Gadgetory

from pocketnow.com this is PocketNow weekly hello and welcome to episode 12 of the pocket now weekly once a week podcast from pocketnow.com where we discuss news and opinion from the world of mobile technology smartphones tablets phablets of every shape stripe shade and source and so forth I'm your host Michael Fisher senior editor at pocket now I'm joined as usual by our editor-in-chief Brandon minimun good morning to use her hello there and by Anton de Naja is off this week's over very special guest joining us for the first time on the show chief news editor Stephen shank welcome to the pocket that Weekly ahoy-hoy thanks for having me it's great to have you we had a way to shake up this morning so Stephen is joining us on somewhat short notice and this is great because as I was saying just a second ago off the air I have never spoken to Stephen in real life we have chatted on an instant messenger of chatter via text I have absolutely never heard his voice before this very moment so this is very exciting for me someday we'll share photos than ventually a video possibly meet in real life five or six years down the line you know Aria our relationship is just gonna keep growing and that's you know that's I'm very much looking forward to our to our adventure to utah to meet a fellow mystery man Joel Eva in 10 years we've got to go west coast for that one he um we this is a strange morning all around on account of you ever have those those those evenings where you're maybe you've stayed up a little too late and you're laying in bed thinking well met you know what at least I can sleep in tomorrow Wow Wow pretty sick is that your brent is it is it a crazy news day over there it's it's it's so funny because um ever since the mega foul of several weeks ago where I literally had seven calls in a row um I i started to remove all electronic devices from the podcasting area here but you know the day that I forget my my wife calls and so I just texted her to leave me alone I thought that was like the red the red news phone ringing I thought you know you guys had to go into the news bat cave for got a hot tip coming through right this is good though wives love it when you dismiss their calls it's gonna work out well Brandon's just gonna say this is gonna be awesome I'm not going home tonight Kevin on the office tonight yeah um but no like I was in it last night I'm just I'm I'm up late and I'm like well this is ridiculous it's very very early in the morning and the sun's gonna be coming up soon at least I can sleep in oh crap we're recording the podcast tomorrow so I woke up this morning and not well-rested and it was only the last minute addition of Steven that really got my adrenaline going and readied me for the podcast so thank you steven i have that effect on people yeah awesome um let's uh let's let's hop in a little bit to the to the news here I kind of want to because we have Steven on the show I want to maybe change up the order just a little bit but before any of that Brandon minimun tell us what you want to talk about fur at first No thank you for the floor mmm so I uh I've got something to say about Apple I'm a little disappointed an apple for two reasons so you know one of the one of the great amazing features I'd say it's an amazing feature of the iphone 5 is this beveled edge because if you tilt it in the light it just it reflects the light just right it looks so unique I can't think of any other phone that has it but it's tragically flawed as we found out recently and we posted about if if you happen to drop the iphone 5 or even if you mishandle it you're going to nick this aluminum edge and not only that but a lot of people are finding of their iphone 5s are coming from the factory with nick's already in them which is insane because you picture some machine you know churning out millions of iphones and how could it possibly damage the phone of course there are humans involved somewhere along the line so so you know mine came with a nick and in the unboxing video I kind of showed that and was surprised to see it so I'd always intended on going to the apple store and getting a swap insisting on a swap because there's no way I'm gonna live my life with a phone that came damage from the factory so the other day I haven't done the swap yet by the way the other day accidentally dropped the iphone 5 uh it wasn't a big fall though it was like it was like two feet and it was on to a tile surface which is relatively smooth low friction it's not like concrete and I didn't was like super hard though yeah well well not as hard as concrete it's it's probably you know I don't think it matters that much we break out the Mohs hardness scale real quick yeah taking me back to ninth grade uh so I dropped the phone and I I almost didn't want to pick it up um but I did and I noticed that there were two new Nick's in the aluminum edges and I thought to myself you know it's tragic because the iPhone 5 is so beautiful and yet you you can't you can't not I don't know if I said all right you can't not have a case you have to cover up these edges or else you're gonna do everyone drops their phone it I don't care if you've got iron grip i think i have i heard grip but I drop it anyway but you have to get a case for the iphone 5 because they went with this soft aluminum wears on the iPhone 4 and 4s they had steel bands around the edge which were more resilient and yeah if you dropped your naked iphone 4 4 s you would have cracked the front or back probably but like this metal thing just takes it to a whole new level yeah I mean and is that that's what I was gonna say I was gonna say well you know this just makes the case for for a free case huh you know it which is stupid because I hate cases as we've discussed before I mean you're covering up all this beautiful engineering eliz hardware design that went into making this you know device that Apple and other manufacturers espouse as as beautiful yeah I mean I'm covering up in this like pink this carnation pink silicone BS you know why are the trouble of having this fancy beveled edge if you can't even see it exactly exactly and that's why that's why Apple didn't make a bumper for the five because they didn't want to cover up this beautiful edge so uh didn't they didn't build a bumper for the five ago there's no official apple bumper for the file i didn't know crazy Wow yeah yeah that good good for third parties because people kind of got used to that bumper and the bumper was a great idea for the 4 and 4s yeah um no can I ask you a question Brendan no yes well good beat you to it I want to ask you is it possible I haven't handled the my own iphone 5 yet so I want to know is it possible that a one of those stick-on you know the screen protector ask coverings could help with this or those beveled edge is just such small surface area that you that it wouldn't apply there like you know what I'm talking about the errant stickies that go all over the phone I don't know it cause it's like a film yeah you know I think that like you said the edge is so small that it would be look impossible to read maybe there's that a product where you spray the whole entire device okay it's clear you yeah it's yeah it's duy unless the protector was already you know kind of folded to fit the edges I don't see you just pushing down and bolting it onto those bevels they're so tiny yeah yeah yeah not gonna happen um so so so yeah so I'm getting a case now so that that's my first disappointment with Apple which is that they created a product that cannot exist as a naked product and there's nothing worse and I'm sure you've got as I've seen this someone who goes in the total opposite extreme of naked they have this screen protector with these horrible bubbles underneath its yes aligned they've got this thick k singer like is there is there not one over there yes it's it like literally appears to be like this this this actual brick hanging around the neck of a friend of mine who's a stage manager so she's always like crawling around and you know beaten up her phone and she needs it but it's it's a monster I mean it's just it some of those OtterBox cases are just yeah they almost double the size of the device and it's like wow that's just incredible yeah yeah it's amazing um are you gonna do this no I I'm thanks I I'm actually going to bestbuy this afternoon to find a case that's as minimal and as protective as possible so I'm saying goodbye to the beveled edges I will pretend like they don't even exist because I won't see them unless you get like a clear case but that just looks cheap anyway no so I think sorry the throwing here for a second one we're still on the the metal here is this gonna be a huge problem with the ipad mini cuz the pictures we saw looks like it has the same aluminum finish is this yeah are the ones that came out yesterday it's gonna be you know scratch city over there is that gonna be a huge problem well it's it's not the like on the back of the iphone it's got that aluminum with this Cody yeah yeah which is good its scratch resistant it really is it's just this beveled edge and I can't imagine that the iphone not the ipad mini uh will have a beveled edge in fact the you know the leaked images Tony I don't think I've seen that no just for proportionately it would have to be a thicker metal edge to be substantive substantial enough right so we'll have to see it and it's interesting because the newest I guess we might talk about the ipad mini lady where we are I mean we can actually if you wanted to leap into it now that's that's totally fine cuz I'm looking at the images right now to see what you guys are talking about i'm looking at the black the photos of the black case yeah that and that's new well but i mean i guess i guess it'll come in white or black and it'll it'll be sort of that gunmetal look yeah for the listeners who don't know what we're talking about these is this is a leak that happened what was it yesterday from this comes to us from like ukrainian iphone is that right yeah that's the one yeah with this showing the this suppose that ipad mini case that is just all black is this metal i haven't i've actually had the link here but I can't do we know it's gotta be yeah unless looks like it at least maybe it's maybe it's leather or uh maybe logon ID yes if I would buy but can I just go on record right now if a naugahyde iPad ever comes out i will buy it and never ever get rid of it what's that word you use at I thought you said something else and was our Naga Naga head what is that it's a premium leather oh it's like example of 19 yeah a staple of 1960s designed the original Star Trek series had a lot of naugahyde in it that is terrific I i love that material um um anyhow one more thought before we get into the podcast uh so i actually pre ordered to iphone 5s one for me and one for high maybe cuz we're Jaime lives to get an iphone 5 is literally double the price that it is here and so we arranged for me to buy one for him and then pays me back and so forth so so I got the second iphone 5 yesterday and I took it out of the box as the second one was actually going to be mine because he wanted the 64 gig and I went to the 32 I take it out of the box and I nervously inspect the edges I'm like you better not have any nicks and it didn't have any nicks yay but what I you did you secretly swap them out are you gonna give Jaime the chipped one uh well well the chipped one up you tell ya oh that's right I'm taking back forgot so he's gonna give the tile drop you think they're gonna exchange it for you yeah I am a lil nervous about that but I go change it before the podcast goes live good rock I have proof through video and okay yeah actually wasn't Nick down box I'm okay yeah so I get the new iphone 5 and I'm like hmm I wonder if they're any different so I i turn on the new one and I'm like you know this home button is totally different the home button on the first iphone 5 i got was clicky the iphone the second iphone 5 i got the home button is a little bit more numb and then I mess around with some other things I flip the toggle switch i press the volume up and down button i noticed the volume up and down buttons are more cookie on this newer iphone 5 then on the old one and i just i started to get a little bit worried because you know i i'm just i think i fear that we're seeing a post Steve Jobs Apple that we all sort of feared where it's okay to release a Maps app that's not good enough where it's okay to release a phone with soft metal edges where it's okay to have differences between final products meaning the home button would have a different texture on one iphone 5 vs the other and i understand that there are human limitations in our ability to create 10 million of one very complex product in a very short period of time and and this variation can be expected but there's just there's not just one thing that that is a hash sign fail for the iphone there are multiple things and it just it just worries me that that this is the new apple that it that the their bar has been lowered a little bit it's an interesting point I mean you got me thinking about what what other iphones you know what fails other iphones have launched with though in the Steve Jobs era and I'm like I'm thinking about like the badges the fact that badges support and push notification sport was delayed by I think like a full year because I expected it on the iphone 3g and we were told to expect in on the iphone 3g as i recall and it didn't really arrived in full until the 3gs right i mean that's a giant miss giant kind of failure on their part and i remember my remember the bubbles remember the bubbles problem on the iphone 3g or the casing would just like from the casing material would spring forth these little spherical defects that grew over time you yeah like i don't remember that since i wasn't bonded properly or i don't know it was something like i don't know if I don't know technically what went wrong but at the end result which I noticed on mine a little bit was that if you looked closely enough over time the iphone case would not would become less smooth and not in the way of scratches but it was as almost as if you were holding a heat source underneath it and small bubbles of gas escaping from the casing yeah rookie it was fascinating yeah yeah it was very interesting to see that science in action but you know of course not everybody liked it I certainly didn't so you know I I feel like we've we've seen these problems before and I don't know if I know where I definitely know where you're coming from brandon i'm not sure if if these problems are severe enough yet to to be concerned about overly concerned about that but i think that's something that we're all kind of holding our breath waiting for right it's like Steve Jobs was this we've talked about before was this ridiculously obsessed perfectionist and now that that influence maybe you know is not there on a day-to-day basis then yeah there's gonna come a day where we're gonna see some real real problems and I don't know I guess it'll come down to how Apple handles it and like like they're handling the map situation like this actually our first iOS story you know Apple came out on this was on September 20 this is like right after we last recorded it's the oldest news in the lineup where Apple's CEO Tim Cook came out and published a letter on the company's website saying we're extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused and we're doing everything we can to make maps better what you guys think about this reaction I think it's pretty cool to see a company's say all right we've weathered a couple days worth of negative coverage because our product isn't very good and also you know what you're right and we're sorry I mean what do you guys what's your what's your with your feeling on how this was handled I mean it's nice to see a maiya culpa but without any sort of you know follow through plan like okay and now we're going to go back with sign that deal with Google get you what you want straight away I mean there's they're in the same boat they're waiting for something better and I've no idea when it's going to arrive yes I heard I was on that was writing the teeth at the subway here in Boston the other day and two guys were on their way to some two college kids and one of them had the iphone 5 and I just was overhearing snips as their conversation with a guy was like yeah a noun in his own not very good or something oh and the other guys like how did you use Bing and the other guys like what Bing Maps what was it a ting ya know exactly was like this it was like he'd never been exposed to the Bing brand before and I was very telling and the other guys like it's uh it's microsoft's thing it was very odd about this conversation was the minute that other guy was like it's microsoft thing I was like oh Bing Oh like Oh capital B right yeah you have to alta vista right the bing maps isn't even updated for the taller screen the iphone so that's kind of like black bars it's got the black bars oh dear as and there you know i'm actually surprised at how slow its going with the updating of the of the apps i mean a lot of key apps like Spotify and the apple store and there's just so many absolute did that haven't been updated it's crazy that is that is crazy that's weird um I'm sure those those will catch up over time but it's just I don't know I mean if Brandon have you been you've spent another week with it now I mean we talked about maps for extensively in the last podcast but it so I just want to touch on it here I mean are you still and what's your what's your feeling on has it changed it on no I mean I I was driving by my my high school and it was misspelled and so I submitted a you know a report a problem and I didn't want to do that because like I've never had to stop and and send in an error report for a Maps app that's ridiculous and not sending in google maps are reports it's fun then you see how you contributed to it when they finally accept it what really let's say they do except it's even then you've gotta like keep checking back there's no way to know like all they actually listen to me yeah yeah I've never submitted a action item to google to fix something on their maps but I tell you I have had the opportunity to do so I don't know if I mentioned in the last podcast but google maps and I don't I'm Google Maps frequently screws up for me I'll search for something that I know is there because I've been there before I just can't remember the exact address i know it's exact name and i don't know if it's a sponsored result messing it up i don't know if it's one of the Zagat things messing it up if it's a restaurant but it won't give me the right place like maybe three times out of five it won't give me the proper number one search result i have to like dig through the list if i'm on my device so maybe it's me maybe I don't omit the opposite of the Midas touch with google maps but you know I certainly haven't had a flawless maps experience and Android now you're talking about looking for points of interest or addresses I'm talking about looking for a point of interest based on its name specifically like a restaurant or a bar like this has happened with maybe mmm I guess yeah and the last month of probably done five or six map searches and three or four out of those times it hasn't given interesting that it's the same thing that we're calling apple out on nail yet it's happening with Google and no one seems to be that yes sir and you know maybe like I say I haven't heard widespread complaints about it so maybe it's just me you know it's I'm not doing anything wrong i guarantee you that but maybe it's a Boston thing I don't know but you know it's not like it's a small city so if it is a Boston thing that's a problem and maybe so maybe i'll submit error report there you go yeah you could be good citizen via cutter benefits ads to answer your question i mean beyond that i guess one of the true tests will be tomorrow actually when I go to New York City when so are you Michael yeah you know we're we're gonna be navigating around the city and I guess I'll tested for real then but besides that here in the burbs you know been fine it it finds what I what I needed to find I haven't had any weird moments I do definitely miss street view but beyond that it works for what I needed for well it'll be aight i will very much look forward to seeing how yours works in New York City and and trading devices with you for a second we should have a Maps off once we uh you know on our way to the event I definitely want to see how much we can get each one to screw up I am tempted to put together a scavenger hunt for you too oh that would be awesome how do you delete phones you want to go geocaching Brandon they'll be fun yeah Thank You fun stuff we can hide QR codes or actually I was gonna suggest in some sort of NFC technology but can't do that with the iphone 5 ah wah wah womp womp then again who use NFC no one no one I know every time I see a galaxy has three commercial where it's like oh wow we can just tap our phones together and and trade content it's like yeah but nobody really does anyway um I want to talk about before we move on to Android the the iphone 5 total cost of ownership I made this is Jaime Oh Doug that I was yeah um this was a report from what is the name of the firm avalanche spent some time calculating how much it would cost you to own a smartphone during the year and of course I guess the iphone 5 being one of the most talked-about devices they decided to run some numbers on that and it's actually a very pretty little run down here that's really well visually appealing infograph yeah it's very cool i I mean it's just these things probably take a long time to make I don't think I want to find out how how to make them cuz then you'll want me to make one right yeah nerit so so this is like I look at this and I'm like yeah it's expensive to own an iphone 5 over 2 years but it's also expensive to own a standard smartphone the only real difference is that apps in the Apple storm were a little bit more expensive you've got to get some new accessories and you've got to get a new case which is an accessory but like it doesn't this apply it it you know 1x or galaxy s3 you know maybe not so much with the really offensive lightning cables and the adapters but yeah that mean the the monthly plans this is what you're going to be paying on an Android or Windows Phone right and it is actually that's probably the most interesting thing about this infographic is it does break down in the US the kit the network providers cost you know verizon 18 teen sprint are all quoted here and it it's just so interesting to see what some of these plans are in a in a form outside of their usual websites because you see verizon's like you could pay 80 bucks a month and you're getting unlimited talk time unlimited messages but 300 megs of data which it's it's so it's just laid out in such stark relief how how crappy the data situation is today yeah I would have largely t-mobile's data up here as well it's been making a big push to get the the iphone users over to its network and in this a pretty decent unlimited deal compared to the rest of these guys I think it's something like 70 or 80 a month unlimited data as well as everything else yeah yeah t-mobile is really really really pushing on trying to look competitive and they have to they're they're hanging on to a you know a distant fourth I think but they may be are gonna be moving a little bit in the right direction with the acquisition of metropcs uh yeah that is that's like the big news of the morning right um I we were getting ready to podcast and I saw this pop-up I mean this is a this is a fresh fresh news t-mobile has announced a t-mobile USA has announced that they are going to acquire if the feds let them regional provider metropcs here in the states which metro pcs I don't know about in your guys market but metro pcs has been this really aggressively aggressive company as far as marketing goes there like check it out we've got unlimited for cheaper than anybody else we've got you know android phones they're really drilling this whole like we have you can get a smartphone with unlimited data for way cheaper than anybody else and it'll work where you need it to work and I apparently they've been doing well because they've they've been huge they've even rolled out LTE which for a tiny little regional carrier is like wow that's cool you know and voice over LTE already do they vote yeah in their testing it in some markets Wow and yeah and what sprint was it rumored no it wasn't rumored I think was trying to buy them and then what the detox fell through a couple months ago um is that physicans anyone confirm that I don't remember that but that very well could have been yeah I think I went cuz I went into a metropcs store at the time and I was like uh I shoot you away we went shutting down and you know that later I didn't want to I didn't want to you know mention it I just went in with that stigma of the guy who's walking into the store and look at the people being like I've been I've been in your situation before dudes this merger stuff is scary but then they didn't happen at any rate well whether that's true or not this is all contingent on government approval and stuff like that I what was your first and what was your first thought about this guy's I'm mine was that I was happy for t-mobile USA it's good it's good to hear them talking about getting back on their feet after the whole 80 nonsense yeah i think it's it's a great move I'm cautiously optimistic I mean when we were talking about AT&T and t-mobile getting together that sounded like the worst idea ever yes I mean gets from monopolistic monopolistic standpoint this I think it's gonna be beneficial to their subscribers it doesn't look like they're going to shut down the existing cdma network anytime soon a gradual transition into what we've you know all been hoping for this future where everyone uses LTE you can jump between networks I think this could be a great starting off point for LTE roaming especially oh god yet that would be something else I had a house t-mobile's LTE plants is still just you know 2013 or given specifics on first cities together I haven't seen any specific I haven't paid much attention because t-mobile seems to be so invested in in just talking about how ridiculously fast they're HSPA network is and its true like I see I have some t-mobile fans on my feet and they're always kind of like hey guys it's been a week so here's another speed test showing that i'm getting better speeds on HSPA then you're getting on LTE really yeah like what what are the speeds that they're getting well again like 30-something in whatever and you know I can hit that an LTE just fine but in some markets that that have higher LTE penetration I think what no actually no even here like Verizon I when I do review units for a verizon it so you're like 15 down or 16 down usually it's you know whatever and this this lack of LTE on t-mobile is really harm them and it's going to harm them even more over the next six months because you know in the case of Apple turning away from t-mobile probably because you know they're not gonna release a non LTE iphone and I imagine that other carriers would we feel the same way although it sounds like lily I it's been it's been a while since I tested the hspa+ on t-mobile and when I tested it it wasn't that impressive but it sounds like it sucks it's living up to its promise yeah it really does and you know it's I don't think t-mobile has much in the way of capacity issues to deal with I'm not someone's on it right oh I'm not speaking from any position of authority at all but you know we all know the tumor was the smallest player in the state so speaking of network traffic I i remember back to about two years ago CES 2010 when Verizon launched their their LTE network and and the speeds that people were getting were ridiculous at the time they were like 20 25 down and everyone was like oh you have a wait till everyone gets on the network it's gonna go down and okay so two years later a lot of people not it's not nearly as as used it as the 3g network but you know I gotta say that you know and and and Michael you could speak to this with your is is you know LTE gonna come crashing down right the the network seems to be taking the taking the load quite quite well and staying fast around that 20 megabit per second it really is and I'm very surprised I remember I had a review unit that I stupidly this is a lesson learned I stupidly did not do a hard reset on first before I started reviewing it so halfway through the review I'm like why are my LTE speeds like nine down this is ridiculous and I don't know what software problem this device was having but the minute i did a hard reset in the middle of the review period i was getting the speed i needed to again and i was like oh wow i was all set to dog verizon's network as like wow it's already already you know feeling the brunt of all these users hopping on but no here in the in the Greater Boston area both verizon and AT&T are having just a wonder I have a great time anytime I can get on their LTE network which is very often because I'm a Verizon customers so yeah it's it's a little surprising to me and I'm like knocking on wood right now I don't want to ruin anything because they're Oh knock on wood so nice Steven knock on wood wait how do you good thank you we want our LTE speeds to be as as a good as possible because the future is now although because we talked tucked in the last podcast we're still you know questioning what can be done with these much faster speeds but I'm sure there will be good good enough answers in the future you I've got to wonder how much of this the high speeds that we're seeing now is a result of you know the carriers smartly you're building up their network adding the capacity and how much is just users aren't pulling down as much data as am I want to because it's expensive because they're afraid of hitting their caps right uh that's a good a good question I I don't think if anything I think people are almost if by accident using their data more I was because it because it's faster it's faster like oh I'm gonna go ahead and download that song and then they get their belt thinner than nothing like oh yeah I should have done that I'd like to think of it as trying to fill a water bottle with a fire hose yeah nice that's a good analogy I was thinking that's very same thing yesterday save anything cuz i was sitting I was standing in line at a shop or something like that and I was kind of using maps and for the idea just popped into my head was like oh I wonder where I am on my data allotment for the month because i have by a ridiculous plan i've got like six gigs a month and it's it's great but you know i have to try to use that up like i have to be tethering every day and doing news posts with a lot of images to like even get close to using that or editorials with it sorry not news post and but I'm still concerned about it I can be at I could be at 200 megabytes in you know 28 days into the month and I'm still worried about it because it's not unlimited by virtue of the fact that it's not and at you know Justin and on because it's a finite resource and I hate that feeling I absolutely hate it and I really miss sprint that regard because I used to be a sprint customer it's that same anxiety that you get when you're when you have reason to believe that you're not gonna make it through whatever wherever you are whatever you're doing with battery life yes yeah you could be at eighty percent in the day only has two hours left in it you're still like wow I really wish I'd brought that spare battery it's this weird anxiety thing it's like anxiety in the cellular age but I've got to say I'm surprised how much users seem to be on top of these concerns they're aware of these caps and they're like either they're checking to see where they are and their data usage there was some study that I posted about last week that showed a breakdown by age group of how users consume cellular data and then Wi-Fi and everyone is using Wi-Fi to a significant amount beyond what they're using on cellular I would have thought that you know your average Joe smartphone user might not be so savvy as to be hopping onto Wi-Fi whenever possible but it seems like people are taking care to stay off the network when they don't need to be done all it true law it takes is uh is one overage and then you're like how can I stop this oh I have Wi-Fi at home and I don't even have a Wi-Fi turned on maybe I should you know connect that well that's that's true but also i mean there's um there's also that thing that we were complaining about before with this really really aggressive Wi-Fi software that companies are building it i wrote a piece called Wi-Fi auto on must be stopped a couple weeks ago because it is absurd i don't know if you guys have noticed this on your own devices or whatever but the galaxy s3 with the verizon software build on it will not allow you to do anything like you can't turn off Wi-Fi notifications the device will periodically wake up no matter what you do look to see if there's a Wi-Fi network and if there is it will ask you if you want to connect to it i mean that its aggressive to the point of overreaching and it's very very annoying it's not cool that's not cool it's it and there was a story today and this on the flip side about it was this huge Steven talking about the iphone how how it is the iphone is rumored not to be hopping onto Wi-Fi networks properly yeah they released a patch for verizon but supposedly it's happening all over the place which yeah with the iphone it says it's on Wi-Fi but it's actually using cellular data set the story and i'm not clear if it's that it's jumping over to the center network when it shouldn't be or that it's improperly tallying megabytes you're pulling down over Wi-Fi as cellular but the point is that users are being charged for data when they shouldn't be wow you know it's there's gonna be an update to iOS experiencing there are more problems with it than I think any previous update and it's funny you mention this issue of that when the device should be using Wi-Fi using cellular because what I've noticed is that when I take my iphone 5 out of standby I can catch it on LTE win a second later when I'm stolen lockscreen oh go to Wi-Fi wears on the 4s I took it out of standby and I saw the Wi-Fi bars right away really so it's almost like it's fault it like it when it sleeps it's falling back to cellular which would that's interesting I feel like that's you feel like I've encountered that situation before where devices I don't remember which ones running web platform but like they'll wake up it'll wake them up and it's like oh wow so when you're in sleep you turn off Wi-Fi and now you have to find the Wi-Fi network again that's weird yeah not cool no not dance is not acceptable I don't like that except I don't like um what's uh we ventured into misc territory there for a second let's let's hop on back and talk talk android a little bit we had some weight of significant device announcement a couple days ago with HTC announcing the one x+ which is uh which is cool I wish they had done this like a week ago so I could have mentioned this in my in my piece on how mid-range phones are sometimes cooler because HTC also announced the HTC One V X which reminds me of the poison gas in though this is what I was saying to brand name for you don't you watch the rock man how many know what the exes come on man again yeah I'm just having visions of people getting you know greenpoison marbles put in their mouth punched in the face yeah the HTC VX is the mid-range option of the two and I think it looks way better than the the One X plus the one x+ not the 1x what's what's the story on there we were you guys like disappointed by these heartened I mean that this is it looks to me like an iterative upgrade on the One X and not much else for the higher end one the this sort of disappointing moment came when I was reading the press release and they are like you know it's got a better processor higher clocking like good good better battery good good more milliamp hours that's always good and we've upgraded the front-facing camera to use the image sense chip and and like I found my my palm and I pressed it against my face and I felt on my selfie what are they going to get the message that people do not think that the One X has an amazing camera they think it has an okay camera and and what are they gonna change the slogan from you know amazing camera authentic sound too well is Emma green is something else I wonder about this Turkish we always complain about this right we I mean to be even more precise you and everyone else complains about this but me I don't understand it look I don't understand it yeah I don't think the one axis camera was that bad in my in my testing I have to go back and read my review I mean I didn't say it's bad like it it's it's not as good as the marking material will lead you to bleed open and compared to the galaxy s3 it's absolutely interior where the excellence I that's absolutely inferior isn't that the whole point of marketing to hide something up to make it sound better than it might actually be in case a big important component of marketing is not just to get people to buy your product based on that claim it's to reinforce its to do that what is that that foul is that logical fallacy that oh god it's it's that after the fact reinforcement is that that when you buy a product and you want to defend it it's what leads to fanboyism it's what needs two jerks I hate but it at any point it's it's it's like yes we're HTC you've bought our product now watch commercials about the product you already own and how awesome the camera is so you know it's this kind of reinforcing this perception that led you to buy the phone the first place where I'm imagine that there are thousands and thousands of HTC One X owners out there being like showing their friends and me like could check out this amazing camera and then the you know because they're their friend is saying it the friend is like oh yeah no totally that's a great picture and I think we mentioned last week that it's the screen that makes the images look so much better on the phone right it doesn't have a green space a beautiful screen today are they bonding the screen on the one x+ as well is it I don't think they're changing the screen tager for the one x+ yeah which is a good thing because I think I in my unscientific tests I think the one x + 1 x plus does the best screen of any mobile device even better than the iphone 5 yeah that 1i self screen was was amazing i agree oschous there's been a lot of backlash recently about the the iphone 5 screen quality at first everyone was talking about how great it was but now these studies saying the galaxy s3 has such a better screen you guys are saying the the one ex I mean did Apple this is another thing they not to get back into iPhone territory now but maybe that's another failure there that that Apple you know post steve jobs that we wouldn't have expected a year ago what are they saying the galaxy s3 has a better screen than the thighs I didn't look into the details of it but I'm assuming resolution color saturation gamut all the technical stuff its resolution yes color saturation um well you're always gonna get slightly better on a an amyloid and damn it I have no idea what that means I'm glad you said it I didn't want to fess up I was guy was just so feeling oh yeah gamut I know it yeah totally man got to got the gamut matter and when I run the gamut it's it's intense yes yeah yeah you run the gauntlet not the ganic hey man you do what you want down there in Philadelphia up here in Boston we run the gamut I don't know what that means I I I don't know I I haven't compared the two I mean the iphone 5 you know I would like to see it next to a galaxy s 3 i'd like to see it next to a 1x and not through a computer monitor right but there's fortunately speaking of displays speaking of large displays for some reason speaking of clumsy segways the galaxy note 2 might be shipping with incomplete software we this was your pee stephen about possibly the device containing missing features yeah there was some forum from users who hadn't got early hands on a galaxy note 2 when they say that this this multi window split screen feature that Samsung at hype tins and videos just isn't there there's no mention of it and the manual nothing which is interesting and it's not the first time we've seen this I saw this on the HTC One launch actually when the 1x came to the to AT&T it didn't incorporate 60 frames per second video shooting which had been demo'd to me at the you know at the event so I was like where is this I hate it when this happens and then manufacturers kind of just could sweep it under the rug I'll be out with what did they say it'll be out with an update or have they not haven't heard any statement yet that's the assumption that it'll come out you know the next OTA update to go out but no statement yet mmm which is a shame because you want to be able to use that giant display with like an innovative multitasking feature which I think I called out and our first episode of worst ever with the the kyocera echo and that's like it's like let's guess what i was thinking of when i heard about this like who cares about this it didn't work so well on the echo but i'm assuming that samsung has its act together a little better it's yeah it works actually really well a couple of examples you know they have this this note tap or you can take a note and it can follow you around the operating system like the pop up video and then they have pop-up web which i think is probably the most useful so that if there's a part of a web page you want to keep an eye on or if there's some information on a web page and you want to go into email you can keep it hovered on the on the above the apps oh really yeah I think I think they you know did some cool stuff unfortunately it's only limited to like five or three or four I forget what the numbers applications it'd be cool if they let developers tap into it but as we've learned from history when when an oem comes out with some sort of new API to tap into a new feature developers are like I'm just gonna keep developing my android app you know yes it's a trend toward you know it's that the trend toward like favoring what is most popular and kind of looking at new and it's like oh yeah that's cool but it's going to take a lot of work and i'm not sure the return on my investment of time is going to be worth it so devs don't really go for it is is a feature that's going to be on every samsung phone what's the point right exactly and and and they and they don't they don't do it like that they do it like you know it'll be specific to this device and by the time the sales numbers are in it's too late for the developer to start the you know two three four month process it takes to create a piece of software to plug into the API right so we dug manufacturers for not doing new and innovative suffer i do because i always like to see bold moves but it's it's it's a shame when when you know that all the blame can't be late on their shoulders this is just some of this market dynamics and it's really nobody's fault it's just what happens but I that that floating web thing I still can't get past that i didn't know i didn't see that on the galaxy note 2 we played with that Eva and I would love love love to play with that because that sounds great just the page with the floating web page does that auto refresh I don't remember tom is it like live or is it like a screenshot of the web page i wonder i wanted to yeah left i have to figure that out um it sounds like Samsung doesn't even know yeah like what should we do a little ship it later yeah maybe it'll just forget about it yeah yeah could well be and then leaving everyone to just talk about you know the S Pen for four weeks in more weeks um I'm looking forward to getting to to playing a little bit with the with that that should be happening very soon um the speaking of software updates just to touch on this real quick hey guys breaking news a manufacturer has backtracked on its ICS update promises no yeah can you believe it say it ain't so yeah yeah and furthermore um it's a motorola of all people can you imagine I can't even insights this is this is hot hot news yeah motorola previously had announced plans to upgrade specifically I think we're talking the Atrix 4G the second iteration of their of there a trick slender kind of fallen atrix line yeah along with the the photon I believe yes and the photon 4g yeah and is not happening now weird only in the sense i think from my perspective weird in that it's motorola who we previously would have expected this from but who under the google umbrella it's weird to see them making the same kind of not necessarily boneheaded moves because I don't feel like atrix owners are the ones who are going to be all up in arms about this necessarily but it's not it's not friendly it's just the same old the Android OEM complaints that I didn't expect Motorola to continue doing once google had their you know hands all on him I don't know yeah Motorola's seemed like it really turned a page now that it's under the the new ownership I forget exactly who it was but there was some exact being remarkably candid on Google+ a little while back about these missed updates you know apologizing saying this isn't what you users deserve we want to do better and then to hear this news it just seems like it's two different companies isn't that weird yeah like sometimes an exact quote will go be very candid like that and you get this glimmer of hope like wow maybe this corporation will actually is it gets it like somebody inside gets it and then something happens like the bureaucracy of the corporation takes over or there's a money concern or there's there something that just prevents it from prevents this enlightened viewpoint from taking hold right that's that's depressing let's move on to something happier okay all right good yeah I've got one will multiple Nexus phones ruin the Nexus brand that's happier right depending on if your Apple or not yes this is a piece from our from our live tweeter extraordinaire and also the android guy Joe Levi from yesterday the day before yesterday talking about the possibilities of you know what might happen if multiple Nexus devices were released which is kind of this possibility that's been floating around from multiple carriers we're hearing rumors over and over that Google is going to announce several Nexus devices at once and we're talking smartphones here I think primarily but personally this is what this has concerned me this is something i think would very seriously dilute the nexus brand as just like samsung is doing with the galaxy brand name which is i think which is completely watering it down by releasing all sorts of products with the galaxy prefix try wrote about in another piece um what do you guys think I don't ever want to see I want to see one nexus phone at a time just like we're doing now i want to say we've gone nexus one nexus s galaxy nexus you know i want to keep seeing that I don't want a Nexus device family as far as the smartphones go like oh if there any with if they're all good and as solid as every Nexus has been I'm all for it that I like more choice but if you know if we have a nexus family and like two of them are like the ugly kids that no one wants and then it dilutes the Bennett dilutes the brand and it's you know Google loses the prestige behind a nexus it this would be a big step i think but it's not entirely unheralded if you look at how things have been going with Nexus devices especially when we start getting these you know separate former releases for the cdma version of the galaxy nexus it's already started sort of breaking up into you know multiple paths for different users are getting different experiences this is just the next logical step maybe it'd be well it might be the next step I don't know if it's the next logical step well yeah i agree i mean when we see manufacturers doing this like why pick on samsung right picked on samsung my piece but we've got HTC doing with the one where the one x is you know comparatively awesome and I think the one what was that the one v that that really isn't very good yeah that's not even getting an ice cream sandwich is it it was a jellybean the not upgrading you probably not yeah I mean yeah yeah and I mean you know if you want to talk about LG with their Optimus stuff motorola with the motorola with the atrix I mean the atrix family has just been this kind of downward slope of a non impressiveness hey Michael yeah what's a little game um it's not it's not like that I don't like that tone of voice can be pretty good got to get worried it's alright it's not it's only gonna be a one-sided game meaning you're the only one participating awesome one of them's what I like to do is I like to get out my timer and what I liked for you to do is name all of the galaxy devices you can in 30 seconds and if you get more than 15 of them you get a pat on the back and that's it if I get more than 50 for repeats no penalty for EP yeah all right so stretch your legs you know do what you gotta do and that all right I'm not getting feet I was gonna cheat and then now I'm not gonna cheat no cheating right so this is 30 seconds Michael Fisher knowing the galaxy brand and how how far-reaching it has become in three two one go all right galaxy tab Galaxy Tab 7.7 galaxy tab 10.1 galaxy note galaxy note 2 galaxy note 10.1 galaxy s galaxy s2 galaxy s3 galaxy nexusgalaxy nexus LTE galaxy ace galaxy Oh a galaxy camera which is cool big galaxy oh oh there's a stupid one for like US cellular GALEX like eccentric or galaxy exhilarate I'm sure one of those is right galaxy yeah it did I hit 15 you hit 14 that wasn't 30 seconds alright well that was past 30 seconds 30 point three seconds and I didn't say what happens if you don't get them you get 10,000 lashings ah I've always wanted to commit and hence my lashing collection um wow that didn't even get to like the dual-sim versions and everything right yeah I knew there was other weird through her other weird low and ones that I'm sorry that I didn't get to like galaxies render or whatever that stupid one was wise pretty that's pretty good though so it was impressive thank you thank you isn't it crazy though I mean you know it's it's it's nuts to see companies doing this I thought the galaxy brand was so cool when it first came out it's like the up wait you guys are calling this the galaxy tab and when I got my hands on the galaxy tab at first the first one you know the first legit iPad competitor from a big manufacturer I was like you know you guys are calling this something cool the Cullens the samsung galaxy tab and while tab was Lois Lane but galaxy whatever maybe i'm just a nerd about galaxy um I wasn't that galaxy thing because I remember when I first heard about the Samsung Galaxy or was the first one was galaxy s ii OC yeah yeah cuz no chairs predated all the restaurants yeah yeah and I'm thinking like okay I'm thinking of galaxies which is a a collection of stars and planets yeah and I never ever used the word in my day to day um it means nothing to me I don't understand I don't understand it I think that like I mean first of all any word with an X in it is it's kind of automatically sort of cool and that in that sort of geeky way you haven't X next to a y as well there's very rare and it's a very fun word to kind of say like feel around in your mouth and galaxy you know and also if you watched a lot of Star Trek The Next Generation you know that the enterprise is a galaxy-class starship and I think that that definitely was this number one consideration Samsung entered into when naming their new product well we won't we won't role play vie de Genesis brand thing maybe next letting us off the hook there speaking of product names with X's to close out the Android category rumor has it the next Nexus phone may launch in in 30 days I don't really buy it it's just an interesting thing to touch on we you know we're very due to see the next Nexus device whether it'll be at a family of three or five or just another single device it's going to be coming because the time is coming up for it um I don't know if I am terribly excited about it considering all the other exciting stuff that has been announced in the past few weeks I think Google was gonna have to really really bring the heat to to make it an impressive announcement what do you guys think part of me thinks that they're not going to bring the heat and they're just going to fix the Galaxy Nexus and what I mean by that is the cameras gonna go to eight megapixels is gonna be quad-core and maybe a couple of other things and I think that would be enough to sustain it for another year because the Galaxy Nexus view by today it's a great phone it's a faster own it looks nice it looks different than anything else out there and and you know Google would I think served the world well by just doing an iterative iterative update however that will not get that much attention no it won't cause a huge burst in sales and they'll have to do something more dramatic but I'm just saying I want to be too disappointed if they just did it I think it would get plenty of attention I think it would get plenty of negative attention I could do the headlines now like did google just release their own iphone 4s you know you know for weeks and weeks like it's like what's wrong with google you know yeah I'm curious if they're gonna actually come through with a whole new version of Android likes been like has been rumored I mean I know it's is the thing to do but it just seems like you know jelly bean barely got here right and that also you know I'm wondering what would they possibly do to make it a significant improvement over jellybeans are we finally going to see that the multi user experience that's been the framework is there is that finally going to be front and center ah i have seen actually in the comments 2 after the buzz for the nexus 7 I think more than one person mentioned like I love this tablet the only thing that I wish I could do is have multiple user accounts because you know people are using their at starting to use their android tablets as like family devices you know and I think that's gonna be this is gonna be an oddly big news bit when that launches I think for a lot of people I don't think it's going to be there's going to be frenzy about it but I think a lot of people are going to be happy when they can set up multiple user accounts on their tablet I don't know if you see that saw the video but I think like a month ago I did a video on a 1x rock called domination or something that that you know tapped into this jelly bean feature that users can access Multi multi user support so I think that I haven't checked nexus 7 forums lately but i'm pretty sure that they're going to be roms that use this this guest functionality so i think it's it is possible today and it actually worked quite well it's it's really neat did you guys see the video i should have seen the video and i did and i'm sorry miss that one I can describe it it's it's awesome because you create a new user account and you specify which apps that person sees and when you log out of your account and go into that person's account if they go into any application calendar photos mail it's all like stuck like you just hard reset your device so they can set all their own stuff almost as if it's creating a new partition on the device and and then when you and when they interestingly when you go into settings under this new account there are like five settings like you can only turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and that's it the only way to obviously get get all of the settings and do all the tweaking is to go back to the primary user account which you can then password protect or put on face on lock or what have you but it works really well it's pretty smart that's really awesome i mean it's it's a logical evolution of you know we're using mobile technology more and more for stuff that desktops used to handle and it just makes sense that that mobile OS is should it start incorporating this feature the big the big downside of course and i forget who wrote an editorial about this i think it was Joe with multiple user support you tremendously distance I'm not gonna use that word I haven't found with the word something I disincentivize yes disincentivize people from buying multiple devices good if you look at a typical family right now you know little Betsy as a tablet you know Timmy as an ipod touch mommy has an ipad 3 and if they had multiple user support these you know father would say wait a sec we're gonna get the ipad 3 you're all gonna have your own account where to use it one at a time you're gonna go to your room yeah your broadly yeah they wouldn't they wouldn't buy all these extra devices if they could do multiple user accounts so it's really uh that's probably why we haven't seen it yet yeah that that is an interesting thing that I hadn't considered you might be right i mean you know notwithstanding the power of kids to always be like no I don't want to share because I get that impulse completely for fun this is when those thoughts it's very cynical but now that I'm thinking about it it makes a whole lot of sense yeah Wow well I will we'll see i guess i guess and hopefully will see very soon because like you say it's built into jelly bean it's just not that the switch isn't flipped right in this in a stock configuration is that right that's right yeah i think is that there's no i mean the the framework for the aliasing directories storing individual app ticket is all there but there's no UI to actually change users to switch between them yeah well we will keep an eye on that situation i want to kind of hop on over to Windows Phone here which I was looking I didn't know about this nokia has has dropped some new Lumia 920 ads or at least one um if you guys seen this yes yeah the one where the there it's kind of nineteen eighty four ish where were ya got these people walking and walking is done of a drum and in the background it's like there's a like a picture of a 4s and then it's an arrow to a five that looks exactly the same run they get to the end of the line and then they put down hundreds and hundreds of dollars and then the guy behind the counter gives them a black or white phone and then the guy that receives a phone says hey he's sort of implies could I have one in color and then the guy behind the counter freaks out gets extremely mad and then two seconds later some cool people with Lumia 920's or or a 20s are walking by with their like green blue and the rainbow colored folks yeah they brighten up this dystopian dark landscape with their bright colors and then they end the commercial ends and it's like Lumia 920 but the guy doesn't the guy who's buying the phone that the customer who hands over the pile of money and gets his it gets his 5 which is just a phone that says five on it which is very subtle nokia the doesn't imply that maybe he'd like color what actually happens in the commercial in this one minute bizarro bizarro piece is that he goes color like in this creepiest voice you've ever heard and then the whole commercial just kind of explodes into this audio frenzy of terrifying proportion this is the most frightening mobile phone commercial I had you ever seen very Halloweeny it freaked me out i just watched it a couple but like an hour before the podcast i was like what is what is and then i was like what is that what what market is this for and i think this is for the German market which I understand now because I was freaked out by several advertisements in Berlin and I was like always they hold on oh I mean I'm in Germany I've there's this like big cultural shift right but I don't I I do not understand what it Jaime Rivera is the one who wrote this piece about this ad and he's he made the point like you know these have never worked like when Apple did it and did their 1984 ad directed by ridley scott like they remained you know in last place as far as what they were trying to sell at the time like I may have been a groundbreaking ad but I don't think it had much of it much of an effect and it of course didn't work for the zoom because the zoom kind of the motorola xoom kind of isn't a very good product i don't think i think the Lumia 920 is one but I don't think this commercial is gonna do anything but freak out people who watch it and it doesn't really it doesn't really appeal to people because I don't think anyone's having this conversation I don't think people that are thinking about the iphone 5 or I've gotten the iphone 5 sit there depressingly thinking I wish my phone was yellow but I think my personnel no one no one says that it would be nice to have color choices absolutely but that's not a headline thing agreed you know your non apple fans talk about oh they're just going with the flow their sheep they're just doing everyone else wants to the Apple people buying the iphones they're not feeling that there that they have to get the iphone because everyone else is they want this they like us they're right they're not the ones asking color yeah really i wish i wish i had that the timestamp Kudo because i really want to play that on the pine wood color um it's a agree i think this is a problem you know a solution in search of a problem here i love color as well i think it's a really good eye catching thing it makes for awesome videos when you're a company that makes multicolored phones like HTC and you can jump a whole bunch of phones in the same shot and flip around gleefully and right yeah and actually i think that's when these phones are most impressive to be honest when there are many Lumias and in a single shot or there are many HTC windows phones in a single shot and it's like wow that really does look like a mixed like a like a bag of a brightly colored candy that appeals exactly yeah it appeals to that three-year-old inside me that's like oh I like this is various like it's like it's like candy exactly and then you pick one of them to take home and you're like oh man this blue is awesome but I'm a little tired of it you know and thatthat's why you buy changeable covers and that's all another conversation I don't know it the ad freaked me out i wanted to mention it but hey look it's got us talking and it's been sent around the internet probably a million times by now and even if it never makes it to TV which i don't think it well maybe in germany it's a minute long which is double the length of the normal commercial um uh yeah i don't know i don't i think i think it's made it mates meet it as far as nokia has intended maybe you guys have intrigued me i am watching this thing first thing we are done now just don't you know you raise the shades man don't watch it in the dark and i'm sure you have your blanky absolutely is freaky nokia is actually doing something somewhat cooler maybe this is not confirmed for markets outside of Italy I guess Steven you wrote the story about how Nokia maybe maybe denying carrier badging on the Lumia phones right this if this is true this would be cool i think the rumor is that they will that no kids in talks with carriers who are going to carry the Lumia line to disallow carrier you know silk screening of the carrier logo on anywhere on the device that would be amazing because am i right in saying that no company has managed to do this besides apple good in the US i think of any i can't either yeah you're right you're right there's always a can't let me be as far as apple because supposedly there still will be a little carrier customization on the software side of things sure they can have some apps on there but i mean it's a huge step forward having this standard manufacturer logo only external design ya know it's you know it's terrible um so so it's a it's frustrating an annoying when you see the carrier logo on your phone because it just takes away from the aesthetic a little bit but there have been some cases in the past where carriers go above and beyond to make sure your phone becomes an advertisement I'm holding the AT&T tilts to in my hand when you extend the keyboard you get a second nice big shiny metallic AT&T logo that faces people when you're typing on the keyboard it's gross yeah I remember when when on the flip phone days when carriers like Verizon started customizing the external LCD which used to just be blood a blank when the phone was open because it was useless but carriers would start putting in their own stupid logo strings in there so you had this like four line LCD but monochrome LCD and when you opened the phone it would invert and it would show verizon wireless and it's like I remember oh you'd hold up to your ear and you'd be like oh that's definitely a verizon phone yeah I go to the store and buy one now thanks for the advertisement yeah right exactly i I can't stand that they're actually and and this is a kind of a thread type that has maintained itself through at least 10 years I remember seeing these back in 2003 2002 when people would come on forums and they're like a new user and they're like hey guys I'm just kind of a regular guy i'm not a phone nerd but i really want to get this carrier logo off my phone and you know it's it's sprung this little if there's always somebody is helpfully able to say like oh yeah just use some nail polish remover some acetone and that'll come right off because it's just silkscreen down there um but there are just normal people who are not not necessarily phone geeks who are like yeah I don't I don't like the logo on there I I don't it's not in the contract that I ever said I would advertise for AT&T you know and I get that I think that's so III think it would be really cool if Nokia we're able to pull this off I think the US carriers will fight this tooth and nail particularly verizon IX IC IC big carriers like verizon AT&T being able to throw their weight around a little bit and be like no you guys are on the least popular platform you know of the big three you were gonna do what we want to your phone and you're gonna like it you're gonna honor it mmm but I mean you know maybe sprint Sprint's usually interested in doing something different and maybe t mobile metropcs will will play ball but i don't know we'll see what happens the is if we did this very briefly the speaking of Windows Phones the HTC windows phone 8x front-facing camera god oh my god oh posted on the internet which is awesome wait a sec what wait a sec it was a great picture but like if I want to do I could take the camera of my of my treo 700w and I could spend all day getting the lighting just right and it looks like a picture there's taken spur of the moment but I can get lucky with my treo 700w I don't think we should we should consider this to be an indication of how incredibly amazing the camera is the front-facing camera there think it's a step in the right direction but I I'm taking that picture with a grain of salt or what if all the pics end up looking as good as that one then that's all changed your to us okay yes of course yeah well here's the thing though I mean hey okay so this is a shot of three I think HTC execs in front of the David Letterman theater in New York the CBS Late Late Show theater there's it does look it looks like I'm not ready to say this has been a manipulated photo I'm not gonna that's not i'm not interested in throwing accusations around but it is almost perfect from a photo standpoint like you've got to one guy in the foreground one guy in the mid grant one guy in the background like it presents this amazing depth of field that that lets you see you know what the camera is capable of from a focused perspective the color is amazing the mid the mid-tones are great this looks like a shot that was that was like instagrammed in the right way it is that such a thing what instagramming something to make it better ouch I was you know I don't think I've had quite enough of you guys beating up on my favorite little app I i took i gotta say i took a really good picture with the iphone 5 and i sent it around to michael and Jaime and Michael wrote back you should totally Instagram this picture and I'm like why don't I just rub grease on the lens and retake the picture and make it worse you and you missed the point I know share with people you I know I put off it I should have put on facebook that would be the extent of my sharing mm-hmm wait what you should put on phase it is a beautiful picture anyway so is this this is a beautiful picture from a front-facing camera I think it's newsworthy I think it does Jaime's headliners HTC windows phone 8x front-facing camera sample amazes which normally fi I see headlines like that know Malika knows a little hyperbolic and then I open it up though and I'm like no that's entirely right that's exactly the headliner would have written because it does it's for a front-facing camera that's awesome and if that's real if that's untwist them that's impressive I think I clicked on that expecting that to be the leader image and then to have the actual the front-facing pic buried a little farther down yeah that's the front facer yes agreed yeah yeah fun fact that fellow in the middle Jason dunnan's the the guy that started a pocket pc thoughts which back in the early days when it was dark and there was an electricity and only pocket pc devices it was it was packing house competitor in the very early days it was just really pocket pc locks in pocket net now and covering pocket pc devices and now things have changed quite a bit so I and now we worked for HTC is that correct uh yeah now he works for HTC that's cool mmm finally in the in the Windows Phone space the last bit of news from there is that this ZTE orbit which we'd heard about which I think Tony and Orihime I got their hands on at mwc in Barcelona is landing on US cellular another smaller carrier here in the US as the ZTE as the ZTE render yet again a really awful verb name for a phone but let's not talk about that we'll just talk about the device hey Michael what what's we're ripping on cell phone names lot what do you think is a good example of a really good phone name it and and and stephen youtube I think I and this is it skits skirting the edge of like rule of cool and like a little too cool but I think Galaxy Nexus is one of my favorite phone names ever it because it evokes the you have the nexus branding the backing you know it's like this is a pure Google device and Nexus is a cool word with an X in it and a galaxy of course as we discussed earlier is is is cool for its own reasons and I think I think that's a very very cool phone name I don't think things like you know samsung fascinate or captivate or render for the love of you know no I don't think that these are very good info names so that's y a Galaxy Nexus to be my vote I'm not used to it I think about phone names a lot like I get about car names in that I I think my favorite manufacturer as far as naming its cars go as BMW because you have these numbers that make a lot of sense you know you know three series cars are going to be similar to each other 328is going to be like the 318 so I think Nokia is doing a great job instead of adapting that / phones they're not sticking to the series as well as I would have hoped like it's not clear based on the numbering how similar the phones are to each other but just if they you know thought it out and started releasing them you know in these groups where we know okay we had the 800 last year 820 is going to be a little bit better I think that's the way to do it I hate these fascinating renders as much as you Michael what about you branded a you are you all about like phones like the like the Galaxy aspire or you know it's stuff like that yeah they they're very motivational I really enjoyed the 2000s when HTC would have really cool code names they never released like the HTC rhodium that's awesome or that's a cool name or the HTC Titan tytn or you tease Power Man like all right let me go back to rhodium bad so i'd say i'd say rhodium listen sort of what else that they had like they had the HTC universal the Wallaby the mommy that's a pretty good oh my god yeah hilarious I like when code names get weird like the I think it was the the successor to the palm pre three was good at was codenamed the Windsor not just like wow all right you guys are really going crazy um yeah I I like I tend to favor phone names that that are more abstract like I think Lumia is a very good brand name because it it may have an actual definition but nobody really uses the actual definition yeah I like Luke that's good Lumia also i used a um when I was doing voiceovers more often i used a voiceover script for an audition for a shampoo product called Garnier Lumia Garnier Lumia make sure and wash your hair regularly or whatever the hell the copy was and there's like six months later that Nokia Lumia lo que NOS the Lumia line is like oh hey shampoo phones sure same ballpark the same thing right anyway yeah I'm very excited about this device I'm not excited about this device but I think it's cool it's noteworthy because is this the first ZTE windows phone can you guys let me know I don't know if I'm right on that down it I don't I think it had one before is it at seven months unveiling the phone in the US senators windows phone line up um II I don't know if it is the first one it might be the first one in this to land in the states I think it might be yeah um I it's just exciting to see windows phone to see another manufacturer into the space of Windows I'm sure it's not i'm not sure Tanya sorry here no no that's okay the ZTE Tanya of course are we really this is what we're doing now Tanya AB you worry you know what does tanya mean it's the name of a lady person yeah that's what we need more phones with people's names it can see Lucille yeah samsung hall yeah yeah that would actually be a great way to sort of bring up what if but the problem is names are very sensitive so if you do you recently broke up with a you know a cake and you know the HTC cake came out you would not buy that phone no matter how cool it was it's entirely true if she broke your heart the phone's gonna break your heart it's just exactly this identity HTC Catherine is the classier upgrade it's got a better camera right wow wow this is a solid idea we got to start buying these domain names right now what I would just to to hop on our one remaining miscellaneous topic before we go we have HTC if no no that's not true HP hewlett-packard as delivered on a promise to the webos community which is awesome HP when wants it torpedoed the webos ecosystem and everything it finally collected itself enough and meg whitman kind of organized a bunch of teams internally to be like what are we going to do with this what are we going to do with webos because we're not going to do what we used to do with it and they announced that they were going to open source it and that was a kind of a big surprise to everybody every was like well okay we'll will believe it when we see at HP or not everybody said that i think most of us who've been following web OS news were like all right whatever when you deliver will you know believe you and then they did they said before September ended and just last Friday agent 99 yet at what like in the middle yeah 59 yeah oh yeah I mean it was very it was definitely the last day of the work week um you know the last Friday of the month and HP announces you know webos open webOS Wando which they demoed webos chief architect Oh what is what is his name Steve Winston demoed it running on an HP TouchSmart PC it was in a desktop environment I think it was running emulated in a you know in an emulator of some kind and you know that's it's cool the news is confusing because it's not it's not ready for mobile devices it's not going to run on the existing web OS hardware if you still have a pretty three kicking around or a touchpad that's what the webos Community Edition is for but it was good someone got it on the Galaxy Nexus right yeah and it was almost immediately and that people have been working on this for a couple weeks so it's a little deceptive it didn't just happen overnight but the the people who've had kind of early access to some of the build elements I guess managed to port a very very like a pre-alpha version of open webOS to the Galaxy Nexus and to the Asus Transformer Prime I believe which is very exciting and there's no hardware acceleration of anything so if you watch the video of web open webOS on the Galaxy Nexus like you try and swipe from one home screen to another and that swype action takes something like 15 seconds to complete you can watch each frame go by yeah so it's it's and I'm it's not even exaggeration I mean it really takes that long so it's it is not even close to an alpha build and there are some driver complications and stuff and whatever but it's it's news because HP did deliver it it's out there the community can now work on the the massive pile of work it's going to take to get to get the the software the platform running on new hardware and that's if that's exciting as anything there's a lot missing though there's you know there's a lot of stuff that were that that relied on the palm back end and the HP back end like the synergy services that that came out with webos fur and that you know is that that webos pioneered that everyone else kind of stole over the course of the several years all that stuff is not supported like there's no official facebook app I think there's a new browser there's a whole buncha stuff that's missing let me ask the obvious question here yeah let's say they get the open webOS project flourishes and developers and professionals make it work very well hmm on let's say a nexus galaxy nexus and we get it on a nexus 7 and it works on a lot of cool devices hmm then what so you're gonna go to the App Store and there aren't gonna be many apps and none of them have been updated recently and you're like food well um there really are no new apps and well the interface is cool but it's got none of the cool features that iOS and Android has now I'm just gonna go back to Android why would you want well where's this going I guess is what's the end game you see I'm Kenya and I think from HTC's perspective the end game is really oh god I keep doing that I'm sorry from hp's perspective the end game was kind of evident if you watch the video of the product demo of open webOS where where Winston is like I think about he says he says like think about a hotel what do you want you want your guests to be able to make reservations and print directions they want to do it via a simple and intuitive user interface like this is what HP is going to do is they want to make it like a kiosk operating system and this is what they were planning on doing it alongside their smartphone and tablet stuff when they were all in on webos and they were like we're gonna do smartphones tablets printers toasters whatever we're going to do all this stuff and instead now they're you know instead of the glamorous fun exciting consumer space I think this is what this is how they're going to try and squeeze a little bit of value out of webos what but even then webos never was extremely smooth and refined sort of like project buttered into Android and how I Iowa's has been all along if you're building a kiosk for a hotel why wouldn't you use like Android or we just use you know a touch screen windows 8 terminal thing that's that is a really good question that's been my question as well I'm like if I'm a hotel manager and I'm like well I've got a choice between windows which has a lot of you know solutions already ready for it in blah blah blah why am I going to just hop on this OS that that really nobody's talking about and that is backed by some company called Graham that I know nothing about and it'll be a little bit cheaper because it's open source and you don't have to pay licensing fees because I don't know I don't know if the fifth it's worth the headache to save you know 100 or 200 bucks whatever takes to buy a copy windows 8 / install yeah I don't know either and I you know I'm not sure that HP knows really I think that they are they have their eye firmly on on Windows 8 for tablets and on whatever they going to do on phones which better be windows phone 8 in my opinion so I don't know I think that this I think HP is kind of delivered on their final promise and they go out of their way by the way to say that I am incorrect that this opinion is wrong they're like we're not just going to abandon it now you know whatever but like everyone's gone you know the NGO team all went to Google the annual framework you know the architecture team there's almost nobody left in the department I think I think a couple of a few people are following on Twitter that still worked in the webos sub-sector of the personal systems group have all gone sorry I don't know the whole thing is great to see but what's the impact of it yes it's great they're putting in you know these hours they might not have to and delivering on these promises but what of it yeah it's gonna be only the only do you want to see that would be extremely exciting but I think there are so many barriers to this happening is if the development community got together sort of like science sort of like the cyanogenmod team they said we're gonna make a really good product or and release it on multiple devices and then suddenly it becomes a maybe an even more distant third or a fourth operating system that people run on their phones and it gets developer interest and people are make a poor again and sort of it becomes like owned by this team of developers that cared deeply about it sure and I think you know that's that's definitely a possibility I don't know exactly what Graham actually is every time I look up gram I just get more and more confused but it you know that there's there's a lot of kind of there's a lot of chefs cooks in the kitchen you know there's a lot of hands in the pie i'm not good at metaphors right now there seem to be a lot of groups kind of not vying for control Randa like that but you know with working on this and I don't know I don't think we're going to see anything come of webos mo more than outside the hobbyist community because even the app catalog which is yet which is just full of abandoned where now is turn it is required I mean HP it needs HP to survive because HP hosts it I believe moderate sooo yeah and so it's like I don't know you know I I'm excited I'm definitely going to load hope and webos when it becomes available i'm going to load it on whatever Hardware it can run on four in a smartphone perspective and i'm looking forward to doing videos and writing some pieces on it and it's but i don't think it even has a chance of getting back to any kind of commercial viability at all it's no longer a commercial interest it's you know at in smartphones at least and tablets oh absolutely yeah but you know what that's uh whatever this is we're going to the future and that's that's all right there's plenty of more players i'll be showing up over the next year there's a that new me go spin off sailfish the firefox OS on the horizon right and we love them with new choices there are and then there's that other one that sprint just backed a little while ago i forgot the name of it but yeah there's there's a couple i I'm actually a little bit buoyed by that me go effort because they seem to be really we talked about that I'm on the earlier pod one that excuse me early s podcasts where these guys were like yeah we thanks nokia but we really were working on this awesome OS and we still love it so we're gonna make it work and they've managed to raise a lot of you know support i think they just announced from hong kong that they had established an alliance for coding apps is that right this isn't on the run down i just it just leaped into my head well yeah maybe we'll talk about in the next podcast because we're running low on time i want to hit i want to hit reader mail real quick before we jet out of here we have thank you everyone for writing in as usual we've got three pieces of mail today the first of course of course because that's me I cannot I cannot adequately pronounce the name of the of the writer but i'm going to give it a shot this is from eddie sham shahzad i did the absolute best I could he says my name is Edison I'm from Pakistan just a little quick question I wanted to ask which is the best smartphone browser IE 9 for windows phone 7.5 safari for the iPhone or androids default browser and which is saying is probably chrome you're only talking stock browsers here um I think you know it sounds like it sounds like it sounds like these are kind of the choices we have to work with we've got you know it's iphone safari I a nine so yeah so this yeah yeah I think we're talking stock browsers for my part I want to say since chrome is kind of shipping on more and more android phones as the default browser or at least it seems to be for me that is the best browser i will love to hear you guys response it's it's the chrome is the best for me because i tend i sync it across my desk top all my mobile instances and so I kind of have this very non secure environment but this very convenient environment where I don't have to re-enter passwords or do anything like that I just log into chrome and everything is auto completed for me I know that other browsers do that I'm livid heavily google experience so if you are fully embedded in Google's ecosystem then I think chrome is probably one of the best choices you can make what about you guys Brandon yeah um you know safari on the iphone five works exceedingly well I like the location of the bookmarks on the bottom of the screen I think tab management leaves a lot to be desired but you could get chrome for the iphone 5 and then you can do that awesome sideswipe but then it's using the same Safari engine so it's the same exact speed I I have always liked if you if you you know route over here I go through if you root an android phone and you're running the stock browser for example in the galaxy s3 I think that's awesome and then if you're if you're using paranoid android you can set the DPI so that you see the tab at the top so I I've found in most cases the stock browser to be a little bit faster than chrome on Android and I don't know why that is I think I still think Chrome for Android is not fully baked yet so I like stock uh Android Browser the best probably on a fastest i think i'm gonna have to mirror those sentiments I'm not much for you know sinking bookmarks across devices stock Android browser does what I needed to do it's fast enough for my purposes and you know it's gonna be on every device so you're familiar with it you pick it up it's it does what it needs to do cool yeah there you are I guess in it I guess ultimately in a very broad sense the best browser is the one is the one that you can get and if you happen to be on Windows Phone you know and ie9 is kind of your your your your only option stock wise and that's I hope that that hopes that I hope that answers your question I I have a I have an inkling that if you get a device like the windows phone 8x or Lumia 920 with a dual-core cpu running with Windows Phone 8 I I have a little feeling that that might outperform uh even the fastest browsers I think just Microsoft's done such a good job with the windows phone browser even its windows phone 7 + 7.5 is just remarkably fluid it was excellent wasn't it yeah yeah that falls under like that kind of broad user experience user interface umbrella that Windows Phone I sort of always done really really well and yeah I agree i'm looking forward to trying it again when I snap up a windows phone again which is an overdue event this next one is from ryan field from california who has two questions about google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility sit and we talked a little bit about this earlier but so they bought the division of the company now what a razor Nexus I would really love to see a motorola Nexus device because the outstanding build quality but Ryan makes the point that yeah the Samsung seems to be the kind of the preferred partner here they really haven't done anything with Motorola yet to make their purchase seem worthwhile do you guys think we'll see a razor Nexus it's just a it's a matter of time I mean I think we talked about this in the previous podcast where's right yeah the acquisition finalized this year I mean it takes sometimes 12-18 months to create entirely new product and Motorola already had an existing roadmap and we're seeing it roll out now with the you know that the razr HD and razr HD Maxx and razr and razr I those were developed probably in 2011 at some point maybe even talked about the late late 2010 so we I think we'll see obviously something come out that's Nexus flavored from Motorola but it might be at the end of next year and I'm not so sure about that I think there might be something to having motorola have the separate identity have you know this look from its phones it has these you know everything looks like a sheet of paper from Battlestar Galactica with the angled edges and what the Kevlar it's got it it's it's own thing and it they don't look like the devices that Google's been involved with and I think that could be a good thing it gives people more options I mean you like Brendan said we don't know how since that everything was seen so far since the acquisition isn't based on stuff they've been working on for months and years prior to this I don't know how the new leadership is going to affect things I'm hoping that they keep things separate but love to wait and see it's funny though people I think people expected a lot more right around now like they I don't think anyone expected for us to not even feel the acquisition and I don't think I don't besides having Chrome as the default browser I don't think we really feel it and it's you know it's it's kind of funny yeah I mean you can see it if you're looking for the subtleties you can you can find it and devices like the razr m where it's like oh yeah this is a much lighter skin than it was even a couple device devices ago and then of course there's chrome and and things run a little bit more fluid like you know you can kind of sense it but I agree there's nothing overt there's nothing huge that we're seeing from it I just want to share in that that hope that Motorola retains its own device identity particularly in the hardware side software I don't care what Google does to to motorola's software customizations as long as that circles widget can stay there because their hardware the motorola hardware is great i agree i love the kevlar i love the cut corners and i hope that remains so yeah I think then I think personally will see a motorola razr nexus razor Nexus at some point yes but I don't know no idea when second question from from Ryan is just a quick one is my second question has to do with motorola's promised update of Android for that one jellybean to the original RAZR my current daily driver do you think we will see the update to the original droid razr yes no my answer is now considering the news we got today I don't if it if it lands I will be surprised everyone's pulling up Motorola's list right now yeah I know I'm like I was the official word because the razor is more a flagship phone right then then then the the Atrix 4G and it's a newer phone than the Atrix 4G so it's it has a greater chance of getting jelly bean update but I don't see I don't know I don't see it happening this is just me being a little pessimistic on account of this never ending story of OEM is being like oh yeah we'll get around to that Oh mark wear specs on the razor aren't that different from the Atrix 4G main gig of ram 1.2 gig arts dual core that's if there was a good reason not to do it for the atrix then maybe the same applies to the droid razr that's a good point and think about that if we don't know if the reason was technical or just a figure that legit weren't enough users left to make it worth their while right and I mean well but there's and there's a disparity there no doubt too because I'm sure the Atrix 4G didn't sell as well as the droid razr you know I mean this is true yeah so I don't know motor apparently motorola according to ryan Motorola's promised one hundred dollars if the update doesn't come I didn't know about that that's interesting it is interesting but I would much rather have the update because the money only goes towards a new motor filler built device and the razr m is not my cup of tea I feel you right yeah I don't know I don't know we'll we'll have to see I'm not confident in it the the final question we've got it comes from Brendan Clark who's asked us a question before this one is very very specific I just don't know I have another question this time in regards to the acer a 500 just curious if you know if there's a possibility of a jelly bean update everyone's definitely amped on a jelly bean update for their individual devices and I totally get it I have seen and I looked at this very cursorily right before I came on the air and it looks like there's a ton of custom jelly bean runs it's like a like some CM whatever builds out there for it but I have seen no inkling of an official update have you guys I don't think so um yeah I've actually seen a lot of news about the case or a series of devices getting jellybean through custom roms on XDA mm-hmm um certainly not everyone wants to read their device but if you know if you want jelly bean okay sometimes we got to do something yeah some things to get it you gotta see through gotta break some legs to you know everythings it's less objectionable to talk about rooting tablets then I need to the customization with phones especially when you're not dealing with you know carriers and all people I feel are a lot more comfortable taking it sort of step with the tablet so maybe that is more of a viable option than that we're talking about an actual Android handset that's a good point because I think most people get their tablets through amazon or newegg and not necessarily the carrier unless they're getting you know one with data yeah yeah the notion of buying a tablet in a carrier store has always been kind of weird to me I've never wanted to commit to that kind of like yeah I'll buy this tablet for a subsidized price with a with a contract on my tablet I don't know that maybe i'm weird yeah and and that's I think a lot of people have that fear because it's so like ominous to sign that two-year contract and you know tablet you know you're like well am I gonna use the data am I not going to use the data which is why i love love love what the ipad does where you can turn on data when you want it when you need it I wish every tablet did that it's brilliant me too yeah no agreed I was it was one of the first pieces i wanted to write when I came on board in February I was like I want to talk about this thing how I go into a carrier store and the tablet section is always the like there's there's always like this tumbleweed blowing through no one's ever playing with the tablets and the carrier stores go to where as you go to bestbuy or you go to a an electronics retailer that is kind of broader yeah there are people playing around with the tablets you want to see what's going on because you don't necessarily have to get them with a data plan and that's you know yeah that's a strong disincentive I think anyway Brendan good luck I think you should if you want jelly bean certainly you're going to get it faster on the a500 if you if you are able to get your hands a little dirty and you should you know that's fun you should do that and I tend to run stock and i even i will say that it's fun to to trifle with with the tablets innards every now and then so before we wrap it up here i think we're about at time guys every all the everyone who wrote in thank you very much for your for your listener mail and stick around to the end of the podcast to listen to the email address that you can send your questions and comments to but before we do that Brandon do you have anything you want to wrap us up with new yeah how lovely I think we've covered a lot it's I want to thank you steven for for joining us on the air at at somewhat short notice and for letting me actually talk to you in person or as close to in person as we're gonna get no problem at all it was great being on board today yeah thanks for being so versatile and an accommodating see if it was great that we can have you on we should do again we definitely should yeah it is overdue and I apologize cuz I've been meaning to we've been meaning to get you on for a little bit um can you tell Steven you're not you're not to to social in your media are you you're not known the Twittersphere are you a little bit old school in that regard yeah that's cool how can people has communication with Steven J exactly that's the question the consent can people you know hit me up with one of the the contact buttons on the site shoot me an email through one of my post Eve a question about that or just want to you know talk to me in general that's probably the best way to get me sweet oh that's excellent for for Brandon and me a long time followers will know but if you want to talk to any of us in a public forum hit us up on that Twitter Brandon minimus at Brandon minimun pran do n mi and I am a.m. and i am michael fisher i met at captain two phones captain the number two phones you can follow a pocket house official twitter account it at pocket down tweets you can also follow us on facebook facebook.com slash pocket now google+ at g plus dot T 0 slash pocket now the ugliest URL anyone has ever heard a half just search for us on google+ don't to the URL yes sir yeah and for everyone who has left us a review on iTunes you are awesome thank you thank you so much those two helped us out quite a bit and it helps keep the podcast coming to your ears so if you have a moment and you have not yet left us on iTunes review please do so if you have a topic question or suggestion for the podcast like our awesome people who wrote in this week or you just want to say hi is please shoot us an email at podcast at pocketnow.com once again thank you everyone for listening we'll talk to you next week you