[Background music]
>> This is Android Atlas Weekly for Tuesday, June 8th, 2010. I'm Jason Howell.
>> I'm Brian Tong.
>> I'm Justin Eckhouse.
>> Excellent. And we are all here. Welcome. Thanks for joining us, Brian.
>> Thanks. I don't know what I got myself into. Be gentle okay. That's all I'm asking be gentle.
>> Yeah, it's about to get pretty scary. You should be afraid.
>> This Android is going to come out and kick your but.
>> People know that I love Android.
>> Do people know that?
>> They should now.
>> I think people think that you're an Apple fan boy which is not true. That's what we're here to disprove.
>> I love and hate Apple. That's why I'm here, right?
>> Exactly.
>> Well, actually we're here to discuss the big news yesterday which is the HTC EVO 4G went on sale.
>> Was that yesterday? That was over the weekend.
>> That's going to be in. I happen have one here. What phone are you guys using right now?
>> Oh, do you own one, Brian?
>> I do right now.
[Laughter]
>> Oh, you mean this thing I borrowed? As you can see my contacts are all addressed to Jessica Dolcourt. But yeah.
>> Okay.
>> I own this.
>> Excellent.
>> It actually launched I believe on Friday. And was--did really well for Sprint.
>> We got sales numbers yesterday.
>> Sales numbers. That's the exciting part.
>> It just sounds funny when you say that. It's exciting.
>> It is. That's where Mr. Job started yesterday as well I believe.
>> I'm not saying it's not exciting. It just sounds funny. Okay, sorry. I'm going to shut up.
>> So how did the EVO do?
>> Tell me how.
>> All right. I'll tell you. It did awesome. It did the best. It set the record for one day phone sales for Sprint. In fact, I think that what was the stat in here that it sold more phones in one day than their top two previous phones combined.
>> Samsung Instinct and the Palm Pre. And I believe it sold more in one day that those phones sold in three day.
>> Wow. So boom. Boom sha-ka-la-ka. We're going to see a ton of these running around the city.
>> Well, the Instinct got--had a huge push when it came out. The Pre lost its momentum by the time it came out, but the Instinct had a lot of press at that time. I do remember. It was quite hot.
>> Do you think the EVO's success is about the marketing campaign, or is it about giving one to all the Google IO people so that it's floating around all these influential people?
>> You start the buzz that way, you know. And the EVO 4G, specifically this was the type of phone that is really catered towards, you know, someone that's more the tech head, someone that's willing to pay for 4G.
>> Well, and it's on Sprint. You've got all the people that are on Sprint that maybe I'm wrong, but there haven't been a huge amount of these blockbuster phones releasing on Sprint recently. So this definitely the type of phone that knocks it out. It's been touted as one of the best, the best hardware, best specked phone out there right now.
>> Currently until yesterday's announcement with Apple which we can talk about in a little bit. But, you know, if you have that kind of buzz and this is a phone that's supposedly the best of its kind right now, it's going to get a lot of people buying it.
>> Best in its class.
>> So everyone goes out. They get this phone. And what's the first thing they do with it?
>> They use the thing that it was touted to which is because it has a front facing camera. It was touted to do video calling and actually installed I believe we talked about this last week but installed on the phone, preinstalled as well as printed on the front of the box in blazing bright letters is the app Quick.
>> Quick. Which we talked about last week. It's pretty awesome. Video conferencing app. But Quick said that their servers were being hit 20 times their normal volume, which, you know, you think they would have expected. Right?
>> They would have expected more than what they had had. Maybe they didn't expect 20 times.
>> Well, who was using Quick before?
>> People causally like on their iPhones and Androids. They had like a scaled down.
>> I mean I even have a Quick app installed on my phone.
>> When was the last time you used it?
>> It was just the--it was one of those apps that I would just try. Okay, kind of works. Then I never used it again.
>> Right. So suddenly they're having I don't know. How many phones did we say they sold? 80,000? 100,000?
>> I think it said 300 to 600,000 I think was the number.
>> Wide range but yes. Half a million people get this phone on the same day or weekend and instantly go and try Quick. You just think they would have expected this. They knew how many EVOs were for sale. The had sales projections.
>> Yeah. Now fill me in because I might be out of the loop. But I was under the impression that the Quick app change where you have to pay to use it, 4099.
>> That had come out, and basically what Quick confirmed has that no, you won't have to pay to use its core functionality. But that eventually they will charge for features.
>> Thank you. I just wanted to make sure. I'm here on the Android Atlas show. In Atlas you know everything.
>> You're letting us know just how much Android you know.
[Laughter]
>> Aren't you, Brian?
>> We'll get back to that later, Jason.
>> So back to Quick. So Quick basically said, "Hey, we can't handle this. We'll pull the app from the store." Apparently it was hard to find anyway. They pulled the app, and they said, "We need to retool here. We need to get a bunch of new servers, and we'll be back sometime soon."
>> Yep. They don't even really have a date. It's still not up in the applications store, in the apps store. And they say there's no word when it will be back which is kind of--
>> That's a shame.
>> That's too bad. Come one. Come on. You are set up for success. Printed on the box.
>> On the front of the box right by the phone.
>> And it didn't quite work out so well. It's going to tame a lot of people.
>> If I'm a Quick investor at this point I'm not happy,. But if I'm a Fring investor I'm pretty happy.
>> Yeah, because it seems like a lot of people then went to Fring and tried out that front facing camera. Just think about it. Like that's one of the big features of this phone. Everybody's going to want to try and test that out. That's going to be one of the first things that you do is what is video calling on your mobile like? Let's test it out. But just didn't work.
>> You guys sound really depressed. You're like, "Yep."
>> I don't know. I don't have a front facing camera on my phone, so it doesn't apply to me yet.
>> But you could do it with a mirror. Right?
>> I guess if you needed to.
>> I think it'll work out.
>> Everyone has a mirror handy wherever they go, right?
>> Well, I think they're issued with all new HTC Incredible actually as a peripheral.
>> I'm just saying. I have one in my back pocket.
>> We know you do.
>> All right.
>> Moving on. So there's a story this week about Android users more willing to switch the iPhone. It's a study up from Neilson.
>> That's respectable.
>> It's pretty interesting. I think it points to the carrier issue of iPhone I would say. Right?
>> The main issue basically being that if the iPhone was available on other carriers, plenty of users would actually actively go and jump over to the other side. Right?
>> Exactly. The loyalty for people who are already have these devices is fairly high. The same study quotes that 80 percent of the people on iPhones wanted the next phone to be iPhone, and 70 percent of Android people want that to be the next device.
>> An Android device?
>> Exactly. Compare that to say BlackBerry which is down 47 percent and--
>> What about Microsoft?
>> 34 percent for Windows Mobile. But that's kind of like the OSD, forgets it still exists. But--
>> Trying to change that.
>> But Windows 7 will come out, and we'll see what happens there.
>> Wow. So then I guess that begs the question. Well, Justin, maybe this isn't the right question to ask you because you've had an iPhone. Right?
>> I have an iPhone mainly for play purposes.
>> Is that how you legitimize that you're a legit Android Atlas?
>> Well, I'm just saying I have five different phones on my desk right now as everyone who comes into on my office comments on. Yep. And the only one that I pay for myself is my Droid.
>> All right. I'll leave it at that. Okay. Android Atlas indeed.
[Laughter]
>> The iPhone, it's a beautiful device. But it's not what I want my daily device to be.
>> Absolutely.
>> Yeah, see, and I don't know. I mean I absolutely love my Android phone, and I love the potential of it more than anything. I really feel like it's got a lot of steam, and it's going to do some really cool things as we go forward, but I'm still--I still find myself tempted on the iPhone side. The thing--the main thing that cut me off from even thinking about going over to the iPhone is the fact that it's not on Verizon. And my Android phone is, and I'm not switching from Verizon. So I guess this isn't the type of thing that I would even have to address until that possibly was put onto the Verizon network. And then I guess we'd just have to see. But I wouldn't say that I'd rule it out entirely.
>> You know, I think it's a hard thing because I've seen, you know, when you start playing with both of these devices so much with the new announcements that Apple made you really start to see kind of almost the separation of the audiences that these two phones are. They're both great phones in their own right. They're both great OS. But now you start seeing Apple is really trying to cater themselves to more of a multimedia phone, not really necessarily even a mainstream consumer phone but more like a multimedia phone. Well, now that you have the video editing on it whereas the Android is for like the true tech head that wants to dig into it. These are two audiences that are actually pretty different. When people starting battling like mine is better than yours, it just becomes a thing like actually how you use your phone.
>> I think that's totally right, and we kind of touched on this last week when we talked about the Palm UI guy who came over to Google. Because, you know, we were talking about how we love Android, but it is a tech head phone right now. I would never suggest that my mom get this phone, right? But I think they're working on changing that. I think, you know, we'll wait and see.
>> Tech heads are willing to put up with the bugs because they see the potential, and they love some of the stuff that you just won't be able to get no other platforms.
>> Right. Absolutely.
>> I think they're both moving toward each other a little bit. We'll get to some of the other features that is causing that movement on the Apple side too.
>> Okay, we will.
>> So last week we talked a lot about tablets. We spent a whole segment on tablets. And this week there's some new from VIA Technologies who is going to make the processor for a bunch of the Android tablets come out this year. And they say that we will see in the second half of this year a couple tablets arranging in price from 100 to 150 dollars.
>> That's cheap.
>> That is cheap.
>> That is cheap.
>> That is bargain basement cheap right here.
>> Cheap enough for me to think like do I really want one of these. Even if it does bare bones minimum type of stuff, is it worth 100 dollars if the rest of it sucks?
>> A hundred dollars. Buy it. Try it.
>> Yeah.
>> Throw it away.
>> I guess you can afford it. But it and throw it away into a landfill
>> That's what I do.
>> This thing is what, going to be based on arm chips. So at least that's a legitimate, you know, processing platform. We really--I mean how many of these type of, we didn't necessarily see Android tablets. But how many of these tablets in general did we see at CS and the only two we're, you know, talking on now is the Dell one and the iPad at the moment that are out in the market. So, you know, sure Android can be tossing a lot of things. It just comes down to how is the experience.
>> Right. I mean I think you're not going to see anything matching the iPad experience when it first comes out. You know, as we just said Android has a long way to go UI wise before it can compete. But, you know, at 100 bucks versus 6 or 700 dollars. You know, you're willing to take some comprises in UI there I think.
>> I hope so.
>> And I mean even if it's just like a very easy to use or maybe not even necessarily totally easy to us all around but good enough for doing things like being an eReader or something like that. Maybe 100 dollars is actually pretty good.
>> If it can really excel in one feature that is the feature that most people will gravitate towards for this 150 dollar device then it definitely has legs.
>> Right. I mean they come out with a Kindle app for this, and then suddenly it's cheaper than the Kindle.
>> A Kindle mini, a Kindle light?
>> Kindle light.
>> It won't have the technology most likely, but, you know, as long as it's lighter than iPad, because, man, holding that thing and trying to read bed or something like that, my wrist hurt.
>> That's why I don't hold it.
>> Do you have--
>> I do actually have a nice stand. I put a light on my bed and prop it against my pillow. I'm serious.
>> I see.
>> I'm serious.
>> You model after the pictures on the billboard outside.
> >Actually those are instruction manuals. Those pictures on the billboard are instructions on how to use your iPad.
>> It's funny you say that because those are the most comfortable ways to use the iPad.
>> It really is.
>> It really is I'm jut saying.
>> The most comfortable or the only comfortable?
>> Well, no. I would say very comfortable.
>> Okay, so moving on. This is an interesting story about we talked about Google TV last week and the announcements around that. And I think finally we have some hardware manufactures stepping up and talking more concretely about their plans for Google TV and specifically Logitech. And this story isn't necessarily about Google TV itself, but it's about Logitech who makes the Harmony remotes is going to release some free apps for Android and iPhone to control their Google TV apps.
>> Their own Google TV hardware.
>> Right. Exactly. And, you know, I think this is most notable because they make the Harmony remotes, and they're not exactly emphasizing paying, you know, 2 or 300 bucks for their Harmony remotes. But--
>> And the Harmony remotes are a great way to control their TV experience.
>> Oh, I love those things.
>> I'm just wondering how graceful it's going to be on a small, you know, phone touch screen. I guess it'll be all right.
>> Honestly it shouldn't be that bad because the thing is that if you even look at the picture on the menus you're basically going to be switching from three things on the bottom. Either, you know, the devices you choose from. I'm assuming one of those other buttons reveals the channel selector, and sure it's not all in this one, long remote. But there's a lot of space to move around. It wouldn't be that, you know, it wouldn't be that bad.
>> And it would be pretty cool if there was some sort of like customization that you could do on the layout of your remote if you want controls at the top or certain controls not even on the screen at any given moment. That could actually be pretty sweet.
>> I think the one issue I have with this is they don't have the tactile dimensions to them. So when I'm sitting there on my couch, and it's dark, and I'm watching a movie. It's too much work to get the light on and then find the button. I just, you know, my TiVo remote, I know every button on there. I don't have to look and boom. Just press it.
>> So we were talking about this before the show, but it actually looks like it says it's going to be sending the signals out as infrared commands.
>> Oh, really?
>> Yeah. Because we were debating. It's in the second paragraph. We were debating, oh, is it going to be over WiFi or Bluetooth? But it says here that it's been doing it over IR commands.
>> That makes me even more skeptical.
[Laughter]
>> You know, Brian and I Were talking exactly about this about how many times we've tried IR remotes or IR apps for phones or PDAs and how lame they are.
>> You have to hold them within like half a millimeter of each other.
>> The only way you can get them to work is with accessories that boost IR signal and well, we'll see. So does this app only control the Google TV device? It's not going to control like my TV?
>> Yeah, as far as I can tell it's just for your Google TV device. There's an app that you can download.
>> It's weird that it would come out with these IR commands. Not every phone has IR on them.
>> Then it has these buttons that are like watch TV, play a game. It's interesting. We'll have to wait and see.
>> That's right.
>> Oh, so our last story here today is about doubleTwist, and well, sorry. I introduced that wrong. We're getting to doubleTwist in a second. That's right. But Google Music, a potential competitor to iTunes.
>> I think Google hinted at this. At the Google IO, they hinted at something with music downloading.
>> Exactly. And I think TechCrunch found a logo somewhere that sort of, you know, poetically made this even more of a solid prediction. And then the part where it ties into doubleTwist is that this could potentially kill doubleTwist.
>> Which we'll be covering here in a few minutes. I'm going to kind of go over the app that doubleTwist just came out with. I mean, one of my main complaints with Android right now is that at least the version that I have shifts with a very poor music implementation from the app that you use to control the music and play your music and everything to the lack of synching ability on your computer. So it just kind of seems like a no-brainer that Google would come out with something like this especially because they stand to be a strong competitor to iTunes in this type of space. But in the meantime, you know, we'll cover doubleTwist in a few.
>> The interesting thing about this article that from what I can tell by reading it, it's going to be Google Music for the Android phone, but it doesn't mention, at least from what I can tell, about a desktop level app that allows it to sync. So sure this might be a music in the store specifically on the device. But another thing like you mentioned is that once you love it to still sync, and that's one advantage at least that doubleTwist has on the desktop is that it talks to doubleTwist and syncs your collection. So if they can make a desktop companion, it doesn't mention that, that is what really makes it a total cohesive. They then have their ecosystem to lock people into.
>> Maybe the desktop companion is actually a cloud in their browser style companion.
>> Could be a cloud.
>> Google doesn't lock people into anything. We're open here.
>> Okay. Completely open, right?
[Laughter]
>> We're open to other relationships such as iPhone.
>> Hence that's why you brought me here to the show, right?
>> Yes. So there was other big announcements in the last couple days besides the EVO announcement. One of them was the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4 iOS.
>> Yeah. So we want to, you know, these guys brought me in here. And we wanted to talk about some of these new features because they wanted, you know, they wanted me to get me a little education; although, I know most of the stuff.
>> We wanted you to educate us.
>> Oh, that's it.
>> You were at the event yesterday
>> Do you want me to just kind of tell you what features were announced?
>> I'm just curious to know what this iPhone 4 does. What does it do?
>> One thing we just got, multitasking.
>> Multitasking.
>> Wow.
>> Oh, yeah, we have that.
>> Thank you. Okay.
>> What else you got?
>> There's 100 new features, so there must be plenty of other stuff.
>> Plenty of other stuff. Folders, hello.
>> That's a great idea, yeah.
>> But can you drag one on top of the other and it makes a wiggly, giggly animation.
>> We don't have the wiggly giggly.
>> That's too bad.
>> But there are animations.
>> You guys definitely folders have always been there for Android. I love it. I love it. Here we go. Oh, emails. Threaded emails. Boo-yah.
>> Threaded emails. This is an interesting one, because I think the Android installation doesn't really have that. The HTC implementation which is really, really nice that you have on your phone.
>> Can't that be overwhelming though having threaded email like this all these emails coming in.
>> I will identify.
>> It's better to have threaded emails. I mean because--
>> I'm getting him confused.
>> Oh, you're thinking of unified inbox. Sorry.
>> Even if it--okay, yeah. Sometimes I feel like a unified inbox gets a little too crazy. But when you specifically talk about threading, oh, that is beautiful.
>> And actually we do for--I have Gmail on my phone. And most people have used Gmail. That's threaded on Android. It just sort of mimics the online Gmail interface.
>> I know something you guys definitely don't have iBooks. Can you guys read books on your phone? Doubt it.
>> Well, maybe not iBooks. But there are similar ways.
>> There's plenty of readers. So right now we're at 0 for 4. Let's keep going down.
>> What else you got there?
>> Tap to focus. Tap to focus.
>> Ooh, you might have us on that one.
>> No, actually I think some Android phones have that implemented.
>> Some of them.
>> No, they do. They do. They almost as far as I can remember they have Android tap to focus.
>> I don't think the Droid does.
>> Really? Try it. Pull it up right now.
>> Well, just has auto focus. But when you tap into a specific area.
>> The guys in the chat room says they do.
>> That's a feature that I know.
>> Well, Android Atlas.
>> Wow, you've trumped us.
>> Didn't I just teach you something.
>> We're never inviting you on this show again. We just want to make you look bad.
>> What other tricks do I have up my sleeve?
>> Oh. Here's one though that's pretty exciting. Create playlists. Wow. You can create playlists on the phone. You don't have to like create them and then sync them.
>> It is, okay. First of all, other than the HTC the media player on the Android has been pretty limited.
>> Its horrible.
>> It's embarrassing.
>> Unusable.
>> Until this, which I love, it was pretty embarrassing. Right?
>> But we can cerate playlists.
>> That's good. I'm glad you can.
>> You wouldn't want to use them.
>> It is. It is. Okay, well, we joke about some of the features. But sometimes depending on which platform, right, the execution is awesome now. There's a lot of features here that iPhone OS4 doesn't have that Android destroys. Like I was really hoping that at WWDC to see an improvement in the amps. Maps didn't get touched by Apple. You might have thought, you know, something would have kicked it up a notch. But maps specifically, I mean come on Google Maps dominates on the Android platform with the turn by turn directions.
>> Also voice kind of a killer app in my option.
>> Definitely killer app. And then another killer app that people don't get until they actually try and use a lot. Voice commands on Android, ridiculous. They're still very limited voice command on the iPhone platform where all you do, people basically do with voice commands is either talk to their music which no one does. Or I just use it to call friends.
>> I find that to be kind of common across most voice commands is that it's nifty that it does it, but I never have a need to do it. The only time I ever use voice command on Google is actually when I'm working with navigation. I see navigate to blah, blah, blah.
>> That's awesome. And it's awesome because I'm driving, and whatever. I stop. I hit the little search button. I say that. And it navigates me to the right place. Otherwise, if I'm walking down the street and I want to dial someone, it never occurs to me this dial or whatever.
>> What I do use though is the voice recognition for email or for SMS on Android. That's awesome.
>> Yeah. That is pretty killer.
>> Okay, guys. Let's go over a few more features. You got a home screen wallpaper.
>> Yeah. And seriously how did iPhone not have this?
>> Seriously.
>> That's one of those it seems like it was just like cut and paste. That should have been in the beginning.
>> Seriously though the fact that it is highlighted as one of these 12 features is embarrassing.
>> It is.
>> Really, you're going to--come on. Please.
>> We have active wallpaper now. I know. The backgrounds are awesome. The background are awesome.
>> It's going to slow down your phone so much that it's unusable.
>> You just said it. You know, when you want to introduce someone to Android you put all the bells and whistles on. You show them every feature you never use. And hen they'll be like my god, this is an amazing phone. Then when they leave you just go back and change your profile like those ones.
>> Exactly. So here's one feature actually, sorry to take the lead here.
>> Oh, no, I want you to.
>> What I am extremely jealous of and that is spell check. We talked about in episode zero I think which most people--
>> From the start.
>> Exactly. I can't spell, and it drives me insane that Android does not have spell check.
>> I mean I type stuff but I guess, yeah, I didn't really think about it. It depends on the keyboard that you're using and if it's predictive text or whatever. I'm using an app called Swipe right now which is kind of like swiping through.
>> Where you draw it, right?
>> Which is great if you're using the touch screen keyboard or the touch screen to type your messages. It has this really bad habit of learning. If you ever accidentally don't correct a misspelled thing it automatically adds it to the dictionary. And then it will throw that in as suggestions. Spell check at the very end would be awesome, so very jealous of that.
>> Spell check is executed pretty sweetly too. I have it on my iPhone right, but I can show you that one later.
>> Awesome.
>> Yeah, I was pretty disappointed when they announced, Froyo for the Android 22 that they did not have spell check.
>> Well, with Froyo, you know, it's like they kind of announced like, you know, some key features. But some of that subtle stuff makes a difference when you add it all up. It's like all wireless modem capability. Awesome. But spell check--how often do you use that versus misspelling a word?
>> Right. Those futures are one of the reasons that BlackBerries are still the best at email.
>> In the game.
>> Right. What else you got there?
>> I don't know.
>> That really sums it up I think.
>> Your 5X digital zoom. No one has zoom on their cameras.
>> That is one of the top features.
>> Overall iPhone people should be happy, but Android people should be--I think most Android users are kind of chuckling to themselves a little.
>> Not us. You don't hear any chuckling here.
>> You chuckled like the whole first half.
>> That was the chat room. Okay. Cool. Well, thanks for the summary.
>> You're welcome.
>> There was an interesting article actually that, who did this? The comparing I think to Coley comparing to iPhone 4 versus HTC EVO and it's not loading for me very well here.
>> I got it up here.
>> Do you want to give us a rundown there, Jason?
>> Let's see here. I'll throw it up on the screen here. And I mean, you know, side-by-side there's a lot of similarities. One of the big ones that kind of jumps out at you is the fact that, I mean, the iPhone with the new display just kind of dominates.
>> Can I reiterate because, you know, everyone was talking about display. That is one thing you have to see to believe. I believe it. I was tweeting last night after, you know, I got my hands on. It's an amazing display. In fact it's probably the best feature of the phone that you just wouldn't, you know, just got to see it.
>> I mean especially when you consider the HTC EVO has a four point three inch screen and it's 800 by 480. This screen is smaller on the iPhone 4. It's three and a-half inches, but it's 960 by 640.
>> And this screen--this EVO screen is beautiful too. But when you see how sharp, it's just kind of ridiculous. I mean I'm not going to say it's extremist. But when you went from standard video to HD video you said yourself, "Oh, I can't go back." Right? A lot of people when you watch it are like they're not going to say that to the phone, but you got that level of shock. You're like wow, this is incredible.
>> It's hard to go back.
>> I think that's one of those features that sales phones for Apples because it will make no difference in your day-to-day use of the phone but, you know, what sales iPhones is sexy.
>> It is sexy, man. The screen is great.
>> And then, of course, the improved camera. Which if you look at the speck, you know, the iPhone is a five megapixel. The EVO is an eight megapixel. But I believe what Apple says, and I haven't seen any of the pictures to prove it. But I believe what they say because it's been a belief that I've had for a long time is that, you know, the megapixels don't really count. At a certain point you just want good hardware, and it really sounds like Apple kind of gets that.
>> And I don't know if I necessarily believe that.
>> Is this Apple Atlas or Android Atlas, guys?
>> I totally believe that because the Droid is five megapixel camera. Right?
>> Right. And that was a big deal when it came out. It was like, oh, it's got five megapixels. It will be so amazing, but no. You take pictures. It's still not that great.
>> It's just not a good sensor. It's really hard to get a good sensor and good blend in there in the teeny little setup there. So the other major difference is looks like here is, you know, wireless the EVO doesn't have in. Maybe the biggest difference actually here is the 4G versus 3G. They overtly are calling it the iPhone 4 and not 4G, right?
>> The 4G networks to be ready for them.
>> Really.
>> They're still waiting of the 3G networks to be ready.
>> Oh. Wow. I should just call it the iPhone 3.
>> Knock it down a level.
>> And then the battery life was a big deal too, because I think when the EVO kind of was being touted it was like oh, it's amazing all that it can do. But then the battery life lasts like five hours or four hours and then you've got to charge it again. And from what Apple was saying the iPhone actually has 40 percent more talk time juice just based on the optimization.
>> Pretty awesome.
>> You can always cut whatever they say in half. Whatever any company says on battery life you can always almost always cut it in half.
>> I know. But we had this similar discussion on a different podcast show, and I remember Mon was like no ways does that battery do that. No way on the iPad. But I'm telling you and I told her like I the past two years Apple's battery life has superseded what they tell people. It is over performed in all of our tests in our labs, so, you know, the battery juice is very good on those.
>> I think they've been pretty accurate compared to other manufacturers.
>> Probably because they haven't had a lot of multitasking going on.
>> Seriously. You have multitasking going on. That drains the battery quicker. That's one of the faults with multitasking period is what I've noticed in my phone is that the more stuff you have going on in the background, the faster it depletes. This could be the same story for the new iPhone.
>> And then the fact that, you know, this is not to rip on Android. But, you know, a lot of users that the tech heads have to get that app, that task killer app to help them manage the fact that I just drains their battery. No one wants manage that honestly at the end of the day. You just want it to go away.
>> I think the biggest thing that I hear from people who get smartphones for the first time is about the a battery life, and I think part of the reason why it's Android or iPhone is that now they're actually using their phone for something besides calls. And they're using it all day long check your email, check your Twitter, Facebook. And yes, when you use it the battery dies.
>> But this breakdown that we're talking about and these comparisons that are side-by-side it just kind of, you know, reiterates. One thing that this doesn't point out is that it really makes that whole whatever multimedia versus tech head argument is that the iMovies software that you can edit tour videos. Like I spent about 15 or 20 minutes with it. It was awesome. It's not because it's an Apple product. It was just an awesome product.
>> Good experience.
>> HD video, editing, transition. There as no lag whatsoever. Transitions music, photos, everything. You're just like wow.
>> It looked impressive, and Rafe was going on yesterday about how it was going to really change some journalism is done. And I think that's very exciting especially for a group like ours that does a lot of video online and our citizens.
>> Exactly.
>> And then, of course, the last thing I want to mention here is a little thing called Adobe Flash. So we've got that on the EVO. Nicole says yes here. It's maybe an anticipatory.
>> There is Flashlight. Flashlight. Many people don't know this but it is on the EVO today. I don't know exactly the features that it has in TV will load with it but won't play video.
>> That's the thing with Flashlight. I've tried about three or four sites, because when we do price bytes. It might as well, you know, not really be there yet because it's just not up to talk.
>> When you try three or four sites and none of them properly display the content. That is it shouldn't be there basically. It gives a bad taste to peoples' mouth.
>> It displays the adds perfectly. Actually does it display a CNET TV add perfectly?
>> Well, I mean like display adds. It's stuff like that. Flash will be out probably later this month we'll see. You know, I hope for Flash that it steps up to the game and can perform well on some of these high-end phones.
>> It'll be interesting.
>> Yeah. Well, if you want to see that comparison it's going to be in the show notes, or you can go to the--I think you it was on the Android and iPhone Atlas blogs. It's an interesting comparison.
>> Excellent. Should we move on to the app of the week which you probably already know because we teased it about five or seven times. But I'll go ahead and throw this.
[Background music]
>> So the app that I'm going to talk about today is doubleTwist. It's a music player app that was just released to the Android app store, and it's kind of replacement for the stock music player that came with Google that we were talking about earlier. Actually, frankly just plain stinks. It's actually cool. It's got a nice usable interface and, of course, now my Android is being slow. But it treats kind of your music playback and sorting though your library and everything a little bit more logically than the built-in app. And it's just kind of a little bit slicker and nicer to use. It also has these other key feature which is a desktop app that you can see just like iTunes to subscribe to podcasts, import music from your iTunes library, sync it directly to your Android device when you plug it in, and it does something kind of cool where you can enable a feature so that when you plug your Android in you don't have to automatically go in there and tell it to mount. It will automatically mount for you and do the syncing the way you would expect it to. So that's it. It's pretty cool. I got to say it blows the stock app out of the water. It's really good.
>> That's not very hard.
>> I know. It isn't, but it does make me curious to see what comes out of Google music. I have to imagine they're going to improve things there.
>> Maybe that's why they stopped working to the stock app.
>> So because you guys are using phones that have kind of like the poopy media player app, you guys really like the since UI media app?
>> I haven't spent a whole lot of time with it.
>> It'll change your mind.
>> But I wouldn't be surprised because I do like the since UI with what little amount of time I've been able to play around with it. I actually like how they've done the interface.
>> It's excellent. It's excellent.
>> All right, so I've got a little tip for you. This is a keyboard shortcut. I know it works on the Droid and maybe any other Android phone that has a keyboard.
>> That has like an actual hardware keyboard.
>> Yeah. Even if I still Brian Tong's camera here for a second.
>> Do you want--
>> Sure.
>> There we go.
>> Hey, that works. There, tap to focus. Just kidding.
>> Auto focus enabled. There we go.
>> I'll bring the mike over with me. So what we're going to show you is cut, copy, and paste. We can block Brian Tong out of that.
>> I was trying to look.
>> All right, So what we're going to do is you have this little menu button here. First we're going to select all so as the menu button in A, these are very similar to Windows.
>> Menu A is almost like on a keyboard like all control or something.
>> Exactly. Basically all the keys mirrors sort of your standard keyboard shortcut. So cut, I hold this down and X I want to paste. V and then, of course, you can do C and so on.
>> That's using menu as the control key or the Apple key.
>> Oh, interesting. It's a cool, little, shortcut.
>> Can I show you guys how to copy and paste on an iPhone? I'm not shutting up. I'm not here to be a jerk.
>> Actually and we were kind of talking abut this in prep. There is no real, elegant way to do this if you don't have a slide out keyboard. It's based on the app. Like I know in the built-in browser you have to navigate to a little menu that says select text. And then once you this that then it turns it into select mode. You can drag, but once you've done dragging it automatically copies it to the clipboard. It's like--yeah.
>> It's good they have it, but yeah. Just executing it could take time.
>> It could be executed way better, and I hope they improve that sometime soon. But with the hardware keyboard that actually makes it a little bit easier.
>> Noise. Noise.
>> All right. So we have some email.
>> We have an email.
>> We had a lot of email. So much email.
>> It was a little confusing because we had the hold email address. But I'm here to report that we actually have a real email address. So if you want to email the show you can hit us at androidatlasweekly at cnet.com. The name of the show at cnet.com. So pretty easy. Like Carl from Philadelphia who said, "So happy to see an Android show. I just got my EVO, and I love it. My question is what is the deal with Quick. This app was touted as the most rad thing ever for video chatting, but when I open it all I can do is record and share video. I found Fring in the market, and that does video chat, and Skype works really well. Do you guys expect Quick to get its act together?" I would expect it to get its act together and fast because it has a vested interest in DSL.
>> Right. I think so. And we're worked with those guys. We've actually worked with them. They're good guys. I think they were just unprepared as we talked about, and I think probably they're working really really hard.
>> It's probably their top priority right now. Carl continues to say also, "There is a tethering app called PdaNet in the market that allows free tethering. Would using it get my service canceled? Seems too good to be true." So I'm a long time user of PdaNet. I've not used it much on Android, but I did use it a lot on Palm. And I never got my service canceled. I, you know, I wouldn't go advertising like I am now that publicly you use it. But yeah, I think it's totally fine to use. I think it sort of masquerades, you know, as just using data as if it were the phone. So carriers don't necessarily know. There's a free version, and the free version generally works, but it's not going to work with sick here sites. So anything that's SSL, anything that stars with https will not work with the free version. But for 30 bucks, you know, if it works of a month because 30 bucks is what most people are charging for the their tethering plans. So then, you know, you're probably getting your money's worth.
>> Sweet. That sounds pretty awesome.
>> All right. Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining us.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Atlas guys for turning some heads because I'm sure some people wouldn't expect you to show up on an Android show.
>> And I brought some knowledge too.
>> You did. You did.
>> I'm sure we'll see you back again.
>> That' right. Bet on it.
>> You can find this podcast at cnet.com slash android atlas. You can also check us out live every Tuesday 2 p.m. Pacific at cnet.com slash live slash android atlas. And you can email us androidatlasweekly at cnet.com. That's it for this week.
>> Thanks you guys.
>> Thanks a lot.
>> See you later.
>> See you next week.
>> Bye.
^M00:40:50 [ Music ]
