Gadgetory

from pocketnow.com this is pocketnow weekly hello and welcome to the pilot episode of pocket now weekly the once-a-week podcast from pocketnow.com where we discuss news and opinion from the world of mobile technology that's smart phones tablets phablets and everything in between I'm your host Michael Fisher contributing editor at pocket now and I'm joined by our managing editor whose name I still butcher even after months and months Anton de Naude you it's not nautical everybody and our editor-in-chief Brandon minimun good day good day good day gentlemen this is very very exciting how are you both today excellente I you know I'd be better if I didn't miss the new episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians last night I oh man that sucks I just wanted to know what happened with Courtney you know she's uh she's pregnant and she's she's a little bit on edge and you know Scott's opening as a restaurant you know I just it's a social so fun to see all of it come together but I guess I'll have to catch it on DVR or I think we should give out your personal email address and the people should just start sending you email of what happens start sending you spoilers about the next step so they're keeping up with the kardashians yeah I think that's a good recurring idea fine i just want open them then um we uh this is an entirely new endeavor for us at at pocket now not for you guys so much you guys were on the the last iteration of the pocket now podcast but this is something entirely new this is in keeping with our new format with the pot what we're calling pocket now five-point oh and before we get started before I kind of talk about how we're gonna do this going forward would like to hear from Brandon about about how this fits in with the new pocket now so Brandon take it a wish yeah sure so about a year ago a year ago in August we decide to press reboot on a lot of things I think like a lot of businesses out there we had to sort of reinvent ourselves to to stay competitive and and most importantly to evolve him to change and to do better really um so we wanted to change and we wanted to evolve and so we had this I dia that we were going to relaunch pocket now in a big way pocket now has been around for about 12 years and it just so happens that if we were to redesign the site and this is last year it would be the fifth iteration of the site so we uh we decided to give it kind of a cute name pocketnow five Five's a nice round number and we we wanted to focus on a lot of different areas we wanted to focus on quality of presentation of content because the blog model is nice that is when you go to a website and there's a huge listing of content and you kind of read it like a personal blog that's evolved into something more professional that's okay but there's something to be said for big beautiful images magazine like features and even custom typography so we wanted to do that we wanted to focus our content more so on in-depth editorial rather than just news and finally we wanted to really evolve our video offering with a far higher production quality more sort of TV show style videos rather than you know let's fire up the camera i'm going to show you the device which is good to this quick and dirty videos are good but we wanted to really up the cup the quality um so so we kind of press to reboot and with that last year we put off the podcast until things kind of settle down after we we sort of fit into this new pocket now five um you know system and so so here we are with the new show which is called pocket now weekly and we've got a lot of cool things coming up we've got some special guests plan for the future we're going to be having different pocket now editor's come on here on a sort of rotational basis so you get to hear from different people since we all have unique perspectives and and yes we're excited for the the reboot you very much so yeah thank you and this is uh it's very exciting because I just on a personal note you know I came in to kind of the tech field and I started following phones and mobile technology based on a lot of the podcasts that I that I used to listen to you know and I this is one of the things that I really wanted to do when I came on board the pocket our team a couple months ago and I'm really glad we're finally getting it could sort of restarted here so this is an exciting day I get to use my my big blue microphone thing you know the the snowball yeah I was telling me you guys are working with the same microphone right time almost i'm using the yeti because in here in Romania Yeti means a person describes a person who lives in the forest and this pretty ugly that's why I chosen this microphone well no actually because it's it's a top-of-the-line state-of-the-art microphone but yeah I don't want to make any commercials or ads but these types of microphones are perfect that is awesome I'm using for the record amusing ass on hyser interview mic in a in a padded four by six room that will be familiar to the viewers of some of my reviews because it's just gray grey egg crates all over the walls so if you if you go insane in that room Michael you're covered because if you smell you're into the North Sea yeah I'm completely safe from myself and and others are safe from me it's great and you cannot smash a phone right that's true unless I throw it at the imac in front of me which you know what probably do the imac a favor put it out of its misery at any rate the part of the new format part of the part of the new kind of podcast formula is that we're going to be doing a weekly show with four segments we cover basically three major platforms at pocket now we cover Windows Phone iOS and Android we also have a miscellaneous section for stuff that pops up you know occasionally blackberry will still make news and symbian and amigos in the news recently actually but that we put the misc section toward the end and toward the end of the hour we have a debate topic we're going to try this out and see see what we can do with that we just have kind of a two minute session where we one of us puts out an idea that may be stupid oh it's gonna be longer shall no longer a 25 minute segment now but ideally we try to get the show's under an hour we're going to solicit some feedback from from you listeners and and stuff like that we'll talk more about that at the end here but for now gentleman why don't we when we get started when we talk about the news of the week here well first first actually oh please I was um was read out loud I wasn't really i was listening to the last when it was called the pocket castle last episode and it was 13 months ago in August and it's amazing how so much has changed in yet so much has not changed some of the headlines then were that everyone is suing everyone that is still the case uh that that Google was buying motorola and you know that went through successfully but nothing really has happened I'm sure it's gonna take years for us to yeah to see anything come out of that um sadly the around that time Steve Jobs had stepped down as CEO when we all you know we're hypothesizing why that might be so it's it's it's amazing you know 13 months is a long time but um you know not that much has changed the screen sizes on phones are far bigger now yeah i just finished i just mentioned that i just finished up putting together a review which should be out by the time this this episode goes live the huawei ascend p1 and i mentioned that like it's got a 4.3 inch display but it feels like it's three and a half inches because there's just all the screen size we're in this age of jumbo phones which is just ridiculous but i've been spoiled along with everybody else and I know you guys have have to I don't think you guys have any blushes about that though you like your big phones of the bends it depends from a person to person for me the most important thing is one-handed usability and well I can tell you that the samsung galaxy s3 which i'm using at the moment offers me a certain amount of one-handed usability i totally managed to kill that by installing the flip cover the smart cover or how they call it the one which is similar to the galaxy note when I have some bags or something else in my hand and I won't take out my phone from my pocket or from my man purse I just cannot use it with one hand he's talking about the flip cover that opens up like a book like the one day exactly that's the one yeah they manage to I actually I managed to kill my 100 usability on the galaxy s3 yeah that thing we got to talk about that thing at some point cuz I I need to understand its its utility there's none thank you but before then we have we have some more recent news and we might as well just just kick it out for this one I I need to know that I need to just say this that this is the reality of the situation a judge actually said is actually said that the galaxy tab is not as cool as the iPad this is a story from from just what is this yesterday it's really recent and it's from England and it's from England right and I've been sort of i just had an opportunity to gloss over the the the ruling this preliminary injunction kind of stuff who has the the real bead on this one because i need to know more about this is it you boy I had a notorious all the suing going on lately and whether the actual lawsuits are meant to protect or to attack and it's generated leather buzz yeah i'm i finished law school I'm not specialized on intellectual property so I'm not gonna go into that much detail but to get back to your point I have a very interesting question that popped into my mind when i read that news post and i can figure out what's worst for samsung getting an injunction for a tablet which is almost one and a half years old and it's no longer selling or to have somebody on authority a judge say that your product is not as cool as the apple ipad what's worse really what's worse than that I'd you got me i mean this is this is just the fascinating like i'm reading the quote here the judge explains how the androids do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed the apple does you know what please mr. judge do set out that injunction but take back they're not as cool stuff yeah no I mean but you know this is exactly the kind of bait for for fanboys and enthusiasts alike I'm not gonna you know call anybody names for having an opinion about this kind of thing I mean this is exactly the kind of thing that we do on the internet constantly right we have these platform fans just add each other's throats discussing the differences between their platforms and how angry they are that the other one gets more attention or the other one is you know more advanced features or whatever and now you have a judge saying and I don't know I just don't know what to really i'm making excused I'm used to people throwing stuff at me of course virtually on youtube or in the comments so I'm gonna set that out straight if you guys remember back in October when when this whole lawsuit thing started in the US and across the world and there was a certain situation where the judge held both the samsung galaxy tab and the ipad up above her head and asked samsung's lawyers from 10 feet away to identify their product and Samsung lawyers were not able to tell apart the iPad from the galaxy tab really happy yeah it did wow I didn't hear about that that's amazing well maybe that's because the two tablets are that much alike or maybe because the lawyers were not actually that much into technical stuff or design stuff I'm not gonna say my opinion on this really I don't want anybody to here's me you set samsung and their and their marketing material for their devices is very different than Apple you know Apple is all about it you know about the emotional aspect and things working just well and elegance and such Samsung is kind of like the ante Apple like the next big thing is already here you don't have to wait for the apple announcement which is sort of what is implied so i don't i don't think that what the judge has said is that will have a negative impact on on samsung or their marketing efforts even though this will hit every newspaper that covers you know business and technology um it's just it's just kind of funny right and because it is an irresistible headline right like I mean it's I love that I love that this is the headline like galaxy tab not as cool as ipad and it's coming from a judge from our village yeah I know and no you're right i mean you know people gonna be up in arms about this and the legal ramifications of this may be may not be as far-reaching as it as it seems i don't know i will not i did not finish law school Tony so I will not comment on it either I keep forgetting that that's true about you so you don't want for hate mails right well they're nothing and and I that's something I want to talk about at some point in the future in a future podcast like how you know commenters sometimes like win the day when we're having a really busy Newsweek and it's like you know we make a point that's like you know maybe I seem to recall making the point at some point about the Lumia 900 it was like maybe you know maybe this isn't um the best phone ever invented and about 120 people were like how very what are you talking you know just the whole site exploded and I was I was too busy to respond to all the comments I was like wow this is um this is amazing so we're gonna talk about that a little bit future but I know you guys have had that time and time again which is why you're being very careful in your words right now I don't I don't mind saying you know how I i I've got opinions just like just like everyone else so sure i don't i don't mind i think it's it's imperative that we keep our opinions as unbiased as possible and keep saying them because this is what sets us apart from from others i mean i will tell you that x product is worse than a wide product because i think that's the truth because I as a reviewer feel that experience that and I think this is exactly that sets us apart from others that we say out loud straight whatever we think and if its fate male material bring it on ya know it's a good that's a good point bring it on has as you know some interesting connotations from an American perspective as a quote but um you know we'll talk about it later yeah you know it's it's increasingly hard to remain unbiased I think um in in this space because I guess it's always been this way in journalism you know you've got you know some companies that I won't mention a you know willing journalists by sending them on retreats with dinners and um indoor skydiving and stuff and then they show them the product and of course they're gonna love it I mean cheesy took me out to dinner you you gave me a great afternoon or a great night you're paying for my flight out here um it's just it's it's a it's tough to stay biased when those things happen but yeah we really try I'm biased yeah stay I'm bias right yeah no I agree and yeah I think that's a that's a interesting line to have to walk for four people in our field especially because there are so many companies with ya with deep pockets but with a strong incentive to kind of yes sell their product hard on you I know a one quick question again for you guys what do you think it's worth worse having a product under circum the circumstances which allow you to be biased and say your opinion which would be favorable to the product and probably people will buy that according to your review and maybe return it or just say unbiased Lee that it's a mediocre or a bad product which which is worse or which is better no I mean the only choice is is the second right because in the first scenario if you say this phone you know has no lag and someone buys it and then they say this is the laggies phone i've ever used what was what was that guy talking about they're gonna remember that and they're not gonna come back and exactly got your future reviews so you have you gotta you gotta get get it right the the first time and I I think that and I this is a huge tension I think that you know journalists and and you know in this industry specifically we help to push the industry forward we hope to nudge it by saying you know since four-point-oh is ok but it you know it's not that good at the end of the day there's a lot wrong with it still and it you know it needs to be better go back and fix it and then we'll say it's great and then will endorse it but um you know I think I think we have that role to play to help the industry get better I think that's exactly the core of it i mean it's it's it's you know everyone wants products to improve everyone wants things to get better and this is something i run into in my other the other parts of my life where you know I'm an actor and and you come offstage and all your friends and family are always very willing to tell you how great you were because you know it's very polite and whatever and that's how but you never ever improve if people are just always telling you how wonderful you were even if they don't believe it and that's true in any field that's true in any craft in any skill set so yeah I think it's really really critical to give honest opinions for the health of the industry so I agree yeah anyway that was yeah that was it was a good that was like we had her first tangent gentlemen that's very nice I I have this this strong urge to to do another tangent I I need have you need you need you need incentive or disincentive to dig do i need to any dozens n to go to the next all right but file that though cuz we're gonna eat it later okay um I ok so let's let's move on here I want to talk about jelly bean because I don't have it I know that we are running it I know Brendan you have a you have a nexus 7 you're running it on your Galaxy Nexus I told tony i made the admission to Tony then I'm not running with a rooted galaxy nexus even though i have a galaxy nexus and he could shook his head in shame you you should have kept us between you and me you know you know what whatever i'll take the heat now it sound unity it's cool um no but I really do I want to hear I just read Brandon's editorial just went up about jelly bean using jelly bean two weeks later you know I want to I want to talk about that time i wanna i want to hear your condensed impressions Brandon yeah good well I want to talk that too good um so in in every Android every Android device i've ever used with the exception of the galaxy nexus running jellybean there's a little hint um uh it's i've found plenty of places where the UI is laggy that means when you press the these tasks which are button it like kind of flutters open right that's not a that's not a good work flow if i want to bounce between apps i don't want to wait for a stupid flutter to open um not only that going to the app tray the notification shade the going into settings there's just a look there's a delay and the operating system is almost struggle to do the most basic things and I don't care if you've got a quad core phone or the latest Krait processor from Snapdragon or two gigs of RAM on the galaxy s3 it doesn't matter it's it's Android it is the software and I am so thankful that Google finally realize this and in the incremental update that is jelly bean the point dot X update I guess you'd say they've really done something significant as a to frame this properly I've got my quad core galaxy s3 running cyanogenmod 9 and it's fast like it is really fast it's it's faster than the previous fastest phone i've ever used which was the galaxy s the galaxy s2 running running villain rom which is a great which is a great run I don't name to it is an awesome rom name and and it so I've got my galaxy s 3 quad-core running cyanogenmod 9 stock Ice Cream Sandwich plus more because it's got some speed tweaks and whatnot and then I've got my galaxy nexus which was released you know in November or whatever of last year running jellybean and I keep going back to the Galaxy Nexus running jellybean even though the screen is smaller and you know you've got the on-screen buttons which take up vertical space and even though it's got a mere dual-core 1.2 gigahertz processor which is still pretty brawny it's a significantly better experience because it's so smooth and so quick and and so responsive I think that's the key it's responsive meaning when you do something it responds it doesn't think it doesn't give you checkerboards it's it's a revelation and it's it's gonna change android would you say it's it's more it is more so buttery smooth than then say iOS then say then Windows Phone 7 on solid hardware I mean what year oh and I'm just just asking the tough questions here Tony yeah you know I think I think Windows Phone and Iowa's do something very interesting I don't know the technical term for it and there's there have been articles about it how it prioritizes touch input so it will actually you know for example stock loading a web page as you move it around just so you get the illusion that it's very responsive and so an Android always lacked that so I think what Android has done here is that it's caught up to Windows Phone and it's caught up to iOS and it's funny if you take an iphone 4s and you go into the browser and you flick around a long web page like engadget very long and you do the same thing on jelly bean they're equally as smooth uh it's it's so so I'd say jelly bean catches up it doesn't necessarily surpass in terms of the fluidity of the interface you know what my biggest concern is regarding Android I mean I can agree to the fact that jelly bean is the fastest android to date I can agree that project butter is an excellent thing and optimization is also a good thing but i'm afraid that whenever jelly bean rom start coming out officially because they will come to the HTC One X to the samsung galaxy s3 to other products that OMS will still bundle sense TouchWiz and that will probably hold jelly bean down and I'm afraid that they will kill this buttery smoothness at least in and cents or as as deep as it goes within the operating system I mean TouchWiz UX nature is fast it's lightweight but it's still at some bulk and I'm afraid that these custom ui's will take away from the smoothness of jelly bean at least that's my concern at this moment do we know anything about about how much Google is gonna allow OEMs to to change within that was much as they want this is free reign yeah um I mean like 'man down to that like isn't isn't that kind of project butter stuff is not like like Colonel layer stuff or am i it's it's deep and I'm thinking back to when froyo was released and the the difference between android 2.1 and 2.2 froyo was the inclusion of it's called dalvik JIT just in time and I don't know exactly what that means but it was a it it changed it changed the experience compiler right it's like a via to compiles the because its Android is a what is a compiled environment I don't know I all I remember is this stuff from webos so which was not a compiled environment had to be interpreted on the fly which is why it was always lagging no matter what right so it go on sorry yeah so it yeah it's so with this with this compiler I think I think what that means is that it runs the apps in a different kind of environment or something but anyway the point is that it was faster then we saw all of these froyo roms come out with sense and with TouchWiz and they were significantly faster than the 2.1 version that these devices originally shipped with because of the underpinnings 2.2 kind of you know the the OEMs really couldn't strip that part out I don't think they would if they wanted to and they could put their their interface on top of it and it remained fast so to answer your concerned I think that jellybean roms will still be fast and they will still have the inter place replacements on top but they'll still be incrementally faster and to touch on your question Michael and a little bit from your answer Brandon let's take instance the the 1x for instance with sense for point oh we've seen it was a huge news back in the day when when people found out that HTC was tweaking the multitasking functionality on the 1x meaning that they killed background processes because they optimized the usage of the phone and the background applications and tweaked it to the HTC One X so I'm afraid that OMS will probably tweak some core elements of Android to deliver what they think better user experience on their phones but on the overall general I think they will probably kill something else so again let's hope I'm wrong so what are we doing that happens we flash a custom rom we flash custom rom yeah which I I have the feeling that 99% of people still don't do because they're I guess they're worried about voiding the warranty they're worried about breaking their device on their legitimate concerns it's still not for the faint of heart but um you know tools tools have become a lot easier to use to root your phone to flash a custom boot loader and you know what once would take an hour to of you know you know working in a command prompt now can be done in 15 minutes as long as you know where to look yeah it is a lot easier nowadays I mean I'll tell you why I didn't do it on my on my daily driver I've rooted so you know I had it ripped the I didn't stall cm9 on the HP TouchPad here i think i put android on the veer in one video like you know I've done it it's just a pain and I understand that the average I understand the average joe's thing like yeah it's 15 minutes if you know what you're doing if you don't know what you're doing and gotta hunt around for the information you don't have the XDA thread you know bookmarked then it's you know it can take a long time that's a significant investment of time and effort and I understand why why it's still not taken hold of you know in the average Joe kind of sector that utilize it plus the that plus the fact that most of the people don't really care about milliseconds left or milliseconds right like us geeks do so they don't care that if i push the home button on the galaxy s3 and goes home in one second so that they look up the eggsy thread which says that if you disable s voice it will be instant so maybe that's the difference between geeks and the normal user which makes me feel glad that that we we cater predominantly to the power user so we can talk about this stuff yeah we do right yeah other people don't know why we're looking at their galaxy s3 their unmodded galaxy s3 with just just discussed over the Thanksgiving dinner to my friend just got um the a blue a beautiful blue although it looks purple the pebble to pebble blue galaxy s3 on eighteen t I look at it I flipped through the screens and I'm like dude you should really install cyanogenmod not on this it's much better nice like why I just upgraded from the captivate and I might be you have annoyed you have no idea what you're missing look how slow this is and I press a button and he's like wow that was fast and I'm like no it wasn't that took like 1.2 seconds I could've taken point five seconds we'll see right well and I mentioned this a second ago but remember I came from I came from the land of webos so everything is fast to me oh yeah it's a matter of perspective it is but we like speaking of roms I mean the jelly bean the source code is out now right so I mean we should be seeing jelly bean rums and in short order if we don't if we haven't seen them already is that correct yeah well yeah we're gonna see some you know the the the process is complicated Tony now we're talking about said today to compile an actual rom from source but then you've got to get it to work on your device gotta get bluetooth or Wi-Fi the phone and and that stuff takes a lot of skill and that's where you know the development communities come into play and then you've got you know the other rom products like the villain rom i mentioned cyanogenmod 9 or 10 i guess in this case with that will take take a lot longer as they try to make something more stable because some of these early builds that you'll probably see this week and next week we'll say you know what's working is you know phone and Wi-Fi what's not working as the camera or like bluetooth doesn't flip on I've seen depending on the drivers right yeah I've got a good friend here who was installed who was running a very early build of ICS or i guess it was cm9 you know version of ICS on his droid bionic and though that's an LTE device here in the states you know that it was such an early build that he only had one ex you know capabilities so he's got out amazing looking skin and it's really awesome and then I'd try and watch him like I'd walk him try and load a webpage over you know a 56k connection and it was like oh this is hilarious yeah that guy that guy's a trooper because most people I think most people would say you know this isn't even worth it if my bluetooth or my you know 3g doesn't work but that's that's that's commendable she's i should a real a real like top of the line android gig want to get him on the show sometime that'll be great um another thing i should mention i'm such a huge proponent of you know rooting your phone and doing all that good stuff to it the beauty of the process is that once you do it the first time once you root your phone install a custom boot loader installing a third-party rom becomes as easy as like changing your underwear literally you lo the you load the rom excellent analogy ok you load the rom onto your phone you could do it through through the clockworkmod or what's it what's it called the rom manager you could do it through rom manager and then it reboots your phone into recovery and it does it for you and literally in seconds you can have a different rom on your phone it's and then you can backup individual roms I mean this is probably not new to many people listening but so let's say you want you you got cyanogenmod 9 on your phone you've got all of your files set up all of your settings mmm and then you see that uh me you I miui whatever it's called is is has been ported to your phoning you want to try it out you want to see what the buzz is about so you sew you back up your entire cm9 rom you try this miui thing and if it doesn't work out you can go back to the exact same copy with all your settings all your files running cm9 so there's a lot of beauty into the process once you invest the time in the beginning yeah that's and once you start doing that you become addicted yes it is an addiction oh yes I don't do drugs completely agree with we I want to talk more about that we have to we do need to move on because we are already running over time and I love that because I love talking but um I I hope people love listening to us I think they well we need more of your dulcet tones Tony I love your accent we were talking about this off the air I I cannot get enough of to Tony can just read me a phone book it doesn't matter what you want me to these sloppy with mel i would like to have seen Montana it's just is this what you guys do when I'm not yeah this is that worked out yeah yeah ask me but I only see it in on pop cans and once a week right yeah no but we're still want to talk about jelly bean because we have we have nexus 7's coming to us like a lot of people in the world and I I need to know I need to know what what to be what you guys are excited about I want to hear you know I know Brandon you already have one Tony yours is you you have one coming to you right no and I would you know I don't tell me why uh I'll tell you why while I answered a question why I'm excited about the nexus 7 because I am excited but I'm not excited about the tablet itself this might sound complicated let me uncomplicated and I am NOT excited about the nexus 7 itself I am NOT excited about jelly bean I am NOT excited about the series doing hardware what I am finally excited about is that Google finally decided to go with nexus tablets to have their own tablets for the developer community for the power users to have a standard hardware to which OEMs can catch up this is I think what's most important about the nexus 7 not the hardware not the price point not the OS the fact that it's a pure Android tablet and it's a benchmark it's a target for OEMs and other tablet makers to go beyond yeah from an industry perspective it's very very significant yes it's very significant and it's very it's very very quiet in the android tablet world right now and I know IFA is coming up next month and you guys are gonna be there you're gonna see the stuff but it's been a weird year there's been the galaxy tab up to which is horrible it's it'll mine that good it's a minor iteration over the galaxy tab and then HTC has done absolutely nothing Motorola had some follow-ups to the zoom which were which were pretty terrible again incremental small up updates that really didn't bring anything amazing to the table my my hope and my wish is that next month or as we get into the holiday season we're gonna see like high-res 7-inch tablets with quad-core processors great battery life and finally some some movement in the tablet world and and and yeah as you guys implied this this nexus 7 is is a is big because it's going to drive prices down as much as the OEMs are gonna hate it but but what's the what that's going to do is more people will have android tablets developers are going to take notice finally this problem of very few Android tablet apps is going to be fixed and we're all gonna live happy ever happily ever after with like 10 tablets in every room in every household I've got more berries for that reality because I you know I wrote a piece recently about how it is possible to make beautiful Android tablet apps and I mean digging for those finding beautiful android tablet apps was so incredibly difficult I mean there are aggregates out there specifically to find you know android tab android apps that are optimized for tablet and even those aggregators are flooded with you know bad search results whether you know blowing up phone apps and it's such an incredible problem and it's amazing that it's a problem that's gone on for so long and yeah you're right it's hard to find the apps and what's really interesting is when you're on the iPad and you search for like Twitter you get to search results one with ipad apps one with iphone apps and when you search a Google tablet you don't get that but it's kind of by design because they I think the idea is that the app will live in either tablet or phone environment if if code it that way and ninety-nine percent of them are not coated that way right yeah I like their their philosophy behind that you know I think it's a something wonderful to aspire to or I forgot whether it was Larry pager or Sergey Brin who was like you know a developer should never have to build an app more than once yeah you know I and I get that and I you know that's one way to be friendly their developers but it's resulted in this this world where you know I don't you know I have an Android tablet it's the touchpad it's nothing amazing but i also have an ipad here and I don't need to tell you which one I use more often because it's more much more pleasurable to use an iPad yep there's there is a section in the in Google Play if you're using a tablet that says tablet staff picks have you ever seen that Michael oh yeah yeah I once or twice and and and that's where I sort of I sort of go sometimes and I'm like oh well what cool and there's it's just you know like Baron it's it's barren and there's nothing like innovative in there and yeah it's a it's a sad story so so to circle back to the Nexus 7 this could very well be be the catalyst that the changes that and I hope it is and if it's not you know if if for some reason the Nexus 7 is not the you know the fire under the butts of Google and then their developer efforts then you know maybe another app story is maybe it's going to be the new kindle fire you know which we have seen renters for recently i find it very difficult to get excited about Kindles I'm excited about them from an industry perspective but not personally I don't the kindle fire was not an interesting device to me personally so what what are the renders in our that we that we reported on into here well let me start by first because it's gonna be a short intervention I haven't used Kindles and ever never because I'm in Romania and I can't get those here but I know because I write about about them I read about them so I know what what they're all about now about the new kindle fire let's talk about the seven because there are two rumors the 7 inch and the 10 inch and both of them are placed specifically in a certain region of the market the 7-inch kindle fire is of course going to compete with the nexus 7 and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 so is gonna aim towards those who want a tablet which is smaller than the ipad it's larger than the galaxy note which is a phablet and something like that and then okay but don't forget yeah right which isn't available again in Romania and we have the 10 inch kindle fire which is rumored which will specifically target the ipad now i'm not exactly sure whether they will manage to do that or or not but to circle back to your question about the renders these renders were based off of rumors of what we've heard from several sources like VG times like BGR what people quoting anonymous sources close to the matter say i think that as usual with leaks it's it's twofold either their spot on or either or or they're completely different from what the real deal would be would i buy a tablet a kindle if it was available in romania and it would have it would look like the one in the renders probably not because my tablet usage requires me more power user access I don't need the new fancy you why because I don't use a tablet for consuming content but of course you're a region of the market which is which is their target uses that so sure enough to say well you know use a tablet for consuming content did you say no I'm using a tablet more as a mobile office I'm using a smartphone for consuming content for pictures for music for for facebook social networking I'm using my tablet when I am out I don't want to take my laptop with me and I writing either news or or managing stuff i've been using android tablets for that because it allows access to upload from from the file from the file system but iOS 6 will bring that and then probably i will switch back to the ipad when working right yeah it's it's just it's fascinating cuz we always think of tablets as exclusively almost content consumption devices because that's how they're constantly positioned and hearing that somebody is able to be like be productive on one on a regular basis is always kind of encouraging because we're constantly told that we're in this we're entering this post-pc era you know we're tablets are gonna kind of really usurp the role of notebooks and I tend to believe that's true it's just really really slow from a Productivity standpoint well let me give you my personal examples you will never see me take pictures with my tablet you will never see me kicking it to Bon Jovi from my tablet and he will most probably not see me watching a movie from my tablet because I have my laptop for that so what what remains is that I have a small device which is comparable in size with my 11 inch notebook which I can take wherever I want offers me five six seven eight nine hours of battery life and allows me to work easily from everywhere so that's that's my usage of a tablet nice what about you Brenda I it's it's interesting because uh I don't I don't know if we were going to talk about the surface but I'm going to talk about the surface now we're gonna talk about the service um I I kind of use a tablet for all of the above and I'm uh I'm a big tablet guy in fact on my Twitter bio says I'm a tablet lover so it must be true I I think I love my wife more but the tablet were coming this close second it's a felon it it must be true yes um I use a tablet to consume webpages newspapers books I've yet to find a tablet good enough to be an awesome book reader i mean the nexus 7 comes close but even that that the screen isn't amazing i can still see pixels i hate seeing pixels do um and it um it's it's a little too thick and cumbersome I mean it's it's getting there so I haven't found the ultimate reading tablet except I guess if you want to consider the kindle with an e ink display i think that's my my book reading device of choice but there are a lot of times where i'm using say an ipad which is stomach the favorite tablet my favorite tablet the new ipad and I think to myself jeez I can't do X right now and X could be I can't use adobe photoshop and edit this image the way i want with a mouse and keyboard or i can't type in an extremely long email and feel confident editing it by tapping on the screen and seeing that little magnification come up I can't and I'm running out of things because it's time goes on there she were a few things I can't use my you know my my ftp client which stores you know the certain file locations just just the way i want you cannot upload a picture to post right unless you're running ios6 yeah yeah exactly sure which is ridiculous and then I start thinking like this Microsoft Surface thing has a can have some pretty big advantages especially with that cool cover that doubles is like a trackpad and am and then the keyboard um you know if and and this only applies to the pro version and the pro version is gonna be like 13 millimeters thick and the screen res isn't that blubber block I can complain all day about it but it gets closer to that reality of like here's a device I can use it for everything literally um so I'm kind of I'm kind of curious to see hopefully they're not too expensive the surface pro to fill in to fill in those times when I you know I need to use photoshop or I need to use my ftp client or whatever I think based on the fact that they did not announce prices at that event and and and based on what they've done before you know Microsoft I I hesitate to say that I've tend to think your hopes will be dashed I think those are going to be really expensive tablets I've not basing that on anything I don't know I mean do you do you guys what do you think about that we weren't going to talk about the service today but i'm curious now because here's a prediction is what has to pretty you know is what I to compete with the ipad but what about the other one go ahead here's a prediction for from me the cheaper versions will be around the same price tag as Android tablets and the pro versions will be in the same price tag as the ipad no no what is bold man that's not that's not the pro versions gonna be as much as an as an ultrabook it's gonna be a grand then nobody's gonna buy that I'm not gonna bite it I'm gonna buy a macbook here I think both of those things are true I think that pricing is what's gonna happen and I think nobody's gonna buy the the pro versions wait a sec Microsoft is going to use their uh use their massive amounts of cash to convince you that you really need to get a surface and you need to spend you know and unless yourself put some money in my pockets which I don't have to spend that much on its surface then there's no issue really so Bryce is very important but then again but then again you guys all have you know you've got your MacBook Airs you've got a tablet well the people that are to buy the surface pro are gonna be people who are like geez I need a laptop and I want it to be fin I went in to have great battery life kind of cool if it would have a touch screen so it have that like ipad like thing oh wait there's this thing it's called the surface pro it's around the same price as the samsung series 9 but it seems to have more utility i'm gonna buy it you know it's kind of that scenario where people buy i see that conversation happening you know in a similar way at first where it's like oh man yeah I'd like to have you know I need a laptop I need something to be portable and it's like how manner be nice if it at a touch screen because we had that like ipad like thing oh well that surface thing is like whatever it's like 800 bucks hey why don't I just get an ipad ah yeah that's like you know what's possible it's possible that the pro version will be more targeted towards as HP said towards the business consumer towards corporations towards IT departments towards businessman who are on the go and probably the RT version will be the go-to microsoft tablet that could well be I guess we'll have to wait and see on that well since since we're already talking about Windows Phone stuff and since um I I really are excuse me not windows phone stuff we're talking my windows stuff but I want to ask about what you guys think is is next for the the Lumia thing we've been kind of quiet on the Nokia front we had like two weeks there were I guess analysts it was really hip for four analysts to speculate about the future of Nokia and or excuse me the lack of a future in nokia like there was a lot of fun flying around and the pink nokia lumia is about to come out and because that's news there there has to be another Lumia coming up on the horizon and Richard Karis the he's the developer relations guy right for nokia yep yeah he said so that there's that there's a looming on the horizon with with PureView technology which we've kind of all have anticipated coming how long do you think do you guys think we have to wait for the next Lumia phone because I want it um yeah I you know I I had to talk myself out of buying a Lumia 900 the other day I'm of course I've carried it before I've got used review units whatever but I really I I want a Lumia phone now the only reason go ahead but the only reason I'm not using a Lumia 900 Michael's because in episode I think it was one of after the buzz you said it gave you a blister and I don't want gave me AB establecer right in the middle of my palm and I was ostracized from my social circles so I I will not forgive it I think I believe and this is gonna piss a lot of people off but this is still what I believe that Microsoft somehow shut themselves in the leg with Windows Phone 8 I mean after the announcement of Windows Phone 8 and the fact that it's coming summer in q3 q4 regardless do you can you find any reasons to convince me to buy a windows phone now knowing that there will be no upgrade except for of course windows phone 7.8 which is not the real deal I I think I think people I ok ok if I were on a contract and you know i just bought a Lumia 900 and I learned that I would only get windows phone 7.8 I'd be I I would be upset but thinking more broadly I think people should stop complaining about it because the best parts of Windows Phone 8 most notably the improved Start screen is coming to legacy devices or the vast majority of them and I think that's what people should look at I agree i wrote a piece on this and I I was so it related to be able to kind of like dive into this and look at what the differences are and so much of this is is just a messaging problem on Microsoft's end like yeah yes we have an application framework change and that's that is a big deal but it microsoft is not going to leave those people behind they're not going to just like leave the windows phone seven people out in the out of the wind because they can't afford to because they're so few of them that they can't afford to let them go so you you know and you can't so much of Windows Phone 8 you know is hardware improvements which are sorely needed of course but you can't what are they gonna do you can't put a higher resolution screen in an OTA download I know right you can't put a higher a better camera in it in a software update you know or can you go well he's sort of Michael if you remember Microsoft has pushed the reset button with Windows Phone 7 back in the day and what happens your windows mobile 6.5 it got completely slates nobody offered support they killed it right and now Microsoft is pushing the reset button again for windows phone 8 again a huge difference as it was from 6.5 to seven is gonna be a huge different from 7 7.5 to eight what do you think will happen to you 7 7.5 devices when will Microsoft stop supporting them I think are they gonna be pushed to legacy status yes absolutely I think they're Microsoft's gonna do a much better job supporting them because I think they were bullish with Windows Phone 7 I think they were coming to the market and they said look we got this new awesome Metro UI you know we've got it's an entirely new product that is so much better than Windows Phone and people are going to flock to it and then for various reasons that didn't happen people kind of like saw Windows Phone launch and then kind of shrugged and kept buying you know iphones and android phones but like I don't think I think Microsoft is more cautious now I think they they better realize it at the very least that these people who are currently on the wp7 platform are are all they have and if they annoy them then they better then they better really impress a lot of people with Windows Phone air because they're just gonna I think yeah exactly i think they are targeting people who might be willing to convert from other platforms directly to Windows Phone 8 then they are targeting current windows from users I don't know I have this feeling that's an interesting I mean it I think you might be right I think if they do that at the cost of you know ignoring the windows phone seven years i think that which is how much it is five six seven percent of the market yeah what was the figure on that tuina its sub two digits yeah it's still under ten percent remember that I couldn't get a reliable figure on it the last time i wrote a Windows Phone article so yeah so I hope people don't get us wrong we are not haters we're not saying this because because we have something we love windows phone we love whole platforms and we have the utmost respect for my what Microsoft tried to do but i think that Microsoft is like I've read a great quote and I'm sorry I cannot quote exactly and I cannot say who said it but they said Microsoft is like a huge bulky train which starts moving very slowly but once they start moving they just go on and on yeah yeah you know I mean it takes any company that huge to get the momentum upward to stop you know bad momentum and it was interesting to watch nokia try and kind of overcome that and will will speculate more about nokia know in a future episode cuz i do want to spend a good amount of time talking about it we can answer the question when will we see PureView on Windows Phones mine which is Windows Phone 8 is the moment for PureView to come to in this phone so you don't think until until the winter time yeah interesting well isn't isn't windows phone 8 uh shipping on devices in the holiday time yeah you should oh yeah so oh I guess that's what you meant by winter time I think we're gonna see and get ready to uh hopefully you won't poop yourself I think we're gonna see a Lumia 900 like device called the 1001 or whatever it's gonna have a 720p Super AMOLED display it's going to have dual core cpu it's gonna have a PureView camera running Windows Phone 8 it's gonna be slightly thicker for that I'm gonna have to be written one gram a walking of ram and everyone's gonna freak out over cuz it's gonna be an awesome device and I let's measure was the card support microsd support I think it's gonna be a platform switcher for some you know I I think you're probably right and I think that it's gonna have to be because I think Nokia is once again in a position where they have to save their butts that might be they're not on a burning platform again but they're on a sinking platform now that not the Windows Phone platform but you know they're one of their own making yeah um so well that would be nice if that happens Brandon I will hold you to that I will I will run out and and purchase one I'm saying it's right now I'm saying it on the air yes I will buy one for myself then very briefly in that same vein we got a report recently that Lumia 900 customers the the people who did go out and buy Lumia 900 s are very satisfied with ninety-six percent of owners extremely satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their Lumia 900 these are people surveyed between april twenty seven ma 18 by nielsen so almost a thousand Nokia Lumia owners 810 owners surveyed that's you know that's impressive and which is just normal Michael because if you look at nokia's track record not only with the windows phone or symbian even from the good old dinosaur days with with the Nokia 1000 1000 and 100 and the good old dumb phones nokia had excellent build quality excellent call quality excellent battery life so they they made phones for life I even have a friend who has a phone which is like 15 years old it's a dumb phone and still working so it's it's nothing nothing strange for me nakia phones are extremely well built and that survey just speaks for it I agree and I miss a lot about the Lumia 900 and a lot of that came from Nokia but it's significant now because you know you were not talking about a nokia symbian phone that only a few people bought you know the Lumia 900 enjoyed a really big push here in the states and I think a lot of people bought it you know they won't release the accurate numbers but we're talking you know we're talking in the millions right but possibly may I don't know George you know but they broke a million millions all it needs a lot of phones I mean I think I do with the AT&T push that they enjoyed i don't know i mean if you guys remember the numbers the quarterly numbers nokia released at the beginning of this year they said that from the moment they released the first Lumia phones which was last year summer in October they broke around 1 million that was in one quarters and there was no Lumia 900 back then was that in this world wide cell that's global yeah yeah yeah it'd be interesting I mean you know if the numbers are good enough they will release them at some point so we either have to wait to hear or not to hear and then if we don't hear then we're gonna be talking about nokia in any case when they you know go up for auction or whatever so i really hope that doesn't happen i really i think there's they're one of the only companies doing interesting stuff on the industrial design or at least that was a case like five or six months ago before HTC decided to wake back up and etc if nokia goes the auction block you guys want to you guys want a bid for it known okay I'm and first first order of business is to get the Lumia 900 to run um jelly bean and then we're we're off to the races oh that would make my heart hurt be like that be like putting android on a palm pre okay quick question yes or no michael brandon do you think Nokia should have went Android um Brandon you go first no no no you won't go first or no they shouldn't have gone a tradition Wow I'll go first no they shouldn't have gone android because it's too competitive and I mean it's I feel like the CEO explaining this but you know nokia could differentiate with better much better hardware yes so does have sold millions by now zillions they want us you know I think I I kind of wish they had done it a two-prong strategy but then they wouldn't have gotten the love from Microsoft and the exclusivity and all this so they had to it's there between a rock and a hard place it mmhmm yeah from a business perspective I think I think the argument could be made either way from a strictly personal perspective no I am we'll always favor the underdog I always like it when to underdogs get together to try and push something to try and kind of pull each other out of the mud I watched it fail with with sprint and palm in their kind of death embrace and that sucked and so I would I still want to see this happen I think and I'm not the only one like I'm obsessive and a nerd for webos yes but like a lot of us this is what happened before I wrote for pocket now before all the stuff like a lot of us hanging out over at precentral wherever you know webos died and then we were like well we're all jumping ship to a platform that's going to be supported where are we all going four out of five people seriously windows phone because there's something in in the DNA of fanboys of our particular stripe I guess that that really likes the underdog platform so no seeing seeing okie embrace Windows Phone was a great thing and I still love it and I still want to see that success story kind of bloom and I really hope yeah so anyway we're we're coming up on an hour gents so we got to kind of wrap this up real quick and we've talked a little bit about Android Windows Phone I want to sort of wrap this up on on an iPad Mini rumor which I'm getting tired of do we like the idea of 7 inch iPad can I just put that out there do we do we care do it don't do you what how do you feel about a 7 inch iPad you have a you have an iPhone tell me it's a it's a tough question and it's not that do users need a 7 inch iPad or does Apple need a 7 inch ipad i think users would need a 7 inch ipad but Apple does not Apple always went for the high quality I don't know premium products and of course there was steve jobs and his legacy of never going below nine point seven inches then I'm would I buy a seven inch iPad absolutely do I need a seven inch iPad know okay it succinctly put about you Brenda uh I'll also be succinct that the iPads the new iPad is far too heavy and it is far too bulky and far too thick to be come held for a long period of time and that that's a big shame because the best content viewing experience on a tablet is on the ipad I can view the wall street journal in this beautiful digital atmosphere but it it's just it's tiresome tible they need something lighter and smaller something that you could take into bed and not feel like you've brought you know your laptop into bed with you which is kind of a weird notion anyway no agreed and more you know more maybe even more importantly on the train which is where I find myself a whole lot of the time and one-handed use within it with an iPad the size of the new iPad or not possible it's very yet it's very cumbersome it's not enjoyable I the 7-inch form factor you know their arguments to be made either way i would find use for one very easily which sort of catapults into the final two minutes of the of the podcast in theory which it will not be but i have this idea and it's for this editorial which i am scheduled to write at some point tonight so it should be it maybe it'll be live by the time this podcast goes up I was going to bed the other night and interesting you mentioned bed and tablets Brandon I was going to bed the other night and normally I do have my iPad in bed and i watch netflix or you know whatever i read email because i work from bed which is stupid but i did i was the ipad has been annoying me because i'm running iOS 6 beta and i had a problem and blah blah blah so I was like whatever I've got the galaxy s3 here and it struck me that I was really enjoying using the galaxy s3 for all the things I would be using the ipad for and I was like but I mean this thing is it's got a four point eight inch screen it's nowhere near the size of the tablet but it's much less cumbersome I can still see it fine because it's a huge screen so our big big phones like the galaxy s3 and our phablets like the Galaxy Note are they a threat to tablets long term as they get more popular what do you think two minutes Brennan two minutes each or in though two-minute age LBJ I'll be generous because we are all friends here ok who starts Brandon starts ok up oh geez uh our phablets a threat to tablets yes they are because if I am someone who can handle a device like the galaxy note which I'm not and I'll tell you in a second um I rather have one device and enjoy a you know the the Galaxy Note does provide like a mini tablet like experience it's a bigger screen you can comfortably view netflix on it comfortably view the newspaper in some cases the problem of course with the note is that when you download apps from Google Play it reverts the phone UI and what if you want the tablet UI you might struggle to see the screen because things will be so small um but for me I can't handle a note because it's too big it's too big in the pocket it I can't fit my hands around it my hands aren't that small but i can't i can't type with it accurately um so i need a phone that has a reasonably sized screen and then i need a tablet that is that that is a larger canvas to view I don't mind having two things and I have to have two things because I I can't use a phablet on a regular basis I like them they're fun but I just can't personal use them okay so you'll sacrifice that for for for day-to-day usability I understood right Tony a short version no they are another thread long version I had a discussion with Brandon and some other colleagues back in the day and we try to define that very thin line between the phone and the tablet and I think we need to define what a so-called phablet is I think a phablet is a device which has a screen size between the smallest ablett and the largest phone but this when the phablet the galaxy note came out last year at IFA all the smartphones had for 4.3 inches in diagonal and there were seven point seven inches tablets now tablets become smaller and smaller we have seven inch tablets now and we have four point eight inch screens so I think at one point these two will mold together and the perception the concept of the phablet will disappear but think that they are addressing two separate segments of the market somebody who wants to have a decent sized phone and somebody who has to have a decently or fairly large or fairly small tablet so you will never see somebody with both a smartphone and a tablet carrying them at the same time that person will have the need for a phablet so no I think tablets are not a threat to tablets I'm not sure if I made sense did that translate correctly in English it did it did I wonder if I wonder though is that true you never see people with with carrying both a smartphone and a tablet that's not true well maybe in the US but here in Europe I have never seen somebody who had both an Android device or an Android tablet iOS device iow established because they both do the same thing ah which is why maybe the PadFone will do better over there than a will over here probably maybe we don't know we have our fingers crossed we want we'll talk about that maybe more on the next episode thank you you guys are good at being succinct HUD I couldn't be under two minutes I'm glad I'm the question poser and not the answer i just talk and talk and talk this has been great that actually brings us to the end of the hour of episode 1 of pocket now weekly I'm really really glad we got we got to the end here without running into any major problems knock on wood guys we're gonna be back every week doing this from here on as we discussed at the beginning of the show we've we've got some schedule things to work out we're going to find we're going to work out distribution we're going to get this stuff to you as quickly as possible but once we have all that nailed down we'll let you know when you can expect this on a weekly basis we do have an email address set up we want we want you to email us at podcast at pocketnow.com if you have questions that you want us to answer on the air we're willing to build in a section there if you have specific questions for us if they're interesting and applicable to more than just yourself or if you have topic suggestions or anything you want to throw our way once again podcast at pocketnow.com you can follow us on twitter at pocket now tweets which is spelled just like it sounds and gentlemen why don't you tell everyone where they can reach you well my phone number is now no I'd that well app on Twitter and on the other Twittersphere if you will uh yeah I love it if you think that that's if you think that that is something you want to share if you want people bothering you on Twitter then they'll just look at my tweets where I retweet you very rude no I I love for people to follow me on twitter at is end I'll try to follow you back it's possible um or if you give me a good reason guessable yeah I promise to send me candy in the mail I'm just I'm just Brandon minimun on Twitter first name last name together you know let's make it easy great yeah for me it's a bit difficult I'm gonna spell it out I am a and T 0 and D na gy on Twitter but if you go to pocketnow.com scroll down to the page you see the the picture my mugshot you click on that and you have all the information you need and you can find my twitter address and my pocket now email address at the same spot on the author page but you can follow me at captain two phones that's captain the number two phones I do love talking to people on Twitter and I try and respond as often as I can to add replies that are not offensive and you know mostly not offensive and yeah well I will look forward to to speaking with all of you there and we'll look forward to getting your emails at podcast apakah com stay tuned for the next weekly installment next week and gentlemen thank you very much for for being on the show today this was great so thanks for having us absolutely alright guys we'll see you next week and everyone have a wonderful evening and a wonderful week thank you listening binary you