Gadgetory

hello and welcome to episode 3 to 9 of the weekly brought to you by pocket now next day developers on this day Friday the 26th of October 2018 from Chevy's busy week to Google's mishandling of sexual misconduct claims it's a wide world in mobile tech out there so we've got to talk about all of it I'm Jules Wong your host this week Joshua is in China covering shall be but we will hit hear from him later on in the show talking about another topic that we're actually looking forward to joining us for this segment though our two of our colleagues from XDA TK Bay should be a familiar presence here welcome to you sir Nate thank you guys I have to be back actually and nice to see you again Jules and I finally have you back on with us for the first time is Daniel Marchena hello to you hello everyone right to be here so there has been a lot of stuff that's happened this week that isn't a mobile phone launch we've had a very congested kind of three weeks before with Google and Microsoft and LG just a whole bunch of people but oh yeah and then Huawei - you know and Huawei raisers and oh yeah yes yeah yeah extense will be able to talk more about that with Nicole Scott in terms of what shall we has done this week so stay tuned for that and in the meantime I hope that our listeners of years can forgive some of the construction that's been going on upstairs huh hey guys you think that you got that chair fixed up okay great thanks in any case do you bear that in mind and apologies for that we'll go on as usual I do want to start with one of the elephants in the room this week and it was something that I kind of had to take a you know few seconds the as I was writing the story for this and that was the New York Times reports and not just Andy Rubin one of the co-creators of Android but just a whole bunch of the executives at Google who were quietly paid off and they were accused of sexual misconduct of just not following procedures over there and just it's it's it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and in particular with a tearoom it's not as if it's just he's just one of the father figures of Android and that's why we're talking about it's also the fact that he was paid the most and was you know permitted to leave his influence have his reign at Google from the time that Android got acquired in 2005 all the way to when he at the part of the company in 2013 and even after that Google had supported him in creating his venture capital for him playing playground global hmm as well as his company essential for me this was one of those things were you know you hear about something that an artist did that is horrible and reprehensible and somehow you have to you know deal with something you'd like the debate of do you want to set can you separate the artist from the arts can you separate the work from the person that did it and I want to know what you think what your first blush is and I'm going to start with Daniel on this one yeah you know your sentiments I feel the way that you do that it's hard to separate the art from the artist you know a lot of us see him as the father of Android but you know if there were just a lot of bad decisions made at Google and I think that's coming to light it's good that it's coming to light especially with the Miche movement and everything else that's going on right now you know but you can't look at him the same way anymore unfortunately and that's difficult to do for me personally at least why so I guess I I mean it's almost obvious but I can talk it out I think for me it part of the the issues that I have is this was all right you know to him to be other individuals at Google who made these decisions to keep this quiet to just kind of push it under the rug and move him out I think it shows to the kind of character individual that he is you know he did come out with his statement he's claiming that none of this is true you know then this is all just smearing in advance of his custody battle going with his uh his ex-wife or a future ex-wife you know so there's definitely some question and doubt throw in there but you know Google said that it's been confirmed and they viewed the allegations against him as credible you know so he not only made terrible decisions but he continued to make terrible decisions going forward and there was all this background reporting in the people that either are not obviously or publicly did gave their names out and said that this happened so it's multiple people saying what they say against what he says at this point and that's something that it it's gonna be challenging for his case here I want to get to Tk here on this one just what are your first takes on this so the the story kind of just to me it was kind of like uh I got caught out of you just out of nowhere you know suddenly somebody you've been I mean from free in many ways he's done a lot of good things for the community he's these I think he's sensual as a company was a good company on you know sad to say where it's going now but the the level of I guess how deep this thing went that's really the shock value for me it wasn't it's the fact that because I'm gonna say I'm not desensitized to the cases there's a lot of things going on and a lot of big you know big names are basically peon broked in things like this but you know just to see and his phonce is essentially very you know I'm really shocked that they shared my information not necessarily kind of validating it's just a moment he segues into that you know sharing specifics it makes you just his statement feel less credible so it's hard for me to believe him when he makes a statement that at the same time it says I didn't do it oh and by the way I'm surprised they shared my information the reality is it's hard it's hard and and like Dan said it's you you can't see him again in the same light and this definitely has a lot of impact on his career now because as his name now is associated with this it's hard to work with him some of the behaviors that he has been claimed to possess from co-workers he said they have said that they he has called some employees stupid or incompetence and that when he was at the company for a time he kept certain pornography on his work computer and all that was given to him in return was a docking in his bonus for that year yeah and had it been any low level person at that company that would have been a an immediate here's your box here's your pink slip out the door yeah as Google has been very permissive of relationships in whatever form they take even within the company itself if it's between certain indirect subordinates with they're not even people who they report to and but the way that this has been talked about it seems like you know even though he has participated in consensual relationships with these people it's that he did disclose them properly and that's what kind of pushed him into the wrong with Google at the very least but again all in the face of this we've seen him gather up annual compensations of at least 20 million dollars yes past 2011 and you know we see stock bonuses we see a sweetheart loan for a Japanese Beach estate and he was given a severance package that was very very generous in fact probably I believe the highest are one of the highest that has been given out and this was determined by Larry Page by one of the cofounders of Google and if it wasn't clear enough when Larry Page learned of any misconduct that ribbon took part in it should have been made apparent what he and this is the New York Times is reporting when he does determined the severance pay for Reuben there's yeah it it like I said it's a bad it's not a good position to be and not only to recognize that there's an issue but that the way it was dealt with it was almost like it you know it was self-serving to a certain point which should not have been that way and I think my hope is that some silly that they this actually does shed some light and changes some of their policies so that they don't get into that position again and they can hopefully find a way to even I don't know how you come back from that it's a tough position to be in it from the company from from both their sides not just him you know he's he's not in there anymore but he did get paid and they facilitated all the other things that we saw from him after even he on his way out like you said so it to me it's a little bit hard and a sad day for you know for most Android users I mean because like I said he holds a very high position for us and that's one of the main key points about it is it's hard when you see somebody you admire do things like that I do I mean I want to give this a cert the way it deserves but I don't want to focus too much on it because it's kind of somewhat you know it's not really what we want to be able to talk about here and now I'm signs you know focusing on tech hardware but just a wrap exactly mean word do you like how badly how much of an impact does this have on androids reputation or like at least the leadership like what will that have it affects towards because we haven't seen Google speak about this in fact the top post other keyword blog is Android celebrating its tenth adversarial yeah yeah I want to read what Daniel thinks you know I I think that this is a bigger issue for Google you know then it might be for Android you know unfortunately we're seeing that especially in the me to movement that it's not having a huge effect on individuals themselves but establishments are having issues and you know this isn't something a one-off thing for Google there have been a few other individuals who have had sweetheart deals have continued their roles at Google after these kinds of allegations of misconduct you know so I definitely think that this is going to affect Google more than it's going to affect Android I think people who maybe have been with Android since the very beginning and know Reubens involvement with it from the beginning they might be a little bit affected but I don't really think that it's much more than a speed bump right now for Android as a whole but Google I definitely think that this is a warning sign of maybe something worse that's coming up yeah do you think the dissociation of Android and Google when you know Samsung its Galaxy brain I was about to say the exact same head yeah the fragmentation of Google well the fragmentation of Android amongst all the different devices carriers OEM so on it's ironic saving grace yeah it's at the end for the most part people will refer to it maybe they may call touch you know call out to Google but at the end of the day Android is in so many different shapes and flavors and OMS and devices and access of it I think in in the whole I don't see this as an issue for Android as an operating system for anybody that has an Android phone is not going to think about Andy word again tech tech nerds or that the community knows and understands who Andy is and the average user may or may not even be affected by it they're only going to think about it is as Google effect so you know it'll take time and like I said it needs to be handled the right way and truthfully and they need to have a good plan so people can basically accept it it's a tough one it yeah it is and I shall move on to another topic yeah it's just you know did something but I felt like something had to be said about that so I'm glad we did let's talk about aptoide and third-party app stores floors right in the meantime because we just learned what we have we have one - just remember yeah yeah yeah the XD apps yeah download it and today we have just learned this week of a ruling in Portuguese courts that supports aptoide and this claim that's the Google Play protect security feature that's associated with the Play Store and whatnot has been detecting aptoide as a risk to the users devices yeah and in some cases has uninstalled the app or has made it very very least has made it very very hard to download apps from aptoide for the sake it is alleged of harming competition and aptoide has said that it has affected at least 2.2 million daily active users which it has lost and the well we're gonna have to see what happens at this point to Google which is already facing a whole bunch of mission exactly fines so I want to know what your take is TK I mean so I you have to look at it from both sides right so from one end you have to look at it from the the App Store right or the Play Store versus aptoide there are other you know Apple or other stores that you can get applications from so there's the xd8 other apps but for the most part Google has never gone directly after other app stores it essentially it hasn't tried to infringe on them being not only site loaded because you're downloading them directly you're not downloading them direct from the Google Play Store but it's the I think it has to tie into the whole Google Play protect right it's a service that they're trying to say that this protects your device gives you a purity so from Google's and they're saying look you're bringing in an app at the store that's gonna be able to download applications that I've not verified by us so we can't guarantee them and I think that's where it should stop it should not go into the point of saying look we're gonna remove it for you and not only that we're gonna make it very hard for you to use so I like the the ruling I like the fact that it's allowing third-party application stores to reside and actually function as a as a normal thing to update applications push notifications and stuff like that and I hope that this does not you know give Google the the the permission to say okay well we you know we're not going to be able to protect your device if you can download things from third-party application stores and that's not true if you need to know what you're downloading that's number one you are the the number one antivirus program or meth method is the user because you're the one who opens the door if you can put as many you know locks on the door but if you open that door all of those locks are pointless so I'm happy with the ruling I think it's something that you know definitely will help the community and could definitely help us at down the road as well because as I said ik see a store as well has other applications that are intended for power users that sometimes do things even more than a standard app can that's how have you been navigating your all of this news lately with the Google's bundling or doing whether it should bundle certain services of its own yeah personally I agree with dk stance on it you know I think this ruling is good for Android as a whole you know under the auspice of you know the plate protect why has an Amazon been removed from certain you know inside the Amazon Appstore hmm like we said at XDA we have an app store that you can side load for you know mods and things like that on your phone why haven't we been stopped or you know I know we've had problems in the Play Store but what haven't what we've been stopped from side loading and stuff so it almost seems to me like this was a directed attack against them to remove them because this is a very big application and Google's no doubt losing money and you know share because of the way that this was running and I haven't seen anything as far as you know malware being sprayed I haven't seen anything as far as wares or you know hacked paid applications being spread through this out store again I haven't really haven't used it myself and nothing I've seen has mentioned that so it's kind of weird that Google was targeting them you know as far as the other EU rulings I think it's gonna take some time to really see where it's gonna come down you know in the EU Google's now gonna be charging for application bundles based on the display density size yep I think that's a really dangerous road to go down I think it's going to encourage smaller OEMs to split off and kind of do their own deal so time when we tell as far as that goes but as far as this is I think this is a good ruling to help keep Android open and not wall it off to just you know they said you've got to know what you're downloading you got to know you're putting on your device yeah especially to that healing with and how Google is reacting that I in terms of Licensing out the use of Google apps to Android OMS targeting the European market it even wondering what the effects will be because I mean will it impact how these OMS bring over certain devices into those markets or if anything will change at all if how many is made will continue to be made that way I was wondering if either of you have any thoughts of that so that one I'll I'll let you go first and because I'm mindfully yeah am i can get longer yeah yeah yeah I was actually talking with some people about this pretty in depth and that might have somewhat of a doom and gloom perspective on this you know but when you're considering devices that only cost a hundred or two hundred dollars yeah another 10 15 20 dollars in pure loss for these MEMS unless they're going to increase their profits or increase their prices that's a big hit we already know they're not making a whole lot of money on these low scale devices so they're either gonna stop making these low scale devices or what I think is they're gonna start moving away from Google they're gonna start offering third-party app stores Waialae has them Samsung has them Xiaomi has them they have their own app stores uh and a lot of the Google services it can be accessed through PW A's you know I mean you go to the Gmail website on your phone it's not a whole lot different than the Gmail application on your phone you know so the Google Maps website the Google Maps website on the phone is very similar to the application so what is Google really offering by making them pay this especially for those low-end devices um you know again it could be just doom and gloom but I think it's it's a scary look to what could possibly be coming especially on that low end well you mentioned a progressive web apps and I'm wondering whether or not KY OS might have any sort of wedge into that which Google is backing by the way so perhaps that might be an up-and-coming maybe factor and we'll wrap things up here what TK yeah I mean then kind of summed it up pretty nicely I think the fact is there's a big market in Europe with mid rangers and low-end devices that are intended to be basically cost effective it's hard to bring that in into an ecosystem that's already there it's gonna damage it and I think they missed I think for the most part this may be a leveraging point this may be just hey this is how it's gonna impact you if you kind of start going down that route with us and I think it's just I'm hoping it's just a scare tactic it may be just a negotiation move that it does not impact low-end devices but at the end of the day shameless plug if it does happen you gotta keep in mind that there are other stores there are other application stores that could basically see this as a very big very easy opportunity to jump in manufacturers can release Android without an actual Google Play services installed we've seen it in the past you can side load things on your own and it all it's really doing is just changing the interaction but will have other options and other things that we can do and people will find a way that's that's the beauty of Android there's always a way well there's some beauty in that I would guess and another thing that we could find beauty in perhaps is the galaxy a8 s now in China this week we just found out about the galaxy a 9s and galaxy a 6s you know they're decent galaxies a mid-range too premium level kind of things I think mediatek has been really pushing this notion of a new premium or you know more generic term of premium B but in terms of the a8 S which has been teased we're looking at bezel like what's there are there any metals bezels here is there's just curved glass a curved display and there's practically I think they're not even a not even room for the selfie camera so what's going on here well word is is that there's going to be that vaunted pie-in-the-sky innovation that we've been looking forward to for a long time and that is the hole in the display till our room for the camera or at least well I guess the my pie-in-the-sky thought would have been to have the camera being able to shoot through the deactivated activated diodes that around the field of view that would be my thought but what I mean are you looking forward to this is this something that will make it out of China let's start with Daniel on this one yeah I'm actually pretty excited about this this to me this came out and over I wasn't expecting to see it but one thing to keep in mind TK might remember it same thing with you Jules uh back in 2015 I think it was Samsung had the galaxy a5 and that was the very first full metal body Samsung phone and was actually the predecessor to the body design that we actually saw on the note 4 so this is something that Samsung has done before they've tested you know new designs on their a series phones and I think this is something that you know this might be them working out the kinks in figuring out how it's gonna work for the Galaxy S 10 I think it's really cool there's really no telling whether this is going to be distracting or not you know I definitely think if they do this the camera has to be in the center but if we know on Android Pi they have that corner cutout as part of that developers so maybe they know that something's coming in the corner of displays you know it could be distracting but it's much better than notches especially when you figure a notch is like the size of the one on the pixel three hits but you know I think this show me me mix three gives us an alternative to that if you don't want it you know hole cut out in your display you've got a beautiful full full display without having to get out of it yeah sorry I had to yeah he called it out I had to point out well guys they deployed about the a 8s I think it's so that it's a race to a TV I think it's like we all want to have that bezel list and the nicest design I think I think Dan's right it's really going to be an interesting design if they do go with it that the the camera needs to be centered I would love to actually see something similar to the way you were describing which is the ability to have it behind a display and just as you want to use your selfie camera it activates the pixels in front of it and suddenly we can see through and you can compensate for that it's because we're starting to see some tech behind the display with the fingerprint sensor so that could be the route coming down the road but I'm more interested still the fact of where is the rest of the you know the earpiece are we talking bone conduction here when everything is already up there yeah it's or or they are we because nobody mentioned any kind of mechanical things popping up with an earpiece it's nice I think it's a good design will it come out of China it's hard the a series is generally it have not done very good outside or at least in the US because we don't usually get them here but I think as a as a device I think it's a great concept the s10 needs to have a design change we can no longer do incrementals anymore 2018 was the incremental 2010 or well 2019 needs to be the new design so that's that will be nice if they're able to do that and not do a knotch you're talking about mimics and the essential phone have those razor thin speakers yeah the order of their own so they might not have to do bone conduction I really hope they don't do any kind of bone conduction going forward with this it was hard to see from those images yeah I was I'm interested to see in those and definitely I want to see some of the new gestures we've seen in PI beta is on the on the you know Samsung's UI interface I think that would be really nice because then you have that's all you need you need really good gestures and this thing is just gonna be heaven it'll be nice a massive display and minimal intrusion with the sensors in the front I'm wondering how graphical cue I might be affected if it's just gonna be that constant displacement of this few diodes not being there physically yeah it's just gonna be okay well do we change the notification bar or status bar entirely they're just you know for me until a little lozenge in a def itself which renders too many for hostages at the bottom of the display at least four pixels well kind of like the mimics designs right I mean back in the day mimics it used to be on the bottom right chin I think it's an interesting I mean we've seen a couple of even Xiaomi this movie this week as you guys have seen that the slider option coming out on on their device to try to keep the cameras and the sensors behind they're hidden in front of the display so we're seeing more options definitely I'm hoping something sticks and this looks promising definitely we are one plus sixty minus three days away I like to I like to be able to fit that in because that's just it is stupid but you know no I know I know yeah but you can't do it on the regular one it's only on the T series right you can't yeah exactly so I think there is some good news to be shared here that is word that perhaps Verizon will be able to not sell it but at least accept it onto its network without having to hassle it too much so finally something that's allowed on what's traditionally been a CDMA network perhaps it's just going to be in LTE only phone Verizon has been doing more of those recently even with its flip phones too so well it'll be interesting to see thoughts TKR this perhaps major development for what less so that was a big thing that three years people have been wanting to do with oneplus devices because you're getting the ability of having a flexibility of a pixel device or a Nexus device but it had much lower price point and a lot of people wanted to do it I think I think it's a win I think oneplus is strategy this year from having just basically the new well the things will get announced on Monday but short basically the the things coming down on Monday if this is one of them and it's true obviously that we're gonna be able to use it I think it's amazing I think razors on the same track they just finally got their certification yesterday we're seeing more GSM carriers now that LTE bands can be added and then they're basically using GS you know SIM cards and that's what makes it very flexible you no longer have to call Verizon and switch between devices especially if you're using the new new chips so I think it's a very nice thing I think oneplus is poised to be I'm they're going to be very big in 2019 and I think this is a very very apply a big part for them the razor phone too bad yeah I forgot about that thanks for reminding me well that that one just said it last night they do be certified it passed yesterday yeah yeah which I think it totally interesting and given the recent controversy is about surprise that every even talked about potentially sim locking its phones again it's like okay yeah what do we want to do here what like how do we really feel about fries and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts towards just that Network adversarial relationship Daniel yeah so you know I think I said I think this is fantastic or oneplus and it's fantastic for enthusiasts in general that we're gonna start getting new devices on Verizon's Network you know regarding the the CD a CDMA capabilities of the network they're actually phasing that out which is why we're seeing LTE only devices come on I think the HTC u11 was one of the first devices Verizon sold that was non CDMA and I think this is just the beginning of that deluge of phones you know it's important to remember that the phones still do have to be authorized by Verizon they have to be voltage certified because that is where they're you know emergency calling has to go through voice over LTE you know I think this is good for the industry as a whole now that you'll be able to go between carriers with the same phone you know and not be you know buy a Verizon version of a phone and then buy a t-mobile version of a phone or whatever and for people who have been waiting for one plus device the one plus six is a fantastic phone it has its flaws yeah but then again it's you know it's way cheaper than every single that are phone on the market you know so I think this is a very promising thing and I think I think if oneplus can leverage this properly and can really advertise the heck out of this which they will absolutely do I think they can open up to a whole new audience that doesn't want to spend $1000 on a pixel but still wants the latest and greatest well the one thing that keeps us tied to our carriers as it is right now it's not contracts but the equipment is installment plans where you pay 24 months for a device and you have to stay on the network otherwise that lump sum becomes due immediately so you know and perhaps we still need an unlocked market for that in you know to some of the companies credits here we do see them offering more financing these days but there are more risk-averse in terms of this kind of market I would say so interesting developments going on there let's move on finally to this little fun story I guess it's not it's not fun for Ksenia Sobchak and I apologize if my Russian is lacking here but she was at the very least a Samsung brand ambassador and when you're a brand ambassador then the thing that you have to do is be an ambassador and advocates show off for the brand that you're representing yep you have to represent the brand and it appears that in an appearance on a talk show the reality TV star and politician was trying to hide the fact that she was using an iPhone instead of supposedly what she was contracted to use probably a galaxy phone and people were kind of yeah they called her out on that there we see a couple of shots of the TV program in question on the story here which you can access at pocketnow.com slash podcast and yeah good luck she is being sued for breach of contract and yeah 1.6 million dollars the equivalent not something to sneeze at here so no no quick ticks on this would TK I you know it it's funny cuz they obviously this is not the first time we've seen things like that right I mean I the moment like this I saw this this article I was like I'm having a flashback of mkbhd it's not you know doing the screen grab of you know set company's name and set phone being used to post from but you know it is a job right I mean especially you know influencers and people that are in the public eye are performing a you know a service of sorts when you make an agreement you really should make a good point of using or honoring the agreement or at least make it so that you have the ability of using other devices is it realistic though that they're going after saying you know because it could have been obviously you know maybe the phone was broken maybe something happened there's a lot of things why people switch phones but is it really justified I think it's just Samsung's trying to make sure that you know they're they're putting they're putting their weight behind this one it's it's it's comical and to say in the sense of what's going in but it's it's very serious in the amount of numbers that they're talking obviously this is you know very very serious I'm not trying to belittle it but you know it's a it's a thing if you're contracted to do something you should have you know carried that phone with you and you can carry two phones it's not it's not bad to carry you know two sometimes three then help me out bro you know a lot of phones it's not it's not bad you can visually Oak has been lost on our part yes yeah and you can see right there you know it it's not uncommon so it's it's sad to see but you know hopefully hopefully people will learn from this and we won't hear any more about these things I'm sorry listeners we're just we're piling on do you know I think we hit yeah yeah Daniel I mean TK I think has a great point in terms of we don't know every single detail about this issue and that there might be mitigating factors for the starting question here but and how difficult it is is it to walk the line especially when we don't have tangible assessment of how well these influencers do for the companies that they are employed by beyond that list right now but I have just split that one point six between like three to four companies because I can't carry one seriously um you know and and honestly this could be something as simple as you know iMessage is hard to get out of and a lot of people are hooked on it and you know I don't know the nature for agreement you know it's definitely difficult for us to speculate to that um you know so she might have been using it to keep in contact with her family or her producer or something like that and there might be a viable reason for her to using that but you know when she had that contract you know she's hiding it with a piece of paper so either she was hiding it from the screen or she was hiding it because she didn't want them to see she was on her iPhone when she when you're in public you've got to be using the device that you know you've been contracted to you you you shouldn't be yelling and using other things but you know like like you said before this is a difficult thing to speculate on we don't have all the details but you know it's happened so many times before that it's it's comical to see but it's unfortunate in our situation that she could stand to lose a lot of money mr. yeah yeah well I mean that that's something in the new media world that we live in that kind of just it's where there's thorns in the roads you could say gentlemen I would like to thank you for being part of the panel here for this first part of the show but a very very good pleasure having you hard especially you Daniel for your first time yeah thank you thank you yeah and thank you TK as well we'll be getting into some talk about chamois in just a second with Nicole Scott of mobile geeks right after you hear these messages the PocketNow weekly is brought to you by the National Security Agency almost every day we hear something on the news about a cyberattack sometimes it's just a bunch of pranksters but more often it's a foreign country with vast cyber resources trying to hack into our power grid our bacon systems or our military's information networks the National Security Agency plays a big part in protecting our country from cyberattacks and you can help the NSA is hiring technical professionals serve on the front lines of information security if you work in computer science networking programming or electrical engineering you and help keep our country safe design you hardware systems and networks right faster smarter programs protect America's critical infrastructure or help uncover what our adversaries are planning to do next they're more about careers at the National Security Agency today visit intelligence careers gov slash and si that's intelligence careers gov slash EDA Shelly has put in two major device launches this week both flagship Android phones in their own right once for tech progressives and the other for the most intense gamer it seems like the company is cementing its place as a warrior the Chinese market can't ignore as it caps off a year growth and the stock offering to don't forget about that joining us to discuss all things made of millets because apparently that's how you translate that out Xiaomi is mobile geek zone nicole scott who took time out of her darn Friday night to talk to me about this in Taipei what are you doing here Nicole you should be out drinking a little bit and you know living it up and I'm not gonna lie there might be some Japanese whiskey during this podcast it's been a good Friday night so far and this is a pretty great way to kind of spend my little 12:00 12:30 a.m. this is a great way Friday night to be honest well I'm glad that you're able to do that to you it just had a little instant coffee a little earlier and it was alright it was decent so but forget about that because who needs careful nothing like a good Hibiki 12:00 so alright I'll take that I'll take note of that and in the meantime we shall talk about all things shall be let's start off with the me mix three that was just announced yesterday the 25th at all places the Forbidden City because if you want to be the best and the biggest you have to go there and you have to show things off and there's a special forbidden palace edition of the me mix 3 which is historically the mix has been this bezel ously der it was the first one the first phone that drove down those bezels are made a attempt to and then since then it's just been was that the bandwagon that goes along with it and now it's sort of doing its own thing kinda not really also because it's kind of fighting with Oppo so there's that magnetic slider that they're doing for to hide the cameras and there are also a couple of other things like 10 gigabytes of RAM 5g we haven't really heard much about they made a big point about promoting that in the run-up to this but we don't have the network's just yet other than that it's just the continuation of you know pushing those edges just slightly slightly closer to non-existence so I mean what's your general take first of all of this the mimics - I absolutely love them it may have been the slipperiest phone in the existence of phones but it was beautiful and something that probably shouldn't have been released to the market only because it's so difficult to make so the fact that they went super limited production but actually bothered to release it instead of just saying like hey this is a showcase phone like already that was hats off to the me mix line but with the two but with the three I feel like this one I could actually go wide I mean that kind of slider for the camera because Oppo did it it doesn't necessarily mean that it's like not unique it's just I think Xiaomi is not ready to go like full production with that and kind of go wide so I think this will be the first me mix that maybe more people can get than just those who are lucky in China it's kind of inflection point in some way because the industry has already gone full production mass production on their own kind of you know I mean we talked about the notch as much as we want as well as like the chin and everything else but like that is the form factor that really allows for those bezels to be reduced as much as they are already even the pair to want 2017 like that's it's a very very stark difference I'm wondering in terms of just being able to carry on that theme of you know wider availability like does this where does it really compare because Oppo released its find X it's kind of the high-end super powerful you know motorized thing with the slider and this is just magnets so you can just you know slide it in and out like is where do you think this will land in terms of the psyche of the Chinese consumer so when you look at the find and you look at the me mix I personally feel a little more secure in grabbing the Xiaomi only because I'm a woman who destroys handsets like I crack every fourth pretty much that I get even though I'm careful all right I really try to be but this motorized component that goes up and down I just think to myself I'm gonna break that for sure I'm gonna have a drop that I'm gonna I'm gonna break that at least what if it's like a physical slider that you're like and it's good for 300,000 which to me seems low like if you look at everybody who's made a video they're all like look at this right and it's like they're they're all showing off with the flicking so I think that their phone would have gone through at least a hundred thousand before they left Beijing do this better than you can listen to that listen to that you think you can just see it like we make videos so we know how many outtakes there are on that clicking oh boy alright so for me 300,000 seems like maybe that's a little maybe a conservative number they say a few years but I don't know I take a lot of selfies and I think a lot of people take a lot of selfies but I think that the like the magnetic mechanism seems like a more durable more realistic kind of iteration of that kind of bezel this enablement like more so than like a me I don't know that's me I mean that's totally fair and it's not like you know you're paying $1,200 for this you're paying the thing is 30 or 300 ish in turn easier and so that's roughly five six hundred and this goes within shammies ethos of not I believe it was their Indian division that talked about this it was like okay we're never going to release a $700 phone unless the technology is there for it if we can pioneer on this without compromising and I'm wondering if this is it does it does it how strongly the me mix three is able to keep up on that because there is a little bit of creep in there like it's not 2500 it's 30 it's in the three thousands you know I think that people are less and less willing to drop a thousand dollars on the phone especially we need to add like the higher specifications it's even more I think that we've kind of reached our limit even though everyone says you know yeah we can definitely you know that market is still growing but when people ask me for advice most of the people that talked to me on like are like 500 700 the few that are willing to spend a thousand are only those that are like very device specific like said like the note 9 or they just can't leave Apple right like though those those are the only two so in my heart of hearts I feel like we've probably maybe seen the limit of that thousand dollars to the five to seven hundred dollar range is where we're gonna be seeing a lot more people so I think it's still fine and honestly the hardware is evolved to a point where the difference between 500 and 7.75 hundred and a thousand dollars is so small right it's so small that you need to just love new features and love like getting a new phone like you have the habit and you can't get rid of it I'm just not sure that the average person now will want to extend like longer like we're seeing upgrade happen every two years now instead of like 14 months so I think I don't know I think there's definitely a place for like not at the absolute best but pretty close but not a thousand dollars I mean when you're picking a lot of services I mean Xiaomi makes it oh you know the bulk of its revenue and services but when you're paying a lot of services that you know these cute price points of $9.99 or a hundred bucks for the service plan for the cellular connection is it's just it doesn't really make sense to be able to justify that difference if all things considered everything is the same so I mean that's a fair point to make I do want to move on to their newest subsidiary black shark and earlier this week they just launched the black shark helo which is the second phone that they've launched this year just in total but both this year and in total it's just amazing how first of all the gaming niche continues to consume the attention of a lot of more you focused I would say brands and there's just something that weeks of out doing razor like okay so razor phone - there's this RGB crow that's for the try snake logo and then oh now they're just gonna apply it to the shark logo and then we have these spoilers and they're going to be gradiated so you can flow patterns on it it's gonna be great and there's a whole bunch of other stuff too that you could totally get into but I just wanted to get your sense of how you know especially in the Chinese market where there are your gaming is just life almost how you think this compares or in how you think what your perspective is so there's an interesting statistic I'm sorry for the there's a little bit of whiskey involved okay no I I have to I have to see the quest key I need a little whiskey you know whiskey so there's an interesting statistic about China that I love to ponder every once in a while and it's that coming up to 2020 there's going to be over 300 million single men in China because of the one-child policy and they've you know made changes to correct this but it's still a cultural kind of bear but we're also just gonna see this population mass come up that they can't do anything about now right I mean they can open up their borders which they have done a little bit to deal with it but eSports and gaming is the primary way that I see the Chinese government controlling this massive amount of single men who are turning 18 eSports and gaming so we can definitely see the need for a gaming phone in a market that's emerging for predominantly young men who may be a little uncomfortable around women lately all your I do is get all the women to again to the stadium - and then everything I guess mate that she didn't ping might consider that harmonious this is this is the difference you less than normal so like having this you know like nicely controlled digital kind of Haven of online gaming that they can create specific events around and have an online community that's like really male focused I think it's perfect for this type of on-the-go device because the markets emerge to a point where smartphones are now Purpose Driven it's no longer like which is the best phone it's like which is the best phone for you like which phone is the one that actually speaks to your needs and I think we're so lucky to be at this point now that we can stop focusing on my new technical innovation like bezel size and focus on the real point of the smart phone what can it do to enrich my life and when you can like when you're conscious enough of who you are to be able to define what you need that's like a that's a second question altogether that I tend to like therapy people through when they ask me for smart phone advice now so once you kind of get past that then you can kind of say okay this is the right phone for me and I think it's great that we're finally there and not just like okay if you want good you know battery life or all day or camera I mean everything's now kind of good enough where you can honestly start to ask that question like what do I need for a smartphone and for the China market there's a massive need for a gaming phone yeah yeah and I think a good example of what you just pointed out there is I mean it's more than just about the specs it's more than just about having 10 gigs of ram on it it's about being able to utilize some of the latest the biggest buzz words like AI if you're able to this this phone is being touted with a feature that allows it to record like a big moments its able to detect like oh you're going in for a major kill it's able to record 10 seconds around that moment and then you can choose to share it on Weibo or wherever that you would like to share it on like it's anticipating those needs and I feel like that is going to be something that is going to put the helo or whatever else a step above another so I mean yeah I think you have it right on the mark in terms of that so do you have anything I guess in terms of as a reflection of perhaps just what Xiaomi is able to do with this category so I show me has still so much potential and I think as a company a really solid vision they just have had such a strong ability to create ecosystems in inside of China and people have criticized it but at the same time like one of the reasons why I live in Taipei and why I'm so interested in going to Shenzhen is to seeing all of this like hey we're making it we're doing it what I mean oh wait we should figure out what people think about it oh right okay cool right there's this like huge just passion to do and they've been able to harness that through their stores because they just don't sell their own devices they sell a whole bunch of other stuff and it's kind of allowed this really interesting array of products to the Chinese consumer in a like much more entertaining way than we've you retail so for me Xiaomi as a company they're smart to like their smartphone division is just like one small part of like an overall plan for how people live yeah so I'm still super onboard shopping well I mean totally especially that drive that they have I mean talk about this year they opened up the first 24-hour media store in Russia of all places because that's a major market that they kind of have said synergies is not really the word for it but you know sympathies are something like there's like the Russian market is just huge and open and it's physically so close to China as well there's a lot going for it they're just what their physical closeness and I believe like they're they're sort of eking its Lunden somehow and you know all the rest of europe and eurasia and then there is also the fact that there are really just a manufacturer at least you know they're not qua in the sense that they're under investigation for so many of these telecom you know spying kind of accusations scandals yes so they're kind of in a unique role they're in a unique position here to be able to be a Chinese company but not have a Spectre over them so where do you think this goes on as you know after the IPO after everything else where do you think this goes in terms of 2019 and perhaps beyond in all honesty I think Xiaomi has stronger brand recognition but Oppo has a slightly better position for like more accepted government release like Xiaomi still has a lot of controversy around patent infringement like and that's been one of the highly talked about things over the past two years about why they haven't entered into Europe and I don't know how much all of that will actually come into play because everybody seems to be descending on London as like that hahaha brexit said maybe this is going to play in favor of my corporate taxes right yeah and just like there's there's definitely this really like every everybody's moving in in in into London I mean even Huawei's headquarters have moved from Germany into London OPO setting at or where my plus is setting up there there seems to be this huge outflux from Europe that I'm not fully up-to-date on but at the same time I think it's interesting that Xiaomi is making a play at the same time as other all these other other manufacturers and I I think they'll be able to pull something off because of the shop that I talked about earlier and a lot of these partners have actually figured out how to distribute into Europe so I think that they have a strong network that they could leverage off of because of the ecosystem that they've they built in China well I mean last I looked and they're a public offering I don't think there were any Chinese by banks floating it so that could ease some suspicions at least from the foreign and and then there's also you know the the rumors the ginning up of talking about hey sham he's gonna be in the united states sometime late next year late this year or early next year and everyone's you know this has been one of the hot potter companies that we've been looking forward to if there was any Chinese entity to enter into the u.s. well we've seen Huawei come in and blow up and then you know now it's perhaps shammies turn to Brad maybe right that ship or whatever the fates might have in store for them so yeah we'll see I do want to throw you a curveball here and talk about just a little bit about the HTC Exodus 1 which blockchain found we're gonna talk about that for just a little bit as far as I know this is really just HTC u12 plus but with a more emphasis on crypto that's pretty much it you can only buy it with cryptocurrency 0.15 Bitcoin which if I do the quick conversion on Google it tells me that it's $960 so I guess that's to be expected I'm not sure if it's fair but it's to be expected and for the most part it's just a lot of the same specifications but you have more wallets you have more access to the nodes and what and there wasn't really too much talk about this original vision vision excuse me of this the idea of you know how this is a whole new entire block chain Network because each phone will be a node and whatnot so thoughts on this just for a quick second so very interestingly I have I'm based in Taiwan HTC is a Taiwanese company here's some backstory that I think will frame this phone perfectly Taiwan is in a country right China says you recognize China or you recognize Taiwan Taiwan's technically on a country one of my biggest Bane's of existence here is international banking because the banks don't actually have the same guarantees because it's not an actual country right so the bank the International Banking Association you know that doesn't it's just not as easy politically politically and so the banks have have had international challenges for as long as Taiwan us has existed and two years ago now the founder of etherium actually released a theory I'm to here no last year I think it was last year released a theorem to at a conference here because Taiwan is looking to become a major crypto hub like to actually set up government everyone talks about Singapore and all these other places is being really progressive but Taiwan is literally looking to how to secure its money against a Chinese invasion this is something politically that with the Trump government has become a lot more present in like the countries thoughts and HTC as a you know Taiwanese company who is 100% therefore all of Taiwan's needs and is wonderful in that and that aspect I think that this is a reaction to what's happening here in Taiwan politically so to come out with a foam that really embraces crypto as like a base concept right for like a society and an ecosystem and like all of these things that would be more secure than potentially what Taiwan has right now I'm not saying that this is what their vision is of it but I'm saying that I think that this is a result of the political situation here in the country yeah especially after the inauguration the election and inauguration of President sorry when of the Democratic Progressive Party she has been kind of you know treading water more with Beijing and it's just been you know it's a little Arnott so it's kind of both a happenstance that you know blockchain technology is developing at the same time that these tensions grow crater so yeah I think I think you were being very polite when you said treading water she was actually the Taiwanese ambassador to China so she was in Beijing for many years and she was known as a hard-ass beep in order to deal with like she she doesn't you know she doesn't her and her stance is not that Taiwan will rejoin China which is very interesting during this kind of time when the US has backed Taiwan and now it's a total pod well now it's it's not just that you know diplomatic relationship she is now the figurehead of this so-called renegade province so it's gonna be especially interesting how the next few years will navigate so definitely a key factor in you know seeing HDC come out with this that may have not been the tech angle you were looking for but that was the angle that most I wanted to share oh yeah I mean even in spite of HTC is kind of financially treading water it's kind of still trying its best to gather something up and then perhaps look into the future a little bit so I mean I've always my brother is still considering HTC u12 for purchase I hope that they're great phones though oh yeah they're great hardware the softer the software as last I heard was still decent if not just a little bit long in the tooth but it's just the fact that you know how much can I guarantee him that okay is this a really a good investment are you going to get good service from a company that's is this deep in they're mud so yeah like my my my phone's haptic feedback or like the squeeze functions I didn't have any problems with mine but I held my review until everyone got their updates and I felt like it was a more even footing ground because I thought my phone worked really good but it still made me hesitant to recommend it when so many people were having issues with it and it's such a cool feature and when it when it when it misfires it's like you want to throw your phone against the ground it's definitely one of those things where you're like I love it but do I do I want to like hate it because he would hate it it was wrong trust me $1,000 phone is not something to play hot tomato with so yeah agreed agreed yeah well on that note I think we should let you enjoy your Friday night a little bit more so right Nicole Scott mobile geeks we love you thank you so much thank you the PocketNow weekly is also supported by one plus that one plus 60 launches in just a few days tickets to the events sold out quickly but you can watch it live on October 29 and 11:00 a.m. Eastern in front wherever you are just go to pocketnow.com slash 1 plus 60 for more info oh hi my name is Albert I'm 20 and the year and a half ago I launched a Kickstarter campaign for Maker we know an educational gaming device thanks to our amazing help we produce thousands of Maker Beunos and turned our passion and hobbies into something more after collecting feedback from hundreds of maker bruno supporters we'll come up with something completely new meets maker phone we are talking with one of the main people behind what is called the maker phone a project that is up on Kickstarter right now that has grossed over 185 thousand dollars about yeah yeah it's up there I have that I have the so yeah my name is Albert gosh IKEA so I'm the creator of microphone and actually I'm the co-founder of the startup we make her phone the startup is called circuit mess and the name it actually comes from two words circuit because you know that's what we do we make circuits and mess because our company is in a mess so we figured out it's a great thing for our startup so yeah I'm actually 20 and I founded my company when I was in high school so on 4th grade of high school I started the Kickstarter campaign for maker bueno and that was our first project so maker bueno basically is do-it-yourself gaming device and the first crowdfunding campaign it raised over $100,000 when fulfilled all of maker Reno's continued selling them and started working on a new project that we have currently launched 12 days ago and yeah we're already over one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars yeah it's it's actually selling pretty well so yeah yeah well first of all the way graduations on that oh sorry yeah yeah thank you so yeah I just wanted to mention that yeah besides me and this little startup there's also seven people seven people working in it and it all started a year and a half ago and currently we're a small team based here in Croatia you know creates a small country in Europe you know it with some World Cup this year in the finals so you've probably you probably heard about it now yeah but before that nobody knew where it was so yeah well I mean you just mentioned a little while ago that you are your twenty first of all so I'm I'm already feeling a little bit older but the question that I have is like so coming from coming from this younger generation like what inspired you to take a look at what could be considered sort of a throwback we'll get into the product we'll get into the product in a little bit but obviously you know I have like a Google pixel 3 right here on the table and we have all of these really advanced smartphones what what was the impetus of this particular maker phone product yeah that's that's uh that's a tough question so actually microphone it our main goal was not to make something retro you know I mean retro which certainly is becoming increasingly popular with you know stuff like NES mini or PlayStation mini and stuff like that so retro it's all over the place right now but actually when I started with Maker we know I made the first prototype six years ago and actually it was inspired by this whole maker movement so I'm actually I was born in 98 so I'm actually the PlayStation 2 generation so I was playing PlayStation 2 and yeah I actually I wasn't playing pixel art games and stuff like that when I was young I mean pixel art they weren't called pixel art games back then they were just called games yeah yeah I actually I actually do not recall Pokemon or stuff like that being planned but what actually inspired this whole project was this maker movement and in the couple of in a few past years it became you know increasingly popular just like retro became popular and you know maker movement people building stuff in their homes buying 3d printers printing I don't know stuff and you know playing with Arduinos and you know I just I jumped on that hole maker trays when I was 11 or so and I figured out that you know it's number one it's it's really fun you know I really like building stuff and I still love building stuff and that's why I started this whole business and the second reason why we actually started with maker we a maker phone was that we saw a huge potential in this market so currently education stem makers stuff like that it's becoming increasingly popular and this whole educational in maker market it's just it's growing and because of that we saw that you know a product like this really you know can make some kind of an impact on the market so that was actually the primary motivation and the whole retro aspect of the device it actually it was it games like some kind of side effect because if you want to make a phone that a person can assemble by its own cans you know you cannot make it super complex it cannot run the latest version of Android it needs to be retro it needs to tell a processor that runs pixel art see you know sprites and has 128 by 160 pixels because first of all we didn't want to make it super expensive we wanted to make device that's going to educate people not compete with motor flagships and second of all we wanted to make it simple so yeah retro it actually came as a side effect but you know it's also a selling point of our product now because people are actually remembering space invaders and stuff like that they were going go on those II expect rooms and stuff like that so oh yeah definitely so yeah I guess that's the answer oh yeah definitely and I think that I think the retro aspect does does does really well to sort of it's sort of like cell marketing in a way because a lot of people might look at this kind of device and think wow that's that's a bit of a throwback and I really like that as you said retro was really in right now but at the same time like you said you didn't want to make a device that was too complicated so there are a couple of different tiers on this and I would implore everybody to check out the Kickstarter page really get to know this product cuz it's it's honestly really really cool and it is really affordable I mean I'm looking at this now and a fully assembled one is an option so you can just get straight into the device but if you want to actually make it there's an educational aspect to this what comes with that particular kit and how much experience would someone have to have with let's say soldering because I saw that picture and I'm intimidated by something like that just from the outside okay yeah so what comes in the kit is actually we have several conversions as you said we have a standard kit we in which you get the box with you know all the components that the phone needs in order to work we also have an assembled version because we understand that some people are intimidated by the you know assembly process and are not real quinta soldering so we offered that as a version 2 because they only want to go and the third version is the tools back where you also get you know all the all the tools that you need for the assembly as well as the kit so in the basic kit yeah you get the components and you need to assemble it and the skill level that actually the age limit that we recommend is 11 plus so this device certainly you could assemble it I guess it's your 11 plus and this so yeah that's basically as there's the age limit the skill level we say and claim that if you have no skill whatever in this field of electronics and programming and you know soldering we can teach you using our internet tutorials so everything that you need to have is the tools and some enthusiasm and interest in technology and we're going to teach everything else so it may look complex but actually this kit this mobile phone you do not assemble all the parts on it so on the front page on the front side of the mobile phone you have these big modules for example I don't know if you're looking at our listing right now but for example we have this diagram with nine parts so there's like nine basic parts this big red PCB the circuit board you can screen module on amplifier module here the sound player module the main microprocessor and stuff like that the big big parts like push buttons so you only need to solder and assemble the big part and you also have some tiny components on the back side of the PCB of the circuit board which come already Prius priests orders so the reason behind this is some of those components that are on the back you really cannot buy them in a package big enough for an you know average person for an average person to solder it on the back and also if we made the phone fully DIY so if you were assembling single-component at the phone it will probably be as big as a table so that's the reason why we yeah so it would be pretty you know pretty clunky you know and it's it's already pretty clunky so I think it would be too clunky so that's the reason why anyone can assemble it because basically you're assembling the phone but you're not really assembling all the tiny components you're just you know putting the basics on it and soldering but through this process of assembling your phone we're trying to teach you all the basics for example soldering and explain you how an actual phone works for example our guide it's it's not it's not like I kiyose a build guide where they show you where he put the screws and that's it we're trying to educate people just like with makeup we know and tell them okay this is the micro computer it's used for this and that so this is a resistor you put it here because of this so yeah that's the there's the whole point of the device yeah and I'm sure people will be able to see in the Kickstarter page but if anyone is is thinking about it this phone will be able to make it has a GSM radio even Wi-Fi and even Bluetooth that kind of surprised me as well I thought that was really awesome so it there will be a lot of those functions right out of the box but I guess where I want to go next here is obviously the hardware is a big focus of the maker phone um what can you say and share with our listeners and viewers about the software experience because clearly there's a learning experience behind that as well okay yes of software yeah actually emphasis was on the hardware but we're not just selling hardware we're not just creating harder hardware and what we're trying to make is this database of tutorials and educational material and content and software that is going to be used for the maker form we skip something like that already developed for maker we know we call it the creations gallery and basically it's a gallery of video games that users have made and on maker we know we already allowed people to create their own games and share it in our creations gallery and with maker 4 we're trying to this up a bit a little bit and yeah the whole point is that you can connect your microphone to your PC just after assemble it and you can code it in three main languages in scratch in Python and in Arduino which is basically C and C++ and what we're trying to do with this is we segmented this learning process in two levels we actually have this shout on a graphic in our page so we're trying to get people into coding we scratch and for those who do not know what scratch is it's the most basic programming language that is nowadays used in educational institutions worldwide basically it's it's it's a window with blocks that you need to put together and you know form code and it's really great because with just two blocks of code you can make something you can write hello world on your phone and you can actually see something happening and the second the second level is PI phone and it's an increasingly popular language and actually the creator of Python he created the language in order to allow people that are not engineers and programmers to get into coding so it's you know it doesn't have a variable allocation and stuff like that so it's pretty straightforward for someone to get into textual coding and the final level is Arduino with is which is basically C and C++ and it's actually a pretty strong language is pretty powerful and you can code actual software for example video games in in unity and easily swap to c-sharp after that level so yeah that that's the whole point of maker phone and what we're actually trying to do is wrap all this up in what we call the circuit miss world in circuit miss world it's actually a big hub for all these creations tutorials and software that we and users are creating for the microphone and we're also going to you know we're also going to offer maker Windows tutorials there as well oh that's great so coming from maker bueno - now this month's maker phone there have been a lot of Arduino Kickstarter campaigns that have been successful obviously yours is the most DIY of the bunch oh did you did you see any of those other crowdfunding campaigns like what did you learn from all of those that you brought into this particular campaign which is already wildly successful yes so what we're actually asking is if I've seen other similar campaigns yes do we know campaigns and so yeah of course I mean we were it's a it's a bad term but we were stalking other campaigns and other products and you know business developers they usually call it marketing analysis so we were doing a marketing analysis and looking at our Kickstarter that other Kickstarter campaigns and similar products and so far this is the this is the first DIY phone in in this form there were some other DIY phones on the market and people usually when we when we show this to an average consumer they usually say oh this is like Google's Project ara and this is like phonebloks and this it was already made so I would like to point out that maker phone it's not phonebloks reimagined cellphone blocks it was trying to substitute your iPhone your Samsung Galaxy it was trying to compete with flagships this is purely an educational device and it's not going to replace your iPhone and about Arduino and maker projects yeah I agree that there's an increasing an increasing number of them appearing on on the market and on Kickstarter only indiegogo all similar campaigns but I think that we are actually the first one to make a device in this form factor and what I actually think about all these and you know you can't really generalize it but most of those Arduino kits and boards and development kits that appear in the market I think that they are just boring because you have a ton of devices that are tiny robots on freewheels that you assemble and when you show that to someone it's just you know it's boring and with this thing we're trying to bring this whole maker idea and the DIY aspects to a broader audience we're going we're trying to appeal to a mainstream audience because a mobile phone everybody knows what the mobile phone is everybody has one and when you give them this kit when you give this kid to a child then the child it's not learning how to solder because you tell the child it's good the child is learning how to solder because it wants to make this supercool mobile phone which plays games which you know runs apps which does some mp3 files and stuff like that so there is this end goal and that's what we're trying to do this so basically what we invented here is okay invented these are strong words so basically what we're where we innovated here is this crossover of mainstream so mobile phones and DIY so that's what we've connected because this is yet another DIY kit and there's a ton of that and the the only thing that we how we differ from the competition is with this whole mainstream plus they're white kids crossover idea I love that I love I love that you kind of give that idea of the incentive of learning how to do all of these things because that's that's a real thing like we're being told all the time these days that coding is really important everyone can learn to code everyone should learn to code but then not a lot of people can answer the question well what am I going to do with it so yes correct I mean with maker blue you know we actually tried to make the same thing we were doing festive workshops before we actually decided to make a Kickstarter campaign and kids they they just love the idea of making their own consoles because that way you didn't have to explain them you know coding is useful a kid it really doesn't care if coding is useful it cares about this super cool game console that plays games the same the same stories with microphone yeah that's awesome okay so what are the what are the overarching goals for something like this I don't want to go so far as to say well make your phone bring you into a place where you can make like like a maker smartphone or something like that because obviously that would over complicate things and you like you said you don't want to do that but what are the general goals for this particular product you said educational is there gonna be some sort of like consumer aspect to it that goes beyond the DIY aspect are you looking to create products in the future based upon all this okay so our big goal the big picture how we see it you know we are started we exist for a year and a half and that's really not so much time so stuff is changing so quickly that sometimes you know we really do not know how the company is going to look like in six months we really cannot predict in which way our growth is going to go but how how we see it currently we really want to stay in this educational market and the DIY maker market for some time because we see a huge potential as I said earlier I think that STEM education and educational toys and stuff like that it's a it's a huge growing market that's just expanding and what we are trying to do is a series of DIY maker products that are going to bring technology bring engineering bring coding to the masses in a fun and interesting way there's a story behind maker up we know there's a story behind maker phone we're actually trying to connect mainstream with DIY with our products and we're trying to do it in different ways some short-term plans would be currently our kids they're all 11 plus because it includes they they include soldering and soldering sometimes it intimidates people it's not suitable for young children and what we would really like to do is design kids versions of maker we know and make your phone that are going to be less complex that you're going to be made of snap-on components that you put together and you need to you do not need to solder where we actually want to make a series of products that are going to appeal to different age limits so something for a bit younger children something for a bit older children and we are trying to make kids that are going to be in different price ranges for example they're going to make something a bit more expensive than maker phones some premium products and I think that we really want to make something is being is going to be a bit cheaper and the whole story behind this is we're building this brand circuit mess our company name we are going to shut down maker Beno calm and forward it to circuit mez calm and you're going to unite all our products that we're currently working on under this name so that's the big picture where we want to go and we'll see maybe maybe we'll be selling toothbrushes on Amazon we'll see how that goes Oh that'll be great yeah I think that'd be awesome and I can see a lot of general consumers finding things to love about this I mean this it just for all of our listeners and viewers think of it this way there's this is a phone that is under $200 it has a headphone jack and a dedicated deck so think yeah it's a feature also it has eight notification lights I don't know if you've seen so I just I was looking at earlier that's so cool yeah you know nowadays everyone's competing with number of cameras and we're competing with a number of flashlights so mm-hmm aid notification lights I could see myself using this as that apparatus for education I have no coding experience very little I should say but I also have even less electrical experience when it comes to actually building things like this so I would love to be able to try this out I could even see myself I can I can even see us here a pocket now and with XDA doing something like who can build it the fastest you know we could yeah for sure all right awesome well I really want to thank you for your time of to our viewers and listeners make sure you check out the Kickstarter campaign the link is as always will be in the show notes and we'll also share it on our social media and everywhere so I want to thank you again Albert thank you so much for spending it before this I I wondered I imagine it's pretty late over where you are right now almost 9 p.m. yet oh not too bad yeah I'm not too bad I'm right to work now yeah definitely um alright cool so we're going that will connect again in the future I would say good luck on the campaign but it's already funded I hope it gets even better for the next month thanks yeah all right cool so back to the show for us thanks Josh they need to learn more about maker phone and all of the stories you've heard today by going to this episode's description you can also head to pocketnow.com slash podcast to find the rundown and on that note that is it for now the weekly is just as much a conversation as it is a show so make sure your voices are heard either in the comment sections or by emailing us podcast at pocketnow.com on twitter Daniels at Al tima x98 TK is at TK DSL eight six five five Nicole is that Nicole scooter Josh is at JV tech T cuz he loves tech and he loves his tea and I can be found at point jewels pocket now is that 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