The RED iPhone, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and the new iPad

The Vergecast returns to New York! Nilay, Dieter, Natt, and Megan are here to update you with the news of the week. Apple has a new iPhone... kinda! And a new iPad... kinda! Natt got a look at the Android O developer preview, and Megan played Mass Effect: Andromeda. There’s a lot of stuff in between that so listen! 01:40 - Apple’s new products 05:04 - Apple replaces iPad Air 2 with cheaper 9.7-inch iPad 10:38 - Apple bought the best utility app for the iPhone, Workflow 16:52 - Apple’s new Clips app makes social videos for other social networks 21:43 - Android O brings fun customizations that set the stage for bigger changes 30:15 - Android / Chrome tablets 34:33 - Megan’s Kulture Korner 48:33 - Natt’s weekly segment “Did you know hoverboards were still a thing?” 51:32 - Samsung S8 / DeX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge.com. You weren't expecting that. Anyway, The Verge is a thing. It's a thing you know and love. It's a website. But it's so much more. It's a lifestyle. Well, The New York Times calls us a "technology website" and I trust The New York Times.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  We upgraded to a technology blog a few years ago. It was very exciting.

• 0:24Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, this is The Vergecast. There's a joke about a vodka that we usually make here, but I'm on the fence with it. I'm Neelai Patel. I'm here. Megan Frogmanish is here. I sure am. Hi. Hey. Good, good, good exchange. Dieter Bohn is here. Hi. We're not doing great. And Nat Karen is here.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:42Nilay Patel?

  How are things?

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Things are great.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  And Nat, after her, like, big podcast debut, had never done a podcast before, then Nat and Megan hosted a whole episode of the show. We can't hear you when you just shimmy proudly. What Nat just did was like a proud little dance, like a shoulder dance.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  I'm a very animated person. It's hard to convey that over a podcast, that's for sure.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  You just gotta make little noises.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Well, I'm wearing this big, chunky necklace, so maybe you hear a little like, "That's me dancing."

• 1:09Nilay Patel?

  Gentle wind chimes. That's great radio. Do you hear the tinkle of joy coming from Nat's microphone? Anyway, we, last week, was that last week that we were in Austin? We were at South by. I know. We were at South by. You got sick. I got sick.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  I'm still sick. Sorry, everyone. You're all trapped in this room with me.

• 1:23Nilay Patel?

  I'm definitely coming down. So Nat, you, Nat will be sick next week.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:27Nilay Patel?

  But we had two great shows. They were live. They were fun. Thank you, everybody, for listening. I will say, bizarrely, those shows, super popular. Huh. Lots and lots of people listen to the show, so maybe we should do more live shows. Maybe we will. But that's enough about us. There's like news in this world. Dieter, do you want to, it's like, I don't even know where to start. There were new, there's a new iPad. There's a new iPhone of some kind. You reviewed a Chromebook.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  It did.

• 1:51Nilay Patel?

  Jake reviewed it.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Although that's not new. It's been around for a couple of months, but we could talk about it.

• 1:54Nilay Patel?

  I want to talk about it in the context of the Tab S3, which Jake reviewed.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:58Nilay Patel?

  Matt, you played with Android O.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  I did.

• 2:00Nilay Patel?

  We're just like all of it. Like where, where to begin?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  So many. Well, I guess let's begin with Apple. It's kind of what kicked off the week. First, there's a new iPad called iPad. It's cheap. It's like-

• 2:11Nilay Patel?

  There's a new iPad called lazy naming.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's not the iPad because Apple never, they hate the word the.

• 2:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Just the most. And we can talk about it, but it's like, it's pretty cheap. It's 9.7 inch. And they basically discontinued the iPad Air 2. And there's a whole lot of stuff to get in there. They also have a red iPhone. It's a product red, so it supports HIV/AIDS. It's more crimson than red.

• 2:35Nilay Patel?

  But are, all of Apple's things have been more crimson than red.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Um, that's, I think that's kind of disputed. Our art director, James, went through a bunch of product red offerings and literally just like looked through all of them. He said, most of them are more red than you think, but the iPhone red is definitely more crimson than it is red. I think that that's a little pedantic, but, um, I mean-

• 2:58Nilay Patel?

  Crimson is a type of red.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I love the name crimson. It sounds sophisticated and I, but product crimson is, there's a ring to it. But I would, I would use a red iPhone.

• 3:09Nilay Patel?

  Product crimson sound, it does have a ring, but it's like not, it's not the ring that you want.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  No, it sounds like a product that like the NCAA sells like to Harvard students.

• 3:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I was going to say it sounds like a weapon of mass destruction.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  It sounds like a really shitty X-Men reboot.

• 3:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, product crimson. Yeah, a weapon of mass destruction.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  They can have that idea.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  It's not a name for an iPhone.

• 3:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, whatever. Well, product crimson, but red, but it's red. That's the whole thing. I don't know. Lauren, good.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  But like, is it, is, right, color is just, you know, it's, it's a qualia. Is it, is it, it's, it's not really an intrinsic quality. It's, uh, as Plato would say, no, nevermind. Sorry.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  No, I think it can be though.

• 3:46Nilay Patel?

  Dieter just went for it.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Wow, Dieter.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I think it's gonna be a lot more popular than you think. Like, in a lot of Asian cultures, red is a really lucky and fortunate color. So I think that it's going to be super, super popular in like Asia.

• 3:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it'll be popular everywhere. I mean,

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Particularly, I feel like people would buy the hell out of it in cultures that really emphasize the color red.

• 4:08Nilay Patel?

  Huh, that's fun. I mean, I think they just did it. So it was the 10 year anniversary of their product red partnership. And I think they were finally like, alright, for 10, you get this.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  But a lot of people hate that the front part is white.

• 4:20Nilay Patel?

  I also hate that the front part is white.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  I agree. I think it does look a lot better on black.

• 4:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  So, I also hate that it's white, but I gotta assume that Apple knows what it's doing with this and knows what the sales figures are and what user preferences are. And I think the thing, like, it looking black makes the thing just look, like, red and black would look a lot meaner. And I like phones that look mean. But it turns out if you want to buy a mean iPhone 7, there's a matte black one just sitting there you can go get. So like, maybe they've, they've already saturated the market for mean looking iPhones.

• 4:54Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I just, I actually don't, I don't know why they don't make iPhones in like, every possible color combination, but, so it goes. But anyway, it's a red iPhone. We've spent too much time talking about it. They made it red.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  We gotta talk about Clips. You wanna talk about the iPad or you wanna talk about Clips?

• 5:06Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about the iPad. The Clips, like, it's

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Bonkers.

• 5:10Nilay Patel?

  There's a whole thing with Clips.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  It's so bonkers.

• 5:12Nilay Patel?

  So the iPad.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Nilay Patel?

  The only thing interesting about it is that it's very cheap. It's $329.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:19Nilay Patel?

  But they basically updated the first iPad Air, which is like, an interesting move.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you compare it to the iPad Air 2, it's a little bit thicker, it has a worse screen than it has, I think it's up to the A9 processor now.

• 5:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it's faster than the Air 2.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Right. If you look at the physicality of it, it basically is more like an original iPad Air than an iPad Air 2.

• 5:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. And when you say a slightly worse screen, the big change to iPad Air 2 was they laminated the display against the glass, and now they've gone back to the unlaminated way. I have, when I was like, that's bad, people obviously pointed out that I'm a huge snob. Because it is a very snob, like, people are still, like, rolling out with the iPad 2. Like, there are people in this world who are like, this iPad 2 is fine, I'm gonna have it for the rest of my life. And I'm like, the screen isn't laminated. Like, I feel bad. I feel bad about who I am. But I'm also very confident in who I am. So that badness is rooted in a deep sense of security. But they're walking it back. Like, they want, the high-end iPad is now the Pro. It has the laminated screen, has the A10, quadrillion, whatever it is. It's very fast, has a stylus, has a keyboard connector, and then there's this, like, thing.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Which-

• 6:25Nilay Patel?

  For, like, the Netflix people.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  I will say that what this thing actually is supposed to be for is the education market. It is supposed to be the thing that fends off the Chromebook a little bit, which has been eating Apple's lunch in the education market because it's, uh, they're so cheap, they're so disposable, and they're so much easier to manage when you've got a bunch of students and you just want them to be able to log into a dumb terminal. The iPad does have multiple accounts available to it now, finally, but only in the education context.

• 6:55Nilay Patel?

  Wait, really? I didn't know that.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, in education, you can set up multiple user accounts on an iPad if they're managed through, like, the Education Device Management System.

• 7:06Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It's a little twitchy, it's not as dead simple as Chrome OS. But to me, if you're making this thing cheap and you're trying to get it into schools, yo, just put a dock connector on it.

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, why doesn't it have a keyboard connector?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  It's dumb.

• 7:21Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't make any sense to me.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Right?

• 7:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  But makes no sense.

• 7:23Nilay Patel?

  They wanted to make it cheap.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  They had parts sitting around, I don't know.

• 7:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and the parts were the iPad Air. They're like, we just, something like, Johnny, I have like a warehouse, I found one, I can't build a car here. I don't know what he says.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  What I'm curious about, though, is that it's so much cheaper now, and I think the base model is $329, but the 128GB iPad Mini is now way more expensive than the iPad Air, um, the new iPad. I'm curious what's gonna happen to the iPad Mini, like, are they gonna also make it cheaper? Or is that just that Apple just, like, kind of spells the end of iPad Mini?

• 7:58Nilay Patel?

  Do any of you have an iPad Mini?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  I have a friend who has one, but they got it as, like, a Christmas present from their office.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  I loved the iPad mini for like a year and then I got a big phone and I was like, this is stupid.

• 8:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  And I stopped.

• 8:11Nilay Patel?

  I haven't I haven't touched my iPad mini. I forgot that it existed yesterday or the day before whenever Apple stuff came out like. I tweeted like the iPad line finally makes sense and people like, what about the iPad mini? And I don't.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Or I just I'd forgotten.

• 8:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  I don't know an iPad.

• 8:25Nilay Patel?

  You know.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  I don't know any iPads.

• 8:26Nilay Patel?

  Who needs an iPad?

• 8:27Speaker 03

  I know exactly. What would I do with it? I have a computer and a dumb phone.

• 8:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  I'm good on Apple products.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  You say a dumb phone?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  It's a it's a it's an iPhone 5S.

• 8:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  And I am afraid to update it because I hear that will make my phone just catch on fire.

• 8:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think that's true.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:42Nilay Patel?

  My 6S I updated.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Every day it's like, hey, you want to update me? I'm like, no, shut up.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  The preeminent Apple blogger in the universe, John Gruber, has written somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 words over the past month trying to make sense of the iPad product line and what he's expecting is supposed to happen with the iPad product line.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  And you read all of it and you're just like, yeah, nobody knows. This is this doesn't make sense. There's like, there's no clarity to it whatsoever.

• 9:09Nilay Patel?

  I think they're I think they're hamstrung by the fact that they they believe it's the future of computing. And it might not be because people just use tablets for Netflix.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:19Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, uh, like.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Well. So, but people just use tablets for Netflix. Like, there's this there's this grand debate happening like at a meta level at The Verge about computers versus tablets and like what kind of stuff you could do with it. And like, I am very clearly like the flag bearer, torch bear, flag bearer for like, I love customizing shit.

• 9:40Nilay Patel?

  What is the difference between a flag bearer and a torch bearer?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Torch bearer?

• 9:43Speaker 03

  Has words on it sometimes.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  You carry a torch because you love it and you carry a flag because they're the people that they aim the arrows at when you're in a fight.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  I thought torch bearer was like if you're like going to like burn somebody's house down, like they're like in a Frankenstein mob.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Too.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  You also have a pitchfork. That's how you know.

• 9:57Nilay Patel?

  I like that Dieter is like, you carry the torch because you love and you carry the flag because you wish to die. Like.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm pretty sure people carry flags when they're representing something and then carry fire when you're trying to kill something.

• 10:09Nilay Patel?

  Okay. You hold you carry a torch for somebody. It's a thing that people say.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  I carry flags for people.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  None of this is a thing anybody says.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Just a flag in someone's face on it.

• 10:19Nilay Patel?

  I carry a flag for you. I'm bad at flirting.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Valentine's Day line of cards.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  Walking to the bar, you're like, hello, I have a flag and a torch. I don't, I'm kind of anachronistic.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  I set the one on fire. Oh, no.

• 10:33Nilay Patel?

  All right, Dieter, keep going. I'm sorry.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Apple bought Workflow.

• 10:38Nilay Patel?

  Apple bought Workflow.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Apple bought Workflow, which is this iOS utility that's basically if this than that for phones and tablets that lets you basically connect up a bunch of random shit via like, you know, deep links and web services to basically like do stuff on the iPhone that you couldn't otherwise do with button presses. And they like, they were really smart by like jacking into the notification widgets and also the, um, the slide up share sheet thing.

• 11:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Like those, those extra things, those extensions. So Apple bought them. And so it's like, oh, hey, maybe that sort of model is like the future of taking iOS and turning it from a Netflix machine that you can only do what Apple lets you do into a computer where you can do more stuff. Um, so I was really excited and then they made it free, which is also great because it used to cost three bucks. And then with the update to make it free, they disabled its ability to talk to Google Chrome, Google Maps, and like some other like.

• 11:39Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Uber. There's like a whole bunch of things where they turn it off and they switch the default maps to Apple Maps.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  That's cute.

• 11:46Nilay Patel?

  That's like the most petty Apple shit in the world.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Right?

• 11:49Nilay Patel?

  Like, we bought your app and people loved it. Like, the default thing that people would talk about was like, you could get a screen, you could set it up and like, when you had an appointment, it would screenshot you Google Earth screenshots of where you're going to be. Like, that was the standard example of Workflow. And Apple bought it and they're like, what if we turn that off? Because fuck you, Google.

• 12:10Nilay Patel?

  But I, look, I support these companies being extremely petty when it comes to competing. Right? If they can get out all the anger at the, on the petty level, and then like, you know, they walk in the meeting and they like, they've worked it all off.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Well, they're just going to seal it. They'll just, instead of a Google Earth thing, we'll just have some shitty Apple Maps like screenshot for you and it's like, maybe five feet away from where you're supposed to be.

• 12:32Nilay Patel?

  And the building looks melted. Um, wait, let's go back to the iPad. So Dieter, you're saying you carry the, you, you carry a number of objects on fire, draped in cloth, whatever it is, uh, because you both, because you love, but you carry the torch, the whatever, the flaming torch.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  I carry a flag that's on fire.

• 12:52Nilay Patel?

  For the concept of like next generation, I know what you're getting at.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:56Nilay Patel?

  Right? You're the one who thinks tablets are gonna be the thing.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Well, I'm the one who thinks that fundamentally, there is a ceiling on iPads becoming the future of computing because they just stop you from doing stuff on them. And this, I don't want to redo, you should just listen to Neelai's podcast with Walt about internet appliances. Like, the iPad is the best appliance.

• 13:20Nilay Patel?

  Ah, so you agree with me. But Walt and I disagreed on that.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's a great appliance, but it's definitely like, like it doesn't cross that line of like, I want to do one, yet one more thing that this thing doesn't let me do. And I, I like, I waffle on whether or not I believe Apple is going to enable that kind of thing.

• 13:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Just the dumbest thing in the world, a thing that we all probably do a lot. It's really hard to like make a gif of something that you just see on the iPad.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 13:48Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like watching a movie and like making a gif out of a scene of a movie is very easy to do on a computer.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:54Nilay Patel?

  If you capture.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  It's really easy to do on a Note 7 too, speaking of things that are on fire.

• 13:59Nilay Patel?

  Rough, rough. Everybody take a minute.

• 14:04Nilay Patel?

  Let's just hold on to that one. The Note 7 jokes are gonna be over because the S8 will come out.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:08Nilay Patel?

  No, there's a, there's a hard deadline on Note 7 jokes. Get them in. The S8 is being announced on March 29th.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 14:14Nilay Patel?

  And you've got to submit all of your Note 7 jokes before that day. Unless that phone also explodes, which is a real possibility.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  When, when Samsung, if they release a red version of the S8, if it's not named Ember, I'm gonna be super pissed.

• 14:29Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty good. Man, for Samsung. We, we're gonna get to that in a minute. Is there anything, we gotta talk about Clips.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Oh, Clips, right.

• 14:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just to wrap up the iPad, we are all kind of in agreement that this is just like a desperation. We made a cheaper one. Hopefully you buy this one, kind of move.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Well, that's kind of, you kind of have to. There's no more iPad air. If you want an iPad, this is what you get.

• 14:48Nilay Patel?

  Or the Pro.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, most people probably aren't gonna shell out for a Pro. So if you want an iPad that you can afford, this is the one you get.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  Megan, what's the universe in which you spend a thousand dollars on an iPad Pro instead of a laptop?

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Uh, the universe in which my laptop breaks and I don't want to buy a new one.

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  But like, if you had a choice, your laptop, that laptop, say something was to happen to your laptop.

• 15:11Nilay Patel?

  It's like scooting away from me. That's a real nice laptop you got there. Now, say that one is to break and you have a thousand dollars. Is there a world in which you buy an iPad Pro instead of another laptop?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  No, absolutely not. Like, if I'm gonna spend money on a thing, I want it to be like the nicest, cheap version of the thing, right? So I'm just gonna get a computer. I'm gonna get like a shitty laptop air.

• 15:33Nilay Patel?

  I don't, I don't. Laptop air. It's great.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  I don't see this as a desperation move from Apple. It's not desperate. They're just like recognizing what the market is. People, they, you know, if they don't want to spend the money to try and get an iPad Pro to replace your computer, they just want a tablet. And so they're just gonna go get whatever's cheap. And they made the iPad cheap. Like, turns out that people don't care about having, like, we've been saying for years, people don't upgrade their iPads. People don't care about having the fastest one. People don't care about having true color, tone, color, whatever the hell it's called, on the screen. They just want a thing to watch Netflix and browse the web. And so Apple's like, alright, here's the cheapest one we could make with a big screen. Here, here you go. No problem.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is true. I'm buying one tomorrow for my mom. This is Natt's weekly moment to insert her mom into literally every podcast appearance she makes.

• 16:24Nilay Patel?

  Two for two.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Her birthday's on Saturday, so I'm gonna get it for her because that's, she's traveling back to Thailand soon and she does not have a laptop. She has a desktop and she just wants something to be able to access the internet with. So that's what she's gonna get. Surprise, mom.

• 16:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, my, my parents travel with their iPad too.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:39Nilay Patel?

  But it's literally an iPad 2.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and she was asking whether she should buy one now. And I'm like, maybe a new one is coming out. And this new one's coming out. It's, may or may not be as great as the one I could have gotten, but it's cheaper, so who cares?

• 16:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Alright, let's talk about Clips.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Clips.

• 16:54Nilay Patel?

  So I, my nightmare scenario was that Apple would build iMessage Stories.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:59Nilay Patel?

  And I know that they're going to. We all know that they're going to. It's gonna happen. But Clips is like the hybrid thing. You're like the baby step.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  So it's basically take all the weird, wacky shit that you get to do with Snapchat videos or, I don't know, Instagram or Facebook Messenger or Stories or whatever, like all the weird filter shit. But then just make that into an app that doesn't actually, isn't actually connected up to any social networks. And then you're supposed to take that video, save it, and then send it out to whatever network you want to use. So Apple said, hmm, we're really, all the kids are using all these other social apps. We should make a social app, but if we made a social app, it would probably fail because most social app fails and then people would look at us and say that we made a social app that failed. So let's just make all the parts except the social part and then nobody will blame us if it doesn't succeed.

• 17:49Nilay Patel?

  I think it's more like motion stills. Like Google made motion stills and motion stills is great.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:54Nilay Patel?

  It's a toy that they made and Apple made a toy. And I think they're really, Apple's really good at like video editing toys. Like they still have that iMovie team that like every now and again, they're like, what if the interface for editing movies was crazy? And they did it in Final Cut, they did it again in iMovie. Like I like the idea that they made a little wild and wacky video editor. But I think the real step here is the next iPhone, the rumor from Bloomberg is that it'll be like heavily augmented reality.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:20Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and this is how you, if you make an augmented reality phone that's like layering information in all the video, you need an app to like make it and share it. And this is, I think, the first step to that app.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 18:31Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like-

• 18:32Speaker 02

  But to me, it's super weird because I think of Apple and video editing. It's like professional creatives and this is like teen.

• 18:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Don't really get it like-

• 18:40Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you don't think of iMovie and teens?

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  I totally think, like, I think of Apple and video editing and I think of a bunch of teenagers using iMovie.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:47Nilay Patel?

  And then getting jobs and then realizing that every professional environment uses Premiere.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  I just agree. In college, back in my day, that's what we used.

• 18:56Nilay Patel?

  Premiere?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  iMovie, yeah.

• 18:57Nilay Patel?

  No, that's what I mean. Teen, like teenagers and iMovie is like the core of the Apple experience.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  But that's for making like a full-on video. It's not for like, I'm gonna make a funny thing and send it to my friends. If you're gonna make a funny thing and send it to your friends, you use Snapchat or Instagram or-

• 19:12Nilay Patel?

  Right. So I'm saying like-

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Messenger stories or whatever the hell.

• 19:14Nilay Patel?

  In, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, kids making videos, they were using iMovie and all of that has been replaced by Instagram, Snapchat.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:24Nilay Patel?

  So why wouldn't Apple want a piece of that? Because that's, that's like-

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  Still the core of their brand.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 19:29Nilay Patel?

  It's like, you can be creative because you have a Mac, like-

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess the argument here is that like iMovie was-

• 19:35Nilay Patel?

  Man, just smile at me.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  The argument here is that-

• 19:37Nilay Patel?

  She's like, are you making fun of baristas?

• 19:41Speaker 02

  I mean, iMovie is good for creating videos and yes, that's what we all used when we were teens, just screwing around with video editing and uploading stupid stuff to Facebook or YouTube. But still, that was sort of like, we were trying to make like a movie or like something funny. It wasn't like, I made this video so that I can say hi to Meghan from like, just because. Like, I use Instagram and maybe, I don't personally use Snapchat, but people use Snapchat to like, literally just say hi, or like, hey, I'm at this place. People are not gonna go to iMovie and make like a long-winded video just to say hi. That's, I just think the purpose is completely different. So I don't really know, I don't get clips, I'm not gonna be able to use clips because I don't have an iPhone, but, yeah, I just, I don't really get it.

• 20:24Nilay Patel?

  I think it's gonna be a fun like Instagram fad. Like, there are Instagram fads in this world, they come in like, May 2, is that app that like, the selfie?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  I call it the anime app, yeah, it just turns into a terrifying anime character.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like, I don't have any skin.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Steals all your data.

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  It steals your, like, that's Apple's wedge. We don't steal your data and send it to the Chinese government when you use our video app. I think it's, I think it's fun, but I do think the move here is for Apple to get people to use this app so that when the new iPhone comes out, and it's got a bunch of AR shit in it, like, you're already accustomed to like making and sharing AR stuff, right? Or you're already accustomed to using this app to do weird funky depth tricks with your photos, and then you like, you know, they're like, the new iPhone has eight cameras on the back and like senses the world around it and like layers information, and you can take a photo with clips and like layer in shit and send it to Instagram. Like, you just see those threads aligning very clearly. And I think you get out clips now, you put it out now so that people wanna use it and

• 21:20Nilay Patel?

  they're excited about it, instead of, it's only on the new iPhone. I don't know, that's, I just see, they gotta do something, if they do all this AR stuff for the iPhone, they need to find a way to share it. Because if you're not sharing it, it's kinda like not, otherwise it's just you walking around with a phone in front of your face being like, I see data where there was none. And that's like a little terrifying. Let's do a little bit of Google. Okay. And then we can view an ad. So Nat, you actually played with Android O.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  I did.

• 21:46Nilay Patel?

  Tell me about it.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  It's less exciting than when Android N Developer Preview came out because I feel like multi-window was immediately kind of like, oh, my God, this is a thing that Samsung's had forever. Like Android, other Android people can now have it. But now Android O does not have as many consumer-facing features yet. The only two things that you can really play with is the snooze notifications, which I have a lot of problems with. You have to like soft swipe it to either left or right and then find the clock to snooze it. But if you swipe a little too far, which most people are probably used to doing with their thumb, you dismiss it permanently.

• 22:22Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  So that's really annoying for me because I went on Facebook Live earlier today to demonstrate it and I literally accidentally swiped it away. I'm like, well, gotta wait a little bit for new notifications to try that with. But yeah, I mean, hopefully they'll fix it before it rolls out. I'm sure it's just kind of like a trial and error thing for now. The other thing you can do with it is you can customize the lock screen shortcuts, which is awesome. Right now, if you use a Google phone, your two lock screen shortcuts are either to unlock Google Assistant or open the camera. So three shortcuts. But when you can now customize using the system's UI tuner, which Dieter just told me, you

• 23:04Speaker 02

  can unlock it by holding the cog at the top navigation bar. And yeah, and you can customize, literally, you can put anything on it. And it's not just an app. You can literally put like "compose on Gmail" and it will unlock that feature and take you right to it from the lock screen, which I think is pretty cool. It's not quite like the weather widget that Adrie Robertson wanted and she wrote a thing about a couple of weeks ago, but it's close. It's getting there. I feel like we're in the right direction in terms of making the lock screen a little more interactive.

• 23:33Nilay Patel?

  So I finally have a Pixel. I have it. And I haven't switched over to have it be my main phone.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  You have not?

• 23:40Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Why?

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  iMessage. It's terrifying. It's a terrifying thing to be like, I...

• 23:48Nilay Patel?

  Will never talk to my friends and family again. Like it just, something's gonna break and all my messages are gonna go away.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  That's how, kinda how I felt when I moved over from R and B BlackBerry. And then I was like, it's fine. It's, it's gonna be fine.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  It's not fine. They won't talk to you. Especially if there's group chats.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  It's gonna be fine.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Especially if you are in any group chats with your family. That's just all gone. Also, like-

• 24:10Nilay Patel?

  See?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Baby photos, like my niece and nephew, like there's like, there's just, there's giant albums of pictures of them having adventures that everybody in my family sees but me.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  No. That's so tragic.

• 24:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's the best lock-in in the entire industry.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  See, that's why I have my mom on, ah, mom. That's why I have my mom on messaging apps. Then we can all, who cares what phones you use, you'll see it.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  I, I sent a WhatsApp message to my parents saying, hey, does this still work for you guys? I'd like to use this to talk to you now. And um, my mom replied an hour later saying, uh, I can't figure out how this works and um, I never got the notification. And I only saw it because your dad saw it, but he can't open the app. And then my dad sent me an email saying, yeah, this doesn't work. I don't know what the deal is. Your mom was very confused by it too, so no.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Well, I talked to my mom through Facebook Messenger, which is great because she's a big fan of stickers and she basically communicates with me in stickers about 90% of the time and she does not ever have to type. It's great.

• 25:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna try to work up the courage, the liquid courage to switch my SIM over to my Pixel this weekend.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  I literally have thought about it. Out of my Pixel.

• 25:21Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  I took my SIM out of my Pixel. Yeah, because I broke it, because it's cracked. Um, so I put it in this Galaxy S7 Edge, um, which uh, had been in a drawer for like two months. And uh, I had to like upgrade it through like eight upgrade cycles to, you know, get it to be usable. It took me literally 12 hours to get this phone like usable.

• 25:42Nilay Patel?

  That's awful.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  It's fine now, though.

• 25:44Nilay Patel?

  Is it?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:46Nilay Patel?

  Is it?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Android O, like, the big, big, big, big change is that Google has finally gone full Apple and is fully restricting background apps.

• 25:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  They've like, they've, they've, they talk about battery life every iteration. They've walked up to this line a couple of times and been like, we're going to give you options for minimizing what you do in the background. We're going to do this a little bit. We're going to do that a little bit. But this time around, they're like, yeah, no, these are the things that apps are allowed to do in the background. These are the things that we're going to just stop or throttle. Sorry, goodbye. Which is really interesting. It'll be really great to see what happens there for battery life. I'm really, really curious to see what happens on stuff other than phones where you actually want to have two Windows active at the same time. And if maybe limiting everything else means that they can have a couple of apps running at the same time, because that's one of the things Jake noticed on the S3 tablet review

• 26:41Speaker 01

  is the app that isn't the one in focus on an Android tablet. And same thing on like Chrome OS when you have Android apps running. If the Android app isn't like currently the thing that's in focus, it just like freezes. It just stops.

• 26:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  And they might be able to like better manage that stuff if they're more aggressive about turning off stuff that's even further in the background. I don't know, we'll see. But like, that's probably the, for like Android developers, the biggest change.

• 27:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It just seems like O is very iterative, but in the best way. Like more customizations, better notifications, like the little things that make a phone annoying. They've like paid attention to them in a way that Apple, whenever Apple like talks about notifications, I just start cringing. It's like, I assume that no one who works at Apple gets notifications.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  Because there's no excuse for how they handle and manage notifications.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  There's a whole lot of other notification updates that are supposed to show up soon, too.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  There you're supposed to be able to categorize notifications now, which is super cool.

• 27:42Nilay Patel?

  So I have, yeah, right. And you can mark some as like marketing.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, like or like just messaging or like just like rent like social apps, I think.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  It's vague. So what I want is something like what Gmail or inbox does, where I can like say all of these things bundle up into this category and all these apps bundle up into this category, all these apps bundle up into that category. What I think they're actually doing is inside each app, if an app wants to give you five different kinds of notifications, they can be, it can bundle those up and then you can tell the app, I only want to see, you know.

• 28:17Nilay Patel?

  Right. But doesn't this presume like an extraordinary amount of like good behavior from app developers?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:23Nilay Patel?

  Like this system, like if you're an app developer, you're like, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna label these notifications as marketing. And everyone's gonna see that. Like, it's never gonna happen.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  No, but like the Android is so much better at giving you control over notifications that you see and don't see anyway, that like giving app developers a little bit more power to categorize it. Like if they are bad, I'll just turn off notifications for their app. You know, like, I don't care. It's fine.

• 28:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, screw you, app.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:51Nilay Patel?

  Don't lie to me.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Today's episode is brought to you by Cris.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Today's episode is brought to you by Crisal, no glare lenses. If you wear glasses, then you know that fingerprints, smudges, scratches and glares can be a constant obstruction to your vision and a huge distraction. Sometimes you end up focusing more on what's in your glasses than what's going on around you. That's why I love Crisal no glare lenses. They give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to glare, scratches and smudges. Go to the website. It's crisal.com to learn more and start living life in the clear.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna get any nice tweets about that one.

• 29:31Nilay Patel?

  This is true. Here's a true fact. I, I, I've never done a good job of reading the ads. They keep, the advertisers keep coming back. I don't, I assume it's because my terrible reads people listen to. So they keep coming back. I mean, we've sold more Squarespace websites than anybody. Or Squarespace just doesn't know. It's one or the other.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  You're just waiting for your mail camp moment.

• 29:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's gonna happen. But I, we have actually gotten notes about, from like random listeners about the Crisal ads. And then Megan read one last week really well, and she got a compliment, like someone emailed her.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  I got a couple compliments. No, people tweeted and emailed me and I was like, this is weird. The weirdest nice thing anybody's said to me.

• 30:10Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, buy the glasses. You're gonna love them. Crizal.com.

• 30:15Nilay Patel?

  All right, so Dieter, we talked briefly about the Tab S3.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:20Nilay Patel?

  We talked briefly about your Chromebook review.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  I want to talk about that for just one second, because you tweeted that you have a theory that Android tablets are just gonna turn into Chrome tablets.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:31Nilay Patel?

  Walk me through this theory real fast.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Android tablets are universally bad. Android apps on tablets are pretty bad as well. I posted a story on Wednesday, which was just block quotes of every major Android tablet review we have ever done.

• 30:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And I just quoted the line where we said Android apps on tablets are bad because

• 30:51Nilay Patel?

  Dating to 2011.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Dating since 2011. Android apps on tablets have just been big blown up phone apps. No, I think that if Google is going to successfully sell tablets, they need to give you some sort of thing that you want that you can't get from an iPad. And they clearly are not gonna do it through like better apps. It's just not gonna happen. They're probably not gonna be able to do it through better hardware. Because like the iPad hardware is pretty good, even if it's like, you know, two-year-old stuff from the parts bin. So they need an advantage. And the advantage that I think is sitting right there in front of them, ready to go, is just ship it with Chrome OS instead of Android, and then you can have a full desktop class browser on your tablet.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  And that solves two problems. It gives you reason to buy it instead of an iPad, because you can do stuff that you can't do in an iPad, because its web browser is not as good as what you can get on your desktop. And it gives you a bunch of web apps, which will fill the gaps in what you're able to do, you know, with Android apps, because a bunch of them are big blown up phone apps. Theoretically, if this works, they'll also sell a bunch of these cheap Chrome OS tablets to schools. Those schools will want to buy them because they want to give their kids tablets instead of laptops, maybe. And that's great because the Chrome OS is really good in education, really easy to log in and out of. And then maybe, if all of that happens, maybe, maybe, maybe.

• 32:19Nilay Patel?

  This is Seinfeld voice he's doing. I don't know what's happening.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Maybe there'll be enough install base of Chrome OS stuff running Android. And there'll be enough people using them on Chromebooks that it'll be worth developers' time to optimize and update their apps to work on larger screens.

• 32:34Nilay Patel?

  This is the most hopeful conspiracy theory of all time.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:38Nilay Patel?

  But I'm into it because I want a tablet with a little browser.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  If you had a choice between an Android tablet, a Chrome OS tablet, and an iPad, you'd probably pick the iPad. But you might pick the Chrome OS tablet. And if you had a choice between an Android tablet and a Chrome OS tablet, which one would you pick?

• 32:52Nilay Patel?

  The Chrome OS tablet.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Because it also has all the Android apps you want.

• 32:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  You know, six.

• 32:57Nilay Patel?

  Right now, they work for shit.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Well, I mean.

• 32:58Nilay Patel?

  They got to solve. That's a big problem to solve.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Netflix is fine. The Microsoft Office is pretty good, right? Like, some of the stuff is fine. The, the main stuff you want on a tablet is like, you, you get a really good web browser, you get Netflix, you get Hulu, fine.

• 33:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The Conspiracy Theory by Dieter Bohn. I'm telling you, it's, I believe you, it's gonna happen. I just think that last turn where they start making actually good Android tablet apps.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, who knows?

• 33:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I'm just surprised Samsung made and shipped this thing.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, it's weird, right?

• 33:28Nilay Patel?

  Like, if that's the future, like, why? Do they just want to have something in MWC like they're like, well, so this is where I usually put out notes and they, so, like, I mean, that's just like how it feels. Like, they just needed something and they're like, here, here's the thing.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's super, it's super doesn't make sense why it even exists.

• 33:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know anybody that.

• 33:50Nilay Patel?

  It's the last of its kind.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:53Nilay Patel?

  Although I will say Samsung makes the giant Galaxy VU tablet, which I believe still runs Marshmallow. So it's way behind. No, it's not even the one before that, Kick Cat. It's like Lollipop or Kick Cat. It's like, super old. Throwback birthday. But it's like a 17-inch tablet with a kickstand.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:10Nilay Patel?

  It's amazing. It has a handle. And it's like, just a little, like, you're just supposed to carry it in your house and use it as a TV. And I just, I want them to, I just want that thing to be around me more.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  The battery life is about forty minutes, I think?

• 34:23Nilay Patel?

  Ah, that's all you need. I mean, that's how long the joke lasts. And then you're like, well, I have an eighteen inch tablet.

• 34:32Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna go use my phone now. Alright, I wanna do a thing that I'm calling Megan's Kulture Corner.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  I do not agree to this name. We're not gonna call it that. It's unnamed so far.

• 34:42Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's spelled Corner with a K and Culture with a K.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Like Mortal Kombat style?

• 34:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  For extra coolness.

• 34:49Nilay Patel?

  So I'm saying, I think that's a great name.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  Coolness with a K.

• 34:51Nilay Patel?

  Very culture. Coolness with a K?

• 34:54Nilay Patel?

  Alright, Megan, you wanna talk about Mass Effect?

• 34:56Speaker 03

  I do. I mostly wanna shame you for not, uh, playing the trilogy. Mass Effect Andromeda came out this week.

• 35:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  I've spent a lot of time with it, by which I mean, I've spent three hours, all of which have been in its character creation system.

• 35:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Which is like a hot mess.

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  Really? Wasn't there like, there was some big drama over the animations?

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's actually been a lot of, um, quote-unquote controversy around it because, um...

• 35:19Nilay Patel?

  Is that quote spelled with a K? W?

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Duh. I don't even know why I have to say it.

• 35:22Nilay Patel?

  In the Culture Corner.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  I assume everything is spelled with a K at this point. Uh, no, so there was, um...

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Ejecting Eli from this corner, also with a K.

• 35:34Nilay Patel?

  We lost Nat, everybody.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  We've lost the thread. Okay. Uh, okay, so Mass Effect Andromeda, um, there's a lot of drama going on because, um, there are problems with the animations in-game. So sometimes your character will be speaking and they're not making any kind of face that a normal human would make, or not really reacting properly. Uh, I, I did play a little bit of the game and when I started, at one point, there's a guy who goes to like punch you in the shoulder, but like his fist doesn't actually connect. It's like, there's like this weird force field that prevents him from hitting you just because the animations are not great. Um, but also...

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  Or is that just a realistic depiction of awkward social interactions?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, that sounds like something I would totally do.

• 36:11Nilay Patel?

  Dieter goes to Chucky on the shoulder, misses, falls down, and is like, "Cool talk!"

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so people in the gaming community caught on to this.

• 36:22Nilay Patel?

  You just laughed at the concept of the gaming community.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Because there are people in the, not all gamers, not all gamers are bad. But there are some people who are fucking atrocious.

• 36:32Nilay Patel?

  Yes, I agree with you.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  In every sense of the word, and these particular subset of people went after a woman who they thought was responsible for the lead animations, which I, BioWare hasn't even like, it's not her fault. I don't even think she was connected to the project. Also, it's an entire team, so you can't pin one entire game's bad animations on a single person.

• 36:52Nilay Patel?

  BioWare had to put out a statement.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, they put out a statement, yeah.

• 36:54Nilay Patel?

  What? Yeah, it was a whole thing. They like preemptively put out a statement being like, she didn't work on it.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  And also, stop, stop it.

• 37:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Everyone stop being jerks. So yeah.

• 37:04Nilay Patel?

  I feel like every game publisher should just every now and again, release a statement that's like, stop being jerks. Reminder.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Just a casual reminder, stop being garbage humans.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the game is, it's a huge game. It's not as good so far as the trilogy from all the reviews.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Caveat, I haven't really played that much of it yet, but you haven't played any of them, have you?

• 37:25Nilay Patel?

  So I've been, here's, I have a thing. Okay, I'm, I'm in an emotional place right now.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  You start like uncomfortably squirmy.

• 37:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, so I made this video, I made a pilot of a video, like of a thing where I'm like, gonna like be Youtubey and like rant at the camera. Just go with me on this.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  You were almost a Youtuber?

• 37:41Nilay Patel?

  It's like, we're like, let's try to make new kinds of videos. It's actually Video Hack Week this week, like lots of experiments from our video team of new kinds of things we could do. So one they wanted to make with me was like, what if you do like Youtubey style rants at the camera? But we didn't want it to be on the news cycle because we wanted to give them things. So they're like, what, here's a list of headlines from The Verge. And I was like, vaping? Like, that's a thing I think about because I'm addicted to fucking nicotine. So I made this video about vaping and I was like, this is actually not great because I'm addicted to this now instead of smoking. And this is probably still bad for me. And the best thing to do is probably not to inhale shit into my lungs, which I don't think is a controversial statement.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  How else are people gonna know you're cool though?

• 38:20Nilay Patel?

  But the, the vape people found my video and now the vape people are yelling at me. So that is just, that's a dull roar in the background of my life. And I'm gonna say some things about video games now, and I just don't want to add the game people to the vape people.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  The shitty game people we talked about earlier.

• 38:36Nilay Patel?

  They are all vaping. I bet they're already mad at me. Look, I love you all, listeners. You're my people. Just stop vaping and tweeting at me.

• 38:47Nilay Patel?

  Stop it. Please stop.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  What does this have to do with Mass Effect?

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  Here's my question. I read all the reviews of Mass Effect in Andromeda. In preparation for the show, because I knew the Culture Corner was coming. And you might be backed into this corner. This game seems like it's mostly about wandering around, doing stuff you could do in reality, like making friends. Yeah, but it's like, like Andrew's.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  You become best friends with aliens.

• 39:11Nilay Patel?

  Andrew's review ends with like, "I didn't remember the gunfights or the battles. I remember talking about religion at the canteen, drinking tea." And it's like, is that what video games are gonna just become? Is like, ever more fantastical settings for mundane activities you could perform in real life?

• 39:26Speaker 03

  I think there's been a push lately into more mundane gameplay, because people want to see that stuff represented, right? Like, there is something really novel about like, having a phone, being able to text somebody in a video game. I don't think it'll always be like that, but for now, it's interesting. And again, they're aliens, so.

• 39:42Nilay Patel?

  So you want to really experience the alien life?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  I want to watch a movie with an alien. I want to make out with an alien. You get to fuck aliens in that game.

• 39:50Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  I know, it's like a staple of the Mass Effect series, like, everybody fucks aliens.

• 39:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah. Now, Andrew, again, Andrew's review was like, "It took me like, five hours to get a kiss." And I was like, "What am I reading here?" Like, I don't know. I want to play, I'm like, I want to shoot things. But I guess you get to shoot things in this game, too.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  You do. I sure did shoot some aliens also. I will say.

• 40:11Nilay Patel?

  The fucking vape gamers are coming for me.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  It's just, okay. So the original trilogy, which I love, I think that Mass Effect 2 is like, one of the best games in like, the last like, 20 years. Like, I am a huge fan. But the original trilogy is good, because you play as somebody who's already an experienced commander, who's essentially trying to like, save the universe. I don't know, I'm not, I'm not a space person. Trying to save a lot of people from like, this overarching threat. With Andromeda, you're more of like, a younger, untested crew, so, I don't know, it's like. Space babies are like babysitting this like young group of teenagers and like you land on this first planet and immediately get into a fight with this alien species. And I'm like, yo, we just crash landed on this planet and we're already like murdering people like this is making a really bad impression. It just, it feels a little.

• 40:57Nilay Patel?

  A little shaky.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  A little shaky. I don't think it's as strong and I don't think the lead seems as strong so far, but it's hard because Commander Shepard was so good and Ryder is just proving him or herself.

• 41:10Nilay Patel?

  I get what you're saying. Like, it's not, is narratively strong, right? You don't start into it with the, because you're making a bunch of the decisions.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, the idea is more like you're going to go find a new home for a bunch of humans, the human race, not the entire race, but a ton of them.

• 41:25Nilay Patel?

  But people seem obsessed with this game.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Because the original games are, I mean, you have to keep in mind like the original games have a huge following because like they're extremely good games. Like they have really good combat. They have really deep relationship building and just a good story. Like they are space opera epics in a way that we don't really have in any other kind of, in any other video games. This one is, I'm gonna reserve any judgment outside of its character creation, which is.

• 41:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you spend hours and hours and hours lost in it.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Okay, here is my thing with any kind of game system where it's like, hey, make your own character. It's a lot of pressure. Do you know how hard it is to be like, I have to stare at this character for the next 50 hours. I better like what they look like. Like I will like make it, you make your, your character, you like spend all this time like customizing their face and then you look a little bit different when you actually get in game. So I'll be like, oh God, that lipstick is really, ooh, it's bad. I'm like, oh, why is her chin doing that? Like, you never have to think about what a chin looks like until you get a really bad one and you have to stare at it for like a while.

• 42:26Nilay Patel?

  Wow, dark.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  So I spent a lot of time making a character and then being like, no, that's bad and resetting.

• 42:33Nilay Patel?

  But you can't go back in the game and change it?

• 42:35Speaker 03

  No, that's the thing. In most games, there are some that'll let you tweak like minor things once you actually make your character, but most games like once you, you know, fill out the canvas or whatever, like that's it. Maybe you can change their hair later. I mean, I don't know. I don't know why I spend so much time trying to give my poor characters like digital plastic surgery. It's really important to me.

• 42:54Nilay Patel?

  I get it, right? I do that too, but I'm bad at video games. So like that feels like a game, a part of the game which, in which I can win.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Well, it just, it feels like, there are so few games that let you play as like, non-white, like, non-male characters, that when I actually get the chance to like, make a character that looks like me, like a Persian woman, I'm like, oh hell yeah, I'm gonna like, take some time, make myself look like this character. And it doesn't usually turn out that way. It's really hard to design video game characters, I don't know if you knew that?

• 43:18Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, and apparently this one lady really sucks at it. Sorry, that's really bad.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Get out of the corner.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  Corner's over. Reminder from Bioware, don't, don't be a jerk.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Yes, seriously.

• 43:29Nilay Patel?

  I really do think every video game company should just put that out.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Just periodically, like, be nice, speak it to each other.

• 43:33Nilay Patel?

  Speak it to each other. A reminder from your friends at Sony, like, and then you have to like, look at it for half an hour before you're allowed into the PS4.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Well, it's just like, god, if I can barely create a character that I like, I can't imagine what it's like to like, make an entire video game run, and then like, let some asshole like me like, tear around through it, it's like, here's a ball of Play-Doh, like, go make a thing, I hope you like it.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  What if they make a video game where you have to punch in, uh, verify your like, social media, your Twitter account, and then they can look at your Twitter account and see if you're a gamergator, and if you are, then they won't let you play it.

• 44:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no eggs allowed.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  No eggs allowed.

• 44:10Nilay Patel?

  It's a great game.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:13Nilay Patel?

  Uh, that's terrible. I have a question, why is everything getting so long?

• 44:17Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 44:18Nilay Patel?

  Like, every, like, Iron Fist is like, eh, like, it's just long.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  It just feels long.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's just, it's just a really long slog. Games are getting longer and longer and longer, right, and like, they involve many more, like, I watched a bunch of like, Zelda speedruns, and by watch, I mean I clicked to the end.

• 44:36Nilay Patel?

  Like you do, like, you can beat that game pretty fast.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Well, okay, let me ask you this, when was the last time you bought a video game with your own money?

• 44:43Nilay Patel?

  August.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Video games are expensive though, right? Like, I got really spoiled, because I watched a Polygon for a long time and got video games for free, and so I forgot what that was like, to have to go drop sixty to seventy bucks or whatever on a game, so yeah, it's like, you don't have time to buy a ton of stuff, like, if you buy this thing, if you pour a lot of money into it, like, don't you wanna spend a ton of time in it?

• 45:01Nilay Patel?

  No, it's true, I, I buy that, it's just, it feels like the, the reaction to more and more attention-sapping media from phones, is like, extended narratives in whatever world you're in.

• 45:13Nilay Patel?

  Right, so games are getting longer and longer, and I get the value argument. But then like all of this other stuff, like prestige television, like Mr. Robot. Dude just made two extra episodes. See, like he didn't even tell USA. He was just like, what if from 10 we go to 12? Cause I got more story to tell. And that's like, fine, and like, they're good shows. Um, but it just seems like that's like a real theme lately. Like everything's just getting longer and deeper. And particularly the like-

• 45:41Speaker 03

  I don't, I think it just depends, right? Like you brought up like Iron Fist and Netflix earlier, but I think that like, if you look at those shows, like they're actually pretty short. Like most standard shows on TV have like, what, like a good 24 episodes, but like a Netflix season can be, those Marvel shows are like 13 episodes, which is really not that long.

• 45:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  I mean, I personally-

• 46:00Nilay Patel?

  They should be eight.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I'm totally with you. I think some of the best shows that you can watch on Netflix are the ones that are short. Like I love The Fall, which is, um, I think originally yours on BBC, but that's like, what, they're like six episodes total?

• 46:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  And it's good because like, it's such a good, tight story. Like that's why I liked the first season of Mr. Robot, cause it was a good, tight story. Season two was like a lot of weird padding.

• 46:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but he, seriously, like, and we did the after show and like, we would just like be told, like, you're coming back next week because he made more. It was like a very strange moment for us.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

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• 46:59Speaker 03

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  Can you live up to it? Can you live up to Squarespace? Plus, with Squarespace's award-winning templates, creating a beautiful website is simple and intuitive. You can add and arrange your content and features with a click of the mouse. There's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade ever. But if you do have a question, Squarespace's award-winning 24/7 customer support can help you with any problem, no matter how technical or trivial. Think of them as your very own IT department. So make your next move aggressive. Make your next move. Start your free trial at Squarespace.com today. Enter offer code VERGE to get 10% off your first purchase and a free domain name. Culturecorner.com. Again, that is offer code VERGE, V E R G E, Squarespace.com.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Spoiler, Culturecorner.com exists.

• 47:41Nilay Patel?

  No!

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Ah, it's fucking terrifying! It's not a spellbook cave! It's just little dolls!

• 47:49Nilay Patel?

  All right, Dieter, and Nat, and Megan, everybody, family.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Hi!

• 47:53Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about this film that's coming out next week. So there's like leaks. The whole thing has been leaked. Galaxy S8.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Pretty much the whole thing has been leaked. Yeah, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus.

• 48:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't think we've seen details on DEX, which is the desktop jibber jabber.

• 48:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Um...

• 48:09Speaker 02

  We were talking a lot about it's how it stylized D, E, and capital X, because it's supposed to be short for Desktop Experience.

• 48:17Nilay Patel?

  I wanna kill myself.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  And I wanted to die.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  I think that's catchy, you guys.

• 48:22Nilay Patel?

  Let's all... Wait, I forgot to do something. Before we dive into the desktop experience, before we leave the Culture Corner for the desktop experience. Worst candy line ever. Paul's not here, as you may have noticed. So Nat actually comes on and does a segment every week.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Every week she does a segment.

• 48:40Nilay Patel?

  It always has the same name, which Nat is.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Did you know that hoverboards are still a thing?

• 48:45Nilay Patel?

  Hoverboards are still a thing.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Um, Mark Cuban apparently is going to release his new hoverboard company on Kickstarter. Why? Dude is rich.

• 48:55Nilay Patel?

  That makes sense. You wanna collect the money upfront. He's a good businessman.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Dude has the money to make the hoverboard. Anyway, it's a hoverboard company. It's called, um, the hoverboard itself is called MOOV, M-O-O-V, MOOV.

• 49:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. And, um, yeah, apparently hoverboards are still a thing. I had no idea.

• 49:14Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what, what's his differentiation?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Um, it's unclear. Um, literally Sean O'Kane, who was just talking to Mark Cuban about a completely different thing, um, ended up finding out what his company was, and then he just dug into it and found that he's releasing a hoverboard on Kickstarter, and then they were like, "Yeah, confirmed, that's true." And it looks basically just like any other hoverboard, except in the middle, instead of the little, um, divot that goes in, it's just a big, straight, flat box. That's what it looks like.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  What? I need to look at photos of this.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  I don't know. It's just a big, straight line that you step on, kinda like any, like a stair. With wheels on the side. I just don't understand. Why can't you just walk? I don't know. Hoverboard.

• 49:57Nilay Patel?

  Here are the businesses I'm aware of Mark Cuban being involved in. HDNet.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  Which is a cable network that he sold. He used that money to buy the Dallas Mavericks. Then he used, and then he used that money to invest in the real tequila Avion in the fictional universe of Entourage. Thus, Turning Turtle and an entrepreneur. And now he's using his Entourage money to start a hoverboard.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  What about Shark Tank? That was a thing he did, right?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, he's still doing Shark Tank.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:24Nilay Patel?

  But like, what's, what's a big Shark Tank hit? And also, how does Shark Tank crossover into Entourage?

• 50:28Speaker 02

  I feel like Shark Tank is more of the, the move gap. I don't know what the connection is between Entourage and Shark Tank.

• 50:34Nilay Patel?

  Wait, is, do you think move was a Shark Tank thing?

• 50:37Speaker 02

  What if he stole it from someone?

• 50:38Nilay Patel?

  There's like some poor Shark Tank. He's like, it's a board that rolls.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Their tagline is like, "Start the movement."

• 50:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh god.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Wanted to die.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Cuban has invested in 82 different deals on Shark Tank.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  For a total of 19.4 million dollars.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Oh, by the way, this company is called Radical Transport, which

• 50:55Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Apparently follows along a theme of his other companies that are just a bunch of radical TKs.

• 51:02Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what are the other radicals?

• 51:03Speaker 02

  It's like Radical Investments, Radical Ventures, like a bunch of radical shit that no one cares about. And now we have a Radical Transport, which is not that radical. It's something that peaked in 2015.

• 51:15Nilay Patel?

  I bought a hoverboard for my niece for Christmas, and the first thing that happened when she pulled it out of the box was my sister said, "Don't those explode?" And then she, I had to like, calm her down. I was like, "No, these are the new ones."

• 51:26Speaker 02

  This is the good one. I'm very afraid to get on one, because I just feel like I will bust my teeth in.

• 51:31Nilay Patel?

  Okay, we gotta get one. Alright, let's talk about Dex, just to wrap up the show. So, next week, S8 coming out.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:38Nilay Patel?

  Again, the whole, just the whole thing has been leaked. Evan Blass, doing his thing. EV leaks. So we know what it looks like. It actually looks great. I think it looks great.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Looks good.

• 51:47Nilay Patel?

  Fingerprint sensor is next to the camera, which seems very stupid to me.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Very upset about that, as a left-hander.

• 51:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, it's just, it's a dirty camera. That's what that phone is gonna be known for.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  I also just think that the position is very not left-hander friendly. This is extremely uncomfortable to me versus just this.

• 52:05Nilay Patel?

  Oh, right, because it's, it's over on the side.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Right? I feel like, why don't designers think about left-handers? We exist.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  I'm left-handed.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Why do people care?

• 52:14Nilay Patel?

  They don't, no one loves us. Um, sorry, Nat.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  I don't have a problem with this.

• 52:20Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  This is fine.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  Me and Dieter are like, whatever.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, this is great. We can use scissors whenever we want. It's never awkward.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  I wish companies would design things that, or like do things that don't just benefit them. Like, it would be nice if you did things that benefited everybody.

• 52:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but then the only real differentiation here is this Dex thing. Oh, and Bixby. Literally the name of a butler, or a small dog. Dan wrote a whole thing about Bixby, which is Samsung's voice assistant. I think Dan and Dieter is a collabo burn where Bixby is supposed to solve the hardest problem in tech, which is making Samsung's software easier to use, which is pretty good. But it's not supposed to like do cloud stuff. It's not supposed to go fetch information for you.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, you think of a smart assistant, like you always hear like, "How tall is the Eiffel Tower? Where is it?" And like, that's, you know, you need to ask those questions all the time. Uh, this one is supposed to like be the thing that helps you use the thing you're actually using.

• 53:14Nilay Patel?

  Right. So like you're clicking around and you're like, "Fuck it, Bixby, send this to Instagram."

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:19Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's a way to word it.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  You do sound like you're yelling at a butler.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Right. Fuck it, Bixby. Fetch me, fetch me my mail.

• 53:28Nilay Patel?

  Bixby, bring me the slippers. And it's like, "I'm a phone."

• 53:34Nilay Patel?

  But, but it's like interesting, right? They're trying to like hybridize voice and touch in a way that no one else has tried to do. Like, everything's been a pure interface.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, if you turn on like the voiceover thing, you know, if you're like, if you have a, you know, bad vision on an iPhone, you could actually jam through a bunch of stuff. Uh, David Pogue did a really good video, like showing somebody just like, listen to this hyperspeed voice.

• 53:56Nilay Patel?

  But there's no, but that is the other way around.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  It's still tapping. Yeah, I know. It's, I was getting there, man. Just.

• 54:01Nilay Patel?

  I'm there. I'm just so excited about Bixby.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Just, are you?

• 54:05Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I like small dogs. I've always wanted a butler.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:09Nilay Patel?

  I feel like, I feel good about it.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, no one's really done that. Like, Google walked up to it and then ran the fuck away with Google Now on tap, right?

• 54:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  The idea was like, but it wasn't about interacting with the app directly. It was about pulling information out of the app and then doing stuff with it. Uh, and then it was just really bad at that. So this is like, this is a weird new interaction model. What's funny is, are people are, are still like, I don't want to talk to my phone. I'm like, it seems like nobody cares or nobody's got angst about that anymore. We know how we feel about that now. I don't know.

• 54:44Nilay Patel?

  I mean, the, the things get me about this are, one, just reading Dan's piece, like you have to write an app that supports the Bixby API.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:52Nilay Patel?

  Which means only Samsung's apps will ever support it. So that's awful. But it does strike me as like you're in, you know, you're in their mail app or whatever. And instead of having to figure out how to like delete an email, you can just be like, Bixby delete this email. It really does sound like a butler. Every time I say its name out loud. Um, but like, that's kind of cool. Like you can't do that with any other phone.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Well, and like, just strategically, look at, look at where Samsung's at. Uh, they like, voice is going to be a bigger deal in the home. Uh, they don't have a voice product. Uh, do they want to take on Alexa and its giant, you know, group of skills? Do they want to take on Google and Apple and their like ability to do cloud stuff and like machine learning and like deep search and blah, blah, blah, blah. They like, they need an in, they need some kind of wedge to start making a voice product that people actually use. Because don't forget, Samsung doesn't just make phones. They make washing machines and microwaves and routers and ships.

• 55:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  They make big ass boats, right?

• 55:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  And, and so they need something. They need to do something to make sure that even if it's not a huge success, they at least know what the shit they're doing when it comes to voice controlled stuff. And this seems like as good a wedge as any, and it's smart because it's not trying to take on the Google Assistant head on because the phone literally has the Google Assistant on it. Are they going to make people pick between Samsung's assistant or the Google Assistant? They've tried that before. Guess what? People picked the Google Assistant.

• 56:23Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, they've also tried it. I like, I'm sure Bixby only works in like- You can't even say it anymore. It's just, it's- It's so adorable. Like, it's not that I'm saying it out of embarrassment. It's every time I say it, I literally think of like a small cute dog wearing shoes.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Here's what I'm excited about.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Of course, yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Favorite thing to do our listeners is say, Google Home, check the weather. Alexa, buy me some toilet paper.

• 56:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  And then everybody who's listening to the podcast now has toilet paper on the way and their home speaker is speaking the weather to them.

• 56:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  We are now going to be able to sit here on the podcast and say, Bixby, pause this podcast.

• 57:00Nilay Patel?

  Ultimate self-own.

• 57:04Nilay Patel?

  Bixby, end the suffering.

• 57:08Nilay Patel?

  Bixby, switch to other podcasts.

• 57:12Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's great for the Bixby. I can't even. I keep pict- I just keep picturing the dog in shoes. They're like black.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Interestingly enough.

• 57:20Nilay Patel?

  They're shiny buckles.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Bowtie.

• 57:22Nilay Patel?

  Bowtie, right? It's a little dog b collar.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  There's a story I read today about how Bixby, the name, might be difficult linguistically in different countries because in some countries like X, right before a B, doesn't really exist as like a sound in their language. So that's gonna be really interesting too to see how, like if you can't even say it without like pausing, I'm curious how other people from, who don't speak English as their main language, are gonna deal with it.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  At least it's better than Google.

• 57:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, is it?

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:53Nilay Patel?

  I feel like we need to make a list of acceptable wake words and just like publish it for the industry. Here are the things you can call robots. Okay, that's what, next week, 29th? We're blowing it out, right? Big event?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Live blog, the whole nine.

• 58:06Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be a thing. It's actually interesting. Last year in March, Apple did the iPhone SE. It was like a big event and they're like, it looks the same, but it's a different. It was an event, right? It was an event. It was a whole thing. And this year, they just like press released out like more storage in the SE, a red iPhone and this iPad. You gotta wonder why they went so quiet with it when they were so confident with the SE.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. It's really weird.

• 58:32Nilay Patel?

  But Samsung, they're going for it. This is their time.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  They gotta, they gotta make people forget that their phones explode.

• 58:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and they're gonna do it with a tiny dog. What better way to distract everybody? Okay.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  I think that's it. Is that it?

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  Is there anything else?

• 58:45Speaker 01

  That's enough.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  I think so. I think we're done.

• 58:48Nilay Patel?

  Anything from?

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Corner's closed.

• 58:49Nilay Patel?

  Corner's closed.

• 58:54Nilay Patel?

  Truly, truly strange.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  You need something now that scissor vodka is gone, don't you? This is your main thing.

• 58:58Nilay Patel?

  I'm so lonely. Is it gone? Get Mark Cuban on the phone. He invested in anything. Tell him it's a hundred.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  Radical.

• 59:06Nilay Patel?

  Radical vodka.

• 59:09Nilay Patel?

  We'll see. I'm, you know, I'm still thinking about this vodka every day.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  I feel like we should upgrade to whiskey. I think we're a whiskey brand.

• 59:15Nilay Patel?

  No, we can't upgrade to whiskey because whiskey is hard to make.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  Like, is that a deterrent?

• 59:20Nilay Patel?

  Yes, vodka is just pure marketing. You can make vodka out of anything.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  It's garbage, though.

• 59:24Nilay Patel?

  Well, right.

• 59:25Speaker 03

  I can make vodka with like some nail polish remover and like a Skittle cup for color. Skittle for color?

• 59:33Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what the fuck? Megan's just like downing nail polish remover. Don't, don't do that.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Is that what you're saying? These recipes where it's like you take like Skittles and you put them in?

• 59:43Nilay Patel?

  Bixby, call a paramedic.

• 59:46Nilay Patel?

  He's like, I can't, I can only do local accents on the phone.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  No, it's like you take like Skittles and you put it in like vodka. It like adds colors.

• 59:53Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm aware of that.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but whether you're the nail polish.

• 59:55Nilay Patel?

  Nail polish remover.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  I'm thinking of moonshine, sorry. Do people drink that?

• 59:59Nilay Patel?

  And then your heart stops.

• 1:00:02Nilay Patel?

  Pure acetone.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Only real gamers can drink that.

• 1:00:06Nilay Patel?

  Attention, attention vaping eggs. Do we have a recipe for you? Skittle acetone.

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  The name just rolls right off the tongue.

• 1:00:17Nilay Patel?

  Skittles acetone definitely sounds like a roller blade person. Like a roller derby name.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  Sounds pretty radical to me.

• 1:00:26Nilay Patel?

  All right, that's it. That is unfortunately our show. We were, we're gonna do this to you again next week. Whether or not you like it. Uh, if anyone would like to draw a picture of Bixby the dog or roller derby champion Skittles acetone.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Please do.

• 1:00:40Nilay Patel?

  Megan's Twitter handle is Megan underscore Nicolet.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  You got it.

• 1:00:44Nilay Patel?

  Uh, just send that straight to her. Uh, Dieters is back lawn. Nat?

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Nat Garen.

• 1:00:50Nilay Patel?

  Nat Garen, two Ts. And I'm at reckless. But again, the, the drawings of Skittle, Skittles acetone and Bixby the dog to Megan Nicolet.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  Directly to me, yes.

• 1:00:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, but no eggs allowed.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  Preferably going on an adventure.

• 1:01:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, together.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Together. Yeah.

• 1:01:09Nilay Patel?

  Big Speed gets into some hijinks.

• 1:01:14Nilay Patel?

  Skittles is on a, is in the middle of a caper and she has to go save him. She just rolls right over there.

• 1:01:22Nilay Patel?

  Okay. He's chewing on the...

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  Alright, alright.

• 1:01:27Nilay Patel?

  We've done enough.

• 1:01:29Nilay Patel?

  It's the end of the show, everybody. There's other shows you can listen to that don't devolve into this. For example, I don't think Kara Swisher has ever said the word "Skittles acetone" in a phrase in her life. But Kara hosts a great show called Recode Decode, which you can listen to. Peter Kafka hosts a great show called Recode Media. Also guarantee you, he's never said the word "Skittles acetone." Lauren Good, though, suspect, but she has. She hosts Too Embarrassed to Ask, which is great. And Walt and I do a show called Control Delete. All this is on iTunes, you can find it, search for it. iTunes.com/verge. It's great. Don't review this episode. I encourage you not to do that.

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  I think this is our best episode yet.

• 1:02:08Nilay Patel?

  I think, I think you just lied to my face. That's my review.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  Fix me, put my review in.

• 1:02:16Nilay Patel?

  They're not even ending the show well. I gotta thank our friends, who truly are our friends, at Crizal No Glare Lenses. They sponsor the show. If you wear glasses and you know fingerprints, smudges, scratches, and glares can be a constant obstruction to your vision and a huge distraction, that's why you should get Crizal No Glare Lenses, clearest vision possible, by offering resistance, all that stuff. Go to Crizal.com to learn more, that's C-R-I-Z-A-L dot com. Start living life in the clear. Thanks to them for not listening to the show, but continuing to put the ads on it, because I think those things are related. And we'll be back next week with more of this, what continues to be the Vergecast. Rock and roll. Paul. Skittles acetone.