Gadgetory

hello welcome to the Virgin Mobile show this is episode 82 I think it is March for 2014 uh we are back from over old Congress at least those of us that went and we're back where we where we live my name is dan seifert um flat Sabbath I am actually where I lived the other guys are in the office hopefully you guys don't live there I am having Rogers no Evan i'm chris sigler by the way next I'm going to pop my can of soda right now oh my goodness just FYI levels but when Evan I have to ask you is this your first time actually being introduced as part of the regular hosting staff is that did that just happen I think that just happens Wow how does it feel you know what it feels like it on feels like an honor and a privilege hobbies like closet you're jammed into right now I mean you know you're do you do what you can Evan and I are both in kill rooms just for our listeners and viewers so you're aware we are we are both in in specially designed kill rooms at verge headquarters here in beautiful midtown Manhattan so if we if we do suddenly disappear or the screen goes dark it is because we have been we have been murdered this is true yeah so as you can obviously tell dieter bohn is not with us this week he lost his voice but you know I've learned that since he lost his voice he's remarkably good at shouting over email so uh he still is he's still drilling fear into us just yeah you know why you know why he lost his voice it's because he thinks he's a vapor he's a serial vapor he is a serial vapor I think there's a relationship there like I understand it's not supposed to be as bad as cigarettes but something about vaping that that I think might be affecting the voice box it's my theory that's my medical opinion hmm before it went to provide yeah you're a special doctor right I'm not but I play one on this podcast okay okay as long as your character I mean that's totally cool mm-hmm okay so Jan what are we what are we talking about this week ah so you know what happened in past week so I guess the biggest thing that's happened since the last time we we spoke uh was apple finally launched its iOS and the car thing which they're calling car play which I find hysterical um but you know it looks like we're finally getting a decent in car entertainment to navigation and management system which is really highly ironic because cars are like packed with technology right but they've had these terrible awful user experiences for a decade or more now and and we're finally seeing someone fix it though I'm not sure this is really gonna be that great I would just like to get a consult from dr. Zynga right now because Dan is suffering from a weird bout of optimism yeah this is completely uncharacteristic of the first bubble show this is why we need dita back we're lacking the big presence from detail and I won't you know if you really want me to go negative Vlad uh it turns out that iOS and the car is powered by Q and X which is owned by blackberry which means eternally doomed well so thank ya whole hold the phone so first of all q necks connect severance pronounced is the shining star in the black hole I don't know if that's even astrological is possible but if it is possible it is the shining star inside the black hole that is blackberry they they are super important in the auto industry they count I want to say majority of the world's global automakers as as customers there were rumors recently I believe they were confirmed that they are kinases replacing Microsoft's software stack in in their cars so they're a super big deal and they have their software is running in just all sorts of keep up big name out of Appeals so when you hear that the Q Nix is the backbone of car play that shouldn't be surprising or B be concerning because regardless of what happens to blackberry tunics will survive it's a it's a profitable and very important unit inside the companies absolutely and just take a more serious note the reason I'm jumping vision optimism and pessimism is that we don't really know that this is necessarily going to be a solution to the problems of dan set up like we have this conversation european team this morning and the thing that came to me is that technology integration not not just the knowledge in general but integration and making things fit together and be seamless is very much and it's rudimentary stage just both in the car and in the home like you take your phone you're at home and ok now you have airplane and airplane works there plays great and i guess that's the thing that gives people like their and optimism is airplay works where Apple is implemented as well now has car play it kind of completely breaks the metaphor because you're not transmitting by a car it was meeting by a lightning cable whereas airplay transmits by idea but anyhow I mean in what we see we've seen a few demos from the geneva motor show of apple carplay and the thing is it integrates with your dashboard so all of your knobs and dials and touchscreen and is even a specific button to activate Siri and to activate voice commands on the steering wheel so that's really the only multiplication that the car manufacturers are making it integrates with what you already have there but that's not a good thing in my book or at least it doesn't really advanced things because the touch screen responsiveness and the quickness of the UI is exactly as you would get from an infotainment system it's not iOS 7 quickness it's car infotainment quickness which isn't quick at all yeah it's actually surprising to me that I mean considering how strict for lack of a better word Apple is about those kinds of UX parameters it's actually surprising to me that they're going through with this and I've to be honest I think that that is probably a large reason why we saw such a delay between the launch of iOS 7 and the roll up roll out of iOS in the car which is now car play um but it's weird I I don't understand for the life of me I don't understand why it is that automakers have such a hard time producing responsive a hardware and software stacks in their instrument clusters and in their dashboards it doesn't make any sense to me my first question is a witch whose engineers are working on this is it exclusively apples engineers or is it Volvo's engineers well so okay so let's just say you know the announcements that they've made they've they're partying with new Mercedes new Volvo's and new Ferraris um which are and and you know if you look at the cars that they've have been showing off it at Geneva Geneva a Mercedes in Bastion entertainment system uses different components and different things than Volvo's and they both use different than Ferraris so it seems to me like to answer your question Evan it seems to me that it's the car manufacturers engineers that are producing the hardware that goes into this and stuff like that and then they kind of just like art it seems to be interfacing with an API uh to the iphone through the lightning cable so that you know it's it's like a UH whatever use a projected image of whatever's on your phone gotcha ah well like I don't know the question of like why our car manufacturers using qnx like our cue necks i'm okay how you describe it but it is it's a real-time operating system and like they're just not that many real-time operating systems out there that can be bought and adapted for like any kind of product but usually they're used in automated like cnc milling machines and that sort of stuff and ah correct me if I'm wrong but I think that a lot of these automakers are you also using Tegra 4 chipsets I won't say a lot but taker for is definitely becoming it's not just called take before like they have a specific you know they have certain part numbers that they're using in cars how do you make it made a big deal out of it at CES but it's certainly not all about you I I don't think that a lot of the processing side of things is happening in the car I think a lot of it is happening on the phone that seeped into the car here's here's where I disagree material like the in terms of the actual like infotainment and like the data like the phone is serum serving as like a data source but um in terms of like the hardware layer I just think it's a combination of tegra chip sets and a real-time OS is really interesting because tegra chip sets are one of the few chips that's like I said before I'm previous shows that actually support like true OpenGL and they have lots of like transistors to support hardware acceleration so the question of like why aren't car manufacturers building a like responsive stacks of software like I think they're definitely trying that's why they're adopting like this kind of either in this kind of song but but but at the same time they're throwing in like these really crappy resistive touchscreen displays that you get on like a Walmart android tablet in your you know 150 thousand dollar Ferrari know that they're moving toward capacitive systems like Cadillac cue and but the ones but the ones that they're showing off in Geneva are like resistive touchscreens really are you sure yeah that's what everyone's been complaining about that's a that's really bizarre and inexplicable well yeah I mean the car the auto industry has historically been anywhere from you know two to seven years behind the consumer electronics industry in terms of Technology and just you know mindshare but what's important the kinds of technologies and apps that are important and I think that a big reason for that and this is something that they've acknowledged I talked with with executives at Ford at sea they're just very open about the fact that yes they know that they're way behind one of the reasons for that is the insane regulatory environment that the car companies have to deal with that is fraud John huh that's an excuse I mean these guys are behaving like emo was just invented lost here no no this no you're right but they you know it's kind of a moving target nitsa and other regulatory bodies like Nitza are smack in the middle of determining like all sorts of very specific parameters around like how long the driver should be allowed to look at center stack what kinds of things they should be able to do when their hand is is on the screen and they're driving things like that and and so they're they're less moving parts and you're right that's not an excuse for the system to be unresponsive at all but I do think that they have their intent divided then say the attention of like just a smartphone maker who's just trying to pump out a smartphone so I like I believe that for like manufacturers like Ford which are producing these mainstream vehicles they've got to produce however many hundreds of thousands a year and they have you know cost is obviously a major factor in what their every decision that they're making but when you talk about like Ferrari where everything is hand-built and cost is really not a factor they'll just raise the price of the thing if people still buy it uh you know it's like inexplicable that they're just so stubborn well so the reason for that is that Ferrari in particular I mean all of these these high-end automate auto makers but for in particular uses you know all of the the electronic components are outsourced to one of these major like auto electronics' conglomerates like denso or Delphi or you know visteon and so and those are the same companies that are supplying like Ford and GM so it ends up getting all up at that level anyway and then they just get they basically get the same crap that everyone else is giving it is getting it might be packaged a little differently but like the underlying operating system and the display and all that are basically the same thing I mean like look if I'm driving a four hundred fifty thousand dollar Ferrari from driving an f12 berlinetta odds are i have a virtue anyway so like this whole I a car play discussion your Ferraris a little ridiculous in the first place in my face so so this is what I want so to bring this back to mobile like can I just ask what actually happens when you don't have the iphone well you just you just have your regular in their system the the whole point here is just connectivity with the iphone and improving the interplay between the stuff we have on your iPhone and the dash system but I just wanted to make kind of a silent building on what Chris has said I do feel like there is some super advanced technology in causing particularly CES we saw those Laser headlights and whatever else the Elder was doing I mean there's some really in-depth advanced intelligent stuff I know Volvo they have they have these amazing breaks in trucks that are demonstrated where you break in like I don't know inches on brain I they have these really intricate awesome systems which showed that they have engineered they have technological advances and knowledge and all of that stuff and that just really reminds me of cameras particularly DSLRs so these guys will get everything right they will do these amazing autofocus systems really intricate systems and then they were just kind of screw it up by just not bothering to do human usable you I you know it just seems like there's this is hurdle that they're not overcoming it's addressing the user and addressing the users needs as opposed to just being pretty good at engineering and the technical side effects yeah so this is what I want in my next car I don't want whatever four-door Mercedes or or whoever whatever I buy I don't want their stupid hardware in my way and I don't want their entertainment system I want a doc that I can put my iPad in and launch an app and have my uh stuff that I want to use in the car like that's that's all I want like I know Sony announced thing at CES which is like an in-dash car unit that you can like Doc an android phone in and and it will interface with that and stuff like that I want that that's what I want that's where we should be going with cars take it out of the hands of the car manufacturers entirely they obviously don't know how to do this stuff and just like let me use the thing that I already know how to use yeah I have mixed feelings about that I think it's a very complicated subject what when car companies the road they were starting to go down and I think they pull back from this so GM certainly was doing it was they were saying okay well on the low end we will just have you bring your own phone and you'll plug it into our system and you'll use your phone through pull link our play and and so they launched that on the Chevy spark and a few other like ultra low end models but then they said on the high end we want to control the experience and make it like a really integral part of the car so you end up with something like Cadillac you which is just pervasive throughout the entire car where I think you get into trouble there are two places where I think you get into trouble what is with physical controls I still think and don't get me wrong like I have a lot of respect for how usable Tesla made the Model S is giant touchscreen but still the end of the day I think physical controls are a better idea for cars and so integrating those in a smart way with something like an iPad that you dock in the center stack is is a challenge right and then to car companies are starting to move away from the center stack and and they're doing really cool intelligent things with the instrument cluster which is a different story altogether you're not going to dock and iPad at this myth buster um can you manage that yeah okay fair enough miss Govinda three torturous I I see where you're going with the instrument cluster and yeah that's that's a fair point but to address it like that the physical controls I I mean if you give me a doctor my iPad I can still have physical knobs sliders and buttons for my AC HVAC system and then all it needs to do is give me a valium knob which it can interface through the Lightning port or something like that and like that's the extent of physical controls that I really need when I'm driving uh you know and the rest can be done through the touchscreen or voice or whatever it is right so let me actually pull us back to copley because we discussed it for quite a few minutes but we haven't actually discussed the specifics of it and the core of it really boils down to Siri voice commands and Cirie reading information out to you and apples Maps and this is the reason why I personally am not too psyched about this apples Maps is probably the weakest part of this of the portfolio and Cirie just doesn't have the same sort of high quality voice recognition the groove with us so honestly like the two strengths that Apple supposed to bring with carplay other strengths that Google has an apple is if he owned well I will say that you know Apple maps is uh definitely not as good as google maps but it's a lot better than it was two years ago when a day you had all these problems I mean they've been iterating on it a lot I've used it a few times is really didn't have a noticeable difference between that and Google Maps ah still no integration transit directions which I find very nose yeah that's just total especially employee they bought a whole bunch of companies that do transit but yeah whatever and as far as Siri goes actually you know it for my own personal experience I have this little dock set up in my car uh where I put my phone in uh and a I can see it there easily tailed like right for my face and I was using Siri just last night to like send text messages to my wife and it was great it worked just as good as the Moto X as which I've done that before and like it doesn't have as it's definitely not as good for like doing web searches and things like that but the things that you need to do in the car navigate home send a message home call so and so Siri works just fine for that provided you have a good wireless connection i was on LTE as fast it was reliable things like that if you have a a sketchy cellular connection then you know it's a different story right yeah i just a very different story if you don't have a card so just who she is actually my case so are you mine are you suggesting that you won't buy it for our a just so they can use carplay totem hearings and that's correct sir mostly also because i will probably buy a 102 of free Android phones before aikido an iphone I'm just so broken up with iOS until they fix the GMO software oh my goodness I could not be in the most opposite position right now that's terrible I just got the i just got a z1 compact and showed off okay okay it's just not good ever meet Evan this is this is for a lot of people this is a one do podcast or just saying I'm in the opposite position and sign doesn't really make your poi okay so I'm holding them saying I'm holding up a a sony xperia z1 compact model d f-stops red5 503 16 gigabyte model black BK you know Morgan um now I I wanted this phone so bad so bad and as soon as it arrived on shores I went down to my local importer I got it I was so excited I've had as many of you know I have been using a z1 for a very long time um but when but I've been wrapped up in this like terrible return process the screen her I'm sorry the rear glass just cracked in my pocket I sent it back they send it back to me with a completely defective camera and so in that time period I have gone back to the iphone um and when this you know like the the compact I was super jazzed about last year at CES it's got everything I could possibly need like it's fast small thumb has an SD card port the screen is way better the camera is just as good as the z1 um but getting back into Android like oh god it's gross it's the worst ever everything is everything is choppy it's just well that's that's pretty that's pretty harsh but okay no okay so no the thing is like it's really that it's it's the quality of apps it is the quality of that so like the the pervasive jerkiness is not in the OS like Sony's done everything they can from an OS standpoint to make the actual operating system like very smooth um well once you get into those apps like the experience is not as good um for for many of them there are apps that I love like the transit app for example bring it back to actual slip you know complete lack of integrated transit directions like the transit app on Android is gorgeous it look works really fluidly it's really made for that interface but you know like Evernote for example like that is a completely this / if experience after coming to iOS version and I mean this is a super super blade I think topic but I think you were you were you were very frustrated this weekend and you had a really poignant tweet about uh you know that people complain that the Android app experience isn't as good as iOS but a lot of the things come down to the fact that there are these these companies like Evernote and whoever it might be just are putting the resources into the Android app development that they are on the iOS side so you're you're going to get a lower quality app and you're going to get people not interested in buying these apps are paying for these services on Android because the experience kind of sucks so let me ask you this like where are the like where are the barriers to entry because you know google google has an in-app purchasing system right so developers can't use that as an excuse anymore um and you know the SDK has evolved a lot you know I know people still complain about programming in Java um but you know objective-c then Xcode is not like AB is not necessarily beginners language you don't just walk into that either yeah I know I don't think it's that is so I think there are two things one its uncertainty over form factor in and resolution and two it is and this this might be a complete myth at this point but there is definitely a stigma around a conversion on paid apps right like then there's there's a perception that iOS is the more premium platform where users are more likely to spend money and that the there you know two and a half three years ago there was definitely evidence to suggest that was the case i don't know if it's still true it may not be but was that stigma i think is still there yeah this i mean like when you're making long-term business decisions it does make sense to look I mean like the resources you have available are two to three year old studies on who's spending one house right but the thing is is like two to three years ago look at what Android would look at both what Android is a platform and android phones as hardware platform we're capable of and think and everything has changed completely like um also let's see here I've just said everything has changed completely but at the same time you're describing Android is pretty much the same as it was three years ago nice to know you can do it I'm good enough android at it's like essays as an operating system has improved significantly why i'm saying is the investment by these companies in android is something that that has not changed and that is a problem can we get back to the z1 compact for a second and just note that it is like the hardware is just not good on that phone I could not disagree more it is I think this is Cyrus I have three specific comments about the hardware one it is like shockingly heavy for its size like you pick it up expecting it to wait a certain amount of ways like twice is that twice that much for some bizarre reason to its thick like I don't know what the dimensions are but is it feels and looks really thick three has a ridiculous bezel on for no apparent reason like that screen should go to the edges especially like we live in a moto x world like it is not acceptable for that for there to be that much des alana phone of that size okay i will give you the best but i will not give you anything it's the kickoff of the the hardware is phenomenal like the aluminum ring or the aluminum chassis this is made out of his gorgeous I don't know what I can do for you in terms of the week why is it like 14 inches pic I mean like okay honestly because that's the side of the camera the camera is that thick what's the problem it is from the problem also there's just there's one thing there's like a I'm looking at the questions right here in the side panel for Google Hangouts and let's see here there is one question that I would like to address and that is choppy and uh I guys like I have them both like right here uh I can notice the difference in and what you would call back um like they're one of these five miles ahead of the other one that's a bag oh goodness anyway yes so I mean like lag and Android is it's been like it comes down to it comes down to hardware compositing um okay well I'm just I'm just gonna do something unusual because sometimes i agree with two people disagree with each other this time who's going to disagree with poor you because you're both wrong like you you you just jumped to both extremes like everything does that one compact hardware is enough little but i also don't think it's trash so quick visit chris is chris is right if so far as there is the industrial design just has it lacks refinement to e so the size of it can be quite rough the edges or the corners rather are just too sharp those are things that Sony could have you know softened up a bit that a bit more of a curve on them it is a thick and heavy phone but also you know I would say if you can use your nexus 5 which is really really light for its size that that can kind of realign your expectations like honestly if you compare deserve our compact to like an older phone one of the nokias from the early 2000s in which is perfectly fine nothing wrong with it I'm sure the thickness would have been problem because again by the standards it's not particularly thick I just have already considered those major problems but as I said I don't really think that it's amazing and yeah I agree in the bezel Chris but at the same time let's not forget how much stuff sonia's jams inside it and the biggest trick we deserve on copper from you is the better life and in order to fit that size of a battery you pretty much need that size of the case so maybe we could've that a bigger screen perhaps but the case is fill to the brim which the way to testify see yeah that's fair that's fair also it's waterproof which did you know factors in a little bit to the era does that is the bomb that is what what are you people doing to your phones like I have never had a waterproof phone in my life and there's never been a situation I was like gee I really wish this phone was waterproof like I nobody else in my phone wait wait wait what you can have when you can have your phone in the hot tub with you it's pretty good you're a hot tub and you're just thinking about using a phone your priorities are all screwed up I mean sometimes you do need to use the pool but in Flint what's your answer hey the answer is very simple and it's something that I realized again while I was reading Zevon compact and a freezing miserable london weather is things like glove friendly tell sweets I think the waterproofing is exactly the same insofar as it's an absolute gimmick until the first time you really need to use and then you're like dude I feel so good about the fact that i can use this phone with gloves on you know i feel so good that i can use this bone near the pool for example you know not not in London not in the UK you never get poor worthy weather but in a nice country like Bulgaria people go to the pool and using your phone next to the pool without need to wrap it up in the tower things of that is fine it's a good thing it's an advantage and like I say it's a gimmick to most people until you come to use it and then you just start to feel smug because everybody else is either freezing their fingers off or just not using their iPhones it's the wake up well to be fair there are quite a few phones now that have glove compatible screens right the uh no i mean so many did an event at them i'm just saying as a feature is yeah anybody can make a waterproof only panasonic made one and then they quit swap phones for whatever reason i really like those two looga phones and i think more people should be doing I mean Samsung to brad is doing a little bit of that with splash-proof galaxy s5 so I just think they got the galaxy well the galaxy s5 is just as water professors z1 compact no that's not true isn't it no now do these guys IP is I think it's IP 67 all right but the Sony is there a to-do ip57 if I'm a mistake and they get to call themselves waterproof whereas the galaxy s5 is water resistant either way I pee on my phone and it would be okay that's the important takeaway here so moving on to things that actually happened in the past week uh HCC's uh next generation one kind of kind of got got the full tour ah before its announcement Bailey some kid out in the horrible state of Illinois I got his hands on this very slick tan bracelet he got his hands on what very apparently beer to be his parents his parents version are his parents a copy of this that the m8 as it's known or the the negation see quad and gave it a really really really really really rough to watch video tour and showing it and comparing it to the current version of the HTC One ah and you know assuming that this is final hardware this is what we're expect to see when it's being announced in like two three weeks it looks very similar to last year's model which kind of lines up with the renders that we've seen leaked and stuff like right right but Miss evidence is a few set of differences one thing actually one of our commenters when we come to the video was just really gonna be psyched he's like wait the headphone jacks to the bottom of the phone take my money you have I mean no way the lie like that's a big deal that is a huge deal like going back to my guys you know I have nine to me so I'll do it right now going back to how I was saying how i have this dock in my car so I have this dog my car that I put my phone and then there's a wire that comes down to charge my phone which shows in the bottom obviously and then I also plug into an auxiliary jack in my stereo because bluetooth is an awful experience uh and so on the iphone i can have both wires coming down from the bottom it's really nice out of the way on something like the Moto X to the nexus 5 or whatever I've got these like I've got one wire on top and one wire a bottom and I've got that's like messy nastiness all over the place so I like having you be a headphone jack on the bottoms if I'm also just the gist of the pants experience the pants experience is totally different like the drawing it out of your pocket think about how I guess you have to turn it over yeah it just makes more sense I hadn't thought about the pants experience they have to confess always be thinking about pants experience flat like that to me that's okay I'm just gonna keep this guy seriously about the phone so I mean that's one of the small tweaks headphone jack move from the top to the bottom there's a looks like plastic black panel at the very top of the phone which action to me looks really slick it's like a really slick design element that goalie in a press picture earlier and now basically this video seems confirm it and the sides exactly the thing that I was saying that Sony could have improved with these z1 compact making the sides just that extra bit curvier extra bit softer that's what seems to have happened with this new HTC One so I mean the cut the company is pretty proud of the one design already and grow it a lot of people are just a lot nice and see the need to go and change it too much I I agree with you there the one was you know it's a great design phone there's don't really need to to fix what's not broken but what kills me about this new one is it uses on-screen keys um like a nexus 5 or Moto X will but it still has that stupid plastic bar or glass bar below the on-screen keys that serves its only purpose to show HTC's logo and so like they could have like made the screen bigger or shrunk the bezel or whatever uh because the screen is now before the the bus now been moved on screen so that that kind of noisy obviously I have can't say that I've touched it in person I haven't used it I don't really know how well that works in usability but from anaesthetics point but uh point uh it kind of bothers me uh and then you know on the back of the phone it's got this new camera sensor are a wonderful leaker apparently had no idea what that camera was censored for or how it functioned unfortunately so we can't say what it actually does but it's been rumored that that is going to provide some sort of light row like functionality I think so maybe some sort of refocusing abilities uh and and not 3d photos to the dismay of many what I mean that it's obvious that the sensors are asymmetrical right so that would certainly lend credence to the notion that it is in a 3d camera no TC is going to so heartbroken about this fact they won't be able to buy another HTC 3d phone was Prince and so I we've made fun of TC one of our news editors here for a long time because of how much he loved the evo 3d but you know he he said something to me today when I was teasing him about it yet once again uh and he's like the reason I loved that phone was because it had that awesome shutter key for the camera like he didn't care about the 3d stuff it was that killer shutter key it was like you know yeah you're right Cesar sue me for me what made that that was so awesome was the fact that it had of the Green Hornet built-in that really was a killer feature so here's here's what's tragic about about both the 3d and any potential like lytro functionality that might come in with this camera or electro asked functionality is like you know there were who knows how many of those they sold but like they all took 3d pictures and where are those pictures now like do they still exist can you still view them in 3d if that's the case like if that's the case what is it like light row where you have to have some kind of like Flash plugin to view them in three um like yeah that's not like availability like I've got pictures view them on your evo 3d oh yeah once that cameras gone though or once that phone is gone like what are you going to do with that like I thank you bye now you buy another evo 3d that's the that's terrible like I have I have iphone pictures from a billion years ago that I that are still in my counts in my galleries that i really like but you know how can you refer back to them if like HTC drops the support for their flash plugin or flash goes extinct all together etc etc like these novelties like sure maybe it's another maybe it's another line item but it's at the end of the day like a really high quality pictures and it's going to ask you there's a couple ways they can go with this and yet you're right the 3d pictures are real pain to view outside of a 3d camera or whatever that I mean if this thing comes past that it has a refocusing ability it could be used to like you know you take your picture you have your the app on the phone that can do the whole refocusing thing and then you refocus where you want it you save it as another file and you can share that file and then you can go back and save again so like maybe it's not like the the the interactive ability to change your focus all the time isn't preserved across devices and things like that but you still have a a photo captured that you can view anywhere let me do I just really know that they put in a great game that would make sense at least that seems likely then and also it's something that we saw with an LG G pro two I think it's going to part of OG software in general for smartphones which is that it takes a burst of L&O six photos or whatever and it's again it's very much like Nokia's refocus its software based around the hardware so it takes them at various distances and you can actually notice that if there's any motion in your picture so that the thing that's focused furthest away from you is like half a second after the thing that's to focus closest to you and a lot of companies of doing these things I mean I think exactly is then saying when you're able to refocus photos that might be something that it's an option at the phone and then you can just pump out the general JPEGs standard JPEGs is we don't rest of the photos but I mean I just I just need to have a moment to with the evil 3d and like you guys were saying the fact that you could take pictures with it and and you then pretty much explicitly on that device and and I had such a struggle you know looking at the lenticular like display and trying to convince myself there's a 3d effect going I mean that was such a train wreck I don't sweat it just be sad yeah so I mean the HTC has already told us are going to announce this thing on a march 25th which is just about three weeks away so I'm sure we'll have plenty of uh more leaks to see until then but we'll have a a better idea of what how this actually works when when it's actually announced um but moving on so today was actually revealed that this company is planning to release the first dual booting windows phone and Android smartphone this year which it begs the question of why well you know why ask why so in one good eye is just say like you know I can definitely see a situation for myself and maybe for others only power user certainly where android is the you know windows one is the operating system you want to use but Android is that rating system you have to use because just because of you know there's some Esther gap that you need or really not so esoteric I have to say you don't have that is not Vanessa or you know you have a google services situation of course the support for Google services is pretty weak on with this phone right now but I only I can see that I get it but the use case is so narrow that three people will buy one of these and I will be one of them so do you think okay so do you guys think this will be a in actual dual boot situation where you can dual boot from one to the other and maybe share data which seems hard but or it is it going to be something like you start up the phone for the first time and you can choose which operating system monday let it make sense that you'll be able to switch between the two mean that that's a doable device is opposed to like make a choice once and you stuck with it I don't know I just don't know how they'd be able to share data especially like Windows Phone is very much like iOS and that it's silos things pretty hard ah and and you know at least how it used to work with SD cards East especially format them and things like that I have no idea how would be able to share data between that environment and Android unless unless they talking about like a virtualization or something like that which sounds horrific Lee nightmares honestly I'm with Kristin this one there's just nothing for us to talk about here I mean as much you kind of have to imagine yourself in a situation that ninety-nine percent of the global population just aren't in okay you need to feel some compelling reason to want Windows Phone ahead of Android at least in some circumstances alright which were most people just isn't the case like my biggest the best the mostest your consumer advice is if you have a choice go with Android I mean we can have the discussions we can have the debates whatever would I osm over there but android vs windows phone it's like then what what is woman's phone have the android doesn't bring I mean that there really isn't anything like maybe responsiveness of the UI but you can you know dance around the UI and then you end up with crummy apps that aren't serving your needs I mean this was that was my experience with the Lumia 1020 like the hardware and software look beautiful and since the the whole experience is really fluid in like pretty gorgeous like I can see myself in an alternate reality where you know everybody had adopted windows phone but the apps right now not there although I will say it like maybe this dual booting thing is totally outside the spectrum of North normal user I think what's more interesting is that Microsoft relaxed their licensing requirements to allow this well at the same time I accept I mean okay microsoft hasn't taken over knocking okay so you want independent and it ends to yadi yadi up but at least behind the scenes you have to say that Microsoft's allowed to not get X to happen as well so it's kind of facing up to the fact that it needs to play forward Android in some respects hey so you guys think yeah and also keep in mind that at least in theory if if this OEM is playing by the rules this device will effectively be paying double to Microsoft since Microsoft makes a significant royalty off of every Android device soul so so there is actually a you know there's a good monetary reason for myself to be okay with this there's also little incentive to stop it because it's such a niche product that like you know it's a good way we have a mission a company name yet because we don't remember okay we're not we're not talking about Samsung here we're not talking about LG or HTC or any of that we're not even talking about Huawei or CTE this is a company called carbon it looks like they're based out of India so they apparently are appealing to a very specific probably very narrow market for this I wonder if you're also dual sim that'd be cool that'd be like having just two independent funds that would be awesome no the amusing and you will be kind of a cool thing to tell your friends about but functionally and in terms of usability and it get it just I don't know it's it's me I don't know how to describe I don't know if it's a train crash or whatever but it just doesn't make any sense it doesn't really add to your life like I'll at the moment i'll tell you what it asked your life and everything any moment I'm deal booting to bleaching I'm bootcamping windows on my mac there is one reason why I'm doing it and that is to play dota 2 so gaming it's kind of the classic reason to want the other OS everything else Mac OS X now not mac OS takes care of I mean for the most part you do come to okay what I'm trying to say is you have the best OS for your needs and if you try and dance around a switch between OSS to do a variety of different things what really ends up happening is you spend too much time managing and jumping between operating systems of whatever i'm only bootcamping for one extra reason and it's a compelling enough reason for me to do but if I need to use windows for something and then the linux for something else in OS x squared thing then the best advice is actually to try and consolidate things and just use 10 s the one that gets most of your things done that's we need to create to do so speaking of getting things done uh since we're still the topic kind of Windows Phone this week lose we saw the first look at microsoft's apparent answer to Siri and Google now which is being called Cortana and it's a voice-based personal assistant it supposedly has a personality just like Siri does and apparently it's named after something from halo is that right dude Wow am I wrong is indeed from a low I believe you spud up but it's just the ignorance flag is so cute so I also believe it is pronounced Cortana but whatever you know assume it's a noble they bring it to market with that name it's terrible listen it has a female voice that doesn't mean it has a personality well Syria's a personality I mean Siri you know we'll talk back and you know Siri will sasu yeah Siri will sense you well crotalus any okay yeah actually that's fair enough because I'm looking at one of the screenshots that we've procured and it says I'm absorbing the entire internet won't take long so called Cortana is you know by the way else as well I by the way this is tangentially related I need to get out there cuz I don't think I've complained about this yet and it really bothers me so Cirie uh this first came up for me it's yes this year um I i was using my my iphone my alarm in the morning and I would say you know whenever I use my iPhone alarm I said I using Siri and I I say you know set alarm for 530am or you know 515 a.m. or whatever and if you if you set an alarm time for before 6am sometimes randomly it will say don't wake me up like it will respond don't wake me up and it like it's supposed to be a joke but it like I read it as like well are you refusing to set the alarm or like are you making a jump in and then like I don't know how to be woken up in the morning or not now it turns out that it is just a joke but still like you need to set boundaries for when Siri will sassy and those boundaries are not set yet so I mean voice voice recognition it's like a major part of every OS now like it's definitely a requirement um well I want to be I want to be clear the windows phone 8 does have a voice recognition already you can dictate to hear things like that is what's significant about this new thing that's coming with it 8.1 apparently is uh the this is going to be a personal assistant in the same way of google now in Syria and you know a Microsoft is pulling in all this date you're supposed to give Microsoft this data it's supposed to scan your your inbox for calendar appointments and passyunk owe you something called notebook right yes so it's got this component called notebook which adds all your data they're partnering with Foursquare for location stuff uh but you know I think they're the same problem that essentially Siri has with Apple Microsoft or Apple has a Serie Microsoft's going to have with this is that you know for most people the company that has this data already is google and google has you know most of your online activity already and it makes it Google now that much more powerful it makes it smarter and more predictive and things like that whereas Siri just has you know maybe your calendar that you've stored on the phone and you know that it's able to send text messages and make phone calls and things like that but it's not predictive in the same way that Google now is and I think you know microsoft's probably going to run into the that it's same kind of issue with this service you know except for the people that are fully invested in Microsoft seco system but just just to say I think from Microsoft's perspective this is a a university a good move what I'm reading again from tom warren is he stood since they just have a copy of microbrew map and he tells us that this is going to replace the Bing search and one of my favorite jokes is something to do with the fact that okay the joke I don't remember but it was about the fact that being is like the most underused physical or capacitive button on a phone ever like nobody ever reaches for it nobody ever uses the Bing search and a windows phone so you know overhauling that sticking this personal assistant on there and brat branding it with Cortana which you know for guys other than Dan who again is super adorable who with the fact that he's not familiar with halo it's gonna be really cool thing and you can set you can set a nickname for yourself so your phone can she start calling you messaging I think you know that with Microsoft if Microsoft's really wants to harness the good world that he has from all of these halo gamers and from its you know it has a treasure trove of fan loyalty with Xbox so it can do a lot it you know to to just give you a phone where you're like this is like my xbox and you have tried bring some synergy between them and talk to your phone and it's like the character that like your sidekick your assistant or whatever in the halo story and it calls you master chief and you can kind of live a little fancy their blood and wasn't oh yeah but at what point during the podcast did you start smoking tremendous amounts breath oh I will tell you when I don't exactly when when it was when Evan took us into the weeds with opengl i was like i was 64 discussing if it is OpenGL performance with respect to in dash entertainment system that's fair so look there isn't a single human being on the planet who is like oh I played xbox oh I've heard of Cortana I'm going to buy a windows phone now like that so that's that's our national pet Chris that is absolutely not it you what we do to understand the mentality I'm not talking about people who have heard about it i'm talking about people who are like deeply invested into it ok because but you're talking about the failed children yes and they exist in a real and I'm one of them not a low though okay because I am that way to dota 2 like if you made a phone where my favorite dota 2 hero could be like a really fundamental part of it and i click on it erect with it and stuff I mean I wouldn't tell my friends about it I probably wouldn't tell me who bet on this podcast but I was use it and I'm probably smile I think this is the same strategy that you know HTC has with its hello kitty phone right like there's these diehard hello to my fans and they're gonna buy the same strategy as Tom Tom had when it did the Darth Vader voiceover for turn-by-turn navigation it is actually cool that's the distinction hello kitty is not cool Darth Vader giving you to know I turn navigator large large people hello kitty is cool though I mean that it's just like when you do things like that you obviously with like the the HTC that I mentioned it's not a flagship device that they're trying to sell everybody there's a market for that like when you're when you're targeting something like that you were targeting like segments and you if that's the strategy then that's like a very small strategy right that's not a not a way to take your your platform mainstream that is actually very good point any reminds me of something I've been thinking about recently and that is specifically the fact that we can't find a perfect phone a perfect user experience precisely because everyone is trying to do something that's just universal like they'll wanna mass produced an ex I for the owner that's pretty something that will sell in the millions and millions and millions any all looks the same and and the thing is that's hard to do with hardware I think it's even harder to do with software by the software that really delights people is one that is the alesis some way customized in some way altered from this standard cloth that everybody gets and as a thing that bothers me is the fact that particularly with wearables everyone says the world wearables but everyone is really thinking about a sparta wristwatch everyone is thinking about a wristwatch with an ARM processor in it and in some smartphone like functionality in it because that's what everyone thinks will sell the most and the thing that I'm thinking is if you do more niche things with wearables you have the technology to make them pretty excellent again it will maybe we want to sell to everybody but you know it will be useful to humanity which is completely not a capitalist or but data I mean I mean I think you're absolutely right but like if there's if if there was one thing that like but the thing about Google now and the thing about uh Cortana's like it's you know you can only feed it like Chris said you can only feed it the information that's available on the phone but you know glad I think that if you if we're ever going to get to products like the cons that you're talking about like you need pervasive like data awareness from someone's life and like the unfortunate reality is that really google is the only one who's who not only has access to that kind of data but has had the foresight to kind of like organize it and deliver it ways they can capitalize on their apps gladly just once Vlad wants Samantha from her I mean I also wants me I haven't seen the moon Io symphonies don't spoil it okay um but you know I think this is actually very telling of what Microsoft is now realizing which is that you know they have a chicken and egg problem which is like they don't have they don't have users and they don't have apps you can oh the only way to get apps is to have users so I can parent in order to drive the investment you have to have user base Nintendo is like dealing with the same problem right now could we you um but where Microsoft is really not like has historically not been very talented is in terms of like vendor and service locket and Google is so talented that an apple is so talented that but Microsoft is kind of like played the sidelines but it's really interesting to see the motors are the nokia X come out and focus completely on services and I think this is Microsoft realizing that if they're going to establish long-term vendor lock-in they have to hook people on these services get them using them for a long long time and you know once you're in those kind of like loops then not only can you derive like data out of those services that you're offering but you know you can you know if people will stick to your platform longer the unfortunate thing is is that they bring the whole scroogled campaign so if they ever do trying mine information out of your email that it kind of looks as a bent look it's a bad look indeed ah so on that note I think that wraps up the Virgin Mobile show for this week this is then episode 82 again today is we're recording this on march forth perhaps you're listening to it tomorrow or another day or whatever we thank you for watching and tuning in and listening of course if you want you can of course follow us all of us are average you can send us email you can drop comments on the post you can follow us individually at Twitter I'm DC seifert Vlad it's flat set of he will not follow you back evan is evan rodgers chris is e power and hopefully dieter will be back with us next week he is at back lawn uh and we hope him Godspeed on getting well and getting his voice back but until then see you guys later I see