Good radio

It's another tech-filled week, but this one is just a little more British than usual. International visitor Tom Warren joins Nilay, Dieter, and Sam to discuss the release of the Samsung Galaxy S6, HTC One M9, Facebook's chat ambitions, and the release of Periscope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 23rd, 2015. I'm Nilay Patel.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  I'm Dieter Bohn.

• 0:11Speaker 02

  And I'm Tomar.

• 0:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, what a surprise! Our boy from across the pond!

• 0:17Speaker 02

  Always here to ruin everything.

• 0:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Despite the fact that he's across the table from me, I didn't see that coming.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  What a surprise!

• 0:25Nilay Patel?

  Hey, who's in the hype check? Who's in the hype zone?

• 0:27Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm back from vacation. I'm also now her swagasty. Apparently, that's the thing that happened.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  Did you watch that episode, Sam, where we had Helen in the hype seat?

• 0:35Speaker 03

  I heard it was great, but I did not watch because AT&T was throttling my data for the entire week.

• 0:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, why?

• 0:41Speaker 03

  Because I went over five gigs and apparently if you-

• 0:43Nilay Patel?

  You sent too many meerkats from South by Southwest.

• 0:45Speaker 03

  I have never been more- Well, it was kind of nice because I got to like, not be on Twitter all day, but I couldn't load Twitter, couldn't load Instagram, nothing. I was getting .5 down the entire trip. Versus, and the data came back the last day and I was getting 40 down. But, yeah, it was bad.

• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  But that's South by in general is terrible.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  No, Austin has really good LTE.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Nah, on Verizon they don't.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Well, I have AT&T. And yeah, I was being throttled, but I'm back and back in the hype seat.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  I gotta say, Helen in the hype seat.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  I bet it was amazing.

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  One of my favorite hashtags.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Helen in the hype seat.

• 1:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was different.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  Well, she's a girl and I'm a boy, for one.

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was also like, I don't know, like Helen is like a ice cold professional.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  And what am I, Niles?

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  You're his swagasty.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:39Nilay Patel?

  Alright, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. Dieter, you've got gadgets upon gadgets.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got gadgets stacked on gadgets. So, we reviewed the HTC M9 and-

• 1:49Speaker 03

  That you have in your hands.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  I have it in my hands if you're watching the livestream and now Nilay has it. We've got the two-tone version.

• 1:55Nilay Patel?

  God, this thing is so ugly.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  It is not-

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  It's like, it can't decide what-

• 1:59Speaker 01

  It's bad color it wants to be.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  It's like your grandparents' jewelry that you don't want.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  It's got this weird ridge around the front.

• 2:06Nilay Patel?

  It's tri-tone. It's like the back is silver and then the ridge is this like, rose gold.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  It's bustin'.

• 2:13Nilay Patel?

  And then the front is like, uh, like a, it's like rose gold that didn't do well in school. You know, it didn't try. Like, yeah, like this is a rose gold that smoked weed behind the bleachers.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  But essentially it's last year's phone.

• 2:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's essentially last year's phone. Okay, talk. I mean, the only thing to talk about here, besides the fact that it's slightly thicker.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  It's a little easier to hold. People complaining that the design hasn't changed. I have no patience for you.

• 2:37Nilay Patel?

  The design has definitely changed.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  No, but it hasn't changed enough. I don't care. Like, it looked fine last year. I think it looks fine now, even though I don't like the two-tone.

• 2:44Nilay Patel?

  I like HTC just holding it down with the IR blaster on top. Hey, there's an idea that worked for everyone.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Samsung kept it too, actually.

• 2:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but I mean, Samsung having an unnecessary hardware feature, like, of course, like, Samsung doesn't take anything out. But HTC, you know, they're like, we're making it simpler and better.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  See, to me, the only interesting thing about that phone is that HTC has a new CEO.

• 3:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  So, no, like, like, here's the story. HTC had one job with this phone.

• 3:14Nilay Patel?

  All right. They thought, I'm just gonna keep holding it.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  And its one job was to make a camera that impressed us. That was good.

• 3:20Nilay Patel?

  Real talk.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  They went away from the ultra pixel camera. They put that on the front. So the four megapixel cameras on the front. And they put a, I think it's a 20 megapixel camera on the back, just something massive. Yeah, 20 megapixel sensor on the back. And it's not good. Not good. And that's it. Like, that's the story of the phone is like HTC came back with like, basically the same design with a few tweaks here and there. Updated the processor, basically the same screen, perfectly good phone all the way around, very fast, and.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Have they done software tweaks?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Front-facing camera, or the back camera is a bummer. They've been, they've been tweaking it nonstop. Wow, that's a really terrible photo.

• 3:57Nilay Patel?

  No, real talk, I think the, dude, the front-facing camera just took a better photo than the rear-facing camera.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  That pretty much says it all.

• 4:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it really does. I mean, this phone, you're right. They could have released the M8 with a better camera and people would have bought it.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yep, I would. I probably would have.

• 4:14Nilay Patel?

  No question. I mean, that's what's asked.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Basically what that is.

• 4:18Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, it's a lot faster, right?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's faster.

• 4:20Nilay Patel?

  They've, they've done all the requisite upgrades.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  They did, they did some, some stuff to sense, like the software that's, you know, whatever. They, they simplified some stuff. The one they they made a widget for the home screen. That's a folder that like suggests apps to you based on your location, which is like, oh, yeah, I use Gmail at work more than I do at home. But it also has like a like, here's other apps you should get sell me stuff zone, which no, I don't want that on my home screen.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  That other thing is kind of like what Apple does with iOS when you're near like you're near Starbucks, and you get the suggested app on your lock screen.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like that, except it's just a folder on your home screen. And then it's like a folder inside the folder. It's like a smart folder that tells you.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And

• 5:06Nilay Patel?

  I mean, there was a time when we would sit around talking about incremental upgrades to Android skins.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 5:13Nilay Patel?

  For the whole show. Like, that's what we would do now.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:16Nilay Patel?

  But

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Blinkfeed is just like these. These changes aren't that big. Blinkfeed is basically the same. They like the thing that they they and also we'll get to this in a minute. Samsung did is like not screw up lollipop too much.

• 5:29Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  They backed off and let lollipop.

• 5:31Nilay Patel?

  That's at Google's behest, as far as I can tell.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  That's important, because lollipops are a lot better in terms of UI.

• 5:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And that's good. I mean, like, it's a good if that phone had a good camera, we'd all buy it. But isn't that I mean, that's the story of this phone, right? It is fundamentally disappointing because it takes bad photos.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  You can add extra little buttons to the navigation bar. Like, you can add a rotate lock button.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  It's kind of the story of Android, though, full stop. There's no like, there's no device that you can buy that's got a good camera, like a genuinely good camera.

• 5:58Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really? God, are you gonna pick up the S6 now?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, it's pretty good. It's got a so first thing.

• 6:04Nilay Patel?

  Where's the edge? Give me the edge.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  So there's the edge. There's the S6 in the edge. I prefer the S6. We'll get into that. So you don't launch camera? I'm not gonna hand it to you to know the launch camera. Just double click the home button.

• 6:13Nilay Patel?

  That's good. So if you guys don't know.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  No, it's fast. It's really it's like.

• 6:17Nilay Patel?

  That's not that fast.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty fast.

• 6:20Nilay Patel?

  That didn't happen very fast. I'm gonna break this. So if you guys don't know, here's the news. Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 review units are out in the world.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yep. And everyone can talk about them.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  And like, yeah, they're just like, go ahead.

• 6:35Nilay Patel?

  Pretty good. Like inside inside baseball, usually we get these. And we're told we, you know, there's like some long embargo before we can like do a review. And Samsung is like, no, here they are.

• 6:47Nilay Patel?

  So we have them. We can talk about them early, which is fun. Reviews.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Coming.

• 6:52Nilay Patel?

  Coming.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  We shot, we spent three hours shooting a video in a really sweet location today.

• 6:56Nilay Patel?

  Okay, you are totally wrong about that being fast. Click, double clicking.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  It's like, it's weird. It's weird in intermittent. Like sometimes it's like, whoop, super fast.

• 7:04Nilay Patel?

  The camera is fast though.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  But taking pictures like the shutter is quicker, right?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it does the burst mode thing. And it does the selfie thing where if it detects your face when it's with the front facing camera, you can tap the heart rate monitor on the back and it'll snap the shutter.

• 7:19Nilay Patel?

  What am I supposed to do with the edge here? What is the purpose?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  So the edge is kind of pointless.

• 7:25Nilay Patel?

  And what is the purpose of the drop shadow on the clock?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  To be cool. To look to like, it's Samsung, man. Give them something, alright? They scaled it way back. They took out 40% of Samsung weird, according to them, although they don't call it that. So they gotta have something.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  This is slow. Dude, the S6 edge is kind of slow.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  What, where are you?

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  How much garbage have you installed?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  A bunch of garbage.

• 7:46Nilay Patel?

  That is slow. Opening the app drawer is slow. That's a slow animation.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's busted. So I've only had it for a day or two. Something's super weird there.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  The hardware itself is really nice.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Nilay Patel?

  Let me see the S6.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  It's surprisingly nice.

• 8:00Nilay Patel?

  You guys are like, by the way, getting real time impressions of us playing, me playing with this phone for the first time.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  That's the first Samsung, I would say.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  No, this is why we, this is why we like to spend time with these phones is we need to see what happens. And I've not seen it be this slow before. Super weird. So what can you do with the edge? When it's off, there's like this gesture that doesn't work very well to like pop up like a bit of like, it shows like weather and time. And then you can like scroll through to like a Yahoo headline.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  One thing that's cool, you can set five favorites and they each get a color. And when the thing is face down on a table, someone calls you, it lights up in that color and you can see it. And then it does this insane bubble thing on the notification. There's like an orange line for your orange contact and you can slide it over and see.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  Weird. Yeah. When you have it face down, it like does a thing.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:47Nilay Patel?

  That's cool.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but honestly, like the edge stuff, like the, the software advantages to it, not worth the a hundred dollars extra you pay for it. The only way, the only reason to get it is if you want a phone that's like, oh, wow, the screen, that's cool. That's it. That's the reason to get it.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  It feels weird compared to the S6 as well.

• 9:03Nilay Patel?

  It just feels a little. It's way thinner at the sides.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it's tapering off too much or something.

• 9:07Nilay Patel?

  And so, wait, we've got pricing and specs and they're not specs, pricing and release dates and carriers.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so April 10th, uh, pre-orders start tomorrow. If you're listening to this on Thursday, the 26th, so they start the 27th. And, um, pricing, I mean, first of all,

• 9:25Speaker 01

  everybody's leading with their installment plan pricing now. So instead of like, oh, it's 199 on contract or it's 299 on contract. Oh, they don't tell you that. They tell you if you sign up for AT&T next, it's 2417 a month or whatever that number is. For 24 months or maybe it's 30 payments, who knows?

• 9:42Nilay Patel?

  Hey, I signed up for next. I did it.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:46Nilay Patel?

  I did it. I didn't want to.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  So you don't own your phone?

• 9:50Nilay Patel?

  I don't, I don't. And AT&T owns this thing. And good riddance, like at the end of whatever, I'll give it back to them. Also, uh, that is what I'm saying. I'm only saying it because it was too hard to just buy the phone. So now I'm just making peace with the horrible mistake AT&T forced me to make. When you buy a phone in the UK, what's the process like? What is it? Do you just buy the phone?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, most of the time they're free. Um, and you just.

• 10:14Nilay Patel?

  On contract.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, on contract. Um, but you, you have like a higher amount of contracts. So say, say the iPhone 6, you probably pay 40 pounds, so roughly 70 dollars a month for that. Um, then you get your data and all that plan involved.

• 10:28Nilay Patel?

  So it's the same.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  But so. Yeah, it's pretty much.

• 10:31Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so it's free upfront, but you're paying per month for the phone?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  So it's not free.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  You can, you can like contribute a bit to it and then like upfront and then you get cheaper data plans.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Let me just.

• 10:41Nilay Patel?

  Why can't you just buy a phone?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Right? So here's.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  I mean, you can.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  That's what I do. I got the pricing wrong.

• 10:47Nilay Patel?

  But it's so hard.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  When we first put up the post because it was 2284 per month on AT&T's next 24 plan.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  AT&T's next 24 plan consists of 30 monthly payments.

• 11:02Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, that's true. That's true because they want you to, they want to keep you just past your contract.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  It's like, call it the next 30 plan.

• 11:10Nilay Patel?

  No, they can't because it's for two years, right? Like the, you're done.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Two years is 20.

• 11:16Nilay Patel?

  No, no, no, you own, no, it's 24. I know why it's 24.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:20Nilay Patel?

  Cause I, I looked, because I got suckered into buying the thing.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:24Nilay Patel?

  It's because it's 24 and that's when you can get a new phone and you just keep paying them whatever money per month. But at 30, you own the phone. So at 24, they've, you've paid 24 of 30 installments and you give AT&T the phone back and you get a new phone.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:41Nilay Patel?

  At 30.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  You own the phone.

• 11:43Nilay Patel?

  You own the phone. So they're just screwing you slightly. Okay. It's just a tiny little, like the bet you have to make is like, if I just bought the phone at 24 months, could I sell it? And only have lost the six months of payments, the AT&T would.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  I, I already don't care. I'm just gonna sign up for it.

• 12:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? It's like, you just look at it and you're like, I could care about this, but in two years, I'm just gonna want a new phone.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:11Nilay Patel?

  And like, do I want to deal with Gazelle? Am I gonna break it by then? Is it whatever? Like what, what nonsense am I not thinking about that's going to happen to me two years from now? Or, or should I just let AT&T screw me a little bit?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Hype check, HCM9.

• 12:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we didn't do any of this.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's whatever.

• 12:29Nilay Patel?

  One to 10.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  It's like a four.

• 12:32Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Who the hell is gonna buy that over the S6, really?

• 12:35Nilay Patel?

  Okay, hype check the S6.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Nine right now, eight or nine. It is, I am infatuated.

• 12:42Nilay Patel?

  What about the S6 Edge?

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Uh, the screen is awesome. I've, I've never like, I just, when I was Snapchatting with Dieter this morning, I was just holding the phone and just looking at the edge and the way the screen curves, it's, it's pretty impressive.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  We, we were Snapchatting and Periscoping and Instagramming and Facebook videoing.

• 12:58Nilay Patel?

  I see the edge again.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  All kinds of stuff. So what else do you want to know? The fingerprint scanner? Really good. It like.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, they finally done it.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Really well.

• 13:05Nilay Patel?

  I do, I gotta say.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  They just copied Apple straight up.

• 13:07Nilay Patel?

  S6 over, I gotta go regular S6.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Do it regular over the edge for sure.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, the edge is weird to hold.

• 13:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like, you can't be, you can't be like, I'm really impressed by the screen. Too bad it makes the phone weird to hold.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  I think, I think.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Tell the listeners what happens to the wallpaper.

• 13:24Nilay Patel?

  What happens?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Speaking of things they stole from Apple.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  The wallpaper does a little perspective shift when you tilt the phone.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Oh, I've seen that somewhere before. Where have I seen that? Where have I seen the bottom of the phone?

• 13:37Nilay Patel?

  Camera bulbs before.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  I want to know how you managed to make the app drawer pop up so slowly on these phones.

• 13:42Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, man. I got powers and the powers are the Android phones.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  You break phones.

• 13:47Nilay Patel?

  They know, both of those phones are aware that what I really want is for a Nexus 5 with a great camera.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:52Nilay Patel?

  That's it. Although, what's, so get into it. You've had it for a few hours, right? Like, we just got this thing.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:58Nilay Patel?

  What's, give me the quick camera impression. That's the only thing that matters.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  But camera impression is, I'm modestly impressed. Like, it's better than the stuff HTC put out, which isn't saying much. But Samsung's always been close or at the top of the camera heap among Android phones, and they at least maintain that here. Low light is maybe a little aggressive at brightening. Sharpening is maybe a little bit aggressive. Like, there is a bit more noise than you get with an iPhone. But, like, in low light shots, like, I was actually happier with what Samsung did than what Apple did, even though Apple's was maybe a little bit truer because the Samsung's was just brighter. I think that the thing that Samsung managed to do here is the thing that we've always praised the iPhone for. An iPhone, if you suck at photography, you can still take it out, get a shot, and be happy with it and good with it.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  And with most Android phones, you had to know a little bit about what you were doing to get a good photo. And they're closer than ever with this phone to being able to just take it out, take a picture, and feel okay about it.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Which is, sad to say, kind of a huge leap forward.

• 14:59Nilay Patel?

  I feel like, didn't the Xperia X3 have a decent?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:02Nilay Patel?

  Crazy about that one?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  The Z3?

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  That's it.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:05Nilay Patel?

  Z3, sorry, X3.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Is it X3?

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  No, it's the Z3. It's just, it's just a bad name.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  And I don't know what battery life yet. It gets hot, but you never know with Android phones. The first 24 hours is always like disaster. You never know. Yeah.

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  Does it make, you know, plop plop sounds?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  No, they cut that out.

• 15:26Nilay Patel?

  They got rid of nature UX.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  It doesn't do plop plop by default.

• 15:30Nilay Patel?

  You can still turn out the three people are like, ah, I miss.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  No, there's a bunch of stuff that like is still there, but just off by default and you have to go hunting to find it.

• 15:40Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:41Nilay Patel?

  Where to get moved to?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Just like buried in a random settings.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  As long as no normal consumer can find it.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the things they did is they have this, they have this thing called S finder.

• 15:52Nilay Patel?

  What must it be like to be the Samsung program manager for this phone and be like, you know what? Leave the garbage in there, but bury it.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then what they, there's this thing in the dropdown and like.

• 16:02Nilay Patel?

  What are your emotions like when you make that decision?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And then it helps you like, what's that random crap feature that I want? I don't know.

• 16:08Nilay Patel?

  Wait, it's called S finder?

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like a local search for your phone.

• 16:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm outraged. This is outraged.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  But it helps you find those stupid settings.

• 16:15Nilay Patel?

  That's what you're hearing in my voice.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  I can't find guest mode.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  True outrage. Access S finder.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Uh, you pulled on the notification.

• 16:21Nilay Patel?

  So it's just always there, waiting for you to fuck it up.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:24Nilay Patel?

  Just always like, oh no, I enabled S voice.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  They added theming to the stock launcher and all the themes are just hideous. They're hideous.

• 16:32Nilay Patel?

  Wait, Samsung stock, but touch wiz launcher?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Touch wiz launcher has theming now. And all the themes are just the worst. I just, I like, went to their store to find like, show me, give me the theme that makes us look normal. And it doesn't exist. There's a thing that puts cute little cartoon space aliens all over your phone.

• 16:47Nilay Patel?

  Is there a version?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:49Nilay Patel?

  I mean, is there, do they have data that tells the like, that tells them that people need the crap?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  They must.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  I think it's just a constant trying new crap.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  They pull out the crap that didn't work. Let's do some other crap.

• 17:04Nilay Patel?

  Actually, here's. Crap juggling with Samsung.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  There's, and this is a T mobile version. There's a bunch of crap or like lookout, mobile security was like popping up notifications. T mobile has its own app that's popping up notifications nonstop.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  I get the feeling like Samsung wants this to be a winner so badly. They let the carriers announce the price. They let carriers throw a bunch of software on here. I think they're letting the carriers like do whatever they want with these phones to like, try and get them happy to sell them.

• 17:29Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Good that you can go to most like best buys and like AT&T and Verizon and wherever else like tomorrow to go play with the phone.

• 17:37Nilay Patel?

  Right. Let me see this again.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Right?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Like, the two weeks ago, we were like, oh, there's nothing to say it's boring, but now that we actually have it, like, it's a good phone.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  If they release a Google Play edition of that phone, I'm gonna have a hard time not buying it.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:49Nilay Patel?

  But that's, yeah, but that's, isn't that true of every phone? There's, there's not a phone where I say to myself, man, if they released a Google Play edition and they took out the crap, and, you know, they did whatever little camera, like, low-level stuff they need to do to make the camera work, because that's really what they need to do. Almost every phone, every flagship, I would buy. Except for the M9, because the camera's

• 18:10Speaker 02

  People used to get excited about those Google Play editions, but they weren't, they still weren't great phones. This one seems a bit better.

• 18:16Nilay Patel?

  Actually, I gave my original HTC One Play Edition to my friend, because he had, he, what, he had a Nexus 4?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:26Nilay Patel?

  Kyle. He had a Nexus 4, it was just garbage, and I was like, dude, like, yeah, just LTE, like, it will change your life if you get LTE. So I gave him my Nexus, like, the Google Play Nexus 1. And he, like, is still kind of mad at me about it. Because, so, like, whatever, he, he just upgraded to an iPhone, but, um, so he had this one for, like, two years, and AT&T wouldn't provision a SIM, an LTE SIM for it.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Oh, this was HTC One, Google, hey, hey, hey.

• 18:55Nilay Patel?

  So he had to, like, fight, he had to fight an LTE SIM out of AT&T, and then all of his APNs were always broken.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:01Nilay Patel?

  Like, you just couldn't, couldn't work.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I lived in that hell for a long time.

• 19:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so he just, like, could not provision voice and data properly to this phone.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  If you want to live in a special circle of hell, try swapping SIMs between an Android phone and an iPhone, and, uh, and try and make sure that your tethering still works from device to device.

• 19:19Nilay Patel?

  That's a disaster.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  That's, that's one thing about the UK, when you swap a SIM, if I take my SIM and put it in another phone, it just works.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  That's how it's supposed to work.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  Because the UK carriers are regulated and they can't hijack the system.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Take it to someone else and that just works fine as well.

• 19:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, that sort of works here.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, it is not.

• 19:36Nilay Patel?

  But anyway, Kyle, my, my buddy, like, still, like, he's like, do you want this phone back? I'm like, no, it's really old, I don't need an old HTC One. He's like, I really don't want to have it anymore. The camera was broken. All of his pictures were purple. The only thing he used his camera for was taking pictures of whiteboards in the office. And he's like, every whiteboard is purple. Like, what is even the point of this? I don't know. Yeah, anyway, Google Play additions. Like, you're right. They are like, they're like unicorns.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  But they were excited because Android at the time, the UI and stuff that people were doing just was really sucky.

• 20:10Nilay Patel?

  I had a great experience with that phone for five minutes.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  So everyone wanted it without bloke wear.

• 20:16Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's, this is an excellent transition right into Windows.

• 20:22Nilay Patel?

  Really? Right?

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  John, can we get like a, a, a, a soundboard of, of Tom saying sick burn?

• 20:32Nilay Patel?

  That's really, sick burn.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Sick burn.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  I love when Tom makes fun of his own accent because it's just like, it's so much.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  It's hard not to in a room of them.

• 20:43Nilay Patel?

  How often do people ask you to do an American accent?

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Well, you're about to. So that'd be one. Uh, I don't know. Not, not often. I'm not usually walking down a London street and someone's like, can you do an American accent?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Do it, Tom. Do it, Tom.

• 20:56Nilay Patel?

  Do it. Do an American accent.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Do it.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  This is like totally cool.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  That is so bad. Are you a teen?

• 21:05Nilay Patel?

  Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  This is totally cool being on the Vergecast.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  That's how I imagine every American.

• 21:13Nilay Patel?

  What we sound like. I think that, I think that you should do that accent for the show and I'll do an English accent.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Get out. Do for this show. Talking of Mike, I was gonna, maybe I shouldn't say, but I was gonna dress up as a Spartan.

• 21:25Nilay Patel?

  Whoa. All right, let's get into it. I got.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  And then just sit here with a spear and.

• 21:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Here's, here, let's just talk about what the hell is going on with Internet Explorer and Spartan and Windows 10.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Well, nothing's happening.

• 21:37Nilay Patel?

  Right. Everything is this. I will say right now, at the highest levels of Microsoft, there are people mad at Tom Warren.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Isn't that always the case?

• 21:48Nilay Patel?

  Like right at the top of Microsoft.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  The case. All right. Give us a backstory. Why is everybody mad at you?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  No one's mad at me.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Okay. Why is no one mad at you?

• 21:56Speaker 02

  One particular.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Why are people mad at me? I don't know. So, so we wrote a story. It was like in, uh, Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand. So two key points about that headline is killing off doesn't mean dead.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  When you're killing off something, it's a process.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Second of all.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  The process of killing off.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, we covered this a little bit last week.

• 22:20Nilay Patel?

  Noted murderer, Tom Warren. Here's how you kill something until it's dead.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Slow process.

• 22:26Nilay Patel?

  Right. You take, you walk to the kitchen, you get the knife.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:29Nilay Patel?

  You examine the knife.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  And that process is the killing off process.

• 22:35Nilay Patel?

  You get your gun.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Or you just starve it to death.

• 22:36Nilay Patel?

  You put bullets in a chamber.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So since then, it has arisen that your story was a hundred percent true.

• 22:43Nilay Patel?

  You figure out what they like to drink.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Pretty.

• 22:45Nilay Patel?

  Then you acquire some poison. Then you buy a bottle of their favorite drink. You put the poison in the drink.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  The life of Internet Explorer.

• 22:52Nilay Patel?

  Then you, then you ask them, are you thirsty?

• 22:56Nilay Patel?

  Then they drink the poison. Then you wait.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Is this like, is this like that, that thing you have to do in high school where they make you like write instructions for how to, how to make a peanut butter sandwich? And then they follow them exactly and then they fail.

• 23:09Nilay Patel?

  How to murder a brand.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's great. I'm sorry. You get in your car.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, you get in your car.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  How do I get in my car? Open your front door. How do I open my front door? Reach out and grasp the knob.

• 23:21Nilay Patel?

  I'm sorry. All right, go ahead. What? What?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  So meta.

• 23:25Nilay Patel?

  It's not that meta. You get a brick.

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  Aim for the head. That's not a process. That's just like instinct. All right, go ahead.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Where were we?

• 23:34Nilay Patel?

  Process of killing off.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  You're in the process of killing off something.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  It's not dead. Um, but obviously mainstream media being mainstream media and everything else, it kind of spiraled into the story of Internet Explorer is dead, which is not quite true. Um. But essentially, Microsoft is like, I don't know. People will disagree with me, but Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand as I see it and as everyone else sees it. And if Microsoft doesn't think that's the case, then.

• 24:00Nilay Patel?

  They need to actually say it.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um. So essentially, they're getting a new brand and a new name for this successor to Internet Explorer, which is currently called Spartan, Project Spartan.

• 24:11Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then they said, Internet, the news this week, the big news.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  The big news is that it's relegated to a legacy engine.

• 24:19Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  In quotes.

• 24:20Nilay Patel?

  So Internet Explorer is now the legacy.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  It's the legacy. Yeah. So originally, it was, there was going to be Internet Explorer and Project Spartan. They were both gonna share the same edge rendering engine. And Internet Explorer still have Trident, the, what they're calling the legacy engine now. But now they've decided only Project Spartan is gonna have this new edge rendering engine. And Internet Explorer won't. So effectively, Internet Explorer is gonna stay there for whoever needs to use it. So enterprises, businesses, and still use the Trident rendering engine.

• 24:53Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  So it's a legacy.

• 24:55Nilay Patel?

  But Internet Explorer says it's done.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, seals its fate.

• 24:58Nilay Patel?

  Like, you're done.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  They're not gonna put any.

• 25:00Nilay Patel?

  And they're definitely not gonna call.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Features into Internet Explorer.

• 25:03Nilay Patel?

  And then, yeah, and they're definitely gonna call Project Spartan Internet Explorer.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're not gonna call.

• 25:07Nilay Patel?

  Like, they've announced they're finding a new name.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  If they were gonna call it Internet Explorer, they wouldn't have showed a slide that said, where Internet Explorer brand recognition was like at the bottom of the pile. That's what they showed on, on, on stage, you know, and they wouldn't be saying they're looking for a new brand and a new name.

• 25:22Nilay Patel?

  Right. So.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  As far as I know, inside Microsoft, it's like a.

• 25:26Nilay Patel?

  What stage of the killing process are they?

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're kind of like, there's, I don't know. I know Microsoft wants to be a whole one Microsoft thing at the moment, but there's still gonna be disagreements as there are in any company. And Internet Explorer is one of them, right?

• 25:40Nilay Patel?

  Right. No, I just, I just don't see why they won't admit it. It's like, it's a legacy engine. If you built your small business app.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:47Nilay Patel?

  On IE, which is the reason they won't just kill it outright, or your medium business, there's a lot of, what, rando, like, line of business apps that live in IE, right?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  But just tell those people, it'll be fine. And then build your apps for the other browser.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  I think the problem they have is that they don't have the new name ready for Project Spartan, which they should really have by now.

• 26:08Nilay Patel?

  You'd think, yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Like, come on, guys, let's name this thing.

• 26:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, is this a result of them being over transparent throughout the entire Windows 10 process? Because they're like, they're very committed to be like, here's what we're doing, here's all of it, here's all the decisions. We don't know what we're doing then, but we'll figure it out. And like, this is just, it's starting to bite them, right?

• 26:25Speaker 02

  They're trying to get feedback on everything, et cetera. But I think it's like this, perhaps that executive shouldn't have said, or shouldn't have said, you know, we're gonna have a new brand and a new name, because that obviously triggered a particular conversation that they weren't really ready to have.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  So I guess the reaction from Microsoft is like, we've still got Internet Explorer in Windows 10. And it's like, it's true, but like, when you open up a PC later this year, it's not going to be pinned on the taskbar. You're not going to find it in the start menu. It's a system utility in the background somewhere.

• 26:56Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  And it'll be there because there are some apps that call it and all that sort of stuff. But for all intents and purposes, Spartan, and even this week, they said Spartan is our future, so.

• 27:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just, maybe this is not as big of a deal to any, like, if you guys, but like, for us, the amount of like, they're not killing IE, it's like, they definitely are. They, like, and it's good for them.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:20Nilay Patel?

  It's like, it's great, like, Microsoft needs to, like, dude, like, I'm the guy who thinks Microsoft should kill the Windows name. Like, right, they should just be done with it, like, all of the 90s are over, IE is done, Windows is done, like, here's the new stuff. And it's like, they, they're just caught between, we're dropping IE, we're renaming Project Spartan, but IE isn't really dead. And then all of our new apps across every device is called a Windows app, right? Like, that was the other big piece of it. So walk me through that one.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they obviously we've gone through a few years of this pain.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're still, there was a period where we complained about Metro and the Metro branding and them killing the Metro brand, losing Metro branding, every single Verge cast for like two years.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it started essentially with Metro. So Metro is the design language for how all these apps look and feel. It's not, you don't say a Metro app, but everyone did. And that's kind of how it went. This is more, I could say, Metro style app. Anyway, so it started with that. And then they obviously had this issue with the German grocery store chain or whatever, whatever it was. And they dropped that name. And then they started saying Windows 8 style, oh, modern apps, Windows 8 style apps. And there was a real disconnect between.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  It was modern and then it was Windows, then it was Windows Store apps for a while.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if you looked at microsoft.com, it would say something else. And people, it was all very confusing time. And then.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  But it's still confusing.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  It's still confusing. Yeah. But then they got to the Windows 10 and they were like, oh, we're going to do universal apps that run across all, you know.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Okay. So what do we call those?

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Now they're called Windows apps.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Those are called Windows apps. But you can have an app that runs on Windows, but it's not a Windows app?

• 28:57Speaker 02

  But no, you can have a.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  That the answer, that the answer could even conceivably be no, is insanity.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  So you have a Windows app, which is this new, the Windows 8 style app, essentially, the Metro apps, whatever you want to call them.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Right. So what's Office for Desktop called? Is that a Windows app?

• 29:15Speaker 02

  That's a Windows desktop app.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  So there's Windows apps and Windows desktop apps. And Windows apps.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Windows apps will only run on Windows 10 and onwards.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  And Xbox.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And Windows apps can run fullscreen, but also luckily in Windows, in Windows 10.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  So basically, they're, they're the future of the, the Windows apps model.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  But obviously, they have to keep the traditional desktop apps around because they're still more powerful. And there's still a lot of legacy there and et cetera, et cetera. And those, but there is, yeah, most people just call them Windows apps anyways. It's kind of like.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  But I guess it's more simplified. It makes sense with the whole Windows 10 rather than Windows Phone 10 or it kind of, kind of makes sense.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  So Build is coming up.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  With their big developer event.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  When is that? End of April.

• 30:04Nilay Patel?

  And what are we expecting?

• 30:06Speaker 02

  So they're gonna, I think they're gonna focus on HoloLens. Obviously, the app story, the Windows app story.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Probably more, more of the phone stuff, I'd, I'd guess by that point. The phone stuff seems a little bit behind the Windows 10 stuff. Uh, the, with the Windows 10 on PC.

• 30:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, well, when we went out to that event, uh, it, it was like.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  They were kind of half showing.

• 30:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  And even like the build that they released is pretty basic.

• 30:32Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Pretty buggy, which you'd expect anyway, but pretty, just pretty basic. So I'd expect to see more of that. I think it'd be interesting to see if you see this sort of Android apps story emerge.

• 30:45Nilay Patel?

  Cause you reported that forever ago, right?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think it went, it's, it's gone through, um, various phases in its, in its life, sort of thing, with its short life. So initially, they were experimenting with emulation and stuff. And now they've got to the point where if you're a developer, you could essentially create an app in their tools and then deploy it to a device.

• 31:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Whether that's an Android device or a Windows device. And I think that's kind of the strategy that they're moving towards. So it doesn't really undermine their universal or Windows apps.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  The story is so confusing.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  It's, they wouldn't undermine that by just janking on these Android apps.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I like, I just, that sentence is like, it wouldn't undermine it by just throwing on some Android crap. Like that was how BlackBerry killed itself.

• 31:30Speaker 02

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

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Well, hey, no, no, no, no, no.

• 31:33Nilay Patel?

  It's a hundred percent how BlackBerry.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  That was how BlackBerry lit a fire on top of the grave that it had already jumped into.

• 31:41Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's how you, that's how you kill your, your, uh, tech company.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  You want, you want.

• 31:45Nilay Patel?

  You make a bet on physical keyboards. That's my theory. I don't know. I don't, I don't.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  I'm with Dieter on this one.

• 31:50Nilay Patel?

  Look, yeah, how many, how many physical keyboards in your life, except for your laptop?

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Zero. And my remote for my TV.

• 31:56Nilay Patel?

  Your remote?

• 31:57Speaker 03

  For my TV.

• 31:59Nilay Patel?

  What TV do you have?

• 32:01Speaker 03

  All, all remotes have physical TV or physical buttons.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Little keyboards, though.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, it's got buttons.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Buttons.

• 32:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that's not a keyboard.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  I, I tried.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  I keep, I keep, I keep a Veer in my desk.

• 32:14Nilay Patel?

  I have a TV remote that slides open to reveal a keyboard.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:17Nilay Patel?

  It is the jankiest jank in the entire. Like it doesn't work with all of the app, because there's no like, it's a K, it's K walks. It's not like a computer, right? Like, so all the apps are like different, like some of them are flash and some of them are HTML5. And there's no like system layer that like controls. So all of the keyboards are different. And so the, this remote just like does the craziest shit in like all of-

• 32:40Speaker 03

  You still use your TiVo?

• 32:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 32:43Nilay Patel?

  It's awesome.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  You're living in the past.

• 32:45Nilay Patel?

  You know what? You know, here's what I know about myself.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Here we go.

• 32:50Nilay Patel?

  No, here's what I know. I am like gonna be the last cable customer in America.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 32:56Nilay Patel?

  Because cable television with like a TiVo is still an excellent experience.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  It's way better than Sling TV on an Xbox One, I will tell you that.

• 33:04Nilay Patel?

  Right, it's, it's great. It's awesome. I get every channel. We record a bunch of stuff. When I'm bored, I just look at what all of the movies on HBO for the next week are gonna be and like record 10 of them and then I have 10 movies to watch. Like, it's cool. That's, it's a cool experience. Everything else dumpster fire. But like watching television, great experience.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever watched live TV anymore apart from sport.

• 33:24Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Apart from sport.

• 33:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Singular sport.

• 33:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like, again, like sport is singular, but math is plural. I don't understand.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  It's not math.

• 33:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So then why isn't it sport? Why isn't it sports?

• 33:37Speaker 02

  I guess it probably is sports, but-

• 33:38Speaker 03

  It is sports.

• 33:39Nilay Patel?

  No, a bunch of, a bunch of, I've heard of it as sports.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  I would say sport, yeah.

• 33:43Nilay Patel?

  Do the American accent again.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  I was watching the sport on the television.

• 33:48Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god. Why are you just doing it? You have an American, you're a New Yorker.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  I know, no, no, no.

• 33:52Nilay Patel?

  You have among the most American of American accents.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  I would say, I would say I'm a, a resident of New Jersey.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  Hype check English accents.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Uh, they're, they're attractive.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Objectively true. Okay, so they're gonna show us more HoloLens. They're maybe gonna help us figure out what's going on with Windows 10 on phones.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the Android app stuff, I don't think it's gonna be Android apps on Windows 10. I think it's gonna be-

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Android runtime.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Help developers create an app that, that their APIs map better to Windows.

• 34:20Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that's fine. Because they gotta get the tonnage. I mean, there's no way you don't make the, that's the BlackBerry line, remember? We need the app tonnage. Yeah, but what Microsoft, what Tom is saying is instead of saying, put your Android app on our thing, like, oh, you're an Android developer? Turns out you just need to like, change this and then all of a sudden it's a Windows app. Yay!

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, or you're an Android developer, here's, why don't you use our tools to make your Android apps?

• 34:42Nilay Patel?

  Right, interesting.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And then why don't you use our tools to publish it to the Windows store?

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  Right, you can might as well just put it on our store too.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  I think that's probably gonna be the track they're gonna.

• 34:50Nilay Patel?

  That's interesting.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the Android, I'm not a developer, but from what I've heard, the Android developer tools aren't like, great. And the Windows tools are a little bit better, so. It could work out, if they do it well. There's a lot of gaps they need to plug, but, yeah.

• 35:03Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I just, it's like, I'm rooting for Microsoft in a really serious way. Like, I want them to succeed, I think they have really good ideas. They're like, they're humble in a way when we talk to them, that is new.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  It's like the company is not scared of talking about their mistakes, or, you know, or the direction they're going in, which is cross-platform.

• 35:23Nilay Patel?

  But they just, all of these other little steps, they're still like indicative of the past mistakes.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is, there is a few.

• 35:30Nilay Patel?

  And it's just like, why, just start over a little bit. Like, they would actually, I think they would do better if, like, you know, it sounds like they're gonna just like leave Windows RT and see you later, right? Like.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, Windows RT, well, I mean, that's been dead for.

• 35:46Nilay Patel?

  Right, but it sounds like that's, it's over and it's never coming back, but like, they're still trying to figure out how to, how to make a hybrid two-in-one laptop tablet. Yeah. Right, like, that's still a thing that they think about, and they're like, they're gonna crack it, and it's like, what if you just made a really great laptop and a really great tablet? And you weren't constantly trying to shove these things together?

• 36:05Speaker 02

  And I think a lot of the OEMs are starting to step back from the two-in-one stuff now, and they're creating like, actually good laptops.

• 36:12Nilay Patel?

  You were talking to me about the XPS 13, right?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, the XPS is a good example, HP's new Spectre is good, like, they're getting to the point where they're finally creating laptops that, you know, like, a bit more compelling than they have been in the past.

• 36:25Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  And it feels like they're just walking away from these crazy designs. Like, they're still doing a few, but I think a lot of that was, at the time of Windows 8, the promise from Microsoft was, you know, touch is the future. Touch panels are gonna come down in price. We will pay you so much money for apps that are downloaded from the Windows store. Like, there was a lot of promises made that didn't necessarily work.

• 36:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, everybody's, everybody's just gonna have. When you say necessarily, there are a lot of promises that definitely didn't come true.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  The only platform app platform that matters anymore anyway is Facebook Messenger.

• 36:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 36:56Nilay Patel?

  So you want to. Transition for one second, but I just want to like one, one more Microsoft thing. You know, they have a big list of screen sizes, right?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:07Nilay Patel?

  It's like all the way from like wearable devices to the television.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 37:11Nilay Patel?

  I always, every time they do that, I want them to zoom out one more tick and show off like a billboard. And I just like, yo, yeah, we're in it.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Windows. They are like, they're on billboards.

• 37:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, but it's like embedded.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  It's like literally Times Square is run by like one guy with an XP computer.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  But yeah, there's the stuff about like they're making laptops. Like, yeah, they're still doing the surface stuff and.

• 37:33Nilay Patel?

  Right. No, but I'm saying like, it's just weird because so many of the screen size segments for them are either completely under invested in or kind of don't matter. Right? So like the, their phones are like pretty under invested in right now. Like they're just not doing a lot with phones. Tablets are confusing for everyone as far as I can tell. Like, nobody knows what they should really turn into. Um, and so it's like, why not just like put your energy into the laptop? Or put your energy into the product.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Because it's that whole, it goes back to the whole OEM relationship as well.

• 38:05Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  They'd be treading on their toes majorly. So, because the surface stuff kind of was trying to trigger that two in one stuff.

• 38:11Nilay Patel?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Um, I think part of it was anyway. Um, I just, yeah, I'd like to see them do a laptop.

• 38:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I just, I think them chasing native apps right at this second without the platforms that actually make native apps great is really confusing to me.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:28Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like native apps work on a phone. They work great on a tablet. On my laptop, it's like I've, the only native app I have open on my, on this computer right now is Twitter. And Twitter is a terrible app.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Wait, what?

• 38:40Nilay Patel?

  No, that's not true. You have other native apps open in your computer. I have Chrome.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  But then a native apps on Windows are a lot more powerful.

• 38:47Nilay Patel?

  You don't have Skype. You don't have a text editor or photo editor. I do. I, okay. Or Slack.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Slack is not a native, Slack is a hybrid app. It's, it's Slack, it's web.

• 38:57Nilay Patel?

  The only, if, okay, so I opened Skype just to add to my list. The only native apps open on my computer right now are, uh, messages.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Twitter, Skype.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  But we all get into a point where you won't.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, the real, the real question is, what native apps on your computer could not be replaced by a web app? Or are like, not currently, like, you could, you could do all those things on a Chromebook.

• 39:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Like, the thing you can't do, like, why are we talking about Chromebooks? Oh, my God, I'm sorry.

• 39:27Nilay Patel?

  Because this is the opportunity for Microsoft. Like, this is the thing that, like, if they would recognize that what they need to do is like,

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Oh, man, Spartan books.

• 39:35Nilay Patel?

  Or not like that, but like.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Think about it.

• 39:37Nilay Patel?

  But then.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  About it.

• 39:39Nilay Patel?

  Tom is not buying it.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  What do they call the spaceships in Halo? They have special, they have like a naming convention?

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Banshee is one of them.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Those are the bad guys.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  You're in space and it's a ship.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:53Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  I don't know what they call the spaceships.

• 39:55Nilay Patel?

  What if Facebook made laptops? Way worse segue. Completely worse segue.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  They may, I mean, they did, they did try to make a phone.

• 40:03Nilay Patel?

  It was not a bad phone. It was not, I liked that phone. It had a miserable camera.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Miserable camera.

• 40:09Nilay Patel?

  You know what? That's it. This is how you.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  For HTC miserable camera.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Anyone remember the Ken?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course I remember the Ken.

• 40:14Nilay Patel?

  No, it's just, here's what I know.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  I don't know, the Ken was cool.

• 40:18Nilay Patel?

  I have a new law of Android phones. A new, a new, Neil's theory of Android phones. Every Android phone from this, from, for the past year and into the future, will be first evaluated for its camera. That is literally.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  I feel like that's already been happening.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Should have been happening.

• 40:34Nilay Patel?

  Right, I'm coalescing what we all know into a law.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  You're just, you're, you're saying it, putting it in the universe.

• 40:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  This is now a thing.

• 40:41Nilay Patel?

  Newton didn't invent gravity. He just pointed it out.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Right, so that now you're saying, like, yeah, Android got to a point.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Reasons I don't use Android.

• 40:49Nilay Patel?

  I hate Isaac Newton.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  I think, Neil, I think that's an extremely valid point. Like, Android's gone to a point where it's good, like, it works, it's very, the operating system's very well integrated with Google apps.

• 41:01Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  And now it's just who's gonna be the first to make a good Android camera?

• 41:05Nilay Patel?

  Let me, I figured, let me restate it. Here it is. The only paragraph of an Android phone review you need to read is the camera.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Hardware's fine.

• 41:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the screens are good. Yeah, even the, this is still like a weird Pentile AMOLED screen on the S6, right?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Oh, don't even start with me.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  But I hate that crap.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Dude, it's got 577 pixels per inch.

• 41:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm saying it's fine, it's fine.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Don't even start.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying that they, they spec raced ahead of the, of the garbage, right? Like that, I can't see it anymore.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  This is the tech cast.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Welcome to the tech cast.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Thing looks good.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 41:39Speaker 02

  It was like when you used to take macro closeups of the screen.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was Eli's whole jam.

• 41:45Nilay Patel?

  People really cared about that.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:47Nilay Patel?

  I, I, that was. I haven't innovated in a long time because that was the peak of my innovation.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Someone pull quote that, I haven't innovated in a long time. Do I need to have to tell?

• 41:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, how, where did I innovate? I innovated by taking macro shots of screens and being like, suck it Motorola. I used to get such angry emails from the Droid PR team being like, we, they sent me another one. When the first Droid Razr came out, I was like, this screen is garbage.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that screen was legitimately garbage. That, the S6 screen is.

• 42:14Nilay Patel?

  No, the S6 is fine. I'm just still kind of mad about the Droid Razr.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Four year old rage?

• 42:22Nilay Patel?

  They sent me another one.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  It was a deep rage.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  They sent me another one. They're like, you're wrong, like we can prove it. And I was like, how will you prove it? And they sent me another one. And it was still garbage.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Anyway, Facebook.

• 42:34Nilay Patel?

  There's only been a handful of times in my life when I've, I've posted basically a second review just to tell the haters that they were wrong. The Razr was one, uh, and the first, some Samsung tablet. Well, uh, really?

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. The Galaxy Note.

• 42:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, the first Galaxy Note 12, 10.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cause it was really lagging.

• 42:55Nilay Patel?

  It was really laggy.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Dual app stuff, right?

• 42:56Nilay Patel?

  I was so excited for that product.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Uh, what was it? Uh, some phone.

• 43:00Nilay Patel?

  See some dual app.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  A while ago, Eli, remember you were like, this phone does not have multi-touch. Remember when like touchscreen phones were first becoming a thing? And you went on this tirade of proving everyone wrong? Was that like the Nexus 1?

• 43:12Nilay Patel?

  It was, yeah, the Nexus 1. Cause remember they didn't have, what?

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Didn't have multi-touch. That was really the.

• 43:17Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's just showing off like a feature of, of the S6 that is just not good.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Is it the dual app?

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  He put an app in a window and now he's got Twitter in a window.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Screen or you can put apps in windows. It's pretty great. Why would you do that? So you could, you could put, uh, so Android is bad at letting YouTube run in the background. So you can put YouTube in a little window, minimize it, and then have YouTube music playing just as a little icon on your screen.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  When you're watching YouTube, don't you want to be watching in a full screen?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  No, sometimes I don't want to.

• 43:45Nilay Patel?

  Sometimes you want to listen to hot jams.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  YouTube music, man.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  That's what the kids do is they listen to music on YouTube.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:50Nilay Patel?

  It's great.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  Um, but, uh, it's weird because what I really want to do, the, the reason I really like YouTube music is because it lets you watch Vivo videos without ads.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:00Nilay Patel?

  But if you go to, if you just go to Vivo.com, you don't get the benefit of the no ads, which seems like they should definitely maybe talk to each other.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  I feel like a lot of teens and stuff use YouTube or Vivo for music.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's very true.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Cause there's no subscription required.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:16Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  But you can get one.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  There's a reason why those songs have like a hundred million.

• 44:19Nilay Patel?

  If you subscribe to Google, your YouTube music, you don't get the ads on YouTube, but on the Vivo videos, but then if you go to Vivo, you get the ads.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I see what you're saying.

• 44:29Nilay Patel?

  So annoying. All right. Let's talk, we should talk about my desire to not talk about Facebook is, is, we should talk about them both here. Look.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Well, we can do Facebook really quick. FA Developer Conference, uh, they have turned their Messenger app and, or Messenger app into an app platform. We'll see if any, you can plug a whole bunch of other little apps into it. Like, uh, I don't know, FrontBack maybe, or like the thing that makes GIFs and it's cool.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Giffy.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  We'll see if, uh, you know, it takes online and if it becomes popular. I'm still waiting for the one true messaging cross-platform app that isn't completely owned by a same company, but whatever. I'd like, I would switch to Messenger maybe, uh, cause it, it seems like it's, it's doing a better job at progressing and adding features while still may, staying true to like being fast.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  It's got a lot of features.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Better than like, well, I mean WhatsApp is still fast, but like Hangouts is like getting really bad for me lately. Like super duper terrible.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Messenger's got a lot of new features now, but it doesn't feel bloated somehow.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Messenger doesn't work on Android, so I don't care.

• 45:26Nilay Patel?

  I'm going to say something controversial.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  None of this stuff is as good.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Messenger.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  As, as, as.

• 45:34Nilay Patel?

  As AOL and some Messenger was in the early 2000s.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  I agree. I so agree.

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  None of it is as good.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  AIM is still somehow the best messenger to ever be ever.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  That is the European, American divide in, in Europe.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  It's MSN.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  It was MSN.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:49Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really?

• 45:49Speaker 02

  No one used AIM.

• 45:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. Uh, because I was reading.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  I forget where they were big.

• 45:54Nilay Patel?

  So I was reading this like terrible, oh, we didn't talk about Steve Jobs. We'll do it next week because I'll put up a national review. I don't like this book, but there's a whole scene in this book where he's like, where the author, Brent Lunders, friends with Steve Jobs. It's very clear that they are friends and he's like, and at that period, Steve was back at Apple and he was working late every night, which I knew because I would log into my computer and open my iChat list. And I would see the green bubble next to his name. It's like you were iChat friends with Steve Jobs. That's wild. To, I definitely miss having the list. The status list on my computer. It was just like, who's online and who can I talk to?

• 46:30Speaker 01

  You can kind of do it.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  With G chat. A lot of people do that with G chat.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Thing anymore because mobile, right? Everyone's always.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, but then you want like proper status indicators and all that stuff.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Still waiting for the universal.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Kind of does that.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  The universal away message. Where is it?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Like in the.

• 46:45Nilay Patel?

  In the hangouts?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  No, I've got this stupid hangouts. Like, Google, you know, the biggest problem with hangouts is that I have four Google accounts.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:54Nilay Patel?

  So it just doesn't know who I am.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  They've been promising to fix that for three years.

• 46:57Nilay Patel?

  No, but the hangout app, you don't even have to fix like the backend structure. Just let me pick one.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And like, and tell me which one I'm messaging from.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  The answer is we need to bring ICQ back so we can all be a number.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  And have Samsung like crazy noises.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  I was all up in ICQ. I loved ICQ.

• 47:14Nilay Patel?

  It's like, how is it that it's harder to instant message people?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Let's just have a universal, everybody can join it, open IRC channel.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, IRC.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  And that's all.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  You know, IRC still exists. It's like never gonna die.

• 47:26Nilay Patel?

  Adrian at Motherboard, occasionally just opens up the HipChat channel in the editorial and people just like come and hang out. It's like wild. Maybe we should just have a wide open. I don't know. I think one of the reasons that like Slack is popular is because it just shows you who's online. Like, like most people don't have that experience anymore. Just going to a place and like, it does have status indicators. It does have green dots and.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  There's just, there are way too many chat apps. I think that's what it is. Like back when I was fourth, fifth, sixth grade, like all you had was AIM. That's it. And like, no one even had phones. You just logged on your computer and you went on AIM. Now it's like, are you on Facebook? Are you on Twitter? Are you on G chat?

• 48:05Nilay Patel?

  By the way, it occurs to me right now that we have not discussed the news peg for why we're talking about chat.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Oh, well, yeah. No, kind of.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  They made Messenger into a thing that you can install apps on.

• 48:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's it. That was it. And then today's the Oculus.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  And today was Oculus. And the big story so far is John Abrash, Abrash, one of the guys from Oculus. Basically, he went on stage and he gave a speech from the matrix and about how you don't know what's real and what isn't. And he said, everybody has to take whichever pill it is that makes you go into the matrix. Was it the blue pill?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Damn it. He's saying that no matter what, you're going to go live in the VR world. You can't escape it. It's coming. Get ready. You don't get to choose to opt out.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  The red pill is the painful truth of reality. Thanks, Wikipedia. Got you. I just want to say this Facebook thing.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  No matter which pill you pick, we're all headed down the rabbit hole together as one.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Uh, this Facebook thing to me is really interesting. Uh, it's quite obvious that Facebook knows what it's doing because it bought Instagram. It also bought WhatsApp. It also bought Oculus. Like Zuckerberg knows that Facebook proper, maybe like, doesn't even matter right now. And I think the steps that they're taking to sort of go like mobile first and they're like, they're effectively like gutting Facebook for what it is. And like building it back together with different parts. And it's like happening right now. And the majority of Facebook users, I don't think will see this. Until one day they realize that, wow, I just spend all of my time in Messenger and never look at the Facebook news feed anymore.

• 49:37Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  And that's my thought.

• 49:38Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I think it, we're, there's a thing about tech conferences, like developer conferences in particular. That's that out of context, I mean, they are like camp for the company's biggest fans, right? Like, and so like you can go to a Facebook developer conference or an Apple developer conference or Microsoft build or whatever. And you come away being like, this company is going to rule the world. And all of the coverage out of F8 is like Facebook's, Facebook's dominant. They're crushing everyone. They're going to own the media. The New York Times will put their stuff natively into Facebook. No one can be saved from Facebook. And like two weeks from now, they'll be like the Twitter developer conference and we'll have all those stories about Twitter. Yeah, it's like,

• 50:19Nilay Patel?

  um, Facebook is doing well. They're executing obviously at a really high level. None of the apps they put out last time around, they tried to do this, did, worked. Like Facebook Paper is garbage.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say it's garbage.

• 50:32Nilay Patel?

  It's a fine app, but like.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, when they separate all these apps out, like.

• 50:37Nilay Patel?

  The only apps they have that are truly successful are the ones they bought.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Well, Messenger.

• 50:41Nilay Patel?

  They bought Messenger.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right. The Beluga or whatever, right?

• 50:45Nilay Patel?

  It's called Beluga.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Messenger is a different beast then, that's.

• 50:48Nilay Patel?

  Right, and it was part of Facebook and then they pulled it.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Yes. But that was a good strategic move.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  And it all makes a lot more sense now, especially with the business stuff and that.

• 50:58Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  I, it's, it's very clear that Facebook, oh, also this huge news with Facebook partnering with like media companies to do news inside Facebook.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  Facebook realizes that like, people aren't using Facebook the way they've always used Facebook, which is why they're gonna be like, hey, you go on Facebook to like get your news, but you gotta stay in Facebook. And if you wanna chat with your friends, hop into the other app. And do all this other crap with Messenger.

• 51:25Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  I think Facebook is one of those companies, it just doesn't, like, it seems like they've cracked a certain thing that, even if someone come along, came along and tried to emulate it, like, it'd be almost impossible.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, what they cracked was being a social network at scale and not sucking.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  And dress.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  That's it. They, they hit, they hit the scale that you need to be dominant to like be a player. And then, they don't suck. And that, MySpace had, did that, but then what did MySpace do? It sucked. So as long as Facebook doesn't suck, they're gonna be huge.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  But also MySpace was, you could be anonymous, you know, you could have these janky profiles and, this feels like, uh, every, everyone you know is always on it. Like when there's a story that breaks and someone's done something crazy in the world, you find them on Facebook, you find their social media on Facebook, you occasionally do on Twitter, but.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Most of the times, they're on Facebook. It's like, it's the directory. I just can't see how. Having that power, someone can replace that. That's an incredible amount of data.

• 52:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just, I don't know. I have such little fear of Facebook. I mean, I think it's particularly true because we obviously work in the media and there's an incredible media fear of Facebook. That everyone's traffic comes from Facebook and that's cool. A lot of ours does, but not all of it. Yeah, it's like a lot of our traffic comes from our homepage. That's weird.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:48Nilay Patel?

  We have, like, we have a weird little advantage over a lot of new places because we

• 52:52Speaker 03

  We have a website.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Back in the day, Google used to drive all the traffic, so.

• 52:56Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, look, one of the reasons, one of the reasons we decided to start The Verge was because when we were at AOL, there was a huge emphasis on writing against demand on Google. So you would like, and they're a huge company, Demand Media is a company that exists that is literally, it would scrape Google Trends and then hire like freelancers at like no money to write articles that

• 53:17Speaker 03

  And make videos too.

• 53:18Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, and then it was like a whole cottage industry of like gaming, Google search and trends and whatever. And some of that still persists, right? Like

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does.

• 53:27Nilay Patel?

  It's great and fine, but it's no longer like the foundation of companies. And now there's an entire set of companies that are all about like gaming social, right? Like there's, I don't know, Upworthy.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:39Nilay Patel?

  What else? There's a million other

• 53:40Speaker 03

  A kid that was profiling the New Yorker, was it?

• 53:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's, and Upworthy is like, they at least like, they're, they seem like a real company, but that one in the New York, the, there was a kid who was profiling the New Yorker and I don't remember

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Cause you didn't click on one of the links to go to his website. Buzz, some buzz, hot hype trend, whatever the hell.

• 53:59Nilay Patel?

  Buzzhothype.com. That's my new company. Yeah. And so now there's this wave of like garbage startups that are like feeding media into the Facebook algorithm. And like every now and again, Google issues a search update and like kills some crap.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  And Facebook does the same thing.

• 54:12Nilay Patel?

  Facebook issues an update and kills some crap. And it's like, none of that scares me because it's our job to figure out the next one. That's important and we pay attention to that. And it's our job to make stuff good enough that Facebook's crap

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:24Nilay Patel?

  filters don't ever hit us.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  It's, it's one thing if you're just making stuff that is just like shock, you know, kind of like, oh my God, look at this thing. But like, I like to think that, you know, we and a bunch of other websites are actually making good quality stuff that's worth reading. And it appears that Facebook realizes that too, because A bunch of times, I think it was like once or twice in the last like two years, Facebook was like, hey, we're gonna shut down all of those like kind of like crap meme sites that you see in your news feed. And I think the the future of Facebook is gonna be news consumption. And I think it'll be interesting to see what they do to catch up with like Twitter's realtime thing. Because that's a lot of people say like, yeah, Twitter's good at breaking news and you

• 55:11Speaker 03

  know, even I forget what event it was a few weeks ago, but I drew, I saw like what it was like on, I think just Twitter versus Facebook versus one other thing, and Facebook is always so behind. So I think Facebook has the opportunity to shift into like a real way to consume news. And it'll be interesting to see what happens, but I also don't use Facebook like a normal human does, so.

• 55:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, you're a professional Facebooker.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  Well, I use Facebook because I have to for work, but otherwise I wouldn't be on it because it's a terrible, depressing way.

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  Just wait until they put you in an Oculus and you're just permanently in Facebook all the time. I kinda wanna get, should I buy an Oculus?

• 55:50Speaker 03

  You can't.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  You should wait for the next prototype.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Can you even get one right now? Can you get TK2?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 55:57Nilay Patel?

  I mean, there's gotta be like, there's gotta be one person with DK2 who's not happy with it.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, if you wanna like buy it secondhand, yeah, I'm sure you can find one, just hit up Craigslist.

• 56:06Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  I'm definitely the wrong person to ask, you should talk to Addy.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  You should talk to Scott, cuz he has one.

• 56:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Kellum.

• 56:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  And it's awesome.

• 56:14Nilay Patel?

  We should all, we should all talk to other people that people on this podcast don't know. Talk to Steve. Steve knows what's up.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  Good radio.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Rebecca, she definitely knows what's down.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  She's got one.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  She's got one. Susan, Susan's huge innocuous.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  VR expert.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  I have nothing else to say. I mean, I have other things to say about Facebook, but I think that we're like devolving into like a self-referential media meta.

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  Me naming, picking up names and saying of people who are innocuous.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  It's like Facebook was exciting, Twitter was exciting, and now Periscope.

• 56:47Nilay Patel?

  You wanna talk about Periscope for two minutes?

• 56:48Speaker 03

  I wanna talk about Periscope for two minutes.

• 56:51Nilay Patel?

  Alright, so last week was Meerkat.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Live streaming.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Week and a half ago.

• 56:55Nilay Patel?

  Okay. This week is Periscope, which is Twitter's Meerkat clone.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 56:59Nilay Patel?

  That got a huge amount of press.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Is it a Meerkat clone if they started development first?

• 57:04Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. Sam, was your video, was your Periscope video better than Stern's Periscope video?

• 57:08Speaker 03

  Stern's videos are on another level at which I cannot compete with. Look at this salad. I'm eating it. Like Joanna Yourock. Like it's, it was awesome.

• 57:17Nilay Patel?

  Straight, straight to camera, Joanna.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  It was Joanna rocks and she knows. So, okay, so Meerkat was built in eight weeks and the word on the street is that Periscope was built like over the course of a year. And I was at South by on vacation last week and like the two days before I left, Meerkat, Meerkat, like exploded everywhere. So I Meerkatted a bunch from South by and I really enjoyed it. It was really cool. The live messages like coming up on the screen is really cool. I felt that the UI of Meerkat was really cluttered, like super duper cluttered to the point where like it was just too much. And I have been waiting

• 58:01Speaker 03

  for Periscope to come out. I didn't believe it really existed until today when it actually came out and then I downloaded it and it is super nice, super well polished. I like how you go to broadcast and it loads up the camera. When you do Meerkat, it's just like you click start broadcast and it's like boom, you're live versus like where you can see kind of a preview. The UI is way cleaner in Periscope. They both need to fix the web client because I saw a bunch of people complaining, oh, portrait, portrait, portrait. Like you have to drag, you have to resize your browser window to make it portrait for it to work.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Or you can just click and it expands.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Oh, you can do that. Okay. Cause Helen was like, oh no, look, it looks fine. And there was like a tiny box in the middle of the screen. And also the nice thing about Periscope is that you don't need to sign into Twitter to use it. Also, you can put your stream up for 24 hours, which is like it, that completely kills Meerkat. Like nine times out of 10, you click a Meerkat and you're like, it's dead, it's dead, right? And now Periscope, you can just go back and watch it, even if the stream is over.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  But only on a phone. You can't go back and watch it on the desktop.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 59:09Nilay Patel?

  That was like an incredible Periscope dump.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:13Nilay Patel?

  You were just like, here's everything I know.

• 59:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm really bullish on these live streaming apps.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  I'm really curious about the relationship of Meerkat and Periscope though.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  What?

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Because they're both trying to do the same thing.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  One seems like it found out about the other and kind of rushed something out the door.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Um, to me, that's to me, like, looking from an outside, total speculation. That's just kind of what it looks like.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  I just, I, I feel bad for Meerkat because like they had this super momentous hype wave and South by and a lot. The talk, like, I was there, the talk.

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  It's all anybody was talking about.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was the talk of South by. It was Meerkat, Meerkat, Meerkat. Like, imagine Periscope was at South by, but also like Periscope is here now and it's an official Twitter thing. Like, you've got Twitter's backbone with you now. And like, yeah, Meerkat just announced they're 14 or 15 million dollars in funding. But like, once Twitter builds that into Twitter, maybe in like six months from now, I don't know what's gonna happen to Meerkat. I think it'll be like the underdog, sort of like, you know, the little guy punching his way through. But, you know, you've got the platform, you know, Meerkat was riding on Twitter as a platform to like make it work. But now Twitter has its own version of Meerkat.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  It's even just the most basic things that with Meerkat. The first time I launched it, I was just totally confused with what this thing was, like the actual app itself and how to use it and how to find people and streaming and that sort of stuff. It was just a yellow page.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Exactly what it is. Yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Whereas when I launched Periscope this morning, I was like, there's immediately friends are streaming, people from around the world are streaming. It's like.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I'll just say that the push, I read Casey's piece and I immediately turned off push notifications because you get, it is out of control. This person's streaming, this person joined, this person added you, like, they need to really fine tune the notifications.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  You know what I can't wait?

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  You just need a favorites list.

• 1:01:03Nilay Patel?

  We all have smartwatches and you're just constantly buzzing, just constantly buzzing at somebody streaming live.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  No, my, my, my game is no, no push notifications on the iPhone besides for messaging apps. Like, I don't use push notifications on Twitter, don't use push notifications.

• 1:01:21Nilay Patel?

  I have a question.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Yo.

• 1:01:23Nilay Patel?

  Isn't Periscope just another kind of messaging app?

• 1:01:28Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:01:30Nilay Patel?

  And with that, the show is over.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  He is, wow, he's periscoping right now.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 1:01:36Nilay Patel?

  Alive scope?

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  I didn't put it on Twitter because I didn't want to scam.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  How many concurrents do you have?

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't put it on Twitter, so I only have four.

• 1:01:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, this is weird.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Eight, 11.

• 1:01:44Speaker 03

  Look at that. Boom, boom, boom, boom, ba-boom.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Pretty wild.

• 1:01:46Nilay Patel?

  Well, you know what? I've always was hoping that the future would bring us the ability to be a local news cameraman wherever you were.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  And we're there now. This is it. It's real.

• 1:01:54Nilay Patel?

  This is cool.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  This is.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  I feel like it's, um, it's big in a way because when people do these, do stuff like Twitter and stuff, people have done these things.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  God.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Years in advance in different ways, but then someone does it and nails it. And Periscope feels like they've nailed the live stream and stuff.

• 1:02:11Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Like there is. From a mobile aspect.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  There are, I mean, imagine like the, the.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  I have 193 people watching me right now, making like amazed faces.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  Imagine the, uh.

• 1:02:22Nilay Patel?

  I gotta say.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  You know, like Occupy Wall Street or any of these.

• 1:02:25Nilay Patel?

  Dieter has just turned into a teen blogger.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Someone just wrote on the prettiest girl of all.

• 1:02:29Nilay Patel?

  He's literally, I just, for everyone.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  No, yeah.

• 1:02:32Nilay Patel?

  Dieter is literally streaming a picture of his own face smiling at people sending him cartoon hearts.

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  He is so happy right now.

• 1:02:39Nilay Patel?

  That's what's happening. He's not streaming. It's literally just his own face, the front face in camera.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  I wanna, I'll stream the six edge.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  I just wanna, I wanna talk about.

• 1:02:46Nilay Patel?

  Hands on with a gadget.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  So gamification, and I'm not, I'm not gonna get into this that deep right now.

• 1:02:51Nilay Patel?

  Corporate Sam wants to talk about gamification.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna get that deep into this. I have so many thoughts about gamification, but.

• 1:02:56Nilay Patel?

  Dieter has so many thoughts about how popular he is right now.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  Right now on this podcast.

• 1:03:01Nilay Patel?

  I've never seen Dieter smile like this before.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I'm down under 100 and 200.

• 1:03:07Nilay Patel?

  It's over. The chart, the chart beat of Dieter's heart is falling.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  All right, so when I was at South by, um, I like got kind of obsessed with Meerkat and I like made it a thing to hit the leaderboard. And then I hit the leaderboard, uh, and then I fell off the leaderboard and I was like, damn, that means I have to work for it again. Uh, but the gamification of Meerkat is kind of the leaderboard, but it's not, I think Periscope's gamification with the like. So if you go to someone's profile, yes, we will rap as soon as I'm. Sorry, there's like a voice in my head and I'm like, okay.

• 1:03:45Nilay Patel?

  You get one more sentence about gamification.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  The fact that in your profile on Periscope shows the number of hearts you have in your profile is is very telling. And that's it.

• 1:03:58Nilay Patel?

  That would, I mean, okay, that was a second sentence.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  That's what you were trying to say.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Can we gamify having our podcast producer yell at us?

• 1:04:05Nilay Patel?

  We should.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  And whoever gets yelled at the most wins.

• 1:04:08Nilay Patel?

  Pictures of, pictures of knives.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna start the gamification podcast.

• 1:04:13Nilay Patel?

  Please don't do that. Spend your time in other ways. Like, I don't know.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  Like periscoping.

• 1:04:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, periscoping, periscoping yourself until you get a girlfriend. Like, whatever it takes.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Wow. Imagine that's how I get my next girlfriend and she saw me on Periscope.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  That was a jolly good sick burn.

• 1:04:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god. This, it's time for this to be done. Alright, that was it. Sam, you get three social networks to, to pimp.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  You should follow us on Instagram. We post like every single day now and there's really good pictures there. We are instagram.com/verge or just at verge on Instagram. Dieter's buzzing. You should find us on Snapchat. We are the real verge on Snapchat. If you listen to this verge cast right now, you will see S6 stuff. You'll see some other stuff, but you should just follow us on, follow us on Snapchat. And you should also subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are youtube.com/theverge.

• 1:05:12Nilay Patel?

  Chris Siggler is now periscoping us from outside the studio. It's like, I don't want this tool to exist.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  How many?

• 1:05:18Nilay Patel?

  Alright, alright, alright. Stop, stop, stop. Everyone stop. I'm stopping the show. I have two, everyone stop periscoping.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Nilay Patel?

  I have two things to say. One.

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:05:31Nilay Patel?

  One, go to iTunes, find the verge cast, leave us a five star review. Tell us what you would periscope in your wildest dreams. But give me, give me the five. That's what I want. Second, rock and roll.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  Jesus.