Gadgetory

greetings mobile accomplishes welcome to the verge mobile show I'm dieter bohn and forth at seven i'm dan seifert and i am chris sigler and i have my phone vibrating like a maniac right now this is episode 57 yeah i blame chris everything is chris's fault strom Chris and I have been trolling each other all morning it's hard to say who won uh I mean I feel like I came out on top given that I have fifteen dollars in my bank you have the night how did this happen how did you end up with fifteen dollars or no he missed here no reason it made no sense chris has been a cheapskate on refusing to purchase something that would make all of our lives better and easier for a very long time and so I just sent him the money to make him do it and now instead of actually using it to buy the thing that I told him to buy he instead of buying Zima with let but but let's really break this down either because what actually happened was you said why don't you just get skype out like a normal person I shook hands show of hands who on this on this hangout has skype out as this guy bad subscription yeah that's what I thought yeah I do raise the roof okay i didn't i'm just letting Chris we just hand up like this like it was with me he's me like I had put like 20 bucks into skype like a year ago and I still have got like 11 of it left so it's like you do it once and then you just got that money to be able to call a regular phone number from skype if you need to well now I need to figure out what other things I'm missing in my life that would make your life easier that I can get you to pay for gonna bet a subscription here or just skype credit Chris you just gotta like grow your hair out to be like hobo length we're just like dieter can't take it anymore and then i'll send you money to go get a haircut I mean this whole thing is necessary because skype even on LTE in San Francisco I just can't seem to get a decent connection on a phone with it and I know there are hundreds of thousands of people that have no problem with it but for some reason it's just the worst for me and even the new client which they fixed they added a proper sign out option at the top level used to be buried in like 15 menus and it was ridiculous I still have problems with it so I don't know I just need people to call me on my phone and why do i do I want to use like normal like you could place phone calls from google google hangouts now right you can't leave it everybody hates google hangouts except for us on the verge bubble show nobody ever wants to use another Cod guys but I mean like even if even if someone needed to call you instead of like Chris using skype out to place a phone call you can just use Google to call your phone number yes he could and then that would involve getting people that don't want to want that wanted me on the conference call to be at Google instead of so what he needs to do is he need use Google to calm with Julian us all from google to sky described if anybody is listening this I just want you guys to know how screwed up in difficult conference calling still is in 2013 yeah unbelievable there's a lot of stain on you made by somebody I don't know who somebody is going to solve all of the telecommuting problems that exist in the world and make billions and billions of dollars it might recruit me because those guys have a really nice me look messaging application the solution is there it's beige suit videos its web arts illusion that like the solution exists for browser browse or communication and someone who gives needs to monetize a decent version of it that works really well for cops yes than the mention of teleconferencing that Chris dropped I have to say I'm reminded of actually doing that nokia's headquarters in London this one time in like twenty ten way back in a day and those guys do not mess about with their teleconferencing they have enormous like 50 inch flat screen displays three of them one next to the other on a wall and then you sit around them and then I have a massive American record and webcams cameras pointed at you and every one of those displays turns into person over in housing key could then does the briefing for you so you have these three people on three massive displays and then you have various cameras pointed at journalists and it's just completely unnerving is completely like a scene out of a James Bond film can we get that how do we how do we get that well again like I said lost the mouse fiction has the thing feat of boat cruise subscribe credit but nobody has yet seem to found the money to buy me that samsung oled wraparound display that I've been asking for dieter get to it man yeah i mean i have no version yahoo here in a better it's it's unbranded i'm having the worst and accessories on the planet i don't understand what the deal is sounds like Chris's bro we should talk about phones uh because what the hell moto X we finally wall the wall moto x forever it feels like feels like there's nothing left to say about the Moto X other than like I don't know what is it getting released what's the release date yes sometimes it's do you guys even okay I I do yeah hey goodbye one yeah I think so I'm more excited than I thought I would be about the customization program like I'm kind of looking forward to just making the phone that I want and it's not say will be my primary phone but here's the problem that you're going to have chris is you're going to be customizing the phone that you quote want and then you'll get to I don't want 18t scrap and i want android 4.3 and you're gonna hit a brick wall yes yeah that's that's a good point that's a very good point so the thing with the Moto X surgeons rupture then I'll be brief I mean for number one Europe is getting ignored and this is all we know is the u.s. situation and there's a whole bunch of us patriotism going on because it's a assembled I believe in the u.s. designed engineered and assembled I think debbie p has put it really well it's like of the four steps design engineering is 12 assembly is a full step all of those of them in the US and then the parts and manufactures step 3 over in China I think so yeah I mean customization is appealing yes I'm sure if I was an American I would like to support some local industry so that also appeals but the price point just seems wrong for me with this oil let's let's at least talk about what the device is uh you know we we had the announcement last week we had a review go up yesterday um it for all intents and purposes it's a really solid phone or a view it's very positive Josh reviewed it for us and you know he liked the build quality of it the design of it the screen is you know not something that is bad which is usually the case with Motorola phone so that's not a hindrance its performance is just as fine as you'd get with most other high-end phones so that's not holding it back there's really nothing terribly bad that you can say about the phone at least the impression that I got though was that there's nothing like really great that you can say about it either um and Vlad mentioned the price point it's priced at 199 on contract I mean it's same price that you're going to really a design story right yeah yeah yeah so it's a very different industrial design for them I suppose it's different in the US right and unless we're seeing in the droids which are sharp and hard and rough and stuff like that but i think you know in other other markets or even in other carriers the motorolas design sense has been softer and more toned down it's just not as it's just mostly more dramatic than on or this is more dramatic than we've seen in the past so yeah there's that some extent um but at least in my opinion the whereas a lot of people have been building this up as like a comeback to Motorola you know that it's going to have a lot of design and finish innovations and its smartphone innovations I feel like the Moto X is more to get Motorola back in the good graces of US carriers and back in the minds of consumers than anything else especially since it's going to be on all for carriers which I can't think of any motorola since the razor the flip razor that was able to achieve that that feat ah dude the galaxy s2 none of the motorola specifically oh I'm motorola yeah so so I think that and and for that purpose that I think the more so far it's accomplished its goal but as far as being like a groundbreaking smartphone I don't know if it's don't think its wings know it category categorically isn't groundbreaking and let us against the tinge of disappointment that I have because this is the first real product of the google motorola partnership and the point of those mighty is that sorry just very brief with you two um what is making about price point was when you have customization physical design customization that's usually an appealing point for a lower price product you know that that's the sort of thing you get why lower price well like i said at least typically it's being a way to give you an extra appeal because it's superficial I mean let's face it just superficial tweak I hear you but I think that what what Motorola is recognizing with this product and I frankly I tend to agree is that we've hit we've hit this this brick wall with specs we're with the exception of outliers like blooming at 10 20 there really isn't that much you know what everybody is flush with ridiculous processors two gig of ram 4.72 5-inch 1080p displays Moto X accepted and and so you know this this kind of customization is very very unique not just for smartphones but for consumer electronics in general and it's like this final I think in some respects is like this final frontier that Motorola is exploring here we're like you know we've we've hit the wall the specs we've hit the wall with software you know that they can't think you know they can't really go much further further than 4.2 there's nothing 4.3 that said that is that intriguing so they're they're turning 22 this direct ship customization and I think it's a great innovation I mean I still have to play with the phone maybe it sucks but but you know we gave it an 8 and I certainly trust Josh's instinct on this stuff so I think it's pretty good fun I mean with regards to the design of the device it's it doesn't look like it's groundbreaking or anything like that but it if there's one thing to give motorola credit on is that it is it's got that big 4.7 inch screen which has been very popular on android devices but it is significantly smaller in size than the competition it's smaller than HTC One and it's smaller than the galaxy s4 so it's it's a motorola was able to put that big screen on there it kept the the border and the bezels around the screen really thin and then there's not a whole lot of stuff going on above and below the screen so it's a much more much easier device to use in one hand much closer to like what you get with an iphone 5 as far as one-handed experience which is something that we've been asking for forever and it's and it's this isn't in a quote mini version that's got dumb down specs and dumped down features this is Motorola's flagship so so I mean we have to I think they're due credit for that as well well you raise a good point Vlad would you take this or the the one mini because you need one mini yeah really although I will take the first above all of them really yeah I think you were inside me you know what here is the point the first has stopped google as an option on the freaking phone but survived another following let me hold out of my little bone I open up the box I get around mess around with the settings and then I have stuck android buy a stock android 4.1 which is now two generations old and with no i updated why okay i need to credit Brian plug from an emetic for this because it's we did the idea first and he's a hundred percent right why does google's official own brand phone because Motorola is Google's own brands smartphone why does it need a google play edition this is the thing I don't understand I may be the purest distillation for Android physically any software should be like you should set the bar for everybody else is either goes back to the thing that motorola and google have been saying all along and that they're separate entities and the left hand doesn't speak to the right hand which maybe that's good no I'm not saying that's good I'm not saying that's what it should be but I think that's the answer why um not that I fully believe that that's the case either i'm sure there is more crosstalk between the companies and google is willing to admit but I I think that would be the explanation for why this is launching with what's not especially stock Android the other thing that you can look at is that the carriers are going to get in there and muck it up and customize it for their own versions and that no longer makes a stock Android either my sad thanks for the US but we might have had a show over here in Europe I would be shocked if Motorola didn't release a very similar product in Europe in the near future it might not have all the customization features as far as the color customizations and things like that but to and I mean that's again that's the differentiator for them and if they you know that's why it sucks to not be on AT&T also right because they're they're not getting access that that either which is completely not ridiculous not yet at least that some right seems like they're going to get it but but for some period of time 18d is gonna have an exclusive on that yeah this moto maker that's really bizarre but you know I'm just thinking about like all the people i think you know many of us working for the birds correct me if i'm wrong but i think many of us choose not to use cases on our phones and in reality if you look around on the street in the subway wherever we are in the overwhelming minority oh yeah almost everybody has a ridiculous looking case on their smartphone you know presumably because they they want to be able to drop it and not worry about it um but that you know that there's a lot of personality that comes out in these cases people choose pink people choose crazy designs people choose wood and translating that into the phone itself I think could end up being a really big win for them and if they market it as aggressively as they seem to be doing so far they get buy-in from from carriers and I think we'll see that from AT&T at least initially since they have the exclusive on the customizations that's going to be I think they have a very real chance of selling very very well with this phone I really do i will say that that if the wood one is is as cool as I want it to be and as cool as what I've seen from the previous I'm gonna be really tempted to buy it wouldn't want everybody is tempted by this I've no idea why we've seen budem phones before and they completely impractical nauseum what where are we seeing the wooden phone that I could buy for each from AT&T nicey like i see like i wanna be one of those now one off one off concepts and like Kickstarter projects and things like that that have tried to do the wooden phone thing but like I never could buy any one of those or maybe I could import something for like a thousand bucks but I'm not going to do that so but yeah you asking for wooden shack when you can have a nice I don't know a lunatic one but I guess the other option with motorola's the plastic right yeah it's a theory so with the other answer there thank you four types of gamer yeah you are your president accounted for okay I couldn't tell cuz I kept on trying to talk and just kept on talking yeah well we're only discussing the 18 different shades of plastic that Americans can choose from and Chris was saying how much of a revolutionary step this is in mobile technology so look how it's really moving us going it is made this point while I was off rebooting my stupid freaking computer about which I'm very angry but I don't care that this isn't revolutionary if you're expecting the Moto X to be revolutionary I mean I think you were expecting too much the store at the Moto X's does the overall design feel cohesive and better with all the little things adding up if you add up a nicer feeling phone that's just like straight up well designed looks good feels good in the hand on top of good battery life on top of some nice subtle things on top of Android that just make it nicer there's there's no like you know there's no good sales pitch for it other than here's the Moto X it's just really nice and like that that's respectable and especially on Android it's you know on Android you've had a choice mean two things mid-range which has always been code for like fundamentally flawed and crappy in some way or crazy high end which has always been code for expensive and you're probably not getting that good battery life in most cases because it's got some ridiculous process or the androids not optimized for yet and you haven't had something that's just like really nice and the Moto X seems like from our review and what I've been seeing about it it's just really nice and that's something that I would be willing to try out because you're here you're here but the problem is it's 200 bucks you know is that right can they can they can they get away with that if I see a hundred bucks I mean I don't know so my conspiracy theory is they're selling a tutor brush because they make a better profit margin from you know what they're getting from the carrier's etc etc and it's a lot easier for Google someday to spin off motorola if it's turning a profit that it is if its operating at a loss I don't think that's true but that's my conspiracy theory yes but also operating out of the US will surely be more expensive you guys remember the Nexus Q when it came out it had a quite a city price attached to it as well and it was because Google was trying to work out of the US and Google last to 1,500 bucks so well I motorola the woodside was hinting that the motorola might be involved in manufacturing glass someday we just lost an hands gone everything is broken everything is terrible everything is genoa that sentiment is usually safe for the end of the the yeah yeah you've been premature dieter okay I'm just gonna drop one final point here because then raise the point about Google erecting kind of a firewall between a cell phone motorola and having a separation between the two companies and i just wanted to point out that what Microsoft is doing right now is trying to get over exactly that same sort of fragmentation and separation within itself within its company right because Microsoft is trying to be a devices and services company and a cohesive one at that whereas previously there was a whole bunch of tribalism going on within Microsoft you know the office team will do their thing the other team will do something and there will be in competition between them and they wouldn't communicate and collaborate like they should so well the tribalism at Microsoft is a fundamentally different problem than Google and Motorola I mean I guess they're there are some similarities but but Google as a whole doesn't suffer from the same sort of internal strife at least so far as I can tell right now it doesn't at the moment but the point is everybody seems to be doing well is doing well because they're the whole company is working together and doing it properly like two other examples and the kind of easy ones HP and palm I don't think those guys have a you know spoke to each other after the first party where they were like yeah you took us over and the second example is nakia when it was still working on symbian and you know those guys were like at the final month before they decide to release the phone they pull all the software teams to get in this decide to integrate the OS with a month left to go before they release things whereas you compare that with Apple which is now on I think it's beta 5 of iOS 7 months and months ahead of the release of the next iPhone and full release of iOS 7 well they seem to be moving really fast and those betas all right and changing stuff relatively quickly which I mean we could get into I mean we saw the leak so that came out today from the beta and they've added some icons and they're cleaning stuff up and you can get rid of command center and they're still tweaking fonts which i think the donation every beta yeah and so I mean a lot of people like well you know you should have expected this that there was a beta so things will change but I don't know if we've ever seen you know in the history of all these iOS betas like this much tweaking of like fundamental design concepts well I mean to be fair we haven't seen this drastic of a change in the whole fundamental design of the previous iOS versions they were all very iterative like what what was the one between one of them like the wallpaper changed I think that was that was the interface design change so yeah and I also think that that the the redesign came together very very quickly because I've wasn't installed in that position until what I like september-october of last year somewhere around there yeah i was 14 stall was exited yeah yeah anyway sorry back to the Moto X like what else what else we talked about the they made ridiculously bad advert ads it's like it's like moths to a flame like no smartphone maker can help itself like they feel compelled to make an awful ad well but lashonda you got would joke they made all these jokes and they released this adds and this campaign and then literally like mere hours later it was all reversed and changed like it saw people hated it and then and then and then fired whatever a person approved them and and changed everything which was like one of the fastest turnarounds I've ever seen on on an ad campaign which generally has many levels of approval many committees that say okay to this before you can publish and push it out so that i don't know that was kind of crazy to me I just want to take partial credit for helping with the headline on Nate's Nate's post here that the article about bad sex jokes and the headline started with ill-conceived oh wow well done do you you actually managed to save that Paul calls me because I didn't even notice it I read it and I didn't notice the fun speaking of puns we had this you have glad you did this article this morning about how did humans become acclimated to lactose yes and someone asked me why did why do we write about it and I said well the verge writes about culture you know I have to give credit that is good but I heard it all right I've read it this morning there are about eight or 10 comments in the comment thread for that post which is just amazing I mean amazing dad there are puns on way could I mean everything cheese yogurt does too cheesy cetera cetera it was beautiful it's a beautiful stream of pun off the bow did you guys talk about the when I off the Google Play version of the Moto X's come we mentioned it and asked why why it exists I believe Vlad was making that point yeah yeah I mean this might be the first android phone where I'm not like oh my god just give me a stock version of this please yeah I you know I think I feel the same way like the things that Motorola has changed are generally for the better right right the camera interface is nicer i I've said this before I can't stand the stock camera interface on Android 4.4 for point whatever the standard Google interface I'm just not a fan of it so like support three yeah and I'm like it I'm I with living thing is awesome and and the other thing is the always listening thing which is cool it takes advantage of the specific hardware in the Motorola X to do it so unless the Google Play version had that for some reason I don't know why I'd want the Google Play version the only thing is maybe I can roll this into a next point is that the Google Play version will be updated to the next version of android really quickly which we found out just last week with the galaxy s4 and the HTC one that received their android 4.3 updates already which was only nine days after Android 4.3 was up d uh was yeah I don't even know if I've got android 43 in my nexus 4 yet to be on yes as going to say there's probably a whole truckload of Nexus phones are still waiting to get the update notification here we are with the google edition phones that have so that's not receive this is impressive very expected that oh the other i'm not that the Moto X a thing is is that the woodside I think he told CNET that it's going to be a brand and there's gonna be more Moto X phones coming like a cheaper one and yeah there's gonna be a whole body yeah he said that earlier this year he said that when he was on the D conference that you know Motorola's is gonna produce a line of devices and it's not just going to be the Moto X so I mean I we're going to see lower end ones i'm sure that to explain the portfolio bring the give the company more price point options and things I mean don't call a moto x straight up that should be the same phone and you can help Moto X once a year come on but don't i mean this is this is the thing the problem i have with HTC One mini and then there's good be the HTC One max or the galaxy s4 bazillion right we're in it's aggravating okay so like is moto x if that's supposed to be a product name is it technically like full name motorola moto x ya know ya can't wait for the google edition one motorola moto x by google we should just cut we should call it a motocross yeah i like motocross it's pretty good yeah so i don't know who's making up for his bad connection with a bunch of nice buns I'm doing my best wait wait wait wait you guys you guys weren't supposed to stop first start talking again yet because i wanted to do too slow on the trigger there man yeah yeah I'm wondering if playing around with the stuff in the hangouts toolbox is what broke hangouts for me and maybe have to reboot it's my fault it's always my fault Nvidia shield we got a review up from mr. sean hollister and he likes it yeah he's gonna buy one yeah he's a few crazy he's gonna put his office and he's plunking down money for it I mean if you were you acquiring roms from classic systems and or you are into you've got a the exact right pc gaming rig and you're in ya see gaming and yeah the steamboat is awesome one of like three graphics cards that actually works with the damn thing yeah if you're like in that tiny sliver of humans and sean is then yeah i could see this thing being cool but the idea that I would want to play android games in this thing is completely insane what applies that you can play rit rim rim rim grinned Rick epson now that were a mess up we're not living on until until Dan gets this right uh rymdkapsel rim capsule ruined capsule there's a pronunciation to this isn't there and I don't know it's an amazing game and I'm I'm much better at it than you or if you if you follow Chris and dieter on Twitter it's pretty much all II been talking about on twitter today so he's are so Ellis yeah Ellis tried to break to me that he survived 30 waves this morning and then like we'll wait a second how the hell did dieter survive 37 38 now 38 excuse me and I still don't totally understand it I'm obviously doing something wrong how do you no doubt it written capsule room cancel okay anyway and well not my achievement for the day was that I actually went out and saw the Sun in the sky and they were birds chirping outside whatever you yeah but you you probably haven't survived 38 waves of rain capsule Bledsoe I mean and to be fair who's who's the winner for for us here in the states that we still have quite a few hours left in the day to do just that one so they're not that I will not not that we're looking up for rymdkapsel but yeah okay solo track is back to shoot well let Chris drags Beth shield hopeful I was just gonna say that the one thing that really bothered me about I've only played with shield once but it was a pretty late prototype den you were there it was a DJ and the notion of having a portable with a fan on it is just completely like it get over that and so that's my first problem but I agree with what dieter said that you know if you have the right pc for this it makes a pretty amazing companion device but that's a really small markets and and you can't leave your house either right like it's only that only works on Wi-Fi so you can do it on your couch but you know you go it kind of surprised me how much battery life the thing has even with that fan and running that processor I guess it is a huge thing it's yeah tiny little box I've got plenty of space to throw battery in yeah right that's true but the thing is in terms of is you know core functionality I think shows review sets it already it it gets the basics right so it gives the fundamentals right so like that and says it has a big battery ergonomically it's a very good controller it has a really beautiful screen although I ergonomically actually like touching that the touchscreen is impossible like it's a completely right you're like see if you interrupted me I would have just Illustrated that which I'm going to do anyway so okay well I mean that's the trouble so you have all the fundamentals and the basics done right but the actual functionality that is on offer is the thing that's lacking so yes you can stream a game from your nvidia geforce gtx equipped pc to the shield and it's lovely and smooth and great fine and you can get roms most of which you can't really do to it via legal ways but if you go to if you just again going back to this idea of you by the device you open up the box and then you say okay this is a gaming device it's an Android let me get some games on it right so you go to the Play Store you look for the games and it's just not that there's up there are very few games attraction compatible with the controller itself and I were you know properly correctly with it isn't it video curating a store for it they are yeah I mean it yeah they've had TegraZone for a long time but team this is this is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and this is the last thing that gives me heartburn and keys for you from going to bed at night and I'd like I think they're making a big push mean we've got the shield you got oh yeah that's like off to the side and then we've got google they just put up 4.3 with opengl that was a big push OpenGL s3 they've got the new game center they're making a huge gaming push and there's rumor that Google itself is working on a game console I think Google is trying really really hard to fix like the gaming on Android problem if you want to call it that and I think it is a big problem right uh this is my point how long is it going to take what are you looking at which cheer right now it's two ninety-nine dollars in the US what you're looking at is a very incomplete machine very complete experience which requires either that you put in a whole heap of effort to get that excellent gaming experience which you can achieve but you have to know what you're doing yet to know where to look and if to put a time in or you basically get something that disappoints you because you don't get the games you don't get the experience and the other thing is the thing I wanted to illustrate with this little book here is that the shield is supposed to be used in a what is this the landscape mode yeah but then most android apps are in portrait mode so when you do that you actually have to hold it like so which looks flying with a really thin book is that it's an absolute disaster with the freaking controller in your hand you have to watch that insurance video yeah it's just ridiculous holding this thing in any sort of portrait mode and there's no other takes users yeah if you think it to use this thing for anything other than gaming you're a madman yeah exactly so if the gaming is lacking and you can't really use it as an Android device or as an Android tablet then what is the point I cuz i could see watching movies on it the sound is pretty killer no okay but hey for it for any sort of yeah out of stuff set it on a airplane airplane tray table and just flip it up and your phone sure but as far as like like you're saying any sort of app stuff it's really really poorly designed for that yeah but I mean why it's for that each market that wants to play games and want some games from there nvidia powered computer i mean if you if you're looking to do that then this is cool but if you're looking to play just android games the new Nexus 7 is seventy bucks cheaper and if you really want a controller they've got you know standard Bluetooth controls now and you could like buy a little thing and I'm out if you really want to like there's better ways to do just straight android gaming such as it is say no fan and no fan yeah and 1080 screen if you've got the right if you've got the the pc then whatever go for it otherwise just get a nexus 7 has has any of you actually plunked down for a new nexus 7 yet not yet right nope I'm torn I'm seriously torn because I still don't think the app situation is quite there despite Google strenuous protestations to the contrary and I've got an ipad mini so I don't know if I want to spend the money on that if I get one guy's gonna say yeah if I get when it'll be the ulti version anyway right yeah that that's what i was thinking i don't really want to spend 350 bucks for the LTE version but that's yeah if I tablet is like honestly my tablet is my number one go-to tethering thing because of my phones in eighteen t I put my tablet on verizon and the tablet has a huge battery and so I don't have to worry about my phone dying because i needed to tether so it's really super insanely convenient for me to have LTE on a tablet yeah or you could have you know a modem yeah I do have one that we you know the office has one we share it around but if I'm going to be paying 30 bucks a month for tethering why not have a big ass screen and apps on it right so it's fair point I mean I'm I guess I'm just kind of a node thoughts about this in so far as I still can't find much of a compelling reasons to be using a tablet you know for many many purposes like the only so this is what aters able to last 38 round since playing on the ipad where it all falls that everyone else is playing on the iphone all their games yeah as for you you is hilariously bad hey it's like me don't know about no no I'm saying on the iphone the UI is hilariously bad because like the text like each letter is like one pixel it's ridiculous okay wow we talked about 4.3 that hit the IR blaster works on my one now very excited about it yeah I discovered that this week well like I knew I'd heard reports that the IR blaster was at it support was finally added they said it was coming and it was added so I went into the play store and like found an app to use it because even though the update adds it system-level it doesn't give you the HTC TV app or anything to actually use the IR blaster so you have to go into the App Store and I found this free app that lets me use my phone to remotely control my sony camera which I found to be really really cool and really useful so now I don't need to carry around a wireless remote if I want to wirelessly control my camera because I can do with my phone so fun and nerdy that that is actually a really big deal because as yo sony camera is it NEX camera is is the best camera range that we recommend people buy right now does this work the next NEX evan owe me a six yeah yeah we're son the six i mean it's it's a very basic app it's it's called like HTC I our control or something like that put a link in a lot yeah the UI is about as bare bones as you can get ah but it gives you controls for nikon canon sony DSLR s and then a whole host of TV's and even air conditioners and all kinds of things it's pretty much just a fruit yeah it's a proof of concept of what you can do with the IR blaster on your phone but it works really good on you know just round your brother ridiculously ugly this app is terrible yeah it's not winning any design but it does maybe I oblasti useful it does make it actually useful which comes a surprise too because I've been saying it's a gimmick and I haven't been alone in saying that but but actually tying it to something that you can you know put to use and to pretty practical use like that is really nice and I just want to say on a more optimistic note because I know I've been kind of bashing the motor works in fashion to shield and then somebody's going to be bashing me over Twitter and may get an email saying that today I'm pay by Apple or Microsoft or whoever we were both at the same time and they're gonna find out now that you're getting for getting paid for the bold blue you blew your racket there uh and you know what and you know what they can't complain because both of them kind of dodging texture in the UK so they can you know they can sort out their own affairs before they start dealing with mine um 87 has a cousin infrared port uh this I'm not a hundred percent sure on the seven I'm like 99% sure on the six which is the one I thought you had you have to put the you have to put the camera on right you have to put the camera on remote drive so yeah how's she gonna be like most remote can you go ahead let's say something happy we should probably say that have me screw out with my camera during the middle of mobile show I'm sorry guys i would agree yeah okay but via the positive thing was I was wrong about the IR blaster we have a practical use for it and the thing I would say is with the motorway X the moto maker program could expand dramatically so where where is today's just pick your color in the future we could you know give you real customization and real tweaks and you know just grow let's go the same way with the shield with the games you know once the shield is out there if there are enough crazy people like Sean who actually buy it and pursue it doesn't work either it works work nice this was me like yes let this saturday i love sitting here in my office and I'm just like oh my god I'll just like taking pictures of the junk on my desk because that's what yeah I'll post this to twitter later this is I'm pretty excited about this tone your way to take selfies yeah so yeah to explain what you were saying blood would they could expand the moto maker program right now you can change it choose the color of the device and you can choose your wallpaper and like have it inscribed with your name but you can it's very similar to the what amazon does with the kindle when it says when you open it after you buy it it says like dance kindle right when you turn it on right set it up i would love to know maybe this is the case maybe it isn't but it'd be great if it was if like you are already an Android user and you're upgrading your phone android has a way of signing in and then pulling down all of your apps and restoring all of your apps yeah which works about a quarter of the time it yeah I mean when you're coming from like various different devices it emily has hiccups but I would love for it to be like smooth and be like I open up my new Moto X and it's got all my apps right there I don't have to worry about downloading and setting them all up that would be awesome that would be some serious customization that I would like yeah I can't go quite that far in the optimism afraid I'm just saying that be cool I don't know if it's gonna happen but it'd be cool I mean they might try I'm just saying it's not it's not really going to be something that's that they going to make work seamlessly I don't expect but anyhow I think dieter and Chris are busy Roger again yeah it's happening yeah speaking of trolling we talked about this Samsung astroturfing drama well might I mean is I've actually kind of gotten over it by this point yeah i was a bit outraged and then a few days past things happened so i mean if you're not familiar samsung bulldogs that's well a agency got in touch with a developer and said hey could you go and happen to mention the samsung developer contest on Stack Exchange and get all these other developers interested well pay you some money and then of course this developer being an upright guy said this is ridiculous and then the guy from the PR agency or the marketing firm denied it and then it turned out he kind of was lying and then Samsung disavow all knowledge of the whole thing and just said that's their marketing people of thought our fault and basically the whole story from top to bottom is like a repeat of what we heard with people getting paid to rag on HTC in forums only this time is to promote Samsung Developers instead of hating on HTC yeah I just like to point out that the upright citizen who reported Samsung's Samsung's ad agencies invitation / bribe is Bulgarian so yay for us link address Bulgarians sometimes like okemos but I mean I think we've all kind of had the suspicion that companies do this and and the thing is there was a very client line there because the way that the ad agency reached out if they just said you know we want to spread the word can you help us spread the word and didn't offer the game money they might have actually had a chance of having him do it you know but what they wanted was to make it seem organic like he just really psyched for the show or for the developer whatever it was they're setting up he's really psyched about it and he's just asking around and trying to stir up conversation with people organically and another thing that's the problem Harry if if he just openly said hey such and such it would be fine but they want to make it seem like the community psyched about the app development program which I don't think that they are no I mean yeah I mean why would you want to develop specifically for samsung stuff I mean yes they're number one but if you could also have a work on other Android points great maybe you know maybe they're holding out hope that people get it really into Tizen well to some extent I think that device agnosticism is what kills the awesomeness of Android apps in general right like that that's that's why you know console video games are usually very tight that's why iOS apps are you are quite often great and that's why android apps usually aren't great is because they need to be very device agnostic so maybe if Samsung can congeal I don't know why I'm advocating in favor this I remember saying that like you know if they can congeal if they can put together an API layer that is broad enough and and tight enough to really focus on the galaxy line and maybe they can do some cool things I don't know couldn't cousin developers just like target high-end devices though like if they if they were only concerned with you know a performance and offering the best experience couldn't they just say that you know what you've got a two year old single core processor this just isn't going to work for you you can't install it well if nothing else you still have to worry about you know um Snapdragon vs. Taylor versus Exodus that's right oh yeah and so this is the worst mobile show ever guys I'm sorry like this is a google hangout has dropped I spent a whole bunch of time taking a picture of myself with an IR blaster and then I spent how much time trying to post it on Twitter but now twitter is down on the west coast time iphone but all i'm doing is like noticing the twitter is down I'm just just leaving and I'm making objects I'm just gonna jump in with a rogue segue and say uh we were just so goodbye android apps you know what can run android app so at least some android apps is the blackberry z10 Wow which is one of the most exciting phones of this year if you have thoughts enhance that is have we seen the the the leaks of the the a 10 / now crackberry is calling at the z30 z30 yeah I cannot possibly get excited about that thing I'm sorry I mean that supposed to be like a gaming centric oversized phone but I'm not really staggering to that I wanted to segue into the porsche design BlackBerry's attack we actually is worth discussing that oh we did this happen wait wait wait I was on vacation last week is there such a thing or are you trolling me like no there's such a very very clear pictures of this thing and it directly is exactly what you expect it to be oh no no listen all I want to know is how much is it gonna cost the last one was like what 20 100 bucks or something ridiculous right yeah yeah crazy it's time thing is we're talking about let's let's hear what you have to say that well the thing i would like to say is first of all I reviewed the original porsche design blackberry which was essentially a p99 p9981 i think it was cold it was a 9900 there's an apostrophe somewhere in there yeah yes and I am still traumatized quite an experience I have to tell you guys and the fact that another one is coming apparently middle of next year whatever which makes it completely crazy we're gonna be laughing so hard if this thing is actually released with the z10 specs in the middle of next year when we're running like 16 core or Motorola's do the calculations like 24 call ya opposed to smartphones or whatnot but I mean it's just like why is this company not learning from his mistakes well you know how this works I mean as much as I hate to say it they're going to announce this thing in Dubai they're going to sell it in Dubai and like Moscow and a bunch of like really rich people with debatably questionable tastes are going to pick this up and and rim and porsche design we'll both are see me rip blackberry and porsche design will both make a few bucks and you know the waterway happy the profit margins on these things have to be like through the roof right right right i mean they're they're they're certainly not gonna sell this in the US i would bet they're not gonna sell in canada maybe one or two carriers will pick it up in europe but even that i'm not sure this is primarily for i think ii mea- Europe because primary care is big oster that have got way too much money to spend that's who this is primarily for ya not even in Europe is there a subsidy motto for two thousand dollar freaking phone but there are rich people in Europe right and and many of them have questionable taste Wow absolutely for the recognized too many Americans yes yeah I'm not hey this is not an anti Europe rant I promise there are many Americans both rich and poor and in the middle that don't have taste myself included I mean listen yeah the other thing you need to know is that if this phone is on sale here in the UK is going to be a sale at Harrods and nobody's going to be asking about contracts or whatever it just going to be talking about you're going to be talking about things like the packaging is that real leather or is it fake leather and and it's like sits since we're on this topic virtue also announced a Ferrari branded edition of its Android phone so we may miss the most good ear when I was on vacation so yeah I didn't either far to Ferrari Sonia wvga 3.7 ash single core android 4.4 with Ferrari branding all over it and of course the usual over to jewels and metals there's like some fake leather stitching on the side and he's really over the top three thick dynamics the top of the phone like the part of your ear pieces it is almost supposed to look like at least I think it's almost supposed to look like a turn signal and it's like really red and crystal looking and it's got the Ferrari horse in the middle dude this is awesome oh my god then are you kidding this is sick like on the side of his leg it's got like this like a black anodized metal like thing with the Ferrari logo on it like its got like screws in it this is awesome dude this is this is just a freaking study in how to degrade your brand particularly if you're a luxury brand like these guys like the way Ferrari has just given his name away to guys like ASA with subs completely forgettable horrible colored laptops and these phones are being trotted out it's just a nightmare and yeah but I'm not into that but virtue I mean like at least virtue has never made a cheap phone and there's and it's limited to 2013 pieces yeah you know Vlad actually vertu is the uk's motorola because vertices are made in the UK Motorola's army in the US wow that's a pretty posted in that at your right we're talking about virtue so whatever it's fine maybe another thing ferrario so branding instead of completely forgettable headphones as well which I mean frying Ferraris like they're getting to be like kiss they'll throw their brand on anything that's when we say you can get for years it sucks words on the other hand guys like being w 4 doors I think puma sneakers at least that kind of ties in with the whole racer equipment mentality Adi Adi other sport sporty types you can kind of build it into your brand whereas Ferraris like okay we need more money we don't make enough of profit margin on a million-dollar car so we need more money so just set soda brand you're honestly when whenever somebody at like an analyst asks Stephen Elop when Nokia is moving to Android he should just be like we're already doing Android devices which we own like two percent of or whatever make Henrik that that's we should say it's fat point as far as what do you buy one of these I'm already as we speak i'm placing my pre-order and ready 42 site i just want to register that it's completely impossible to transition from whatever we've been talking about to another topic and i just don't even don't even have the strength anymore it comes up Lucifer re ringtones oh my god i'm still shopping this wow that is pretty cool ok let's talk about sony i wanted to let us i just keep talking about ferrari in virtue what have they merged wow I I don't know what to do with that dieter I'm sorry I like plaids header all right ah yeah I've no Johnny stony sony has good news so my point six million smartphones in the quarter between april and june and it is turning a profit still kind of a small profit i think overall food entire group is 35 million dollars but it was the same story that it's that's a weak yen that's that's helping their bottom line right right so I mean Sony and all the Japanese companies in fact of really affected by the yen's perform so they were struggling when the yen was strong now this going week they're benefiting from it but if you look at our chart in our coverage of this it really illustrates how important smartphones to become for so many because they're growing in in terms of sales but everything else is actually shrinking so obviously smartphones TV different profit margins but smartphones are the thing that is growing the most so needed and is the thing that is growing its bottom line right I'm gonna I wanna tweak that that Sony doesn't get based on that chart from whoever it was that would talk about Edward fragmentation that Sony might might be after Samsung number two at least according to those numbers there at least in the top three or four right or the total sales like they they don't get nearly enough credit for their influence on the android marketplace then you are going to say so i just wanted to point out that just to soften your point vlad that home consoles which is now like the smallest fraction in the last quarter once the PlayStation 4 comes out uh assuming that it does is successful it's probably going to take over as like the main profit driver nobody's buying the playstation 4 xbox one is where it's at XCOM wow this really has been a holiday for too long no no but seriously i mean if you think about it and and what we're talking about here is also if you just look at the mobile product division facility which include smartphones and laptops and its laptop division isn't doing particularly well it made 60 million dollars in terms of net profit in the end so smart phones are probably holding up the laptop division which i'm not sure what a profitability is there and they're driving the overall company profitability so smart phones are just fundamental to the Sony's feature and listings are looking up police things are looking good and just to add to what dita was saying about sony set setting a bunch of phones i mean one thing is that the xperia a which sam byford Japanese writer choose me is an Xperia Z or Zed shrunken down a little bit is actually the best cell phone in Japan that's what so many tells us and apparently it's being pushed really hard I think well one of the carriers and I'm gonna be getting which one it was the one that doesn't have the iphone they're pushing really hard galaxy s4 and the xperia a is very a is the best cell phone in japan so it's very popular but also sony has a bunch of mid-range phones which you and i have completely forgotten about so I actually looked it up its things like the xperia tipo and the xperia c i remember the other one's name the mirror they're like 3.2 3.7 inch android smartphones that wonder why i forgot about them without contract and the thing is people buy them you know these cheapo android phones people buy them and they also form part of Samson's foundation is a discussed previously with all the tiny little freaky galaxies that the company Kickstarter week you know we haven't talked about the the old xperia mini pro in like two months what's wrong with us yeah we went back to that meant with bad people all the time tipo reminds me that just a little bit so little cute do you still on one xperia mini pro yeah yeah I think I do I mean it was on amazon for like 200 bucks or something off-contract I was like yeah I'm buying that was was that the one with the keyboard without the keyboard with what it looks like a little bar soap yeah love me fudgy yeah it had its own UI to write like because the screen recorder thing you could like PF and the updated and four point oh I mean you know what Ben not that um do we have anything else we're going to talk about that we've just got like a random smattering of other topics di I do have a big one that I want to address specifically with Vlad I mean other comments are welcome but I I really want to get Vlad take on this what are your thoughts on the fat bird as L say does a whole lot of really wasted fat that is good and it's a lot of let me give the background because the background for the people who have been reading The Verge religiously so I've only over here in London they discovered a bust size I'm just gonna I'm just gonna guess that it's a single decker bus not a double-decker bus yeah i don't i don't think there are sewers or tunnels under London that can fit a double-decker bus inside somebody's probably go to your tweet at me say yes there are but the point is I think it's a single decker bus but it's a massive lump of fat and other nasty things Appalachian combina say the tripes yeah that's right up yeah yeah so it all kind of congealed into one huge mess that was the size of a bus and go cleared away this is good news you go cleared away so the people of Kingston in southwest London can breathe easy even if you know my I'm a bit smelly around because this is a clear but that's just yeah and a code of fat bag because it's made out of most foot but where did it go what did they do with it did they burn it I mean presumably it's flammable hopefully okay there's a there's a royal baby joke here somewhere and I can't quite formulate it I think you're right there there's something better um yeah what else happened in the past week in the in the world of mobile apples doing they've got like this is a charger trade-in program than they also speaking of chargers they're fixing a thing where you could use a fake charger to hack an iphone if you have direct connection to it I'm tempted to make like a fake charger out of like paper mache and and bring it in just to get ten bucks off a charge are they offering the training program everywhere just in China I'll go to China I'm yes oh man that's worldwide is it what we do okay okay I mean just let's let's be clear here they're still making a hefty load of profit on the $30 charger that they're taking ten dollars off of but they do not charge thirty dollars for these things do they I'd be surprised if it was a different price it's probably 29 bucks that's impossible vr charge 19 for the lightning cable I know that yeah that's just the caper short one don't they make a long one that's 30 I think they about luckily makeup they make a fish along one now I think so and the 30-pin to Thunderbolt connector RC made a lightning connector that I need for uh for my tractor z1 is 30 bucks which is enough I mean like any time a piece of plastic is that small it should not cost more than its weight in coins it's my bed that's the golden rule I think okay so according to the apple store the little got the worst navigation ever I can't find the chargers on the little brick the USB power adapter that's not the cable just the little thing that plugs into the wall has USB port is nineteen dollars yeah okay that's what I am so you pay 999 or whatever not so yeah and I'm nine bucks i'm pretty sure there's there's like five dollars profit in there at least data is bottom with the apple site if you actually do a search with apples in turn research on the store site for my book air charger I got nothing I'm searching the apple store website for macbook air challenge or not hair we can't find ur guys we don't know where it is but the Christmas point I think apple is applying exactly the rule you saying Chris but instead of coins they using notes so way to the cable in notes yes but I mean it's ridiculously well known this about a box histories for the longest time it's like if you paid that much like thirty forty dollars for an hdmi cable your texts have your friends would be like you're completely nuts idiot you you'll pay for this by about ten times monoprice is where it's at but what's funny about minor price though is that I haven't checked recently but last time I looked even their lightning I mean monoprice is notorious for being like absurdly cheap with cables and their lightning cables were not actually that much cheaper than apples if you know yeah Amazon's aren't either yes because economy is right it's because of the authentication chip right that they have to put in the cable yeah I ended up buying an apple brand lightning cable on Amazon because it turned out to be cheaper than amazon's brand it was like a sale or something is it a real Apple cable though yes I mean I paid fifteen dollars for it but it's a real Apple and the amazon one was like 15 99 or something yeah the most the most egregious violation of of capitalism is uh not violation i guess egregious taking advantage of take advantage capitals and thank you there is is the the micro USB to lightning adapter because it's literally the size of like a dime it's like I will lose these by the dozens and if its twenty bucks it's the same price as the cable which is just completely absurd agreed okay turning up mostly means the new Doctor Who very excited by this I mean I'm given up guys i mean if i had if i didn't talk about reg I had never seen an episode of Doctor Who I guess I would be happy about that or excited about that go go rent in the loop and just watch this guy swear he's he's a genius is that is that about being the cussing is that is that about being in Apple's infinite loop no it's it's about the run-up to war Iraq war and like the British side of it yeah that's good the movie that came out of the TV series in which he starred it's right both the thick of it any it has to do with how things run behind the scenes with ministers in the UK Parliament so Peter Capaldi who's the actor he's like one of the leading figures in the guys who running things behind the scenes foreign minister and he swears just so beautifully and so creatively that there are you know that there are best of highlights video reels on youtube of him and and just the way that he destroys people with all that swearing and he's got he's got this amazing Glaswegian accent the Scottish accent so it all just sounds vicious as hell and then you have him go into his you know you friendly sci-fi series doctor who and now supposed to be a nice guy all of a sudden I hope that he's just mean and nasty if he's yeah I would love everybody tased out of that that ladies and gentleman such as it was was the Virgin Mobile show if you are watching this live you should totally tuned in at seven Eastern tonight Alexis Ohanian is good at be doing a live Q&A about rap genius if you missed that you could still check out his professionally produced promise you it stays on topic show called small empires where the latest episode is where he talks about rap genius if you want to follow us on twitter you can i'm back on Danna's DCC for with me I Chris's said power with a Z vladas let's Ave of with a couple of ease we're at verge and we'll be back next week so thanks for watching it is