1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:02,960
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:08,840
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

3
00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:14,080
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there,

4
00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:16,640
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Pollett. I'm

5
00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:19,079
Speaker 1: an editor here at How Stuff Works. Sitting next to

6
00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 1: me as usual as senior reyner Jonathan Stricklands. Hey there,

7
00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: and it's funny. Uh, you've been in Communicado a few

8
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:32,280
Speaker 1: days ago when you went to the ce S, probably

9
00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:36,520
Speaker 1: because there were so many new smartphones out there. Yeah,

10
00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:39,760
Speaker 1: that's true. There were quite a few, and I couldn't help.

11
00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:44,280
Speaker 1: But first of all, gaze at them longingly. And second

12
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,720
Speaker 1: of all, uh, you know what, there's a funny thing

13
00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:50,440
Speaker 1: about getting a bunch of journalists and techy's together in

14
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:55,640
Speaker 1: one place at one time, all of whom have smartphones. Uh,

15
00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,360
Speaker 1: it tends to come up the signals. There were times

16
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 1: where Las Vegas, you have to understand, is has got

17
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:07,360
Speaker 1: phenomenal connectivity. Al Right, So in the in the convention center,

18
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,080
Speaker 1: there was WiFi, there was three G access, there was

19
00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,560
Speaker 1: edge access. I mean, all this stuff was available, but

20
00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:16,680
Speaker 1: you also had tons and tons of people and devices

21
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:20,640
Speaker 1: using this bandwidth. So it got kind of got kind

22
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:24,759
Speaker 1: of difficult to rely upon this this technology, but there

23
00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:28,120
Speaker 1: were some really cool ones there. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know,

24
00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:30,160
Speaker 1: I think I maybe one of the last people in

25
00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:34,520
Speaker 1: America to have a dumb phone. Um. Actually, my, my,

26
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:36,319
Speaker 1: my dumb phone is actually kind of smart because it's

27
00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,560
Speaker 1: gotten WiFi connectivity, so I can go into an area

28
00:01:40,280 --> 00:01:43,679
Speaker 1: where there isn't necessarily a signal and if there's a hotspot,

29
00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,320
Speaker 1: it'll connect to it. So all phones are getting a

30
00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:48,400
Speaker 1: little smarter, Yeah, they are. I guess we can kind

31
00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:51,640
Speaker 1: of sort of define what a smartphone is versus a

32
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:54,640
Speaker 1: regular phone. It's a little it's a little harder to

33
00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:57,320
Speaker 1: define now because, like you say, a lot of the

34
00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:00,320
Speaker 1: regular cell phones are now getting the capability is that

35
00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:04,320
Speaker 1: traditionally we would call a smartphone capability. But let's go

36
00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:06,240
Speaker 1: back a little bit. We'll talk about some of the

37
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 1: early smartphones to like you know, the Palm Trios and

38
00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:11,919
Speaker 1: the Blackberries and that kind of thing to kind of

39
00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:16,079
Speaker 1: kind of explain. So a smartphone, it, uh, it can

40
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:19,160
Speaker 1: do more than a regular cell phone. It it usually

41
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:23,400
Speaker 1: there's um, at the very least, some scheduling software on

42
00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:27,080
Speaker 1: the phone, some sort of calendar program Uh, there's a

43
00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 1: usually a really complex contacts management system. There's usually some

44
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,840
Speaker 1: form of email on their UM. It has its own

45
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:40,679
Speaker 1: operating system, just like a computer would. Uh. A cell

46
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:43,799
Speaker 1: phones due to but those are usually pretty rudimentary. The

47
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,680
Speaker 1: the smartphone, cell phone, it's comparable to, you know, a

48
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:50,799
Speaker 1: severely underpowered computer. But a computer, it's got to operate

49
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:53,600
Speaker 1: system just as a computer would. Okay, So if you had,

50
00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:57,600
Speaker 1: for example, a Motorola rasor very popular phone UM and

51
00:02:57,639 --> 00:03:01,200
Speaker 1: you compared it to a BlackBerry or Palm Trio, you

52
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,200
Speaker 1: would see that Motorola has its own proprietary Razor operating

53
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:07,400
Speaker 1: system that does some of those things that you were

54
00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,480
Speaker 1: talking about. But if you were using the BlackBerry, the

55
00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:14,560
Speaker 1: BlackBerry has a more advanced operating system, Palm has the

56
00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:18,160
Speaker 1: you know, the Palm os um or if you were

57
00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:22,320
Speaker 1: using a Windows mobile device, you'd be using a Windows

58
00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,040
Speaker 1: operating system. An iPhone has an iPhone has its own

59
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:28,680
Speaker 1: operating system, and of course there's the Android operating system,

60
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,600
Speaker 1: and there there are several operators, Symbian operating system. There's

61
00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 1: several operating systems on the market. They all essentially do

62
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,560
Speaker 1: the same thing. They all they all act as a

63
00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:43,720
Speaker 1: foundation for applications, and these different smartphones have different applications.

64
00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:46,560
Speaker 1: Some of them have applications that are analogous to one another,

65
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,720
Speaker 1: others have applications that are peculiar only to you know,

66
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:53,760
Speaker 1: whichever a kind of smartphone you have. But the point

67
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:56,760
Speaker 1: is that the smartphone allows you to do way more

68
00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:59,760
Speaker 1: stuff than just making and receiving phone calls and texts.

69
00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,440
Speaker 1: Sore browsing the web is another good example. A lot

70
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:05,960
Speaker 1: of a lot of cellular phones now you can do

71
00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:08,600
Speaker 1: some web browsing, but usually you're web browsing on very

72
00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:13,640
Speaker 1: specific sites that have a mobile device version of that site, right,

73
00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:16,960
Speaker 1: And a lot of the smartphones have a large enough

74
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:20,520
Speaker 1: screen and enough processing power that you can go and

75
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,680
Speaker 1: look at the regular site as opposed to the mobile

76
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:26,200
Speaker 1: version of the site. Because the mobile version tends to

77
00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:28,320
Speaker 1: be stripped down, a lot of the features are gone.

78
00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:30,800
Speaker 1: But then, you know, a lot of the smartphones you

79
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:33,120
Speaker 1: can actually look at the site as it is intended

80
00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:36,960
Speaker 1: to be viewed. So although it is sort of nice

81
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,719
Speaker 1: to be able to, uh to see um, something of

82
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:44,200
Speaker 1: the entirety of the page versus you know, a very

83
00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:48,640
Speaker 1: very tiny version of the official web page. Now a

84
00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:50,440
Speaker 1: lot of the A lot of the smartphones also have

85
00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:53,400
Speaker 1: a pretty simple interface for zooming in and zooming out

86
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:55,680
Speaker 1: of web pages so that you can kind of get

87
00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:58,000
Speaker 1: around that. You know, you don't have to you know,

88
00:04:58,040 --> 00:04:59,640
Speaker 1: you don't have to put on your reading glasses and

89
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: grab a magnifying glass to read the CNN page because

90
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:05,880
Speaker 1: suddenly everything shrunk down to a teeny tiny size. Usually

91
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:08,960
Speaker 1: you can expand and contract the window so that you

92
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000
Speaker 1: can zoom in on anything that looks interesting and uh

93
00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:14,080
Speaker 1: if you zoom out and makes navigating the web page

94
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:15,680
Speaker 1: a lot faster. You know, you don't have to keep

95
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:17,920
Speaker 1: scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to try and finally get

96
00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,760
Speaker 1: to where you're going. Um. But yeah, for the longest time,

97
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:25,480
Speaker 1: these smartphones, they were really the in the realm of business.

98
00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:28,600
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was enterprise, the enterprise exactly

99
00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:32,000
Speaker 1: it was. It was meant for people who had to

100
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:36,320
Speaker 1: stay connected to their office, to their job while they

101
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:39,040
Speaker 1: did lots and lots of traveling, like executives who had

102
00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:40,440
Speaker 1: to go to a lot of meetings, whether it was

103
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:43,000
Speaker 1: on site or off site. The phone allowed them to

104
00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:45,560
Speaker 1: have a direct connection to things like their email and

105
00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:48,159
Speaker 1: even their office phone. You can know, a lot of

106
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:51,040
Speaker 1: them would allow you to bridge phone calls from office

107
00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:55,160
Speaker 1: to your your smartphone, UM, so that they could be

108
00:05:55,240 --> 00:05:59,200
Speaker 1: extremely responsive um and if something came up, they could

109
00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:00,839
Speaker 1: act on it to meet a LYE as opposed to

110
00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:03,159
Speaker 1: having to wait to either talk to an assistant or

111
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:06,039
Speaker 1: go back to their office or whatever. Well, it makes

112
00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:09,200
Speaker 1: sense for people who are constantly on the road to

113
00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:11,120
Speaker 1: be able to have that kind of functionality. I mean,

114
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:14,560
Speaker 1: you know you're in the airport, you're waiting for your luggage.

115
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:16,680
Speaker 1: If you're one of the people that you know check

116
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:20,160
Speaker 1: your luggage, I guess um fewer a number of these

117
00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:22,599
Speaker 1: days now there's a fee for that. But UM, you

118
00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:24,960
Speaker 1: know you're waiting on something at the airport, you can

119
00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,719
Speaker 1: go ahead and catch up on your email. You can uh,

120
00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:30,040
Speaker 1: you know, make a conference call. You've got your calendar

121
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:32,799
Speaker 1: right there and it's SYNCD up with the exchange server

122
00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:36,520
Speaker 1: UM at your company, and you've got all that information.

123
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:40,440
Speaker 1: Even the newer GPS phones you can get directions onto

124
00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:42,400
Speaker 1: you know where your hotel is and move on to that.

125
00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:44,400
Speaker 1: It makes sense that you'd want one device that can

126
00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:47,080
Speaker 1: handle all those different applications than carrying a p D

127
00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:50,200
Speaker 1: A and a phone, you know, maybe even a paper

128
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:54,320
Speaker 1: planner with you. You know, it seems like, uh, it

129
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:57,119
Speaker 1: would be a valuable tool at least for the business person.

130
00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:00,320
Speaker 1: And there's a double edged sword there, which means which

131
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:03,120
Speaker 1: is that people, once they realize you have one of these,

132
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:04,760
Speaker 1: know that they can get in a hold of you

133
00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:09,640
Speaker 1: at any time, anywhere. And so that's the other side

134
00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:13,000
Speaker 1: of the coin, is that owning a smartphone on the

135
00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 1: enterprise side at any rate, means you sacrifice a lot

136
00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:20,360
Speaker 1: of your whatever freedom you may have had during the day,

137
00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: because people know they can get ahold of you and

138
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,000
Speaker 1: get in touch with you. Um, and they don't have

139
00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:26,920
Speaker 1: to go through an assistant, and they don't have to

140
00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:30,560
Speaker 1: worry about leaving voicemail necessarily because you'll get the the

141
00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:34,559
Speaker 1: the notification as soon as it happens, assuming your phone

142
00:07:34,640 --> 00:07:38,320
Speaker 1: is on. And um that yeah, I know some people

143
00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:42,320
Speaker 1: who regret that part of the equation. But then, of course,

144
00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,640
Speaker 1: as I'm sure almost everyone out there has heard, these

145
00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:50,560
Speaker 1: things are can be very very addictive. Uh. There's another

146
00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:55,400
Speaker 1: name for a BlackBerry that's pretty popular, crackberry. Yeah, and

147
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:57,840
Speaker 1: that's because people once they start using it, they really

148
00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:00,480
Speaker 1: do become accustomed to it, and then they start to

149
00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:03,920
Speaker 1: depend on it, and uh yeah, before too long, it's

150
00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,360
Speaker 1: intervention time. Yeah. The thing is, that's sort of funny

151
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:09,200
Speaker 1: about it. You you would think that that would become,

152
00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:12,720
Speaker 1: you know, something that you might want to get away from.

153
00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:16,320
Speaker 1: But it seems that more consumers are turning to smartphones.

154
00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:20,840
Speaker 1: I think. I think there are two things in particular

155
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:23,640
Speaker 1: that have started to to appear in smartphones that have

156
00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:27,480
Speaker 1: attracted more and more consumers. Two things I think that

157
00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:30,920
Speaker 1: have attracted them the most are music players smartphones that

158
00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:35,199
Speaker 1: incorporate some sort of MP three player, and cameras. A

159
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 1: lot of the smartphones now have cameras. I think there's

160
00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:40,679
Speaker 1: some that have up to you know, five or six megapixels,

161
00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:44,360
Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive for a for a a phone,

162
00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:46,079
Speaker 1: you know, for a digital camera, you know, you can

163
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: get the ten or twelve or whatever before a phone

164
00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:51,160
Speaker 1: to have five or six, considering that that's not the

165
00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:54,280
Speaker 1: main purpose of the phone, that's pretty impressive. And a

166
00:08:54,280 --> 00:08:57,280
Speaker 1: lot of them have multimedia capabilities where you can take

167
00:08:57,320 --> 00:08:59,280
Speaker 1: a video with your phone and then send it to

168
00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:02,240
Speaker 1: someone else, or you know, pictures, or you can do

169
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:04,840
Speaker 1: geo tagging. Because if it has a GPS system. It

170
00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:08,160
Speaker 1: can actually detect where you are automatically tagged the photos

171
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 1: you're making. And then a lot of them have applications

172
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:13,760
Speaker 1: where you can do things like interact with services like Facebook,

173
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,280
Speaker 1: so you just with a touch of a button send

174
00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: your pictures to your Facebook account. They're already tagged. It

175
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:21,520
Speaker 1: can tell people what it is and where it is.

176
00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:25,160
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's just making this whole connectivity thing

177
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,080
Speaker 1: so much easier. So that I think is what pulled

178
00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:31,400
Speaker 1: people in. Plus, I mean, the prices started going down

179
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:34,000
Speaker 1: a lot of them. A lot of the manufacturers struck

180
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:38,400
Speaker 1: deals with carriers, so for in return for a like

181
00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:40,880
Speaker 1: a two year contract with some carrier, you might be

182
00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:42,440
Speaker 1: able to get one of these smartphones for just a

183
00:09:42,440 --> 00:09:45,080
Speaker 1: couple hundred bucks, you know, on their own, they would

184
00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 1: be close to eight hundred or nine hundred dollars. Sure. Um. Yeah,

185
00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:51,800
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I was, I was doing

186
00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:55,480
Speaker 1: some research on this, and industry analyst Gardner said that

187
00:09:55,600 --> 00:10:00,160
Speaker 1: the smartphone segment of the market, uh was in the

188
00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:03,400
Speaker 1: second quarter of two thousand and eight, and um, it

189
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,200
Speaker 1: was even up eleven point five percent in the third

190
00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:08,680
Speaker 1: quarter of two thousand and eight. Even though we were

191
00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 1: seeing signs of the economic downturn. It was weak year

192
00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:14,640
Speaker 1: over year. UM. I think you know, it's possible that

193
00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:17,000
Speaker 1: that may even be partly because of the saturation of

194
00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:20,640
Speaker 1: the market now with shartphones. UM North America is definitely

195
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:24,000
Speaker 1: the fastest growing segment. UM that there are thirty six

196
00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:29,000
Speaker 1: point five million worldwide, which is pretty impressive. UM. I

197
00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:33,480
Speaker 1: would say that there might even be another application, uh

198
00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:37,080
Speaker 1: that is more popular and even newer smartphones that that

199
00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:41,160
Speaker 1: might be helping their popularity. In addition to the music

200
00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:45,040
Speaker 1: and the cameras, games games are big. Like if you

201
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,199
Speaker 1: look at the the iPhone, the iTunes store and look

202
00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:53,560
Speaker 1: at the applications, games are huge, absolutely, even though there

203
00:10:53,600 --> 00:10:56,840
Speaker 1: are some fantastic productivity and and other applications in their

204
00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:01,439
Speaker 1: games are a huge segment. And the ability to UM

205
00:11:01,679 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 1: take your you know, photo, video game, phone, calendar, email

206
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:10,640
Speaker 1: machine with you everywhere you go, it's pretty compelling. Yeah,

207
00:11:10,679 --> 00:11:13,520
Speaker 1: I think the iPhone, we can we can probably credit

208
00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:19,600
Speaker 1: the iPhone with almost single handedly propelling the smartphone market

209
00:11:19,640 --> 00:11:23,600
Speaker 1: into the consumer market, I mean all on its own

210
00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:25,760
Speaker 1: pretty much. I mean there there were other people who

211
00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,000
Speaker 1: were buying smartphones for their own use rather than for

212
00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,240
Speaker 1: for the office. Like you know, you had people who

213
00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 1: were by a BlackBerry just to have a BlackBerry, not

214
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 1: so that they would you know, suddenly be able to

215
00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:41,280
Speaker 1: be joined at the hip to whatever company they worked for. Um,

216
00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: but I think the iPhone really that's the name of Apple.

217
00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:51,240
Speaker 1: Their reputation for designing really beautiful products that work that

218
00:11:51,320 --> 00:11:53,520
Speaker 1: really went a long way. And plus, like you say,

219
00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 1: the applications, uhh, that that really put iPhone over the top.

220
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:06,120
Speaker 1: They had this huge potential for applications that could do anything.

221
00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:11,520
Speaker 1: I mean everything from business applications to games, to social

222
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:15,720
Speaker 1: media applications. All of that suddenly became available and people said, hey,

223
00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:18,679
Speaker 1: I can have a device that's as powerful as a

224
00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:21,439
Speaker 1: as a computer essentially that lets me do all these

225
00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,520
Speaker 1: things that I do on the computer. Anyway, why wouldn't

226
00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:26,800
Speaker 1: I get one of these instead of getting you know,

227
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: another laptop. Well, that's true. Let's make phone calls on it.

228
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:36,600
Speaker 1: There you go, um and it. The iPhone also inspired

229
00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: a slew of competitors for people like Samsung and l

230
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,240
Speaker 1: G and um, you know, Nokia has come out with

231
00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:47,360
Speaker 1: a couple that are are pretty interesting. Um, BlackBerry too,

232
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:50,120
Speaker 1: I mean, you like the BlackBerry Curve, the BlackBerry Bold,

233
00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:54,200
Speaker 1: the BlackBerry Flip, You're all flip. But all of those

234
00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:58,640
Speaker 1: are in some way a kind of calling out to

235
00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:01,760
Speaker 1: the consumer market rather than in the traditional business market.

236
00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:04,360
Speaker 1: And and by that very nature, they are competing with

237
00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:06,920
Speaker 1: the iPhone. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, most of

238
00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:09,439
Speaker 1: them used the Sembia or you know, of course, the

239
00:13:09,440 --> 00:13:12,640
Speaker 1: Blackbays used the rim operating system that comes with it.

240
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,120
Speaker 1: But they do have a new competitor, and you've had

241
00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:18,480
Speaker 1: some experience with that competitor. Would you like to to

242
00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:23,120
Speaker 1: mention what my my new toy is. For a long time,

243
00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:27,440
Speaker 1: it was rumored that search giant Google you may have

244
00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:30,120
Speaker 1: heard of them, was going to come out with their

245
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:34,079
Speaker 1: own phone, and that turned out not to be true. However,

246
00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:36,920
Speaker 1: they did come out with their own phone operating system,

247
00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:41,359
Speaker 1: and they are partnering with lots and lots of phone manufacturers,

248
00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:44,120
Speaker 1: and the first to hit the market was HTC, the

249
00:13:44,559 --> 00:13:49,480
Speaker 1: Chinese hardware manufacturer. UM. They've made phones for lots of

250
00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:51,240
Speaker 1: different people, and some of them actually they have a

251
00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:53,640
Speaker 1: sizeable share of the market, except that you might not

252
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:57,000
Speaker 1: know it because they actually appear as the T mobile

253
00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 1: something or they split something. UM. They don't appear as

254
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:04,120
Speaker 1: the HTC name, but HTC actually is putting their name

255
00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:08,000
Speaker 1: on the g One. Yes, the HTC g One, also

256
00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:11,520
Speaker 1: sometimes known as the HTC Dream, runs on the Android

257
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:15,800
Speaker 1: operating system. It was one of my Christmas wishless items

258
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:21,680
Speaker 1: and I got. It's awesome. So yeah, I wanted to

259
00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:23,520
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about my impressions of the phone.

260
00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,680
Speaker 1: If you can't tell, I enjoy it. Um, it's very

261
00:14:26,680 --> 00:14:28,960
Speaker 1: It's very like the the iPhone in some respects. It's

262
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 1: got the big touch screen, right, it has a touch screens,

263
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:33,920
Speaker 1: not multi touch. It is only single touch, so unlike

264
00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:36,480
Speaker 1: the iPhone, not multi touch. That's you know, that's definitely

265
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:39,680
Speaker 1: iPhones got it over that. iPhone also had a huge

266
00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 1: jump start in the applications market, and that's still the case.

267
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:47,360
Speaker 1: iPhone has more applications available than Google's. But on the

268
00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:52,720
Speaker 1: other hand, the Google application system, it's open. Anyone can

269
00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:58,400
Speaker 1: create a an application for Android. They can upload it, um,

270
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:00,240
Speaker 1: you know, they can. It can be fee shar in

271
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:02,320
Speaker 1: Google side, or you can find it somewhere else. You

272
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,600
Speaker 1: don't have to go through Google to get an application

273
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:06,760
Speaker 1: for your phone. Now with iPhone, it's very much a

274
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:10,160
Speaker 1: controlled system. Your application for the iPhone has to be

275
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,800
Speaker 1: approved by Apple and it has to appear in their

276
00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:14,400
Speaker 1: store in order for you to get your hands on it,

277
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:18,160
Speaker 1: unless you have a jailbroken iPhone. UM. But with Google

278
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 1: it's different. You can you can create an application and

279
00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:23,800
Speaker 1: host it somewhere, just let people know where it is

280
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:25,520
Speaker 1: and they can go and grab it. That doesn't have

281
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:29,320
Speaker 1: to go through Google. UM. Google does have a kill switch,

282
00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:33,320
Speaker 1: which means that they have the option to stop and

283
00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,360
Speaker 1: essentially destroy an application if it turns out to be malicious.

284
00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:40,440
Speaker 1: So if someone were to make an UM some kind

285
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 1: of computer virus or uh phishing software whatever, Google could

286
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,840
Speaker 1: step in and intervene before it got out of control.

287
00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:53,400
Speaker 1: So UM. But yeah, touchscreen device, lots of need applications.

288
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:58,720
Speaker 1: It's got GPS, three G capability, WiFi uh one downside,

289
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:03,480
Speaker 1: battery life not so good. No, but I heard a

290
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:05,280
Speaker 1: rumor that they were going to come out with a newer,

291
00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:08,240
Speaker 1: bigger battery that might help with that. I've heard that,

292
00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:10,920
Speaker 1: I've actually seen pictures of it. UM. It does look

293
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:13,320
Speaker 1: like that it would increase the thickness of the phone

294
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:17,320
Speaker 1: by quite a bit, which would probably turn off some users. Personally,

295
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:21,000
Speaker 1: I would I would trade the the sleekness for the

296
00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:23,520
Speaker 1: battery life any day. I mean, I would much prefer

297
00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,960
Speaker 1: to have my phone last longer. And it was incredibly useful.

298
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,480
Speaker 1: On my most recent trip to UM to C E. S.

299
00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:32,560
Speaker 1: I actually had my entire schedule down on my phone

300
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:34,880
Speaker 1: and I could refer to it whenever I needed to

301
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:37,440
Speaker 1: and see, oh, I need to get to the South

302
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,320
Speaker 1: Hall because I'm meeting with so and so. In fifteen minutes,

303
00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:43,600
Speaker 1: I'm at the North Hall. How do I sprout wings

304
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:45,840
Speaker 1: and fly? But at least it told me what was

305
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 1: going on. I didn't have to carry around a planner.

306
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:50,640
Speaker 1: I didn't have to carry. In fact, on Friday, I

307
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:53,200
Speaker 1: was there for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the C E.

308
00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:56,920
Speaker 1: S Show. On Friday, I didn't experiment. I did not

309
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,600
Speaker 1: take my computer with me. All I took was a

310
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,320
Speaker 1: backpack to carry all the press kits I was going

311
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,600
Speaker 1: to get and my phone. And you know what, it

312
00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,639
Speaker 1: worked like a charm. I did not need my notebook

313
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:12,359
Speaker 1: computer at all throughout the entire day. I could do

314
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:15,720
Speaker 1: everything I needed to do on the phone. Um. Yeah,

315
00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:19,040
Speaker 1: I'm sold. I am a I'm a lifetime Android fan.

316
00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:22,879
Speaker 1: I really hope that it uh, that it takes a

317
00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:26,800
Speaker 1: good um, a good hold on the market and continues

318
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:31,760
Speaker 1: to develop because I love it. Wow, that's a pretty

319
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:36,359
Speaker 1: ringing endorsement. It's an unbiased opinion and uh just on

320
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,760
Speaker 1: the c E S shout out. At the time of

321
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:42,800
Speaker 1: our podcast, we had not yet seen one in person,

322
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:47,480
Speaker 1: but Palm announced a new phone with a new operating system, touchscreen,

323
00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:50,520
Speaker 1: and a slideout keyboard, called the Palm Pre Yeah. This thing,

324
00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,840
Speaker 1: I've heard nothing but good things, nothing but good things

325
00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:58,119
Speaker 1: about it. It It has the ability to do things like

326
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:01,600
Speaker 1: coordinate multiple calendar nerves so that you get a single

327
00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:03,920
Speaker 1: calendar view. So let's say you want to you can

328
00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:07,399
Speaker 1: you can sink your your Outlook, your Google calendar, and

329
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:11,479
Speaker 1: your Facebook calendar onto a single view and see everything

330
00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:13,480
Speaker 1: that you need to do that day, because of course,

331
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,720
Speaker 1: you may not want to put like if people have

332
00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:17,560
Speaker 1: access to your Outlook calendar, you may not want to

333
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:20,879
Speaker 1: put little Susie's birthday, um, or maybe you do. I

334
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:22,280
Speaker 1: don't know. But if you don't want to do it,

335
00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:24,119
Speaker 1: and you have it on your Facebook calendar but not

336
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,520
Speaker 1: your Outlook calendar, this device would let you see all

337
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:28,480
Speaker 1: of that in a single view. You don't have to

338
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,919
Speaker 1: worry about people bugging you about that kind of thing. Um.

339
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,679
Speaker 1: And it also has the there's a that has one

340
00:18:34,680 --> 00:18:37,720
Speaker 1: of the accessories you were talking about, Uh when we

341
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:42,000
Speaker 1: had our CS discussion about charging wirelessly. Oh yeah, I

342
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:43,680
Speaker 1: just put it down on a surface and the charges

343
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:45,400
Speaker 1: the battery without having to hook it up to something.

344
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: It's got a magnet and the magnets align the phone

345
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 1: properly with the chargers so that it charges exactly the

346
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:54,879
Speaker 1: way it's supposed to. I used to use it at

347
00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:57,400
Speaker 1: an older Palm, so it would be kind of fun.

348
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:01,080
Speaker 1: People were saying that this was Palm's last end at CS,

349
00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:03,840
Speaker 1: and I think they think they pulled it out. Well,

350
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:05,879
Speaker 1: I think they. I think that was a successful and

351
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:08,159
Speaker 1: I think there you know, if the Palm, if they

352
00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:11,760
Speaker 1: can deliver it on time to the market, then I think, Uh,

353
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,119
Speaker 1: I think they're around for a while longer. Well, if

354
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:17,399
Speaker 1: they reach out to business and consumers, they'll have a

355
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:20,880
Speaker 1: good shot at it. Wow. Well this was a good one. Yeah,

356
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:23,880
Speaker 1: good conversation. And we do have an article on how

357
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 1: smartphones work. We also have how Google Android works, we

358
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:29,760
Speaker 1: have how iPhones work. All of this information that can

359
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:32,960
Speaker 1: be found right now at how stuff works dot com,

360
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:36,880
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you again really soon for more

361
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,199
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

362
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:42,320
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.

363
00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.

364
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:52,280
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

365
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you