Galaxy Note 10 Plus review, Apple fall lineup rumors, and green bubble Giphys

This week on The Vergecast... Dieter's got a review for the Galaxy Note 10, Samsung has some blue bubble bashing GIFs, and there are a whole bunch of Apple device rumors. Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus review: should you spend for the stylus? Samsung made a sad Giphy page filled with comeback GIFs to send people who diss green bubblesApple’s Pro iPhones, new iPads, and 16-inch MacBook Pro detailed in Bloomberg reportApple’s noise-canceling AirPods and cheaper HomePod expected in 2020iOS 13 beta hints at an Apple iPhone 11 event on September 10th …New ceramic and titanium Apple Watch models spotted in watchOS 6 …Apple TV Plus will reportedly cost $9.99 per month and launch in …Apple reportedly ups TV spending by $5 billion to compete with Amazon and NetflixApple warns you may permanently discolor your Apple Card if it’s stored in leatherYou should opt out of the Apple Card's arbitration clause — here's how …Intel introduces eight new 10th Gen Comet Lake processorsDell’s latest XPS 13 and Inspiron laptops feature Intel’s Comet Lake 10th Gen CPUsBose tries to beat Sonos to the punch with a do-everything portable speakerSonos’ first portable Bluetooth speaker leaks in more detailApple’s noise-canceling AirPods and cheaper HomePod expected next yearThis label means your laptop has nine hours of real battery life ... Verizon just announced a partnership with Boingo to solve its biggest 5G problem 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the Vox Media podcast ecosystem. You're locked in now.

• 1:15Nilay Patel?

  I don't think that should be the tagline, but I thought I would try it out. Hi, I'm Neelai. I'm your friend. Dieter is in New York with me again.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Again? Why? How?

• 1:23Nilay Patel?

  Well, we're gonna find out why. Paul remains in Washington State.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  How's it going?

• 1:29Speaker 03

  It's good.

• 1:30Nilay Patel?

  Sort of like both a lot going on and then medium.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Going, yeah. August. August is going on.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but you're in New York.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  I am.

• 1:40Nilay Patel?

  Because you reviewed a big phone.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  A huge phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus.

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  Plus what?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Plus, just plus. Plus means big.

• 1:51Nilay Patel?

  So a big phone, both in stature.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:56Nilay Patel?

  And, you know, in port in the history, it's one of the flagships, the classic flagships of our time.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  It's always led the way of the biggest and the most powerful and the most stylish phone. And only one of those three things is unique to the Note anymore.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  So this was like, I was watching your review of the phone.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  You like struggled with it because the, I mean, this has been the sort of the muscle car of the flagship film world for the longest time.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:22Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's like the phone that like, if any phone was gonna have like a, like a serial port. You know, like it would be this one. But they actually took the headphone jack out.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Headphone jack out.

• 2:33Nilay Patel?

  So it's kind of like not that anymore. A lot of phones have caught up to its specs.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. So like the, the big one this year has been the OnePlus 7 Pro. And I know a lot of people are almost getting tired of hearing about it, but it is that good for, I think it was like 750 bucks. And its big thing is it has a pop-up selfie camera and a screen refresh rate of 90 hertz. But in addition to that, it also curves and it also just looks really, really good. So the Note doesn't beat that in terms of refresh rate, but it does beat it in, I think, overall screen quality. But there are other phones that have the same processor, like the Note doesn't differentiate itself on processor anymore. All of the late year phones like the, the Note and the Pixel are going to suffer from this for a while till Qualcomm changes its cadence. There are other big screen phones. There are other just nice, well-made phones.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Chief among them, if you want a big phone that's well-made and just nice to hold and use. There is the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, which is 5% not as nice as the Note. 5% smaller, doesn't have a stylus and costs anywhere from, you know, $200 to $350 less, depending on the discount.

• 3:43Nilay Patel?

  How is it 5% not as nice?

• 3:45Speaker 03

  There's just like really subtle things about the bezels. There's some aesthetic choices, like do you prefer the curved corners of the Note, sort of like hard 90-degree corners? And I personally prefer the iPhone copy and camera placement just down the row in a pill that the Note does, rather than the block.

• 4:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  It's mostly like subtle aesthetic things, but you can kind of feel it.

• 4:12Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I much prefer having the front camera cut out in the center than on the side.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the front camera cut out, this is not a thing I like made a big deal about in the review, either on YouTube or on theverge.com. It's smaller. It's like, I think they said it's 25% smaller or something. So it did mean that they changed the F-stop on it. Whatever, it's still, I think it's still fine. But because it's smaller, it's even less intrusive. So on other phones with notches or cutouts, I'm more likely to like expand the video, see the cutout and go, nah, and then bring it back down again. On this one, I'm much more likely to expand it fullscreen, and even though there's a little dot over on the left-hand side, I don't care.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  And the screen is larger.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  The screen is huge. It's 6.8 inches.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  So ratio-wise, you would win even if the dot wasn't.

• 4:58Nilay Patel?

  What's the aspect ratio of the screen?

• 4:59Speaker 03

  Square-ish.

• 5:00Nilay Patel?

  Square-ish.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  It's more square than your average rectangle. So at 6.8, it's actually bigger than a narrower phone would feel at 6.8.

• 5:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see what you're saying.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:12Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's about the same size. The Note 10 Plus is the Note. They should have called it the Note 10 and called the little one the Note Mini, because the Note 10 Plus is about the same size as the Note 9, but the screen is like half an inch bigger because they got rid of the rest of the bezels. Sorry to the iPhone XS and presumably the iPhone something, something Pro, whatever they're gonna call it this year. But this screen looks more like the future than any notch cutout ever will.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Because it goes more edge-to-edge even than the iPhone does, and the cutout for the camera is so small. When you're on a phone call, if you're like on, you know, you pull the phone away from your head, you can actually see the tiny little dot underneath the screen glowing that's looking, you know, to do the proximity sensor to turn the screen on and off for phone calls.

• 6:03Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 6:03Speaker 03

  It's pretty cool, yeah. So like, all of these cutouts have, there's like certain things that can be fit underneath an OLED screen. And some of them put it under there and some of them haven't. And Apple hasn't, then eventually they could start packing more stuff underneath the screen if they wanted to.

• 6:17Nilay Patel?

  So I mean, that was gonna be my question, the iPhone, the reason for the notch that we are consistently told is it's not just a camera. Right, there's like the infrared beam thing.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  There's a bunch of stuff.

• 6:27Nilay Patel?

  There's the proximity sensor, there's the other camera for the flood illuminator.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 6:32Nilay Patel?

  All the stuff.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:33Nilay Patel?

  That makes Face ID go.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  I mean, it's just like physics, you know, like you, you'll never get anything behind an LCD because an LCD is like, there's the panel there.

• 6:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  But OLEDs are theoretically transparent if you want them to be because they handle the colors themselves. But there are prototypes of people getting like pretty low resolution, the cameras behind there, like enough like it's in that they can build an image out of it. But something like a proximity sensor, you know, just like a little tiny little infrared beam or, you know, a little laser or something. That's pretty easy to like shine through and get data out of if you're shining it through a screen. A proximity sensor that like illuminates, you know, your face or that needs to gather a ton of information is probably way harder. But if you're just trying to get like a one point of information, am I up to an ear or not, you could totally put that behind the screen.

• 7:21Nilay Patel?

  And then obviously the fingerprint sensors behind this.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Fingerprint sensors behind the screen, it is about the same size as the S10, they haven't changed it. They did position it higher on the phone, so it's a little bit easier to hit. It's still about the same speed, which is like a half a tick slower than you want it to be, but still, for me, it's fine. So I didn't really make a big hash of it because it's, it's there, it works pretty well. I wish it was slightly better, I wish it was as big as on the OnePlus 7 Pro. But one of the things I went through with reviewing this phone is there's a whole pile of things, like it's really nice, it's really fast. The fingerprint sensor is here, Dex exists. Like, there's a whole, there's a whole series of things to say about the phone that you would say about any other phone.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  But to my mind, none of them should affect your purchase decision. Like, you should not buy this phone for Dex, but you should not not buy this phone because Dex is like meh. You should probably not buy this phone because it has a big ass screen. Because you can get other phones that have big ass screens that are 100, 200, 300 bucks less. You know, I'll judge all the things, I'll say, yes, it's beautiful, this is great screen, it's fast, battery life is good, all that stuff. But it turns out that. None of that stuff should actually drive your purchasing decision because it's all available on other phones in some way, shape or form. The only thing that's not anymore is the stylus.

• 8:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:40Nilay Patel?

  How's the stylus?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  It's good. It's fine. Yeah, it's a stylus like.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  Someone sent us that graph. It's like 80% of the Verge cast is Dieter saying it's fine.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  No, like, look, Samsung made OCR usable and actually functional on Samsung Notes. I wish that, you know, you could pick another Note app to be the screen off thing. They've already got that deal with Microsoft. It seems likely that they wouldn't be that hard to have it connect up to OneNote, but whatever. But the fact that you can search your scribbles and then it's easy to like export text or convert it to text inside Notes means that you just feel a little more confident using the screen off memo because you know that that you're going to be able to get to that note later. And everything else that the stylus does, the wand stuff and even the like the AR doodle stuff is they're fun, they're gimmicks. And then, you know, you'll use them twice, you'll impress a nerdy friend and you'll be done.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Can you give me a practical example of the like OCR, like start to finish, like, really actually being an effective part of your Notes workflow and not feeling like something that you have to shoehorn in?

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're hanging out, we're talking and you're like, oh, Dieter, you should totally read this book by Werner Vinge. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I'll take a note and I'll write Paul, book Werner, and then I'll put it away and we'll keep talking. And then a week from now, I'm like, oh, Paul, something, something. And then I could just search for the word Paul.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Search what?

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Search Samsung Notes, using the on-screen keywords, search for the word Paul, it will find Paul and then I will see what the note was and then I'll be able to go buy the book.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  So you now need to be a user of Samsung Notes to retrieve these sorts of things?

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so that's a bummer because Samsung Notes is, you know, it's a Samsung app. So you didn't like, can you get it on your desktop? I doubt it. Like, there's all that stuff.

• 10:24Nilay Patel?

  Dex, dude!

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Except for Dex. Yeah, there's that.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  So I was reading your review.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:28Nilay Patel?

  And we should, this, we should talk about the stylus a little bit more, but I was reading your review.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:33Nilay Patel?

  The description of you trying to use Dex is like, it was maddening and bad. The PC version wasn't very good. And then when it did work, it was still bad. I understand, like in there, you know, you don't want to like overdo it.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  But in this context, I think you should overdo it. Just unpack the badness of this because you were really excited.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Uh, I was really excited. Uh, so Dex could run up to five apps on the screen at a time inside. It's like desktop type window on, on the thing and that it works pretty well. Like it's not super fast, like it's as fast as you'd expect Android to be. Uh, once you start having it, having it open for a while, like things start to lag and you can kind of feel it.

• 11:13Nilay Patel?

  Wait, let's have one sec. Just explain what Dex is and what's supposed to do when you connect to the computer.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Previously Dex only lets you like plug your phone into a monitor and then you got a desktop interface in your monitor. You like connect up your own Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. And then you've got like a little mini computer that's running off your phone. It's the dream, right? Well, no one does that. No one has a monitor that they carry around or whatever. So Samsung made apps for Mac and Windows that take that experience and put it on your computer on the thing you actually use. So if there's stuff that you want to get off of your phone or do on your phone, you just plug it in your computer and then you've got like a, this wacky little, you know, other computer sitting in a window inside your computer that is actually your phone. And you can like copy a link from your computer browser to your Dex browser and inside the S10.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  And then when you open it up, it's like, it's the same app and so it's there. You can use your phone at the same time as Dex is open, uh, which is kind of funny. So like you could be scrolling Instagram on your phone while you're like using the Samsung internet browser in Dex.

• 12:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh my God.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Cause it can run multiple apps at the same time because it's like, it has 12 gigs of RAM. This is a powerful phone.

• 12:19Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  It is wickedly powerful, but then if you, you, it can't run it on both. So if you're like, I want to open Instagram and Dex, it'll pop up a thing saying, we can do this if you want. But we got to restart the app because you know, Android, uh, and then it does.

• 12:31Nilay Patel?

  You have to resize one window so we have to like close this app and restart it?

• 12:35Speaker 03

  And on the experience on Windows, actually like, that's it. It's like, it's a little bit slow. If you try and drag and drop more than like three files at a time, it just looks like, no, I'm sorry.

• 12:42Nilay Patel?

  So this is like a Windows EXE, like go get it off the Samsung site. You're like, good to go.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah. Um, same thing with the Mac, except it is doing something relatively deep into like the innards of the Mac. Whenever. You install a Mac app and it has an uninstall program in addition to an install program. You know that it's doing something, right? And on my Mac in particular, the keyboard just never worked with Dex. And I was gonna blame Samsung for this, except I don't think I should because I also, I wrote a bunch of kernel extensions, right? I like, I remapped my caps lock key. And so what this tells me is my kernel extensions were overriding Samsung's kernel extensions. This is why I described it as a fiasco, because it's doing stuff.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  And then there's also, on both platforms, there are vague and confusing warnings about the Android file transfer app, which is itself a fiasco of software that Google needs to like do something about because it's, it's a really bad Java app on, on both computers. And Samsung needs it to be able to do drag and drop, but it also needs it to not take over the communication between your phone and the computer, right? So it has to be there, so it has the tools it needs to transfer files. But it also can't be there because it'll keep Dex from working. You're just like, you have to go through this dance, like, is it installed? Yes, is it picking? Nope, okay, now it's working.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  I just feel like the, what you're describing is you shouldn't try to make one computer run inside of another computer.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  When it works, it's super fun and like, it's convenient. Like, you said this to yourself, using WhatsApp, Signal, text messages from Android to a computer is a crappy experience because you have to open up a tab in a web browser and scan a QR code and who knows if it'll stick and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you have to go crazy and use some wacky Chrome extensions that read all of your notifications. On Windows, it's a very similar experience. They do have the Your Phone app, which I personally think is not ready for primetime yet, but it's there. And so, just like, screw it, I'm gonna use my phone on my computer is like, there's something compelling there. It's just very badly executed.

• 14:47Nilay Patel?

  So here's what I don't understand. Samsung owns the phone.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 14:52Nilay Patel?

  They've written the app.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  They have.

• 14:54Nilay Patel?

  Why? Like, I mean, they can just like rewrite Android sort of at will to make sure it works here.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't think that Dex is bad because Android. I think Dex is bad because they're not good at making Windows and Mac apps.

• 15:05Nilay Patel?

  Interesting.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:06Nilay Patel?

  And then my other question is why, it requires a wire.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Well, come on. Yes, of course it does.

• 15:12Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I mean, that's not like such a, come on, I mean, like... I don't know, Google just announced a service that lets you play video games over the internet.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:19Nilay Patel?

  I feel like I want to look at a WhatsApp window on my phone can be accomplished over a Wi-Fi network.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, they would need to build a pretty hefty infrastructure for that, or they would need to come up with.

• 15:29Nilay Patel?

  Wait, why do they, to do a VNC window over Wi-Fi? I mean, that's like what this thing is, right?

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Basically, yeah, they could, but I suspect that the best technology available to Android to accomplish that goal that you're describing, there's two. There's Cast and there's Miracast.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  So I just.

• 15:48Nilay Patel?

  Don't you worry, Samsung supports both.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just want you to like, complete the thought that you started, and the end of that thought is, you have a window on your computer that is a.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  It's your phone.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Miracast display of your phone, and then it also is sending.

• 16:03Nilay Patel?

  And it can take input.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Commands over Bluetooth, and I just, there's something about that where it's like, you know what, I have my computer. If I have my computer, the chances that I happen to have a USB cable near me is like, pretty high, so just plug it in.

• 16:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I feel in all this, I just feel like, in Samsung world, like, they make laptops.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 16:22Nilay Patel?

  They make phones, they make charging docks. It seems to me like they could make a system where you like, you sit down at your Samsung laptop, you put your phone in your cool Samsung wireless charger.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  It knows it's in that charger.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  It does a thing.

• 16:37Nilay Patel?

  It does a thing.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:38Nilay Patel?

  Connect, you know, it does like a Wi-Fi direct connection to your computer, and then you've got a little.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:44Nilay Patel?

  Instead of what appears to be like, "Do you remember Parallels? We've built that, but it's your phone." It's like, it's just, it's so, it's like, it's definitely one step in the wrong direction.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  But like, towards the right goal. I don't know how to describe that exactly.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  It's just a.

• 17:00Nilay Patel?

  It's like, they're like, "We want to go over there, so we've chosen to go down," and it's like, that.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  I was gonna do a whole Rocky picture show, time warp metaphor here, but we're gonna let that one go.

• 17:14Nilay Patel?

  Dex is the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm fine with that, too.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Not to be too much of a Huawei shill, but I was talking about this last week.

• 17:22Nilay Patel?

  Chinese Agent Paul Miller is on the show today.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Well, like, this is the idea with these weird things in Harmony OS and Fuchsia, like this idea that you have files that you want to view from multiple machines, you know? And so ideally, the ideal thing is that your phone and your laptop do the minimum amount of work conceivable to keep up a file that is, let's say, a history of WhatsApp chat. Keep that file securely but instantly synchronized between your laptop and your phone. And then you have an app on your Mac or Windows PC that can view that file. And then you obviously have WhatsApp on your phone that can view that file as well. Like, that sort of synchronization of the minimum amount.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Obviously, what Samsung is doing is synchronizing the maximum amount, which is an entire virtual screen.

• 18:16Nilay Patel?

  Display, yes.

• 18:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's funny, because I was joking with you earlier, it seems like Apple could pull this off. Like, you have an iPhone and you like sit down and you plug it into like a dock with like a special Apple chip. And then you're like $25,000 Apple calibrated monitor lights on. But then that would have to be a touchscreen. They'll never let you do that. But like, it seems very obvious that you could do the thing where you turn an iPad into, or an iPhone into iPad very easily, right?

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  And as we know, the iPad is the future of all computing.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Well, as I teased in my review video, I'm doing a processor episode on this. And like, here's, I'm not gonna give you the whole story, but like, here's the thing. I told you, like, finish the thought, and then once you finish the thought, it's bad. And I think that's the problem with this across every attempt that there has been. You think of it like, oh, this would be great. And then you build it, and then it turns out that, oh, no, it's not.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:08Nilay Patel?

  But like, it's so funny, because they could optimize it for like the four apps people want, which is basically the messaging app.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:15Nilay Patel?

  Like, you really want that on your laptop, make that work. And then a handful of social networking apps that are somewhat more limited.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Well, that's Microsoft's move, right?

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Pretty much. Let's take the core functionality and make it work on Windows.

• 19:29Nilay Patel?

  So that's really interesting about this phone is it's the first sort of like Samsung plus Microsoft flagship Samsung phone.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 19:37Nilay Patel?

  That means there are three email clients on it, which is a delight. Did you get a sense when you were reviewing the phone, talking to Samsung or anybody, that this is, the Microsoft stuff will eventually replace the Samsung stuff?

• 19:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 19:51Nilay Patel?

  There's, I mean, because why? It's Samsung.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  We'll just glue more stuff onto it.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like, it could. It could. Like, Microsoft could sell a Microsoft edition of this, and they could get rid of Samsung's stuff and put their stuff on it. But I get no sense that they're ever gonna get, like, so in bed with each other that that will be the way Microsoft takes on Google by, like,

• 20:11Nilay Patel?

  Hijacking Android.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Replacing hijacking Android on Samsung.

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  But that would be the game to play. Like, that's the thing that makes it really interesting to me. Like, they can't, there's no way Microsoft is gonna get what it wants out of Apple in terms of integrating

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:23Nilay Patel?

  the phone with Windows, right? They're just not gonna get it because Apple has its own computers to sell. Fine, that's like, makes rational sense. They hate Google.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  Like, there's a very natural tie-up there, but they hate each other.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  So that's not gonna happen.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, but if Samsung's in the middle...

• 20:41Nilay Patel?

  But Samsung's in the middle. Samsung wants to distance itself a little bit.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 20:45Nilay Patel?

  And maintain its own destiny. They make, they literally make Windows PC, I guess they also make Chromebooks. They're Samsung. They make refrigerators and nuclear reactors.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Samsung makes the only Android tablets, the Worth of Damn that you can buy in the US.

• 20:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:58Nilay Patel?

  But it seems like if Microsoft wants to be in mobile, the place to go is the number one seller of Android phones, at least in the United States.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:07Nilay Patel?

  And like, get real close to them and say, "Let us do a bunch of the stuff you want to." Like, you just go ahead and stop making a web browser. Have you heard of Edge? Right? They could just do that with Samsung.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, they could.

• 21:16Nilay Patel?

  But you don't think that's ever gonna happen?

• 21:18Speaker 03

  I don't think so. I think Samsung feels like it needs to provide a, if not equivalent, like, parallel ecosystem to what, like, Apple users can get. And I think it's, thinking about Samsung selling phones in the US market actually is a little bit tunnel-vision-y. I think that, especially stuff like Samsung Health and, like, even some other, like, other, like, you know, weird Samsung Cloud Service stuff. I think that they do actually have some kind of user base for that internationally, or especially in Korea, and they're not just gonna drop that. Also, frankly, like, there's too much money in stuff like Samsung having its own web browser. Like, you open up Samsung Internet and you go to, like, a page that sells some stuff, and there's a pop-up that's like, "Hey, you wanna, you want us to help you out here? You want a little help?"

• 22:02Nilay Patel?

  Like, Bixby's like waving a credit card. Try the Bixby card!

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Oh my God, what if Samsung launches a credit card?

• 22:09Nilay Patel?

  I'm sure they already have. They have like an insurance division.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:12Nilay Patel?

  They're Samsung.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:13Nilay Patel?

  Of course they have a financial services division.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  But instead of titanium, it'll be made out of, well, not magnesium, it'll be.

• 22:20Nilay Patel?

  It's just another metal, just like close, but no cigar.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  It turns out they made it out of lead and didn't realize it.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Whatever the back of this note, I do not want to ever spend a thousand dollars on a phone, hopefully for my whole life, but.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Paul, you don't have to on the note. It's $1,100.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  But I want the back of the note. I want a phone.

• 22:44Nilay Patel?

  In a changing industry, Samsung technology enables financial professionals to serve customers anywhere, reimagines bank branches for a mobile world and safeguards every solution with different grade mobile security. Like, it's Samsung.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:57Nilay Patel?

  They already thought about like, what if we were a bank? They can't help themselves.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, make a credit card.

• 23:03Nilay Patel?

  They make ATM machines.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Make a credit card that looks like the back of the note and I will go into so much debt.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's true. The back of the note does look pretty, of the Aura Glow color.

• 23:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  Which is one that they are giving out to everybody. It also comes in black and white and blue, which are boring. I think I got cut, but I originally was gonna, I kept on referring to it as Hollow Taco instead of Aura Glow, because Hollow Taco is the name of a really sparkly nail polish from a YouTube influencer, nail influencer, that has, it's in my life.

• 23:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I get it.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And she's got this whole line of her own nail polish called Hollow Taco.

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  It's pretty good.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  And I've just been calling it Hollow Taco and getting corrected for like a week and a half.

• 23:45Nilay Patel?

  It's really funny. You should send one to her. You should do a, that's the next YouTube video. You're gonna do this high-minded thing about phones turning into computers. No, no, no, no. Straight up collab with a nail influencer. Get it done.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  I'll do it. Yeah.

• 23:57Nilay Patel?

  If I'm gonna sign one thing on the show, it's that. So, real quick, finish the, finish the style slot. It is, it's the reason to get the phone. Is it worth it now?

• 24:07Speaker 03

  If you are not a stylus stan, then absolutely not. But if you love the stylus, if you are already into the idea of writing with a stylus and pointing at, you know, pointing at stuff and interacting with the phone with the stylus. It's worth it if you got like a Note 7 or earlier, right?

• 24:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, as usual.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, wait, the Note 7 was the fire note.

• 24:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, so it's definitely worth you having a Note 7.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  It's time to upgrade. It's one of those, yeah. I will say, the thing that surprised me the most was Samsung's built-in video editor. You would not expect Samsung to make a good video editor, and they totally did. If you're a YouTuber, this is not going to be the thing you do. And it does have like the cringey like background music that you can add to it automatically and whatever. But for like, I want to string these four clips together, I want to edit these clips, and I want to put just like a dissolve between them and then put it on the internet. It's great. And manipulating all of that stuff with a stylus is way better than doing it with your fingers.

• 25:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  So.

• 25:06Nilay Patel?

  All right. I'm getting a Note 10. It's gonna happen.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:10Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be great.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  You should think about getting a smaller one.

• 25:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you love the smaller.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  I love the smaller one. It has less RAM and the screen is only 1080. It's just like, imagine a Galaxy S10 but just a little bit wider, so it's small.

• 25:22Nilay Patel?

  What a confusing product.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, but it's $950 and I think-

• 25:26Nilay Patel?

  That's a lot of money.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  I know.

• 25:28Nilay Patel?

  Like, if you have $950, you also have $1100.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  That's fair. I think that, um, yeah, that's fair.

• 25:36Nilay Patel?

  Right, like if you're already like, I'm gonna spend $950 on this flagship phone, like-

• 25:40Speaker 03

  But there might be-

• 25:41Nilay Patel?

  You're the sort of person who's like, I'm gonna wait another 20 minutes to make that buck fifty.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Do you think there are people that really want a stylus and do not want a gigantic phone, they just want a pretty big phone?

• 25:48Nilay Patel?

  Maybe.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  That's the question.

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  But they-

• 25:50Speaker 03

  I am actually like, close to being in that camp. I just don't want a stylus that badly. I definitely bought a Note 10, pre-ordered one, and there was like, this is dumb, I have a Galaxy S10 that I like and I canceled my pre-order.

• 26:00Nilay Patel?

  What's the size difference between the little Note and the S10 Plus?

• 26:03Speaker 03

  It's smaller.

• 26:04Nilay Patel?

  It's smaller?

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Than the S- it's probably about the same width or a little bit wider. I haven't looked at them side by side personally, even though we should have, because we had them all sitting on a table and I'm an idiot. But it's not as tall.

• 26:13Nilay Patel?

  You know what the S10 Plus has?

• 26:14Speaker 03

  An extra camera. I don't know what-

• 26:15Nilay Patel?

  A headphone jack.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Headphone jack. This is true.

• 26:18Nilay Patel?

  Same. There's a literal silo, there's a hole, a tube-

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:23Nilay Patel?

  Down the center of this phone.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 26:24Nilay Patel?

  But there's not a tube- For your headphones.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 26:28Nilay Patel?

  Is there, uh, what's the Bixby situation?

• 26:30Speaker 03

  It's there.

• 26:31Nilay Patel?

  I didn't see it in the review.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  You did not. I mentioned in the video, it's like there. There's a single power button, there's not a Bixby button. You can map it to, you can map double press to camera. You can map single press to Bixby or not. You can't map anything to Google Assistant. And you can put yourself in the situation where it's sort of like the iPhone where like all the buttons do stuff other than like turn the phone off. So like you can map long press to Bixby and double press to camera and then you want to turn the phone off if you don't know how. And like it has to like pop up instructions telling you how to turn the phone off.

• 27:04Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, it's like, that's what happens when you put too much work into a single button. And I don't think Samsung handled it super well, but at least there's a couple of configuration options.

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  And I don't think Apple handles it super well either, to be honest, so.

• 27:18Nilay Patel?

  But Apple never wants you to like turn off your phone.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Well, neither does Samsung.

• 27:22Nilay Patel?

  Fair.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:23Nilay Patel?

  But Android.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Well.

• 27:25Nilay Patel?

  But it's sometimes you have to restart that thing. Um, it's just, it's just a fact, if you know, if you ship a phone with an operating system and you're like, yep, in our hearts, we know that every so often you should restart this operating system, we should make it easier to restart.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  So Android used to not have a, like a reset button on the power button? Like it pops up the menu saying power off, reset, something, something. They're like, no, we're not doing it. And then they did it for two years and then finally they brought it back like, yeah, we know, people want, that's sorry.

• 27:52Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, I have a bunch of Android devices in my life. I reset them every so often, they work really well.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:58Nilay Patel?

  Then after a while, I'm like, gotta reset this. I guess it's time to reset my television. It's like a thought that I've had. I have an Android TV.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:07Nilay Patel?

  It's a super Android.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  That's what it is. Um, okay, so I want to talk about another thing Samsung did this week.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 28:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, so I think, I think it signals something important.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:20Nilay Patel?

  Which is we have now arrived at like a cultural recognition that iMessage

• 28:28Nilay Patel?

  Has creates a chasm in society.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:32Nilay Patel?

  Especially the society of the United States. If you're in Europe or whatever, like you're using some third-party, available on every platform messaging app, this isn't your problem. If you're in the United States, there are green bubbles and blue bubbles.

• 28:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 28:46Nilay Patel?

  I would say that any conversation we have about green bubbles and blue bubbles, Ashley and Caitlin have had a better one on why'd you push that button already?

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:54Nilay Patel?

  I just want to make that clear. They've done this in far more depth. But Samsung this week put out like GIFs.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:03Nilay Patel?

  Where the the green bubbles violently attack the blue bubbles.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:07Nilay Patel?

  So that when you get shamed in your cross-platform texts about being a green bubble, you can be like, but my green bubble is a snake that has devoured you. Like, you should go look at them. It's hard to describe these bubbles. One of them, there's a blue bubble and it looks like panicked or nervous, and then a green bubble erupts from its back.

• 29:27Nilay Patel?

  Like that. I don't know what else to say about what is happening. And like, why would you send that to someone? But they did it.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:34Nilay Patel?

  We're just now definitely at a point where it's a problem for companies that they know that teenagers shame each other for having green bubbles. I don't think that's cool for teenagers to do. I want to be really clear about that. But there's like a million reasons that it happens. And Samsung is aware of them and they're trying to like, give you some cultural ammunition to fight back.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  I'm probably reading too much into this and possibly also becoming part of the problem by saying this, but a lot of these GIFs imply that the green bubble is more powerful because it can take over.

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  But from a technical point of view, the green bubble has a strict subset of the functionality of the blue bubble. So it is, it is a lie.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  No, no, I can, I can fight you on this. Oh, God. I don't want to, but I'm gonna. Okay, so you are correct, right? By saying the, the green bubble signifies SMS.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  No read received.

• 30:31Nilay Patel?

  And also SMS is not a subset of iMessage, right? It's a parallel.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  A subset of the functionality, but yes.

• 30:38Nilay Patel?

  A subset of the functionality, so like it sends text.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:42Nilay Patel?

  That's the subset. Text can go across.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Very small subset.

• 30:47Nilay Patel?

  A platform, but it's, but SMS still, I believe, does not run over IP, right? It's still like SMS, it's still in the, like packed in the extra characters of the, of the cell signal.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Technically, there are some carriers that do on Sly run SMS as an IP service and don't tell you. I know it's because like Verizon texts sometimes just work on a plane. And what it, and it's like, what?

• 31:09Nilay Patel?

  It's like, oh, because you're lying to it.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there is always a fallback to the wacky extra space in the carrier signal thing.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, let me finish this off. So you're correct. Function, functionally, it's a little subset. But the message they're sending is, oh, you're a bunch of iMessage people. You included me, now all your shit's green.

• 31:30Nilay Patel?

  Right? So their fallback is an expression of power. Right? You've devolved to the lesser protocol and now you live with me, the green monster.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  You're taking a criticism that is, I don't want you to be a part of my group text because you'll turn it green. And it's like, make me a part of your group text and I will turn it green. You're, you're owning it.

• 31:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's like, it's, I brought you down to my level.

• 31:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's like a, you know how like a common criticism is like, that's a lowest common denominator solution. It's like, yo, I'm the lowest common denominator. Like, it's such a weird move. But I, it's, it's, it's weird. Uh, it, it's funny and it's like a little sad.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:13Nilay Patel?

  And as, it's perfect for what it, like, they can't solve the problem with a technical solution.

• 32:21Nilay Patel?

  I know that you're gonna talk about RCS and they can't do it. They've tried, like, Google can't fix it. Samsung, what's Samsung do? Bixby Chat? They can't do it, so they're resorting to being like, you know, we're just gonna make this cool. We're gonna try to make this problem seem cool for you.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  I wanna, I wanna gift where the, the, the blue texts are, are, are whizzing past the NSA and NSA is like, I can't read them. And then the green text, like, look at me.

• 32:49Nilay Patel?

  All the green texts.

• 32:52Nilay Patel?

  The last one of these is like, the one they deleted in review is the one that's like, I'm a cop.

• 33:00Nilay Patel?

  They're like, the agency's like, cut that one. Like, no, don't put that one on the gift page.

• 33:09Nilay Patel?

  I just love that their choice is to mark it out of it because they can't fix it. Dieter, do you wanna make some, some noises about RCS at this time?

• 33:16Speaker 03

  No, I mean, RCS messages still show up as blue bubble. They, they don't exist on the iPhone. iPhone doesn't even support it. So it's, you still, you can't RCS to an iPhone, full stop. Samsung does support RCS. In Samsung Messages, it has done a reasonably good job of interoperating with everybody that wants to do their own custom version of RCS, AT&T.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  But they also have done a good job of supporting the universal profile. So Samsung is a very good RCS citizen. They have just quietly done the right thing, but they have not pushed hard to make everybody else do the right thing, and I wish they would have.

• 33:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, Samsung, they're a good RCS citizen the same way they're a good RCS, a good citizen of every other protocol.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, they just, there's literally a Samsung phone will do.

• 33:58Nilay Patel?

  They're a good Miracast citizen.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  I think RCS needs a color. I think they should be like, black texts or something. Like, really.

• 34:08Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, that's.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  RCS is the Goth messaging protocol.

• 34:13Nilay Patel?

  I like it. I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm saying that we should, it would be amazing if we all started competing by bubble color. That's the way to do it. Like I said, Ashley and Caitlin have, have, actually, I think you were on an episode of the show about the green blue bubbles.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  They asked me to explain RCS and I, I did my level best.

• 34:31Nilay Patel?

  It was a lot. It was, it was a good app. So go listen to it if you wanna dive into it, but green bubbles versus blue bubbles, I'm telling you, has gone from basically a joke we make on this show and a thing that people know to an extremely mainstream conversation.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  And the thing that kills me, and I, I. I hear this a lot, I see it a lot. It's like, if your friends are gonna make fun of you for having green bubbles, you should get better friends. That's like, not a choice most teenagers can make.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:01Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, it's a real phenomenon, it's a real thing they're experiencing, and it's hit the mainstream in a new way. Ben Bjarne, who's a great analyst that we talk to all the time, he's like, I've seen it, like, my teenager in high school, like, it's a real thing. Like, I think one of his kids' friends, he was tweeting, like, one of his kids' friends was an Android person, and he nerded out about the Android with Ben, because he's like, tech analyst, and the next time he saw him, he had an iPhone, he was like, this was just getting too much for me, so I switched.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, the thing was, like, once they see that a group text has turned green and been eaten by the Samsung gif, or whatever, they're like, oh, screw this, and they make a new group without the green person to prevent it from happening again.

• 35:40Nilay Patel?

  It's just like, I don't think the answer is, individually, all of you should make new friends. It's like, teenagers have it hard.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  When I was in high school, I was happy that I, like, got to stop eating lunch in the bathroom alone, right? Like, I got a friend, and it was great, and like, if that friend had shamed me for being a green bubble, you know what I would have done? Gotten a blue bubble.

• 36:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and on some level, it's like, some, I don't know, some products are cool and some products aren't, right? On another level, it's like, the coolness of this product in high school will determine all of your technology purchasing decisions for the rest of your life, because you're locked into an ecosystem. Also, you have their credit card, also, everything has a slight discount because you have their credit card. Also, they are your television provider and news provider, like, maybe, maybe we should take that a little bit more seriously. Anyway, speaking of names, that's not a segue, but Dieter, you have a little name script today?

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Oh, no, they pre-revealed a whole bunch of people.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  But you're the one on the show.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, so, we know the name of Android, Q. Q stands for 10, that's what it stands for, apparently. So, Google's argument is that, it turns out that Android is sold around the world, not just in America. There are more people using Android in Brazil than in America, there are way more people using Android in India than in America. So, picking the name of an operating system using, basically, an English name of a dessert seems super weird. They could have chosen another nationality, in fact, I think they were going to for Q, but then they're like, or, we could just... Use numbers, because everyone uses the same numbers. Everyone just uses Roman numerals.

• 37:14Nilay Patel?

  Is this a retcon? If there is a dessert with a queue name, would they have just kept going?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  So here, internally, the engineers are still going to use the dessert code names.

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  They're just not going to tell anybody. And there is, in fact, an internal dessert code name for queue.

• 37:28Nilay Patel?

  Do you know what it is?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:29Nilay Patel?

  What is it?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Quince, quince, whatever the Brazilian dessert is, yeah. Which fits, right? It's like Brazilian, there's a thing. Google's actually put a big focus on Brazil and Android there.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  And so there is also, I am told, a code name already for R, aka Android 11. But they just won't tell us. And so if you would like to continue playing the guess the dessert guessing game, you are welcome to.

• 37:51Nilay Patel?

  Interesting.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Heim Gartner has many feelings about this guessing game. But the problem is you will never get hard confirmation officially from Google. You will only get soft confirmation of finding it in code or an engineer telling you.

• 38:03Nilay Patel?

  But like, everyone will find out.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe not. We didn't find out about queue until like, they finally confirmed it to me like on the sly. And they didn't actually confirm it. They're like, you know, like, in the code, it's like you see QC. And there's only so many desserts that have a C next to it. And Brazil's a big... It's like, oh, so it's this one, right?

• 38:24Speaker 03

  So alongside this rename, they also redid the Android word mark to make it way more boring. It's better because it's more legible on different sized screens. And they've also now decided that the green robot head will always be next to it from now on. Because they never actually tied those two things together. So now, when they, like, the official way to show Android is to show the robot head either above or next to the word Android.

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  And that's where the character comes from. The character comes from the Android head, not from, you know, there's not a closed vertical line on the D in Android, just to make it look like futury. Now they just have a regular looking word that says Android. And then next to it, they have a wacky little robot head. Instead of having a wacky word and no robot head.

• 39:10Nilay Patel?

  I see.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 39:12Nilay Patel?

  This is fine, it's fine.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fine.

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  It's cute. It's cute in the way that Google things are cute, you know?

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:16Nilay Patel?

  All right, we're gonna take a break. There's a bunch of Apple stuff to talk about. We'll be right back.

• 39:23Speaker 05

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• 39:52Speaker 06

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• 40:24Nilay Patel?

  All right, where to start with Apple Incorporated? Which is truly living up to the Incorporated in its Incorporated with this credit card. Let's start there, because it's funny. Apple Card is out, everybody can sign up for it. I have just too many feelings about having a Goldman Sachs logo in my wallet. You tweeted about this, I tweeted about this. At some point, we have to like, it's an Apple product. We're the verge. We have to review it in some way.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's an Apple product, but it's not a tech product. The tech part of it is just that the only way to use it is in an app inside the iPhone and not like on the web where you do the rest of your finances probably.

• 41:07Nilay Patel?

  Well, there is a bunch of tech.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  Right, there's a...

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Oh, there's like anonymizing tech and stuff like that.

• 41:12Nilay Patel?

  Right, there's a bunch of like virtual credit card creation database stuff going on. Goldman Sachs bought a company called Final, which was doing a bunch of this stuff. There's like rumors, a bunch of Final tech is sort of like working on this stuff. But yeah, it's a credit card.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  At the end of the day, it's a machine for creating debt.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I think I've said this before on the show, I tweeted it, but like, my dad, since I was five years old, has like, never ever run a balance in your credit card, it will destroy your life.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, so is mine, but then I did it. And so like, it's great that it gives you a bunch of tools for managing credit card balance. And like, some people legitimately need to run a credit card man sometimes. That's fine, but you shouldn't have one like permanently. And if you do, you should spend all of your time thinking about how to not have it anymore.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  And like, I don't know how to acknowledge that. There's nothing new about that with Apple. It's just a different window.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  I can give a contrast to this. I don't have the Apple card, but I recently got a Bank of America card with some cash back just because like I had finally gotten out of all of my debt. And now, and now I was getting like, like dinged for not having floating credit, which is annoying, but I was like, okay, whatever. I'll just have a credit card open just so that they like that, that I'm part of their system. And so, so I put some, I bought some stuff with the card because you, you get extra points, whatever. And so I bought some stuff with the card. And so I was like, oh, okay. Well, I have a Bank of America bank account, which I, through that interface is how I even applied for the card, right?

• 42:49Speaker 04

  Like Bank of America is very aware that I am the same person has this bank account and it has this credit card. And, and, and so, okay, whoo, coming up on paying my card bill. Where's the button to pay the bill? There's no button. You have to set up like, it's like setting up a vendor type of payment. You have to like type in all these details about like this Bank of America business that you want to send, like do a money transfer to Bank of America to pay your bill. There's no just pay off the, the balance. It was, I was very disappointed.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Uh, so I have the same, same bank, uh, ran into the same thing. And I was like, this is stupid. And then I clicked the transfer button and it's just another account you can transfer funds to, and it functionally is the same thing as paying off your credit card. So I just, I use the transfer button.

• 43:39Nilay Patel?

  This is what the rich has to do. How can you use your bank?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Which is super annoying because all of the banks are trying to get you to use Zelle, which is the bank version of PayPal, basically. And so when I go to like pay my credit card, I, I like have to scroll past an ad for a crappy bank competitor to PayPal every time.

• 44:00Nilay Patel?

  All this, my point is banks are bad.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  That's all I'm trying to say. I'm giving you that.

• 44:03Nilay Patel?

  There are deeply necessary evil in society. That's fine. And I have a credit card, Paul, master of living off the grid. Only person I knew who quit being on the internet for a full year of his life has what? Like, you need one, right? Like, function and it's fine to like, manage your cash flow with a credit card. The problem is when the debt eats you alive. And like, everyone knows that. And it might be such that Apple helps you manage it better.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Just through visibility.

• 44:31Nilay Patel?

  Through visibility. I think credit card companies are motivated to do some of that stuff, too. But it is super weird that it's just a credit card. And I, so like, am I going to review this interface versus my big bank's interface versus Mint? Versus any of the other many financial services startups that exist to help you like, manage this thing? I'm thinking about it. I'm going to try to get somebody from the Points Guy, which is many more people than just one guy, if you want to point out, on the show soon, because I want to talk about the points and reward stuff. I'm not a person who does like, point schemes. My sister is, but I don't think I should have my sister on the show. So I want to get somebody from that world to come talk about that aspect of it, because I think that's kind of interesting.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Neil, you tweeted this. The thing that's weird about the Apple card is, like, on the launch, where anybody can go get it, they announced that, oh yeah, by the way, we're also doing a 3% cash back deal with Uber.

• 45:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  It's like, this is the car, this is the thing where you're like, you're teaming up with Goldman Sachs, like, like...

• 45:31Nilay Patel?

  Champion of the financial crisis.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, destroy the economy Goldman Sachs. And then also, Uber doesn't have the best reputation?

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Really high voice when I say that? It's, it's odd.

• 45:42Nilay Patel?

  So, Goldman Sachs, which is doing better. You know, they've got Marcus, they've got an UCO. Financial crisis is like, 10 years ago. But it was still, I would say, a notable event in my lifetime. Seeing as it, me and many of my friends graduated from school into the financial crisis, which is not a great time to be like, I need a job. You know, it's just like, just a memory I have. But Matt Taibbi very famously described, he's a writer at Rolling Stone, very famously described Goldman Sachs as a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. And now I, and now I have this logo in my pocket.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  Is it, is the logo of a giant squid?

• 46:21Nilay Patel?

  They should lead into it. That's some like green bubble marketing move right there. Just like change it to a squid. Be like, yep, that's us.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Listen, Neelai, you don't have to worry about the logo being in your pocket because eventually you're not gonna be able to see it because your whole credit card is gonna turn blue and brown from your jeans and your wallet.

• 46:36Nilay Patel?

  So that's like, that's actually the news peg to talk about the Apple card. I just have so many emotions. Apple put out a support document this week, how to care for your titanium Apple card. You are not supposed to put it near leather or denim. Which is, I would say, the environment that credit cards most often live. Because it will permanently stay in the card. But you are supposed to gently clean it with a cloth from time to time.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, but no chemicals.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  There's two possibility, or three possibilities, three possibilities. Apple had no people test the physical card. They just released it straight from the factory. Two, they, those people that did test the card all do not wear denim nor have leather wallets.

• 47:26Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Apple is like famously the company with jeans.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  No, it's a stretch, but maybe they selected for us very special.

• 47:32Nilay Patel?

  Or are you a khaki guy?

• 47:35Speaker 04

  Because the other idea is that, my theory of how Apple, Apple puts its products in a completely 100% sterile room, like an Apple store, but with everything removed from it. And, and, and they, they test their products in a complete and total vacuum. And so, of course, nobody ever put it in a wallet or in jeans because, you know, that's not acceptable in the clean room.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  You want to know my theory?

• 47:58Nilay Patel?

  What's that?

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Deep down in his heart, Johnny Ives knows that Apple shouldn't make a credit card.

• 48:05Nilay Patel?

  He like sabotaged.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  He sabotaged it.

• 48:08Nilay Patel?

  I think that their goal is to make you not have this card, right? The point of the Apple card is, is absolutely not the physical card. It has the lowest returns.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 48:16Nilay Patel?

  Right? So if you use the card, you get 1%. If you use Apple Pay, you get 2. If you buy Uber, you get 3. If you buy stuff from Apple itself, you get 3. But they obviously are incentivizing you to use the Apple Pay. And that's what they want. And like, so this card is an accessory. It's like the backup. So you're supposed to, I think, keep it in like a Ziploc baggie. In case of emergency. You know, let me get my Apple card. Like your spare key for your car. I, I think Ben Thompson called it, uh, it's almost a parody of an early 2000s Apple product. Right? Like it's, it's just hilarious. Like the thing, it's, it's, it's not designed for the environment that it will live in. And it's like, very funny to me. Anyway, that's the Apple card. Uh, I'm very sorry that I have so many feelings about it.

• 48:59Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I promise I will write something about it eventually because I have it. Apple's one of the most influential tech companies in the world. We should probably evaluate it in some way. If you have ideas on how you want me to evaluate it, please let me know. Score, Neil. Are you saying seven and a half out of 10? I don't know. It's, it's.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  You should evaluate its privacy. That's worth it. You should evaluate the, the complete. So there's this arbitration clause, right? Most clause, most credit cards have this, I imagine.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  It's true.

• 49:31Speaker 03

  You're not allowed to sue them, but you can opt out of it. And so that you are allowed to sue them if you want to. But you need to tell them, I opt out. And what's wild to me is you can opt out of the Goldman Sachs arbitration clause. By just texting them.

• 49:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, you have to write a letter. You don't have to send an email. You don't have to like sign a form on DocuSign.

• 49:52Nilay Patel?

  So Chase, very famously, you have to send them a physical letter and there was a deadline. The deadline's passed.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:56Nilay Patel?

  So if you did not like, print out this form letter and mail it to Chase, you are bound by the arbitration clause.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  With Apple, like, yes, you like, open the support window. It's like a fake iMessage screen.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Right? And then like forward you to Goldman Sachs and like some poor Goldman Sachs person clicks a button in your account.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:15Nilay Patel?

  Okay. That, that's very nice. I, that's cool. I'm happy that that exists.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Review that.

• 50:22Nilay Patel?

  I don't know how to do that. Six. What do you want me to say? I'm working on it. Again, if there's something you want to ask me or there's something you're interested in, please let me know. I'm trying to figure it out, but it is it is challenging for me to think of a thing that creates debt in this way because I literally entered the workforce in the middle of a financial crisis. That's just me personally. Maybe you're having a different experience. There's other Apple news. It's much more exciting.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  There is so much. So Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg dropped his traditional, here's everything that Apple's going to announce at the fall event and maybe for the next six months story. And it's a bunch of stuff that we had been thinking was going to happen and a couple new things. So going to be called the iPhone Pro, triple rear cameras for better light performance, reverse wireless charging, Face ID will actually work if it's sitting on a table. There'll be a matte version. They're getting rid of 3D touch, like a ton. Then there's going to be a new version of the iPad with bigger cameras. That 16-inch MacBook Pro is going to come. The Apple Watch is confirmed, or not confirmed, but we're pretty sure it seems like it's going to be basically the same thing. It'll just come

• 51:27Speaker 03

  in a couple of, you know, new materials. We might get noise cancelling AirPods. They're finally going to make the HomePod they should have made in the first place. Just like a million things. iOS 13 beta hints it's going to be September 10th. There's a bunch of news, just a ton of it. And this is all like, it all landed basically today in a way that we feel is more definitive. Like, all of these rumors have been trickling for the most part in. Now it seems like we've got a pretty decent run of show. We'll see what actually shows up in September.

• 51:56Nilay Patel?

  I'm very interested to see the 16-inch MacBook Pro actually shows up.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so am I.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  I think a lot of people are anticipating it. A lot of people, there were, even at the last Apple event, people are like whispering about it.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  I got the sense, especially after the last rev of Mac stuff, that it was probably getting pushed to 2020. That was like the vibe.

• 52:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 52:15Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, obviously, the big question is the keyboard.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  How long has Apple been 100% confident that they need a 100% new keyboard? Like, because they were, they were trying to make it work for a while there.

• 52:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  Like, when did Apple know? I mean, not that keyboards, it seems like they should be a solid problem. But Apple, of course, is going to want to use all new materials and like some novel new mechanism or something like that. I hope, I hope they try to make a better keyboard.

• 52:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I think they've known for a while, and I think they've been doing these like weird incremental upgrades of like, now there's a layer of rubber. Now it's made out of mystery.

• 52:52Speaker 03

  The mystery metal is my favorite.

• 52:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, now it now it comes imbued with hopes and dreams. Like they've been doing that sort of like iterative approach. Now now it comes with a warranty recall out of the box.

• 53:05Nilay Patel?

  So I mean, I think it's in parallel tracks. So like, I'm very curious if the 16 inch MacBook Pro arrives. I think a lot of people will be stoked for it. German's report like kind of front loaded these rumors with an effort to increase revenue. They're putting out more products faster.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:21Nilay Patel?

  So this is a great way to spike Mac revenue because so many people are waiting for it. Getting that Mac Pro out on time. I think a lot of people are going to buy that thing. So if that's really, you have to buy it. That's what they want to do. But when does any company not want to make more money? So maybe they do want to do that.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  What's interesting is you're more excited for the MacBook Pro because you have an aging MacBook Pro. And it's a need that you have. I'm actually more interested in the iPhones and their cameras. There's going to be a triple camera array. Having just reviewed the Note, you know, I reviewed the Pixel. I reviewed the pretty good camera on the one plus seven. I currently own an iPhone 10R. They're all like in the zone of like really good smartphone cameras. But I also have an RX 100, which is in a completely different zone. And I would like to see smartphone cameras like level up. We've it is a miracle that like the Pixel 3 brought us to the level that we're at. And everyone has got very close to that.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  And then Apple has done as well as it has video and like Samsung got very close to that. Right? All of that is miraculous, but I don't know. I'm used to the miracle now and I want the thing that actually makes me go, why do I own this RX 100?

• 54:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  That's what I want. And so the rumor is that they're going to combine the wide angle with the regular and do some computational stuff. It's going to be better at low light, which is an area they've been a little bit behind in. And they're even going to do wacky stuff like if a person is cut off because the wide angle will catch it. They can like kind of add them back in a little bit, which is sort of funny. Yeah, I don't know.

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  All I know is I would like to see, I don't know if it's actually going to happen this year. But if Apple's going to actually justify calling these things Pro, they need to do something pretty special with that camera. I think.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  I don't.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  No, you just think they're just could call it Pro?

• 55:09Nilay Patel?

  I think they're just going to call it Pro. And I don't think I don't think they even need to. I think they need to just like. A MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air, like the 13-inch Pro, the base model and the Air, they're so close, right? Like, we've had this conversation.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  What makes that thing Pro? It's like, a slightly zippier processor and a slightly better display.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 55:31Nilay Patel?

  Alright, well, you can do exactly that thing with an iPhone, right?

• 55:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 55:35Nilay Patel?

  Right, it's, maybe it won't even have a slightly zippier processor, because they tend not to do that, like, the XR has effectively the same processor as the XS.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:42Nilay Patel?

  But, it'll have a better display, it has slightly better cameras. This display does HDR with X and it's a brightness and that one, like, these are games Apple is very comfortable playing.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  But, okay, so, this is like a really common trope that I used to be annoyed at. People like, "Oh, phones are boring." And I was like, "Actually, no, they're like, still increasing at a pretty steady clip, and like, there's still cool stuff happening." You maybe don't need to buy one every year, but like, there's still cool stuff happening. And for the first time with the Note 10 Plus, I'm like, 10% better than this is like, would be nice, and the next time I buy a phone, I'll be glad it's there, but it's not gonna make me go, "Holy crap."

• 56:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 03

  And, I feel like, if all the actions are on cameras, and they're putting these giant cube-square bumps on the backs of phones now, that's all coming. If you're gonna do that, you need to justify it more. Because I can get something that is 80% as good as what you can get out of an iPhone XS, out of something that doesn't have a, you know, insane bump on the back of it. And, that's fine.

• 56:41Nilay Patel?

  I think Apple's just in the trickle-down stages of these phones.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:46Nilay Patel?

  Right, they need to make one at the, sort of, accessible price point. They're gonna make one that's more expensive, over time, that, like, I would bet the iPhone 11 has two cameras in the back, whereas the XR only has one.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 56:59Nilay Patel?

  Right, so I think you just like, see that process going.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:04Nilay Patel?

  The thing about the camera to me, and I agree with you, like, you put this in your Note review, I think I've stuck this in some reviews lately, if you have a phone and you like it, and you have a thousand dollars, which is like, you're doing great.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:17Nilay Patel?

  And you, all you want is better photos, like, go buy an RX 100. Buy, buy the new Panasonic thing, like, there's a new Canon that's like, pretty good. Spend your money there, because you will get substantially better photos, that let you do all kinds of other things with them. Every photo I take of my kid with the phone, I'm like, "Well, I'm glad I have the photo." That's good. It exists. Best cameras one you have with you. But I wish I had my real camera.

• 57:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:43Nilay Patel?

  And that to me is like, except for video.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:47Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, the iPhone video functionality is far, it's more convenient and it's also, I think, the best video any phone takes. So you add more cameras. What I want is like, I want more resolution. I want better low-light performance. I want a little bit of like, I don't know if anybody sees this as much as I do. I see it, I just can't not see it. There's like a, there's still like a haze over iPhone photos. Like, because they, very specifically, and I don't mean like that old nasty mobile phone haze. They've obviously gotten far away from that. I mean, they, because Smart HDR is so aggressive, these photos lack contrast.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  Oh, sure, sure.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  And so like, they just seem really flat to me in a way that seems like hazy. And so every, the first thing I do with every iPhone photo is like, I up the contrast.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:37Nilay Patel?

  And I like.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  This is why so many of us prefer the Pixel 3, is they like, they get that balance a little bit better.

• 58:42Nilay Patel?

  Right. They just seem crisper. And it's like, it's a, it's a trick. Like, I'm not saying that they might actually be crisper, there's more detail, but like, it's the first thing I see. And I think, they just gotta process a better photo. And the noise reduction's out of control. I can complain about iPhone photos all day and all night. But like, that's what I'm seeing. Like, they're gonna add the third lens. I hope they use that third lens not just to let you zoom out, but to actually increase the detail, contrast,

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:06Nilay Patel?

  noise reduction of the existing photos, because they're, they've plateaued.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:11Nilay Patel?

  And that's like a thing.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Yep. No, that's my feeling. Plateau. I want us to, I want us to start climbing again. And like, the, the angle of that climb, I want it to be sharper and steeper.

• 59:20Nilay Patel?

  And then Pixel 4 will have two lenses.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  We'll see what happens with the Pixel 4.

• 59:24Nilay Patel?

  Google's always just gonna have one less lens with better processing than Apple. It's just like the curve that they're on. I don't know how to, I feel like this Apple TV Plus news, it's gonna cost 10 bucks a month, it's gonna launch.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:33Nilay Patel?

  The game service price leaked. It's like 6 bucks a month or something.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  I think it was, yeah, 5 or 6, yeah.

• 59:38Nilay Patel?

  They've gotta be letting that stuff slide out so that when they announce the bundle,

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Everyone's like.

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  it seems really good.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:43Nilay Patel?

  Right? That's my guess. They're gonna announce the phone and the iPhone upgrade. I mean, I think the dream, and a lot of people have said this out loud, I think, Lance Ulionoff was tweeting about it, Ben Thompson has talked about it, MG Siegler's talked about it. Like, the idea is that you pay Apple, I don't know, like, 150 bucks a month, and you get. Yeah, that's your phone payment. You get a new phone every year. That's all their services. That's your blood money for iCloud. Like, it's just all the stuff. And like, that's a very, that's a very tempting recurring revenue bundle for Apple. I imagine that's what they're gonna do, and then if you don't want that, you can get some à la carte services.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so right now, it's, Apple Music is 10 bucks. Apple News Plus is 10 bucks. Apple TV Plus is rumored to be 10 bucks. Apple Arcade is rumored to be 5 bucks. I think that's still a rumor, right?

• 1:00:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  And then, like, the most reasonable iCloud plan is 200 gigs, and that's 3 bucks. And then, the most reasonable upgrade program iPhone that I think is for the good one is the iPhone XS 256. That's 56 bucks. So you're looking at like, 80, 90 bucks for like, give me everything Apple makes.

• 1:00:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  So if they could bundle that down to like, 75 bucks, sure.

• 1:00:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, or they, or they just bundle it for like, 90 bucks. You know what I mean? Like, it's Tim Cook. He's like, he's running a bank now. He's like, and a little big on top for me. Like, let's do it. Um, I, I think they're gonna do that. I, I can't imagine they don't make that play. It's such an obvious move for them.

• 1:01:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:06Nilay Patel?

  And Cook has spent so much time talking about how people perceive their trade-in phone as financing the next one, how upgrading process needs to get easier. Like, he's spent, on every earnings call, he's like, "I'm convinced consumers see the trade-in value of their phone as financing towards the next phone." He says it every time. I don't agree with him, because it implies that people are, are a little bit dumber than I think they are. Like, "I bought this phone for $1,000. I'm gonna give it to you, and the price of my next phone will be lower by $400." I don't think anyone's like, "I'm financing my new..." You know what I mean? Like, I think they're just like, "This phone is worth $400."

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, they see it that way. Although, it does, it does significantly change the calculus for, just like, my lizard brain.

• 1:01:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  So, for example, Samsung offered a big, $600 trade-in value for a Galaxy S10 to get a Note 10. And I went from like, oh my God, $950 for this thing to, oh hey, $350 for this thing.

• 1:02:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Right? And like, it made a difference and made it more likely. And I was like, oh, I might, I might want to do this. So I agree with you that I disagree with Tim Cook, but there is a kernel of truth there that it changes the way people think about their purchase in some way.

• 1:02:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Nilay Patel?

  So we're looking at early September for all this to happen?

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. No, the Iowa 13 apparently had a reference to September 10th, which is the least surprising day that it could be because it's like the Tuesday or whatever.

• 1:02:29Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We got to talk. There's a little grab bag of stuff we'll talk about. We'll be right back.

• 1:02:38Speaker 07

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• 1:03:39Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller.

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:42Nilay Patel?

  Every week.

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:03:44Nilay Patel?

  The consistency blows me away. I was, I was like away last week.

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  Uh-huh.

• 1:03:50Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, something's missing.

• 1:03:51Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:03:52Nilay Patel?

  And it was that I didn't have this fixed

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  Weekly.

• 1:03:55Nilay Patel?

  Constant in my life.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. The weekly segment is called, "Are There No Laws For Hype Beasts?" As you know. And...

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  So

• 1:04:06Nilay Patel?

  Yes, that's what I thought to myself.

• 1:04:09Speaker 04

  I I'm not, I don't know. I don't really get the whole hype beast thing, but I know that there is a brand called Supreme, right?

• 1:04:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 04

  And and just please correct me if I'm wrong. Supreme puts its brand on things and then they sell those things because they could look kind of cool with Supreme on them. And they also kind of make them like sort of limited edition. Is that correct?

• 1:04:32Nilay Patel?

  All this is correct.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  Okay. Well, so

• 1:04:34Nilay Patel?

  Directionally correct.

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  Supreme has put its brand out of like what they're calling a burner phone. It's a it's a it's a burner. It's a it's a it's a phone that's made by Blue. It's got a keypad. It's got like the old timey hang up and and and call buttons and like a D pad and a low res screen in the middle and probably like whatever cheapest camera exists on the planet on the back. But of course, the photo is red with a Supreme logo, or you could get it in black with a big Supreme logo on the back. Also, your phone's wallpaper has the Supreme logo centered in the middle. So here's my confusion. It has Supreme on it,

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  but it also still has the Blue logo. And no offense to Blue. Blue is really cool in that they make very, very cheap phones, but it's not a prestige brand. So what I'm confused about is what is the if the whole concept of Supreme is around a brand, and they put their brand next to the brand of Blue, I feel like that harms the Supreme brand. Am I incorrect?

• 1:05:43Nilay Patel?

  I think the Supreme brand is so powerful.

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  I was gonna say.

• 1:05:45Nilay Patel?

  It just boosts everything around.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  So now Supreme brand is resilient.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Blue is like, cool cheap now.

• 1:05:52Speaker 03

  No, like like Blue might not get any shine off of being next to Supreme, but Supreme definitely cannot be hurt by Blue.

• 1:05:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:05:58Nilay Patel?

  Supreme is the brand where like fake Supreme started in in Europe and then Samsung partnered with the fake Supreme.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  By accident?

• 1:06:06Nilay Patel?

  Because they they thought Supreme was cool. And then the real Supreme was like, what are you doing? And they defeated Samsung.

• 1:06:13Nilay Patel?

  Like, they're good. I think blue phones are like, if you, like, they're a phone read marker. I don't know what you would call that. They like do badge engineering. They're like, here are some phones from the Alibaba catalog. Now they're blue phones. Like, they're just gonna be that company. So if you just wanna get access to phones to make, to make, quote unquote, make phones, they're the ones.

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  All right. Well, as long as you're convinced it's legal.

• 1:06:39Nilay Patel?

  To answer your question, this week, in the interest of consistency, because I know it's a kind of a call and response thing we do. There are no laws. The answer this week is no.

• 1:06:53Nilay Patel?

  Paul, you wanna, there's new Intel stuff.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Nilay Patel?

  Some new laptops. Walk us through it.

• 1:06:57Speaker 04

  So, so we're all looking forward to this holiday season. Intel is gonna have its first 10 nanometer laptop chips, Ice Lake, right?

• 1:07:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think you're, I think there's gonna be like four of them total available for purchase.

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  There will be a handful of Ice Lakes.

• 1:07:16Nilay Patel?

  Not four brands, not four kinds of laptops, literally four of them will make it to Best Buy shelves.

• 1:07:21Speaker 04

  It's a limited edition, kinda like.

• 1:07:27Speaker 04

  Okay, so, because.

• 1:07:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Intel's strategy to save itself is supreme drops of processors.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  Okay, so whether or not there's completely constrained supply, Ice Lake also doesn't really hit all of the different types of laptops you would, you would want to make. For whatever reason, Intel is also making a new 14 nanometer chip called Comet Lake.

• 1:07:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 04

  So 14 nanometers is the process that we're currently on. So this is, you know, another revision of already kinda long the tooth kind of processor. But they're doing some kinda cool stuff. There's also a really helpful chart that they made. Because now it's up to you to decide, do you want an Ice Lake machine or a Comet Lake machine? Given all things being equal.

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  So here's the table. Ice Lake. So imagine a table, four cells across the top. You've got Ice Lake, Comet Lake, right?

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Ice Lake on intelligent performance, bringing AI to the PC at scale. Ice Lake on stunning entertainment, generational leap in entertainment. Now, best connectivity, that goes across both. So now let's run down the Comet Lake column. On intelligent performance, productivity powerhouse. On stunning entertainment, immersive entertainment.

• 1:08:55Speaker 03

  Great. All this completely clears it up.

• 1:08:58Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, wait. It's immersive versus what now?

• 1:09:00Speaker 04

  Generational leap versus immersive, bringing AI to the PC at scale versus productivity powerhouse. As far as I can.

• 1:09:09Nilay Patel?

  So here, all of that suggests one is fast and one is slow, right?

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Nilay Patel?

  At the end of the day, it's like productivity powerhouse means like it'll do itself.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  Here's the wild thing. As far as like, obviously we don't actually have these in our hands. We don't, totally no, but the basic, what the word on the street and from a reading in non-tech, it sounds like basically Ice Lake for GPU, Comet Lake for CPU. Comet Lake is gonna, Comet Lake is the 14 nanometer one. It's gonna go to like a six core Core i7, which is, is gonna be the most cores ever for that, that like wattage of like the 15 to 25 watt kind of chip. The kind of the, the sweet spot for laptops. Whereas Ice Lake has a newer like GPU generation. And so it's going to be better for AI at, to the, to the PC at scale.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  And for, for gaming and stuff like that.

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  But so that's interesting. Also is interesting is they are, they kind of backported some technology, some like new RAM stuff. So you're gonna have faster RAM now in Comet Lake than you've been able to get. So that's pretty exciting.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  I, I, I read that that backporting process isn't like an easy, simple thing for them to do. They're, they're still investing significant R and D into 14 nanometer, which is a pretty good sign that they're not just about to switch everything over to 10. And because 14 nanometer, like it makes sense that it can get more horsepower in the CPU than the 10 in some ways, because they've been doing it longer, et cetera. I think that it is unlikely that the, in the way that ARM chips are like, oh, it's on the smaller. You know, nanometer now, obviously that's better. I don't think that applies to Intel and it won't for quite a while.

• 1:10:58Nilay Patel?

  Because they're doing like weird hybrid stuff, right?

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just confusing. And so Intel's solution for solving all of this is they've created a new thing. Instead of ultrabooks, they have Athena. They didn't actually want to like make this a brand name, but we basically demanded that they did. Like Sean Hollister personally was like, this is stupid. You should give it a name and they did. And it's their guarantee that a laptop will have a certain amount of battery life and like a bare minimum of a performance and thickness and so on and so forth. So you should be able to look for an Athena ready laptop and know that you're going to get a laptop that's going to get, I think it's like 10 hours of battery life or something. And that in theory could be the thing that cuts through this needing to know the various versions of the lakes, potentially for the average user. I don't know if this is true.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  I don't know that Intel actually believes that this is what they're trying to do, but there is a chance, a sliver of hope, that going to buy a laptop won't be a nightmare of looking at spec sheets. You could just say, is it Athena? Cool, I like this, I like the shape of this one. I'm done. I don't think that's likely, but there's a tiny hope.

• 1:12:02Speaker 04

  Well, it's really, you can't look at spec sheets anymore because of like the, a lot of these chips, they're 15 watt and then they have like an up configuration that the manufacturer can set up to 25 watt. So a laptop, given the exact same Core i7 processor, based on the thermals and configuration that the manufacturer chooses, will have different performance from laptop to laptop. And if the manufacturer overshoots it and they try to make it run at a higher power level and then it hits thermal throttling, then you'll have terrible performance in very specific scenarios.

• 1:12:46Speaker 04

  So there's that confusion as well. So like you, I think we're really at the point where if you, you need to know your workload and then, and then talk to an expert who can choose the real CPU for you.

• 1:13:02Nilay Patel?

  Basically, do you want to buy an iPad?

• 1:13:04Speaker 04

  PCAI at scale.

• 1:13:07Nilay Patel?

  What if you want AI 8K and 5G?

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  Keep dreaming.

• 1:13:15Nilay Patel?

  All right, last little thing I want to talk about.

• 1:13:19Nilay Patel?

  There's a Sonus event on Monday.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:13:22Nilay Patel?

  They announced it. I think you guys talked about it last week.

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, we talked about the fact that the FCC announced what they're gonna announce.

• 1:13:30Nilay Patel?

  It happens. I mean, that used to happen so often that we had, remember Engadget, we had it in FCC bot?

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:35Nilay Patel?

  That just like pinged the FCC every day and emailed us, what had happened. Good times, then, then people figured it out.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  There's a, there's a service of a bunch of different websites that just crawl the FTC and give you a better, or the FCC, they crawl the FCC and give you a nicer interface for the FCC's website.

• 1:13:52Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  Because it's all, you know, public free information in the public domain.

• 1:13:55Nilay Patel?

  What are we doing?

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Nilay Patel?

  Let's set up an automated gadget blog.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Nilay Patel?

  Let's go full Andrew Yang on this thing.

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  I mean, there's a, there's a million automated New York Times crossword solver blogs. They just like, they get the dot puzz file, they parse it, and they just like make a million blog posts.

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  Did you say there's a dot puzz file format?

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Nilay Patel?

  We should have done an hour and 10 minutes on dot puzz. That'll be next week on the Vergecast. On the interview episode, we're gonna get the creator of Doc Puzz.

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  Actually.

• 1:14:25Nilay Patel?

  On the rival format, Zuzzle.

• 1:14:27Speaker 03

  I, I actually have a really good guess for you on this topic, if you want. I really do.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  He made, he made the Onion crossword in the American Family Values. He wrote some really spicy editorials about crossword open sourcing and domain and.

• 1:14:43Nilay Patel?

  Is dot puzz an open source format?

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Nilay Patel?

  So is there, I'm asking, is there a commercial variant called Zuzzle? Because that's the format war I want in my life. There's like the open web dot puzz people, and then there's like the proprietary Zuzzle people. You understand that this is my trade.

• 1:15:02Speaker 04

  Like Zuzzle has like some extra kind of cool functionality. It can do like a, like a diagonal word and stuff.

• 1:15:10Nilay Patel?

  Zuzzle has like, Zuzzle's fully encrypted, but there's a login problem? Yeah, okay. There's like, Buzzles like patent encumbered. Anyway, just.

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  You guys are so mean. Ben Tossing is genuinely cool.

• 1:15:26Nilay Patel?

  I'm sure he is, I just want him to have an evil rival.

• 1:15:29Speaker 04

  We're not making fun of him, we're making fun of RCS.

• 1:15:36Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, I don't know how we got here from Bluetooth speakers.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:15:40Nilay Patel?

  It's the Vergecast, everybody. There's an event on Monday. I'm very excited for this product. To front run this event, Bose announced a speaker that has everything.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, except for like Sonos compatibility.

• 1:15:53Nilay Patel?

  Except for Sonos compatibility, but there's a new Bose speaker. It has Google Assistant, it has AirPlay 2, it has Cast, it has Spotify Connect. I think this is a super interesting upcoming market.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:05Nilay Patel?

  Where you have the sort of like talkable speaker, like this is a thing people want. People tweeted us about it.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Nilay Patel?

  Like, where can I get this thing that isn't Sonos? I am shocked that Apple, which knows that AirPods are its best seller.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Nilay Patel?

  And is rumored to be making a cheaper HomePod.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:21Nilay Patel?

  Has not made a product like this that lives in like the H1 ecosystem.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Nilay Patel?

  Right, where it's like, it's AirPlay 2 when it's sitting on its dock and you pull it off and instantly iCloud, Bluetooths to your phone. Like, that's the thing they should make.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  They totally should.

• 1:16:35Nilay Patel?

  Every Apple person would buy that instead of buying their like ridiculously overpriced HomePod.

• 1:16:39Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:16:39Nilay Patel?

  But I think Sonos is giving them a punch. I'm super excited about that thing.

• 1:16:42Speaker 03

  But, because it's the Vergecast, I'm just gonna say.

• 1:16:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Speaker 03

  That the biggest problem with all of this stuff is you are still in an ecosystem lock-in because at some point you need to set up the rooms in your house. And once you do that, once you set up the rooms in your house, that is your ecosystem for the rest of your life. You either do it in Alexa or Google Assistant or HomeKit. And once you do that, that's what you want to use because it's a pain in the ass to do it again.

• 1:17:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Although I did sort of like accidentally switch from Alexa to Google Assistant.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 1:17:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean like literally bought the Home Hub and it has the photos.

• 1:17:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:17:15Nilay Patel?

  And so I was like, well, I want that thing around. And it's at next to our Alexa where everything else is set up.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  Did it like sniff out your network and like figured it out, like in a dirty way?

• 1:17:22Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:17:23Speaker 03

  I will say that the Google Assistant.

• 1:17:24Nilay Patel?

  I think I just slowly, we just slowly started using it more. So I like finally like did the thing where I set up the rooms.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:28Nilay Patel?

  And then it was done.

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:17:30Nilay Patel?

  But like, I think probably very few people set up both assistants, use them both for a while and then like phase one out.

• 1:17:38Speaker 03

  I mean, that's, that's where I'm at right now.

• 1:17:39Nilay Patel?

  Maximum nerdiness.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  I had to rename one of my lights because I used the word kitchen in it. And so Google refused to believe that it wasn't in the kitchen because it was called the kitchen strip and I didn't want it in the kitchen room because I wanted it to stay on. It was a whole thing. Wouldn't work. And I was like, what if I rename it? And it just worked.

• 1:17:54Nilay Patel?

  Of course. Smart of himself is very complicated and very weird.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:58Nilay Patel?

  And I realized bizarrely I had two DHCP servers on my network because Verizon insists on running one. And you have to like, get into it to make it stop. So I had two and I didn't realize it because Verizon doesn't tell you it's just gonna always do it. And so bizarre, like, things would just magically stop working until I realized I had two secret subnets on my network.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Well, so this is why I'm intrigued by Sonos and why I'm actually kind of intrigued and impressed with the Bose is they both know their limits. Right?

• 1:18:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  So it's like, we're gonna do the music stuff and there'll be some assistance stuff, but we're just gonna ask those folks to handle it. We know how to make a music network. And Bose is like, we know how to make good speakers and we'll support all the protocols and stuff, but we're not gonna try and like, create the Bose digital assistant, right? The Bose.

• 1:18:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:41Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 1:18:42Nilay Patel?

  So I think the thing about these Bluetooth Wi-Fi speakers that is really interesting to me. I mean, it's great, it's like convenient, right? Like, but, once you have a Bluetooth speaker, it, it's all it can be. You know what I mean? Like, you, you can take it out and you're like, I don't know, you've got a Jeep Wrangler, the doors are off, you're at the beach, you're doing Bluetooth stuff, like,

• 1:19:03Nilay Patel?

  is that what the kids do now? They're TikToking, whatever it is. But like, you know, you like live that out, out of your house lifestyle and then you get back in your house, you've got this like parallel ecosystem of music stuff.

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:19:15Nilay Patel?

  And this investment is worthless to you in that environment. I think the idea that that investment will get more value by connecting the other, the other music solutions is really powerful. Because you'll just, you'll wanna have that investment, you're like, okay, I'm gonna take it and go with me. That's at least my expectation. I kinda wish this thing didn't have microphones.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:35Nilay Patel?

  Like, I don't, I don't need it to have microphones when it leaves the house.

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Nilay Patel?

  But we'll see.

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, we'll see.

• 1:19:40Nilay Patel?

  There's a rumored Sonos one that doesn't have microphones, but it's like a Play One upgrade.

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:19:44Nilay Patel?

  We'll see. All right. Anyway, I just wanted to end on a hopeful note after that depressing zizzle conversation. Patents fall.

• 1:19:54Nilay Patel?

  So we should just make up fake evil companies all the time. What are we doing? That's what this show should be. We're starting a new podcast, everyone. It's a narrative fiction podcast about evil proprietary companies. That's most of science fiction. Anyway, that's the Vergecast. We'll be back next week. We got the interview show on Tuesdays. That's a real thing. By the way, thank you to Senator Bennett. That was a really fun conversation this week. Listen to that if you haven't. We're trying to get more 2020 candidates. So keep an eye out for that. We have the chat show on Fridays. We're just keep going and going and going. You can tweet at us. I'm at Reckless. Paul's at FuturePaul. Dieter's at Backlun. I would actually really appreciate your thoughts on how we should evaluate the Apple Card. We're gonna go talk to somebody at the Points Guy. It's gonna happen. We're working on it. But what do you want from us? I'm very curious about.

• 1:20:39Nilay Patel?

  So hit us up over that. Dani Deal is back on the YouTube channel with Future of Music, her series about the future of music. That show is one of my favorite things that we do. Dani has access to all kinds of incredible people. She got Charlie XCX on this season, which is very exciting. Her first episode is about Eric Priz's hollow sphere. You just gotta see it. It's a giant LED sphere that he performs in. And she got to see him build it, which is awesome. So go check that out. It's on YouTube channel. You can check out Pivot with Kara and Scott Galloway, which is really a fun show. I actually saw a live taping of that this week, which was really entertaining. You can check out Recode Media with Peter Kafka, Recode Decode with Kara. Check out Land of the Giants, which is Jason Del Rey's show about the rise of Amazon right now. And you should catch up on All of Why'd You Push That Button, which is wrapped up season three.

• 1:21:24Nilay Patel?

  It's the best season that show we've ever done. Ashlyn Caitlin did a great job. So check that out when you can. And we'll see you next week. Rock and roll. Paul.

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  Kesney.

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