Remembering 9/11: A US-Canada Perspective + iPhone 16 & Pixel Fold Deep Dive

[Music] welcome back to another episode of united we stand divided we podcast I am Robert from the US just outside Nashville and with us we have our co-host Lionel from Toronto Toronto Toronto you're get you're getting better I was just I just don't mind you see me leaning it's because I got a slightly different light setup and it I kind of ran out of time in perfecting it so maybe I should have just moved my entire existence this way a bit um yeah it's Toronto not toron I was just I was just SM fun right like if I went if I went to uh Ville and I said hey are you guys from Louisville no it's Louisville yeah exactly and I thought it was just your accent saying it but I've since Heard lots of people from Louisville calling it Louisville so yeah anyways that's not what we came to talk about today it is not it is not hope everybody's had a good week so far um some crazy stuff going on and some cool stuff going on and some more crazy stuff going on so a few things to talk about yeah but first I want to mention and I just I I don't forget it every year but sometimes it sneaks up on me okay today is 13 years of 911 I cannot believe it's been that long I'm sorry did you say 13 years 13 years 2001 oh sorry yeah I'm sorry 23 years had times to me laughing 23 years I was about to say the same thing we did by the way we did we did not prediscussion that and from and and you know what a lot of people say with two different perspectives because this is what we do on our show right uh we talk about difference differences and similarities between United States and Canada and and we got a whole bunch of subjects we haven't even touched yet that we're GNA really have fun with uh in the future but the one thing about it is just to be brief in that area is that that affected Canada every bit as much as it affected the US for all kinds of reasons we know a lot of the same people we're married to people across the border we have kids and family and children and parents and brothers and cousins across the border we work across the border uh and and so on and so on and people who from several different countries perished unfortunately in that event yeah and and also let's not forget when they close the American airspace uh we have NORAD here right North uh what do you call it nor yeah North American I can't remember North American Brad yeah exactly the bottom line is it's there to protect North America and it and it is equally involved Canada and United States are are together in protecting all of our coastal regions around the entire of North America um so basically the bottom line is when they Clos the entire us airspace 100% to everything but authorized military uh that within 30 seconds became an order in can as well the exception was Canada allowed planes to fly in so that people would die midair and had to land in Canadian space and demanded when they had some pilot saying no no no we're going to New York and they couldn't even get a hold of anybody in New York because they they shut everything down and they said no you cannot change your radio and you cannot change your course if you do not Land in Gander you will be met and they said this I've actually heard radio you will be met with milit aircraft you must land at Gander or whatever airport they were closest to so there were planes that were way past Gander they had to land in Winnipeg if they were too far far past Winnipeg they had to land in Calgary Edmonton and so on well it makes sense because I mean the whole attack was with airlines not not like military jets so it could be any any passenger airline could be a weapon and it doesn't matter how small it is because well they were only big jets so they should have allowed uh you know a couple of what no I never heard anybody say that but i' I've heard a couple of people recently who were too young to be be there to understand it and say well did they allow no they didn't because you never know they it could be a ruse while they actually send a much bigger bomb inside a small plane you don't know right so they have to check everything out and it took them I can't remember I think it was like three days before they would allow passengers to go home again uh yeah it's it was so it was so messed up if anybody if anybody's wondering just how serious it was uh in regards to how much uh Canada got involved in in basically keeping the air air air safe for everybody and I mean the people on the planes uh just look up Gander newfinland uh what is it called operation yellow ribbon I believe Google that and and see just how far even that one small town went and how many how many jumbo Jets a tiny little airport that was honestly once the largest airport in the world yeah it was made as a military uh airst strip like a hundred years ago or something like that uh for World War one or two or what well before two but uh specifically to get it you know quick take off you know the fastest way to get overseas into the into the theater yeah yeah of course it grew into a normal town and yeah well I never forget cuz my brother had just gotten out of the army and I remember him getting a message from command and because you know when you get out of the military at least in the US I don't know how it is in Canada but you have to be you automatically go into a reserve status so they can call you back within I know like a maybe a three or four year period of time they can automatically call you back for you know if they need to and he got a message from command that they might be recalling some people back into the service but he didn't get called up but he's he was like he's like hell yeah I'll go I'll go and you know it was a crazy time crazy time anyways 23 years not 13 math is hard for me so you uh yeah it's it's always a day to remember because I I think everybody that was of any adult age at that time knows exactly where they were when that I think anything over anything from like 11 or 12 and up and you probably remember it probably you know maybe even younger for some people yeah I I'll never forget it I'll never forget it but anyways so that's just my the first thing wanted to make mention of so yeah excuse me sorry I'm having a little bit of a sinus issue just a weather change here it's kind of got a little cool in the morning so H poor baby it's still it's only about that I'm sure I'm sure it's only like 55 or 55 I mean 65 degrees in the morning and you're freezing to death 50 thank you 50 oh poor baby 50 i w I woke up the other morning and it would have been closer to about 40 43 so yeah I'm not ready for 43 yet but when I get to Germany Germany temperatures right now are uh mid high 60s during the day and 40s at night daytime temperatures fantastic I love it got to do a lot of walking around so it's wait a minute when you when you going um I leave next Friday it'll be colder then sorry tell you no according to the 10day forecast as of right now through the 25th it's mid high 60s really oh they're get okay they're getting a little bit of a a hang on to the decent weather there then which is nice it's not hot uh but it's not cold so trust me I've been paying close attention because the only day that I really care anything about weather is on the 26th which is when we're supposed to drive nurburging I don't want it to rain I don't care what the temperature is I just want zero rain all the other days I don't care I would love to be there and I would love to drive the track in the driving rain if I had the proper wheels for it I've done a racetrack uh in in in the rain and watched everyone else either going really slow or skining out and I was just zipping along past him no problem because I had tires that were meant to drive in the rain I understand but the laws of physics not not at not I didn't have tires that were meant to drive in the rain at 250 km an hour mind you but no but you know laws of tell you a r Road a a r Road does not have as much taction as a apparently I hav having a really hard time talking tonight soorry good and there's this week short yeah yeah it's on me this time Wet Wads in all so anyways but uh all right Bara Walters what's what's next on the agenda or first on it really because we haven't really gotten to number one yet yeah well no I guess I guess really the first thing I was going to talk about was the um the debate we just had the Harris Trump debate uh and it's this was a really highly anticipated debate of course you know K haris has never had a debate like this but she's been a successful prosecutor for many years she's an attorney so you know she's done a lot of debating in courtrooms for sure well of course she has but here's what I want to know and I'm sure everyone watching wants to know is did she do well she did very well much better than expected in the beginning you could tell she was her nerves I guess probably got the best of her um you could tell she was a little not skittish but you can just tell people's voice you know get a little crackly or whatever but then once she got through the first like five or 10 minutes and she started actually answering questions and getting into the thick of it she took it away and she was she was confident and very precise in most of her answers of course both of them beat around the bush you know with half the answers but um yeah I everyone believe everyone thinks that she actually um controlled the the whole debate I'll tell you this here's here's one thing that impressed me the most is that you know Trump can be very intimidating cuz he's he's an [ __ ] and he that's how he kind of like Rules by intimidation right yeah and never once did I see any type of intimidation from her as a matter of fact most of the time when she was debing him or rebuking him is that right again I'm not talking well anyways she would look she would turn her head and she would look at him and she would just like burn holes to the side of his head and he refused to look at her he would not look at her but she would stare him down and just literally like rebuke everything he was saying to his face but yet he would not turn and look at her and I thought that was impressive he hardly even wouldn't even say her name he kept saying you know Biden Biden Administration Biden this and she finally said I am not Biden I am Camala Harris you know so I am my own person you know uh but yeah I thought it was very interesting debate I am not I am not Biden I am uh Camala Khan I mean Harris no superpowers I will say for those of you watching um I am not Democratic I am Republican by Nature I'm conservative I don't like a lot of the democratic policies and the way they do things and uh but I also don't like a uh fascist Marxist Putin wannabe in the white house either and that's what the other side is so again Trump's got some good ideas and I I don't think a lot of his policies as far as economics are necessarily bad but I just think the man has other intentions that people don't get I have to dive in when you say that I sorry I have to dive in I don't think Trump has any ideas whatsoever yet alone good ones anything that is involved in in any way shape or form anything that he talks about is somebody else came up the idea every bad idea that he throws out is someone else telling him don't let him do that to you just tell him no and it's and spout off some of your BS I mean yeah man doesn't do anything I mean we I could go on and on about the guy and then everyone's gonna get mad we're gonna end watch well this will be the our most viewed one because Trump lovers will come bashing after me or something well you know he he one of the things that a lot of the moderators and that you know this stuff I read after the fact said that Trump stayed pretty much on the defensive and he kept going back to the same old [ __ ] you know you know basically um ridiculing criticizing you know the way he does and everyone know anything else everyone said that when he was asked specifically like what's your plan cuz he doesn't like Obamacare he wants to get rid of Obamacare but he didn't get rid of it when he had the chance when he was in office because he didn't have a plan to get rid of it and he couldn't just like end it because you're going to kill insurance for millions of Americans right and so they asked him again like well you want to get rid of Obamacare what is your plan to get rid of Obamacare and he's like well we're we're we have some things we're considering and he doesn't have a plan but on the flip side of that um Harris was very much like yes I have a plan I have ideas and and things I want to put in motion you know and he kept saying at the very end was really his most poignant um rebuke to her was why haven't you done it you've had three and a half years in office as vice president why haven't you done it and which is good point he should have brought that up like way earlier in the whole debate but again she's vice president she's not the president she still has to you know kind of rule under Biden's you know term of ideas and etc etc but I don't know it's going to be very interesting how if votes are swayed after the debate of course you're going to have the Trump loyalists you're going to have Democratic loyalists you know and we'll just have to see how the whole coin Falls but I don't like either one of them regard but I thought she did a very good job in the debate I just want to point that out I don't neither one of them are my candidate if I could take the best of both of them and make one candidate I'd vote for that person but I don't I can't do that so right right yeah I I get what you're saying there but she did very well I was very impressed with her Poise and her um her demeanor and her not being intimidated she the fact that she just kept staring him down and he would not look at her to me spoke volumes they didn't have to say anything that spoke a lot to me but right yeah we'll see it's going to be uh it's going to be a crazy one I I don't expect this whole election to go um smoothly at all because you know you're going to have the whole you know if if if the Democrats win again it's going to be stole again you know and it's just you know any rate so that's all I want to say on that um topic that's well it's going to be time as we get in there a little bit a little bit antsy it's like watching it's like watching your third favorite football team play in the Super Bowl against your least favorite team and you're not really sure why you're watching um yeah so anyways we we'll move on to the next topic and we'll we'll save that for the next debate or when we get closer CU now I wonder what the next topic should be was there any news this week oh man let's have a quick quick little discussion about uh do you have you uh got any news about what these things have going for them anything new about them how much they've been updated any of that stuff or uh should I well I didn't have a chance well no I mean you you probably know more than I do only because I did not get a chance to even watch any of it um I did read a few things I know that um it's not even being released with their apple intelligence but that is correct think I think they missed the boat in calling it I AI I mean I could be wrong there but I never you know what I never even thought of that that would have actually been kind of cool I AI I AI I Ai and it's not even like a tongue twist you just yeah yeah Beauty titanium okay that's nothing new uh we we know about the titanium I don't think didn't we do this once before in a podcast where we rolled through uh uh featur not with the not with the iPhone stuff no there was something I seem to remember doing this once before I I yeah there was there was a product we looked at I don't remember what it was to be honest with you maybe it wasn't important maybe it was a flop did we predict that uh okay fenis borders are any Apple product this by the way is a is um a misrepresentation on this picture I I can tell tell you that right now the the reason why I say that the one on the right side uh is simply because I've actually seen a picture of it in a guy's hand oh sorry video and it's it really does look a lot closer to what you would see on the pixel 9 Pro XL which is it's not a lot of Border but they make it look like this is almost razor thin and quite frankly just to put this into perspective the Samsung Galaxy s24 Ultra and I I'm guessing probably the s23 I'm not sure are very thin uh um you know bezels and I don't think these quite match up with that I think they're going to be closer to what we see on the pixel so yeah this looks the same I don't yeah interesting well for the most part the phone's relatively the same there is a this sorry no I can't talk it's contagious the um screen size has been grown well grown they've made it bigger on all of the devices certainly the pros but I'm pretty sure they said all of them so uh the bottom one let's get see oh shoot that just changed quickly didn't it uh let's get past that and see if I can find the screen size information um the bottom liners are slightly bigger but if you know anything about iPhone they're always ever so slightly wider and small pigeon yeah they're they're slightly wider and less tall than than your average Android phone right so we all have the that N9 by 16 or 9 by 9 by 20 sorry uh aspect ratio for our phones oh not all but most right whereas iPhone has uh gone with something like a not 9 by6 9 x18 or 9 x 17 or something like that uh I think what they're doing is they're just shaving slightly off so they're making at the tiniest hair like we're talking a millimeter taller which gives them that extra2 or something like that for the screen size so they're going to have a six a 6.9 inch screen on the uh uh what is it 16 Pro Max uh whereas last year was uh I think they said uh 6.7 I think they said it was H so interesting tiny little differences but but but guys who actually had it in their hand said you really can't tell the difference unless you actually slap them beside each other and just kind of stare at them why is my battery saber on my computer's plugged in I I'm starting to panic right about now you know that right um yeah it's uh I I don't um yeah I don't I don't see anything you know I I didn't see anything that was groundbreaking that you know I I was reading through some of the I was just kind of skim through you know some of the information that they were talking about I didn't see anything that was like oh my gosh that's going to be amazing I guess the whole um Apple intelligence thing we'll just have to see how that kind of plays out um I don't know I it's they they have um okay big shoes to fill so to speak I think they have you know they're going to have to yeah hope hopefully they've taken their time of Silence to perfect their product so when it comes out it's actually going to be um as good as chat GPT Gemini has actually made some big improvements here recently so yeah uh absolutely uh jeez I wanted to show you this uh okay wow this is so there's the screen sizes yeah 6.9 and 6.3 yeah are you seeing the the the cost in America sorry Canadian did just to put this into perspective that's starting from the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at 256 gabt the pixel uh I can't even think straight uh pixel 99 Pro XL in Canada the 256 gigabyte if I'm not mistaken is I think 13 or $4.99 we're talking three or $400 less than this and people are still saying that that the pixel's too expensive well it is too expensive but this is way more too expensive like that's ridiculous I'm sorry uh and as you mentioned the Apple intelligence so me don't get me wrong it'll come up later so I don't want to rag on him too much about that one but yeah goodbye I I I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they're still even making a 256 gigabit phone whether it be apple Google Samsung I don't care 256 is fine that's what the base model should be and it should be inexpensive is all hell uh basically when you write now want to bump up to the next one from for a lot of devices you're bumping up to the 256 and paying an extra 75 to 100 bucks uh yeah that's ridiculous ridiculous uh if the base one is 256 then people say oh well they didn't have the other one so I settled or I couldn't afford it so I'll settle for this one um just to put it into perspective most major uh uh providers cellular providers are now offering rediculously large data packages well yeah but they're charging more money but dollar for dollar per gigabyte you are paying way the hell less than when you paid half the money I have almost 400 gigabytes of data for $30 more than I paid five years ago when I only had 30 gigabytes of data do the math right yeah so that's more that's way way more than a dollar a gigabyte in savings I mean yeah um so phones should be doing the same thing with with the storage yeah I mean I agree 256 wouldn't be a bad minimum but I I really don't think that I don't see why you couldn't do 512 as a minimum look storage is cheap now I mean you buy you could buy storage for a computer for you know one gigabit excuse me a one terabyte stick of memory for not memory but they're sticks now they're not hard drives anymore so those M2 you know chips well the thing is they're not expensive the phones don't use they use ufs well some of them 3.1 Which online there's a whole debate about whether nine series is still using 3.1 it's not it's using four the eight Series did the eight series had four ufs 4 I think no they had 3.1 um and you could tell the difference in the speed of things actually transferring on the phone which when it's a direct transfer has very little to do with how fast your processor is it only has to basically say oh you want a process this okay I'll allow it to happen here's your energy that's it so it doesn't take a lot but the transfer speed at that point is relying on two things what is the medium of which you're transferring from to what uh as in uh is this is this transferring over USBC is it transferring over usba a is it three or 3.1 or 3.2 you know and so on and so on right is it Wi-Fi the but once it gets it the bottleneck is usually going to be how fast can the drive write it and what people have to understand is in order for the drive to write it the drive has to read it so when they say read and write they think oh this one only has to read and this one only has to write no the sending it doesn't have to do [ __ ] except read and then send it so it can be a slow drive technically speaking to a speed aside though the the size is the you know again I bought a one terabyte hard drive for this computer that I'm on right now yeah and it was like $125 well yeah how can you charge $100 to go from 12 128 to 256 hang on a second there there there there is another reason for it and yes it's still technically cheap but it's more expensive than what you put on your computer stuff the stuff they put into the phone uh is is like I said it's not m.2 stuff it's actually not as fast and it should be because theoretically they could maybe not right now but in the next couple of years they should be able to actually make another version of an m.2 that's small enough to able to actually put in a phone and not generate too much heat that's the biggest deal by the way that's why they use us F S4 because of how small they can make it and how how how fast it can still read but it is massively slower than M2 even at even at as it's massive well I get that but 128 gig phone is ridiculous I know but but here hear me out now okay the thing is is that the ufs 4 cost way more than double what m.2 costs and there's a reason for that because the only time you ever buy the ufs 4 is if it's going in in in a portable device like that right that that we just don't have access to technically speaking unless we have you know ways to get into that or you own a business or whatever whereas you can get m.2 off of Amazon you can have it delivered later that day or the next day for next to nothing yeah no shipping cost and put it in whatever it would fit in right I put I put a small I put well I put a fulls size one I no sorry a small one in the laptop I put a really big one it's actually much bigger in in where am I pointing PS5 here yeah uh so yeah those are cheap and the price is coming down and two two sorry 512 as a base I know you're not the first person to say that that should be a base but good luck with that because the reason why that's not going to happen is because if that's a base that means two terabyte has to suddenly become uh probably a minimum not a minimum a Medi a mid mid-grade mid-range you people are going to be saying well why can't I get a four terabyte then that's because a four a four terabyte stick of of uh storage would still cost well over a thousand dollar by itself yeah well over so no uh so the one the 128 is a joke but the reason 256 has to be a base for now at least for the foreseeable future next year or two is because 512 as a base would mean that you would absolutely have two gigabytes in the midsection and four terabytes would be insanely overpriced and no one would buy it yeah which you made me think of this so I I look this up real quick so I got an email the other day from PlayStation that said hey Western Digital you know because Western Digital makes specific PS5 yeah you know certified M2 chips and their one terabyte is $119 it's pretty cheap they have an 8 tbte stick now guess how much it is just guess how much it is 11,527 be be realistic come on how much you think okay uh 3500 Canadian $6 American okay you're not being serious but $1,000 us I well I was right thousands of dollars in Canada what's it called what's it called it's the Western Digital black SN 850p nvme wow you said that so fast there's no I going to remember Western Digital black uh I wasn't finished well yeah what the hell you pull it up then instead you already know what you're looking for let see here that's I don't remember what did I get uh for the PS5 um it wasn't Western Digital uh although I would buy a Western Digital because that is a very well-respected oh yeah they make good stuff but eight terab oh my God I tried to I I just tried to click on this with my mouse what an idiot I it's not working uh wow eight ironically terab that's you know what I'm sorry that's a good price see in Canada that 349 one that'll be at least 450 close to 500 and that sounds about right for for right now but here's the funny thing is you can go to four terabytes half and even if it wasn't so not on sale it's 390 that's less than half of 8 terabytes you're telling me it costs more than double to go twice as big yes I don't know about that it doesn't but that's just what they're doing because they it's memories always been like that you know that yeah see one terab to two terabytes that's good I mean you know you went from 119 both both of those have dropped down ridiculous two terabytes is going to be a base number pretty soon for that type of memory and honestly the PlayStation is one of the reasons why it will more people bought those that type of drive for ps5s than they did for PCS in in the last three years during during covid when when everybody started finally getting their P their ps5s the sale of those things when once they did the update allowed you to do it through the roof yeah well I I can see why you would need a lot of stores though because as you and I both experienced when they pushed that update for the Black Ops 6 yeah it was like 90 gigs um and it ended up uninstalling some other stuff because neither one of us had enough room because of other games we had and we both have two terabytes of space between the two ssds so I mean I get it but that's and just be clear I put all my I put all of my PS5 games as opposed to older PS4 games that are even if they're upscale for PS5 if they're not registered in the system as PS5 they go directly on the PS4 or PS5 storage on the PS5 storage they go on the m.2 uh if they're a PS5 game and there is a reason for that it is actually considerably and noticeably faster than the internal storage that comes with PS5 mine is and if you bought that one for instance it would be exactly the same thing it's much faster like if you look at the specs on that I guarantee you that one's got you up in the six to seven megabit megabyte per second uh read and write area oh I'm sure yeah yeah because if it's not don't do it it has to be at least 5500 or you don't or you won't put it in there PS5 won't even take it if it's not 5500 they basically put in a a hard stop that it has to be actually better than the drive that they put in it yeah and which is probably why Western Digital says it's certified PS5 because they're basically telling Sony we guarantee you we're making this to be better than not ever below then so I me I get it but I just thought that was kind of yeah no it goes beyond that Sony actually did make a a a registered program uh very much the same as how Google has uh certified pixel cart right for for things that go with pixel like um when you buy a case uh for for your new phone you go with one that Google has registered as certified uh with them so dbrand with their skins they're actually registered Believe It or Not uh but obviously what's your favorite Casemaker for phones um well I mean I I like the same one you do the spyon um but here l I've been using um I have one that's from Mouse okay both of them are registered with Google perfect and and also both of them are registered with Samsung as well my wife has Peak design I like the peak design the only thing I don't like about the peak design is the button is really hard to push buttons these buttons are easier to push but the peak design has a really great magnetic hold system that works amazing but don't like the button feel well reason why I don't use it Peak design got their certification from Google I believe it was just last year um and they're they're they're a good bet uh it's they don't have what I want in that area although when it comes to holding your camera around your neck on your belt or whatever Peak design I'm talking about like expensive you know Mir camera stuff Peak design is my absolute favorite when I had to sell all my gear the the peak design strap doesn't go with it I've had the same Peak design strap for four cameras yeah well that you know they that's where they got their start as you know and they moved into Mobile stuff so uh but they have a whole line of you know magnetic yeah wireless charging devices desktop stands they even have one that you can like literally Stick it to the wall it's not charging but it you know you can like stick your phone to the wall yeah it's pretty cool I like their stuff I just don't like the button field it's too hard it it's really hard to push it well I you know what I'll probably never get the chance to see it because I've never seen anybody with one in real life and they're not exactly in abundance everywhere right now they probably will be much more popular in the future but I doubt that they'll catch up with with mouse who is extremely popular because of a massive social media campaign to get them out there the last couple of years it's worked very well they're very popular uh people love them and they do make really nice looking stuff um yeah I like I like my span not because or as you like to call it spyin it's like it's like nich Nish n i mean n n whatever you call whatever you want I I I like I like it because um first of all it's proven itself to me after break they're great cases yeah after breaking two consecutive phones uh that weren't pixels by the way this was before the pixel era um I I just like you know what I can't do this anymore I'm going to have to grab a case and then I broke a couple of you know was that both of them on the face of it right so I I discovered um the liquid air from span and I won't get another one because the the one that they call some Thin thing it's really not actually thinner but it's a little it's not quite as soft and you know like this and it's it's pretty much the same money and I don't know if I'd like it so I just why not go with the one I know I like and every year they always have it available and it always becomes available about three days before the phone is released yeah and it's more than enough time because it's always available on Amazon and I get it immediately so I've used the same one but they have a lot of other things if you like different designs there's a lot of other makers uh for all the phones it doesn't matter what you get by the way all these manufacturers make cases for iPhones for Samsung for Google uh belroy is a little bit well they're not new to it technically but they're one of the newer ones in the big Market yeah uh they make like real leather not faux leather that they call real leather actual leather that they put on the cases so yeah belroy yeah well uh there was something I needed to bring I was going to bring up and I we got sidetracked a little bit there and I think I forgot what it was yeah we got went from a iPhone to storage to PlayStation mbes and yeah a little bit of that a little bit of this yeah yeah so I got it yep here we go okay the um uh pixel 9 Pro fold God that's a mouthful that pixel 9 Pro fold uh is in and you can find them uh in store so I went to to go check it out um my first impression is oh my God this is really cool I like it like honestly if it had a better camera I'd probably go but then I found a second Pro and uh in my opinion it's a software issue they can fix easily like that no problem um but it took a while I had to get the salespeople in there to allow me to P piss around with the phone for a while and and and then I explained to them what I was doing and then explain to them the only way you could get around it so I found out here's what it was with the fold you've got your regular same size the N9 not the XL or 9 Pro not the XL same size anyway basically the screen's the same as the 9 Pro when you open it up it's absolutely gorgeous I promise you yes you can feel the crease you don't see it so much when there's anything on the screen and if you open it up it's likely going to be something on the screen so it's really nice it opens completely flat which is fantastic extremely responsive screen everything looks fantastic about it the size is great but then I I had it open and I did the the um Circle to search thing right and just let me see if I can search something there Circle to search and it worked perfectly fine so I opened it and thought well this would be really cool to use when you've got this opening you do all this room you Circle the search and you can see all your results right away and there was no way to to turn it on it did not work so I kept playing with it playing with it so I went over to the Samsung and the Samsung work but of course the Samsung is default on three button menu ding ding ding ding ding light bulb I go back to the pixel I turn on the three button navigation open it up boom there's Circle to search does not work so I go back to the Samsung I said to the sales guy I'll bet you $1,000 right now that I can take the Samsung and put it on gesture instead of three button and it'll still do Circle to search in the open screen in the middle he says well I'm not going to take the bet but I I I it's probably the it's probably it's probably an Android problem not not not not pixel I said you want to make a bet and I opened it up I changed the setting and I and and I and there there was a little line at the bottom that let me see if I can open this up at the bottom of the phone that little line down there that you have to put your hand on right yeah it was there on both phones but I put my hand on that held it for a half a second and guess what the uh uh the uh whatever you call zold 6 did Circle search exactly perfectly without fail so I went back to the pixel turned it back to the three button menu double checked it it work went back to the gesture nothing Google you drop the ball huge on this one that's a big problem people oh you could just close it and work you Circle the search you're on the same page it doesn't change the page but but you now you have to start looking for what you want to search the whole point of circle to search is a circle right then and there so you should be able to do it with the damn thing open if Samsung can do it why can't you so there's my and I'm a fanboy I'm a pixel Fanboy but if I see a problem with it call you out on it I'm gonna call you out on it it's true yeah it's I I you know there's a lot of things like that though that are like why why why would you not think about that I mean you know yeah I and again I'm sure I you know by I watch the whole Google thing the phone does look fantastic obviously I haven't seen one in person and the screen looks beautiful I love the size of it I would love to have a big screen like that but I it's and it's not so much whether I can even see or feel the crease that's not the issue to me it's just the reliability of the screen that I'm still in question so I understand that and you have your reasons behind it but given that there's been zero issues with screen reliability on the pixel fold and it was a first generation garbage compared to the second one uh by that's by that's what that's what uh uh reviewers are saying that have had the first one and now they're on the second one and they're saying there's the Worlds Apart some of them say they loved the design of the passport style first one but they're way more in love with the second one in all honesty I never thought I would like it that much if it had and this is the biggest caveat for me if it had the proper Pro camera system in it then doesn't it I don't I don't even understand why it doesn't it doesn't even well I can tell you why you see how thick this or thick how thin this phone is right it's actually each side of it each side is thinner than this by a good margin that's why this doesn't work very well so they have to go with last year's at best phone this one's deeper people say oh they got the same camera in it no they don't they put different lenses in it so they it there's actually a different focal uh uh length in it uh you might think it's the same but there's a difference between the focal length between where it focuses and where it has to go to there so that might be the same but you might have a different distance between the lens and the sensor last year's like this I was under the impression more depth of field yeah I was under the impression the thickness of each side when it was laid open was the same as the thickness of a regular phone so what you're saying is much thinner when it's closed it is almost exactly the same as this okay oh makes sense exactly the same it's so unbelievably th it's like basically putting your hands on the thinnest OLED TV you've ever seen in your life at the top Edge not the bottom where all the speakers are and stuff so I'm curious what is that fold in Canadian dollars how much is oh God you're hurting me You' been asking me to look I'm scared let just no no no I know I know I can't get my mouse to work otherwise i' I'd go look um let me go check it out here all right let's see I wonder if I can get this to do this uh what you call it uh Google store oh it did work awesome okay let's browsing some phones yeah let's browse the phones all right let me go back here and share the screen while I'm already almost there oh wait a minute got to get this ready to actually hit the share button screen yeah I'm starting to figure out how to do this now after 177,000 years so when I hit share it doesn't mean you can see it show on stream uh yeah there we go the Google one all right let me get to it got to go back to this window where's the fold oh there it is fold did I click it I thought I clicked it did anything happen I don't think anything happened dude oh wait a minute all right this something's wrong here it's it's refreshing now it looks like yeah but it that should have just been instantaneous okay so $23.99 so it's from $23.99 so I was curious though to compare it to the iPhone price which was 17 oh that that9 no that's not a good comparison they don't have a foldable that's not fair I know no that's my point that's exactly my point though is I wanted to compare what their regular was to the foldable and Bas oh I see what you're saying yeah yeah you're you're paying $600 more to have a foldable in the pixel versus a regular phone in the iPhone now granted obviously there's some of the hardware that's a lot different I was just curious to compare you know what their normal phone was to the fold so yeah right now I just like to know why their why their site is going so slow I think it's because the fold is actually ridiculously popular right now as expensive as it is it's selling like hot cakes for something as expensive as it is everybody's dog seems to want one I thought I look at that Jesus I it wouldn't go back to the page I wanted so it jumped um all right let's go in here man I might be better off just going to one of the uh well no you answered my question you don't I mean no yeah but I didn't answer my question I want I I want to see because I know what I'm paying at Rogers which is an inflated price I want to know what what they're charging here what does it say yeah that's nine the folding us oh there we go oh stop oh no I still fold it jumped back up again stop jumping okay pixel 99 Pro that's 9 Pro where's the XL ah click it up top no that that says 9 pro and pro XL but then it only shows you the one so I actually have to click on Buy in order to see it okay from $499 so $300 difference however that said this of course starts at 128 not 256 so if I were to click on this one and then swi oh God it's not even letting me did they sell out or is it just not loaded yet what the hell's going in going on I mean yeah let's okay oh I didn't pick one that's why I'm an idiot uh okay 256 16 29 so it's $170 less um yeah before tax that's still a significant price difference I up to maybe a $100 I could see a difference but I think they've over premium premiumize I know that's not really a word I think they've over premiumize their device at Apple uh to make it uh Google I can almost understand doing this because they're trying to make themselves look like a direct competitor to Apple remember what I said before I've been saying this since we started the podcast by the way uh Google is not trying to compare them or sorry not competing with Samsung they have zero desire to compete with Samsung they are in competition specifically with apple and there is the proof in the pudding H and the pricing is trying to get there but they're still undercutting well not really because hey Apple price there just now um but they're also uh not trying to get you know step on the toes of Samsung so a a 16 Pro Max in the US starts at $199 pixel 9 Pro XL 256 starts at 11.99 the 128 is $10.99 and the fold is$ 1739 wow so wait what did you say why am I jerky okay okay I'm fine now uh what did you say the uh 9 Pro XL was 11 11.99 I meant the iPhone the iPhone 16 Pro Max I meant oh um $199 so they're actually the same price in the US yeah the [ __ ] Google what the [ __ ] are you doing or more importantly Apple what the [ __ ] are you doing why would you charge an extra $800 or $700 in Canada what the [ __ ] they're basically saying it cost 600% no no more than that 900% more well what's the well no I mean what I don't know my math is bad what you remember the price was there it was like 1799 whereas the pixel was was $170 less so it just sounds it's your US dollar is not Canadian I mean I know that's what I'm saying if you forget even if you take into account the exchange rate why is the exchange rate higher for iPhone than it is for for Pixel you understand what I'm saying right pixel's exchange rate is pretty close to smack on for the difference in the dollar value plus the extra amount it would cost for shipping which is a fact because you have to factor in the shipping not just the exchange rate this gas that they have have to pay for in both us and Canadian dollars when they ship it fuel right um Apple seems to have over inflated on the Canadian end for the exact same thing they should be the same damn difference in price they are really seriously ripping up Canadians I don't usually say this but why the hell would you buy an iPhone at that PR that would you crazy do you hear I see you're saying you're so so our 1799 fold is your $2,300 fold versus our 1199 Pro Max is your 2300 Pro Max so I see what you're saying No No 7 1799 Pro Max it's $1800 oh right right right yeah yeah yeah so it's yeah yeah but but but yet the pixel uh is is 7 $170 less than than than that but in the US the iPhone Pro Max and the pixel 9 Pro XL 256 gig are the exact same price yeah so there's zero reason why there should be a difference like that in Canada they should be the same price now pixel is not undercutting themselves in Canada for that phone so apple is way overcharging Canadians for the phone interesting way overcharging Canadians for the phone Apple yeah interesting hang on one second I can't believe I'm taking a phone call while I'm no I'll call him back what's my watch calling though that's funny anyways okay yeah so yeah enough about that but um well we are almost out of time but I do want to bring up one other thing on the AI side of things and we talked about it was the Gemini stuff um so you know they're making a lot of advancements and of course because I have that two terabyte plan of course you have it too with uh your phone the Gemini Advanced but they have these things now called gems um yes gyms and it's basically a like so like in chat GPT you have these chat Bots these GPT they call them that can be customized for specific routines or like specific functions well the gym is basically the same thing so it's basically Gemini's GPT where it can be very specific to like a like for example I want to write a blog it would be like a gym specific that's designed to to do blog posts right and that's what its like whole function is that's what it's geared towards and and optimized for so I think it's pretty cool there's something I'm testing for Google right now in a beta I can't really talk about it yet but it actually works really really well uh it's got some weird quirks which I'll put in my little feedback stuff but um it actually works really really well but they do have some you know basic ones that are available I think you said you had some when you looked at it right uh well I I looked I've I've looked at it I don't understand it I don't know what to do with it so you're the guy in that direction to talk about that I'd actually like to know exactly what uh see like for example here's ones that are basically the like part of it so for example um they have a gym called Career guide unlock your career you're pointing at it but you're not showing it to us yeah well I can't because it's got some of the stuff in there that that beta testing so okay okay all right sorry yeah look sorry but no so like writing editor right so writing coach they have things that are that are like optimized and specifically written to do a specific kind of task so um I think it's pretty cool it's it's again it's just like a GPT in chat GPT where you can go uh search for a GPT to like write a blog post and it's geared specifically for writing blog posts or whatever the case may be so um yeah I think it's pretty cool I personally wouldn't know what to do with any of it because again it's that's that's kind of beyond my scope of how to how to do things but um I'm I'm glad others know uh in all honesty when it comes to Gemini I just like to see Thrice the amount of voices available and way more diversity because even the ones with accents sound very very very MidWest America not that there's anything wrong with MidWest America but if you're not from there you're probably wondering why don't I not you know what I want to know why doesn't any of these do a nice southern accent people make fun of Southern Accents but there's millions of people with Southern Accents because that's just how their accents ended up being it's no different than an English accent or New York accent so why can't I get I I haven't even looked to see what what kind of accents I I assume my voices here in the US side would be the same as yours out imagine they're exactly the same voices yeah there's no difference I don't have any French Canadian voices which would also be kind of neat I mean I'd love to say hey how's the weather the weather is going to be good today Theon uh yeah so anyways that's what those gems are and I think I think they're on the right track though I think they're again they're trying to compete with the chat gpts that are available that you can have do specific you know functions and tests like I I mean I had some in mind when I used chat GPT before I moved over to Gemini so they're just like you know code Snippets that are geared and optimized for a specific you know type function is all it is so anyways I think that's uh all I wanted to talk about and I guess we're right at our our normal hour oh wow has it been it has been an hour already yeah yeah we've been uh we've been rambling about all kinds of crazy stuff we have uh not really rambling we've been talking about it it's what we do that's what we do here what we do united we stand divided we podcast it's what we do and by the way if anybody's still wondering I don't know how many of you may or may not be yes my pixel9 Pro XL I still love it it's still the best phone I've ever had not just the best pixel the best phone I've ever had it's phenomenal battery life is Fantastical so there you have it I don't have a lot it has its own pillow reviewer in that respect uh and unfortunately I still haven't got a lot of stuff going on and I still have another video I have to do about the edits for the last video I put on my channel um but again I will say before we leave both of us have other channels links in description but this one don't forget to like where where wear the buttons down here somewhere it be this way like And subscribe hit the Bell icon and all stuff or maybe you could pop something up right here nah that's too much work but you can check out one of these videos oh wait I'm not in the middle of the screen you have to put your hand up on the other side one of these video go ahead go ahead put your hand up one of these no the other hand yeah because remember there's both both of us so it's one of these videos actually actually I have it Center so it'd be like this like oh really okay yeah but you're do you're Center you're talking about there but there's two of us on the screen so I guess we should uh maybe move o oops sorry I moved wrong way move over and go like this that's funny uh okay so in in in in in in uh I was going to say conclusion but uh that's not it what is that when you say something in post uh at the end uh basically the last thing just to to recap that's it pixels excellent pixel fold fantastic but Google you made a mistake you left something out uh you can't really go wrong with any flagship phone but beware you're not going to get your Apple intelligence out of the box if you buy it on day one and Canadians if you buy an iPhone you're getting ripped off exactly uh obviously it's been 23 years but there's still people that hurt our hearts go out to all of you survivors and and people lots of loved ones uh be safe out there everybody and you have a wonderful week and we'll see you again soon I'm Lionel from Toronto and I'm Robert from Nashville see you next week CIA