Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected episode 163. Today's show

00:00:11 ◼   ► is brought to you by Blue Apron, Bombfell and Mac Weldon.

00:00:15 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I'm joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Hola Federico. Hello Myke, how are you? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing well, I'm

00:00:25 ◼   ► I'm doing well. Yeah. And to the second Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Hmm. I'm finding any way I can to avoid the naming thing.

00:00:33 ◼   ► So I'm just like, hmm, co-opted my trying to throw you off.

00:00:37 ◼   ► You've stolen my identity is what you've done.

00:00:40 ◼   ► It didn't work this week, though. You didn't do it. So.

00:00:42 ◼   ► What perfectly for me, crime doesn't pay, Myke.

00:00:45 ◼   ► So I'm saying, OK, OK, we should do follow up.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Right. That's where we start.

00:00:51 ◼   ► I don't know what we're doing anymore. You stole my name.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to do in the show.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, you see when things go wrong, they can mess you right up.

00:00:58 ◼   ► And so now I'm putting it on you, putting that hate on you.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I'm telling you, a lot of started going downhill

00:01:03 ◼   ► when we dropped the sound effects for the follow up.

00:01:05 ◼   ► That was a long time ago, man.

00:01:08 ◼   ► That was like 163 weeks ago.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Three years ago.

00:01:13 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Really went downhill when we started our own podcast company.

00:01:18 ◼   ► That literally should have stayed where we were.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Okay, so follow up Kate Matthews, friend of the show, friend of all the shows, has made

00:01:29 ◼   ► a dongle duffle.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Out of paper.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Out of paper.

00:01:32 ◼   ► There's an Ethernet thunderbolt dongle in one of these pictures for scale.

00:01:38 ◼   ► This is the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

00:01:40 ◼   ► It even has a little movable shoulder strap.

00:01:43 ◼   ► There's like a tweet thread, a really important hashtag thread that we're gonna put in the

00:01:48 ◼   ► the show notes, which has all of the pictures and gifts that you want to see

00:01:53 ◼   ► of Kate's unbelievable work who is in the chat room right now. Thank you Kate

00:01:56 ◼   ► for your incredible mastermind that you have to create these wonderful works.

00:02:02 ◼   ► This is lovely. I imagine if the Smurfs had a dongle problem, this is

00:02:07 ◼   ► the kind of duffel they would want, you know? It's just perfect. We see this case

00:02:12 ◼   ► color, these colors, they are chosen because I have a knock case that Brad

00:02:17 ◼   ► and Jeff made in this color way. So Kate understands. They call it unicorn buff the color way. That's

00:02:26 ◼   ► how the dongle duffle is. So I'm petitioning Brad and Jeff to try and make one of these

00:02:30 ◼   ► for me. I don't know how well I'm doing on that front yet. He keeps saying "yeah yeah

00:02:34 ◼   ► we'll do it" but I think that means he won't do it. So I'm trying to get him to make one

00:02:39 ◼   ► for me so we can have a real life dongle duffle.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Yeah, dongle duffle IRL, if you will.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Okay, we've been speaking about reachability in context of the iPhone X, and Myke, I think

00:02:53 ◼   ► you're the one who brought it up where in iOS 11, reachability doesn't work to invoke

00:02:59 ◼   ► a notification center or I guess the cover sheet, whatever it's called today.

00:03:03 ◼   ► It used to, right?

00:03:04 ◼   ► So you could double tap the home button and then you could pull down from the center and

00:03:08 ◼   ► you get your notifications.

00:03:09 ◼   ► That hasn't worked in iOS 11.

00:03:11 ◼   ► There's a story on MacRumors saying that Craig Federighi has replied to an email, which is

00:03:17 ◼   ► how all news is broken now, saying four words, "We are fixing it."

00:03:23 ◼   ► So I guess they're gonna fix it?

00:03:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:28 ◼   ► There you go.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Yeah, there's 11.1 beta 2 is out.

00:03:33 ◼   ► It's not fixed there, so maybe it will be fixed before the release.

00:03:35 ◼   ► I mean, there's still a couple of weeks, I guess, before 11.1 comes out.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Maybe it'll be in there.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I think that they've done something to rewrite some of this reachability stuff for the iPhone

00:03:47 ◼   ► X and something's gone wrong here.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Yeah, because there's a lot of weird things that have happened, right?

00:03:52 ◼   ► You know, like the multitasking gesture thing went away and came back and now reachability

00:03:57 ◼   ► is broken but it's going to be fixed.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Some stuff is going on with Springboard and I expect it's something to do with the next

00:04:05 ◼   ► iPhone just the way that a lot of that stuff's going to work.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - It may be like how iWork was.

00:04:09 ◼   ► They sort of reworked iWork and then like,

00:04:11 ◼   ► oh, all this stuff we got rid of, we have to add back.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Or when they redid Final Cut.

00:04:15 ◼   ► It's a pretty common thing with Apple software.

00:04:18 ◼   ► I think it's pretty well understood Springboard

00:04:20 ◼   ► got a lot of work this year,

00:04:21 ◼   ► and so they're sort of like adding back things as they go.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Maybe they're using customer feedback as a metric.

00:04:26 ◼   ► Maybe no one really complained about this in the beta,

00:04:29 ◼   ► so it didn't get resolved,

00:04:32 ◼   ► and now people are realizing that it was out intentionally

00:04:35 ◼   ► and now they're saying something,

00:04:36 ◼   ► so Apple's prioritizing it.

00:04:37 ◼   ► I think that sort of workflow would be really interesting to have a view into, but I'm glad

00:04:43 ◼   ► it's coming back because I don't use reachability very much, but I can imagine that people who

00:04:47 ◼   ► do, and we heard from lots of people who do, that this is a big part of it.

00:04:52 ◼   ► So I'm glad to see that they're going to be bringing it back for those users.

00:04:55 ◼   ► Me too.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I think Myke has a point about that something is going on with Springboard because

00:05:00 ◼   ► even if you look at the second beta of iOS 11.1 and the way that they brought back the

00:05:05 ◼   ► the 3D touch gesture to invoke the app switcher.

00:05:08 ◼   ► It's obviously different from the previous version

00:05:11 ◼   ► and it's kind of inspired by the iPhone 10

00:05:14 ◼   ► in that not only can you press longer

00:05:17 ◼   ► to open the full app switcher,

00:05:19 ◼   ► but you can press slightly and then swipe

00:05:21 ◼   ► to just navigate between apps,

00:05:22 ◼   ► which is kind of inspired by the same gesture

00:05:25 ◼   ► on the iPhone 10.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And it seems to me like they're sort of trying

00:05:28 ◼   ► to rewrite the entire stack to make sure

00:05:31 ◼   ► that it's somehow consistent between different iPhones.

00:05:34 ◼   ► even if of course on the iPhone 10 it's all gestures

00:05:36 ◼   ► and on this, you know, on the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8

00:05:39 ◼   ► it's still 3D touch and the home button.

00:05:41 ◼   ► But I think they're sort of rewriting that for consistency,

00:05:44 ◼   ► which explains why they didn't have the time to do so

00:05:46 ◼   ► this summer with the 11 beta phase.

00:05:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can buy that, so.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Moving on to another iOS feature,

00:05:56 ◼   ► do not disturb was a big topic last week.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Kyle pointed out that you can have

00:06:01 ◼   ► do not disturb override for individual users.

00:06:03 ◼   ► So this is, I guess it works in conjunction

00:06:06 ◼   ► with the favorites list or sort of on top

00:06:08 ◼   ► of the favorites list.

00:06:10 ◼   ► You can allow someone to be in that emergency bypass list.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I don't know if this is new in 11, but it's there.

00:06:18 ◼   ► He pointed it out.

00:06:19 ◼   ► So I'm gonna say that it's new and that he discovered it.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - How ugly is that UI?

00:06:25 ◼   ► - It's the worst.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - It's so bad. - Look at that little

00:06:26 ◼   ► popover.

00:06:27 ◼   ► - It's like you're looking at the contact entry, right,

00:06:29 ◼   ► in case you can't see the picture.

00:06:32 ◼   ► and you hit where it says ringtone and then like a mini, I don't even know what you'd

00:06:37 ◼   ► call it, like a mini scrollable list pops up in a popover, it's a really just not good

00:06:42 ◼   ► looking PC UI. There's so many lines, alright, none of the lines match up, right, obviously,

00:06:48 ◼   ► because it just, yeah, it's bad, it's bad news. But it's there if you want it. It's

00:06:51 ◼   ► a good feature to have, it means that like you don't have to have your doctor in your

00:06:55 ◼   ► favourites list, for example, right? Because I don't need that. But now you can do that.

00:07:00 ◼   ► But now you can set them as an individual.

00:07:03 ◼   ► We also got some feedback from Maurice and JXPX777

00:07:07 ◼   ► on Twitter that the old Sony Ericsson phones had

00:07:11 ◼   ► Do Not Disturb based on context as early as 2005.

00:07:15 ◼   ► So you could set up profiles, like home, meeting, et cetera.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And the phone would automatically

00:07:21 ◼   ► switch to the meeting profile, for instance,

00:07:23 ◼   ► when you had an appointment on your calendar

00:07:25 ◼   ► and then switch back at the end.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Basically, the exact thing we talked about,

00:07:28 ◼   ► Sony was crushing this game in 2005.

00:07:32 ◼   ► This makes me quite sad that in 2017 my iPhone can't do this.

00:07:36 ◼   ► But there you go, Sony Ericsson once again leading the way.

00:07:38 ◼   ► - Is that once again?

00:07:39 ◼   ► Is that once again?

00:07:40 ◼   ► Why are we once again? - Man, those phones were awesome.

00:07:42 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:07:43 ◼   ► - They were awesome.

00:07:44 ◼   ► You never had a Sony Ericsson phone?

00:07:46 ◼   ► - I used to have Sony Ericsson Walkman phone.

00:07:48 ◼   ► - Oh. - Yeah.

00:07:50 ◼   ► - Wow. - Yeah.

00:07:51 ◼   ► It was great. - It was the precursor

00:07:53 ◼   ► to the Rocker, man.

00:07:56 ◼   ► - I think it was actually.

00:07:57 ◼   ► It was like black and orange.

00:07:59 ◼   ► W something, it was one of the W series ones.

00:08:03 ◼   ► I'll see if I can find it.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Oh, well here it is.

00:08:06 ◼   ► It's the W810.

00:08:08 ◼   ► - Wow, look at this.

00:08:10 ◼   ► - W810i, that's what I had.

00:08:13 ◼   ► - I can get one for $35 on eBay.

00:08:16 ◼   ► - Why do you want that though?

00:08:17 ◼   ► Don't start branching out into Sony Ericsson products.

00:08:20 ◼   ► - I'm gonna give it to you.

00:08:21 ◼   ► - I don't want it though.

00:08:22 ◼   ► I really don't want it.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Like it was great when I had it,

00:08:26 ◼   ► but I don't need it anymore.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Like it had a camera on it, a two megapixel

00:08:30 ◼   ► with autofocus camera, and it had some games on it as well.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Like this was the phone that I had before the iPhone.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Like this was my last phone before the iPhone.

00:08:40 ◼   ► I love this phone.

00:08:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, well yeah, of course you did

00:08:43 ◼   ► because it had cool do not disturb features.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Of course-- - I don't think

00:08:48 ◼   ► I was worried about that, but sure.

00:08:50 ◼   ► - I mean you had a lot of meetings in 2005.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Of course a bunch of Android phones can do this.

00:08:53 ◼   ► We heard from a bunch of people.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Again, it's time for Apple to do something.

00:08:56 ◼   ► That's the moral of the story here.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Come on, Apple.

00:08:58 ◼   ► It's no excuse.

00:09:00 ◼   ► - Talking about it being time to do something.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Federico, does Google Docs have drag and drop?

00:09:06 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say that in Italian,

00:09:09 ◼   ► if people can understand, no.

00:09:11 ◼   ► - Okay, great.

00:09:12 ◼   ► So if people can-- - Can you say that

00:09:13 ◼   ► more slowly and louder-- - Yeah, just so we can

00:09:15 ◼   ► make sure people can pick it up?

00:09:16 ◼   ► - Maybe even with more of an Italian accent

00:09:19 ◼   ► and pronunciation, no.

00:09:21 ◼   ► - Okay, great. - No.

00:09:22 ◼   ► So if people can translate what that means, then they'll get the answer for themselves.

00:09:26 ◼   ► It's like a treasure hunt.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Google Translate should be able to figure out that it's Italian.

00:09:32 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:09:33 ◼   ► So we do have a couple of announcements here at the end of follow up.

00:09:37 ◼   ► We will be live in Chicago on Sunday.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Unfortunately tickets are sold out, but if you have a ticket we will see you Sunday from

00:09:45 ◼   ► 6 to 8 p.m.

00:09:47 ◼   ► This is gonna actually be the first real live recording of Connected.

00:09:52 ◼   ► Like the first actual time.

00:09:53 ◼   ► What do you mean real?

00:09:54 ◼   ► Because the last time we did it, we were only all together for like 15 minutes.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:10:00 ◼   ► But that was real though.

00:10:01 ◼   ► It's not a Connected if John Syracuse is in it.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:10:04 ◼   ► And Grey and Jason and Red, everybody was in that thing.

00:10:08 ◼   ► This is gonna be the first time that the three of us sit down and do a full show with follow-up

00:10:12 ◼   ► and everything.

00:10:13 ◼   ► Oh, we're gonna do follow-up live.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Follow-up live.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Can people follow up from the audience? Is that possible?

00:10:20 ◼   ► No, absolutely not.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Silence from the audience.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Okay.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Don't want that.

00:10:24 ◼   ► I'm just asking guys, I don't need to be upset.

00:10:28 ◼   ► We're going to set that precedent now.

00:10:31 ◼   ► You can throw flowers at us at the end though. That's fine.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And Federico will allow underwear to be thrown at him too.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Wait what?

00:10:40 ◼   ► Nothing. Nothing.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Okay.

00:10:42 ◼   ► You should be there on time because there's gonna be a special opening act maybe potentially. Yep

00:10:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and

00:10:51 ◼   ► For the Friday before so Friday

00:10:53 ◼   ► October 13th, is that Friday? Okay stay at the yeah

00:10:57 ◼   ► Spooky stay of the year. We are doing a meetup at the field notes headquarters in Chicago

00:11:03 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes to a Facebook event that has all the details in it

00:11:08 ◼   ► We'd love to see you so we will be there that evening hanging out. Mm-hmm, and then we will be doing the

00:11:14 ◼   ► Live show on Sunday and all three of us will be at the release notes conference

00:11:18 ◼   ► So if you're going to release notes, be sure to say hey

00:11:20 ◼   ► Like we're gonna be Chicago for seven days. It's gonna be a fun week together. So that's

00:11:25 ◼   ► So the next show sounds exciting and people are screaming. It's because we're live not not because someone's broken in mega office

00:11:32 ◼   ► Because the people are seeing Federica everyone's just gonna start screaming. Yeah, I have I rented a fog machine

00:11:38 ◼   ► machines if Federica could come out and uh wow it's gonna be really good and a

00:11:44 ◼   ► wind machine yeah you gotta keep that hair moving you know exactly yeah yeah

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00:13:23 ◼   ► So we have a mini topic here.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk about my MacBook Pro for a second.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And Myke, I'm gonna talk about yours too.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So we both have the late 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro.

00:13:35 ◼   ► My iKey has a little piece of debris under it.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Now these keyboards are very thin,

00:13:41 ◼   ► and they're kinda loud, and I like the way they sound.

00:13:43 ◼   ► They don't feel super great.

00:13:45 ◼   ► But they seem to be very prone to failing

00:13:48 ◼   ► when they have any bit of debris or like sandwich crumb

00:13:53 ◼   ► or little microscopic piece of dust under the keyboard.

00:13:58 ◼   ► So my, the iKey basically got real spongy,

00:14:00 ◼   ► it wasn't working.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Apple has a support document on how to clean the keyboard,

00:14:06 ◼   ► basically use compressed air and hold it at 30 degrees.

00:14:09 ◼   ► It's all very, very complicated.

00:14:12 ◼   ► And it didn't work, and now my iKey actually is broken.

00:14:15 ◼   ► The bottom little brackets just like fop around.

00:14:17 ◼   ► So if I hit the key too hard to make it actually work,

00:14:22 ◼   ► then the bottom of the key flies off.

00:14:24 ◼   ► It's really not-- - Oh.

00:14:26 ◼   ► - Not awesome.

00:14:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:29 ◼   ► - So I was going to take it to the Apple Store.

00:14:32 ◼   ► I said last week that those trips come in threes.

00:14:35 ◼   ► This is the third.

00:14:37 ◼   ► - Oh. - But they couldn't guarantee

00:14:38 ◼   ► they'd have it back to me in time

00:14:40 ◼   ► for me to come to Chicago.

00:14:41 ◼   ► I need a laptop for Chicago

00:14:43 ◼   ► 'cause we have to edit a bunch of shows.

00:14:45 ◼   ► And so I am bringing, I guess,

00:14:47 ◼   ► 99% of my MacBook Pro with me next week.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And I'm very upset about it

00:14:51 ◼   ► because the keyboard is not good and it is not a good system.

00:15:01 ◼   ► As someone who's used a MacBook Air with a bunch of broken keys for a few years really,

00:15:07 ◼   ► I think you're maybe overreacting here man, it's fine.

00:15:10 ◼   ► You can keep using that computer.

00:15:13 ◼   ► I speak from experience really.

00:15:15 ◼   ► You just need to press hard on the naked logic board and it's kind of fine.

00:15:20 ◼   ► It's okay, you can see the light peeking through the computer.

00:15:24 ◼   ► It's actually kind of dope, like when Nintendo used to make the transparent Game Boy and

00:15:29 ◼   ► you could see the inside, you know?

00:15:31 ◼   ► That's basically the same visual.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Really basically, you should actually pay more to get that kind of look on your computer.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Wow.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:15:43 ◼   ► So I have an issue with my keyboard.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Everybody knows about my issue because it's the same issue that Marco had with his keyboard

00:15:50 ◼   ► because I bought the keyboard from him. And I, every now and then, I can't remember what

00:15:54 ◼   ► key it is, but it's one of the vowel keys, it's either the I or the O. It gets stuck

00:15:59 ◼   ► every now and then in the same way, right, like that you have, Stephen, but it's not

00:16:02 ◼   ► so bad, like I don't have it every single time. I probably would if I used it every

00:16:05 ◼   ► single day, right, like it would be a problem that would hit me more, but I do notice a

00:16:10 ◼   ► weirdness to the keyboard at points where it's like, oh, this doesn't feel right, like

00:16:15 ◼   ► something's lodging this. There is a problem, there is a widespread problem with these keyboards.

00:16:20 ◼   ► it's like it is a thing. There are lots of like personal reports but the amount

00:16:26 ◼   ► of people that I've known this to happen to it shows as an issue especially as

00:16:32 ◼   ► well when Apple creates like a specific k-base article for this right like it's

00:16:37 ◼   ► very specific with very specific instructions and images with Mac books

00:16:42 ◼   ► that appear to somehow be glued to somebody's disembodied arm when they

00:16:47 ◼   ► create something like this it is a an obvious problem right like hold your

00:16:53 ◼   ► Mac notebook hold your notebook your Mac notebook Mac notebook at a 75 degree

00:16:57 ◼   ► angle so it's not quite vertical use compressed air like all of this stuff I

00:17:01 ◼   ► think it shows that there's something going on there mm-hmm

00:17:05 ◼   ► it's not it's not a good situation it's it's frustrating so I'm curious with

00:17:10 ◼   ► mine because the tabs are broken if they're gonna give me grief and try to

00:17:14 ◼   ► charge me for it, which I'm not gonna take well.

00:17:17 ◼   ► But hopefully they'll be okay.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I've talked to some people who've had similar failures

00:17:22 ◼   ► and Apple basically seems to take care of them.

00:17:24 ◼   ► It's still under AppleCare obviously,

00:17:25 ◼   ► so hopefully it will be pretty painless,

00:17:28 ◼   ► but I expect to spend several days

00:17:31 ◼   ► without my laptop pretty soon because the IKEA's broken.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I can't live like you Federico, I can't do it.

00:17:36 ◼   ► I don't have the patience and wisdom that you do.

00:17:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was really not wisdom,

00:17:41 ◼   ► was just too lazy to get a new computer. But yeah, I got like, seriously, you use your

00:17:52 ◼   ► MacBook all day. And if something, I mean, I was at the beach, I was on vacation and

00:17:58 ◼   ► my iPad was bent and I drove back from my vacation to Rome just to exchange my iPad

00:18:05 ◼   ► because I just couldn't live with it. So I can imagine like if this kind of thing happened

00:18:09 ◼   ► to my main computer, I would exchange it right away, so I totally understand. It's also not

00:18:14 ◼   ► a good look. It looks ugly. And I'm so relieved that I'm now using a new MacBook Pro. I mean,

00:18:21 ◼   ► a 2015 one, but still, the MacBook Air, the corpse of the MacBook Air really is in my

00:18:27 ◼   ► closet, you know, kind of in the back so I don't see it. It's really sad. It's really

00:18:32 ◼   ► sad.

00:18:33 ◼   ► It is sad.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Let's talk about Sonos. We've been discussing the Amazon Echo a bit over the last few weeks

00:18:41 ◼   ► and we knew that this event was on the horizon. Like Sonos announced this event in like August

00:18:46 ◼   ► or something like that. And it was pretty obvious based on the invitation which was

00:18:49 ◼   ► a mouth, was the image, that they were going to be doing some kind of smart speaker stuff.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I'd assumed that it was an Amazon related thing and it is. They have a new speaker called

00:19:01 ◼   ► the One which is mostly the same hardware as their previous Play One speaker which is just

00:19:08 ◼   ► this nice little self-contained unit. Do either of you have a Play One? No, I sold mine like a year

00:19:14 ◼   ► and a half ago. Is the Play One like the one that looks like a home pod basically like a smaller

00:19:20 ◼   ► home pod? Yeah. Like the standard one? Yeah. Okay yeah I have the one in a box because we don't use

00:19:26 ◼   ► it anymore. Okay. But yes, okay, yeah. Why do you, why did you both get rid of it by the way? I'm

00:19:32 ◼   ► interested to know. Personally it just was so annoying to have to use like a separate app.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I think Silvia and I would have used the Sonos a lot more because we love the audio quality,

00:19:43 ◼   ► but being unable to share music directly from the Apple Music app was really annoying. So,

00:19:52 ◼   ► you know, it was too many steps and there was always something, you know, we needed to refresh or like to mark certain things as favorites

00:20:00 ◼   ► and the UI was really different from Apple Music and Sylvia has no time for this stuff.

00:20:04 ◼   ► She gets really upset when she has to learn new apps or new systems.

00:20:10 ◼   ► So I just got rid of it and I'm probably gonna sell it because it's, you know, it's useless in a box.

00:20:16 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe if we, and this is a topic for I guess the next episode, but if we are going to switch back to Spotify

00:20:24 ◼   ► it really depends on Silvia, what she likes best, but I think they have the Sonos playback built in now, maybe, I'm not sure.

00:20:36 ◼   ► Like you can beam wireless audio directly from the Spotify app, so I'm not sure how that works today.

00:20:43 ◼   ► Yeah, Spotify has the ability to play on speakers.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Like I think I can play on my Echo, like if it's connected.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:51 ◼   ► That's great. Like the Spotify connect thing.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I know that it works for the Echo, which we really like.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I'm not sure if it works for the Sonos Play one.

00:20:59 ◼   ► But anyway, the main problem a few months ago

00:21:03 ◼   ► was that Apple Music had no Sonos option,

00:21:07 ◼   ► which is kind of strange

00:21:08 ◼   ► because they have this partnership, right?

00:21:09 ◼   ► You can connect your Sonos to your Apple Music account.

00:21:12 ◼   ► And I assumed that eventually we would get like a Sonos option in the speaker UI of Apple Music.

00:21:18 ◼   ► But I guess with iOS 11 and with AirPlay 2 we know what's happening.

00:21:22 ◼   ► That basically Apple wants everyone to use AirPlay 2 instead of like custom integrations.

00:21:25 ◼   ► So this is probably never going to happen unless Sonos adds AirPlay 2 support.

00:21:29 ◼   ► Which I think they announced but not in the Play one.

00:21:32 ◼   ► It's they're adding it to this, to the One, along with a lot of other stuff.

00:21:37 ◼   ► But before we get to that, Stephen, why did you ditch the Sonos?

00:21:41 ◼   ► Basically the same reason as Federico.

00:21:42 ◼   ► The sound quality was great, but at least at the time,

00:21:45 ◼   ► using the app was really frustrating

00:21:46 ◼   ► and you couldn't stream anything to it,

00:21:49 ◼   ► so you couldn't listen to podcasts on it really at all.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It just didn't fit with what I wanted,

00:21:54 ◼   ► so I got rid of it and replaced it with the Echo

00:21:57 ◼   ► that we still have in the kitchen.

00:21:59 ◼   ► - So this new speaker, the One,

00:22:02 ◼   ► seems like Sonos' answer to everything

00:22:05 ◼   ► is effectively what they're doing.

00:22:07 ◼   ► So it is a Sonos and you can use it as normal

00:22:10 ◼   ► with the Sonos app and connect it to your Sonos system,

00:22:13 ◼   ► like you can do all of that.

00:22:14 ◼   ► But also it currently has the Amazon Assistant,

00:22:18 ◼   ► the Amazon Echo Assistant in it.

00:22:20 ◼   ► It's going to be getting AirPlay 2 in 2018

00:22:23 ◼   ► and the Google Assistant in 2018.

00:22:26 ◼   ► It is unclear right now whether you can run

00:22:28 ◼   ► both the Echo Assistant and the Google Assistant

00:22:32 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:22:33 ◼   ► So like if you can have one device

00:22:35 ◼   ► and just ask for different trigger words,

00:22:37 ◼   ► They haven't confirmed that anywhere that I've seen yet.

00:22:40 ◼   ► It might be a choice or it might be both.

00:22:43 ◼   ► If it's both, that is an incredibly compelling product.

00:22:46 ◼   ► It's $199 available for pre-order right now,

00:22:49 ◼   ► shipping on October 24th.

00:22:51 ◼   ► So there are things that are yet to be known, right?

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like how good are the microphones?

00:22:54 ◼   ► Are they gonna be as good as the Echo?

00:22:56 ◼   ► Like how good do the speakers actually sound?

00:22:59 ◼   ► Like everybody says that the Sonos speakers are better.

00:23:02 ◼   ► Like I mean, I don't know, I haven't experienced one,

00:23:04 ◼   ► but like it's gonna be, I think the proof is gonna be

00:23:06 ◼   ► in how it performs.

00:23:08 ◼   ► So, Stephen, I noticed that you'd put in here,

00:23:11 ◼   ► there's a note that Spotify support is coming,

00:23:14 ◼   ► it's not available right now, but it's coming,

00:23:16 ◼   ► and currently they can only use the Amazon stuff.

00:23:18 ◼   ► But you mentioned about the voice can't direct Apple Music.

00:23:22 ◼   ► - Right, so you have a couple of different things

00:23:26 ◼   ► going on with this.

00:23:28 ◼   ► So it does all the Sonos stuff it's always done.

00:23:32 ◼   ► It has the Echo Voice Lady sort of layered,

00:23:36 ◼   ► there as well and that voice assistant can do all the things that voices it can

00:23:41 ◼   ► do but it can't talk that voices it cannot talk to Spotify even though it

00:23:45 ◼   ► can on normal echo Spotify says it's coming soon like you said and that voice

00:23:50 ◼   ► lady can't talk to Apple music so the Sonos sort of in its category and its

00:23:54 ◼   ► column of things it can do can deal with Apple music like it always has to the

00:23:58 ◼   ► app but you can't tell it with your voice to do something with your Apple

00:24:02 ◼   ► Music Library and there is a, I wrote a blog post about it over the weekend, there's a

00:24:07 ◼   ► support form, a forum post about this and basically Sonos is saying yes, like we

00:24:13 ◼   ► want to do this, go ask Amazon if we can do it. Like this is sort of the problem I

00:24:17 ◼   ► have with this speaker is that because Sonos is just putting everyone, you know,

00:24:22 ◼   ► packing everyone in a little clown car of voice assistants, it's very confusing

00:24:26 ◼   ► about what you can do with different things.

00:24:29 ◼   ► And it is not on par with the HomePod,

00:24:32 ◼   ► because the HomePod you can talk to Siri

00:24:35 ◼   ► and play Apple Music.

00:24:36 ◼   ► It is not really on par with the Echo,

00:24:38 ◼   ► because you can talk to the Echo

00:24:40 ◼   ► and have it play music from Spotify.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So this kind of falls down in this area.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And for me, like if I,

00:24:47 ◼   ► like I haven't canceled my Echo pre-order,

00:24:50 ◼   ► that's still coming.

00:24:51 ◼   ► But if I wanted something like this,

00:24:55 ◼   ► I would want to be able to talk to it and have Apple Music play.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And for right now at least, and for the foreseeable future,

00:25:01 ◼   ► that's not something Sonos can do.

00:25:03 ◼   ► So here's my question then.

00:25:04 ◼   ► What does AirPlay 2 do?

00:25:06 ◼   ► Federico, if it gets AirPlay 2 functionality,

00:25:10 ◼   ► can I get it to play music?

00:25:12 ◼   ► Don't you know?

00:25:13 ◼   ► I mean, you read these.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I don't remember everything. I read it one time.

00:25:22 ◼   ► Okay, so it's basically, it builds upon the old AirPlay protocol. So it's a spec that Apple wants

00:25:30 ◼   ► apps and accessory makers to adopt. And among the main improvements there are enhanced buffering.

00:25:38 ◼   ► So let's say that you have multiple speakers around the house and you want to, you know, you

00:25:43 ◼   ► want to walk around the house. Previously AirPlay would buffer like 30 seconds of audio. So if you

00:25:49 ◼   ► walk out of AirPlay distance the audio cuts off. Now the idea is you should be

00:25:54 ◼   ► apps should be able to buffer several minutes of audio and they're basically

00:25:58 ◼   ► cached on the you know by AirPlay 2 and so you can walk around the house and the

00:26:03 ◼   ► audio doesn't cut off. So you want to take the garbage outside or whatever you

00:26:08 ◼   ► can do that and the music will keep playing. That's also the idea of

00:26:12 ◼   ► long-form playback. So apps that are music players or podcast clients or

00:26:19 ◼   ► audiobook players can mark at the API level, can say look iOS 11 we are

00:26:25 ◼   ► players of long-form audio. So whenever we are playing audio on an AirPlay 2

00:26:30 ◼   ► speaker, if a system sound comes in whether it's an iMessage notification

00:26:35 ◼   ► or a notification or a phone call, do not pause the music playing on the speakers

00:26:41 ◼   ► but separate the system audio on a different, like, put it on a different path and just play that back on the device.

00:26:48 ◼   ► The idea is that you're hosting a dinner with friends, for example, and you're playing music in the background

00:26:53 ◼   ► and then a message comes into your phone.

00:26:56 ◼   ► It doesn't lower the volume of the music or the song playing on the speakers or, you know, stuff like that.

00:27:00 ◼   ► It's really the same system that Sonos had for a long time.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Like, you can play music on the speaker and you can still receive audio on the phone.

00:27:08 ◼   ► You can even watch a YouTube video and the music keeps playing on the speakers. So that's the idea

00:27:13 ◼   ► And from my understanding I talked to Apple about this

00:27:16 ◼   ► There's a bunch of hardware makers that will need to release new hardware for this

00:27:22 ◼   ► But also a subset of existing ones that either have been working with Apple over the past few months that can issue software updates

00:27:29 ◼   ► For Apple A2. So it's a combination of both you either require new chips inside the speaker or if you have a compatible

00:27:36 ◼   ► chip inside you can release a software update, you know, I guess with iOS 11.1

00:27:41 ◼   ► I'm not sure I haven't seen Airplay 2 support in the beta yet

00:27:45 ◼   ► But that's my assumption that it's gonna launch at least before the home pod arrives

00:27:50 ◼   ► But does Airplay 2 give the third-party speakers any ability to talk to Siri by command?

00:27:57 ◼   ► I don't think so because that's what like Sonos are kind of saying in all of their press stuff

00:28:01 ◼   ► Oh, you'll be able to talk to Siri. It's like I don't know what that means yet

00:28:04 ◼   ► I don't really know what they're saying.

00:28:06 ◼   ► But if there is a way to activate Siri via this thing...

00:28:09 ◼   ► Well, okay, okay.

00:28:11 ◼   ► I understand what they're going for here.

00:28:13 ◼   ► So I should add that AirPlay 2 speakers

00:28:17 ◼   ► are also a special type of device

00:28:20 ◼   ► in your HomeKit configuration.

00:28:22 ◼   ► So you can say to Siri stuff like,

00:28:25 ◼   ► "Play Oasis in my kitchen."

00:28:28 ◼   ► And it should be able to understand.

00:28:31 ◼   ► But you need to say it to a different device though, right?

00:28:33 ◼   ► like you're saying it to your watch or your phone or your iPad, you're not saying it to the Sonos speaker itself.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Exactly, because it would have to run iOS software inside the speaker to do that.

00:28:43 ◼   ► You know?

00:28:44 ◼   ► Alright.

00:28:45 ◼   ► So yeah, I guess that's what they're going for.

00:28:47 ◼   ► They're gonna...

00:28:47 ◼   ► Once you have an Airplay 2 speaker, it's gonna show up into the Home app

00:28:51 ◼   ► and you can assign it to a specific room in your HomeKit configuration

00:28:55 ◼   ► and you can talk to Siri on your iOS device or Apple Watch and

00:29:00 ◼   ► ask him to ask her to play music somewhere else.

00:29:03 ◼   ► So my feeling about this Sonos device is like

00:29:07 ◼   ► situation is a little rocky right now because there's a bunch of like questions around it.

00:29:13 ◼   ► But if it does end up with the Echo and Google Assistant and the Airplay 2 stuff all in there

00:29:19 ◼   ► and it works as expected, it could be a really interesting device, right? Like if I could use

00:29:24 ◼   ► both assistants, I could use the Echo to do all of the stuff that I normally do with it.

00:29:28 ◼   ► I could use the Google Assistant if I had like a complex question because it has the

00:29:32 ◼   ► ability to search Google.

00:29:34 ◼   ► I could get like a Chromecast so I can do all of the fun stuff that you can do when

00:29:37 ◼   ► you have a Chromecast and a Google Home.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Right, like all of that stuff is very interesting and then with the ability to be able to play

00:29:43 ◼   ► stuff from my Apple Music on the devices via HomeKit, like that is a compelling product

00:29:49 ◼   ► if it can do all of that stuff.

00:29:51 ◼   ► Like if next year it's doing all of that, like that's a product that I want to own because

00:29:55 ◼   ► because that is a kind of omnivorous service, right?

00:29:59 ◼   ► Like it's an omnivorous box,

00:30:00 ◼   ► such as like pulling in all of these services

00:30:03 ◼   ► and making them available to me

00:30:04 ◼   ► so I can take advantages of all of the things

00:30:06 ◼   ► that they're each good at.

00:30:08 ◼   ► - So I think this is really compelling.

00:30:10 ◼   ► My only fear, I guess, long-term maybe,

00:30:13 ◼   ► is that by embracing everyone,

00:30:17 ◼   ► Sonos does not get to make any kind of decision here.

00:30:21 ◼   ► So let's say, for example, that in two years,

00:30:24 ◼   ► Amazon or whatever decides,

00:30:27 ◼   ► we are not going to open up this specific API

00:30:31 ◼   ► to third-party speakers.

00:30:33 ◼   ► If you want to, let's say that Amazon now

00:30:36 ◼   ► can generate a playlist for your day,

00:30:39 ◼   ► and Amazon decides, well, this feature,

00:30:41 ◼   ► the Amazon Daily Playlist,

00:30:43 ◼   ► is not gonna be available on third-party speakers,

00:30:46 ◼   ► but you can only get it on the Amazon Echo

00:30:47 ◼   ► for some fake reason,

00:30:50 ◼   ► like we need to tie it to the Echo hardware or something.

00:30:53 ◼   ► But my concern is that I wonder if eventually these companies,

00:30:59 ◼   ► Apple and Amazon and Google,

00:31:01 ◼   ► will want to push people to buy their own hardware

00:31:05 ◼   ► and their own speakers and will artificially limit

00:31:09 ◼   ► third-party speakers that integrate over the API,

00:31:12 ◼   ► like Sonos, and cut off access to some specific features.

00:31:15 ◼   ► We are already seeing this with the Amazon platform

00:31:18 ◼   ► because there is the Amazon Echo Web Services API

00:31:23 ◼   ► and developers can do basically everything with it.

00:31:26 ◼   ► They can use skills, they can issue commands,

00:31:28 ◼   ► they can control your home accessories

00:31:31 ◼   ► and there's a bunch of iPhone apps

00:31:32 ◼   ► that replicate the Amazon Echo experience,

00:31:34 ◼   ► but on your iPhone.

00:31:36 ◼   ► The problem is that Amazon is limiting

00:31:38 ◼   ► some of the API features like music playback, for example,

00:31:42 ◼   ► so that you cannot listen to music

00:31:43 ◼   ► over the Amazon Echo Web Services on your iPhone.

00:31:46 ◼   ► You can only do so on the Amazon Echo speakers.

00:31:49 ◼   ► And that's my concern that down the road,

00:31:51 ◼   ► if everybody says, well, the Sonos one is just better

00:31:56 ◼   ► because you can buy one speaker, it sounds great,

00:31:59 ◼   ► and you get all the services.

00:32:00 ◼   ► And then maybe all these other companies will wake up

00:32:03 ◼   ► and say, why should we let Sonos access all the things

00:32:07 ◼   ► that we should control on our own speakers?

00:32:10 ◼   ► And so they're gonna start saying,

00:32:12 ◼   ► well, this feature is not available over the API yet,

00:32:15 ◼   ► we're sorry, buy the Amazon Echo, buy the HomePod or buy the Google Home, whatever it's called.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and I saw you tweet something a couple of days ago, which is also interesting to me,

00:32:27 ◼   ► it's like, what is Sonos' root here?

00:32:30 ◼   ► Like they can differentiate on hardware for now, but like for how long?

00:32:34 ◼   ► Right. You know, there's the HomePod is coming, which is supposed to sound great.

00:32:39 ◼   ► We're going to talk about the Google Home Max in a little bit, right, which is supposed to

00:32:42 ◼   ► sound great and they're on the high end but once these companies start to like

00:32:46 ◼   ► once Apple and once Amazon and once Google start to really get a foothold

00:32:51 ◼   ► into making great sounding speakers if they start pushing that down the line

00:32:55 ◼   ► and making them cheaper like where does Sonos live at that point and can they

00:32:59 ◼   ► survive? Yeah it's it's easier to make a good sounding speaker than it is to make

00:33:05 ◼   ► a good voice assistant people care about. Hence why there is no Sonos voice

00:33:08 ◼   ► assistant right that's why they're integrating everybody else's but yeah

00:33:13 ◼   ► the risk is I mean it's already showing right like it's limited because why

00:33:17 ◼   ► isn't why isn't Spotify there right like if it can integrate with everything that

00:33:22 ◼   ► Amazon echo can why is there no Spotify like that is a chink in the armor before

00:33:26 ◼   ► the things even been released so yeah I've got my eye on it right like if it

00:33:31 ◼   ► turns out to be the product that they're saying it will be it will be a great

00:33:35 ◼   ► product but we'll have to see for how long that would last. I'm pleased to see

00:33:40 ◼   ► they're doing something. Honestly I thought they would have been bought by

00:33:43 ◼   ► now but I think maybe nobody needs or wants them anymore. Again I mean what

00:33:48 ◼   ► they solve is not... I mean they have impressive products, they're nice people

00:33:52 ◼   ► but what they're doing is the easier side of things. But I do want them

00:33:57 ◼   ► to succeed because I do think it's really interesting that they're sort of

00:34:00 ◼   ► combining all of these things. But I do think over you know the history of every

00:34:06 ◼   ► you know consumer technology platform there's two desktop OS's. As of this week

00:34:12 ◼   ► Windows Phone is now like officially not a thing anymore. There are two mobile

00:34:19 ◼   ► operating systems and I kind of think they're gonna be you know right now

00:34:23 ◼   ► there's three sort of voice assistant systems you have Amazon Google and Apple

00:34:27 ◼   ► and you know maybe this is the first time that three stick maybe not but I

00:34:32 ◼   ► don't know if there's room for somebody who kind of straddles the line does both

00:34:36 ◼   ► or does you know some combination of all three so it's it's a new ground it's new

00:34:41 ◼   ► territory I hope they do well but I I'm gonna say other reviews do I want to see

00:34:45 ◼   ► if they can make it all work before I jump in I'm not pre-ordering this thing

00:34:48 ◼   ► at this point for for what they know for it I'm not pre-ordering it either but I

00:34:52 ◼   ► I do have my eye on it intensely.

00:34:54 ◼   ► All right, today's show is also brought to you by Bombfell,

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00:36:56 ◼   ► Google News, the Google Home, Google Home Mini.

00:37:00 ◼   ► It is a smaller Google Home like the Echo Dot.

00:37:04 ◼   ► This is one of the products that was announced in Google's big kind of.

00:37:08 ◼   ► I guess it's the pixel event, right?

00:37:11 ◼   ► Like that's what it is now.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Like it is the hardware event, you know, like the made by Google hardware event.

00:37:16 ◼   ► But I guess over time, this is going to become the pixel event.

00:37:21 ◼   ► I think so.

00:37:23 ◼   ► I think they're going to do like what Apple does the phone.

00:37:26 ◼   ► eventually be the heart of it and have this other stuff, you know this year like Google home and

00:37:31 ◼   ► Pixel I think sort of shared time kind of more evenly

00:37:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but I think if the the phone takes off it will become the phone event and the other stuff falls in the line

00:37:40 ◼   ► So the Google home mini it is

00:37:44 ◼   ► This I said it's a small one cycle size of a donut

00:37:47 ◼   ► It has the fabric covering on it that apparently all home technology has to have now

00:37:52 ◼   ► I don't know what happened like is this the thing that happened? Why does all

00:37:57 ◼   ► smart home technology have a fabric on it? I think it looks nice because it looks

00:38:01 ◼   ► softer and more gentle and not like a machined piece of you know black plastic

00:38:07 ◼   ► or aluminum sitting in your kitchen. It feels more organic. I like it. Do you have any

00:38:10 ◼   ► other items in your home that have fabric on them that sit out? That's a good

00:38:16 ◼   ► point. Like it doesn't blend in it's just it's such a different type of design.

00:38:21 ◼   ► It's friendlier, you know, more approachable. You won't touch it.

00:38:25 ◼   ► I don't get it either. When I see this device, it's constantly...

00:38:29 ◼   ► I'm always thinking that I'll either drop coffee or

00:38:33 ◼   ► sauce on it and it's gonna look ugly for some reason. Like, it

00:38:37 ◼   ► attracts liquid. That's my thinking. Like, I don't

00:38:41 ◼   ► get it. So, like, I have my Echo in the kitchen, right? It's on the kitchen counter. It's kind

00:38:45 ◼   ► of gross now, right? Like, because it's just in and around me cooking all the time.

00:38:49 ◼   ► time. Like, so even just odors, odors would be absorbed.

00:38:53 ◼   ► What are you doing in your kitchen?

00:38:54 ◼   ► I'm cooking, Steven, is what I'm doing. So you know, like I've got things in the

00:38:57 ◼   ► pan and oils going all over the place and you know, like it's just, I'm just cooking.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Like it sits basically really kind of next to the stove top is where we have it. But

00:39:07 ◼   ► like just, just odors, right? So like smells would be retained by the fabric. I don't

00:39:11 ◼   ► know. It just seems like a strange thing. Like I say, I understand why all of these

00:39:16 ◼   ► products have this kind of soft fluffiness to them, but all it is is like that's just

00:39:23 ◼   ► what smart home things look like now. So like it hasn't really solved the problem I think

00:39:27 ◼   ► that they're going for.

00:39:28 ◼   ► You're going to have to put your Echo in the washer, Myke.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Like at least the Google ones come off, right? So like you could like the home one, the Google

00:39:38 ◼   ► home ones, like you can twist that base off and put on a new one. I guess you could clean

00:39:42 ◼   ► it maybe but it's like the echo the echoes will soft the home pods got this

00:39:46 ◼   ► soft covering the Google Home Mini has got this soft covering everything's got

00:39:50 ◼   ► it it looks like all of our home devices are going to the gym it's got that thing

00:39:55 ◼   ► around it right like I don't think that that's a hard material I think it's like

00:39:59 ◼   ► in my brain that was like metal but I guess I'm looking at the pictures yeah

00:40:03 ◼   ► that's like looks like a mesh to me like a like a cloth mesh type thing yeah so

00:40:07 ◼   ► the Google Home Mini is $49 so it it is the echo dot right like it's Google's

00:40:12 ◼   ► echo dot. Totally. It does look cool like it looks it it looks nice right like it

00:40:18 ◼   ► does look nice the the mute switch looks silly like the where the mute switch is

00:40:23 ◼   ► and that doesn't seem great I watched MKBHD's video of it today so you can ask

00:40:28 ◼   ► the Google home to mute right so you can like via voice you can say please mute

00:40:33 ◼   ► but then to unmute it if you want to use the switch you have to put the switch

00:40:37 ◼   ► into the mute position and then into the non muted position to get it to unmute

00:40:41 ◼   ► which is not ideal.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Not great.

00:40:46 ◼   ► Right? Like, maybe just take away the ability to do it by voice, I don't know, or like make it a button rather than a switch because then the button state could change because it's not, you know, it's not physical if you're just pressing the button.

00:40:59 ◼   ► But yeah, I just thought that that's really strange. But as always MKBHD did a great video on it so you can go and watch it.

00:41:05 ◼   ► and watch it. This is an interesting product. One of the things that

00:41:11 ◼   ► they're doing is, we're gonna talk about the Pixel phones in a minute, they're

00:41:14 ◼   ► giving these away to people for a limited time. Like if you buy a Pixel

00:41:17 ◼   ► phone you just get one of these. I can't believe that Google, be Amazon, are giving

00:41:22 ◼   ► away their small home assistant for free. Like the whole, for such a long time I

00:41:28 ◼   ► have been wondering when Amazon gonna give Echo Dots to Prime customers?

00:41:32 ◼   ► Just just they throw them out into the into the ether like a Mardi Gras, you know

00:41:37 ◼   ► They throw beads of bead necklaces

00:41:39 ◼   ► Just like when you sign up right you sign up for prime you give them like

00:41:42 ◼   ► $120 or whatever and they just give you one right like I'm really surprised that they haven't worked that out

00:41:49 ◼   ► Yeah, because that is such an Amazon thing. It's like that your echo plus comes with a hue bulb, right? Like yeah

00:41:54 ◼   ► That's that's perfectly Amazon. But so I'm really surprised that Google

00:42:00 ◼   ► Beat them for that like to just give it to you when you get to get one of the expensive new shiny phones

00:42:06 ◼   ► Well, the problem is that you need to get a pixel to the

00:42:10 ◼   ► Give it away

00:42:13 ◼   ► Why is that a problem Federica? No, no, give him the ground to troll. All right, so we can shoot him down

00:42:18 ◼   ► I'm just saying that

00:42:20 ◼   ► It in the past. It wasn't easy to get a Google pixel phone

00:42:24 ◼   ► We've all seen the problems with people, you know, you go to the website

00:42:27 ◼   ► there's not even an option to buy a Google Pixel phone.

00:42:30 ◼   ► - They changed that.

00:42:31 ◼   ► They changed that.

00:42:32 ◼   ► - Okay, so we'll see if it goes well.

00:42:34 ◼   ► - So not only have they said,

00:42:36 ◼   ► not only have they said that they are going to

00:42:38 ◼   ► do a better job,

00:42:39 ◼   ► like they were like mea culpa on the stage, right?

00:42:41 ◼   ► Like we did not do a good enough job of making these.

00:42:45 ◼   ► We're making more,

00:42:45 ◼   ► but they did also make a change to the Play Store,

00:42:47 ◼   ► which is dumb, it should have been the case.

00:42:48 ◼   ► If it's out of stock, you just put your order in

00:42:51 ◼   ► and they'll ship it to you when they got it.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Previously, it was just like, no dice, which was dumb.

00:42:55 ◼   ► It's a silly way to deal with things.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But there you go, you can do it.

00:42:59 ◼   ► If you want to, you can go on their website,

00:43:01 ◼   ► and if they're out of stock, you can just buy one,

00:43:04 ◼   ► and then they will send it to you.

00:43:05 ◼   ► But yes, I get your point, Federico.

00:43:07 ◼   ► They were difficult to buy.

00:43:08 ◼   ► So they also unveiled the Google Home Max,

00:43:14 ◼   ► which sits on the top end, right?

00:43:16 ◼   ► This is the HomePod competitor.

00:43:20 ◼   ► It has two 4.5-inch woofers,

00:43:23 ◼   ► and what Google is calling room-filling sound,

00:43:25 ◼   ► and they spent a bit of time talking about this.

00:43:27 ◼   ► So they're doing some stuff to adapt and form the audio

00:43:30 ◼   ► to fit the speaker's placement in the room.

00:43:32 ◼   ► So it understands the room that you're in, right?

00:43:34 ◼   ► Sounds like the home pod for this.

00:43:36 ◼   ► But then also, like they were saying stuff,

00:43:37 ◼   ► like if you put it on a, if you take the speaker,

00:43:39 ◼   ► you put it on a shelf and the shelf is next to the wall

00:43:41 ◼   ► and you put it in the corner,

00:43:42 ◼   ► you kind of give it a minute and you hear the audio change

00:43:45 ◼   ► because it's kind of scanning the room,

00:43:46 ◼   ► it's understanding where it is,

00:43:47 ◼   ► and then it kind of forms the audio to match the room stuff.

00:43:52 ◼   ► So they're also, as you can imagine,

00:43:54 ◼   ► put in all of their machine learning abilities into this.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Like, yeah, it's kind of this big effort, right,

00:44:02 ◼   ► that Google is doing as they always are.

00:44:04 ◼   ► You know, they say machine learning

00:44:05 ◼   ► a million times on stage,

00:44:07 ◼   ► and they're kind of building this speaker

00:44:09 ◼   ► to try and do its best to fill any and all rooms.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Google also showed two of these being used together,

00:44:16 ◼   ► which is a question that people have asked a bunch

00:44:19 ◼   ► that I've seen about the HomePod.

00:44:21 ◼   ► like can you use multiple home parts to get stereo sound? Well we don't know the answer

00:44:25 ◼   ► to that yet I don't think. Did Apple talk about that?

00:44:30 ◼   ► They're silently googling in the background.

00:44:32 ◼   ► Okay thank you for doing that. But the Google Home Macs, they explicitly showed you could

00:44:37 ◼   ► do it. They also did something which I kind of like, it has an audio jack so they show

00:44:40 ◼   ► it with a turntable. It's like you can listen to your fancy hipster records and then it

00:44:45 ◼   ► will still do all of the room filling sound stuff, right, so it does its best to fill

00:44:49 ◼   ► the room but you're able to play with the setup that you have which I kind of liked.

00:44:55 ◼   ► $399 US only for now shipping in December. So this is $50 more than the HomePod which

00:45:01 ◼   ► is a curious decision. Mind boggling really. But you do get a free year of YouTube Red.

00:45:08 ◼   ► There you go. That's some of that money. Apple I don't think are giving away Apple

00:45:13 ◼   ► Music or at least I haven't said right? I feel like they should do that. You should

00:45:16 ◼   ► get like a year of Apple Music if you buy a HomePod I think.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Yeah, can you imagine that?

00:45:20 ◼   ► That should just be a thing that you get.

00:45:21 ◼   ► No, you get a year of Apple Music but you can only listen to U2. That's all it is.

00:45:27 ◼   ► A year of U… They give YouTube red and Apple is just like U2 red and that's what they

00:45:32 ◼   ► get, right?

00:45:33 ◼   ► Oh God.

00:45:34 ◼   ► That's the way that they…

00:45:35 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Come on.

00:45:37 ◼   ► It's good, Myke.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Give it to me. Give it to me. It was good.

00:45:39 ◼   ► No, you can have it. It's good.

00:45:40 ◼   ► No. No. I disagree. But yeah, they should totally give it away. Especially because,

00:45:44 ◼   ► I think it's important with these speakers that they create a locking effect.

00:45:50 ◼   ► Because I struggle to imagine that iPhone users are really into the Apple ecosystem.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Maybe you own an iPad, an iPhone, an Apple Watch.

00:46:00 ◼   ► And I struggle to imagine that you might want to buy a Google Home Max.

00:46:03 ◼   ► Even if it looks great, I just think that we're now approaching this stage where speakers are the next step in the locking effect of these companies.

00:46:13 ◼   ► And so to further that lock-in, I think it totally makes sense to bundle up some kind of subscription of your own services.

00:46:21 ◼   ► So I think Google has been extremely clever here in bundling up YouTube Red.

00:46:25 ◼   ► And I think Apple should do the same with Apple Music.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Not even iTunes credit, not even App Store credit, but just six months or a year of Apple Music.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Unlimited, you know, individual accounts, not families.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Maybe even a family plan, I don't know, but I think they should consider the option.

00:46:42 ◼   ► I don't know if this exists outside of the UK like in other countries

00:46:46 ◼   ► But like there are certain networks that if you buy the iPhone from they will give you six months of Apple music for free

00:46:51 ◼   ► So like yeah, this is do we review have you seen this like in Italy or in the US? Yes. Yep. Yep

00:46:58 ◼   ► Yep, Steve indeed. Does this happen in the US to your knowledge? I mean t-mobile's while we tried it, but I don't know for sure

00:47:04 ◼   ► Yeah, but like so, you know

00:47:06 ◼   ► It's not outside of Apple to give away

00:47:08 ◼   ► Apple music subscriptions for a bit and and I do I really do feel like if you are spending

00:47:14 ◼   ► $350 on a speaker for a music service the music service should you should get it for free for a bit, right?

00:47:22 ◼   ► Like I feel like it's not fair. Otherwise, it's like

00:47:25 ◼   ► $350 and then $9.99 a month it kind of feels like a bit of a slap in the face

00:47:31 ◼   ► So even even if it's just a limited time thing, it's cool

00:47:34 ◼   ► Like and I think a year is good for that

00:47:36 ◼   ► right? Like if you buy a HomePod I think you should get a year of Apple music

00:47:39 ◼   ► like you do with the Google Home Max. So I wanted to know if what you two think

00:47:43 ◼   ► about this product right? Like is this compelling? Have Google lost their

00:47:47 ◼   ► mind? Can they charge this amount of money for a product like this?

00:47:52 ◼   ► Like how does this compare to you guys when compared to the HomePod? Like what

00:47:58 ◼   ► do you think? I think it's fine and it depends on again what kind of ecosystem

00:48:03 ◼   ► you're into. I think what we're seeing is that all the major tech companies are now making

00:48:09 ◼   ► accessories and other kinds of artwork to build on top of the smartphone.

00:48:15 ◼   ► And so I think you know we're now seeing all these speakers come out and I just see them as

00:48:20 ◼   ► extensions of the main device that you currently prefer. So Android users will probably be

00:48:27 ◼   ► interested in the Google Home line and Apple people will likely want to buy the HomePod

00:48:34 ◼   ► and everybody else who maybe likes to tinker more and to have more integrations will probably

00:48:39 ◼   ► go for the Amazon Echo line of products.

00:48:44 ◼   ► I think it makes total sense from Google's perspective to upsell their most loyal customers

00:48:51 ◼   ► on a speaker.

00:48:53 ◼   ► I have no particular opinion on this because I just think it makes sense. Everybody's doing it and

00:49:00 ◼   ► I think I will get a HomePod

00:49:03 ◼   ► just because I think we're going to stick with Apple Music and we

00:49:07 ◼   ► own multiple HomeKit accessories and we tend to use Siri a bunch and

00:49:14 ◼   ► I just feel like the speaker shouldn't be intended as a Bluetooth speaker anymore

00:49:20 ◼   ► But these smart speakers are just part of the ecosystem that you that you're part of and so I

00:49:26 ◼   ► would not buy a Google Home speaker as my primary kitchen or living room speaker as an iPhone user because I think you will

00:49:34 ◼   ► somehow you will still get the best usage out of these speakers if

00:49:38 ◼   ► You're on the native platform that they were designed for even if they support Bluetooth or audio jack connections

00:49:48 ◼   ► The tight integration between the smartphone and the web services and the company that makes them all I think is key to understand the speakers

00:49:55 ◼   ► What about you Steven to something like the Google home max interest you do you think that Google are going down a good path I

00:50:03 ◼   ► Think they are and I think if you were in that

00:50:06 ◼   ► ecosystem already then this is a

00:50:09 ◼   ► Great product. I mean if you want to have the Google assistant, it's really this and you and you want good sound quality

00:50:17 ◼   ► it's this or that Sonos speaker we just spoke about.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And this seems like a surefire win over the Sonos.

00:50:24 ◼   ► Now, for someone, you know, maybe like me,

00:50:27 ◼   ► who's in the Apple League system and pays for Apple Music,

00:50:30 ◼   ► I'm not particularly interested in it, but I'm glad it exists.

00:50:32 ◼   ► I'm glad those people have an opportunity

00:50:34 ◼   ► to have something high-end with all the smarts built into it.

00:50:38 ◼   ► I think this is a, you know,

00:50:40 ◼   ► a growing corner of the smart speaker market.

00:50:43 ◼   ► You know, really it's,

00:50:45 ◼   ► to go back to the previous conversation,

00:50:46 ◼   ► Only Sonos has been here before in the high end, expensive,

00:50:49 ◼   ► high quality end of things.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And by the end of the year,

00:50:52 ◼   ► Apple and Google are gonna have moved in.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And I'm curious to see if Amazon follows suit at some point.

00:50:59 ◼   ► The new Echo's supposed to sound better,

00:51:00 ◼   ► but it's not one of these things.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - No, it's not.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - So I think it's a super exciting time

00:51:04 ◼   ► for this corner of the market,

00:51:06 ◼   ► and it'll be fun to see how it plays out.

00:51:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like for me, I'm like, oof, Google,

00:51:10 ◼   ► that's a really expensive speaker.

00:51:12 ◼   ► But I feel the same about the HomePod as well.

00:51:14 ◼   ► I don't think that Google are doing something silly here, because I think that they are

00:51:18 ◼   ► very clearly, with the made by Google line, positioning themselves as a premium hardware

00:51:23 ◼   ► maker.

00:51:24 ◼   ► This is the thing that they have, this whole thing is about.

00:51:26 ◼   ► They are putting the effort in, they bought a ton of people away from HTC, they want to

00:51:31 ◼   ► make a real shot at this, and all reports say that their stuff is good, their stuff

00:51:36 ◼   ► is really good.

00:51:38 ◼   ► So this is just another thing where I think they're just pushing in and being like, "We

00:51:42 ◼   ► can do this."

00:51:43 ◼   ► "We had the people to do this, we can make an amazing speaker and we can charge you $400

00:51:47 ◼   ► for it."

00:51:48 ◼   ► And I'm kind of just like, "I don't know if these things are really worth that amount

00:51:52 ◼   ► of money," but I feel the same about the HomePod.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I have no desire to get one of those because I think $350 for a speaker with Siri that

00:51:59 ◼   ► plays Apple Music is way too much money.

00:52:03 ◼   ► I don't think that that's enough.

00:52:06 ◼   ► If anything, I feel that maybe the Google Home Max might be a better deal because it

00:52:12 ◼   ► has a really competent assistant fully featured inside when right now what we've seen is it's

00:52:17 ◼   ► only most of Siri that's going in there and even then like I personally don't find Siri

00:52:23 ◼   ► to be that helpful but every time I've ever used Google the Google Assistant has been

00:52:27 ◼   ► great I don't have a ton of experience with the Google Assistant but at least the things

00:52:32 ◼   ► that it can do seem to be a little bit more full full featured than what Siri can do because

00:52:36 ◼   ► it has Google search built into it so I don't know your mileage may vary right but and I

00:52:41 ◼   ► feel like you kind of don't want the Google Home Max unless you have other things in that ecosystem.

00:52:46 ◼   ► You know, we're talking about this for the entire show, right? Like, these products make sense if

00:52:50 ◼   ► you're in the ecosystem already. So if like you decide that you want all of your home assistants

00:52:55 ◼   ► to be Google Homes and you already have like a regular one, you're going to get a Mini and

00:52:58 ◼   ► you're going to get a Max. Great names, by the way. Mini and Max, that's great. Then this is

00:53:04 ◼   ► probably a good product for the front room, right? If you want to have a nice music device.

00:53:10 ◼   ► But that's on you.

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00:54:50 ◼   ► So the Pixel 2. This was the main event. Two sizes of the Pixel 2, same as before. Got

00:54:56 ◼   ► a 5 inch phone which is called the Pixel 2 and then a 6 inch phone which is called the

00:55:00 ◼   ► the Pixel 2 XL. It's very confusing that they called them both the Pixel 2 and one of them

00:55:06 ◼   ► the Pixel 2. This is a very confusing thing for me. Like when they were talking on stage

00:55:11 ◼   ► it was like I don't understand what we're talking about anymore.

00:55:14 ◼   ► What do you mean? That's exactly what Apple does. iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus.

00:55:19 ◼   ► They're not like "these are the iPhone 7, here's the iPhone 7", right?

00:55:24 ◼   ► I don't, okay. Carry on.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Apple don't call the entire, oh yeah, maybe they do.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Well, I feel like Apple do a better job on stage

00:55:33 ◼   ► of differentiating them than Google did.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - I will give you that, yeah.

00:55:36 ◼   ► - And I guess it's 'cause they have more experience with it,

00:55:38 ◼   ► but they kind of very quickly went into calling

00:55:41 ◼   ► the five inch and the six inch,

00:55:43 ◼   ► which is not what they are, right?

00:55:44 ◼   ► Like it's not the product names.

00:55:46 ◼   ► When I was watching it, I was finding myself

00:55:48 ◼   ► getting confused even in taking my notes

00:55:50 ◼   ► as to what's going where.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I feel like maybe they need to spend a bit more time

00:55:54 ◼   ► firming that up on stage.

00:55:55 ◼   ► The Pixel 2 doesn't look good to me. It is, looks old. It still has the regular large

00:56:01 ◼   ► bezels. And the bezels, I mean I have to get like a measurement here to check, but the

00:56:06 ◼   ► bezels always look bigger on the Pixel than the iPhone. And I don't think that it looks

00:56:11 ◼   ► very good. The Pixel 2, I would be, I don't know why people necessarily would want that

00:56:16 ◼   ► phone over a Galaxy Note or S8 I should say. That doesn't make sense to me. The main event,

00:56:22 ◼   ► the one that I like the look of is the Pixel 2 XL. It still has bezels, but it doesn't

00:56:27 ◼   ► have the huge forehead and chin. They're thin. This is also the look. The way this phone

00:56:32 ◼   ► looks is the way that people who hate the iPhone X notch want the iPhone X to look.

00:56:40 ◼   ► It's just a straight line right at the top. I think this looks boring.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Yeah, yes it does. I agree with you.

00:56:47 ◼   ► So I look at this phone, I look at the XL, and it doesn't have the allure to me in design

00:56:54 ◼   ► like the Samsung phones or the iPhone X. They have a thing to their screens that make them

00:57:00 ◼   ► different and kind of exciting, like the infinity display and the notch. So you've got these

00:57:05 ◼   ► looks to them which are distinctive. So I look at the Pixel 2 XL and I'm like, "Okay,

00:57:10 ◼   ► there's a big screen there." But it kind of just looks like a big screen on a phone. It

00:57:14 ◼   ► It doesn't strike me as here is something which is interesting.

00:57:19 ◼   ► It's kind of just like we did the thing that you were expecting us to do and we've done

00:57:24 ◼   ► that.

00:57:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see that and I think that they try to make up for that with some other things

00:57:33 ◼   ► in the design that are interesting.

00:57:35 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I mean this phone is trying to be I think a bunch of different things.

00:57:44 ◼   ► like it's trying to be a full screen, but it's also trying to have dual front firing speakers,

00:57:50 ◼   ► which means you have to have a bezel at the top and bottom, but they don't want to be Samsung's,

00:57:53 ◼   ► they don't run the screen over the edges, maybe they can't yet. But I think the back of it,

00:57:59 ◼   ► like they've got the window shade looks a lot better than last time, they have some

00:58:01 ◼   ► interesting colors. I think they're trying to distinguish this where they can, without

00:58:08 ◼   ► doing something, you know, like the notch or the infinity display,

00:58:12 ◼   ► All the essential phone, right? Like that is a more striking design.

00:58:16 ◼   ► It's something. So I don't know, I think the phone looks good, but yeah, it's not as distinctive

00:58:21 ◼   ► or as like if this was side by side with, you know, like the LG V30, I'm not sure anyone could

00:58:26 ◼   ► tell the difference. Like this is more generic looking than other phones, I think is the point.

00:58:32 ◼   ► They have a bunch of colors with names like Kinda Blue and Just Black.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I love their names.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Me too. The XL comes in one edition of them, it's two colours, it's black and white with an orange sleep/wake button.

00:58:45 ◼   ► I love it.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Me too. This is the phone I would get. Like if I was going to get one of these, I would get the black and white with the orange button.

00:58:52 ◼   ► But I know that Federico hates the orange button.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I really don't get it. Like, I don't understand why, and I'm counting Apple in this,

00:59:04 ◼   ► but why there's a need to add these colored accents to the default line of devices.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Like the red dot on the watch?

00:59:14 ◼   ► Yes, I want my devices to be as neutral and unassuming as possible.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I want them to be either plain black or plain white or just gray because I don't want colors.

00:59:25 ◼   ► I decide if I want to add colors either via a band or some stickers or a case,

00:59:30 ◼   ► But I don't understand why the default appearance of these devices needs to have these

00:59:36 ◼   ► accents that a company decides play well together. Just give me a piece of plastic

00:59:43 ◼   ► or just give me a slab of aluminum and call it a day. I don't want colors. I decide if I want to

00:59:48 ◼   ► add colors. I just don't get it. I guess I don't know. I'm turning into that guy. I just don't want

00:59:56 ◼   ► this special edition whatever. Like, it doesn't look funny or elegant to me and I want my stuff

01:00:03 ◼   ► to look elegant. And Apple is also to blame here with the Apple Watch and the Red Crown.

01:00:08 ◼   ► I thought initially that it was distinctive and it was fine, but after looking at a bunch of

01:00:13 ◼   ► pictures it really... there's no reason why it should be red. Because other people that look at

01:00:20 ◼   ► my wrist don't need to know that I have a cellular watch. It's not like I have an atomic bomb

01:00:25 ◼   ► strapped to my wrist and like people walking around me need to know look at the guy it's got

01:00:28 ◼   ► the red dot it's gonna you know better keep a distance like there's no reason why i should have

01:00:34 ◼   ► that mark on my apple watch and with the pixel too there's no reason why i should have this colored

01:00:39 ◼   ► button that's because google thinks that orange looks okay i mean orange looks awesome when i see

01:00:45 ◼   ► stuff like this i i figure that like you know you're saying about like the neutral design thing

01:00:51 ◼   ► I think maybe some designers don't want to make a device that doesn't have a thing to it, right?

01:00:56 ◼   ► It's like this is why this phone you can get it in black and white, right?

01:01:00 ◼   ► Like it's like they want to do a thing which is more than just black rectangle, you know?

01:01:05 ◼   ► But by doing this, it's the same with the red dot, I do agree that like you are making a divisive

01:01:12 ◼   ► decision which might not work out to be the best in the long run, right?

01:01:16 ◼   ► Like you are making a strong statement which means that people might not like it.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Like the blue one, the kind of blue one, that has a different blue color for the sleep/wake button,

01:01:28 ◼   ► which I think is more palatable to most people. You're already buying a blue phone,

01:01:32 ◼   ► like having it just be a slightly different shade of blue to make it stand out is whatever,

01:01:36 ◼   ► but on a black and white phone to have an orange button, like you're making a very bold decision.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean imagine this is a slippery slope, right? Imagine like now suddenly your television

01:01:47 ◼   ► as a green bezel and your expression machine as like a yellow line all around the frame

01:01:55 ◼   ► and your light bulbs are purple.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Or like your iMac has flowers on the side of it or something.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Yeah, pretty much.

01:02:05 ◼   ► We were there like 20 years ago and I guess we moved on from that.

01:02:08 ◼   ► But now add colors to whatever you think is possible.

01:02:12 ◼   ► Okay, fine.

01:02:13 ◼   ► I just don't get it.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Apple opened the door, Google, walked right in, this phone doesn't have a headphone jack.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Comes with a dongle, but no headphones.

01:02:26 ◼   ► This is the thing that's like curious to me about this decision, and a thing that I find

01:02:33 ◼   ► which is more frustrating, right?

01:02:34 ◼   ► Like they took away the headphone jack, but they haven't really given you all of the options.

01:02:39 ◼   ► They should be including USB-C headphones in the box, but they don't.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And I find that kind of like a frustrating thing.

01:02:47 ◼   ► But I don't think the previous Pixel had headphones with it either.

01:02:51 ◼   ► I don't remember.

01:02:52 ◼   ► You can correct me if I'm wrong.

01:02:54 ◼   ► The dongle solves part of the problem but it doesn't really do all of it.

01:02:58 ◼   ► You're saying to people, "If I use a dongle I'll get USB-C headphones."

01:03:02 ◼   ► And I don't even know how many of those exist.

01:03:04 ◼   ► It's probably like as many lightning headphones exist which are not many and you probably

01:03:07 ◼   ► don't want those.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Their dongle costs $20 if you need another one.

01:03:12 ◼   ► is twice the price of Apple's dongle. Headphone jacks, they're like, this is it, they're gone,

01:03:17 ◼   ► they're dead. They're raking in those dongle dollars. You know, and it's like, it's easy to

01:03:24 ◼   ► say, like, basically a massive part of Google's ad campaign last year was making fun of the fact that

01:03:30 ◼   ► the headphone jack was gone on the iPhone, and now they've done it. Okay, this is how it works,

01:03:38 ◼   ► right? Like this is just how it works. Like they took a swipe at Apple this time by being like,

01:03:42 ◼   ► all of our phones have the same specs. Like we don't hold camera stuff for different devices,

01:03:48 ◼   ► right? Like Google still takes swipes at Apple because that's where they are. They kind of have

01:03:54 ◼   ► to, right? Like the fans enjoy it. The people that they're talking to enjoy it. I get it. They

01:03:59 ◼   ► are in an underdog position. So they take swipes at the big dog. Like that's, that's how they do it.

01:04:04 ◼   ► but it is a funny thing to me to see like now everybody you can all come to the no headphone jack

01:04:11 ◼   ► playing like the rest of us because this is just how all phones are going to be

01:04:15 ◼   ► over the next few years they're all going to lose them.

01:04:17 ◼   ► Always on display is a feature of these phones that I really wish that Apple could do

01:04:24 ◼   ► especially now that Apple's going OLED because these phones both have OLED screens in them

01:04:28 ◼   ► so you get the time and date always on the screen you get little icons for the applications that

01:04:33 ◼   ► that have notifications and something which is kind of incredible it has a

01:04:37 ◼   ► persistent now playing thing so it's like automatic Shazam if you are in a

01:04:42 ◼   ► room and the room is playing music your lock screen will tell you the song you

01:04:46 ◼   ► don't have to ask and it's doing all of this on device it's not sending any

01:04:49 ◼   ► information away machine learning that's amazing they're matching it against

01:04:54 ◼   ► their system it seems like a silly feature why do you think it's silly what

01:04:59 ◼   ► Who needs Shazam on all the time?

01:05:01 ◼   ► I would turn this off the second I got this phone.

01:05:03 ◼   ► But how does it hurt you though?

01:05:06 ◼   ► I don't want to see it.

01:05:07 ◼   ► It's clutter.

01:05:08 ◼   ► But it's on a screen which is off.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Until it's on, until you look at it.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Then it's there.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Old man.

01:05:14 ◼   ► It just seems silly.

01:05:16 ◼   ► You can call me an old man after he yells about the orange button.

01:05:19 ◼   ► Come on.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Okay you're both old man.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Come on.

01:05:22 ◼   ► about like a permanent physical mark on a device.

01:05:27 ◼   ► And this is like a useful software feature.

01:05:32 ◼   ► It's not like a useless orange dot or whatever.

01:05:37 ◼   ► Yeah, this has a practical purpose,

01:05:40 ◼   ► which also being software you can disable,

01:05:42 ◼   ► you cannot disable the red dot on the crown

01:05:45 ◼   ► unless you want to run some sandpaper on it.

01:05:47 ◼   ► I don't know what you want to do about that.

01:05:48 ◼   ► - Watch dots. - Yeah.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I mean, this sounds amazing to me

01:05:51 ◼   ► And I'm honestly surprised that Apple isn't doing more of this.

01:05:54 ◼   ► I know that Siri in theory should be able to identify songs, but that has never ever

01:05:58 ◼   ► been as reliable and accurate as Shazam or SoundHound are in my experience.

01:06:04 ◼   ► So this is pretty incredible, especially if Google is doing this on device.

01:06:09 ◼   ► This is someone who constantly like I'm watching a TV show with my girlfriend or a movie and

01:06:14 ◼   ► I'm constantly reaching out for Shazam on my iPhone.

01:06:17 ◼   ► So this is pretty much a t.g. feature right there.

01:06:19 ◼   ► That's amazing.

01:06:20 ◼   ► Squeeze for assistant. Do you want to do that? Squeeze the phone, Google Assistant comes up.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Wow.

01:06:27 ◼   ► I don't know about this.

01:06:29 ◼   ► Okay.

01:06:29 ◼   ► Like, I don't know about this.

01:06:31 ◼   ► I mean, okay.

01:06:31 ◼   ► It seems really weird to me, but like a lot of Android phones are implementing this now.

01:06:36 ◼   ► Like, squeezing the phone seems to be like a thing. I don't know if I want to do it, right?

01:06:42 ◼   ► Like, I feel like it's bad in all of the ways that 3D touch is bad, but feels kind of worse.

01:06:48 ◼   ► plus. What I don't like about 3D touches is you're just smooshing your fingers into the

01:06:52 ◼   ► screen and you're just squeezing the entire, I don't know it seems weird. It's a way to

01:06:58 ◼   ► activate the assistant but I don't know. It's very strange to me. The camera got the highest

01:07:06 ◼   ► DxO score again. I don't really know if this means anything, I don't really know what it

01:07:11 ◼   ► means. But there is this gallery of photos that I saw being shared around yesterday which

01:07:17 ◼   ► and videos from the Pixel 2 which are apparently untouched and I believe that they are because

01:07:22 ◼   ► like whatever like they're fine they look incredible like just I can't believe a phone

01:07:29 ◼   ► took these pictures they are unbelievable. Google has their own portrait mode now as well

01:07:34 ◼   ► which they're doing in software with hashtag machine learning and all of the photos that

01:07:39 ◼   ► they're doing here with the portrait mode also look amazing. What did you guys look through this

01:07:45 ◼   ► album yeah yeah it's really good looking it's incredible right like some of these

01:07:49 ◼   ► pictures I can't believe they came off of a phone yeah they're great really

01:07:52 ◼   ► good so I'm very intrigued to see camera comparison tests you know like the

01:07:58 ◼   ► camera comparison tests last year that I thought I was looking at I preferred the

01:08:02 ◼   ► way that the pixel images and the essay images look to the iPhone images yeah

01:08:08 ◼   ► the problem I think with the DXO stuff is like you can't rate this stuff just in

01:08:13 ◼   ► numbers. People just they they they want to have different things from photos.

01:08:17 ◼   ► Some people like more saturation than others.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Right. Like it's just a thing.

01:08:21 ◼   ► But these photos just they do look incredible.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And doing all this with one sensor and they've got a bunch of interesting stuff in

01:08:26 ◼   ► there. The thing that is the most surprising to me is how Google came out of nowhere

01:08:32 ◼   ► with an incredible camera.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Right. Like they made their first real phone and then they leapfrog everybody last

01:08:40 ◼   ► time. I'm intrigued to see if they're going to be able to do that again with this phone.

01:08:45 ◼   ► I think it shows a lot of what software can do for you if you have this software per OS.

01:08:50 ◼   ► This is what they can do.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Or they came up with incredible software which from that perspective it's not really surprising

01:08:56 ◼   ► considering that it's Google.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Yep, it's like the sensors take in whatever they take in but what you do with them I guess

01:09:02 ◼   ► is what can push you ahead and this is what Google is able to do. The Pixel 2 is $649,

01:09:08 ◼   ► The Pixel 2 XL is $849 so they're cheaper than the iPhones and as we mentioned earlier

01:09:12 ◼   ► you get the free Google Home and Google is promising to have better availability.

01:09:16 ◼   ► I think it's a good showing.

01:09:17 ◼   ► I'm not going to buy one.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I have a regular Pixel, that's my Android test device.

01:09:22 ◼   ► I don't feel like I need another Android test device.

01:09:25 ◼   ► But if I was somebody in the Android camp, like this is probably the phone that I would

01:09:30 ◼   ► end up buying, the Pixel 2 XL.

01:09:32 ◼   ► So like the design doesn't push my buttons in the same way that the Samsung phones do

01:09:37 ◼   ► or in the same way that the Essential phone does.

01:09:39 ◼   ► But these phones are two things,

01:09:42 ◼   ► they're hardware and software.

01:09:43 ◼   ► And I personally would want stock Android

01:09:46 ◼   ► over anything else, that's what I would want.

01:09:49 ◼   ► And that's what this phone gives you.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Very impressive. - Yeah, it looks great.

01:09:54 ◼   ► - They had a bunch of other stuff at the event,

01:09:56 ◼   ► like this Chromebook Pixel thing,

01:09:58 ◼   ► which doesn't interest me.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Looks like one of those convertible laptops.

01:10:03 ◼   ► They had some other stuff too,

01:10:04 ◼   ► like their Pixel Buds, which is their AirPods,

01:10:08 ◼   ► look kind of interesting.

01:10:10 ◼   ► They had this translation feature, which is kind of cool.

01:10:12 ◼   ► But yeah, I watched the event, the event was good.

01:10:14 ◼   ► They seemed really confident in their stuff.

01:10:17 ◼   ► This made by Google line, it's shaping up to be a real deal.

01:10:20 ◼   ► Like Google is making good hardware.

01:10:22 ◼   ► And again, I'm interested to see what the reviews look like

01:10:25 ◼   ► of the Pixel 2, especially when compared to the iPhone X,

01:10:28 ◼   ► which is soon, soon, a couple of weeks,

01:10:30 ◼   ► and we can put in our pre-orders.

01:10:32 ◼   ► and then wait for months.

01:10:34 ◼   ► - And wait forever.

01:10:36 ◼   ► - All right, that's it for this week's show.

01:10:37 ◼   ► As you said, next week,

01:10:38 ◼   ► we're gonna be giving you a live episode,

01:10:40 ◼   ► so look out for that next week.

01:10:42 ◼   ► That might be out on Monday.

01:10:44 ◼   ► We might have that episode out on Mondays

01:10:45 ◼   ► a little bit earlier than usual,

01:10:47 ◼   ► 'cause we're gonna be recording earlier than usual.

01:10:49 ◼   ► If you wanna find our show notes this week,

01:10:51 ◼   ► go to relay.fm/connected/163.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Thanks again to our lovely sponsors

01:10:56 ◼   ► for this week's episode,

01:10:57 ◼   ► the fine folk over at Macworld and Blue Apron of Bombfell.

01:11:00 ◼   ► If you would like to find us on the line,

01:11:02 ◼   ► few places you can do that you can go to maxstories.net for Federico's work and

01:11:06 ◼   ► he's also @Vatici on Twitter, Steven is @ismh and he's at 5topixels.net

01:11:11 ◼   ► and I am @imyke, thanks so much for listening we'll be back next time

01:11:16 ◼   ► until then say goodbye guys. Adios!