Gadgetory

and we're live this week listeners take the wheel we'll be answering your questions about the Google manifesto talking gender and politics and technology the Moto Z to force one of the more controversial phones we've reviewed this year and we'll have some fun discussions on software assistance plus your questions and comments coming in from email and Twitter there's a lot to discuss so make sure you're charged and ready for episode two six five of the pocket now weekly recorded August 10th at 3:00 p.m. Eastern this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets that make our lives mobile smartphones tablets and wearables is all the stuff you wished existed when you were a kid and you had a huge crush on Ally Sheedy in wargames I'm Juan Carlos back now senior editor pocketnow.com blasting the signal from sunny Southern California joined as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong out on the east coast how's it going buddy boy hello and welcome to all our viewers live on the East Coast and the west coast and around the world I I was sooo mean that there has to be someone in burma watching this right now i'm wondering with a computer I would hope so I really feel like Burma does not come up enough in our tech conversations and so if there's someone in Burma who has a pressing need to answer some smart phone questions this would be the week to do it yes let's let's get them on the show right sweet and I just have to apologize to all of the viewers and listeners apparently when you have a toddler they are just an incubator for all kinds of ridiculously fun diseases so I'm working on a little head cold and I kind of overdid it a little on the the pre-show we do a periscope right before we go live just to kind of have a casual Q&A every week and I was about halfway through that going you know what this was probably a bad idea why not coughing snort and you know I do a whole bunch of gross stuff right in front of my microphone but I just apologies that I probably won't be able to completely contain all of the gross humanity coming out lots of slurping noises yeah okay edit that out I hope you don't cuz that was hilarious I'm was hacked up on the microphone doing a good idea to be able to you know bring that up and bring all your sicknesses to the podcast and we want you to also chip in your questions too because those can be sick questions yeah so do that by going onto Twitter going on to that PN weekly hashtag hashtag P and weekly and submitting your questions like that if we're on the air live X this hour 3 p.m. Eastern 10th of August and you know we'll be able to answer them live that's the kind of appeal of it and if you can't do that why don't you do what others have done in the past many others have done it's a great thing great process its crafting up an email and sending it over podcast at pocketnow.com I was going to think of another word I was in crafting I was like crafting nailed it but then there was the anticipatory pond it's gonna be really oh it's email he's talking about you okay send that pop3 server I feel most people in our audience are probably IMAP people that was me not being a good improv actor not going with your premise under the yes and and just like no hard stop not pop but IMAP all right well I'll see you and so we got we already have the Apollo man I'd get gone so quickly we already have some some great questions coming in on Twitter using that PN weekly hashtag a comment from Hugh Richardson while we're recording this great now I have to watch wargames again it's a yearly viewing for me I have to watch that film at least once a year because it's such a fun movie and I'm a big Matthew Broderick fan but you know I definitely hit us up on the emails definitely hit us up on that Twitter using that hashtag but Before we jump into more tech tomfoolery we do need to thank this week's sponsor and that's hello fresh now hello fresh is a farm to box couch to kitchen meal delivery service which aims to make cooking more fun so you can focus on the entire experience of putting your food and meal together not just that finished plate that you're gonna take a photo of that no one's going to look at on Facebook I use Instagram I get a few more likes that way each week hellofresh delivers delicious new recipes with step by step cooking instructions broken down into six major segments this actually is pretty helpful to the way that they divide the the labor the prep and then the actual the cooking the preparation for each meal that they send so each meal is designed to take around 30 minutes to prepare and so even for kitchen novices or for experienced cooks who might be short on time you can whip up something really tasty really efficiently they source the freshest ingredients freshest ingredients measured to the exact quantities needed this reduces food waste and and I do have to throw another shout out here we've had them as a sponsor on the podcast a number of times and thankfully yeah this is a service that I've continued to use past their little introductory like they gave us a couple free meals to play with and I really do like the way that they package up each meal so you don't just get a big gnarly bag full of ingredients you get these individual cardboard containers so you know exactly what's going to go into each meal and that does reduce the amount of time it takes to cook each meal less than $10 per serving you can select between the classic plan vegetarian options and a family box to feed more people definitely check out their menu they've got all kinds of really tasty and really interesting flavor and food combinations chicken parm parmigiana salad Juicy Lucy burger with molten cheese core zesty crusted catfish I mean that was in the first week of meals that I got from the service and and all of them were winners we were impressed with the the flavor combinations on all of them hello fresh employees to full-time dietitians to ensure each meal is nutritionally balanced and they're offering summer fare now so definitely check them out alongside new breakfast options get your day started off right excuse me I'm kind of hungry for lunch already I'm like getting all Salvatori right now delicious ingredients you'll love to eat simple recipes you'll love to cook hello fresh as a special offer for listeners of the p-n weekly get $30 off your first week of deliveries when you use the promo code pocket now 30 again $30 off your first week when you sign up at hellofresh comm with the promo code pocket now 30 and we thank them for sponsoring the pocket now weekly go and do you like liking what I see here for this week so for August 19th like chicken share their fajitas and talents your potted cheeseburgers parmesan crusted fish we've got to stop producing this podcast before before we I think we should just stop just give up on the whole food like that the prepared food services because that is not really doing anything for our like ability to podcast it's it's it just it doesn't work I'm not gonna be eating like while we do the podcast but just be making the stuff while we do the podcast all right so on the Sharp Aquos I like hold on let me just I gotta check on this boiling water here because usually I I mean again mixing food in tech I'm I'm on board I think we should absolutely do that if if anyone should really a fan of our videos on YouTube I do have a hidden recipe on one of our reviews for my ultimate turkey melt recipe yeah you just have to follow all the numbers at the end that's always yeah that I definitely give it a share on Twitter or something you know and I'll echo chamber that cuz I hit it in one of my reviews and but you yourself cannot fine right yeah and so it's it is it's the ultimate turkey melt but we should probably stop talking about food now and get into actual news stuff it should for the week of August 7th 2017 this is all the news that is fit to find vodcast food cast podcasts yeah that's a man beginning that i potentially entering mass production supply chain sources believe that as component makers have seen major annual sales gains iPhone eight assemblers I may just assume start getting more money from Apple well ahead of previous bank expectations for October and November production on the iPhone 7s and 7s plus is also said to be starting to the essential phone is also starting full production the name is coming the visa via a tweet from any room in the company's founder the news follows the Wall Street Journal's one-on-one talk with company president Nicola Damacy where among other things he detailed a unit sales goal in the low single-digit millions best buy and Amazon will be unlocked retail partners China sees its first sharp phone in forever as the Fox brand the Foxconn brand launched the Aqua s2 this week the standard version features a snapdragon 630 has a dual camera system and a 2x1 display that surrounds the selfie camera and receiver if you think about the essential phone's design much like that it's not even clear when Japan Sharp's home country will see this phone much less any other country but said to range around the upper 400 slower 500 cos the lenovo k 8 notes follows through on the manufacturers must have moved to stock android on its own brand phones it debuted in india with a 10 core mediatek processor dual cameras wmo sound and a four thousand milliamp hour battery amazon india will watch the phone on August 18 the reveals continued though this ones weren't quite that Galaxy s8 active has landed on ATT without any preload take the Galaxy s8 apply a thick polymer case and a four thousand milliamp hour battery and you have an active phone pre-orders are on mind right now sales from August 11 t-mobile has its own phone to talk about to TCL was rumored to have made this the Revel that is our e double V L some entry-level specs will cost zero down and five dollars a month it marks the debut of the smart picks phone line up each of the phones offered will be automatically placed onto a new Jeff on demand lease program where users can upgrade once as often as every 30 days Apple is playing with augmented reality tech in prototypes of a new smart glasses concept we see 3d cameras at play but it seems that IO will mostly be left to a continued iPhone no word on ETA but we do have a better grip on an Apple watch 3 with LTE capabilities apparently the engineering team have figured out a way where a modem wouldn't suck up all the battery they've been working on this since at least last year a final product should be out this fall according to Bloomberg finally new emoji candidates have been proposed for the standard set to take effect in June 2018 there are a few body pots to be had objects like teddy bears magnets into brick walls and well you know this is gonna be good sad pile to a sad the happy Fuji my life is now complete just wanted to throw this out there just to see if there I mean they're already on the boards we have like coming up to like 2,000 of them many of them I mean you know we still have many to go so I'm wondering what you're missing out on well I mean really it's I feel like we probably just need a few more fill in emojis so that we can finally complete the return to hieroglyphics for communication all of these letters and numbers they're just really inconvenient and what I really feel we should be doing is using sort of more like pictograph style forms of communication areas name I think written like re did that once so but we could first probably is that concept we can always start from just you know educational games because I think that's all totally and then we'll need translators for like people my age and older so I can write out a message and it'll just convert it into all emojis you know yeah we're not all like artists designers and you know standardized you know we can't just continuously replicate these things unless you know I mean if you if you're have like Sanskrit or Chinese where the characters are more complicated I think you'd be able to handle that better other than that English you know with the standard care but all that stuff like that's it's just simple strokes really yeah okay so emojis that's definitely a thing know what I wanted to circle back to though was Apple watch that the series three is coming out I'd be very surprised if the watch looks fundamentally different than previous incarnations of the Apple watch cellular capabilities could be really interesting cuz I think right now a lot of times we bill like LTE connectivity is this like mainline way that you can stay connected when really I think it's only useful in short bursts like I want to take a workout and for the duration of the workout I want this kind of activity and then as soon as I'm done with the workout and I'm back at home I shut it back off again but I wanted to put out there was the the notion that this could have glucose checking built-in that this could be something that is also now double double dipping or serving as a way to help manage other health issues like type 1 and type 2 diabetes which I don't think is actually I mean it's there it's been suggested it's been hinted and you know it'd be great if it were on there but I'm not exactly sure if that would be about the most reliable thing I mean you're talking about a whole whole bunch of a big huge population and relying on this kind of kind of a untested metric or an tested mechanism so for I don't know three four hundred dollars is this going to be a worthwhile investment compared to a dedicated you know and so on the Spencer breeder whatever it's it's still it's gonna have to go through the trials and all that well it will and and so I I don't think anyone would look at a piece of consumer electronics as a way to fully encompass management of a disease like diabetes but what's really important is because like we have a lot of technology there Dex comms there are glucose blood testing devices where you have to like prick your finger prick skin to get blood out what could be really interesting is a way to track general trends so if we had an apple watch which didn't have to break skin to get general trends on something like blood glucose level that could also be beneficial to a number of other people in society other things like you know people that are on the ketogenic diets for example would probably want to be aware of that in the same way that right now I like being generally aware of my heart rate is this the most accurate heart rate monitor no it's really not and I would never depend on this if I had some sort of cardiac issue that needed like actual care so I kind of look at this is the same thing like if you have an Apple watch and you're a diabetic you can get a really good overview of general trends then you also have all of the the fun lifestyle benefits of having an Apple watch you wouldn't rely on it as a way to really manage your disease but it's extra information that helps fill in the gaps in between those times you have to test your blood and then I think for a lot of other people that could be really interesting so for example let's say you're pre-diabetic and you don't know it and you start seeing blood sugar spikes after meals that could be valuable information for helping to change up your workouts change up your diet or have a conversation with your doctor indeed and also well I had a thought in there that just disappeared but it was about on the general aspect of increasing usage time yeah that's right because we've seen this with Fitbit where usage time is collapsed the sessions are just not up to where they were and that's you know that's where the company has led itself down to kind of a crisis point where investors are not really believing in that so I mean if that's a metric that Apple wants to increase I think this is a definitely a great way to be able to do that at least in terms of one population I'm not sure exactly if you know if it's a go-to because if you're pre-diabetic you don't know and you have to actually go to the app and you know it has to be something that you actively care about in the first place before you bring it up and I mean I don't know so but we do have a question here PN weekly hash tag from at riina-chan is there a way to measure glucose from the skin sweat and technically yes I just don't know that any manufacturer has ever put out a device specifically to do that because of some of the concerns we're talking about it would be marketed towards diabetics and it's not nearly as accurate as doing a blood test to measure your glucose levels but there are also other sort of other ways that people have helped manage diseases like diabetes like you can train dogs to detect the quality of smell and sweat that comes off of someone who's diabetic because that extra sugar in their blood in their bloodstream is going to impact things like the smell and taste of grass I'm sorry and I'm really over generalizing here and anyone who's a diabetic is probably like smashing their face against their computer right now listening does talk about this but there are different ways you can do that this would be a consumer facing way with broad acceptance if Apple decides to actually implement it or maybe make it a part of like a watch band or a watch strap so it's not in every Apple watch but it there's a way to use it with sort of proprietary hardware indeed indeed I want to circle back to a central phone because oh yeah got the whole you know being eight weeks late or even longer because they'd have just hits full production I do want to talk a little bit Demi's comments from just yesterday where it's you know he's basically mostly just parroting developments that we've caught on to you like the Best Buy and Amazon retail holding and also others like the whole week's kind of general ETA timeline and then you know of course any room and it had to like come in and say oh it's happening now so there's the whole what do you think about and it's Alexa fund and ten cents you know China China huge tech conglomerate funding three hundred million dollars to this venture now because now we're starting to see different expectations about how you know the you know essential home is gonna be a key asset to this where does you know it can do all sorts of things with Google assistant or all the other assistance out there Alexa included and then just a Chinese power coming into play in the US you know that's actually what I'm a little less well-versed on is looking at $0.10 business model in seeing how a strategic partnership with essential phone could benefit or could could help improve their catalogue of services and products in the United States obviously in North America the Amazon side of this is probably the more compelling part of the discussion whether or not this will influence essential phone to play with Alexa compatibility is going to be I think a very interesting position for a smart phone manufacturer to take right now but I think there's something really compelling about the idea of Amazon having that direct partnership with a company that they can then promote as sort of a crown jewel flagship unlocked phone we know that their first essentials first partnership is with Sprint so we will see essential phone showing up on Sprint that's their carrier deal but we've seen Amazon make some significant inroads in selling unlocked phones to North Americans and so those are usually budget devices less expensive devices entry-level devices so having a manufacturer set specifically on offering a flagship device and one that's being billed is you know like new cutting-edge technologies modular phone wireless usb adaptations a very bold design whether or not that front-facing selfie camera turns people off I think that could be that could be a really a really good partnership for both Amazon and essential both for promoting a device not having to rely on Sprint ad dollars for all of the device promotion then having another outlet where people not on Sprint would have access to that phone - yeah and in terms of like the whole sprint deal because sock Bank is the Japanese parent company of Sprint and there was a little talk where sock bank would have invested I think it was you know 100 million or something like that into the company into essential and was they pulled out because Apple were decided to join in on the fund that it was going to you know use to do that with and since in social was competing with with Android and with against Apple that would ya been productive but you know it was one of these big you know angel investors with money with that's interest in tech is going to be flying around whether it be it you know Elon Musk for some reason or $0.10 as you see right here so yeah and especially with TPP coming it just I'm going I'm getting beyond my death via depth here but you know there is an expanding realm of China's economic muster so with that you know of America first in them yeah well it but you know Andy Rubens reputation I think is deserving of a shot like this it's just when we start talking about this kind of money coming in from other players and other investors like it puts a lot more pressure on the brand so that we were watching recode the first thing I thought of when when we got the news about Amazon and $0.10 was that little quip he made about it's okay for us to take longer to scale you know because we want to make sure that we can actually fulfill shipping and manufacturing and then as the business gets larger we have different concerns that changes a little when you've got players like Amazon and $0.10 dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into your company now the the risk/reward is is greater and the expectations are higher from people outside the company so I'll be curious to see how this first generation plays off I mean I don't think anyone's gonna have super high expectations for this thing selling art outselling an established brand but can they show some kind of consumer relationship consumer attachment that they can build off of and that's gonna be like a three to four year process if they're really serious about being in the smartphone space but even from generation one we've got to see some kind of uptick some kind of conversation some kind of enthusiasts that's gonna that's going to be a fan of this brand because these cannot be a geek and nerd phone I mean they've made it pretty clear uh Damacy made it pretty clear that you know they want to build in a moat but you actually use your her kind of go to terms of emotive attachments and all that so I mean is of the current Android ecosystem right the prison people who helped create the current smartphone paradigm that we understand today he's the one that's wanting to shift it more aggressively so we'll we'll see I'll uh this is all just the we're all super curious to see how this plays out but damn if they're not gonna be facing crazy competition there's a quintet of phones coming out the end of this year which are all gonna be monster performers all trying to occupy the limelight and Andy Reubens name is the major differentiator for essential phone becoming a success or becoming a failure that's a lot of pressure to put on an individual backing up a brand a new brand he has a name it's it's called Annie ruin and he happened to be whether on the credit list for Android so I mean yeah he's brother you know this all these little ventures and is funding new ventures with it through his playground initiative so I mean he bootstrap did boots get this thing out of partially I picked a playground so and also Google fun I think red B or something that is that Google alphabet I that one I don't know I'm actually not for that I don't know that that brand name but so II that doesn't need to bootstrap a product but it's still facing very similar concerns is a Samsung I've finally taken the wraps off officially announcing that galaxy active so you guys know quiet you got it there's no please so but you guys know I'm super excited about this the active has always been my favorite phone of the year and you're telling me I can have a smaller screen si not the si plus but with a battery bigger than the si plus and in a more rugged shell because I'm not a huge fan of glass back devices this is already shaping up to be my favorite Samsung of the year but it was quietly and it would like the press release came out of nowhere it was a day where we're selling it now okay I so really like they were way late you know it's like not only keeping expectations low but keeping expectations almost non-existent they're perfect they're trying to I'm not sure if this is a definitive like gap for you know just letting the Galaxy Note 8 breathe but I mean it's sort of ashamed to you know be able to just it's a fort that they've got great battery going on here we've never movie not got we have not got to touch the damn thing right I mean we can't really assess the durability and all that although we would hope that it would be better from the s7 active with all its water resistance yeah you a few manufacturing issues I mean from I think we started doing we've been doing this like yearly get-together in Southern California where we take active phones to water parks a bunch of just local bloggers a trisha hershberger rich tomorrow from KTLA we've done this a bunch of times and from the s4 active to the s7 active the s7 active is the only time we had a phone fail so we'd usually have like five or six like going down water slides or going underwater or getting pelted by like jets and stuff like that and out of five s7 actives we did have one that that that died on the lazy river but of all things right yeah I mean but it was like we're pretty sure like it taken abuse before then and then just we were trying to shoot videos like oh this one doesn't work um but considering you know like how aggressive we put those phones through potential water damage situations that's still not bad um that's still not a bad ratio it's just not as solid as what we thought the s6 act that was so hopefully they've sorted that out for the s8 active there's like I said like these are always my favorites I like grippy backs I like rugged construction I like not having to throw a case on it I'm even like kind of okay with the charmingly ugly lumpy cling on ridges and fake camo and all of those crap adaptations that make it seem like a tough phone so I'm on board yeah yeah have you contacted your I can't even speak now can you cut have you contacted your PR in on either side no I mean we haven't heard anything anything official on when we'll be able to get our hands on one and unfortunately I think everyone would have knows even the PR teams that I work with everyone sort of knows like no one's gonna be talking about this outside of like a little feature piece you know like it's not gonna get the same kind of coverage and it kind of doesn't need it you know a lot of this stuff is just carried over from the regular s8 but what conversation we would have had at the beginning of the summer if this thing have launched in June just like every other active would have been a lot more interesting to talk about is it's a summer phone it's a vacation phone it's a travel phone it makes a lot of sense in that regard but now it's going up against Aoife coverage note 8 coverage V 30 coverage it's just gonna get it's just gonna get hammered so I think even here they're they're scaling way back on trying to promote it and I don't even think we're gonna do our little waterpark Trek this year just cuz summer's almost over so we'll see we'll see how it goes all right well hopefully that might mean that you should go just for the sake of going I think that's that's I mean if we do it I'm there because like I said who doesn't want to for work I mean I have to do it for work go to a water park and play with the phone and it's great because even though we've have more water resistant devices out there now you know like an LG you see water resistant regular Samsung's are now water resistant HTC you still like your planner with phones in water and people still act like this is a unique yeah when in Japan taking baths with their phones for from longest time texting something with well burned up from Hugh Richardson at solace geek using the PN weekly hashtag I'd be all over in eight active except , AT&T it is an 18 T exclusive I really wish Samsung would deliver a least a European variant may be called you know the galaxy s a tough or something like that from at-at Peter at hatin Peter Peter Hayden I guess this year why not compare this with all of the other waterproof phones in the water park it's all scientific testing so I will have to take six phones and dunk them all under water and see which phone survives I'm really excited about getting an active into the mix against like an LG g6 I mean yeah as long as they're willing to like you know we don't have to buy a unit that's that's that's gonna be great because at this point we I I spent you know I spent a little money on the you know our no-date coverage are running and it's like it's gonna it's gonna be fun but man I'm not gonna be able to eat so I'm gonna be there so who knows what will help you know I hear they've got like good good food you know in New York I hear that well you can see full details on these stories and more hit pocketnow.com and look for the podcast section to get to this episodes and run down you can also chat with us but what you've been reading up on with hashtag p and weekly also be sure to catch Jaime Rivera and the PocketNow daily on our You Tube channel and now I think it's time for something that's long been overdue again we're going to talk about some listen to me o listeners ly the point where I put the Denton Louis bong we haven't done the bong bong yeah they're like that webOS still is the thing that existed Oh entry a friend of the show also technically our podcast and like he brought up webOS like I'm like immediately on our like when I came around that's was that's still active in 2017 great terrific sort of those servers don't work anymore but it's still a thing right I guess it's still a thing well anyway is enough about webOS because let's talk about something that is and yeah it's it's current and we go on to Aaron linson hello pocket no team I was wondering as a person currently running a g5 from LG would going for a moto z2 force be good I was also wondering would it work for a job on an assembly line as far as the unbreakable display do you think this phone would be perfect for me thanks Aaron linson PS I talked to Michael about accessibility on both Android and iOS when he was noticed I would love to talk about this again as things have changed since I last talked so um I mean what the motives e to force is it has a shatterproof display but it's not specifically if it's not really what I would think of as a durable phone would you agree yeah I mean again if we're sort of parsing a couple different phrases in there and if you're looking for a more rugged phone experience I don't know that I would put this up there as a device that would fulfill that kind of criteria it's I think it's only rated for modest splash resistance not for any kind of enhanced water resistance and the shattered shield display is definitely more flexible so it's gonna help against like a really bad corner drop and not like rippling through and spiderweb cracking your screen but I don't know that it has any kind of specific milspec drop resistance rating at least not that I've been able to look up and someone's gonna correct me on this made out of a stem and series aluminium I'm not sure why didn't you know how the Christian and and those and those there are important build quality things to describe but that still doesn't give us a proper rating you know an expectation of what this thing should be able to survive and plus I still feel like we're gonna be doing our full review on Friday for the Moto z2 and as a spoiler for that review there is a significant trade off for having that shatter shield display out of the box like I have not gotten a screen protector for it yet and I haven't even numerous scratches very very fine light scratches that I wouldn't have on another on a glass that conclusion has long been spoiled by a lot of other people you know we're there those things come with compromises and so if you're worried about drop resistance shatter shield is fantastic tech but I really wish Motorola would deliver a first-party glass screen protector to augment the lifestyle durability of the device the chucking it into a purse it accidentally gets put into a pocket with your keys you know that's a dangerous scenario for the z2 force where it's just sort of a minor bummer if it's any other phone out there where it's probably not gonna scratch up that display question because we've been talking about the galaxy and active them the s7 a who had a shatterproof displayed in it yes but I don't believe it was the same kind of plastic yeah it's not the same kind of thing but did you did you ever get around to like really something that thing not not in like trying to rake it because I have my a seven active here actually within arm's reach it's funny how out of all others am some phones the actives are almost always closer than the regular dresses and so this is yeah I don't see any significant scratches and this was a phone that went down waterslides we did drop testing on it and it's been used pretty aggressively also is the kid phone so we'll fire this up with a bunch of Netflix and let my daughter sort of chuck it around while we're like flying or traveling so she can watch word party and it's in the screen on this is in better shape then the screen on my moto z2 which I've had for a little less than two weeks so over a year of active lifestyle potential situation I just used the brand name of the phone in there the modeling of the phone versus very light use a camera test and the first week of reviewing and this is already a little bit more rough aware than the active is and so that that is definitely I think that's a concern that I I feel needs to be reiterated as we go through talking about these different devices because there's an expectation that phone screens can handle a certain amount of abuse and I don't feel that the Moto Z 2 lives up to that expectation if you were coming from another phone indeed indeed so I mean what do you think in terms of just that kind of blush do you feel like you know if you had to really nail it down because I'm not sure in terms of Aaron's timeline in terms of upgrading but what do you think moto z24 sorry gasps the s7 active well actually I mean if we're talking about durability as being the killer app then yeah I mean if you can go for an active go for an active maybe I also consider a g6 because you're already on a g5 and the g6 is rated for enhanced drop resistance as well though I don't trust a glass backbone as much as I trust the metal back on the V 20 but we have ratings for what we should expect from those phones uh if the killer app though like let's say Aaron you were really into the idea of having a modular phone well then the only game in town is motorola so I don't know if you were using your g5 because you liked swapping between the camera grip or the B&O DAC or something like that then I think you'd really enjoy the Moto mod experience on a moto z2 but if the if the main feature that you're looking for is durability then it's either an active or a g6 right now are the two phones at the top of my list and then below that if you want to save some cash I'm always been a big fan of Kyocera I like what they do with the hydro line I like what they do with the duro force line I think you know they're not always the most exciting phones they usually have pretty terrible cameras but some of the sonic screen tech is really cool for making your phone calls louder and my Brigadier is still the tanky astone I've ever owned it is the workbench phone of oh yeah it's the I accidentally dropped it on a table saw phone is right up there and then in a two-by-four you know and it just it just it's fine Thank You Aaron for I'm not sure whether to go which one to go to because I you know well look at the questions I want to get to a couple of these tweets real careful use these tweets as a transition from Harlow Espina am IV 20 survives from nasty Falls I hope the V 30 will be as robust again I think maybe the most survivable phone I've had four drops has been the v10 again those stainless steel rails were killer from Hugh Richardson I think I think I'm sorry I've got I think Aaron would be better off going g6 with a case and screen protector over a z2 force especially given the price differences and that's actually a pretty pretty solid consideration to if you like LG software you're gonna have a much smoother transition from the g5 to the g6 you can get the g6 pretty cheap if you shop it and all the here I'm showing y'all with scotty vests at the water park i like i should show up in in like a speedo and a Scottevest so many pockets full of leached water yeah that's fun I love it so I wanna I want to track to an earlier question we got right before the podcast started I just have to to scroll back and this is from Andrew Wallace at phat produce and and as we've mentioned on the podcast the keeper of the Star Trek gifs and he has a question about fitbit's new SmartWatch design and he lends it off with we lost pebble for this SmartWatch god dammit god have you pulled up what this thing looks like yet Jules actually I'll screen share so that you can see you can see off of off of me if it will allow me to do it yeah because like I'm between the emails and everything else because this uh there's one that you mentioned at the top of the show that I didn't originally clue include because it was a little it was a little spicy kind of off topic and you know that's pretty oh man so yeah I mean this looks a lot like their other Fitness Smart Watch solution what was the other one it's not the the Fitbit HR is their heart rate they have too many names too many names just too many notes just get rid of some of the notes and it will be easier to listen to yeah charge HR I think it's the charge or something like that but I'm but I mean it was either the charge of the surge and it was almost again almost identical to this kind of layout this sort of square-ish I'm saying I I don't think that Fitbit optioned Pebbles technology and intellectual property to try and deliver a pebble experience I think they were just looking at a catalog of features they probably wanted a handful of patents or one or two individual features in their library they can yeah it just kind of it came with having to buy the entire catalog of pebble tech unfortunately I think the dream of owning a pebble like SmartWatch has probably gone now there was about to say it's in their library they can show it off when they do interviews in that dignified you know politician manner where they have the fully stocked bookcase behind them and you know never really touch anything behind them so great so now if if this render is true that we're looking at a proprietary watch strap design these little clasps that connect the watch strap that's going to be kind of frustrating I like having just regular pins that are standard for different bracelets and I'm not sure I love the way that the same angles back into the the heart rate sensor that depending on how this sort of presses up against the wrist it could stick out sort of awkwardly and then the watch straps gonna pull it into your wrist sometimes that fit can be a little irritating depending on how that's that's all put together I don't know I mean Fitbit wasn't really my go-to solution for any kind of SmartWatch so I'm not overly excited about any future SmartWatch from them and this isn't gonna replace what I loved about pebbles so I don't know I don't know that this is gonna solve fitbit's marketing market share and dropping sales all right so we're moving on to this next meal which is gonna be tough for me too I don't think I'll express any view of it Google gender manifesto that yes again a very sensitive topic and this person does not want to be the you know identified anonymous because they would be in the minority opinion and kind of like the less open-minded opinion here so I'll just read up what they say here I do feel that there is an era perspective that needs to be addressed with regards to the firing of the Google employee that was fired due to his diversity manifesto full disclosure I am a conservative the employee was at most a moderate I do want to see women in the tech fields and we in the text fields and leadership roles however I believe it should be dependent on the skill of the individual rather than on a person's race gender or sexual orientation men and women do think and act differently however this analysis is not inherently a bad thing differences in opinions and ideas are diverse and should be expressed from my observations however many diversity initiatives want to shut down ideals he is in speech considered hateful and divisive however the standards of hateful or divisive speech seem to undermine those who express conservative opinions this firing comes in tandem with YouTube monetizing content it deems quote/unquote controversial this vendetta against arbitrarily defined controversial speech is dangerous and a threat to society a free marketplace of ideas is true intellectual diversity preventing us from going to an Orwellian dystopia ideological shaming should not be practiced I know that you might not agree with what I have to say but I feel that it needs to be expressed all right so with all that going on haha give us give us what's what's right what's wrong do it just everyone's gonna be pissed off with us if we say anything so I want to acknowledge like I said the email I was like you know like this this is an email that we got I'm not sure if you want to cover this and you know surprise whereas we are covering this so again I really don't want to touch this with the 10-foot rhyme mostly because I really well first of all I I decided I like when I when I read the you know headlines I was like I was I'm not gonna touch this I'm not gonna look at this because at some point I want to get away from the reaction get away from the 24 kind of our new cycle of that and you know take a deep look when I actually have leisure and time to there's a lot to unpack and I feel any conversation we could dedicate an entire podcast to this topic and bring on guests and have debates and still ones for women like for example well but I mean and still barely scratch the surface as to some of the larger themes that play here when it comes to diversity in any kind of business business environment and so anything that we comment on here I think your your sort of whatever your disclaimer should stand for this is a developing story in the context of a much larger and divisive topic that we're experiencing on almost all fronts politics media content entertainment technology business this is indicative of a perspective which is evolving throughout our society and we are we're woefully unequipped to do it complete justice in the context of a segment on a podcast yeah now talking about this situation specifically Google is a business and I kind of feel like in a capitalist society Google should be allowed to conduct business how they see fit corporates never a brief speech including their relationships with their individual employees because having worked in some in some larger industries and having worked for some government agencies as a contractor a Department of Energy I know firsthand that anything that's deemed somewhat controversial or explodes into any kind of public discussion becomes a humongous headache for your Human Resources Department so let's say Google did not fire this guy but that this sort of public discussion in these trading manifestos was creating a toxic environment this would be incredible evidence for someone to bring about some kind of discrimination lawsuit against Google like if if a woman or a minority or a minority woman felt that this was becoming a hostile workplace what would be piece of evidence number one it would be this manifesto so do I necessarily agree with the firing from the basis of free speech standpoint no I don't I believe you be allowed to say whatever you want free of government persecution but that this was a public discussion being held on Google resources and in flaming part of Google's employee base I don't see where Google is necessarily wrong to try and nip this in the bud I think it makes him a martyr I think it actually brings its the stress what is it the Streisand effect where when you try and quiet a situation like this it actually draws more attention to it but I don't think that Google was out of bounds and I think that they were probably doing the best that they could in managing a volatile situation and trying to keep their business focused on the best possible outcome from a volatile situation and hoping that it would go away it's obviously not going to go away because of that action but I don't think there was really any other recourse at this point that they could have taken to try and mitigate the fallout from from a situation if we're going to look at this from a public square versus private square so you know take a look at uber and its culture its thrown manifestos regarding its private behaviors within the company it was just it's it was bound to break out and you know it's only you're only as good as your perception and we've seen that in uber 'z actions and ubers declining popularity where lyft has just eaten them up so good having Google seen that yeah it would have made sense for them to like you know what this this doesn't look good and it wouldn't look good in public so I mean there's that there's also the whole bunch of things that we can go into about corporate First Amendment's you know Hobby Lobby recently with the whole contraceptive the SCOTUS lawsuit so beyond that that's difficult about one of these topics though is that it starts it starts opening the floodgates on every other situation I mean again if we're dealing just with this situation at this point it's hard not to bring in the baggage from any other time that an individual has has encountered a perceived like because of having or entertaining political discourse or a political speech in the context of a business environment and that is what I mean that's why we I think we get so hot blooded about these kinds of topics is because it's really difficult to separate from previous situations that have also felt complicated dirty not right something like that I don't think it's a corporations place to try and enforce or engage or promote some kind of free speech ideal if there's a perceived danger of that speech impacting sales and shareholder value a corporation does not exist to promote the First Amendment a corporation exists to deliver shareholder value so again I don't really feel that there's any significant problem with Google's Google's firing this guy from a business perspective but again this is why that we've got to unpack all of this and say like did it have the achieved outcome absolutely not it turned this guy into a martyr into a major talking point on sites like Reddit we're having a conversation about it right now two tracks from yeah it detracts from our main goal which is to talk about mostly about hardware and the associated software services like there are totally valid concerns about the consumer end of this because I you know I always wonder how many women were in the room when people decided you know to make a smart watchful woman and it's all you know crusts encrusted with gems well not addressed you know smartphone is it for to be lavender-colored and to have a jewel that hangs out of the headphones like that's that's always it like if you're if you're trying to you know I feel like you know people are putting in like beside the whole gender diversity or diversity of thought it's having you executed using that in the right way in the first place so that we can not have flops or you know such as the twelve is that the HTC something whatever like that the phone you're referring to but you know it's it's I call it the HTC ovaries a woman would want in a phone and they're not only wrong but like they're completely wrong meet spot don't want to talk about just just the part of the discussion here whether or not you're for affirmative action or against affirmative action some of these other really dicey topics to discuss I mean I think it's been pretty clear over the course of producing this podcast that I lean more towards the bleeding heart than I do towards the conservative end of the political spectrum but this is also the part of the conversation that we need to have is accompanying really delivering the products and services that you care about are they reaching out to the audience's that are going to benefit from this type of focus or this type of initiative and are they losing sight of their customer base if you feel that this is an area where Google is messing up we live in a capitalist society and I don't want to get all libertarian on this issue but the market speaks and you have the ability to influence market decisions based on your purchasing or your or your your own individual monetary power and the ability to have these discussions in public forums free of government persecution and that's what we need to continue to engage in I am concerned about the current sort of liberal initiative in shaming individuals that have opinions different from sort of a current generation liberal mindset I tend to look at most issues as being more economic driven than racially driven I'm a pale skinned Hispanic kid so I benefit from some aspects of privilege but I haven't benefited from all and I am a quarter Native American you know so my perspective to these things is singular and I think that's also one of the other things that we absolutely have to keep sight of and where I've been most disappointed in the liberal conversation is conflating individual experiences with demographic experiences and and how we approach problems we need to have a good balance of both and I don't think anyone would necessarily disagree with looking the numbers of larger overall institutional gathered data versus the numbers and the personal experiences of individuals who have gone through different problems and different challenges in their lives and I think that's where we can come together to have meaningful conversations but it's not going to happen if we continue to listen to the tiniest vocalists minority of angry people in this space then we don't reach any conclusions then we don't solve any problems then we all just get defensive put our shields up and we don't listen to the other person opposite us you know I don't really have a communicator think that yeah the last thing I wanted to say it's not a business's responsibility to foster that conversation I don't want corporations being the the stewards of free speech so if our business has to make it smart that's the marketing department um that's a PR company um if if a business still has to protect their assets and their interests then that's up to the business I I don't see anything wrong with that actually from the libertarian perspective the business should be able to operate how they want to operate and if an individual employee is causing this much grief then that's that's the situation but outside of that corporate responsibility when we were looking at individuals and we're looking at discussion in the greater political realm that's where I feel we need to have more substantive conversations and and a little less of the whinging on both sides from the people who are most emotionally active but not really looking at how we can solve problems really looking more to create thoughtcrime or to to express negativity outside of that and and this is something that I feel is is is probably well represented on both sides of this debate is people with their own personal agendas and trying to stir up some kind of victimhood we're not going to solve problems that way we're only going to make the divides larger for a field of you know this where internet the Internet has opened up communications people have been trying to more like they've created different silos it's always been just the silo of a field of silos and yeah III think this is the you know bring that conversation into the open and being able to not only express yourself in a mature and well thought out in unit manner I don't I think between like the outrage machines that we vote that it's especially it's it's it's hard it's totally is it's like what am I supposed to be angry about today let me go to Facebook oh my god let's get into a more controversial and divisive topic ready go yeah all right so from Peter Hayden basically it blows down to these two questions and there's a whole but accessibility talk but we can get into afterwards but how are the current impacts of voice assistant fragmentations affecting us right now especially with the HTC u 11 having access to three so we have the sense companion we have Google assist and then we have the new Alexa integration just like it's it's a we're having fun I guess and then there's also the central hub which is supposed to play nicely with all of them so it's like right yeah this is this is useful to us this is this is supposedly useful to last but it's it's too many at once well you know again it's one of those things like what do we really expect people to dig into when they're going to try and take advantage of like a software assistant and I just feel that there is a terrible lack of conveyance in what these things can can do and unfortunately consumers are only apt to give them a try once or twice and then the novelty wears off and I don't think they're really gonna you know dive down that rabbit hole to see what else they can do or when the software gets updated so I think when the reasons why we've seen so many changes like Google Google now Google Assistant Google AI all these different sort of permutations of voice search on Android why Google keeps renaming it is that people will come and try the new app even though it's really kind of the same evolution of what they had before they just weren't willing to like keep checking in to see what those new features are those new service as a new logo and everything and tents yeah I guess so yeah the whole primary you know fragmentation I really like how Peter points this out for example with Philips hue lighting Alexa will set a scene but not a color and Google will set a color but not yeah it's complimentary but it's not like like you'd have to call it up in the first place so if you have both all right Google set a night scene or it's set a set an orange color and then Alexa said that that's not that's not efficient that's not right I mean obviously the only correct answer is Cortana no I mean again sorry I'm trying not to hack up my lungs on this mic um no this is this is why this field is still so wide open these are the first baby steps in trying to interact with data in services in another in another way not just I stare at glowing rectangle I touch glowing rectangle it's can we really incorporate meaningful and emotionally contextually relevant interactions experiences and use something like audio can we use something like augmented reality what what else can we do to push the boundaries on how we keep people plugged in at the same time potentially solving some of the etiquette and dangerous problems with utilizing mobile technology if you caught the the periscope last week we got down this really deep conversation just about you know social etiquette and then also uh tech mobile technology where you know your smartphones are probably more responsible for fatalities in this country than terrorist attacks you know if we look at the driving statistics on distracted driving and we're not in as much of an uproar as we are about national security but we could be taking big her grandeur steps to try and solve this problem or at least mitigate some of this issue before we get to self-driving cars um this is another one of those baby steps smartwatches some kind of heads-up display better audio integration better wireless audio solutions these are all the little baby steps that we can take to try and help correct some of these problems but ultimately I don't think we get there until we can get a more comprehensive software package that can take more of the heavy lifting off our plate so you know I'm gonna mention I want an IBM Watson phone and better automation around us for certain sort of easily distracted scenarios things like better cruise control better radar assist better self piloting capabilities and ultimately full-on autonomous driving vehicles at that point then I think we've got a lot more room to experiment with how do we use our phones because right now in Southern California especially every time you pull up to a stoplight it's scary every single time I'm behind the wheel of a car there is almost always some potential altercation most of the time it would have been something like you know almost getting rear-ended or someone sort of drifting into my lane or something else but it was you know it was last week trying to make a left-hand turn and realizing that even though I'm on a solid red because I had to wait in the intersection for people to finish coasting through that long after the red someone wasn't going to stop and they were looking down in their lap you're like I'm about to get into a head-on accident head-on collision with a car going 45 miles an hour with my daughter in the backseat and I had to pull like an emergency turned back into the middle of an intersection just to avoid it and I don't know that he ever looked up so I mean like this stuff happens every single time I'm behind the wheel of a car and a lot of it is influenced by how we use mobile technology indeed indeed I don't mean to shorten that conversation but it's just that this next one and last one is is a mouthful before you do that I just wanted this one this one tweet from Harlow Espina using the p-n weekly hashtag Google assistant has been ignoring me I've been trying to use Bixby I think she's mad at me I think the best way that you can actually prevent that is by supporting the Kickstarter with the case for the Galaxy s8 that actually what we all know that Google did Grudge though I mean look at how long we had to go off air just for streaming because we talk so much crap about hangouts great some flowers maybe some chocolates I don't know what she's into but you can win her back I'm rooting for you Harlow I think you can do it go go do it go send those flowers to the Googleplex I guess yeah please so last one and for all of you who have tuned in for like t-mobile revel and all that stuff I think we can definitely there's a whole bunch that we can get to here but um how do we tackle us all right so Brian Davis is a Sprint employee he has been for many years and he just wrote a huge email it's not huge little email is a manifesto actually I mean Wireless and when you think about beats you know Yui comes to all the marketing and all the the hype around it and you know for sound that objectively is not yeah you know is like if you it's not good I guess or it's not it's not proper but our basis it's you know it's doing very very well for itself yes it is I so like this is way too long to actually go through but I have a few questions that we can turn on one by one that I bought them down to you so John Legere or John Ledyard turned from man in suit to rebel program lean back when he was first inaugurated as CEO in 2012 that t-mobile was fairer and cheaper than dumb and Dumberer with no contracts and all that stuff so why I feel much hype and why the anger why that why the the fist in the air to all these carriers was it just a good idea to break that BS or or what but I think you know a major part of t-mobile's relationship during the John John ledger ledger I keep saying Legere I know that's wrong that means you know like with his reign as CEO we've found a company that has found a way to again emotionally resonate with consumers to try and develop a relationship beyond just you know I give them money and I get cell service again they made t-mobile he made helped make t-mobile into a lifestyle commentary you know so I I don't do business with Verizon or AT&T because I'm younger and hipper and I care about you know fair business practices and all these things and and whether or not any of the stuff is completely true it's it's just those talking points that branding that marketing the uncarrier has done very well for this company and I don't think you can do that without delivering some incendiary or controversial headlines right if you don't have people talking about your brand you don't exist and so I think that's been the big strategic victory here is they stood as a thumb in the eye to the 1880s and Verizon's of the wireless market and it's worked that they've become a very solid third place competitor when John started as CEO I think they were a distant fourth place competitor behind Sprint and no company has really managed to find that messaging that really resonates Verizon used to have it with network reliability and stability but that's become less of a concern for consumer potential customers out there you know I think contracts were the dirty word about five years ago people really wanted to especially when they started breaking their and neat little phones their iPhones that they've started to appreciate and you know they just wanted to get out of their contract and especially when they had all those like up to $650 a line if you move to us right now do it and they got like 10 million subscribers or something like that in just the first year that they executed on that when t-mobile went to no contract in 13 2013 did it have to go with these equipment installment plans like was it really the best route to do that because nowadays were switching over to leasing ants you know where people had more flexibility even though there's a little bit of a payments jockeying at the end of things but you know it allows them to move up but I don't think we had to start somewhere because 0% financing on all these uh all these phones you know this six hundred seven hundred eight hundred dollar purchases or just it's you know you had to start somewhere in order to build credit like this wasn't just you know subsidized and pay it and pay for whole this is um actually making sure that there was revenue that was coming in and became tea to the creditors in rice yeah so no I cuz I completely agree you know this look at how long it's taken to deprogram the American customer out of the normal two-year contract cycle we used to go through so you know what an equipment installment plan was easy to explain and easy to to add to a bill in a way that customers could understand what was happening and how they were getting their phone and what it was going to cost them and it set the stage for now these new leasing options these new leasing plans and the update to the jump you know you can switch your phone on t-mobile every thirty days now it's all smart packaging so do we really expect consumers out there to be flipping their phone every thirty days no in fact I doubt many consumers will flip their phone more often than they used to be allowed to where you could only switch your phone over three times a year I'd be shocked if a majority of their customers flip their phone more often than that but doesn't it feel good to know that you could it's kind of like buying like an expanded insurance package you know like you know we also have like valet service and you know Triple A and you know fix-a-flat and fuel recovery if you're stranded on the highway and like how many people use those but it feels good to pay for them knowing that the errand that's kind of where I see t-mobile currently right now is a lot of the stuff people aren't gonna use like international rates and all that all that jazz probably not but people want to know that they have it even if they never use it although fair's fair it's all you know you have to you know if you want trading it has to be in good condition I think insurance used to be included but not the case anymore in terms of it you have to make sure that you know if you want to protect your device you have to purchase an extra nine to twelve dollars a month so that's in itself and then there's also the deductible so I think it's still that's still kind of a thing that we need to solve and someone's gonna solve it may be it's gonna be Sprint I mean they I don't know in terms of t-mobile one when we had that little change with Verizon unlimited and the map with apples to apples the features are the same for the same price and t-mobile's I'm not sure how to moles trying to UM image themselves because oh it's is it better their value because their same price or didn't like the standard team over one for 70 or 75 dollars a month and you get throttled video streaming and all that look no hot spot so I mean is it I mean it's providing the options and it's getting but but I would also ask what what did we have as a plan prior to Verizon returning to an unlimited plan it was all bucketed most that we had I think was like so this this to me really stands as one of those opportunities that businesses can still compete in this sector because for a while there really felt like every carrier had exactly the same plan with a couple different little tweaks to it or different fee structures or you end up eventually arriving at pretty much the same thing across the board and before ver eyes returns to unlimited t-mobile was pretty aggressive about promoting this kind of service so this is an opportunity for another company to come in and compete with a better product or a different product or a more expensive or more or a less expensive product and so when viewed in its current state right now for a lot of people that Verizon plan might be a better deal but when viewed in a larger context of how these plans evolved and how we got to this point we wouldn't be dealing with a Verizon unlimited plan or an AT&T unlimited plan that wasn't tied directly to DirecTV subscribership if it hadn't been for Sprint and an t-mobile offering different rate packages different buy-ins different perks you know ending you know paying for contracts stuff like that if the smaller players hadn't been putting pressure on the bigger players then we'd also be in like two gigabytes of data is only a hundred and fifty bucks a month you know like we'd be in the same in the same boat there would be no incentive for 18t and Verizon to directly compete against each other without some kind of disrupter coming in yeah and all right so this one I'm gonna have to tread carefully on as well t-mobile is said to spread its towers thin where other carriers go for density and better bandwidth and speed and in city centers he's accusing them of cheaply pumping up pops4 towers in a city it's just one tower and then they spread that around so I mean if yeah you know at more say than us in terms of knowing about that but I don't know I cannot speak from any kind of actual market knowledge like I don't know what t-mobile's tower distribution looks like directly compared to the competition we do know what we do now yeah that's what I'm saying is getting to what we do know we are still talking about the third place formerly fourth place carrier in the United States who didn't benefit as much from other acquisitions as t and Verizon did you know one of the reasons why these companies have this kind of penetration that they did was the sort of mad dash to buy up smaller competitors remember how many other players used to be in this market and and you know one of the reasons why I think Sprint got hammered so hard after buying Nextel was how different those technologies were and how long it took them to reconcile those towers so when we look at t-mobile I look at a company that benefited significantly from the failed buyout from AT&T subsidizing huge chunks of their business on 18 T's dime and one of the things that I think they've been a bit more future focused on have been things like spectrum buying a better building penetrating spectrum and I know at fat produce Andrew Wallace is probably flipping that I'm going to mention 600 megahertz but you can have fewer towers if you're putting your money on the ability to spread that signal further per tower does that fully make up the difference between having a better network of towers I don't think so but again we're talking about a service that's trying to bill itself as being more cost effective and I think that's an opportunity for consumers to know that there could be some compromises in some areas of the country because of that whether or not a consumer is gonna do that kind of homework I find dubious but I think that's the reality of the market you know you do pay more for certain aspects of wireless and carrier coverage than you will for others and I don't think that t-mobile is necessarily being anti consumer duplicitous in how their services are advertised once we get over that initial like you know like Sprint saying oh all carriers are within 1% you're like yeah sort of not really but that's all branding that's all marketing you know so again if a consumer cares about that kind of clarity they're gonna look it up if a consumer doesn't care about that clarity and it's disappointed in the service they'll switch to another carrier I mean that's kind of how this markets gonna have to exist the short-term yeah especially with you know it's kind of it's always been kind of hard to actually do ground tests of every single thing it's just like word of mouth oh this I have t-mobile and it's working well but you know you don't have even the infrastructures to test in the cities that we live in but I can say that like t-mobile especially around the valley is more than competitive with AT&T and Verizon offerings and I think the only carrier that's still struggling out here again we're still talking about their retrofit for their towers of Sprint where it could be one block to the next where I've got screaming fast LTE and then like nothing as I'm driving around you know like wow this this cuts in and out really frequently t-mobile has been pretty consistent for where I live and is usually decent enough in denser populations and it like downtown LA like it's fine it's not really an or worse than 18t yeah yeah and well I guess you know when it comes to like doing all that homework I mean aren't we there to help them out aren't we there to I mean as best we can but again it's it's I I would very you know I would take my anecdotal experiences with all four major carrier networks with a humongous Boulder of salt because it's impossible to have a good sort of shotgun spread of locations around the megapolis which is the Greater Los Angeles area and just how different population density shifts around freeways can have a huge impact from day to day as to how you're testing wireless carrier signal reliability signal strength etc so you know it's one of those things like I think I would have to dedicate a couple months to devising standardized tests to come up with general trends that you still wouldn't necessarily rely on to make a customers purchasing recommendation but it would just give you a better a better overview of what carrier signal was like over the course of that month and even then it would be an incomplete discussion you know like if we were Consumer Reports we could dedicate more manpower for every city to try and accomplish that in a more efficient fashion but you know I would have to give up on every single phone review article editorial podcast for a solid month to come up with a really thin surface examination of the market as it stands today or you could just you know not recommend surface products and never do that because your cert because he found out that reliability is actually a little bit worse than the average laptop so that's what they did totally surface damn it that's a good punch darn it was a good pun no it's true I mean did you saw the their thing today about retracting their recommendations right for retracting what recommendations up or the surface pro so no not the surface pro but they said yeah it's oh yeah but up oh that's that we're kind of ending on a downer and we're kind of just watch so let's listen from Andrew Wallace at fat produce give me all the 600 megahertz and he's got a great Captain Kirk screaming Geoff that that's always exciting from Peter hatin hatin I guess the success of t-mobile is to ask how many people talk about their carrier out of interest again I mean if you make your company a part of someone's lifestyle they will be more loyal it works for Apple it works for clothing it works for bags and purses why shouldn't go ahead but I think t-mobile has done the best job of being sort of an active participant in their customers lives then the other carriers have from from Renato not long ago we were talking about telecom wanting to get rid of t-mobile us now they want to implement its management back home in Germany I think that's a smart play again this this market is fiercely competitive so any kind of emotional or consumer edge is going to work to your fashion and then we did get a number of comments from people about the the Google manifesto and I'm gonna try and take some of those off off podcaster offline just a lot of people have very strong feelings about things like you know free speech and corporate pressure on different types of speech and I I really want to sort of respect those viewpoints some of them conflicting with my own but again it's it's difficult and I want to you know anyone who's trying to have that conversation with me to understand and have a little patience that if this starts broadening out or tangents start propping up or people start changing topics or changing directions or talking about other situations or other problems then like I have to bow out of that conversation because I don't think it serves anyone when we get stuck in a sort of ever descending circular conversation of oh yeah well someone else did something terrible oh yeah we'll remember when this happened and that was bad I think it's more important to stay focused on the actual circumstances of this one situation and to try and hash out how we feel about that rather than trying to apply it as something indicative of every single time we talk about diversity or gender or racial issues as it pertains to business and technology so again I really want people to understand like I'm trying to respect how sensitive this topic is and it's not that I'm gonna be ignoring people but they're just I have limited bandwidth to get into too much of an online debate in 140 characters or less per per talking yes indeed 2:30 a.m. this Nightline ABC News townhall regarding gender diversity and race is running way too long I think we have like the stereo 11:30 and then they ran until like 2:30 he was like crazy I you know again I wish we had better better avenues for a long-form discussion in in sort of appropriate places because a lot of the stuff I think is being dragged into arenas that aren't really the best fit for this kind of conversation you know like Twitter is the worst place to try and talk about this type of topic you know trying to follow the threat of a conversation or trying to have someone expand on a point of view or an opinion is is ruthlessly terrible when you have that kind of character restriction on trying to accomplish your your idea or your talking point all right make sure that you have your tip telepathy buckets on and we'll see you again real soon absolutely you know until we have like an empathy sensor in our in our social media it's just gonna it's just gonna be really dicey but there you have it folks another episode of the pocket net weekly has come and gone this show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter just got done saying it's not the best place to have really in-depth conversations where Jules is outpoint Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on Twitter Instagram Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com also now in Spanish pocketnow.com we're basically everywhere shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews anywhere a podcast can be reviewed once again we want to thank this week's sponsor hellofresh they're helping us keep the lights on here with tasty home-cooked meals definitely use that promo code pocket now 30 to save some cash but ultimately there would not be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air since 2012 the pocket now weekly we'll be back next week with all kinds of delicious 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