Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - The Super Bowl's Weird Camera, Audi's New EV, & Ads on Smartphones

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

This week, we discuss the odd focus issues with the new on-field Super Bowl cameras, the rumors surrounding the Amazon Alexa Command Hub, and a truly crazy four-sided waterfall display Xiaomi smartphone. Then, we discuss the phenomenon of ads on smartphones and how they're rapidly getting worse, as well as a few new Android 12 UI leaks. Finally, we wrap up the show with some news about Audi's new "E-Tron GT" EV and why focusing solely on battery range may be slightly misguided. Links: https://twitter.com/wvfrm https://twitter.com/mkbhd https://twitter.com/andymanganelli https://twitter.com/AdamLukas17 https://www.instagram.com/wvfrmpodcast/ shop.mkbhd.com Music by KamrenB: https://spoti.fi/2WRJOFh Alexa Command Hub: https://bloom.bg/3d3VPjL Xiaomi Waterfall Display: https://bit.ly/375M7JW Android 12 UI Rumors: https://bit.ly/3aVLbcr Audi E-Tron GT: https://audi.us/3a9KKvU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can't see it. Some things look ambitious, but looks can be deceiving. For example, a runner could be training for a marathon, or they could be late for the bus. You never know. Ambition is on the inside. So that goal to beat your personal best? Keep chasing it. Drive your podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques and I'm Andrew. And this week, we'll take a look at a couple interesting tech rumors. We'll talk about Alexa's rumored command center, and then some new Android 12 UI leaks, then a quick rant slash discussion about ads on smartphone flagships. Then we'll wrap it up with a little back and

forth and maybe some devil's advocate on Audi's new EV release, the e-tron. Did you watch the Super Bowl this past weekend? I did. I'm not a huge football fan, but like, it just feels like one of those things you kind of have to do. I usually only watch the Super Bowl out of any football game during the year. I'm probably not alone in that. I actually, back in college in some of these marketing classes, was instructed as a homework assignment to watch the commercials of the Super Bowl. They're not that good anymore. I did actually feel like this year they weren't that good.

No, I did like the EV one with Will Ferrell. Did you know that Norway sells way more electric cars per capita than the U.S.? Norway. I thought it was funny, and I just, anything EV related to a huge audience like the Super Bowl just feels like a net gain no matter what company it's for. I think it was for GM, which is huge, and Cadillac EV looked fine, I guess. The last few years, I feel like I've noticed more, like, who does a Super Bowl commercial? And I pay more attention to that.

So, oh, like, there's three electric cars that got commercials this year. Oh, that's interesting. That's more than last year. So, yeah, the one thing that was kind of interesting during the show itself is one specific camera angle that had Twitter's feathers all ruffled. Our Twitter, at least. Our Twitter, anyway, which was that one mirrorless camera shot, which was sort of like a roving on-field shot. Yeah.

We're guessing, do we know what kind of camera it was? It was sort of intercut. So this season, they just started it, and it's been with, like, Sony mirrorless cameras. I think it was, like, an a7R IV in, like, December, and I think this was alpha. For the Super Bowl, it was alpha. And it's just on, like, a Ronr4 in like december and i think this was alpha this this for the super bowl was alpha and it's just on like a ronin s it's that like end zone celebration camera kind of feels like

band of brothers like war movie like up close in the trenches super super shallow depth of field it was uh the one thing that made it noticeable and the question i would have is like was that intentional that it was that different because if you you're cutting them, you're in the broadcast truck, you have the on camera, the on field cameras, you have the wired cameras above the field, you have the super telephoto lenses, all the standard TV broadcast cameras. And then every once in a while, they would cut in this like wide angle, wide open, shallow depth of field, like following a player cam in the end zone. And every time I saw that, I was just kind of like, I wonder, I wonder what people think about this.

Cause I, I noticed, but I noticed like everything in production. Well, if you're wondering what people other than us, Claire immediately was like, what is this portrait mode, weird focus camera going on? And I had to explain it to her a little bit. Portrait mode. Yeah. Portrait mode. Yeah.

But it, it's one of those things where if you took the footage by itself, at least the footage where it wasn't hunting for focus, which it did a lot. I don't think it looked bad. It looked very like good. It would be great for like NFL promo, like a quick promo clip on Twitter. But like you said, when you switch between the regular cameras and that, it just felt like jarring at best. There were a lot of great YouTuber takes about like this camera looks like when you first get like your your first prime lens and you just shoot everything wide open. It kind of did look like that for a little bit. I don't know why. Stylistic choice, maybe, you know? Yeah, I think they're trying something new and I get why they're

doing it. I like seeing like personable things in the end zones and them celebrating, but it just felt super jarring. I think Becca was saying something like she felt like she was just screaming at her TV for like AD to pull focus correctly and it just wasn't working. Do we think they use a Sony Xperia Pro to broadcast the image from that phone up to the truck for the Super Bowl? I don't know. I think I saw the rig and I think it looked like just a small HD, but it's funny because we said the whole perfect scenario for that Xperia Pro was like that. And it wasn't in the biggest stage possible.

So wow, the little niche of the Xperia Pro we gave isn't even using it. Maybe the Super Bowl is a little too high stakes. Maybe they'll test it on like next season's regular season games or something. But I did find that interesting. That was kind of fun to see. All right, so our first bit of news, which I do want to talk about.

We've talked about maybe the most tweets of anyone we've talked about is Mark Gurman tweets. So we'll just keep that trend going. Mark Gurman reported on a new rumor in the Amazon world, which is a new wall-mounted Amazon Echo sort of planned as a smart home hub. And just right off the bat, seeing the headline, I was like, this makes a lot of sense.

We already have the HomePods of the world. We already have the Google Homes and Google Home Minis. We already have the Amazon Echos. And a lot of them are great. And the ones with the screens are pretty close to being like a great home hub, but there's something about it being built into the wall

that sort of completes the smart home thing. I haven't told a lot of people this, but I've been offered the chance to do a video in some of these like $50 million New York City penthouse things. And the realtor will have a YouTube channel and they're like, how can we collab on this? I'm like, that sounds so sick.

Cool, okay. Tell me what tech is in the house, because if I'm going to make a video about it, it's going to be the tech angle, right? Oh, okay. Well, let's see. We've got LED lights in the house. Okay, cool.

What else do we have? Okay, so we have the shades, and the shades are motorized, so they go up and down at different times of the day on a schedule whenever you want. Okay. Well, you know, you can just sort of tell the shade. the shades are motorized. So they go up and down at different times of the day on a schedule whenever you want. Okay. Well, you know, you can just sort of tell the shit. Yeah, I get it.

All right. That's, that's tech. There's a, sometimes there's a theater or something like that. And that's cool. And there's a projector in there and you can do a video about that. But I'm like really looking for like smart home stuff. Like, okay, it's got a nest in there. What are they really going to do to make it 50?

What is over the top about this? That's like unachievable dope tech. I want to see it. And I've yet to really see anything there. I feel like a lot of those, and we've done a breather with one before. The like the breather, do you remember the disco ball

and the breather that one time? It was like kind of a breather that was an apartment, but kind of smart home-ish. But all of them always have, they're like, oh yeah, but the best part is this iPad in the wall controls everything. It's always an iPad in the wall.

And it's always like eight years old and barely functions and feels like you're on like a 500 ping trying to like control your curtains or your lights. Because whenever it's an iPad in the wall, it's always an older iPad in the wall because you're not trying to upgrade it to an iPad Pro. So it's like an old iPad Air 3 or something like,

something older. And it's wireless and it works. And they've got some app that it connects to. So you walk up to the wall and you like drag a slider in the app and the lights turn on and the disco ball comes down and you're like, this is cool. But if you had some sort of Echo Hub

that truly controlled all your smart stuff, it could view your doorbell camera, it could turn up and down the thermostat. It could turn your lights on and off. And it sort of felt like part of the home. That to me was really interesting. And I think that's a smart product that I'd like to see happen. Maybe more than just by Amazon, by the way.

Yeah. I think like it working fluently in the home is the biggest thing because the Google Home Hub, you know, the one with the screen and like the little base that's a speaker. When we first saw that, I thought this is going to be so cool. And then I kept seeing it in places around houses and I was like, this isn't it. It just doesn't really look like that picture frame it was going for. I know it can do pictures, but like finally having something just fluidly in the wall as like maybe looks like a picture frame can be like, you know, it can display pictures when you're not using it. But when you want to open it up, control a couple

of things, it says it can do like video conferencing and stuff. Also, it's it's just there. And I think the biggest thing is being able to hide the wire. I hate my Google Homes that are on a shelf and there's a wire hanging down behind the shelf or something like that. So if you can mount the wire in the wall, that this feels like what Google Home Hub was trying to do. Yeah, this probably needs a good professional install. Like I did my Nest thermostat, which is like you take your old thermostat,

you unscrew it, you take it off the wall, you take the things out from behind it, you've already shut off electric power, and then you can do your own install, and it sort of looks like it's embedded in the wall. Like it's a nice looking modern thing. so i imagine something like this you'd want some similar sort of aesthetic where it looks embedded in the wall uh-huh and you look over at it when you walk in the front door and you're like hey alexa turn on the lights i just triggered somebody's lights by

saying but like you want that sort of feel but the rumor says you know 10 and 13 inch models potentially ranging 200 to 250 bucks. That's nice. That's right in line. That's not too crazy expensive. It's cheaper than HomePod, isn't it? It is. The HomePod mini is now all the way down to a hundred bucks, but yeah, that, I think that's a good, a good product that I'm interested in curious about seeing. I don't talk a lot about smart home tech in the videos, but there's a lot of it out there. Yeah, I think what's interesting is I've realized that you and I both use all Google Home stuff.

And have you ever had Alexa set up in your house? In my house? No, just the studio. I never have either. I know a couple of people who do, but I don't know how they use it that much. And the more I think about it, the more I realize, I think I'd rather say Alexa than Hey Google hey google every time hey google's a mouthful it's extra yeah though so since i use google so often i've sort of on i just saw that coming yeah so that's so one downside is you can

trigger it uh by saying things that are close to that trigger phase. Good point. We call Mac boo-boo every once in a while and Google goes off all the time. Ooh, interesting. Yeah, so that's the type of thing you kind of calibrate yourself to over time. But Alexa's a bit shorter. Yeah, I think it's easier.

We should do some kind of like a power rankings because now there's the Hayes series of the world, which I feel like you don't accidentally trigger that often, but I do probably trigger other people's series. Then there's B hey series of the world which i i feel like you don't accidentally trigger that often but i i do probably trigger other people's series then there's bixby like there's a whole list you're not triggering that yeah we'll do a poll on twitter of like what do you what is the best version of a hot word or a keyword for triggering an assistant top to bottom when people vote for their favorites and we'll see what comes out yeah So if you haven't slammed your phone on the ground for us setting off every smart speaker in your home, you can vote for it.

WVFRM on Twitter. We're going to try and be a little more active on there coming up. I think it's we've always just posted episodes, but we want to we want a better way to interact with all our listeners. OK, one more quick rumor I want to talk about another upcoming product that may or may not happen. Low key, kind of hoping this one doesn't happen, but we see what you think okay xiaomi has announced uh they're debuting their first quad curved waterfall display in a smartphone i'll say that again it's a concept

phone but the first quad curved waterfall display now you guys know what a waterfall display is right it's when it sort of curves over the side of the phone like a waterfall and it makes that bezel-less look and it's kind of cool. It's kind of sleek sometimes, but I think we've realized over the years you get a little extra glare, you get some accidental touches, and it's a little bit more prone to being damaged. So generally, I'm a fan of a little more subtle curve than that. But we see sometimes some really dramatic waterfall displays. Okay, great. Now some phones we're starting to see get all the way up to the top or all the way up to the bottom where they'll shrink that bezel all the way down and waterfall over either the top or the bottom too.

This phone is a quad waterfall display, meaning it's going to spill over It's going to spill over the top, the bottom, the left and the right with display. But the thing is, it's not quite perfect because you can't wrap display panel around corners. Yeah. So we're going to leave a link to the blog post and you can check this out. And they have very dramatic, perfectly lit videos. And when I say perfectly lit, well, I mean, anytime you see a new display technology, they're setting up the lighting in just a perfect way so that it's absolutely ideal.

So this is in a black room. It's in the darkest scenario possible where the display glows, and it's very dramatic, and you see battery life all the way on the side by your thumb. And you see text literally scrolling from the bottom edge where the port user is. Like Star Wars, yeah. Yeah.

And it looks super cool, and you're thinking, wow, it's literally the whole thing is screen. Wait, is the port even there? I didn't even see it in the video. Sorry to interrupt you, but I'm like, wait a minute. There is no port there, I don't think. So it looks like literally the whole thing from top to bottom, left to right, looks like that Xiaomi Mi Mix Alpha,

that concept phone from when we did. Just without the back backhand, right? Exactly, last year. But from the front, it should just look like you're holding a screen, which is a dream. But if you're clever enough, like Mr. Who's the Boss did this on Twitter, and you just take one of those darkroom images and brighten it up a bit, you realize you can't fold corners of a display quite the same way.

And so every corner of this display is really awkwardly notched in. It looks problematic. It looks really bad. It's like a nub on every corner. Yeah. So again, they're experts in the perfect angles and the perfect darkroom way

of showing this display. And the tech is super cool. And I think it should stay a concept phone. It's also funny when you say the lighting's perfect, they also do this showing this display and the tech is super cool and i think it should stay a concept phone it's also funny when you say the lighting's perfect they also do this with like backgrounds on phones whenever there's a like notch or a hole punch cutout they generally the background has like a dark spot there this has a dark spot on all four corners so you can't really see the just complete lack of screen there. 88 degree ultra quad curved glass.

So if you picture a 90 degree angle, like your phone curves over 90 degrees, it almost does that from every single side of the phone. Here's the funny thing. Would we agree that waterfall displays and stuff are generally to increase this screen to body ratio, right? Like they were trying to hit that number. They were at like 88, 89. I, I think they got over 90 and like the whole point of that was, so then you only

had top and bottom at this point, you don't have top bottom, but you have so much corner. Are you actually going down in screen to body ratio? Like, what do you think the official ratio on this is? The fact that they're not posting, it makes me think there's another phone that has a better ratio, which feels like now is completely pointless to do this. So I honestly feel like the number is no longer important. If you remember the Mi Mix Alpha, they were giving you like 150% screen to body ratio because, hey, we went over to the back. So we're making up for where there's bezels on the top and bottom. So I wouldn't worry too much about the number. It would probably be 90-something percent. Okay.

But I think the question, if you're listening, if you're picturing this in your head right now, or if you're on that blog post, is are you willing to get that immersive on the sides of the phone in exchange for these ridiculous-looking corners? Because they really do look kind of kind of weird yeah and like and there's like downsides to this screen not just breakability or looks or whatever but you're losing all your buttons on the side so now you have to control your volume by hoping

you're pressing the side button and you have no tactile feedback for that it showed in the video them like scrolling up and down with the the volume. It looked like they even had battery percentage, notifications, and time on the side of the phone sideways. So like in order to look at it, if you were holding it in your right hand, you'd have to tilt your wrist inwards and your thumb towards you to see what time actually is and the date and your notifications. Not ideal. Yeah, stay a concept. I would love to see this at CES, make a two minute video on it

and then probably never look at it again. The thing about why they make these concepts, I always think about it because you want your smartphones to make headlines anytime you can. You want your innovations to make headlines so you have a good reputation as an innovator. So if you're Xiaomi, you've bought a display,

you have a great display, and you're making this concept thing to present yourself as an innovator, but most people don't really think too far beyond that. Like when we saw OnePlus's concept, remember this OnePlus concept when it's CES? I think it was, well, it was the last CES we went to, so 2019, where it was covering

and hiding the back camera with electrochromatic glass. So it sort of looked a little more seamless because they had this cool tech to hide the cameras. They never shipped that. No phone really ever

probably will ship that unless that tech evolves a massive amount to get much cheaper and much smaller. But when OnePlus does that, they get a bunch of people at CES pointing cameras about it,

publishing blog posts, writing articles, look at this cool thing OnePlus has made as a concept. And I feel like that's what this is for Xiaomi. It's a way to make some headlines in the early part of the year. Not a whole lot is going on. And it also maybe acts a little bit as a litmus test where they wonder if they do get a big enough reaction, maybe they should keep working on this.

So maybe this podcast is our opportunity to say, great job, Xiaomi. Really, really cool thing you made here. Not really interested in this exact version at all. There's a listener out there who really, really wants this phone and is unsubscribing right now because you just killed their hopes and dreams. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to that one person who wanted the quad, the quad waterfall. That's my bad. All right. Well, that's enough ranting. We'll take a quick ad break and we'll come back. We'll talk a little more tech. This episode is brought to you by HelloFresh. Be honest.

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but you're on a podcast, so you're pretty used to ad breaks. What we're not used to is ads on smartphones, and unfortunately, it feels like we're starting to see those, which is something I never really thought I would say. Interesting. Yeah, there's a whole world of ads in devices that has been sort of creeping up in a lot of talk lately. I'm assuming you're talking about, so Samsung lately has gotten a little heat for it. Yeah, Samsung is a big one in right now, but I want to take one quick step back and talk about that. There have been ads in phones for a couple of years, which I don't think are quite as bad.

And that comes to you in the sense of like the Infinix phone, which is under $200 and you're getting pretty decent specs on it, but you know, going into it, ads are part of the phone. And the only reason they can sell a phone to you that cheap is to include ads so they can make some sort of money off of you. Right. So there are some phones, some, and it's, it's happened before in the tablet world too, like some, uh, some subsidized products that are cheaper because they're making some of the money on that loss back with advertisements and selling ads. So there was a, I think it was a Kindle actually, where they had a high end version of the Kindle that you could buy and it was X dollars. And then they had a cheaper version of that same product that costs X dollars minus a hundred, but you will have ads baked into the experience. I forgot about that. Yeah. And so they make the money back with that

subsidy and people are okay with the ads in that experience. They'll buy the cheaper one. Where it gets kind of hairy is when you buy a $1,200 phone and you do still get ads. Yes. That has been a topic we've seen a little more. There were some reviews where people were talking about they had ads in their Galaxy S21 Ultras. I finally did see an ad in mine. I forgot what app it was in. It was inside a stock Samsung app.

Yes. Where I was just using the phone like normal and I got a totally unrelated ad for like some random other app or product on the top banner. I was like, what is this? Why would I have ads on this phone? How could they possibly need more money out of me? Not that I'm paying for them, but that really

should feel like a no ads premium experience phone. Yeah. I think it's been the last couple months where that was the first one I saw. And it was basically Samsung ads in Samsung apps. Which was also hilarious because it was telling you to buy the S21 Ultra on your S21 Ultra, which is just like, wow, you're just going to get backlash here for trying to sell someone the phone they're using already. And that I wasn't a fan of. And then Nilay just posted a week or two ago in his iPhone settings, there was an ad for Fitness Plus. I was like, oh no, I don't like that I've seen this twice. And then most recently, I believe last week,

I think it was Nexus Ben, Ben Shun, got a 1-800-Flowers push notification ad just on his Galaxy. And that to me is the weirdest one because where did that come from? Android? What phone did he have? I just know he said he was tweeting at Samsung,

so I don't know the exact one. Being as somebody who writes about Android all the time, I can only assume it was one of the newer S21s or maybe a Fold, but I'm sure it was a newer Samsung phone. That is such a weird one to me. So I think the Apple one is really interesting because it is so common and you kind of don't realize what you're seeing. But whenever you see like subscribe, grab Apple care, buy Apple, you know, products inside of the settings app, that is kind of the

same thing we're talking about. You spent a thousand, 1100, 1200 bucks on your new iPhone, and it's suggesting inside of the phone itself that you buy more Apple services. And it happens to know you don't have those services. So it can be real specific. That is an ad inside a phone. But for some reason, for whatever reason, maybe it's just because they're a little more minimal, a little less intrusive. They're not banners. They're not in the notifications.

But people are a little more accepting of that version of an ad because they just kind of sit there and don't get in the way. Where if you get a notification, my notifications are mine. Like that's my utility. I need that for when I get texts and messages and calls. And if you're going to notify me, buzz me, I take my phone out of my pocket

and it's 1-800-Flowers. That to me is way worse. That's way worse. I just think the biggest thing to talk about, or at least that I see is, a month ago, people were defending, oh, it's just a Samsung ad and a Samsung app. Oh, it's just an Apple ad in Apple settings. And now one month later, I'm getting 1-800 flowers as a push notification. It's just like, that's why it felt like a slippery slope to defend it in the first place, because I worried that one day when I unlock my phone, I'm going to have to watch a 30 second Squarespace ad so I can answer a text message or something. It just, it all feels a bit crazy,

especially an S21 Ultra is $1,400. Uh, $1,200. Okay, do you have to pay $1,400 for the non-ad version? Oh gosh, no, please no. Yeah, that's something, I'm going to keep a closer eye on that in the reviews. Because like you said, it's a slippery slope and the second you do get a literal like you know how you get those like cheap like crappy free-to-play games but that you have to like watch an ad every

30 seconds to keep playing with that whatever like if your phone experience turns into that that's pretty rough and the second i'd see that in a smartphone experience i'd want that to be the first thing in the review like hey just so, just so you know, when you're getting this phone, you're going to have to deal with a lot of random pop-up ads in the phone itself. So yeah, I think in my reviews from here on out, I got to pay special, careful attention to seeing if I get any ads popping up and whether or not they come from that company or from third parties. I think that even feels weirder.

Someone posted an Apple on Apple Arcade, three months free, Apple TV free, year available, Apple Care Plus coverage available, all on the top of their setting. Yeah, they kind of pile up. I don't have my iPhone with me, but I've seen that before. This one from Ben says,

1-800-Flowers, the way to wow, save 15% with promo code Galaxy. So they've definitely worked with samsung yeah 100 for some way that's yeah i don't like that i don't like that at all roll that fix that samsung quick i'm trying to make an ads platform that's not cool but you know what speaking of android we've got we've got ourselves a new leak and this one i feel not great about. Oh, yeah. It is the Android 12 UI potential leak on XDA. So this is, at the moment,

as I keep mentioning, an audio-only podcast. But if you can pull up these notes and if you can click on this article and take a gander at this with me. We'll try and explain it as best we can. Yeah, I'll talk through it, but trust me when I say I am not a fan of

almost any of the changes in this version. And so, this comes to us from XDA. This is a bunch of screenshots basically we're looking at and we're making a bunch of judgments from purported screenshots where we don't necessarily know if they're legit. But let's assume they are for this, for the purpose of this podcast. These are all entirely beige screenshots,

so no more pure white or off-white. They're all like a light shade of brown. Everything is a little bit more spread out than normal. Like every touch target is bigger. There's only four quick settings in the top and there are huge buttons with big gaps between them. Notifications got big gaps between them. Just everything is, everything is... It's not transparent. So your notification bar when you pull down is not transparent anymore either. Well, that feels like a step back a little bit.

But yeah, it's very different. So I'm curious what your thoughts are, because you've used, you've used Nexuses for a while. You've used these phones. What do you think? So like, first thing to say here is that they think there's been a lot of rumors that Android 12 might allow themes.

So this could just very well be a theme and maybe it's just a theme that you don't like. So I weirdly like the beige. You like the beige? I like the beige. So here's what I see. If you want a phone

that completely matches, there are very few phones that are going to match the outside of the phone, the background, and this beige theme. I'm thinking like the not pink pixel. That's pretty much it. Other than that, I'm fine with it. If the theme matches just kind of my background and the overall feel, the background on this is nice. It's just like a sandy hill with a kind of gray sky and the beige theme looks fine on it i think i kind of dig it it's less techy which i kind of i kind of enjoy but other than that i think the conversation section of the notification whole pull down seems kind of interesting um if you have a million conversations or if you have a million notifications uh generally conversations are what we're most looking

and most alert towards. The most important things we're trying to find on our phone is talking to people. I know your phones have like a million notifications, but I actually usually turn push notifications off on almost every single one of my apps, and I'd rather just manually check things. So I'm not constantly looking. I don't have Instagram notifications. I don't have Twitter notifications, no Facebook notifications. I get emails and texts pretty much and like Slack, like mentions pretty much. So most of my time is physically checking my app. So this wouldn't affect me that much, but I could see, uh, I could see if you're somebody who has a million notifications rather, instead of scrolling through 50 Instagram likes, just to find my mom texting me or my wife asking me what to grab from

the grocery store. Like, yeah, it'll be right at the top right there for you. So I'm kind of the opposite. And I think this, this has always been one of Android's strong suits is notification management. On an iPhone, it's just a list and it's whatever app you have and then all the notifications from that app, no matter how many. And that's always been kind of rough. In Android, they've been separating them for a while and they continue to work on better versions of separating. So Conversations is basically going to be any messaging app, whether it's Facebook Messenger, Texts, Gmail, whatever you decide is a conversation or whatever they decide is a conversation shows up there. So I like that. Yeah, I think that's great.

But yeah, I am the opposite. I let my notifications flood in and I try not to mindlessly like just jump in Instagram. I like don't open Instagram unless I have a notification. Okay. And then I will go through my notification. So I live mostly in the notification sorting process instead of opening Gmail and then finding the email that I see I got. So it's a little different. I think, you know, this is, like I said, it's been one of Android's strong suits.

It's just the design to me is not great. If this was a different color, what would you look like? It's much more simplistic, spaced out. It's only four quick settings, but it does look like there's a pull-down tab there. It definitely looks cleaner, but it gets to that point of like,

is this too clean where I'm starting to lose information? My basic issue is just there's too much blank space. Okay. That's the basic fundamental issue. Do you think if it had a opacity change and was semi-transparent that would feel like less space do you think it looks like too much space just because the buttons are spaced out or because it's this awful beige gray color that you don't like no they they've been

going down this road for a while where things were like really bright and white for a while and they've just started adding more blank white space in between things and blank white space between menus and texts and everything like that uh and i think it's just started adding more blank white space in between things and blank white space between menus and texts and everything like that. And I think it's just there's more blank space than ever before. It's not all bad though. There is a piece of the article that talks about these new privacy indicators up in the notification setting. So this is something I've brought up, well I'm not taking credit for this, but like maybe

three videos ago where we talked about how smartphones will start putting the selfie camera behind the glass. That's terrifying. So that's definitely something I want to be keeping an eye on. I think the next logical step when this stuff starts to happen more often is to add an indicator light in the software somewhere so that we know when the camera's on. And we really should start to think just a little extra second about privacy and what, you know, where, where is the camera going to be? How do I know if it's being accessed? So there's a little light now that'll show when an app is using the camera and when an app is in the microphone. And that's something that I think was a little longer overdue. So it's,

it's apparently here in Android 12. Yeah. And not only that, but if you click on that, it'll show you which app is using the camera or which app is using the microphone. And not only that, but if you click on that, it'll show you which app is using the camera or which app is using the microphone. And you can very quickly find that and then go to the settings of that app. You also can disable your camera, microphone and location in a privacy setting as well. Nice. Which looks awesome. I guess if anyone's trying to like paint a picture of this, imagine just on your laptop whenever you're because they don't have this on smartphones, but whenever your laptop's got the webcam turned on, it has a little light next to it so you know it's turned on. So just imagine in your settings tab, there's always

going to be a little indicator now that your camera's on, that your microphone's on. So you'll know if something has the potential to be recording. And if for some reason an app is doing that and you don't recall what it is, you can figure it out and hopefully just get rid of that app. I wouldn't just disable it. I would probably just completely ditch it. And I say this is long overdue because as many people pointed out from that video, you've been able to access the camera without a notification a long time before. So you'd want to know if some app is using your camera that it is. That's not going to change when we get cameras behind the displays,

but it's just something we've wanted to know for a while. So good to see that they've been working on it. So not liking the beige color, are you excited for Android 12 if this is what it is? Or are you, you're okay with it taking a little longer? Every version of Android lately, I feel like I've had a little bit of a pause with the design before i get used to it so i don't think i'm gonna be i don't think i'm gonna be excited for android

12 knowing that they're pretty much saturated on features like i don't see any crazy wow i need i gotta have this type of new feature in android 12 the privacy indicators are nice but i'm not like itching for Android 12 yet. We'll see. We'll see what those themes look like. We'll see what these rumors end up actually being, if they're true or not. But yeah, I'm not super... If I get a pixel, I'm going to be first in line anyway.

Are we still naming these after desserts? Have I just forgotten what we're at? Yeah, so they finally stopped the dessert names at Android 11. So when we got up to Android 10, we landed at Pi, and then there was no queue, I guess because they gave up because it was too hard. There's a little too much queue in our life for the last couple of years. Yeah, exactly. So they skipped and they just went right to Android 10, Android 11. So we're not naming after desserts anymore. Do you think that's just because Hiroshi got too busy with all his responsibilities and he doesn't have time to troll everyone into a dessert name? That was a big job. I know, man. That was a

big job. So we don't have the troll over the names anymore, but that's fine. We can lay that to rest and just go with the numbers. All right, we'll take a quick break. We'll come back and we got a lot of electric car stuff to go over. your business in times like these, that's why over 38,000 businesses are already setting their future plans with NetSuite by Oracle. This top-rated cloud ERP brings accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more onto one unified platform, letting you streamline operations and cut down on costs. With NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting tools, you're not just managing your business, you're anticipating its next move. You can close the books in days, not weeks, and keep your focus forward on what's coming next. Plus, NetSuite has compiled insights about how AI and machine learning may affect your business and how to best seize this new opportunity.

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four tasty chicken tenders, four regular size, and everybody's favorite, four buttermilk biscuits. All right, welcome back. Let's talk Tesla. No, I'm just kidding. Let's talk a different electric car. Tesla killer. Oh, yeah, of course. Tesla killer. Didn't I do a video titled Dear Tesla Killers? I think we're way past that.

I don't think anyone actually says that anymore. But you know what? The topic comes up every time. So let's just go over it. So the new Audi e-tron. First of all, what do you think of the name e-tron? I like it, but I thought they've used it like a bunch of times already. It's been in previous, I learned recently there was an Audi R8 e-tron electric version.

So they've used the name, but e-tron. Bring that back. That sounds like they thought, what sounds high tech for our new electric car line? e-tron. E for electric and tron for tron. So here we are. The e-tron GT has a 93 kilowatt hour battery, 85 of which are usable. A 238 mile EPA rated range, 800

volt charging built on the same architecture as the Taycan, which is sick, a zero to 60 of 3.3 seconds. And it starts at 99,000 bucks. Now, what you can't hear through the podcast is it is a beautiful car. I think it's a sexy car. Oh, yeah. I think it's a really good looking vehicle. So the style, the interior, all the materials, if you can picture like the highest end Audi black leather

possible with like a 12 inch touchscreen on the side and another screen behind the steering wheel, a pretty sweet looking wheel. Like I like the interior and the outside is similar to Taycan stance, but more Audi shape, if that makes sense. Yeah, more round. Picture like an A4, like a, sort of the size of an, it's bigger than an R8, it's a four-door, but it's a GT, so it's supposed to be comfortable, four doors, long trips,

it's a nice car, but I don't know, there's some hesitation in the electric car camp, because I'm over here thinking, alright, it's an electric car, you gotta compare it to the competition. And it stacks up pretty favorably to all the competition, except for Tesla's on paper electric drivetrain stats, which are in the same price range. If you want to go straight to just like Plaid Model S, you're talking roughly the same price, a little more on the Tesla if you go over the base price of the Audi. But you're talking about 400 miles versus 230 miles. And you're talking 0 to 60 of 1.99 versus

0 to 60 of 3.3. So autopilot, non-autopilot, whatever you want to call it. How do you feel about e-tron right now? I mean, I'll definitely agree with you. It looks fantastic. Biggest gripe looking at these is I really don't like when these like luxury cars like the take in and this have these aero cap wheels like just put really nice wheels on them don't give me these big chunks on there they try and make them look sleek and they just don't work very well but other than that looks amazing really sleek the interior looks like what you expect out of a luxury vehicle like a audi or porsche mer whatever. It's got a million bells and whistles. I feel like you can always tell there's a good luxury car when the steering wheel just looks like you want to sit down and grip as hard as possible and just floor it and be on a racetrack.

So the whole car looks great. But I think it brings up an interesting... What you're saying is the minute you put it to specs on paper, it looks like it's definitely out of date versus a Tesla. And this is like- This looks behind. Yeah. It's a conversation that happens every single time a new car comes out. Every time. And I just want to talk a little more about those specs and does that automatically make a car worse? Does that automatically make a car, like there's no reason for you to get it over the car that's better on paper and who it's for, what the relevance is like spoiler alert. It

always comes down to context and like it really it comes down to the preference of the buyer. Yeah, a lot. I think I have some hot takes on this. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase them. But really, I think in the in the world of Twitter. right? So the world of reacting to the announcement of the car, this world is full of people who weren't going to buy either one of the cars in the first place. And that's just how I see it. I don't know if I'm right about this, but I see a lot of reactions about it's both sides of it, really. It's this doesn't even get close to Tesla. Look at the Plaid Plus Model S coming later this year, doing 500 miles and a nine second quarter mile

and a zero to 60 of 1.9 seconds. This doesn't touch a Tesla. Tesla has autopilot, Tesla has superchargers. Audi is dead in the water. This car is nothing. That's one half. The other half is, this is a way better, I would rather have this or a Taycan

than the Tesla any day. The interior is going to be way nicer. Look at the pictures. I already agree with that. Interior is going to be sweet. This car will be built better guaranteed. It's a hundred thousand dollar Audi. It's going to have way less panel gaps. It's going to have way better all the specifics and the tight build quality things, the pain about a really nice luxury car. They're all going to be better than a Tesla. I would take that over a Tesla and I'm finally glad to see someone beating Tesla.

And I think both of these come from people, I say that aren't going to buy the car because I really, I'm not sure how much people who are actually cross-shopping these cars are thinking that way. I think people who are thinking, I need to, I want to get my next luxury car is going to be electric. Which one should I get? I think they're thinking a little about depreciation.

They're thinking a little bit about which one's going to be the most fun to drive and which one takes the most advantage of being electric, which one has the most like badass factor, that type of thing. And I think, I guess this is my hot take, is I think most people will still give the Tesla the edge. I think people will mostly give the benefit of the doubt, or at least the credit of like badass factor, autopilot, specs on paper, supercharging network, fun to drive-ness. I think people will still give it to the Tesla, and maybe I'll be proven wrong.

Maybe the e-tron will start to sell like crazy and it'll take this huge swell and Audi will start selling $100,000 cars left and right. But I'm having a harder time seeing that. So I think there is no way e-tron outsells a singular Tesla model or whatever. But I think that doesn't necessarily have to do with the fact that somebody is going to

necessarily just say like, I want a Tesla or I want an e-tron. They're going to say, I want a Tesla or I want one of these luxury EV models. And then now they're picking between e-tron and Taycan, which are very similarly priced. And I feel like those people are ones who are set on luxury cars already. So they're going to then go pick between the luxury car. Those are people who are coming from, I already drove a Porsche. I already drove an Audi. I already had a Mercedes.

I'm looking for that same level of interior design. It's weird saying comfort because like comfort in a sense of like, I'm sitting in the interior of cars that have been working on this for 50 years rather than the e-tron and the Taycan cars that have been working on this for 50 years rather than the e-tron and the take-in don't have the most comfortable seats. Their seats meant for, they look like they're like performance seats. And when we talked to, or when you talked to Kyle, even he said his butt hurt after

48 hours in a take-in seat versus like a model three seat. So it's, it's preference. I mean, you want a billion bells and whistles on the inside and that doesn't necessarily mean one's doing more than the other. It just means maybe the layout's a little better. Then yeah, e-tron might be for you. But I think if it's your first ever EV and you've never owned a luxury premium car and you've never owned a Tesla, I do think more people would lean towards Tesla, especially

with on paper, with supercharging, with just in general, when you learn about EVs, you're learning about Tesla's right now. It's the gold standard of electric cars. Yeah. So, but then the question is like how many people at this price range, how many people are coming to this from a price range that was similar beforehand, who then might go Audi, Porsche, because those are the cars they've been driving. When you're talking about $99,000, you were probably driving a car like that beforehand. That would be my question is, okay, you've been driving $100,000 cars for a while. You're really used to the Porsches and Audis and their interior. Why are you going electric? And if you are going electric, is it because you really want a great electric car? Or is it just because,

you know, there are some electric options out there now? Because if you're really used to the high quality interior, you can stay on that path as long as you want and keep getting nice gas cars and all the Mercedes and all the nice gas cars with sweet interiors out there. But if you switch to the electric car, you're getting a worse car, but the same quality interior. And is that your priority? Or do you want a great electric car? And you're willing to, I guess, but the same quality interior. And is that your priority? Or do you want a great electric car and you're willing to, I guess, sacrifice the current gap in interior quality? Do you know what I feel like we don't talk about enough anymore? And this isn't just you and me, this is in general, but like when I think of electric cars, I think about I want to drive

electric because our world is diminishing due to global warming and I want to stop driving a gas car. And I feel like we don't talk enough about people finally making the change because of environmental reasons. Whereas if I'm a Porsche driver and I'm finally like, hmm, if I can do one little thing, then I'm probably going to stick with

something that I feel comfortable in because it's similar to what I've been driving. Just now it's electric and I'm not using gas anymore. Yeah, I think we're approaching that inflection point and I think it's similar to what I've been driving, just now it's electric and I'm not using gas anymore. Yeah, I think we're approaching that inflection point. And I think it's coming down in price towards that level where it does actually make economic sense. And you not only save money on gas, but you actually feel like you're starting

to save the environment. I still don't think $100,000 electric car every few years is better for the environment. Massively even gas cars. There are a million other variables in that. Also, where's the electricity coming from? We get that. So that equation's still being worked out, I think. And I think we'll start to see more of that conversation as they start to be more mass market. When we get a $22,000 Model 2

and suddenly we have way more electric cars on the road, then I think we start to see that matter. But at the moment, electric cars are like a quarter of a percent of sales or something. Yeah. And I'm excited for that time when Kia is making an EV, when Hyundai is making an EV, when we're hitting the super, when everybody has the chance. I mean, we're only 10 or 15 years away from when most cars claim their companies are going to be completely electric. So that'll be interesting to see where that market share divvies up between. I have one other thing here written, though. It feels like the main spec on paper that is the biggest when people argue which car

is better is range. Oh, I love this. I think that's not as easy as it looks. It's not just like one has more range, therefore is better. So I have a very clear vision of how I think about range in electric cars. So first of all, the fact that they're calling it a GT, everyone likes this thing. Oh, Grand Tour. The whole point of a GT is long distance driving, road trips, all that sort of fun stuff. So even if I throw all that to the side, why would you want an electric car with 500 miles

versus one with 230 miles? The fact that gas stations are at every corner and are easily accessible pretty much anywhere in the world and prevalent means that you don't have to think about your range with a sports car. And so people are very willing to make the sacrifice and do 12 miles per gallon, 14 miles per gallon because they're getting a sports car. And that's totally fine. You just go to a gas station more often. That's all the difference. You spend a little more. In an electric car, less efficiency means you need to

think and plan more about how you drive and where you're going to charge every time. And that's not just like a spend a little more money and it's fine thing. That's like an inconvenience. That's an extra step of like, I don't know if I want to go electric because this car only going half the distance. And the fact that I want to go on some of these road trips in this car means now if I leave the group, because all the guys do have 300 miles in one stint and I have to charge halfway, that's a problem. So I think the rate of acceleration for charging is the key to unlocking people not caring about range.

I think you can have a 500 mile and a 200 mile electric sports car side by side and people pick freely the day that you can do electric charging anywhere. But today, the charging network is very important. And if you can't charge anywhere, I'm taking the one that goes 500 miles almost every time. I think it also comes down to, though, what your daily driving experience is. Oh, for sure. One, between what your commute is. And two, between there's a good chance if you're spending

$100,000 on a car, it might not be your only car. Yeah. Especially if it's like a take-in. I can't imagine most people daily drive take-ins every single day. I mean, I'm sure there's some. Actually, there's someone in this building that does and very jealous of him. Not on these roads. But either way, if your commute is only five minutes, you're never going to have to stop to charge in a day because you're just charging at home and it makes no difference. I know you, you drive a lot. You drive to the

point where I almost feel like you're being slowed down by electric sometimes. Like if you were to only go the speed limit, someone in a gas car, a lot of places you go is going to win because they don't have to charge twice in a trip. Um, but you obviously like EV, you're going to pick the one that has the longest range. Like I would do that as well. I drive all the time. We go hiking one or two hours away almost every weekend. So I could never do 200 miles. That just wouldn't be a good thing to do. That comes up a lot. The regionality and like the, the way your commute works matters a lot. A lot of people, when you get an electric car, you live in your own house that you

own, you have a charger in your garage, you start every day with 100% battery. That's pretty enabling. You could have a 30, 40, 50 mile commute and feel fine. But a lot of people who live in cities who can't charge in their garage every night rely more on the infrastructure. They don't start every day with 100% battery and they really need there to be available chargers for an EV to make sense. And if you're trying to choose between the EV with 500 miles of range or the EV with 200 miles of range and you rely on the infrastructure, that's kind of a no-brainer, right? But if you're not in that, then it's a different choice. Yeah.

So there's a lot of variables. Yeah. If you're somebody who, I think like you said, in a garage or like an apartment, I know people who, yeah, they just have to stop at the supercharger every couple of days because they don't have a way to plug in at home. Like you need to get the highest range possible to do that. And 200 miles is going to be, you're going to take it 30 minutes out of your day, every single day, just sitting there. Not even if you have to go out of your way to get to the charger on your way home. So that adds up a lot, but there are plenty of people who are going to get the Audi e-tron 230 miles and it's going to be their

weekday work commute car. And they're literally never going to have to stop at an actual charger other than their home. And that's going to work perfectly fine for them. And in that case, range makes zero difference. Right. Yeah. So it really depends on the person. I think at the end of the day, if you pay too much attention to Twitter, you would think like, you'd probably think there's like an obvious winner between the e-tron and the Tesla and there is no one obvious winner. I think that's all we're trying to say is that, I mean, it's like every time people argue specs of like a Samsung phone versus an Apple phone, like there are reasons specs aren't everything. It fits to the preferences of a person.

And you don't have to be mean on Twitter just because someone else likes a car with 100 less miles on the battery. I have to. I have to. No, you're not the one being mean. You're just the one getting mean too. Yeah. No, there's definitely a lot of factors when these cars come out.

I did an entire video just about deer electric cars. And I did a video just about Tesla competitors. I think when Rivian was dropping their announcement initially. So a lot of these thoughts are like summarized more succinctly in those videos. Maybe we'll try to drop those in their show notes. This is a ranty episode. Yeah. We feel like we ranted about this stuff. We had a conversation a while, a little couple days ago, I guess, in the studio. Last night. Yeah. Oh, it was last night.

Oh yeah, it was yesterday. Just about, I had like the spiciest take just to like see if anyone like felt a certain way about it. And my take was, and maybe,

maybe you'll feel a certain way listening to this too. But here's my hot, hot take. People don't care as much about panel gaps as they seem to on Twitter. Almost to the point where it seems like they don't care as much about panel gaps as they seem to on Twitter,

almost to the point where it seems like they don't care at all. And that was just a sort of a question of like, put yourself in Tesla's shoes for a minute. If you're Tesla, you're making your next cars, and I've talked in videos about this, like Tesla, you got to get your quality control better, you got to get your panel gaps down, you got to make the videos,

sorry, you got to make the cars higher quality. But if you're Tesla and all of your success right now comes from investment in R&D of batteries, the reason you're a $500 billion company or whatever it is now is because you have gigafactories in several countries, is because you do batteries and drivetrains better than anyone else on the planet. And Audi and Mercedes and Volvo and Ford can make their best electric vehicles right now, and they will have better finishes than yours, and people will still buy the Tesla with worse finishes. It feels like people would buy a cardboard box if it went zero to 60 in 1.7 seconds or something. So that was my like, like super far to the side devil's advocate. Like what if panel gaps just don't matter at all?

What if Tesla never fixes panel gaps? Will they ever lose their market share? And that was a fun conversation because obviously everyone feels somewhere on that spectrum. But if you're on the far other side of that conversation, it's like, well, why, why does Tesla not ever fix this? Like they're the worst. They never fix their panel gaps. There's an in-between. But yes, there is plenty of in-between. So I thought that was a fun slider to play with. Well, that's pretty much it for this week. Obviously, you know, it's February. We're still kind of in this like little bit of, I'll call it a lull of the year where there's not a ton of new tech happening. CES happened. Smartphone season is over. So we're just kind of hanging out. So if you guys have any

ideas of topics or stuff you want to talk about on the podcast, send them in, tweet them at us, get in touch. You already know how at waveform on Twitter. Anyway, that's been it. Thanks for listening again. This has been Marques. This has been Andrew and we are now produced by Adam Mol Molina our intro outro music is created by Cameron Barlow and we are brought to you in partnership with Studio 71 thanks for listening catch you guys next week