Oh gadget, my gadget

This week on Vergecast, Paul Miller and Ashley Carman, part of our Circuit Breaker team, join Nilay and Dieter to discuss trends they've noticed while blogging. Also, fan favorite Nicola Fumo stops by the show to tell us what she's been up to and explains her recent tech troubles. This wouldn't be a tech podcast without us discussing the iPhone headphone jack rumors so get ready for that too! 01:46 - Gadgets with Paul and Ashley 08:20 - Headphone jack debate 21:53 - Coors ad 22:57 - Nicola Fumo guest 38:06 - Mr Robot ad 40:45 - Gadget Bonanza 47:09 - lightning round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, I'm gonna need a lot of help today, man.

• 0:09Nilay Patel?

  Alright. Hello, welcome to The Vergecast, a chaotic flagship podcast from theverge.com. I am Eli Patel, proprietor of a vodka brand called Scissor Vodka. Cut through the night. I'm joined here by an incredible panel of experts, personalities, talents, bon vivants. Paul Miller's here.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  You're just making such intense eye contact with me right now, I can't handle it.

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  I don't think that I've ever told you how much I love you. Ashley Carmen is here.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Hello. This is my first Vergecast.

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  Do you want to do intense eye contact?

• 0:52Speaker 02

  We can like do intense eye contact.

• 0:54Nilay Patel?

  Not now, but soon. Dieter, I'm staring at a monitor with fire in my eyes. Dieter's in San Francisco, but Dieter's here.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, once upon a time, we were gonna make this show about a phone call, but I see that is gone by the wayside.

• 1:09Nilay Patel?

  There's only one gimmick that we can persist with, and it is my fake vodka brand, Scissor Vodka. If anyone would like to invest in my fake vodka brand, I'm willing to take your money. Can I say this to the listener? Our trademark attorneys are on the case. I'm gonna make this happen.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Are you kidding?

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. You know, there's a drink called the Scissor. It's a rum drink. That shit's going down. I don't know if you've met Vox Media's legal team, but they're coming for you. So we got a packed show. I'll just say this right now, a little bit later on the show, our girl Nicola Fumo will be on the show to tell us the story of adventure and daring. But first, there's a reason that Paul and Ashley are here. Important reason. Paul and Ashley, the listeners may know, run Circuit Breaker, our gadget experience. And on Monday, Paul and Ashley and I took a field trip to Best Buy.

• 2:00Speaker 03

  Not Monday.

• 2:01Nilay Patel?

  Was that... God, it's such a long...

• 2:03Speaker 02

  What day was it? That was Monday.

• 2:05Nilay Patel?

  Paul and I have been in a spiritual Best Buy for five to six years.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I'd be really surprised if that was Monday.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  This is how this entire episode of the show is gonna go. What are some verifiable facts that we refuse to verify? Anyway, earlier this week, the gadget bloggers and I.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we wandered around.

• 2:24Nilay Patel?

  We did some IRL gadget blogging. We got recognized. That was wild. We learned that we all type weird shit when we see keyboards.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Neelai Patel is the best.

• 2:33Nilay Patel?

  What else you gonna type? You should start typing that.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna try that. Hey, let me see how that feels real quick on a MacBook Pro.

• 2:40Nilay Patel?

  It feels great.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Was anybody a quick brown fox kind of person?

• 2:43Nilay Patel?

  We had a lot of quick brown fox in the comments. If you're listening to this and you didn't see that post, I'm dying to know, when you see a keyboard and you walk up to it and you just start typing to like play with it, what is the thing that you type? Because I think it's very revealing.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm a traditionalist.

• 3:02Nilay Patel?

  What do you type?

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

• 3:05Nilay Patel?

  Addie types-

• 3:05Speaker 03

  What's she type?

• 3:06Nilay Patel?

  Addie types a Neuromancer quote, which is amazing. She said that for so- she wrote so many gadget posts like back in the day that she said for a while she just started making up mid-range Android news posts. She's like, "This has a Snapdragon processor and a four-inch screen." That's what we did to Addie. That's how much we ruined her brain. Paul, what was yours?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Uh, hello, my name is Paul.

• 3:28Nilay Patel?

  Ashley, what was yours?

• 3:28Speaker 03

  A lot of people identify themselves.

• 3:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you gotta type your- typing your name is the thing.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  The other thing I realized is not a lot of capitalization.

• 3:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Which is a failure on my part because holding shift while also typing is actually assessing a quality of a keyboard.

• 3:43Nilay Patel?

  Is it?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  I don't know. Ashley, what do you type?

• 3:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's true. Ashley addresses her device personally. Hello, it's me. All right, so this is Circuit Breaker Crew. I gotta- what's up with gadgets? How's life? How's things? It's a audio show, so you can't just shrug at me nonchalantly. The state of gadgets, by the way? Somewhat pleased, content, nonchalant shrug.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a lot of Kickstarter, and I knew that going in, but it's a lot of Kickstarter.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  It's Kickstarter and mid-tier Android from China.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, China loves making new phones. You know who doesn't like releasing new phones? The flagship brands. They only do like a couple a year.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Boring. I need quantity in China supplies.

• 4:32Nilay Patel?

  Do you remember, there was a time though, when HCC, like every other week, that was the carrier exclusive time, when every other week for us, we're like, you know what, HCC?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And they're all slight rebranded.

• 4:41Nilay Patel?

  They're all slight, they're all the same phone and they all did, they did the thing where one phone would have the spec that you want and another phone would have a spec that you want, but they never had all the specs that you want. Like this phone has a big screen, but a shitty processor.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:54Nilay Patel?

  This phone will remind you to call your mother.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  What do you guys think about the OnePlus 3? So I, I, I have an art gallery.

• 5:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Soho.

• 5:06Nilay Patel?

  God, you don't have to pay to plug your shit on this shit.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  It, I'm walking past this, um, so you, so I get off the train in Soho, right? Print stop and you walk past the Apple store.

• 5:19Nilay Patel?

  13 steps?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Right?

• 5:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Then you walk past this store that has, on, over Christmas was Samsung store and now, right now, it's a pop-up shop for Magnum ice cream, like those ice cream bars.

• 5:32Nilay Patel?

  Which one of those was, uh, more popular?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  I see a lot of people in the Magnum store, but.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Can we, can we talk about?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  For the one, what?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  What, what, Magnum ice cream?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an ice cream bar.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  Magnum refers to a size of condom, or if you're classy, like, uh, the, the thing that you put champagne in, right? Isn't that called a Magnum?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  It's also a gun.

• 5:55Nilay Patel?

  Also a gun.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  But like, which of those three things is the ice cream, is calling ice cream Magnum supposed to connote to you? It's very confusing. I'm deeply confused.

• 6:04Nilay Patel?

  It's deadly.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 6:05Nilay Patel?

  And it's luxurious.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  It's very luxurious.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  Just putting that out there.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I like, I like living in a world where Magnum can better afford to pay rent in, on a Soho pop-up shop than Samsung.

• 6:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But for one night only, OnePlus 3.

• 6:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Was in the pop-up shop, but all the Magnum stuff was still there and there was a line around the corner.

• 6:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Dude, this is a cult phenomenon, phone. People are really into it. I'm into it. Dan really liked it.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  I will say that people ought to be into it. Um, I mean, Dan's review is great, but like, the, the idea that, like, they just said, you know what, we're just gonna make a great phone. And they've been saying that for a while, but they didn't really execute on it last year, uh, with the last go around. But this one, like, there's just. Not really a whole lot of knocks on it. It's just solid, straightforward, good.

• 6:56Nilay Patel?

  Can I say that I love the name? Like, it took this many years for me to understand the name is an incredibly good joke that will pay off forever. Like, one, the one plus one was like, ah, this stupid name.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:08Nilay Patel?

  One plus two is like, I get it. One plus three is like, I see where you're going. You're gonna put out the one plus seventeen and people are gonna be like, that's fucking hilarious.

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  You just stayed committed to this one joke.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Addition.

• 7:21Nilay Patel?

  You named your company after addition. And you are constantly adding one more unit of value to everything that you make.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:30Nilay Patel?

  Because they can't name anything but a number.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:32Nilay Patel?

  Like, if they put out, like, I don't know.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  You couldn't say one plus multiplication. That doesn't make any sense.

• 7:40Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. What's a dumb phone name? Like, they couldn't put out the one plus galaxy.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  They could do string concatenation, which is traditionally done with the plus operator in most programming languages. So, you know?

• 7:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, really, really widen out that audience.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  One plus dog, and so you got one dog.

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  What? A one plus dog?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, one plus dog.

• 8:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. All right. This joke is, again, not quite as good as the actual joke that is the name of the phone. But it's great. And Dan reviewed it. Actually, one of my favorite reviews that we've ever done on the site. Because he had the CEO of the company was sort of a character in the review, talking about the phone. And they did it. And I'm just gonna go right into this. I think this year is gonna be the year when buying a new flagship phone or high-end phone gets really interesting. Because I suspect, Dieter, I can see Dieter's face. He knows where I'm going.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  I just, I'm so excited for you to get started on this.

• 8:35Nilay Patel?

  People aren't gonna buy the fucking iPhone. They're not gonna do it.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 8:38Nilay Patel?

  They're not gonna do it. They're gonna, the iPhone's gonna come out. The rumor in the Wall Street Journal this week was it's gonna look exactly like the current phone, maybe a little bit thinner, and it's on a headphone jack.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yep. Aren't they gonna move the antenna lines?

• 8:51Nilay Patel?

  No, they'll probably, Johnny Al will probably be like, you know what I love is antenna lines. The whole back of the phone is gonna be antenna lines. No, the renders have them moved to the top.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 8:59Nilay Patel?

  This is the least attractive phone Apple has ever made.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  And they're gonna go a third year with this design.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  You know, when we were at Best Buy, picked up the iPhone five SE.

• 9:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Beautiful phone.

• 9:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Miss it. I think I'm gonna go back.

• 9:13Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna go back.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Speaking of plugs, my lightning jack on my iPhone six, I don't have the six, I just have the six, stopped working. I was like, oh, shoot. I already cracked my screen. Apple's not gonna fix this. They don't fix anything.

• 9:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Um, and I was like, man.

• 9:30Nilay Patel?

  Their repairability is so low.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Maybe Neel is right about being a hater. But then I like wadded up like a post-it note and I stuck it in the jack and just like moved it around and got some of the dirt out.

• 9:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  And then I.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Where are you keeping this phone?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  In my pocket.

• 9:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  It started charging again.

• 9:47Nilay Patel?

  That's, I was gonna say, Paul goes, he's eating ice cream at the Magnum store tonight.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 9:52Nilay Patel?

  Covered in luxurious deadly ice cream.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  And I'm one of those people who talks into my phone, like I hold it up to my face like a microphone.

• 10:00Nilay Patel?

  You're one of those?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  But that would be a good way for the ice cream to get in, right? That'd be a good narrative.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Paul sloppily eating ice cream while making a phone call in New York City street while walking to his art gallery.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  But here's the thing.

• 10:14Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's the beginning of a rom com.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  So.

• 10:16Nilay Patel?

  That's what that is. It's like, the music is playing and Paul's buying the ice cream and he's like on a busy phone call. He's like, I gotta get to the gallery. And like, he walks into the girl and the girl, the ice cream goes everywhere and it's in the phone. And then for the rest of the movie, the business is Paul's constantly trying to get his phone to work.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:31Nilay Patel?

  But at the end of the movie, he's trying to call the girl and he can't, the phone's dead.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Do I get the girl?

• 10:35Nilay Patel?

  Well, you gotta, you gotta wad up the post-its.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, okay. As long as it happens. My headphones don't have like a microphone. So actually, if I am on a phone call, I will, I do actually hold, hold the phone like that sometimes. But if there was no headphone jack, then my headphones would be plugged straight into the phone. It, that port wouldn't be exposed to the dripping ice cream.

• 10:58Nilay Patel?

  This is by far the worst argument that I've heard thus far. But I will say, the worst argument that I've heard thus far, the only argument I've heard that actually articulates a benefit for lightning headphones. Cause no one's told me what the benefits are.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Ashley, what do you think about getting rid of the headphone jack?

• 11:14Speaker 02

  I wanna hear the benefit, I think.

• 11:15Nilay Patel?

  That's it. Ice cream protection. Luxurious ice cream.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  I'm very much on like team, don't get rid of the headphone jack. But I guess I'll try to play devil's advocate a little bit here. The primary benefit is supposed to be that it's a stupid jack. It takes up a ton of space inside the phone that can be used for something else, like making it thinner or replacing it with more battery or something else. And the next piece is that, look, progress is hard. It's always painful and there is better technology than a 3.5 millimeter headset jack and wired headphones, whether it's wireless earbuds or it's wired lightning headphones

• 12:02Speaker 03

  that give you better sound quality or something else that like we haven't heard of before. And so like the analogy keeps getting drawn. I'm like failing at making the pro case, but the analogy is supposed to be between the 3.5 millimeter or the 3.5 floppy, the floppy disk and this headset jack that like, look, eventually old stuff needs to go away. Do you replace with new stuff? And that's painful, but Apple is forward thinking and they're not going to stick around keeping to use the same ports forever because that way lies a madness. You end up with scuzzy ports on modern laptops and that's ridiculous.

• 12:39Nilay Patel?

  It's always VGA ports. Those are the ones I've heard over and over again are floppy disk drive, the optical drive and VGA ports.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  And serial.

• 12:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  I mean, honestly, that kind of makes sense to me now. That argument because how many pairs of headphones do you go through? Like the earbuds?

• 12:53Nilay Patel?

  A lot.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  So why are we clinging on to them? They suck.

• 12:56Nilay Patel?

  How many times do you take your headphones out of your phone and plug them into your laptop?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 13:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Sorry. You're screwed. Buy some more headphones.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Or some dongles.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Dongles.

• 13:08Nilay Patel?

  Fucking word. Well, here, let me just lay this out. So the rumor is in the Wall Street Journal, they're not really rumors when the Wall Street Journal reports them. We all know this. It's a dirty secret of our industry. Someone in Apple leaked to the Wall Street Journal, next year's phone is going to be not a big deal. 2017 is the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone. That's the big deal. That's the one you want. This year, modern changed, a little bit thinner. Ah, we're gonna get rid of the headphone jack. I think the point of that was to set expectations about the not big hardware design. That's fine. But I think the more important story is like, Apple's moving away from this connector

• 13:50Nilay Patel?

  that literally the entire universe of audio is centered around.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:55Nilay Patel?

  I have not heard a reason beyond it's old for getting rid of it. And I have not heard a reason beyond Apple hates old things for why Apple would want to get rid of it. Except for what Dieter's saying, which is this thing about thinner battery life. But the dominant narrative of the iPhone for the past year has been, why do you keep making it thinner? We would accept a thicker iPhone if it would last for 24 hours.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Right. The battery life would be nice. I think the middle ground here is a deal making mindset where it's like, okay, Apple, you can do it if you switch to USB-C.

• 14:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Because at least then you'd have the same headphones that would work on Android, on your laptop, and on your computer. There's no lightning plug on your computer either.

• 14:38Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  A lot of dongles would be incoming.

• 14:40Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, John Gruber speculated that maybe that's why we haven't seen the MacBook Pro yet, is that they're gonna put a lightning connector on the MacBook, which will just be deeply confusing to me, because it uses USB-C on the new MacBook, the retina MacBook, the last two iterations of it. Will they use lightning for charging? Will it just be there for headphones? It's like, I have no idea. So I wrote this piece. Everyone's mad at me about it. I wrote it so people get mad at me about it and talk about it, right? That's why I write things. It's not actually what I always write.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of people on your side.

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  There's a lot of people on my side. There's a lot of people on the sort of pro Apple.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  That's my knee jerk.

• 15:13Nilay Patel?

  And those, but those people have a point. Apple is historically very good at saying, fuck this old thing.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:21Nilay Patel?

  Here's the new thing. Where they have been good at it, and I think this is, Dieter, I think you agree with me in this, the comparison of the floppy drive is wrong. Because when they got rid of the floppy drive, they got rid of it on one model, on the iMac in 1998. They kept selling computers with floppy drives for other customers for years, I think until 2001, actually.

• 15:42Nilay Patel?

  And the thing that replaced the floppy drive was really obvious. It was CDs and the internet. And the best selling accessory for the iMac for years was USB floppy drives. That was what people bought. You bought an iMac and Best Buy or you could buy them at Sears. My sister bought an iMac at Sears, true story. They would sell you the bundle, like the iMac care kit. It was like polishing cloth, like whatever garbage, a CD cleaner, you know, like the garbage they used to sell you. And it was just a bunch of high margin shit around a floppy drive that they would sell you. That's why, because people still needed it. But eventually you didn't need anymore. You could unplug it and like throw it in the closet. The CD drive, obviously the internet was going to take over, music was going to take over. They built iTunes. They still made computers with CD drives until like four years ago. This just happened.

• 16:26Nilay Patel?

  All these other ports, they wrapped them in USB. USB got faster and faster and faster. We knew it was going away. Eventually they went away, but they didn't stop making the ports and stop making the adapters. Here, they're just, there's nothing else. There's no next thing. Everyone's going to tell me about Bluetooth. But Bluetooth isn't as good, right? It's like crackly, you need a battery.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bluetooth is not.

• 16:44Nilay Patel?

  It recompresses the audio.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  It's not there, there yet. Maybe Bluetooth 5 will be way better.

• 16:49Nilay Patel?

  Maybe.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  I mean, maybe Apple goes all in and creates their own wireless standard for audio.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  That's terrifying.

• 16:56Nilay Patel?

  That's like the worst outcome.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Right?

• 16:58Nilay Patel?

  But I think Apple is betting over and over and over and people will just buy the next iPhone. They'll just do it out of habit.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:03Nilay Patel?

  Right? And they've got all the carrier programs where you sign up and you get a new iPhone every year. They have their own program where you sign up and get a new iPhone every year.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  And you think this could be so dramatic?

• 17:12Nilay Patel?

  Right. You think this could be, what? I don't know. I think if you have this iPhone or a 6 and you see the new iPhone and it's going to cost you some amount of money. And you're like, what's new about it? And the answer is it's a little bit faster and it has a better camera and your headphones don't work. You're going to say, screw it.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  I'll buy it.

• 17:31Nilay Patel?

  But we're professionally, that's.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Whatever. I'm living with the iPhone 6 with the, would you buy it, Ashley?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  No, because of the headphone jack.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, because I don't charge things. So if I had to have Bluetooth headphones, first of all, it just wouldn't happen.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  I just like to have, I have my headphones with me everywhere. They're just easy. They're replaceable, super, and they're cheap if you are in a major pinch.

• 17:56Nilay Patel?

  Just imagine this. Just be in my mind for a while. This is, these are the scenarios I'd like to imagine. You're just you, you're living your life. Suddenly you get invited on a boat ride. You're like, ah, this is great. I love boat rides. And you're on a boat and it's got like a shitty old stereo and you're like, this boat ride could use some tunes. Plug right in.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 18:14Nilay Patel?

  But then you look at your phone.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Good thing I brought my dongles.

• 18:18Nilay Patel?

  Like just, it's gonna ruin boat rides forever is what I'm saying.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  With my laptop, I accept the dongle life, cause like, if you've got a laptop, you're carrying around a bag to put the laptop in. And so if I like, you know, it sucks that I've only got one USB C port on this Mac, but I've got a bag and I can put some stuff in the bag and I can grab the dongle that I need and life goes on.

• 18:38Nilay Patel?

  Actually.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  With a phone, I am not carrying around a bunch of dongles, not gonna happen.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  So, somebody in our comments, there were over 700 comments right now, over 800 comments on that post. Some of my comments pointed out, Dieter, that your dongle life, even though I posted a somewhat mocking photo of Dieter at the WWDC live blog with like 90 dongles. He's like, that is actually the right solution. Right? You have this whole bundle of shit, like all ready to go. You pull out your laptop, you plug in one thing and you're ready to go. You're not plugging 90 things in your laptop.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, Doc, well, where do you, where do you keep your headphones?

• 19:10Nilay Patel?

  My pocket.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Right? So what if the dongle was already connected to your headphones?

• 19:14Nilay Patel?

  Haven't we been down this road?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  It's just a tiny little dongle.

• 19:17Nilay Patel?

  HCCG1 had this problem, every Sony Ericsson phone had this problem. None of those phones changed the world.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  It's not great.

• 19:22Nilay Patel?

  No one's using Sony Smart Plug.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  I'm saying if you're at the boat, you're, you already got a dongle.

• 19:27Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Until you lose it. How often do you lose headphones? I lose headphones probably once every two months.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Buy another dongle. Maybe Apple can offer a subscription, like a dongle subscription.

• 19:37Nilay Patel?

  So we were in the Best Buy and we're like walking in, we're like looking around. I will say the Samsung area of the Best Buy, far more hopping and lively than the Apple area.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:45Nilay Patel?

  The Apple area was like being in a museum. It was very quiet, everyone was very proper.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:50Nilay Patel?

  I was afraid to touch everything. And the Samsung area was like, trap, these VR headsets, like bah! So we get to the little accessory aisle, I'm like, wow, this is kinda sad. And Paul's like, I've given so much money to this aisle.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:01Nilay Patel?

  Like, just everything, everything costs $29 at a minimum.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:05Nilay Patel?

  You need, you loot, like MacBook adapters, you know how hard it is to lose an MacBook adapter?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I think Apple thinks $1 is $29.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  That's their base unit of currency.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Has anybody done the math? Like, I think everything's a multiple of 29.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Base 29.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, base 29.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Base 10.

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  That's it. That like, that's actually the curve of the original iMac is a base 29.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Maybe the dongles will be 29 cents.

• 20:33Nilay Patel?

  This is a garbage stupid idea. I'm just saying it. I'm saying, I know that.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Look, I just feel.

• 20:39Nilay Patel?

  I have waged a one man war against IR blasters for a decade.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  And you like cried every day for a month when they killed Firewire.

• 20:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Nilay Patel?

  Paul and I have known each other for a long time.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  But I feel like there's, I just, and it feels stupid and fanboyish of me to say, but I do feel like we kind of take a step forward as a technology industry every time Apple kills a connector.

• 21:03Nilay Patel?

  But they usually do it in favor of a standard.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  But here's the thing, like, I gotta say that we take a step forward and Apple killing the floppy in particular was great. It was the right move. The floppy was a bad technology and we could see precisely and clearly what was next. And with headphones, I don't see precisely and clearly what the replacement technology is that is significantly better, that makes it worth the cost of bailing on a standard. Because like, the fear is that Apple comes forward with something that is non-standard and non-compatible with its own products, much less everything else that's on the planet. And that's like, I don't, I don't see the value.

• 21:45Nilay Patel?

  They do own a massive headphones company.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, where does Beats come into this?

• 21:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, they're gonna keep selling you overpriced headphones.

• 21:53Nilay Patel?

  Founded during the gold rush, it was home to miners who spent 12 hours a day in the frozen ground digging for gold. But that land was rich in another resource, the rocky mountain water that runs cold and clear. One man knew the value of that water. That man was Mr. Coors. Really, just drink the Coors. I don't know if any of this is true, but just buy some fucking Coors and drink it. In 1873, Mr. Coors settled in Golden to brew the finest beer that town had ever tasted. Again, they spent 12 hours a day in the frozen ground, so assuming all the beer was good and Mr. Coors is fictional, but just buy the beer. Anyway, the miners are grateful because when they sat down for a well-deserved banquet, Mr. Coors brought a beer worthy of the occasion. A beer that came to be known

• 22:36Nilay Patel?

  as the banquet beer. Coors, the banquet beer. Coors Light Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. With great beer comes great responsibility. If anyone wants to fact check that, I'm open to it. I'm at Radless on Twitter.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Looking up Wikipedia.

• 22:47Nilay Patel?

  But just by Coors. Drink it. Drink it. Well, I mean, we're drinking it. We're not actually drinking it. We pretend we are. All right, we're back. I, Paul, I don't know if you heard this. Paul verified, Mr. Coors, real man. Made a good beer.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  I hope that someone, actually, I always want as a joke to be for Halloween, Michael Coors, like Michael Coors. But I realized many, many seasons ago that it's too high a concept and it'll never work.

• 23:19Nilay Patel?

  So in case you haven't noticed, Nicola's here.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Oh, hi.

• 23:22Nilay Patel?

  We've missed you. We've missed you terribly. We've, yeah, we've missed you, the listeners have missed you. I'm glad that one flip and tweet brought you back to us today. It was good.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  I was just waiting for the moment. I mean.

• 23:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You got, we had to cool off.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:37Nilay Patel?

  Right? Towards the end of your.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  You have to starve them out and then.

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, make them want it. All right, so Nicola, here's what we're gonna, we're gonna be doing with Nicola. She's gonna be doing some audio-based reporting for us, we hope, in the future. But really, I want Nicola to come back to the Vergecast every so often and just tell us tale.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, yeah, we can do that.

• 23:55Nilay Patel?

  Fumo adventures. Adventures in technology and culture.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  Um, all right.

• 23:59Nilay Patel?

  And style.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  So.

• 24:01Nilay Patel?

  And experiences.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  The big problem in my life right now is that I need to replace my MacBook Pro, which is from 2011.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  Do you have a Pro or an Air?

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Pro.

• 24:11Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  2011, my last year of college. My other one broke and I had to get this one. And now it's just really slow and it's clunky and I'm living my, you know, breezy lifestyle, so I just want to grab a computer and go. So I have bought and returned two laptops, Mac laptops, since, since leaving this job, where I had a provided computer.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  The first, I bought the, um, I bought the gold MacBook and the guy selling it to me was like, "Why don't you want rose gold?" And I was like, "You don't even know what you're opening up with me right now." I didn't even say that, but I was like, "If he knew, this might trigger work."

• 24:53Nilay Patel?

  He tried to push the rose gold on you?

• 24:54Speaker 04

  He was just like, "Why not go for it?" And I was like, "Mm, mm." Um, wasn't happy. So I bought, I bought the less expensive one. It's $12.99, but after New York tax, it was like over $1,400.

• 25:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  Which is like so much money, okay? And I got it and, and it was slow. Like I would open it up and it would, you know, when you like type in your password, it would, you'd be typing and it doesn't register. And it's like, "Well, my 2011 laptop does this too." Like it needs like a warm-up period. And all the time, like all I do is look at, look at Google Docs and email and like, I don't do anything.

• 25:29Nilay Patel?

  You live in a web browser.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  I don't do anything like heavy, right? And it would have like little spinning guy and I'm like, "Are you fucking kidding me too?" Uh, Safari.

• 25:38Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  Because I-

• 25:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  I hadn't committed to it, so I didn't want to like install all my faves. Uh, but it was just horrible. And I, and it sucked because it was so cute, but I took it back.

• 25:49Nilay Patel?

  You should have gotten that rose gold.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Then it would have been fast and good. Damn it. Um, I took it back.

• 25:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 04

  And it was fine. Oh, and then, I'll, I'll tell you later. Okay, I took it back. It was fine. They returned, you know, returned my money. And then I was like, "All right, I'm gonna buy this, this other one." So I got the 11-inch MacBook Air, which is old, like it has been out since when?

• 26:10Nilay Patel?

  Uh, like 2010.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  And I got it, I got home with it and I was like, "Oh, old friend." It felt so familiar and like good. And like, I felt like I could just throw it on the couch and I didn't care.

• 26:22Nilay Patel?

  The 11-inch MacBook Pro, there, there were many, many like Ultra Notebooks in the world. There were like luxurious business class note, like that's the computer you buy when you can afford a slower, small computer to use in business class. That was the original, I'm like, I'm so bougie, I have a shitty computer for the air. That's 11 inch MacBook Air.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Well, it felt familiar and good, but I knew from the moment I bought it. Yeah, I knew from the moment that I took it home, I was like, I can't keep this, this isn't an intelligent, this isn't a good long-term purchase.

• 26:53Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  Right now, so.

• 26:55Nilay Patel?

  That computer is on its deathbed.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, so after however many, a week or something, I took it back again. And fun fact, Apple Store can't return to debit, so.

• 27:05Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 27:05Speaker 04

  They had, right? So, but even though the first person returned to debit, the second person was like, oh, no, no, we can't do that. I was like, okay, so you can either take $1,200 cash, and I was like, no. Or we can return to a gift card and maybe from the gift card, we can return to your debit card. And I was like, well, let's hope so.

• 27:25Nilay Patel?

  Wait, why wouldn't you take the $1,200 in cash?

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Well, because what am I going to do with that?

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  Go to the bank and put it in bank account.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  I don't have a bank, it's digital.

• 27:32Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, I'm an old guy. I participate in our banking institutions.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, my bank is, isn't, doesn't have any ground locations.

• 27:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh. You're cashless.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  Cash-free, baby.

• 27:44Nilay Patel?

  Can you?

• 27:44Speaker 04

  And proud.

• 27:45Nilay Patel?

  Do you ask them to turn to Bitcoin?

• 27:47Speaker 04

  Can you just put this in my Venmo or something?

• 27:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  I had to invite my mom to Venmo.

• 27:53Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, because my dedicated Twitter followers will remember when I got kicked off the family plan. And then I joined my mom, a different family member. We created a family plan together. Bye, Dad. But my mom's making me pay for it, catch. So I was like, okay, well, how am I gonna? Oh, other fun fact, Verizon, you can't pay, you can't auto pay with two credit cards. So it all comes out of her account and then I need to reimburse her somehow. So I invited her to Venmo.

• 28:22Nilay Patel?

  Hey, Dieter, did I tell you something? I didn't tell you this during WWDC. Because I knew that you, you know, it's like, a live blog is real stressful at Apple events, even more stressful. So there at W W C, Wi Fi is pretty bad, our little hotspot is pretty bad. I'm like, I'm gonna tether to my phone, cuz that always works.

• 28:39Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 28:40Nilay Patel?

  My phone tethering didn't work at all, it was broken, totally broken. I was, there was like a minute at W W C where I had no connectivity and I was like, couldn't figure it out. I was like fucking with my phone. I figured out what it was.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  What?

• 28:51Nilay Patel?

  A T and T called my parents, cuz I pay their family plan for them, convinced them to combine all their billing together. Right? If you've been listening to the show, you know, they combined the, their like-

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Didn't they try to make a smart home out of your family home?

• 29:04Nilay Patel?

  They sent them a bunch of like, you versed shit and like, smart home stuff. And they said, this will be cheaper. You get a smart home and you get unlimited data cuz we see the one account uses so much data.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 29:15Nilay Patel?

  Guess what they turn off? When they turn on the limited data- Oh no, they turn off tethering? They turn off tethering. So I was sitting at W W C, ready to make my one fucking power move, which is I plug in the phone and it all lights up and works. Phone is dead. And I look at Dieter and I was like, do I tell Dieter this right now that I'm dead? And I was like, Dieter's like, holding the camera, he's taking photos, he's like, fucking with 90 dongles. So it's like, Dieter's fine.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  I, I read the live blog.

• 29:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  And I watched the stream, which is the first time I've ever watched that.

• 29:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  I was like, oh, this is just like, fashion week, but just one, one.

• 29:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. What'd you think of their presenters? They made a big push towards all these like diverse presenters.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Oh, man. I mean, it felt like, felt a little like, calculated, like a little cheesy. But also like, what are you gonna do? You can't-

• 30:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you can't not.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  There's no like, nat, I don't know.

• 30:06Nilay Patel?

  You have to make a choice, right?

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  Here's the choice you're making, here it is, and then over time, it'll feel natural.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:10Nilay Patel?

  That's fine. I, I appreciate that, actually.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  The Minnie Mouse bit was like, a little maddening. Like, oh, oh, woman, I got a Minnie Mouse, thank God for a Minnie Mouse. I was just like, come on.

• 30:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Get outta here. Um, but I thought it was really funny that every, every gentleman that presented was wearing like dark denim, somewhat stiff jeans and like a leather belt and then all varying versions of blue shirts.

• 30:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 04

  Like no one repeated a blue, but all blue.

• 30:38Nilay Patel?

  Okay. And then there was like a bunch of women and they were all like dressed in nice.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were just, well, the one, the Minnie Mouse woman was just like kind of athleisure, like office appropriate athleisure. And then the music woman was just like, I'm fun.

• 30:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, she's awesome.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  She, she came to Apple, I think through the Beats acquisition. She's actually a VP of the Beats organization.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 30:59Nilay Patel?

  She's like the real deal. Um, everyone calls her Boz, but I, she's got a full name. Boz, Bozeman Sinchan is her full name. She's amazing. Um, so any takeaways from this? Were you like, the watch is better now?

• 31:12Speaker 04

  Oh, man. Well, iMessage is gonna be a mess. Like the thing about this iMessage thing is that it's gonna really reveal the people who fucking suck to text. Because some people, you're gonna be like, I don't even want your reply. Cause it's gonna be like nonstop drama on your phone. The balloons are shooting and it's vibrating and it goes away. And there's stickers everywhere. Like it's gonna be, it's gonna be something. And I think people will crave the simplicity of like, can I just send a text only message?

• 31:44Nilay Patel?

  Um, my friends hate me because I love Bitmoji.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Ah, yes. Cause there's always one of those. Mine is Jeremy.

• 31:50Nilay Patel?

  Well, I do it. Sorry, Jeremy. Blown the fuck up on the Vergecast. Jeremy, I want you to know.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  He's cooled on it. Jeremy's cooled on the Bitmoji.

• 31:59Nilay Patel?

  Bitmoji is only cool if you're doing it to be a super ironic jerk to people who hate Bitmoji. So I have a cousin hates it, refused to communicate with him in any other way. Because I know I'm just trolling him nonstop.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:13Nilay Patel?

  There's one, I believe there's a cartoon of like, of your avatar just like lying face down on the ground crying. My wife and I send that one to each other all the time.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  I like that. Actually, the range of emotions on Bitmoji is amazing.

• 32:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But they're doomed, right? Cause of the iMessage.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, pretty much iMessage sounds like it's gonna be Facebook Messenger and Snapchat. I think that's what everyone came down to.

• 32:35Nilay Patel?

  Right. So you gotta finish your story. We only have a few minutes left.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Oh, um, so now I'm leaving on a trip on the 30th. I'm gonna be gone all of July. And I was really hoping to bring a lightweight laptop with me for my adventures to be revealed. And

• 32:50Nilay Patel?

  You still have a 13 inch Pro?

• 32:51Speaker 04

  I don't know. No, no, no. I took, yeah, I just have this heavy computer, literally with a crack in the screen. There's, I'm not bringing on this on my trip and I do not know what to do. I need to buy something and I need to keep it.

• 33:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, why don't you get anything else? Why don't you get like a Chromebook?

• 33:07Speaker 04

  I think honestly, because I don't know how to start shopping for it, to be like totally honest.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 33:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  You know that you have many friends in the technology media industry who can just tell you which one to buy. Listeners.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  I was gonna maybe start a forum.

• 33:21Nilay Patel?

  Underscore Fumo. Is that right?

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:23Nilay Patel?

  At Nicola underscore Fumo. Just tell her what Chromebook to buy. They're all gonna tell you it's the Toshiba Chromebook 2, which is fine.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Can I roll up in the hip coffee shop, the Bushwick coffee shop that's trying to look like Venice, California and open a Toshiba? Seems wrong.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Here's, here's what, here's what I'm gonna say. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna say a thing.

• 33:42Nilay Patel?

  You validated everything our listeners have ever thought. What are you saying?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say it and you're both going to go, what?

• 33:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna say it, cause it's true. What you want is an HP Spectre.

• 33:56Nilay Patel?

  Hmm.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  Why?

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  Walt reviewed that this week. Cause that shit will make you look dope in a coffee shop.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  It is faster than the gold MacBook that you had. It looks dope. It's super thin. It gets hot. But it looks dope and it runs Windows 10, which is, having just previewed Sierra, like you'll, you'll miss out on your Mac stuff, but Windows 10 is pretty good.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  I definitely don't need to talk at the computer and have it do stuff for me.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  You don't need to do that on Windows. You can type or talk. It's your choice.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Um, what I'm saying is that like Siri on the Mac is not like a hot, exciting thing to me.

• 34:34Nilay Patel?

  No, it makes no sense.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Like I don't, I'm not craving that at all.

• 34:38Nilay Patel?

  I'm excited to show this to you. It's like really pretty. It's black. It's got gold hinges. It's got a cool HP logo.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Oh, this is nice.

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  It looks like you should be using it in a bathroom at a nightclub.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Yes. That's exactly what it looks like. Yeah, it looks good.

• 34:53Nilay Patel?

  That's you.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  How much is it?

• 34:54Nilay Patel?

  You should write a review of that for us.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  Yeah?

• 34:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 04

  A real consumer review?

• 34:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I bought this crazy ass HP laptop and this is what I like.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  HP and me.

• 35:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  Becoming my mother.

• 35:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's a thing you should do. These are coming up with pitch ideas live on the air.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna make you buy shit on your debit card.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  What's the, yeah, what's the return policy?

• 35:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean, we have one upstairs.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 35:17Nilay Patel?

  The return policy is like, don't fuck it up.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Come back here? Yeah, all right, cool. Yeah, I'll do that.

• 35:22Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Um.

• 35:23Nilay Patel?

  Tell me another, you got two minutes. Tell me another Nicola out in the world story.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  Um, well, I just came back from the Adirondacks.

• 35:29Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 04

  The Mount, 600 million, wait, yes. I don't remember how many acres. It says when you drive in how many, it literally says like 600 million acres of forest or something.

• 35:41Nilay Patel?

  Did you just pronounce million as a billion?

• 35:43Speaker 04

  But my friend and I were like, that can't be right. Like, but then we realized we have no idea how big of an acre is. Like, well, I don't know what that is.

• 35:49Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 35:50Speaker 04

  I, no clue. I just know that when. When someone buys something that's like on acre, like that's a big property, I think.

• 35:57Nilay Patel?

  Aren't you from Wisconsin?

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:59Nilay Patel?

  I feel like you grew up with a lot of people who lived on half acre lots.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  No, because my, I grew up in, in like city suburbs, so everything was right next to each other.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's all right.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  That's a half hour, half acre lot.

• 36:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was like pretty standard.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  Oh, well, no one was talking about the sizes.

• 36:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, I was a particularly pretentious child.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Um.

• 36:18Nilay Patel?

  Steven, I've seen your family has outgrown your half acre.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  Well, the cool thing about.

• 36:22Nilay Patel?

  Another brother, you say?

• 36:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  The big benefit of the mountains is that you lose.

• 36:33Nilay Patel?

  Can you just imagine like eight year old me with like my huge Indian curly hair, be like, ooh, another family member.

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Doesn't even make a lot of sense.

• 36:44Nilay Patel?

  Doesn't.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  Okay, in the mountains, you lose reception, which was cool and freeing and led to me removing Instagram and Twitter from my phone, which was nice, except that I had like, like anxiety of people like trying to communicate me with me on either. And I was like, I can't have to go home. I'm out in the world and what am I going to do? And I was like, maybe this is good. And then I'm like, am I just doing this to prove a point? I don't know. But then it was kind of nice just being like, I can't.

• 37:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  And I did read the news more.

• 37:14Nilay Patel?

  There you go. But you had no connection. You're like reading newspapers.

• 37:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I read newspapers.

• 37:19Nilay Patel?

  Do you like that better or worse than using your phone?

• 37:22Speaker 04

  It was nice. I feel like I'm have better attention span than I used to. And I think it's partly because I'm not looking at a lot of things on the computer all week.

• 37:30Nilay Patel?

  Right before we got on air, Nicola looked at Paul and said, I just read your offline series.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:35Nilay Patel?

  I'm very concerned that the next story Nicola pitches me is I'm going offline for a year.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  No, no, no, because it's been done. Otherwise, I totally would. No, I read that as kind of a like, what am I going to go through? Because I definitely spend a lot less time online and it feels amazing. But I miss out on the memes, but I don't care. It's mine.

• 37:55Nilay Patel?

  You have to go.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 37:56Nilay Patel?

  We love you very much. The listeners love you.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  Be back soon.

• 37:59Nilay Patel?

  Audio adventures with Nicola. Going to be a regular part of the show.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Bye, guys.

• 38:03Nilay Patel?

  Bye.

• 38:06Nilay Patel?

  On July 13, Mr. Robot, the 2015 Peabody Award and Critics' Choice Awards winner, returns for a second season to USA Network, starring Golden Globe and SAG Award nominee Rami Malek and Golden Globe Award winner Christian Slater, also from Pump Up the Volume, the best movie ever made. Mr. Robot follows Elliot, a cybersecurity engineer by day and vigilante hacker by night, who follows a mysterious leader to join hacker group F Society. This show is sick. Have you seen this show? It's great. Watch it. I command you. They put their skills to test in taking out ECorp, a giant conglomerate that owns the entire world's personal and banking information. But when they pulled the hack off, they quickly realized they had no idea what they're getting into. This summer, they actually knew what they're getting into. There's other surprises, but it's a great

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  show. Mr. Robot shows actual hacking techniques, like the use of Linux and Netscape, not neither of those are techniques.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  Netscape? What?

• 38:58Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. DDoS attacks and rootkits. I actually talked to Cora Adana. I was on a panel with him. He's one of the writers. They actually have like major security consultants come in and like do this. It's great. You gotta watch the show. Anyway, Mr. Robot returns, season two, Wednesday, July 13th at 10. And if you're in Central time, the best time, Chicago time, 9 Central on USA Network. Seriously, watch the show. And then there's actually a bunch of Verge stuff around Mr. Robot coming. Like, big Verge stuff. Big Vergecast stuff. In ways you won't even expect. We're gonna use Linux and Netscape.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Now, I'm scared this is like an actual, an actual thing.

• 39:37Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Netscape.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  A Netscape attack?

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  They use Netscape on Linux.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Not Netscape Navigator.

• 39:46Nilay Patel?

  We're back. It's the Vergecast. Nicola's gone. Ashley's here. She's never buying an Android phone again. Her email address is [email protected].

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Don't do this to me.

• 39:57Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, what were you saying?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  I was just saying, is it because iMessage? Because that's, that's the thing that has me locked down to the iPhone pretty tightly right now.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  And, I mean, I, my ma, I saw my mom this weekend, and she has a Galaxy, and it legit gave me anxiety to try to use it. I was hunting for five minutes trying to find her settings. And I was like, I can't handle it. I don't know.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  They're right there at the top.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  She had, no, she had, I don't know what she did to it. It's just, it's like, it was grim.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  See? Vindicated.

• 40:31Nilay Patel?

  I think people are gonna see that it doesn't have headphone jack. And they're gonna say, I'm gonna wait.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Neil was right.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  But what if they do it for the rest of their phones?

• 40:37Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna pick it. They're gonna pick it from the Apple Store, eating Magnum Ice Cream Bars.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:43Nilay Patel?

  Screaming my name. All right. They're back. We have a segment on the show.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  It's called...

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Something gadget, something.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  No, it's called Gadget Bonanza. You know this.

• 40:53Nilay Patel?

  Gadget Bonanza? It's true.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  That was, that was Ashley's idea.

• 40:59Nilay Patel?

  Gadget Bonanza?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:00Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  She named it.

• 41:02Nilay Patel?

  My strong feeling...

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Five weeks ago, when we started the segment.

• 41:06Nilay Patel?

  My strong feeling is that Ashley has not spoken enough on the show. So, Ashley, lead us on this Bonanza gadget.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  I can't wait to lead you.

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  What I love most about the Verge is the overwhelming enthusiasm.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Is this where I get to tell you about my favorite gadget this week?

• 41:24Nilay Patel?

  Really, whatever you want, but if you want to speak like a metaphor about life.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  How deep can I get?

• 41:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  I'm gonna tell you about my favorite gadget this week.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  And it's super, it's like not exciting. So just like brace yourself.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  Sell it some more.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Okay, stay with me. It's a hearing aid.

• 41:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  And it is the world's first quote unquote internet of things hearing aid.

• 41:49Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  And I actually am really excited about it because as we know, like the internet of shit, internet of things sucks.

• 41:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  I hate it all. It's funny, but whatever. And this actually is useful. It works with if this, then that.

• 42:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  And so, you know, if someone has a hearing aid, this one, they can say, oh, if my smoke alarm goes off, like send a noise through my hearing aid.

• 42:16Nilay Patel?

  Ah, that's really hard.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Or if my door unlocks, send a pain to me. And I think that's actually the most genius use of the internet of things.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I really like the idea that we'll be bionic, right? Like the idea that things that currently we think of as helping disabled people will one day become so much superior that regularly able people will be like, I want that too.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is bionic, like the, you know, like maybe in the future, like I'll have like a little tingle and like, oh, am I like?

• 42:47Nilay Patel?

  That's just me staring into your eyes, Paul.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  What's the, what's the bone that's below the, the last rib?

• 42:55Nilay Patel?

  The lacerus. That's, I just, I fucked me up. I don't know. I'm more than I look like a doctor.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  It's like connected to the hip.

• 43:01Nilay Patel?

  I do.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Maybe it's the hip. Like my hip will tingle when the dishwasher is done, right? I'll just have like those ambient senses of what, what's going on with my home. It'll be integrated into my body. And I feel like this hearing aid is a perfect example.

• 43:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm super into it. So here's my question. How do you buy it?

• 43:18Speaker 02

  That's a good question. They have a website.

• 43:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  But it's a UK company.

• 43:22Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Cause my, the thing, this is weird. If you ever thought to yourself, I should buy a hearing aid, it's actually really hard to do. Cause the whole like industry, if there's any wannabe entrepreneurs out there, go disrupt this. Make some like cool headphones that like plug in the air. They actually have them. They have like the Totally Wireless, the Broggy Dash. They like tune the world around you.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 43:45Nilay Patel?

  That market and the hearing aid market are gonna collide.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  It's gonna be great.

• 43:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And a bunch of weird websites are gonna be out of business. Cause that, if you just search for like, buy a hearing aid, you just fall into the worst pit of like skeezy branded content in the entire world.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Don't you like need to go to the doctor or something like that?

• 44:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you're supposed to. But then there's like Sketch, not doctors who are like.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:07Nilay Patel?

  What's the name of the product?

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Oh man, I hate, there's no vowels in it.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  This is another fun gadget thing you have to deal with every day is companies who name their products, things that are not able to be pronounced.

• 44:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Like they don't think about people actually talking about their product.

• 44:24Nilay Patel?

  What's it called? Go ahead.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Okay, it's the OPN. So I suppose the open, the open.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And the company name is? Otacon?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Otacon.

• 44:34Nilay Patel?

  Otacon?

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Otacon.

• 44:35Nilay Patel?

  Otacon?

• 44:36Speaker 03

  O T A C O N?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  O T R.

• 44:39Nilay Patel?

  Otacon is a character from the Metal Gear Solid series. If you, if you are so hardcore, you're like, no, this shit will be bionic.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  Going to Metal Gear. We cannot get into Metal Gear right now.

• 44:49Nilay Patel?

  No, it's like, right? They're gonna build the nanobots, they're gonna fill your body with stuff, you're gonna turn into things.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Forty hours later.

• 44:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You're gonna be part of a network.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  You're watching a cutscene. Still.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god, a quick time event. Is that happening right now? Great hearing aid. Um, no, Otacon. It's a whole thing. He's like your nerdy friend. His name is Hal.

• 45:10Nilay Patel?

  I know so much about Metal Gear, but I could not tell you what happens in that game. Alright, Paul's your turn. Bonanza me.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  The Spot Mini.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  What's that?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  It's the new Boston Dynamics robot.

• 45:21Nilay Patel?

  Oh, the giraffe one.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Okay. Colin thinks it's a giraffe.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  And you know what? Colin's his own man and he can think whatever he wants. I think it's a robot dog with an arm on the back. That is also kind of its face sometimes.

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  Let me ask you a question. What is the difference between a dog and a giraffe with an arm?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Well, for one, there's two versions of the Spot Mini. The arm is optional.

• 45:46Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Right? Has a head either way. But when it has an arm, you, it's easy to see that the, the arm, the hand of the arm is kind of like a face. But not, doesn't even remind me of.

• 46:00Nilay Patel?

  Let me ask you this question.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Nilay Patel?

  When I'm doing this right now, do you think my hand is my face?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:05Nilay Patel?

  It's really easy.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:07Nilay Patel?

  For the audio listener, I'm making a sock puppet with my hand right now.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  It's really easy.

• 46:13Nilay Patel?

  If you're in your car right now, hold up your hand.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  You think that it's a, it's a dog because you probably have read, after you recommended, uh, reading Werner Vinge's, uh, Rainbow's End. Uh, he also wrote a trilogy of sci-fi books that included a race of alien dog-like creatures.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Their, their, uh, their heads like mouths or their mouths like hands.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Fire, Fire Upon the Deep.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  Darkness in the sky.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  I didn't read the other.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  I bet you that, like, there's a pretty good chance that folks from, uh, Boston Robotics are deep nerds and this is what they.

• 46:42Nilay Patel?

  It's like a really good answer.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Inspired by.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  The first, the first time I read Fire Upon the Deep, I was like, oh my gosh, it starts off with the most epic, like, AI coming, becoming sentient ever and just killing everybody. And people are trying to get off the planet and not let this virus of an AI loose. Like, yes, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the best book ever. Second chapter, talking dogs.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  I was like, no.

• 47:09Nilay Patel?

  All right, we got a few minutes left.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:12Nilay Patel?

  The bonanza's over. We got lightning round.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:16Nilay Patel?

  All right, Dieter, lightning round. Mac OS Sierra, you previewed the beta this week.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Uh, it's gonna make you wanna pay for iCloud.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 47:23Speaker 03

  It's good. Yeah.

• 47:24Nilay Patel?

  Is it time?

• 47:25Speaker 03

  They set, they, they set up so that your desktop and your documents folder automatically sync to iCloud, which is great. Like, if you aren't already, like, deep into Dropbox or OneDrive, just being able to have regular people have their stuff synced across the cloud is stupendous. But you're gonna run out of space on iCloud, so you're gonna wanna, like, get that subscription.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Do, do your photos work like that too?

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:45Nilay Patel?

  Apple's photos thing is hot mess. Super hot mess.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  It's a bit better in Sierra. I haven't tried it on iOS 10, of course, um, but, uh, like, the face thing is, like, working. It, like, recognizes faces again.

• 47:56Nilay Patel?

  I'm not worried about the face. I mean, literally, I did a thing and I had to resync the photos to my phone. And it'd sync them all as previews. And now when I go back too far and I click on it, it has to load the photo from the cloud as a file instead of, it's just annoying.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Right, that's really, that's really terrifying to me, the idea that, because I like this setup where Apple doesn't physically remove something from your computer until they know they've had it backed up, right? But there's no world where you're trying to clean up storage and you just take a folder and it's like, "Oh, I bet that's backed up," and you put that in the trash.

• 48:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  That's still too scary.

• 48:35Nilay Patel?

  Way too scary.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  So I'm looking forward to that time. But maybe we don't have to do that if Apple gets smart enough about this.

• 48:42Nilay Patel?

  I just started this thing. I think I figured it out. Apple still thinks people are bad at computers. I don't think that's true anymore.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  People are.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, Apple knows exactly how bad they are because people walk into the Apple Store and talk to geniuses all the time, explaining exactly how bad at computers they are.

• 48:59Nilay Patel?

  But, but, but, go with me on this.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:02Nilay Patel?

  Their, Apple, Apple, their stuff is like too abstracted, so you can't get better because you never know what it's doing.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, I can't, I can't get Airdrop to work. Airdrop is supposed to be magical. I turn on Bluetooth, turn on Wi-Fi, get everything real close, make sure everything's on the right now working. I'm use as much technical knowledge as I could possibly apply to Airdrop, which they allow very little. And it never works. They just never see each other.

• 49:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Airdrop usually works for me. It's stuff like iCloud where it's like this like mysterious, "Why don't my photos work anymore?" And then the only way to figure it out is to be as deep as possible. But I don't know. Ashley, I'm gonna give you a hard one. It's like the shittiest one on the list. I'm gonna ask you how much you know about Microsoft acquiring LinkedIn. Wait, I gotta redo that one.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  The most exciting deal of the century?

• 49:53Nilay Patel?

  LinkedIn?

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:54Nilay Patel?

  Do you use LinkedIn?

• 49:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:56Nilay Patel?

  Do you know anybody who uses LinkedIn? Besides recruiters?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  PR people.

• 49:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  I get so many PR people.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  I think the idea that you start to write a letter in Word and then LinkedIn starts doing stuff in the background is kind of awesome, but also kind of terrifying.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  It's awesome for a very specific sect of people.

• 50:13Nilay Patel?

  I think the, yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, professionals.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Not us.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  I, um...

• 50:18Nilay Patel?

  We have a gadget bonanza, for god's sake.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  I always hated LinkedIn. And then I listened to this economics podcast called Econ Talk with Russ Roberts. And he interviewed the founders of LinkedIn, and they're like pretty smart people.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  And they wrote this book called The Alliance. And it's pretty, it's kind of this new way of work where employees kind of bounce around from company to company. And everybody's just trying to help each other succeed and stuff.

• 50:45Nilay Patel?

  Some real hippie shit.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  But they're like, they're like really smart.

• 50:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't doubt that they're really smart. I just think that they are still a social network and they desperately depend on user churn. And they sold to Microsoft because they couldn't keep training users forever. And now hopefully if you use Outlook and you're like, I needed this email address for the person in the company. And LinkedIn was like, give it to you.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:04Nilay Patel?

  That's all I want in this world.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  I guess so.

• 51:06Nilay Patel?

  Just give me the email address. Okay, Paul.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:09Nilay Patel?

  Project Scorpio, the next generation Xbox.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 51:13Nilay Patel?

  The savior of all our hopes and dreams. I know you threw this a couple of weeks ago, but I, I just want to hear about it.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I think it just became like the totally natural thing to do. This, this was, this is the exact thing that consoles couldn't ever do. This is, this is the exact reason why PCs are always going to win is because you can have the latest graphics card every, every year, every couple of years. And now both of the consoles are going to have like a mid-cycle upgrade. PlayStation Neo and Project Scorpio, both of them are not official names. Also, the Wii U, I mean, is, is not going to be Nintendo and X. Nintendo's doing this as well. All of these console life cycles are being cut short.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I don't know, it makes, it just makes a ton of sense.

• 52:03Nilay Patel?

  I'm super gonna buy a next gen PS4 with VR.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  I think one of the reasons why this is.

• 52:08Nilay Patel?

  That's all I want in the world.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  This is possible, PS4.

• 52:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Well, and this is a nice thing about, this gives me a do-over. It's like, I screwed up and I go Xbox One.

• 52:17Nilay Patel?

  Me too.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  So now I can get like a midterm, that's not the right word for it.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  By the way, when we were Best Buy, we were looking at like 100-inch TVs. And I was like, Ashley, we're gonna put a 100-inch TV in your life and see how it changes it. We're also gonna throw away your laptop and make you use a new PC. A VR headset with like multiple displays.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  It's gonna be an I buy power.

• 52:35Nilay Patel?

  Here's what we're gonna do with Ashley. We're gonna do terrible stunts. That's all I care about.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Dang, that would actually really shake up my world.

• 52:43Nilay Patel?

  What if, what if we only let you do your job in VR with like massive Windows virtual desktops spread out all around you?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  See, I'd take a pay cut to do that.

• 52:56Nilay Patel?

  Well, I figured out how this is gonna work. Actually, you get a raise.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  So then the nice thing is all of these are, the, the, the architecture is very much PC now.

• 53:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  And, and so because, you know, previously consoles have had very exotic, exotic, like the PS3 was a power PC based.

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Machine. Like they've always been weird and now they're not weird anymore. And I think that gives console makers a lot more flexibility to upgrade.

• 53:25Nilay Patel?

  I'm into it. Okay. We gotta wrap up. I gotta, I gotta tell you this story. In 1873, Golden, Colorado, I don't know if you know this, uh, home to miners searching for gold. And when the miners sat down for a while, there's a banquet, Mr. Kors, we learned his first name Adolf, by the way, bought a beer worthy of the occasion. That beer was known as Kors, the banquet beer. Honestly, I gotta tell you this, I drink a lot of Kors Light, just a fact of my life. When I'm, when I'm in the mountains, that's what I'm drinking.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  His, his name used to be spelled K H O R S, but it was changed when it came to America.

• 53:55Nilay Patel?

  All right. There's so many other things to listen to. The amount of information on those other things, much higher than this show, although this show continues to be extremely popular and I encourage you to reinforce that popularity by going on iTunes, giving us five stars. Do that right now while you drink a Kors, cold, refreshing Kors Light. Anyway, uh, Walt and I do a show called Control Alt Delete, Chris Plant does a show called What's Tech, Emily and Liz, wonderful show, one of my favorite shows for GSP, Kara Swisher over on the Recode side does Recode Decode, Peter Kafka does Recode Media, and Lauren Good of Versus fame, too embarrassed to ask, that's her show. You can listen to it whenever you want while drinking any beer you want. Oh, you didn't see that coming. Pay that extra dime for that last mention Kors. Anyway, that's it. That's our show.

• 54:40Nilay Patel?

  Paul is future Paul on Twitter. Ashley.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Ashley R. Carmen.

• 54:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you are Carmen. That's awful. I'm reckless. Dieter Bone is back on. Please talk to us.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  Yo.

• 54:52Nilay Patel?

  We love, we love hearing from you. We love your thoughts. We love your opinions. Cut to the night.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Rock and roll.