Gadgetory

text oh okay cool yeah yeah basically okay and there he goes all right so let's start off this episode of the PocketNow weekly is brought to you by ops genie if you've been listening for the past several episodes you know by now that if you're running a business and problems arise you need to have your devs and op teams ready so why don't you already have ops genie because with herbs genie your next incident doesn't stand a chance maybe you need to try it in which case you should visit ops genie comm to sign up for a free company account for up to five team members no credit card required did you hear that no credit card required that's Oh PS GE and I e.com never miss an alert again with ops genie from Atlassian it's a good thing I did that ad read before we started this because welcome hello everybody and welcome to our last show of 2018 episode 338 of the weekly brought to you by pocket now and xda-developers recorded on this day Friday the 28th of November technically well for a lot of people this is the last work day of the year so kind of the same for us should acquaintance be forgot swell we think it should be I said November December Jules is just let me redo the intro alright hello everybody and welcome to our last show of 2018 episode 338 of the weekly brought to you by pocket now and xda-developers recorded on today Friday the 28th of December should acquaintance be forgot we think it shouldn't we should be making this a December to remember and we're not talking about car ads we're digging into the past 12 months of local tech milestones I'm checking up on where we are as we head into 2019 I'm Joshua Vergara what's going on everybody and as you can see since this is a year-end celebration we decided to break out some of the libations as it were we're using this as an excuse to day drink the end of the year and technically this was my idea but I have to admit this is probably a bad idea because for the rest of the guys it's about 2 p.m. from all of you right for me it's one oh it's one ok so at least it's after lunch for you it's 11 a.m. so this is breakfast I'll see you guys at the AAA meetings okay authority meetings that too but the alcoholic anonymous III did have breakfast so I'm not gonna get too crazy on this so it's fine but I am having a McKellen 12:00 a little mini bar Edition I wasn't gonna bring a full bottle to my office I'm back in my office by the way after being home a number of times from the past few episodes because I was sick but I'm finally back in my office with a mini bottle of Macallan 12 joining us for the moment is hi mate Aveda who's drinking from a half empty bottle of what's called an Glen Grant which I actually genuinely like even if there's no year here cheers everybody mmm all right and Brendan minimun is also on board what are you drinking over there isn't like makers 46 or something or what yeah so maker's mark which makes bourbon came out with a like a longer aged more premium product called makers 46 they only had it for like a year and I have no rocks here so I'm drinking it neat and let's just say it's hard to drink Hardy drink bourbon I'm not what do you expect when you touch it I apologize for the rocks everybody this is Latin America it is 95 degrees outside so I mean eat chill for any of our West Coast people especially in Southern California it is like 70 degrees outside and the Santa Ana winds have come through so you might hear some whistling in the background because it's really really windy outside kind of came out of nowhere and finally in case you cared to wonder our producer extraordinaire Jules Wong is in the booth today is sipping a bright and crisp Bantam wunderkind cider so whatever that is very refreshing on on Jules is part and speaking of which I like I said I ate before this I'm gonna be fine it's not gonna be a drunk cast I just thought we should drink for our final episode of the year as we move into 2019 there's a lot to look forward to in 2019 but let's look back a little bit by going through stories each and every month and just sort of recount all of the stuff that happened to 2018 give a few of our reactions so we're gonna start with a rumor that started way back in January of this year that finally came to fruition very very recently and it looks like it's going to be something going into 2019 the foldable smartphone if you remember that the this particular photo that we have inside of the story looks really awesome that's not quite what we got at the Samsung developer conference but it's it's the foldable display the foldable phone as it were any reactions to Samsung's rumors from January finally coming to fruition near the end of this year but now we're probably gonna see it I think I hope we're gonna see it at CES in a couple in like a week or so the thing about it is they we've been covering foldable rumors for four years man or years like that image I think is around four years old from aquire it's not from where us from like the galaxy s3 that's and it's from a concept video that they came up with at some point I believe and so I'm just you know it's not that I like what they came up with I'm just glad we're done with it like I'm glad that they finally just here here just here it is it's true it's real I honestly like it's hilarious every time like we would sit down with Sam and Diego talking about the scripts of the daily and the Indian to the Yeti owner and I was like I don't want to talk about foldable stuff anymore like ëgod man like I'm tired of it that you know so it's like finally it's just there I honestly still don't care about it I think it's a solution in search of a problem but only the only companies can prove us right or wrong you know true oh go ahead Brendan I was gonna say Jaime said um you know when they took it out they were like here it is here's what it looks like but what you didn't hear them say is we have no idea how this is going to work we don't know how we can mass-produce this and it's going to be $2,000 we don't know how to get the price down so it's it's super early but I think like I said before I think this is a super compelling idea that you can have a pocketable device that is phone sized and yet if you want a larger screen for many different use cases watching video sharing photos or just having a better content viewing experience this is going to be v4 factor if they can figure out the price and the technology but I think this is gonna commemorate the return of the holster cuz there's no way you're gonna pocket that thing I think that's the go in your belt or something like that yeah I agree the way that they showed it even though it was under dim lights it was clear that thing is gonna be thick so we're gonna see what what the actual thickness of that phone is but like we have said on a number of different episodes before the we're okay with the phones being thicker if it means we get more out of them so this might be the case with foldable smartphone by the way we are looking at the live chat I am looking at it as well I understand that there's a bit of an audio lag in my video I finally found a workaround to get my full camera working as a webcam by something I didn't account for when we got into this episode is that the three puts a little bit lagged so please bear with me I can't really fix it for this episode but it's something I want to fix for 2019 obviously because I want this to be what it looks like every time I come on the show well the video quality is great so yeah that's what I really wanted I don't want to rely on the Lord knows I don't want to rely on the camera from this laptop so the nose cam exactly you've been looking alright so onto our next story now in this one in particular has to do with smart watches now um something do you guys even remember what what this particular product was because this is something that I didn't even catch catch wind of like back in the auditory so it's an it's an Android wear concept that's part adapter in part case with like funky wings it's just kind of like another Kickstarter story that tried to make something out of maybe whatever you didn't need to make something out of kick starters are not only like par for the course but they are something that's so common that we see I get really mad when I go to like my gear websites and I see a product I think is really cool but then at the bottom of it instead of saying bye it says pledge it's like super annoying some Kickstarter's from 2018 did you guys ever like pledge to any Kickstarter this year nope really you're not a kickstarter guy at all not really man I mean there have been great stories just as much as they've been there been bad ones you know people don't and the anything I feel like Brandon you may have you done a Kickstarter before like you've pledged you know I've done a couple of things my most recent one that I can remember was a product called the lift light and what it was this beautiful piece of mahogany with a levitating light on top and the cool thing was that it used magnets to levitate but it uses induction to send a little bit of electricity to the light bulb so that when you tap the base this floating light bulb turns on it's so cool that's the last thing I can read well this one is like I totally get it if you have a really if what you think is a great idea you have the means to actually create a prototype of it and see if it actually work in the real world but this particular concept is shell so these wings are supposed to have a speaker of receiver radio antennas for LTE and Wi-Fi but it just adds all this bulk to what is already considered kind of a bulky piece of equipment which is an Android wear SmartWatch and the thing about it is it's not like if battery life is great on wearables right now as it is I mean like like and the other thing is like my dad's been wearing the Huawei watch too recently and he has defaulted to making phone calls from the watch and he actually loves it just the way it is with the spiel out yeah that's interesting I think I've only ever done that on a SmartWatch one time and it was for a review just to see what it was like and I think it was the gear what was the gear that like wrapped around it was like a oh my god the gear the gear s the first year and the first gear s right yeah that was I still have that I still have that watch by the way well I mean we'll see what uh what 2019 has in store for smartwatches but I do think that as far as smartwatches ago and that necessarily Kickstarter's because they're always going to be massively weird Kickstarter's out there that you may or may not pledge for and you might I pledge for something at the beginning of the year still haven't gotten it yeah pair of smart glasses Jules you're right Jules just for the man in the comments isn't the new B alpha a thing I've seen it I don't care about it that's right because they they're calling it a phone but it's not and it's just again and since the solution in search of a problem what does it solve how is this better than a phone is the question yeah it's cool it's just it's just bragging rights like all these companies need this like Vanguard product this product that just totally defies thing and it's like a marketing stunt where all they do is get attention through the product but then what they sell you is cheaper phones you know and stuff like that and so it's it's just the way to get good publicity it was like our best video from Aoife it was the video that performed the best but it was really literally the product that I found the least future on I mean it wasn't it supposed to launch now in q4 and it hasn't launched I think so but then again the foldable Samsung phone was supposed to be November clearly that wasn't the case right you know it's it's not that easy yeah okay so as we are drinking a little bit on this episode not that we would actually do it but there gonna be a lot of stories on today's episode where we're gonna kind of pour one out for a lost soldier in the world of Android and this is one of the first ones who used to swipe back in the day oh no I didn't really so good at swipe it was ridiculous like I got so good at swipe I could type paragraphs without even looking at the keyboard and now that all the keyboards out there like G board and really every single keyboard that matters has that swipe functionality built in swipe just a swipe with the Y doesn't even need to exist anymore because it's built in every keyboard but if you if you devote time to learning how to do gesture typing on a keyboard it's just so fast and it's all one-handed with your thumb so for me the problem with swipe was that it was originally not multilingual and so the only keyboard back in the day that was multilingual was SwiftKey that was the first one they did the best job at it and ever since then I've been a SwiftKey user mainly because I literally speak to people in two different languages every day all the time and so I can't just the fall to one I just couldn't commit to that well oh I just realized I should probably be saying when these stories were coming out so this one in particular we went from January an hour in February this one is about how nuanced ended development of swipe and dragging keyboard which I remember correctly dragging keyboard was the voice dictation one and the so nuance was just like both of our keyboards for Android sorry we're not gonna be able to do it anymore and it was just like it was really odd you know to see that okay it almost made perfect sense right because when you have a keyboard that brings functionality like swipe typing it only became a matter of time before other keyboards took that same function out you made it their own I mean clearly after all they're probably a lot of Android users out there who just use G board as it's already in the phone and you know they just swipe using that I can't really talk too much I do miss swipe don't get me wrong but I was one of those weirdos that used other keyboards there was one where you did two finger swiping so like you could type really fast with that thing but it required both fingers and and then clearly I'm the biggest fan of like I'm one of the biggest fans of like the BlackBerry phones right now so clearly I'm not by the way if you ever use swipe or do swipe typing on the on the BlackBerry key one and Ketu you're in for a bad time let me just say wait wait so swipe typing works on the key key to nearly no you got to get the virtual keyboard to come up and then you do that stupid I know you lose so much screen by doing that thanks remember this kind of goes back a little bit you know new nuance makes the Dragon products back back in the day there's a product called Dragon Dictation did you guys have an experience it was one of the first voice to speech engines way before Google and Siri could do it and in order to train it you had to spend hours reading sentences for it to pick up what you say and it's just it's amazing because now you don't need to do that you just speak to Google assistant or your keyboard with a little microphone and it's just remarkably accurate with no training it's amazing yeah pouring one out for swipe I still liked the design of swipe like it's gray it's dark and then the sexual swipe line was yellow yeah or do you remember fiddly no one said back in the Pocket PC days there was this there was a special keyboard layout that they came up with called fiddly which is that accurate e it's our core it is you me to say it's fiddly and so it was just a way for your stylist did not have to move like the the word the letters that you would use the lease were on the outer portion and then it was just the word the letters that you would type the most for in the middle that was a I think I didn't remember that we've come a long way do you guys remember anything any other apps over the course of 2018 that were relics no for me for me the app that has been relic for years and I wish somebody bought it I wish I had the money to buy it was mailbox no I missed mailbox from the Dropbox came up with and they just killed the a P because I guess didn't get any funding for it that's hilarious for me the best mail app ever period wasn't that previously a company or was that that journey to Ella no so a company turned into outlook which I hate I do I for me it's like the worst it's it's a good it's a good mail it tries to be a mailbox ripoff and it just didn't do a good job well now we have inbox which is not quite the same thing but a child' inbox is dead they killed it remember they okay so fine that's one thing that died this year the Gmail which has a terrible iPad application it's not so good on iOS it's like whatever whereas mailbox was started as an iOS first step and then involved to Android and it work just as well on the phone as it did on the computer as it did on the tablet but it's another it's another example of functionality making it onto let's say the the big guns of of the app ecosystem because like the whole idea of mailbox was you swipe to delete that way you get to inbox zero but you can do the same thing in Gmail now you can swipe over and it archives all your emails and whatnot so you can get to inbox zero in much the same way you can it's just like in mailbox you think it was I don't I don't know what it is what it was about mailbox it was the simplicity where Gmail like for example for me the problem with Gmail is not is not that you can't do the swiping for me the problem with Gmail is the way that it orders email where the first email that you get is not the it's not the last one it's actually the first one it's like if you've got like a 20 emails conversation it is a freak nightmare to find which is the latest one yeah I remember one more thing real quick um one of the reasons I think you like mailbox Jaime is because when it first came out there was a waitlist you couldn't use it until like what there's like a hundred thousand people in front of you and Jaime he likes what he can't have on it we don't have to go into detail about it I wanted to put one more like pour out for another app that died and I don't remember if it was 2018 or 2017 you mentioned Outlook I miss sunrise calendar let me just say that that was a good one speaking of things that never actually came to fruition there were a lot of rumors in the end of February saying that we would get an iPhone se - clearly not the case oh not yet not yet with the way numbers are for Apple right now I think that se - is what they made well they were saying that this was going to have even older specifications like ones that would not be in line with what WWDC would bring in 2018 even like an old 810 processor only two gigabytes of RAM it would have touch ID which I think might be the biggest thing that people miss like if an se came out maybe I would have had touch ID and we would have had at least one version of it but they went all in with the design of the ten for the X of 810 s 10 or whatever what was it the flop you mean yeah well there does that does that sound like a good trade-off that we didn't get an se but instead we got a 10 R was that even enough or did you want to see an se you want to Brandon it's durable affordable phone come back Brandon you review the 10r what are your thoughts on that thing um it's overpriced and I don't really like it that much but I did use the SE because back then and it's still true today you can't get a premium small phone and the SE has like what a four-point xperia eggsy whatever a prima coffee compact yeah yeah so so the SE had a really smells like a 4.5 inch screen but it had you know the a9 processor really good camera system and I had a lot of fun with it for a while because it's like a toy but inevitably you realize like this screen is so small that I'm missing out on so many things so then I went back to my you know 5.56 inch phone but I think an SE two could be awesome especially since there's a lot of people like my dad and grandma that want touch ID back because it was so simple and so easy yeah I know a lot of people that don't like face ID they just don't they prefer to go back to the pin password than use face ID well yeah that's true that's true the was the size of the SE screen was below four right orange oranges for I think an ST - with like 4.7 yeah like if they would use the same chassis I mean pretty much they would follow on they pretty much use that design for the iPad pro right now so it's like just keep that design in a way to mimic the iPad pro the design end and just you know go screen on screen in which were the rumors in the end that's that was the way the the rumors pointed that it was gonna be mmm well speaking of screens one trend that happened in 2018 well okay it was it was coming for a long time clearly there is a bit of an advantage to having something like an AMOLED display on the phone I mean a lot of manufacturers that are not Samsung or even using Emma LEDs in their particular displays Huawei being one of them LG on the other hand what they're g7 earlier in the year this this story comes out from March they decided to stick with an LCD display despite the fact that they even had an always-on display on it so potentially you're using the entire screen rather than just the specific pixels in order to get that always-on display the question here is LCD now being more considered a medium tier a mid tier feature is OLED really the premium feature in terms of smart screen a smartphone displays the thing about LCDs is they are still less expensive to produce they're actually still more capable in certain things like refresh rate so I'm not saying I'm a fan of LCDs like I like there's nothing wrong with the LCD on this razor phone - for example it's just and the refresh rate it's I just I I get so pissed off the moment the phone turns on for whatever reason at night and I get to see that like white screen at night for the always-on display it's just God that looks so bad ya know so aesthetically I don't find else used to be superior that's the problem yeah yeah indeed how about how about you Brandon every time I use an LCD unless it's an Apple LCD I really miss having an an OLED display and I should say that AMOLED is a Samsung thing OLED is not yeah oh that's true yeah that's a good distinction to make but LED displays let's say no so yeah but so LED would be pretty much else LCD displays is literally an LED there's an LED backlight for yeah mo that is and it's it's it's literally it's OLED technology that whole and that's the terminal yeah that would there would be the correct term where every individual pixel lights itself there we go yeah which is the distinction right so you can you can activate certain pixels if you want them to beat so that's the reason why I always on display is kind of became a thing and that's why OLED or AMOLED displays became sort of sort of a hot commodity for all of that but clearly goes like literally you can have an always-on display with an LCD there's just gonna be a trade-off there and whether or not it actually means lower battery life is I don't know if anyone's actually fully corroborated that no but that's the thing that's that's the point that I was getting right now I want you to think about what phones had the best battery life of the year one of them being the razor phone to which you have like literally the whatever it is that they did with it with LCD displays late lately I don't know what it is man but they are they're the ones that bring out the best battery life even with their always-on displays you know if they figured out something and it started it started ever since LG came up with that quantum dot technology and they brought it on the g4 then I don't know what they did with the g5 I hated the screen on the g5 but it's evolved into a point where I feel that LCD displays are more power efficient than then oh the no LEDs hmm okay fair enough we'll see where that trend goes in the new year so yeah I mean if you're in the if you're in the live chat or in the comment sections or if you are on Twitter let us know what you think about the battle between OLED and LCD displays and whatnot let's move on to our next story which would be about the iPhone Kim now here's another rumor that was a that was sort of circling around the new iPhones was the whole idea that with the new iPhones that were coming out in 2018 that the iPhone 10 would be dead and buried when in reality at at the announcement for the iPhone 10s and the 10s max as it turned out the iPhone 10 was still going to be very much in the lexicon it was going to be considered the lower tier device that you could still buy if you didn't want to upgrade all the way to the 10s but the thing is that up until this point the reason why people were thinking the iPhone 10 was sort of dead or even buried especially when the new phones were going to come out is because they actually didn't sell as well that again was a trend that started to go upward because with the with the announcement of the new phones people were like well maybe I'll just go for last year's phone because there's not too much that's different the battle between iPhone 10 and 10s is that as does the iPhone 10 deserve to still be around now that we've used the 10s and the 10s max like how do we feel about the iPhone tenant self still being in the lexicon so I hate it no it was just like the 10s is everything the iPhone son should have been at the time of the 10 every flagship Android phone had a great camera if not most of them and if you would grab the iPhone 10 for whatever reason that was not making a video oh my god like the photography on the iPhone 10 was trashed compared to every Android flagship I think that the Year where I like totally can my iPhone like totally for the first time ever was last year because of that iPhone 10 because it was incredibly expensive and you just weren't getting your money's worth sure it looked different and it was new and everything you want for me things like photography were important things like battery life are important and none of these things were nailed by the iPhone time and another consideration about that that time when the iPhone 10 came out hi man this happened to me - is that the pixel - was out and you know for the price yeah for the ten you thought this has to do something really well at least the camera should be great but it wasn't that great especially compared to the pixel - exactly that then that was again that was the major problem it's not that the iPhone 10 was a bad phone it's just it was really bad compared to everything else that was the problem would you recommend the iPhone 10 to users who may not have the same amount of money to get the iPhone 10 asked for though I would I would highly recommend paying the extra $400 or the extra whatever to pay the I to buy the iPhone 10s like I would be like no no no like there's there's a thing about whatever it is that Apple did with dynamic range on photography gets its correlation you know like the smart HDR is like my god I'm doing into the ground stories and I'm like it's probably a little too warm for my taste but I can't deny how visually pleasing it is like I'm like this is the perfect candy for consumers it doesn't matter what I'm doing in the dynamic range on this phone it's like insane like stupid insane like you'd like right now I've done a couple of videos where people can't really tell that I'm using an iPhone 10s as my B camera for a lot of puerile intern videos they just can't tell but it's not a professional camera it is that good for video and for photography as well like again too long for my taste but it doesn't matter it doesn't change the fact that it's great mmm I do think it's interesting that the smart HDR actually does work in video as well which is something that yeah like I wasn't I wasn't really that big on it and I still think that for people out there who prefer a little bit more contrast in their videos and photos that maybe it smart HDR you're gonna turn that thing off but at the very least I can make sure that the dynamic range is good and just add in the contrast later in my editing software so that's why I usually end up doing the thing about it is I wish that a company whichever company and I recently did a not the word it's not consulting but I recently we had this conversation with a company where you know I was like you know what the problem the biggest problem right now because they would they asked me about the the feature of cameras for example and I was like you know if somebody like back in the day with Samsung experiments and with the Galaxy camera and with all concepts there was not enough technology this was just the camera with a smartphone sensor whereas now you've got a lot of development when it comes to computational photography can you imagine a Panasonic gh2 with computational photography even if it's not powered by Android I've had so many cases where I'm like I'm not gonna say that this photo is better than if I use the DSLR but it's really damn close and so what is the point of carrying like I I couldn't say that two years ago like the pixel two was the first phone to achieve that and I just I wish that a company would be like let's do this with a camera with a real camera with a big sensor with a big lens and just bring this computational photography and bring dynamic range the way smartphones are doing right now because smartphones are killing it so why can't they bring computational photography to a DSLR by software that's the thing like have you seen software on your Panasonic it's terrible well I mean yeah the software is terrible but it's just software why can't they you know spend I would agree I would agree about putting computational I would agree about computational photography on like a point-and-shoot camera but on a full DSLR where it's literally made to be a manual a manual shooters dream they would take the photos themselves they will go into the applications they would make the HDR happen and all that would be cheap they'll be cheating if they put on idea so think about it so professional cameras have had an auto mode for a bit like I think it's been ten years since auto mode has existed I just I wish that we had true intelligent auto that because he only uses that term intelligent auto and it just doesn't deliver like I've had cases where the other day well not the other day but a couple of months ago I was in the Vatican I was carrying my the p20 Pro and I was carrying my Panasonic g85 and I took a couple of photos with the g85 and a couple of photos with the p20 Pro and I'm like shoot man I'm like I'm carrying $2,000 with a camera between the lens I was carrying an f1 point for a 12 millimeter f1 point 4 plus the body and the p20 Pro and it's that I'm not saying the photos of the p20 Pro were better but what do I use my photos for Instagram you know that's the thing like what do we use photography for lately we use it mostly for social media and so I'm not saying that a professional photographer should stay away from their ten thousand dollar camera not saying that I'm saying that there are consumers that want to buy a camera still they want to get into that niche and I feel that the technology is there which I'm saying that probably now is a good time to get a good standard dragon 845 Hornet camera and have because of the thing about it Brandon to answer your question a lot of this HDR fits a lot of us HDR capability comes from the processor and these cameras just don't have good chips they're old but you would think that like a very resource-rich company like Nikon or Panasonic would say let's put better chips and better software into these cameras well we-we-well we have to move on to our next story but I will say this there's also an infrastructure issue here because the whole idea behind having HDR smart HDR all of that stuff is the fact that it can take so many photos at once digitally inside of the processor that's not the case with an actual camera that has a shutter so when you hit that button on an actual DSLR it's gonna go 10 frames yeah it has to do that but you don't have that problem on a mirrorless there is no physical movement like it has to be done it has to be done digitally is what I'm saying so if there would be a mode on these cameras a few mirrorless cameras that do things digitally without having to use the actual shutter which it does still use in regular photography there is still a shutter there's no mirror but there's a shutter so it depends on the mode maybe it can be a mode but I don't think it's going to replace what photography has in DSLRs anytime soon oh yeah all right so we should definitely go to our next one and speaking of things that we were going to pour one out for let's talk a little bit about Windows Phone guys I will admit there's one thing about Windows Phone that I really liked instead it's just a general design of the home screens it was definitely clean it may not have been fully polished but it's never going to be the operating system that we look back on and say that we absolutely hated but it is definitely one that just was not able to fight the powers that be Apple and Google of course and there were a couple of there was a there was a series of tweets that went out by someone that talked about Windows Phone potentially dying because it was the fault of the carriers for not actually embracing Windows Phone as much as they should have we agree or not agree in terms of it wasn't the carrier's fault no the biggest problem of Microsoft was continuing to be Microsoft I feel that if Windows Phone would have come out of the time of Satya Nadella things would have changed like I'll give you an idea when don't think is it a free upgrade it is they that that was selling point for Windows 10 we're gonna make it a free upgrade ever at least they did it temporarily the biggest problem with Windows Phone is why am I going to grab why am I going to pay a license for Windows Phone I was like $30 or I have to pay nothing for Android mm-hmm and you have to understand joy Android was not designed to compete against iOS there was no iOS at the time that Android was developed it was designed to compete with Windows Phone and a operating system that would be that would provide a developer as an option and OEM is an option where they didn't have to pay in the V and if you remember like Android originally looked a lot like Windows Phone the mobile version the the one that was that didn't have it didn't have a touchscreen and so that was the problem like Android literally came to fill the shoes of Windows Phone that's what it did and there was just a way when when when they decided to come back with a new idea first they were like yeah sure it was cool but your OEM s you cannot customize it the OEMs you can't do anything with it and guess what dearö liam's because we fail with strategy number one let's do strategy number two one that's fine no Kia oh you're gonna buy a competitor you're gonna put a competitor now so that like everybody jump ship everybody jumps ship with Windows for him because of that it just none of all there were so many mistakes in the way was handled originally I'm saying it was a great operating system it was pair efficient it was in mic if it was visually pleasing for me even though a lot of people didn't like it but just this there were so many shifts and strategy to just kill everything and then the Microsoft when those phones are just terrible hmm well I'd like the story because it gives us a chance to give a quick shout out to one of our old friends Jeff Gordon we miss you though he actually responded to this tweet saying that you know if carriers and manufacturers were not embracing Windows Phone enough this is what Jeff said I loved my HTC Titan on 18t my windows my HTC Phone 8x in flame-red on Verizon and the one m8 for Windows with dual cameras on Verizon true flagships all of them in on different carriers so what is this whole thing about second-string devices and almost no carrier support clearly Windows one was found on many of the major carriers if you were to compare it one to one to all of the Android phones that were coming out sure there might be a bit of a skew there but that doesn't mean it wasn't being represented at all yeah and one of our live track one of our live chat viewers is saying that the main problem that it came down to at least from the consumer end was that it was just not supporting as many apps so Android obviously had all of different applications I remember way back in the day I reviewed a Windows Phone and I was happy that at the time of reviewing it Spotify had come to Windows Phone when years but then when you use these apps like the then there was the problem of this whole aesthetic concept where like people didn't like Windows 8 people didn't like the the approach people didn't like Windows Phone like it I remember that I gave my I gave my dad and I gave my grandfather a Windows Phone and they made me change to France here are two people that get a free phone that don't like it and want a change because they just didn't like the whole concept of the black and the life tiles they didn't like a lot of them didn't understand this idea like right now Instagram made a change yesterday that you notice a Josh that they made this like a horizontal swipe like they did this temporary change and people went ballistic if you remember the Windows Phone original paradigm of design was horizontal people did not like it they just didn't it just didn't it's I feel that Windows Phone is like this idea where this design firm came over and showed them this really cool on something they liked it but they didn't show it to enough consumers before they launched into the market and then there was the problem of timing they would announce a new version of Windows Phone and they would take ten months to put it out to consumers by those ten months iOS was already updated Android was already updated and whatever cool ideas they brought they just brought him in and then the third thing was this whole black screen on white text which makes sense at night but it doesn't make sense during that they just the user interface just did not was visually pleasing but didn't make sense that was my my perspective on it alright so we're gonna get into more design especially when it comes to the outer form of the phone when we talk about how back in May Oh Jules is one of your articles the hall we made RS had no notch because the Porsche design director called it disturbing now what I love about this is that now clearly things have changed we have a notch on at least one of the Huawei phones that are occurring or both of the Huawei phones rather that are currently out and the what I find funny is that though the design director for Porsche design there was an update at the bottom of this article that said update wow he has reached out to clarify that the opinions of said director or his alone and not of course design clearly they knew what they were going to do because that's what we got now do how now that we've had a whole year of notches like so so many of them have come out we all have our opinions on them the pixel 3 Excel or even the while we made 20 that came out teardrop designs full notch designs iPhone 10s iPhone 10s max all of that what is your opinion at the end of 2018 in regards to this design choice like what how do you actually feel after a whole year of seeing this as um as Jaime will say I know what he's gonna say the notch is a means to an end that you know at some point in the future we will have devices without any notches or holes or even sliders I think that in the not-too-distant future they'll figure out how to put the camera proximity sensor in the earpiece behind the glass I mean there's already some there are already some technologies that do that like the piezoelectric thing on which phone has it where it vibrates the screen against your ear that actually works really well and to be able to put a camera behind the screen without a hole punch is going to be possible so I think eventually we will have you know full screen devices without cutouts and notches and you know this year was about display experimentation and getting to that point by using notches and holes and sliders and things like that I mean I know so I thought it was your connection because everybody's but I don't know man I I'm not saying that I like notches I'm saying I like matches more than bezels so if this is the step towards no bezels and this is like the stepping point I'll take it so long as not so long as it's not the pixel 3xl which is actually a phone I use every day but it just pisses me off because the whole purpose of having a notch is to not have bezels if you've got this huge chin at the bottom so it's like come on Google you had one job like if you were gonna lead a chin might as well lift the top bezel man like it seriously I feel it was the bad it was a bad design choice I still hate looking at it I just I love my pixel for everything it does right I am but I hate it's just not visually pleasing that's just the way I feel about it you know well III will say I said this one time before and it was a bit controversial that I said it was almost clique meeting in a way I love the notch dot dot dot because it led us to all these other things so like I have to say that in 2019 I'm gonna get really sad because we're already at the point where we have hole-punch cameras on the on the front display obviously and that's going to eclipse the knotch but it's also going to eclipse what I felt like was gonna be a great addition which was the slider phone finally returning and I think that was a great elegant solution to the notch and I feel bad because we were only gonna get a few of them and then everyone's gonna go for this hole punch after that so it's kind of we only knew we knew you so we hardly knew you slider phones of 2018 shoot value hold onto your Oppo find X's and you mix threes they're gonna be worth triple in like five years because Joshua's gonna go on eBay and buy all of them yeah sorry about that I have yet to use a slider phone except for the find X for me like the problem with the the slider design is is the fact that you lose a lot of resistance that for me if a company would figure that out then probably slider phone she would mate oh yeah that's true all right so looking ahead we're gonna kind of blast through the last two stories here we're going into June and I believe let's see if it's June or July in this case well just June stories so we're going through the first half of the year and ending it with a couple of quick questions Siri yay or nay hasn't even gotten any better in 2018 for either of you do you use Siri at all next topic all right Wow the whole pod was I think that the worst product of the year the biggest flop of the year was the hot rod that is my perspective okay and then we had a bit of an early rumor leading into Samsung on packs for 2018 that perhaps there was going to be a Samsung Galaxy watch that was going to rock where OS instead of Tizen clearly not the case and Tizen is still alive and well and the Galaxy watch itself was it made a little bit of a splash at the time but maybe not everyone remembers it any more would wear OS I've been a good idea or for Samsung smart watches this year I don't think so I think Tizen on the same level which is in a lot of ways is superior to where alice is where how do you feel about where a little what I'm very how's that you have any idea where OS well now on the drawer and I'm using a Garmin Phoenix 5 I mean it's as they need so much work as update they III may I made a I made a commitment that I'm gonna use one force CES just to give it a good shot it's just even the where OS is running the snapdragon 830 100 with the hole there even their battery life is bad like come on the new the latest fossils have terrible like the the their experience is choppy like they really need to go back to the drawing board with everything it tries to do too much and it yeah I think I agree there the I'm the one who talks about the hybrid smartwatches and I also use a me band 3 in this case it's just one of my go-to s as Jaime kind of tapers off a little bit there hopefully what Kyle come back pretty quickly we're gonna go ahead and go into our first break after all that alright here we go the bucket no weakly comes to you with support of caseta by Lutron and today I want to talk to you about casita by Lutron smart lighting control brought to you by Lutron pioneers in smart home technology with casita you can schedule your lights to come on at dusk so your family always comes back to a will at home it's quite easy to make every light in your house a smart light just take out your switches installing casita dimmers takes a screwdriver in just about 15 minutes after that you won't have to buy racks of smart bulbs or deal with bulky smart plugs all over the place just connect the switches up to Alexa Siri or Google assistant in a way you go our producer Jules has them he's been able to program his life's to start/end and his day setting them to turn on with his alarm and to turn off at his command he doesn't have to flick a switch because he's smarter than that get smart lighting the smart way with caseta by Lutron search for cas ETA or hit up Lutron comm casita by Lutron welcome home to peace of mind alright here we go so brandon as as almost per usual he has a bit of a there's a bit of a heart out for today meaning that he has to leave in about five minutes so for our little check-in for this for this week since it is our year-end celebration we had a thought of talking about maybe our fate we're only halfway through all the stories of the year we're gonna kind of blast through the last half but now that we're half way through even though tech tober is still one of the stories we're going to talk about a little bit later do you have a favorite device like I want to say smart smartphone but it's very possible that some of our favorite devices might not be smartphones so do you have a favorite device of 2018 I do and I feel like I talk about it too much so I'm going to talk about my favorite phone in two seconds favorite device is the continued a continued improvement of the smart home speakers this morning I put a Google home mini next to my nightstand and just for the heck of it this morning I was like good morning hey Google good morning and oh my god it was like it said hello branded your commute to work is 12 minutes it's 2 minutes longer than usual today you have the podcast and you're going to your in-laws tonight for dinner and don't and don't remember to pick up the milk on your way home it was and then oh and then it proceeded to say today the weather is going to be 44 degrees with a 30% chance of rain and I'm sitting in bed like I don't need I don't even need to like do anything else I just know everything alright would you are you going to I know the holidays I've already passed but I still have my family party that's happening tomorrow so we're gonna do like gift exchanges and stuff tomorrow did you give like a like a Google home Mini or something of the sort for like a gift this year or is it like how much is it does it work for like a 30 or 20 dollar white elephant cuz I would love to put one of those in yeah they're super cheap like 30 bucks I gave several ways gifts and every one that I gave it to after you know a little bit of a learning process love it okay great I think in my case gosh I have I have a number of them to be honest because you know despite the fact that I made a transition from from from my previous my previous occupation my previous place of work I I started to jump into so many new product categories and one of them is actually this ring that I'm using right now it's called the aura ring now I'm not going to recommend this to everybody mainly because it cost 399 dollars but but I will admit that for someone like me that is a self-proclaimed biohacker I like to I like to know as much information as possible about my health about my sleep about my fitness and be able to do things because of that one thing I want to talk about in 2019 at some point is how people don't use their smart trackers to their fullest potential yes get the info but you need to know what to do with that information and this is one of the few products that tries to coach you on what to do about it it's mostly a sleep tracker and if it notices via its sensors that you're not sleeping as well as you should it gives you some real actionable steps on actual things you should do for the next night in order to get a better night's sleep and hopefully you see an upward trend with all of the sleep that you're tracking with this okay so I did want Jules to kind of pop in because it seems Jaime is having a little bit of connection troubles but I mean in our little break right now or rather our I would thought that I'd hear now that we're halfway through the stories of 2018 I wanted to see what your favorite device might have been over the year it doesn't have to be a smartphone because I know it might be different like I said I had my smart ring but also Brandon said the Google home me well Google home here this is my favorite product mm-hmm it's beautiful it really is this is my favorite product the foldable see Apple beat everybody to the punch with a foldable product that reached the market first it's right here I'm not saying I'm not saying this is iPad pro yes Thank You Jules I forget that there's audio to this type at the 11 inch model I'm not saying it's the perfect computer it's not it's not for me it doesn't replace my computer it doesn't replace anything it's just there are things that I like about this tablet that I can't do with a computer I don't like to sit down in bed when I want to watch a video I don't like like I can't I like using Mac's for video editing but I can't there's no touch interface on a Mac so I'm forced to use this and it's just I've been experimenting with editing video on this thing like there are some really good apps on this tablet like I had no idea like luma fusion and stuff like that so it's it's a really good tablet that doesn't want to be a computer and I don't care because I don't want it to be a computer for me it's more of a notepad I use it a lot to assist everything that I do so it's like an it's like an accessory to me it's not a product to get real word and there is so much performance overhead just to add to that tablet like using you know but it's just like like what I didn't hear you oh yeah I just I was filling in while you froze I was gonna say the iPad pro has so much performance overhead that you you use a fraction of its power when you're using OneNote or like email or the web it's just so powerful yeah indeed Jules I don't know if you have your set up over there if you want to kind of jump in and say what your favorite product might have been Brendan you're gonna have to finish that before you leave this episode I can't I gotta try okay fair enough I was speaking of which I should probably get to my I did finish the Macallan so for the second half of this episode I'm gonna have a minibar bottle of Bulleit Bourbon so anyone out there who's into bourbon we have this year Jules are able to supposed to be about it okay there you go Jules are you able to jump in go for it but if not I'm gonna go ahead and just jump to our next stories all right Oh Brendan if you're gonna be heading out so thank you so much happy New Year by the way dude thanks happy New Year to or air as we say in my house happy jr. get it st around see you later okay so here we go um that's jump into our next star sorry about that man it's just god I had to switch the hotspot and it clearly wasn't good oh okay no worries all right so I'm gonna have some wine by the way oh there we go I don't where like I don't like scotch during the day okay fair enough it's like an end of the day type thing which will probably be many of our days oh my god are you looking forward to see us Josh okay I am because I'm in a whole new place in my career obviously like much much thanks to all of you guys for giving me a home a place to call home so it's anybody out there who might be wondering I am gonna be going to CES as JV but I'm also going as pocket now as well so I'm kind of double dipping in that way and it's because of my association with pocket now that I'm even able to get a press so it's awesome dude it's it's such a pleasure to have you man are you kidding mmm cheers to that Jules no unfortunately can't really hear you so we're gonna go to move into our next next stories okay so do you remember I may and Jules a few if you want to chime in via the chat all I'll make sure to let your opinions be known do you remember back in the day when we used to look at any phone out of China and just immediately think it's not a great phone oh it's yeah same it's like the same paradigm of of Japan 30 years ago any product that was Japanese would be considered cheap same thing well I mean granted there are some issues from 2018 regarding mainly ZTE because clearly China as a whole is not really feeling the crunch politically as it were especially when it comes to selling smartphones because oneplus clearly has a phone out and t-mobile and they got a carrier to help them out but ZT was the one that had most of the problems and now recently we're seeing a little bit from Huawei but this particular story is about ZTE use with the US authorities I'm not sure if you have any hot takes about this one I don't really want to get into the politics of it obviously but ZTE was the one to feel the crunch the most granted Huawei wasn't able to bring their stuff to the US I remember at CES they were hoping to bring it to 18 t but that didn't happen but any thoughts on the general China market trying to penetrate the US market ah all right so all of these issues have to do with privacy concerns I want to ask you how many times have you said something any particular thing like I want to go buy a glass of Glenfiddich I did it in Taipei recently I said oh my god I would love to have some then Finnick right now and then my phone was full of Glenfiddich ads now is that is that China or is that because I know it happened that happened to me in Taiwan it's happened to me in the United States using not an iPhone I will have to clarify that has never happened to me while using an iPhone but I have been using certain Android phones were apps like Facebook can target what you're looking for through whatever it is that you say it happens to me with Amazon all the time all the time so you know when you ask me about what my perspective is on Chinese companies I would I'm you know the question is is the concern is privacy how sure are we that other companies from the United States are not doing the same thing man I mean come on like it's just this level of cynicism when it comes to getting Amazon ads yeah Amazon a fully US company using my phone and then people are gonna be like yes but you gave the phone permission to use your microphone the problem is if I want to use Amazon that's the only way it works like in vital like the problem is they kind of force you to say yes to these things so I feel that the topic of privacy is much broader it is much bigger it is more than just our and I I don't want to get political because I hate talking about politics um but you know it's it's just one of those things where I feel that the we should just not I hate playing the blame game where I'm like these companies that this batter these company I think the government's need to do a better job of telling us the why except you know that I do understands that I do understand the concerns and the legalities it's just God when we're in a country like the United States where we profess free market and we start blocking companies from other comes from other countries it's kind of the complete opposite of what these company what the country is saying it's a free market so I don't know man yeah I think it's easy to pick okay now granted again without getting political I do think that China is kind of an easy target but granted we already using that as a scapegoat one really we should be looking at everything you're right this is a much broader issue like for example again not to get too into detail about it but you know even if Huawei is I don't want to say guilty but even if there are concerns about Huawei in terms of privacy and all that there's one thing that the consumer will always keep in mind is that they make quality products and clearly those products are out in places that are not China like in Europe and they don't care that America will always huge right now yeah it's funny cuz everybody's like ever since the Pete and everybody's like oh that's a new P like they've gained a lot of mindshare and I don't know man I'm not trying to defend anybody I'm not trying to defend the US government I'm not trying to friend China all I'm saying is I think that there is more to discuss when it comes to the political aspect and I feel that there are certain countries that are not doing a better job then there are a lot of US companies that are not doing a better job I will say this right now the first US company that I have chosen to abandon this year's Facebook I mean come on then Facebook is a US company and we've we had all the cameras analytic azuz this year yeah I mean come on man like if anything let's talk about an election that was like like you can't even consider it legal anymore like I used to make the point that if our information is being oh sorry oh there you go what's up Jules ah I was going to make the point earlier that if if our data and our information is actually being collected this goes back to like the varieties and 18t like you know data breaches and whatnot or even just data collecting that you said that happened I think it was 2015 2016 if our information is actually being collected what I want to know is how is it being used if it's not go further over it I'm gonna give you an example I was gonna say I think I think if it's not being used for anything truly nefarious if it's being used for targeted ads and fine but then Cambridge oolitic of the analytical became of thing so that's a whole different layer but if it's not being used for anything truly malicious I could almost I can almost give it a pass because I do feel like we live in an age where everything that we do is in one way or no they're being tracked or at least being paid attention to I'm gonna give you the perfect example the other day my dad my dad is a lawyer and he focuses mainly on the how do you call it crime well would that be in English criminal law criminal law he focuses mostly on criminal law he was like if you say he was working with case and the customer came in and he was like he looks at the case and he's like um I can't do this I can't follow this case and he's like and then the customers like but why I mean he's like you guys have no case like the you you're telling me that there is evidence through phone calls so I was not aware that in my country it is completely legal to record your calls fully a hundred percent that cut like a lawyer can ask carriers with a judge with a judicial warrant they can ask for your phone calls either transcribed or full recordings of calls for the past two years man yeah that's warranted information and I would have to figure out how to talk about this Genki said we're glad to have you man it's just like let's do like privacy oh my god man I what kind of privacy is that yeah there are one-party consent it's a two-party consent I said according stay at school so it's like we're one agent beside the points so I'm not trying to defend anybody it's just come on man how much do we actually know about privacy is the question exactly there's nothing that 20:18 taught us not and and granted like I said China just happens to be an easy target well because late setting up their law so that it's impossible for without a joint agreement that there's all this trade that's being that's a lot of thought of the concern about what West companies are going into they want to get into the Chinese business because they have to surrender so much that's or the trade agreement but then but then it's let let's talk about the biggest China benefactor which is the United States how many products are manufactured in China you know it's such a multi-layered issue is privacy and I think what 20:18 taught us is that we really don't truly know anything as consumers when it comes to privacy like we don't actually know where the laws lie in terms of what our data is supposed to be able to do for us and even on top of that like the other thing that we learned in 2018 and again we don't have to get into this because I do want to go to our next story is that the people who are in charge don't understand tech that's the most oh my god oh my god that that the Facebook yeah oh my god the laws of the United States I mean I was like no no no like the questions I'm like these guys filter their questions before they ask them like could they like call an expert to actually look at their questions before they look stupid you know in public like I don't know man not to be fair we're talking bunch of old people that you know yes but they working for them I mean can't they hire somebody to be like yes you know the this is kind of stupid to ask about Facebook like you know even though they have all these sub communities about science and whatnot down they rely a lot on what the arts thing that hey this is a danger this is a risk and kind of evidence I'm part of it and again that is all kind of what lets us be a little skeptical of this we don't have access as to what they know but I think I think it has taught us something Jules I think it has taught us how how Adelaide is the word delayed how how old our law our laws are in general country wise every country how how laws are not fit to regulate how much the Internet has evolved you want to go someplace where they know good be an e citizen of Estonia that is a all right well we can go on to our next one thank you you know what that was probably my favorite part of this episode so far I love that kind of talk and it's so funny how we can run right up to the political line and just be like no Jules can tell you like we came to a point with certain stories where you know we publish the stories and I was you know Brandon and I were like dude let's just pull this like we don't want to get into the political topic because like it exceeds our understanding yeah we understand tech but we're not experts in politics nor are we experts in what is legal and what is not so I don't think it should be it's a good idea for us to get into this are we are facing that kind of scary crossroads because exactly that's we're gonna have to talk about it there is no like if some different easy besides this like yeah it's just the thing about it is like you have no idea how many pictures I've gotten from companies about like PR companies being like would you like to interview John Sculley about the recent announcements of Apple and I'm like no we we review products that's what we do right you know or or would you like to interview this expert of whatever I'm like it's not that I wouldn't love to and it's not that I wouldn't like the insights it's just what we do is read products that's what we the whole idea of like I just know that I won't do it justice the people who are really into those topics that are really in that world are not gonna be happy with the way it goes I do so the problem is like I got a lot of backlash on certain reviews about like why didn't you talk about the iPad like the iPad bending or something like that I'm like I can invent mine and I don't know enough people and so I you know and that's easily you do with your tablet you know and so but the think about it is it's not that I'm trying to defend the product that's just that's not what I do my job is not to bend things that's why we have Zack Zack your are a hero man yeah we talked about that also yeah at the point you know there are just I think we don't do we review products from a usability standpoint Matt from what you can do with them I'm sure that if I grab the screen of this laptop and did this I could totally bend it but that's not what it was designed for yeah exactly you know I'm sure I'm sure that if I grab my car and I go crash it to the wall it'll literally destroy itself see Joel just did the Segway for me now we were talking about the hardware side but there's a bit of a software thing there's influencing hardware as well as Apple it became kind of clear that Apple is actually meek okay this is speculation this is something that I was thinking about when all this was happening Apple clearly wants you to buy more of their newer devices because with the new operating systems of 2018 they were actually actively making the battery drain even faster on the 6s plus in the iPhone se you only have three days left for that battery placement 829 so it's it's okay granted we used to be in a place where you could get a smartphone it would last you for up to two maybe three years but now the companies are like you know what cash grabs all over the place and I don't mean that in a super nefarious way I just know that that's just the way business is so Apple making an operating system that literally that that basically just sort of cuts your phone at the knees your 6s you might be such a 6s fan that you don't want to give it up you gotta because the battery drain is going to be there you're not going to be able to use it anymore because the operating system literally cuts it at the knees so like is it how do you feel how did you feel about this practice when I was first happening at the time Am I can I say that at least they solved it with iOS 12 yeah okay fair like the but it was so here's the thing I mean think about it iOS pretty much made old iPhones work better I hated the whole concept of planned obsolescence and like this is the this is what I like about the internet this became so viral this became such a mess that Apple had to do something about it yep and I love it I love because for me that pissed me off like I gave my son an iPhone 7 and the last time that I tried to play with it it was terrible grab go grab an iPhone 7 right now it works just as well as a 10s years for them to a minute it is crazy that it has no it pisses me off you know what pisses me off it pisses me off when you have OEMs like Samsung saying we don't throttle your phone that's BS have you ever tried to use a galaxy from last year try to use the galaxy from the last couple of months like that's BS like this year yes for the thing about it is Apple was the first company to get caught but this has been a practice of every company even if they don't want to admit it yeah there's a wide-reaching issue and I love that I love how that turned out this is what happens when we drink on the podcast guys let's be honest I mean Jules how many of your old phones are performing well right now from last year Josh is it okay I should her to say that it would be because of the software updates because that's at the heart of the issue here it's more about just the longevity of the device itself clearly Mikey one is crap right now that is just supposed to be the case because its specifications are not meant to be future proof but if I were to take out let's say let me think of a pump let me think of a phone that I wanted to use okay but let me ask you this we you you've been part of every single Google i/o every single every time Android has become more efficient more efficient if anything you would assume that Android would work better on older specs because of how better it's done and it's been the other way around okay I can I can see that being the case in that regard what I would have loved Google to do is say hey if you have a much older phone here is a ROM of Android one you can flash exactly that should have been what did that was but what was it Android what's it supposed to be Oreos yeah this has to be it was just the Oreo or what was the trouble yeah yeah trouble supposed to be Oreo or the one before it that was supposed to be good to go on older devices or or devices that had lower specs that was the battery - that was Android go okay like that strip indicator first of all the naming convention be damned but that should have been the case like okay if you have like a Galaxy Nexus for whatever reason here's here's a ROM and Rigo or Android one that will work beautifully on your phone even if it's not necessarily the full Android Pi that should've been what they did but of course does know what they did it's like oh my god we have so many transitions and we have power efficiency is like two times better and it's all supposed to last the same amount of time it supposed to be two years or whatever the heck and before the amount of power efficiency that they tout every single year like it's two times three times four times but what is where are we talking about it yeah it's no longer to the point where technology is meant to last it's actually being built to fail at some point and this kind of software update that that was supposed to throttle the general daily usage of us iPhone 6s on iphone se is kind of perfect it's perfect for its but it's perfect example of that so I'm just happy internet like all of you guys in the comments thank you so much like the pointing things out obviously we live in a bubble as reviewers because we've got phones galore that we have to test and so we can fall back to anything but for us it's extremely important like I love that I get I get a comment like I don't remember your name but I get a comment on every video that I do asking for the after the bus series to come back it'll actually come back the next phone that's coming in after the buzz is the galaxy s 9 plus which I've been actually working on arm which is right here I've actually been using um because yes like these series are designed to tell people how phones age and for me that's that's it's it's extremely important that people point out it's the only reason why this whole battery replacement program began it's the only reason why companies are doing things like iOS 12 why I feel that Google's been working on it as well because I mean come on man you're not paying five bucks for that phone you you're paying a lot of money and in the case right now iPhones are worth the price of a computer of a high-end computer so it's it's it's it's it is not fair for consumers to pay that amount of money for a disposable product I mean my gosh we can skip the next day for August because it's basically I meant it's a it's like Joey Jules what's the minimum wage right now in Boston in a month $11 per month a that's per hour excuse me I'm going into 12 so it's like $1,200 a month right you know on a typical late hour or whatever we're talking about what $1500 I mean come on 18 18 18 okay $1,800 I mean you're charging almost half minimum wage for phone like seriously more than if you're getting a flagship yeah exactly exactly so come on Matt company should take consumers seriously that's what I feel yeah 100% okay so yeah Jules was saying a second ago we're going to be skipping this particular story now some of you in the chat we're asking though where's all the Sony talk well this was gonna be one of them let's just say that you there will be an exit 3 review I've also been using it well in this case Sony was trying to explain why Android updates take so long and if the interface sucks well from Sony's standpoint perhaps but what they were saying in this case they even made an infographic saying that software rollout is about you know trying to create that features trying to build the foundation of the actual operating system implementing their own features in the operating system and then there's an extra phase where it has to get certified and approved by all of the right people and that in and of itself could take a long long time in the u.s. we have an even other layer that goes on top of it and that's the carriers they have to approve it as well so yes look at this does this make sense to you it took me a day to figure out how to enable the swipe for the app train it took me a day and once I figured out how to enable the swipe you don't continue swiping up it's it's left to right right and you can't switch that off I'm like and then there was this like edge feature here which would always activate it so I'm like Sony why like what's the point yeah they're always it's it's it's one half trying to add their own flavor to Android but also the other half trying to get it approved so that's one of the reasons why Android updates take so long and I think that's a big frustration that a lot of people have but I also come from the side of it of if the phone is working just fine do you actually need the absolute latest version of Android to like work with it pretty well like it may not be truly the case don't even get me started about this camera user interface like you can only enable HDR in manual mode I'm like say what what and then they've got this portrait mode where are you it's not until after you take the photo that the phone tells you oh I wasn't able to create the bouquet modes what Sony is this is why I said last week Sony is the reference design of Android it is it is the only manufacturer that turns every feature on on the new Snapdragon processors and the contributes so much to a USP chip yes and they mean they may be the only ones who do it and they are like the starting point so all the other manufacturers are like did that work really well on the Sony maybe we can do that too so like super slow-mo worked pretty well on the Sony and then Samsung brought it out HDR playback worked really well on the Sony not the 4k display but the HDR worked pretty well and then other manufacturers started to adopt it depending on what content you have so Sony is kind of where the the new Snapdragon of the ear gets put like everything gets turned on and then all the other manufacturers just try to figure out if they can do it too okay so we're on software talk even more so what we have here is yet another Android versions story where there was never night watch none I watched sorry not I watch was name of this one well basically there was a security there was a security vulnerability that affected all versions of Android except for Android Pi and if you needed any reason to be mad about Android versions not getting updated all the time this might be one of them but weren't there a couple of other scares in 2018 I'm tremble what the other what the names of the other ones what ghost in the branch or something into yeah and this story in particular is because Google said that it would only issue a fix for Android and okay great job on taking care of plate what 99.9 percent so of course there were a lot of users out there who aren't even upgrade to PI and it's I don't know it's it's uh is this like is this like Google's way of trying to force everybody to upgrade as much as possible or is it just laziness on their part is 80% option rates yeah yeah and that better team in that doesn't even get us into the whole idea of fragmentation in the Android space like that's that's a topic we've been talking about for years but is it a consumer problem it's not a consumer problem it's not that people don't want to update to the latest version of Android it's that OEM suck at it yeah well okay it that is true like what Wyatt why haven't I done my after the buzz on the s9 plus because I'm still waiting for you 1u i I'm like I want to have something to talk about here one UI is gonna be it when am I getting it on my phone I don't know anything - we would have articles that say Samsung is pushing out the OTAs for these kinds of things and then our specific devices don't get it at the time of that publishing it takes even more time yeah I mean come on alright so moving into Oh actually you know what this is this this next one is not the next story actually all right one we were getting a little long in the tooth in this episode but it is the year-end celebration so clearly we're all pretty riled up after the 50 cups no no I'm still going strong how that we're all pretty not really riled up but we got a little bit of that liquid courage in us okay how did we really feel about tech Tober so I was doing my expense report recently you have any idea how much I spent an uber just ubering two different man I know you have any idea how much I spent an uber in October just ubering two different meetings every day New York I spent $1,000 on oh my god $1000 and this is in ten dollar segments of uber ten dollars segments uber I have products I haven't been able to review galaxy watch Apple watch series for I'm currently on the Sony I have the razor phone too yes we have Anna soos ROG phone no thanks to a soos I got it I got in a different way because these guys I've got the Nokia 7.1 which is really good I have so many products I have not they don't even get me started about accessories I feel so bad because like it's not that we don't want to review these things it's just tech Tober was not just about devices it was also about to travel to see this devices and we had cases like for example in the case of the razor phone where they were like if you want a unit you have to make the trip and I couldn't make the trip yeah I just I didn't have the time and and and they were like well you want to get a unit oh my god by the way that you get my controller okay I was about to say you don't have to feel pressured about the ride you mobile controller it's still buggy it's still buggy but when it works it works well which is kind of par for the course for a razor product so you know like not really a review but you'll get it at some point it's just that for now they need to fix the kinks let's say god it's just I am honestly I have slept more in the last week than I have in the last year mmm like I remember Tex over being one of those like okay just from a personal standpoint and clearly I'm here with pocket now I'm the host of the podcast but I also did do work in October for myself as well that was gonna work dude I mean come on you give me a good boost and it was it was really crazy but you know what like I will say leading up to October there was this whole talk from so many people so many outlets and so many youtubers were talking about it the YouTube burnout yeah you have no idea like you have no idea what it's like until you go through it that's exactly what I went through all of November was me recovering from just how much craziness October was and I'll apologize across the board for not being better about like being honest with myself about how much work I could do and how much I could do one of my things in 2019 actually if I can say my new year's resolution for 2019 I'm actually gonna be I my brother corrected me I wanted to say that I'm gonna be antisocial in 2019 just sort of focus on the work like take care of myself and not that I'm gonna work 24/7 but I'm gonna focus on myself 24 24 7 to make sure that I'm healthy mentally and physically so it's a good thing right my brother was like nah you're gonna be selectively social clearly but that's the thing man I mean I feel that apps have only gotten more aggressive about keeping us in games have gotten more aggressive about keeping us locked into their services and it's just very difficult when you do our line of work and to remain focused on creating content when you've got so many other distractions and you know all these companies want your attention all these companies want you to see their product I've made a couple of resolutions for 2019 and I'm gonna say them right now the first one is we're no longer gonna cover trade shows with fully elaborate video we're not it's impossible it takes too long to create I think that it takes us too long to create a compelling video um and by the time we do like the buzz is already gone unless we've been briefed and we've we've been working hard like 20 and 20 18 was a lot about briefings and a lot about having all the information ahead of time but then the problem was I mean Jules can tell you man us working at 11 p.m. midnight it was the worst midnight it's just just putting videos together and I you know I'm sorry it just it doesn't it it it we don't have any parties I skipped out and that's the other problem Jules like everybody wants us to go party let's go party let's go get drunk and so I can't if not then you are on the blacklist I am NOT Jules's age I can't learn every day I can't drink every day I had a time when I couldn't I was better than Jules at it but I can't do it anymore and so like I like 2018 was just a lot of excess a lot of excess it was I think that's the best way to describe 2018 it was a lot of excess every company want and I you know it's not that I I it's I thank companies for it I love it I just I feel that companies would have had better exposure if they would have if they would have been like you know what you know what Sammy you take over January and LG you've got February oh yeah plus you've got March man like come on let's let's create a product launch consortium where all these companies with the grab a month for them to launch their stuff and because I you know Josh I remember when you told me about you know going solo and everything and I was like dude I would love to be a single youtuber but I don't know how people do it I don't I do not I think that staff has got like the best formula where sap is like you know what man reviews them do really good for me I'm just gonna do unboxings and doing unboxings is a lot easier and so like for example for us comparisons do a lot better than anything but making a good comparison take so you have to have the right resources like you have to just so I would love to do more comparisons I mean come on each of them gets a million views and they're great and everything but there's so much work it's like we need to talk to Brandon after well you know what I do have to say that there were a couple people in the chat saying so you need more reviewers and we're like okay it's actually yes we do guys if you guys want in I'd love to have more people on board but seriously that's it's no BS it's it's we do need more talent we do well and we would love to have more people so you know what this is the thing like this is this is this is a reality that I think we all have had to wrestle with in 2018 I don't even know if we're gonna get to the final stories in the side what will blast through them but this is this is a really good way of sort of ending the full 2018 talk is like okay this is something we've all had to wrestle with in 2018 was the whole idea that the way that we were living for the past five to six years of being in this industry now remember that number five to six years that's a long time it's longer since 2007 what are you talking about all right so in Jaime's case it's like ancient times it's 22,000 sex like the fact that we've all been here for as long as we have for me it was five to six even that is a long time and now in 2018 we're learning that the way that we got to where we are now in that time it's not quite as sustainable as it used to go and and by sustainable we don't mean in terms of like holding up the company having money or anything like that we're talking about as ourselves and that's a very very different layer to all of this and that's a layer that is a part of the entire the entire being the entire spectrum so even I had to make that decision which is the reason why I made the choice that I made and now I have a home here a pocket now obviously which is great and I'm always gonna be grateful for that but we also still need to remember that taking care of ourselves means that we can make better stuff for you at the end of it all so taking care of ourselves as always should always come first and that's kind of where my resolution comes in it's like what I always say capitalism's could be on the vs again because it doesn't care about whether it's January March or April and you get five felons this week good luck yeah who might be thinking like what kind of content this this is behind me was talking about comparisons that's a whole different beast but even a regular review or even just like a general video it takes more it could take a day but that's when you're really forcing it it doesn't take me it it takes me more than a day and so I don't know if you've noticed but like recently my videos have been more a role and b-roll why because it takes me a lot less to make a video like that then if I make a full b-roll video I love making full b-roll videos and I'm more proud of those it's just okay guys you want the damn content now or not I don't want to I don't want to do something I just I don't have the time like for example there was a video that we did with jewels of Snapdragon 835 the HP Envy x2 video yeah you know how many takes Jules and I had to do for that video and 22 takes 22 clips that's how long that video took and I was just so disappointed at the amount of views that it got it so was this me like you you want to know how many videos we've done for the Spanish Channel we've done a hundred and forty-three videos for the Spanish Channel and we've barely been able to break seven thousand subscribers and so you know it comes to a point where it's just I'm not gonna lie I we're gonna continue because I believe I believe in the Spanish market I believe in my native tongue and I believe in our users but it's sometimes it's kind of discouraging like you know sometimes you wish that something would perform better than it doesn't like for example like I think that the review that I'm most proud of is my iPhone 10s review and it didn't perform well you know but I just it took me I I remember how inspired I got and how psyched up I got and I'm like oh my god I found the perfect song the perfect intro everything than just putting all that together take so much time and then for it to not perform well it's kind of discouraging and so I'm not gonna lie you just went through through burnout I went through I told you man when we were in Shanghai I you know when Wan was like I want to do my own thing and we're like lon dude you're our friend do it dude I reached burnout I for me that first I even told Anton I told everybody like after how much work I put him in 2016 and 2017 by early 2018 Jules can tell you we did we did see yes and I didn't want to see the computer I just I just I didn't want to see the computer man I've been doing the video and day since 2012 I you know it came a point and so it's funny when when you get all these commenters like and they're like yeah but you should have tried harder I'm like seriously did you have any idea what it's like to make a video like to make a really good video do you have any idea how much work it takes and can you really be creative three times a week four times a week it's not easy can I do a few things because our chat has been really going on here so over it I'd love to hear I think I know one of the first things that you want to talk about if you wouldn't mind I'd love to be able to say it like I don't want it I don't want it to sound like none of us want it to sound like we're just like straight up we're getting old but like it's just the whole idea is I am and that's something that I was saying like we all are coming to terms with the fact that we're not able to work at a clip that we used to I used to do a video every other day and it wasn't just a regular video of me sitting here talking about a random thing and putting it all together it looks full comparisons those full reviews it was all that stuff and those are not easy to do like we said but we don't want it to sound like we're just sort of like a vision about all of this we do understand that a lot of you out there are really appreciative of the work that we do and we want to continue doing it it's just us this is us sort of musing about how we can find better ways of doing it that are not only good for that are not really good for you but are even better for us because if we but if we burn out you get nothing so I like yeah I think that the YouTube burnout topic I mean has been the topic of 2018 and I love that it has because now I don't feel weird about it but for me probably the most important thing like the other day we were talking with Brandon and we had recently hired somebody in it didn't turn out well it didn't end up turning out well but the point being is I was like all right I do understand that it's a lot of work but we have to understand we've got the coolest job in the world oh yeah of course like let's let's why do I keep doing this why I could like shoot I've got different companies that I could work for and different industries where I'm actually better at what I do there that what I do here the only reason why I don't want to leave this is because number one we don't know how long it's gonna last I mean we don't know how long that YouTube bubble is gonna last and it kind of burst this year when it came to ad pocalypse and everything uh it's just the contribution to burnout has a lot to do with not just it's not just the amount of work it's how much you get for the work yeah well like three years ago we were making three times the amount of revenue through ads now we've had to make a shift in focus to sponsors because we've got a team that we need to sustain it's not that easy we're not just the single youtuber which one salary it's a team of people that are able to keep this work going like City to keep the pocket out daily going we need the website and the website going there's a team and so many things and so it's not that easy for us and so we've had to make a shift but then you know I again I'm glad that I'm not the only person that burned out I am I'm very grateful for what we do but we don't know if YouTube is going to continue being the medium going for we don't know I mean Instagram is grabbing a lot of traction and so it's there's this level of uncertainty right now yeah what's what 2019 gonna be like you know and a few more things doing you Oh from the break to eat $5 at the secret oh my god thank you thank you thank you honey you're an inspiration for my channel so there we go with that and also I was just gonna say like the the level of gratitude that we that we do see from a lot of commenters out there despite us kvetching the way that we do like it that's not ever going to we're not ever going to overlook that so that's what I wanted Thank You Jules for mentioning that like someone did donate in the super chat which might be a first for me but you know it's just about that I need speaking up like I am grateful for this platform because the thing is is that ever since you know I mean we've gone through our ups and downs here but with you know I do post with Josh coming on here like we've experienced a renaissance like more people are going in and more people are kind of adjusting to the attitude it's just like we've been doing pretty well since then and we've been able to experiment more with the format because audio as well as YouTube so different the CES podcast because it's the it's just explore and especially because you know I I know that you don't want to be so let everyone eat early to add remedy models of what you know that's like that beginning on board so like this is something that if we want to be able to be creative you might have to think things a little differently and that's always been the case in media I think I've always said that the media industry is has to be the quickest a professor where the communications of each are the communications industry it's vital it's yeah and there's a there's one before we get into like the last couple of topics for this show it's gonna be a two-hour show screw another so like thank you so much right there we're we're we obviously don't have we don't have any delusions of grandeur in the sense that we wouldn't be here if it weren't for all of you guys watching and tuning in and being there with us so it's just us sort of talking about our own mental health our own well-being that's that's what a lot of this conversation comes from I think YouTube viewers are the greatest that being therapists but yeah mm-hmm well like I see there's even one person in the chat saying like the mental burnout and the whole work burnout and all that stuff it transcends just YouTube clearly because there are a lot of people who are even in academia who are going through that as well like you can burn out with anything that you have a passion for and I think if you burn out with something it's clear that you do have a passion for it yeah exactly because you like for example for me I made this like transition into boosting video quality significantly I think it would be over the past year and a half I just you know I have a lot I have even more respect now for you know the youtubers that you know spend a lot of time creating their content because of how much work goes into it now I god man it's it's just funny when people complain about every little thing and I you know what I do is I laugh at it and I just I respond something stupid just to be funny about it because it's very easy like the other day it's I'm gonna make of this this like funny thingy so my my ex-wife my ex-wife reached out the other day because she wanted to learn how to do green screen video and so when I told her everything that she needed to do and to buy to be able to do a chroma key she flipped she was like now and I'm like and I'm like so you remember how many times we used to fight about the amount of time that I spent doing the daily this is why it's not easy if you require a team of five people you require a camera guy a scripter is somebody that edits the host and the lights guy and this was just me doing everything and I hate that it's not that I hate but I I proved that you can do it with just one person but people don't know how much work goes behind the scene just for the video to look like that yeah you know also sounding terrible so this mic even with the like like somehow hangouts is being stupid and this for as long as we have held this podcast Google needs to do something but a seriously it's like blank like computer is able to take in my viewports I think this would be stunning very crisp and fresh but instead I find myself having to put in another I have to join the call via and use that as my audio and then I've had to like switch around and mute different sources it's like this is stupid why is this so hard to do it can't be this hard to do I've got lovely I think my router is more drunk than I am right now well you know what okay if anyone's keeping score in 2018 there was an announcement that hangouts is going to go by the wayside so we're not too sure what a streaming version of the podcast will look like once hangout is no more hangouts is no more so we'll see what happens I do have a few ideas on how to evolve the podcast a little bit it may not necessarily be a full live episode every single Friday or rather it might be but it just might be a release of a video every Friday but how we do a multi-person podcast for a video version is something that I'm kind of I'm kind of mulling it about 20:19 is going to have a lot to it that I think is gonna prove to be a good evolution not only for myself or PocketNow for the podcast but for everything in general so we're looking forward to what 2019 has to has to offer us and I know that like some people have been saying in the chat effort equals quali and that's exactly what we want to do in 2019 there's a lot of effort that's gonna be put into a lot of what we do and yeah I mean this is just the beginning I mean um let's listen let's let's go through just a few things real quick we did talk about the hole punch design clip single notch we really talked about that earlier I don't want to get into yet another discussion where we get superheated but let's just do like a quick one sentence reaction to the red hydrogen one oh my god I am so glad I didn't review that phone best in 2018 oh oh my god alright not the razor not the hydrogen one I'll tell you that much I only played with that phone for a couple of minutes I I play with Michael's Michael Fisher's unit and I'm like oh my god I'm not even gonna reach out to their PR thank you let's just leave and they should have read if you haven't read Adam lanes oh my god yeah I know so at but the problem I feel so sad for Adam because he actually bought the phone yeah you know it would like it wasn't a reviewers perspective it's somebody that bought the phone that put $1,200 down a year prior I feel so sad for Adam about that you know well he was eventually able to get a refund yeah he did and but like that was like pulling teeth out yeah that was just stupid poorly from hardware to customer service and just it just wasn't a great experience for the two years all right but but you said editors choice like why don't we start with you with you Jules like if you had to say age age before beauty so loaded baby when it comes to like your preferred either product or products of 2018 it we've got if we had to say honestly Nokia 71 it's like this is coming from a great family of products that's right there I'm sad have to return this I'm like really you want it back all right fine all right cool they did pretty decent at the camera control the way you want and then the fast update their time I don't do it but if I um okay so I said earlier that I love like the smart tracking and all that stuff I have to say that okay my my personal review of this phone is not gonna come out until probably after the new year right before CES because that's just how timing went as we were talking about earlier um I have to say that I have to get I have to tip my hat to take my hat off I don't even just tip my hat I just take the whole hat off to one plus for being able to bring the 60 to the mass market I'm just like it may not it may not exactly be the absolute best phone of the year that's a very debatable thing yeah well I I just love what it was but what they've been able to do with it it's a great phone at us at a lower price than most that is available on a carrier that they've been fighting to get in the US for a long time it's literally I do I do with my review format is like who is this phone for it's one of the only phones this year that I could actually say this one's for everybody because everybody can actually it's a it's a fantastic thing to say about a device you can't say that about Huawei you can't really you can't really say that about the pixel if you look at other markets on the other side of the world now but yeah I think that it's I think that it's a it's a spectacular device because of what it brings to the table because I can bring it to everybody when it comes to smartphones for me but but that's your only product you have anything else that you'd like to shout out oh um from earlier in the year as the as one of the gamers I will say that there's a there's a controller that I just use all the time not only on my Android phones but on my PC and on this laptop as well for for gaming the 8-bit do SF 30 Pro it looks like a supernova I need to get that I've heard so many stories about that yeah it's uh it looks like a Super Nintendo controller but it has analog sticks and extra buttons made for like current games it's a fantastic product I use it for pretty much any game that I play at this point - ps4 but even on the switch it works oh my god alright so for me before you say anything that uh Dom Blanco $5 at superjet you're going to have to look at this I can't spit yep I'm gonna I'm gonna butcher this was gonna it says I made it a little better give me a rocks thank you for meeting its own shoot I have so many I think that 2018 has been the best year for a lot of things phones being one of them I can't choose a favorite phone it's the main reason why we didn't do a series of favorite products because I would have to give the the shout out to every like for example for me favourite phones is a tie between the Galaxy Note 9 and the mate 20 Pro those are my favorite totally perfect totally fair makes perfect sense those are like this is like the no holds bar phone for things I care about like photography and then this is another phone that gets photography almost just as good but it's the note it's the it's the note that should have always been since generation 3 finally a refine Galaxy Note that fixes and just becomes that Vanguard phone that should have always been um favorite like it's just funny but if when you asked me about the oneplus succeed I'm not gonna say that I don't like it this is the McLaren I just I really like the 1 plus 6 it had the headphone jack it had like it was slimmer it was lighter the battery life was great and so for me like the 1 plus 6 was I liked the 6 more than the 16 that's just but that's a perfect first that's a personal preference I'm not saying that it's a for me I would actually give the crown more to the sixth in the 60 it's just when I help when I hold the sticks and I noticed that it was heavier I'm like God I'm the guy that will will always complain about phones getting thinner and lighter and then this is the first example where I'm like the six was fine like you should have just brought the same design and come up with something cooler I don't know or do the 10 gigs of ram or whatever so fine from e26 but then my favorite budget phone would be the Nokia 7.1 I I think that's like the best value I already told you that my favorite gadget was the iPad pro and then for people that asked me what was my favorite SmartWatch I hate to admit it Apple watch series for this is this it took four generations for Apple to finally figure it out what the with this watch should have always been and I feel that don't buy the aluminum chassis this would be the first time that I would be like by the stainless steel this is actually a watch you want to hold on to for a bit and sadly the aluminum does an age well it oxidized over time um you'll you'll notice it in every single after the buds that I've done for the Apple watch right don't recommend the aluminum for a variant but that's that's been me like those have been my favorite products honestly now I get cool you know what on I feel like on that know we can go in and call it on there's almost to our episode of the pocket now weekly holding two different like things that one cent you know what Jules thank you so much for John in by the way that was really awesome that it's great to hear from you so she hung on our last 2018 episode now one thing that I did want to say like I am mr. gratitude and all that like I did just want to say I mentioned it earlier on that in 2019 we're looking to evolve certain things I have some ideas for the podcast especially just in preparation for when Hangouts dies because Google wants to kind of put it aside we'll see what happens in terms of the streaming capabilities on YouTube I would love to still have a live episode every week and if that's possible we're still gonna do that I just want to see what options we have in store but with that in mind I just want to give a big thanks to just pocket now XD everybody in particular that you know after after a big transition that I made at the be kept the middle portion of this past year I found a home here at the pocket not weekly I just want to thank all of you guys for having me and I'm very very I feel very lucky and very privileged to even be hosting this show and to even be a part of this team so thank you sorry are you I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat the same words that I told you when we were discussing this I'm like are you kidding me you're telling me that I get to recommend Joshua Vergara are you serious that's gonna be like the coolest thing ever and so it's funny when when Josh is like alright I'm totally willing to do it but if you give me the podcast and I'm like oh my god it's like it's like angels triumphs from this all I really hope is that that recommendation I'm doing justice to it and getting my feet wet right now in this new place that I call home and it's only gonna get better from here 2019 is gonna be a really hustle year because partially because like I said earlier my resolution is to be selectively social so I'm gonna take my feet into the sand and actually get into the Nitty Gritty of everything so again thank you and look forward to more and on that note we're gonna say one more thing from Eddie visalo who has given us five pounds not five dollars five pounds what do you guys think is the best basalis phone this year up we'll find out new mix three next s from Viva Linda non-emergent team go for it find ex it's such a beautiful phone you can complain about it all you want that it bends and whatever I I i thank these companies I have to thank Chinese companies like Oppo and and vivo for just the level of experimentation that they went through I mean I think that it was a genius solution the phone feels so great in the hand that would be me what about you Josh I wasn't able to use the slider French by the way yeah i'ma leave been able to use two of the four phones that's right here and even though I agree the find X is a beautiful device I gotta give it to the throwback the me makes three that slide is just so much fun to use and to be able to come up to somebody and be like I don't know what's better to say let's take a selfie and then you hear the whoring and then that motor happens or you just go snap and take that picture I don't know what's cooler I'm kind of gonna give it to the Munich's three though x-ray is cool like you could do that with it faster and it's like mm-hmm I speaking of which I did just get my me mix three so I'm looking forward to doing the review on that I'm actually gonna use that throughout CES that's my plan so as long as I get through all the other phones before that I'll be able to use that during CES speaking of which you won't mind look forward to everything we have coming at CES including the podcast we have a couple of things going on actually Jaime and I might be doing a bit of a road trip from together yes we should actually do the next podcast on the road and that canyon trip that we're doing we could there's a little bit of a long trip so that wouldn't make a lot of sense well I have to we have to so it beat that podcast and then this special project that we do about that's yesterday I'll bring my GoPro so let's do it there we go I think it took two hours but my I think my my video feed finally froze yes well right there you can have a nice derpy face for the outro on that note that is it for now the weekly is just as much a conversation as it is a show so make sure you make your voices heard either in the comments sections or by emailing us Podcast at pocketnow.com on twitter brandon who we saw earlier is at brandon minimun brandon mini man that is hi mate is that Jaime underscore feta and producer it out and our producer is at point jewels I of course can be found at JV tech T you know me I love tech and I also love to drink tea not in this episode though we all had a nice with alcohol today pocket now is that pocket now on twitter facebook Instagram and YouTube in English and espanol where you can find more news on the pocket out daily and pocket now add audio every weekday we would love your feedback through Google Apple stitch or pocket casts or whatever you might be happening that what I and wherever you happen to be streaming us we can all be happening you know because without you we won't have been able to make this show for your eyes and ears for 338 shows straight until next week enjoy the rest of 2018 stay safe everybody and well we'll see you on the flip side and in the new year happy new years everybody and Cheers thank you so much for every chat all the way to the rest of the world