Gadgetory

greetings mobile accomplishes welcome to the verge mobile show this is episode number 73 not that you I mean does anybody care what episode number it is it's it's 73 whatever as we gits number 16 2013 I am a very laggy dieter bohn I have that said oh I'm dan seifert my name is chris sigler and this is most likely going to be our final mobile show of the year and maybe ever because whatever that's not true we will we will do it again at some point someday we feel like it maybe maybe CES it might be that long maybe full of us could get a couch like you I I want to say that you know it may be that long CES is literally two weeks away and yeah so it's a test impressing gotta be more than that two and a half oh we can we fly out into a half weeks of thing yeah guys you realize that being like oh like dreading Vegas and dreading CES is a completely played out trope like getting excited about CES is the new hotness look and that looks ready yet look Chris just because it sucked or just because people said said it sucked for years doesn't make it not suck no actually actually we just had this conversation today here in London well that happening things are happening I'm so going to zen our former intern in the UK and this was a conversation we had and the fact is CS does actually kind of suck for those of us who are there because we eats a ton of really shitty food and we don't sleep and we crush into event values and all of these things but on the other hand CS is exciting for the audience which is get the nice clean announcements of new products and new fun bit so yeah I mean see just amazing look it think of it it's like it's a week of like just insanity and everybody needs a week of insanity a year and that is our Week insanity and that's okay and it's it's the best kind of insanity because you're surrounded by you know robots that you're never going to see again in the entire life and weird plastic things that will never appear in stores so your only opportunity to play with these things is and the beautiful shining diamond in the desert Las Vegas Nevada I look I just I just I dont les plus plus carrot top and Gallagher carrot top who gets more ripped each and every year I'm just wondering as DJs that carrot top going to be part of the WWE press conference that's happening at all CS I hope I'm signed up for that one I will be there I'll be covering it live you know you're actually not the biggest WWE fan at the verge no no that's true Casey Newton is 6 foot we might be revealing his secret shame right now live on the air I don't know if he wants that we have I mean I think Casey Casey Newton holds down the west coast side of things for the WWE representation but there are at least one maybe even more very hardcore WWE fans in New York us look I'm I've been to New York I've met people in New York I have seen everybody's desk in New York and none of them have a championship WWE replica belt on their desk what no but Chris we gotta get have a special yeah Chris was the previous bunk Logan poster on his desk so I I would say that he is at least a par with with Casey and on the WWE front so while talking about people that you've never met is totally fun welcome to The Verge mobile show where we talk about ces and wrestling wait wait wait wait wait wait man come on I was totally gonna start talking about phones wait one second wait but I just put up this I feel like this is relevant enough to our our viewership and our listenership so that I should get this out there I'm pretty proud of it i just got this amazing life hack and our forums i figure now you it is a life hack cat don't blow up my spot can you do it from a phone or a tablet no you do it from your PC well then why are we talking about it because people are ordering phones from amazon just hear me out so if you go to amazon our producers with me by the way Evan he's he's shaking his head I don't care what evan has to say on the subject of Amazon because the dude owns like his main phone is like a signage in mod G two or so I don't know what it is at this point uh look just go to Amazon it's an hd2 yes this may see it probably wanting sailfish so if you go to amazon and this time of year they quite frequently prevent you from selecting overnight shipping or same day shipping and presumably that's just because they're slammed and they don't want people selecting those options but if you order something and then immediately go to your orders and then find your order in that list there's a button next to it that says change shipping speed and if you click on that there you can change the shipping speed overnighter same day which I've done success successfully twice this week so i know it works that's way now you then talk about packet hacking the amazon can you can you act moto maker in the same way to actually get the wooden the bamboo Moto X free transition was what transition transition through that again for the audio listeners of the show I just want to say you're welcome for a second we just saw Chris Eagle just raise the roof it was not sure look it was a good transition I was just celebrating it ok wasn't it wasn't good it was glorious I just kind of want to say that i bought a moto x with my own money a week ago izod now they're gonna buy not an option and you're gonna buy it again so the deal is it's just bamboo and uh they haven't actually set a ship date for yet correct now there are blog post on it says january delivery but doesn t like specific i think if you i've heard if you order one it says january six is when it's expected to deliver what I want to know is why is it so hard for them to bring the engraving option back are the eight gravy option is back dude oh is it can you gave the wood I don't know I haven't actually gone through the whole process you can engrave the wood yourself as well cuz it's would you get one of those kits that you use in like the wood burning kit yes I totally burned the hell actually that would be a pretty killer like little cottage industry for these if these things become popular if like you know how dieter got his orange iphone 5 from ha me that or what is that other company that's been painting phones for years the like polar ware has been painting phones right yes ano style right right right but like you know the same concept except you could get like you know something burned into the back of the would that be crazy it's a hundred bucks more that seems a little bit out of bounds to me and six bone where else you can get a wood phone bro let me how much company LJ how much would you pay for a good wood case for say an iphone you probably pay like 70 200 bucks right I guess for a really good one also can I just say that I'm pretty sure the reason that the engraving option was originally removed was because josh successfully ordered a moto x with the engraving powered by webos me to this day he has that phone which is amazing um yeah I don't know what there's nothing else to say you can get the Moto X in bamboo no George Tenet to say oh alright you can get the Moto X in bamboo in the United States the rest of the world is bummed about that right hey man have fun with your Moto G you can get the g all day long well you got that on us yeah well I know I think I think we could order the jhino too yeah I was going to I was just contemplating burning you guys about the fact that you can't get Moto G deliveries in States because every little gust of wind gets a name in the United States and things get shut down but I guess I just did that anyway yeah but why'd you can get like the galaxy mega you can probably get like eight or ten different mid-range galaxies like you have that on it's so so I'm actually um sprint and t-mobile I want to point out I asked on Twitter what we should talk about on the show because there wasn't a ton of news and you know a bunch of suggestions and we might touch on some of them but the the main thing I want to say is a core component of the show is uh strolling each other and we got nothing on our listeners you guys are amazing no no no no no they're great no I'm a main component of the show is you guys all trolling me Oh everybody calling each other stop making it sound like it's equal give-and-take around here it's not know whose are these I can't tell if they're legit or not legit trolls like somebody's just we talked about the dots holiday theme which I have feelings about it's those things down it's a bit harder to see but the main thing is I have no longer have the high score on the dots move mode the 32 moves mode I had the high score I'd beat Chris but now somebody else is higher than me i'm very unhappy about it the damn checker no it is Scott Callum oh so um oh okay there's a rumor that sprint is thinking about putting in a bid to buy team weight as Rooney's my virtual show where I don't allow leader to ever move on to the next topic ever hello come on human cares okay I've got to make something on the topic about galaxy Mega's and what note there's a new galaxy advanced hyper something whatever which is sounds like that sorry fighter no seriously it's a samsung galaxy advance and then some other now that it sounds galaxy advanced the movie the game turbo yeah inspired by the book and it's a 4.7 inch WVGA display complete beautiful apart from the fact that it has a side-mounted voice recorder button so I just wanted to let our listeners know that this thing exists so now it can bury it and move on without what was the pricing no I'm actually genuinely curious how does the pricing on that device compared to the Moto G which if i'm not mistaken as a qHD display go moto G is 720p yeah 720p twill even better so what's the pricing and I would total price if something actually did comprehensive press releases which they absolutely do not believe it's against their religion now so they give you the spec sheet for every single aspect of the phone but actual distribution markets and pricing is forbidden week so I mean look what the thing is they actually pitched his phone as something for people who are not used to touch screens which is just completely not announces to be because if I'm used to pressing buttons at the front of a device a side-mounted button is going to do absolutely nothing for me and just for voice recording right yeah and we also have a camera button and volume rocker whatever did you guys kick start that that Android a headphone jack button what phone Pressey it's compressing yeah so it's a thing it's a little it's basically literally just a headphone jack with a little tiny rubber button on the top and you slap it into your headphone jack and then you just got a little extra button that you can like do stuff with it'll hook up to task or launch an app or whatever it's kind of cool okay so see what did you recognize not yet buggy into the headphone jack and then reacts is that what's happening yeah just did you know listens I guess um dieter didn't go it because I want to put my headphones on yeah that that's the issue Welch dude bluetooth headphones that's where it's at everybody loves bluetooth headphones to 2002 the worst actually no no all kidding aside I used to hate I hate basically all bluetooth stereo bluetooth headphones but the s11 HD is like genuinely good it doesn't yeah it doesn't have the range issues that have had with every other pair I've ever tried it sounds a decent it's sweat proof yeah there's there's on one scenario where i think bluetooth headphones make sense and that's like when you're running at the gym or you know whatever wherever you actually run and you don't want a wire take later my jam when I commuted on my bike was I used a plantronics voyager a huge battery life and it would only go in one ear but it would still play stereo so I could actually hear to hear traffic and stuff around me and I could listen to music while I was riding into work that was pretty cool and I would have to deal with cables like tucking you in my shirt and whatever doesn't that have one of those like boom mics too yeah it's actually really awesome wow I could see how that could work really well for like podcasts music I don't know if I'd want to listen to in 11 year but no I mean I think I think I was um okay so apparently softbank okay so we've got foreign powers like trying to do stuff to the US wireless in Sri softbank who's their CEO what's his name mazda yoshi son saw i was just about called something else entirely apparently he now that he's got sprint is interested in like increasing power and buying up t-mobile meanwhile this is from a wsj report meanwhile we've known that deutsche telekom is really not that interested in hanging out in the US market so they might be interested unloading it so there's this speculation that sprint is looking to buy out t-mobile and man there's a lot of issues to talk about here uh I don't even know where to start I will start with like competitively speaking my feeling on it is at first it seems oh yeah a stronger third player would actually give competition to the other two but my I really don't think that would happen I think that we instead of having a duopoly we'd have a try opoly and there'd be no pressure and we feel like that is I feel like t-mobile has actually managed to change some things by acting like everybody's wild crazy uncle you know we've got 80 at least like giving a little bit of credit to the idea that you shouldn't pay your full subsidy price even after you paid your phone off we've got these jump and next plans and yes they're a hassle but the mobile plans seem to be shaken up a little bit and I feel like t-mobile deserves at least some of the credit for it and I I don't have any kind of faith that a combined Sprint and t-mobile would have that same kind of wild crazy uncle John Legere impact not to not to mention that a combined Sprint and t-mobile is still not as big as verizon or AT&T right but yeah but I think ultimately so yes indeed right I mean I totally agree with you I think that if you were looking at this merger two years to go there's a good chance to regulators who would have smiled warmly upon it or at least the idea of it but things have changed significantly since since the 18 TD LaFell through and believe it or not I think what I think one of the biggest nails in the coffin for this deal if it does come to fruition sprint tries to pull it off one of the biggest sticking points is going to be the fact that sprint itself launched one up in direct response to t-mobile and Sprint is going to try mean sprin is going to do they will lay out the same arguments that AT&T laid out and you remember that ATT put out this long list of like they publish like a hundred page document or something of reasons why why t-mobile couldn't survive on its own and why it wasn't competitive in the marketplace and they didn't offer any good smartphones blah blah blah and now you have this this you know this situation where sprint was forced not force but like they did respond to what t-mobile is doing in the marketplace so sprint tries to argue that t-mobile alone is not competitive in the marketplace they're going to have a very very hard time making that argument right well on top of that like you would think that sprint would have enough work on its hands dealing with the spectrum issues that it has now Yeah right like they've got this whole thing they've got this whole spark plan a three-tiered system they finally are like you know getting nextels band spectrum in there and this huge mess that they've had with the different ways they're trying to cobble together a nationwide LTE network and like all the different equipment they've tried and yada yada yada yada I mean throwing t-mobile's assets into the mix I mean it puts them another like four or five years out from having a coherent network at best doesn't it in a way yes I mean the I in my opinion and Sasha stian that pc magazine has written some good stuff on this past couple days too but in my opinion the biggest challenge they face if they were to try to combine technically is the fact that they are running voice on two bands and two technologies they would be running voice on cdma and they'd be running voice on GSM UMTS and I'm not so worried about them having it sounds ridiculous even going back two or three years to just think about this but nowadays the fact that they would have a combined total of four bands and four distinct network technologies from a handset perspective is actually not that big of a deal if you look at the Nexus 5 believe it or not it supports literally every single one of that theoretical combined organizations bands and technologies it even supports td-lte which brand but if you and I didn't realize this one I was writing my report on Friday the common are pointed it out but if you look at Sprint's press release for the Nexus 5 they actually call out the Nexus 5 as being a sprint spark compatible support its tri-band and of course Claire wires running td-lte and 2.6 so it's it's like it's kind of insane actually like it blew my mind when I read that sprint has also released updated versions of other phones yeah be sparking bevels so like the galaxy s4 has been updated to be smart compatible if you bought an older galaxy s4 tough nuggies but if you buy one I think probably I think starting now or going forward it will be compatible with spark and if it has all the spark bands there's I haven't looked into it but there's a good chance that it also support the necessary bannister t-mobile you know interestingly galaxy nuggies is the next version of their tablet and then there's galaxy tough nuggies which is ruggedized version uh you know it's funny you should say that dieter because there was a rumor this week that sprint would be announcing I think a total for tablets between CES numba mwc so it means that Chris what did I say sprint brain yes Samsung excuse me oh you say between do you mean combined or in between those two events okay although with Samsung you never know yeah but I suspect we're gonna see some tablets at CES from them and we're going to see if I remember correctly they announced the Galaxy Note 8 at MW Steve this year that's so I I imagine that they will refresh that at MWC 2014 I would just like to point this out in advance before Samson reaches out to us to do like embargo briefings and whatever i'm gonna be busy at that time hey I just don't want any part of this samsung refreshes it's mediocre tablets that nobody in the right mind should be buying is all the note 8 is actually legitimately interesting for a number of reasons I don't really want to get into a whole debate about it right now but I could see why somebody would choose to buy a no date ribbit because it has me repeat like a phone no because it's like it actually has software that takes advantage of the fact that it's a big tablet or a bigger than a smartphone and it's got the stylus that works well for note-taking and you can get it with LTE and a couple other reasons I can also think of just as many if not more reasons not to buy it or to buy something else but I could okay so many questions that I the no D I can see why fair enough but the question for me and it's actually an interesting one because I haven't spent that much time going to notate because it's a I've been dodging tablets that experience is a desert say you got a nexus 7 available now and you've got the google play edition of the g pad 8.3 which we just reviewed and as it turns out shockingly the google play edition is so much better than so LG skin versions well my question is if you have the google play edition jeep at ebook free and the nexus 7 doesn't note 8 make sense so so it's funny because I talked to David this is quite a bit while we were discussing and working on this review and honestly the note 8 is a compelling alternative to the G pad 8.3 the GPI 8.3 is a very solid device in a vacuum and it's a really great tablet in a vacuum by itself but when you open up to what's available in that price range and from competitors it's a hard sell in my opinion yeah i actually i think the g pad 8.3 and either its google play or its LG skin edition like dan says it's fine on its own but i would much be much more likely to recommend a nexus 7 or a no date right like you could get a nexus 7 euless or just because the Nexus 7 is a little bit smaller and the next I mean the nexus 7 for these hot it's been all over this holiday season you've been able to get it for like 180 bucks for the 16 gigabyte version which is almost almost half of what the equivalent storage size option on the 8.3 is so it's like 180 bucks for nexus 7 or 350 bucks for the note 8.3 which is arguably just giving you a bigger screen and slightly nicer build quality but many of us felt that the nexus 7 feels better to hold onto cuz its soft touch and a little bit smaller and stuff like that so you know the i think that if you're going for the no date you're going for the no date for very specific reasons and they make sense that's my specific reasons you mean the stylus right yeah and also the Nexus 7 is available in white that's the x-factor 0 the white one is really bad no not a fan of it white everything everything should be white no it's just like the white Nexus 5 the the soft touch has got a slightly different feel to it this way a harder plastic and I'm not a fan of it well today I actually managed to finally get my hands on a black Nexus 5 and I get where you guys are getting at it's got a more rubbery texture on the back in okay in the hand it feels better but I'm still a fan of the white one particularly because it really goes nicely with my white pebble yeah I mean those two things I've said it before but those two things is just made for each other with the white and black contrast so I actually removed the the stickers in the word you can't see this in the camera I remove the stickers inside the word Nexus and the LG logo so it's no longer reflective black it's just straight dark matte death all the way across the back of the phone I'm pretty happy with it I will be it's a good-looking phone uh oh I am this close to switching back to the iphone right now because of the Twitter app yeah didn't you enter twitter app is yeah it is it broke a workflow that I had when I was checking things you know how you could swipe between mentions and yeah yeah to the danger it dries dude out a time and now I was good oui oui ranted about this at length on the verge cast so I don't necessarily want to recapitulate it other than to say that I still believe it is a dumpster fire of a redesign and everybody there should be ashamed if you just started a Twitter yesterday you should be ashamed that you went to work for a company that produced this if you have been on the beta where were you know the beta group where they've been like testing this and you didn't go out and protest in front of Twitter with picket signs you also should be ashamed I am mad at literally the entire planet over the SAP redesign I can't even handle it but what expectation do you seriously have buying an android phone that the apps are going to be complete pylos it occurs those rest dude they regressed they went yet went from terrible I went from okay to terrible uh like yeah it's bad what's killing me is that it's it's the same design concept used on iOS but it's executed so much better than iOS like that well I'd aesthetics are the same and things like that but the reason it's executed better on iOS is one they have this crazy idea in their head that they need to put their like UI elements at the top which is like stop trying to follow hollow but still screwing it up to the reason it works on iOS is you can do the swiping between its what is a timeline discover and activity but on iOS like nobody cares about discover or activity and learn under it and right but but at but just three little dots on iOS you've got this giant tab bar like they actually matter but they don't or on Android I did ah but the worst part of it is and I wasn't going to do this but like you can't in in the tabs in a home discovered activity you can tap the top of the tab to scroll to the top but when you go into your notifications you can't do that because when you try and tap the top it takes you back so you just have to sit there and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll okay yeah yeah but I need to pull us back from the brink hit because one thing I comments as if you're noticing is that we're actually spending about the night instead of a time complaint learning things yeah that's fair wish I and that's something what are we yes yes I mean listen I want to say your phone I'm happy that the one mode of moto X's is no available we're soon to be available however you want and like yeah it's so hard for us to be happy about don't you yeah I need to do some push-ups you know get some positivity back in me so I'm just gonna do imaginary ones but listen seriously do twitter app on Android wasn't just decently or happy so that was very happy with it um the new one is a downgrade but you know what i was going to say and so fat i was good tweet was i would complain about this twitter redesign but then i have to face it i'm going to be using it anyway so I might as well just do the fact that it kind of sucks and ultimately I'm gonna get used to it then they're gonna tweak it again and figure out the right path etc so that's not a quitter recommended tweedle to me and it's really good in fact it would be my only twitter app in a heartbeat because it's so good except that Twitter doesn't make it easy for Twitter specific features like notification alerts from specific users and seeing your full activity or your full notifications timeline including like retweets in faves to third party clown files right detect the kinect time the kinect timeline doesn't isn't isn't an open API for developers so that it comes to just like so what I'm doing is I'm using Twitter for incoming alert and then i'm using tweedle for like all of my reading and it works tweedle doesn't refresh in the background though there's like no option to have it refresh every hour which is nothing that I wish you had I mean I think the options there just doesn't work well it doesn't either way you have to pull the refresh every time you open it so yeah yeah okay so Twitter is kind of sort of a little bit evil but i have to take issue with Chris's point saying how are you going to pick up an android phone and expect the apps not suck I mean that's not fair anymore it is it is absolutely fair no it's very unfair for third third party apps that also have iOS components I can't think of a single one that the iOS app is a inferior version unless it's like Google's own apps that they make sure they're better on it yeah yeah i mean i would say that well i mean i'm gonna I don't know like there are a few apps like any do stuff I think works a little bit better on Android I need you started on Android if I'm not mistaken that's right and for whatever reason I feel like pocket casts is better on Android but that I don't know why I feel that fully but I do there's a couple others but there's definitely examples where it's worse there's there's a lot more examples of where it's worse than there are words better that's totally fair but it's like it is night and day from what it was even like a year ago a year ago was it was like god they're terrible but now like things are starting to catch up a little bit yeah okay can we do like a two-minute embargo where we use no negative adjectives and just see if we have anything to say I'm gonna double down on that challenge you ready talk about four minutes let's talk about Windows Phone yeah no I look I'm always I tweeted about this yesterday i'm always super bullish with every single windows phone update that's rumored or announced i'm a super bullish this is the version that is going to not only save windows phone but but reignite my passion for windows phone 8.1 8.1 is notes saving it doesn't need saving it's it's just it's it's not like wildly popular but it's not falling out but like so we're expecting an 8.1 that there's going to be a proper notification center and there's really a serie competitor which Microsoft has smart I'll Cortana which i think is like really clever like that that that's the right thing to do well they can't possibly be the the actual god I should come on man they gotta do it they'll be so awesome yeah it's not gonna happen they're gonna call it like i christen they're going to call it like Windows Phone 8.1 voice live action's well I hope it's not I hope it's not the same engineering group that is working on making the xbox one turn on when you say Xbox on as so here's here's they are there they're in a world of trouble you guys know that we're supposed to be in the happy zone right when our two minutes hey I didn't use any negative adjectives I I'm just saying that they they could be in some trouble if those engineering groups are related Christian decision to denounce because I I am i am a well-documented noun transition ER this is a problem for me look I'm just saying I have to scream xbox on at my at my TV like ten times now wait you were just like hit a button like how often okay this picture I just picture Chris it is living room like like getting really red in the face like being starting to bulge out as you screaming xbox on instead of just hitting the controller that's in his hand well the end that that's kind of what it boils down to that's not far off and i'm usually not wearing pants when that happens but anyway back to windows phone yeah I I do think that this closes a really important feature gap you know it is the same thing we say with every version windows phone I don't know if they're I don't even know what did to get to it to what you were saying dieter I don't even know what Windows Phones problems are per say at this point we've heard some talk from Microsoft that they feel that ten percent market share is a golden number for them yeah globally and uh but but I don't know if people I don't know if like the plebes with their smartphones are saying are saying to themselves I would I i would use Windows Phone if only it had a notification center I don't know people are saying that especially when you consider that I phone's notification center is perhaps the worst thing about iOS yeah so um yeah I don't know can I I mean I think there's some app issues in both times third party and then also like Metro is starting like we've started at the limits of what like feels awesome about metro but I want to actually like talk about something and god damn it I'm gonna do it I'm gonna bring up webos sorry the the rumor is that the Notification Center in Windows Phone is going to come down from the top and that there is going to be something at the bottom right I thought like like a maybe not am I crazy I thought you could swipe up from the bottom to get like controls because I however give iOS 7 now I'm definitely thinking about seven I thought I read something but maybe not anyway notifications at the top I actually think like I i kind of am sad that both Android and iOS have like do it that way especially iOS where the controls are at the bottom because conceptually to me it makes way more sense to have like your random controls up the top because that's like an extension of the nerdy crap that's already in your menu bar so right and then notifications at the bottom you access that stuff way more often and that's just easier to get to than the top and so I think I really wish that we would just flip those things and have notification stuff slide up from the bottom and have utility craps slide down from the menu bar which conceptually makes perfect sense so I think that could maybe work if you had like a permanent bar like like how Android is today it's got its permanent bar at the top of the screen and the icons pop in when you have notifications I know that you're thinking of what webos did and how the screen like shrink up but with virtual keyboards that throws off the layout of the keyboard or the position of the keys yeah we worked on webos because all the devices that actually made it to market head hardware keyboards but uh if somebody had like a permanent thing there but the thing is then also you typing right and maybe tapping your notifications or you're not seeing them because your fingers are in the way yeah so the way windows phone does it is it's actually going to be reportedly a quick swipe a short swipe will bring up your settings and a long swipe will give you your notifications that that sounds problematic to me okay problematic I mean it is I mean the way android does it is it's a is a single swipe for notification then you tap over to get your settings or you guys have my fingers or the two finger thing which I mean who does that I do it all the time really but there is also but first of all distance an ajumma but I think it's part of some other customization the option to if you if you swipe down from the top right or top left corner you get directly into particular settings menu but I just find that complicates and probably frustrate spokespeople the complicates matters interest rates more people that actually helps that's a real power user feature but with specific to the Notification Center support or addition in windows folder but Chris was saying is it being a must-have feature obviously it is like nobody's going in there and asking for it by name but I feel like if it's implemented correctly if it helps you use experience it makes for a better experience for the end user and that ultimately is constructed and again it leads to a stronger you know stronger OS strong potential for the future Who am I recommended rather than say oh I really hated the experience of using that cetera et cetera my biggest issue actually is I've just been hanging out with someone and I've seen the valley that's your biggest issue that you've been hanging out with Tom Warren yes there's problems well I mean he is Britain's premiere pro he can represent the country in the Olympics in the traveling Olympics but I mean I've uses Lumia 1520 for a little bit first of all the display in that thing is just gorgeous it's amazing a second of all this the screen size is stupid it doesn't make any sense but the third figures when you look at his home screen with Odie's yeah most small squares big squares and tiles and animations and things happening it is just so confusing like it's stressing me out just to look at it and is right to say that we customize it to your own preferences you develop a memory and you get things to be really accessible but I'm finding all of this customization all of these Styles going out of the home screen actually too busy and whoa but if you want I mean you can just make all of your your home screen tiles the biggest size and then it looks like we just found seven right yeah well I'm on the 1520 the biggest size is only two columns so you still have like a third column to deal with I mean I guess you can make them large medium but right was it I mean that would just buy my immediate impression of the kinetic with all those tiles and I then my wish is that Microsoft doesn't push into this let's have a ton of styles all over the place thing and they need to keep the simplicity because that was the point of Metro's simplicity was pushing figs out of the way whereas if you have everything animated and kind of manifesting information in front of you then you get information overload and that's my fear and then the Notification Center becomes kind of redundant as well yeah well you know it would be you could have the Notification Center for your notifications and you would have to go hunting around on your home screen you could just have the tiles it's right there and then like if some of them animate in a way that you like then like you know if they're not there is like giving you essential information it's just sort of a nice ambient effect which is how I think it ought to be I think that would be great yeah totally right and another x factor for Microsoft which really hasn't paid dividends in the way that I kind of thought it might that Nokia is still making arguably the most attractive and best feeling smart phone hardware in the industry today I mean they're certainly they're doing things with plastic that no one would have considered possible three or four years ago so you know I it's the same story each and every time like I will without question try very hard to make Windows Phone 8.1 one device my primary phone and will you know we'll see if I can finally get past the the pain of you know the lack of apps and software weirdness maybe this is the the time when everything is coming together for them you know they have Instagram out now they have you know vine the all important design it's it's funny how much of that pain is uh caused by Google not cooperating with Microsoft yeah yeah because like you know at least for our art we all for our work emails all based on gmail and you know III I don't know anyone other than Tom that doesn't use Gmail for their personal email uh and that kind of just really sucks with Windows Phone still and Microsoft can try and try and try but if Google doesn't offer the access or offer the keys or whatever it needs to to make it work well it's it's not going to be an easy thing for them there are some actual third-party gmail apps in the Windows Phone store now that give you label support and starring and archiving and all that all the fold gmail compliments that you might expect but there's third party and not everyone is comfortable with a third party app stuff like that yeah that my concern with that is that you know one of the things that has always been a problem for the Windows Phone app store is that you have all these developers that you've never heard of and some of the apps sound cool or intriguing but you don't know if they've been vetted and you know the question becomes are you comfortable storing your gmail authentication uh you know in some developers cloud that you've never heard of for do read two reasons one there's the security concern but then also there's the concern that this guy could disappear at any moment and just you know take excuse me tickle your email with them so well not take all your email with them but like take the app with him so yeah that the Google challenges is a very very real one for Microsoft uh so part of speaking I don't know I forget it there was gonna be a transition ears to be great and I lost it android is free and apparently Windows is thinking about giving away Windows Phone and Windows RT away for free to manufacturers um which like honestly fine like I don't I don't think it's going to like radically change things for them I don't think that the cost the licensing costs for windows phone was the primary reason people i think i think it was important yeah i think we may we may have underestimated because really I mean I me what one phone manufacturer discuss that with me and I was saying they could never match androids of contract pricing wood windows phone because of the licensing costs no but that's the royalties that are paid the microsoft and every android phone that that is sold nearly I mean Microsoft is never publicized the licensing terms but is believed that it's it's about a wash between windows phone and Android by the time you pay there were all the royalties right but Microsoft ones is not android it wants its own OS and its own platform in his many hands as possible this is the thing I mean Google was the first company that said we're going to business money in developing the so as cetera cetera but then our focus is not going to be making money out of it is getting people to use the device so we can distribute the stuff that does make us money which is a browser our ads our email client maps youtube cetera et cetera and how goo who is in that leading position Apple realize the same thing and made a whole bunch of software free recently and I'm Microsoft is coming around to the same point of view and I mean we've talked about this it's a better of platforms nowadays and the reason I mean I tweeted about this morning and everybody was like you're crazy flat which is fair enough for probably an and I asked why is Microsoft trying to get youtube or mother's phone instead of building its own video service and you know first of all people raised point Microsoft already try to fail but the major point everybody raises that I can't argue with it is that YouTube just has such a vast advantage over everybody it says popularity awareness and content already on it that you just can't catch up and I will try to do maps and it still trying to do it takes years to catch up on these things you know so Google has the advantage so if Microsoft starts losing money by selling Windows Phones relative to like if an Android sales turns into Windows Phone say when I actually ends up losing money for Microsoft and short-term I don't think anybody cares I mean that's got a bit trifling amount relative to max of getting people to actually you know use endorse windows phone as their primary OS so let me let me give you something to put on your pipe and then you can decide whether or not you want to smoke it what if Microsoft can make licensing Windows Phone cheaper than Android because they're giving it away they say we will handle licensing fees and oh by the way if you do android you've got to pay us royalties and so they could literally undercut the free operating system yeah I mean it doesn't it still doesn't matter anyway because nokia is the only licensee that matters right like at the end of the day like they need to get companies like Samsung and LG and sony to commit to building a competitive windows phone hardware and they don't I mean yeah and that there's going to be the biggest challenge I don't think anybody would he took an HTC Samsung or any of the other OEMs is particularly and rapture with Microsoft at the moment I fear I think you know my feeling is that everybody saw nokia being treated as the favorite child among all the companies then look it got bought out well it's in the process of doing so and it's going to be Microsoft's own hardware Microsoft's already screwed everybody with Windows RT tablet which is why within a year the surface was the only windows RT tablet on the market because everybody could have compete with the aggressive pricing and design so you have a track record which tells you if you stop building windows phones microsoft itself is going to be competing with you really aggressively so perhaps the only guys who might be interested in this I got is like ziti and Huawei who might be doing the really entry-level devices and device for emerging markets and that could be something that grows and some bit of develops you know essentially but that's the only real you know market development that I see for the company otherwise my myself is going to be building its own high-end stuff yeah the problem here is like there's just no like like Chris Evans valves a lot of saying there's no space for anything on the high end other than nokia I mean I'm I remember the HTC 8x a little over a year yes yeah it was a joke people but every month it looked way better than virtually anything else around windows one of the market it was easily competitive with the stuff that Nokia was putting out at that time it was the signature device okay lots of colors so there was lots of like brand synergies with what Microsoft was trying to do from branding Windows Phone they were working together and I mean you know it didn't flop but it sure didn't do that good and like if that kind of phone that looks good that feels good that performs well and that has got like perfectly aligned like marketing strategies from both Microsoft and the manufacturer if that phone can't like make a dent and certainly didn't help HTC and didn't do anything for Windows Phone like why would anybody take a flyer on windows phone right now especially now that they've bought nokia is so it's it's like they're in a really tough spot to drive the platform anywhere and the high-end except with their own stuff they might get lucky on the low end and get like you said ZTE or hallway or whoever to to buy in but even then like are they going to be are those companies going to believe that they can do better than 10 key is doing look with the the 510 the 520 their low-end stuff is really really good right not to mention Nokia's android phone which okay I talked about here because it it was happening during the last mobile show so as we celebrate this transition please uh well I already raised the roof on the roof can only be raised once per show I'm sorry Wow there's one called the the threshold right yes you replay maybe maybe you shy what is what is the other dances what is this one transition transition transition I don't know what that was dinner left eNOS third put the dealer literally left and he's just gone um that's a joke okay no wonder what were we sessioning to I've totally lost it huh I was looking at Twitter and we were already trying to talk we were trying to talk about nokia's Anna yeah the lady garbage I hope they build it it's gonna be garbage no look I I think I I really think what's happening here and you know no key needs to do this so there were apparently rumors that Microsoft attempted and ultimately decided not to kill the 2520 for obvious reason dancing over it there is because the 2520 you know cannibalizes the the surface obviously and they ultimately decided not to kill it because of that would look weird from a regulatory perspective they're not one company yet I think that I think there's a lot of factors going into that I think that they had probably had deals with the carriers to pick that to stock it already because remember the 2520 is a LTE device only and the right I need to correct myself real quick before you finish your point I call it threshold that's actually a windows rumor this is the Normandy that we're discussing right now the low-end potential android phone yes now continue yep so I what I think this is is just nokia doing it you know they're playing out their game plan assuming very smartly that the deal will not go through it so that they aren't completely screwed in case it does fall through I different you know for a business reason or for regulatory reason I see absolutely no reason why Microsoft would sell this product if the if the deal completes though well my guess is that unless they have a an ironclad carry agreement that they can't get out of they will all of this project the moment the deal completes this is how it's going to go down it's going to be the deal is the Microsoft deal is going to go through they're going to buy Nokia and then like a contingent of Nokia engineers are going to be laid off and then they're going to start their own company and they're going to put out an android phone that looks just like the Normandy I wish you were wrong or kidding but you're not yeah I mean it whose are talking to like oh I think it was you Chris that like there there has to be like one of the reasons this is still going on is there has to be a sort of pride within nokia that they can still make their own stuff and make and and that like there's a but there must got to be a group of people that are still there that are like yeah windows phone is fine but we believe that we can do something awesome with software on our own we're going to keep pushing it and they ad space on android or whatever and like that sort of grit and determination is what's keeping this thing alive even on the low end but yeah well yeah that you just said it on the low end this isn't it to be clear this isn't designed to compete with the 1020 right this is a this is a device that slot somewhere between the the aria and voluma right asha asha rescue me asha the aria was an HTC phone on 18 the aria is also my mind is on CES aria is a hotel in in las vegas where i will be spending at least part of my week i'm not a fan of the aria hotel I links and I like that the whole thing about this Normandy leak is like man look at look at this phone and you know it's a low-end phone but like look at it if Nokia made ant-man if they made no Android hardware like for really real they'd gone that direction so the rumor is that this is not this is going to be a would be a forked version of Android much like Amazon does with the kindle fires and like you know if they end up doing that or did do that or whatever its you're going to be the same side bummer face that you're making now because it's going to be like oh this really cool hardware runs but oh you can tomorrow I I do find it hilarious I do find it hilarious that Nokia is apparently working to secure BBM for this device like it is so messed up on so many levels well I got your Microsoft division i can tell you working back library to secure bbm for Android like you talking about that i can tell you exactly why they're doing that look at the markets where bbm is growing and BBM is still extremely popular low end markets in asia and that's where this like nice to be sold from a business perspective it makes perfect sense I'm just saying it's it messes with your mind to think about what's actually happening there but yes I agree it makes sense uh so the thing about Amazon the Amazon comparison is fair but with amazon they played it very smartly right they spend a long time building up and preparing their own market so that they could fork in a result way and okay it has not done that day I have no android market right right I wasn't knocking Amazon's per se but I was saying like you know Nokia's going to do this thing that's going to be not it's going to be Android but not android so it's it's you're still going to be a super super bummed out by it i mean amazon can do with some things it's got like the world's largest content store or whatever and you know and it doesn't it sells the things that cost practically so it does really care if it sells a lot or a few or any it's just a window into the Amazon store the Nokia Store is not the same thing right I mean think think of how much good android has done blackberry right no good yeah but listen guys if you are in a hurry and you can't wait for nokia to release this federal rival device you can already go and get the yola because that's essentially what we're talking about it nokia developers working getting android apps onto a forked different arrests on a linux place OS and with the ola you get the Y and X store on there yay right 85,000 apps of dubious quality and hilly 5,000 where's actually on on on the ola it's it's pronounced years with a why I see what you did there it took me a second to process yandex store says years I get it and yes they're very ups look she has good they should just do that you know just customize everything and just make it really cutesy and fanciful but the direction I would love to have like the conversation like I'm having with like their market a marketing person at this company and their PR person and I'm like so how many apps are they do you have it and they're like well we like to say that we have between 10 to 15,000 yaps and they like just like subtly correct me to yaps every time i say apps but you realize they'd be doing that with a Russian accent I just makes it even better I'm threatening just a little bit we love you Russia we do not kill us i'm not sure if i should be offended by proxy yeah Alice like but you know the thing is I actually and I was reminded by reader about this I wrote wishful love letter sometime in like twenty eleven i think the 2012 about a nokia nexus and i was saying if nokia would just do a stock android device how be in heaven it would brilliant you'll be awesome and you know obviously i was talking about a high-end nokia device and i was around the time that we have the n9 and gloomy 800 and the kid all that great for with this phone which they are really looking all that much better today but you know since then what I thought about is you kind of have to realize that if Nokia had got the android root we might have had potential even the best android phone full stop right no matter had the best combination of hardware software camera design everything right yeah but that would have been a short-term thing you'll be sure to benefit I think exactly the point at chris raise nokia has some of the best Hardware designers and has some best camera people on his staff those guys shouldn't be in the Android ecosystem because most of the really good designers and hardware guys well probably ninety nine percent of them are either in Android or working for apple with the iphone and we need that third party microsoft is the company that has the financial muscle to survive as the third option as soon as i pick a CEO yeah which will happen next year but the nexus you're the point is if talking about gone with android we might have had better phones over the past couple of years but ultimately the competition would have been driven down and we would you know we would have felt that the rough part of that over the next few years whereas the fact that we now have a great design team working for microsoft and windows phone a great bunch of design teams working on Android and you know apples uncontested design chops with the iphone it gives us free and note 3 is greater than to say yay it's one more no it's a fair point it's true three percent better in its it's a fair point though like a world with only two viable smartphone platforms is a very depressing world indeed and the thing that or any money about that is like not only are we shift we're heading towards a world with only two smartphone platforms but we're really heading towards a world with really only two successful smartphone makers because Samsung's the only android one that's making money and obviously Apple makes buttloads of money so if money Sony makes a tiny little bit of money but you know it's Samsung makes the dominant is definitely by far the dominant Android maker and there it's two manufacturers on to the say uh one of each platform so you know everything you're saying is is very fun and it there needs to be more competition differentiation options actually I'm not going to try it I want to go back carrier stuff because uh the ctia the carrier lobbying group that represents the biggest carriers in the US has agreed on six policies for allowing consumers to unlock their cell phones and uh it's still it's not clear if you're allowed to unlock it when you're under contract but they're required to let you do it after a year or two they're required to give you the unlock within two days when you after you asked for it and they're required to unlock phones for deploying military personnel and this is my favorite one they're required to provide notice that you are now eligible to have your phone unlocked I'm sure that I'm sure that caused a lot of gear grinding in the ctia when when Tom wheeler came down with that requirement yeah be the well I think that the the most ambiguous thing at this point and I don't think it's ever been clarified is just what you're saying dieter with regards to the contract that I believe this the specific verbiage they use is you have to fulfill your contract in order to qualify for unlocking and so the question is does paying the ETF constitute a fulfillment of the contract or breaking of the or or if you buy a phone at full retail and never actually sign a contract uh well no I I think I think that with the verbiage the way it is now that would make you instantly eligible for unlocking but yeah they're not there are so many questions that are left unanswered it almost feels like apart from the for the military rule and things like that it almost feels like a symbolic victory here because verizon already offers a lot of its phones international unlock if you're traveling you could buy them right away they're unlocked for international use I think Rick does a lot of the same thing it's really 9018 not just AT&T ATT iphone yeah it's that's really what it comes down to yeah yeah it's it's 18 to you who's been too stubborn one with the unlocking but if you fulfill your contract with them and you don't happen to have an exclusive device they'll unlock your phone if you call them ya own they won't even if you're out of contract I don't think so maybe that policy changed more recently but for many many years that was like the one phone that they held precious like that they won well I know they are very precious about like devices that are their exclusive so like if you try to go unlock a lubia 1020 you're probably going to run into a lot of brick walls um but you know the exclusives are becoming fewer and fewer far between these days so right but I mean otherwise it's a good thing to have it down as a policy and in writing yeah but so now like that's one small step the next step is to actually have a network of carriers that are competitive that you could actually switch your phone between easily and right now you gots t mobile and you got AT&T and that's about it until we'd like I don't know move to an LTE only world then maybe we could start talking about being able to switch beautiful well unfortunately and for the phones like the Nexus 5 which support like all these ridiculous technologies and bands that that's a step in the right direction but we're going to run into I think another technical lock between carriers when everybody transitions to volte because right know what I don't think that any carrier has agreed in the US is agreed on how they're volte is going to work they haven't even read within carriers I still remember the map that sprint showed for their volte roadmap and the first step was it would work like in the Pacific Northwest and in the north east and the south but this is the the network equipment wasn't compatible with each other you had to like it only work if he were both in those same geographic regions to start and they figure out compatibility between them later now that was HD Voice was Nick I was that HD voice I think I why am I trying to provide analysis I mean I've obviously no but I mean that the point is still good I mean like right these guys are totally fragmented with volte nobody has figured out how do I mean the fact that verizon has delay their bolte deployment like 18 times now and still hasn't rolled out speaks volumes I mean we first saw friesendm Oh volte in 2011 on an LG revolution yeah Wow I think that CES might have been ctia that year but uh and and it's still not here and that's because they're having you know that I don't think they fully detailed the kinds of problems they're having one concern is battery life I know um but yeah see what happens it's not a memorization man that phone look like car it looked like a muscle car it was I don't know if I'd use that terminology it lasted about as long as a muscle car as well I was like Hello LT done yeah pretty much I have to say Chris Oh throughout your rant about the fragmentation of American networks it just so heartening to me because it just reminds me of how glorious it is in Europe so if you making what whatever man like as you posted have you used have used a single LTE network in the UK yet Chris all I gotta say is look at the OECD date a man that that's my high-level trash talk for today look at what data OECD and what are you talking about oecd this is this is like a multi-level troll glad just totally made up an acronym this is some like UN garbage what what is this what kind of troll is this this is like eighth grade levels too high for a troll why do you need to cut you need to kick it down a notch okay like just just make a comment about my face or my mom like Chicago yeah Chicago don't try OECD I don't know what this means I'm closing it tab closed um oh my god tap close didn't read what was that was that tumblow something what tap close didn't read uh-oh yen know that that is that is a very very common meme yeah the time I was just reminded about it um I think that's I mean I'm not going to talk about resins the wireless charging things no i will say that i am using wireless chargers now i got whatever nokia standard puck is I was looking at their pocket just so does that work with the next because it never wanted to work with the nexus for it it works better with the nexus 5 into the nexus 4 for a while I thought I was like causing it to overheat but I think that was just the nexus 5 but I love it and so I'm like I've put a bunch of different wireless chargers on my Christmas list because I think it's great this accent oh yeah that the neck that Nokia like decoupled wireless charging from the phones was a major blow for the foreleg wireless charging a general i think is they were like the biggest champions of it right yeah i think verizon this is the biggest champion of wireless charging yeah yeah they at some point out is it still true but when they first started selling LTE phones they had a requirement that every LTE phone they sold if it didn't ship with Chi needed to have a chi back accessory available so is like yes so there's Chi and others this new one and whatever I mean I hope that they can get this stuff like defragmented relative yeah like what was wrong with Chi like is it really that much like is there so much money in this untapped wireless charging market that we need to fragment in 18 different directions before we arrive at a standard why can't everybody say yeah okay now it exists the standard exists everybody make accessories for that cuz it's ridiculous yoga chi Donnie some it'll get paid for chi and some people don't well there's also the offense people get cheated that was I'm not that there's the offensively bad branding resins which I don't even want to discuss like everything it takes two rackets and then attach them with a lightning bolt yeah it's is it's the worst and and meanwhile it mark my words wireless charging is the next NFC like the only way wale is charging the only way where L is charging is ever going to happen is when it doesn't involve a pad it's just like through the air which is a technology that you know different company has been working on for a few years now like if I could just walk into a room and things start charging yes I'll probably Amelia cancer but if everything that is on my person starts charging it's worth it is understating as a portmanteau of resin in essence and I find that amazing it's the worst is what it is of course she isn't any better but it's just pretty cheap yeah then stop trying the Chi puns are not going to happen they just dropped on us like two mega bombs of footage I a dad and just rehi hampshire's ahead of CES I guess you could say I'm achieving new levels funds that merge whole show I want to thank you so much for listening and or watching if if you want to follow us on twitter you can i am back on dan is chi glad sad there's a power we are all at verge and as we mentioned the top of the show we're probably to be taking a hiatus for a couple of weeks or maybe not we might surprise you and have a New Year's Eve crazy wild time or not but we will let you know on the website when that happens in the meantime or we won't please comment hi well I I was I was I would I'm trying to drag this out to cope with cheap out of my own and I can't do it so well cheat you later oh my god just leave it to the pros dieter that's it and the show