Coterie of vapes

This week's Vergecast features Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Chris Plante in the Skype seat, and Nicola Fumo in the Hype seat. They talk fashion and tech struggles, Pax, bro's gold iPhones, Metal Gear, Battlefront, this fall's video game releases, new iMacs, the new Harmony Universal Remote, and — well — weed. 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?

  Error. Your car is about to crash. Hit the brakes. I don't know. Wouldn't that be wild if you were just like in your car and suddenly that's what you heard?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Terrifying.

• 0:15Nilay Patel?

  I guess.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Nothing showed up.

• 0:16Nilay Patel?

  What I want this show to be is a constant series of surprises and terrifying moments. I want to be, for the listener, an emotional roller coaster.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:28Nilay Patel?

  Hello.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  It's like a good thing to get out of a podcast.

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  And welcome to the Vergecast. Dieter is very pleased.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  My arm is up in the air.

• 0:34Nilay Patel?

  What, do you score a touchdown?

• 0:35Speaker 02

  I'm on an emotional roller coaster.

• 0:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 0:39Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to the Vergecast. Today, of course, is the day that we are experiencing reality, that day being October 15th. You are probably experiencing this reality at a later time, so let's just go on that journey together. I am Neelai Patel. Sitting next to me is Dieter Bone.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  On the, on the Skype, I got Chris Plant.

• 1:00Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  What's up, that guy? Missed you.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03Nilay Patel?

  And then.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  How you doing?

• 1:05Nilay Patel?

  I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. I really, I really like it when people care for me, but then.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  I'm actually asking Dieter, but.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:13Nilay Patel?

  But then.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  In the hype seat.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 1:16Nilay Patel?

  Your girl.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  She is.

• 1:17Nilay Patel?

  Fumo.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  It's me.

• 1:19Nilay Patel?

  Nicola's here. Hey, Nicola.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  It is me.

• 1:21Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Nicola.

• 1:27Nilay Patel?

  Can you just say it me for the rest of the show?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Do it. Paper magazine claims they found the, the original.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  I know. I read that yesterday.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, Nicola's here. Uh, actually, it was, was it a medium week in news? I feel like we wrote a lot of things. We did a lot of stuff. We had a big, great feature today on the site about the internet in Cuba that you should all go read.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:50Nilay Patel?

  A bunch of reviews. Dieter is in a massive review planning cycle.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55Nilay Patel?

  But many of the reviews haven't hit yet.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, like there's, there was one today. There's like two tomorrow. Uh, next week is going to be exciting. The week after also exciting.

• 2:03Nilay Patel?

  It's all, and it's all Windows laptops, which is a fascinating moment.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Walt just reviewed a Windows laptop.

• 2:09Nilay Patel?

  Walt reviewed one. Uh, Vlad reviewed one. Walt reviewed the Toshiba 4K12.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  It's a terrible name.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  The worst name.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and Vlad reviewed the LG Gram.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Can I say something?

• 2:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  About the LG Gram?

• 2:21Nilay Patel?

  LG.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  LG acquired.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  WebOS from Palm.

• 2:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  But the last vestige of WebOS at Palm reorganized itself under GR.AM. They called themselves GRAM.

• 2:34Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Butterfly logo.

• 2:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god. It's all full circle.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Named a laptop after it. And guess what?

• 2:40Nilay Patel?

  It's a bad laptop. And Walt's Toshiba was bad, too. Walt and I had this hilarious, you should listen to Control, though, you could talk about forever. But we had this hilarious conversation. I was editing this review and I was like, the battery only lasts for four hours. Like, you can't tell people to buy it. And he's like, oh, you're right.

• 2:59Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's bad. So anyways, Windows laptops, tons of them coming out. We're all very excited, Windows 10. But they still kind of, kind of just Windows laptops.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09Nilay Patel?

  But I'm very excited for the surface.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  I mean, the XPS 15 looks great. The 13 looks like maybe a little bit better than last year, which was very good. And we're all pumped for the Surface Book. So there's hope on the horizon somewhere out there.

• 3:21Nilay Patel?

  We're in the zone. But like I'm saying, medium news. Like, it's like the first wave of bad Windows laptops is beginning to crest. But then maybe there'll be like a big wave of a good one, but we're not there yet. But then what else happened? The Star Wars stuff going on?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Bunch of Star Wars stuff. We're expecting a trailer soon.

• 3:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  And Battlefront, the video game, which is why Chris Plant is here. Everybody's posting stuff from there, watching Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader get destroyed by crashing spaceships over and over again.

• 3:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Hype check Star Wars.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Uh, people love it.

• 3:59Nilay Patel?

  It's not good.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Seems great.

• 4:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. All right. Not your thing. Not your thing is basically what I'm getting out of that. But I do want to talk about something that is your thing. That's actually a terrible segue. Nicola wrote two, well, you wrote one thing that's great and then Ract wrote another thing that we also link posted. Well, Nicola didn't write the other thing.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  What was the other thing?

• 4:17Nilay Patel?

  The Met Gala thing. But you sent it to me.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  No, but there's another one. I have two items going up on the verge. I'm just waiting for the news to slow, apparently.

• 4:25Nilay Patel?

  Sure. I'm waiting for the bullshit to be over, so my work can go on the side.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need yours to quiet down.

• 4:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, I want to start with the Met Gala, because that is really interesting. And one of the reasons we always love having Nikola on the show and like, you know, putting your stuff on the site is this fashion tech crossover is a real, um, theaters, what are you wearing?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  A horrendously ugly watch. Actually, it's better than most smartwatches, which isn't saying much. It's the Galaxy, or I'm sorry, it's not a Galaxy, it's the Gear S2. It's Samsung's new smartwatch.

• 4:56Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's better than most.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Which lets you rotate with the bezel to go through.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  You can't really see it too well through my Skype, but it looks like you just walked out of a hospital.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's about right.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  It's not bad.

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so this Met Gala, you're gonna need to start like at the very beginning, because nobody knows what it is.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so the Met Gala, um, is an annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York, the Costume Institute, which is where they have, um, like amazing archives of costume all through history. Um, and every year, there's this big fundraiser event that's like what they call like Fashions Oscars. It's like the biggest night, the biggest red carpet of the year for fashion, like blows out of, I mean, I can't think of anything we would even compare it to. It's huge. It's a huge night for fashion. So the theme this year is fashion and technology.

• 5:47Nilay Patel?

  And actually, it has a lot, they went with like a Latin.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  I don't have my whole thing.

• 5:51Nilay Patel?

  Manis sic machina.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:53Nilay Patel?

  Which is incredible.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. It's wild.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  So, okay, what?

• 5:59Nilay Patel?

  No, go ahead. I was saying, but there's like a, there's a news component to this.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Um, Apple's sponsoring it.

• 6:05Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  New, different?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Like, I read that and I was like, of course. Like, I don't know who else, like, would have. I mean, I know who would have maybe wanted to, but.

• 6:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're, they're like, look, Samsung, we're not, we're not doing this with you.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry, guys.

• 6:21Nilay Patel?

  But then Johnny Ive is on the board. Taylor Swift is on the board.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  She is.

• 6:26Nilay Patel?

  And that's like, this is like a thing. If you've been listening to this show for the past, I don't know, year, the idea that like, Apple sponsoring a tech, a fashion event because they're like pushing the watch and Taylor Swift, like, it's all of our themes, sort of like neatly wrapped together.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Are they gonna complain about Apple Music at this gala? Then it would be perfectly everything.

• 6:45Nilay Patel?

  And do they think Spotify sucks? Because that's basically all that we talk about on this show.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Beyonce and Jay-Z were the last to arrive last time. And that would have like a title component to it.

• 6:59Nilay Patel?

  Was that the one where, is that where they fought in the elevator?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:03Nilay Patel?

  What, what?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  That was the year before.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Last year was Beyonce's see-through sparkly dress. Cause she's vegan now and like has a great body. I mean, she's always had a great body, but she was just really like, no, it's really good now. And I had a baby. And I'm gonna make a lot of music about my sex life.

• 7:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Anyway, that's a different tangent.

• 7:23Nilay Patel?

  Fashion and technology.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Fashion and technology, Beyonce. Motherhood.

• 7:29Nilay Patel?

  But you sent it to me and you're like, and we both started laughing. Particularly because of the racked headline was like, sigh.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:35Nilay Patel?

  Cause you guys are kind of over it. Like it hasn't worked out, right?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Um.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Oh, man, where do we even start with this?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  That is the sigh. That's the sigh in the headline.

• 7:50Nilay Patel?

  Do you just hate circuit boards? Is that the deal?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  It's just that there's been like, the last like five years or so, there's been this really unnatural relationship between fashion and technology. And we get on the fashion side, this like weird push from the tech side that isn't right. And you guys get this weird push from the fashion side that isn't right. And no one is doing it right. And that is why we here.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Do this all the time. Cause we're, cause it's timed. I don't know. Something has to give.

• 8:21Nilay Patel?

  How do we get it right?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  You need to solve problems beautifully inside and outside. That's getting it right. Don't make stuff and put a fashion like pattern and designer name on it. Basically just like franchising or something, licensing. That doesn't solve anyone's problems.

• 8:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. But fashion doesn't really solve any problems beyond.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  But there are things that these.

• 8:45Nilay Patel?

  Participating in a lifestyle.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  There are things that these wearables and like different.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Technology aspects like across apps, smart fabrics, like there's so much crossover, but it's not like being communicated right and the consumer doesn't know that their life could be better in this way if it looked better or if it performed better because it was designed better, or in this other way if it has technological functions that they don't even know about. Like both sides don't even know what they can get from each other yet.

• 9:14Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see. What's your, do you have a, is it overthrow? What's your, like your, you have a word that you use?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  What word?

• 9:22Nilay Patel?

  Every time you're like, it's overthrow, figurehead.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Oh, Operation Figurehead.

• 9:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So Nicola, Nicola for the past year, yes, I'm gonna let you in a little, little Fumo gossip. Nicola for the past year has been running Operation Figurehead, which is her plan to take over first, I believe, The Verge and then Vox Media and then, you know, the world, publishing in general.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  I just wanna be, I just wanna be more like Neelai and just be able to talk.

• 9:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't do shit.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think you do like two things a year on the website and then you just like are around, like and people, you kind of do what you tell them to do.

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  I mean, and, and kind of is very generous. People begrudgingly sometimes do what I have suggested, rarely do as I say.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  And sometimes people are mean to you online, but not that mean. So like it's fine.

• 10:14Nilay Patel?

  They're, they're not that mean.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Medium mean?

• 10:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're mean in the way they approach.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  How many death threats do you get?

• 10:19Nilay Patel?

  I don't get a lot of death threats. See? I mean, I get a lot of joking suggestions I might wish to kill myself, like at a future time, but they're not like threats. They're more like, you know, like I think that your life would be improved if you chose to end it. And they're very polite, you know, can't, can't be too mad about them. Anyway, so Nicola has been, uh, running Operation Figurehead. And so she very seriously told me a couple weeks ago that this fashion tech crossover zone needs a figurehead.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:49Nilay Patel?

  And she has decided, she has decided to be this figurehead.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know. Wow. You just really opened it up for me.

• 10:54Nilay Patel?

  I'm doxing it, man.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Here I am, ready for this.

• 10:59Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so there's that and then you wrote another piece about Pax vaporizers. And how they are, and I actually didn't know this because I do all of my shopping online and don't smoke weed. So, perfect combination of things, reasons I'm ignorant about this. But they are putting their vape, like vapes in the Juul, uh, like e-sig. In like fashion stores and malls, which is crazy to me.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  So, last March, I guess it was, um, I got an invite from Pax and I knew of it from like friends and stuff.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Like I already knew what the product was from my personal life.

• 11:36Nilay Patel?

  Cause I love weed.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I wasn't like, what is this press release? I'm gonna delete it. But it was an invite to a party and they were having it at Odin, which is this like very cool menswear store downtown here in New York. And I was like, whoa, what? Like, that's interesting. And I went to the party and it was like any other fashion party where there was like great bar, lots of good looking people, a DJ. It was like a regular fashion party and they were engraving the vaporizers as well and like it was like, oh, cool. It's just like this new like lifestyle category, whatever. And then they started, like started getting like more press releases from them, like now we're in this store. Now we're in this store and like very strategic, like cool stores, like in cities where they don't compete with each other, like spreading them out. And the more I started to like notice what they were doing, I was like, this is really interesting.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Um, and I wanted to like talk more about them. So I spoke with their, um, CMO about like what the plan was and like why they why they were looking to fashion, why the fashion customers so good for them. This whole like world of expanding lifestyle products and how the two feed each other really nicely. Um, and it was, it was cool and people liked it.

• 12:38Nilay Patel?

  So is that an example of fashion and technology working together? By the way, if you don't know Pax is, they make two things. They make the Juul, which is like a rectangular e-sig.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Looks like a, uh, looks like a USB drive.

• 12:48Nilay Patel?

  Which I will, I'm just gonna dox you right now.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:50Nilay Patel?

  Which I sit next to Dieter, uh, you know, here at work.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:53Nilay Patel?

  And also every other day.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  We're just here all day waiting for the podcast every day.

• 12:57Nilay Patel?

  And every now and again, uh, I just will notice Dieter's just puffing away.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  By the way, I can get arrested for what just happened.

• 13:06Nilay Patel?

  No, you can't.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:07Nilay Patel?

  I'll protect you.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 13:09Nilay Patel?

  That's why I sit next to you, to protect you from the vape police. And then the the packs that I think, which is their main product is basically like the iMac of weed vapes.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:22Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:23Nilay Patel?

  It's like cylindrical and aluminum.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  The thing is that they're really.

• 13:26Nilay Patel?

  My friends call it a weed computer.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:28Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I'm gonna tell the story. We were, we were away, we were on a trip and like literally we, all the people would be like, on the trip, be like, yo, let me hit that computer because everyone calls it a weed computer. It's not a good story. I just like the fact that all my friends were like, let me hit that computer.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  So the thing is that it's, yeah, it's beautiful. It looks really great. Like it, if you put it next to your iPhone, the two look like they are related. Like, and that's part of the sell is that it's really good looking. Um, and it's a space where like a lot of the product like isn't good looking and like, these things have this like totally like gross reputation, a little black stick with a blue thing. And like, if you're walking down the street and you see someone with an E sig, it's like the worst thing to see. It's like, it's like a Google Glass person. Like you can't even see that anymore. But they're like.

• 14:13Nilay Patel?

  Totally accurate.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Equivalently bad things to see. You're just like, oh.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  So like, are, is the fashion, like they're, they're putting it in these stores. They're like, they're trying to get into the fashion world. Are they actually being accepted? Or is like, oh yeah, well, we'll take your money and let you like pretend that you're with us, but really you're not with us.

• 14:30Nilay Patel?

  It's crazy that you can walk into a suburban mall and go into like one of those like rustic wooden, what, what's the name of the store? It has like the rustic wooden tables.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  What's that? What's that, Chris?

• 14:40Speaker 03

  Anthropology?

• 14:42Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  That's really good though.

• 14:44Nilay Patel?

  That would be awesome.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  That was really good. You walk into a mall and you go to the store with the rustic wooden table. Is it anthropology? Yes.

• 14:52Nilay Patel?

  Basically. But like, it's, it's, we're smoking weed.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  It's like kind of amazing.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Well, the thing is like, they can't, like, they can't say, you, you can put herbal matter in it. Like, that's how they can sell it in non-legalized states. You can put whatever the fuck herbal matter.

• 15:06Nilay Patel?

  But whose mom in 2015 is dumb enough to be like.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Tobacco in it?

• 15:09Nilay Patel?

  You can.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  You could at least.

• 15:10Nilay Patel?

  And when you go to the parties, like I've been to one of their parties and they're like, oh, it's for tobacco. I'm like, really? And then I can open it and like smelled like weed. And I was like. What kind of wacky tobacco are you? It was like one of those moments like, anyway.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Do you really say wacky tobacco?

• 15:24Nilay Patel?

  I didn't. I just looked at them with disappointment in my eyes.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:27Nilay Patel?

  Cause they had lied to me again.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:28Nilay Patel?

  And I wish they would get better grades.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:30Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, are they doing it right? Like, that's the sort of thing where it's like, you couldn't just sell bongs in anthropology, right? But you can, this thing looks high tech. It democratizes this like subculture and now everybody can just like use it.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And it's been out for like three years and I definitely know like of my friends who have them like, it's definitely like, they treat it with like a little like sense of pride, like they're very like, happy to like have it and like, it's very like, there's definitely that sense of like, they're excited to like pull it out and like use it and show it off. You know what I mean? Like it's gained that amount of like, it's like your iPhone, like it's like, this, I have the cool sexy version of this product and it is this thing and I'm here with it. And cause you can use it like in public easily, like it's, I don't know.

• 16:14Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Cause it's small.

• 16:15Nilay Patel?

  And because it gets you stoned as hell.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Nilay Patel?

  Like that's why they like it.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  And that, yeah, but like, it's not like the boxy ones that are like big and

• 16:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  weird and have like a tube coming out of them.

• 16:28Nilay Patel?

  How many vapes have disappointed you, Nick?

• 16:32Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna make you start reviewing vapes on the verge, like really hardcore, crazy ones. Um, I think I might've told the story on the show before, but when we went to interview Bill Gates in February.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  He was totally just stoned out of his mind.

• 16:43Nilay Patel?

  He was like, check out my weed computer. That's what I've been working on. So we're coming back and it's legal there, right? So, uh, the video crew that I was with was like, we gotta go to one of these like super high end stores. We just have to check it out. So we go, it's basically an Apple store.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wait, which one did you go?

• 16:59Nilay Patel?

  I don't remember.

• 17:01Nilay Patel?

  Like I don't smoke weed. So to me this is.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  She went with her friend, so.

• 17:05Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. My, it's, it belongs to my friends. It's not mine, I swear. Um, but anyway, so we go and it's like basically an Apple store, like same vibe, same like, very clean design, you know, like dim lighting, that's sort of like this mood, that's what they wanted. But none of the products in the store were designed the same way. It was like, here's an elephant bong, like here's a giant glass pipe that looks like a pirate. Like it was all this wrong stuff.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:31Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, this is like, these are the products where they're catching up to an aesthetic. They're bringing it out of a subculture and into this like modern tech aesthetic.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:40Nilay Patel?

  But I don't know if that's fashionable or just not as shitty.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Well, it's a little bit of both, right? Because I think the appeal of Pax is not just that it's in fashionable stores. It's that you can not have to go into a head shop.

• 17:56Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  It's romance novels versus porn, right? Like, it's this thing that there's, it's de-stigmatized to the point that it can exist in a grocery store and nobody blinks an eye. And you also don't have to be embarrassed when you go in to buy it. I think that's why Pax is blown up is, there's no shame in buying a Pax. Well, I think buying an elephant that you blow like smoke out of its ass.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I'm grateful because you just really put it perfectly. That's what it is. It's putting it in a different context. It's selling it next to like Common Project sneakers and like APC jeans as opposed to next to like, I don't even know, whatever is in like a gross head shop with like a weird dude.

• 18:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you definitely wouldn't. You've never been in one.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  I also think your iPhone comparison was really apt because from things I've heard from fricks, it works better than anything else. So not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but it's also one of the best options. And when you can have that.

• 18:52Nilay Patel?

  Also, it's really expensive. Yeah, it's like 300 bucks, right?

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, but when it can be both pleasing to the eye and be very well-designed and be better than most products, I think that's like why Pax has just dominated because it hits that perfect sweet spot.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's also the kind of product like a phone where you just buy one of them. You don't need like a coterie of vapes. Like, you just want one good one.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  And yet, I know people who have a coterie of vapes, just like Dieter has like 12 different phones on himself.

• 19:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 19:18Nilay Patel?

  And Dieter has like four different e-cigarettes. Before, actually before Dieter got the Juul, he was like constantly tweaking and tinkering.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and swapping them out.

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  Instead of like model railroads, Dieter was building vapes.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Well, no, if you're, it's like the traditional tobacco vape thing, you go down like one of three paths. There's like, the people that want to like just vape for four days straight, they carry on these giant batteries with like weird things attached to them, they blow these giant plume clouds. And then there's like the disposable horrible-looking e-cigs. On those two ends of the spectrum, like they, you just look like a nerd or you're aggressive or weird or whatever. And then in the middle, there's like.

• 19:58Nilay Patel?

  You can't look aggressive with the blue.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:00Nilay Patel?

  How do you look aggressive? Like, I.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  But the big ones are aggressive. They look like brass knuckles.

• 20:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but in the middle, I wanted to find one in the middle, which was like.

• 20:09Nilay Patel?

  Ignorable and also didn't and also didn't require me to think about it, but didn't look as dorky as the blues, but would still last. And I there I would go through a bunch of them and then like the but Pax's version is really good. The only problem with it is it's also really expensive because you have like they use a little pod system instead of just like buying your own juice or whatever. There's you can like hack that. There's like going to be printer ink refills and staples for. I mean, I definitely have taken it apart. Of course. But so here's here's the hard question.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  What's the hard question?

• 20:43Nilay Patel?

  Here's a hard question.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Let's get it.

• 20:45Nilay Patel?

  It's that it feels like and this is the fashion tech thing that I'm constantly thinking about.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:49Nilay Patel?

  It feels like

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 20:51Nilay Patel?

  That is a piece of technology that got that didn't exist before. It's new. And now it is iterated to the point where like it's being accepted into fashion circles because it finally looks and works well enough for the mainstream to get it.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:08Nilay Patel?

  It's not yet fashionable. But it's not fashionable, right?

• 21:12Speaker 03

  Uh, actually, no, no, no. Flip that. Flip that. I think the reason it's accepted into those circles is because it's not yet technology.

• 21:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Because it's not identified as like nerd ass shit. It's something that can live in that store because it's a smoking device. It's not. It's not tech. Like, just like people don't think they play video games when they play on their smartphone. I think people who own a Pax who don't worry about tech most of the time probably wouldn't call themselves tech nerds who buy like brand new tech products. They probably think they just have a thing that helps them smoke.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And that's

• 21:44Nilay Patel?

  But so, so, okay, so that's the fact like I agree. That's but that's that it's a better stated version of my foundation for the actual question, which is things like smart watches and smart shirts and like all this other stuff is trying to add tech to existing things. Right? And this thing that you're saying is both sides of the conversation don't actually know what the capabilities of the other side are. The PAX isn't solve that problem because it's just new, right? The capability is you don't look like a huge stoner when you smoke weed.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  It solves the problem of how am I going to smoke weed, uh, things?

• 22:18Nilay Patel?

  How am I gonna smoke herbal matter?

• 22:20Speaker 01

  How am I gonna smoke herbal matter? Oh, here's in a device that does it, and I like that it looks.

• 22:24Nilay Patel?

  Right, but so but can like a smart watch ever get to that point?

• 22:27Speaker 02

  He just keeps pointing it.

• 22:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, because that one is just particularly.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  You have, I mean.

• 22:30Nilay Patel?

  I always say it's the nicest one.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Doing for you.

• 22:33Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  And then it can be designed well. And there are some like that. We did a periscope the other day where they like showed me five of them. And I was like, this was not like, there's some that aren't bad looking.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Which one did you like?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Um, it's circular.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Did it have a leather strap?

• 22:48Nilay Patel?

  I think she liked the Huawei watch.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  The Moto.

• 22:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Was it, did it have a, never mind, we're not gonna.

• 22:52Nilay Patel?

  It was either the Moto or the Huawei. I watched this periscope.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:55Nilay Patel?

  It was really weird to watch this periscope because it was happening in real life, like four feet away from me.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  But it was glass wall.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  You liked the Huawei, I thought that thing was hidden, okay, anyway. I call it Gordon Gekko watch.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Well, maybe we're talking about different ones. I hate the rectangular faces. What, what watch is rectangular? It was crazy.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  I used to wear rectangular watches all the time.

• 23:14Nilay Patel?

  This still dead watch.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:17Nilay Patel?

  You know, since the last time on the show, no one else has noticed that this watch is dead.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  How, uh, how many times are we gonna bring up longer film on the show?

• 23:24Nilay Patel?

  Just every day.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  I saw a cool person wearing an Apple watch. Like, he actually looked cool and it looked cool on him. And he was walking by my apartment in Bushwick. And, uh, he was wearing like all black, a kind of health goth, sort of.

• 23:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Um, and he had the all, like you have the black with the black strap.

• 23:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And I was like, wow, this guy looks futuristic and cool. Not like, wow, this guy looks like he bought into a new thing. Which is what most people look like with the Apple.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Do you think Apple has enough money that they just pay people to walk around Bushwick?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  That would be brilliant.

• 23:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, they're gonna sponsor this Met Gala thing. That's what I mean, like Johnny Ive is gonna show up to Met Gala wearing his like $40,000 limited edition rose gold Apple watch. And they're probably gonna like give him to everyone who goes to this party, right?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  Is that gonna work? Like, are they gonna break through finally, or is it just Apple's here?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I feel like it's still, whenever you see like a sponsored, like clearly sponsored Apple watch, it still looks like a person is wearing a sticker that they were paid to wear on their wrist. Like, I'm wearing the thing for the picture. Take the picture. That's what it looks like to me.

• 24:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:31Nilay Patel?

  Um, sorry, I'm just typing. Don't worry about me.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Sweet.

• 24:34Nilay Patel?

  Wait, one more question. I want to ask you about something. I want to ask you about the rose gold iPhone. And I want to ask for this specific reason. Sam Sheffer was quoted in the Wall Street Journal today about his rose gold iPhone.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  What?

• 24:44Nilay Patel?

  It's true. Uh, and he was like, it looks to me like a beautiful piece of jewelry.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 24:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  But it's pink.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  He stole Johnny Ive's quote.

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  No, man. Anyhow, so give me, just give me like 30 seconds of rose gold iPhone, free, free association.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  It's a salmon blush pink color.

• 25:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  I don't get a lot of gold tone from it. I don't like the regular gold and white iPhone anyway.

• 25:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  It seems like R and B in a way that I don't like. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like a white car in Miami.

• 25:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Um, and like aviator shades, like radiant aviator shades. Um.

• 25:22Nilay Patel?

  Doesn't, uh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's the life I would, if I, if I could live one life, it would be a white convertible Miami with a red interior and radiant aviator shades.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm with you, but.

• 25:35Nilay Patel?

  I'm dismissively with you.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  It's baby pink. Baby pink is like kind of having this moment though. And I think that if you want to look up Glossier, I'm sure your readers don't know what that is, but it's a makeup brand that started by, um.

• 25:46Nilay Patel?

  Their, uh, their listeners. Just putting that out there.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Glossier?

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  I know that they're not readers.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, the audience. I'm sorry. It's just.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  Sorry.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Um, wow. No, but okay. So if we really want to unpack baby pink, because we could.

• 26:05Nilay Patel?

  Get there.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Baby pink is really having a moment, more so I think than rose gold is. Rose gold ship, not that it's sailed, but like it's been sailing.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  It's not like the freshest thing.

• 26:13Nilay Patel?

  It's on the ocean.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  But baby pink is kind of like. It's what?

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Rose gold.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Cause so many dudes are buying it.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  But baby pink is a.

• 26:25Nilay Patel?

  We have Nicole on the show just so she can dismiss us.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  I know, you keep distracting me from my baby pink.

• 26:32Nilay Patel?

  Finish the baby pink thought.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Um, okay, so I think baby pink has kind of been like infiltrating a lot of visual language, especially in like fashion and beauty lately, which sounds obviously like girls in pink. Trust me, it's different. And if you want to look at Glossier, um, they are like a prime example. They even have a hashtag Glossier pink because their pink on their branding is so consistent throughout and it's such a like particular hue, um, that it's become one of those things that like people who are familiar with the brand, which is lot and lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of girls, cool girls who spend money on the internet on beauty. Um, just saying, kind of a valuable audience, but they will completely recognize

• 27:17Speaker 01

  and know what that is.

• 27:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Immediately.

• 27:21Nilay Patel?

  Why do you, so why do you think?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  And I think that this, I think that the rose gold shade is very, very, very similar to this baby pink color that's kind of spent like the last year or so, like being very popular in the fashion space.

• 27:34Nilay Patel?

  Got it. I just think that it looks like the pink salmon, the salmony pink shirts that like bros wear.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 27:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And they're like, oh yeah, that these are, this is a color that I'd wear. You know, like it, it just, there's nothing about it that like, it's just that pink. It's frat boy pink to me.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know how and why they called it rose gold.

• 27:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm just gonna let that thought trail off. Look, Johnny, I've even, you've served. All right, let's move on to that.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Softlayer.

• 28:03Nilay Patel?

  Oh my God, we're doing this already?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Delivers a cloud built to perform.

• 28:06Nilay Patel?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Your business applications and computational workloads are unique, so you deserve cloud resources that meet your specific needs. Softlayer is one of the only cloud providers that provisions dedicated servers and virtual servers from a single seamless platform. It's all on demand. It all uses the same API. It's all connected to a global private network, so you can scale your workloads up or down quickly and have ample storage space for your storage intensive tasks. So it turns out Softlayer is an IBM company. In fact, IBM itself uses Softlayer as its cloud infrastructure foundation for all of its cloud products and services. So even if you're not looking for infrastructure, you can still benefit from Softlayer infrastructure when you use a platform or software service created in the IBM cloud.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  So you're listening to this and you're like, yo, I need some cloud. You can get $500 of cloud infrastructure by visiting softlayer.com/podcast. You can order bare metal servers, virtual servers, storage, networking, and security services from your choice of data center. They have 24 of them around the world and all of those servers and services are connected to Softlayer's unique network of networks, which separates private, public, and management traffic, all of which ensures that traffic to and from your cloud infrastructure travels more efficiently. You can automate your and control your cloud infrastructure with a granular API and an easy to use customer portal. So yeah, you should visit softlayer.com/podcast to get started with your $500 off servers,

• 29:40Speaker 02

  storage, network, and security on a cloud built to perform from Softlayer.

• 29:46Nilay Patel?

  Well done.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 29:48Nilay Patel?

  Should I tell my two-factor authentication story?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  One time I used cloud architecture as an opener on Tinder. Cause the guy had some, yeah. And then he wrote back like, haha, what guy didn't write you back or something like that?

• 30:01Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what inspired you to write the words cloud?

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Cause he had something about it in his, in his bio. So I was like, what's up?

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so you matched with a guy who had the words cloud architecture in his bio?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  As like part of, yeah, like stuff about him and what he does.

• 30:15Nilay Patel?

  Who puts that on Tinder?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Who uses this as an opener?

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  I was like, this is gonna be great. I can sort of talk about this. And he was just like, shut it down. He was like, fuck you. I know that you are being ignored by someone. Like it was awful. And then I was like, no, I got tech roots. I was like, you know, the verge and he didn't.

• 30:33Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's screw that guy. Yeah, you can't Tinder man. You should just change your entire Tinder profile to like, do you read the verge?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  It is one of my like, it is one of my interests on Facebook.

• 30:44Nilay Patel?

  There you go. That's, everyone looks at those.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And, uh, but no, on Tinder, it match, if you have common interests.

• 30:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And it's like, it's like a fairly common, common interests of mine with.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  The Verge?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  The young men.

• 30:56Nilay Patel?

  Do they know that you're on the show?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I, it's never come up.

• 31:00Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'm saying. If you're in the New York City area, start swiping.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  My gosh, no.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  My threshold's 27 to 33.

• 31:07Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 31:10Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's, uh, transition right from Nicholas Tinder into Star Wars.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Just a heavy, heavy X-Men.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  All right, Chris, walk us through what is going. Actually, there's a couple of things, there's a couple of reasons, Chris, on the show. Uh, one, I just want to talk about Metal Gear for the next five hours.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, we're done talking about Metal Gear.

• 31:33Nilay Patel?

  I finally.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  I don't care about Metal Gear.

• 31:35Nilay Patel?

  I finally.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Never played Metal Gear. We're done talking about Metal Gear.

• 31:39Nilay Patel?

  Damn it.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  It's so bad.

• 31:42Nilay Patel?

  It's so good.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 31:43Nilay Patel?

  Chris, Chris, you're with me. The game, the entire plot and story of the game is total garbage, but the run around and do stuff is amazing.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, everything about it is total garbage, except for like this, the invisible stuff that is happening underneath all the visuals and storytelling.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  And you, you, you literally have to strip away all the artifice and what's underneath is like brilliant design.

• 32:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  So brilliant that like, there's been like all of the kind of social progress of games reviews over the last two years. And it was like, everyone like got together and like, hey, you know what? That was like really fun, but like, let's not mention it in any of our criticisms. This is good, this game chins.

• 32:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  And yeah, that, that's what happened. It's a great game. Sullied by absolutely awful storytelling and views of race and gender.

• 32:37Nilay Patel?

  I just played a, uh, episode of this game in which, shit, you're not, the objective was to run around punching children. Didn't know what I was doing. I was like, why is this so much fun? As I body slammed another child.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  A mission actually begins by like, it says all the characters as if it's a TV show and it's like, starring Snake, guest starring Child Soldier.

• 32:59Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Like even get top villain.

• 33:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, like it was incredible. And like the plot, like they yell at you, they're like, do you remember not to kill the children? Just body slam them.

• 33:11Nilay Patel?

  It's so strange.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Are they, are they like trying to kill you?

• 33:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, so they're like child soldiers.

• 33:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, they're, they're at, they are, you are in, do they even say which country you're in Africa?

• 33:26Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  I think they get away with a vague like.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Pretend.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  No, you're Afghanistan.

• 33:29Nilay Patel?

  No, it kind of shows you on a map, like parts of Africa, but it doesn't identify a country. Also, um, every, all of those start with like starring snake, guest starring, blah, blah, blah. And then it says featured Mecca, because you know, Metal Gear is like a mech. Like the whole, that engine of the game is like, it's all about developing nuclear weapons that can walk around. It's a mech thing, but sometimes there isn't a featured Mecca. So they just list things like helicopters and trucks. And it's like, it's a really liberal definition. It's fucking helicopter, man. Anyhow, I don't want to talk about Metal Gear that much, except that I really do. But there's so many games coming out this fall, so I wanted Chris to talk about that with us. But let's start, let's, let's rewind, let's talk about Star Wars for a minute.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  It's everywhere. I cannot get away from Star Wars this week.

• 34:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  So the Battlefront game.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  It, uh, to pull back the curtain on theverge.com, people cannot get enough of this. I write like one thing about Star Wars and then I get like a hundred emails being like, that was great. But you know what? What if you wrote more? And it's like, nobody's done this. Nobody ever like asks me to write more about something. They're usually like, please shut up and go to hell. Um, yeah, it's, it's really bizarre. So should I just explain what the game is for people, for the five people who I guess don't know? Star Wars Battlefront, uh, is I guess a reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront series, which is itself an expansion of the Battlefront series, which if you think about like what a modern,

• 34:58Speaker 03

  uh, first person shooter is, you, you look down at the sights of your gun and you shoot people in the face and it's probably pretty violent and very, very, uh, fast paced and strategic to the point of, uh, not being very accessible if you have not been playing for the last five years. Battlefront is like the opposite of that. It's kind of like, I mean, it's very big. There are big, open worlds that you can kind of fight in. Uh, but it's a thing that I feel like anybody can pick up and play. You don't have to worry about learning how to do what's called iron sight aiming, which is what you do in Call of Duty. Uh, you kind of just point and then you shoot and then things die. Um, and then if, when you die, which will happen a lot, you respawn immediately.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  So it's, it's kind of perfect that it's paired with Star Wars, which itself is, I think, a very, I, I, I guess welcoming brand. And everyone's force fed it when they're a young age. So they have some connection to it, at least amongst a certain type of nerd. Um, and, and yeah, it, it, they work really well together. And I was really skeptical of it. I played it at E3 and it was without question the worst demo I played at E3.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Um, but that just goes to show how important things like tuning are in shooters. Like the, the difference between, you know, a reload happening a half second too fast or too slow, or just being able to aim at somebody in the right way can make or break these things.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Okay, so we let, we let Neil I talk about Metal Gear. You gotta let me talk about Splatoon. What, what, what's more accessible and fun? Battlefront or Splatoon?

• 36:29Speaker 03

  Splatoon is the most accessible shooter that I, maybe ever. I, I, I, it's, it's designed, they made a shooter that like a child can play. A very young child.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  I mean, uh, what's more fun? Long-term, probably, probably Battlefront. I mean, we, we don't know. I haven't played the full game. Splatoon was very wonderfully designed. It's a Nintendo third-person shooter. Uh, there just wasn't a lot there. Like it was very, uh, minimal amount of content and they've been adding more, but.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  It's like, don't talk about it in the past tense.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but Battlefront, it, it just feels bigger and it feels like there are going to be more modes. I wouldn't say there are necessarily more levels because that's kind of a problem it looks like for release.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Uh, they also expect you to spend $50 more on all the post-game content. Uh, but, but yeah, I, I, I am, it went from being something that I was incredibly skeptical of to after playing the beta, something I, that I think is going to be. Just, it's gonna demolish the holiday season. I think it is going to be the big game.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Okay, so there's a ton of other games coming out for the holiday season. And what I want you to do for me right now is, the PlayStation 4 is down to 350 bucks.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Convince me that I need to buy one.

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  This is the easiest job in history.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  No, but like, what game am I buying it for?

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Honestly, you don't. I would not convince you to buy it.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Whoa, what about Uncharted?

• 37:56Speaker 03

  No, why would you buy a system to play an HD version of something you've already played?

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Cause I've never played it. I've never played it.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Uncharted, you'll, here, here's what you should do. If you, if you're looking at buying a video game system this holiday.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  If you don't have anything, sure, get the PS4, especially if you are a person who is into shooters and you're going to play Destiny. If you're a big shooter person, it is the option in terms of it getting the DLC before everything else. I also personally tend to enjoy the system more.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  But this holiday ain't got anything. They have Uncharted and Microsoft, they're, Microsoft-

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Microsoft has Tomb Raider, what's up?

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Well, they keep saying it's like, it's the best holiday ever.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  And it's like, yeah, I guess if you really like Microsoft games, like they have Forza and Halo and a new Tomb Raider and-

• 38:55Nilay Patel?

  Lots of people like those games.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  All coming at the same time. Yeah, I, I, I'm excited to try the new Halo. I, whatever, I, I, I'm into that new stuff. Give me, give me things that entertain me that I haven't seen before.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Nicola, what's the last video game you played?

• 39:12Speaker 02

  iPhone counts.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Definitely counts.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Tinder does not count.

• 39:19Nilay Patel?

  Tinder's a video game.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  I loved the Sims.

• 39:24Nilay Patel?

  Like, old school Sims.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Well, SimCity early on, but then Sims 2, many extension playbacks purchased for various Christmases. But I played it kinda too, like, I played it, like, until I was like 19, like, a lot. And then I lived in New York and I didn't really know anyone here and I was like playing it at night and I was like, no, I have to go live my fucking life. I can't play The Sims like anymore.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  I think we all had that moment.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  In my dorm room like at night being like, I'm 19 in New York City with a pillow on my lap and The Sims on top of that. And like, I just have got to change something here. And look at me now.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:03Nilay Patel?

  Operation.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Um, Chris, what's the game to get this, this, there's like you and I have been talking, like there's so many games coming out. What's the?

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, the reality is almost everything is out now. I was looking through the thing. I was like, oh man, we have so much left. But the reality is the tennis stuff's already out. Destiny's out. Uh, let's see, the Rock Band, Guitar Hero are almost out.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I played that here.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  The new Rock Band?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Guitar Hero.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. They're all.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  They're all the same. They're all, just say it. They're all the same.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  They came here with Polygon.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  There's no difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  They're the same game.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:43Nilay Patel?

  They're the same game.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:44Nilay Patel?

  The drums are better in Rock Band.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Uh, no, it's the same game.

• 40:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, the old Rock Band drums I had were definitely better than Guitar Hero drums.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:52Nilay Patel?

  Cause you know, Guitar Hero was like, what are these drums? We don't know what we're doing. We're a guitar game in the Rock, you know? That's how I always imagined it going down. Like a bunch of like plastic guitar designers being like, oh, we gotta make these. What are drums, man? This game's about guitars. You don't think they were super idealistic in Guitar Hero Factory?

• 41:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Wait, did I ever tell you about?

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Holiday season. We didn't, we didn't answer the question.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  No, did I tell you about the other Rocksmith or something? The moment that I saw the game that first introduced drums?

• 41:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  So I was, uh, this is probably in far ago, but whatever. Those people, I don't think they have any money anymore.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  So there is this company that was like trying to compete with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, right? And they were gonna, they're gonna win the race to getting drums, but they knew like drums take up a lot of space and a lot of people play these games in apartments. So we go into this meeting and there's like a big wall and you can see a guy's head just kind of peeking over it. And it's like, oh, man, there are drums behind that. They're gonna announce those drums. It's gonna be a game changing moment. And Phil Collins, uh, what is it? I can feel it calling in the edge of night comes on. And he gets you that drum solo and

• 42:02Speaker 03

  and the board falls over and there are no drums. There is just like a thing on the ground and it's using like, I don't know. The Sega Activator method of like IR blasters to tell when you're swinging. And it's just a man hitting the air with drums rocking out. And it was the saddest moment. And there was a deep inhale where everyone gasped how sad it was. And then everyone in the room at the same time uncontrollably laughed at him.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  The saddest moment. Ever. Um, anyway, what should you get this season? I have, I have three things.

• 42:42Nilay Patel?

  That's too many.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  No, I'm gonna give you.

• 42:47Nilay Patel?

  We can do one casual kind of throwaway thing.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  I'm gonna give you an indie game and a big game.

• 42:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Because I'm gonna assume that like people already know what Fallout is.

• 42:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Nicola, what's Fallout?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Fallout Boy. That's what I was gonna call it.

• 42:59Nilay Patel?

  That's true. And Fallout Boy, we're releasing their first video game this season.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  They should, why not?

• 43:03Nilay Patel?

  That'd be fun. It'd be just them like buying bars in Chicago and letting them fail. Sorry, that's a piece of my personal story.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  I heard the Fallout Boy stock was going down, down.

• 43:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh. We gotta just end the show. No, Pete Wentz, but they had Angel and Kings. I think they have one here.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And he had, the Angel and King Chicago was particularly good, bizarrely. Uh, and then it just, he just let it spiral into doom.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 43:31Nilay Patel?

  It was one, I had a birthday party there once. And I thought to myself, what if Pete Wentz came to my birthday party? No, they had a really good like front area. Like it was like one of those like long, narrow bars, but at the very front, there was like this big circle couch and like a room.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  How old did you turn? Do you remember?

• 43:47Nilay Patel?

  Uh, 26. I don't know. One of those, one of those numbers, 26, 27, something like that.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I'm coming up on one of those.

• 43:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Enjoy this. The last, I'm much more than 35. I'm dying. I'm like falling apart. Every day, every day for me right now is a new midlife crisis.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Why, how old are you, Dina?

• 44:05Speaker 02

  I'm like 52.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  That's the fun thing about not to gender it, but talking to men is you could just be like, "How old are you?" Because you're really not supposed to have women that.

• 44:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Sometimes you're just like...

• 44:18Nilay Patel?

  I like to ask every lady I meet, how old they are.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  How old are you?

• 44:22Nilay Patel?

  Right from the jump.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  And what is your threshold?

• 44:28Speaker 01

  That's actually really important.

• 44:29Nilay Patel?

  And then it's weird, is I take out my phone and I make a note of it. It's so creepy. It's like, that could be the creepiest thing that you could do, men or women, the first time you meet somebody, ask how old they are and then write it down.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Tanya, comma, eighteen.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Take a picture and like, write the number in their face.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  This is gonna be a great start.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Stylish, with a stylish.

• 44:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's so... Oh, I think we all know what we're doing.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Speak India watch.

• 44:55Nilay Patel?

  Take a picture with your like Samsung watch.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  And you ask it to like, put a...

• 45:03Nilay Patel?

  Okay, girl, take a note.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  This is great. Every time we're on the Vergecast, after forty-five minutes, we all just explode in laughter. Which I hear doesn't always happen, but maybe, I don't know.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  No, it does. It's just we tell really creepy stories to each other.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 45:23Nilay Patel?

  About behaviors that no one should have.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  We gotta get the games. We can't leave the readers hanging, the audience.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, I know my game of Fall. How old are you? Snapchat game.

• 45:36Nilay Patel?

  Chris, any game in Big Game?

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Uh, any game is called Mushroom Eleven, and it's not my favorite name.

• 45:43Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  You know?

• 45:44Nilay Patel?

  Not The Witness?

• 45:46Speaker 03

  But it's made by a New York designer, and you are a green blob, and you, uh, like an iguana, you grow your tail back. You like chop it in half, and wherever the biggest portion that is left is, it expands back to its like, normal size. So you make your way across this kind of post-apocalyptic environment by cutting yourself in half over and over and over again, and regrowing. It's kinda hard to describe, but I, it's like, the most fun game. Did you ever play World of Goo?

• 46:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Millions of people played this game. It's, it's like the new World of Goo. It's, I think on iPhone, it could be like... The first huge, like, good iPhone game that isn't like a puzzle game or a card game in a long ass time. Uh, unfortunately, I think it's only on Steam for the holiday.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Boo.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Uh, and the big, big budget game that people maybe don't know about is Just Cause 3, which has a potential to be super racist and insensitive, but we'll see. Um, but what, what video game doesn't these days? Um, and it is you, you're like a dude who is throwing like, I, I guess stopping a government coup on some tropical island. Uh, but the bigger joy of it is you can pretty much do anything and you are wildly overpowered. So you can attach yourself with a grappling hook to a helicopter, fling up into the helicopter, throw the person out of it.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  It's like aim the helicopter at a building, jump out, cra- like the helicopter brings down parts of the building. You fly down, land on top of a car, hijack the car and then drive off a cliff and then parachute or like wing dive out of it. Like, it's very much the idea of, uh, I guess GoPro sports inside of a Grand Theft Auto type of game. And I think it's had two other versions before this. I think this is the one where it kind of breaks away and gets kind of the credit alongside Grand Theft Auto that it's due. It's like if you took everything fun about Grand Theft Auto and for the most part stripped away all the story. Unfortunately, whatever story I have seen of it, uh, has me a little worried.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Uh, there are a lot of kind of funny accents and stuff that I, I'm hoping they actually casted locals and didn't do the thing where you like hire somebody who just happens to be available in Manhattan. Uh, but yeah, I, I think that'll be a very popular surprise game and that comes out in December. Yeah.

• 48:16Nilay Patel?

  This is your moment.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Building a website can be tough. Even if you do know your way around coding.

• 48:23Nilay Patel?

  Is it Squarespace? I bet it's Squarespace.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Creating something that looks good and that actually works well is a time consuming affair.

• 48:29Nilay Patel?

  Can you spoil the ads?

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Whether it's for a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else, in this day and age, you probably need one.

• 48:36Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Well, lucky for us.

• 48:39Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. Zero perspiration websites, not even a bead. Squarespace provides simple, powerful, and beautiful websites that

• 48:53Nilay Patel?

  Diners Off book.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Look professionally designed regardless of skill level, no coding required. Not only does Squarespace provide you with intuitive and easy to use tools to create your website with, it also has state of the art technology powering your site to ensure security and stability.

• 49:07Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  And you know you can trust

• 49:10Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  For your website needs when millions of people and some of the most respected, respected brands in the world, brands that would never screw up the word respected, use it too.

• 49:20Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Seriously, you can't beat the ease and simplicity of

• 49:25Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Because because gives you 24/7 online support and a beautiful website for only eight bucks a month. You can even get a free domain if you buy for the year. So what are you waiting for? Start a free trial with no credit card required and start building your website today. And when you sign up for

• 49:45Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Make sure you use the offer code.

• 49:48Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 49:51Nilay Patel?

  Has any brand ever used their own name as their own offer code?

• 49:54Speaker 02

  That would be the best.

• 49:55Nilay Patel?

  It's Verge, right?

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Offer code Verge, you get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for.

• 50:00Nilay Patel?

  Shit, well, I don't know. What's where is it Squarespace for the Vergecast? Support everything.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  We would like to thank

• 50:07Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  For their support of

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Squarespace, build it beautiful.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Sorry, what, what, what site was that?

• 50:20Nilay Patel?

  Don't look at me that way. Like, I think we should all creepily whisper Squarespace. That should be the whole ad read, just 30 seconds of us doing Squarespace.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:30Nilay Patel?

  We have a Halloween episode upcoming. We should do spooky ads for the Halloween episode.

• 50:36Nilay Patel?

  We should make that noise.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Look out behind you!

• 50:39Speaker 02

  We got, we got, we could keep talking about video games, or Apple Watches, or we could talk about IMAX, or we could talk about Android Marshmallow.

• 50:45Nilay Patel?

  We should talk about both the IMAC and the Android, so.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 50:49Nilay Patel?

  And the Android. You know, it runs the Google.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Actually, it does.

• 50:52Nilay Patel?

  Nikola, tell us about-

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Actually, that's a, it runs the Google. That's my whole angle.

• 50:56Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's good. Oh, yeah, that's your angle. Finally, John Chen understands something.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 50:59Nilay Patel?

  Nikola, tell us about the IMAC.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Out of, I don't know. What happened?

• 51:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, they updated the IMAC.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  There's a big one, which is 27 inches, and it has a wider color gamut, shows more colors.

• 51:12Nilay Patel?

  I think I'm gonna finally buy that one. My IMAC and I'm gonna start. And then the little one's cheaper, and has a really high res screen.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Has a 4K screen.

• 51:18Nilay Patel?

  1500 bucks?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, but at 1500 bucks, you should not buy the 21.5 for the, at the 1500 bucks, because it comes with a, I think it's a 5400 spinning platter hard drive.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  Ooh, watch.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:30Nilay Patel?

  Brutal.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  You do not want that at all. You, like, do whatever you have to spend to get up to whatever the base Fusion drive is.

• 51:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Which, you know what a Fusion drive is? Do you care? Are you interested?

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Tell me. Why not?

• 51:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, learn something.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  So you know how your, your computer's faster because it has a SSD, a solid-state drive? It doesn't have a hard drive that, like, spins around and makes noise?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, there's no more noises.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:48Nilay Patel?

  So. You can-

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I can't tell who's patronizing who in this conversation. You can take a hard drive and make it half spinny, noisy, and half, like, solid, and it, then you get both.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  For why?

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Uh, so that you get the speed of the SSD.

• 52:05Nilay Patel?

  No, the-

• 52:06Speaker 02

  The speed of the-

• 52:06Speaker 01

  The speed of the non-spin.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  The non-spin.

• 52:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  And you get the storage and the cheapness of the spinny.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  So you get more storage for less money.

• 52:13Nilay Patel?

  But seriously, historians for years were gonna be trying to figure out who's trolling who in this conversation.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  This whole, the three of us, though, is really like all different kinds of.

• 52:23Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, Chris.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know where you're from. No, no, no, because we're all, we're all passive aggressive Midwesterners with our own like specific version of that. And I don't know where you're from, Chris. Maybe you're probably not from the Midwest.

• 52:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  I mean, you're nice, though. Maybe you are. I don't know.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  He's from a city that has a really bad baseball team, is my understanding.

• 52:43Nilay Patel?

  Wait, actually, this is.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Gonna win. It's a year of the Royals. Alex Rios is still awful. Don't tell him that. Oh, no, I'm not gonna.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  But that's why the like, who is trolling who works so well, because it's just like Minnesota versus Wisconsin, just like.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Are you Scotty?

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 53:02Nilay Patel?

  Nicholas' parents know my parents, I think.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  My, Nilay's grandma, no, Nilay's mom was my grandma's doctor.

• 53:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like old crazy shit. If you want a job at Vox Media, make sure my parents care for your parents.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  For something.

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  That's it. That's the nepotism I practice.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  My grandma watched the Apple Watch video.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  And she saw your name. And she was like, I used to have a doctor with that name, like as if you don't have the most common last name. And then we pieced it all together.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 53:33Nilay Patel?

  Sorry. Sorry, Minnesota. Anyhow.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Better.

• 53:37Nilay Patel?

  So, 27, I'm finally gonna buy. But the real story is they redesigned, I'm trying, I'm trying, by the way, my mom is calling me right now.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 53:45Nilay Patel?

  That's what's happening.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Is she watching live?

• 53:46Nilay Patel?

  No, I hope not.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:48Nilay Patel?

  Mom, the whole part about weed, nothing to do with me.

• 53:52Nilay Patel?

  Somebody else. Someone else smoked the computer.

• 53:58Nilay Patel?

  My mom is calling me to get help with her screen. Um, actually.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  So the, the.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  Can I, wait, can I tell, can I tell a parents and technology story?

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:07Nilay Patel?

  It's, I'll be real quick. So it happened here. So, you know, there's nothing more embarrassing than like when your parents call you and you have to walk them through like clicking like.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  I can think of many more embarrassing things.

• 54:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, but there's like few phone things that are more embarrassing because you, you know, you kind of get mildly irritated, but you don't want to yell at your parents for, you know what I mean? You know, this tone, this.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  I just had this.

• 54:24Nilay Patel?

  This parent computer tone that you have, which is like, ah, there's actually really funny.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  That's why the Apple Genius bar exists.

• 54:31Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, there's a really, yes, but not for this.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:34Nilay Patel?

  So there's actually a super funny Amy Schumer's question about it. But anyhow, so, and he calls me. And he is trying to upload, he wrote a letter of recommendation for like, one like, someone to go to med school.

• 54:47Nilay Patel?

  And he's like, I can't upload this file. And I was like, what format is it in? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, read the box. It tells me the letters. And he's like, it accepts TXT and DOC and blah, blah. And I was like, oh, I know it's happening.

• 55:01Nilay Patel?

  You use, there's a super old version of Word for Mac on your computer, and I bet it doesn't accept that version of Word for Mac. So like, we walk through this whole lengthy click on this thing, make this happen, what's happening? I don't know what I'm doing. Am I holding the mouse upside down? Parent computer conversation. We export the thing as a PDF, upload the thing. It's done. I'm like, great. I gotta go back to work. My dad's like, wait, where did it go?

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  It was just like, I don't, I literally did not know how to answer this question. Like, it's such a conceptually.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  The cloud.

• 55:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like, I don't, let's start at the start. There is the internet. There is a collection of server. It was just like this moment. Anyhow. Macintoshes. What's important about them is the keyboard.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  Keyboard.

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  And mouse.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Well, there's the keyboard, the mouse, and the trackpad. So here's what's new. The keep, the, they're all wireless and they all don't use AA batteries anymore. They're rechargeable and they recharge with a lightning cable, same thing your iPhone does. The other thing to know about them is they're fricking expensive. The trackpad's 130 bucks. And the keyboard is 100 bucks. And I don't know what the mouse is.

• 56:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  But they're great.

• 56:10Nilay Patel?

  But the mouse is like, not really changed.

• 56:13Speaker 02

  It's got like new plastic on the bottom, so it glides across the table, just more silkily.

• 56:20Nilay Patel?

  And they took out, they took out the double A batteries, right?

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it has double A batteries. And you can't use the mouse when it's plugged in because the lightning cable goes like smack in the bottom of it. And so you can't actually use it. But the keyboard is really shallow. I like it. I hate, even the keyboard in the MacBook Air now, I hate it. It's way too like mushy. I got so used to the new MacBook where like the key travel was.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the other one's a review unit. I was only doing it for El Capitan. Back to this guy.

• 56:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but you're so in love with it.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  I still am, but there's no way to plug it into anything. So. Anyway, I bought the keyboard and the trackpad. I spent the $250 for, to replace the thing that I already have and didn't need to buy. Yeah. Fashion. My old keyboard. Fashion. Fashion, yeah. Well. Exactly right. Desk fashion.

• 57:06Nilay Patel?

  I just don't know about forced touch on an external trackpad. It seems like a strange concept to me.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Eh, whatever. I don't use any of the forced touch features.

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't either. I don't use it on my phone. Haven't used.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Really?

• 57:17Nilay Patel?

  Forced, I haven't 3D touched this phone in god knows how long.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  I haven't even tried that yet.

• 57:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Do you have the success?

• 57:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 57:24Nilay Patel?

  She just bought a six, remember she was on the.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  That's right, yeah. You can't, you can't do the 3D touch then.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  I know, I know, but like I haven't had like someone else's in my hand to try it yet.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, try it.

• 57:34Nilay Patel?

  After the show.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  How often do you use 3D touch? Be honest.

• 57:38Nilay Patel?

  Never, that's what I'm saying, never.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  What is it supposed to do?

• 57:41Speaker 02

  If you see a link. If you see something linked and you're like, oh, I want to know what that is, but I don't want to switch apps. You can push on it really like kind of harder and then you'll see a little preview pop up. So you'll see a preview of a map or a preview of the webpage or other stuff. The other thing that it's used for is on the home screen, you can push really hard on an icon and it'll give you shortcuts into different parts of the app. So on Instagram, you can like push on it really hard and jump straight to selfie.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Or on, I don't know, what else can you do?

• 58:10Nilay Patel?

  Um, no.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Safari, you can jump to a bookmark on the phone, you can like, or the messaging app, you can jump to messaging somebody directly. Instead of having to like open the app, find the person, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  That sounds nice.

• 58:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  But no.

• 58:22Nilay Patel?

  No, it's just like.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  There's just no, there's no good reason.

• 58:25Nilay Patel?

  You gotta do more with it, you know, like the app developed, like I use it most, it's funny. I use it most in Safari because mobile Safari has this irritating propensity to not do anything when you try to click on a link. So you can squeeze the link and be like, and then it like pops open. That's it.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Do you want to know the biggest change to this phone? This is going to be my review.

• 58:46Nilay Patel?

  Do you have one?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  We can, we can transcribe this and put this on the site. I don't mind. Uh, Chris Fanta, Apple review. When it rings and it's quiet, it feels like it's electrocuting you. Cause the new buzzer is like that little zap feeling. Have you, have you felt this? If you put it in your pocket and it feels, I, I kind of like it, but it definitely feels like it's electrocuting you. It feels like a little taser.

• 59:10Nilay Patel?

  I, I, I, I can just actually feel it now, which is good.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  It's super weird. I think y'all are crazy. If you, you, you think it just feels like normal buzzy?

• 59:23Nilay Patel?

  No, it definitely feels better. I think it feels

• 59:24Speaker 03

  It feels unsettling. It feels alien. Somebody snuck something in my

• 59:28Nilay Patel?

  I don't think you have enough to do in Texas.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  I have so much to do. I'm gonna talk about the Harmony Elite Remote.

• 59:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that piece of garbage. I just bought

• 59:38Speaker 03

  You're crazy.

• 59:39Nilay Patel?

  The new one?

• 59:41Nilay Patel?

  I spent 350 bucks on this thing.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  I'm thinking about buying one. You don't like it?

• 59:44Speaker 03

  No, I bought it and it is fantastic. Go get it. It is so good.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Is this for

• 59:48Speaker 02

  No, it's not. I'm waiting to find out what, how it'll work with the new Apple TV before I buy it.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Here, here's the awesome thing.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  We're talking about universal

• 59:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you're deep in a gadget hole with us now.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  No, I know, but we've been over this before when I've been here and we've been talking about TV and if TV can be better and easier to use. So what is this?

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  We're just talking about the remote control now.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  I know, but like, why would you buy a remote that didn't come with your TV?

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Oh, so many, so you, it can control everything. It has

• 1:00:10Nilay Patel?

  Totally trolled you again.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  A little thing.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  No, but I'm really curious.

• 1:00:14Nilay Patel?

  Can you just troll people into like mansplaining?

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  That can be my column, mansplain to me.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:00:21Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:22Nilay Patel?

  No, I don't think that's

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  No, my column's called You're Doing It Wrong.

• 1:00:25Nilay Patel?

  That's a good one. And it just pictures of fashionable tech items. It's just, it's just pictures of Swarovski Samsung phones.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Take the crystals off. That's all.

• 1:00:40Nilay Patel?

  No, actually, I bet you her was gonna explain.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  No, I'm not going to, because I can't tell if I was being trolled, but I'm sure I was.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  I'm asking, I'm really genuinely curious.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  It's too late.

• 1:00:49Nilay Patel?

  Now you'll never know.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  No, you can just control all of your crap instead of just the one thing. So you don't have to have 50 remotes. You just have the one.

• 1:00:56Nilay Patel?

  And this one can control your smart light bulbs too.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  And your net.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  And because Chris Plant, both, Chris Ziegler has an apartment in New York that he's illegally rewired to be smart. Fact.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Sounds cool.

• 1:01:09Nilay Patel?

  Uh, he actually, I remember when he was

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  He can't sell his old condo in Chicago because he illegally rewired it.

• 1:01:15Nilay Patel?

  He's like, I can't let another person live here. And then Chris Plant just bought a home in Austin and is now turning into the ultimate Texas homeowner and is constantly making it smarter with gadgets.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh. When, so at night, my, my wife hates a remote controls. And we've had other Logitech controllers and they're awful. And I hate them too, but like, I feel bad because they usually just don't work. And then she has to like dig out for other remote controls. And she's like, why did you do this to me? I don't want any of your stupid crap. I just want a TV and like a normal remote, which is understandable. But now, like, this one, you hit a button at, there's like daytime TV and nighttime TV. And if it's daytime TV, it changes the light colors to normal and doesn't dim them.

• 1:01:58Nilay Patel?

  I thought it was like a 3% channel.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  And it sets the, it sets the nest to 79 degrees because that's daytime temperature. And then at nighttime, it dims everything, sets them blue, changes the nest to 75 because that's nighttime temperature. And it sets it to the channel that we always start on, which is food channel, because you know that diner's driving some dimes is going to start on 9930. And that is, it's so stupid, but it's so wonderful that like everything, all these stupid little things I do as force of habit every night. Like, reset the damn lights and like change the temperature.

• 1:02:31Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you were resetting the color temperature of your lights as a force of habit?

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  I do, because, because, so I am...

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Changing the color temperature of your lights.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  I don't, no, I don't like, I don't like reflections on the TV. And if we change the color temperature of the lights, it doesn't reflect, but she likes to have the lights on. So it's like, compromise. That's what relationships are about.

• 1:02:51Nilay Patel?

  So here's what I'm going to say to you. All of the things, the functionality that you're describing is great, right? And like macros are cool. The product, the product is garbage.

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  You're crazy. It feels so good.

• 1:03:03Nilay Patel?

  That hub is so slow. You're just mad because it has an IR repeater in it. It has, I installed IR blasters in my fucking home. Do you know what a breakdown that is for me? I unplug them.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  Why did you, why did you do that? I didn't even have to plug any of my IR blasters in. It just worked through the wifi.

• 1:03:18Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, man. Whatever. I'm done. That hub is dumb. That, that's all I'm saying. And the iPhone app is garbage.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  You should get it and be happy that there's finally a remote that actually works.

• 1:03:27Nilay Patel?

  It should be a Harmony 1. I have no reason to replace it.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm switching it back to my, anyway.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Ew.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Other than the interface for controlling it is horrible.

• 1:03:35Nilay Patel?

  There should be a law that prevents Logitech from writing software.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Silverlight.

• 1:03:39Nilay Patel?

  What are the?

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  You have to use Silverlight to update the Harmony 1.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  No, no, it's great. You, you download an app on your phone and you do that all in your phone.

• 1:03:46Nilay Patel?

  There's a web app for the one.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  It's not really.

• 1:03:48Nilay Patel?

  No, it's not the Silverlight thing anymore. So then can each, it's a proper HSL app. It's still a mess.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  No, you're crazy. It's so easy.

• 1:03:57Nilay Patel?

  All right. We should end this show. Chris, you're on.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Well, we can all agree that theverge.com gave it an eight out of something.

• 1:04:05Nilay Patel?

  Look, Ziegler's a Harmony fanboy and that's just where he lives. He's biased.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Says the man with a broken Apple Watch.

• 1:04:13Nilay Patel?

  Whatever. It's not broken. I just choose not to charge it as a statement about the futility of our modern technological lives.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  If you'd like to learn more about the futility of our modern technological lives, you should follow us on various social channels. We are Verge on Twitter. On Snapchat, we're TheRealVerge. And you know what? Subscribe to our channel on YouTube. It's youtube.com/theverge, I believe. Just search for The Verge on YouTube and you'll find it. And you can also go and rate us on iTunes at itunes.com/theverge. That is the rating system that matters because Apple is a dominant unstoppable force in podcasting.

• 1:04:49Nilay Patel?

  Find an algorithm and game it in our favor. Just any one you want.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:04:52Nilay Patel?

  Push like on Facebook, retweet on the, the tweets.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:04:57Nilay Patel?

  I forgot what Twitter was called.

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  The Tweets.

• 1:05:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, retweet the tweets, star the iTunes. What are some other algorithms you can game in our favor?

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know.

• 1:05:08Nilay Patel?

  Just follow us on Snapchat. That's good.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  There you go. We want to thank Braintree for sponsoring today's episode of The Vergecast. They give you a full stack payment solution, support for all sorts of payment types that your customers might want. It'll work with Android Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, cards, and whatever's coming next with a single integration. Works across all platforms and you can check it out for yourself at braintreepayments.com/vergecast.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  More Twitter handles. I am Backlon, Neelai is Reckless, Christopher Thomas Plant is at Plant with an E. Nicola is Nicola Fumo?

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Underscore.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Nicola underscore Fumo. And we are all at Verge.

• 1:05:44Nilay Patel?

  And you can just use hashtag #OperationFigurehead.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Nilay Patel?

  It will. And all tweets directed at Nicola for the next week.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:05:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that'd be good.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:05:52Nilay Patel?

  Rock and roll.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Great. Bye.