Gadgetory

from pocketnow.com this is PocketNow weekly hello and welcome to episode 019 of the pocket now weekly the once-a-week podcasts from pocketnow.com where we discuss what's hot and what's cool in the world of mobile technology Windows Phone Android and iPhone and everything in between I'm your host Michael Fisher senior editor at pocket now and today I'm joined as usual by our managing editor anton d Naja good morning to you sir good day to you guys in to everybody and by our editor-in-chief brandon minimun good morning to you good morning we have a we've had a short week we have a short week here in the United States because of the thanksgiving holiday which will arrive as usual tomorrow and we also had a late podcast last week so this is a podcast that is not covering as many topics as usual but as long-term listeners know well that does not mean we won't turn out a 14-hour potty somehow we'll find a way we do have some some great stuff to talk about though some of it we touched on last week but we didn't we didn't know enough yet about what we were going to talk about and I want to get things kicked right off I'm talking about one of the most buzzed-about devices of the season and it's one that I don't have Brandon minimun as the nexus 4 and has been making some videos about it and I we all want to hear your thoughts Brandon well happy to provide them because they're they're a lot different than I thought they were going to be and let me frettin let me let me frame this properly um the Galaxy Nexus was one of the best android phones ever and I and I think everyone was expecting it to be it was google's new Nexus flagship it had the second 720p screen of all time of course the HTC Rezound was the first so it was it was kind of a breakthrough it had this beautiful screen it was super amoled it was fast at the time it came with i think it was ice cream sandwich she was the first phone with ice cream sandwich is that right guys I think that is correct yes and you know it was such a good phone it had a good in hand feel had good waiting it came out on carriers that had LTE it was affordably priced although actually it started I think a little bit hired like 499 a little bit lower than your average unlocked phone at the time but still no Nexus 4 so when when google announced the nexus 4 i was like hot damn this is gonna be the next Galaxy Nexus this is gonna be an awesome awesome phone it's got the s4 pro quad-core that thing smokes it's got the even higher resolution display it's like an optimist g which is awesome alright it's running stock android so that must mean it's going to be faster and it's going to be unadulterated android which is just awesome cuz google was done such a good job and at making android good enough without a skin to be just beautiful and elegant and fast and fluid and so forth um so i got the nexus 4 and i've been using it since i don't know what i think i received it on monday and so it's been it's been a solid you know 48 hours a little bit more which is a long time because you know when you first get a device of course you spend almost every waking moment with it um and as a result you're like why is my battery life so bed and then you're like oh yes i'm using it comes using it all the time yeah yeah um and I am tremendously disappointed with the nexus 4 and there's there several reasons but I want to first start off with something funny that happens you know sometimes you see a scary movie we're like um like someone goes into a room after having just left it and something's different like the couches on the other side of the room kind of like um what's that movie with the cameras in the house safe house not safe house something i don't know i don't want her movies like like paranormal activity oh that there's a lot of movies with cameras in the house i was about to say something else that's another type of movie uh yes tourney anyway but anyway so i'm having that experience with the nexus 4 I leave the room and I come back and the nexus 4 4 is on the floor and that kind of rhymes oh wait what oh because it's because it's sliding off surfaces yes it is so weird yeah it is like literally I've tried this on three or four tables and I'll place it in this center of the table like a foot away from the ledge and I'll come back and I'm like how did that what yes I I've talked about it you can put it down and you can actually watch it crawl across across stuff right because this is what happened with the optimus G I was I couldn't keep holding the thing like I also would like look up for a second I look down and it's just gradually just slipping along the tabletop if it's anything but perfectly level I know exactly what you mean I'm so glad that you're saying that because i thought i was i was crazy now right when when i wrote this piece about here's why google is selling a nexus 4 bumper somebody in the commons said that there is by design a gasket or something on the bottom of the phone designed specifically to avoid slipping did you see something like that or that's just marketing talk no it's I'm looking at now it's flush it doesn't protrude beyond the piece of glass on the back so it doesn't keep it from sliding wow so it's exactly the same as helped mr. yeah yeah yeah just slide out of your pocket Brendan let me ask you does it like when you're sitting down and you know you like if you're sitting in a cab or something that your legs get that up angle you know does it slide out of your pocket because that happened all the time when I had an all-glass fun no no it doesn't slide out of my pocket I haven't noticed that that would be ultra weird girl huh did you ever watch out I I think it you know I think this slipperiness is is we're seeing Gorilla Glass to roll out and I'm thinking the gorilla glass 2 is smoother and well be well you know it's funny cuz I've noticed that going from device to device I've had a lot of devices recently in between the 810 and the droid DNA there's a very different thumb feel under the thumb and the fingerprint patterns are different on it you can tell it's the material I don't know if they're both gorilla glass 2 or what I mean these just the two examples I picked but yes I know what you mean I mean it's interesting to see how different glass works and if you think that this gorilla glass 2 is contributing to the additional slipperiness I wouldn't be prepared to disagree with you interesting yeah so so uh so I'm gonna go throw a list of things that I'm disappointed with and we're talking about this yes I've got a list here and and this is great cuz this transitions into the first topic of the Android check which is what we love and hate about the nexus 4 so please just yeah hit us with this well that's going to this is going to be that but more extensive job so the iPhone 5 has this this new screen technology where they bond the touch layer the touch sensitive layer to the glass I might not be describing that right but basically it allows the screen mechanism as it were to be thinner so that the device can be thinner hmm is this has the eliminate that layer between the glass and the displayed side oh yes yes that is this doesn't differ from that lamination that that everyone does their on their own kind of way it should be it should be the same right right so so then the benefit to that is that it of course makes the device thinner but and it also brings the screen up about a millimeter which you know it makes the screen look closer to the service which is nice um the big downside is that it impacts negatively touch sensitivity and and we've seen this people are staring to complain about on the iphone 5 I noticed it from day one on the iphone 5 the typing on the keyboard felt different it didn't feel as accurate and the the optimus G and the nexus 4 has I'm assuming that the Optimus G has prom I didn't spend enough time with an optimist tree the nexus 4 has this problem and the screen and the touch sensitivity is kind of numb on the Nexus 4 and it really impacts the usability of the phone and I don't think it's something that can be fixed with software I think it's a hardware thing it's not a deal breaker but it's definitely something to get used to did you notice any numbness on the optimus G Michael no I was just thinking back to my time with it with the J and I I didn't not that I'm aware of not that I'm recalling I think I was just to Malone away by how smoothly the software how close the software got to a one-to-one experience under my finger so um I may not have noticed any any hardware deficiencies contributing to then interesting yeah uh so so there's a touch sensitivity of the screen which again isn't a deal breaker but it's it's it's a little bit frustrating the next thing that disappoints me about the nexus 4 is the in hand feel and I've been trying for the last two days to put my finger on it because I pick it up in my hand and I wrap my fingers around it and I feel it and I don't feel like that satisfaction that that sense of like yeah this is this is great real reward you know you know the feeling the feeling you get with like an HTC phone or a galaxy note you're like oh mmm damn it i love this yes I I don't get that with a nexus war and I think I finally figured out why the build quality actually is cheap while it looks on the surface to be a high-end phone you get this awesome pattern on the back and there's glass on the front that wraps around the edges and there's nice little details when you hold it in your hand it feels dare I say like an LG phone and we we almost got past this LG thing cuz the Optimus G is a big step up from LG it really it really is but the next is for for some reason feels like a little bit of a step back uh is it because of the why is that I mean is it because of the change in design from a blocky thing to an organic thing is it because it's shaping the Galaxy Nexus what is I I keep focusing on the the edge which is soft touch plastic and maybe it's the the difference in texture from the smoothness of the front smoothness of the back end of the soft touch and and so it just feels like it's lined with plastic hmm I I can't really describe it uh and I need some more time with the phone to figure it out but anyway so that's the next thing the next thing on my list is the chrome browser the chrome browser in Android has worse performance in almost every case than the stock android browser and google keeps sticking this on the nexus 7 they stick it on the on the nexus 4 on the nexus 10 and and it's like come on guys this browser is not finished yet it feels beta it's it's got great tab management bookmark sync is awesome and password sync is awesome but it's not as fast as the default android browser have you guys found that to be the case yeah yes I I have since i started using chrome found it to be the delay gear browser for four months and months but um I was just talking about it yesterday with a friend of mine I will I deal with the lag eNOS and I don't complain about it often because I like these that chrome syncs across my desktop and my mobile platforms and it kind of remembers my history across devices yeah I mean so for me yes it's laggy but I I get around it with other conveniences what about you eternity I do not use grown because I don't have a device which I don't have a nexus phone so do you don't use it in iOS um no I'm using safari and I'm happy with um and and and as a to illustrate this point for it further right now uploading it the Nexus Galaxy Nexus vs nexus for comparison video where we're comparing the nexus 4 with chrome with a Galaxy Nexus with stock Android and you'd think that the nexus 4 would smoke the Galaxy Nexus because the s4 pro is a beast but guess what it's about the same speed in fact sometimes the Galaxy Nexus is faster sometimes the nexus 4 is faster and I bet you if you were to take the stock android browser and stick it on the Nexus 4 and then do the same comparison the nexus 4 would smoke the Galaxy Nexus as it should but it's not it's about the same and it shouldn't be interesting I mean is this just browsing or is this general responsiveness are we still talking about chrome vs vs browser it's just browsing overall the nexus wars definitely faster in the galaxy nexus by about a second to a half a second it's not a mega leap uh but it is it is noticeably faster and then the next thing really the last thing on my list is this issue of LTE and I know people kind of grown about that but the thing about LTE is that if you're coming from a device that had LTE the nexus 4 is going to feel slow but if you're coming from a device with you know hspa+ already next you're not gonna it's like it's all about comparison right yeah it is it's all about you're gonna see like differences if you're if you have devices right next to each other you're not gonna necessarily see it left left to right but i don't know i mean what like the LTE question is completely in uninteresting to half of our listeners and it's critical to the other half like it's the most polarizing thing this side of Android versus iOS I feel like right you know what I'd be interested in I know it's the same platform the same phones the optimus G and the nexus 4 i'd be interested in seeing a side-by-side comparison on how LG's version of the nexus 4 if I may works and how Google's version of the optimus G works the comparing just the side by side stock android vs LG customization hardware is the proximately the same 99% interesting that would be interesting and we should we should think about arranging that that would be cool to see ya oh yeah I'm looking forward to seeing that the video that you're uploading now in the Galaxy Nexus versus the nexus 4 because this that's really what the most what's the most interesting comparison right it's it's like this is the previous iteration of the Nexus flagship here's the current one and they even look alike I mean you know they too since the nexus s yes yeah oh and but but the Galaxy Nexus you know took did Galaxy Nexus changed more from the nexus s then I feel like the nexus 4 changes from the Galaxy Nexus mm-hmm you know right all this talk actually makes me miss my galaxy nexus a little bit and that's why when I brandon i feel you with as far as your objections to the design because when the nexus 4 was announced after all the leaks and it actually was the thing we'd seen leaked i was like really because it to me this is just a aesthetics thing that's just personally speaking it doesn't look great I actually prefer the look of the galaxy nexus which I never threw any parades over like the Galaxy Nexus I was like whatever it's kind of like it's a teardrop it's fine but I think those Nexus is better looking yeah I sort of agree the nexus 4 is nondescript but it at the same time it kind of looks a little badass because it's it's literally like one piece of glass on the front that's the same color and cheat like I mean on the Galaxy Nexus if you put put it next to the the nexus for you you can see the screen on the Galaxy Nexus because it's blue tinted as Samsung Super AMOLED tend to be but on the LCD display on the nexus 4 it's just like one big glass panel thing can I tell you what I don't I don't mind that the blue tent but I you have made me remember something remind us the nexus 4 does not have a curved screen glass right right it's got little tapers around the edges right which you know find that feels great under a thumb and whatever nobody really does it but that's one of the things I loved about the nexus s and the Galaxy Nexus was that a manufacturer had decided that yes we're going to make another bar phone and you know they all look the same all these slabs but we're going to curve the glass I know the display itself wasn't curved and some people saw it as a gimmick and but the way just that SQ away in which it contoured to one's face while you're while you're having a phone call and like you could look at it I edge on and see that it had that sort of suggestion of a banana shape i mean that's awesome i think that's a cool waited to make a phone feel different and look different and i was sad to see that wasn't there on the force are a ton of a few if you flex your muscles you can put some raw force in and you can bend the gnosis for just that tiny little bit honey bring me my blowtorch yeah yeah yeah yeah I missed the shape of the galaxy nexus it definitely uh was unique so to wrap up the thought threat here um you know that there are some good things about the nexus for the screen is gorgeous it's it's got fantastic viewing angles amazing color saturation and it just looks really good it's a little bit warm a little bit orange tinted but but that's not the worst thing ever it's fast day-to-day operation it's not blow away fast but it's it's definitely one of the fastest androids if not the fastest android it's got an android 4.2 which has some pretty cool niceties like the photosphere thing which is fascinating to use its best when you're not moving so if you're sitting in like your your living room or whatever and you're like I want to make like a 3 360 degree or it's more than that it's it's like a complete sphere you can do the ceilings and the floors it's it's really cool um madness yeah it was jolie by i did a video demoing photosphere right yeah yeah yeah and it looks fascinating and I mean panorama is interesting enough but but the photosphere I feel like is a really good idea have you taken a lot of internal interior photos with him yeah kind of pointlessly but it's a it's it's fun he really is oh well let me ask you before we get off the nexus for the the camera i mean in general photosphere aside is the camera an improvement over the galaxy nexus please say yes it's an improved yeah it's an improvement over the galaxy nexus but it's not at it's not better than a galaxy s3 for example it's it's an okay camera it it's just okay okay um and and so so my concluding thought for this and my god wait oh you're gonna wrap it up but but i'm sorry i have to jump in with one more question that I because I haven't had my hands on one yet the LED notification light I know it's it's tiny on this new one right yeah is it white only or is there support for multiple colors I'm only seeing white I need to get a what's that called um light life low life low life low I need to get light flow on here which I think requires root right no no no it doesn't require root but it doesn't it also doesn't work uniformly across devices so it's kind of a mixed bag whether it'll work or not all right well I know I'm gonna do that in advance of the the review and sweet i'll let you know now now you crap I'm sorry I needed it I needed that answered pressing questions from from a concerned listener I thought it was just in my Nexus far is just sliding off the table again it's unbelievable i am not surprised i'm gonna see can I be mean guys oh please be mean yeah they're saying around here I'm sure there's a similar saying in the u.s. to what did you expect for that triple price I mean it's a superb rice which doesn't really matter it's 200 something dollar phone subsidized from google I know it's good to be critic and to criticize the device and the platform itself I say we would be more entitled to criticize this if we or if you guys lived in a region where I do where we don't have google play and e-tailers sell the phone for like 4 500 euros but for two hundred and something dollars this is a great phone yeah sort of it's unfortunate it's it is a great price it's a great value but the expectations were far too high for this phone and and so my concluding thought was going to be the dirty little secret on why the nexus 4 is so cheap is because Google said let's make a cheap phone and in order to do that we're gonna have to partner with a manufacturer who can make this super cheap we're gonna do things to help our economics like we're gonna leave an LTE chip in the phone even though we're not gonna give it LTE support because that's a little bit cheaper for every model that we make if we keep it exactly the same as an existing motherboard so they did that they then they said well we got to make this thing look high in so we're gonna do this like back plating with the glass and the little shiny things on the back um but we're gonna work with LG on this because they can make it real cheap and we're gonna make it like it's not real cheaper to put an s4 pro in it's going to be the most expensive component in the whole darn phone and and people are gonna think that this is the hot but I'm not buying it um-hmm I'm skeptical and you know I I need a little bit more time with this to get my final opinion there's no doubt it's a good phone but it's not it's it hasn't met my expectations and I don't expect that over the next few days it's going to do wow me any for I to disagree what you think is gonna get more about that I tend to disagree about the fact that it's a it's a cheap phone it's not a cheap phone the reason for the low price is I think Google subsidizing it the real price of this phone is the price which we see it listed in European countries which don't have the google play store or anywhere else in the world I think the difference is google chipping in on the price because they want to grow the fan base the user base they want to help LG because you name it the reason why but this is not the price of the phone the real price of the phone is around five six hundred dollars and that's that's that's probably true but if they went with if they went with samsung for the next or they did a very similar phone they would have had to subsidize it even more maybe twenty-five dollars more per unit which would would be extremely expensive over millions of devices yeah I feel like LG probably had a pretty significant incentive not to not to put too high a price tag on this partnership with Google because the LG is desperately in need of more visibility and I feel like they are the company who would work for cheap that plus you cannot have three consecutive phones made by samsung I mean they're they're probably the air top OEM partner but you cannot neglect the rest of them yeah but Google could have gone to back to HTC you know who is also scrambling him hit me too who's also you know the HTC is trying to scramble back to visibility again but so I but I feel like HTC still has more clout than LG does this is based on the movements justjust orders I mean yeah yeah so that's interesting like a couple days in Brandon minimun thinks the the nexus 4 is a Kia with rhinestones glued to it that that's putting it harshly yes my point is that expectations are that this is gonna be the best most incredible android phone ever to exist and that it's super high quality in terms of everything just you know keep your expectations check it's still a good phone but it's not it's not gonna make you're not gonna knock your socks off that is really good advice and it's also a really really good segue into something that could have been the the next best amazing just market destroying Android device San lizards yes I know right and she's getting a hyperbolic on Wednesday before Thanksgiving it's the droid DNA review went up I wrote it I went out with cold days ago it's already in your DNA what way yes I'm have a massive genetic mutation that has happened it's so the DNA is is on its way to Brandon right now as we speak to do some to do some more videos and for to get in under Brandon's freakishly awesome my balls to to see if you can discern any pixels from from a half inch away but my god I do like this phone and I we talked about it a lot on last week's podcast and you guys asked me a lot of questions about it was very similar to what we just did for the nexus 4 but I've had more time to get to know it I've had more time to remember the things I like and don't like about sense and see what they've brought new in the sense thing I've had more time to hate on the camera a little bit but oh man for someone who values how a phone feels in the hand for someone who values a good build quality it is really hard to beat that the droid DNA I mean it just is an amazing device to hold I think and I might be talking it up a little bit maybe next week Brandon you'll come back and say what are you talking about i can't handle this soft touch sharp-edged nonsense but no it's it's it's great and also the screen is of course beautiful but my question is and maybe you guys can help me because I truly don't understand this HTC we kind of know how they feel about battery life because they've run focus groups we ran that story for some reason stuck in my mind better than almost any other story we've run where HTC ran all these focus groups and and they determined that people care more about thinness than battery life so we know what their attitude is on that the non removable battery shouldn't really surprise us that much its milliamp hour rating maybe should irritate us considering the power-hungry screen but none of that matters as much as the non removable storage the non expandable storage because unless you can live most of your life in the cloud then 16 gigs of storage only you know a little over half of which or whatever is usable is user accessible that's not enough for anyone especially if you're going to be taking video 1080p video you're going to be downloading 1080p movies you know you want it you want to listen to use HTC beats for some reason to destroy your music you know and listen to a lot of your music on the go like a why and and we know Ram as a component costs isn't that pricey right we know that the Apple prices iPhones at a hundred dollar spacing between 16 and 32 you mean flesh or flat ellipse I'm sorry not Ram flesh yeah that's what I mean wrong yeah Rama storage but we know you know the Apple price is it a hundred dollar levels but we know it only costs them what ten bucks for an extra for an extra eight gigs of storage so or I why would HTC do this do you guys have any speculation I have something yeah Andy capping they did go ahead the biggest problem with the droid DNA is that it is a verizon exclusive so if this phone was analog phone available on all carriers or internationally I think HTC would have went with the 32gb version just like the 1x or maybe the 64 gig version like the one x+ or or maybe both so I'm thinking that will see the droid DNA on verizon with these options they have it first and then when the HTC deluxe comes out regardless if it's going to be this holiday season CS or mwc we'll see 32 and 64gb options for the masses okay so and you know I was going to mention that to it is going to come out as the deluxe internationally and commenters have been over about that and rightfully so but why would you intentionally hobble like okay the butterfly J launched in japan and that was a big deal and whatever when you're launching you know in America that is no less significant a launch and when you're launching on verizon wireless it's a very high-profile launch considering its launching as a droid so why would you hobble it with with 16 gigs of storage only why would you wait to include more storage on the international one it's a it's a cost savings and we had you know in the case in the case of the droid DNA they figured that people would look past that specification saying mm-hmm i got that's got a 1080p screen what I want to see and I you guys remember when 3.5 millimeter headphone jacks didn't come on all phones and everyone was really upset and every review was like yeah lack of 3.5 millimeter headphone jacks sucks yes yeah and then an HTC came out and said you know what for every one of our phones in future when I 3.5 millimeter headphone jacks and they did it and everyone in the industry did it they needed we need to do the same thing about micro SD storage expansion and make a stink about it because I think it's so much better to have a phone with like eight gigabytes of storage and a microSD expansion that's 16 gigs and no ability to expand the memory in the future yeah and and we've seen in like unlike the Nokia Lumia 810 you can put the micro SD card slot right on top of the sim card slot so you can save space on that footprint because the sim card has to be there anyway right yeah so I agree why why omit it Plus don't forget guys that HTC had and I think they still have the agreement with Dropbox i mean if if they put 32 gigs and 64 gig versions or I don't know 32 plus as the card options on a phone nobody will care about activating their free 50 gig dropbox account I'm not sure if that option is still available but again they have partnerships and the trend is to move everything to the cloud whether we like it or not it is and and that's gonna be fine long term but right now with data crunches and carriers giving us data caps and all this stuff we really need more storage I just discovered recently I feel like an idiot that Spotify lets you download playlists and I know that's at the one of the key and I know that's one of the Keystone features but you know it's so cool to be able to download you know 500 songs over Wi-Fi and then be able to take it with you and not have to worry about Oh each song is 10 megabytes against your your data plan right again that's why Spotify is so crucial for particularly for us right because we're switching devices all the time and like I don't want to have to like pop out my micro SD card and put it in a phone that maybe doesn't support micro SD and sink it on my computer and cables and Wi-Fi sync and all that kind of know just thank fire up your Spotify client and download view songs what playlist you want to the new device I'm glad that you found out how to do that it's really pretty easy once you once you're discovered it was possible but you know I was trying to listen to music on Spotify just last night it was coming back from whatever has come back from the theater of the bar or something like that and I was like on a train that had you know I had HSPA covers but it in MLG coverage and for some reason it was being slow or whatever I don't know what phone i was using and i just couldn't get the music fast enough and the track was skipping in my ears and I was like this is so absolutely frustrating why can't I just have the music on the device oh right because I don't have enough storage on the device I completely agree i think microsd should be a standard i think it's absurd that almost all mid-range phones have it but these high-end devices are for some reason having their micro SD capabilities removed its rails kind of all it's it's just it's just absurd so and that's been you know that's not just us being tech nerds I mean this is what the commenters have been complaining about it almost universally in the comments they shake their fist about the battery life a little bit or they they complain it's too big or whatever but no like ninety percent of the negative comments are HTC why did you cripple this thing why did you get 16 gigs of storage not enough and a PSA here um do not get the nexus 4 with 8 gigabytes of storage you will run out within two days if you are planning on downloading any number of apps because you start off with about six gigabytes maybe even 5.5 and you download like shadowgun which is one gigabyte you download a couple Spotify playlist you're done and it's its root Nicholas yeah an eight gigabyte device on the market like masquerading as a high-end device is not it shouldn't exist it's aimed towards those who are like me happy to live in a region with unlimited data and fast speeds wherever I go yeah I know it and I think that's kind of the thing right because there's this prejudice that says only people who only people who live out on a farm in Piedmont South Dakota it can't can't live in the cloud and it's not true you know i mean we've talked with us before i live in a very very thickly settled city that is very technologically advanced and relatively prosperous and i still can't you know I can't exist in the cloud because the whole damn public transportation system is underground and also don't forget that when you it's it's much more gentle on your battery if you've got yet you know if you storing versus streaming very good point exactly yeah there are still really significant merits to to storing versus streaming and yeah well we should we should we should we should probably move on but I did Brendan you're going to have the DNA by the time we talk next week I'll be looking forward to hearing whether you would hearing you talk about it Toni I can't wait to hear their continued can get your hands on whether the it's the deluxe or a version of the DNA or something like that because I think you will find a lot to to like about it just from a hardware sense i think it's i just want to say one more thing I I think it's a really really great how they decided to to do the 5-inch screen thing where they didn't widen it they didn't decide to make it into a big like galaxy note 2 thing they just stretched it it feels so great in the hand that I just can't get over it yes going keep you keep talking about how the DNA is not phablet and I it sounds it sounds like that's a really big headline here it is it's the most important thing ever and they set it right on stage in the New York City event they went out of their way to make that point very clear and it's not clear on the video because video is the thing where it robs scale right i mean even the next to the galaxy note 2 they don't look all that similar but you put the DNA in your hand and it's very clear what this thing is you know it's it's very very much the next step up from the 1x not anywhere in the same region as the Galaxy Note or the Galaxy Note 2 so we'll talk more about it next week this is still a really hot device and and Brandon's going to have his own thoughts to bring to it I can't wait to hear them especially with regard to viewing idols we could talk about this phone all day but we can't we got to move on and tony's board over there but this may not rescue him from it because i know i don't know Brandon first of all it's been such an absolutely absurd holiday season this is my first holiday season with pocket now and I didn't realize how crazy things get so today I'm putting together the podcast outline and I'm like kindle fire HD 8.9 unboxing and first impression who did this Oh Brandon did this when did he do this like I haven't even had a chance to look up from from all these from all the craziness of the holiday season and actually see things Brandon is this is something to get excited about or is it lame I haven't even had time to watch the video it's it's a very niche device and I think it's really good for mom dad grandpa grandma who just want to sort of live in this island of content and that's it it's so I mean is it is it still a it gets the really relevant question I want to ask about any kindle product is why would i buy it instead of A's and say a nexus 7 and we know I'm a giant X 07 fanboy so it's a crappy question coming from me but the 8.9 starts at 299 and the nexus 10 starts a hundred dollars higher so there's the price I mean the seven nothing and then there is d you know that the ease of use and the d comfort you know the kindle fire HD is just nice to hold in the hand again it's really it's not intended for power users it really isn't it's intended for mom and dad and it's really good for mom and dad safe to assume that the kindle fire is the ipad of the android ecosystem mmm i think it's our users for people who want everything to work without any tweaks out of the box content consumption consumer tablet well I feel like the Nexus 7 is already that I feel like Google did what they wanted to do with the nexus 7 which was to say hey kindle fire eat asphalt you know what i mean like here this this does everything you need her to do out of the box and it has a con 10 story which is really good and you know it's reliable and it's stable and it runs the latest Android build without a skin and it's always been more responsive than any kindle and it you know it will remain so so like what you know I just don't get why the kindle i know i think the kindle still exists because it's right for some people but I I just wonder if I wonder how much longer that dominance will last in that arena there's one thing that's that's for sure is that the speakers on the Kindle Fire HD 7 & 8.9 are unlike anything if you guys have a chance to play with one at a store hit hit a video like a movie and play it at high volume and you'll be like on you'll be amazed it's unbelievable what they've done with the speakers really it's so depressed lately with surround sound and I turned behind me I'm like oh my god what happened was that and I'm like oh they're sort you know there's sort of a surround effect it's amazing it's not gimmicky at all you think it would be stupid and gimmicky Oh surround speakers on the tablet it actually sounds like surround sound it's the weirdest thing it's awesome that does sound awesome i suddenly want to try this product now that's are they front firing like what do they come out the sides what do they do their bet they're backfiring and i don't know how they do it I just I don't know and the unicorns must be inside brainwaves yeah well cool I are you doing a review I don't think I'm gonna do it for you I don't think it's really something that our audience cared that much about so yeah problem first impressions I think as far as we're gonna go on it yeah okay well let's uh let's let's keep on pushing on here because we've actually up some windows 8 windows phone 8 stuff to to talk about we have I've seen I don't know about you guys want to ask you if you've seen some Microsoft ads recently because Boston has been papered with them I have seen entire t stations or subway system just papered with Microsoft Surface ads so the effect is when you round a corner you come onto the train platform and you see into the distance and every single one of these 30 or 40 billboard spots is like this brightly colored pink or cyan or whatever Microsoft Surface RT bad and then there have been windows phone 8 manners all over the place I started to see Microsoft advertisements in the flesh like not just on TV but in your area you keep forgetting where I live I know I do I just hold out hope that maybe they'll steal some banner placement from Samsung because I know Samsung advertises over there no stuff I I've seen a lot of surface ads I think we talked about this in the last podcast but I haven't seen that many windows phone ads maybe a few on the on TV can we talk about this ridiculous um video that Microsoft put out that we were going to talk about first where they like the meter like here's the highest end windows phone ever and here's a two year old piece of crap android phone that no one owns anymore are you talking we're gonna talk about the meeting to me you're mad crazy is that freakin nuts I'm so wait or well yes Brendon you've done a very interesting job of just just completely demolishing my segue but yes absolutely thanks man Tony you-you-you wrote this thing and what is the story can you tell us for listeners who have not seen this meet your match campaign well probably everybody remembers the campaign which kicked off at this year's CES with the smoked by Windows Phone where Microsoft employees running Windows Phone 7 were facing off people on the street trying to show how Windows Phone 7 is faster than you name it and now with Windows Phone 8 Microsoft is taking it one step further and they have renamed and rebranded the entire campaign from from smoked by Windows Phone to meet your match with Windows Phone and this is basically something which is not only emphasizing on speed but Microsoft tries to convince people on the street that the windows phone is the phone that they need is the phone for them so it's not only about performance but about also ease of use about services about features in general okay I mean does it and I from brandons tone I'm guessing that maybe these these ads how do you say suck a little bit it's okay let me compare it to different phones and I know Brandon stance on this and I was exactly like this i mean comparing a windows phone 8x by HTC or an AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 with a blackberry or a two year old android phone come on Microsoft right then again somebody commented in defense of Microsoft and the the he was like okay guys what should Microsoft do if those phones are actually out there on the streets I mean just think about these people who bought these phones with two year contracts there are still many people stuck with those phones so it's not microsoft's fault that they probably met every I don't know 20th person running on two year old android phone but the marketing just kicks in and they select probably those and they just deleted those with this so they roll up to a guy as I hey you wanna do this video let's compare this 922 what do you got your pine your whips out a galaxy s3 like oh no never mind just kidding hey you over there you got a thunderbolt in your pocket let's uh let's try the chain compares the videos feature any comparisons against like a modern high-end device I haven't seen all of them they are ten you know why I have counted them right but I haven't seen all them probably yes I know it's lame but I don't like these campaigns at all yeah like I get what they're trying to do with it but it always seems to me that these kind of things always reek of desperation is the wrong word but kind of this like trying too hard it's like the Bing ones right weather where the guys are on the street and they're like there's two searches and there's a blind search test and I'll Bing one you know you chose big you like being better I'm like but what are you talking about I don't know I I found one with an with an iphone 3gs that's very relevant very good right yeah and there's this girl with the iphone 5 who apparently doesn't even get to typing the SMS message by the time Ben the bc guy has already sent it out and she just concludes that the iphone 5 sucks I mean come on yeah he sucks she can't even get to them mm-hmm it's interesting I mean like this is all this is all very curious and about what it's a it says interesting things about Microsoft's like you know push behind Windows Phone and I'm glad to see I'm it's you remember when when the windows phone 7 the first push came out and like the ads were everywhere like since then we didn't we haven't really seen any of that and it's it's nice to see it visible again as a matter of fact I was at where was I concert or I was somewhere and some some friend of mine asked me what phone i was using cuz i had my 920 out what phone were you using today exactly right but I know yeah I had my it was either my 810 the a-10 review unit or my 920 and she asks me she's like I was that the new windows phone we're normally the question you know for the past two years almost would have been what is that that's weird does that run Android like is that what is that a smartphone like Z these are all variations on the questions I used to get but no instead finally someone and this is totally a non geek you know and and she's like what was that the new windows phone like wow interesting brand recognition actually happening yeah that is great and I'm very much looking forward to seeing more of that and it I felt once again like it was six or six or eight months ago and people were asking me oh is that the new galaxy you know I'm like oh wow you understand what a galaxy s and product is like what you know it's like it's like they're uh it's like it's like a baby saying its first word ulit it like the world starting to learn the language and you're like and they say is that the new galaxy and you're like okay yes it's the new galaxy it's technically the galaxy s3 record iteration of the galaxy but yes you're right but just saying galaxy you're just in a whole new class yes good for you ya know so I think that's nice and I think that no matter how crappy some of these ads are and you know whatever for Microsoft is just nice to see the Windows Phone getting a little bit of mine chair because you can't went you cannot win if nobody knows what your product is it's a bad design of people don't know it exists go ahead to this is exactly what Samsung did with the samsung galaxy s3 vs. iPhone 5 poster I mean they highlighted all the super awesome features which are only on the Galaxy S free and of course the iphone 5 doesn't have them and on this exact vein there's a microsoft video showing off kids corner on a Windows Phone and I'm just trying to imagine how been the BC guy walks up to this woman and he was like okay Kenny your phone do kids corner I'm just going ahead and imagining how she whips out her I don't know Galaxy Nexus and she's like no but can your windows from fire at Google now it's the same thing yes stop comparing features which are platform-specific try to do things which people do on a day-to-day basis and be fair and compare those features which are across all platforms it's like he goes up and says does your phone share the same code base with Windows 8 come on what's your baby the most proprietary thing possible and ask if you he hasn't yeah but no but I have a smart stay my phone doesn't shut off what I'm looking at it yeah well pho oh god yeah um you know I don't know get when you when you do these platform Wars and this is something I've been struggling with as well with this kind of Windows Phone vs in my case Android kind of thing where it's like yeah some of these things are platform-specific you can't compare them but because their platform specific and they don't have an analog on the other platform you're like wow I really really missed that you know all right wow I really really can't stand that I don't have this anymore because I jump platforms and there isn't an equivalent don't you guys wish somebody would step up to you and try to convince you that X phone or X platform is better than yours just yeah you're still pocket now editor's you're still in the tech and I just wish to see Ben the BC guys stepping up to Brandon met him when trying to convince him that the windows phone 8x by HTC does fit fill in the blanks yeah i mean like it because it's a hard it's it's a hard pitch right i mean especially that I mean even to normal people but two techniques especially but i don't know i mean you know there's so much i was talking about my experience with windows phone to a friend of mine recently and I was like it feels like I've moved into a really nice really nice house that has almost no furniture inside it it's a very very spare experience so forget the ceiling man yeah I know exactly I mean I feel like I'm sleeping on it like in a room with the vaulted ceiling with a beautiful mural on the top and it's like got six fireplaces but I'm sleeping on an air mattress Michael tell us how your how you're getting along with the 920 are you I just don't love this is why yeah I've just I've just had some time with it because finally all these reviews are sort of done for the moment and I'm it's sitting right next to me on its wireless charging played which I like oh how cute isn't it and I like I'm still learning it's a little language with how often it blinks the light on the charging plate I don't really read manuals too well so anyway you know it's been interesting and I am currently in the midst of i'm still kind of embroiled in this location based services standoff between my lumia 920 and these other devices i'm going to write a piece on that today i want to take a train ride and that'll be fun but you know it's been nice re getting to know windows phone and and using the 920 is my kind of primary device for a bit and what the only fully formed thoughts i have at this moment besides the fact that it's very Spartan and i really miss spotify and i really miss pandora and i'm annoyed that i have to wait until q1 of 2013 for these really important apps sign up for zune or how what's their name out ya xbox music i miss bugs writings gonna have to do that i actually am gonna have to do that because i'm i'm really annoyed about that i'm annoyed that I that's one of these symptoms of this platform I think being rushed out the door and and apps developers really having to be cajoled into making something cuz come on unify them how how hard could it be III don't mean to say then coding is easy I don't mean to say the developing an app is easy it's not it's very very hard but like your Spotify right you are you have a massive amount of popularity of a huge mindshare you've got to have some employees how hard would it be to just make a stopgap app today on our windows phone just just think about this how how long did it take for Spotify to release an ipad application they just recently did that i mean i remember being in London for the galaxy s free event in at the beginning of May and I was still trying to get used to the application so it took them years and years how can they had the iphone application it's not about the time I think it's about but are they want to do it or not and that's exactly it and pandora is the same thing it's like you everyone bought a Lumia 920 is gonna get pandora one for free for a year hey that's awesome that's really legit wait what do you mean I have to wait until january or februari or march to get pandora yeah you know me like i did and that's the thing i have another friend who works for a company in the medical field and microsoft kind of came to them when they were talking about windows 8 a couple months ago they're like we want you to develop an app for Windows 8 and my friend was like yeah alright that's cool but Microsoft wouldn't give them any developer hardware and like apparently you know didn't support this is like anecdotal evidence is anecdotal and whatever yeah but I feel like that Microsoft has done a really good job in getting the app marketplace for windows phone 7 from 120 or 100,000 apps 220,000 apps in a very short amount of time the growth is great but for me a lot of the apps that I want and need are missing so Simon some of my shell even say how's your overall experience with it it's been it is it is i'm still developing my feelings on it there's still a lot i love about it but i feel like i was oversold on Windows Phone 8 I feel like I feel like I also have a question well hold on I feel like I was oversold on the platform and frankly I think the PureView aspect is a little overblown as well really i thought it has night vision that's doing doesn't it see light where other ones do not which is actually kind of cool excuse me yes no it does and but you can watch at work right you take a photo it generates the photo and right before the photo goes slides over to the left into the gallery you see it brighton and then you slide back and you're like oh yeah that is brighter but it but it's not you know magical it's it's applying it's applying some software effects to bring the light out and i don't know enough about cameras to talk about how that differs from may be taking the same image putting it into a photo editor or free photo editor and bumping up the exposure level a little bit but that's what it looks like it's doing and you know that's fine it makes for a brighter picture but it also does that in daylight and we've complained about this already we're like you're trying to take a picture of normal lighting and it's like oh I see you've you've overexposed a lot of this photo for some reason thanks PureView you know so it's not a crappy camera I'm not saying that by any means is it's it's a good camera but once again it's one of those things where it's like you guys basically sold us on optical image stabilization which is pretty cool but I still get blur in my shots if I use the shutter button so why I don't know I I feel at the moment like I do like this device a lot I also feel like it's not quite the finished product that everyone wants to think it is and I think it after a software update or two and after the app marketplace grows a little bit i think in February around roundabouts this will be the device that I want it to be today and that's okay i'm willing to willing to wait i'm not going to return it i still love a lot about it i'm sorry that i'm talking about the negatives exclusively but you know there's a lot of positives to it and the fact i always tell people it's heavier than the galaxy note 2 and they always say the same thing like really and then they hold it and they're like yeah but i don't care it feels so nice and that's how I feel too so you know there's a lot of thought yet to be developed on this thing mmm but if you bought one on AT&T uh you in the past couple days you might be able to get one you may but we get some money back this is a story that Stephen shank posted yesterday I think about people AT&T is doing this Black Friday fire sale we're not fire sale well I'm an idiot there's no black friday sale we're ninety-nine dollars apparently is just just not cheap enough for this flagship Windows Phone 8 so they are cutting the price in half for black friday which four are not American listeners is the day after thanksgiving and apparently some people have been irritated about this on the WPCentral forums and they've contacted AT&T virtual chat support on the ATT website and if ATT has been willing in several instances to credit them the fifty dollar difference which is you know golf claps all around right i mean good job AT&T for being you know understanding and human you know i don't know and it would I think Steven puts in a couple disclaim where he says don't expect this to work for everybody and you know this is your mileage may vary but it's nice to see AT&T I'm you know be nice to people thrown a bone to people exactly so if you are in our in our boat I already got enough free stuff I'm fine i got my my free wireless charging plate and I feel like ninety nine dollars as a more than fair price for this flagship level smartphone stark though some of its software may be so I'm you know fine with it but for those not lucky enough to be on windows phone 8 saw hardware right now we got word that Windows Phone 7.8 the gap filler for those running on older hardware is going to arrive in 2013 this is a rumor not a rumor but this is a sort of like a this is a screencap from my nokia site from china is that right that is one report and then there's another report that she's also coming from nokia i know that because i wrote this one it just came one day after the initial report so the initial report was that Windows Phone 7.8 will be arriving in early 2013 the second report which I wrote about was allegedly originating from a nokia developer meeting in asia pacific when allegedly it has been said that Windows Phone 7.8 has been released to manufacturing and the update might be landing in the next days two weeks of course you can ask a ton of questions whether it will be arriving only to nakia phones whether it will be arriving only two Asian Pacific regions but there are two different reports with two different time stamps and time frames and the rumor mill which one is is the more recent one Tony the one I wrote I'm sorry I missed that I should have put that one on the story or not the one I wrote is from November 17 and the other one which road is from November 16 right so two conflicting stories on this I hope that for people on the 900 the 817 etc don't have to wait until the 1st quarter of 2013 to get their 78 update because it you know it's obviously a very significant update uh uh I don't know we'll see which one of their do you guys have any active 7 series devices you yes personally I have to dust off my LG optimus 7 I've gotta focus but it doesn't turn on anymore no no why did you try and route it what's that I said so did you try and route it nah I don't think so i might have thrown against a wall but I don't have any reason any reason to do to do so i really like I'd like to focus I like the focus too I took what's funny is I got a commenter one of our more anyway one of our commenters left left me a comment talking about my complaints on maps Ruiz talking about try driving from boston to san diego and using google maps and see how you like it nothing's right let's try ping and I'm like wow that's really fascinating i drove from Long Island to San Diego and I did use bing maps on windows phone 7 you what it would a prescient comment you've inflammatory person it is a matter of fact I hated it but you know whatever it's it's it's very funny to think back on my days with the samsung focus and they feel like a long time ago I have a question that I might sound dumb but again I will always say this to my excuse i am from Europe so I don't know do you guys have roaming rates when you go I don't know from one state to the other from I don't know from the Pennsylvania to New York know that useful for data's that used to be the case but no no longer most national carriers offer free roaming so basically when you are using google maps for navigation going from one state to the other is just your local normal rates or it counts against your allowance it counts against your data a lot and with ya whether you're on your front porch or whether you're in hawaii yeah i understood ok because i was thinking about reasons for me to to use google maps as navigation when i drive to Berlin or to Barcelona crossing five or six countries and of course in Europe there are roaming rates but if if the states are the same as for instance a domestic country a domestic region in Romania or any other country in Europe then you have no other right so thank you for clarifying that yeah do you remember when back in the early cellphone days hmm if you went out of your like hometown you'd be roaming and you'd be charged more like a literally early 90s well that was even late 90s and into the early part of the twenty-first century because I remember yes yes i remember when i went to college we talked with his last week and getting my first cell phone like I was like so I can use this in Virginia I'm in New York now but I can use it in Virginia they're like yep doesn't matter where your call with it whatever you do it's nationwide I'm like wow I am still shocked than I continue to be shocked until the US carriers will probably yank this Cupid idea that you guys in the US have to pay for incoming calls I find that to be the most stupid thing ever counts against our minute allotment yeah yeah it is it is dumb it and there used to be something called first incoming minute free that you could try and finagle your carry around it's funny yeah so like people would call you in like 4 59 seconds you talking like okay gotta go bye no it's stupid you got to think of it as stupid and I'm glad in Pierre in Europe we don't have that I'm just glad I don't use the phone anymore you know my voicemail doesn't work like my google voice call forwarding is is so inconsistent for some reason now probably cuz there's somebody phones is forwarding to that like when I get a voicemail I just don't even I don't even check it I because of a voice everyone knows I don't talk on the phone anymore do you guys leave messages on a voicemail I don't do you leave mess why is that like it no I mean the first thing I do when I when I purchasing you prepaid sim or I sign a new contract this to disable the voicemail because nobody actually leaves a message I mean when somebody listens to my greeting message like hey this is tony you know what you have to do they just they just hang up and i'm the same i don't want to leave a message i want to talk to somebody I hate I hateful can't talk for a second about voicemail I know this isn't I mean we're already it's already on the way there are two big probs with voice but number one is that people's voicemail messages you know when you hear the recording our way too long this is usually how it goes hey this is uh this is mike goand you have reached 5 5 5 1 2 1 2 i'm unable to come to the phone right now but if you want to leave your name address phone number and favorite color i will call you back at some time in the future now wait for the beep and when it sounds I want you to work and he just say it's true so my voicemail just says hi this is Brandon please leave a message and so that's that's that's the first problem the second problem is that people leave entirely too long voicemails which is why I'm very delighted that google voice translates it into text so you can read it you can scan it you don't have to listen to all the arms and ahhs and you know the hesitations oh yeah sucks but voicemail voicemail sucks that's a good day you're right I google google voice does transcribe people's voice messages into emails that it then sends you or it just stays in the google voice interface but its transcription is the most hilariously wrong thing just all the time i used to i had a habit for about a year of whenever somebody to leave me a voicemail i would take the transcription copy and paste in and facebook and just share with my friends like anyone want to help me figure out what this actually says because it was just ridiculous it's like hey Michael shrub went to bear town and bank attack look out for love you by East Tennessee as google translate yes yes it's terrible I used to use this service called line one translation and they actually had humans do the transcriptions and they were incredibly acted but unfortunately you paid like ten cents per message which just wasn't feasible but but yeah the translation is hilariously bad anyway let's let's uh let's come back to Windows Phone 8 to close it out real quick because Adam Lane did a did a as city lens video in New York City where he'd showed no kids silence I want to say that if you're going to get a windows phone I think Ian getting a nokia phone is still it's a good a good call because of all the added functionality it brings to fill some of these windows phone 8 gaps but City lenses if you don't know is it an augmented reality application do you um this to me I'm gonna ask what you guys think about this but to me mented reality is the biggest letdown of the smartphone world not because when I first saw it I will always remember where I was when I first saw a demo of it and I'm like really you just hold your phone up and it's superimposes like where the local pizza hut is on top of the image that your camera if you find that's awesome but in practice it's always awkward it's always just weird if you're using it in person like I did in New York City a couple like last week like you're holding your phone out in front of you up at eye level and yes you can see where you're going because the phone's camera optic is energized and so you can kind of like see but it's not comfortable it's not really any more useful than using a map application depending on your map application I guess what's the in Adam was was having some you know Adam was just giving us a rundown in his in his video I mean what's the use case here if you guys ever found any augmented reality app useful no Brandon you had a video do you remember the video when you showed up that application on the iphone translates yeah exactly that bad yeah oh yeah it's incredible like it's called I think it's called world lens or word lens no idea we'll have to look it up member we have let's hook it up it's available for all platforms now it is also really you hold your camera up to a stop sign and what is stopped in Spanish uh call Jaime and I what is what is stopped in Russian Tony dough boy okay it'll say that but in it like it'll actually take the text it won't just like superimpose like Times New Roman it'll actually change the text of the stop sign to read stop in Russian like it is so if you're traveling hold it up to a menu and it's like you can read a Spanish menu in English on your it's just that's cool I think augmented reality is really risky and that to develop an app that's really good takes a lot of time and resources and because it's so high-risk I don't think developers are really doing much with it right now do you know what what hardware modification would make augmented reality work for me wood and we've talked about this a long time ago a rotating camera because back in the day and dumb phone samsung was putting its rotating barrel cameras on a lot of its phones and it was handy because you could move the lens around without moving the phone if i could rotate my camera on my smartphone so that the lens was pointing straight through the top edge and i could hold the thing like i normally hold it while using augmented reality that would be worthwhile me no one will ever do it because augmented reality is something that people think is cool for like two seconds and then they never use it again I feel like you know citation needed but you know IIIi don't think hardware manufacturers will bring back these movable cameras but that would be really really cool to see I think that would be cool and and that's you know another problem about many reality is the as you imply the unnaturalness of it that's why I think Google Goggles is trying to do augmented reality in an entirely different way that makes sense that's more natural yes oh yeah and that's gonna be fun to try out i forgot that existed that they went they went dark for a bit um yeah let's uh what i want to stand in the nokia apps of i but i want to jump into iOS because nokia here maps okay kind of debuted i think last week and it's already the fourth top iphone app no actually yesterday it debuted yesterday 24 hours ago so i can probably right now 26 hours ago and here's what happened everyone downloaded it as quickly as freaking possible and everyone uninstalled it a few minutes later after they saw that it's not even it's it's it's a low resolution app it's not made for retina display Oh Larry it's really bad so let me let me just say this because i think we had some commenters on our last episode of the one before asking like have you guys actually used apple maps I'm like is it really that bad are you just succumbing to the media hype and it's like okay I can't go anywhere without people like people find out what I do like what do you don't know why I would talk about like oh I have an iphone of course you do everybody has never it's like do you like it go to baba Baba I love it my used I used to like it so much and now I hate it and I'm like why is that like Maps like of course like they like you use a non-stop and and people apparently do like I mean just just last night it's having conversation my friend's girlfriend that that was pretty much verbatim the conversation and and she's like I hate I don't even use maps anymore I just hate it so much like are you freaking for real so anyway I understand why Nokia here maps has risen to the to the top downloaded apps lot so much but you guys have used it I have not tell me about it besides us being low res is it any good it's it's the interface is ugly it's very no key esque which is not so bad it reminds me of a symbian you I where the buttons have rounded edges and it's kind of like light blue um you know I tried searching for some stuff and it didn't really find what I wanted I think that's actually the main problem with Apple maps like I searched for I've seen my flu shot and I needed to know that address of my primary doctor so I type his name it to google and it takes me to like Poland and if I did that in google maps on an android phone or on an iphone 4s with with google maps it would take me right to the right place it you would know that i don't care about a doctor in Poland because I'm in southeastern Pennsylvania you know and I think I think no no key max also had that problem but it's just ugly to look at I mean you don't want the Apple Apple maps look really nice in comparison yeah I'll tell me what's your what's your experience over there well I can tell you this much it is better than apples Maps in my city Apple maps in my city doesn't have any point of interest no venues no businesses nothing I have the maps all right I can navigate from point A to point B if i manually select them but if i search for something anything i cannot find it mmm now Nokia Maps has points of interest not all of them less than google maps but it has them so for instance if i am to type there's a shopping center here in Oradea which is called lotus center the fights i blow the center into Apple maps it brings me to the center of Lotus City summer in the States if I do the same thing on here maps it finds it and I can navigate there so it is definitely better and can I speculate for just a second because this gives me the opportunity to further emphasize my opinion that apple will not allow google maps in the app store and i will probably eat my words but i think that this is the case so you don't think you look at this really we have here maps 24 hours on the itunes store already at position number four if Google Maps was accepted in the iTunes Store it will be probably number one higher rank than YouTube which is position number two once everybody will start using Google's own dedicated iOS application for maps and navigation Apple will have an impossible mission impossible bringing those users back to its own Apple maps and Apple canceled google maps for a reason they want to push their own maps so I think this is the reason why they will never allow google maps in the app store but I will eat my words if I'm wrong it they screw it up they really really screw this up there's no way to get around this they cannot reject google maps it will look terrible and if they accept Google Maps they're gonna probably screw up years and years and years worth of efforts to make their own mapping system it's really a terrible position nepean it is that it's very rock and a hard place kind of thing I wouldn't want to make that decision but I'll tell you i if i were there i would probably find ways to justify it i would probably try and find ways to compromise but i would absolutely let Google back in the store because when you as you guys have already said when you look at these effects when you see Nokia released a mapping solution and then less than 24 hours later it's like one of the top most downloaded apps in the you know there's obviously a huge demand for a proper mapping solution and its interests i also have I also have a solution but oh what if it's so there's I haven't encountered a problem with the maps themselves they are accurate the street names in my region at least which is not a top region are accurate the problem is with the points of interest in venues so if if Apple partnered beyond ways because ways from what I've heard and seen is their primary partner for maps if they would partner with I don't know Foursquare or Facebook for locations then automatically you get access to billions and billions of points of interest on your own maps and problem solved hmm that's not a bad idea at all because whatever when I want to check in to foursquare it uses apples Maps but it overlays the Foursquare points of interest and that's the biggest problem of apples Maps the lack or the in accuracy of the points of interest you know what's interesting and this is as it relates to two windows found this whole apple in Madison because that's my biggest problem with windows phone 8 gets the point of interest wrong or the Nokia Maps on windows phone is that they gets point of interest wrong and it's not terribly dense and it doesn't offer a lot but it sounds like a lot of these problems are happening on the on the Apple maps you know in the Apple maps of space as well so and this won't be a massive ground swell of movement over to windows phone but I feel like one less impediment there's one less impediment now for users who are like wow i'd really like to jump to windows phone from iOS whoever these users are i don't know if there are a lot of them probably to andrea but not to windows phone well but now there's one less reason not to go to Windows Phone it's like well my mapping experience is gonna suck unless I'm on Android is that is the state of the world right now because really it's what it sounds like and it's amazing how important mapping maps has become to the smartphone experience I feel like something we treat it as kind of a utility before where we didn't really appreciate it and now that the major the huge major Apple platform has has screwed up maps everyone's taking notice and saying wow I really do use that pretty often there's some people that still don't use that off like my mother got an iphone not too long ago and she is looking for like a nail salon and she needed if the phone number so she's calling 311 I'm like mom what that keep doing you have yeah maps are you just typing in them there yeah so I think there's a stove a lot of people especially the less sophisticated users that don't know the utility than that but I agree it's it's it's thus of a sort of secondary feature it's more like a you know I must have oh yeah yeah it's funny I mean there that I always kind of laugh when I see things like that one motor more one of my roommates is absolutely just not a techno person and like she was calling to order something yesterday and she was like calling a delivery company on the phone and like reading their menu off the off a piece of paper and what are you doing whatever woods what's going on with you she's like I've been looking at a computer screen all day and I just I need to talk to a human and give somebody cash and get something in you know in the real world and I'm like wow that's weird I don't I don't really ever want to do that I should understand no I can understand her Joan just made a jerk but anyway um this is a well we're talking about iOS and just to kind of close out iOS this is fascinating and I was going to skip it I was not going to include it in the rundown and I even didn't even put the headline in here right but it's a story from Stephen shank from yesterday chances are your kid wants an ipad this holiday season but maybe not an ipad mini and this is a nielsen report talking about you know a survey about you know what what do kids want for christmas and apple's ipad is apparently up there in the list and you know i'm reading this story i'm like i'm kind of like okay who cares moving on to the next one but then I look then I look at the bottom there like the last line of this story that's talking about her kids want the ipod touch the ipad the iphone 5 as we move away from Apple territory says the story kids seem to quickly lose interest only about one sixth of the children surveyed claimed to be jonesing for an android phone and a meager six percent are hoping to see a microsoft surface in their stockings that's fascinating because he will what's a kick any like daddy i wanna i wanna make a spreadsheet really have the better I don't I want to have a macro work with presentation yeah I'm gonna make a powerpoint I like to remind ourselves en right now I like but this is the thing right cuz I if if I'm looking at this story my initial impulse is to be like ah kids don't don't care about reading about kids whatever but kids are the buyers of tomorrow and what they what their preferences say is really really important and apples I feel like apples brand image maybe not eroding but maybe in the position where it could be eroding soon in the face of this kind of Android onslaught or whatever but it that hasn't trickled down to kids yet at all because I feel like I feel like six six percent of kids or what want microsoft surface like only one-sixth of children surveyed wanted an android phone and you know you can I don't know what the testing methodology was but this is Nielsen this isn't some like tiny analyst firm you know these are this is real data that's really interesting and it says a lot about the future I think good I don't know if we're talking about you know teens preteens toddlers or six to twelve though so this is a little bit unrelated but sort of related recently there was an eight-month year old boy in my house he was a friend's son and they had this awesome case for their iPad it was a fisher-price ipad case that just surrounded the device and like tons of plastic and rubber so if you dropped it from the Empire State Building I'm just bouncing away happily and and to quiet this kid the mother gives him the iPad and here's a kid who can can't sit up by himself because he's too young he obviously can't talk um and she puts on an app for him it's like a storybook app that says stuff there's like sounds and colors and then eight month year old kid who has terrible motor control just because he's so young is able to swipe on the darn screen and he sits there for like 35 minutes swiping from screen to screen on this iPad completely immersed and it was just it's crazy wow that's amazing it's amazing and and yeah I mean kids affinity towards these Apple products is probably going to carry them forward um and you know we're having Thanksgiving at our house and there's gonna be a like a nine year old boy and he gets he's a little crazy you know that's a tough age they're bouncing off the walls I bring out my iPad and I'm like here's my games folder and he runs away and I don't see him the rest of the night it's amazing you know I'm kind of looking at the bar graph on them from this survey and you know there are some excuse me there's some hope for other stuff in here there's a category called tablet computer other than ipad which gotta respect excuse me a respectable twenty-nine percent to the iPads forty-eight percent so that's interesting and that mirrors this other kind of metric where I'm we frequently forget how big the non ipad tablet market is or at least I do and I keep forgetting like the iPad is not is not the leader as far as share goes in the tablet space eyes what it's not for sales it may be but not for actual market like saturation like it is i we have to find just recently fell from sixty-five percent 250 something oh I'm sorry okay I'm sorry maybe you're right it is over fifty percent it is the leader but I think from my perspective I expected its lead to be somewhere between eighty to ninety percent and not the slim lead that it has and it's fun to think about and all this and these metrics were true you know back in the days before the Nexus 7 and when the Kindle Fire hadn't gotten that much purchase yet this was true you know way way earlier this year later last year and I'm like who who's buying all these like zooms you know so it's interesting to be reminded sometimes at the tablet market itself is bigger than we think it is we will see exactly what we have seen with the iphone I mean the iphone is one phone coming from one manufacturer with a one operating system against everybody else the ipad is exactly the same it's one tablet from one company with 10 s versus everybody else what I find amazing is that two or three years almost after its introduction the ipad is still the market leader yeah that is that is fascinating and it's you know it's why i think we write about the reasons why and and like ecosystem concerns and stuff like that no be very interesting to see what the Nexus 10 does to this if anything it'll be interesting to see if Google's gamble works where they're like we made beautiful hardware now developers get excited you know Oh speaking of which just very briefly Tony that sent me a link right before the podcast started the the skype app has been rewritten for Android and apparently it takes advantage of larger screen sizes a little bit better i I think skype stories kind of bore me more than anything else because skype always fails me somehow except in this podcast which by the way knock on wood skype has been doing us well for about 20 episodes here but you know it's it's interesting to me to see that in an application from a developer owned by a competitor which is Microsoft and is finally like taking advantage of the larger canvas size of a bigger android tablet and you do that yeah and these apps are out there as Android commenters remind us all the times like here's this list of Awesome tablet apps like yeah okay we have all 16 oh yeah exactly and so there they are out there but to seal it to come from a big developer like Skype is cool so maybe it's starting to work already we don't know we won't know until the nexus 10 really gets out there and hopefully they'll sell in some numbers and by the way real quick you let us know what you think about the nexus 10 because I've seen you unboxed it oh yes yes yes um you know it's it's beautiful in a little in a weird kind of like flying saucer ish yeah in a late 90s concept of the future kind of way it's you know I like those rounded edges and I like the feel in hand because it well it has this uh it's not it's soft touch but you know how soft touch is almost like suede to the fingertips sometimes like it has that strange you know soft touch has a very unique feel Samsung has gone with some completely different soft touch on this thing and it's it's tacky almost is it tacky and like a gross I just spilled my soda on no it's not it manages to be tacky and grippy in a way that's not gross now I didn't get all sweaty with it you know if it's the summer time I'm walking around with this thing and like it's hot it's probably gross right but I don't know I just like different materials choices and when you marry different materials choices within kind of an unconventional design that yes does look like a toddler's tablet maybe a little bit with its weirdo rounded corners I'm gonna like it because it's different and the screen is you know beautiful what I saw of the startup screen I didn't want to ruin Joe Levi's experience too much I was like all right I've unboxed it let me get this out to our Android guy and I wonder how much of that router aspect the design has something to do with samsung and google believing it or just just being a move to avoid future possible litigation from Apple that's a good question gen and I'm sure that probably played a big part in in the design and you know I'm glad about it because frankly I'm i'm tired of big rectangular slabs with you know short radius circles and on the corners and like wow koolance another it could be an iPad I don't know I'm six feet away I can't tell what it is you know because they all look the same so yeah I'm happy to see that we'll have to see what would Joe thinks of it we're uh we're not going to go for listener mail today because as I mentioned there's a short practice we still have stuff to do before the holiday comes in so folks when you send us listener mail thank you for your mail will try and get to some of these pieces next week please do please do favor brevity if possible we love reading your mail but some of these I think most of the pieces we got this week are like really really long so you know we just don't have time by the time we get to the end of one of these shows and as I learned or tried to learn as a teenager simply saying I'll keep this short at the top of your of your piece of mail and then following it with 700 word words of expression does not it doesn't work but I want to reiterate that we actually love getting mail from you and some of these questions are really good why don't we keep on saying the same thing for the length of the buck yes to what's well that's true what what that we're gonna go shorter that's right we open up every shows like we're gonna keep this one short we're at 90 minutes again I think if we want to keep it below one hour we have to talk about only ones out I know well you know what well we'll talk about this I want to kind of maybe think about doing a show Wow would it anyway whatever we'll talk up here listeners you will have to do all have to speculate about what we're going to talk about but before we sign off can I get some some final thoughts from we've talked about some important stuff today Brandon before the holiday sures us into wonderful tryptophan based sleep do you want to say anything I don't think so configure yes at all yeah I think I unleashed a big beating on the Nexus 4 to start and you know I'll hash out some more thoughts in the final review coming early next week but that it's still the phone um just again keep your expectations in check that's my downfall that's a that's that's a good point and Tony I am looking forward to seeing all the reports press releases and analysis following up Black Friday and Cyber Monday in terms of sales we've sold this much we've activated this much and just to compare them and this is just to remember our audience readers listeners that it's kicking off the holiday season it's gonna be analysis and reports after analysis and reports last year was that huge battle between Google's Android and Apple's iOS like how many millions did we activate over the Christmas period now we did 25 pieces more so I'm just looking forward to seeing those and reporting of the course me too and yet you actually remind me that we do we will have tags live for black friday stories and cyber monday stories and you'll want to watch for those listeners and if you're you know if you're out there in line on Black Friday at like midnight to get into bestbuy to go buy something you know or whatever if you have a technology related story about Black Friday Cyber Monday shoot us an email because we'll probably talking about it next week on the podcast would like to hear your stories but in the interim we have a lot of work to do and then we have a lot of turkey to eat over here and poor Tony's got a lot of work to do in our absence sorry man and salivating to your turkey yes I'll save some for you the interim though that wraps it up for episode 19 of the pocket now weekly throw a tweet our way we will be tweeting or I will be tweeting all the time and most of us are pretty active on the twittersphere tony is a tan Tandy Naja a and T 0 ND na gy brandon is at Brandon minimum and i am at captain two phones captain the number two phones follow pocket now official Twitter account and pocket now tweets you can follow us on facebook and google+ leave us a review on iTunes or zune if you like the podcast and if you have a topic question or suggestion for the podcast a black friday story sorry about Thanksgiving you just want to say hi email us podcast at pocketnow.com thanks everyone for listening we'll see you again next week happy thanksgiving