 Hi, oh, hey, how's it going? It's the Verge Mobile Show where it's our 21st. On your 21st you totally got a party, so you should totally stay tuned for the Verge Mobile Show. Hi, I'm Peter Bohn. I'm Dan Siefert. I'm Chris Ziegler. And to be very clear, I am stone cold sober despite the fact that this is the 21st episode of the Verge Mobile Show for the week of October 15th, 2012. I have to say, Dieter, your head, Dan and I were just talking about this earlier, your head is like enormous. It's like that's really, really frightening. I have a big head. What can I say? So would you say it was a big week in news? I would say that it was bigger than I expected. We know that the end of the month is crazy and it seems like it's just gotten started early. So we had lots and lots of rumors to the Nexus, we had the LG, Sprint got bought. Out of nowhere this week has been chock full of stuff to talk about. I don't know what this leaves for CES. We were just talking about CES a second ago. And I guess CES is never a big show for mobile. I guess we'll see it start to pick up again at MWC in late February. But yeah, this is going to be the biggest news cycle for mobile of the year in the next three to four weeks, I think. Yeah, it's going to be pretty insane. And it seems like it's already starting. Whether we want it to or not, it's coming. So why don't we jump into that, the unwanted thing. This is kind of crazy. This supposed LG Nexus device that has been fully exposed given a complete review treatment before it's even been officially announced. And that's kind of insane, if you ask me. Well, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, you know, the software apparently is super buggy. And that's no surprise given that this is like a crazy leaked device. But you know, if this does in fact turn out to be the Nexus, what blows my mind about it is how much it looks like the Galaxy Nexus. Like we were expecting it to be based on the LG Optimus G, but it looks like the Samsung. It really does. Well, what's kind of funny about that is the Galaxy Nexus was kind of, you know, in the vein of the Galaxy S2 at the time, but with a more rounded shape and more rounded corners. And like, this is exactly the kind of the same thing with the Optimus and this LG Nexus. It's in the vein of, you know, the Optimus G, but much more rounded. And so that it ends up looking almost exactly like the Galaxy Nexus. I think if you go all the way back to the Nexus S, you can tell that there is a certain aesthetic that Google is probably asking for from the OEMs that it's signing up for Nexus devices. And yeah, it certainly seems that that's continuing here. Yeah, so... Well, I mean, I think it looks fine. I think it certainly looks better than the Optimus G, which, you know, is actually, actually I've got them both here, the AT&T and the Sprint. It's actually kind of a squat square little phone, especially compared to say the Galaxy Nexus or the One X. It's sort of, you know, I'm not going to call it stumpy, but it's a little bit shorter. It's a little bit closer. I don't know if it's exactly four by three. I mean, I'm sure it's not, but it's not quite as tall. And so that I think that putting sort of the Nexus styling on this hardware would make it really handsome. Yeah, I mean, the photos and I mean, don't get me wrong, whoever quote unquote reviewed this device took some decent photos of it that potentially made it look better than it actually looks IRL in real life for those of you who don't follow the internet lingo. But yeah, no, it looks like a pretty attractive device. I don't know. I think I commented last week that my Galaxy Nexus feels huge after using an iPhone 5 and I'm not sure I want a phone. Just give me a four inch, like give me a modernized Nexus S. Right. You know? Exactly. I think if Vlad were here, he would be screaming from the mountains in agreement with you. Yes. You know, it's funny that you mentioned the iPhone 5 because I feel like every single phone I've picked up in the past two weeks since I started using my iPhone 5 has felt like a heavy brick. So there's kind of that. Now as far as the hardware of this LG Nexus, obviously it's very pre-release at this point and it definitely doesn't seem like a finalized device, but the hardware more or less seems like it's kind of in the vein of what it's going to be. And if this thing launches with eight gigabytes of internal storage, I just can't imagine using that as, you know, a Nexus device. If you load three games on there, you can suck up 50% of your internal storage right away. So I mean, I guess Google could tentatively or theoretically offer this in multiple capacities, but it seems kind of odd to me that they're starting it at eight gigabytes of internal. Yeah, that's nothing. Right. Yeah, I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about the fact that we haven't seen, we saw the HSPA version, but not an LTE supporting version on AT&T go through the FCC. We actually got an email from a listener who was talking about the rumors that there might be multiple Nexus devices. And he's a little bit worried that what's going to happen is that you're not going to get your choice of Nexus on your choice of carrier, that you're going to get stuck in a situation where Verizon will get the HTC Nexus and AT&T will get the LG Nexus and there'll be multiple devices and multiple carriers, but you're still going to be stuck in this weird world where you have to pick a carrier and then that totally limits what phone you can get. I could completely see that happening. As cynical as it sounds, I could totally see that happening. Just given the incompatibilities between the networks for LTE service. Yeah, I don't think that Google or anybody really has the power to pull off this coup where they have all of these Nexus devices, this X number of Nexus devices, however many we end up seeing, deployed on all four national networks in the US. The odds of that happening, I think, are practically nil. That would be amazing if it did happen, but I'm certainly not counting on it. I'm not that much of an optimist. Well, I mean, it's coming soon and I'll be interested to see if we do get multiple. Wasn't there a rumor that there was a Sony device, that maybe it was a Nexus device? Yeah, those pictures, I don't know, man. They're pretty raw. Yeah, those pictures did not have me convinced. We mentioned in our post that the screen is not aligned correctly. The bottom of the screen is, I think, four pixels more to the right than the top of the screen. And don't get me wrong, if it's an early prototype, I could certainly imagine that the components are kind of shoddily put together, but still, that's a red flag. If you look deep or close at the back, you can see some evidence of image alteration. So it'd be great if Sony did a Nexus phone, I think a lot of people would be really excited about that. But whether the one that we saw this week, or allegedly saw this week, is it? I'm not terribly convinced. Now what's interesting to me is that we haven't heard, correct me if I'm wrong, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but I don't think we've heard a single rumor of a Samsung, next generation Samsung Nexus device, is that correct? And so I think what has happened is Samsung is feeling very confident about its position in the Android world right now, and feels like it doesn't necessarily need Google's help anymore to do what it wants to do, and that has certainly borne out with the Galaxy S3 and the S2 before it really, and the Note and Note 2. So it makes me wonder if we're ever going to see a Samsung Nexus again. I feel like the Nexus is sort of the safe haven for downtrodden OEMs that want to do something cool on Android and need Google's help and guidance and their muscle to make carriers carry it, and Samsung simply doesn't need that help anymore. They've taken Android and made it their own, and now it's going to be somebody else's turn. And LG certainly, I think, falls into the category of downtrodden Android OEM. Yeah, LG and HTC as well. HTC has had some really impressive devices this year that's still having trouble actually selling them and turning a profit on them. So having Google's help behind it, like it did way back when with the Nexus One, certainly wouldn't be a bad thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Nexus One, I mean, for many people, the Nexus One is still like the ultimate Nexus device, you know? If the Nexus One had a 720p display and LTE, I would probably still consider carrying it to this day. Never mind, it's 512 megabytes of storage, so you could install an app. I'm glossing over that stuff. Yeah, I mean, the Nexus One was pretty great. It was one of the first Android phones definitely that took a lot of people's focus off of the iPhone as far as a high-end phone that can really compete. And that's what it defined the Nexus line going forward, which hasn't always fulfilled that. I think the Nexus S was kind of a misstep, but the Galaxy Nexus was a lot better. So hopefully, if we do get four of these or more than one of these Nexus devices, we're not going to get like a low, medium, and high type of thing, but we're going to get high-end versions from all of them, all the manufacturers that participate. That would be kind of great. But we're still going to have to wait a few weeks to find out exactly what happens, I think. So let's talk about the Optimus G. I reviewed the Sprint and the AT&T version. And I mean, really the most interesting thing is that LG has got a flagship top-tier phone on a couple of US carriers instead of just shipping low and mid-range stuff and that. I'm not even admitting that the LG intuition exists in that assessment. But they're good. The screen is incredibly good and surprisingly nice. I think it's second in the Android space only to the One X in terms of its viewing angles, its brightness, its color fidelity. I'm really happy with it. And I'm holding up the Sprint version now, which matches very closely to the international hardware with the exception of a sealed SIM card, which is pretty annoying. I keep saying it's not the prettiest phone in the world, but it's fine. It's pretty good. And then the LG's thing is they've got, I'm trying to get this to happen on the camera, but I can't. So the back panel, which is glass, I think, but it could be poly in one, glass in another. LG has told some people that it's not glass and everybody else that it is. So I don't know why they can't just have the story straight. But the deal is that it's actually polarized. And so if you're looking at it at an angle, it looks like it's black. And then once you get straight on, then you can see the pattern finish underneath, which reflects the light in a certain way. So you get a black slab, but then you get this Julie looking thing when you're looking at it at the right angle, which is kind of neat. That pattern totally reminds me of the original live wallpaper on the Nexus One with the squares and then the different colors that would shoot horizontally and vertically. That's what it totally just, I mean, when I first saw that, that was like the first thing I thought of. I can see that. And then the AT&T version is a little bit wider actually, because it's got like this like curved rail on it. And the deal is that accommodates the SIM card and a micro SD slot. But otherwise they're basically the same. And it's so fast. It's got this S4 Pro processor from Qualcomm. It's a quad core device or quad core processor. And like everything is really fast except screen rotation, which is LG software's fault, which takes basically 20 minutes for it to rotate the screen. But other than that, I don't know why that's so terrible because everything else is really good. Although I do need to, I spent a long time talking about this in the review. Everybody needs to take AT&T behind the windshield and make them stop putting crap on phones. The amount of like, there's 11 AT&T apps that are crammed onto this thing. I stuck them all in a folder. AT&T code scanner, AT&T family map, AT&T locker, AT&T navigator, AT&T ready to go, AT&T smart Wi-Fi, live TV, my AT&T, messages, YP Mobile and device help. On top of that, just some of the extra stuff that they did, like there's this quick setting thing in the notification area and they don't let you put mobile hotspot in there. Really? Why? What's the problem? Why are you afraid of mobile hotspot in quick settings? That doesn't make any sense. Oh, I can tell you exactly why they're afraid of mobile hotspot and quick settings because they want to discourage anything. It's for the exact same reason that they're trying to discourage people from using FaceTime over cellular. They're deathly afraid, as they should be, of their glass network shattering. That's what's going on here. Well, that stinks. So is the software situation the main or only explanation for the slightly lower score in the AT&T version? Yeah. I mean, the software is annoying enough that I had to give it a lower score on AT&T. It was just too much. The other interesting thing is AT&T's camera is eight megapixels, where Sprint's is 13, and I much prefer AT&T's camera. I was talking to Mary in the Robert N. Gadget. She prefers the 13 megapixel camera. And honestly, I think the difference is just one of pure ability. I think with both of these cameras, you need to do a little more work and be a little bit better at taking photos from a phone than you do with, say, the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone. So you can get good shots out of these, but you can't just pull the phone up and click something the way that you can on the other phones. You need to spend a little bit more time. And in that sense, Sprint's 13 megapixel camera is much less forgiving of my shaky hands and terrible ability to frame shots and check the lighting and whatever. Yeah, once you get above eight, I feel like it's definitely a gimmick thing. Like either the carrier or the OEM was like, we just want to have this giant number on our spec sheet and blow everyone away. And it's not... I mean, this is an age-old argument, right? The fact that when it comes to cameras, particularly camera phone cameras, it's much more about the optics and about the quality of the sensor than it is about the raw pixel count, because you're not going to blow up an image from your Sprint Optimus G to poster size. I mean, maybe you are, I'm not. You don't know what people do, man. Yeah. When I think about this argument, I think about... I've got a... I think it's two years old now, a Canon S95, which I deeply love. And I fundamentally that we could have camera phones that hit that quality. I mean, let's talk about the pure view, right? But if you can't get there yet, I think that... Wow, it is so hot in here. I think that you should stick with what works for the majority of people. And right now that's an eight megapixel sensor. Yeah. Heck, I'd take five. If it meant that I had better low light sensitivity, I would actually be more than happy to take a five megapixel sensor. The problem is that I think that because eight is widely perceived as the standard for high end camera phones right now, you'd have a very difficult time coming to market with a five and convincing people that you're not shortchanging them on a key spec. So I think that that's just a non-starter. I just want to point out, and nobody is going to have any idea what I'm talking about, but the NFC logo on the AT&T model, which I'm assuming has something to do with ISIS, looks... It's so bad. It's this weird double N. Yes. And it looks exactly like the Nespresso logo. Go ahead and Google that and be ready to agree with me. It looks exactly like it. Somebody is suing somebody. Yeah. Yeah, that's hideous. So we finally got price and release date yesterday for both Sprint and AT&T. I actually need to update the review with I think AT&T's information. They're both $199 on contract. Sprint's releasing on the 11th. AT&T is releasing on the second. And why couldn't they just have said this when they announced and made the big releases of the phones at MobileCon last week? What's the whole... Why wait a week? This whole thing about we're going to announce the phone but not give you official price and release date, I'm tired of it. Motorola did the same thing with the Razer HD, HD Max. Everybody's doing it lately. I'm starting to think that it's not that they can't do it. I'm starting to think that they know that if they don't do it, that we're going to be forced to write about them again. They'll get it up there once they announce the price and release date a little bit later. That's interesting. I have another theory, which I would like to run by you guys. I think that it's a domino effect created by Windows Phone 8. I think that Microsoft put pressure... Not put pressure, just flat out said to OEMs and carriers that they can't talk specific dates and prices until their launch event on the 29th. And then carriers were like, well, we want to plan all these other launches of flagship devices around those Windows Phone 8 launches. So we just kind of have to... I mean, we want people to know about them. We want people to know that we're getting them, but we want some wiggle room to play with those dates. So they're kind of in a holding pattern until they can talk dates for the Windows Phone 8 gear. I would agree with that theory, except that none of this behavior is terribly new. Yeah. I mean, carriers and manufacturers have been doing this for a long time. Well, I feel like it's particularly bad this fall. This fall has been particularly frustrating, but I think a lot of that does have to do with the Windows Phone stuff, because a lot of the phones that we've covered recently and have been announced have been Windows Phone devices that we're just like, oh, here's another phone. It's coming to T-Mobile. Can't tell you when, can't tell you how much. So yeah, it seems like it's been exacerbated, but I don't think any of it is new behavior necessarily. No, no. Yeah. I mean, this has been going on for years. I just think that we've had, what, probably somewhere between five and 10 phone announcements in the past six to eight weeks that have all had this mysterious pricing and availability to be announced in the coming weeks at the end. And it's just super frustrating, not just for us, but for readers who are trying to plan their purchases and trying to decide what they want to buy and when. And it's just, you know. I need to say one more thing about the Optimus G, and that is, as great as it is that LG has sort of come into its own and found its own identity as far as hardware goes. In terms of software and also their launch party at MobileCon, they have huge Samsung envy. It's ridiculous. They like their special features. There's there's Q slide, which lets you put this alpha and make video semi-transparent so you can watch video at the same time or do other stuff in the OS video. They've got I think it's called Y screen or something that that cracks me up. Continue. But I'm sorry, I had to say that the camera watches your eyes just like, you know, the Samsung thing so that it will the screen will stay awake while you're looking at it. They have the same. You can do stuff just by tilting the phone instead of dragging and dropping in like random places, like moving an icon on the home screen. Nobody wants to do that. I don't know why Samsung insists on offering that option. And then LG just does the same thing. They offer it again. I really wish they had a feature called L voice. I would be shocked if it didn't happen. It's like Y screen is like they looked at the smart screen feature, looked at its name, opened up a thesaurus and was like, we'll call it that. And it's like the same exact feature. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Dieter, but it's like the same exact feature. And it just like I hate to say this, but it just makes LG terribly feel like a poor man's Samsung because like everything is just like trying to do what Samsung is doing, but it's not really pulling it off as well. This is a good phone on its own. And so this is why it makes me super excited for the whatever we're going to call the next Nexus, Nexus 4, I think is one of the rumors. I mean, it looks great. I think it'll be really good because LG has managed to put together some really solid hardware. But this is messed up because these phones, these two Optimus G's are coming to market in early November, which is right around the time that we think that this Nexus stuff is going to happen. So you're going to have this train wreck, this collision of two very different philosophies, both LG branded products. And you're going to have this mix of carriers. I mean, you know, is the Nexus 4, whatever it's called, going to be offered on AT&T and or Sprint. I would assume it's going to at least be offered on Sprint because Sprint has been very, very pro Google going back to the Nexus 1, which was canceled at the last minute, but then they ended up offering the S and the Galaxy Nexus. And they're very tightly partnered with Google on Google Wallet. So how is that going to play out? What is the message that they're going to deliver to customers who are cross shopping these products? I don't know. Well, I think you have different customers shopping these products is what it is. And just like as it's always been with Nexus devices, they're not huge sellers. They're not huge market share grabbers. Somebody who's walking into a carrier store in the mall to buy their cell phone isn't going to look for the Nexus on display. They're going to see flashy software features and things like that and whatever, you know, the sales reps are incentivized to sell at the time. So I think that, you know, if LG is able to deliver these without bugs and deliver them timely, as it seems that they're more or less doing, they could sell a good amount of them, maybe even more so than a Nexus device, because the people that are looking for a Nexus device are going to be very different. Yeah. Yeah, they're going to have to be very careful about that messaging in the store, though, because you always, I mean, there are always two aspects, right? There's the PR line, there's the official company line and how this product is positioned and who it's being sold to. And then you have the often very different message of what the sales rep is actually saying to the customer in the store. And historically, I mean, the thing that all of these OEMs, particularly Microsoft and their partners, but everyone has been fighting for the past couple years on Verizon and AT&T is, you know, you're fighting the reps that are saying just buy this iPhone. But now, you know, what are they going to say? Just say this is a purely hypothetical situation, but say that Sprint ranges both the Optimus G and then also ranges the Nexus 4, which for all practical purposes looks like a slightly nicer Optimus G, also by LG and the software, like from like, you know, completely uninitiated customers perspective, it just looks like different software, not better, right? Like if you put them side by side in the store, you can't say, oh yeah, this Nexus software is obviously better. Like, you know, you have to use it and then make the call for yourself. I just don't know how they, I mean, that's a very complicated question that these carriers have to answer. Well, I think it's funny, it goes back to some of these software features that LG and Samsung are customizing their phones with. A lot of these look really flashy in the store. When a, you know, sales rep is demoing a phone and is like, oh look, you can watch a video and text at the same time. They're not saying that you'll never do that in real life. They're saying, look at how cool that is. And you know, and look how I can tilt the phone and drag an icon around and stuff like that. Whereas, you know, actual features that are usable in day to day use aren't necessarily as whiz bang and flashy to someone who's buying something in the store. So I think if, you know, and it may very well come down to this, if sales reps are incentivized to sell some, the Optimus G-Line more, they're going to show it off more and they're going to show off the things that it does more. And they're going to show in a favorable light those types of things that sell the phone in the store. Yep. I have nothing else to say about that. So wait, so Dieter, so Dieter, what's the final verdict? Should a Sprint or AT&T customer strongly consider buying this phone in early November? No, you should wait and see if you're going to get this. Like that's it. And if you're on AT&T, I think the Galaxy S3 is a slightly better phone unless you care deeply about not having an AMOLED screen. You know, it's slightly faster, but there's not, it's not that much faster and there's not that much that takes advantage of the processor on this thing in terms of software. So like it's weird. Like this is a really good phone that I probably am not going to recommend to anybody. It's sad how often we say that. And it's happening more and more often now. Which is a good thing. It means that they're making better products, but it's also making it much more difficult for the best products to bubble to the top and stand out. And you also feel bad. I mean, you can't help but feel a little bad for LG because you know, they're trying. They're trying really hard. I will say this. The Optimus G is like, like Dieter was saying in the beginning, is the first, one of the first that LG is getting on Sprint in a long time as far as a high end device. But it's also one of the first high end devices that the company has released that's actually making it to the US market in a timely fashion. The Optimus LTE took months and months and months to get to the US market. The LTE 2, the same exact thing. The Forex HD, I don't think we're seeing in the US market at all. And the view and the intuition that took nine months to get to the US market. Whereas these ones are, they're coming out, they're high end, they're still high end when they get to the US. So I think that's a big step for LG that they've been able to accomplish that at least. Plus at their launch party, the roof of the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, they put a woman in a mermaid outfit and put her in the hot tub. And like, I had to go to this thing. I had to go to this thing. It reminds me of, it reminds me of like, it reminds me of when I tuned into the live stream of the Galaxy Note 2 launch event and there was just some buster doing like card tricks. And I'm like, what is with these companies and their non sequiturs at these, like this has nothing to do with any, like why is this happening right now? And I'm sure that the same thing is going through your mind, Dieter. Why is this happening to me right now? Why is there a mermaid in this pool? The other Samsung envy thing that I forgot to mention, I'm going to see if I can get the audio for us right now, but I have to take my unlock pattern off the screen in order to do it. So I mean, listen, listen to this. Oh man. Oh man. Dude, do it again. Yeah. That's Samsung envy. That is the inspired by nature water droplet that everyone is such a big fan of. Yep. Also, it makes me want to, want to pee a little bit. So I just turned on the, uh, the video of our very own podcast feed. So I could, uh, see, uh, this thing that Chris mentioned about my giant head and yeah, it's, it's a big giant head between you two. It's really nice to see you in the studio, Chris. And this didn't get mentioned on the show last week. So if you only listen to the audio version of a mobile show, you don't know this, but Dan has grown an amazing beard in record. It's really lush. It's still needs a little work. I'm still in the, you know, looks like he's trying to grow a beard, scruff, scruff stage. I think, no, it looks like the, you know, I'm a rugged, like I might be a lumberjack kind of like, you know, like you don't know my story, but like I'm definitely mysterious and I really should have worn some flannel or some plaid today. I guess it's a good look. Well, thank you guys. Wow. Okay. Sorry. I mean, we have no transition, but we got to talk about a soft bank basically whether they bought 70% of sprint, but they're buying, okay. So they're buying a 70% stake. And what they're going to do is they're going to form a new company called new sprint. That's going to all really creative name by the way, best they could come up with. Like this deal is surreal to me. Like I get that sprint like straight up needs capital because they're not building their LTE network as quickly as they need to right now in order to stay competitive. So like I get that, but I don't get is soft bank. Like me, I mean, I'm not very smart about Japanese carriers, but I mean, is it, is, is, you know, sprint that good of an opportunity that they want to drop? Uh, how much was it? 600? No, uh, 12 billion. Yeah. You have to wonder why they didn't. I mean, I'm assuming that if they had gone to DT, they probably could have like, you know, they, they probably could have talked about a deal for T-Mobile USA. Um, yeah. And so, yeah, like I'm really curious about the specifics of the conversation that occurred between sprint and soft bank and whether soft bank approached, uh, anyone else, because I I'm totally on board with you. It's an interesting deal. Uh, and I, I'm sure that there are, you know, soft bank is a company you, you, you know, you look at their comments, uh, from the, uh, from the press conference and it's very, very clear that this is a company that really wants to be recognized as like a global, like they want to be the next Vodafone, right? They want to have presence on every continent. Uh, and they, they want to grow aggressively. They joked about like acquiring Docomo at some point, which I thought was, was funny. Um, and also like a really, like you would never hear, I don't think you would ever hear an American CEO joke about acquiring another company, like, cause they just instantly get arrested by the sec. Like you're just not allowed to do that. Um, so I thought that was funny, but yeah, it's an interesting deal. I'll, I'll be very curious to see where this leads and it all, you know, I mean, sprint has been looking, I love Dan has, he Dan has, he's a great guy. Uh, he's, he's just like, I don't know if he, if he's actually an effective CEO or not, but he, he certainly, he talks like he doesn't BS. Like he doesn't like, he's a very straight talker. Uh, and I think that that's a very important quality for a CEO of a somewhat downtrodden company to have. Uh, and, uh, I, I, they've, they, they've been a, in many cases over the past several years, they've been a victim of circumstance and of course a victim of the terrible, uh, nextel acquisition that almost, uh, deep six the company altogether, which Dan has, he was not a part of. And after that deal was, was finalized. So maybe this is just the break that sprint needed to really finally turn their luck around for good. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, it is a huge influx of cash and, um, there's been a lot of, uh, a lot of analysis and speculation going on since then, uh, since this was announced or made official, I guess you could say. Um, and you know, it's, it was, it's hard to see what sprint was doing, was going to plan to do before, um, uh, as far as its LTE network rollout, a lot of it seemed to still hinge on clear wire and, you know, relying on that, that 2.5 gigahertz spectrum. And it'll be interesting to see what sprint does with this money, this newfound wealth that it has from Softbank. Will it try to pursue purchasing 700 megahertz, uh, licenses, essentially buying them from other carriers that already own them, or is it going to try and take that 2.5 gigahertz spectrum that it has access to that nobody else is really using and spending the insane capital needs to, uh, turn that into an actual usable nationwide network? Um, so it'll be interesting to see how sprint plays this out. I think, um, I really can't comment too much about how this is going to help Softbank because I'm just not intimately aware of, uh, the Japanese, uh, carriers, uh, financial situations and things like that. Um, but, uh, you know, I imagine they, they saw sprint as an opportunity to, uh, that is a company that's kind of been down on its luck, but it has been sort of turning things around, uh, but it needed some help. So, uh, and I guess Softbank saw an opportunity to make some money with it. I really think it's just a prestige thing for them. I really do. Like, I, like I said before, I think they're, they're hell bent on becoming a global brand and sprint was a really like clear and present opportunity for them because this was a company that, you know, they've kind of been like looking to be acquired that, you know, it's, it's readily apparent to anyone who's been paying any attention to this for the past probably two, two and a half years that they've, they've been dipping their toe in the acquisition waters. Like they've definitely been open to discussions with people. Uh, so that opportunity was there, but yeah, I mean, like we were saying before, why they didn't, uh, talk to or why they didn't end up acquiring T-Mobile instead, I don't know. It's entirely possible that they had those discussions and they ended up deciding that sprint was the better value. I don't know. I just hope that, uh, sprint is able to use this money quickly to beef up their LTE network and you know, even their 3G network, I would, I would really like to see them compete and get on par with Verizon and AT&T when it comes to having a 4G LTE, uh, in the U S uh, you know, broadly and deeply, uh, with really good speeds because like I really think that more competition in that space would be great. And you know, Sprint's overall strategy of being the nice guy of offering unlimited data of, you know, being a nice guy, letting Google exist on their network. Um, it's easy to be that when you're, you know, the loser, uh, but when you actually start competing and they can hang on to that nice guy philosophy, um, I think it'd be really good for the market. And we'll finally get press releases that have actual dates attached to when the LTE will be available. Oh, that's crazy talk, Dan. Don't don't get all crazy on me. This coming month stuff. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the Galaxy S3 mini? Didn't we talk, am I, am I completely insane or did we talk about the Galaxy S3 mini last week on the show? Yeah, I think it was rumored. We didn't have a final announcement. We show it right before the actual announcement. The next, it was the next day. Uh, and the announcement fulfilled all of our concerns. Uh, it solidified all of our worries in that this was going to be a total, uh, disappointment and a yet another just run of the mill mid range smartphone that Samsung cranks out seemingly every other minute. Um, and, and there's, there's really nothing to get excited about here, which is hugely disappointing because I think the whole industry was like, it's got a Galaxy S3 name in it. It's going to be high powered, but it'll still fit in my hand. And um, you know, it's, it, that's not the case in the least bit. So here's what I think is going on with this device. Um, I, I, I think that certain very influential European carriers went to Samsung and said, Hey guys, we have a lot of customers who identify with the Galaxy S brand and identify with Samsung and want to own a Galaxy S3, but they're, you know, they're not quite their income wise. You have this huge opportunity to range a device with us that keeps the Galaxy S3 name, but it's downspecked and you know, let's make this happen. And Samsung, you know, as usual is like, Oh, okay, sounds good. Sounds like you've got all these Galaxy S advanced parts lying around, you know? Yeah. So, so I, you know, I don't think that they hesitate, particularly because this is a somewhat limited release device. I don't think that they hesitated to recycle the Galaxy S name, which is something that, uh, for the, at least the past year and a half or two years, they've kind of shied away from doing. They've tried very hard, I think, to keep the Galaxy S name at least focused on the high end product. Galaxy is used everywhere. Like, yeah, well that's their Android brand. I think Tom Warren actually said this best. He tweeted out that what Samsung has done is the equivalent of taking a, an iPhone four and branding it an iPhone five mini. It's totally bizarre. This should not be called an S3. It's ridiculous. Right. Yeah. I mean, the only thing that it shares with it is its general shape. Everything else is different as far as the screen, the camera, the processor, the internals, uh, front to back are different and it, uh, it doesn't support LTE. I would be shocked if we ever saw this thing in the US, uh, for, for that reason alone. Um, but you know, it might pop up with a variation, a carrier variation that has LTE for, you know, 50 or a hundred bucks, uh, with some weird name that, you know, it'd be yet another forgettable. That's exactly it. Like this is going to end up being called like the Galaxy conquest LTE and that might be a real product by the way. I don't know. And then it's going to launch on sprint and like three people will buy it. And like we might write a news post about, we certainly aren't going to review it and no one will, like it will disappear in three months. That is what keeps happening. The company's going to troll you and they're going to call it. I'm telling you right now, the mega mini, that's what it's going to make a mini. We need to make mega happen. That needs to take off. Wait, I, I'm looking up, I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a Galaxy con. Well, there's a victory. Okay. Oh, there's an Android game called galactic conquest. Very close. Yeah. I guess there's no, okay. So carriers, there's an idea for you. Galaxy conquest. I'll bet you there's a galaxy victory. There is a on sprint galaxy victory for GLT or something like that. Yes, yes there is. Okay. So conquest is pretty close to victory anyway. So let's talk a galaxy note to on sprint October 25th for 299 99. I, we just, there it is. I mean, what else? What else? What else do you want to say? It's coming to sprint. It's coming to sprint. So I actually just got my first opportunity to touch a note to last week. I sat down with T-Mobile and they showed me a note to, and like you can't appreciate in pictures how flipping big this thing, like it is like, it is hilariously large. Like I left it at home. I don't have it here to show, uh, against other phones. Yeah. It's gigantic. It's like in pictures, it just looks like a galaxy S3. You're like, Oh, whatever. That looks pretty cool. But no, it's like, it's huge. But no, do not be confused. Yeah. This is a monstrosity. I mean, and that's fine. I mean like the galaxy notes sold very well. I'm sure the note to will as well, but don't like, don't buy it thinking that you're getting a galaxy S3 with like a couple extra tens of an inch of screen real estate. You're not, you're getting like a small tablet. Yeah. In fact, in glad review, he like, he aggressively refers to it as a tablet instead of talking about it as a phone or a phablet or whatever else you'd want to call it. Yeah. Right. Which, which bothers me to no end because of the lack of actual tablet apps. But I think I made that point last week. So right. But it's got an S pen. Uh, it does have the, and it's got snow. Yeah. Excuse me. Hey, I have a question. Is the optimist views pen called an L pen? No, it's called the rubber DMM. Okay. Cause it should be called an L pen. It would be great if it was called an L pen. Yeah. That's the one thing that, uh, LG has not latched onto is taking the L initial and just putting it in front of various names. Yes. They've got Q, uh, somebody in the, the, the, the mobile show chat was referencing a rumor that they might do a Q voice or something to me. Oh wait, no, hang on. That's a thing. Q voice is a thing. Uh, in Korea. Yeah. Hang on. Oh yeah. Okay. In Korea. Yeah. Yes. Uh, back in July, LG renames quick voice tool, Q voice with English version set for early next year. Perfect. So boom. So you have the Q pen you have. Yeah, this is great. This is perfect. Why Q? Where did, what like, whatever. I think it comes from the quick. Like they were like, they're like, we're going to do a quick voice and then like, oh wait, no, we don't need the rest of the UICK. Just drop that. Make a Q voice. And, and, uh, makes perfect sense. Yeah. Um, and I guess the last thing is we, speaking of like finally getting release dates and prices, we've got the razor HD razor HD max, uh, October 18th in the U S um, and it's one 99 and two 99, which I don't know if we knew those prices before, but that's exactly what we expected. Yep. We call them, they're sliding them into their price points. So, yeah. And, and by the way, the notion of paying a hundred extra dollars for the max is insane. Yeah. You're paying a hundred bucks more for battery life. That's it. Yeah. Which is like, you know, it's insane, but like, why would you buy the other one at the same token? Yeah. Uh, it's got internal memory. I'm telling you, man, I was trying to look it up. So the max has more, more internal storage. Is that what we're? Okay. Oh, double. Okay. Yeah, I see. Double the internal storage. Okay. Still it's a hundred bucks, but like then again, why would you buy the other one is, is like on a, on a two year contract, you know, a hundred bucks to, to, you know, make a big stink over a hundred bucks between a phone when you're paying, you know, two grand over a two year contract is kind of like, you might as well have that phone at least last all day. You say that, but it's like, I really feel that, um, I mean like think about it. Think about any other product. Like there's a big difference between one 99 and two, like I get the logic that spread over two years. It's nothing. But you think you have to think about it in terms of like, I'm going into the, into a store and spending either 200 or $300 today. So that that's still, I think that for a lot of buyers, that's still like a major factor, you know, it's for the same. I mean like for the same reason that there's an iPhone 16, 32 and 64. I mean, of course you'd like the 64, but I bet the 32 and 16 both outsell it. Oh yeah. Well the best selling one is the 16. And personally I can't bring myself to spend $400 for a phone on contract. So I guess that proves the point. Yeah. Yeah. I used to go for the 64 on the iPhone. Um, and I used to care a lot about having a ton of internal storage. I don't even know what I've got on mine anymore cause I don't care anymore because I don't load it up with music. I just use audio and I don't pay attention. To a point, to a point that makes sense. But when you've got big, uh, big apps and big games, you do want to have some, like you're not going to go down to an eight gigabyte device. Uh, yeah, no, I've got 32 gig. Right. So you were going to want to have some space, but it's not as big of a concern as it used to be. That's for sure. The only time where it's, it's a problem for me because I, I'm with you a hundred percent Dieter. Um, I, I got the, uh, the 16 gig and, uh, didn't look back. I use Mog exclusively for music now. Um, and in fact, like I was only using like two gig of internal storage. The only problem is that, that I can see is that if you're going like on an international flight or something and you want two or three movies to rent, each one is between four and five gig. So that's where you start to run into problems. But otherwise it's still like, there's no problem with the 16 gig. That was the exact reason that I bought the 16 gigabyte Nexus 7 was because I was like, I want to use this on movies or on planes and I want to be able to watch, you know, one or two movies. That was the exact reason that I did. Yep. Um, can I point out two things? Three things. I want to point out three things. Uh, one Skype is the worst and it, uh, switched my mic input, uh, to the wrong microphone randomly. Um, which is awesome. Uh, two, it's insanely hot in the verge west office and I don't know if I can handle it anymore, but normally it's not insanely hot in the verge west office. And if you want to work in the verge west office, we just put up a job listing. We're hiring out here. Are you, are you going to pass out? I am going to pass out. I'm a, cause that would be very entertaining to do that during the show. That makes for great television. It'd be a nice, uh, you know, book, bookend to the opening where I, you know, pretended that I was, is it like 90 degrees in San Francisco again? Is that what's happening? Yeah. It's that's because we have frost here in New York this week. Like frost. It is. Yeah. It's like 90 degrees, uh, right now. Uh, and since I have to have everything all closed up here for the show, it's probably like approaching 90 in the office. So here's what happened. Somebody saw that you were about to die. Like they were watching the show like, Oh, Dieter's about to die cause it's really hot. So we're going to post his job on the board right now. So we're ready with replacement as soon as he dies. That's what's going on here. Yeah. Um, I'm not even going to call attention to what's happening in the chat right now. Um, so, okay. Razor max HD. Like if you can spend the extra hundred bucks, you should, because I've held them both. And unless you're actually holding them and feeling their weight, if you're looking at it from more than a foot away, you literally cannot tell the difference. Like it is the, the razor HD is not that thin and the razor HD max, or is it magic max HD? Whatever, uh, is like a millimeter thicker. It's barely thicker. Um, so, uh, you know, despite, you know, the fact that it's a Pentel screen and you know, a few other problems that I have with the software, but not that many, surprisingly. Um, it's not launching with jelly bean, which is insane and annoying because Google owns this company. Um, I'm actually kind of like the idea of a phone that has literally 22 hours of talk time is pretty exciting for me because I'm iPhone five, this LG, the one X, the galaxy S three. Um, if I push any of them, uh, super hard, I can't get through a day. And the idea that I could just not care, um, is pretty exciting. Like I'm imagining having this phone at CES and just not worrying about my battery life. Well, to, to, to your point, Dieter, uh, you know, when the, when the original razor max came out, uh, and people would ask me, I'm on Verizon, what phone should I buy? I don't want the iPhone. I want something with LTE. I inevitably told them to buy the razor max because for an average user, it provided a good enough experience. And like, I would not hear them complaining that the battery life was terrible like they would with any other phone. Uh, and so I think that with the razor HD max, it's going to be a lot of the same, uh, where, you know, if, if you want an Android phone on Verizon, uh, right now, given what we know, cause we don't know exactly what Nexus phones are going to come out or how they are going to perform, uh, you know, the, the HD max is very tempting for that reason that you just don't have to worry about it. If you want any phone on any carrier, that's not the iPhone, uh, you should wait, uh, for like a couple of weeks to so that we know exactly what's happening with windows phone. We know what's happening with the Nexus. Um, you know, cause right now, like there's, there's some really good stuff that has been announced and that's coming out. Um, but there's stuff that might be better, um, like significantly better that could be coming out relatively soon. Um, I mean, yeah, you should not buy a phone today unless it's an iPhone and that's what you really want pretty much period. Yeah. And even, even then you might want to, uh, just wait a couple of weeks if you desperately can. Yeah. So you never know. I mean, I don't know, maybe the Galaxy S3 is still a safe recommendation as a, as a solid end. If you absolutely had to buy an Android phone today, it would probably be the GS3, right? Yes. If someone put a gun to my head and was like, I'm walking you down to the store and you're buying an Android phone, it would be the GS3. That would be the weirdest hold up ever by the way. I totally forgot about the pad phone. Yes. Like the rest of the world, but it's the pad phone too. Uh, Vlad went and got a preview of it and it's like, it's not bad, right? You know, Vlad, I think really likes this. It's unfortunate that he's actually traveling back from the pad phone two event and he hasn't been yet been able to join us here. But if you read his preview, um, uh, of the, the device, he actually really likes it. He really likes the screen. He says it's right up there with the One X. Um, you know, as a phone, he likes it. I think he's still, and he made this point that as a tablet, uh, and then eventually as a laptop, it's still got some really software issues and kinks that need to be worked out just like the original iPad phone did. But if you're buying it just as a phone, um, you're getting the same, uh, quad core chip that was in the, uh, optimus G, uh, a 13 megapixel camera again. Um, yeah, the, uh, seven 20 P display that it's actually using sharps, Ixo technology, which is the first one of the first devices that we've seen to use it. Um, and then, you know, a really solid looking device. It's super thin. It's got a nice build quality. So I mean, there's a lot to like here. What kind of bizarre world are we in now where Asus and LG are making phones with, uh, you know, the latest processor that other guys don't have yet and incredibly good screens and decent software. Like I I'm really confused. Well, what, what was bizarre about it for so many years was that LG made so many of the screens and it couldn't put a good one in his phones. Right. Uh, so now it's finally just like, well, we're going to put them in our own phone. Um, but yeah, as far as like, uh, Asus is concerned, this is, is not something I would have expected to see 18 months ago or even a year ago for that matter. So, so I hate to be the, uh, the wet blanket on this love parade for the pad phone too. Um, and Vlad could probably, um, shoot me down here somewhat effectively, but, but from the pictures that, that he, he posted, it looks to me like there's just an enormous amount of black area below the screen. You know, I thought the same thing to be honest with you when I saw the pictures and above for that matter, especially the side by side with the one X that he posted from the front of the phone, it looks like a mid range device just because the screen looks very small relative to the, to the outline of the device itself. That's complaint. Number one complaint. Number two is that I still don't understand this concept like WTF, like why, why are we putting, why are we putting phones in tablets when we can just have a phone and a tablet? Like no one has effectively explained that. I know you guys have tried it, but I'm going to try again because it just carries, it carries your data. It carries your data. Yeah. If you could sell a tablet for like a hundred bucks or like 75. No motor tried to do that with the lap doc and it like failed miserably. I mean this is, this is, I mean this is the lap doc idea, right? Uh, where you eventually get your phone all the way to a laptop. Uh, and the phone is powering, uh, the, the whole shebang because it's got this really, you know, modern up-to-date processor. Um, but the software steps to get there don't exist really, uh, to make it a viable platform. Right. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's so like, so I think that the, that shared data plans kind of alleviate some of what you were talking about, Dan, like, you know, a year ago that may have been more true. Like if you're on a mobile share plan or, uh, whatever Verizon's equivalent is called, I can't remember, then that, that becomes less of an issue. Um, but then also some people say, well, you know, you have the giant battery and the tablet that can power that can, you know, charge the phone. Yes, that's true. But there are also like a million other ways to charge your phone. So I was thinking about mobile share over the weekend and I got really, really angry. Did you start throwing things? Why do I have, yeah, why do I have to pay an extra 10 bucks to put another device on my mobile share plan or 20 bucks? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. Just charge me for the data that I'm using. Like, could you imagine if you had to pay Comcast an extra 10 bucks just to turn on another computer in your house? Well, you know, for, to that point, Comcast will charge you more money if you want another cable box in your house. But it's their equip, your rent, your physically renting a piece of equipment. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Um, yeah. It's, it's outrageous. Uh, but so is a lot of what AT&T and Verizon do. So I mean, well, I mean, nobody's doing it. Nobody's offering, you know, here's pay us a hundred bucks a month and we'll give you, you know, four gigs of data that you can use on whatever you want, however you want. Like nobody's doing that. It's like, technically, technically if you want to get really technical about it, you can use that data wherever you want on AT&T by moving the SIM around, which actually, Deeter, they're trying to make, uh, they're trying to make difficult on you. Yeah. No, I have a forum post with, uh, and I actually have a statement from AT&T. I just haven't written it yet, but, uh, provisioning phones and AT&T is a huge pain now because you can't to have all the features on the iPhone five work. You need to be on a mobile share plan and you need to call them and have them provision it to the IMEI, the unique identifier for the actual phone hardware. So that mobile hotspot and FaceTime will work. Uh, if you take that SIM card out and stick it in an Android phone or I don't know, a Palm pre, I mean, whatever, whatever other smartphone that uses data that you want, a Windows phone, um, the phone calling will work, but the data will not. You need to call them and have it be provisioned off of the special iPhone plan and onto the Android or, you know, other generic data plans. So that data will work there. Now that's the way it's actually always been. Um, but what seemed, and I thought it was different, I thought it was different before, but AT&T tells me it's not is if it's provisioned as a generic data device to Android, Windows phone, whatever, uh, you used to be able to stick it in an iPhone and have those other features work. Um, but that's not the case now. And then I guess it wasn't the case before. So if you want a like officially sanctioned mobile hotspot on an iPhone and AT&T, you've got to be on an AT&T plan. And if you want data to work at all on a non iPhone smartphone, you need to be provisioned there. And it used to be really simple swim SIM swapping is now you put the SIM in, you call AT&T, you wait for 10 minutes, you talk to somebody, you say, Hey, I'm in a different phone now. Provision me now. Like I'm all worked up about this, but this is not a problem that 99% of people have. Um, but it's still like, I mean, that's really, it's a one percenter problem there, Dieter, that you've got, but it's, it's the principle behind it is, um, you know, AT&T isn't treating their devices agnostically. It's, you know, you need to call them and get the provision for the specific data plan for the specific phone that you have. And, um, that's like, it's in the same vein as why am I, you know, having to pay for each device going on, you know, my data bucket, I get that there's a certain amount of load that goes on the network for having another device registered on it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So like, I know it's not going to change anytime soon, especially because it's a big revenue stream. Um, but, uh, I want the carriers to be more like dumb pipes and I want them to treat the stuff that connects to their network, uh, equally. And, uh, this is a tiny little step in the wrong direction. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's really like just the carriers are fighting becoming that dumb pipe that, you know, we would like them to be and would hope eventually that they become, uh, but they're going to do everything they can to stop that from happening and having you, requiring you to actually call them, to interact with them, to switch a device, uh, is just one more way to do that. And the funny thing is that they carriers fight so hard to reduce the amount of time that customers need to spend on the phone with them. Like, uh, I remember at MWC, I had a discussion with, uh, Oh, the name of the company escapes me. What, what is the, um, shoot, what is the company? Oh, they, they made that hotspot thing that when you talked about. No, no. The, the, the company that, uh, that got into a hot water for, um, transmitting all your keys. Oh, carrier IQ. Carrier IQ. Thank you. Carrier IQ. So, uh, you know, they're, they're real business model, uh, is not being evil. It's actually, um, uh, you know, coming up with these metrics that carriers can use to like tweak service and like fixed towers that are, aren't performing optimally and this and that and the other thing. Um, and, uh, they were in the process of rolling out these new tools, uh, that were actually actually customer facing tools so that a, a carrier would roll these out to its customers and they would be able to log into like this portal and see all these stats on like how many dropped calls you've had and like why the calls were dropped. Things that like, you know, customers probably call into customer service for all the time and it's just, there's nothing that customer service can do. It's just, it's kind of like wasting their time. So that was carrier IQ's proposition to carriers is give them access to this information. They will, they will call you less and carriers are always looking for ways, self-help tools, those sorts of things to make it so that you don't have to get in contact with them because that costs them money every time you do call them. So here you have a very seemingly a really easy thing for them to say, you know, well, we're just going to use one APN for all of our devices and then that way, like we stay true to the spirit of GSM. You can move your SIM around just like you're supposed to be able to. And what do you know? We also don't get a, we don't generate a support call. Like, and instead they're, you know, they're, they're throwing that advantage away just because they want to, I mean, I'm sure they have some technical, some, you know, random technical reason why they're doing it this way, but in reality, let's be honest, there's no reason that FaceTime over cellular can't run over the existing APN. Well, I mean, I would, I would like to know how European carriers would handle it because that's a perfect example. Like people can switch from an iPhone to a Galaxy S3 if they want in the UK. I highly doubt they have to call O2 to switch it over. So yeah, maybe there's a technical reason, but does it really need to be a technical reason? Right. And on that depressing note, I have nothing else. You guys, is there anything you guys want to do? Do you want to talk about ISIS? I don't really want to. I mean, I'll, you know, it's coming finally. Maybe the logo looks like the Nespresso logo, but I already mentioned that. I actually, I don't think that's the ISIS logo. That's just the that's the NFC logo that AT&T is using. It's awful. Yeah. I guess I'm just looking through our other news items for the week. Yeah. Oh, you know what we should touch. You guys are going to kill me for this, but I do think we should touch briefly on the iPod touch review because, you know, there used to be this running joke that like a really, really common like device combo for business people was a Blackberry in one hand and an iPod touch in the other or an iPod, not even an iPod touch, but just an iPod of some sort. And I, you know, this is still, I think, a really compelling product for a lot of people who for one reason or another either want a non iPhone or need to have a non iPhone, probably for business, but still want, you know, still want access to all of that iPhone stuff. And this looks like a really sweet device. I'm really excited that they're bringing colors to it. You know, I think it's incredible. Yeah. It's a gorgeous device and it's really well made. And it's like incredibly thin. It's insane how thin it is. You can't like appreciate how thin it is until you actually hold it, which is we say every single time, but it's really the truth here. I think with the colors, I think that Apple identified a target audience for this with that, you know, this is a huge device that teenagers love and parents love for teenagers because they don't have to pay for a data plan on it and they don't have to pay for another line on their cellular plan. They can give the kid a prepaid phone, take the school in emergencies, and then their kid has all their games and apps and iMessage and everything on their iPod touch. And I think these colors, you know, just speak to that as well that, you know, the kids will eat this up. Right. So what makes, what makes me wonder about the iPod touch is why aren't we seeing these colors on the iPhone? And I think the answer is probably it's, it's probably just like everything else bad that happens in the world. It's probably the carriers, right? I don't think, no, I don't, I don't think it's the carriers because I think Apple would do it regardless if it wanted to or not. If they wanted to put colors on the iPhone, I think it would do it. I don't think the carriers have the, the, that kind of clout over, over Apple's design philosophy. Um, but yeah, it's a good question as to why we don't see it in the iPhone unless they're just trying to, uh, separate a premium versus a slightly less premium line. But I think that the number of phones that they need to produce is huge and they want to bring costs down from that volume. And I think it's also multiple skews, you know, it's, it's one thing to offer, you know, four different colors at Best Buy. It's another thing to try and, you know, get Verizon to have those colors stocked in their stores. It's, it's a, it's an entirely, you know, if you don't have the color you want, uh, at Best Buy it's out of stock, you know, whatever. But if they don't have the color you want at Verizon, I mean, you know, the idea that they would have to stock all those different multiple models when these, you know, all these companies have done such a good job of minimizing the amount of inventory that they have to carry. I think that it's, you know, it's possible, but I think that, um, they save a ton of money by not doing it. Yeah. Both Apple and the carriers. That is a very good point. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's kind of bad that I want to, I own an iPhone and I carry an iPhone, but I still want one of these iPod touches. Can you imagine, can you imagine if the iPhone five was the thickness? In fact, I can already tell you not the five S but the iPhone six, they're going to be like good news. We made the iPhone as thin as our old iPod touch now. And Chris is just going to die inside because he just really wanted more battery life. Yeah. I mean like I would still rather have an iPhone. Well, maybe not now, like now that I'm used to it, but like a couple of weeks ago I just wanted a phone that was the thickness of the four S with more battery life. And now they've gotten me used to the stupid seven point one. Like they're going to keep making it thinner. I'll be like, oh, this is stupid. Then I'll use it for all. I'll be like, oh, this is actually pretty cool. And then, you know, like it's, it's a vicious cycle. Anyway, I'm just, I'm, I'm saying nothing of importance. Can we talk a little bit about the loop? Cause I would kind of love the loop on my iPhone. The, uh, oh wait, you would? I think it'd be rad. Yeah. I don't know. I think laptops are a big deal, man. In what circumstance, just explain to me, Dan, under what circumstance you would use the loop. You know what I would do is because the button depresses, uh, to go, it's a push push button. I would just play with it all day long. Like it would be sitting on my desk and I'd be like, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And that's probably the real reason that I want it. Yeah. No, that's fair. That's, that's totally fair. Yeah. I'm just realizing, uh, looking at the bottom of the, uh, the iPod touch here, they physically can't make it much thinner because of the, uh, the, the diameter of the three and a half millimeter jack. They're almost getting to the point where they're, they're hitting that limit. And what really worries me about that- Wasn't there some insane patent where they had like a, a jack that was like half rubber and half metal and then it could, it could expand out when you plugged it in, but it would reduce down to the thinner form factor. I swear I saw a patent from Apple on that like four years ago. Probably. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me. But, but I can totally imagine Apple, uh, just going with a proprietary, I mean, they basically went with a proprietary headphone jack with the first generation iPhone for all practical purposes. I could see them if, if at some point they decide that they really need to make like a four millimeter thick phone, uh, I could totally see them saying, well, we're just gonna have to go with a one millimeter wide, uh, jack and everyone's going to have to deal with it. Or the, you know, they would eliminate the wire entirely and use some sort of wireless. Yeah. Yeah. They could use, yeah, they could use aptX or something. Four millimeters. I'm just trying to think about it. I would say that would be like that. No, it's the patent that came out last year in 2011. What did? Um, the 3.5 cutting a 3.5 jack and half. Oh, the, uh, the patent. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in other words, what you're telling me is that this is going to happen pretty much. Yeah. Um, that's the Verge mobile show everybody. We want to thank you so much for watching or listening, but preferably watching because, uh, the men in the studio are quite handsome. If you want to email us, you can, uh, it is mobile show at the verge.com. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you totally should. I'm at Bacalan, Chris is at Zpower, Dan is at DC Seifert, spelled E I, uh, we are together at Verge and we'll be back next week. Hopefully with more mobile news. Hopefully with Vlad next week. And with Vlad. And it is Vlad Savov, I believe on Twitter and you should follow him too. And we'll be happy to have him and goodbye. Thanks for watching. Thanks guys. See you next week.
 Hi, oh, hey, how's it going?
 It's the Verge Mobile Show where it's our 21st.
 On your 21st you totally got a party, so you should totally stay tuned for the Verge Mobile
 Show.
 Hi, I'm Peter Bohn.
 I'm Dan Siefert.
 I'm Chris Ziegler.
 And to be very clear, I am stone cold sober despite the fact that this is the 21st episode
 of the Verge Mobile Show for the week of October 15th, 2012.
 I have to say, Dieter, your head, Dan and I were just talking about this earlier, your
 head is like enormous.
 It's like that's really, really frightening.
 I have a big head.
 What can I say?
 So would you say it was a big week in news?
 I would say that it was bigger than I expected.
 We know that the end of the month is crazy and it seems like it's just gotten started
 early.
 So we had lots and lots of rumors to the Nexus, we had the LG, Sprint got bought.
 Out of nowhere this week has been chock full of stuff to talk about.
 I don't know what this leaves for CES.
 We were just talking about CES a second ago.
 And I guess CES is never a big show for mobile.
 I guess we'll see it start to pick up again at MWC in late February.
 But yeah, this is going to be the biggest news cycle for mobile of the year in the next
 three to four weeks, I think.
 Yeah, it's going to be pretty insane.
 And it seems like it's already starting.
 Whether we want it to or not, it's coming.
 So why don't we jump into that, the unwanted thing.
 This is kind of crazy.
 This supposed LG Nexus device that has been fully exposed given a complete review treatment
 before it's even been officially announced.
 And that's kind of insane, if you ask me.
 Well, yeah, it's crazy.
 I mean, you know, the software apparently is super buggy.
 And that's no surprise given that this is like a crazy leaked device.
 But you know, if this does in fact turn out to be the Nexus, what blows my mind about
 it is how much it looks like the Galaxy Nexus.
 Like we were expecting it to be based on the LG Optimus G, but it looks like the Samsung.
 It really does.
 Well, what's kind of funny about that is the Galaxy Nexus was kind of, you know, in the
 vein of the Galaxy S2 at the time, but with a more rounded shape and more rounded corners.
 And like, this is exactly the kind of the same thing with the Optimus and this LG Nexus.
 It's in the vein of, you know, the Optimus G, but much more rounded.
 And so that it ends up looking almost exactly like the Galaxy Nexus.
 I think if you go all the way back to the Nexus S, you can tell that there is a certain
 aesthetic that Google is probably asking for from the OEMs that it's signing up for Nexus
 devices.
 And yeah, it certainly seems that that's continuing here.
 Yeah, so...
 Well, I mean, I think it looks fine.
 I think it certainly looks better than the Optimus G, which, you know, is actually, actually
 I've got them both here, the AT&T and the Sprint.
 It's actually kind of a squat square little phone, especially compared to say the Galaxy
 Nexus or the One X.
 It's sort of, you know, I'm not going to call it stumpy, but it's a little bit shorter.
 It's a little bit closer.
 I don't know if it's exactly four by three.
 I mean, I'm sure it's not, but it's not quite as tall.
 And so that I think that putting sort of the Nexus styling on this hardware would make
 it really handsome.
 Yeah, I mean, the photos and I mean, don't get me wrong, whoever quote unquote reviewed
 this device took some decent photos of it that potentially made it look better than
 it actually looks IRL in real life for those of you who don't follow the internet lingo.
 But yeah, no, it looks like a pretty attractive device.
 I don't know.
 I think I commented last week that my Galaxy Nexus feels huge after using an iPhone 5 and
 I'm not sure I want a phone.
 Just give me a four inch, like give me a modernized Nexus S.
 Right.
 You know?
 Exactly.
 I think if Vlad were here, he would be screaming from the mountains in agreement with you.
 Yes.
 You know, it's funny that you mentioned the iPhone 5 because I feel like every single
 phone I've picked up in the past two weeks since I started using my iPhone 5 has felt
 like a heavy brick.
 So there's kind of that.
 Now as far as the hardware of this LG Nexus, obviously it's very pre-release at this point
 and it definitely doesn't seem like a finalized device, but the hardware more or less seems
 like it's kind of in the vein of what it's going to be.
 And if this thing launches with eight gigabytes of internal storage, I just can't imagine
 using that as, you know, a Nexus device.
 If you load three games on there, you can suck up 50% of your internal storage right
 away.
 So I mean, I guess Google could tentatively or theoretically offer this in multiple capacities,
 but it seems kind of odd to me that they're starting it at eight gigabytes of internal.
 Yeah, that's nothing.
 Right.
 Yeah, I'm concerned about that.
 I'm concerned about the fact that we haven't seen, we saw the HSPA version, but not an
 LTE supporting version on AT&T go through the FCC.
 We actually got an email from a listener who was talking about the rumors that there might
 be multiple Nexus devices.
 And he's a little bit worried that what's going to happen is that you're not going to
 get your choice of Nexus on your choice of carrier, that you're going to get stuck in
 a situation where Verizon will get the HTC Nexus and AT&T will get the LG Nexus and there'll
 be multiple devices and multiple carriers, but you're still going to be stuck in this
 weird world where you have to pick a carrier and then that totally limits what phone you
 can get.
 I could completely see that happening.
 As cynical as it sounds, I could totally see that happening.
 Just given the incompatibilities between the networks for LTE service.
 Yeah, I don't think that Google or anybody really has the power to pull off this coup
 where they have all of these Nexus devices, this X number of Nexus devices, however many
 we end up seeing, deployed on all four national networks in the US.
 The odds of that happening, I think, are practically nil.
 That would be amazing if it did happen, but I'm certainly not counting on it.
 I'm not that much of an optimist.
 Well, I mean, it's coming soon and I'll be interested to see if we do get multiple.
 Wasn't there a rumor that there was a Sony device, that maybe it was a Nexus device?
 Yeah, those pictures, I don't know, man.
 They're pretty raw.
 Yeah, those pictures did not have me convinced.
 We mentioned in our post that the screen is not aligned correctly.
 The bottom of the screen is, I think, four pixels more to the right than the top of the
 screen.
 And don't get me wrong, if it's an early prototype, I could certainly imagine that the components
 are kind of shoddily put together, but still, that's a red flag.
 If you look deep or close at the back, you can see some evidence of image alteration.
 So it'd be great if Sony did a Nexus phone, I think a lot of people would be really excited
 about that.
 But whether the one that we saw this week, or allegedly saw this week, is it?
 I'm not terribly convinced.
 Now what's interesting to me is that we haven't heard, correct me if I'm wrong, I probably
 have no idea what I'm talking about, but I don't think we've heard a single rumor of
 a Samsung, next generation Samsung Nexus device, is that correct?
 And so I think what has happened is Samsung is feeling very confident about its position
 in the Android world right now, and feels like it doesn't necessarily need Google's
 help anymore to do what it wants to do, and that has certainly borne out with the Galaxy
 S3 and the S2 before it really, and the Note and Note 2.
 So it makes me wonder if we're ever going to see a Samsung Nexus again.
 I feel like the Nexus is sort of the safe haven for downtrodden OEMs that want to do
 something cool on Android and need Google's help and guidance and their muscle to make
 carriers carry it, and Samsung simply doesn't need that help anymore.
 They've taken Android and made it their own, and now it's going to be somebody else's turn.
 And LG certainly, I think, falls into the category of downtrodden Android OEM.
 Yeah, LG and HTC as well.
 HTC has had some really impressive devices this year that's still having trouble actually
 selling them and turning a profit on them.
 So having Google's help behind it, like it did way back when with the Nexus One, certainly
 wouldn't be a bad thing.
 Yeah, yeah.
 Yeah, the Nexus One, I mean, for many people, the Nexus One is still like the ultimate Nexus
 device, you know?
 If the Nexus One had a 720p display and LTE, I would probably still consider carrying it
 to this day.
 Never mind, it's 512 megabytes of storage, so you could install an app.
 I'm glossing over that stuff.
 Yeah, I mean, the Nexus One was pretty great.
 It was one of the first Android phones definitely that took a lot of people's focus off of the
 iPhone as far as a high-end phone that can really compete.
 And that's what it defined the Nexus line going forward, which hasn't always fulfilled
 that.
 I think the Nexus S was kind of a misstep, but the Galaxy Nexus was a lot better.
 So hopefully, if we do get four of these or more than one of these Nexus devices, we're
 not going to get like a low, medium, and high type of thing, but we're going to get high-end
 versions from all of them, all the manufacturers that participate.
 That would be kind of great.
 But we're still going to have to wait a few weeks to find out exactly what happens, I
 think.
 So let's talk about the Optimus G. I reviewed the Sprint and the AT&T version.
 And I mean, really the most interesting thing is that LG has got a flagship top-tier phone
 on a couple of US carriers instead of just shipping low and mid-range stuff and that.
 I'm not even admitting that the LG intuition exists in that assessment.
 But they're good.
 The screen is incredibly good and surprisingly nice.
 I think it's second in the Android space only to the One X in terms of its viewing angles,
 its brightness, its color fidelity.
 I'm really happy with it.
 And I'm holding up the Sprint version now, which matches very closely to the international
 hardware with the exception of a sealed SIM card, which is pretty annoying.
 I keep saying it's not the prettiest phone in the world, but it's fine.
 It's pretty good.
 And then the LG's thing is they've got, I'm trying to get this to happen on the camera,
 but I can't.
 So the back panel, which is glass, I think, but it could be poly in one, glass in another.
 LG has told some people that it's not glass and everybody else that it is.
 So I don't know why they can't just have the story straight.
 But the deal is that it's actually polarized.
 And so if you're looking at it at an angle, it looks like it's black.
 And then once you get straight on, then you can see the pattern finish underneath, which
 reflects the light in a certain way.
 So you get a black slab, but then you get this Julie looking thing when you're looking
 at it at the right angle, which is kind of neat.
 That pattern totally reminds me of the original live wallpaper on the Nexus One with the squares
 and then the different colors that would shoot horizontally and vertically.
 That's what it totally just, I mean, when I first saw that, that was like the first
 thing I thought of.
 I can see that.
 And then the AT&T version is a little bit wider actually, because it's got like this
 like curved rail on it.
 And the deal is that accommodates the SIM card and a micro SD slot.
 But otherwise they're basically the same.
 And it's so fast.
 It's got this S4 Pro processor from Qualcomm.
 It's a quad core device or quad core processor.
 And like everything is really fast except screen rotation, which is LG software's fault,
 which takes basically 20 minutes for it to rotate the screen.
 But other than that, I don't know why that's so terrible because everything else is really
 good.
 Although I do need to, I spent a long time talking about this in the review.
 Everybody needs to take AT&T behind the windshield and make them stop putting crap on phones.
 The amount of like, there's 11 AT&T apps that are crammed onto this thing.
 I stuck them all in a folder.
 AT&T code scanner, AT&T family map, AT&T locker, AT&T navigator, AT&T ready to go, AT&T smart
 Wi-Fi, live TV, my AT&T, messages, YP Mobile and device help.
 On top of that, just some of the extra stuff that they did, like there's this quick setting
 thing in the notification area and they don't let you put mobile hotspot in there.
 Really?
 Why?
 What's the problem?
 Why are you afraid of mobile hotspot in quick settings?
 That doesn't make any sense.
 Oh, I can tell you exactly why they're afraid of mobile hotspot and quick settings because
 they want to discourage anything.
 It's for the exact same reason that they're trying to discourage people from using FaceTime
 over cellular.
 They're deathly afraid, as they should be, of their glass network shattering.
 That's what's going on here.
 Well, that stinks.
 So is the software situation the main or only explanation for the slightly lower score in
 the AT&T version?
 Yeah.
 I mean, the software is annoying enough that I had to give it a lower score on AT&T.
 It was just too much.
 The other interesting thing is AT&T's camera is eight megapixels, where Sprint's is 13,
 and I much prefer AT&T's camera.
 I was talking to Mary in the Robert N. Gadget.
 She prefers the 13 megapixel camera.
 And honestly, I think the difference is just one of pure ability.
 I think with both of these cameras, you need to do a little more work and be a little bit
 better at taking photos from a phone than you do with, say, the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone.
 So you can get good shots out of these, but you can't just pull the phone up and click
 something the way that you can on the other phones.
 You need to spend a little bit more time.
 And in that sense, Sprint's 13 megapixel camera is much less forgiving of my shaky hands and
 terrible ability to frame shots and check the lighting and whatever.
 Yeah, once you get above eight, I feel like it's definitely a gimmick thing.
 Like either the carrier or the OEM was like, we just want to have this giant number on
 our spec sheet and blow everyone away.
 And it's not...
 I mean, this is an age-old argument, right?
 The fact that when it comes to cameras, particularly camera phone cameras, it's much more about
 the optics and about the quality of the sensor than it is about the raw pixel count, because
 you're not going to blow up an image from your Sprint Optimus G to poster size.
 I mean, maybe you are, I'm not.
 You don't know what people do, man.
 Yeah.
 When I think about this argument, I think about...
 I've got a...
 I think it's two years old now, a Canon S95, which I deeply love.
 And I fundamentally that we could have camera phones that hit that quality.
 I mean, let's talk about the pure view, right?
 But if you can't get there yet, I think that...
 Wow, it is so hot in here.
 I think that you should stick with what works for the majority of people.
 And right now that's an eight megapixel sensor.
 Yeah.
 Heck, I'd take five.
 If it meant that I had better low light sensitivity, I would actually be more than happy to take
 a five megapixel sensor.
 The problem is that I think that because eight is widely perceived as the standard for high
 end camera phones right now, you'd have a very difficult time coming to market with
 a five and convincing people that you're not shortchanging them on a key spec.
 So I think that that's just a non-starter.
 I just want to point out, and nobody is going to have any idea what I'm talking about, but
 the NFC logo on the AT&T model, which I'm assuming has something to do with ISIS, looks...
 It's so bad.
 It's this weird double N.
 Yes.
 And it looks exactly like the Nespresso logo.
 Go ahead and Google that and be ready to agree with me.
 It looks exactly like it.
 Somebody is suing somebody.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, that's hideous.
 So we finally got price and release date yesterday for both Sprint and AT&T.
 I actually need to update the review with I think AT&T's information.
 They're both $199 on contract.
 Sprint's releasing on the 11th.
 AT&T is releasing on the second.
 And why couldn't they just have said this when they announced and made the big releases
 of the phones at MobileCon last week?
 What's the whole...
 Why wait a week?
 This whole thing about we're going to announce the phone but not give you official price
 and release date, I'm tired of it.
 Motorola did the same thing with the Razer HD, HD Max.
 Everybody's doing it lately.
 I'm starting to think that it's not that they can't do it.
 I'm starting to think that they know that if they don't do it, that we're going to be
 forced to write about them again.
 They'll get it up there once they announce the price and release date a little bit later.
 That's interesting.
 I have another theory, which I would like to run by you guys.
 I think that it's a domino effect created by Windows Phone 8.
 I think that Microsoft put pressure...
 Not put pressure, just flat out said to OEMs and carriers that they can't talk specific
 dates and prices until their launch event on the 29th.
 And then carriers were like, well, we want to plan all these other launches of flagship
 devices around those Windows Phone 8 launches.
 So we just kind of have to...
 I mean, we want people to know about them.
 We want people to know that we're getting them, but we want some wiggle room to play
 with those dates.
 So they're kind of in a holding pattern until they can talk dates for the Windows Phone
 8 gear.
 I would agree with that theory, except that none of this behavior is terribly new.
 Yeah.
 I mean, carriers and manufacturers have been doing this for a long time.
 Well, I feel like it's particularly bad this fall.
 This fall has been particularly frustrating, but I think a lot of that does have to do
 with the Windows Phone stuff, because a lot of the phones that we've covered recently
 and have been announced have been Windows Phone devices that we're just like, oh, here's
 another phone.
 It's coming to T-Mobile.
 Can't tell you when, can't tell you how much.
 So yeah, it seems like it's been exacerbated, but I don't think any of it is new behavior
 necessarily.
 No, no.
 Yeah.
 I mean, this has been going on for years.
 I just think that we've had, what, probably somewhere between five and 10 phone announcements
 in the past six to eight weeks that have all had this mysterious pricing and availability
 to be announced in the coming weeks at the end.
 And it's just super frustrating, not just for us, but for readers who are trying to
 plan their purchases and trying to decide what they want to buy and when.
 And it's just, you know.
 I need to say one more thing about the Optimus G, and that is, as great as it is that LG
 has sort of come into its own and found its own identity as far as hardware goes.
 In terms of software and also their launch party at MobileCon, they have huge Samsung
 envy.
 It's ridiculous.
 They like their special features.
 There's there's Q slide, which lets you put this alpha and make video semi-transparent
 so you can watch video at the same time or do other stuff in the OS video.
 They've got I think it's called Y screen or something that that cracks me up.
 Continue.
 But I'm sorry, I had to say that the camera watches your eyes just like, you know, the
 Samsung thing so that it will the screen will stay awake while you're looking at it.
 They have the same.
 You can do stuff just by tilting the phone instead of dragging and dropping in like random
 places, like moving an icon on the home screen.
 Nobody wants to do that.
 I don't know why Samsung insists on offering that option.
 And then LG just does the same thing.
 They offer it again.
 I really wish they had a feature called L voice.
 I would be shocked if it didn't happen.
 It's like Y screen is like they looked at the smart screen feature, looked at its name,
 opened up a thesaurus and was like, we'll call it that.
 And it's like the same exact feature.
 I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Dieter, but it's like the same exact feature.
 And it just like I hate to say this, but it just makes LG terribly feel like a poor man's
 Samsung because like everything is just like trying to do what Samsung is doing, but it's
 not really pulling it off as well.
 This is a good phone on its own.
 And so this is why it makes me super excited for the whatever we're going to call the next
 Nexus, Nexus 4, I think is one of the rumors.
 I mean, it looks great.
 I think it'll be really good because LG has managed to put together some really solid
 hardware.
 But this is messed up because these phones, these two Optimus G's are coming to market
 in early November, which is right around the time that we think that this Nexus stuff is
 going to happen.
 So you're going to have this train wreck, this collision of two very different philosophies,
 both LG branded products.
 And you're going to have this mix of carriers.
 I mean, you know, is the Nexus 4, whatever it's called, going to be offered on AT&T and
 or Sprint.
 I would assume it's going to at least be offered on Sprint because Sprint has been very, very
 pro Google going back to the Nexus 1, which was canceled at the last minute, but then
 they ended up offering the S and the Galaxy Nexus.
 And they're very tightly partnered with Google on Google Wallet.
 So how is that going to play out?
 What is the message that they're going to deliver to customers who are cross shopping
 these products?
 I don't know.
 Well, I think you have different customers shopping these products is what it is.
 And just like as it's always been with Nexus devices, they're not huge sellers.
 They're not huge market share grabbers.
 Somebody who's walking into a carrier store in the mall to buy their cell phone isn't
 going to look for the Nexus on display.
 They're going to see flashy software features and things like that and whatever, you know,
 the sales reps are incentivized to sell at the time.
 So I think that, you know, if LG is able to deliver these without bugs and deliver them
 timely, as it seems that they're more or less doing, they could sell a good amount of them,
 maybe even more so than a Nexus device, because the people that are looking for a Nexus device
 are going to be very different.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, they're going to have to be very careful about that messaging in the store, though,
 because you always, I mean, there are always two aspects, right?
 There's the PR line, there's the official company line and how this product is positioned
 and who it's being sold to.
 And then you have the often very different message of what the sales rep is actually
 saying to the customer in the store.
 And historically, I mean, the thing that all of these OEMs, particularly Microsoft and
 their partners, but everyone has been fighting for the past couple years on Verizon and AT&T
 is, you know, you're fighting the reps that are saying just buy this iPhone.
 But now, you know, what are they going to say?
 Just say this is a purely hypothetical situation, but say that Sprint ranges both the Optimus
 G and then also ranges the Nexus 4, which for all practical purposes looks like a slightly
 nicer Optimus G, also by LG and the software, like from like, you know, completely uninitiated
 customers perspective, it just looks like different software, not better, right?
 Like if you put them side by side in the store, you can't say, oh yeah, this Nexus software
 is obviously better.
 Like, you know, you have to use it and then make the call for yourself.
 I just don't know how they, I mean, that's a very complicated question that these carriers
 have to answer.
 Well, I think it's funny, it goes back to some of these software features that LG and
 Samsung are customizing their phones with.
 A lot of these look really flashy in the store.
 When a, you know, sales rep is demoing a phone and is like, oh look, you can watch a video
 and text at the same time.
 They're not saying that you'll never do that in real life.
 They're saying, look at how cool that is.
 And you know, and look how I can tilt the phone and drag an icon around and stuff like
 that.
 Whereas, you know, actual features that are usable in day to day use aren't necessarily
 as whiz bang and flashy to someone who's buying something in the store.
 So I think if, you know, and it may very well come down to this, if sales reps are incentivized
 to sell some, the Optimus G-Line more, they're going to show it off more and they're going
 to show off the things that it does more.
 And they're going to show in a favorable light those types of things that sell the phone
 in the store.
 Yep.
 I have nothing else to say about that.
 So wait, so Dieter, so Dieter, what's the final verdict?
 Should a Sprint or AT&T customer strongly consider buying this phone in early November?
 No, you should wait and see if you're going to get this.
 Like that's it.
 And if you're on AT&T, I think the Galaxy S3 is a slightly better phone unless you care
 deeply about not having an AMOLED screen.
 You know, it's slightly faster, but there's not, it's not that much faster and there's
 not that much that takes advantage of the processor on this thing in terms of software.
 So like it's weird.
 Like this is a really good phone that I probably am not going to recommend to anybody.
 It's sad how often we say that.
 And it's happening more and more often now.
 Which is a good thing.
 It means that they're making better products, but it's also making it much more difficult
 for the best products to bubble to the top and stand out.
 And you also feel bad.
 I mean, you can't help but feel a little bad for LG because you know, they're trying.
 They're trying really hard.
 I will say this.
 The Optimus G is like, like Dieter was saying in the beginning, is the first, one of the
 first that LG is getting on Sprint in a long time as far as a high end device.
 But it's also one of the first high end devices that the company has released that's actually
 making it to the US market in a timely fashion.
 The Optimus LTE took months and months and months to get to the US market.
 The LTE 2, the same exact thing.
 The Forex HD, I don't think we're seeing in the US market at all.
 And the view and the intuition that took nine months to get to the US market.
 Whereas these ones are, they're coming out, they're high end, they're still high end when
 they get to the US.
 So I think that's a big step for LG that they've been able to accomplish that at least.
 Plus at their launch party, the roof of the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, they put a woman
 in a mermaid outfit and put her in the hot tub.
 And like, I had to go to this thing.
 I had to go to this thing.
 It reminds me of, it reminds me of like, it reminds me of when I tuned into the live stream
 of the Galaxy Note 2 launch event and there was just some buster doing like card tricks.
 And I'm like, what is with these companies and their non sequiturs at these, like this
 has nothing to do with any, like why is this happening right now?
 And I'm sure that the same thing is going through your mind, Dieter.
 Why is this happening to me right now?
 Why is there a mermaid in this pool?
 The other Samsung envy thing that I forgot to mention, I'm going to see if I can get
 the audio for us right now, but I have to take my unlock pattern off the screen in order
 to do it.
 So I mean, listen, listen to this.
 Oh man.
 Oh man.
 Dude, do it again.
 Yeah.
 That's Samsung envy.
 That is the inspired by nature water droplet that everyone is such a big fan of.
 Yep.
 Also, it makes me want to, want to pee a little bit.
 So I just turned on the, uh, the video of our very own podcast feed.
 So I could, uh, see, uh, this thing that Chris mentioned about my giant head and yeah, it's,
 it's a big giant head between you two.
 It's really nice to see you in the studio, Chris.
 And this didn't get mentioned on the show last week.
 So if you only listen to the audio version of a mobile show, you don't know this, but
 Dan has grown an amazing beard in record.
 It's really lush.
 It's still needs a little work.
 I'm still in the, you know, looks like he's trying to grow a beard, scruff, scruff stage.
 I think, no, it looks like the, you know, I'm a rugged, like I might be a lumberjack
 kind of like, you know, like you don't know my story, but like I'm definitely mysterious
 and I really should have worn some flannel or some plaid today.
 I guess it's a good look.
 Well, thank you guys.
 Wow.
 Okay.
 Sorry.
 I mean, we have no transition, but we got to talk about a soft bank basically whether
 they bought 70% of sprint, but they're buying, okay.
 So they're buying a 70% stake.
 And what they're going to do is they're going to form a new company called new sprint.
 That's going to all really creative name by the way, best they could come up with.
 Like this deal is surreal to me.
 Like I get that sprint like straight up needs capital because they're not building their
 LTE network as quickly as they need to right now in order to stay competitive.
 So like I get that, but I don't get is soft bank.
 Like me, I mean, I'm not very smart about Japanese carriers, but I mean, is it, is,
 is, you know, sprint that good of an opportunity that they want to drop?
 Uh, how much was it?
 600?
 No, uh, 12 billion.
 Yeah.
 You have to wonder why they didn't.
 I mean, I'm assuming that if they had gone to DT, they probably could have like, you
 know, they, they probably could have talked about a deal for T-Mobile USA.
 Um, yeah.
 And so, yeah, like I'm really curious about the specifics of the conversation that occurred
 between sprint and soft bank and whether soft bank approached, uh, anyone else, because
 I I'm totally on board with you.
 It's an interesting deal.
 Uh, and I, I'm sure that there are, you know, soft bank is a company you, you, you know,
 you look at their comments, uh, from the, uh, from the press conference and it's very,
 very clear that this is a company that really wants to be recognized as like a global, like
 they want to be the next Vodafone, right?
 They want to have presence on every continent.
 Uh, and they, they want to grow aggressively.
 They joked about like acquiring Docomo at some point, which I thought was, was funny.
 Um, and also like a really, like you would never hear, I don't think you would ever hear
 an American CEO joke about acquiring another company, like, cause they just instantly get
 arrested by the sec.
 Like you're just not allowed to do that.
 Um, so I thought that was funny, but yeah, it's an interesting deal.
 I'll, I'll be very curious to see where this leads and it all, you know, I mean, sprint
 has been looking, I love Dan has, he Dan has, he's a great guy.
 Uh, he's, he's just like, I don't know if he, if he's actually an effective CEO or not,
 but he, he certainly, he talks like he doesn't BS.
 Like he doesn't like, he's a very straight talker.
 Uh, and I think that that's a very important quality for a CEO of a somewhat downtrodden
 company to have.
 Uh, and, uh, I, I, they've, they, they've been a, in many cases over the past several
 years, they've been a victim of circumstance and of course a victim of the terrible, uh,
 nextel acquisition that almost, uh, deep six the company altogether, which Dan has, he
 was not a part of.
 And after that deal was, was finalized.
 So maybe this is just the break that sprint needed to really finally turn their luck around
 for good.
 We'll see.
 Yeah.
 I mean, it is a huge influx of cash and, um, there's been a lot of, uh, a lot of analysis
 and speculation going on since then, uh, since this was announced or made official, I guess
 you could say.
 Um, and you know, it's, it was, it's hard to see what sprint was doing, was going to
 plan to do before, um, uh, as far as its LTE network rollout, a lot of it seemed to still
 hinge on clear wire and, you know, relying on that, that 2.5 gigahertz spectrum.
 And it'll be interesting to see what sprint does with this money, this newfound wealth
 that it has from Softbank.
 Will it try to pursue purchasing 700 megahertz, uh, licenses, essentially buying them from
 other carriers that already own them, or is it going to try and take that 2.5 gigahertz
 spectrum that it has access to that nobody else is really using and spending the insane
 capital needs to, uh, turn that into an actual usable nationwide network?
 Um, so it'll be interesting to see how sprint plays this out.
 I think, um, I really can't comment too much about how this is going to help Softbank because
 I'm just not intimately aware of, uh, the Japanese, uh, carriers, uh, financial situations
 and things like that.
 Um, but, uh, you know, I imagine they, they saw sprint as an opportunity to, uh, that
 is a company that's kind of been down on its luck, but it has been sort of turning things
 around, uh, but it needed some help.
 So, uh, and I guess Softbank saw an opportunity to make some money with it.
 I really think it's just a prestige thing for them.
 I really do.
 Like, I, like I said before, I think they're, they're hell bent on becoming a global brand
 and sprint was a really like clear and present opportunity for them because this was a company
 that, you know, they've kind of been like looking to be acquired that, you know, it's,
 it's readily apparent to anyone who's been paying any attention to this for the past
 probably two, two and a half years that they've, they've been dipping their toe in the acquisition
 waters.
 Like they've definitely been open to discussions with people.
 Uh, so that opportunity was there, but yeah, I mean, like we were saying before, why they
 didn't, uh, talk to or why they didn't end up acquiring T-Mobile instead, I don't know.
 It's entirely possible that they had those discussions and they ended up deciding that
 sprint was the better value.
 I don't know.
 I just hope that, uh, sprint is able to use this money quickly to beef up their LTE network
 and you know, even their 3G network, I would, I would really like to see them compete and
 get on par with Verizon and AT&T when it comes to having a 4G LTE, uh, in the U S uh, you
 know, broadly and deeply, uh, with really good speeds because like I really think that
 more competition in that space would be great.
 And you know, Sprint's overall strategy of being the nice guy of offering unlimited data
 of, you know, being a nice guy, letting Google exist on their network.
 Um, it's easy to be that when you're, you know, the loser, uh, but when you actually
 start competing and they can hang on to that nice guy philosophy, um, I think it'd be really
 good for the market.
 And we'll finally get press releases that have actual dates attached to when the LTE
 will be available.
 Oh, that's crazy talk, Dan.
 Don't don't get all crazy on me.
 This coming month stuff.
 Yeah.
 Do you want to talk about the Galaxy S3 mini?
 Didn't we talk, am I, am I completely insane or did we talk about the Galaxy S3 mini last
 week on the show?
 Yeah, I think it was rumored.
 We didn't have a final announcement.
 We show it right before the actual announcement.
 The next, it was the next day.
 Uh, and the announcement fulfilled all of our concerns.
 Uh, it solidified all of our worries in that this was going to be a total, uh, disappointment
 and a yet another just run of the mill mid range smartphone that Samsung cranks out seemingly
 every other minute.
 Um, and, and there's, there's really nothing to get excited about here, which is hugely
 disappointing because I think the whole industry was like, it's got a Galaxy S3 name in it.
 It's going to be high powered, but it'll still fit in my hand.
 And um, you know, it's, it, that's not the case in the least bit.
 So here's what I think is going on with this device.
 Um, I, I, I think that certain very influential European carriers went to Samsung and said,
 Hey guys, we have a lot of customers who identify with the Galaxy S brand and identify with
 Samsung and want to own a Galaxy S3, but they're, you know, they're not quite their income wise.
 You have this huge opportunity to range a device with us that keeps the Galaxy S3 name,
 but it's downspecked and you know, let's make this happen.
 And Samsung, you know, as usual is like, Oh, okay, sounds good.
 Sounds like you've got all these Galaxy S advanced parts lying around, you know?
 Yeah.
 So, so I, you know, I don't think that they hesitate, particularly because this is a somewhat
 limited release device.
 I don't think that they hesitated to recycle the Galaxy S name, which is something that,
 uh, for the, at least the past year and a half or two years, they've kind of shied
 away from doing.
 They've tried very hard, I think, to keep the Galaxy S name at least focused on the
 high end product.
 Galaxy is used everywhere.
 Like, yeah, well that's their Android brand.
 I think Tom Warren actually said this best.
 He tweeted out that what Samsung has done is the equivalent of taking a, an iPhone four
 and branding it an iPhone five mini.
 It's totally bizarre.
 This should not be called an S3.
 It's ridiculous.
 Right.
 Yeah.
 I mean, the only thing that it shares with it is its general shape.
 Everything else is different as far as the screen, the camera, the processor, the internals,
 uh, front to back are different and it, uh, it doesn't support LTE.
 I would be shocked if we ever saw this thing in the US, uh, for, for that reason alone.
 Um, but you know, it might pop up with a variation, a carrier variation that has LTE for, you
 know, 50 or a hundred bucks, uh, with some weird name that, you know, it'd be yet another
 forgettable.
 That's exactly it.
 Like this is going to end up being called like the Galaxy conquest LTE and that might
 be a real product by the way.
 I don't know.
 And then it's going to launch on sprint and like three people will buy it.
 And like we might write a news post about, we certainly aren't going to review it and
 no one will, like it will disappear in three months.
 That is what keeps happening.
 The company's going to troll you and they're going to call it.
 I'm telling you right now, the mega mini, that's what it's going to make a mini.
 We need to make mega happen.
 That needs to take off.
 Wait, I, I'm looking up, I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a Galaxy con.
 Well, there's a victory.
 Okay.
 Oh, there's an Android game called galactic conquest.
 Very close.
 Yeah.
 I guess there's no, okay.
 So carriers, there's an idea for you.
 Galaxy conquest.
 I'll bet you there's a galaxy victory.
 There is a on sprint galaxy victory for GLT or something like that.
 Yes, yes there is.
 Okay.
 So conquest is pretty close to victory anyway.
 So let's talk a galaxy note to on sprint October 25th for 299 99.
 I, we just, there it is.
 I mean, what else?
 What else?
 What else do you want to say?
 It's coming to sprint.
 It's coming to sprint.
 So I actually just got my first opportunity to touch a note to last week.
 I sat down with T-Mobile and they showed me a note to, and like you can't appreciate in
 pictures how flipping big this thing, like it is like, it is hilariously large.
 Like I left it at home.
 I don't have it here to show, uh, against other phones.
 Yeah.
 It's gigantic.
 It's like in pictures, it just looks like a galaxy S3.
 You're like, Oh, whatever.
 That looks pretty cool.
 But no, it's like, it's huge.
 But no, do not be confused.
 Yeah.
 This is a monstrosity.
 I mean, and that's fine.
 I mean like the galaxy notes sold very well.
 I'm sure the note to will as well, but don't like, don't buy it thinking that you're getting
 a galaxy S3 with like a couple extra tens of an inch of screen real estate.
 You're not, you're getting like a small tablet.
 Yeah.
 In fact, in glad review, he like, he aggressively refers to it as a tablet instead of talking
 about it as a phone or a phablet or whatever else you'd want to call it.
 Yeah.
 Right.
 Which, which bothers me to no end because of the lack of actual tablet apps.
 But I think I made that point last week.
 So right.
 But it's got an S pen.
 Uh, it does have the, and it's got snow.
 Yeah.
 Excuse me.
 Hey, I have a question.
 Is the optimist views pen called an L pen?
 No, it's called the rubber DMM.
 Okay.
 Cause it should be called an L pen.
 It would be great if it was called an L pen.
 Yeah.
 That's the one thing that, uh, LG has not latched onto is taking the L initial and just
 putting it in front of various names.
 Yes.
 They've got Q, uh, somebody in the, the, the, the mobile show chat was referencing a rumor
 that they might do a Q voice or something to me.
 Oh wait, no, hang on.
 That's a thing.
 Q voice is a thing.
 Uh, in Korea.
 Yeah.
 Hang on.
 Oh yeah.
 Okay.
 In Korea.
 Yeah.
 Yes.
 Uh, back in July, LG renames quick voice tool, Q voice with English version set for early
 next year.
 Perfect.
 So boom.
 So you have the Q pen you have.
 Yeah, this is great.
 This is perfect.
 Why Q?
 Where did, what like, whatever.
 I think it comes from the quick.
 Like they were like, they're like, we're going to do a quick voice and then like, oh wait,
 no, we don't need the rest of the UICK.
 Just drop that.
 Make a Q voice.
 And, and, uh, makes perfect sense.
 Yeah.
 Um, and I guess the last thing is we, speaking of like finally getting release dates and
 prices, we've got the razor HD razor HD max, uh, October 18th in the U S um, and it's one
 99 and two 99, which I don't know if we knew those prices before, but that's exactly what
 we expected.
 Yep.
 We call them, they're sliding them into their price points.
 So, yeah.
 And, and by the way, the notion of paying a hundred extra dollars for the max is insane.
 Yeah.
 You're paying a hundred bucks more for battery life.
 That's it.
 Yeah.
 Which is like, you know, it's insane, but like, why would you buy the other one at the
 same token?
 Yeah.
 Uh, it's got internal memory.
 I'm telling you, man, I was trying to look it up.
 So the max has more, more internal storage.
 Is that what we're?
 Okay.
 Oh, double.
 Okay.
 Yeah, I see.
 Double the internal storage.
 Okay.
 Still it's a hundred bucks, but like then again, why would you buy the other one is,
 is like on a, on a two year contract, you know, a hundred bucks to, to, you know, make
 a big stink over a hundred bucks between a phone when you're paying, you know, two grand
 over a two year contract is kind of like, you might as well have that phone at least
 last all day.
 You say that, but it's like, I really feel that, um, I mean like think about it.
 Think about any other product.
 Like there's a big difference between one 99 and two, like I get the logic that spread
 over two years.
 It's nothing.
 But you think you have to think about it in terms of like, I'm going into the, into a
 store and spending either 200 or $300 today.
 So that that's still, I think that for a lot of buyers, that's still like a major factor,
 you know, it's for the same.
 I mean like for the same reason that there's an iPhone 16, 32 and 64.
 I mean, of course you'd like the 64, but I bet the 32 and 16 both outsell it.
 Oh yeah.
 Well the best selling one is the 16.
 And personally I can't bring myself to spend $400 for a phone on contract.
 So I guess that proves the point.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 I used to go for the 64 on the iPhone.
 Um, and I used to care a lot about having a ton of internal storage.
 I don't even know what I've got on mine anymore cause I don't care anymore because I don't
 load it up with music.
 I just use audio and I don't pay attention.
 To a point, to a point that makes sense.
 But when you've got big, uh, big apps and big games, you do want to have some, like
 you're not going to go down to an eight gigabyte device.
 Uh, yeah, no, I've got 32 gig.
 Right.
 So you were going to want to have some space, but it's not as big of a concern as it used
 to be.
 That's for sure.
 The only time where it's, it's a problem for me because I, I'm with you a hundred percent
 Dieter.
 Um, I, I got the, uh, the 16 gig and, uh, didn't look back.
 I use Mog exclusively for music now.
 Um, and in fact, like I was only using like two gig of internal storage.
 The only problem is that, that I can see is that if you're going like on an international
 flight or something and you want two or three movies to rent, each one is between four and
 five gig.
 So that's where you start to run into problems.
 But otherwise it's still like, there's no problem with the 16 gig.
 That was the exact reason that I bought the 16 gigabyte Nexus 7 was because I was like,
 I want to use this on movies or on planes and I want to be able to watch, you know,
 one or two movies.
 That was the exact reason that I did.
 Yep.
 Um, can I point out two things?
 Three things.
 I want to point out three things.
 Uh, one Skype is the worst and it, uh, switched my mic input, uh, to the wrong microphone
 randomly.
 Um, which is awesome.
 Uh, two, it's insanely hot in the verge west office and I don't know if I can handle it
 anymore, but normally it's not insanely hot in the verge west office.
 And if you want to work in the verge west office, we just put up a job listing.
 We're hiring out here.
 Are you, are you going to pass out?
 I am going to pass out.
 I'm a, cause that would be very entertaining to do that during the show.
 That makes for great television.
 It'd be a nice, uh, you know, book, bookend to the opening where I, you know, pretended
 that I was, is it like 90 degrees in San Francisco again?
 Is that what's happening?
 Yeah.
 It's that's because we have frost here in New York this week.
 Like frost.
 It is.
 Yeah.
 It's like 90 degrees, uh, right now.
 Uh, and since I have to have everything all closed up here for the show, it's probably
 like approaching 90 in the office.
 So here's what happened.
 Somebody saw that you were about to die.
 Like they were watching the show like, Oh, Dieter's about to die cause it's really hot.
 So we're going to post his job on the board right now.
 So we're ready with replacement as soon as he dies.
 That's what's going on here.
 Yeah.
 Um, I'm not even going to call attention to what's happening in the chat right now.
 Um, so, okay.
 Razor max HD.
 Like if you can spend the extra hundred bucks, you should, because I've held them both.
 And unless you're actually holding them and feeling their weight, if you're looking at
 it from more than a foot away, you literally cannot tell the difference.
 Like it is the, the razor HD is not that thin and the razor HD max, or is it magic max HD?
 Whatever, uh, is like a millimeter thicker.
 It's barely thicker.
 Um, so, uh, you know, despite, you know, the fact that it's a Pentel screen and you know,
 a few other problems that I have with the software, but not that many, surprisingly.
 Um, it's not launching with jelly bean, which is insane and annoying because Google owns
 this company.
 Um, I'm actually kind of like the idea of a phone that has literally 22 hours of talk
 time is pretty exciting for me because I'm iPhone five, this LG, the one X, the galaxy
 S three.
 Um, if I push any of them, uh, super hard, I can't get through a day.
 And the idea that I could just not care, um, is pretty exciting.
 Like I'm imagining having this phone at CES and just not worrying about my battery life.
 Well, to, to, to your point, Dieter, uh, you know, when the, when the original razor max
 came out, uh, and people would ask me, I'm on Verizon, what phone should I buy?
 I don't want the iPhone.
 I want something with LTE.
 I inevitably told them to buy the razor max because for an average user, it provided a
 good enough experience.
 And like, I would not hear them complaining that the battery life was terrible like they
 would with any other phone.
 Uh, and so I think that with the razor HD max, it's going to be a lot of the same, uh,
 where, you know, if, if you want an Android phone on Verizon, uh, right now, given what
 we know, cause we don't know exactly what Nexus phones are going to come out or how
 they are going to perform, uh, you know, the, the HD max is very tempting for that reason
 that you just don't have to worry about it.
 If you want any phone on any carrier, that's not the iPhone, uh, you should wait, uh, for
 like a couple of weeks to so that we know exactly what's happening with windows phone.
 We know what's happening with the Nexus.
 Um, you know, cause right now, like there's, there's some really good stuff that has been
 announced and that's coming out.
 Um, but there's stuff that might be better, um, like significantly better that could be
 coming out relatively soon.
 Um, I mean, yeah, you should not buy a phone today unless it's an iPhone and that's what
 you really want pretty much period.
 Yeah.
 And even, even then you might want to, uh, just wait a couple of weeks if you desperately
 can.
 Yeah.
 So you never know.
 I mean, I don't know, maybe the Galaxy S3 is still a safe recommendation as a, as a
 solid end.
 If you absolutely had to buy an Android phone today, it would probably be the GS3, right?
 Yes.
 If someone put a gun to my head and was like, I'm walking you down to the store and you're
 buying an Android phone, it would be the GS3.
 That would be the weirdest hold up ever by the way.
 I totally forgot about the pad phone.
 Yes.
 Like the rest of the world, but it's the pad phone too.
 Uh, Vlad went and got a preview of it and it's like, it's not bad, right?
 You know, Vlad, I think really likes this.
 It's unfortunate that he's actually traveling back from the pad phone two event and he hasn't
 been yet been able to join us here.
 But if you read his preview, um, uh, of the, the device, he actually really likes it.
 He really likes the screen.
 He says it's right up there with the One X. Um, you know, as a phone, he likes it.
 I think he's still, and he made this point that as a tablet, uh, and then eventually
 as a laptop, it's still got some really software issues and kinks that need to be worked out
 just like the original iPad phone did.
 But if you're buying it just as a phone, um, you're getting the same, uh, quad core chip
 that was in the, uh, optimus G, uh, a 13 megapixel camera again.
 Um, yeah, the, uh, seven 20 P display that it's actually using sharps, Ixo technology,
 which is the first one of the first devices that we've seen to use it.
 Um, and then, you know, a really solid looking device.
 It's super thin.
 It's got a nice build quality.
 So I mean, there's a lot to like here.
 What kind of bizarre world are we in now where Asus and LG are making phones with, uh, you
 know, the latest processor that other guys don't have yet and incredibly good screens
 and decent software.
 Like I I'm really confused.
 Well, what, what was bizarre about it for so many years was that LG made so many of
 the screens and it couldn't put a good one in his phones.
 Right.
 Uh, so now it's finally just like, well, we're going to put them in our own phone.
 Um, but yeah, as far as like, uh, Asus is concerned, this is, is not something I would
 have expected to see 18 months ago or even a year ago for that matter.
 So, so I hate to be the, uh, the wet blanket on this love parade for the pad phone too.
 Um, and Vlad could probably, um, shoot me down here somewhat effectively, but, but from
 the pictures that, that he, he posted, it looks to me like there's just an enormous
 amount of black area below the screen.
 You know, I thought the same thing to be honest with you when I saw the pictures and above
 for that matter, especially the side by side with the one X that he posted from the front
 of the phone, it looks like a mid range device just because the screen looks very small relative
 to the, to the outline of the device itself.
 That's complaint.
 Number one complaint.
 Number two is that I still don't understand this concept like WTF, like why, why are we
 putting, why are we putting phones in tablets when we can just have a phone and a tablet?
 Like no one has effectively explained that.
 I know you guys have tried it, but I'm going to try again because it just carries, it carries
 your data.
 It carries your data.
 Yeah.
 If you could sell a tablet for like a hundred bucks or like 75.
 No motor tried to do that with the lap doc and it like failed miserably.
 I mean this is, this is, I mean this is the lap doc idea, right?
 Uh, where you eventually get your phone all the way to a laptop.
 Uh, and the phone is powering, uh, the, the whole shebang because it's got this really,
 you know, modern up-to-date processor.
 Um, but the software steps to get there don't exist really, uh, to make it a viable platform.
 Right.
 Yeah.
 It's just, it's, it's so like, so I think that the, that shared data plans kind of alleviate
 some of what you were talking about, Dan, like, you know, a year ago that may have been
 more true.
 Like if you're on a mobile share plan or, uh, whatever Verizon's equivalent is called,
 I can't remember, then that, that becomes less of an issue.
 Um, but then also some people say, well, you know, you have the giant battery and the tablet
 that can power that can, you know, charge the phone.
 Yes, that's true.
 But there are also like a million other ways to charge your phone.
 So I was thinking about mobile share over the weekend and I got really, really angry.
 Did you start throwing things?
 Why do I have, yeah, why do I have to pay an extra 10 bucks to put another device on
 my mobile share plan or 20 bucks?
 Oh, that's a great question.
 Yeah.
 Just charge me for the data that I'm using.
 Like, could you imagine if you had to pay Comcast an extra 10 bucks just to turn on
 another computer in your house?
 Well, you know, for, to that point, Comcast will charge you more money if you want another
 cable box in your house.
 But it's their equip, your rent, your physically renting a piece of equipment.
 Yeah.
 That's a good point.
 Yeah.
 Um, yeah.
 It's, it's outrageous.
 Uh, but so is a lot of what AT&T and Verizon do.
 So I mean, well, I mean, nobody's doing it.
 Nobody's offering, you know, here's pay us a hundred bucks a month and we'll give you,
 you know, four gigs of data that you can use on whatever you want, however you want.
 Like nobody's doing that.
 It's like, technically, technically if you want to get really technical about it, you
 can use that data wherever you want on AT&T by moving the SIM around, which actually,
 Deeter, they're trying to make, uh, they're trying to make difficult on you.
 Yeah.
 No, I have a forum post with, uh, and I actually have a statement from AT&T.
 I just haven't written it yet, but, uh, provisioning phones and AT&T is a huge pain now because
 you can't to have all the features on the iPhone five work.
 You need to be on a mobile share plan and you need to call them and have them provision
 it to the IMEI, the unique identifier for the actual phone hardware.
 So that mobile hotspot and FaceTime will work.
 Uh, if you take that SIM card out and stick it in an Android phone or I don't know, a
 Palm pre, I mean, whatever, whatever other smartphone that uses data that you want, a
 Windows phone, um, the phone calling will work, but the data will not.
 You need to call them and have it be provisioned off of the special iPhone plan and onto the
 Android or, you know, other generic data plans.
 So that data will work there.
 Now that's the way it's actually always been.
 Um, but what seemed, and I thought it was different, I thought it was different before,
 but AT&T tells me it's not is if it's provisioned as a generic data device to Android, Windows
 phone, whatever, uh, you used to be able to stick it in an iPhone and have those other
 features work.
 Um, but that's not the case now.
 And then I guess it wasn't the case before.
 So if you want a like officially sanctioned mobile hotspot on an iPhone and AT&T, you've
 got to be on an AT&T plan.
 And if you want data to work at all on a non iPhone smartphone, you need to be provisioned
 there.
 And it used to be really simple swim SIM swapping is now you put the SIM in, you call AT&T,
 you wait for 10 minutes, you talk to somebody, you say, Hey, I'm in a different phone now.
 Provision me now.
 Like I'm all worked up about this, but this is not a problem that 99% of people have.
 Um, but it's still like, I mean, that's really, it's a one percenter problem there, Dieter,
 that you've got, but it's, it's the principle behind it is, um, you know, AT&T isn't treating
 their devices agnostically.
 It's, you know, you need to call them and get the provision for the specific data plan
 for the specific phone that you have.
 And, um, that's like, it's in the same vein as why am I, you know, having to pay for each
 device going on, you know, my data bucket, I get that there's a certain amount of load
 that goes on the network for having another device registered on it, et cetera, et cetera,
 et cetera.
 So like, I know it's not going to change anytime soon, especially because it's a big revenue
 stream.
 Um, but, uh, I want the carriers to be more like dumb pipes and I want them to treat the
 stuff that connects to their network, uh, equally.
 And, uh, this is a tiny little step in the wrong direction.
 Yeah.
 I mean, it's, it's, it's really like just the carriers are fighting becoming that dumb
 pipe that, you know, we would like them to be and would hope eventually that they become,
 uh, but they're going to do everything they can to stop that from happening and having
 you, requiring you to actually call them, to interact with them, to switch a device,
 uh, is just one more way to do that.
 And the funny thing is that they carriers fight so hard to reduce the amount of time
 that customers need to spend on the phone with them.
 Like, uh, I remember at MWC, I had a discussion with, uh, Oh, the name of the company escapes
 me.
 What, what is the, um, shoot, what is the company?
 Oh, they, they made that hotspot thing that when you talked about.
 No, no.
 The, the, the company that, uh, that got into a hot water for, um, transmitting all your
 keys.
 Oh, carrier IQ.
 Carrier IQ.
 Thank you.
 Carrier IQ.
 So, uh, you know, they're, they're real business model, uh, is not being evil.
 It's actually, um, uh, you know, coming up with these metrics that carriers can use to
 like tweak service and like fixed towers that are, aren't performing optimally and this
 and that and the other thing.
 Um, and, uh, they were in the process of rolling out these new tools, uh, that were actually
 actually customer facing tools so that a, a carrier would roll these out to its customers
 and they would be able to log into like this portal and see all these stats on like how
 many dropped calls you've had and like why the calls were dropped.
 Things that like, you know, customers probably call into customer service for all the time
 and it's just, there's nothing that customer service can do.
 It's just, it's kind of like wasting their time.
 So that was carrier IQ's proposition to carriers is give them access to this information.
 They will, they will call you less and carriers are always looking for ways, self-help tools,
 those sorts of things to make it so that you don't have to get in contact with them because
 that costs them money every time you do call them.
 So here you have a very seemingly a really easy thing for them to say, you know, well,
 we're just going to use one APN for all of our devices and then that way, like we stay
 true to the spirit of GSM.
 You can move your SIM around just like you're supposed to be able to.
 And what do you know?
 We also don't get a, we don't generate a support call.
 Like, and instead they're, you know, they're, they're throwing that advantage away just
 because they want to, I mean, I'm sure they have some technical, some, you know, random
 technical reason why they're doing it this way, but in reality, let's be honest, there's
 no reason that FaceTime over cellular can't run over the existing APN.
 Well, I mean, I would, I would like to know how European carriers would handle it because
 that's a perfect example.
 Like people can switch from an iPhone to a Galaxy S3 if they want in the UK.
 I highly doubt they have to call O2 to switch it over.
 So yeah, maybe there's a technical reason, but does it really need to be a technical
 reason?
 Right.
 And on that depressing note, I have nothing else.
 You guys, is there anything you guys want to do?
 Do you want to talk about ISIS?
 I don't really want to.
 I mean, I'll, you know, it's coming finally.
 Maybe the logo looks like the Nespresso logo, but I already mentioned that.
 I actually, I don't think that's the ISIS logo.
 That's just the that's the NFC logo that AT&T is using.
 It's awful.
 Yeah.
 I guess I'm just looking through our other news items for the week.
 Yeah.
 Oh, you know what we should touch.
 You guys are going to kill me for this, but I do think we should touch briefly on the
 iPod touch review because, you know, there used to be this running joke that like a really,
 really common like device combo for business people was a Blackberry in one hand and an
 iPod touch in the other or an iPod, not even an iPod touch, but just an iPod of some sort.
 And I, you know, this is still, I think, a really compelling product for a lot of people
 who for one reason or another either want a non iPhone or need to have a non iPhone,
 probably for business, but still want, you know, still want access to all of that iPhone
 stuff.
 And this looks like a really sweet device.
 I'm really excited that they're bringing colors to it.
 You know, I think it's incredible.
 Yeah.
 It's a gorgeous device and it's really well made.
 And it's like incredibly thin.
 It's insane how thin it is.
 You can't like appreciate how thin it is until you actually hold it, which is we say every
 single time, but it's really the truth here.
 I think with the colors, I think that Apple identified a target audience for this with
 that, you know, this is a huge device that teenagers love and parents love for teenagers
 because they don't have to pay for a data plan on it and they don't have to pay for
 another line on their cellular plan.
 They can give the kid a prepaid phone, take the school in emergencies, and then their
 kid has all their games and apps and iMessage and everything on their iPod touch.
 And I think these colors, you know, just speak to that as well that, you know, the kids will
 eat this up.
 Right.
 So what makes, what makes me wonder about the iPod touch is why aren't we seeing these
 colors on the iPhone?
 And I think the answer is probably it's, it's probably just like everything else bad that
 happens in the world.
 It's probably the carriers, right?
 I don't think, no, I don't, I don't think it's the carriers because I think Apple would
 do it regardless if it wanted to or not.
 If they wanted to put colors on the iPhone, I think it would do it.
 I don't think the carriers have the, the, that kind of clout over, over Apple's design
 philosophy.
 Um, but yeah, it's a good question as to why we don't see it in the iPhone unless they're
 just trying to, uh, separate a premium versus a slightly less premium line.
 But I think that the number of phones that they need to produce is huge and they want
 to bring costs down from that volume.
 And I think it's also multiple skews, you know, it's, it's one thing to offer, you know,
 four different colors at Best Buy.
 It's another thing to try and, you know, get Verizon to have those colors stocked in their
 stores.
 It's, it's a, it's an entirely, you know, if you don't have the color you want, uh,
 at Best Buy it's out of stock, you know, whatever.
 But if they don't have the color you want at Verizon, I mean, you know, the idea that
 they would have to stock all those different multiple models when these, you know, all
 these companies have done such a good job of minimizing the amount of inventory that
 they have to carry.
 I think that it's, you know, it's possible, but I think that, um, they save a ton of money
 by not doing it.
 Yeah.
 Both Apple and the carriers.
 That is a very good point.
 Yes.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 But it's, it's kind of bad that I want to, I own an iPhone and I carry an iPhone, but
 I still want one of these iPod touches.
 Can you imagine, can you imagine if the iPhone five was the thickness?
 In fact, I can already tell you not the five S but the iPhone six, they're going to be
 like good news.
 We made the iPhone as thin as our old iPod touch now.
 And Chris is just going to die inside because he just really wanted more battery life.
 Yeah.
 I mean like I would still rather have an iPhone.
 Well, maybe not now, like now that I'm used to it, but like a couple of weeks ago I just
 wanted a phone that was the thickness of the four S with more battery life.
 And now they've gotten me used to the stupid seven point one.
 Like they're going to keep making it thinner.
 I'll be like, oh, this is stupid.
 Then I'll use it for all.
 I'll be like, oh, this is actually pretty cool.
 And then, you know, like it's, it's a vicious cycle.
 Anyway, I'm just, I'm, I'm saying nothing of importance.
 Can we talk a little bit about the loop?
 Cause I would kind of love the loop on my iPhone.
 The, uh, oh wait, you would?
 I think it'd be rad.
 Yeah.
 I don't know.
 I think laptops are a big deal, man.
 In what circumstance, just explain to me, Dan, under what circumstance you would use
 the loop.
 You know what I would do is because the button depresses, uh, to go, it's a push push button.
 I would just play with it all day long.
 Like it would be sitting on my desk and I'd be like, click, click, click, click, click,
 click, click.
 And that's probably the real reason that I want it.
 Yeah.
 No, that's fair.
 That's, that's totally fair.
 Yeah.
 I'm just realizing, uh, looking at the bottom of the, uh, the iPod touch here, they physically
 can't make it much thinner because of the, uh, the, the diameter of the three and a half
 millimeter jack.
 They're almost getting to the point where they're, they're hitting that limit.
 And what really worries me about that-
 Wasn't there some insane patent where they had like a, a jack that was like half rubber
 and half metal and then it could, it could expand out when you plugged it in, but it
 would reduce down to the thinner form factor.
 I swear I saw a patent from Apple on that like four years ago.
 Probably.
 Yeah.
 It wouldn't surprise me.
 But, but I can totally imagine Apple, uh, just going with a proprietary, I mean, they
 basically went with a proprietary headphone jack with the first generation iPhone for
 all practical purposes.
 I could see them if, if at some point they decide that they really need to make like
 a four millimeter thick phone, uh, I could totally see them saying, well, we're just
 gonna have to go with a one millimeter wide, uh, jack and everyone's going to have to deal
 with it.
 Or the, you know, they would eliminate the wire entirely and use some sort of wireless.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 They could use, yeah, they could use aptX or something.
 Four millimeters.
 I'm just trying to think about it.
 I would say that would be like that.
 No, it's the patent that came out last year in 2011.
 What did?
 Um, the 3.5 cutting a 3.5 jack and half.
 Oh, the, uh, the patent.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 So in other words, what you're telling me is that this is going to happen pretty much.
 Yeah.
 Um, that's the Verge mobile show everybody.
 We want to thank you so much for watching or listening, but preferably watching because,
 uh, the men in the studio are quite handsome.
 If you want to email us, you can, uh, it is mobile show at the verge.com.
 If you want to follow us on Twitter, you totally should.
 I'm at Bacalan, Chris is at Zpower, Dan is at DC Seifert, spelled E I, uh, we are together
 at Verge and we'll be back next week.
 Hopefully with more mobile news.
 Hopefully with Vlad next week.
 And with Vlad.
 And it is Vlad Savov, I believe on Twitter and you should follow him too.
 And we'll be happy to have him and goodbye.
 Thanks for watching.
 Thanks guys.
 See you next week.