finder.com.au Money Podcast #12 – Mobile trends, a Vegemite economy and pizza shoes

On this week’s finder.com.au Money Podcast, we give you the lowdown on air in a jar, pizza-ordering shoes and why finding a $20 bill could be more trouble than it’s worth. We also welcome back editor-in-chief Angus Kidman, who updates us on all the new phones launched at the Mobile World Congress, and explains how Vegemite gives us insight into good money habits.

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• Transcript

  Announcer: Welcome to the Money Podcast, from finder.com.au, Australia's most visited comparison site. The Find the Money Podcast is your weekly dose of finance and consumer news, tips, and tricks without the boredom.
  
  Marc: Hello, and welcome to The Finder.com.au Money Podcast, episode 12, a cracker of an episode.
  
  Adam: A dirty dozen. That's what we call it.
  
  Marc: The dirty dozen has been achieved. Today we have Angus, the always interesting Angus Kidman, with us to talk about mobiles and, possibly, Vegemite.
  
  Liz: We won't tell you anymore.
  
  Adam: That and how the two go together.
  
  Marc: Yeah. I was just about to say.
  
  Adam: And possibly even some little chat about housing, house prices, trying to get into the housing market.
  
  Marc: Yeah, and no deposit loans and so on and so forth.
  
  Liz: No deposits? Are you saying I have a chance to buy a house?
  
  Adam: Oh, just you wait! Let's not spoil it for the folks at home...
  
  Marc: Patience, Liz, patience.
  
  Adam: ...all gathered around their radios.
  
  Marc: Their radio machines. And a big thank you to our listeners who have subscribed so far on iTunes. Yes, we're on iTunes, so please, drop us a little subscribe, you know? Just press that little button.
  
  Adam: And if you haven't subscribed yet, what the hell is wrong with you?
  
  Liz: It's deeply upsetting.
  
  Adam: Yeah. It's okay.
  
  Marc: Adam alienated our DJ listeners last week...
  
  Adam: I know.
  
  Marc: ...so I just wanna say sorry.
  
  Adam: Look, I apologize in advance for every listener I am going to alienate over the course of this podcast.
  
  Marc: Don't take this personally.
  
  Adam: Pay me no heed.
  
  Marc: But yeah, it's been quite a miserable morning at Finder HQ. I'm soaked. My boots are just awash with street debris.
  
  Liz: Yeah, I had no umbrella. It was awful. Really, really bad.
  
  Marc: No umbrella? Liz!
  
  Liz: Yeah, this is why I look so disheveled.
  
  Adam: I'll tell you, this is how bad it was this morning for me getting to work. I was waiting for the bus, and it was supposed to appear promptly at 6:41. 6:41 came and went with no bus. The next one was supposed to appear at 6:57. 6:57 came and went with no bus. At this point, I have to be at work in two minutes. And I had to take a cab to work. I had to take a cab because no buses. I could've taken an Uber, but as we have already established, I am afraid of them.
  
  Liz: Adam's deep-seated fear of Uber drivers and the conversation that they force upon him.
  
  Adam: That's right. And I rode in complete silence with the cab driver, so it was glorious. But yeah, it was not a good start to the morning.
  
  Marc: It never is, when you have to take a cab to work, I think.
  
  Adam: No, something has gone awry in most cases when you have to take a cab to work.
  
  Marc: I often wonder there, because I catch the bus. And I often wonder, "So these buses that don't appear, what happens to them?"
  
  Adam: I know. Did something horrible happen to this bus? Because there's no other way for it to get where it's going on its route...
  
  Liz: Yeah, it has to drive past you.
  
  Adam: ...than to drive right past me. But it never appeared.
  
  Marc: So do you think that, like, bus is still stuck somewhere before your stop?
  
  Adam: And by that rationale, the next bus is also stuck.
  
  Marc: Maybe it's behind that bus. It's just like, "We can't go around this bus."
  
  Liz; Yeah, you're gonna turn the corner, and there's just this long line of buses, like, all stuck.
  
  Adam: Just bus after bus, stacked up, stuck in quick sand.
  
  Marc: What number bus is it?
  
  Adam: The 426.
  
  Marc: 426? Hopefully you got there on time. Hopefully got there at all. Sorry.
  
  Liz: Definitely not on time.
  
  Adam: If you've seen the 426, please, please tell its family. It's worried.
  
  Liz: The worst thing, though, would be being in a taxi and then seeing the bus arrive.
  
  Adam: Oh, man. If the bus got there, like, at the same time as the taxi.
  
  Liz: Or it's traveling behind you.
  
  Adam: Oh, gosh, you'd just fly into a rage.
  
  Marc: The whole way through traffic, you're like, "Damn, I could be saving money." Well, guys, I think that, possibly, we have a bit of money to talk about today in the news.
  
  Adam: Boy, we sure do, all kinds of news.
  
  Marc: All kinds of news has been just dropping out of the sky much like the deluge currently hitting Sydney.
  
  Liz: Okay, so one thing I did see was... Obviously, we've spoken about Uber on this show before.
  
  Adam: Many times.
  
  Liz: Yes, yes.
  
  Adam: In fact, just a moment ago.
  
  Liz: Yes, that's true.
  
  Adam: No more than five minutes ago.
  
  Liz: So, one thing that I read was that, basically, if you're in an Uber... Like, a lot of the times when I get an Uber, it's because I've been out late, drinking, or something, so it's not really a moment that you wanna remember, but...
  
  Adam: Or can, the next day.
  
  Liz: How did I get over here? Yeah. But, apparently, a lot of Ubers get recorded.
  
  Marc: Really?
  
  Adam: Interesting.
  
  Liz: Yeah, because the whole thing is they have these dashboard cameras, but it doesn't only record outside of the car, like what the driver can see. It's also recording inside.
  
  Marc: Every Uber?
  
  Liz: A lot of Ubers, apparently, because they don't wanna be liable for anything that the customer says happened when it didn't, or for an accident or things like that. But the whole reason that this story came about was the Uber CEO got caught in a video yelling at this Uber driver.
  
  Adam: Yeah, that was bad. That was bad stuff.
  
  Marc: About what? What was he yelling to him?
  
  Liz: It was like the guy was getting angry because the fair prices dropped and the pay rate dropped, and he's like, "I've lost out on this much money," like $96,000 I think he said.
  
  Adam: Yeah. Well, what it was, too, is that the guy was one of the kind of original Uber Black drivers, and to be an Uber Black driver, you have to invest in a certain...you know, only certain vehicles are authorized to be Uber Black vehicles. And so, you know, you have to put in all this investment to buy a car nice enough to be an Uber Black vehicle. And then they keep dropping the rates on them, which makes the model unsustainable for the drivers. And the guy's saying, basically, he's getting less than minimum wage. And so he got in argument with Travis Kalanick, the CEO, who basically told him that, you know, he was one of those people who just tried to blame everyone else for his own problems and he needed to just get over it.
  
  Marc: That's pretty crazy, yeah.
  
  Liz: Imagine being the Uber driver though, and you're really angry about what's happening, and then you get the CEO in the back of your car and you're, like, riding.
  
  Marc: How did he know he was the CEO? How did he know? He must have said, "I'm the CEO."
  
  Liz: It doesn't say on the video. It doesn't show up, but he must've been like, "Oh, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I wanna...," you know.
  
  Marc: That's almost a funny money.
  
  Liz: Almost, yeah.
  
  Adam: It's close.
  
  Liz: I think a lot of the news I'm drawn to is just hilarious.
  
  Adam: Well, I'll tell you what's not hilarious, is one of our major banks is being taken to federal court, has had civil penalty proceedings brought against it by ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. This is basically the regulator that regulates the credit industry.
  
  Marc: Finance cops.
  
  Adam: Right, yeah. So, anything to do with extending credit, ASIC looks into it. You know, they also handle things with the ASX and things like that, but this specifically is about home loans. So, basically, ASIC has brought these civil penalty proceedings against Westpac, and what they're saying is that Westpac failed to properly assess whether or not borrowers can meet their repayment obligations before entering into home loan contracts. They're saying that Westpac, in assessing its seven home loans that they have brought to light here, and they said that Westpac used benchmarks, instead of looking at borrowers' actual expenses, right? And it's said also that it approved loans where a proper assessment would've demonstrated that people couldn't meet their repayment obligations and that they'd at a monthly deficit.
  
  Marc: That's crazy.
  
  Adam: And they also said then, looking at interest-only loans, that Westpac didn't take into account the loans jumping to a higher repayment at the end of the interest-only period when they assessed whether or not people could afford it.
  
  Marc: Wow.
  
  Liz: Oh, really?
  
  Adam: So, look, Westpac is saying that they're gonna defend this in front of the court. They're standing behind their home loan assessments, saying that they've got confidence in their lending standards, they use very sophisticated models. And they've said that the seven loans in question. the people are all meeting or ahead on their repayment obligations. And they're also saying that's untrue that they didn't take into account the people's actual spending habits. But the first hearing is going to be on the 21st of March at the Federal Court in Sydney. So, you know, those of you who love to watch civil court proceedings by ASIC, you'll wanna tune in then.
  
  Liz: Oh, I'm gonna be there.
  
  Marc: It's no Judge Judy.
  
  Adam: No, it's no Judge Judy, but it'll be pretty entertaining.
  
  Marc: The look on Adam's face right now is really contradicting that statement.
  
  Adam: I had to end the news item someway. So it's like, "Oh, it's on the 21st of March, you know, if you wanted to watch or something."
  
  Liz: Mark it down on your diary.
  
  Adam: It was that, or just trail off into unintelligible gibberish. So those were my two ways.
  
  Marc: I can edit that out, anyways.
  
  Adam: Okay.
  
  Marc: I think that's interesting, particularly about the benchmarking, you know, like, they use a benchmark to assess if you can afford a loan or not, whereas Macquarie bank recently came out saying that you've gotta satisfy 12 spending categories before they'll approve you, yeah.
  
  Adam: Yeah. Well, ASIC is actually saying that Westpac here is not alone, that they're going to release information, in the coming days, of 11 more lenders who they've looked into their home loan assessments and found them wanting, apparently. So, those of you who are excited about watching this civil proceeding, you will be on the edge of your damn seats waiting for this info to drop! It's gonna be like the hottest news story of...something.
  
  Marc: Adam's got town crier bell. He's gonna be walking through the streets of Sydney.
  
  Adam: I know. People are just gonna be like they're clicking refresh on Google, like "When is ASIC gonna drop this news?" Just head over to their website, get on the Media Release page, and just refresh every couple minutes, yeah.
  
  Marc: That's interesting. I think it's one to watch, definitely, maybe not in person.
  
  Adam: No one's gonna top the excitement of that, right?
  
  Liz: No.
  
  Marc: So, one thing that I saw was that ANZ and American Express have split up.
  
  Liz: Oh, no!
  
  Marc: So, back in the old times, you could get a Visa or Amex card with ANZ, and usually you'd use both of them to earn points. And the Amex would, generally speaking, earn a few more points than the Visa for comparable transactions, but because Amex isn't accepted everywhere, they give you the option of a Visa. Well, as of 1st of March, that's no longer possible for new cardholders. Existing cardholders will still be able to use their dual cards till 5th of August, but unfortunately, new cardholders with ANZ are not gonna be able to use Amex card anymore.
  
  Liz: That's one of the best things about rewards cards offered by banks, is when you get this dual card. So, if you don't wanna spend a lot more spending on your Amex, so if there's like a 3% transaction fee, you still have the Visa. I use to have a companion card that earned rewards.
  
  Marc: Yeah, companion card. That's it, yeah.
  
  Liz: Yeah, so it's really convenient, so I'm very surprised that they're not offering it, to be honest.
  
  Adam: Who is still going to offer American Express? Because I thought that was the big thing.
  
  Marc: That's a good question.
  
  Liz: I think NAB still has them. I'm not sure of the other ones.
  
  Marc: We could probably post a link, actually, but I definitely know that there are some that still offer that.
  
  Adam: What about American Express makes it an attractive offer? Because Visa in America...I'm not sure if the advertising was over here, but for years, basically, their whole advertising was just a middle finger at American Express, being like, "Hey, here's this awesome place that you can go and get all these awesome things. Guess what? They don't take American Express." And that would be, like, their advertising for everything, like "Look at this cool item you can buy. Not if you have an American Express, dummy." And then there's, like, "Visa. It's everywhere you want to be." And yeah, it just, basically, thumbing its nose at how few places take American Express.
  
  Liz: Well, the issue is it's so expensive for the retails to take.
  
  Marc: Yeah, I think that's the main thing, right?
  
  Adam: So that's what the issue is.
  
  Liz: Yeah, because I used to work at a whole range of different retail stores, and one was like a...
  
  Adam: Getting fired from one after the other.
  
  Liz: Yeah, just continuously, week after week.
  
  Adam: Burning bridges.
  
  Liz: [inaudible 00:13:03] Still not allowed in Westfield.
  
  Marc: I have a photo of Liz offline, come on.
  
  Adam: Is it? And it's not Westfield, specifically, it's just that there's...
  
  Liz: Everyone.
  
  Adam: Yeah, it's basically, all the individual stores. On average, any Westfield Liz walks into, there's going to be at least a dozen stores she's been blacklisted from.
  
  Liz: It's my life. But yeah, so basically, they just opened kind of a pop-up store, so I worked there, and we were talking about how expensive it was for them to take it. And they're like, "I'm not sure if we should charge extra, or, you know, if we should just not take Amex or something like that?" But it's...yeah, I mean, especially for small businesses, I can completely understand why they don't take it.
  
  Adam: That's interesting. And yeah, it's still seen as a prestige type card, isn't it?
  
  Liz: Yeah, for sure. I think, also, they have a bigger range of cards. So you can get charge cards with Amex that you can't really get... I don't think I've seen any Visa charge cards.
  
  Marc: Yeah, I don't think I have either, actually. I'm not sure. We will definitely post a link.
  
  Adam: Can you explain the difference?
  
  Liz: Yeah, sure. So, a credit card is, basically, you get this credit limit, obviously, but you can pay back sort of as much as you want, as long as you repay the minimum. A charge card, usually, is unlimited, except they kind of base it on your repayment history, but then you have to repay it in full each month. So whatever you spend, you have to repay, but I mean, I've read stories of some people paying like hundreds of thousands of dollars of purchases on their charge card, and they get approved based on their repayment history, and how much Amex believes they're able to spend. So, yeah, very cool card.
  
  Marc: Very, VIP.
  
  Adam: So it's like the baller card, basically?
  
  Liz: Yeah, basically. It's the card everyone should aim to have.
  
  Marc: Everyone wants to have.
  
  Adam: That's a great idea, anyway, to repay your balance in full, each month. It's not such a good idea for someone like me to have unlimited spending power, and think, "Well, end of the month, Adam, we'll deal with this."
  
  Marc: That's always a dangerous...
  
  Adam: That's how you end up in a burlap sack, in a ditch.
  
  Marc: That was the last...? No, that wasn't last episode. That was cheap travel hacks with [inaudible 00:15:15].
  
  Adam: Yeah, that's a callback.
  
  Marc: That's what we in the biz call a callback.
  
  Adam: That's why you have to listen to all these things, because otherwise you just don't get the continuity.
  
  Marc: You miss out on the gold.
  
  Adam: Honestly, it's like dropping in the middle of, like, Lost or something.
  
  Liz: Like, what is that polar bear?
  
  Adam: Or it's like watching the entirety of Lost...
  
  Liz: Oh, yeah, and still asking why there's a smoke monster.
  
  Adam: ...and still, none of this makes sense.
  
  Marc: Okay, one last little tidbit that I had was a new study from COPC Inc. Not sure if that's "COPC" or...
  
  Adam: "COPC Inc."?
  
  Marc: "COPC Inc." has revealed that one in three of us are actually prepared to leave our bank in 2017.
  
  Liz: Really?
  
  Marc: So, yeah. Apparently, middle-aged Aussies are the most dissatisfied with their current bank.
  
  Adam: Wow. Do you think that's like a midlife crisis, like, they're looking at younger banks and stuff.
  
  Marc: Yeah, midlife banking crisis.
  
  Adam: Wanna get back out there on the banking scene, get back down to their banking weight.
  
  Marc: Get to mingling, mingling with new banks. So, 42% of middle-aged Aussies are prepared to look outside the big four, basically, for a new bank. And interestingly...well, I suppose it's not interesting. It's pretty obvious, but a bank's ability to resolve customer service issues is one of the main priorities for people looking for a new bank in 2017. And the general feeling is that smaller banks are better at resolving these issues than the big four.
  
  Liz: Yeah, interesting. And also because there're so many new players coming on the scene, and so many new innovative products, so banks are kind of, you know, saying, "We really need to get on this." But, you know, if there is a cooler product out there, you're obviously gonna go for that.
  
  Marc: "Let's run!"
  
  Liz: Yeah, exactly. "Run to [inaudible 00:16:57] something new and shiny!"
  
  Adam: Doesn't that just seem like a hassle coupled with a burden to change banks?
  
  Marc: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, I'm very reluctant to change my own bank.
  
  Adam: I think that's what keeps most people with their banks. It isn't customer satisfaction so much as inertia.
  
  Liz: But I always thought I would stay completely with my bank, and then, like I just said, ran towards something shiny. There was this cool transaction account that I heard about. And I just signed up for that, and now I've kind of got two and I'm like, "Which one should I stay with?" Yeah, but it's cool. It's just basically got these really awesome search functions and things like that. So I can be like, "How much have I spent on McDonald's this month?" and it will tell me.
  
  Adam: A lot. Too much.
  
  Liz: All of your money.
  
  Adam: So you're just stringing this other bank along?
  
  Liz: Yeah, pretty much.
  
  Adam: That's sad.
  
  Liz: Playing the game.
  
  Marc: I actually have to confess that I am currently dating four different banks for transaction accounts.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh, really? Why is that?
  
  Marc: Well, I have Citibank for my international travels, the Citibank Plus, which is lovely by the way. I have a Bankwest for everyday. I have a UBank linked to my savings. And then I have an ING just for the sake of it, I think.
  
  Liz: Do you have any money in there, in the ING?
  
  Marc: No, not in the ING. All in the Citibank, at the moment.
  
  Liz: Do you get charged fees if you don't have any money in there?
  
  Marc: They're all fee-free, luckily, so I'm making it through by the skin of my teeth. Yeah, so it's good though, you know?
  
  Adam: I think it's about time...
  
  Liz: Marc needs help.
  
  Adam: Yeah, you're at that age where it's about time to settle down.
  
  Liz: Yeah, stop playing the field.
  
  Marc: That's what everyone keeps telling me. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry, banks.
  
  Adam: You have a bank just for international travel?
  
  Marc: Yeah, I have. Well, it's a really good product.
  
  Liz: It's funny, that's why I signed up for this other account, because it was fee-free and international money, they didn't charge you any extra cost. And I was going to Chile, as I mentioned a few episodes ago, and you can't actually get a travel money card that holds Chilean pesos, so I had to get an account that I could just, you know, not be charged ridiculous rates for using.
  
  Adam: I feel like we need to have an episode we talk about travel money, because right now, my travel money strategy is, like, sticking as much of country's currency as I can down my sock.
  
  Marc: To prepare for the burlap sack.
  
  Liz: You mean there's a better way?
  
  Adam: Yeah, yeah, and hoping no one finds it. It's just, basically, going to the airport, and being like, "I'll have all the money I need for the next two months in cash, please. I'll put it in my sock."
  
  Liz: Not at the airport.
  
  Adam: Yeah, yeah. No, that's how bad I am at this.
  
  Liz: Worst rate.
  
  Adam: So I would love... Look, I'm the guy who tries to get in an air plan and ends up in a burlap sack, so, like, cut me some slack that I'm not great at changing money. I can't even board a plane properly. But no, I desperately need this episode.
  
  Marc: Adam, we're gonna get you some help. I don't know how and I don't know who, but we'll gonna get you the best in the biz.
  
  Adam: Thank you.
  
  Marc: I'll look through my Rolodex or '90s style pager. Okay, guys, do we have any other news items on our detailed agendas?
  
  Adam: Look, honestly, there's so much to talk about. There really is, but I think that if you just head on over to finder.com.au, then you'll find some of the great content we've been dropping.
  
  Marc: Glorious pieces.
  
  Adam: Probably the best way to do it is finder.com.au/news, and you'll find a pretty good feed of all the stuff we've been talking about, because honestly, there's been a lot going on. A lot.
  
  Marc: Yeah, that's definitely true. So, yeah, definitely head on over and immerse yourself.
  
  Adam: I can't promise it will all be as exciting as that ASIC thing I talked about, but...
  
  Liz: We'll try.
  
  Marc: We'll try and top that. Okay, well, given that, do we think that it's possible within time to talk about financial news of a more humorous nature, then?
  
  Liz: Like my Uber story?
  
  Marc: Like, possibly your Uber story, yeah. We've dipped in and out now.
  
  Liz: Yeah. I'm sorry. I've ruined everything.
  
  Adams: The lines are blurred.
  
  Marc: But shall we embark on a funny money news journey?
  
  Liz: Yes.
  
  Adam: Let's go for it.
  
  Marc: Adam's ecstatic.
  
  [00:21:05]
  [music]
  [00:21:24]
  
  Marc: Okay, so my funny money story of the week was crappy money-making scheme, number 562.
  
  Adam: It's only crappy if it doesn't make money.
  
  Marc: That's true actually. So, this British expat is bottling fresh mountain air from Switzerland for a breathtaking £200 a bottle.
  
  Adam: Breathtaking?
  
  Liz: I think people would buy that though.
  
  Marc: Well, okay, so exactly what I thought, so, "No one's possibly gonna buy this." But it says in the story, from the Mirror, it may seem like it's a silly idea, but there is a demand for bottled fresh air in polluted countries such as China, where the wealthy spend thousands of pounds for just a few seconds of relief.
  
  Adam: But you'd had to have some sort of sophisticated apparatus for actually breathing that fresh air.
  
  Liz: Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. Do you just shove your face in the jar? I don't get it.
  
  Adam: Yeah, that doesn't seems like that would work. That seems like Spaceballs. You know Spaceballs?
  
  Marc: I haven't watched it.
  
  Adam: You...? Oh my god. You people...
  
  Marc: Have you, Liz?
  
  Liz: No.
  
  Adam: Oh come on!
  
  Liz: I was scared. I was like, "Please, don't ask me."
  
  Adam: Oh my god, come on. It's Spaceballs. One of the big things is the villains, they're running out of air. And so at one point, Mel Brooks opens up his cabinet and he's got all these cans of Perri-Air, and it's just canned air, and, you know, he, like, opens the can and just breathes it in with this big sigh of relief.
  
  Marc: Well, I definitely think people are doing that with this. So, the man is actually being questioned, you know, like, the journalists are obviously asking, "So, are just walking around town, and just putting, like, a jar, closing a jar?" And he actually said, "I actually go 3000 meters, 10,000 feet up to fetch it. I don't go to car park to get it, honest."
  
  Liz: It means he definitely goes to a car park.
  
  Marc: He's definitely... Like, why did you think of a car park so quickly?
  
  Adam: Yeah, that seemed really specific, didn't it? "I swear I don't just go to a car park."
  
  Marc: So, yeah, they start at £78 for a pint, and £200 for a 3-liter jar.
  
  Adam: Three liters is a far amount of air, it seems like. But once again, it just seems like air would immediately escape before you got a chance to breath it unless you had some kind of breathing apparatus.
  
  Marc: Yeah. I don't know how effective it really is. I mean, and how are you gonna tell the difference, really, in...? Is that possible? How sensitive, you know...?
  
  Adam: How smog-filled of a country have you been to before?
  
  Liz: I've been to China, which is terrible.
  
  Adam: Yeah, it's bad.
  
  Marc: Bangkok, up in Thailand.
  
  Adam: Honestly, you're there for a couple hours, and it feels like you smoked a pack of cigarettes.
  
  Liz: But to be honest, you can escape that by going into sort of an air-conditioned building, so I don't know if you need to pay £200 to breathe mountain air.
  
  Adam: That is true.
  
  Marc: Well, John V. Green definitely thinks that you should, Liz. Give him your money.
  
  Adam: Okay, so, look, we talk a lot about tech here, about the Internet of Things, things like that, and we also...some of you may not know, but we actually did a little project a while back, where we compared delivery services, like Menulog, Deliveroo, and whatever, Uber EATS and...
  
  Marc: Uberoo[SP].
  
  Adam. Yeah. So, what I'm saying - I'm laying the groundwork here - we know the delivery food industry.
  
  Liz: Personally and professionally.
  
  Adam: That's right, yes. Definitely, personally. And we know the old tech stuff here. We've got our fingers in a lot of pies. But, speaking of pies, Pizza Hut has developed a remarkable new Internet of Things type item, and it is a shoe that orders pizza for you.
  
  Liz: A shoe?
  
  Adam: A shoe. So, basically, they're bringing it out for the NCAA basketball tournament in the States.
  
  Marc: Oh, they look cool.
  
  Adam: Those of you who are not au fait with college basketball in America...
  
  Marc: That's me.
  
  Adam: ...hands down, the best sport. Sixty-four teams go into the... Well, 65. There's plenty... Anyway, 64 teams go into the NCAA tournament, so they're making 64 pairs of shoes for, you know, each team in the NCAA tournament, and most of them are being handed out as promotional items, but they're saying that there will be a few available to the public. So what happens basically is the first time you use the shoe... It's kind of like the old Reebok pump. Do you remember the Reebok pump, with the basketball on the tongue?
  
  Liz: No.
  
  Marc: I do.
  
  Adam: Of course not, because you guys are like a decade and a half younger than me. Anyway, you press the tongue and it will go to an app on your phone, and you'll put in your favorite pizza order, your address, so on and so forth, go through the usual rigmarole you will go through...
  
  Marc: I love that word.
  
  Adam: ...with any of these ordering apps. But the next time, all you have to do is press the tongue, you've already put in all of your information, and in 30 minutes or so, piping hot pizza to your door.
  
  Liz: That's the dream.
  
  Marc: Does it use the shoe as the coordinate for where it's getting delivered, or does it just go straight to your previous address?
  
  Adam: I'm guessing it would go straight to your previous address, but my god, what a missed opportunity.
  
  Marc: That's so cool.
  
  Adam: I didn't even think about that.
  
  Marc: And they look really cool, like their fly tops.
  
  Adam: They actually are. They're really cool. I mean, other than the fact that they say Pizza Hut on them. That's a bit lame.
  
  Marc: That's a bit lame.
  
  Liz: Unless you really love Pizza Hut that you don't mind advertising it.
  
  Adam: That's true. But they are pretty cool-looking shoes. Now, if you haven't put in a default pizza option, then it defaults to a large supreme.
  
  Marc: Really?
  
  Adam: Yeah, so just make sure that you've put in your...
  
  Marc: Your preference?
  
  Adam: ...pizza preference, or you're getting a supreme shoved down your face.
  
  Marc: I can see this really going wrong though. You're just tying up your shoes, your getting ready to go for a big day out of work, you press the tongue, and you're like, "Oh, no."
  
  Liz: Like, "Sorry, I've gotta come in late. I've got a pizza coming."
  
  Adam: "I have to wait for a pizza."
  
  Marc: "Again?"
  
  Liz: "Every day this week!"
  
  Adam: "Pizza Hut actually doesn't open for three and a half hours, so I'm guessing it's gonna be at least a half hour after they open until... I'm saying basically, I'm not coming in 'til the afternoon, because once the pizza gets here, I'm gonna need at least 15-20 minutes to eat this."
  
  Marc: To sit down and eat this pizza.
  
  Adam: Yeah, because I'm not letting it go to waste.
  
  Marc: Got a flight in the morning and "Oh, I pressed the tongue. I'm gonna miss that flight. A pizza's on the way."
  
  Adam: That is a good point. Like, do you have to confirm on the app? Like, when you press the tongue, does the app buzz like "Hey, you just ordered a pizza. Did you mean to do that?"
  
  Marc: Exactly, because what happens if someone knows you're wearing the shoes? You're out, you know, you're having a good time, and just press it...
  
  Adam: And then, they're just messing with you just for a goof.
  
  Liz: Or they just pin you down and continuously press 'pizza' so you get home to, like, 50 pizzas. Not that I would do that or anything like that.
  
  Marc: In other words, this is a terrible idea.
  
  Adam: Also, if you're drunk. Then, like, honestly, if I had magic pizza-ordering shoes and combine that with alcohol, I would bankrupt myself very quickly.
  
  Marc: Within minutes.
  
  Liz; Yeah, agreed.
  
  Marc: So, cool idea though. Really nice shoes.
  
  Adam: The cool thing is, also, they're basketball shoes. They're really nice looking, functional basketball shoes, but if you actually use them for their intended purpose, then you will not be playing basketball for a while.
  
  Liz: This is true.
  
  Marc: And you'll have been spending a lot of money on accidental pizzas, just jostling around and...
  
  Adam: Yeah. I don't know, Charles Barkley is pretty tubby. You know, they call him "The Round Mound of Rebound"...
  
  Marc: That's an awesome name.
  
  Adam: So maybe he looks like he had a few pizzas under his belt.
  
  Marc: "The Round Mound of Rebound."
  
  Liz: He definitely wants these shoes. A story that I came across was... So, I have a question for you guys, actually, first.
  
  Marc: I love questions.
  
  Liz: If you came across a $20 note on the ground...
  
  Marc: Okay, but no [inaudible 00:29:54]
  
  Liz: ...what do you do with it?
  
  Adam: Okay, it depends upon the setting, okay? If it were a $20 note, say, right outside a store in the mall, I would probably take it into the store, and say, "Hey I found this on the ground," or like by the concierge or something. You know, if I'm walking down a lonely highway, all on my own, and I come to a £20 note, I'm probably not going to try and search a hither and yon for its rightful owner. So, basically, if it's convenient for me to try and do the right thing, I will. But the moment it becomes a bit of a hassle, no, my altruism ends.
  
  Marc: Yeah, I agree. I think if it's outside a place that it's obvious that it's been dropped from someone inside, you know what I mean, then... Like, if it's in front of someone's desk, for example, then yes, I will give it back.
  
  Liz: That's where my $20 went.
  
  Marc: Shut up. But yeah, if I'm walking on a dusty highway, as Adam was walking down, tumbleweeds abound...
  
  Liz: What are you guys doing in your spare time?
  
  Adam: Well, we're meeting the Devil at the crossroads to play him in a fiddle contest.
  
  Marc: Yes, played by Al Pacino.
  
  Adam: Yeah, for Marc's soul.
  
  Liz: Sounds a lot better than what I was planning on doing later.
  
  Adam: We made some weird deals.
  
  Marc: Yeah, you don't know what we had to do to get this podcast approved. Yeah, so I would probably try and give it back, if it was obvious, and if it was, you know, a good chance of...
  
  Liz: Yeah, so this happened to a girl in the U.K. She found a £20 note, and she picked it up and took it. I don't know whether she looked around or tried to see if anyone was looking for money they lost, or anything like that, but she pocketed it. And then, basically, she got caught on CCTV, like, taking the note, and then she had to go to court.
  
  Adam: What? Wow. Well, what could she have done?
  
  Liz: I don't know. Well, they said you have to make reasonable kind of effort to see if someone had dropped the note, but the thing is she was just 23, she had no prior convictions, and she probably needed the cash because students are poor.
  
  Adam: Well, that's just silly.
  
  Liz: Yeah. She got let off, but the fact is that she went to court, which is not okay.
  
  Adam: Wow, that is silly. I can understand if, like, the CCTV caught it dropping out of someone's pocket, directly in front of her and she just snatched it up. I could understand that, but just a lost, forlorn, orphaned £20 note, with no one in sight on a dusty highway with CCTV coverage... I think that's the law run amok.
  
  Marc: Yeah, there's a real hole in that whole reasoning, because if you even just offered it to someone, chances are they're gonna be like, "Yeah, that is my $20."
  
  Liz: Yeah, exactly.
  
  Adam: "Yeah, that sounds about right."
  
  Marc: "Yeah, I dropped it."
  
  Liz: "I'm sure I should have more money than this."
  
  Marc: "I certainly deserve it."
  
  Liz: Yeah, that's right.
  
  Marc: Okay, guys. Do we have any more funny money stories or shall we...?
  
  Adam: I'm sorry, I'm still stuck on this one. Like, how do you determine the rightful owner?
  
  Liz: I think the issue was, because she was in a shop, they thought she should've handed it to the shop, like you would've done.
  
  Adam: Right, yeah. But, once again, even when... Like, anytime I've handed it to a shop, I've assumed that they're not gonna find...because, what, are you gonna have people check the serial numbers?
  
  Marc: I think a card is different.
  
  Adam: "Anyone who can tell me the middle four digits of the serial number of this £20 note, it's yours."
  
  Liz: Do you not memorize the serial numbers on your notes?
  
  Adam: Well, I would, but they're smeared in butter, so it kind of...
  
  Marc: It's kind of hard, Liz.
  
  Adam: ...obscures any of the detail.
  
  Liz: For anyone who's lost, you need to, again, listen to previous podcasts.
  
  Adam: Previously, on podcast...
  
  Liz: Adam smears his money in butter.
  
  Marc: He coats it in butter to enable easier transactions. Shall we get the old Angus in?
  
  Liz: Yes.
  
  Marc: The Goodman [SP], as I like to call him?
  
  Liz: Don't call him that.
  
  Marc: The Goodman man? Okay, let's get him in.
  
  [00:33:59]
  [music]
  [00:34:22]
  
  Marc: So, we have the wonderful and always entertaining, Angus Kid man in today, to talk to us about mobile phones and, in his words, "possibly Vegemite." I don't know what that means, but all will be revealed.
  
  Liz: Adam thought it might be when you mix Vegemite with phones.
  
  Marc: Kind of like a peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and...
  
  Liz: And phone situation.
  
  Adam: For a delicious phone call.
  
  Angus: Actually, this is very disturbing, because what this proves is that you're not doing what any sane person was doing, and reading my Findings column every single day, because then you'd know exactly what I was going on about. But we'll get to that.
  
  Marc: I'm being addressed on air. Being dressed down, sorry. So, Angus, a lot of news is happening currently in the world of mobile phones. There is a conference.
  
  Adam: More than a conference. A congress.
  
  Liz: Oh really?
  
  Angus: Yes. What is the difference between a congress and a conference?
  
  Adam: It feels to me like a congress, like... I mean, of course, it would mean just a group of people meeting together, but it feels like they ought to vote on stuff. I think it bothers me if they're not gonna vote on stuff. You get the Mobile World Congress together, and it seems like they should be like, "Phones don't have antennas anymore as so decreed."
  
  Angus: Well, there is actually a little bit of what might count as voting on stuff, because one of the things that originally happened in mobile congress is where people had fairly dull technical discussions about how communication standards would work. So, if you're trying to set up the rules for how do 4G networks work around the world, some of those committees actually do need a Mobile World Congress, and they have those arguments. So, in that sense, there is a little bit of voting going on, but that's not the stuff we care about.
  
  Adam: See, I like to think that maybe this hearkens back centuries and centuries from before the time of phones, and, you know, it was just...every year, people get together, and they would vote on how we're all gonna communicate, like "We will all stick our heads out of the window and yell at this time." It is so decreed.
  
  Angus: I would have to look into the history of the congress and get back to you on that one. But, yeah, so the congress takes place every year, and it's been taking place in Barcelona for the last decade, which I think is mostly because phone executives think, "Hey, it would be nice to go and hang out in an attractive city in Europe." But before than, it used to be in Khan, so there's definitely a theme going on there. But the thing that we get excited about, and the reason why people care about Mobile World Congress, the reason why we've had a Finder staff member over there, running around, chasing after phones all the time, is that, yeah, it's where all the majors phones of the year get announced, or most of the major phones. There's two important exceptions.
  
  Adam: Oh, I'm excited.
  
  Angus: But pretty much it's the event where everyone goes, "Okay, here's the main phones that we're bringing out that everyone is going to potentially get excited about." The big exceptions, before anyone asks about this, Apple. They have nothing to do with it, because Apple always wants to do things in their own way.
  
  Liz: They do their own congress.
  
  Angus: Pretty much. And the other that's not coming out, that everyone thought would, is the next Samsung.
  
  Adam: The one that doesn't catch fire?
  
  Angus: Yes, the one that doesn't catch fire.
  
  Marc: The one that produces ice.
  
  Angus: Yeah.
  
  Adam: It just falls to absolute zero.
  
  Angus: Not in previous years, we would've seen the new Galaxy S, whatever it is. Last year it was the S7 that was launched in Mobile World Congress. This year, Samsung went out of its way to say, "No, we're not doing that. We're going to launch it a bit later in the year." And this is partly because it's been doing so much work to make sure that it actually doesn't catch on fire again.
  
  Liz: Oh that's the deal. I was gonna say they're a bit busy. I mean, like...
  
  Adam: Didn't the factory where they built the batteries burned down?
  
  Liz: Really?
  
  Angus: Slight exaggeration, but there were some problems.
  
  Marc: "Problems."
  
  Liz: Meaning, yes, it happened.
  
  Angus: Samsung were present. They launched some other interesting tech. They launched, effectively, a Microsoft Surface competitor, which is quite... It's one of those nice dual laptop-tablet kind of things. Actually, it runs Windows, rather than running Android. That was pretty well received, so they were kind of visible doing that, but that was not a main phone event for them. That's probably good news for everybody else who makes Android phones, because the reality is, in the phone market, for Android devices, there's Samsung and there's everybody else, and that's basically how it divides.
  
  Adam: Interesting.
  
  Angus: So, yeah, it was a good chance for everyone else to put their hands up and say, "Hey, we've got amazing..."
  
  Marc: "We've got cool stuff too."
  
  Angus: "We've got cool stuff too."
  
  Marc: So what was the coolest phone? What's the newest?
  
  Angus: There's a few interesting devices that came out. It's hard at this stage in the mobile phone universe. Our phones do most of what we want them to do. It's really how to say, "What else do I want my phone to do?" If your phone gets any thinner, it's just gonna snap when you start pressing it with your fingers.
  
  Liz: The one thing they haven't fixed, though, is battery life. I don't know about you guys, but my phone dies all the time.
  
  Marc: It doesn't last a full day, I find, yeah.
  
  Liz: No, it doesn't. It's awful.
  
  Marc: All those cat videos and Harry Potter.
  
  Liz: So when are they fixing that, Angus?
  
  Angus: Actually, battery life is one of the big focuses. We've seen that getting improved. The problem is, the more battery you try to cram into your phone, essentially, the more likely it is to literally catch fire. This is the problem that we've got right now.
  
  Adam: Couldn't they harness that fire for energy?
  
  Angus: Well, it just depends on how many burn marks you're prepared to have on your leg on the way.
  
  Adam: Well, if the phone battery lasts longer, as many as you wanna give me.
  
  Liz: I wouldn't mind catching on fire if I got a full day out of my phone.
  
  Adam: It could be a phone that's actually on fire empowered by the fire. It seems like there's a market for that.
  
  Angus: Not gonna be real popular on planes, I'd suggest. Yeah, so there is work being done on batteries. There's been a noticeable trend. If you go back three or four years, most mobile phones, other than iPhones, had removable batteries, so you could potentially carry around a spare. No one's doing that anymore.
  
  Marc: That infuriates me though.
  
  Angus: But there are two benefits for taking that approach.
  
  Marc: Okay, sell me.
  
  Angus: First benefit is that's how you get a waterproof phone. As soon as you've given yourself a removable battery, you've got rid of that option of saying, "Hey, we...yeah, water won't get in your phone." The second is that actually, if you've got a sealed battery, you can ultimately get higher capacity into it, because more of the space is actually for the battery. With the removable battery, you lose space for the flap that comes at the back of the phone, and you use space for the casing around the battery, because it has to be safe for humans to handle. So, that trend is not going to turn around. We've seen that there are a decent battery life stats coming out from these things. We haven't done the full on testing on any of them yet, because they get announced, you get a chance to play with them for perhaps half an hour, but you're not allowed to take them away and benchmark them. But battery lives are continuing to go up on the whole, but they're still not quite where they need to be. If we want phones to be a certain size... If we were happy to get back to phones being gigantically brick-sized with modern battery technology, they would run for days, they just wouldn't fit in your pocket. Anyway, so that was a very long answer to the question of when will they fix these phones. It just sorted of showed up.
  
  Marc: Shameless plug as well before we jump into that, but Alex is actually over in Barcelona, and he's publishing all the videos.
  
  Angus: Yeah, he's been testing on all these phones, he's been videoing them all. So, yeah, if people wanna head to Finder, you really can find the detailed specs, and pictures, and videos, and all the sexiness, basically.
  
  Marc: We'll drop the links as well.
  
  Angus: Lots of them now...as I said, you're not seeing massive change in what the phone does, so often it comes down to little things that they do, and you think, "Wow, that's really cool." So, Sony's new Xperia phone, the Xperia XZ, has a slow-motion mode, where you can film at 960 frames per second, which is just so bizarre.
  
  Marc: What does that mean though? I'm a complete noob when it comes to... Does that mean it's really...?
  
  Angus: You see, it means you're capturing frames of stuff that you would never be able to see with the human eye, because a normal video, normal stuff that you watch, that's 24 frames per second. So, 960 frames per second is like you're getting fractions of a second with things happening. So, now, the restriction is, at the moment, you can only film something like...it's under a second of footage is in that mode. But it is amazing output.
  
  Adam: What would you want to use that for, other than smashing things with a hammer and filming it?
  
  Marc: Or blending things.
  
  Adam: Yeah, exactly.
  
  Liz: Yeah, that'd be cool.
  
  Adam: Like, you'd of course use it for a want of destruction.
  
  Angus: You haven't thought about the adult content possibilities here. We'll leave that discussion right here.
  
  Marc: #Angus.
  
  Angus: It's often very hard to work out what people will do with slow motion. I mean, slow motion has been... A lower frame rate higher than 24, but not as high as that has been a feature on quite a few phones, came out on the iPhone two generations ago. You don't realize until you start doing those things just how strange the world looks when you can film it at those really impressive frame rates. So I don't know what will come out of that, but I thought, "Hey, this shows that every time you think my camera is as good as it's gonna get and there's no possible way they can improve my phone camera, there're still things that you can do." At the opposite end of the spectrum, there's this really cool phone from Alcatel, called the i5, which basically has what amounts to disco lights on the back, so instead of just having a colored case, you can actually have movement and patterns.
  
  Marc: That looks pretty cool.
  
  Liz: I'm gonna buy that phone. Oh my gosh.
  
  Marc: It, like, has, yeah, these kind of squares of light.
  
  Liz: That's awesome.
  
  Angus: My concern is that's just one more thing to drain your battery, just to bring us back to the depressing reality.
  
  Adam: Good point.
  
  Angus: But yeah, that could definitely be something we could see more of, I think. And because now, if you do think, "Well, my phone basically does what I want.", how it looks and how people perceive it when you hold it becomes quite important. Like, it's not necessarily about, "Hey, this has got better battery life or better space." It's like, "Hey, this looks better on the dance floor" actually becomes...
  
  Adam: My immediate thought is this is the phone you don't want when you're, you know, like, hiding from criminals in a warehouse and you've escaped their clutches, but they're combing the warehouse for you, and then all of a sudden that starts going off.
  
  Marc: Yeah, and they can see the reflections of the light and...
  
  Adam: Exactly, yeah.
  
  Angus: I think you're actually looking at your phone, because you're still checking Twitter while you're trying to do a lot of things.
  
  Adam: Of course.
  
  Angus: You switch those features off.
  
  Adam: Oh okay, just don't forget to do that, before you escape from the grasps of your captors.
  
  Marc: They kung-fu grip.
  
  Adam: That's right. Don't forget to switch off that option.
  
  Liz: I would want the lights to light up when the phone rang instead of it ringing. Does no one else want that?
  
  Marc: Oh, that'd be cool.
  
  Angus: I'm totally in favor of visual indicators for what your phone is doing.
  
  Adam: Does it also work as, like, a visual EQ when you're listening music? Because that'd be super cool.
  
  Angus: I don't believe so, but I suspect that could be the next area that this kind of technology could move into. And also, the other completely weird area that came out with this... So, we've had all these new phones come out. So there were nice, new-looking phones from LG, and there were some nice ones from Motorola and various other people, but we also saw the return of two brands that I think everyone thought were long dead. So, we had the reemergence of a new BlackBerry phone with a physical keyboard.
  
  Marc: What's it called? I wanna see it.
  
  Angus: It's called the KEYone, KEYone all on words. So, that immediately got my blood pressure boiling, but anyway...
  
  Adam: Is this because middle-aged banking executives still want keyboards on their phones?
  
  Liz: Well, apparently Kim Kardashian still uses a BlackBerry.
  
  Angus: But before you fling around too many insults, I was a BlackBerry user for about a decade, because of the physical keyboard. I only switched probably about two and a half years ago from using the buttons, because it just didn't get to the point, I couldn't get the apps I wanted. And these days, BlackBerry phones run Android, they don't run the BlackBerry operating system.
  
  Marc: Interesting.
  
  Angus: So in every other respect, they've got that available thing, and they've got the return of the keyboards. So, yeah, I will be the person in the office who's testing this one.
  
  Adam: Didn't someone just buy the brand?
  
  Angus: Yeah, so what happened here...and this, in fact, was interesting about all brands, and this will come up again during pub class. But yeah, BlackBerry decided, as a company, that it was getting out of actually manufacturing phones itself, because they used to manufacture all the phones, and they manufactured a lot of them in Canada. It's very unusual, when 90% of the world's smartphones are essentially coming from Southeast Asia. But they stopped doing that, and now are focusing on software, that BlackBerry's big business these days is not phones at all, it's security software for people who use other kinds of phones, because security was always the reason businesses liked them [inaudible 00:46:13].
  
  Adam: That's right.
  
  Angus: Anyway, so they sold the licensing rights to manufacture the phones to a separate company, [inaudible 00:46:20] will still be input into them. And yes, they now will truly be manufactured in China. But yeah, I don't think it'll be a massively big success. The other thing, though, is that there are still a couple of countries in this region where BlackBerry is enormous. In Indonesia, it's still a massively important phone brand.
  
  Marc: That is so strange. I mean, it looks cool. It's like a standard iPhone style smartphone with a qwerty keyboard on the bottom. I don't know if my fat sausage fingers would be able to actually press...
  
  Adam: No, there's no way.
  
  Angus: You'd be amazed how effective that can be. I mean, I actually have relatively small hands, so maybe that's why I was a BlackBerry user for so long. Let me point out, don't make any conclusions about me having small hands.
  
  Marc: Angus is now retreating from the conversation. Cut that part!
  
  Angus: And yeah, BlackBerry is coming back. We should see how that gets along. Yeah, we've got video footage of that phone kicking around as well, so that's worth having a look at that. The other brand, of course, that made a return in similar circumstances at the Mobile World Congress was Nokia.
  
  Adam: No!
  
  Liz: Stop it.
  
  Angus: In particular, with Nokia's announcement, that it will be relaunching the Nokia 3310.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh!
  
  Angus: The hottest smartphone of 2000.
  
  Liz: Is it actually a smartphone, though, if it's 2000?
  
  Angus: No. It is literally the 3310 again. It's just basically the same design. You can get it in more colors now.
  
  Adam: Of course, Snake.
  
  Angus: Of course it's got Snake on it. It's what we now call a feature phone. It does not run, you know, a smart operating system. It just literally has, yeah, a list of contacts, a note-taking app
  
  Marc: But is this indestructible?
  
  Angus: Well, no, this one of the interesting... One of the reasons people remember the 3310 so fondly was it was pretty damn tough, and you could drop it on the ground repeatedly, and it was likely to survive.
  
  Adam: Yeah, and even if it flew apart into its separate components, you could just reassemble it and it was still fine.
  
  Marc: Yeah, just put it back together.
  
  Angus: So, people were excited about that. But in fact, the initial impression when Alex got to play around with one, is that it actually feels lighter and flimsier than the original model. And so it looks the same, but doesn't seem to have quite the same heft to it, so that makes it less appealing. But there's a much more important problem, which is that in the original version that's being released, it's only a 2G phone. It will only work on 2G phone networks, and all the 2G phone networks in Australia have been either already been switched off or are about to be switched off. So, don't import one. I can't stress this enough. You might be excited by the idea of getting a 3310 again, but you're literally getting a portable Snake-playing machine that wouldn't do anything else. And, you know, there's probably a Snake app available for your phone. I guarantee if go into the iTunes store or Google Play, there'll be thousands of Snake clones.
  
  Adam: Will it still have monophonic ringtones?
  
  Liz: Those ones you could make? They were amazing.
  
  Adam: Yeah, and you could download them, like, by texting.
  
  Marc: I know, and it would cost, like, $10.
  
  Adam: Yeah, I think I had Weezer song in beautiful monophonic sound.
  
  Angus: I had the Muppet show theme.
  
  Marc: I'm just gonna come out and say, though, I don't know if it's the most, you know, the prettiest phone in the market. I mean, the old one definitely has a bit of nice... It's elegant. Well, I suppose it is quite similar.
  
  Angus: It's similar enough and people... Just remember, this is 16-17 years ago, people's memories aren't perfect. Other than that, I still think there's a lot of people who just have one of these sitting in a drawer somewhere, because it was indestructible.
  
  Marc: My one got stolen in year seven, so I prefer not to...
  
  Angus: Do we need to do therapy for you now, Marc? Is this where we're going?
  
  Liz: Yeah, you still sounded so gutted about it.
  
  Marc: I prefer not to bring it up anymore. That's interesting. Yeah, so we've got a bit of old with the new.
  
  Angus: Yeah, and again, the same thing with Nokia, in that Nokia as a brand has essentially been sublicensed down to another manufacturer, because Microsoft actually bought most of the sort of Nokia headset business. They decided they didn't wanna put out phones called Nokia phones. They're just gonna put out things like Windows phones. Windows Phone is dead, effectively. No one cares about that anymore. But now, Nokia gets to have a rebirth. And really, I think there's an element where it's just a publicity stunt. Everyone's excited about this phone they remember, but Nokia is also putting out these conventional Android phones. And I think, actually, if it's got a future as a business, it will be making those kind of cheaper entry level phones, so they will be competing with Huawei and ZTE.
  
  Adam: Is that how you pronounce it, Huawei?
  
  Liz: Huawei.
  
  Adam: I've been calling it Huwei.
  
  Marc: So embarrassing!
  
  Adam: "I've been avoiding saying their name."
  
  Marc: Okay, that's cool. Is there any other awesome stuff coming out?
  
  Angus: I think those really are the high points that you see, here are these phones, and then we wait gradually to learn how they'll come out. So we know that some of these are coming out already. LG have a nice looking flagship phone called the G6, which [inaudible 00:50:53] have got the deal on locally, so that comes out in March. Some of them won't come out till later in the year.
  
  Liz: I remember that song, "G6." Do you remember that?
  
  Marc: Yes.
  
  Liz: Maybe they got the name from there.
  
  Marc: I wonder if they're tapping into that.
  
  Marc: That actually looks pretty nice. It's quite a big phone.
  
  Angus: In no way is it related to the fact that the previous generation of phones is called the G5.
  
  Liz: No, it's gotta be about the song.
  
  Marc: That's awesome. Well, one burning question I have for you, Angus, about mobile phones...
  
  Adam: This sounds like something for a doctor.
  
  Marc: So, mobile phone plans vs. outright. Can you give us a quick summary answer of when is it cheaper to buy outright?
  
  Angus: It's nearly always cheaper to buy outright. You nearly always get a better deal by going with an outright thing and then just going on to a month to month SIM plan, and the reason for this is twofold. Generally, just...it will cost you less over the course of two years. The one exception might be with some of the most expensive top-end iPhones if you're also on a relatively expensive contract, because you want a lot of data, you might end up paying about the same. So if you don't wanna have to cough up $1200 up front to buy the phone, you might come out about even, but you don't come out better. There was a time when you did, though, when the handset subsidy really was worth something and being on a contract actually would save you money on the phone, but it just...the figures don't add up anymore.
  
  Marc: Really? How much are we talking? What's the discrepancy?
  
  Angus: You'll be looking at the difference in the two-year lifespan that you're looking at for a contract thing. On most of these phones, you're gonna be looking at paying $200 to $300 more. And that's in pure economic terms. The other big disadvantage - and people should be aware of this - is that you're stuck. You know, if you're gonna get a contract phone, you're stuck with that network and that provider. And that could be really lousy because, in two years, you could easily move house. And the reality is that when you move house, you might find that the phone network that you were perfectly happy with and that you had reception with when you started doesn't work at the next place you get.
  
  Adam: Yeah. I've got, like, one bar of 3G.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh.
  
  Marc: That's not nice.
  
  Angus: Yeah, and at that point, being able to think, "Hey, it would be nice to be able to switch to another provider" would be good. The reality is that sometimes, some buildings are in a state that one bar of 3G is all you're ever gonna get in your lounge. It might not ever get any better than that, but at least you have the flexibility to switch. And also, you see much more competitive offers coming out from others tel guys. If you're sitting there thinking, "Damn it, I'm paying $70 a month for this plan which has 2GB of data, when somebody else is gonna give you 7 or 10 GB of data for the same amount." I think that flexibility is an additional cost there that you don't realize. So I would always encourage people to go for the outright buy if they can afford it, while recognizing that for some people, the contract arrangement is a way to say, "Hey, I don't have to come up with that $1200 up front."
  
  Marc: Because it is a lot of money, I suppose.
  
  Angus: But when you're seeing gaps like that, you have to start seriously going, "Hang on. Could I actually still come out of this cheaper by throwing this on a low-rate credit card, or even getting a personal loan to buy the phone in the first place?" You still might potentially get around that, depending on what's going on.
  
  Liz: You can get a 0% purchase rate for, like, over 12 months for a credit card, so you can literally buy it for no interest. As long as you pay it off within that period, that's...
  
  Angus: And that still gives you some of that flexibility. Yeah, so definitely, you're gonna ask my advice on that, I would say... But I would point out... Plug number two coming up here.
  
  Adam: Plug away.
  
  Angus: Yeah, on the Finder Mobile Phone Comparison Tool, that you pick a given phone and they let you compare what's the outright and the contract price. So you can just literally go to [inaudible 00:54:16], say "Okay, here's this phone. Here's how much it will cost you in these different scenarios." So that's where you really go and crunch those numbers with your favorite phone yourself.
  
  Liz: You were mentioning Samsung before and that they were thinking of coming out with another phone later this year. Because I've got a Samsung phone, if I was gonna upgrade, should you just wait and see what happens, or is it literally gonna be, like, another 12 months until the phone comes out?
  
  Angus: No, no. The next one...we're expecting the announce with that to actually happen in March. So we will be hearing of that. That's when the S8 will get announced. Which Samsung are you on right now?
  
  Liz: I don't know. I think it's a 6. It didn't explode, so I don't think it's the same.
  
  Angus: That was the Note. That was a different family of the Galaxy, anyway, that actually did the exploding.
  
  Liz: Ah, okay.
  
  Angus: But the other thing I would say is that one nice thing that will happen is that when the S8 gets announced, the S7 would become significantly cheaper. And so if you've been on the 6, then it can be worth doing that interim upgrade of saying, "Look, I don't need..." It's always a good idea if you can buy the newest, shiniest thing, I suppose, because you've got the newest shiniest thing. But there's a lot to be said for saying, "Hey, let's just wait for the point when the price on last year's tech...," because we're still not talking about a phone that's massively old or in anyway dysfunctional. The S7 and the S7H are both really good phones, but we're already saying those significantly cheaper. Like, they came out at about $1000 as most of these phones do, and we've seen then for $300, $400 less now, on our purchases.
  
  Adam: Can I tell you how lazy I am?
  
  Marc: Please.
  
  Adam: It's well-documented. I have an iPhone 6+, and I dropped it a couple weeks ago and shattered the screen. I blame Donald Trump because I was incredulous about something Kellyanne Conway had said or done. So I told my wife about it and she equally incredulous, and she's like, "Oh, you've got to find this and show it to me." And in doing do, I took my phone out of my pocket to find it and dropped it on the floor and shattered the screen.
  
  But this is how lazy I am. The new iPhone is rumored to be releasing in September. Rather than fix the screen on my phone, I'm like, "I guess I'll just wait for the 8."
  
  Angus: You may not have to wait that long because Apple now typically brings out two ranges of phone of the year. It does its flagship iPhone, around September-October, but they've been putting out a slightly more budget-oriented model typically in the March-April time frame.
  
  Adam: Well, here's the thing. If, some of the rumors about the 8 are true, I wanna wait for it, because, number one, I want the wireless charging, because...I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but the lighting port on iPhones is terrible and constantly collects debris that makes the phone stop charging.
  
  Angus: Oh, I did not know that.
  
  Adam: And number two, it's rumored to be buttonless, and I just think that's cool and it would make me feel like I'm living in the future.
  
  Marc: The Blade Runner future.
  
  Adam: Yeah, exactly.
  
  Liz: What's the button getting replaced with?
  
  Angus: If you get haptic feedback, so it's like a full screen that you, like, on a virtual button that does the same things and that can still respond in different ways as you press it. This is rumored. It's quite hard to get rid of the one button look, yeah.
  
  Liz: Yeah, that's my savior. I don't know where I am in my phone, so I'm just gonna press the home button.
  
  Angus: And [inaudible 00:57:28] if you get rid of the button, you still gotta have the volume controls, because that's almost the on and off switch, because as any iPhone user knows, occasionally when it goes nuts, in order to get it to reboot, you have to hold those buttons down for an obscene amount of time.
  
  Marc: Well, this is all good information. I suppose, in 30 years, when I get out of my Vodafone contract, I can take use of it all.
  
  Adam: Do you keep doing the upgrades too? Sign up for the new... That's what I do.
  
  Marc: Every time I try and get out, they pull me back in.
  
  Adam: That's how I am. Like a couple months from my contract expiring, it's like, "Oh, a new phone's coming out. Well, another two years, I suppose," because I don't follow Angus's advice of buying it outright.
  
  Angus: Well, you're all the poorer for it, quite literally.
  
  Marc: Okay, this is a question I had for you, Angus, to look in your crystal ball. So, we kinda touched on this before, with features, but is there gonna be a point in time where they really don't add anything all too interesting to new phones? I mean, we've got wireless stuff, so that'll get done soon. Cameras will become so good that, like... Where will phones go? What are the new exciting features?
  
  Angus: So, there're still a few areas where things can improve. We've touched on the most important one. We need to get battery life to the point where you're just not thinking about it. Yeah, you need to get back to that Nokia-style experience of, "Hey, I can charge my phone once every five days." Right, we do need to get back to that. And while that's really challenging from a Chemistry and Physics level, that's one area where you could massively improve the experience.
  
  Second area, is we're still in the absolute infancy of the voice control stuff. So Siri exits, Google Voice exists, but the fact that Siri is more often the butt of jokes than something that people actually use shows you that there's a lot of work to be done to create a new, neutralized interface, because, to Adam's point about wanting a phone with no buttons...yeah, we can expect more fundamental changes in how you talk to a phone. Ten years ago, no one thought the main input to a phone would be people squiggling their fingers all over a screen. We shouldn't assume that in 10 years that would be the main way that we do it, either. Voice control, foot control, that would be good.
  
  Marc: And then it won't be a phone. It would just be implanted into you.
  
  Angus: Yeah, we've discussed the notion of getting implants before. Yeah, there's definitely space to think... The shape of phones probably won't change. I think I've touched on this in the podcast before as well. One of the reasons the shape of phones doesn't change is because it's dictated by the human hand. So in 200 years' time when humanity's evolved a bit more - and the suggestion is that we're gonna shrink slightly and our heads will get bigger and our limbs might change - that could alter the way the phones work. That's a whole different podcast [inaudible 01:00:00].
  
  Liz: Who told you that?
  
  Adam: He's got inside info.
  
  Angus: We're gonna be freaks with five fingers.
  
  Adam: I think it was Apple rumors. I mean, personally, I think probably what will really alter the way we interact with our phones is when we all just join a collective hive mind.
  
  Angus: What do you mean "when"?
  
  Adam: When we've shun the use of our bodies all together and become kind of an amorphous consciousness floating through space.
  
  Marc: Upload our souls to some kind of cloud.
  
  Adam: Right, yeah. Then I think probably, you know, you won't really need the buttons.
  
  Angus: That's also gonna be bad news for KFC sales, but anyways...
  
  Marc: Virtual KFC?
  
  Liz: You can just think about it, and it's there.
  
  Marc: It's like Fifth Element. She puts, like, a [inaudible 01:00:52] in the microwave and then chicken pops up.
  
  Liz: Oh yeah. It's my dream.
  
  Marc: That'd be good. All right, Angus. I think, in terms of phones, we're pretty much covered. But the infamous Vegemite debacle/topic...
  
  Adam: Of 2017.
  
  Marc: Yeah, the Vegemite wars in 2017. Fill us in. What's happening?
  
  Angus: So, this is Vegemite as an economic indicator.
  
  Liz: A tasty realization.
  
  Marc: Get out.
  
  Adam: Are you anti-Vegemite?
  
  Marc: No, I love Vegemite.
  
  Liz: So you'd have to get out.
  
  Angus: So, anyway, what happened is that, as you will probably remember, late last year, Vegemite, which had been owned for years and years by Mondelez, which is the giant sort of global food group that owns Kraft and a bunch of other brands, actually sold the whole Vegemite brand, the whole operation, to Bega Cheese, which means that basically, for this first time in its history, Vegemite was actually Australian-owned. People familiar with [inaudible 01:01:52] that are Australian icons. They're not Australian anymore. People are going on about [inaudible 01:01:56]. And people put Vegemite in that category, but Vegemite had been owned by Americans since the 1920s. It ran for a lot longer, you know...
  
  Adam: Yeah, take that.
  
  Angus: All of this inspired me to say, "Okay, yeah, Vegemite is kind of around. It's obviously, now it's gonna be Australian-owned." But then my practical economic mind kicked in and said, "Okay, which supermarket sells Vegemite the cheapest? Which of the main chains actually has the cheapest available Vegemite?" So, before I tell you what the answer is, I'll ask people who do you think? Of those, who's gonna have the cheapest Vegemite?
  
  Liz: Is it Coles?
  
  Angus: [inaudible 01:02:27] prices are down. That's wrong.
  
  Adam: I'm gonna say ALDI, but do they even have Vegemite?
  
  Liz: Ah, I didn't even think of that.
  
  Adam: They might some sort of spread of off-brand mite.
  
  Liz: Spreadmite.
  
  Angus: And what's your prediction, sir?
  
  Marc: BI-LO. Does BI-LO still exists?
  
  Angus: BI-LO was bought out by Coles some years ago.
  
  Marc: Okay, ALL right. Franklins? Does that still exists?
  
  Angus: Franklins was bought out by IGA.
  
  Liz: Oh, yeah, IGA.
  
  Marc: I'm gonna say IGA.
  
  Adam: Not IGA. IGA is always super expensive.
  
  Marc: I'm gonna say Woolies.
  
  Angus: Just to fill out the set. So, actually, to the first point, one of the reasons I wanted to pick on Vegemite is it is a brand-name product that is sold in ALDI. There's about 20 things that ALDI sells because they have to, so therefore... They did also produce for a while their own knock-off, called Brekkie Mite. I once did a taste test on it. It was not Vegemite, that's what I'll say. It was okay, just wasn't Vegemite. Honestly, it was closer than Marmite, but that's a whole religious discussion we might never get out of.
  
  Liz: Gross.
  
  Angus: So, it turns out that in fact that amongst those major supermarket chains, it's equally cheap to get it from Woolies or Coles. If you buy their biggest size, it works out at being - let me get this right - $1.43 for 100g, which is the cheapest price for Vegemite. And Coles and Woolies, and all the sizes that they sell match prices pretty much exactly. The ALDI one was competitive. I think it was $1.54 per 100 grams. But what's also weird, and this shows how supermarket operations work, is that every one of those supermarkets sells at least one size of Vegemite that nobody else does. So the exact quantity of Vegemite you get now, there's a different size jar than you can buy anywhere else.
  
  Adam: Really?
  
  Angus: And Woolies have one exclusive size jar and Coles have one exclusive size jar.
  
  Liz: It's so weird.
  
  Angus: And all that, fundamentally, is about confusing the consumer, because even though we have unit pricing and even though if you bothered to look on a supermarket shelf to see the price for 100g, people don't look at it because, frankly, people are lazy and stupid.
  
  Adam: You hear that, people?
  
  Angus: I'm sorry, but there is a bunch of sarcological research that shows that even though we've got unit pricing, people don't look at it. But yeah, if you're wondering through ALDI and you see the Vegemite there, you couldn't directly compare that with Coles to think, "Oh, it's a different size." And it's close enough. Most people aren't gonna care about a 10 cent difference in Vegemite.
  
  The other thing we learned is that we shouldn't buy... They sell Vegemite in those tubes - this is one for travelers - that's really expensive. That's not the way to get it for. I should also point out that I was doing the three main supermarkets, cheapest place to buy Vegemite is actually Costco, where they're sell them in 1kg tubs.
  
  Adam: That's awesome.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh.
  
  Angus: Yeah. I was thinking who could possibly want a 1kg tub.
  
  Liz: Someone in my family used to it. My nono used to get those giant tubs. He was Italian as well, and he came over and find Vegemite, and he was like, "This is my life now."
  
  Angus: And Shawn, who's our lawyer here at Finder, tells me that's what he buys, and his family goes through this stuff by the bucket load.
  
  Adam: I can understand. I do love Vegemite. I believe I've said this before, it is the Stockholm Syndrome of communists, because all you guys would've grown up with Vegemite, so you wouldn't remember a time when... I mean, look, you started it when you were babies, when you would eat stuff off the floor. But if you tried it as an adult, it is like being punched in the tongue by Satan, right, at first. You eat it and you're like, "Oh my God, this is just the foulest thing I ever had in my life! I need to taste that again to see if it's as bad as I thought it was." And then you start eating it to try to dissect the ways in which it's bad. Like, I have to understand all the layers of badness. And then after a few of those, you're like, "You know what I could go for it right now? Some Vegemite." And now, honestly, I put the thickest smear of Vegemite on my toast to the point that my Kiwi-born wife is like, "That's too much,"
  
  Angus: I have to say, it's not true that people are universally inducted into it because of a famous story that my dad didn't give me his first Vegemite when I was six months old, on a crust or something like that. And he just, like, flung that back at his mother and never ever changed. And he's refused consistently to eat Vegemite through his entire life. So, I think it is possible, but yeah, the hive mind is kicking in a bit there, I think.
  
  Adam: That's so interesting.
  
  Marc: Yeah, I've never really thought of it much, but I suppose when you do think about it, it is kind of weird. It's weird spread. It's black.
  
  Liz: It's very salty.
  
  Adam: It's basically like industrial waste.
  
  Angus: Yeah. it's leftovers from manufactured beer, that's where they get it. They have an exclusive contract with CUB to get all the leavings from the yeast, and that's the basis of it.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh.
  
  Adam: It is. It's industrial waste.
  
  Liz: Why would you tell me that?
  
  Adam: It's basically like someone was like, "Well, let's go through throw this way", and then someone was like, "Wait a second. I bet we can get these morons to buy this."
  
  Marc: Didn't they, like, you know, assume that its color and everything would be dangerous to eat? Obviously not.
  
  Angus: The color is quite a conscious choice, in that, like... If you look at the list of Vegemite ingredients, they add coloring to it. They add caramel coloring. It's made to look that way. You gotta remember that it is...
  
  Marc: Caramel is highly debatable.
  
  Adam: I was gonna say they've chosen any color.
  
  Angus: You gotta remember, that...you know, if you go back to when Vegemite launched, in 1920s, at that point, Marmite - which is the U.K. equivalent and which is a lot runnier - was a thing that people knew about, so it was an attempt in some ways to create a local competitor to it. So it wasn't entering a vacuum in that sense. It's just that it became much more unidentifiably Australian. And Marmite is still something you can get in the U.K. It's more divisive though. I hear a lot of people talk about it being a Marmite experience, that you either love it or you hate it. And then, basically, Vegemite, is global. If you're Australian, you love it. If you're everyone else, you hate it.
  
  Adam: If NZ manufactured Marmite, I would say - I'm gonna be controversial here - is better than Vegemite. In fact, here is my ranking of Mites. This is a definitive ranking.
  
  Liz; The Mite ranking.
  
  Adam: And this is going to surprise some people, but at the very top, Promite.
  
  Angus: I was gonna say, if you forget about Promite, there's gonna be trouble on set.
  
  Liz: What?
  
  Adam: Way better. And then NZ Marmite, and then Vegemite.
  
  Angus: Where does U.K. Marmite sit in this?
  
  Adam: U.K. Marmite is definitely far below.
  
  Marc: Marmite has a second rank logo though.
  
  Angus: And you haven't even thought about... There are the other attempted competitors, like MartiMite and OzeMite. OzeMite was the Dick Smith one. He wanted a local one. But that was where it was problematic, because you do need a large quantity of industrial yeast, and Vegemite had that contract signed up. Brekkie Mite, the old one, was made in Brazil.
  
  Adam: See, I do like Vegemite, definitely. But Promite and Marmite are kind of like a fine wine in the complexity of their flavors, whereas Vegemite's like a goon sack, which sometimes, that's what you want.
  
  Liz: Yeah, for breakfast.
  
  Adam: Sometimes you want the box one.
  
  Angus: Promite is actually a bit sweeter, and I'm just gonna assume that this means that American taste buds are brought up on years of terrible high-fructose corn syrup just can't distinguish things.
  
  Adam: One hundred percent. Everything in my country is flavor blasted or extreme with five Xs.
  
  Marc: All this talking is really making me want a Vegemite toast.
  
  Adam: I know, I want one so bad.
  
  Liz: I was just thinking, after this, I'm gonna go make me some Vegemite toast.
  
  Adam: I want one so bad. We need to leave ourselves enough time to do this.
  
  Angus: But I would say, yeah, there's still an important economic lesson there and it does underpin the general principle, "You wanna buy something cheaply, buy it in bulk." That does hold up with Vegemite.
  
  Marc: Interesting. And we'll put a link to this fantabulous story in our notes page. But, it has come time, guys, to tackle the question of the week from last week, the question of last week, which was, "What was your worst flying experience?" We've got some great responses, some pretty funny ones, actually.
  
  Adam: Good stuff.
  
  [01:10:08]
  [music]
  [01:10:33]
  
  Marc: So, Graham, you'll remember Graham from our last episode.
  
  Adam: You may remember Graham from such podcasts as this one.
  
  Marc: Graham's news you can use. So, he actually turned up at the wrong airport. He says, "On a trip to London, scrambling for the airport after waking up late, I hopped on a train to London City airport rather than Heathrow. Only when I got to the display screen did I realize my mistake. Thankfully..." I think it's Aer Lingus. Is that how you pronounce it?
  
  Adam: Yeah.
  
  Marc: Yeah. "...was awesome, and managed to swap me onto a flight outgoing out of London City airport. We love you Aer Lingus."
  
  Liz: What a shameful phone call you have to make. You're like, "Hey. So, listen..."
  
  Angus: Do it at the counter.
  
  Adam: I did the same thing where I was living in my hometown, in Western Kentucky, and I was flying out of Cincinnati, which was a three and a half hour drive away. And I woke up half an hour before my flight was supposed to take off.
  
  Liz: Oh my God.
  
  Marc: Cutting it a bit too close?
  
  Adam: Yeah, but I called the airport. I had to sheepishly call the airport and be like, "I live three and a half hours away, and my flight leaves in half an hour," and they actually switched me to a flight later that day for a minimal charge.
  
  Marc: Maybe it was because of your colonel status.
  
  Adam: That's what it was. I was able to pull that card out, and be like, "You're speaking with Colonel Adam Smith here."
  
  Marc: We definitely need to tackle that in the later time.
  
  Adam: But it was in Cincinnati, so it was out of my jurisdiction.
  
  Liz: There was another good one that we had from Sam. So, he was headed to the United States, and then said he had a going away thing the night before. So I'm assuming some alcohol was consumed. He ended up staying up all night, and while he was packing his suitcase in the morning, his friend blew a fire extinguisher through his bedroom window, which went all over his room, including into the open suitcase and wardrobe. So then he had to sit in a 13-hour flight back with hangover, no sleep, a pinched nerve in his back, and his clothes impregnated with fire extinguisher dust. His words, not mine.
  
  Angus: That would be great for the security test.
  
  Liz: It would, actually.
  
  Marc: That's so true.
  
  Adam: This one... I can't bring myself to do it. I'm a journalist, damn it.
  
  Marc: There is a gold mine of bad flight experiences.
  
  Adam: This is something that happened to a friend of his. He's sitting next to a girl on a fight in the U.S., and they got to chatting. And he asked her name, and she said it was America - which is odd, they're in America, her name is America - and that she was into acting, but also thinking about doing a degree. And so then, through the whole flight, he basically tells her that acting usually doesn't pan out, and it's nice to have a dream of doing that, but, hey, focus on getting that degree. And, basically, they parted ways very friendly and everything, and only later did he google her and discover that he was speaking to a celebrity, America Ferrera.
  
  Liz: That's awesome.
  
  Adam: The whole acting thing definitely panned out for her.
  
  Marc: I believe that he did pretty well. He's probably just thinking to himself, like "[inaudible 01:13:35] I didn't listen to that guy."
  
  Angus: So what I'm thinking to myself is don't fly with Graham.
  
  Liz: Yeah, he seems to be a magnet for just terrible experiences. But we actually have another one here. So, this is from Ally. She arrived at an airport at about 2 A.M. due to delays, and then the airline lost her luggage. And the people at the airport told her not to worry, because they sent an email Kuala Lumpur - just the country, not the airline - asking where it was. Then they told her that the airport was closed and they kicked her out without her bags.
  
  Marc: God, that's terrible.
  
  Adam: Honestly, I think I would just stay in the country. I would just live there from now on. I will be like, "Okay, that's it."
  
  Liz: "This is my life."
  
  Marc: Angus, you must have some bad experiences. You fly all the time.
  
  Angus: I do fly all the time, and so it's very hard to pick which of the many stupid things that have happened to me were the... I think the worst was I got stuck in Europe when there was the Icelandic ash cloud, and planes couldn't leave. But it wasn't being stuck in itself that was the problem. I was like, "Oh damn, I'm stuck in Europe. Terrible. [inaudible 01:14:42]" But on the day the flights actually started, Qantas[SP] got in touch and said, "We actually got you on the first plane going out. You're sort of all booked in." And so, manic race to get out to Heathrow. We got this [inaudible 01:14:52] morning. I was at Heathrow by 8:30. We finally left at midnight, that night, after they loaded us onto the plane, and off it again, and then onto the plane, and off it again. Look, the weather thing was totally not their fault. But I would've rather just spent another day sitting in London, England, once they'd actually got their airport back together. So that was pretty painful.
  
  Marc: That would've sucked.
  
  Adam: Well, look, Nick has a similar story where he was talking about coming back from the Mobile World Congress - tie in, that's a call back - in Barcelona, and the plane to London had an engine issue. And so they basically had to sit on the tarmac while they found a replacement part, and they weren't allowed to return to the gate to disembark. So a replacement part had to be found, delivered, installed, and checked, and this process took nine hours, during which they had to just sit in the plane. And because it was only meant to be a short flight, they only had snacks rather than meals on board, and a very limited supply of bottled water, and also were told to avoid using the toilet for nine hours.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh.
  
  Angus: But that still gets paled by our mate, Luke, from Twitter, who's [inaudible 01:16:10] who got stuck in similar circumstances in an airport in China for 33 hours.
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh.
  
  Marc: He's he real-life Tom Hanks.
  
  Adam: Now, in the airport or on the plane?
  
  Angus: On the plane.
  
  Adam: Oh my goodness.
  
  Marc: What?
  
  Adam: That's just awful.
  
  Liz: Why wouldn't they let them off?
  
  Angus: It was a regional airport. It didn't have any customs facilitates.
  
  Adam: At some point, I'd make a run for it. I'd just take my chances. Be like...
  
  Marc: That's how you end up in a burlap sack though.
  
  Adam: That's fine. A burlap sack is better than sitting on an airplane for 33 hours.
  
  Marc: I actually have to agree. Yeah, that's crazy. That's a crazy time to be stuck on a metal tube.
  
  Adam: Kelly brought up how...you know, she said flying as a kid, in the '90s, and I would also say in the '80s. I can attest to this. Basically, any time flying pre-9/11, it was amazing. She talks about how she got to go into the cockpit on a commercial flight when she was 7, and sit there, and they even let her flip a switch. It was the same. The first time I flew anywhere I was 7 years old, in 1987. Do the math. And, yeah, they let me come up and sit in the cockpit and hang out, and they gave me some little pilot's wings and a little model of an airplane...
  
  Marc: Oh, that's so cool.
  
  Liz: Things were simpler back then.
  
  Adam: ...instead of tazing me.
  
  Marc: Which they do now, regularly.
  
  Adam: Yeah, all the time.
  
  Liz: Every time I try and get him to the cockpit.
  
  Adam: Just as a matter of course.
  
  Marc: We had some awesome responses. So, yeah, thank you for all the...
  
  Angus: We might sum up some more of them and actually...
  
  Adam: Yeah, we'll pop some feedback up on the podcast page.
  
  Marc: Yeah, some really good ones are random selection for special searches in pretty much every airport.
  
  Adam: Yeah, that one was a real downer.
  
  Marc: Yeah, so we'll definitely put the rest of these up, but, guys, I think it's time for the question of this week.
  
  [01:17:59]
  [music]
  [01:18:21]
  
  Adam: So, Angus was talking about how we're almost at peak feature on phones. Basically, you know, like people's phones do almost everything you would want them to do. Almost. So, if you could introduce some sort of crazy feature to a phone, what would you like to see? To me, stun gun.
  
  Marc: That would be pretty cool.
  
  Adam: Yeah. Obviously, I would like a phone that doubles as a stun gun.
  
  Marc: See, I'm the make love not war departments are, so I'll just say a personal massager.
  
  Adam: A "back massager," with air quotes.
  
  Marc: Liz, what do you wanna most see?
  
  Liz: Well, I still think the lights were cool, but I would like them to function with the phone, so that you would be able to see the lights and around the front of the screen as well, so it'd just light up. And if it was kind of an angry message, it would be red or something.
  
  Marc: That's cool.
  
  Adam: So, like, a mood phone?
  
  Liz: Yeah, that'd be awesome.
  
  Marc: Sort of like in Harry Potter, the message that screams. What's it called?
  
  Liz: The halla[SP]?
  
  Marc: Yeah. So you kind of know, "So should I open this message or not?"
  
  Liz: Oh my gosh, yes, so if it's an angry message, it just yells it at you.
  
  Adam: Or if someone has just left their caps lock on, it just screams it at you.
  
  Marc: "Hi, it's mom. Be back at dinner."
  
  Liz: Make the phone more Harry Potter-esque.
  
  Marc: I think I'm gonna go with a persona hologram maker...
  
  Liz: Oh, that's cool.
  
  Marc: ...so I can put a hologram of myself, and then...
  
  Adam: That's a good one.
  
  Marc: ...go away and play in the arcade. I don't know what I would do with it, but you know, something that I could definitely use, yeah.
  
  Liz: I thought it would be like images or the hologram of a person who I've messaged or called...
  
  Adam: That'd be cool.
  
  Liz: ...and they would be, like, speaking to you.
  
  Angus: So, basically, Princess Leia, from Star Wars.
  
  Adam: I work from home, a few days a week, here at Finder, and I would love to have a hologram of myself in the office. I feel like I would feel more connected.
  
  Liz: We would love that, too, Adam.
  
  Angus: Would you also want the hologram of Marc standing over your desk?
  
  Adam: Yeah, I would like... While I'm sitting at home, I want a hologram of me at the office. I want a hologram of Marc at my house.
  
  Liz: Is that so much to ask, Finder? Come on.
  
  Marc: You can do everything else right.
  
  Adam: I feel like this is some sort of a OHS thing we should probably bring up.
  
  Marc: Probably. Mentally, as well.
  
  Angus: It's like, how much [inaudible 01:20:34] do you have to pay to a hologram?
  
  Marc: Okay, so that's an awesome question, so be sure to drop your responses on either our podcast page. Thank you again, Angus, for being on the podcast. We always love having you on board.
  
  Angus: It's always a pleasure to be here, and to spread the gospel of Vegemite to the world.
  
  Marc: Thank you, Adam and Liz. Liz the Biz. Thank you to all of our listeners. And a reminder, if you enjoy the show, please subscribe to it on iTunes so that we can bring more awesome episodes to you.
  
  Adam: Leave a review. It don't cost you nothing.
  
  Marc: Yeah, leave a review while you're at it. We love hearing from you guys. So, yeah, thanks again, and we'll catch you next time.
  
  Announcer: Thanks for listening to the finder.com.au Money Podcast. Head over to www.finder.com.au/podcast to find the show notes for this episode, and more great episodes. The Finder podcast is intended to provide you with tips, tools and strategies that will help you make better decisions. Although we're licensed and authorized, we don't provide financial advice. So, please consider your own situation, or get advice before making any decisions based on anything in our podcast. Visit finder.com.au to learn more about how we're regulated, to compare your options, or to access our terms and conditions.

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Notes and links mentioned in this podcast

• 1:41 - The horrors of the morning commute
• 4:10 - News: Uber video lands CEO in hot water (link to story)
• 6:51 - News: Westpac gets the West-smack (link to story)
• 10:49 - ANZ and AMEX break up (link to story)
• 15:48 - 1 in 3 Aussies are prepared to leave their bank in 2017 (link to story)
• 21:25 - Funny Money: Air in a jar (link to story)
• 24:34 - Funny Money: Pizza shoes (link to story)
• 29:43 - Funny Money: Woman finds $20, loses freedom. (link to story)
• 34:22 - Angus Kidman on why the Mobile World Congress is called a congress
• 36:22 - What is MWC and who was there?
• 38:36 - Some of the cool devices at MWC and the frustration of mobile battery life
• 44:43 - Blackberry is back-berry
• 47:20 - Nokia rises from the grave
• 51:14 - Mobile plans vs outright buying
• 55:36 - iPhone catastrophes, rumours and innuendo
• 58:11 - What does the future hold for mobile phones?
• 1:00:00 - Vegemite as an economic indicator (link to story)
• 1:05:25 - Vegemite is the Stockholm Syndrome of condiments
• 1:08:10 - Battle of the mites
• 1:10:33 - Listener feedback
• 1:18:21 - Question of the week

Question of the week: What crazy feature would you add to your mobile phone?

Music used in this week's podcast

• Crush at Maracas Bar by Rolemusic
• Night Owl by Broke For Free
• DD Grove by Kevin MacLeod
• Hachiko (The Faithful Dog) by The Kyoto Connection