Heartbeat Trolling Everyone All the Time

We're going hard tech with Nilay Patel, Chris Ziegler, and special British guest Tom Warren. We've got Microsoft, Apple, VR, Hyperloop, and dispatches from the North American International Auto Show. And, of course, Sam Sheffer is on hand to check the hype at various points along the way. It's beef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:05Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Let's just get this out of the way. I am exhausted. Past the point of rational thought. Uh, I'm doing the thing when I'm really tired where my voice is gravelly. And when Sam heard it in his headphones, he just looked up and said, oh, whiskey and Eli. But it's not because I had fun yesterday. It's because I, I literally took a 24 hour trip to Seattle, which involves riding on planes. Like non-stop planes.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Like, well, since Seattle.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. What was in Seattle, Eli?

• 0:37Speaker 03

  Oh, that's, that's a huge diss to the people of Seattle.

• 0:40Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Good stuff there.

• 0:41Nilay Patel?

  I will say this, here's what, a number of things happened to me in Seattle.

• 0:46Nilay Patel?

  And you won't hear about any of the important ones until later. But here's, here's a few things that happened to me in Seattle. I still have a Wisconsin ID. This is true because I-

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Isn't that illegal?

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  No, I don't know.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Sounds like it should be illegal.

• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  I do. So I've had it forever.

• 1:05Nilay Patel?

  Because every time I move, I'm like, I should get, and then I move again. But like four years into living somewhere, I'm like, I should, I live here now, and then I move again.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  So your photo is from when you were like 21?

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And I look like, I mean, I just look bad. I definitely look like I was hungover and went to the DMV. So I saw this ID. So everywhere I went in Seattle, like checking into the hotel or like, going to the legal weed dispensary with our video team, which is basically an apple store for weed. I just, I don't smoke weed. I'm really, I'm terrible at it. But we just want to like, check it out because it's legal there. And I was like, this is seriously, anyway, so you gift ID. And everywhere I went in Seattle, they're like, oh, Packers fan, huh? And then they were super rude to me because they're, it's because the Packers play Seahawks. And they were like mad. It was like, that, so that's one thing that happened.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  But you are a Packers fan. That's not incorrect.

• 1:53Nilay Patel?

  And then I was rude to them back. But I had numbers. I was like, come to Wisconsin and say that. But then I have to go there. So anyway, so that happened. And then the other thing was that we went to this apple store for weed. We literally just wanted to see it because like it's such a new thing.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  He looks straight into Sam's eyes.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  He looks straight to the team for the weed.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  No, so it was, this is like, it was a strange place. It was like, I don't know, you know, like hip restaurants are like always finishing like refinish wood and like, here's like an old lamp made of iron, right? And like, oh my God, these hinges are exposed. This, they must serve great food here, right? Like, that's an aesthetic of restaurants now. You know, you know what I'm talking about? So this was like an entire store in that aesthetic, but then like the, the merchandise of weed consumption is nowhere near that aesthetic. So all of the stuff was like, and then crazy seventies bongs. And it's like, these things don't match at all. Like, you built like this hip, clean, an Apple store, and then there's like, here's a bong shaped like an octopus.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Oh, that's what that was from.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  And it was just like, literally like you built a store for a product line that does not yet exist. It was just like a total aesthetic mismatch.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  So was the weed all overpriced like an Apple store?

• 3:10Nilay Patel?

  Yes, absolutely. And it was all, all, all marketing driven.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Staying true to the.

• 3:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, super. And every time you pick something up, a Johnny I video played.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  This is the finest, the finest stream.

• 3:23Nilay Patel?

  I've just, it was just like, we, we had so many hours to kill on the, yesterday before our red eye fight back that we were like, what should we do? And our first idea was like, we'd go to Pike Place Market, but that was really far away from where we were. So we're like, what's the next thing that we can do that's like?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Legal weed.

• 3:37Nilay Patel?

  We were like, we literally like yelped it. It was like such a weird experience.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Like the yelp weed?

• 3:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And like the guy, like, so we walk in, we're like all journalists, right? Like, and we're not going to buy anything. So we just like start talking to the people who work there.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  And they're all stoned, presumably.

• 3:51Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, but the guy's like, you know what's really great about this is I can finally just say what I do.

• 3:57Nilay Patel?

  He was like, because I used to run a head shop and I'd be like, yeah, this is a glass bowl for tobacco. But now I'm not lying anymore. I feel really good about things. It was, it was just a super weird experience. Anyway, so I'm very tired because of all the flying. Um, but this is the Vergecast. So in terms of cold opens, we've accomplished that goal, I think for the week. Uh, I'm Eli Patel.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  I'm Chris Higler.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  And I'm Tom Warren.

• 4:21Nilay Patel?

  Oh snap, Tom Warren.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  From the UK.

• 4:24Nilay Patel?

  The UK. Uh.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Cunton.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Couldn't have guessed that.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  No, I don't give it away in my, my appearance.

• 4:30Nilay Patel?

  My man in the hype desk.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 4:32Nilay Patel?

  God.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  I'm Sam Sheffer. Welcome to the Vergecast.

• 4:35Nilay Patel?

  It's corporate Sam is back.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Hey, um, I haven't seen Say Anything, so next week we'll talk about it.

• 4:40Nilay Patel?

  We are. Can we have one entire show?

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Just about say, it's, it's that intensive a movie like that will change my life?

• 4:47Nilay Patel?

  The lights are mad at you.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  The studio is coming apart right now.

• 4:50Nilay Patel?

  I think there's just an incredible number of eighties movies that if you just watch them, you will completely understand a lot of people in your life.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  He will become 10 years older instantly.

• 4:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it'll be very.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't really want that though.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Maybe I do.

• 5:03Nilay Patel?

  I prefer to be confused about these weird old people that float around me. Um, anyway, so Tom, you're, you came to CS with us.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  I did.

• 5:10Nilay Patel?

  Um, and you're staying over in New York for the week.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  I'm here for like three weeks in total.

• 5:14Nilay Patel?

  And then you're, cause you're flying, cause there's a Windows event.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  When is the Windows event?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Uh, Windows 10 on January the 21st. I'll just. Um, yeah. So they're doing the consumer version of Windows 10, which essentially is going to be tablets.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Cause the last event was really sort of business focused, right?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  It was enterprise and desktop. And I guess they're going to talk a little bit about the bit of desktop, but there's not going to be.

• 5:38Nilay Patel?

  Well, they did that already. Right. So they announced Windows 10. I can't tell if this is the continuation of a strategy that Microsoft thinks is working. Or if it's like Microsoft and they're just like reconfiguring as they go. Like what's your sense of it?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I think they're just trying to like maximize the amount of, you know, press that they can get out of this stuff. Cause obviously the Windows 10, the initial event was keeping it small and it kind of surprised us with the name. So it obviously got quite a lot of attention out of that. Um, and it was the desktop stuff. And now it's like, here's our tablet and phone stuff. So I think if anything that they need to do next week is prove that they're, you know, still in mobile. That it's still, that they could still, cause Windows RT wasn't, you know, particularly is a flop. We can, we can pretty much say that.

• 6:22Nilay Patel?

  Um, and Windows, Windows. Somewhere Steven Sinofsky's crying.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. He should be crying.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Burn.

• 6:31Nilay Patel?

  He's about to write 10,000 words on learning by shipping about about how mean.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna get a giant blog post.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  He just saved a tweet of mine, so I'm kind of up on Steven right now. I'm feeling good about him.

• 6:40Nilay Patel?

  That's all it takes. It's a one tweet fave.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  The way that Chris is hard is a fave.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  So they need to prove that they can do a combined phone and tablet operations and that people will care about.

• 6:52Nilay Patel?

  Right. And but that operating system, so Windows 10, they announced the name.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:56Nilay Patel?

  And they went super hard. This first event was super strange.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was. I mean, it was a really small, like, low key.

• 7:04Nilay Patel?

  Right. And they wouldn't let us even take two people. We wanted to live log and they would only let us send home. And that was like, basically, they're like, one person per outlet. We want to, basically, we want to announce the name and then show off a bunch of insane power user features.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  Like, they showed off a new terminal and they should, like, keyboard shortcuts.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I think that was all about, like, we care about you guys that we kind of screwed over with our crazy start menu that took up the whole screen. Like, we do care about those features. I think it's more about, like, yeah, we do care about the desktop guys that they were trying to say at this time. I think this time will be a bit of a different feel. I think it's gonna be similar to to the X Sports One event that they did.

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  They got the glitzy two-hour keynote and then the afternoons, kind of like, private sessions or like, not so public, at least. Where they sort of dig into all the features and stuff, so.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Are they going to release a developer preview or anything at the event?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it sounds like it's gonna be, like, the last time they did the event, it was the day after. I wouldn't be surprised if they do this sort of similar thing this time, but depends on the on the timing and if they're ready. But I think it's gonna be very, very soon after.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Will there be a one more thing?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Surface Pro 4?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  No, they're not ready for that stuff. So they're not doing a phone flagship or Surface stuff until it all sort of lines up.

• 8:21Nilay Patel?

  But so so that that first event was really small and then we criticized them. Like you do. And we said, why was your event, you announced Windows 10, but you didn't announce anything. Our friend Joanna wrote a piece that was like, don't buy a laptop until Windows comes out. And then Frank Shaw from Microsoft got like, super. Mad like tweet like Twitter rage at Joanna. Because he was like, why? Everything's great right now. But I think this is the moment when they show off the rest of Windows 10.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, to make it.

• 8:49Nilay Patel?

  In a piece like that, like just wait to buy a laptop until Windows 10 comes reloaded is gonna make a lot of sense.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  I think it's also they've got to show like they've been talking about free screens and a cloud for like, I can't even, I can't even remember.

• 9:00Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's an original bomber.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a bomber thing, but this is like kind of their moment to explain like this strategy that they've always been moving towards. So the universal apps across all apps and it kind of comes into the whole thing of there's not too many like we call them metro apps or whatever you want to call them these days, Windows 8 apps. And there's a lot of Windows phone ones were not quite as good as the competition. It all comes into like that, that thing where they're struggling with the apps on these new platforms and stuff. And so I think they have to kind of explain a little bit of that. I guess that they're going to reserve most of it for build, which is their developer conference.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  So is the philosophy that if you convince developers to make desktop apps that just happen to also be phone compatible, then boom, suddenly Windows phone becomes relevant?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, well, that was like the sort of concept and the thinking behind Windows 8 and why they shoved it down everyone's throats in terms of that start screen at the beginning.

• 9:53Nilay Patel?

  We'll make it really bad. So when we fix it, you'll like it.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  It is a strategy.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  The idea was like to, to make sure that people use these apps, right? And that they were like in front of them every day. And the idea behind keeping it kind of similar with the tiles and stuff is like they would boost their mobile platform by having familiarity. And it, you know, it hasn't worked, so. So I think they need to kind of explain that with the app stuff. So I mean, we know that they're still working on Android apps on Windows. They are definitely building that. They're testing it out. It's a business decision.

• 10:28Nilay Patel?

  Right. And they built a bunch of iOS services now and.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they, they do all that sort of stuff as well. But I mean, I've talked about Android apps running on Windows though.

• 10:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Nilay Patel?

  It's still happening?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Well, they're still building it and testing it. So I think that's their plan B, right? So, but they're not going to talk about that next week. They're not going to talk about that build. They want, you know, here's our app strategy. Here's our, finally, we've got to this point where you can get an app on Xbox One and on Windows and on the phone. And then I guess if we're in the same situation a year or two.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Then they pull the trigger.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And they pull the trigger.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Like, like Nokia X.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I just think this event next week, they have to show, it's not just showing apps running. It's like, they literally have promised that they will have one operating system running from phones all the way up to the TV. And what's funny about that is no one else has ever pulled that off. That's a big promise that no one else can do.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:20Nilay Patel?

  Particularly a unit like, right, Apple has riffs of iOS that run on everywhere except laptops and desktops. But like, they're like, kind of different riffs of it on all of their screen sizes. And when you get to the Apple TV, it's like a totally different platform. Right? It's still iOS, but whatever. And when they go down to the watch, it's like, a kind of a different, it's iOS.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:39Nilay Patel?

  Microsoft is like, it's just the same thing, everywhere. And like, they have to explain what that means. And I still haven't heard that story.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and I mean, they've kept it really secret. So internally, like, so basically, essentially what they're doing is they're combining Windows RT, which powers the Surface RT and the Surface 2 device, not the Surface Pro 3. And they're combining Windows RT and Windows Phone together into a single sort of operating system that will span across these, these sort of tablet and phone devices. So I guess what I really want to see from that is something that's competitive with iOS, something that like, where they forget about their Windows legacy.

• 12:16Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  They forget about the desktop, you know, and even, maybe even don't call it Windows, like.

• 12:22Nilay Patel?

  No, no, no.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  They won't do that, like.

• 12:25Nilay Patel?

  Now you're speaking my language that makes the people who speak Windows mad at me.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  It was always completely different, so it's like, it was never Windows, you couldn't.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, Satya isn't, isn't beholden to Windows the way Steve was, right? He's kind of of the mind that the service, the service and the software is the important thing, not the platform.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  So.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  But then the way that Microsoft always works on telemetry, customer feedback and all these.

• 12:50Nilay Patel?

  And that's why they announced it so early, right? So they could go out in the world, they could see people are using it. But the thing, like. They've gotta show Windows 10. Like, I think if they show Windows 10 and it's, you've got the new Dell XPS 13 here, which I think is a beautiful laptop.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is nice. Probably the best Windows laptop I've seen for.

• 13:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, it's really nice. How's the trackpad?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  It's really nice. It's glass trackpad and it's the new precision trackpad.

• 13:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  So the drive, I don't mean there's actual, like, the way they figure out the driver stuff, it's really low level into Windows, so you don't get the lag associated with some touchpad drivers and stuff.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Everyone should go private. That's the move. Go private and then you make some awesome hardware.

• 13:28Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Well, you don't have to build tons of crappy laptops, right? You don't have investors to answer to.

• 13:34Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I will say that the number of ideas here that are copped from the air are pretty, pretty high. But it's beautiful.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know. It's pretty well differentiated from the air. I mean, it's an ultrabook profile, right?

• 13:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. But at this point, like, everything looks like an air, almost.

• 13:51Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, it's like, trust me, like, Tom's right. If you're gonna buy a Windows laptop, like, you should definitely look at this one.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we're gonna review it and then see what it's like.

• 13:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, we.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  It looks real nice.

• 14:00Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so it's this, this is fine. Like, if they, Windows 10 is this and it makes this piece of hardware better because it's a better Windows.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:08Nilay Patel?

  I think that's just like table stakes. That's what Microsoft has to do to just to stay in the game.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:13Nilay Patel?

  Uh, in terms of like selling Windows machines, right?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, to keep Windows relevant and moving forward and.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  But the, the big move is like, this is the same operating system on the phone.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:24Nilay Patel?

  And this is the same operating system on the Xbox.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  And they have to do it. They've been promising that Xbox thing for a year. Maybe more now.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, they have, yeah.

• 14:32Nilay Patel?

  And there's, I think there's only, I've only ever seen one app on the Xbox.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a feeling that they're not gonna talk too much about Xbox. I mean, I don't know, like, the app strategy they have there just seems really curated and they seem to like that strategy.

• 14:47Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  And that was kind of the strategy that was put in place before Don Matrick left. Um, and that was always his sort of big thing. So I think they kind of like that. I don't know whether, I mean, they obviously opened it up on the game site and they've seen like some pretty good games, but I don't know what they're gonna do with the app stuff.

• 15:00Nilay Patel?

  Well, it, but you.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  I feel like the, the, like, so Phil Spencer, the Xbox and the gaming chief essentially, might say he's gonna be there, but I feel like he's gonna talk about PC gaming. I think it's gonna be more of a, a surprise for PC gaming stuff than, than it would be perhaps for.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  And they still have, presumably have stuff to say at GDC and.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they got it for you, right?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  So, yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And there's the rumored headset, the VR headset.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  You know, there's plenty of Xbox stuff coming, but I feel like this could be more like, I would like them to see that you could play a game on your phone or your tablet or your Windows PC against someone who's got an Xbox, for example.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Like, they've been promising that stuff for years.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Since their Windows Mobile days, they've been promising that, yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  They have all these crazy demos of, hey, this game's coming, and it never came, and, you know.

• 15:44Nilay Patel?

  Right, and I'm just saying, that's the, that's the, like, they opened up the games thing, but like, they did that on Xbox 360 in a way, right?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:50Nilay Patel?

  Like, the, the core thing for them was they sold you the Kinect with the bundle, and that was gonna be the new interface.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  For computing on your television.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:00Nilay Patel?

  And then they were like, screw it. And like, that, I think that's the, that's the moment, right? Like, that's the move for them to like, if they wanna take that next step, that's where you gotta go.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it will be interesting to see what they actually talk about the Xbox stuff.

• 16:14Nilay Patel?

  Right, if they're talking about it all.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz the TV stuff is still, obviously there, they're still improving it, but they've pulled out the Kinect and stuff, and it does kind of, that takes away the IR blasting, which is their key feature, even though, you know, you're a hater.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Whatever happened to?

• 16:28Nilay Patel?

  Now they're just trolling me.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 16:31Nilay Patel?

  Like, seriously, Boyd Multer and Jeff Henshaw, who still works at Microsoft, like, literally during CES, like, they went out to dinner and they like, took a selfie and they're like, tweeted at me, and like, we're talking about IR blasters. And I was like, you guys are straight up just trolling me right now, that's cool.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Whatever happened to Xbox TV? That was a thing at some point, right?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  What, in terms of, like, a device?

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, they've stepped back on that, so.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if that, whatever, I think that's gone now.

• 16:59Nilay Patel?

  Right, so for Windows 10, though, I mean, like, maybe they'll do Xbox, maybe they won't, maybe they'll talk about phones and tablets, maybe they won't, but they were gonna spend a lot of time talking about PCs. And there was like, there was an IDC survey a couple days ago saying the PC market's coming back a little bit.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's gone, I mean, it depends, IDC said it's gone down by 2.7%. Gartner said it's gone up by 1.

• 17:18Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  So basically, they count devices differently, so it's hard to like, one says 83 million, the other one says 8 million. So it's hard to like, sort of, find the middle ground there, but it just seems like it's literally sort of stabilized. In the fourth quarter and I think this year could be the year when it starts to to come back a little bit. I think because it's also against the point where the tablet market is pretty saturated.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  People aren't refreshing their devices because they're good enough.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, there wasn't. There wasn't a ton of excitement around the air to launch, right? Yeah. And so it's all kind of coming around the same.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Where do consumers then spend their money?

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Is it gonna be smart watch?

• 17:51Nilay Patel?

  I got an air two for Christmas.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Are you into it?

• 17:54Nilay Patel?

  It's like it. It's just like literally laminating that screen. That's it. That's the thing that they did.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:00Nilay Patel?

  And it like makes a difference and then.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  Otherwise.

• 18:04Nilay Patel?

  There's nothing else to say about it.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:06Nilay Patel?

  The only and the only reason I got is because I cracked the screen on my air and now my air is possessed. Like it's something like I've cracked many screens and many devices and I've never had. Like something happen where the digitizer shorts itself. So my air just starts like clicking on shit and like scrolling crazy and I'm holding like there's a ghost. And so I was like, okay, I get the new one. And then I got the new one. It's like, oh, look like only difference is I'm eating that screen.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Here's what you do.

• 18:32Nilay Patel?

  It's faster, obviously.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  Here's what you do with the old one. Read Thomas Ricker's article about duet, then use it as a.

• 18:38Nilay Patel?

  As your second screen. But I can't because it's crazy.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  But it doesn't. I think that it doesn't respond to touches when it's in duet mode.

• 18:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really?

• 18:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:45Nilay Patel?

  But but like, it's crazy. Like it will do like five finger gestures and like zoom all the way out to the launcher and then like launch a new app and like quit. Like it's nuts. I've never seen a touchscreen break that badly.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 18:57Nilay Patel?

  Uh, so I'm looking, I'm in the market for a like a like a shady electronics vendor in New York City.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Or a shaman who can.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Perform an exorcism on your iPad.

• 19:09Nilay Patel?

  Cause there are many like shady. What's the one where like they send guys to you and they're like, they'll like fix it right there. There's it looks like a VC backed startup.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Does it sound like anything related to my pets?

• 19:21Nilay Patel?

  The guys in a little red truck.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:22Nilay Patel?

  They show up and just holding a cracked possessed iPad. This isn't, this isn't what we do.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Wrong kind of windshield.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  There's definitely like a VC backed startup where you like call people and they show up at your house.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Well, that's true for literally anything, especially in New York.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  Fair. Uh, but these guys like I I try, I forget what it's called, but I tried it and they won't like they just won't respond to iPad requests.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 19:46Nilay Patel?

  Like they make it. They make a great living on iPhones, apparently.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:49Nilay Patel?

  When you're like iPad and like the notes are like starting to get desperate, like please.

• 19:55Nilay Patel?

  Like, please, I don't want to go to the Apple Store. Please don't make me go there.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's probably 200 bucks to get it fixed at the Apple Store.

• 20:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but I know that there are like shady places in New York.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm sure there are.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Plenty of shady places.

• 20:07Nilay Patel?

  General and like, so what are your big expectations out of Windows 10? That's like the question, right?

• 20:13Speaker 01

  I'm curious to see if they show off like what they could do with the UI stuff. So we've seen a few of the leaks and also we've got to mention Spartan, their browser stuff.

• 20:21Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I'm expecting that. So essentially Spartan is the successor to Internet Explorer. And that's what it's codename at the moment. And it's like a subset of Internet Explorer.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Is it still Triton or whatever the?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Trident, yeah, the engine. So essentially what they're doing is they're, I think they're trying to get rid of the legacy of Internet Explorer, which leads me to think it's not going to be called Internet Explorer.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  And that's kind of like the rumors at the moment. But they're keeping Internet Explorer there in the background if like for enterprise and for legacy purposes. So you won't see it as an end user. It's not really going to like pop up and be like, hey, I'm here. But it'll be there for the people that need it, so. Whereas everyone else can use Spartan. It's going to be lightweight and.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  But see, that gets at the core of Microsoft's challenge for everything that it does with Windows.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Balancing the legacy and the modern.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Both continuously for everybody.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  It's a, yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  That's what happens when you've got so many people using it, right?

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  What they should do is just sell Windows 7 forever.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  No, XP, XP.

• 21:16Nilay Patel?

  No, no, 7 is great. XP, like you could, I don't think you could, right? But you're right. It should just be XP. They should just rebrand it 7. It's like Windows XP 7.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Or Windows Classic, they could call it.

• 21:27Nilay Patel?

  Right. And just let that do its thing. And then like what you're saying, like name it some other thing, but they never will.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  They want, they want people to upgrade. They obviously made a lot of money from, from businesses upgrading their hardware.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  And the licensing and stuff. So, but yeah, the Spartan stuff. I think it's going to be interesting, especially if they just end up calling it Spartan. Because they've obviously adopted Halo in terms of before Cortana, so.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Spartan would be an interesting, because it's also, you know, Spartan, the nature of the word would be a good fit for a browser. You want it to be like, like clean and.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Right, simple.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Simple, yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Tom, is Windows 10 going to boot into Desktop or Metro by default?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  I mean, that's well, at the moment, Windows 8.1 will boot into depending on what device configuration is. Right.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  So like out of the box, you know, for just the end user, you know, mom and pop upgrading in middle America.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  I think that's gonna go desktop on a desktop machine.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  If you're on the east coast, it might boot up differently than in middle America.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Let's be clear.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Different modes.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  But no one knows yet, right? There's no.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  No, but I'd expect it'll probably do what they did on the 8.1 update. I'm sure.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting to see what they call Windows RT and Windows Phone, that that combination, because it's currently codenamed Windows Mobile. And it would be kind of hilarious if they brought that name back.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  But also at the same time, it kind of fits. So it's like.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  I don't know. And then obviously what they call Spartan. So I think there'd be the two things we'll probably get answers to.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Windows Mobile Series 10. You can combine all the worst.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Windows Mobile 10 series.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Yes. I like it.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  And then get rid of the series like in a few months.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 23:11Nilay Patel?

  I just, I don't know, man, I want, I want modern to be a complete thing. And it's not like right now in Windows 8, it is so not a complete thing.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  It's like, we're trying to do too many, like it's trying to do split two things.

• 23:25Nilay Patel?

  It feels slow in the way that like layers on top of Windows always feel slow.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just feels like it's kind of getting you in your way.

• 23:32Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's just a very confusing. I hope they solve that because there's potential there. Also, this laptop is very nice.

• 23:39Nilay Patel?

  So speaking of laptops, you broke some news last week as well about the Mac.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  The Mac.

• 23:44Nilay Patel?

  Rumored Mac.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Did I break news? I don't know. Depends who you ask.

• 23:46Nilay Patel?

  We did some, we did some hard, hard informed speculation. Sam, hype check informed speculation.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 23:55Nilay Patel?

  Hype check Windows 10.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  The event's gonna be cool. I grew up on Windows, so I'm waiting for them to like get their act together.

• 24:02Nilay Patel?

  It's just very clear that our entire team is broken.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Is Sam your Andy Richter? What is the relationship? I'm just trying to understand.

• 24:10Nilay Patel?

  Here, so I was trying to describe The Verge to our CEO the other day.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:15Nilay Patel?

  Which is strange, because you would think, A, I would be able to do that. I would have done it already and that he would know. That's just where we were. It was Vegas, so we were just really confronting our feelings directly. Um, it, it, and what I came up with was fast analysis for teens.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Not what I would have, that's not what I signed up for.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Hot takes for teens.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Hot takes for teens.

• 24:41Nilay Patel?

  Hot takes for teens. Uh, and I, H T T. H D F T.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Hashtag B to B.

• 24:49Nilay Patel?

  It's both the highest quality L C D display.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  S apostrophe H T.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  This screen will allow you to see Snapchat in ways you've never seen before.

• 25:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, um, no, Sam, Sam is the voice of, of the youth. Whereas I, I, I am increasingly becoming the voice of like the grizzled jerk. Right? Like, I'm like, I'm like, ready to buy a midlife crisis car.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:16Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, I have serious dog conversations.

• 25:21Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Sam's, Sam's just like out there texting for drugs.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Dude, everyone does that. I don't do it, but everyone else does.

• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  So you want to bring it all together. That's, you get H T.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Get not much mix.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  S apostrophe H T T.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  We are all very tired after C E S, as you can see.

• 25:42Nilay Patel?

  It's very clear that we have no idea what we're doing.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Yo. We lost the thread somewhere in Vegas.

• 25:48Nilay Patel?

  No, so we actually never talked about this. We talked about it a little bit with Joanna on a C E S podcast.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  The Mac?

• 25:54Nilay Patel?

  The Mac.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Oh, the, the twelve inch.

• 25:55Nilay Patel?

  I think it's actually worth, we've gotten more questions. I think it's worth talking about, particularly in the context of the Windows event. So.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Tell the story.

• 26:01Nilay Patel?

  So during C E S, uh, Mark Gurman leaked, uh, nine to five Mac leaked, uh, basically renders and details of a rumored twelve inch MacBook. MacBook Air, MacBook, I don't know. Uh, it's very small, has no ports except for a single U S B type C connector.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Which is for?

• 26:19Nilay Patel?

  It's the reversible U S B, but not, not even like a charging port, nothing, just that. And I think maybe a headphone.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  It's single use.

• 26:26Nilay Patel?

  Single use.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  You, the better.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  It's disposable.

• 26:29Nilay Patel?

  You buy it out of a vending machine.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  You put some quarters in.

• 26:32Nilay Patel?

  That's how Apple gets you back in the store.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Those Best Buy mobile in the, in the airport. Yeah.

• 26:36Nilay Patel?

  Here's, I have a question. Here's a question I have at Best Buy mobile.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Oh God, where are we going?

• 26:41Nilay Patel?

  No, it's for real. This is for real. Here's the thing I've never understood about those vending machines. They always sell iPods in them, right?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:49Nilay Patel?

  What are you supposed to do with an empty iPod?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Hold it, look cool.

• 26:54Nilay Patel?

  I never understood that.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Fun fact, Lauren Rubano bought headphones from one of those one time.

• 26:58Nilay Patel?

  The headphones makes total sense. Like, I forgot my headphones, like, whatever, like.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Cause you can use it straight away.

• 27:04Nilay Patel?

  I've wanted, yeah, I've always wanted a pair of Beats and this is my moment, but like, like an empty 8GB iPod Touch? What are you doing with that?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  That's such a good question.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Just getting on the plane and staring at it.

• 27:16Nilay Patel?

  Oh man, I wish I had some games. Like, what are you doing?

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Literally, nothing. That's a really good question.

• 27:21Nilay Patel?

  But they also used to sell, like, even, you can make an argument, I'm sure some people will, like, you can connect it to Wi-Fi, maybe get some music. But like, five years ago, they were selling like 160GB empty OG iPods?

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Well, no, they still sell the, the minis or nanos or whatever they are.

• 27:36Nilay Patel?

  But like, what are you, you need a computer to use those?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  It's not a good look.

• 27:40Nilay Patel?

  Like, what are you doing?

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:42Nilay Patel?

  All right. If anybody knows the answer, if somebody at Best Buy could tell me how many of those they sell? And then like, how many confused, like, people are just wandering the airport listening to empty iPods? I want that scoop real bad.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  By the way, I do have to issue a small correction. You're referring to Best Buy Express? Best Buy Mobile?

• 28:01Speaker 01

  I call it the Best Buy Mobile, yes.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  That's something else.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  That is my fault, yes.

• 28:05Nilay Patel?

  Anyway. So, Apple has a presumably new MacBook that they're gonna sell at Best Buy Express. It comes loaded with 100 gigs of music.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  It becomes folded. Just all YouTube albums.

• 28:19Nilay Patel?

  The YouTube albums follow you around. So, anyway, so, um, we were looking at it, it, you know, Mark has a sterling track record. Uh, and then Tom actually looked into the USB IF, the for, the USB Trade Group.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Talk about that for a sec. What is this? It's like a USB alliance, right? There's like a bunch of companies that got together and they're creating a standard of, okay.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  They have, they have an alliance and then they have a promotional group. So, Apple essentially participates in defining the standard, but they don't participate in the promotion. So, they don't wanna be kind of, I guess they don't want the marketing, they don't wanna be known that they're kind of backing that standard, I guess.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  But Apple has.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  They kind of do it.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  A bunch of engineers working on this.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:01Nilay Patel?

  More than almost anybody.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Right. They have more than Microsoft. Microsoft has 16.

• 29:05Nilay Patel?

  And more than Dell.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dell had like five or six.

• 29:07Nilay Patel?

  The first and then.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Intel was the first because they're primarily obviously backing it. But they had more than all the OEMs.

• 29:13Nilay Patel?

  So it's interesting. Like, so Apple has its own proprietary connectors, right? They have Thunderbolt and Lightning, which is hilarious.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  It's great. It's great.

• 29:20Nilay Patel?

  It's a naming scheme. It's hilarious. Lightning, some people hate it. I'm like, fine with it. Whatever. But it's like reversible. It's good. But they have dumped tons of money and effort and resources and people against this Type C connector.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:35Nilay Patel?

  And then we're looking at it a little bit more deeply and like just the profile of this thing to make it work. You can't use like a regular core processor. You have to use the new CoreM, right? Which lets you not have a fan in that profile.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 29:51Nilay Patel?

  And there's no way Apple wants to put a fan in this thing like that. That if I have to say where the informed speculation comes from, it's definitely they don't want a fan in this thing.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Like the iPad.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  It's also, so the processors are essentially the same price, depending on which specification you purchase. But at the moment, they are anyway. Like, we don't know what they're gonna do, Intel are gonna do later on in the year. You'd assume that the pricing could change then. But it's also, one of the key things is removing those ports. So Thunderbolt has licensing fees associated with it. It's also, you know, another.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Intel, presumably, right?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:30Nilay Patel?

  So even Intel even owns the Thunderbolt name now and Apple licensed it back.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  So adding all those, like, Thunderbolt's the main one to add any sort of cost to a machine. But yeah, like, just getting rid of those raw materials and stuff.

• 30:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, no. So anyway, so let me get to where we're going before we talk about price. So Tom and I were looking at this. We looked at the Type C stuff. We can basically confirm that Apple's been working hard on Type C and they have interest in it. Right? Those are public documents.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  There's no doubt that they're gonna use Type C in some particularly in Mac products.

• 31:03Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then we're looking at the the product, right? And what we're the big argument is how much is this thing gonna cost, right? Like, everyone kind of believes it's real, the chatter is there.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And it's got a super high-res display, that's also one thing.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's not like a, like, it's just a UHD. It's the same display as probably this Dell.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  It's better than this 1440 by 900 crap I have here.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  They need, no question, they need to move it to a space. So, um, so it's probably got a UHD display or something like it.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  I'd be surprised if it has a QHD display. But I wouldn't be, because the only thing in Mark's report that, that, that I think, um, a couple of people have pointed out is that there was no mention of Retina.

• 31:41Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Um, which is kind of interesting. Um, because imagine if they just put a standard HD display on it, like 1920 by 1080.

• 31:49Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Um. That'll still be good enough, right? That would still be good enough, but it wouldn't be Retina. Um, which then puts it into an interesting category of laptop of, is it a MacBook Air? Or is it just a MacBook?

• 32:00Nilay Patel?

  Right, so here's my theory. And this, and this is where the argument began, right? So, we looked at all this stuff and we, and we looked at basically what we're hearing. We looked at what we're hearing, we heard what we're hearing. We, our, our brains process this information, we looked at the market. And we came to the conclusion that I think is well supported, that this is not a new, super expensive MacBook Air. This is like a new category of product for Apple, which is like a more inexpensive Mac.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Is it like the iPod touch?

• 32:31Nilay Patel?

  But here's my, so here's my, here's my guess, and this part is a guess. So I, I firmly believe that what this product is supposed to do is all of the people who buy iPads and keyboards, right? Apple's saying like, we can serve you. And iPad growth has flattened out. And we can, we can build you a better product that you plug in at night and it charges up and you unplug it, you get 12 hours of battery life or 15 hours of battery life because of the slow power processor, there's no fan. You open it up, you run it all day.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Do you charge it with the USB?

• 32:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. You just plug it into the wall?

• 33:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Well, so what's interesting about this is that the 12-inch MacBook Pro, or excuse me, iPad Pro speculation has been around for...

• 33:09Nilay Patel?

  Right, I think this is two years.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  You think?

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  It might be converging into one product.

• 33:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, so I think this is like, if you run the Mac business and you see the Mac business is growing and it's like resurgent, and then you see all these people buying like medium iPads, like 64 gave, which is like, I think 699 or whatever, whatever five, whatever the middle one is, and then they're buying $200 keyboards. You're like, I can sell you a better laptop for $700 or $800 right there. And that's the most expensive laptop Apple's ever sold, but a totally new use case. Right? So it's not like a desktop replacement. It's not like this 15 inch monster there.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  So how do you sell that against a 12 inch iPad?

• 33:45Nilay Patel?

  I think you say like, the iPad Pro is for like photographers, probably has a retina display, maybe not this other display.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Like, think about really who's gonna buy a 12 inch iPad? Pilots, people that do wedding photography, you.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, Apple has not solved the problem where the iPad can replace a computer.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:01Nilay Patel?

  They, they just have, that was their.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  It doesn't run.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  It was never designed to do that. I think that was the thing that was like, people like post, post PC.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  That's crap.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  But it was never, like, Apple never said this is gonna replace.

• 34:12Nilay Patel?

  High tech, post PC era.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  But we're not there yet. Like, relax, everyone. Like, you can't, you cannot realistically multitask on an iPad. I'm sorry, you just cannot do it.

• 34:20Nilay Patel?

  Right. So I think if you're looking at the market and you're saying, okay, Apple tried to push iPads really hard in education, and their biggest competitor there is like Chromebooks. Uh, lots and lots of people buy iPads, um, and they kind of like, they kind of like hit the wall when they buy the keyboard and then they want to like do more with it.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:37Nilay Patel?

  And that ecosystem of stuff isn't there. Well, why not craft like, instead of like an iPad with a keyboard and hack it all together, why not do what Apple does, which is build a new integrated solution around the right operating system?

• 34:48Speaker 02

  But they, they can't position $900 MacBook against a $200 Chromebook.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  I think it's gonna be $900. So I've got multiple.

• 34:55Nilay Patel?

  So this is the question. So my guess, and this part I'm telling you is a guess, uh, this, the part where I believe where the product will be positioned, it feels very much less like a, like a, like a guess. My guess on the price is 700, which is a price of a pretty good, uh, iPad and a keyboard.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yep. So, so my ultimate guess over all of this is that this new MacBook is either a MacBook.

• 35:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, not an Air, just called a MacBook.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  MacBook, yeah. I think that will happen. I think it's gonna be the new MacBook Air and the only MacBook Air.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  And that MacBook 13-inch MacBook Airs will cease to exist because you'll just have a MacBook Pro. The two are like converging closer. Like, if you look at Retina, MacBook Pro.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  The 13-inch MacBook Air today is clearly above the market that you're describing.

• 35:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  So you're saying that Apple's going to just abandon that.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  MacBook Air, yeah. Why do you need it? Like, the MacBook Pro.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  I'd take this over 13-inch MacBook Pro.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  You would at the moment, but that's because this is thicker. But look at all these new chipsets that are coming out and the sort of form factors that we're seeing with this sort of.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  You're saying that they'll redesign the 13-inch Retina to be thinner?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that'll be back to your MacBook Pro.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  But I'm saying, like, I don't think you give up the brand equity of MacBook Air. Right. I think you leave that alone. But no, no, but like, you can't give it up. Like, this is the best-selling laptop Apple has ever made, right? Like, this 13-inch Air. Like, I don't think you can screw with this formula too much. I think you can upgrade the components, you can make a high-res screen, you can do all the things people want to do with this form factor. This is your main laptop. Like, people buy this and it's their computer.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:26Nilay Patel?

  Right? I think this new product is people buy it and it's what they use instead of an iPad.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  You think it's gonna be called MacBook? Just straight MacBook?

• 36:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's my guess. Again, that much is totally against.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  When I was in college, everyone got those plastic MacBooks, the white and the black ones, and they were just called MacBooks.

• 36:40Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  And that sort of disappeared.

• 36:43Nilay Patel?

  But I just think this is the product where Apple knows it's selling iPads and keyboard cases to lots of people.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:50Nilay Patel?

  Right? And that's like, but that market is flat. So how do you, like, juice another round of sales and increase your already accelerating MacBook sales? Well, you make a new MacBook that replaces that category.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  But people buy an iPad not necessarily because they want to do work or whatever. They do. They buy it because it's simple and easy to use. Like, OSX is kind of the opposite of that. For most people, like, they would take iOS over OSX, right?

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Well, they'd have to, so.

• 37:15Nilay Patel?

  No, if that was true, then iPad sales wouldn't be. I think the iOS device is like a bigger phone. And I think once you've established a bigger phone, tablets become a hard sell, and you say, what's your next device?

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Well, there's also the fact that 10.11 is due for a preview this year, right?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:32Nilay Patel?

  And they'll come even closer together.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, every year they come a little bit closer together.

• 37:36Nilay Patel?

  So, so just to be fair, the other side of this debate, which is sort of like the Apple blogger version of the story is that this is like a $1,400 replacement all in for a new MacBook. The same way that the iMac was a really expensive replacement all in for the Macintosh. And the MacBook Air is originally launched was like a $2,100, $2,400 replacement all in. And it was like slow and lacked a lot of ports. And I think that is, here's my criticism of that. And it's a fair way of doing it, right? That's history repeats itself. Apple tends to be very cyclical. They have the same idea and they usually win.

• 38:11Nilay Patel?

  I think you have to believe that the market is the same for these kinds of products. And I think the market is radically different. And I think Apple's looking at a universe where the iPad flattened out. Their phone sales are still skyrocketing. Their big phone is doing well. And they have, and their Mac sales are surprising them.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  And also the competition catches up a lot quicker these days.

• 38:35Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  And it already has, so.

• 38:37Nilay Patel?

  Right. And I just think like, what's interesting to me, like really interesting to me is the amount, an immediate amount of like fervent speculation and interest and argument about this Macintosh.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  Compared to the basically like fizzle out of the watch. And I think that is like fascinating.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Interesting, yeah.

• 38:57Nilay Patel?

  Like that is fascinating.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  I mean, it seems like the hype really died around that watch. Like, yeah, it's gonna come out and like, I don't, you know, no one really talks about it anymore. Like when the new iPhones rumored, it's like the hotness that everyone talks about now. And it's, it feels like the watch is like, oh yeah, cool, Apple watch is coming out. I'll buy one, whatever.

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  But.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  I think that it needs to have a setting, like you need to know what it's gonna do like.

• 39:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's the thing. Nobody actually knows what the watch is gonna do yet. Like it's, you know, you interact with it eight different ways.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  And I can send you doodles.

• 39:27Nilay Patel?

  You can pay, yeah, you can, I can send my heartbeat to somebody. I'm heartbeat trolling everybody all the time. Like one Apple extends iCloud into like you can send your heartbeat to a Mac and the Mac starts hopping like it's over. Like that is the end.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  When the iPhone came out, it came out to replace all the crappy Windows mobile phones at the time. When the iPad, uh, sorry, that was the iPhone. Um, when the iPad came out, it came out to sort of attack netbooks and, and the low cost laptops. I don't really get where the smart watch stuff is.

• 39:58Nilay Patel?

  That's, the iPad came out to be its own thing, like.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  It did, yeah.

• 40:01Nilay Patel?

  And to be fair, you know, I.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  But it was at the right time.

• 40:06Nilay Patel?

  Like this is sort of the Apple blogger thing and whatever, like they're like, Apple would never make a netbook. They always ran up and down saying they couldn't figure out how to make a 500 laptop that sucks. And if like, you really believe that Apple's history repeats itself, what you know is they say something they can't, it's something impossible until they do it. Second of all, what's real is that even in like the Jobs book, right? Like Jobs admits that like he had his like top 100 offsite and they like sat there and talked about netbooks for a long time.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but, but they always end up doing it with a pretty significant twist. The 5C is a good example, not a cheap phone, right? Like, yes, they did a cheap phone, but it's not a cheap phone.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  It's cheaper.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  The MacBook Air 11, not a cheap laptop.

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  Right, but I'm saying like you have to believe that the 5C is a success that Apple wishes to repeat.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Which lots of people bought that phone too. I see 5Cs everywhere. That, that, that means nothing, but.

• 41:01Nilay Patel?

  But they were a free phone, right? Like.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:03Nilay Patel?

  But it wasn't like the cheap phone, like the, the sales volume of 5C to 5S tips so hard in terms of 5S that Apple had to like rejigger their supply. Right? And that was like a thing that they were like, whoop, we weren't expecting everybody to want the 5. And it's like, why? Everybody with a 5 doesn't want the same phone and a crappier case. Like.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:20Nilay Patel?

  What are you talking like, duh?

• 41:22Speaker 01

  But the timing for that now is, is good to have that sort of device, aren't they?

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I'm just saying like, I look at this and I look at the, the sweep of the market and what I see is. Like, I never use my iPad anymore. I just, I just got it.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  I bought an iPad two when it first came out. I don't even know where that thing is anymore. This is fine in the bed. Like, it, it, I mean, you know, you, you take your iPad to bed.

• 41:48Nilay Patel?

  I've checked bed MacBook.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  I mean, it's probably not healthy because the screen's bright. That's why, that's why I use flux.

• 41:53Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be called MacBook bed.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Bedbook.

• 41:56Nilay Patel?

  Wait, no.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Bedbook Pro.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Flux is the bustiest app you can have installed.

• 42:01Nilay Patel?

  Is that the one that changes your brightness and your color temperature?

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so bad. It's amazing because you don't notice when it's on and then, and then you look at another like regular display and you're like, oh my god. It's great. Whatever. I just want to say one more thing about the MacBook.

• 42:16Nilay Patel?

  Flux is an app that literally like automatically turns your shit blue.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  No, no, opposite, orange. It like dynamically changes based on your location and sunset time and time of day.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  And whether or not you're a vampire.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Whether or not you're super stoned. So it's just like, it like slowly changes the color and then like by sunset, your eyes are like used to this orange glow display and everyone like comes up to my desk and it's like, what the hell is wrong with your MacBook?

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's usually me.

• 42:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and you're, and you're like, I've, I've programmed it to trick me.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  It's basically bad white balance for your screen.

• 42:48Nilay Patel?

  That is literally the story of like the parable of like the boiling frog. Do you know the story?

• 42:53Speaker 02

  From the Bible.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  Is that, no, no, is that from the Bible? I don't know.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  I don't know. It sounds like it's from the Bible.

• 42:58Nilay Patel?

  No, this is like a, like a thing. Like if you, it's just a story about change. It could very well be from the Bible.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  I'm Googling.

• 43:04Nilay Patel?

  It's simmering frog, by the way. It's if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, like immediately leaps out. But if you just put it in cold water and like slowly turn up the heat, it'll just die. That's you and your weird ass laptop.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  That's terrible.

• 43:17Nilay Patel?

  It's just slowly killing you.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  No, it's great. It's really great. Have you ever tried it?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  I don't think it's from the Bible.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  No, I don't think that's.

• 43:23Nilay Patel?

  I think it's from like people killing frogs.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Alright, I just want to say one more thing about these Macbooks. That's it. Let's wrap up, let's wrap up the MacBook.

• 43:29Nilay Patel?

  People murdering frogs.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  Basically.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Look.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Well, there's even a scientific apparatus.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  The way eighth graders and high schoolers get iPod touches for Christmas and birthdays, if Apple prices this MacBook right, it's gonna sell well.

• 43:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like, I think, I think it's not gonna be cheap, it's just gonna be cheaper.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Right, right, the entry level air is 999, right? 899, 999.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  So if they could get to 799.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  No, I think it's gonna be cheaper than that. I'd say 599 or 699, for like, maybe like 32 gigs of internal storage.

• 44:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm telling you, this is basically like, Apple looks at the, people buying keyboard cases for the iPad, and they're like, how do we sell this product without making the iPad gross?

• 44:13Speaker 02

  And it's gonna run OSX, right? Presumably?

• 44:16Nilay Patel?

  It's OS 10, I don't know why both of you keep doing this to me. OS 10.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  It's going to run the operating system that is on the laptop.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  Why wouldn't you just call it the right name?

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yosemite?

• 44:26Nilay Patel?

  Alright, there's two more things we can talk about.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Cars.

• 44:30Nilay Patel?

  And then Sam can hype check himself.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  I was waiting for that.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Hype check.

• 44:34Nilay Patel?

  So, I don't wanna, here, here's what I'll say, I don't wanna talk about Samsung and BlackBerry, cuz it's super boring.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  It also got, uh, got basically debunked.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Well, of course it did.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  Although I will say that the notes written by Chris Plant for us today, the line just says Samsung plus BlackBerry equals Sam Berry or Blung? So, thanks, Chris.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Blung.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  So, let's do cars, we can talk about VR, but like, whatever, like, we, VR, we did fund VR.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  We didn't get to talk about, I mean, I just wanna mention that, this Sixth Sense thing, it was like Oculus for the first time all over. Can I talk about this really quick?

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you, you looked insane in that thing. Dude, did you try it?

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  Oculus for the first time all over again.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it was, it was like.

• 45:18Nilay Patel?

  It was good, it was, you talk about it.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  Alright, so, there's a company called Sixth Sense, it's like Sixth Sense.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks, Sam.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  And they, hey, hey, I just.

• 45:26Nilay Patel?

  Hype check word mashups.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Look, I, I am told I mumble a lot, so I need to, you know, make my speech clear. Anyway, so, they made a module for the Oculus Rift that uses electromagnetism instead of infrared. What is so funny?

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, I'm sorry, continue.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  I'm just, literally just telling a story, Chris burst out laughing, it's fine.

• 45:46Nilay Patel?

  No, electromagnetism.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  That's, that's literally what they use. Anyway, so, um, you put on, you put on the.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  I literally don't know what's funny right now. Chris is just hysterical.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Sorry, I'm sorry.

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  There's like a big red and white magnet, a huge switch that turns on things.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  And then you press the button in the hatch and then you see John Locke? Anyway, so you put on, you put on the goggles.

• 46:07Nilay Patel?

  Why is John Locke there?

• 46:09Speaker 02

  From Lost.

• 46:10Nilay Patel?

  Oh, from Lost?

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:11Nilay Patel?

  I thought you meant the actual John Locke.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. So it has a sensor on the back and you put on these goggles and you're inside this training room.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Oculus, right?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 46:21Nilay Patel?

  You're wearing Oculus and you're holding.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  And, and no, so you like, but you put on these goggles and then you walk forward and grab these joysticks in real life. And those joysticks are then your hands. So you move the joysticks and they are your hands. I don't, I still don't know.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

  And if you look down, you can like check out your robot body.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 46:36Nilay Patel?

  It's crazy.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  And then, and then you, you grab these floating lightsabers, you press a button and your hand grabs a lightsaber. And then you press a button and the lightsaber comes out and then you fight this floating orb that's shooting lasers at you. There's a video, if you like, if you search on YouTube, Verge, Six N's VR, like you'll find the video, Addy. The video is really great. It was the coolest thing I saw at CES this year, easily. And one of the coolest things I've seen since the first time.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  The controllers aren't, aren't cheap though, right?

• 47:04Speaker 02

  They're, they're like. It's like 300 or something for the set, but.

• 47:07Nilay Patel?

  It's the first thing I've seen with Oculus where it's like, oh, I would.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  I would, I would do this. Like I would go home and play this game.

• 47:13Nilay Patel?

  What's crazy though is when I was doing the demo, like you're wearing the Oculus, so you're standing up, you're wearing the Oculus. So you, you don't know where you are.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  And the guy was just like, dude, you have to stop running around the room. Like he's like, just stand still. And I was like, what? And like dancing. And he's like, you, you're literally, you're going to hit somebody. And I took it off and he was, he had an, he was not from America, he had an accent. He just goes, you're very aggressive.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  But you laugh, but that's a serious risk for this thing, right? Like if you have it at home, you've got it in a New York apartment, you're going to destroy everything in your home.

• 47:44Nilay Patel?

  No, I will definitely, I will punch something. Like I was ready to go.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  It was super cool. It was really, really cool. And I think we're getting one to review. So that would be a thing to look out for.

• 47:53Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:55Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Chris, you just went to a car show. Let's talk about some cars.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 47:59Nilay Patel?

  Actually, you came from one car show and went to another show.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. It was at two car shows back to back.

• 48:03Nilay Patel?

  Man, Tom is using both the trackpad and the touchscreen to, I believe. Oh, Steven Snovsky is mad at you.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  He's mad.

• 48:11Nilay Patel?

  I didn't know he listens to the show so much.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:13Nilay Patel?

  Hi, Steven.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't know he's a fan.

• 48:17Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Kerry, how about cars?

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Cars. Yeah, they're a thing. So at CES, you know, every year at CES, we get these thing pieces basically saying, oh, look, CES is a car show now. Well, it's been a car show. But this year, it's been more of a car show than any other car or any other CES by a pretty wide margin. Mercedes introduced a concept car here, which is insane.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Here or there?

• 48:43Speaker 03

  At CES.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're still there.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  We're still, yes, we're, yeah, we are physically still.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  We're in the trailer.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  In our minds. We can use Oculus to return to the trailer.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  I would never.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  And Chevy did this, the most insane press conference I've ever been to in my life. I waited two and a half hours because I knew that the new Chevy Volt was going to be at the Chevy event. I sit down, the guy's like, I don't want to keep you waiting. Let's just get to it. And then this circular curtain around the car goes and then covers the car back up. And he's like, thanks, everybody. Let's go to the, go to some music. And so the entire press conference was four minutes long. It was completely insane. Yes, for the Volt in Vegas.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 49:28Nilay Patel?

  I remember I walked in that room. It was like a, like I was walking by it and it was like full of like plush, white leather chairs.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Super luxurious for four minutes.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Well, I thought, oh, because they had it at the motor show, right?

• 49:43Speaker 03

  Right. So they just wanted to tease it at CES. So they did this crazy curtain thing. And so I took, you know, I was using continuous shooting on my camera. So I just took as many pictures as I could and uploaded them all to my, my gallery. And I got so many angry comments. Why did you take the same shot 15 times? Like, I'm sorry, the car, I could see the car for 10 seconds. So anyway, that was CES. And then we went straight to Detroit, which was arguably the biggest Detroit show in a decade or more. The, the Ford GT stole the show.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  You love that thing, Chris.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it's hard.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  It's not so than the other one.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's crazy. And, and perhaps the craziest thing about it is that it was designed, can't remember his name, a guy that started in the early 90s in Ford's German studio, designed some cars in the UK before coming to the US.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Super, super boring portfolio, just hasn't designed anything remotely interesting. And then he turns out this work of art. Only a few executives at Ford knew it even existed.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  He was working in the basement of their design studio in Dearborn. So I was talking to a guy, I won't name him or who he works for, but I was talking to a guy who said that he knows a lot of people high up at Ford. None of them knew, all of them swore up and down the GT wasn't going to happen because they really believed it. They didn't know the car existed. So there's like literally a handful of people who knew this car existed.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  Did you freak out when you saw it for the first time?

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was insane. And the, I mean, Ford did a really good job with the unveiling of it. They, they went to Joe Louis Arena, which is where the Red Wings play. Completely packed. I was in like the upper rafters of the stadium.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  Got nosebleed seats.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that was that. And then Acura unveiled NSX. Now, I want to put this in perspective for folks who aren't necessarily familiar with cars. The, this NSX that they, that debuted on Monday was unveiled the week after the original iPhone was announced.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  In 2007?

• 51:46Speaker 03

  In 2007. They just showed the production version of that car this week. So that's a development cycle, right? And, you know, they canceled it, brought it back to life, canceled again, brought it back to life, switched engines three times. It was originally going to be a V10. Then they put in a naturally aspirated V6, then switched to a turbo V6. And so now that's what it is.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  You sound so, and now whatever. And now, now it's the engine from a Civic.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  So the problem, I.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  That would be incredible.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  I mean, it basically is.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like now it's a turbo four.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  Well, so the GT is using an EcoBoost branded twin turbo V6. This, this beautiful exotic, but it's over 600 horsepower. So it's okay, I guess. But the fact that they have EcoBoost branding on this thing is insane. So then NSX is, NSX would have stole the show had it not been for the fact that the GT just pulled the rug out from everybody.

• 52:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Also Ford has the ability to show cars and then ship them.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So they're promising the GT will be on the street next year.

• 52:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Can any of them drive themselves?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  2016?

• 52:56Speaker 03

  No, no. Yeah, 2016. Self-driving was not, I mean, that's the way they bifurcate this, right? They talk about the tech at CES, they talk about the actual cars and the designs of the cars.

• 53:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  In Detroit.

• 53:08Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's funny just walking around CES. So first of all, I believe Mercedes made a gigantic mistake at CES.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  By using that eyeball?

• 53:15Nilay Patel?

  No, eyeballs. They showed off the F-15, whatever, like the rolling aluminum cage.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  I think it's dope.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Which, by the way, did any of you see my Instagram of the New York local news?

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Oh, I did. I saw that. I did see that. It was amazing.

• 53:29Nilay Patel?

  Like, local news, like, I don't know what we will do as a culture without local news because there will be no joy left in the world for people who cover technology.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Gestures and motion control.

• 53:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was just like the local news. He's like, Mercedes at the Consumer Electronics Show has introduced, get this, a self-driving car. And it's like,

• 53:49Nilay Patel?

  they've been doing that for a long time. Okay. And he's like, you'll never believe it's controlled by gestures and motions. And it's like, and they just showed a guy like inside the car, like using a touchscreen. And it's like,

• 54:00Speaker 03

  I believe it. Totally believe it.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  I guess that's a bunch of stuff that's been happening for a long time.

• 54:07Speaker 03

  I drove in a self-drifting car last year. I get it. I've been there.

• 54:10Nilay Patel?

  It was just one of these things where it's like, the thing itself is so wild. Like, you don't have to be like,

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:16Nilay Patel?

  and magic controls it.

• 54:19Nilay Patel?

  Wizards will drive your new Mercedes. It's like, dude, it's a random spaceship.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  That, that car is interesting because, uh, I, I mean, whatever, it's a concept car, right? But the one thing about it that I think is really interesting is that the car changes color depending on whether it's self-driving or not.

• 54:36Nilay Patel?

  That's wild.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  And, uh,

• 54:38Speaker 01

  What, the actual body?

• 54:40Speaker 03

  No, no, it's surrounded by a grid of lights, basically. When it's driving itself, it's blue, I think, and when it's in manual control, it's white. And I think that this will actually end up translating into some sort of safety feature.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  So basically, it's a gaming car, because that's like the thing on every game.

• 54:56Nilay Patel?

  It's the Asus Republic of Gamers, Mercedes.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  It's like in Tron where the good guys are green and the bad guys are red.

• 55:03Nilay Patel?

  Here's a mistake Mercedes made. They rolled this thing out on the stage there, right? Like, looks crazy. And it's like, this is the future of driving. And then I like, the last day, I was like, I gotta go see this car. I have to go to this booth. And you get all the way in Mercedes booth, and there's like, yeah, there's the, it's a toy. It's like, dude, you have it here. You brought it to Las Vegas, right? Like, why isn't it here? And instead, what they had was a self-driving S-Class playing a video game. So there's just like three screens around an S-Class, and it was like driving the video game. And I was like, this isn't impressive at all. Like, I've had video games that can drive themselves for a long time.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  There were AI cars in OutRun on my NES. I mean.

• 55:49Nilay Patel?

  Cool S-Class, guys. It's the computer in Need for Speed. Cool.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, why didn't they have it?

• 55:58Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. They had the toy. It's like, was this a lot? It's a one thing. Like, I spend, usually at CES, I spend all of my, so CES, for people who don't know, is organized in like three big halls, right? So North Hall is like, basically like low-rent iPhone case companies, like Mophie City, like standing in the center of them.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Junk hall, essentially.

• 56:18Nilay Patel?

  And then, no, no, but then it's also the car hall. So like, so when like car stereos stopped being a thing, they're like, come, iPhone case vendors. And then, and then Mophie is like, we will build a fortress here. Like, that's true. You can't, Mophie doesn't have a booth. It has like a, like a walled city. You have to make an appointment.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  With a speakeasy inside.

• 56:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's like.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 56:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's like, what are you, it's.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  You're at CES.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  You go into the Mophie speakeasy.

• 56:44Nilay Patel?

  And you're like, charge up?

• 56:45Speaker 03

  And what do you do there?

• 56:46Nilay Patel?

  It's just wild to me that it's such a secret. Everybody knows what Mophie makes.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Maybe they had a secret product that we didn't see.

• 56:54Nilay Patel?

  My theory is that they don't want Chinese companies to clone their stuff. So they like, they get really protective. There's like, there's like laser turrets at like the Mophie booth, like just constantly. Uh, anyway, so that's like one part of the hall. The other part is like cars and that cars are back in a big way.

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:09Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then central is consumer electronics. That's where Sony and Panasonic and Samsung City are. And then South Hall is like Computer Hall, which is where Intel desperately tries to.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  Nvidia is down there.

• 57:20Nilay Patel?

  Right. And like, that's where like.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Intel in central, right?

• 57:22Nilay Patel?

  No, Intel's in South.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 57:24Nilay Patel?

  They have the big front of South. Anyway, so I spent all of my time in Central Hall, almost all CES. I actually didn't even go into the like the South Hall. I was always back and forth basically to our booth, which was right next to Sony. But the last day, like made the trip to North Hall. I walked through, I went with Helen and Dieter and we like had a Snapchat adventure. We sat in a car that was basically one rolling speaker, cause it's like the car hall, right?

• 57:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:48Nilay Patel?

  We played with all the CarPlay stuff and then finally we get to the Mercedes booth and it's like a toy. And it's like, but wasn't it here? Uh, it was very disappointing.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  But yeah, Chevy did the same thing. They, they took their Volt and ran after the unveiling.

• 58:00Nilay Patel?

  Well, cause they took it all to Detroit, is my guess, to prep it.

• 58:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:04Nilay Patel?

  But it was just like, you could have it here for one day.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  But even all the keynotes at CES were all like, like Nvidia.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, Nvidia spent a long time talking about cars.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  It was a slow keynote.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Ford had a keynote, uh, Mercedes of course had a keynote.

• 58:17Nilay Patel?

  What I thought was interesting, like the Audi booth was just like, like chips. It was like, it was parts of cars everywhere.

• 58:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:24Nilay Patel?

  And they would show you like, this is the motherboard of our car. And it was like, cool.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  They're very proud about it.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  It's kind of unusual.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It was just like, I don't, does it do a good job?

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Well, so Audi does something that I think is the most CES thing imaginable, which is, um, they'll actually enter, they'll unveil the interior of a car, including all the electronics inside of it at CES, and then go show the actual car at Detroit or even New York. So they did that with the TT last year.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  They showed the, uh, the, um, Nvidia powered cockpit, uh, at CES and then they say.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  And they had all the new lights, right? The new LED.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Right. Right. And then, uh, the actual car was at Geneva or something. So.

• 59:03Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's.

• 59:05Nilay Patel?

  I find car companies, like it's crazy what they choose to hire, like. There's like the standard narrative, which has got cars have to become big gadgets because people have gadgets. So you've got to appeal to like the teens.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  The gadgets are back.

• 59:17Nilay Patel?

  The gadgets are back, but then it's like the Toyota booth was like the Marai hydrogen powered car. And what they were saying with the thing they were pushing the most was like extensive patent portfolio available for license.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:29Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, who is here that's like, oh, I can get some hydrogen patents though?

• 59:35Nilay Patel?

  Ah shit.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  Nvidia was the same thing, right? They spent a good hour and a half talking about like these.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Changing the colors and the, you know.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  If they would have spent two minutes on it and be like, hey, we did this, it's cool. We would have all thought it's cool, but they took 45 minutes.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  I think they had something else to show and then.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Who in Nvidia?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Last minute, they were like, oh, we don't, let's fill it with this.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  No.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Cause it just seemed like that. It was weird.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  That's not how Jensen operates. He, he just goes for it. He.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  He, he wants to put everyone to sleep. That's his goal.

• 1:00:07Nilay Patel?

  But then like put in like a fun way.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  It was, well, last year, last year was the one he was sick, right?

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was sick, but he still did it.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. Yeah.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Like Michael Jordan playing in the finals when he has the flu, except not at all.

• 1:00:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. This he wasn't, he didn't win the game.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  You weren't alive when Michael Jordan was playing basketball, Sam.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  I mean, that's false, Chris. Let's get real.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Cold teen takes.

• 1:00:32Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:00:34Nilay Patel?

  All right. Did any, any other car stuff come out?

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  At Detroit.

• 1:00:38Nilay Patel?

  In life?

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  You didn't talk about the Bolt.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the, thank you, Sam. Uh, so the Bolt happened.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  What is the Bolt?

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  The Bolt is, um.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Part from a movie with a dog.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  The Bolt is GM's answer to the, um, the non-existent Model 3. They, they want to create an electric car for the masses that can actually go a reasonable amount of range.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Tesla's Model 3.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Right. Okay. Yes. So if you look at, um, a car in that price range today, like the Nissan Leaf or the Volkswagen E-Golf, uh, they generally have ranges of under a hundred miles. The Bolt is promising 200 miles at a price after, uh, tax rebates of $35,000.

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  Released probably in 2017. Right now it's just a concept car, but it's definitely going to happen.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Fully electric.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Fully electric. And basically, there's actually a really good piece in the Journal this week about how this car is basically a hedge against new fuel economy regulations that go into effect in 2017. 2017? Yeah, I think it's 2017.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  Meaning what?

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Meaning the way federal fuel economy regulations work is that across an automaker's entire range of vehicles, they need to have a blended miles per gallon that's a certain number. So like, they'll sell these giant F250s and Chevy Silverados that get 11 miles to the gallon, and then counterbalance it by selling 50 mile per gallon diesels.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  And bolts. And so, this car is basically a hedge against that so that they can keep selling Silverados. Right? They're not, and that's what has Elon Musk kind of up in arms. He's like, "Look, you know, that's great, but really, they're just trying to meet these restrictions."

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  The guidelines, restrictions, yeah.

• 1:02:29Nilay Patel?

  But it still incentivizes to develop the cars and sell them.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  It does, but it doesn't incentivize them to make a really kick-ass car necessarily, right? The way Tesla wants to, because this is their business. It's all they do. Whereas GM is like, "All right, let's crap out an EV." So, you know, I don't want to give them too much crap on this because, you know, obviously we haven't driven the car, it doesn't even exist yet. And maybe it'll be great. But that's sort of the regulatory environment that we're seeing this car come into.

• 1:03:00Nilay Patel?

  It's a shame.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  Speaking of cars.

• 1:03:03Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Speaking of...

• 1:03:05Nilay Patel?

  You're really bad at segments.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  Electric cars.

• 1:03:07Nilay Patel?

  Time for an HTFT.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  Speaking of Elon Musk, just today, he just casually tweeted, "Well, I'm gonna build a Hyperloop test track, probably in Texas."

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  Like, what?

• 1:03:20Nilay Patel?

  That's where you do it.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I know, but just...

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  There are no laws in Texas.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  But they're gonna, they're gonna do it.

• 1:03:25Nilay Patel?

  You want to talk about electromagnets?

• 1:03:27Nilay Patel?

  Hyperlooping now.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  It's just, it's cool.

• 1:03:30Nilay Patel?

  It's not, that's, that's.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  I don't know what that was.

• 1:03:32Nilay Patel?

  Literally that conveyed no information. They barely conveyed a tone.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, we found out about the Hyperloop in 2013. We have a great story stream. Actually, our, this, our story stream of the Hyperloop is super useful. Like, I tweeted, it was great.

• 1:03:45Nilay Patel?

  Corporate Sam is back.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm here. Um, so he announced the Hyperloop, and for people that don't know what it is, they, he promises a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in like 40 minutes, right? And like a pod. Uh, and when he announced this thing, everyone was like, you're crazy, you're Superman, you're Tony Stark. Like, let's see if you could do it. Then he, he like gave the blueprints out. He was like, here, here's how it's going to work. Here are the blueprints. If you want to try it, build it. And then, so that was all in like 2013 of summer, summer 2013. And now about a year and a half later, he says, I'm going to build one. He's gonna do it, and it's gonna be crazy because he built a rocket that can land and come back down. He's sending parts to space.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  Let me, let me fact check you on two things. One, he built a rocket that tried to land on a barge. Two.

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  True.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Two, he's not building.

• 1:04:34Nilay Patel?

  But it tried with style.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  Tried with style, fair enough. Two, he, uh, he is not building the San Francisco to LA Hyperloop.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  No, I know. He's building a test track. He's building a test track. But just the fact that he has the infrastructure and brain power to make that a real thing. And then he, he followed up the first tweet with, oh yeah, I want to have students and organizations come and just pod race in this thing. Like, like pod racing in Star Wars.

• 1:05:00Nilay Patel?

  Not, yeah.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 1:05:02Nilay Patel?

  I will say that the first time we heard about the Hyperloop, I sent what I would deem a frantic yet passionate email to our team.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  Insisting that we build a Hyperloop of our own. It turns out that just demanding that people build you a Hyperloop results in nothing.

• 1:05:18Nilay Patel?

  I was like, we can do it. We'll just, we just need some like tubes.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Need some two by fours.

• 1:05:23Nilay Patel?

  Like a bunch of magnets.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  Electro magnets, yeah.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  And we can get some.

• 1:05:26Nilay Patel?

  If there are any, here's, here's what I'll say. If there's any university students out there who are happy to be paid in, in, in, in beverages, soft drinks.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  Or Verge swag.

• 1:05:36Nilay Patel?

  Verge swag, stickers. We have all kinds of stickers.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Nilay Patel?

  And you want us to fund your ill-fated attempt to build a Hyperloop? I will do it.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  I will even kick in a pair of Beats studio headphones.

• 1:05:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  For, for $1.99. You have to buy them for me still.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  The application fee is $1.99.

• 1:05:52Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, if there are any, if there are any university students out there who want to try to build a Hyperloop.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  In their backyard.

• 1:05:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like a backyard Hyperloop. I will, I will do it. I will, I will somehow give you something.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  You know, there are people watching out there that could probably help build this thing, I think.

• 1:06:10Nilay Patel?

  Look, you just need some tubes, some magnets, a little bit of love.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  A little bit of elbow grease and.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  And a bit of luck.

• 1:06:17Nilay Patel?

  Any, like a number of montage sequences.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  People working hard, sweating in the garage.

• 1:06:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Boom, you got your Hyperloop.

• 1:06:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  It's, it's like.

• 1:06:26Nilay Patel?

  No, it's not boom. Like the first time they try it off, like the dude just like flies off and like lands in the pool, you know? That's going to happen to you a couple of times.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  It's basically the Rocky training montage, except building Hyperloop instead.

• 1:06:39Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:06:41Nilay Patel?

  And there's like one goofy guy who's like, not any help. You know, he's just always like running. He's like always behind him, like carrying tools.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  It's really good visual.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Everyone's like, oh, Joey.

• 1:06:53Nilay Patel?

  He's like, he's the one who's like putting the banana in the Hyperloop.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  No, that actually happened except with fish, remember?

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  They had, they had a fruit tube and they tried putting a fish in the fruit tube and it worked.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Fish Fridays tomorrow. Stay tuned.

• 1:07:08Nilay Patel?

  Fish Friday and the Verge is coming up once again.

• 1:07:12Nilay Patel?

  For, for those, for those who would like, uh, the, the incredibly dumb story about this. We once discovered that writing any story about fish technology was incredibly powerful for our audience. We still don't know why.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Really connected with people.

• 1:07:26Nilay Patel?

  So I demanded on one particularly slow day that everybody Google the words fish technology. And every one of those stories immediately exploded.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  It was wild.

• 1:07:36Nilay Patel?

  Including one of the GIF of like the fish cannon.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  It was a weird Friday.

• 1:07:42Nilay Patel?

  It was a really weird Friday, and it's coming again.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Typical Fridays.

• 1:07:45Nilay Patel?

  Fish, Fish Technology Fridays. All right, that, for better or worse, is our show. Tom, do you have any last words?

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  It's been good. It's been emotional.

• 1:07:55Nilay Patel?

  It has.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  A robot hasn't attacked me today, so I'm feeling kind of relaxed.

• 1:07:59Nilay Patel?

  What, hasn't attacked you?

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  A robot. Last time I was on the show, a robot was trying to kill me.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  I was happily chatting away, and then suddenly, smash.

• 1:08:06Nilay Patel?

  David came rolling in in his telepresence robot?

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Nilay Patel?

  Did this stream just... there, okay, we're back.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  We're good. Tom, remind everyone when the Microsoft event is.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  January 21st at 9:00 AM Pacific.

• 1:08:18Nilay Patel?

  And why don't you fly back to London? Because I want to have you back on the show next week after the Microsoft event.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  I fly on the 22nd, the day after.

• 1:08:25Nilay Patel?

  So then we'll have a very sleepy Tom Warren on that Thursday.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Or drunk, perhaps.

• 1:08:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, one of the two.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Probably both. Oh, and high as well, because weed is legal, yeah.

• 1:08:35Nilay Patel?

  All the teens are texting for weed. Texting for drugs.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Texting for weed.

• 1:08:39Nilay Patel?

  The Sam, the Sam Sheffer story.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:08:42Nilay Patel?

  I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah, I can't have that. I mean, it's not the best title of an autobiography, but texting for drugs.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Oh, that's my autobiography. I thought that was a DVD special.

• 1:08:52Nilay Patel?

  Why would that be better?

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Because people actually...

• 1:08:54Nilay Patel?

  DVDs were before you were born. Were you gonna say because people watch DVDs?

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  But I didn't say it. I held back. That was gonna be dumb.

• 1:09:03Nilay Patel?

  Well, I'm glad we all got there together. Okay, that was our show. Sam, say some words about engagement.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  Okay, so the first thing you want to do is go to youtube.com/theverge and hit that subscribe button. We recently hit 500,000, and we're gonna hit a million soon, and we want there... We want you to be there with us, because we're going to make some awesome videos this year. I promise. You could also add us on Snapchat. We have a lot of fun there. Still figuring out what we're doing, but if you saw them at CES, we're just gonna keep snapping. It's fun. We are the real verge there. We're on Twitter, @verge. Tom is Tom Warren, Eli's Reckless, and Chris is Z Power. And I'm Sam Sheffer. And we're also on Google Plus, which is apparently still a thing that you can go do. We're on Elo, if you're into that.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  No, but you should really subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us on Facebook if you haven't. Facebook.com/verge. And Instagram also. We're on Instagram, instagram.com/verge.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  And that's about all I have to say. This was a good show. I think I feel good about this one.

• 1:10:05Nilay Patel?

  Hype check our own show.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  This was great. I had a lot of fun on this one.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  And that's all I have to say.

• 1:10:11Nilay Patel?

  That was it. That was our show. Thank you.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Good job.

• 1:10:13Nilay Patel?

  For listening, uh, people of the world. Thank you.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Neelam.

• 1:10:18Nilay Patel?

  Thank you.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:10:19Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. This is the worst ending.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:10:22Nilay Patel?

  Goodbye. That's... You're done. Bust.