 I'm really excited. The band's back together, the boys are back in town. We're reunited and it feels so good. Stay tuned for the Verge Mobile show. Hi I'm Dieter Bohm. I'm Vlad Savo. I'm Chris Sigler. And we're back together, the three anchors of the show. It is episode 10, the week of July 30th, the Verge Mobile show. And I am in my apartment because there is insane construction at the Verge West offices that I thought would be done by one o'clock Pacific. Turns out not done. I considered bribing them to go away. So that didn't happen. So here I am at my apartment lounging. It feels really good actually. Just kind of leaning back, chilling. Let's be honest. I think that calling it the Verge West office is kind of understating. It's more of a Verge West campus. It's like, you know, it's, it's the size of like an Apple headquarters kind of situation. It's taking up an entire city block. It's the size of Apple's headquarters at Apple's founding in the garage. Yes. That's the size. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. So here's my question for you guys. We haven't been together in what, three weeks now, I think. Is that right? Three weeks. How rusty are we going to be? Oh yeah. How are we going to be? Is this going to, yeah. Is this going to be like an unmitigated disaster? Are we going to pull this together? It's going to be a huge disaster. I do expect us to interrupt one another all the time, but then that's kind of par for the course. It is. I, I, um, before we start talking about actual news that happened in the last week, which I didn't read any of cause I was on vacation. Um, I just want to point out that there is something like right outside the camera view right now that I really want to show you, but I can't. I'm gonna leave it at that. I'm going to, I'm going to let our listeners, uh, uh, stew on that for a little while. I want to show you something. Uh, I'm not wearing pants actually. No. Um, uh, it's uh, I can't, I can't tell you, I'm not going to give you any hints whatsoever. There is, there is something that is right outside of the camera view that I really want to show you, but I can't. That's all I'm going to say. But, but you will, you will see something on it on the site within the next few days. Well, speaking of things that are out of camera view, I guarantee you at some point in the, in the course of this podcast, uh, my cat is going to come and ruin everything. The camera is, uh, precariously balanced on a box, which is precariously balanced on an Ottoman and my microphone is just sort of sitting here. Um, like it's going to be a catastrophe. Just be ready. Um, do you, uh, do you take your cat to the office ever? No, no. She uh, she's just fine staying here. Actually. She's a good cat, very quiet, but would not handle going to the office. Well, she's had to go to the vet a lot lately. And so anytime she like thinks she's going to be traveling, she gets really snarly. Oh yeah. I know the type. What do we got for news? I was going to try and transition, but there's no transition for this. Uh, so apparently the next iPhone is going to be announced on September 12th. Sounds about right. I mean, that's the time of year I was expecting, right? Well, everybody was expecting October, right? Well, September, October, same difference. They're both. Everybody didn't know. So whatever you expected was based on basically nothing. Yeah. So, I mean, the news broke on iMore, Rene Richie had it. And then we've heard from sources confirming it. Presumably it's the new iPhone, possibly it's the iPad mini. And going along with that, we've got a, you know, more purported case leaks that are more of the same. This look with the, like the middle on the back and then the two glass pieces above on the top and the bottom. I mean, part of me wants to say that this is not it. That it's like we're being deeped out there, like, you know, meant to throw us off and not real leaks. And part of me just, you know, feeling like iOS six is not the great leap forward that I was hoping for. Feels like this next iPhone is not going to be a huge, crazy change in design. And so I'm like, I'm equal parts, just straight up believing it, uh, partially because it's not that exciting looking. Uh, well, I have two, I'm of two minds on this. Um, I, I am getting really tired as great as the original iPhone for design was, I'm getting kind of tired of it at this point. But if you think about it in terms of a Mac book life cycle design life cycle, uh, I, I can totally believe that, uh, that the thing would look, uh, basically the same as a, as a, as a four or four S right. Sure. So they're just on a longer cycle of keeping the, the, they, they settle on this design, um, as we'll talk about in a little bit. It's one of the designs that they've sort of liked for a long time and like they'd have like no intention of, of radically changing it. So in four or five years, we'll be looking at, you know, the iPhone 10 that looks basically at with the same design language as the iPhone four. Is that the world you think we live in? Yeah, it doesn't necessarily need to change. Um, hardware design and phones, first of all, has been, this has become much more limited in terms of what you can do because of the fact that we've been talking about for such a long time that it's all touchscreen dominated, you know? So previously, uh, you could fiddle around with where you put your buttons or if you had buttons the way that Nokia used to do. Um, and it was a lot of versatility with what you could do nowadays. It's like, here's a rectangle. I mean, this is, um, we'll probably end up discussing it. The Apple versus Samsung, uh, lawsuit that's going on right now. Um, one of the things that Samsung mentioned in its disclosures was that people want rectangles. Well, people, of course they do because that's what touchscreen devices are. They're just rectangles. And like the goal around the rectangle is to just reduce the bezel, reduce the extraneous bits and just focus on the content and focus on the device. So first of all, you don't really have much, uh, freedom with what you can do. Um, but also I do want to mention something that, uh, we had to kind of a lengthy, uh, internal friend here on the verge where all of us, for whatever reason, like nobody said, okay, let's just sit and speculate about the new iPhone design. For whatever reason, we just kind of organically grew and everybody decided to pitch in with their theories about Apple strategy and how it was being designed and what was going to happen. And is this, uh, perpetually leaked iPhone five design, the one that we're actually going to see. And I'm just going to say, uh, Billy Davies, who's, uh, uh, I'm sorry, Billy Davies. This is how tiny I'm Billy Disney. I am so sorry to Billy. Uh, he's one of our video maestro's and his point is so good that I'm just going to, you know, quote it. And what he said was that Apple's goal isn't to sell iPhone fives, isn't to sell millions of iPhone fives. Apple's goal is just to sell more and more iPhones. Right. And this is why we're seeing the iPad not being named the iPad free. It's just been named the iPad. Most of us are anticipating the iPhone five to also just become the iPhone, no extra branding, uh, beyond it. Um, you know, we've seen that Apple do that again, going back to its, uh, laptop range, you know, it's being MacBook pro and when people have to review the MacBook pro, they just say MacBook pro 2011 MacBook pro 2012. Mac book pro 2013 and Apple iterates on the things that it can iterate on. And this is another point right now you're in a particular spot in terms of, uh, processors, in terms of battery technology, in terms of display technology, where you can't really make any massive leaps. Like maybe two or three years ago you could, you know, take off three, four, five millimeters of the thickness of your device. You know, when the iPhone four was first introduced, um, that was also a year when every other manufacturer was really just shaving off thickness from their devices. I don't think many are doing that right now. We kind of reached the plateau in terms of those hardware innovations and improvements. And I mean, real big redesigns might come with, uh, you know, arm eight 15 chips next year, uh, assuming they're extremely efficient, power efficient. Um, and assuming that Apple can fit batteries into an ever thinner, uh, space. So you know, my, my personal perspective is that the iPhone five or the next generation iPhone leaks that we'll be seeing are exactly what we're going to see. Uh, an elongated four inch device, very much, uh, designed like the old one. And let's not forget, um, somebody did a comparison where they looked at the curvature on the side of the iOS icons and the curvature on the side of the iPhone, and that was the same. So Apple's attention to detail extends to how the side of the front of the iPhone is curved. And I don't think that Apple is ever going to change that because it's a neat feature. Uh, it's a distinguishing feature. It's one that, uh, continued from the three GS to the four design, as far as I can tell and remember. Um, so really Apple can't do too much in terms of redesigning the phone and looking at the sales. I don't think that Apple really needs to do too much, at least not yet. Yeah. So many of the, go ahead. How many of the variables are, are fixed now, right? There was a period, um, there, there was a solid decade where like the quote unquote winning form factor wasn't established, the technology wasn't there in all the components. And we've gotten to the point now where, you know, you can't go with a bigger display. Uh, galaxy note takes that title and we're not going to see anything any bigger than that because hands aren't that large. Um, uh, we're going to see a movement in processors, of course, that's going to make the devices faster, but that's not something that's physically distinguishing. Uh, and to your point that devices can't get that much thinner and we don't need them to, uh, you know, uh, Samsung already took that title. What was in 2004, 2005, 2006, somewhere with that was the X eight 20. So I think we've actually talked about it on the show, but it, you know, it was five point something millimeters. It was just absurdly thin. It was too thin. Um, so, you know, I think we're going to see that stabilize somewhere between six and a half and eight and a half millimeters. What, you know, what else can you do? Uh, the, it, everything, 100% I feel like this, this conversation like, well, there's nothing like they're, they're stuck there in a corner. There's no way that they can get themselves out of the design. It's it's iconic and it can never change again. Like that's the challenge of modern design. No, no, let me finish. Like that's the challenge of modern design is to take something that feels that is familiar and known and has never changed and using a new technology or new materials or just, you know, something unique on it to make it feel new and iconic again, uh, without it just being like a gimmicky change. And you know, we see certain Android phones do this, right? I mean, you know, take the design language of the galaxy series. It's it's iterated, but it feels a little different. I think HTC did it with the one X you would, you could argue that these same design constraints about get it really thin, have a camera on the back, have a big black box on the front. Um, you know, the, the, the same design constraints of a chair, it's gotta be on the floor. It's gotta have arms and a back and a seat, but you know, it's possible to have millions of iterations on that. Some of which feel like they're essential. Some of which feel like they've always been around, but they, those got designed right. And so I think that it kind of is a cop out to say that Apple should just, they can't design away from this look that they have currently that the iPhone always has to look the way it does. It's possible for a design genius like Johnny Ive to make something feel fresh and new within these design constraints. That's the whole point of design. Well, yeah, and that's exactly the point I was trying to make, which is that the devil's in the details of these products. Um, I do think I, your, your, your point is taken on the chair analogy, but I do think that it is a unique, the, the, the smartphone is a very unique challenge for industrial designers globally because one entire surface of the phone is already squared away. It's a big black rectangle and there's, there's nothing that you can do with that full surface, right? It has to come in the design of the edges. Optimally you want to minimize the bezel around that, that, that surface. So any design details that you put there are kind of like cop outs to the ultimate goal of getting rid of that bezel entirely. Um, so it all comes down to the edges. I'm finding that the bezel on the Galaxy S three is too thin. When I'm holding it, um, I will hit with the fat of my thumb, the button in the corner, like every couple of days, it's super annoying. Like I've deleted emails. I'm like, ah, because I had the, I was holding it. I don't think, no, I, I, I may have experienced that once, once or twice and I don't disagree that this was, remember we talked about this, I think with the, uh, the Nexus seven, right? Because a door to his whole thing was that he claimed that the, that the bezel was intentional. I wish, you know, I can see the argument, but it's also a great cop out for, Oh, we, you know, we were minimizing costs or this thing was already designed by a suits by the time we got our hands on it. So, you know, but, but I can see that argument. Sure. Let me just raise a quick point here. Uh, and to interject and say that Dita's chair analogy is absolutely terrible and just absolutely terrible because I've actually done a fair bit of research into chairs and those are some of the most sophisticated things for design. And there are so many things. I mean, it's kind of like, think about what chairs being designed for. They're being designed to accommodate your spine, which is just about the most complex construction, uh, or complex bone construction in the human body. I mean, whatever I say about complexity of the spine, people are going to correct me and say the brain is more complex or something else more complex. Anyway, the point is there are so many moving parts in the spine. There's so many muscles, there's so many things to accommodate. And, um, I mean, the thing that we know and the thing that every piece of research shows is that sitting down is unhealthy for you. It's bad for you. So when you're designing a chair, what you're actually doing is trying to, it's essentially a form of damage limitation. Um, and there's lumbar support and there's upper back support. And do you have a neck rest? Do you not have a neck rest? I mean, you know, some, like you need a chair for when you lean in back, you need a chair for when you sit up and typing. There's just way too much variety and diversity in chair design. Um, and way too many things and attachments that you can step on. You know, it's more complicated than the human spine, the human heart. And that's what a phone needs to appeal to. Is it? I mean, I'm curious about that. I'm not sure that was the cheesiest thing. That was the cheesiest thing ever uttered on this show. Yes. I'm really proud of that actually. Let's actually think about it. Is the heart actually complicated or is it simple? I don't know. Well, it's got four chambers, which is pretty, I mean, I think some hearts are just like one chamber, right? I'm not a biologist. Yeah, it does have four chambers. It is a quad core device, you might say. That's beautiful actually. The human heart is based on crate architecture. Actually. Yeah. As long as we're talking about iPhone design, we should get into this stuff from the, uh, the Samsung versus Apple case. So this was talked about on the verge cast, so I don't want to get too far into it, but, um, in the discovery, Samsung, you know, uh, had a whole bunch of documents from Apple that were images and drawings and like pictures of a whole bunch of like design experiments and prototypes that were rejected for the iPhone. And some of them look pretty crazy. Like there's this, uh, you know, this thing that was a battle star galactica one that's got, you know, cornered off edges that, you know, looks quite similar to the, you know, the, the droid razor language a little bit. There's the, uh, the stuff that's based on basically the, uh, the iPod mini that's got rounded edges and flat top and bottom. Um, I mean, and, and then there's the, there's the, uh, the Sony one that actually doesn't, the Joanie one, which actually doesn't look all that far off from what we've got with the iPhone four. Um, I mean, it's, it's interesting that what we have landed on with the iPhone four is something that, uh, Apple has sort of been had bouncing around in their head for a really long time. And for me, it's instructive. Like when the iPhone four first came out and the initial reaction from everybody before they actually saw it and held it was kind of like, eh, right. Remember, you know, when Gizmodo had the leaks and it just, it didn't look that great, but then it, you know, it finally became the iPhone four and everybody loved it or most people loved it, but the initial pictures of it didn't look so good. And my sense is like Apple had sort of like had that version of the iPhone, like deep in their four chambered hearts from very early on. And so when they were finally able to put it out there, uh, they're really like personally invested and excited in that particular design. And I think that it hurt them that much more when there ended up being antenna problems because they genuinely believed like that, that iPhone was the version of the iPhone that they wanted to make from the beginning. Yeah, I'm sure that's true with, I'm sure that's true with every, uh, every product in Apple's line. I would guess that they're, they're planning several generations out at any given time. So I can't say I'm surprised, but it's still really interesting to see something that close to the production iPhone four back in 2006. Yeah. The thing I was going to mention is just that, um, I like the revelation of all of these prototypes because it does show us that Apple is, uh, to use a flawed analogy, a mortal company, uh, because a lot of the time and plenty of people might just, you know, look at Apple's track record and the successes had the pretty much every product and just like, well, these guys can't do any wrong, whereas they are a company just like everybody else. They do have setbacks. They do have designs that don't work out. Um, just today I saw this, I read it on this website on the internet, the verge, uh, about Johnny Ive and he was saying that Apple almost shelved the iPhone entirely because it was too complex or too complicated. Um, so there's a whole, there's a whole bunch of moving parts behind the scenes. And the only reason why Apple looks so smooth and so flawless in its execution is because it keeps such a tight lid on secrecy. So when an Apple device, uh, or an Apple design doesn't work out, it's testing is done in such secret that nobody actually knows about it and nobody actually knows about the failures behind the scenes. So I like these revelations because it kind of gives us a glimpse behind the veil or the eye and curtain or whatever, um, fast forward way, wouldn't put it. Well, yeah. I mean, a lot of companies are much more open with, you know, we tried this, we tried that, we're thinking about this. They like, they try and share their thinking, but you know, Apple wants us to think their products sort of come sweet, generous, you know, just sort of out of the brain of Johnny Ive, uh, like, uh, you know, like Athena coming out of Zeus anyway. Um, and it's, it's nice, you know, obviously everybody knows that that's not actually how it works, that everybody, they go through design iterations, but I totally agree with you that it's nice to see the stuff they threw away, uh, relative to the stuff they actually release. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, Apple certainly encourages that image. Yeah. As far as it's bearing on the case, I mean, we'll have to see, um, you know, we've got Brian Bishop there every day, uh, live at the courtroom. There's a Apple's opening arguments got made today. You should go read that. I haven't had a chance to look at it, so it would be stupid of me to try and talk about it too much. Um, but we do know, I mean, there's a really great article from, uh, Matt McCarrey and I'm sure Neil, I helped out like showing what the two sides are trying to prove to each other and without getting too far into a lawsuit talk. I mean, it basically comes down to a handful of patents on both sides. And to me, the core issue is, you know, was the, the article I wrote, which was, you know, all this stuff coming out of Samsung, like they were, they were so focused on beating Apple that like did it cross the line into actually copying like they, their beat Apple strategy was known internally as the beat Apple strategy. Like I, I knew that Samsung competed with Apple and I knew that they were like, you know, kind of obsessed with Apple, but like actually seeing the evidence in the documents of, you know, just how much they're focusing on making sure they get ahead of Apple instead of just winning in the mobile industry in general is really interesting. But Samsung isn't gunning to beat up an HTC and Sony or Nokia. Samsung is gunning to beat up on Apple. Well, but, but the funny thing to me is that as obsessed as they have been with beating Apple specifically, their actual execution of that strategy is, is hilariously wrong. You know, I mean, you can argue that, that the Galaxy S and some of these other Samsung devices bear more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone, but all of the details surrounding the Galaxy S and the Galaxy series as a whole have nothing to do with the way Apple does business. Right. And we're only now in 2012 starting to see some small hints of that with like, you know, the fact that they're that Samsung insisted on the same ID for every release of the Galaxy S3, which is actually in the court documents. You can see where they made that call last year. But there's so much about Samsung does everything that Samsung does their entire business that bears no resemblance to, to the way Apple does business whatsoever. Can I just say that this, this Joanie iPhone with the, the jog dial on the side of it. Oh man, I would love that. Like bring back the jog dial, get rid of stupid volume buttons. Give me a jog dial. I'd be so happy. I miss that's not a jog. That's a three and a half millimeter. That's a three and a half millimeter Jack isn't it? Well, it's, it's not a jog dial, like a sideways jog dial, but it is like a rotating dial on the side. Oh, is it? I thought that was a Jack. No, I don't think so. I mean, maybe I had one of those in my real 500 MP3 player about a decade and a half ago. That is it. I mean, to actually use it probably just isn't as convenient as buttons when you're totally honest with yourself. But it just feels cooler. Blackberry is totally a wheel. I mean, what they went to the track ball. Yeah. But, but seriously though, if you, if you look at how many bad average and nondescript designs we're seeing in smartphones these days, would it really, you know, do so much harm to any one company's reputation if they just came out with a crazy freaky phone that had a joke dial and had all sorts of like old school things attached to it. So Nokia used to do that all the time. Right. Like Sony used to do. Remember the zoom out? Yeah. Yeah. That's true. It had the jog dial and it had the flip down microphone. That thing was so bad. I had that. I had that phone and I loved it. I had it on Sprint or PCS as it was called at the time when I was in college. But the Nokia in the, in the mid two thousands went on this terror where they were releasing just all these insane phones that, you know, for any other company in the world that never would have made it out of a, you know, a design study. But I think Nokia, you know, this was in their heyday. They were, you know, they had cash coming out of their ears. They were like, ah, what the hell? We'll throw this out there and see what happens. And I remember that I think that the first UMTS device they released, but not mistaken, I'm probably completely wrong on this, but I think that it was that, that weird, like a teardrop shaped phone where the screen and the screen was at a 45 degree angle. And the, on either side, there were like five digits from the, from the numeric keypad. It was insane. And you know, they did that, that on the 3,600, they did the circular numeric keypad. They had the, the that lipstick case shaped phone. They were, they were doing all sorts of crazy things and it would be great to see. I mean, I think now more than ever, we need industrial designers to really like focus on doing crazy stuff with these devices because they're starting to look really plain. And that's, I mean, that's probably the main reason why I love the Lumia so much is because they've, they've kind of, you know, stuck their neck out there a little bit and done some cool things both with colors and with, with materials. So hopefully we'll see. So, and in fact, recently Apple used the Lumia as an example of how not to copy Apple. I can't remember if this was the, the Samsung case in the US or where it was, but it was on the site a few weeks ago, which I thought was great and hilarious, you know, because even Apple recognizes that the Lumia is a completely different looking phone. Yeah, no, I actually have been using the Lumia design as an example. I still call it the N9 design because the N9 was the first one to come out with it, but I still use it as a, as an example of a good design and distinctive design to get it with phones. And the thing that I always say when it comes down to designing things is that the good ones just seem obvious. Like, well, of course you're going to do it like that. Like of course you're going to curve that bit. Of course you're going to use this material. And you know, with Apple, I always thought looking at the MacBook pro say two years ago, let's say three years ago, in fact, 2009, I was looking at it and at the time it was one of the thinnest laptops you could buy. And you know, it's one of the thinnest, it has one of the longest battery lives. It's really durable, strong, great display, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, how on earth do you improve on this? And it's kind of like the situation we have with the iPhone four, the one that Dieter disagrees is the case, you know, how do you improve it? I mean, with the iPhone four, it's kind of easy. You get rid of all that fragile glass, which seems to break all the time. But if in Apple's perspective and in a lot of people's perspective, the iPhone four design is indeed iconic and is indeed superlative, then the way to improve on it is in very small iterative steps, such as with the Retina MacBook Pro. But again, in order to make those steps, the Retina MacBook Pro needed the new display. It needed only SSDs, it needed to get rid of the optical drive. So it's still the case that a hardware design is driven by what you can actually fit inside the machine itself. Like three years ago, you couldn't really get away with your premier laptop being one without an optical disk drive. Now you can definitely get away with it. So, I mean, the rumors that the new iPhone is going to have a larger screen, right? Part of the wonders of Apple genuinely didn't want to do that, that they were happy with 3.5, but they felt forced to do it not by the market pressure of other big phones, but they just flat out needed a bigger battery. And so they had to go with the bigger screen in order to keep it thin. And that's that's the whole explanation of why there's going to be a bigger screen on the next iPhone. I think that's possible, but and I know Vlad's going to agree with me. I think that four inches, I still think that four inches in many ways is the sweet spot for smartphones. And yes, and it's a great compromise size between the three point five and the four point three slash four point five slash four point seven eight. No, the absolutely four inches is a sweet spot. I mean, I'll tolerate a four point three inch phone before inches is where it just becomes something that doesn't feel like a chore when you're walking around with it. Whereas with me nowadays, when I leave the house, if I'm using something like the one X, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, you know, name any one of those four point six and above devices, I have to think long and hard whether I actually need the phone with me. It's like if it's the weekend and I don't expect anybody to call me and I don't need to listen to music because actually that's the other thing I realize. I have no music listening options other than phones. Like I have nothing. Like if I don't have a phone, there's no way for me to listen to music on the move. That's it. Are you saying that you go out into the world without a phone in your pocket? I do. That's insane. It happens. And and when those things, when those times happen, the only thing I can think is, well, if it was like a smaller phone, I would take it. But, you know, I'm wearing jogging bottoms and I don't feel like, like, you know, you stick a big do you feel does it make you feel free or does it make you feel naked or does it make it make you feel free because you feel naked? Or are you actually just naked? Yeah. Just that. I'm quite comfortable with that. I mean, I spent two weeks in the wilderness in Bulgaria. I don't know how to feel, you know, I don't feel detached without a phone. I'm fine with that. OK. Well, I mean, I guess that is different. No, you're you're a very self-confident man. And I am completely insecure and must have my blankie, a.k.a. my connection to the Internet with me at all times. I need a wristwatch as well. I mean, what do you really need your phone that much for? Paul, one of Paul's offline pieces, I think, really hit the nail on the head with this whole issue. And he's absolutely right. Like the phone is such a social crutch for getting yourself out of awkward moments in any situation. Right. Like, you know, you're on an elevator with somebody. Oh, I'll check my email. You know, so I don't have to engage this stranger in conversation. And you know, you're you're having dinner with somebody. You know, there's a pause in the conversation. Suddenly you would check your phone. You don't have your phone. Like things get weird really fast. Yeah, I actually I didn't talk to people. People start checking their phones because then I just get silently angry. But I'm trying to be tolerant so I don't, you know, scold them for using their phone. And I'm just being patient. And then they continue with their phone and I keep eating and they keep eating and they continue with their phone. I'm being patient. I'm being a nice guy. And then while that's happening at the back of my mind, I'm also thinking how boring must I be for this person to continue reading on their phone and then have the meal. Then I'm just pissed off. And look, let's let's be let's be very clear. Email trumps any physical person in your presence. Like if I get a new email, that is the highest priority thing going on at that moment. See I've received 12 emails since, you know, well in the past, like 20 minutes. And I haven't looked at a single one of them. I mean, I'm focused on stuff with one single email stuff. Right. No, but seriously, though, if somebody is using a phone, I mean, I've been on both sides of the divide. Right. So I can be using my phone and be having a conversation with somebody. It's no problem. I'm multitasking. I'm focused on the conversation. But when you're on the other side, you just feel just shitty because it's like, well, your whole attention like so I mean, we know this right when so much of human communication is done non vocally. Right. And in order to pick it up, you have to most of the time see it. Most of it is visual. And the person is looking at you when you're doing that. You I mean, what you can you're communicating with only a tiny proportion of your available communication tools. And it's just not pleasant. I always try to make an effort not to be using my phone unless I strictly have to around other people. Well, Vlad, I got to say in the future, you and I are going to have some very awkward one on one dinners, I think, because I can't I can't turn away from the phone. I just can't do it. I'm sorry. Nothing personal. I assure you, it's nothing personal. But I think it's I'm kind of used to it with you. I know who you are. I know what you do. I know the deals and the millions of dollars that depend on them. So I can kind of tolerate you. But you're a special case. Vlad, blowing my cover as a an international coke dealer there with the million dollar deal. Seriously, do you really expect people to believe that you're actually away on vacation this past week? Like you could get away for a whole week from work. I was in South America is what I was. I'm going to leave it at that. South America. That's all you need to know. Anyway, did you get a tan? Did I what? Did you get a tan in South America? I got a tan in rural Wisconsin, actually. Neela is home state. It was it was a good time. I saw a lot of aircraft. Actually, I'm sorry. We're going to go off topic here. But let me talk about this briefly because every year when I go to so the event that I go to is a venture, which is one of the largest air shows in the world. It's more than an air show. It's like a whole aviation convention. It's not foreign borough. It's like more focused on on home built aircraft and generally aviation. But they for years they've had a problem, a growing problem with with network saturation there. And that does OK. I didn't check rising this year, but in the past, Verizon has done OK, both on one X and on video. AT&T flakes out like I'm at minute one when everybody shows up, the entire network goes down. You can't use data. In fact, it does this weird thing that I've never seen anywhere else where you can't even latch on to HSPA or UMTS. It drops you down to edge and that's still not functional. You can't use edge either. But HSPA doesn't work as doesn't work. It was marginally better this year in that there were moments there were brief moments in time where you would be able to check Twitter or like an email would roll in. And then like if you tried to send an email, it would like sit there for half an hour and then eventually send. And I noticed walking around the airport that they had set up a few. They weren't cows like traditionally you think of, you know, these these events, they roll up the trucks with the, with the telescoping cell towers on back that, that they, you know, they put up and leave there for the duration of the event. They didn't do that, but they had these these, I mean, I can only describe them as like portable towers. They were literally like a 50 foot tall cell towers that were, that they brought in and stuck on the ground and then surrounded like these cement blocks to keep them in place. And I don't know who they belong to. I don't, I don't know if they were supporting AT&T or a multitude of carriers, but I, it did get a little bit better. But here's the thing, like as busy as that event is, it is nowhere near the number of people that would be required in that size of a space to saturate a fully built out network. So I, and I don't pretend to be a network engineer, but for goodness sakes, like if you're AT&T, if you're any carrier, bring it, do do the proper planning for the EA or venture is not a small event. People know about it. All these carriers should know about it. And they obviously do because the cows were on, or not the cows, but the portable towers were on site, but do the proper planning. You know, roughly how many people are going to be there, bring enough towers, bring enough infrastructure to make sure that the network isn't going to go down. Because I know that in this case, it is not a spectrum exhaustion issue. It is merely a temporary infrastructure issue. So ho you know, they're getting a little bit better and hopefully in the next few years it'll catch up. Maybe they'll start rolling out LTE there again. It's in rural Wisconsin, well not rural, but it's in smaller part. It's in Oshkosh, which is not a very big town. So yeah, hopefully it'll get better over time. But I just want to, I, I, I, at the very last minute I realized that I had something mobile related to talk about with this vacation of mine. So I'm glad I was able to get it out there for you folks. Anyway, I'm sorry, I was just, I just want to tell you guys that my, I just watched the arrival of the death of my weekend, uh, come through the door. I muted myself. Uh, some men have delivered, like I would say about 10 square feet of boxes to be built into Ikea furniture. Um, it's terrible. It's so much fun. We're going to build a center kitchen island with it. And um, yeah. So Ikea still kitchen islands cause that's like, that's not even furniture. That's like part of the house. Oh no, you would trust. We spent many, many weeks, uh, putting stuff together and planning it together, uh, and visiting the store to seeing if it would work. And now I get to build it. It's going to be awesome. And I'm going to, um, get, uh, we'll see the, the nice thing about building Ikea furniture is I'm really, I build Ikea furniture like I bowl. I suck at it completely sober. I'm really good with like one or maybe two beers in me. And then beyond that, I suck at it again. So you got to get right in that sweet spot. Um, so I look forward to spending my entire weekend in that two beer sweet spot. I'm sad. Exactly what you're talking about when you say two beer sweet spot. Like I'm really sad that I know exactly what that means, but I do. Uh, anyway, Vlad, uh, what were you saying? You, I think you were trying to say something earlier. I was disappointed. I thought when you went off topic, when you went off road, you're going to enlighten us about airplanes, but then you went actually back on topic and discuss mobile networks, which I did. I disappointed from one perspective, but then pleasing from a whole other perspective. If you're really that interested in learning about my thoughts on general aviation, uh, visit my personal site where I just wrote a piece on it. Um, but I know you're going on there. Why can't we have fast and the furious in the air? Why can't the passenger is their planes. They, they do that. It's called the Reno air races and they're in September and I encourage everybody. I'd love to go to Reno air races. I this long been a dream of mine. Um, I just have never made it out there. Um, all right. Uh, do we care about these anymore? What's that? Do we have a topic list? Does that still exist or does somebody burn it? Just about to try and get, bring us back on topic. I was going to say the other thing in the documents just real quick is we finally have leaks of windows phone eight devices. There's the Samsung Odyssey and Marco. I mean, one of them looks high end, one of them looks low end. Um, the high end one is LTE 4.65, uh, AMOLED screen and an eight megapixel camera. The other one's a four inch WVGA screen, the five megapixel camera. Um, you know, if there was some secret part of you that hope that the windows phone eight devices would like be radically different and we'd be talking about completely different specs that live in a completely different world where I don't know something else would be on phones that would be like, Oh my God, like it's not going to be that world that, you know, we're talking about screen size and you know, LTE chipsets and the, you know, the same stuff. Yeah. The screen on the high end. Can I take a moment to rage here? So, so go ahead first cause I want to take an extended moment with my rage. Oh, okay. I was just going to say, I think, um, I can't remember which those two code names is the high end, uh, device, but the screen Odyssey Odyssey. Okay. Yeah. I think the screen, the Odyssey is literally the same part as the galaxy S three screen, which is a good part. So I mean more power. Yeah. I mean, they're both super amoled, the both the four range and the 4.6 inch. Um, the thing that, the thing that I was going to say is that the way this is shaping up is the Samsung is going to essentially replicate HTC strategy with the one series where the absolute flagship premium stuff, everything good in it. Device is 4.6, 4.7 inches. And the slightly lower end, uh, mid range device is four inch, 4.3 inch, uh, size. So this is why we're looking at, uh, the four inch device. I mean, okay. Yes, it's super amoled display, but it's WVGA, which is not as good as getting an average, an actual, uh, HD display. I mean, I don't need to explain why that's the case. More pixels equals more loveliness on the display. And it frustrates me. It totally frustrates me for the reason, uh, I just outlined like. I am convinced that this isn't like, uh, I'm convinced this isn't just my preference. I'm convinced that it's just the fact of ergonomics, uh, that four inch, 4.4 inch device really fits and works. You know, it's kind of, to me, it's kind of like the 3.9 to 4.3 inches is kind of like seven inches to 10 inches with tablets is the sweet spot, uh, or the sweet range. Let's call it the sweet range, right. For form factors and if every company outside of Apple, because we know Apple is going to stick with just one device and that's it. Uh, if every company, uh, goes for this kind of mode where the true premier device is 4.5, 4.6 inches and then the mid range device is four inches, uh, in the actual sweet range that I'm talking about, then that's going to be frustrating because I'm never going to have the perfect phone. Like I'm going to want things from the top end device, but then I'm going to want the form factor of the mid range device. And I'm going to continue with this frustration where I want things from one place and from another place, from a third place and nobody ever dares to actually put them together into one device. There was one exception to that. Apple, Apple is doing that. There was Apple and also the Samsung, uh, blaze 4g, which was a relatively high end piece with a four inch screen or was it 3.9 or four or something like that? Yeah. Um, but yeah, generally speaking, you know, the larger you go, the higher on the device. Yeah. And it shouldn't be the case. There needs to be, uh, I just, I just feel like companies have overshot. It's basically as simple as that. They overshot with the size. Also I mean at the same time, Samsung with a super AMOLED technology, super AMOLED plus yada yada yada. Actually this isn't super AMOLED plus it's a, it's a pentile display that they have. Um, yeah, at 4.65. Um, yeah, I can, I can kind of see that getting a super AMOLED display four inches and at 720p is probably tough and they can't get the pixels that small, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, then that's also one of Samsung's weaknesses. If you like Samsung is very strong with its own technology, but it's also not particularly versatile, you know? So, um, if Samsung can't ship a super AMOLED display smartphone as a premier smartphone, they seem unwilling to compromise and look elsewhere. Uh, if they can't ship one with their own processor, um, again, they seem unwilling to look elsewhere and to look for alternatives. I mean, they fill in a supply gaps. We've seen them do that with Tegra chips and other things where they're forced into it. Uh, well I guess the windows phone, uh, Qualcomm Geocore thing kind of, okay, take that point away. That's not particularly, but you know, when Samsung has the freedom, it just kind of, um, very rigid in its approach actually. Like surprisingly rigid. Chris, you said that the, this screen on the, this part, the, the super AMOLED screen on the Galaxy S3 is a really good part. And by and large, I agree with you, I'm looking at it now. Um, but since I moved to San Francisco and I'm like walking a lot more, I'm looking at my phone a lot more like when I'm walking, which is dangerous and stupid, but there you go. At least I'm not driving. And in the sun, I forgot how bad these screens are in the sun. Apparently I didn't go outside when I lived in Sunnyvale. Like it's, it's terrible and I'm going to be switching back to the one X because of it. Like I can't handle it anymore. No, that that's good point. You know what I miss? Like I was just thinking about this earlier this week. Remember back in the iPad days, they use the trans collective displays that were actually like better indirect sunlight than indoors. And that technology is just vaporized. And I don't know if it's because they can't make them thin enough or what the deal is. But if we could go back to that, that would make the ultimate outdoor device. Yeah. Come on. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Please. I think one of the, one of the original TFT color displays on like the Palm three or the visor prism. Like when you would go outside with those devices, it was literally, it would just be straight up black. Like you literally could not see a single thing. Um, and then, so then compact came out with the T with the trans collective stuff and blah, blah, blah. Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm really tired of like, like I'm, I, the Pentel doesn't bother me on the GS three. But the, the sunlight visibility, I just can't handle anymore. I actually remember that. I remember, um, the first color displays, um, on feature phones, you know, back in the day when it was like one inches and two and a half inches plays. And it's exactly like you're saying, they're just disgusting TFTs with like one degree view and angles and no sunlight readability and all of that garbage. And this is, this, this is actually part of the reason maybe why we're so fond of monochromatic phones. Like if you think back to your favorite phone memories, they're not of that transitional phase where phones had like two megapixel, three megapixel cameras, which all stunk to the high heavens and couldn't be used for anything. Um, and had the very first color displays is the generation just before that. Like at least in my case it is because I remember having a couple of Nokia's and that's, that's the time, you know, in a monochromatic displays did the job perfectly well. The batteries lasted for a couple of lifetimes. Um, everything, it just kind of evolved within, uh, reached a nice maturity level and I'm still, I ever had the worst experience I ever had on a color display. It was with the, um, the Sony Ericsson T six 10 slash T six 16, which was an awesome phone in almost every conceivable way. It was the first, it was the first, um, it was the first phone I owned that made me realize that a phone could be a lot more than just a phone, I think, if that makes any sense. And uh, and the industrial design of it was great, but, but the screen was so bad. I mean, first of all, like you say, Dieter went completely black when you went outside, but it had, um, it had, the screen had a standby mode where it would, the black, the backlight would be off, but it would show the, uh, the time in like a, you know, an in motion pattern, but it was worthless because the screen was not viewable without the backlight on. So you couldn't see it. And to the icing on the cake was that the plastic, the transparent plastic over the display, uh, was so soft that it would just get completely scuffed and scratched in a matter of weeks of owning the phone. So you had this haze of scratches over the, this display that was already hard enough to read as it was. Um, so it got to the point where the only time you could ever do anything with it was indoors with the backlight on high, basically. So shame cause the phone was otherwise a really awesome phone. Speaking of phones that are meant to be used indoors near wifi, uh, sorry, that's terrible. Um, Republic wireless is, uh, bringing in another round of users from its waitlist. And so they've got a new device. They're no longer using the old busted, uh, optimus S they've got, they're using the Motorola defy XT, the XT five 35, which is unfortunately a gingerbread device, but at least it's, you know, a little bit newer than what they had before. Um, and they're sticking with the same pricing, which is, uh, 19 bucks a month for unlimited everything. And, you know, they want you to use wifi, but they did get rid of the caps when you're back on falling back on sprints data. Um, but yeah, it's not like rolled out everywhere. They're still letting beta customers in and these things are calling waves. And so I, you know, I don't have one, I don't know what it's like to use one. Um, but it is nice to see, even if it's just an MVNO, even if it's, you know, not a huge carrier, somebody trying to be a little bit disruptive and like they're taking advantage of that, right? If you look at their marketing materials, it's like, it's all like, Oh, we're going to take back wireless from these evil monopolies, blah, blah, blah. And like, I don't know if this will scale, but the fact that there's a company selling a phone with no contract for 250 bucks, even if it's not the greatest phone ever, and then charging you 19 bucks a month and just saying, we know you're going to be using wifi, we're going to aggressively make you use wifi whenever we can. Um, that's actually pretty cool. Like I, I'm kind of, I'm kind of intrigued by Republic wireless in a way that I wasn't when it was just the optimum assess, just because like, not that, not that I want to use the defy XT. Um, but it's at least like other than the fact that it's running gingerbread, it's not like a completely, you know, ancient phone. It's relative. I agree with you, Dita. And I do feel like, uh, you guys in the U S has suffered so long and so hard under the duress of those crazy, crazy monthly prices, uh, that you pay for your phone contracts. I mean, I can't imagine like $20 a month is what, less than half the lowest price that you can otherwise have. Yeah. I'm paying for, uh, like five gigs or no, two gigs of data a piece. Uh, unlimited text and like 450 minutes or no, 700 minutes or something shared for two plans. I'm paying like 140 bucks for that on AT&T, I think like 70 bucks a pop. So like way less than half. Um, but I mean, the question is, will it scale? Like can this company operate and make money and actually compete nationwide at scale? And you know, don't forget there's still an MVNO. So it's one thing for an MVNO to offer this kind of deal. It's another thing entirely for a, you know, a carrier that is actually responsible for the infrastructure directly to offer this kind of deal. The dream of the dream of ubiquitous wifi never really materialized materialized, right? There was this period in the two thousands where, uh, everyone like, uh, municipal wifi was like the hottest topic in wireless. And that has largely evaporated. Um, I think that a, I mean, I love the concept and I love the company in particular. I love their, their boxes, which are, I don't know if they're still doing this with the defy XT, but with the optimist, they, they literally took like the regular optimist box for sprint and turned it inside out and you use that as the box for the phone, which was extremely cool. And it was like kind of a F the system attitude, you know, like it conveyed their, their whole attitude as a company. Um, right. But, uh, but yeah, I don't know municipal wifi. Uh, so, you know, I was at the Google fiber event and I've got another article that I'm, you know, I'm trying to get, get written for it. But one of the things they said at the event and that they told me after, um, like we, you know, Chris, you want to know why aren't you guys just doing municipal wifi with Google fiber in Kansas city and like their focus, very focused on like end consumers. But you know how a wifi network can have like guest access so you can give internet access, but not let them into, you know, your main passworded network. Um, they said like two or three times that we're, we haven't announced our guest access stuff yet, but it's going to be interesting. So like that something might happen in Kansas city. That's super interesting with regards to like bigger wifi networks and guest access. Like I could, they didn't say this, but I could foresee them like putting out a standard. That's like, look, every house in Kansas city is going to have our network box that's providing wifi. So it's easy, very easy for us to have somebody be able to jump from network to network with in a house. But since we are supplying the network boxes for this whole city, basically now, if everybody signs up, we could have it search wifi network to network across houses and have it be secure. They could totally pull that off. That's, that's very compelling. That is very compelling. The one thing I've always wondered is, I, you know, I'm sure there are technical ways around this, but, um, you know, cause I've been following phone for a long time, you know, and they're trying to do this whole communal Y I think. But, um, I've always wondered, uh, you know, if somebody attaches to your network and does something illegal, I'm thinking mainly like, you know, downloads torrents, uh, you know, that's tied to your IP. So when the subpoena comes in for the IP, who does that get routed to? It gets routed to your account, your account with ISP. So I don't know how, how, or if that has really been resolved, but that would be my main concern. We could dream what would happen. Um, actually, as long as we're speaking about dreaming about, about markets, um, if you haven't, we, we put this on the front page. I tweeted it with a typo, which was terrible, but, uh, mr. Nickel has written a post in the forums about wireless regulation is not about free market versus big government. And he sort of uses our constant joking about calling ourselves communists as like a starting off point for actually explaining the market forces that are going on in the U S carrier market. It's incredibly good and you should go read it right now. It is, it is. It's a great is the most critically claimed thing from the past week. And quite naturally, I haven't actually had the time to sit down and read it, but it's stunning. Everybody loves it. Yeah. He basically, you know, explains, you know, how saying that the, the debate saying it's either, you know, free market, let companies be free to do their thing. Wisdom versus evil, big government regulation is totally a myth. Like that's not actually what's happening here. Um, and it's much more complicated than that. And you know, it gets into the, the, the things that are keeping other startups from breaking into it. And you know, the monopsony or monopsony monopoly. How do you pronounce that? Monopsony anyway, it's amazing. You should read it. Yeah. Um, Ali, Ali gobsony, like that's, that's the best word ever. The oligopsin e on device demand anyway. Um, so anyway, that's, that's all I have to say about that. Um, do we want to talk about the Facebook phone? Zuckerberg says they're not going to do it, but Bloomberg says they're going to do some kind of collaboration with HTC in 2013. I just heard somebody go, I mean, is this 2011, is this 2011 all over again? Is this 2011 all over again? This exact same like progression of rumors has already occurred and now it's occurring and we're going to end up with another stop guys. We need to. Yeah. I mean, seriously, they're having Facebook phones. There will be Facebook phones. They just have some extra little lick of integration. Looking forward to a Facebook phone that is fundamentally built around Facebook and built around a Facebook centric operating system. Something like the Amazon smartphone, which is definitely actually going to happen. Chris Ziegler called that I think three decades ago. Um, I did that is not going to happen in a Facebook garb. Facebook is not going to do that. No, I came out of the womb and my first words were Amazon smartphone. Yeah. Um, yeah. HTC, HTC, cha cha cha two is what we're looking at. That's that's how this is going to progress. Is that what it's going to be? Cha cha cha cha cha cha. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just know, I just have no vision of a Facebook rather getting into this entire mess of device production and then iteration and development and design and all of that stuff. I mean, look at Facebook's longterm goals. And I mean, Zuckerberg, I mean, he didn't put it in these terms, but Facebook wants to be everywhere on everything. Right. And they want to be the social layer that is on every device. And if they do get in the market and they do end up having any level of success whatsoever, it's going to give all of their new found competitors a bit of a pause when it comes to integrating Facebook into their services, because then they're, they might be enabling a competing phone. So like for Facebook to get into the phone market and in this kind of way, um, could be harmful to their longterm prospects and it becomes more harmful the more successful it is. And so I just, I don't see how it makes sense. Right. And the other thing is, uh, the motivation for Amazon to have a smartphone and to have a dedicated tablet slash media consumption device is because Amazon has so much stuff to sell. Amazon is a store. That's what Amazon does, right? It's a content delivery system. Amazon wants to deliver that content as quickly and as immediately as possible to people with Facebook. It's it's what is Facebook? Um, I mean, it's, it's a means for communicating between people and the thing is everybody appreciates the importance of Facebook. It has that, uh, critical mass of like a trillion people. I believe that's the correct statistic as of yesterday. Uh, and everybody just can't avoid, um, plugging into it. Like if you don't have Facebook on your phone where, you know, whatever sort of manufacturer or software provider you are, you have one of the major check boxes left and ticked, which, you know, and again, uh, if you look at Google, why Google got into the whole mobile game. The reason Android exists is so Google search could be a mobile devices. The reason Chrome exists is so Google search could be on browsers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of talk about Google search and by extension Google ads, which is the real crux of the issue. Um, but you know, Google search could be obviated by a better service, right? A lot of people are suggesting that instead of search engine optimization, people should be doing social optimization now because a lot of people are finding things on the web by the social networks rather than via search engines. Not as many, uh, to justify that conversation in my opinion, but it's happening, right? A lot of people are going through social instead of free search. Um, but the thing is you could replace Google. You can't replace Facebook's millions and millions and millions of users. There's just nobody who comes even close. So everybody needs to have Facebook on their phone. And until that changes, Facebook has pretty much no reason to have a phone. And I'm so right. Yeah, you've stunned us in silence. I mean, like your, your argument is solid fled, but uh, keep in mind that virtually everybody in the mobile business right now is playing both sides. Like I can't think of anyone who isn't playing both sides, assuming the Amazon, Amazon smartphone exists. I mean, you already mentioned this, but you know, they'll be playing both sides. They're already playing both sides with Kendall. Microsoft is playing both sides between Nokia and its other OEMs. Uh, Google's playing both sides with, uh, excess line and, and other OEMs. There is nobody who isn't playing both sides. Uh, so I mean, to, to, to suggest that, that it would be strategically, uh, um, bad for Facebook to play both sides, I think it's probably, um, I mean, on one level, you're right, but I don't know. I don't, I don't think that necessarily means you're not going to do it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a fair suggestion. Uh, from my perspective, I just don't think it's worth the trouble. Like the possible gains for Facebook are not as high as the possible losses and the possible headaches. It's funny. It's almost like these companies just can't help themselves. I mean, if, if Facebook is indeed doing something again with HTC and you know, Amazon's getting in like it's, it's not that like they like, oh yeah, we have a plan to dominate the world with our phone. It's that, well, phones are really important and we should do something. So like we can't, we can't help, but like try something and make a phone. Like they just, it just happens. It's like, oops, oh, Hey, look at that. We're making a phone. Right. Yeah. But at the same time, these are not the same companies. Um, like, I would expect that kind of, let's just be part of that, uh, mainstream thinking to be from more old school CEOs, you know, and the guys that have Facebook and Amazon, uh, now more modern thinking guys, you know, at least, uh, from what I know, I mean, Zuckerberg is young, so we can just assume he's a more modern thinking CEO. Uh, it wouldn't just be caught in the same way as everybody else. Um, well, I mean, social network is any indication he's not very modern in this thinking about women. Sorry. Zing. Had to, had to go there. Um, all right. We we've said more than the Facebook phone deserves. Do you guys want to talk about Samsung or sprint earnings? I mean, we talked about Apple last week. Samsung's still making money off of phones. Nobody's surprised by this. Um, and sprint is still like, ah, man. I remember when I was working and running like windows phone experts or no, I'm sorry, windows mobile experts, um, way back in the day. And like one of the first, like the second time I hit sprint earnings, we started like making a joke about the sprint death watch because they were like, they were so bad and we didn't see anything in sight. And here we are like five years later and like, does anybody remember a quarter where sprint had earnings that made you go, Oh, Hey, really nice job guys. Congrats. That's really awesome. Like has sprint ever had a quarter where you, you, you went like, Oh wow, they're like really come back. This is great. Everything's looking on the up and up. Hooray. Thumbs up. That's always been like, you know, like it's always been like playing this game with a postpaid subscribers and like the, the, the bulk subscribers they get by selling the MVN O's and like it, it's always been just hard. Well, I'll be honest. Profitable quarters, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Back in the day. But, um, it would have been before I was closely tracking them. I don't know about you, Dieter, but it's, it's been a long time. I mean, there may have been a couple where like they, they managed to eke out a profit, but I can't, I can't remember a single time where I was like, wow, sprint is like they, they have turned around and they are tracking upwards and I don't need to wonder about their financial health and are the, is the board going to freak out? Like it seems like every time it's like, well, the next style acquisition has, has widely been cited as one of the worst strategic moves in modern corporate history. And it may have been what has ultimately led to sprints current malaise. But at this point, I don't know whether a better management could put sprint where it needs to be, or if it really is a matter of critical mass of, you know, subscriber count, where they can get the economies of scale that they need on the OEM side. And if it's a critical critical mass in terms of spectrum availability to roll out the network that they really need to roll out. And of course that gets, gets back to the, the duopoly questions around AT&T and Verizon. I don't know. I don't know if a better management team could, could bail sprint out better than they're, than they're currently doing. Yeah. You know, I wonder, I mean, I wonder when the history of sprint gets written, if the, the overarching narrative is going to be that they just got super overconfident because they had early wins. They, you know, they rolled out, they were, they love saying that the first digital network, they were relatively early with CDMA and a EBO. And so then that, then, well, exactly. And then like, well, we are really good at picking winners for wireless networks and we're really good at getting out sweet devices that fan boys go crazy over. So you know, yeah, of course we're going to go with Y max. Yeah, of course we can, we can pick up next tell and they're crazy item network because that that's going, that's, you know, they're, that thing has taken off like gangbusters where we can, we can, I just wonder if like they just sort of, I don't know, believed in their own height. I don't know. Maybe that's a crazy analysis, but they have had, you know, with Y max and with I den like two major infrastructure, basically boondoggles and it's just hard to recover from that. Yeah. Yeah. And T-Mobile, Philip whom just resigned. So it's a, it's a battleground out there. We should, you should just cut this, uh, this whole journalistic career short and set up our own network. I think we know what we're doing. Uh, I'm sure we invested in us. We'll need like what, a few hundred billion dollars for a Gen V and O. Yeah. But nevermind if you know, dude, you know what, we just need to pitch to Apple. Apple has the money. Like nobody else, there's no government already state that has actually any money left. Dude, they all have debt. So pitch to Apple and we'll say, we'll set up your Apple specific network. We'll do it. We'll make it happen. You have it all wrong. Kickstarter. Yes, we're going to, we're going to start a Kickstarter project to buy either T-Mobile or sprint or maybe both if we're feeling crazy. I mean, this should be cheap enough to buy as a pet. Yeah. Or we'll get a discount together. We'll get a discount. But actually Vlad, to make this a little bit more relatable to you, what we'll actually do is we'll start a Kickstarter project to buy Vodafone, which in turn owns 50% of Verizon. So we'll get, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have both, uh, both sides of the Atlantic covered then. Okay. But, but then if we only own 50% of Verizon, that means we'll have to deal with some mustachioed CEO and negotiate with them. Whereas if we take over Verizon, I want, you know, at least like 50.1%. That's true. That's a fair enough. It's a good point. You know, we can have different levels in the Kickstarter project. And so like, you know, the stretch goal, the top level would be taking over Vodafone. Well, you know, at like the, if we meet the goal of like, you know, a thousand bucks, we'll just buy, um, I don't know, that'll be enough to buy a case of TNT to put at the base of all of T-Mobile's towers to put the network out of its misery. You know, like, like a sick horse. Um, Hey, T-Mobile's good. I want T-Mobile to say they're the underdog. I want them to succeed. I like T-Mobile. I don't like their current, I don't like their current ad campaign, but I like, I feel like they're the only like truly scrappy national carrier. Sprint still feels a little bit scrappy anymore. Really? No, I really don't. I think that they're a little bit too stodgy and weighed down by, um, legacy assets to feel as scrappy as they need to feel. T-Mobile feels genuinely scrappy to me. That's just me ripping. I have no, I have no scientific basis for saying that. That's just, that's just my gut. So guys, just before we actually, uh, wrap up today's show, uh, and let's try and do a little segue and say on the topic of scrappy underdogs, uh, Sony and OG are actually actually out of the top five phone sellers, smartphone sellers. Oh yeah. Yeah. Stepping up. Uh, and on that topic with Sony now being out of the top five, uh, we can consider them a scrappy underdog. And this past week we saw a couple of leaks, uh, which are of the, if I'm not mistaken, the LT 30 and the LT 29 phones from Sony. And in terms of actual industrial design, they're basically the same phone, but I believe one of them is 4.4 inches. The other one is 4.6 inches. But the encouraging thing and the thing that makes me happy about them is that all of these phones that are leaked out, uh, they're running ice cream sandwich and they're using the on screen Android buttons. So Sony is the only company I've seen yet of all the Android OEMs to just completely buy it. Motorola, I was going to say the photon Q just got, got announced that it's got the on screen buttons and a physical keyboard. Crazy. I stand corrected. Uh, if Motorola decides to release any of those phones in the UK, I'll make sure it's pay attention. Yeah. I mean, they'll make their way there. I mean, it's, it's sad that we have to acknowledge it, um, as being a new thing, but it's on the other hand is good that somebody is doing the on screen buttons exactly as a Google designed them. Um, so you, you got very, very little bezel, uh, because of that around both of these phones. As I say, the design is almost identical. Like I was actually confused. I was looking at it and I was like, okay, one of these is LT 29, one of them is LT 30, but both of them look pretty much the same. But as one of them is just a little bit bigger than the other, uh, the else 29 is actually, we believe it to be the Xperia GX, which was announced. And uh, I think even released over in Japan, uh, they've got, they've got a couple of really nice phones in the experience. Yeah. The SX was also in Japan. Yeah. The SX is one that, uh, our Japanese guys just fell in love with, uh, or rather our guys in Japan cause they're Japanese, but our team over there in Japan just loved the SX. Uh, it's about time Sony actually brings those things across to Europe and the U S and it seems to be happening. It seems to be en route to us. And you know, since I can still consider the experience kind of a disappointment, particularly because it wasn't shipping with ice cream sandwich and all those things, um, there might be some rays of hope Sony on the horizon. Yeah. It's, it seems like they're making a genuine commitment to unifying their product strategy, you know, which, which if you would ask me, uh, you know, six or even three months ago, I would have said, eh, I'm skeptical if that's going to happen, but I feel like, uh, we're seeing, uh, some pretty encouraging synergy there. And you know, we might end up seeing them go the same route as, as Sam in many ways, which as I say that I realized that's not necessarily a good thing, but, um, but Samsung is really the company that eclipsed Sony to become like the ubiquitous electronics brand. Um, so we'll see, we'll see if, if they can use smartphones as one of their major prongs for that push back into that, that leadership role, uh, that they've had taken from them. I mean, actually today we also saw a leak of an Xperia tablet, um, which looks just to be a case of the Sony tablet S, uh, it's still, it's still got that folded magazine look, but now it's slimmer. It's leaner. It has a tigra free system on chip on the inside. Um, it's running, uh, ice cream sandwich again, I believe. I mean, there's, there's a whole bunch of slides that will lead to have covered it on the site. Um, so it does seem like somebody's building up to another set of releases. Yeah. Here's the thing. Like it wouldn't be a version of the show if we didn't mention the Xperia mini pro. Uh, so I'm going to do that right now with the exception of the Xperia mini pro. If someone were to ask me, what does Xperia mean? I would tell them that it's a, an English, uh, English Anglify, Anglicized. Wow. Anglicized version of the Japanese word for disappointment. So like taking, taking Xperia and putting it on a tablet, like that's just, it's not going to work for me. I'm not, not interested. So what are you suggesting that they should come up with a different brand? The thing is they always design really pretty phones. So there was, they are pretty. That's true. No, I would, I would be totally down with different brands. It was Xperia X10, which was just so nice. And even the Xperia S just looks really good. I mean, it doesn't feel that great in the hand, but it looks so good. Like I still feel, I still feel like two companies that get me most excited in terms of phones, Sony and Nokia. Maybe not just because my most useful youthful and impressionable time with phones was spent with those guys were at the Zenith and they were at that peak. But at the same time, they have such a long history of designing things and doing it so well. So basically they have a pedigree of doing really great designs. I just want them to continue, you know, because the point that Chris made is absolutely spot on. The current mass market giant is Samsung and the, it's Korean competitors, guys like LG and some Chinese competitors and you know, those Southeast Asian countries. But we've lost something in that transition away from Japan. Like I still feel, and maybe not so fair to the new companies, but I still feel like the Japanese companies like Toshiba, Panasonic and Sony just have a higher standard of quality and quality assurance in their products and in their designs. That's how I feel. So yes, Xperia has been- No, I agree. There's a higher standard of like inspiration in the design. There's more of a desire to make stuff feel good and look cool. Whereas with Samsung phones, I don't know if I can think of a single Samsung phone where I saw it and the first thing I thought was, oh my God, that is amazing looking. I have to have it. Like that happened with Xperia phones. Dieter, the Samsung Continuum, bro. Oh my God. I was there for the Samsung Continuum launch. I remember the moment when they were showing it and we all got to go run to do the hands on and the first question was how they do the second screen. And everybody there, every tech journalist there, pretty much at the exact same moment, I went, oh, it's just one big screen. At the exact same time, you could hear the room just deflate. Yeah. The audacity. I will never forgive Samsung fully for having the audacity to paint a black stripe over an AMOLED display. I will never get, I will never let them, let them have that back. Oh, I mean, that's, you gotta give them that, right? The damage is done. I will not, I had the Continuum. I didn't buy it, but I had the review in it for awhile and uh, yeah, that was just not, not a good device. And I think that is, you know, it's interesting. I would love to have the full story. I don't know if we'll ever have it. In fact, I'm pretty sure we won't, but that is the perfect example of the relationship between an OEM and a major US carrier going completely wrong. And you would love to. Excuse the pun, but it's also the perfect example of Samsung's Continuum of their relationship with, with carriers, right? So the Continuum is based on the Galaxy S, right? It was an S2 device. That was the apex of Samsung just doing whatever a carrier would ask for. And even if the carrier didn't ask for the Continuum, just like making a million billion different versions, once they kick out the platform, the Galaxy S, there were, how many phones were based on the Galaxy S? How many phones are based on the Galaxy S2? Just hundreds of models, it feels like. And now they have slung to the other side and they've got the Galaxy S3 on every carrier in the US with the exact same design as it is everywhere else in the world. And I really think it'll be interesting to see if in six, eight months, if Samsung is going to be able to restrain itself from creating a million different variations on this basic platform of the GS3. I think they're going to try and I think it's going to be really interesting to see what that does to, you know, their market share and the smartphone ecosystem in general. I think they will be able to do that. We had the red Galaxy S3 just introduced by AT&T over the weekend, I believe. Yeah, but it's still a Galaxy S3. It's not like a Continuum or a Skyrocket or I don't even want to try and remember all of the variants of the GS2 and the GS3 because it'll just hurt my soul. But there were so many of them. I mean, am I misremembering? Am I just like, do I have like Stockholm syndrome? You're absolutely right. But I think that they will be able to continue down the Galaxy S3 path of unification for as long as they maintain their enormous market share lead. And as long as they continue to build the Galaxy brand in a positive way. If they can do that, then they can they can own the market in the same way Apple does. It's all about power, baby. It is. I do want to say the Continuum, although we were happy and laughing about it, is a really good down point to end the show with because we always need a down point to end the show. And I do feel like the Continuum, one of the most outrageously terrible design decisions in recent memory is a good one to end on. Before we end, though, wow, tables have turned. Usually I'm trying to end the show and Vlad won't let me. Now it's the other way around. We have to mention that we are giving away an HTC One X. Chris, what's the story for how people can enter to win this HTC One X? So the way this works is we have a very tricky trivia question that you need to answer. You need to send an email. The email address is in the post. Go check it out. But you need to answer the question. Neelai once said that he stupidly loved two phones and you need to tell us what those phones are. And some people are asking for hints and I'm not going to give you a single hint because we've already gotten a number of correct responses. So this is not an impossible task. The answer is out there. You have to go find it. I think the answer might actually be in our forums already. We might have had a I'm pretty sure we actually had a thread in the forums about your favorite old phones. And that's when Neal I admitted his love for one of them. That's also where I admitted my love for the same phone because independently, before Neal and I had ever met and embraced and brought down, we both fell in love with a particular phone. It was pretty awesome. Yeah, it was. So this is a precious thing that isn't in the frame. We're being very mysterious today. We started off with mystery. We'll finish with mystery. Yes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Verge Mobile Show. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you can. We are a community collectively at Verge. I'm at Backlawn. Chris is at ZPower. Vlad is at Vlad Savov. And you can email us at mobile show at the verge.com and we'll be back next week. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Bye, guys. This is live. Uh, Peter, I want to say it once. That's what you get. Cut. Go away now.