Diego is useless

Yes, finally: The Vergecast is really back, and there's a whole lot to talk about. This week, Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and David Pierce get together to discuss their impressions of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Amazon's slew of new tablets, and Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft. Oh, and Dora the Explorer too. Download MP3 (31.5 MB) 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.

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Hello.

• 0:08Nilay Patel?

  How are you doing?

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Vergecast. That's usually the next line there.

• 0:12Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 0:13David Pierce?

  He was doing a thing. You gotta, you gotta...

• 0:16Nilay Patel?

  Hello. Welcome to The Vergecast. This is our show. It is a show about just a bunch of guys having a good time. I don't know. Is that what it's about?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 0:27Nilay Patel?

  What is life about? It's a show about me having a small existential crisis once a week with good friends.

• 0:34David Pierce?

  That sounds right.

• 0:35Nilay Patel?

  And technology and news and pretty much I was arguing at the end of Breaking Bad, which I've discovered recently can just send us into a tailspin of disaster. And other ideas. In facts and figures.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  It's a lot of work.

• 0:48Nilay Patel?

  Figures, emotions. This is The Vergecast. We're back.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Look at all this negotiation I have to do to get this beer up to my mouth.

• 0:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Really bad.

• 0:55Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'm saying about The Vergecast. It's back. We've been gone for a long time. We did a hack week podcast. We threw together one last week. And now we're just back. It's just gonna keep happening. We've got kind of a different set going on here based on...

• 1:09David Pierce?

  The French Cafe set.

• 1:10Nilay Patel?

  The French... It's very nice.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  It's a salon.

• 1:13Nilay Patel?

  We kind of looked at our numbers and like how people were consuming The Vergecast. We realized most of you were downloading it on audio. So we're gonna be focused on making a really great sort of like audio thing.

• 1:23David Pierce?

  Is it? Are we unattractive? Like is this, is this the...

• 1:26Nilay Patel?

  No, I have a theory about the internet.

• 1:28David Pierce?

  Do you?

• 1:30Nilay Patel?

  Here's a theory.

• 1:31David Pierce?

  This is the only one you have?

• 1:32Nilay Patel?

  No. I think, I believe the internet has radically changed consumption of media. Fact. That's true. Don't even argue with me.

• 1:39David Pierce?

  Are we gonna talk about Taylor Swift right now? That was about to happen.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  We can admit it. But if you think about how people used to consume information in their lives, it was they would wake up in the morning and like read a newspaper and then they would go to work and presumably be productive. And then they would come home at night and like watch television, right? And if you just look...

• 1:56David Pierce?

  I just...

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  That happened.

• 1:57David Pierce?

  Just keep going. I feel like there was a lot of mind sweeper in the middle there.

• 2:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like whatever.

• 2:02David Pierce?

  A lot of mind sweeper.

• 2:03Nilay Patel?

  But then what happened? Then the internet arrived and now everybody wakes up in the morning and like plays with their phone and then gets to work and read our website all day long. Uh, which is true, cause like our, our highest like traffic is like at noon.

• 2:13David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  And then they go home and like play games and like all of information is like, we've moved it from like the beginning and end of the day to like the dead center of the day.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  And that is, that is, that is what to do with podcasting?

• 2:24Nilay Patel?

  Well, hear me out. Uh, I think people listen to podcasts on their way to work.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:28Nilay Patel?

  They listen to podcasts at work while they're ignoring their jobs and then they listen to it on the way home from work.

• 2:33David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 2:33Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and those are all bad places to watch video.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  And when they're doing dishes.

• 2:36Nilay Patel?

  And apparently dishes.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Yep. Basically you listen. Casting time.

• 2:40Nilay Patel?

  Whenever you are, whenever you should be doing something else, uh, you should be listening.

• 2:44David Pierce?

  I mean, that's definitely when I listen to podcasts, like I listen to one, basically one podcast a day in three chunks. It's like when I'm getting ready in the morning, on my way to work and on my way home from work.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  So let me ask you this.

• 2:58David Pierce?

  You know, an hour and 10 minutes.

• 2:59Nilay Patel?

  And you don't.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Do you listen at, at regular speed or do you speed it up?

• 3:02David Pierce?

  See, I listen at regular speed. I like, I try.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I speed it up.

• 3:05Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty well done.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08Nilay Patel?

  Uh, listen.

• 3:09David Pierce?

  It's actually pretty good. Like the, what is it? Pocket Cast that I use is like it, people don't sound crazy. I used to use an app that people, made people just sound horrible.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  So you know that the Mark Roman's podcast thing, it like he, it speeds it up, but it also removes the silences. And so it sounds really natural. Apparently really neat. Everybody listens. But yeah, we should, we should just talk 1.5 speed just to troll the people that listen at extra fast speeds.

• 3:34Nilay Patel?

  You basically talk at 1.5 speed.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:35David Pierce?

  I feel like we all talk at 1.5 speed.

• 3:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, it's.

• 3:38David Pierce?

  Everyone I know is like, please stop talking so fast.

• 3:40Nilay Patel?

  But I have so many facts and figures.

• 3:41David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Nilay Patel?

  So anyway, the point of that digression was that, uh, we know most people are consuming us on audio. So we are going to figure out what to do with video. I think what we should do is we should let this be a podcast. And then when we want, want to make TV shows or video shows or whatever shows, we should make those differently. Which is a radical idea, I know, but each media be true to itself, he proclaimed.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Although, we're starting this audio only format with a live show that's on camera.

• 4:11Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, but if you want to see us sitting around me jerks.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Revealing the lie behind all language.

• 4:15Nilay Patel?

  No, this is like, yes, right. Right. Everything is a symbol that means we're gonna die.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, but if you want to watch us be goofballs together, you can stream to us live and we will have the replays on live stream.

• 4:28David Pierce?

  Right. So if you want to hang out with us now, you can.

• 4:30Nilay Patel?

  Now's a good time. 4:30 PM Eastern on Thursdays. Anyway, Vergecast is back. That, those are some facts of the Vergecast.

• 4:36David Pierce?

  Tell me some figures about the Vergecast.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Uh, there are three of them on it right now.

• 4:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there are three people on the Vergecast.

• 4:41David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  Uh, it is very tall. It is, uh, 12 feet tall.

• 4:46David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 4:47Nilay Patel?

  Very wide.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  It has a blue ox as a pet.

• 4:51Nilay Patel?

  Carries some big axe.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Straight to Paul Bunyan.

• 4:53Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Dinos from Minnesota. He cannot, he always immediately references something Minnesota.

• 4:57David Pierce?

  I mean, everything in Minnesota is either Prince or Paul Bunyan. And like Prince isn't very tall, so that's zero.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Funny, funny story? Same guy.

• 5:05Nilay Patel?

  Huge. Actually, no, Prince is very small.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Prince is a tiny man.

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:09David Pierce?

  Is it like two princes stacked on top of each other with a trench coat is Paul Bunyan?

• 5:13Nilay Patel?

  No one, no one gives Paul Bunyan credit for being an excellent guitarist.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he's just, he's really good with an axe.

• 5:21Nilay Patel?

  Alright, we're done. Shut it down. This is, we tried.

• 5:24David Pierce?

  The Vergecast is over.

• 5:26Nilay Patel?

  Shut it down.

• 5:27David Pierce?

  We're never doing this again.

• 5:27Nilay Patel?

  Uh, okay, let's talk about, speaking of enormous things.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:31Nilay Patel?

  Uh, there's actually a lot of news to talk about this week. Um, I'm holding a gigantic iPhone. You're holding.

• 5:37David Pierce?

  I have a less gigantic iPhone.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  I don't have an iPhone.

• 5:40Nilay Patel?

  Um, so we.

• 5:41David Pierce?

  Do you want like a little iPhone?

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  Sure. I'm taking this one out of the case. Yeah, that's my 5S, which is.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Can I drop this into my beard?

• 5:46David Pierce?

  Does it have a big crack in the middle? Is that a thing that's happening?

• 5:48Nilay Patel?

  Here's my plan with the 5S. I'm not gonna switch it, my SIM card, until that phone explodes. Cause it's so close.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  You are on your way to that happening.

• 5:56Nilay Patel?

  It is so close to being completely trashed. Um, anyway, so it, this was reviews week for us with the iPhones. Uh, iOS 8 reviews coming next week, cause there's so much to unpack there.

• 6:07David Pierce?

  Yeah, it was really like, and this, we, we kind of thought this was gonna be the case and it totally proved out that like so much of iOS 8 didn't get unlocked until all these developers started. Updating their apps and like, there's all kinds of cool stuff going on that was not there for us before.

• 6:21Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 6:21David Pierce?

  So like iOS feels, even now, like, I'm still waiting for a bunch of widgets that I know are coming in, I really want to use and like, it's starting to finish now, which is cool.

• 6:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:29David Pierce?

  But yeah, so that's coming Monday.

• 6:30Nilay Patel?

  I would say most of the apps, uh, we're, we should get into the actual reviews, but a lot of the apps that have updated have not updated for the six plus yet. I think developers were actually surprised by the screen size.

• 6:41David Pierce?

  Interesting.

• 6:41Nilay Patel?

  Which is weird.

• 6:43David Pierce?

  Yeah, cause you're just saying you're still getting four tweets.

• 6:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, my Twitter is like literally to show you forward.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Oh, it looks like Twitter on the iPad.

• 6:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's very.

• 6:50David Pierce?

  Which is just.

• 6:51Nilay Patel?

  Twitter, um, although they just rolled out a bunch of new stuff. Anyway, let's talk about these reviews and then, Dieter, you played with a bunch of Amazon new stuff yesterday.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:59Nilay Patel?

  And there's all kinds of stuff going on with their website.

• 7:01David Pierce?

  Wait, so, okay, here's where we need to start, cause I feel like this is the only question anybody wants to ask and we should actually just talk about it, is like, which one should people buy? The six or the six plus?

• 7:10Nilay Patel?

  The six plus.

• 7:10David Pierce?

  Why?

• 7:11Nilay Patel?

  So I am.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Plus.

• 7:12Nilay Patel?

  Here, uh, the six plus.

• 7:15David Pierce?

  So also, wait, can I just back up real quick? So my favorite thing about this phone is that everyone, almost everyone picks it up and immediately knows which one they want, right? Like they, you pick up, you pick up the big one, you're like, this is way too big, or you're like, this is perfect.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Let me tell you a story about the six plus.

• 7:28David Pierce?

  Hold on, let me, let me finish.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Damn it.

• 7:30David Pierce?

  Except for Dieter Bone. And just immediately had a panic attack.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  It happens when I pick up everything, though. It's not the iPhone's fault. Oh my God, what do I do?

• 7:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:42David Pierce?

  This is the existential crises I've watched you go through over the last week have been.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I settled on just the six and I immediately regretted it.

• 7:49David Pierce?

  Well, you pre-ordered one.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:51David Pierce?

  Uh, which one did you get? The six?

• 7:52Nilay Patel?

  Should've gotten the six plus.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Again, but I regret it. But I got the right color.

• 7:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, black.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Space gray.

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  Space gray. Yeah, the white, I think the white makes the phones look bigger than they are and the gold, I think, looks terrible.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:04David Pierce?

  Fair.

• 8:05Nilay Patel?

  That's just where I'm at.

• 8:06David Pierce?

  So apparently, and this is, this is totally anecdotal and may not be true, but is what I've seen, is that people who got, uh, gold, got it immediately, which is the exact opposite of last year. Like, there's no, there was no wait, people came on a day and late.

• 8:19Nilay Patel?

  People wanted them.

• 8:20David Pierce?

  Well, but last year, they, there weren't any.

• 8:22Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 8:22David Pierce?

  But I guess there was a supply shortage, so I don't know. But, uh, space gray is a little bit delayed and silver is super delayed.

• 8:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:30David Pierce?

  Which is really weird and not at all what I would have guessed.

• 8:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I, I just, I don't, I, I don't think the white looks great. Um, well, white and silver. I think the space gray is like where it's at, cause if they're bigger, you want them to look smaller.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:43Nilay Patel?

  I think the gold, like, I'm just telling you, I think the gold looks terrible.

• 8:45David Pierce?

  Yeah, I agree, but I thought that last year and lots of people liked it.

• 8:48Nilay Patel?

  No, last year like the gold was like, it was like flashy new and like it worked with the design and it was all like angled and Johnny was like, "It looks like jewelry." You know, like, I don't know why he's a mobster.

• 8:58David Pierce?

  He's definitely a mobster.

• 9:01Nilay Patel?

  He's gone through a rough patch in his life. He needed the money and then he joined the mob. He doesn't need the money. That joke makes no sense.

• 9:11Nilay Patel?

  Well, let's talk about the design. Let's just start. So I think the answer is a 6 plus. I have many reasons for this. I will say that today I went to lunch with Trey Brindret, our product officer at Vox. And I pulled out the phone and we drew a crowd.

• 9:24David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 9:25Nilay Patel?

  People, like, we were just standing in line to, like, order hamburgers.

• 9:28David Pierce?

  I thought you meant you literally, like, held it and drew a crowd.

• 9:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was like, "Trey, let me show you what I'd like my friends to look like." And I drew a picture of people that I thought were my friends.

• 9:36David Pierce?

  I want this many friends.

• 9:38Nilay Patel?

  You're an engineer, right? Make me friends. No, it was like, we, no, like, people crowded around us and, like, played with the phone and asked us about it. And they were like, "How do you have it already?" And like, it was like, we were doing shtick, like Trey put his iPhone 4 on it and like, the screen is bigger than an entire iPhone 4.

• 9:52David Pierce?

  Nice.

• 9:52Nilay Patel?

  People are very excited about a gigantic iPhone. And I think the big iPhone, the 6 plus, is like, it's the first time I've gotten an iPhone where I've thought to myself, "This is a new experience."

• 10:03David Pierce?

  Right.

• 10:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Right? Whereas with Android phones, because you switch manufacturers, you switch skins, you whatever, every time you get a new Android phone, it's like, kind of a new experience. With the iPhone, it's like, "This is slightly nicer." Nothing is different now.

• 10:16David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, even the 3.5 to 4 inch screen difference was like, nice, but didn't actually meaningfully change anything.

• 10:22Nilay Patel?

  Right. And I think the 6 plus is like, it's exciting because it is so different.

• 10:26David Pierce?

  Right. But difference is not always good. Like, you like different for difference's sake. Like, you think it's hilarious that it's humongous and like, walking around.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  It's a really simple, like, decision. Do you want a phone? Or do you want a little, like, everything computer, almost tablet?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Thing that you can run more, most of your life off of.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  I mean, do you want something that you can conceivably use as both a ping pong paddle? And like a deadly weapon and a laptop?

• 10:56David Pierce?

  I mean, when you put it like that, it's kind of.

• 10:57Nilay Patel?

  No, it's, I mean, it is, this is, this thing is comically huge. I said in a review, I think the Galaxy Note 3 is actually easier to hold. Because it's a little bit thicker, it is squatter, it's like square.

• 11:08David Pierce?

  Yeah, this is really, it's, it's top heavy in a weird way. I keep holding it and it feels like it's gonna just slip out of my hand.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  They kept the home button the same, and so it's got the big thing on the top and the bottom, so it looks symmetrical. But that means it just feels super tall.

• 11:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, and it's ridiculous that the speaker is still like, there's just the one speaker on the bottom. Like, Apple took their hardware design and like literally did a pinch zoom. We made a big phone, everybody.

• 11:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Nilay Patel?

  Um, I think it is.

• 11:35Nilay Patel?

  I think the iPhone 3G and 3GS were like by far the ugliest iPhones ever made.

• 11:39David Pierce?

  Agreed.

• 11:40Nilay Patel?

  Um, but so, but I would put this like, this is in that pantheon. Like, I don't think it's.

• 11:43David Pierce?

  Burn. Really?

• 11:45Nilay Patel?

  I do not.

• 11:46David Pierce?

  I mean, I don't think it's anywhere near as, as beautiful as the 5 and 5S, but like, I don't think it's ugly. I hate the outlines on the back, I really do.

• 11:54Nilay Patel?

  These outlines on the back are.

• 11:55David Pierce?

  But like.

• 11:56Nilay Patel?

  Like, this is like Johnny, I was like hammered, he was like, look, I, I, I have to go drive my Jaguar. And then he like left and they were like, nah, just do the line.

• 12:04David Pierce?

  He handed somebody a magic marker and was like, you do it.

• 12:06Nilay Patel?

  Did you read the big Businessweek profile on Apple that came out yesterday that they hilariously called an interview? It's very confusing, no interview. But it was a profile of Tim Cook and Apple.

• 12:15David Pierce?

  It was a good piece.

• 12:16Nilay Patel?

  And it was great, really well done.

• 12:17David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Nilay Patel?

  Brad Stone, somebody else, but really, like, really well done piece. And the criticism of Tim Cook's reign at Apple is things that you, like designers have left and they, the specific complaint that they said to Businessweek was, where I used to sit in like a meeting with Steve Jobs and we would like hash out like button design.

• 12:38David Pierce?

  Right, yeah, it's like.

• 12:39Nilay Patel?

  And have these tiny teams.

• 12:39David Pierce?

  Particulars of icons.

• 12:41Nilay Patel?

  Right, now we have these like gigantic sprawling teams and things are less focused than before. And I could not tell you if that affected the design of the iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus. But I can tell you that I wouldn't be surprised if like, that's how we got this intended design.

• 12:55David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 12:56Nilay Patel?

  Right, because it's not, I just don't.

• 13:00Nilay Patel?

  I don't see this happening.

• 13:01David Pierce?

  Right.

• 13:02Nilay Patel?

  Like, if you look at the iPhone 4, it's like, just a beautiful thing. If you look at the iPhone 5 and 5S, it is, they're, they're beautiful in their way, although far less durable, in my opinion, than the iPhone 4.

• 13:13David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Even with the, really?

• 13:15David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, alright, fair.

• 13:17Nilay Patel?

  They just like, the iPhone 5, like, the, the black one, just like, turned silver over time.

• 13:22David Pierce?

  I mean, and I, I've dinged my 5S to hell.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  So, I will defend the 6 and the 6 Plus, uh, from a design standpoint, in that, uh, they're not as beautiful as the, the 5 and the 4, but I think they're way more approachable. Like, the 5 and the 4 are like, "I am an art object and you must, like, bow to me." And this is like, "I'm designed for you to hold in your hand. I've got nice curved sides and a really, like, natural feeling screen." And it just, it, they feel, like, the, because they made them so big, if they had stuck with that, like, stark design, I think it, they would've felt insanely imposing.

• 13:55David Pierce?

  Yeah, I said this to, I, I, I asked some folks at Apple about this, was like, because the, the big question we went in with was, "Why don't you just make it thicker and make the battery longer?"

• 14:04Nilay Patel?

  That's the question for Apple.

• 14:06David Pierce?

  Right, well, and, and-

• 14:07Nilay Patel?

  And not have this camera bulge.

• 14:08David Pierce?

  Well, yeah, but that's, that's a separate thing.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  I don't see any camera bulge on Apple's website. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 14:14David Pierce?

  But, so I asked, I asked them this, and, and the answer, and the answer I got from two different people was, uh, "It would've been horrible." And like, whether or not that's true, I don't know, but they were like, we, we played with, or they, you know, they looked at just blowing up the design of the 5S, because everybody liked it, presumably, including Apple. And what they found was that, you're exactly right, that a phone that looks like that, and is that sort of stark and sharp and rectangular, bigger, would just feel like crap.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  I will say that-

• 14:43David Pierce?

  Which I agree with.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  We ask a lot of questions of a lot of, like, product managers and product designers, and the one answer that I always am like, "I believe you, I accept it," and don't immediately assume it's total garbage, is, "We tried that and it sucked."

• 14:57David Pierce?

  Right.

• 14:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  And then I, then you can say why and whatever, but when they like, hem and ha, like, "Oh, you know, we thought, blah, blah, blah," but if they're like, "We tried it, it was terrible."

• 15:04David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, let's talk about that, I believe you.

• 15:06David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean- I don't know. Here's the thing. You know, I've read a lot of reviews of the phone. Because once you review something, you want to read everybody else's reviews. And everybody talks about these phones in terms of, Apple had to do this to catch up to competition.

• 15:22David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  Even iOS 8 in many ways is like, they had to start adding extensibility. They start, they had to start adding third-party keyboards and like widgets and like actionable notifications. Like, they had fallen behind in a way.

• 15:33David Pierce?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:34Nilay Patel?

  And just here with the sheer screen size of the thing, they fell behind. David and I had an argument, because his review, we were editing each other's reviews. Your review was like, "Apple had to make a big phone." And I was like, "No, they had to make a regular phone."

• 15:50David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:50Nilay Patel?

  What they were making the whole time was a small phone. And they had to just get to normal. They're still smaller than the S5. They're still smaller than the Nexus 5. They're still smaller than H, like, any, everyone else's flagship phone is bigger than the iPhone.

• 16:04David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's somewhere between 5 and 5.2 now. Everyone.

• 16:07Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's just where they've landed. And then the Android big phone market is even bigger than this, right? The Note 4 is 5.7. Right. They've, like, Apple's just gotten to parity with everybody.

• 16:19David Pierce?

  Right.

• 16:19Nilay Patel?

  And that's like, that is kind of the story of these phones, right? Like, they're just, they've caught up now.

• 16:25David Pierce?

  Well, but it's also like, the, I mean, that's half the story, right? And the other half is like, Apple has all these entrenched advantages that it's been winning with for so long. Like, the camera and the App Store and like, the general polish of iOS that doesn't exist in Android.

• 16:39Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 16:40David Pierce?

  And so like, in some cynical way, they're like, "Okay, well, we have, we do these four things better than anybody. If we do everything else exactly as well as everybody, we're going to do these four things better and thus be the best."

• 16:49Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 16:50David Pierce?

  And it's like, that's a deeply boring way to design a phone, which is kind of what I think they did here. But it does work.

• 16:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:56David Pierce?

  Like, it's a successful strategy.

• 16:58Nilay Patel?

  Right. And what's, I mean, they're, I mean, like, for example, like, the Note 4 screen is beautiful.

• 17:04David Pierce?

  Yes, it is.

• 17:04Nilay Patel?

  And the, there's other beautiful screens in the world.

• 17:08David Pierce?

  HTC, lots of them.

• 17:10Nilay Patel?

  LG makes a beautiful screen. HTC makes a beautiful screen. This screen is really, like, it's really good.

• 17:15David Pierce?

  Yeah, it is.

• 17:16Nilay Patel?

  It's less pixels per inch than just about everybody. Actually, it's less than everybody. Everyone else is like 441.

• 17:23David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Nilay Patel?

  And this is 401. But they like Apple like sweat the small stuff like this is a joke I made in the review. Like everyone else is in a pixel resolution race and a pixel density race. And nobody is in a how thin is your lamination race.

• 17:36David Pierce?

  Right.

• 17:37Nilay Patel?

  Because there's no.

• 17:37David Pierce?

  How close can you get to the glass race?

• 17:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. And it's like if there was only a spec.

• 17:41David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 17:42Nilay Patel?

  If only Apple would be like, we have X nanometers precision lamination. So that Samsung would be like, yeah, we beat that.

• 17:50David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 17:50Nilay Patel?

  But because they don't like Samsung's like, whatever. And like the note, the note three screen definitely looks sunk below a layer of glass. Note four, I think is a little bit the same. And it's like, Apple's just really good at the little, like that little thing makes the screen great.

• 18:03David Pierce?

  Yeah. Well, and the, I mean, it's little things like we've talked about this too, with the, the fact that it just curves a little right at the edge. Like.

• 18:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:10David Pierce?

  There's nothing, I can't explain that to somebody, but like you pick it up and it just feels right in a way.

• 18:15Nilay Patel?

  It's a 20 degree radial curve.

• 18:17David Pierce?

  Right.

• 18:18Nilay Patel?

  Come on, Samsung.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  What Apple, what Apple needs to do is make up, they need to make up fake tech specs.

• 18:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Just like pretend stuff so that Samsung loses their mind trying to beat them.

• 18:27David Pierce?

  I mean retina.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 18:30David Pierce?

  They did that. They need to do it more. I mean, and it worked like Apple did it and then Samsung was like, oh retina? What about 11 times retina in your face?

• 18:38Nilay Patel?

  And no one can see it and the apps don't scale, but try this out.

• 18:41David Pierce?

  But look at all those pixels.

• 18:43Nilay Patel?

  And that's, so the thing with the six is like, it is just the next iPhone, right? And Apple's really good at putting up the next iPhone.

• 18:49David Pierce?

  Right.

• 18:50Nilay Patel?

  And they bumped a spec and they like, the apps scale and it's fine. Like it's not, I don't think it's perfect, but it's fine. Like.

• 18:56David Pierce?

  The scaling, you mean?

• 18:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. If you look for it, it's there.

• 18:59David Pierce?

  Right.

• 18:59Nilay Patel?

  But for the most part, it's fine.

• 19:00David Pierce?

  It's command plus in Chrome. It's the same thing. As I tell everybody, it's like, you're like, this is too big, but it's not a problem.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 19:06David Pierce?

  You never notice.

• 19:07Nilay Patel?

  Um, and then, you know, the apps will get updated and whatever.

• 19:09David Pierce?

  Right.

• 19:09Nilay Patel?

  With the six plus, the scaling, I think looks terrible.

• 19:12David Pierce?

  Well, what was it? The, the dialer that is just hilariously full of white space now?

• 19:17Nilay Patel?

  This phone is comedy gold. But just let me be clear. It is very much points to a future of like hybrid devices. It like has a brilliant camera, uh, has a great screen, like all these things, battery's great. There are many reasons why it's the phone I want to buy. And then there are many reasons, like I'm literally sitting here giggling at like how doofy it is all the time.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Doofy. Samsung, you are not caught up with a doofy spec.

• 19:44Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's just like.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Two point five more doofies.

• 19:46David Pierce?

  Give it a minute.

• 19:47Nilay Patel?

  I mean, here it is. Do, do, do. Like, that's the phone. Like, it's just a big lumbering beast of a phone. And like, the apps, like, the Kindle app, like, is, is, like, gives you a headache. The scaling in the Kindle app is so bad, it's like, this is blurry. It's like, looking through, what's the thing, like, it's like the wavy text on a TV screen. Like, it's blurry. It's just, like, headache inducing. The Twitter app just got updated, and they updated it insofar as the menu bar doesn't scale, the status bar doesn't scale now, but like, it still shows you four tweets. The landscape keyboard is a, like, I don't even know what, what sort of, like, comedy moment Apple was going for with that.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  No, the, the landscape keyboard is a perfect example of, like, just because you have more space doesn't mean that you should fill it. And they were really good, especially with iOS seven, at not doing that. They're like, it's okay to have white space.

• 20:36Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  But they're like, oh, it's a keyboard. You, that's like a functional area. We should cram it full of crap.

• 20:40Nilay Patel?

  Well, here's like a decision on the landscape. There's two decisions on the landscape keyboard that are just mystifying. One is the paste icon, which is, to be clear, is an icon of a bottle of glue.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:54Nilay Patel?

  And Apple thinks you, the consumer, do not understand the difference between paste and glue. And I think that is probably accurate, because I do not understand.

• 21:03David Pierce?

  I was gonna ask you to explain it to me.

• 21:05Nilay Patel?

  But I know.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Paste you, it's got a little.

• 21:07Nilay Patel?

  I, right. I know that paste does not come out of a glue bottle. Like, that is just obviously true. Right? It's just, it's something I know.

• 21:15David Pierce?

  One thing I know.

• 21:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, like, right? Like, paste is like a, whatever. And then, there is the fact that, of all of the formatting choices you can put in a button, they picked bold. There's a button just to bold text. And I, I look at that.

• 21:31David Pierce?

  And it's just a bold B.

• 21:32Nilay Patel?

  It's just a bold B.

• 21:33David Pierce?

  Which is gonna be cool, because you know what's gonna happen a lot, is people are gonna go to type B, and it's just gonna do nothing.

• 21:41David Pierce?

  They're gonna be like, "That's a bee."

• 21:42Nilay Patel?

  It's like, it's like, you get the feeling that Tim Cook personally sends a lot of emails with text in it. And he was just like, "Listen, Johnny, I know you're in charge of design. I know Steve Jobs structured this company so that you know, can tell you what to do, but I want a fucking bull fuck." There it is. It's just so confusing. And then the keyboard trolls the hell out of you.

• 22:06David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 22:07Nilay Patel?

  Because when you rotate it from portrait to landscape, the position of the emoji button, the emoji keyboard button, and they switch to numbers and symbols, literally flips from portrait to landscape.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  No way.

• 22:20David Pierce?

  Yeah, so it's numbers on the outside, emoji on the inside. When you hold it in portrait, and then you turn it and it switches.

• 22:25Nilay Patel?

  Just click on my account. There you go. Just click on my face. Click on my face. No, it's just like, that to me is like, they made this keyboard and like, they made it, they had to figure out how to now rotate it. Come on. Like, I don't understand that at all.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Oh, wait a minute. No, the emoji stays on the left. Oh, yeah, but they do flip.

• 22:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Just to confuse you a little bit more.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Also, this is not rotating super fast.

• 22:56Nilay Patel?

  No. I, it, I don't know.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Can I tweet from your account right now?

• 23:01Nilay Patel?

  No, please, please don't do that.

• 23:02David Pierce?

  I mean, yeah, there are definitely things about.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Pooping.

• 23:04David Pierce?

  Pooping.

• 23:05Nilay Patel?

  You can pay.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  If I had pooping to you live on the Vergecast, give me your phone back.

• 23:10Nilay Patel?

  No, stay away from my property. Get off my lawn. I'm just saying, like, I, I'm like, these are all my complaints about the iPhone 6 Plus. You've just heard all of them.

• 23:21David Pierce?

  The thing is, you just ran out of a big list, and then you're like, "Buy, like, it's stupid and weird and there's bad software. Buy it."

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, the bad software is like.

• 23:29David Pierce?

  Don't buy the one that doesn't have any of those problems.

• 23:32Nilay Patel?

  I, if I, for every other company, when they put out a phone with bad software, I'm like, "Don't buy it." And I kill them for bad software.

• 23:39David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 23:40Nilay Patel?

  Samsung puts out a phone on AT&T with bad software, I'm like, "You are doomed for six months to experience this bad software." With Apple, it's like, probably in two weeks, all the apps will be updated and Apple will like, fix that keyboard issue. Well, actually, no, they didn't fix the shift key button.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Nilay Patel?

  So I have no faith. Whatever. Don't buy an iPhone. Here's what you should do. Throw away all of your phones.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Go on eBay, look up R A Z R.

• 24:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Buy a Sony Ericsson W810i.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:08Nilay Patel?

  Best phone ever made.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  And just live a life knowing that that is the pinnacle of technology.

• 24:14David Pierce?

  Yeah, I can't disagree with that at all.

• 24:16Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's a phone and a Walkman.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  So do you try to use a 6 Plus one handed? Cause that's the reason I didn't get it. It's like I, I've got big enough hands to do it, but it's awkward and I would just drop the thing and I've shattered two phones in the past month. And so it was time for me to admit that I am a huge klutz.

• 24:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  And I would drop that and I'm less likely to drop a smaller one. That's why I got smaller.

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  Dave and I actually wrote the exact, independently wrote the exact same paragraph in our reviews, which was, these are the first iPhones that are better in cases.

• 24:43David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Nilay Patel?

  And I'm just gonna say it.

• 24:45David Pierce?

  I've never had a case on my phone before, ever.

• 24:47Nilay Patel?

  Never. And like, you kinda need to do it.

• 24:49David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Nilay Patel?

  What's, I mean, I'm just gonna say it. When you put the big one in a case, it looks like a Samsung phone.

• 24:54David Pierce?

  Yeah, it does.

• 24:55Nilay Patel?

  Like, just does.

• 24:56David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 24:57Nilay Patel?

  There's like, there's an element of, I mean, it's like, the way the cases are shaped and like the white and the color, like, that's how Samsung phones.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  We got a close up on the camera there.

• 25:05Nilay Patel?

  Here. Let's, let's struggle to put a phone in a case.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:08David Pierce?

  Yay.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 25:09David Pierce?

  These cases feel really nice, by the way. I got a lot of questions about like, how they're gonna hold up over time and the answer is I have no idea, but they feel really nice.

• 25:18David Pierce?

  The leather, I'm into the leather. The leather on the Moto X.

• 25:20Nilay Patel?

  I'm really happy to have.

• 25:20David Pierce?

  The leather on this, like, it's really nice.

• 25:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Now, let's look here.

• 25:23David Pierce?

  Like, it's a Samsung phone.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, flip it over and like, you cannot tell that that's not a Samsung phone.

• 25:27Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, well, it's a case, I'm gonna do, but there's like an element to this, this specific aesthetic of a phone that is very Samsung-y.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:35Nilay Patel?

  Which is because it's a giant phone in the case. Samsung. I don't, look, here's the thing. All of these complaints aside, what I know about this phone is that I'm never gonna use my iPad mini again and never even consider buying another iPad mini. There is a shot in our video, you should go watch it, where if you watch a 16 by 9 video on the iPad mini, the, actually, because it's letterboxed, the actual size of the video you're watching is only marginally bigger than a video on this phone. Which is like, that's the game. That's why I have an iPad mini.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:08Nilay Patel?

  Because I want to like, watch things on a bigger screen. I have an iPad Air, which I like, very fond of. I am struggling to think of reasons to like, get it now. Because it's, all it really offers me is yet another bigger screen. And I think that's like, super interesting.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we need to see iOS on the iPad Air start to do some like, proper stuff.

• 26:27Nilay Patel?

  No, that's what I'm saying. I think there's a world in which the little phone becomes like, a little phone. This becomes a primary computing platform-y thing. And the iPad becomes like, a truck. Right, to like, stretch that metaphor. Right, the iPad becomes, they, they focus on actual productivity with the iPad, the way that Microsoft, quite frankly, has been focused on with the Surface Pro this whole time.

• 26:48David Pierce?

  Well, that's when the like, split-screen multitasking comes in.

• 26:51Nilay Patel?

  Or maybe.

• 26:51David Pierce?

  Which is a thing that this is not big enough to pull off. Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  I would, that would be great. Just, come on. Yeah.

• 26:56Nilay Patel?

  Just, guys.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Because I'm telling you, Dieter, and you're engaged now, and you just don't, you just don't want to share that device.

• 27:02Nilay Patel?

  Nope.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  I'm kidding, I have no idea.

• 27:05Nilay Patel?

  Because Lisa's always like, pooping.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  No, if you give it to your kid, whatever.

• 27:12Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, do you have any thoughts on the 6? I, I feel like I've rambled on about the 6+.

• 27:15David Pierce?

  I mean, my thing about the 6 is like, it's, the 6+ is way more interesting. In terms of like, what it could and might someday be. I mean, what you said that I've been thinking about a lot about over the last few days is that your argument is that in three years, this will just be the iPhone.

• 27:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:30David Pierce?

  That there won't be a smaller one, it'll just be that that you buy.

• 27:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:34David Pierce?

  And like, I actually think you're right. I hope you're not, but I think you are. But for me, it's like, this is, like, I, there are a lot of bad things about the fact that this is just another iPhone. But it's also, like, I, I don't need something else, right? Like, I sit at my laptop all the time. And when I'm on the subway, I want like, a thing I can hold in one hand and like, play games on, or read on, or whatever. And this is that.

• 27:58Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 27:58David Pierce?

  Like, I don't need. This giant productivity machine.

• 28:02Nilay Patel?

  Well, you kind of do because you've been slacking. More reviews.

• 28:08David Pierce?

  I think the, like, this makes sense to me in a lot of markets where for most people, their phones are already their primary computers. And that's just like a thing and that's a growing thing in the world, but for me personally, that's just not how I operate.

• 28:22Nilay Patel?

  I'm excited for this to become my primary computer.

• 28:25David Pierce?

  Yeah, see, I think that's insane.

• 28:27Nilay Patel?

  No, why is that insane? It's only insane because the software isn't good enough for it to be that yet. That's the only reason it's insane. Period. And like Samsung's like trying to do that with the Note. I mean, the problem just straight out is that Samsung is not as good at software.

• 28:41David Pierce?

  Right.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  Like they have really interesting ideas about how to do all that stuff on the Note. And I actually, I mean, I like the Note. Every time I see one on the subway or out in the world, I'm like, I love big screens. And then I like play with the software. I'm like, I hate your software.

• 28:54David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Nilay Patel?

  And that's, that's the only problem with the Note is that, yeah, it's cool to do split screen and like resize the apps and do the swipey thing to make a little phone on the screen and use it like, that would all be great if it was like smooth and worked well.

• 29:08David Pierce?

  Well, but that's what I'm saying. Like Samsung is at least trying and like I, I forever will think that the Samsung Note Edge is the most interesting phone that's come out recently. Because it's weird and probably not going to work, but it's different and they're trying stuff. And like Samsung, you can say a lot of things about Samsung, but they try stuff.

• 29:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:27David Pierce?

  And they're not trying anything here. Like this is, literally all this is, is like you're getting a slightly bigger version of the video that I'm getting on here. And what I'm getting is like a more ergonomic thing that actually fits in my pocket.

• 29:40Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 29:41David Pierce?

  And that doesn't obscure your face when I try to take a picture. Like that for me is a really easy trade off. So like in three years, I might be happy to buy this.

• 29:47Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 29:47David Pierce?

  And I, when, when they make it worth being slightly bigger, or when the watch comes out and makes it so that I'm not taking my phone out of my bag very often, great. And there are a million reasons this is useful to have, but for right now, for like a thing I use constantly in short bursts all the time. I'd rather have the thing that fits if the experience is the same and the experience is the same.

• 30:06Nilay Patel?

  Right. They, they haven't done enough with the software to make the experience different.

• 30:09David Pierce?

  No, all you get is like a two pane messages window, which doesn't really do anything for me.

• 30:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, they're they are. That's the thing. You get the feeling Apple like made some concessions to how big the phone was instead of having a plan.

• 30:22David Pierce?

  Yeah, right. And the email I've gotten a few times is that, uh, like, that's that's the talk, right? Like, this is the tick where they're like, here's this crazy weird new thing. And then the next time they're gonna come out and like, here's stuff to do with it.

• 30:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:33David Pierce?

  Uh, and that's that may well be the case, but that's.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  It doesn't make this better now. That's why, like, I'll get that one when they when they get the software right.

• 30:40David Pierce?

  Like, in three years, I will gladly buy this phone. Uh, but for right now, it's like, it's not worth the trade off of it.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Have we talked you out of this phone yet?

• 30:48Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 30:48David Pierce?

  Sitting awkwardly.

• 30:49Nilay Patel?

  Because I have one more trump card.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Oh, here it is.

• 30:51Nilay Patel?

  Which is the camera slightly better. And that and I the experience of taking photos, like I like using this phone has made me understand why people take photos with their tablets. Because it's like, wow, I just became a much better photographer just by having the ability to frame stuff better.

• 31:09Nilay Patel?

  It's true.

• 31:10David Pierce?

  You should get glasses.

• 31:11Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I should get a gigantic screen. It's super easy. Either I can wear glasses like a nerd or I can get a huge phone like a bigger nerd. Well, I wear glasses.

• 31:21David Pierce?

  Nailed it.

• 31:22Nilay Patel?

  You know, I you know, I'm wearing contact lenses now. I'm sorry, do you want to try my chain phone?

• 31:26Speaker 01

  If you try and hand that phone to me now, I'll drop it because I can't see anything. Who's that laughing at me over there? What's going on?

• 31:33Nilay Patel?

  I mean, look, I'm just saying, I think this is the one. I like, oh, mostly for the fact that it is so different. And I you're right, I appreciate different.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Well, you just appreciate different because you haven't had different because you've been.

• 31:45Nilay Patel?

  No, I like I love my Nexus 5. I think that's a great phone.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:48Nilay Patel?

  If that phone had a great camera, I don't know.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Nexus 5 that apparently is prone to the screen shattering?

• 31:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, people.

• 31:55David Pierce?

  You mean when you drop it on the ground, it shatters?

• 31:57Speaker 01

  I dropped it like a foot. If you buy it from Google Play, like, you can like, the people on Twitter told me about this. You can like, trick your way into like, having them just fix that for you.

• 32:06David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 32:08David Pierce?

  Fair. So, here's what I think is which like, we have, you know, differences of opinion, but which is gonna sell better?

• 32:16Nilay Patel?

  Uh...

• 32:17David Pierce?

  What are they? They pre-ordered 4 million of them?

• 32:19Nilay Patel?

  The big one.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  The small one?

• 32:21David Pierce?

  I think it's the small one. I don't even think it's gonna be close. I think a lot of people are gonna return the big one and get the small one.

• 32:26Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 32:27David Pierce?

  That's what I think. I think a lot of people don't understand how much bigger than their iPhone 5 this is.

• 32:32Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it is like, the screen is as tall as an entire iPhone 5.

• 32:37David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's-

• 32:38Nilay Patel?

  Like, this is comedy. Like, I'm telling, doo, doo, doo.

• 32:41David Pierce?

  No, and I think like, there are a lot of people, uh, at least people that I know who are gonna be upgrading from like a 4S to this, and it's gonna feel terrible. And I think people will, like, would get used to it, but in the 15-day return period, are gonna take it back and get a 6.

• 32:55Nilay Patel?

  I disagree with you.

• 32:57David Pierce?

  Because I've had so many people who I hand this to, and they're like, "Oh, my God, that's way too big." And it's like, haha, that's the small one. Sorry about your life.

• 33:06Nilay Patel?

  There's no, I mean, this is barely even perceptible to me. If this, if I wasn't holding a 5S in one hand and a 6 in the other, I would just tell you that this is a, like, the same size as a 5. I don't know. That's my, that's my-

• 33:18Speaker 01

  So, other than, other than, uh, the adapting to screen size, how do you guys feel about iOS 8? I haven't used it yet. I've been waiting for the, the 6 to come so I can get it.

• 33:27Nilay Patel?

  I always say, it definitely just feels like they thought it through this time. Right? And it's like David's saying, this stuff, we're just now seeing the apps take advantage of it.

• 33:36David Pierce?

  Right.

• 33:36Nilay Patel?

  And all the keyboard people are ready to go, which is like adorable.

• 33:39David Pierce?

  I know.

• 33:40Nilay Patel?

  But, I think like, understanding how photo apps are gonna plug into the extensibility, I think until Yosemite comes out and like, we can play with like handoff and continuity and all that stuff.

• 33:49David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the one thing, like, we kinda said this at WWDC, that like, that's the one thing that's game-changing. Everything else is like, cool, and should've been there, and my thing is like, I love almost everything about iOS 8, and it doesn't make any sense to me why they didn't release it a year ago. Uh, but, handoff and continuity are the two things that are like, no one is doing that, and that's, like, if that's why you buy into an Apple ecosystem, is for that stuff.

• 34:14Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 34:15David Pierce?

  And that's huge.

• 34:16Nilay Patel?

  Taking a phone call from a Mac is like-

• 34:19Nilay Patel?

  It will just bring the pain of making a phone call in AT&T to every part of my life.

• 34:22David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, I do this like jacked up thing all the time where I'll open a Google Maps link on Chrome on my computer. And then I go to Chrome on my phone and then open up Chrome and then I'm like, other devices. And then I wait for it to refresh and then I open that tab up again. And just being able to go and like swipe up from the bottom left corner and there's my map is huge.

• 34:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:40David Pierce?

  Like, that's amazing.

• 34:40Nilay Patel?

  Too bad it's Apple Maps.

• 34:42David Pierce?

  Yeah, so I won't get where I'm going. But at least it'll look cool.

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, that's the stuff like I always say, there's like a clear, like iOS 7 was very messy in places.

• 34:53David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Nilay Patel?

  I think everyone just admits it now. I always say that like clearly refines all of the broken parts of it and makes it more extensible and bigger. But it's as with all of these things, it's like, when will the app developer show up? And the answer right now appears to be right away.

• 35:07David Pierce?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is why they did, this is why they talked about it at WWDC, right? They were like, go build this stuff. We can't tell you why, but it's gonna be great. I will say the iOS 8 on my 5S feels very small.

• 35:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:22David Pierce?

  Uh, like the adding the extra row of predictive text above the keyboard. The keyboard now takes up, you know, 55% of the screen.

• 35:29Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 35:30David Pierce?

  Which is crazy. Uh, and then like you pull down and if I have like eight widgets and it takes like an hour and a half to scroll through them all. And all this stuff is like, it's clearly designed for bigger devices, which makes sense. That's what they sell now.

• 35:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:42David Pierce?

  But it's like it updating was.

• 35:46Nilay Patel?

  My phone, my 5S won't update.

• 35:48David Pierce?

  Why?

• 35:49Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, just airing out.

• 35:50David Pierce?

  It just hates you?

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, whatever. I mean, it's so broken. It knows it's not long for this world. I mean, I'm sorry.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  I'm legitimately worried to know what my iPad mini is gonna do with iOS 8.

• 35:59Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna die. Whatever.

• 36:01David Pierce?

  It's gonna die.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  They want you to buy a new one. Or they want you to buy a Kindle tablet. Hey.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  All right, dude, you played with a bunch of the Amazon stuff.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, Amazon announced like 50 things yesterday.

• 36:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Uh, so there's a new HDX 8.9 inch tablet. It's a spec bump. I don't care about it.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I'm sorry. They announced new HD, HD7 and HD6 tablets. So it's like super low end tablets. And the HD6, which is like bordering on, can you even call it a tablet? It's a six inch screen. It's 99 bucks.

• 36:34David Pierce?

  It's an iPod Touch.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  It's an iPod Touch.

• 36:36David Pierce?

  iPod Touch.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  It's, it's actually kind of insane for 99 bucks and you've got, already got an Amazon Prime membership because of course you do. You've got like a hundred dollar thing that you can watch Amazon video on. You can like chuck it and it's more durable than other Android tablets. It's like relatively sturdy. And if you lose it, it's a hundred bucks.

• 36:57David Pierce?

  Yeah. I mean, this is what I've been saying forever. It's like, and this is the, you know, the logic of Amazon giving their devices away for free. And in a real way, a hundred dollars is like a huge step in that direction. But like, Amazon has this big trove of content.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:11David Pierce?

  And if you pay a hundred dollars a year, it's all free.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:14David Pierce?

  And so this is like, nobody is more set up to have an iPod Touch than Amazon.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the thing about the six and the seven is like they're, they're low end Android tablets. They're running some MediaTek processor, who knows, whatever.

• 37:27Nilay Patel?

  Truest sign of quality.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Well, it might, they might be terrible, but they seem fine.

• 37:31Nilay Patel?

  When I think good user experience, I think MediaTek.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  But FireOS seems smooth on it, but who knows?

• 37:36David Pierce?

  Like, Amazon has crappy games and a MediaTek processor will stream your video and your music at the end.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Like if the thing is slow and like jaggy and whatever, as long as it'll play that video, I don't care.

• 37:47David Pierce?

  Right. It's a hundred dollars and I'm going to be able to pull it out on a plane and watch the Amazon Prime video that I have downloaded.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  You can watch that, you can download Amazon Prime videos or a bunch of them.

• 37:57Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I'm just saying, I don't understand. Like, I think Amazon's software strategy is not good.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  It's not great.

• 38:03Nilay Patel?

  I think.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Their content strategy is really good. And their content strategy is also not going anywhere. So their kid strategy is better than anybody else's. And this is super weird. But so you can buy the kid version of these tablets, 50 bucks more. You get this giant bouncy case that the kids can hold. But you also get a two year warranty. Like literally, you can take the tablet, smash it with a ball peen hammer, send it back, they'll send you a new one, saw it in half, make sure you send at least 51% back. They'll send you a new one for two years. No questions. We don't care. Just so like you can buy this thing for a hundred bucks. Turn on all the parental controls of like what kind of apps you can use. No in-app purchases, blah, blah, blah. Get the free year of like you get to watch Dora or whatever, whatever Nickelodeon.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  They got a bunch of stuff. I think they got Disney in free time. Yeah. And just like, here's a hundred dollar tablet and you are free to destroy it. Go away. The best parenting tool in the history of time.

• 38:59Nilay Patel?

  And then America.

• 38:59David Pierce?

  All good things end with you telling your kids, go.

• 39:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Go, child. Learn from this tablet.

• 39:05David Pierce?

  Dora the Explorer teaches people how to speak Spanish. So don't you hate on Dora the Explorer?

• 39:09Nilay Patel?

  Teaches people, uh, that Diego is just useless.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Really?

• 39:14Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, like, I've watched a lot of Dora with my niece and nephew.

• 39:17David Pierce?

  Your niece and nephew.

• 39:18Nilay Patel?

  Thankfully there's time and man, Diego dude, get it together. Just like, get your shit together, Diego. Like you're always lost. So like you're just, you're never in the right place.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Tell me the truth about Swiper. Is Swiper actually like scary?

• 39:32Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  When I was a kid, the villains were like scary.

• 39:35Nilay Patel?

  No, Swiper's like an adorable raccoon. He's like, yeah, whatever. And Dora's like, oh man, you're swiping. Like, whatever. Dora.

• 39:42David Pierce?

  I have a question. Can we pivot this podcast to just be recaps of Dora the Explorer?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 39:48David Pierce?

  I feel like that is a large untapped market.

• 39:50Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. Dora and Diego go to a place. Diego screws up catastrophically.

• 39:57Nilay Patel?

  Someone yells Swiper, no swiping, and then everything is resolved.

• 40:00David Pierce?

  Well, Dora uses her bilingual skills. Don't forget that.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  And she says pack, pack.

• 40:04David Pierce?

  Right.

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  I would, I mean, Dora's legit. Like, yeah, like as a lady, like she's like, she's on her game, right? Like.

• 40:11David Pierce?

  Hold on, I'm just gonna tweet that real quick.

• 40:13Nilay Patel?

  What? What? I'm saying like Dora, like it's clear that children should idolize Dora.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:18Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying that if you're, if you are into Diego, you are headed down a life of misery.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:23Nilay Patel?

  Like that's your, the wrong role model. So I've watched a lot of Dora. Like it's just a thing that happened in my life.

• 40:31David Pierce?

  No, keep going. I feel like this has been waiting inside you for a long time.

• 40:36Nilay Patel?

  Diego's bullshit. That's. All right.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  The best thing Amazon announced was the voyage, the Kindle voyage.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  It's really good.

• 40:44David Pierce?

  Okay, wait. I don't understand because I have a Paperwhite.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  And it's a pile of garbage.

• 40:49David Pierce?

  Perfect. I have zero problem. Like I've never had fewer problems with a device than I have with my Paperwhite.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Why? It is slow. The screen is not flush. The screen is plastic and scratches easily and

• 41:00David Pierce?

  It does scratch easily, that's true.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  It's too heavy. It's too thick.

• 41:03David Pierce?

  It's too heavy?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 41:04David Pierce?

  Is this the game we're about to play?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  And the Paperwhite is too heavy? Yes.

• 41:10David Pierce?

  Crap.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  And the screen is not 300 pixels per inch.

• 41:14Nilay Patel?

  That's true.

• 41:15David Pierce?

  I can, I'll give you that.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  And it refreshes too slowly. And it doesn't have physical buttons that you can just like squeeze to turn the

• 41:20David Pierce?

  Yeah, wait, how does that actually work? I don't understand that.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  That's it. That's like, there's no

• 41:24David Pierce?

  The bezel physically like compresses.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Just like give a little tiny squeeze to the bezel, like not too hard. And then there's like haptic feedback. The other reason your Paperwhite sucks is it doesn't have auto adjusting on the brightness. And even if it did, it still sucks because if you're reading in bed in the dark, it doesn't get dimmer over time because it knows your eyes are adjusting to the darkness.

• 41:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, okay. I mean, I, I ordered one.

• 41:49David Pierce?

  Did you really?

• 41:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, because Dieter texted me last night and he's like, I bought a Voyage and then I felt, I would say like a deep, American materialistic. Like a what? A purchase can be made and I haven't?

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Somebody else has something that I might not?

• 42:05Nilay Patel?

  The president might know that I haven't done my duty.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  My Cadillac has bigger fins on it than yours.

• 42:09Nilay Patel?

  Dude, here's, here's my dream fleet right now. 2001 Escalade.

• 42:13David Pierce?

  Yes, splitsies.

• 42:16Nilay Patel?

  I saw one on a weekend trip for a sale for, for $9,000. And I thought to myself, I bet I could talk them into $7,000 and then it would be a deal. And have seriously, they've like been eBay, on eBay Motors, looking at 2001 Escalades for some time now.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Why would you want, dude?

• 42:35Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Impala, Impala.

• 42:36Nilay Patel?

  No, no, the slate is like a critical element of a fleet. And then a new Mustang.

• 42:42David Pierce?

  The 2015 Mustang?

• 42:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  You will, you will drive, the only time you will drive it is when you're moving parking spots because you live in New York.

• 42:48Nilay Patel?

  No, I'll drive the Mustang to the garage with a 2001 Escalade, it's constantly being repaired.

• 42:54David Pierce?

  Then you'll just roll down the east side highway.

• 42:58Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, like, I think the verge should have an S line. That's just a fact.

• 43:02David Pierce?

  I'm fine with that.

• 43:03Nilay Patel?

  What? What? Cause then we could all get in it and like go places.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Only if you convert it.

• 43:07David Pierce?

  Think of the camaraderie.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Only if you convert it to run off of like, like crickets.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  Or like biodiesel.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Biodiesel. No, no, crickets.

• 43:15Nilay Patel?

  Crickets? Crickets is like, hard like.

• 43:16David Pierce?

  Just crickets.

• 43:17Nilay Patel?

  Biodiesel is like, isn't, you can like just roll up like, and that like.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Roll to a fry shop.

• 43:21Nilay Patel?

  Let me paint you a scene. We're all in our sweet Escalade.

• 43:24David Pierce?

  Okay, hold on, I'm gonna close my eyes.

• 43:26Nilay Patel?

  And then we just like, we're like driving around, it smells like french fries.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Who's driving?

• 43:29Nilay Patel?

  Cause we're doing biodiesel.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Who's driving?

• 43:31Nilay Patel?

  Uh, it doesn't matter. We all take turns, right? And then like, the rest of us are just like hanging out.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Your eyes are open.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then we were like, man.

• 43:37David Pierce?

  I like french fries.

• 43:38Nilay Patel?

  We're like out of gas and then we like roll up behind a McDonald's and like steal their oil. And I'm like, that's how we, no? Okay, it got weird at the end.

• 43:47David Pierce?

  I was with you for so long there. I was super in.

• 43:50Nilay Patel?

  That's the biodiesel story is like, you're constantly like going to like.

• 43:53David Pierce?

  Shouldn't it be like going to McDonald's?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Or like fusion powered?

• 43:56Nilay Patel?

  We could do fusion, like a Mr. Fusion.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  We need Mr. Fusion, yeah.

• 43:59David Pierce?

  What if, what if we get Elon Musk?

• 44:00Nilay Patel?

  2001 Escalade.

• 44:01David Pierce?

  To over, to like pimp my ride style or 2001 Escalade.

• 44:05Nilay Patel?

  We should actually talk about, so Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are like in a rocket ship war, right? Like, didn't, didn't, uh, Bezos did something else with like Spaceship Blue or whatever something it's called.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Did something.

• 44:16Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then Elon Musk, like, I love the idea that like billionaires desperately want to go to space.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Is this, is this a place where, um?

• 44:24David Pierce?

  Oh, that's right. They partnered.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Is this a place where like capitalism and competition is the best thing?

• 44:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  It is, but like.

• 44:34Nilay Patel?

  Maybe if they worked together, it would be cheaper and we would get up there faster with cooler stuff.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  No, but they want to each be in their own. I mean, like they're, they're like months away from like mounting guns on one of our spaceship and like, having like billionaire laser fights in space.

• 44:50David Pierce?

  That would be so sick.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  I mean, that is definitely like a sci-fi show waiting to happen.

• 44:56David Pierce?

  No, I mean, it isn't, yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  No, it's happened.

• 44:59David Pierce?

  Also, I'm kind of into the idea of Elon Musk pimp my ride.

• 45:01Nilay Patel?

  Moon, yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  It's called Moonraker.

• 45:03Nilay Patel?

  No, here's an idea. This one's free for everybody. You get billionaires and you make them play laser tag. That's the whole. Billionaire laser fight.

• 45:13David Pierce?

  Did they get to like design their own laser?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Did you have laser tag as a kid? I was not allowed to have laser tag as a kid, but I was allowed to have the version of laser tag that was with like an actual like replica Beretta. Like it looked like a gun, like a real gun.

• 45:27Nilay Patel?

  You and I grew up in the era where guns were allowed to look like guns.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, we like, we wanted, we played guns. That was what you did as a kid.

• 45:32Nilay Patel?

  They didn't have like orange caps.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  No, no, no, they would, it looked like, it looked like a gun.

• 45:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I actually just owned it.

• 45:39David Pierce?

  As long as it's unloaded, it's a toy.

• 45:41Nilay Patel?

  It was just an unloaded firearm that I would toy with. Uh, no, I had my Ness Zapper was gray. And then like two years later, they made them all orange. Yeah. No, but I was not allowed to own laser tag, but there are many laser tag facilities in the region.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 45:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:56David Pierce?

  That's what we had too.

• 45:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:58David Pierce?

  But did you play the laser tag where you shoot each other or the laser tag where you all just shoot at targets?

• 46:01Nilay Patel?

  Uh, each other.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Of course, each other.

• 46:03David Pierce?

  Cause it was like.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Even if it's a laser tag where you shoot at targets, you rip that shit down and put it on people.

• 46:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:08David Pierce?

  It's like, let's run around and just like look at each other while we shoot at targets. Yeah, there's like, if, if there's fun laser tag out there, I will go anywhere in America to play fun laser tag.

• 46:18Nilay Patel?

  In our 2001 high school days.

• 46:20David Pierce?

  Yes. It gets phenomenal gas mileage. Uh, but yeah, there's like targets up in the corner of the room and you just run around and shoot those.

• 46:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:29David Pierce?

  Which just sounds horrible.

• 46:31Nilay Patel?

  So you just become the first person. They've ruined laser tag.

• 46:33David Pierce?

  Well, like they can still shoot you, but you don't get points by shooting them. Like if, if, if you're shooting at the target, I shoot you and then you have to like go away and recharge and then come back and keep shooting the target. Instead of like, how many people did you kill? Fifty, you win. That's how laser tag works.

• 46:49Nilay Patel?

  Ultimate griefer. Not shoot the targets, just kill everybody.

• 46:54David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 46:55Nilay Patel?

  Cool. Oh, we should talk about Minecraft. Speaking of grievers. That's all, uh, we, let's wrap up on Minecraft. So somebody explain Minecraft to me.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Uh, the game or the event that happened surrounding it?

• 47:05Nilay Patel?

  All of it.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Uh, the game is awesome and you should play it.

• 47:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And it's fun and creative and helps kids learn and helps you build castles in the sky.

• 47:16David Pierce?

  Okay, here's a question I don't know the answer to. How does Minecraft make money?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  They they sell games.

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they sell expansion packs. That that much.

• 47:24David Pierce?

  Cause like the basics of Minecraft is free, right?

• 47:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 47:27David Pierce?

  But they sell more.

• 47:28Nilay Patel?

  Right, and they also like license like collectibles.

• 47:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 47:32Nilay Patel?

  It's a just a franchise.

• 47:33David Pierce?

  Right, but is that is that worth a two billion it was two billion dollars, right?

• 47:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Two point five.

• 47:37David Pierce?

  Oh, that's right, it was two point five. How is that worth two point five billion dollars to Microsoft?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Uh, because it's like it's the it's the future of Lego. Like, it's like the like the number.

• 47:47David Pierce?

  But is it like is Minecraft gonna be cool for fifty years?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:50David Pierce?

  Really?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:52David Pierce?

  I don't know, man.

• 47:54Nilay Patel?

  And like if you talk to to all of the various Vox dads who like play Minecraft with their kids, they're like all super into it.

• 48:01David Pierce?

  Yeah, no, that's definitely true is there's like this whole army of nine year olds who are super obsessed with Minecraft.

• 48:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and there's like they have like their own servers and like they have their own communities and like that all I get it's just I maybe I should play the game more. Here's my dream. I've been thinking about this. Uh, so Notch quit Mojang, right?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:20Nilay Patel?

  Uh, when they sold it to Microsoft, he said, I don't want to be responsible.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  By the way, Minecraft is not free on every platform. It's like depending on the platform or customer.

• 48:26David Pierce?

  Oh, really? Okay, fair enough.

• 48:28Nilay Patel?

  Um, so Notch quit. He wrote this like very emotional letter about like, I don't want to be a part of this. Like, I don't want to take responsibility. I just want to play games like.

• 48:38David Pierce?

  But like, it's like it's a really easy thing to write after you sell your company for two point five billion dollars like. Not to be cynical about it, but like if if you're like, I don't want to be a part of this, then just leave. Don't sell for two point five billion.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  What are you gonna do? Like, would you rather he had just like lit the whole thing on fire?

• 48:55David Pierce?

  No, but like you don't get to take you don't get to take this like.

• 48:58Nilay Patel?

  Why he sold it.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Nilay Patel?

  He sold it because he was in charge and he was like, I this needs a steward.

• 49:05David Pierce?

  Right.

• 49:05Nilay Patel?

  And the only steward is like this company. So I'm selling it and that's fine. It's all that's fine.

• 49:11David Pierce?

  Well, and it just felt, I don't know, the the letter felt very holier than thou to me in a way that I don't think it needed to.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Did you watch the, I mean, the he all he referenced that that twenty minute video or about Phil Fish or ten minute video of Phil Fish? About like how he's become a symbol of like the internet's ability to like hate famous. People on the internet.

• 49:30David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like it's actually, it's a really smart thing. And so if this guy like is honest and he says, I do not want to be the figurehead in charge of this game and also manage this whole game. Like selling it to me seems like a relatively virtuous thing to do.

• 49:44David Pierce?

  Alright, that's fair. That's fair. If that's legit, yeah. If that's what he was after, that's.

• 49:47Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, I think we should get, we should get Paul Miller to interview Notch and just talk about like leaving.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Just quitting.

• 49:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like the vibe to me was very much.

• 49:57David Pierce?

  Paul Miller invented the internet and then left.

• 50:01Nilay Patel?

  True. He wired the first ethernet cables. No, the vibe, when I read that letter, the vibe was very much when Paul left the internet. And I was like, we should get these people to learn. So Paul, if you're out there, I know that you are.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Paul.

• 50:10Nilay Patel?

  Love you, buddy. Notch, I don't know what you're doing now, probably reclining on a bed of money, not feeling not responsible for anything. Talk to me.

• 50:19David Pierce?

  Get at me.

• 50:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's all, it's all be in a room together, talking. It won't be awkward at all. No one will bring up Dora or Eskoids. What else? Anything else, man?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  There's some Windows stuff coming up at the end of the month.

• 50:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Windows 9.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  But there's a technical preview and then we also, Tom Warren put up some, we had some screenshots of an upcoming version of Office that has a little help box that is reminiscent, although not cartoony of Clippy.

• 50:43David Pierce?

  New Clippy?

• 50:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Not Clippy. It's like Clippy-esque. It's Clippy-esque.

• 50:46Nilay Patel?

  I mean, can Microsoft get away with doing anything Clippy-esque without people calling it Clippy?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:51Nilay Patel?

  Tom will be here next week. We should put him on the show.

• 50:53David Pierce?

  That's true.

• 50:54Nilay Patel?

  We can do it. We'll do a long Windows preview with, with Tom Warren.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it looks, did you see he retweeted somebody's Vine where it's like, I got a, I got a copy of Windows 9 and you open it up and it's a Windows 7 DVD with a sorry for Windows 8 posted note on it. It's pretty great.

• 51:08Nilay Patel?

  Uh, man, Windows 8.

• 51:11Nilay Patel?

  You know, I have a Surface Pro 2 in my house. I was playing with it the other day. Does anyone just have one? And, uh, man. That's so close, so far. Like so close.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  I like the Surface Pro 3.

• 51:26Nilay Patel?

  You know my theory about like Apple fanboys? I think Apple fanboys are beginning to root for Microsoft. Because they're tired of being like the big dogs. And they hate Google. And they need a new underdog to replace Google. That's interesting. It's like a psychological theory that I have.

• 51:44David Pierce?

  I mean, I also think that. Like, and we've been saying this for a long time, that I think Microsoft is attempting to do a lot of the right things. Like what Apple is doing, like the story you tell about this is the same story that Microsoft tells about the Surface. They just did it wrong.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:01David Pierce?

  And it's like if Windows 9 is them figuring out how to do it. That's awesome. It's not, it's them walking Windows 8 all the way back. Just all the way back.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  You think so?

• 52:11David Pierce?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a start menu again. Like it's all this stuff.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  All the ideas from Windows 8 and putting them in a box inside the start menu. Like, how is that not the best metaphor?

• 52:24Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. Oh, Microsoft. You're gonna get there someday, I promise you.

• 52:28David Pierce?

  Wait, before we go, I want to talk about the Apple Watch, because we haven't talked about the Watch yet.

• 52:31Nilay Patel?

  We've talked about the Watch all this week. You guys weren't here.

• 52:33David Pierce?

  Oh, I wasn't here.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:34Nilay Patel?

  I will say, I'm gonna actually.

• 52:36David Pierce?

  Have you changed your mind?

• 52:36Nilay Patel?

  I have not changed my mind, I still, actually, I am more and more convinced the Watch is a disaster, the more and more I think about it.

• 52:42David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  I have approximately 23 opinions about the Watch. And I want to just put them all on a page, I just haven't done it.

• 52:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But no, I like, I cannot get away from the idea that it is a watch with a right click. Right? And like, that is just weird to me. I don't understand it. Uh, Force Touch, like bad brand. It's just, it's like, it's just a collection of. Here's, this is gonna sound really weird. Here's like, the thing, I look at the Watch and I think of the incredible collection of like, A-Player talent. They've assembled. Now freely, obviously, like, enter the fashion market with the Watch. And like, the thing I'm thinking about is.

• 53:26Nilay Patel?

  All of these people are in charge. Right?

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:29Nilay Patel?

  Like, you can't hire the CEO of Burberry and the CEO of Yves Saint Laurent and VP from Adobe and like, the Businessweek article said like Tim Cook had his number one guy like be in charge of and like, and Johnny Ive is still there and Phil Schiller is still there and like, none of those people are, all of them are in charge and none of them are in charge.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:48Nilay Patel?

  That is the clear-

• 53:49David Pierce?

  Yeah, you don't hire those people by saying you work for so and so.

• 53:52Nilay Patel?

  Right. And it's like, maybe they're in charge of like slices, but there isn't one person. Like, that's what I think about the watch. It looks to me like one person wasn't in charge.

• 54:02David Pierce?

  Fair.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  And that like that is just expressed in like the idea that you can force touch it.

• 54:08Nilay Patel?

  Which is, it is just a weird interaction paradigm and it is not the right one.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Force touch is coming to iOS.

• 54:13David Pierce?

  It's the worst name.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Coming to the iPhone.

• 54:15David Pierce?

  Dude, this is the thing, like I-

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Get ready, it's coming.

• 54:17David Pierce?

  You know how-

• 54:17Speaker 01

  They described it as a screen technology. That is the next thing they're gonna do for screens.

• 54:21David Pierce?

  No, but like, and you know how you make, you know how you make a big screen work better in one hand is force touch?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:27David Pierce?

  Like, you let you do more things by touching the parts of the screen that you can touch.

• 54:32Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is a company that literally only had one button on its mice for like 20 years. Right? Like, that's what I mean. Like philosophically, I don't understand this paradigm.

• 54:42David Pierce?

  Oh, sure. I'm disagreeing with Dieter. That like, force touch is coming to the iPhone.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  You're disagreeing or you're just agreeing?

• 54:47David Pierce?

  I'm just agreeing.

• 54:48Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm just like, I'm just like, that's fine. And like, yeah, I use right click on my Mac all the time now. And like, long pressing isn't interesting, but like, it is, I just cannot get away from the idea, and this is like somebody very smart said this to me, smaller screens demand fewer interaction methods, right?

• 55:04David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 55:04Nilay Patel?

  And like, this one has so, it's a-

• 55:06David Pierce?

  That's why they invented multi-touch.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  It's the smallest screen and it has the most interaction methods.

• 55:10David Pierce?

  That's why they used multi-touch.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Can you pinch to zoom on the Apple iPhone?

• 55:14Nilay Patel?

  No, you have to use the crown.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Use a dial. But can you also pinch to zoom?

• 55:17David Pierce?

  I think you can also pinch to zoom.

• 55:19Nilay Patel?

  Like that's crazy. Like, I'm just saying, like, all of that, and like, I understand the argument that they haven't shown us all the software, that like, they, they're still working on it. Like, I don't think it's gonna come out for a long time. And I understand that, like, maybe it's like, really expensive, and like, it's a market out, whatever. What I do absolutely know is that it is impossible, from what we have seen so far, to explain to somebody how to use it. And that is crazy. Like, that is not, like, that, that's so far out of, like, the zone for Apple, that I'd, like, people pick up an iPhone, and they like, they figured out how to use it.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  So, I was actually, I was thinking about this. When the, when the iPhone first got announced, and then it came out, they had that, you know, however many month period, where they were just blasting commercials, and all the commercials were, was, here's the iPhone, here's how to do stuff on it. And, but here's the thing about those commercials. Every single one of them was like, holy crap, that looks awesome, I need to do that, those are things I like to do, I see how easy that is, give me that.

• 56:22Nilay Patel?

  The commercial, they weren't instructions. They were, they were, they were like, look at how easy it is.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were instructions that were also like advertisements for a thing that you want.

• 56:30Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  I don't know how those commercials would work for the Apple Watch. You've got this watch, and you really wanna look at a map on it.

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, I, I'm just like,

• 56:41David Pierce?

  It's the photos that gets me. Every time. They're like, we've found ways for you to carry your photos around. And then he scrolls out, and it's just a million one pixel icons of photos.

• 56:49Nilay Patel?

  Like, I'm, I'm wearing one.

• 56:51David Pierce?

  You know who that's useful to? It's Justin. It's Mona 360.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, sure is. This watch has a crown. It's like, the last thing I wanna do is monkey with this knob on my watch. Like, you're not supposed to monkey with it all that often. I don't know, I just, I'm, I am deeply, deeply skeptical. And it's not because Apple didn't have a killer app, it's not because I think it should be cheaper, like, none of that stuff. I'm skeptical because I think there's too many ways to interact with it. And I think that that all seems really messy to me.

• 57:20David Pierce?

  I mean luckily, you know, they have probably what 10 months.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:23David Pierce?

  To figure it out. Maybe they will.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:26Nilay Patel?

  I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't.

• 57:27David Pierce?

  I kinda doubt it.

• 57:28Nilay Patel?

  Until June, but we'll see. I mean, this is like, they're not shying away from the fact that this is like historic and like it's, it's Tim Cook is betting his legacy on this watch.

• 57:37David Pierce?

  Right.

• 57:37Nilay Patel?

  So I, he has proven to be a smart CEO in the past. I'm assuming that he's putting resources against this.

• 57:44David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, you don't, they're not gonna bail on this. Like they'll.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Just kidding.

• 57:48David Pierce?

  Yeah, the first one, they're like, sorry, guys. Bad move. We're done.

• 57:51Nilay Patel?

  Right, but.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  But it's just put on the shelf next to your folio.

• 57:55Nilay Patel?

  Right, but like you, like you, you kinda hope that like in Tim Cook's office, there's like a huge glass display case. And in it, there's just two objects. There's a Newton and there's an iPhone. And like, he's like, man, we gotta do this one.

• 58:11Nilay Patel?

  Because the Newton was a great idea and it had tons of potential.

• 58:14David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Nilay Patel?

  And like, another CEO made it who wasn't Steve Jobs and like that if they had just kept grinding on the Newton, it would have turned into something.

• 58:21David Pierce?

  It probably would have turned into the iPhone.

• 58:23Nilay Patel?

  I don't know about that. Right? But like Steve Jobs came back.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  It would have turned into the trio.

• 58:27Nilay Patel?

  Right, like it was like the right, it was a lot of really good ideas about that paradigm. And it would have just kept going and nobody would have faulted them for continuing.

• 58:36David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 58:36Nilay Patel?

  And then there's the iPhone, which was like a revolution.

• 58:40David Pierce?

  Right.

• 58:40Nilay Patel?

  And it's, you just have to think like.

• 58:43David Pierce?

  So Apple could have either been BlackBerry or Apple.

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, exactly. You have to think like this watch, like we know so much, so little about it.

• 58:50David Pierce?

  Right.

• 58:51Nilay Patel?

  It's either the world's best Moto 360 or the world's best Pebble, or it's a revolution. And like, you just hope that like Tim Cook is actually thinking in those terms.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:00David Pierce?

  Fair.

• 59:01Nilay Patel?

  Because he's, what he's saying over and over again is this is a revolution. And then you look at it and it's like, but why is it that?

• 59:07David Pierce?

  Right. It's just a pretty good.

• 59:08Nilay Patel?

  That as far as I can tell is not the answer at all.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  We want a revolution and Apple is the, they're all doing what they can.

• 59:14Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 59:16Nilay Patel?

  We're done. I'm getting in my 2000 when I go home.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 59:21David Pierce?

  Listen to U2 album.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Right there.

• 59:23Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Are we gonna talk about the U2 album?

• 59:26Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean like.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  It's fine.

• 59:29Nilay Patel?

  I, the uproar over the U2 album is like, it is.

• 59:34Nilay Patel?

  Like, a year ago, if Apple had given everybody a free YouTube album, nobody would have cared.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:39Nilay Patel?

  But after like, the NSA and iCloud leaks.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 59:43Nilay Patel?

  Was the government looking, like, Apple just like dumping stuff on your phone is terrifying.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:47Nilay Patel?

  Right? If, if Dropbox, and like, everybody's Dropbox, and I was a YouTube album in it, nobody would have cared.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  I would have cared.

• 59:55Nilay Patel?

  Not if they didn't take your storage, and you could just like, here's a link, and you could like, open it, and it's just there.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, or they didn't take your storage, I suppose. But if they like, if they shot that stuff shit down to my computer, because that's how Dropbox works, it syncs to your computer.

• 1:00:07Nilay Patel?

  That's fair.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  That's that, that's like, to me, that's the problem with the U2 albums, like, that's like, 20 megabytes of stuff that I would like to keep on, like, open for pictures.

• 1:00:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean, also, the album is bad. Also, the idea that what people, like, Apple thinks what people want is like, to download MP3 files.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:00:22Nilay Patel?

  There's many things about that. I mean, like...

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Well, the thing, the other thing, why didn't, why didn't Jimmy Iovine stop this?

• 1:00:31Nilay Patel?

  Why didn't they put it on Beats Music?

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, just put it on Beats.

• 1:00:35Nilay Patel?

  Because I, I can't yet.

• 1:00:36David Pierce?

  Well, but Apple's already like, it's, they're talking a lot about Beats Music. Like, Tim Cook went on Charlie Rose and talked a lot about Beats Music. It was in this Businessweek profile. It was like, it's on Apple TV now, like, that's, that's a thing.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Even if you don't subscribe to Beats, you can listen to this U2 album on the Beats app for free.

• 1:00:52David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  For eternity.

• 1:00:53David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Go ahead and make sure you open your Beats app.

• 1:00:55Nilay Patel?

  The problem is that that doesn't make U2 any money. That's, I mean, that's what's, at the end of the day.

• 1:01:00David Pierce?

  No, what makes U2 money is Apple.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  I mean, don't you think Apple paid U2 for this?

• 1:01:04Nilay Patel?

  No, but like, U2 wants to run at, like, the, it's like optics.

• 1:01:08David Pierce?

  Reach, like, they want 500 million people to have their phone on.

• 1:01:11Nilay Patel?

  To have it. They want, like, Beats Music is in every country, they've negotiated, blah, blah, blah. And they want to be able to say, this is the most downloaded album ever.

• 1:01:18David Pierce?

  Right.

• 1:01:18Nilay Patel?

  Biggest selling album since X. And then, Apple paid them for that, they gave them that marketing, they got in trouble for it, but at least they tried. If they put it on Beats, it's like, U2 sold out to sell Beats. And that's that is a different, that's, I mean.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  You know, you know, but like the Samsung deal with the Jay-Z?

• 1:01:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Didn't hurt him.

• 1:01:38David Pierce?

  Well, he's Jay-Z.

• 1:01:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40David Pierce?

  I mean, like, no, honestly, like, if there's anyone on earth who's immune to that, it's Jay-Z. But at the same time, like, nobody's mad at U2. Like, I, what I'm not, I'm not seeing, I mean, the album sucks, but like, I'm not seeing anybody accusing U2.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Bono's head with a little speech bubble coming out of it going, ha ha.

• 1:01:54Nilay Patel?

  You know, that's all I see. Well, U2 got paid, like, whatever, like, they made like a, a pretty mediocre record and they got paid, like, good for U2.

• 1:02:01David Pierce?

  Pretty mediocre is like a, the kindest thing I've, that I've said about that record.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  This is the most mediocre, it's right there in the.

• 1:02:08David Pierce?

  Well, I heard, my, my favorite solution to this whole problem was, I forget where I heard it, but somebody was like, what if they just put better U2 albums on instead?

• 1:02:15Nilay Patel?

  Everybody gets a Joshua Tree.

• 1:02:18David Pierce?

  We'll solve this by giving you other U2 albums.

• 1:02:20Nilay Patel?

  Nah, I mean, like, I mean, ah, it's U2, man, like, it's, it's fine, it's just, it's just nothing, it's, U2 came after a credit card service.

• 1:02:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Nilay Patel?

  In the scope of that presentation, it was like, we, we're gonna change the world with Mastercard and Amex and Visa and here's U2, everybody. And it's like, this is weird.

• 1:02:40David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the Edge's guitar tone is the best, though.

• 1:02:43David Pierce?

  Ah, that's wonderful.

• 1:02:44Nilay Patel?

  He was so good at that, I mean, like, just.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  I was out of the room by then.

• 1:02:48Nilay Patel?

  I was too, I, I stayed for like eight seconds just to let him envelope me in his like Vox AC30, he was really.

• 1:02:54David Pierce?

  And you wept?

• 1:02:55Nilay Patel?

  It was great, it was very nice, it was a very nice guitar sound. Uh, but whatever, U2, like, they, Apple needs to get to beats music, they need to get to a place with beats music where U2 wants to put out free albums on there instead of being like, let's pump them through iTunes.

• 1:03:08David Pierce?

  But how do you?

• 1:03:08Nilay Patel?

  They are just not there yet.

• 1:03:10David Pierce?

  Right, but there's no way to do that but to do it, right? Like, the, if Apple has proven one thing, it's that it in four seconds can make something huge.

• 1:03:18Nilay Patel?

  No, not that yet.

• 1:03:19David Pierce?

  Why?

• 1:03:20Nilay Patel?

  Just not yet.

• 1:03:21David Pierce?

  Why?

• 1:03:22Nilay Patel?

  Like, I saw Jimmy.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  It took them, it took them five years to make iTunes Radio.

• 1:03:25Nilay Patel?

  No, it's like, I saw, I talked to Jimmy Iovine at that event.

• 1:03:28David Pierce?

  But this is what I'm saying, is like, if they, they take a thing.

• 1:03:30Nilay Patel?

  You just said they're fast.

• 1:03:31David Pierce?

  No, they're fast at taking something that exists and making it mainstream. Like, they came out with Apple Pay, which everyone has already done, and they said, Apple Pay, and then suddenly everybody's into it.

• 1:03:40Nilay Patel?

  It took them years, like, I, I saw Jimmy Iovine at the event and I was like, how's it going? And he's like, it's my sixth week.

• 1:03:45David Pierce?

  Right, fair.

• 1:03:46Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, yo, it's my sixth week being the editor in chief of The Verge, and then we like, had like a hilarious like fish out of water story moment, like, like.

• 1:03:52David Pierce?

  Can you just stop with the Jimmy Ivey and Humble Brags, please? Just, just for like a minute?

• 1:03:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm a big fan of Jimmy Ivey.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  You guys talked Jimmy Ivey and I got Gwen Stefani like hit me in the shoulder and she walked by. She was jumping out of the way.

• 1:04:02David Pierce?

  Was it like a you guys are friends now?

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  No, it was a get the hell out of my way, you useless, no way.

• 1:04:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Right. I was friends with the guy in Sublime. That's what Gwen Stefani's thinking herself all the time. Like, I knew that dude and you never can. I'm awesome.

• 1:04:17Nilay Patel?

  Cause I would like, yeah, I'd like to know that guy. Like, I went through a sublime phase. Super dark. It's not that dark. I just listened to that record again recently and I was like.

• 1:04:25David Pierce?

  Forty Hours of Freedom?

• 1:04:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:26David Pierce?

  It's a good record.

• 1:04:27Nilay Patel?

  That one and then like the, like the Sublime record.

• 1:04:29David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:30Nilay Patel?

  It just came on. It was like, we were, you know, we were in like a house. We're like, it was like beachy. Like, we should listen to some Sublime. And then we did. And that was great.

• 1:04:38David Pierce?

  Sweet story.

• 1:04:40Nilay Patel?

  Story, everybody. No, I tried super hard to creep on Angela Aaron's talking to Will.i.am and it was just impossible. Like, they.

• 1:04:48David Pierce?

  Yeah, I feel like there's a force field around that.

• 1:04:50Nilay Patel?

  It's a force field of tall, terrifying women who just sort of like just crowd you. They're just gonna get up on you and like, oh, I'm not allowed to stand here anymore.

• 1:04:58David Pierce?

  I guess I'll go.

• 1:05:00Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that was Vergecast. Thank you for listening to us. That's always nice.

• 1:05:05David Pierce?

  We never introduced ourselves. I just realized that, by the way.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Dude, at the end.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm Neil.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  We're gonna introduce ourselves.

• 1:05:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, outreductions. Yeah, this is, I'm Neil.

• 1:05:16David Pierce?

  I'm David.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  I am Dieter.

• 1:05:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  And you can find us on Twitter. He's Pierce David. He's Reckless. I'm Backlon.

• 1:05:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And this is Vergecast every Thursday, 4:30 streaming on our site. And then we'll have the audio up very shortly after. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.