they make phenomenal portable music players even though I don't have my sim card in them so let's say Google and ostensibly Apple if it came down to it worked with reputable historical audio companies to not want to to to make it so that the USB USBC standard actually has the same technology in it and it was cross-platform and it worked I mean because this is also the ire for iPhone users is what MacBook has a lightning port on it for your ear pods I hate ear pods but if you invested in this phone part of the benefit with of that was that you got a pair of earbuds you could move back and forth and now that's gone and so for me because at that point what you bring up there is exactly what I hoped would happen with USB C is it shouldn't be up to the phone manufacturer exactly an HTC are shining examples of treating audio with the respect it deserves yes for how the insane amount of time that we live in this world with things covering or plugged into our ears but you know who would do that even better is Sennheiser you know who would do that even better is audio technica sure Sony yeah those companies should be at the forefront of this digital interface but they can't work with a system where we're gonna pour all of our resources into building a pair of HD headphones like you know Sennheiser's we're gonna give you an HD 600 and it's gonna have a DAC built into it a Sennheiser or Apogee DAC yep awesome what phone does it work with well right now it works with two phones and then next year it's not going to work with any and then we're gonna come out with an HD 650 which will then be compatible with this phone but then not Sennheiser's never gonna go for that yeah Audio Technica is never gonna go for that a kg might go for that because they're owned by Samsung now but we can't get to that point where the true audiophile can supply those kinds of solutions until we have a standard and accepted compatibility and once we get there I will be so happy to buy a thousand dollar pair of sanitizer headphones that will just work with anything that I plug them in but for now what they're stuck with is making bluetooth headphones but speaking of those headphones do you want to hit on the pixel buds for a second it might have been a lot it might have been a while since I've had a podcast but I still have my Segway game so so pixel buds not not as I you know sort of I I think not as an exciting delivery or presentation it for Google fans I gettin some crackling from you Jules sorry you just have to stand perfectly still don't move in front of your age too so so not it is not as exciting I think for for what they are I mean there are cables pair of earbuds wireless Bluetooth earbuds I thought of it truly again I mean what is exciting though Google for every announcement that they had yes they are introducing hardware but they were making sure that software and services were front and center for everything that I've talked about so assistant is such a huge like it is the umbrella now yeah and I'm actually okay with that and exciting there I think for me especially only having I've been able to visit China once hearing that there was gonna be real time for China that was my first time to transition um but but hearing and not hearing excitement I haven't plugged them into my head yet but seeing that Google working on real-time language translation through the pixel buds you know the dream of every science fiction kid the universal translator the battle fish you know just that as a feature seems so simple I'm mad I didn't like try and patent something like first but it's about only Google having the resources to actually do or something like that in a hardware fair but I will say this as exciting as it sounds it actually is not any different from opening Translate on your phone and putting it in between you and the person so you're completely right but ok so this is the thing sorry I'm repeating myself for people who have listened to this podcast before my big argument has been for the last two years we have been rapidly approaching the post smartphone world we're not there yet but just like your desktop or your laptop is a commodity product a lot of consumers don't get excited about it so we're in that we're in the post PC era we're in the smartphone era we're rapidly approaching the end of the smartphone era yeah and I think Google had a lot of points to support that theory talking about what can we peel off of the phone in an organic fashion smartwatches were a terrible step yeah in that direction but what's a problem on your phone is this CrackBerry notification dopamine hit where you have to pick up your phone just to see what arrived what's an organic action for that is looking at a watch it doesn't really do anything better than what your phone can do except it's just in a different place which in a certain scenario for a certain person is just a little bit more organic to reference there and so I'm walking around Shenzhen I'm screaming at cab drivers I'm trying to hold a phone in between us and maybe it's just a little bit easier in the height of an emotional moment to go and touch my earbud and get some kind of translation happening where it's not obvious that I'm shoving a phone and I agree with you there if the phone still didn't have to be between you and that person because when you hold the button and you have somebody talk to you then you can hear it in your ear but right but the other way around still requires a loudspeaker so that the other person can hear what you want to say so there's still it's just I think complete isn't complete no totally I totally agree with that but to me it's also like it's never gonna be complete until we take the steps to actually start getting people to consider the of maybe thinking about taking a few things off of there oh yeah no no and so I would hope that just like what we saw Google assistant you were frustrated like it went to other platforms for me it's at some point there's gonna be a Bose headset that comes out I mean they're already working with manufacturers to include smarter AI assistants and stuff in Bose wireless headphones it's so easy to think the next step would be another Bose headset that just has this kind of thing built into it you know a Sony headset that can you know use utilize this kind of service organically and again maybe even take it offline like you can take translate offline on your phone this is like okay so it's it's like years out but once more of these things start filtering through we want to talk about some augmented reality - all of those things start coming together where the phone becomes less and less and less important for every interaction that you have between individuals sure I agree with that and I think this is a bit obtuse with me to say but like they look maybe like pixel buds - could be truly Wireless and if you give one to somebody absolutely yeah well in the second I saw that I the first thing I thought of was shehram well not not to share him but like what is Apple's reply to this gonna be because they already have a product that splits yeah you know work with Jabra you know Jabra has this there I don't know if it's their parent company or just a sister company that they're tied into together but their audio technology is based on hearing aid yeah tech that's true so if you had Wireless Jabra earbuds I mean it's kind of grows on her a little waxy and sweaty but in a situation where you really needed to communicate with someone for me it was the traumatic cab drive back to the airport and Shenzhen I could and go like just listen yeah don't like you know so what did you think so going away from the translator stuff what did you think of the actual hardware so the thing that bothers me is that there your pod style so they're not inner aural yeah thank you yeah that was the thing that I wasn't a there's about that when I put them in and I cranked them up mm-hmm collide they did some pretty see the problem isn't the audio quality um there I mean you'll see I've got a table full of like bone conduction earbuds I've got laid off yeah but in different usage scenarios there are times I want my ears covered and there are times I want my ears open okay and the ear pod style design does neither horrific ly poorly so when I'm listening on ear pods or any other thing that doesn't have a good seal in the ear I have to turn the volume up higher because I can still kind of hear the world around me yeah that's true but not well enough for situational awareness if I'm outside so I bone conduction is terrible quality hmm but man I'm gonna hear that bus it's about to turn me into Street pizza if I'm jogging outside yeah like I am aware loving everything that's happening around yeah so you you put up with AM radio quality audio because you're sound tracking you're not the this experience for me at that moment is I'm working out are used to walk the dog but I need to know every day and it's not escapism and now I feel claustrophobic if I'm outside and my ears are sealed that's true I have a pair of I have a pair of truly wireless here but it's in my bag right now and the seal on those is so good but the thing is Gary it's a little scary and I can only have it in on one ear because I'm worried about not being able to hear the world or hearing someone talking to it and even when I leave one in my ear and it's not playing anything I noticed that I talk louder look no lower oh that you go quieter yeah okay I go quieter because I feel like I can hear myself so well this is the scene I feel like I'm talking louder than I need to to you sitting right in front of me because I have one year blocked by my monitor yeah but now that I just said it I'm being a lot more conscious about maybe I'm talking a lot should I get closer with my exact it will do the ASMR version like this and it's really nice pixel so you'll hear the bubbles from my from my soda I liked the word where the fabric on the cord is kind of nice kind of an ingenious as I love that that's a consistent yes design accent now for Google and that little loop at the top so that it can stay in like I thought that was pretty ingenious to be honest and yeah there's something so I hate to use this term but there's something so googly about them and I'm okay with that yeah and I'll tell you what like that little that little touch sensitive Ariane them right here for turning up turning down the volume for going to the next track tapping it to get some sort of reaction from Google assistant yeah I tapped it just on accident and then it told me that the time is this it's gonna take this long ago there it's perfect again like I want I want Google cards yeah served up in little snippets of audio exact that to me makes so much sense I mana I'm reviewing a very inexpensive pair of wireless truly wireless earbuds and they have buttons and it's uncomfortable to click the because there's no frame there's no support there's no cable there's nothing you push into your ear to click this button I have the same thing that's that's a little uncomfortable is a little bit I don't know that I like that I don't even then like right now all these third-party wireless earbuds truly or not when you press the button like you press it to activate Google assistant I'm on the pixel buds you tap it to make it already have pre-programmed or smashes so that's what I would really like and hopefully that API gets opened up so that maybe the other ways that I've been using tap it once and it becomes a thing so what are you paying for here are you paying for ease of access to these services we're talking about 159 bucks this is air pods territory here before we move on to the Google home like why are we paying for you are paying for you are essentially paying for access at all times supposedly supposed to Google assistance and I made this argument with the squeeze function on the phones it's a lot like the big speed button where you can't program it to do anything else right well what I what the thing is I want to use yeah so that's a big difference yeah so if you have that need when it comes to these earbuds yes the quality is actually it's actually above what I thought they would be considering they're not IMS right but you know maybe that I don't know it's almost secondary to the fact that Google assistant has become a tool yeah I mean my concern what I would love to see and I would be nice to much though I was I will again any first generation I kind of have an expectation that it's gonna come with a premium price tag if only because Google means to convey that they're not cheap yeah I mean for all of the people who are fans of the thousand dollars that's why were fun to a thousand dollars yeah for all the people who are fans of Nexus is consumers were never going to look at a four or five hundred dollar phone and think it's just as good as the iPhones we are having a completely different conversation in the market right now with Google services so I don't think they could have launched cheaper with the pixel buds and have people take them serious it's a mentality I despise but I understand it and I understand why they're doing it and it's a in some ways it's a bummer but it's also mean like if the consumerism of this doesn't work then we don't get cool gear and we don't get competitors that are gonna be able to undercut Google your and stuff like that so there's an ecosystem that that does benefit from it tangentially that's not a virtually I guess the Russian citation given yeah but if we don't if we don't take those steps and we don't get coolness yeah and it's the same thing whenever like an essential phone comes out like I'm very onboard that experiment even though it's a big risk to take your daily driver phone with a company that hasn't proven itself but where where are we gonna get new stuff if we're not willing to give these avenues a chance we'd be stuck in a mobius strip or or donut maybe and speaking of donuts I want to get a bun - I know I'm sorry yeah death man you were supposed to bring remember you Yuri totally had that conversation that never happened friend so actually I just so google announces are all these new features coming to their Google home speaker and in addition to that they're introducing a smaller version I again there's there's gonna be an event I'm gonna try and get down there in Venice tomorrow what they're sending us they're set up but they're setting up a little donut shop because the new Google home mini is the size of a dome and so haha I would love to be there too if I didn't have to go to yeah I love that I'm actually writing [Laughter] literally before we went live I told him like hey what are you doing tomorrow do you want to try and go together and he was like I've got this wedding wait a minute what is it for and I said they're doing the pop-up doughnut shop he literally starts checking his phone to see the time of the wedding like there's any way that he can like just get around it that's how deep in we are for you people well I'll tell you this was a calf icing family and friendships I actually think well wedding is on the west side so I might be in the area anyway you could just might look real spiffy I'm all for doing some periscoping with you looking dressed to the nines let's do that yeah a good minute would be on the registry you could put that in yes I love it so what color did they give you oh they actually gave us a choice oh so we got to corals and a gray - great okay I'm really curious to see what the coral looks like in real life a little bit like your hatch Oh seriously that's perfect okay or two off but it's it's a little match yeah nice okay uh two things one I hate it the reason why example it's not water resistant the reason why is because I never expected it to sound good but I wasn't expecting it to sound that bad oh I actually think it sounds pretty bad okay yeah so it's perfect for Google assistant telling you what you need to know yeah but don't use it for music do not use it for music that's kind of a bummer it is a bar yeah I mean that's what that's what the max is for they supposedly say yeah a regular Google home sounds pretty good the regular Google home sounds pretty good and especially what's the UM the new little urban ears UE boom speaker my wife just got one from work like they're gonna be apparently oh I probably shouldn't say never mind um sorry it's not it's not anything huge but she got one she got one from work um and it's this tiny little you know nugget of a speaker and it sounds really good Oh considering it's a tiny little nugget okay the speaker so that's what kind of what I was expecting it gets loud spoil its you tie into the Google home ecosystem and I love the idea of like you know if I ask it to play music and it can follow me throughout the house I don't want to have to buy a bunch of maxes especially because they take up their big take up space and they expect you to have left and right that's not a $800 no no we totally had this EDM producer he was like I'll jam in on it okay and I was like speaking of that I'm not even a huge proponent of EDM but when I recognize who that was I was like oh like the whole people goodie commercial vibe that they had on he's like yo bro you should totally crank those tunes yo and you're like okay just wellhere's you just demonstrate how you plug them into your turntable I don't need you to read commentary for me well here's number two oh I hate it what this product should have been okay there's a way of adding google assistant to any existing audio apparatus you might have okay there's no audio out jack oh that sucked so I mean like cuz I think I'm gonna be getting one for ordering pixel yeah exactly the first thing I wanted to do was plug it into my TV sound bar and that's nice thing you can do as I've heard I haven't tested this yet but this is what I've heard is that you can Bluetooth your Bluetooth speaker ya know such a bad compromise no that's not a thing cuz I have a Marshall Stanmore which I adore ya and I wanted to just and then all of a sudden I'm are shil stand more has Google assistant right why the Frick is that not a thing yeah I'm so upset about that so once I once I picked up the one at the demo area and I've turned it around and I'm like there's no hole it's just a microUSB port and I was just like screw you see you know go home not even you see ya wall cuz cuz ubiquity pick what he didn't need that they need it to be the same as the original Google home because that was use people people sent us a number of tweets about you know the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack we've got chamfered edges do you think headphone manufacturers should just make the shift to USB see there's a huge problem of infrastructure where I've got ox cables phono jacks and the 3.5 millimeter inputs that still exists also yes where this entire ecosystem of products like I should if I have a phone that can properly deliver a lineout LGV 30 um I can plug that into some really nice speakers yep and have it properly drive that signal for that audio ecosystem to me I took it for granted that any google home or any Bluetooth speaker should have some kind of connection method yes to another audio source and that makes me very sad that Google if you want to make Google assistant ubiquitous that that $50 mini all I had to have was a line now that's all it needs little Alexa has one right exactly yeah yeah at the echo dock and while they're playing different games with the echo connect but it's like these little tiny things they're hearing small and smaller and because you because god forbid that users already have stuff yeah oh like I did again the audacity of Silicon Valley well you can just totally outfit your entire living room right you'll want to with this G logo especially for audio yeah this is why I mean cuz I'm a recording guy I mean like I have nice mics as props in in my studio I know for real I I almost want to buy some it's like a flea market in a bazaar yeah um but no audio doesn't change video changes right we get better processing capabilities we get different screen panels we get HDR we I mean there's an excitement to improvements for for that technology visual yeah but we figured out audio if you want stereo 2.1 if you want 5.1 7.1 surround sound the same general mechanics have worked and I've worked for a really long time yeah this kind of change upsets something that isn't broken and it does it for no great benefit eyes and determine when we could be plugging into this the the established systems very easily very Kimiko phone and arrived berry pie that's all you need your in and you have augmented 1970s technology you know you could go that 60s 50s you could go that far back if you wanted the giant mahogany TV stands that had those fabric covered subs in front of you so that you could listen to the Jack Benny show I mean like that could be Google home right exactly and you know it to your point we need to have the first maybe in some cases terrible example of how to you pick what is all of these services so maybe there's gonna be a company out there that makes something like a Google home micro because okay there are companies out there making their own versions of speakers that have Google home in it I mean Google assistant in it yeah so maybe we might have something but that's like a 3.5 millimeter Jack thing that's just this big mm-hmm and on the other side there's a USB port to keep it powered but on it is like an array of microphones and you plug that into your evening your even your low Phi system you just plug it into that or or or or rather I should say and and we've seen Google flirt with that you like it was the Nexus Q yeah spear then where's I have a chromecast Audio that's dessert yeah everything we we do need to take a minute though interrupt this amazing conversation to thank a sponsor sure if you'll if you'll pardon me I'm just going to turn slightly this way away from but this week the pocket meant weekly is brought to you by 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 that you're going to shoot in Instagram story of each week hello fresh delivers delicious new recipes was step by step cooking instructions broken down into six easy-to-follow pieces and each meal design is designed to take around 30 minutes to prepare even for kitchen novices or for experienced cooks who might be short on time recipes designed to make you feel unstoppable in the kitchen and your taste buds will thank you it's actually one of the biggest deals for Marie she is not kitchen savvy she's not she doesn't enjoy cooking and when I showed her that each meal was partitioned it wasn't like other meal delivery services it's just a big bag of stuff yeah this one like each meal was organized and then these cards popped out and she was in the kitchen like okay this doesn't suck she actually enjoyed it it was pretty great hello fresh sources the freshest ingredients measured to the exact quantities needed instead of a big clumsy bag of food all the ingredients are partitioned out there so that it really helps streamline meal prep time less than $10 per serving you can select between a classic plan vegetarian options and a family box if you need to feed more people hello fresh is constantly experimenting with different tastes and cuisines this week on the menu a Carolina barbecue chicken with mac and cheese thai spiced pork meatballs and their Hall of Fame adobo loco steak with crispy potato hash we have not had lunch yet we're actually talking about what we're gonna do he's talking he has a Filipino in front of them he used the word adobo so funny how well like Filipino and Hispanic has-beens play together yeah really good times you were telling me about a fusion place after my hellofresh spot we might have to hellofresh employees to full-time dietitians to ensure each meal is nutritionally balanced now offering light a tunnel fare and they've just introduced new 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 hello fresh has a special offer for Pete and 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 sign up at hella fresh calm hit that promo code pocket now 30 and we thank hellofresh for supporting the pocket net weekly and it's funny because Spanish and toy Gulag have pretty pretty similar aspects to them as well but there's the history behind that is a little bit and I mean like we're having another conversation to like because I come from a very Spanish Hispanic family and then you also have the shame of like walking around New Mexico and seeing landmarks were people have thrown shoes oh yeah these two doors they're like oh I am a quarter Native American I should probably be upset about this - mm-hmm super racist but you know you get together and you have lunch afterwards and then you know that every little thing society heard is the great equalizer yeah it is I don't want to get too into politics but when people complain about culture appropriation the thing like I always want to put the road block on is don't get pissed off about food yeah especially for for Mexicans and Hispanics like I want you to eat my food like you you come and you visit and I will cook and we will prepare and yeah this is how I'm going to share an experience with you like if a bunch of Gringo's are gonna go do a Taco Tuesday I'm like yes make the tacos good by the way a national taco day I know I've been on a Tuesday it should have been you should always make it like like the the first Tuesday of October knightly not like a specific day yeah yeah that's like how we use a throat TBT throwback Tuesday because sometimes you just don't feel like doing it on Thursday and you're here I have a picture now that's it and you can't even you can't make it like tossed back Tuesday that doesn't work flashback Friday flashback Friday works yeah I do want to that act I like that it's different kinds RW okay yeah we don't I think we should flip over we should flip over to definitely flip over in a flippy computery oh yes look II kind of way which by the way it's really like seeing this in the flesh is always nice I like this yoga book I'm just mad that they changed like a parent I can't find how to get back to split screen view so I'm constantly toggling back and forth between apps but it's been a great little tablet what's not a great little tablet but is aiming to be a phenomenal laptop replacement I was wondering if you had any thoughts on pixel book a premium Chromebook offering support for Android apps I think that's kind of a big deal especially is I've started I've started being able to achieve um most main work production on Android apps so like when I covered the r11 I didn't want to have to travel with a ton of like really expensive gear to China and I was able to cut videos that didn't seem to distract from our main channel on what map did you use Howard director I had overlays I had multiple audio tracks I had text tools I had transitions using what format a video um it perfectly worked between h.264 and h-e-b see on a p10 + 1080 4k 4k okay I would i rescind what I was about to say because I was about to say that it's the coolest laptop that I've seen recently that I'll never use to be fair I think there is a sentiment for Chromebook it's the same problem Microsoft had way back in the day I would have family member saying like oh I can't use Windows I had a Dell and it was terrible and then I went out and got a Mac and it was amazing and then you'd say how much was your Mac and they'd say $3,000 and how much was your Dell 400 you know like there's there's a disconnect there he's not Windows versus Mac it's you spent a lot on one and you spent not a lot on another and Chromebook has that reputation in there if you want to spend $200 on an amazing netbook web browsing experience great can Google start to change his perception like Microsoft did when they introduced the surface mm-hm it wasn't about here's something super cheap that runs Windows 8 it's we can make a premium product - that does things that competitors can't yeah and that's where I'm a little concerned I think Google can make an amazing premium product what is it doing that competitors can yeah and there's very little yeah that provides other than the Android ecosystem but yeah I mean okay I remember looking at it I thought it was beautiful it's a great piece of kit even that glass panel on the on the lid you gotta give Google some credit they try to they tried they're trying to create a design language exactly they're trying to be consistent across but yeah I kept akin to myself I I would love to take this on a trip Figg for writing and for some photo editing yeah but it would not be good for video I didn't until you tell me what you just told me well and it's still it like so I worked in power director and I got three videos I've put three videos up on our PocketNow channel through an app and it's not nearly as streamlined it's not nearly as efficient as when you're working in a proper video editing professional piece of software but it's doable like it's it's doable in a way that even on on Apple with iMovie I can't quite finish off of video I guess do over a enough for me yeah so that that's that's the thing is like this was really the compromise it was partly the experiment like I wasn't too concerned if our Oppo our eleven video was delayed a little bit um but it wasn't a significant roadblock to creating what I felt was a high enough quality on the road okay the media okay now what I want to work like that here in the states with access to all of my gear my amazing laptop which is downstairs right now I mean like absolutely not yeah then I'm gonna fire up Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas and like really cut the way that I usually cut but run-and-gun it made a lot of sense I don't know that I need to spend a thousand dollars on that because I'm in between things right now because I'm actually at this point I do this maybe like once every year why I'm like I'm not gonna write everything in my phone anymore my own skin yeah and a part of me is thinking like maybe the pixel book could be for those times when I know I don't need but then it's just another thing in my bag yeah so that's the reason why I'm never like that's the that's the the plight of being a creative especially on YouTube is that we never get to enjoy these products no we really don't and and and that bothers me yeah because it's one of the coolest looking things I've seen in a while Oh totally there's literally a button from Google is literally I press that thing so many times I just cast so I mean I was I was looking at that like I am so programmed by Google's ecosystem that I would consider that way before I would ever give Cortana a chance on my laptop like I don't know what it is especially because I was such a huge Windows Phone fan like I want Cortana and speaking English successful Google where the where's the Google assistant app Yeah right like why don't we why don't we have that you know just but I put a little keyboard shortcut and all of a sudden oh yeah so that would be nice I love I I love the design of it's the pixel pen mm-hm you know I I do think it's a pretty good implementation I asked him if it would work across all devices and they said no they said that it will work as a digitizer or as a pointing device okay but the whole like drawing on the screens I'm thinking it yeah yeah I thought that it was a pretty good implementation but again it's just another periphery that I probably will not be using yeah so that's my biggest issue with it I really want to cuz for me because I know I know I'm not gonna have the relationship with an individual product to the way that someone who is actually spending their hard-earned money is gonna have a very different relationship with that product but one of the things that I think I'm pretty good at is trying to determine who might this be for you know like I can look at a phone like the LGV 30 there's a very specific mindset that I can say this phone is gonna kill it for you you're going to love this phone and then there are some general consumers right it's got some fun stuff to offer that you're probably never gonna use yeah same thing with the note you know like I can very quickly determine you're gonna like the stylus everyone around you is gonna think that looks silly I had a really hard time looking at pixel book in the same way that I looked at what was the Chromebook pixel yeah back in the day um I'm stuck I can't quite grasp who would if I were shopping like family and friends and there I have like my Aubrey's a school teacher she loves her Chromebook she's got a nice oohs no way no way she'd ever pick up because Google music so who thinks even not even two things one of two things number one make use Chrome OS to target the ThinkPads of the of the world so that you can provide the same level of not only productivity for somebody who's in that corporate mindset but also the same level of security totally which is something Android already kind of does because it's a very lockdown system right generally and just not as high profile for attackers right now exactly yeah or make a version of this law laptop that can dual-boot that's all they need to do and if they made a version of the pixel book that had a dedicated video card in it that I could dual boot Windows to you know what I think the danger and and why cuz I I agree with you the reason why I don't think Google will is if you dual boot there's the potential that someone will realize I only work in one environment and if I work in Microsoft I don't need Chrome OS I guess that's true so what I really thought Google was gonna do back in the day there was a there was a beta build of Chrome for Windows 8 which when you opened it in the app and you remember when does I had that stupid split between app style and traditional desktop yeah so you open here to the traditional desktop that was just regular Chrome um if you check the Developer Preview you installed this beta and then you I think you had to toggle a setting when you open it in the app preview it was Chrome OS the full experience of Chrome OS and I thought Google was really gonna work this is more of like a Trojan horse okay you're already on Windows 10 gear you don't even need to reboot you can just flip this switch and look it's Chrome OS totally safe totally secure look at would be amazing to have right now with Android app support it totally yeah and so they were working on all these little core pieces that like you could you could run I mean again it was more developer focused but you could run an Android app in that environment sometimes most of the time they would crash because developers weren't really building the support into them um but then they just sort of walked away from all of that I felt like that that would have been what you're talking about just the end run yeah yeah utilize all of Microsoft's stuff yeah virtualized Chrome OS and yeah you have something really special because then it works on literally anything yeah that's already out in the ecosystem and so many people are already running chrome into mash and then if you make it and then if you make think okay the fact that google has is so into their own operating systems at this point is probably the Achilles heel here because if they were able to make the pixel book that has nothing in it and they're all like oh take your pick put Windows on there put Linux on there then I would scoop it up right away cuz then I would put Windows on there I mean granted it needs a dedicate videocard but now we're playing that game that I see so many people in the Commons music I would totally buy that if it were like a different shape into different colors it had all of my favorite samsung apps on there and then it also like was waterproof instead of white things like like I said like it's and it wears the most to apologies if kit I would love to like I would actually have pride taking that out of my bag and a Starbucks yeah to see of Apple logos man yeah exactly I just I just cut together a YouTube video that's what I want out of these but again we're the people who do creative are always like not really typecasted we're just stuck needing to use certain types of hardware i have an msi who uses em aside I do know my laptop is a Toshiba and I'm looking to upgrade oh look hey look I'm here there's like you almost just ended the show by closing your yeah you know my pain like you have to use this because it gives you everything you need not the coolest looking thing it's not even the coolest company really like my razor but I do wish it were it was silly as I wish it were the same way but a little bit bigger so the fans didn't blast like furnace you know like jet engines whenever I render of it because I can't finish a video at a Starbucks I'm that jerk who's disrupting everyone in my immediate vicinity when I try and finish that off um the other thing that I wanted to talked about I think the last major announcement that Google had again supporting my hypothesis that Google is looking to encourage people not to use the phone for everything that they want Google products and Google services baked into anything that someone might use the clips camera okay go pre quality my stance I wanted I wanted the audible heavy it's got a really heavy bass to it but I wanted that audible I'm not wrong in an era of amazing options from you know like drone manufacturers GoPros I mean I've got an amazing Kodak 360 camera Samsung's putting out great action gear the Onyx is 0 the rx0 is another phenomenal option and a ton of support for these things to wear if I want a gimbal if I want a housing if I want you know windshield mount like I'm covered I don't need to reinvent the wheel here this kind of felt a little silly it did feel silly it was just it just okay Google clips again not to get weird on the podcast but Google basically made a body cam Michael Fisher was walking around with one at Aoife and I don't think I ever saw footage from it I don't know if only in his review I mean but I mean like he didn't put together he reviewed the product I have to give him some credit to he you know we're talking about some pretty heavy stuff and then he was like oh I remember that dinner there was some heavy conversation and we were all walking around cameras and microphones like I was just totally proprietary please don't tell you but but I think it's a pretty awesome idea that is really just like it's almost as if they had some hardware lying around and they're like let's make something and use it as a way of marketing Google photos that's pretty much all I I felt like because it's a quirky to because you can't take the idiot instead you have these like you know competition uh-oh its algorithmic you can sense action going on and we have 15 frames per second capture for these like two seconds and fans like and then there's also yeah copy computational photography as well and then you have the Google photos but I mean to be fair yeah your point about this being a big ad for Google photos is correct when you've considered shared albums and face detection and all that stuff it's just basically an instant album and that's also great again like the Google photos apparatus being used inside of a cameras like baby record it's a baby it's a little weird because my wife and I had a lot of conversations about like how do we expose our daughter to the world and then how do we expose our daughter to new technology and so you know do you have do you have that mentality of what is your what is your stance on privacy for so I think we're now at she's almost two and I think eight photos have been shared publicly of there we go and I think only five of them have had some of her face yes this is my favorite photo of her is my wife and her walking in the rain oh and it's just you you know it's from behind yeah you know like that that to me is all I needed to do to convey a moment that I felt was appropriate to share publicly yeah and when she gets a little bit older and she can start deciding for herself as we start introducing concepts like social media she's working from the same blank slate that I was when I was a kid you know my parents would show everyone in our family photo albums but that's control stop there yeah yeah it's there wasn't this public broadcasting of every waking moment of my life in some of the most embarrassing times of my development and I want to give her the ability to make her own mistakes and not look back at all the mistakes we made on her behalf yeah see I would I would be so I would be I would be more a proponent of the Google clips if it didn't strike me as just the the laziest iteration of the vlogger Instagram generation right because I mean cutting back to your point about computational photography and photo processing and editing now you don't even need to bother pointing your camera or pressing the button or doing anything yeah now and also I know other products that are perfect for me with the same philosophy in mind right there's a camera that I'm waiting to I'll just name the product that's the Pogo cam oh yeah yeah I can't wait for that to come out because it'll be right here I can take it off if I want to so I don't look like a tool everywhere with the camera thank you if you do want to be a d-bag then you have the front row oh this podcast is definitely not sponsored my friend around I mean he looked like Flavor Flav yeah well I mean he really he really did use it I mean like if you catch Michaels review of that I think he does an amazing job of examining the product but also do I see someone like Michael Fisher ever utilizing that as a product or service for his own social media his own life his own broadcasting and like one of the things like because we have our own platforms and we can talk to fairly large audiences is like you know for when I go when I go personal I go quiet I mean like if I share something like there's a there's a photo album of my daughter that is only accessible to family and friends through a password it's cloud but like it's protected and there are only a lot of Google photos so actual actually because we because my wife has to use office for so much it's one drive okay yeah I mean it's not anything spooky the same same concept same idea and I think if they were on Google Docs we would have been using Google Drive it's just we had a ton of storage on onedrive and why not use it yeah I completely lost what I was the point I was gonna wrap up with oh but but for something like front-row you know like what is it that we're trying to accomplish with so much of us already broadcasting so much of our personal lives where now I need another product that's gonna do nothing but create more digital noise for me I take so many photos in so many videos that I already have to weed through now having an automaton do that for me seems like I'm the baby exactly you're not gonna get what I want you're not gonna get what I see you're not gonna capture what that moment was really like not in 15 frames per second two to three second video clips yeah so what is it that I'm really trying to accomplish with something like this that isn't just gonna be more stuff that I have to throw away later in my Google Drive bucket my Google Photos bucket which is already full of useless photos from all my camera reviews and oh so many photos of the creepy tunnel I have so many photos of the creepy tunnel how porn out please delete the photos of the creepy to say like after I'm tampered this photo in three months just get rid of it baron you know this landmark you see I shoot this landmark on a different phone every single time comes out please just eliminate don't make me have to go through but you know that's that's hopefully coming in a future update yeah it's a part of its also the fact that in the act of participating in photography in the pushing of the shadow and making sure that you know how it feels when you hit that button exactly what I was saying earlier about the fact that we've we've honed a craft yeah and now no one needs to hone the craft I mean when you're hanging your own with other photons I mean don't you have some amazing conversations you're like hey you know I was taking some candidates at a party you're like oh well don't people get self-conscious around cameras oh what I do is this or you can do this or you can introduce this or you yeah you can work with people because you're also crafting a moment as much as you're capturing it and you learn and you learn and there's there's this amazing community of people that you interact with once you start having those conversations because it's a technical art but it's still an art hmm you know so it doesn't matter like all the specs and stuff like after a point the tools don't matter as much as what is it that I'm trying to accomplish and what is it that I see and so for the pixel and one of the reasons why I was very critical of the pixel there's no complaints over h-dr processing yeah that's fine but when you give me a tool that's so streamlined that I find the output is unpredictable and that the only thing I can count on is the colors what look good then I'm not really a part of the discussion anymore you or you've minimized yeah I point the camera but it's not really capturing what I wanted to achieve with that and it's fighting me in some ways like Sony cameras are the worst at this where the auto mode Auto the auto modes are great unless you have a specific goal in mind for the output of that photo and then all bets are off and I remember on the X performance like I was even even down to focus um ours had issues where I would tap on the screen and would be like no no no no you want to look at this thing over here Oh God it would actually pull like the focus away from what I was trying to capture I was just wrong all the time and you're a hundred percent right like thank you for putting in those words because that actually kind of that kind of puts a ribbon on my point it is the hole you're gonna have two groups of people now where you have one side that's like oh yeah I put the light here and I got this my stylized look and the photos great and everyone loves it total and then you have the other person that's like portrait lighting yeah so there's no learning there's no like that I have family members who will not even take the time to tap the screen to focus on a subject it's literally just shutter button that's all they interact with yeah and their phone cameras and I can't fault them for that they don't have any desire to be it's it to be crafting they don't have any desire to try and capture something specific but just as much as the audio industry is being minimalized minimized rather by USBC we as the people who are the as the creatives are being minimized by computational yeah photography and that's my biggest problem with it is that people used to look to us as people who are able to make great-looking content right and now when everyone is able to make a great-looking content or rather not even that maybe it's not even great-looking content but it's the kind of content that the masses are depressed by or impressed by so that's all they want so if we were to give somebody a great black and white portrait photo they would be like yeah but doesn't look like what my iPhone did I don't even watch money anymore I'm like there was recently a spread I forget what museum I was in a physical location just walking through hallway after hallway of any Leibovitz portrait work and be like this is something I can't even I you know I felt like such a Salieri you know in like I know exactly what she's doing I know what camera she used like I understand all of it and yet I know for a fact I would never have been able to duplicate yes this type of work were i given the hardware in the studio or the context of what it is that she captured in that moment and that's a part of the discussion that now gets increasingly lost at the consumer space yeah where for a while it was really just like you know I have my Canon 7d under the table right there um I would show up to parties in like I would take photos and there's a part of it where you feel like you're being left out of moments because you're capturing the moment but then people would look at the photos and go oh you have a really nice camera you know and like I could give you the camera and you would never be able to now there's a part of it where it's like there's an abbreviated discussion on what their phone could do yeah and that's now accepted as the standard for what looks for what looks good yeah what's accepted and you like oh that that thought is kind of noisy and you're it yeah because I caught you at dinner lit by one candle from a nice camera and it it's grainy it's low light yeah yeah but when I take out my iPhone the flash goes and then does thing and it looks better like no it doesn't look better [Laughter] yeah thank you you're you're the first person so like really really capture this this incredulity that I have I can never say that word right well how incredulous I am at this at this shift that we're having well and it just it makes certain parts of the conversation more difficult like the hate we get from whenever I do a real camera review and I'm not willing to just say like oh the DxO score was a hundred so it's the best and you're like there is no such thing yeah I want to tell people like one of the reasons why I am excited about the pixel to camera is because I know there are people who only ever want to hit the shutter button yeah and this is gonna be great for you but at the same time don't try and minimize the work that Leica has done on huawei's camera AB if I want to be able to change a shutter speed you know like they're completely different audience at the v30 perfect example yeah like the video I can get out of V 30 will shame most people on their iPhone or pixels the pixel video is so great Google could have Google and a sense well could have skirted all of this hatred from people like us yeah if they did one thing give us a manual mode give us a plug into your app mm-hmm that I will manually download myself so it doesn't clutter up your streamlined interface on your auto modes but just so that I have a first-party solution why the v30 is better than just installing another app is because it's baked in and it works with the phone really well and I have an expectation that it's going to deliver where a lot of these manual ABS can sometimes have compatibility issues yes it just what is there okay we've definitely gone on a few different tangents here is there is that a bad sign that Jules has disappeared no actually the reason and thank you for for pointing that out Josh if you've been watching the live broadcast of the show you'll notice that Jules has disappeared and that we now are looking at a pocket now logo yes one of the things that um was also sort of newsworthy in a really interesting way was a very intricate hoax prior to the pixel launch I'm sure you guys saw some headlines on a the ultra pixel and Jules actually had an opportunity to speak with a ricardo Kambo would you great on you by the way yeah I mean he and he took the time to reach out this was a pre-recorded segment so we're going to shift over to that so you guys can take a listen to that and we'll come we'll see you on the other side but unfortunately because of the setup Jules can't exist and play audio at the same time so he's going to cease to exist and you're gonna hear this pipe in there is no Jules for the next was eight minutes it's about six six to eight minutes and I are you good I'm good okay so then we're gonna we're gonna shift over to that I'm gonna take a listen then we'll wrap this whole pop up you up all right I'm gonna get straight to this yesterday night I received a bit of an oddity email from an anonymous source he claims to have seen Google's upcoming smarter feature of Android this guy youtuber mr. who's the boss got a hold of these images from an internal show-and-tell at Google that's showing that the devices that we've seen weak you're not real but apparently there is another Google pixel that someone appears to have crap shot from like underneath the desk or something and it on this computer there are slides showing the upcoming quote-unquote ultra pixel ultra pixel ultra pixel ultra pixel I have to tell you this I did I did it's testing this strategy and one is the name because it wasn't it should be ultra pixel shouldn't be just wanna it just had to be a big solution because and we have chrome and Chrome ultra okay chromecast chromecast and chromecast so that's all I said okay let's do a big peak shall be sued then when I was typing super hurry and I didn't turn out to be what a pizza when I was super young I just started to feature to draw we are you know guys with superpowers that kind of stuff vehicles and enemy on something more realistic more you know more Maria it were phones I think the first it starts everything was there I don't know if you remember the Sony Ericsson K cell MTV was the first cyber-shot the care of material the surface is where something else so from there I started oh wow say okay I'm super tired of University because they're like they're not teaching me the right stuff I want to walk I feel like I can do something right now for companies so I left University and I tried to send you know portfolios and the resume a to the companies and Sony was my favorite so he was on the top of the mountain so yeah so I did this strategy when I heard the first rumor about the ps4 Am I I decided to start this thing then I just put it out close to gia e3 are these pictures even legit Lauren what do you think I think they are first of all as we previously mentioned the design of the system it looks like a ps4 it looks like the same design hauswirth on the system that's notable because a lot of the times when we see mock-ups are fakes they don't even bother making it look stylistically similar the other products in the same line that's true this does look like it might have been developed by Sony it's got the same work it's got the same ideas it looks like it came from the same people this all this was just into a goal that you wanted Sony to hire you this message that said higher V hidden across all the pictures did you talk with Sony after that actually I don't even know if they saw it some some people asked me why did you didn't you do like concept I think this strategy like putting fake legs let's let's say show you more then I say I'm a concept to show you a strategy show your creativity show you vision show you many things take care of details and this is even more powerful than a concept because to find a job in Apple Google whatever and that kind of companies because of my goal is to find a job in America yes yes difficult because they complete those are a lot and mostly I don't have a visa because for us for frame there is even more difficult it's almost impossible so I had to find a way to I can do it yeah powerful try powerful way to together function glance we can easily see the latest updates on your day we're starting with calendar events today with traffic flight status and more coming soon in this case I can see that I've got a mysterious meeting coming up not sure what that's about pixel ultra meeting in four minutes we place the goal quick search I was shocked man completely shocked I was I was shaking I was that I knew that was my real body there not as much I mean I didn't explain me they saw it ok being at any public I mean that even with bad publicity someone will still reach out to you and offer you job like that I think so yeah I think so yeah because they're still very nice in my opinion right I don't know about the companies good background on the only strategy of good skills I think I think everyone even the the people that this whole thing the the fake news love the concept so I think you can you can split the thing and understand that there's something alright thanks for putting that together Jules it was a it was a fun little insight on something that again it was this this really interesting blip of a news story like for saying I try not to engage too much with leaks and rumors and stuff I won't want something to be real and I want to know about it when it's real yeah and so didn't get those stories about an ultra picks on everybody getting so excited and of course was it was it was it was pretty great so thank you for putting that together Jules a nice little addition to our podcast there and especially for folks if I don't know if we had a little audio gremlin during the live broadcast but it'll it'll sound it'll sound fin I've already heard the finished piece it'll sound phenomenal for our audio podcast definitely check that out but folks and there will be a bonus episode of the pocket Nell weekly later this weekend where we have the full conversation oh so definitely be on the lookout for that just a part of our normal podcast feed right people will be able to download it indeed Google Play iTunes wherever you can get it and speaking of wherever you can get podcasts I believe this podcast is over it's time to wrap this puppy up and I just pulled cables out the whole thing so Jack I really want to thank you for dropping by the lab so much for having a lot of fun that's definitely an honor it has been a while since I've like I've it's been a while since I've podcast it in general so I'm really flattered and also that you didn't seem too offended that I like to podcast bear flight so well you're not offended that I have my shoes on Stan so we have two different cultures working right now that was super racist I even bringing it up there you have it folks another episode of the PocketNow weekly has come and gone this show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where you can find Jules is at point Jules Josh is at JV tech T yes sir tech T EA is in the beverage which is delicious and I of course M humbly some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on Instagram Twitter Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com for Spanish speakers definitely yes pocketnow.com because we're now everywhere is global it's a thing shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly wherever you can with any of your family and friends who enjoy discussion of mobile technology and leaving reviews on anywhere that you can review podcasts again we want to thank this week's sponsor hellofresh hit that promo code hellofresh comm pocket now 30 get yourself some tasty meals they're helping us keep the lights on but ultimately there would not be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air since 2012 the pocket now weekly we'll be back next week with all kinds of delicious technology goodness so make sure you tune back in you