Morning Computer

This week on The Vergecast, Dieter and Nilay are joined by Dan Seifert and Racked style editor Nicola Fumo to discuss the iPad air 3, Amazon Echo features, the new Uber logo, Apple software and lots more. Also, what would happen if ALF and Urkel met? 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.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, a show about our dreams and hopes and wishes and fears, all relating in some way to technology. I'm Neelat Patel, your friend, I think. I'm joined here by Dieter Bohn.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Hello, hello. I joined and I will not be here for the next two weeks, so soak it in.

• 0:24Nilay Patel?

  The ever-humble Dieter Bohn.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Get a load of me!

• 0:28Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's getting married next week.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Yo!

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Again.

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  It's like, again.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  Dieter got social media married.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 0:35Speaker 03

  And then now it's the, now it's the party.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Now I'm getting Zicco married.

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but I'm gonna be on at Dieter's wedding next week.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Dieter's second wedding.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  Stuff ruining it.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  That's the hashtag, right?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  If you really wanna get into it.

• 0:47Speaker 03

  It's the party for Dieter's wedding.

• 0:49Nilay Patel?

  No, there's actually a wedding.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:51Nilay Patel?

  And I will say this.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  The only reason I had the first wedding is because I needed the papers because they wouldn't actually hold the ceremony without the papers.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Dieter's party wedding.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 0:58Nilay Patel?

  That's a terrible hashtag. Also, doesn't mention the bride.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Actually, I can, I can tell you what the hashtag was.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Dieter's Palm Pilot Love Story.

• 1:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Oh boy.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  It's actually not bad.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:16Nilay Patel?

  Palm Pilot Love Story is also really good.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  Anyway.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  No, the, the hashtag, I made a joke. I was like, oh, we're on a beach, we're gonna be like, you know, just chilling out. Maybe, maybe it should be wedding and chill. And I thought it was just like a bad dad joke, but like, it took off and now it's the hashtag.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  There is no way no one else has done wedding.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Wait, really?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm sure somebody has.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. You didn't look into it?

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  The best, the best.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  The less, the less I look into it, the better.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's bride.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Bride.

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, fiance's wife. It's somewhere in the middle of those two things. Wifense.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Lovely, lovely human, by the way.

• 1:51Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's wifense, Lisa, has specifically requested that I fly the rings down the aisle with a drone.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:00Nilay Patel?

  So I took The Verge's review Phantom home with me and I'm gonna have drone practice this weekend. It's a real, real situation.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  I love consistency and I love the consistency of this union. I love that there's gonna be drone rings.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Everything's perfect.

• 2:16Nilay Patel?

  I'm not making any promises with the drone rings. I'm saying I'm gonna try. I'm also saying bride and groom might be horrifically injured by the time this is over. I'm just, I'm just saying, we're gonna give it a shot.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Do you have to bring a drone on the airplane, or is it gonna get there itself?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  It's gonna fly there all by itself.

• 2:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we're gonna put it in follow me mode. We're gonna tether some power off the Dreamliner battery.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  A drone in follow me mode when you're on a super hot jet, just like sadly like, ah, I'm gonna get there. We should, there should be a movie about a sad lost drone trying to get home.

• 2:46Nilay Patel?

  There should be a movie where we tie like 30 drones to Ben Popper and see if we can get him in the air.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Wait, did I tell you that I heard about a drone that I think is a good idea?

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  What's that?

• 2:55Speaker 02

  My friend invented it. It's called Vibe Drone. And it goes to a bar or a party to check out what the vibe is and report back to you.

• 3:03Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that'd be great. That'd be great.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Vibe Drone.

• 3:05Nilay Patel?

  That would be awesome. I'm totally into that.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:07Nilay Patel?

  Sometimes you're like, oh, I want to go to this bar that I like.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  But like, is it gonna be?

• 3:10Nilay Patel?

  Are they playing the good music? Are they playing the crap music?

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, or like, I'm gonna go to the parties right there.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  The last time a startup tried to do that, it turned into a horrible.

• 3:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that was like a surveillance nightmare.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  By the way, to be honest with you. We have other people.

• 3:22Nilay Patel?

  Okay, we didn't even get through it. Dan Seifert's here.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I am here.

• 3:25Nilay Patel?

  Dan is here because we're gonna argue it. Well, I think we're gonna heated agree about the Amazon Echo.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  We're all very excited about the.

• 3:30Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, and Nicola has already made her presence known.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  I'm here.

• 3:36Nilay Patel?

  What's up, Nicola?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Um, a lot is up. Just tons, yeah.

• 3:39Nilay Patel?

  What's going on?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  It's been a loaded week.

• 3:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You know, I realized we've had you on the show basically for two months now. You haven't hyped checked anything.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  What?

• 3:47Nilay Patel?

  You've been in the hype seat. You've got the fern. Today, Nicola, I saw in our Slack room, hatched a plan to just slyly redecorate while Dieter and I are gone.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I'm thinking about themes. I really think anyone who doesn't watch the YouTube version is dumb. Um, and everyone should watch the YouTube version.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Well, there's no.

• 4:04Nilay Patel?

  They're in their cars.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  I know, I'm sorry. I'll make it worth your while because I'm gonna start decorating the set different every week and you're gonna wanna tune in and see.

• 4:10Nilay Patel?

  There's gonna be a 10-minute pre-show where Nicola just does an audio narration of how she decorated it.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  I just think this podcast needs more visuals, that's all.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Hype checked your lack of hype checks. Ooh.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  The thing about the hype check, I thought about it, is that that's really Sam Shepard's thing. It's not really me. I need my own thing.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  All right, well. She's at Nicola underscore Fumo, everybody. And if you can think of a thing for her to do consistently on the show that is as funny as pipe checking.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  You'll have like, Neelain Dieter will be gone next week. So you'll have a good week to think about it and come up with something.

• 4:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, next week you should just prototype new things.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Like if lit weren't already off the, if we weren't at the end of the curve of that peaking, like I need a new word.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Oh, man, we're at, we're post lit already.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Lit's done.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  It's gone dark.

• 4:52Nilay Patel?

  All right, we gotta, we gotta get into it.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  We actually gotta talk about stuff.

• 4:55Nilay Patel?

  We gotta get into it.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:57Nilay Patel?

  There's a bunch of depressing things here.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  I blame Dan.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Dan wrote a real bad article.

• 5:01Nilay Patel?

  I gotta say, this list is real, it's a lot of downer stuff.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Look, lots of happened.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Can we start with the Spotify thing?

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  No, that's the whole second half of the show.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's a lot to talk about there.

• 5:11Nilay Patel?

  The, if you are wondering if we were ever going to devote half an hour of the Vergecast to the Amazon Echo playing Spotify, today's your day.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I think half an hour is very conservative. It might be much longer than that.

• 5:22Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah, everyone has a lot of thoughts.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Um, mm, okay, save it, save it for the podcast.

• 5:28Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's start with, let's start with some news.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  All right.

• 5:30Nilay Patel?

  Some real news.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Let's hear it.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Hard news.

• 5:33Nilay Patel?

  Hard news. We have been told rumors confirmed by BuzzFeed News that started with Mark Gurman.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:41Nilay Patel?

  Apple event.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  March.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  March 15th.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  The Ides of Apple.

• 5:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yes, the middle, in the middle of South by Southwest.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Johnny Ive, Sabz, Tim Cook.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Ives of Apple.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  The Ives of Apple.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Oh!

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Think about it.

• 5:54Nilay Patel?

  Well, good. I'm glad that someone has finally found their one fanfic dream.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  No, it's great. Someone, somewhere is like already typing. They've already got the URL.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Johnny Ive and a toga, by the way.

• 6:06Nilay Patel?

  You think it's gonna be slash, but then it's murder porn. I don't know. The Ives of Apple? Like, you think it's gonna be some Johnny Ive?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  I just, that's true. I'm just imagining Johnny Ive and a toga.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  It's gonna be unapologetic.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  And it's like, it's really relaxed.

• 6:19Nilay Patel?

  It's a trilogy called the Unapologetic Trilogy. And the first one is, it's the Ives of Apple. The first one's called Unapologetic. Dan Seifert's Unapologetic Trilogy. I, you go.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  All right, so we have at this event, new watch bands.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Woo!

• 6:34Nilay Patel?

  I don't, I don't even.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  So the new watch bands are supposedly like, gonna be a black Milanese loop, some other colors. I, there's rumors that there's different Hermes, Hermes, Hermes? Colors? Hermes, thank you.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 6:48Nilay Patel?

  I've checked that pronunciation right there.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  I have.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  It's it's it's uncheckable.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Can can you even?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Oh, there's a good one.

• 6:59Nilay Patel?

  Nope, that's not gonna be good. All right, so new watchpans including some new designer ones.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, which is whatever, like leaking new watchpans.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Trying to juice these like not sales that aren't happening.

• 7:10Nilay Patel?

  No, they said they had they had a big um town hall today and Gorman leaked that they, you know, apparently the watch is doing fine.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Right, yes, of course.

• 7:19Nilay Patel?

  But like, I think they need to talk about the watch at every event. That's my, that's actually my.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  I mean, like, they are the world's biggest watchmaker now. So that's like a really big thing, but like in the terms of like, Apple's business, the watch is still a very small thing.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Cause Apple's businesses are just.

• 7:34Nilay Patel?

  There's some, there's some rumors that they'll do some software tweaks.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  They, yeah.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  They'll add another complication to the face, right? Well, there's gonna presumably there's gonna be a whole second one later in the year. Anyway.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:43Nilay Patel?

  So new watchpans. Then new iPad Air 3.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Which I'm super excited about.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just bought an iPad Air 2 like a month ago after I went on my my saga of trying to pick a tablet that represented the future of computering, computing and I gave up.

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  That was a real saga.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  And now I, and now I'd like, they're gonna release a new iPad.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Here's what I want from the Air.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  So I'm thinking, I'm gonna give it away and buy a new one.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  The only thing I want is pencil support.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  I want pencil support and I want to be able to take notes on it.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  And if it doesn't have that, I'll be very upset.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I don't think you're gonna get it. I really want pencil support. I also, I also, and this is gonna sound crazy, I want 3D touch on it because.

• 8:20Nilay Patel?

  Don't think you're gonna get that either.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  The whole point of 3D touch is to like make it more like a computer.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  So what could they, if they don't add pencil support and they don't add 3D touch.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  They're gonna add, they're gonna add the little jibber jabbers on the bottom to plug a keyboard into it.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And a flash, and a flash.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I'll give you better odds.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  iPad 4 to the iPad 3.

• 8:35Nilay Patel?

  I'll give you better odds on the pencil than I would well on 3D.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  3D touch.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's probably right. I mean, like, I I don't know, I'd be surprised.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  They gotta add pencil support. They gotta.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  Nah.

• 8:47Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it is the feature of the iPad Pro.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 8:53Nilay Patel?

  You gotta, you gotta give the Pro a year. You can't, you can't be like, artist, you can draw on it now. And then now there's a cheaper one. Like, you know, it's like, you gotta, you gotta give that one some.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Well, I, I would, I would say yes, except for the fact that the Pro doesn't come with a pencil and they are sold separately and they're separately. Like, the, the, the window is there for them to sell other products that can use a pencil.

• 9:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm saying, I'll give you better odds than the pencil. I don't think you're gonna get 3D Touch.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Oh, man, then I'm, I'm happy with my iPad Air 2, straight up.

• 9:22Nilay Patel?

  I love my iPad.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  It's gonna be faster.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  I mean, I mean, the Air 2 is like a great tablet. Like, that's what I mean. Like, if they don't do the pencil and they don't do 3D Touch, is the only thing really gonna be the connector for the keyboard? Like, that's not a super exciting update.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  The iPad Air 2 is the perfect morning computer. It's a perfect, like, wake up, uh, what's going on? Use the iPad Air 2.

• 9:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  And the problem with it is, like, the morning is the only time my cat doesn't wanna murder me. And so, like, I'll wake up, walk into the living room, and the cat'll be like, oh, hey, I like you today. I'm like, oh, crap. Don't know how to adjust the cat and the iPad. It's rough. My life is rough.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  I feel like saying, like, morning computer is the equivalent of being like, the best, like, morning pajamas versus night pajamas, as if, like, you were gonna. Like, it sounds like an absurd, it's a very absurd thing. Like, idea of, like, at this feeling time, I want this.

• 10:09Nilay Patel?

  But, but that's absurd.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  That's true, though. Like, I mean, our life is surrounded by computers. Like, this is not the only computer in our lives. Like, this is a computer, this is a computer, tablet's a computer, refrigerator's a computer.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Dan, by the way, for the podcast listeners, Dan just literally pointed at everything. He pointed at his wrist, he pointed at his face, he pointed at the desk.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  He almost pointed at the beer. He, like, he's like, this is a computer, I think.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  At some point, he pointed at his crotch, and I don't know what that means at all.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Uh, it was the belt.

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what computer do you use in the morning? It's your phone, right?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, my phone is my morning computer, I guess.

• 10:39Nilay Patel?

  Right, but so, many years ago, my morning computer was my laptop. I'd, like, haul it over.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:45Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, I'm computing in the morning.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Although I had a new morning computer experience today, because it was my first morning waking up wearing a smartwatch.

• 10:53Nilay Patel?

  Well, you wore, you did, which one?

• 10:55Speaker 02

  And it felt so.

• 10:56Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you got the.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Time around.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 10:58Nilay Patel?

  Really good. You like it?

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. I like it so much. I like it so much more than I thought I was going to.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Really?

• 11:03Nilay Patel?

  Bum bum bum.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And the first, this is amazing. The best thing in the world is that the first notification I got after I like charged it and put it on was that Dan had like tweet replied to me about Kanye West. And I was like, yeah, this is the best. Everything is here on this right now. But it's amazing because like I was at a bar last night and I was like seeing Kanye's tweets, like telling my friend like, oh, Kanye just said this, right?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  So the only thing that it could do that. By the way. Would be better would be let you like those tweets from your wrist, right?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the thing is, and then I had to write Dan back on a computer.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  On the iPhone, can you? I don't know.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know.

• 11:33Nilay Patel?

  What if had had no features except for showing you in real time Kanye's Twitter feed?

• 11:39Speaker 03

  It'd be like a peak you wear on your wrist.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  I love that as an art project. I think that would sell well.

• 11:44Nilay Patel?

  Like just to watch that all it does was show you.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, he kept deleting them and reposting them, but I kept seeing them.

• 11:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Like I was beating Kanye.

• 11:52Nilay Patel?

  Did you see the Rolling Stone cover?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 11:55Nilay Patel?

  I mean.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Trolling Stone.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, he, he.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  That's his own hashtag. He wrote that.

• 12:01Nilay Patel?

  I didn't get that far.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  There's a backstory to that because Rolling Stone wrote a, a, an article, published an article.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, do the whole thing because they won't know.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  So.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Who listen.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  They published an article because Kanye's got his new album coming out called Waves. Rolling Stone published an article yesterday saying it might not be good, might be the first bad Kanye album. So Kanye did a little trolling Stone on Twitter with a fake Rolling Stone cover.

• 12:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he shot a fake Rolling Stone cover photo.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Who was it that shot it?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Tyler, the creator.

• 12:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and then put like the logo over and I was like, here's my new cover.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  And it was a really bad photo, just like a.

• 12:35Nilay Patel?

  No. Yeah, it was, it was, but it was like bad in the way that like Rolling Stone would intentionally make it bad. Like if your magazine.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Overexposed, yeah.

• 12:41Nilay Patel?

  It was like, it was, it was intentionally that thing.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:44Nilay Patel?

  And then like literally other music magazines had to be like, this isn't a real Rolling Stone cover. And then he started adding billboard.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Rolling Stone tweeted.

• 12:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  This isn't real.

• 12:52Nilay Patel?

  But then he like added billboard and he was like, at billboard. How is this not real? Did you not see it? Does it not exist? It's like, what the fuck?

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Kanye Twitter in the past week has just been like the most entertaining thing. He's flip flopped from pure insanity to like humble yay where he's like, wait a minute. It's not the greatest ever. It's just really, really, really great.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  How is this not real?

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Trolling stone.

• 13:17Nilay Patel?

  Did you not see? It's like the, it's, and he's like, it's just random. I don't know. I don't know. I just want to do a series of real people using Twitter. Like, I would love to take a photo of Donald Trump with an Android phone because he uses Android. It's all Twitter for Android.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  He's a Samsung, actually.

• 13:32Nilay Patel?

  Like tweeting, like what a weird, or like a picture of Kanye, just like busting out the iPhone. I mean, like at Billboard.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  You know, I think that's a lot better in your mind than it is in reality.

• 13:43Nilay Patel?

  No, I just, I have this whole theory.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Guy with the phone. I don't know.

• 13:46Nilay Patel?

  No, I have this whole theory about.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Celebrities are people too.

• 13:49Nilay Patel?

  Damn. But like all the people are using this one crappy social network. No, I have this whole theory about how media has changed because we all use the same tools to like communicate. Right? Like they, it's still phones, right? Like the president taking a selfie is like still using the same camera as you are when like, he also has access to like broadcast cameras, but like we've chosen.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  You could wear the same fitness tracker as the president of the United States for like 250 bucks.

• 14:17Nilay Patel?

  I saw this great.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  What does he wear?

• 14:19Speaker 03

  He wears the Fitbit.

• 14:21Nilay Patel?

  Surge. He wears the watch.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  The big ugly Fitbit.

• 14:23Nilay Patel?

  He wears the surge.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  That was part of my week too.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  There was a whole, uh, we should talk about the alta, but um, there's a whole, um, hashtag on Twitter that was like Ted Cruz, two watches because everyone thinks he's wearing two watches, but it's a surge.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's another Fitbit.

• 14:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Presidential candidates.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Wow, they really, they really cornered the market.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  Cornered the politician market.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  The third thing at the Apple event is the iPhone 5 SE.

• 14:49Nilay Patel?

  Hmm.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:51Nilay Patel?

  Which I have literally nothing to say.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm in the same place. Like, I do not understand the move with this.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  So I'm like back in being the back in the world of being a two-phone guy.

• 14:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  I got two phones that I carry around, iPhone and Android.

• 15:02Nilay Patel?

  Morning computer.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Morning computer.

• 15:03Nilay Patel?

  Two phones.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  More like right-hand computer and left-hand computer.

• 15:06Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's got like, I got a morning computer, I got two phones, I got an iComputer. What do you want from me?

• 15:10Speaker 01

  So I'm tempted, I'm tempted by the little guy. I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it.

• 15:14Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Thinking about getting a little, a little phone.

• 15:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Be my party phone.

• 15:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Your iMessage phone.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I'm a party guy. God, be my iMessage phone.

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  That's what it'll be. That's why you have two phones.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  I'm not turning iMessage back on.

• 15:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you are.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 15:28Nilay Patel?

  Do it.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  God damn it.

• 15:29Nilay Patel?

  Everybody wants you to do it.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I hate everybody.

• 15:31Nilay Patel?

  Um, so that's the Apple stuff. I will say Walt wrote a thing this week.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Very good thing.

• 15:36Nilay Patel?

  We extensively discussed in the podcast yesterday. So if you want to hear 45 minutes of two people talking about Apple's declining software quality, I encourage you to listen to Control Alt Delete, because Walt gets into it.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  I think it's up right now, so.

• 15:49Nilay Patel?

  It's up, one up.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  You don't, don't stop listening to that.

• 15:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, the, when you're. Listen to them both at the same time.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  The other thing.

• 15:53Nilay Patel?

  And the YouTube, because you're an idiot if you're not listening to YouTube, apparently.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  The other thing about Walt's thing is, uh, you know, it like set off a series of posts from a bunch of like, Apple bloggers. Like John Gruber and Jim Dolanpole, and literally everybody's like, yep.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a lot of head nodding.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Nobody's like, no, it's fine, it's great. Everyone's like, yeah, it's.

• 16:10Nilay Patel?

  Sliding. So Walt, here's what I'll, I'll ask the same question I asked Walt yesterday.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  All right.

• 16:14Nilay Patel?

  And then we'll, then we'll move on to that.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:17Nilay Patel?

  And it's a hard question to answer, but.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Is it, does your Apple TV, new Apple TV crash all the time, Dieter? The answer is yes.

• 16:23Nilay Patel?

  So there's that.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:26Nilay Patel?

  There, there used to be a guy at Apple who would like use every product and say, this sucks, change it if it sucked.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  Who do you think that person is now? Is it Tim Cook? Is it Johnny Ive? Is it? Right, who's the person who has the power to say?

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Federighi.

• 16:41Nilay Patel?

  Right, maybe. But like, I think that's the problem, like.

• 16:46Nilay Patel?

  Steve Jobs like use it and be like, there's too many fucking buttons here or like he'd be like, this isn't brushed leather enough or whatever the hell. And then you would like throw it back in the ocean. Right? Right? And like he, whatever his taste was, whether it was good or bad or whatever, it was the taste of the company.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:01Nilay Patel?

  And now that's clearly, they're counting on like a committee and like the institutional memory of Apple to preserve those standards.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's, it's unique to the software side of things too. Like, I don't think they really have the hard, hard problems with their hardware design. And they're like, you know, I mean, I guess that watch would be the best example where it has a bunch of different ways to interact with it. That's kind of weird and confusing. But the phone is really good. The tablets are really good. The laptops are really good. The core products that people actually buy are really good. But it's like a different story on the software side. The core products, mail, Safari, iMessage, like iCloud, like all of these have pretty big flaws for a lot of people.

• 17:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I just think it's, that's the thing. Like, it is, it is the question that they didn't want to answer when he like died and for good reason. Like, he had a hundred thousand person company around him and like, clearly they knew what to do. But it's many years later, there's been some turnover. They have some new management in place, like Forstall's gone. They've shuffled the decks, they've added all these fashion people. Like, it's just a different, Johnny Ive is like, literally like designing spaceships and cars and VR helmets, apparently.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  And he's wearing a toga the entire time. It's super weird.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  It's a linen toga.

• 18:24Nilay Patel?

  A thousand years from now, they'll be like, the ancient Californians, they knew the spaceships were coming. And it's like, they're trying Ive in a toga because they don't know any better.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  But he's so, he's such, he's so gentle. Can't you imagine him in a toga? Like, isn't that like, like an ancient Roman senator? I really feel like.

• 18:43Nilay Patel?

  Wait, ancient Roman senators weren't gentle?

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were.

• 18:47Nilay Patel?

  They weren't stabbing each other.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Spirited debate.

• 18:50Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, man.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Anyway, I don't think, look, all I'm saying is based on my extensive knowledge of Roman history.

• 18:58Nilay Patel?

  The Senate was.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Watching HBO's Rome five years ago.

• 19:03Nilay Patel?

  It was a good show. Um, I'm just saying, I thought I, my impression of the Senate.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 19:09Nilay Patel?

  Is that that is where the world's finest minds debated the future of democracy. I don't know.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  All right, talking about debates.

• 19:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Uh, you debated me live for a long time. What computer to buy your mom and you bought her a Chromebook. And you wrote about it.

• 19:25Nilay Patel?

  Did I talk about it on this show?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Little bit. You have, yeah.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  Okay. I did. So I bought my own Chromebook.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  You wrote that. It's great.

• 19:32Nilay Patel?

  I will say that I apparently threw the company of Citrix into a frenzy. Cause I said that shit didn't work.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  That's something. So my poor mom is being accosted by Citrix apps, which is great. Yeah, I bought, I didn't buy her a Mac.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Or an iPad. I think that was the other thing that surprised people.

• 19:48Nilay Patel?

  She has an iPad. She didn't want, she wanted a real, she wanted a computer.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  She wanted a keyboard and a, she wanted a laptop. She wanted the form factor. She wanted a big screen. And she wanted a real browser. Those are like the things that she wanted. Um, and the iPad just wasn't getting it done for her. She has an iPad her too. She likes it, you know? She has an iPhone. Um, she loves this thing, but I've, I told Dieter the story like on Christmas day, cause it was so incredible. My mom like loves Steve Jobs. Like.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Where did she grow that? Why?

• 20:21Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. She just, she loves her iPhone. Like the iPhone democratized commuting for her. She like loves it.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Loving Steve Jobs isn't like a mold.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  No, no, but like, how did she like arrive at that? Like my mom doesn't know or care about that.

• 20:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. She just does. She's like, she, I have my career. She's like vaguely interested in technology. She's like a gadget nerd who's bad at gadgets. It's like the greatest. So like, I bought her an Echo too. She like loves the Amazon Echo, but she always wants the new thing. Um, so that's great. And she likes things that are sleek and minimal and like, so she had an iPhone and we bought her an Mac and she like loves Apple stuff and, you know, she's a person who like, doesn't know why they're in an Apple store because they already own every product in there and then they leave. Like she does that. So I bought her this Chromebook and I was like, I didn't buy you a Mac. And she like opens the box and she's just like stares the box. She's like, but I want to be loyal to Steve Jobs. It was a crazy, crazy moment. And my sister and I like, my sister just looks at me and she's like, you knew this was gonna happen.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, you just gotta try it. Like, just trust me on this. And she's like, why? I just, I wanna support his company. Like, it was like a moment, like a hard moment. It was crazy. So like, later on, like, open the box. Like, she looks at it. She's like, it is very pretty. I, I gave her like the old soft shoe. I was like, it's Google's computer. Only like 10 people have them, because only Google executives have, you know, like, the whole thing. And she's like, well, that's, that's kinda cool. And then she like played with it. And like, the second she touched the screen, it was all over. She's like, I love this. She like touched the screen. And she doesn't get, she's like, browse the web. It's like somewhere between an iPad and a laptop. She like loves it. So you did a good job. Did a good job. And she's like, she uses the hell out of it. She uses it more than her iPad.

• 21:55Nilay Patel?

  She uses it almost as much as her phone. So like, I think that's really something, because this conversation about Apple's software quality.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:02Nilay Patel?

  Is linked in my mind to how complex it's getting and how many services they're trying to layer onto the Apple experience. Cause they're just always begging, like, I think LCAP is like needy software. So. Like, you start up a new LCAP i10 computer, and it's like, welcome to iCloud. Try this music thing. Put your photos here. It's like always telling you to do something. You start up a Chromebook, it just doesn't do anything.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Apple needs to figure that out, because like, Dan wrote the story of have we reached peak iPhone or not, right? In the Apple earnings, and everyone's like, oh my god. And like, they made the most money of any company ever in history. Everything is horrible. They're gonna die. Uh, but it seems really clear. And actually, this town hall thing that, uh, Gorman has the inside story on, they're talking about maybe moving more services to Android.

• 22:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I missed it. Anyway, so, Apple needs to move from like, just making all of its money off of selling ever more iPhones, to making its money off of the iPhones that are already out there, right? They need to like, that Google makes its money off of ads. Amazon does what it does. And so now, Apple needs its thing to like, start squeezing more money out of the phones that are already out there. And they need to, they need to figure that out, because right now, the stuff that they're doing isn't as good as it needs to be to really take off.

• 23:13Nilay Patel?

  Right. And like, so this combination of it's getting more complicated and the software quality is maybe dipping is like, danger zone.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Bad mix.

• 23:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right. That's a, that's a terrible mix. And like, I don't think a Chromebook is for everybody.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  But if you are just, if you.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  It's a good morning computer.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  My wife, my wife used the Chromebook for two years.

• 23:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think I could use it. I mean, I used my mom's for a bunch of time. And I was like, I could probably get away with this.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff I can't do, but.

• 23:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, what's that thing where you just throw everything away and you're tidying?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Oh, you hold the thing and does this give me joy?

• 23:52Nilay Patel?

  Does it give you joy?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  And then you chuck it if it doesn't.

• 23:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I literally threw away shirts last week with the does it give me joy method.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  No, you didn't.

• 23:58Nilay Patel?

  Most of my shirts.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Marie Kondo, yeah.

• 23:59Nilay Patel?

  Marie Kondo, Konmari, that's what it is.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Konmari, there it is.

• 24:02Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, I was like, I literally stood in my closet and like held the shirt and I was like, this shirt does not give you joy. And I threw it on the bed.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:07Nilay Patel?

  And then Becky looped through and was like, I like you in the shirt.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  It's great.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  It might give you joy, but.

• 24:13Nilay Patel?

  You know, and then she, and then she threw away a bunch of shirts and I was like, but I like the shirt. And we like went in a circle for a while and ended up throwing away a lot of shirts. Cause like, you know what? Doesn't give me joy. That's me in software right now.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:24Nilay Patel?

  I was like, I could use this computer because I'm surrounded by junk, like this Twitter app that I'm staring at on my computer right now.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Garbage.

• 24:30Nilay Patel?

  Garbage, but I'm not using Twitter on the web because I'd rather use an app and it's still here. So I'm using this garbage experience. If I had a Chromebook, I'd just have to use that.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, uh, had to get a new computer.

• 24:41Nilay Patel?

  Sorry.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:43Nilay Patel?

  I just, I was bopping along. I had to finish the meter.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  I didn't do anything.

• 24:47Nilay Patel?

  No, I just did that and Nick looks at me and goes crazy.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Give you a hype check replacement. I'm really.

• 24:52Nilay Patel?

  You gotta get there.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  I'm thinking about it.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  All right. I had to replace my Mac.

• 24:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Uh, for a whole thing that's on the verge of calm, but I didn't restore my old stuff. I had like started fresh and I've got maybe like a quarter of the apps that I had on my last computer here and it's fine.

• 25:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. See?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  It's totally fine.

• 25:10Nilay Patel?

  You can just throw a bunch of shit away. Does it bring me joy? I, we should do a thing where we Konmari the apps on an average computer at the verge.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:18Nilay Patel?

  And we're just like, go through it. We're like, does this, I mean, let's do it right now. What's, what's on this piece?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  This is super compelling.

• 25:24Nilay Patel?

  It's a super compelling radio. Now I'm just gonna start reading the names of apps. Cause it's like, what has been on here? Airfoil speakers. What, that app doesn't even work anymore. App Store, get out of my face.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I do.

• 25:34Nilay Patel?

  Automator.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Oh man, I just deleted Boxy. It feels really good.

• 25:39Nilay Patel?

  Boxy app? Actually, some of these are really good apps.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  What's bringing you joy?

• 25:43Nilay Patel?

  What's bringing me joy?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Name two apps that bring you joy.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Alfred brings me joy and, um.

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  GoToAssist customer version 758 does not bring me joy.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  What the hell is that?

• 25:56Speaker 03

  That's gotta be a GoToMeeting thing.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah, GoToMeeting in a folder with 12 copies of GoToMeeting in it. Doesn't bring me joy.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  You know what doesn't give me joy is Launchpad on El Capitan. Try and move an icon into a folder, like, just look at, look at what I'm doing. Like, the folder's here on the right-hand side.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  It's the radio.

• 26:16Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, here's what, here's what it looks like on Dieter's computer, like.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  The fact that all I want to say is, is the fact that Dieter says that he has a quarter of the apps on his computer is pretty stunning, because Dieter is the king of, I can't believe you're not using this.

• 26:28Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  Insert utility.

• 26:30Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  To get something done. So, I think that is, that says something.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  I guess I actually have a really good and well-curated list of apps on this computer. I gotta say, I'm good at computers. You know what gives me the most joy on my computer?

• 26:42Speaker 03

  I got Pewter's Putin.

• 26:43Nilay Patel?

  Alright, uh, I'm gonna read the thing.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Nilay Patel?

  And we should talk about, we should talk about the Echo, and then we should have a lightning round with a bunch of this stuff.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  That's a good idea.

• 26:52Nilay Patel?

  How's that?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  You know what I miss is Alf.

• 26:54Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god, you're doing this?

• 26:55Speaker 01

  No, I think you're doing this.

• 26:57Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm not.

• 27:00Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm not doing it. Sorry. Andrew wrote us an ad copy, but, sorry. Andrew, if you wanna read the Alf story, I'm gonna make you do it.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  This week's episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace.

• 27:12Nilay Patel?

  So you're gonna read the Alf story.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. You know, back in Andrew's prime?

• 27:19Nilay Patel?

  We need music over this.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  He used to run a blog about the crossover misadventures of Steve Urkel and the puppet Alf. Alf is a puppet, by the way, not a muppet. It's a, that's a specific trademark term.

• 27:31Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, is there music over this right now?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Alf would go under disguise to check out a science conference or something, and he'd run it to Steve. And Steve, whose friends, by the way, call him Urkel, would later learn that Alf is actually an alien from another planet, and eventually helps repair Alf's spaceship, so that he can return to the planet Melmak.

• 27:49Nilay Patel?

  Where they started a website on Squarespace is really the point of, the thing that we're missing from the ad right now.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Okay. The show really writes itself is the bottom line. But it was really hard to keep up with all these misadventures and put them on Andrew's website. And if he had had Squarespace back then, it would have just come in really handy. He would have been able to make the adventures of Alf and Urkel.

• 28:14Nilay Patel?

  We got, we got there.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Way better.

• 28:16Nilay Patel?

  I'm not saying he got there on time or in a logical fashion.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  I mean, here's the thing, like Squarespace makes websites that look professionally designed, regardless of your skill level, and there's no coding required. And you could even eat a cat while you're using Squarespace to make the website. Not only does Squarespace provide you with intuitive and easy to use tools to create your website.

• 28:36Nilay Patel?

  Did we just slide through?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  It also has state of the art technology powering your site to ensure security and stability. And you know you can trust in Squarespace to build your website when millions of other people and some of the most respected brands in the world trust in them too. Also, you can get a free domain if you sign up for a year. I wonder if Alf meets Urkel is taken yet. Alfmeeturkel.com. Look it up.

• 29:02Nilay Patel?

  Seriously, I've never seen Alf.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  You cannot beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace. It gives you 24/7 online support and a beautiful website. So what are you waiting for?

• 29:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's the new tagline.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:14Nilay Patel?

  Do you want me to do it for you?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  No, I'm just, Andrew had a joke in here that I just can't pull off. You can start a trial with no credit card required and start building your website today. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure you use the offer code VERGE to get 10% off of your first purchase and show your support for the Vergecast. We thank Squarespace for the support of the Vergecast.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  It's Squirgle.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  The Squircast. Squarespace. You should. Is somebody gonna drop a, did I do that?

• 29:44Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  No?

• 29:46Nilay Patel?

  But I will say that Andrew, that last Andrew joke, I get what you're saying.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a rough one.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  All right. I think the audience should vote whether we do the Alf story ever again. Cause I don't know what happened there, but please.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Actually, that was a really good story.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  Please God, sign up for Squarespace.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I got a thumbs up from our producer Andrew just now.

• 30:04Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, if you don't sign up for Squarespace, Andrew, Andrew is dead.

• 30:13Nilay Patel?

  What? There was that old magazine cover. If you don't buy this magazine, we'll shoot this dog. You know what I'm talking about, do you? There's this famous, I think it was Mad Magazine, and they put a picture of a puppy on the cover with a gun. And the headline was, if you don't buy this.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  How mean.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  It's a terrible concept.

• 30:29Nilay Patel?

  It was the 70s. It was back when there's shows on TV with aliens eating cats.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  That was the 80s.

• 30:33Nilay Patel?

  That was it, whatever.

• 30:36Nilay Patel?

  I'm tired of this. Let's talk about GoPro for five seconds.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  GoPro?

• 30:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Womp womp.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  They're, they're in the Hurt Locker this year.

• 30:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  They're gonna have a rough year.

• 30:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Because GoPro makes a niche product that is actually very cool and fun to watch from the outside, but nobody really wants or buys. Unless you participate in those niche activities.

• 30:51Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  And so they are kind of coming on the reckoning of that.

• 30:54Nilay Patel?

  Right. There's enough GoPros in the world.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:56Nilay Patel?

  And you can't, the people who have GoPros aren't like, I wish this GoPro was better quality.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Well, they, I mean, the quality's gotten better. I think they wish that they had better battery life. That would be the big thing that maybe would get people to upgrade their GoPros. But once you have like three or four GoPros and you're snowboarding down a mountain, how many more GoPros are you gonna buy?

• 31:13Nilay Patel?

  The GoPro story. Have we put up a headline that's called enough GoPros?

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Enough, enough GoPros already.

• 31:19Nilay Patel?

  And then it's just a chart of like,

• 31:20Speaker 03

  Well, I think,

• 31:21Nilay Patel?

  GoPro hitting the amount of GoPros that's enough GoPros and then,

• 31:23Speaker 03

  I mean, GoPro knows it. Like, they, they said that they are going to, uh, only sell like three this year. Like, they're cutting down their product line a lot.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  There's three total?

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  There's just three bros on skateboards that don't have one yet.

• 31:34Nilay Patel?

  What about not enough GoPros?

• 31:40Nilay Patel?

  Too few GoPros. Alright, um, let's get in the Echo.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Echo. Alright, so, I just wanna say, I looked up, in the, well, I just wanna say, in the past, like, since the middle of January, we've written about the Echo at least half a dozen times.

• 31:54Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  In terms of getting, getting new features and capabilities and stuff like that. And they're all like really fun stuff. Some of it's super silly. This week, you can order a Domino's pizza with it.

• 32:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Um, by yelling, "Order me a pizza." It's more complicated than that.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Alexa, order me a pizza.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, you actually have to like say this crazy convoluted thing to get the pizza to work. It's kinda dumb. But today, the big exciting news.

• 32:18Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Google.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Alexa, put 60 pounds of cheese on my shopping list. Today, the big news is that you can now stream Spotify music to it.

• 32:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Which is like, super exciting.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  I'm thrilled by this.

• 32:31Nilay Patel?

  I'm switching to Spotify.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Who, boy?

• 32:32Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 32:33Speaker 03

  From what?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  From Google Play Music.

• 32:34Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God. Oh, the haters are coming for you. It's Dieter this week, boys, get him! I haven't said a word. No, this is the, this is like the missing link.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  Right, this is the thing that will get me to listen to music on my Echo, which I've had for, I don't know, almost a year now. And, uh, yeah, it supports Pandora, which I don't use, and it supports Amazon Prime Music, which has like, nothing to listen to, so, uh, and I don't want to ever use it as a Bluetooth speaker, because there's a bunch of pain and headaches with that. But now I can say, Alexa, play Spotify, and it literally picks up the song that I was listening to on my phone last, where it was stopped, and just resumes it.

• 33:08Nilay Patel?

  Do you want to hear a story about this?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Oh, this is the best story.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  This is a very good story.

• 33:10Nilay Patel?

  So we were, ever. We were, we have an Echo in the office, and I came in the office this morning, and we were doing something with it.

• 33:18Nilay Patel?

  And I couldn't-

• 33:19Speaker 01

  It's very mysterious, Neelai.

• 33:21Nilay Patel?

  To find out on Friday. Um, so I was doing something with it.

• 33:26Nilay Patel?

  And I couldn't get any of the music to work. And I was like, screwing my phone, screwing the app, like, took it off the Vox Network here, the corporate network, we put it on Jetpack, and finally got it to work. Whatever, it's all, hours later, hours and hours later, I get a call from my wife. And she's like, are you at the office? I was like, of course I'm at the office. But I just got a really weird call from the cleaning lady, and I don't know what's going on. I was like, are you okay? Is she okay? Like, she's like, you're not, you're definitely not at home. And I was like, panicked. Hang up, she's like, I'll call you back. I was like, someone's in our house, we're getting robbed. And she texts me, and she's like, the cleaning lady just sent me this text, and all it says was,

• 34:10Nilay Patel?

  "The music is blasting and Neelai won't answer the door." I was like, what the hell is going on? I was like, I have no idea. In like, in mid text reply, I was like, oh shit. When I was screwing with the office Echo this morning, I had selected the wrong one and I turned on the Echo at home. And I like looked and it has just been playing Usher for like seven hours. Just like at top volume and the cleaning lady's like knocking on the door and it's just blasting Usher.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  I want one of these over to listen to Usher for seven hours.

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, no one was listening.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  No, I'll be there.

• 34:47Nilay Patel?

  If Usher plays in an empty home, does anybody get it on?

• 34:52Nilay Patel?

  Anyways, I had to call Becky back and I was like, I'm so sorry. I know what happened.

• 34:59Nilay Patel?

  I turned on the, it was just blasting.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Did I tell the story? Like the, the Amazon Echo app is the perfect troll machine. So I was, I was yelling at the Echo, getting it to play music and it would stop. And I'd tell it to play again. And then I was like, okay, stop. And then it would start playing on its own. I couldn't figure out what was going on. My fiance's wife was in the next room listening to me yell at the Echo and then just had the app open. And every time I told it to do something, she'd like hit a button and make it do something else.

• 35:25Nilay Patel?

  That's awful.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  For like a half an hour.

• 35:26Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's awful.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Do you go to other people's houses and add things to their shopping list?

• 35:30Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Or order things from Amazon on their Echo?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Trey this morning tried to order an Echo for my Echo.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Meta. All right. Why are you so excited about Spotify?

• 35:39Nilay Patel?

  It did not work.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  What? Are you kidding me? Like why? That's the best. That would be the best to be like doing stuff and be like, okay, play the thing. And then it just does.

• 35:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  And not have to touch anything. It'd be great.

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's something, I mean, I think we have all been talking about the Echo. I think Amazon, I think this was an accident that they made what I think is

• 35:57Speaker 01

  They had no idea.

• 35:58Nilay Patel?

  The most compelling product.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  I want to give them a little more credit than that because they had to build, they had to build the infrastructure to make this work. And they kind of had to have an idea of where they wanted it to go.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  The infrastructure is not that hard.

• 36:10Nilay Patel?

  Oh, Dieter is super.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Well, no, no, maybe the infrastructure is not that hard.

• 36:13Nilay Patel?

  Wait.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  But the, the

• 36:14Nilay Patel?

  Professor Bones classes in session.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  The, the voice recognition side of things is.

• 36:18Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  And like, so they had to build that and they had to build, A, the hardware to make the microphones work really well and really quickly. And then the processing to make it understand you when you mumble something across the room. So like that stuff is really hard.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  How much of that processing happens locally?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  That's a good question. But they had to figure it out whether they do it locally or they do it on S3 or their cloud service or whatever.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  But all the stuff that they've been able to make it do is has is really easy.

• 36:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh, by the way, they do it in the cloud. Do you know how I know they're doing in the cloud? Because everything that you say to it gets recorded and you can play it back from your phone.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:49Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  You know, you can do that with, um, uh, okay, Google. You can, there's a website you can go to that will play back everything you've asked Google on your Android phone.

• 37:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. There's a website where I clearly sound like an insane criminal.

• 37:06Nilay Patel?

  Just a completely insane criminal.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Just to be clear, it's not a like random website. It's a Google website that you log into and access to your account.

• 37:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it's the one that like, it's the one that they will subpoena first. Sir, we need your password.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Why did you ask the age of Nick Jonas 47 times in a row?

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  Can you kill someone with jalapenos? Hmm. Convenient, conveniently timed question. No, I never, by the way, have never asked that. Not at never.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Which one?

• 37:32Nilay Patel?

  Have you ever killed someone with jalapenos?

• 37:34Speaker 03

  I just, I just want to like.

• 37:37Nilay Patel?

  Hey Siri, can you kill someone with jalapenos?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Alexa, order me a pound of jalapenos.

• 37:45Nilay Patel?

  All right. Alexa, order me enough jalapenos to kill. Okay, Google, turn off my wifi.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Oh, this is how we lose all of our listeners.

• 37:57Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Google, turn off my wifi. That's some evil shit. That is some evil, evil shit.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  So anyways, back to the echo. So this is, this is what I use the echo for in my house. Uh, I have it on my nightstand. I use it as my alarm clock. So I say, Alexa, wake me up at 6 a.m. tomorrow. And it says, do, do, do, do, okay. And then when it goes off, I say, Alexa, snooze. And it snoozes for 10 minutes. And then Alexa dismiss when I actually get out of bed. And then I also use it to turn the lights on and off in my bedroom. But like, you can do a million other things with it. Like, I know other people use it for other things. The thing that I'm super excited about, and I probably won't ever actually use this, but I just like the idea that I can like, be walking home, I have headphones on, listening to music on my phone, pause it, open the door, and say, Alexa, play Spotify, and it picks up where it left off my headphones. Like, like, that is like some future shit right there. And like, that is like, really cool.

• 38:41Nilay Patel?

  But I'm saying, I think they accidented into this. I think they. Built Alexa for their Fire Phone. The Fire Phone was a, because that's a, you need it to be competitive if you're making a phone.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:51Nilay Patel?

  That thing was a huge flop.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  You never, Alexa never made it to the Fire Phone.

• 38:55Nilay Patel?

  Right, I think, but they had to start building it to get it on the phone. That thing was a massive flop. They had all of it ready to go and like someone was like, well, I'll put it on a speaker. And then they engineered the, the voice recognition because that's cool.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:06Nilay Patel?

  Because when it came out, it did not, it did not have any of these capabilities.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Right. It was really dumb when it came out. And like, I was, I remember when we did, we even did like a six month like revisit on it. Um, last year and the part that I wrote, I was really bearish on it because I like, didn't find a need for it in my life. It wasn't working very well. It was confusing for my family and stuff like that. And now I've like completely turned around because it does like a bunch of stuff I wanted to do now.

• 39:29Nilay Patel?

  Right. And it's, I mean, the Spotify thing is, although I will say, I tweeted this this morning and like, saw the Spotify news and I sent it to Becky. Cause I'm always trying to get her to use it and she's like, the music sucks. It never, because it does, the music.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  It only plays Wilco from your Amazon album.

• 39:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, but like, I have literally thought about signing up for like Amazon's cloud locker to just try and improve how bad it is. And I was like, it's got Spotify. And she texted me a photo of her like Logitech Uwe Boom. And she just goes, this always works.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  So.

• 39:57Nilay Patel?

  I was like, that's pretty rough.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  I mean, that's a, that's a fair argument. I think a lot of people, uh, often say to me, you know, one of our video directors today. Uh, Mark was asking, well, what's so, what's the difference between that and a Bluetooth speaker? And like, if you are in a, uh, an apartment or you're listening to music in one room, a Bluetooth speaker is great. But as soon as you like, have multiple rooms and you want to move in between them and stuff like that, a Bluetooth speaker becomes kind of a pain in the neck.

• 40:19Nilay Patel?

  Dude, were you saying that you could pair the Echo to any other speaker?

• 40:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 40:24Nilay Patel?

  Someone said that to me.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  So I think people wish they could do that.

• 40:26Nilay Patel?

  Ah, that'd be great.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:27Nilay Patel?

  Cause it's not a great speaker.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  I'm not, no, it's not, I mean, you don't buy this for the audio fidelity. You buy it so you can yell at the thing and it'll play music.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  My only one real question is, do you have to say, can you tell it what you want to listen to?

• 40:38Speaker 03

  So there's, there's a few things that work. I tested it this morning. You could say, Amazon play Spotify. It'll pick up whatever you were listening to before.

• 40:45Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, that's right.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  You can, you can say, uh, Amazon or Alexa, whatever.

• 40:47Nilay Patel?

  You can also call it Echo, which I think is really cute.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Can you give it a name? Could you be like, I want you to be called.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  You can call it Alexa or Amazon.

• 40:53Nilay Patel?

  An Echo.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  No, you can't call it Echo.

• 40:56Nilay Patel?

  100%. Don't make me turn Asher on in my home again. Don't make me open this app and do something stupid. They added-

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Tweet it, Neil, and tell him he's wrong.

• 41:04Nilay Patel?

  I'll show you.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Or maybe they edited it.

• 41:05Nilay Patel?

  They added-

• 41:05Speaker 03

  And this is another thing that we did-

• 41:06Nilay Patel?

  They definitely added Echo.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Uh, so, so you could say, play Spotify. You could say, play a Spotify playlist on Spotify and it'll play that playlist.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Like one of the ones that they have, one of the ones that I have.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Whatever's on your account. So if you created one, or if it's one that you follow, or one of the ones that they have, uh, you could say-

• 41:23Speaker 02

  But mine are all named with emoji.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Uh, you might be in a little bit of trouble there. You're such a millennial.

• 41:28Nilay Patel?

  Whoa, so are you.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  I know, but, I know.

• 41:33Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's the only true Exer here.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:36Nilay Patel?

  And I, I pretend the best of them.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, look at this flannel shirt. I am definitely a Gen Xer.

• 41:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. When he goes home, he only watches Empire Records. That's it. The only movie Dieter owns.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  And High Fidelity. I feel like Gen Xers love High Fidelity.

• 41:48Nilay Patel?

  Oh, did he? This is my theory. Because records are back, vinyl's back, they're gonna remake High Fidelity. Who would you cast as John Cusack in the new High Fidelity?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 41:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 42:00Nilay Patel?

  And, and then the harder one is who would you cast as Zane? Isn't, oof, rough. Does Zane, Zane, really?

• 42:07Speaker 03

  I don't think so.

• 42:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Zane doesn't go through breakups. Anyway, um, that's at least my theory.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  There isn't really the right celebrity for that right now.

• 42:13Nilay Patel?

  By the way, I said that only to troll Caitlin, who I know is watching this.

• 42:17Nilay Patel?

  I don't know what Zane does. Maybe Zane goes through breakups. Who the hell knows?

• 42:19Speaker 02

  I think he just admitted to a relationship this week.

• 42:21Nilay Patel?

  He's ineffable. That's his, that's his quality.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Zane's news.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  Ineffability.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Johnny Ive and Zane wearing a toga.com.

• 42:28Nilay Patel?

  Whoop. Weird. Can't imagine those two in the same room. Not even, not even possible.

• 42:35Nilay Patel?

  Johnny Ive and Zane in Johnny Ive's Aston Martin driving way too fast, saying the words minimal over and over again. Just in their accents, just saying, just pronouncing aluminum any way they want, because they can. Um, who would you cast as Jack Black?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  I think Jack, I think Jack Black comes back as Jack Black.

• 42:54Nilay Patel?

  To a 90-year-old Jack Black?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  I think that's fine.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Jack Black comes back in High Fidelity 2.

• 43:00Nilay Patel?

  No, it would be a reboot in like a new universe, right? Like you, like JJ Abrams it. You're like, it's the same universe. And then they walk through the door-

• 43:07Speaker 01

  It'll be way darker.

• 43:07Nilay Patel?

  And it's all of them, but way younger. And he's like, what happened here? And he's like, top five reasons for going to an alternate universe.

• 43:16Nilay Patel?

  Who would you cast? Who's the John Cusack in High Fidelity?

• 43:19Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 43:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  I don't have a top of mind. Like, that's definitely the guy.

• 43:23Nilay Patel?

  Right. Because those are the only two characters that matter in that entire movie.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  So like, John Cusack was-

• 43:27Nilay Patel?

  And also, I don't know their names. I just think of them as John Cusack and Jack Black.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  When was High Fidelity? Ninety-nine? So like, John Cusack was kind of old though then. Like, he wasn't, he wasn't like in his early twenties. So you could pick somebody who's in their early to mid thirties, I guess.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  God, I love John Cusack.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Wait, so you can tell that you want to listen to a specific playlist?

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  God, I'm trying to get some information here.

• 43:46Nilay Patel?

  I'm trying to get some tech news out.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  You could say a specific song or album, but you can't do like a station. So if I said, Alexa, play the National, it won't just play the artist station.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  That's because it knows better than you. The National, come on.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  It, uh-

• 44:01Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Dan goes home, he's like, he's got the children. He's like playing with his two beautiful daughters. He's like, play the National. Let them know these dreams will end.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  But I think they're gonna add that at some point. The impression that I got using it was that it's just like not supported right now.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  This is cool. Should I get one?

• 44:21Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Totally. And then you can get some lights that you can control it.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  I think they're still on a delay.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  You just go in and like-

• 44:28Speaker 02

  You know, my apartment is like, is like ten paces. Like, I can get to the lights.

• 44:33Nilay Patel?

  Perfect for you.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:34Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Chris Siggler hasn't listened and he's like, I love it. He's like, I can tell to turn my room purple. It's like, I don't know what you're doing, Chris, but-

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, they, it wasn't a shipping delay, but now it's not. You can still get one by Monday if you bought it right now.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 44:47Nilay Patel?

  If you're in Chicago, if you have Prime Now, they'll just deliver it to you within three hours.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  We're in New York.

• 44:52Nilay Patel?

  There's no Prime Now in New York.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Yes, there is.

• 44:53Nilay Patel?

  Oh, in Manhattan, there's not in-

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Not in Brooklyn.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Alexa, deliver me an Alexa in one hour.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  Yes. You could literally live the full Amazon lifestyle and have it Prime Now to you so that you can talk to a robot in your home.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Me and Amazon got in a fight earlier this week when I tried to order something in one day and it came in two days.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  You know, I'm gonna do a favor to our listeners.

• 45:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Are you gonna provide them an offer code for an app?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  No, I think that, I think that, like, that, you know, you gave your mom a Chromebook.

• 45:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  So, okay, Google, call my mom.

• 45:24Nilay Patel?

  Aw. And turn off her Wi-Fi.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Is that enough?

• 45:30Nilay Patel?

  I will say, I do think, I think everyone was searching for the next big hit disruptive product and Amazon snuck in the door with something that everyone loves.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:40Nilay Patel?

  Everybody who has one now is like, kind of love this.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  And it's like, it's, it's become such a thing where like every week, every Friday, they come out with some new stuff. Last Friday, it was you can set Missy Elliott or Alec Baldwin as your alarm clock. So like you can wake up to Missy Elliott yelling at you through the Amazon Echo, which is crazy.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Do you keep an Echo in your bedroom then?

• 46:00Speaker 03

  I mean, I have, that's where I use mine as my.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Does it do like the Sono stuff where if you've got like five of them in your house, they sync to each other?

• 46:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  But the cloud syncs to each other. So they all know what they're doing.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  But you have to do it from the app.

• 46:11Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. But like the, the way that they keep adding cool stuff to it, like in this thing that's a year and a half old now, or getting to be a year and a half old is like getting better and better and better and better. And I mean, it was the most interesting thing out of CES too, which is like, it wasn't even at CES.

• 46:28Nilay Patel?

  They're not, I just think they accidented into a new user interface pattern. Like I had this whole thing that I keep talking about, which is like cost versus value.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, the, the user interface thing, the reason that the Echo is so fun to use is because when you use Hey Siri or Okay, Google on your phone, you go, okay, Google. And you gotta wait a beat for the phone to wake up and do it, or you do Hey Siri and wait a beat for it to wake up. The Amazon or the Alexa, you can just say, Alexa, turn on my bedroom light.

• 46:55Nilay Patel?

  I just have to wait a little bit.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  And no, you could just give it all at once and it will take a second and then it'll turn the lights on.

• 47:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  So it's like, it, because it's powered on all the time, because it's always listening and being a creepy SOB.

• 47:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  You know, it's just, it, it's much more natural to talk to that than to talk to my phone.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  My favorite part about talking to the Echo is the little light ring where you like, you, you say, hey Alexa. And then like the light ring goes, and then it like points at you. Like, ah, I see you.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  Being recognized.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  I will say, I will say it does fail from time to time. Like, uh, there's four lights in my bedroom that I've connected to it. And last night I tried to turn them off and then it was like, which one do you want to turn off? And I'm just like, so I just started up.

• 47:37Nilay Patel?

  It's like, I'm just gonna turn these off for you. There, there. You've been drinking.

• 47:42Nilay Patel?

  No, I just think like the, it doesn't ask anything of you. You leave it plugged in the wall. If you don't use it, you don't touch it. Nothing about it will go wrong, right?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Other than the hundred and fifty dollars.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Hundred and eighty dollars.

• 47:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like whatever, like you spend the money, you plugged it in, like you buy a watch or a wearable or whatever. And it's like, you have to plug it in and care for it and wear it and think about it. And it's got a sync to your phone and that connection, like, you have to care about it. A phone, you have to like baby constantly for the battery. I just think that, the idea that the care number is zero and the value number is high. When you're using it, when you're engaged with it, it like offers, that's like a powerful.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  So, related to my article last week, the other thing that's great about Alexa is it is way more open than Siri or okay, Google.

• 48:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Like, like there's still partnerships and I still wish it would do, like there was, it was.

• 48:31Nilay Patel?

  They're not really partnerships.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  No, they're just. Yeah, but there's some, there's some if this and that, so you can do whatever. But like, there's like, there's like a little bit of deal.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  It doesn't directly talk to the Nest, which is annoying. So I want to say.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  The cadence of stuff that it has, that Amazon has added to what Alexa can understand is way faster. Right. And what Siri or Google have done on their services. And that's like, that's important.

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  That's why it's exciting.

• 48:56Nilay Patel?

  There's one, but there's also like, there's obviously like independent developers just throwing skills into that little store. Like there's one where you can just be like, Alexa, there's really dumb ones, but there's really cool ones. Like there's a New York subway one where you're like, Alexa, what's up with the subway? And it, it just tells you what's broken.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I think I'm gonna get this thing.

• 49:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's cool. And then there's one that's just called L train. And you're like, Alexa, L train.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  And it just cries.

• 49:19Nilay Patel?

  And it's just like, broken, so crowded. There's like three or four subway ones and you like pick, but there's like a bunch of that stuff.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  Which is the little like churn that is indie developers.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  And they clearly don't have to make a deal to get in this.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  You could also get cat facts.

• 49:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's cat, there's like trivia, like there's, I just think they've stumbled onto something that is. If you're listening to this podcast, you are probably a gadget nerd. And I would say, just like, if you're a gadget nerd, you should definitely think about buying this thing, because it's more interesting as a gadget than almost anything else.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  Alright, so I got a question, just to wrap up Alexa. What do you want from the next Alexa? Do you want a smaller portable one that you can take out of the house? Or do you want a bigger one with better sound?

• 49:59Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I would take better speakers, but I'd actually rather have what Dieter just said, which is a second, like, a system that lets multiple of them talk to each other.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:07Nilay Patel?

  But you could buy one.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  I would pay, I would pay like 300 bucks for like a better sounding one that I could put in my living room.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  If I'm, if they made an Alexa soundbar, I would buy it tomorrow.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:16Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's interesting. Or yeah, one that could talk to my existing speakers or whatever.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:20Nilay Patel?

  Like, the speaker, that's clearly its weakest, shittiest component.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:24Nilay Patel?

  And convenience, like, just overrides it, because I'm always using it in the kitchen.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Also, how dumb does Google feel right now?

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, where's the Google mailbox?

• 50:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the Google mailbox should be piping up and talking to you all the time.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:34Nilay Patel?

  Like, you have a flight, leave the house.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:37Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's what it should do. Like, are you leaving? That's what Google should make, a box that just commands you to leave.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  You need that.

• 50:44Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 50:45Nilay Patel?

  I, yeah.

• 50:46Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  That's just really mean. I didn't think I would hit you that deep.

• 50:51Nilay Patel?

  It's so, it's so real.

• 50:53Speaker 03

  It was, it was a backhanded way to say, see, you're late all the time.

• 50:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, I am. When I was in college, I used to think to myself, what am I doing? I'm just gonna use a computer in class. Because I would just sit at home and like putter and be like, oh shit, I'm late. Like, why didn't I just go there? Use it there? Like, that's what I was gonna do there.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  And back then, this was your only computer? You dragged your laptop around? It's your morning computer, your class computer, your night computer?

• 51:16Nilay Patel?

  My morning computer. It's like 20 pounds of garbage.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  You know, I'm old enough where I didn't have computers in class, college?

• 51:22Nilay Patel?

  No, I, I meant law school.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Well, same for me in grad school.

• 51:25Nilay Patel?

  I had a, I had a G4 Tower and...

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  We didn't have wifi in my law school. To put it in at the very end, my last year, we're like, everyone was like,

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Alright, old men. Are we gonna do a lightning round?

• 51:35Speaker 01

  We have so little time, but we should.

• 51:37Nilay Patel?

  Alright, yeah, we got four minutes. Alright.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  True lightning.

• 51:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, what do I got? What do I got? Hold on, hold on. Nicola, you left Facebook. Tell me about it.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  I left Facebook in 2010.

• 51:47Nilay Patel?

  But you're back on it? It's just on here. I don't know why it's on here. That's it?

• 51:49Speaker 02

  That's what we mentioned.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  We've been promising to talk about Nicola's saga with Facebook for like five episodes.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  The very short version is I left it in 2010 because I was like, this ship has sailed. Trust me. Because I also was first to leave MySpace and I was right. And LiveJournal. Um, so I was like, alright, I called it. Facebook's done. We're done. And then it keeps like being around and then I rejoined it when I decided I wanted to be on Tinder and two years ago. And would like go off of it and then go back on and then go off of it. And then, yeah, now I'm off of it again. And it's so freeing because it's one less place for people to bother you.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Lightning strikes. Dan, you bought a new TV for the Super Bowl?

• 52:25Speaker 03

  I bought a new TV to watch. Uh, I bought a Vizio 4K. I'm a Broncos fan. I was in the market for a new TV anyways because I had a 720p plasma. But I'm just gonna watch Peyton get pummeled.

• 52:35Nilay Patel?

  What, what, what'd you get? What'd you get? What'd you get?

• 52:37Speaker 03

  I got a 55-inch Vizio 4K.

• 52:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, people like that one.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very well rated. So I like it. It's dig. It's cool.

• 52:44Nilay Patel?

  New Uber logo.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Pass.

• 52:48Nilay Patel?

  Why don't you like it?

• 52:49Speaker 02

  It disappears on my, on my phone. I can't because the white and the black are so easy. Oh, there it is. Like now I'm like, ah, duh.

• 52:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it's also why is it sideways?

• 52:57Speaker 01

  So here's the thing. It's a circle with a, with a little, uh, black thing in the middle of it.

• 53:02Nilay Patel?

  Which is the.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  And then surrounding it are four, like, lines, like curved lines. And so if you can, if you're driving, don't do this, but if you can, look at the Uber logo on the icon. Look closely at it. And I can't take credit for this idea, but just briefly, consider that it's an illustration of four people trying to share a single toilet.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  I mean, you could look at it and see four people playing cards around a card table.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  No, there's like, there's, there's four butts and there's clearly some streams and.

• 53:37Nilay Patel?

  Oh, wow. It's definitely four butts.

• 53:41Nilay Patel?

  Quattro butts.

• 53:44Nilay Patel?

  Yikes.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:46Nilay Patel?

  That's real bad.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 53:48Nilay Patel?

  Okay, well, there's that.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:50Nilay Patel?

  Uh, hang on, let me go back to this list. Uh, Alphabet news, big spending.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  The, the biggest company, I don't know if they still are.

• 53:58Nilay Patel?

  They're not anymore.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  They're not anymore. They were briefly for a minute.

• 54:01Nilay Patel?

  Back and forth with Apple's biggest company in the world.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  They're, they're, they're spending a bunch of money on their big bets and whatever. Uh.

• 54:07Nilay Patel?

  Here's my question. Why don't they break out Nest? Isn't Nest like a consumer hardware company?

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:11Nilay Patel?

  Why is, why is that in the other bet section?

• 54:13Speaker 01

  What is, what's going on with Nest right now?

• 54:15Speaker 03

  That's a solid question.

• 54:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no one knows.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  They like the, the drop cam and then they're just like, yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  Well, in 2015, they refreshed their entire lineup of products. Like they came out with new, new thermostat, new smoke detector.

• 54:28Nilay Patel?

  I get that, but I get the feeling that Protect is still really buggy.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Um, the new one is better than the original one.

• 54:35Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Still though, why?

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Not a product I would recommend.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Why is Nest not just dominating the internet of things? Why, why is, why is there like Brello and something thing and then HomeKit and like?

• 54:46Speaker 03

  Because Amazon's eating their lunch.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 54:49Nilay Patel?

  It's fair.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  I don't know. I feel like, I feel like I need to see something new from Nest.

• 54:52Nilay Patel?

  Android Wear Marshmallow update. Don't even know what that means.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  So they've been sneakily like, just like the original, a bunch of the original Android watches had Wi-Fi, a bunch of the newer Android watches have speakers.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Like this Huawei watch I'm wearing.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Huawei watch that Dan's wearing. And so they are starting to push out the update that lets the speaker work. So you can make phone calls with it.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  They're also adding some goofy new gestures.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but the gestures like we're on the last update and now, now it's for other ones.

• 55:19Speaker 03

  There's more gestures.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  There's more gestures, but the only.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  The irony of this to me is that, uh, the, the watches are getting marshmallow before 99% of the phones that are in use have marshmallow.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:30Nilay Patel?

  It's called the Viophone biz.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  If there was any better talisman for the death of Windows Phone, I think the Viophone biz is it.

• 55:41Nilay Patel?

  So just to let the audience know.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Viophone biz.

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  The Viophone biz. Sony used to have a laptop line called the Viio.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 55:50Nilay Patel?

  It was like the coolest Windows laptops were Viios in my opinion. Laptops didn't make Sony money. They spun out Viio as its own company. Viio, it's now its own company. It was like last year, right?

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  And now it made a phone?

• 56:03Nilay Patel?

  Now it made a Windows Phone.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  For business professionals?

• 56:06Nilay Patel?

  I don't know if it's for.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  It's for biz.

• 56:08Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  It's for doing business.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  They should have called it the biz.

• 56:12Nilay Patel?

  But it's called the biz, the B I Z.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:14Nilay Patel?

  The Viio, Viio is spelled in all capital letters, V A I O. Phone with capital P.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:20Nilay Patel?

  Biz with a capital B.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  And the phone itself looks like something out of like 2011. It looks like an H C.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Sam called it the sleekest Windows Phone ever, which is like coming in first place at the.

• 56:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, they were all plastic. Now they made one made out of metal. Viophone biz.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Viophone.

• 56:37Nilay Patel?

  Only in Japan.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Really?

• 56:39Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's like, there's something about it, right? Like this weird zombie company making a weird zombie phone.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  With a zombie platform.

• 56:49Nilay Patel?

  Super crazy name, right?

• 56:52Speaker 02

  It looks like other things.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, it looks like a phone.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:55Nilay Patel?

  But that picture is bonkers. Okay. Dieter, I'm just gonna say these words to you.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 56:59Nilay Patel?

  U S B C.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 57:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Dieter's had a time.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:03Nilay Patel?

  Dieter proffered me a cable that would kill my computer.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I did. I told you not to plug it in.

• 57:08Nilay Patel?

  He gave me a cable. He's like, never plug this into your computer.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 57:11Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, what should I use it for? He's like, use it, charge your phone. And I was like, what if I plug it in my computer? He's like, it'll kill your computer.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  It killed my computer.

• 57:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  What?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the deal is like, bad U S B cables could fry anything. But traditional U S B devices don't pull that much power, but U S B C devices can pull as much power as they want. And so it can, they can like break stuff. And Amazon especially, but like also the.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  USB Implementers Forum, the standards body that's in charge of the universal serial bus standard, is doing a terrible job protecting consumers from these terrible products. And everybody involved, Apple, Google, USB IF, should have seen this coming. Of course, if you make a cable that you can just like, any rando can like solder some crap together and sell it, people are just gonna do that and then people are gonna buy them. If you need to, if the cable has to have resistors and protective bits in it, then like, demand that. So, I'm real mad at a bunch of companies for not being more aggressive and more, I don't know, having more foresight that this would be a problem.

• 58:10Nilay Patel?

  Do you just have a picture of a USB port opener in your computer?

• 58:13Speaker 01

  It's the BioBiz.

• 58:14Nilay Patel?

  It's the VB.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's using, it's using micro USB.

• 58:18Nilay Patel?

  Alright, Nicola, you get one lightning round. You've been quiet the whole lightning round, except for the first one.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  Are you gonna assign me something?

• 58:24Nilay Patel?

  No, just throw it out there.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Anything in my head?

• 58:26Nilay Patel?

  Give me a news, yeah, give me, give me a lightning news hit.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Make me live.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Uh, Phoebe Philows leaving Celine, it's crazy. These words mean so much to you. Just like, all of the words you've said mean so much to me. That's the big news, I mean, that's the like.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  I wanna, I wanna know what you think about the new Fitbit.

• 58:43Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  I also wanna know what those words mean.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  The new Fitbit.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  It's called, the what?

• 58:49Speaker 02

  The Fitbit Alta.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Is it only for tall people?

• 58:51Speaker 02

  Why?

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Never mind.

• 58:53Nilay Patel?

  Dieter just made a, like, a Latin joke?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  It's Spanish.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Maybe. I don't know, but it's their most fashionable device. Yet, that's their language.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  It's like, they dressed up their old ones, right?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  It's like, yeah, it doesn't do anything different, I mean, well, they say it does some things different, but not things that you can't accomplish on other devices. But, they made some pretty bands for it, it's very slim compared to the other stuff they have, but it's still not like, the slimmest or like, the cleanest looking one out there, but they are, they're gonna do Tory Burch tradition, they're also gonna announce another fashion designer collaboration during Fashion Week, and I'm extremely interested to see who they work with.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  So I have one thing to say about Fitbit and it's like, obviously they have a very successful business. They're doing very well. But Nick Stat pointed this out yesterday. If you go to Fitbit's website, there's like a bunch of Fitbits that are marginally different and hard, really like almost impossible to tell apart. And like, I don't understand that at all.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  I feel like in person, though, the sizing is pretty, it's like, oh, that's, that one's big. That one's really big. That one's not as big. Like, you can tell.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  That one's presidential.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  In the pictures, they do kind of all look the same, for sure.

• 59:54Nilay Patel?

  Lauren Good wrote a really great story this week about how the fitness tracker industry just keeps powering along regardless of

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Nilay Patel?

  this Apple Watch.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Nilay Patel?

  And Fitbit's our thing. Like, I think all the other ones might consolidate or fail or disappear.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Or get bought by bigger companies. Like Misfit was bought by Fossil.

• 1:00:09Nilay Patel?

  Right. But like, Fitbit has a brand. Like, people know.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it's like, this new one is going to dress up the inside of your drunk drawer really well.

• 1:00:17Nilay Patel?

  Are you wearing it right now?

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm wearing this Pebble watch. But I have been wearing a Jawbone up band.

• 1:00:23Nilay Patel?

  Pretty, pretty bad.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:00:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Well, I'm only one day into it.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  Well, they just updated it. Maybe it's a little better.

• 1:00:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  But I've been wearing the Jawbone up too, which I think is the least offensive, like, most like fall in line kind of tracker that there is.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  I really liked that new Misfit that we saw at CES.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Yeah, but it's not out yet.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  So it's not really an option, but I want that one for sure. But yeah, I've been wearing that one and liking it and, and I've been deep, deep in dueling with my friend Claire. And I don't know how she's doing it because she's a freelancer and she is getting so many steps.

• 1:00:53Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you just call that your friend Claire on the broadcast? Is she gonna listen now?

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:00:58Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  No, but she, okay, well, whatever. It's never.

• 1:01:00Nilay Patel?

  Get into it. Get into it.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  She loves referring to me as like, like she'll tweet like, I'm in a foot duel with like, fitness wearables expert. Like, she assigns me these ridiculous titles. It's so good. And I know she gets so much joy out of beating me.

• 1:01:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's real rough. Wait, tell me, tell me about the Celine news and we're gonna wrap it up.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, so.

• 1:01:24Nilay Patel?

  Do it for the normals. You can do it.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  I know, I'm working really hard. Um, Phoebe Phail is rumored, rumored.

• 1:01:31Nilay Patel?

  Who is that?

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  She's a designer, fashion designer. Is rumored to be leaving Celine, French fashion house. I'm trying to think if there's any tie in that I can give you that would give it context.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Like, Celine clothes are their own branded thing, or do they own other brands?

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Um, they're their own thing. I think they're part of, fuck, I'm gonna get this wrong. They're, I mean, they're part of a larger luxury group, but I don't want to misspeak. Um, but, yeah, like Kanye West loves hype checking, hype checking, referencing Phoebe. Like, Phoebe is like one of those words, it's like one word, like Phoebe, and everyone knows who that is. But rumored to be going to Alaya, which would be interesting, but there's a lot.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  That's another fashion house?

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Yes, there's a lot.

• 1:02:10Nilay Patel?

  We gotta get you on the show with Micah, is like what I'm here for in this conversation. Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  I got, we gotta meet. We gotta meet.

• 1:02:16Nilay Patel?

  You've met Micah?

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:02:18Nilay Patel?

  It's a real, it's a situation.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  I think so. I think it'll happen.

• 1:02:22Nilay Patel?

  You know, Jamison's gonna be here next week.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  My guys.

• 1:02:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, Jamison can be on The Verge cast next week.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  Well, I won't be here, because I'm gonna be at Kanye.

• 1:02:28Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god. Who's gonna be on the show?

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Ziegler and Jamison.

• 1:02:32Nilay Patel?

  Just Chris, Jamison. I don't know, free for all upstairs.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Nilay Patel?

  Fight to the death.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Mice Will Play episode.

• 1:02:39Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be crazy. Next week on The Verge cast, I'll say this, next week at The Verge, gonna be insane.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:45Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's gone, I'm gone, we're all going to his wedding.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:47Nilay Patel?

  Helen's gone, Ross is gone, TC's gone, Casey's gone. Uh, there are other people on vacation, Trey's gone, Michael's like, like, all the people in charge of The Verge should like come next week.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Why are you telling them? They're very smart.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Content on The Verge, I just wanna say that.

• 1:03:02Nilay Patel?

  There will be content, but my instruction is that I think next week should be the weirdest possible week.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  I wish I could be here for it, but.

• 1:03:08Nilay Patel?

  Just let people, let people wild out. Who knows what's gonna happen next week, man?

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  At this time next week, Kanye will be doing his Madison Square Garden, simultaneous, the album being played in full, presumably by him, but that's not confirmed, and the fashion show, his third collection.

• 1:03:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  So it's like gonna be, it says it's ninety minutes long. I don't know how long it will really be, but I'll be there. A throw.

• 1:03:33Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna be there?

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Nilay Patel?

  Are you, are you dual filing for Ract and The Verge?

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm not doing shit for you.

• 1:03:39Nilay Patel?

  And that was Vergecast, everyone.

• 1:03:42Nilay Patel?

  A little sharp bite of hostility. That's how you want to end a show.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:03:46Nilay Patel?

  Who knows if we'll be here next week?

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  No, you gotta do your socials.

• 1:03:48Nilay Patel?

  Don't you?

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Go follow, Google The Verge and find the thing you want to find. You know, like, that's what it is. Do you know how to use stuff? It's Verge everywhere.

• 1:03:59Nilay Patel?

  Do you know how to use stuff.com? And then find that.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  Even the Snapchat is just Verge.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  You should follow The Verge on Instagram. Search, uh, search The Verge on Instagram or Instagram game. Pretty good.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  They started following me this week.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Well, not so good then.

• 1:04:12Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Instagram, Instagram, Verge Instagram, about to be bigger than Wired Instagram.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I was gonna wait. I was gonna slow play.

• 1:04:19Nilay Patel?

  I know, I'm, I'm just in the game to win. Just get on there. Find your friend's phone, pick it up and subscribe to us on Instagram.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  There's a million podcasts you can listen to. There's Control, Alt, Delete, which I mentioned earlier. ESP is every week now, which is awesome. What's Tech is also awesome. And, uh, over at Recode, uh, Peter Kafka on Recode Decode just interviewed Chet from Starry about his insane internet millimeter wave thing, and that is a good listen as well. And, uh, yeah, you can find all that stuff over at iTunes. That's where, you know, even if you don't use iTunes, and really, you shouldn't, go there and give us a review anyway. I am at Backlon. Neelai is at Reckless. Dan is at DC Seifert with an EI. Nicola is Nicola underscore FUMO, F U M O. I still think there's an extra O in there. I don't know why. Thanks, everybody. Fumou.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  Fumou.