 Greetings, mobile accomplishers. Welcome to the Verge Mobile Show on this, the 5th of February 2014. I am Dieter Bohn. I am Vlad Savo. I'm Dan Seifert. And I am Chris Ziegler. So you are. So we're a day late, and we're deeply apologetic for that. But the reason we're a day late is because of Microsoft. We ended up doing a Verge Live bit about that yesterday during the regular Verge Mobile Show time slot. And so it shuffled things around. We ended up doing our DayZ live stream today as well. You got to watch Killing Zombies, which was awesome. And now you get to watch us a day later than usual. And I don't have any witty banter. I don't feel like trolling Chris any more than I already have today because really it's just not funny anymore because it's just so easy. So let's just talk about Microsoft, eh? Again? Do you guys talk about it yesterday? A little bit, but I mean from a mobile perspective, what do you guys think of the new CEO? I think he's a very sharp dresser. I think that's important. That was like my instant reaction when the announcement dropped yesterday and Microsoft put out its announcement out there and it had pictures of him. He looks much more like a modern tech company leader than Gates or Ballmer ever did. Some people may not think that's a big deal or think that it's stupid, but it's the image of the company and when it starts at the top and trickles down, it's kind of an important thing. Image is a really important thing, especially in the consumer space. So I think it's a good thing. I also heard a really profound reaction to the appointment into Satya Nadella. I think between him and the Windows chief, Microsoft might have the fittest executive team among all of technology. Wow. Like seriously, these guys, they work out. You can tell. You know who I'm talking about? The lady whose name escapes me right now who replaced Stephen Sinovsky. Yeah. And I mean physically fit. I don't mean anything that's making Dan and Dieter giggle. No, I wasn't thinking that at all. You realize that Tom is screaming at his computer right now because he knows and he's like, I can't believe you guys don't know. He's going to tweet at us at any second now. We should just refer to her as the woman who replaced Stephen Sinovsky for the rest of the show just to troll Tom. That's terrible. So to Dan's point, it's interesting because it was what, probably two, two and a half years ago that that, I can't even remember where it originated from, but there was this huge level of consternation about Mark Zuckerberg wearing a hoodie to board meetings. And now like one of the main pictures of Satya Nadella that's circulating is of him in a hoodie, which I think speaks volumes about the direction that the entire corporate world is going. And I for one celebrate the move. I've seen at least one article in the past 24 hours that's like, is the suit and tie dead? Which it would appear that maybe we are heading in that direction. I mean for, maybe for companies in the tech sector. I don't expect the CEO of Bank of America to start donning hoodies. Goldman Sachs is not going to be adopting the hoodie. I think you're probably right about that. Also I have to say that every time I hear Satya Nadella, I get hungry for Nutella. No. Like this is seriously, this is not even a joke. This is something that has happened to me two or three times in the past 24 hours where like I say his name in my head and then I'm like, oh that sounds good. And then I grab Nutella out of the pantry. Like this has actually happened and I'm not proud of it. But so you know, unfortunately I think I probably put in all of our listeners heads now and they are going to be doing the same thing which is good for the Nutella Corporation I guess. So did I ever tell you that back in the 90s before the web, they had a 800 number on their packaging and it was call and ask us anything. And so a friend of mine and I, probably drunk late at night, got in a big argument over whether it was pronounced Nutella or Nutella. And so we called like four times to try and get a rep that would settle the argument for us. We ended up chatting with a very nice lady for like 20 minutes and she didn't know the answer but I mean you know. Wouldn't there have to be an umlaut on the U in order for it to be Nutella? No, we literally, she's like can I put you on hold and ask my supervisor? We're like yes, yes you can. It went up the chain. It was great. That's amazing. Like in modern terms, there would have to be a Nutella Mayday button and then it would connect you to like a live video representative. So we are doing, we have the Q&A. Tom, you do not get a compensation for us being on a day late. So sorry man. And then Christopher really wants to point out that Dan Seifert is wearing a hat. I am wearing a hat and is that a camo hat? No, this hat is like 10 years old man and it's really the only hat I have that comfortably fits my enormous head. And I'm wearing it because I have a terrible hair situation going on. There we go. Okay, so sorry, we should wrap Microsoft. I'm sure it will be discussed. We're wrapping Microsoft after we completely talked around the issue and didn't do any discussion. No, I was going to wrap into the issue of how like in my opinion, the most important thing that Satya Nadella needs to do is figure out how to manage Nokia and make sure that he sets expectations for how many phones he is going to sell and does the rest, executes on the rest of his plan which is apparently mobile first, cloud first. So mobile is first tier than cloud. I think it's 1A and 1B. Yeah. I think that is the case. Well actually I got assigned the beautiful task of reaching out to PC partners, Microsoft PC partners and got some feedback from them and funnily enough it wasn't all boilerplate. Some of them, particularly the smaller outfits, the guys who make gaming PCs were really quite upfront about saying Microsoft has had failures in the past and it's been behind the curve. And what they've been talking about have been one is everyone is like excited, happy, thrilled, those are all the descriptions that they say. So everybody is on board but what they're saying is they want to have a consistent ecosystem in terms of gaming. So the guys who made the gaming PCs obviously they say if people can access their games and apps all across and there is some coherence, presumably I mean they don't speak to Xbox One but presumably they do want to have some crossover there. So that's interesting but they also all emphasize his expertise with the cloud and they all speak again about his expertise and his experience and his track record which has so far been encouraging and successful. But on the mobile side this was a really interesting thing. The guys who were Microsoft's Windows Phone partners all declined to comment. So that's LG, nothing to say, Samsung, nothing to say, HTC, zero. So they all declined to comment and I mean the way those relationships have been going they've been chilly to say the least. Actually, speaking of relationships, I mean I don't expect, I mean there's a rumored Windows Phone from Samsung but I don't expect any phone maker to put a whole lot of effort behind Windows Phone for a long time. No, that's the thing, I was writing there's going to be a challenge for Nadella to keep them, oh my god now I'm thinking of Nutella as well. I didn't want to say it but when you just said it right there I just was like, I told you. Yeah but I was saying it's going to be a challenge for him to keep those guys on board but actually I don't even know that some of them are on board. Do we even know that HTC is still a Windows Phone partner or LG? I think LG is. I'm sure they both are, who cares? When is the last time LG made a Windows Phone? It's been a while. I think LG has said that they are not pursuing Windows phones but that was like a year or something ago. Yeah. And as far as the Samsung goes, it's like the Samsung is just a rebadge of the Galaxy S4 or whatever. Yeah. So it's not like, nobody expects Samsung to put any effort into it. So the other question, so the Google Microsoft relation has been really frosty, there's the screw gold, there's the fact that Google services don't work on Windows Phone or work very poorly and all that crap with Exchange and everything. Do you think that that's going to get better? Do you think that it's a priority for the new CEO? Asks Jack March. I would think that it should be a priority but it seems to me that at least with as far as the services working on Windows Phone, a lot of that is on Google's end. Yeah. And you know, I mean Microsoft can try and work with Google as much as they can and plead and beg and ask and things like that but Google has, I think is the one that holds the cards there. I am very curious to see what will happen with screw gold, if they're going to abandon that or if they're going to keep that. I think I've heard somebody say in the past that the decision to keep going with the screw gold campaign goes all the way up to Balmer. So without Balmer there, it's not going to happen. He's not just not there, like he's gone, gone. He's gone to board. Well, whatever. I mean he's gone. And then Bill Gates is going to help with product. He's increasing his time there. He's no longer chairman. That's interesting. Yeah. Tom pointed this out in his report, in his excellent report which you can see on the site right now, that Bill Gates was known as being kind of a hard ass as products go. He personally killed Courier which remains a sore spot for Microsoft fans and non-Microsoft fans alike. So it will be really, really interesting to see exactly what kind of influence he has. I think it's one of the biggest wild cards. I mean obviously Nadella is a wild card too but how Gates leaves his mark on the company the second time around I think is actually for me the bigger question. With regards to the Courier, doesn't Tom's report say that he killed it because it didn't have an email app? Yeah. Which by all accounts is probably the right decision to kill it. No, no. Does it have an email app? No. The decision you make then is build an email client, not kill the entire product. Right. No, but guys, I think the Courier is one of those things that because you never know how good or bad it might have been. It was perfect for that. Keep kind of idolizing it. It was perfect. It was infallible. We have to stop talking about the Courier because then we're going to start talking about WebOS and Scion. I was about to say it was Microsoft's WebOS. So this isn't actually even like okay, it is yeah, it's easily the biggest news of the past week and a half or whatever but there's other huge news which is that Google went we give up and they sold Motorola to Lenovo. I mean it has to go through but. You know what this is nuts? Here's what this feels like to me. It feels like Google went into a pawn shop with Motorola and they were like what can we get for this and the pawn shop owner is like I'll give you $3 billion and Google is like yeah that's fine. No, it's actually more like Lenovo walked into a mall and it desperately wanted to buy a phone company and it was looking around at shops and it couldn't find anything and it looked at Blackberry and was like yeah, I don't know, maybe, I guess I'm not going to get anything and then on the way out the door, Motorola ran up and grabbed it and said hey, I'm for sale. Pretty much. The fact that Lenovo was going to buy Blackberry and then decided not so much but they were from Motorola. It was blocked by the Canadian government. Right. That's what I'm saying. It was like it's card got declined in the store. That's the hilarious thing. Like they don't accept discover there. They only had discover so they had to go somewhere else where they could use their discover card. But seriously, when you think about it, Blackberry was being valued at something like $4 billion or whatever it is. I don't know, at this point it's kind of like $20 Canadian dollars probably. When that speculation was happening, Lenovo might have spent some $4 billion buying Blackberry which is a worse brand. It's not in any way, shape or form on the upswing, not in terms of reputation, not in terms of sales, not in terms of hardware design or specs, all software. I mean anything good about Blackberry isn't happening at the moment and they got like you guys are saying a bargain basement price of Motorola which… $2.91 billion if you're not remembering. Blackberry is not losing nearly as much money as Motorola was losing though, right? Well, there's that. There's the fact that the Moto X as far as we can tell has been a failure in the marketplace despite the fact that it's been lauded by everyone including us. But then there's also the very, very important fact that Google peeled off some of the most important parts of Motorola and kept those parts for itself. They're keeping their quote-unquote skunkworks operation that includes Project ARA, they're keeping at least some of the patents, right? Yeah. So what does that leave? It leaves like just a random Android OEM that doesn't have any wildly successful product. No, no, no. Hold on. From Lenovo's perspective, I mean everything that you said so far is absolutely valid and correct but from Lenovo's perspective, it's exactly as Dieter was saying. Lenovo just needed a brand familiar to American customers. They're paying the money for the badge basically. Yeah, yeah. So if you're just going to spend for brand awareness and for reputation, Blackberry would have been an if you move but it would have been an upgrade on Lenovo, it would have been a really expensive one. And to me, just kind of heading nowhere. Whereas Motorola is really going up in people's estimations. Absolutely, it's losing money, it's not making sales, but everybody has a Moto X, it's showing it to their friends, they're showing the crazy screen, the beautiful industrial design and the way it fits in the hand and all of that stuff which we're going to come on to discuss later again. I mean, these are good things. It's good things but Motorola lost more money in Q4 than it had in any of the prior quarters since Google bought it. Lenovo has the cash, Lenovo has the facilities, it has all the capabilities, it doesn't have the name. It's like people just aren't buying it. There's great word of mouth, it's scored very highly among reviewers, among virtually all of the press people I know love it. I really like it but people are not going into stores and buying the Moto X, they're not going online to Moto Maker and buying it from there. So that's the problem that Lenovo has to solve. Think about the Moto Y, alright? Why? But I don't get it. Like I honestly cannot for the life of me understand why the Moto X has been a commercial failure. Are people just comparing it to the GS4 and saying, I trust the Samsung name? Is that what's happening? I think there's a number of missteps. I think one being exclusive to AT&T for a long time was a problem. Being exclusive to the US for a long time was a problem. And then the whole Moto Maker thing, I think that goes to show that most people aren't comfortable ordering a phone online sight unseen. There are people that are enthusiasts that are welcome to do that but the vast majority of consumers, especially in the United States, go into a carrier store and buy the phone that they can get in the store that day that is shown to them as the best representative. But they could. You can get a Moto X in the store. You can get a white or a black one, right. Same as you. But if you want any of the stuff that Motorola advertises like the colored backs or a wood back now or whatever you have to order it. And you know, the things, it comes down to the in-store perception. A lot of that, you know we said this HTC has a really hard problem with this as well. You know, people are pushing it on the ground floor. So what has Lenovo got here? They've got the brand name, they've got the badge. And they, you know, Lenovo is doing fine in some markets with its phones. It's obviously not trying here in the US and their CEO kept on referring to mature markets. So are they going to go the ThinkPad route? Are they just going to be like, you know what we did with ThinkPad? We're just going to repeat that exact same process with Motorola. They need to do more than that if they want to be successful because as we just discussed for like the 10th time, the Moto X is not doing that well. So like Lenovo, they're going to need to step up and do more if they really genuinely want to compete with Samsung. Yeah, and I think you mentioned this last week Dieter that Lenovo needs to be tenacious. They need to have the patience, they need to be willing to spend the money, and they need to be willing to go head to head with Samsung in the developed western markets if it really wants Motorola to succeed. Google didn't have the patience, that was very obvious. It had the money and it spent a lot of money on Motorola, but it didn't have the patience to see it through and it didn't really, that whole firewall that set up that Google said Motorola is its own company and we're keeping it separated, really feels like that was a thing that killed Motorola. I don't think it had anything to do with patience. I think Google's game plan from day one was to use it as a patent shield and at this point they're just like, well we're just going to get rid of the components that we don't need, which is what they're doing. The notion of Google being in the smartphone business directly still feels… I think if Motorola was a profitable business, Google wouldn't have sold it. Well I don't know, I kind of agree with Chris. I don't really see how being a smartphone manufacturer really fits into Google's long term strategy, its overall strategy. It just didn't need it. And one of the things that is kind of a side story to this is that just as Google was announcing the sale of Motorola, it was announcing a much closer Android partnership with Samsung. So it may well be the case that Google had Motorola and then Samsung came to Google and said, we're not comfortable with this, we're going to put our chips into Tizen or whatever bluff Samsung had. But you know, forking Android or trying to be difficult for Google is not something that the company really wants. I love the rumor. So the rumor here is that Google played with the tab pros and they're like, this sucks. And then they went to Samsung and they're like, look guys, this is getting out of hand, can we talk about it? And that started the conversation. That's the rumor, right? Yeah. What is it going to take for you to not do this crap to Android? And you know, if you don't do something, we're going to leverage some more power, we're going to leverage maps, and maybe this Motorola thing ties into it. But like the joke that I tweeted, you know, back when Google bought that developer team from HP, we joked that Palm bought us for $0 billion. And it's like, Samsung kind of bought Android for $0 billion? Like Samsung, unless Lenovo really, really puts the screws down and really spends a ton of money, who in terms of big developed markets is able to compete with Samsung in the Android space right now? Nobody. Unfortunately, nobody. Yeah. I mean, if you take off the right now from that question, there's potential answers, but otherwise, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing that I would say with respect to Lenovo is absolutely what you guys are saying, persistence, money, etc., tenacity, all of those things are necessary. But as far as I'm concerned, if you look at the entire mobile landscape and how Lenovo could enhance its brand standing in the West, this was the best case scenario for the company. You know, taking Motorola, particularly now where it's considered kind of America's company with its Texas assembly plant, and I mean, it just has a reputation that is on the upswing. That's what I'm saying. And you just have to compare that to the idea of Lenovo doing the exact same thing but trying to sell you idea phones or left phones. It just doesn't really compare. You know, selling Motorola devices, even if it's just a badge, is so much more – it gives Lenovo so much more of a chance than, you know, using its own brand name. Now, here is one unanswered question, at least as far as I know it's unanswered. To what extent did Google directly influence the design and development of the Moto X, and to what extent is that brain trust moving to Lenovo? In other words, will future Motorola's look and feel like Lenovo's, or will they look and feel like Moto X's? Yeah, and this actually – we've got a question from Ryan, like are quick updates from Motorola going to be a concern? So it's not just the look and feel and the industrial design. It's the fact that even though there was this supposed wall, like Motorola got their shit together when it came to software. They created really interesting software improvements. They did really good hardware. Like they made huge strides forward, and the question is can Lenovo continue that and do the right things and actually sell phones? I think that as far as the software updates are concerned, I think a lot of that was the Motorola engineers that were doing that. If Lenovo keeps those Motorola engineers and those teams working on that, I don't think you really – there would be any change there. It's not like the Android 4.4 update was coming out at the same time as it was for Nexus devices, so they didn't have like the – It came out before some Nexus devices on Motorola stuff, like – Well, like when the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 7's got it like immediately, right? Well, I mean the Nexus 5 launched with it, but they immediately got it. It's not like the Moto X got it the next day. It was weeks and a couple months later. So the engineering teams were working on that, and I think the fact that Motorola doesn't do a lot of changes to the base operating system. It just adds these small tweaks on top, enables it to push out these software updates faster and makes it easier than other OEMs. But like Chris said, that would be really interesting. We haven't heard or I don't think there's anything definitive that said how much influence Google had on the industrial design of the Moto X. It was obvious that it seemed like a lot of people at Google were fans of it, but it was their job to be a fan of it. And I think the other big unanswered question, and Lenovo kind of hinted at this, but is what's going to happen to Motorola's US manufacturing? Lenovo has a manufacturing plant in North Carolina, but that's for laptops and ThinkPads and things like that. And the manufacturing in Texas is outsourced. Motorola has a contract with Flexotronics, and during the conference call to discuss the purchase, Lenovo's CEO mentioned that most of the manufacturing is outsourced. We're going to be looking into that as things that could be possibly changing. So I would be surprised if they keep up with the US manufacturing. I highly doubt it's all that profitable. Well, I mean, to me that sounds like that puts Moto Maker in major jeopardy, right? It's an entirely different issue trying to send a customized device from Asia than sending it from Texas, at least for the US market. Then again, I mean, I guess Apple does it, right? They customize a MacBook online and they ship it directly from China. Yeah, but I mean, Motorola turns those Moto Makers around in like two days. And there are so many different combinations that you can get. It's way more than just components that go into the same shell that everyone gets, right? So there's a lot of customization. And when Motorola launched the Moto Maker program, they said the reason that we're able to do this is because it's located in the United States. And it has a close proximity and we're able to turn around these shipment times really quickly. So it seems that being in the US is a big hinge or Moto Maker existing hinges on being in the US. Right. How many – Are you guys going to buy a Lenovo phone? Are you going to do it? Well, I mean, Dan just spent all of his money on 18 Moto Xs, so – I bought every iteration you can buy, every combination you can buy, I bought. And he still lost $350 billion. Let's put it this way. When I point blank asked Dan how many Moto Xs he had, he refused to answer. Wow. I just want to clear the air in case like my wife's listening or anybody's listening that cares, I own one Moto X and I've only ever paid for one Moto X. He has his – he just exchanged them over and over and over and over again. I did exchange one of them, yeah. Yeah. Because Motorola let me. Wow. Yeah, I'm still – yeah, I don't know. I'm – I don't know what I'm going to buy. I can't answer that question. But I am kind of bummed that we're down to just one major phone manufacturer in the US. And like in North America, like you can't even really count BlackBerry that much anymore. We certainly can't count Apple. They're not making any phones in the US. Well, okay, major phone company, like phone company that's like we. Yeah, I mean nobody was assembling phones in the US before MotoMakers. I guess Nokia is a US company after this. Oh, yeah. Clever. Nokia is a US company the same way that Motorola will be a Chinese company. Yeah. Right. Well, so they actually put out – I don't know if it was a press release or how it came out, but the word on the street is that Motorola is still committed to moving its headquarters to downtown Chicago. They're in the suburbs right now. And they have a plan in place to move about 2,000 people to the city. So we'll see how long they're there. Did they buy your condo? Yes, they're moving 2,000 people into my condo. It can be a little tight, but there's only two bathrooms. But no, that's interesting news that they're continuing with that plan. Yeah, I mean we kind of just have to wait and see. I mean it has to get approved, right? So I kind of imagine it's going to be. Don't you? Yeah, if they approve ThinkPad. Yeah. And actually Lenovo just bought another division of IBM the other day. All right, so how far away are we from Mobile World Congress, guys? Two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks. And there's already I know at least one day that looks like it's going to be busy. But the rumors that the Galaxy S5 is going to be announced, I wasn't expecting it, honestly. I don't know why. But Samsung is going to have an unpacked event. And unpacked events are always the best. So watch our live blog. There's definitely going to be an emcee, and he's going to be insane. There was an interesting report from the New York Times today that actually says this unpacked event is going to be a toned down, quiet affair compared to say like the Galaxy S4 event, which was a Broadway show, and the prior events which were just pure insanity. So that means that there will only be four clowns on stage instead of an entire circus? Is that the game? I guess so. But I find it also very interesting that Samsung plans to launch the, allegedly plans to launch the Galaxy S5 at Mobile World Congress, which has really been kind of a sleeper show for the past few years. Yeah. I mean that was traditionally where HTC used to launch stuff, right? Right. A couple of years ago HTC launched the One line when it was the One X, the One S, and the One V. But HTC wasn't there last year. It did its own thing. Samsung has done its own thing obviously for quite some time now and really made big spectacles of things. I mean if they manage to announce this, I mean it's actually they're a month ahead of time because I think last year the Galaxy S4 was announced in like mid-March, right? Yeah, it seems like they're moving further and further up the year because the original Galaxy S was announced at CTIA, which usually happens in April or May. The Galaxy S2 was sometime around there like May or June, and then the Galaxy S3 I think was April or May, and now we're going to be in February with the Galaxy S5. So, I mean, here's my dream. Samsung doesn't add a single new software feature, and they improve the plasticky feel that every Galaxy has always felt like to something a little more primo. It's going to be fake leather, man. And then they ditch AMOLED. They're not going to do that. I'm trying to think of what I want out of a Galaxy S5 that's within the realm of realism for Samsung. Oh, you want it to be curved. Well, compared to the Galaxy S4, what do I want out of a Galaxy S5 that I think Samsung would realistically do that isn't already on the S4? The iPhone is very realistic. What do I want is what I'm saying. So what they're likely going to do is that fake leather back that is on the Note 3 and is on certain variants of the Galaxy S4 in Russia and Korea. I think that's almost like a definite. I don't know where Vlad is. Joe, Brian wants to know why Vlad is gone. Vlad sent me a note saying his connection dropped, unfortunately. So he got so tired of talking about Lenovo Rola. Yeah. And as far as software goes, the rumors have shown or the leaks have shown these crazy software overhauls that I don't know why. Do you think that, I mean, assuming that this partnership with Google where Samsung is going to tone down its software, they actually, actually they could come sooner than we think because they had telegraphed that they were going to dial things back a couple of months ago. So we could see, if the S5 is a slightly spec bump, slightly nicer S4, just feels a little bit higher quality and the software isn't bonkers, I'm kind of into that. I'm curious as to what the actual quote tone down our software means. Does it mean that they're not going to be pushing their software services like chat on and the Samsung store instead going with hangouts in the Play Store which would benefit Google more or does it actually mean that the Samsung software as we know it will be radically different? Are we going to have life companions? I mean we've heard this thing that they're testing a new phone interface with lighter fonts. This was from January. Yeah. And we saw some images that looked just a little bit chiller. Although this maybe isn't what they're going to do. I don't know. I don't know, man. Samsung just… I think it's very interesting that we are two and a half weeks away now from what is supposed to be the big launch event for this product and we have yet to see any leaks of it. Yeah. Well, that Samsung's gig now, right? Like they've done a pretty good job locking down most of their phones for the past 18 months. They locked down the GS4. I don't think there were any leaks of the Note 3, were there? I don't recall. Yeah, so here's the thing about that. There might have been, but nobody can tell the difference between the Samsung. That sounds very true. That was a cheap shot. I take it back. In fact, the only Samsung product…the Galaxy Gear leaked like just before the announcement. Right. And the Note 8 leaked. Yeah. But apart from that, it's been pretty locked down. Yeah. The other thing that we're expecting out of Samsung is the Windows phone, the Huron, and man, it just looks like they took like the rejects from the Galaxy S4 factory line and just like slapped the Windows logo on them. Well, that's the same thing they did with the…what's the last one? That's been Samsung's Windows phone strategy forever. Yeah. That first one, what was that, the Focus? Was a rebadged Galaxy S. I'm starting to get excited for Windows Phone 8.1. Stop, Dieter, stop. Little bit. Notification center. Remember that feeling you had for Windows Phone 7.5 and then that feeling you had for Windows Phone 8? Guys, come on. It's a cycle of heartbreak. It is. Dude, every Windows 8 phone 8.1 device, which is every Windows phone 8.1…how do you pluralize that? I have no idea. It's going to come with a free jar of Nutella. Windows Phone 8.1. There you go. Free jar of Nutella, man. Free jar of Nutella. That would be delicious. I mean, at this point, unfortunately… And then you can use the phone as a scoop. If they come curved, then it's perfect for dipping into the jar. That's true. When they repurpose… Plus, they're calling their Siri clone Cortana, which is awesome. At least that's the rumor. Well, that's the code name, right? I hope they keep it. Yeah, when they repurpose the Galaxy… Well, it's interesting that they just signed that deal with Foursquare to provide location data. When they repurpose the Galaxy Round as a Windows phone, it'll make a perfect Nutella scoop. Yeah. So I think at this point, unfortunately, it comes down…the ball is out of Microsoft's court for many, many, many users because there's this ongoing shade throwing between Microsoft and Google that they need to resolve. And until they do and get everybody happy and cooperating, Windows phone is kind of an outcast. At least, I mean, for me. I mean, I have too many Google accounts to make that my primary device when I know that at any moment, Google might just pull the plug on everything. What little is there? So… Chris, in case there are any major mobile network CEOs listening, can you define throw shade? Oh my God. Are you…wait, first of all, are you suggesting that there might be wireless CEOs listening? You never know. If you are the CEO of a major wireless carrier or phone manufacturer and you're listening, please submit a question into the Hangout and I will answer it on air. Just tweet at us right now. Or just tweet at us right now. Man, I wish that Vlad's connection hadn't dropped because I wanted to ask about the Z1. Maybe if he comes back, we will talk to him. But speaking of major wireless carriers, sounds like the FCC isn't so keen on this idea that Sprint might buy T-Mobile. Shocker. The fact that Sprint spent a dime investigating this possible tie-up is kind of hilarious to me. It's just so like patently obvious that they wouldn't get this past anyone. I mean, Wheeler is still kind of a wild card because he's ex-CTIA. He's ex…what's the cable association? Anyway, he's ex-lobbyist. And so there's a lot of speculation that he might be extremely pro-business. But I think that if you look at his initiative so far and sort of the precedence that he has set and the apparent emphasis that he wants to continue where Clyburn left off, it's becoming more of a matter of course for him to kind of put the kibosh on anything that is anti-consumer. And this would certainly be anti-consumer in a way that it wasn't in 2011 when AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile. The landscape was very different then. T-Mobile was a much stronger carrier than it was in 2011. Or at least it apparently is if you believe what John Legere says. So it's not apparent that there needs to be a consolidation among national carriers to keep Sprint and T-Mobile strong. So yeah, it's a tough sell. And I think that Sprint still might make a push for this, but man, getting it past both the FCC and FTC, which DOJ has already indicated that they think the wireless market is in a good place right now. Yeah. I don't know how it's going to happen. So welcome to the Chris and Dieter Moleshow. Did Dan leave too? It's a very quiet, intimate – yeah, Dan not only dropped, but I just saw that his local recording, which we all keep, was uploaded to the Dropbox, which means his internet dropped hard. Vlad is back! Hey! Vlad, welcome to the party, man. We just lost Dan, and now you're back. Oh! Yeah, this is an exciting – and plus, if you guys haven't noticed, my video quality is dialed way down because apparently Google Hangouts doesn't want me at full quality. This is why Chicago is better than New York. We have real internet here. Do you have Fios in your new place? No, no. I've been in contact with both Verizon and Cablevision, and they have both told me that I can go get bent. So I'm stuck with Time Warner. Yeah. Yeah. Have fun with that. So, Vlad, your timing is impeccable because we wanted to talk about the Z1 Compact. Awesome. But more to the point, we wanted you to talk about it because I have not held one yet. Yeah. Here it is. Ah! The Z1 Compact. Welcome back, Dan. I see Google is trying to assassinate us all around the world. Like, you'd think by virtue of the redundancy of us being in different locations, we wouldn't have these consistent issues, but there you go. Nope. And I just dropped the Z1 Compact, which is a great example of its ergonomics. Okay. Well, let's talk about this phone because it actually surprised me. I was already curious about it from the start because it's a 4.3-inch phone with just the full 5-inch Android flagship spec sheet. I mean, it is the Z1's spec sheet apart from the battery, which is smaller, but then, you know, smaller size, you kind of have to have a smaller battery. And that was exciting. That was interesting. It's the thing that we have all been asking for for a long time. So in anticipation of this phone, we already had high expectations, but it surprised me because actually of its battery life, which lasted longer than most phones. The only ones that compare with it really on the Android scene are things like the Galaxy Note 3 and the One Max from HTC, which is just wild. And the G2, right? It seemed to be about... Yeah, and the LG G2, which does a really good job. So it's a 2300-milliamp battery. It's 100 more than the Moto X, but as I say, the phone lasts so much longer. And it's the same size as the Nexus 5, which has a 5-inch screen and an intense, epic backlight, which sucks to have all the battery juice. So that's it. The battery life is great, and Sony has finally done the really important thing, which will stick a really nice IPS display on this. It's like Sony finally decided to do a smartphone for the 21st century, and those two things are just outstanding. They're brilliant. Besides that, it's densely packed inside. It's quite hefty for a phone. And it's waterproof, which is also good. It has a couple of flaps, which can be annoying, but again, if you don't have to charge it that much because of the good battery life, the micro USB port having a flap on it isn't that annoying. The Sony software, that's the bit that really kind of drags it down for me. I'm not really a huge fan of the camera software. And yeah, there's a couple of buggy things on it. So it's not a perfect phone, but I really want everybody... I'm talking HT, Samsung, everybody in terms of Android phone manufacturers to try and compete in this size and in this space, because I think people will come around to it. I don't think everybody wants a 5-inch or a 6-inch device. I know there's a market for those, but I think there's definitely a market for 4.3-inch phones as well. What struck me the most when I was reading your review, Vlad, was that the Z1 Compact is pretty much the same size as the Moto X, right? But it's got a significantly smaller display. That's right. I need to answer a question that just came in. 99% sure that this isn't real, but John Legere asks, who's your top five CEOs? John Ledger. Sorry, it's Ledger. Good quality troll there, listener, who is probably not John Ledger. Okay, so great battery life, skin is slightly dialed back, camera, fine but over-processed as usual with Sony. Is that the gist? That's it? I want the yellow one very badly. Come on. What do you mean, come on? What color would you get? I know, I'm saying come on about the camera. I'm the guy that is willing to accept a mediocre camera at this point, I really am because I use a Nexus 5, so there you go. But I mean I am using an iPhone right now. But I guess the thing about the Sony that is disappointing is like, I know that Sony is capable of greatness there, and they just haven't done it. Live up to yourself, guys. I know you can do it. I believe in you. I believe in you, Sony. That's definitely the truth. The iPhone has a Sony sensor, right? I believe it does, yeah. I mean Sony does all the best sensors. They've done sensors for HTC, they do Nikon sensors for DSLRs, and they have the big full-frame sensors in the Alpha 7 camera. So Sony knows how to do camera sensors. Absolutely, as Jesus says, it's inexcusable. And it really is over-processing. You take a photo and then you go and you ruin it. I mean this is the thing that we keep talking about with Android skins. It's like the stock stuff is good enough in itself. Stop trying to improve it because through those efforts of improvement, you're actually ruining the picture. Because what I can say about both the Z1 and the Z1 Compact is, some of the photos that these cameras take, particularly at 20 megapixels, where they really have no right to look that good, just look amazing. But that's when the processing kind of fits your subject. So where it loses detail, it's fine because the subject kind of has consistent color and things like that. And it doesn't get ruined, you know? So it's really dependent on getting the right match between subject and Sony's processing, which is annoying. Processing should be minimal. I've been a big fan of Nokia's habit of doing exactly that, trying to keep it as minimal as possible, even if it makes colors look a bit more muted and just images not as punchy as others make them look. But also, I don't really trust the focusing on this phone. It isn't that quick, and I'm struggling to get into a good habit with it. Funnily enough, with the Nexus 5, I've been using it quite extensively. I use it around CES and things like that. I got into a rhythm with knowing and having the camera being predictable, which to me is the most important thing. Absolutely, it's mediocre, but knowing how much it can do, knowing how it can focus and how it can't, it just became a good habit for me. And then I felt comfortable with it. Whereas with this one, I know I could get amazing photos, but then I have to work at it a lot, and that's not great. Would you buy one? I would go for the OG G2 first. Really? Wow. Okay, let me preface this. He loves him some knock-on. I do. What if you couldn't root the G2 and install Symmetry Mod? You have to use it out of the box. Yeah. Oh, that would hurt. So is it still the G2? Yeah. Oh my God, you're willing to live with LGs. We got to hold them to it. We got to find a way to hold them to that. The good thing is we've got MWC coming up, and there's going to be new, new phones. So LG might do something else. There's going to be a View 7. How many Views are there? Dude, don't be hating on the Views. The 4.3 inch form factor is old rage in Korea. I want to have a TV in my handbag, in my man purse. It's what a magazine looks like, man. 4.3. Yep. Moving on. I'm getting a yellow Z1 Compact. I don't care how good or bad the camera is. I would be really tempted if they did a Google Play edition. Yeah. I was expecting Sony to do a Google Play edition for the longest time, and then they finally do it, and it was with that monstrosity. Yeah, what was that all about? That was really bizarre. Come on, Dan. That was Google filling in a slot in its lineup. That nobody asked for. Yeah, it's a slot that nobody asked for. It's like, is it a phone? Is it a tablet? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. It's a phone. Let's just clear the air. It's a phone that's just really, really big because there's no tablet software on it. I disagree. Also, Julie Larsen Green, the name came to me. Good job. Took a while. Are you sure Tom didn't feed that to you? You know what else? You know what else? You know I didn't Google it because I lost my connection, so it just came to me. Well, you could have Binged it. No. Oh, you know what, before we move on to HTC's insane Next Phone rumors, I want to talk about jailbreaking because I've jailbroken my phone and I'm super happy. Rob wanted to know what tweaks I've applied. Has any of the rest of you guys jailbroken? I haven't jailbroken an iOS device since there was that website that you could visit and do it just like by visiting that website and jailbreak your device. So that was like iOS 4 or something. You're missing out man. Check out the speed of my animations here. So fast. Does it still reboot for you multiple times a day? No, it seems actually relatively stable. Oh, you have an iPhone 5. Yes, I do. Okay, because the 5S, I think that's the big difference between the 5 and the 5. Oh, is the 5S not super stable? Yeah, ask Chris. Well, keep in mind, they're not technically reboots. It's just that it springs. Whatever, it stops what you're doing and it restarts the phone. It restarts the interface. So if you're listening to music or you're watching a video, it just stops. No, so Sam has a 5S and he says that he can actually hold a call through the reboot. Well, I was listening to music on my iPad and it did it and it just like quit the app and quit my music and all that stuff. Interesting. Yeah, I mean 7.1 has been in beta for like 10 years now. So I think that's what everyone is waiting on to fix that. Apple has acknowledged it, right? Like in a very rare Apple move, they've come out and said, yeah, we know this is happening, we're working on it. Well, no, it wasn't like that. It was just like the next update will include fixes to reduce crashes or something. Right. Right. No, I've got the basic stuff. Like I made Google Maps the default, I made Gmail the default, I made Chrome the default, I installed the thing that makes Chrome faster because it gets to use the fancy insecure JavaScript, well not insecure, but fancy JavaScript that Apple thinks is too, whatever. The little thing to make notifications not insanely large and the thing to speed up transitions. That's about it. I haven't done any crazy theming or anything. I saw one. And it's way better. It's way better. Like just speeding up the transitions, oh my God. I was hanging out with some of our video producers yesterday and they've all jailbroken and have this lock screen tweak which is kind of like an Android thing where they hold their thumb down and then they get shortcuts to a bunch of different apps right from the lock screen. Oh really? That one's pretty cool. I actually want animations to be slower. One of my favorite things to do in OS X is to hold shift. Hold the shift key. Yeah. Yeah. It's seriously like you're on some weird acid trip. No, it's not working for me right now, the shift key trick. It's working for me. I use hot corners. I've remapped all my expose buttons because I'm a power user. Yo. Nerd. Yeah. You know, I was actually thinking about this when I was reviewing the Z1 Compact about the software and about the fact that for the most part, whether you're talking Android or iOS like you guys have just been discussing, the best software seems to be the one that people are doing themselves which struck me as weird but then again I thought about it and it isn't all that weird because every time you think about customizations, when you think about grassroots small teams like Sanitya Mod which is growing into a big team now but when you have one or two man developer teams just coming up with their own Android skin let's say, their whole purpose or launch, their whole purpose is just to make it more useful to the person using the device. They're not trying to establish a design language. They're not trying to push a software ecosystem. They're just like how to make this more useful, how to make this more pleasurable to use and that's what ends up I guess producing the best results. And the thing that frustrates me with the Sony software is I will get a notification, an actual sound notification. I'll pull down a notification tray and it will tell me there are new experiences in the Xperia Lounge. And I just want to stab somebody when I get that stuff because I know I will open up the Xperia Lounge and it will be a pile of garbage and I'll be like why did you have to notify me about this? Is the Xperia Lounge where all of the games that are not available in the PlayStation mobile app go to hang out? Xperia Lounge definitely sounds like a porn movie. I mean it's frustrating honestly and it's like there's a Walkman app and for somebody like me who grew up in the 90s, I would love to be opening up my Walkman app and getting some nostalgia out but it's full of things like get music unlimited and album and music event information or whatever. It's like I don't go to music events. I just want to listen to the goddamn music I have on this device and you're making it so hard for me. Wait, wait, I'll add on. I wasn't on the show last week so I didn't have an opportunity to complain about this. This is relevant to what we're discussing right now. So I just bought for the first time in my life an iPhone doc alarm clock. It's Sony. And they have a companion app for iOS. The name of the companion app is not pronounceable. It is D – I'm going to spell it out and you tell me how you think it's pronounced. D – S-A-P-P-L-I. So it's like D-Sapley is the closest thing that I can come up with. This is literally the name of Sony's doc companion app, D-Sapley. What does that mean? Are you sure it has a name like the code number? Look you can look it up in the app store right now. D-Sapley. This is Sony's official app. Like who named this app and why? D-Sapley. Yeah, look it up. I'm doing it. D-Sapley. Is it any good? No. It's not good. The reviews are terrible. I mean the device wrote in the app. I mean the doc is fine. My only real complaint with it is that it's a little, like the doc connector is a little finicky and if you're in the dark it's obviously really hard to like see where to place. Like an LED light that's shining down on the doc connector would work wonders for it. And also it doesn't work with the official Apple leather case so I'm now using my iPhone naked which I don't love. But otherwise it's fine. Well at least the readers will be happy because yesterday in the post we said that it would be a day late. They asked for more nudity on the mobile show. Well there you go. We have iPhone nudity happening right now. I'm touching a nude iPhone 5S as we speak. D-Supply? I'm not finding it but I think my connection on my iPhone is bad. It would have to be, if it was supply it would be SUPPLI right? D-Supply? No. I got nothing. I don't know. It's definitely the strangest name for a Sony product I've ever seen in my life. And that's saying something. Yeah that's a high bar right there. They made a product called Rolly which I still like to call Rolly but anyway. Okay can we talk about this HTC rumor, the next HTC One code named M8 apparently and there's a picture out there now with the second camera sensor on the back. And HTC Two. Yeah it's like a, what is it? I don't even know. It's like a third eye, only it's a second eye. It's just like all the way at the top of the, I mean it's so weird. Like just hanging out up there. If you imagine that my iPhone is an HTC One which looks strikingly similar from the back, it's like right under my finger here and that makes no sense to me why there would be a camera sensor up there. Well it's a weird one. Okay so first of all this is something that Bloomberg reported in mid-January, almost in the immediate wake of CES. And today we came across an image of the back of the 2014 HTC One. It's supposed to be, again coming from the Bloomberg report, it's supposed to be keeping the name HTC One and it looks very much like the 2013 device. One of our readers, ego-wide readers, spotted that it seems to have slightly curvier edges. So it might be just a little bit more ergonomic, a little bit more hand friendly, let's hope that it is. But otherwise the all aluminum design is still there. It's pretty much identical. You just have this extra lens which as Dieter says seems completely out of place. It feels, it pretty much is like a third eye in the middle of your forehead. It's just, here's the standard lens and then there's this extra one immediately above it. And the idea seems to be that you have two image sensors, two lenses and potentially shoot photos at different focal distances so then you can refocus your photos after the fact, kind of like the Lytro camera. Because if there's one thing HTC has learned over the course of the past year with the HTC One, it's that people are desperate for photo gimmicks. They love them some photo gimmicks. They love them some ultra pixels. There's nothing better. It's known since 2011 that two cameras are better than one. Oh man. Look, I'm excited for the new HTC One. The original HTC One was great. I've never owned a phone with better speakers. The screen obviously was stupendous. If they can increase the screen size but keep the same overall size, the same, that would be awesome. Or shrink it down. Yeah, or shrink it down even. But I don't, refocusing, like I don't know man. I can't share that easily with people. I would much rather you spent the money on just a really good camera and camera software than like a second sensor. To me, this is the perfect opportunity to call it the HTC Two. You have a perfect excuse to go with the number two. And now you're calling it the HTC One again. And I do feel like there's an issue there. I was going to make a number two joke about letting it go. You know, it's funny, and I'm kind of in the same boat as Dieter, like the people, or the complaints that were made against the HTC One was that the camera was not high enough resolution and not good enough in low light. And this... The battery was not super. Right. The battery wasn't super, but you know, I, not many, at the time that it was launched, not many Android phones had super battery life anyways. So the camera wasn't good enough in low light and it didn't have a high enough resolution. And from everything that I gather, this secondary sensor doesn't address either of those things. So unless they are addressed separately and resolved, we're still going to be in the same boat, except now you can do this gimmick. It's possible they did both. They may have, like the main camera sensor might be stupendous and I will look like a fool for doubting them. And I hope I do, because I would love, and I mean, how many times do we rant about somebody not named Apple make a great, great camera? A lot. So we'll see. Yeah, one thing I wanted to raise though is I do feel like there's an issue with keeping the exact same name and more or less the exact same physical design. Like a few of our commenters took issue with my issue, saying, well, other people do it. You know, what about the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy S4, there wasn't that much of a generational jump between them. And that's valid. But what Samsung has done there, and what other companies have done, let's say the iPhone when it doesn't change, is take a successful product and then just iterate on it. HTC, for whatever reason, again, kind of like a Moto X, we can't really explain it, didn't really have much success with the HTC One. Neither with the design nor with the name. So coming back in 2014, you bring the more or less same design and the same name, it just, I don't know, it feels like a company that needs change. Let me, I don't agree with that. I think that HTC just changed to simplify their model line by their naming convention. I don't think that they need to change back. But let me throw out an idea that I think might resonate with you and with our listeners. They could go the matrix route and call it the HTC One Reloaded. Huh? Huh? What do you think about that? Again, you have to have a successful first iteration in order to have a crappy second one. No, it wasn't a successful first iteration. It was successful in lots of ways. Every ways except for sales. Yeah, that's where I was going, but then the camera, so then I... Yeah, but it wasn't a success either. We'll see, we'll see. And we're, like the rumor is what, later March is what Bloomberg suggests? Yeah. Okay. Which will be very interesting coming after the Galaxy S5. Yeah. And, I mean, we could yell HTC for missing their 90 day window to get KitKat out through carrier stuff, but... I don't think that's such a huge deal. I really don't think it's worth nailing them for that. For starters, you know, it was a self-imposed deadline. Yeah. Aside from Motorola, nobody else has delivered 4.4. So they missed it by a tiny fraction. And this is another frustration with Sony. This new phone, brand new phone, is shipping with Android 4.3 on it. Boost just announced a phone that's shipping with Android 4.1.2. You guys want to answer a couple more user questions before we're out for the day? Let's do it. All right. So this one comes from Pat, who wants to know, since Google has put the... Is Google going to put the Google Now launcher in the Play Store? So they renamed... Google renamed the launcher on the Nexus 5 from Nexus 5 launcher to Google Now launcher. They also released a red Nexus 5, which... Okay. It looks very sexy. It does. I... Yeah. I'm not sold on it. I need to see it in person. Yeah. Because the white one is terrible. It's got those slick rails on the side. So it needs... the black one is awesome because it's soft touch all the way around. So I need to see what quality the plastic is on the red. Right? I've heard that the red is the same plastic as the white. Oh, then get out of my face with your red. But I mean, as far as the color goes, I just need to see that in person. I'm not... Yeah, but you have an orange iPhone. You're not really the best qualified person to judge. Look, that's because I'm a discerning, tasteful man. Like, if the red is, you know, not good and it's shiny and whatever, then of course get it out of my face because it's not as good as this. Right? Thank you. So do you guys think that the Google Now launcher is gonna make it off of the hole that is the Nexus 5 and onto other devices? Nexus 7? Google Play Store for anybody to install it? Does anyone care? Well, I think that it depends... I care if they enable syncing of home screens across multiple devices because that's... That's the one reason that I stick with the Apex launcher at this point. It's a superpower user move, but it's sweet. I think that it depends on whether Google ultimately decides to continue with its Nexus program as is or if it goes in a different direction. And that is unclear. I don't think that we have a... I mean, Google just got done saying that the Nexus 5 has been a really strong seller for them. Yeah, and their earnings. They sold on Amazon, which is super aggravating. Like, come on, guys. If you say it's selling well, then give us the numbers. No, you're right, but it almost felt like that statement, that breakout may have been in response to the rumors that were going around that the Nexus program was going away. And so if they want to strengthen and continue to build the Nexus program, I think there's a stronger likelihood that they'll keep some elements of the software Nexus exclusive. I agree, and as far as the comments made about the Nexus sales things, it definitely felt like Google was addressing those rumors without saying as much in the call because in their earnings call last week, they mentioned on numerous occasions, at least three times, about how good of a seller the Nexus lineup has been, especially the Nexus 5. So I think they were definitely addressing those alleged rumors that it was supposedly going away. But what's interesting, Chris, to your point, is that they've not only kept the launcher exclusive to the Nexus line, but they've kept it exclusive to a specific model in the Nexus line. So like the Nexus 4 doesn't have it, and the Nexus 7 doesn't have it, and it's kind of weird that it's been segregated that way when every other software feature of the Nexus 5 save for like the HDR Plus mode of the camera is available on the Nexus 4. So I mean whether they bring it to a broader availability, that'd be cool. It'd be a very, I'd be kind of surprised if they didn't because Google's been releasing more and more stuff into the Play Store to make it more broadly available across multiple devices. And I think Google just cares about people using its software more than anything else. And if they've seen that on the Nexus 5, more people are using Google now because of that launcher, I don't see why they wouldn't put that launcher in the Play Store and make it more accessible. I would just like to make a very thoughtful contribution to this discussion by asking somebody to go back to the video and gif that moment where Dita was like, give us the numbers. That was beautiful. I just want to have that on hand so we can have Evan tap it anytime we are talking about earnings, BlackBerry, talking around sales numbers and whatever. Nobody talks sales numbers. The only people that talk sales numbers anymore are Apple it seems. No, that's because they've got really, really good numbers man. Well you'd think that Samsung would too. Samsung would be shouting from the rooftops. Samsung only ever talks numbers when he turns really, really around milestones like 10 million, 50 million. Right, when it hits those, but like in its quarterly reports it hasn't reported smartphone sales figures in a year and a half or something. So I think we need to wrap because I need to go and eat some food because I haven't done that today at all. So thank you very much for watching. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you can. I am Backlund, Dan is DCC for it with an EI. Don't hate on Oreos Adam on Twitter because he'll get real mad. Chris is ZPower, Vlad is Vlad Sabov. We are all at Verge. You can leave a comment on this post on theverge.com. You can do that right now actually. You can also talk to us in the forums. There's an email address, you can find it and we'll be back next week. Until then, goodbye.