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OnePlus has a knack for providing content for the podcast. This week they had good intentions to get more women involved with their OnePlus One invites, but it went terribly wrong when they asked forum members to rate the women. Other tidbits from this episode include the huge Motorola event coming up in September, selfie phones, Samsung’s need to copy Apple, the Ice Bucket Challenge, and much more! Thanks for watching/listening!
Top Stories
Quick Hits
- Motorola invite teases two new phones, Moto 360, and headset
- Microsoft event on Sept. 4 for “Selfie” phone
- Samsung Galaxy Alpha is metal, looks like iPhone
- Nexus 6 “Shamu” specs leak
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4 specs leaked
- HTC One with Windows Phone will have identical specs to M8
- ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge” sweeps the tech world
Wins/Fails
- Kevin: Xperia Z2 survives on ocean floor for six weeks / sharks eating Google’s underwater cables
- Joe: $25 dumbphone from Nokia/Microsoft / OnePlus fiasco
- Chris: HTC Zoe (Beta) / HTC Zoe social network
App Picks
- Kevin: Sup
- Joe: Freaking Math
- Chris: Hello SMS
Follow Us
- Joe Fedewa (@tallshmo)
- Chris Chavez (@gamercore)
- Kevin Krause (@youdontknowkev)
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I’m very optimistic about OP. Nailing people and companies for doing something stupid and writing them off is a bad mentality. It’s like kids, they learn quickly because they care more about doing than they do about making a mistake. The silver lining with OP is that they learn from their mistakes and are improving rapidly. Maybe it’s fabricated but I like the narrative.
Nexus phones are not named by screen size. Both the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 had 4.7″ screens, only one was the 4th Nexus. The 4.7″ number, rounds to 5. Only tablets are named by screen size…NOT PHONES.
All you guys do is bit*h about Samsung, you complain Samsung phones are plastic and need to use metal so they add metal and you complain it’s a copy. All you guys want to do is see the similarities and not the differences. No one said the galaxy s5 or note 3 looks like a iPhone. The alpha is what a note 3 or s5 would look like if those phones fake metal sides were replaced with actual metal. No mention of how the top and bottom curve out and have a bigger chamfer than the rest of the sides given it it’s own distinct look instead of it just having flat sides. Lumia 930 has a metal sides too, did you see anyone complain it looks like iPhone. If all you want to do is see similarities then go ahead. Just admit you have no interest in Samsung and regardless what they do you ain’t going to like them. They could make a stock phone and you would still cry. If having a metal side means a iPhone copy then ok. If Samsung made a unibody metal phone you would say it looks like HTC one.
It is so obvious Swinesung is copying Apple from its horrible fingerprint scanner to putting an iPhone band around a plastic back is shameful. No wonder Galaxy sales are collapsing… they can’t innovate anything.
The tech crowd have been crying for the last few years to add metal so they did. The alpha looks like a s4,s5,note 2,note 3 etc the only difference this time is that the fake metal band has been replaced by real metal and that’s all. no reason to make a big deal out of it. Seriously just give the pitiful bashing a stop and just buy whatever people like. I’m not denying there’s not similarities but literally the only difference between this and a s5 or note 3 is that fake metal has been replaced by real metal but no one said the s5 or note 3 looks look a iPhone. Everyone copies everyone the 5c looks like lumia devices who cares. Samsung popularised the phablet phones and others copies so who cares. Instead of looking for similarities which a rectangular device with a screen is likely to have, look for the differences that there are that’s all I’m saying. I will say this chamfered edges is something the iPhone started, htc then copied and now Samsung. For sure if apple didn’t do this at 1st then htc and Samsung wouldn’t have done this. The Alpha then would look like it does now without the chamfered edges. Good design and ideas are copied. If there was no mini tablets would have apple have made a mini ipad? The iPhone 6 if the leaks are real have bands very similar to to the m8. Samsung may not innovate in terms of design in how we like but they do innovate in screen tech, ram tech, storage tech etc the things arguably more important that go behind in actually making devices. As for samsung collapsing OK, they had a bad few quarters but those quarters are still miles a head of everyone else in Android. Sony just had to cut down on its sales for next quarter, htc just had a terrible quarter. Xiomi though successful in China don’t even have a foothold in the West. Samsungs weak sales has been due to losing out sales in china and India but in the West they still are doing just fine. In fact in the US they are still growing. Also for Samsung to crumble the likes of HTC and some need to be making huge gains but they are not. Hey I know the tech minority love to hate samsung (though it wasn’t that long ago they were rooting for Samsung when it was the only one that could stand up to apple) but thats all we the tech minority. I can guarantee this, 3 years time Samsung will still be top of Android, not because thwy are the best but thwy are not just a phone company like HTC. They have other successful businesses that are profitable that will keep them alive and still help to push the galaxy marketing. Htc they have nothing if there phone business goes down. LG similar to samsung but not as popular or profitable. Sony, they have the playstation and movies department but they as Sony are still leaking money. The only way Samsung will struggle is if the likes of Huawei, xiaomi can become a name in the West and succeed but Huawei gave been trying for ages and are stuck doing budget devices or making carrier phones for the West and xiaomi has yet to try because they know it is very hard. Just look at Nokia it never could break the US market even as a leader. Let’s just see how things go, if xiaomi do manage to break into the West and become a trusted brand like Samsung or LG I really think they can become very successful. I actually think xiaomi products are nice but if you think Samsung copy apple then xiaomi takes that too another level, just watch the miui 6 software video and you would think it’s ios 7/8.
Samsung has plenty of competition, China and Apple are the only ones talked about but don’t forget LG. They saw a 20% uptick and the G3 is selling like hot cakes at the detriment of GS5 and it’s half dozen variations. Samsung is lost, if they don’t find the light switch soon they will fall.