Gadgetory

we're speeding towards a galaxy s 9 announcement official press invites are in our hot little hands at the same time might Samsung faced some unexpected competition from LG in the first half of the year we're finally getting more word on the red hydrogen one smartphone at the same time or ISO saying goodbye to a handful of tech companies and early in the year but we've got a lot to talk about so make sure you're charged and ready for episode 2 8 9 recorded January 26th at noon pacific this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets tablets and wearables when you were a kid you know red hydrogen sounds like it would have been the perfect Russian and the system I'm fond trailers back now senior editor at pocketnow.com joined as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Drew's wrong on the East Coast how's it going sir well I mean it's the Russian a bomb really like when you go all the way back into the 50 is it's just that threats that seems looming overhead this is just nuclear warfare that's right which is which is the perfect and we have the perfect solution with the uberman dr. Manhattan Cooper blue to carry on truth justice in the American Way as we deconstruct our superhero myths gonna say vests apparently with with Holograms and whatnot right well in mmm in the Holograms and that's that's that's how we're gonna that's how we're gonna save ourselves Tegan and Sara is always gonna be a great alternative I think we should stop before we really go down that rabbit hole welcome back to another episode of the PocketNow weekly we've got some really cool stories on tap for you today some really hot news coming coming down the pipe and some stuff that I think you're gonna be very interested in hearing Jules I just want to say how was your week III feel it was great up until yesterday when I was trying to catch a train and I was a Cafe and and I was just hanging out and you know compared to the you know you know ten degree days that we've been having recently it was twenty degrees yesterday it's yeah it was pretty nice so and I made the mistake of you know taking off my little vest jacket thing apparently a lot of stuff drops out of it and one of the things that was carrying in my jacket was my pixel - yeah that's and and I had to rush to catch the train and I found myself going without it fortunately though I was able to call the cafe and they have the pixel to for me so as long as I can get there at some point this weekend during the morning which will be hard because in this out-of-the-way place that is really hard to get to I'm doing it by train or you know taken a long bus ride so this will be interesting and they're only open during the morning in an earlier like lunch but I mean like you know in the most hipstery way possible like we're only open on Wednesdays from 3:00 in the morning till 7:00 a.m. i the i guess the nice thing is though that someone did find it and they did the right thing as good Samaritans and just holding it for you so so that's kind of nice though well lady was like you know I called up the cafe and like she's yeah yeah I'm sorry I'm gonna I have to bust this other customer yeah accused of chocolate croissant and okay so let me just put there on this stick it now Jules it was it Ju will yes and here's a phone number okay that's great I'm gonna away some cakes now by but again I you know for for however brusque she might have been I'm just glad to hear that the the phone was at least found I know like my wife had a phone stolen because she set it down for a second at a Costco and like someone just yanked it in like it took her a full minute to kind of realize like oh I just set my phone down on these like on this pile of jeans and now my phone is completely gone you know what ridiculous I was actually using my new Eevee which you know apparently they're promoting me to say stuff no they're not but like I was like I has stylus and I was using it in my friend's car and we were driving and I dropped it you know like it was in the car but it took about an hour for us to find the damn stylus because when the car was messed up to all oblivion and - there are just too many nooks and crannies and we spent oh I'm looking the same ones because futility is kind of a the horrible thing about humans trying to find fine things imposed clean you know what's not futile the march of technological progress in the mobile arena is we're gonna get and I want part of it yes that's right and you can do so on Twitter you can join the conversation as we always have the conversation up it's on a Twitter hashtag P and weekly send in your tweets through that and we'll be able to respond to them and to mention them by the way if you want to do it via email with this would have been the end of the month mailbag episode but apparently there's there's not much activity going on keep it up though we want you to send your emails in to podcast at pocketnow.com and we will continue addressing you through those mediums as well definitely all right man i you've got the top news stories for the week why don't we jump in there because I think we're finally getting some autumn news according that week there could be like the most like the least interesting stories of the week that is that is factually correct and yet it is absolutely wrong because these are the most exciting stories of the week and most excited about being that is how believe you for one for the week of January 22nd 2018 this is all the news that's fit to podcast saying the galaxy s 9 and s 9 plus On February 25 likely in Barcelona prior to MWC 2018 plenty of renders have appeared to show the device changing little in design from the s 8 we'll talk about that in two minutes the LG G seven meanwhile may not launch at MWC but it is on schedule that coming from the company's pr2 Engadget refuting rumors that the electronics division of vice-president had ordered the reset of the design process for the spring time flagship three iPhones are coming to us in 2018 if supply chain analysts are to be believed to will start above $1000 apparently and the mid-range device apparently which will have a an aluminium body instead of more durable stainless steel and an LCD instead of a more vibrant OLED display will cost somewhere between 700 and $800 for reference the same model the iPhone 8 equivalent $6.99 this year cinema camera maker red is teasing his companies well it's teasing it's company's first phone the foundered is actually the hydrogen one pre-orders went up in July just below $1,200 and we'll have all the big specs of 2017 including in it Snapdragon 835 that means we're following up on that with Qualcomm as we speak we also see a 4,500 million power battery and it will need to be that bag in order to supply power to the hologram generators or the holographic generator excuse me India will see on a February 1st the new and improved Moto X for the device which launched in November is getting a big upgrade in the big spec line from that is six gigabytes of RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 the first in the lower tier of the 600 series to feature the cryo cores which is modified our make in terms of Google IO happening that has been announced to me eight to ten there few puzzles have been released over the course of years from Google in terms of its big software developer conference but apparently this one's just a little more straightforward tickets a coming of course we're talking about title to net neutrality and what it means for AT&T apparently it wants to have some regulatory certainty and is vouching the foreign internet bill of rights and it says that it is willing to work with consumer groups as well as legislators on this of a bill but in terms of that it's still up to the FCC on how it wants to enforce the Internet's and so far the repeal of title two protections is the law of the land for now and finally we have something a little bit funny I mean it's a little bit of pride for the company called integral memory it says from the UK and it has claimed the first 512 gigabyte the card taking the 400 gigabyte card from SanDisk which was released sometime mid last year and just rub it in in their faces and just kicking dust there they were pretty grandiose in the press release and if I can pull it out I want to be able to quote it but I mean we're just getting up there I do remember them mentioning that and the external memory is more important on mobile now more than ever and yeah it's just they're just having fun with it well again it's don't you think it's so funny when we we were starting to get into 128 gigabyte cards and the theoretical maximum was something like multiple terabytes of storage terabytes that's the big like thing that expanded but like we'll never see that in a micro SD and now like we're actually a quarter of the way there which is crazy pretty much yeah so Swedes and lose a laptops worth of story it's I mean yeah well depends because well was a the four hundred gigabyte card was two hundred fifty bucks so we don't know where this will launch just yet it's gonna be out next month here's the quote here europe-wide memory specialist integral memory plc has beaten all competitors and entered aggro need for increased capacity on mobile devices so loud and proud just just go at it definitely we already gotta have a few tweets coming in here from from the pn weekly hashtag from Renate Laporte even though phones have software locks to prevent people from using a stolen phone at least in europe the market for robbed phones for om parts is huge so you were very lucky indeed Jules you were very lucky indeed indeed indeed alright where's the deed I would like to have that maybe it's the warranty for the pixel - indeed is it's a word extended warranty the the Google device pretended warranty deed is that what you think indeed stands yeah indeed they're like it's a combined word but like it was a cup it was the conjugation I don't think you know so you know 512 gigabytes of storage that sounds fun we should probably try and unpack some of this 18t stuff with their internet Bill of Rights we want to pack that instead that's 9 oh I will I want to kind of build back to the s now what ability that's gonna be the more fun conversation so let's save that for the more fun part of his podcast I mean they're just asking for legislation and between now and then they get to jockey their position around and hopefully that's is going to be the case where you know consumer groups might be able to eke out something and Senators and Representatives are actually going to listen to the other side and we've already seen that in terms of bills overturning the repeal of the of the FCC's decision to repeal threat ability protections that has been said you know it's been a glowing kind of a little bell for those Democratic senators who are aching for them in in any form here in Congress but face challenges from it's a Senate bill so they're gonna face challenges from the house as well as don't I think I think one of the reasons why some of us are so cynical about this move from the AT&T CEO is suddenly asking for rules to kind of be locked into place now with an FCC that has already demonstrated that it has no interest in being a regulatory agency for those types of companies or working in a way that might actually regulate those kinds of companies so it feels a little disingenuous like well now that we've got an FCC Chairman who's all about you know gutting net neutrality now's the right time to make sure that the Senate and the Congress are getting on top of those rules and sort of cementing them in stone making them harder to alter before the 2018 midterms where historically the party in power has difficulty holding on to to the house in the Senate well I mean this I would I would assume that this would be a years long process given the spirit of the internet and the interest inherent in that so this is not really I don't see this as a issue of you know trying to get things in before the Bell as much as it is Ma Bell trying to you know ring the bell and something else and I think I think we've used Bell too many times I don't know I'll be curious to see how this flies in the face of initiatives at the state and local level you know where several states are already trying to enact their own variance I think Pennsylvania already got something on the books that that they're trying to enact basic consumer protections that are aligned with a net neutrality policy it could be really interesting something now people want immediacy especially after that vote because the feel so fresh and it feels so so much more painful especially as you go deeper into the threads on you know reddit well well again I mean that's not to say that there isn't like like that libertarian subculture on reddit which is very much against net neutrality but I think one of the things that's getting a little obnoxious in all political debates we could be talking about net neutrality we could be talking about healthcare for example we could be talking about tax reform where every presidential administration comes in and I be from the George W Bush days to now it's whatever presidents in power now we just have sort of a flip-flop with one party trying to you know govern rule or write legislation all on their own which means every four years we get a pendulum swing in the exact opposite direction where we never really build towards really fixing these problems we just get this like flip flop back and forth you know more stability in any given market is gonna be better for that market but this is also where I feel that fight for net neutrality is so precious because it took us over a decade to get to some basic consumer protection handled by a woefully underfunded and understaffed a regulatory agency just pulling pulling the rug out from under that and then going back to something that really wasn't working for most consumers before then doesn't sound like the right well yeah yeah and to that yeah it's all it's always fun to see with these a political up swings and down swings that when you realize that your neighbor might be voting the opposite way that you are you're still neighbors and you still have to live with that unless you know you're able to so how magically just move away and that's not easy at all so live with rules right rules well and with that sir cities like I don't I don't feel like we necessarily exist right now in a political climate where a majority of the people who have been elected in the office have any desire to actually govern or lead or or work to try and arrange an equitable outcome you know what I mean like that's that's we're not sort of in politics we're just sort of an obscure honest policy right now which isn't necessarily the best look for the United States but let's move on to something that's way more interesting we've already been getting a number of tweets about the red hydrogen one finally have some real data on that thing some some real specs some something to actually the meat release yeah so just more into the numbers the a 35 X again we're trying to suss that out forty five hundred hundred million power battery dual SIM slots headphone jacks quad HD display for 2d viewing and better than 3d images in four V holographic mode lots of window jim ago and are there carrier support is unprecedented unprecedented i'm not sure if they'll get carriers but it just seems like Jim Jannard is really hyped up and he has right to be so darts off another discussion where I feel we left off 2017 kind of like those of us in the tech space not necessarily reflected by general consumers but those of us in the tech space getting more excited about the prospect of more specialist phones the note making a tremendous return to the market the V 34 content creation the BlackBerry key one as a Productivity as another example of a different type of productivity or even down to the razor phone you know some stumbling there with razors marketing on this is not a gaming phone it's a phone for gamers what who like to play games but uh that that that type of approach to not trying to appeal to a general consumer demographic you know red has I don't think they have any illusions or any pretense that they're going up against the iPhone right the they don't seem to be interested in the slightest about going up against the Galaxy S nine this is a completely different conversation on mobility and productivity and being a compliment to someone's work flow in a very specific way well it's only one form of productivity and that's if you're working in high-grade media that's Wheatley and I mean we've seen the drawings the patents and all that none of that has been fleshed out in what Denard just said in his little you know happy pants post but there's just I mean that's that's only one form of productivity that will be supported it's been the most obvious choice when it comes to the smartphone industry we've seen how smartphone cameras have turned around and produced great films and and you know Shawna and iPhone and all that kind of branding and marketing around that and it seems like now it's just hyper pegging the smartphone camera neish into this one isn't that one of the things that they're kind of that they might potentially be trying to address is we have another manufacturer that seems interested not necessarily positioning the entire aesthetic or the idea of the phone on this idea but they seem interested in rejoining the conversation on modular design and if you've ever worked with a red camera those things are just a scattering of transformer parts that you cobbled together exactly the rig that you're trying to achieve do we think that that might be another vote of confidence in a notion of trying to find ways of tailor fitting because I was very specific in the words that I chose you know one specific example of productivity that red is looking to be a companion device to a very particular kind of lifestyle and now with a more modular design or the potential for a more modular design does that mean that we might be able to rejoin a conversation even for consumers that your phone is not the perfect phone for you here are companies that can help you make the perfect phone for you this would have been a great ground floor idea this would have been great ten years ago I don't see it it would have been but I was like the tech 10 years ago sucked for this I mean you have that little you know neato hinge that the t-mobile g1 had right I mean we were just getting out of what like 600 megahertz xscale ARM processors like firewire that we would have also been able to create sophisticated enough software for mobile devices to have like built-in driver support for different pieces of hardware is that's fair that's fair but again there should have been something that should have been this huge bulky mess that would have been impressive at CES 28 2008 and then this would have built into a more refined thing the smartphone craze died down from all the trade shows that you know we participate in so well that's a part of it too is like not the expectation that the things gonna outsell the iPhone I think I think the victory of Apple and Samsung right now is being very good or I mean from being good enough to very good in just about everything they do but they're not necessarily tailor fit to the individual user we have a couple tweets here using the p-n weekly hash tag from Andrew sis lack I would love to have a red phone for the camera and add-on capabilities but don't want to pay the price tag associated with the rnt in production of the holographic display I'm sorry Andrew those kind of go hand in hand man you know like I want amazing technology but I don't want to pay for it that if this is I mean yeah oh go ahead Jules no no I was just only going to say what Apple CEO Tim Cook said which is it's a value price in that you get inside and that innovation costs what innovation costs yeah I was gonna say if this is an idea that takes off you know if this is something that general consumers start to find desirable then probably around the five-year mark after red launch is it then you'll you'll see it showing up in less expensive consumer devices but you know it's just like any other industry if you want to be at the bleeding edge there's there's a cost associated with being on the bleeding edge and this is also one of the things that gets a little frustrating for me personally in talking about tech is some new exciting idea come out and then it'll get sort of hammered like oh it's too expensive or oh it's not mature enough or oh it's not working right and and we never really see the follow-up to that because it sort of died a million echo-chamber cranky comment deaths on the internet and this is why we get stuck in a holding pattern or why text starts to feel a little bit stale from Peter hatin using a hashtag P and weekly whilst I love the idea of niche phones like razor and red do you think they will really work as a major investment especially if they are not good with support and updates I feel to be truly modular we need a clear commitment to software to make it worthwhile mmm software is a part it is like it's a component to it and I think people have a hard time of being able to visualize that as a part of it that you can just click on and off or whatever because in addition well if you're talking about software in terms of features like there are so many features that you can add on and take off in terms of the base software in terms of OS that's that's harder to define for most people and I guess the company could get away I could not a cog NIH's that's that's a that's something that needs to be prioritized oh I I wonder though if the conversation is properly targeted at the right demographic what what those concerns will actually what concerns will actually materialize if the design of a red phone is to somehow try and pivot mass-market I mean we can we they didn't quite make the news roundup this week but look at a company like oneplus who is yet again having problems with the credit card theft the the hack on their their system and that there's also anecdotal evidence to support that there might be another service on that phone that's trafficking user data to a cloud account in China again they are trying to pivot to being a general consumer brand out of just being an Android enthusiast brand that's a really tough pivot now with red or with Razer focusing so specifically on very small demographics it means those products are going to be more expensive you know when you are D and you machine and you build these devices you can't exercise the same sort of market forces to bring costs and lower but if they're demographic cares about the right companion device for a red camera and a red phone is the right companion device to that then I think the discussion on software support takes on a very different look than what consumers are apt to expect you know just for like Andrew orient updates or something like that yeah yeah well one thing that we can expect from Apple is reliable and ongoing software updates and one of three things that we can expect this year is an iPhone that is kind of like an iPhone eight might be in another world it could be an iPhone nine we'd call it instead of like an eye you know so we have this like regular iPhone we have like the sequels to the X and there's gonna be a plus version too and we can assume that those costs mmm thousand dollars plus here with the mid-range err I'm wondering what the heck this is good because this is KGI this is kji securities Apple analyst min cheek whoa a lot of people want him as a reliable source as a reliable or teller of these things and yeah reality is track record it is more like you know 60 70 % which is better than you know it's yeah it's better than just guessing yeah but you know I mentioned earlier that in we saw the iPhone 8 at $700 starting price is Apple really going like this this innovation is this taking scaling down parts or innovative designs or whatever the heck is that innovation in itself worth paying for well hearing that you know given you know the scale you know price competitiveness is not price competitiveness I think if you're in the iOS ecosystem you you aren't comparative shopping iPhone to Android I think they have a tremendously entrenched user base that is only gonna really be interested in price comparing iPhone to iPhone that's also why I think the iPhone 10 is doing as poorly as it is right now I don't think the thousand dollar price tag is what's holding it back more that there are eight iPhones that people can currently shop which offer very granular differences between the various lines of iPhone and I think that's actually taking a bigger chunk out of the iPhone 10 market share than any potential competition from outside of the Apple ecosystem and so interesting - I keep back on the story we've been seeing a number of a number of editorials and vlogs and and news posts about the death of the iPhone 10 and really to me I think this is just gonna be can Apple get back on top of a branding exercise that makes sense you know the iPhone 10 might end up just being an Apple watch edition right you know a singular one-off phone that was produced they'll claim it was a singular one iPhone that was produced for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and moving forward this is the tech that we're really going to be focused on for our you know like our general consumer releases and that'll help clean up the lines on you know having an iPhone se 6s 7 8 and 10 all at the same time but that still it's just a branding exercise like I do not understand I kind of went off I did the Jason T Lewis he does painfully honest tech I did his podcast and I kind of went off on I'm getting real tired of people who cared that much about what the name of the phone is you know like well the iPhone 8 is not really an iPhone 8 it's really an iPhone 7s like it doesn't matter it really doesn't matter the way the apples lines are going right now they need a reset the the number letter combination that they've fell apart when the iPhone 6s design carried over into the iPhone 7 their entire tech strategy this is the thing about Apple is because you know they are the largest company in the world and thus they have the most freedom of narrative here they get to create their own reality definitely so you know what is a computer hello if you haven't you mad though you don't see the ad for that iPad pro and if you want to talk about just you know if they want to be able to we you know lead the market in that way I mean there's I still think that there is going to be up to a point where people are just like alright really this is this is where we're going here and there and I reached it yet but there has to be that point and I think Apple at this point is on a rate to surpass to surpass the acceptable limit of that I'll be curious to see where the limit might be I think some people have reached the limit and you'll see a lot of people I was on set with um one of the cameramen on Newegg now still has an iPhone 5 not even an iPhone 5s like proof he loves his phone that is his phone he might consider swapping over to an iPhone se if and when that phone completely is non-functional but he has no designs anytime like it does everything it he needs to get done and I think Apple this is this is why the Apple slow down throttling story was such a bad look for Apple was there are a lot of people that hold on to their iPhones for a really long time and haven't been inspired by newer products that apples been putting out we have a couple tweets here on the iPhone this is from Andrey thick klore swift PN weakly holding out for iPhone se to the iPhone 10 is an overreach in pricing I you know again the the market will will bear whatever the market will bear but I am totally with you I would love to see the iPhone se continue on as as their entry level experiment you know generational chipset keep the iPhone 5 form factor and just keep refreshing the guts and you'll have your world phone entry-level solution emerging LTE market solution that would make me so happy I like that be great to have a network for us I mean in terms of the other markets the iPhone the current existing iPhone se is pretty much the only option they have and that is affordable and that is from Apple so yeah that it's that it's a great phone I mean it's still I think one of the best implementations of sard where software software and hardware synergy I said Lord where it's so sore sword where I just tom brokaw had the heck out of that and this is from Peter hatin IP and weekly I agree 100% with your point on the iPhone 10 what they really need to do is streamline and get back to the consistent obvious purchasing decision for those who want a new iPhone each year I think if you simplify the lines and and you're you're more readily willing to ax the older version or make it you know sort of the under the radar free on contract solution for someone who wants to shop an iPhone but you're not putting it up front and center just getting back to a simple iPhone landing page on Apple comm I think would do would be a huge benefit for Apple in terms of marketing right now I think what Apple fails to realize is that's the once a product goes a year out it's I mean the third-party eBay suelto all those markets can have their way doesn't really matter that you have that 100 dollar discount it opens up the room to more depreciation and whatnot so totally dies that's a great point and they so they don't have to do that anymore they don't and then with the rumors about the iPhone 10 going away without that discount without without that pear egg think they would have more room more authority in terms of being able to say that this iPhone is this price period so yeah I kind of feel like Apple and Google are sort of guilty of this market over Curt overcorrection overreaction you know there was a story that came out one of the the former Google engineer talking about just you know the culture at Google right now isn't isn't super great but you you know it's said his account reads like sour grapes but you you look at some of their more recent business decisions their problems with messaging platforms what they're trying to do in terms of building their own hardware but then also having difficulties and keeping features on things like the Google home many and there's a lot of it feels like there's some truth in what this engineer was talking about that Google just seems to be acting to whatever's popular as opposed to trying to have a coordinated vision for the entire health of the company to lead the discussion in the markets that they're in are you talking about the iPhone yeah exactly Apple with the iPhone feels very similar right now what is the market leaning towards we're gonna be late to the market with the solution we're still gonna claim that we're somehow driving the innovation are driving the discussion but we've all sort of arrived at the same idea and the same outcome for what a smartphone should resemble in 2017 and that's a tough place for a company that is also so successful at creating a lifestyle image behind their their their brand it it you need to have some kind of excitement or some kind of buzz or some kind of exclusivity to drive the desirability of your product and if people think well this phone is gonna go away in a year you won't be able to buy it in something new will come and that's exciting too but you go back and you're like well I can go all the way back to the iPhone se which is a refresh of the iPhone 5s and Apple's stable right now that doesn't make I phones feel exclusive or desirable well as Pontiacs slogan back in like the early 90s we drive excitement I was gonna say it was it yahoo la la in any case define aren't the word schedule for me I think schedule gauge or yes speaking of authority and narrative and this destiny okay because I think you're you're leading me towards wanting to talk about LG as oh yeah but but what if you Webster's dictionary schedule is a plan for carrying out a process or procedure giving lists of an intended events and times so that's how its schedule is plant intentions okay we the LG has not made their plans nor their intentions about the g7 exactly if public up until this point and that's where I'll give LG most of I guess the credit here in terms of saying in terms of the reports that it's electro ever did is I can't I can't think of his name but use it alright let's do a reset of the g7 design process and going against traditions here alright so you know a mint from the company to engage in full some stories have reported that LG's mobile division is delaying the release of the g7 in order to reevaluate its performance and design this is an accurate watch of the g6 is so the successor are on schedule LG intends to focus on creating products that will result in meaningful results rather than launching new products on a schedule based solely on industry expectations and traditions the release date for g7 is currently under consideration and will be announced when the time is right so scheduled release date under consideration consideration which means that there's a part of the schedule that is indeterminate and therefore on the schedule is kind of but also the fact that you know industry expectations on when to like I can get that but traditions for the past at the g6 and g5 were launched at MWC and I pointed out that the g4 was launched in late April the g3 in late May and the GT was all the way back in August so it doesn't really like line up with the Galaxy S releases - so - that they do have a point in terms of hey we're trying to match the competition here and we're trying to do this and that and I while I do believe that having the headspace the the room to navigate and to express themselves is is important in terms of marketing they've used that very poorly they've been throwing money in the marketing machine and have come up with basically nothing and they've tried to defray those costs year after year after year so what they want to do is design their marketing better and reevaluate the performance of though that definitely sounds like damage control on just them trying to address the market to say there will be another smartphone from LG I don't think that this really dissuades me from some of the the hypotheses that we had been working with before that this could be a later release this could be some merging between the V and G series brands they could be coming up with a whole new name you know so when they say the release date for g7 is currently under consideration it doesn't necessarily mean we're getting a g7 it could mean we're getting the icon or the iconic or whatever buzzword e name that they decide to try and real able and rebrand with if that's the path that they head down it just sounds like it could be that's what LG has told that yeah but what LG has told us in prior years is that they play their cards pretty with it with an open hand and a really pre announced to us that this is the way things are going to be that this is the name of the device and that this will have certain features and that's pretty much it so so you're absolutely correct that that's what they've done in the past and everything we've seen might might mean again this is complete speculation and we have no official word from any of our LG contacts on on what's happening here but this to me also means that they could be re-evaluating just even how they announce and and and name their products I do not think it's it's likely that we're going to see the same GV launch that we've seen in years past I think we're probably gonna see some slightly more coordinated effort at getting LG streamlined and offering a big a big little smart phone release that's closer to what we would get from a galaxy s 9 and s 9 hmm because they they went a little bit crazy with the diminutive stuff the q6 and the ldg six plus you know they've played around with that successful at the entry in the mid range I mean you see the the LG what is it the LG stylo quite a bit out in real life yeah does get a lot of spread so III could I can totally appreciate where it was the same problem I think like Microsoft and Nokia had what was the most success successful selling phone oh is the Lumia 510 of devices in the five six and seven hundred series we need a new flagship now we'll wait three years on that so how do you see all these like LG KS + LG Q's and these various like sort of permutations of the entry and mid-level like that makes sense to me from a corporate standpoint it bugs the crap out of me as a consumer because I would like to see them streamline this process I think most companies in this space especially one struggling with branding would do better to streamline and focus on each tier with a very specific product to address that tier when it comes to the flagship in the high-end because they've just been getting roasted in the market lately I I really do hope that what we see is combining their top end products into one line of phones and use that to come right out swinging against the next gen of iPhones now from our last story now is the right time to try and take a stab at Apple's market with Apple also potentially going through some similar kind of market correction for the number of iPhones that they carry well didn't L do you try that with its x-series I mean they had like the dual camera version like they had like little niche things that they targeted with each device and what ended up happening was that very few or none of the carrier's the prepaid carriers wanted that and just said hey give me some of your regular their stuff or at least the closest to the regular stuff as you can offer us as possible so well and and I think that's we're gonna see more of that who was the the who is the MVNO was it virgin that they went iPhone only Virgin Mobile yeah so I mean that makes sense to me they don't want to stock a whole bunch of parts especially if they've got devices which are underperforming or they can't sell or they can't move off store shelves I I think for a lot of manufacturers who aren't Samsung and Apple getting after direct sales unlock sales and improving your own brand reputation on the ground floor is gonna be key over the next couple years if we're gonna keep pretending that smartphones are a competitive and dynamic market space I you know if you can't build a relationship directly no carriers gonna extend a ton of support and a ton of marketing and a ton of ad dollars to help your brand up when they don't have to do that to sell an iPhone yeah well I mean it's iPhone against LG and we're talking about fifth largest brand versus largest brand by far is LG what have you looked up the stats recently I I didn't even think LG was in top five worldwide anymore mmm cuz because I always keep thinking about the US stats and they they're always all I think I think they are top five in the US and they might even be third place in the u.s. right now yeah but worldwide there they're there they're getting just eaten alive by Chinese manufacturers yeah its Huawei Oppo and vivo that are third fourth of that's right vivo vivo is is taken that fifth place spot which again that's a terrible look for a company that that puts out hardware as nice as as LG yeah yeah well I mean we've been dancing around the number two position here so you want to get into that well we should we should move right on up the food chain Galaxy S nine invites in our hands they're talking about the new phone the camera reimagined what what are your expectations do you think we're gonna see something phenomenally different than the s8 variable aperture is going to be on a wider scale if rumors are to be believed so that's that's a good thing that's what you been focused on like very you know paper-thin focus ranges before and now we're like do you know control that bad and you know just the lie hopefully the ISIL cell is gonna be largely it's gonna have enough sensing capacity to put in as much light into those deep trench isolation great things now you're just throwing around buzzwords yeah no that's that's a it was basically the buzzwords that we got from the site it's a dual pixel super PD autofocus three stickers fr-s high-speed video 484 8-0 FPS Full HD and all this stuff here and what it you know you you want to be able to produce results you want to be on the best light or as much light as possible to work with within a reasonable size because apparently I'm not sure it's like the like the slim part because they've been doing weird things with their ISO cell sensor branding I really think they're gonna move down in sensor size I really think that they're probably looking at at getting closer to to that one third of an inch sensor size think so well I mean you were talking about the this slim size that that's the recent patent that they put out on the the two newest ISO cell camera sensors very good makes great camera sensors I'm even going back to my my interchangeable lens cameras samsung has tremendous expertise there but with the variable aperture you have to have a lot of glass to make sure you've got the highest quality glass the sensor occupies the highest quality glass in the center you kind of have to like waste lens in a way is why people get cranky about like moving back to four by three the truthfully the best rectangular shape for a circular lens would be a square you know like very much if you wanted to occupy the absolute best part of a lens and not have like fringing and operation as you creep out to the corners that's what that that's it you know you have flat glass in everything so when when we look at making the mechanism to control the aperture and also making sure that we've got the best possible lens clarity in the center of the lens for a sensor it would make sense to me that they would be moving down in sensor size to minimize the physical impact of building a dual sensor device into the back of their phone III really think it's likely that we're gonna see them taking a step towards better software processing computational photography tools while then giving us some some some hardware features like that variable aperture that that to me that's that's my hypothesis that's what I think we're gonna soft wear side of things and this is from venture beats Evan blast here so apparently he was able to confirm that super slo-mo video captured which is the four 480 fps at 720p capture will trigger it will actually trigger from any rapid movement detected in frame gonna create a separate files that kind of you know even as you're recording in 4k 60fps like is that going to be a separate thing how many has the ISP gonna work on that and it'll be interesting to see if we can get like subset video streams going on there that could be kind of cool and and also whether or not we see Samsung follow Apple on taking the taking the transition over to HEV C because if we're working with insane frame rates or also like you know 4k at 60 frames per second and you don't want your phone to melt down in your hands processing and storing that that that quantity of video data one of the best ways to help minimize the impact on storage is also just save less file you use a better type of compression to archive your your video so there's gonna be this part of a v1 that's the thing right well maybe you know like again been seeing Google was reticent to jump on board when the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer switched over to HEV see but when qua way and Apple were in the space suddenly HEV C works on YouTube gasp shocked the other thing that I think could be really interesting is seeing Samsung following always footsteps for computational photography by utilizing the AI core that's going to be built into the 845 in the same way that Huawei has their NPU that image recognition works surprisingly well I don't know exactly what it's doing in terms of altering the settings on a camera and the post-processing on your photos but when you point the huawei mate 10 pro at an object it's really good at identifying what that object is if anyone can can push that into a more consumer friendly space is a company like Samsung and if they have the hardware from welcome to do it and doing do it in a meaningful fashion then that could also be a really exciting aspect for a photography I'm thinking it'll depend on where the surface for that is based in because if they wanted you know go go all pick speed and stuff like in though I mean it's great that they're able to do deep app integration but I'm wondering if any kind of you know if there's any like architectural problems that may come into that if they do have to roll at it that's why I'm I'm actually kind of positive on this turn I'm uh I'm wrapping up our Galaxy s8 after the buzz hour a little late on that one but you have Bixby in the camera app on the essay and it's useless I mean it's there I can find no reason to point a camera at something have it scan what that thing might be and then try and search the internet for similar looking image like it's so cumbersome so slow and it doesn't provide me any specific benefit kua way solution with a dedicated piece of machinery for on device image recognition does give me a benefit in the auto mode post-processing and image acquisition like it streamlines what you might want to do to make something look based on millions of other images that Huawei has scanned so if Bixby wants to take an evolutionary step up I think the best way they could do it is emulating what Huawei and Leica have done with their MPU well III think I think I think you're right on that aspect in terms of being able to wrap this around the whole device itself what else I mean Bixby is gonna get a bigger push overall and I mean we saw introduced last year it's gonna be bigger this year and the fingerprint sensor is moving to below the cameras so where it always should have been you know in a comparator print sensor was a good idea then I think we'd see Samsung keep moving with it but I think it's pretty clear the s8 and the note eight fingerprint sensors were just a reaction to other tech not being ready it may be like a 0.5% increase in this screen to body ratio I don't know you know don't don't you think from the from the photos that have come out like especially digging through the looks super much like the sa just engine and like always like detects the holy blurry stuff you know renders like it still doesn't there's no scale to it and there's no real gonna say that is especially with the way that renders are produced the lines on the front face of the s8 look a little bit more especially the side bezels look a little bit more like a V 30 so that's also why I'm taking some of these designs with the grain of a huge grain of salt because it's it's tough to get a handle on what a device like that's gonna resemble and so you can really physically hold it in your hand but III think there's a huge benefit it could also okay from s7 to sa we got this major change in display form factor and that's what I think really made the s8 feel like something really fresh over the s7 but the actual operation of the phone evolutionarily not too big a departure from what we liked about the s7 and the s7 edge I think the s9 is gonna feel very similar to the s8 but gonna have a lot of these little refinements moving the fingerprint sensor to a more organic position dual-camera sensor on the larger s9 but really what I hope Samsung can get a grip on and this is actually echoed Peter hatin using the PN weekly hashtag I really think they want to push AI especially with VIX be around there is a huge opportunity right now Google Assistant Google home it's not Google isn't winning there's competition in the space and Bixby has been updated to do some really cool things with like connected home IOT and macros but they're slow the si+ is really slow when you want to do something like you say hey Bixby open up Instagram and post a photo and it chews up that request for a while before it spits out a result I mean in comparison comparison to me just opening Instagram myself and posting a photo vics be is a is is a bridge too far for waiting for my phone to recognize that so for the future of AI making more of this on device making more of it local actually brings in my opinion could bring a security benefit too so less of your queries are being sent up to a server to be analyzed for your voice print less of your data is actually migrating off the device more of this content being recognized and acted upon on the device could be a really exciting step forward for security that to me could be enough of a benefit over the SA say that the s 9 could be a fresh new phone I mean if it's on the device you like you would more likely have to actually obtain the device itself in order to get it so yeah that's that tolling your your usage your phone learning about your usage isn't something that happens on some sort of cloud server basis like some of the issues oneplus is facing and collecting user data for these like improvement programs and then shipping it off into some Chinese cloud account your device should learn about you in the context of staying with you and if that data stays localized that to me is is a big thumbs up that's me is is worth paying attention to what we're doing in machine learning right now at the very least if it has to be sent encrypted properly you know just like well I mean obviously but we also know that so a number of companies have fallen down on that vision improperly protecting our our data so that's not a good yeah all right I feel like charting this podcast down but I mean PocketNow down right that's the trend right yeah that's I mean PocketNow is closing goodbye like dark city you know the others like shut it down shut it all down the lights fade out and it's closing time you hear supersonic wail on what no that's not that's wholly wrong song it's not the totally but yeah you're the totally wrong song know what we're talking about some interesting stories over the last week from companies that are leaving the text face tech companies that are shutting down early in 2018 I wanna start this off this one kind of took me by surprise cuz I thought in my brain it had already shut down I was surprised to learn right and you mean to beam was this is a me beam this was a well the it was it was turned into an operation was transformed with that was issued by Casey nice dad started it in 2016 it was an app where you could it was social video sharing and the way that vine once wasn't in that you had to hold your phone close to you your your like your chest basically walk the proximity sensor and then you'd you know you'd be in the moments and you be like capturing all this stuff without having to think about what to shoot and whatnot so there's a tease and yeah and between that and it's somehow it got acquired by CNN somehow Casey night's that wasn't well tonight he came over to them and with his co-founder for the app this worked on trying to get in into a daily news show a four-day week kind of thing going on based on crowdsourcing based on panels they had they had people just reacting to news stories and or people who were involved in it like involved in the local news stories who were just you know living through it they're shooting video and they're you know telling how they feel and none of it really got anywhere well I mean so much so I I did not know that it still existed I thought it had already folded yeah I mean it was it it's there it was transported from its Russian olkhon except but and it was starting to get there but it CN n lost money on the deal it was a twenty five million dollar deal apparently and and the digital operations were in a budget hole of like 20 million for the year as well so that you know just having to write down that will just make sense gonna sting you know yeah but in terms of that's Casey himself has said that he wasn't doing anything for CNN that was turning up anything of value and he just felt he you know was it was just a failure on his part but yeah it's not so interesting in the thought of the how they structured it because they thought they they pulled something that was sort of a wacky attempt at a new social video service you know this aesthetic of like you hold the phone to your chest to record video so that you're still in the moment kind of a thing is is very esoteric idea behind interacting with with media and they tried to tarnish it with normal has yeah especially when case like you you know this was back when Casey was still Casey and you know it was like okay be still Casey I think he's still doing fine oh yeah it quickly but you know when you went Kate with when the Casey the you know was more imbued into the app and it was no noise yeah that's true yeah it was like it when he himself was already you know doing these things doing you know having a big routine on his daily vlogs but I think what sucked all the wind out of the sails is that CNN's attempt at this just felt like we want to buy Casey nice that's sort of a tacit endorsement of a news platform neither does he have any interest in in what this service was trying to accomplish while every single like local news agency now has their own news story sharing app you know like NBC LA you can record video and use their app to send them a hot tip on a new story or something like or just email the video for something like that yeah yeah this was supposed to turn CNN into the the you know the hip new destination for kids to get their news from the cable news network by the way what's cable I have this box over here that so yes from Renato Laporte using PN weekly the PN weekly hash tag can't really understand the interest of CNN in the app though traditional media is trying too hard to reinvent themselves and it never works and he's got a funny chip of a newscaster sort of just like slinking from the frame yeah the BBC had their problems with automated cameras whoo I can't wait till they get drones terror in the streets [Laughter] Sheldon's gonna be really happy to see those drones episode put our next story up there I think you were doing it just to hurt my feelings and rub salt in wounds because I was actually thinking of going back to revisit my pebble but we are getting word on the official support for pebble ending in June and last it is unofficial it is official it's going to become unofficial that's right officially unofficial with official support and developers trying to find backend ways around pebbles server-side functions but yeah it looks like my beloved SmartWatch the best SmartWatch ever made is is finally going to be dying the last death of the middle in papercut deaths that it's been dying over the last two years you know all the services all the apps all the things that rely on the Internet are gonna be gone and yeah that's it's just the Fitbit not Fitbit but pebble OS the base stuff is gonna still be there so in terms of the best SmartWatch ever made going over to may be the ugliest SmartWatch ever made will you take up its offer for $50 off the ioniq no not not at all that no hope no chance I am I'm gonna be I'm gonna be cutting a little mini review I might even just post it on Twitter I might not even like post it up on YouTube I'm cutting a mini review of the honor band 3 and it's a decent little fitness tracker I don't think it quite stands up to some of the newer like pebble or Samsung smart bands but I want to watch I want full notifications support I want good interaction for voice-to-text communication so if I get a tech message text message in on my wrist I can reply with my voice to reply and not have to pull my phone out I want good filtering for what notifications I get and in a smart way that I can easily sort of customize that myself and I also still want some of the fitness tracking GPS support and all-day heart rate monitoring and it like the ionic is gonna give me great solutions for all of the fitness stuff and it's gonna be okay for some of the notification stuff and that just kills it for me my ultimate dream device would have been a pebble time with an all-day heart rate sensor on it multiple days of battery life great text-to-speech support a great notification support great calendar support and then if we could have just added you know the ability to track heart rate that would have been awesome but I still have yet to find that all-in-one perfect unicorn SmartWatch and I probably never will public or was never going to be so yeah that's the I was so bummed about that it said yeah and finally didn't end oh is giving the bye-bye treatment to beat mo its first mobile app not really a game it was just more of a place where people talk to each other with their means you know if you hadn't we then you had to create and that's gonna be gone either May 5th or May 9th differing dates on different pages but it's good around May is when we'll see this go away and then you know Nintendo can really start focusing on games like Fire Emblem and Super Mario and all that stuff yeah I had I didn't even try it you you fired this up right you were using on five days Stephen shank who was back around our team started the pocket now wait did I or did Stephen I don't remember I just remember that we we mentioned it at one point when I had started doing the podcast and I don't recall talking about it ever again we it had its peak like within the first few weeks 10 million users and they yeah it was more like 2.5 and ever since then presumably it's gone down and they're dealing their last hurrah is doing their last campaigns hey look at the question of the day and everyone's just saying goodbye to each other I guess yeah you know it's a it's because you know it's not like a like a RPG or anything doesn't mean you know there's still that there can't be gathering together of all the users and going to don't you know stovic or you through me with stumble court because now I wanted to say to say something to you in Klingon that it would be really funny I think from like a black mirror perspective like if you're me is currently in the app when the app gets pulled that you're me is then trapped in in their service forever I think that could be kind of a fun way to add more tality to your digital you know avatar of what you do no it's just gonna be like they'll have a new Legend of Zelda game and it's gonna be replaced with a copy of link although how great would that be though is that like one of one of the side quests in the next Legend of Zelda game could be to rescue your me from the netherworld of having miitomo close and like suckered me into the void of nothingness it'd be a good side quest have you played any of the other Nintendo properties on mobile I have not I mean you're talking like Super Mario run and stuff like that yeah I mean that not III I fired up Super Mario run when it first went live on iOS and I think I played two runs and then put the phone down and again that was another app that I never picked up again I I didn't mess with Fire Emblem I haven't done anything there yeah I mean Super Mom it was competent but it was just never kind of I mean it was an evolved form of why those kind of just endless runners but yeah I was way more excited by like NES classic SNES classic and then I'm still debating like I think I'm gonna throw some cash at a switch I'm not doing nearly as much gaming as I used to but a switch is starting to really appeal for sort of a mobile modular idea of gaming especially with labo coming out that looks like it could be kind of cool and my daughter's a little too young for that yet but I need to start paying attention to some of that stuff coming up so that you know I can I can deliver fun educational techy things for her get her really interested really interested in stem and if Nintendo is gonna be on board that conversation I want to support it because the Nintendo could do some really wacky fun stuff there I think we're gonna go on eBay and pick up a Neo Geo pocket color well if you're there shot me an Atari Lynx and we'll see if we can can get our right No yeah let's we'll be able to do that now the home for modern technology that is pocketable and not the the old technology that wasn't no wait yep true story uh apparently I'm off the internet alright we might be losing Jules so I should probably try and wrap this up but I you know this is a this was all the news that was fits print a pocket now for the last week of January and I want to thank you all for joining us be on the lookout for some fun reviews coming up I am revisiting the galaxy si plus so this after the buzz will be hitting the youtubes this evening I'm actually gonna be rendering the video as soon as I jump off this podcast make sure you check out hi mate Iveta the pocket now daily and you can also get your fix of pocket now in Spanish yes da pocketnow.com and all personally asked will be playing with a couple cool little accessories coming up I finally got my my Wacom Wacom Bamboo Stylus this is a universal stylus for basically all smartphones and tablets and I'm really irrationally excited to be given this run there you have it folks another episode of the pocket now weekly has come and gone the show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where Jules is at point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on basically every social media platform and our home site pocketnow.com so shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews anywhere you can review a podcast because ultimately there wouldn't be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept this on the air since 2012 the pocket now weekly we'll be back next week with all kinds of delicious technology goodness so make sure you tune back in how to end this because Jules is in charge of the broadcast