Soccer moms racing turbos

Dieter Bohn, Nilay Patel and hype-seater Kristen Frisina are joined by Chris Ziegler and Lauren Goode in a rare five-seater that eats up the week’s news, including the new Nexus phones, the Chromecast dongles, the Pixel C tablet, the new over-engineered Tesla, and Dieter’s nefarious plan to sprinkle gluten over the food at Google events. 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.

• 0:05Nilay Patel?

  Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast. Today's the day, just a day like any other, but on this day, we're gonna talk about technology and culture. Someone's gonna have a cat on the show. It's gonna be great. I am Neelai Patel. This is October, I don't know what I'm doing. Hey, welcome to the Vergecast.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  You did a really good job, that was really good.

• 0:24Nilay Patel?

  No, it was weird.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  That was really good?

• 0:26Nilay Patel?

  It was fun. Whatever, I'm Neelai, Dieter is here. Hi, Dieter. And we've got like a wide variety of new people.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  A clown car.

• 0:34Nilay Patel?

  A clown car. There's a clown car bullshit on the show. Chris Ziegler's here.

• 0:39Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 0:40Nilay Patel?

  Chris is just back from a Tesla event.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 0:42Nilay Patel?

  This is true, so we're gonna talk about that. On Skype, Lauren Good is here. Hey, Lauren.

• 0:47Speaker 04

  Hey, guys.

• 0:48Nilay Patel?

  Lauren is literally just playing with her cat, Nugget.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Her cat Nugget is playing with a Chromecast, with the dongle.

• 0:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm hoping that we get to hear-

• 0:56Speaker 04

  It's a Chromecast, Dieter. It's a Chromecast.

• 0:58Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god. See, that's why I tried to start it really low, because I knew we were gonna get to crazy really fast. And so we did. And then in the hype seed, Kirsten is here. What's up? How's it going?

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Good, I moved this week. I'm tired, I'm like deliriously tired right now.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of moving, move that microphone closer to your face.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I do, oh my god, yay!

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  Alright. If you've been watching any of our social video accounts, you've been seeing Kirsten just non-stop for the past week.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Just frawling around, yeah.

• 1:25Nilay Patel?

  So, Periscope, Snapchat, have you invented a new one yet? You were like a real Beam fangirl for like a minute.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  My Beam is broken right now.

• 1:33Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been messed up for like a week, so I haven't done a Beam in a week.

• 1:37Nilay Patel?

  I've never beamed.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Well...

• 1:39Nilay Patel?

  I don't know how I feel about that.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  You're just not, you're just not, you're an old-

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  I thought it was-

• 1:42Speaker 01

  I'm super an old-

• 1:43Speaker 03

  I thought it was Bemay, with like the swoopy on the E.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  By the way, the trend of, instead of like hype checking on Kirsten, it's just gonna be old checking. We got in an argument of whether PWN is pronounced "own" or "pone."

• 1:57Speaker 03

  It's "pone."

• 1:58Speaker 01

  No, it's "own." Originally it was pronounced "own."

• 2:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, in the 80s.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  See?

• 2:05Speaker 04

  A decade in which I was not alive.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Nothing but sick burns.

• 2:08Nilay Patel?

  Today, I heard two people, they're not, they were not virg people, but they were other people of Vox Media, heatedly discussing what a yuppie was, like, what it, what it, what it, like, literally the conversation, like, what is a yuppie? And I'm like, I think it stands for, like, young, like, an 80s guy. It was like a thing, like, it was a conversation that occurred, and the whole, the whole time, I was like, I'm literally aging in real time in front of you. These are my last days. Please observe them with respect.

• 2:34Speaker 04

  It actually is an acronym, isn't it?

• 2:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's Young Urban Professional.

• 2:37Speaker 04

  Professional.

• 2:38Nilay Patel?

  It was just super funny. It was just like one of the, yeah, no, it's an acronym, it's like a very 80s, but it was just, it's, it's like an anachronism now.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, no one says it anymore.

• 2:46Nilay Patel?

  We should bring it back. We should bring back yuppies.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  If Sam was still here, we could do, like, B for bust for yuppies.

• 2:52Nilay Patel?

  With, like, huge cell phones and, like, shiny gray suits.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  And, like, Testerosos.

• 2:57Speaker 04

  Oh, and we can take out the new Huawei watch that, uh, Dieter called the Gordon Gekko watch.

• 3:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. It's perfect. All right. All right. A bunch of stuff happened this week. We should get into the news and not just burning Sam. May he rest in peace.

• 3:15Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, we should get to the news. A bunch of, a bunch of stuff happened this week.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Stuff.

• 3:19Nilay Patel?

  Stuff.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Stuff.

• 3:20Nilay Patel?

  I'm trying, I'm trying to stay away from that explicit tag on the iTunes. Uh, so, Dieter and Lauren went to the Nexus event, saw a bunch of new phones. Lauren's got Chromecast with her. They look insane to me. Like, they're, they're just the weirdest. Uh, there's a new Pixel C Android tablet, which I have many theories about. Uh, uh, actually, these are, so it's all that stuff. And then, uh, Chris went to Tesla and drove the Model X. Uh, and actually, Casey went to Google and drove a self-driving car. And in the middle of this, in the middle of, like, the Google event, Apple released a new privacy policy, just to fuck with Google a little bit.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Man, you're real, doing real good about that explicit tag. Well, you know.

• 3:59Nilay Patel?

  I keep it real on this show, deeply, deeply real.

• 4:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it's starting. So you guys run the Nexus Man, Lauren and Dieter, tell me about it.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  So the event was, I'll like, set the scene and Lauren can actually talk about the phones a little bit. And we'll go back and forth. The event was like a chill.

• 4:16Nilay Patel?

  It was a dark and stormy night.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  It was a chill Google event. It was down in like, the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. I don't know if you know what that means, but it meant that it was like, a room that was filled with like, colored yarn. And it was like 50, maybe, maybe 100 reporters, like, sitting at little round tables. And like Sundar gets up wearing like, all black.

• 4:34Nilay Patel?

  Definitely sounds like a kindergarten run by an evil dictator.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  It was weird. It was like, white and then weird colored yarn. And it was like, super chill. Sundar got up and he's like, hey guys, we made some stuff. It's cool. We like people to use computers. We believe in computers. And then he like, chills out and leaves. And then literally every single Google employee got on stage. All of them. All of them got on stage and announced something in rapid succession. Like, everyone was mad at me because I kept on in the live blog saying, are you keeping up? Are you keeping up? Can you keep up? Because it was impossible to keep up. They just, in, I don't know, hour 15 or whatever it took, they ran through two phones, a new tablet, two new Chromecast, a new,

• 5:16Speaker 01

  like, parent stuff on the Google Play Store randomly, new updates to Photos where you can like, work with groups and share pictures with people more easily and albums. And probably something else.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  A little bit of NowOnTap stuff.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  NowOnTap was there. Just, the event was just like,

• 5:32Speaker 04

  That's a lot.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And then the-

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it really did steamroll.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the hands-on rooms were too small. But the hands-on rooms with Chromecast were like, super chill and open. But yeah.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  Just like Google itself.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was like, lots of fighting to like, get pictures of stuff. And then, and then, then we were out.

• 5:48Nilay Patel?

  It's like, ever since the Alphabet thing happened and Google can just like, be more Google.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:52Nilay Patel?

  They're like, you know what? We are just basically for kids.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:55Nilay Patel?

  Like, it is just a relax. It's a Montessori. Let's be clear.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  It's a Montessori school.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  That's what it is. Like, their logo's super dumb now. There's like, yarn rooms. Everyone sits at small tables.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure Google always had yarn rooms. Let's be real.

• 6:11Nilay Patel?

  Everything about the Google's new logo makes them seem 100% less serious about life.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I mean, let's hang on. The old logo wasn't exactly serious.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:21Nilay Patel?

  The old logo, I would say the old logo is like, how do I put this? The old logo was like

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Your logo belonged to the size of an ice cream truck.

• 6:28Nilay Patel?

  No, but the old logo is like Google's mom did their homework for them.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:32Nilay Patel?

  So like, at least you knew an adult was involved. This logo is like, they're out of the house. They're on their own. They don't have a job.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  I mean, it's not Comic Sans. Cut it a little.

• 6:40Nilay Patel?

  It's so close.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 6:42Nilay Patel?

  All right. Anyway, Lauren, tell me about the phones.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  I'd rather talk about the logo.

• 6:48Nilay Patel?

  The logo is awful. Like every time I log into anything.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Their self-driving cars look kind of like our, those little play school cars.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, they do. They do.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Have when we were kids. Maybe it really is a kindergarten. I don't know.

• 6:58Nilay Patel?

  Or they're like evil and they're, they're, they're teaching us, they're making us regress. Like they're like, their vision of the world is everyone has a child whose data is controlled by Google and you don't even know it.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  You didn't know? We did a whole video on how people are going to be wearing one season drinking Soylent. And if you think about all of the top services that these companies offer, it's like basically how much can we mother people? We'll do your laundry and we'll cut your hair and we'll drive your cars for you. We'll just do everything for you.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  That sounds wonderful.

• 7:28Nilay Patel?

  What, billions of dollars in technology, trillions of dollars in infrastructure and we're replacing a mom from the 50s.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  That's like, that's, that's a perfect theory of Silicon Valley. Everybody just misses their mommy.

• 7:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God. All right. Lauren, tell me about the phones.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Uh, so I got to play with the 6P. Dieter took the 5X. I took the 6P. We divided and conquered. And the first thing, I put this in the hands-on, uh, which is on the verge, but the first thing that I thought when I felt it was this feels like a really nice Nexus phone. I feel like a couple of years ago was when I think actually you guys wrote it then, like, okay, Google's a hardware company now. Like Google, of course, is a software company, right? And Google makes all of its money off of search and search advertising, but they have this hardware, these hardware products now that are actually getting quite good. And I felt the 6P was sort of the embodiment of that. Like this actually

• 8:20Speaker 04

  It feels like a good phone. It has, it has a nice camera. It has, you know, it's full, the full body metal. It's, it's um, got a nice display. It, it has a fast processor. Like, I was pretty impressed by it.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  It's a Huawei phone, right? I mean, like, it's, it's always hard for me to tell with these Nexus phone. Like, they don't actually make them.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  So, the, the claim this time around is that Google was, like, they always say that they're super heavily involved, but there are some Nexus phones who are like, yeah, you rebranded a Galaxy S. We can, we can see it. We're looking at it. We know.

• 8:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Uh, and so this one is, I think, at the Mate S. Um, and so there's a bit of that, but like, they were more involved in setting up that special, you know, whoa, what was that?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  That was my, my doorbell?

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  So the cat is now like inviting people over.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Should I answer it?

• 9:07Nilay Patel?

  His cat friends are, check out his Chromecast, guys.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  I thought that was a sound for me to stop talking.

• 9:14Nilay Patel?

  Go get the door. Dieter's gonna keep yelling about Nexus phones and you, you can, you can invite your callers into the Vergecast. Oh my god. Alright, Dieter, continue.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  So, this time around, they, they, uh, they've made like a coprocessor, whatever, like, to, to detect your movement.

• 9:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  In other words, they made an Apple M sensor.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. They, they were involved in creating and, and making sure that the fingerprint sensor worked, which they call Nexus Imprint, which, I don't know why it needs a brand, but it needs a brand and it's called Nexus Imprint. Um, and then they also, like, they said that these have Sony sensors on stage. These are Sony sensors. And I think that they were deeply involved in the whole camera situation here, because I think they've finally heard everybody, myself included,

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  yelling about the cameras. And so, I don't know if Huawei or LG have left to their own devices, getting to, left their own devices.

• 10:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Uh, would have gone with the Sony sensor, but uh, Google like cowboyed in and said, nope, it's gonna have this camera sensor, it's gonna have this fingerprint sensor, uh, it's gonna work this way. So.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Is it Google hardware or Huawei hardware? I would say like, sometimes it's mostly the other company's hardware, but this time it's like actually a pretty solid mix.

• 10:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I, I mean, I, so the, the thing, the only, like, I keep saying I'm ready to switch to Android.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you never do.

• 10:37Nilay Patel?

  And I never do.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've been saying that for like years.

• 10:39Nilay Patel?

  I know.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Hype check, Neil, switching to Android.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  And why don't you? Is it because you just can't find the great hardware that you're looking for? Or is it because you're just so tied to the Apple ecosystem?

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  First, I want to hear this hype check.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  It's never gonna happen. Android is always like two seconds away from being like what you want it to be. It's like, we almost have now on tap, but we don't, so I'd rather keep using iOS nine.

• 11:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm just like, I'm pretty, it's, Lauren, to answer your question, the reason I want to switch is like, I'm beginning to feel like Apple services are now so required to use this stuff.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Especially with El Capitan.

• 11:15Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, I don't think I'm gonna switch, I don't think I'm gonna upgrade this computer. I skipped Lion, and I don't think, and that was like a great decision. Now, Weston Lion was like a garbage fire, but El Capitan, from all accounts, is like very fast, very stable, but it really wants you to use the rest of Apple stuff. And it really wants you to change your workflows around it. And I just, there was a time in my life where I would sit around all the time and just like screw with my computer. And be like, I'm gonna make this better. I'm gonna like install some other garbage I found and like.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  You need to deet or bone your computer.

• 11:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was gonna bone it up. That's a weird phrase.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Okay, that's a thing that just got said.

• 11:50Nilay Patel?

  That's fine, bone it up. That's totally cool. But I don't have that time anymore. And like, I'm like very happy with how this laptop works right now. And so like the idea that I'm gonna install

• 12:03Nilay Patel?

  El Capitan on it, and then like I'm gonna have to like deal with either avoid Apple services or switch my life to them is weird. And then with the phone, the phone definitely feels that way. Like, the phone is pulling you into its universe constantly. So I'm like, I live my whole life in Google services anyway, why don't I just do that? And then I pick up any Google phone, and I'm saying Google phone just as a burn on John Chen from BlackBerry. Held up the priv and can repeatedly said it runs Google, which is hilarious. But you pick up any Android phone, and like, there, you know, with like a Samsung phone, it's like, use all the Samsung garbage. And I'm like, well, if you're gonna force me to use your garbage, I'm just gonna use Apple's garbage, because their garbage is usually moderately better.

• 12:43Nilay Patel?

  And then with the Nexus is, it's always the camera. So you always, always, always the camera. And like, who knows?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I tried the camera on both, but it was in the hands-on area. So who knows? I do know it's fast.

• 12:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Um, and they do claim it's better.

• 13:01Nilay Patel?

  A lot of people were tweeting me that they think this is the same 12-megapixel sensor that is in the 6S.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Dieter, you ordered one, didn't you?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes, I did. This is my yearly, I'm gonna order a Nexus on the Vergecast. If I can log into my Google account.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I ordered, I honestly, I got the 6P mainly because I'm, I realized that I'm really angry that nobody makes just a proper black phone anymore. And you can get the 6P in graphite. It was like, oh.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's super black. It's so cool.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  It's about time to get a ninja phone. Just get a murdered-out phone. Remember when like the black iPhone, they're like, oh man, that's so murdered out. We were all excited about the things being murdered out.

• 13:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  You can't get a murdered-out phone anymore.

• 13:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  I wanted a phone that's, but that said murder. I wanted people to look at me on the phone and be like, that guy is a murderer.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  People are definitely gonna look at you like that, dude.

• 13:49Nilay Patel?

  No, the 6P. I'm buying a 6P.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, you should definitely get the 6P. So the 5X is, it's like the refresh of the Nexus 5, which everybody loved, except for the camera. I was right. I might, anyway.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  You were right in that, what?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  The camera, the camera on the Nexus 5 was terrible. Uh, but the 5X has the same sensor as the 6P for the camera, but like the, the, the processing and the other chips behind it aren't quite the same. So neither one of them has optical image stabilization, by the way.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Um. But they shoot 4K.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  But they, whatever. I just do not care about shooting 4K. I really don't.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  Somewhere, Michael Brownlee is crying.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Convince me I should care about a phone shooting 4K.

• 14:30Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna buy you a 4K TV and then that's all you're gonna care about.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  What 4K plasma are you getting me, like? Tell me.

• 14:37Nilay Patel?

  Come on, man. No, it's great. We're all gonna get 4K TVs together and then we're all gonna watch each other's 4K movies.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  It's like, we're not gonna care about 4K until like all of the content is out there and until all of our screens play 4K.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  TiVo Bolt is here.

• 14:50Nilay Patel?

  Dream is here.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Here we go. So the 5X, it's super light, but I feel like the bezels are really big and your 16 gig is like 380 and I it's like 50 bucks more to get the 32 gig. You really ought to get the 32 gig. You really are buying an Nexus on air.

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm doing it right now. It's amazing. I got my credit card.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  It's like five to six weeks out before it ships as of when I bought mine. But like, I don't know, like, am I going to spend $430 on a phone that's pretty good, maybe not quite as high end as I would like? Or am I going to spend, you know, an extra 150 bucks and get a 6P, which is like definitely top of the line? Like, you can get a Moto X for around the same price and presumably the 5X is going to get a better camera and probably be an overall better experience. It's basically got the same specs on the inside.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  I am surprised that you have not brought up the size difference as a make or break feature yet. For me, it's just I don't want to carry around something that's 5 point, has a 5.7 inch display all the time. Because if you're working, I have small hands.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Hi, girl hands.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  And if you use your phone to work out or do anything active, it makes it really difficult if you've got a large screen.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  And it's just like, to me, if you're looking at the two devices, you're not looking at the feature set necessarily side by side and saying, oh, but this one has slightly better front facing camera. And oh, do you want a big phone?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you just pick on screen size.

• 16:19Nilay Patel?

  I did it. I bought one. So the answer to your question, Lauren, is I do want a big phone.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  I know how you feel about it because you don't think phones are ever, should ever go back.

• 16:28Nilay Patel?

  I think, I think everyone is screwed. I think we're all, I think big phones, I think the iPhone 7 will start at five inches or above. Right, like.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  You don't think they'll have a small option, though?

• 16:37Nilay Patel?

  No. I think, I think all phones from now on will be five inches or above.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  No, because people with small hands cannot hold a five inch phone. Like, it's not a thing that works for them.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  You have, I mean, I don't know. I haven't like thought about your hands a lot, but it's a weird thing to say.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Would it creep out if you had?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  You have a big phone.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  I have a big phone, but I have actually fairly like long hands for a girl. And I, for me, this phone is almost too big. iPhones six S plus. Yeah. And I had a six plus.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  So here's, here's the news. The, um, the six Nexus six P has a 5.7 inch screen and it feels way smaller than that because they stuck the fingerprint sensor on the back, which means that there's less room for bezels.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  The bezels are way smaller.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  It covers the display covers, what is it? More than three fourths of the entire front of the phone.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. They put the percentages up on the screen.

• 17:27Nilay Patel?

  Right. I just think I my, I don't think the phones physically are going to stay huge. I think the screens will stay big and they'll learn to package them.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Right. Well, that's, see, that's my problem. One of my problems with the five X is the, the six P pulls off the magic trick of like, how do they fit a screen this big into this phone? It doesn't seem physically possible, but the five X feels like it's screen sized because it's got a big bezel on the top and the bottom. Cause it's got those, the, you know, those speaker lines on the top and the bottom.

• 17:50Nilay Patel?

  So it's time with the five. So the Nexus five is like everyone's favorite phone. As far as I can tell, it's, it's like a bunch of people on our product team have one. I have one lots. Like everyone has one. Vlad writes every, every like three weeks, Vlad writes a love letter to the Nexus five.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:07Nilay Patel?

  So tell me about five X like for like, so is it a worthy successor?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think it's spent like 15 minutes with it. Um, I, I think so. Uh, I don't think it's going to elicit quite as much like love. It's super light. It doesn't, it feels like it should be way heavier than it is. And I think it's got like a 2,400 milliamp battery in it. So like it should actually last along with those. I've got really high hopes for battery life for both of these Nexus's, which I'm sure I'm going to get burned on. But I really do hope. Um, I don't know. I, I think that it's, it deserve, it will elicit some affection. And it is a worthy successor. I just think that I was expecting it to cost literally a hundred bucks less, maybe not a hundred, but at least 50 bucks less.

• 18:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And, you know, if you're going to go all the way up to 430 to buy the 32 gig version, it's like, maybe think about your choices. Like maybe you wait another couple of months and get like the actual high end one.

• 19:05Nilay Patel?

  What's it? What do you think the actual high end?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  The six P.

• 19:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:08Nilay Patel?

  But that's, but like if you want that.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if you want a phone, an Android phone at this size, you're like, your genuine choices are like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and this.

• 19:19Nilay Patel?

  And what about the, is there gonna be a Z5 compact?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  The Z5, whatever. There's like 15 versions of the Z5. I don't know what it's called.

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  Well, presumably, I assume one is called the compact.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there's always a compact. Okay, if you live in America, you can be a crazy person and try and get a Z5 compact.

• 19:34Nilay Patel?

  Evan Rogers is speaking directly to you.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  You know, go way out into Brooklyn, meet some shady dude who has Z5 from Russia.

• 19:41Nilay Patel?

  Right. Evan's building one in his basement.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  But otherwise, at this size, you're looking at the 5X and the S6, and the S6 has way better build quality and probably it'll have a slightly better camera, although we'll have to wait and see.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  But it has more crap.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  Better battery life.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  But it's got more crap and it's like, also could probably, like, I think this thing will be pretty durable because like, it's got like a, the, the plastic back is reminiscent of the Nexus 5 plastic back. And it feels crazy light. So it'll be a good, like, it'll be a good knock around phone. That's what it is. It's a knock around phone.

• 20:12Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren, I'll ask you a question. If you had to buy an Android phone right now, which one would you buy?

• 20:19Nilay Patel?

  And assuming they all ship to you now, like, obviously, like, for example, I just bought a 6P. It's not coming for three and a half weeks.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Three and a half?

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  That's what it said.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Son of a bitch.

• 20:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  So I really liked the build of the 6P, but the size is an issue for me.

• 20:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  So I've also been using the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. And considering that the Note was sort of what kicked off the fablet trend here. And now when I feel it, when I hold it, it doesn't even feel so much like a fablet. I mean, they've really slimmed down the body so much, I'd probably go with the Note 5.

• 20:50Nilay Patel?

  Note 5, huh?

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:52Nilay Patel?

  Do you use the pen?

• 20:54Speaker 04

  No.

• 20:54Nilay Patel?

  No, it never does.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  No.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Why it's not coming till November?

• 20:58Nilay Patel?

  Did you just buy one?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  No, I bought one like yesterday.

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  And it's not coming till November?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you get the graphite?

• 21:03Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Why is yours coming before mine? Google! What the hell?

• 21:08Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, three, maybe it's, it's, yours is coming November 5th. Mine, mine is probably gonna get delayed. It's gonna be fine, dear.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  This is the worst.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  If mine comes, I'll let you look at it.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  So I hope.

• 21:22Nilay Patel?

  I don't know what Android for. I think I'm just like, I'm just tired of like, Apple just feels like it's just swallowing everything and like a really weird like, Apple hates Google. Like, it's very obvious to me.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Nilay Patel?

  But they're, they're just like trying to push out everything that isn't their ecosystem, which just is annoying.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  That's the way that they've been.

• 21:41Nilay Patel?

  No, it's, it's new, it's new in how like

• 21:44Speaker 02

  What are they doing that's new, that's more aggressive?

• 21:47Nilay Patel?

  Um, so like iOS nine, like everything about iOS nine is about keeping you out of the browser.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's been like

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they're, they've stepped it up a notch.

• 21:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's just up a notch. Like the watch, like everything about having an Apple watch is about keeping you internal to Apple's ecosystem. The Apple TV doesn't have like any web rendering engine in it whatsoever. So you have to like app developers, which they say are the future of the TV, have to just live in Apple's ecosystem, like tvOS ecosystem.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but again, that's not a change. That's like Apple's

• 22:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, these are new things. Like they're, Apple used to

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I just, I don't think that the severity of it stepping up, they're just continuing to do what they've always done, which is

• 22:27Speaker 04

  I think Christine is right. I think, sorry, Christine, I interrupted you.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Kirsten, it's Kirsten, by the way.

• 22:31Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Oh, my goodness. I got your name wrong.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  It's okay. Don't worry about it.

• 22:34Nilay Patel?

  Lauren, I think you should get her name right.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  So sorry.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  It's okay.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  I'm just gonna log off now.

• 22:40Nilay Patel?

  Lauren.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Lauren.

• 22:41Nilay Patel?

  Look, Lauren.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  We're all

• 22:44Nilay Patel?

  Everybody gets

• 22:45Speaker 01

  It's been a very long week.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Wait, she was saying I'm right. Let's let her talk.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Oh, I just completely lost my train of thought now.

• 22:55Nilay Patel?

  It's okay. We're definitely gonna edit this part of the podcast.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Kirsten was saying is, is absolutely right. This idea that Apple is keeping things sort of behind, you know, a wall in a sense, and wanting to keep their usage in their ecosystem is not a new thing. It's just that everyone else seemingly is getting a little bit more open or at least cross-platform. And so by comparison, you kind of feel like you're stuck.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  I buy that. That makes sense.

• 23:21Nilay Patel?

  No, it's, it's, okay, you're, you're not wrong in that the severity of it, like, the intensity of the effort has not necessarily changed.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  You log your Felding, Felding browser?

• 23:30Nilay Patel?

  Totally.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:31Nilay Patel?

  This motherfucker's been dead for like three weeks. You were the first person, I want to give you an award. I've been wearing a dead Apple Watch for three weeks. Chris Ziegler on the show is the first person who has even come close to noticing.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  It's not like you can tell if someone's watch is dead.

• 23:45Nilay Patel?

  I know. It's like my little social experiment.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  What's the point?

• 23:48Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. It's just been really funny. Like, it's just been like this joke I've been telling myself. Anyhow, um, cause I did, you know, I like did watch OS 2 and like played with it for a while. And I was like, yeah, it's kind of the same. And then it just died and I just kept wearing it. Anyway, uh, no, it's the, this, the intensity of the effort is not increasing, but they have now reached a point where the impact of the effort has like a new amount of affect on me.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and the part of it is like the, they're, they've gotten better at it. So like with the L capy 10, like the notes app is like good. It does, it does all the stuff that I would want out of Evernote and doesn't advertise to me like Evernote does. Cause Evernote is the worst right now. And, and so it's like, it's the stuff that they're making is more tempting to just use. This is like the iMessage story, right?

• 24:38Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Like everyone's mad at me because I like, I turned it on and turned it off and nobody can text me anymore. But if you, as soon as you update an OS on, on a phone, it turns on iMessage. As soon as you attach a watch to it, it turns on iMessage. They really want you to use iMessage. And the stuff has gotten to the point where it's good enough to make you want to use it and to the, you know, and stop using the stuff that's outside of Apple's ecosystem. And so it, it feels grabby. Now, the flip side of this is don't think that Google isn't moving in the same direction. They're just not as good at it.

• 25:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Right? Like more and more, an Android phone without Google services doesn't count.

• 25:15Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  And they're like, they're putting security updates through Google Play. They're putting browser updates through Google Play. They're putting all sorts of other stuff through Google Play services. And if you don't have a Google Play Android device, you are like, you are seriously missing out on, not just like their app store, but a bunch of other stuff that they're doing to try and bring the ecosystem up to par. So you're not living in a world where stage fright destroys your phone.

• 25:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean. I don't know. There's, there's just, it's just stuff like, it's like, I, I don't think Google cares about Google Play Music. They clearly don't. They just don't, right? So like, everybody I know with an Android phone has Spotify. And Spotify has its own service and it's like moving in its own path and it's like, it's this idea of like redundancy. It, and that's like the wrong word. It's like, it's not having a single service provider in my mind is safer, right? So like, uh, with Apple, it's like, Apple really wants me to use Apple Music and Spotify can't talk to Siri. Yeah, Thomas Strucker wrote about this this morning, right? But with now on tap, it feels like Google services are at least cognizant of the idea that I may wish to use non-Google apps.

• 26:24Nilay Patel?

  And it would be nice if Google services could know about that. So they could deliver me interesting other experiences. And like, it's just that, right? It's just the notion that Google is aware of other people. And Apple seems very like, you know, like there's stuff we're gonna do and we're gonna make sure our users use our services because this integrated stack is better. And if you IBM would like to make some enterprise bullshit, that's cool too. And they're like, I don't know, like Apple Music is bad, right? But Apple wants you to use it. So everything about its ecosystem funnels you into a bad experience. Yeah, Siri especially. Yeah. Anyway, you're gonna say something.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Well, I was gonna say, I mean, the question becomes like, can, even though Google is open and the developers can make stuff, will they actually make it that works as well? Like, right now, I am using Apple Music because I can say, hey Siri, play me exact song title, exact name of artist, and it will pull it up for me. And I don't even have to open my phone. So like, until I can get a similar experience from pulling out my Android phone and saying to Google, like, I want you to play me this exact song. Oh, Siri just turned on. Then for me, it's like, it's great that the opportunity to create those kinds of things in the Android ecosystem is there, but until they're actually working.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Wait, you can't, you can't play a song with, okay, Google?

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Can you?

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I find that hard to believe.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  I.

• 27:45Nilay Patel?

  God damn. Your phone just went off. Well, try to play a song.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Uh, what song should I try and play?

• 27:51Nilay Patel?

  Um, I don't know. How about this ad for Softlayer?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Okay, Google.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Play me a song.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Wi-Fi here is not so good.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  All right.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Google Play Music just launched?

• 28:11Nilay Patel?

  It did nothing.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I'm feeling Lucky Radio.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Okay, Google.

• 28:16Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. This is the worst.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Let's do an ad.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Okay, Google.

• 28:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. And Lauren's talking to five wearables.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  Play Taylor Smith.

• 28:24Nilay Patel?

  Taylor Smith? No, Christine's favorite band is Taylor Smith.

• 28:33Nilay Patel?

  Softlayer delivers a cloud built for innovation. Your business applications and Christine. Your software, your business applications, computational workloads are unique, so you deserve cloud resources that meet your specific needs. Softlayer is one of the only cloud providers that provisions dedicated servers and virtual servers, otherwise known as a public cloud, from a single seamless platform. All this is on demand, all of it's connected to the same open API, all of it's connected to a global private network, so you can scale your workloads up and down quickly and have ample space for your storage-intensive tasks. Softlayer, as you may know, because we've been reading this out on the show for many weeks, is an IBM company. There will be a test later. IBM uses Softlayer as its cloud infrastructure foundation for all IBM clouds and services. So even if you're not looking for infrastructure, you can benefit from Softlayer just by buying

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  anything from IBM. Clever. Clever, those IBM people. All of our listeners have the opportunity to get $500 worth of cloud infrastructure by visiting softlayer.com/podcast. You can order bare metal servers, which are dedicated servers. You can order virtual servers. You can get storage, networking, security services from your choice of data centers. Softlayer actually has 24 data centers around the world. Odd place for an exclamation point. All of those servers and services are connected to Softlayer's unique network of networks, which separates public-private management traffic, ensuring that traffic to and from your cloud infrastructure travels more efficiently. You can automate and control this cloud infrastructure with the granular API, because you're a super lead hacker, or you can just use the Softlayer customer portal like a super noob. You can visit softlayer.com/podcast, get started with your $500 off of servers, storage,

• 30:02Nilay Patel?

  networking, security on a cloud built for innovation from Softlayer. There's this fine print here at the end of the ad that I never read, because you know what? Whatever. Just riding dirty with Softlayer.

• 30:15Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Riding Dirty with Softlayer is gonna be their new.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  I'm just trying to hip them up.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:21Nilay Patel?

  Those, people are always asking, I get these tweets, "You suck at the ads, why do people keep paying you for them?" It's because we make them cool, we make them hip. The cool kids at school on Softlayer.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 30:33Nilay Patel?

  Lauren, let's talk about the Chromecast.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Real quick, Blair Palowski, happy birthday.

• 30:38Nilay Patel?

  Oh, hey, look at that. There's been a lot of like, specific human callouts on this first guest. Two people we know and one person we don't. And also Taylor Smith.

• 30:49Nilay Patel?

  Alright.

• 30:51Nilay Patel?

  Lauren.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  I would just like to say that if I had met Kirsten, Kirsten.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Kirsten, like you're Kirsten, like you're swearing.

• 30:59Nilay Patel?

  We're never gonna.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  In person, if we had met in person, I would have gotten it right.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, we haven't met in person yet. I don't care at all.

• 31:05Nilay Patel?

  Alright, alright.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  We're only going through the socials, and just like if I had ever met Taylor Smith in person.

• 31:11Nilay Patel?

  Taylor Smith, uh, the name of my high school boyfriend. Uh, okay, tell me about the Chromecast, which you have. Are there two of them?

• 31:17Speaker 04

  I have both here, hold on.

• 31:18Nilay Patel?

  Okay, how are they different?

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Doesn't one have treads on it, like a record?

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  Uh, wait, wait, Lauren, wait, wait, wait. Lauren, how are they, everyone keeps saying there are two, but they don't, they do the same thing, right? Am I crazy?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  No, they do different, they're different, yeah.

• 31:32Nilay Patel?

  Alright, go ahead.

• 31:33Speaker 04

  Although, we did ask a question of Google, which is, "Why didn't you just build the same capabilities into one dongle?" And they gave some really fancy answer about how they're so different, but really, they want to sell them. So, um, so, this is Chromecast for video, Chromecast second generation, which now finally supports modern Wi-Fi standards. Five gigahertz, 802.11 AC Wi-Fi. I used it last night to watch Nerf, this is pretty good.

• 31:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  And then, this is Chromecast Audio, which has auxiliary, RCA, and optical, uh...

• 32:05Speaker 04

  What's it called?

• 32:06Nilay Patel?

  Jack.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Input. Thank you. Jack. Input, whatever you want to call it. So that you can plug this into the back of a speaker amplifier and then make a non Wi-Fi connected speaker Wi-Fi connected. So the idea is if you have like fancy speakers at home that aren't connected to Wi-Fi, or let's even say you have a Bluetooth speaker, and we all know that Bluetooth audio quality is sometimes pretty crappy. You can then use something like this, stick it into your speaker and then, um, and then stream music.

• 32:33Nilay Patel?

  Right, but it needs power. It needs, it needs to be powered. It needs power? Yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 04

  How? Just like, I mean, just, yeah, like this, this hangs out of the back of your TV, right? Like this from the HDMI port.

• 32:43Nilay Patel?

  Dongles.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  And then, and then you have to, and then you have to plug it into power.

• 32:46Nilay Patel?

  Wait, the HDMI one needs power too? Yeah, they both need power.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  HDMI doesn't power things.

• 32:51Nilay Patel?

  Yes, it does. No, not enough to power a dongle, though.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:53Nilay Patel?

  The original Chromecast didn't need power if you had the right kind of TV. If you had the right kind of TV. And most people now presumably have the right kind of TV. Maybe this one might, if you had the right kind of TV, might not.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  Original Chromecast is you would stick, if you would stick another wire into USB at the same time. So if you had the right kind of TV that had a USB and HDMI juxtaposed next to each other.

• 33:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no. No, the original, there's power over HDMI, some HDMI ports have power. Yep. Like in newer TVs. Yeah. And the original Chromecast did not need power if you had one of those TVs. And the USB thing was like a hack.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  Are you sure about that?

• 33:26Nilay Patel?

  Absolutely sure. And the USB thing was like a hack because many TVs have USB ports that are completely unused. Well, that might be a case for this one. And then you could also plug it in the wall. And then presumably this new Chromecast exactly the same way. Um, and then I'm assuming the audio one needs power because headphone jacks don't provide power.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:42Nilay Patel?

  Unless you're crazy.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  The only, um, stick that I knew of. That would draw power from the TV was the original Roku stick, which was using a standard called MHL.

• 33:52Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 33:52Speaker 04

  But MHL was such, it was not in enough TVs for them to really.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  The Chromecast used MHL too. Everything, yeah. MHL is like the worst standard.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  But how many people actually have that?

• 34:03Nilay Patel?

  Yo, this motherfucker.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  Hey. I'm sorry, Eric, I threw up here.

• 34:08Nilay Patel?

  She called me Terry.

• 34:14Nilay Patel?

  By the way, on this show, I've tried to make cloud services and NHL seem hard. And not possible. Just not possible.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  For me, the most exciting thing about the Chromecast is actually maybe the new software, because it actually does universal search across a bunch of services.

• 34:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Which Android TV still sucks at. Oh, yeah, fast, which isn't here yet. And neither is the Chromecast audio.

• 34:33Nilay Patel?

  What is Fast Play?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Oh, it pre-caches video.

• 34:37Nilay Patel?

  You know, the TiVo, the TiVo has a crazy mode called Quick Mode.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not that.

• 34:43Nilay Patel?

  Okay, the TiVo Bolt will literally record a show and play it back 30% faster.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:47Nilay Patel?

  Which is awesome.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:49Nilay Patel?

  Because most of the shows I watch are garbage. Like, the idea of watching Bar Rescue in like eight minutes flat. You're like, they rescued the bar! Like, on to the next one! Like, I'm like, super into that. What is happening?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Am I playing music?

• 35:03Nilay Patel?

  It's playing Bar Rescue as fast as it can.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  You're just emitting music.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  But, but, but...

• 35:07Nilay Patel?

  Wow. Okay, so that's...

• 35:08Speaker 02

  I have a question about the Chromecast audio with the Sonos stuff. So it's not going to be able to do that Sonos stuff at the beginning when it first ships?

• 35:14Nilay Patel?

  Define Sonos stuff.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  No, like, multi-room support?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, because that's why I'm interested in it.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  So, two things. First is that you have to have one of these pieces of hardware for every single speaker. So if you have a speaker system that's connected on some type of Wi-Fi mesh network and you only plug this into one, it doesn't matter. You need one for every single speaker. And then in terms of walking into a room and playing a different track in your living room that is in your bedroom and that sort of thing, it doesn't support that yet, but it will later this year.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  But it will synchronize all of your speakers, though?

• 35:42Speaker 04

  If you have a Chromecast in every...

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you did.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  ...in every speaker.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Which could be cheaper for some people than doing Sonos potentially.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  If you already had a lot of speakers.

• 35:53Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, Sonos, you'd have to replace all the speakers.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  No, I know. What I'm saying is, like, if you were a person who already had a bunch of speakers in your house that weren't Sonos, which is my setup.

• 36:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Then buying, you know, three or four of these could be cheaper than...

• 36:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  ...doing your entire house in Sonos.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  Um, I have two Sonos speakers in my house, and obviously other speakers. But the Sonos in my bathroom has been wired to only play Z100 in New York for like, three months. So it's basically just the world's most complicated and expensive radio. Because you hit play and it just like plays the radio at you. That's what Sonos is good for. Uh, how much do they cost, Lauren?

• 36:27Speaker 04

  Thirty-five dollars if you same prices last Chromecast.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:30Nilay Patel?

  So, and the video one does audio too, right? Presumably?

• 36:34Speaker 04

  The video one supports some music streaming apps as well. Like beforehand, you could cast some music apps to Chromecast video, I believe.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  I think. Hold on, let me see. I have a list here of the apps. Well, anyway, I was gonna take up too much time doing that, but.

• 36:54Nilay Patel?

  So, let me ask you a question, and this is a real question. And it applies to the Pixel C, which we should talk about too for a minute. Why do they make these? Why do they make the Nexus?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  They sold 20 million of them, of the Chromecast.

• 37:06Nilay Patel?

  Do people use the Chromecast?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  20 million people.

• 37:08Nilay Patel?

  Do they save, like, but every, like, they're $35 in there in front of every Best Buy. Like, I feel like if you made any product at that price point and put it in that location, you'd sell 20 million of them. Right? And it's a pitch is like, "Watch TV, like, watch free TV on the internet." And like, "It's cheap," and like, "It's small," and it says "Google" on it, like.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  And you just keep answering your own question.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:26Nilay Patel?

  But like, do you use, like, do people use that? I have four of them. I never use any of them.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Because you're an Apple TV guy, and you're locked into the Apple TV system and love AirPlay.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Okay, so to answer your question, Chromecast Audio works with Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, TuneIn, NPR1, a whole bunch of others. And then Spotify actually works with both Chromecast and Chromecast Podcast.

• 37:45Nilay Patel?

  Ah, interesting.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  But what Google says, so we've asked them this, like, every which way until Sunday. You know, why Chromecast? And also, if you have Android TV, why are you doing both Android TV?

• 37:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  And Chromecast? And so, and their answer is always that they're just, it seems that they're just coming at it from two completely different directions, because nobody really knows where the streaming video experience is ultimately going. And so, if you're sort of just like throwing a bunch of mud at the wall and seeing what sticks, there are two different ways to do it. One is that they, you know, one is this idea that you believe that everything's going to be cast from our personal devices. And so, if you've got, you know, 75 apps already on this device, and some of them are media streaming apps, then it's probably better just to take those and throw the content or send a URL, and then your cloud device pulls it down, and that's the best way to experience it. And then the other way to look at it is that you plug in some type of box or stick that basically creates an OS, like, you know, an interface, an OS on your, on your TV screen, and that's the other way to approach it.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  And it seems to me as though Google just doesn't really know which one is ultimately going to shake out, and so they're doing both.

• 38:48Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Well, I think they're, the reason they're doing the Chromecast is because Android TV has been an unmitigated disaster. I mean, Google TV was. Android TV. Maybe isn't, although the first version of it was not very good, but now nobody's making them. Like Nvidia makes one.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Sony, all the new Sony TVs are Android TV.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Okay, fine.

• 39:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  I take it all back.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  And then actually over.

• 39:09Nilay Patel?

  I'm getting you a 4K Sony Android TV.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna cost like seventeen thousand dollars.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  I need a new TV.

• 39:17Nilay Patel?

  4K.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  The funny thing is that with all of these new streaming sticks and boxes that we're seeing this fall, like, I kind of feel as though no one has really dealt the death blow yet to the cable experience. Because if you look at, Android TV actually exists as the OS on cable set top boxes overseas in some countries. And the same with Roku, for example. Roku is the OS on some set top boxes overseas. But here in the States, like the cable industry, it's just, it's such a mess that right now we've just got these sort of interim devices. And personally, I just want to see somebody come in and say, I'm changing the whole experience. I'm changing the cable experience, I'm changing the over the top experience, and here's that box. Like, no one's really doing that yet.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Imagine, imagine if Apple had.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Imagine if that had been the announcement.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  I've checked the Chromecast.

• 40:08Speaker 04

  I get kind of fired up about that.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  The Chromecast, um, like, I think that the audio ones are interesting.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  I think that I really like the way that they look a lot better than the older ones, to be completely honest.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  They just hang there, it's so weird.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the thing is like, like, do you want to have to plug in a stick that's gonna stick out like three inches from the back of your thing? Or would you rather have like a little dongle that you can plug in with a nice little cord that hangs down so you can like mount your TV against a wall? I just think they're prettier, they're way easier to set up.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  And they have fancy antennas in them.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they're actually like able to connect to real wifi now, which is solid.

• 40:43Nilay Patel?

  Uh, we should probably. I'm very confused about how the Chromecast in the back of my TV. Everyone is telling me that the Chromecast don't run on MHL, but I know for a fact. The Chromecast in the back of my TV is not plugged into anything but itself.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  And it works.

• 40:54Nilay Patel?

  And it works.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  MHL is a controlling standard, not a power standard.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  When is the last time you used it? Maybe the battery is just dead.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I used it like two weeks ago to cast a weird video.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  I think Dieter's right, like powered HDMI has nothing to do with MHL.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are two separate things.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  It's just powered HDMI.

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  That might be it then. All right. Whatever.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Like USB.

• 41:18Nilay Patel?

  Please tweet at me with your pedantic corrections. I'm ready and waiting for them.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  We start with the Pixel C.

• 41:24Nilay Patel?

  Talk about Pixel C.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  There, there's a new Android tablet. Google itself makes it.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's weird.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Pixel team, the Pixel team who makes the Chromebook Pixel, has made a Android tablet. It has the fancy Nvidia X1 processor.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Uh, and it has a keyboard that they're very proud of that I'm not that impressed with.

• 41:43Nilay Patel?

  Has Nvidia made a serious processor that we care about in quite some time?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Well, the X1, I mean, we, we sat through an 18 hour keynote at CES this year about the X1 processor.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  Don't you remember when Nvidia, like, we're like, screw it, we're making ARM chips and then everyone's gonna use our ARM chips?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:57Nilay Patel?

  And now they just keep doing it?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. We'll see. It's like, it looks like a very powerful, slightly too thick Android tablet. Uh, it makes me very mad that I bought a Nexus 9 because this thing makes the Nexus 9 look like the garbage that it always was. And then there's a keyboard that's actually really clever. It's Bluetooth, but it charges inductively off the tablet.

• 42:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  So when you have it, you know, you know, closed, it just charges up the Bluetooth a little bit. And then it slaps on there with a magnet, tilts up. Uh, Google's very proud of like the way they designed the keyboard. Uh, it feels a lot like the classic MacBook keyboard, although just narrower. And then they, they made the button, like the return and caps lock keys really narrow so that they could try and get closer to full size in the rest of them. It was fine. It felt a little small.

• 42:40Nilay Patel?

  Why did they make it?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  That's a great question.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  And can we talk about the fact that every tablet maker has just come back to making laptops?

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  They all have.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  That's where we're at now.

• 42:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Except for Apple, which is like, but what if we make this more like a laptop? And Microsoft's like, I hear you.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  But the Pixel seat, like, I don't, I don't get it. I don't get what Google wants to do with laptops. You know, I, I, I call it expensive, uh, cause it's 500 bucks for the base model plus 150 for the keyboard. And I just, like, I can, if someone wants to spend 500 bucks on an iPad Air 2 or an iPad Pro, like, yes, I get that. Like, there's, you can do a lot of stuff with that.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Where can I spend 500 dollars on an iPad Pro?

• 43:22Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, or more.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  We're at like 1200 dollars.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  An Android tablet, like, you can do most of the same stuff, but it doesn't have as many apps. It definitely doesn't have as much, like, really deep apps. And it also, right now, Android doesn't multitask as well as iOS on a tablet, which is nuts. I brought this up to Google and they're like, "Well, you know, we're planning on updating the OS quite often." I was like, "Okay, well, we'll see." But like, they need to, they need, like, if I'm gonna be able to justify an Android tablet, it needs to be a workhorse. That's, and, and watch videos. Like, that, that machine is designed to be a work machine.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  And although they have Office and they've got Google Docs and et cetera, et cetera, if I'm gonna get work done on a tablet, I wanna be able to have some kind of basic level of having two apps on the screen at once.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  So is this just one giant experiment to see if a merge of the Android and Chrome OS operating systems is possible?

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Dun, dun, dun.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's the Pixel team, right? They've only made Chromebooks before. I feel like they, they were just bored. They're just like, eh.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  No, it's kindergarten. It's Montessori. They're like, "Oh, we were supposed to do our reading homework, but we made this Pixel instead." Like, it doesn't matter, cause there's no rules.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  And you get a snack for making it, and making it well. Nap time.

• 44:37Nilay Patel?

  It is, I mean, it's probably accurate.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm gonna sneak into Google's campus and I'm gonna sprinkle, I'm gonna sprinkle gluten on top of all of their snacks.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Just like powdered gluten.

• 44:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, those poor nerds.

• 44:47Speaker 04

  Dieter, that's so...

• 44:49Nilay Patel?

  How will they make minor changes to Chrome?

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Dieter, literal murderer.

• 44:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  You can't murder somebody with gluten.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Yes, you can if they, you could, if they were, like, really allergic.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  Like, all the way murder?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe.

• 45:02Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Full murder versus harsh...

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  Like you can cause like, you know, like some swelling and, you know, maybe some like crankiness, but like a full on murder. Like if anybody has ever been like directly murdered by gluten.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  So gluten allergies just make you cranky. That's the symptom.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  No, New York hipsters get cranky when they eat gluten. They have no real reaction.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  That's true, yes.

• 45:25Nilay Patel?

  Who are allergic gluten, clearly. And I simply goes out to you if you are indeed truly allergic to gluten.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  If you get pulled over.

• 45:30Nilay Patel?

  And not just a resident of my neighborhood.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  If you're a casualty of Dieter's evil scheme.

• 45:35Nilay Patel?

  But I, I'm just doubting, and I could be wrong, and I'm willing to accept it, that anybody has ever been murdered by gluten. That one human being has ever used gluten.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Like it's arsenic, like it's a James Bond plot. He's got a vial in his watch. And he like just tips over the gluten.

• 45:52Nilay Patel?

  And he's like watching, he's like watching from afar and he's like, I don't know, they're just a little more bloated than before. Must not have been allergic to gluten.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  That is the next James Bond plot. There you go.

• 46:01Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. He's just, he just seems sluggish. Like, it's not, by the way, for those of you listening, I'm making hand binoculars. So that's what's happening right now. All right.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  You guys, I just Googled it, which Google already knew because they're Google. And now I'm going to be chased around by like gluten free ads for the rest of my life. However, you can die from celiac disease. Wait.

• 46:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you can die from that, but you have like, that's a, you can't, has anyone been murdered by gluten?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, murdered by gluten is what we're asking.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  But you could murder someone with celiac disease with gluten.

• 46:34Nilay Patel?

  But how much gluten?

• 46:35Speaker 04

  And extreme damage to the intestinal lining can lead to death through dehydration.

• 46:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  All right. You could definitely die like.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  That's uncomfortable. Do you want to die through dehydration?

• 46:44Speaker 04

  You can Google any, you can Google anything. Like you can Google.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  You can Google any.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Like in six clicks, you will die.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  That's true, yeah. I'm not saying can you die, obviously, yes. I'm saying can you be murdered with gluten?

• 46:57Speaker 02

  If you can die, then you can be murdered. Come on.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  That's a good point. If you can die, you can be murdered.

• 47:03Nilay Patel?

  But I just, I just disagree.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  That's the title of this episode. If you can die, you can be murdered.

• 47:08Nilay Patel?

  Who's playing music now?

• 47:09Speaker 03

  This is, no, no, no, this is Taylor Smith.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  There is a Taylor Smith.

• 47:14Nilay Patel?

  I'm going to read an ad and then Chris.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  We should talk about this Model X. Yeah.

• 47:19Nilay Patel?

  All right. Hold on, hold on. Are you a tech professional searching for a new company to share your tech skills with? Or perhaps learn to be a murderer with? Then you should check out Hired. Hired connects talent with top tech companies. On Hired, software engineers and designers can get five plus interview requests in a week. Every offer has salary and equity upfront. They have full time and cross check opportunities and users can view the offers and accept or reject them before even talking to any company. You can work with over 2,500 companies from startups to large public companies. There are employers from the 12 major tech hubs in North America and Europe. And it's totally free for users. If you get a job through us, they'll even give you a $2,000 thank you bonus. If you use the special link hired.com/vergecast to sign up, Hired will double that bonus when you accept a job.

• 48:01Nilay Patel?

  They'll double the $2,000 thank you bonus when you sign up at hired.com/vergecast. And if you're not looking for a job right now, but you know someone who is, you can refer them to Hired and come on, you can get a $1,337 bonus when they accept a job. That number spells lead.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yes, I was just about to point that out.

• 48:19Nilay Patel?

  So what are you waiting for besides that embarrassment to fade? Check out hired.com/vergecast now.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  What? Um, let's talk about the Tesla.

• 48:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, let's talk about a car.

• 48:34Nilay Patel?

  But the gluten people are going to be so very angry at me now.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, big gluten.

• 48:37Nilay Patel?

  The gluten's cut or big anti-gluten.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  Yes, so Model X, um, this car has been in the works.

• 48:45Nilay Patel?

  So you were there, you set up, set the stage.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Yes, so we were invited out to Fremont, California, uh, which is where Tesla makes all of its cars. They have a, a very large facility there.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Is that where they're building the Giga factory?

• 49:00Speaker 03

  No, the Giga factory is in, uh, the middle of nowhere in Nevada.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Uh, because they were offered an extraordinary level of a tax incentive to do so.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  But so we, we went out to the, uh, the factory, um, uh, to see the, the production Model X for the first time. This is of course their crossover-ish SUV that has been in the works basically since the Model S has been on the road. Um, and they've shown it in concept form for as long as I can remember, but they'd never shown a production vehicle, um, and it had been delayed and delayed and delayed. Because it's Tesla and everything is delayed there. But they they were finally ready to show the production car and they actually handed out the keys to the first, I think, seven buyers, the first seven people who who reserved the vehicle on stage, one of whom was Sergey Brin, who is sitting about 10 feet away from me. But he did not come on stage.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  He sent an assistant up on stage to get his key, which I thought was cute. So, but yeah, Sergey Brin has a Model X now. So this this, of course, being Tesla, it is not just it is not just an SUV. It does a million insane things. We had a chance to ride it for a little bit. And the first thing you notice, and this sounds stupid, I acknowledge that this does not sound like an interesting feature, but it Elon Musk touts the fact that this car has the largest piece of glass ever in a production car.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  And what that means is that the windshield starts in the normal place, but then it goes all the way up over your head, behind your head. So when you look straight up, all you see is sky and the the rear view mirror is mounted in the normal place. But then there's a wire that runs along the windshield up into the headliner, which is a little awkward. But but looking straight up, it's it's just a really surreal experience because you don't feel like you're in the vehicle. You're just surrounded by the outside.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  What about, you know, sun visors?

• 50:57Speaker 03

  So Elon spent, I would say, a good five minutes talking about the mechanism for the the sun visor that they had to engineer for this vehicle. So there is a sun visor that that extends downward. But he's very proud of it. And he had this this reflective moment while we were talking about the car where he was like, I wonder if maybe we we shouldn't have spent so much time over engineering this car. Like, he was having this moment on stage where he's like, I think maybe we spent too long, like, we didn't need to do any of this stuff. We should have just made a normal SUV. Because it has these insane doors that go upward like a falcon wings. The falcon wings.

• 51:42Speaker 03

  And there is no real value proposition to these things. So the claim is that, one, they can open in a really tight parking space. Cool, I guess. Two, you can stand up in the the the door, which I guess helps you put a car seat in and take a car seat out.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  But like, come on, like, you didn't need to do this. They just look cool. So it has those, of course, it has the same powertrain.

• 52:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  As the dual motor Model S, so it is ridiculously fast. The, if you order with ludicrous mode, which is on $42,000, it does zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds, which is the same as a 911 turbo.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  So you're in a giant soccer mom family vehicle.

• 52:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  And you're racing 911 turbos.

• 52:25Nilay Patel?

  So every time I see, I think about the speed of the car. I think about somebody like racing from danger to get to their very fast car.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:33Nilay Patel?

  And then waiting for the door to open. And just be like, come on.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  So.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. How long does the door take to open?

• 52:39Nilay Patel?

  It's a long time.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  The, yeah, the, um, the Falcon wings are not fast.

• 52:43Nilay Patel?

  Wait.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  But those are just the rear doors.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  How not fast are they?

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I don't know the exact.

• 52:48Nilay Patel?

  Like, I watched Vine and they weren't done opening by the time the Vine looped.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  That is insane.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, so.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  That is dumb.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  The, the way the question was, was posed Elon Musk was.

• 52:59Nilay Patel?

  Let's say you're, you're running down an alley and there's someone behind you, the packet of gluten.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:04Nilay Patel?

  Will they, will they catch you by the time you get to the car?

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Let's just say you want to get in your kid in the car. And you have to wait 10 seconds?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  I, I would, I would put it closer to seven. I didn't time it with a stopwatch, but it's, yeah, it's not fast. But the front doors are also both motorized. So as you approach the car, it has a electronic chauffeur, I think is the way they call it or something like, or electronic valet, where the, the door automatically opens. Then when you, when you put your foot on the brake, the door closes itself. Uh, and you can pull the door open if you want to and pull it shut, but it'll open for you. So this car is extraordinarily over engineered to the point where Elon Musk had this existential crisis on stage. But it's here. Um, if you order one now, you're going to be waiting a year to get it. Uh, cause that's.

• 53:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Classic Tesla. That's the way it, it happens. Uh, but it is actually in a few customers' hands now.

• 53:55Nilay Patel?

  But why do they make it? I feel like this is the theme of the show.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  That's, that's a good.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  They made it to protect people from bioterrorism.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  Completely the best feature of the car.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Absolutely. It's almost Tony Stark like.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Elon Musk, Elon Musk. So proud of the weirdest thing. So he's, he actually had an assistant bring the actual air filter from the Model X on stage. He's like, look how big this air filter is. It's like, come on.

• 54:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, explain the feature.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  So he, he, uh, he touts that it is the only car in the market with true HEPA air cleaning. So there's no particulate whatsoever when it's in the maximum air cleaning mode. They call it biohazard protection mode or something, you know? Cause ludicrous mode, you know, they really like clever names for features. Um, so you put the, the, nevermind.

• 54:41Nilay Patel?

  Well, I was talking.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  When you go on a long ass road trip, you, and you have all the air from the outside blowing in.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  You end up with a lot of boogers. Cause you're breathing the, the road dust.

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  So I was still annoying. So like, I would, I would like that feature.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Fair, fair.

• 54:57Nilay Patel?

  I was talking to Ezra Klein yesterday and I was.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  About boogers?

• 55:00Nilay Patel?

  Yes, about boogers. That's what we talk about when we get together. No, he was like, uh, he was congratulating us on our traffic. We had this like record month. And I was like, oh, you know, we got this big kick at the end, but with this Tesla stuff, it's awesome. And he's like, telling me that. And I was like going through all the stuff and I was like, it has this biohazard defense mode. And he's like, do you think Elon Musk is planning an attack in the United States? Because there's like, like he owns also a space company. Like he's making missiles and then he's making cars that can protect you from airborne weapons. And then you can just see him be like, no one is safe, except for the owners of the Model X, who I have chosen as a member of my, my masterclass.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Well, he also, yeah. Yeah. The way he said it on stage did not allay any fear, any, uh, any fears either. Cause he said something like, uh, you know, for the eventual apocalypse or something like some, he made it sound like it was inevitable in some way.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  Well, he thinks it's inevitable.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Rolling my eyes.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  He called the car a fixer upper though, because that would be a bigger concern. That's what he says every time someone asks him about Mars. Oh, it's a bit of a fixer upper.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  Upper. Yeah. Yeah. We need to terraform the Model X before we can drive it.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you asked, who is it, but why did they make it?

• 56:10Nilay Patel?

  Why did they make it?

• 56:12Speaker 03

  So Tesla is using sort of this multi-tier approach in the hopes that they'll eventually be able to get to scale that allows them to produce this 35,000, this mythical $35,000 car, the Model 3, which will commoditize the electric vehicle, the practical electric vehicle with over 200 miles of range and make it so that everybody can feel like this is a car they can actually own. The Model S doesn't get them there. Elon said that their demographics on the Model S trend heavily male. It's over 75% male, I think. And of course, it's a rich person's car.

• 56:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the only people who drive a Model S are the people who wear a dress shirt and a blazer without a tie. Just think about, that's who they all are. They all, and they all have a streak of white hair.

• 56:57Speaker 03

  Yes. So you're describing Eddie Q.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  You were talking about the Palo Alto mascot.

• 57:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  Grabbing up and down Sand Hill Road all the time.

• 57:03Nilay Patel?

  They all live in Palo Alto and they're like, you know what? No fucking tie today.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:08Nilay Patel?

  Need to look dressy.

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Eddie Q.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  Also, I'm riding a skateboard.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  An electric skateboard, yeah.

• 57:18Nilay Patel?

  Everything's electric.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  Everything is electric in this mythical person's life. No, so the, yeah, not mythical. Prototypical is the word I was looking for. So the Model X, they expect to trend more 50/50 male/female, but it isn't any cheaper, right? It's, the signature edition is $132,000, an extra $10,000 for ludicrous mode. And you know, all these people are going to have to spec it up with ludicrous mode because that's what you do. So it doesn't push them any further down market, but it does allow them to address a market that the Model S isn't necessarily appropriate for. Elon feels pretty strongly that, and we'll see if this ends up being

• 58:02Speaker 03

  true or not, but he doesn't think it's going to cannibalize Model S sales at all. So they've effectively doubled, if what he believes to be true is actually true, they've effectively doubled their dressable market, which gets them one tier closer to the Model 3. Now, they want to show the Model 3 in, in, in 2016, like early to mid 2016, launch it in 2017, we'll see. That's, that still feels really aggressive to me because it's a big jump between $132,000 car and a $35,000 car.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  But, but yeah, they look at this as like, this is the next, this is something that we can make, we can afford to make right now that buys us additional addressable market and puts more dollars in our pocket.

• 58:41Nilay Patel?

  You know, it makes sense, but they, they lost all their profit margin engineering the doors.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. And two years, like this thing was originally supposed to launch in 2013. Here we are in late 2015 and they've put seven in customers' hands. And if you order one now, you don't get it till the end of next year.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  And where's these seven like hand-built by the engineers?

• 59:00Speaker 03

  Probably, I mean, the, yes, probably.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Like they weren't, there's not on an assembly line, obviously.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Well, so they are building them on the same assembly, or at least in the same factory as the Model S. But yeah, I don't know if it's fully tooled up yet. I, that I don't, don't have the answer to.

• 59:17Nilay Patel?

  So what was it like when you're in it? We only had a couple, a couple, a couple of minutes, a couple of new minutes. What was it like when you're in it?

• 59:24Speaker 03

  It's, um, so ludicrous mode, I was, they had a mix of ludicrous and non-ludicrous. Model X is.

• 59:31Nilay Patel?

  Ludicrous mode is a thing that accelerates it like a maniac.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Exactly. Without ludicrous mode, it's still insanely fast. It's zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds and performance trim 3.2 with ludicrous. Either way, that, those are supercar numbers, but we had the ludicrous mode one. And when you punch it, it's still that sense of like, oh my God, what the hell is happening to me? That I had when I, when I first.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  So torquey.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. That I, that I, that I had when I first rode the P85D. And Phil, our camera guy, was in the back and I punched it without telling him and he, he kind of went, he went flying back and the camera went back. He's like, whoa, my bad. I'm like, no, keep that. That'll be good. That'll, that'll sort of like convey the feeling that you're experiencing right now. So there's that and that's, that's very cool. And that's not something that you tend to get from an SUV of all things.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  The windshield is super cool. The, the dashboard, I could take it or leave it. Some people feel really strongly about the, the giant touchscreen in the center. I still think it's not the best.

• 1:00:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  Interaction method for a driver, but it is what it is. Look, it's a Tesla and it's the, the, the interior is, is, you know, meticulously designed. The monopost seats are really cool. It has a true third row. So if you have a big family, if you keep, if you keep having children.

• 1:00:45Nilay Patel?

  If you need to accelerate your children. The second row doesn't fold down.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  The second row doesn't fold down, but there's a button on the side of the second row that pushes it all the way forward and tilts it so that it's really easy to get in and out of the back, which seats two more adults. Probably could fit three tiny children. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's a more practical Model S, basically, in almost every sense of the word.

• 1:01:07Nilay Patel?

  I just want to see like an anti-Tesla ad where it's like a bioweapon goes off and the cloud of particulate matter is like racing towards somebody.

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Nilay Patel?

  And they're just waiting for the door to open.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  And they can't make it.

• 1:01:21Nilay Patel?

  That's all I can think about is that image. Like, if I can only get in his car, the bioweapon defense shield will save me. But this ridiculous door is not opening and closing.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  But if you park.

• 1:01:31Nilay Patel?

  And then like years later, like an explorer is walking through the civilization and they see, they see the one falcon wing door open and the guy is like in the car.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  The skeleton is, is lying next to the Model X.

• 1:01:41Nilay Patel?

  And he's like, oh, what a tragedy.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  That's really dark.

• 1:01:45Nilay Patel?

  This has been a really dark Vergecast. We've murdered a lot of people on this show today.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  We have. No, but no, the, the, the Model X is, uh, uh, you know, I, I, I think that the, look, the Falcon Wing doors are just the rear passengers, right? So it doesn't matter. Like, you can still get into the front.

• 1:02:01Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't matter. No, you can't. But if you're trying to open the door, you have to be, who has a, who solo drives an SUV unless it's me and my 2006 Escalade?

• 1:02:09Speaker 03

  Literally anyone in Silicon Valley who's buying this car. That's who.

• 1:02:12Nilay Patel?

  Fine. Fine. All right. We need to end the show because I have to, uh, we have to end the show. Thank you, Chris, for being here. Lauren, I know it's always difficult to be on Skype. Thank you for being with us.

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  It was fun. Thanks, guys.

• 1:02:22Nilay Patel?

  Christine, you rock. All right. Uh, let's get through this. So, um, Dieter has taken out my script at the end of the show and just written, "Stop making murder jokes." That's Google talk. But that was our show. Thank you so much for listening. Uh, I want to thank Braintree for sponsoring today's episode of the Vergecast. Braintree gives you a full stack payment solution. It supports basically anything you can pay with. Uh, Android Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, cards, whatever's next. Single integration, just plug it in and works across all the platforms with superior fraud protection, customer service and fast payouts. Check it for yourself. Braintreepayments.com/vergecast. Just do it and then take everyone's money. You can follow at Verge on Twitter. On Snapchat, we're TheRealVerge, where Kirsten has been doing an excellent job. We've been periscoping like every day, basically.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're gonna try to periscope every day.

• 1:03:07Nilay Patel?

  So that's been pretty fun. Hit us up on iTunes. We have all kinds of new shows. There's Verge ESP with Emily and Liz. There's What's Tech with Chris Plant, Secret. Jim Bankoff, the CEO of Vox Media, was on What's Tech. What? He recorded yesterday.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:03:21Nilay Patel?

  To do What's Online Advertising and explain how ad blockers work on our site.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  That's gonna be awesome.

• 1:03:24Nilay Patel?

  I listened in, it was great. And then I have a new podcast with Walt Mossberg called Control Walt Delete, which was featured yesterday on iTunes. And Kara Swisher has a great podcast called Recode Decode, which everyone loves. Lena Dunham was just on it last week. So listen to all that. You can see it all at iTunes.com/TheVerge. YouTube, you can hit us up at Vergecast. I am Reckless on Twitter. Dieter's Paklon.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  I'm at Kirsten Frasina.

• 1:03:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  Good luck spelling it.

• 1:03:48Nilay Patel?

  Lauren is Lauren Good. Chris is

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  With an E.

• 1:03:51Nilay Patel?

  With an E. And Chris is Z Power. That's it. That's Vergecast. Thank you so much for listening. Rock and roll.