Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From relay FM, this is connected episode 111.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Braintree. I'm Federico Vittucci and I'm

00:00:14 ◼   ► joined today as always by my friend Myke Hurley.

00:00:18 ◼   ► This is so beautiful. Is it? You've just you've just taken my job.

00:00:22 ◼   ► It's great. I love it. I'm just gonna sit back here now. I'm very good Federico.

00:00:26 ◼   ► I'm very good.

00:00:27 ◼   ► We're also joined by our American friend, Steven Hackett.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Hey, it's good to be back.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I feel in a weird position, Myke.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Please save me.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Well, because the issue that you have now is if you start the show, you have to get

00:00:42 ◼   ► the show going, right?

00:00:44 ◼   ► Because you've just done the intros, everyone said hello to you, and now it's on you now.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Because I feel like completely that I'm just like chilling now.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Okay, so you keep chilling.

00:00:54 ◼   ► have a lot of news to talk about today. We have the Google event, Myke is

00:00:58 ◼   ► continuing to buy stuff, it appears, but first we gotta do we gotta do follow-up

00:01:03 ◼   ► so I'm gonna hand it off to Steven. Alright so a couple things to talk about

00:01:08 ◼   ► this week in the realm of follow-up. I wanted to point people to B-Sides 26 on

00:01:14 ◼   ► the Relay website. While I was at Release Notes conference last week, even though I

00:01:19 ◼   ► didn't join the two of you on Connected, I did record a show. I was joined by

00:01:23 ◼   ► by Christina Warren of Rocket and Gizmodo,

00:01:27 ◼   ► as well as Ed and Brian from the Simple Beat Podcast.

00:01:30 ◼   ► And we drafted our all-time favorite max.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - I know you said that you weren't here with us, right?

00:01:37 ◼   ► And that's true, but we all know that what you were

00:01:39 ◼   ► actually doing was the podcast that you always wanted to do.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Which is this one. - Really, it was just

00:01:44 ◼   ► a gut reaction when I saw you guys recorded

00:01:47 ◼   ► about Snapchat for two hours.

00:01:48 ◼   ► My gut reaction was to talk about G3s.

00:01:50 ◼   ► - You were cheating on us with all computers.

00:01:53 ◼   ► That's what you did.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So I listened to this today and it was really interesting to me.

00:01:59 ◼   ► It reminded me of like the parts of ATP where they start talking about cameras or like low-level

00:02:07 ◼   ► Python stuff where it's just like I just sit and let the words just flow over me.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:14 ◼   ► You know, every now and then I was like, "Oh, I've heard Steven talk about that computer

00:02:17 ◼   ► before."

00:02:18 ◼   ► But other than that, it was like I have no idea what's going on.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:22 ◼   ► showered in computer talk. Yeah, I took a podcast shower today and it was fantastic.

00:02:29 ◼   ► It was a lot of fun to listen to, I enjoyed it a lot. I felt like there was something

00:02:33 ◼   ► very fun to listen to, which was that I feel like, I don't know whether you knew this was

00:02:38 ◼   ► happening at points, like you and Christina were trying to like out-history each other,

00:02:43 ◼   ► which was amazing. Every now and then one of you would throw something in and then the

00:02:46 ◼   ► other would like, "Here's another fact for you, here's another fact." And it was so funny.

00:02:52 ◼   ► It was a good time.

00:02:53 ◼   ► It was like at midnight in my hotel room,

00:02:54 ◼   ► so there's some late night zaniness.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But it was a lot of fun to do.

00:02:59 ◼   ► So I did speak while I was at Release Notes.

00:03:02 ◼   ► This is the conference Myke used.

00:03:03 ◼   ► You gave the keynote last year.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Christina Warren gave it this year.

00:03:08 ◼   ► But when my talk is up,

00:03:09 ◼   ► I will be sure to share a link with everybody.

00:03:10 ◼   ► I think it went really well.

00:03:11 ◼   ► So if you went to Release Notes,

00:03:13 ◼   ► or you are somebody who helped pull it off,

00:03:15 ◼   ► thank you very much.

00:03:16 ◼   ► It was great to be there again.

00:03:18 ◼   ► If you're on the fence about this next year,

00:03:20 ◼   ► I would think, I think Myke, you would say this too.

00:03:22 ◼   ► It's a great conference if you are an independent designer or developer,

00:03:25 ◼   ► or have a bunch of side work and you want to kind of rally the troops and make it

00:03:29 ◼   ► a full-time thing.

00:03:30 ◼   ► It's really a great week of talks and getting to hang out with people who

00:03:35 ◼   ► do and understand the things that you do.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a great conference. I wish I could have made it.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I just couldn't make it work with some of the other travel commitments I've had

00:03:43 ◼   ► this end of the year. You're underselling yourself though,

00:03:46 ◼   ► because you said the IKNO, which is true, but you closed the conference.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Shut it down.

00:03:51 ◼   ► That's, I mean, not forever, but like that's, you know,

00:03:54 ◼   ► you're not just like some mid carder like Matthew Bischoff,

00:03:57 ◼   ► right, you're like closing the thing off.

00:03:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:01 ◼   ► - You know he's verified on Twitter.

00:04:03 ◼   ► - I do know that, I do know that.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - Very impressive.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So you guys talked about Snapchat last week,

00:04:09 ◼   ► and Myke, something has happened to you

00:04:11 ◼   ► where you went from that straight to vlogging.

00:04:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I've got a YouTube channel now.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - So I would point people to Cortex episode 38

00:04:20 ◼   ► where you and Gray talk about some of your thinking behind this project and what you

00:04:24 ◼   ► want to do with it. And of course, youtube.com/user/mikehurley.

00:04:29 ◼   ► So this is the thing, the user thing. So this is just one of the very weird things that

00:04:33 ◼   ► I've discovered about YouTube. Like the URL is youtube.com/mikehurley. Like that is the

00:04:39 ◼   ► URL. But on random occasions, if you type that in on a mobile browser, it just gives

00:04:44 ◼   ► you an error. And it does this for anybody's YouTube channels. It's not like just because

00:04:48 ◼   ► I'm new because I was testing it with grey. So I'll type in like youtube.com/ctpgrey

00:04:53 ◼   ► and it would just be like "Error! Unknown." And it's like "Uh, what?" So there you go.

00:04:58 ◼   ► That's why I've put it in tweets and stuff as /user/mikehirley. This starts my inevitable

00:05:06 ◼   ► hate towards the YouTube platform, which I feel like was something I knew was going to

00:05:09 ◼   ► happen. But there are a lot of these really, really weird things about YouTube and that

00:05:15 ◼   ► is definitely one of them. It's weird. It's really weird.

00:05:19 ◼   ► So what are you doing? Like what are the challenges here for you, Myke? What kind of setup do

00:05:24 ◼   ► you have? Tell us more about... Give us the details. We want to know the details.

00:05:29 ◼   ► The challenges are everything. Everything is challenging because it's new. Like I'm not

00:05:35 ◼   ► used to recording video of myself. I'm not used to recording video of things that I see,

00:05:40 ◼   ► to be used anywhere. I'm not used to editing video, I'm not used to the system

00:05:47 ◼   ► or the platform that I'm using, like everything's difficult, but I am enjoying

00:05:53 ◼   ► it so much that I'm like overlooking the difficulty of it all really, which is

00:05:58 ◼   ► good because that's the way, the only way that this could work for me because I am

00:06:02 ◼   ► enjoying doing this. I don't mind that I'm sitting and kind of like struggling

00:06:06 ◼   ► with things a bit. So it's all tough but I'm getting better and I feel like I'm

00:06:12 ◼   ► able to apply some skills that I've learned of audio over to video and I'm

00:06:16 ◼   ► having ideas and the ideas I'm having are really exciting me. Like me and

00:06:20 ◼   ► Steven were just talking before the show that the Apple store on Regent Street

00:06:27 ◼   ► is opening up again in a couple of weeks on 15th of October so I'm gonna go down

00:06:33 ◼   ► there and shoot some video to put in a vlog which is kind of cool because I'm

00:06:37 ◼   ► like oh here's a thing I can go and do which is fun and I can go and turn it

00:06:42 ◼   ► into a thing and I'm excited about it. My setup I've considered getting a point

00:06:48 ◼   ► and shoot camera because that seems to be what the vloggers do but I've decided

00:06:53 ◼   ► to not do that and to just use my iPhone because my iPhone has a really good

00:07:00 ◼   ► camera on it and I figure I can probably just get away with that because right

00:07:04 ◼   ► now the most important thing is that I kind of get used to doing this and get

00:07:10 ◼   ► good at it and I don't think that the quality of the camera is what's going to

00:07:14 ◼   ► help me do that and I think if I had to carry around a camera and all of the

00:07:19 ◼   ► related equipment I would probably not like to do it as much right like if I had

00:07:25 ◼   ► carry around a camera and batteries and SD cards and a tripod and all that stuff

00:07:32 ◼   ► like I just wouldn't want to do it so much but right now I'm just carrying

00:07:34 ◼   ► around my iPhone in my pocket as normal and I just pull it out and shoot video

00:07:38 ◼   ► or something and I have got this little piece of kit on the way that I'm very

00:07:42 ◼   ► excited about that Federico told me about called the DJI Osmo mobile which

00:07:48 ◼   ► is like a gimbal which is basically like a steady cam like this thing it looks

00:07:53 ◼   ► amazing and it basically ends up just becoming a handle for my iPhone which I

00:07:58 ◼   ► put the iPhone on the end of like a selfie stick type thing and it looks

00:08:02 ◼   ► really cool so that's I'm I'm getting a little far into the rabbit hole

00:08:08 ◼   ► now but yeah so my setup is for the time being just the iPhone because you know

00:08:12 ◼   ► what else the iPhone has lots and lots of apps and it has lots and lots of

00:08:16 ◼   ► camera apps and lots and lots of video recording apps and I'm able to do like

00:08:20 ◼   ► interesting things with them like time lapses and stuff like I'm playing around

00:08:23 ◼   ► with a few professional camera apps right now to see what I can what I can

00:08:28 ◼   ► do but I'm happy using my iPhone to be honest. Good. So I wanted to point people

00:08:35 ◼   ► to a blog post it is mostly a recap of what we spoke about a couple weeks ago

00:08:41 ◼   ► after the iPhone 7 hissing deal but I put some of those thoughts down into a

00:08:46 ◼   ► blog post last week and included some rather hilarious charts and graphs from

00:08:51 ◼   ► my YouTube channel dashboard. You can see what the effect of 1.5 million views on

00:08:57 ◼   ► a 13 second video will do to things like your average view duration and your

00:09:03 ◼   ► watch time. So I don't have anything to add past what we spoke about a couple

00:09:07 ◼   ► weeks ago but if you hadn't seen that I wanted to make sure that people knew

00:09:10 ◼   ► that I'd written a little more about it and I'm glad it's over and we can never

00:09:14 ◼   ► speak of it again.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I think like everything in the blog post listens to the show of heard, but they

00:09:20 ◼   ► should go to the blog post to see the charts because the charts are interesting.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Yeah, it was really funny when I started looking into those.

00:09:28 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, this has some really funny effects on my numbers."

00:09:31 ◼   ► Now that those numbers really matter much to what I'm doing on YouTube, but it was sort

00:09:34 ◼   ► of an overwhelming number of views on a video that was so extreme in its length really has

00:09:41 ◼   ► some funny effects.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Yeah, your numbers have ruined for a very, very long time.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Right?

00:09:47 ◼   ► Yeah, my average view time in particular is going to be short for the foreseeable future.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Maybe next time you find an iPhone floor, just record it for an hour.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:10:00 ◼   ► I'll do that.

00:10:01 ◼   ► I'll do a whole video.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Alright, you gonna go cranky old man on us right now?

00:10:06 ◼   ► A little bit.

00:10:07 ◼   ► So, I want to talk a little bit about the iPhone portrait mode, which has been spoken

00:10:11 ◼   ► about Unconnected as well as Upgrade.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And I really wanted to point some attention

00:10:16 ◼   ► to my own experience.

00:10:18 ◼   ► And I will open this saying this is my own experience.

00:10:21 ◼   ► I had a lot of replies immediately after I said

00:10:23 ◼   ► that I haven't been super impressed with it.

00:10:25 ◼   ► Basically saying well, you're really bad taking pictures

00:10:27 ◼   ► or clearly you haven't used it because it's perfect.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Like whatever, if you feel that, that's great.

00:10:32 ◼   ► This is how I feel.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And I have the microphone so I get to share how I feel.

00:10:36 ◼   ► The, I think the crux of this is that portrait mode

00:10:40 ◼   ► really shines in some very particular cases.

00:10:44 ◼   ► So when you're using it,

00:10:45 ◼   ► there's some little on-screen text of like,

00:10:47 ◼   ► "Hey, this is really too dark."

00:10:48 ◼   ► Or, "You need to back up."

00:10:49 ◼   ► Or, "You need to be closer."

00:10:51 ◼   ► I think too that there is a little bit of bias

00:10:56 ◼   ► towards like head and shoulder shots.

00:10:59 ◼   ► So some of my examples in these tweets are wider shots.

00:11:03 ◼   ► So there's one of my brother kind of from like torso up

00:11:06 ◼   ► and it struggles in some areas.

00:11:08 ◼   ► and there's one of one of my kids sitting on a tractor,

00:11:11 ◼   ► and it really goofs up the edges around the steering wheel.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Like, I think the ones that I've taken that I have liked

00:11:16 ◼   ► are much more like classic portrait,

00:11:17 ◼   ► like you would see in a yearbook or something

00:11:19 ◼   ► where it's kind of shoulders up.

00:11:21 ◼   ► And I know that it's a beta,

00:11:23 ◼   ► and I know that I am going to see things

00:11:26 ◼   ► that other people won't like,

00:11:27 ◼   ► to your point on upgrade a couple weeks ago.

00:11:28 ◼   ► Like, I do have real cameras.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I've got a whole stash of them here,

00:11:32 ◼   ► and I have a whole bunch of different lenses.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And so I have experience with the stuff

00:11:37 ◼   ► you know most people don't have. I think most people are going to use portrait

00:11:42 ◼   ► mode and be really impressed by it because it is such and it really is such

00:11:45 ◼   ► a huge leap over what the iPhone or another smartphone has been able to do

00:11:50 ◼   ► thus far. But it's not perfect and it definitely has some issues where you

00:11:57 ◼   ► know if someone's standing and their arms are kind of out from their bodies a

00:11:59 ◼   ► little bit it will blur on the outside of their arm but the space between their

00:12:03 ◼   ► arm and their body it won't always catch. And it's easy to understand why it's

00:12:06 ◼   ► doing that. It's doing this layer mapping and it can't really understand that you

00:12:11 ◼   ► know that the depth of these you know body parts is the same even though

00:12:16 ◼   ► they're like physically separated. Well of course a real lens does it because

00:12:19 ◼   ► it's using light and glass and science to make that happen. So I hope that this

00:12:24 ◼   ► improves and I think it will. I know there was a new version of the developer

00:12:28 ◼   ► beta today which we're going to talk about in a second and I'm hoping that

00:12:31 ◼   ► they are tweaking this and they're continuing to make changes to it. My

00:12:34 ◼   ► My guess is that they are aware of some of the issues,

00:12:37 ◼   ► and maybe asking it to do a really good job

00:12:40 ◼   ► around a steering wheel and attractors.

00:12:41 ◼   ► Maybe I'm asking too much of it.

00:12:43 ◼   ► But I saw that picture and I didn't keep it,

00:12:46 ◼   ► because all I can see are the errors.

00:12:49 ◼   ► And even small, a lot of people said,

00:12:52 ◼   ► "Well, if you put it on Instagram, it's fine."

00:12:54 ◼   ► Like, yes, that's true, but if I ever wanted to

00:12:56 ◼   ► print this picture out as a fracture,

00:12:58 ◼   ► or keep it long-term in my photo library,

00:13:01 ◼   ► those errors are, I think, gonna date that image

00:13:03 ◼   ► a way that's not good and it's going to kind of look worse over time as this

00:13:08 ◼   ► feature and the scammers in general get better. So I'm using it sparingly. I

00:13:12 ◼   ► definitely am not using it all the time but it's I don't know I just haven't

00:13:17 ◼   ► been as impressed as some people seem to be but I'm willing to give it a pass

00:13:21 ◼   ► until it's kind of out of beta right like it's all malleable right now. In fact

00:13:26 ◼   ► in my iPhone 7 plus review yesterday I mentioned an essay I'm not reviewing

00:13:30 ◼   ► this feature at this point which is why I haven't written about this on the site

00:13:33 ◼   ► it's just been a couple tweets because I understand some beta and that hopefully they're improving it and

00:13:36 ◼   ► Again that maybe I'm asking too much of it, but so far. I just it honestly hasn't really blown my socks off

00:13:43 ◼   ► I mean I would be willing to put quite a lot of money on

00:13:46 ◼   ► The iPhone 7 plus never giving you what you want with a portrait. Well sure yeah

00:13:52 ◼   ► I mean it's never going to be as good as shooting on my DSLR with a 50 millimeter lens

00:13:56 ◼   ► But it should I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that if someone's arm is out from their body that it blurs the background

00:14:02 ◼   ► on both sides of their arm.

00:14:04 ◼   ► Like I think it should be able to catch that sort of thing

00:14:07 ◼   ► because that's a very--

00:14:08 ◼   ► - Right, but it can, it just didn't.

00:14:10 ◼   ► So this is the thing, it's inconsistent.

00:14:12 ◼   ► Like it can do it, it can do stuff like that,

00:14:15 ◼   ► but it doesn't always, right?

00:14:16 ◼   ► Like there might be examples, like you could sit

00:14:19 ◼   ► and try and take that photo of your brother for an hour

00:14:21 ◼   ► and it wouldn't work, but move him like over there

00:14:23 ◼   ► and it would, right?

00:14:24 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like it's super weird.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Like I've taken like multiple photos at the same time

00:14:31 ◼   ► and they've all come out differently, right?

00:14:33 ◼   ► Because of just the amount of light

00:14:35 ◼   ► that's hitting at that second, the amount of shake,

00:14:37 ◼   ► the amount of movement in the person, right?

00:14:39 ◼   ► Like, because one thing that I find really funny,

00:14:42 ◼   ► you know, it gives you two photos.

00:14:43 ◼   ► So it gives you the blurred mode and the standard one.

00:14:46 ◼   ► I've had it where those images were different

00:14:49 ◼   ► in certain ways.

00:14:50 ◼   ► It's like a blink, somebody blinked.

00:14:52 ◼   ► And the portrait mode one,

00:14:53 ◼   ► it's got the person blinking in it.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And the other one hasn't.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Right, like I've seen stuff like that.

00:14:58 ◼   ► Like it's doing whatever it's doing,

00:15:01 ◼   ► but it's doing a ton of stuff

00:15:02 ◼   ► to try and make these things work.

00:15:04 ◼   ► But like I will say my point on this

00:15:08 ◼   ► like over and over again,

00:15:09 ◼   ► I can't take photos like this of any equipment I have.

00:15:12 ◼   ► The fact that I can now is brilliant.

00:15:15 ◼   ► And I just feel like, you know, most, not everyone,

00:15:18 ◼   ► but most of the people that are unhappy

00:15:20 ◼   ► they read these results

00:15:21 ◼   ► because they can take these photos in other ways, right?

00:15:26 ◼   ► And you know, and I also,

00:15:27 ◼   ► I understand your point about the picture agent and stuff,

00:15:30 ◼   ► but if that is your concern, you'll also get the original

00:15:34 ◼   ► and you just can keep it.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I don't, I mean, I don't think that me saying,

00:15:39 ◼   ► like me having my opinion and you having your opinion

00:15:41 ◼   ► are mutually exclusive, and so many people on Twitter

00:15:44 ◼   ► want them to be.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Like, I totally understand what you're saying,

00:15:47 ◼   ► and I agree, right, because,

00:15:49 ◼   ► and this is why it's so frustrating to me,

00:15:51 ◼   ► because you can see the potential of it,

00:15:52 ◼   ► and when it does get it right, it is really nice.

00:15:56 ◼   ► It's just that inconsistency is what's a little frustrating

00:15:58 ◼   ► because I want to be able to leave the 50 millimeter lens

00:16:01 ◼   ► at home when we go to the park

00:16:03 ◼   ► and know that I can get consistently nice portraits

00:16:05 ◼   ► from my phone and it's just not there yet.

00:16:07 ◼   ► And I think, I believe it can be one day.

00:16:10 ◼   ► I don't know if it'll ever be, you know,

00:16:13 ◼   ► as 100% perfect as a real, I'm gonna use air quotes,

00:16:17 ◼   ► like a real big camera may be,

00:16:19 ◼   ► but it's showing a promising start.

00:16:22 ◼   ► So like you and I can have different feelings about it

00:16:25 ◼   ► neither of us are wrong necessarily. I think that's one reason I want to bring

00:16:29 ◼   ► it up because I've heard even on other shows that sort of like dichotomy and I

00:16:33 ◼   ► just don't think that's an actuality. I think that you can be impressed with it

00:16:37 ◼   ► but want it to be better at the same time. Yeah I think so too. Like the things

00:16:43 ◼   ► I delete way more of these than I keep right like I know that it's not always

00:16:47 ◼   ► wrong but I think the key to the clear difference is it doesn't upset me like

00:16:52 ◼   ► when I see it being wrong, you know?

00:16:54 ◼   ► Like I don't get frustrated about it.

00:16:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, which I think is why they give you the original.

00:16:58 ◼   ► And they do that on HDR photos still as well, I think.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Apple, the iPhone will always give you the option to say,

00:17:03 ◼   ► "Hey, we did this.

00:17:05 ◼   ► "If you don't like it, here's the original."

00:17:06 ◼   ► And I think that will continue.

00:17:08 ◼   ► I mean, how long have we had HDR?

00:17:10 ◼   ► And that's still how it works, where you get both versions.

00:17:13 ◼   ► - Because every now and then,

00:17:14 ◼   ► HDR can give you something weird.

00:17:16 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Yeah, so it makes sense.

00:17:19 ◼   ► - I feel like I'm following what you guys are saying,

00:17:21 ◼   ► but I'm strangely an outsider this time

00:17:24 ◼   ► because I'm still using the iPhone 7.

00:17:26 ◼   ► And I'm actually quite enjoying it,

00:17:29 ◼   ► but all the talk of portrait mode and, you know,

00:17:31 ◼   ► dual lens is kind of making me jealous.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And all of my friends are like,

00:17:34 ◼   ► "Hey, you're testing an iPhone 7?

00:17:36 ◼   ► Where's the dual camera?"

00:17:38 ◼   ► I'm like, "Well, you know, it's on a different model."

00:17:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would be very surprised

00:17:43 ◼   ► if you don't feel the way that I do.

00:17:45 ◼   ► - Oh no, for sure.

00:17:47 ◼   ► I mean, I have like complete ignorance in terms of actual photographic equipment.

00:17:55 ◼   ► Like I have operated a real camera once and I didn't know what I was doing.

00:18:01 ◼   ► I was like, no, no, this is not for me.

00:18:02 ◼   ► So I am enjoying the iPhone 7.

00:18:05 ◼   ► I'm working on a story on the iPhone 7, but I'm jealous when I hear you guys talk about the 7 Plus.

00:18:10 ◼   ► And I can't wait to get one.

00:18:11 ◼   ► All right. iOS 10.1 Beta 2 came out.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Federico, I know you've installed it.

00:18:16 ◼   ► What have you seen?

00:18:17 ◼   ► So it came out during the Google event. I found a bunch of quote-unquote "fixes".

00:18:24 ◼   ► Basically, one of the most popular, famous bugs of the public release of iOS 10, the Messages app driver.

00:18:36 ◼   ► So the icon, the little page dots at the bottom. In iMessage, once you installed a bunch of apps from the iMessage App Store,

00:18:44 ◼   ► you could break the interface as I showed during the summer and as many other people realized in September

00:18:49 ◼   ► installed more than 20, 30 maybe iMessage apps and

00:18:53 ◼   ► the page indicators started overflowing.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So I don't know how Apple couldn't figure out that people were going to install a lot of stickers and a lot of iMessage apps

00:19:02 ◼   ► but they shipped this broken UI and with the beta today

00:19:06 ◼   ► they fixed it by getting rid of the page indicators and now there's a scroll bar and you just

00:19:13 ◼   ► Goes from edge to edge as you swipe between iMessage apps and stickers. So it's not a real fix

00:19:18 ◼   ► It's just well, we cannot figure out how to display page indicators for these many pages

00:19:24 ◼   ► So we're just gonna get rid of them and put in a scroll bar

00:19:27 ◼   ► Which I kind of understand because I mean what you're gonna do for pages. Are you gonna have like two rows of page dots?

00:19:33 ◼   ► So maybe that solution was was ugly and I mean the entire app drawer needs to be redesigned

00:19:40 ◼   ► I think so for now the scroll bar seems like the most obvious solution at least it's not as painful as looking at those overflowing dots

00:19:47 ◼   ► the second fix is

00:19:50 ◼   ► You were on the iOS 10 public release you could not

00:19:57 ◼   ► Drag-and-drop stickers on the iPad while using messages and a second app in split view

00:20:04 ◼   ► Basically, if you try to tap and hold on a sticker, it would just display like a blank spot in the little sticker browser.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Now when you tap and hold in Split View with messages on the side and a second app, it just does nothing.

00:20:18 ◼   ► Like, tap and hold doesn't show the peeling off animation anymore, it doesn't show you the gray spot, it does nothing.

00:20:24 ◼   ► So they just got rid of the ability to drag and drop in Split View.

00:20:27 ◼   ► Which again, as I said before, I think it's sort of a hint of a proper drag and drop framework coming in the future on the iPad.

00:20:33 ◼   ► But for now it was broken so you know what let's just

00:20:36 ◼   ► Remove the ability to do so that's what I found. That's how you fix it

00:20:41 ◼   ► That's I mean sure at least you fixed a bug by getting rid of the feature

00:20:47 ◼   ► Which is kind of backwards, but you know at least there's not a bug anymore

00:20:50 ◼   ► Well it's not bug anymore so radar closed

00:20:57 ◼   ► You know when your car breaks down instead of fixing the car just leave the car in the road and walk away

00:21:02 ◼   ► You have solved the problem! You no longer are trying to use a broken car.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Exactly. Anyway, there's probably something else I'm gonna try to find what's new on Reddit.

00:21:16 ◼   ► You know, the people on the MacRumors forums, they are crazy. Like, the beta comes out, there's people on MacRumors just digging through every single change.

00:21:24 ◼   ► I don't know how they do it. They must have like a checklist of things to

00:21:28 ◼   ► things to double check and try as soon as a iOS beta comes out. So, you know,

00:21:33 ◼   ► you gotta give them credit to the MacRumors forums people. I see you and you're doing good work.

00:21:38 ◼   ► What are they doing? Like literally the only thing they can do is just try all the features?

00:21:43 ◼   ► Like there isn't a way they can dig into the code or anything?

00:21:45 ◼   ► Yeah, some people do. Some people do, but that requires patience. Even trying every single setting.

00:21:51 ◼   ► I mean, there's people who discover when Apple changes the labels of a setting, like the wording here is different.

00:21:59 ◼   ► Like, how? How can you know? Still, thank you, you're doing a service for some people like me.

00:22:07 ◼   ► So the way to do that, right, is to get a bunch of people together and assign them all one thing, right?

00:22:16 ◼   ► And this probably isn't what they're doing, but this is the way you would do it.

00:22:20 ◼   ► So you would get all those people in the Mac Room as forum and you'd be like, right, Federico,

00:22:24 ◼   ► you look after photos and camera settings in the settings app.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Like a beta testing sweatshop?

00:22:32 ◼   ► That's what you're thinking of?

00:22:33 ◼   ► I mean, if that's what you want to call it, that's fine.

00:22:35 ◼   ► I'm going to step away from that.

00:22:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:39 ◼   ► No, it's actually an interesting idea for next year's iOS 11, whatever you view, to

00:22:45 ◼   ► To get a bunch of people paid them a fair price and to have them help me find every

00:22:51 ◼   ► single setting, every single option.

00:22:53 ◼   ► I mean that was a joke but I'm actually considering the idea.

00:22:56 ◼   ► You could use Alibaba for something like that.

00:22:58 ◼   ► I could use a few assistants.

00:23:00 ◼   ► No it's not Alibaba, is it Mechanical Turk?

00:23:03 ◼   ► Mechanical Turk.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Alibaba is the company that sells all the stuff, right?

00:23:08 ◼   ► Yes.

00:23:09 ◼   ► You were close.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I mean that was a very broad thing that I just said but that is exactly what Alibaba

00:23:15 ◼   ► is they are the company that sells everything everything yeah I'm not

00:23:19 ◼   ► familiar with the company okay I think don't they are Yahoo owns a bunch of

00:23:24 ◼   ► them right it's a British joke I don't get no it's not a British joke do they

00:23:30 ◼   ► sell candles that smell like new max those are sold out oh no what a bummer

00:23:37 ◼   ► what's happening here what is this thing so 12 South which is a company whose

00:23:41 ◼   ► products I like I have a couple of their products on my desk right now.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Me too.

00:23:46 ◼   ► They opened a weird product store over the weekend and the the product that got all the

00:23:53 ◼   ► headlines and we'll link to Christina's thing over on Gizmodo is a new Mac candle and it

00:24:03 ◼   ► is a soy wax hand poured $24 artisanally created candle.

00:24:08 ◼   ► It is designed to smell the way a Mac

00:24:15 ◼   ► coming out of the box smells.

00:24:17 ◼   ► And I can't, I don't wanna live on this planet anymore.

00:24:22 ◼   ► - Not an iPhone, just a Mac?

00:24:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder if it is specifically new Mac,

00:24:26 ◼   ► or if it is just Apple products.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:24:30 ◼   ► - I think you guys are thinking way too much about this.

00:24:32 ◼   ► I want to just say, I want to be completely upfront about this.

00:24:36 ◼   ► If I was going to have a candle, this would be the kind of smell that...

00:24:40 ◼   ► Because I love that smell, right?

00:24:42 ◼   ► Like the reason this candle exists is because that is a great smell.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I think it's a bunch of chemicals like finding oxygen and they produce an awesome smell.

00:24:51 ◼   ► It's like gasoline, it's awesome to smell but it kind of gives you cancer I think.

00:24:55 ◼   ► I know this sounds ridiculous but I do actually believe they put that smell in there.

00:24:59 ◼   ► like the new car thing right like it is a thing that they put in there I think

00:25:03 ◼   ► that because the smell is the same right at least to my memory anyway but anyway

00:25:07 ◼   ► I love the smell of new Apple products but and I would and if I was gonna have

00:25:12 ◼   ► a candle to be a fun candle to have I like that smell and it's funny but

00:25:16 ◼   ► nobody should have ever made this if I got given it as a gift I would think it

00:25:21 ◼   ► was a cute gift but still no one should have ever made this candle we should we

00:25:25 ◼   ► should buy a bunch of these candles. They're all gone? Well, when they're back in stock,

00:25:30 ◼   ► we have a little get-together. We light a bunch of these candles and we summon the spirit

00:25:36 ◼   ► of the new Mac Pro, so maybe you guys can get new computers. Okay, well I'm fine with

00:25:41 ◼   ► my iMac. That's a good idea. I think we should do that. You know, it's just, it's one, I

00:25:46 ◼   ► mean it's sort of a ridiculous story, and it definitely made the rounds today. I have

00:25:52 ◼   ► a feeling that that smell is added to the box because I've unboxed a bunch of

00:25:57 ◼   ► Macs and they all smell nice inside. I agree with Federica though it's probably

00:26:01 ◼   ► nothing good for you and I agree with you too. I too like the smell of gasoline. I

00:26:05 ◼   ► thought I was the only one. Oh I love it. No I love the smell of gasoline.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Oh it's awesome. It's very bad for you. But it's like as bad as smells can be

00:26:14 ◼   ► but it's a great one. Yeah but I would never I would not buy this I think it

00:26:18 ◼   ► would be as funny as like a white elephant Christmas gift you know for a

00:26:21 ◼   ► funny jokey gift, but it's not something that I want to put on my desk.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Hold on a second. Myke, how can you love the smell of gasoline if you don't have a car?

00:26:30 ◼   ► Do you just go around the smell of gasoline?

00:26:33 ◼   ► I'm out in the street where there are cars. You know, every now and then, like, something

00:26:37 ◼   ► will spit out some gasoline.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I don't think you know how cars work.

00:26:41 ◼   ► All right, so for example, for example, the reason this is in the front of my mind is

00:26:46 ◼   ► This weekend I was out in London and for reasons unknown to me there was a guy on the sidewalk

00:26:53 ◼   ► with a motorbike and he was revving the engine and I could smell the gasoline.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I thought you just approached the guy like "I can smell the gasoline".

00:27:02 ◼   ► I need a hit man, come on, hook me up.

00:27:05 ◼   ► This is a perfect time for a break.

00:27:07 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by Braintree Code for Easy Mobile Payments.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Maybe you're hard at work and the next big company.

00:27:15 ◼   ► working on the next Uber, the next Airbnb, the next GitHub. Well, why don't you make

00:27:20 ◼   ► one thing way easier for yourself and use the same simple payment solution that helped

00:27:25 ◼   ► these companies become what they are today. Braintree makes mobile payments so fast, easy

00:27:31 ◼   ► and seamless it's almost like technological magic. Add it to your app with just a few

00:27:36 ◼   ► lines of code and you're instantly ready to accept Apple Pay, Android Pay, PayPal, Venmo,

00:27:42 ◼   ► cards, even bitcoin, and if some other way to pay comes along, Braintree will support

00:27:47 ◼   ► that as well.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Braintree's fast payouts and continuous support means that you'll always be ready, whether

00:27:54 ◼   ► you're earning your first dollar or your billionth.

00:27:57 ◼   ► You'll see fewer abandoned cards on more sales with Braintree's best-in-class mobile checkout

00:28:02 ◼   ► experience.

00:28:03 ◼   ► As a person that uses that as a user, I appreciate it.

00:28:07 ◼   ► Mobile checkout is good.

00:28:08 ◼   ► To check it out for yourself, visit BraintreePayments.com/Connected.

00:28:13 ◼   ► Once again that is BraintreePayments.com/Connected.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Braintree for their support of this show and Be The FM.

00:28:23 ◼   ► All right then, so first up on the docket today, I received my Echo.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I spoke about it last week and it's here and I know we've gone into depth about the Echo

00:28:33 ◼   ► in the past of you guys but I wanted to very briefly touch on a few things.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Yes, the the heartbreak that is happening in the United Kingdom right now is that IFTTT is only

00:28:45 ◼   ► currently supported on US

00:28:47 ◼   ► Alexa devices. Oh, no. Oh, no, why?

00:28:50 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:28:53 ◼   ► Doesn't doesn't make any sense. It makes absolutely no sense. But if you want to

00:28:58 ◼   ► If you want to see the rage of British people look at IFTTT's Twitter account

00:29:06 ◼   ► Because for the past week you can just scroll through their tweets and see the same one over and over again

00:29:13 ◼   ► Amazon's team is working to bring the Alexa service to UK users on IFTTT soon

00:29:18 ◼   ► Stay tuned over and over and over and over like there is some poor poor person

00:29:24 ◼   ► working the social media account of IFTTT

00:29:27 ◼   ► Because that is just being spammed absolutely spammed with it

00:29:33 ◼   ► Yeah, that's why you don't do Brexit kids. It's very bad for you. Even automation.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I'm sorry Myke, but I

00:29:40 ◼   ► couldn't resist. I mean, I'm so I'm really sorry. It's an awesome. I can tell you it's an awesome feature and

00:29:46 ◼   ► I'm almost tempted to say I told you so you should get one on eBay, but

00:29:53 ◼   ► No, I understand your reasoning. I understand. I'm sorry.

00:29:57 ◼   ► And plus, you know for me right now until we move Alexa's not gonna be at full power, you know

00:30:03 ◼   ► Like I'm not really bothering to set it up a bunch of stuff

00:30:05 ◼   ► So right now I'm just getting used to the basics of it and I absolutely love it

00:30:09 ◼   ► We both do me and I really love this thing

00:30:11 ◼   ► I'm listening to more music at home, which I know was something that happened to you Federico, and I don't know why

00:30:17 ◼   ► Really like it's making me do this. I think it's just purely because it's easier and

00:30:23 ◼   ► It's easier and less obtrusive

00:30:27 ◼   ► Intrusive for me to do this than using Siri or navigating the menus in the music app, and I'm not 100% sure why

00:30:33 ◼   ► But I had been more recently using Siri to listen to music more often

00:30:39 ◼   ► so I have been

00:30:42 ◼   ► Getting used to the voice control stuff, but like just just saying it as opposed to actually pressing any buttons

00:30:49 ◼   ► I kind of I just kind of like that and plus that the Amazon echo speaker is better than the speaker in my iPad

00:30:56 ◼   ► Right, like it's just great. I really love that you can set default services

00:31:00 ◼   ► So during the setup process as soon as I enable Spotify, it was like hey

00:31:04 ◼   ► Do you want to set this as your primary music thing and I was like, yeah, okay

00:31:07 ◼   ► I'll do that. Like I thought that was really cool that they just did that

00:31:10 ◼   ► and

00:31:13 ◼   ► I am now using it as my seven minute workout timer. There's a seven minute workout skill that you can add

00:31:19 ◼   ► And I can just say

00:31:22 ◼   ► Alexa start my seven minute workout and it would do that which I like

00:31:25 ◼   ► A friend of the show, Rob Lewis, he wrote up some initial thoughts about Alexa in the

00:31:32 ◼   ► UK as well, which I'll put in the show notes, which I think are pretty good because Rob

00:31:36 ◼   ► did the same as I did and it's sad in the same way that I am and happy in the same way

00:31:40 ◼   ► that I am.

00:31:43 ◼   ► The Echo and the Alexa service is so much better than Siri at understanding what I want

00:31:50 ◼   ► to do. And it's also, it understands Adino really well as well, which Siri does not.

00:31:57 ◼   ► So it is a big winner in our household with one of the primary reasons of being able to

00:32:03 ◼   ► set more than one timer at a time. When we cook, very frequently we're cooking multiple

00:32:10 ◼   ► things and they have individual timers on them. One iOS device cannot let you set more

00:32:15 ◼   ► than one timer, but the Alexa does. It's great.

00:32:19 ◼   ► That's great.

00:32:20 ◼   ► That's very handy.

00:32:21 ◼   ► We use timers all the time, like for when you're cooking pasta, but you're also cooking

00:32:26 ◼   ► the sauce.

00:32:27 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Just awesome.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Exactly that.

00:32:30 ◼   ► These are the reasons that we need it.

00:32:31 ◼   ► And also the interface that it gives you about those timers is really good because you can

00:32:37 ◼   ► kind of just say like, "What timers do I have?"

00:32:40 ◼   ► And it tells you the length of them and how long is left on each of them.

00:32:43 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:32:45 ◼   ► I would ask for one additional feature like to be able to add like ad hoc name a timer

00:32:50 ◼   ► Like to be like set a timer for potatoes. That's 15 minutes

00:32:55 ◼   ► And then when I ask it it could say the potato timer has got 13 minutes left on it

00:33:02 ◼   ► That's the only thing that I wish I could add to it. But like that's super like

00:33:06 ◼   ► Granular at this point, but I would like to be able to do that. Have you filed a

00:33:12 ◼   ► basis a better

00:33:15 ◼   ► a quasar what do they call them? I don't know. A posty? I have no idea. Post it? No?

00:33:21 ◼   ► Like he owns the post right? I can do that. I'll post it to him. I don't know. I like

00:33:25 ◼   ► this thing and I haven't set up any like I have some Wemo switches I'm not

00:33:29 ◼   ► bothered to set them up yet. I'm excited for my future with the with the echo. I

00:33:36 ◼   ► need to start using my Spotify account. Basically I own a spot I have a Spotify

00:33:40 ◼   ► account. I've had it forever and I have multiple family members using my Spotify account. So

00:33:47 ◼   ► it's ruined. So I feel like I need to take it back from them. And so I can sort out my

00:33:54 ◼   ► selections because I really love the new music thing that Apple Music has. Not the new music,

00:34:01 ◼   ► like the favorite mix. The favorite mix thing is amazing. And does Spotify have anything

00:34:07 ◼   ► like that, like a favorite mix rather than a new music mix?

00:34:11 ◼   ► There's a bunch of new things that they're doing. So right before iOS 10, I think they

00:34:16 ◼   ► launched Release Radar, which is like a new music you should listen to. But like two weeks

00:34:22 ◼   ► ago, maybe last week, very recently anyway, after iOS 10, they launched, I don't remember

00:34:28 ◼   ► the name, but it's, I think, Daily Mix, which is a daily mix of favorites from your listening

00:34:34 ◼   ► history or library, you know, that kind of stuff. But it's daily and it's not weekly.

00:34:39 ◼   ► So it's kind of similar.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Yeah, see, I wished that I could use that stuff. Well, we'll see.

00:34:48 ◼   ► Where did you set the Alexa up in your house?

00:34:50 ◼   ► Currently, it is in the hallway between the front room and the kitchen. In the new place,

00:35:00 ◼   ► It will go, it will go, 'cause we have one really large room

00:35:05 ◼   ► that is a kitchen and our living room

00:35:08 ◼   ► and it will go in there.

00:35:09 ◼   ► And I may get a dot as well to put in my office.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just ordered the dot for my new studio.

00:35:20 ◼   ► So I'm gonna have one out here.

00:35:21 ◼   ► But it is funny to me how many people end up

00:35:23 ◼   ► with the Alexa or the Echo in their kitchen.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Like it seems like such the natural place

00:35:29 ◼   ► for this sort of tech, whether it be from Amazon or Google

00:35:32 ◼   ► or if Siri ever ends up in a little box.

00:35:37 ◼   ► It's just so handy, right, like you said,

00:35:38 ◼   ► to set timers, listen to music,

00:35:39 ◼   ► and that you can do it all without getting your phone out.

00:35:43 ◼   ► - I think voice control makes a lot of sense

00:35:45 ◼   ► when you're in the kitchen

00:35:46 ◼   ► because you usually can't handle your device.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Right.

00:35:51 ◼   ► - So I think that's why, it would be in our kitchen,

00:35:54 ◼   ► but we do not have a lot of kitchen space.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like where it wants to be.

00:36:01 ◼   ► So remind me what the Echo Dot does.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Is the little puck that you gotta connect to a speaker?

00:36:08 ◼   ► Does it just listen?

00:36:11 ◼   ► You have to connect it to a speaker to get the audio output.

00:36:15 ◼   ► But it does the...

00:36:17 ◼   ► It does everything, right?

00:36:18 ◼   ► But like, I don't think it has as many microphones in it.

00:36:22 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:36:23 ◼   ► But yeah, that's kind of the difference.

00:36:25 ◼   ► like bring your own speaker.

00:36:27 ◼   ► okay so what if I connect it to my headphones and walk around with it?

00:36:31 ◼   ► I mean that would probably work it would be really weird but like it would probably work.

00:36:35 ◼   ► You're gonna need an extension cord.

00:36:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Oh yeah that's it.

00:36:39 ◼   ► So you should get the Bluetooth one right?

00:36:42 ◼   ► They have the portable one yeah.

00:36:44 ◼   ► That's the only one that's not in the UK they're just selling the Dot and the Echo.

00:36:51 ◼   ► - And the Dot is pre-order for the second generation

00:36:55 ◼   ► and you can do, I think they, you can order it now

00:36:59 ◼   ► and it comes out in a couple of weeks.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And you can even do a five pack.

00:37:02 ◼   ► So Amazon's really pitching, put one of these in every room

00:37:06 ◼   ► and there's some new smart stuff going on behind the scenes

00:37:09 ◼   ► where it knows which one is closest to you

00:37:13 ◼   ► and they can interact with each other

00:37:15 ◼   ► and they're really pitching the future

00:37:18 ◼   ► just put this little thing in all of your rooms,

00:37:22 ◼   ► and even if it's not hooked up to a speaker everywhere,

00:37:24 ◼   ► you can still shout commands to it

00:37:26 ◼   ► and add things to your to-do list,

00:37:27 ◼   ► or change the volume of the one that is playing music.

00:37:30 ◼   ► And so I like this approach of it's great in the kitchen,

00:37:34 ◼   ► that's where our main echo will be,

00:37:36 ◼   ► and I'm just gonna have this one out here

00:37:38 ◼   ► hooked up to a sound system

00:37:39 ◼   ► where I can just talk to it as needed.

00:37:41 ◼   ► I think they're onto something.

00:37:43 ◼   ► I think more so than the Google Home

00:37:45 ◼   ► or the rumored Siri thing,

00:37:47 ◼   ► where it's just one box, like the next step

00:37:50 ◼   ► is having this thing available to you

00:37:52 ◼   ► wherever you are in the house.

00:37:53 ◼   ► So you don't have to put it in the hallway

00:37:55 ◼   ► so it can hear you wherever you are,

00:37:57 ◼   ► where you can just be like always accessible and always on.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I think it's a pretty exciting future,

00:38:04 ◼   ► 'cause I think as good as the voice stuff is in the kitchen,

00:38:07 ◼   ► there's a lot of other places in my house

00:38:09 ◼   ► where it would come in handy.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Like I would love to have one in the garage.

00:38:11 ◼   ► I would love to have one that is,

00:38:14 ◼   ► can resist some humidity and water and have it in the bathroom. You know, have it up on the shelf,

00:38:20 ◼   ► I can shout at it. Like, "Hey, you know, you're in the shower, you have an idea to put something on

00:38:23 ◼   ► your grocery list. You can just shout out to it." I've been very surprised that I can shout downstairs

00:38:29 ◼   ► to my Echo and it hears me. It's really, the microphones are amazing. It's really, really,

00:38:35 ◼   ► really insane. It's really cool. Steven, I think it nearly is time for the Mac event, so on upgrade

00:38:44 ◼   ► this week Jason Snell sounded curiously optimistic about there being an Apple event in October

00:38:51 ◼   ► and now there is something potentially that is indicating we have an event coming.

00:38:57 ◼   ► Yes, so Apple had last week announced their quarterly call where they get on the phone

00:39:03 ◼   ► and they tell everybody how much stuff they sold and how much money they made. And that

00:39:07 ◼   ► call was set for Thursday, October 27th, which is a little unusual to be on a Thursday, but

00:39:12 ◼   ► but that's when it was.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And then yesterday afternoon, Apple said,

00:39:16 ◼   ► oh actually, and this is a quote,

00:39:19 ◼   ► due to a scheduling conflict,

00:39:22 ◼   ► we're gonna now have it on Tuesday, October 25th.

00:39:25 ◼   ► Now, Apple is bound by law to enter a quiet period

00:39:30 ◼   ► before these conference calls.

00:39:31 ◼   ► So they can't dump a bunch of bad news

00:39:34 ◼   ► right before the quarterly call

00:39:36 ◼   ► and then try to like mask it in their results, right?

00:39:39 ◼   ► Now, my understanding, and if someone knows

00:39:42 ◼   ► more specifically than I do, please let us know.

00:39:45 ◼   ► For my reading on this last night,

00:39:47 ◼   ► there's not a set time period

00:39:49 ◼   ► that companies have to be quiet.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Apple in the past generally has about a week

00:39:53 ◼   ► where they don't announce new products

00:39:55 ◼   ► for seven days before their quarterly call.

00:39:58 ◼   ► And it's not a hard and fast rule, like I said,

00:39:59 ◼   ► but that seems to be where Apple normally lands.

00:40:02 ◼   ► So I do not think this means that there's gonna be an event

00:40:06 ◼   ► on Tuesday, October 25th, and then that afternoon

00:40:08 ◼   ► to do their quarterly calls.

00:40:10 ◼   ► They actually can't do that.

00:40:12 ◼   ► But what I think it means is that we're gonna see

00:40:17 ◼   ► a Mac event, and I agree with Jason

00:40:19 ◼   ► for all the reasons he said.

00:40:20 ◼   ► I think it makes a lot of sense to show

00:40:21 ◼   ► these new products off, especially this revised MacBook Pro

00:40:25 ◼   ► with Touch ID and the OLED Touch Bar

00:40:27 ◼   ► that everyone has talked about for so long.

00:40:30 ◼   ► I think these things deserve stage time,

00:40:31 ◼   ► and maybe those are now coming at the very end of October.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Maybe this event is on Wednesday the 26th

00:40:39 ◼   ► or Thursday the 27th, or maybe it's just a week before

00:40:42 ◼   ► and Eddy Cue wanted to get his Halloween on early,

00:40:44 ◼   ► so they had to move it.

00:40:46 ◼   ► But it's very strange that they would change it.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And I think that episode of Upgraded,

00:40:50 ◼   ► Jason lays out a really good case of why this makes sense.

00:40:54 ◼   ► And you know, they're almost out of time.

00:40:56 ◼   ► You know, the Mac is not really a holiday item.

00:40:59 ◼   ► It's really a back to school item

00:41:01 ◼   ► and they miss that, right?

00:41:03 ◼   ► Bunch of college kids just went off to school

00:41:06 ◼   ► three months ago with old MacBook Airs.

00:41:08 ◼   ► But you don't want to be in November, December,

00:41:11 ◼   ► and all these things and they get buried by everything else.

00:41:13 ◼   ► You have a little window here in October

00:41:15 ◼   ► to get these things out the door.

00:41:16 ◼   ► And it's not unheard of for Apple to ship Macs in October.

00:41:19 ◼   ► They've done it a bunch before.

00:41:20 ◼   ► So I am really hoping that Macs are around the corner.

00:41:24 ◼   ► I'm hoping that it's an event.

00:41:26 ◼   ► I think the Mac deserves an event.

00:41:28 ◼   ► It would be fun to be at town hall,

00:41:31 ◼   ► but they sort of said goodbye to that.

00:41:33 ◼   ► And my guess is when they said goodbye to Town Hall, they didn't anticipate Macs taking

00:41:38 ◼   ► so long to get out the door.

00:41:40 ◼   ► So maybe they'll be there, maybe they'll be in San Francisco somewhere, but I think we

00:41:45 ◼   ► should be expecting invites here in the next couple weeks, that there's going to be something

00:41:48 ◼   ► at the end of the month, either a week before or just after this quarterly conference call.

00:41:53 ◼   ► And hopefully there'll be some Mac stuff for those of us who are anxious to have new Mac

00:41:59 ◼   ► hardware.

00:42:00 ◼   ► I still think it's going to be before this call, but that would mean like the 18th.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Yeah, like that week before.

00:42:08 ◼   ► So we'll see, I mean, you know, if it's that early we would see invites here in the next

00:42:14 ◼   ► week or ten days.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Because it will probably be like, it won't invite a lot of people, right?

00:42:21 ◼   ► They'll keep it super tight.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I would imagine that it's, I mean even if they do MacBook Pro and say the iMac gets

00:42:31 ◼   ► a revision and say just for the sake of argument the Mac Pro gets an update.

00:42:35 ◼   ► LOL.

00:42:36 ◼   ► That's a really, that's going to be a short event and they'll go over Sierra again.

00:42:41 ◼   ► Sierra did not get a mention in the September event so that you know they'll do, hey Sierra's

00:42:46 ◼   ► doing great so far because we're auto downloading it now.

00:42:49 ◼   ► Lots of people are running it.

00:42:52 ◼   ► But even then, you're talking maybe an hour if you stretch it.

00:42:55 ◼   ► So I don't, the only thing I'm struggling with is what else do you put in this event,

00:42:59 ◼   ► right?

00:43:00 ◼   ► There's, if Federico's theories are correct, and I totally believe that they are, we're

00:43:05 ◼   ► not going to see iPads.

00:43:07 ◼   ► I don't think we're going to be seeing some new category.

00:43:11 ◼   ► I don't think Siri in a box is a thing yet.

00:43:16 ◼   ► And so what else goes in this event?

00:43:17 ◼   ► I don't really know, but.

00:43:19 ◼   ► Are you going to announce their car?

00:43:22 ◼   ► I don't think that's it.

00:43:24 ◼   ► You know what there also, it could be a release date for the AirPods.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean they said late October, in fact the Apple Store says late October, so maybe

00:43:36 ◼   ► that gives some stage time as well.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Five minutes though?

00:43:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not much.

00:43:41 ◼   ► I agree, like it would make sense, but I can't...

00:43:43 ◼   ► I'm just trying to think of stuff they could have for the keynote, or maybe just like a

00:43:47 ◼   ► back to the mech, remember that?

00:43:51 ◼   ► But that event was Mac OS X Lion with Craig Federighi shaking hand.

00:43:56 ◼   ► They drug him up now so his motions are smoother.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And MacBook Airs.

00:44:01 ◼   ► And there's no software this time.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Admittedly, the MacBook Pro would have some software story if this OLED Touch bar is addressable

00:44:08 ◼   ► in any way by third-party developers.

00:44:11 ◼   ► They will take stage time to explain what it can do and what developers can do with

00:44:16 ◼   ► it.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Maybe it's a little bit longer than I think, but either way, I am lumping my fate in with

00:44:23 ◼   ► Jason and saying, "I think it's time for an event.

00:44:26 ◼   ► I think that it will be in October."

00:44:28 ◼   ► So, we will see.

00:44:31 ◼   ► All right.

00:44:34 ◼   ► The app wasn't the only company that does events, and just through pure luck and happenstance,

00:44:40 ◼   ► we moved the recording of today's episode and it ended up coinciding with Google's October

00:44:47 ◼   ► a fourth event we were able to now cover it because we have the space. I will

00:44:52 ◼   ► preface this by saying if you are at all interested in this stuff, if you're at

00:44:57 ◼   ► all interested in Google, you should go and subscribe to Material and Relay FM

00:45:02 ◼   ► because they're going to do a better job of talking about this topic than we are

00:45:05 ◼   ► with more context and more legitimacy. So I recommend that people go and check

00:45:11 ◼   ► that out. I'm looking forward to it. I think they're actually recording their

00:45:13 ◼   ► episode in a Google Hangout today or something so that'll be fun. So I'm

00:45:16 ◼   ► looking forward to checking that out. But we should talk about the event. So Sundar

00:45:20 ◼   ► Pichai started off, "I love Sundar so much. I think he is awesome. I think he's

00:45:25 ◼   ► fantastic on stage. I really, really like this guy. I feel like I say this every

00:45:30 ◼   ► time because it continues to be true. He's like so chill. He's like so chill

00:45:35 ◼   ► but like you know he means it like everything he's saying. I think that's great."

00:45:40 ◼   ► And he spent some time talking about mobile first to AI first. This is Google's

00:45:46 ◼   ► thinking of they kind of referenced some previous shifts in computing. I find it really weird

00:45:52 ◼   ► they reference like PC, web and mobile. And my thinking on all these three things is like,

00:45:59 ◼   ► you guys didn't do any of those. And I'm not saying that they had to. But it was really

00:46:05 ◼   ► interesting to kind of like put that stuff up on stage because that's usually like a

00:46:08 ◼   ► very Apple move, right? Like, here were the big changes in interface design. Here were

00:46:13 ◼   ► were the three things that we invented

00:46:14 ◼   ► that changed those things, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► - Right.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Their PC slide actually had a picture of a Macintosh on it.

00:46:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and their mobile slide had a picture

00:46:23 ◼   ► of whatever phones, which was funny because it was like,

00:46:26 ◼   ► I thought they were gonna show the first Android phone

00:46:28 ◼   ► and they obviously knew they couldn't do that, right?

00:46:30 ◼   ► 'Cause it was like this thing didn't help.

00:46:33 ◼   ► I mean, admittedly, Android has helped push smartphones

00:46:36 ◼   ► further than Apple have, right?

00:46:38 ◼   ► They've brought them to more people.

00:46:42 ◼   ► I don't really know how much I agree with my own statement, but you know, there is an

00:46:46 ◼   ► argument to be made there that Android have, like Apple started it and then Android have

00:46:50 ◼   ► kind of like pushed it over the finishing line.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Anywho, it was just funny to see that slide be like PC, web and mobile.

00:46:58 ◼   ► And it was kind of like to me, like something to say, like we didn't have a hand in any

00:47:04 ◼   ► of these, but we're going to be the, we think what we know the next one is and we're going

00:47:08 ◼   ► to be the best at that.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And that's artificial intelligence.

00:47:11 ◼   ► So they kind of went through some things that they're doing, their translation and photo

00:47:18 ◼   ► detection is getting closer and closer to human levels of detection and translation,

00:47:23 ◼   ► which was crazy to see how good they're getting at this stuff.

00:47:28 ◼   ► And they kind of spent some time as well then showing off Google Assistant.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Now I have an issue with the way that this product has been demoed for a second time

00:47:36 ◼   ► here of like, here's what we want this thing to be in the future.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And it's like, alright guys, how many times are we going to keep seeing this demo from

00:47:45 ◼   ► you where you keep showing us these very fake videos that anybody could make?

00:47:54 ◼   ► Because all it is is the perfect scenario is what you're creating.

00:47:59 ◼   ► You ask it a bunch of questions and it gives you a bunch of answers, but your hardware

00:48:03 ◼   ► and your software can't do any of these things right now.

00:48:06 ◼   ► Or at least not reliably.

00:48:07 ◼   ► So like are we going to keep seeing this video for the next year, two years, three years,

00:48:12 ◼   ► like until you're actually able to do this?

00:48:14 ◼   ► And it's just a little, it's a little frustrating because it's not even really a pre-announcement

00:48:18 ◼   ► of anything because it doesn't exist.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Like the language that they choose to use is like, this is where we would like to see

00:48:26 ◼   ► it go.

00:48:27 ◼   ► I don't know why this annoys me, but it does.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's not really real.

00:48:34 ◼   ► They're showing you a demo on stage and you don't know the conditions of voice input,

00:48:41 ◼   ► what it's like in a room, what it's like in real life, basically.

00:48:46 ◼   ► And I feel like it was sort of a staged demo.

00:48:50 ◼   ► And we could argue that all demos are staged and even Apple maybe to an extent.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Mykey, we were talking about this, you said maybe even Apple, the demos that they do on

00:48:59 ◼   ► stage.

00:49:00 ◼   ► necessarily a hundred percent real. You can tell when they're real, when they're using

00:49:05 ◼   ► a device, but even in that case we don't know if it's a custom software, we don't know if

00:49:10 ◼   ► it's a custom beta, you know?

00:49:12 ◼   ► You know, this is, you know, I...

00:49:15 ◼   ► You can never know for sure.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I can't recall something that Apple have demoed that hasn't worked, right? Like that I haven't

00:49:22 ◼   ► been able to do myself, but I just know that if I was in charge of creating a presentation

00:49:28 ◼   ► where I needed to demo software, I would want a version that gave me the right answer every

00:49:35 ◼   ► single time. So I'm not, you know, like, because there can be factors that can get in the way of

00:49:40 ◼   ► these things. That might not be my fault or the device's fault, but it might be that the Wi Fi was

00:49:46 ◼   ► bad in the auditorium. Right? Like, I just don't want that to happen to me. This is a whole other

00:49:50 ◼   ► thing. But yeah, anyway, I, I was also a little bit underwhelmed with the assistant demo, because

00:49:54 ◼   ► to me it just looked like everything that Google Now and Google Now on Tap can currently do but

00:49:59 ◼   ► just in a new UI. They didn't show me anything there that I can't recall that I've seen before

00:50:05 ◼   ► from them. It was just a new way to show this information. So I would like to see that get a

00:50:12 ◼   ► bit better. But the idea of a personal Google is brilliant. The idea that the nugget that they have

00:50:20 ◼   ► come across, like, of we can take all of the web and give you anything, but what if you

00:50:27 ◼   ► just need the stuff that's important to you and how we can tailor that.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And one of my favorite parts of the video demo that they did was like, it said, "Google

00:50:36 ◼   ► Assistant, my bike lock code is 3241."

00:50:40 ◼   ► And it will remember that forever.

00:50:42 ◼   ► That is really cool.

00:50:43 ◼   ► I like stuff like that.

00:50:44 ◼   ► - So that's a really good idea.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I mean, you can already save notes in Google Now, for example, but that seems like next

00:50:50 ◼   ► you can save any kind of information and it can give it back to you. That's really, seems really useful.

00:50:55 ◼   ► But what this whole event was about was Google's shift into hardware.

00:51:02 ◼   ► So this is new in some ways for them. So there is, I think, an element of confusion around this.

00:51:14 ◼   ► I think partly Google's fault, partly that the details are strange, but Google are saying

00:51:21 ◼   ► now that they are making their own devices. Now they have had devices like the Nexus and

00:51:27 ◼   ► the Pixel before. I'll exclude the Pixel from discussion, but say the Nexus. They've had

00:51:32 ◼   ► a whole range of Nexus phones going back years and years and years. But these weren't like

00:51:37 ◼   ► Google's phones. My understanding of this process is a device manufacturer would make

00:51:42 ◼   ► a phone which they would show to Google and be like "is this what you want?" You know,

00:51:47 ◼   ► like Google may give out a sheet of specs that they want and then device manufacturers

00:51:51 ◼   ► would make one and give it to them and be like "is this what you want?" and then Google

00:51:54 ◼   ► would say yes, they would brand it Nexus and they would co-sell it. But these are designed

00:52:01 ◼   ► by Google and there was a report from Bloomberg which states that HTC is making these. So

00:52:08 ◼   ► So like the rumor was HTC was going to be the next person to be in the Nexus program.

00:52:13 ◼   ► That was the whole rumor because it came out that they were making them.

00:52:16 ◼   ► But it's a Mark Gurman report, which is interesting to see Mark getting scoops on Google now as

00:52:21 ◼   ► well, where he says that basically HTC are to Google that Foxconn are to Apple.

00:52:30 ◼   ► They are just flat out just manufacturing these devices.

00:52:36 ◼   ► So on the surface of it, Google is making a phone in the same way that Apple makes a

00:52:41 ◼   ► phone, right?

00:52:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:52:46 ◼   ► I mean, it is definitely a shift and I think you can tell in their presentation that they

00:52:52 ◼   ► seem to be speaking about it differently.

00:52:54 ◼   ► There's a sense of ownership and the branding of course is not Nexus, but it's that G logo

00:53:00 ◼   ► on the back of it.

00:53:02 ◼   ► I think it's a good move and I think it's one that makes more sense than the Nexus program

00:53:07 ◼   ► did.

00:53:08 ◼   ► And I think the Nexus program made sense for its time because Google had to exist in a

00:53:13 ◼   ► world where manufacturers were making Android phones in a very competitive landscape.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And now HTC isn't doing anything that's really important.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Moto is running around doing crazy stuff with you can clip on things in the back.

00:53:31 ◼   ► has a couple phones but no one really pays attention.

00:53:34 ◼   ► Samsung is the dominant Android manufacturer

00:53:36 ◼   ► and I think Google doesn't want them to have

00:53:40 ◼   ► all of the power and when something goes wrong

00:53:43 ◼   ► like the Note 7, that affects Google in a big way

00:53:47 ◼   ► because Samsung has a bigger piece of the pie than ever.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And so for Google to come out with a first party phone

00:53:53 ◼   ► that is designed by them, it is branded with their logo,

00:53:57 ◼   ► their company name on it.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I think the time is right for that, and I'm excited by it.

00:54:04 ◼   ► I said earlier on Twitter, Google and Apple

00:54:07 ◼   ► need each other to be making good stuff,

00:54:10 ◼   ► and I think that it is time for Google

00:54:14 ◼   ► to step into the ring in a big way.

00:54:16 ◼   ► And I'm hoping that it continues to move forward

00:54:22 ◼   ► in creating phones and other devices.

00:54:24 ◼   ► So Sundar introduced a guy whose name I can't remember,

00:54:28 ◼   ► but I know I've heard it before.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I've seen him on stage before.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Rick Osterlow, he is the hardware chief of their new hardware division.

00:54:38 ◼   ► All of these products that came out today, it's signaling a change that Google is now

00:54:43 ◼   ► thinking about hardware more seriously.

00:54:45 ◼   ► So these Pixel phones, I'll run through some of the specs and some of the details.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Very similar looking to an iPhone, except it has this really large glass panel on the

00:54:55 ◼   ► back which I expect is for like antennas like all the antennas are in there. Yeah

00:55:02 ◼   ► but they do have antenna lines as well that do there's no way around it it does

00:55:06 ◼   ► look like an iPhone down to the antenna lines but I don't I'm not digging the

00:55:10 ◼   ► the look on the back of this thing. It's not the best looking phone really. I you

00:55:16 ◼   ► know maybe it's inside what what counts like they put up this slide of specs but

00:55:22 ◼   ► But the specs don't really mean anything to me because I'm not really that focused on

00:55:26 ◼   ► the Android world.

00:55:27 ◼   ► You know, the specs that we get for Apple phones are not like these.

00:55:32 ◼   ► We're not comparing our Snapdragons.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Like what Apple makes is what they make.

00:55:37 ◼   ► And you can't really compare them to what the Android device makers make because there's

00:55:41 ◼   ► no... it's like apples to oranges.

00:55:46 ◼   ► They have a headphone jack on this thing which is funny.

00:55:49 ◼   ► said there was no unsightly camera bump on this thing as well. Also funny.

00:55:53 ◼   ► They have two versions of the Pixel. They have the Pixel and the Pixel XL. They have

00:55:58 ◼   ► a 5 inch 32 gigabyte starting at 649 and then the 5.5 starts at 769. I think they're doing

00:56:04 ◼   ► 36 and 128. They're just doing the two sizes. They have three colors of this thing. They

00:56:13 ◼   ► give them funny names but it's I think it's like quite black very blue and

00:56:18 ◼   ► something silver slightly silver or something like that the blue is a

00:56:23 ◼   ► limited edition and I think it's just limited edition to 32 and I think u.s.

00:56:26 ◼   ► only it seems but they have a few different colors I don't know if it's

00:56:31 ◼   ► like I don't know if I find it ugly I just find it unimpressive what I'm

00:56:37 ◼   ► coming back to in my brain right now is when I first saw the 6p I didn't like

00:56:42 ◼   ► make the look of that. But I think the 6P is a beautiful phone. So I'm reserving

00:56:47 ◼   ► judgment until I see one.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Yeah I mean it's no jet black iPhone 7 for sure. Not even a black iPhone 7. I think it

00:56:57 ◼   ► looks a lot like an iPhone. It's really, I don't want to say boring, it's not boring

00:57:03 ◼   ► it's just it feels obvious. And the back plate, whatever it is, the little, you know,

00:57:09 ◼   ► glass square in the back which I don't understand if it was done for aesthetic

00:57:14 ◼   ► reason or for functional purposes I don't understand in some photos it looks

00:57:19 ◼   ► really ugly like the contrast between the aluminum body whatever it is and the

00:57:24 ◼   ► glass at the top or the plastic I don't know if it's glass or plastic I think

00:57:28 ◼   ► it's glass it doesn't look nice at all so you know it's it's a decent phone but

00:57:34 ◼   ► I also think the 6p was much sexier. I spent a lot of time on the camera so

00:57:39 ◼   ► So here's some stuff for you camera people.

00:57:41 ◼   ► It has an F2.0 12.3 megapixel rear camera.

00:57:45 ◼   ► It has a always on HDR plus mode.

00:57:48 ◼   ► It says it can do this because it has no camera lag,

00:57:51 ◼   ► so they leave it on by default,

00:57:53 ◼   ► and apparently it makes the pictures look better.

00:57:55 ◼   ► They have a video stabilization,

00:57:58 ◼   ► and they showed a demo of the video stabilization

00:58:00 ◼   ► of two cameras side by side taking the same shot.

00:58:03 ◼   ► I have no idea what they were doing to the shaky camera.

00:58:07 ◼   ► It felt like that maybe they were riding down a hill with a bicycle with square wheels on

00:58:11 ◼   ► it or something.

00:58:12 ◼   ► I'm not 100% sure what would cause that amount of wobbling.

00:58:17 ◼   ► But if it was true, their video stabilization is insane in the membrane.

00:58:22 ◼   ► If that is true, I have no idea what they're doing.

00:58:27 ◼   ► I am assuming it is machine learning.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's no optical image stabilization.

00:58:34 ◼   ► I think I saw this in an article on The Verge, maybe.

00:58:39 ◼   ► It's not optical, it uses gyroscopes and a bunch of other sensors and I guess AI to stabilize

00:58:44 ◼   ► the video.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And I mean, we've seen Google doing this kind of crazy, you know, smoothing up videos with

00:58:51 ◼   ► motion seals, for example, and a bunch of other products before.

00:58:54 ◼   ► So now they seem to be rolling out this feature at a much larger and more important scale

00:59:00 ◼   ► in the camera app of the Google phone.

00:59:04 ◼   ► I don't remember the name, the Pixel, because I always associate the Pixel name with the Chromebook.

00:59:09 ◼   ► So it's not optical. Speaking of the camera, they kind of bragged about this review that they got from this website called DXO Mark.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Yep.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Like an 89 score with the iPhone 7 getting 86.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So two things that I want to highlight here.

00:59:26 ◼   ► DXO Mark makes an iPhone accessory like a camera accessory that you plug into the phone.

00:59:34 ◼   ► hasn't reviewed the iPhone 7 Plus, I think.

00:59:36 ◼   ► I checked on the website.

00:59:37 ◼   ► - It has not, I checked it, it has not done that yet.

00:59:39 ◼   ► They said in their iPhone 7 review,

00:59:42 ◼   ► stay tuned for our iPhone 7 Plus review.

00:59:46 ◼   ► It features additional capabilities,

00:59:48 ◼   ► and it's coming, and it's gonna take us

00:59:49 ◼   ► a little bit longer to test it.

00:59:52 ◼   ► - All right, so we'll see about that.

00:59:53 ◼   ► - I have a grand theory here,

00:59:56 ◼   ► that there is some other handiness going on.

00:59:58 ◼   ► This is really weird.

01:00:01 ◼   ► But, you know, okay, like let's say, let's just say, okay,

01:00:06 ◼   ► let's just say that they have done an accurate review.

01:00:11 ◼   ► All right, let's just say that this review is accurate

01:00:14 ◼   ► and that the weirdness, you know,

01:00:15 ◼   ► that I'm kind of raising my eyebrow to

01:00:17 ◼   ► is that they have yet to publish their plus review

01:00:20 ◼   ► and then the plus review is higher than the pixel, right?

01:00:23 ◼   ► Let's just say that's the case.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Even if that is the case,

01:00:28 ◼   ► and let's say that we can trust their reviews.

01:00:31 ◼   ► If the Google Pixel camera is better than the iPhone,

01:00:36 ◼   ► that's really interesting, right?

01:00:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, for sure.

01:00:42 ◼   ► I mean, it just seems to me like it's very,

01:00:46 ◼   ► let's say curious timing to have the Pixel,

01:00:52 ◼   ► like there's a sandwich of iPhone 7 Pixel

01:00:55 ◼   ► and iPhone 7 Plus review coming next.

01:00:57 ◼   ► But I mean, I'm giving these folks the benefit of the doubt.

01:00:59 ◼   ► I really want to see what kind of review for the 7 Plus they put out.

01:01:03 ◼   ► But the second aspect of photography on the Google Pixel phone is I checked on the

01:01:10 ◼   ► DxOMark website and there's no mention of white color photography.

01:01:15 ◼   ► So white color capture, which is a big feature of photography on the iPhone 7.

01:01:20 ◼   ► I don't see any white color gamut spec for the Pixel.

01:01:26 ◼   ► I only see HDR+ but no white color, which is, you know, it's a pretty big deal, especially

01:01:32 ◼   ► when you compare photos taken in sRGB color space and the Display P3 that Apple is doing

01:01:38 ◼   ► with white color.

01:01:39 ◼   ► It's a striking difference on the iPhone 7.

01:01:42 ◼   ► The thing is, a device won't have that if it hasn't got a display that can show it.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly.

01:01:47 ◼   ► So it doesn't have a white color display and of course no white color photography.

01:01:51 ◼   ► know, I still, my impression here is that the iPhone 7 Plus overall will still be a

01:01:58 ◼   ► superior camera, but I'm kind of curious to check out the Pixel anyway.

01:02:03 ◼   ► The review that I will trust is MKBHD's review.

01:02:06 ◼   ► When it comes down to the camera, that's the review that I will trust because I'm really

01:02:11 ◼   ► excited to see how he, uh, how he grades the 7 Plus.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Um, and I'm waiting for that eagerly.

01:02:18 ◼   ► because I trust these camera reviews,

01:02:21 ◼   ► kind of is what he's talking about and he's good.

01:02:24 ◼   ► I wanna go back to that video stabilization thing again

01:02:27 ◼   ► just for a second because I think people will,

01:02:30 ◼   ► it isn't optical, right, but I think people will knock that.

01:02:34 ◼   ► They'll say, oh, it's not optical.

01:02:35 ◼   ► But if what they showed on stage is accurate and true,

01:02:40 ◼   ► what they have managed to do is better

01:02:43 ◼   ► than what optical image stabilization can do.

01:02:47 ◼   ► optical image stabilization is not going to smooth out

01:02:51 ◼   ► that square wheel bicycle footage

01:02:53 ◼   ► in a way that looks like what Google was showing on stage.

01:02:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:58 ◼   ► - Because optical seems to just help it a little bit, right?

01:03:01 ◼   ► So if Google are able to pull that off,

01:03:05 ◼   ► like genuinely pull that off,

01:03:06 ◼   ► that will be fascinating stuff.

01:03:09 ◼   ► I'm interested to see what this camera really is like.

01:03:14 ◼   ► Rapid charging, this rapid charging stuff.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Like I see all these Android phone reviews

01:03:19 ◼   ► and I'm like, why, why can we not have this?

01:03:23 ◼   ► It will, after 15 minutes of charging the Pixel phones,

01:03:28 ◼   ► you will get seven hours of use.

01:03:29 ◼   ► - Well, that's Andy.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Of any use, like, or is it like low power use?

01:03:37 ◼   ► - Use, just seven hours of use is what they say.

01:03:39 ◼   ► But I expect it's regularly used

01:03:41 ◼   ► because this is what all the Android phones do.

01:03:43 ◼   ► like you give them a 15 minute charge and you're ready to go for another half of the

01:03:46 ◼   ► day.

01:03:47 ◼   ► That's very cool.

01:03:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:50 ◼   ► It's this rapid charging.

01:03:51 ◼   ► It's all this USB-C stuff, a lot of it.

01:03:54 ◼   ► It's got a bunch of different names like rapid charging, fast charging, quick charging, lightning

01:03:58 ◼   ► charging, whatever.

01:03:59 ◼   ► But you know, that's better than probably what my Apple pencil would give me on similar

01:04:07 ◼   ► charging metrics.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Like I really just need them to do this.

01:04:11 ◼   ► has USB-C. It comes with, this is genius, this is genius, a quick switch cable and software

01:04:20 ◼   ► to move data from the iPhone, so calendars, contacts, even iMessages from an iPhone to

01:04:30 ◼   ► an Android phone. This is genius.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it's Google's response to Apple's move to iOS app on the Google Play Store.

01:04:40 ◼   ► doing the same just the other way around. And I saw a screenshot of what you need to

01:04:45 ◼   ► do to migrate. You need to turn off iMessage. You need to turn off FaceTime in the settings.

01:04:51 ◼   ► So I assume there's going to be some kind of walkthrough in the Android app and it tells

01:04:56 ◼   ► you go to the settings on the iPhone and turn off this, turn off that. But if it works,

01:05:03 ◼   ► that seems to be quite handy, especially because in my experience, remember when I tried the

01:05:09 ◼   ► Nexus 5X. One of the best aspects that impressed me about Android was the easy

01:05:14 ◼   ► setup flow. Like when you first set up an Android device, it feels

01:05:20 ◼   ► easier than iOS. I don't know if it's because of fewer screens that you need

01:05:25 ◼   ► to go through or because the Google backup system feels more reliable and

01:05:30 ◼   ► faster than iCloud. Whatever it is, the setup on Android felt much better to me.

01:05:35 ◼   ► So if Google can combine that setup flow with an iOS migration, I think that would be really welcome for people who want to move from the iPhone to the Pixel.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Because I see this as a big FU, because Apple created that switch to iOS app, so Google are not only going to be creating an app,

01:05:56 ◼   ► we're going to put a cable in all of our boxes just to switch from your platform to ours.

01:06:01 ◼   ► I like it, I like that hubris.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I think that's a good move.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It's a lightning cable, basically.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I think it's lightning to USB-C, I'm assuming.

01:06:13 ◼   ► Something like that.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I'm just imagining a crazy scenario where Apple kills access to that lightning cable

01:06:20 ◼   ► with a software update, but that would be just messy, you know, from a PR perspective.

01:06:24 ◼   ► I'm not actually, do you know what, I'm not, again, I'm riffing here, I'm not sure if it's

01:06:28 ◼   ► a cable, I think it might be an adapter.

01:06:30 ◼   ► it is a USB to USB-C. Oh yeah, okay. Because then they don't need to go for MFI. Right?

01:06:39 ◼   ► Because you're just taking your charging cable that you have and you're plugging it in and

01:06:44 ◼   ► it's no problem. Yeah, we'll see. You gotta get a Google Pixel mic and do the migration

01:06:50 ◼   ► for us. Well I am getting one. See, just a matter of time until we know the truth. Yeah,

01:06:57 ◼   ► I have ordered one of these and I will try this quick switch thing just to see how just

01:07:02 ◼   ► how well it works.

01:07:05 ◼   ► The reason I got this is a couple of reasons.

01:07:09 ◼   ► I like to have one of the latest, greatest Android phones for many reasons.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I like to have those devices.

01:07:16 ◼   ► I like to understand what's happening there.

01:07:19 ◼   ► But really, I really wanted to try out this camera and I wanted to try out this video

01:07:22 ◼   ► stuff with my interesting video.

01:07:26 ◼   ► if I can get like a smartphone that has this kind of capabilities for video like if this

01:07:30 ◼   ► image stabilisation stuff is true I really want to try this out and play around with

01:07:35 ◼   ► it so that's one of the reasons that I got this device and I've sold my Nexus P and whatever

01:07:40 ◼   ► like I want it and I also want to try out this Daydream stuff which we'll get to in

01:07:46 ◼   ► a moment but I guess there's one thing we didn't mention on the cameras which is worth

01:07:50 ◼   ► noting anybody that gets a Pixel C will get free unlimited storage for full resolution

01:07:57 ◼   ► imagery on Google Photos. This is the future, right? You buy the phone and you get unlimited

01:08:05 ◼   ► storage for free for original resolution photos and videos up to 4k. And this is when the worst

01:08:14 ◼   ► of Apple users comes out during Google events. The message was very clear. It's unlimited storage

01:08:22 ◼   ► for free for every Google Pixel owner and it's original resolution. And already within minutes

01:08:27 ◼   ► a bunch of Apple folks on Twitter saying "yeah but it's not really unlimited, it's not really free"

01:08:32 ◼   ► I mean that is what they said. It's more unlimited and it's more free. It's unlimited and it's free

01:08:38 ◼   ► and it's original resolution. Like the message was extremely clear. Now we could debate whether you

01:08:43 ◼   ► You want to upload your photos to Google servers, whether Google is evil and does weird things

01:08:49 ◼   ► with your photos.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Speaking in terms of what Google says, they do not look at your photos to give you better,

01:08:59 ◼   ► more specific ads, but that's debatable anyway.

01:09:02 ◼   ► They said, "Unlimited, free, original size."

01:09:05 ◼   ► And there's no contest about that.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I think this is what Apple should do, that Apple ideally should match, because you buy

01:09:15 ◼   ► a phone that costs $1,000 and you get 5GB of free iCloud storage, which is a joke.

01:09:21 ◼   ► In 2016, that's the new joke.

01:09:23 ◼   ► It used to be 16GB iPhones, now it's iCloud and 5GB for free.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Should at least be 50GB for free, and ideally should be the same.

01:09:34 ◼   ► be you buy an iPhone we take care of your photos and your videos don't worry

01:09:39 ◼   ► about it. I know that Apple wants to make money from services but this feels like

01:09:44 ◼   ► the right thing to do and then if you want you can always pay for storage for

01:09:47 ◼   ► like documents or you know other stuff but you know ideally this is what they

01:09:52 ◼   ► should do. This device is available for pre-order now it's shipping in a couple

01:10:01 ◼   ► weeks time. If you want to buy on carrier in the US you have to get it through

01:10:05 ◼   ► Verizon it is exclusive to Verizon but can be bought unlocked in Google Play.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Outside of the US they're working with a bunch of different carriers and you can

01:10:13 ◼   ► buy unlocked as well. The Daydream View headset. So this is the first headset

01:10:20 ◼   ► which is for Daydream VR which is Google's VR standard. The headset is

01:10:26 ◼   ► is interesting looking, it's like made of soft materials, it's covered in materials

01:10:31 ◼   ► that look like athletic wear, I guess it's just nicer to have on your face, but I just

01:10:38 ◼   ► like the look of it, it's a design thing, I like the look of it, they're saying it's

01:10:42 ◼   ► lightweight, connects wirelessly to the headset, you don't have to plug anything in, and you

01:10:47 ◼   ► just pull open a latch, drop your phone in and close it, it's like a super fancy Google

01:10:50 ◼   ► cardboard in that way. I have a controller which has a little clickable touchpad and

01:10:55 ◼   ► two buttons. The presenter dropped his on stage which is hilarious because he then was

01:11:00 ◼   ► like "see it's really nicely built as well" which was a perfect like get out of that moment.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Has a bunch of sensors inside, it sits very precise, you can draw with it and you can

01:11:09 ◼   ► write your name with it. And then what I love is when you're done it has a place inside

01:11:13 ◼   ► of the headset that you can store it. Comes in three colours and it's $79. I've joined

01:11:19 ◼   ► the waiting list. If you're in the US, you get one of these for free when you buy a Pixel.

01:11:24 ◼   ► If you're in the UK, not so much. As long as supply lasts, that's an asterisk.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I mean, that's always one though, right? But yeah, in the UK, it's like there's

01:11:34 ◼   ► no release date. I've joined a waiting list. I'm hoping that like Google do good on this,

01:11:39 ◼   ► like can give me one later, because I think it's a bit ridiculous. Like I'm buying the

01:11:43 ◼   ► same phone, I'm paying more money for my phone because of Brexit and I don't get it. Like,

01:11:49 ◼   ► very strange to me but I'm doing a waitlist I want to try this I think

01:11:52 ◼   ► Google cardboard great they've got a lot of really interesting software and

01:11:55 ◼   ► partnerships going on then showed up a bunch of games there's a game developer

01:12:00 ◼   ► that me and Federico really love called Myke Bethel and he is yes like an

01:12:04 ◼   ► exclusive game with the daydream stuff so I'm really excited about that it

01:12:11 ◼   ► looks like they've got some really good software so I want to try it out you

01:12:14 ◼   ► Yeah, kind of a bummer that they don't seem to be doing any positional tracking, so there's

01:12:21 ◼   ► a risk of motion sickness and all that, because they don't have a camera pointing at your

01:12:26 ◼   ► face wearing the headset so they can do what the Oculus and what the Vive do, for example.

01:12:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's doing some of it by the phone.

01:12:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it's doing some of it with the phone. I don't know if it's enough. I for sure want

01:12:38 ◼   ► to try it, but that means getting a Pixel so that could be a problem. We'll see.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I will try and get my hands on one of these. I don't know how. I have put myself

01:12:50 ◼   ► on a weightless list, let's see if I can try and get one quicker. I want to try it out,

01:12:53 ◼   ► it looks really cool.

01:12:54 ◼   ► Next year, when we go to San Francisco together again, you bring your Pixel and you make me

01:13:01 ◼   ► try Daydream VR.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Alright.

01:13:04 ◼   ► That's it.

01:13:05 ◼   ► Hopefully I'll have a headset by then.

01:13:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I hope so. Wow, that's like ten months or something.

01:13:12 ◼   ► Super quick aside.

01:13:13 ◼   ► We got PlayStation VR next week. I'm so excited.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I know. Don't tell Steven, he's still on the show.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Back on task, boys.

01:13:21 ◼   ► The boss is listening to us, so we better get a mobile mic.

01:13:25 ◼   ► We're gonna do a special remaster look out for that.

01:13:27 ◼   ► Yes, I know.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Google Wi-Fi. No, not you. You know. I hope you know. I'm talking to the listener.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Google Wi-Fi.

01:13:35 ◼   ► You're talking to me.

01:13:36 ◼   ► It seems like an Eero competitor.

01:13:39 ◼   ► So Eero, if I've been a previous sponsor, they have the little devices that you put

01:13:43 ◼   ► around your home. Same kind of deal. They even like, even to the point of saying you

01:13:47 ◼   ► can get singles or you can get three packs, which is Eero's thing. You get multiple devices,

01:13:52 ◼   ► set them up around the home and it will spread the connection out. $129 for a single, $299

01:13:57 ◼   ► for a three pack. Looks like, I mean, I have no idea. I guess it's good, right? I don't

01:14:03 ◼   ► know. I don't know how good the onHub has been which was Google's previous one. So

01:14:09 ◼   ► I can't say whether this would necessarily be a good device or not but

01:14:12 ◼   ► at least they got the fundamentals down like it's got an app you can set all the

01:14:16 ◼   ► things that you need to in the application that kind of stuff. There's a

01:14:19 ◼   ► joke about Google snooping on your Wi-Fi network here but I'm not sure how to

01:14:23 ◼   ► best deliver it so just skip over. I think we'd all prefer if you just didn't. And then

01:14:32 ◼   ► Stephen, Google Home. Stephen, are you interested in Google Home? You have an Echo, like from

01:14:38 ◼   ► the very basics that you know about it. Is Google Home something of interest to you?

01:14:43 ◼   ► I think if the Echo wasn't so good, I would be interested in it. Like if the Echo had

01:14:47 ◼   ► opened me up to the idea of having a little box on my kitchen counter that I could talk

01:14:52 ◼   ► to, but it really is great. And so I'm interested in this in the sense that I want this type

01:14:58 ◼   ► device and type of platform to excel and I want there to be competition and

01:15:03 ◼   ► there to be good options. For me the Echo does everything I want it to do but I'm

01:15:10 ◼   ► going to keep an eye on this. I think these devices really shine

01:15:14 ◼   ► through all the third-party integration and the Alexa platform is very open.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Basically anyone can go create a skill and so there's a skill for everything.

01:15:22 ◼   ► There's one that I saw the other day that's like a magic 8-Ball so you can

01:15:25 ◼   ► and ask Alexa to shake the Magic 8 Ball

01:15:27 ◼   ► and it reads you an answer.

01:15:28 ◼   ► Not really useful necessarily,

01:15:30 ◼   ► but because it's open, it's really flexible.

01:15:34 ◼   ► I don't know how open the Google Home platform is.

01:15:36 ◼   ► I know that they said, and they put up a slide of like,

01:15:40 ◼   ► these are all the partners that we're working with

01:15:42 ◼   ► to put stuff in here.

01:15:43 ◼   ► So that story's gonna be the most interesting part to me.

01:15:46 ◼   ► If the situation changes and there's stuff

01:15:49 ◼   ► that I cannot do with Alexa that Google Home can do,

01:15:53 ◼   ► then I would look at this.

01:15:54 ◼   ► But for now I'm happy with the Echo.

01:15:55 ◼   ► I'm not pre-ordering one of these things,

01:15:58 ◼   ► but I'm gonna keep a close eye on it.

01:15:58 ◼   ► I think this is a really exciting space.

01:16:00 ◼   ► - I would wonder if Google's developer platform

01:16:03 ◼   ► would be more robust.

01:16:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have some details about that

01:16:08 ◼   ► because I was looking over the documentation from Google.

01:16:11 ◼   ► So it's a system called Voice Actions.

01:16:14 ◼   ► And you gotta keep in mind that the assistant

01:16:16 ◼   ► is going to be available on three different places,

01:16:19 ◼   ► which is Allo, the weird messaging app,

01:16:22 ◼   ► the Google Assistant on the Pixel phone,

01:16:25 ◼   ► and the Google Assistant on the Google Home.

01:16:27 ◼   ► So three different places, a single developer platform,

01:16:31 ◼   ► and developers can enable these different types of actions

01:16:34 ◼   ► depending on the device they're running on.

01:16:36 ◼   ► And the system is kind of similar to Siri,

01:16:38 ◼   ► perhaps a little more flexible than SiriKit.

01:16:41 ◼   ► It's based on Intents, which are not new to Android.

01:16:43 ◼   ► And looking over the docs today,

01:16:46 ◼   ► there's a bunch of, let's say domains,

01:16:49 ◼   ► like Apple calls them.

01:16:51 ◼   ► On Android, these are split across the Google Home, Android Wear, and Android on the phone.

01:16:58 ◼   ► They include alarms, system actions, communications, fitness, local, which is like calling a cab,

01:17:06 ◼   ► which I think is exclusive to Android Wear, media, which includes the camera, so taking

01:17:10 ◼   ► a picture or taking a video, open actions to open URLs or apps, productivity actions,

01:17:17 ◼   ► which are not available on iOS, and search actions.

01:17:20 ◼   ► So it seems that it's a little more open than Siri when it comes to media.

01:17:26 ◼   ► So you can say play this music on Spotify, whatever, or you can create tasks and notes

01:17:32 ◼   ► with the productivity actions.

01:17:34 ◼   ► That's why we can see there's like Todoist is one of the partners for the Google Home

01:17:39 ◼   ► Voice Actions API.

01:17:41 ◼   ► And I think at least for now, it's like SiriKit, not 2.0, but maybe 1.5.

01:17:48 ◼   ► It's kind of a little more flexible, perhaps a little more advanced.

01:17:51 ◼   ► But again, I just looked over the documents for like five minutes.

01:17:55 ◼   ► I think it's very nice that at least they have the integration with task managers and

01:18:02 ◼   ► media players.

01:18:03 ◼   ► So you can call the assistant and say, "Hey, I want to listen to these artists," or, "I

01:18:08 ◼   ► want to watch a video."

01:18:09 ◼   ► That's very nice.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Okay.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's interesting.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I also think that Google might be able to get more partners on board than Amazon can.

01:18:17 ◼   ► So to go through some of the little parts that they've shown today, a lot that we've

01:18:21 ◼   ► seen before, best in class voice recognition, swappable voices to fit it into your home,

01:18:26 ◼   ► great speaker, great voice recognition, LEDs on top to indicate listening, we saw this

01:18:30 ◼   ► at IO, but they did some more demos, stage demos, you know, like Guy would say something,

01:18:36 ◼   ► it would respond in the way that it should respond.

01:18:38 ◼   ► Now there was a bunch of stuff that we've seen the Echo do, like play me this song and

01:18:42 ◼   ► it plays it, it's like oh you can choose your own, you can use Spotify if you want rather

01:18:46 ◼   ► in Google Music. Echo does that. Where it became really interesting was in the way that

01:18:52 ◼   ► they are able to use Google search. So they did a bunch of different things like play

01:18:58 ◼   ► that song by Shakira from Zootopia. And it did it. Now, a couple of days ago, I asked

01:19:05 ◼   ► my Echo to play me the newest Mumford & Sons album, and it just started playing Mumford

01:19:10 ◼   ► & Sons like just all of it, because it couldn't pass that or couldn't work out what that information

01:19:16 ◼   ► And there are times where I ask the Alexa questions that it just doesn't have an answer for

01:19:20 ◼   ► Because it doesn't have Google search back behind it

01:19:24 ◼   ► And I think that this could be the thing that really makes it great like they ask how to get wine out the carpet and

01:19:29 ◼   ► It gives like this stupidly long answer, but like it's giving you the answer that you're looking for

01:19:34 ◼   ► And I think that that's gonna be something that really pushes a Google home further than any of these other devices

01:19:40 ◼   ► In that it has Google behind it. I think that's really interesting

01:19:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it provides sort of a substructure of intelligence where an individual developer

01:19:53 ◼   ► may not be able to handle that sort of thing, but because you have Google kind of always

01:19:57 ◼   ► there ready to pick up the slack, it'll potentially be more powerful.

01:20:03 ◼   ► It's going to be able to interact with smart home devices due to their partnerships with

01:20:08 ◼   ► SmartThings, Hue, IFTTT, and their partnership with Nest.

01:20:12 ◼   ► I don't know why they have to do a partnership with a different arm of the company.

01:20:16 ◼   ► Well, no, that's part of Alphabet, right, still.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Or has Nest completely collapsed?

01:20:22 ◼   ► So they're a different arm of the company.

01:20:24 ◼   ► Google is a part of the Alphabet company.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

01:20:28 ◼   ► Right?

01:20:29 ◼   ► And Nest is another part of that company.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Can we just take a second?

01:20:34 ◼   ► So Nest is doing security cameras and a thermostat, just like they always have.

01:20:39 ◼   ► And all of this stuff is Google branded.

01:20:42 ◼   ► I know that Tony Fidell's out and they have a new CEO

01:20:44 ◼   ► and they're trying to get things into shape.

01:20:48 ◼   ► I think recently they pulled some of their

01:20:50 ◼   ► software development back into Google.

01:20:51 ◼   ► So Nest is sort of half out of Google and half in now.

01:20:55 ◼   ► But it continues to be confusing to me

01:20:57 ◼   ► why they have these two different companies,

01:21:00 ◼   ► or two different divisions depending on how you look at it,

01:21:02 ◼   ► doing hardware.

01:21:03 ◼   ► And I kind of think that at some point we're gonna see

01:21:07 ◼   ► the Nest Cam and the thermostat get rebranded.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Like now that the Google's in the home

01:21:13 ◼   ► with wifi and a device that's always listening,

01:21:15 ◼   ► I think the creepster factor of having a thermostat

01:21:19 ◼   ► with a Google logo on it is this pass.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Like it doesn't bother me, some people will be bothered by it

01:21:23 ◼   ► and they'll pry their nest off the wall, but.

01:21:25 ◼   ► - Google doesn't care about those people.

01:21:27 ◼   ► The only people that care about the Google's creepy factor

01:21:31 ◼   ► are people like thoroughly entrenched in the Apple camp

01:21:34 ◼   ► or the Linux camp, but they were never gonna get anyway.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Like those people were like deep in their fandom, right?

01:21:42 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:21:44 ◼   ► - I don't think Google cares about those people.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think they should, but.

01:21:47 ◼   ► I don't think the Nest brand will last another year.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I think they'll just roll that team into Google again

01:21:57 ◼   ► and be like Nest is gone because Google's

01:22:00 ◼   ► a better brand than Nest.

01:22:02 ◼   ► and now we're making these home products.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And it might be the Google thermostat or whatever.

01:22:07 ◼   ► One thing I also think looks really cool

01:22:11 ◼   ► is that the home integrates with Chromecast

01:22:13 ◼   ► to let you fling audio, video, and photos around

01:22:16 ◼   ► so you can be like, play Stranger Things on the TV

01:22:19 ◼   ► and it will do that.

01:22:20 ◼   ► That's awesome.

01:22:22 ◼   ► - That's real cool.

01:22:23 ◼   ► - Don't the Amazon Fire Sticks do this?

01:22:25 ◼   ► I feel like they should be doing this already.

01:22:28 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:22:29 ◼   ► I don't think anyone actually owns a Fire Stick

01:22:31 ◼   ► except Dan Moran does.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Can I stand?

01:22:34 ◼   ► No, that's really--

01:22:35 ◼   ► - You're thinking of Dan Moran?

01:22:37 ◼   ► - Oh, Dan Moran, yes, that guy.

01:22:39 ◼   ► - That's really something that if Apple moves

01:22:42 ◼   ► into the space, I would want them to do,

01:22:45 ◼   ► to say, hey, ahoy, telephone box,

01:22:49 ◼   ► play this over here on my Apple TV.

01:22:52 ◼   ► That's where this stuff can really get interesting,

01:22:54 ◼   ► and Google's doing it, they do have a new Chromecast

01:22:56 ◼   ► out today, it does 4K and is rebranded a little bit,

01:23:00 ◼   ► But that's really interesting to me.

01:23:03 ◼   ► And I think out of all of the stuff that the smart,

01:23:05 ◼   ► that Google Home can do, the smart media stuff, I think,

01:23:09 ◼   ► is some of the most exciting to me.

01:23:13 ◼   ► I don't have a Chromecast.

01:23:14 ◼   ► I think for however much they are now, like 49 bucks,

01:23:16 ◼   ► I'm probably gonna get one just so I can experience it

01:23:18 ◼   ► 'cause I've never even used one.

01:23:20 ◼   ► But to be able to shout at your computer box

01:23:24 ◼   ► in the kitchen to play music in the living room

01:23:26 ◼   ► is pretty neat.

01:23:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm interested in just Google Home.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Again, it's not any time soon coming out here.

01:23:34 ◼   ► $129, which is a good price, I think.

01:23:38 ◼   ► Pre-ordering today in the US, shipping November 4th.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Six base colors, and we mentioned

01:23:45 ◼   ► their big developer platform.

01:23:47 ◼   ► These devices, both the Echo and the Google Home,

01:23:52 ◼   ► they seem underpriced, and I wonder if they're purely,

01:23:56 ◼   ► like you're buying into the ecosystems, right?

01:23:58 ◼   ► That's because you're paying with your privacy. I'm sorry I keep coming up with these jokes,

01:24:02 ◼   ► I don't really mean them by the way. This is not me speaking, I'm just the voice of

01:24:09 ◼   ► the other folks on Twitter.

01:24:11 ◼   ► I feel like, but like the Echo, you know people don't levy those complaints at Amazon. I wonder

01:24:16 ◼   ► if these devices are, they're sold with small margins on them because they get you into

01:24:24 ◼   ► the Google ecosystem, they get you into the Amazon ecosystem.

01:24:28 ◼   ► You know, $129 for a consumer electronics product that looks really well made, that

01:24:35 ◼   ► has a really great speaker in it and incredible microphone technology.

01:24:40 ◼   ► That doesn't seem to add up in today's world of technology to me.

01:24:43 ◼   ► Well, and two, I think it's easy to say, "Oh, that's so cheap," when we all just spent $1,000

01:24:48 ◼   ► on a smartphone last month.

01:24:50 ◼   ► But compared to phones, they're simpler and they're cheaper.

01:24:53 ◼   ► And I think the price comparison will get really interesting if Apple moves into this

01:24:59 ◼   ► space.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Like, I don't see Apple doing a Siri box at $129.

01:25:02 ◼   ► I see them doing it at $299, but not $130.

01:25:07 ◼   ► So I think that pricing conversation could get more interesting.

01:25:12 ◼   ► But I think you're mostly right, Myke.

01:25:14 ◼   ► I think that it is mostly about, hey, you bought this thing from Amazon or from Google

01:25:19 ◼   ► and you're going to be more likely to stay in the ecosystem or spend more money because

01:25:24 ◼   ► you have that cost of this thing sitting on your kitchen counter?

01:25:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I like the look of this thing. I really do. I think it looks really

01:25:37 ◼   ► cool. I think Google had the ability to kind of take this further than Amazon because the

01:25:43 ◼   ► the Amazon app and the skills is like a dumpster fire of UI horrificness.

01:25:49 ◼   ► And I think Google could probably do a better job than Amazon.

01:25:52 ◼   ► But we'll see.

01:25:53 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:25:54 ◼   ► Federico, are you interested in this?

01:25:57 ◼   ► I think I'm going to get one.

01:25:58 ◼   ► For some reason, Sylvia doesn't like Alexa.

01:26:01 ◼   ► She doesn't stand Alexa at a very personal level.

01:26:04 ◼   ► I don't know if it's the voice or whatever, but she just hates Alexa very deeply.

01:26:08 ◼   ► And so I think on getting the Google Home, and hopefully she will like Google better.

01:26:14 ◼   ► But seriously, aside from my girlfriend and her relationship with Alexa, I think Google

01:26:20 ◼   ► has a chance to provide much better interface and much better integrations.

01:26:27 ◼   ► If only because the Google Home has access to very important data about me, which is

01:26:32 ◼   ► my browsing history and my email.

01:26:35 ◼   ► I feel like Amazon has access to the stuff that I buy, like my lightning cables and my hard drives.

01:26:42 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, but Amazon doesn't really know a lot about me.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And we've talked about this before. I'm cool with Google knowing a lot of stuff about me,

01:26:50 ◼   ► and I feel like that information can make for a much better smart speaker. So yes, I'm going to get one.

01:26:56 ◼   ► Yep, if they ever come out in Europe. Stephen, you're obviously the closest you'll be able to get one this year.

01:27:04 ◼   ► Are you gonna buy one?

01:27:06 ◼   ► I don't think so.

01:27:08 ◼   ► Again, I'm really happy with the Echo, but if it comes to needing to do it for work to

01:27:14 ◼   ► talk about it, I may give it a shot.

01:27:16 ◼   ► $128 is not that much money.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And it could be that I could leave it in the office as opposed to the dot that I just ordered.

01:27:23 ◼   ► I think you should take a bullet for the show and pre-order one.

01:27:26 ◼   ► I have a company credit card.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Get the company to buy it.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Go on.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Done.

01:27:31 ◼   ► And then you can send it to me when you're done.

01:27:32 ◼   ► If our accountant is listening, I'm so sorry.

01:27:34 ◼   ► I tell you what you get it you try it out and then you send it to me now I can

01:27:38 ◼   ► have one. So it costs $129 to do it. Okay so the big question is what color do I get?

01:27:42 ◼   ► Right. Get the most outlandish color possible. I think you can only get white.

01:27:47 ◼   ► So I have a an XL on the way the pixel XL I think it will be here in a few weeks

01:27:54 ◼   ► time it seems to what the website is suggesting kind of towards the end of

01:27:58 ◼   ► November so I'm looking forward to trying that out. Federico,

01:28:01 ◼   ► Steven has bought the Google Home now, what have you bought?

01:28:05 ◼   ► I have placed myself on the waiting list for a Comcast Ultra

01:28:11 ◼   ► because I'm the unlucky Italian one and we don't get any of the new things on the Google Store in Italy.

01:28:19 ◼   ► So yes, I literally just placed my email in a waiting list, that's all I've done.

01:28:23 ◼   ► I've also done that for the Google Home and for the Daydream PR headset.

01:28:30 ◼   ► Yeah, on the Italian store there's a grey button that says "Not available".

01:28:36 ◼   ► What for the VR headset?

01:28:38 ◼   ► No, nothing basically.

01:28:40 ◼   ► You can only click the button for the Chromecast.

01:28:43 ◼   ► But just to be on the waiting list, not to make a pre-order.

01:28:47 ◼   ► So the Daydream VR is just completely greyed out?

01:28:50 ◼   ► There's nothing you can do?

01:28:51 ◼   ► Yes.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Alright, well at least I've got a button that I can click.

01:28:55 ◼   ► Yeah, and even the phone is just grey, you can do nothing.

01:28:59 ◼   ► for you guys not in Italy. So that's Google. Solid show from Google today I

01:29:06 ◼   ► think. They getting better and better at this all the time. I think so too. Yeah I

01:29:10 ◼   ► think they do they do a good job in these events. They have a nice diverse

01:29:15 ◼   ► cast. They have people who like Apple does clearly involved with the product

01:29:21 ◼   ► right. You see product managers and you see designers and you see engineers and

01:29:25 ◼   ► And I think they're really firing on all cylinders in these events.

01:29:29 ◼   ► They're as much fun to watch for me as an Apple keynote at this point.

01:29:33 ◼   ► I watched almost all of it today, and it was a great show.

01:29:38 ◼   ► And that's part of it, right? It's about the product, but it's also about how they're presented.

01:29:42 ◼   ► And I think they're doing a better job than ever.

01:29:45 ◼   ► So I'm just going to put in the show notes a picture that is tweeted out by Daniel Bader.

01:29:53 ◼   ► He works at MobileNations and he's the managing editor of Android Central.

01:29:58 ◼   ► And he has taken a photo that he's tweeted of the black pixel.

01:30:03 ◼   ► I think it looks good.

01:30:05 ◼   ► I don't think it looks good.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Ehh, not sure about the dual color honestly, but maybe that's just me.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I think it looks kind of cool.

01:30:14 ◼   ► In its own little way.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I don't know, it looks like some kind of credit card reader.

01:30:20 ◼   ► I think it's going to look dated.

01:30:22 ◼   ► the second they get rid of that on the next generation,

01:30:24 ◼   ► it's gonna look really old.

01:30:26 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, sure, but so does my iPhone.

01:30:30 ◼   ► You literally sent me a picture yesterday

01:30:34 ◼   ► of the antenna lines on the previous one,

01:30:36 ◼   ► and you were like, this looks old, so.

01:30:38 ◼   ► - It's true. - You know.

01:30:39 ◼   ► - No, it's a thing that happens.

01:30:42 ◼   ► I don't know, if I were to buy one,

01:30:43 ◼   ► that blue is, and I usually don't like blue devices,

01:30:47 ◼   ► but I think the blue looks the best.

01:30:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can't get it, though.

01:30:50 ◼   ► I was gonna get blue because blue phone but no can't get it

01:30:53 ◼   ► I'm I will eventually get one of those really wicked cool cases that they make but I just don't know what I will make it

01:31:00 ◼   ► Off, you know, you can get like the custom-made cases

01:31:03 ◼   ► But I just don't know what I want to put on my case yet

01:31:05 ◼   ► Can make it look like a bunch of stickers. I thought of that

01:31:09 ◼   ► I thought of that just like just putting stickers into the case

01:31:13 ◼   ► Maybe I'll just take a picture of my iPad

01:31:17 ◼   ► Put that on my phone. That's the way to do what if you what if you?

01:31:21 ◼   ► made a case

01:31:24 ◼   ► That looks like the front of the phone

01:31:27 ◼   ► Oh and then and then you have like a dual phone like you take you just take a screenshot

01:31:32 ◼   ► That's kind of genius

01:31:37 ◼   ► I have so many options like connected listeners. You can tweet with the hashtag Myke's case for your suggestions

01:31:47 ◼   ► for what I should make a case out of. Very versatile #Myke, right there. Myke's case.

01:31:54 ◼   ► Well you know, is anybody else really using that? I doubt it. I don't think so. So I just

01:32:00 ◼   ► tweeted Myke's case. Obviously no punctuation because that breaks the hashtag and there

01:32:06 ◼   ► are no tweets found so it's all good. Tweet at me. Alright if you want to find out show

01:32:11 ◼   ► notes for this week go to relay.fm/connected/111. If you want to find Federico online he is

01:32:16 ◼   ► at the teachy for the ITI CCI. Oh, you should be closing it out, right?

01:32:21 ◼   ► No, no, you should. This is your job, Myke.

01:32:23 ◼   ► Or he's over at Macstories.net. I was looking at an open tab and was about to say that you

01:32:29 ◼   ► write for MacRumors. So congratulations on your big move.

01:32:33 ◼   ► Not quite. Well, thank you. Thank you.

01:32:34 ◼   ► I'm really excited to see what you do next. Steven is over at @ismh on Twitter and he

01:32:41 ◼   ► is at 512pixels.net and I am @imike and you can find my videos over at youtube.com/mikehurley.

01:32:49 ◼   ► Look at that, I've got a new outro everyone. Isn't that fancy? Thank you so much to Brain

01:32:53 ◼   ► Tree for their support of this week's show and as always, thank you for listening. Until

01:32:58 ◼   ► the next time, say goodbye guys. Adios.