Gadgetory

so last night I got in like a Twitter fight about which Dungeons and Dragons campaign is the best and i picked dark sun for what i think are really obvious reasons but let's face it that's pretty nerdy and crazy glar if you want to talk to him about the fast and the furious he will vastly quickly and furiously tell you which one is the best and why and if you want to talk to vlad about whether kale or wheatgrass has a higher more important nutritional value for your body bless his beating heart under his wall muscle chest he can talk to you about that at length uh so we're all nerds we're all nerds together and we're all nerds together about phones and if you're watching this show right now let's face it chances are you are too and you know what that's actually kind of Awesome so let's not be ashamed let's be nerds together stay tuned for the verge mobile show IM dieter bohn I'm vlasova and pretty sigler and this is a virgin mobile show it is lucky episode number 13 for the week of August twentieth 2012 and we've got a lot of mobile phone news to talk about how are you guys how are you nerds I'm good I feel really good about that introduction you need go to the hearts of me bare feet like I actually can opine on the different categories and types of cabbage which part is my favorite on a given day of the week well I went to different categories cabinet wheatgrass really don't aren't directly comparable are they I mean that wasn't really fair but i'm not a huge nutritional cabbage nerd so I guess I can't really speak to that but I do love kale I just we joined a co-op that delivers fresh vegetables to our apartment door and so I've been eating a ton of kale lately which is pretty awesome good about me I just I don't know if this counts toward any nutritional street cred but I just had a tall cool glass of v8 which I'm told has eight different vegetables in it spanning several different color groups they've got the red group the orange group in the green group Syria is very I'm pretty I'm pretty sure it also has your monthly allowance your RMA of salt well that's why you get the list that's the you stop being an amateur dieter you gotta get the book sodium v8 ok some of the eight nerd apparently hey Rudy say had an eight Ralph where's Nate rel I don't see any golf so now the hang of the video feed yeah well there is so yeah he's in he's in the virtuous office which is pretty awesome we should just get started talking about the news and I think the main thing to talk about is just how insane September fifth is gonna be right we're really December in total right because you have apple presumably in the middle of the month yeah but yes at ember fifth in particular is going to be just a complete nightmare yeah listen that's not you know let's not disregard Aoife because i'm actually gonna be there so that's not the savvy for which is the thing that happens before the timber fit that's 10 end of august first few days of September that's what we're going to see the galaxy note 2 from Samsung and maybe something else ah thank you you kind of expect the other companies to wake up and do something as well since motorola is going to do a new device in the fifth which is no you know is going to be an Android device so what are the other Android device makers doing it what the role is doing something Samsung's do something with the guys note 2 how did the others respond how does HTC respond is LG still in this market is all well it's not overplay this motorola announcement I know that Motorola wants you to this is the most important event of sep tember but you'll notice that on the the invite for that event they have the verizon logo which i think almost certainly means that this is going to be the razr HD which is sort of correct me if I'm wrong but I mean it's basically just an atrix HD in a razor body for verizon so I mean it's cool and all I mean is that's great but I don't think that that that is going to be the most exciting thing happening next month I mean personally I mean I I like the atrix and I think that you know an atrix done right could be well I guess I wasn't done wrong in the first place but you know could that could be interesting but I mean someone in the chat just said that Motorola trolled nokia by saying join us for the day's main event Oh big time like that's too big time like that as soon as a second Esau we just started okie doke left yeah um just moment um I'm being distracted by people in chat in a whole separate yet yes well nokia the nokia vent stemma fifth is gonna ruin this phone 8 it's gonna be at least one device stop sending me chat messages you troll I'm talking to close I wasn't I was presenting a few I was getting a chat dating Brandon it I'm sorry that's right actually don't you just point out that while this this uh this podcast is happening we have the the chat on the site so we're watching what people are saying us as we talk we have our own chat where we're talking to each other and sending each other secret messages which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't we also have got our internal chat for you know verge work and actually there's anywhere between like four and six rooms that we might be in and looking at texts flowing down and I don't let you guys mention that wild diesel was given that explanation somebody peeked in through the door of my bedroom so it's just yeah we're so freaking popular we can't be left alone for good you know 60 90 minutes to nerd out about okay wait wait I'm so glad but I want to go back for just one second um the vagueness of that statement concerns me someone peeked in through the door of your bedroom like how many random people did you just have crawling around your house where someone some mysterious individual peeks through your bedroom is the Kris if I person identify the individual and you don't know the individual how useful is it to you or to anybody in our audience that's true that's your damage somebody established that Vlad is into nutrition and we've established for a long time now that flat is a communist it's obvious that he lives on a collectivist farm somewhere and so there's no way of knowing which crazy commits inhabitant has opened his door to pekin that's true seriously nokia come on this is contract or a moment all right okay so when I was making a the amount of texts that we have flowing by while we're trying to talk is insane right i mean how much how many like one looks out fo communicate ok is do you see in the course of a day it it's completely insane like it and this is why we can't talk about nokia because we're completely distracted all the time yeah detention again you know I had a really nice quote from some old time people I've got us this era the quote from civilization the one about bureaucracy people appreciated that so I called another quotes which reminds me here a French philosopher again I've managed to forget the name said that distractions are our worst enemy and I've also managed to forget freaking quote I don't know what I'm quoting it but it's like we try and find distractions from the misery of life but then they actually take over and then they become our worst enemy and they then themselves become essentially misery and the trial jury of life and there's a lot of truth to that if you sit down and think about it you might discover more of that truth if you go to an amsterdam cafe and reese it ever think about it ah but Susie nokia let me just finish up with these guys so they're doing a windows phone 8 announcement at least one device could be a couple we don't know exactly two doing it in conjunction with Microsoft so as far as you know this is going to be the first windows phone 8 device announcement both of them are making it essentially the flagship windows phone 8 announcement I would expect that to be the case anyway given the close partnership and as d2 was saying Motorola is trying to troll the entire thing by calling its event or the same day the main event force attempt it and I totally agree with dita the main event is Tim effect ok Microsoft Windows Phone 8 that's it what do you think Chris yeah it's not just about nokia of course right it's about sort of the rest of the reveal for windows phone 8 which is pretty big deal and I think it's very notable this is something that I don't the people have discussed too much but just the fact that Microsoft is allowing nokia to take the lead on doing the full consumer reveal of the next version of Windows Phone is is a big step for both companies and their their partnership and I I don't know what that means to other OEMs but I don't think that anyone has really known where exactly where the other Windows Phone OEMs have stood for for a good year now but but yeah this is going to be a really big deal both for nokia microsoft and i'm excited i know that i say that leading up to every single Windows Phone announcement uh but it this is a platform that I'm genuinely intrigued by and really want to see succeed and become entrenched as a viable player because they are genuinely trying to do something different and cool and notable um so hopefully this is it I don't you know not to say that I wanted these particular nokia phones succeed but just that this platform I hope that this causes it to flourish in a way that it hasn't so far the the thing that I'll be really interested in is if we get carrier announcements alongside nokia stuff because you know we've had rumors for quite a long time that verizon might be jumping in with both feet on Windows Phone and if you stop and think about it you know verizon going all in on windows phone at the same time and maybe going out all in with Nokia would actually be a pretty big deal for all three of the companies involved here and i think that would that would really help that the the other thing that I'm really curious about is you know what else haven't we seen in the full reveal of windows so Nate I mean we know what the smaller tiles we know about you know a couple like small sort of nerdy developer type features and whatnot but I still feel like there's got to be some other big flashy consumer-facing feature that hasn't been put forth yet I think so i think that they're they're holding and back and in i think that that Greg Sullivan who kind of did the PR tour around the last windows phone 8 event he actually said that right there's still a lot yet to be revealed and I hope that's true i hope we see some really cool stuff at that event on the 5th but it buddy you know i hate to belabor the point about other OEMs but where does this leave uh you know HTC obviously is the big one samsung i I don't know we're hearing rumors about this Odyssey device and there's one other from Samsung I think we've talked about in the past that came out of the the trial documents and apple vs samsung but it's it that the fact that that they're basically co-branding this as a nokia microsoft fenton doing this big windows phone 8 reveal there's just really interesting to me of course i mean i guess i guess google did the same thing with with ICS right they they co-branded that as a samsung galaxy nexus ICS event so it you know whatever well just a point about Samsung I know that both ross miller and neil i have been very forthright about their opinion with samsung and the way they express it is take a look at Samsung's latest and greatest Android phone and take a look at Samsung's latest and greatest windows phone one of them says this is our business is what we rely on the other one says ACK you know we just do this so it's some diversity to our portfolio that's it um and also the thing that we've seen with these samsung leaks stuff that is emerged from the documents kind of seems like they to do a galaxy s free show but for windows phone which again for Windows Phone enthusiasts is exciting right they they want that software and they want samsung say it's hardware but in fact as matter is the galaxy's free is no longer Samsung's very latest hardware you know it's a few more sold Sampson brings over at first and then triplet is there a Windows where it is still their latest hardware oh no that is hard ways in the labs Chris but you know what I'm saying it's been a few months and delays hardware by the time these Windows Phone device come out will be the galaxy note 2 but what I'm saying is Windows Phone is essentially the trickle down or west for samsung right yeah I will def air I I could I can agree with that but I mean the question about it continuing to be the trickle Donald's I think you're right about samsung but will it be for HTC you know HTC is not doing well right now and you know is there space for Windows Phone to give them a bump especially with so much attention being given to nokia well i'm not convinced that would be the case because in that case we essentially change for changes sake because as you feel like if you look at the options that the the OEMs have android is the best like the iphone isn't an option iOS is an option for them to pick up so that's not even a conversation and android is clearly ahead of windows phone unless the hidden feature that Microsoft has for windows phone is some underground ecosystem that has been cooking up and all of a sudden boom there's like 100 booties superb apps for Windows Phone which you didn't know about before and which are now awesome so switching out the windows phone will be just well we're different as far as the htc's concern but then who are you different from you different from the android gadget different of Samson but you're not actually different from Nokia and then you're falling into another trap which is if you invest really severely and deeply into Windows Phone you haven't defined nokia and Nokia strength is design and all of the things that they would say you know the distinguishing OEM so i don't really like that fight for HTC I think agency needs to just keep doing what has been doing and hope they can just do it better essentially just execute better one at a macro level I think the question is is there some economic principle that ultimately dictates that there needs to be one to one relationship between platforms and successful profitable OEMs and that's the question that remains to be answered but you know that the market cannot feasibly support more than three maybe four platforms right there's no evidence to suggest that that that anything beyond that will survive over the past few years so now the question is can these beasts I don't want to call it one second tier but these these these OEMs that aren't the leading OEM on each platform can they carve out enough market to just stay profitable and of course nokia has the windows phone relationship locked up samsung has android locked up where does that leave everybody else not just HTC but but LG and you know we have these these Chinese guys that are really trying to make a splash right now like huawei and ZTE I'm sure that they can be successful in the Asian market but can they can they find it a niche in North America i don't know i don't think so i mean i mean even HTC is said that they're gonna make a push in china right and we see that that comes through and I mean what's the we've got the story of the HTC CEO Peter Chou there was a memo that there's multiple areas where HTC needs improvement I mean glad you said you know they need to just keep on doing what they've been doing and just do it better and I'm hard-pressed to disagree with you but like if the 1-series didn't do it for him like what other ammo have they got sitting in their arsenal yeah stock Android it's ever to happen listen it's a stock answer but is it true no but it is actually no it is it last night no no let me let me last night because there's another apple vs samsung case going on besides the main one which by the way there's a live blog Apple's closing arguments right now happening which you should read while you listen to this but in the other case which was the Galaxy Nexus ban in and that's about Universal Search so it went to an appeals court and Samsung is trying to argue that the Galaxy Nexus hasn't caused a reparable harm to the iphone and the quote from their lawyer was that it had a miniscule amount of sales and like Samsung is only made I think it was 250 million off of the galaxy nexus in the u.s. so like that was not a tiny event that the launch of the galaxy nexus google was behind it it was a you know it was the thing it wasn't you know a huge apple level event but you know it's on three carriers it's a lot more if you want to buy it unlocked and it hasn't taken off so like I I don't feel like it's not about stock it's about marketing muscle and push and we I guess we haven't really seen anybody put that behind stock but I just have a feeling like if HTC were to do it they'd get some goodwill from the hard core android fans I would love it you know but I'm a hard core android fan I guess right but I just don't see that it's a a path to like huge success for them I totally want to this day operation there's no there-there's there's no evidence to suggest that the average consumer walking into a US retail store can differentiate between skin android or and stock android nor do they care yeah okay I agree the first part I disagree with the second papa the first part they can't distinguish and differentiate fine but do they care yes take care stock Android versus sense is a better user experience and my question was for data on your HTC One X what software are you running at a moment dieter ah that's a very interesting question I am running cyanogenmod 10 which by the way is not stock Android but it is you know an S at it it's so much closer to it than sense yeah mom I don't even know what to tell you guys like I wrote a right to peace where I save the galaxy nexus to steal the best android phone you can buy chris disagrees with me then both you end up on the Galaxy Nexus at least temporarily then I argue you know stock Android is preferable to sense just on the quality of user experience they don't mind if people can you know recognize which is which I'm saying they can recognize the quality of the user experience which is better on stock and then you guys are using it on your phone so I mean the facts bear out that I'm just always right and also there's another fact that tom warren bought a Galaxy Nexus the other day and tom warren is you know he's got microsoft tattoos on every body part you know so he really meaningful by the way but he it buys android just because of the song experiencing garrisoning something he wanted to learn about it but he loves it does the other think he bought it and he's falling in love with it so look but i want to make it very clear the only reason I'm used in galaxy nexus now is because i like i like there's still something very magical to me about tapping in a cab to pay for my fare and and the galaxy s3 is frozen and no does not have the secure element necessary to get google wallet working at least not the North American versions um with them cakes we tell me is you only using this phone because it has more functionality allowed phones I get it notice I'm already showing this is a google boy look google wallet has nothing to do with stock right okay can we can we all agree like that there are two completely unrelated issues yeah okay fine they are fine can't you show everyone I'm interested in something that we need to to talk about with with this September fifth event which is the elephant in the room which is that it's a week before the rumored iphone event and so it's you get you kind of it's hard to get around the sense that these companies are trying to get their announcements out before the iphone just so that they can get a little bit of attention because after the 12 the rumored new iphone announced they'll just be you know iphone iphone iphone on that's it oh yeah but by the way I think that's the wrong strategy I think that's completely the wrong stretch because what that means is that they are giving themselves a fixed like a known fixed amount of time in which they can get any attention whatsoever and then and there's that baffle event and then boom the like any you know any attention that they had any spotlight any fraction of the spot like that they had is instantly wiped off the map if they announced after the iphone they control you know they can dial in the the product in the event and the way they announce the event and then there's really no bound there's no limit to how long they can control that spotlight so I I don't really understand the the notion of like rushing to get something announced before an apple event it just doesn't really make any sense to me I I'm on the show Chris I I mean first of all it's very much in line with the habit in the industry i mean if you think of CES CES kicks off let's say the fifth to january thereabouts everybody pre announces their announcements on my 31st december nowadays just to get that first just to be able to say first we got there first we did this first it's a terrible habit but so many companies maintain it and if you recall microsoft with its surface launch event everybody commented that although the promotional video was great and the surface tablets will create clearly well developed in you know designed over a long period of time the actual event though extremely hurried so microsoft was also in a rush to get there ahead of somebody else get there in the right it's new psych or whatever and I'm not even convinced that you know if you announce to say a week after the iphone as opposed to a week before i'm not going to see you can get that much height because everybody will be too busy saying okay it's two days until the iphone pre-orders start shipping has anybody got the iphone pre-orders have you had a shipping confirmation i mean it's it's always my new share that with an iphone launch and it annoys me and I'm sure annoys most people but it happens and that's that then tends to become the news coverage which is a line for everybody it ages the way it is I wholeheartedly disagree but you're entitled to well how about something we can all agree on a tease FaceTime policy they are not charging extra technically but they are requiring a different uh I believe slightly more expensive plan you're going to need to get on the mobile share plan in order to use FaceTime as opposed to their standard plans and my right that mobile share is replacing what's currently data pro which is their tethering plan or my hime drunk I've been assured by AT&T that that the mobile share plans are supplemental to their existing plans but you can see how over time through moves like this facetime move they're hoping to kind of like naturally obsolete the be you know the quote-unquote legacy plans so when when they announced mobile share one of the things that they were touting was the fact that unlike verizon where they are now putting everybody on a share everything plan on AT&T I'm they're not doing that but this is I mean it's you know six of one half dozen to the other they're gonna end up with moves like this just putting all these old plans in a very bad place yeah I mean I mean I'm paying for the data pro plan right now which is a plan that costs a bit more to include tethering which like I've given how easy it is to like get tethering sneakily on smart phones these days I kind of feel like I'm just doing it out of like a boy scout sense of morality but there it is so I mean you know it this won't affect me i'm sure i'll switch over to the mobile share and that'll be that but I imagine there's going to be a bunch of people that you know are going to have to be making a hard decision of you know do I want to pay more for basically the same data in order to get this feature and so there's been a lot of noise about whether or not it the brakes the FCC's open Internet rules and Chris you actually wrote a really good piece on exactly what the story is here yeah I think that everybody is hoping that that this move violates the FCC's existing rules that are a part of its open Internet initiative and there's I don't have the exact verbiage in front of me but it says something to the effect of a carrier a wireless carrier cannot block an application or service that competes with its own voice or video services and I'm postulating that ATT is going to argue very hard over the coming weeks and months when this becomes a huge public policy debate that facetime does not compete directly or really even indirectly with any service that it offers itself right because AT&T does not offer a mobile video calling service and they and you can't really make a compelling argument that facetime is a direct replacement for 18 teens voice service because FaceTime can't at least currently can't be used in a voice only mode and you can't call people that are using non apple devices with it so I think they look tape here that disagrees with that assertion I'm just putting that out fair enough uh yeah I mean I I just think that that they've that ATT believes that they've carved open just enough of a loophole in the existing open internet regulation so that this is not going to be a problem for them verizon you know so the next obvious question is will verizon do the same thing they are in a slightly more tenuous position only because they're sitting on that 700 megahertz spectrum the block suspected so-called black speech flexi spectrum that has the open access provision attached to it and and that is a much more stringent set of regulations just on that one block of spectrum that would make it almost certainly illegal for them to try to try to do something like this but I think unfortunately I'm not happy about it I wasn't happy about writing this report I was just delivering the bad news that I really don't think that there is any existing law in place that prevents 18t from legally do well you know what could prevent agency from doing this chris is some actual competition as opposed to them you're essentially state-sponsored duopoly over in the US which I am going to just use as a segue a perfectly self-serving segue to transition into the UK and our our Kerry situation which has had quite a tumultuous day today because everything everywhere which is the company that was set up from the combination of t-mobile and orange they got approval from Ofcom local regulator to do an LTE network on some spare spectrum that had eighteen hundred megahertz so now that have licenses to do 4G LTE on eighteen hundred megahertz and everybody is freaked out and pissed off about it vodafone o2 free everybody they're just okay actually no you explain to me why i should feel bad for these companies that aren't going to get to launch their their LTE networks at the same time as everything everywhere cuz i don't get a gent medium like what's the problem like sorry guys they happen to get lucky with the way that they managed their spectrum and they're gonna be able to launch sooner that's that's I mean maybe it's just that like in the US we've seen carriers launch networks ahead of each other and that's just the way it is and so I'm just used to two carriers competing on you know the quality of their their spectrum and what kind of data speeds that can offer as opposed to Europe everybody pretty much you know is on a more equal partha but I just I don't see where the justification is to be unhappy about this from you know of course the other companies you know they're gonna it'll make it makes sense for them to say oh yeah this is unfair but like what's genuinely unfair about it well I mean it's it's a your point is fair enough teaser but the issue is the primary issue is the delay right because I mean first of all there's going to be an auction to set off the spectrum that the UK government is assigned for LTE 4G LTE in the UK that's going to be 800 megahertz which is gonna be prime real estate and i believe is 2.6 gigahertz it's gonna be the slightly rougher one it's likely cheaper version the trouble is everything everywhere is allowed to go inches 4G service almost now like two weeks from now 11 for September I don't know that they'll have the service ready on that date but that's when you can start rolling it out nobody else is the same sort of spectrum or bandwidth that everything everywhere has to make use of the same what would actually found out was that the up come decision effects okaeri so if anybody else wants to do LT at 800 megahertz 1800 makers they can do it if they just don't have as I say the bandwidth to do that uh isn't English you'll know why that won't is that everything everywhere is problem though I mean sure is that the auction isn't going to start taking bids until early next year and people won't be able to get actual service from every carrier on an even footing on an equal basis until at least this time next year so everything everywhere is getting ever essentially a years head start that's I mean that's all well and good and I mean I'm shedding a single tear for vodafone oh one of the largest conglomerates in the world but it the fact remains that under no circumstances should Ofcom or FCC or the crtc or any other regulatory body around the world be artificially inhibiting a innovation just because other companies don't think that it's boat unquote fair um but the thing is market distortions Chris it's something that the Europeans care about and the Americans don't there are you know effects like I mean there's anything in the u.s. you guys and this is kind of straight into legal side of things you guys take a more formal istic perspective where is like are the originating conditions fair and then let people go in kill each other if that's what the market decides where as here in Europe people take a boat consequentialist perspective and they say okay this appears fair on the surface letting these guys have the network and as I say Ofcom the European Union Dave approve this the European Union separately is over the thing approving the merger between t-mobile and orange previously but then prove it so they're fine with it but the point is that the concern here was about what the effect would be of having one carry in the UK with 4g for a whole year in front of everybody else and the thing that makes is more interesting and exciting is if this next I next-generation iphone which we all kind of anticipate will have ot if that actually runs on this network right yeah that is actually that that particular thing like the the pc wrote on that like that explains why these other carriers are like freaking out and yet trying to make the case that this is unfair like that perfectly explains it yeah i mean look if you are the only LTE network you go to massive advantage over everybody else because the other thing is nobody in the UK is done the false porgy claims that you've had in the US so people in the UK I'm sorry honest jaded to the idea for G as Americans are so if you live and you say yes good I've got news for you sprint head wimax for a long ass time before anyone had LTE here and no one gave to you know what about it well that's because it's wimax no it's no good no no all right it was way faster than anything else on the market when it was available yeah up but I don't think that it's it's I mean you gotta keep in mind that some people are still under tariffs well ed I mean like it people it's not like the entire country is going to rush into everything I've everywhere just because they start advertising LTE that's that's absolutely correct Chris and I had to tell you really in the comments from our UK readers and also speaking to Aaron who's my local colleague a lot of people actually all know that excited a lot of people would prefer to have more data on the 3g and more reliable data on the 3g service than to have a faster 4G service and I'm not convinced once they get a taste of 4G they won't be like holy you know such and such this is like the rates an iPad is so much better I can't live without it anymore because that's how you guys feel right over in the US now do you you have 30 services but at the moment like the latent excitement the anticipation of 4G NLT in the UK isn't that strong so Christmas points about it but here's the thing all of these reservations and considerations that we might have about the impact of one network because there's one that's what given those two brands having 4G and nobody else having it for a year they get kind of nullified again by the iphones effect because if nobody appreciates the value of having LTE that sample strength educating people on why LTE is going to be a good thing so and educating people why they're gonna want to pay a premium and why they're going to want to you know cut of their contract early get the new iphone and and this is really the point you're going to have two tiers of iphones if the if it's materializes and pocket-lint one of the UK publications cite sources that say yes the next generation iphone will run on the LTE network that everything everywhere will roll out we should know you can take that as credible as you consider pachal in to be and they're good guys so yeah hopefully they're right it's gonna it's gonna make it interesting in any case but the point is in people's perceptions is going to be very easy to distinguish there's going to be the fast life own fast in terms of programs based and the regular ipod and since the iphone is being purchased at least in some respects because of its was the fact i'm thinking of well bragging rights right yeah if you want bragging rights and you purchase an iphone you're not going to purchase the regular one you're gonna purchase a full fat ltu one and this is what makes it like i just feel like the iphone magnifies the effects of this well let's uh let's let's get down to brass tacks well I would who's your current carrier free and so what's your plan when the iphone comes out with LTE on everything everywhere let me clear myself my current carrier is free like I have this habit of pronouncing free as free so I'm sorry sorry I'm just correcting myself to save the trouble for the really pedantic person in comments I'm sticking with my carrier because I just exchanged phone too quickly and too rapidly I like I wouldn't sweat it or this but but Vlad I'm going to once again mightily strike down your your meticulously constructed argument because this exact same thing happened when the cdma iphone 4 came out and again with the 4s where AT&T has been advertising the fact that they have a significantly faster data experience then then verizon does or sprint because there it's evdo rev a vs whatever mysterious form of hspa+ that ATT is using and of course you have the simultaneous voice and data advantage on AT&T as well and in that the numbers just don't bear out that there's been this this you know I mean like rise and sells iphone sprint sells iphones ATT sells iphones but the net effect of those bragging rights for carriers between you know in terms of customer flow between carriers I don't think those numbers are particularly large and so I think but so actually I gotta jump in and defend lad here because we haven't this this experience that the UK is about to have is going to be unique because with the exception I think of maybe i'm going to say the ego 4g on sprint which was a new network at a genuinely good phone we have not had a simultaneous launch of a next-generation data network along with the phone that didn't suck right i mean that's right you can't say that the Thunderbolt on verizon PL is it all comparable with the iphone to be on everything everywhere and so you know did people switch to verizon for LTE yes but it wasn't a huge like boom let's do this now because it took a while to roll out and the first generation of phones were pretty bad and but I know you know people did switch to sprint for the evo 4G and so I think that we are going to see people buy into the argument that a 4g iphone is better and faster than 3g iphone and we're switching for no my thing I'm thinking of right now is like the Apple adverts think about those like first of all everything everywhere gets free promotion from Apple advertising sex iPhone but then there's the ads and the ads are gonna be really simple and straightforward it's gonna be i'm downloading a full album and then you see the progress bar it's like zip zip zip with elt connection it's like super fast and then there'll be an unidentifiable phone on the side of something if Apple was to be tongue-in-cheek doesn't matter yeah but the point is Apple will make it really crystal clear to people why they want LTE and why they want 4G and it's just gonna be one place to get it that's this thing and everything everywhere they also revealed today they're gonna launch a new brand which is you know just completely nuts and bonkers but it seems like this new brand they're going to launch might launch together with the 4g service it might be the brand for the 4g service immediately Oh initially and then after a while after a few months they might face out orange a tmobile in the UK but for a while there will be orange t-mobile and an unnamed brand from Earth everywhere so we can look forward to complete consumer confusion apart from the f1 action I mean to be fair everything everywhere is pretty much the worst name for a joint venture in the history of of the corporate world agree so anything would be better than that anything anywhere we better than everything every where uh look at moving lighten up I'm sorry it had to be done um speaking of things that have to be done we have talk about blackberry 10 I mean we've if we do we have got official screen resolutions 1280 by 720 and 720 x 720 and yes late we've got a good report from Josh about blackberry to him see if i can find that but yeah so square display which i don't know i'm i miss square displays i rocked a trio for a really long time I think square displays could be uh I wait there wait hotness but let me let me let me blow your minds for a minute just allow me to just sit back relax let me blow your mind imagine a 720 x 720 full touch phone think about it for a minute just that kind of like a bad thing yeah just exactly like the cannon except without the bottom slide part just the top part and perfectly square you know what Chris I I'm imagining it and all I can think is you're gonna want a strap so you could put a new wrist uh it would probably be a little bit too big but if it was like if it was under 3 inches I would probably consider doing exactly that like if it was about what's the size of a palm pixi piss away which i think was what 2.8 inches or something like that I would definitely put that on my wrist motorola flipout hopeless loser just brought it up in the chat can't forget about the skirt flip out yes that is that is always going to save rim that form factor okay I'm with you Chris like if you do a really good world design square for in fact the phone that could definitely be a total differentiator and like something that people see in like yeah that's a blackberry and room has always had that Buddhist blackberry because of the iconic keyboard design so why not gonna see a new form fact that nobody else uses yeah oh I'm sorry I'm just looking at a photo of the motorola flipout and I'm just the happiest person ever um the other funny thing is that CEO thorsten heins there's a quote from Josh's piece sales of the devices in the US took a major hit as carriers transition to 4g phones according to the executive carrier version to marketing 3g devices was the main culprit for the company's dipping numbers barely know man bleep denial kappa yes well if I oh that's exactly it's indicative of a worldview that died like three or four years ago where whatever the carrier decides to put in the front window is what sells right well not notice that I mean you have to admit if you're him you have to admit but your device you just aren't competitive any more like who does he think he's fooling look at look at you share price like as a CEO I get it you want to be communicating to consumers business other businesses partners and investors but everybody sees through this like there isn't even the hint of clothes on the Emperor at this stage so just given us this BS about your verizon doesn't want to promote free g phones yes that's true but that's just like a tiny tiny aspect of why people aren't buying blackberrys anymore like that's what it was also one market you go on blackberry so UK is this better services I really ER in the show we were saying we hope that Windows Phone 8 becomes a viable contender in the smartphone market place apparently blackberry 10 is like out for beta testing right now beta testing and you know we've got a there's a blackberry jam which is our developer event coming up in late-september and you know we're getting close to 2013 right and that thing is gonna launch you guys do you even are you rooting for it at all do you care I mean I've been like the secret blackberry 10 a fanboy here which is a really weird place to be gallon yeah I know uh if there's some interesting ideas in the OS well I really want to see the final loss to see if it coheres and make sense if it is like oh yeah this is a genuinely new way to interact with the phone and I don't know if they're going to be able to pull it off but if they do I would like to see them you know clawback enough market share to survive and continue to provide competition oh I well I think everybody wants to see it right i mean like it's it's the same sort of morbid curiosity that people had toward palm leading up to the web of the initial webos announcement they're like okay these guys have been in the labs for a long time now let's see what they have cooking um but I whether that translates to sales I mean that's a really really big stretch for me because Microsoft still has not been able to parlay its initial success with Windows Mobile into any sort of meaningful market share for windows phone the most recent numbers from the the major research firms indicate that maybe they've kind of gotten past that that bounce but I don't know if it's a dead cat bounce or if it's a genuine uptick in in market share that remains to be seen but lately to suggest that that Britain is going to be able to show something really cool and then immediately turn that into market share I think it's just a bridge too far they it still comes down to these blackberry jam events getting major not just not just like individual like really cool indie developers on board they need to get all the big names on board and they need to have a concentrated push and that is I mean that is one very small part of the puzzle but it is a critical part without that their timely matter what's a dead cat bounce Adele really balance is a dead cat bounces and artificial bounce it's it's most commonly associated with a stock price if a if a stock price falls dramatically because something bad has happened to a company so there's sometimes an artificial bounce and the stock price because investors think that there's suddenly a really good deal on that stock but it turns out to be a false bounce and that it immediately crashes again yeah so it's like the stock hits bottom and then there's a short uptick which is just an aftereffect of and hitting bottom and I think we can still sitting in that as even is just freakishly morbid yeah I think we can all agree that dead cat bounce is a great code name for a square screen blackberry just I totally agree or maybe dead cat and then the testing of it in the labs won't they're doing the like the ruggedness testing they call that the dead cat bounce because they're actually throwing the dead cat wow this is this conversation is getting weird really fast and and dark um do you guys want to talk about apple vs samsung we already mentioned the galaxy nexus band as we are recording right now the the closing arguments from Apple are getting a live blog on the site you know there's we mentioned this last week there's a whole other verge cast special edition you can listen to where they talk about the issues of the case and I mean what blows my mind is that this is going like they're letting the jury decide this like they didn't they the CEOs met I want to say two nights ago yeah two nights ago and they didn't come to a resolution and so like they're they're letting the jury go and decide this thing we'll see if they settle before the jury comes back but like it's crazy right that it's yeah it is it is what it is is a multi-billion dollar game of chicken I think that bread both sides are so entrenched in their beliefs at this point and feel so strongly about what's happening here but they're really letting that cloud their judgment and I mean Neil I just follow Neal I on twitter if you i'm sure everyone who's listening to this show does but if you don't please follow him follow me he's at reckless and he has been providing some very very concise and important insight into what's happening in the courtroom right now um but yeah he's as shocked as anybody that this is actually going to the jury right now and also one of the amazing things to mention is the judge koh who's in charge of the entire proceeding / carnival she's making people actually stand up in the courtroom to make sure we still alive that's in the actual that we go out of the courtroom so I I just honestly I envy Brian for Matty forgetting to attend these things in person because it really is going to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime surreal experiences that we're gonna miss our honestly like the fact that there's no live stream for this event is breaking my heart a tragic my favorite Lucy Coe moment so they each site only had twenty five hours to present their case and so they were both trying to get in as many witnesses before the 25 hours uh got up as possible and so she apple says we want to get in like these you know 20 witnesses in the next hour or whatever it was and co says um unless you're smoking crack you know these witnesses aren't going to get called that the Apple attorney had to be like first Your Honor I am NOT smoking crack I can do that like that's amazing like huge amount of money on the line the the future of apples patents and Samsung's patents and the design for both of these companies on the line and we're talking about smoking crack it's it's awesome I i have to say both co and and posner in the motorola case that shown a lot more personality and I ever was expected out of like you know you think of these kinds of trials or really you know the court system in general is being this very stuffy institution and in many ways it is but there are these moments of just complete humanity uh bubbling up out of these cases that you you really don't expect um do we okay I guess we should talk about google ad in gift cards to and let's talk about what we want to talk about I just freaking talk about something let's talk about a guy I don't care just get into it man no wait wait wait wait wait I wait and I do want to talk about that the girls will do it I do too so these I don't understand what it part of my french but I don't understand what big whoop is about these cards I mean can someone please explain to me why anyone cares what may be nearly as I can explain because Google thinks that they're gonna they're going to compete with iTunes and you can't use itunes unless you can buy gift cards at walmart or 7-eleven they think that people are going to be putting these gift cards in you know Christmas cards and instead of getting an iTunes gift card you'll get a google gift card and it's going to be a real genuine content store that people want to go and buy movies and TV shows from I think that they've got a full ecosystem that will you know i can buy a TV show and watch it on my google TV and watch out of my Nexus 7 and watch it on my android phone and like like they've got all the pieces of having a content ecosystem except for the content ecosystem like it's like it's all there for Google Play they need more content in there but nobody nobody had thinks of it that way right google play store buying android apps and but do people really think of like i'm gonna buy five seasons worth of shows on google play and just have them round the way that people used to do and maybe I guess still do on iTunes when it's not available to stream on netflix like it it's just so they're there mmm yeah so obviously the queue in in theory what the queue was trying to do would be very important to that strategy right but unfortunately the queue was executed so dramatically poorly that yet actually plays no role whatsoever especially now that it's on indefinite old so well there was a stationary failures all over the place I mean we had Eric Schmidt saying that Google TV was gonna be embedded in every smart TV by now right and that didn't happen yeah we've got google TV boxes that are completely underwhelming then the Nexus 7 is far and away the best success story they have in terms of thinking about google play as a content ecosystem but even then i mean as great as we all think the Nexus 7 is it's it's certainly not enough to to carry that on its shoulders so it's it Google Play to me you know it's great for getting apps but it doesn't it feels like it's a checkbox more than it is a compelling content feature just if only because there so far behind itunes in terms of mindshare and so it's great that they're doing she's no get it out or shelves I'm sorry talks over you but it's a checkbox for now but then maybe again cuckoo is laying the foundation to evolve and finely fashioned it into a career competitor no I mean gift cards then uh news in the sense that yeah Wow fascinating something I really need to know but then you in the fact that they exist now and and they're just one of those formalities like I say checkbox stuff that you just need to have to spread your distribution and all of these things I don't have a confession to make here actually when Chris started talking about the queue I i heard that as q as in qu e ue the actual word as opposed to the Nexus Q and for a moment I just completely forgot about the next accuse existence so you were never be observations to make about that now first of all I really like the name Q for a streaming device because you know you can think of it as like the place where your media q is anywhere is waiting for you so next is cute that actually makes sense to me in that kind of funny way the second of all I Chris was saying that thing is kind of it was really exciting is really interesting when it happened and raised a lot of eyebrows and then just kind of disappeared off the map which again I like you guys the same like Google TV is just an unfinished something and it has a potential and instead of Santa just I also do kind of feel that way about Google+ in many ways like you see the potential to take it and just like kick everybody's ass with it but then Google just isn't putting the finishing touches on it like did I don't know the company lacks polish is that what we what it needs well what's easy to me too is that the the Q is the exact same thing I can remember the code name but they showed it in basically a development kit form at the google i/o prior in 2011 and it evolved into the key which is basically just a spherical repackaging of that development kit that didn't really add any functionality as far as I could tell and so they took a year to I guess part of that was the fact that they had to build this this America this you know completely American a supply manufacturing chain for it that's that took time I'm sure but in that year they didn't really seem to add any functionality or capability to it that would get people exciting particularly at three hundred dollars so this is kind of a very it Laura wrote about this on the site but back when the key was it was originally announced but this is kind of a disappointing first attempt at at creating an American manufactured consumer electronics device by major combo you're right because we I think that that there's so much talk about that right now that it would have been very very encouraging and interesting to see a wildly successful product at a price point that made sense that was manufactured in the US but this just goes to show i mean it's it's the proof that you can't do that at a price you know you're gonna end up with sticker shock there's no way to get around it well it's to think it's crazy but the queue is like the hardware is great and the price is expensive sure but like Google the software company like failed on software right they failed on execution implementation on the queue and that's what's so disappointing about it is that it did it could have been more and maybe it will be maybe they'll come back and say we added the functionality we talked about but like what's a bummer about the queue is that there's no earthly reason for them to not have done more with it from the software side I want to get back to the gift cards though because there's something I totally think is important to note gift cards on iTunes we're always super important because they would allow teenagers with ipod touches to buy apps and stuff so parents could buy gift cards or kids could pay pay for gift cards with cash at a store and then be able to use that in order to I stuff on the the virtual iTunes Store and it's actually kind of insane that that hasn't happened on Android which theoretically since there's so many cheaper Android devices out there you'd think a lot of teenagers who don't have full access to credit cards would want some kind of you know gift card solution there so I'm not saying that it's going to stop piracy because obviously it won't but it could be that you know it at least fills that checkbox that if you think about it was actually kind of crazy that wasn't wasn't there before yeah yeah no it's very it's very good point that you make it essentially like you can now buy prepaid credit for Google Play Store which couldn't do before you need a credit card but actually on the point about making software and Google software failings again I totally agree with you tita that reminds me of Adobe again and how sometimes you can see a company doing something so well like one product so well and then just thinking up the joint with multiple other products and you know with Dobie 3d of this Photoshop excels other products like Lightroom are also strong but then you have flash and then you have Premiere Pro which some people love other people like me find just completely overbearing and I feel I mean with Google my example would be chrome which I still feels the best the browser hands down have you spent quite a bit of time testing Safari 6 which i think is very strong but Google is just better in small and the subtle things problem that is so I think as much as I was just saying that Google has might have a systemic problem of never finishing up things clearly and properly maybe maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's wrong to consider these companies just because are so big nowadays it is wrong to consider them as one unified company because the guys who make chrome the browser they're like one group of one team and the guys who make the Nexus Q software the guys we make the Google TV software there how are the team probably anonymous and never to be mentioned again and I think it we might be fairer to products into pieces of software if we just analyze them on their own strengths and just kind of stopped talking about the overarching companies anymore because it's so massive that it's no it's not like Instagram makes product number 20 so it's a lot of small company like Sparrow before I got taken over by Google now is just to do the Department espera was going to do an RSS reader for example then you can say it's these guys doing that can we say that with Apple Google or Microsoft or any of these you know massive names that we keep talking about but no see here's the thing like these companies are selling themselves on the strength of the ecosystem that you could buy into and that this applies perfectly to Google Play right microsoft has got its ecosystem with the xbox and that Windows talking the xbox better and that smart glasses coming a blah blah blah you know Apple has gotten its Apple TV talking buy airtime to the computer and the iPads all those things are talking to each other now with iCloud so you know if these companies are going to you know market themselves on the strength of their ecosystem and interoperability between the devices made by all these disparate different divisions then I think it's fair to judge them on that and it's fair to say you know you're a giant company and yes it's a small team that built this particular product but it's your responsibility as the giant company to make sure that this team has the resources and needs to make something awesome well I wanted to leave Josh from on that basis but do you think about this both of roses promise this is timber fifth is the main event I can prejudge them right now and say no you're wrong yeah but what I'm saying is that that doesn't really help anybody understands Motorola and what septemberfest is going to hope for that company you know so as a responsible journalist which we sometimes try to pretend that we are I don't think we're being constructive in taking the premise of ecosystem and I'm running with it the way the these companies that press departments are doing because I don't really think they have these ecosystems like they don't have the ecosystem within their organizations like most Lee's company stuff its wine HP's takeover of palm such freaking disaster because everything is insular and siloed and it takes you know HP probably has well middle management people that has cleaners in surfaces and this is this is the thing that bothers me i mean i could tell you this i was speaking to somebody working at nokia a few years back probably won't mind me mentioning this because it was fused back in no case surely fixed everything up since then but he told me that what you have is separate to use working on one aspect of software so what one team is working on this part of the UI and the TV's working on radios and set a low signal and all that stuff and then in the final month or two before they decide to launch an announcer device they all come together and I have a big integration 80 and to me that's the crazy thing like if you don't as a company have that meeting to start with and then have that consistently going on how things fit together then you can't sell us this ecosystem prominent what would you google or apple anybody know and I think that with the exception of Apple the and I create Microsoft especially I think with ya I think matter so much when you getting in thanks guy yeah yeah but Google's just out there yet especially when combined you guys are arguing that Microsoft is really good at presenting a unified ecosystem strategy I i said no i think what other has getting one now would you which is a chance for you because yeah i mean you can really see it with the metro style / modern design style / whatever microsomes gotta call it and the way that they're trying to roll it out across their devices points to a strategy I'm not saying Microsoft is greater communicating that know right i mean Microsoft is legendary for having these internal boring factions that all have different priorities and different things that they're trying to get done and I think that that is a you know with the exception of Apple like you said dieter because of their you know the nature that the way that organization is always operated with with the exception of Apple most large companies suffer from that problem to some degree particularly at a place like Google that is really comprised of dozens and dozens of acquisitions over the years right Android was an acquisition and I think that some of that you know culture clash continues you know it perpetuates and I continue to believe to this day I've never been able to get anybody to confirm or even hint to me that this is in fact the case but I strongly believe that there is a lot of distrust and dislike between Google's Android and chrome teams over the you know the ongoing debate between Chrome OS vs vs android and how those two platforms match the fact that they seemingly don't there's like a you know an entire category devices where it is unclear which direction Google is trying to go and I would guess that inside the company both of those divisions are trying to argue that they are the best platform to control this particular class of devices but in that flag get settled already no I don't think so I mean I knew a new bunch of Chromebooks just came out right oh yeah and everybody's froth Chris you Louie and Adrian and I'll team and two other people yes I can't leave my Chromebook look I'm just saying they they uh you know Google internally put a lot of work into a brand new UI for Chrome OS so they are clearly not giving up on it last we heard they're deploying Chromebooks internally as like you know Google devices or uh for staff so it's not going anywhere I so I just I just think that that kind of mentality where you have all these different divisions that are kind of you know sent off to go in their own directions and sometimes those directions to overlap a little bit that's where you start to run into that that politicking that kind of uh is is opposed to what it is that the company as a whole is trying to do and and that's that's the mentality that they constantly need to be fighting I have no way to wrap that up and I lever conclusion other than they need to get their act together and do it yes yes they do well I mean I'm okay I do want to say it like i like the philosophy behind Chrome OS a little bit better than I like the philosophy behind Android but in terms of like implementation Android kicks it up and down the street right and the same is applied to everything that sort of tried to be based on the web and be a big consumer success other than you know the web and web coasters right so i will see i would argue i would argue that the aura UI which is I think that's what they're calling the new uh i just rode a yeah i mean the the aura UI is excellent but the reason why it's excellent is because they've abandoned their their attempt to make the device completely browser centric there is now a UI to that exists outside of the browser so it's kind of like it's it's a victory but it's also a loss well it's it's a UI that exists outside the browser but it's still like you know it lives and breathes with web and web apps right right it doesn't look like a you know a browser but it's still a web device and I mean I I prefer that openness to Android's philosophy I guess but you know nevertheless the bottom line is you know what plays games what gets work done for you and the open web isn't there yet as a platform so yeah I'm night knowing I'm Arab up Oh Donna just before we do Jennifer with you I would like to just do a little update on my razr maxx adventure here in the UK oh yeah because I mentioned on the last show that I had turned it on as a show started and I wanted to see how long it would last the first time actually was really disappointing because I unplugged it from the charger in the evening on the Tuesday and then it needed to recharge by the evening on the Wednesday which was weird to me because it has this mass mass battery and it was just in standby whatever happened between that first charge in the second was magical because from Wednesday night with standby little bit of camera use just regular phone use it lasts until Monday night which were any school smartphone is epic so it's saying but like that's it i'm so glad i'm driving android out of first boot after like a reset it it needs to like settle in and this is a really common topic you know since i've been flashing roms on my one acts people i like let it let the ROM settle in for a day or two before you start judging the battery life it seems like most of these phones get better battery life after the OS has sort of gotten into a groove and I have no idea if that actually is reflected by what's happening behind the scenes you know with what the software is doing but it I've seen like that advice repeated over and over and maybe it's just to make people go away but I don't like mad as my knees knees yeah it sounds like wine drinking advice what you want to do is you want to open it up and then just let it settle down let it really so down overnight the next night you just keep it in high school area if you haven't got one just like move to the software on stay they have them in abundance and yeah then you then you let it down and it's beautiful now with them I was gonna say thumbs up for the battery life which is excellent but thumbs down for multi role is really horrible rollouts of the android 4.0 update because this phone up girl still has gingerbread and first of all the droid razr maxx and droid razr in the united states got ice cream sandwich first before the european version why that needed to happen I don't know but fine okay so there's a late for the european version then the european version camps and all you can actually find on the web out is is happening it's OTA you can get yours and I haven't had mine and it's been like a month since they announced it during the European rollout it's not acceptable treated like seriously par for the course I mean but that's not getting fixed and it's not getting fixed with jelly bean how long has that been announced and you know maybe we'll see it on the galaxy s3 soon that will be impressive if that actually happens but I I like I've given up even being angry about android OS updates because I like I just my expectations I've just been beaten down into the ground and so I just I just assume it's going to be terrible yeah I do you hear what else this is devon fifth event whatever comes out of it is gonna be running ice cream sandwich of course and got not not the nokia vent not the nokia bet he's through yes yes great correction Chris great correction and I know I know it seems like really spoiled and weird for me to be complaining oh it's only running ice cream sandwich but the point is the same point we've been drumming on with gingerbread is not running the latest version of the operating system and if it's not why the hell are you launching it I saw your phone app so it software out give me the latest at the time that i can buy it because that's what I pulled us so Microsoft okay you're gonna do in September fifth and if all of these you know android oems just keep finding acceptable to just update their phones later and as i say do it in an inconsistent manner that you know gets into some people doesn't get it to other people it's gonna piss me off and that's a bad thing because I'm one of the people and people speak with their wallets so let's say on that inspiring note thank you very much for watching and listening to the original show if you want to follow us on Twitter you totally should together we are at verge I'm at backline vladislav off chris is at z our and we will be back at the Internet next week thanks for watching you you