Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - iPads Get More Expensive and Austin Evans Guesses Smartphones!

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

While Marques is away being a professional athlete, Andrew and David sit down to discuss the news of the week. First they go over the new Nothing Ear(stick) earbuds before digging into the new iPad and iPad Pro. After that, we have a pre-recorded phone-guessing segment that Marques played with Austin Evans the last time he was in town. Finally, we finish up with the answer to some difficult trivia questions. If you have any good tech trivia that you think we should ask make sure to tweet it at us! It's another long one this week, but we hope it's a fun one. Vox survey: www.vox.com/podsurvey Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Shop products mentioned: Nothing Earbuds (2022) at https://geni.us/bJuJ iPad (2022) at https://geni.us/3yh7qpE iPad Pro M2 (2022) at https://geni.us/f0jp Apple Pencil (1st Gen) at https://geni.us/rSnjBq Apple AirPods Pro 2 at https://geni.us/hSBNl6y Apple AirPods (3rd Gen) at https://geni.us/2rPTBr Beats Fit Pro at https://geni.us/qVRe Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II at https://geni.us/7nkpql6 OnePlus Buds Pro at https://geni.us/Uy9FhO News links: Nothing Ear(1) price hike: https://bit.ly/nothingpricehike New Nothing ear(stick): https://bit.ly/nothingearstick Twitters: Waveform: https://twitter.com/wvfrm Marques: https://twitter.com/mkbhd Austin Evans: https://twitter.com/austinnotduncan Andrew: https://twitter.com/andymanganelli David: https://twitter.com/durvidimel Adam: https://twitter.com/adamlukas17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wvfrmpodcast/ Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Mitsubishi Motors. What is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Way Performed Podcast. We're your hosts, Andrew. And I'm David. Marques is out this week, so you guys are stuck with me, baby. Let's go. Let's do this. Today's episode, we have new iPads and some of their quote accessories. We have Google messages update that I think you and I are both pretty excited about. And then we're going to wrap it all up. We pre-recorded a fun game with Marques and Austin Evans, and they're going to see who knows phones better by touch.

Oh. But first, I have a piece of news and then a giant rant that you're going to have to sit here and listen to me. Okay. Okay. Ready? So did you see the Nothing Ear Ones are going to have a price increase? 50%. 50%, baby.

That's a lot. Yeah. So they're going from, Carl tweeted this himself, but they're going from $99 to $149. Yeah, that's a lot. That is a huge, huge increase. But like the last two weeks, I keep coming back to the nothing ear ones because they fit in my ears really, really well. And I think the AirPods Pro would also fit in my ears well, but I use Android. Yeah. I also like how they look. Yeah. I think they look pretty nice. Yeah, they look good. I've switched between

a bunch of them though, because people send us earbuds all the time and i just keep coming back to them but so the last two weeks i've had the worst experience ever with them and i just want to kind of talk about it because i find it hilarious that after another day of going to the gym and not being able to listen to music i see that these air these earbuds are now 50 more expensive. And I think that's crazy. So I'll try and keep this short because I ramble a lot on this show and I don't want to. So stop me if I go too far. So I come back to them last week.

I grab a pair that I hadn't used in a few months, plug them in overnight because I'm going to go to the gym the next morning before work. I get to my desk the next morning grab the case they won't connect because the case is at 100 the right earbud is at 100 and the left earbud at 10 and i'm just like huh that's weird you know maybe i didn't uh i started second guessing myself maybe i didn't plug it in so i plug it it in for the day. The contacts are dirty or something. Possibly. It just feels strange that like the case is, when you see the case at 100% and an earbud at 10%,

that feels weird. Like the case is supposed to be charging. It's not just supposed to hold 100% battery for no reason. So I plug it in next morning, go back, same issue, won't connect. Weird. I went and grabbed another pair that we have at the office, plugged in it at night, or plugged it in that day and then tried it a few hours later and had the opposite problem

case 100 left ear 100 right ear 10 what couldn't connect it what find that weird so because we're lucky enough to have a bunch of these at work i decided to grab the left ear out of one case the right ear out of the other case and put them them in the case together. And now at this point, I have two at 100% and a case at 100%. Weirdly enough, that worked. I got connected. I got connected, tested everything, go to the gym the next morning with that set, left ears at 40%, cases at 100%, right ears at 100%. Still enough to connect. I got to listen to some music that day, but throughout the workout, I would say it probably disconnected

or just paused like five different times without touching it, without pressing my media controls, without anything. And then the next day, left ear 10%, case 100%, right ear 100%. You know what's funny is like the AirPods Pro won't even let you swap the airpods with a different case they chime at you and they're like this is the wrong this is the wrong case so yeah that sounds a lot like um do you remember the original pixel buds they used this the ones with the wires no sorry not the original pixel buds the pixel buds 2 the original

pixel buds 2 okay um they had this dynamic battery switching thing where one would be the main Bluetooth connection and the other would be connected from that. And theoretically, they were supposed to switch which was the primary and which was the secondary dynamically in order to drain battery evenly. Okay. Because draining, getting a Bluetooth connection from your phone and then to the other earbud used a different amount of power and so often but they had this bug where it would not work very well like the dynamic like switching would not work so you would get one earbud that

was like 10 battery and it would be like 80 battery and it's like if they drain at the same time at least you can charge them together yeah yeah this is even weirder because you charge them overnight and yeah this this is very strange um i and i don't know if those use the same things i also just like in general the sound quality in these they're fine i don't care that much i mostly like them because they fit in my ear the the other problem i've had with these is um just the connection it seems I've put them on the desk between Marquez and I and throughout the day Marquez and I will just get random pop-ups that are like do you want to connect your nothing your ones and like it'll go back and forth through us the whole day and then I'll also have it connected sometimes. I will walk hundreds of feet away from it on the other

side like I was in the kitchen the other day yeah and i had something in the microwave and i tried to pull up a video on my phone it was playing it said it was playing in the year one across while i didn't even think they were connected like i couldn't get them connected in the gym but then it was connected right i don't know i'm just um it's funny that it happened on like that same 10 100 thing happened on both that makes me think that it's a firmware thing i've i just so before everyone that makes me think that it's a firmware thing. I've, I just, so before everyone jumps on me for that, I did upgrade firmware and all, and the app and everything on both of them.

Wow. And nothing. It was actually a pain to upgrade. I spent a whole morning in the gym upgrading firmware between my sets one day, so. Oh man. And then just wrap all of this up, nothing's also releasing a new pair of earbuds. Yeah, the Ear Stick.

They've actually been teasing this for a while in a very strange way. In a very nothing way. This hyper fashion, hyper hype thing where they have all these models with these fishnet outfits on with the Ear Stick. It's so weird.

It's like the stick is inside of their fishnet, bulging out of the fishnet. It's so weird it's kind of it's like the stick is inside of their fishnet like bulging out of the fishnet um it's very it's really weird yeah yeah they're gonna be cheaper i assume because they look like that's what i think the weed is when we were talking about them like at the studio the main difference you can see now that the newer because before they were just teasing the stick yeah which now we found out is the case i kind of thought it was going to be this like what at first i thought it was going to be this weird remember like the old bluetooth like stick earbuds i thought they were gonna look like that and i was very confused that would be funny um or like for phone calls though but it looks like the stick is

the case and they showed the buds themselves and it just looks similar but without the uh silicon tip i right don't they i think they look like airpods three they look yeah they look like the because airpods pro at least have the like small tip on the front and then they sort of bold exactly out but the threes are just like kind of they hard plastic yeah and if nothing always talked about the ear ones being the airpod pro equivalent so i think which is it seems like these are going to be the AirPod equivalent, the lower tier. Quote-unquote lower tier,

and they're probably just going to make them the same price as the old ones. Right? That's exactly what I was thinking. It's just like, oh, we bump these up. You think they're going to be $99, right? I think they're going to be $99. It's going to be so funny. It's like, we have to do this,

and then we're also releasing a cheaper pair that's not gonna be the same price as the old one i think carl said that the price of materials for the ear ones ended up costing more than they were selling them for which sure that's believable considering the economy and um inflation right now i don't really know yeah it's like you if you're putting a new product out, does it really cost that much less? Especially when the ear ones didn't sound that great in the first place. Their sound was extremely mediocre.

I liked the fit a lot, like you said. But the sound was just... No, I agree. I'm not the best sound quality person in the world. And to me, I'll take fit over sound quality. And that's why I kept trying to go back to what I consider a nightmare of an experience lately. But yeah, and to me, these will just be terrible because the regular AirPods have never fit in my ears.

I've always, whenever somebody asked me, should I buy AirPods? I was like, you should go to a store and try them. Or you should just get their pros with the silicone tips off and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they go on sale like all the time too. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. I still, yeah, the AirPods sound really good. I've been using the Bose QuietComfort 2 earbuds. Like I see these real quick. I don't think I've actually seen these. The case is kind of big. That's a big old case.

They don't have wireless charging. No, but they have kind of like a wing tip. But I love the seal. It's not really a wingtip. It's like it just seals in your ear really well. It's more grip. Any more rubber, I'll take. And the active noise cancellation is by far the best I've ever used in any earbud.

Okay. And they sound pretty good and they have a good app. So like, yeah, I've been enjoying them. I do wish that, yeah, I don't know. They kind of, they have this like old style look like wireless bluetooth headset look whatever um but it's fine i like them a lot but i think they're really expensive i think they're like oh are they i think they're like 350 or something 300 or 350 but they are very good and the anc is insane so that's awesome the only thing is i've been looking for someone to

something to run with recently and like because like like you said, fit is more important, I was using the OnePlus Buds Pro for a very long time. Okay, yeah, yeah. I literally used them until the sweat from my running broke them. They now just screech when I put them in. Amp you up for your run. Yeah, so I bought some Beats Fit Pro because those work like the same

with Android and iOS and they're supposed to be really good. They have great reviews, but the wing tips hurt my ears so badly. So I'm, I realized that the one plus buds pro slash AirPods pro slash nothing ear one style is what I need to use. Like I can't use things that have wing tips cause they hurt my ears. I'm with you a hundred percent on that. I, I know people like to make fun of the AirPods as looking like a electric toothbrush head hanging out of your ear, but there's something about that stock hanging down in the crevice of your ear that just feels secure. And my main issue with a lot of earbuds is they stick so far out horizontally that it when you're running the every step feels like it's wiggling a little more just because the center of gravity is further out

of your ear and it just feels closer and closer to falling out and then it's like oh now my run involves me looking for yeah i mean even with the one plus buzz pro i would constantly have to like push them a little bit further into my ear but but it still is better than the Beats Fit Pro are pressing against the cartilage of my ear for so long. It hurts a lot because I run for like over an hour at a time and I can't do that. Can't say I do that. Well, you at least like work out for an hour, right? Sometimes it's a little easier for that.

Yeah. So anyway, I'm currently looking for some good running earphones because I don't want to use these to run because I don't want to break them. I will be continuing to use these to run because I don't want to break them. I will be continuing to look. I'm considering buying AirPods Pros to use them by Pixel. Adam's trying that right

now and it doesn't sound like it's going great. It does actually work now. Oh. Yeah, I fixed it. So someone tweeted at me and you have to go into developer options and turn certain things on and off and then they work all of a sudden that's annoying yeah it's really weird do they sound just as good oh yeah they sound still sound fine okay because

it's still aac which is like whatever yeah it's not like aptx or anything like that yeah the airpods don't support i hate wearing airpods pro just because it's the absolute most common earbuds that i see around the city but if they sound good they sound good, if they're good for running, then I might just get them to run. Weren't your OnePlus Buds Pro white sticks? Oh, they were black? Okay. I had the black ones. All right.

I was going to say, everyone thought you were wearing them anyway. I know. I looked into ColorWare, but if you want to get new AirPods Pro on ColorWare, they're like $450. Yeah, they're expensive. It charges so much to do it.

Anyway, I don't want to stick on this too long. No, that's fine. I like that. Also, if anyone is looking for those tips from Adam for using AirPods Pro on an Android, if you're a psychopath like him, tweet at him. He'll answer. I have a Microsoft laptop now, an iPad mini, and a Pixel phone. I'm living

in all ecosystems. We live in purgatory for the viewers. For viewers like you. you okay let's talk about the new ipads um not a ton to talk about but they did get released first of all what do you think of how they got released marquez like had a briefing in the city yeah and then all of a sudden his briefing was actually after they got yeah we all knew about them before he did because i i think it sort of makes sense to do stuff like this i remember in it was either 2018 or 2019 i'm like sitting in this hostel in rome and day by day apple just drops a bunch of press releases oh yeah products and i think it was like every day for three days or something like that it was

either that or three at once but i think it was every day for three days or something like that. It was either that or three at once, but I think it was every day for three days, which was kind of cool. It was kind of nice like being able to just have press releases for products you could buy right away instead of having to do this whole like build up thing. And I think for smaller updates like this, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So we got two new iPads yesterday at the time of recording on tuesday uh the rumors seem to be true that it was a press release but it was still very out of the blue

and the ipads are they're basically upgrading the baseline ipad yeah which used to be 329 and is now 449 yes uh and then we also got a new ipad pro um iPad Pro. So do you want me to go over the baseline? Yeah, can you go over all the specs? And then I think there's like, two fun things we want to rant about a little bit. Okay, so a lot of people are sort of praising this new baseline iPad. Personally, I feel like it's sort of a downgrade in a lot of ways. I think the praise is just that it's finally getting the like updated design. Yeah, it's like cool the the lower tier looks more up yeah so first i'll just kind of go over the specs and then i just want to point out a couple of things yeah uh it's got the design change so it looks just like the ipad air now right so it's got they say like bezel-less design full

all screen yeah i think neil i was like tweeting like i don't think words don't have meanings yeah uh 10.9 inch lcd uh it's got the a14 bionic so it's not getting the m chip that's still i guess reserved for the ipad air and the ipad pros um there are new colors so silver blue there's like this electric Pikachu yellow. It looks just like Pikachu. I love it. I love it too. And a pink, which is interesting. The baseline iPads always used to sort of be like the education iPad.

So I think that's sort of why they're going that route. Now the front facing camera is landscape. So instead of being at the top of the iPad, it's now in the center. And I think that they probably just realized that people are using them as computers. Shocker. A lot more than they were before because there's so many apps and they have touch support and USB-C and which thank God because yeah, I think all their iPads are USB-C now. There's no lightning iPad left.

And also they introduced a new $250 Magic Keyboard folio case, which sort of makes it look like a Surface, a Microsoft Surface, because it's got the back that slaps on the back, and then that has a kickstand. And then you can also magnetically attach this keyboard whenever you want to use the keyboard portion. It's like a separate part, so it's a two-piece part it's still sitting like on the ground though it's not like that floating levitating okay okay it's not floating it's just it actually is like

extremely similar to a surface okay uh it also has a 14 key function row oh by the way holy cow all the function keys so it's like we say this every single time they release new ipads but every time it's like this is five percent more a laptop five percent more a laptop and it's just funny that they did this uh all to the baseline ipad but again they raised the price to 449 now um favorite part of this announcement that you brought up your favorite part i think everyone's everyone's favorite part is that announcement that you brought up, your favorite part. I think everyone's favorite. Everyone's favorite part is that it does not support the Apple Pencil 2. It only supports the Apple Pencil 1, uh, which is absolutely an artificial limitation.

But in order to charge the Apple Pencil 1, which charges via lightning and prior, you would like plug in the Apple Pencil to bottom of the ipad to make that giant lollipop now because there's no lightning port on the ipad they include an adapter which you can also buy for nine dollars but you have to plug that into usbc so it's it's it's male usbc yeah so the the adapter is double female. Double female. Yeah. What? So, yeah, when the adapter first came out, you guys were like looking at it,

and I walked over to Ellis' computer, and I was just like, but I don't get it. Yeah. Why is it double female? Because I'm just assuming, oh, if it's Apple Pencil Gen 1, it's going to be that lollipop thing like you said, which would then be lightning in. It would be male USB-C to female female lightning so you could plug in yep and then it would just have like you know a little extra space yeah it'd be a bigger lollipop yeah so this instead is like a if we're

comparing something it's like a balloon now because you have a string attached from the end of it with a pencil at the end yeah um which just seems insane to me yeah it's yeah it's it's crazy and something that someone pointed out to me um on twitter is that this ipad is just the ipad air fourth generation with like a couple of tweaks it's the like exact same body design. Yep. Same display, both using A14 Bionic, both USB-C. The only difference is that it has the landscape camera, which is a higher resolution 12 megapixel with center stage versus the 7 megapixel camera on the iPad Air. And that's like it.

That's it. And then the iPad Air actually had like an anti-reflective coating and one had second gen apple pencil support oh yeah that second gen apple pencil support so yeah this is just this is a hundred percent an artificial limitation they're just trying they don't want to make it too similar to the ipad air because then people are just like i don't really care about the um m chip i'll just get the cheapest one. It's like the same. They're just trying to like keep it away in certain ways.

And I guess the lightning Apple pencil is the way they do it. The dongle empire needs to prevail. And funny enough, Ellis brought this up to us to the point where I honestly didn't believe him, but he was like, they had a similar right for the old one because in the old one you also could connect a wire or i think actually though so i we funny enough had an apple pencil first gen that was unopened here we opened it and it's in there it's in the pamphlets inside of the first gen apple pencil but it's actually double lightning female so i think actually you wouldn't be able to attach it to your ipad because that would be lightning to see right yeah so this would be you

actually plug your pencil into the wall i guess but because of that nobody like would really want to do that and even the picture on the pencil case which we looked at shows like it plugged into the side of the ipad plug into the wall sounds like a tension issue. Like it sounds like that, like a- Oh, I wasn't even, funny, I didn't even think of still using it. So yeah, I just thought of like, oh, you're plugging it into the wall,

but now you have to have the charger. You can't just charge it on your iPad if you're on like the train or something. I don't know. You know what's funny though, is like when dongles first started, everyone that had to use the dongle, it was their most expensive products, right?

Because when the MacBook first came out with like the MacBook Pro that had the four USB-C ports and you just had to use dongles to be able to do anything, it was always like the most expensive stuff. But now the dongles are- For everything. For the cheaper stuff now the dongles are for the cheaper stuff. No, for the cheaper stuff now, because now the MacBook Pros have ports and the cheaper MacBooks don't.

And then the cheaper iPad, you have to use a dongle with. And then the more expensive iPads that have Apple Pencil 2 support, you don't. So it's crazy. It's like they're now making the people that want to buy the cheap stuff they're making their lives harder not necessarily spend more but they just are

making them have to jump through more hoops to be able to use their product effectively and yeah it's it's crazy yeah and even like with that like i i get you know let's just say sure for some reason there is a real reason why it has to use Gen 1 pencil and you have to include some kind of adapter. Why not just make it similar to like the iPhone headphone jack adapter, which was just like lightning with a one-inch cable

and a wire there, and then just plug the pencil into that. And then you have it charging there. You don't have this like, you don't need a three-foot cable to charge your Apple Pencil. That that's insane it seems like they just intentionally made this much more difficult for everybody it's so funny um and then they also released a new ipad pro i forgot i literally forgot about that because i was so heated about that yeah it's a few just

like very simple changes um m2 instead of m1 they've gotten improved apple pencil support now with something called apple pencil hover which is basically this the same thing that wacom tablets have had for a long time now where you don't actually have to be touching the surface in order to see where the pencil is going to be and this is very useful for when you want to do things like changing the size of your tip or the size of your brush because prior if you tried you know if you did the double tap on the pencil to make your brush bigger yeah you weren't really sure that it actually made it bigger unless you touched it yeah you weren't seeing the like active feedback on the screen like what was actually happening yeah so that's useful um it supports wi-fi 6e which is actually amazing because the MacBook Pros don't even support that right now

and that can do like 2 gigabit Wi-Fi which is awesome I mean if you can push it and then also they do ProRes video which I made some jokes on Twitter that we should shoot autofocus with I hope one day we see Marques shooting videos

or photos with an iPad Boomer mode engaged see Marques shooting videos or photos with an iPad. Boomer mode engaged. Boomer mode engaged. Yeah. Welcome Marques. Yeah. So, you know, it was a minor upgrade for the iPad Pro, but a lot of things that were super confusing were that a lot of the improvements that came to the cheapest iPad would have been nice on the Pro. Like that folio case, I think a lot of people would have preferred having a full 14 key function row. I think a lot of people would have preferred having a full 14 key function row i think a lot of people would have wanted yeah you know being able to have that surface style case because the ipad pro doesn't support that um it's just really weird it's just really weird and it feels kind of a bummer that the cheapest ipad is now 449 i yeah did they

mention anything i know it was a short press release, but they usually have education prices for things. Did they mention anything about that? Either way, I'm sure it would go up. I didn't hear anything about it, so I don't know, but either way, it's still up. This is like

for so long, if somebody was asking me what tablet they should get for their kids, because their kids play a couple games, their iPad kids, let's be real. I still suggested the iPad because I just thought it would last longer. Because at $329, it's pretty hard to beat. But $120 more expensive now, I don't know, get three really cheap Android tablets. That'll just break over time and maybe they can watch Netflix on that. It sort of feels like they just came to the conclusion that they

have no competition or very little competition. I don't think, I mean, Samsung's tablets are still very expensive, you know, like they don't have a lot of super affordable ones and there are some affordable Android tablets out there there but the app ecosystem just like everything about them is kind of if you want to buy a tablet most people buy ipads and so besides the education sector i don't think apple really feels like they need to have a cheap one anymore um but we did get da vinci resolve on ipad i did see that was there there was an official announcement or was it more just like, hey, we're going to show it off a bunch of times?

They showed it off a bunch of times in the video and then I think that if you go to the website, it shows it and everything. Cool, that's awesome. Which is great because a lot of people have been waiting for the day where they could do literally all of their work on the iPad.

And now people that use DaVinci, it works on windows, Mac and iOS. Now it's the most flexible video editing program there is. So, and it's a great, it's a great video editor. So I think a lot of people are going to be pretty happy about that. I'll be interested to see what people can create just on an iPad. I think we should do something. Yeah. Studio channel or something like that. Yeah. but i think that these reviews are going to be kind of funny because if there even are like reviews i don't think we'll see a massive wave of them because some of these are pretty low-key yeah and again this baseline ipad is basically just the fourth gen ipad air but with a couple tweaks so who knows cool uh with that Who knows? Cool. With that, you want to take it to trivia? Hell yeah.

All right. Trivia time. So the score, Marquez, who's not here, has eight. Andrew has eight. And David has seven. So is this it where David catches up? Is this the one? Maybe.

All right. So first question. A modulator demodulator is more commonly known as what sometimes i wonder how i have eight points i did ellis write this no this was mine ellis has a better one coming up next well we'll go to the break and i'll bash my head against the wall trying to think of this perfect As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month.

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And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. All right, we're back. So there were some really interesting Google Messages updates that got announced this week. I had a briefing at the very beginning of the week to go over all of them, and it seems like they're going to make Google messages quite a bit better. Yeah. You were kind of mentioned this the other day. I haven't heard it yet. So I would love to hear about it as someone who has to still sit inside of Google messages all the time. And yeah, what happened? Yeah. So there were a lot of

different changes. And my overarching sort of takeaway from all of this is that one they're still really trying to make rcs happen which is good uh and two for the people that don't have access to rcs for various reasons they are just trying to make sms conversations better as well okay with a lot of really interesting kind of like workarounds and hacks um and that's nice because then apple has no say over what google does true so google's sort of able to do this stuff without apple just like making your life terrible if you don't have an iphone right um so this first thing is actually very deep and near to my heart i was gonna say okay so i you told me you were like i kind of want to talk about this on the podcast i was was like, yes, I want this to happen because there are times we'll be in the office and

you'll just be like something about Google messages and iMessage. And then I'll just see you turn your head, put your headphones on and just like focus in on your computer. I'm like, oh, man, David's going off about something right now. Yeah, I feel like every couple of months I just have a tweet storm about how much I it's specifically about emojis and emoji. Exactly. Yep. So this first update has to do with emoji reactions. And just to give a little bit of context. Prior way back in the day, which was only a few months ago, you know, you had that

terrible situation where if you're in an SMS thread with iPhone users and Android users, iPhone users were able to send a tap back or react to any message in the thread, but then everyone would get this separate message that said, this person likes this message, or this person loved this message, or emphasized. And that was annoying for everyone, right? And I think the reason was, I mean, apple needed to be able to send the context of what you were what you were doing because you can't not send that reaction in some form because then there's like literal information loss yeah in the conversation um but it was also useful for apple because it made it so that when you would do that it would annoy everyone and they would just bully everyone into

getting an iphone so that everyone could use iMessage and see stuff natively right yeah so Google built out RCS um and they've been trying to get Apple on it with their whole get the message campaign which is not working very well it will probably not work uh but Google just decided that they were going to hard code emoji reactions into Android phones okay so now if you were in an sms conversation with an ios user and they reacted to a message instead of sending you the message that would say like this person loved this message it would intercept that message and instead of sending the message it would stamp that emoji yep on the message so all of a sudden, how the turns have tabled, right? The Android users now had a better experience

because they didn't have to see that whole separate message. Yep. Right? Okay. That was step one. Then, in iOS 16, there was this whole thing that happened where on Apple's website, they ended up sort of like taking credit for that change that Google made. Oh, yeah.

And I personally think that they didn't do that on purpose. I think that this was a communication error because there was an actual change in iOS 16 where it would still send the message that said this person loved this message. But instead of saying this person loved this message, it say like david heart emoji quote they just sort of changed the way that it looked and used the emoji instead of like writing out the emotion right okay and then uh google recently just this week this is the change that they made. Now in an SMS thread, you can emoji react to SMS messages. So now Android users actually have the best experience even in SMS threads, because not only when an iOS user reacts to your message, do you just see the emoji? You can also emoji at iOS users.

And now iOS users will get a separate message that said, Oh, they get the message now. Yeah, they get the message now. So Google literally turned the tables on this whole situation. That's fantastic. So now the only thing that Apple could do is now hard code in Google's emoji reactions. And then basically everyone just has emoji reactions which is amazing you might be giving Apple too much credit that do you think they go that way I will so now the only thing

that they are doing is pissing off their own users I agree with you I don't want this to sound like I don't agree with you. Do you honestly think that's what Apple will wind up doing? Or is there going to be like, okay, I'm imagining a world, and I don't think this is that unlikely. I'm the iMessage user who's always been doing it, who always likes to make fun of green bubbles. By the way, if you are that person, shut up. It's so stupid.

If you're arguing over bubble color, no one cares. Next time, at me. Yeah, at me. I get why it's so stupid if you're arguing over bubble color yeah no one cares next time at me yeah at me i get why it's frustrating yeah sure but yeah but it's still dumb it's still dumb so yeah i see a world where people and i message are now going to be like you use android and you reacting to my things are screwing up my messages and annoying me. This is your fault. Yeah, that's the only. So I see two worlds here. Either Apple says, OK, we just need to make the experience better for our users or there. They just stick with their guns and they say, hmm, now we can make our users angry Android users.

Yeah. So it depends on whether or not they want to weaponize them. Yeah. And I think we both agree on what they should do. Yeah. But I also don't know if I would have like betting faith on if that were to happen. So I'll be interested to see. I really like that Google's doing something like this because it makes it feel less like let's put a bunch of ads out and like try and make everyone tell Apple they're wrong.

Rather, it's like, let's take action. Let's throw this in their face, see how they feel about it, and see how they respond to it. Yeah. So for the listeners, I apologize if that was extremely confusing. I'm sure everyone had their imaginary red yarn out going from their heads. But I think we've explained the process a couple times over on the podcast, so hopefully you should get to that point.

But essentially, TLDR, correct me if i'm wrong google or android users can basically react to messages and at this point i message users are probably getting the short end of the stick because they're getting the the text quote unquote message back to them that it's a react right so now android users can react with two messages and receive reactions even over sms but apple users can only send reactions but when they receive them they're in text form my family group chat i'm just going to react to everyone because i 30 of my family group chat is people reacting and text messages coming in on it i cannot wait to raise hell yeah back at them yeah yeah i'm coming for you guys yeah so that was only the first change that they did in this briefing that was just the longest one because to me it's the most important one the most passionate the most passionate that i'm about

um second announcement they're adding an inline youtube player okay uh which is interesting it's not like share play where when you hit the play button, it's playing it for both of you at the same time. Okay. And that's again, because it's like an SMS MMS feature, like it doesn't require an internet connection. Okay. So that's, I guess better. It's, um, it's like within the app itself. So it's not like it just opens YouTube. It sort of opens YouTube within messages and you can move it around. But the idea is that you can watch a video and be texting each other while you're watching the video. You know, it's funny because it sounds almost like they're, you know how they've tried to

do multitasking for so long where it's like set up two separate apps on like the same screen. But I don't know a single person who really uses that much. I'm sure they are out there. But this feels like, all right, we're going to find the most common situations where we wanted people to do this. Now let's just bake it into the app. And I think that's a way, way better idea. Yeah. And Google actually told me that YouTube links are the most common link sent over text. I'm not surprised by that at all.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. And so, like I said earlier, that was sort of the stuff that they're just trying to make the general texting experience better, even over SMS and MMS. But they're also trying to create feature parity with iMessage on RCS. Okay. So they have a bunch of RCS updates. So now you can reply to messages over RCS. So you can, like, you know, swipe right on it and reply to a specific message. Oh.

I didn't even realize they didn't have that before. I didn't realize that. So, like so like sorry i'm trying to picture this so similar to like in a slack thread where rather than continuing the conversation in the group chat you're almost like replying to a specific correct one line it's still going in the chat okay it shows what you're replying to okay so that's really good for group conversations, for example. Yes, for sure. Multiple people are talking and you didn't reply in time. You can just reply to a specific message. So it doesn't look like you're responding to something totally different and off subject.

Totally. And iMessage has had that forever. So I did not know that. Yeah. Today I learned. Yeah. So they're just trying to, they're really trying to bring RCS up to feature parity. That is super useful.

They are adding voice transcription to the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, 6A, and the Galaxy Fold 4 and Flip 4. And if you don't know what voice transcription is, it's basically at the Pixel 7 launch event. They showed off this feature where in Google Messages, if someone sends a voice note, the other person can just read what they said instead of listening to it. Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah. And this was funny because since it was shown off at the Pixel event alongside all of these other features that were quote unquote Tensor exclusive, I think a lot of people assumed that it was a Tensor only feature. assumed that it was a tensor only feature um but it's not because it's coming to pixel 6 6 pro 6a and the galaxy fold 4 and flip 4 uh so i asked them like do you guys have processing requirements for this and they basically just said they're working with oems on a like model by model basis okay they just want to make sure that it's running a chipset that's fast enough to do that parsing obviously that's accelerated on Tensor but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is going to be able to do it

fine real quick, I'm trying to like at first when you say voice memo transcription, or not voice memo but voice sending a voice message transcription, at first I'm like that's really awesome it reminds me of voicemail transcription pretty much I still, that's really awesome. It reminds me of like voicemail transcription

pretty much, right? Like I still think that's one of the best inventions on a smartphone ever because I hate listening to voicemails. But then I'm also like the majority of people, how many people still send voice memos rather than just voice to text, which is I guess essentially just doing this reverse later.

Yeah. But like most times, I guess I could see it in a world where, as an example, I've had older people in family try and send voice to text and you just get a whole lot of extra at the end because they don't know how to end it correctly. So maybe a voice memo is easier for them to send and then I can get it back in text. I would agree with you.

I think that they are just trying to allow for as many different permutations of communication as possible. Which ultimately I think is good, sorry. Yeah, if some people want to, sometimes you want to hear someone's voice. It is nicer to hear someone's voice. However, I have a few friends

that send a lot of voice memos and I hate it because I'm very rarely in a position where I can listen to it. I have to be wearing headphones to be able to listen to what you just texted me. To me, it defeats the entire purpose, but a lot of people like doing it. It is the only correct way to communicate. Adam loves it because he does it all the time with his friends.

The more we're having this conversation the more i'm feeling like an old man because i do not understand any of these communication things that y'all you youngins are doing yeah we're like the same age well shut up adam i think that honestly at the end of the day if you can have as many possible ways to communicate as possible that's the best I agree 100% because people like to communicate in different ways it is just ironic that when you are sending that voice message

you have the option of either just doing voice to text or sending a voice memo and then when the other person transcribes it it's just voice to text yeah it's like would you like this to be text now or later so you know options it's just voice to text. Yeah, it's like, would you like this to be text now or later? Or later. Yeah. So, you know.

Options, yeah. It's another option. You can now also star messages to remind you to answer them, which is kind of cool. I like that because I would rather that than my Google messages trying to predict the like, you haven't responded to this in four days. Like sometimes it's like, yeah, because I didn't need to. I don't know why you really thought i wanted to so i'd rather be able to be like i do want to respond to this later like right now i'm seeing it in a situation where i can't respond to it rather than the top of my inbox being a bunch of old random messages that i never wanted to respond yeah i think i'm

definitely going to be making use of this feature what What's really funny is like Gmail a while ago added this feature that if you get an email and you open it, but you don't reply to it, it'll say, hey, you received this a few days ago. Do you want to reply to it? Or if you send someone an email and they don't reply after a few days, it'll be like, you sent this four days ago. Do you want to follow up? Yeah. And so now they're basically doing the same thing in messages, which is kind of cool. And I think that they're in a way sort of seeing email and messaging as sort of this ubiquitous kind of free flowing thing, because they already added in Google messages, three separate tabs for different types of texts that you're getting. There's an all tab, there's a personal tab, and there's a business tab now. That in messages yes sorry i'm looking right oh yeah you know i've always seen that

and i've never actually done anything about business is basically just all the spam crap most people their business messages will just be like spam stuff however this is also related to another update that they're making, which I don't know how much this is going to actually happen. Okay. But now in Google Maps, if you if a business supports this, a business can chat with you over RCS. To me, this feels like a very like, five to 10 years down the line thing when rcs is more widely adopted okay but effectively it's like if you want to communicate with a business and say like hey are you guys open today or whatever they'll be able to literally chat with you through your messages app sorry

thank you this is a pretty old ios feature oh no get out of here well okay also what's up yeah yeah yeah i think just use what's up whatever i like just use what's up guys get out of here turn your mic off i like it yeah i mean like ellis said um i think i message has a feature on delta that i use occasionally when i'm using an iphone that instead of calling them and waiting to talk to a representative forever or like waiting through their web portal you can literally iMessage with somebody okay which is so much nicer and like i totally agree with this because if there is a situation on like a support website where it is call or chat live with somebody i will click chat live 1000 percent of the time and i would much rather do that yeah we don't want to talk on the phone.

Yeah, exactly. And now, like I said earlier, there's that starring thing where you can star messages to go back to them. There's also now suggested starring. So if someone says something like, oh, this thing is happening Tuesday at five, it'll ask you, hey, do you want to star this?

Or like, do you want to add a calendar event directly from this? And they actually have that in Gmail too. So I think that Google just thinks star this or like do you want to add a calendar event directly from this and they have they actually have that in gmail too yeah so i think that i think that google just thinks of communication as sort of like there are parallels between every form of communication and we should sort of add feature parity to you know gmail and yeah messages and whatever i message is doing and it's sort of just trying to make it as ubiquitous as possible, which I like. So yeah, my biggest takeaway is let's add iMessage feature parity to RCS

so that people stop complaining about RCS. And for the people that don't have RCS in the meantime, let's make SMS messaging as good as we can with the limitations we have. For sure. Yeah, so that was a lot. I like that. No, no, no, I'm excited for it.

I mean, I think in the tech world, messaging and Android have had a rift at all times. I still think they do have a rift. I like that they're working. Like what I really appreciate about this, especially with like the emoji react things, it's like we want people to go to RCS, but we know not everyone's there.

Let's make their experience also better even though like so many companies will be like we've taken the next step we don't care about the previous steps anymore so this is like taking the next step and still supporting the old step and i really appreciate that and i think it will ultimately help the next step grow because then everyone's getting used to those features and going forward and now they're also uh like making the other step over to the side a little messy and maybe make them take a step back so they can take a step forward but we'll all see how that i think this is going to put a little bit of pressure on apple i don't think apple is ever going to

support rcs unless they legally have to. I'm sure the EU at some point might do something. That will be very interesting. But for now, at least the SMS experience is getting better. Exactly. I'll take that. Yeah. I'm very passionate about messaging.

I can tell. My favorite thing. Okay. Anyway, let's do our second trivia question. Yeah, let's do trivia. All right. everything okay anyway uh let's do our second trivia let's do trivia all right i had so much fun last week coming up with fake things i decided to do it again fun so today i'm going to read you the names of uh four 2000s tech startups and you have to tell me which one of them

is fake so again three of these startups are tell me which one of them is fake. So again, three of these startups are real companies. One of them is one I made up. How far into making up are you going? Are these just names or are you making up what they do? Names and brief descriptions. Okay, cool. I'm excited.

All right. A, Doostang. D-O-O-S-T-A-N-G. Doostang. It's a career networking platform originally intended for students of elite universities. I already hate that I don't know. I already hate that this is probably real. All right, B. Thoof.

T-H-O-O-F. Thoof. It was a dig.com competitor that never really made it off the ground. C. Fairtelizer. That's Fair, F-A-I-R, Telizer. This is a company that provided an embeddable music player for independent musicians, Fairtelizer. And finally, Toodaloo, T-O-O-D-A-L-O-O, Toodaloo. It was a combination of Nintendo's StreetPass, Google Maps, and Foursquare,

where users would be matched based on frequently shared commutes. Jesus. We're going to get zero points for this. I have no idea. I have a working theory on that one that I am very excited to see how wrong I am. Can you name

the names again? You don't have to do the descriptions. Yeah, no worries. It's A, Doostang b foof c fertilizer and d toodaloo before we figure that out if you had to wear a shirt from one of those companies which one would it be doostang doostang easy you know what i want the foof shirt doostang all right let's take a break and when we come back austin and marquez are going to face off a fun little game we come back austin and marquez are gonna face off a fun little game we have all right okay i am so dreading groceries this week why Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that?

Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices?

Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Could have skipped it. Should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. Support for the show today comes from NetSuite. Anxious about where the economy is headed? You're not alone. If you ask nine experts, you're likely to get 10 different answers. So unless you're a fortune teller and it's perfectly okay that you're not, nobody can say for certain. So that makes it tricky to future-proof your business in times like these.

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waveform. netsuite.com slash waveform. netsuite.com slash waveform. All right, welcome back to Waveform for a new segment that we call Identify the Phone Behind Your Back

and then try to remember everything you remember about it. Flows right off the tongue. Yeah, with your hosts. I'm Marques. I'm Andrew.

Andrew's here. I'm Austin. Hello. Our friend Austin is here and that's going to make it more fun because With your hosts, I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. Andrew's here. I'm Austin. Hello. Austin. Our friend Austin is here. And that's going to make it more fun because Austin and I don't know the phones that are in this box that Andrew has. Andrew's going to give us the phones one by one. We're going to try to identify it behind our back and I'll pass it to you and then you

can ID it. And we can sort of take it from there. See if we can ID the phones and remember stuff about them. So we did this back in 2015 for Team Crispy Live on stage. Low key, great format. It was a lot of fun. Great format. We've also tried it in like, you remember IGTV?

Yeah. When IGTV was a thing where like, we should shoot some stuff with phones in vertical. And it was like a little segment we would do. And we would just hand people phones. And it's actually really fun. I feel like it's probably gotten harder now, though, right? I feel like a lot of phones are a little bit more similar and sort of build. Like, I feel like back in the day, there's a little bit more flexibility.

Like, oh, that's an HTC or it's a Samsung S4 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. There were metal phones. There were plastic phones. There were glass phones. Andrew, I have an idea. You hold the phone up to the cameras while our eyes are closed first so the audience knows and then when you're ready put it in my hands and then we'll open our eyes okay okay sounds good

eyes closed yep you you have full control over everyone i'm closing my eyes we'll probably have a caption on the screen to id the phone and then we'll attempt it my hands are open behind me now this will be fun for audio listeners. This will be fun. I'm going to give it to you. Are you guys just keeping your eyes closed like the whole time? No, I'm going to open my eyes, but I'm going to not look at it. Okay, it's in my hands now.

Marquez has the phone now. Okay, my eyes are closed. Talk it out. My hand is out. I'm going to try it first. Oh, you're fine. Okay, go for it. You can open your eyes.

I'm just holding it now behind me. Real quick, while you're doing this, are you going to guess right now, or are you going to hand it to Austin, and then you'll both guess at the same time internal guess oh and then we'll guess at the same time okay makes sense we're definitely not making this up on the spot wait i need to make sure okay okay what do you look what are you looking for um well you're gonna know as soon as you pick it up okay Okay. Well, you'll hear something real quick. Oh! So you know what's happening. But I'm just trying to figure out generation. Okay.

All right. Close your eyes. Okay. Yeah. Here it comes. All right. Okay. I've got it.

There it is. Okay. Well, I knew it. But okay. I'll do it with my eyes closed. I'll trust you. Okay. So, yeah.

Certainly a little of that kind of action. Okay. So here's the thing, right? So I feel the camera, which is on the side. That's where I had to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, let me feel the hinge, because obviously I'm used to a particular kind of this phone,

but now I'm like, that's not. There's no way. Oh, no, but I feel the little, uh-oh. Wait a minute. So there's only two little rubber stoppers instead of four oh do you remember which one has two and which one has four i had to go cameras and then power button can you feel the color yes i can i can feel the color you can hear it too in the podcast i think i know which one this is okay all right so yes ready yeah count it down three two one z flip five two well the same thing right

z flip two is a 5g one yeah that's the first 5g one yep yes wait actually it's not the first one isn't it it's the first you guys actually confused me with that because i forgot there was the 5g i also didn't pick these phones well the 5G is the same design as the first one. It just added 5G. Yeah. But this is the first one with the tiny front screen and the dual cameras. I believe it's the first one

just because we would have saved the first one. Okay. We got it. So wait, so do we get a point on that? Yeah, we both get a point. Right? Okay. We heard the little check mark sound. Yes.

This is a good one because we know Austin likes his Flip. Are you still, so what's your Flip situation now? Flip is. I keep seeing you tweet pictures of it. Flip four right now. I've got the baby blue one.

I do need to get a scan for the back because I was flying recently and it was sliding off the airline table because it's so slippery. But I'm on flip four now. The matte finish. We saw one in the wild for the first time. Yeah, in San Francisco. I've never seen a flip in the wild. I actually see a lot of them these days. Really? Like, I was at, like, a tea shop the other day,

and I pulled out my flip, and the barista, she's like, oh, dope, and she pulled hers out. I was like, yeah, let's go. Weirdest bonding moment. But totally, that's incredible. Yeah. Do you remember the flip briefing and hands-on experience? Yeah.

That was the worst. That was the one where we were all in the same room, and everyone only got five minutes with it, right? Oh, yeah. And they had a limited amount of units. So everyone was like over each other's shoulders trying to. This is back when Samsung were really terrified after the Fold had fallen apart.

So they didn't trust any of us. Did somebody break a Fold? What happened with the Fold? You know, I think there was some kind of drama with that. It was a while ago though. Couldn't have been me. Anyway. All right.

Let's check the next phone. I also, like when I handed it to you, fully had my eyes open. You're straight at it. Next time, I'm going to. Yeah, close your eyes. Well, you put your hand. How do I pass it without looking at it? I have to see where his hand is.

We have to hold hands. You hold your hand out. I'll look at where your hand is. And I'll look away. And then hand it to him. Audio listeners, we love you. I promise. Okay.

It's way better in video form. Alright, my eyes are closed. Same. Okay, I got the phone. Okay, so is there a skin on this? Oh, no, it's not. There's a logo there. Skins do have logos.

Okay, yeah, I know which one it is. You feel that confident that fast? Yep. Okay, I'll close my which one it is. Okay. You feel that confident that fast? Yep. Uh-oh, okay, okay. I'll close my eyes. I'm ready. Okay, ready?

Hand is out. Yeah. Okay, got it. Pass successfully. Oh, yeah. Wait, is this a trick? I don't know. I hope not.

Maybe. Let me, okay, hang on. Let me just feel really quick. Okay, I've got my guess. Already? Yes, I've got my guess as well. Okay, same. Both quick guesses.

You guys sure there's a couple of quick identifiers for this one that i think are pretty good giveaways okay so yeah ready to go three two one iphone 6s plus oh you did 6s i did six oh okay that's actually that's a good one how did you tell it's an s um i don't that was just my guess based on how long we kept the phones. Also, the 6 Plus was silver and I felt pink. Get out of here. You gotta feel pink. I felt, yeah. Oh, but look, it is the S. There's a little badge.

I got it right. I didn't even know I got it right. I had to look at it. I was going for camera bump and then immediately, okay, I've got that. Then the home button and then the headphone jack. I started with the logo, which is glossy, and I thought there was a skin on the phone, and that's how I realized it was metallic on the outside, so it wasn't a 7, it was definitely a 6 or 6S.

And then antenna bands, I felt the size of the Plus, and yeah, it was easy. Dead giveaway. We shouldn't brag too much, though. He's about to pull out some... Well, we'll see what the next one is. The Infinix something out of nowhere. Please please don't eyes are closed eyes are closed got a phone jesus i have not been putting these up that's easy i got it already i got that fast

yep it's pretty obvious okay yeah this is know it or you don't know it yeah you you pretty much oh good lord uh well hang on so you say that oh okay so i've got like two guesses for that but because you got it so fast now it almost makes me wonder so i'm dying to know both guesses huge huge no no he said he has two oh you're two guesses so i'll say what it's not i thought it was an rog phone as soon as you handed to me but then i was like no because it's thick and large but it was an ROG phone as soon as you handed it to me, but then I was like, no, because it's thick and large, but it's got the huge sort of thing in the middle. Yep. I'm going to take a guess.

I'm not super confident. You say it, and I'll say if I agree or not. Okay. Is it that Lenovo gaming, the Legion gaming phone? Legion Dual, yep. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's a...

The fans, the middle, the one that just... Zach broke twice. That's exactly what I was going to say. Is this the one he's broken half? In thirds. It broke on both sides of it. Don't do it. No, no, don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't do it now? Okay, sorry. I was thinking about it. That's a real reason to subscribe to the video version of the podcast. Yeah, right? So what do we, we're pretty much three for three. Yeah, three for three.

I don't know. I'm giving you credit for that. Adam might have to go find like one really hard one in there for a tiebreaker. No, we don't. Actually, we can just keep it easy wait how many more are there there's three more okay okay good half right there all right eyes are closed yep okay got the phone uh-oh i like that face i do too yeah what is what what is

oh okay if you don't know i'm young i have no shot am i is that the i it's hard to commentate because i don't want to give any extra hints if he's doing like the right thing or the wrong thing I don't want to give any extra hints if he's doing like the right thing or the wrong thing, if that makes sense. Oh my God. Okay. I got it. Yeah. You do have it.

I got it. I got it. Oh, good Lord. Okay. You ready? All right. Eyes are closed. Eyes are closed.

Okay. Got it. What is this? Oh, okay. So what is going on here? It took me a second to figure out the mechanics of what is happening. Yeah, because it feels like a flip oh no it's not wait what is it oh no it's it's sliding up and down right now that took me

like 30 seconds to figure out oh oh i think i know this too okay yeah once you once you figure out this is your phone yeah yeah yeah i was trying to i was trying to like pry it open yeah for a while and then i was like am i at the top or the bottom do i keep trying to pry it so i think we got it yeah i'm sorry i was talking to adam oh did you haven't guessed yet though well we haven't guessed for a while and then I was like, am I at the top or the bottom? Do I keep trying to pry it? So I think we got it. Sorry, I was talking to Adam. You haven't guessed yet though? Well, we haven't guessed out loud, but I think we have the same guess. I thought Sidekick for a second, but it's a first gen Moto Droid. Droid, yep.

First? Hell yeah. And I felt the D-pad and the keys. There was a second gen of that though, right? No. Yeah, there was a Droid 2, I believe. Droid 2 and then Droid X. And it still had slide.

Actually. This is for sure my first Droid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.roid 2, I believe. Droid 2 and then Droid X. And it still had slide. Actually. This is for sure my first Droid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember getting this one. There definitely was a second one. I overclocked this phone. I remember that day. Overclocked.

Overclocked it. Custom kernel. Custom ROM. That was. Part of the giveaway was I could feel how beat up it was. I was like, oh, this is like your, like this is the OG old phone. This is the one. I didn't think Marques.

I saw him playing with it, but I couldn't tell if he was like pulling at the bottom of it, but wasn't sliding it. Yeah. I would have guessed like a flip phone. Yeah, once you get to the, if you slide it, you kind of know what's going on. You know what's wild?

Completely off topic, but speaking of these old droids, near a gem I go to, they have a bunch of these like sort of like advertising things in the windows. And there is one that has not been touched it's an old verizon one since i so it's got a blackberry it's got a droid x and it's advertising verizon's upcoming 4g service nice it's all like faded in the sun i they must have forgotten about it but they're still paying for it that's so i see like there's like a droid x and it's like an HTC, whatever the Evo 4G. Thunderbolt, yeah. Thunderbolt was the first 4G phone. Yeah.

Terrible phone. Yeah. Terrible battery life anyway, which is enough for me to say it was a terrible phone. I remember testing that phone in school. I remember being in biology class in fifth period and the phone died and I was like, dead before the end of the school day?

That's bad. Maybe you shouldn't be on it during the school day. That's fair, but I was a dedicated reviewer in 11th grade. gotta do what you gotta do right yeah all right all right eyes closed eyes are closed okay got a phone oh that's an identifier that's easy got it okay eyes are closed wait where's your hand okay okay all right i've got it. Now that I'm thinking about it, I could be totally wrong. Yeah. I like,

this is not. Seeing it, I'm not even 100% sure. It's not easy. No. No. So it's got a big round camera bump. That was the identifier for me.

I can think of like four phones that have that round style bump. Are they, what companies are they from? Because I can think of two companies. Motorola. That wasn't one of mine wasn't there a moto x of one generation that had the big round camera almost oh you're thinking of the z

all of the z editions yeah the z had that i'm also remembering huawei and one plus it's but it's not just one z there's like there's a bunch of play z something else so here's the thing i'm trying to feel there's not a so it's definitely a more modern phone because i don't feel a headphone jack um it's not a huge huge phone i i think xiaomi's probably you know huawei i think it's probably a good guess but i'm not gonna know which one okay i have a different guess than you okay go for it i've i spent very little time with it but as soon as i felt the camera bump oh i should can i wait can i grab it again yeah yeah here here i'll pass it over my hands again yeah i thought you were winking at me no i just need to try it i need to feel for an alert slider is what i'm is what i'm doing oh yeah alert slider it's the okay i have my guess go for

it one plus seven t really okay, ding, ding. Yeah. But yeah, Huawei did do the big circle thing, too. I don't know. How do you feel about the symmetrical thing? Huawei, or OnePlus, has sworn by symmetrical phone designs up until this year. I forgot that. Actually, I daily that for a little bit. I totally forgot that it had the round camera bump.

Yeah, it's kind of a little. Not big enough to shelf. Yeah. But it is quite the looker. So I think you've just taken the lead good color i did yes i'm pretty proud of that one and i remember it being blue and everything i remember the thumbnail for that video why don't i remember these things okay one two three four five so there's one more well okay we added one more okay so there's two more my eyes are closed. Okay, I got the phone.

That's interesting dimensions. Great. Talk us through it. What are you feeling? So it's a small... I can talk through it? Yeah, I would say... I'll be giving you hints, but I think I'll get it too. If there's anything that's like super obvious and might be you're like,

maybe don't say that, but you can talk through the rest of it. Okay. So at one point we bought every iPhone to do a review of every single iPhone. So I know we have every iPhone. Yeah. So I grabbed this. This is a small phone with a home button. So it's an iPhone.

Yeah. And I think it's a five C. Okay. Remember the colorful plastic phone? Yeah. I don't remember what color we got, but I think that's what this is. Okay. I can't think of any other phone. I'll close my eye and i'll take a look but okay three five

c is very oh yes i feel like i need like a flag in front of me because you guys keep looking at me as you're saying it out loud i'm just like straight face straight face poker face poker face yeah that's definitely 5c it's such a unique feeling design because it's the plastic right and you've got the iphone home button the most plastic iphone what color do you think it is do we get a green has the advantage on this one if you can remember i but if you lose this one then awesome to get two i say blue i think it's lime i think we either got lime green or yellow there are some bright colors for this yeah i'm gonna go with green. Okay, I'm going to say blue, but I have no idea. Okay. Green.

Ooh, that is green green. Really green. I think we got it because it was so cool. It is on and it's signed into Andrew's iCloud. Is it really? Hell yeah.

There's nothing on there. I tried to charge as many of them as I could before this and the only one that would not power on was your Droid, sadly. Oh, no.

What connector is that is that mini usb for the droid that's micro it's micro is it micro okay yeah micro i think my heiress was mini oh yeah i think my heiress was mini yeah h the hcc hcc droid heiress my mom had that phone i think i tell you that every time i feel well there's you had two there was the heiress or the moto droid yeah and i want the cheaper route i guess i miss these little bright colors they I think I tell you that every time. Well, you had two. There was the Ares or the Moto Droid. Yeah. And I want the cheaper route, I guess. I miss these little bright colors they used to do.

Every phone is like pastel and like barely colored now. Yeah. What is that? Nice. Oh, that's before the haptic engine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. What a weird phone.

Okay, we have one more. Uno mas. So what is it? I think Marquez is up one now, so. Sure. Should we give it to Austin first? Oh, sure. Okay, so here.

I can pass it. I'll put my hand all the way out here if you want to just pass it directly to me. My eyes are closed. Yep. Okay, got the phone, and it is hidden. Okay. Oh, what is this?

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, it's not. What is this wacky wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait no it's not what is this wacky thing i've got in my hand wait so i will talk through it's a large phone for sure okay oh well i felt this i wait something slid something moved hang on hang on i'm trying to keep the lg wing i'm always thinking about that phone. Yeah, it's wing. Totally wing. Oh, wait, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just guessed because it's so long. I was kind of hoping one of you wouldn't slide it.

And then it would be completely. I almost didn't because I felt it was like, oh, that's really big and thick. But then I felt a little something move like, wait a minute. Something's wrong. The wing's perfect for this because if you forget to slide it, you're just going to think it's some like note maybe or something like that. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So yeah, I remember with this phone, I was, I was like, this is such a small phone and I was trying to figure out this is a flip phone. It's gotta be. And I kept trying to open it like a flip phone.

So when I had that orientation flip, I was like every phone now I need to change and check their orientation every time. But yeah. Wow. The wing is the, uh uh is the subject of the most viewed piece of content i've ever made word did you know that no it's a fun fact i made a tick tock on it how many views guess what's the most views you've ever seen on a tech tick tock it's philly it's not that high of a ceiling tech tick tock uh probably like 20 million views 20 million on a tech tick tock this uh we found a good song andrew found a good song for it flipped it open to the song 35 million views it was like it was a song that was insanely popular on tiktok at that time and it had something to do with flipping or spinning or whatever and we just

oh yeah yeah and we just swung it open at the beat drop and 30 million views it's crazy the short form world is a wild you never know what's i mean i kind of had a feeling like no one's seen a phone like yeah but that was incredible people do some really cool projects with these people actually take them apart yeah because you can take off this top screen and you can turn it into like almost like a game boy style thing on the on the top and whatnot there's some modders who do a lot of really crazy stuff with the way i figured this was a popular phone for emulators. Makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. It's pretty unique. Well, Austin, I have one more question for you. Uh-oh. What's that? That I haven't asked yet. Uh-oh. How fast can you type the alphabet?

Oh, no! From A to Z. I have no idea. How would I know this? Well, that's a good thing. We have a keyboard and a computer nearby to figure this out. I should have known. I came over to say hi.

I have my laptop here. I'm going to grab it. Hold on. Do you want to use a laptop keyboard or either of these keyboards here? I would say I am probably fastest on a laptop keyboard because I just spend a lot more time on a laptop keyboard. So some gamer you are. Look, man, the amount of email versus gaming that that balance is not going to be fair.

Yeah, I think I probably type better on the magic keyboard I have here than like my gaming setup. I think it's so much more so about like, obviously, I think a nicer keyboard is ideal, but I think it's the keyboard that you use most is what you're always going to be fastest with and a macbook style keyboard is what i'm on 90 of the time i've stayed on the magic keyboard here because marquez used to always shoot a roll at his desk so i either would have to stop typing or keep something that's quiet so i could like still do work more marquez did a roll yeah i have a Click clack while I'm recording. Yeah. Well, I've opened it in

front of you. The type test dot app. I'll give you a little pro tip or at least just to know you go ABCDFG whatever. If you miss a letter, it will not continue until

you hit that letter. So you have to hit every letter. God, when you get to the end, don't hit enter. Okay. Copy. And it'll it'll stop the

clock. And so we have a leader board for this. So all our guests, you actually you have been a guest before, but it was before we did this. It was actually, was that the last CES we went to? I think so.

I think it was the last CES we went to. Yeah, that's the last one. 20. 20, yeah, yeah, 20. Before it all happened. Yeah, the start of all of it. It was the beginning of the end. But we have a leaderboard, so we'll take your best out of three,

and then we'll throw so no practice the first one i do yeah we've had everyone straight into it okay yeah what kind of times what's what's like kind of the rough spread i don't want to put any pressure on you or anything if you want to know the times if you're ultra competitive i can tell you you know let me do one and then i want to know okay sure okay all right so i just stretch get the fingers ready remember where all the keys are i think start on home row make sure you're home row. Yeah, okay I'm gonna say I'm not gonna go that fast, but I'll give it my best shot to it ready. Okay ready and oh Good lord, that's bad. Okay

11.1 that was rough i think you'll be surprised at how much you'll improve next one i can say 11 is not a great i am not surprised whatsoever all right okay keyboard does not sound good on them like that's not good asmr either i could say yeah i can rotate around but i'm sorry, I need optimal keyboard positioning. No, no, you do whatever you need. Okay, all right. I thought I was getting clever, but it didn't sound that good.

I definitely got caught up, though. I tried to skip D. I was like, why is D not showing up? Oh, because I need to press it again. Okay, okay. One more time. Ready, and... Eesh.

Okay, 8.6. that's much better a little bit better digits is good not good though so we do three tries yeah we'll do three tries do you want to know any info or you just want to go right into the third try i mean my last if i'm 8.6 you're not last okay cool then i it's already let's just okay out of people you think may have been on the podcast, who do you want to make sure doesn't beat you? Is there anyone you're like, I really hope I'm not? We've had a good variety of people. Quinn, Doug DeMuro, Tom Scott. I bet Quinn was fast, though. I think Quinn's got a solid score. Yeah.

Marquez. Everybody in the studio's done it. Yeah. The studio scores are wildly ranging. Yeah. But this is everyone's first try not like after practicing it's yeah everyone had three tries all right all right i'm gonna go for the last one okay okay i gotta get the rhythm okay ready okay ready and

6.6 yes that sounded way better okay It's a really awkward thing to type. It's so weird. It turns into one hand having to do seven in a row, and that's just not normal. WXYZ is tough. All right, so 6.6. Do we have the leaderboard pulled up? Yes.

6.6 what? 6.676. You beat Colin and Samir by.001 second. Yes. Wow, that might be the closest we've had who's he he beat Colin and Samir

who's he like right after right after Colin and Samir can I just see the leaderboard so we can show them real quick yeah I gotta see this what do you think the fastest time is

I actually wouldn't be surprised if it's Quinn I bet Quinn was pretty fast Quinn was near the top but he's not the fastest he's the second fastest Tom He's the second fastest. Tom Scott's the fastest. 3.5?

Oh, sorry. 3.5. 3.5? Tom Scott came in here and said, the first thing he said was, I'm very competitive. And just like locked in. He was ready to go. He was the one opposite of David Blaine who was like, I'm going to be slow. This will be slow.

Oh, man. of David Blaine who was like I'm gonna be slow this will be slow oh man okay well at least I feel like I'm kind of in the the slightly below half no slightly below half but that's like average I don't care what that in the median stratosphere right but right by Mark Rober and that's good company that's good company that's good company I'll take it well I feel like we need to do the top gear like magnets yeah yeah that's like we'll eventually get there we'll figure that part out yeah you even get a breakdown of like what your fastest and slowest which one strokes were so which one took you the most time i x took you 0.6 seconds i took me a second to find oh that's huge yeah yeah no i definitely got tripped up i was like where am i at that's the problem with that test it's like you don't think about like you're almost reminding

yourself wait what's the next letter in the alphabet again? Oh, God. I'm saying this song in my head, but WXYZ trips me up every time. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad we got to do this. Now you know exactly how fast you type the alphabet. Feel free to practice. Maybe you come back on the pod.

Maybe you get a faster crack at it. Maybe you impress everybody with a 4.0 or 3.0 or something crazy. That will not happen. Leaving the door open. You never know. But either way, thanks for joining us. This is fun. Thank you. We'll probably do it again sometime, but until then, happy Techtober, Austin. I hope we survive. For sure.

Welcome back. That was... I always have fun playing that game. We've played it a bunch of times here. It's fun getting Austin over, and it's also just fun watching two people who've been at the game for so long reminisce about old phones. Yeah, for sure. This is definitely what we do when we go out to coffee with people in the industry.

All we do is talk about phones from 2012. We're definitely not giant nerds. Yeah, let's not admit any more of those. All right. All right. Let's go to trivia and prove we're nerds even more. All right. Trivia.

So, all right. All right. Trivia. So, all right. First question. A modulator demodulator is more commonly known as what? That's okay. Take your time. I knew like four of the words in that question. Modulator demodulator. Modulator demodulator Modulator

Demodulator I'm just I have two I'm just putting Do you guys want a hint? Yeah Can we If we both agree to a hint

Yeah I think it's fair then Okay let's do it So you want a hint? Yeah Alright It's not a router Modulator Demodulator David's looking at me like I just cursed out his mother

I completely changed what I thought we were gonna do it's also not a bunny rabbit I can't tell how helpful this hint is or if Adam's just totally messing with us a little of both oh I know the answer

do you? I'm just kidding I don't want the hint anymore no more hints if Adam's just totally messing with us. A little of both. Oh, I know the answer. Do you? I'm just kidding. I don't want the hint anymore. No more hints. Let's see if I'm right. I could be really off. From the angle that I have,

Andrew is sketching nothing. There's nothing on his... I'm just moving my marker above it. It'll eventually write something by itself like it's a Ouija board right now I want it to write the answer for me no I think I'm right I mean I'm just going to go off of something

what oh really you're gonna go off of something I'm going off of nothing and getting on to the Beats Fit Pro thanks I actually hated the Beats Fit Pro. Thanks. I actually hated the Beats Fit Pro. I hated their fit.

They're not the Beats Fit Pro. They're just the Beats Pro. Okay. They're the Beats Fit Bad. Ready to turn. Three, two, one. Oh, damn it. He's definitely right. Andrew says access points. David says modem.

Hey, baby. The correct answer is modem. I didn't get that after. I think I was thinking router. I was like, what's not a router? Exactly. I also almost put access point, but then I was like, what does a router plug into? Oh, modem.

I'm glad you had the logical thinking. Modulator, demodulator. There it is. Modem. I just want to say. I wish the camera could have pickedulator, demodulator. There it is. Modem. I just want to say. I wish, I like, I wish you could,

the camera could have picked up the physical light bulb that probably like pinged above you as you like read that out loud. Oh, thing. Yeah,

I just want to say the score now is all eight. Eight, eight, eight. Wow. Tied up.

Let's go. I mean, we're both going to get this one. We've got, actually this one's like. At least it's multiple choice, so there is the chance. There is a chance. So you're saying there's a chance.

All right. Four companies. Which one is fake? Also, out of curiosity, which one would you invest in? Not knowing anything about them. A, Doostang, a career networking platform originally intended for students of elite universities. B, Thoof, spelled T-H-O-O-F.

It was a dig.com competitor that never made it off the ground. C, Fertilizer, an embeddable music player for independent musicians. Or D, Toodaloo, a combination of StreetPass, Google Maps, and Foursquare, where users were matched based on their frequently shared commutes. I feel like I would not invest in the last one because no one likes knowing that they're tracked by that many different things. I'd probably invest in the music embedding.

The one that has the name Fertilizer? Fertilizer? Fertilizer. Fertilizer. It's in fair and fertilize. Yeah. I would invest in Doostang. The name is terrible, but...

Well, I guess you automatically just have... If it's elite college students, you just have money involved in it from the start. And I hope this doesn't reveal too much. No, let's do our answer. What was the Reddit competitor? I mean, the dig competitor poof poof i have my answer all right and oh we both wait so what's your reason i have a very i have a very specific i have a reason and i feel like my reason may answer why it's real but anyone who's comparing

themselves as a dig competitor and not a reddit competitor is automatically bad this was probably before reddit was dig around before reddit prior they were pre-reddit yeah right reddit only exists because people got really angry at the direction that dig well and then remember when dig redesigned and then everyone went to reddit and was like Reddit doubled in size almost? If only Thoof were still around. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I would assume that someone would be a competitor to them. It's just that since Reddit prevailed, I was like, well, why didn't Thoof prevail?

But I guess it's like Narwhal, right? Narwhal is trying to be the Twitter competitor, right? There's a couple Twitter competitors. Is that Narwhal? I don't know. So what is the answer then uh i made up toodaloo toodaloo oh really yeah that sounds really real thanks to i mean it sounds more real than than doostang so funny enough doostang is the only one of these four

or i guess the only one of these three that's still around and is see my investment would have been sound yeah you, you did it. Maybe I should invest. We should get a Doosang t-shirt though. Doosang, if you're listening to this, we want some t-shirts. See, that actually makes sense because if you're a student at an elite university, you're already going to career fairs all the time. But if they had a LinkedIn to just hook you up with jobs, I could see so many.

Get a LinkedIn without all the poor people on it. Dude, don't upset Doostan. Our t-shirts are on the line here, Andrew. No, I think it makes sense. I think it makes sense. I want to see the logo. That was a fun episode. I can't wait for you.

Last year's CES, we did a game with Marques where we made up CES products and put them in with real products so you will have a fun time this year I'm very excited for that thank you so much for listening thank you David for co-hosting with me today that was a really fun episode a very ranty

episode I like every topic was just like we're both very passionate about it yes we've built up rage that was ready for it but um hope you guys enjoyed that. Waveform is produced by Adam Molina and Ellis Roven. We are partnered with Fox Media Podcast Network and our intro outro music was created by Vane Silk. Take care.