Gadgetory

size and weight aren't the only things separating today's to title tablets the crucial difference between the stars of today's show is that only one of them was officially produced we'll talk about that and will cover most of the big news of the week from Motorola Apple Nokia and all the rest on episode 04 six of the pocket now weekly the once-a-week podcast from pocketnow.com where we discuss smartphones tablets and the state of mobile technology in 2013 I'm your host Michael Fisher editorial director at pocket now and today I'm joined by senior editor Taylor Martin from North Carolina good morning to you hello everyone and I'm actually surprised you remember where i live I remember the state I do well I had to say that because back after a long hiatus all the way from the windy city or the environment it's our resident webos representative contributing editor Adam Dowd welcome back to the show sir what is vertically rising dogs man my brain was working so quick I thought you were gonna make a different joke there good to see you sir good to hear your voice rather on our audio only podcast Adam is here specifically to talk to us a little bit about a device he got his hands on and wrote an editorial about this week which I have referenced in the rundown listeners if you want to click on that link you can do so but first we have a couple announcements to get out of the way number one we've started a new sort of section of the pocket now insider it is not just a video series it's about getting to know us from all aspects all media avenues using all types of communication to do that anyway you can read an editorial and get to know pocket now is anton d nadja he has written an excellent piece about his life and about what has conspired to make him the man he is today so you should read that it is linked and yes you will be getting some from other people on the site Taylor are you working on yours is that what you're doing I am I am not on that i'm working on a pocket now insider today for what's on my device and stuff like that oh okay alright cool well I don't know whose because next then well cuz I've had I don't know how many people I mean probably hundreds of people asking how I set up my device like I did over the weekend last weekend oh really okay yeah I mean it's just been uh nexus 4 oh yeah with your sweet like text widgets down below the Facebook Twitter Google Plus Ones yeah those are awesome i want to know how you did that how did you do that I mean not you know mean like what what is that widget spoiler alert it's just uccw which is ultimate customized clock widget or something like that and play bars a theme for that app and basically i just downloaded the tune I'm like hey this looks cool and sweet but you're gonna do a feature on oh yeah all right good also there is a another episode of the pocket now VIP has landed episode 2 features Phil Nichkhun sent who i believe is editor-in-chief of android central i don't know i know it runs android central don't know useful to have yeah he's a SE yeah okay so uh i have not watched that episode yet have either of you guys I am I watched about three minutes of it none of my crap I've got stuff to do but but but Adam has watched it yeah I watched it although granted i was at work but don't tell work well because after all it was better than work so yeah it was it was a pretty date they talked about android a whole lot less and i thought they would oh yeah a lot of a lot of musical discussion a lot of uh you know kids just just just like okay that works well good to know the wandering bus of the bucket a VIP very much so now I love that I love how conversation can just just be liquid on some of these things because you know you bring people from other sites on and it's like hey let's talk about anything because this is just fun to do I mean we're going to talk about we spent all week talking about mobile technology there's no reason we shouldn't talk about you know ice cream or whatever thanks for coffee or a coffee yes and have a delicious new coffee yeah yeah I squeeze it in there I'm so good at this I saw that you did we were talking about that up on the other side of the podcast with my friends in Shrek FM would call it the other side of the room let's get to talking now the announcements are the way let's get to talking a little bit about webos Adam Dowd has in his hands right now an HP TouchPad go now we've talked about this device before the fascinating thing to webos aficionados is that it's one of those products that was never actually released it was due to land just a couple weeks after the HP LED shutdown of webos but the fascinating thing from a broader perspective if you haven't already clicked on to the next time code listeners is that it was also one of the first 7-inch tablets it was also one of the first smaller tablets and it has some interesting characteristics in that regard Adam can you just give us the rundown on your experience with the touchpad go in the ten days you've had it or so yeah so far its first of all you need to hedge expectations because after all this was a 2011 tablet it's nothing really more than a touchpad I mean it's just a smaller touchpad so if you're expecting it to walk on water or cure cancer you need to hedge those those expectations but one of the cool things about the touchpad go is it's very much lives up to its name it is a touchpad go it's tiny I mean it's like a you know today's Nexus 7 or iPad Mini or you know any number of other 7-inch tablets that are out there but this was back in 2011 this did not exist back in 2011 nobody wanted a 7-inch tablet in 2011 amazon hadn't even come out with a kindle fire yet I mean this was this was pretty this is a pretty bold move by HP I mean this was a almost Apple like move and biography didn't stop at the at the size of the device it extended to the form factor too because not only was a 7-inch tablet but it's a landscape 7-inch tablet mm-hmm with the four by three aspect ratio instead of the 16 by 9 and the rear facing camera which you know makes tech bloggers want to vomit these days but there is a good argument for it i'm going to throw i'm going to throw a little shout-out out to the tech chat mark mark Copic who wrote a little thing based on my editorial about the rear-facing camera how it is good for documents game it is good for QR codes not the camera on this don't get me wrong but in general a rear-facing camera tablet when have its uses that's the res on that rear facing camera it's pretty much the same that came in the pre three it's a 5 megapixel I'm supposedly autofocus it takes ok picture yeah I remember taking shots with the pre 3 back in the day it was ok is um is maybe a little generous yeah it that's pretty darn generous actually but one of the other nice things is it had the soft touch back which somehow we looted the it's bigger brother the touchpad so no fingers magnet you super slick back yeah that that original touchpad I was just using it last night there's a demo for this play i'm doing and yeah it's it oh my god you picked that thing up and you can feel you didn't even have to look at the back you can feel your fingerprints forming on the bank indeed you can and two other things that are noticeably absent and i don't know if this is because this is a production model it's not a finished model or what have you but wireless charging does not work nor does touch to share oh so to hear that i too like oh as you say it's a pre-production unit i'm sure they would have bet they would have made it I spent 10 minutes smacking this thing with my 33 saying sure sure sure come on and I just I thought well maybe it's on the bottom because that's where the button is no it's not there maybe it's on the side because that's where it is in the touchpad no it's not there oh man so I could not get touch to share to work so and for all we know that could be a software thing because the veer actually has such a share capability that was never released right so um you know and there's a there's a couple of other you know hangups you know it took me probably about half an hour to get the thing to recognize my palm profile because it was a pre-production unit HP servers weren't recognizing my profile so i had to install preware and then imposta and then a patch and then i had to go into and pasta I had you know I had tweaked it a little bit easier to recognize listener these are these are all these are all kind of a webos homebrew you know tools and terms here for design around palms established system preware can be paralleled with Cydia yeah yeah exactly an extent previous was great back in the day I loved it I loved it too Taylor what webos to buy said you have back in the day or were you just reviewing him I had the original pre the pre plus the pre to the touch pad and um well that's it that's pretty one thing else there you know I loved webos uh no i did not have the beer it's your giant giant paws i sold the beer to a big burly man who came into best buy one day or the best night really yeah he came in he's like I would a really small smartphone I'm like okay okay you're in luck sir I got a veer foot yeah i bought the veer on launch day I think it was March it wasn't even a 15th or something it wasn't the beer I'd quit bestbuy by then it was uh was the pixie oh the posse it was the brother had the pixie my brother carry the pics you for like two years you on purpose yeah that's why right but he wouldn't call it the pixie cuz remember one of his code named the EOS the EOS has been the most like abused code name in the history of mobile phones but yeah like he thought yose was a much cooler name and he had resolved to buy it when I told him about the leaks and then it came out as the pixi he's like yeah I'm still gonna buy it but I'm gonna call the EOS yeah that's why it was so funny because it was this big dude like this big burly redneck man who came in for a phone and he walked out carrying a pixie it's just like yep y'all see my new pixie check it out well it's it's awesome to hear first-hand from from somebody who's got the go in hand and I understand it's it's kind of not exactly yours you have to rotate it out to two other folks right at him it's a temporary ownership situation so yeah so how did this come to be that's what I'm interested in so this won't there this tablet was never released how did you guys get your hands on it well um that's a bit of a interesting question um if you eliminate anyone I don't know if you remember my my pod cat my first podcast appearance where we talked about the Windsor knot I'm going to use the same story that I used for the winds or not it's rather like when someone found that iphone 4 in a bar only we knew exactly where what bar it would show up in so so it's kind of it's kind of one of those things and it was really cool because when we opened the box it was hand numbered III as far as I know I own touchpad go number 30 really no no are that it when you say open the box you're not talking about retail packaging right it was I wouldn't call retail packaging um it was a box it was a box that was meant for the touchpad go and it had you know the it looked kind of like a phone box it was all playing obviously there was no carrier yeah yeah but the interesting part guys you let you'll love this the interesting part there's a bar code on it with you know all the product information stuff like that and the name of the product is the palm none of the HP palm pad really oh yeah that was one of the names that was being tossed around before the touch pad was announced yes I looked at that in like what you know that would have been a raid that would have been I don't mommy do that I exactly because touchpad is it you search you you do a google search for touchpad and like half your results or like replace your laptop's touchpad like trackpad trackpad replacements it's like uh so yeah foam pad so man well that's movies the foosh occult should have called this podcast the HD palm had verses about that weekly tablet see ya well Adam thanks I wish we had a longer show so we could discuss it a little bit a little bit more because we love hearing about this but I'm you know is this the last we're gonna hear from you on the touchback goers do we have another there another piece in the pipeline uh I am currently in negotiations with Tony so we'll see where it goes there should be more to come I would love it if there were more to come that would be so cool it would be nice to do it a genuine versus like a comparison video just for fun not for any real conclusions but I thought it would be fun to do a HP TouchPad go vs HP slate7 just see you know come on and now type right you are correct don't do it if you don't give it to me though because I'll just destroy that slate 7 I remember seeing that thing and thinking about the touchpad go and just let's not talk about it again yeah moving on yeah well let's talk about the other the other tablet in our in our title and that is the one that I've got here in the Boston offices which Boston with the passion offices dude which which commenters correctly and hilariously referred to as Michael's house which is true the Sony Xperia tablet Z I've had here for I think going on five days now and I've been using it extensively I've carried it to eastern Long Island I've taken it in my travels with me and I've put I've put the tablet Z under so many running faucets dudes it's not even like I just love scaring my my parents I was like oh yeah you see how is smudge it gets you just put it under the sink and my mother you know gasp and fall over and it was it's it's been so much so much fun and one of the things that struck me about the comparison between the touch pego and the tablet Z is that they kind of couldn't be more different but in some ways they're very similar like the touchpad go back in its day was one of the only 7-inch tablets I would have considered and today the tablet Z is really the first 10 inch tablet I've actually enjoyed using in a very long time not that I've used that many go ahead you haven't had the nexus 10 i have i unboxed it actually okay yeah I inbox I loved that and i love that to Joe for the review I know I've got it now see now I would like to use it but here's my thing about the nexus 10 and this does relate to the tablet Z the nexus 10 runs obviously stock Android as nexus devices do so what you have is the stupid situation where the apps like home button and I'm talking we're running stock or not talking about running any roms the apps shortcut is dead center in this bottom of the display if you want to get to your notifications you have to treat it like a phone and reach up to the upper left if you want the special settings how you have to reach up to the upper right the thing i don't like that version of android running on a on a tablet that size yes they should have kept it the way it was they did it to keep it kind of streamlined the experience across multiple devices and multiple sizes right but they should have kept it the way it was because it was kind of like a desktop mode exactly now on the Nexus 7 I didn't even like it on the Nexus 7 but it still made a degree of sense because the next 7 is small enough to where you can almost treat it as a big phone but on something that is not only 10 inches but also a landscape device it makes no sense to me so on the Xperia Z with this cool Sony skin on it which you know I'm sure tons of people will hate for its lag and it's blows and all this kind of stuff there's actually really n because I'm assaulting it and because right shirts but no no but there are really really cool elements like keeping the notifications and settings toggles in the lower right where it's just a thumb swipe away like you know putting the home button on the back key and the multitasking button off to the left on the bottom you know these things are all these these make sense and they're a little chaotic good I'm sorry it sounds to me like the the the cm9 ice cream sandwich that i have on touchpad for a while seems very similar to that also you know it is and i ran the early alpha of that in my first video for pocket now i think like a year ago and so yeah it is similar to that except it looks way cooler because obviously androids visual style has improved since then also has Sony's yeah and so many skin has some really nice touches in it actually that makes visually very pretty but the other huge thing that I love using about the tablet see is the weight i read in bed a lot and when you use the ipad 3 to read in bed you're taking your life into your hands because if you start falling asleep and drop that thing on your face you're dead it's kind of like dropping a truck on your face but the tablet z is is so light that i can actually hold it with one hand in landscape and and flip pages the other way Wow oh it's amazingly cool so there's an obsession that we have within things and light things as consumers and as as gadget freaks but unless you're talking unless you're talking Samsung oops light like right oh and I / wait and that's another thing right there's no other waking in this thing there's no it's not finished doing a hyper glaze yeah you can try and twist it and that metal frame underneath keeps it rigid so I think it's pretty clear that I'm kind of in love with the hardware so far and also could yet maybe a first maybe her chariot don't you uh huh I had to you gonna sing the kissing in a tree song uh you know one of the interesting things that I see on the tablet Z which is I was going to say I hadn't seen on a tablet before but that's not true because we just got done talking about the touchpad family is a notification light and I had forgotten about it on the touchpad which you know incorporated it as a flashing light in the middle of the home button on the tablet Z has it placed in a less convenient place but at least it's there it's off to the side by the power standby button so there's a little LED that flashes when you have notifications which is a very nice touch nice yeah so you know we're still at first impressions here and the review won't be out for for a little while but it's I'm really enjoying the test drive so far I'm thinking about ghostbusters 2 and I just want to say you're not sleeping with it are you Mike I quite literally I am I am an idiot I you sexy shall we transition unless you guys have another question on the Z I'd like to talk about something else I'm going to talk about just small tablets and general really quickly yeah it's funny because Adam was talking about how the 7-inch tablet was kind of taboo back when the touchpad go would have came out and how it was kind of an apple move and everything and I had used several 7-inch tablets i use 7-inch tablets before the ipad came out would you use a galaxy tab well i used to go it's eat at but that was after the ipad yeah what else he had had one yeah i used the galaxy I was galaxy tab 7 and I had also used some archos tablets way back in the day they were running in game tomorrow oh yeah it was i was an early adopter and that was terrible but uh but but back in the day I used to completely bash 7-inch tablets they're not big enough they don't really serve a real purpose they're just slightly bigger than a phone and just on and on they were awkward to use which I still kind of agree with to an extent because I can't type on one I used to carry an iPad every day and I wrote thousands of editorials on the on-screen keyboard on my full-size iPad you're a crazy person serious i would do it yes I could I could write a full 1200 word article in 45 minutes on an iPad that's pretty cool man I wouldn't presume more than like three sentences well well after I used it for a while I got I get very used to that the soft keyboard but the main I guess benefit was the fact that I wasn't distracted from everything because the multitasking is so bad that I didn't want to do other things I'm like oh I go I got the notification I'm like ooh notification not touching it just keeps hiding yes so contextually it was really awesome but then I got the ipad mini and it's the first small tablet that I've just absolutely fallen in love with now you know and the display is just so awful it is bad you making point though Taylor I mean I was just thinking about so whenever multitasking gets brought up in on this podcast obviously we talk about webos and this is a good show to to just mention it on I still think webos is the best multitasking solution for me it's the kind of the one thing nobody has managed to poach accurately yet from webos hands down yeah however and I wonder if you agree or disagree with me Adam uh that phenomenon that Taylor mentions that that you don't want a multitask on a tablet because it's still inherently less efficient than doing it in a desktop scenario is still does still apply to webos like I would even though swiping up and go into another card is fun it's still much more time consuming than this layered window thing I have going on on my desktop with tabs in the browser and all this stuff so I would still not want a multitask on a tablet even if I if webos was so alive and kicking I could one of the things that Apple are not Apple but everyone overlooks on say an ipad is how easy it is to switch between apps because if you use work with a four finger swipe yeah four or five well 55 to go back to home screen fordyce 42 to bring up the app the back to take 459 you're right on Tuesday no and you know what's so funny used to make fun of those gestures but I gotta tell you they are very nice you might use the most time yeah like I used for Tinker swipe to the to the left and it pulls your most recent app from the right he was going to bring it should allow me to early in the morning to the left I thought about i use the four finger swipe all the time and that took me when one road and then left me down another Road oh man I need some more this is why we record the weekly in the morning stay for ice keep our minds music donut shop coffee right that's to Michael count'em I see it I see you're dropping it yeah our surreptitious sponsorship is alive and well Adam tell me whether you agree or disagree there's multitasking point of view before we move on to other the tiny phone I gotta disagree actually I I don't mind I i actually prefer to multitask on my touchpad you know the whole you know open up an email copy text from a webpage into it and you know I even got to the point where I wanted to have videos running in the background while i was you know surfing or something like that just like it listen to them so there's a there's a patch for like youtube where you could you know you could actually pull up like a movie and you could let youtube play in the background why so yeah I mean as it's not in its not intuitive and it's not really built for a tablet but I i have to say that i very much enjoy multitasking on touchpad if i have more than one thing to do obviously i also have to disagree though that not not with you Adam with Michael that the touchpad that the webos is multitasking is the best for a tablet yeah let's pack floating apps hands down Oh what like on the on the note 10 dot one or yeah or or screen apps alright so that it that is or a split screen on on window yeah but not how they're currently implemented what we were talking about before after chat heads came out a quickly expandable and and minimizing um floating app so you just tap it and it opens up tap it again and it disappears yeah there there's a nice so right so but it doesn't currently exist and we have two different pushes happening right in the desktop space we have apple kind of leading the charge to to tablet if I the desktop almost to iOS fi Oh 10 if we lose a clumsy sentence and they're doing they're doing it continuously but on the other side we have samsung and and microsoft making this push to to port desktop elements to the mobile environment now i prefer that latter approach I really do absolutely most of the stuff that Apple is bringing to the desktop experience that looks iPad ish I don't use like right now I'm looking at my stupid Notification Center which I never use I'm just getting the waiting dumb thing to the left yet it's all just dumb cruft a like it doesn't look good whereas I I've always thought that bringing desktop elements to mobile is the way to go unfortunately I think that neither Samsung nor Microsoft has really done it terribly well yet at least for my use cases but I'm glad we're kind of going down that road oh yeah but speaking of things that can run that are going to run those modifications the samsung galaxy s4 mini who thinks that that thing is going to have multi-screen do we know anything about this yet I basically have a filter for anything galaxy s4 and then another one of Samsung's buzz words so galaxy s4 active galaxy s4 zoom that's not what it's going to be galaxies in a moment all I'm hearing you say is galaxy s4 Oh Paul oh good filter man you just are driving that's nice yeah samsungsamsung fans are gonna love you I i would i would hope that would have that that type of multitasking capability you know the EVs why though what is it if it was because if it doesn't it should not be called the galaxy s4 anything it should be its own the 12 we're already doing that that's what this is what happened with the galaxy s3 many everyone got excited and then they found out no it's just nothing like the galaxy s4 right on the inside it isn't it does not resemble it at all it's only on the outside that it looks like a galaxy s3 so it's like saying the breathe through and the beer were the same phone just smaller what it is basically saying that yeah that is not the case but the downgrade and specs looks to include a 1.7 gigahertz dual-core processor 1.5 gigs of ram 8 gigs of storage ouch expandable via microSD of course so listen uh the all the specs do take it a step down here but so is this wrong this is my question I don't I see why they're doing this I see why you would not want to put a whole bunch of flagship class specs in a smaller package that people are not going to appreciate if people want the flagship specs they're also going to out the bigger screen they're going to buy the real galaxy s4 so put it into a smaller package take the specs away that people aren't going to notice and sell this to hobbyists to people who wants a smaller device with the buzz of the bigger one right is this what am I the only one who doesn't think this is wrong people no no hundred forty nine drew a 250 bucks to drop on the new phone I mean that guy yet to yeah that cheers part of me here's my thing there are hardly any any any high-end smartphone smaller than 4.5 inches and you're making your Megan the argument i usually make yeah yeah yeah why not make a small high-end device there are a lot of people asking for one there are a lot of people with small hands mm-hmm I'm not one of those but I'm fighting for the people with small hands because I have big hands and every phone is pretty comfortable to use now yeah I mean why I call it the galaxy s4 or the galaxy s4 me I understand why they're doing that they're basically just munching off the existing buzz and hype of the galaxy s4 exactly oh this must be the galaxy s4 and be a smaller version for those people with no it's not it's not even the same phone now see I here Benny and I automatically assumed downgrade I mean you know it's like you know like Austin Powers mini me he wasn't gonna be beaten on Boston powers by himself he needed he needed dr. evil de to do a stuff and same thing with the s4 mini I just I I hear mini and I just assume that there's going to be a drop-off in specs no true we get all the opportunity there for an oem to come in and change the game there is an opportunity there still lying wide open it's a risk because I don't know if it would work I truly don't but I was under to come out and say like yeah look look at this we're doing a 4-inch display so you can still use it with one hand but look at these specs they're exactly the same and that that's just ripe for a tagline there you know it's like you're exactly the same only smaller you know the reason that's never going to work is because everybody has put so much into display quality you know if you go from a 1080p device at almost five inches or add five inches and then you make a mini you're going to have to go down to 720p you make it four inches you're gonna have to go to 720p because 1080 at which is ridiculous and useless well what about 716 what about 720p at 4 inches like that's gotta amount to of a similar pixel density right right but people don't care about pixel density all they care about is that resolution like people who would be looking at the mini yeah don't care about the resolute or the density they're like oh this one's 1080p in this one 720p they don't understand how it works yeah I have to be part of the crazy part of the crazy would have to be four inch 1080p display which I be compendious and then we have a charitable our ears out we were all our hair out and be like why are you doing this yeah exactly why are you ruining my life why are you giving me so much to write about wait wait yeah so that the galaxy s4 mini continued is the the argument that that has that arose with the galaxy s3 mini blah blah blah blah blah so we're sitting here bashing this or at least I'm down stadia yeah i'm bashing the idea yet i own an ipad mini and it is the exact same thing from from apple it is a dumbed down version of an ipad it is right but but the utility there is is is different right because well somehow I think mini tablets vs. tablets is a very different argument than mini tablet many phones vs. phones maybe but but my biggest complaint with the iPad Mini is actually not the display it's the processor because you know on a tablet I wrote an article about this last night and I was talking to you about it Michael phones are you know overkill our aren't EADS yeah they're overkill but that doesn't apply to a tablet because I do so much more with it i play games and do other things on a tablet that i don't normally do with my phone and the ipad mini has a older chipset in it and it's not nearly as powerful as the ipad 3rd generation of 4th generation i went from an ipad 3 to the ipad mini and playing the same games they stutter and actually do not play well at all ah see that's that's irritating yeah so that that is the exact same case that we would see here with the galaxy s4 mini while we're talking about apps on tablets Adam have you tried to run sparkle on the touchpad go I have not yet so actually I don't even know if I is that a free app do I even own that I think I think you have to buy it but if you buy it i will i will buy you a beer whenever we meet in person which may be never but because I lastest there but okay Farkle HD with my out by him of your favorite games ever on webos it was incredible never played that well it is on iOS too if you guys want to check it out it's it's you know it's not like a one of a kind of anyway we're good we're getting off track I tell you mentioned the x-phone a second ago I want to get it that so are you are you implying that the motorola yet that the Motorola MOTO X or the X phone as the rumors were referring to it is maybe one of the first examples of this unicorn we're talking about no I just said motorola I didn't say moto x don't don't mix up my words here and Sam I'm saying i'm putting that words right in your mouth that's not what i'm saying but it does look kind of small from the pictures we've seen it does and it looks kind of unremarkable from a hardware perspective too but that's the point that is no longer the most interesting thing about the motorola phone at the X phone which is actually being called the Moto X by the way and that's the official name I think that's a little nerd yeah and that's the thing every moto x is according to I believe this is CEO dennis woodside who said this or maybe this just is the motorola press release but every moto x sold in the USA will be married anxious Fort Worth Texas catch making a pile of bone ever assembled domestically now that's interesting I i I'm not fact-checked this I mean there may well be another one that was assembled domestically that we don't know about but you know that's fascinating to me now I'm they may their views very careful phrasing every moto x sold in the USA will be assembled in Fort Worth so they're probably going to build some for overseas markets and whatever but would you guys now the price increase is probably going to be like a given monumental right it's more expensive to build things in America but thousand-dollar phone that has decent specs would you guys buy it like how much more hey for an american-made phone as we were as Americans if you were eight hundred dollars that would be my limit only because one I support motorola because they're a little different they always have been and to their an american company and everyone always talks about you know if this was made in america by it my grandpa was just a huge huge proponent of made in America mmm he would it didn't matter what it was if you bought something where was that made China you know you're like nobody's actually made Mike's Mexico China so you know when it came to put a woman push came to shove and you know there are things that were made in USA he wouldn't buy them because they were expensive and he was a penny pincher so it was uh that's kind of the case with a lot of people same thing with the Nexus Q well this time oh it was this discussion always puts me in mind of of that argument but also of Adam one of the most like I don't know morose commercials I've ever seen I always remember it I remember seeing this commercial when I was like six it was this like 30 second spot with this mother and daughter like doing laundry and there was like a gray filter over that lands and it was just all really it was immediately very bleak but they're having this conversation is like why did dad he lose his job as like well daddy's gotta go find work and all this kind of stuff and it ended up with the most like this this gravelly voiced sad guys like if you think looking for the made in America label doesn't matter it matters not like my god that's fantastic I'm like six years old being like oh my god I don't know why but I believe you do you know I'm having two thoughts on this on this particular thread the first thought is I Drive a Mitsubishi made in America is not exactly the most important thing in the world to me and my second thought is I'm flashing back to the movie crazy people with Dudley Moore where they had a Sony commercial where the tagline was Sony because Caucasians are too damn tall I've never heard of that film and now I need to see it apparent yes you do you absolutely need to see it it's fantastic so it's basically the gist is an advertising company turns over the the other market advertising ideas to an insane asylum movies no so you know this is a much bigger conversation and it could go on for a long time and you know there are the other side is of course that we are no longer in this kind of old economy model where it's like you know we're confining production and purchase two single countries is a really good idea it's it's kind of not I don't I I'm obviously straying outside my bakery of loyola Nations good I maybe it alone on this but I'm the kind of person who really doesn't care for four nationality ya like like I would rather the world be just one big major ecosystem like a not a microsystem what is the episode most like almost a federation yeah like a United Federation well I'm telling what I'm saying like right on that bandwagon didn't yeah I saw that coming but do you get what I'm saying where I mean we don't really pay attention to where somethings made we we just kind of like does that make any sense at all does know it absolutely does and that's that's what I think the future is I think that's what the future has to be unfortunately it's not the present and and for people that you want to grab as an oem for these people that you wanted that are saying what are you doing for our country which is hurting you know which is a hilarious statement for anyone listening from a country less fortunate in America so we're not you know we're not oblivious to that but you know it fruit for those to try to capture those customers can make sense for an oem to do this oh yeah that's how we started the call today with the accents that was what happened tonight hey what happened hello where's the htc's big marketing push asked asked i will it'll be interesting to see what happens with motorola but i want to talk about HTC real quick because steven jen has a good piece here didn't Peter Chou say that he was gonna double down a marketing and double down or something like that that's their favorite I'm gonna double down every time somebody says that yeah everybody every time someone says that I think of the sandwich at KFC Oh see good for you every time somebody says I think about HP and and webos they merged actually an excellent editorial about doubling down they talked about any time a company says they're doubling down on something it means that it's about to die yeah I was like that's like war there go on or they're just really hungry for a double chicken sandwich buddy it's like putting the show on CBS at nine o'clock eastern that's it sits on the chopping block yes oh god never become invested in a show on CBS at nine o'clock it's a bad idea if this were a if this were in a text piece I would have put a strikethrough through everything you said after the word CBS and said fixed that for you thank you for poor CBS I wish they could make something good let me talk about let me ask you guys about this now Stephen makes the point in his editorial that HTC promised a big marketing push for the HTC One unlike anything that we had seen before from them but it is the same it is the essentially the same exact marketing effort just with different material now I was longer for the same length of time that's the problem is they said this huge marketing push behind the lawn to know like Oh what was that phone I don't even remember we see you contend that it is dropped off well I mean do you see any ads anywhere ever see I do I still do that this is why this is just where it lives ya know maybe this is a regional thing but I in Boston I would just get are getting nailed with HTC 17 broadcast I Brown a movie theater pre-roll ads everywhere it's it's really all we have any kind of marketing for here is like tractors and now what about it we have a flower stuff and bass pro shop what about in Chicago not a dang thing real yeah it's it's crickets out here as far as the HTC One is concerned I mean in the stores there's a lot of signage in like the 18t stores and whatnot there's signage and you know there's a you know I went to the 18 when I when I got my lumia actually there were probably four or five demo units of the HTC One around and there was a couple of s4s but granted the s4's were in the middle of the store and the HTC one's were around the periphery but still there were a lot HTC one's Roland around there so but but or you're not seeing any outside the store no billboards no commercials no radio nothing see that's interesting isn't you know in Boston it's getting recognition and it's getting enough recognition to instill some mindshare and actually that applies to eastern long island as well strangely enough i was on the ferry on the way back writing some part of a review and I had all these phones spread on around me so this is like random dude rolls up and he's like hey is that one of them new windows phones and I'm like yeah and we start talking about it and I start telling them about all the phones that I you know because I'm just talking about all the full all the fun all the phone I start talking about the HTC One and immediately he picks it right up and this guy is not a self-described Luddite but immediately is like I was at the one with the front facing speakers and I'm like yeah yeah yeah yeah it is so says the grills on the front that looked like speakers hailer come on before before I even got my demo unit out is the thing so it is cool so I you know I think it is generating more mindshare certainly than the 1x did I don't think anybody knew what the hell the 1x was when I pulled that out last year so I don't know I agree that I'd like to see more but it's interesting to hear from I wanted to take a little sample set on our podcast from Chicago and the carolinas and it seems like Boston is Boston in the New York area are getting a little more representation from our unscientific poll yer I don't I don't spend enough time in Charlotte iced I mean I live in the know I live in Concord where i live in NASCAR country when people think of NASCAR they think of Charlotte and Concord Charlotte Motor Speedway which is in Concord all the racing teams all of them all the any racing team that's anyone for NASCAR is in Concord or mortal I mean it's just everything is right here and all your marketing you see coca-cola 600 signs everywhere you see NASCAR this NASCAR that billboards for NASCAR that's have you also had a lot like next tail back in the day oh my gosh everywhere next tool everywhere but the only place you would go to see stuff like that is actually into the heart of Charlotte or maybe to the racetrack on race day probably have a ton of ads inside but outside all they're doing is trying to get people inside yeah they don't care about anything else here I just the first yep guess except for camouflage and mossy oak this is yeah but it tangentially related but motive we talked about motorola before and we used to ask for it when next out came out with the I 730 it was like a huge Dawson device and people loved it and people came in to buy and throng so we were always running out but they also had something called the nextel the nascar nextel cup series where they had a bunch of like custom painted i 7 30 s and different driver colors from NASCAR and yes people got that Jeff Gordon phone and we can sell it to the people you know there were a hundred dollars more than a regular I 730 so we'd sell those people but the thing is people would come in not wanting those they've come in just one in the I 730 but we'd be out but would be like well we have the I 736 we got the NASCAR one they're like okay which one is the least NASCAR whoa what is that that was my phone sorry it was like 30 rings at once yeah what is that like a landline is that like a cisco business phone what's up no no no no that was just that was my house phone and yes we have the stupidest phones in the world that ring each individually about half a second apart from each other so you'll actually hear like that but it sounds like a bunch of trick crickets chirping know it sounds like a bunch of crickets beating you in the head with a hammer that's exciting the message is for next you know I'm gonna unplug my phone okay yes that is a landline by the way I knew I couldn't be a film my attempts to my attempts to talked my wife into getting rid of the landline have thus far failed it's like the conversations I have with my parents mmm so here's my thing we talked about HTC we're almost done with Android but Taylor wrote a piece which I like 20 which I like to call the piece I wanted to write a long time ago and for some reason I never got around to write this but it was going to be called the case for Android skins and I'm glad well can I stop you what will we get into the night why even ask why not yeah what um I got flame for calling them skins because they're not technically skins and i know this i know that i knew it i thought about it when I right or when i wrote skins they're not skins they used to be but they're not anymore they are completely different builds of Android but proceed fish kids yeah yeah you know what's funny like I was looking in the comment thread to find who was complaining about that but you know you're coming through it's actually fairly positive on this one which I'm good to see that's the first in weeks I know because you kept bashing Microsoft on a week where we inexplicably had like four Microsoft bashing pieces lined up God the comments will net 1 Peter last Windows Phone piece I wrote was just oh my god there were like a hundred and fifty just ya idiot comments I'm like okay yeah okay you didn't even read you didn't have to read so with this piece what's nice about this piece is that I completely agree you know we have the tech press got itself into a habit for a long time of criticizing then the things that were then called skins and now which you can call whatever you want custom layers custom builds OEM builds of Android and I think it's very important that we kind of periodically take a step back and realize how important these layers are and how much they bring to the experience I love some of the examples you cited Taylor about the camera no longer functioning properly when you put cyanogen mod on one of these devices or what was the other thing the sound quality on the the HTC One it's there's audio clipping and boom sound it's awful like every two or three seconds it just it's not even like a little clip it's like pop yeah like okay well and you know it's a good time to talk about this too because when the samsung galaxy s4 Google edition was announced I would like the the instant reaction of the geek part of me was like yes awesome and then about eight seconds later I was like but wait not even the same phone yeah and and also a lot of the stuff that Samsung is yes a lot of it was cruft and chrome but a lot of it made them made the phone a lot more usable in particularly the camera so a camera sophomore especially yeah the camera software would not say that I don't mean like what you're seeing on the front side I'm not talking about panorama and all those things you can add those aftermarket using apps yeah i'm talking about samsung's auto uh oh wow auto exposure auto focus all of these things are Samsung's code and that that's the difference you see when you take a picture with the galaxy s3 galaxy s4 a HTC One it's not just the sensor difference it's how Samsung and HTC optimize the sensor and Google doesn't do that that's why the nexus for the Galaxy Nexus the nexus s and the nexus one all had pretty much terrible cameras yeah and it's not necessarily the sensor it's that Google doesn't really optimize the camera they're like here it is and have fun and actually speaking to your point about you can get third party apps to replace all the samsung features I have yet to find a third party app that does best face on my gs3 so yeah that is true now I wish I wish schelotto would release a nap but I guess they don't because they license their software I don't know you know I I just think it was a good point who's worth mentioning if you haven't looked at the at the article you should check it out in the rundown it's already got a bunch of traffic to it I think it's pretty popular piece and I may even share it twice if Taylor Taylor stops interrupting me on the air yeah you don't know not doing it not doing it I was being your hype man yeah I'm joking with you can I talk about iOS very briefly well I was just gonna say that yeah kill that Segway kill it kill it with fire Taylor Norton not martin taylor martin commented Taylor Martin has no clue what he's talking about and this article confirms it no offense I responded rational grade troll and yes I responded or maybe I do and you don't understand what I'm saying no offense it actually works in this case because I didn't say anything offensive nice boom BAM my flame is back alright well proceed you know what you know what that was a that was a response that was neither flat nor colorless but that may not be the case for the new version of iOS yes Wow from everything we've heard Apple's iOS 7 says Stephen shank in this latest piece is set to be the Jonathan Ive show with the Ted designer tearing into the ski of morphic heavy look we've been familiar with so we're seeing reports basically that that that the new iOS maybe not just flat and and light on textures but it may also be heading toward a more monochromatic black and white approach now I don't think that Apple is going to make the mistake of going like the Metro route when you dig into the settings menu and just seemed like black you know white text on a black background but yeah meet me too because that's one of my least favorite things about Windows Phone just like if to read every entry instead of your I register your color or a shape it's boring and in it is dull yeah on that know how flat it's awesome i love flap that is very apparent in the home screen setup i have but black and white kills it but look at bills like look at what Google has done recently an Android where they've they've really tended toward the white side which I've found an interesting choice because we saw this push toward black in hollow are risky well in hollow but first in honeycomb I think and even though honeycomb was a total train wreck it was still very Tron like and very futuristic but it did that with darker tones and now Google's doing the opposite and it's making everything just kind of whitewashing everything but it's doing a me with splashes of color what do I mean yeah like okay go go get your not talking about you're not talking about Android you're talking about just Google just Google yeah like all of their sources right so Melville now jellybean itself is today all right but I'm talk about their service yeah okay and I'm talking and I think they're gonna they're gonna push that into android too i think andrew is gonna get a lot brighter in the next version I don't know only because black is more power-efficient well on an AMOLED screen yes not in an LCD even on LCD it's a little more power efficient if i'm not mistaken well LCD you running that back like the whole time it kind of doesn't I don't think I think we're talking maybe a percentage point or two but then again I I can't source any of that you may well be right but I don't know regardless I mean aesthetically speaking you know I there are ways to do there are ways to do minimal color that look really good and I think Google is doing that nicely with its services right now by whitewashing it so an apple you know is no stranger to good software design we've been complaining about iOS four years it's like you a morphism yeah no I know but but it's you know Apple knows how to make beautiful stuff and especially when they've been kind of abused about it for at least two years and maybe even three was we started hearing like boy I'm tired of iOS you know so I'm hopeful that they are gonna bring something really interesting to the fold here I have I have a fear I have a fear that they're gonna make iOS gorgeous that it's gonna look great and then they're really not going to add anything to it that they're going to focus on the look and add their three four five hundred new features that really don't mean anything hmm like I was afraid they're gonna pull us Samson well I think they're gonna pull an apple because look at iOS 5 and iOS 6 they really didn't add much of anything I message which is good I use our message but I can't send pictures using it now I'm a sob weakest none yeah I hate it because it's closed down and and I can only message my friends and they're like why don't because I phone breaks all the time and then it makes I go I far don't like I've advocated the iphone to people in my life who need simple phones and then they're like all right now what now it's green now it's blue now why is it blue when I text her and green will text you it's like I did like uh for the same reason that only works when you text me because it's using a standard anyway let's I'm sucks so that notification center that was a much needed change but they did it very very poorly oh yeah so the multitasking they haven't added anything super compelling it's just been kind of catching up all this act like exactly they've been they've been catching up they did the apple thing right where they they they released a feature lite version first and then they now they've catching up with a feature but I agree now we're seeing some of that in Stevens kind of story here this is from 9to5 mac by the way but we're saying not everything will be getting a huge makeover mail is largely unchanged we hear while others may be barely recognizable so mail needs to be changed more than any of them so bad i don't know i don't think mail is bad you got that side painting inside well uh yeah what I Tim Cook we've confirmed though it's coming out of wwc so we are going to say this in um Tim Cook said that he's not opposed to opening up api's which is amazing because that's something that that Steve Jobs would have never have done is opened up api's they said they're probably not going to do it but they're not opposed to it which means it could happen in the future and what I mean by opening up api's is sharing that is the biggest biggest problem with iOS right now at least for me is I on my android phones I can from any app that provides sharing options so the browser or an RSS reader Twitter Google+ doesn't matter what it is I can hit action overflow and share and I can share anything that I'm in any link or anything to anything that receives sharing so Twitter Google+ the browser Facebook anything I can do it from anywhere which is on iOS yeah you have to go into a nap copy a link or sin you can share to mail messages Facebook or Twitter and those are only the the stock facebook and twitter apps that's not if you use tweet but or anything to that degree right so you can share to those and then if you want to use anything else you have to copy a link go into another app and paste it and chair and that might you might be saying you know that's not that big of a deal but when you share a lot it's a big of a deal it's a big deal it's a big deal like pocket i use pocket religiously just to save links for reading later and i have to go into the browser copy the link and then go into pocket to save on android i'm in the browser hit share at the Pocket done did you mainly use pocket in the past or do you use pocket now oh you're welcome I know you saw what Evers wate what I love is when we do a story about pocket or we mentioned pocket and an editorial in like there's always that one door commenter who's like who owns shameless self promotion that our way to play to plug yourselves dudes and it's like we don't we don't own pocket vote for someone yeah we've nothing to do with pocket in one of the articles Leverett last week blaming on windows phone was I included the app pocket casts oh yeah that's what away yeah yeah and everybody's like oh you'll pocket cats what we don't Oh internet hey speaking Windows Phone let's jump to it before we get out of here because we do have to go we are very busy there are two stories in the Windows Phone run down one of them is going to be removed because it's from last week sorry about that gentlemen the news that we're tired of Nokia EOS rumors by the way oh my god are we sir you just want to see the thing the Nokia amber wp8 update which I actually just learned about I know this is kind of old news but I had been conflating it with the general Windows Phone 8 gdr2 update but there's it's going to go I guess it's nokia sourced and it's going to go hand in hand with the gdr to update and this is going to deliver apparently some extra nokia specific enhancements so we have some photos from who who's this from my Nokia blog but it's also then they source it from WP central forums and it's from do SP why com deus by anyway we're seeing some modifications to a Nokia Lumia 925 with a camera ISO settings of 3200 there's an on-screen clock that stays on I guess even when the device is off or I'm in standby and there's some tweaks to the display saturation is what we're saying I'm sure we'll see more but boy I'm looking forward to seeing what is the what a major update guys well hold on a second my it might well be because first I'm looking forward to two major things in the Nokia amber update and I am NOT I'm gonna tell you them but first I want to ask Adam doubt who is better versed in Windows Phone than Taylor Martin about what features he's most looking forward to anoka amber ought to be honest I want the radio back so what the FM radio when I go to uh when i go to my gym um they have you know the TV's going across the top of the thing and they've got the frequencies down below I don't have a radio who has a radio anymore that's on their car 3 to listen to this channel yeah yeah so the one time I went to my gym and this is when i saw the lumia 900 and i'm just like wait a minute my lumia 900 has great oh wait so i plugged it in and I turned on the radio and i watch the Blackhawks game while on the elliptical it was beautiful yeah so and so and then when windows 8 when I got the Lumia 920 I'm like I don't have that anymore sad panda although I'm much more of an AM person myself but now it was a windows phone 8 that broke the FM radio or was it Nokia's new hardware what what was it that because the hardware has it right it's Windows Phone 8 then that that doesn't have it for whatever reason okay so all right but but the the Lumia 920 hardware is capable of supporting it it is my understanding yes yeah why would why would Microsoft take features out I'll tell you why I'll tell you why because they had to rebuild windows phone from the bottom up with a new kernel yes right yeah and I'm sure they had to throw stuff out and order what did they say they used that wonderful metaphor they're like this is like trying to change the tire on a race car while it's moving down the road and I get why they would they would be like FM radio we who uses that yeah about 450 people let's say right for the next update so I get it right that's all we ask their users right oh you Oh stamp wow there's there's also third-party apps that will let you do to get FM FM feed though they are right but they're streamed over data connection exactly there to like tunein radio you can tune into you know the FM channels but you can't do custom FM channels because the hard work because the hardware support is there or the software support isn't there for the hardware so that's where I would particularly enjoy having it so that's interesting to the FM radio and my thing is because I've used the blackberry z10 so often this past month because we did the after the buzz on it is the double tap to unlock which you know every time we mention it somebody's got to come up and remind us that the nokia n9 was the first to do it or oh i miss visible to do it and ya know and so it's it's cool I don't care who did it first it's awesome like after using the blackberry z10 for like two days you will do it on every other phone it's like the webos thing where you use the pre for a couple days then on every other phone you're doing the up swipe to get back to Cardinal well first of all black person you see that happens to the blackberry too but uh but it's the swipe to unlock on the screen and the double taps unlock on the screen is just going to be the but it's going to be amazing but the biggest headache solver that I'm waiting for a nokia amber and this is not confirmed we don't know if they're going to do this but if they redo the camera viewfinder this is not Nokia's fault it's microsoft's fault but oh my god i once again this week for two freaking days shot images on my lumia 920 or 928 I can't remember within in backlight mode or in night mode oh oh yeah yeah yeahs doesn't tell you there's no icon in the viewfinder to tell you that it's in a different mode and it remembers the last model was in and that that's persistent across I think that's even persistent after a reboot yeah yeah and actually do you think I would ensure that remembering any camera settings to remembering every to remembering everything and not telling you it's like there should be something if you're not gonna do an icon then at least make the camera viewfinder smarter to where it's like hey I notice you're shooting at 1pm in broad daylight maybe take a night portrait mode off yep there's a yeah well you only see it until you take a picture and then like hesitates for a second and then brightens the picture you're like wait why do that process on are you doing that right exactly but if you are if see if you're taking chats quickly like I think people assume that like the counter-argument to this right is to be like well why don't you notice the picture sucks you should know that but you know we don't take pictures in in laboratory conditions all the time as I just reminded somebody on YouTube a little too sniffily i should add at that comment was mean came out meaner than i meant it too but you we're doing stuff we're living life you know that's the way you should review a phone is by integrating it into your normal life I feel so I'm out unlike the boat you know I'm like crossing from one side to another and there's stuff going on and I'm grabbing a beer or whatever and it's like oh I want to take a picture real quick I don't always notice until i get home later like why is there so much noise in the shot o son of up you know and then I look it up and it's like that because you were on a boat i'm on a boat like a boss I don't know that's right well with that thing said that we've gone a little over our limit here I want to mention as I frequently do that your listener mail is not going on red folks we do have it piled up in the podcast inbox and when we have a longer time slot we will get to it but right now like I say I'm doing two reviews you gentlemen are very busy with your own stuff we've got a jet but final thoughts before we sign off from Chicago ah I wish the touchpad go had come out it would not have made a difference in the ultimate fate of webos but at the same time I'm kind of happy it didn't because as I concluded my editorial if it had come out then this would have been a very boring article about a failed tablet instead of an interesting one about a gold-plated unicorn oh I loved that lead out by the way that is a great piece folks it has 8 comments on it if you want to get your opinion out there that's the piece to go to wait I'm up to eight yes god it's so depressing the right webos pieces because the yeah cuz it's time is past but god it's so nice to see things just popping out of the woodwork still from from that vaunted ii but failed effort so thank you very much Adam for coming on the show today it's nice to have you better Taylor as always it was a difficult and trying experience and um you know I usually like me thank you for your heightened for my heightened blood pressure thank you love me and no I need to make it clear I do not hate windows phone that was all point of some of the articles I wrote last week at don't hate windows phone but it lacks some of the things I need and it's an easy target Oh wolf just you know have to change out your D levels you dig those nails in deeper and push argot we have we have a lot more coming on on Windows Phone as always so everyone is torture for me yeah yeah I know I'm very much looking for to get my hands on the Lumia 925 I will say and Taylor now that you have an achieve s I look forward to suggesting all the different ways we can get you using windows phone all the time don't worry don't worry all that being said that's going to do it for this episode of the weekly find us on Twitter Taylor Martin is at casper tech all lower case for some reason CA sper Tek Adam doubt over there is at dead technology spelled the way it sounds and i am at captain two phones as always hey shoot us an email podcast at pocketnow.com find us at facebook and google+ is pocket now I follow pocket now officially at pocket now on Twitter and leave us a review we still need them they are so important itunes or xbox music the pocket net weekly podcast everyone thank you for listening and we'll see you next week nascar big troops yeah hey hey they find us on twitter taylor is at casper tech CA sper Tek all lowercase no Adam Dowd is what yes which to all lowercase you know it's funny so when you when you when you when you break into the outro we actually go longer than the music can cover so then it sounds stupid have fun with that yeah thanks I gotta do it over now thanks you